MARY ERSKINE'S VISITORS.
Mary Erskine's anticipations of happiness in being the mistress of her
own independent home were very high, but they were more than realized.
The place which had been chosen for the house was not only a suitable
one in respect to convenience, but it was a very pleasant one. It was
near the brook which, as has already been said, came cascading down
from among the forests and mountains, and passing along near one side
of Albert's clearing, flowed across the road, and finally emptied into
the great stream. The house was placed near the brook, in order that
Albert might have a watering-place at hand for his horses and cattle
when he should have stocked his farm. In felling the forest Albert
left a fringe of trees along the banks of the brook, that it might be
cool and shady there when the cattle went down to drink. There was a
spring of pure cold water boiling up from beneath some rocks not far
from the brook, on the side toward the clearing. The water from this
spring flowed down along a little mossy dell, until it reached the
brook. The bed over which this little rivulet flowed was stony, and
yet no stones were to be seen. They all had the appearance of rounded
tufts of soft green moss, so completely were they all covered and
hidden by the beautiful verdure.
Albert was very much pleased when he discovered this spring, and
traced its little mossy rivulet down to the brook. He thought that
Mary Erskine would like it. So he avoided cutting down any of the
trees from the dell, or from around the spring, and in cutting down
those which grew near it, he took care to make them fall away from
the dell, so that in burning they should not injure the trees which he
wished to save. Thus that part of the wood which shaded and sheltered
the spring and the dell, escaped the fire.
The house was placed in such a position that this spring was directly
behind it, and Albert made a smooth and pretty path leading down to
it; or rather he made the path smooth, and nature made it pretty. For
no sooner had he completed his work upon it than nature began to adorn
it by a profusion of the richest and greenest grass and flowers,
which she caused to spring up on either side. It was so in fact in all
Albert's operations upon his farm. Almost every thing that he did was
for some purpose of convenience and utility, and he himself undertook
nothing more than was necessary to secure the useful end. But his kind
and playful co-operator, nature, would always take up the work
where he left it, and begin at once to beautify it with her rich and
luxuriant verdure. For example, as soon as the fires went out over the
clearing, she began, with her sun and rain, to blanch the blackened
stumps, and to gnaw at their foundations with her tooth of decay. If
Albert made a road or a path she rounded its angles, softened away all
the roughness that his plow or hoe had left in it, and fringed it with
grass and flowers. The solitary and slender trees which had been left
standing here and there around the clearing, having escaped the fire,
she took under her special care--throwing out new and thrifty branches
from them, in every direction, and thus giving them massive and
luxuriant forms, to beautify the landscape, and to form shady retreats
for the flocks and herds which might in subsequent years graze upon
the ground. Thus while Albert devoted himself to the substantial and
useful improvements which were required upon his farm, with a view
simply to profit, nature took the work of ornamenting it under her own
special and particular charge.
The sphere of Mary Erskine's duties and pleasures was within doors.
Her conveniences for house-keeping were somewhat limited at first, but
Albert, who kept himself busy at work on his land all day, spent the
evenings in his shanty shop, making various household implements and
articles of furniture for her. Mary sat with him, usually, at such
times, knitting by the side of the great, blazing fire, made partly
for the sake of the light that it afforded, and partly for the warmth,
which was required to temper the coolness of the autumnal evenings.
Mary took a very special interest in the progress of Albert's work,
every thing which he made being for her. Each new acquisition, as one
article after another was completed and delivered into her possession,
gave her fresh pleasure: and she deposited it in its proper place in
her house with a feeling of great satisfaction and pride.
"Mary Erskine," said Albert one evening--for though she was married,
and her name thus really changed, Albert himself, as well as every
body else, went on calling her Mary Erskine just as before--"it
is rather hard to make you wait so long for these conveniences,
especially as there is no necessity for it. We need not have paid for
our land this three years. I might have taken the money and built a
handsome house, and furnished it for you at once."
"And so have been in debt for the land," said Mary.
"Yes," said Albert. "I could have paid off that debt by the profits of
the farming. I can lay up a hundred dollars a year, certainly."
"No," said Mary Erskine. "I like this plan the best. We will pay as
we go along. It will be a great deal better to have the three hundred
dollars for something else than to pay old debts with. We will build a
better house than this if we want one, one of these years, when we get
the money. But I like this house very much as it is. Perhaps, however,
it is only because it is my own."
It was not altogether the idea that it was her own that made Mary
Erskine like her house. The interior of it was very pleasant indeed,
especially after Albert had completed the furnishing of it, and had
laid the floor. It contained but one room, it is true, but that was a
very spacious one. There were, in fact, two apartments enclosed by the
walls and the roof, though only one of them could strictly be called
a room. The other was rather a shed, or stoop, and it was entered from
the front by a wide opening, like a great shed door. The entrance to
the house proper was by a door opening from this stoop, so as to be
sheltered from the storms in winter. There was a very large fire place
made of stones in the middle of one side of the room, with a large
flat stone for a hearth in front of it. This hearth stone was very
smooth, and Mary Erskine kept it always very bright and clean. On
one side of the fire was what they called a settle, which was a long
wooden seat with a very high back. It was placed on the side of the
fire toward the door, so that it answered the purpose of a screen to
keep off any cold currents of air, which might come in on blustering
winter nights, around the door. On the other side of the fire was a
small and \ very elegant mahogany work table. This was a present to
Mary Erskine from Mrs. Bell on the day of her marriage. There were
drawers in this table containing sundry conveniences. The upper drawer
was made to answer the purpose of a desk, and it had an inkstand in
a small division in one corner. Mrs. Bell had thought of taking this
inkstand out, and putting in some spools, or something else which Mary
Erskine would be able to use. But Mary herself would not allow her to
make such a change. She said it was true that she could not write, but
that was no reason why she should not have an inkstand. So she filled
the inkstand with ink, and furnished the desk completely in other
respects, by putting in six sheets of paper, a pen, and several
wafers. The truth was, she thought it possible that an occasion
might arise some time or other, at which Albert might wish to write
a letter; and if such a case should occur, it would give her great
pleasure to have him write his letter at her desk.
Beyond the work table, on one of the sides of the room, was a
cupboard, and next to the cupboard a large window. This was the only
window in the house, and it had a sash which would rise and fall. Mary
Erskine had made white curtains for this window, which could be parted
in the middle, and hung up upon nails driven into the logs which
formed the wall of the house, one on each side. Of what use these
curtains could be except to make the room look more snug and pleasant
within, it would be difficult to say; for there was only one vast
expanse of forests and mountains on that side of the house, so that
there was nobody to look in.
On the back side of the room, in one corner, was the bed. It was
supported upon a bedstead which Albert had made. The bedstead had high
posts, and was covered, like the window, with curtains. In the other
corner was the place for the loom, with the spinning-wheel between the
loom and the bed. When Mary Erskine was using the spinning-wheel,
she brought it out into the center of the room. The loom was not yet
finished. Albert was building it, working upon it from time to time as
he had opportunity. The frame of it was up, and some of the machinery
was made.
Mary Erskine kept most of her clothes in a trunk; but Albert was
making her a bureau.
Instead of finding it lonesome at her new home, as Mrs. Bell had
predicted, Mary Erskine had plenty of company. The girls from the
village, whom she used to know, were very fond of coming out to see
her. Many of them were much younger than she was, and they loved to
ramble about in the woods around Mary Erskine's house, and to play
along the bank of the brook. Mary used to show them too, every time
they came, the new articles which Albert had made for her, and to
explain to them the gradual progress of the improvements. Mary Bell
herself was very fond of going to see Mary Erskine,--though she was of
course at that time too young to go alone. Sometimes however Mrs. Bell
would send her out in the morning and let her remain all day, playing,
very happily, around the door and down by the spring. She used to play
all day among the logs and stumps, and upon the sandy beach by the
side of the brook, and yet when she went home at night she always
looked as nice, and her clothes were as neat and as clean as when she
went in the morning. Mrs. Bell wondered at this, and on observing that
it continued to be so, repeatedly, after several visits, she asked
Mary Bell how it happened that Mary Erskine kept her so nice.
"Oh," said Mary Bell, "I always put on my working frock when I go out
to Mary Erskine's."
The working frock was a plain, loose woolen dress, which Mary Erskine
made for Mary Bell, and which Mary Bell, always put on in the morning,
whenever she came to the farm. Her own dress was taken off and
laid carefully away upon the bed, under the curtains. Her shoes and
stockings were taken off too, so that she might play in the brook if
she pleased, though Mary Erskine told her it was not best to remain in
the water long enough to have her feet get very cold.
When Mary Bell was dressed thus in her working frock, she was allowed
to play wherever she pleased, so that she enjoyed almost an absolute
and unbounded liberty. And yet there were some restrictions. She
must not go across the brook, for fear that she might get lost in the
woods, nor go out of sight of the house in any direction. She might
build fires upon any of the stumps or logs, but not within certain
limits of distance from the house, lest she should set the house on
fire. And she must not touch the axe, for fear that she might cut
herself, nor climb upon the wood-pile, for fear that it might fall
down upon her. With some such restrictions as these, she could do
whatever she pleased.
She was very much delighted, one morning in September, when she was
playing around the house in her working frock, at finding a great hole
or hollow under a stump, which she immediately resolved to have for
her oven. She was sitting down upon the ground by the side of it, and
she began to call out as loud as she could,
"Mary Erskine! Mary Erskine!"
But Mary Erskine did not answer. Mary Bell could hear the sound of the
spinning-wheel in the house, and she wondered why the spinner could
not hear her, when she called so loud.
She listened, watching for the pauses in the buzzing sound of the
wheel, and endeavored to call out in the pauses,--but with no better
success than before. At last she got up and walked along toward the
house, swinging in her hand a small wooden shovel, which Albert had
made for her to dig wells with in the sand on the margin of the brook.
"Mary Erskine!" said she, when she got to the door of the house,
"didn't you hear me calling for you?"
"Yes," said Mary Erskine.
"Then why did not you come?" said Mary Bell.
"Because I was disobedient," said Mary Erskine, "and now I suppose I
must be punished."
"Well," said Mary Bell. The expression of dissatisfaction and reproof
upon Mary Bell's countenance was changed immediately into one of
surprise and pleasure, at the idea of Mary Erskine's being punished
for disobeying _her_. So she said,
"Well. And what shall your punishment be?"
"What did you want me for?" asked Mary Erskine.
"I wanted you to see my oven."
"Have you got an oven?" asked Mary Erskine.
"Yes," said Mary Bell, "It is under a stump. I have got some wood, and
now I want some fire."
"Very well," said Mary Erskine, "get your fire-pan."
Mary Bell's fire-pan, was an old tin dipper with a long handle. It had
been worn out as a dipper, and so they used to let Mary Bell have it
to carry her fire in. There were several small holes in the bottom of
the dipper, so completely was it worn out: but this made it all the
better for a fire-pan, since the air which came up through the holes,
fanned the coals and kept them alive. This dipper was very valuable,
too, for another purpose. Mary Bell was accustomed, sometimes, to go
down to the brook and dip up water with it, in order to see the water
stream down into the brook again, through these holes, in a sort of a
shower.
Mary Bell went, accordingly, for her fire-pan, which she found in its
place in the open stoop or shed. She came into the house, and Mary
Erskine, raking open the ashes in the fire-place, took out two large
coals with the tongs, and dropped them into the dipper. Mary Bell held
the dipper at arm's length before her, and began to walk along.
"Hold it out upon one side," said Mary Erskine, "and then if you fall
down, you will not fall upon your fire."
Mary Bell, obeying this injunction, went out to her oven and put the
coals in at the mouth of it. Then she began to gather sticks,
and little branches, and strips of birch bark, and other silvan
combustibles, which she found scattered about the ground, and put them
upon the coals to make the fire. She stopped now and then a minute or
two to rest and to listen to the sound of Mary Erskine's spinning. At
last some sudden thought seemed to come into her head, and throwing
down upon the ground a handful of sticks which she had in her hand,
and was just ready to put upon the fire, she got up and walked toward
the house.
"Mary Erskine," said she, "I almost forgot about your punishment."
"Yes," said Mary Erskine, "I hoped that you had forgot about it,
altogether."
"Why?" said Mary Bell.
"Because," said Mary Erskine, "I don't like to be punished."
"But you _must_ be punished," said Mary Bell, very positively,
"and-what shall your punishment be?"
"How would it do," said Mary Erskine, going on, however, all the time
with her spinning, "for me to have to give you two potatoes to roast
in your oven?--or one? One potato will be enough punishment for such a
little disobedience."
"No; two," said Mary Bell.
"Well, two," said Mary Erskine. "You may go and get them in a pail out
in the stoop. But you must wash them first, before you put them in the
oven. You can wash them down at the brook."
"I am afraid that I shall get my fingers smutty," said Mary Bell, "at
my oven, for the stump is pretty black."
"No matter if you do," said Mary Erskine. "You can go down and wash
them at the brook."
"And my frock, too," said Mary Bell.
"No matter for that either," said Mary Erskine; "only keep it as clean
as you can."
So Mary Bell took the two potatoes and went down to the brook to wash
them. She found, however, when she reached the brook, that there was
a square piece of bark lying upon the margin of the water, and she
determined to push it in and sail it, for her ship, putting the two
potatoes on for cargo. After sailing the potatoes about for some time,
her eye chanced to fall upon a smooth spot in the sand, which she
thought would make a good place for a garden. So she determined to
_plant_ her potatoes instead of roasting them.
She accordingly dug a hole in the sand with her fingers, and put the
potatoes in, and then after covering them, over with the sand, she
went to the oven to get her fire-pan for her watering-pot, in order to
water her garden.
The holes in the bottom of the dipper made it an excellent
watering-pot, provided the garden to be watered was not too far from
the brook: for the shower would always begin to fall the instant the
dipper was lifted out of the water.
[Illustration: MARY BELL AT THE BROOK.]
After watering her garden again and again, Mary Bell concluded on the
whole not to wait for her potatoes to grow, but dug them up and began
to wash them in the brook, to make them ready for the roasting. Her
little feet sank into the sand at the margin of the water while she
held the potatoes in the stream, one in each hand, and watched the
current as it swept swiftly by them. After a while she took them out
and put them in the sun upon a flat stone to dry, and when they were
dry she carried them to her oven and buried them in the hot embers
there.
Thus Mary Bell would amuse herself, hour after hour of the long
day, when she went to visit Mary Erskine, with an endless variety of
childish imaginings. Her working-frock became in fact, in her mind,
the emblem of complete and perfect liberty and happiness, unbounded
and unalloyed.
The other children of the village, too, were accustomed to come out
and see Mary Erskine, and sometimes older and more ceremonious company
still. There was one young lady named Anne Sophia, who, having been
a near neighbor of Mrs. Bell's, was considerably acquainted with Mary
Erskine, though as the two young ladies had very different tastes and
habits of mind, they never became very intimate friends. Anne Sophia
was fond of dress and of company. Her thoughts were always running
upon village subjects and village people, and her highest ambition
was to live there. She had been, while Mary Erskine had lived at Mrs.
Bell's, very much interested in a young man named Gordon. He was a
clerk in a store in the village. He was a very agreeable young man,
and much more genteel and polished in his personal appearance than
Albert. He had great influence among the young men of the village,
being the leader in all the excursions and parties of pleasure which
were formed among them. Anne Sophia knew very well that Mr. Gordon
liked to see young ladies handsomely dressed when they appeared in
public, and partly to please him, and partly to gratify that very
proper feeling of pleasure which all young ladies have in appearing
well, she spent a large part of earnings in dress. She was not
particularly extravagant, nor did she get into debt; but she did
not, like Mary Erskine, attempt to lay up any of her wages. She often
endeavored to persuade Mary Erskine to follow her example. "It is of
no use," said she, "for girls like you and me to try to lay up money.
If we are ever married we shall make our husbands take care of us; and
if we are not married we shall not want our savings, for we can always
earn what we need as we go along."
Mary Erskine had no reply at hand to make to this reasoning, but she
was not convinced by it, so she went on pursuing her own course,
while Anne Sophia pursued hers. Anne Sophia was a very capable and
intelligent girl, and as Mr. Gordon thought, would do credit to any
society in which she might be called to move. He became more and more
interested in her, and it happened that they formed an engagement to
be married, just about the time that Albert made his proposal to Mary
Erskine.
Mr. Gordon was a very promising business man, and had an offer from
the merchant with whom he was employed as a clerk, to enter into
partnership with him, just before the time of his engagement.
He declined this offer, determining rather to go into business
independently. He had laid up about as much money as Albert had, and
by means of this, and the excellent letters of recommendation which he
obtained from the village people, he obtained a large stock of goods,
on credit, in the city. When buying his goods he also bought a small
quantity of handsome furniture, on the same terms. He hired a store.
He also hired a small white house, with green trees around it, and
a pretty garden behind. He was married nearly at the same time with
Albert, and Anne Sophia in taking possession of her genteel and
beautiful village home, was as happy as Mary Erskine was in her sylvan
solitude. Mr. Gordon told her that he had made a calculation, and he
thought there was no doubt that, if business was tolerably good that
winter, he should be able to clear enough to pay all his expenses and
to pay for his furniture.
His calculations proved to be correct. Business was very good. He
paid for his furniture, and bought as much more on a new credit in the
spring.
Anne Sophia came out to make a call upon Mary Erskine, about a
month after she had got established in her new home. She came in the
morning. Mr. Gordon brought her in a chaise as far as to the corner,
and she walked the rest of the way. She was dressed very handsomely,
and yet in pretty good taste. It was not wholly a call of ceremony,
for Anne Sophia felt really a strong attachment to Mary Erskine, and
had a great desire to see her in her new home.
When she rose to take her leave, after her call was ended, she asked
Mary Erskine to come to the village and see her as soon as she could.
"I meant to have called upon you long before this," said she, "but I
have been so busy, and we have had so much company. But I want to see
you very much indeed. We have a beautiful house, and I have a great
desire to show it to you. I think you have got a beautiful place here
for a farm, one of these days; but you ought to make your husband
build you a better house. He is as able to do it as my husband is to
get me one, I have no doubt."
Mary Erskine had no doubt either. She did not say so however, but only
replied that she liked her house very well. The real reason why she
liked it so much was one that Anne Sophia did not consider. The reason
was that it was her own. Whereas Anne Sophia lived in a house, which,
pretty as it was, belonged to other people.
All these things, it must be remembered, took place eight or ten years
before the time when Malleville and Phonny went to visit Mary Erskine,
and when Mary Bell was only four or five years old. Phonny and
Malleville, as well as a great many other children, had grown up from
infancy since that time. In fact, the Jemmy who fell from his horse
and sprained his ankle the day they came, was Jemmy Gordon, Anne
Sophia's oldest son.