THE LADY CHILD.
They say I grew very troublesome. Ruthie thought I was always "under
foot," and nothing went on, from parlor to kitchen, from attic to
cellar, but I knew all about it. There was not a pie, particularly a
mince pie, that I didn't try to have a finger in.
But I could not have been in the house _all_ the time, for Abner
declares I was always out of doors. My little shoes were generally
thick with mud, and my little frocks ready every night for the
wash-tub. If there was a spoon or a knife missing, Abner often found
it in the ploughed field, where I had been using it as a kind of
pickaxe to dig my way through to China. No matter how muddy or
slippery the walking, I begged to go out. I had a feeling that I
wanted to skip like a lamb, fly like a bird, and dart like a squirrel,
and of course needed all out doors to do it in.
"Don't fall down," cried mamma from the window; "look out for the
ice."
And I answered back from under my red, quilted hood,--
"Well, if I do fall down and break me, mamma, you mus' pick up all my
little bones and glue 'em togedder. God glued 'em in the firs' place,
all but my tongue, and that's _nailed_ in."
Not nailed in very tight: I could move it fast enough.
And when the snow and ice were gone, I liked to wade ankle-deep in
the mud. Father had to buy me a pair of rubber boots, and that is the
first present I remember. They filled my soul with joy. When I said my
prayers I had one on each side of me, and when I slept it was with
both boots on my pillow. At first I could think of nothing else to
wish for; but one day I said,--
"I wish I was a pussy-cat, mamma, so I could have _four_ yubber
boots!"
Brother Ned and I were great friends. Partly to keep his eye on me,
and partly because he enjoyed my conversation, he would say in the
cool spring days, "Come, Maggie, dear, bring your cloak, and I'll wrap
you up all so warm, so you can sit out on the woodpile while I chop my
stint."
I think he must have been a little fellow to chop wood. After I got
there, and was having a good time, he often remarked, in tones as
cutting as the edge of his hatchet,--
"If I had a brother, Miss Maggie, I shouldn't take pains to wrap up a
speck of a girl like you for company."
"Well, if had a little sister, I wouldn't _be_ yapped up for comp'ny,"
retorted I, rubbing my small, red nose; "I'd be a-yockin' her cradle."
Ned laughed at that; for it was just what he expected me to say. We
had one bond of sympathy; he longed for a little brother, and I longed
for a little sister. He liked to hear me talk grandly about "my new
baby-girlie, Rosy Posy Parlin. She wouldn't bl'ong to him any 'tall.
She'd be mine clear through."
He led me on to snap out little sharp speeches, which he always
laughed at; and I suspect that was one thing that made me so pert. I
looked up to him as a superior being, except when I was angry with
him, which was about half the time. I told Ruphelle Allen he was a
"bad, naughty boy;" but when she said, "Yes, I think so, too," I
instantly cried out, "Well, I guess he's gooder 'n _your_ brother;
so!"
Ruphelle was my bosom friend. We had shaken rattles together before we
were big enough to shake hands. She had beautiful brown eyes, and
straight, brown hair; while, as for me, my eyes were gray, and my
kinky hair the color of tow.
Sister 'Ria called Ruphelle "a nice little girl;" while, owing to the
way my hair had of running wild, and the way my frocks had of tearing,
she didn't mind saying I was "a real romp," and looked half the time
like "an up-and-down fright."
As I always believed exactly what people said, and couldn't
understand jokes, I was rather unhappy about this; but concluded I had
been made for a vexation, like flies and mosquitos, and so wasn't to
blame.
Ruphelle lived on a hill, in the handsomest house in Willowbrook, with
a "cupalo" on top, where you could look off and see the whole town,
with the blue river running right through the middle, and cutting it
in two.
Ruphelle had an English father and mother. I remember Madam Allen's
turban, how it loomed up over her stately head like a great white
peony. There was a saucy brother Augustus, whom I never could abide,
and a grandpa, who always said and did such strange things that I did
not understand what it meant till I grew older, and learned that he
was afflicted with "softening of the brain."
Then in the kitchen there was a broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced woman,
named Tempy Ann Crawford, whom I always see, with my mind's eye,
roasting coffee and stirring it with a pudding-stick, or rolling out
doughnuts, which she called crullers, and holding up a fried image,
said to be a little sailor boy with a tarpaulin hat on,--only his
figure was injured so much by swelling in the lard kettle that his own
mother wouldn't have known him; still he made very good eating.
There was a little bound girl in the family, Ann Smiley, who often led
me into mischief, but always before Madam Allen looked as demure as a
little gray kitten.
Fel and I were uncommonly forward about learning our letters, and
wished very much to go to school and finish our education; but were
told that the "committee men" would not let us in till we were four
years old. My birthday came the first of May, and very proud was I
when mother led me up to a lady visitor, and said, "My little girl is
four years old to-day." I thought the people "up street" would ring
bells and fire cannons, but they forgot it. I looked in the glass, and
could not see the great change in my face which I had expected. I
didn't look any "diffunt." How would the teacher know I was so old?
"O, will they let me in?" I asked. "For always when I go to school,
then somebody comes that's a teacher, and tells me to go home, and
says I musn't stay."
"You will have to wait till the school begins," said my mother, "and
that is all the better, for then little Fel can go too." I was willing
to wait, for Fel was the other half of me. In three weeks she was as
old as I was, and in the rosy month of June we began to go to the
district school.
Your grandfather lived a little way out of town, and Squire Allen
much farther; so every morning Ruphelle and her brother Augustus
called for me, and we girls trudged along to school together, while
Gust followed like a little dog with our dinner baskets. This was one
of the greatest trials in the whole world; for, do you see, he had a
pair of ears which heard altogether too much, and when we said
anything which was not remarkably wise, he had a habit of crying
"Pooh!" which was very provoking. We went hand in hand, Fel and I, and
counted the steps we took, or hopped on one foot like lame ducklings,
and "that great Gust" would look on and laugh. I had so much to say to
Fel that I couldn't help talking, though I knew he was there to hear.
"I'd like to be a _skurrel_ once," said I.
"O, pooh!" said Gust.
"I'd like to be 'em _once_, Gust Allen. I'd like to be 'em long enough
to know how they feel. Once there was a boy, and he was turned into a
skurrel, and his name was Bunny."
"_That's_ a whopper, miss!"
Such were "the tricks and the manners" of Fel's disagreeable brother.
Do you wonder I called him a trial? But Fel didn't mind him much, for
he was good to her, and never laughed at her as he did at me. She was
"a lady-child," and her disposition was much sweeter than mine.
Mr. Clifford, who was fitting for college then, used to pass us with
a book under his arm and pat our sun-bonnets, and call us "Juno's
swans." We had never seen any swans, and did not know who Juno was,
but presumed it was some old woman who kept geese and hens.
When we reached the school-house we were sure of a good time, for the
teacher lent us an old blunt penknife, with pretty red stones on the
back, the like of which was never seen before in this world. Nobody
else ever asked for the knife but us two little tots, and we went up
hand in hand; and I spoke the words, while Fel asked with her eyes.
Miss Lee smiled blandly, and said,--
"Well, now, the best one may have the knife a little while."
That always happened to be Fel; but it was all the same, for we sat
together, and she let me play with it "more than my half." We were
really very forward children, and learned so fast that Miss Lee says
now she was very proud of us. I think she was, for I remember how she
showed us off before the committee men. We could soon read in the
Second Reader, and Fel always cried about the poor blind fiddler to
whom Billy gave his cake, and I poked her with my elbow to make her
stop. For my part I was apt to giggle aloud when we came to the story
of the two silly cats, and the cheese, and the monkey.
Ah, that dear old school-house, where we studied the "Primary's
Joggerphy," and saw by the map that some countries are yellow and some
fire-red, and the rivers no bigger than crooked knitting-needles! That
queer old school-house, with the hacked-up benches, where we learned
"rithumtick" by laying buttered paper over the pictures in Emerson's
First Part, and drawing blackbirds, chairs, and cherries all in a
row! Fel had a long wooden pencil, but poor I must do with half a one,
for 'Ria teased me by making me think people would call me selfish if
I had a long pencil all to myself, while my grown-up and much more
worthy sister went without any.
That funny old school-house, where Miss Lee used to make a
looking-glass of one of the window-panes, by putting her black apron
behind it, and peeping in to see if her hair was smooth when she
expected the committee men! How afraid we were of those committee men,
and how hard we studied the fly-leaves of our "joggerphies" while they
were there, feeling so proud that we knew more than "that great
Gust!"
That dear, queer, funny old school-house! No other hall of learning
will ever seem like that to me!
Didn't we go at noon to the spring under the river bank and "duck" our
little heads, till our mothers found it out and forbade it? Didn't we
squeeze long-legged grasshoppers, and solemnly repeat the couplet:--
"Grass'per, grass'per Gray,
Give me some m'lasses,
And _then_ fly away."
Didn't we fling flat pebbles in the river to the tune of
"One to make ready,
Two to prepare,
Three to go slap-dash,
Right--in--there"?
And how we enjoyed our dinners under the spreading oil-nut tree,
chatting as we ate, and deciding every day anew that Tempy Ann made
the nicest sage cheese in the world, and our Ruthie the best
turnovers.
Sometimes at night father took me on his lap, and asked,--
"Do you whisper any at school?"
I turned away my face and answered,
"Fel whispers _orfly_."
"Well, does Totty-wax whisper too?"
I dropped my head, and put my fingers in my mouth.
"_Some_," said I, in a low voice. For I began to have a dim idea that
it was not proper to tell a lie.
When Fel and I had any little trouble,--which was not often, for Fel
generally gave up like a darling,--Maria was always sure to decide
that Fel was in the right. Fel thought 'Ria a remarkable young woman;
but I told her privately, in some of our long chats at school, that
older sisters were not such blessings as one might suppose. So far as
I knew anything about them, they enjoyed scrubbing your face and neck
the wrong way with a rough towel, and making you cry. And they had
such poor memories, older sisters had. They could never call up the
faintest recollection of a fairy story when you asked for one. They
were also very much opposed to your standing in a chair by the sink to
wipe dishes.
Now Tempy Ann allowed Fel to wipe dishes, and pat out little pies on
the cake-board, and bake doll's cakes. She was such a strong, large
woman too, she could hold Fel and me at the same time; and after we
were undressed, and had our nighties on, she loved to rock us in the
old kitchen chair, and chat with us.
We were confidential sometimes with Tempy Ann,--or I was,--and told
her of our plan of going to Italy to give concerts when we grew up. I
never saw but one fault in Tempy Ann; she would laugh over our solemn
secrets, and would repeat the hateful ditty,--
"Row the boat, row the boat, where shall it stand?
Up to Mr. Parlin's door; there's dry land.
Who comes here, so skip and so skan?
Mr. Gustus Allen, a very likely young man.
He steps to the door, and knocks at the ring,
And says, 'Mrs. Parlin, is Miss Maggie within?'"
Fel and I were both shocked at the bare hint of such a thing as my
marrying Gust. We didn't intend to have any great boys about. If Gust
should want to marry me, and ride in our gilt-edged concert-coach,
with four white horses, I guessed he'd find he wasn't wanted. I
should say "No," just as quick!
The more earnest I grew the more Tempy Ann shook with laughing; and
I had some reason to suspect she went and told Madam Allen my
objections to marrying her son, which I thought was most unfair of
Tempy Ann.