MEADOW BROOK
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES
AUTHOR OF THE "ENGLISH ORPHAN," "THE HOMESTEAD ON THE
HILL SIDE," "LENA RIVERS," "TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE," ETC.
NEW YORK
THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
TO
MY MOTHER,
Who, more than any one else, will be interested in a story
which has in it so much of my childhood and early home,
THIS WORK
is affectionately dedicated by her Daughter
MARY.
PREFACE.
In this story of MEADOW BROOK there is, I am aware, nothing very
startling or wonderful; but it has the merit, at least, of containing
more truth than books of the same character usually possess. From
this, however, the reader is not to infer that I have made myself the
heroine; for though the early home, the childhood, and childish
experience of "Rosa Lee" are mostly my own--while more than one
whiskered young man will recognize the little girl of thirteen, at
whom he once made faces from behind his desk as the
"schoolma'am"--the similarity extends no further.
The fickle Mr. Clayton and his haughty bride, the unfortunate
Herbert, the disappointed Ada, the proud Southern planter, and the
gentle, bright-haired Jessie, are intended to represent different
varieties of American character, and are such as many of us have met
in our intercourse with the world. For my portrayals of Georgia
life, I am indebted to a friend, who recently spent two years in that
State, and whose graphic descriptions of what she there saw have been
to me of much service.
Believing that the world loves better to read of the probable than of
the improbable, I have tried to be natural; and if, by this means,
but one friend is added to the number I now possess, I shall feel
that my labor has not been in vain.
M. J. H.
ROCKPORT, N. Y., 1857.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER.
I. Childhood
II. Thanksgiving
III. Cousin Will
IV. The Schoolmistress
V. Pine Hill
VI. Doctor Clayton's Visit
VII. Dell Thompson's Party
VIII. Close of School in Pine District
IX. Pro and Con
X. Mrs. Dr. Clayton
XI. Boston
XII. Ada Montrose
XIII. The Flight
XIV. Ten Thousand Dollars
XV. The Old Homestead
XVI. "Out West,"
XVII. The Dark Man
XVIII. The Death of the Drunkard
XIX. The Death of the Righteous
XX. Going South
XXI. Uncle Dick
XXII. Ada
XXIII. Dr. Clayton
XXIV. The Crisis
XXV. The Angel of the Pines
XXVI. Return
XXVII. Light
XXVIII. The Chase
XXIV. Human Nature
XXX. "The Southern Planter's Northern Bride"
XXXI. Sunny Bank
XXXII. November 25th
The Criminal Witness
MEADOW BROOK.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD.
Far away among the New England hills stands a large, old-fashioned
farmhouse, around whose hearthstone not many years agone, a band of
merry, noisy children played, myself the merriest, noisiest of them
all. It stood upon an eminence overlooking a broad strip of rolling
meadowland, at the extremity of which was the old gray rock, where
the golden rod and sassafras grew, where the green ivy crept over the
crumbling wall, and where, under the shadow of the thorn-apple tree,
we built our play-houses, drinking our tea from the acorn saucers,
and painting our dolls' faces with the red juice of the poke berries,
which grew there in great abundance.
Just opposite our house, and across the green meadow, was a shady
grove, where, in the spring-time, the singing birds made their nests,
and where, when the breath of winter was on the snow-clad hills,
Lizzie, Carrie, and I, and our taller, stronger brothers dragged our
sleds, dashing swiftly down the steep hill, and away over the
ice-covered valley below. Truly, ours was a joyous childhood, and
ours a happy home; for never elsewhere fell the summer's golden
sunlight so softly, and never was music sweeter than was the murmur
of the dancing water-brook which ran past our door, and down the long
green lane, losing itself at last in the dim old woods, which
stretched away to the westward, seeming to my childish imagination
the boundary line between this world and the next.
In the deep shadow of those woods I have sat alone for many an hour,
watching the white, feathery clouds as they glimmered through the
dense foliage which hung above my head, and musing, I scarcely knew
of what. Strange fancies filled my brain and oftentimes, as I sat
there in the hazy light of an autumnal afternoon, there came and
talked with me myriads of little people, unseen, it is true, but
still real to me, who knew and called them all by name. There, on a
mossy bank, beneath the wide-spreading grapevine, with the running
brook at my feet, I felt the first longings for fame, though I did
not thus designate it then. I only knew that I wanted a name which
should live when I was gone--a name of which my mother should be
proud. It had been to me a day of peculiar trial. At school
everything had gone wrong. Accidentally I had discovered that I
possessed a talent for rhyming; and so, because I preferred filling
my slate with verses, instead of proving on it that four times twenty
were eighty, and that eighty, divided by twenty, equalled four, my
teacher must needs find fault with me, calling me "lazy," and
compelling me to sit between two hateful boys, with warty hands, who
for the remainder of the afternoon amused themselves by sitting
inconveniently near to me, and by telling me how big my eyes and feet
were. I hardly think I should now mind that mode of punishment,
provided I could choose the boys, but I did then, and in the worst of
humors, I started for home, where other annoyances awaited me.
Sally, the housemaid, scolded me for upsetting a pan of milk on her
clean pantry shelf, calling me "the carelessest young one she ever
saw," and predicting that "I'd one day come to the gallus if I didn't
mend my ways."
Juliet, my oldest sister, scolded me for wearing without her consent
her shell side-comb, which, in climbing through a hole in the
plastering of the schoolhouse, I accidentally broke. Grandmother
scolded me for mounting to the top of her high chest of drawers to
see what was in them; and to crown all, when, towards sunset, I came
in from a romp in the barn, with my yellow hair flying all over my
face, my dress burst open, my pantalet split from the top downward,
and my sunbonnet hanging down my back, my mother reproved me
severely, telling me I was "a sight to behold." This was my usual
style of dress, and I didn't think any one need interfere; so, when
she wondered if there ever was another such child, and bade me look
at myself in the glass, asking if "I didn't think I was a beautiful
object," my heart came up in my throat, and with the angry response
that "I couldn't help my looks--I didn't make myself," I started
through the door, and running down the long lane to the grapevine, my
favorite resort, I threw myself upon the ground, and burying my face
in the tall grass, wept bitterly, wishing I had never been born, or,
being born, that the ban of ugliness were not upon me.
Mother doesn't love me, I thought--nobody loves me; and then I wished
that I could die, for I had heard that the first dead of a family, no
matter how unprepossessing they had been in life, were sure to be the
best beloved in the memory of the living. To die, then, that I might
be loved, was all I asked for, as I lay there weeping alone, and
thinking in my childish grief that never before was a girl, nine
summers old, so wretched as myself. And then, in my imagination, I
went through with a mental rehearsal of my own obsequies, fancying
that I was dead, but still possessing the faculty of knowing all that
passed around me.
With an involuntary shudder, I crossed my hands upon my bosom,
stretched my feet upon the mossy bank, and closed my eyes to the
fading sunlight, which I was never to see again. I knew they would
lay me in the parlor, and on my forehead I felt the gentle breeze as
it came through the open window, lifting the folds of the muslin
curtain which shaded it. Throughout the house was a deep hush, and
in my mother's voice there was a heart-broken tone, which I had never
heard before, and which thrilled me with joy, for it said that I was
loved at last. Then I thought how lonely they would be as day by day
went and came, and I came no more among them. "They will miss the
little ugly face," I said, and on my cheek my own hot tears fell as I
thought how Lizzie would mourn for me in the dark night time, weeping
that I was not by her side, but sleeping in a narrow coffin, which I
hoped would be a handsome one with satin hangings, as I had seen at
the funeral of a rich neighbor's fair young bride. I did not want
them to strew my pillow with roses as they did hers--for I knew they
would not accord with my thin, plain face. In the distance I heard
the sound of the tolling bell, and I saw the subdued expression on
the faces of my school companions as they listened breathlessly,
counting at last the nine quick strokes, which would tell to a
stranger that 'twas only a child who was gone.
Then came the funeral, the roll of wheels, the tread of many feet,
the hum of voices, the prayer, the hymn, in which I longed to join,
but dared not for appearances' sake, and then, one by one, they stole
up for a last farewell, lifting my baby brother and bidding him look
upon the sister he would never know save by the grassy mound where
they would tell him she was buried. I knew when Lizzie bent over me
by the convulsive sob and burning kiss which she pressed upon my
lips, and divining her inmost thoughts, I fancied she was wishing
that no harsh word had ever passed between us. In my heart I longed
to tell her how freely I forgave her, but ere I had time to do so,
she stepped aside, while an older, a wrinkled hand was laid upon my
forehead, and my aged grandmother murmured, "Poor little Rosa, far
better that I should die, than that she, so young, should be laid in
the lonesome grave."
Instantly the dark grave loomed up before me, so dark and dreary that
I shrank from being put there. I could not die; I was afraid to
sleep with the silent dead. I would far rather live, even though I
lived unloved forever. And then, softly in my ear, a spirit friend
whispered, "Be _great_ and _good_--get to yourself a name of which
they shall be proud--make them love you for your deeds, rather than
your looks, and when, in the future, strangers shall ask concerning
you, 'Who is she?' let it be their pride to answer, 'My daughter,' or
'My sister.'" Older and wiser heads than mine would have said it was
Ambition, which thus counseled with me, but I questioned her not of
her name. I only knew that her words were sweet and soothing, and I
treasured them in my heart, pondering upon them until I fell asleep,
unconscious that the daylight was fast declining, and that the heavy
dew was falling upon my uncovered head.
Meantime at home many inquiries were being made concerning my
whereabouts, and when, at last, night came on, and I was still away,
my oldest brother was sent in quest of me down the long lane where I
was last seen by Lizzie, who had attempted to follow me, but had
desisted through fear of being called a _tag_. I was just dreaming
that the trumpet of fame was sounding forth my name, when, alas! I
awoke to find it was only brother Charlie, making the woods resound
with "Rosa Lee! Where are you? Why don't you answer?"
Of course I was disappointed,--who wouldn't be?--and in a fit of
obstinacy I determined not to reply, but to make him think I was
lost--then see how he'd feel! But on this point I was not to be
gratified, for failing of finding me in the lane, he made straight
for the grapevine, where he stumbled over me as I lay, this time
feigning sleep, to see what he would do. Seizing me by the shoulder,
he exclaimed, "You are a pretty bird, scaring us out of a year's
growth. Mother'll scold you well for this."
But he was mistaken, for mother's manner towards me was greatly
changed. The torn pantalet and the chewed bonnet-strings were all
forgotten, and in the kindest tone she asked, "If I were not cold,
and why I went to sleep on the grass." There were tears in my eyes,
but I winked hard and forced them back, until Lizzie brought me a
piece of custard pie (my special favorite) which, she said, "she had
saved for me, because she knew how much I loved it."
This was too much, and sitting down in Carrie's little chair, I cried
aloud, saying in reply to the oft-repeated question as to what ailed
me, that "I didn't know, only I was so glad."
"Hystericky as a witch," was Sally's characteristic comment on my
strange behavior, at the same time she suggested that I be put to bed.
To this I made no objection, and pushing aside the pie, which, to
Lizzie's disappointment, I could not eat, I went to my room, a
happier, and I believe, a better girl; so much influence has a kind
word or deed upon a desponding, sensitive child. That night I was
tired and restless, turning uneasily upon my pillow, pushing Lizzie's
arm from my neck, because it kept me from breathing, and lying awake
until I heard the long clock in grandma's room strike the hour of
twelve. Then I slept, but dreamed there was a heavy pain in my head,
which made me moan in my sleep, and that mother, attracted by the
sound, came to my side feeling my pulse, and saying, "What ails you,
Rosa?" "There was nothing ailed me," I said; but in the morning when
I awoke, the pain was still there, though I would not acknowledge it,
for scarcely anything could tempt me to stay away from school; so at
the usual hour I started, but the road was long and wearisome, and
twice I sat down to rest, leaning my forehead upon the handle of my
dinner-basket, and wondering why the smell of its contents made me so
sick. Arrived at school, everything seemed strange, and when Maria,
the girl who shared my desk, produced a love-letter from Tom Jenkins,
which she had found on my side of the desk, and in which he made a
formal offer of himself, frecks and all, I did not even smile.
Taking my book, I attempted to study, but the words ran together, the
objects in the room chased each other in circles, the little
Abecedarian, shouting the alphabet at the top of his voice, sounded
like distant thunder, and when at last the teacher called for our
class in "Colburn," she seemed to be a great way off, while between
her and me was a gathering darkness which soon shut out every object
from my view.
For a few moments all was confusion, and when at last my faculties
returned I was lying on the recitation bench, my head resting in the
teacher's lap, while my hair and dress were so wet that I fancied I'd
been out in a drenching shower. Everybody was so kind and spoke so
softly to me that, with a vague impression that something had
happened, I began to cry. Just then, father, who had been sent for,
appeared, and taking me in his arms, started for home, while Lizzie
followed with the basket and my sunbonnet, which looked sorry and
drooping like its owner. At the door father asked of mother, who met
us, "Where shall I put her?" but ere she could reply, I said, "On
grandmother's bed."
And there, among the soft pillows and snowy linen on which I had
often looked with almost envious eyes, and which now seemed so much
to rest me, I was laid. Of the weary weeks which followed, I have
only a confused recollection. I know that the room was darkened as
far as possible, and that before the window at the foot of the bed,
grandma's black shawl was hung, one corner being occasionally pinned
back when more light was needed. After a while it seemed to me that
it was Lizzie, instead of myself who was sick, and the physician said
she had a fever, which had been long coming on, but was undoubtedly
hastened by her sleeping on the wet grass in the night. And so we
all trod softly about the house, speaking in whispers, and lifting
the door-latches carefully, while Lizzie, with my cap and night dress
on, lay all day long in bed, never speaking, never moving, except
when the long clock in the corner struck off the hour; then she would
moan as if in pain, and once when somebody, who looked like Lizzie,
but was still I, Rosa, stole on tiptoe to her side, with a bouquet of
flowers, which Maria had brought, she put her arms around my neck,
and pointing to the clock, whispered, "It keeps saying 'She's
dead'!--'She's dead'!--'She's dead'! Won't you tell it to be still?"
Then we knew that it disturbed her, and so the old clock was stopped,
a thing which grandma said "had not been in fifty odd years," except
the time when grandpa died, and then, with the going out of his life,
the clock itself ran down. All the night through the lamp burned
upon the table where stood the vials, the Dover powders, and the
cups, while Lizzie, with her great blue eyes so much like mine, wide
open, lay watching the flickering shadows on the wall, counting the
flowers on the paper bordering, wondering if there ever were blue
roses, and thinking if there were that they must smell as the dinner
did beneath the chestnut tree.
At last, when the family were wearied out with watching, the
neighbors were called in, and among them our school-teacher, who
seemed to tread on air, so light and noiseless were her footsteps;
and Lizzie, when she saw how kind she was, wondered she had not loved
her better. Then came other watchers equally kind with Miss
Phillips, but possessing far less tact for nursing; and even now I
have a vivid remembrance of their annoying attempts "to fix me so I'd
be more comfortable." Was I lying in a position satisfactory to
myself, I must be lifted up, my pillows shaken, turned over, and my
head placed so high that my chin almost touched my chest. Did I fall
into a little doze, I must rouse up to tell whether I were asleep or
not, and did I get into a sound slumber I must surely wake enough to
say whether I wanted anything.
Again, I fancied that another beside Lizzie was sick, for in mother's
room, contiguous to mine, there was a low hum of voices, a going in
and out, a careful shutting of the door, and gradually I got the
impression that Jamie, my beautiful baby brother, was connected with
all this, for I heard them talk of scarlet fever, and it's going hard
with him. But I had no desire or power to ask the why or wherefore;
and so time wore on, until there came a day when it seemed that the
reverie beneath the grapevine was coming true. There was the same
roll of wheels, the tread of many feet, and through the closed doors
I heard a mournful strain, sung by trembling voices, while from afar,
I caught the notes of a tolling bell. I was much alone that day, and
once, for more than an hour, there was no one with me excepting
grandma, who frequently removed her spectacles to wipe the moisture
which gathered upon them.
From that day I grew worse, and they sent to Spencer for Dr. Lamb,
who, together with Dr. Griffin, held a council over me, and said that
I must die. I saw mother when they told her. She was standing by
the window, from which the black shawl had been removed, for nothing
disturbed the little girl now, and the window was wide open, so that
the summer air might cool the burning head from which the matted
yellow hair had all been shorn. She turned pale as death, and with a
cry of anguish, pressed her hand upon her side; but she did not weep.
I wondered at it then, and thought she cared less than Lizzie, who
sat at the foot of the bed, sobbing so loudly that the fever burned
more fiercely in my veins, and the physician said it must not be; she
must leave the room, or keep quiet.
It was Monday, and a few hours afterward, as Sally was passing the
door, grandma handed her my dirty, crumpled sunbonnet, bidding her
wash it and put it away. Sally's voice trembled as she replied, "No,
no, leave it as it is, for when's she's gone, nothing will look so
much like her as that jammed bonnet with its chewed-up strings."
A gush of tears was grandma's only answer, and after I got well, I
found the bonnet carefully rolled up in a sheet of clean white paper
and laid away in Sally's drawer. There were days and nights of
entire unconsciousness, and then with the vague, misty feeling of one
awakening from a long, disturbed sleep, I awoke again to life and
reason. The windows of my room were closed; but without, I heard the
patter of the September rain, and the sound of the autumnal wind as
it swept past the house. Gathered at my side were my father, mother,
brothers, sisters, grandmother; and all, as my eye rested upon their
faces, I thought, were paler and more careworn than when I last
looked upon them. Something, too, in their dress disturbed me; but,
before I could speak, a voice which I knew to be Dr. Griffin's said
"She is better--she will live."
From my mother's lips there broke another cry--not like that which I
had heard when they told her I must die--but a cry of joy, and then
she fell fainting in my father's arms. I never doubted her love for
me again, but in bitterness of spirit, I have many a time wept that I
ever distrusted her, my blessed mother.
The fourth day after the crisis I was alone with Lizzie, whom, for a
long time, I importuned to give me a mirror that I might see myself
once more. Yielding at length to my entreaties, she handed me a
small looking-glass, a wedding gift to my grandmother, and with the
consoling remark, that "I wouldn't always look so," awaited the
result. I am older than I was then, but even now I cannot repress a
smile as I bring before my mind the shorn head, the wasted face with
high cheek-bones, and the big blue eyes, in which there was a look of
"crazy Sal," which met my view. With the angry exclamation, "They'll
hate me worse than ever, I'm so ugly," I dashed the mirror upon the
floor, breaking it in a thousand pieces. Lizzie knew what I meant,
and twining her arms about my neck, she said, "Don't talk so, Rosa;
we love you dearly, and it almost killed us when we thought you
couldn't live. You know big men never cry, and pa the least of all.
Why, he didn't shed a tear when lit-"----
Here she stopped suddenly, as if on a forbidden subject, but soon
resuming the conversation, she continued, "But the day Dr. Lamb was
here and told us you would die, he was out under the cherry tree by
our play-house, and when Carrie asked him if you'd never play there
any more, he didn't answer, but turned his face towards the barn, and
cried so hard and so loud, that grandma came out and pitied him,
smoothing his hair just like he was a little boy. Brother Charlie,
too, lay right down in the grass, and said he'd give everything he'd
got if he'd never called you 'bung-eyed,' nor made fun of you, for he
loved you best of all. Then there was poor Jamie kept calling for
'Yosa'"----
Here Lizzie broke down entirely, saying, "I can't tell you any more,
don't ask me."
Suddenly it occurred to me that I had neither seen nor heard little
Jamie, the youngest of us all, the pet and darling of our household.
Rapidly my thoughts traversed the past, and in a moment I saw it all.
"Jamie was dead." I did not need that Lizzie should tell me so. I
knew it was true, and when the first great shock was over, I
questioned her of his death, how and when it occurred. It seems that
I was at first taken with scarlet fever, which soon assumed another
form, but not until it had communicated itself to Jamie, who, after a
few days' suffering, had died. I had ever been his favorite, and to
the last he had called for me to come; my grandmother, with the
superstition natural to her age, construing it into an omen that I
was soon to follow him.
Desolate and dreary seemed the house; and when I was able to go from
room to room, oh! how my heart ached as I missed the prattle of our
baby-boy. Away to the garret, where no one could see it, they had
carried his empty cradle, but I sought it out; and as I thought of
the soft, brown curls I had so often seen resting there, and would
never see again, I sat down by its side and wept most bitterly. The
withered, yellow leaves of autumn were falling upon his grave ere I
was able to visit it, and at its head stood a simple stone, on which
was inscribed, "Our Jamie." As I leaned against the cold marble, and
in fancy saw by its side--what had well-nigh been--another mound, and
another stone, bearing upon it the name of "Rosa," I involuntarily
shuddered; while from my heart there went up a silent thanksgiving,
that God, in his wise Providence, had ordered it otherwise.
From that sickness I date a more healthful state of mind and feeling,
and though I still shrunk from any allusion to my personal
appearance, I never again doubted the love of those who had
manifested so much solicitude for me when ill, and who watched over
me so tenderly during the period of my convalescence, which was long
and wearisome, for the snows of an early winter lay upon the frozen
ground, ere I was well enough to take my accustomed place in the old
brown schoolhouse at the foot of the long hill.