CHANGEFUL LIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD
Elizabeth Leverett busied herself about the supper. She felt as one does
in the threatening of a thunderstorm, when the clouds roll up and the
rumbling is low and distant and one studies the sky with presentiments.
Then it comes nearer, flirts a little with the elements, breaks open and
shows the blue that the scurrying wind soon hides and the real storm
bursts. She had believed all along that it must come.
She was not an ungracious or a selfish woman outside of her own home.
She was good to the sick and the needy, she gave of her time and
strength. In the home there was a sense of ownership, of the
self-appropriation so often termed duty. Everything had gone on smoothly
for years. She had settled that Chilian would not marry. Such a bookish
man, whose interests lay chiefly with men, did not need a wife when
there was some one at hand to make him comfortable. And that he surely
was. He understood and enjoyed it. He had only to suggest to have. Her
affection for him was like that for a younger brother. Even Eunice could
not minister so well for his comfort, though, like Mary of Bible lore,
she often added a delicate pleasure in listening to matters or
incidents that interested him.
Elizabeth had settled to the idea of a little heathen soul that she was
to lead aright. Missionary work in godless lands had not made much
advance and, having no mother, who was there to warn her of the great
peril of her soul? Seafaring men were not much given to thought of the
other world. Perhaps there was some grace for them in the hours of
peril, she had heard they prayed to God in an extremity; and there was
the dying thief. But on land no one had a right to count on this.
The child had changed everything. Even Eunice seemed to have lost the
sharp distinction. Miss Winn belonged to the ungodly, that was
clear--though she was upright, honest, neat, and in some ways sensible.
But her ideas about the child were foreign and reprehensible--dangerous
even. The child was no worse than others, not as bad as some, for she
had either by nature or training a delicate respect for the property of
others. She never meddled. She asked few questions even when she stood
by the kitchen table and watched the mysteries of cake and pie making
and the delicacies of cooking. It was the right to herself that annoyed
Elizabeth. People had hardly begun to suspect that children had any
rights.
"But if she went away? If she was swallowed up in the vortex of the more
populous city"--greater, Salem would not have admitted. "If the child's
soul was finally lost, would she be quite clear? Would she have done all
that she could for her salvation?"
She thought of it as she prepared the supper. She surveyed the
inviting-looking table and then rang the bell. Eunice brought in a
handful of flowers. Chilian came--and Miss Winn.
"Cynthia has gone to bed, she does not want any supper," was her quiet
announcement.
Elizabeth would have sent her to bed supperless, and approved of a
severer punishment.
Miss Winn asked some questions about Boston.
"I have quite a desire to see it," she added.
Yes, she would no doubt plan for a removal. Then the child would be
forever lost. And a Leverett, too, come of a strong God-fearing family!
The child, when she had hidden her face on Rachel's bosom, gave some
dry, hard sobs that shook her small frame. Rachel smoothed her hair,
patted the shoulder softly, and said "Dear" in a caressing tone. Then
had come a torrent of tears, a wild hysterical weeping. She did not
attempt to check it, but took Cynthia in her arms as if she had been a
baby.
"I'm not going to that school any more," she said brokenly, after a
while.
"What happened, dear?"
Cynthia raised her head. "It was very mean, as if I had done it on
purpose! Why, I might have hurt myself;" indignantly.
"How was it?" gently.
And then the story came tumbling out. She saw a certain ludicrous aspect
in it now, and laughed a little herself. "I couldn't help being saucy.
And I thought she was going to strike me. Tommy Marsh began to laugh
first. The slate broke----"
"Are you quite sure you were not hurt?"
"Well, my arm hurt a little at first, but it is all well now. But I
shan't go back to school,--no, not even to please Cousin Leverett, and I
like him best of any one."
"I'm going down to supper, dear. Shall I bring up yours?"
"I don't want any. I couldn't eat anything. And I can't have Cousin
Elizabeth's sharp eyes looking at me. Oh, I'm glad I am not her little
girl! I like you a million times better, Rachel;" hugging her
rapturously. "I think I'd like to have a glass of milk. And may I lie on
your little bed?"
"Yes, dear."
She was asleep when Rachel came up and it was past nine when she woke,
drank her milk, and went to bed for the night.
How gaily the birds were singing the next morning, and the sunbeams were
playing hide-and-seek through the branches that dance in the soft wind.
All the air was sweet and the little girl couldn't help being
light-hearted. She sang, too; not measured hymns of sorrow and
repentance, but a gay lilt that followed the bird voices. And she went
down to breakfast and said her good-morning cheerfully.
"That child has the assurance of the Evil One," Elizabeth thought.
Cynthia waylaid Cousin Chilian as he was going down the path.
"I meant what I said yesterday. I won't go to that school any more. If
there was some other--only--only I wish you could teach me until I could
get up straight in all the things, so the other children wouldn't laugh
when I made blunders. I suppose it does sound funny;" and a smile
hovered about the seriousness.
"We will consider another school," he returned kindly, smiling himself
at the remembrance of the tempest of yesterday.
She persuaded Rachel to go out to walk and they went over to the bridge.
She had been so interested in the story of it. Before it had faded from
the minds of men it was to be splendidly commemorated as a point of
interest in the old town.
"I like real stories," she said. "I don't understand about the war, but
it is fine to think the Salem men made the British soldiers go back when
all the while the cannon and other arms were hidden away. You don't
mind, Rachel, if the Colonists did beat England, do you? I'm a Colonist,
you know."
"That is long ago, and we are all friends now. I think the Colonists
were very brave and persevering and they deserved their liberty. I have
heard your father talk about the war."
"Oh, when do you suppose he will come? It seems so long to wait."
Rachel smiled to keep the tears out of her eyes.
Chilian Leverett made a call and a brief explanation to Dame Wilby. She
admitted she had been hasty, but the children were unusually trying. She
was getting to be an old body and maybe she hadn't as much patience as
years ago. Cynthia said so many odd things that the children _would_
giggle. She was slow in some things, and it seemed hard for her to learn
tables, but she was not a bad child.
So the tempest blew over. Elizabeth preserved a rather injured silence,
but Eunice was cheerful and ready to entertain Cynthia with stories of
the time when she was a little girl. Chilian arranged for her to spend
most of the mornings with him when he was at home. She liked so very
much to hear him read. The histories of that time were rather dry and
long spun out, but he had a way of skipping the moralizing and the
endless disquisitions and adding a little more vividness to people and
incidents. It inspired him to watch her face changing with every
emotion, her eyes deepening or brightening, and the slight mark in her
forehead where lines of perplexity crossed. Then they would talk it all
over. Often he was puzzled with her endless "whys" that he could not
rightly explain to a child's limited understanding. Sometimes she would
say, "Why, I would have done so," and he found her course would be on
the side of the finest right, if not what was considered feasible.
The spelling was a trial when the words were a little obscure. And
though she had a wonderful knack of guessing at things, she surely was
not born for a mathematician. He had a fine, quick mind in that respect.
But the Latin was a delight to her and she delved away at the difficult
parts for the sake of what she called the grand and beautiful sound. His
rendering of it enchanted her.
"I don't see any sense in educating her like a boy," declared Elizabeth.
"And she can't do a decent bit of hemming. She ought to work a sampler
and learn the letters to mark her own clothes. We did it before we were
her age. Chilian thinks you can hire people to do these things for you,
but it seems so helpless not to be able to do them for yourself.
Housekeeping is of more account than all this folderol. She can never be
a college professor."
"But women _are_ keeping schools," interposed Eunice.
"They don't teach Latin and all kinds of nonsense. That Miss Miller was
here a few days ago to see if we didn't want our niece--folks are
beginning to call her that--to see if we did not want her to take
lessons on the spinet. I was so glad she did not appeal to Chilian,
though he was out. I said, 'No,' very decidedly, 'that she had a good
many things to learn before she tackled that.' And she said she ought
to be trained while her fingers were flexible, and I said I thought
washing would make them flexible enough. And there's fine ironing."
"There's no need of either for her," protested Eunice.
"Oh, you don't know. There might be a war again. And a trouble about
money. I'm sure there is talk enough and the country raising loans all
the time, one party pulling one way, one the other. People are getting
awfully extravagant nowadays. Patty Conant gave seven dollars a yard for
her new black silk, and there were twelve yards. It broke pretty well
into a hundred, and there was some fancy gimp and fringe and the making.
Of course, there's going to be two weddings in the family, and I don't
suppose Patty will ever buy another handsome gown at her time of life.
Abner brought her home that elegant crape shawl, with the fringe and
netting nearly half a yard deep. Maybe 'twas a present, she let it go
that way."
"Of course, there's money enough among the Conants," Eunice commented
gently.
"As I said--one can't always tell what will come to pass, nor how much
need you may have for your money. But I'm thankful my heart is not set
on the pomps and vanities of this world. And children ought to be
brought up to some useful habits."
It was a fact that Cynthia did not take to the useful branches of
womanly living. She abhorred hemming--and such work as she made of it!
Miss Eunice groaned over it.
"But you ought to have seen what I did two or three weeks ago," and she
laughed with a gay ring. "Such stitches! When I made them nice on the
top, they were dreadful underneath, and the cotton thread was almost
black. What is the use of taking such little bits of stitches?"
"Why--they look prettier. And--it is the right thing to do."
"But you know Rachel can hem all the ruffles. And Cousin Elizabeth said
ruffles were vanity. I'd like my frocks just as well to be plain."
"There would have to be nice stitches in the hem."
"Rachel didn't sew when she was little. A great lady took her to
Scotland, to wait on her, to get her shawl when she was a little cool,
and fan her when she was warm, and carry messages, and drive out in the
carriage with her. They had servants for everything. And then--she was
ten years old--she sent her to a school, where she learned everything.
But she doesn't know all the tables and a great many other things."
"But she knows what fits her for her station in life."
Cynthia looked puzzled. "What is your station in life?" she asked with
an accent of curiosity.
"Oh, child, it is where you are placed; and the work of life is the
duties that grow out of it--and your duty towards God."
Cynthia dropped into thought.
"Then my duty now is to study. I like it; that is, I like a good many
things in it. And when my father comes home it will be changed, I
suppose. You can't stay a little girl always."
"But you will have to learn to keep house," returned Eunice.
"Oh, I'll have some one to do that. Men never have to cook or keep
house. Oh, yes; all the cooks on the ship were men. Wasn't that funny!"
she continued.
She laughed with so much innocent merriment that Miss Eunice laughed
too.
"I suppose you have to do various things in your life," she sagely
remarked, after a pause.
"Then you must learn to do the various things now."
"I believe I won't ever get married. I'll live with father always, and
we will have some one to keep the house, and Rachel will make the
clothes. And I'll read aloud to father. We'll have a carriage and go out
riding, and talk about India. I remember so many things just by thinking
them over. Isn't it queer, when for a long time they have gone out of
your mind? Oh, dear Cousin Eunice, what makes you sigh?"
Cousin Eunice took off her glasses, wiped them vigorously, and then
wiped her eyes.
"It is a bad habit I have." But she was thinking of the dream of the
little girl that could never come true.
The two days in the week that Chilian went into Boston were long to
Cynthia. She sat in his room and studied. He had given her a small table
to herself and a shelf in a sort of miscellaneous bookcase. He found
that she never trespassed and that she did really study her two hours,
sometimes longer when the task was not so easily mastered. There _was_
some of the old Leverett blood in her, but it had a picturesque strain.
She placed every book at its prettiest, and her papers were gathered up
and taken down to the kitchen when she was done with them. She was
beginning to write quite well.
Then in the afternoon she went to walk with Rachel to show her the
curious places Cousin Leverett had told her about. And there were still
beautiful woods around the town, where they found wild flowers and
sassafras buds.
Elizabeth was very much engrossed. She had cleared the garret spick and
span, scrubbed up the floor, wiped off her quilting frames, and put in
her white quilt, rolling up both sides so she could get at the middle.
There was to be a circle, with clover leaves on the outside. Then long
leaves rayed off from the exact middle. She had all the patterns marked
out. When that was done a wreath went around next--oak leaves and
acorns.
She had groaned over the time the little girl devoted to Latin, but she
never thought all this a waste of precious hours. She would never need
it and she could not decide upon any relative she would like to leave it
to. There was one quilt of this pattern in Salem and, though white
quilts were made, few could afford to spend so much time over them.
There were knitted quilts, with ball fringe around four sides, and the
tester fringed the same way. Old ladies kept up their habits of industry
in this manner when they were past hard work.
Eunice had finished her basket quilt and it was really a work of art.
But she was out in the flower garden a good deal in the early morning
and late afternoon. Cynthia sometimes kept her company, but she was not
an expert in gardening science. In the evening they sat out on the
porch, and a neighbor called perhaps. Or she walked over to South River
if it was moonlight. And, oh, how beautiful everything was!
But it was not all quilting with Miss Elizabeth. In July wild green
grapes were gathered for preserves. Cynthia thought it quite fun to help
"pit" them. You cut them through the middle and with a small pointed
knife took out the seeds. She tired of it presently and did not cut them
evenly, beside she was afraid of cutting her thumb.
Cousin Elizabeth went about getting dinner, which was quite a simple
thing when Chilian was away, and at night they had a high tea.
"I'll cut them," said Eunice, "and you can pick out the seeds. But maybe
you are tired;" with a glance of solicitude.
"Yes, I'm tired, but I'm going to keep straight on until dinner-time,"
she answered pluckily.
"You are a brave little girl."
But Cousin Elizabeth said, "Well, for once you have made yourself
useful."
There was a great point of interest just then for the people on this
side of the town. Front Street was the old river path that had followed
the shore line. One end was known now as Wharf Street, and was beginning
to be lined with docks. Up farther to what is now Essex Street there had
stood a house with a history. Its owner had been a Tory, and just before
the war broke out he entertained Governor Gage and the civil and
military staff. Timothy Pickering had been summoned to the Governor's
presence, but he kept his Excellency so long in an indecent passion that
the town-meeting had to be adjourned. Troops were ordered up from the
Neck and for a while an encounter seemed imminent. Later, when the
Colonists were in the ascendency, Colonel Browne's estate was
confiscated, and after the close of the war it was turned over to Mr.
Elias Derby. Now he was removing it to make way for a much finer
residence and, being a notably patriotic citizen, he did not enjoy the
stigma of a Tory house. Parts were carried away as curiosities, and
there were some beautiful carvings and fine newel posts that found a
place in new homes as mementoes. Afterward, Mr. Derby built the
handsomest and costliest house in Salem, with grounds laid out
magnificently.
Then came a very busy time. There was preserving that every housewife
attended to for winter use, pickling of various kinds, for there was no
canning stock in those days to eke out. There were some queer fruits
from India, and preserved ginger in curious jars that are highly
esteemed to this day, but they were luxuries. Then a house-cleaning
season, not as bad as the spring, but still bad enough. And flower seeds
to be saved, garden seeds to be dried, so the beautiful quilt was rolled
up in a thick sheet and put away for the present.
The little girl had made quite friends with the Upham children and went
over there to tea all alone, but she felt very strange. They played tag
and blind-man's buff, but Cynthia thought puss in the corner the most
fun. Bentley was a nice big boy and very well mannered. Polly talked
over her school and brought out her needlework, which was to be the
bottom of a white frock. It would be only two yards round and she had
almost a yard worked. Then she was making a sampler, with an oak and
acorn vine around it, and it was to have four different kinds of
lettering on it.
"I don't know when I shall get it done," she said with a sigh.
Betty declared Dame Wilby was crosser than ever and Priscilla Lee wasn't
coming back, nor Margaret Rand, and she was coaxing mother to let her go
elsewhere.
After a while Cynthia declared she must go home. Cousin Chilian had said
he would come for her, but the clock was striking nine and he had not
come. He sometimes _did_ forget.
Bentley took his hat and walked beside her in quite a mannish way.
"I do hope you will come again," he said. "You were so pleasant when you
were caught, and I do hate to have girls saying all the time, 'Now that
isn't fair,' and squirming out."
"But if you're playing you must take the best and the worst. I liked
puss in the corner and didn't mind being the left-out pussy. I thought
it was quite fun to hunt a corner again."
Then they met Cousin Chilian, who had been playing a rather prolonged
game of chess with a visitor. But Bentley kept on with them, and said
good-night with a polite bow, adding, "She must come again, Mr.
Leverett, we had such a very nice time."
"And wasn't he nice!" exclaimed the child eagerly. "He is like some of
the grown-up men. I like big boys much better than the little ones."
He smiled to himself at that.
Now there came cool nights and mornings, but the world was beautiful in
its turning leaves, the fragrance of ripening fruit, and the late
gorgeous-colored flowers. They took delightful walks and found so many
curious places. Sometimes Bentley Upham met them and joined in their
walks and talks. He thought the little girl knew a great deal. And that
she had been in India, and China, and ever so many of the islands, was
wonderful.
"Don't you ever sew?" he asked one afternoon, as they were rambling
about.
"I don't like it much;" and she glanced up with fascinating archness. "I
suppose I shall have to some day, but Cousin Leverett thinks there is
time enough."
"I'm glad you don't," in a hearty tone. "I don't have any good of Polly
any more. What with her white frock, and some lace she is making for a
cape, and forty other things, she never has time for a game of anything,
or a nice walk. And she doesn't care about study, though her lessons are
so different. I don't know another girl who studies Latin, and it's so
nice to talk it over. How rapidly you must have learned."
He looked at her in admiration.
"Oh, I knew some of it before I came here. There was a chaplain in
Calcutta who was--well, not exactly ill, but not well; and father took
him with us on the vessel when he went for certain things, and he staid
with us afterward. He used to read aloud, and it sounded so splendid!
Then he taught me. But Cousin Leverett said it wasn't quite right, so I
am going over it. And he is teaching me a little French."
"You know they think women don't need to know much beside housekeeping
and sewing. I just hate to hear about ruffles cut on the straight or
bias, and I couldn't tell what Dacca muslin, or jaconet, or dimity was
to save myself. And eyelet work and French knots and run lace--that's
what the big girls who come to see Polly talk about. But I like books,
and studies, and different countries. I'd like to travel. But I don't
know that I want to be a sea captain."
They found some queer old houses that were odd enough. Mr. Leverett said
they were almost two hundred years old, and that at first the place kept
the old Indian name, Naumkeag. But the Reverend Francis Higginson gave
it a new name out of the Bible--"In Salem also is His tabernacle." The
early pilgrims built a chapel at once.
"How close the houses are!"
It was a row that had survived the hand of improvement. There was a huge
central chimney-stack, big enough for a modern factory, and the house
seemed built around it. The second story overhung the first, and in some
of them were small dormer windows looking like bird houses. And the
little panes of greenish glass seemed to make windows all framework.
Cynthia was much interested in the Roger Williams house, and the story
of the old minister.
"Why, I thought religion made people good and pleasant----" Then she
checked herself, for often Cousin Elizabeth was _not_ pleasant. And she
seemed more religious than Cousin Eunice. And Cousin Chilian rarely
scolded or said a cross word--he never talked about religion, but he
went to church on Sunday; they all did. She studied the Catechism, she
could learn easily when she had a mind to, but she didn't understand it
at all. She shocked Elizabeth by her irreverent questions. There was the
old horn-book primer with--
"In Adam's fall
We sinned all."
"I don't see how that could be when we were not there!" she said almost
defiantly.
"It means the nature we inherited."
"But I don't think that fair!"
"You don't know, you never can understand until you are in a state of
grace. Don't ask such impertinent questions. You are a little heathen
child."
Then she asked Cousin Chilian what "a state of grace" meant.
"I think it is the willingness to do right, to be truthful, kindly,
obliging. It is all comprised in the Golden Rule--to love God with all
your heart and your neighbor as yourself, not to do anything to him that
you would not like to have done to yourself, and to do to him whatever
you would like him to do for you. That is enough for a little girl."
"That sounds like Confucius," she said thoughtfully.
But she went back to Roger Williams when Bentley said he was one of his
heroes.
"What did he do?" she asked, interested.
"Well, he founded the City of Providence. And if William Penn is to be
honored for founding a city of brotherly love, Roger Williams deserves
it for establishing a city where different sects should agree without
persecuting each other. You see, they banished him from Salem back to
England because he thought a man had some right to his own opinions, so
long as he worshipped God. So he went to Providence instead. He walked
all the way with just his pocket compass to guide him, and how he must
have worked to make a dwelling-place for himself and his friends in the
dead of winter! There were some Quakers already there, who had been
banished from other settlements, and they all resolved to be friendly.
Yes, I call him a hero!"
Cynthia studied the house with the little courtyard and the great tree
shading it.
"Polly said it was the Witch House," she remarked.
"That was because there were trials for witchcraft. You are too young to
hear about that," Chilian said decisively, with a glance at Bentley.