GLENWOOD.
Through the rich crimson curtains which shaded Rose Lincoln's sleeping
room, the golden beams of a warm March sun wore stealing, lighting up
the thin features of the sick girl with a glow so nearly resembling
health, that Jenny, when she came to wish her sister good morning,
started with surprise at seeing her look so well.
"Why, Rose, you are better," said she, kissing the fair cheek on which
the ray of sunlight was resting.
Rose had just awoke from her deep morning slumber, and now remembering
that this was the day appointed for her dreaded journey to Glenwood,
she burst into tears, wondering "why they would persist in dragging
her from home."
"It's only a pretence to get me away, I know," said she, "and you may
as well confess it at once. You are tired of waiting upon me."
Mr. Lincoln now came in to see his daughter, but all his attempts to
soothe her were in vain. She only replied, "Let me stay at home, here
in this room, my own room;" adding more in anger than sorrow, "I'll
try to die as soon as I can; and be out of the way, if that's what you
want!"
"Oh, Rose, Rose! poor father don't deserve that," said Jenny, raising
her hand as if to stay her sister's thoughtless words while Mr
Lincoln, laying his face upon the pillow so that his silvered locks
mingled with the dark tresses of his child, wept bitterly,--bitterly.
And still he could not tell her _why_ she must leave her home. He
would rather bear her unjust reproaches, than have her know that they
were beggars; for a sudden shock the physician said, might at any time
end her life. Thoroughly selfish as she was, Rose still loved her
father dearly, and when she saw him thus moved, and knew that she was
the cause, she repented of her hasty words, and laying her long white
arm across his neck, asked forgiveness for what she had said.
"I will go to Glenwood," said she; "but must I stay there long?"
"Not long, not long, my child," was the father's reply, and Jenny
brushed away a tear as she too thought, "not long."
And so, with the belief that her stay was to be short, Rose passively
suffered them to dress her for the journey, which was to be performed
partly by railway and partly in a carriage. For the first time since
the night of his engagement with Ella Campbell, Henry was this morning
free from intoxicating drinks. He had heard them say that Rose must
die, but it had seemed to him like an unpleasant dream, from which he
now awoke to find it a reality. They had brought her down from her
chamber, and laid her upon the sofa in the parlor, where Henry came
unexpectedly upon her. He had not seen her for several days, and when
he found her lying there so pale and still, her long eyelashes resting
heavily upon her colorless cheek, and her small white hands hanging
listlessly by her side, he softly approached her thinking her asleep,
kissed her brow, cheek and lips, whispering as he did so, "Poor girl!
poor Rosa! so young and beautiful."
Rose started, and wiping from her forehead the tear her brother had
left there, she looked anxiously around. Henry was gone, but his words
had awakened in her mind a new and startling idea. Was she going to
die? Did they think so, and was this the reason of Henry's unwonted
tenderness? and sinking back upon her pillows, she wept as only those
weep to whom, in the full flush of youth and beauty, death comes a
dreaded and unwelcome guest.
"I cannot die,--I will not die," said she at last, rousing herself
with sudden energy; "I feel that within me which says I shall not die.
The air of Glenwood will do me good, and grandma's skill in nursing is
wonderful."
Consoled by these reflections, she became more calm, and had her
father now given his consent for her to remain in Boston, she would of
her own accord have gone to Glenwood.
* * * * *
The morning train bound for Albany stood in the depot, waiting the
signal to start; and just before the final "all aboard" was sounded, a
handsome equipage drove slowly up, and from it alighted Mr. Lincoln,
bearing in his arms his daughter, whose head rested wearily upon his
shoulder. Accompanying him were his wife, Jenny, and a gray-haired
man, the family physician. Together they entered the rear car, and
instantly there was a hasty turning of heads, a shaking of curls, and
low whispers, as each noticed and commented upon the unearthly beauty
of Rose, who in her father's arms, lay as if wholly exhausted with the
effort she had made.
The sight of her, so young, so fair, and apparently so low, hushed all
selfish feelings, and a gay bridal party who had taken possession of
the ladies' saloon, immediately came forward, offering it to Mr.
Lincoln, who readily accepted it, and laying Rose upon the long
settee, he made her as comfortable as possible with the numerous
pillows and cushions he had brought with him. As the creaking engine
moved slowly out of Boston, Rose asked that the window might be
raised, and leaning upon her elbow, she looked out upon her native
city, which she was leaving for ever. Some such idea came to her mind;
but quickly repressing it, she turned towards her father, saying with
a smile, "I shall be better when I see Boston again."
Mr. Lincoln turned away to hide a tear, for he had no hope that she
would ever return. Towards nightfall of the next day they reached
Glenwood, and Rose, more fatigued than she was willing to acknowledge,
now that she was so determined to get well, was lifted from the
carriage and carried into the house. Mrs. Howland hastened forward to
receive her, and for once Rose forgot to notice whether the cut of her
cap was of this year's fashion or last.
"I am weary," she said. "Lay me where I can rest." And with the
grandmother leading the way, the father carried his child to the
chamber prepared for her with so much care.
"It's worse than I thought 'twas," said Mrs. Howland, returning to the
parlor below, where her daughter, after looking in vain for the big
rocking-chair, had thrown herself with a sigh upon the chintz-covered
lounge. "It's a deal worse than I thought 'twas. Hasn't she catched
cold, or been exposed some way?"
"Not in the least," returned Mrs. Lincoln, twirling the golden stopper
of her smelling bottle. "The foundation of her sickness was laid at
Mount Holyoke, and the whole faculty ought to be indicted for
manslaughter."
Jenny's clear, truthful eyes turned towards her mother, who frowned
darkly, and continued: "She was as well as any one until she went
there, and I consider it my duty to warn all parents against sending
their daughters to a place where neither health, manners, nor any
thing else is attended to, except religion and housework."
Jenny had not quite got over her childish habit of occasionally
setting her mother right on some points, and she could not forbear
saying that Dr. Kleber thought Rose injured herself by attending Mrs.
Russell's party.
"Dr. Kleber doesn't know any more about it than I do," returned her
mother. "He's always minding other folks' business, and so are you. I
guess you'd better go up stairs, and see if Rose doesn't want
something."
Jenny obeyed, and as she entered her sister's chamber, Rose lifted her
head languidly from her pillow, and pointing to a window, which had
been opened that she might breathe more freely, said, "Just listen;
don't you hear that horrid croaking?"
Jenny laughed aloud, for she knew Rose had heard "that horrid croaking"
more than a hundred times in Chicopee, but in Glenwood everything must
necessarily assume a goblin form and sound. Seating herself upon the
foot of the bed, she said, "Why, that's the frogs. I love to hear them
dearly. It makes me feel both sad and happy, just as the crickets do
that sing under the hearth in our old home at Chicopee."
Jenny's whole heart was in the country, and she could not so well
sympathize with her nervous, sensitive sister, who shrank from country
sights and country sounds. Accidentally spying some tall locust
branches swinging in the evening breeze before the east window, she
again spoke to Jenny, telling her to look and see if the tree leaned
against the house, "for if it does," said she, "and creaks I shan't
sleep a wink to-night."
After assuring her that the tree was all right, Jenny added, "I love
to hear the wind howl through these old trees, and were it not for
you, I should wish it might blow so that I could lie awake and hear
it."
When it grew darker, and the stars began to come out. Jenny was told
"to close the shutters."
"Now, Rose," said she, "you are making half of this, for you know as
well as I, that grandma's house hasn't got any shutters."
"Oh, mercy, no more it hasn't. What _shall_ I do?" said Rose, half
crying with vexation. "That coarse muslin stuff is worse than nothing,
and everybody'll be looking in to see me."
"They'll have to climb to the top of the trees, then," said Jenny,
"for the ground descends in every direction, and the road, too, is so
far away. Besides that, who is there that wants to see you?"
Rose didn't know. She was sure there was somebody, and when Mrs.
Howland came up with one of the nicest little suppers on a small
tea-tray, how was she shocked to find the window covered with her best
blankets, which were safely packed away in the closet adjoining.
"Rose was afraid somebody would look in and see her," said Jenny, as
she read her grandmother's astonishment in her face.
"Look in and see her!" repeated Mrs. Howland. "I've undressed without
curtains there forty years, and I'll be bound nobody ever peeked at
me. But come," she added, "set up, and see if you can't eat a mouthful
or so. Here's some broiled chicken, a slice of toast, some currant
jelly that I made myself, and the swimminest cup of black tea you
ever see. It'll eenamost bear up an egg."
"Sweetened with brown sugar, ain't it?" said Rose sipping a little of
the tea.
In great distress the good old lady replied that she was out of white
sugar, but some folks loved brown just as well.
"Ugh! Take it away," said Rose. "It makes me sick and I don't believe
I can eat another mite," but in spite of her belief the food rapidly
disappeared, while she alternately made fun of the little silver
spoons, her grandmother's bridal gift, and found fault because the
jelly was not put up in porcelain jars, instead of the old blue
earthen tea-cup, tied over with a piece of paper!
Until a late hour that night, did Rose keep the whole household (her
mother excepted) on the alert, doing the thousand useless things which
her nervous fancy prompted. First the front door, usually secured with
a bit of whittled shingle, must be _nailed_, "or somebody would break
in." Next, the windows, which in the rising wind began to rattle, must
be made fast with divers knives, scissors, combs and keys; and lastly,
the old clock must be stopped, for Rose was not accustomed to its
striking, and it would keep her awake.
"Dear me!" said the tired old grandmother, when, at about midnight,
she repaired to her own cosy little bedroom, "how fidgety she is. I
should of s'posed that livin' in the city so, she'd got used to
noises."
In a day or two Mr. Lincoln and Jenny went back to Boston, bearing
with them a long list of articles which Rose must and would have. As
they were leaving the house Mrs Howland brought out her black leathern
wallet, and forcing two ten dollar bills into Jenny's hand, whispered,
"Take it to pay for them things. Your pa has need enough for his
money, and this is some I've earned along, knitting, and selling
butter. At first I thought I would get a new chamber carpet, but the
old one answers my turn very well, so take it and buy Rose every thing
she wants."
And all this time the thankless girl up stairs was fretting and
muttering about her grandmother's _stinginess_, in not having a better
carpet "than the old faded thing which looked as if manufactured
before the flood!"