HOW VINNIE MADE A JOURNEY.
Leaving Jack to drive home the borrowed mare in the harness of the
stolen horse, and to take such measures as he can for the pursuit of the
thief and the recovery of his property, we have now to say a few words
of Mrs. Betterson's younger sister.
Vinnie had perhaps thriven quite as well in the plain Presbit household
as she would have done in the home of the ambitious Caroline. The tasks
early put upon her, instead of hardening and imbittering her, had made
her self-reliant, helpful, and strong, with a grace like that acquired
by girls who carry burdens on their heads. For it is thus that labors
cheerfully performed, and trials borne with good-will and lightness of
heart, give a power and a charm to body and mind.
It was now more than a year since George Greenwood, who had been brought
up with her in his uncle's family, had left the farm, and gone to seek
his fortune in the city. A great change in the house, and a very unhappy
change for Vinnie, had been the result. It was not that she missed her
foster-brother so much; but his going out had occasioned the coming in
of another nephew, who brought a young wife with him. The nephew filled
George's place on the farm, and the young wife showed a strong
determination to take Vinnie's place in the household.
As long as she was conscious of being useful, in however humble a
sphere, Vinnie was contented. She did her daily outward duty, and fed
her heart with secret aspirations, and kept a brave, bright spirit
through all. But now nothing was left to her but to contend for her
rights with the new-comer, or to act the submissive part of drudge where
she had almost ruled before. Strife was hateful to her; and why should
she remain where her services were now scarcely needed?
So Vinnie lapsed into an unsettled state of mind, common enough to a
certain class of girls of her age, as well as to a larger class of boys,
when the great questions of practical life confront them: "What am I to
be? What shall I do for a living?"
How ardently she wished she had money, so that she could spend two or
three entire years at school! How eagerly she would have used those
advantages for obtaining an education which so many, who have them,
carelessly throw away! But Vinnie had nothing--could expect
nothing--which she did not earn.
At one time she resolved to go to work in a factory; at another, to try
teaching a district school; and again, to learn some trade, like that of
dress-maker or milliner. Often she wished for the freedom to go out into
the world and gain her livelihood like a boy.
In this mood of mind she received two letters. One was from Jack,
describing his accidental visit to her sister's family. The other was
from Caroline herself, who made that visit the occasion of writing a
plaintive letter to her "dear, neglected Lavinia."
Many tears she shed over these letters. The touching picture Jack drew
of the invalid Cecie, and the brave little Lilian, and of the sick
mother and baby, with Caroline's sad confession of distress, and of her
need of sympathy and help, wakened springs of love and pity in the young
girl's heart. She forgot that she had anything to forgive. All her
half-formed schemes for self-help and self-culture were at once
discarded, and she formed a courageous resolution.
"I will go to Illinois," she said, "and take care of my poor sister and
her sick children."
Such a journey, from Western New York, was no small undertaking in those
days. But she did not shrink from it.
"What!" said Mrs. Presbit, when Vinnie's determination was announced to
her, "you will go and work for a sister who has treated you so
shamefully all these years? Only a half-sister, at that! I'm astonished
at you! I thought you had more sperit."
"For anything she may have done wrong, I am sure she is sorry enough
now," Vinnie replied.
"Yes, now she has need of you!" sneered Mrs. Presbit.
"Besides," Vinnie continued, "I ought to go, for the children's sake, if
not for hers. Think of Cecie and the poor baby; and Lilian not ten years
old, trying to do the housework! I can do so much for them!"
"No doubt of that; for I must say you are as handy and willing a girl as
ever I see. But there's the Betterson side to the family,--two great,
lubberly boys, according to your friend's account; a proud, domineering
set, I warrant ye! The idee of making a slave of yourself for them!
You'll find it a mighty uncomf'table place, mark my word!"
"I hope no more so than the place I am in now,--excuse me for saying it,
Aunt Presbit," added Vinnie, in a trembling voice. "It isn't your fault.
But you know how things are."
"O, la, yes! _she_ wants to go ahead, and order everything; and I think
it's as well to let her,--though she'll find she can't run over _me_!
But I don't blame you the least mite, Vinnie, for feeling sensitive; and
if you've made up your mind to go, I sha'n't hender ye,--I'll help ye
all I can."
So it happened that, only four days after the receipt of her sister's
letter, Vinnie, with all her worldly possessions contained in one not
very large trunk, bid her friends good by, and, not without misgivings,
set out alone on her long journey.
She took a packet-boat on the canal for Buffalo. At Buffalo, with the
assistance of friends she had made on board the boat, she found the
captain of a schooner, who agreed to give her a passage around the lakes
to Chicago, for four dollars. There were no railroads through Northern
Ohio and across Michigan and Indiana in those days; and although there
were steamboats on the lakes, Vinnie found that a passage on one of them
would cost more money than she could afford. So she was glad to go in
the schooner.
The weather was fine, the winds favored, and the Heron made a quick
trip. Vinnie, after two or three days of sea-sickness, enjoyed the
voyage, which was made all the more pleasant to her by the friendship of
the captain and his wife.
She was interested in all she saw,--in watching the waves, the sailors
hauling the ropes, the swelling of the great sails,--in the vessels they
met or passed, the ports at which they touched,--the fort, the Indians,
and the wonderfully clear depth of the water at Mackinaw. But the voyage
grew tiresome toward the close, and her heart bounded with joy when the
captain came into the cabin early one morning and announced that they
had reached Chicago.
The great Western metropolis was then a town of no more than eight or
ten thousand inhabitants, hastily and shabbily built on the low level of
the plain stretching for miles back from the lake shore. In a short walk
with the captain's wife, Vinnie saw about all of the place she cared
to; noting particularly a load of hay "slewed," or mired, in the
mud-holes of one of the principal streets; the sight of which made her
wonder if a great and flourishing city could ever be built there!
Meanwhile the captain, by inquiry in the resorts of market-men, found a
farmer who was going to drive out to the Long Woods settlement that
afternoon, and who engaged to come with his wagon to the wharf where the
Heron lay, and take off Vinnie and her trunk.
"O, how fortunate!" she exclaimed. "How good everybody is to me! Only
think, I shall reach my sister's house to-night!"