_HOME._
HOW strange it seemed, that first evening at home!—so strange and yet
so familiar. There was all the old furniture I knew so well, and the
old faces, all less changed than I should have expected after a three
years' absence. Mother had grown somewhat thin, and I saw gray threads
in her hair, but her colour was good, and, on the whole, she looked
better than when I left her. Jeanne too looked older and graver, and
Ruth and Harry had grown almost out of my knowledge, though Ruth kept
her baby face, and was, if anything, prettier than ever. As to Rose,
she had come to that age after which coloured women never seem to
change.
How much I had to tell and to hear!—As that Ezra had entered college
in the Junior year, and expected to graduate this coming commencement,
when he would go back to Lee for a while to study divinity with good
Mr. Henderson. (That was the way divinity was usually studied in those
days. After a young man had finished his college course he went to live
with some clergyman, under whose direction he pursued his theological
studies, and whom he helped in the work of the parish. Mr. Henderson
had almost always one or two students with him when we lived in Lee. I
don't think it was at all a bad plan.) Tom was still in Salisbury with
his uncle, doing very well, and likely to become a partner in due time.
Jeanne still had the school in the village. She had received the offer
of a better place in the Dartmouth academy, but she would not leave
mother, at least not till I came home. Ruth and Harry went to school,
and Ruth had learned to spin, and had worked a magnificent sampler,
which was to be framed. Father's farm was improving, and he had come
out of the Albany business a great deal better than he expected, so
that the family were once more in easy circumstances; but he liked
Vermont, and had no notion of going back to Lee.
Of course I had in my turn a great deal to tell about my travels and
the people I had seen. Then my trunks were opened, and I distributed
my presents, in which I had the good fortune to please everybody,
especially Rose, who was delighted with her ear-rings, and Harry, to
whom I had brought a grand knife with a corkscrew in it. To be sure, he
never had any corks to draw, but it was a great thing to be able to do
so. Mother was pleased with a fine copy of Cowper which Mrs. Deborah
had sent her, and Ruth delighted equally by a great jointed doll and
a well-furnished work-box. And so we sat and talked and listened and
admired, till at last mother declared nobody would be up in time to
milk in the morning, and sent us all off to bed.
Jeanne and Ruth slept together, and I was to have for the present a
room to myself. Mother had fitted it up nicely with the Chinese linen
hangings which used to decorate our best bed-room in Lee, and there
were all my old valued possessions. When I waked in the morning, it
seemed to me almost a dream that I had ever been so far away.
But the feeling was dispelled when I rose and looked out of the window.
The outside world was all strange to me, and very dreary I must say it
looked. I had left everything in blossom in England—the woods bursting
into leaf and full of violets, primroses, and all sorts of pretty
flowers, the turf starred with daisies, and the hedges beginning to
be white with bloom. Here the spring was late even for Vermont. The
trees were almost as naked as in winter, the grass, where there was
any grass, had hardly started, the fields were encumbered with huge
pine stumps, half-burned logs, and stone heaps, and the great hill
which arose between me and the sunrise was black with gloomy spruces. I
learned afterward to look upon the view from that window as a very fine
one, but my taste for the picturesque was not greatly developed at that
time, and I must say it looked very dismal.
"It is home—home," I repeated to myself; and I hastened to dress and
to say my prayers, that I might run down stairs and milk my own cow,
Snowball, which father had told me was the best cow he had. But, lo
and behold! My hands had lost their old skill, and cramped dreadfully.
Snowball was uneasy at the presence of a stranger, and at last I had to
give it up.
I was kept pretty busy that day putting away my possessions and
answering the questions and remarks of Ruth, who followed me like my
shadow. I remember both she and Harry were quite indignant when I told
them that King George was a nice-looking old gentleman, very much like
Deacon Bradley in Lee.
"Deacon Bradley was a good man, and King George is a wicked, bad man,"
said he, indignantly. "He made his soldiers kill the people at Bunker
Hill, and Jeanne's father. You ought not to say so, Olive."
I tried to explain to Harry that it was not King George alone who was
responsible for the war, but I don't think I succeeded. I suppose
nobody in these days can form a notion of the way the Americans of that
time felt toward King George.
It was not till the next day, when Ruth had gone down to see some of
her school-mates and to display her treasures, that mother and I had
a chance for a good, long talk. I told her all my experiences and
heard all that had happened at home. Mother said she had become quite
contented with the change. The climate suited her and the farm was an
excellent one, especially for stock of all kinds. Father had bought an
interest in a saw-mill, which was doing an excellent business, and he
had discovered on his farm a ledge of fine white marble which must some
day become valuable.
He had improved the house, and was going to improve it still more.
We had pleasant neighbours, and there was very good society in the
village, and an excellent minister. Mother said kindly that she hoped I
would not be home-sick, but she was afraid I would find the change very
great.
I would have given all the finery with which Mr. Wyndham's kindness had
endowed me to be able to say honestly that I was not home-sick, but the
feeling had been growing on me for forty-eight hours. I was very much
ashamed of it, and very much vexed at myself; but there was no denying
the fact.
It was not that my own personal accommodations were not as good as any
I had been used to at school, or even at Mrs. Deborah's, but all things
out of doors—the stumps, the rail fences, the rough, half-cleared
fields, the bare trees, the rough roads—were so forbidding and dismal.
I thought of the garden at Melcombe, where the violets and lilies of
the valley ran riot on the bank under the elm trees, where the porch
and arbour were covered with sweet honey-suckle, and passion-flower and
jessamine and roses seemed to grow of their own accord and blossomed
all summer long; of the shrubbery, with its holly and laurestine and
filberts and beautiful mossy, shady walks. I thought of the lanes
protected by high hedge-rows where the rose campion blossomed till
Christmas, and the periwinkle covered the banks. And then I remembered
the library and the piano and pictures, and—what I was most of all
ashamed of—Mrs. Austin's clotted creams and junkets and apricot tarts
and almond cakes.
It was not that I wanted to go back—I don't think I should have been
undecided for a moment if the offer had been made me then and there—but
nevertheless the fact remained that I was unhappy. I said to myself
that now I was in a free country, where every one had a chance, where
poor people did not live in pigsties, and highway robberies and
public hangings of a dozen people at a time were not of almost daily
occurrence. I remembered the poor woman who had been hung in London
while I was there for stealing ten shillings, and recalled Mrs. Tibbs,
the cottager's wife with ten children, in a room where the rain made
a puddle on the clay floor under the candle, and the worms dropped
from the rotten thatch on her bed, and I thought of Mr. Henderson, and
contrasted him with the squire of the next parish to ours, who always
seemed too much absorbed in his studies to have a kind word or a smile
to bestow on the children. But all would not do. My mind would go back
to the pleasant things—the flowers and green fields and Mr. Fuller, who
was as kind as Mr. Henderson himself. There was no denying it, and I
shed tears of vexation and shame over the fact that I regretted England.
But I was never one to sit down and cry over what I could not have, and
I knew what my part was. I remembered a sentence in the catechism which
I had learned to please my teacher, which ran thus, after enumerating
many duties of the "second table:"
"To learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and do my duty in
that state of life unto which it than please God to call me."
I had admired the sentence when I first learned it. Now it came back
to me with new meaning. "To do my duty in that state of life to which
it has pleased God to call me." What was my duty? Clearly not to fret
because I could not live in two places at once, because I could not
eat my cake and have my cake, because I could not at once enjoy all
the pleasures and advantages of two countries. But it "was" my duty to
be cheerful and contented, to make the very best of the place where I
was and the pleasures and blessings I enjoyed. It was my duty to help
mother in every possible way, to set a good example to Ruth and Harry,
and to show that all the kindness and petting I had enjoyed had not
spoiled me. It might be hard work, I said to myself, to settle down
into a plain farmer's daughter, but I meant that no farmer's daughter
should be more helpful and careful than I. It might be hard, but I had
not now to learn where to look for strength when things were hard.
Young as I was, I knew from experience that faithful prayer is always
answered, and that "thou, Lord, hast never failed them that seek thee,"
was only a literal statement of a literal fact. And I found now, as
I had always found before, the help I needed. I suppose the natural
versatility of my disposition was an assistance to me; but however that
might be, in a week's time I was as much at home as if I had never been
away. I got out my old wheel, and soon recovered my old sleight-of-hand.
Miss Tabby Wheelwright, our neighbour, who was not the most amiable
person in the world, coming in and finding me spinning and singing—for
I could spin and sing now—remarked, with a decided sneer, that she
should not expect a fine London miss to know how to use the big wheel,
whereat I had the audacity to propose a trial of skill and speed, and
actually beat her by three knots and a half. I am afraid Miss Tabby did
not like me better for it, but I propitiated her by giving her a skein
of Devonshire lace thread to mend her veil, and by showing her the real
lace darning-stitch.
Of course I had to make a great many new acquaintances, and to answer a
great many questions. We were about half a mile from the village, where
there were now about five hundred inhabitants, a meeting-house, two
or three stores, a good school-house, and the foundation of a county
academy. Mr. Winslow was the minister, and he had a nice wife and three
or four very pleasant boys and girls. There were a good many young
people in the place; and as Jeanne knew them all, and was a favourite
with all, there was no lack of society. Indeed, it was not long before
mother gently hinted that I was visiting too much for my own good, and
suggested that it was a pity I should forget all that I had learned.
Among the contents of the box of books which Mr. Wyndham had given me
were the histories of Mr. Hume and Doctor Robertson, and mother now
suggested that we young ladies should meet one or two afternoons in
the week with our sewing and take turns in reading aloud, thus, as she
said—mother always liked to turn a sentence well—enjoying the pleasures
of society and improving our minds at the same time. Jeanne and the
Winslow girls took up the idea with enthusiasm, and most of the others
fell in with it after I had assured them that such reading-parties
were fashionable among literary people in London, and that I had been
present by special favour at one where two live authors were in the
company.
The reading-circle was organized, and was a great success. Remembering
Mrs. Deborah's charity work-basket, I had proposed that we should
spend every other afternoon in working for the poor—a scheme which
was received with great applause, and which only failed from the
trifling difficulty that after diligent inquiry we could find no poor
people to work for. We did not confine ourselves to history, but
sometimes recreated ourselves with poetry and other lighter studies,
and sometimes we discussed what we read. No doubt we branched off very
considerably from our grand subjects a good many times into the lighter
ones of embroidery patterns and dress fashions, but that was all very
innocent and did us no harm. And often, too, we fell into graver
discourse, which did us a great deal of good, and led some of our
number to think more seriously than they had ever done before. I was
naturally something of an oracle from the fact of having seen so much
more of the world than any of my companions, though I was two or three
years the youngest of them, and I might have grown very conceited but
for the checks I received at home, where I was still nobody but little
Olive, laughed at by my father, not seldom snubbed by Rose, and obliged
to be just as obedient as Harry himself.
On the whole, it was a very pleasant summer, after all. I wrote to my
English friends, and twice had a great package of letters from them
all, and, joy of joys, in the fall Mr. Wyndham sent me a piano! It
was a very small affair—hardly bigger than a music-box as compared
to those in use nowadays—but it was a good one, and, for a wonder,
arrived without any injury from the journey. It was the best piano
seen in those parts, and made a great sensation. Mr. Winslow, who
understood music, tuned it for me, and with what delight did I get out
my music and play my lessons—my "pieces," as the girls say now—for the
edification of my friends!
"Yes, it's very fine," said Miss Tabby Wheelwright, who was the
kill-joy of the neighbourhood and always saw danger and sin lurking
under everything that was pleasant—"yes, it's very nice, Olly, if only
you can have that and heaven too."
"Why can't she, Miss Tabby?" asked Harry. "I am sure we hear about
harps in heaven."
"But not pianos, Harry," answered Miss Wheelwright, severely.
"Well, harps go by strings and pianos go by strings, so what is the
difference?"
Miss Tabby was not quite prepared to answer this reasoning, so she only
sighed and "hoped my gifts would not prove to be too much for my grace."
I began to give Ruth music-lessons directly, and found her an apt
scholar. Presently, Symantha Winslow wanted to learn, and then her
uncle in New York sent her a piano also. Mr. Winslow hunted out his
long-disused flute, and we used to have some very nice little concerts.
The end of that summer, however, was overclouded. The small-pox broke
out in the vicinity. Very few of us young people had had the disease,
for which there was then no known certain preventive but inoculation,
which could hardly be called a preventive, either. Dr. Jenner was
making his experiments on vaccination and trying to make people believe
in its virtues, while a sermon was actually preached against him in
an English cathedral, and stories were gravely printed and seriously
believed of children out of whose heads cows' horns had grown, and
others who had bleated and eaten grass like calves, in consequence of
having been subjected to this process. It was not till several years
after the time of which I am writing that vaccination became general.
In 1800 ninety-two persons out of every thousand died of small-pox
in Great Britain, and of those who recovered many were made blind
and others dreadfully disfigured for life. But something like half a
century before—I do not now remember the exact date—Lady Montague, a
lady of great talents and fashion, as the phrase was then, introduced
into England the practice of engrafting or inoculating for small-pox.
She had learned it in Turkey, and succeeded, in spite of much
opposition and ridicule, in making it popular in England. No doubt she
thereby saved many valuable lives and much suffering. It was found that
persons who had the small-pox by inoculation seldom died, and not only
so, but they were rarely marked or disfigured by the disease. Often
they were hardly sick at all. I remember hearing mother say that when
she went to the hospital with some six other girls to have the disease,
the selectmen of the town promised a new silk dress to the one who
should dance a reel every day during her confinement. Every one of the
young ladies earned the silk dress, though my mother confessed that on
some occasions the figure was rather languidly walked through.
It was now decided by the proper authorities that a small-pox hospital
was to be established at Castle Hill, and all the young persons of a
certain age were to go through the ordeal of inoculation, I among the
rest. Jeanne had had the disease as a child, and Ruth was thought too
young. The Stanley house, as it was called, was selected for the use of
the girls. It was a comfortable, roomy, cheerful mansion—in fact, it
was one of the best houses in the place, though it had been uninhabited
for several years save by the old woman who took care of it. I believe
it was some way involved in a law-suit. Mrs. Prudence Withal, a very
agreeable and sensible widow lady, whose only child was one of the
patients, was to matronize and superintend us, and Rose came to wait on
us and to help do the work. The house was comfortably fitted up with
everything necessary and desirable, and such clothes as were absolutely
needful were sent thither, together with abundant stores of fuel and
eatables. It happened very luckily that a parcel of books which Mr.
Wyndham had sent me with the piano, but which had been supposed lost,
turned up at this juncture. It contained, among other things, some of
Miss Austin's and Mrs. Inchbald's tales, a chess-board, and abundance
of new patterns for work which promised us much diversion.
On Sunday we were publicly prayed for and four of our number, the
Winslows, Jane Withal, and myself, joined the church. It was a very
solemn season with ourselves and our friends, for we all felt it might
be the last time we should ever join together in public worship. I drew
up a will disposing of all my little possessions, and wrote a letter to
Mrs. Deborah and Mr. Wyndham, to be sent in case of my death. Not that
I believed I was going to die. I was young and strong, and very few
did die under the effects of inoculation, but still I knew I might be
called away, and I thought it would save mother trouble if I wrote out
my wishes beforehand. I don't think I was a miracle of wisdom, by any
means, but I wish all grown-up people would show as much sense in that
respect as I did at fifteen. It would save a great deal of vexation,
injustice, and misery.
On Monday morning I bade home and friends good-bye, charging Ruth to
be diligent with her music and not to forget to close the piano when
she had finished her lessons. Father carried me over to the Stanley
mansion, where I found my young friends already assembled; and bidding
me keep up good courage, he left me to my fate.