It is a long lane that has no turning, and Dolly now began to get about
once more.
"Dear me"--she exclaimed one morning, as she crawled round the shop,
enveloped in a woolen shawl--"how every thing _has_ gone to rack and
ruin since I have been sick; one month more sickness and I should have
had to fail. See that yellow ribbon, all faded out, a lying in that
window; when I was about, I moved it from the show-case to the window,
and from the window to the show-case, according to the sun; three
shillings a yard too, bought of Bixby & Co., the last time I went to the
city; and there's the dress-caps put into the bonnet-boxes, and the
bonnets put into the dress-cap boxes. Whose work is that I'd like to
know? And as I live, if there isn't a hole in the cushion of my rocking
chair, and the tassel torn off the window shade. O--d-e-a-r--m-e!" and
Dolly sank into a chair, and looked pins and needles at the helpless
Daffy.
"You forget how much we have had to do, don't you, Dolly? I have hardly
sat down half an hour at a time. What with waiting on customers, and
looking after housekeeping matters, I am as tired as an old horse. I
tried to do the best I could, Dolly."
"That's what people always say when they have left every thing at sixes
and sevens; but that don't put the color back into Bixby & Co.'s yellow
ribbon, nor mend the shade tassel, nor the hole in my chair cushion. For
mercy's sake, didn't you have Rose to help you? You make such a fuss
about being tired."
"It took about all Rose's time to wait on you," answered Daffy.
"That's a good one!" exclaimed Dolly; "all on earth I wanted was to be
kept quiet, take my medicines, and have a little gruel now and then. You
can't make me believe that."
"It takes a great many steps to do even that," said Daffy, meekly; "but
you are weak yet, Dolly, and a little thing troubles you."
"Do you mean to tell me that sickness has injured my mind?" said the
incensed milliner; "that's a pretty story to get about among my
customers. I could trim twenty bonnets if I chose. I am not so far gone
as you think for; perhaps you was looking forward to the time when Dolly
Smith would be taken off the sign-board, and Daffodil put up instead;
perhaps Rose was to be your head apprentice; perhaps so."
"Oh, Dolly," said Daffy, shrinking away from her cutting tone, "how can
you?"
"Well, I'm good for a _little_ while longer," said Dolly, "any how; now
see that child," said she, pointing to Rose, who had just entered the
door, "I bought those shoes just before I was sick, and now her toes are
all out of 'em. See there, now. Do you suppose I can afford to find you
in shoes at that rate?" and she seized Rose by the shoulders, pressing
her thumb into her arm-pit, in a way to make her wince.
"I'm very sorry, Aunt Dolly, but I had so much running to do. Had I
thought of it, I would have taken off my shoes."
"And worn your stockings all out," said Dolly, "that would have been a
great saving, indeed."
"I would have taken them off, too, had I thought you would have liked
it, Aunt Dolly."
"And gone barefoot here, in my house, so that the neighbors might say I
didn't half clothe you. You never will pay for what you cost," said
Dolly, pushing her roughly away. "You are just like your
mother--ex-actly. Now begin to cry--that's mother, too, all over."
"If I were only with her," thought Rose, as she seated herself at her
work.
Daffy stooped near to Rose, ostensibly to pick up a spool of thread, but
in fact to whisper, "Never you mind, Rose; it is always the darkest just
before day."
A few weeks of returning health and successful bonnet-making made the
amiable Dolly a little more endurable to every body but our heroine;
for she had settled it in her mind that scant fare and harsh treatment
were the only means to keep Maria's child where she should be.
It was Saturday morning, or, in other words, Dolly's baking-day. You
might have known it by the way the tables and chairs spun round, the
window-sashes flew up and down, and by the pop-gun curtness of Dolly's
questions and answers. Every body gave Dolly a wide berth on Saturday;
even the cat kept out of doors till the last smoking loaf was taken from
the oven, and Dolly had reseated herself at her usual post behind the
counter. Poor Daffy dodged round in the most diplomatic manner, and
never ventured a disclaimer for any sin, how heinous soever, with which
Dolly might wrongfully charge her. With Rose it was _always_ 'Saturday,'
and so she experienced no unusual flutter when Dolly bade her follow her
into the kitchen, "as it was high time she learned to do the baking."
"Here, now," said Dolly, "down with you in that chair, and see if you
can stone those raisins decently. Mind that you whistle all the while
you are doing it, I don't want them all eat up; raisins cost something,
they are very much like you in that respect."
Rose took the wooden bowl in her lap, and commenced her task, though she
could not exactly understand how she was to learn to bake with her eyes
fixed on the raisins.
"What is that?" asked Rose, as Dolly measured out some lard, and put it
on the table.
"What do you suppose it is, for mercy's sake? I dare say you thought it
was cheese. It would be just like you; it's lard, of course."
"How much did you put in, Aunt Dolly?"
"The usual quantity; how do you suppose my pies would taste, if I made
them helter-skelter?"
"That's why I asked you," answered Rose, meekly.
"Well, how much did I put in? Why, there's that bowl full," said Dolly,
"haven't you got eyes?"
"But if that bowl should get broke, Aunt Dolly, I couldn't tell, unless
I had another exactly that size, how much to take."
"I suppose it must needs be a yellow bowl, too," sneered Dolly, "just
like this, with a black rim round the edge; how ridikilis!"
"Isn't there any rule?" asked Rose, despondingly; "how shall I know when
I get it right?"
"Why, go by your common sense, of course; how ridikilis; there, now,
just see how you have cut those apples, all sorts of ways; wasted half
of 'em in the parings."
"I am sorry," said Rose, "I was trying to learn how you made that
crust--how much butter is there there, Aunt Dolly?"
"Why, those two pieces, don't you see? what silly questions you ask."
"I am afraid I shall never learn," said the bewildered Rose, "I don't
believe I could do it."
"I dare say you couldn't; you are just as stupid about that as you are
about every thing else. You are just like your mother, ex-actly."
"What did you do that for?" asked Rose, as Dolly, having made her paste,
put a small dab of dough in the mouth of the oven.
"'Cause I felt like it," said Dolly, "it don't look like a pudding, does
it, and it isn't a pie; I dare say you'd stare at it till the
millennium, without ever guessing what it was for; come, stone your
raisins; you won't get done till next Christmas; of course, if you had
any sense, you'd know that it was a piece of dough put there to try the
heat of the oven--you are the tiresomest little young one I ever saw;
you always talk at me, till I'm all gone at the stomach."
"Why did you stand some of the pies up on bricks in the oven, and set
others on the oven floor?" asked Rose, a short time after.
"Well," exclaimed Dolly, "that goes ahead of any thing you have said
yet; if it wasn't for letting my oven cool, I could hold my sides and
laugh an hour; a smart cook you'd make; don't you see that there's
either too many pies or too small an oven, and that by standing bricks
endways between the plates, and putting pies on top of 'em, I can get
lots more room, you born fool! Did you ever see such a stupid thing?"
asked Dolly, turning to Daffy.
"But it's all new to her, you know," said Daffy, apologetically.
"Well, new or old, that child never will be good for any thing, with all
my trying; she's just like her mother, ex-actly."
"There, now," said Dolly, "I am going into the bed-room to lie down; now
see if you have sense enough to clear up here; get the dough off that
pan and rolling-pin, put away the dredging-box, and salt, and lard, and
butter, and things; throw away those apple chunks and raisin stuns, wash
off the table, scrub up the floor, rinse out the dish-towels, and don't
be all day about it."
As Dolly slammed the door to behind her, Rose sat down on one of the
kitchen chairs, leaned her head on the table, and wept; she was growing
older, and more capable of judging of the gross injustice done her.
Bitter, despairing thoughts came into her gentle heart, for it seemed as
if the more patiently she bore her cross, the heavier it grew. She
wondered if she could be worse off if she ran away, with the earth for
her pillow, the skies for her shelter? Surely, strangers would not be
more unfeeling than Dolly.
Oh, how could Dolly be sister to the gentle mother, whom she had seen
drooping away day by day, and whose sweet, tender eyes had never yet
faded from her sight. Rose remembered the murmured prayer with which she
drew her little head upon her bosom the day she died, and now--she
looked hopelessly about her. Hark--she thought she heard her name
murmured in those same sweet, loving, maternal accents.
"_Rose!_"
Was it fancy? No! A bunch of flowers glanced through the open window and
fell at her feet; a paper was twisted round the stem, and on it was
written,
"FOR THE BABY'S FRIEND, LITTLE ROSE.
"When thy father and thy mother forsake thee, then the Lord will
take thee up."
A bright smile came to Rose's lip, and with a hurried glance around the
kitchen, she hid the bouquet in her bosom, and stepped lightly to her
tasks.
The baby's mother loved her; the flowers were rightly
named--Heart's-ease.