RELIANCE
"How long have you lived here?" Edna asked her companion when they were
outside.
"About six months," was the reply.
"Are you 'dopted?" came the next question.
"No, I'm bound."
Edna looked puzzled. "I don't know what that is. I know a girl that was
a Friendless and she was 'dopted so now she has a mother and a beautiful
home. Her name used to be Maggie Horn, but now it is Margaret McDonald.
Is your name Reliance Willis?"
"No, it is Reliance Fairman, and it wasn't ever anything else. I was
friendless, too, till Mrs. Willis took me."
"Oh, and did you live in a house with a lot of other Friendlesses?"
"No, I wasn't in an orphan asylum, if that's what you mean, but I reckon
I would have had to go there or else to the almshouse."
"Oh!" This seemed even more dreadful to Edna and she looked at her
companion with new interest, at the same time slipping her hand into the
other's to show her sympathy. "Tell me about it," she said.
"Why, you see, my parents died. We lived about three miles from here,
and your grandmother used to know my grandmother; they went to the same
school, so when us children were left without any home or any money your
grandmother said she would take me and keep me till I was of age, so
they bound me."
"How many children were there?"
"Three boys and me. Two of the boys are with Mr. Lukens and the other is
in a home; he is a little chap, only six. If he'd been bigger maybe your
grandfather would have had him here, and perhaps he will come when he is
big enough to be of any use."
"I think that would be very nice and I shall ask grandfather to be sure
to take him. Do you like it here?"
"Oh, yes, I like it. Amanda is awful pernickity sometimes, but I just
love your grandmother and it is a heap sight better than being hungry
and cold."
"Would you have to stay supposing you didn't like it?" Edna was
determined to get all the particulars.
"I suppose so; I'd have to stay till I was eighteen; I'm bound to do
that."
Edna reflected. "I suppose that is what it means by being bound; you
are just bound to stay. I wonder if anyone else was ever named
Reliance," she went on, being much interested to hear something about so
peculiar a name.
"My grandmother was, her that your grandmother knew."
"Oh, was she? Then you are named after your grandmother just as my
sister Celia is named Cecelia after hers. Yours is a funny name, isn't
it? I don't mean funny exactly, for I think it is quite pretty, but I
never knew of anyone named that."
"I don't mind it when I get it all, but when my brothers called me Li I
didn't like it. Your grandmother gives me the whole name, and I am glad
she does; but she said they generally used to call my grandmother Lyley
when she was a little girl."
"I think that is rather pretty, too, don't you?"
"Yes, but I like the whole name better."
"Then I will always call you by the whole name," Edna assured her. "Can
you tell stories, Reliance?"
"Do you mean fibs or reading stories like--let's see--Cinderella and
Jack and the Beanstalk?"
"Oh, I mean the Cinderella kind; I'd hate to think you told fibs."
"I can tell 'em, but I guess I don't care to. I know two or three of the
other kind and Bible stories, some of them: Eli and Samuel, and David
and Goliath, and all those."
"Do you go to school?"
"Half the year, but I guess I won't be going very much longer. I'll soon
be going on fourteen; I'll stop when I'm fifteen."
"Oh, shall you? Then what will you do?"
"I'll learn to housekeep and cook, and to sew and all that. Mrs. Willis
says it is more important for me to be educated in the useful things,
that I'll get along better if I am, and I guess she is right. My mother
couldn't cook worth a cent and she just hated it, so we didn't get very
good vittles."
"Was it your mother's mother after whom you were named?"
"No, my father's mother. The Fairmans lived around here, but there ain't
many of them left now. My father was an only child, and he married my
mother out of town; she hadn't ever been used to the country. She used
to work in a store and that's why she couldn't cook, you see."
Edna pondered over this information, wondering if everyone who worked in
a store must necessarily turn out a poor cook.
"You ought just to see what's getting ready for Thanksgiving," said
Reliance, changing the subject, "I never seen such a pile of stuff. It
fair makes my mouth water to think of it; pies and cakes and doughnuts
and jellies and I don't know what all. I guess there's as many as twenty
or thirty coming, ain't there?"
"Let me see; I shall have to count. There will be Aunt Alice and her two
boys, Ben and Willis, and Uncle Bert Willis with his five children and
Aunt Lucia; that makes ten, and then there will be all of us, papa and
mamma and us four children; that makes--let me see--" she counted
hurriedly on her fingers. "How many did I say, Reliance? Ten? Oh, yes,
and six make sixteen. Then there are the greats; great Aunt Emmeline and
her brother, Wilbur Merrifield, and his daughter, Cousin Becky. Sixteen
did I say? and three make nineteen. Oh, yes, Cousin Becky's sweetheart
that she is going to marry soon; he is coming and he will make it just
twenty. Counting grandpa and grandma there will be twenty-two, and
counting you and Amanda there will be twenty-four to eat the goodies."
"You didn't count the two men, Ira and Jim," said Reliance; "they will
eat here, too."
"Oh, yes, I forgot them. What a crowd, twenty-six people. If they cut a
pie in six pieces it would take over four to go around once, wouldn't
it?"
"I suppose we would be allowed a second piece on Thanksgiving Day,"
remarked Reliance, "though maybe with the other things no one would want
it."
"How many kinds of pie will there be?" asked Edna.
"Three at least. I heard Amanda say that she would make the fillings
to-day for pumpkin, lemon and apple; she has the crust all done. She
has made the jelly, too; it's to be served with whipped cream. Your
grandma was talking about having plum pudding, but Amanda said she
didn't see the sense of having it when it wasn't Christmas, and there
would be such lots of other things, all the nuts and apples and such
things. There is going to be chicken pie, besides the turkeys and the
oysters."
"Dear me," sighed Edna, "I am afraid I shall eat a great deal and be
very uncomfortable. I was last year for a little while because I ate two
Thanksgiving dinners. What did you do last year, Reliance?"
Reliance looked very sober. "We didn't have much of a Thanksgiving last
year, for it was just before my mother died and she was ill then, so us
children just had to get along the best we could. Somebody sent us in a
pie and some jelly for mother and that is about all we had to be
thankful for. I suppose it was much better than nothing. We ate all the
pie at one meal. Billy said we might as well for it wouldn't last two
days anyhow unless we had little bits of pieces, so each of us had a
whole quarter. Billy tried to trap a rabbit or shoot a squirrel or
something, but he hadn't enough shot and the rabbits didn't trap."
Secretly Edna was rather glad to hear this, even though it meant that
the Fairmans went without meat for dinner. She walked along pondering
over these facts and wondering which were to be preferred. She could not
tell whether to be glad the squirrels and rabbits had escaped or to be
sorry that the Fairmans could not have had game for Thanksgiving. It was
rather a hard matter to settle, so finally she dismissed the subject and
gave her attention to the pigs whose pen they now had reached. Edna did
not think them very cleanly or attractive creatures, however, and was
very soon ready to leave them that she might see the chickens and ducks
which she found much more interesting.
The short November day was already so near its end that the fowls were
thinking of going to roost, though the hour was not late, and after
watching them take their supper, which Edna helped Reliance to
distribute, the two girls went on to the garden, now robbed of most of
its vegetables. There were a few tomatoes to be found on the vines;
though celery, turnips and cabbages made a brave showing. Edna felt that
she was quite a discoverer when she came across some tiny yellow
tomatoes which the frost had not yet touched, and which she gathered in
triumph to carry back to her mother.
"I know where there's a chestnut tree," announced Reliance suddenly.
"Oh, do let's find it," said Edna. "I will put the tomatoes in my
handkerchief and carry them that way. We ought to gather all the
chestnuts we can, for I know mighty well after the boys come there won't
be a nut left." There was a rush down the hill to the big chestnut tree
about whose roots lay the prickly burs which the frost had opened to
show the shining brown nuts within.
"I don't see how we are going to carry them," said Edna after a while,
when she had gathered together quite a little heap.
"I'll show you," Reliance told her, and began tying knots in the corners
of the apron she wore. "There," she said, "that makes a very good bag,
and what we can't carry that way we can leave and come back for
to-morrow. We'd better take as many as we can, though, for to-morrow
will be such a busy day I may not be able to come, and if we don't, the
squirrels will get them all."
"I could come alone, now that I know the way," said Edna, "or maybe
mamma would come with me."
"I suppose we'd better be going back," said Reliance when she lifted the
improvised bag to her arm. "It is near to milking time and that means
getting ready for supper."
"What do you do to get ready for supper?" asked Edna taking hold of one
side of the bag.
"Oh, I set the table and go down to the spring-house for the butter and
cream. I can skim milk now, but I couldn't at first, I got it all mixed
up."
"Do you skim all the milk?"
"Oh, no, that we put on the table to drink is never skimmed. The skimmed
milk goes to the pigs."
"Oh, does it? I think you feed your pigs pretty well. Are we going to
watch them milk?"
"You can if you like; I've got to go right back."
"You don't help with the milking then?"
"No; Ira does it. Your grandpa says it is man's work, but Ira lets me do
a little sometimes so I will learn."
"Aren't you afraid of the cows?"
"No, indeed, are you?"
"Kind of. They have such sharp horns sometimes," answered Edna by way of
excusing her fear.
"Your grandpa's don't have; he keeps only dehorned cattle."
"What are they?"
"The kind that have had their horns taken off so they don't do any
damage."
"I think maybe I wouldn't mind that kind so much," said Edna, after
considering the matter for a moment. "If you don't mind, I think I
would like to stop and see Ira milk."
Reliance said she didn't mind in the least and, therefore, she left the
little girl at the bars of the stable yard which was quite as near as
she wished to stand to the herd of cows gathered within.
"Want to come in and learn to milk?" asked Ira, looking up with a smile
at the little red-capped figure.
"Oh, no, thank you," returned Edna hastily. "I'd rather watch you." She
would really have like to try her hand if there had been but one cow,
but when there were six, how could a young person be certain that one of
the number would not turn and rend her? To be sure, they were much less
fearsome without horns, but still they were too big and dreadful to be
entirely trusted. So she stood watching the milk foam into the shining
tin buckets and then she walked contentedly with Ira to where Amanda
was waiting to strain the milk and put it away in the spring-house.
"Do you keep it out here all winter and doesn't it freeze?" asked Edna.
"In winter we keep it in the pantry up at the house. If it should turn
cold suddenly now, we'd have to bring it in," Amanda told her, as she
carefully lifted the earthen crocks into place. "There comes Reliance
for the cream and butter," she went on. "Reliance, I'll carry up the
milk and you come along with the rest. Don't tarry down here, and be
sure you lock the spring-house door and fetch in the key." Then she went
out leaving the two little girls behind.
Reliance carefully attended to her duties, Edna watching her admiringly.
It must be a fine thing to be so big a girl as this, one who could be
trusted to do work like a grown-up woman. "Let me carry something," she
offered, when Reliance stepped up the stone steps and outside, carrying
the butter in one hand and the pitcher of cream in the other.
"If you would lock the door and wouldn't mind taking the key along, I
wouldn't have to set down these things," Reliance said.
Edna did as she was asked, standing tip-toe in order to turn the big key
in the heavy door.
"When we get to the house you can hang the key on its nail behind the
kitchen door," Reliance told her. "It is always kept there."
Edna swung the big key on her finger by its string and trotted along by
the side of Reliance, asking many questions, and delighting to hear
Reliance enlarge upon the all-important subject of the Thanksgiving
festivities.
"We've got to get up good and early," Reliance remarked, "for there's
a heap to be done, even if we are ahead with the baking. I expect to
be up before daylight, myself, and I reckon Ira will be milking by
candlelight," she added, as she entered the kitchen door. Mrs. Conway
was in the kitchen talking to Amanda, and Edna hastened to show her
little hoard of tomatoes. "We gathered a whole lot of chestnuts, too,"
she told her mother. "They were all on the ground down the hill behind
the barn."
"I know the very tree," Mrs. Conway told her. "We must roast some in the
ashes this evening. Come along, supper is ready and you must get
yourself freshened up."
Edna followed along and, in the prospect of supper and then of roasting
chestnuts, she forgot all about the spring-house key. This, by the way,
was lying on the door-mat where she had dropped it. A little later on,
it was picked up by Reliance and was slipped into the pocket of her
gingham apron. "I won't remind her that she dropped it. Likely as not
she forgot all about it," said Reliance to herself. "I ought not to have
trusted it to as little a girl as she is."
It was not till after she was in bed that Edna remembered that she had
ever had the key. Where had she put it? She had no recollection of it
after she had swung it by its string upon her finger on the way to the
house. "It must be on the kitchen table," she told herself. "I opened my
handkerchief there to show mother the tomatoes." She sat up in bed
wondering if she would better get up and go down, but she finally
decided to wait till her mother should have come to bed and then confide
in her.
However, try as she would, she could not keep awake. It had been an
exciting and fatiguing day and she was in the land of dreams in a few
minutes, not even having visions of keys, spring-houses or Thanksgiving
dinners, but of the mother cat and her three kittens who were climbing
chestnut trees and throwing down chestnuts to her.