AN
INDEPENDENT DAUGHTER
[Illustration: The newly made graduate hurried down to meet her
friends.]
AN INDEPENDENT DAUGHTER
BY
AMY E. BLANCHARD
AUTHOR OF “TWO GIRLS,” “BETTY OF WYE,” “THREE PRETTY MAIDS,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ALICE BARBER STEPHENS
[Illustration: '[Logo]’]
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1900.
COPYRIGHT, 1898,
BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
COLLEGE-MATES 11
CHAPTER II.
A SERENADE 25
CHAPTER III.
FAREWELL, ALMA MATER 42
CHAPTER IV.
LISA’S WEDDING-DAY 58
CHAPTER V.
RUFFLED FEATHERS 72
CHAPTER VI.
DEAR DELIGHTS 85
CHAPTER VII.
A SUMMER SHOWER 100
CHAPTER VIII.
A COMING SHADOW 114
CHAPTER IX.
YOUR GOOD COMRADE 129
CHAPTER X.
UNTO THE HILLS 143
CHAPTER XI.
THE NEW TEACHER 156
CHAPTER XII.
NEW FRIENDS 168
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHRISTMAS-TREE 181
CHAPTER XIV.
A SLEIGHING PARTY 194
CHAPTER XV.
PITFALLS 207
CHAPTER XVI.
THE HOUSE OF THE BLACKSMITH 221
CHAPTER XVII.
“JES’ MISS ANNE” 234
CHAPTER XVIII.
A DREAM FULFILLED 248
CHAPTER XIX.
LEAVE-TAKINGS 264
CHAPTER XX.
AT LAST 277
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The newly made graduate hurried down to meet her
friends _Frontispiece._
She bent over it eagerly 136
Across the bed was thrown the figure of the girl 222
He had dropped on his knees beside her, and had
gathered her hands in his 286
[Illustration: '[Fleuron]’]
AN
INDEPENDENT DAUGHTER
CHAPTER I.
COLLEGE-MATES.
Persis Holmes was walking slowly down the street. The summer breeze
swept her college gown around her in swirling lines, and ruffled her
hair so that once or twice she put up her hand to tuck back the straying
locks under her “mortar board.” She was coming from one of the
dormitories, and her goal was the gray building farther down the street.
She had not yet reached the long walk which led the way, between
pleasant stretches of green sward, up to the door of the principal
college building, when she heard some one running behind her. “Stop,
Persis,” a voice called.
Persis paused and waited for a little dumpling of a girl who came up
nearly out of breath. “I thought I’d never catch you,” she panted. “You
look just like a poster girl, Perse, with those spiral folds wrapping
around you. I want to know if you’ve heard from Annis.”
Persis looked down smilingly at Patty Peters’s little roly-poly figure.
Persis was not much over medium height, but she quite towered above
Patty. “I did have a letter this very morning,” she replied. “It was
written from Heidelberg, and the boys had been there.”
“Tell me what she said.” And Patty gave a little skip in order to keep
up with her friend’s longer pace.
Persis took a letter from one of her note-books. “We’ll go to the
reading-room, and I can tell you.”
Patty agreed, and, swinging open the heavy door at the entrance of the
building, Persis led the way, and the two girls settled themselves in a
corner for a whispered conference.
They were laughing heartily when they were joined by Nettie Greene.
“What are you two chuckling over?” she asked.
“Why, Persis has just been reading a letter from Annis,” Patty replied.
“Tell her, Persis.”
“Why, it is only a story about one of our college boys; the captain of a
foot-ball team he is. You know how the students in Heidelberg think they
display their prowess by slashing each other, and duelling, and all that
foolishness. Well, Harvey Dana is there studying, and one day, as he was
walking down the street, two German students stepped up, and one of them
struck him square in the face. You can imagine Harvey’s rage. He just
drew off and gave the fellow a blow, and a twist that sent him rolling
over and over in the gutter. Then he squared on the second one, and for
a moment the volumes of German and English words of wrath made the place
tremble, but the first fellow picked himself up, and they all looked at
each other, and then the Germans broke out into a roar of laughter, and
apologized, asking to shake hands, and wanting Harvey to take a glass of
beer with them. They just wanted to test him.”
“Well, they found out the stuff of which he is made,” said Nettie. “Of
course, Annis is having a lovely time, but you must miss her very much,
Persis.”
“I do miss her. Yes, she is having the treat of her life, and the voyage
did her good. Annis is not very strong,—that is, she has not the
endurance that I have, and Mrs. Brown thought a year of Europe would do
more for her than this last year of college.”
“How do you like living in the Boarding Hall?” asked Nettie. “You had
such a pleasant home with the Browns; it seemed too bad that you had to
give it up just at the last.”
“So much the better that I did not have to give it up before. I don’t
mind the experience. I’m rather fond of new experiences. I am finding
out a lot about human nature, and the truth of the saying, that you
don’t know people till you come to live with them, is daily becoming
more and more borne in upon me. The girls here are truly a motley crew.”
“I know,” returned Nettie. “I tried it last year, you know. The first
and second year Margaret and I were together, but this last year mamma
thought I might be trusted to behave myself outside of college walls,
and so I’ve had rather a freer time. I must say I don’t like being
hedged in by rules and regulations.”
“I don’t mind those much,” replied Persis, “but I must confess I don’t
like to be quite so close to some of my neighbors. There is one girl who
is the most pervasive person I ever saw. She slams her door so that it
shakes the building every time she goes in or out her room; her tread
upon the stairs is like an elephant’s, and she screams through the halls
like a fish-woman. I can’t imagine what sort of a home she has lived in,
and yet she is supposed to belong to nice people.”
Nettie smiled. “Like a girl who has been boarding where I do,” she
remarked. “She makes her boast that she can be ready for breakfast three
minutes after the bell rings, and that she never gets up till she hears
it. I told her I hoped she didn’t do it often, for if cleanliness were
next to godliness she must be miles away from the latter. It was very
rude of me to say so, but she provoked me to it.”
Persis laughed. “How did the three-minute maid like that?”
“She was furious, naturally, but I noticed after that she was much later
in coming down to breakfast. She is horrid anyhow. So very ill-bred, and
the most vulgarly exacting creature you ever saw. She pays less board
than any of us, and seems to think our dear, kind Mrs. Scott keeps
boarders simply because it is a privilege to have such young persons
under her roof. I can’t bear the idea of demanding more than you pay
for, and I wish you could see this fussy and fastidious young woman.
Such actions as hers prove her no Christian, if they do not prove that
she is underbred.” And Nettie sniffed contemptuously.
“Mothers are very right when they tell us that they are judged by our
actions,” put in Patty. “I always get my idea of a girl’s home from the
way she behaves away from it, and perhaps it is not always fair to her
mother.”
“Let’s adjourn to my room,” Persis proposed, bouncing up. “I only came
over to hunt up a reference, and then I’ll be ready to go back. Mell
sent me a big box of home-made caramels to-day, and they’re fine.”
“Where is the girl who could withstand such a treat?” replied Nettie.
“I’m ready to sample them. What do you hear from home, Perse? All well?”
“All are well. Grandmother has had a cold, but she is better. Father is
busy on his new book. Lisa and mamma are absorbed in wedding-clothes.
Mell has been sulking for some time past, and sent me the caramels as a
peace-offering.”
Nettie looked up inquiringly.
Persis laughed. “Oh, it’s nothing, only Aunt Esther invited me to spend
a part of the summer holidays with her. She has a project for a trip in
which I am included. Mell has always felt that, in some way, she had a
pre-empted right on Aunt Esther, and she didn’t relish being set aside
on this occasion. It’s mean of me to tell it, but you know her so well.”
Persis was always contrite when she came suddenly to a realizing sense
of having said more than was necessary. She turned to the bookcases,
wishing she could hold herself in check more readily.
But these, her special friends, did not censure her, for they knew the
Holmes girls of old. Nettie Greene and her sisters, in particular, had
been the playmates of Persis and her sisters ever since they could
toddle, and Nettie was fonder of Persis than of Lisa and Mellicent.
Lisa, the eldest, was soon to marry a young naval officer. Mellicent,
the youngest, had just finished her studies at Miss Adams’s school, and
did not care to undertake a higher course. She was fond of admiration
and pleasure, and, being an exceedingly pretty girl, was likely to have
both. She had sweet, affectionate, appealing ways, generous she was, and
devoted to the friends who professed a fondness for her, or who admired
her, but she was quite ready to turn from them at a word of dispraise,
or at the slightest appearance of lack of admiration. Of the three
Holmes girls, she was, so far as mere external beauty went, perhaps the
most attractive. Lisa, in her way, was quite as handsome, and possessed
of a really finer character. She was, however, imperious and haughty,
and needed the discipline of sorrow to develop her. Persis, the middle
one, had her faults. She was quick-tempered, decided in her opinions,
and rather too ready to express them, but she was forgiving and
sympathetic, selfsacrificing and loyal to the last degree, ready for
self-reproach when she realized that she was at fault, and willing to
admit her error. She was at this time slightly above medium height, with
an erect carriage which made her look taller. Her intelligent speaking
countenance reflected every emotion, and her earnest gray eyes spoke of
truth and sincerity. She did not look at all like her sisters, and
although the mere casual observer was ordinarily attracted to the other
two, Persis’s friends perceived a beauty which mere outline of feature
was not required to express.
Having sought out her reference, Persis closed the book she was
consulting and put it carefully back on the shelf. She loved all books
too well to treat any one of them carelessly. “Come girls,” she said,
and the three took their way towards a tall brick building about a block
farther up the street, known as the Boarding Hall. Patty Peters was
Persis’s next-door neighbor on her right; on the left was the room of
“the girl with the elephantine tread,” as Persis called her.
The girls made themselves comfortable in Persis’s pretty room. Here her
originality and individuality showed themselves very plainly.
Nettie, nibbling at the caramels, looked around and said, “Perse, you
always do have such a way of making places cosey. There is nothing bleak
and bare about this room, and yet it is cool and refreshing. I believe
if you were in an Esquimaux hut you’d find a way to make it look bright
and cheerful.”
“I should try,” returned Persis. “I believe in being bright and cheery,
and in doing all one can to make the rest of the world feel so; and
Patty feels the same way.” Persis cast an affectionate glance towards
her little neighbor. “Patty is a cure for the blues any day,” she
continued. “She is naturally a bit of sunshine. As for myself, I decided
long ago that I could be either gloomy, miserable, and burdensome, or
cheerful, happy, and helpful, just as I cultivated a contented spirit.
It is mainly a matter of cultivation. I used to think it was much more
interesting and romantic to be repining, and to bemoan the weariness of
existence and the joylessness of the world, but I’ve found out since I
came to college that the persons who are always sighing, and fancying
trouble at every turn, are not the ones who succeed or who help to raise
the world to a better condition; therefore my motto is, ‘unwavering
cheerfulness.’”
“But one can’t wear butterfly wings all the time,” Nettie made reply.
“No. I don’t mean that one needs to be frivolous and unsympathetic. I
think it requires a lot of strength and determination to be cheerful all
the time, but it _helps_ more than anything. Why, the girls who come in
here ready to flop on some one, and get into perfect panics over
supposed future miseries, quite wear me out. There is one in particular
who is a perfect ‘old man of the sea:’ she hangs around your neck, and
you have to carry her everywhere.”
Nettie was thoughtful. “I don’t believe I ever thought of my blues
hindering other persons’ lives,” she remarked after a pause.
“But they do,” replied Persis, earnestly. “Don’t you see that if some
one has to carry her own real burdens and others’ real burdens, if you
add to them yours which are only possible, you are giving them an extra
weight?”
“I’ll be cheerful, Perse, from this out. I know now what our old nurse
meant when she used to say, ‘He that seeks trouble it is a pity he
should miss it,’ and ‘Worry is a worse dog than Want.’ I know mother
tells me I help her the most when I don’t worry.”
“That is true,” returned Persis. “I believe we could all give more help
to those we love by looking on the bright side for them and with them.
It takes all the heart out of those who are trying to have every sort of
possible misery suggested.”
“Let’s make a compact and call ourselves ‘The Cheerful Three,’” Patty
proposed.
“Good! we will,” cried the other two.
“Then we will be helpers and not hinderers,” Patty continued.
“True enough, Miss Patty-Cake. Goodness! what’s that?” And Nettie gave a
start.
The others laughed. “It’s only ‘My Lady Slam-bang,’” Persis told her
friend.
“How can you stand it? I never heard such a noise. And what a voice! Was
she brought up in the backwoods? Has she no consideration for others?”
“I think, very little of anything but thoughtlessness. And as to her
rearing, I think she must have lived in a saw-mill, where there are no
doors, or in a restaurant, where the doors swing both ways,” returned
Persis.
“Or else in a tent,” put in Patty. “I’m afraid, come to think of it,
that the Cheerful Three are disposed to be critical.”
“All girls are,” asserted Nettie, helping herself to a particularly
toothsome caramel. “Do you know, to change the subject, that you girls
must promise to come and spend next Saturday night with me?”
“Three in a bed!” exclaimed Persis, aghast.
“No, there need be but one doubling up. The three-minute maid is going
to leave us; her room is next to mine, so I have spoken for it; for the
new boarder will not come till Monday.”
“I hope the room will be well cleaned,” observed Persis.
“It will be. I’ll see that the windows are left open so as to rid the
place of any lingering odor of scented soap or cheap perfume, for I know
your aversion to them, Perse. Anyhow, I think we’ll put Patty in there,
and you can bunk in with me; I promise you no ‘German cologne’ nor
‘Cashmere bouquet’ is to be found in my apartment.”
“Then we’ll come; at least, I will. How about you, Patsy?”
“Oh, I’ll be glad to join you. What’s the special frolic, Nettie?”
“I can’t tell you. I promised not to. By the way, Persis, do you hear
from Basil Phillips often? Why didn’t he take up his studies here
instead of going abroad? He could have taken a post-graduate course.”
“Oh, he wanted to study at the Beaux Arts. He is going to be an
architect, you know,” replied Persis, passing over the first part of the
question.
“Has Annis seen him?”
“Oh, yes.” Persis did not pursue the subject, but exclaimed, “I do
believe it’s something to do with the college boys.”
“What is?” asked Patty.
“Why, Nettie’s wanting us on Saturday.”
“I’ll not tell,” cried she. “You can’t make me.”
“We don’t want to know. Do we, Patty?”
“Of course not; we’d much rather be surprised.”
“Oh, of course,” returned Nettie. “All the same, you are wild with
curiosity.”
The other two protested, and, to show their indifference, began to
discuss college topics.
Persis was an ambitious, good student, and was taking her four years’
course in three years. The departure of Annis Brown for Europe lost
Persis her special chum, for her cousin Annis was her bosom friend, and
she missed her sadly. However, she perhaps devoted herself all the more
assiduously to her work, and looked eagerly forward to the next summer
when she should be a full-fledged graduate, and could take up life
seriously.
“Dear me! Persis, do put those caramels away,” Nettie exclaimed at last.
“I have made a perfect gourmand of myself, and I am so thirsty.”
“Oh, are you? I can offer you a real home-made beverage,” replied
Persis, going to a little cupboard. “Grandma knows I am fond of
raspberry vinegar, and she made a fine lot of it last summer. It is such
a _quenchative_, as we say at home.”
“You all do have the most original sayings,” Nettie observed. “I
remember how puzzled I was when I was a little girl, and was once
spending the day with you; for when luncheon was announced, you said, ‘I
must go and brush my rabbit before I go down.’”
“What did she mean?” inquired Patty, looking puzzled.
“She meant brush her hair, a hare being called a rabbit.”
Patty gave a groan, but Persis now had ready her glasses of the cool,
ruby-colored draught, and offered it to her guests.
“How delicious it looks! and it tastes so, too.” And Nettie sipped, with
an air of satisfaction, from the thin tumbler Persis handed her.
But she had hardly more than tasted its contents before she sprang to
her feet, crying, “What is that?” for something fell heavily against the
door, and the other two girls jumped up.
Persis stood a moment, and then cautiously turned the knob. There was a
push, a sound of scurrying feet, and into the room fell a nondescript
figure, constructed out of pillows, and wearing a man’s clothes.
“It’s some of Bessie Taylor’s nonsense,” began Persis. But she stopped
short as she perceived a movement on the part of the figure lying
prostrate on the floor.
“Oh, there is something alive! Oh, girls, suppose it should be a mouse,”
cried Nettie, jumping up on a chair.
“A mouse! Who’s afraid of a mouse?” returned Persis, scornfully. “Don’t
be a goose, Nettie. I think mice are dears, myself.” And she proceeded
to examine the pinned-up coat-sleeve, which appeared to be animated by
something inside it, and, as the pins were withdrawn, out scampered a
little black kitten.
“Oh, the poor little thing!” cried Patty, trying to catch the small,
frightened creature, which took refuge under the bed.
“It’s the cook’s pet,” Persis told them. “We must take her up to the
kitchen.”
“Up!” said Nettie, descending from her perch on the chair.
“Yes. You forget the dining-room and kitchen are on the top floor.”
“To be sure. I had forgotten. Now, what can we do to pay back those
girls?”
“We’ll carry Mr. Man to Bessie’s door,” Persis decided, after a moment’s
reflection. “He shall carry this sphinx-like riddle: ‘From what was cast
down one may be set up. From what was a terror, produce a delight. Who
finds, keeps.’ I’ll put a box of caramels ’way down among the pillows,
and they’ll wonder and wonder what the mystery is.”
“What made you think of that?” questioned Patty.
“Reading about Samson, I suppose,” rejoined Persis, crowding her box
down as far as she could into the coat-sleeve. “Come, help me carry Mr.
Man back again.” The girls started, but before they had gone far they
saw the matron at the other end of the corridor. If Mrs. Nevins happened
not to be in an amiable mood, there might be a lecture in store for
them; so the girls scampered back, dragging their burden with them. But,
watching for a second opportunity, they found the coast clear, and bore
out the figure with the riddle written on a piece of paper,
conspicuously pinned to his coat. They stood it up against Bessie’s
door, and tiptoed back to Persis’s room.
A little scream half an hour later told them the manikin had been
discovered, and they chuckled over their secret.
“I think it is a pretty, amiable, nice way to pay them back,” Nettie
declared. “But Perse, you always were given to doing nice things.”
Persis laughed. “Except when I stirred up our club at home by refusing
to abide by their rules.”
“That was a nice thing in reality.”
“Yes, in the end; but what a hubbub it created!” And Persis smiled at
the recollection.
As Nettie parted from her two friends she heard a great chattering in
Bessie’s room, and knew that a bevy of girls was there, puzzling over
Persis’s riddle. High above the others came shrilly the voice of My Lady
Slam-bang. Nettie caught a perfect torrent of slang, and once a piercing
whistle.
“What a boisterous hoyden of a girl! She’d tone herself down if she knew
the impression she makes,” thought Nettie.
[Illustration: '[Fleuron]’]