call a sort of romance out of her life--now all's over. And, of
course, it's not in my way at all. Not but what I've read enough of
romance-books--many's the many! My mother was always at me to lay them
by and take up some bit of work that 'ud bring me in more in the
end--and yet, there's no doubt it was my readings and dreamings and
such-like that brought me about Miss Lisbet's friendship, at the first,
and that friendship was the making of me, one way and another, as
mother never denied.
It was Dr. Stanchon that set me about it. He came into my cottage, a
matter of a month or so back, looking fair grizzled and white--the
heat, he said. And if I knew better, I never said so. He never minded
the heat till this summer. And on his vacation at home, too! But he
showed his age, fair.
"You haven't some kind of drink for me, have you, Rhoda?" he says, sort
of faint-like. "It's been a hard day at the hospital."
Now that might do for some, but not for me, that's known the doctor
fifty-four years come Easter. I looked at the wheels of the gig, and
they were all clay, red clay from the one road hereabouts that's made
of it--the graveyard road. And I knew where he'd been. But of course
I says nothing, but brings him a palm-leaf fan, and seats him out of
the glare, in the entry that looks over the little garden, and I waters
the red bricks of the porch with a spray or two from the garden-pot
(nothing so cooling as watered brick, I say!) and hurries in to beat up
his drink. He settled down in the old chair I always keep for him--a
Windsor, cushioned in some English chintz his wife brought me out from
home, twenty years ago--and I heard him sigh and stretch as I got the
lemons and the eggs. I beat up the whites, stiff as silver, added the
lemon juice by littles, dusted a bit of castor sugar, and stuck in a
sprig of mint from my sunken half-barrel where the cress grows.
"Ah, that makes a man new!" says he, handing back the glass. "It's a
pity you can't patent that, Rhoda!"
And then he pulled out his old pipe, and smoked for a quarter-hour,
without a word. But he rested.
"And how's Miss Jessop, these days, doctor?" says I, when I saw he was
ready for talking.
"Finely, finely!" says he. "Her little girl wrote me a letter
yesterday. Ten years old! Image of her father, that child. You're as
bad as Lisbet, though, that never would learn to change."
"I'm sure I beg her pardon--Mrs. Weldon, of course, and her with a boy
fourteen, too!" says I. "How Miss Lisbet did take to her, surely! I
always thought having her to help with Master Louis's children when
they were so bad, just helped poor Miss Lisbet to bear with her sorrow
at not starting the hospital, and all that."
"Yes, yes," he said and nodded.
"She was a fine woman, Jessop was. Best nurse I ever had. Yes,
yes--Weldon's a lucky fellow."
The cress smelled strong in the heat, then, and I couldn't but say:
"Do you remember when Miss Lisbet and I started the cress-bed, doctor,
down in the Winthrop pond?"
At first he didn't answer, and I saw the old times in his face.
"How she did enjoy your cress-and-mustard salad!" he says, finally.
"Mrs. Stanchon spoke of it this morning--have you a little mess I could
take up to the house?"
And so we passed to talking about her, and it eased us both.
"It's like a sort of tale, sir, isn't it?" says I, thoughtful-like.
"Often and often when my niece has left everything tidy, and made my
tea and cakes, and put away the wash, and watered the brick, and gone
home, and I sit here while the pot draws and there's only the cat for
company (not that I complain! I've my thoughts, and plenty of books,
and all the old days to live over!) often and often, as I say, it'll
come to me in a sort of tale, like, and I wish there was some one to
take it down; it would read off like a book!"
"And why not take it down yourself, Rhoda, my girl?" says he. "There's
one, as I needn't tell you, would have no little pleasure reading it."
And so I began. You'd be surprised at the many that's offered to help
me, and piece out bits of her life that maybe I wouldn't know. But I
knew enough for what I had in mind to show, namely, what Miss Lisbet
was always planning to do--and what she really did do.
So now I'll begin at the beginning.
* * * * *
It was the morning of the day I was ten years old that I first saw her.
A Saturday it was, and a holiday, and mother gave me a piece of currant
bread, buttered, for a treat, and the day free till sunset, after my
morning tasks were through. I was all that was left her--five others
buried, in fifteen years--and she was very easy with me, for which you
could scarcely blame her, poor soul! Three lost in England, of the
smallpox, and one that hardly opened his little eyes, and my sister of
something that they had no name for rightly in those days, doctor says,
but they call it appendicitis now. I was born over here, and never saw
England, though I've always loved to read about it and always called it
"home," not thinking, as one often will. Mother had black memories of
the old country and was anxious for us to grow up little Americans,
though I can see now that she went to work very wrong to bring that
about, for we always curtseyed to the rector and old Madam Winthrop
when she rode by in the coach, and never, in short, thought of looking
higher than we were born.
So when I saw a lovely young lady drive up in a pony cart, hand the
reins to the groom, get out, and walk through the gate toward me, I
held the currant bread behind me and dropped a little curtsey.
"Is this Mrs. Pennyfield's house?" she says, stopping and staring at me.
"Yes, miss, she's my mother," says I.
"What is your name?" says she.
"Rhoda Pennyfield, please, miss," says I, and then, the goodness knows
why, for I was a shy enough little thing commonly, "It's my birthday!"
"Why, how funny!" she says, smiling the loveliest smile in the world.
"It's mine, too! How old are you, Rhoda Pennyfield?"
"Ten, miss."
"Isn't that wonderful!" she cries out, blushing like a rose peony. "I
am ten to-day, too! What were your presents? Mine were the pony
phaeton and this gold watch (she held it out to me on a chain about her
neck) and a macaw from South America from my Uncle Mather, on an ebony
perch. And a French doll from my aunty in New York, but I don't care
for dolls any more. What had you?"
Now, as you can see, if I had really been a little American, I should
have been jealous and ashamed that things were so different between us,
but such a notion never entered my head.
"Mother baked currant bread, miss," I said, "and Madam Winthrop's
gardener gave me a spotted kitten, and I have a string of blue beads
and the day to myself. I'm thinking I'll go up to The Cedars and Mrs.
Williams will let me read some of the books from the library for the
afternoon."
"Why, that's where I live--The Cedars!" she says, surprised. "Madam
Winthrop is my aunt, and Mrs. Williams dresses me! Come into the
phaeton and I'll drive you there!"
She had forgot the errand she came on, bless her, with the excitement,
and if mother hadn't come out to inquire, there'd have been a great
to-do. There was a maid all over blotches at The Cedars, and a doctor
and nurse was wanted, and mother was ready very quick, as she always
was. So I got into the phaeton and Miss Lisbet drove me to The Cedars,
and I had a birthday dinner with her: roast fowl and mashed potatoes
and new peas and a frozen pudding with figs and almonds in it. I can
see her now, at the head of the table, with me and Mrs. Williams on
either side, and the macaw, all indigo and orange color and scarlet, on
his perch opposite! She had on a worked muslin frock with lace-trimmed
pantalets, blue silk stockings, and black French kid ankle-ties. Her
hair, a light golden brown, was all in curls, and a blue velvet snood
kept it back: the young girls today wear ribbons about their heads
something like it. Her eyes were a dark, bright blue, and her cheeks,
like most American children's, a sort of clear pale, that flushed quick
with her feelings. She was tall and slim and looked quite three years
older than me, that has always been stocky-like and apple-cheeked, even
at sixty-four!
She had been away at a school for two years, having lost her father and
mother, and old Madam Winthrop had adopted her, in a sort of way, being
her great-aunt, and was to leave her all her money.
While we were eating, old Dr. Stanchon pops in, leading a little
red-haired boy, very plain and clever-looking, by the hand.
"Can this youngster have a bite with you, Mrs. Williams?" says he,
looking worried like. "That precious girl of yours has the fever, and
I'll be busy some time. I promised him the fish pond for a treat, for
it's his birthday, to-day, and now perhaps Miss Elizabeth will take him
there--hello, little Rhoda! How fine we are!"
The little lad pulls out a great pocket-knife and lays it on the table.
"I am Dick Stanchon, and I'm ten years old to-day!" says he very quick.
"I have this Barlow knife and the 'Arabian Nights,' and I'm to be a
doctor, like my father. Do you have frozen pudding often, here?"
Well, you can see how startling it would be to three children to be at
the same birthday together! We couldn't be tired talking of it.
"We will all be firm friends for the rest of our life," said Miss
Lisbet, very excited, "and never have secrets from each other. And
when I get Aunt Winthrop's money, I will divide it into three parts,
one for each. And we will do a great deal of good in the world."
"Come, come," says Mrs. Williams, sour-like, "not so fast, missy.
You've not the money yet, nor shouldn't speak of it, and as for being
friends, it's all right so far as Dick Stanchon is concerned, but I
doubt if Madam will feel the same as to Rhoda Pennyfield! So make no
more plans till we know."
But of course we did make plans, for all her stiffness. We sat in the
red cedar grove, playing at tea-parties with a beautiful china tea-set,
and Master Dick was to marry her, and I was to live with them and be
nurse to the children, with one named for me!
Dear, dear! I've forgot much that's come in between and many that's
been kind to me (more shame to me!) but I can see the sun on her curls
now and him sharpening his new knife on the granite rocks that were so
thick in the grove.
"Rhoda and Dick," says she, very solemn, after a little, "I'm going to
tell you a great secret. Come close to me."
You can believe we listened with all our ears; we worshipped the ground
she trod on, both of us, do you see, even then.
"I mean to do a great deal of good in the world before I die," says
she, "as I mentioned before, at dinner. I don't mean just ordinary
_being_ good, you know, but _doing_ it. At school I always meant to go
as a missionary, and I was saving all my money for a fund for it, but I
couldn't seem to keep it, somehow. Two or three of the girls were poor
girls, and if they hadn't their birthdays remembered, it would have
been dreadful. And the cook's little boy was lame in his spine and he
was so fond of flowers! And I hadn't so much money, anyway. Then, all
my time was full, because we had to do things every hour, just so. But
now I'm to have a governess and I shall have a great deal of time, so I
can study hard for a missionary and perhaps go to South America--if
there are any heathens there, as I suppose there are."
"Yes, miss," says I.
"So now my new life is beginning," she says very low and solemn, "and I
feel that everything will be different. I wish I could be _sure_,
though, that it would be!"
"Why don't you try the larkspurs, miss," says I. "They'll tell you."
My mother, you must know, was a great believer in signs. Not being
much educated, she went by them, I suppose, the way plain people will,
be it ever so. There's no use saying it's against religion--mother was
as religious as any one, take who you will--they will do it. If a bird
flew into the house, there was death for sure, and she never would let
three candles be lighted, no matter whose the house. And so my sister
and I had many of these ways and signs, and always told how things
would be by larkspurs. So I told Miss Lisbet how to strip them off for
"yes, no, yes, no," and she asked her question very solemn:
"_Larkspur, larkspur, tell me true,_
_Or never again I'll trust to you!_
Is there to be a great change in my life?" And she stripped them off,
mumbling-like to herself, "Yes, no, yes, no"--and the last off was "no."
And then she cried, poor thing, and I with her, for we both believed in
'em, but Dick only laughed and said it was all foolishness.
"If you want to do different from what you have been, Lisbet, of course
you can," says he, and then the old doctor came and fetched us both
home.
"I'm going to begin my studying, just the same!" she calls after us,
and I watched the sun on her hair till the coachman's cottage cut us
off.
Well, the governess came and they'd lessons all morning long and music
practising afternoons, but there was no missionary study, because she
took it into her head that I must be educated and know all she knew--as
if that was likely! Still, I picked up a good bit, here and there, and
the gardener's little boy, that was backward and dumb-like, isn't
forgetting to-day what he owes to Miss Lisbet, I'll warrant. Three
days a week she'd read to him and spell the letters and sums plain--and
him that was the mock of the scholars, so that he'd never go near the
school, what is he now, I ask you? Professor in Yale College, and
helped Dr. Stanchon in the planning of a big school for those children
that are backward-like, as he was, and many of them as bright as
bright, really. They manage such as them better than they did in those
days, doctor says, and most of it owed to Henry Wilson's boy.
Often and often we'd walk up to her tea from the lodge, her setting her
little teeth to keep from crying at the time she was wasting, with all
her heathen waiting for her in South America!
"But I can't leave poor little Ezra Wilson, Rhoda, I just can't!" she'd
cry out. "Wait till these old music-lessons are over and I haven't to
use those horrible dumb-bells every morning, and I'll do something for
the world, yet!"
"Surely, miss," I'd soothe her.
Well, the time went by like sands in a glass, and we were grown maids
before you'd think twice. She looked full two years more than her
seventeen, and Master Dick was away at Harvard College two years
already, for he was wonderful forward and clever always, and first in
all his classes. What time she'd had from her lessons and her
paintings and sketching (which she hated dreadfully, poor thing, though
seeming a master of it, to my eyes!) she was teaching him French and
German from her governess, for they didn't teach it in the village
school and his mother couldn't spare him away, and those languages
helped him a good bit in his studies at the college. The old doctor
was terrible proud of him.
And then came the day that he came home so sudden. It was a grand
April morning and Miss Lisbet and I were directing Henry Wilson about
changing the vines and laying them by for the house painting: Madam was
scolding and fussing about, annoying everybody with her sharp ways, and
I remember thinking that she was failing for sure. I was sad, too, for
mother had decided to put me out to service, after all, and that meant
a parting for Miss Lisbet and me. Mother felt that I was getting above
myself, like, and spoiled for anything that would happen me in the
usual course if Miss Lisbet ever changed, you see. And who could deny
that? But the dear thing knew nothing of it, yet--I hadn't the heart.
Well, Madam was scolding away famously.
"Mind that wistaria, Wilson!" says she. "There's not its equal in
Westchester County!"
"Yes, yes, Madam," says he, crusty-like. "Why good-morning, Master
Dick!"
And there he stood. At the first glance, I saw he looked different.
Older and graver.
"What's this, what's this, Richard?" Madam cries. "Neglecting your
studies?"
"Studies? Studies?" says he, as quick and sharp as she. "What, is the
matter with the people about here? Are you dreaming? Fort Sumter
down, the flag insulted, the President calling for seventy-five
thousand volunteers, and you talk of studies! I'm going to try to get
into the Seventh, and I'm only here to see Elizabeth before I go."
"Nonsense, boy!" says Madam, trembling, though. "We'll see what your
father has to say, first."
"My father only wishes he had a dozen sons, ma'am!" he told her, proud
as Lucifer. "Lisbet, can I speak with you?"
She went directly to him, and they walked, holding hands, behind the
cedar grove. She told me afterward that he just said:
"Will you wait till I come back, Lisbet?"
And she answered, "Why, of course, Dick!" They parted a promised
couple. Madam was all shaky, but she kissed him good-bye, and let him
put a little blue-stoned ring on Miss Lisbet's hand--there was a splash
of red paint on it from the house, and mother fair turned white when I
told her. "They'll never wed," she said, "that's certain sure! Poor
young people!"
But the paint wasn't for blood, after all, for he never got a scratch.
He was handsome enough in his new uniform, and more than one envied my
Miss Lisbet when she waved him good-bye on the train--they were off for
Baltimore.
"Rhoda," says she to me, after a few weeks of waiting, "I can't bear
this! Us eating and drinking so easy, and those poor boys dying--it's
not right. I must and shall go as nurse!"
And we could do nothing with her--she'd hardly sleep. It was Dr.
Stanchon found the way to handle her.
"Dear child," he says at last, "why not do as I do--send a substitute?
I sent my boy, because I'm the only doctor left here, now, and people
must be born and die, you know, war or no war," says he. "I'd far
rather have gone. Now, it's out of the question for you, for many
reasons, but if your aunt would give you your dress-money and you gave
up a summer at the mountains, you could pay a good, settled woman, of
experience, and there's many would love to go."
Well, she seized on that, the generous creature, and got it out of
Madam, and we fitted out a respectable widow-woman mother often had to
help her, and sent her to one of those Southern cities--I forget now.
She wrote up only that there was mostly blacks for waiting on one, and
food poor and scarce. But Master Dick sent word that she kept the
fever away for a mile around her, and the officers thereabouts gave her
a long piece of writing and a medal after all was over, and the Rebels
a silver cup--she cared for all alike, whatever the uniform. The
little house she had was built up into a hospital, later, and she lived
and died there, and only came up to the north to beg money for it. It
was the only one in thirty miles around. Eighteen years she lived
there, and left the cup to Miss Lisbet; the medal to her daughter.
Well, I must hurry on. I could talk about those days forever, but in
the books, I have taken notice often, they pick and choose.
So I will pass to when it came to her of a sudden how she could collect
clothes and food for the army, and keep one place open for the
lint-scraping and bandage-rolling, as all the ladies were doing in the
big cities. She had a tongue of honey and every one knew about her
having hired Mrs. Jarvis to go nurse, so she was sure to get what she
begged for. She took over a vacant office in the village, part of
Madam's property, and I never saw her happier than the day we were
fitting it up. It was all cleaned and new furnished and there were
desks and tables and nursing-books and shelves for the jellies and
medicines, and everything to be sent orderly and where needed at the
time, not rushed forward all helter-skelter as so much is at such
times. Dr. Stanchon saw all, and heard the plans, and patted her
shoulder.
"Well done, Blossom, well done!" says he. "I might have let you go,
after all!"
And he offered to advise and find out the quickest and best trains and
such like.
It was July and a hot, clear day. The notice was in the village paper
for all the women that could help, to come to a first meeting and take
hours for duty there, and routes to collect, and offer wagons if they
had them, and give fruit for jelly, and Miss Lisbet led off with the
old pony and cart for steady work.
We were resting in the garden and she had just told me that she meant
to give all her time to the "office," as we called it in a joking way
(for nice young ladies didn't go to offices then, I promise you! Madam
thought little enough of it) and she put her hand on mine.
"Rhoda," says she, "my dream is coming true--do you see? I'm to do
something for my country, after all! Just as a man would--just as Dick
does, Rhoda! Isn't it a grand thing?"
"Yes, miss," says I.
"The change is coming now, Rhoda," she says, and then, laughing at
herself, "I'm going to ask the larkspurs!"
And she pulled a great stalk and held it over her head, as I had taught
her seven years before.
"_Larkspur, larkspur, tell me true,_
_Or never again I'll trust to you!_
Is there to be a great change in my life?"
And she stripped them off, _yes, no, yes, no_--and they said _no_! The
sweet face fell, and I hurried to comfort her.
"Maybe they always say no hereabouts," says I. "Let me have a try!"
And I asked the same question, but it came _yes_, and that I knew must
be true, though she did not.
The next day, after she had made a speech like the Queen's (I thought)
and every one wondering, with her so young, and a hundred dollars
pledged, and all so eager to work under her--for she was one of them
that's born to lead--who should run in but Henry Wilson, all out of
breath, crying to her to hurry home, for Madam was down with a stroke,
and one side of her all powerless!
Well, to make a long story short, she never left her poor aunt for
above an hour at a time till the fighting was over! Madam, who had
never seemed overfond before, was mad for her now, and she was pushing
her chair or reading to her or stroking her hand or playing old tunes
or sitting in sight, the livelong day. They tried the sea and they
tried the mountains and there was a nurse and a maid, but it was always
Miss Lisbet behind it all. She was rich, she had real French convent
lace on her body-linen, and asparagus and peaches in winter, and a
conservatory as big as a house, oh, yes. But she was more tied down
than many a poor girl 'prenticed for her living, and I often wonder if
it's not that way with many of the rich ladies you see! I know I was
working hard with a dressmaker the first year--before they kept me as
seamstress and mender at The Cedars--and _I_ wouldn't have changed with
her, except for love of her, poor dear!
I was back in The Cedars when Madam went off in her sleep one night as
easy as a baby. There was no need for grieving--'twas a blessed
release, and just the soberness and the thoughts that must come to one
when even an old body of eighty-odd passes away. Poor old Madam hadn't
many friends, for everybody was so afraid of her, and we all felt the
best that ever she'd done was to leave the lonely old place to Miss
Lisbet. Master Dick was coming home, for the war was over, and the
black men freed at last, and he was full captain, and never a scratch
or a headache even, to show for the four years!
We were in the garden waiting for him, she as lovely as ever I'd seen
her in a white dress, all frilled from the waist down, with violet
ribbons (Madam made her vow never to wear black for her) and a violet
band in her hair. She'd a great brooch of amethyst stones at her neck
and Master Dick's blue ring on her finger.
"Rhoda," says she, of a sudden, "what if we tried the larkspurs again?"
and she smiled at me, a mischievous little smile, like a child's.
"Nay, now, miss dear," says I, "what's the good of such games, and you
a grown woman? No doubt now but your way is clear to do as you like--a
fine husband and plenty of money. Let it be."
"But I will," she says, reaching for a spray of the blue stuff, "I
will, Rhoda, once more, for luck."
"Well, then, miss," says I, "put the question different like, why not?
Make it plainer--you're forever talking about 'a change in your life,'
and there's always changes, you know."
So she laughs and holds it up and sings:
"_Larkspur, larkspur, tell me true,_
_Or never again I'll trust to you!_
Am I going to be able now to use all this money to help some great
cause?"
And the flowers said, _no_!