MORNING AT THE OLD HOMESTEAD.
Awake, poor orphan girl, awake!
The wild birds flutter free,
And all the trumpet blossoms quake,
Amid the tuneful glee.
Mary Fuller was aroused from her sleep the next morning by the most
heavenly sound that had ever met her ear. It was a wild gush of song,
from the birds that had a habit of sleeping in the old trumpet-flower
vine, and among the apple-trees back of the house. She began to smile
even in her sleep, and awoke with a thrill of new and most delicious
pleasure. Out from the old porch and distant trees came this wild gush
of song, to which the river with its soft chiming, made a perpetual
accompaniment. She drew a deep breath tremulous with pleasure and
reluctantly opened her eyes.
Aunt Hannah was standing before a little upright looking-glass,
combing out her long grey hair with a ferocious-looking horn comb,
which she swept through those sombre tresses deliberately as a rake
gathers dry hay from the meadow. The paper curtains were partly rolled
up, and one of the small sashes was open, admitting a current of fresh
air and the bird's songs together. These two blessings, which God
gives alike to all, aunt Hannah received as she did her daily bread,
without a thought and as a necessary thing; but to the child they made
a heaven of the little attic chamber.
This was not alone because habit had familiarized one to a bright
circulation of mountain air and mountain music, and the other to the
sluggish atmosphere and repulsive scents inseparable from the
poverty-stricken districts of a city. Temperament had more to do with
it than habit. Mary, with her sensitive nature, never could have
breathed such air, or listened to those melodious sounds, without a
feeling of delight such as ordinary persons never know. Thus it
happened, while aunt Hannah was busy twisting up her hair and changing
her short nightgown for a calico dress, that Mary closed her eyes
again, and a tear or two stole from beneath their long lashes.
Aunt Hannah just then came to the bed, with both hands behind, hooking
up her dress. She saw the tears as they stole through those quivering
lashes, and spoke in a voice so stern and chill that it made the child
start on her pillow.
"Home-sick, I reckon?" she said, interrogatively.
"No no," answered Mary, eagerly, "it isn't that, I haven't any home,
you know, to be sick about."
"What is it then?"
"Oh, the bright air, and the sweet noise all around, it seems
so--so--indeed I cant help it. Is there another place in the wide
world like this?"
"Well, no, to my thinking there isn't," said aunt Hannah, looking
around the room with grim complacency; "but I don't see anything to
cry about."
"I know it's wrong in me, ma'am, but somehow I can't help making a
baby of myself when I'm very happy--don't be angry with me for it."
"I don't like crying people, never did," answered aunt Hannah,
tersely; "tears never do anything but mischief, and never will--wipe
your eyes now, and come down stairs."
Mary drew a little hand obediently across her eyes. Aunt Hannah left
her and went down a flight of narrow steps that led to the kitchen:
the child could hear her moving about among the fire-irons, as she put
on her clothes. Still there was joy at her heart, for the birds kept
singing to her all the time, and when she rose from her knees, after
whispering over her prayers, they broke forth in such a gush of music,
that it seemed as if they knew what she had been about and rejoiced
over it.
When Mary descended into the kitchen, she found aunt Hannah on her
knees, between two huge andirons, fanning a heap of smoking wood with
her checked apron, which she tightened at the corners around each
hand. The smoke puffed out in little clouds around her, with every
wave of the apron, and floated off in fantastic wreaths over her head.
When Mary came down, she turned her face over one shoulder with an
inclination toward the door, and the words, "You will find a place to
wash by the rain-water trough," issued from amid the smoke.
Mary found the huge trough standing full of soft water, to the left of
the back stoop. On one end where the wood was thick, stood a yellow
earthen wash-bowl, with a square piece of soap, of the same color,
lying by it.
To a child of Mary's habits this rustic toilet was luxurious. Standing
upon a piece of plank, that protected her feet from the damp earth
around the trough, she bathed her hands and face again and again,
drawing in deep draughts of the bright air between each ablution, with
a delicious sense of enjoyment.
"That's right--you are beginning to find out the ways of the house,
darter. Grand old trough, isn't it?" said uncle Nathan, issuing from
the porch, and turning back the cotton wristbands from his plump
hands, as he came up to where Mary was standing. "That's right. Now
for a good wash."
Mary hastened to cast the water away that she had been using, and fill
the bowl afresh for uncle Nathan, before he reached the plank on which
she stood. Then she resigned her place, and running into the stoop,
wiped her hands and face till they were rosy again on the roller
towel, that she had observed hanging near the cheese-press.
"Now, what must I do next?" she said, confidentially, as uncle Nathan
claimed his turn at the crash towel, "I want to be of some use, please
tell me how!"
"That's right," said uncle Nathan, patting her head with his wet hand
"run, hang over the tea-kettle, set the table, sweep up a little. You
can do chores, I reckon?"
"I don't know; what are chores?"
"Oh! a little of everything," replied the old man, laughing his deep,
good-natured laugh.
"Oh! yes, I can try at that, any way," cried the child, and her laugh
stole through the mellow fullness of his, much as the bird-songs
mingled with the flow of the river. "I'm a good deal stronger than I
look!"
"Bright as a dollar, and smart as a steel-trap. I knew it. Them eyes
weren't made for nothing. Now run and begin; but look here, darter:
don't plague Hannah with questions; just make yourself handy; and no
fuss about it, you know."
"Oh! I can do that, you'll see," cried the girl, cheerfully, and while
uncle Nathan was polishing his broad face with the towel, she seized a
heavy iron tea-kettle, and carried it to the well, which, surrounded
by plantain and dock leaves, was near a corner of the house. She had
some little difficulty in managing the windlass, and when the old
mossy bucket fell with a dash into the water twenty feet below, it
made her start and shiver all over as if she had harmed something.
I am afraid she never could have managed with those little hands, to
have drawn the bucket over the well-curb; but while she stood
trembling like a leaf, holding back the windlass with both hands, and
gazing desperately on the bucket, down whose green sides the
water-drops were raining back into the well, good uncle Nathan came
up, panting with exertion, and seizing hold of the bucket jerked it
over the curb.
"Don't try that again; it's rather more than you can manage yet," he
said, breathing hard. "I was an old Ishmaelite to put you up to it."
"I thought it was easy enough," said Mary, trembling with affright and
the overtax of her strength, while uncle Nathan filled the tea-kettle
and bore it into the porch; "next time I shall know how better."
She took the kettle from the old man's hand, and bending her whole
strength to the task, bore it into the kitchen.
Aunt Hannah was still on her knees, blowing away at the obstinate
green wood that smoked and smouldered at its ease. When Mary came
tottering under the weight of her kettle; and hung it upon the
trammel-hook just over an incipient blaze, the old lady gave her a
keen glance, as much of surprise as pleasure, and working vigorously
with her apron, sent a whirl of smoke into the child's eyes, while her
lips muttered something that sounded like "nice girl."
It was quite wonderful how the little creature found out all the ways
of that old house so noiselessly! While aunt Hannah sat, knife in
hand, stripping the skins from her cold potatoes, and cutting them in
round slices that dropped hissing one by one into the hot gravy,
which, with thin slices of pork, simmered in the frying-pan just taken
from the fire, Mary had drawn forth the little cherry wood table,
found the tablecloth of birds-eye diaper in one end of the drawer, and
the knives and forks in the other, which she proceeded to arrange
after the fashion she had observed the night before.
Aunt Hannah turned her head now and then, after stirring up her
potatoes, and held the dripping knife above the frying-pan, while she
gave a sharp glance at these proceedings, quite ready to impart a
brief reprimand should the case require it. But each glance grew
shorter, and at last those thin lips relaxed into a look of grim
satisfaction, when she saw the little girl measuring a drawing of tea
in the top of her tin canister, levelling it nicely off with the edge
of a spoon handle, not a grain more or less than the usual allowance.
Aunt Hannah was not a close woman in the usual country acceptation of
the term, but she hated changes and loved tea. That old canister lid
had been the household standard for thirty years, and it was not
likely that she would heartily sanction any addition or diminution for
a little girl like that.
At length the breakfast was ready. The slices of salt pork were neatly
arranged on a plate; and the potatoes crisped to a turn, were placed
beside it on the hearth. Between them stood a plate of milk-toast and
the little pewter tea-pot, puffing threads of steam from its puny
nozzle as if it really intended an opposition to the great salamander
of a kettle that sung and fumed and made a great ado over the hot fire
back in the chimney.
Just as everything seemed ready for breakfast, uncle Nathan came in,
obedient to a nod from his grim sister, and seating himself before the
fire, opened the Bible and began to read.
It was a temptation to worldly thoughts, that warm breakfast, so
savory and tantalizing to a child whose appetite was stimulated with
exercise and the fresh mountain air, and it is no use pretending that
once or twice she did not wonder a little if uncle Nathan always read
so slow or prayed so long. But it was a passing thought, and, as uncle
Nathan said afterward, "she couldn't help birds flying over her head,
but that was no reason why they should build nests in her hair." In
this case, naughty thoughts were like the birds, and if she drove them
away, that was all that could be expected. Uncle Nathan was a good old
man in his day and generation, and we have no idea of criticising any
opinion of his.
When the breakfast was over, aunt Hannah disappeared from the back
porch, with a milk-pail in one hand and a three-legged stool in the
other. Uncle Nathan followed her example, but more slowly, and the
cotton handkerchief of many colors that his sister had tied on her
head, disappeared over the back garden-fence before he had half
crossed the cabbage-patch. He lingered behind long enough to give Mary
an encouraging smile through the kitchen-door, and went off murmuring,
as if in confidence to his milking-stool,
"Nice girl, nice girl, I wonder we never thought of taking a little
thing like that before. If Hannah had only kept poor Anna's baby now,
what company they would have been for each other."
When the good man reached the little pasture-lot, thinly scattered
over with apple-trees, in which half-a-dozen fine cows grazed over
night, he found aunt Hannah beneath one of the largest trees, seated
upon her stool, and milking what she called the "hardest" cow of the
lot. When disposed to be refractory she cut its "tantrums" short with
a sharp "soh!" that went off from her thin lips like the crack of a
pistol; and this one word had more effect upon the animal, than a
world of uncle Nathan's gentle "so-hos, so-hos," that seemed as if he
were quieting an infant. The vicious animal knew the difference well
enough, for one was usually followed by a whack of the stool over its
ribs, while the other sometimes resulted in leaving the rotund old
gentleman wallowing, like a mud-turtle, on his back in the grass.
It is natural to suppose that under these circumstances, uncle Nathan
usually gave a wide berth to his sister's favorite; but this morning
he drove the meekest and fattest cow of the herd gingerly up to the
old apple tree, and after placing his stool very deliberately on the
grass, and the pail between his knees, began a slow accompaniment to
the quick motion of aunt Hannah's hands, which kept two pearly streams
in rapid flow to the half-filled pail resting against her feet.
While the milk rattled and rushed upon the bottom of his empty pail,
uncle Nathan kept quiet, leaning his head against the cow, and
thinking over the pleasant ideas that little Mary had aroused in his
kind heart. Unconsciously wishing to share those thoughts with his
sister, he had driven his cow close to hers that they might converse
together. Hannah took no notice of his presence, however, but went on
filling her pail so rapidly, that it began to foam over the edge. When
her brother saw this, and knew by the soft, feathery sound that she
had nearly finished, he stooped down, and with his dear old face just
visible under the cow, called out,
"I say, Hannah, what do you think of her?"
Did the vicious animal start? Or what was it that made the stern woman
shriek out, and wheel round so sharply on her stool?
"Why, Hannah, did I frighten her! has she kicked again?" cried uncle
Nathan, surprised by the sharp action and wild look that she cast back
upon him.
"Yes, she did start," answered aunt Hannah, rising and taking up the
pail, now quite full, which made her waver to and fro, a singular
weakness which no one had ever witnessed in her before.
"But you ain't frightened, sister; nothing can frighten you," said
Nathan, soothingly.
"No, but you asked something, what is it."
"Only, how you liked her?"
"Her!--who?"
"Why, Mary Fuller, our little girl, you know."
"You are thinking of her then."
"Why, yes, Hannah, I can't think of anything else. Isn't she a nice
little creature?"
"Yes!"
"How handy she was about the breakfast, I shouldn't wonder now if all
the dishes are washed up by the time we get back."
"Do you think so!" said aunt Hannah, gazing down into her foaming pail
so steadily, that even uncle Nathan could see that she was not
thinking of anything so trivial as her morning's work.
"Hannah," he said, "what has come over you! you seem so strange since
this little girl came. You scarcely speak."
"Do I ever speak much?" she answered.
"No," said uncle Nathan with a sigh, "but now something has gone
wrong--what is it? don't you like to keep the child?"
"Yes, I like it."
"She will be a help to you."
"Yes, I think so--of course she must."
"And company for me--for us both."
"For you, yes--as for me, brother, I have no company, good or bad, but
my own thoughts."
She spoke with some feeling, her voice shook, her hard eyes wavered as
they turned towards her brother. In years Nathan had not seen her so
moved. Why was it? What was there in the coming of a helpless child
beneath their roof, to disturb the composure of a woman like that?
As the good man sat upon his stool, pondering over these thoughts, for
he was too much surprised for speech, she hung her stool upon a limb
of the apple-tree, and moved towards the house, stooping more than
usual beneath the weight of her milk-pail.
As uncle Nathan had prophesied, Mary was busy as a humming-bird
washing up the breakfast dishes, and putting every thing to rights in
the kitchen. Aunt Hannah did not seem to observe it, but strained her
milk, and went out again. When she came back, uncle Nathan was with
her, looking rather grave and perplexed.
It was now approaching nine o'clock, and all the "chores," as the good
couple called the household work, "were done up."
"Go up stairs and get your things," said aunt Hannah to Mary, "it's
school-time."
Mary obeyed, and aunt Hannah proceeded to change her checked apron for
one of black silk, and to invest her head in a straw bonnet that had
been tolerably fashionable ten years before, and since that time it
had been often bleached, but never changed in form.
She took Mary by the hand, when she came down, with her plain mantilla
and cottage bonnet on, surveyed her keenly from head to foot, and led
her into the street.
They passed down the village, the woman not deigning to notice that
she was an object of curiosity, the child shrinking with that
sensitive dread of observation, that always haunted her when among
strangers. About the centre of the village stood a brick academy, with
an open space before it, and surrounded by a succession of wooden
verandahs.
Aunt Hannah entered the lower story of this building, where some forty
children were assembled under a female teacher, who came forward to
receive her visitors.
"This little girl," said aunt Hannah, "we have adopted her. She must
come to school."
"What branches do you wish her to study?" inquired the teacher.
"Reading, writing, cyphering, enough to reckon up a store bill, if she
should ever have one, and enough of geography to keep her from losing
her way in the world."
"Is that all?" said the teacher, "a girl of her age ought to know
those things without further teaching."
"Like enough she does, ask her," said aunt Hannah.
The teacher looked at Mary, who smiled, blushed, and after a moment's
hesitation, said, modestly,
"I know how to read and write, and a little of the rest."
"Very well, I will examine you presently," said the teacher, "yonder
is an empty desk, you can take it."
Mary advanced up the school-room, blushing and trembling beneath the
curious glances that followed her. So sensitively conscious was she
that every movement, when strange eyes were upon her, brought its
suffering. But, with true heroism, she subdued all appearance of the
annoyance she felt, and, in her very meekness and fortitude, there lay
a charm that won more worthy affection than beauty could have done.
Thus she entered upon her school life, alone and among strangers, for
aunt Hannah left her at the door. She looked around with a forlorn
hope that Isabel might, like her, be sent to school, or that something
might happen to take the sad weight of loneliness from her heart; but,
all was new, cold and depressing, and leaning her head on the desk,
she felt chilled in all her veins. There was no disposition to weep in
little Mary now.
Sensitive as she was, no one ever saw her shed tears over her own
sorrow; but kindness, poor child! _that_ always brought the dew
sparkling up from her heart to her eyes.