disturbing. "That's just what Aunt Mary likes!" she reflected, with
suddenly rising wrath. "She says things over twice, for fear I don't
hear them the first time. I wish she would let me alone!" but Betty's
conscience smote her at this point. She really was beginning to wish
most heartily that she were good, and like every one else wished for the
approval of others as well as for the peace of her own conscience. This
was a black-mark day when she had neither, and she thought about her
life more intently than usual. When she liked herself everybody liked
her, but when she was on bad terms with herself everybody else seemed
ready to join in the stern disapproval. Papa was always ready to lend a
helping hand at such times, but papa was far away. Nothing was so
pleasant as usual that morning, and a fog of discouragement seemed to
shut out all the sunshine in Betty Leicester's heart. She did not often
get low-spirited, but for that hour all the excitement of coming to
Tideshead and being liked and befriended by her old friends had vanished
and left only a miserable hopelessness in its place. The road of life
appeared to lead nowhere, and perhaps our friend missed the constant
change and excitement of interest brought to her by living alongside
such a busy, inspiriting life as her father's. Here in Tideshead she had
to provide her own motive power instead of being tributary to a stronger
current.
"I don't seem to have anything to do," thought Betty. "I used to be so
busy all the time last spring in London and never had half time enough,
and now everything is raveling out instead of knitting up. I poke
through the days hoping something nice will happen, just like the
Tideshead girls." This thought came with a curious flash of
self-recognition such as rarely comes, and always is the minute of
inspiration. "I must think and think what to do," Betty went on, leaning
her cheek on her hand and looking off at the blue mountains far to the
northward. There was a tuft of rudbeckias in bloom near by, and just
then the breeze made them bow at her as if they were watching and
approved her serious thoughts. They had indeed a friendly and cheering
look, as if there were still much hope in life, and Betty forgot herself
for a minute as she was suddenly conscious of their companionship. She
even gave the gay yellow flowers a friendly nod, and resolved to carry
some of them home to the aunts. It would be a good thing to make a rule
for devoting the first half hour after breakfast to the care of her
clothes and that sort of thing: then she could take the next hour for
her writing. But it was often very pleasant to scurry down into the
garden or to the yard for a word with Jonathan or Seth. Aunt Barbara was
always busy housekeeping with Serena just after breakfast, and Betty was
left to herself for a while; it would take stern principle to settle at
once to the day's work, but to-morrow morning the plan should be tried.
Betty had offered, soon after she came, to take care of the flowers in
the house, to pick fresh ones or to put fresh water in the vases, but
she had forgotten to do it regularly of late, though Aunt Barbara had
been so pleased in the beginning. "I ought to do my part in the house,"
she thought, and again the gay "rude beckies" nodded approval, and a
catbird overhead said a great deal on the subject which was difficult to
understand but very insistent. Betty was beginning to be cheerful again;
in truth, nothing gets a girl out of a tangle of provocations and
bewilderments and regrets like going out into the fields alone.
Nobody had driven by in all the time that Betty had sat in the fence
corner until now there was a noise of wheels in the distance. It seemed
suddenly as if the session were over, and Betty, quite restored to her
usual serenity, said good-by to her solitary self and the cheerful
wild-flowers. "I am going to be good, papa," she thought with a warm
love in her hopeful heart, as she looked out through the young black
cherry-trees to see who was going by in the road. "Seth! Seth Pond!" she
called, "Where are you going?" for it proved to be that important member
of the aunts' household, with the old wagon and Jimmy, the old black
horse.
"Goin' to mill," answered Seth, recognizing the voice and looking about
him, much pleased. "Want to come? be pleased to have ye," and Betty was
over the fence in a minute and appeared to his view from behind the
thicket. I dare say the flowers waved a farewell and looked fondly after
her as she drove away.
Seth was not in the least vexed by his thoughts. He was much gratified
by Betty's company and behaved with great dignity, giving her much
information about the hay crop, and how many tons were likely to be cut
in this field and the next. They could not drive very fast because the
wagon was well loaded with bags of corn, and so they jogged on at an
even pace, though Seth flourished his whip a good deal, striking
sometimes at the old horse, and sometimes at the bushes by the roadside.
"Do you expect I shall ever get to be much of a hand to play the
violin?" he inquired with much earnestness.
"I don't know, Seth," answered Betty, a little distressed by the
responsibility of answering. "Do you mean to be a musician and do
nothing else?"
"I used to count on it when I was little," said Seth humbly. "I heard a
fellow play splendid in a show once, and I just used to lay awake nights
an' be good for nothin' days, wonderin' how I could learn; but I can
play now 'bout's good's he could, I s'pose, an' it don't seem to be
nothin'. Them tunes in the book you give me let in some light on me as
to what playin' was. I mean them tough ones over in the back part."
"I suppose you would have to go away and study; teachers cost a great
deal. That is, the best ones do."
"They're wuth it; I don't grudge 'em the best they get," said Seth,
honorably. "I've got to think o' marm, you see, up-country. She couldn't
get along nohow without my wages comin' in. You see I send her the most
part. I ain't to no expense myself while I live there to Miss
Leicester's. If there was only me I'd fetch it to live somehow up in
somebody's garret, and go to one o' them crack teachers after I'd saved
up consid'able. Then I'd go to work again an' practice them lessons till
I earnt some more. But I ain't never goin' to pinch marm; she worked an'
slaved an' picked huckleberries and went out nussin' and tailorin' an'
any work she could git, slick or rough, an' give me everything she could
till I got a little schoolin' together and was big enough to work. She's
kind o' slim now; I think she worked too hard. I was awful homesick when
I was first to your aunts', but Jonathan he used me real good. He come
there a boy from up to our place just the same, an' used to know marm.
Miss Leicester she lets me go up and spend Sunday consid'able often.
Marm's all alone except what use she gets of the neighbors comin' in.
But seems if I'd lived for nothin', if I can't learn to play a fiddle
better than I can now," and Seth struck hard with his whip at an
unoffending thistle.
"Then you're sure to do it," said Betty. "I believe you _must_ learn,
Seth. Where there's a will there's a way."
"Why, that's just what Sereny says," exclaimed Seth with surprise.
"Well, they say 't was the little dog that kep' runnin' that got there
Saturday night."
"Should you play in concerts, do you suppose?" asked Betty, with
reverence for such overpowering ambition in the rough lad.
"You bet, an' travel with shows an' things," responded Seth. "But if I
kep' to work on somethin' else that give mother an' me a good livin',
I'd like to be the one they sent for all round this part of the country
when they wanted first-rate playin'; an' I'd be ready, you know, and
just make the old fiddle squeak lovely for dancin' or set pieces for
weddings an' any occasions that might rise. I'd like to be _the_ player,
an' I tell ye I'm goin' to be 'fore I die. Marm she knows I can, but one
spell she used to expect 't would draw me into bad company."
"Oh you wouldn't let it, I'm sure, Seth," agreed Betty, with pleasing
confidence. "I like to hear you play now," she said. "I wish we could
get you a teacher. Perhaps papa can tell you, and--well, we'll see."
"I'd just like to have you see marm," said Seth shyly as they drove to
the mill door. "She'd like you an' you'd like her. I don't suppose your
aunts would let you go up-country, would they? It's pretty up there;
mountains, an' cleared pastur's way up their sides higher 'n you'd git
in an afternoon. You can see way down here right from our house," he
whispered, as they stopped before the mill, door.
Betty thought it was very pleasant in the old mill. While Seth and the
miller were transacting their business, she went to one of the little
windows on the side next the swift rushing mill-stream and looked out
awhile, and watched some swallows and the clear water and the house on
the other side where the miller lived. Then she was shown how the corn
was ground and tasted the hot meal as it came sifting down from the
little boxes on the band, and the miller even had the big wheel stopped
in its dripping dark closet where it seemed to labor hard to keep the
mill going. "Something works hard for us in our lives to make them all
come right," she thought with wistful gratitude, and looked with new
interest at the busy maze of wheels and hoppers and rude machinery that
joggled on steadily from the touch of the hidden wheel and the plash of
its live water. She wandered out into the sunshine and down the river
side a little way. There was a clean yellow sandy bottom in one place
with shoals of frisky little minnows and a small green island only a
little way out, and Betty was much tempted to take off her shoes and
stockings and wade across. Her toes curled themselves in their shoes
with pleased anticipation, but she thought with a sigh that she was too
tall to go wading now, that is, near a public place like the mill. It
was impossible not to give a heavy sigh over such lost delights. Then
she looked up at the mill and discovered that there were only one or two
high and dusty windows at that end, and down she sat on the short green
turf to pull off the shoes and stockings as fast as she could, lest
second thoughts might again hinder this last wade. She gathered her
petticoats and over to the island she splashed, causing awful
apprehension of disaster among the minnows.
The green island was a delightful place indeed; the upper end was near
the roaring dam, and the water plashed and dashed as it ran away on
either side. There were two or three young elms and some alders on the
island, and the alders were full of clematis just coming into bloom. The
lower end of this strip of island-ground was much less noisy, and Betty
went down to sit there after she had seen two or three turtles slide
into the water, and more minnows slip away into deeper pools out of
sight. There was a pleasant damp smell of cool water, and a ripple of
light went dancing up the high stone foundation of the old mill. Betty
could still hear the great wet wheel lumbering round. She thought that
she never had found a more delightful place, so much business was going
on all about her and yet it was so quiet there, and as she looked under
a young alder what should she see but a wild duck on its nest. Even if
the shy thing had fluttered off at her approach, it had gone back again,
and now watched her steadily as if to be ready to fly, yet not really
frightened. It was a dear kind of relationship to be in this wild little
place with another living creature, and Betty settled herself on the
soft turf, against the straight young elm trunk, determined not to give
another glance in the duck's direction. It would be great fun to come
and see it go away with its ducklings when they were hatched, if one
only knew the proper minute. She wished that she could paint a picture
of the mill and the river, or could write a song about it, even if she
could not sing it, so many girls had such gifts and did not care half
so much for them as Betty herself would. Dear Betty! she did not know
what a rare gift she had in being able to enjoy so many things, and to
understand the pictures and songs of every day.
Then it was time to wade back to shore, and so she rose and left the
duck to her peaceful seclusion, not knowing how often she would think of
this pretty place in years to come. The best thing about such pleasures
is that they seem more and more delightful, as years go on. Seth was
just coming to tell Betty that the meal was all ground and ready when
she appeared discreetly from behind the willows that grew at the mill
end, and so they drove home without anything exciting to mark the way.
Betty had taken many music lessons, but she was by no means a musician,
and seldom played for the pleasure of it. For some reason, after tea was
over that evening she opened Aunt Barbara's piano and began to play a
gay military march which she had toilsomely learned from one of the
familiar English operas. She played it once or twice, and played it
very well; in fact, an old gentleman who was going slowly along the
street stopped and leaned on the fence to listen. He had been a captain
in the militia in the days of the old New England trainings, and now
though he walked with two canes and was quite decrepit, he liked to be
reminded of his military service, and the march gave him a great
pleasure and made him young again while he stood there beating time on
the front fence, and nodding his head. One may often give pleasure
without knowing it, if one does pleasant things.
Next morning, early after breakfast, Betty appeared at Miss Mary
Leicester's door with an armful of mending. Aunt Mary waked up early and
had her breakfast in bed, and liked very much to be called upon
afterward and to hear something pleasant. One of the windows of her room
looked down into the garden and it was cool and shady there at this time
of the day, so Betty seated herself with a dutiful and sober feeling not
unmixed with enjoyment.
"I have thought ever since yesterday that I was too severe, my dear,"
said Aunt Mary somewhat wistfully from her three pillows. "But you see,
Betty, I am so conscious of the mistakes of my own life that I wish to
help you to avoid them. It is a terrible thing to become dependent upon
other people,--especially if they are busy people," she added
plaintively.
"Oh, I ought to have managed everything better," responded Betty,
looking at the ends of two fingers that had poked directly through a
stocking toe. "I don't mean to let things get so bad again. I never do
when I am with papa, because--I know better. But it has been such fun to
play since I came to Tideshead! I don't feel a bit grown up here."
Aunt Mary looked at little Betty with an affectionate smile.
"I think fifteen is such a funny age," Betty went on; "you seem to just
perch there between being a little girl and a young lady, and first you
think you are one and then you think you are the other. I feel like a
bird on a bough, or as if I were living in a railway station, waiting
for a train to come in before I could do anything."
Betty said this gravely, and then felt a little shy and self-conscious.
Aunt Mary watched her as she sat by the window sewing, and was wise
enough not to answer, but she could not help thinking that Betty was a
dear girl. It was one of Aunt Mary's very best days, and there were some
things one could say more easily to her than to Aunt Barbara, though
Aunt Barbara was what Betty was pleased to irreverently call her pal.
"I do wish that I had a talent for something," said Betty. "I can't
sing: if I could, I am sure that I would sing for everybody who asked
me. I don't see what makes people so silly about it; hear that old robin
now!" and they both laughed. "Nobody asks me to play who knows anything
about music. I wish I had Aunt Barbara's fingers; I don't believe I can
ever learn. I told papa it was just throwing money away, and he said it
was good to know how to play even a little, and good for my hands, to
make them quick and clever."
"You played that march very well last night," said Aunt Mary kindly.
"Oh, that sort of thing! But I mean other music, the hard things that
papa likes. There is one of the Chopin nocturnes that Mrs. Duncan
plays, oh, it is so beautiful! I wish you and Aunt Barbara knew it."
"You must ask Aunt Barbara to practice it. I like to have her keep on
playing. We used to hear a great deal of music when I was well enough to
go to Boston in the winter, years ago," and Aunt Mary sighed. "I think
it is a great thing to have a gift for home life, as you really have,
Betty dear."
"Papa and I have been in such queer holes," laughed Betty. "Mrs. Duncan
and some of our friends are never tired of hearing about them. But you
know we always try to do the same things. If I hadn't any other teacher
when we were just flying about, papa always heard my lessons and made me
keep lesson hours; and he goes on with his affairs and we are quite
orderly, indeed we are, so it doesn't make much difference where we
happen to be. Then I have been whole winters in London, and Mrs. Duncan
looks after us a good deal."
"Mary Duncan is a wise and charming woman," said Aunt Mary.
"All the big Duncans are so nice to the little ones!" said Betty; "but
papa and I can be old or young just as we choose, and we try to make up
for not being a large family," which seemed to amuse both Aunt Mary and
Letty, who had just come in.
The hour soon slipped by and Betty's needle had done great execution,
but a little heap was laid aside for the rag-bag as too hopeless a wreck
for any mending. It was plain that too much trust had been reposed in
strange washerwomen, for one could put a finger through the underwaists
anywhere, such damaging soap had evidently been used to make them clean.
Betty had heard that paper clothes were coming into fashion from Japan,
and informed her aunt of this probable change for the better with great
glee. Then she went away to the garden to cut some flowers for the
house, and found Aunt Barbara there before her, tying up the hollyhock
stalks to some stakes that Seth Pond was driving down. Aunt Barbara had
a shallow basket and was going to cut the sweet-clover flowers that
morning, to dry and put on her linen shelves along with some sprigs of
lavender, and this pleasant employment took another half hour.
"Aunt Mary was so dear this morning!" said Betty, as they stood on
opposite sides of a tall sweet-clover top.
"She feels pretty well, then," answered Miss Leicester, much pleased.
"Yes," said Betty, snipping away industriously; "she didn't wish to be
pitied one bit. Don't you think we could give her some chloroform, Aunt
Bab, and put her on the steamer and take her to England? She would get
so excited and have such a good time and be well forever after."
"I really have thought so," acknowledged Aunt Barbara, smiling at
Betty's audacity. "But your Aunt Mary has suffered many things, and has
lost her motive power. She cannot rouse herself when she wishes to,
nowadays, but must take life as it comes. I can see that it was a
mistake to yield years ago to her nervous illness, but I was not so wise
then, and now it is too late. You know, Betty, she had a great sorrow,
and has never been the same person since."
"So had papa when mamma died," said Betty gravely, and trying hard to
understand; "but he cured himself by just living for other people, and
thinking whether _they_ were happy."
"It is the only way, dear," said Aunt Barbara, "but when you are older
you will know better how it has been with my poor sister."
Betty said no more, but she had many thoughts. Something that had been
said about losing one's motive power had struck very deep. She had said
something herself about waiting for her train in the station, and she
had a sudden vision of the aimlessness of it, and of even the train
bills and advertisements on the wall. She was eager, as all girls are,
for one single controlling fate or fortune to call out all her growing
energies, but she was aware at this moment that she herself must choose
and provide; she must learn to throw herself heartily into her life just
as it was. It was a moment of clear vision to Betty Leicester, and her
cheeks flushed with bright color. It wasn't the thing one had to do, but
the way one learned to do it, that distinguished one's life. Perhaps she
could be famous for every-day homely things and have a real genius for
something so simple that nobody else had thought of it. That night when
Betty said her prayers one new thing came into her mind to be asked for,
and was a great help, so that she often remembered it afterward. "Help
me to have a good time doing every-day things, and to make my work my
pleasure."
X.
UP-COUNTRY.
AUNT BARBARA and Betty had finished their breakfast in the cool
breakfast-room, or little dining-room as it was sometimes called by the
family. This looked out on the short elm-shaded grass of the side yard,
but it was apt to get too warm later in the day. The dining-room was
much larger, and had most of the family portraits in it and a ponderous
sideboard and side tables, and Betty sometimes thought that a good deal
of machinery had to be set running there to give a quiet dinner or
supper just to Aunt Barbara and herself. But the little dining-room was
very cosy, with a small sideboard and a tall clock and an old
looking-glass and very old-fashioned slender wooden armchairs. The sun
came dancing in through the leaves at a square window. The
breakfast-room was nearer the kitchen, and Serena had a sociable custom
of appearing now and then to ask Miss Leicester about the housekeeping.
"There now, Miss Barb'ra," she exclaimed, putting her head in at the
door, while Betty and her aunt still lingered. "You excuse me this time,
but here's Jonathan considers it best to go off up-country looking for
winter's wood, of all things! I told him I'd like to ride up long of him
to see sister Sarah when he went, but I never expected he'd select the
very day I set two weeks ago for us to pick the currants."
"But one day will make very little difference; I thought yesterday when
you spoke of them that they needed a little more sun," said Miss
Leicester persuasively.
"'T will bring the jelly right into the last o' the week when there's
enough to do any way." One would have thought that Serena was being
forced into unpleasant duty, but this was her way of beginning a day's
pleasure, and Miss Leicester had been familiar with it for many years.
"He's goin' right off; puttin' the hosses in now; never gives nobody a
moment to consider," grumbled Serena, but Miss Leicester laughed and
bade the good soul hurry and get herself ready. There was nothing to be
done that day that Letty could not manage, or Letty's sister would come
over in the afternoon, or Mrs. Grimshaw, the extra helper who was
frequently on hand. "I think Jonathan is wise not to give you any more
time to think about it. There's no use in scouring the whole house
outside and in before you take a day's pleasure," she suggested
cheerfully.
"I like to have my mind at rest," responded Serena, but still there was
something unsaid. Betty's eyes were eager, but she considerately waited
for Serena to speak first. "You see, Miss Barb'ra, Jonathan's got to
take up the rag-bags, 't is most a year since I got 'em up to sister
Sarah's before, and they're in the way here, we all know, and I've got
some bundles beside, and I told Seth Pond to run out an' pick a mess o'
snap beans. Sister Sarah's piece is very late land and I s'pose she
won't have any; and Jonathan he knows when I start I fill up more than
the little wagon; so he's got the big one, and that makes empty seats,
an' Miss Betty was saying that when I was goin' up again"--
"You are base conspirators, both of you," said Aunt Barbara, much
amused. "It is a delightful day; the weather couldn't be better. Now
hurry, Betty, and don't keep Serena waiting."
"If it's so that you really want to go, Miss Betty."
"I do, indeed, Miss Serena," responded Betty with great spirit, and off
she ran up-stairs, while her aunt hurried to find something to send by
way of remembrance, not only to Serena's sister Sarah, but to Seth's
mother, who lived two miles this side.