_AUNT BELINDA._
OF course the change in our circumstances soon became known to all our
acquaintances in the little place, and it was no small part of our
misfortunes to hear the remarks and condolences and the "I told you
so's" of the less considerate part of them. I had my share of this
part of our troubles at school. There were a few girls who had always
accused Jeanne and myself of "feeling above them," as I dare say we
did, and from them I had to hear such remarks as "Pride must have
a fall," and they "guessed some folks wouldn't hold up their heads
quite so high nowadays." In this last supposition they were mistaken,
however, at least so far as I was concerned, for I held my head higher
than ever. As for Ruth, her happy disposition never led her to think
whether any one was above or below her, which was much the better for
her.
But there were only a few who were thus ungenerous. Most of my
school-mates pitied me quite as much as was good for me, and applauded
to my heart's content my resolution to make the best of matters. Miss
Tempy gave me as much of her time as possible, and only two or three
girls murmured when she passed over their work or lessons for the
sake of mine. I was not wanting on my own part, knowing that this
summer's schooling might be the last I should ever have, and I applied
myself with all my might to the mysteries of square root and Murray's
"Prosody," thinking all the time how I should make the rules and
explanations clear if I had to teach them. I really think I learned
more in this one summer than I had done in two years before. I finished
the famous flounce which, as I said, contained specimens of all the
stitches known to Miss Tempy; and what she did not know in that line
was not worth considering. I learned to darn linen and muslin so as to
make them even better than new, and I copied out in a little blank-book
which I made for the purpose all those wonderful recipes for domestic
medicine and sick-cookery for which Miss Tempy was famous, and which
she had inherited from her grandmother.
The summer had passed away. Our school and Jeanne's were both out, and
Jeanne had come home for good, when something happened which made a
great change in my prospects.
In the first part of these memoirs—if they are worthy of so grand a
name—I mentioned the fact that one of my maternal uncles married a
rich widow in Boston, where he shortly afterward died. None of us had
ever seen Mrs. Belinda Evans, but some letters had passed, and some
small presents been interchanged, as opportunity occurred. We knew that
Aunt Belinda was a strictly religious woman, a great theologian, that
she lived in the best society in Boston, and was very accomplished,
according to the notions of those days.
There hung in our best room a framed and glazed piece of embroidery of
the kind commonly known as a mourning-piece, which had been executed by
Aunt Belinda and sent to my mother on the occasion of my grandfather's
death—I suppose as an appropriate expression of sympathy. In the
centre of this picture—for such it was—stood a monument of elaborate
design, worked in white silk and decorated with a gilt inscription. The
monument stood on a green cross-stitch bank variegated with certain
red, blue, and yellow dots which were held to represent flowers growing
in the grass. The picture was exceedingly regular in its composition.
On one side of the tomb approached a train of five little boys all
dressed alike in black coats, and with crape streamers standing
straight out from their hats. On the other side were five girls
regularly graduated in size from a grown woman down to a very little
girl, also dressed in black. Each of the little boys carried a basket
of flowers and a white handkerchief which he applied to his face, yet
in such a way as to reveal his features and two carefully worked tears,
one to each eye. Each girl also bore a handkerchief, a pair of tears,
and a wreath of flowers, except the eldest, who, with bare arms, which
formed a regular curve from the shoulder to the wrist, was applying her
wreath to the monument, apparently expecting it to adhere by virtue of
some property of stickiness belonging to either itself or the marble.
This work of art was very much admired by most of our neighbours and
visitors, but my mother was rather non-committal on the subject,
and Jeanne criticised the production in a manner wholly irreverent.
However, it was admitted on all hands that my aunt Belinda was a most
accomplished woman and had shown great sympathy by the present of
this mourning-piece, and mother sent her in return some hanks of her
fine linen sewing-thread, for the perfection of which she was justly
renowned.
On one of his visits to Boston, which he paid every year, our old
neighbour Mr. Hyde made the acquaintance of Mrs. Belinda Evans, and
after that the exchanges I have mentioned took place with tolerable
regularity. Mr. Hyde always spoke in terms of the highest praise of
my aunt, and of the education she had given to her step-daughter and
to two young nieces who now lived with her. He went to Boston, as
usual, this fall, and on his return, he brought back a letter from
Aunt Belinda, in which, after certain phrases of condolence on our
altered fortunes and moralizings on the transitory nature of all
earthly prosperity, Mrs. Belinda made a very important proposition:
no less than that she should take me into her family for two or three
years and give me such an education as would "fit me for any station
in life, whether I was to reside in the wilds of Vermont or the still
more remote and dangerous recesses of the so-called Genesee country,
or to shine in Boston society where was to be found as much of mental
cultivation mingled with true religion as this continent afforded."
Such were her words. She would, she said, take upon herself the whole
charge of my clothes and maintenance, with the hope that my gratitude
and the usefulness of my after life would more than repay her for her
expense and trouble; and she closed with certain religious phrases
which I will not repeat.
This letter set our family circle into a considerable agitation.
Father, whose chief grief in the change he was about to make was on
account of the prospects of his children, was for closing with the
offer at once, saying that it was a very liberal one on the part of
my aunt—which was quite true—and that I should probably never have
such another chance of acquiring an excellent education. Jeanne, on
the other hand, was against the plan from the beginning, but her
objections, I must say, were not very reasonable, inasmuch as they were
grounded on the mourning-piece aforesaid, and on her general impression
that my aunt was "a poky kind of woman." My mother wavered. She did not
like the idea of parting with me for two or three years, and to such a
distance; for practically Boston was farther from Vermont in those days
than it is now from London. On the other hand, she was very desirous
that I should have such an education as my aunt described—such as her
own had been; and of this she saw no chance in any other way than that
my aunt proposed. We all felt that it was generous in Aunt Belinda to
step forward to our assistance in the time of our distress, as we had
no claim on her.
Miss Tempy Hutchinson had a plan of her own to offer—namely, that I
should remain with her on the same terms which my aunt offered. But
this was considered out of the question, since my father could not
afford to pay for my schooling, and neither could he be willing to let
Miss Temperance take such a burden on herself, since she had already
the care of a widowed and helpless mother. Moreover, I believe mother
secretly thought that had already pretty well exhausted Miss Tempy's
capacities in the way of book-learning; and to conclude, I fancy we
were all a little dazzled by the very idea of an education in Boston
under the auspices of a lady so rich and so much looked up to as my
aunt Belinda.
Mother asked Mr. and Mrs. Hyde to tea and questioned them very closely
about my aunt, but the report was all in her favour. Mr. Hyde enlarged
upon her acquirements in English and French, in history and geography
and music, and, above all, in theology. He had never met with a woman
so capable of appreciating the works of Doctor Hopkins and Doctor
Edwards, to say nothing of the English divines, or one more free from
errors and prejudices. He believed that no child could wish for more
in the line of educational privileges than to be placed under the care
of Mrs. Evans; and as he had just been appointed to a professorship
at Cambridge, his opinion was certainly entitled to consideration.
Mrs. Hyde, on her part, enlarged on my aunt's fine house, her Turkey
carpets and imported furniture, her cashmere and Canton crape shawls,
and her India satin and French silks, and also on her liberality to
ministers and their wives and her intimate acquaintance with Mrs. Vice
President Adams and other distinguished people. Mrs. Evans, she said,
could paint pictures on satin, paper, or velvet, do every known kind of
needle-work, and play on the spinet and harpsichord. (Pianos had hardly
begun to come into use even abroad.)
It was necessary that the matter should be decided immediately, in
order that I might travel to Boston under the escort of Mr. and Mrs.
Hyde, who were to go thither in three weeks again, leaving Jenny and
their house under the care of a sister. Besides that, our own moving
must take place in a month's time. After much discussion and a very
determined opposition on the part of old Rose, and one less loud but
equally decided from Jeanne, it was concluded that Aunt Belinda's offer
should be accepted, and mother at once began to have me got ready.
I hardly know whether I was most troubled or pleased when I knew I was
to go away from home for three years. It would be a dreadful thing not
to see mother or Jeanne or any of my own family for so long, but then
there was the thought of beholding Boston and all its wonders, of my
aunt Belinda's fine house, and, above all, her library, containing,
according to Mrs. Hyde, two or three times as many books as Mr.
Henderson possessed. I supposed that my cousins would probably consider
me a little ignoramus, but then came the consoling thought that at
least I had been well drilled in grammar and could work satin- and
cross-stitch as well as my aunt herself, or better, and that what else
I did not know I could undoubtedly learn; for a want of confidence in
my own powers was not one of my troubles in those days. And then, with
such an education as my aunt meant to give me, what might I not be able
to accomplish in future for the good of my family? I might help Ezra
to go to college, and educate Ruth and Harry, and support father and
mother when they grew old. I might have a boarding-school of my own,
perhaps, and teach young ladies in my turn. Nay, I might—so high did
my fancy soar—I might even write a book like Mrs. Hannah More, whose
"Sacred Dramas" my old friend Mr. Clapp had just given me for a parting
present. I must say, in justice to myself, that my castles in the air
were of a very unselfish kind, and built far less for my own advantage
than for that of my family. I remember being very much hurt by a remark
of Tom's—who, poor fellow! had always a knack of saying the wrong thing
at the wrong time and place—that I might think myself lucky in getting
rid of all the fuss and trouble of moving, whereas it was one of my
principal causes of grief that I should not be at hand to lighten the
labours of my mother and sister.
"I shall feel just as mean as can be," said I to Jeanne one day, "to
think that I am having a good time in Boston while you are having such
a hard one up in Castle Hill."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that, Olive," answered Jeanne, gravely.
"I dare say you may have your share of trouble. You will be in a new
place, among strangers, and you will find Aunt Belinda a very different
person from mother, or I am much mistaken."
"She may be different from mother and yet be good," said I,
sententiously. "Good people are not all alike."
"Of course; I know that," answered Jeanne; "but it is not always easy
to get used to new ways. I remember, though I was such a little child,
how strange this house seemed to me when I came here from the nunnery.
However, I don't want to discourage you, Olive; only I do hope, dear,
you will have a good time."
"But you don't expect it," said I, rather vexed.
"Well, no, not just at first. As I said, you will find Boston ways and
Aunt Belinda's ways very different from ours; and unless you are more
careful than you are at home, you will always be making mistakes and
getting corrected and found fault with, or perhaps laughed at, which,
you know, you like least of all."
"I believe you think I am a wild Indian!" said I, pettishly.
"If you were a wild Indian, you would be in less danger, because they
always watch to see what other people do, and so save themselves from
awkward mistakes," said Jeanne; "but you are rather apt to take it
for granted that you understand, when you don't, and that you can do
a thing the first time you try as well as if you had practiced it all
your life."
I was just about to vindicate myself from this charge rather sharply,
when I remembered the spinning-lesson, and was silent. Jeanne also
seemed to think she had said enough, and changed the subject by
informing me that I was wanted to rip mother's second-best black silk,
which was to be made over for me, and by telling me that my new dresses
were all to be long gowns—two pieces of news with which I was much
delighted. But as I carefully ripped the black bilk I pondered Jeanne's
words, and arrived at two wholesome and just conclusions—namely, that
I "was" rather too apt to take up new things as if I knew all about
them, and also that I would keep my wits about me and try, by carefully
observing the ways of my aunt and my cousins, to avoid making myself
ridiculous.
Never did any time pass so quickly as those two weeks. I could hardly
believe it when the last Sunday came—my very last Sunday in that dear
old house and in the corner seat at church, which I had occupied ever
since I could remember. I was to leave Lee on Tuesday, and expected to
arrive at Aunt Belinda's house on Friday, stopping on the road to visit
some friends of Mr. Hyde's. As long as I live I shall never forget
that sweet and sorrowful Lord's day. I had spent the evening before
alone with mother, and had promised her that I would try to be a good
girl and please Aunt Belinda in all things, that I would never forget
to read my Bible and say my prayers every day, and, above all, that I
would keep in mind that I had a Father in heaven who loved me, and who
desired me to love him and serve him here that I might be happy with
him in heaven. Mother impressed it upon me that heaven was my real
home, to which I could look forward with joy and hope whatever might be
my troubles here, and she solemnly charged me to be prepared to meet
her there. I was always a religiously disposed child, I think, but
certainly the eternal world never seemed so real and so near to me as
it did that night.
"Do you think I shall have a great many troubles, mother?" I asked,
remembering my conversation with Jeanne.
"I presume you will have your full share," answered mother, smoothing
my hair as my head lay on her knee. "Your disposition is not calculated
to slip through the world as easily as some other people's—that of
Ruth, for instance."
"I know I am touchy," said I, humbly; "and Ezra says I think too much
about my own dignity and consequence."
"That is true, but not the whole truth," said my mother; "you do
think rather more of yourself and your own dignity, but you have also
naturally quick perceptions and sensitive feelings."
I began to be a little uplifted, but mother quickly brought me down
again:
"Now, these quick perceptions and sensitive feelings are excellent
gifts if you apply them to their right use, letting them make you
observant and careful of the feelings and desires of others, and
particularly in not giving needless offence to their prejudices. But
if you turn them upon yourself; as it were, and let them keep you
constantly spying out the weaknesses and faults of others, and watching
for slights and offences toward yourself, they are worse than useless."
"Jeanne thinks Aunt Belinda's ways are so different from ours that I
shall not know how to behave," said I, after a little silent pondering
of my mother's words. "She says I must watch and see what my cousins do
and how they act."
"That is a very good rule," said my mother, sighing a little, as I
thought; "but I hope my little Olive will not be found deficient in
real good manners, though she may be in some customs to which she is
unused. There are three good rules which my grandmother once gave me
when I was going to Hartford on a visit—the first time I had ever been
out from under my mother's wing:
"'If you do not know what to do, ask; If you cannot ask, watch and see
what other people do; If you can find out in neither of these ways, do
nothing.'"
"Mother," said I, after another little silence, "if I am very unhappy
indeed at Aunt Belinda's, need I stay there?"
"We will see about that," said mother. "You must not conclude that you
are going to be very unhappy indeed because you are home-sick at first,
or because Aunt Belinda finds fault or your cousins laugh at you. But
I wish you to write to me by every opportunity—at least as often as
once every month—and tell me everything you can think of, without any
reserve, and by that means I can judge whether you are doing well."
"It will seem so formal and cold to write," said I. "If only there was
somebody I could go to every day!"
"I hope Aunt Belinda will be that some one," said my mother; "but at
any rate, Olive, you have one such Friend always at hand, and this, my
love, is what I want to impress specially upon your mind—that you are
to carry all your troubles and cares to your heavenly Father and ask
him to help and guide and comfort you. Don't think that anything is too
little to put into your prayers: that is a great mistake."
"But suppose my troubles are my own fault?" said I.
"A great many of them very probably will be so, unless you are more
unlike other people than I suppose," answered mother; "but that need
make no difference. We should be badly off indeed if our sins and
mistakes were to drive us away from our heavenly Father."
Many other things my mother said to me which I cannot set down here,
and she ended by giving me a beautiful new Bible of my own with my name
marked on the cover in gilt letters, and "The Pilgrim's Progress,"—a
book I had long desired to possess.
I cannot pretend to describe the next day, nor that which followed.
I had bid good-bye to all my school-mates the day before, but they
almost all came for a last word; and then there were our friends and
neighbours, Mr. Henderson and Miss Tempy. Many were the kind words and
the little keepsakes I received from one and another, especially from
my minister and my teacher, the former giving me a copy of Mrs. Hannah
More's "Practical Piety,"—and an excellent book it is—and the latter a
wonderful house-wife stitched in compartments and filled with skeins of
different sizes and colours in silk, thread, and floss, together with
a pair of scissors and a strawberry emery which had been my admiration
for a long time.
On Monday came the final bustle of packing and taking leave for ever
of my old home. I had found good homes for my two kittens, and father
delighted me by saying he meant to carry old Tabby to Vermont with him,
as well as my own pet cow Snowball, so my mind was at ease about these
two favourites. All my other possessions which I could not carry with
me I left to mother and Jeanne, to be disposed of as they thought best,
only stipulating that none of my books should be left behind or given
away.
Tuesday morning came, and with it Mr. Hyde's carriage, in which we
were to travel. My little black trunk, which, I suppose, would occupy
about a quarter of the space taken up by an average modern trunk, was
strapped on with the rest of the baggage. Ruth, who seemed to have just
realized that I was going away, was crying bitterly. Mother was pale as
death, though she did not shed a tear, but father's voice broke down
when he would have bid me good-bye; and holding me close clasped in his
arms for a moment, he put me into the carriage without a word.
As Mr. Hyde was adjusting something about the harness, Ezra came to the
side where I sat.
"Mother says you must be sure to write to Aunt Roxana at Nantucket,"
said he, putting into my hand a pretty little new pocket-book. "She
has begun a letter which you can finish. It has the direction on the
outside, and is in the inside pocket of this book, where I have put a
little money for you. Don't spend it foolishly, but keep it against a
time of need. Good-bye."
And in a moment we were on our way and had turned the corner, so that
I could not even see our house by looking back. I have never seen it
since.
Mr. and Mrs. Hyde were very kind to me. They let me cry without taking
any particular notice of me; and when I began to recover my composure,
they diverted me from my grief by directing my attention to various
matters along the road. The morning was beautiful, the two horses went
along at a good pace, and before I knew it I was really enjoying the
journey.
We stopped the first night at a tavern—a circumstance which I remember
from the fact that when I arose in the morning I could not make up
my mind as to whether or not I ought to make up my bed. After some
consideration, I decided that I ought, because whenever Miss Tempy had
spent a night at our house she had always put her room in order in the
morning; but after the deed was accomplished I considered further that
a tavern was different from a private house, and that doubtless the
chambermaid would put on clean sheets before the bed was used again. So
I proceeded to tumble it up again; and, after all, I was pursued all
day by misgivings lest I had done the wrong thing, and thereby let the
people of the house know that I had never stayed at a tavern before.
What harm I thought it would do if they did know I cannot now say, but
the whole transaction was a good specimen of the way I used to torment
myself about trifles in those days.
The second night was spent at the house of an elderly clergyman, an
uncle of Mrs. Hyde's, who had two orphan grand-daughters about my own
age. I had seen one of these girls before, when she came with her
grandmother to Mrs. Hyde's, and they both made me very welcome, as
did their father and mother. Mr. Edwards was a very handsome old man,
of polished and kind manners, and his wife was a busy, bustling but
lady-like and kind-hearted woman. When Mrs. Hyde said at the table that
I was to be left with Mrs. Belinda Evans for two or three years, I saw
a look pass between the two old people which I could not understand. It
seemed to me to express both surprise and pity.
"Why did your grandfather and grandmother look at each other so when
Mrs. Hyde said I was going to live with Aunt Belinda?" I asked of
Priscilla Edwards after tea.
Priscilla and Drusilla exchanged glances in their turn, and Priscy
said, rather dubiously,—
"I suppose they were sorry you had to go away from your mother,
because, you know, if any one is ever so good, yet nobody can be like
one's own mother."
"Unless it should be one's grandmother," added Drucy. "Come and see
our rabbits, Olive. We have got six little rabbits, and one of them is
black as a coal. We call him Charcoal."
The rabbits and Drucy's promise to give me a pair when I went home
to Vermont diverted my mind from the subject, as I suppose the girls
intended it should, but that glance often recurred to my mind afterward.
I seem to remember every incident of that afternoon and evening—all
the more distinctly because it was the last really pleasant day I
was destined to spend in a long time. We looked over all the girls'
books, of which they had a great many for that time, and I told them
of my own. We went to walk in the pasture—Mrs. Edwards considerately
taking off my neat riding-suit and dressing me in an old frock of
Drusilla's—where we gathered pretty leaves and mosses and waded in the
brook, and "made believe" all sorts of adventures; and after supper we
told each other stories till bed-time. We parted with mutual regret,
and I have never seen them since, but I have always remembered the
whole family with great affection.
We had made our calculation's to arrive in Boston on Friday—a point
which Rose had not failed to bring forward among her other arguments
against my journey. It was rather late on Friday afternoon when we
arrived at my aunt's house, which was situated at the north end of the
city, in what was then the fashionable quarter of the town. Her house
was by far the handsomest I had ever seen; but my courage had been
sinking lower and lower, and it was with anything but a light heart
that I saw Mr. Hyde leaving me at last quite alone among strangers.