A NEW DEPARTURE
Cynthia Leverett was making great improvement in every respect. She was
no longer the thin, wan little thing that had come from India. She had
outgrown her clothes, which was a good sign, Eunice said.
Elizabeth made a stand for good wearing ginghams and plain cloths for
winter.
"There's that gray cloth of mine that's too nice to hack around for
every day. I could have it dyed, I suppose, but I've two nice black
stuff dresses beside my silk, and that other one Chilian gave me that
must have cost a sight of money; it's thick enough to almost stand
alone. I can't bear those sleazy stuffs that come from India. But I've
wished more than once that I had the money it cost, out at interest. And
the cloth----"
"It isn't a very pretty color," ventured Eunice timidly.
"What does that matter for a child? It won't show dirt easily. And it is
settled that she is going to school, I'm thankful to say."
The dress in question was not a clear, pretty gray, but had an ugly
yellow tint.
"She certainly is rich enough to buy her own clothes, or have them
bought for her. I'd dip that dress over a good deal darker brown. You
know Chilian didn't like it for you, and he will not for her."
Eunice was amazed at her own protest. The child had always been prettily
attired. And more attention was being paid to children's clothes she
noticed in church on Sunday, and after she had indulged in such sinful
wanderings, she read the chapter in Isaiah where the prophet denounced
the "round tires like the moon, the bonnets and the head bands, the
mantles, and wimples, and crisping pins, and changeable suits of
apparel," and other vanities, and predicted dire punishments for them.
Mrs. Turner had called according to her proposal. She brought her little
daughter Arabella, commonly called Bella. Cousin Chilian was out in the
garden with Cynthia, and received her with his usual kindly cordiality,
inviting them to walk into the house. The parlor shutters were tightly
closed, and Mrs. Turner abhorred state parlors. Hers was always open,
for guests were no rarity.
"Why can't we sit out here a spell? It is so delightful to have this
garden in view. And your clematis is a perfect show. Then let the
children run around and get acquainted. How are the ladies?"
She seated herself on the bench at the side of the porch.
"I will call them," he said. "But--hadn't you better walk in?"
"Oh, we can't stay very long. I've been waiting for the ladies to return
my last call, but we were down in this vicinity, so I stopped. You see,
I don't always stand on ceremony. And we have been so interested in your
little girl. I saw her in Merrit's with Miss Winn."
He summoned the ladies, and then he returned to the guests. The children
were both down the path--Bella talking and gesticulating, and Cynthia
laughing.
Mrs. Turner was in nowise formal. She talked of Mr. Turner's
business--he was a shipbuilder--of the rapid strides Salem was making;
indeed one would hardly know it for old Salem of the witch days. And
people's ideas had broadened out so, softened from their rigidity,
"though some of the old folks are thinking the very trade we are so
proud of is going to ruin our character and morals, and fill us with
pride and vanity. But I say to Mr. Turner the people did their hard work
and bore their deprivations bravely all through the Revolution, and we
can't go back and make their lot easier by depriving ourselves of
comforts, or even pleasures."
There might be some casuistry in that, but there was truth as well.
Then he asked if she knew of any nice schools for girls. Where did hers
go?
"Oh, to Madam Torrey's. That's up Church Street. Maybe it would be too
far in bad weather, though our girls don't mind it. Alice is thirteen,
but she's been there since she was eight, and Bella has been going these
two years. The boys are at the Bertram School, and your neighbor Bentley
Upham goes there. He's a nice boy. But Madam Torrey is a fine woman. She
has an assistant, and a woman comes in to teach the French class.
Then--I don't suppose everybody will approve of this, but there is going
to be a dancing-class out of school hours, yet no one is compelled to
send their children to that. There's fine needlework, too, and fancy
knitting, indeed about all that it is necessary for a girl to know. And
the children are all from good families; that is quite an important
point."
"I think I must walk over and see her."
"Do. I am sure you will be pleased. The walk will be the only objection.
Isn't she delicate?"
"She wasn't well last winter. She took a cold. She was not used to our
bleak winters. And there was her father's death. She had counted so much
on his return."
"It was very sad. She looks well now."
Then the ladies made their appearance. Elizabeth apologized for Chilian
not asking her into the parlor. "It looked inhospitable."
"It was my fault. The stoop was so tempting. A shady porch in the
afternoon is a luxury. We take our sewing out there; that is, Alice and
I, and sometimes the guests. How lovely your vines are! And your garden
is a regular show place, quite worth coming to see if there were no
other charm. And, Miss Leverett, I hear you have been making the most
beautiful white quilt there is in Salem."
"Oh, no. But as nice as any. And it was a sight of work. I don't know as
I'd do it again. I've no chick or child to leave it to."
"May I come over some day and see it? Not that I shall do anything of
the kind. With four big boys to mend for and the two girls, I have my
hands full."
Then they talked about putting up fruit and making jellies, and Mrs.
Turner said she must go over to the Uphams. She heard that Polly was
getting to be such a nice, smart girl, and had worked the bottom of her
white frock and a round cape to match. Then she called Bella.
"Oh, can't I go over with them?" pleaded Cynthia.
Cousin Chilian nodded. Elizabeth rose stiffly and went in. Eunice pulled
out her knitting. It was so lovely here. There were the warmth and
perfume of summer and the rich fragrance of ripening fruits and grass
mown for feed, not snipped with a lawn-mower, such things had not been
heard of even in the rapidly improving Salem.
"There are some countries where people live out of doors nearly all the
time," began Eunice reflectively. "Well, they do a good deal in India.
But I think this is in Europe. And this is so lovely, so restful. But
I'm afraid you have affronted Elizabeth by not insisting Mrs. Turner
should walk into the parlor. Though really--we had not returned her last
call. I do wish Elizabeth could find some time to get out. I don't see
why there should be so much work."
"Couldn't you have some one to help?"
"Well, it isn't just the cooking and kitchenwork. And no one could suit
her there. She's up in that old garret toiling, and moiling, and packing
away enough things to furnish an inn. We shall never want them. And
there's your mother's, and some of your grandmother's, blankets."
"The New England thrift is rather too thrifty sometimes," he commented
dryly.
Cynthia staid after Mrs. Turner made her adieus. Indeed, as it was
nearing supper-time, he walked over for her. She and Betty were in the
wide-seated swing and Ben was swinging them so high that Betty, used as
she was to it, gave now and then little squeals. Chilian held up his
hand and Ben let the "cat die," which meant the swing stopping of
itself.
"Oh, Mr. Leverett, can't Cynthy stay to tea? I'll run and ask mother."
"Not to-day. She had better come home now."
"Oh, dear!" cried Bentley disappointedly.
"Yes, I had better go. And I've had such a lovely time. Cousin Chilian,
can't I come over again?"
How pretty she looked with her shining eyes, her rosy cheeks, and her
entreating lips! What would she coax out of men as she grew older!
"Oh, yes; any time they want you."
"Well, we'd like her every day!" cried Ben eagerly. "And isn't it
splendid that she's grown so well and strong, and can run and play, and
have good out-of-doors times? Though I used to like it in the winter up
in your room, and Mr. Price said he never knew a boy to improve so in
Latin."
Bentley made a graceful bow to Mr. Leverett.
"Oh," said Cynthia, skipping along in exuberant joy, "children are nice,
aren't they? You can't have much fun alone by yourself, and the days are
so long when you go in to Boston."
"I wonder if you would like to try school again?"
"Yes, I think I would;" after a pause. "You see," with a gravity that
sat oddly upon her, "I'm not so afraid as I was, and I have more sense.
And I know things more evenly than I did. I can write now quite well,
and I know most of the tables, though division does bother me. And I can
spell all but the very difficult words. I don't think any one would
laugh at me now."
"No, they wouldn't," he answered decisively.
"I shouldn't like little boys, but I wouldn't mind them as big as
Bentley. And, oh, I wish we had a swing. And they have a real sailors'
hammock, such as they have on shipboard. It's delightful under the
trees."
"I think we can manage that."
"Well, if your head isn't tousled!" cried Elizabeth. "It looks like a
brush heap. Get it fixed, for supper is all ready. Why didn't you stay?"
the last ironically.
"Cousin Chilian thought I had better not. They did want me to."
"Are you sure they _wanted_ you to?"
"Why, yes," she answered in ignorance of the sarcasm.
She walked up and down the garden path with Cousin Chilian and asked
about the school, was glad when she found Bella and her sister Alice
went there. Now and then she gave two or three skips and pulled on the
hand she held so tightly. He had never seen her in quite such glee, and
how charming she was!
"Chilian, bring that child in out of the dew. Next thing she'll be in
for a winter's cold," said the severe voice.
The interview with Madam Torrey was very satisfactory. Chilian asked
Miss Winn to go out and buy what was needed and get it made. They went
over to Mrs. Turner's one day and took the school in on their way.
"When it rains Silas can take you and come for you. I think the walk
will not tire you out."
"Oh, no; I don't get tired out now."
It was Miss Winn's place to look after the child, of course, but
Elizabeth felt in some way defrauded. She wished Cynthia had been poor
and dependent upon them. Then she would stand a chance to be brought up
in a useful manner.
Chilian took her to school the first morning. Miss Winn was to come for
her. She had been rather shy at first. But Bella Turner told the girls
about her, how she had been born in Salem, and gone to Calcutta when
only a few months old, come and gone again in her father's ship, and he
was Captain Leverett, and then returned to America. He was to come
afterward, but he had died. And Mr. Chilian Leverett, who was something
in Harvard College, was her guardian. And she was to have ever so much
money when she was a young lady.
Any other child might have been spoiled by the attentions lavished upon
her. The girls thought her curly hair so pretty, and her hands were so
small, with their dainty, tapering fingers. Then she found one of the
girls, Lois Brinsmaid, lived in Central Avenue, so there was no further
question of troubling any one. Cousin Chilian had given her a good
foundation for study and she was eager for knowledge of all sorts,
except that of the needle.
Then autumn began to merge into winter and there were storms and bleak
winds, and some days she staid at home. She caught light colds, but
Chilian and Miss Winn were very watchful.
She went to the Turners one afternoon and staid to tea, and the big boys
hovered about her like bees. She was not forward or aggressive, but
there was a sort of charming sweetness about her. When she raised her
lovely eyes they seemed to appeal to every heart, though they never went
very far with Cousin Elizabeth.
One day she came home and found the house in a great state of
excitement. Elizabeth had started to go down into the cellar with both
hands full. She had been a little dizzy for several days, and meant to
take a dose of herb tea, boneset being her great stand-by, when she
could find time. Whether it was the vertigo, or she slipped, she lay
there unconscious, and they sent for Doctor Prescott.
Silas and the doctor carried her upstairs, and the latter brought her
out of the faint. But when she started to stand up, she toppled over and
fainted again.
"There's something quite serious. Let us carry her up to her room, and
you women undress her. Her legs are sound, so the trouble is higher up."
Then he found her hip was broken, a bad thing at any time of life, but
at her age doubly so. And he sent for Doctor Lapham to help him set it.
It was very bad. They were still there when Chilian came home.
"I'm afraid she's laid up for a year or so;" and the doctor shook his
head ominously.
"Do your very best for her," besought Chilian.
He said to Eunice, "Now you must have some one. You can't carry on the
house alone."
"If it is the same to you, Chilian, I'd rather have a nurse. There's
Mother Taft, who is good and strong, and used to nursing. She's willing
to help about a little, too."
"Just as you think best. I want every care taken of her."
For a month it was a very serious matter. They thought the spine was
somewhat injured as well. And Elizabeth knew they could never get on
without her.
"I expect I shall find the house in such a state when I do get about, it
will take me all summer to right it. You never were as thorough as I
could wish, Eunice."
Miss Winn begged that she might be of service. She had so little to do,
or to think about, that time hung heavy on her hands, now that Cynthia
was in school. For then school hours were from nine to five. And the
child was getting so handy caring for herself. She curled her hair and
put on her clothes, brought her shoes down every evening for Silas to
black, and sometimes wiped the tea dishes while Miss Winn washed them.
Somehow there didn't seem so much work to do. Eunice didn't always have
two kinds of cake for supper, nor a great shelf full of pies for Silas
to take home. There was plenty of everything and no one complained.
They found Mother Taft invaluable. She was about the average height, and
had long arms, and strength according. Then she had a most excellent
way with her. When Elizabeth groaned that they never could get on
without her, and she must be up and about before everything went to
"wrack and ruin," Mother Taft said:
"The kitchen looks like a new pin. There's no signs of ruin that I can
see. Meals are good, cake fine, house clean. When you get downstairs
you'll think you haven't been out of the harness more'n a week."
"A likely story," Elizabeth moaned.
Cynthia went through March very successfully, but with the first warm
spell in April she caught a cold and coughed, and Chilian was almost
wild about her, his nerves having been worn somewhat by Elizabeth's
mishap. But after ten days or so she came around all right and was eager
for school again.
She was sitting in her old place by the window late one afternoon and he
had been reading some poems to her--a volume lately come from England.
"Cousin Chilian," she said, "will you tell me what true relation we
are?"
"Why, what has put that in your head?"
"I want to know." She said it persuasively.
"Well, it isn't very near after all. My father and yours were cousins.
My father was the son of the oldest brother, your father the son of the
youngest, that stretched them quite far apart. When I wasn't much more
than a baby Anthony came to live with us, and was like an elder brother
to me. Father was very fond of him. But he would go to sea and he made
a fine sailor and captain. Then he was married from here, and you were
born here."
"The girls sometimes say, 'your uncle.' I wonder if you would like to
have me call you uncle?"
Something in him protested. He could not tell what it was, unless an odd
feeling that it made him seem older. He wished he were ten years
younger, and he could give no reason for that either.
"I think I like the 'cousin' best;" after some deliberation.
"And it is so lovely to be dear to some one, very dear. I like Rachel,
she's been almost a mother to me, and I like Cousin Eunice for her sweet
ways. But I've no one of my very own, and so--I'm very glad to be dear
to you. It is like a ship being anchored to something safe and strong."
She came and put her arms about his neck and kissed him. He drew her
down on his knee. She was her mother's child, and her mother had been
dear to him, his first love, his only love so far.
Oh, how would the garden get made and the house cleaned, the blankets
and the winter clothing aired and put away, those in use washed? Eunice
and Miss Winn went up in the garret one day and swept and dusted, not
giving a whole week to it.
"Now," said Mother Taft, "I'm going to take a holiday off. I'm tired of
puttering round in the sick room, and she's so much better now that she
doesn't keep one on the jump. And I'm going to wash them there blankets
and you can pack them away, so there'll be one thing less to worry
about."
"But Silas' wife would come and do it. And a holiday! Why don't you go
off somewhere----"
"I want to do it."
And do it she did. Some way the house did get cleaned. "After a
fashion," Elizabeth said. And the garden was made. Chilian and Eunice
trimmed up roses. Cynthia and Miss Winn planted seeds. There were always
some things that wintered over--sweet Williams, lilies of various sorts,
pinks, laurels, some spiræas, snowball and syringas, hosts of lilacs
that made a fragrant hedge. Cynthia thought it had never been so lovely
before. She wore a nosegay at her throat, and in her belt just a few;
she had the fine taste that never overloaded. She and Cousin Chilian
used to walk up and down the fragrant paths after supper and no one
fretted at them about the dew. Sometimes Rachel or Eunice would bring
out a dainty scarf. And how many things they found to talk about. She
loved to dwell on the times with her father, and it seemed as if she
remembered a great deal more about her mother than she did at first, but
she never imagined it was Cousin Chilian's memory that helped out hers.
She had enjoyed the school very much. There were no high up "isms" or
"ologies" for girls in those days. She learned about her own country,
for already there were some histories written, and the causes that led
to the war. Some of the girls had grandmothers who had lived through
those exciting years, and made the relation of incidents much more
interesting than any dry written account that was mostly dates and
names. What heroes they had been! And the old _Mayflower_ story and John
Alden, and others who were to inspire a poet's pen.
Then there was the dread story of the witchcraft that had led Salem
astray. Cousin Chilian would never have it mentioned, and had taken away
several books he did not want her to see. But the girls had gone to some
of the old places, where witches had been taken from their homes and
cast into jail, the Court House where they had been tried, and Gallows
Hill, that most people shunned even now.
One rainy evening, after her lessons had been studied, Cynthia went
downstairs. Rachel had been fomenting her face for the toothache and was
lying down. Cousin Chilian had gone to a town-meeting, and the house
seemed so still that she almost believed she might see the ghost or
witch of the stories she had heard. No one was in the sitting-room, or
the kitchen proper, but she heard voices in what was called the summer
kitchen, a roughly constructed place with a stone chimney and a great
swinging crane. Here they did much of the autumn work, for Elizabeth was
quite a stickler for having a common place to save something nicer.
Mother Taft always smoked a pipe of tobacco in the evening. "It soothed
her," she said, after her tussle of fixing her patient for the night,
"and made her sleep better."
"And it's my opinion if Miss 'Lisbeth could just have a good smoke at
night 'twould do her more good than the doctor's powders."
"Why, Cynthy!" Cousin Eunice exclaimed.
"I was lonesome. Rachel's gone to sleep, Cousin Eunice--were there such
things as witches over a hundred years ago?"
Eunice glanced at Mother Taft. Witchcraft was a tabooed subject, yet it
lingered in more than one imaginative mind, though few would confess a
belief in it.
"Well, people may talk as they like, but there's many queer things in
the world. Now there's that falling sickness, as they call it. Jabez
Green has two children that roll on the floor, and froth at the mouth,
and their eyes bulge most out of their heads. They're lacking, we all
know. But when they come out of the fit they tell queer things that they
saw, and I do suppose it was that way then. They do act as if they were
bewitched."
We know this misfortune now as epilepsy, but medical science in the
earlier century did not understand that, nor incipient insanity.
"It was very strange," said Eunice rather awesomely. "And Mr. Parris
was a minister and a good man, yet it broke out in his family."
"But he had them slaves, and in their own land black people do awful
things to each other. But it was strange; again, after his wife was
accused, Governor Phipps ordered there should be no more punished and
all set free, and then the thing stopped."
"And it wasn't real witchcraft?" said Cynthia.
"Well, I wouldn't undertake to say. There were witches in Bible times
and they kept themselves mighty close, for they were not to be allowed
to live. And Saul had a hard time getting anything out of the witch of
Endor, you know, Miss Eunice."
Eunice nodded. They were trenching on forbidden ground.
"My grandmother believed in them and she was a good God-fearing woman,
too. You see what made it worse for Salem was their sending so many here
for trial from the places round. Grandfather lived way up above
Topsfield, had a farm there and 'twas woods all around. No one troubled
them then, but afterward--well, they'd cleared the woods and built a
road and new houses were put up around, for some people were glad enough
to get out of Salem. There was a woman named Martha Goodno, who had been
in prison, and people were shy of her. Grandmother had two cows, and
folks turned them out in the woods then. One of them went in Martha's
garden, but she spied her out and drove her off before much damage was
done. The fence had been broken down and she laid it to the cow, but
people said it had been down for days. Well, something got the matter
with the cow. She gave good rich milk and mother saved it for butter.
But when she churned there came queer streaks in it that looked like
blood. She doctored the cow, although it seemed well enough. One day a
neighbor was in and the same thing happened. 'Throw some in the fire,'
said the neighbor, 'and if you hear of any one being burned you'll know
who is the witch.' So grandmother threw two dippers full in the fire and
she said it made an awful smell. The rest she dumped out of doors, she
wouldn't feed it to the pigs. About an hour afterward another neighbor
came in. Grandmother made a salve that was splendid for burns and cuts.
'Mis' Denfield,' she says, 'won't you come over to Martha Goodno's and
bring your pot of salve. She's burned herself dreadfully drawin' the
coals out of the oven, set her dress on fire just at the waist.' So
mother went over and found it was a pretty bad, sure enough burn, and
she was groaning just fit to die. Mother spread a piece of linen and
laid it on and left her some salve. 'What did I tell you?' says mother's
neighbor, and they nodded their heads. But the queer thing was that
after that the cow was all right and she never had any more trouble.
"After she was well she took a spite against another neighbor, who used
to spin flax and sell the thread. Then her flax took to cutting up
queer, and would break off, and turn yellow, and trouble her dreadfully.
Mother was there one afternoon when it bothered so. 'Just throw a
handful in the fire,' says mother. 'Fire's purifying;' and she did. They
sent to mother again for salve, for Martha had scalded her right hand.
Then the folks talked it over and a letter was written and tucked under
her door, warning her to move, and the next-door man bought the place.
I've heard grandmother tell this over--she lived to be ninety, and she
was a good Christian woman, and she never added nor took away one iota.
There, I oughtn't have told all this before the child; she's white as a
ghost."
"You must go to bed this minute," exclaimed Eunice. "I'll go up with
you."