THE TANSY CHEESE.
You are not to suppose from this that I became a good girl the very
next day. No, nor the day after. I ceased from the wickedness of
telling lies, just as I had stopped pilfering sweetmeats. This was
all; but it was certainly better than nothing.
I was soon able to play once more, only I could not run as fast as
usual. How pleasant it was out of doors, after my long stay in the
house! The flowers and trees seemed glad to see me, and I knew the
hens and cows were, and old Deacon Pettibone, the horse. I resumed my
old business of hunting hens' nests, though it was some weeks before
I dared jump off the scaffold, and it seemed odd enough to come down
on the ladder.
"I'd twice rather have it be you that had cut your foot, Fel Allen,"
said I, "for you don't want to run and jump; and folks that don't want
to, might just as well have a lame foot as not."
Fel couldn't quite understand that, though it was as clear to _me_ as
A B C. And after all my suffering, she wouldn't own I was as
"delicate" as she. I didn't like that.
"You don't remember how many bad things have happened to me," said I,
waving my thimble-finger, which had lost its tip-end in the
corn-sheller.
"Well, Ned's going to give you a gold thimble to pay for that, and I
suppose you're glad it's cut off," said Fel, who had never met with
an accident in her life, and was naturally ashamed of not having a
single scar or bruise on her little white body, not so much as a wart
or pimple to show me. I could not help feeling my superiority
sometimes, for I had been cut and burnt, and smashed and scalded, and
bore the marks of it, too.
"Well, but you don't have so bad headaches as me," said Fel,
recovering her self-esteem. "Your mamma never has to put mustard
_pace_ on your feet, and squeeze up burdock leaves and tie 'em on your
head, now, does she?"
"I don' know but she did when I was a baby; I never heard her say,"
returned I, coolly. "Folks don't think much of headaches. Polly
Whiting has 'em so she can't but just see out of her eyes. But that
isn't like hurting a place on you so bad your mother doesn't dass do
it up! I guess you'd think it _was_ something if you cut your foot
most in two, and the doctor had to come and stick it together!"
[Illustration: Squeezing Herdsgrass. Page 125.]
That silenced Fel, and I had the last word, as usual.
It was already quite late in the summer. One day Fel and I were
snuggled in the three-cornered seat in the trees, trying to squeeze
herdsgrass, to see which would be married first, when Ruthie came out
at the side door to sweep off the steps.
"Maggie 'll be pleased," said she; "but how we shall miss her little
mill-clapper of a tongue."
She was talking to 'Ria, who was going back and forth, doing something
in the kitchen.
"Yes, we shall miss her," said 'Ria; "but I shan't have her dresses
to mend. I pity poor cousin Lydia; she'll think--"
Then 'Ria's voice sounded farther off, and I did not hear what cousin
Lydia would think.
"Put your head down here, Fel Allen. I've found out something,"
whispered I, starting suddenly, and tearing my "tyer" on a nail.
"I'm going to cousin Lydia Tenney's."
"How do you know?"
"Why, didn't you hear 'Ria say she shouldn't have to mend my dresses?
That means I shan't be here, of course."
"Perhaps it means you'll be a better girl, and not tear 'em."
"O, no, it don't. 'Ria knows better 'n that. Didn't you hear her say
she pitied poor cousin Lydia? Well, it's because she'll have _me_ in
her house; and that's why 'Ria pities her."
"Then I wouldn't go to her house, if 'twill make her feel bad," said
Fel.
"O, I know what makes you say that; its because you don't want me to
go."
"Of course I don't. Who'd I have to play with?"
"Lize Jane Bean."
"H'm."
"Well, then, there's Dunie Foster; you think she's a great deal nicer
'n me."
"Now, Madge Parlin, I only said she kept her hair smoother; that's all
I said."
"Well, there's Abby Gray and Sallie Gordon," added I, well pleased
to watch the drooping of my little friend's mouth. "You can play with
them while I'm gone. And there's your own brother Gust, that _you_
think 's so much politer 'n Ned."
"You know there's nobody I like to play with so well as I do you,"
said Fel, laying her cheek against mine, and we sat a while, thinking
how dearly we did love each other. Then we saw Abner wheeling the
chaise out of the barn. I ran down the steps from the tree, and
asked,--
"Is anybody going anywhere, Abner?"
"Well, yes; I believe your pa's going over yonder," said he, pointing
off to the hills.
"Anybody--anybody going with him?"
"He talks of taking the Deacon," said Abner, dryly, as he began to
wrench off the wheels, and grease them.
"Madge, Madge, where are you?" called 'Ria, from the side door.
"Come into the house; I have something to tell you."
It was just as I expected. I was going to Bloomingdale to-morrow. The
news had been kept from me till the last possible moment, for when I
was excited about anything, I was noisier than ever, and as Ruthie
said, "stirred up the house dreadfully."
Next morning father tucked me into the chaise, behind old Deacon. I
didn't know why it was, but I couldn't help thinking about the
hatchet, and wondering mother should have taken so much pains to get
such a naughty girl ready. I had been told I might stay till after
apple-gathering, and I was glad, for I wanted to make Fel as lonesome
as she had made me those two weeks she spent in Boston. I had never
been away from home but twice to stay over night, and my playmates
couldn't any of them know my true value, of course.
But as I looked at the dear friends on the piazza, growing dearer
every minute, especially mother, I had my doubts whether I cared much
about cousin Lydia's apples.
"She'll be back with father," remarked Ned, "as homesick as a kitten."
"Just you see if I do!"
It was well we were driving away just then, for my brave laugh came
very near ending in a sob.
"I'm on business," said father, whipping up the Deacon, "and shall
come back to-morrow; but you can do as you please, Totty-wax--you can
come with me, or wait a month or six weeks, and come with cousin
Lydia."
I was disposing, privately, of a stray tear, and could not answer.
"Your cousin will take the cars," said he.
"Take the cars!" I slipped off the seat, and stood upright in my
surprise. The railroad had only just been laid to one corner of
Willowbrook, and I had never taken a car in my life; had never seen
one; didn't even know how it looked. This had been a great
mortification to me ever since Fel went to Boston.
"O, father," cried I, whirling round and getting caught in the reins,
"did you say the cars? I s'posed cousin Lydia would come in a wagon,
and I didn't know 's I cared about staying. _Did_ you say the cars?"
"There, there; don't fall out over the Deacon's back. Did you ever
hear what the water-wagtail said?"
Then I knew father was laughing at me. When I was so happy I
couldn't keep still, he often asked me if I ever heard what a small
bird, called the water-wagtail, said, who thought the world was made
for him:--
"Twas for my accommodation
Nature rose when I was born;
Should I die, the whole creation
Back to nothing would return."
That was what the little bird said. But father was mistaken this time.
I felt remarkably humble for me. I had been thinking so much about the
hatchet that I couldn't have a very high opinion of myself, to save my
life.
It was twenty miles to cousin Lydia's. When we got there she was
looking for us. I knew her very well, but had never been at her house
before. It was a pretty white cottage, with woodbines creeping over
it, and Boston pinks growing by the front door-stone. There was a red
barn and barnyard on one side of the house, and a woodshed on the
other; and in front of the porch door, facing the street, was a well,
with an old oaken bucket, hanging on a pole. I had never seen a
well-sweep before, and supposed it must be far nicer than a pump.
Cousin Lydia had a farmer husband in a striped frock, and a beautiful
old mother in a black dress and double-frilled cap. Then there were
her husband's two sisters, who lived with her, and a cat and a dog;
but not a child to be seen.
I didn't feel quite clear in my mind about staying; but cousin Lydia
seemed to expect I would, and showed me a little cheese-hoop, about as
big round as a dinner-plate, saying she would press a cheese in it on
purpose for me, and I might pick pigweed to "green" it, and tansy to
give it a fine taste. So I should almost make the cheese myself; what
would my mother say to that? Then there were the beehives, which were
filling with honey, and some late chickens, which were going to chip
out of the shell in a week. Remarkable events, every one; but it was
the tansy cheese which decided me at last, and I told father he might
go without me; I wanted to stay and make a visit.
It was not till he was fairly out of sight that I remembered what a
long visit it would be. Why, I shouldn't see mother for as much as a
month! A new and dreadful feeling swept over me, as if I was left all
alone in the great empty world, with nothing to comfort me as long as
I lived.
Samantha, one of Mr. Tenney's sisters, found me an hour afterwards
sitting beside a chicken-coop, crying into my apron. She asked me if I
was homesick. I thought not; I only wanted to see my mother, and I
felt bad "right here," laying my hand on the pit of my stomach. The
feeling was not to be described, but I did not know homesickness was
the name for it.
Samantha consoled me as well as she could with colored beads to
string, and a barrel of kittens out in the barn. I felt a little
better at dinner time, for the dinner was very nice; but my spirits
were still low.
Julia, the other young lady, was not very fond of little girls, and
had no box of trinkets as Samantha had, or, at any rate, did not show
any to me. She seemed to be always talking privacy with her sister, or
with cousin Lydia, and always sending me out of the room. Not that she
ever told me, in so many words, to go away--but just as if I didn't
know what she meant!
"Don't you want to go out in the barn and hunt for eggs?" said she.
No, I certainly didn't. If I had wanted to I should have found it out
without her speaking of it. But I was only a little girl; so I had to
go, and couldn't answer back. The neighbors' children were few and far
between; and though I strolled about for hours behind cousin Joseph
Tenney and the hired man, there were times when I liked to see what
was going on in the kitchen, and it was vexing to hear Julia say,--
"If I was a little girl about your age, I never should get tired of
looking at that speckled bossy out in the barn."
Indeed! I almost wished she had to be fastened into the stall a while,
just to _see_ if she wouldn't get tired of that speckled bossy.
But when the time came to make my cheese, I had a right to stay in
the house. Cousin Lydia let me look on, and see it all done. First, I
picked the pigweed and tansy, or how could she have made the cheese?
Then she strained some milk into a pan, and squeezed the green juices
through a thin cloth. After that she put in a little rennet with a
spoon.
"There," said she, "isn't that a pretty color? Watch it a few minutes,
and you will see it grow thick, like blanc-mange, and that will be
curd."
Then she made some white curd in another pan, without any green
juice. After the curd "came," it was very interesting to cross it off
with a pudding-stick, and this she let me do myself. Next morning she
drained the curd in a cloth over a cheese-basket, and put on a stone
to press out the whey. When it was drained dry enough, she let me cut
it up in the chopping-tray, and she mixed the two curds together, the
green and the white, salted them, and put them in that cunning hoop,
and then set the hoop in the cheese-press, turned a crank, and weighed
it down with a flatiron. There, that is the way to make a cheese. When
it came out of the press it was a perfect little beauty, white, with
irregular spots of green, like the streaks in marble cake. I knew then
how that greedy Harry felt, in the story, when his mother sent him a
plum cake, and he couldn't wait for a knife, but "gnawed it like a
little dog."
Of course I did not gnaw the cheese, but I did want to have it cut
open, to see if it tasted like any other I ever ate. But cousin Lydia
covered it with tissue paper, and oiled it, and set it in a safe, and
every day she oiled it again, and turned it. I would have spent half
my time looking at it, only she said I must not open the dairy-room
door to let the flies in.