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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Grandmamma Was New, by Marion Harland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: When Grandmamma Was New
+       The Story of a Virginia Childhood
+
+Author: Marion Harland
+
+Release Date: April 21, 2008 [EBook #25118]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE STORY TELLING.
+
+"'I like, best of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was
+new,' said Fritz."--_See page 7._]
+
+
+
+
+   When Grandmamma
+   Was New
+
+   THE STORY OF A VIRGINIA
+   CHILDHOOD
+
+   By
+   Marion Harland
+
+   _ILLUSTRATED_
+
+   BOSTON
+   LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+   COPYRIGHT, 1899,
+   BY
+   LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.
+
+   _THIRD THOUSAND_
+
+   _Norwood Press_
+   _J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith_
+   _Norwood Mass. U.S.A._
+
+   _TO_
+
+   HORACE AND ERIC
+   FRITZ, TERHUNE, AND STERLING
+
+   This Story
+
+   FIRST TOLD TO THEM OVER THE LIBRARY FIRE
+   IN AUTUMN AND WINTER EVENINGS
+   _IS MOST LOVINGLY DEDICATED_
+
+   SUNNYBANK,
+       POMPTON, N.J.
+
+
+
+
+Explanatory
+
+
+It was Fritz who said it first, and when he was three years younger than
+he is now.
+
+Somebody asked him what sort of stories he liked best. No doubt he ought
+to have said "Bible Stories," such as his mother tells on Sunday
+afternoons, and which he does love dearly. But he spoke out what he
+really thought and felt at the time of asking, and said, "I like, best
+of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was New."
+
+The phrase tickled my fancy, and, thenceforward, I would have no other
+title for the sight-draughts made by the boys upon my bank of memory.
+When these "vouchers" grew into a volume, no name would serve my turn
+except the _mot de famille_ set in circulation by the quaint
+five-year-old.
+
+My laddies are well trained. (Good children run in the family.) I
+record, pridefully, that the sunny head of the least of the band has
+never drooped drowsily while the tale went on, and that his chirp was
+distinct in the general plea for, "More--to-morrow night?" with which
+the conclave brought up at the call to prayers and to pillows. This has
+not so far flattered me out of my sober senses as to beget a hope that
+my reminiscences will find such loving interest and attention so rapt in
+the larger audience outlying our doors. Yet I dare believe that other
+grandparents will read and other children will listen to the real
+happenings of the Long Time Ago WHEN THIS GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW.
+
+   MARION HARLAND.
+
+   SUNNYBANK,
+   May, 1899.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+   CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
+
+      I. The Tragedy of Rozillah                                      11
+
+     II. A Prize Fight and a Race                                     28
+
+    III. Van Diemen's Land                                            45
+
+     IV. Oiled Calico                                                 63
+
+      V. What was done with Musidora                                  78
+
+     VI. The Haunted Room                                             97
+
+    VII. Just for Fun                                                107
+
+   VIII. My First Lie, and what came of it                           124
+
+     IX. My Pets                                                     144
+
+      X. Circumstantial Evidence                                     164
+
+     XI. Frankenstein                                                182
+
+    XII. My Prize Beet                                               198
+
+   XIII. Two Adventures                                              215
+
+    XIV. Miss Nancy's Nerves                                         232
+
+     XV. "Side-blades" and Water-melons                              246
+
+    XVI. Old Madam Leigh                                             257
+
+   XVII. Out into the World                                          282
+
+
+
+
+When Grandmamma Was New
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+The Tragedy of Rozillah
+
+
+"Just look at her now, Molly! Isn't she the sweetest thing you ever
+saw?"
+
+Molly, that is, Myself, sitting on the door-step, elbows on knees and
+shoulders hunched sullenly up to my ears, did not budge or speak.
+
+Before my gloomy eyes was the kitchen yard, a gray and gritty expanse,
+with never a tree or bush to shade it except the lilac hedge bounding it
+on the garden side, and one sickly peach tree growing at the corner of
+"the house." Three hens and one rooster were scratching about the flat
+stone at the kitchen door.
+
+On the other three sides of the house were rustling boughs and cool
+grass and flower-beds. It suited my humor to sit in the scanty strip of
+shadow cast by the eaves, my feet upon the step that had soaked in the
+noonday heat, and to be as wretched as a five-year-old could make
+herself, with a sharp sense of injury boring like a bit of steel into
+her small soul. The room behind me was my mother's--the "chamber" of the
+Southern home. A big four-poster, hung with dimity curtains, stood in
+the farther corner. The dimity valance, trimmed, like the curtains, with
+ball fringe, hid the trundle-bed that was pulled out at night for Mary
+'Liza and me to sleep in. At the foot of the bed was my baby brother's
+cradle. As Mam' Chloe was walking with him in the garden, it should have
+been empty. Whereas, Mary 'Liza was putting her doll-baby to sleep in
+it. We said "doll-baby" in those days. There was Musidora, my rag-baby,
+who was a beauty when she was new.
+
+She was not old now, but Fate had been unkind to her. Twice I had left
+her out-of-doors all night. The first time was when I laid her at the
+foot of a particularly tall corn-stalk, telling her that I would return
+presently, but could not find her at all when I went back. I was up and
+out early next morning and "found her indeed, but it made my heart
+bleed," for a field mouse--with six acres of roasting-ears to choose
+from--had made his supper on the bran that served my poor Musidora for
+brains, nibbling a hole in the exact region of the _medulla oblongata_.
+My mother plugged the cranium with raw cotton and stitched up the wound,
+and the dear patient was doing better than could be expected, when there
+was a thunder-storm and Musidora was on a bench in the summer-house. The
+rain lasted all night, and I could not go out again.
+
+One immediate and obvious consequence of this adventure was that there
+was nothing left of Musidora's features except her eyebrows, which were
+laid on with indelible ink instead of water-colors. She hung, head
+downward, in front of the kitchen fire for twelve hours before she was
+thoroughly dry. My mother "indicated" eyes, nose, and mouth with
+pen-and-ink, but the effect was flat and mournful.
+
+While I sat in the door that evening, putting on Musidora's night-gown,
+I overheard Mam' Chloe say to my mother:--
+
+"I declar' to gracious, Miss Ma'y Anna, you ought to buy that chile a
+sure-'nough doll-baby while you are in town. It f'yar breaks my heart to
+see how much store she sets by that po' wrack of a rag thing she's got
+thar."
+
+My mother's reply was so low that I did not catch it, but her tone was
+not unpromising. I said nothing to her, or to anybody of what I had
+heard. Only, of course, Musidora and I talked it all over. I assured her
+that she was going to have a beautiful sister who would love her and
+play with her and tell her stories of the wonderful city, and of how
+happy we three should be together.
+
+My father and mother went away to Richmond. They took the baby with
+them, and Mary 'Liza and I were sent to my Aunt Eliza Carter's to stay
+until they returned, when Cousin Molly Belle took us back home and told
+my mother before my face that I had been as "good as gold."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it," said my mother, giving me a squeeze and
+kiss. "I was afraid she might be troublesome. She is not as steady as
+Mary 'Liza, you know. I have something nice in my trunk for each of my
+daughters."
+
+She always spoke of us in that way, although Mary 'Liza was her niece,
+and an orphan. She was seven now, and the pattern child of the county.
+Pretty, too, with a fair skin and shiny braids of golden hair, and
+innocent blue eyes, and dimpled arms, and fluffy, kittenish ways, while
+I was as lean as a snake, as brown as a chinquapin, and as wild as a
+hawk. I was used to hearing myself compared to all three. Mary 'Liza
+could read in the New Testament without stopping to spell a word, at
+three, and write in a copy-book at five, and do sums on the slate at
+six, and at seven was as much company to my mother as if she had been
+seventeen. In a word, my cousin was "a comfort." I was often called "a
+plague."
+
+Yet, as I can honestly affirm, I had never known, until this black day
+when Cousin Molly Belle took me home, what it was to be envious. I was
+not exactly fond of my cousin, yet we seldom disagreed openly. She wore
+clean frocks and liked to stay indoors and piece bedquilts and knit
+stockings and read aloud to my mother. I never willingly spent an hour
+in the house when I could get out, and had odd plays of my own which I
+kept secret from Mary 'Liza because I was sure she would be shocked, or
+laugh at them. I fully recognized the claims of orphanhood to the
+buttered side of life, and that a girl who had no father or mother
+deserved to be cared for by everybody else.
+
+My parents had arrived late at night, and the trunk was unpacked with
+much ceremony the next morning. Under my mother's best new dresses was a
+long pasteboard box which she opened, smiling at our expectant faces.
+From it she drew the biggest, prettiest doll-baby we had ever seen, in a
+blue silk frock with a sash to match. She had real hair, curly and black
+as a coal, and round black eyes and a cherry-ripe mouth. I reached out
+both hands, and a cry of rapture rushed from my heart to my lips--an
+inarticulate gurgle of ineffable happiness.
+
+My mother did not see my gesture. I hope she did not hear the cry. She
+laid the doll-baby in Mary 'Liza's arms.
+
+"Mrs. Hutcheson, who was your mother's dearest friend, sent that to you
+with her love."
+
+For me there was a trumpery book, with very few pictures, and a good
+deal of reading in it--also from Mrs. Hutcheson.
+
+"She thought it might coax you to learn how to read. I was ashamed to
+have to say that my little girl does not know her letters yet," said my
+much-tried parent. "And your father brought you a Noah's Ark."
+
+I received book and Ark without a word, and marched toward the door, my
+heart ready to break.
+
+"What do you say for your presents, Molly?"
+
+I stood stock-still, my eyes on the floor.
+
+My mother quietly and sorrowfully took the painted Ark from my hand.
+
+"When you can say 'thank you,' and stop pouting, you can have it back,"
+she said, in gentle severity.
+
+I dashed from the room around the house to the end porch. It was high
+enough for me to stand upright under it and the sides were screened by a
+climbing sweetbrier. I had often played Daniel in the lion's den there,
+assisted by a caste of small colored children. They were the lions, I,
+with the choice of parts, electing invariably to play the persecuted
+and finally triumphant biped. The fury of forty wild beasts was in my
+heart, as I pushed aside the prickly branches and crept into my lair.
+The den was paved with bricks, loosely laid. With a pointed stick I
+pried one up, and scooped out with my hands a grave deep enough to hold
+the hateful book with the few pictures and the much reading. I thrust it
+in without benefit of clergy, hustled the earth back upon it, pounded
+the brick into place, and lay flat down upon the dishonored tomb.
+
+Mam' Chloe found me there at dinner-time, fast asleep. She dragged me
+back to consciousness and the open air by the heels. Not in wanton
+cruelty, but she was a large woman, and could get at me in no other way.
+While she washed and made me decent in clean frock, apron, and
+pantalettes, she scolded me for my "low-lived, onladylike ways," and
+warned me of her solemn intention to "tell my mother on me," the next
+time such a disgraceful thing happened. I did not mind the lecture. I
+knew Mam' Chloe, and she (Heaven rest her white, faithful soul in the
+Kingdom where the bond are free!) knew me, I verily believe, better than
+the mother that bore me.
+
+Toilet and tirade ended, she slid me, as she might a proscribed book,
+through a crack in the side-door into the dining room, where Uncle Ike,
+her husband, was in waiting. He, in turn, smuggled me behind my mother's
+back to the side-table, there being no room for us children at the main
+board that day.
+
+None of the dozen grown-up diners noticed me, or that Mary 'Liza,
+sitting prim and dainty on her side of our table, had her doll by her in
+another chair, and interrupted her meal, once in a while, to caress her
+or to re-arrange her curls and skirts. I affected not to see the
+pantomime, which I chose to assume was enacted for my further
+exasperation. I was apparently as indifferent to Uncle Ike's shameless
+partiality in loading my plate with choice tidbits, such as a gizzard, a
+merry-thought, or a cheese-cake, while Mary 'Liza had to ask twice for
+what she wanted. What was not tasteless was bitter to my palate. I
+wondered, dully, why the sight of the doll-baby and the fuss her owner
+made over her, turned me sick. As soon as I could get away, I slipped
+down, and out at the friendly side-door, and went to find Musidora.
+There was a new bond of union between us. She had no beautiful sister, I
+no beautiful daughter. Sitting down upon the hot step, before the
+kitchen yard, I hugged her hard and cried a little over her, in a brief,
+stormy way. The tears hurt me, as they came, and did not ease the hot
+ache in my chest or the lump in my throat.
+
+At this juncture, when my misery was at its height, I heard Mary 'Liza
+in the chamber behind me, cooing to, and hushing her doll-baby, with
+tones and words copied faithfully from my mother's talk over my
+brother's cradle.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to rock her a little while?" she called presently. "I
+wouldn't mind if you'd promise not to touch her. Sometimes your hands
+are not clean, you know."
+
+I set my jaws savagely outside of my leaping tongue, not moving or
+looking up when I felt her standing close by me. Musidora had dropped
+from my lap, and lay, face downward, on the step. Mary 'Liza picked her
+up, and brushed the dust from her inexpressive visage.
+
+"Poor thing!" purred she. "I hope nothing will ever happen to Rozillah.
+Isn't that a _love_-el-ly? I made it out of my own head from Rosa and
+Zillah, two _love_-el-ly girls I read of in a book."
+
+"I think it is a nasty name," was my deliberate reply.
+
+She recoiled with a fine horror which stung me like a nettle.
+
+"Oh, Molly! what a word for a little lady to use!"
+
+I looked up at her for the first time, my eyes burning in dry sockets.
+
+"I think your doll-baby is nasty, and Rozillah is a _nigger_ name! So
+there!"
+
+I could command no worse language, for I knew none.
+
+Mary 'Liza looked shocked and terrified. She glanced right and left and
+upward nervously, as fearing the punishment of heaven upon me.
+
+"I am afraid that you are in a very bad humor," she faltered, her
+self-possession forsaking her for a moment. "I'd better leave you."
+
+She had gone a dozen paces when she glanced over her shoulder to say, in
+her most grown-up and judicial manner:--
+
+"I hope you will not make any noise and wake Rozillah up."
+
+I rose and went straight to the cradle as soon as my cousin was out of
+sight. Cold, deadly fury possessed and filled me, casting out fear of
+consequences and routing the weakling conscience engendered and
+nourished by parental counsel. I plucked Rozillah from her downy bed and
+bore her into the air, cuffing her polished red cheeks soundly on the
+way. Then I stripped off her gay raiment and knotted the ribbon sash
+about her smooth neck. I had never tied a knot before, but this held, as
+did the loop I cast over a projecting branch of the sickly
+peach-sapling. Naked and forlorn, Rozillah dangled a foot and more from
+the ground. I fetched my father's riding-whip from the hall table, and
+the last feeble check upon my fury was released.
+
+The next I knew a pair of cool, white arms closed about me and the whip
+together, and Cousin Molly Belle's voice, half-laughing, half-horrified,
+cried through the roaring in my ears:--
+
+"Dear little Namesake! what has got into you?"
+
+All at once, red mists parted and rolled away from my eyes, and I became
+conscious that Mary 'Liza was jumping up and down and screaming
+piteously, that everybody was on the spot--my father and mother and all
+the dinner company, and Mam' Chloe with the baby in her arms, and a ring
+of my small black servitors on the outside of the group; also that all
+eyes were focussed on me and what was left of Rozillah.
+
+The lash had drawn sawdust at every blow. One arm and both legs were
+torn off and weltered in the scattered stuffing beneath; the crop of
+black curls was tangled in the topmost limb of the sapling. The blue
+silk gown would never fit the pliant waist again. Rozillah was beyond
+the possibility of reconstruction.
+
+I threw my arms around Cousin Molly Belle's neck, and burst into a
+torrent of childish tears.
+
+I think I must have been whipped for that afternoon's work. I ought to
+have been, and Solomon, as a disciplinarian, was in high repute in the
+family connection. I am sure that I was put forthwith to bed and left
+alone for an eternity without even Musidora to bear me company. I had an
+indefinite impression that they feared the effect of association with
+such a wicked child upon her morals and manners.
+
+I recollect that my mother brought me the bread and milk which was all
+the supper I was to have, and talked me tenderly into tears.
+
+But most vividly do I recall the apparition which stole into my solitude
+after supper--which I had scented longingly from afar. A wraith all in
+white--gown and neck and arms and face, the masses of fluffy hair making
+this last more wraith-like. It sank to the floor beside my low bed, and
+gathered me, miserable culprit, in a cuddling embrace, and bade me "tell
+Cousin all about it--the whole _truly truth_."
+
+I could always talk to her, and I began at the beginning and went
+straight and steadfastly through to the nauseous end.
+
+I did not cry while I talked, and when struck by her silence I raised a
+timid hand to her dear cheek and found it wet, I was surprised.
+
+"Why, Cousin Molly Belle!" I stammered. "Are you so angry with me as
+_that_?"
+
+"Angry? yes, Namesake, but not with you, poor little sinner! You and I
+are always getting into scrapes--aren't we? Maybe that is why I am going
+to ask your mother to let you sleep with me to-night."
+
+Which delicious cup of happiness consoled the outgoing of the first
+tragical day of my life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+A Prize Fight and a Race
+
+
+Cousin Molly and I were spending an afternoon in the Old Orchard. My
+mother had a houseful of company, a common circumstance in itself. This
+particular houseful was so little to Cousin Molly Belle's liking that
+she got away as soon as dinner was over, drawing me, a willing captive,
+in her train. Furthermore, she had stolen Bud, my baby brother, from the
+chamber floor where Mam' Chloe had deposited him and a string of spools,
+while she lent a hand with the dinner dishes to her butler husband.
+
+Bud chuckled and crowed and squealed, as if he were the heart, head, and
+front of the joke, while we scampered down the middle garden walk,
+hidden by tall althea hedges, and gained the rail fence at the lower end
+without being challenged. My accomplice made me climb over first, and
+lowered her burden carefully into my arms, before she leaned her weight
+upon the two hands laid on the top rail, and whirled over like an
+acrobat--or a bird. She could outrun half the boys who had been her
+slaves and playfellows in childhood, and outjump three-fourths of them.
+
+We were comparatively safe now, the ground dipping abruptly below the
+garden into a level stretch of "old field" where the broom straw came up
+to my armpits, the yellowing waves parting before, and closing behind,
+with the surge and "swish" of a gentle surf. They smelled sweet and they
+felt soft, and Cousin Molly Belle let Bud down from her shoulder, and
+making a hammock of her arms, swung him back and forth through the
+pliant stems until he choked with ecstasy.
+
+Beyond the old field was the Old Orchard. The new orchard, planted
+nearer the house, was in full bearing, and my father made little
+account of such fruit--mostly choke-pears and apples from ungrafted
+limbs--as was enterprising enough to grow and ripen without tending or
+harvesting. The trunks of the neglected trees were studded with knobs
+like enormous wens, and the branches had a jaunty earthward cant that
+made climbing the easiest sort of work, and swinging an irresistible
+temptation. In the higher boughs were cosey crotches where one could
+sit, and read, and even sleep, without danger of falling. I and my court
+of small darkies had spent one whole July Saturday in and under the "big
+sweeting," when the apples were nominally ripe. I was Elijah, and my
+attendants were the ravens who plied me with sweetings in all stages of
+development until I could not have swallowed another to save the
+combined kingdoms of Judah and Israel. I was ill all night after the
+surfeit, but I bore the sweetings no grudge for my misplaced confidence
+in the human stomach.
+
+We three runaways camped down under the brooding branches. The unshorn
+and uncropped turf was thick and dry as a parlor carpet. Bud crept
+lawlessly about, picking up twigs and pebbles, and trying his first four
+teeth upon them. He was a discreet baby, never swallowing what he could
+not bite into. His real names were William Skipwith Burwell. Somebody
+had dubbed him "Rosebud," in the first moon of his sublunary existence,
+and the abbreviation was inevitable. He would probably remain "Bud"
+until he entered Hampton Sidney. The chances were even that the
+alliterative temptation of "Bud Burwell" would tack the label upon him
+for life. Changes were troublesome, and Powhatan County people were
+opposed to taking trouble. The name of their own county usually lost the
+second syllable in sliding between their lips.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle threw herself down at full-length on the grass,
+pillowed her bright head upon her arms, and stared contentedly into the
+apple boughs.
+
+"This is what I call taking one's comfort!" she breathed.
+
+I sat down by her, my short legs tucked under me, Bedouin-wise. That was
+one good thing--among many--about being out-of-doors with nobody by but
+her or the colored children. I could sit cross-legged. If I forgot my
+manners and did it in the house, my mother, or Mam' Chloe, pulled my
+legs out straight in front of me, or shook them down, and reminded me
+that I was going to be a young lady before long. As if that were my
+fault, or as if it could be helped! My heart glowed with gratification
+in observing that Cousin Molly Belle had laid one slim ankle over the
+other. I hitched myself a little nearer to her and lapsed into the
+confidential tone she encouraged in our _tête-à-têtes_.
+
+"Don't you just love to cross your--_feet_?"
+
+My modest hesitation was not lost upon her. She laughed.
+
+"I like to cross my _legs_--and I do it!"
+
+"Mam' Chloe says people ought to think little ladies haven't any
+legs,--that their feet are just pinned to the bottom of their
+pantalettes."
+
+"Mam' Chloe is an--echo!"
+
+"That wasn't what you began to say,--was it?" asked I, diffidently.
+
+She laughed again, tweaking my ear, affectionately, and telling me that
+I was a "monkey, and too sharp to be safe."
+
+Her eyes were full of laughter and laziness; the color in her cheeks was
+that of a velvet perpetual rose, shading into peach-blow, then into pure
+white that never took freckle or tan from the hottest sun.
+
+Have I said that her hair was auburn, and curled like grape tendrils,
+from the nape of the neck to the forehead? The color was singular. In
+the shade it was that of a perfectly groomed bay horse. When the sun
+struck it, it got all alive, as if there were light under it, as well as
+over it, and was, unmistakably, red. She made more fun of it than
+anybody else, but at heart she loved her hair, and would not have
+exchanged it for paley-gold or ebony tresses. Bud had fastened his
+chubby hands in it to steady himself on his perch, as she ran, and
+pulled some of it loose from her comb. A thick curl strayed over her
+arm, bare almost to the shoulder, as was the warm-weather custom of
+young ladies of that time. She drew it around before her eyes, thinning
+it into a silky veil, holding it high up and letting it slip, strand by
+strand, between her and the light.
+
+A notion--indefinable in words--that a wealth of charms was wasted upon
+one observant little girl and a non-observant baby, led me to inquire:--
+
+"Would you, sure enough, rather be out here than in the house, talking
+to them all?"
+
+"I am tired of 'them all,' Molly. They tire me to death."
+
+"Some grown people are not tiresome," I essayed. "There's Mr. Frank
+Morton, now. I _like_ him!"
+
+"Oh, you do--do you? Why?" still shredding the veil of curls between her
+and the sun.
+
+"Well, one thing is, he talks _straight_. He doesn't talk 'round about,
+and sideways, and crossways, to children. Nor make fun of my questions.
+He just answers right along and plain."
+
+"I don't think I quite know what you mean, Namesake."
+
+"Why, you see it's this way,--the other day I asked him if he didn't
+think you were a heap prettier than any other lady he ever saw, and he
+never so much as cracked a smile. He just put his arm 'round me--he
+never did that but twice before--and he said up-and-down, as serious as
+anything--'Yes, I do, Molly!' And he does make the beautifullest
+chinquapin whistles! They go on whistling after they are dry. You see,
+the trouble with the whistles other people make for me, is that they
+shrivel all up by next day, and there isn't a bit of whistle left in
+them."
+
+"That's the way with most of my whistles, too, Namesake. And then I
+throw them away and want new ones. Heigh-ho! What's the use of a whistle
+when all the whistle has gone out of it? I must ask Mr. Frank Morton how
+he makes his."
+
+I gave a jump and a little squeak.
+
+"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle! there's a great, _big_ race-horse on you!"
+
+He had tumbled out of the apple boughs upon the folds of her skirt and
+before I could capture him, a second fell after him. I was upon my feet
+in a twinkling, seized first one, then the other, by their attenuated
+middles, and held them up, all kicking and sprawling, between a thumb
+and finger of each hand. I knew the tricks and the manners of what I
+learned, many years later, that naturalists describe as the _mantis
+religiosa_, or praying-mantis, because in off-hours,--_i.e._ when they
+are not foraging or fighting--they will sit upon their hind quarters and
+"fold the stout anterior legs in a manner suggesting hands folded in
+prayer."
+
+I had caught dozens of them and fed them for days in a box with coarse
+lace tied over the top to prevent escape, and studied their habits, and
+humored their propensities by putting several together in the prison
+that forthwith became an arena, in which _duello_ and general scrimmage
+relieved one another in enchanting succession.
+
+I explained now, to my diverted companion, that I held them by their
+backs so that they could not bite me, and pointed out the wicked heads
+turning almost quite around in their savage efforts to avenge their
+capture. I was sure, I said excitedly, that these two were fighting up
+in the tree, and that was the way they happened to drop so close
+together. Had she never seen devil's race-horses fight? Mother didn't
+like that name for them, so I 'most always said just "race-horses"
+plain, _so_. Only, when they were very cross, the other word would slip
+out.
+
+"If I were to let them go this minute, they'd begin to fight, 'stead of
+running away," I concluded. "S'pose we try them."
+
+Entering into my humor, she improvised a cockpit by spreading her
+pocket-handkerchief upon the ground, and I liberated the gladiators.
+
+They more than justified my account of their ferocity by grappling on
+the instant, each rising to his full height and hurling himself at his
+opponent's throat.
+
+"You see they are acquainted with one another," I commented, as umpire
+and manager. "They just begin where they left off up in the tree."
+
+It was an exciting display. Cousin Molly Belle raised herself upon her
+elbow; I doubled tightly under me what I now let myself think of as my
+legs, and spread both hands flat on the grass, to lean over the arena.
+In the hush that followed the onslaught the babbling song Bud crooned
+to himself as he crawled over the sun-and-shade dappled turf harmonized
+with the sleepy shaking of the leaves about us. Such another
+happy-hearted baby was never seen. And so wise, as I have said, for a
+yearling! never getting into mischief, and afraid of nothing.
+
+I peeped through a kinetoscope last winter at a prize fight. I have
+never beheld anything that so closely and humiliatingly resembled the
+battle on the cambric square under the big sweeting. The wary advance
+after the recoil from the first encounter; the circling about at close
+quarters, each watching for his antagonist's weak point, the sudden
+clutch, embrace, and wrestle, which I, with umpiric instinct,
+interrupted, once and again, to prolong the combat,--none of these were
+wanting from either exhibition.
+
+At length, I left the combatants to follow the bent of native savagery,
+and then came such warm and inartistic work as patrons of the human ring
+would decry as barbarous and out-of-date. They bit venomously, below
+the belt, they grabbed at and hung on to any part of the body that came
+handy; they rolled over and over, intertwined so closely as to appear
+like one convulsed, centipedal monster. Finally, one half of the
+creature gave a violent kick and was still. As the victor shook himself
+free of the carcass we saw the head he had bitten from the other's neck
+roll from under the survivor. Withdrawing an inch or two from the
+remains, he sat up on his hind quarters, and "folded his stout anterior
+legs" sanctimoniously in a battle-prayer. His devotions ended, he
+proceeded to lick his wound and readjust himself generally.
+
+"I'm sorry I didn't separate them," said Cousin Molly Belle, shaking her
+handkerchief with coy finger-tips. "I don't think I care to see such
+another fight. It gives me the creeps."
+
+"I think it is very inter_es_ting," replied I. "'Tisn't as if they had
+souls, you see. They just die and don't go anywhere."
+
+A disagreeable noise joined Bud's cooing and babbling, and made us turn
+quickly. Right before us, and within six feet of the helpless baby, who
+had sat up to regard the phenomenon with innocent wonder, was an
+enormous sow with a brood of hungry young ones at her heels. Her vicious
+grunt, her gloating eyes, her dripping jaws, and projecting tusks,
+bespoke her dangerous. Only yesterday I had seen her, prowling in the
+barn-yard, seize and devour, one after another, three downy ducklings
+before the stable-boys could beat her off. In the terror of this moment,
+the scene flashed back to me, and I seemed to hear again the crunching
+of those slavering jaws.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle swooped down upon Bud, and had him upon her shoulder
+before I could join my piping cry to her shout that rang out like a
+silver trumpet. The huge beast halted, made as though she would turn,
+then gave an angry, squealing grunt, and lunged toward us. Not a loose
+stick or stone was within reach. If there had been, there was not time
+to pick it up.
+
+"Run for the fence! Run!" called the brave girl to me, and met the
+voracious brute with a kick, so well aimed that the high heel of her
+shoe struck full upon the eye next to her. In the respite gained by the
+sow's stagger and recoil, our defender overtook me, caught my hand, and
+fled along the path traced in the trampled broom-straw, through which we
+had waded merrily awhile ago. We had not taken a dozen steps when we
+heard the enemy roaring behind us.
+
+"Oh!" gasped I, running with all my might meanwhile. "She will eat up
+Bud! Like she--ate--up--the--little--ducks!"
+
+"She shall eat me first!"
+
+I knew she meant it, and that it was true. The fence was not more than
+fifty yards away. It looked a mile off, and the wild grass was as tough
+and treacherous as it had been pliant and sweet when we had danced
+through it. I was a swift runner and my limbs obeyed me well. I was
+conscious, moreover, of the strong upbearing of my companion's hand that
+lent wings to my feet. If I were to stumble, she would not let me fall.
+This persuasion kept mind and heart in me.
+
+Yet the sow would have caught up with us had not a pig set up a piteous
+squeal, as it lost its way or was entangled by the grass. The mother
+went back to reassure it with a series of staccato gruntings, very
+unlike those with which she renewed the chase.
+
+We were at the fence. I scrambled over, spent and shaking, hardly able
+to receive the precious load that was lowered to me. As Cousin Molly
+Belle dropped after us, our pursuer's snout was poked between the lower
+rails in a last and futile attempt to get at the baby's fat legs.
+
+"_Then_ I got mad all through!" Cousin Molly Belle told my mother, in
+recounting the adventure.
+
+Her white face flamed scarlet in a second. A pile of disused pea sticks
+lay in the fence corner. She seized one, and jumped over the fence
+again. Wielding her weapon as if it were a flail, she brought it down
+upon the ugly head and raw-boned body; and as the sow turned tail to
+run, belabored her through the orchard to the gap by which she had
+entered.
+
+The conqueror returned to me, flushed, but unsmiling. I had Bud tight in
+my arms, and was laughing and crying together.
+
+"It was funny to see you lam her and to see her run," I sobbed between
+giggles that hurt me more than the sobs.
+
+She sat down on the grass, and clasped the baby to her heart. He cooed
+joyously, and held up a sweet open mouth for a kiss. He got, not one,
+but twenty kisses upon his wet lips, his pink face, his curly head, and
+the bonny eyes that were bluer than the sky. Then she bent to give me
+one--so long and tender that it checked sob and giggle.
+
+"We will never make devil's race-horses fight again, Namesake. They have
+a right to their lives. And a life is a very precious thing!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+Van Diemen's Land
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I learned to read that winter. How nobody knew, and I least of all.
+Looking backward, I seem to have gone to sleep one night, an ignoramus,
+and awakened next morning knowing letters, yet never having learned.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle's solution of the puzzle submitted to her by my
+mystified mother was characteristic:--
+
+"It is the fable of Munchausen's frozen horn over again. All the
+learning you have been pumping into the poor child for two years has
+thawed out. I always told you that she had brains if you would wait
+until they woke up."
+
+I might speak of that enchanted season as my birth-winter. My mental
+awakening was into another world, so much wider and fuller than that
+with which I had been well content up to this time, that life was a
+continual ecstasy. I discovered, early in December, that, as Mr. Wegg
+was to immortalize himself by saying a quarter-century later--"all print
+was open" to me. By the middle of February I had gone three times
+through the inimitable classic, _Cobwebs-to-catch-Flies_, and read at
+least six other books through twice, besides being up to my eyes and
+over the head of my understanding in _Sandford and Merton_, that most
+fascinating of prosy impossibilities. Beside the classic I have named,
+and _Rosamond_, _Harry and Lucy_, Berquin's _Children's Friend_, Mrs.
+Sherwood's _Little Henry and His Bearer_ and _Fairchild Family_, _Anna
+Ross_ and _Helen Maurice_, we had no books that were written expressly
+for children. No prepared pap being at hand, we expressed real
+nourishment for the mind--relishful juices that made intellectual bone
+and muscle--from the strong meat upon which our elders fed.
+
+Did we comprehend all, or one-third of what we read, or heard read?
+
+Less, probably, than one-sixth, but we got far more than would seem
+credible to one who has been led up a graciously inclined plane of
+learning. Our manner of receiving and digesting mind-food was very much
+like Bud's way of testing unknown substances that might be edible. We
+rejected what hurt our teeth. What we got we kept.
+
+The current of my outer life was quiet to apparent dulness. After
+breakfast Mary 'Liza and I had our lessons with my mother in "the
+chamber." In another year we would have a governess, but the mothers of
+that time always taught their children to read and write, to spell and
+cipher through Emerson's _First Arithmetic_. I have known several who
+never sent their boys and girls to school, even preparing the lads for
+college. We had our reading, beginning with a chapter in the Bible,
+then, our spelling and writing, and sums. After these, my mother read
+aloud from Grimshaw's _History of England_, simplifying the language
+when she considered it necessary, which was not often, while Mary 'Liza
+made up the first set of chemises (in the vernacular "shimmys,") she had
+undertaken for herself, and I knit twenty rounds on a stocking. My
+mother put in a "mark" of black silk every morning from which I could
+count the rounds upward. Mary 'Liza had knit a dozen pairs in all. In
+the tops of six, she had knit in openwork her initials "M. E. B." I had
+no ambitions in that direction. My views on the subject of ornamental
+initials and sampler autographs were put into pregnant English at a
+subsequent date by the elder Weller. He professed to have received at
+second-hand from the charity-boy, set to con the alphabet, what the
+retired stage-driver applied to matrimony--to wit, that it was not worth
+while to go through so much to get so little. Knitting delighted not me,
+nor stitching either.
+
+Lessons and work over, the day began for me in joyful earnest. The rest
+of the morning and all the evening were mine to use, or abuse, as I
+liked. We applied "evening" to the hours between the three o'clock
+dinner and bedtime. We may have caught the phrase from our Bible
+readings. The morning and the evening were the day.
+
+Early in the fall I had begged permission from my mother to utilize a
+deserted chicken-house as a play-room. It was long and narrow; one side
+was barred with upright slats that admitted light and air to the former
+inmates; one end was taken up by the door; the other and the back were
+solid boards, the house having been built in the angle of a fence. My
+mother had the interior cleaned and whitewashed. I think she was glad to
+provide a decent "den" for me nearer home than the Old Orchard and the
+more distant woods, and she was losing hold of her hope of making me
+into a pattern daughter. It gives me a twinge to recollect how
+thanklessly I accepted what must have been an act of self-denial on her
+part, perhaps even a compromise with conscience. Mam' Chloe--by my
+mother's orders, as I know now--hunted up some breadths of faded carpet
+in the garret, Uncle Ike beat the dust out of them, then nailed them up
+along the slatted side to keep the wind away. These I called my "arras,"
+having picked up the word from hearing my father read Shakespeare aloud
+at night after we were in the trundle-bed. Other breadths covered the
+rough flooring, and I had a castle of which I was the undisputed
+mistress--a court where I reigned, a queen.
+
+Enthroned in a backless chair, I was, by turns, Mrs. Burwell (my own
+mother), Helen Maurice's Aunt Felix, Rosamond's mother, Rebecca, the
+Lady Rowena (my father began _Ivanhoe_ in January), Mrs. Fairchild,
+Deborah, Mrs. Murray of _Anna Ross_, Naomi, and Ophelia. Once, I "did"
+Job by wrapping a meal-sack--for sackcloth--about me, and, sitting upon
+the ground, throwing ashes over my head and into the air, the while
+four colored boys, previously instructed, burst in one by one, with news
+of the mischief wrought by Sabean, lightning, Chaldean, and cyclone. A
+dramatization of Queen Esther, upon which I had set my heart, was, at
+last, given up because I could not be King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther at
+one and the same time.
+
+When the castle was too bleak for even child-comfort, Aunt 'Ritta, the
+cook, let us heat bricks in the kitchen fire, and showed us how to wrap
+them in rags to keep in the warmth. Clad in my red cloak, a wadded hood
+of the same color tied over my ears, and my feet upon a swathed brick, I
+was in no danger of taking cold.
+
+Mary 'Liza put her neat little nose in at the door one raw day when she
+was walking for exercise, and wondered, gently, "how I could stand it."
+
+"I am afraid the smell would give me a headache, and the cold would give
+me a sore throat," she said still gently.
+
+I never had either from the time the leaves fell until they came again.
+Except when, about once a month, some matron from a near or distant
+plantation brought one or more of her children with her when she drove
+over to "spend the day" with my mother, I had no white playfellow near
+my own age. Mary 'Liza "was not fond of playing," although she would do
+it when we had company who could be entertained in no other way. As a
+rule, when not engaged with lessons and chemises, she took care in a
+matronly way of Dorinda, Rozillah's successor, and "behaved."
+
+On the Sundays when we did not go to church because the weather was bad,
+or there was no preaching within twenty miles of us, or my mother was
+not well, or the roads were impassable with mire or frost, Mary 'Liza
+and I learned two questions in the Shorter Catechism, and she learned
+the references as well. We also committed a hymn to memory, and five
+verses of a psalm. Beyond this, no religious exercise was binding upon
+us, and there was a great deal of the day to be got rid of. Mary 'Liza
+read the memoirs of _Mary Lothrop_ and _Nathan W. Dickerman_, seated
+upright on her cricket at one corner of the chamber fireplace, and in
+the evening, if the day were pleasant, took her Bible to Mam' Chloe's
+room or even as far as "the quarters," and read aloud to the servants
+whole chapters out of Jeremiah and Paul's Epistles. They used to predict
+that she would marry a preacher (which, by the way, she did in the
+fulness of time, a red-headed widower preacher, with five boys).
+
+I liked to go to church, because I saw there people dressed in their
+prettiest clothes, and they sang hymns. Prayers and sermon were
+attendant and unavoidable evils. My legs went to sleep, and a big girl
+"going on six" was too old to follow suit. We read none but good books
+on Sunday. _Little Henry and His Bearer_, _Anna Ross_, and _Helen
+Maurice_ were allowed; the memoirs I have named were advised. The
+_Fairchild Family_ "partook too much of the nature of fiction to be
+quite suitable for Sabbath reading." So Rev. Cornelius Lee, our pastor,
+had decided when the doubtful volume was submitted to him. After that,
+it was locked up Saturday night, along with _Sandford and Merton_ and
+Miss Edgeworth's _Moral Tales_.
+
+I minded the deprivation less after I converted the playhouse into a
+family chapel, and held services there on stay-at-home Sundays. My
+audience comprised all the small negroes on the place,--about twenty in
+number,--and they were willing attendants. A barrel was set, the whole
+head up, at the upper end of the room; upon this was my chair. I sat in
+it during the singing, and mounted upon it while reading and exhorting.
+Subtle reverence, which I could not analyze, held me back from "offering
+prayer." What we were doing was only "making believe" after all, and
+belief in the All-seeing Eye, the All-hearing Ear, the Judge of idle
+words and blasphemous thoughts, was as old as my knowledge of my own
+being. But sing we could and did, and I read from the Scriptures of the
+Old and the New Testaments, usually from the narrative portions, with a
+psalm or two to "beat the upward flame" in our hearts.
+
+And then I would preach a sermon.
+
+Our chapel had been in good running order for over two months, when on a
+certain drizzly Sunday early in March, I arose discreetly upon my
+ticklish pulpit to announce through my nose, "We will commence our
+services by singing the three-hundredth-and-thirty-third hymn--'Come
+thou Fount of every blessing.'"
+
+As mine was the only hymn-book in the assembly, the mention of the
+number was a bit of supererogatory business. The omission of the formula
+would have been a breach of chapel etiquette. I raised the tune, and
+every other pair of lungs there joined in without fear of criticism or
+favor of his neighbors' ears. Some of the duller and lesser children
+smothered or decapitated a word here and there in the main body of the
+hymn. All knew the chorus, and it shook the unceiled roof:--
+
+   "Away, away, away to glory!
+   My name's written on the throne.
+   My home's in yonder worl' o' glory,
+   Where my Redeemer reigns alone."
+
+Warmed by the vigorous preliminary, I read the sixth chapter of
+Revelation, still through my nose, catching my breath audibly at the end
+of each clause. This oratorical touch was copied with ludicrous accuracy
+from Rev. Wesley Greene, a circuit-rider who had conducted an
+"arbor-meeting" at Fine Creek meeting-house last summer. Our negroes
+were all Baptists, and considered themselves remiss, as devout hearers
+of aught that partook of the nature of a religious service, if they did
+not respond at intervals with groans and pious ejaculations. Their
+children, as gravely imitative as juvenile Simiæ, came up nobly to their
+parts in our exercises.
+
+The acknowledged leader in the responses, and my Grand Vizier in the
+ordering of my small kingdom, my stage-manager and lieutenant-general,
+was a girl of twelve, Mariposa by name. She received the fanciful title
+from a young visitor to the plantation who had studied Spanish.
+"Mariposa" meant butterfly, she told the baby's mother, who gratefully
+accepted the compliment to her newly born daughter. The mother and her
+mates called her "Mary Posy." The mistress, who was fond of the madcap
+sponsor, retained the original pronunciation.
+
+Mariposa was as black as tar, and to-day was clothed in a yellow
+homespun frock. Her hair was twisted and bound into two upright tags
+that projected above her temples. Altogether, she was not unlike a
+gigantic black-and-tan moth, a resemblance heightened by the
+aforementioned _antennæ_, albeit lessened by the baby she always carried
+on some portion of her wiry frame. She was the toughest, most supple,
+and most versatile creature I ever saw, of any color or clime. The baby
+was disposed decorously across her knees on this occasion, and she was
+one of the five auditors who had brought along their own crickets or
+chairs. She had confiscated some older woman's splint-bottomed
+rocking-chair and lugged it to the very front, as she had a right to do.
+
+I had heard Mam' Chloe say of one of Rev. Wesley Greene's sermons, "I
+tell you, Miss Ma'y, the Sperrit struck him that day, an' he jes'
+_r'arred_!"
+
+Something struck my worthy lieutenant during my reading of the white,
+red, black, and pale horses of the Apocalypse and their awesome riders,
+and the others following her lead, my voice was drowned by the
+"Hum-_hums_!" and "Glorys!" and "Hallelujahs!" and "Bless de Lords!"
+arising from all sides.
+
+"It isn't polite for folks in the seats to talk louder than the
+preacher," I had to admonish them in my natural voice and manner. "I
+hope you won't be so noisy while I'm preaching."
+
+Nevertheless, when I gave out my text, the struck Mariposa, rolling
+from side to side with the motion of a "weaving" horse on her
+rocking-chair--that squeaked dismally--was so wrought upon by the ring
+of unknown and high-sounding syllables as to set up a dreary drone like
+the hum of an exaggerated bumblebee, and to keep it up. This did not
+disconcert me. I had expected to stir the imagination of my hearers, for
+my own was aglow.
+
+Mary 'Liza, in reciting her geography lesson on Friday, had several
+times spoken of "Van Diemen's Land." Without the remotest conception of
+where or what it was--whether continent, or island, or town--I fastened,
+in fancy, upon her words, and constructed a hypothesis relative to the
+mysterious locality. Why I should have strung it upon the same strand of
+condemnation and doom with Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, Capernaum
+and Chorazin, I may have known then. I have no idea now why this was
+done, or the derivation of the inclusive curse.
+
+Van Diemen's Land, thus damned, fell naturally into line with the "Come
+and see!" of the "living creatures," and the "Death and Hell," and the
+prophecy of killing with sword and with famine and the wild beasts of
+the field. I was in a quiver of excitement that made my head and heart
+hot, and my feet and hands cold, as I fairly shouted my text:--
+
+"For oh! Van Diemen's Land shall be no more!"
+
+Mariposa's rhythmic hum was broken into irregular bars by groans and
+gruntings and sighings--all, I was gratified to note, modulated to the
+standard of civility I had indicated. I had made a hortatory hit, and it
+was encored. I spread wide my hands, in one of which was the New
+Testament, and reiterated the text with greater unction and volume:--
+
+"For, oh, my brethren! Van Diemen's Land shall be no more!"
+
+The chair careened under my ill-advised energy; the barrel toppled
+forward, and I shot, like a rocket, clear over Mariposa's head, breaking
+my fall somewhat upon another girl and baby, and landing in the middle
+of the congregation, with my nose against one of the swathed bricks.
+
+I seldom cried when hurt, Cousin Molly Belle having told me long ago
+that a brave soldier made no noise when his head was shot off. But I
+screamed lustily now in the belief that my nose was broken and I
+bleeding to death. The deluge of gore was frightful to inexperienced
+eyes.
+
+My father's voice, kindly authoritative, bidding me "be still!" hushed
+my roaring. As tears and blood were stanched, I saw his face bending
+over me, full of concern that yet fought with amusement I did not
+comprehend. I could not doubt that he pitied me, when he carried me,
+bloody and dirty as I was, into the chamber, and stood by while my
+mother and Mam' Chloe set me to rights. The shock of the fall and the
+fright left me sick and trembling. The trundle-bed was drawn out to half
+its width and I was laid upon it, wrapped in my little dressing-gown, a
+bottle of camphor in my nerveless hand.
+
+"I am afraid you were playing on Sunday," said my mother, more in sorrow
+than in anger.
+
+"Indeed, and indeed, mother, I was not playing!" I broke forth,
+earnestly, my swollen nose making the pious twang involuntary and full
+of unction. "I was _preaching_!"
+
+My father walked to the fireplace to hide the laugh he could no longer
+suppress.
+
+"It is true, my dear!" my over-quick ears caught his remark as she
+followed him. "I heard the singing, and went to see what was going on."
+
+His voice sank into a low, rapid recitation, and I lost the rest until
+it rose upon another laugh.
+
+"She and Van Diemen's Land went down together!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+Oiled Calico
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A few days after the disaster in the family chapel, my mother's cousin,
+Mrs. Bray, came to see us, bringing her daughter Lucy. Their home had
+been in Henrico County, but Mr. Bray had "the western fever." My mother
+and Aunt Eliza Carter said so in my hearing before the Brays' visit, and
+when they arrived I was surprised to see him looking so well and strong
+and that he had a hearty appetite. They were on their way to Ohio,
+travelling in their own carriage, and having also along with them a huge
+covered wagon, drawn by four fine horses, and packed full of furniture.
+This wagon was rolled into an empty carriage-house and kept there,
+locked up, while they stayed.
+
+They had planned to spend Sunday with us, just to say "Good-by," and to
+move on, on Monday. On Saturday night, Cousin Mary Bray was taken ill,
+and before morning the tiniest baby I ever saw was born. It was very
+weak, too, and cried like a kitten all the time it was awake. The mother
+had to be kept perfectly quiet. The dogs were sent to "the quarters,"
+and everybody went about on tiptoe and talked in whispers. It was very
+dreadful until Monday morning, when an enchanting change was made in
+domestic arrangements.
+
+The house was a rambling building, with three separate staircases--none
+of them back stairs--and two wings, besides what I made my father laugh
+by calling "the tail," in which was "the chamber." Cousin Mary Bray's
+room was in the second story of the south wing, which was connected by a
+corridor with the main house. In the north wing was a lumber room that
+had once been used as a bedroom, and had a good fireplace. Mam' Chloe
+set a couple of men to pile trunks, old chairs, bedsteads, and the like,
+in one corner, and two maids to sweeping and cleaning up the dust; and
+when half of the room was empty and "broom-clean," had a fire kindled,
+and our playthings and ourselves taken over to that end of the house. In
+the corner farthest from the fire were heaped a mattress, a feather-bed,
+some old blankets and comfortables, and this became, forthwith, our
+favorite resort. Even Mary 'Liza entered into the fun of climbing upon
+the pile that let us sink down, _down_, ever so far, and, pulling the
+blankets over us, making believe that we were in a big covered wagon,
+and going to Ohio. Our dolls, and a few other toys, went with us, and we
+munched ginger cakes and apples, and played that it was night and we
+were to sleep in the wagon, and that the wind howling under the eaves
+was wolves, roaring 'round and 'round the camp-fire, looking for little
+girls to eat. Mary 'Liza was Mr. Bray, I was Cousin Mary, Lucy was just
+herself, and she did her part well.
+
+On Tuesday, which I heard Mam' Chloe say to my mother in a solemn sort
+of way was "the third day," our dinner was brought upstairs. We set the
+table for ourselves by covering a packing-box with an old sheet, and
+putting our plates and mugs and the dishes holding our food upon it.
+Mary 'Liza was at the foot of the table, I at the head, and Lucy sat up,
+prim and well-behaved, at the side, saying, "Yes, ma'am," to me and,
+"No, thank you, sir," to Mary 'Liza. We were making merry over the feast
+when the door opened and my mother came in with her maid Marthy, who had
+a plate in her hand with three round cakes on it. Pound-cake, baked in
+little pans, and warm from the oven! I danced and screamed for joy. Mary
+'Liza sat still, her hands in her lap, and said, "Thank you," when her
+cake was put on her plate. Lucy laughed all over her face without saying
+anything, but when my mother sat down on a chair to rest after climbing
+the stairs, the child ran to her and put both arms around her neck and
+laid her cheek on her shoulder.
+
+I can see her now--the picture was so pretty! Her hair was dark brown
+and waved naturally away from her forehead, making her face rather oval
+than round; her gray eyes were clear and large, and, when she was not
+smiling or talking, there was a serious shadow far down in them. She had
+a dear little mouth, and I liked to make her laugh that I might see the
+dimples come and go in her cheeks.
+
+Her frock was a new material to Mary 'Liza and me,--bright red, with a
+tiny black clover leaf dotting it. They called the stuff "oiled calico,"
+and, by putting my nose close to it, I could distinguish an odor that
+was something like oil. What we knew as "Turkey red," many years later,
+resembled it somewhat, but the oiled calico was much finer and softer.
+
+My mother lifted the slight figure to her lap, and I pressed close to
+her other side, nibbling my cake, crumb by crumb, to make it last
+longer. I had a habit of swallowing my goodies as soon as I got them.
+Mary 'Liza always put aside part of hers "until next time."
+
+At Christmas I had made a valiant effort to be economical and
+forehanded, and got the plantation carpenter to knock together a
+savings-bank for me, with a hole in the top. Into this I put half of the
+candy, raisins, and almonds given to me in the holidays and for a
+fortnight afterward. The self-denial went hard with me, but I consoled
+myself each night with the anticipation of opening day. The end of the
+fortnight arrived at last. I promised my sable cohort such a spread in
+the playhouse as it and they had never beheld. Barratier, Mariposa's
+brother, borrowed a hammer and chisel from "the shop," and pried off the
+lid. All crowded close to peep in. The box was almost full. Sticks of
+peppermint candy, with ribbons of red and white winding about them (a
+barber's pole reminds me of them to this hour); lollipops, also of
+peppermint, that would just go into my mouth and let the roof down and
+the teeth meet; cubes of amber lemon candy; and, most delicately
+delicious of all, squares of pink rose-candy that dissolved upon the
+tongue and smelt like the Vale of Cashmere to the very last grain;
+bunches of raisins, which we--and Jacky Horner--called "plums"; almonds,
+palm-nuts, filberts; small ginger cakes of a cut and size that Aunt
+'Ritta would not make for us unless she were in a particularly good
+humor;--the sight called forth a round-eyed and round-mouthed
+"_Aw-w-w!_" from the heads packed in a solid circle, as necks craned
+eagerly forward.
+
+For five heavenly minutes I was a fairy-godmother, a Lady Bountiful,
+with whom the ability to give was coequal with the desire. I made them
+sit down in rows on the carpeted boards. I hope there was not sacrilege
+in thinking, as I gave the order, how and where a similar command had
+been spoken. Beginning with the babies, I put a bit of candy upon each
+greedy palm, bidding my pensioners wait until I gave the signal to eat
+it. Then I took a pink cube between my thumb and finger, waved it
+theatrically above my head, and popped it into my mouth. Every other
+mouth opened simultaneously.
+
+Even now I hurry over the telling. The treasure-chest was of green pine
+boards. The contents were so strongly impregnated with turpentine that
+not a morsel was eatable. The weest pickaninny spat it out and squalled
+because the turpentine burned his tongue.
+
+I could dwell tearfully--possibly profitably--upon the moral of the
+adventure, had I not left Lucy Bray all this time on my mother's lap,
+and myself fingering the oiled calico in covetous admiration.
+
+"Mother," I said, "I wish, next time you go to Richmond, you would buy
+me a frock like this. Don't you think it is pretty?"
+
+"Very pretty, Molly. But I do not like to have you wear cotton in the
+winter. I am afraid you might catch fire. Haven't you a worsted frock
+that you can put on to-morrow, Lucy? It would be safer while you
+children are up here so much alone."
+
+Lucy was an old-fashioned little body from being the only child for so
+long and being so much with her mother. Instead of answering directly,
+she stopped to think, a pucker drawn between her brows with the effort.
+
+"I don't believe I have, Cousin Mary," she said slowly. "'Most all my
+best clothes are packed up, and the trunks are in the wagon. We didn't
+mean to stay here more than two days, you know. It wouldn't be worth
+while to unpack the trunks, I s'pose? Mamma will be well enough to go on
+to Ohio pretty soon, won't she?"
+
+"I hope so, dear."
+
+My mother drew her up to her and kissed the brown head. She, too, was
+thoughtful. I supposed that she was wondering if she would better
+unpack those trunks. I was not glad that Cousin Mary Bray was sick, but
+I was in no hurry for her to get well enough to travel. I had never had
+another visitor whose ways of playing suited me as well as Lucy's. She
+was a year older than I, and a year younger than Mary 'Liza, and she got
+along beautifully with both of us. Then there was her cat, Alexander the
+Great, that she was taking to Ohio with her. He was the biggest cat any
+of us had ever known, with a coat of the longest, softest fur you can
+imagine, all pure gray, without a white or black hair on him, and he had
+lots of fun and sense. Mary 'Liza wanted, at first, to make believe that
+he was a hungry wolf, but Lucy would not hear of it until I proposed he
+should be a tame wolf we had taken when he was a baby and trained to
+defend us. He really seemed to understand what was expected of him, and
+when we lay down in the feather-bed and huddled close together under
+the covers, and whispered, as the wind screamed around the corners of
+the house:--
+
+"There they are again! Don't you s'pose they'll be afraid of the fire?
+Wolves always are, you know,"--and Lucy would answer:--
+
+"Faithful Alexander will take care of us."
+
+Alexander would prowl up and down the room and stalk around the bed,
+never offering to get upon it, until we called out to one another:--
+
+"Another morning, and we are still safe!"
+
+Then, he would leap into Lucy's arms, and purr, and tickle her nose with
+his whiskers, until she couldn't speak for laughing. She had had him
+ever since he was born, and he slept on the foot of her bed at night.
+While she sat in my mother's lap, he was winding himself in and out
+between her feet, his tail carried aloft like a soldier's plume, and
+purring almost as loudly as a watchman's rattle. My mother looked down,
+presently, at him, and checked the absent-minded passes of her hand
+over Lucy's hair.
+
+"Give him some milk, Marthy," she said, smiling. "I wish you had a coat
+like his, Lucy. I shouldn't be afraid then of your taking cold, or of
+your going too near the fire. Marthy! to-morrow you must hunt up a
+fender to put here, and see if one of your Miss Mary 'Liza's last
+winter's frocks won't fit Miss Lucy. It would do very well for her to
+play in. We must take good care of her while--this bad weather lasts."
+
+I fancy she would have finished the sentence differently but for fear of
+saddening the child by intimating that her mother might be ill for a
+long time. She kissed Lucy in putting her down, and patted my shoulder,
+telling me to "be a good girl and very kind to my cousin."
+
+"I am glad you all are so comfortable and happy here," she added. "I
+could not have you downstairs just now. Carry these things down, Marthy,
+and run up every little while to see how the young ladies are getting
+on. Be sure and keep up a good fire, Mary 'Liza, my dear. I trust you to
+look after the other children."
+
+When she had gone I went to the window and flattened my nose against the
+glass to peer into the storm. It was a dormer-window, and the March snow
+was drifted high upon the roof on both sides of it, and upon the jutting
+eaves above it, until I looked out, as through a tunnel, into the
+jutting tree-tops. Beyond was a mad whirl of snowflakes that hid the
+nearest hills. The wind whined and scolded, and now and then arose into
+a hoarse bellow. I shivered, and slipped my cold hands up the sleeves of
+my stuff frock. We had circassian frocks for every day, and merino for
+Sundays. Our under petticoats were of flannel, and we wore, outside of
+these, quilted skirts interlined with wool. My mother had a nervous
+dread of fire.
+
+A shriek of laughter turned me to the more cheerful scene behind me.
+Alexander the Great was chasing his own tail as violently as if he had
+just discovered it and considered it as an offence to his dignity. Lucy
+was clapping her hands to egg him on, and Mary 'Liza had sat down upon
+the pile of bedding to laugh at her ease. Before leaving the room Marthy
+had piled wood upon the andirons as high as she could reach up the
+chimney-throat without grazing her hands in withdrawing them, as was the
+rule in fire-architecture on Virginia plantations. The March wind,
+finding its way through many a crack and cranny, beat at the flames
+until they flared this way and that. The cat dashed dizzily across the
+hearth, and Lucy, with a cry of alarm, darted forward to snatch him from
+the dangerous neighborhood. She caught hold of him, and pulled him away,
+and the draught whipped her skirts into the hottest heart of the fire.
+
+It was the work of an instant. The oily dressing of the cotton fabric
+may have made it the more inflammable. Rooted to the floor by horror, I
+saw a column of flame flash past me to the door, and heard the piercing
+wail grow fainter down the stairs.
+
+My mother heard it in the distant room where the sick woman was sleeping
+quietly, the tiny baby on her arm. Shutting the door as she came out,
+the hostess flew across the house to the north wing, and met the burning
+child on the stairs. Eluding her by keeping close to the wall, she
+gained the upper room, saw, at one wild glance that her own little ones
+were safe, tore a blanket from the bed, overtook Lucy at the stair-foot,
+and smothered the flames with it.
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+What Was Done With Musidora
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The details of Lucy Bray's death were told to me by others. My childish
+recollection held every feature of that first awful scene as tenaciously
+as if the flames had kindled upon me, and not upon my hapless
+playfellow. What followed is a hazy kaleidoscope, lurid and vague, until
+my scattered thoughts settled to the perception that I was making a long
+visit at Uncle Carter's and sharing Cousin Molly Belle's room and bed.
+
+She made me a new rag-doll-baby while I was there. That was the first
+thing that "brought me round," as Aunt Eliza phrased it. For one whole
+day when it was raining and blowing out of doors, I had eyes and
+thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that miraculous doll-baby,
+as she grew and glowed into an entity under the fingers of my
+best-beloved crony. She was a blonde after she ceased to be a blank. Her
+eyes were blue, her cheeks were shaded carmine; she had a real nose
+raised above the dead level of her countenance, stuffed artistically,
+and kept in shape by well-applied stitches. Finally,--and half a century
+thereafter I thrill in thinking of it,--an intellectual cranium was
+covered with a cunningly fashioned wig of Cousin Molly Belle's own silky
+auburn hair.
+
+This last and transcendent touch was added after I went to bed one
+night. The superb creation, arrayed in a lovely light purple French
+calico frock that could be taken off at night and put on in the morning,
+and sure enough underclothes, all tucked and trimmed, smiled from my
+pillow into my eyes when I unclosed them at the touch of the morning
+light.
+
+I christened my beauty "Mollabella," and would not change the name for
+her maker's gentle remonstrances and all my college cousin Burwell's
+teasing.
+
+Musidora had lapsed, little by little, into chronic invalidism, spending
+much of her time in bed. She was uncomely to any eyes but mine, and I
+would not subject her to unkind criticism. Her case was made hopeless by
+the officious kindness of Argus, a Newfoundland puppy, in bringing her
+to the playhouse one day after I had purposely left her tucked up snugly
+under three blankets inside of my reversed cricket by the dining-room
+fire. The attention was well meant, and he could not be expected to know
+that to drag sickly Musidora by the left leg through the mud until the
+infirm member parted company with the body, and to finish the journey
+with the head between his teeth, was not a happy device by which to win
+her owner's regard. I forgave him, in time, but Musidora was, after
+this last misadventure, a problem. I wondered much, sadly and silently,
+what other little girls did with doll-babies who died natural deaths.
+Not like Rozillah, who was never mentioned in my hearing, unless I were
+very naughty indeed, and heroic treatment was indicated.
+
+The day after my return home, the question was solved.
+
+In the fortnight of my absence great changes had befallen our household.
+Lucy and her mother and the tiny scrap of a baby had died, and been laid
+under the snow in the Burwell burying-ground on the hillside beyond the
+Old Orchard. Mr. Bray had gone to Ohio along with the big covered wagon.
+Alexander the Great went with him in the carriage. With tears in her
+sweet eyes, my mother told me how fond the father was of Lucy's pet, and
+how strangely the cat had acted in staying on Lucy's grave all the time
+until Mr. Bray took him away by force and carried him off in the
+carriage with him.
+
+From my retinue of vassals I had, in the chicken playhouse, a fuller and
+more circumstantial account of all that had passed during those gloomy
+days. The pleasant weather that succeeded the March snowstorm had given
+place to a cold, sweeping rain. I scampered as fast as I could across
+the yard to my castle, my red cloak over my head, and we had to shut the
+door to exclude the slant sheets of rain. All gathered in the upper end
+of the room where my chair stood, the only seat there except the floor.
+To the accompaniment of hissing rain and angry winds, the gruesome
+particulars of the triple funeral were narrated. Mariposa--with the baby
+on her lap--was chief spokeswoman, but nearly every one present had some
+item of his own, authentic or imaginary, to add. All were sure that the
+three whose fate had aroused the whole county to a passion of pity and
+regret were angels in heaven.
+
+[Illustration: THE BIRTH OF MOLLABELLA.
+
+"I had eyes and thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that
+miraculous doll-baby."]
+
+"Mammy, _she_ say, s'long as po' Miss Lucy was bu'n' so bad, 'twas
+mussiful fur to let her go," said Mariposa, rolling the baby over on
+his pudgy stomach, and patting his back to "bring up the wind." "_She_
+say, _ef_ one o' we-alls was to get bu'nt or cripple', or pufformed, or
+ennything like that, she's jes' pray all night an' all day--'Good Lord,
+_take_ 'em! Heavenly Marster! put 'em out o' they mizzry!' An' Ung'
+Jack, _he_ say, seems ef everything that's put in the groun' comes up
+beautifuller 'n 'twas when it went in. He tell how the seeds, _they_
+tu'n into flowers, an' apples an' watermillions, an' all that, an' how
+folks tu'n inter angills."
+
+I cried myself to sleep that night. My mother, kept wakeful, doubtless,
+by her own sad thoughts, heard the sobs I tried to stifle with the
+bedclothes, and came to me with talk of the dear Saviour who had taken
+little Lucy to his arms, and of her happiness in being forever with the
+Lord.
+
+I did not tell her--what child would?--that, while I missed and grieved
+for the companion of those three happy days, a deeper heartache forced
+up the tears.
+
+For I knew now what must be done with Musidora.
+
+I had taken her to bed with me that night for the first time in many
+weeks. Mary 'Liza was amused, in an amiable way, when she saw the bundle
+done up in red flannel--Musidora's rheumatism was _awful!_--that I
+hugged up to me.
+
+"I never let Dorinda sleep with me," she observed. "I am afraid of
+hurting her. But I suppose you can't hurt Musidora. Why don't you give
+her to one of the colored children? She is really a sight."
+
+"Nobody asked you to look at her!" retorted I, crossly, putting my hand
+over the unfeatured face. "Mam' Chloe says, 'Handsome is as handsome
+does.' Anyhow, my doll-baby doesn't say mean things to folks."
+
+The little bout raised the tear-level nearer to the escape-pipe. It was
+easy to cry when Mary 'Liza's breathing assured me that she was asleep.
+It also confirmed my resolution to have the poor, deformed dear dead
+and buried without useless delay.
+
+I cannot decide what moved me to bear her off secretly to the
+seldom-used staircase in the north wing to prepare her for her last long
+sleep. I escaped thither the next morning, as soon as lessons were over,
+and seated myself half-way up the steep staircase. It was scarred in
+many places by fire and smoke. No amount of scrubbing could quite efface
+the traces of the catastrophe. I looked at them for a long time before
+beginning my sad task, and did not shrink from the sight. My state of
+mind was distinctly morbid. Children were not reckoned to have nerves at
+that date, and little notice was taken of their silent moods. That I
+should voluntarily seek a solitary quarter of the house, which was
+shunned by others, never entered my mother's or my nurse's mind.
+
+I had abundance of time in which to be as miserable as I thought I ought
+to be, and diligently nursed such sickly, sentimental fancies as ought
+to be foreign to a healthy young mind, while I divested maimed and
+sightless Musidora of her flannel mufflings and dressed her in a clean
+night-gown. Without saying what I meant to do with it I had begged a
+square of white cambric from Mam' Chloe, and set about notching it with
+a pair of blunt scissors. Mariposa had described a winding-sheet
+minutely to me, and I meant that my dead doll-baby should be decently
+laid out. The notching took a tedious time, and the bows of the blunt
+scissors left purple furrows upon thumb and fingers. Uncle Ike had given
+me an empty raisin box. I lined it with Musidora's own mattress and
+quilt, spread the "pinked" cambric on them, laid the remains (no
+figurative phrase in this connection) upon this bed, folding the one arm
+left to the unfortunate across her breast, and wrapped the edges of the
+winding-sheet over her face. With difficulty I coaxed the points of four
+projecting nails left in the lid into corresponding holes in the box,
+and having no hammer, sat down upon the top to make them fast, bouncing
+up and down a few times to make a good job of it.
+
+I sat still awhile after closing the casket, and rehearsed mentally the
+order of the obsequies. I had, thus far, made no arrangements for them
+beyond instructing the colored children to meet me in the Old Orchard
+under the big sweeting when the sun reached the "noonmark" my father
+had, to please me, cut in the fence by the playhouse door. They would be
+there in force and on time. I would get myself and burden out of the end
+door of the north wing and steal around the yard fence to the back of
+the garden without being seen. I knew how Mary 'Liza would smile and
+hitch up her straight, clean nose at the box and its contents, and I had
+a boding fear lest grown people might disapprove of and forbid the
+funeral.
+
+Upon that my heart was fully set. The grief of losing the ceremony would
+be harder to endure than the delicious mournfulness with which I had
+systematically imbued my soul. I chose four boys of uniform size for
+pall-bearers; Barratier was to have a spade ready and to dig the grave,
+and when it was filled in we would sing a hymn. Mourning garments were
+the knotty point. I, as Musidora's mother, could not appear at her
+funeral in the crimson circassian frock I wore at present. That would
+upset everything.
+
+A happy thought struck me. I recollected to have seen in the
+lumber-room, hanging upon some pegs high upon the wall, a row of old
+bonnets, and a black one among them. Other black things could be had for
+the hunting. I was a fanciful child, too used to conjuring up weird
+situations and make-believe happenings to be easily scared by what other
+children might dread. Nor was I then, or ever, a physical coward. As
+soon as the idea of visiting that upper room came to me I acted upon it.
+Tripping up the narrow stairs, I pushed hard against the door. It stuck
+in the frame, and I was fearing it might be locked when it gave way
+suddenly and I almost fell into the chamber. It was a dreary place,
+although the spring sunshine poured broadly from wall to wall. The
+charred brands of the fire that had wrought such woe were cold in the
+corners of the hearth, having toppled, head-foremost and backward, over
+the andirons after burning through in the middle. The old blankets and
+comfortables were huddled upon the mattress and trailed upon the floor,
+as my mother had left them in snatching one to throw about Lucy. A ball
+with which Alexander the Great had played was in a corner. But for the
+dead fire and the living sunshine and the stillness that met me on the
+threshold like a draught of icy air, we might have left the place not
+three minutes ago.
+
+I learned, subsequently, that my mother had been sadly prostrated by the
+terrible threefold disaster, and had never had the nerve to re-visit
+the place where it began. None of the servants would have gone near it
+of their own free will. A queer, unfamiliar tremor I did not recognize
+as superstitious dread contracted my heart, and arrested me just within
+the doorway. The box, from which we had eaten our dinner, was in the
+middle of the floor, the three crickets pushed a little way back from
+it, and half-way between the fireplace and a window in the gable was the
+rocking-chair my mother had occupied while she held Lucy on her lap.
+Faded calico covered the seat, a valance of the same hung about the
+legs; two of the upright spindles were missing from the back. I took in
+every feature of the haunted room before I rushed over to the wall where
+the bonnets hung, climbed upon a chair, grabbed the black bonnet, and
+espying a black silk apron dependent from another peg, jerked it down,
+and ran off shakily, with my booty. The queer trembling had got into my
+legs, and as I went downstairs I steadied myself against the wall,
+avoiding, as I had not thought of doing as I went up, the scorched
+streaks on the walls and the stains on the steps. Even after I stood in
+the safe shelter of the garden fence, my heart beat so loudly that I put
+the raisin box down upon the grass, and pulled myself together.
+
+The sunshine was genial to my chilled frame; through the palings I could
+see double rows of hyacinths, tulips, and butter-and-eggs, edging the
+walks, and bushes of lilacs and snowballs almost in bloom, just as they
+had looked before I went up to the lumber-room. The serene naturalness
+of it all restored my wits to me; I unrolled the apron which I had
+wrapped about the bonnet, and reawakened, as from a nightmare, to the
+business of the hour.
+
+When I presented myself to the group awaiting me under the big sweeting,
+a low, but fervent, groan of admiration broke forth as from one breast.
+The bonnet covered my head generously, jutting six inches beyond my
+nose. The crêpe curtain at the back descended to my shoulder-blades and
+flapped at the sides like the wings of a dejected crow. I had made a
+mourning-cloak of the apron by tying it, hind part before, about my
+neck, whence it drooped to my heels. Mariposa said--respectful of the
+genius manifest in my caparison--that I looked "mos' ezzac'ly like a
+real, sure-'nough widder." The boys were impressed into gravity becoming
+the occasion, and obeyed, with never a snicker or a grimace, my
+instructions as to the conduct of the ceremony.
+
+I walked directly behind the coffin; Mariposa, with the baby on her left
+hip, marched next, arm-in-arm with another girl, who carried her baby--a
+very young one--over her shoulder, its head wobbling helplessly as she
+walked. The rest came after us, two-and-two, through the Old Orchard,
+out through the draw-bars at the lower end, and into the graveyard
+beyond.
+
+It was a retired, and not an unlovely spot. A brick wall, splashed with
+ochre and gray lichens, enclosed six generations of dead Burwells and
+their next of kin. A locked gate kept out trespassers. Long streamers of
+brier and wild berry bushes, purple and ashy with the mantling sap
+drawn upward by the March sunshine, were matted over the older graves; a
+spreading "honey-shuck" tree arose near the middle of the badly kept
+square, and smaller trees flourished here and there. An apple tree,
+flushed with blossoms, leaned over the wall above the place selected for
+Musidora's grave.
+
+Barratier struck his perpendicular spade into the black soil in a truly
+workmanlike manner, utilizing the foundation of the wall as one side of
+the oblong pit. The coffin was lowered into place by means of
+tow-strings, provided by thoughtful Mariposa. There was no reason, save
+her punctilio of "doin' things jes' like folks," why Barratier, or I,
+for that matter, should not have stooped and laid the casket in the
+eighteen-inch-deep hole with our bare hands. But lowered it was in
+funereal style, and covered with apple blossoms, before the bearers
+returned the black earth to the excavation and mounded it into proper
+shape. I stood at the head of the grave, my handkerchief at my eyes,
+trying with all my might to feel sorry enough to cry. The excitement of
+the conventional ceremonies, and the complacent consciousness of being
+the principal actor in it, and doing the thing creditably, drew the
+sting out of what would have been real grief had the flutter of my
+spirits allowed me to think. I believe that, if maturer mourners would
+be as frank as I, we should find that my experience was not singular,
+nor my reluctant composure unnatural.
+
+Mariposa had her emotions better in hand. She sobbed volubly, wiping
+away real tears with the baby's calico slip, and three other girls
+accomplished commendable snivels. An embarrassing halt brought down my
+handkerchief and hushed audible mourning. The affair was not over. Every
+eye was riveted expectantly upon me, and I had forgotten what came next.
+Mariposa plucked my cloak and whispered in my ear:--
+
+"Thar oughter be a pra'ar now!"
+
+The propriety of the suggestion was obvious. I had seen pictures of
+funerals and knew how the officiating clergyman appeared in committing
+"dust to dust, ashes to ashes." But there was the fear aforementioned of
+breaking a Commandment by addressing the Almighty in a make-believe
+service.
+
+"'Tain't a fun'ral 'thout thars a pra'ar!" Mariposa muttered
+insistently.
+
+Nerved by the exigency, I lifted both hands and eyes toward the sky:--
+
+"World without end, Amen and Amen!"
+
+"A-a-_men_!" groaned my faithful lieutenant. Her emphasis assured me
+that the inspiration I had obeyed was a felicitous touch. She pressed
+still closer to me, mindful of my dignity, and prompted me further, in
+an artistic mutter, without using her lips.
+
+"The services o' this solemn 'casion will be close' by er hymn."
+
+I uttered it as if she had not given the cue, and "lined out" the hymn I
+had pitched upon as eminently appropriate for the "solemn 'casion."
+
+   "When I can read my title clear
+   To mansions in the skies."
+
+Mariposa raised the tune and carried it, the rest of the band screaming
+in her wake.
+
+   "I'll bid farewell to every fear
+   And wipe my weeping eyes,"
+
+I continued in a nasal sing-song.
+
+The chorus was plain sailing before a spanking breeze;
+
+   "And wipe my weeping eye-eye-_eyes_!
+   And wipe my weeping eye-er-_ese_!
+   I'll bid farewell to every fear
+   And wipe my weeping eyes."
+
+Like the echo of the final screech a fearsome wail arose from within the
+enclosure,--a long-drawn cry, repeated while we stared into one
+another's blanched faces, too affrighted for words.
+
+Mariposa was the first to recover the use of her tongue and limbs.
+
+"_Th' ghos' o' the little baby!_" she yelled, and took to her nimble
+heels at a rate that made it impossible for the fleetest of her fellow
+fugitives to overtake her.
+
+I was left all alone.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Leaning against the outside of the brick wall, too stunned to join in my
+companions' stampede, I yet did not lose my senses. Neither did I cry
+out or whimper. Children have gone into convulsions and become idiotic
+for less cause. I was phenomenally healthy, and, as I have said, no
+coward. Before the hindmost deserter gained the draw-bars my reason was
+on the return path. I had the signal advantage above my comrades of not
+believing in ghosts. My father had asserted to me positively, once and
+again, that no such things existed, and put himself to much trouble to
+explain natural phenomena that are often misinterpreted by the ignorant
+and superstitious into supernatural manifestations. His orders were
+strict that the servants should never retail ghost stories in our
+hearing; and he was obeyed by the elder negroes. Mam' Chloe, whatever
+may have been her reserved rights of private judgment, backed him up
+dutifully with the epigram:--
+
+"Folks that's gone to the bad place _can't_ get out to come back, an'
+them that's in heaven don't _want_ to."
+
+The cry I had heard certainly sounded like the weak wail of Cousin Mary
+Bray's skinny little baby, but God and the dear angels would never let
+the helpless, tiny mite wander back to earth alone. My mother had said
+to me, last night, that it would never cry any more.
+
+"It was in pain all the while it was here," she reminded me. "It never
+awoke that it did not begin to cry. Think how sweet it must be for it
+not to suffer now. I think that God sent for it to come to heaven
+because He was so sorry for it."
+
+Strength flowed into my soul with the recollection. My mother never said
+what was not exactly true. Happy, safe, and saving faith of childhood in
+a parent's wisdom, a parent's word, a parent's power!
+
+Curious, rather than frightened, I stepped over Musidora's grave, and
+hurried around to the locked gate. Two unsodded mounds were near the
+entrance. One was long, and one short. Stretched upon this last was
+something that moved slightly and cried again, yet more piteously, when
+I called to it. The sight sent me flying like a flushed partridge
+through the Old Orchard to the garden fence, over it and up the middle
+walk of the garden. While yet afar off, I saw my father standing there
+talking with the gardener. Evidently the scattered horde had not spread
+an alarm. My father turned at my loud panting, and eyed me with
+astonishment. Without pausing to consider why he should be amazed, I
+caught hold of him and shrieked my news:--
+
+"Father! father! it is Alexander the Great come back to look for Lucy!"
+
+My father seldom scolded. He more rarely punished without inquiry. He
+was stern now and spoke sharply.
+
+"What is the meaning of this nonsense, Molly? You are forever getting up
+some new sensation. There is such a thing as having too much
+'make-believe.' I would rather have a little sensible truth now and
+then."
+
+"But, father, really and truly--" chokingly, for his words were as drawn
+swords to my loving heart.
+
+He pushed my hand away from his arm.
+
+"When you look and behave less like a crazy child, I will hear what you
+have to say. Where did you get those things?"
+
+I wished that the ground would open and swallow me away from his cold,
+contemptuous eye. I had forgotten my ridiculous costume entirely. The
+shame and humiliation of having exposed myself to his just criticism,
+the added disgrace of the grinning gardener's enjoyment of the figure I
+had cut--the absurd coal-scuttle of a bonnet hanging down my back, the
+black silk apron streaming behind me like a half-inflated
+balloon--overwhelmed me with speechless confusion. I hung my head in an
+agony.
+
+"Where did you get them, I say?" repeated my father.
+
+"Up in the lumber-room," I stammered, faintly and sheepishly.
+
+"Go, put them back where you found them! Then, come to me. As I was
+saying, James--"
+
+He went on with his directions to the gardener.
+
+I slunk away, forgetful of everything except my personal discomfiture,
+dodging from one clump of shrubbery to another, lest I should be seen
+from the windows of the house, going almost on all-fours in exposed
+stretches of walk or garden-beds, and so making my retreat to the side
+door of the north wing. I had stripped off the hateful masquerade
+habiliments and rolled them into a compact bundle, but anybody who met
+me would ask what I was carrying under my arm, and I could bear no more
+that day. Unable to contain myself a minute longer, I sank down in the
+solitude of the steep staircase leading to the lumber-room, and had my
+cry--if not out--so nearly to the end that I felt adequate to making my
+judge see reason,--if only he would not look at me as if he were ashamed
+of his daughter! Was it very wrong to take those things on the sly?
+Would I be punished for it? Had he told my mother yet? And did Mary
+'Liza know about it? I could never, never tell her that I had worn the
+_nasty_ bonnet and cloak as mourning to Musidora's funeral. I would be
+whipped first.
+
+Crying again in anticipation of the dilemma, I trudged slowly up the
+steps, and pushed back the door, which stuck fast again although I did
+not recollect shutting it.
+
+"Just's if somebody was leaning against it!" said I, pettishly, and
+flung my whole weight against the lower panel.
+
+The door flew back and I fell headlong, face downward, on the floor, the
+bundle flying ahead of me clear to the hearth. I picked myself up,
+rubbed my smarting palms and, in a vile humor, recovered the detestable
+cause of all the trouble. I boxed the lop-ears of the bonnet, and gave
+the apron a vicious shake, in restoring them to their respective pegs.
+Then, I backed down from the chair on which I had been standing, and
+started for the door. A feeble cry stopped me as if a shot had passed
+through me.
+
+The room was in afternoon shadow, and the blinds of the larger of the
+two windows had blown shut. The cry quavered out again, and at the same
+instant I saw--or verily believed that I saw with my natural
+eyes--Cousin Mary Bray seated in the rocking-chair between the hearth
+and the window, holding a baby in her arms. She was rocking gently back
+and forth, her face was pale and peaceful, and she wore a sort of dim
+gray dress. Thus much I had seen when my father called loudly to me from
+the bottom of the steps:--
+
+"Molly! what are you doing up there? Come down directly! do you hear?"
+
+The apparition disappeared on the instant, and as I moved toward the
+door, I stumbled over something soft that mewed miserably. In a second I
+had it in my arms,--a rack of bones covered with muddy, tangled gray
+fur,--and rushed down the stairs.
+
+"I told you so, father! don't you see? It is Alexander the Great. Now,
+isn't it?"
+
+Will it be believed that the commotion attendant upon the recognition of
+the wanderer, the talk, conjectures and questions, the nursing and
+feeding, and cosseting the creature who was at the point of death from
+starvation and fatigue--put all thought of revealing what I had beheld
+in the haunted chamber out of my head, until, when I recalled it in all
+its vividness, I simply could not speak of it? It was all like a swift,
+bad dream, the telling of which might revive the unpleasant sensation
+it created in passing. I do not pretend to explain a child's reserve on
+subjects which have gone very far into the deeps of a consciousness that
+never lets them go. Perhaps the solution is partly in the poverty of a
+vocabulary which lags painfully behind the development of thought and
+emotion. Certain it is that I was a woman grown before I ever confided
+to a living soul what I thought sat in the rocking-chair in the haunted
+room, brooding peacefully above a quieted baby.
+
+Lucy's cat--guided by what instinct only his Creator and ours knows--had
+found his way to her grave over two hundred miles of fen, field, and
+forest. Not finding her there, he had tracked me to the room where she
+had last played with him. When carried to other parts of the house, he
+cried piteously all day and all night. When the north wing was locked
+against him, he went back to the grave and could not be coaxed away.
+Finally, my mother proposed that he be allowed to stay there, until
+cold weather. He was the plantation-pet all summer, growing plump, but
+never playful, with nourishing food and rest. His meals were sent to him
+twice a day, but he partially supported himself by catching birds and
+field-mice in the burying-ground, which he never left. We got used to
+his presence there after a while, and his habit of patrolling the top of
+the wall, several times a day, for exercise, or under the impression
+that he was guarding the short green mound where he slept every night.
+
+As the winter approached repeated efforts were made to tempt him to the
+house, and when they were ineffectual my father took him there in his
+own arms. The cat refused food and sleep, keeping the household awake
+with his cries, and in the morning flew so savagely at his jailers that
+we were obliged to let him go.
+
+The fiercest tempest known in mid-Virginia for forty years beset us on
+the anniversary of Lucy's death, and raged for three days. When the
+drifts in the graveyard melted, we found Alexander the Great dead at his
+post.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+Just For Fun
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The floor of the summer-house at Uncle Carter's was of lovely white
+sand, and did not soil my clean pink gingham frock, although I sat down
+flat upon it. Under one of the three benches that furnished it, I had
+dug a vault yesterday. It was modelled upon the description given in
+_The Fairchild Family_ of one belonging to a nobleman's estate. My
+self-education was essentially Squeersian. When I read a thing, I
+forthwith went and did it. The gardener had lent me a trowel, and I had
+found a thin, flat stone that served as a cover. Digging was easy work
+in the top-dressing of sand and the substratum of loose, dry soil.
+
+There were eight niches in the vault--two on a side. When all was
+finished, I sallied forth in quest of occupants. My vault was stocked by
+nightfall. In one niche was a dead sparrow my cousin Burwell had shot by
+mistake and thrown away. In a second was a frog on which a horse or cow
+had trod, crippling it so badly that Uncle Carter mercifully killed it
+with a blow of his stick. The poultry-yard and an epidemic of pip
+supplied me with two more silent tenants. A mouse-trap strangled a
+fifth, the gardener's mole-trap yielded up a sixth. Nos. 7 and 8 were
+land-terrapins ("tar'pens," in negro dialect), which I knew must be dead
+when I found them, although I could discern no sign of violence. Their
+shells were shut so tightly that I could not force a straw between the
+upper and lower, and no amount of kicking and thumping elicited any sign
+of life.
+
+An innovation upon the Fairchild pattern was the deposit in the bottom
+of the vault of a tumbler full of flies which Aunt Eliza told the
+dining room servant to throw into the kitchen fire. A primitive snare
+for these destroyers of the housewife's peace was made by filling a
+tumbler within an inch of the brim with strong soap-suds, and fitting
+upon the top a round cover of thick "sugar-loaf paper," with a hole in
+the middle. Molasses was smeared all around this hole upon the under
+side of the paper, and an alluring drop or two on the top attracted
+attention to the larger supply of sweets. At least a quart of flies, per
+day, were caught in this way in the height of the season before window
+and door screens were invented.
+
+I waylaid the man and tumbler in the back porch.
+
+"Are they dead, sure enough?" I whispered.
+
+"Dead as a door-nail, little mistis."
+
+"Give 'em to me, please! I'll bury them."
+
+He complied, good-naturedly. I poured the contents of the glass into the
+vault, and strewed fine dry sand over them an inch deep. Then I fitted
+on the flat stone, and said nothing to anybody of my new branch of
+industry.
+
+I was tired of being called "an old-fashioned child!" My mother's oft
+and resigned ejaculation--"What _next_, I wonder!" was to my ears a
+covert reproach for not being "steady" and "a comfort," like Mary 'Liza.
+Even my less critical father's shout of laughter at any unusual freak or
+experiment abraded my moral cuticle sometimes. At home the colored
+children would have entered heartily into my mortuary enterprise,--yes!
+and kept my counsel. The reticence of the serf exceeds in dumb
+doggedness that of a misunderstood child. But I did not play with Uncle
+Carter's little negroes. Every Southern child comprehended the
+distinction between "home-folks" and other people's servants.
+
+Not that I was ever lonely. What I called "things" were an unfailing
+resource to me. An ant-hill was entertainment for a whole forenoon; I
+watched bees and their hives by the hour; my vault kept me busy and
+happy all day. If Cousin Molly Belle suspected what I was about, she
+asked no questions, and refrained from spying upon me. When dressed
+clean in the afternoon, for the second time since breakfast,--the
+manufacture of mud-pies, puddings, and cakes, and the baking of several
+batches in the sun, having engrossed the morning,--I took _The Fairchild
+Family_ out into the summer-house and reread, for the tenth time, the
+account of the opening of the family vault.
+
+Why, I reasoned within myself, should innocent dumb creatures be thrown
+away like dead leaves, when they have stopped living? It would be kind
+in me, or in anybody, to bury them in vaults, and to write Bible verses
+and all that on their tombstones. I would dig another vault to-morrow
+and look around for things to put into it,--and still another the next
+day. I had, in imagination, honeycombed the space under the benches with
+catacombs, and my book was clean forgotten, before I saw a movement in
+the sandy flooring, close to the edge of the flat stone sealing the
+mouth of the vault. I leaned forward to inspect it more nearly. The
+stone had been undermined at one side, and a hole left there, through
+which a line of flies, gray with dust, was feebly crawling into the
+sunshine. There seemed to be a thousand of them, all dusty, but some
+more active than others. As soon as they were quite clear of the hole,
+they dispersed in various directions, some alighting upon twigs and
+blades of grass, some flying up to the benches, where they sat cleaning
+their bodies and wings with their feet and mouths.
+
+I worked my hands into the hole and raised the stone. A cloud of
+resurrected flies arose in my astonished face. The vault was quick with
+them. The dry sand, warmed by the sun, that I had sifted over them, had
+acted as a hot blanket upon the chilled body of a dying man. When I got
+rid of the swarm I examined the vault. Both of the terrapins were
+missing. The sapping and mining was their work. Through the tunnel thus
+excavated they had regained their liberty, and released a mighty host of
+fellow-captives.
+
+"The rest of you are _dead_, anyhow!" said I, aloud, intensely chagrined
+at the cheat practised upon my benevolent nature, and I shoved the stone
+back over the violated vault.
+
+A shadow fell upon the white sand. Looking up, I saw a young gentleman
+in the door of the summer-house, smiling down at me. At the first glance
+I took him for my cousin Burwell, who was at home on his vacation. A
+second undeceived me. I scrambled to my feet and stared hard at the
+stranger who stood with his hands behind him, still smiling, but not
+saying a word. He was nattily dressed in a blue cloth coat and trousers,
+and a white waistcoat. A white satin stock of the latest style encircled
+a slender neck; he wore shiny boots, a leghorn hat was set jauntily
+above a crop of black curls. I was never shy, having been accustomed
+from my birth to meeting strangers and to "entertaining company" when
+called upon to do so. Yet I was strangely embarrassed by the merry eyes
+fixed silently upon me.
+
+"How do you do, sir!" I said, dropping a little courtesy, as well-bred
+children still did in that part of the civilized world.
+
+Still without speaking, the stranger drew nearer and stooped to kiss me.
+This was going several steps too far. I clapped one hand over my mouth
+and pushed him away with the other.
+
+"Cousin Molly Belle! _oh_, Cousin Molly Belle!" I screamed between my
+fingers.
+
+She was the only member of the family at home, my uncle, aunt, and their
+two sons having gone on an all-day visit to a plantation some miles
+away.
+
+"Why, Namesake! don't you know me?"
+
+Her voice answered in my very ear, her arm held me as I ceased
+struggling.
+
+I laughed like a mad thing in the excess of my relief and surprise, and
+when she sat down, I climbed to her knee for a good look at her
+disguise.
+
+"Cousin Burwell's clothes!" I said analytically. "And his hat. But your
+hair is black."
+
+She lifted the hat to show that she had on a black wig.
+
+"It belonged to poor Grandpapa when he was young. He had a fever and his
+head was shaved. I found it in a box on the top shelf of mother's
+closet, and tried it on just for fun. I liked myself so well in the
+glass that I thought I'd see how I would have looked if Burwell had been
+the girl, and I the boy. I know now that I ought to have been. I mean to
+be--just for fun--until they all come home. I'm in exactly the humor to
+do something outrageous. I'm tired to death of everyday doings and
+everyday people, and my everyday self. You and I are going to have a
+real spree, a glorious frolic, and nobody else is to know a single
+thing about it. Flora" (her maid) "helped me on with this rig. She is as
+close as wax, and you never tell tales,--Oh, yes! I know--" as I opened
+my mouth eagerly--"you would have your tongue pulled out by the roots
+before you would get me into trouble. And there would be all sorts of
+trouble if I were found out."
+
+She tied my sunbonnet, made of the same pink gingham as my frock, under
+my chin, and we set forward gleefully upon our spree. To begin with, we
+jumped over the yard palings, so that we should not have to pass in
+sight of the house and kitchen, in order to get into the lane leading to
+the public road. We called it "a lane." Now it would be an avenue, or
+drive. The finest Lombardy poplars in Powhatan County bordered it; sheep
+mint, pennyroyal, sweetbrier, and wild thyme grew up close to the
+wheel-track and gave out a goodly smell as we brushed by and trod upon
+them. I was in a high gale of spirits, and prattled as fast as my
+tongue could run, flattered beyond expression by the choice of myself as
+an accomplice in the frolic.
+
+"It's a pity you _can't_ change places with Cousin Burwell!" I
+regretted. "You'd be a heap handsomer gentleman than he is. And it must
+be just fine not to have to hold up your frocks when you want to run
+fast, and to climb trees and jump fences. Would it be sure-enough
+wrong--I don't mean not lady-like--but would it be _sinful_ for you to
+dress that way all the time?"
+
+"People seem to think so, Namesake. They think so so much that it is
+against the law for a woman to wear a man's clothes, or for a man to
+wear a woman's. Though why any man with a grain of sense in his head
+should ever want to put on _skirts_, I can't see. If I were to meet a
+magistrate while I have on these--_things_,"--flicking her trousers with
+a switch she had cut from a hickory sapling,--"he would have a right to
+put me in jail."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle!" squeezing her hand hard. "S'pose we should!"
+
+"I'm Cousin Burwell until we get home. No 's'pose,' you little goosie!
+If we did, we'd take to the woods, and outrun him. Or, we'd climb a
+tree."
+
+We were in the highroad, striding the ruts and skipping over stones like
+two boys on the way home from school. There was pleasanter walking in
+bridle-paths and wood-roads branching off from the thoroughfare every
+few rods. I think the madcap chose the rutty and mud-holey route because
+there was, at least, a chance that we might have to plunge into the
+bushes to hide, or to brave the scrutiny of strangers and acquaintances.
+The sauce of danger made the escapade the more attractive.
+
+Half a mile from home a creek, shallow, but broad, crossed the road. We
+could not pass over dry-shod and had to go up the bank into the low
+grounds to find a long log laid from side to side of a narrower part of
+the stream. My companion hoisted me upon her back and ran along the
+uncertain bridge as fleetly as a squirrel.
+
+"How far are we going?" I asked, as she set me down.
+
+"Around by Tom's Hill, and then cut across the field home. It's more
+than a mile. Can you walk so far?"
+
+"I walked two miles at a time, once!" I boasted.
+
+"You are a brave little lightwood knot!"
+
+She was "fey"--_exaltée_--in the state of lighthearted-and
+lightheadedness for which sober, literal, decorous English has no
+synonym. As we went, she danced and sang, and laughed out joyously at
+everything and at nothing, and talked the most fascinating nonsense--all
+in the rôle of "Cousin Burwell." She could imitate him to perfection;
+her strut and swagger and slang threw me into paroxysms of delight. We
+picked huckleberries, and dived into the woods to feast upon wild plums
+that had ten drops of syrupy juice between tough skins and flinty
+stones encased in the pulp of bitterness, and gathered handfuls of wild
+flowers because their beauty tempted sight and touch, and with no
+intention of taking them home with us. Two of Pan's dryads turned loose
+for a holiday could not have sported more irrationally.
+
+We met neither man nor beast until we had climbed Tom's Hill, a stony
+eminence from the top of which, as the neighbors were proud of saying,
+one could see six dwelling-houses, each with its group of outbuildings,
+representing six fine plantations. A saddle-horse was tied to a
+persimmon tree a hundred yards or so down the other side. He whinnied at
+sight of us, and Cousin Molly Belle ran up to him.
+
+"Well done, Snap! old fellow! clothes don't make any difference to
+you--do they?"
+
+It was Mr. Frank Morton's riding horse, and the fence by which he stood
+bounded an extensive tobacco field belonging to Mr. Frank Morton's
+brother. About the middle of the field was a tobacco barn, and by
+climbing upon the top rail of the fence so as to overlook a row of
+sassafras saplings, I could see a group of men about the door. Their
+backs were toward us, and if they had looked our way they could not have
+seen us, when I got down.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle's eyes were two dancing stars. She clapped her hands
+in riotous glee. Without a word she untied the bridle from the tree,
+vaulted into the saddle, drew me up in front of her, and before I could
+put a question we were pacing briskly down the hill. At the bottom we
+struck into a cross-road leading to Uncle Carter's plantation. Cousin
+Molly Belle was laughing too heartily to speak distinctly, and I joined
+in with all my heart, with a very imperfect appreciation of the extent
+of the practical joke. Mr. Frank Morton would not have to walk home. He
+had only to go to his brother's house when he missed Snap and borrow a
+horse, and Snap would be sent back safely to him in good time.
+
+"What d'you s'pose he'll say when he comes to the fence and Snap isn't
+there?" queried I, at length.
+
+"Oh, _don't_ I wish I were hiding somewhere near enough to hear and see
+him!" another and yet more infectious outburst. "That would be the best
+part of the joke. I'm going to turn Snap loose when we get to our outer
+gate, and hit him a crack with my switch and start him toward home.
+He'll not tell tales out of school--will you, old boy?" slapping his
+neck affectionately. "Mr. Frank Morton will never guess why the horse
+thief let such a fine animal get away from him, when once he had got
+him. I can hear him now, telling me the story, and I'll look as grave as
+a dozen judges, and wonder as hard as he does--and--_Hark!_"
+
+We were, perhaps, half a mile from the place where we had found Snap,
+but, as I have said, Tom's Hill was a stony ledge, running like a sharp
+backbone between fertile fields, and we heard from afar off the
+clattering hoofs of a horse pressed to his utmost speed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+My First Lie, and What Came of It.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"He is after us!" exclaimed Cousin Molly Belle, and brought down her
+switch stingingly upon Snap's flanks.
+
+Tightening her arm about me, she urged him from canter to gallop, from a
+gallop to a run. The trees swept by us like lightning; the wind tore the
+breath from our lungs, but I had no thought of fear. My cousin was a
+fearless rider, and the perfectly broken hunter under us flew as
+steadily and as straight as a blue martin. Against the back of my head
+Cousin Molly Belle's heart was pounding like an unbalanced trip-hammer.
+I wondered if it were possible that she was frightened, and twisted my
+face around to get a glimpse of hers. It was as white as a sheet, and
+her teeth were set hard upon her lower lip. Within a stone's throw of
+Uncle Carter's outer gate she brought the horse down to a walk, then to
+a full stop, and slipped to the ground. Her face was so pale and rigid
+as she set me upon my feet that I began to tremble.
+
+"Are you scared?" I faltered.
+
+"Scared to death, child! Hush!"
+
+She turned Snap's head in the direction from which we had come, and
+struck him smartly with her switch, in letting go of the bridle.
+
+"Go home, sir! Go!"
+
+He galloped off, stirrups and mane flying, and she drew a deep, agitated
+breath.
+
+"If ever I get into such a scrape again!"
+
+She bent low and listened; the scared look settled again upon her face.
+Through the stillness of the summer afternoon, we heard a sharp "Whoa!"
+faint but clear, when, as we judged, Snap neared our pursuer. The pause
+of a second ensued, and the hoofs, doubled in number and resonance,
+sounded nearer and nearer, thundering over the soft ground, clicking
+against the stones, like a charge of cavalry. Cousin Molly Belle was so
+white that a few freckles, never seen through her usually brilliant
+complexion, made a line of sallow dots across her cheek bones and the
+bridge of her nose. Clutching me more roughly than she had ever touched
+me before, she thrust me well into the heart of a tall cedar whose
+lowest boughs grew out horizontally and swept the earth.
+
+"Don't move or speak!" she whispered fiercely and forced her way to the
+hole of the tree.
+
+I heard the grating of the bark under her feet, and felt the branches
+shake, then grow quiet. She was well up the tree, and hidden by the
+bushy foliage. The tumultuous beat of the charging hoofs echoed more and
+more loudly. The rider would be upon us in another minute. Escape
+through the gate and down the avenue to the house was out of the
+question. We would have been in sight from the road for several hundred
+yards, and a few seconds would be lost in opening the gate.
+
+On my part, the adventure was, thus far, pure fun, and the excitement
+delicious. I giggled in my sleeve in the anticipation of hearing the
+furious hoofs sweep past and lose themselves in the distance on the
+false scent. I had not had time to speculate as to why my companion was
+"scared to death."
+
+The clatter was abreast of, and behind me in the road when the
+imperative "Whoa!" again arrested it. I knew the voice now. A man leaped
+to the ground; hasty footsteps struck across the turf edging the
+highway; dry sticks cracked, my bushy covert was jarred, and Mr. Frank
+Morton stood before me, parting the branches to get a good look at me.
+My pink gingham had betrayed me.
+
+"Molly Burwell! what are you doing here?"
+
+As if prompted by a telepathic despatch from the fugitive overhead, I
+began to pick the bluish white berries studding the twigs and to cram
+them into my mouth.
+
+"Picking cedar-berries!" I retorted coolly, cocking a saucy eye at him.
+
+"Who came with you?"
+
+I stood on tiptoe to tug at a fat cedar-ball, glossy, brown, and deeply
+pitted.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Frank! won't you please cut it off for me?"
+
+He whipped out his knife and severed the twig.
+
+"Did you come all the way from the house alone?"
+
+I had never, within my memory, told a deliberate lie. My cheeks burned
+like fire; my eyes dropped guiltily. My tongue did not trip or tangle.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There was a dread silence. My ears rang, my heart was sinking slowly and
+sickeningly into my heels. I had bethought myself just as he put the
+question, that Cousin Molly Belle might be put in jail if he found out
+that she had been with me, and had on her brother's clothes. As a
+well-tutored child in a Presbyterian family, I knew what becomes of
+liars when they leave off living and lying together. My teeth ceased to
+chatter and met with a snap. The loyal heart rallied to the help of the
+guilty tongue. I raised my eyes in sullen defiance.
+
+"It isn't so _dreadful_ far! I came all by my loney-toney self!"
+
+My friend laughed.
+
+"My dear little girl, there is no great harm in that. Only, I wouldn't
+run away again if I were you. Your aunt might be uneasy if she missed
+you."
+
+"She isn't at home," I answered incautiously. "She 'n' Uncle Carter 'n'
+Cousin Burwell 'n' Cousin Dick have gone to Mr. Cunningham's."
+
+"Ah!" The ejaculation was not regretful. "Isn't Miss Molly Belle at
+home? You would be sorry to make _her_ anxious, I know."
+
+The cedar-branches thrilled slightly, as at the flight of a startled
+bird. Mr. Frank did not notice it, but the movement nerved me. I spoke
+hastily, walking away from the tree toward the gate.
+
+"Oh, yes, _she's_ at home! I reckon she must have been taking a nap when
+I came away. I'm going right back now."
+
+I had never dreamed that lying was such an easy performance.
+
+"I'll take you home. Wait a minute!"
+
+Snap was grazing on the roadside. Another saddle-horse stood by with
+drooping head, his bridle hanging loosely in the bend of Mr. Frank's
+arm. I was lifted to Snap's back; my escort walked beside me through the
+gate, and along the lane, one hand on me, and leading the second horse.
+
+"I suppose you are wondering what I am doing with two horses," he said
+lightly. "It is a very funny story. I'll tell you and Miss Molly Belle
+when we get to the house. It will make you both laugh."
+
+He had given me Snap's bridle to hold, as if I were riding all by
+myself. He thought it would please me. In other circumstances I should
+have been glad and proud to be so mounted, and by him. But from my lofty
+seat I could see over his head across the field of corn which lay to the
+left of the road. Something or somebody was running between the close
+rows in a straight line from the plantation gate to the house. Running
+like a deer, or a greyhound--or Cousin Molly Belle. She must get home
+and up to her room before we got there.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Frank!" I cried. "I have dropped my cedar-ball!" And when he
+had picked it up, "Won't you please make Snap walk very slow? I am
+afraid I might fall off."
+
+"What has got into you to-day, little Duchess?" He had a dozen pet names
+for me, and my heart smote me sore at sight of his kind, honest face.
+"It isn't like you to be afraid of horses,--and you and Snap are old
+friends. You will never be such a rider as Miss Molly Belle if you learn
+to be nervous."
+
+Not another sound fell from my lips until I was put down gently at the
+front gate of my uncle's house, and Flora bustled out, cross lines in
+her forehead and cross tones in her voice.
+
+"I do declar', Miss Molly--(How-you-do, Mars' Frank?) I do declar', Miss
+Molly, you're enough to drive anybody crazy with you' wild tomboy ways.
+Me 'n' Miss Molly Belle, we've been jes' raisin' the plantation fo' you,
+and hyar you come home a-riding Mars' Frank Mo'ton's horse, gran' as you
+please, and nobody knowin' whar you been ever sence dinner-time. Miss
+Molly Belle 'll be mighty obleeged to you for fotchin' of her home,
+Mars' Frank. She'll be down pretty soon for to tell you so herself. Walk
+into the parlor, please, sir. Jim, you take Mr. Mo'ton's horses to
+the stable. And Miss Molly, you jes' stay thar 'n' ent'tain Mr. Mo'ton
+like a little lady tell you' cousin comes down sta'rs."
+
+[Illustration: THE END OF THE PRANK.
+
+"I was put down at my uncle's house, and Flora bustled out."]
+
+I obeyed with docility that must have surprised the autocrat. Meek and
+miserable, I preceded the guest to the parlor, although every minute
+spent under his unsuspecting eyes was a danger and a pain. I made no
+attempt to "entertain him." Seated upon a high chair, my feet swinging
+dolefully six inches above the floor, I fingered the wretched
+cedar-ball, redolent of rosin through much bruising, my pink sunbonnet
+hanging from the knotted strings to the small of my back, and with
+difficulty refrained from crying. I had never been wretched just in that
+way before. Two imperative duties had met plump and face to face, with a
+shock that jarred all preconceived principles of belief and action out
+of plumb. Cousin Molly Belle had trusted me to keep her secret, and I
+saw no way of doing it except to lie outright and repeatedly. The sin
+lashed my conscience until I could have located in my corporeal frame
+the exact whereabouts of the uncomfortable possession. So absorbed was I
+by individual upbraidings that Flora's barefaced fabrication of the
+search her young mistress and she had had for the runaway passed
+unrebuked by so much as a look. It was no comfort to me to hear another
+person lie even more glibly than myself. Flora was an ignorant colored
+person, I, a baptized white child of the covenant who could read the
+Bible for herself.
+
+Mr. Morton tried to make me talk by well-concerted questions. Children
+are best approached through the interrogative mood. It offers just so
+many nails set in a sure place upon which to hang conversation. He was a
+handsome, well-set-up young fellow, and, if somewhat graver by nature
+and habit than most of Cousin Molly Belle's beaux, suited my taste best
+of them all. Yesterday I should have been tickled clean out of the
+proprieties by the chance of talking to him all by myself for twenty
+minutes, sitting up in Aunt Eliza's parlor, just like grown folks.
+
+The twenty minutes were like one hundred in sloth and weight before the
+tap of high heels on the oaken stairs and the swish of skirts against
+the banisters advised us who was coming.
+
+She walked into the room with her head high and chin level; her eyes
+shone and her coloring was superb. She had never been more beautiful,
+and never so dignified. Her admirer felt both of these facts, and was
+moved to mute inquiry into the cause of the singular mood. His glowing
+eyes questioned hers while she shook hands with him and then sat down,
+and held out her hand silently to me, without a smile. I went as
+straight to her as a wounded bird to shelter, dropped upon a stool
+beside her and rested my cheek against her knee, my hand in a grasp that
+was close and loving, and--or so I fancied--monitory. My heart retorted
+upon writhing conscience that she was worth sinning for. I added,
+dogged and desperate, that I would do it again, if she needed to have it
+done.
+
+"Flora says that you have been very uneasy about this little lady," said
+Mr. Frank, the dumb questioning still in his eyes, while he led the talk
+into safer paths. "And that you have been hunting for her all over the
+plantation."
+
+"Flora said what was not true. I knew where she was, and did not look
+for her at all or anywhere."
+
+The metallic quality in her voice did not belong to it, and her
+articulation was carefully clear, not at all like the gliding vowels and
+consonantal elisions that help make musical the speech of the Southern
+girl.
+
+Mr. Frank looked puzzled. Had I not been present, he would have got at
+the answer to the enigma. I felt this, but my hand was still in Cousin
+Molly's, and I comprehended that she willed me to stay where I was.
+
+"I have had an adventure, if she has not," resumed Mr. Frank, merrily.
+"You may have seen me arrive with two saddle-horses? I was on my way
+here, riding Snap. As I passed John's upper tobacco-field, I saw him at
+the barn. So I tied Snap to a tree and went to speak to John. While we
+were talking a negro ran up, all out of breath, to say that a man and a
+woman had stolen my horse. The negro was too far off to recognize the
+fellow, but he saw him untie Snap, mount him, help a little woman in a
+red dress to get up behind him, and then ride away at a rattling pace.
+Fortunately, John's riding-horse was standing at the barn door. I was in
+the saddle before the story was done, put him at the nearest fence, and
+was after the thieves. I must have gained upon them--Wildfire can outrun
+any other horse in the county, and I did not spare him--for the rascals
+left their booty and got away with whole skins. I met Snap just this
+side of Willis's Creek, going home like the sensible creature he is. He
+had been ridden hard, and there were welts on his sides where he had
+been whipped, but I got him back safe. It was a risky thing--their
+stealing him. Everybody about here knows the star in his forehead and
+his white hind foot. The first white man that met the thieves would have
+taken them up. I have no doubt that they belonged to a gang of gypsies
+that are roaming through this neighborhood. A wagon-load of them passed
+our house yesterday and camped last night at the Crossroads. I saw them
+there last night as I went home from Court. On my way back this evening
+I'll give them a call and let them understand that this is an unhealthy
+country for that sort of gentry. Horse-thieves and grapevines are found
+conveniently near to one another, sometimes."
+
+In the horror of the hearing, I must have cried out but for the warning
+squeeze that made my finger-joints slip upon each other and the bones
+ache. The muscles of my face stiffened until I felt it losing all
+resemblance to Molly Burwell. I was sure that it looked like a gray old
+woman's, and instinctively turned it into the folds of my cousin's
+skirt. Suppose Mr. Frank had called upon the gypsies before coming here!
+If he had not come to us at all to-day--what would have happened? Would
+he have had the innocent strangers hanged upon the convenient grapevine?
+Could he be prevented from doing this now unless the truth were told
+him? _That_, of course, was not to be thought of. Better have the gypsy
+gang driven out of the county and a man and a woman strung up, than let
+Cousin Molly Belle go to jail for wearing men's clothes. She would die
+sooner than confess to any man, least of all to this one, that she had
+worn--_pantaloons!_--and ridden Snap as people who wear the things
+always ride.
+
+How little I knew her was to be proved.
+
+She let go my fingers all at once, pressed her palms together hard, and
+sat up very straight, settling her eyes upon Mr. Frank's. When she
+spoke, the metallic ring was that of a taut piano-string.
+
+"You will please not go near the gypsies. _I_ stole your horse. Just for
+fun, you know. And wretched fun it was. I saw him standing there, and
+the temptation to play a trick upon you was too much for me. I meant to
+let him go and send him back when I got to our gate. I did it sooner
+than I expected, because I heard you coming and knew in a minute that
+you must be on Wildfire, and that Snap stood no chance of keeping ahead
+of him."
+
+The listener's face was a study. He stood up and stared down at her, at
+first in incredulous stupefaction, then, frowningly.
+
+"_You--took--my--horse!_ You were that 'little woman,' then? Who was the
+man?"
+
+"There was no man. The negro did not see straight, or he told you a lie.
+Molly was with me, and, as you see, her frock is pink. We were out
+walking. We both got on the horse. It was a silly, silly prank, and all
+my fault."
+
+The frown disappeared; the perplexity remained. He glanced at me, and
+my eyes fell. I so wanted Mr. Frank Morton to think well of me!
+
+"But Molly said--" he began.
+
+She took him up quickly.
+
+"I know what Molly said. I was close by and heard every word. She was
+trying to shield me. I told her that I could be put in jail if anybody
+knew what I had done. I tempted the poor, loyal, loving little soul to
+tell the first falsehood that ever soiled her tongue. It was a wicked--a
+vile--a _mean_ thing in me! I loathe myself when I think of it. Oh,
+Namesake!"--encircling me suddenly with her arm--"we will ask God
+together to forgive us. I am the sinner--not you!"
+
+I was wetting her sleeve with tears, shed more for her distress than for
+my sin.
+
+Mr. Frank Morton made a step toward her.
+
+"I don't comprehend you yet--quite. You could not have imagined that you
+could ever go to jail if you had stolen every horse in my stable--and
+everything else I have? Don't give another thought to the matter. It was
+a harmless bit of fun that hurt nobody. As to Molly's fibbing--I was the
+tempter. What was the child to do? I think all the more of her for
+standing between you and possible trouble."
+
+"I tempted Molly to tell her first lie!" She waived aside the hand he
+would have laid upon my head. "I shall recollect that as long as I live.
+I deserve to suffer for it. And I mean to punish myself by telling you
+the whole truth."
+
+In the energy of her resolve, she, too, arose to her feet. A sort of
+ague went from her head to her feet. For an instant there was not a sign
+of color in her cheeks, then, a great billow of blushes beat her face
+down upon her hands. If I had not been clinging to her skirt I could
+hardly have got the meaning of the muffled words. Her lover had to bend
+his head to catch them.
+
+"_I had on a suit of Burwell's clothes!_"
+
+She threw up her head so abruptly that her face almost touched his
+before he could start back.
+
+"_Now_"--she flung out passionately--"you will despise me! And you ought
+to!"
+
+Her rush toward the door was intercepted by his quicker action. He
+seized both of her hands and would not let her pass.
+
+"On the contrary, I never respected you before as I do this moment. You
+shall believe this, Molly Belle!"
+
+Not a symptom of a "Miss"! And he the most punctilious of men in
+everything pertaining to polite address and chivalric reverence for
+women! His eyes had strange flashes in them when he turned to me. He was
+grave, but with a gravity that overlaid smiles. His voice was very
+gentle:--
+
+"Molly, run away to play--there's a dear child!"
+
+As I obeyed, I saw that he had not let go of Cousin Molly Belle's
+hands.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+My Pets
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Like my games, my stockings, and my frocks, they were home-made. We had
+no caged birds. Our yards and woods thrilled with bird-song all day long
+for eight months of the year, and mocking-birds filled June and July
+nights with music sweeter and more varied than the storied strain of the
+nightingale. I had never seen a canary, and knew nothing of him except
+as I had read of one in what I called a "pair of verses" to which I took
+a fancy. I used to sing them to a tune of my own making when
+grown-uppers were not listening:--
+
+   "Mary had a little bird,
+     Feathers bright and yellow,
+   Slender legs--upon my word
+     He was a pretty fellow.
+
+   "Sweetest songs he often sung
+     Which much delighted Mary,
+   And often where his cage was hung
+     She stood to hear Canary."
+
+I classed Mary 'Liza with the grown-uppers. She loved cats, adopting two
+when they were blind kittens, and bringing them up in just such staid
+habits as made her incomparable among children. At six months of age
+they would doze at her feet on the rug while she studied, or ciphered,
+or read aloud, or stitched upon those everlasting chemises. When she
+took a walk for exercise (she never ran, or hopped, or skipped) they
+trotted demurely in the path, beside or behind her, indifferent to
+butterflies and grasshoppers, and as intent upon Behavior as their
+mistress. They were always fat and sleek, and ate civilized
+victuals,--bread, milk, and cooked meats cut into decent, miminy-piminy
+mouthfuls. Not one of them was ever known to commit the vulgarity of
+catching a mouse. Mary 'Liza considered it cruel, and eating raw flesh
+"a dirty habit." She, the cats, and Dorinda composed a Happy Family in
+which--barring the Rozillah episode--no accidents ever happened.
+
+From earliest childhood my love for living creatures as companions and
+pets was a passion that wrought much anguish to me, and more casualties
+in the dumb animal kingdom than would be credited, were I to set down
+the full tale of my bantlings, and the fate of each. At a tender age, I
+sturdily refused to "call mine" the downiest darlings of the
+poultry-yard. There would be a few weeks of having, and loving, and
+fattening, and then the axe and the bloody log at the woodpile, and the
+stormy tears of bereavement. It mattered not to Aunt 'Ritta that my
+foster-children had names to which they answered, that they would feed
+from my hand, and hop on my shoulder, and run quacking, or squawking,
+or piping, or chirping, at my heels across the yard, and follow me to
+the field like dogs. When the day and the hour--always unexpected to
+me--came, I "called and they answered not again," until, taught by
+bitter experience, I "struck" petting tame and edible living things,
+once and finally.
+
+The miniature menagerie I then set up on my own account, and, as I shall
+show, to the detriment of everything entered upon the rolls, was stocked
+principally by the services of my colored contingent.
+
+Among the first inmates--they all became patients in the long, or short
+run--were two striped ground squirrels (chipmunks) who were caught in a
+box with a falling door, and presented to me by Barratier. He lent me
+the box to keep them in. I fed and watered them warily and successfully
+for a couple of days by lifting the door an inch, having previously
+rapped upon it to scare the prisoners to the other end, then slipping in
+the dish of water and the nuts, sugar, or fruit that were the day's
+rations. Supposing that kindness and comfortable quarters had tamed them
+into appreciation of my services and intentions, I raised the door two
+inches higher on the third day, and took a good look at the beauties
+huddled trembling in their safe corner. Their bright eyes were alluring,
+their quiescence was encouraging. I spoke to them in dulcet accents, and
+advanced a friendly hand. They met it more than half-way, one leaping
+upon my bare arm, running up to my shoulder, and, with one bound over my
+head, regaining his lost freedom. I caught his less active brother by
+the tail as he was sneaking under the door, and held him tight. In a
+quarter-jiffy he whisked his little body around and dug his teeth into
+my finger, and, as I still held on to his tail, incontinently shed the
+skin of the same, leaving it in my grasp. The last I ever saw of him was
+the flaunt of a gory, ghastly pennant, as the bearer vanished under a
+heap of stones. I flung the bloody casing from me with abhorrence. Now I
+can hope that another grew upon the denuded bones. Then I hoped it
+would not. The insult was gross.
+
+The immediate successor of the ingrates was a mouse bestowed upon me by
+one of the stable hands. I named the waif "Caspar Hauser" forthwith,
+being fresh from the perusal of the history of that engaging fraud, and
+inducted him into a spare rat-trap set about closely with wires. A
+horsehair sparrow's nest was lined with raw cotton and put in one
+corner, a toy saucer of water in the other, and in the third a toy plate
+filled with cracked hickory nuts, interspersed with bits of sugar. Then
+I sat down upon the floor beside him, and began the business of taming
+him by getting him used to seeing me, cultivating his acquaintance by
+poking my finger between the bars, talking and singing to him, and
+endeavoring, by other ingenious devices, to make him feel at home. He
+scampered around the confines of his domicile, as in a treadmill, all
+the time I was thus employed, and could not be induced to touch his
+food.
+
+Mary 'Liza and I had outgrown the trundle-bed, and had a room to
+ourselves upstairs. Into this I surreptitiously conveyed the improvised
+cage that night and hid it under the bed. When my bedfellow had fallen
+asleep, I got up softly, lighted a candle, and took a peep at my pet. He
+had gone regularly to bed after disposing of some of the nuts and
+scattering the remnants in every direction, and now lay curled up in the
+cotton-wool in the prettiest, most homelike way imaginable, fast asleep.
+
+I hung over him, entranced. He was tamed! Before long he would be
+following me all over the house, playing hide-and-seek in corners,
+sitting upon his hind legs beside my plate at table, and nibbling such
+tidbits as I might give him. One particularly bright picture of our
+common future was of taking him to church, smuggling him into the pocket
+of my Sunday frock, and after settling myself comfortably upon my knees
+before a corner seat during the "long prayer," taking Caspar Hauser out
+and letting him play on the bench. What a boon his society would
+be--what a relief his antics while Mr. Lee droned through innumerable
+"We pray Thees!"
+
+After I went back to bed I pursued these and other enchanting visions
+into dreamland. The next day I took Caspar Hauser into the garden for
+air and sunshine. His liveliness was something inconceivable by the
+human imagination. He chased himself frantically around the cage,
+regardless of my tender exhortations, until I began to fear that taming
+was a more tedious process than I had supposed. I set the cage upon the
+grass where the sun was hottest, withdrawing myself into the shade as
+less in need of light and warmth, and read a volume of Berquin's
+_Children's Friend_ in full sight of Caspar Hauser. Whenever I turned a
+page I would stick my finger between the wires and chirrup encouragingly
+to the captive, all with a single eye to getting him used to me. His
+speed and staying powers were equally extraordinary, but I was cheered,
+when the forenoon was spent and I picked up the cage to take him in, by
+observing that he ran more deliberately and with occasional pauses. By
+the time I got him upstairs he lay down for a nap. He was still
+slumbering at my supper-time, and had not got his nap out when I went to
+bed, nor yet when breakfast was eaten and lessons said, next morning.
+
+I had made up my mind by now that he was sick, and carried him into the
+garden once more. I had read that wild creatures physic themselves if
+allowed to seek such plants as instinct tells them are specifics for
+their ailments. Lifting Caspar Hauser from his woolly bed, I stroked him
+and called him by name. He was so tame by now that he did not struggle
+upon my palm. Only the rise and fall of his furry sides showed that he
+was alive. He was limp and helpless, and to me very lovable. I laid him
+upon a strip of turf hot with the sunshine that had steeped it for five
+hours. He had a liberal choice of healing herbs. Parsley, sage, mint,
+tansy, peppergrass, catnip, and sweet marjoram, rue and bergamot and
+balsam, flourished within a hundred lengths of his small body. While I
+watched him he stretched himself as a baby at awakening, and began to
+crawl weakly toward the tansy bed. To save him needless exertion I
+pulled a handful of the yellow heads and offered them to his inquisitive
+nose. Mam' Chloe had given me tansy tea for a bad cold last winter. It
+tasted nasty, but I got well. Instinct had "indicated" tansy to Caspar
+Hauser. He refused the panacea dumbly, and made, still feebly, for the
+parsley patch. I let him go a yard or more, when, fearing lest he might
+lose himself in the maze of luxuriant herbage, I dragged him tenderly
+back by the tail to the hot turf.
+
+He had grown so tame that he never moved again.
+
+The funeral took place that afternoon. We buried him next to Musidora. I
+had had enough of vaults, regarding them, with reason, as uncertain
+places of sepulture for the presumably defunct. I had never heard, or
+read, of cremation. I had had the misfortune to break my slate a few
+days before, and the biggest fragment made a nice tombstone for Caspar
+Hauser. With a nail and with infinite toil I produced a suitable
+epitaph.
+
+               HERE LIES
+             HIS AFLICTED
+       MISS M. BURWELL'S
+         FATHEFULL LIT
+       TLE FREND AN
+     D TAME PLA
+   YFELOW AND
+     SUFFERER
+       C. H.
+
+There was not room for the whole name, but, as I told my fellow-mourners
+when I read the inscription to them, since we all knew it, the omission
+was of no consequence. I could have wished that the slate had broken
+straight, so that the inscription would have gone in better. However,
+one cannot control circumstance when it takes the shape of a fracture.
+
+Within twenty-four hours after Caspar Hauser's decease he was succeeded
+by Bay. His name in its entirety, was Baffin's Bay. The alliterative
+unctuousness of the title pleased me, as Mary 'Liza pronounced it
+smoothly in her geography lesson, the day on which Hamilcar, the
+carriage driver, drove over a young "old hare" in the road, and knocked
+one of the poor thing's eyes out. It was taken up for dead, but
+presently began to kick, and the ownership reverted to me. It lived a
+week, and for hours at a time was so nearly comfortable as to eat
+sparingly of milk, lettuce, cabbage, and clover, with which I supplied
+it lavishly twice a day. I likewise treated the wounded eye with
+balsam-capeiva and balm of Gilead ointment, sovereign appliances for the
+bruises and cut fingers of that generation. A lemon box, with slats
+nailed across the front by faithful Barratier, was the hospital in which
+I laid Bay up for repairs. Him, too, I carried daily into the garden,
+for change of air. He condescended to approve of the parsley patch,
+limping through it as gracefully as the long tape tied to his right hind
+leg would allow.
+
+When, upon the third day of his residence in civilized quarters, he had
+a convulsion in the very middle of the parsley patch, I thought it a
+playful antic, and was amused and gratified thereat. The second time
+this happened, James, the gardener, chanced to witness the performance
+and informed me, brutally, that "that old hyar had throwed a fit, and
+was boun' to die 'fore long.
+
+"That 'ar lick on de side o' de hade done de bizness fur him, sure. De
+brain am injerred. Mighty easy thing fur to injer a Molly Cottontail's
+brain. He ain't got much, an' hit lies close to de top o' de hade."
+
+For forty-eight hours before Bay died, the spasms were distressingly
+frequent, but I would not have him killed. James might be wrong. Good
+nursing and plenty of fresh air might bring my patient around. For fear
+my parents might insist that he should be put out of his misery, I
+removed the hospital to the playhouse, and gave him the range of the
+place, forbidding the colored children to tell what was going on. His
+agonies were nearly over when, in the distraction of anxiety, I took
+Cousin Frank Morton into confidence. He had ridden over with a message
+from Cousin Molly Belle.
+
+(Have I mentioned that they had been married for six months?)
+
+The message was to the effect that I must spend the day and night with
+her. My mother gave ready consent.
+
+"Molly has been too pale for several days, and has little or no
+appetite," she said, looking affectionately at me. "The change will do
+her good, and there is no other place where she enjoys a visit more than
+at your house. Molly! can't you thank Cousin Frank for taking the
+trouble to come for you?"
+
+Strained by conflicting emotions, I fidgeted awkwardly about Cousin
+Frank's chair, pinching the hem of my apron into folds, and shifting
+from one foot to the other.
+
+"I want to go _dreadfully_!" I got out at length, almost ready to cry.
+"_But_--Cousin Frank--wouldn't you like to look at Bay? He's an old hare
+that I am taming."
+
+While speaking, I started for the door, and he came after me. My mother
+exclaimed, provoked, yet laughing, that I was "getting more ridiculous
+every day," but I knew my man, and did not stop.
+
+Bay was throwing a particularly hard fit when we got to him. His cries
+had something humanlike in them that pierced ears and heart.
+
+"My dear child!" uttered the shocked visitor. "How long has this been
+going on?"
+
+Upon hearing that the poor thing had never seemed really well from the
+day he was hurt, and had been "going on like this for four days,
+hand-running," he was quite angry--for him.
+
+"I wonder that your mother let you keep him when he was in this state,"
+he said seriously; and, seeing the tears I could not drive back, he sat
+down on my chair and drew me up to him. "It would be better to kill the
+poor creature, at once, dear. He can never be better."
+
+I begged him not to tell my mother about Bay's sickness. I had become
+very fond of him, and he was so sweet and patient--and tame,--and I just
+couldn't bear to have him killed. Whether he would have granted my
+petition or not was not to be tested. While I was speaking, Bay uttered
+a shrill scream, leaped up high in the air, and fell over on his back,
+dead.
+
+We hurried on the funeral that I might go home with Cousin Frank that
+evening. I pulled up the tombstone from the head of Caspar Hauser's
+grave and made an epitaph on the other side for Bay. There might not be
+another slate broken in the family for months. At the present rate of
+mortality among my pensioners, it behooved me to be economical. I had
+not time to indite such an elaborate testimonial to the worth of the
+deceased as graced Caspar Hauser's last resting-place. Yet I thought
+the tribute not amiss, and the drop into poetry elated me and
+electrified my audience. The lines were engraved perpendicularly upon
+the slate to give the rhyme effective room:--
+
+   "Alas! and Alack A DAY!
+   Poor Litle BAFFINS BAY!"
+
+My visit lasted three days instead of one and a half. I brought back
+with me something worthy of the pride that swelled my happy heart to
+aching. One of Cousin Frank's men had taken two young hares alive, and
+given them to his mistress a week ago, and she and Cousin Frank had
+arranged a pleasant surprise for me. Before I had been in the house an
+hour I was taken to the dining room to see the dear little things
+already housed in a cage, made by the plantation carpenter. None of your
+lemon-box makeshifts, but a strong case in the shape of a cottage, of
+planed wood, painted white on the outside. There were two rooms in it
+with a round door in the dividing wall. One was half full of soft,
+sweet-smelling hay for Darby and Joan to sleep upon. Their names were
+ready-made, too. The other room was a parlor where they were to eat and
+to live in the daytime. Broad leather straps by which the box could be
+carried were made to look like chimneys.
+
+The whole family collected to admire my treasures when I got home, and
+Mary 'Liza was so much interested in Darby and Joan that she brought up
+her cats, Cinderella and Preciosa, to be introduced and make friends
+with "their new cousins"--so she said. Cinderella was black-and-white,
+Preciosa yellow-and-white, very large, and with long fur as soft and
+fine as raw silk. Mary 'Liza put them down close to the cottage.
+
+"You must be very good and never hurt either of the beautiful hares--you
+hear?" she said, and we all looked on to see what they would do.
+
+Bless your soul! they walked once around the cottage in a lazy,
+indifferent, supercilious way, hardly glancing at their "new cousins,"
+then Preciosa yawned, tiptoed back to her place on the rug, doubled her
+toes in under her, and half closed her "greenery-yallery" eyes in real,
+or simulated slumber. Cinderella purred about her mistress until she
+seated herself again to work upon her seventh chemise, then jumped up
+into her lap and composed herself to slumber.
+
+After that, I had no fear that the well-fed, pampered creatures would
+molest my pets. Everybody sympathized in my good fortune. The weather
+was intensely warm, and Uncle Ike's own august hands rigged up a shelf
+against the garden fence, making what I called a "situation" for my
+cottage. Not even Argus could get at them there, had he been evilly
+disposed, and he had excellent principles for a puppy. Darby and Joan
+nibbled lettuce and cabbage from my fingers inside of three days, and if
+they were in the bedroom when I approached their dwelling, would bustle
+out to see if it were milk, or greens, or, maybe, clover blossoms that I
+had for them.
+
+The happy, happy days went by, and I announced to my father one evening
+as we sat at supper that I really "began to believe the curse was lifted
+from my pets."
+
+"The curse! Mary Hobson Burwell! what a word!" cried my mother.
+
+My father held up his hand.
+
+"One moment, if you please, mother! Explain yourself, Molly!"
+
+"I mean," answered I, bravely, "that it used to seem as if a wicked
+fairy had cursed a curse upon anything I took a fancy to. Like the girl
+in the song, and her tree and flower, and dear gazelle, you know. But
+Darby and Joan make me hope--"
+
+The words were blasted upon my tongue by a terrible scream.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+Circumstantial Evidence
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The garden gate was close to the dining-room windows, and the windows
+were not high above the ground. I rushed for the nearest. The moon was
+bright, and I was in time to see three cats jump down from the shelf on
+which the cottage was "situated," and dart away in as many different
+directions. One ran close along the wall of the house, and I recognized
+Preciosa. Hurling myself over the window-sill, I was the first of our
+startled party to reach the scene of the tragedy.
+
+The attack had been made from the three exposed sides of the cottage,
+the cats thrusting their claws between the bars and dragging my
+darlings up against these.
+
+My father opened the cottage door and took out the mangled, palpitating
+bodies.
+
+"Oh, father!" I shrieked. "Are they killed?"
+
+"Yes, my daughter."
+
+Then I went crazy. So raging and raving crazy that when I came partially
+to my senses, I did not recollect what I had been saying or doing since
+I heard the awful truth. I had been removed from the dark and bloody
+ground in some way and by somebody, for I was lying on my mother's bed.
+The consciousness of where I was had in it some drops of the oil of
+consolation. Next to the close embrace of the mother's arms there is no
+other resting-place on earth that so aptly typifies the safety and
+healing grace of Heaven to the child of whatever age, as Mother's Bed.
+
+In our house, to be laid upon that miracle of elastic fluffiness was to
+become, in fancy, a blessèd ghost, cradled upon a cloud. The sick
+child, the hurt child, the repentant child--were received into that holy
+asylum without other certificate than his or her need.
+
+Finding myself there made me feel that there might still be something
+worth living for, and to care for. My mother was by me and her arm was
+under my head; my father stood at the foot of the bed, kind and
+compassionate; Mam' Chloe was putting a bottle of hot water to my feet,
+and there was a strong smell of cologne in the air. I was very weak; my
+head felt queer and light, and although I was not crying, something
+seemed to grab me inside and shake me every little while--a short, sharp
+shake that made me gasp. Before I could open my eyes I heard my mother's
+voice say:--
+
+"I wish the dear child did not take things so much to heart. It will
+bring her a great deal of sorrow in her future life."
+
+Ah, blessèd mother of mine! for so many years beyond the sight and
+hearing of the vicissitudes of that life, then new and all
+untried--yours was but a partial prophecy. Against the sorrows born of
+"taking things so much to heart," I set a wealth of joy and beauty and
+love that have been made mine own by the same nature and habit.
+
+What she said or meant was little to me at that moment, for as I blinked
+confusedly about me, I saw Mary 'Liza, neat and upright, in her own
+especial chair by the window, and Preciosa was on her lap.
+
+An electric bolt quivered through me. I started up and pointed at the
+placid pair, my hand shaking like a leaf, my voice thick with
+spluttering wrath:--
+
+"_She_ did it! I want her killed."
+
+"Dear child, lie down, don't talk, you are dreaming," cooed my mother,
+trying to force me gently down to the pillow.
+
+I put her aside, and tried to form articulate words.
+
+"_That, cat, did, it!_ I saw her. I'll kill her! Let me get up."
+
+My father came to my mother's help.
+
+"Take the cat out of the room, Mary Eliza," he ordered calmly. And to
+me--"Now, Molly, we will hear what you have to say."
+
+He heard and weighed the evidence before I was put to bed in my own
+room. My head still went around queerly when I raised it, but my mind
+was clear. He sat by me and stroked my hand gently while he got my
+testimony. His kindness to his orphaned niece was unfailing, but he
+seldom caressed her, and nobody ever romped with her. He listened to my
+story first, and as patiently as if he were not to hear any other.
+
+I was hotly positive that the big cat I had seen jump from the shelf and
+dash by the window so close to me that I could have touched her by
+leaning over the sill, was Preciosa. There was no other cat of her size
+and color on the plantation. Beyond this conviction the prosecution had
+not a scrap of testimony to offer. On the side of the accused were the
+record of a blameless life; the lack of motive, inasmuch as the accused
+was fed abundantly with daily bread far more convenient for her than the
+raw flesh she had never desired before,--and, as a "clincher," an alibi
+was set up by Preciosa's mistress, who, coming into the chamber a few
+minutes after the disaster, had found the cat sleeping upon the rug just
+as she had left her when the supper bell rang,--and with never a speck
+of blood on her paws and fur.
+
+"She had licked it off, then!" I stormed. "I tell you I did see her! I
+did! I _did_! I DID! Father! you know I wouldn't tell a story about
+it--don't you?"
+
+"I believe that you think you saw her, my daughter. We all believe that.
+But you may have been mistaken. You were very much excited, and the cat
+ran fast, and it was in the night, recollect, and the moon is not as
+bright as the day. Altogether, we must take it for granted that Preciosa
+is not guilty, and keep a sharp lookout for the strange cat that did
+the mischief."
+
+"It was Preciosa--hateful old thing!" I insisted, angry and sullen. "She
+ought to be killed!"
+
+My father arose with decision that showed the case was concluded.
+
+"Mother! you will see that our little daughter does not talk any more
+about this to-night? She will, I hope, feel differently in the morning."
+
+I did not. In saying my prayers at bedtime I pointedly omitted--"Forgive
+us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I did
+not mean to forgive Preciosa. Furthermore, I was not at peace with her
+mistress and advocate. The more I mused, the hotter the fire burned,
+until I was ready to convict my father of injustice, and my mother of
+rank favoritism for the alien. I sulked violently at breakfast, and as I
+was not reproved, grew so stubborn and disrespectful over my lessons
+that I was sent to my room to stay there until dinner was ready. The
+term of banishment had still an hour to run, and I was leaning, listless
+and wretched, out of the window when Mam' Chloe and Uncle Ike met in the
+yard directly beneath, and part of the low dialogue reached me.
+
+"Ef I could onct ketch that Precious-O-sir in some o' her tricks, you'd
+see the fur fly,--mind!" said the butler.
+
+"I suttinly is mighty sorry for po' Miss Molly," answered his wife.
+"Looks-if hur heart is pretty nigh broke. It's right down pitiful to see
+how much sto' she sot by them young old hyars. You mus' see ef you can't
+get her some mo'."
+
+I dropped my head on the window-sill and cried out the tears that
+scalded my lids at the unexpected touch of sympathy. Then I fell to
+thinking and with a purpose.
+
+I went down to dinner with a tolerably composed countenance, a good
+appetite, and a well-digested scheme of vengeance in my mind. Uncle Ike
+was my only co-conspirator. I think I can see him now as he rolled back
+against the garden fence to laugh as I unfolded my design.
+
+"Ef you ain't the _beater_!" he chuckled, his pepper-and-salt poll
+tilted to one shoulder, and eyeing me with undisguised admiration. "An'
+you say nobody ain' put it into your hade?"
+
+"I haven't said a word about it to anybody else, Uncle Ike. You'll help
+me,--won't you?"
+
+He doubled himself up like a dyspeptic jack-knife, the ingenuity of the
+plot gaining upon his imagination.
+
+I pressed my advantage:--
+
+"And don't tell Mam' Chloe--please! She'll think it is cruel. But it
+isn't. It's just only justice. And it can't bring _them_ back."
+
+I clenched my fists, and my eyes filled.
+
+"That's so, Miss Molly, that's so," sobering instantly. "It is mighty
+hard on you--powerful hard."
+
+"And, Uncle Ike,"--hurrying to get it out lest my voice should
+fail,--"please don't let anybody give me any more old hares, or any
+'live things to keep. They'll just die, or be murdered by other folks'
+cats--or something. It's no use making myself happy for a little while
+just to be sorry for ever and ever so long afterward."
+
+With which epigram I ran away, afraid to try to utter another word.
+
+That evening we were all on the front porch. The air was breezeless, the
+moon as yellow as brass through sultry fogs. My mother, in a white
+dress, lay back in her rocking-chair and fanned herself languidly. My
+father smoked his Powhatan pipe upon the steps, leaning against one
+pillar of the roof. Mary 'Liza in pale-blue lawn, occupied the other end
+of the step. Her hands were in her lap. Cinderella dozed upon a fold of
+her skirt. Dorinda had been undressed and rocked to sleep at sunset.
+Preciosa had gone upstairs at the same time. I saw her lying upon the
+foot of our bed after supper, her eyes narrowed to slender slits with
+sleep or slyness. I had a shrewd impression that if I were to go
+upstairs now I should not find her in the same place. Instead of
+verifying the surmise in this way I stole noiselessly out of the family
+group, sauntering along carelessly until I turned the corner of the
+house, after which I ran like a lapwing to the garden gate, the
+rendezvous agreed upon between Uncle Ike and myself.
+
+He was there with the various "properties" I had ordered.
+
+_Imprimis_, a big dish-pan; _second_, a monstrous black pot from which
+steam arose into the hot night; _third_, a stout twine, to one end of
+which was attached a brick; a lump of raw liver dangled at the other. By
+my directions the pan was balanced upon the shelf where the cottage had
+stood, so that a slight pull would overset it, the brick was laid in the
+bottom, the string with the liver attachment hanging over the side.
+Lastly, Uncle Ike mounted upon the stool I was wont to use when I
+visited my murdered dears, and filled the pan from the pot. All being
+ready, we conspirators withdrew to the unlighted dining room, and
+stationed ourselves at a window.
+
+Our watch was not tedious. I was the first to discern a moving speck in
+the dim vista of the walk leading from the gate far down the garden. It
+enlarged and assumed a definite form, slowly. Evidently it was a scout,
+and the advance a reconnoissance. Feline artifice was in every line and
+motion. A ray of misty moonlight lay athwart the entrance to the garden.
+The gate was propped open. As the cat crossed it, we recognized a wily
+and wicked old Tom from the stable, a disreputable plebeian prowler,
+never tolerated in the house grounds. I hardly smothered an ejaculation
+as dainty Preciosa glided into the illuminated area and took part in the
+furtive inspection of the preparations made for the reception of last
+night's marauders. A third, and yet a fourth, miscreant joined the
+first two, and heads were laid together in a council of war.
+
+The liver hung high. Tom rose upon his hind feet, clawed the air
+futilely and came down sheepishly upon all fours. Next, a small, nimble
+black cat jumped and fell short of the bait. Uncle Ike snickered, and I
+drew in my breath excitedly, as the pampered exquisite, My Lady
+Preciosa, tripped mincingly into the open. The moon shone out obligingly
+to let us see her fall into position, her head upraised toward the
+tempting morsel--(pig's liver, and none too fresh at that)--her
+crouching body thrown well back upon the haunches, her tail, enlarged to
+double the usual size, waving sinuously from side to side in leisurely
+calculation of distance and chances. Suddenly she launched her supple
+body into space like a catapult, caught the meat between her claws,
+swung in the air for a victorious half-second--and then, the deluge!
+
+A chorus of screeches, a frantic stampede in all directions, and the
+arena was clear of all except the home-made infernal machine,--the empty
+dish-pan upside down on the ground, the brick, the string, and the raw
+meat lying under it.
+
+The caterwauling, Uncle Ike's "ky-yi!" and my scream of laughter,
+brought the porch-party to the spot. By previous agreement neither of us
+mentioned Preciosa's name. I had to pinch myself violently to contain
+the unseemly mirth bottled up in my wicked soul when Mary 'Liza was "so
+glad the horrible creatures were punished," and "hoped" gently "that
+Molly was convinced, now, that poor, dear Preciosa was innocent."
+
+"By the way, where _is_ Preciosa?" asked my father.
+
+"She seemed so sleepy that I gave her her supper, and put her to bed,
+when I took Dorinda upstairs," said her surety.
+
+Perhaps my father partly interpreted the gleam in my eyes and the
+quivering muscles about my uncontrollable mouth, for he glanced keenly
+at me and made as if he would let the inquiry drop. Not so my mother.
+She bade Mary 'Liza run upstairs and make sure that Preciosa was there.
+
+"I want my dear little girl to be entirely satisfied that her cousin was
+right, and that she did the cat an injustice," she said with judicial
+mildness.
+
+Preciosa was not in our room, and she stayed out all night, greatly to
+her owner's alarm and distress. Her habits were so regular, her
+deportment was always so impeccable that the circumstance assumed the
+proportions of an Event by breakfast time. My mother was anxious, Mary
+'Liza sorrowful, and my father shook his head more gravely than the
+occasion seemed to warrant.
+
+"Molly may not have been so far wrong after all," he observed to my
+mother, "in spite of the array of circumstantial evidence against her."
+
+My mother was unconvinced.
+
+"Previous good behavior should count for much in such a case," she
+urged. "And our little Molly is too apt to jump at conclusions. We
+cannot be too careful how we accuse others of sins which they may never
+have committed."
+
+I understood what they said perfectly. They never talked down to us.
+That was one reason we were called "old-fashioned" and "precocious" by
+people who had one set of words for their own use, and another for
+children. My parents considered, and I think rightly, that the best and
+most correct forms of speech should be taught to mere infants, that it
+is as easy to train a child to be grammatical as to let it lapse into
+all sorts of slovenly inaccuracies that must be unlearned at school, and
+in society. So, when they talked of "circumstantial evidence" I had a
+fair inkling of what the phrase conveyed. Preciosa was upon trial for
+misdemeanor, and I for backbiting.
+
+I ate away industriously to keep from "answering back,"--a cardinal
+offence in nursery government. Mary 'Liza had no appetite, but she,
+also, remained silent, and there was moisture under her eyelids.
+
+"We will suspend judgment--" began my father, and interrupted himself to
+ask--"What _have_ you got there, Ike?"
+
+The butler grinned from ear to ear, and broke into uncontrollable
+cachinnations in depositing his burden upon the floor.
+
+"One of the stable-boys foun' it in the lof', suh."
+
+He could say no more, and would not have been heard had he gone on, for
+my father roared, my mother fairly shrieked with laughter, and I went
+into hysterics, while Mam' Chloe and Gilbert joined in the general
+racket from the doorway.
+
+An abject nondescript cringed at Mary 'Liza's feet, whimpering
+piteously. The devil's broth concocted by Uncle Ike, according to my
+receipt, was warm starch, made blue with indigo. A few red peppers were
+boiled in it to dissuade the cats from licking it off before it could
+dry. It adhered to every individual hair of Preciosa's body. She looked
+like an azure porcupine. I had thought, at first, of using soot as
+coloring matter, but the thought of the blue appealed to my sense of the
+congruous ridiculous. I was more than content with the result. Why a
+blue cat should be more mirth-provoking than a yellow may not be
+explicable, but the fact remains. Even Mary 'Liza shrank from contact
+with the absurd object, and the moisture condensed into falling drops.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Mary! do you think it _can_ be Preciosa? It looks like
+a--_monster_!"
+
+With tears running down his cheeks, and his sides shaking with gusts of
+merriment, my father took me upon his knee, and gave me the funniest
+kiss I ever had--a jerky kiss, as if a bee had bobbed against my mouth.
+
+"You'll be the death of me yet, child!" And after another series of
+side-shakings--"So much for circumstantial evidence!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+Frankenstein
+
+
+The morning was biting cold. A northwest wind had been busy for hours
+sweeping and dusting the sky until, now that it was resting from its
+labors, the blue vault was as clean and bright as our mahogany
+dining-table after Uncle Ike had polished it with beeswax and rosin.
+
+At the breakfast-table the butter splintered off under the knife, and
+the milk was frozen so hard that Mary 'Liza and I sugared it and made
+believe it was ice-cream. When Gilbert, the under dining-room servant,
+brought in the buckwheat cakes and waffles from the kitchen, he had to
+cover them with a hot plate, and then run as hard as he could go across
+the yard to the house, to keep them from chilling on the way.
+
+There are no buckwheat cakes nowadays, like those that Aunt 'Ritta
+made--glossy brown, all of a size, and porous as a sponge. It was great
+fun to butter them, and then press them with the flat of a knife-blade,
+to see spurts and spouts rise from the surface like so many hot oil
+geysers.
+
+That was the morning when I made the eight-cakes-and-one-sausage speech
+that passed into a family proverb. The night before I had thrown a
+candle-end, four inches long, into the fire, and my mother had told me
+it was a Christian duty to be economical, defining the word for me.
+Bent, as usual, upon practising what I learned, I divided my sausage
+into eight bits, and ate one with each cake.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle and Cousin Frank Morton had stayed all night with us,
+and the talk at table was so lively that nobody noticed what I was
+about. We were not allowed to chatter during meals when others than the
+family were present, or, indeed, at any other time if grown people were
+talking, until invited by them to take part in the conversation. So I
+waited for a lull in the chat to say aside to my mother at whose left
+hand I sat:--
+
+"Mother! I have made one sausage do for eight buckwheat cakes. Wasn't
+that economical?"
+
+Even Cousin Molly Belle laughed, the "aside" being more audible than I
+meant to have it. True, she hugged me the next minute, her chair being
+next to mine on the other side, but her eyes were lively with amusement,
+and I saw that she was ready to break out again.
+
+My poor dainty mother actually blushed. It was not fashionable then for
+ladies, and little girls who were going to be ladies, to have hearty
+appetites. School-girls were instructed that no well-bred young lady
+ever ate more than two biscuits at breakfast or supper, and one was more
+refined than two. The pinion of a partridge sufficed the Lydia Languish
+of that day for the meat course of a dinner, and to be hungry was to be
+coarse. My mother was a sensible matron who did not lean to extreme
+views on any subject, but she did not rise superior to a mortification
+such as this. When she said distressfully:--
+
+"Molly! Eight cakes! I am ashamed that you should be so greedy!" I
+comprehended that my offence was rank, and that not her taste alone, but
+her sensibilities, suffered.
+
+I got hot all over, as was my custom when self-convicted of sin, and sat
+abashed, appetite and spirits put to flight together.
+
+My father pulled his face straight.
+
+"Never mind this time, mother! Better pay meat bills than doctor's
+bills. And, on a cold day, a restless little body like hers needs a
+great deal of carbon to keep the fires going. Eight buckwheat cakes and
+a thumping big sausage represent just so much animal heat."
+
+By and by, when I got a chance to speak to him alone, I asked him what
+carbon was, and what he meant by the fires and animal heat. He was at
+work at his table in "the office" in the yard, the Mortons having gone
+home, but he put down his pen and talked to me for quite a while upon
+nutrition and food values. He did not use those terms. They had not come
+into vogue even with medical men and writers upon anatomy. Still, his
+simple lecture made me comprehend that what I ate kept me alive and warm
+and active, and how certain kinds of food made blood, and others,
+muscle, and others were of little or no use in keeping up animal heat,
+without which there could be no life.
+
+I asked him if we could keep a dead thing warm if it would come to life
+again. I was thinking of all my dead pets. It was pathetic,--the
+familiarity of a seven-year-old with death and dissolution,--but of this
+I was not aware.
+
+He answered very gravely:--
+
+"We cannot keep dead things warm, daughter. When animal heat goes, life
+goes."
+
+"And when animal heat comes, does life come?" I queried. "Is that what
+makes things alive?"
+
+"Yes, dear. I have not time to explain it to you now. I am very busy.
+Some other time we will talk more about it."
+
+I carried a spandy new idea, and a stirring, into the garden with me at
+noon, as a chicken runs away to a corner with a crumb. The sun shone
+brightly, and I easily kept comfortable by skipping up and down a long
+walk, bordered on the northern side by an arbor-vitæ hedge. I did not
+know that resinous evergreens really give out warmth, but I had found
+out, for myself, that this was the warmest nook of the grounds in
+winter, and haunted it exceedingly.
+
+"When animal heat comes, life comes," I repeated aloud, in dancing
+along.
+
+The sentence sounded important, and pleased my ears. Presently, I would
+set about getting all the meaning I could extract from it, and
+experiment upon my acquisition. All my mental currency went into active
+circulation.
+
+An odd-looking thing lay in the middle of the path, that was not there
+when I came down awhile ago. I thought, at the first glance, that it was
+a hedgehog. I had seen pictures of the animal, and knew that when hunted
+so closely that it cannot escape it rolls itself into a prickly ball.
+This queer object was an oblong roll, about six inches in length and two
+inches thick, and covered with very coarse brown fur or wool. I picked
+it up. It was very cold. Then it could not be alive. It was light as a
+puffball. Then it was empty. For the rest it was a puzzle. I ran with it
+to Mam' Chloe, who was getting Bud to sleep in my mother's chamber.
+
+She cast a look at my "find," and sniffed impatiently.
+
+"Always huntin' and foolin' long some trash or nuther! Fetchin' er ole
+dade sunflower in ter show me when I'm doin' my bes' ter git this
+blessèd sugar-plum pie to sleep so's I ken git to my mendin'. Go 'long,
+Miss Molly!"
+
+I was used to her moods, clement and adverse, and I stood my ground.
+
+"Are you _sure_ it's a sunflower, mammy?"
+
+"What you take me fur, chile? Don' I know a sunflower that's run ter
+seed las' summer, an' is empty an' dade as Furious [Pharaoh] now? I got
+no time to steddy 'bout sech foolishness."
+
+I walked off,--not crestfallen, but blithe. One word had shunted my
+ideas upon a new track. She called this nondescript--which might, or
+might not, be the dried and warped disk of a sunflower that had cast its
+seeds--"dead." What should hinder me from making it alive? It looked
+like a hedgehog, or some other animal. It _should_ be an animal! Food of
+the right kind, and plenty of heat, were all it needed.
+
+"Carbon and animal heat!" uttered I, consequentially, swelling with the
+prospective joy of creation.
+
+Already I foresaw, in imagination, the tremor of the coming breath
+running through the uncouth body that would then put out, from
+mysterious hiding-places, head and limbs and tail, as buds unfold into
+flowers. I would confide to nobody what I was going to undertake. But I
+would do it! I would keep up animal heat, hour after hour, day after
+day, until my--Creature--breathed and moved and grew!
+
+Without delay I hied me to the kitchen, and begged a cold sausage and a
+pone of corn-bread from Aunt 'Ritta. She made no objection beyond asking
+why I "wanted sassage 'n' corn-bread in de middle o' de mawnin', 'stead
+o' piece o' cake, or somethin' sweet."
+
+"Because the weather is so cold," I replied briefly, and got what I
+wished with a grunt of "Dat's so, honey!" Negroes are constitutionally
+averse to winter and cold, and recognize, without knowing why, the
+carboniferous properties of pork and pone. I bore my treasures off to
+the dining room, shut the door, and began my experiment in the hottest
+flare of the fireshine.
+
+[Illustration: MOLLY'S EXPERIMENT.
+
+"I hied me to the kitchen and begged a cold sausage and a pone of
+corn-bread from Aunt 'Ritta."]
+
+The sunflower disk was a curiosity to me. It had curled inward upon
+itself, leaving a considerable cavity within. I stuffed this with the
+bread and sausage, crumbled fine, ruminating, the while, upon the
+probability that the sausage and cakes I had devoured presented the like
+appearance by the time they reached my stomach. When the variegated and
+viscid compound was tucked away, I wound a soft string about the disk to
+keep it in shape, and enveloped it, first in raw cotton, then in a bit
+of red flannel. In my uncertainty as to which end would bourgeon into a
+head, and from which would be evolved the tail, I left both ends open
+that IT might be able to breathe when breath came. Lastly, I secreted it
+under my cricket. It was what was known as "a box cricket," and the
+enclosing sides came to within three inches of the floor. It stood at
+the warmest corner of the hearth, and I was well-nigh roasted by the
+time I had sat upon it long enough to read the chapter in _Sandford and
+Merton_ that tells of poor soft Tommy's choice of the shorter end of
+the pole on which the load was hung, as likely to be the lighter. I
+guessed that it was now time for me to expect to hear the birth-cry of
+my Creature, or at least to detect some thrill of life. Lifting a corner
+of the mufflings, I insinuated a tentative finger.
+
+IT was warm! And before I withdrew my finger from the rough brown coat I
+was confident that I felt a throb like a pulse heave ITS sides. It is
+not an exaggeration to say that I was faint with excitement as I
+replaced the wrappings. I had never heard of Pygmalion and his statue.
+It was thirty years thereafter before I read Mary Shelley's
+_Frankenstein_. When I did read it I could not fail to recall the
+picture of the country-bred child, palpitating with awed delight in the
+belief that she had wrested Something from Nothing. Youth alone is
+absolutely fearless. The presumption of ignorance is akin to sublimity.
+
+I sat down again to ecstatic dreamings. IT would be all my own when IT
+was made--a pet so much better worth the having and holding than any
+that had preceded it in my affections, that I thought of them--even of
+the ever-lamented Darby and Joan--with compassionate contempt. I
+pictured to myself the astonishment of the household, white and colored,
+in beholding the miracle; the sensation in the neighborhood and county
+when the news of what had come to pass was bruited abroad. From the
+outermost border of Powhatan, from Chesterfield, and mayhap from over
+the river separating Powhatan from Goochland, people would flock to see
+me and wonder. Grown-uppers, who had never heard my name until now,
+would tell other strangers what Mary Hobson Burwell, aged seven, had
+done. I should be CELEBRATED!
+
+I sat and roasted, shifting my position occasionally that another side
+might get "done," and seemed to pore over my book until dinner was
+ready.
+
+"You are eating next to nothing, Molly," remarked my mother, casually,
+during the meal. "Have you been to see 'Ritta since breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," I answered meekly; and she did not observe that I colored
+uneasily.
+
+Back to my watch I went when the table was cleared, and the others had
+quitted the room. Uncle Ike replenished the fire, and commended my good
+sense in "huggin' the chimbley-corner in sech cole weather," before he
+left me to solitude, to _Sandford and Merton_, and to "Frank." I had
+resolved to name him for my dear cousin-in-law. When I came to read
+_Frankenstein_ I marvelled at the coincidence. Frank continued warm, as
+I ascertained by quarter-hourly pokes, but he did not stir. I must be
+patient. Precious things were slow of growth.
+
+Full as my mind and heart were of thoughts and hopes too big for
+expression, my behavior was so nearly normal that no troublesome
+questions were propounded. I had no difficulty in keeping my secret.
+Imaginative children have more secrets to guard than adults ever think
+of harboring.
+
+I took Frank to bed with me, smuggling him under my pillow, and going to
+sleep with my hand on him. He was getting warmer every hour.
+
+At midnight a cry--a series of cries--aroused the slumbering household,
+and drew my father and mother to my room. I had been awakened from sleep
+too sound for dreams by the bite of sharp teeth upon the thick of my
+thumb. Even the certainty that Frank had evolved a mouth, and that it
+was in good working order, could not cheat me into forgetfulness of the
+terror and pain of that awakening. I jerked my hand from under the
+pillow and shook Something off upon the floor. I heard it fall, and I
+heard it run. Frankenstein could not have conceived more intense horror
+and loathing for his foul, misshapen offspring than overpowered me at
+that terrible instant. The light in my father's hand showed blood
+streaming from my thumb and dripping upon the coverlet.
+
+"A mouse, or maybe a young rat, has bitten her," my mother pronounced
+without hesitation. "And no wonder! See how greasy her hand is! Faugh!
+How very careless in Chloe to put the child to bed in such a state! Be
+quiet, Molly! This should be a lesson to you not to go to bed again
+without washing your hands. You are old enough to think of such things
+for yourself. My dear child, can't you stop crying? It is not like you
+to make so much noise over a little hurt."
+
+"She is frightened out of her senses," said my father. "And you must
+admit that it was rather startling to be aroused by feeling a mouse's
+teeth nibbling at her hand."
+
+I clung to his neck, shivering with fright and cold. My sobs were
+uncontrollable.
+
+"It wasn't a mo-use!" I got out, presently. "Nor a ra-at, either!"
+
+"Not a mouse or a rat! How do you know? Did you see it?"
+
+"It was _Fra-a-nk_!" I gulped. "Oh! I'm afraid to stay here! He is in
+the room somewhere! He will come after me again!"
+
+The scene was ended by my going in my father's arms to my mother's bed
+for the rest of the night. My mother stayed upstairs with Mary 'Liza.
+
+"But I did not sleep well," was her grieved report at breakfast. "The
+pillows smelled horribly of sausage, I suppose because Molly's hands
+were so greasy. Marthy! see that the pillow-cases are changed this
+morning."
+
+Before Marthy got upstairs, I mustered and dragooned sufficient courage
+to enable me to visit the room. Still trembling and full of loathing at
+what I must see, I turned over the pillow. The red flannel was
+there--and the raw cotton--and inside of all, IT--Frank no longer--as
+cold as a stone!
+
+I took it up with the tongs and threw it out of the window--and said
+never a word about it to anybody.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+My Prize Beet
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I had been seven years old for so long that I alluded to myself
+habitually as "almost eight." We had our governess now, Miss Davidson, a
+handsome, amiable, and somewhat sentimental Bostonian recommended by a
+Richmond friend of my father. Four other girls studied with us. Two of
+them, Paulina and Sarah Hobson, were our second cousins. They stayed at
+our house from Monday morning until Friday evening, going home for
+Sunday, unless the weather were bad. Madeline and Rosa Pemberton were
+day scholars, the Pemberton plantation adjoining ours.
+
+I was the youngest of the six, and while I fancy that I was rather a
+favorite with Miss Davidson, I endured much from the girls on account of
+my inferiority in age, as well as because of my "old-fashioned,
+conceited ways." That was one reason I spoke of being almost eight. I
+was trying to grow up to what they complained of as "getting above"
+myself.
+
+The frank brutality of school children of both sexes, as contrasted with
+the unselfish forbearance (or the show of it) and the suave courtesy of
+well-bred men and women, is an instructive study in the evolution of
+ethics. The youngest boy or girl in class or college is the weakest wolf
+in the pack, the under dog in the fight. I had all of a little girl's
+natural desire for new playfellows and the dreamer's passion for more
+material for castle-building. The prospect of "the school" was
+ravishing. I constructed scenes and rehearsed conversations, with the
+cast of coming actors, until the quartette must have been super-or
+sub-human, had they come up to one tithe of my requirements.
+
+In plain and very homely fact, they were four commonplace, provincial
+girls of average natural intelligence, in age varying from twelve to
+fourteen. They studied because they would be called upon to recite, and
+recited fairly well for fear of reproof and bad marks should they be
+derelict. Out of school, books and bookish thoughts were cast to the
+four winds of heaven. Their talk was cheery chatter, as brainless as the
+rattle of grasshoppers in the summer grass.
+
+Mary 'Liza towered above them in scholastic attainments, although the
+junior of the youngest of them, keeping at the head of every class with
+unostentatious ease. I am afraid that I may have done my orphaned cousin
+seeming injustice in former chapters of this autobiography. Her temper
+was even, and her nature was finer than her prim, priggish ways would
+have led the casual acquaintance to suppose. She was
+ultra-conscientious, and naturally so exemplary that her good behavior
+was a snare. She could not sympathize with my temptations to naughtiness
+and many falls from good-girlhood. I mention this to introduce what was
+a surprise to me at the time. She never joined in the persecutions of me
+that were the labor and the pastime of the other girls. It would have
+been asking too much to expect her to champion me openly. I was
+affectionately grateful to her for holding herself aloof when baiting me
+was the amusement of the hour.
+
+My mother had lamented that I took life so much to heart. It took itself
+to my heart now, uninvited. I was headstrong and headlong, hot in love,
+and honest in hatred; with a brain full of absurd fancies, all of which
+were beloved by their author. I had browsed at will in my father's
+library, poring by the hour over books twenty years too old for me, yet,
+by mental cuticular absorption, taking in and assimilating much that
+contributed to the formation of taste and character. My familiar use of
+language that sounded pedantic because I got it from books, my frequent
+references to characters I had known in print, were gibberish and
+vanity of vanities to my new associates. My very plays were
+unintelligible to girls who had never heard of William Wallace, and
+Robert Bruce, and Thaddeus of Warsaw, or read, on Sunday afternoons, of
+Tobias and the Angel, Judith and Holofernes, and Christiana and her
+children.
+
+Not one of the four had an intellectual ambition. Mary 'Liza's
+scholarship did not excite their envy because she was quiet and
+inoffensive. Proficiency in her studies was "one of her ways." I was
+talkative and aggressive, and needed taking down. They set themselves
+systematically about the performance of the duty. The work was done
+deftly and discreetly, out of the sight and hearing of our elders. Young
+and raw as I was, I was too wise to tell tales on them. By the time I
+was four years old that lesson was rubbed into my consciousness by the
+gruesome rhyme:--
+
+   "Tell-tale tit!
+   Your tongue shall be slit,
+   And every dog in our town
+   Shall have a little bit!"
+
+This apparently tedious preamble yet leads by an air-line to the first
+Agricultural Fair ever held at Powhatan Court House. The date was
+October fifteenth, and all the gentlemen and ladies in the county were
+entreated to send exhibits of plantation products and feminine
+handiwork. Enthusiasm ran from homestead to homestead with the speed and
+heat of a March fire in pine woods. Cattle, tobacco, grain, vegetables,
+fruit, flowers, bedquilts, poultry, bees, knitting,
+embroideries,--nothing was talked of but the finest specimens of these
+that would be "in strong and beauteous order ranged," upon the important
+day.
+
+Madeline Pemberton had "done" a chair-cover in cross-stitch that her
+mother said ought to get the first prize, and was dead sure to take the
+third; Mary 'Liza was knitting a pair of shell-pattern, openwork
+stockings as fine as a cobweb, in which there would not be a knot or a
+dropped stitch, and Paulina Hobson was putting her eyes out over a
+linen-cambric handkerchief under Miss Davidson's direction. Fine sewing
+and embroidery were taught by governesses then. Sarah Hobson had pieced
+a crib quilt containing one thousand and twelve tiny squares. I was
+supposed to be left out in the cold. I would not knit, and to sew I was
+ashamed because I did it so badly. Nobody paid any attention to me when
+comparing notes and queries touching the great show.
+
+Yet I nursed an ambition of my own to which no one was privy except
+Spotswoode, a gray-headed, and proverbially taciturn field-hand, without
+whose knowledge and coöperation the purpose could not have been carried
+out.
+
+Wandering, one July afternoon, on the outskirts of a corn-field--the
+same in which I once lost Musidora--I happened upon a "volunteer"
+mangel-wurzel beet that had sprung up in a fence corner, a quarter of a
+mile away from any of its kindred. Attracted by the beauty of the
+translucent, red-veined leaves, I called to Spotswoode who was ploughing
+between the corn rows, and asked him what it was. Adopting the waif,
+then and there, I dug what I called "my little garden" about it,
+Spotswoode tugging up the stoutest roots and clearing out the
+wire-grass. With an occasional hand's turn and toss from him I
+cultivated the vagrant into extraordinary size and vigor. Not a day
+passed in which I did not visit it. Not a blade of grass or a weed was
+allowed to invade the charmed circle, and many a spadeful of fresh
+mould, black with fatness, was worked about the swelling tuber by my
+kind field-hand. He knew that it was to be sent to the Fair in the
+fulness of time, and believed with me that "not another beet there could
+hold a candle to it."
+
+As the air thickened and heated with rumors of the prodigies to be
+revealed on the fifteenth to the lasting honor of Old Powhatan, it was
+harder and harder to keep what I knew to myself. I had purposed not to
+reveal the secret until my father's wagons were in loading with other
+mammoth esculents and his finest corn and tobacco. Then--so ran the
+programme--I would march up, bearing my beet with me. It was to be dug
+up and cleaned by Spotswoode on the evening of the fourteenth, and kept
+safely in hiding for me. I could depend upon his literal obedience,
+albeit he never had an original idea.
+
+Temptation befell, and overcame me, on the afternoon of October
+thirteenth, a date I was not likely, thenceforward, to forget. All six
+of us girls were gathered in the porch, listening to, and relating,
+stories of what this one had raised, and that one had made. Mr.
+Pemberton had a seven-hundred-pound pig, and Mr. Hobson a rooster more
+beautiful than a bird of Paradise. The syrup of Mrs. Hobson's preserves
+was as clear as spring water, and Mrs. Pemberton's water melon-rind
+sweetmeats had as good as taken the prize.
+
+Paulina Hobson sat on the top step of the porch. She was very fair, and
+her hair was nearly as white as her skin. She was fourteen years old,
+and wore a grass-green lawn frock. Her eyes were of a paler green, she
+had a nasty laugh, and her teeth were not good.
+
+"Isn't it nice that all five of us are going to send something?" she
+said complacently. "You know that nobody but exhibitors can go into the
+tent for the first hour--from eleven to twelve--so's they can see
+everything before the crowd gets in. Who'll you stay with, Miss Molly
+Mumchance, when we all leave you?"
+
+I had not spoken while the talk went on, for fear something might slip
+out and betray me, prematurely, but I took fire at this.
+
+"I'm going in, myself!" I snapped out.
+
+"Oh, you are? What are you going to exhibit, may we ask?" with her nasty
+laugh.
+
+"The biggest beet in the world! It measures a yard around."
+
+"Hoo! hoo! hoo!" squealed Paulina so loudly that my father, who was
+coming in the gate with my mother, Miss Davidson, Uncle Carter, and Aunt
+Eliza, said pleasantly:--
+
+"What is the joke, young ladies? Mayn't we laugh, too?"
+
+Madeline Pemberton answered. Miss Davidson had to reprove her every day
+for forwardness.
+
+"Why, Mr. Burwell,"--laughing with affected violence,--"Molly says she
+is going to send some beets to the Fair that measure ever so many yards
+around."
+
+"I didn't!" cried I, in a passion. "You know that isn't true!"
+
+My father moved toward me.
+
+"What _did_ you say, daughter?"
+
+I hung my head. If I told, where would be the surprise and the visioned
+triumph?
+
+"What did you say, Molly?" repeated my father, in quiet gravity.
+
+"I said _one_ beet, and that it measured one yard," stammered I,
+reluctantly.
+
+"That was bad enough. When so many older people are trying to see who
+can tell the biggest story, little girls ought to be especially
+careful."
+
+His eyes did not go to Madeline, but his emphasis did. The thought of
+being classed with her lent me coherence and courage. I looked up.
+
+"I have one beet, father, that is a yard 'round. I raised it myself. If
+you don't believe me, you can ask Spotswoode."
+
+"I don't ask my servants if my daughter is telling the truth. Where is
+your beet?"
+
+I pointed.
+
+"Away over yonder--the other side of the corn-field."
+
+Paulina and Rosa tittered, Madeline giggled,--then all three pretended
+to smother the demonstration with their handkerchiefs and behind their
+hands. Mary 'Liza looked scared and sorry. My father took hold of my
+hand.
+
+"Take me to see it!"
+
+The others fell into Indian file behind us, as we marched outside of
+the garden fence and past the Old Orchard where the rays of the sinking
+sun shot horizontal shafts under the trees to our very feet, and so to
+the corn-field. I did not glance behind to see who entered it after us,
+but pushed right ahead between the stalks, the stiff blades switching my
+cheeks. When we neared the "garden," I ran forward, flushed and
+impatient, not to display my prize, but to clear myself by proving my
+words. An envious, jagged blade slashed my forehead as I tore by. I did
+not feel it at the moment, or for half an hour after it began to bleed.
+
+For--_the beet was gone!_
+
+The cleared space was there to show where something had been cultivated;
+the bare earth was raked level. Not so much as the hole from which my
+beet had been ravished remained in circumstantial evidence. The rest of
+the party arrived while I stood transfixed, the picture of detected
+guilt. To the rustle of the corn, and the shuffle of feet over the
+furrows succeeded a horrible hush. Then, a chorus of mocking girlish
+cackles, led by Paulina Hobson's discordant screech, smote the sunset
+air and covered me with a pall of infamy. Paulina caught at the fence
+for support as she laughed; Madeline bent double and reeled sideways.
+
+I clutched my father's hand, drowning and suffocating in the waves of
+despairing agony; I shook my tight fist at the insulting quartette.
+
+"They--_they_--took it! It was here this morning. It was here just after
+dinner to-day!"
+
+"Be quiet, girls!" ordered my judge-advocate. "Molly! I want the exact
+truth. If you accuse them, you must prove what you say. Things have gone
+too far to stop here. Didn't you say that Spotswoode knew something
+about the affair?"
+
+"He knows all about it. He helped me, ever so many times, and he saw how
+big it was," I ejaculated vehemently.
+
+"We shall probably find him at the stables, feeding the horses."
+
+Back we trudged by my air-line, well-worn but narrow. I fancy that my
+father took note of my familiarity with the path, but he did not speak
+of it. I marched in front of him, gloomy and desperate. Some of the
+others talked low as they straggled along. The girls kept up a hissing
+whispering, for which I hated them with my whole soul. I think that my
+mother and Miss Davidson shed some furtive tears, for my case was black,
+and they were tender-hearted.
+
+Spotswoode was looking after his plough-horses, as my father had
+conjectured. At his master's shout, he emerged from the stalls and
+presented himself in the stable door. Ungainly, dirty, bare-footed, his
+ragged wool hat on the back of his unkempt woolly poll, his jaw dropping
+in idiotic amazement at sight of the party--he was a ludicrous figure in
+the bath of late sunshine that brought out every uncomely item of the
+picture. Preoccupied and distraught as I was, I saw how the dust from
+the stable floor floated in golden clouds to the cobwebbed rafters, as
+the sun struck past the man in the doorway and glorified the murky
+interior.
+
+I rushed through the yard, heedless of manure heaps, and young pigs and
+calves scattered by my impetuous approach.
+
+"Oh, Spotswoode!" in a voice that cracked and went to pieces as I ran,
+"somebody has stolen my beet! You can tell father--"
+
+A hot valve closed in my windpipe and shut out the rest.
+
+Spotswoode's jaw hung more loosely; his eyes were utterly vacant.
+
+"Ya-as, little Mistis!" he drawled, and slunk back into the stable.
+
+"What do you mean, sir? Come back here, this minute!" called his master.
+
+When he reappeared, he carried in both hands, extended, after the
+similitude of a pre-historic monkey making a votive offering--something
+dark-red and pot-bellied, and more immense than I had dreamed it could
+look. A cluster of cropped leaves crowned it, a taper root, a foot
+long, depended from the bottom.
+
+"I done been dig it up fo' you an' wash it, dis ebenin', 'stid o'
+termorrer," drawled my vindicator. "So's ter hab it all ready fur the
+Fyar."
+
+Mute and triumphant, I received it in a rapturous embrace, set it on a
+bench by the stable door, and passed the hem of my muslin apron about
+it. The ends just met.
+
+"That's how I knew how big it was," I said simply. "Mother told me that
+my apron was a yard wide. I measured it while it was in the ground."
+
+The beet--and its history--went to the Fair, and a prize was awarded to
+"_Miss Mary Hobson Burwell, For best specimen of Mangel Wurzel, raised
+by Herself._"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+Two Adventures
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In a country neighborhood where half the people were cousins to the
+other half, gossip could not but spring up and flourish as lushly as
+pursley,--named by the Indians, "the white man's foot."
+
+The gossip was usually kindly; sometimes it was captious, now and then
+it was almost malicious. Everything depends upon the medium through
+which the floating matter in the air is strained.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle's best friends thought and said that she chose
+judiciously in marrying the clean-lived, high-minded gentleman who had
+loved her before she was grown and whom she loved dearly in return. Her
+next best friends intimated that the most popular girl in the county
+might have done better for herself than to take Frank Morton, as fine a
+fellow as ever lived, but whose share of his father's estate was a small
+plantation with a tolerable house upon it, a dozen "hands" and, maybe, a
+thousand dollars or so in bonds and stocks. The girls she had
+out-belled, the girls' mothers, and sundry youths to whom Mrs. Frank
+Morton had given the mitten in her singlehood, said openly that she had
+quite thrown herself away in settling down to house-keeping,
+poultry-raising, and home-making in an out-of-the-way farmstead, with
+little society except that of a man ten years older, and thirty years
+soberer, than herself.
+
+What a different story I could have told to those who doubted, and those
+who pitied! Nowhere in all our broad and bonny State did human lives
+flow on more smoothly and radiantly than in the white house nestled
+under the great oak that was a landmark for miles around. It had but
+five rooms, kitchen, store-room, smoke-house, and other domestic offices
+being in detached buildings, as was the custom of the region and times.
+If there had been fifty they could not have held the happiness that
+streamed through the five as lavishly as the sunshine, and, like the
+sunshine, was newly made every day.
+
+I was going on ten years old when my sweet mother gave a little sister
+to Bud and me. She had been with us but three days when Cousin Molly
+Belle drove over for me and the small hair trunk that meant a visit of
+several days when it went along. This time it signified four of the very
+_loveliest_ weeks of my life, and two Adventures.
+
+The blessèd grandchildren, at whose instance these tales of that
+all-so-long-ago are written with flying pen and brimming heart, and
+sometimes eyes so moist that the lines waver and swim upon the page,
+will have it--as their parents insisted before them--that "we never,
+never can have such good times and so many happenings as you had when
+you were new."
+
+If I smile quietly in telling over to myself the simple elements and
+few, out of which the good times were made, and how tame the happenings
+would be to modern young folk, I cannot gainsay the truth that my daily
+life was full and rich, and that every hour had a peculiar interest.
+
+For one thing, there was a baby at Oakholme, a bouncing boy, sturdy of
+limb and of lung, and so like both his parents in all the good qualities
+possible to a baby, as to leave nothing to be desired by the best
+friends aforesaid, and no room for criticism on the part of the
+malcontents. Out-of-doors were chickens, ducks, turkeys, guinea-fowls,
+pigs, calves, pigeons, and a couple of colts,--all, like the baby boy,
+the best of their kind. What time was left on our hands after each had
+had its meed of attention, was more than consumed by a library such as
+few young planters had collected in a county where choice literature was
+as much household plenishing as beds, tables, and candlesticks.
+
+It was July, and the days were at their longest according to the
+Warrock's Almanac that hung over Cousin Frank's desk in a corner of the
+dining room. They were never so short to me before.
+
+Adventure No. 1 befell us one forenoon, as Cousin Molly Belle and I were
+topping and tailing gooseberries for tarts, on the side porch. Baby
+Carter was on the mat at our feet, bulging his eyes and swelling his
+cheeks in futile efforts to extort a squeak from a chinquapin whistle
+his father had made for him. The kind that, as you may recollect, kept
+the whistle in them over night, and did not shrivel up.
+
+"It's there, old fellow, if you really know how to get it out," Cousin
+Frank told his son and heir. "Everything depends upon yourself."
+
+"Like other things that people fret for," moralized the mother.
+
+Nevertheless, she reached down for the whistle, wiped the mouthpiece
+dry, and sent the baby into ecstasies by executing "Yankee Doodle"
+flourishingly upon it. A chinquapin fife lends itself more readily to
+the patriotic, step-and-go-fetch-it melody than to any other in the
+national _répertoire_. Carter crowed, opened his mouth wide, and beat
+his fat pink palms together.
+
+"Just as they applaud the clown at the circus!" said the performer. "He
+already recognizes his mother's talents."
+
+"If he ever fails to do that, I'll flog him out of his boots!" retorted
+the father.
+
+A wild commotion at "the quarters" cut his speech short. Women shrieked,
+children bellowed, men roared, and two words disentangled themselves
+from the turmoil.
+
+"_Mad_ dog! _mad_ dog!" pronounced, as the warning cry is spoken
+everywhere at the South, with a heavy accent on the first word.
+
+Cousin Frank whipped up the baby; Cousin Molly thrust her hand under the
+collar of Hector, a fine pointer who lay on the floor, and, urging me
+before them, they hustled us all into the house in the half twinkle of
+an eye. In another, Cousin Frank was driving a load of buckshot into his
+gun faster than it was ever loaded before, even by him, and he was a
+hunting expert.
+
+"Dear!" his wife caught the hand laid on the door-knob; her eyes were
+wild and imploring.
+
+"Yes, my darling!"
+
+He was out and the door was shut.
+
+We flew to the window. Right up the path leading by the quarters from
+the spring at the foot of the hill, trotted an enormous bull dog. Half a
+dozen men were pelting him with stones from a respectful distance. He
+paid no attention to stones or shouts. Keeping the straight path, his
+brute head wagging drunkenly, he was making directly for the open
+yard-gate, from which a gravel walk led to the porch where we had been
+sitting. Snap, his master's favorite hunter, and the petted darling of
+his mistress, was hitched to the rack by the gate, ready-saddled for
+Cousin Frank's morning round of the plantation. At the noise behind him,
+the intelligent creature threw up his handsome head, glanced over his
+shoulder, and began to plunge and snort, as if aware of the danger. His
+master spoke soothingly as he planted his own body between him and the
+ugly beast.
+
+"Steady, old boy! steady!"
+
+In saying it he raised the gun to his shoulder. It was all done so
+quickly that I had hardly seen the livid horror in Cousin Molly Belle's
+face when the good gun spoke, the muzzle within ten yards of the dog's
+head, and he rolled over in the path.
+
+"What if you had missed him! He would have been upon you before you
+could reload!" shuddered the wife, as we ran out to meet Cousin Frank.
+
+"I did not mean to miss him. If I had, I should have clubbed my gun and
+brained him. No, dear love! it would not 'have done as well had I fired
+at him over the palings.' Snap was on the other side of the gate.
+And"--with an arch flash he might have learned from her--"you and
+Namesake and I think the world and all of Snap, you know."
+
+It was the only allusion he ever made in my hearing to the escapade that
+won him his wife.
+
+We learned, within a few hours, that the dog had bitten several cows,
+five other dogs, and a valuable colt, before he reached Oakholme.
+
+I was always very fond of Cousin Frank. Henceforward, he stepped into
+the vanguard of my heroes. I did not believe that Israel Putnam could
+have done anything more daring than what I had witnessed in the safe
+place in which he put us "before he sallied forth into the very jaws of
+death." That was the way I described it to myself.
+
+Tramping through the lower pasture at his side that afternoon I tried to
+voice my admiration to him, but used less inflated language. I dearly
+enjoyed these long walks over the plantation in his company. He was an
+excellent farmer, and kept no overseer. I learned a great deal of
+forestry and botany from his talk. If he adapted himself, consciously,
+to my understanding, he did not let me perceive it. The recollection of
+his unfailing patience and his apparent satisfaction in the society of
+the child who worshipped him and his wife, has been a useful lesson to
+me in my intercourse with the young. I had told Cousin Molly Belle, a
+long time ago, that he "talked straight to children," with none of the
+involved meanings and would-be humorous turns of speech with which some
+grown-uppers diverted themselves and mystified us.
+
+When he smiled at my well-mouthed, "Do you know, Cousin Frank, that your
+bravery may have saved at least four lives--Cousin Molly Belle's, and
+baby's, and Snap's, and mine?"--I felt that he was not laughing at me
+inside, as the manner of some is.
+
+"I don't know about that, Namesake." Nobody but himself and his wife was
+allowed to call me that. They were one, you know. "All of you would
+probably have got out of the way, except Snap. It _would_ have been a
+great pity to have him bitten. But here is a wee bit of a thing that
+could, and would, save a good many lives if people were as well
+acquainted with it as they ought to be. I am surprised that it is so
+little known in a part of the country where snakes abound as they do
+about here."
+
+He stooped to gather, and gave to me, some succulent sprigs from a plant
+that grew in profusion along the branch running through the meadow.
+
+"It is a cure for a snake-bite if bruised into a poultice and bound upon
+the place soon after one is bitten. My father showed it to me a great
+many years ago, when I was a little shaver, and told me how he had
+learned about it from an old Indian herb-doctor. He tried it several
+times for moccasin-and adder-and copperhead-bites among his servants,
+and it was a cure in every instance. It grows on both sides of this
+branch, and nowhere else that I know of on the plantation. My father was
+an admirable botanist."
+
+"So are you," said I, stoutly.
+
+"Oh, no. As the saying is, his chips were worth more than my logs."
+
+No law of nature is more nearly invariable than that Events are twins,
+and often triplets. That very evening, after supper, Cousin Frank was on
+his way from the stables to the house, and saw what he mistook for a
+carriage whip lying in the walk. The moon was shining and he had no
+doubt as to what the thing was when he stooped to pick it up. Before he
+touched it, it made one swift writhe and dart and struck him on the
+wrist.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle was laying Carter in the cradle, the last note of her
+lullaby upon her lips when her husband entered. He clutched his right
+wrist tightly with the left hand and was pale, but his voice was steady
+and gentle.
+
+"Dear," he said, "don't be frightened, but I have been bitten by a
+snake. A copperhead, I think. Get me some whiskey, please."
+
+"The whiskey, Flora! Quick!" called the wife to her maid who stood by.
+"Pour out a tumblerful and give it to him."
+
+For herself, she fell upon her knees, seized her husband's wrist and
+carried it to her mouth. This I saw, and heard the first words of his
+startled protest as the dear lips closed upon the wound. I was out of
+the room and clear of the house the next minute and speeding down the
+path and hill to the lower pasture.
+
+The snake was at large, and might waylay me from any bush or tuft of
+grass. The moonbeams were ghostly and the stillness of the wide solitude
+was eerie. Being but a child,--and a girl-child,--I thought of these
+things, and of the likelihood of meeting runaway negroes, and mad dogs,
+and stray sane curs whose duty it was to attack nocturnal trespassers,
+and of a vicious bull never let out to roam the pasture except at night.
+I was afraid of them all, intellectually. My heart was too full of a
+mightier dread to let bugbears turn me back. I ran right on until the
+branch, a silver ribbon on the dark bosom of the meadow, was before me.
+Grasses and weeds were laden with dew, and the water whirled and
+whispered about the roots. I could have believed that the purling formed
+itself into words when I knelt down to fumble for the snake-bite cure. I
+would not let myself be scared. I kept saying over and over--"To save
+his life! to save his life!"
+
+In the intensity of my excitement, language that I was afraid was
+blasphemous, yet could not exclude from my mind, pressed upon me:--
+
+"_He saved others. Himself he cannot save!_"
+
+He might be dying now. He had said that the poultice ought to be applied
+at once. Horrid stories of what had happened to people who were bitten
+by rattlesnakes and cobras tormented me, and would not be beaten off.
+
+"A copperhead, I think he said. How could he know that it was not a
+cobra? Would he swell up, turn black, and expire in convulsions before I
+could reach him?" I said "expire in convulsions," out of a book.
+Everyday Virginia vernacular fell short of the exigency.
+
+My feet were drenched, my pantalettes and skirts were bedraggled up to
+the knees, my eyes were large and black in my colorless face, when I
+burst into the chamber, and threw the bunch of priceless herbs into
+Cousin Molly Belle's lap. I was too spent for speech.
+
+Cousin Frank's coat and vest were off; his right shirt-sleeve was rolled
+up to the shoulder, and he was holding his hand and wrist in a deep
+bowl of warm water. The air reeked with the fumes of whiskey and
+hartshorn.
+
+I concluded, when I came to think of it the next day, that the whiskey
+must have been doing antidotal work by getting into his head, for he
+laughed outright at sight of the specific I had brought. Then,
+tears--real tears and plenty of them--suffused his eyes and made his
+voice weak and husky. Or--was it the whiskey?
+
+"You are a dear, brave, thoughtful Namesake!" he said, clearing his
+throat. "Darling!" to his wife who was eyeing the herbs
+wonderingly,--"She has been all the way to the lower meadow for those. I
+showed her the snake-bite cure to-day. Bruise them and put them on my
+wrist. Then Namesake must get off her wet clothes and go to bed. The
+danger is over."
+
+I was thirty years old before I found out that what I had risked so much
+to procure was not the panacea he had showed me, but common jewel-weed,
+or wild touch-me-not, a species of the _Impatiens_ of botanists,
+harmless, but not curative.
+
+And they had never let me guess what a blunder I had made!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+Miss Nancy's Nerves
+
+
+The Gateses were our distant relatives. Not nearer than fourth
+cousins-in-law, I fancy, but we counted them among our "kinfolks" in
+Virginia, calling Mrs. Gates "Cousin Nancy," and Captain Gates, "Cousin
+'Ratio." His proper name was Horatio, of course, and he belonged to the
+family that gave the Revolutionary hero, Horatio Gates, to his country.
+
+I was slowly getting over the whooping-cough, having taken it, as I took
+most "catching" things that fell in my way,--with all my might. I began
+to whoop the last of April, and kept it up all summer, when every other
+child on the plantation was entirely well.
+
+Captain Gates drove over to our house by the time the breakfast-table
+was cleared one sultry August day, bringing in his roomy double buggy a
+basket of Georgia peaches--brunettes with crimson cheeks--and the
+biggest watermelon I had ever seen, as a neighborly gift to my mother.
+
+"Miss Nancy gave me no peace of my life till I got off with them," he
+said in his loud, breezy tones. "There's none of her kin she sets more
+store by than by Cousin Ma'y Anna Burwell. And she's as proud as a
+peacock of our fruit. I tell her a judgment will come upon her for it.
+As I take it, Old Marster sends the rain upon the unjust as well as upon
+the just, and if it's our turn this year, somebody else's turn will come
+next year, and yet we'll be as good Christians then as we are now. It's
+one of His ways that's past finding out. Howdy'e, little lady!" putting
+out a brawny hand to pull me between his knees.
+
+I was standing a yard or so away, but right in front of him, my hands
+behind me, my eyes and ears, and, I'm afraid, my mouth, open to his
+hearty talk. I had never heard God called "Old Marster" before, and if I
+had not been taught that children ought not to criticise what grown
+people say and do, I should have been quite sure that it was wrong. I
+did not want to think any harm of Cousin 'Ratio, and determined that I
+would not, when he drew a great finger gently over my thin cheek, and
+looked down at me with kindly, pitying eyes.
+
+"Tut! tut! tut! this is too bad! too bad! We must fill up this gulley
+somehow, Cousin Ma'y Anna. Other folks' victuals are the best physic I
+know for that sort of work. Miss Nancy would cry her eyes out if I was
+to go home with the story that little Molly Burwell had coughed her
+bones pretty near as bare as barrel-staves, and I didn't try to cover
+them up again. A week in my peach-orchard and watermelon-patch, with
+quarts of cream and Miss Nancy's breakfasts, dinners, and suppers--is
+what she wants. Get her bonnet, and stick a tooth-brush and a
+pocket-handkerchief into a bandbox, Chloe, for I'm going to take her
+home with me, right straight off."
+
+My mother shook her head smilingly at the thought of the week's visit.
+
+"The child coughs so badly at night that I don't like to have her away
+from me, Cousin 'Ratio. But change of air, even for a day, would do her
+good. Her father and I will come for her about sundown."
+
+Thus it happened, that, decked in a clean pink calico frock and white
+muslin apron, I was hoisted to my perch in the high gig beside Cousin
+'Ratio, and set off to spend a whole day at Cold Comfort.
+
+The name was so out of keeping with Cousin 'Ratio's kind, red face and
+funny ways, and the warm, sweet-smelling day, that I couldn't help
+asking him on the way "why he called his house such a _shivery_ name?"
+
+The gig swayed and creaked under his laugh.
+
+"That was just the reason my grandmother gave for naming it. You see,
+the house stands on the top of a hill, and all the winds from three
+counties get at it in winter. The house my grandfather put up was of
+wood, and none too tight in the joints, and the poor old lady, his
+wife--my step-grandmother she was--had rheumatism, and suffered a heap
+all the year 'round. So, nothing would do but it must be 'Cold Comfort,'
+and Cold Comfort it has been ever since. We Gateses have a way of giving
+in to our wives in 'most everything. Everything that's reasonable, I
+mean. And we don't pick out unreasonable girls for wives."
+
+The fat, sleek horse was taking his own lazy pace in a mile of shady
+road, cut through the heart of a pine forest. The ground was brown and
+soft with pine needles, and the high gig swung and creaked a sort of
+drowsy tune. Cousin 'Ratio tapped the wheel nearest him with his whip,
+and fell into talk with himself, rather than with the child under his
+elbow.
+
+"Now, there's Miss Nancy! There's been a heap of fun poked at me, first
+and last, for building my house in the shape I did. Though, for the
+life of me, I can't see why I should be obleeged to live in a
+four-square box because every other man-Jack in Pow'tan County builds
+his in that way. Miss Nancy was always mighty nervous from the time she
+was a child; I knew it when I married her. Fact is, she says to me:
+'Cap'n Gates, I'm as nervous as a witch, and I'm afraid you'll get out
+of patience with me sometimes, and I wouldn't blame you if you did.'
+And, says I,--my hand right on my heart,--'Miss Nancy Miller! if you'll
+take _me_ as I am, I'll be proud and happy to take _you_ as you are,
+nerves and all!' says I. 'The proudest man in the State of Virginia,'
+says I. 'Call it a bargain.'
+
+"And she did--bless her soul! It was the best bargain that ever I made,
+or ever expect to make, too. Some men marry Temper, and some Extravagant
+Notions, and some Vanity, and some Jealous, Suspicious Dispositions, and
+some, again, Stinginess--Good gracious! there's no end to the
+disagreeable things men _do_ marry! I married _Nerves!_ and with them,
+the best and sweetest and, to my way of thinking, the prettiest woman in
+the County and State, and the Universe, and I've been thankful for it
+every day and every hour since--God bless her!"
+
+I waited for him to say something more until I began to wonder, then to
+get impatient, that he let the horse jog along, the soft creak of the
+gig keeping time with the leisurely motions of the pampered beast, the
+master's eyes fixed upon the wheel he was tapping with his whip, as if
+he had forgotten me entirely.
+
+I made a bold effort to reopen the conversation.
+
+"I suppose Cousin Nancy asked you to build your house round, instead of
+square?"
+
+I had heard so many different stories about the odd structure which was
+one of the county curiosities that I was anxious to get at the truth.
+
+He laughed low and pleasantly:--
+
+"Ask me! Not she, bless your soul! She would never have thought of such
+a thing. 'Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights
+because I knew she couldn't sleep for the roaring and whistling around
+the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and
+between the window-sashes like a bumblebee as big as a whale. It made
+her feel so lonesome and blue that many's the time I've heard her crying
+to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. We were going to pull
+down the old house, anyhow. It was a rickety concern, and inconvenient
+as could be. So I got Miss Nancy to tell me how many rooms and closets
+and all that she'd like to have in a house that was to be built on
+purpose for her, and for nobody else, and I made a plan of it all on
+paper, and then I sent her up to stay with her mother in Buckingham
+County for six months, going up to see her myself every Saturday to
+spend Sunday--like a nigger going to his 'wife-house,'"--here he stopped
+to laugh again--"until the last window-shutter was hung, and all the
+furniture put back and in order--Je_rew_salem! how I _did_ work! Then I
+brought her home. I wish you could have seen her face when we came in
+sight of the solid brick house--round as a cheese box--and I told her I
+had it built in that shape, so's she should never be made sorrowful, nor
+kept awake again by the wind a-cutting up shines around sharp corners,
+so long as we both should live--Amen!"
+
+He jerked a blazing red bandanna handkerchief out of his pocket, turning
+his face clear away from me to do it, and blew his nose until the woods
+rang as with the echoes of a foxhunter's horn, then rolled the
+handkerchief into a ball and polished his face with it in the oddest
+possible fashion.
+
+Most of the tales current about the round brick house had something to
+do with Cousin Nancy's whims, especially with her dislike to hearing the
+wind blow around the corners. Young as I was, I felt, after hearing
+Cousin 'Ratio's story, that he had done a beautiful thing in planning
+the ingenious surprise for his delicate wife. It crossed my mind, too,
+that she might have thought the house as ridiculous as other people did,
+yet pretended to like it sooner than hurt his feelings. She must be a
+good and devoted wife. Furthermore, I got into my foolish head the
+notion that it was nice and interesting to have Nerves. I resolved to
+get a set of my own at an early opportunity and to work them well. To
+this end, I would watch Cousin Nancy's ways and copy them as closely as
+a little girl could copy the behavior of a grown-up heroine.
+
+She met us in the porch of the house, crying out with pleasure at sight
+of me.
+
+"That's a little lady, not to be afraid to come all by herself to see
+two quiet old folks!" she said as she kissed me. "I ought to have had a
+dozen girls and boys for you to play with by this time--but I haven't a
+single one."
+
+She laughed in saying it, yet with such sincere regret of face and
+accent that I answered, without taking time to think:--
+
+"I'm mighty sorry you haven't!" Catching myself up, I blundered on: "Not
+that you and Cousin 'Ratio are not company enough for me. But it seems a
+pity that, in this pretty place, with so many peaches and watermelons
+and flowers--and pigeons--and chickens--and all that--there are not any
+children to eat, and to play with them--and keep you company. I've heard
+mother say, 'Home wouldn't be Home without the babies.'"
+
+"Your mother is right, child! Your mother is right!"
+
+The words seemed to stick in her throat, and to scrape it as she got
+them out. Then, to my horror, she sank into a rocking-chair, and,
+throwing her hands over her face, began to cry, with queer little
+squeals between the sobs that shook her all over.
+
+[Illustration: A TEA-PARTY IN THE SUMMER-HOUSE.
+
+"Dovey appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream."]
+
+Malviny, her mulatto maid, ran to her with a bottle of hartshorn, and
+Cousin 'Ratio knelt upon the floor by her and put his arm about her,
+and fanned her with a turkey-tail fan, and another colored woman rushed
+off to the kitchen, and was back in a jiffy with a bunch of feathers all
+on fire, and making a dreadful smell, and stuck them under her
+mistress's nose. I backed to the door with a wild notion of getting out
+of the way, and running back home, yet could not tear myself away from
+the unusual scene.
+
+As soon as Cousin Nancy could speak, she laughed at sight of my
+face,--the tears still dripping all the way to her chin,--and held out
+her arms:--
+
+"Poor little lammie! did I frighten the life out of her? You mustn't
+mind my nervous turns, dear. They don't mean anything."
+
+"I was afraid I had said something I oughtn't to," I faltered, on the
+verge of tears. "I'm sorry if I did!"
+
+Whereupon I was drawn close to her, and kissed three times to assure me
+that I was the "best little girl in the world, and that she wouldn't
+give way again."
+
+"But, you see, I had got so nervous because you were gone so long, and
+you drove that skittish colt, and I was sure something had happened,"
+she explained to her husband, who still stood by her, stroking the back
+of her hand, in awkward fondness. He stooped to lay his bearded face
+against hers.
+
+"That's like you! Always thinking of other people, and never of
+yourself!" he said admiringly.
+
+She thought a great deal of me for the rest of my visit, ordering
+Malviny to cut out and make a doll's pelisse for me of a lovely piece of
+red silk, saying that she would have done it herself if sewing did not
+make her so nervous.
+
+"I haven't darned a sock or hemmed a pocket-handkerchief for Cap'n Gates
+in ten years. If he were not the best man on earth, he would have sent
+me packing long ago."
+
+She despatched another servant to the garret for some toys her sister's
+children had left with her last year, and gave me permission to pull all
+the flowers I wanted in the garden. I carried three maimed dolls, a
+headless horse, a three-legged cat, and a Britannia tea-set to a
+summer-house at the end of a long walk, and made believe that I was
+Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, of whom I had read in a tattered copy
+of Shakespeare I found in a lumber closet. By and by, Malviny brought
+out to me a pretty china plate with four sugar cakes, shaped like ivy
+leaves, and a glass of very sweet lemonade. Awhile later, Dovey, a
+half-grown girl, appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream,
+plentifully sugared.
+
+"Mistis says you must eat 'em all, for she knows you mus' be mighty
+thirsty, and peaches is coolin' for little ladies whar's been sick."
+
+There were still some cake crumbs and a spoonful of peaches left when I
+saw Cousin Nancy herself come sailing down the walk.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+Side-Blades & Water-Melons
+
+
+My far-away cousin could never have been pretty except to a fond
+husband's eyes. I should have liked to think her tolerably good-looking
+now, since he loved her so dearly and praised her so enthusiastically,
+and she was so much more than good to me. I could not help using and
+believing the eyes that showed me a tall, lean woman whose skin, once
+fair, was now nearly as yellow as the freckles spattered all over her
+forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. Nose and chin were long, her
+cheek-bones were high, her eyes were pale, the lashes so light and thin
+as to be scarcely visible at all, and her scanty flaxen hair was
+dragged tightly away from a high bony forehead. Her gown to-day was
+white cambric, as clean, as glossy, and as opaque as cream-laid
+letter-paper. Her head was bare, and she carried over it a green parasol
+which made her complexion livid. Her voice was soft and sweet, and her
+manners were liked by everybody. I was glad to think of these things,
+and to feel the charm of tone and manner, as she asked if I "would not
+like to pay a visit to the peaches and watermelons."
+
+I should have preferred to stay where I was, having got very well
+acquainted with my attendant fairies, and eaten enough sweets to take
+the edge from my appetite, even for ripe, fresh fruit. Still, I got up
+with a tolerable show of cordiality, comprehending that she meant to
+please me, took the hand she offered, and was soon out of the cool shade
+in the open field separating garden from orchard. Captain Gates was
+really as proud of his reputation as the most successful fruit-grower
+in the county as his wife was, although he affected to ridicule her
+weakness in the same direction. There were two acres of peach trees,
+most of them laden with fruit. When pressed to "eat all I could
+swallow," I managed to do away with three immense globes of
+crimson-and-gold, and then gave out, shamefacedly:--
+
+"You see I am so little, and the peaches are so big!" I urged. "I hold
+just so many and no more."
+
+"Of course, you comical little thing!" interrupted Cousin Nancy, highly
+amused. "By and by, on our way back from the watermelon patch, maybe
+there will be more room. I shan't ask you to pick the melons from the
+vines and eat _them_ by the dozen. Come along!"
+
+She did not seem to mind the heat that struck upon my face and head like
+the breath of an oven, as we crossed another open field, to that in
+which Captain Gates's famous melons lay by the hundred, growing larger
+and more luscious in the August sunlight that warmed them through and
+through. Some were dark green, some light green, some were streaked and
+mottled with white-and-green.
+
+"Oh, Cousin Nancy!" I cried, "I did not know there were so many in the
+world! What _will_ you do with them all?"
+
+She led the way farther into the network of vines, the rank leaves and
+starry blossoms bobbing about her feet. The fruit and flowers of Cold
+Comfort did something toward filling the place left void in her heart by
+the lack of the children that had never come. She stood still and looked
+over the wide patch as if she had made every melon there, and meant to
+have the full credit for her work.
+
+"Do with them, monkey! Why they are as good as a silver mine--the
+beauties! Every full-grown one stands for a quarter of a dollar. We send
+six wagon-loads to Richmond every week, and people come for them from
+every direction--as far as across the river in Goochland; and we give
+dozens away to our neighbors, and the negroes come at night to steal
+them--Oh! _oh!!_ OH!!!"
+
+She gathered her skirts tightly and high above her ankles with both
+hands, letting the green parasol tumble, head foremost, to the ground,
+and screeched as if she had trod upon a yellow-jacket's nest. She was
+going to have Nerves again, with no hartshorn, or burnt feathers, or
+turkey-tail fan, or Cousin 'Ratio near. I started to run to the house
+for help, but she grabbed my frock frantically.
+
+"If you budge one inch you are a dead child!" she wheezed, her pale eyes
+bulging from the sockets. "Cap'n Gates and the overseer came out here
+last night and just sowed all this patch with side-blades!"
+(Scythe-blades.) "Edges up! Sharp as razors and thick as thieves!
+Hundreds of them! To keep the negroes from stealing any more of them! I
+heard Cap'n Gates tell them he was going to do it, and the overseer told
+them this morning that they _had_ done it. And I haven't an atom of an
+idea where a solitary one of the murderous things is! We are as good as
+dead if we try to get out. We might tread upon one, at the first step!
+How could I forget it? Oh, how could I?"
+
+I felt the blood drain away from my face, and I trembled as violently as
+she. Then a thought came to me, and I got it out between chattering
+teeth.
+
+"We didn't tread on any of them coming into the patch."
+
+"That was sheer providence, honey. We _might_ have been cut in two
+before we had gone ten yards."
+
+"But, Cousin Nancy!" catching at her hands as she began to wring them
+again, and to sob and squeal as she had done in the morning. "Listen! I
+am sure I could go out by the very same path! Let's try! We can't stay
+here always."
+
+"_Path!_ There isn't a sign of a path! Look!"
+
+She pointed a bony finger in the direction we had come. The leaves and
+blossoms disturbed by our feet and skirts were as still as the hundreds
+and thousands of other leaves on all sides of us. We had not bruised a
+vine, or left a footprint, that we could see. The sun poured down upon
+us like fire from heaven; we were in the middle of the patch that
+seemed, to my horrified eyes, miles and miles in extent, and not another
+creature was in sight.
+
+"Our only hope is to scream as loud as ever we can," said Cousin Nancy.
+"Nobody knows where we are; the hands are all in the tobacco, a mile on
+the other side of the house, and Cap'n Gates and Mr. Owen may be even
+farther off, for all I know. If we can't make anybody hear us, the Lord
+have mercy upon our souls! We shall have sunstroke inside of an hour."
+
+I picked up the green parasol, and with clumsy, shaking fingers opened
+it, and stood on tiptoe to hold it over her head, crying, meantime, as
+piteously as she, such was the contagion of hysterical terror. Then,
+with one accord, we lifted up our voices, weak with weeping, in a thin
+screech. I said "Help! help! help!" she cried, "Murder! murder!" and
+"Cap'n _Ga-a-tes!_" We made enough noise to startle the dogs in the
+house-yard and at the stables, and brought from the nearer "quarters"
+and corn-field a gang of negroes, of all sizes and ages, all running at
+the top of their speed, and the faster as they descried us. It would
+have been excruciatingly funny at any other time, and to one that was
+not an actor in the drama, to observe that not one man, woman, or
+pickaninny of the excited crowd offered to pass the confines of the
+melon patch. Each one was mindful of the hundreds of buried side-blades
+with their edges uppermost, and almost all were bare-footed.
+
+"Run! some of you-all, for Marster an' Mr. Owen!" shrieked Malviny,
+getting her wits together before the others could rally theirs. The
+shrill order arose above the chorus of groans and cries and pitying
+exclamations, and Cousin Nancy, on hearing it, gave one wild cry, and
+dropped where she stood, a heap of white cambric, head, arms, and green
+parasol, crushing the vines, and her head just grazing a mammoth melon.
+
+I had never been so frightened in all my life as when I got hold of her
+head, and tried to lift it. It was as heavy as lead. Too much terrified
+and too foolish to bethink myself that a cut would bleed, I concluded
+that she had struck one of the murderous blades, and it had killed her.
+Her eyes were closed; her jaw had fallen; her cheek lay close against
+that of the big melon, and the vines met over her nose. It was a ghastly
+and a grotesque spectacle, and I behaved as any other nine-year-old
+would--jumped up and down and screamed, beating my palms together, and
+calling alternately for "Father!" and "Cousin 'Ratio!"
+
+Since that horrible moment I have believed stories read and heard of
+people being scared to death, or into insanity. In the great, round
+world, there was nothing present to me but a cruel expanse of green
+below, a white-hot sky above, and at my feet a dead woman, killed by
+the razor-like blades thick-set under every leaf, and guarding every
+melon. Then all this was swept out of sight by a black wave that took me
+off my feet.
+
+I awoke in the shade of the peach orchard. Mr. Owen, the overseer, had
+laid me down on the grass, and I heard him say, "She's all right now." I
+sat up and stared around me. Cousin Nancy, still in a dead faint, was
+stretched upon the ground a little way off, a fluttering swarm of women
+about her, with water, brandy, hartshorn, cologne, fans, and burning
+feathers, and Cousin 'Ratio, kneeling over her, was calling in her ear,
+the tears running down his bristly cheeks.
+
+"Miss Nancy! honey! sugar-lump! wake up! it's me, dearie! The danger is
+all over. What a _doggoned_ fool I was to put the side-blades there!"
+
+When she at last revived, she was taken to the house and put to bed. She
+was not yet able to sit up when my father and mother drove over for me
+in the cool of the afternoon.
+
+"My tomfoolery came near to being the end of the poor dear," said Cousin
+'Ratio, walking with us to the carriage, when we had taken leave of his
+wife. "I feel mighty bad about it, too, as you may suppose, for it was
+my fault in not reminding her of those cussed side-blades. Between
+ourselves, Burwell,"--coming nearer to my father and glancing over his
+shoulder to be sure none of the servants were within hearing,--"Owen and
+I put just exactly _two_ in the whole patch, and they were near the
+fence. Miss Nancy never went within a Sabbath day's journey of them. We
+made a mighty parade of toting twenty of them past the quarters, taking
+two of the hands along to help. They laid them down by the fence, and we
+came down after dark and carried all but two off to the old tobacco
+barn, and hid them there. I wasn't likely to rust my best side-blades by
+burying them in the dirt. But I'd rather have ruined them all and lost
+every blessèd melon on the place, than have given Miss Nancy's Nerves
+such a shock."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+Old Madam Leigh
+
+
+Nobody seemed to know how everybody got into the way of calling her "Old
+Madam Leigh." It was not a Virginia custom, and there was not another
+old lady in the neighborhood to whom the title of "Madam" was ever
+given. After she had lived to be the oldest woman in the county, the
+"Old" was prefixed, naturally enough.
+
+I got to know her through Cousin Molly Belle.
+
+"I declare, Frank, Molly has never seen Queen Mab and her hummers!" she
+said at dinner one day. "I'm ashamed of myself for not having taken her
+there. It's just the sort of thing she would enjoy."
+
+When Mrs. Frank Morton was ashamed of having done anything, or having
+left anything undone, the next, and a quick step with her, was to mend
+the fault without further waste of words. We went over to Old Madam
+Leigh's that same afternoon,--she, Cousin Frank, and I,--on horseback,
+"the road to Queen Mab's palace being the vilest in the State," as my
+hostess averred.
+
+I thought it a delightful road. It left the main highway a mile beyond
+Cousin Frank's plantation gate, and lost its way in oak and hickory
+woods, where the trees touched over our heads. I said they were "trying
+to shake hands with one another."
+
+"They will be hugging one another before we go much farther," said
+Cousin Frank.
+
+As they did when we began to climb a long hill, washed into crooked
+gullies by the water that tore down to the creek at the bottom whenever
+it rained hard. After this was a short and steeper hill, and then
+another long one, and we were on the edge of a clearing, very bright and
+sunny after the green glooms of the forest.
+
+"Does Queen Mab drive this way, often, in her chariot-and-four?" I
+inquired, as we struck into a gentle gallop along a grassy lane.
+
+"Queen Mab's chariot has not been out of the carriage-house in
+twenty-five years," answered Cousin Molly Belle. "There is another road
+from her house to where everyday people live, but it would take us a
+long way around. Mother can recollect when this was a good road, and
+much travelled."
+
+"Doesn't she make any visits?"
+
+"Never to human beings."
+
+"Doesn't she go to church?"
+
+"Not that I have ever heard of."
+
+"Cousin Molly Belle!" in an awed tone. "Is she a _heathen_?"
+
+"She is very old, Namesake. Nearly ninety."
+
+She said it gravely and gently, and Cousin Frank repeated a verse of
+poetry I did not know then:--
+
+   "He prayeth best who loveth best
+   All things both great and small;
+   For the dear God who loveth us,
+   He made and loveth all."
+
+It was so nice that I turned it over in my mind several times before I
+asked another question. My mother sometimes called me "an animated
+interrogation-point."
+
+"Is Old Madam Leigh married?"
+
+"She has been married. She would not be 'Madam' if she had not been. She
+has been a widow for a long, long time. She had two children--twins--a
+boy and a girl. They lived to be twenty years old, and then died."
+
+"Not both at the same time, Cousin Molly Belle?" for her tone suggested
+something very sorrowful.
+
+"Yes, Molly dear. The sister fell into the river and the brother, in
+swimming out to save her, was seized with the cramp and sank before he
+could reach her. The mother has lived alone ever since, except for her
+servants. They are very good and faithful. Then, she has her hummers and
+her pygmies, who are a great deal of company to her."
+
+"_Pigs!_" in intense disgust. "She can't be a very neat person."
+
+A peal of laughter from my companions broke off the speech.
+
+"You'll change your mind shortly," said Cousin Frank, cantering ahead to
+open a gate in the rail fence.
+
+We saw the house from the gate,--a wee bit of a gray cottage, one story
+high, literally covered with honeysuckles of every kind I had ever heard
+of, and now in fullest bloom. An enormous catalpa tree, also in flower,
+stood in front of the cottage, shading all but one gable, and that
+looked as if it were made of glass. Between this gable and the garden
+were two spreading acacia trees, tufted with the tassel-like blossoms.
+The deep front porch was curtained with white jessamine, and as we
+walked up the gravelled path leading to it, Madam Leigh stood in the
+doorway.
+
+She was a tiny old lady, no taller than I was, and wore a white dress,
+fine and sheer. Cousin Molly Belle told me afterward that it was India
+muslin, and that she wore white, winter and summer. The waist of the
+gown was very short, the skirt was straight, and fell to the in-step of
+a foot no bigger than a baby's. Her cap was also old-fashioned, made of
+lace, with a full crimped border under which her hair, silvery-white,
+was dressed in short, round curls on each side of her forehead. Her skin
+reminded me of a bit of rice-paper I had picked up from the floor one
+day. It had dropped out of the back of my father's watch, and Bud had
+found it and played with it until it was creased and cracked all over
+like "crazed" china, yet not torn. Old Madam Leigh's face could not be
+said to be wrinkled, for the lines were shallow. They were as fine as if
+made with an inkless crow quill, and so close together you would have
+thought there was not room for another. Her eyes were dark and bright
+She had French blood in her veins, and showed it in her quick glance and
+lively motions.
+
+She took us directly into "the chamber" on the left side of the hall
+that cut the house in two. Everything there was white, too,--bed and
+curtains and chair-covers being of white dimity, trimmed with lace. The
+walls were almost covered with portraits. Some were very old. Two of the
+brightest hung opposite the bed where Madam Leigh must see them as soon
+as she opened her eyes in the morning. One was of a pretty girl in a
+white frock, low-necked and short-sleeved, with a red rose in the
+bodice, making the fair skin it rested against all the fairer. Her eyes
+were dark and sweet; short brown curls, like Madam Leigh's white ones,
+clustered about her temples. The other picture was that of a handsome
+boy of twenty, or thereabouts, and strikingly like his sister. A dog,
+with silky ears, leaned his head against his young master's arm.
+
+I tried hard not to stare at these portraits,--to me the most
+interesting things in the room,--for I knew they must be the
+twin-children who had died together, ever and ever so many years ago.
+The instinct of kindly breeding told me that it would not be polite to
+remind the mother of her loss by looking inquisitively at them. But I
+could not help stealing a glance at one and the other when the grown
+people were intent in talk. Looking led to dreaming, as I was left to
+myself and the thoughts suggested by the portraits. I arranged it in my
+mind that brother and sister were very fond of each other; that the
+sister had fallen into the river where the current was strong, from some
+such place as Maiden's Adventure, on Mr. Pemberton's plantation, where
+the water was deep above a roaring fall. I thought how she called to her
+brother, and how he answered, and I wondered--a chill running down my
+spine and catching at my heart--who carried the awful news to the
+mother. How could she bear it? how live in this lonely place with
+nobody to keep her from thinking of, and missing, her husband and her
+children, nobody to care whether she were glad or sorry, sick or well,
+alive or dead?
+
+I did not know that my mouth was drawn down at the corners, that my eyes
+were mournful, and my whole aspect that of a sadly bored little girl,
+who felt herself to be left entirely out of the thoughts of her friends
+and the hostess--until Madam Leigh's voice made me start, as if I had
+been asleep.
+
+"I am afraid this little lady finds all this mighty stupid."
+
+I think the old-time practice of calling girl-children "little ladies,"
+kept them in wholesome remembrance of the necessity of behaving as such.
+At any rate, I was instantly aware that I ought to be sitting up
+straight upon my cricket, and seeming to be interested in what was going
+on. Had not my mother reproved me, times without number, for dreaming in
+company and for absent-minded ways that made me heedless of others'
+comfort? "It is selfish and rude not to pay attention to what people are
+saying when you are with them"--was a nursery rule I ought to have had
+well by heart.
+
+It was natural, then, that I should turn as red as a cardinal flower,
+and fidget uneasily, and stutter when I tried to set myself right with
+my venerable hostess:--
+
+"Oh, no, ma'am. I'm not a bit tired. I'm sorry--if--"
+
+"There's nothing to be sorry for, my dear. If anybody has been rude it
+is I who ought to have provided some other entertainment for you than
+sitting still, and trying with all your might to understand big folks'
+talk."
+
+Her voice was clearer than one would have expected in such an old lady,
+and she did not mumble as if she were chewing her words, as a great many
+old people do. She spoke very distinctly, pronouncing every syllable in
+each word. She told me, when we were better acquainted, that she read
+aloud for an hour every day, for fear she might fall into careless ways
+of speaking, seeing, as she did, so few educated white people, and,
+sometimes, talking with nobody but her colored servants for a week at a
+time. She held herself very straight when seated, and in walking, and
+stepped as lightly as a young person, as she got up and took me by the
+hand, smiling at me in the friendliest way imaginable, and, saying "I
+must introduce you to my family," led me across the hall, and opened a
+door on the other side.
+
+As soon as we were inside of the door, she shut it quickly behind us,
+and I stood stock-still with amazement at what I saw and heard.
+
+It was a large room, with two windows at the front and two at the back,
+while the gable we had seen from the lane was almost filled with sashes,
+as in a greenhouse. Close against these sashes, now so bright with the
+Southern sun that I was half-blinded for an instant, were rows of
+shelves, crowded with cut flowers in vases, and growing flowers in pots.
+Most of the sashes were open, and the space thus left was screened by
+twine netting, something like fine fish seines. Old Madam Leigh had
+netted each of these squares herself, as I learned afterward. The same
+protected back and front windows. About the open windows, and around the
+flowers, flew and floated what I thought, at first, were at least one
+hundred humming-birds. Madam Leigh said there were but twenty-five, all
+told. The whir of their rapid wings filled the air, the gleam of their
+brilliant breasts and backs was like living jewels.
+
+"_Oh-h-h-h!!_" was all I could utter, as I clasped my hands in admiring
+wonder at the beauty and the strangeness of it all, and a queer lump
+came into my throat, as if I were frightened or sorry, and I knew I was
+only delighted past speaking. Madam let me alone for a minute, before
+she laid her small, wrinkled hands upon my shoulders and turned me about
+to see something I had not observed in my raptures over the marvellous
+birds.
+
+Against the wall beyond the door was a long, broad table, or rather
+counter, and upon it was a village of small houses, rows upon rows of
+them. Outside of the village and the streets were other and larger
+houses, in groups of two and three, with dooryards and gardens, and then
+came half a dozen farm-houses surrounded by fields and gardens. In the
+village there were stores and a Court House, and a Clerk's Office and a
+Jail, surrounded by a Public Square, exactly like that at Powhatan Court
+House, and two taverns with signs hanging outside of them. Trees lined
+the streets, and vines were running over the houses. Then, there were
+wells, and wood-piles with men chopping wood at them, and cow-pens with
+cows and calves, and pig-pens filled with pigs. Men were driving wagons
+along the roads, and a fine carriage with four horses harnessed to it
+and a coachman on the box stood before the larger of the two taverns.
+The footman, hat in hand, was helping two elegantly dressed ladies out
+of the carriage, and the landlady, with two colored maids behind her,
+was upon the portico waiting to receive them. Men were digging in the
+corn and tobacco fields; there were turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese,
+and boys riding horses to water and driving the cows home to be milked.
+
+Was ever such another Wonderland revealed to a child who had never been
+in a toy-shop and never owned a doll that was not home-made?
+
+I screamed and capered with joy, like the crazy thing I was, for a whole
+minute after my eyes fell upon the mimic settlement. Then I fell to
+examining the "entertainment" more closely, and discovered that
+everything, except the mosses that imitated the trees, vines, and other
+growing things, was made of corn-stalks and corn-husks--"shucks" as
+Virginians call them. The human creatures and the dumb animals were
+carved out of the firm, dried pith of the stalks, and afterward painted
+with water colors. The clothes of men and women were made of the soft
+inner shucks, dried carefully to the pliability of silk. Log and frame
+houses were built of the canes themselves; the smallest were used whole,
+the larger were split. Peeping into the open doors and windows I saw
+that each house was furnished with beds, tables, and chairs, also made
+of corn-stalks, pith, and shucks.
+
+At the far end of the counter were six bird-cages, constructed of thin
+strips of corn-canes, each supplied with perches and water vessels.
+
+"Those are my reform prisons," Madam Leigh said to my cousins, who had
+followed and begged to be let in. "You see,"--to me,--"when one of my
+hummers becomes cross or quarrelsome, I separate him from the rest and
+shut him up in one of these cages until he is in a better humor. I am
+sorry to say that they have pretty peppery tempers, and hardly a day
+passes in which I do not have to interfere to stop their fighting."
+
+I had no reason to feel myself slighted now. She went all round the room
+with me, showing her pets and telling me interesting stories of their
+habits and dispositions. Each had a name, and some answered to their
+names when she called them. At least, she thought that they did, and I
+did not doubt it when I saw them swoop down to dip their bills in the
+flowers she held up, as she called "Sprite" and "Bright," and "Sweet"
+and "Swift," and the like crisp, short names in a voice that was like
+the tinkle of a little bell. It was a pretty sight,--the tiny woman, all
+white from cap to toe, standing in the full tide of sunbeams, bunches of
+honeysuckle and catalpa flowers, half as big as herself, in her arms,
+the elf-like face smiling out of them at the eagerness of her feathered
+darlings, darting and glancing and gleaming and humming about her, as if
+she had been a larger edition of themselves, and not of a different
+genus. She made me stand by her while this was going on, saying that the
+hummers were "too well-bred to be afraid of her friends, and were
+especially fond of little people."
+
+"The honeysuckles first made me think of collecting them," went on the
+pleasant tinkle. "When they are in full bloom the frisky little
+creatures swarm in them all day long. They like white and yellow
+jessamine, too, and catalpa flowers and lilies and acacia blossoms. Ten
+years ago I found one of their nests upon a low limb of a tulip-poplar
+tree. Here it is! It looks like a knob of mossy bark, you see. There
+were two eggs in it. I cut off the limb carefully, and set it in a pot
+of water in this room. It was full of blossoms, and the water kept these
+alive. The window was left open and nobody--not even myself--came in
+here for a week. As I had hoped, the mother and father bird found the
+nest, and went on sitting on the eggs as if it had not been moved. One
+night, after the baby birds were hatched, I went softly to the outside
+of the window and let down the sash. That was the beginning of my
+aviary. That's a hard word for you--isn't it, Molly? It means a family
+of birds, such as I have here."
+
+"I don't believe there is another like it in the world," said Cousin
+Molly Belle. "I've always declared that you are a fairy, and charm your
+hummers. I described it and them once to a famous ornithologist. That's
+a real jaw-breaker, Namesake, and means one who knows everything about
+all sorts of birds--or thinks he does. I met this or-nith-ol-o-gist in
+New York last May. He said it was impossible to tame and raise families
+of wild birds, especially humming-birds. And when I said I had seen it
+with my own eyes, times without number, he looked polite--and
+unbelieving."
+
+Madam Leigh was so much amused that the flowers shook in her shrivelled
+mites of hands.
+
+"Many learnèd strangers have been to see the 'impossibility,'" she said,
+her voice shaken by laughter.
+
+(Cousin Molly Belle had the knack of saying just the thing that would
+please everybody, and saying it in the right way and at the right
+time.)
+
+"Of course I have not raised them all from the eggs," continued Madam.
+"We catch new birds every year, and some are never quite tame. So your
+or-nith-ol-o-gist"--pronouncing it in the same comical way that Cousin
+Molly Belle had done--"was not altogether in the wrong. But they get
+used to their new life much sooner because there are so many of their
+own kind about them. When I find that a couple are thinking of going to
+house-keeping, I root a branch of poplar, or hickory, or maple, in a tub
+of moist earth, and curtain off a corner where they will not be
+disturbed in the nesting-time."
+
+"That was the very thing the celebrated or-nith-ol-o-gist said was
+absolutely impossible," cried Cousin Molly Belle. "Even though I told
+him that, if he would pay us a visit, I would show him the cosey corner,
+and the pretty bride and gallant bridegroom building their nest."
+
+"A great many things happen to each of us that others would not believe,
+no matter how solemnly we might declare them to be true," said Madam
+Leigh, very seriously.
+
+I had a notion that she was thinking of other things in her strangely
+desolated life besides the aviary and the learnèd man who knew all about
+birds.
+
+"To me, the most singular part of my management of my hummers is that I
+succeed in making them comfortable and contented in the winter," she
+said. "For their forefathers and foremothers have been going South at
+the first sign of frost for six thousand years or so. I have a stove put
+up in here, covered with wire netting to hinder the little dears from
+flying against it; then I keep an even temperature and fill the room
+with flowers. It has, as you see, a southern exposure. I live here with
+them all day long. When it begins to grow dark, I say, 'Good night' and
+go across to my chamber. At bedtime I look in to make sure the fire will
+keep in until morning, and that my darlings are all right. While
+daylight lasts we are very happy together. I am busy with my pygmies
+and my flowers. I feed the hummers with sugar-and-water in winter, with
+a taste of honey on Sundays"--laughing cheerily. "To make them glad that
+Sunday has come, you know. I've an idea that they need stronger food in
+cold weather than in summer. It helps tame them to make them eat from
+the tip of my finger. I take a great deal of pains to keep a succession
+of plants in flower, for, after all, hive-honey isn't quite as pure and
+delicate after it has gone through the bee's body as when the hummer
+sips it fresh from the flower-cup. You must come over next winter, Molly
+Belle, and bring the little lady to see my nasturtiums, and hyacinths,
+and morning-glories. Roses and cape-jessamines, and the like are of no
+use to us. Our flowers must be shaped like wine-glasses, with a drop of
+honey-dew in the bottom, to please us perfectly. The hummers and I
+understand that. You wouldn't believe how much company we are for one
+another, or how much I learn from them. Even my silly mannikins give
+work to my fingers and keep my thoughts steady."
+
+Cousin Molly Belle put her arms around the wee old lady and hugged her
+hard--the honeysuckles and catalpas falling to the floor.
+
+"All this is the loveliest thing I ever heard!" laughing to keep from
+crying. "I hope you will live to be a hundred years old, and give the
+lie to or-nith-ol-o-gists every day you live. And Molly and I will come
+to see you, often and often, whenever she is at our house. You dear,
+brave, sensible, lion-hearted, _royal_ Queen Mab!"
+
+She kept her word. It was one of her many ways to do more than she had
+promised. I never paid a visit to my dearest cousins, the Frank Mortons,
+without riding, or driving, up through the woods, and across the creek,
+and up the two long, and the one short, hill, and along the grass-grown
+lane to the gray cottage that always reminded me of a "hummer's" nest
+masked with moss. I spent a good deal of that summer with Cousin Molly
+Belle, and one week in the very middle of December.
+
+The weather was very mild for midwinter, and the great south room felt
+too warm to me. So warm that I began to feel sleepy and a little dizzy,
+and Madam Leigh noticed the yawn I could not quite swallow.
+
+"Put on your hood and cloak, little lady," she said, "and run into the
+garden to see if you cannot find some roses for your cousin. Betty tells
+me there has been so little frost this season that the rose-bushes are
+still all in leaf."
+
+I scampered off willingly, and did not show myself in the house again
+until the sun almost touched the tree-tops. I gathered chrysanthemums
+and nasturtiums and late heartsease, and at least a dozen roses and
+buds, and, wandering farther and farther down the quiet paths, I saw
+what I had never noticed before--that there was a small graveyard at the
+back of the garden, of which it formed a part. An arbor, thickly
+curtained with a Florida honeysuckle that kept its leaves all winter,
+was at one side of the burial-place; a walk, edged with box, stretched
+from it straight up to the house-yard. Now that the trees were bare, I
+saw that old Madam Leigh could have a full view, through the windows in
+the south gable, of the arbor, and the two white headstones before it:--
+
+             JOHN AND RUTH LEIGH.
+
+   TWIN-CHILDREN OF EDWARD AND JUDITH LEIGH.
+
+            BORN SEPTEMBER 3, 1790.
+
+             DIED AUGUST 1, 1810.
+
+   "_I was dumb; I opened not my mouth, because_ THOU
+                           _didst it._"
+
+I sat down in the summer-house and had a long thinking spell, all by
+myself. Too young to word the emotions that swelled my heart, the
+thoughts that oppressed my brain, there was, all the while, in heart and
+head, the recollection of the story she had told of her manner of
+getting the first pair of humming-birds--and how she had stolen softly
+around to the window after dark, and shut the parents in with their
+nestlings.
+
+I never saw her again. On Christmas morning the maid, who came as usual
+to awake and dress her mistress, found that she had died in her sleep.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+Out into the World
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Cousin Burwell Carter fell in love with our handsome, amiable Boston
+governess, Miss Davidson, and married her when I was ten years of age.
+She comforted my mother for her loss by sending for her younger sister,
+who was even prettier than herself, and had such winsome ways that Mr.
+John Morton, Cousin Frank's bachelor brother, married her at the end of
+her first session in our school-room.
+
+My father looked quizzically grave when the two sisters recommended a
+Miss Bradnor of Springfield, Massachusetts, as a person who was sure to
+please our parents and to bring us on finely in our studies.
+
+"Is she pretty and marriageable?" he asked. "My business, nowadays,
+seems to be providing the eligible bachelors of Powhatan with wives. It
+is pleasant enough from one standpoint, and that is the young men's. But
+my children must be educated."
+
+Both young matrons assured him, earnestly, that Miss Bradnor was "a
+predestined old maid--a man-hater, in fact--and was likely to remain a
+fixture in our school-room as long as we needed her." When she arrived I
+was surprised to see a prim, quiet little personage who looked too
+gentle to hate any one. She fitted easily into her place in our family
+and soon proved herself the prize we had been promised, being a born
+instructor, and loving her profession. She awoke my mind as nobody else
+had done. I fancied that I could feel it stretch, and grow, and get
+hungry while she taught me. The more it was fed, the hungrier it grew,
+and the more eagerly it stretched itself. I studied Comstock's _Natural
+Philosophy_ with Miss Bradnor, and Vose's _Astronomy_, and Lyell's
+_Elements of Geology_, Bancroft's _History of the United States_, and
+_Watts on the Mind_, and began French and Latin. It was such a busy,
+happy year that I was actually sorry when vacation began.
+
+I was sorrier yet when a letter was received from Miss Bradnor, saying
+that she "had been betrothed for ten years to an exemplary gentleman who
+now claimed the fulfilment of her pledge. Before the letter could reach
+us she would (D. V.) have become Mrs. Calvin Chapin. She hoped the
+unforeseen reversal of her plans for the ensuing year would not occasion
+serious inconvenience to her dear and respected friends, Mr. and Mrs.
+Burwell."
+
+"It takes the prim sort to give us such surprises!" exclaimed my mother.
+
+"It takes all sorts and conditions of women, _I_ think!" rejoined my
+father, dryly. "I foresee that the Richmond plan will have to be carried
+out, after all. Governesses are kittle cattle, at the best. And we have
+had three of the very best."
+
+As may be supposed, I was consumed by curiosity to know what "the
+Richmond plan" could be. The city I had never yet seen had been made
+tenfold more interesting to me within a year by the removal of the Frank
+Mortons to that place. Cousin Frank had gone into the Commission
+business there with an uncle who had no son to succeed him in the firm.
+But, although I pricked up my ears smartly at my father's unguarded
+remark, I had to smother my excitement as best I could, and study
+patience--surely the hardest lesson ever set for the young. When older
+people were talking with one another, it was esteemed an impertinence in
+children to interrupt them by questions.
+
+"If it were best for you to understand what we were saying, we would
+take pains to explain it to you," my mother would say when we broke this
+one of her rules. And, still oftener, "Little girls should trust their
+fathers and mothers to tell them at the right time all that they ought
+to know."
+
+The right time in this instance was one moonlight September night, soon
+after Mary 'Liza and I had gone to bed. My mother had a habit of coming
+up to our room, and sitting down by the bed in the dark, or without
+other light than the moon, to have a little talk with us. "To give us a
+good appetite for our dreams," she would say in her merry way. We dearly
+enjoyed these visits, especially on Sunday nights, when we told her what
+we had been reading and thinking that day, and repeated the hymns we
+loved best.
+
+This was on Monday night, and she began by telling us that Miss Judy
+Curran was coming the next day, to make our fall and winter frocks, and
+that there would be a pretty busy time with us all for the rest of the
+month, as we were going to school in Richmond, the fifth day of October.
+
+"Your father and I do not believe in boarding-schools," she continued.
+"We think that God gives our children to us to be brought up and
+educated, as far as possible, by us, their parents, and not to be made
+over to hirelings at the very time when they are most easily led right
+or wrong. There are, however, excellent reasons why you should begin now
+to know more of the world than you can learn in a quiet country
+neighborhood such as this. We are thankful to be able to give you the
+advantages of a city school, without depriving you of good
+home-training. You are to live with your Cousin Molly Belle, and be
+day-scholars in Mrs. Nunham's seminary."
+
+Even Mary 'Liza gave a little jump under the sheet at the astounding
+news, while I leaped clean out of bed, and danced around the room in my
+night-gown, clapping my hands and uttering small shrieks of ecstasy.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! goody! goody! mother! it is like a fairy tale!"
+
+I was somewhat abashed, and decidedly ashamed of my transport when the
+blessèd mother said gently, after a little sigh:--
+
+"Of course I shall miss my daughters sadly, but I hope what we are doing
+is for their good. If I were less sure of this, I could not part with
+them."
+
+From the hour in which her first-born baby was laid in her arms, until
+she closed her eyes in the sleep from which our wild weeping could not
+awaken her, her ever-present thought was the children's best good.
+Nothing that could secure that was self-denial on her part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have come to Richmond to write this chapter. From my window I look
+down upon the pavement trodden by my feet twice a day for ten months out
+of twelve, during four school years. The house in which I sojourn
+belongs to a younger brother of him who figures in my story as "Bud." It
+occupies the site of the large, yellow frame building in which Mrs.
+Nunham taught her "young ladies," more than forty years ago.
+
+[Illustration: HOW I CAME TO TOWN.
+
+"My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself, each of us holding to
+one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies walked."]
+
+I smile, as fancy reconstructs the group that turned the corner into
+this street, a block away, on the fifth of October of that memorable
+year in the forties. My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself,
+each of us holding to one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies in the
+country walked together then. He was a well-built, clear-eyed,
+clean-lived, upright gentleman, whom God had made and whom the world had
+not spoiled. My cousin and I were dressed exactly alike. Into every
+detail of daily life my mother carried her principle of treating the
+orphan as her own child. Our country-made frocks were of dark-green
+merino, becoming to my blond companion, and anything but becoming to my
+sun-browned skin. Over the frocks were neat black silk aprons with
+pockets. White linen-cambric frills, hemstitched by hand, and carefully
+crimped, were at our throats and wrists, and sunbonnets upon our heads,
+or rather, "slatted" hoods that could be folded at pleasure. These were
+of dark-green silk, to match the merinos, and ribbon of the same color
+was quilled around the capes, crowns, and brims. Our silk gloves were
+also dark green, and my mother had knit them herself.
+
+Every item of our school costume was prescribed by her before we left
+home. I comprehend now, why the water stood in Cousin Molly Belle's
+eyes, while dancing lights played under the water, when we presented
+ourselves at breakfast-time, dressed for the important first day in the
+Seminary. I appreciate, furthermore, as it was not possible I should
+then, the tact and delicacy with which she gradually modified our
+everyday and Sunday attire into something more in accordance with that
+of our school-fellows.
+
+As we found out for ourselves, before the day was over, we were little
+girls in the midst of young ladies, so far as dress and carriage went.
+We were imbued with the idea--gathered from the talk of friends and
+acquaintances, and our much reading of English story-books--that we were
+to be "polished" by our city associations. It was a shock and a
+down-topple of our expectations to be thrown, without preparation, into
+the society of girls whose manners were very little, if at all, more
+refined than those of the quartette who with us constituted Miss
+Davidson's home school. We were even more confounded at the discovery
+that our home-education had so rooted and grounded us in the rudiments
+of learning that we were classed, after the preliminary examination,
+with girls older than we by four and five years. The circumstance did
+not make us popular with our comrades.
+
+As if my cheeks had tingled under the assault but to-day, I recall the
+exclamation of a girl of fifteen who sat next to me while the
+examination in history was held. Her father was a distinguished citizen
+of Richmond, and her mother a leader in fashionable society.
+
+"Lord, child! how smart you think yourself, to be sure!" she said aloud,
+turning squarely about to look into my face.
+
+I had answered as quietly and briefly as I could, the questions put to
+me, and tried politely not to look scandalized at her flippant
+failures.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know!" "Never heard of him!" "If I ever knew, I've
+forgotten all about it!"--were, to my notion, a disgrace, and her cool
+effrontery would have been severely rebuked by our governess, and have
+met with still sterner judgment from my mother.
+
+At recess this offensive young person headed a coterie that surrounded
+us, criticised our clothes, and catechised us as to our home, our
+family, and our mode of home living. Among other choice _bon mots_ from
+the Honorable Member's daughter was the inquiry--"if we got the pattern
+of our wagon-cover hoods from Mrs. Noah?"
+
+I told Cousin Molly Belle that night, that "the whole pack were
+ill-bred, rude, and unbearable."
+
+She agreed heartily with two of my epithets, and took me up on the
+third:--
+
+"Nothing is 'unbearable,' Namesake, except the thought of our own folly
+or sin. Still, this is a part of the discipline of life I would spare
+you, if I could. Endure hardness as a good soldier, and shame their want
+of breeding by the perfection of yours. An unmannerly schoolgirl is the
+cruellest of tormentors, and"--with a ring of her voice and a snap of
+her eyes that were refreshing and characteristic--"I should like to have
+the handling of that crew for an hour or two!"
+
+I snuggled up close to her, already measurably consoled, and ready as
+usual, with one of the speeches that stamped me as "old-fashioned."
+
+"We are like two wild pigeons, tied by the foot, in a yard full of
+peacocks. I would rather be a pigeon than a peacock. But pecks and
+struts and screamings are not agreeable, for all that."
+
+Nor was it agreeable to be the only girls in our class-room who were not
+invited to a party given the middle of November, by one of the nicest of
+our new acquaintances. She had been quite friendly with us, and the very
+day the invitations were sent out, laid a sprig of citronaloes silently
+on my lap, during a French lesson. The smile that went with the scented
+leaves was sweeter still, and made my heart and face glow. When we were
+getting our wraps and bonnets in the cloak-room, at the close of the
+afternoon session, I edged nearer and nearer to her, pretending to hunt
+for my overshoes, meaning to say a word of thanks as soon as the group
+about her thinned. I got so near to her that I caught what she was
+saying in a low voice to her intimates:--
+
+"I just _hated_ not to invite the Burwells, but they do look so
+countryfied! like little old women cut short after they were made. And I
+don't believe either of them has a party dress to her name. They would
+be a pair of sights in a roomful of well-dressed people."
+
+I slipped away with a barbed arrow in my self-love, and a hard,
+resentful pain at my heart, on my mother's account. Fierce tears scalded
+the inside of my eyelids as I recalled her weeks of loving preparation
+for our school life, the thousand of stitches set by her dear hands,
+the gentle smile of satisfaction with which she had surveyed our
+finished wardrobe. When I was in my own room at Cousin Molly's, I hugged
+and kissed and cried over the slatted hood, vowing vengefully to study
+so hard, and to rise so fast in my classes, and to acquit myself so
+nobly in the sight of my teachers, as to compel the admiration of the
+proud who rose up against me, and who compassed me about like bees.
+David's "cussing psalms" came readily and forcibly to my help in the
+hour of bitter humiliation.
+
+If my wrath was unhallowed, it wrought the peaceable fruits of
+righteousness. The barb had gone too deep to be uncovered even to Cousin
+Molly Belle, but the hurt made a student of me. Giving up all thought of
+popularity and polish, I devoted myself to my school work with assiduity
+that threatened injury to my health before the half-term was over. But
+for my best and most clear-sighted of cousins I might have become a
+misanthropic invalid.
+
+On the very day of the now hateful party, she took us for a long
+drive,--the whole length of Main Street, the sidewalks of which were
+thronged with promenaders and shoppers. She stopped the carriage--a
+handsome equipage, with a smart coachman and two spanking grays--at
+Samanni's and bought us a whole pound, apiece, of delicious candy, and
+treated us to Albemarle pippins to take home with us, and ice-cream
+eaten on the spot. Next, we went to Drinker and Morris's, the
+fashionable bookstore, and she told us to pick out, each for herself,
+the books we would like best to have. Mary 'Liza chose _The School-girl
+in France_, and I, _The Scottish Chiefs_. (I have it to this day.) We
+finished our excursion by a visit to St. John's Church and
+burying-ground. Cousin Molly Belle's grandfather had heard Patrick
+Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech, and she made the scene very plain to
+us as we strolled along the dim aisles, streaked with flaming bars of
+sunset, striking through the western window upon the very spot where the
+great orator had stood.
+
+By the time I had finished my supper, and was settled before the fire
+with my book, the memories of my jaunt making glad my whole being, I had
+clean forgotten party and slight, and did not care a fig--for that one
+night--if I _was_ countryfied and had not a party dress to my name. The
+real things were mine,--home-loves and the world of books and
+imagination,--possessions which the scorning of those who were at ease,
+and the contempt of the proud could not molest or take away.
+
+I was reading _The Scottish Chiefs_ for the second time,--out of school,
+of course,--and studying with might and main, when something came to
+pass that altered the tone of my mates, converted oppressors into
+champions, and made a moderate heroine of me.
+
+There were sixteen of us in the senior Geography Class, I being the
+youngest. The practice of "turning down" for incorrect answers to
+questions was common at that date, even in Young Ladies' Seminaries.
+When the class was formed, we were seated according to age, but thanks
+to my governesses' drill, I had mounted steadily until I was now but one
+from the top--or, as we put it, was "next to head." The topmost place
+had been held for over a month by Mary Morgan, a slovenly and indolent
+girl of sixteen, who wrote poetry and had a great deal of old blue blood
+in her veins, as she was fond of informing all who had the patience to
+listen to her. Her recitations in most of her classes were so imperfect
+that everybody was surprised at her keeping an honorable place in any
+until the whisper went around that she smuggled "help-papers" into the
+class with her.
+
+I am told that the use of "ponies," and much less reputable aids to
+perfect recitation in school and in college, is not considered
+dishonorable among the youth of the present age. Unmannerly and cruel as
+the girls in our seminary appeared to me, they had a certain sense of
+honor, a respect for truth and fair-dealing that bespoke better things
+than their surface-conduct indicated. When it was certainly known that
+Mary Morgan carried into the recitation-room notes of the lesson,
+written upon bits of paper, and tucked up her sleeve, or hidden in the
+folds of her dress, popular indignation arose to a bubbling boil. A
+tale-bearer would have been drummed out of school, and not a lisp of the
+shameful truth was carried to the teacher, the second Miss Nunham, who
+was near-sighted and unsuspicious. The geography lesson was the most
+exciting event of the day,--a prize-ring, in which the two at the head
+of the class were chief actors. When a question reached Mary Morgan, the
+class held its breath for a time. When she answered with glib accuracy,
+the breath exhaled in chagrin audible to all but the teacher. Out of
+class I was noticed, cheered, and commended, and exhorted to hold on in
+the course of truth and uprightness--encouragement corresponding to the
+rubbing down and bracing bestowed by his guardians upon the pugilist.
+And still the geography questions went around, and Mary Morgan was head
+and I next to head.
+
+At last, on the fifteenth of December, came the tug of war in the shape
+of a review of the exercises of the last month, and Mary Morgan was
+armed for the fray by half a dozen long slips of paper covered with
+characters in very black ink. Presuming upon the teacher's short-sighted
+eyes, and nerved by a sense of the gravity of the situation, she boldly
+laid the papers upon the bench between her and myself, and consulted
+them from time to time, with coolness that would have been heroic had it
+not been impudent. The recitation was half over, when the girl who sat
+next below me "made a long arm" behind my back, and abstracted one of
+the abhorrent slips without the knowledge of the owner. She perceived
+the loss as the questions were again nearing her, gave one frightened
+glance at the floor on all sides of her, colored violently; made a
+desperate rally of memory and courage when the question reached her,
+answered so wildly that the teacher gave her a second trial, and, in
+pity for her distress, still a third.
+
+Such a simple question as it was! I can never forget it. "What large
+island lies south of Hindostan?"
+
+Nor can I forget the pale dismay of the face turned to me as the teacher
+said, reluctantly,--"Next."
+
+I had never liked the girl; latterly, I had despised her and regarded
+her as my enemy. I did not analyze the revulsion of feeling that made me
+hesitate while one could have counted ten, before saying in a low,
+constrained voice,--"Ceylon!"
+
+The deposed pupil sank to the middle of the class before the recitation
+was over, much to the bewilderment of the single-minded teacher. By the
+morrow she was at the bottom of the line and so far across the outer
+confines of Coventry that she never got back. That was our way of
+looking at "cribs" half a century ago.
+
+It is not ten years since I met the banished scholar in a metropolitan
+reception-room, and a few minutes afterward, another old schoolfellow,
+who said in one and the same breath, "Do you know that Mary Morgan is
+here?" and, "I suppose it is uncharitable, but I can never forget that
+she used to cheat in her recitations at Mrs. Nunham's."
+
+We went home "for Christmas." My father sent the carriage for us. The
+roomy family coach he never allowed to get shabby. The "squabs," _i.e._
+padded inner curtains to exclude the cold in winter, were in, and there
+were thick shawls and a pillow apiece and two footstoves for our comfort
+in the thirty-mile drive, and upon the front seat, gorgeous in a new
+shawl of many and daring colors, her snowy turban wound about head and
+ears, was Mam' Chloe, the comfortablest thing there. Hamilcar, the
+carriage-driver, (we did not say "coachman") had on his Christmas suit,
+including a shaggy overcoat for which his master had given him an order
+upon a Richmond tailor, and was spruce exceedingly. To ensure our
+perfect safety and respectability we had an outrider in the shape of
+Mr. James Ireton, a young fellow-countryman, who was returning from a
+business trip to town.
+
+The boxes under the seats--an old-fashioned convenience, capable of
+containing a gentleman's entire wardrobe and half of a lady's--were
+brimful of Christmas gifts and "goodies," and parcels stuffed with the
+same wedged Mam' Chloe in the exact middle of the front seat. A big
+hair-trunk was strapped upon the rack behind, and a box packed by Cousin
+Molly Belle was between Hamilcar's feet.
+
+It began to snow before we had left the city a mile behind us, but that
+made things all the merrier. How we chuckled with laughter as the fast
+flakes stuck upon Mr. Ireton's hat and overcoat and leggings, until he
+looked like a polar bear but for his face that got redder as the rest of
+his body whitened, until, with his shining teeth and powdered hair, he
+made us think of Santa Claus. When we let down the carriage-window to
+tell him so, he drew a pipe from his pocket, got behind the carriage to
+screen it from the wind while he was lighting it, and rode up again
+alongside of us, puffing away at it to carry out the likeness.
+
+We set out at nine o'clock, and at one o'clock stopped at Flat Rock, a
+well-known house of entertainment, for an early dinner and a generous
+feed for the horses. The roads were heavy with winter mud, red and
+sticky. It looked like strawberry ice-cream as the wheels and hoofs
+churned it up with the snow. Mam' Chloe laughed until her fat sides
+quaked when I said that. How good she was to us that day! how good
+everybody was! and how good it was to be just what I was, and where I
+was--off on a royal spree in the splendidest snowstorm I had ever seen,
+and Home and Christmas at the end of the journey.
+
+Darkness fell by four o'clock, and, but for the whiteness of the earth,
+we would not have been able to see the trees on the side of the road
+when we came in sight of the house. Not a shutter had been closed, and
+every window was aglow with fire and lamplight, golden and pink through
+the snowy veil shifting and swaying between them and our happy eyes.
+
+When, for me, Life's little day--full, rich, and blessèd, for all that
+storm and wreck and blight have, once and again, befallen me, as was
+God's will, and therefore, for my eternal good--when, for me, Life's
+little day darkens to its outgoing, may the lights of the Home that
+changes not, save from glory to glory, shine out for me through night
+and chill with such loving welcome as gleamed in those ruddy windows!
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE FAMOUS PEPPER BOOKS
+
+BY MARGARET SIDNEY
+
+IN ORDER OF PUBLICATION
+
+Five Little Peppers and How they Grew.~ Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50,
+postpaid.
+
+This was an instantaneous success; it has become a genuine child
+classic.
+
+~Five Little Peppers Midway.~ Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.
+
+"A perfect Cheeryble of a book."--_Boston Herald._
+
+~Five Little Peppers Grown Up.~ Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.
+
+This shows the Five Little Peppers as "grown up," with all the struggles
+and successes of young manhood and womanhood.
+
+~Phronsie Pepper.~ Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.
+
+It is the story of Phronsie, the youngest and dearest of all the
+Peppers.
+
+~The Stories Polly Pepper Told.~ Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Jessie
+McDermott and Etheldred B. Barry. $1.50, postpaid.
+
+Wherever there exists a child or a "grown-up," there will be a welcome
+for these charming and delightful "Stories Polly Pepper Told."
+
+~The Adventures of Joel Pepper.~ Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Sears
+Gallagher. $1.50, postpaid.
+
+As bright and just as certain to be a child's favorite as the others in
+the famous series. Harum-scarum "Joey" is lovable.
+
+~Five Little Peppers Abroad.~ Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Fanny Y. Cory.
+$1.50, postpaid.
+
+The "Peppers Abroad" adds another most delightful book to this famous
+series.
+
+~Five Little Peppers at School.~ Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Hermann
+Heyer. $1.50, postpaid.
+
+Of all the fascinating adventures and experiences of the "Peppers," none
+will surpass those contained in this volume.
+
+~Five Little Peppers and Their Friends.~ Illustrated by Eugenie M.
+Wireman. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50, postpaid.
+
+The newest of the stories of the children's favorites--the Pepper boys
+and girls.
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ethel In Fairyland
+
+By EDITH REBECCA BOLSTER
+
+Small 4to. Six illustrations by Hermann Heyer. Pictorial cover in color.
+Price, $1.00.
+
+"Ethel in Fairyland," by Edith R. Bolster, is a delightful little
+allegory. A child falls asleep and dreams that she has a number of
+adventures in a wood, where she meets various people personifying the
+moral qualities, like bad temper, unkindness, and envy, and learns a
+good lesson from them to tell her mother when she awakes the next
+morning. The book is written in a way to please both mothers and
+children.
+
+
+A Japanese Garland
+
+By FLORENCE PELTIER
+
+Small 4to. Four illustrations by Genjiro Yeto. Pictorial cover in color.
+Price, $1.00.
+
+"A Japanese Garland," by Florence Peltier, is one of the most charming
+books for young people published of late. It tells of a Japanese lad,
+adopted by an American, who has a number of American boys and girls as
+friends, to whom he tells a series of folk-lore tales associated with
+the flowers of Japan. The meetings to hear the stories occur at the
+different houses of the children, and there is always some sort of
+entertainment at the end of the narration, to furnish variety and life.
+By means of this story-frame much interesting information about Japanese
+customs and superstitions, also social life, is conveyed, while the
+picturesque stories hold the attention. The book is appropriately
+illustrated by G. Yeto, the noted Japanese artist.
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Partnership In Magic
+
+By CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS
+
+Author of "Just Rhymes," "The Four Masted Cat Boat," and "Yankee
+Enchantments." 12mo. Four illustrations. Price, $1.25.
+
+"A Partnership in Magic," by Charles B. Loomis, the widely known
+humorist, is an extremely original and clever juvenile, Mr. Loomis's
+first piece of long fiction. It has a fairy-tale motive in an entirely
+realistic setting. A country boy, who has a marvellous power of plucking
+fruit from the bare branches of any tree, goes to New York, and with a
+friend starts in the fruit business, and makes a large sum of money in a
+couple of weeks of their partnership. There is a cruel stepfather, and
+his adventures in New York in search of the boy, together with the many
+city scenes in connection with the hero's experiences, make it a highly
+amusing and graphic story. It is written in Mr. Loomis's peculiar vein
+of quiet, but effective fun.
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Defending The Bank
+
+By EDWARD S. VAN ZILE
+
+Author of "With Sword and Crucifix," etc. Four illustrations by I. B.
+Hazelton. 12 mo. Pictorial cover in color. Price, $1.25.
+
+"Defending the Bank," by Edward S. Van Zile, is a most amusing and
+interesting detective story for boys and girls, in which a couple of
+bright boys and girls appoint themselves amateur detectives and are able
+to run down a couple of bank robbers who are planning to rob the bank of
+which the father of one of the boys is president. This is at once an
+exciting and wholesome tale, of which the scene is laid in Troy, N. Y.,
+the former home of the author. It will be widely welcomed.
+
+
+The Mutineers
+
+By EUSTACE L. WILLIAMS
+
+Author of "The Substitute Quarterback." 12mo. Four illustrations by I.
+B. Hazelton. Pictorial cover in color. Price, $1.25.
+
+"The Mutineers" is a rattling boys' story by Mr. Eustace L. Williams of
+the Louisville _Courier-Journal_. It gives a picture of life in a large
+boarding-school, where a certain set of boys control the athletics, and
+shows how their unjust power was broken by the hero of the tale, who
+forms a rival baseball nine and manages to defeat his opponents, thus
+bringing a better state of things in the school socially and as to
+sports. The story is full of lively action, and deals with baseball and
+general athletic interests in a large school in a manner which shows
+that the author is thoroughly acquainted with and sympathetic to his
+subject.
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Little Citizen
+
+By M. E. WALLER
+
+~Illustrated by H. Burgess, 12mo, blue cloth, illustrated cover, $1.25~
+
+This is a right royal, good juvenile story. It has the narrative of the
+development of a waif of New York streets in the simple and wholesome
+life of a Vermont farmer neighborhood. The lad, Miffins, is taken into
+the household of Jacob Foss, a farmer. The story tells of the
+transformation wrought in Miffins's character. It is a story of heart
+power; and with its study of the evolution of a street gamin into a
+useful little citizen, and with its graphic descriptions of Vermont
+country life in summer and winter, it makes a book of unusual power and
+interest.
+
+Lothrop Publishing Company--Boston
+
+A Little Maid of Concord Town
+
+A Romance of the American Revolution
+
+~By MARGARET SIDNEY. One volume, 12mo, illustrated by F. T. Merrill,
+$1.50~
+
+A delightful Revolutionary romance of life, love and adventure in old
+Concord. The author lived for fifteen years in the home of Hawthorne, in
+Concord, and knows the interesting town thoroughly.
+
+Debby Parlin, the heroine, lived in a little house on the Lexington
+Road, still standing, and was surrounded by all the stir and excitement
+of the months of preparation and the days of action at the beginning of
+our struggle for freedom.
+
+
+By Way of the Wilderness
+
+~By "PANSY" (Mrs. G. R. Alden) and MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON. 12mo, cloth,
+illustrated by Charlotte Harding, $1.50~
+
+This story of Wayne Pierson and how he evaded or met the tests of
+misunderstanding, environment, false position, opportunity and
+self-pride; how he lost his father and found him again, almost lost his
+home and found it again, almost lost himself and found alike his
+manhood, his conscience and his heart is told us in Pansy's best vein,
+ably supplemented by Mrs. Livingston's collaboration.
+
+
+The Children On The Top Floor
+
+By NINA RHOADES
+
+Author of "Only Dollie," "Little Girl Next Door," "Winifred's Neighbors"
+
+Illustrated by Bertha G. Davidson Large 12mo Cloth 300 pages $1.00
+
+Little Winifred Hamilton, the child heroine of this book, lives in the
+second of the four stories of a New York apartment-house. On the top
+floor are two very interesting children--Betty, a little older than
+Winifred, who is ten, and Jack, a brave little cripple, who is a year
+younger. The widowed mother, proud and distant until won over by the
+kindness of good friends, shows unmistakably that something very
+different from poverty and loneliness has been familiar to her, which
+fact is also very evident from the character and breeding of her
+children. In the end comes a glad reunion, and good fortune for crippled
+Jack, and Winifred's kind little heart has indirectly caused great
+happiness to many others. This is the strongest story Miss Rhoades has
+yet given us, excellent as have been her others.
+
+
+ONLY DOLLIE
+
+By NINA RHOADES
+
+Author of "The Little Girl Next Door," "Winifred's Neighbors," "The
+Children On The Top Floor"
+
+New Cover Design Illustrated Square 12mo Cloth $1.00
+
+This is a brightly written story of a girl of twelve, who, when the
+mystery of her birth is solved, like Cinderella, passes from drudgery to
+better circumstances. There is nothing strained or unnatural at any
+point. All descriptions or portrayals of character are life-like, and
+the book has an indescribable appealing quality which wins sympathy and
+secures success.
+
+     "It is delightful reading at all times."--_Cedar Rapids (Ia.)
+     Republican._
+
+     "The author has written with admirable restraint, and has exhibited
+     in her character-drawing a keen observance of real
+     life."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+     "It is well written, the story runs smoothly, the idea is good, and
+     it is handled with ability."--_Chicago Journal._
+
+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
+the publishers._
+
+LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense--A Difficult Child
+
+By EDNA A. FOSTER
+
+Editor Children's Page "Youth's Companion"
+
+Illustrated by MARY AVER 12mo Cloth Price, $1.00
+
+"It is an interesting study of the development of an uncommon little
+girl. She is thoroughly natural, and the situations in which she is
+placed are seldom strained. She has no mother, and circumstances place
+her in the care of an older girl who also has no mother. How one child
+may be trained while another may be only taught, is made very clear. It
+is an attractive little story quite worth the reading."--_The
+Universalist Leader, Boston._
+
+"It is a book which girls from eight to eighteen will read with interest
+and which careful guardians and mothers will be glad to have them
+read."--_Times, Chattanooga, Tenn._
+
+"We would strongly advise all mothers of growing boys and girls to
+hasten to procure a copy of this delightful book for the home
+library--and, above all, to make a point of reading it carefully
+themselves before turning it over to the juveniles."--_Designer, New
+York, N. Y._
+
+"It is a truthful and discerning study of a gifted child, and should be
+read by all who have children under their care. It is probably the best
+new girl's book of the year."--_Springfield (Mass.) Republican._
+
+"The book is excellent, whether viewed as a story for the children, or
+as a suggestive study for those who have to do with the education of
+children."--_Zion's Herald, Boston._
+
+"The story may be commended as first-rate in construction, and with a
+happy style of teaching moral lessons."--_Chicago Journal._
+
+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
+the publishers._
+
+LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LITTLE BETTY BLEW
+
+Her Strange Experiences and Adventures in Indian Land
+
+BY ANNIE M. BARNES
+
+Illustrated by FRANK T. MERRILL 12mo Cloth with gold and colors 300
+pages Price $1.25
+
+One of the very best books with which to satisfy a young reader's
+natural desire for an "Indian story" is this one of little Betty Blew
+and what she saw and experienced when her family removed from
+Dorchester, Mass., two hundred years ago, to their home on the Ashley
+River above Charleston, South Carolina. Although Betty is but a small
+maid she is so wise and true that she charms all, and there are a number
+of characters who will interest boys as well as girls, and old as well
+as young.
+
+There are many Indians who figure most importantly in many exciting
+scenes, but the book, though a splendid "Indian story," is far more than
+that. It is an unusually entertaining tale of the making of a portion of
+our country, with plenty of information as well as incident to commend
+it, and the account of a delightful family life in the brave old times.
+It is good to notice that this story is to be the first of a colonial
+series, which will surely be a favorite with children and their parents.
+Mr. Merrill's illustrations are of unusual excellence, even for that
+gifted artist, and the binding is rich and beautiful.
+
+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers_
+
+LEE AND SHEPARD BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Winifred's Neighbors
+
+BY NINA RHOADES
+
+Author of "Only Dollie" and "The Little Girl Next Door" Illustrated by
+BERTHA G. DAVIDSON Large 12mo Cloth $1.00
+
+"The Little Girl Next Door" has been more persistently re-ordered than
+almost any other children's book of last season, and Miss Rhoades's new
+story deserves equal popularity. Little Winifred's efforts to find some
+children of whom she reads in a book lead to the acquaintance of a
+neighbor of the same name, and this acquaintance proves of the greatest
+importance to Winifred's own family. Through it all she is just such a
+little girl as other girls ought to know, and the story will hold the
+interest of all ages.
+
+
+The Little Girl Next Door
+
+BY NINA RHOADES
+
+Author of "Only Dollie" Illustrated by BERTHA G. DAVIDSON Large 12mo
+Cloth $1.00
+
+A delightful story of true and genuine friendship between an impulsive
+little girl in a fine New York home and a little blind girl in an
+apartment next door. The little girl's determination to cultivate the
+acquaintance, begun out of the window during a rainy day, triumphs over
+the barriers of caste, and the little blind girl proves to be in every
+way a worthy companion. Later a mystery of birth is cleared up, and the
+little blind girl proves to be of gentle birth as well as of gentle
+manners.
+
+
+Only Dollie
+
+BY NINA RHOADES
+
+Square 12mo Cloth Illustrated by BERTHA DAVIDSON $1.00
+
+This is a brightly written story of a girl of twelve, who when the
+mystery of her birth is solved, like Cinderella, passes from drudgery to
+better circumstances. There is nothing strained or unnatural at any
+point. All descriptions or portrayals of character are life-like, and
+the book has an indescribable appealing quality which wins sympathy and
+secures success.
+
+LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's When Grandmamma Was New, by Marion Harland
+
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of When Grandmama was New, by Marion Harland.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Grandmamma Was New, by Marion Harland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: When Grandmamma Was New
+       The Story of a Virginia Childhood
+
+Author: Marion Harland
+
+Release Date: April 21, 2008 [EBook #25118]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 394px;">
+<img src="images/img.cover.jpg" width="394" height="600" alt="" title="cover" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 491px;">
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="491" height="650" alt="The Story Telling.
+
+&quot;&#39;I like, best of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was
+new,&#39; said Fritz.&quot;&mdash;See page 7." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Story Telling.
+
+&quot;&#39;I like, best of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was
+new,&#39; said Fritz.&quot;&mdash;See <a href='#Explanatory'><b>page 7</b></a>.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+   <h1>When Grandmamma<br />
+   Was New</h1>
+
+   <h3>THE STORY OF A VIRGINIA
+   CHILDHOOD</h3>
+
+   <h1>By
+   Marion Harland</h1>
+
+   <h4><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></h4>
+
+  <p class="center"> BOSTON<br />
+   LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY<br /><br />
+
+   Copyright, 1899,<br />
+   BY<br />
+   LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.<br /><br />
+
+   <i>THIRD THOUSAND</i><br /><br />
+
+   <i>Norwood Press</i><br />
+   <i>J. S. Cushing &amp; Co.&mdash;Berwick &amp; Smith</i><br />
+   <i>Norwood Mass. U.S.A.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="centerbox">
+   <h3><i>TO</i><br /><br />
+
+   HORACE AND ERIC<br />
+   FRITZ, TERHUNE, AND STERLING<br /><br />
+
+   This Story<br /><br />
+
+   FIRST TOLD TO THEM OVER THE LIBRARY FIRE<br />
+   IN AUTUMN AND WINTER EVENINGS<br />
+   <i>IS MOST LOVINGLY DEDICATED</i><br /><br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Sunnybank</span>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Pompton, N.J.</span></h3></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Explanatory" id="Explanatory"></a>Explanatory</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was Fritz who said it first, and when he was three years younger than
+he is now.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody asked him what sort of stories he liked best. No doubt he ought
+to have said "Bible Stories," such as his mother tells on Sunday
+afternoons, and which he does love dearly. But he spoke out what he
+really thought and felt at the time of asking, and said, "I like, best
+of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was New."</p>
+
+<p>The phrase tickled my fancy, and, thenceforward, I would have no other
+title for the sight-draughts made by the boys upon my bank of memory.
+When these "vouchers" grew into a volume, no name would serve my turn
+except the <i>mot de famille</i> set in circulation by the quaint
+five-year-old.</p>
+
+<p>My laddies are well trained. (Good children run in the family.) I
+record, pridefully, that the sunny head of the least of the band has
+never drooped drowsily while the tale went on, and that his chirp was
+distinct in the general plea for, "More&mdash;to-morrow night?" with which
+the conclave brought up at the call to prayers and to pillows. This has
+not so far flattered me out of my sober senses as to beget a hope that
+my reminiscences will find such loving interest and attention so rapt in
+the larger audience outlying our doors. Yet I dare believe that other
+grandparents will read and other children will listen to the real
+happenings of the Long Time Ago <span class="smcap">when this Grandmamma was New</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+MARION HARLAND.</p>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Sunnybank</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">May, 1899.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><br /><br /><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents<br /><br /></h2>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="65%" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><th align='left'>CHAPTER</th><th align='right'>PAGE</th></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'>The Tragedy of Rozillah</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'>A Prize Fight and a Race</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'>Van Diemen's Land</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_45'><b>45</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'>Oiled Calico</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_63'><b>63</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'>What was done with Musidora</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_78'><b>78</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'>The Haunted Room</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'>Just for Fun</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_107'><b>107</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'>My First Lie, and what came of it</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'>My Pets</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_144'><b>144</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'>Circumstantial Evidence</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_164'><b>164</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'>Frankenstein</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_182'><b>182</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'>My Prize Beet</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_198'><b>198</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'>Two Adventures</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_215'><b>215</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'>Miss Nancy's Nerves</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_232'><b>232</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'>"Side-blades" and Water-melons</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_246'><b>246</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'>Old Madam Leigh</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'>Out into the World</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_282'><b>282</b></a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="When Grandmamma Was New">
+<tr>
+<td><img src="images/illus-011a.jpg" width="141" height="350" alt="" title="When Grandmamma Was New" /></td>
+<td><h1>When Grandmamma Was New</h1></td>
+<td><img src="images/illus-011b.jpg" width="141" height="350" alt="" title="When Grandmamma Was New" /></td>
+</tr>
+
+
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_I" id="Chapter_I"></a>Chapter I</h2>
+
+<h3>The Tragedy of Rozillah</h3>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 82px;">
+<img src="images/illus-011c.jpg" width="82" height="300" style="margin-top: -3em;" alt="" title="J" />
+</div>
+<p>UST look at her now, Molly! Isn't she the sweetest thing you ever
+saw?"</p>
+
+<p>Molly, that is, Myself, sitting on the door-step, elbows on knees and
+shoulders hunched sullenly up to my ears, did not budge or speak.</p>
+
+<p>Before my gloomy eyes was the kitchen yard, a gray and gritty expanse,
+with never a tree or bush to shade it except the lilac hedge bounding it
+on the garden side, and one sickly peach tree growing at the corner of
+"the house." Three hens and one rooster were scratching about the flat
+stone at the kitchen door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the other three sides of the house were rustling boughs and cool
+grass and flower-beds. It suited my humor to sit in the scanty strip of
+shadow cast by the eaves, my feet upon the step that had soaked in the
+noonday heat, and to be as wretched as a five-year-old could make
+herself, with a sharp sense of injury boring like a bit of steel into
+her small soul. The room behind me was my mother's&mdash;the "chamber" of the
+Southern home. A big four-poster, hung with dimity curtains, stood in
+the farther corner. The dimity valance, trimmed, like the curtains, with
+ball fringe, hid the trundle-bed that was pulled out at night for Mary
+'Liza and me to sleep in. At the foot of the bed was my baby brother's
+cradle. As Mam' Chloe was walking with him in the garden, it should have
+been empty. Whereas, Mary 'Liza was putting her doll-baby to sleep in
+it. We said "doll-baby" in those days. There was Musidora, my rag-baby,
+who was a beauty when she was new.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She was not old now, but Fate had been unkind to her. Twice I had left
+her out-of-doors all night. The first time was when I laid her at the
+foot of a particularly tall corn-stalk, telling her that I would return
+presently, but could not find her at all when I went back. I was up and
+out early next morning and "found her indeed, but it made my heart
+bleed," for a field mouse&mdash;with six acres of roasting-ears to choose
+from&mdash;had made his supper on the bran that served my poor Musidora for
+brains, nibbling a hole in the exact region of the <i>medulla oblongata</i>.
+My mother plugged the cranium with raw cotton and stitched up the wound,
+and the dear patient was doing better than could be expected, when there
+was a thunder-storm and Musidora was on a bench in the summer-house. The
+rain lasted all night, and I could not go out again.</p>
+
+<p>One immediate and obvious consequence of this adventure was that there
+was nothing left of Musidora's features except her eye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>brows, which were
+laid on with indelible ink instead of water-colors. She hung, head
+downward, in front of the kitchen fire for twelve hours before she was
+thoroughly dry. My mother "indicated" eyes, nose, and mouth with
+pen-and-ink, but the effect was flat and mournful.</p>
+
+<p>While I sat in the door that evening, putting on Musidora's night-gown,
+I overheard Mam' Chloe say to my mother:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I declar' to gracious, Miss Ma'y Anna, you ought to buy that chile a
+sure-'nough doll-baby while you are in town. It f'yar breaks my heart to
+see how much store she sets by that po' wrack of a rag thing she's got
+thar."</p>
+
+<p>My mother's reply was so low that I did not catch it, but her tone was
+not unpromising. I said nothing to her, or to anybody of what I had
+heard. Only, of course, Musidora and I talked it all over. I assured her
+that she was going to have a beautiful sister who would love her and
+play with her and tell her stories<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> of the wonderful city, and of how
+happy we three should be together.</p>
+
+<p>My father and mother went away to Richmond. They took the baby with
+them, and Mary 'Liza and I were sent to my Aunt Eliza Carter's to stay
+until they returned, when Cousin Molly Belle took us back home and told
+my mother before my face that I had been as "good as gold."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad to hear it," said my mother, giving me a squeeze and
+kiss. "I was afraid she might be troublesome. She is not as steady as
+Mary 'Liza, you know. I have something nice in my trunk for each of my
+daughters."</p>
+
+<p>She always spoke of us in that way, although Mary 'Liza was her niece,
+and an orphan. She was seven now, and the pattern child of the county.
+Pretty, too, with a fair skin and shiny braids of golden hair, and
+innocent blue eyes, and dimpled arms, and fluffy, kittenish ways, while
+I was as lean as a snake, as brown as a chinquapin, and as wild as a
+hawk. I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> used to hearing myself compared to all three. Mary 'Liza
+could read in the New Testament without stopping to spell a word, at
+three, and write in a copy-book at five, and do sums on the slate at
+six, and at seven was as much company to my mother as if she had been
+seventeen. In a word, my cousin was "a comfort." I was often called "a
+plague."</p>
+
+<p>Yet, as I can honestly affirm, I had never known, until this black day
+when Cousin Molly Belle took me home, what it was to be envious. I was
+not exactly fond of my cousin, yet we seldom disagreed openly. She wore
+clean frocks and liked to stay indoors and piece bedquilts and knit
+stockings and read aloud to my mother. I never willingly spent an hour
+in the house when I could get out, and had odd plays of my own which I
+kept secret from Mary 'Liza because I was sure she would be shocked, or
+laugh at them. I fully recognized the claims of orphanhood to the
+buttered side of life, and that a girl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> who had no father or mother
+deserved to be cared for by everybody else.</p>
+
+<p>My parents had arrived late at night, and the trunk was unpacked with
+much ceremony the next morning. Under my mother's best new dresses was a
+long pasteboard box which she opened, smiling at our expectant faces.
+From it she drew the biggest, prettiest doll-baby we had ever seen, in a
+blue silk frock with a sash to match. She had real hair, curly and black
+as a coal, and round black eyes and a cherry-ripe mouth. I reached out
+both hands, and a cry of rapture rushed from my heart to my lips&mdash;an
+inarticulate gurgle of ineffable happiness.</p>
+
+<p>My mother did not see my gesture. I hope she did not hear the cry. She
+laid the doll-baby in Mary 'Liza's arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Hutcheson, who was your mother's dearest friend, sent that to you
+with her love."</p>
+
+<p>For me there was a trumpery book, with very few pictures, and a good
+deal of reading in it&mdash;also from Mrs. Hutcheson.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She thought it might coax you to learn how to read. I was ashamed to
+have to say that my little girl does not know her letters yet," said my
+much-tried parent. "And your father brought you a Noah's Ark."</p>
+
+<p>I received book and Ark without a word, and marched toward the door, my
+heart ready to break.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say for your presents, Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>I stood stock-still, my eyes on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>My mother quietly and sorrowfully took the painted Ark from my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"When you can say 'thank you,' and stop pouting, you can have it back,"
+she said, in gentle severity.</p>
+
+<p>I dashed from the room around the house to the end porch. It was high
+enough for me to stand upright under it and the sides were screened by a
+climbing sweetbrier. I had often played Daniel in the lion's den there,
+assisted by a caste of small colored children. They were the lions, I,
+with the choice of parts, electing invariably to play the persecuted
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> finally triumphant biped. The fury of forty wild beasts was in my
+heart, as I pushed aside the prickly branches and crept into my lair.
+The den was paved with bricks, loosely laid. With a pointed stick I
+pried one up, and scooped out with my hands a grave deep enough to hold
+the hateful book with the few pictures and the much reading. I thrust it
+in without benefit of clergy, hustled the earth back upon it, pounded
+the brick into place, and lay flat down upon the dishonored tomb.</p>
+
+<p>Mam' Chloe found me there at dinner-time, fast asleep. She dragged me
+back to consciousness and the open air by the heels. Not in wanton
+cruelty, but she was a large woman, and could get at me in no other way.
+While she washed and made me decent in clean frock, apron, and
+pantalettes, she scolded me for my "low-lived, onladylike ways," and
+warned me of her solemn intention to "tell my mother on me," the next
+time such a disgraceful thing happened. I did not mind the lecture. I
+knew Mam' Chloe, and she (Heaven rest her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> white, faithful soul in the
+Kingdom where the bond are free!) knew me, I verily believe, better than
+the mother that bore me.</p>
+
+<p>Toilet and tirade ended, she slid me, as she might a proscribed book,
+through a crack in the side-door into the dining room, where Uncle Ike,
+her husband, was in waiting. He, in turn, smuggled me behind my mother's
+back to the side-table, there being no room for us children at the main
+board that day.</p>
+
+<p>None of the dozen grown-up diners noticed me, or that Mary 'Liza,
+sitting prim and dainty on her side of our table, had her doll by her in
+another chair, and interrupted her meal, once in a while, to caress her
+or to re-arrange her curls and skirts. I affected not to see the
+pantomime, which I chose to assume was enacted for my further
+exasperation. I was apparently as indifferent to Uncle Ike's shameless
+partiality in loading my plate with choice tidbits, such as a gizzard, a
+merry-thought, or a cheese-cake, while Mary 'Liza had to ask twice for
+what she wanted. What<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> was not tasteless was bitter to my palate. I
+wondered, dully, why the sight of the doll-baby and the fuss her owner
+made over her, turned me sick. As soon as I could get away, I slipped
+down, and out at the friendly side-door, and went to find Musidora.
+There was a new bond of union between us. She had no beautiful sister, I
+no beautiful daughter. Sitting down upon the hot step, before the
+kitchen yard, I hugged her hard and cried a little over her, in a brief,
+stormy way. The tears hurt me, as they came, and did not ease the hot
+ache in my chest or the lump in my throat.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture, when my misery was at its height, I heard Mary 'Liza
+in the chamber behind me, cooing to, and hushing her doll-baby, with
+tones and words copied faithfully from my mother's talk over my
+brother's cradle.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't you like to rock her a little while?" she called presently. "I
+wouldn't mind if you'd promise not to touch her. Sometimes your hands
+are not clean, you know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I set my jaws savagely outside of my leaping tongue, not moving or
+looking up when I felt her standing close by me. Musidora had dropped
+from my lap, and lay, face downward, on the step. Mary 'Liza picked her
+up, and brushed the dust from her inexpressive visage.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor thing!" purred she. "I hope nothing will ever happen to Rozillah.
+Isn't that a <i>love</i>-el-ly? I made it out of my own head from Rosa and
+Zillah, two <i>love</i>-el-ly girls I read of in a book."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is a nasty name," was my deliberate reply.</p>
+
+<p>She recoiled with a fine horror which stung me like a nettle.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Molly! what a word for a little lady to use!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked up at her for the first time, my eyes burning in dry sockets.</p>
+
+<p>"I think your doll-baby is nasty, and Rozillah is a <i>nigger</i> name! So
+there!"</p>
+
+<p>I could command no worse language, for I knew none.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mary 'Liza looked shocked and terrified. She glanced right and left and
+upward nervously, as fearing the punishment of heaven upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid that you are in a very bad humor," she faltered, her
+self-possession forsaking her for a moment. "I'd better leave you."</p>
+
+<p>She had gone a dozen paces when she glanced over her shoulder to say, in
+her most grown-up and judicial manner:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you will not make any noise and wake Rozillah up."</p>
+
+<p>I rose and went straight to the cradle as soon as my cousin was out of
+sight. Cold, deadly fury possessed and filled me, casting out fear of
+consequences and routing the weakling conscience engendered and
+nourished by parental counsel. I plucked Rozillah from her downy bed and
+bore her into the air, cuffing her polished red cheeks soundly on the
+way. Then I stripped off her gay raiment and knotted the ribbon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> sash
+about her smooth neck. I had never tied a knot before, but this held, as
+did the loop I cast over a projecting branch of the sickly
+peach-sapling. Naked and forlorn, Rozillah dangled a foot and more from
+the ground. I fetched my father's riding-whip from the hall table, and
+the last feeble check upon my fury was released.</p>
+
+<p>The next I knew a pair of cool, white arms closed about me and the whip
+together, and Cousin Molly Belle's voice, half-laughing, half-horrified,
+cried through the roaring in my ears:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dear little Namesake! what has got into you?"</p>
+
+<p>All at once, red mists parted and rolled away from my eyes, and I became
+conscious that Mary 'Liza was jumping up and down and screaming
+piteously, that everybody was on the spot&mdash;my father and mother and all
+the dinner company, and Mam' Chloe with the baby in her arms, and a ring
+of my small black servitors on the outside of the group;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> also that all
+eyes were focussed on me and what was left of Rozillah.</p>
+
+<p>The lash had drawn sawdust at every blow. One arm and both legs were
+torn off and weltered in the scattered stuffing beneath; the crop of
+black curls was tangled in the topmost limb of the sapling. The blue
+silk gown would never fit the pliant waist again. Rozillah was beyond
+the possibility of reconstruction.</p>
+
+<p>I threw my arms around Cousin Molly Belle's neck, and burst into a
+torrent of childish tears.</p>
+
+<p>I think I must have been whipped for that afternoon's work. I ought to
+have been, and Solomon, as a disciplinarian, was in high repute in the
+family connection. I am sure that I was put forthwith to bed and left
+alone for an eternity without even Musidora to bear me company. I had an
+indefinite impression that they feared the effect of association with
+such a wicked child upon her morals and manners.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I recollect that my mother brought me the bread and milk which was all
+the supper I was to have, and talked me tenderly into tears.</p>
+
+<p>But most vividly do I recall the apparition which stole into my solitude
+after supper&mdash;which I had scented longingly from afar. A wraith all in
+white&mdash;gown and neck and arms and face, the masses of fluffy hair making
+this last more wraith-like. It sank to the floor beside my low bed, and
+gathered me, miserable culprit, in a cuddling embrace, and bade me "tell
+Cousin all about it&mdash;the whole <i>truly truth</i>."</p>
+
+<p>I could always talk to her, and I began at the beginning and went
+straight and steadfastly through to the nauseous end.</p>
+
+<p>I did not cry while I talked, and when struck by her silence I raised a
+timid hand to her dear cheek and found it wet, I was surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cousin Molly Belle!" I stammered. "Are you so angry with me as
+<i>that</i>?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Angry? yes, Namesake, but not with you, poor little sinner! You and I
+are always getting into scrapes&mdash;aren't we? Maybe that is why I am going
+to ask your mother to let you sleep with me to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Which delicious cup of happiness consoled the outgoing of the first
+tragical day of my life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus-028.jpg" width="600" height="340" alt="" title="Chapter header decoration" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_II" id="Chapter_II"></a>Chapter II</h2>
+
+<h3>A Prize Fight and a Race</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="large">C</span><span class="smcap">ousin Molly</span> and I were spending an afternoon in the Old Orchard. My
+mother had a houseful of company, a common circumstance in itself. This
+particular houseful was so little to Cousin Molly Belle's liking that
+she got away as soon as dinner was over, drawing me, a willing captive,
+in her train. Furthermore, she had stolen Bud, my baby brother, from the
+chamber floor where Mam' Chloe had deposited him and a string of spools,
+while she lent a hand with the dinner dishes to her butler husband.</p>
+
+<p>Bud chuckled and crowed and squealed, as if he were the heart, head, and
+front of the joke, while we scampered down the middle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> garden walk,
+hidden by tall althea hedges, and gained the rail fence at the lower end
+without being challenged. My accomplice made me climb over first, and
+lowered her burden carefully into my arms, before she leaned her weight
+upon the two hands laid on the top rail, and whirled over like an
+acrobat&mdash;or a bird. She could outrun half the boys who had been her
+slaves and playfellows in childhood, and outjump three-fourths of them.</p>
+
+<p>We were comparatively safe now, the ground dipping abruptly below the
+garden into a level stretch of "old field" where the broom straw came up
+to my armpits, the yellowing waves parting before, and closing behind,
+with the surge and "swish" of a gentle surf. They smelled sweet and they
+felt soft, and Cousin Molly Belle let Bud down from her shoulder, and
+making a hammock of her arms, swung him back and forth through the
+pliant stems until he choked with ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the old field was the Old Orchard. The new orchard, planted
+nearer the house,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> was in full bearing, and my father made little
+account of such fruit&mdash;mostly choke-pears and apples from ungrafted
+limbs&mdash;as was enterprising enough to grow and ripen without tending or
+harvesting. The trunks of the neglected trees were studded with knobs
+like enormous wens, and the branches had a jaunty earthward cant that
+made climbing the easiest sort of work, and swinging an irresistible
+temptation. In the higher boughs were cosey crotches where one could
+sit, and read, and even sleep, without danger of falling. I and my court
+of small darkies had spent one whole July Saturday in and under the "big
+sweeting," when the apples were nominally ripe. I was Elijah, and my
+attendants were the ravens who plied me with sweetings in all stages of
+development until I could not have swallowed another to save the
+combined kingdoms of Judah and Israel. I was ill all night after the
+surfeit, but I bore the sweetings no grudge for my misplaced confidence
+in the human stomach.</p>
+
+<p>We three runaways camped down under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> brooding branches. The unshorn
+and uncropped turf was thick and dry as a parlor carpet. Bud crept
+lawlessly about, picking up twigs and pebbles, and trying his first four
+teeth upon them. He was a discreet baby, never swallowing what he could
+not bite into. His real names were William Skipwith Burwell. Somebody
+had dubbed him "Rosebud," in the first moon of his sublunary existence,
+and the abbreviation was inevitable. He would probably remain "Bud"
+until he entered Hampton Sidney. The chances were even that the
+alliterative temptation of "Bud Burwell" would tack the label upon him
+for life. Changes were troublesome, and Powhatan County people were
+opposed to taking trouble. The name of their own county usually lost the
+second syllable in sliding between their lips.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Molly Belle threw herself down at full-length on the grass,
+pillowed her bright head upon her arms, and stared contentedly into the
+apple boughs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This is what I call taking one's comfort!" she breathed.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down by her, my short legs tucked under me, Bedouin-wise. That was
+one good thing&mdash;among many&mdash;about being out-of-doors with nobody by but
+her or the colored children. I could sit cross-legged. If I forgot my
+manners and did it in the house, my mother, or Mam' Chloe, pulled my
+legs out straight in front of me, or shook them down, and reminded me
+that I was going to be a young lady before long. As if that were my
+fault, or as if it could be helped! My heart glowed with gratification
+in observing that Cousin Molly Belle had laid one slim ankle over the
+other. I hitched myself a little nearer to her and lapsed into the
+confidential tone she encouraged in our <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;tes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you just love to cross your&mdash;<i>feet</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>My modest hesitation was not lost upon her. She laughed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I like to cross my <i>legs</i>&mdash;and I do it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mam' Chloe says people ought to think little ladies haven't any
+legs,&mdash;that their feet are just pinned to the bottom of their
+pantalettes."</p>
+
+<p>"Mam' Chloe is an&mdash;echo!"</p>
+
+<p>"That wasn't what you began to say,&mdash;was it?" asked I, diffidently.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again, tweaking my ear, affectionately, and telling me that
+I was a "monkey, and too sharp to be safe."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were full of laughter and laziness; the color in her cheeks was
+that of a velvet perpetual rose, shading into peach-blow, then into pure
+white that never took freckle or tan from the hottest sun.</p>
+
+<p>Have I said that her hair was auburn, and curled like grape tendrils,
+from the nape of the neck to the forehead? The color was singular. In
+the shade it was that of a perfectly groomed bay horse. When the sun
+struck it, it got all alive, as if there were light under it, as well as
+over it, and was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> unmistakably, red. She made more fun of it than
+anybody else, but at heart she loved her hair, and would not have
+exchanged it for paley-gold or ebony tresses. Bud had fastened his
+chubby hands in it to steady himself on his perch, as she ran, and
+pulled some of it loose from her comb. A thick curl strayed over her
+arm, bare almost to the shoulder, as was the warm-weather custom of
+young ladies of that time. She drew it around before her eyes, thinning
+it into a silky veil, holding it high up and letting it slip, strand by
+strand, between her and the light.</p>
+
+<p>A notion&mdash;indefinable in words&mdash;that a wealth of charms was wasted upon
+one observant little girl and a non-observant baby, led me to inquire:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Would you, sure enough, rather be out here than in the house, talking
+to them all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am tired of 'them all,' Molly. They tire me to death."</p>
+
+<p>"Some grown people are not tiresome," I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> essayed. "There's Mr. Frank
+Morton, now. I <i>like</i> him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do&mdash;do you? Why?" still shredding the veil of curls between her
+and the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, one thing is, he talks <i>straight</i>. He doesn't talk 'round about,
+and sideways, and crossways, to children. Nor make fun of my questions.
+He just answers right along and plain."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I quite know what you mean, Namesake."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you see it's this way,&mdash;the other day I asked him if he didn't
+think you were a heap prettier than any other lady he ever saw, and he
+never so much as cracked a smile. He just put his arm 'round me&mdash;he
+never did that but twice before&mdash;and he said up-and-down, as serious as
+anything&mdash;'Yes, I do, Molly!' And he does make the beautifullest
+chinquapin whistles! They go on whistling after they are dry. You see,
+the trouble with the whistles other people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> make for me, is that they
+shrivel all up by next day, and there isn't a bit of whistle left in
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way with most of my whistles, too, Namesake. And then I
+throw them away and want new ones. Heigh-ho! What's the use of a whistle
+when all the whistle has gone out of it? I must ask Mr. Frank Morton how
+he makes his."</p>
+
+<p>I gave a jump and a little squeak.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle! there's a great, <i>big</i> race-horse on you!"</p>
+
+<p>He had tumbled out of the apple boughs upon the folds of her skirt and
+before I could capture him, a second fell after him. I was upon my feet
+in a twinkling, seized first one, then the other, by their attenuated
+middles, and held them up, all kicking and sprawling, between a thumb
+and finger of each hand. I knew the tricks and the manners of what I
+learned, many years later, that naturalists describe as the <i>mantis
+religiosa</i>, or praying-mantis, because in off-hours,&mdash;<i>i.e.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> when they
+are not foraging or fighting&mdash;they will sit upon their hind quarters and
+"fold the stout anterior legs in a manner suggesting hands folded in
+prayer."</p>
+
+<p>I had caught dozens of them and fed them for days in a box with coarse
+lace tied over the top to prevent escape, and studied their habits, and
+humored their propensities by putting several together in the prison
+that forthwith became an arena, in which <i>duello</i> and general scrimmage
+relieved one another in enchanting succession.</p>
+
+<p>I explained now, to my diverted companion, that I held them by their
+backs so that they could not bite me, and pointed out the wicked heads
+turning almost quite around in their savage efforts to avenge their
+capture. I was sure, I said excitedly, that these two were fighting up
+in the tree, and that was the way they happened to drop so close
+together. Had she never seen devil's race-horses fight? Mother didn't
+like that name for them, so I 'most always said just "race-horses"
+plain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> <i>so</i>. Only, when they were very cross, the other word would slip
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were to let them go this minute, they'd begin to fight, 'stead of
+running away," I concluded. "S'pose we try them."</p>
+
+<p>Entering into my humor, she improvised a cockpit by spreading her
+pocket-handkerchief upon the ground, and I liberated the gladiators.</p>
+
+<p>They more than justified my account of their ferocity by grappling on
+the instant, each rising to his full height and hurling himself at his
+opponent's throat.</p>
+
+<p>"You see they are acquainted with one another," I commented, as umpire
+and manager. "They just begin where they left off up in the tree."</p>
+
+<p>It was an exciting display. Cousin Molly Belle raised herself upon her
+elbow; I doubled tightly under me what I now let myself think of as my
+legs, and spread both hands flat on the grass, to lean over the arena.
+In the hush that followed the onslaught the babbling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> song Bud crooned
+to himself as he crawled over the sun-and-shade dappled turf harmonized
+with the sleepy shaking of the leaves about us. Such another
+happy-hearted baby was never seen. And so wise, as I have said, for a
+yearling! never getting into mischief, and afraid of nothing.</p>
+
+<p>I peeped through a kinetoscope last winter at a prize fight. I have
+never beheld anything that so closely and humiliatingly resembled the
+battle on the cambric square under the big sweeting. The wary advance
+after the recoil from the first encounter; the circling about at close
+quarters, each watching for his antagonist's weak point, the sudden
+clutch, embrace, and wrestle, which I, with umpiric instinct,
+interrupted, once and again, to prolong the combat,&mdash;none of these were
+wanting from either exhibition.</p>
+
+<p>At length, I left the combatants to follow the bent of native savagery,
+and then came such warm and inartistic work as patrons of the human ring
+would decry as barbarous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> and out-of-date. They bit venomously, below
+the belt, they grabbed at and hung on to any part of the body that came
+handy; they rolled over and over, intertwined so closely as to appear
+like one convulsed, centipedal monster. Finally, one half of the
+creature gave a violent kick and was still. As the victor shook himself
+free of the carcass we saw the head he had bitten from the other's neck
+roll from under the survivor. Withdrawing an inch or two from the
+remains, he sat up on his hind quarters, and "folded his stout anterior
+legs" sanctimoniously in a battle-prayer. His devotions ended, he
+proceeded to lick his wound and readjust himself generally.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry I didn't separate them," said Cousin Molly Belle, shaking her
+handkerchief with coy finger-tips. "I don't think I care to see such
+another fight. It gives me the creeps."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is very inter<i>es</i>ting," replied I. "'Tisn't as if they had
+souls, you see. They just die and don't go anywhere."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A disagreeable noise joined Bud's cooing and babbling, and made us turn
+quickly. Right before us, and within six feet of the helpless baby, who
+had sat up to regard the phenomenon with innocent wonder, was an
+enormous sow with a brood of hungry young ones at her heels. Her vicious
+grunt, her gloating eyes, her dripping jaws, and projecting tusks,
+bespoke her dangerous. Only yesterday I had seen her, prowling in the
+barn-yard, seize and devour, one after another, three downy ducklings
+before the stable-boys could beat her off. In the terror of this moment,
+the scene flashed back to me, and I seemed to hear again the crunching
+of those slavering jaws.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Molly Belle swooped down upon Bud, and had him upon her shoulder
+before I could join my piping cry to her shout that rang out like a
+silver trumpet. The huge beast halted, made as though she would turn,
+then gave an angry, squealing grunt, and lunged toward us. Not a loose
+stick or stone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> was within reach. If there had been, there was not time
+to pick it up.</p>
+
+<p>"Run for the fence! Run!" called the brave girl to me, and met the
+voracious brute with a kick, so well aimed that the high heel of her
+shoe struck full upon the eye next to her. In the respite gained by the
+sow's stagger and recoil, our defender overtook me, caught my hand, and
+fled along the path traced in the trampled broom-straw, through which we
+had waded merrily awhile ago. We had not taken a dozen steps when we
+heard the enemy roaring behind us.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gasped I, running with all my might meanwhile. "She will eat up
+Bud! Like she&mdash;ate&mdash;up&mdash;the&mdash;little&mdash;ducks!"</p>
+
+<p>"She shall eat me first!"</p>
+
+<p>I knew she meant it, and that it was true. The fence was not more than
+fifty yards away. It looked a mile off, and the wild grass was as tough
+and treacherous as it had been pliant and sweet when we had danced
+through it. I was a swift runner and my limbs obeyed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> me well. I was
+conscious, moreover, of the strong upbearing of my companion's hand that
+lent wings to my feet. If I were to stumble, she would not let me fall.
+This persuasion kept mind and heart in me.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the sow would have caught up with us had not a pig set up a piteous
+squeal, as it lost its way or was entangled by the grass. The mother
+went back to reassure it with a series of staccato gruntings, very
+unlike those with which she renewed the chase.</p>
+
+<p>We were at the fence. I scrambled over, spent and shaking, hardly able
+to receive the precious load that was lowered to me. As Cousin Molly
+Belle dropped after us, our pursuer's snout was poked between the lower
+rails in a last and futile attempt to get at the baby's fat legs.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Then</i> I got mad all through!" Cousin Molly Belle told my mother, in
+recounting the adventure.</p>
+
+<p>Her white face flamed scarlet in a second. A pile of disused pea sticks
+lay in the fence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> corner. She seized one, and jumped over the fence
+again. Wielding her weapon as if it were a flail, she brought it down
+upon the ugly head and raw-boned body; and as the sow turned tail to
+run, belabored her through the orchard to the gap by which she had
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>The conqueror returned to me, flushed, but unsmiling. I had Bud tight in
+my arms, and was laughing and crying together.</p>
+
+<p>"It was funny to see you lam her and to see her run," I sobbed between
+giggles that hurt me more than the sobs.</p>
+
+<p>She sat down on the grass, and clasped the baby to her heart. He cooed
+joyously, and held up a sweet open mouth for a kiss. He got, not one,
+but twenty kisses upon his wet lips, his pink face, his curly head, and
+the bonny eyes that were bluer than the sky. Then she bent to give me
+one&mdash;so long and tender that it checked sob and giggle.</p>
+
+<p>"We will never make devil's race-horses fight again, Namesake. They have
+a right to their lives. And a life is a very precious thing!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_III" id="Chapter_III"></a>Chapter III</h2>
+
+<h3>Van Diemen's Land</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/illus-045b.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="" title="Van Diemen&#39;s Land" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/illus-045a.jpg" width="150" style="margin-top: -16em;" height="400" alt="" title="I" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p> LEARNED to read that winter. How nobody knew, and I least of all.
+Looking backward, I seem to have gone to sleep one night, an ignoramus,
+and awakened next morning knowing letters, yet never having learned.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Molly Belle's solution of the puzzle submitted to her by my
+mystified mother was characteristic:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is the fable of Munchausen's frozen horn over again. All the
+learning you have been pumping into the poor child for two years has
+thawed out. I always told you that she had brains if you would wait
+until they woke up."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I might speak of that enchanted season as my birth-winter. My mental
+awakening was into another world, so much wider and fuller than that
+with which I had been well content up to this time, that life was a
+continual ecstasy. I discovered, early in December, that, as Mr. Wegg
+was to immortalize himself by saying a quarter-century later&mdash;"all print
+was open" to me. By the middle of February I had gone three times
+through the inimitable classic, <i>Cobwebs-to-catch-Flies</i>, and read at
+least six other books through twice, besides being up to my eyes and
+over the head of my understanding in <i>Sandford and Merton</i>, that most
+fascinating of prosy impossibilities. Beside the classic I have named,
+and <i>Rosamond</i>, <i>Harry and Lucy</i>, Berquin's <i>Children's Friend</i>, Mrs.
+Sherwood's <i>Little Henry and His Bearer</i> and <i>Fairchild Family</i>, <i>Anna
+Ross</i> and <i>Helen Maurice</i>, we had no books that were written expressly
+for children. No prepared pap being at hand, we expressed real
+nourishment for the mind&mdash;relishful juices that made in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>tellectual bone
+and muscle&mdash;from the strong meat upon which our elders fed.</p>
+
+<p>Did we comprehend all, or one-third of what we read, or heard read?</p>
+
+<p>Less, probably, than one-sixth, but we got far more than would seem
+credible to one who has been led up a graciously inclined plane of
+learning. Our manner of receiving and digesting mind-food was very much
+like Bud's way of testing unknown substances that might be edible. We
+rejected what hurt our teeth. What we got we kept.</p>
+
+<p>The current of my outer life was quiet to apparent dulness. After
+breakfast Mary 'Liza and I had our lessons with my mother in "the
+chamber." In another year we would have a governess, but the mothers of
+that time always taught their children to read and write, to spell and
+cipher through Emerson's <i>First Arithmetic</i>. I have known several who
+never sent their boys and girls to school, even preparing the lads for
+college. We had our reading, beginning with a chapter in the Bible,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+then, our spelling and writing, and sums. After these, my mother read
+aloud from Grimshaw's <i>History of England</i>, simplifying the language
+when she considered it necessary, which was not often, while Mary 'Liza
+made up the first set of chemises (in the vernacular "shimmys,") she had
+undertaken for herself, and I knit twenty rounds on a stocking. My
+mother put in a "mark" of black silk every morning from which I could
+count the rounds upward. Mary 'Liza had knit a dozen pairs in all. In
+the tops of six, she had knit in openwork her initials "M. E. B." I had
+no ambitions in that direction. My views on the subject of ornamental
+initials and sampler autographs were put into pregnant English at a
+subsequent date by the elder Weller. He professed to have received at
+second-hand from the charity-boy, set to con the alphabet, what the
+retired stage-driver applied to matrimony&mdash;to wit, that it was not worth
+while to go through so much to get so little. Knitting delighted not me,
+nor stitching either.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lessons and work over, the day began for me in joyful earnest. The rest
+of the morning and all the evening were mine to use, or abuse, as I
+liked. We applied "evening" to the hours between the three o'clock
+dinner and bedtime. We may have caught the phrase from our Bible
+readings. The morning and the evening were the day.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the fall I had begged permission from my mother to utilize a
+deserted chicken-house as a play-room. It was long and narrow; one side
+was barred with upright slats that admitted light and air to the former
+inmates; one end was taken up by the door; the other and the back were
+solid boards, the house having been built in the angle of a fence. My
+mother had the interior cleaned and whitewashed. I think she was glad to
+provide a decent "den" for me nearer home than the Old Orchard and the
+more distant woods, and she was losing hold of her hope of making me
+into a pattern daughter. It gives me a twinge to recollect how
+thanklessly I accepted what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> must have been an act of self-denial on her
+part, perhaps even a compromise with conscience. Mam' Chloe&mdash;by my
+mother's orders, as I know now&mdash;hunted up some breadths of faded carpet
+in the garret, Uncle Ike beat the dust out of them, then nailed them up
+along the slatted side to keep the wind away. These I called my "arras,"
+having picked up the word from hearing my father read Shakespeare aloud
+at night after we were in the trundle-bed. Other breadths covered the
+rough flooring, and I had a castle of which I was the undisputed
+mistress&mdash;a court where I reigned, a queen.</p>
+
+<p>Enthroned in a backless chair, I was, by turns, Mrs. Burwell (my own
+mother), Helen Maurice's Aunt Felix, Rosamond's mother, Rebecca, the
+Lady Rowena (my father began <i>Ivanhoe</i> in January), Mrs. Fairchild,
+Deborah, Mrs. Murray of <i>Anna Ross</i>, Naomi, and Ophelia. Once, I "did"
+Job by wrapping a meal-sack&mdash;for sackcloth&mdash;about me, and, sitting upon
+the ground, throwing ashes over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> my head and into the air, the while
+four colored boys, previously instructed, burst in one by one, with news
+of the mischief wrought by Sabean, lightning, Chaldean, and cyclone. A
+dramatization of Queen Esther, upon which I had set my heart, was, at
+last, given up because I could not be King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther at
+one and the same time.</p>
+
+<p>When the castle was too bleak for even child-comfort, Aunt 'Ritta, the
+cook, let us heat bricks in the kitchen fire, and showed us how to wrap
+them in rags to keep in the warmth. Clad in my red cloak, a wadded hood
+of the same color tied over my ears, and my feet upon a swathed brick, I
+was in no danger of taking cold.</p>
+
+<p>Mary 'Liza put her neat little nose in at the door one raw day when she
+was walking for exercise, and wondered, gently, "how I could stand it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid the smell would give me a headache, and the cold would give
+me a sore throat," she said still gently.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I never had either from the time the leaves fell until they came again.
+Except when, about once a month, some matron from a near or distant
+plantation brought one or more of her children with her when she drove
+over to "spend the day" with my mother, I had no white playfellow near
+my own age. Mary 'Liza "was not fond of playing," although she would do
+it when we had company who could be entertained in no other way. As a
+rule, when not engaged with lessons and chemises, she took care in a
+matronly way of Dorinda, Rozillah's successor, and "behaved."</p>
+
+<p>On the Sundays when we did not go to church because the weather was bad,
+or there was no preaching within twenty miles of us, or my mother was
+not well, or the roads were impassable with mire or frost, Mary 'Liza
+and I learned two questions in the Shorter Catechism, and she learned
+the references as well. We also committed a hymn to memory, and five
+verses of a psalm. Beyond this, no religious exercise was binding upon
+us, and there was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> great deal of the day to be got rid of. Mary 'Liza
+read the memoirs of <i>Mary Lothrop</i> and <i>Nathan W. Dickerman</i>, seated
+upright on her cricket at one corner of the chamber fireplace, and in
+the evening, if the day were pleasant, took her Bible to Mam' Chloe's
+room or even as far as "the quarters," and read aloud to the servants
+whole chapters out of Jeremiah and Paul's Epistles. They used to predict
+that she would marry a preacher (which, by the way, she did in the
+fulness of time, a red-headed widower preacher, with five boys).</p>
+
+<p>I liked to go to church, because I saw there people dressed in their
+prettiest clothes, and they sang hymns. Prayers and sermon were
+attendant and unavoidable evils. My legs went to sleep, and a big girl
+"going on six" was too old to follow suit. We read none but good books
+on Sunday. <i>Little Henry and His Bearer</i>, <i>Anna Ross</i>, and <i>Helen
+Maurice</i> were allowed; the memoirs I have named were advised. The
+<i>Fairchild Family</i> "partook too much of the nature of fiction to be
+quite suit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>able for Sabbath reading." So Rev. Cornelius Lee, our pastor,
+had decided when the doubtful volume was submitted to him. After that,
+it was locked up Saturday night, along with <i>Sandford and Merton</i> and
+Miss Edgeworth's <i>Moral Tales</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I minded the deprivation less after I converted the playhouse into a
+family chapel, and held services there on stay-at-home Sundays. My
+audience comprised all the small negroes on the place,&mdash;about twenty in
+number,&mdash;and they were willing attendants. A barrel was set, the whole
+head up, at the upper end of the room; upon this was my chair. I sat in
+it during the singing, and mounted upon it while reading and exhorting.
+Subtle reverence, which I could not analyze, held me back from "offering
+prayer." What we were doing was only "making believe" after all, and
+belief in the All-seeing Eye, the All-hearing Ear, the Judge of idle
+words and blasphemous thoughts, was as old as my knowledge of my own
+being. But sing we could and did, and I read from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> Scriptures of the
+Old and the New Testaments, usually from the narrative portions, with a
+psalm or two to "beat the upward flame" in our hearts.</p>
+
+<p>And then I would preach a sermon.</p>
+
+<p>Our chapel had been in good running order for over two months, when on a
+certain drizzly Sunday early in March, I arose discreetly upon my
+ticklish pulpit to announce through my nose, "We will commence our
+services by singing the three-hundredth-and-thirty-third hymn&mdash;'Come
+thou Fount of every blessing.'"</p>
+
+<p>As mine was the only hymn-book in the assembly, the mention of the
+number was a bit of supererogatory business. The omission of the formula
+would have been a breach of chapel etiquette. I raised the tune, and
+every other pair of lungs there joined in without fear of criticism or
+favor of his neighbors' ears. Some of the duller and lesser children
+smothered or decapitated a word here and there in the main body of the
+hymn. All<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> knew the chorus, and it shook the unceiled roof:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Away, away, away to glory!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">My name's written on the throne.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">My home's in yonder worl' o' glory,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Where my Redeemer reigns alone."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Warmed by the vigorous preliminary, I read the sixth chapter of
+Revelation, still through my nose, catching my breath audibly at the end
+of each clause. This oratorical touch was copied with ludicrous accuracy
+from Rev. Wesley Greene, a circuit-rider who had conducted an
+"arbor-meeting" at Fine Creek meeting-house last summer. Our negroes
+were all Baptists, and considered themselves remiss, as devout hearers
+of aught that partook of the nature of a religious service, if they did
+not respond at intervals with groans and pious ejaculations. Their
+children, as gravely imitative as juvenile Simi&aelig;, came up nobly to their
+parts in our exercises.</p>
+
+<p>The acknowledged leader in the responses, and my Grand Vizier in the
+ordering of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> my small kingdom, my stage-manager and lieutenant-general,
+was a girl of twelve, Mariposa by name. She received the fanciful title
+from a young visitor to the plantation who had studied Spanish.
+"Mariposa" meant butterfly, she told the baby's mother, who gratefully
+accepted the compliment to her newly born daughter. The mother and her
+mates called her "Mary Posy." The mistress, who was fond of the madcap
+sponsor, retained the original pronunciation.</p>
+
+<p>Mariposa was as black as tar, and to-day was clothed in a yellow
+homespun frock. Her hair was twisted and bound into two upright tags
+that projected above her temples. Altogether, she was not unlike a
+gigantic black-and-tan moth, a resemblance heightened by the
+aforementioned <i>antenn&aelig;</i>, albeit lessened by the baby she always carried
+on some portion of her wiry frame. She was the toughest, most supple,
+and most versatile creature I ever saw, of any color or clime. The baby
+was disposed decorously across her knees on this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> occasion, and she was
+one of the five auditors who had brought along their own crickets or
+chairs. She had confiscated some older woman's splint-bottomed
+rocking-chair and lugged it to the very front, as she had a right to do.</p>
+
+<p>I had heard Mam' Chloe say of one of Rev. Wesley Greene's sermons, "I
+tell you, Miss Ma'y, the Sperrit struck him that day, an' he jes'
+<i>r'arred</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Something struck my worthy lieutenant during my reading of the white,
+red, black, and pale horses of the Apocalypse and their awesome riders,
+and the others following her lead, my voice was drowned by the
+"Hum-<i>hums</i>!" and "Glorys!" and "Hallelujahs!" and "Bless de Lords!"
+arising from all sides.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't polite for folks in the seats to talk louder than the
+preacher," I had to admonish them in my natural voice and manner. "I
+hope you won't be so noisy while I'm preaching."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, when I gave out my text, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> struck Mariposa, rolling
+from side to side with the motion of a "weaving" horse on her
+rocking-chair&mdash;that squeaked dismally&mdash;was so wrought upon by the ring
+of unknown and high-sounding syllables as to set up a dreary drone like
+the hum of an exaggerated bumblebee, and to keep it up. This did not
+disconcert me. I had expected to stir the imagination of my hearers, for
+my own was aglow.</p>
+
+<p>Mary 'Liza, in reciting her geography lesson on Friday, had several
+times spoken of "Van Diemen's Land." Without the remotest conception of
+where or what it was&mdash;whether continent, or island, or town&mdash;I fastened,
+in fancy, upon her words, and constructed a hypothesis relative to the
+mysterious locality. Why I should have strung it upon the same strand of
+condemnation and doom with Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, Capernaum
+and Chorazin, I may have known then. I have no idea now why this was
+done, or the derivation of the inclusive curse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Van Diemen's Land, thus damned, fell naturally into line with the "Come
+and see!" of the "living creatures," and the "Death and Hell," and the
+prophecy of killing with sword and with famine and the wild beasts of
+the field. I was in a quiver of excitement that made my head and heart
+hot, and my feet and hands cold, as I fairly shouted my text:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"For oh! Van Diemen's Land shall be no more!"</p>
+
+<p>Mariposa's rhythmic hum was broken into irregular bars by groans and
+gruntings and sighings&mdash;all, I was gratified to note, modulated to the
+standard of civility I had indicated. I had made a hortatory hit, and it
+was encored. I spread wide my hands, in one of which was the New
+Testament, and reiterated the text with greater unction and volume:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"For, oh, my brethren! Van Diemen's Land shall be no more!"</p>
+
+<p>The chair careened under my ill-advised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> energy; the barrel toppled
+forward, and I shot, like a rocket, clear over Mariposa's head, breaking
+my fall somewhat upon another girl and baby, and landing in the middle
+of the congregation, with my nose against one of the swathed bricks.</p>
+
+<p>I seldom cried when hurt, Cousin Molly Belle having told me long ago
+that a brave soldier made no noise when his head was shot off. But I
+screamed lustily now in the belief that my nose was broken and I
+bleeding to death. The deluge of gore was frightful to inexperienced
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>My father's voice, kindly authoritative, bidding me "be still!" hushed
+my roaring. As tears and blood were stanched, I saw his face bending
+over me, full of concern that yet fought with amusement I did not
+comprehend. I could not doubt that he pitied me, when he carried me,
+bloody and dirty as I was, into the chamber, and stood by while my
+mother and Mam' Chloe set me to rights. The shock of the fall and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> the
+fright left me sick and trembling. The trundle-bed was drawn out to half
+its width and I was laid upon it, wrapped in my little dressing-gown, a
+bottle of camphor in my nerveless hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid you were playing on Sunday," said my mother, more in sorrow
+than in anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, and indeed, mother, I was not playing!" I broke forth,
+earnestly, my swollen nose making the pious twang involuntary and full
+of unction. "I was <i>preaching</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>My father walked to the fireplace to hide the laugh he could no longer
+suppress.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, my dear!" my over-quick ears caught his remark as she
+followed him. "I heard the singing, and went to see what was going on."</p>
+
+<p>His voice sank into a low, rapid recitation, and I lost the rest until
+it rose upon another laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"She and Van Diemen's Land went down together!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_IV" id="Chapter_IV"></a>Chapter IV</h2>
+
+<h3>Oiled Calico</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus-063a.jpg" width="600" height="320" alt="" title="Oiled Calico" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/illus-063b.jpg" width="150" height="147" style="margin-top: -3em;" alt="" title="A" />
+</div>
+<p> FEW days after the disaster in the family chapel, my mother's cousin,
+Mrs. Bray, came to see us, bringing her daughter Lucy. Their home had
+been in Henrico County, but Mr. Bray had "the western fever." My mother
+and Aunt Eliza Carter said so in my hearing before the Brays' visit, and
+when they arrived I was surprised to see him looking so well and strong
+and that he had a hearty appetite. They were on their way to Ohio,
+travelling in their own carriage, and having also along with them a huge
+covered wagon, drawn by four fine horses, and packed full of furniture.
+This wagon was rolled into an empty carriage-house and kept there,
+locked up, while they stayed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They had planned to spend Sunday with us, just to say "Good-by," and to
+move on, on Monday. On Saturday night, Cousin Mary Bray was taken ill,
+and before morning the tiniest baby I ever saw was born. It was very
+weak, too, and cried like a kitten all the time it was awake. The mother
+had to be kept perfectly quiet. The dogs were sent to "the quarters,"
+and everybody went about on tiptoe and talked in whispers. It was very
+dreadful until Monday morning, when an enchanting change was made in
+domestic arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>The house was a rambling building, with three separate staircases&mdash;none
+of them back stairs&mdash;and two wings, besides what I made my father laugh
+by calling "the tail," in which was "the chamber." Cousin Mary Bray's
+room was in the second story of the south wing, which was connected by a
+corridor with the main house. In the north wing was a lumber room that
+had once been used as a bedroom, and had a good fireplace. Mam'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Chloe
+set a couple of men to pile trunks, old chairs, bedsteads, and the like,
+in one corner, and two maids to sweeping and cleaning up the dust; and
+when half of the room was empty and "broom-clean," had a fire kindled,
+and our playthings and ourselves taken over to that end of the house. In
+the corner farthest from the fire were heaped a mattress, a feather-bed,
+some old blankets and comfortables, and this became, forthwith, our
+favorite resort. Even Mary 'Liza entered into the fun of climbing upon
+the pile that let us sink down, <i>down</i>, ever so far, and, pulling the
+blankets over us, making believe that we were in a big covered wagon,
+and going to Ohio. Our dolls, and a few other toys, went with us, and we
+munched ginger cakes and apples, and played that it was night and we
+were to sleep in the wagon, and that the wind howling under the eaves
+was wolves, roaring 'round and 'round the camp-fire, looking for little
+girls to eat. Mary 'Liza was Mr. Bray, I was Cousin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> Mary, Lucy was just
+herself, and she did her part well.</p>
+
+<p>On Tuesday, which I heard Mam' Chloe say to my mother in a solemn sort
+of way was "the third day," our dinner was brought upstairs. We set the
+table for ourselves by covering a packing-box with an old sheet, and
+putting our plates and mugs and the dishes holding our food upon it.
+Mary 'Liza was at the foot of the table, I at the head, and Lucy sat up,
+prim and well-behaved, at the side, saying, "Yes, ma'am," to me and,
+"No, thank you, sir," to Mary 'Liza. We were making merry over the feast
+when the door opened and my mother came in with her maid Marthy, who had
+a plate in her hand with three round cakes on it. Pound-cake, baked in
+little pans, and warm from the oven! I danced and screamed for joy. Mary
+'Liza sat still, her hands in her lap, and said, "Thank you," when her
+cake was put on her plate. Lucy laughed all over her face without saying
+any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>thing, but when my mother sat down on a chair to rest after climbing
+the stairs, the child ran to her and put both arms around her neck and
+laid her cheek on her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>I can see her now&mdash;the picture was so pretty! Her hair was dark brown
+and waved naturally away from her forehead, making her face rather oval
+than round; her gray eyes were clear and large, and, when she was not
+smiling or talking, there was a serious shadow far down in them. She had
+a dear little mouth, and I liked to make her laugh that I might see the
+dimples come and go in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Her frock was a new material to Mary 'Liza and me,&mdash;bright red, with a
+tiny black clover leaf dotting it. They called the stuff "oiled calico,"
+and, by putting my nose close to it, I could distinguish an odor that
+was something like oil. What we knew as "Turkey red," many years later,
+resembled it somewhat, but the oiled calico was much finer and softer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My mother lifted the slight figure to her lap, and I pressed close to
+her other side, nibbling my cake, crumb by crumb, to make it last
+longer. I had a habit of swallowing my goodies as soon as I got them.
+Mary 'Liza always put aside part of hers "until next time."</p>
+
+<p>At Christmas I had made a valiant effort to be economical and
+forehanded, and got the plantation carpenter to knock together a
+savings-bank for me, with a hole in the top. Into this I put half of the
+candy, raisins, and almonds given to me in the holidays and for a
+fortnight afterward. The self-denial went hard with me, but I consoled
+myself each night with the anticipation of opening day. The end of the
+fortnight arrived at last. I promised my sable cohort such a spread in
+the playhouse as it and they had never beheld. Barratier, Mariposa's
+brother, borrowed a hammer and chisel from "the shop," and pried off the
+lid. All crowded close to peep in. The box was almost full. Sticks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> of
+peppermint candy, with ribbons of red and white winding about them (a
+barber's pole reminds me of them to this hour); lollipops, also of
+peppermint, that would just go into my mouth and let the roof down and
+the teeth meet; cubes of amber lemon candy; and, most delicately
+delicious of all, squares of pink rose-candy that dissolved upon the
+tongue and smelt like the Vale of Cashmere to the very last grain;
+bunches of raisins, which we&mdash;and Jacky Horner&mdash;called "plums"; almonds,
+palm-nuts, filberts; small ginger cakes of a cut and size that Aunt
+'Ritta would not make for us unless she were in a particularly good
+humor;&mdash;the sight called forth a round-eyed and round-mouthed
+"<i>Aw-w-w!</i>" from the heads packed in a solid circle, as necks craned
+eagerly forward.</p>
+
+<p>For five heavenly minutes I was a fairy-godmother, a Lady Bountiful,
+with whom the ability to give was coequal with the desire. I made them
+sit down in rows on the carpeted boards. I hope there was not sacri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>lege
+in thinking, as I gave the order, how and where a similar command had
+been spoken. Beginning with the babies, I put a bit of candy upon each
+greedy palm, bidding my pensioners wait until I gave the signal to eat
+it. Then I took a pink cube between my thumb and finger, waved it
+theatrically above my head, and popped it into my mouth. Every other
+mouth opened simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>Even now I hurry over the telling. The treasure-chest was of green pine
+boards. The contents were so strongly impregnated with turpentine that
+not a morsel was eatable. The weest pickaninny spat it out and squalled
+because the turpentine burned his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>I could dwell tearfully&mdash;possibly profitably&mdash;upon the moral of the
+adventure, had I not left Lucy Bray all this time on my mother's lap,
+and myself fingering the oiled calico in covetous admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," I said, "I wish, next time you go to Richmond, you would buy
+me a frock like this. Don't you think it is pretty?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very pretty, Molly. But I do not like to have you wear cotton in the
+winter. I am afraid you might catch fire. Haven't you a worsted frock
+that you can put on to-morrow, Lucy? It would be safer while you
+children are up here so much alone."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was an old-fashioned little body from being the only child for so
+long and being so much with her mother. Instead of answering directly,
+she stopped to think, a pucker drawn between her brows with the effort.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I have, Cousin Mary," she said slowly. "'Most all my
+best clothes are packed up, and the trunks are in the wagon. We didn't
+mean to stay here more than two days, you know. It wouldn't be worth
+while to unpack the trunks, I s'pose? Mamma will be well enough to go on
+to Ohio pretty soon, won't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, dear."</p>
+
+<p>My mother drew her up to her and kissed the brown head. She, too, was
+thoughtful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> I supposed that she was wondering if she would better
+unpack those trunks. I was not glad that Cousin Mary Bray was sick, but
+I was in no hurry for her to get well enough to travel. I had never had
+another visitor whose ways of playing suited me as well as Lucy's. She
+was a year older than I, and a year younger than Mary 'Liza, and she got
+along beautifully with both of us. Then there was her cat, Alexander the
+Great, that she was taking to Ohio with her. He was the biggest cat any
+of us had ever known, with a coat of the longest, softest fur you can
+imagine, all pure gray, without a white or black hair on him, and he had
+lots of fun and sense. Mary 'Liza wanted, at first, to make believe that
+he was a hungry wolf, but Lucy would not hear of it until I proposed he
+should be a tame wolf we had taken when he was a baby and trained to
+defend us. He really seemed to understand what was expected of him, and
+when we lay down in the feather-bed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> huddled close together under
+the covers, and whispered, as the wind screamed around the corners of
+the house:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There they are again! Don't you s'pose they'll be afraid of the fire?
+Wolves always are, you know,"&mdash;and Lucy would answer:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Faithful Alexander will take care of us."</p>
+
+<p>Alexander would prowl up and down the room and stalk around the bed,
+never offering to get upon it, until we called out to one another:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Another morning, and we are still safe!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, he would leap into Lucy's arms, and purr, and tickle her nose with
+his whiskers, until she couldn't speak for laughing. She had had him
+ever since he was born, and he slept on the foot of her bed at night.
+While she sat in my mother's lap, he was winding himself in and out
+between her feet, his tail carried aloft like a soldier's plume, and
+purring almost as loudly as a watchman's rattle. My mother looked down,
+presently, at him, and checked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> the absent-minded passes of her hand
+over Lucy's hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Give him some milk, Marthy," she said, smiling. "I wish you had a coat
+like his, Lucy. I shouldn't be afraid then of your taking cold, or of
+your going too near the fire. Marthy! to-morrow you must hunt up a
+fender to put here, and see if one of your Miss Mary 'Liza's last
+winter's frocks won't fit Miss Lucy. It would do very well for her to
+play in. We must take good care of her while&mdash;this bad weather lasts."</p>
+
+<p>I fancy she would have finished the sentence differently but for fear of
+saddening the child by intimating that her mother might be ill for a
+long time. She kissed Lucy in putting her down, and patted my shoulder,
+telling me to "be a good girl and very kind to my cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you all are so comfortable and happy here," she added. "I
+could not have you downstairs just now. Carry these things down, Marthy,
+and run up every little while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> to see how the young ladies are getting
+on. Be sure and keep up a good fire, Mary 'Liza, my dear. I trust you to
+look after the other children."</p>
+
+<p>When she had gone I went to the window and flattened my nose against the
+glass to peer into the storm. It was a dormer-window, and the March snow
+was drifted high upon the roof on both sides of it, and upon the jutting
+eaves above it, until I looked out, as through a tunnel, into the
+jutting tree-tops. Beyond was a mad whirl of snowflakes that hid the
+nearest hills. The wind whined and scolded, and now and then arose into
+a hoarse bellow. I shivered, and slipped my cold hands up the sleeves of
+my stuff frock. We had circassian frocks for every day, and merino for
+Sundays. Our under petticoats were of flannel, and we wore, outside of
+these, quilted skirts interlined with wool. My mother had a nervous
+dread of fire.</p>
+
+<p>A shriek of laughter turned me to the more cheerful scene behind me.
+Alexander the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> Great was chasing his own tail as violently as if he had
+just discovered it and considered it as an offence to his dignity. Lucy
+was clapping her hands to egg him on, and Mary 'Liza had sat down upon
+the pile of bedding to laugh at her ease. Before leaving the room Marthy
+had piled wood upon the andirons as high as she could reach up the
+chimney-throat without grazing her hands in withdrawing them, as was the
+rule in fire-architecture on Virginia plantations. The March wind,
+finding its way through many a crack and cranny, beat at the flames
+until they flared this way and that. The cat dashed dizzily across the
+hearth, and Lucy, with a cry of alarm, darted forward to snatch him from
+the dangerous neighborhood. She caught hold of him, and pulled him away,
+and the draught whipped her skirts into the hottest heart of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>It was the work of an instant. The oily dressing of the cotton fabric
+may have made it the more inflammable. Rooted to the floor by horror, I
+saw a column of flame flash past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> me to the door, and heard the piercing
+wail grow fainter down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>My mother heard it in the distant room where the sick woman was sleeping
+quietly, the tiny baby on her arm. Shutting the door as she came out,
+the hostess flew across the house to the north wing, and met the burning
+child on the stairs. Eluding her by keeping close to the wall, she
+gained the upper room, saw, at one wild glance that her own little ones
+were safe, tore a blanket from the bed, overtook Lucy at the stair-foot,
+and smothered the flames with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_V" id="Chapter_V"></a>Chapter V</h2>
+
+<h3>What Was Done With Musidora</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus-078a.jpg" width="600" height="376" style="margin-top: -3em;" alt="" title="What Was Done With Musidora" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 152px;">
+<img src="images/illus-078b.jpg" width="152" height="250" alt="" title="T" />
+</div>
+<p style="margin-top: 2em;">HE details of Lucy Bray's death were told to me by others. My childish
+recollection held every feature of that first awful scene as tenaciously
+as if the flames had kindled upon me, and not upon my hapless
+playfellow. What followed is a hazy kaleidoscope, lurid and vague, until
+my scattered thoughts settled to the perception that I was making a long
+visit at Uncle Carter's and sharing Cousin Molly Belle's room and bed.</p>
+
+<p>She made me a new rag-doll-baby while I was there. That was the first
+thing that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> "brought me round," as Aunt Eliza phrased it. For one whole
+day when it was raining and blowing out of doors, I had eyes and
+thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that miraculous doll-baby,
+as she grew and glowed into an entity under the fingers of my
+best-beloved crony. She was a blonde after she ceased to be a blank. Her
+eyes were blue, her cheeks were shaded carmine; she had a real nose
+raised above the dead level of her countenance, stuffed artistically,
+and kept in shape by well-applied stitches. Finally,&mdash;and half a century
+thereafter I thrill in thinking of it,&mdash;an intellectual cranium was
+covered with a cunningly fashioned wig of Cousin Molly Belle's own silky
+auburn hair.</p>
+
+<p>This last and transcendent touch was added after I went to bed one
+night. The superb creation, arrayed in a lovely light purple French
+calico frock that could be taken off at night and put on in the morning,
+and sure enough underclothes, all tucked and trimmed, smiled from my
+pillow into my eyes when I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> unclosed them at the touch of the morning
+light.</p>
+
+<p>I christened my beauty "Mollabella," and would not change the name for
+her maker's gentle remonstrances and all my college cousin Burwell's
+teasing.</p>
+
+<p>Musidora had lapsed, little by little, into chronic invalidism, spending
+much of her time in bed. She was uncomely to any eyes but mine, and I
+would not subject her to unkind criticism. Her case was made hopeless by
+the officious kindness of Argus, a Newfoundland puppy, in bringing her
+to the playhouse one day after I had purposely left her tucked up snugly
+under three blankets inside of my reversed cricket by the dining-room
+fire. The attention was well meant, and he could not be expected to know
+that to drag sickly Musidora by the left leg through the mud until the
+infirm member parted company with the body, and to finish the journey
+with the head between his teeth, was not a happy device by which to win
+her owner's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> regard. I forgave him, in time, but Musidora was, after
+this last misadventure, a problem. I wondered much, sadly and silently,
+what other little girls did with doll-babies who died natural deaths.
+Not like Rozillah, who was never mentioned in my hearing, unless I were
+very naughty indeed, and heroic treatment was indicated.</p>
+
+<p>The day after my return home, the question was solved.</p>
+
+<p>In the fortnight of my absence great changes had befallen our household.
+Lucy and her mother and the tiny scrap of a baby had died, and been laid
+under the snow in the Burwell burying-ground on the hillside beyond the
+Old Orchard. Mr. Bray had gone to Ohio along with the big covered wagon.
+Alexander the Great went with him in the carriage. With tears in her
+sweet eyes, my mother told me how fond the father was of Lucy's pet, and
+how strangely the cat had acted in staying on Lucy's grave all the time
+until Mr. Bray took him away by force and carried him off in the
+carriage with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From my retinue of vassals I had, in the chicken playhouse, a fuller and
+more circumstantial account of all that had passed during those gloomy
+days. The pleasant weather that succeeded the March snowstorm had given
+place to a cold, sweeping rain. I scampered as fast as I could across
+the yard to my castle, my red cloak over my head, and we had to shut the
+door to exclude the slant sheets of rain. All gathered in the upper end
+of the room where my chair stood, the only seat there except the floor.
+To the accompaniment of hissing rain and angry winds, the gruesome
+particulars of the triple funeral were narrated. Mariposa&mdash;with the baby
+on her lap&mdash;was chief spokeswoman, but nearly every one present had some
+item of his own, authentic or imaginary, to add. All were sure that the
+three whose fate had aroused the whole county to a passion of pity and
+regret were angels in heaven.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 434px;">
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="434" height="650" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap"><b>The Birth of Mollabella.</b></span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>"I had eyes and thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that
+miraculous doll-baby."</b></p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"Mammy, <i>she</i> say, s'long as po' Miss Lucy was bu'n' so bad, 'twas
+mussiful fur to let her go," said Mariposa, rolling the baby<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> over on
+his pudgy stomach, and patting his back to "bring up the wind." "<i>She</i>
+say, <i>ef</i> one o' we-alls was to get bu'nt or cripple', or pufformed, or
+ennything like that, she's jes' pray all night an' all day&mdash;'Good Lord,
+<i>take</i> 'em! Heavenly Marster! put 'em out o' they mizzry!' An' Ung'
+Jack, <i>he</i> say, seems ef everything that's put in the groun' comes up
+beautifuller 'n 'twas when it went in. He tell how the seeds, <i>they</i>
+tu'n into flowers, an' apples an' watermillions, an' all that, an' how
+folks tu'n inter angills."</p>
+
+<p>I cried myself to sleep that night. My mother, kept wakeful, doubtless,
+by her own sad thoughts, heard the sobs I tried to stifle with the
+bedclothes, and came to me with talk of the dear Saviour who had taken
+little Lucy to his arms, and of her happiness in being forever with the
+Lord.</p>
+
+<p>I did not tell her&mdash;what child would?&mdash;that, while I missed and grieved
+for the companion of those three happy days, a deeper heartache forced
+up the tears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For I knew now what must be done with Musidora.</p>
+
+<p>I had taken her to bed with me that night for the first time in many
+weeks. Mary 'Liza was amused, in an amiable way, when she saw the bundle
+done up in red flannel&mdash;Musidora's rheumatism was <i>awful!</i>&mdash;that I
+hugged up to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I never let Dorinda sleep with me," she observed. "I am afraid of
+hurting her. But I suppose you can't hurt Musidora. Why don't you give
+her to one of the colored children? She is really a sight."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody asked you to look at her!" retorted I, crossly, putting my hand
+over the unfeatured face. "Mam' Chloe says, 'Handsome is as handsome
+does.' Anyhow, my doll-baby doesn't say mean things to folks."</p>
+
+<p>The little bout raised the tear-level nearer to the escape-pipe. It was
+easy to cry when Mary 'Liza's breathing assured me that she was asleep.
+It also confirmed my resolu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>tion to have the poor, deformed dear dead
+and buried without useless delay.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot decide what moved me to bear her off secretly to the
+seldom-used staircase in the north wing to prepare her for her last long
+sleep. I escaped thither the next morning, as soon as lessons were over,
+and seated myself half-way up the steep staircase. It was scarred in
+many places by fire and smoke. No amount of scrubbing could quite efface
+the traces of the catastrophe. I looked at them for a long time before
+beginning my sad task, and did not shrink from the sight. My state of
+mind was distinctly morbid. Children were not reckoned to have nerves at
+that date, and little notice was taken of their silent moods. That I
+should voluntarily seek a solitary quarter of the house, which was
+shunned by others, never entered my mother's or my nurse's mind.</p>
+
+<p>I had abundance of time in which to be as miserable as I thought I ought
+to be, and diligently nursed such sickly, sentimental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> fancies as ought
+to be foreign to a healthy young mind, while I divested maimed and
+sightless Musidora of her flannel mufflings and dressed her in a clean
+night-gown. Without saying what I meant to do with it I had begged a
+square of white cambric from Mam' Chloe, and set about notching it with
+a pair of blunt scissors. Mariposa had described a winding-sheet
+minutely to me, and I meant that my dead doll-baby should be decently
+laid out. The notching took a tedious time, and the bows of the blunt
+scissors left purple furrows upon thumb and fingers. Uncle Ike had given
+me an empty raisin box. I lined it with Musidora's own mattress and
+quilt, spread the "pinked" cambric on them, laid the remains (no
+figurative phrase in this connection) upon this bed, folding the one arm
+left to the unfortunate across her breast, and wrapped the edges of the
+winding-sheet over her face. With difficulty I coaxed the points of four
+projecting nails left in the lid into corresponding holes in the box,
+and having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> no hammer, sat down upon the top to make them fast, bouncing
+up and down a few times to make a good job of it.</p>
+
+<p>I sat still awhile after closing the casket, and rehearsed mentally the
+order of the obsequies. I had, thus far, made no arrangements for them
+beyond instructing the colored children to meet me in the Old Orchard
+under the big sweeting when the sun reached the "noonmark" my father
+had, to please me, cut in the fence by the playhouse door. They would be
+there in force and on time. I would get myself and burden out of the end
+door of the north wing and steal around the yard fence to the back of
+the garden without being seen. I knew how Mary 'Liza would smile and
+hitch up her straight, clean nose at the box and its contents, and I had
+a boding fear lest grown people might disapprove of and forbid the
+funeral.</p>
+
+<p>Upon that my heart was fully set. The grief of losing the ceremony would
+be harder to endure than the delicious mournfulness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> with which I had
+systematically imbued my soul. I chose four boys of uniform size for
+pall-bearers; Barratier was to have a spade ready and to dig the grave,
+and when it was filled in we would sing a hymn. Mourning garments were
+the knotty point. I, as Musidora's mother, could not appear at her
+funeral in the crimson circassian frock I wore at present. That would
+upset everything.</p>
+
+<p>A happy thought struck me. I recollected to have seen in the
+lumber-room, hanging upon some pegs high upon the wall, a row of old
+bonnets, and a black one among them. Other black things could be had for
+the hunting. I was a fanciful child, too used to conjuring up weird
+situations and make-believe happenings to be easily scared by what other
+children might dread. Nor was I then, or ever, a physical coward. As
+soon as the idea of visiting that upper room came to me I acted upon it.
+Tripping up the narrow stairs, I pushed hard against the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> door. It stuck
+in the frame, and I was fearing it might be locked when it gave way
+suddenly and I almost fell into the chamber. It was a dreary place,
+although the spring sunshine poured broadly from wall to wall. The
+charred brands of the fire that had wrought such woe were cold in the
+corners of the hearth, having toppled, head-foremost and backward, over
+the andirons after burning through in the middle. The old blankets and
+comfortables were huddled upon the mattress and trailed upon the floor,
+as my mother had left them in snatching one to throw about Lucy. A ball
+with which Alexander the Great had played was in a corner. But for the
+dead fire and the living sunshine and the stillness that met me on the
+threshold like a draught of icy air, we might have left the place not
+three minutes ago.</p>
+
+<p>I learned, subsequently, that my mother had been sadly prostrated by the
+terrible threefold disaster, and had never had the nerve to re-visit
+the place where it began. None of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> servants would have gone near it
+of their own free will. A queer, unfamiliar tremor I did not recognize
+as superstitious dread contracted my heart, and arrested me just within
+the doorway. The box, from which we had eaten our dinner, was in the
+middle of the floor, the three crickets pushed a little way back from
+it, and half-way between the fireplace and a window in the gable was the
+rocking-chair my mother had occupied while she held Lucy on her lap.
+Faded calico covered the seat, a valance of the same hung about the
+legs; two of the upright spindles were missing from the back. I took in
+every feature of the haunted room before I rushed over to the wall where
+the bonnets hung, climbed upon a chair, grabbed the black bonnet, and
+espying a black silk apron dependent from another peg, jerked it down,
+and ran off shakily, with my booty. The queer trembling had got into my
+legs, and as I went downstairs I steadied myself against the wall,
+avoiding, as I had not thought of doing as I went up, the scorched
+streaks on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> walls and the stains on the steps. Even after I stood in
+the safe shelter of the garden fence, my heart beat so loudly that I put
+the raisin box down upon the grass, and pulled myself together.</p>
+
+<p>The sunshine was genial to my chilled frame; through the palings I could
+see double rows of hyacinths, tulips, and butter-and-eggs, edging the
+walks, and bushes of lilacs and snowballs almost in bloom, just as they
+had looked before I went up to the lumber-room. The serene naturalness
+of it all restored my wits to me; I unrolled the apron which I had
+wrapped about the bonnet, and reawakened, as from a nightmare, to the
+business of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>When I presented myself to the group awaiting me under the big sweeting,
+a low, but fervent, groan of admiration broke forth as from one breast.
+The bonnet covered my head generously, jutting six inches beyond my
+nose. The cr&ecirc;pe curtain at the back descended to my shoulder-blades and
+flapped at the sides like the wings of a dejected crow. I had made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> a
+mourning-cloak of the apron by tying it, hind part before, about my
+neck, whence it drooped to my heels. Mariposa said&mdash;respectful of the
+genius manifest in my caparison&mdash;that I looked "mos' ezzac'ly like a
+real, sure-'nough widder." The boys were impressed into gravity becoming
+the occasion, and obeyed, with never a snicker or a grimace, my
+instructions as to the conduct of the ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>I walked directly behind the coffin; Mariposa, with the baby on her left
+hip, marched next, arm-in-arm with another girl, who carried her baby&mdash;a
+very young one&mdash;over her shoulder, its head wobbling helplessly as she
+walked. The rest came after us, two-and-two, through the Old Orchard,
+out through the draw-bars at the lower end, and into the graveyard
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p>It was a retired, and not an unlovely spot. A brick wall, splashed with
+ochre and gray lichens, enclosed six generations of dead Burwells and
+their next of kin. A locked gate kept out trespassers. Long streamers of
+brier and wild berry bushes, purple and ashy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> with the mantling sap
+drawn upward by the March sunshine, were matted over the older graves; a
+spreading "honey-shuck" tree arose near the middle of the badly kept
+square, and smaller trees flourished here and there. An apple tree,
+flushed with blossoms, leaned over the wall above the place selected for
+Musidora's grave.</p>
+
+<p>Barratier struck his perpendicular spade into the black soil in a truly
+workmanlike manner, utilizing the foundation of the wall as one side of
+the oblong pit. The coffin was lowered into place by means of
+tow-strings, provided by thoughtful Mariposa. There was no reason, save
+her punctilio of "doin' things jes' like folks," why Barratier, or I,
+for that matter, should not have stooped and laid the casket in the
+eighteen-inch-deep hole with our bare hands. But lowered it was in
+funereal style, and covered with apple blossoms, before the bearers
+returned the black earth to the excavation and mounded it into proper
+shape. I stood at the head of the grave, my handkerchief at my eyes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+trying with all my might to feel sorry enough to cry. The excitement of
+the conventional ceremonies, and the complacent consciousness of being
+the principal actor in it, and doing the thing creditably, drew the
+sting out of what would have been real grief had the flutter of my
+spirits allowed me to think. I believe that, if maturer mourners would
+be as frank as I, we should find that my experience was not singular,
+nor my reluctant composure unnatural.</p>
+
+<p>Mariposa had her emotions better in hand. She sobbed volubly, wiping
+away real tears with the baby's calico slip, and three other girls
+accomplished commendable snivels. An embarrassing halt brought down my
+handkerchief and hushed audible mourning. The affair was not over. Every
+eye was riveted expectantly upon me, and I had forgotten what came next.
+Mariposa plucked my cloak and whispered in my ear:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thar oughter be a pra'ar now!"</p>
+
+<p>The propriety of the suggestion was obvious. I had seen pictures of
+funerals and knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> how the officiating clergyman appeared in committing
+"dust to dust, ashes to ashes." But there was the fear aforementioned of
+breaking a Commandment by addressing the Almighty in a make-believe
+service.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't a fun'ral 'thout thars a pra'ar!" Mariposa muttered
+insistently.</p>
+
+<p>Nerved by the exigency, I lifted both hands and eyes toward the sky:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"World without end, Amen and Amen!"</p>
+
+<p>"A-a-<i>men</i>!" groaned my faithful lieutenant. Her emphasis assured me
+that the inspiration I had obeyed was a felicitous touch. She pressed
+still closer to me, mindful of my dignity, and prompted me further, in
+an artistic mutter, without using her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"The services o' this solemn 'casion will be close' by er hymn."</p>
+
+<p>I uttered it as if she had not given the cue, and "lined out" the hymn I
+had pitched upon as eminently appropriate for the "solemn 'casion."</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"When I can read my title clear</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">To mansions in the skies."</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mariposa raised the tune and carried it, the rest of the band screaming
+in her wake.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"I'll bid farewell to every fear</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And wipe my weeping eyes,"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I continued in a nasal sing-song.</p>
+
+<p>The chorus was plain sailing before a spanking breeze;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"And wipe my weeping eye-eye-<i>eyes</i>!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And wipe my weeping eye-er-<i>ese</i>!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I'll bid farewell to every fear</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And wipe my weeping eyes."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Like the echo of the final screech a fearsome wail arose from within the
+enclosure,&mdash;a long-drawn cry, repeated while we stared into one
+another's blanched faces, too affrighted for words.</p>
+
+<p>Mariposa was the first to recover the use of her tongue and limbs.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Th' ghos' o' the little baby!</i>" she yelled, and took to her nimble
+heels at a rate that made it impossible for the fleetest of her fellow
+fugitives to overtake her.</p>
+
+<p>I was left all alone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_VI" id="Chapter_VI"></a>Chapter VI</h2>
+
+<h3>The Haunted Room</h3>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus-099a.jpg" width="600" height="385" alt="" title="The Haunted Room" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 138px;">
+<img src="images/099b.jpg" width="138" height="194" style="margin-top: -2em;" alt="" title="L" />
+</div>
+<p>EANING against the outside of the brick wall, too stunned to join in my
+companions' stampede, I yet did not lose my senses. Neither did I cry
+out or whimper. Children have gone into convulsions and become idiotic
+for less cause. I was phenomenally healthy, and, as I have said, no
+coward. Before the hindmost deserter gained the draw-bars my reason was
+on the return path. I had the signal advantage above my comrades of not
+believing in ghosts. My father had asserted to me positively, once and
+again, that no such things existed, and put himself to much trouble to
+explain natural phenomena that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> are often misinterpreted by the ignorant
+and superstitious into supernatural manifestations. His orders were
+strict that the servants should never retail ghost stories in our
+hearing; and he was obeyed by the elder negroes. Mam' Chloe, whatever
+may have been her reserved rights of private judgment, backed him up
+dutifully with the epigram:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Folks that's gone to the bad place <i>can't</i> get out to come back, an'
+them that's in heaven don't <i>want</i> to."</p>
+
+<p>The cry I had heard certainly sounded like the weak wail of Cousin Mary
+Bray's skinny little baby, but God and the dear angels would never let
+the helpless, tiny mite wander back to earth alone. My mother had said
+to me, last night, that it would never cry any more.</p>
+
+<p>"It was in pain all the while it was here," she reminded me. "It never
+awoke that it did not begin to cry. Think how sweet it must be for it
+not to suffer now. I think that God sent for it to come to heaven
+because He was so sorry for it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Strength flowed into my soul with the recollection. My mother never said
+what was not exactly true. Happy, safe, and saving faith of childhood in
+a parent's wisdom, a parent's word, a parent's power!</p>
+
+<p>Curious, rather than frightened, I stepped over Musidora's grave, and
+hurried around to the locked gate. Two unsodded mounds were near the
+entrance. One was long, and one short. Stretched upon this last was
+something that moved slightly and cried again, yet more piteously, when
+I called to it. The sight sent me flying like a flushed partridge
+through the Old Orchard to the garden fence, over it and up the middle
+walk of the garden. While yet afar off, I saw my father standing there
+talking with the gardener. Evidently the scattered horde had not spread
+an alarm. My father turned at my loud panting, and eyed me with
+astonishment. Without pausing to consider why he should be amazed, I
+caught hold of him and shrieked my news:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Father! father! it is Alexander the Great come back to look for Lucy!"</p>
+
+<p>My father seldom scolded. He more rarely punished without inquiry. He
+was stern now and spoke sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the meaning of this nonsense, Molly? You are forever getting up
+some new sensation. There is such a thing as having too much
+'make-believe.' I would rather have a little sensible truth now and
+then."</p>
+
+<p>"But, father, really and truly&mdash;" chokingly, for his words were as drawn
+swords to my loving heart.</p>
+
+<p>He pushed my hand away from his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"When you look and behave less like a crazy child, I will hear what you
+have to say. Where did you get those things?"</p>
+
+<p>I wished that the ground would open and swallow me away from his cold,
+contemptuous eye. I had forgotten my ridiculous costume entirely. The
+shame and humiliation of having exposed myself to his just criticism,
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> added disgrace of the grinning gardener's enjoyment of the figure I
+had cut&mdash;the absurd coal-scuttle of a bonnet hanging down my back, the
+black silk apron streaming behind me like a half-inflated
+balloon&mdash;overwhelmed me with speechless confusion. I hung my head in an
+agony.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get them, I say?" repeated my father.</p>
+
+<p>"Up in the lumber-room," I stammered, faintly and sheepishly.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, put them back where you found them! Then, come to me. As I was
+saying, James&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He went on with his directions to the gardener.</p>
+
+<p>I slunk away, forgetful of everything except my personal discomfiture,
+dodging from one clump of shrubbery to another, lest I should be seen
+from the windows of the house, going almost on all-fours in exposed
+stretches of walk or garden-beds, and so making my retreat to the side
+door of the north wing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> I had stripped off the hateful masquerade
+habiliments and rolled them into a compact bundle, but anybody who met
+me would ask what I was carrying under my arm, and I could bear no more
+that day. Unable to contain myself a minute longer, I sank down in the
+solitude of the steep staircase leading to the lumber-room, and had my
+cry&mdash;if not out&mdash;so nearly to the end that I felt adequate to making my
+judge see reason,&mdash;if only he would not look at me as if he were ashamed
+of his daughter! Was it very wrong to take those things on the sly?
+Would I be punished for it? Had he told my mother yet? And did Mary
+'Liza know about it? I could never, never tell her that I had worn the
+<i>nasty</i> bonnet and cloak as mourning to Musidora's funeral. I would be
+whipped first.</p>
+
+<p>Crying again in anticipation of the dilemma, I trudged slowly up the
+steps, and pushed back the door, which stuck fast again although I did
+not recollect shutting it.</p>
+
+<p>"Just's if somebody was leaning against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> it!" said I, pettishly, and
+flung my whole weight against the lower panel.</p>
+
+<p>The door flew back and I fell headlong, face downward, on the floor, the
+bundle flying ahead of me clear to the hearth. I picked myself up,
+rubbed my smarting palms and, in a vile humor, recovered the detestable
+cause of all the trouble. I boxed the lop-ears of the bonnet, and gave
+the apron a vicious shake, in restoring them to their respective pegs.
+Then, I backed down from the chair on which I had been standing, and
+started for the door. A feeble cry stopped me as if a shot had passed
+through me.</p>
+
+<p>The room was in afternoon shadow, and the blinds of the larger of the
+two windows had blown shut. The cry quavered out again, and at the same
+instant I saw&mdash;or verily believed that I saw with my natural
+eyes&mdash;Cousin Mary Bray seated in the rocking-chair between the hearth
+and the window, holding a baby in her arms. She was rocking gently back
+and forth, her face was pale and peaceful, and she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> wore a sort of dim
+gray dress. Thus much I had seen when my father called loudly to me from
+the bottom of the steps:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Molly! what are you doing up there? Come down directly! do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>The apparition disappeared on the instant, and as I moved toward the
+door, I stumbled over something soft that mewed miserably. In a second I
+had it in my arms,&mdash;a rack of bones covered with muddy, tangled gray
+fur,&mdash;and rushed down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you so, father! don't you see? It is Alexander the Great. Now,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Will it be believed that the commotion attendant upon the recognition of
+the wanderer, the talk, conjectures and questions, the nursing and
+feeding, and cosseting the creature who was at the point of death from
+starvation and fatigue&mdash;put all thought of revealing what I had beheld
+in the haunted chamber out of my head, until, when I recalled it in all
+its vividness, I simply could not speak of it? It was all like a swift,
+bad dream, the telling of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> which might revive the unpleasant sensation
+it created in passing. I do not pretend to explain a child's reserve on
+subjects which have gone very far into the deeps of a consciousness that
+never lets them go. Perhaps the solution is partly in the poverty of a
+vocabulary which lags painfully behind the development of thought and
+emotion. Certain it is that I was a woman grown before I ever confided
+to a living soul what I thought sat in the rocking-chair in the haunted
+room, brooding peacefully above a quieted baby.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's cat&mdash;guided by what instinct only his Creator and ours knows&mdash;had
+found his way to her grave over two hundred miles of fen, field, and
+forest. Not finding her there, he had tracked me to the room where she
+had last played with him. When carried to other parts of the house, he
+cried piteously all day and all night. When the north wing was locked
+against him, he went back to the grave and could not be coaxed away.
+Finally, my mother proposed that he be allowed to stay there, until
+cold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> weather. He was the plantation-pet all summer, growing plump, but
+never playful, with nourishing food and rest. His meals were sent to him
+twice a day, but he partially supported himself by catching birds and
+field-mice in the burying-ground, which he never left. We got used to
+his presence there after a while, and his habit of patrolling the top of
+the wall, several times a day, for exercise, or under the impression
+that he was guarding the short green mound where he slept every night.</p>
+
+<p>As the winter approached repeated efforts were made to tempt him to the
+house, and when they were ineffectual my father took him there in his
+own arms. The cat refused food and sleep, keeping the household awake
+with his cries, and in the morning flew so savagely at his jailers that
+we were obliged to let him go.</p>
+
+<p>The fiercest tempest known in mid-Virginia for forty years beset us on
+the anniversary of Lucy's death, and raged for three days. When the
+drifts in the graveyard melted, we found Alexander the Great dead at his
+post.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>Chapter VII</h2>
+
+<h3>Just For Fun</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus-109a.jpg" width="600" height="341" alt="" title="Just For Fun" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 189px;">
+<img src="images/illus-109b.jpg" width="189" height="350" alt="" title="Just For Fun" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="large">T</span><span class="smcap">he</span> floor of the summer-house at Uncle Carter's was of lovely white
+sand, and did not soil my clean pink gingham frock, although I sat down
+flat upon it. Under one of the three benches that furnished it, I had
+dug a vault yesterday. It was modelled upon the description given in
+<i>The Fairchild Family</i> of one belonging to a nobleman's estate. My
+self-education was essentially Squeersian. When I read a thing, I
+forthwith went and did it. The gardener had lent me a trowel, and I had
+found a thin, flat stone that served as a cover. Digging was easy work
+in the top-dressing of sand and the substratum of loose, dry soil.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There were eight niches in the vault&mdash;two on a side. When all was
+finished, I sallied forth in quest of occupants. My vault was stocked by
+nightfall. In one niche was a dead sparrow my cousin Burwell had shot by
+mistake and thrown away. In a second was a frog on which a horse or cow
+had trod, crippling it so badly that Uncle Carter mercifully killed it
+with a blow of his stick. The poultry-yard and an epidemic of pip
+supplied me with two more silent tenants. A mouse-trap strangled a
+fifth, the gardener's mole-trap yielded up a sixth. Nos. 7 and 8 were
+land-terrapins ("tar'pens," in negro dialect), which I knew must be dead
+when I found them, although I could discern no sign of violence. Their
+shells were shut so tightly that I could not force a straw between the
+upper and lower, and no amount of kicking and thumping elicited any sign
+of life.</p>
+
+<p>An innovation upon the Fairchild pattern was the deposit in the bottom
+of the vault of a tumbler full of flies which Aunt Eliza<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> told the
+dining room servant to throw into the kitchen fire. A primitive snare
+for these destroyers of the housewife's peace was made by filling a
+tumbler within an inch of the brim with strong soap-suds, and fitting
+upon the top a round cover of thick "sugar-loaf paper," with a hole in
+the middle. Molasses was smeared all around this hole upon the under
+side of the paper, and an alluring drop or two on the top attracted
+attention to the larger supply of sweets. At least a quart of flies, per
+day, were caught in this way in the height of the season before window
+and door screens were invented.</p>
+
+<p>I waylaid the man and tumbler in the back porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they dead, sure enough?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead as a door-nail, little mistis."</p>
+
+<p>"Give 'em to me, please! I'll bury them."</p>
+
+<p>He complied, good-naturedly. I poured the contents of the glass into the
+vault, and strewed fine dry sand over them an inch deep. Then I fitted
+on the flat stone, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> said nothing to anybody of my new branch of
+industry.</p>
+
+<p>I was tired of being called "an old-fashioned child!" My mother's oft
+and resigned ejaculation&mdash;"What <i>next</i>, I wonder!" was to my ears a
+covert reproach for not being "steady" and "a comfort," like Mary 'Liza.
+Even my less critical father's shout of laughter at any unusual freak or
+experiment abraded my moral cuticle sometimes. At home the colored
+children would have entered heartily into my mortuary enterprise,&mdash;yes!
+and kept my counsel. The reticence of the serf exceeds in dumb
+doggedness that of a misunderstood child. But I did not play with Uncle
+Carter's little negroes. Every Southern child comprehended the
+distinction between "home-folks" and other people's servants.</p>
+
+<p>Not that I was ever lonely. What I called "things" were an unfailing
+resource to me. An ant-hill was entertainment for a whole forenoon; I
+watched bees and their hives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> by the hour; my vault kept me busy and
+happy all day. If Cousin Molly Belle suspected what I was about, she
+asked no questions, and refrained from spying upon me. When dressed
+clean in the afternoon, for the second time since breakfast,&mdash;the
+manufacture of mud-pies, puddings, and cakes, and the baking of several
+batches in the sun, having engrossed the morning,&mdash;I took <i>The Fairchild
+Family</i> out into the summer-house and reread, for the tenth time, the
+account of the opening of the family vault.</p>
+
+<p>Why, I reasoned within myself, should innocent dumb creatures be thrown
+away like dead leaves, when they have stopped living? It would be kind
+in me, or in anybody, to bury them in vaults, and to write Bible verses
+and all that on their tombstones. I would dig another vault to-morrow
+and look around for things to put into it,&mdash;and still another the next
+day. I had, in imagination, honeycombed the space under the benches with
+catacombs, and my book was clean for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>gotten, before I saw a movement in
+the sandy flooring, close to the edge of the flat stone sealing the
+mouth of the vault. I leaned forward to inspect it more nearly. The
+stone had been undermined at one side, and a hole left there, through
+which a line of flies, gray with dust, was feebly crawling into the
+sunshine. There seemed to be a thousand of them, all dusty, but some
+more active than others. As soon as they were quite clear of the hole,
+they dispersed in various directions, some alighting upon twigs and
+blades of grass, some flying up to the benches, where they sat cleaning
+their bodies and wings with their feet and mouths.</p>
+
+<p>I worked my hands into the hole and raised the stone. A cloud of
+resurrected flies arose in my astonished face. The vault was quick with
+them. The dry sand, warmed by the sun, that I had sifted over them, had
+acted as a hot blanket upon the chilled body of a dying man. When I got
+rid of the swarm I examined the vault. Both of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> the terrapins were
+missing. The sapping and mining was their work. Through the tunnel thus
+excavated they had regained their liberty, and released a mighty host of
+fellow-captives.</p>
+
+<p>"The rest of you are <i>dead</i>, anyhow!" said I, aloud, intensely chagrined
+at the cheat practised upon my benevolent nature, and I shoved the stone
+back over the violated vault.</p>
+
+<p>A shadow fell upon the white sand. Looking up, I saw a young gentleman
+in the door of the summer-house, smiling down at me. At the first glance
+I took him for my cousin Burwell, who was at home on his vacation. A
+second undeceived me. I scrambled to my feet and stared hard at the
+stranger who stood with his hands behind him, still smiling, but not
+saying a word. He was nattily dressed in a blue cloth coat and trousers,
+and a white waistcoat. A white satin stock of the latest style encircled
+a slender neck; he wore shiny boots, a leg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>horn hat was set jauntily
+above a crop of black curls. I was never shy, having been accustomed
+from my birth to meeting strangers and to "entertaining company" when
+called upon to do so. Yet I was strangely embarrassed by the merry eyes
+fixed silently upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, sir!" I said, dropping a little courtesy, as well-bred
+children still did in that part of the civilized world.</p>
+
+<p>Still without speaking, the stranger drew nearer and stooped to kiss me.
+This was going several steps too far. I clapped one hand over my mouth
+and pushed him away with the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Molly Belle! <i>oh</i>, Cousin Molly Belle!" I screamed between my
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>She was the only member of the family at home, my uncle, aunt, and their
+two sons having gone on an all-day visit to a plantation some miles
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Namesake! don't you know me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her voice answered in my very ear, her arm held me as I ceased
+struggling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I laughed like a mad thing in the excess of my relief and surprise, and
+when she sat down, I climbed to her knee for a good look at her
+disguise.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Burwell's clothes!" I said analytically. "And his hat. But your
+hair is black."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted the hat to show that she had on a black wig.</p>
+
+<p>"It belonged to poor Grandpapa when he was young. He had a fever and his
+head was shaved. I found it in a box on the top shelf of mother's
+closet, and tried it on just for fun. I liked myself so well in the
+glass that I thought I'd see how I would have looked if Burwell had been
+the girl, and I the boy. I know now that I ought to have been. I mean to
+be&mdash;just for fun&mdash;until they all come home. I'm in exactly the humor to
+do something outrageous. I'm tired to death of everyday doings and
+everyday people, and my everyday self. You and I are going to have a
+real spree,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> a glorious frolic, and nobody else is to know a single
+thing about it. Flora" (her maid) "helped me on with this rig. She is as
+close as wax, and you never tell tales,&mdash;Oh, yes! I know&mdash;" as I opened
+my mouth eagerly&mdash;"you would have your tongue pulled out by the roots
+before you would get me into trouble. And there would be all sorts of
+trouble if I were found out."</p>
+
+<p>She tied my sunbonnet, made of the same pink gingham as my frock, under
+my chin, and we set forward gleefully upon our spree. To begin with, we
+jumped over the yard palings, so that we should not have to pass in
+sight of the house and kitchen, in order to get into the lane leading to
+the public road. We called it "a lane." Now it would be an avenue, or
+drive. The finest Lombardy poplars in Powhatan County bordered it; sheep
+mint, pennyroyal, sweetbrier, and wild thyme grew up close to the
+wheel-track and gave out a goodly smell as we brushed by and trod upon
+them. I was in a high gale<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> of spirits, and prattled as fast as my
+tongue could run, flattered beyond expression by the choice of myself as
+an accomplice in the frolic.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pity you <i>can't</i> change places with Cousin Burwell!" I
+regretted. "You'd be a heap handsomer gentleman than he is. And it must
+be just fine not to have to hold up your frocks when you want to run
+fast, and to climb trees and jump fences. Would it be sure-enough
+wrong&mdash;I don't mean not lady-like&mdash;but would it be <i>sinful</i> for you to
+dress that way all the time?"</p>
+
+<p>"People seem to think so, Namesake. They think so so much that it is
+against the law for a woman to wear a man's clothes, or for a man to
+wear a woman's. Though why any man with a grain of sense in his head
+should ever want to put on <i>skirts</i>, I can't see. If I were to meet a
+magistrate while I have on these&mdash;<i>things</i>,"&mdash;flicking her trousers with
+a switch she had cut from a hickory sapling,&mdash;"he would have a right to
+put me in jail."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle!" squeezing her hand hard. "S'pose we should!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Cousin Burwell until we get home. No 's'pose,' you little goosie!
+If we did, we'd take to the woods, and outrun him. Or, we'd climb a
+tree."</p>
+
+<p>We were in the highroad, striding the ruts and skipping over stones like
+two boys on the way home from school. There was pleasanter walking in
+bridle-paths and wood-roads branching off from the thoroughfare every
+few rods. I think the madcap chose the rutty and mud-holey route because
+there was, at least, a chance that we might have to plunge into the
+bushes to hide, or to brave the scrutiny of strangers and acquaintances.
+The sauce of danger made the escapade the more attractive.</p>
+
+<p>Half a mile from home a creek, shallow, but broad, crossed the road. We
+could not pass over dry-shod and had to go up the bank into the low
+grounds to find a long log laid from side to side of a narrower part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> of
+the stream. My companion hoisted me upon her back and ran along the
+uncertain bridge as fleetly as a squirrel.</p>
+
+<p>"How far are we going?" I asked, as she set me down.</p>
+
+<p>"Around by Tom's Hill, and then cut across the field home. It's more
+than a mile. Can you walk so far?"</p>
+
+<p>"I walked two miles at a time, once!" I boasted.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a brave little lightwood knot!"</p>
+
+<p>She was "fey"&mdash;<i>exalt&eacute;e</i>&mdash;in the state of lighthearted-and
+lightheadedness for which sober, literal, decorous English has no
+synonym. As we went, she danced and sang, and laughed out joyously at
+everything and at nothing, and talked the most fascinating nonsense&mdash;all
+in the r&ocirc;le of "Cousin Burwell." She could imitate him to perfection;
+her strut and swagger and slang threw me into paroxysms of delight. We
+picked huckleberries, and dived into the woods to feast upon wild plums
+that had ten drops of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> syrupy juice between tough skins and flinty
+stones encased in the pulp of bitterness, and gathered handfuls of wild
+flowers because their beauty tempted sight and touch, and with no
+intention of taking them home with us. Two of Pan's dryads turned loose
+for a holiday could not have sported more irrationally.</p>
+
+<p>We met neither man nor beast until we had climbed Tom's Hill, a stony
+eminence from the top of which, as the neighbors were proud of saying,
+one could see six dwelling-houses, each with its group of outbuildings,
+representing six fine plantations. A saddle-horse was tied to a
+persimmon tree a hundred yards or so down the other side. He whinnied at
+sight of us, and Cousin Molly Belle ran up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, Snap! old fellow! clothes don't make any difference to
+you&mdash;do they?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Frank Morton's riding horse, and the fence by which he stood
+bounded an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> extensive tobacco field belonging to Mr. Frank Morton's
+brother. About the middle of the field was a tobacco barn, and by
+climbing upon the top rail of the fence so as to overlook a row of
+sassafras saplings, I could see a group of men about the door. Their
+backs were toward us, and if they had looked our way they could not have
+seen us, when I got down.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Molly Belle's eyes were two dancing stars. She clapped her hands
+in riotous glee. Without a word she untied the bridle from the tree,
+vaulted into the saddle, drew me up in front of her, and before I could
+put a question we were pacing briskly down the hill. At the bottom we
+struck into a cross-road leading to Uncle Carter's plantation. Cousin
+Molly Belle was laughing too heartily to speak distinctly, and I joined
+in with all my heart, with a very imperfect appreciation of the extent
+of the practical joke. Mr. Frank Morton would not have to walk home. He
+had only to go to his brother's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> house when he missed Snap and borrow a
+horse, and Snap would be sent back safely to him in good time.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'you s'pose he'll say when he comes to the fence and Snap isn't
+there?" queried I, at length.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i> I wish I were hiding somewhere near enough to hear and see
+him!" another and yet more infectious outburst. "That would be the best
+part of the joke. I'm going to turn Snap loose when we get to our outer
+gate, and hit him a crack with my switch and start him toward home.
+He'll not tell tales out of school&mdash;will you, old boy?" slapping his
+neck affectionately. "Mr. Frank Morton will never guess why the horse
+thief let such a fine animal get away from him, when once he had got
+him. I can hear him now, telling me the story, and I'll look as grave as
+a dozen judges, and wonder as hard as he does&mdash;and&mdash;<i>Hark!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>We were, perhaps, half a mile from the place where we had found Snap,
+but, as I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> have said, Tom's Hill was a stony ledge, running like a sharp
+backbone between fertile fields, and we heard from afar off the
+clattering hoofs of a horse pressed to his utmost speed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_VIII" id="Chapter_VIII"></a>Chapter VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>My First Lie, and What Came of It.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 447px;">
+<img src="images/illus-126a.jpg" width="447" height="500" alt="" title="My First Lie, and What Came of It." />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 127px;">
+<img src="images/illus-126b.jpg" width="127" height="200" alt="" title="My First Lie, and What Came of It." />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="large">"H</span><span class="smcap">e</span> is after us!" exclaimed Cousin Molly Belle, and brought down her
+switch stingingly upon Snap's flanks.</p>
+
+<p>Tightening her arm about me, she urged him from canter to gallop, from a
+gallop to a run. The trees swept by us like lightning; the wind tore the
+breath from our lungs, but I had no thought of fear. My cousin was a
+fearless rider, and the perfectly broken hunter under us flew as
+steadily and as straight as a blue martin. Against the back of my head
+Cousin Molly Belle's heart was pounding like an unbal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>anced trip-hammer.
+I wondered if it were possible that she was frightened, and twisted my
+face around to get a glimpse of hers. It was as white as a sheet, and
+her teeth were set hard upon her lower lip. Within a stone's throw of
+Uncle Carter's outer gate she brought the horse down to a walk, then to
+a full stop, and slipped to the ground. Her face was so pale and rigid
+as she set me upon my feet that I began to tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you scared?" I faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Scared to death, child! Hush!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned Snap's head in the direction from which we had come, and
+struck him smartly with her switch, in letting go of the bridle.</p>
+
+<p>"Go home, sir! Go!"</p>
+
+<p>He galloped off, stirrups and mane flying, and she drew a deep, agitated
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>"If ever I get into such a scrape again!"</p>
+
+<p>She bent low and listened; the scared look settled again upon her face.
+Through the stillness of the summer afternoon, we heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> a sharp "Whoa!"
+faint but clear, when, as we judged, Snap neared our pursuer. The pause
+of a second ensued, and the hoofs, doubled in number and resonance,
+sounded nearer and nearer, thundering over the soft ground, clicking
+against the stones, like a charge of cavalry. Cousin Molly Belle was so
+white that a few freckles, never seen through her usually brilliant
+
+ ?>mn ion, made a line of sallow dots across her cheek bones and the
+bridge of her nose. Clutching me more roughly than she had ever touched
+me before, she thrust me well into the heart of a tall cedar whose
+lowest boughs grew out horizontally and swept the earth.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move or speak!" she whispered fiercely and forced her way to the
+hole of the tree.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the grating of the bark under her feet, and felt the branches
+shake, then grow quiet. She was well up the tree, and hidden by the
+bushy foliage. The tumultuous beat of the charging hoofs echoed more and
+more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> loudly. The rider would be upon us in another minute. Escape
+through the gate and down the avenue to the house was out of the
+question. We would have been in sight from the road for several hundred
+yards, and a few seconds would be lost in opening the gate.</p>
+
+<p>On my part, the adventure was, thus far, pure fun, and the excitement
+delicious. I giggled in my sleeve in the anticipation of hearing the
+furious hoofs sweep past and lose themselves in the distance on the
+false scent. I had not had time to speculate as to why my companion was
+"scared to death."</p>
+
+<p>The clatter was abreast of, and behind me in the road when the
+imperative "Whoa!" again arrested it. I knew the voice now. A man leaped
+to the ground; hasty footsteps struck across the turf edging the
+highway; dry sticks cracked, my bushy covert was jarred, and Mr. Frank
+Morton stood before me, parting the branches to get a good look at me.
+My pink gingham had betrayed me.</p>
+
+<p>"Molly Burwell! what are you doing here?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As if prompted by a telepathic despatch from the fugitive overhead, I
+began to pick the bluish white berries studding the twigs and to cram
+them into my mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Picking cedar-berries!" I retorted coolly, cocking a saucy eye at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who came with you?"</p>
+
+<p>I stood on tiptoe to tug at a fat cedar-ball, glossy, brown, and deeply
+pitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Frank! won't you please cut it off for me?"</p>
+
+<p>He whipped out his knife and severed the twig.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you come all the way from the house alone?"</p>
+
+<p>I had never, within my memory, told a deliberate lie. My cheeks burned
+like fire; my eyes dropped guiltily. My tongue did not trip or tangle.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>There was a dread silence. My ears rang, my heart was sinking slowly and
+sickeningly into my heels. I had bethought myself just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> as he put the
+question, that Cousin Molly Belle might be put in jail if he found out
+that she had been with me, and had on her brother's clothes. As a
+well-tutored child in a Presbyterian family, I knew what becomes of
+liars when they leave off living and lying together. My teeth ceased to
+chatter and met with a snap. The loyal heart rallied to the help of the
+guilty tongue. I raised my eyes in sullen defiance.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't so <i>dreadful</i> far! I came all by my loney-toney self!"</p>
+
+<p>My friend laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear little girl, there is no great harm in that. Only, I wouldn't
+run away again if I were you. Your aunt might be uneasy if she missed
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"She isn't at home," I answered incautiously. "She 'n' Uncle Carter 'n'
+Cousin Burwell 'n' Cousin Dick have gone to Mr. Cunningham's."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" The ejaculation was not regretful. "Isn't Miss Molly Belle at
+home?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> You would be sorry to make <i>her</i> anxious, I know."</p>
+
+<p>The cedar-branches thrilled slightly, as at the flight of a startled
+bird. Mr. Frank did not notice it, but the movement nerved me. I spoke
+hastily, walking away from the tree toward the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, <i>she's</i> at home! I reckon she must have been taking a nap when
+I came away. I'm going right back now."</p>
+
+<p>I had never dreamed that lying was such an easy performance.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take you home. Wait a minute!"</p>
+
+<p>Snap was grazing on the roadside. Another saddle-horse stood by with
+drooping head, his bridle hanging loosely in the bend of Mr. Frank's
+arm. I was lifted to Snap's back; my escort walked beside me through the
+gate, and along the lane, one hand on me, and leading the second horse.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are wondering what I am doing with two horses," he said
+lightly. "It is a very funny story. I'll tell you and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> Miss Molly Belle
+when we get to the house. It will make you both laugh."</p>
+
+<p>He had given me Snap's bridle to hold, as if I were riding all by
+myself. He thought it would please me. In other circumstances I should
+have been glad and proud to be so mounted, and by him. But from my lofty
+seat I could see over his head across the field of corn which lay to the
+left of the road. Something or somebody was running between the close
+rows in a straight line from the plantation gate to the house. Running
+like a deer, or a greyhound&mdash;or Cousin Molly Belle. She must get home
+and up to her room before we got there.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Frank!" I cried. "I have dropped my cedar-ball!" And when he
+had picked it up, "Won't you please make Snap walk very slow? I am
+afraid I might fall off."</p>
+
+<p>"What has got into you to-day, little Duchess?" He had a dozen pet names
+for me, and my heart smote me sore at sight of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> his kind, honest face.
+"It isn't like you to be afraid of horses,&mdash;and you and Snap are old
+friends. You will never be such a rider as Miss Molly Belle if you learn
+to be nervous."</p>
+
+<p>Not another sound fell from my lips until I was put down gently at the
+front gate of my uncle's house, and Flora bustled out, cross lines in
+her forehead and cross tones in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I do declar', Miss Molly&mdash;(How-you-do, Mars' Frank?) I do declar', Miss
+Molly, you're enough to drive anybody crazy with you' wild tomboy ways.
+Me 'n' Miss Molly Belle, we've been jes' raisin' the plantation fo' you,
+and hyar you come home a-riding Mars' Frank Mo'ton's horse, gran' as you
+please, and nobody knowin' whar you been ever sence dinner-time. Miss
+Molly Belle 'll be mighty obleeged to you for fotchin' of her home,
+Mars' Frank. She'll be down pretty soon for to tell you so herself. Walk
+into the parlor, please, sir. Jim, you take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> Mr. Mo'ton's horses to
+the stable. And Miss Molly, you jes' stay thar 'n' ent'tain Mr. Mo'ton
+like a little lady tell you' cousin comes down sta'rs."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="600" height="429" alt="The End of the Prank.
+
+&quot;I was put down at my uncle&#39;s house, and Flora bustled out.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">The End of the Prank.
+
+&quot;I was put down at my uncle&#39;s house, and Flora bustled out.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I obeyed with docility that must have surprised the autocrat. Meek and
+miserable, I preceded the guest to the parlor, although every minute
+spent under his unsuspecting eyes was a danger and a pain. I made no
+attempt to "entertain him." Seated upon a high chair, my feet swinging
+dolefully six inches above the floor, I fingered the wretched
+cedar-ball, redolent of rosin through much bruising, my pink sunbonnet
+hanging from the knotted strings to the small of my back, and with
+difficulty refrained from crying. I had never been wretched just in that
+way before. Two imperative duties had met plump and face to face, with a
+shock that jarred all preconceived principles of belief and action out
+of plumb. Cousin Molly Belle had trusted me to keep her secret, and I
+saw no way of doing it except to lie outright and repeatedly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> The sin
+lashed my conscience until I could have located in my corporeal frame
+the exact whereabouts of the uncomfortable possession. So absorbed was I
+by individual upbraidings that Flora's barefaced fabrication of the
+search her young mistress and she had had for the runaway passed
+unrebuked by so much as a look. It was no comfort to me to hear another
+person lie even more glibly than myself. Flora was an ignorant colored
+person, I, a baptized white child of the covenant who could read the
+Bible for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morton tried to make me talk by well-concerted questions. Children
+are best approached through the interrogative mood. It offers just so
+many nails set in a sure place upon which to hang conversation. He was a
+handsome, well-set-up young fellow, and, if somewhat graver by nature
+and habit than most of Cousin Molly Belle's beaux, suited my taste best
+of them all. Yesterday I should have been tickled clean out of the
+proprieties by the chance of talking to him all by myself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> for twenty
+minutes, sitting up in Aunt Eliza's parlor, just like grown folks.</p>
+
+<p>The twenty minutes were like one hundred in sloth and weight before the
+tap of high heels on the oaken stairs and the swish of skirts against
+the banisters advised us who was coming.</p>
+
+<p>She walked into the room with her head high and chin level; her eyes
+shone and her coloring was superb. She had never been more beautiful,
+and never so dignified. Her admirer felt both of these facts, and was
+moved to mute inquiry into the cause of the singular mood. His glowing
+eyes questioned hers while she shook hands with him and then sat down,
+and held out her hand silently to me, without a smile. I went as
+straight to her as a wounded bird to shelter, dropped upon a stool
+beside her and rested my cheek against her knee, my hand in a grasp that
+was close and loving, and&mdash;or so I fancied&mdash;monitory. My heart retorted
+upon writhing conscience that she was worth sinning for. I added,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+dogged and desperate, that I would do it again, if she needed to have it
+done.</p>
+
+<p>"Flora says that you have been very uneasy about this little lady," said
+Mr. Frank, the dumb questioning still in his eyes, while he led the talk
+into safer paths. "And that you have been hunting for her all over the
+plantation."</p>
+
+<p>"Flora said what was not true. I knew where she was, and did not look
+for her at all or anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>The metallic quality in her voice did not belong to it, and her
+articulation was carefully clear, not at all like the gliding vowels and
+consonantal elisions that help make musical the speech of the Southern
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Frank looked puzzled. Had I not been present, he would have got at
+the answer to the enigma. I felt this, but my hand was still in Cousin
+Molly's, and I comprehended that she willed me to stay where I was.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had an adventure, if she has not," resumed Mr. Frank, merrily.
+"You may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> have seen me arrive with two saddle-horses? I was on my way
+here, riding Snap. As I passed John's upper tobacco-field, I saw him at
+the barn. So I tied Snap to a tree and went to speak to John. While we
+were talking a negro ran up, all out of breath, to say that a man and a
+woman had stolen my horse. The negro was too far off to recognize the
+fellow, but he saw him untie Snap, mount him, help a little woman in a
+red dress to get up behind him, and then ride away at a rattling pace.
+Fortunately, John's riding-horse was standing at the barn door. I was in
+the saddle before the story was done, put him at the nearest fence, and
+was after the thieves. I must have gained upon them&mdash;Wildfire can outrun
+any other horse in the county, and I did not spare him&mdash;for the rascals
+left their booty and got away with whole skins. I met Snap just this
+side of Willis's Creek, going home like the sensible creature he is. He
+had been ridden hard, and there were welts on his sides where he had
+been whipped, but I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> got him back safe. It was a risky thing&mdash;their
+stealing him. Everybody about here knows the star in his forehead and
+his white hind foot. The first white man that met the thieves would have
+taken them up. I have no doubt that they belonged to a gang of gypsies
+that are roaming through this neighborhood. A wagon-load of them passed
+our house yesterday and camped last night at the Crossroads. I saw them
+there last night as I went home from Court. On my way back this evening
+I'll give them a call and let them understand that this is an unhealthy
+country for that sort of gentry. Horse-thieves and grapevines are found
+conveniently near to one another, sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>In the horror of the hearing, I must have cried out but for the warning
+squeeze that made my finger-joints slip upon each other and the bones
+ache. The muscles of my face stiffened until I felt it losing all
+resemblance to Molly Burwell. I was sure that it looked like a gray old
+woman's, and instinctively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> turned it into the folds of my cousin's
+skirt. Suppose Mr. Frank had called upon the gypsies before coming here!
+If he had not come to us at all to-day&mdash;what would have happened? Would
+he have had the innocent strangers hanged upon the convenient grapevine?
+Could he be prevented from doing this now unless the truth were told
+him? <i>That</i>, of course, was not to be thought of. Better have the gypsy
+gang driven out of the county and a man and a woman strung up, than let
+Cousin Molly Belle go to jail for wearing men's clothes. She would die
+sooner than confess to any man, least of all to this one, that she had
+worn&mdash;<i>pantaloons!</i>&mdash;and ridden Snap as people who wear the things
+always ride.</p>
+
+<p>How little I knew her was to be proved.</p>
+
+<p>She let go my fingers all at once, pressed her palms together hard, and
+sat up very straight, settling her eyes upon Mr. Frank's. When she
+spoke, the metallic ring was that of a taut piano-string.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You will please not go near the gypsies. <i>I</i> stole your horse. Just for
+fun, you know. And wretched fun it was. I saw him standing there, and
+the temptation to play a trick upon you was too much for me. I meant to
+let him go and send him back when I got to our gate. I did it sooner
+than I expected, because I heard you coming and knew in a minute that
+you must be on Wildfire, and that Snap stood no chance of keeping ahead
+of him."</p>
+
+<p>The listener's face was a study. He stood up and stared down at her, at
+first in incredulous stupefaction, then, frowningly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You&mdash;took&mdash;my&mdash;horse!</i> You were that 'little woman,' then? Who was the
+man?"</p>
+
+<p>"There was no man. The negro did not see straight, or he told you a lie.
+Molly was with me, and, as you see, her frock is pink. We were out
+walking. We both got on the horse. It was a silly, silly prank, and all
+my fault."</p>
+
+<p>The frown disappeared; the perplexity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> remained. He glanced at me, and
+my eyes fell. I so wanted Mr. Frank Morton to think well of me!</p>
+
+<p>"But Molly said&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>She took him up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what Molly said. I was close by and heard every word. She was
+trying to shield me. I told her that I could be put in jail if anybody
+knew what I had done. I tempted the poor, loyal, loving little soul to
+tell the first falsehood that ever soiled her tongue. It was a wicked&mdash;a
+vile&mdash;a <i>mean</i> thing in me! I loathe myself when I think of it. Oh,
+Namesake!"&mdash;encircling me suddenly with her arm&mdash;"we will ask God
+together to forgive us. I am the sinner&mdash;not you!"</p>
+
+<p>I was wetting her sleeve with tears, shed more for her distress than for
+my sin.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Frank Morton made a step toward her.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't comprehend you yet&mdash;quite. You could not have imagined that you
+could ever go to jail if you had stolen every horse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> in my stable&mdash;and
+everything else I have? Don't give another thought to the matter. It was
+a harmless bit of fun that hurt nobody. As to Molly's fibbing&mdash;I was the
+tempter. What was the child to do? I think all the more of her for
+standing between you and possible trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"I tempted Molly to tell her first lie!" She waived aside the hand he
+would have laid upon my head. "I shall recollect that as long as I live.
+I deserve to suffer for it. And I mean to punish myself by telling you
+the whole truth."</p>
+
+<p>In the energy of her resolve, she, too, arose to her feet. A sort of
+ague went from her head to her feet. For an instant there was not a sign
+of color in her cheeks, then, a great billow of blushes beat her face
+down upon her hands. If I had not been clinging to her skirt I could
+hardly have got the meaning of the muffled words. Her lover had to bend
+his head to catch them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>I had on a suit of Burwell's clothes!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>She threw up her head so abruptly that her face almost touched his
+before he could start back.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Now</i>"&mdash;she flung out passionately&mdash;"you will despise me! And you ought
+to!"</p>
+
+<p>Her rush toward the door was intercepted by his quicker action. He
+seized both of her hands and would not let her pass.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, I never respected you before as I do this moment. You
+shall believe this, Molly Belle!"</p>
+
+<p>Not a symptom of a "Miss"! And he the most punctilious of men in
+everything pertaining to polite address and chivalric reverence for
+women! His eyes had strange flashes in them when he turned to me. He was
+grave, but with a gravity that overlaid smiles. His voice was very
+gentle:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Molly, run away to play&mdash;there's a dear child!"</p>
+
+<p>As I obeyed, I saw that he had not let go of Cousin Molly Belle's
+hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_IX" id="Chapter_IX"></a>Chapter IX</h2>
+
+<h3>My Pets</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/illus-148.jpg" width="500" height="465" alt="" title="My Pets" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<p><span class="large">L</span><span class="smcap">ike</span> my games, my stockings, and my frocks, they were home-made. We had
+no caged birds. Our yards and woods thrilled with bird-song all day long
+for eight months of the year, and mocking-birds filled June and July
+nights with music sweeter and more varied than the storied strain of the
+nightingale. I had never seen a canary, and knew nothing of him except
+as I had read of one in what I called a "pair of verses" to which I took
+a fancy. I used to sing them to a tune of my own making when
+grown-uppers were not listening:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Mary had a little bird,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Feathers bright and yellow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Slender legs&mdash;upon my word</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">He was a pretty fellow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Sweetest songs he often sung</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Which much delighted Mary,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And often where his cage was hung</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">She stood to hear Canary."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I classed Mary 'Liza with the grown-uppers. She loved cats, adopting two
+when they were blind kittens, and bringing them up in just such staid
+habits as made her incomparable among children. At six months of age
+they would doze at her feet on the rug while she studied, or ciphered,
+or read aloud, or stitched upon those everlasting chemises. When she
+took a walk for exercise (she never ran, or hopped, or skipped) they
+trotted demurely in the path, beside or behind her, indifferent to
+butterflies and grasshoppers, and as intent upon Behavior as their
+mistress. They were always fat and sleek, and ate civilized
+victuals,&mdash;bread, milk, and cooked meats cut into de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>cent, miminy-piminy
+mouthfuls. Not one of them was ever known to commit the vulgarity of
+catching a mouse. Mary 'Liza considered it cruel, and eating raw flesh
+"a dirty habit." She, the cats, and Dorinda composed a Happy Family in
+which&mdash;barring the Rozillah episode&mdash;no accidents ever happened.</p>
+
+<p>From earliest childhood my love for living creatures as companions and
+pets was a passion that wrought much anguish to me, and more casualties
+in the dumb animal kingdom than would be credited, were I to set down
+the full tale of my bantlings, and the fate of each. At a tender age, I
+sturdily refused to "call mine" the downiest darlings of the
+poultry-yard. There would be a few weeks of having, and loving, and
+fattening, and then the axe and the bloody log at the woodpile, and the
+stormy tears of bereavement. It mattered not to Aunt 'Ritta that my
+foster-children had names to which they answered, that they would feed
+from my hand, and hop on my shoulder, and run quacking, or squawking,
+or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> piping, or chirping, at my heels across the yard, and follow me to
+the field like dogs. When the day and the hour&mdash;always unexpected to
+me&mdash;came, I "called and they answered not again," until, taught by
+bitter experience, I "struck" petting tame and edible living things,
+once and finally.</p>
+
+<p>The miniature menagerie I then set up on my own account, and, as I shall
+show, to the detriment of everything entered upon the rolls, was stocked
+principally by the services of my colored contingent.</p>
+
+<p>Among the first inmates&mdash;they all became patients in the long, or short
+run&mdash;were two striped ground squirrels (chipmunks) who were caught in a
+box with a falling door, and presented to me by Barratier. He lent me
+the box to keep them in. I fed and watered them warily and successfully
+for a couple of days by lifting the door an inch, having previously
+rapped upon it to scare the prisoners to the other end, then slipping in
+the dish of water and the nuts, sugar, or fruit that were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> the day's
+rations. Supposing that kindness and comfortable quarters had tamed them
+into appreciation of my services and intentions, I raised the door two
+inches higher on the third day, and took a good look at the beauties
+huddled trembling in their safe corner. Their bright eyes were alluring,
+their quiescence was encouraging. I spoke to them in dulcet accents, and
+advanced a friendly hand. They met it more than half-way, one leaping
+upon my bare arm, running up to my shoulder, and, with one bound over my
+head, regaining his lost freedom. I caught his less active brother by
+the tail as he was sneaking under the door, and held him tight. In a
+quarter-jiffy he whisked his little body around and dug his teeth into
+my finger, and, as I still held on to his tail, incontinently shed the
+skin of the same, leaving it in my grasp. The last I ever saw of him was
+the flaunt of a gory, ghastly pennant, as the bearer vanished under a
+heap of stones. I flung the bloody casing from me with abhorrence. Now I
+can hope that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> another grew upon the denuded bones. Then I hoped it
+would not. The insult was gross.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate successor of the ingrates was a mouse bestowed upon me by
+one of the stable hands. I named the waif "Caspar Hauser" forthwith,
+being fresh from the perusal of the history of that engaging fraud, and
+inducted him into a spare rat-trap set about closely with wires. A
+horsehair sparrow's nest was lined with raw cotton and put in one
+corner, a toy saucer of water in the other, and in the third a toy plate
+filled with cracked hickory nuts, interspersed with bits of sugar. Then
+I sat down upon the floor beside him, and began the business of taming
+him by getting him used to seeing me, cultivating his acquaintance by
+poking my finger between the bars, talking and singing to him, and
+endeavoring, by other ingenious devices, to make him feel at home. He
+scampered around the confines of his domicile, as in a treadmill, all
+the time I was thus employed, and could not be induced to touch his
+food.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mary 'Liza and I had outgrown the trundle-bed, and had a room to
+ourselves upstairs. Into this I surreptitiously conveyed the improvised
+cage that night and hid it under the bed. When my bedfellow had fallen
+asleep, I got up softly, lighted a candle, and took a peep at my pet. He
+had gone regularly to bed after disposing of some of the nuts and
+scattering the remnants in every direction, and now lay curled up in the
+cotton-wool in the prettiest, most homelike way imaginable, fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>I hung over him, entranced. He was tamed! Before long he would be
+following me all over the house, playing hide-and-seek in corners,
+sitting upon his hind legs beside my plate at table, and nibbling such
+tidbits as I might give him. One particularly bright picture of our
+common future was of taking him to church, smuggling him into the pocket
+of my Sunday frock, and after settling myself comfortably upon my knees
+before a corner seat during the "long prayer," taking Caspar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> Hauser out
+and letting him play on the bench. What a boon his society would
+be&mdash;what a relief his antics while Mr. Lee droned through innumerable
+"We pray Thees!"</p>
+
+<p>After I went back to bed I pursued these and other enchanting visions
+into dreamland. The next day I took Caspar Hauser into the garden for
+air and sunshine. His liveliness was something inconceivable by the
+human imagination. He chased himself frantically around the cage,
+regardless of my tender exhortations, until I began to fear that taming
+was a more tedious process than I had supposed. I set the cage upon the
+grass where the sun was hottest, withdrawing myself into the shade as
+less in need of light and warmth, and read a volume of Berquin's
+<i>Children's Friend</i> in full sight of Caspar Hauser. Whenever I turned a
+page I would stick my finger between the wires and chirrup encouragingly
+to the captive, all with a single eye to getting him used to me. His
+speed and staying powers were equally extraordinary, but I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> cheered,
+when the forenoon was spent and I picked up the cage to take him in, by
+observing that he ran more deliberately and with occasional pauses. By
+the time I got him upstairs he lay down for a nap. He was still
+slumbering at my supper-time, and had not got his nap out when I went to
+bed, nor yet when breakfast was eaten and lessons said, next morning.</p>
+
+<p>I had made up my mind by now that he was sick, and carried him into the
+garden once more. I had read that wild creatures physic themselves if
+allowed to seek such plants as instinct tells them are specifics for
+their ailments. Lifting Caspar Hauser from his woolly bed, I stroked him
+and called him by name. He was so tame by now that he did not struggle
+upon my palm. Only the rise and fall of his furry sides showed that he
+was alive. He was limp and helpless, and to me very lovable. I laid him
+upon a strip of turf hot with the sunshine that had steeped it for five
+hours. He had a liberal choice of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> healing herbs. Parsley, sage, mint,
+tansy, peppergrass, catnip, and sweet marjoram, rue and bergamot and
+balsam, flourished within a hundred lengths of his small body. While I
+watched him he stretched himself as a baby at awakening, and began to
+crawl weakly toward the tansy bed. To save him needless exertion I
+pulled a handful of the yellow heads and offered them to his inquisitive
+nose. Mam' Chloe had given me tansy tea for a bad cold last winter. It
+tasted nasty, but I got well. Instinct had "indicated" tansy to Caspar
+Hauser. He refused the panacea dumbly, and made, still feebly, for the
+parsley patch. I let him go a yard or more, when, fearing lest he might
+lose himself in the maze of luxuriant herbage, I dragged him tenderly
+back by the tail to the hot turf.</p>
+
+<p>He had grown so tame that he never moved again.</p>
+
+<p>The funeral took place that afternoon. We buried him next to Musidora. I
+had had enough of vaults, regarding them, with reason,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> as uncertain
+places of sepulture for the presumably defunct. I had never heard, or
+read, of cremation. I had had the misfortune to break my slate a few
+days before, and the biggest fragment made a nice tombstone for Caspar
+Hauser. With a nail and with infinite toil I produced a suitable
+epitaph.</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem">
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">HERE LIES</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">HIS AFLICTED</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">MISS M. BURWELL'S</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">FATHEFULL LIT</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">TLE FREND AN</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">D TAME PLA</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">YFELOW AND</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">SUFFERER</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">C. H.</span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>There was not room for the whole name, but, as I told my fellow-mourners
+when I read the inscription to them, since we all knew it, the omission
+was of no consequence. I could have wished that the slate had broken
+straight, so that the inscription would have gone in better. However,
+one cannot control circumstance when it takes the shape of a fracture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Within twenty-four hours after Caspar Hauser's decease he was succeeded
+by Bay. His name in its entirety, was Baffin's Bay. The alliterative
+unctuousness of the title pleased me, as Mary 'Liza pronounced it
+smoothly in her geography lesson, the day on which Hamilcar, the
+carriage driver, drove over a young "old hare" in the road, and knocked
+one of the poor thing's eyes out. It was taken up for dead, but
+presently began to kick, and the ownership reverted to me. It lived a
+week, and for hours at a time was so nearly comfortable as to eat
+sparingly of milk, lettuce, cabbage, and clover, with which I supplied
+it lavishly twice a day. I likewise treated the wounded eye with
+balsam-capeiva and balm of Gilead ointment, sovereign appliances for the
+bruises and cut fingers of that generation. A lemon box, with slats
+nailed across the front by faithful Barratier, was the hospital in which
+I laid Bay up for repairs. Him, too, I carried daily into the garden,
+for change of air. He condescended to approve of the parsley patch,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+limping through it as gracefully as the long tape tied to his right hind
+leg would allow.</p>
+
+<p>When, upon the third day of his residence in civilized quarters, he had
+a convulsion in the very middle of the parsley patch, I thought it a
+playful antic, and was amused and gratified thereat. The second time
+this happened, James, the gardener, chanced to witness the performance
+and informed me, brutally, that "that old hyar had throwed a fit, and
+was boun' to die 'fore long.</p>
+
+<p>"That 'ar lick on de side o' de hade done de bizness fur him, sure. De
+brain am injerred. Mighty easy thing fur to injer a Molly Cottontail's
+brain. He ain't got much, an' hit lies close to de top o' de hade."</p>
+
+<p>For forty-eight hours before Bay died, the spasms were distressingly
+frequent, but I would not have him killed. James might be wrong. Good
+nursing and plenty of fresh air might bring my patient around. For fear
+my parents might insist that he should be put out of his misery, I
+removed the hospital to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> playhouse, and gave him the range of the
+place, forbidding the colored children to tell what was going on. His
+agonies were nearly over when, in the distraction of anxiety, I took
+Cousin Frank Morton into confidence. He had ridden over with a message
+from Cousin Molly Belle.</p>
+
+<p>(Have I mentioned that they had been married for six months?)</p>
+
+<p>The message was to the effect that I must spend the day and night with
+her. My mother gave ready consent.</p>
+
+<p>"Molly has been too pale for several days, and has little or no
+appetite," she said, looking affectionately at me. "The change will do
+her good, and there is no other place where she enjoys a visit more than
+at your house. Molly! can't you thank Cousin Frank for taking the
+trouble to come for you?"</p>
+
+<p>Strained by conflicting emotions, I fidgeted awkwardly about Cousin
+Frank's chair, pinching the hem of my apron into folds, and shifting
+from one foot to the other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I want to go <i>dreadfully</i>!" I got out at length, almost ready to cry.
+"<i>But</i>&mdash;Cousin Frank&mdash;wouldn't you like to look at Bay? He's an old hare
+that I am taming."</p>
+
+<p>While speaking, I started for the door, and he came after me. My mother
+exclaimed, provoked, yet laughing, that I was "getting more ridiculous
+every day," but I knew my man, and did not stop.</p>
+
+<p>Bay was throwing a particularly hard fit when we got to him. His cries
+had something humanlike in them that pierced ears and heart.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child!" uttered the shocked visitor. "How long has this been
+going on?"</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing that the poor thing had never seemed really well from the
+day he was hurt, and had been "going on like this for four days,
+hand-running," he was quite angry&mdash;for him.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder that your mother let you keep him when he was in this state,"
+he said seriously; and, seeing the tears I could not drive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> back, he sat
+down on my chair and drew me up to him. "It would be better to kill the
+poor creature, at once, dear. He can never be better."</p>
+
+<p>I begged him not to tell my mother about Bay's sickness. I had become
+very fond of him, and he was so sweet and patient&mdash;and tame,&mdash;and I just
+couldn't bear to have him killed. Whether he would have granted my
+petition or not was not to be tested. While I was speaking, Bay uttered
+a shrill scream, leaped up high in the air, and fell over on his back,
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>We hurried on the funeral that I might go home with Cousin Frank that
+evening. I pulled up the tombstone from the head of Caspar Hauser's
+grave and made an epitaph on the other side for Bay. There might not be
+another slate broken in the family for months. At the present rate of
+mortality among my pensioners, it behooved me to be economical. I had
+not time to indite such an elaborate testimonial to the worth of the
+de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>ceased as graced Caspar Hauser's last resting-place. Yet I thought
+the tribute not amiss, and the drop into poetry elated me and
+electrified my audience. The lines were engraved perpendicularly upon
+the slate to give the rhyme effective room:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Alas! and Alack A DAY!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Poor Litle BAFFINS BAY!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>My visit lasted three days instead of one and a half. I brought back
+with me something worthy of the pride that swelled my happy heart to
+aching. One of Cousin Frank's men had taken two young hares alive, and
+given them to his mistress a week ago, and she and Cousin Frank had
+arranged a pleasant surprise for me. Before I had been in the house an
+hour I was taken to the dining room to see the dear little things
+already housed in a cage, made by the plantation carpenter. None of your
+lemon-box makeshifts, but a strong case in the shape of a cottage, of
+planed wood, painted white on the outside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> There were two rooms in it
+with a round door in the dividing wall. One was half full of soft,
+sweet-smelling hay for Darby and Joan to sleep upon. Their names were
+ready-made, too. The other room was a parlor where they were to eat and
+to live in the daytime. Broad leather straps by which the box could be
+carried were made to look like chimneys.</p>
+
+<p>The whole family collected to admire my treasures when I got home, and
+Mary 'Liza was so much interested in Darby and Joan that she brought up
+her cats, Cinderella and Preciosa, to be introduced and make friends
+with "their new cousins"&mdash;so she said. Cinderella was black-and-white,
+Preciosa yellow-and-white, very large, and with long fur as soft and
+fine as raw silk. Mary 'Liza put them down close to the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be very good and never hurt either of the beautiful hares&mdash;you
+hear?" she said, and we all looked on to see what they would do.</p>
+
+<p>Bless your soul! they walked once around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> the cottage in a lazy,
+indifferent, supercilious way, hardly glancing at their "new cousins,"
+then Preciosa yawned, tiptoed back to her place on the rug, doubled her
+toes in under her, and half closed her "greenery-yallery" eyes in real,
+or simulated slumber. Cinderella purred about her mistress until she
+seated herself again to work upon her seventh chemise, then jumped up
+into her lap and composed herself to slumber.</p>
+
+<p>After that, I had no fear that the well-fed, pampered creatures would
+molest my pets. Everybody sympathized in my good fortune. The weather
+was intensely warm, and Uncle Ike's own august hands rigged up a shelf
+against the garden fence, making what I called a "situation" for my
+cottage. Not even Argus could get at them there, had he been evilly
+disposed, and he had excellent principles for a puppy. Darby and Joan
+nibbled lettuce and cabbage from my fingers inside of three days, and if
+they were in the bedroom when I approached their dwelling, would bus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>tle
+out to see if it were milk, or greens, or, maybe, clover blossoms that I
+had for them.</p>
+
+<p>The happy, happy days went by, and I announced to my father one evening
+as we sat at supper that I really "began to believe the curse was lifted
+from my pets."</p>
+
+<p>"The curse! Mary Hobson Burwell! what a word!" cried my mother.</p>
+
+<p>My father held up his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, if you please, mother! Explain yourself, Molly!"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," answered I, bravely, "that it used to seem as if a wicked
+fairy had cursed a curse upon anything I took a fancy to. Like the girl
+in the song, and her tree and flower, and dear gazelle, you know. But
+Darby and Joan make me hope&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The words were blasted upon my tongue by a terrible scream.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_X" id="Chapter_X"></a>Chapter X</h2>
+
+<h3>Circumstantial Evidence</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/illus-168a.jpg" width="500" height="475"  alt="" title="Circumstantial Evidence" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 86px;">
+<img src="images/illus-168b.jpg" width="86" height="250" style="margin-top: -2em;" alt="" title="T" />
+</div>
+<p>HE garden gate was close to the dining-room windows, and the windows
+were not high above the ground. I rushed for the nearest. The moon was
+bright, and I was in time to see three cats jump down from the shelf on
+which the cottage was "situated," and dart away in as many different
+directions. One ran close along the wall of the house, and I recognized
+Preciosa. Hurling myself over the window-sill, I was the first of our
+startled party to reach the scene of the tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>The attack had been made from the three exposed sides of the cottage,
+the cats thrust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>ing their claws between the bars and dragging my
+darlings up against these.</p>
+
+<p>My father opened the cottage door and took out the mangled, palpitating
+bodies.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father!" I shrieked. "Are they killed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my daughter."</p>
+
+<p>Then I went crazy. So raging and raving crazy that when I came partially
+to my senses, I did not recollect what I had been saying or doing since
+I heard the awful truth. I had been removed from the dark and bloody
+ground in some way and by somebody, for I was lying on my mother's bed.
+The consciousness of where I was had in it some drops of the oil of
+consolation. Next to the close embrace of the mother's arms there is no
+other resting-place on earth that so aptly typifies the safety and
+healing grace of Heaven to the child of whatever age, as Mother's Bed.</p>
+
+<p>In our house, to be laid upon that miracle of elastic fluffiness was to
+become, in fancy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> a bless&egrave;d ghost, cradled upon a cloud. The sick
+child, the hurt child, the repentant child&mdash;were received into that holy
+asylum without other certificate than his or her need.</p>
+
+<p>Finding myself there made me feel that there might still be something
+worth living for, and to care for. My mother was by me and her arm was
+under my head; my father stood at the foot of the bed, kind and
+compassionate; Mam' Chloe was putting a bottle of hot water to my feet,
+and there was a strong smell of cologne in the air. I was very weak; my
+head felt queer and light, and although I was not crying, something
+seemed to grab me inside and shake me every little while&mdash;a short, sharp
+shake that made me gasp. Before I could open my eyes I heard my mother's
+voice say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I wish the dear child did not take things so much to heart. It will
+bring her a great deal of sorrow in her future life."</p>
+
+<p>Ah, bless&egrave;d mother of mine! for so many years beyond the sight and
+hearing of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> vicissitudes of that life, then new and all
+untried&mdash;yours was but a partial prophecy. Against the sorrows born of
+"taking things so much to heart," I set a wealth of joy and beauty and
+love that have been made mine own by the same nature and habit.</p>
+
+<p>What she said or meant was little to me at that moment, for as I blinked
+confusedly about me, I saw Mary 'Liza, neat and upright, in her own
+especial chair by the window, and Preciosa was on her lap.</p>
+
+<p>An electric bolt quivered through me. I started up and pointed at the
+placid pair, my hand shaking like a leaf, my voice thick with
+spluttering wrath:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>She</i> did it! I want her killed."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear child, lie down, don't talk, you are dreaming," cooed my mother,
+trying to force me gently down to the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>I put her aside, and tried to form articulate words.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That, cat, did, it!</i> I saw her. I'll kill her! Let me get up."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My father came to my mother's help.</p>
+
+<p>"Take the cat out of the room, Mary Eliza," he ordered calmly. And to
+me&mdash;"Now, Molly, we will hear what you have to say."</p>
+
+<p>He heard and weighed the evidence before I was put to bed in my own
+room. My head still went around queerly when I raised it, but my mind
+was clear. He sat by me and stroked my hand gently while he got my
+testimony. His kindness to his orphaned niece was unfailing, but he
+seldom caressed her, and nobody ever romped with her. He listened to my
+story first, and as patiently as if he were not to hear any other.</p>
+
+<p>I was hotly positive that the big cat I had seen jump from the shelf and
+dash by the window so close to me that I could have touched her by
+leaning over the sill, was Preciosa. There was no other cat of her size
+and color on the plantation. Beyond this conviction the prosecution had
+not a scrap of testimony to offer. On the side of the accused were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> the
+record of a blameless life; the lack of motive, inasmuch as the accused
+was fed abundantly with daily bread far more convenient for her than the
+raw flesh she had never desired before,&mdash;and, as a "clincher," an alibi
+was set up by Preciosa's mistress, who, coming into the chamber a few
+minutes after the disaster, had found the cat sleeping upon the rug just
+as she had left her when the supper bell rang,&mdash;and with never a speck
+of blood on her paws and fur.</p>
+
+<p>"She had licked it off, then!" I stormed. "I tell you I did see her! I
+did! I <i>did</i>! I <span class="smcap">DID</span>! Father! you know I wouldn't tell a story about
+it&mdash;don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that you think you saw her, my daughter. We all believe that.
+But you may have been mistaken. You were very much excited, and the cat
+ran fast, and it was in the night, recollect, and the moon is not as
+bright as the day. Altogether, we must take it for granted that Preciosa
+is not guilty,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> and keep a sharp lookout for the strange cat that did
+the mischief."</p>
+
+<p>"It was Preciosa&mdash;hateful old thing!" I insisted, angry and sullen. "She
+ought to be killed!"</p>
+
+<p>My father arose with decision that showed the case was concluded.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother! you will see that our little daughter does not talk any more
+about this to-night? She will, I hope, feel differently in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>I did not. In saying my prayers at bedtime I pointedly omitted&mdash;"Forgive
+us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I did
+not mean to forgive Preciosa. Furthermore, I was not at peace with her
+mistress and advocate. The more I mused, the hotter the fire burned,
+until I was ready to convict my father of injustice, and my mother of
+rank favoritism for the alien. I sulked violently at breakfast, and as I
+was not reproved, grew so stubborn and disrespectful over my lessons
+that I was sent to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> my room to stay there until dinner was ready. The
+term of banishment had still an hour to run, and I was leaning, listless
+and wretched, out of the window when Mam' Chloe and Uncle Ike met in the
+yard directly beneath, and part of the low dialogue reached me.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef I could onct ketch that Precious-O-sir in some o' her tricks, you'd
+see the fur fly,&mdash;mind!" said the butler.</p>
+
+<p>"I suttinly is mighty sorry for po' Miss Molly," answered his wife.
+"Looks-if hur heart is pretty nigh broke. It's right down pitiful to see
+how much sto' she sot by them young old hyars. You mus' see ef you can't
+get her some mo'."</p>
+
+<p>I dropped my head on the window-sill and cried out the tears that
+scalded my lids at the unexpected touch of sympathy. Then I fell to
+thinking and with a purpose.</p>
+
+<p>I went down to dinner with a tolerably composed countenance, a good
+appetite, and a well-digested scheme of vengeance in my mind. Uncle Ike
+was my only co-conspira<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>tor. I think I can see him now as he rolled back
+against the garden fence to laugh as I unfolded my design.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef you ain't the <i>beater</i>!" he chuckled, his pepper-and-salt poll
+tilted to one shoulder, and eyeing me with undisguised admiration. "An'
+you say nobody ain' put it into your hade?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't said a word about it to anybody else, Uncle Ike. You'll help
+me,&mdash;won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>He doubled himself up like a dyspeptic jack-knife, the ingenuity of the
+plot gaining upon his imagination.</p>
+
+<p>I pressed my advantage:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And don't tell Mam' Chloe&mdash;please! She'll think it is cruel. But it
+isn't. It's just only justice. And it can't bring <i>them</i> back."</p>
+
+<p>I clenched my fists, and my eyes filled.</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, Miss Molly, that's so," sobering instantly. "It is mighty
+hard on you&mdash;powerful hard."</p>
+
+<p>"And, Uncle Ike,"&mdash;hurrying to get it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> out lest my voice should
+fail,&mdash;"please don't let anybody give me any more old hares, or any
+'live things to keep. They'll just die, or be murdered by other folks'
+cats&mdash;or something. It's no use making myself happy for a little while
+just to be sorry for ever and ever so long afterward."</p>
+
+<p>With which epigram I ran away, afraid to try to utter another word.</p>
+
+<p>That evening we were all on the front porch. The air was breezeless, the
+moon as yellow as brass through sultry fogs. My mother, in a white
+dress, lay back in her rocking-chair and fanned herself languidly. My
+father smoked his Powhatan pipe upon the steps, leaning against one
+pillar of the roof. Mary 'Liza in pale-blue lawn, occupied the other end
+of the step. Her hands were in her lap. Cinderella dozed upon a fold of
+her skirt. Dorinda had been undressed and rocked to sleep at sunset.
+Preciosa had gone upstairs at the same time. I saw her lying upon the
+foot of our bed after supper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> her eyes narrowed to slender slits with
+sleep or slyness. I had a shrewd impression that if I were to go
+upstairs now I should not find her in the same place. Instead of
+verifying the surmise in this way I stole noiselessly out of the family
+group, sauntering along carelessly until I turned the corner of the
+house, after which I ran like a lapwing to the garden gate, the
+rendezvous agreed upon between Uncle Ike and myself.</p>
+
+<p>He was there with the various "properties" I had ordered.</p>
+
+<p><i>Imprimis</i>, a big dish-pan; <i>second</i>, a monstrous black pot from which
+steam arose into the hot night; <i>third</i>, a stout twine, to one end of
+which was attached a brick; a lump of raw liver dangled at the other. By
+my directions the pan was balanced upon the shelf where the cottage had
+stood, so that a slight pull would overset it, the brick was laid in the
+bottom, the string with the liver attachment hanging over the side.
+Lastly, Uncle Ike mounted upon the stool I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> was wont to use when I
+visited my murdered dears, and filled the pan from the pot. All being
+ready, we conspirators withdrew to the unlighted dining room, and
+stationed ourselves at a window.</p>
+
+<p>Our watch was not tedious. I was the first to discern a moving speck in
+the dim vista of the walk leading from the gate far down the garden. It
+enlarged and assumed a definite form, slowly. Evidently it was a scout,
+and the advance a reconnoissance. Feline artifice was in every line and
+motion. A ray of misty moonlight lay athwart the entrance to the garden.
+The gate was propped open. As the cat crossed it, we recognized a wily
+and wicked old Tom from the stable, a disreputable plebeian prowler,
+never tolerated in the house grounds. I hardly smothered an ejaculation
+as dainty Preciosa glided into the illuminated area and took part in the
+furtive inspection of the preparations made for the reception of last
+night's marauders. A third, and yet a fourth, mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>creant joined the
+first two, and heads were laid together in a council of war.</p>
+
+<p>The liver hung high. Tom rose upon his hind feet, clawed the air
+futilely and came down sheepishly upon all fours. Next, a small, nimble
+black cat jumped and fell short of the bait. Uncle Ike snickered, and I
+drew in my breath excitedly, as the pampered exquisite, My Lady
+Preciosa, tripped mincingly into the open. The moon shone out obligingly
+to let us see her fall into position, her head upraised toward the
+tempting morsel&mdash;(pig's liver, and none too fresh at that)&mdash;her
+crouching body thrown well back upon the haunches, her tail, enlarged to
+double the usual size, waving sinuously from side to side in leisurely
+calculation of distance and chances. Suddenly she launched her supple
+body into space like a catapult, caught the meat between her claws,
+swung in the air for a victorious half-second&mdash;and then, the deluge!</p>
+
+<p>A chorus of screeches, a frantic stampede in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> all directions, and the
+arena was clear of all except the home-made infernal machine,&mdash;the empty
+dish-pan upside down on the ground, the brick, the string, and the raw
+meat lying under it.</p>
+
+<p>The caterwauling, Uncle Ike's "ky-yi!" and my scream of laughter,
+brought the porch-party to the spot. By previous agreement neither of us
+mentioned Preciosa's name. I had to pinch myself violently to contain
+the unseemly mirth bottled up in my wicked soul when Mary 'Liza was "so
+glad the horrible creatures were punished," and "hoped" gently "that
+Molly was convinced, now, that poor, dear Preciosa was innocent."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, where <i>is</i> Preciosa?" asked my father.</p>
+
+<p>"She seemed so sleepy that I gave her her supper, and put her to bed,
+when I took Dorinda upstairs," said her surety.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps my father partly interpreted the gleam in my eyes and the
+quivering muscles about my uncontrollable mouth, for he glanced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> keenly
+at me and made as if he would let the inquiry drop. Not so my mother.
+She bade Mary 'Liza run upstairs and make sure that Preciosa was there.</p>
+
+<p>"I want my dear little girl to be entirely satisfied that her cousin was
+right, and that she did the cat an injustice," she said with judicial
+mildness.</p>
+
+<p>Preciosa was not in our room, and she stayed out all night, greatly to
+her owner's alarm and distress. Her habits were so regular, her
+deportment was always so impeccable that the circumstance assumed the
+proportions of an Event by breakfast time. My mother was anxious, Mary
+'Liza sorrowful, and my father shook his head more gravely than the
+occasion seemed to warrant.</p>
+
+<p>"Molly may not have been so far wrong after all," he observed to my
+mother, "in spite of the array of circumstantial evidence against her."</p>
+
+<p>My mother was unconvinced.</p>
+
+<p>"Previous good behavior should count for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> much in such a case," she
+urged. "And our little Molly is too apt to jump at conclusions. We
+cannot be too careful how we accuse others of sins which they may never
+have committed."</p>
+
+<p>I understood what they said perfectly. They never talked down to us.
+That was one reason we were called "old-fashioned" and "precocious" by
+people who had one set of words for their own use, and another for
+children. My parents considered, and I think rightly, that the best and
+most correct forms of speech should be taught to mere infants, that it
+is as easy to train a child to be grammatical as to let it lapse into
+all sorts of slovenly inaccuracies that must be unlearned at school, and
+in society. So, when they talked of "circumstantial evidence" I had a
+fair inkling of what the phrase conveyed. Preciosa was upon trial for
+misdemeanor, and I for backbiting.</p>
+
+<p>I ate away industriously to keep from "answering back,"&mdash;a cardinal
+offence in nursery government. Mary 'Liza had no appetite, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> she,
+also, remained silent, and there was moisture under her eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>"We will suspend judgment&mdash;" began my father, and interrupted himself to
+ask&mdash;"What <i>have</i> you got there, Ike?"</p>
+
+<p>The butler grinned from ear to ear, and broke into uncontrollable
+cachinnations in depositing his burden upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the stable-boys foun' it in the lof', suh."</p>
+
+<p>He could say no more, and would not have been heard had he gone on, for
+my father roared, my mother fairly shrieked with laughter, and I went
+into hysterics, while Mam' Chloe and Gilbert joined in the general
+racket from the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>An abject nondescript cringed at Mary 'Liza's feet, whimpering
+piteously. The devil's broth concocted by Uncle Ike, according to my
+receipt, was warm starch, made blue with indigo. A few red peppers were
+boiled in it to dissuade the cats from licking it off before it could
+dry. It adhered to every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> individual hair of Preciosa's body. She looked
+like an azure porcupine. I had thought, at first, of using soot as
+coloring matter, but the thought of the blue appealed to my sense of the
+congruous ridiculous. I was more than content with the result. Why a
+blue cat should be more mirth-provoking than a yellow may not be
+explicable, but the fact remains. Even Mary 'Liza shrank from contact
+with the absurd object, and the moisture condensed into falling drops.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Mary! do you think it <i>can</i> be Preciosa? It looks like
+a&mdash;<i>monster</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>With tears running down his cheeks, and his sides shaking with gusts of
+merriment, my father took me upon his knee, and gave me the funniest
+kiss I ever had&mdash;a jerky kiss, as if a bee had bobbed against my mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be the death of me yet, child!" And after another series of
+side-shakings&mdash;"So much for circumstantial evidence!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XI" id="Chapter_XI"></a>Chapter XI</h2>
+
+<h3>Frankenstein</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus-186.jpg" width="600" height="393" alt="" title="Frankenstein" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="large">T</span><span class="smcap">he</span> morning was biting cold. A northwest wind had been busy for hours
+sweeping and dusting the sky until, now that it was resting from its
+labors, the blue vault was as clean and bright as our mahogany
+dining-table after Uncle Ike had polished it with beeswax and rosin.</p>
+
+<p>At the breakfast-table the butter splintered off under the knife, and
+the milk was frozen so hard that Mary 'Liza and I sugared it and made
+believe it was ice-cream. When Gilbert, the under dining-room servant,
+brought in the buckwheat cakes and waffles from the kitchen, he had to
+cover them with a hot plate, and then run as hard as he could go across
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> yard to the house, to keep them from chilling on the way.</p>
+
+<p>There are no buckwheat cakes nowadays, like those that Aunt 'Ritta
+made&mdash;glossy brown, all of a size, and porous as a sponge. It was great
+fun to butter them, and then press them with the flat of a knife-blade,
+to see spurts and spouts rise from the surface like so many hot oil
+geysers.</p>
+
+<p>That was the morning when I made the eight-cakes-and-one-sausage speech
+that passed into a family proverb. The night before I had thrown a
+candle-end, four inches long, into the fire, and my mother had told me
+it was a Christian duty to be economical, defining the word for me.
+Bent, as usual, upon practising what I learned, I divided my sausage
+into eight bits, and ate one with each cake.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Molly Belle and Cousin Frank Morton had stayed all night with us,
+and the talk at table was so lively that nobody noticed what I was
+about. We were not allowed to chatter during meals when others than the
+family were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> present, or, indeed, at any other time if grown people were
+talking, until invited by them to take part in the conversation. So I
+waited for a lull in the chat to say aside to my mother at whose left
+hand I sat:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mother! I have made one sausage do for eight buckwheat cakes. Wasn't
+that economical?"</p>
+
+<p>Even Cousin Molly Belle laughed, the "aside" being more audible than I
+meant to have it. True, she hugged me the next minute, her chair being
+next to mine on the other side, but her eyes were lively with amusement,
+and I saw that she was ready to break out again.</p>
+
+<p>My poor dainty mother actually blushed. It was not fashionable then for
+ladies, and little girls who were going to be ladies, to have hearty
+appetites. School-girls were instructed that no well-bred young lady
+ever ate more than two biscuits at breakfast or supper, and one was more
+refined than two. The pinion of a partridge sufficed the Lydia Languish
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> that day for the meat course of a dinner, and to be hungry was to be
+coarse. My mother was a sensible matron who did not lean to extreme
+views on any subject, but she did not rise superior to a mortification
+such as this. When she said distressfully:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Molly! Eight cakes! I am ashamed that you should be so greedy!" I
+comprehended that my offence was rank, and that not her taste alone, but
+her sensibilities, suffered.</p>
+
+<p>I got hot all over, as was my custom when self-convicted of sin, and sat
+abashed, appetite and spirits put to flight together.</p>
+
+<p>My father pulled his face straight.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind this time, mother! Better pay meat bills than doctor's
+bills. And, on a cold day, a restless little body like hers needs a
+great deal of carbon to keep the fires going. Eight buckwheat cakes and
+a thumping big sausage represent just so much animal heat."</p>
+
+<p>By and by, when I got a chance to speak to him alone, I asked him what
+carbon was, and what he meant by the fires and animal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> heat. He was at
+work at his table in "the office" in the yard, the Mortons having gone
+home, but he put down his pen and talked to me for quite a while upon
+nutrition and food values. He did not use those terms. They had not come
+into vogue even with medical men and writers upon anatomy. Still, his
+simple lecture made me comprehend that what I ate kept me alive and warm
+and active, and how certain kinds of food made blood, and others,
+muscle, and others were of little or no use in keeping up animal heat,
+without which there could be no life.</p>
+
+<p>I asked him if we could keep a dead thing warm if it would come to life
+again. I was thinking of all my dead pets. It was pathetic,&mdash;the
+familiarity of a seven-year-old with death and dissolution,&mdash;but of this
+I was not aware.</p>
+
+<p>He answered very gravely:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot keep dead things warm, daughter. When animal heat goes, life
+goes."</p>
+
+<p>"And when animal heat comes, does life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> come?" I queried. "Is that what
+makes things alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear. I have not time to explain it to you now. I am very busy.
+Some other time we will talk more about it."</p>
+
+<p>I carried a spandy new idea, and a stirring, into the garden with me at
+noon, as a chicken runs away to a corner with a crumb. The sun shone
+brightly, and I easily kept comfortable by skipping up and down a long
+walk, bordered on the northern side by an arbor-vit&aelig; hedge. I did not
+know that resinous evergreens really give out warmth, but I had found
+out, for myself, that this was the warmest nook of the grounds in
+winter, and haunted it exceedingly.</p>
+
+<p>"When animal heat comes, life comes," I repeated aloud, in dancing
+along.</p>
+
+<p>The sentence sounded important, and pleased my ears. Presently, I would
+set about getting all the meaning I could extract from it, and
+experiment upon my acquisition. All my mental currency went into active
+circulation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>An odd-looking thing lay in the middle of the path, that was not there
+when I came down awhile ago. I thought, at the first glance, that it was
+a hedgehog. I had seen pictures of the animal, and knew that when hunted
+so closely that it cannot escape it rolls itself into a prickly ball.
+This queer object was an oblong roll, about six inches in length and two
+inches thick, and covered with very coarse brown fur or wool. I picked
+it up. It was very cold. Then it could not be alive. It was light as a
+puffball. Then it was empty. For the rest it was a puzzle. I ran with it
+to Mam' Chloe, who was getting Bud to sleep in my mother's chamber.</p>
+
+<p>She cast a look at my "find," and sniffed impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Always huntin' and foolin' long some trash or nuther! Fetchin' er ole
+dade sunflower in ter show me when I'm doin' my bes' ter git this
+bless&egrave;d sugar-plum pie to sleep so's I ken git to my mendin'. Go 'long,
+Miss Molly!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I was used to her moods, clement and adverse, and I stood my ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you <i>sure</i> it's a sunflower, mammy?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you take me fur, chile? Don' I know a sunflower that's run ter
+seed las' summer, an' is empty an' dade as Furious [Pharaoh] now? I got
+no time to steddy 'bout sech foolishness."</p>
+
+<p>I walked off,&mdash;not crestfallen, but blithe. One word had shunted my
+ideas upon a new track. She called this nondescript&mdash;which might, or
+might not, be the dried and warped disk of a sunflower that had cast its
+seeds&mdash;"dead." What should hinder me from making it alive? It looked
+like a hedgehog, or some other animal. It <i>should</i> be an animal! Food of
+the right kind, and plenty of heat, were all it needed.</p>
+
+<p>"Carbon and animal heat!" uttered I, consequentially, swelling with the
+prospective joy of creation.</p>
+
+<p>Already I foresaw, in imagination, the tremor of the coming breath
+running through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> the uncouth body that would then put out, from
+mysterious hiding-places, head and limbs and tail, as buds unfold into
+flowers. I would confide to nobody what I was going to undertake. But I
+would do it! I would keep up animal heat, hour after hour, day after
+day, until my&mdash;Creature&mdash;breathed and moved and grew!</p>
+
+<p>Without delay I hied me to the kitchen, and begged a cold sausage and a
+pone of corn-bread from Aunt 'Ritta. She made no objection beyond asking
+why I "wanted sassage 'n' corn-bread in de middle o' de mawnin', 'stead
+o' piece o' cake, or somethin' sweet."</p>
+
+<p>"Because the weather is so cold," I replied briefly, and got what I
+wished with a grunt of "Dat's so, honey!" Negroes are constitutionally
+averse to winter and cold, and recognize, without knowing why, the
+carboniferous properties of pork and pone. I bore my treasures off to
+the dining room, shut the door, and began my experiment in the hottest
+flare of the fireshine.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 397px;">
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="397" height="600" alt="Molly&#39;s Experiment.
+
+&quot;I hied me to the kitchen and begged a cold sausage and a pone of
+corn-bread from Aunt &#39;Ritta.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">Molly&#39;s Experiment.
+
+&quot;I hied me to the kitchen and begged a cold sausage and a pone of
+corn-bread from Aunt &#39;Ritta.&quot;</span>
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The sunflower disk was a curiosity to me. It had curled inward upon
+itself, leaving a considerable cavity within. I stuffed this with the
+bread and sausage, crumbled fine, ruminating, the while, upon the
+probability that the sausage and cakes I had devoured presented the like
+appearance by the time they reached my stomach. When the variegated and
+viscid compound was tucked away, I wound a soft string about the disk to
+keep it in shape, and enveloped it, first in raw cotton, then in a bit
+of red flannel. In my uncertainty as to which end would bourgeon into a
+head, and from which would be evolved the tail, I left both ends open
+that <span class="smcap">IT</span> might be able to breathe when breath came. Lastly, I secreted it
+under my cricket. It was what was known as "a box cricket," and the
+enclosing sides came to within three inches of the floor. It stood at
+the warmest corner of the hearth, and I was well-nigh roasted by the
+time I had sat upon it long enough to read the chapter in <i>Sandford and
+Merton</i> that tells of poor soft Tommy's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> choice of the shorter end of
+the pole on which the load was hung, as likely to be the lighter. I
+guessed that it was now time for me to expect to hear the birth-cry of
+my Creature, or at least to detect some thrill of life. Lifting a corner
+of the mufflings, I insinuated a tentative finger.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was warm! And before I withdrew my finger from the rough brown coat I
+was confident that I felt a throb like a pulse heave ITS sides. It is
+not an exaggeration to say that I was faint with excitement as I
+replaced the wrappings. I had never heard of Pygmalion and his statue.
+It was thirty years thereafter before I read Mary Shelley's
+<i>Frankenstein</i>. When I did read it I could not fail to recall the
+picture of the country-bred child, palpitating with awed delight in the
+belief that she had wrested Something from Nothing. Youth alone is
+absolutely fearless. The presumption of ignorance is akin to sublimity.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down again to ecstatic dreamings. IT would be all my own when <span class="smcap">IT</span>
+was made&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> pet so much better worth the having and holding than any
+that had preceded it in my affections, that I thought of them&mdash;even of
+the ever-lamented Darby and Joan&mdash;with compassionate contempt. I
+pictured to myself the astonishment of the household, white and colored,
+in beholding the miracle; the sensation in the neighborhood and county
+when the news of what had come to pass was bruited abroad. From the
+outermost border of Powhatan, from Chesterfield, and mayhap from over
+the river separating Powhatan from Goochland, people would flock to see
+me and wonder. Grown-uppers, who had never heard my name until now,
+would tell other strangers what Mary Hobson Burwell, aged seven, had
+done. I should be <span class="smcap">CELEBRATED</span>!</p>
+
+<p>I sat and roasted, shifting my position occasionally that another side
+might get "done," and seemed to pore over my book until dinner was
+ready.</p>
+
+<p>"You are eating next to nothing, Molly," remarked my mother, casually,
+during the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> meal. "Have you been to see 'Ritta since breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am," I answered meekly; and she did not observe that I colored
+uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>Back to my watch I went when the table was cleared, and the others had
+quitted the room. Uncle Ike replenished the fire, and commended my good
+sense in "huggin' the chimbley-corner in sech cole weather," before he
+left me to solitude, to <i>Sandford and Merton</i>, and to "Frank." I had
+resolved to name him for my dear cousin-in-law. When I came to read
+<i>Frankenstein</i> I marvelled at the coincidence. Frank continued warm, as
+I ascertained by quarter-hourly pokes, but he did not stir. I must be
+patient. Precious things were slow of growth.</p>
+
+<p>Full as my mind and heart were of thoughts and hopes too big for
+expression, my behavior was so nearly normal that no troublesome
+questions were propounded. I had no difficulty in keeping my secret.
+Imaginative chil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>dren have more secrets to guard than adults ever think
+of harboring.</p>
+
+<p>I took Frank to bed with me, smuggling him under my pillow, and going to
+sleep with my hand on him. He was getting warmer every hour.</p>
+
+<p>At midnight a cry&mdash;a series of cries&mdash;aroused the slumbering household,
+and drew my father and mother to my room. I had been awakened from sleep
+too sound for dreams by the bite of sharp teeth upon the thick of my
+thumb. Even the certainty that Frank had evolved a mouth, and that it
+was in good working order, could not cheat me into forgetfulness of the
+terror and pain of that awakening. I jerked my hand from under the
+pillow and shook Something off upon the floor. I heard it fall, and I
+heard it run. Frankenstein could not have conceived more intense horror
+and loathing for his foul, misshapen offspring than overpowered me at
+that terrible instant. The light in my father's hand showed blood
+streaming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> from my thumb and dripping upon the coverlet.</p>
+
+<p>"A mouse, or maybe a young rat, has bitten her," my mother pronounced
+without hesitation. "And no wonder! See how greasy her hand is! Faugh!
+How very careless in Chloe to put the child to bed in such a state! Be
+quiet, Molly! This should be a lesson to you not to go to bed again
+without washing your hands. You are old enough to think of such things
+for yourself. My dear child, can't you stop crying? It is not like you
+to make so much noise over a little hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"She is frightened out of her senses," said my father. "And you must
+admit that it was rather startling to be aroused by feeling a mouse's
+teeth nibbling at her hand."</p>
+
+<p>I clung to his neck, shivering with fright and cold. My sobs were
+uncontrollable.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't a mo-use!" I got out, presently. "Nor a ra-at, either!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a mouse or a rat! How do you know? Did you see it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It was <i>Fra-a-nk</i>!" I gulped. "Oh! I'm afraid to stay here! He is in
+the room somewhere! He will come after me again!"</p>
+
+<p>The scene was ended by my going in my father's arms to my mother's bed
+for the rest of the night. My mother stayed upstairs with Mary 'Liza.</p>
+
+<p>"But I did not sleep well," was her grieved report at breakfast. "The
+pillows smelled horribly of sausage, I suppose because Molly's hands
+were so greasy. Marthy! see that the pillow-cases are changed this
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>Before Marthy got upstairs, I mustered and dragooned sufficient courage
+to enable me to visit the room. Still trembling and full of loathing at
+what I must see, I turned over the pillow. The red flannel was
+there&mdash;and the raw cotton&mdash;and inside of all, <span class="smcap">IT</span>&mdash;Frank no longer&mdash;as
+cold as a stone!</p>
+
+<p>I took it up with the tongs and threw it out of the window&mdash;and said
+never a word about it to anybody.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XII" id="Chapter_XII"></a>Chapter XII</h2>
+
+<h3>My Prize Beet</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/illus-204a.jpg" width="500" height="397" alt="" title="My Prize Beet" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 139px;">
+<img src="images/illus-204b.jpg" width="139" height="220" style="margin-top: -2em;" alt="" title="I" />
+</div>
+<p> HAD been seven years old for so long that I alluded to myself
+habitually as "almost eight." We had our governess now, Miss Davidson, a
+handsome, amiable, and somewhat sentimental Bostonian recommended by a
+Richmond friend of my father. Four other girls studied with us. Two of
+them, Paulina and Sarah Hobson, were our second cousins. They stayed at
+our house from Monday morning until Friday evening, going home for
+Sunday, unless the weather were bad. Madeline and Rosa Pemberton were
+day scholars, the Pemberton plantation adjoining ours.</p>
+
+<p>I was the youngest of the six, and while I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> fancy that I was rather a
+favorite with Miss Davidson, I endured much from the girls on account of
+my inferiority in age, as well as because of my "old-fashioned,
+conceited ways." That was one reason I spoke of being almost eight. I
+was trying to grow up to what they complained of as "getting above"
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>The frank brutality of school children of both sexes, as contrasted with
+the unselfish forbearance (or the show of it) and the suave courtesy of
+well-bred men and women, is an instructive study in the evolution of
+ethics. The youngest boy or girl in class or college is the weakest wolf
+in the pack, the under dog in the fight. I had all of a little girl's
+natural desire for new playfellows and the dreamer's passion for more
+material for castle-building. The prospect of "the school" was
+ravishing. I constructed scenes and rehearsed conversations, with the
+cast of coming actors, until the quartette must have been super-or
+sub-human, had they come up to one tithe of my requirements.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In plain and very homely fact, they were four commonplace, provincial
+girls of average natural intelligence, in age varying from twelve to
+fourteen. They studied because they would be called upon to recite, and
+recited fairly well for fear of reproof and bad marks should they be
+derelict. Out of school, books and bookish thoughts were cast to the
+four winds of heaven. Their talk was cheery chatter, as brainless as the
+rattle of grasshoppers in the summer grass.</p>
+
+<p>Mary 'Liza towered above them in scholastic attainments, although the
+junior of the youngest of them, keeping at the head of every class with
+unostentatious ease. I am afraid that I may have done my orphaned cousin
+seeming injustice in former chapters of this autobiography. Her temper
+was even, and her nature was finer than her prim, priggish ways would
+have led the casual acquaintance to suppose. She was
+ultra-conscientious, and naturally so exemplary that her good behavior
+was a snare. She could not sympathize with my temptations to naughtiness
+and many falls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> from good-girlhood. I mention this to introduce what was
+a surprise to me at the time. She never joined in the persecutions of me
+that were the labor and the pastime of the other girls. It would have
+been asking too much to expect her to champion me openly. I was
+affectionately grateful to her for holding herself aloof when baiting me
+was the amusement of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>My mother had lamented that I took life so much to heart. It took itself
+to my heart now, uninvited. I was headstrong and headlong, hot in love,
+and honest in hatred; with a brain full of absurd fancies, all of which
+were beloved by their author. I had browsed at will in my father's
+library, poring by the hour over books twenty years too old for me, yet,
+by mental cuticular absorption, taking in and assimilating much that
+contributed to the formation of taste and character. My familiar use of
+language that sounded pedantic because I got it from books, my frequent
+references to characters I had known in print, were gibberish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> and
+vanity of vanities to my new associates. My very plays were
+unintelligible to girls who had never heard of William Wallace, and
+Robert Bruce, and Thaddeus of Warsaw, or read, on Sunday afternoons, of
+Tobias and the Angel, Judith and Holofernes, and Christiana and her
+children.</p>
+
+<p>Not one of the four had an intellectual ambition. Mary 'Liza's
+scholarship did not excite their envy because she was quiet and
+inoffensive. Proficiency in her studies was "one of her ways." I was
+talkative and aggressive, and needed taking down. They set themselves
+systematically about the performance of the duty. The work was done
+deftly and discreetly, out of the sight and hearing of our elders. Young
+and raw as I was, I was too wise to tell tales on them. By the time I
+was four years old that lesson was rubbed into my consciousness by the
+gruesome rhyme:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Tell-tale tit!</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Your tongue shall be slit,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And every dog in our town</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Shall have a little bit!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>This apparently tedious preamble yet leads by an air-line to the first
+Agricultural Fair ever held at Powhatan Court House. The date was
+October fifteenth, and all the gentlemen and ladies in the county were
+entreated to send exhibits of plantation products and feminine
+handiwork. Enthusiasm ran from homestead to homestead with the speed and
+heat of a March fire in pine woods. Cattle, tobacco, grain, vegetables,
+fruit, flowers, bedquilts, poultry, bees, knitting,
+embroideries,&mdash;nothing was talked of but the finest specimens of these
+that would be "in strong and beauteous order ranged," upon the important
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Madeline Pemberton had "done" a chair-cover in cross-stitch that her
+mother said ought to get the first prize, and was dead sure to take the
+third; Mary 'Liza was knitting a pair of shell-pattern, openwork
+stockings as fine as a cobweb, in which there would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> not be a knot or a
+dropped stitch, and Paulina Hobson was putting her eyes out over a
+linen-cambric handkerchief under Miss Davidson's direction. Fine sewing
+and embroidery were taught by governesses then. Sarah Hobson had pieced
+a crib quilt containing one thousand and twelve tiny squares. I was
+supposed to be left out in the cold. I would not knit, and to sew I was
+ashamed because I did it so badly. Nobody paid any attention to me when
+comparing notes and queries touching the great show.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I nursed an ambition of my own to which no one was privy except
+Spotswoode, a gray-headed, and proverbially taciturn field-hand, without
+whose knowledge and co&ouml;peration the purpose could not have been carried
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Wandering, one July afternoon, on the outskirts of a corn-field&mdash;the
+same in which I once lost Musidora&mdash;I happened upon a "volunteer"
+mangel-wurzel beet that had sprung up in a fence corner, a quarter of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+mile away from any of its kindred. Attracted by the beauty of the
+translucent, red-veined leaves, I called to Spotswoode who was ploughing
+between the corn rows, and asked him what it was. Adopting the waif,
+then and there, I dug what I called "my little garden" about it,
+Spotswoode tugging up the stoutest roots and clearing out the
+wire-grass. With an occasional hand's turn and toss from him I
+cultivated the vagrant into extraordinary size and vigor. Not a day
+passed in which I did not visit it. Not a blade of grass or a weed was
+allowed to invade the charmed circle, and many a spadeful of fresh
+mould, black with fatness, was worked about the swelling tuber by my
+kind field-hand. He knew that it was to be sent to the Fair in the
+fulness of time, and believed with me that "not another beet there could
+hold a candle to it."</p>
+
+<p>As the air thickened and heated with rumors of the prodigies to be
+revealed on the fifteenth to the lasting honor of Old Powhatan, it was
+harder and harder to keep what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> I knew to myself. I had purposed not to
+reveal the secret until my father's wagons were in loading with other
+mammoth esculents and his finest corn and tobacco. Then&mdash;so ran the
+programme&mdash;I would march up, bearing my beet with me. It was to be dug
+up and cleaned by Spotswoode on the evening of the fourteenth, and kept
+safely in hiding for me. I could depend upon his literal obedience,
+albeit he never had an original idea.</p>
+
+<p>Temptation befell, and overcame me, on the afternoon of October
+thirteenth, a date I was not likely, thenceforward, to forget. All six
+of us girls were gathered in the porch, listening to, and relating,
+stories of what this one had raised, and that one had made. Mr.
+Pemberton had a seven-hundred-pound pig, and Mr. Hobson a rooster more
+beautiful than a bird of Paradise. The syrup of Mrs. Hobson's preserves
+was as clear as spring water, and Mrs. Pemberton's water melon-rind
+sweetmeats had as good as taken the prize.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Paulina Hobson sat on the top step of the porch. She was very fair, and
+her hair was nearly as white as her skin. She was fourteen years old,
+and wore a grass-green lawn frock. Her eyes were of a paler green, she
+had a nasty laugh, and her teeth were not good.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it nice that all five of us are going to send something?" she
+said complacently. "You know that nobody but exhibitors can go into the
+tent for the first hour&mdash;from eleven to twelve&mdash;so's they can see
+everything before the crowd gets in. Who'll you stay with, Miss Molly
+Mumchance, when we all leave you?"</p>
+
+<p>I had not spoken while the talk went on, for fear something might slip
+out and betray me, prematurely, but I took fire at this.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going in, myself!" I snapped out.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you are? What are you going to exhibit, may we ask?" with her nasty
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"The biggest beet in the world! It measures a yard around."</p>
+
+<p>"Hoo! hoo! hoo!" squealed Paulina so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> loudly that my father, who was
+coming in the gate with my mother, Miss Davidson, Uncle Carter, and Aunt
+Eliza, said pleasantly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is the joke, young ladies? Mayn't we laugh, too?"</p>
+
+<p>Madeline Pemberton answered. Miss Davidson had to reprove her every day
+for forwardness.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mr. Burwell,"&mdash;laughing with affected violence,&mdash;"Molly says she
+is going to send some beets to the Fair that measure ever so many yards
+around."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't!" cried I, in a passion. "You know that isn't true!"</p>
+
+<p>My father moved toward me.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>did</i> you say, daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>I hung my head. If I told, where would be the surprise and the visioned
+triumph?</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say, Molly?" repeated my father, in quiet gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"I said <i>one</i> beet, and that it measured one yard," stammered I,
+reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"That was bad enough. When so many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> older people are trying to see who
+can tell the biggest story, little girls ought to be especially
+careful."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes did not go to Madeline, but his emphasis did. The thought of
+being classed with her lent me coherence and courage. I looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"I have one beet, father, that is a yard 'round. I raised it myself. If
+you don't believe me, you can ask Spotswoode."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't ask my servants if my daughter is telling the truth. Where is
+your beet?"</p>
+
+<p>I pointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Away over yonder&mdash;the other side of the corn-field."</p>
+
+<p>Paulina and Rosa tittered, Madeline giggled,&mdash;then all three pretended
+to smother the demonstration with their handkerchiefs and behind their
+hands. Mary 'Liza looked scared and sorry. My father took hold of my
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Take me to see it!"</p>
+
+<p>The others fell into Indian file behind us,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> as we marched outside of
+the garden fence and past the Old Orchard where the rays of the sinking
+sun shot horizontal shafts under the trees to our very feet, and so to
+the corn-field. I did not glance behind to see who entered it after us,
+but pushed right ahead between the stalks, the stiff blades switching my
+cheeks. When we neared the "garden," I ran forward, flushed and
+impatient, not to display my prize, but to clear myself by proving my
+words. An envious, jagged blade slashed my forehead as I tore by. I did
+not feel it at the moment, or for half an hour after it began to bleed.</p>
+
+<p>For&mdash;<i>the beet was gone!</i></p>
+
+<p>The cleared space was there to show where something had been cultivated;
+the bare earth was raked level. Not so much as the hole from which my
+beet had been ravished remained in circumstantial evidence. The rest of
+the party arrived while I stood transfixed, the picture of detected
+guilt. To the rustle of the corn, and the shuffle of feet over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+furrows succeeded a horrible hush. Then, a chorus of mocking girlish
+cackles, led by Paulina Hobson's discordant screech, smote the sunset
+air and covered me with a pall of infamy. Paulina caught at the fence
+for support as she laughed; Madeline bent double and reeled sideways.</p>
+
+<p>I clutched my father's hand, drowning and suffocating in the waves of
+despairing agony; I shook my tight fist at the insulting quartette.</p>
+
+<p>"They&mdash;<i>they</i>&mdash;took it! It was here this morning. It was here just after
+dinner to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, girls!" ordered my judge-advocate. "Molly! I want the exact
+truth. If you accuse them, you must prove what you say. Things have gone
+too far to stop here. Didn't you say that Spotswoode knew something
+about the affair?"</p>
+
+<p>"He knows all about it. He helped me, ever so many times, and he saw how
+big it was," I ejaculated vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall probably find him at the stables, feeding the horses."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Back we trudged by my air-line, well-worn but narrow. I fancy that my
+father took note of my familiarity with the path, but he did not speak
+of it. I marched in front of him, gloomy and desperate. Some of the
+others talked low as they straggled along. The girls kept up a hissing
+whispering, for which I hated them with my whole soul. I think that my
+mother and Miss Davidson shed some furtive tears, for my case was black,
+and they were tender-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>Spotswoode was looking after his plough-horses, as my father had
+conjectured. At his master's shout, he emerged from the stalls and
+presented himself in the stable door. Ungainly, dirty, bare-footed, his
+ragged wool hat on the back of his unkempt woolly poll, his jaw dropping
+in idiotic amazement at sight of the party&mdash;he was a ludicrous figure in
+the bath of late sunshine that brought out every uncomely item of the
+picture. Preoccupied and distraught as I was, I saw how the dust from
+the stable floor floated in golden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> clouds to the cobwebbed rafters, as
+the sun struck past the man in the doorway and glorified the murky
+interior.</p>
+
+<p>I rushed through the yard, heedless of manure heaps, and young pigs and
+calves scattered by my impetuous approach.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Spotswoode!" in a voice that cracked and went to pieces as I ran,
+"somebody has stolen my beet! You can tell father&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A hot valve closed in my windpipe and shut out the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Spotswoode's jaw hung more loosely; his eyes were utterly vacant.</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-as, little Mistis!" he drawled, and slunk back into the stable.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, sir? Come back here, this minute!" called his master.</p>
+
+<p>When he reappeared, he carried in both hands, extended, after the
+similitude of a pre-historic monkey making a votive offering&mdash;something
+dark-red and pot-bellied, and more immense than I had dreamed it could
+look.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> A cluster of cropped leaves crowned it, a taper root, a foot
+long, depended from the bottom.</p>
+
+<p>"I done been dig it up fo' you an' wash it, dis ebenin', 'stid o'
+termorrer," drawled my vindicator. "So's ter hab it all ready fur the
+Fyar."</p>
+
+<p>Mute and triumphant, I received it in a rapturous embrace, set it on a
+bench by the stable door, and passed the hem of my muslin apron about
+it. The ends just met.</p>
+
+<p>"That's how I knew how big it was," I said simply. "Mother told me that
+my apron was a yard wide. I measured it while it was in the ground."</p>
+
+<p>The beet&mdash;and its history&mdash;went to the Fair, and a prize was awarded to
+"<i>Miss Mary Hobson Burwell, For best specimen of Mangel Wurzel, raised
+by Herself.</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XIII" id="Chapter_XIII"></a>Chapter XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Two Adventures</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 486px;">
+<img src="images/illus-221.jpg" width="486" height="500" alt="" title="Two Adventures" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 71px;">
+<img src="images/illus-221b.jpg" width="71" height="180" style="margin-top: -3em;" alt="" title="I" />
+</div>
+<p>N a country neighborhood where half the people were cousins to the
+other half, gossip could not but spring up and flourish as lushly as
+pursley,&mdash;named by the Indians, "the white man's foot."</p>
+
+<p>The gossip was usually kindly; sometimes it was captious, now and then
+it was almost malicious. Everything depends upon the medium through
+which the floating matter in the air is strained.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Molly Belle's best friends thought and said that she chose
+judiciously in marrying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> the clean-lived, high-minded gentleman who had
+loved her before she was grown and whom she loved dearly in return. Her
+next best friends intimated that the most popular girl in the county
+might have done better for herself than to take Frank Morton, as fine a
+fellow as ever lived, but whose share of his father's estate was a small
+plantation with a tolerable house upon it, a dozen "hands" and, maybe, a
+thousand dollars or so in bonds and stocks. The girls she had
+out-belled, the girls' mothers, and sundry youths to whom Mrs. Frank
+Morton had given the mitten in her singlehood, said openly that she had
+quite thrown herself away in settling down to house-keeping,
+poultry-raising, and home-making in an out-of-the-way farmstead, with
+little society except that of a man ten years older, and thirty years
+soberer, than herself.</p>
+
+<p>What a different story I could have told to those who doubted, and those
+who pitied! Nowhere in all our broad and bonny State did human lives
+flow on more smoothly and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> radiantly than in the white house nestled
+under the great oak that was a landmark for miles around. It had but
+five rooms, kitchen, store-room, smoke-house, and other domestic offices
+being in detached buildings, as was the custom of the region and times.
+If there had been fifty they could not have held the happiness that
+streamed through the five as lavishly as the sunshine, and, like the
+sunshine, was newly made every day.</p>
+
+<p>I was going on ten years old when my sweet mother gave a little sister
+to Bud and me. She had been with us but three days when Cousin Molly
+Belle drove over for me and the small hair trunk that meant a visit of
+several days when it went along. This time it signified four of the very
+<i>loveliest</i> weeks of my life, and two Adventures.</p>
+
+<p>The bless&egrave;d grandchildren, at whose instance these tales of that
+all-so-long-ago are written with flying pen and brimming heart, and
+sometimes eyes so moist that the lines waver and swim upon the page,
+will have it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>&mdash;as their parents insisted before them&mdash;that "we never,
+never can have such good times and so many happenings as you had when
+you were new."</p>
+
+<p>If I smile quietly in telling over to myself the simple elements and
+few, out of which the good times were made, and how tame the happenings
+would be to modern young folk, I cannot gainsay the truth that my daily
+life was full and rich, and that every hour had a peculiar interest.</p>
+
+<p>For one thing, there was a baby at Oakholme, a bouncing boy, sturdy of
+limb and of lung, and so like both his parents in all the good qualities
+possible to a baby, as to leave nothing to be desired by the best
+friends aforesaid, and no room for criticism on the part of the
+malcontents. Out-of-doors were chickens, ducks, turkeys, guinea-fowls,
+pigs, calves, pigeons, and a couple of colts,&mdash;all, like the baby boy,
+the best of their kind. What time was left on our hands after each had
+had its meed of attention, was more than consumed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> by a library such as
+few young planters had collected in a county where choice literature was
+as much household plenishing as beds, tables, and candlesticks.</p>
+
+<p>It was July, and the days were at their longest according to the
+Warrock's Almanac that hung over Cousin Frank's desk in a corner of the
+dining room. They were never so short to me before.</p>
+
+<p>Adventure No. 1 befell us one forenoon, as Cousin Molly Belle and I were
+topping and tailing gooseberries for tarts, on the side porch. Baby
+Carter was on the mat at our feet, bulging his eyes and swelling his
+cheeks in futile efforts to extort a squeak from a chinquapin whistle
+his father had made for him. The kind that, as you may recollect, kept
+the whistle in them over night, and did not shrivel up.</p>
+
+<p>"It's there, old fellow, if you really know how to get it out," Cousin
+Frank told his son and heir. "Everything depends upon yourself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Like other things that people fret for," moralized the mother.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, she reached down for the whistle, wiped the mouthpiece
+dry, and sent the baby into ecstasies by executing "Yankee Doodle"
+flourishingly upon it. A chinquapin fife lends itself more readily to
+the patriotic, step-and-go-fetch-it melody than to any other in the
+national <i>r&eacute;pertoire</i>. Carter crowed, opened his mouth wide, and beat
+his fat pink palms together.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as they applaud the clown at the circus!" said the performer. "He
+already recognizes his mother's talents."</p>
+
+<p>"If he ever fails to do that, I'll flog him out of his boots!" retorted
+the father.</p>
+
+<p>A wild commotion at "the quarters" cut his speech short. Women shrieked,
+children bellowed, men roared, and two words disentangled themselves
+from the turmoil.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mad</i> dog! <i>mad</i> dog!" pronounced, as the warning cry is spoken
+everywhere at the South, with a heavy accent on the first word.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Cousin Frank whipped up the baby; Cousin Molly thrust her hand under the
+collar of Hector, a fine pointer who lay on the floor, and, urging me
+before them, they hustled us all into the house in the half twinkle of
+an eye. In another, Cousin Frank was driving a load of buckshot into his
+gun faster than it was ever loaded before, even by him, and he was a
+hunting expert.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear!" his wife caught the hand laid on the door-knob; her eyes were
+wild and imploring.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my darling!"</p>
+
+<p>He was out and the door was shut.</p>
+
+<p>We flew to the window. Right up the path leading by the quarters from
+the spring at the foot of the hill, trotted an enormous bull dog. Half a
+dozen men were pelting him with stones from a respectful distance. He
+paid no attention to stones or shouts. Keeping the straight path, his
+brute head wagging drunkenly, he was making directly for the open
+yard-gate, from which a gravel walk led to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> porch where we had been
+sitting. Snap, his master's favorite hunter, and the petted darling of
+his mistress, was hitched to the rack by the gate, ready-saddled for
+Cousin Frank's morning round of the plantation. At the noise behind him,
+the intelligent creature threw up his handsome head, glanced over his
+shoulder, and began to plunge and snort, as if aware of the danger. His
+master spoke soothingly as he planted his own body between him and the
+ugly beast.</p>
+
+<p>"Steady, old boy! steady!"</p>
+
+<p>In saying it he raised the gun to his shoulder. It was all done so
+quickly that I had hardly seen the livid horror in Cousin Molly Belle's
+face when the good gun spoke, the muzzle within ten yards of the dog's
+head, and he rolled over in the path.</p>
+
+<p>"What if you had missed him! He would have been upon you before you
+could reload!" shuddered the wife, as we ran out to meet Cousin Frank.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean to miss him. If I had,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> I should have clubbed my gun and
+brained him. No, dear love! it would not 'have done as well had I fired
+at him over the palings.' Snap was on the other side of the gate.
+And"&mdash;with an arch flash he might have learned from her&mdash;"you and
+Namesake and I think the world and all of Snap, you know."</p>
+
+<p>It was the only allusion he ever made in my hearing to the escapade that
+won him his wife.</p>
+
+<p>We learned, within a few hours, that the dog had bitten several cows,
+five other dogs, and a valuable colt, before he reached Oakholme.</p>
+
+<p>I was always very fond of Cousin Frank. Henceforward, he stepped into
+the vanguard of my heroes. I did not believe that Israel Putnam could
+have done anything more daring than what I had witnessed in the safe
+place in which he put us "before he sallied forth into the very jaws of
+death." That was the way I described it to myself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Tramping through the lower pasture at his side that afternoon I tried to
+voice my admiration to him, but used less inflated language. I dearly
+enjoyed these long walks over the plantation in his company. He was an
+excellent farmer, and kept no overseer. I learned a great deal of
+forestry and botany from his talk. If he adapted himself, consciously,
+to my understanding, he did not let me perceive it. The recollection of
+his unfailing patience and his apparent satisfaction in the society of
+the child who worshipped him and his wife, has been a useful lesson to
+me in my intercourse with the young. I had told Cousin Molly Belle, a
+long time ago, that he "talked straight to children," with none of the
+involved meanings and would-be humorous turns of speech with which some
+grown-uppers diverted themselves and mystified us.</p>
+
+<p>When he smiled at my well-mouthed, "Do you know, Cousin Frank, that your
+bravery may have saved at least four lives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>&mdash;Cousin Molly Belle's, and
+baby's, and Snap's, and mine?"&mdash;I felt that he was not laughing at me
+inside, as the manner of some is.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that, Namesake." Nobody but himself and his wife was
+allowed to call me that. They were one, you know. "All of you would
+probably have got out of the way, except Snap. It <i>would</i> have been a
+great pity to have him bitten. But here is a wee bit of a thing that
+could, and would, save a good many lives if people were as well
+acquainted with it as they ought to be. I am surprised that it is so
+little known in a part of the country where snakes abound as they do
+about here."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped to gather, and gave to me, some succulent sprigs from a plant
+that grew in profusion along the branch running through the meadow.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a cure for a snake-bite if bruised into a poultice and bound upon
+the place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> soon after one is bitten. My father showed it to me a great
+many years ago, when I was a little shaver, and told me how he had
+learned about it from an old Indian herb-doctor. He tried it several
+times for moccasin-and adder-and copperhead-bites among his servants,
+and it was a cure in every instance. It grows on both sides of this
+branch, and nowhere else that I know of on the plantation. My father was
+an admirable botanist."</p>
+
+<p>"So are you," said I, stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. As the saying is, his chips were worth more than my logs."</p>
+
+<p>No law of nature is more nearly invariable than that Events are twins,
+and often triplets. That very evening, after supper, Cousin Frank was on
+his way from the stables to the house, and saw what he mistook for a
+carriage whip lying in the walk. The moon was shining and he had no
+doubt as to what the thing was when he stooped to pick it up. Before he
+touched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> it, it made one swift writhe and dart and struck him on the
+wrist.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Molly Belle was laying Carter in the cradle, the last note of her
+lullaby upon her lips when her husband entered. He clutched his right
+wrist tightly with the left hand and was pale, but his voice was steady
+and gentle.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear," he said, "don't be frightened, but I have been bitten by a
+snake. A copperhead, I think. Get me some whiskey, please."</p>
+
+<p>"The whiskey, Flora! Quick!" called the wife to her maid who stood by.
+"Pour out a tumblerful and give it to him."</p>
+
+<p>For herself, she fell upon her knees, seized her husband's wrist and
+carried it to her mouth. This I saw, and heard the first words of his
+startled protest as the dear lips closed upon the wound. I was out of
+the room and clear of the house the next minute and speeding down the
+path and hill to the lower pasture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The snake was at large, and might waylay me from any bush or tuft of
+grass. The moonbeams were ghostly and the stillness of the wide solitude
+was eerie. Being but a child,&mdash;and a girl-child,&mdash;I thought of these
+things, and of the likelihood of meeting runaway negroes, and mad dogs,
+and stray sane curs whose duty it was to attack nocturnal trespassers,
+and of a vicious bull never let out to roam the pasture except at night.
+I was afraid of them all, intellectually. My heart was too full of a
+mightier dread to let bugbears turn me back. I ran right on until the
+branch, a silver ribbon on the dark bosom of the meadow, was before me.
+Grasses and weeds were laden with dew, and the water whirled and
+whispered about the roots. I could have believed that the purling formed
+itself into words when I knelt down to fumble for the snake-bite cure. I
+would not let myself be scared. I kept saying over and over&mdash;"To save
+his life! to save his life!"</p>
+
+<p>In the intensity of my excitement, language<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> that I was afraid was
+blasphemous, yet could not exclude from my mind, pressed upon me:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He saved others. Himself he cannot save!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He might be dying now. He had said that the poultice ought to be applied
+at once. Horrid stories of what had happened to people who were bitten
+by rattlesnakes and cobras tormented me, and would not be beaten off.</p>
+
+<p>"A copperhead, I think he said. How could he know that it was not a
+cobra? Would he swell up, turn black, and expire in convulsions before I
+could reach him?" I said "expire in convulsions," out of a book.
+Everyday Virginia vernacular fell short of the exigency.</p>
+
+<p>My feet were drenched, my pantalettes and skirts were bedraggled up to
+the knees, my eyes were large and black in my colorless face, when I
+burst into the chamber, and threw the bunch of priceless herbs into
+Cousin Molly Belle's lap. I was too spent for speech.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Frank's coat and vest were off; his right shirt-sleeve was rolled
+up to the shoulder,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> and he was holding his hand and wrist in a deep
+bowl of warm water. The air reeked with the fumes of whiskey and
+hartshorn.</p>
+
+<p>I concluded, when I came to think of it the next day, that the whiskey
+must have been doing antidotal work by getting into his head, for he
+laughed outright at sight of the specific I had brought. Then,
+tears&mdash;real tears and plenty of them&mdash;suffused his eyes and made his
+voice weak and husky. Or&mdash;was it the whiskey?</p>
+
+<p>"You are a dear, brave, thoughtful Namesake!" he said, clearing his
+throat. "Darling!" to his wife who was eyeing the herbs
+wonderingly,&mdash;"She has been all the way to the lower meadow for those. I
+showed her the snake-bite cure to-day. Bruise them and put them on my
+wrist. Then Namesake must get off her wet clothes and go to bed. The
+danger is over."</p>
+
+<p>I was thirty years old before I found out that what I had risked so much
+to procure was not the panacea he had showed me, but com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>mon jewel-weed,
+or wild touch-me-not, a species of the <i>Impatiens</i> of botanists,
+harmless, but not curative.</p>
+
+<p>And they had never let me guess what a blunder I had made!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XIV" id="Chapter_XIV"></a>Chapter XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>Miss Nancy's Nerves</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/illus-238.jpg" width="550" height="406" alt="" title="Miss Nancy&#39;s Nerves" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="large">T</span><span class="smcap">he</span> Gateses were our distant relatives. Not nearer than fourth
+cousins-in-law, I fancy, but we counted them among our "kinfolks" in
+Virginia, calling Mrs. Gates "Cousin Nancy," and Captain Gates, "Cousin
+'Ratio." His proper name was Horatio, of course, and he belonged to the
+family that gave the Revolutionary hero, Horatio Gates, to his country.</p>
+
+<p>I was slowly getting over the whooping-cough, having taken it, as I took
+most "catching" things that fell in my way,&mdash;with all my might. I began
+to whoop the last of April, and kept it up all summer, when every other
+child on the plantation was entirely well.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Gates drove over to our house by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> the time the breakfast-table
+was cleared one sultry August day, bringing in his roomy double buggy a
+basket of Georgia peaches&mdash;brunettes with crimson cheeks&mdash;and the
+biggest watermelon I had ever seen, as a neighborly gift to my mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Nancy gave me no peace of my life till I got off with them," he
+said in his loud, breezy tones. "There's none of her kin she sets more
+store by than by Cousin Ma'y Anna Burwell. And she's as proud as a
+peacock of our fruit. I tell her a judgment will come upon her for it.
+As I take it, Old Marster sends the rain upon the unjust as well as upon
+the just, and if it's our turn this year, somebody else's turn will come
+next year, and yet we'll be as good Christians then as we are now. It's
+one of His ways that's past finding out. Howdy'e, little lady!" putting
+out a brawny hand to pull me between his knees.</p>
+
+<p>I was standing a yard or so away, but right in front of him, my hands
+behind me, my eyes and ears, and, I'm afraid, my mouth, open to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> his
+hearty talk. I had never heard God called "Old Marster" before, and if I
+had not been taught that children ought not to criticise what grown
+people say and do, I should have been quite sure that it was wrong. I
+did not want to think any harm of Cousin 'Ratio, and determined that I
+would not, when he drew a great finger gently over my thin cheek, and
+looked down at me with kindly, pitying eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Tut! tut! tut! this is too bad! too bad! We must fill up this gulley
+somehow, Cousin Ma'y Anna. Other folks' victuals are the best physic I
+know for that sort of work. Miss Nancy would cry her eyes out if I was
+to go home with the story that little Molly Burwell had coughed her
+bones pretty near as bare as barrel-staves, and I didn't try to cover
+them up again. A week in my peach-orchard and watermelon-patch, with
+quarts of cream and Miss Nancy's breakfasts, dinners, and suppers&mdash;is
+what she wants. Get her bonnet, and stick a tooth-brush and a
+pocket-handkerchief into a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> bandbox, Chloe, for I'm going to take her
+home with me, right straight off."</p>
+
+<p>My mother shook her head smilingly at the thought of the week's visit.</p>
+
+<p>"The child coughs so badly at night that I don't like to have her away
+from me, Cousin 'Ratio. But change of air, even for a day, would do her
+good. Her father and I will come for her about sundown."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it happened, that, decked in a clean pink calico frock and white
+muslin apron, I was hoisted to my perch in the high gig beside Cousin
+'Ratio, and set off to spend a whole day at Cold Comfort.</p>
+
+<p>The name was so out of keeping with Cousin 'Ratio's kind, red face and
+funny ways, and the warm, sweet-smelling day, that I couldn't help
+asking him on the way "why he called his house such a <i>shivery</i> name?"</p>
+
+<p>The gig swayed and creaked under his laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"That was just the reason my grandmother gave for naming it. You see,
+the house stands on the top of a hill, and all the winds from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> three
+counties get at it in winter. The house my grandfather put up was of
+wood, and none too tight in the joints, and the poor old lady, his
+wife&mdash;my step-grandmother she was&mdash;had rheumatism, and suffered a heap
+all the year 'round. So, nothing would do but it must be 'Cold Comfort,'
+and Cold Comfort it has been ever since. We Gateses have a way of giving
+in to our wives in 'most everything. Everything that's reasonable, I
+mean. And we don't pick out unreasonable girls for wives."</p>
+
+<p>The fat, sleek horse was taking his own lazy pace in a mile of shady
+road, cut through the heart of a pine forest. The ground was brown and
+soft with pine needles, and the high gig swung and creaked a sort of
+drowsy tune. Cousin 'Ratio tapped the wheel nearest him with his whip,
+and fell into talk with himself, rather than with the child under his
+elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, there's Miss Nancy! There's been a heap of fun poked at me, first
+and last, for building my house in the shape I did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> Though, for the
+life of me, I can't see why I should be obleeged to live in a
+four-square box because every other man-Jack in Pow'tan County builds
+his in that way. Miss Nancy was always mighty nervous from the time she
+was a child; I knew it when I married her. Fact is, she says to me:
+'Cap'n Gates, I'm as nervous as a witch, and I'm afraid you'll get out
+of patience with me sometimes, and I wouldn't blame you if you did.'
+And, says I,&mdash;my hand right on my heart,&mdash;'Miss Nancy Miller! if you'll
+take <i>me</i> as I am, I'll be proud and happy to take <i>you</i> as you are,
+nerves and all!' says I. 'The proudest man in the State of Virginia,'
+says I. 'Call it a bargain.'</p>
+
+<p>"And she did&mdash;bless her soul! It was the best bargain that ever I made,
+or ever expect to make, too. Some men marry Temper, and some Extravagant
+Notions, and some Vanity, and some Jealous, Suspicious Dispositions, and
+some, again, Stinginess&mdash;Good gracious! there's no end to the
+dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>agreeable things men <i>do</i> marry! I married <i>Nerves!</i> and with them,
+the best and sweetest and, to my way of thinking, the prettiest woman in
+the County and State, and the Universe, and I've been thankful for it
+every day and every hour since&mdash;God bless her!"</p>
+
+<p>I waited for him to say something more until I began to wonder, then to
+get impatient, that he let the horse jog along, the soft creak of the
+gig keeping time with the leisurely motions of the pampered beast, the
+master's eyes fixed upon the wheel he was tapping with his whip, as if
+he had forgotten me entirely.</p>
+
+<p>I made a bold effort to reopen the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Cousin Nancy asked you to build your house round, instead of
+square?"</p>
+
+<p>I had heard so many different stories about the odd structure which was
+one of the county curiosities that I was anxious to get at the truth.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed low and pleasantly:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ask me! Not she, bless your soul! She would never have thought of such
+a thing. 'Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights
+because I knew she couldn't sleep for the roaring and whistling around
+the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and
+between the window-sashes like a bumblebee as big as a whale. It made
+her feel so lonesome and blue that many's the time I've heard her crying
+to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. We were going to pull
+down the old house, anyhow. It was a rickety concern, and inconvenient
+as could be. So I got Miss Nancy to tell me how many rooms and closets
+and all that she'd like to have in a house that was to be built on
+purpose for her, and for nobody else, and I made a plan of it all on
+paper, and then I sent her up to stay with her mother in Buckingham
+County for six months, going up to see her myself every Saturday to
+spend Sunday&mdash;like a nigger going to his 'wife-house,'"&mdash;here he stopped
+to laugh again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>&mdash;"until the last window-shutter was hung, and all the
+furniture put back and in order&mdash;Je<i>rew</i>salem! how I <i>did</i> work! Then I
+brought her home. I wish you could have seen her face when we came in
+sight of the solid brick house&mdash;round as a cheese box&mdash;and I told her I
+had it built in that shape, so's she should never be made sorrowful, nor
+kept awake again by the wind a-cutting up shines around sharp corners,
+so long as we both should live&mdash;Amen!"</p>
+
+<p>He jerked a blazing red bandanna handkerchief out of his pocket, turning
+his face clear away from me to do it, and blew his nose until the woods
+rang as with the echoes of a foxhunter's horn, then rolled the
+handkerchief into a ball and polished his face with it in the oddest
+possible fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the tales current about the round brick house had something to
+do with Cousin Nancy's whims, especially with her dislike to hearing the
+wind blow around the corners. Young as I was, I felt, after hearing
+Cousin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> 'Ratio's story, that he had done a beautiful thing in planning
+the ingenious surprise for his delicate wife. It crossed my mind, too,
+that she might have thought the house as ridiculous as other people did,
+yet pretended to like it sooner than hurt his feelings. She must be a
+good and devoted wife. Furthermore, I got into my foolish head the
+notion that it was nice and interesting to have Nerves. I resolved to
+get a set of my own at an early opportunity and to work them well. To
+this end, I would watch Cousin Nancy's ways and copy them as closely as
+a little girl could copy the behavior of a grown-up heroine.</p>
+
+<p>She met us in the porch of the house, crying out with pleasure at sight
+of me.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a little lady, not to be afraid to come all by herself to see
+two quiet old folks!" she said as she kissed me. "I ought to have had a
+dozen girls and boys for you to play with by this time&mdash;but I haven't a
+single one."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed in saying it, yet with such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> sincere regret of face and
+accent that I answered, without taking time to think:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm mighty sorry you haven't!" Catching myself up, I blundered on: "Not
+that you and Cousin 'Ratio are not company enough for me. But it seems a
+pity that, in this pretty place, with so many peaches and watermelons
+and flowers&mdash;and pigeons&mdash;and chickens&mdash;and all that&mdash;there are not any
+children to eat, and to play with them&mdash;and keep you company. I've heard
+mother say, 'Home wouldn't be Home without the babies.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother is right, child! Your mother is right!"</p>
+
+<p>The words seemed to stick in her throat, and to scrape it as she got
+them out. Then, to my horror, she sank into a rocking-chair, and,
+throwing her hands over her face, began to cry, with queer little
+squeals between the sobs that shook her all over.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 456px;">
+<img src="images/illus4.jpg" width="456" height="650" alt="A Tea-party in the Summer-House.
+
+&quot;Dovey appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">A Tea-party in the Summer-House.
+
+&quot;Dovey appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Malviny, her mulatto maid, ran to her with a bottle of hartshorn, and
+Cousin 'Ratio knelt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> upon the floor by her and put his arm about her,
+and fanned her with a turkey-tail fan, and another colored woman rushed
+off to the kitchen, and was back in a jiffy with a bunch of feathers all
+on fire, and making a dreadful smell, and stuck them under her
+mistress's nose. I backed to the door with a wild notion of getting out
+of the way, and running back home, yet could not tear myself away from
+the unusual scene.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Cousin Nancy could speak, she laughed at sight of my
+face,&mdash;the tears still dripping all the way to her chin,&mdash;and held out
+her arms:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little lammie! did I frighten the life out of her? You mustn't
+mind my nervous turns, dear. They don't mean anything."</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid I had said something I oughtn't to," I faltered, on the
+verge of tears. "I'm sorry if I did!"</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon I was drawn close to her, and kissed three times to assure me
+that I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> the "best little girl in the world, and that she wouldn't
+give way again."</p>
+
+<p>"But, you see, I had got so nervous because you were gone so long, and
+you drove that skittish colt, and I was sure something had happened,"
+she explained to her husband, who still stood by her, stroking the back
+of her hand, in awkward fondness. He stooped to lay his bearded face
+against hers.</p>
+
+<p>"That's like you! Always thinking of other people, and never of
+yourself!" he said admiringly.</p>
+
+<p>She thought a great deal of me for the rest of my visit, ordering
+Malviny to cut out and make a doll's pelisse for me of a lovely piece of
+red silk, saying that she would have done it herself if sewing did not
+make her so nervous.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't darned a sock or hemmed a pocket-handkerchief for Cap'n Gates
+in ten years. If he were not the best man on earth, he would have sent
+me packing long ago."</p>
+
+<p>She despatched another servant to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> garret for some toys her sister's
+children had left with her last year, and gave me permission to pull all
+the flowers I wanted in the garden. I carried three maimed dolls, a
+headless horse, a three-legged cat, and a Britannia tea-set to a
+summer-house at the end of a long walk, and made believe that I was
+Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, of whom I had read in a tattered copy
+of Shakespeare I found in a lumber closet. By and by, Malviny brought
+out to me a pretty china plate with four sugar cakes, shaped like ivy
+leaves, and a glass of very sweet lemonade. Awhile later, Dovey, a
+half-grown girl, appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream,
+plentifully sugared.</p>
+
+<p>"Mistis says you must eat 'em all, for she knows you mus' be mighty
+thirsty, and peaches is coolin' for little ladies whar's been sick."</p>
+
+<p>There were still some cake crumbs and a spoonful of peaches left when I
+saw Cousin Nancy herself come sailing down the walk.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XV" id="Chapter_XV"></a>Chapter XV</h2>
+
+<h3>Side-Blades &amp; Water-Melons</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus-254.jpg" width="600" height="395" alt="" title="Side-Blades &amp; Water-Melons" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="large">M</span><span class="smcap">y</span> far-away cousin could never have been pretty except to a fond
+husband's eyes. I should have liked to think her tolerably good-looking
+now, since he loved her so dearly and praised her so enthusiastically,
+and she was so much more than good to me. I could not help using and
+believing the eyes that showed me a tall, lean woman whose skin, once
+fair, was now nearly as yellow as the freckles spattered all over her
+forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. Nose and chin were long, her
+cheek-bones were high, her eyes were pale, the lashes so light and thin
+as to be scarcely visible at all,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> and her scanty flaxen hair was
+dragged tightly away from a high bony forehead. Her gown to-day was
+white cambric, as clean, as glossy, and as opaque as cream-laid
+letter-paper. Her head was bare, and she carried over it a green parasol
+which made her complexion livid. Her voice was soft and sweet, and her
+manners were liked by everybody. I was glad to think of these things,
+and to feel the charm of tone and manner, as she asked if I "would not
+like to pay a visit to the peaches and watermelons."</p>
+
+<p>I should have preferred to stay where I was, having got very well
+acquainted with my attendant fairies, and eaten enough sweets to take
+the edge from my appetite, even for ripe, fresh fruit. Still, I got up
+with a tolerable show of cordiality, comprehending that she meant to
+please me, took the hand she offered, and was soon out of the cool shade
+in the open field separating garden from orchard. Captain Gates was
+really as proud of his reputation as the most successful fruit-grower
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> the county as his wife was, although he affected to ridicule her
+weakness in the same direction. There were two acres of peach trees,
+most of them laden with fruit. When pressed to "eat all I could
+swallow," I managed to do away with three immense globes of
+crimson-and-gold, and then gave out, shamefacedly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You see I am so little, and the peaches are so big!" I urged. "I hold
+just so many and no more."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you comical little thing!" interrupted Cousin Nancy, highly
+amused. "By and by, on our way back from the watermelon patch, maybe
+there will be more room. I shan't ask you to pick the melons from the
+vines and eat <i>them</i> by the dozen. Come along!"</p>
+
+<p>She did not seem to mind the heat that struck upon my face and head like
+the breath of an oven, as we crossed another open field, to that in
+which Captain Gates's famous melons lay by the hundred, growing larger
+and more luscious in the August sunlight that warmed them through and
+through. Some were dark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> green, some light green, some were streaked and
+mottled with white-and-green.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Cousin Nancy!" I cried, "I did not know there were so many in the
+world! What <i>will</i> you do with them all?"</p>
+
+<p>She led the way farther into the network of vines, the rank leaves and
+starry blossoms bobbing about her feet. The fruit and flowers of Cold
+Comfort did something toward filling the place left void in her heart by
+the lack of the children that had never come. She stood still and looked
+over the wide patch as if she had made every melon there, and meant to
+have the full credit for her work.</p>
+
+<p>"Do with them, monkey! Why they are as good as a silver mine&mdash;the
+beauties! Every full-grown one stands for a quarter of a dollar. We send
+six wagon-loads to Richmond every week, and people come for them from
+every direction&mdash;as far as across the river in Goochland; and we give
+dozens away to our neighbors, and the negroes come at night to steal
+them&mdash;Oh! <i>oh!!</i> <span class="smcap">OH!!!</span>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She gathered her skirts tightly and high above her ankles with both
+hands, letting the green parasol tumble, head foremost, to the ground,
+and screeched as if she had trod upon a yellow-jacket's nest. She was
+going to have Nerves again, with no hartshorn, or burnt feathers, or
+turkey-tail fan, or Cousin 'Ratio near. I started to run to the house
+for help, but she grabbed my frock frantically.</p>
+
+<p>"If you budge one inch you are a dead child!" she wheezed, her pale eyes
+bulging from the sockets. "Cap'n Gates and the overseer came out here
+last night and just sowed all this patch with side-blades!"
+(Scythe-blades.) "Edges up! Sharp as razors and thick as thieves!
+Hundreds of them! To keep the negroes from stealing any more of them! I
+heard Cap'n Gates tell them he was going to do it, and the overseer told
+them this morning that they <i>had</i> done it. And I haven't an atom of an
+idea where a solitary one of the murderous things is! We are as good as
+dead if we try to get out. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> might tread upon one, at the first step!
+How could I forget it? Oh, how could I?"</p>
+
+<p>I felt the blood drain away from my face, and I trembled as violently as
+she. Then a thought came to me, and I got it out between chattering
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't tread on any of them coming into the patch."</p>
+
+<p>"That was sheer providence, honey. We <i>might</i> have been cut in two
+before we had gone ten yards."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Cousin Nancy!" catching at her hands as she began to wring them
+again, and to sob and squeal as she had done in the morning. "Listen! I
+am sure I could go out by the very same path! Let's try! We can't stay
+here always."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Path!</i> There isn't a sign of a path! Look!"</p>
+
+<p>She pointed a bony finger in the direction we had come. The leaves and
+blossoms disturbed by our feet and skirts were as still as the hundreds
+and thousands of other leaves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> on all sides of us. We had not bruised a
+vine, or left a footprint, that we could see. The sun poured down upon
+us like fire from heaven; we were in the middle of the patch that
+seemed, to my horrified eyes, miles and miles in extent, and not another
+creature was in sight.</p>
+
+<p>"Our only hope is to scream as loud as ever we can," said Cousin Nancy.
+"Nobody knows where we are; the hands are all in the tobacco, a mile on
+the other side of the house, and Cap'n Gates and Mr. Owen may be even
+farther off, for all I know. If we can't make anybody hear us, the Lord
+have mercy upon our souls! We shall have sunstroke inside of an hour."</p>
+
+<p>I picked up the green parasol, and with clumsy, shaking fingers opened
+it, and stood on tiptoe to hold it over her head, crying, meantime, as
+piteously as she, such was the contagion of hysterical terror. Then,
+with one accord, we lifted up our voices, weak with weeping, in a thin
+screech. I said "Help!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> help! help!" she cried, "Murder! murder!" and
+"Cap'n <i>Ga-a-tes!</i>" We made enough noise to startle the dogs in the
+house-yard and at the stables, and brought from the nearer "quarters"
+and corn-field a gang of negroes, of all sizes and ages, all running at
+the top of their speed, and the faster as they descried us. It would
+have been excruciatingly funny at any other time, and to one that was
+not an actor in the drama, to observe that not one man, woman, or
+pickaninny of the excited crowd offered to pass the confines of the
+melon patch. Each one was mindful of the hundreds of buried side-blades
+with their edges uppermost, and almost all were bare-footed.</p>
+
+<p>"Run! some of you-all, for Marster an' Mr. Owen!" shrieked Malviny,
+getting her wits together before the others could rally theirs. The
+shrill order arose above the chorus of groans and cries and pitying
+exclamations, and Cousin Nancy, on hearing it, gave one wild cry, and
+dropped where she stood, a heap of white cambric, head, arms,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> and green
+parasol, crushing the vines, and her head just grazing a mammoth melon.</p>
+
+<p>I had never been so frightened in all my life as when I got hold of her
+head, and tried to lift it. It was as heavy as lead. Too much terrified
+and too foolish to bethink myself that a cut would bleed, I concluded
+that she had struck one of the murderous blades, and it had killed her.
+Her eyes were closed; her jaw had fallen; her cheek lay close against
+that of the big melon, and the vines met over her nose. It was a ghastly
+and a grotesque spectacle, and I behaved as any other nine-year-old
+would&mdash;jumped up and down and screamed, beating my palms together, and
+calling alternately for "Father!" and "Cousin 'Ratio!"</p>
+
+<p>Since that horrible moment I have believed stories read and heard of
+people being scared to death, or into insanity. In the great, round
+world, there was nothing present to me but a cruel expanse of green
+below, a white-hot sky above, and at my feet a dead woman, killed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> by
+the razor-like blades thick-set under every leaf, and guarding every
+melon. Then all this was swept out of sight by a black wave that took me
+off my feet.</p>
+
+<p>I awoke in the shade of the peach orchard. Mr. Owen, the overseer, had
+laid me down on the grass, and I heard him say, "She's all right now." I
+sat up and stared around me. Cousin Nancy, still in a dead faint, was
+stretched upon the ground a little way off, a fluttering swarm of women
+about her, with water, brandy, hartshorn, cologne, fans, and burning
+feathers, and Cousin 'Ratio, kneeling over her, was calling in her ear,
+the tears running down his bristly cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Nancy! honey! sugar-lump! wake up! it's me, dearie! The danger is
+all over. What a <i>doggoned</i> fool I was to put the side-blades there!"</p>
+
+<p>When she at last revived, she was taken to the house and put to bed. She
+was not yet able to sit up when my father and mother drove over for me
+in the cool of the afternoon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My tomfoolery came near to being the end of the poor dear," said Cousin
+'Ratio, walking with us to the carriage, when we had taken leave of his
+wife. "I feel mighty bad about it, too, as you may suppose, for it was
+my fault in not reminding her of those cussed side-blades. Between
+ourselves, Burwell,"&mdash;coming nearer to my father and glancing over his
+shoulder to be sure none of the servants were within hearing,&mdash;"Owen and
+I put just exactly <i>two</i> in the whole patch, and they were near the
+fence. Miss Nancy never went within a Sabbath day's journey of them. We
+made a mighty parade of toting twenty of them past the quarters, taking
+two of the hands along to help. They laid them down by the fence, and we
+came down after dark and carried all but two off to the old tobacco
+barn, and hid them there. I wasn't likely to rust my best side-blades by
+burying them in the dirt. But I'd rather have ruined them all and lost
+every bless&egrave;d melon on the place, than have given Miss Nancy's Nerves
+such a shock."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XVI" id="Chapter_XVI"></a>Chapter XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>Old Madam Leigh</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 593px;">
+<img src="images/illus-265.jpg" width="593" height="600" alt="" title="Old Madam Leigh" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="large">N</span><span class="smcap">obody</span> seemed to know how everybody got into the way of calling her "Old
+Madam Leigh." It was not a Virginia custom, and there was not another
+old lady in the neighborhood to whom the title of "Madam" was ever
+given. After she had lived to be the oldest woman in the county, the
+"Old" was prefixed, naturally enough.</p>
+
+<p>I got to know her through Cousin Molly Belle.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare, Frank, Molly has never seen Queen Mab and her hummers!" she
+said at dinner one day. "I'm ashamed of myself for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> not having taken her
+there. It's just the sort of thing she would enjoy."</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Frank Morton was ashamed of having done anything, or having
+left anything undone, the next, and a quick step with her, was to mend
+the fault without further waste of words. We went over to Old Madam
+Leigh's that same afternoon,&mdash;she, Cousin Frank, and I,&mdash;on horseback,
+"the road to Queen Mab's palace being the vilest in the State," as my
+hostess averred.</p>
+
+<p>I thought it a delightful road. It left the main highway a mile beyond
+Cousin Frank's plantation gate, and lost its way in oak and hickory
+woods, where the trees touched over our heads. I said they were "trying
+to shake hands with one another."</p>
+
+<p>"They will be hugging one another before we go much farther," said
+Cousin Frank.</p>
+
+<p>As they did when we began to climb a long hill, washed into crooked
+gullies by the water that tore down to the creek at the bottom whenever
+it rained hard. After this was a short<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> and steeper hill, and then
+another long one, and we were on the edge of a clearing, very bright and
+sunny after the green glooms of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"Does Queen Mab drive this way, often, in her chariot-and-four?" I
+inquired, as we struck into a gentle gallop along a grassy lane.</p>
+
+<p>"Queen Mab's chariot has not been out of the carriage-house in
+twenty-five years," answered Cousin Molly Belle. "There is another road
+from her house to where everyday people live, but it would take us a
+long way around. Mother can recollect when this was a good road, and
+much travelled."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't she make any visits?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never to human beings."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't she go to church?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I have ever heard of."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Molly Belle!" in an awed tone. "Is she a <i>heathen</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is very old, Namesake. Nearly ninety."</p>
+
+<p>She said it gravely and gently, and Cousin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> Frank repeated a verse of
+poetry I did not know then:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"He prayeth best who loveth best</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">All things both great and small;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">For the dear God who loveth us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">He made and loveth all."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It was so nice that I turned it over in my mind several times before I
+asked another question. My mother sometimes called me "an animated
+interrogation-point."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Old Madam Leigh married?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has been married. She would not be 'Madam' if she had not been. She
+has been a widow for a long, long time. She had two children&mdash;twins&mdash;a
+boy and a girl. They lived to be twenty years old, and then died."</p>
+
+<p>"Not both at the same time, Cousin Molly Belle?" for her tone suggested
+something very sorrowful.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Molly dear. The sister fell into the river and the brother, in
+swimming out to save her, was seized with the cramp and sank before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> he
+could reach her. The mother has lived alone ever since, except for her
+servants. They are very good and faithful. Then, she has her hummers and
+her pygmies, who are a great deal of company to her."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pigs!</i>" in intense disgust. "She can't be a very neat person."</p>
+
+<p>A peal of laughter from my companions broke off the speech.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll change your mind shortly," said Cousin Frank, cantering ahead to
+open a gate in the rail fence.</p>
+
+<p>We saw the house from the gate,&mdash;a wee bit of a gray cottage, one story
+high, literally covered with honeysuckles of every kind I had ever heard
+of, and now in fullest bloom. An enormous catalpa tree, also in flower,
+stood in front of the cottage, shading all but one gable, and that
+looked as if it were made of glass. Between this gable and the garden
+were two spreading acacia trees, tufted with the tassel-like blossoms.
+The deep front porch was curtained with white jessamine, and as we
+walked up the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> gravelled path leading to it, Madam Leigh stood in the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>She was a tiny old lady, no taller than I was, and wore a white dress,
+fine and sheer. Cousin Molly Belle told me afterward that it was India
+muslin, and that she wore white, winter and summer. The waist of the
+gown was very short, the skirt was straight, and fell to the in-step of
+a foot no bigger than a baby's. Her cap was also old-fashioned, made of
+lace, with a full crimped border under which her hair, silvery-white,
+was dressed in short, round curls on each side of her forehead. Her skin
+reminded me of a bit of rice-paper I had picked up from the floor one
+day. It had dropped out of the back of my father's watch, and Bud had
+found it and played with it until it was creased and cracked all over
+like "crazed" china, yet not torn. Old Madam Leigh's face could not be
+said to be wrinkled, for the lines were shallow. They were as fine as if
+made with an inkless crow quill, and so close together you would have
+thought there was not room<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> for another. Her eyes were dark and bright
+She had French blood in her veins, and showed it in her quick glance and
+lively motions.</p>
+
+<p>She took us directly into "the chamber" on the left side of the hall
+that cut the house in two. Everything there was white, too,&mdash;bed and
+curtains and chair-covers being of white dimity, trimmed with lace. The
+walls were almost covered with portraits. Some were very old. Two of the
+brightest hung opposite the bed where Madam Leigh must see them as soon
+as she opened her eyes in the morning. One was of a pretty girl in a
+white frock, low-necked and short-sleeved, with a red rose in the
+bodice, making the fair skin it rested against all the fairer. Her eyes
+were dark and sweet; short brown curls, like Madam Leigh's white ones,
+clustered about her temples. The other picture was that of a handsome
+boy of twenty, or thereabouts, and strikingly like his sister. A dog,
+with silky ears, leaned his head against his young master's arm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I tried hard not to stare at these portraits,&mdash;to me the most
+interesting things in the room,&mdash;for I knew they must be the
+twin-children who had died together, ever and ever so many years ago.
+The instinct of kindly breeding told me that it would not be polite to
+remind the mother of her loss by looking inquisitively at them. But I
+could not help stealing a glance at one and the other when the grown
+people were intent in talk. Looking led to dreaming, as I was left to
+myself and the thoughts suggested by the portraits. I arranged it in my
+mind that brother and sister were very fond of each other; that the
+sister had fallen into the river where the current was strong, from some
+such place as Maiden's Adventure, on Mr. Pemberton's plantation, where
+the water was deep above a roaring fall. I thought how she called to her
+brother, and how he answered, and I wondered&mdash;a chill running down my
+spine and catching at my heart&mdash;who carried the awful news to the
+mother. How could she bear it? how live in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> this lonely place with
+nobody to keep her from thinking of, and missing, her husband and her
+children, nobody to care whether she were glad or sorry, sick or well,
+alive or dead?</p>
+
+<p>I did not know that my mouth was drawn down at the corners, that my eyes
+were mournful, and my whole aspect that of a sadly bored little girl,
+who felt herself to be left entirely out of the thoughts of her friends
+and the hostess&mdash;until Madam Leigh's voice made me start, as if I had
+been asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid this little lady finds all this mighty stupid."</p>
+
+<p>I think the old-time practice of calling girl-children "little ladies,"
+kept them in wholesome remembrance of the necessity of behaving as such.
+At any rate, I was instantly aware that I ought to be sitting up
+straight upon my cricket, and seeming to be interested in what was going
+on. Had not my mother reproved me, times without number, for dreaming in
+company and for absent-minded ways<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> that made me heedless of others'
+comfort? "It is selfish and rude not to pay attention to what people are
+saying when you are with them"&mdash;was a nursery rule I ought to have had
+well by heart.</p>
+
+<p>It was natural, then, that I should turn as red as a cardinal flower,
+and fidget uneasily, and stutter when I tried to set myself right with
+my venerable hostess:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, ma'am. I'm not a bit tired. I'm sorry&mdash;if&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to be sorry for, my dear. If anybody has been rude it
+is I who ought to have provided some other entertainment for you than
+sitting still, and trying with all your might to understand big folks'
+talk."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was clearer than one would have expected in such an old lady,
+and she did not mumble as if she were chewing her words, as a great many
+old people do. She spoke very distinctly, pronouncing every syllable in
+each word. She told me, when we were better acquainted, that she read
+aloud for an hour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> every day, for fear she might fall into careless ways
+of speaking, seeing, as she did, so few educated white people, and,
+sometimes, talking with nobody but her colored servants for a week at a
+time. She held herself very straight when seated, and in walking, and
+stepped as lightly as a young person, as she got up and took me by the
+hand, smiling at me in the friendliest way imaginable, and, saying "I
+must introduce you to my family," led me across the hall, and opened a
+door on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as we were inside of the door, she shut it quickly behind us,
+and I stood stock-still with amazement at what I saw and heard.</p>
+
+<p>It was a large room, with two windows at the front and two at the back,
+while the gable we had seen from the lane was almost filled with sashes,
+as in a greenhouse. Close against these sashes, now so bright with the
+Southern sun that I was half-blinded for an instant, were rows of
+shelves, crowded with cut flowers in vases, and growing flowers in pots.
+Most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> of the sashes were open, and the space thus left was screened by
+twine netting, something like fine fish seines. Old Madam Leigh had
+netted each of these squares herself, as I learned afterward. The same
+protected back and front windows. About the open windows, and around the
+flowers, flew and floated what I thought, at first, were at least one
+hundred humming-birds. Madam Leigh said there were but twenty-five, all
+told. The whir of their rapid wings filled the air, the gleam of their
+brilliant breasts and backs was like living jewels.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oh-h-h-h!!</i>" was all I could utter, as I clasped my hands in admiring
+wonder at the beauty and the strangeness of it all, and a queer lump
+came into my throat, as if I were frightened or sorry, and I knew I was
+only delighted past speaking. Madam let me alone for a minute, before
+she laid her small, wrinkled hands upon my shoulders and turned me about
+to see something I had not observed in my raptures over the marvellous
+birds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Against the wall beyond the door was a long, broad table, or rather
+counter, and upon it was a village of small houses, rows upon rows of
+them. Outside of the village and the streets were other and larger
+houses, in groups of two and three, with dooryards and gardens, and then
+came half a dozen farm-houses surrounded by fields and gardens. In the
+village there were stores and a Court House, and a Clerk's Office and a
+Jail, surrounded by a Public Square, exactly like that at Powhatan Court
+House, and two taverns with signs hanging outside of them. Trees lined
+the streets, and vines were running over the houses. Then, there were
+wells, and wood-piles with men chopping wood at them, and cow-pens with
+cows and calves, and pig-pens filled with pigs. Men were driving wagons
+along the roads, and a fine carriage with four horses harnessed to it
+and a coachman on the box stood before the larger of the two taverns.
+The footman, hat in hand, was helping two elegantly dressed ladies out
+of the carriage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> and the landlady, with two colored maids behind her,
+was upon the portico waiting to receive them. Men were digging in the
+corn and tobacco fields; there were turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese,
+and boys riding horses to water and driving the cows home to be milked.</p>
+
+<p>Was ever such another Wonderland revealed to a child who had never been
+in a toy-shop and never owned a doll that was not home-made?</p>
+
+<p>I screamed and capered with joy, like the crazy thing I was, for a whole
+minute after my eyes fell upon the mimic settlement. Then I fell to
+examining the "entertainment" more closely, and discovered that
+everything, except the mosses that imitated the trees, vines, and other
+growing things, was made of corn-stalks and corn-husks&mdash;"shucks" as
+Virginians call them. The human creatures and the dumb animals were
+carved out of the firm, dried pith of the stalks, and afterward painted
+with water colors. The clothes of men and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> women were made of the soft
+inner shucks, dried carefully to the pliability of silk. Log and frame
+houses were built of the canes themselves; the smallest were used whole,
+the larger were split. Peeping into the open doors and windows I saw
+that each house was furnished with beds, tables, and chairs, also made
+of corn-stalks, pith, and shucks.</p>
+
+<p>At the far end of the counter were six bird-cages, constructed of thin
+strips of corn-canes, each supplied with perches and water vessels.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are my reform prisons," Madam Leigh said to my cousins, who had
+followed and begged to be let in. "You see,"&mdash;to me,&mdash;"when one of my
+hummers becomes cross or quarrelsome, I separate him from the rest and
+shut him up in one of these cages until he is in a better humor. I am
+sorry to say that they have pretty peppery tempers, and hardly a day
+passes in which I do not have to interfere to stop their fighting."</p>
+
+<p>I had no reason to feel myself slighted now. She went all round the room
+with me, showing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> her pets and telling me interesting stories of their
+habits and dispositions. Each had a name, and some answered to their
+names when she called them. At least, she thought that they did, and I
+did not doubt it when I saw them swoop down to dip their bills in the
+flowers she held up, as she called "Sprite" and "Bright," and "Sweet"
+and "Swift," and the like crisp, short names in a voice that was like
+the tinkle of a little bell. It was a pretty sight,&mdash;the tiny woman, all
+white from cap to toe, standing in the full tide of sunbeams, bunches of
+honeysuckle and catalpa flowers, half as big as herself, in her arms,
+the elf-like face smiling out of them at the eagerness of her feathered
+darlings, darting and glancing and gleaming and humming about her, as if
+she had been a larger edition of themselves, and not of a different
+genus. She made me stand by her while this was going on, saying that the
+hummers were "too well-bred to be afraid of her friends, and were
+especially fond of little people."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The honeysuckles first made me think of collecting them," went on the
+pleasant tinkle. "When they are in full bloom the frisky little
+creatures swarm in them all day long. They like white and yellow
+jessamine, too, and catalpa flowers and lilies and acacia blossoms. Ten
+years ago I found one of their nests upon a low limb of a tulip-poplar
+tree. Here it is! It looks like a knob of mossy bark, you see. There
+were two eggs in it. I cut off the limb carefully, and set it in a pot
+of water in this room. It was full of blossoms, and the water kept these
+alive. The window was left open and nobody&mdash;not even myself&mdash;came in
+here for a week. As I had hoped, the mother and father bird found the
+nest, and went on sitting on the eggs as if it had not been moved. One
+night, after the baby birds were hatched, I went softly to the outside
+of the window and let down the sash. That was the beginning of my
+aviary. That's a hard word for you&mdash;isn't it, Molly? It means a family
+of birds, such as I have here."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe there is another like it in the world," said Cousin
+Molly Belle. "I've always declared that you are a fairy, and charm your
+hummers. I described it and them once to a famous ornithologist. That's
+a real jaw-breaker, Namesake, and means one who knows everything about
+all sorts of birds&mdash;or thinks he does. I met this or-nith-ol-o-gist in
+New York last May. He said it was impossible to tame and raise families
+of wild birds, especially humming-birds. And when I said I had seen it
+with my own eyes, times without number, he looked polite&mdash;and
+unbelieving."</p>
+
+<p>Madam Leigh was so much amused that the flowers shook in her shrivelled
+mites of hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Many learn&egrave;d strangers have been to see the 'impossibility,'" she said,
+her voice shaken by laughter.</p>
+
+<p>(Cousin Molly Belle had the knack of saying just the thing that would
+please everybody, and saying it in the right way and at the right
+time.)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course I have not raised them all from the eggs," continued Madam.
+"We catch new birds every year, and some are never quite tame. So your
+or-nith-ol-o-gist"&mdash;pronouncing it in the same comical way that Cousin
+Molly Belle had done&mdash;"was not altogether in the wrong. But they get
+used to their new life much sooner because there are so many of their
+own kind about them. When I find that a couple are thinking of going to
+house-keeping, I root a branch of poplar, or hickory, or maple, in a tub
+of moist earth, and curtain off a corner where they will not be
+disturbed in the nesting-time."</p>
+
+<p>"That was the very thing the celebrated or-nith-ol-o-gist said was
+absolutely impossible," cried Cousin Molly Belle. "Even though I told
+him that, if he would pay us a visit, I would show him the cosey corner,
+and the pretty bride and gallant bridegroom building their nest."</p>
+
+<p>"A great many things happen to each of us that others would not believe,
+no matter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> how solemnly we might declare them to be true," said Madam
+Leigh, very seriously.</p>
+
+<p>I had a notion that she was thinking of other things in her strangely
+desolated life besides the aviary and the learn&egrave;d man who knew all about
+birds.</p>
+
+<p>"To me, the most singular part of my management of my hummers is that I
+succeed in making them comfortable and contented in the winter," she
+said. "For their forefathers and foremothers have been going South at
+the first sign of frost for six thousand years or so. I have a stove put
+up in here, covered with wire netting to hinder the little dears from
+flying against it; then I keep an even temperature and fill the room
+with flowers. It has, as you see, a southern exposure. I live here with
+them all day long. When it begins to grow dark, I say, 'Good night' and
+go across to my chamber. At bedtime I look in to make sure the fire will
+keep in until morning, and that my darlings are all right. While
+daylight lasts we are very happy to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>gether. I am busy with my pygmies
+and my flowers. I feed the hummers with sugar-and-water in winter, with
+a taste of honey on Sundays"&mdash;laughing cheerily. "To make them glad that
+Sunday has come, you know. I've an idea that they need stronger food in
+cold weather than in summer. It helps tame them to make them eat from
+the tip of my finger. I take a great deal of pains to keep a succession
+of plants in flower, for, after all, hive-honey isn't quite as pure and
+delicate after it has gone through the bee's body as when the hummer
+sips it fresh from the flower-cup. You must come over next winter, Molly
+Belle, and bring the little lady to see my nasturtiums, and hyacinths,
+and morning-glories. Roses and cape-jessamines, and the like are of no
+use to us. Our flowers must be shaped like wine-glasses, with a drop of
+honey-dew in the bottom, to please us perfectly. The hummers and I
+understand that. You wouldn't believe how much company we are for one
+another, or how much I learn from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> them. Even my silly mannikins give
+work to my fingers and keep my thoughts steady."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Molly Belle put her arms around the wee old lady and hugged her
+hard&mdash;the honeysuckles and catalpas falling to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"All this is the loveliest thing I ever heard!" laughing to keep from
+crying. "I hope you will live to be a hundred years old, and give the
+lie to or-nith-ol-o-gists every day you live. And Molly and I will come
+to see you, often and often, whenever she is at our house. You dear,
+brave, sensible, lion-hearted, <i>royal</i> Queen Mab!"</p>
+
+<p>She kept her word. It was one of her many ways to do more than she had
+promised. I never paid a visit to my dearest cousins, the Frank Mortons,
+without riding, or driving, up through the woods, and across the creek,
+and up the two long, and the one short, hill, and along the grass-grown
+lane to the gray cottage that always reminded me of a "hummer's" nest
+masked with moss. I spent a good deal of that summer with Cousin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> Molly
+Belle, and one week in the very middle of December.</p>
+
+<p>The weather was very mild for midwinter, and the great south room felt
+too warm to me. So warm that I began to feel sleepy and a little dizzy,
+and Madam Leigh noticed the yawn I could not quite swallow.</p>
+
+<p>"Put on your hood and cloak, little lady," she said, "and run into the
+garden to see if you cannot find some roses for your cousin. Betty tells
+me there has been so little frost this season that the rose-bushes are
+still all in leaf."</p>
+
+<p>I scampered off willingly, and did not show myself in the house again
+until the sun almost touched the tree-tops. I gathered chrysanthemums
+and nasturtiums and late heartsease, and at least a dozen roses and
+buds, and, wandering farther and farther down the quiet paths, I saw
+what I had never noticed before&mdash;that there was a small graveyard at the
+back of the garden, of which it formed a part. An arbor, thickly
+curtained with a Florida<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> honeysuckle that kept its leaves all winter,
+was at one side of the burial-place; a walk, edged with box, stretched
+from it straight up to the house-yard. Now that the trees were bare, I
+saw that old Madam Leigh could have a full view, through the windows in
+the south gable, of the arbor, and the two white headstones before it:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+             <h3>JOHN AND RUTH LEIGH.<br /><br />
+
+   TWIN-CHILDREN OF EDWARD AND JUDITH LEIGH.<br /><br />
+
+            BORN SEPTEMBER 3, 1790.<br /><br />
+
+             DIED AUGUST 1, 1810.<br /><br />
+
+   "<i>I was dumb; I opened not my mouth, because</i> THOU
+                           <i>didst it.</i>"</h3>
+
+
+<p>I sat down in the summer-house and had a long thinking spell, all by
+myself. Too young to word the emotions that swelled my heart, the
+thoughts that oppressed my brain, there was, all the while, in heart and
+head, the recollection of the story she had told of her manner of
+getting the first pair of humming-birds&mdash;and how she had stolen softly
+around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> to the window after dark, and shut the parents in with their
+nestlings.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw her again. On Christmas morning the maid, who came as usual
+to awake and dress her mistress, found that she had died in her sleep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XVII" id="Chapter_XVII"></a>Chapter XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>Out into the World</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/illus-290a.jpg" width="600" height="345" alt="" title="Out into the World" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 155px;">
+<img src="images/illus-290b.jpg" width="155" height="300" style="margin-top: -2em;" alt="" title="C" />
+</div>
+<p>OUSIN BURWELL CARTER fell in love with our handsome, amiable Boston
+governess, Miss Davidson, and married her when I was ten years of age.
+She comforted my mother for her loss by sending for her younger sister,
+who was even prettier than herself, and had such winsome ways that Mr.
+John Morton, Cousin Frank's bachelor brother, married her at the end of
+her first session in our school-room.</p>
+
+<p>My father looked quizzically grave when the two sisters recommended a
+Miss Bradnor of Springfield, Massachusetts, as a person who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> was sure to
+please our parents and to bring us on finely in our studies.</p>
+
+<p>"Is she pretty and marriageable?" he asked. "My business, nowadays,
+seems to be providing the eligible bachelors of Powhatan with wives. It
+is pleasant enough from one standpoint, and that is the young men's. But
+my children must be educated."</p>
+
+<p>Both young matrons assured him, earnestly, that Miss Bradnor was "a
+predestined old maid&mdash;a man-hater, in fact&mdash;and was likely to remain a
+fixture in our school-room as long as we needed her." When she arrived I
+was surprised to see a prim, quiet little personage who looked too
+gentle to hate any one. She fitted easily into her place in our family
+and soon proved herself the prize we had been promised, being a born
+instructor, and loving her profession. She awoke my mind as nobody else
+had done. I fancied that I could feel it stretch, and grow, and get
+hungry while she taught me. The more it was fed, the hungrier it grew,
+and the more eagerly it stretched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> itself. I studied Comstock's <i>Natural
+Philosophy</i> with Miss Bradnor, and Vose's <i>Astronomy</i>, and Lyell's
+<i>Elements of Geology</i>, Bancroft's <i>History of the United States</i>, and
+<i>Watts on the Mind</i>, and began French and Latin. It was such a busy,
+happy year that I was actually sorry when vacation began.</p>
+
+<p>I was sorrier yet when a letter was received from Miss Bradnor, saying
+that she "had been betrothed for ten years to an exemplary gentleman who
+now claimed the fulfilment of her pledge. Before the letter could reach
+us she would (D. V.) have become Mrs. Calvin Chapin. She hoped the
+unforeseen reversal of her plans for the ensuing year would not occasion
+serious inconvenience to her dear and respected friends, Mr. and Mrs.
+Burwell."</p>
+
+<p>"It takes the prim sort to give us such surprises!" exclaimed my mother.</p>
+
+<p>"It takes all sorts and conditions of women, <i>I</i> think!" rejoined my
+father, dryly. "I foresee that the Richmond plan will have to be carried
+out, after all. Governesses are kittle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> cattle, at the best. And we have
+had three of the very best."</p>
+
+<p>As may be supposed, I was consumed by curiosity to know what "the
+Richmond plan" could be. The city I had never yet seen had been made
+tenfold more interesting to me within a year by the removal of the Frank
+Mortons to that place. Cousin Frank had gone into the Commission
+business there with an uncle who had no son to succeed him in the firm.
+But, although I pricked up my ears smartly at my father's unguarded
+remark, I had to smother my excitement as best I could, and study
+patience&mdash;surely the hardest lesson ever set for the young. When older
+people were talking with one another, it was esteemed an impertinence in
+children to interrupt them by questions.</p>
+
+<p>"If it were best for you to understand what we were saying, we would
+take pains to explain it to you," my mother would say when we broke this
+one of her rules. And, still oftener, "Little girls should trust their
+fathers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> and mothers to tell them at the right time all that they ought
+to know."</p>
+
+<p>The right time in this instance was one moonlight September night, soon
+after Mary 'Liza and I had gone to bed. My mother had a habit of coming
+up to our room, and sitting down by the bed in the dark, or without
+other light than the moon, to have a little talk with us. "To give us a
+good appetite for our dreams," she would say in her merry way. We dearly
+enjoyed these visits, especially on Sunday nights, when we told her what
+we had been reading and thinking that day, and repeated the hymns we
+loved best.</p>
+
+<p>This was on Monday night, and she began by telling us that Miss Judy
+Curran was coming the next day, to make our fall and winter frocks, and
+that there would be a pretty busy time with us all for the rest of the
+month, as we were going to school in Richmond, the fifth day of October.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father and I do not believe in boarding-schools," she continued.
+"We think that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> God gives our children to us to be brought up and
+educated, as far as possible, by us, their parents, and not to be made
+over to hirelings at the very time when they are most easily led right
+or wrong. There are, however, excellent reasons why you should begin now
+to know more of the world than you can learn in a quiet country
+neighborhood such as this. We are thankful to be able to give you the
+advantages of a city school, without depriving you of good
+home-training. You are to live with your Cousin Molly Belle, and be
+day-scholars in Mrs. Nunham's seminary."</p>
+
+<p>Even Mary 'Liza gave a little jump under the sheet at the astounding
+news, while I leaped clean out of bed, and danced around the room in my
+night-gown, clapping my hands and uttering small shrieks of ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! hurrah! goody! goody! mother! it is like a fairy tale!"</p>
+
+<p>I was somewhat abashed, and decidedly ashamed of my transport when the
+bless&egrave;d mother said gently, after a little sigh:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I shall miss my daughters sadly, but I hope what we are doing
+is for their good. If I were less sure of this, I could not part with
+them."</p>
+
+<p>From the hour in which her first-born baby was laid in her arms, until
+she closed her eyes in the sleep from which our wild weeping could not
+awaken her, her ever-present thought was the children's best good.
+Nothing that could secure that was self-denial on her part.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I have come to Richmond to write this chapter. From my window I look
+down upon the pavement trodden by my feet twice a day for ten months out
+of twelve, during four school years. The house in which I sojourn
+belongs to a younger brother of him who figures in my story as "Bud." It
+occupies the site of the large, yellow frame building in which Mrs.
+Nunham taught her "young ladies," more than forty years ago.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 427px;">
+<img src="images/illus5.jpg" width="427" height="650" alt="How I Came To Town.
+
+&quot;My father walked between Mary &#39;Liza and myself, each of us holding to
+one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies walked.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">How I Came To Town.
+
+&quot;My father walked between Mary &#39;Liza and myself, each of us holding to
+one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies walked.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I smile, as fancy reconstructs the group that turned the corner into
+this street, a block<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> away, on the fifth of October of that memorable
+year in the forties. My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself,
+each of us holding to one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies in the
+country walked together then. He was a well-built, clear-eyed,
+clean-lived, upright gentleman, whom God had made and whom the world had
+not spoiled. My cousin and I were dressed exactly alike. Into every
+detail of daily life my mother carried her principle of treating the
+orphan as her own child. Our country-made frocks were of dark-green
+merino, becoming to my blond companion, and anything but becoming to my
+sun-browned skin. Over the frocks were neat black silk aprons with
+pockets. White linen-cambric frills, hemstitched by hand, and carefully
+crimped, were at our throats and wrists, and sunbonnets upon our heads,
+or rather, "slatted" hoods that could be folded at pleasure. These were
+of dark-green silk, to match the merinos, and ribbon of the same color
+was quilled around the capes, crowns, and brims.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> Our silk gloves were
+also dark green, and my mother had knit them herself.</p>
+
+<p>Every item of our school costume was prescribed by her before we left
+home. I comprehend now, why the water stood in Cousin Molly Belle's
+eyes, while dancing lights played under the water, when we presented
+ourselves at breakfast-time, dressed for the important first day in the
+Seminary. I appreciate, furthermore, as it was not possible I should
+then, the tact and delicacy with which she gradually modified our
+everyday and Sunday attire into something more in accordance with that
+of our school-fellows.</p>
+
+<p>As we found out for ourselves, before the day was over, we were little
+girls in the midst of young ladies, so far as dress and carriage went.
+We were imbued with the idea&mdash;gathered from the talk of friends and
+acquaintances, and our much reading of English story-books&mdash;that we were
+to be "polished" by our city associations. It was a shock and a
+down-topple of our expectations to be thrown, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>out preparation, into
+the society of girls whose manners were very little, if at all, more
+refined than those of the quartette who with us constituted Miss
+Davidson's home school. We were even more confounded at the discovery
+that our home-education had so rooted and grounded us in the rudiments
+of learning that we were classed, after the preliminary examination,
+with girls older than we by four and five years. The circumstance did
+not make us popular with our comrades.</p>
+
+<p>As if my cheeks had tingled under the assault but to-day, I recall the
+exclamation of a girl of fifteen who sat next to me while the
+examination in history was held. Her father was a distinguished citizen
+of Richmond, and her mother a leader in fashionable society.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, child! how smart you think yourself, to be sure!" she said aloud,
+turning squarely about to look into my face.</p>
+
+<p>I had answered as quietly and briefly as I could, the questions put to
+me, and tried politely not to look scandalized at her flippant
+failures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know!" "Never heard of him!" "If I ever knew, I've
+forgotten all about it!"&mdash;were, to my notion, a disgrace, and her cool
+effrontery would have been severely rebuked by our governess, and have
+met with still sterner judgment from my mother.</p>
+
+<p>At recess this offensive young person headed a coterie that surrounded
+us, criticised our clothes, and catechised us as to our home, our
+family, and our mode of home living. Among other choice <i>bon mots</i> from
+the Honorable Member's daughter was the inquiry&mdash;"if we got the pattern
+of our wagon-cover hoods from Mrs. Noah?"</p>
+
+<p>I told Cousin Molly Belle that night, that "the whole pack were
+ill-bred, rude, and unbearable."</p>
+
+<p>She agreed heartily with two of my epithets, and took me up on the
+third:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is 'unbearable,' Namesake, except the thought of our own folly
+or sin. Still, this is a part of the discipline of life I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> would spare
+you, if I could. Endure hardness as a good soldier, and shame their want
+of breeding by the perfection of yours. An unmannerly schoolgirl is the
+cruellest of tormentors, and"&mdash;with a ring of her voice and a snap of
+her eyes that were refreshing and characteristic&mdash;"I should like to have
+the handling of that crew for an hour or two!"</p>
+
+<p>I snuggled up close to her, already measurably consoled, and ready as
+usual, with one of the speeches that stamped me as "old-fashioned."</p>
+
+<p>"We are like two wild pigeons, tied by the foot, in a yard full of
+peacocks. I would rather be a pigeon than a peacock. But pecks and
+struts and screamings are not agreeable, for all that."</p>
+
+<p>Nor was it agreeable to be the only girls in our class-room who were not
+invited to a party given the middle of November, by one of the nicest of
+our new acquaintances. She had been quite friendly with us, and the very
+day the invitations were sent out, laid a sprig of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> citronaloes silently
+on my lap, during a French lesson. The smile that went with the scented
+leaves was sweeter still, and made my heart and face glow. When we were
+getting our wraps and bonnets in the cloak-room, at the close of the
+afternoon session, I edged nearer and nearer to her, pretending to hunt
+for my overshoes, meaning to say a word of thanks as soon as the group
+about her thinned. I got so near to her that I caught what she was
+saying in a low voice to her intimates:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I just <i>hated</i> not to invite the Burwells, but they do look so
+countryfied! like little old women cut short after they were made. And I
+don't believe either of them has a party dress to her name. They would
+be a pair of sights in a roomful of well-dressed people."</p>
+
+<p>I slipped away with a barbed arrow in my self-love, and a hard,
+resentful pain at my heart, on my mother's account. Fierce tears scalded
+the inside of my eyelids as I recalled her weeks of loving preparation
+for our school life, the thousand of stitches set by her dear hands,
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> gentle smile of satisfaction with which she had surveyed our
+finished wardrobe. When I was in my own room at Cousin Molly's, I hugged
+and kissed and cried over the slatted hood, vowing vengefully to study
+so hard, and to rise so fast in my classes, and to acquit myself so
+nobly in the sight of my teachers, as to compel the admiration of the
+proud who rose up against me, and who compassed me about like bees.
+David's "cussing psalms" came readily and forcibly to my help in the
+hour of bitter humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>If my wrath was unhallowed, it wrought the peaceable fruits of
+righteousness. The barb had gone too deep to be uncovered even to Cousin
+Molly Belle, but the hurt made a student of me. Giving up all thought of
+popularity and polish, I devoted myself to my school work with assiduity
+that threatened injury to my health before the half-term was over. But
+for my best and most clear-sighted of cousins I might have become a
+misanthropic invalid.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the very day of the now hateful party, she took us for a long
+drive,&mdash;the whole length of Main Street, the sidewalks of which were
+thronged with promenaders and shoppers. She stopped the carriage&mdash;a
+handsome equipage, with a smart coachman and two spanking grays&mdash;at
+Samanni's and bought us a whole pound, apiece, of delicious candy, and
+treated us to Albemarle pippins to take home with us, and ice-cream
+eaten on the spot. Next, we went to Drinker and Morris's, the
+fashionable bookstore, and she told us to pick out, each for herself,
+the books we would like best to have. Mary 'Liza chose <i>The School-girl
+in France</i>, and I, <i>The Scottish Chiefs</i>. (I have it to this day.) We
+finished our excursion by a visit to St. John's Church and
+burying-ground. Cousin Molly Belle's grandfather had heard Patrick
+Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech, and she made the scene very plain to
+us as we strolled along the dim aisles, streaked with flaming bars of
+sunset, striking through the western window upon the very spot where the
+great orator had stood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By the time I had finished my supper, and was settled before the fire
+with my book, the memories of my jaunt making glad my whole being, I had
+clean forgotten party and slight, and did not care a fig&mdash;for that one
+night&mdash;if I <i>was</i> countryfied and had not a party dress to my name. The
+real things were mine,&mdash;home-loves and the world of books and
+imagination,&mdash;possessions which the scorning of those who were at ease,
+and the contempt of the proud could not molest or take away.</p>
+
+<p>I was reading <i>The Scottish Chiefs</i> for the second time,&mdash;out of school,
+of course,&mdash;and studying with might and main, when something came to
+pass that altered the tone of my mates, converted oppressors into
+champions, and made a moderate heroine of me.</p>
+
+<p>There were sixteen of us in the senior Geography Class, I being the
+youngest. The practice of "turning down" for incorrect answers to
+questions was common at that date, even in Young Ladies' Seminaries.
+When the class was formed, we were seated according to age, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> thanks
+to my governesses' drill, I had mounted steadily until I was now but one
+from the top&mdash;or, as we put it, was "next to head." The topmost place
+had been held for over a month by Mary Morgan, a slovenly and indolent
+girl of sixteen, who wrote poetry and had a great deal of old blue blood
+in her veins, as she was fond of informing all who had the patience to
+listen to her. Her recitations in most of her classes were so imperfect
+that everybody was surprised at her keeping an honorable place in any
+until the whisper went around that she smuggled "help-papers" into the
+class with her.</p>
+
+<p>I am told that the use of "ponies," and much less reputable aids to
+perfect recitation in school and in college, is not considered
+dishonorable among the youth of the present age. Unmannerly and cruel as
+the girls in our seminary appeared to me, they had a certain sense of
+honor, a respect for truth and fair-dealing that bespoke better things
+than their surface-conduct indicated. When it was certainly known that
+Mary Morgan carried into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> recitation-room notes of the lesson,
+written upon bits of paper, and tucked up her sleeve, or hidden in the
+folds of her dress, popular indignation arose to a bubbling boil. A
+tale-bearer would have been drummed out of school, and not a lisp of the
+shameful truth was carried to the teacher, the second Miss Nunham, who
+was near-sighted and unsuspicious. The geography lesson was the most
+exciting event of the day,&mdash;a prize-ring, in which the two at the head
+of the class were chief actors. When a question reached Mary Morgan, the
+class held its breath for a time. When she answered with glib accuracy,
+the breath exhaled in chagrin audible to all but the teacher. Out of
+class I was noticed, cheered, and commended, and exhorted to hold on in
+the course of truth and uprightness&mdash;encouragement corresponding to the
+rubbing down and bracing bestowed by his guardians upon the pugilist.
+And still the geography questions went around, and Mary Morgan was head
+and I next to head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At last, on the fifteenth of December, came the tug of war in the shape
+of a review of the exercises of the last month, and Mary Morgan was
+armed for the fray by half a dozen long slips of paper covered with
+characters in very black ink. Presuming upon the teacher's short-sighted
+eyes, and nerved by a sense of the gravity of the situation, she boldly
+laid the papers upon the bench between her and myself, and consulted
+them from time to time, with coolness that would have been heroic had it
+not been impudent. The recitation was half over, when the girl who sat
+next below me "made a long arm" behind my back, and abstracted one of
+the abhorrent slips without the knowledge of the owner. She perceived
+the loss as the questions were again nearing her, gave one frightened
+glance at the floor on all sides of her, colored violently; made a
+desperate rally of memory and courage when the question reached her,
+answered so wildly that the teacher gave her a second trial, and, in
+pity for her distress, still a third.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Such a simple question as it was! I can never forget it. "What large
+island lies south of Hindostan?"</p>
+
+<p>Nor can I forget the pale dismay of the face turned to me as the teacher
+said, reluctantly,&mdash;"Next."</p>
+
+<p>I had never liked the girl; latterly, I had despised her and regarded
+her as my enemy. I did not analyze the revulsion of feeling that made me
+hesitate while one could have counted ten, before saying in a low,
+constrained voice,&mdash;"Ceylon!"</p>
+
+<p>The deposed pupil sank to the middle of the class before the recitation
+was over, much to the bewilderment of the single-minded teacher. By the
+morrow she was at the bottom of the line and so far across the outer
+confines of Coventry that she never got back. That was our way of
+looking at "cribs" half a century ago.</p>
+
+<p>It is not ten years since I met the banished scholar in a metropolitan
+reception-room, and a few minutes afterward, another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> old schoolfellow,
+who said in one and the same breath, "Do you know that Mary Morgan is
+here?" and, "I suppose it is uncharitable, but I can never forget that
+she used to cheat in her recitations at Mrs. Nunham's."</p>
+
+<p>We went home "for Christmas." My father sent the carriage for us. The
+roomy family coach he never allowed to get shabby. The "squabs," <i>i.e.</i>
+padded inner curtains to exclude the cold in winter, were in, and there
+were thick shawls and a pillow apiece and two footstoves for our comfort
+in the thirty-mile drive, and upon the front seat, gorgeous in a new
+shawl of many and daring colors, her snowy turban wound about head and
+ears, was Mam' Chloe, the comfortablest thing there. Hamilcar, the
+carriage-driver, (we did not say "coachman") had on his Christmas suit,
+including a shaggy overcoat for which his master had given him an order
+upon a Richmond tailor, and was spruce exceedingly. To ensure our
+perfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> safety and respectability we had an outrider in the shape of
+Mr. James Ireton, a young fellow-countryman, who was returning from a
+business trip to town.</p>
+
+<p>The boxes under the seats&mdash;an old-fashioned convenience, capable of
+containing a gentleman's entire wardrobe and half of a lady's&mdash;were
+brimful of Christmas gifts and "goodies," and parcels stuffed with the
+same wedged Mam' Chloe in the exact middle of the front seat. A big
+hair-trunk was strapped upon the rack behind, and a box packed by Cousin
+Molly Belle was between Hamilcar's feet.</p>
+
+<p>It began to snow before we had left the city a mile behind us, but that
+made things all the merrier. How we chuckled with laughter as the fast
+flakes stuck upon Mr. Ireton's hat and overcoat and leggings, until he
+looked like a polar bear but for his face that got redder as the rest of
+his body whitened, until, with his shining teeth and powdered hair, he
+made us think of Santa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> Claus. When we let down the carriage-window to
+tell him so, he drew a pipe from his pocket, got behind the carriage to
+screen it from the wind while he was lighting it, and rode up again
+alongside of us, puffing away at it to carry out the likeness.</p>
+
+<p>We set out at nine o'clock, and at one o'clock stopped at Flat Rock, a
+well-known house of entertainment, for an early dinner and a generous
+feed for the horses. The roads were heavy with winter mud, red and
+sticky. It looked like strawberry ice-cream as the wheels and hoofs
+churned it up with the snow. Mam' Chloe laughed until her fat sides
+quaked when I said that. How good she was to us that day! how good
+everybody was! and how good it was to be just what I was, and where I
+was&mdash;off on a royal spree in the splendidest snowstorm I had ever seen,
+and Home and Christmas at the end of the journey.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness fell by four o'clock, and, but for the whiteness of the earth,
+we would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> not have been able to see the trees on the side of the road
+when we came in sight of the house. Not a shutter had been closed, and
+every window was aglow with fire and lamplight, golden and pink through
+the snowy veil shifting and swaying between them and our happy eyes.</p>
+
+<p>When, for me, Life's little day&mdash;full, rich, and bless&egrave;d, for all that
+storm and wreck and blight have, once and again, befallen me, as was
+God's will, and therefore, for my eternal good&mdash;when, for me, Life's
+little day darkens to its outgoing, may the lights of the Home that
+changes not, save from glory to glory, shine out for me through night
+and chill with such loving welcome as gleamed in those ruddy windows!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>THE FAMOUS PEPPER BOOKS</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Margaret Sidney</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">IN ORDER OF PUBLICATION</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p><b>Five Little Peppers and How they Grew.</b> Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>This was an instantaneous success; it has become a genuine child
+classic.</p>
+
+<p><b>Five Little Peppers Midway.</b> Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>"A perfect Cheeryble of a book."&mdash;<i>Boston Herald.</i></p>
+
+<p><b>Five Little Peppers Grown Up.</b> Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>This shows the Five Little Peppers as "grown up," with all the struggles
+and successes of young manhood and womanhood.</p>
+
+<p><b>Phronsie Pepper.</b> Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>It is the story of Phronsie, the youngest and dearest of all the
+Peppers.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Stories Polly Pepper Told.</b> Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Jessie
+McDermott and Etheldred B. Barry. $1.50, postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever there exists a child or a "grown-up," there will be a welcome
+for these charming and delightful "Stories Polly Pepper Told."</p>
+
+<p><b>The Adventures of Joel Pepper.</b> Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Sears
+Gallagher. $1.50, postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>As bright and just as certain to be a child's favorite as the others in
+the famous series. Harum-scarum "Joey" is lovable.</p>
+
+<p><b>Five Little Peppers Abroad.</b> Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Fanny Y. Cory.
+$1.50, postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>The "Peppers Abroad" adds another most delightful book to this famous
+series.</p>
+
+<p><b>Five Little Peppers at School.</b> Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Hermann
+Heyer. $1.50, postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the fascinating adventures and experiences of the "Peppers," none
+will surpass those contained in this volume.</p>
+
+<p><b>Five Little Peppers and Their Friends.</b> Illustrated by Eugenie M.
+Wireman. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50, postpaid.</p>
+
+<p>The newest of the stories of the children's favorites&mdash;the Pepper boys
+and girls.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<p class="center">LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>Ethel In Fairyland</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By EDITH REBECCA BOLSTER</p>
+
+<p class="center">Small 4to. Six illustrations by Hermann Heyer. Pictorial cover in color.
+Price, $1.00.</p>
+
+<p>"Ethel in Fairyland," by Edith R. Bolster, is a delightful little
+allegory. A child falls asleep and dreams that she has a number of
+adventures in a wood, where she meets various people personifying the
+moral qualities, like bad temper, unkindness, and envy, and learns a
+good lesson from them to tell her mother when she awakes the next
+morning. The book is written in a way to please both mothers and
+children.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>A Japanese Garland</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By FLORENCE PELTIER</p>
+
+<p class="center">Small 4to. Four illustrations by Genjiro Yeto. Pictorial cover in color.
+Price, $1.00.</p>
+
+<p>"A Japanese Garland," by Florence Peltier, is one of the most charming
+books for young people published of late. It tells of a Japanese lad,
+adopted by an American, who has a number of American boys and girls as
+friends, to whom he tells a series of folk-lore tales associated with
+the flowers of Japan. The meetings to hear the stories occur at the
+different houses of the children, and there is always some sort of
+entertainment at the end of the narration, to furnish variety and life.
+By means of this story-frame much interesting information about Japanese
+customs and superstitions, also social life, is conveyed, while the
+picturesque stories hold the attention. The book is appropriately
+illustrated by G. Yeto, the noted Japanese artist.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Lothrop Publishing Company, Boston</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>A Partnership In Magic</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of "Just Rhymes," "The Four Masted Cat Boat," and "Yankee
+Enchantments." 12mo. Four illustrations. Price, $1.25.</p>
+
+<p>"A Partnership in Magic," by Charles B. Loomis, the widely known
+humorist, is an extremely original and clever juvenile, Mr. Loomis's
+first piece of long fiction. It has a fairy-tale motive in an entirely
+realistic setting. A country boy, who has a marvellous power of plucking
+fruit from the bare branches of any tree, goes to New York, and with a
+friend starts in the fruit business, and makes a large sum of money in a
+couple of weeks of their partnership. There is a cruel stepfather, and
+his adventures in New York in search of the boy, together with the many
+city scenes in connection with the hero's experiences, make it a highly
+amusing and graphic story. It is written in Mr. Loomis's peculiar vein
+of quiet, but effective fun.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Lothrop Publishing Company, Boston</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>Defending The Bank</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By EDWARD S. VAN ZILE</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of "With Sword and Crucifix," etc. Four illustrations by I. B.
+Hazelton. 12 mo. Pictorial cover in color. Price, $1.25.</p>
+
+<p>"Defending the Bank," by Edward S. Van Zile, is a most amusing and
+interesting detective story for boys and girls, in which a couple of
+bright boys and girls appoint themselves amateur detectives and are able
+to run down a couple of bank robbers who are planning to rob the bank of
+which the father of one of the boys is president. This is at once an
+exciting and wholesome tale, of which the scene is laid in Troy, N. Y.,
+the former home of the author. It will be widely welcomed.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h3>The Mutineers</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By EUSTACE L. WILLIAMS</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of "The Substitute Quarterback." 12mo. Four illustrations by I.
+B. Hazelton. Pictorial cover in color. Price, $1.25.</p>
+
+<p>"The Mutineers" is a rattling boys' story by Mr. Eustace L. Williams of
+the Louisville <i>Courier-Journal</i>. It gives a picture of life in a large
+boarding-school, where a certain set of boys control the athletics, and
+shows how their unjust power was broken by the hero of the tale, who
+forms a rival baseball nine and manages to defeat his opponents, thus
+bringing a better state of things in the school socially and as to
+sports. The story is full of lively action, and deals with baseball and
+general athletic interests in a large school in a manner which shows
+that the author is thoroughly acquainted with and sympathetic to his
+subject.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Lothrop Publishing Company, Boston</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>The Little Citizen</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By M. E. WALLER</p>
+
+<p class="center">Illustrated by H. Burgess, 12mo, blue cloth, illustrated cover, $1.25</p>
+
+<p>This is a right royal, good juvenile story. It has the narrative of the
+development of a waif of New York streets in the simple and wholesome
+life of a Vermont farmer neighborhood. The lad, Miffins, is taken into
+the household of Jacob Foss, a farmer. The story tells of the
+transformation wrought in Miffins's character. It is a story of heart
+power; and with its study of the evolution of a street gamin into a
+useful little citizen, and with its graphic descriptions of Vermont
+country life in summer and winter, it makes a book of unusual power and
+interest.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Lothrop Publishing Company&mdash;Boston</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>A Little Maid of Concord Town</h3>
+
+<p class="center">A Romance of the American Revolution</p>
+
+<p class="center">By MARGARET SIDNEY. One volume, 12mo, illustrated by F. T. Merrill,
+$1.50</p>
+
+<p>A delightful Revolutionary romance of life, love and adventure in old
+Concord. The author lived for fifteen years in the home of Hawthorne, in
+Concord, and knows the interesting town thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>Debby Parlin, the heroine, lived in a little house on the Lexington
+Road, still standing, and was surrounded by all the stir and excitement
+of the months of preparation and the days of action at the beginning of
+our struggle for freedom.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>By Way of the Wilderness</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By "PANSY" (Mrs. G. R. Alden) and MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON. 12mo, cloth,
+illustrated by Charlotte Harding, $1.50</p>
+
+<p>This story of Wayne Pierson and how he evaded or met the tests of
+misunderstanding, environment, false position, opportunity and
+self-pride; how he lost his father and found him again, almost lost his
+home and found it again, almost lost himself and found alike his
+manhood, his conscience and his heart is told us in Pansy's best vein,
+ably supplemented by Mrs. Livingston's collaboration.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>The Children On The Top Floor</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By NINA RHOADES</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of "Only Dollie," "Little Girl Next Door," "Winifred's Neighbors"</p>
+
+<p>Illustrated by Bertha G. Davidson Large 12mo Cloth 300 pages $1.00</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 147px;">
+<img src="images/illus-323a.jpg" width="147" height="200" alt="" title="book cover" />
+</div>
+<p>Little Winifred Hamilton, the child heroine of this book, lives in the
+second of the four stories of a New York apartment-house. On the top
+floor are two very interesting children&mdash;Betty, a little older than
+Winifred, who is ten, and Jack, a brave little cripple, who is a year
+younger. The widowed mother, proud and distant until won over by the
+kindness of good friends, shows unmistakably that something very
+different from poverty and loneliness has been familiar to her, which
+fact is also very evident from the character and breeding of her
+children. In the end comes a glad reunion, and good fortune for crippled
+Jack, and Winifred's kind little heart has indirectly caused great
+happiness to many others. This is the strongest story Miss Rhoades has
+yet given us, excellent as have been her others.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h3>ONLY DOLLIE</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By NINA RHOADES</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of "The Little Girl Next Door," "Winifred's Neighbors," "The
+Children On The Top Floor"</p>
+
+<p class="center">New Cover Design Illustrated Square 12mo Cloth $1.00</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 147px;">
+<img src="images/illus-323b.jpg" width="147" height="200" alt="" title="book cover" />
+</div>
+<p>This is a brightly written story of a girl of twelve, who, when the
+mystery of her birth is solved, like Cinderella, passes from drudgery to
+better circumstances. There is nothing strained or unnatural at any
+point. All descriptions or portrayals of character are life-like, and
+the book has an indescribable appealing quality which wins sympathy and
+secures success.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is delightful reading at all times."&mdash;<i>Cedar Rapids (Ia.)
+Republican.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The author has written with admirable restraint, and has exhibited
+in her character-drawing a keen observance of real
+life."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p>
+
+<p>"It is well written, the story runs smoothly, the idea is good, and
+it is handled with ability."&mdash;<i>Chicago Journal.</i></p></div>
+
+<p class="center"><i>For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
+the publishers.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">LEE &amp; SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>Hortense&mdash;A Difficult Child</h3>
+
+<p class="center">By EDNA A. FOSTER</p>
+
+<p class="center">Editor Children's Page "Youth's Companion"</p>
+
+<p class="center">Illustrated by MARY AVER 12mo Cloth Price, $1.00</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 144px;">
+<img src="images/illus-324.jpg" width="144" height="200" alt="" title="book cover" />
+</div>
+<p>"It is an interesting study of the development of an uncommon little
+girl. She is thoroughly natural, and the situations in which she is
+placed are seldom strained. She has no mother, and circumstances place
+her in the care of an older girl who also has no mother. How one child
+may be trained while another may be only taught, is made very clear. It
+is an attractive little story quite worth the reading."&mdash;<i>The
+Universalist Leader, Boston.</i></p>
+
+<p>"It is a book which girls from eight to eighteen will read with interest
+and which careful guardians and mothers will be glad to have them
+read."&mdash;<i>Times, Chattanooga, Tenn.</i></p>
+
+<p>"We would strongly advise all mothers of growing boys and girls to
+hasten to procure a copy of this delightful book for the home
+library&mdash;and, above all, to make a point of reading it carefully
+themselves before turning it over to the juveniles."&mdash;<i>Designer, New
+York, N. Y.</i></p>
+
+<p>"It is a truthful and discerning study of a gifted child, and should be
+read by all who have children under their care. It is probably the best
+new girl's book of the year."&mdash;<i>Springfield (Mass.) Republican.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The book is excellent, whether viewed as a story for the children, or
+as a suggestive study for those who have to do with the education of
+children."&mdash;<i>Zion's Herald, Boston.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The story may be commended as first-rate in construction, and with a
+happy style of teaching moral lessons."&mdash;<i>Chicago Journal.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
+the publishers.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">LEE &amp; SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>LITTLE BETTY BLEW</h3>
+
+<p class="center">Her Strange Experiences and Adventures in Indian Land</p>
+
+<p class="center">BY ANNIE M. BARNES</p>
+
+<p class="center">Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Frank T. Merrill</span> 12mo Cloth with gold and colors 300
+pages Price $1.25</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 141px;">
+<img src="images/illus-325.jpg" width="141" height="200" alt="" title="book cover" />
+</div>
+<p>One of the very best books with which to satisfy a young reader's
+natural desire for an "Indian story" is this one of little Betty Blew
+and what she saw and experienced when her family removed from
+Dorchester, Mass., two hundred years ago, to their home on the Ashley
+River above Charleston, South Carolina. Although Betty is but a small
+maid she is so wise and true that she charms all, and there are a number
+of characters who will interest boys as well as girls, and old as well
+as young.</p>
+
+<p>There are many Indians who figure most importantly in many exciting
+scenes, but the book, though a splendid "Indian story," is far more than
+that. It is an unusually entertaining tale of the making of a portion of
+our country, with plenty of information as well as incident to commend
+it, and the account of a delightful family life in the brave old times.
+It is good to notice that this story is to be the first of a colonial
+series, which will surely be a favorite with children and their parents.
+Mr. Merrill's illustrations are of unusual excellence, even for that
+gifted artist, and the binding is rich and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>For sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">LEE AND SHEPARD BOSTON</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<h3>Winifred's Neighbors</h3>
+
+<p class="center">BY NINA RHOADES</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of "Only Dollie" and "The Little Girl Next Door" Illustrated by
+<span class="smcap">Bertha G. Davidson</span> Large 12mo Cloth $1.00</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 145px;">
+<img src="images/illus-326a.jpg" width="145" height="200" alt="" title="book cover" />
+</div>
+<p>"The Little Girl Next Door" has been more persistently re-ordered than
+almost any other children's book of last season, and Miss Rhoades's new
+story deserves equal popularity. Little Winifred's efforts to find some
+children of whom she reads in a book lead to the acquaintance of a
+neighbor of the same name, and this acquaintance proves of the greatest
+importance to Winifred's own family. Through it all she is just such a
+little girl as other girls ought to know, and the story will hold the
+interest of all ages.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h3>The Little Girl Next Door</h3>
+
+<p class="center">BY NINA RHOADES</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of "Only Dollie" Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Bertha G. Davidson</span> Large 12mo
+Cloth $1.00</p>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 153px;">
+<img src="images/illus-326b.jpg" width="153" height="200" alt="" title="book cover" />
+</div>
+<p>A delightful story of true and genuine friendship between an impulsive
+little girl in a fine New York home and a little blind girl in an
+apartment next door. The little girl's determination to cultivate the
+acquaintance, begun out of the window during a rainy day, triumphs over
+the barriers of caste, and the little blind girl proves to be in every
+way a worthy companion. Later a mystery of birth is cleared up, and the
+little blind girl proves to be of gentle birth as well as of gentle
+manners.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h3>Only Dollie</h3>
+
+<p class="center">BY NINA RHOADES</p>
+
+<p class="center">Square 12mo Cloth Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Bertha Davidson</span> $1.00</p>
+
+<p>This is a brightly written story of a girl of twelve, who when the
+mystery of her birth is solved, like Cinderella, passes from drudgery to
+better circumstances. There is nothing strained or unnatural at any
+point. All descriptions or portrayals of character are life-like, and
+the book has an indescribable appealing quality which wins sympathy and
+secures success.</p>
+
+<p class="center">LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's When Grandmamma Was New, by Marion Harland
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW ***
+
+***** This file should be named 25118-h.htm or 25118-h.zip *****
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Grandmamma Was New, by Marion Harland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: When Grandmamma Was New
+       The Story of a Virginia Childhood
+
+Author: Marion Harland
+
+Release Date: April 21, 2008 [EBook #25118]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE STORY TELLING.
+
+"'I like, best of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was
+new,' said Fritz."--_See page 7._]
+
+
+
+
+   When Grandmamma
+   Was New
+
+   THE STORY OF A VIRGINIA
+   CHILDHOOD
+
+   By
+   Marion Harland
+
+   _ILLUSTRATED_
+
+   BOSTON
+   LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+   COPYRIGHT, 1899,
+   BY
+   LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.
+
+   _THIRD THOUSAND_
+
+   _Norwood Press_
+   _J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith_
+   _Norwood Mass. U.S.A._
+
+   _TO_
+
+   HORACE AND ERIC
+   FRITZ, TERHUNE, AND STERLING
+
+   This Story
+
+   FIRST TOLD TO THEM OVER THE LIBRARY FIRE
+   IN AUTUMN AND WINTER EVENINGS
+   _IS MOST LOVINGLY DEDICATED_
+
+   SUNNYBANK,
+       POMPTON, N.J.
+
+
+
+
+Explanatory
+
+
+It was Fritz who said it first, and when he was three years younger than
+he is now.
+
+Somebody asked him what sort of stories he liked best. No doubt he ought
+to have said "Bible Stories," such as his mother tells on Sunday
+afternoons, and which he does love dearly. But he spoke out what he
+really thought and felt at the time of asking, and said, "I like, best
+of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was New."
+
+The phrase tickled my fancy, and, thenceforward, I would have no other
+title for the sight-draughts made by the boys upon my bank of memory.
+When these "vouchers" grew into a volume, no name would serve my turn
+except the _mot de famille_ set in circulation by the quaint
+five-year-old.
+
+My laddies are well trained. (Good children run in the family.) I
+record, pridefully, that the sunny head of the least of the band has
+never drooped drowsily while the tale went on, and that his chirp was
+distinct in the general plea for, "More--to-morrow night?" with which
+the conclave brought up at the call to prayers and to pillows. This has
+not so far flattered me out of my sober senses as to beget a hope that
+my reminiscences will find such loving interest and attention so rapt in
+the larger audience outlying our doors. Yet I dare believe that other
+grandparents will read and other children will listen to the real
+happenings of the Long Time Ago WHEN THIS GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW.
+
+   MARION HARLAND.
+
+   SUNNYBANK,
+   May, 1899.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+   CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
+
+      I. The Tragedy of Rozillah                                      11
+
+     II. A Prize Fight and a Race                                     28
+
+    III. Van Diemen's Land                                            45
+
+     IV. Oiled Calico                                                 63
+
+      V. What was done with Musidora                                  78
+
+     VI. The Haunted Room                                             97
+
+    VII. Just for Fun                                                107
+
+   VIII. My First Lie, and what came of it                           124
+
+     IX. My Pets                                                     144
+
+      X. Circumstantial Evidence                                     164
+
+     XI. Frankenstein                                                182
+
+    XII. My Prize Beet                                               198
+
+   XIII. Two Adventures                                              215
+
+    XIV. Miss Nancy's Nerves                                         232
+
+     XV. "Side-blades" and Water-melons                              246
+
+    XVI. Old Madam Leigh                                             257
+
+   XVII. Out into the World                                          282
+
+
+
+
+When Grandmamma Was New
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+The Tragedy of Rozillah
+
+
+"Just look at her now, Molly! Isn't she the sweetest thing you ever
+saw?"
+
+Molly, that is, Myself, sitting on the door-step, elbows on knees and
+shoulders hunched sullenly up to my ears, did not budge or speak.
+
+Before my gloomy eyes was the kitchen yard, a gray and gritty expanse,
+with never a tree or bush to shade it except the lilac hedge bounding it
+on the garden side, and one sickly peach tree growing at the corner of
+"the house." Three hens and one rooster were scratching about the flat
+stone at the kitchen door.
+
+On the other three sides of the house were rustling boughs and cool
+grass and flower-beds. It suited my humor to sit in the scanty strip of
+shadow cast by the eaves, my feet upon the step that had soaked in the
+noonday heat, and to be as wretched as a five-year-old could make
+herself, with a sharp sense of injury boring like a bit of steel into
+her small soul. The room behind me was my mother's--the "chamber" of the
+Southern home. A big four-poster, hung with dimity curtains, stood in
+the farther corner. The dimity valance, trimmed, like the curtains, with
+ball fringe, hid the trundle-bed that was pulled out at night for Mary
+'Liza and me to sleep in. At the foot of the bed was my baby brother's
+cradle. As Mam' Chloe was walking with him in the garden, it should have
+been empty. Whereas, Mary 'Liza was putting her doll-baby to sleep in
+it. We said "doll-baby" in those days. There was Musidora, my rag-baby,
+who was a beauty when she was new.
+
+She was not old now, but Fate had been unkind to her. Twice I had left
+her out-of-doors all night. The first time was when I laid her at the
+foot of a particularly tall corn-stalk, telling her that I would return
+presently, but could not find her at all when I went back. I was up and
+out early next morning and "found her indeed, but it made my heart
+bleed," for a field mouse--with six acres of roasting-ears to choose
+from--had made his supper on the bran that served my poor Musidora for
+brains, nibbling a hole in the exact region of the _medulla oblongata_.
+My mother plugged the cranium with raw cotton and stitched up the wound,
+and the dear patient was doing better than could be expected, when there
+was a thunder-storm and Musidora was on a bench in the summer-house. The
+rain lasted all night, and I could not go out again.
+
+One immediate and obvious consequence of this adventure was that there
+was nothing left of Musidora's features except her eyebrows, which were
+laid on with indelible ink instead of water-colors. She hung, head
+downward, in front of the kitchen fire for twelve hours before she was
+thoroughly dry. My mother "indicated" eyes, nose, and mouth with
+pen-and-ink, but the effect was flat and mournful.
+
+While I sat in the door that evening, putting on Musidora's night-gown,
+I overheard Mam' Chloe say to my mother:--
+
+"I declar' to gracious, Miss Ma'y Anna, you ought to buy that chile a
+sure-'nough doll-baby while you are in town. It f'yar breaks my heart to
+see how much store she sets by that po' wrack of a rag thing she's got
+thar."
+
+My mother's reply was so low that I did not catch it, but her tone was
+not unpromising. I said nothing to her, or to anybody of what I had
+heard. Only, of course, Musidora and I talked it all over. I assured her
+that she was going to have a beautiful sister who would love her and
+play with her and tell her stories of the wonderful city, and of how
+happy we three should be together.
+
+My father and mother went away to Richmond. They took the baby with
+them, and Mary 'Liza and I were sent to my Aunt Eliza Carter's to stay
+until they returned, when Cousin Molly Belle took us back home and told
+my mother before my face that I had been as "good as gold."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it," said my mother, giving me a squeeze and
+kiss. "I was afraid she might be troublesome. She is not as steady as
+Mary 'Liza, you know. I have something nice in my trunk for each of my
+daughters."
+
+She always spoke of us in that way, although Mary 'Liza was her niece,
+and an orphan. She was seven now, and the pattern child of the county.
+Pretty, too, with a fair skin and shiny braids of golden hair, and
+innocent blue eyes, and dimpled arms, and fluffy, kittenish ways, while
+I was as lean as a snake, as brown as a chinquapin, and as wild as a
+hawk. I was used to hearing myself compared to all three. Mary 'Liza
+could read in the New Testament without stopping to spell a word, at
+three, and write in a copy-book at five, and do sums on the slate at
+six, and at seven was as much company to my mother as if she had been
+seventeen. In a word, my cousin was "a comfort." I was often called "a
+plague."
+
+Yet, as I can honestly affirm, I had never known, until this black day
+when Cousin Molly Belle took me home, what it was to be envious. I was
+not exactly fond of my cousin, yet we seldom disagreed openly. She wore
+clean frocks and liked to stay indoors and piece bedquilts and knit
+stockings and read aloud to my mother. I never willingly spent an hour
+in the house when I could get out, and had odd plays of my own which I
+kept secret from Mary 'Liza because I was sure she would be shocked, or
+laugh at them. I fully recognized the claims of orphanhood to the
+buttered side of life, and that a girl who had no father or mother
+deserved to be cared for by everybody else.
+
+My parents had arrived late at night, and the trunk was unpacked with
+much ceremony the next morning. Under my mother's best new dresses was a
+long pasteboard box which she opened, smiling at our expectant faces.
+From it she drew the biggest, prettiest doll-baby we had ever seen, in a
+blue silk frock with a sash to match. She had real hair, curly and black
+as a coal, and round black eyes and a cherry-ripe mouth. I reached out
+both hands, and a cry of rapture rushed from my heart to my lips--an
+inarticulate gurgle of ineffable happiness.
+
+My mother did not see my gesture. I hope she did not hear the cry. She
+laid the doll-baby in Mary 'Liza's arms.
+
+"Mrs. Hutcheson, who was your mother's dearest friend, sent that to you
+with her love."
+
+For me there was a trumpery book, with very few pictures, and a good
+deal of reading in it--also from Mrs. Hutcheson.
+
+"She thought it might coax you to learn how to read. I was ashamed to
+have to say that my little girl does not know her letters yet," said my
+much-tried parent. "And your father brought you a Noah's Ark."
+
+I received book and Ark without a word, and marched toward the door, my
+heart ready to break.
+
+"What do you say for your presents, Molly?"
+
+I stood stock-still, my eyes on the floor.
+
+My mother quietly and sorrowfully took the painted Ark from my hand.
+
+"When you can say 'thank you,' and stop pouting, you can have it back,"
+she said, in gentle severity.
+
+I dashed from the room around the house to the end porch. It was high
+enough for me to stand upright under it and the sides were screened by a
+climbing sweetbrier. I had often played Daniel in the lion's den there,
+assisted by a caste of small colored children. They were the lions, I,
+with the choice of parts, electing invariably to play the persecuted
+and finally triumphant biped. The fury of forty wild beasts was in my
+heart, as I pushed aside the prickly branches and crept into my lair.
+The den was paved with bricks, loosely laid. With a pointed stick I
+pried one up, and scooped out with my hands a grave deep enough to hold
+the hateful book with the few pictures and the much reading. I thrust it
+in without benefit of clergy, hustled the earth back upon it, pounded
+the brick into place, and lay flat down upon the dishonored tomb.
+
+Mam' Chloe found me there at dinner-time, fast asleep. She dragged me
+back to consciousness and the open air by the heels. Not in wanton
+cruelty, but she was a large woman, and could get at me in no other way.
+While she washed and made me decent in clean frock, apron, and
+pantalettes, she scolded me for my "low-lived, onladylike ways," and
+warned me of her solemn intention to "tell my mother on me," the next
+time such a disgraceful thing happened. I did not mind the lecture. I
+knew Mam' Chloe, and she (Heaven rest her white, faithful soul in the
+Kingdom where the bond are free!) knew me, I verily believe, better than
+the mother that bore me.
+
+Toilet and tirade ended, she slid me, as she might a proscribed book,
+through a crack in the side-door into the dining room, where Uncle Ike,
+her husband, was in waiting. He, in turn, smuggled me behind my mother's
+back to the side-table, there being no room for us children at the main
+board that day.
+
+None of the dozen grown-up diners noticed me, or that Mary 'Liza,
+sitting prim and dainty on her side of our table, had her doll by her in
+another chair, and interrupted her meal, once in a while, to caress her
+or to re-arrange her curls and skirts. I affected not to see the
+pantomime, which I chose to assume was enacted for my further
+exasperation. I was apparently as indifferent to Uncle Ike's shameless
+partiality in loading my plate with choice tidbits, such as a gizzard, a
+merry-thought, or a cheese-cake, while Mary 'Liza had to ask twice for
+what she wanted. What was not tasteless was bitter to my palate. I
+wondered, dully, why the sight of the doll-baby and the fuss her owner
+made over her, turned me sick. As soon as I could get away, I slipped
+down, and out at the friendly side-door, and went to find Musidora.
+There was a new bond of union between us. She had no beautiful sister, I
+no beautiful daughter. Sitting down upon the hot step, before the
+kitchen yard, I hugged her hard and cried a little over her, in a brief,
+stormy way. The tears hurt me, as they came, and did not ease the hot
+ache in my chest or the lump in my throat.
+
+At this juncture, when my misery was at its height, I heard Mary 'Liza
+in the chamber behind me, cooing to, and hushing her doll-baby, with
+tones and words copied faithfully from my mother's talk over my
+brother's cradle.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to rock her a little while?" she called presently. "I
+wouldn't mind if you'd promise not to touch her. Sometimes your hands
+are not clean, you know."
+
+I set my jaws savagely outside of my leaping tongue, not moving or
+looking up when I felt her standing close by me. Musidora had dropped
+from my lap, and lay, face downward, on the step. Mary 'Liza picked her
+up, and brushed the dust from her inexpressive visage.
+
+"Poor thing!" purred she. "I hope nothing will ever happen to Rozillah.
+Isn't that a _love_-el-ly? I made it out of my own head from Rosa and
+Zillah, two _love_-el-ly girls I read of in a book."
+
+"I think it is a nasty name," was my deliberate reply.
+
+She recoiled with a fine horror which stung me like a nettle.
+
+"Oh, Molly! what a word for a little lady to use!"
+
+I looked up at her for the first time, my eyes burning in dry sockets.
+
+"I think your doll-baby is nasty, and Rozillah is a _nigger_ name! So
+there!"
+
+I could command no worse language, for I knew none.
+
+Mary 'Liza looked shocked and terrified. She glanced right and left and
+upward nervously, as fearing the punishment of heaven upon me.
+
+"I am afraid that you are in a very bad humor," she faltered, her
+self-possession forsaking her for a moment. "I'd better leave you."
+
+She had gone a dozen paces when she glanced over her shoulder to say, in
+her most grown-up and judicial manner:--
+
+"I hope you will not make any noise and wake Rozillah up."
+
+I rose and went straight to the cradle as soon as my cousin was out of
+sight. Cold, deadly fury possessed and filled me, casting out fear of
+consequences and routing the weakling conscience engendered and
+nourished by parental counsel. I plucked Rozillah from her downy bed and
+bore her into the air, cuffing her polished red cheeks soundly on the
+way. Then I stripped off her gay raiment and knotted the ribbon sash
+about her smooth neck. I had never tied a knot before, but this held, as
+did the loop I cast over a projecting branch of the sickly
+peach-sapling. Naked and forlorn, Rozillah dangled a foot and more from
+the ground. I fetched my father's riding-whip from the hall table, and
+the last feeble check upon my fury was released.
+
+The next I knew a pair of cool, white arms closed about me and the whip
+together, and Cousin Molly Belle's voice, half-laughing, half-horrified,
+cried through the roaring in my ears:--
+
+"Dear little Namesake! what has got into you?"
+
+All at once, red mists parted and rolled away from my eyes, and I became
+conscious that Mary 'Liza was jumping up and down and screaming
+piteously, that everybody was on the spot--my father and mother and all
+the dinner company, and Mam' Chloe with the baby in her arms, and a ring
+of my small black servitors on the outside of the group; also that all
+eyes were focussed on me and what was left of Rozillah.
+
+The lash had drawn sawdust at every blow. One arm and both legs were
+torn off and weltered in the scattered stuffing beneath; the crop of
+black curls was tangled in the topmost limb of the sapling. The blue
+silk gown would never fit the pliant waist again. Rozillah was beyond
+the possibility of reconstruction.
+
+I threw my arms around Cousin Molly Belle's neck, and burst into a
+torrent of childish tears.
+
+I think I must have been whipped for that afternoon's work. I ought to
+have been, and Solomon, as a disciplinarian, was in high repute in the
+family connection. I am sure that I was put forthwith to bed and left
+alone for an eternity without even Musidora to bear me company. I had an
+indefinite impression that they feared the effect of association with
+such a wicked child upon her morals and manners.
+
+I recollect that my mother brought me the bread and milk which was all
+the supper I was to have, and talked me tenderly into tears.
+
+But most vividly do I recall the apparition which stole into my solitude
+after supper--which I had scented longingly from afar. A wraith all in
+white--gown and neck and arms and face, the masses of fluffy hair making
+this last more wraith-like. It sank to the floor beside my low bed, and
+gathered me, miserable culprit, in a cuddling embrace, and bade me "tell
+Cousin all about it--the whole _truly truth_."
+
+I could always talk to her, and I began at the beginning and went
+straight and steadfastly through to the nauseous end.
+
+I did not cry while I talked, and when struck by her silence I raised a
+timid hand to her dear cheek and found it wet, I was surprised.
+
+"Why, Cousin Molly Belle!" I stammered. "Are you so angry with me as
+_that_?"
+
+"Angry? yes, Namesake, but not with you, poor little sinner! You and I
+are always getting into scrapes--aren't we? Maybe that is why I am going
+to ask your mother to let you sleep with me to-night."
+
+Which delicious cup of happiness consoled the outgoing of the first
+tragical day of my life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+A Prize Fight and a Race
+
+
+Cousin Molly and I were spending an afternoon in the Old Orchard. My
+mother had a houseful of company, a common circumstance in itself. This
+particular houseful was so little to Cousin Molly Belle's liking that
+she got away as soon as dinner was over, drawing me, a willing captive,
+in her train. Furthermore, she had stolen Bud, my baby brother, from the
+chamber floor where Mam' Chloe had deposited him and a string of spools,
+while she lent a hand with the dinner dishes to her butler husband.
+
+Bud chuckled and crowed and squealed, as if he were the heart, head, and
+front of the joke, while we scampered down the middle garden walk,
+hidden by tall althea hedges, and gained the rail fence at the lower end
+without being challenged. My accomplice made me climb over first, and
+lowered her burden carefully into my arms, before she leaned her weight
+upon the two hands laid on the top rail, and whirled over like an
+acrobat--or a bird. She could outrun half the boys who had been her
+slaves and playfellows in childhood, and outjump three-fourths of them.
+
+We were comparatively safe now, the ground dipping abruptly below the
+garden into a level stretch of "old field" where the broom straw came up
+to my armpits, the yellowing waves parting before, and closing behind,
+with the surge and "swish" of a gentle surf. They smelled sweet and they
+felt soft, and Cousin Molly Belle let Bud down from her shoulder, and
+making a hammock of her arms, swung him back and forth through the
+pliant stems until he choked with ecstasy.
+
+Beyond the old field was the Old Orchard. The new orchard, planted
+nearer the house, was in full bearing, and my father made little
+account of such fruit--mostly choke-pears and apples from ungrafted
+limbs--as was enterprising enough to grow and ripen without tending or
+harvesting. The trunks of the neglected trees were studded with knobs
+like enormous wens, and the branches had a jaunty earthward cant that
+made climbing the easiest sort of work, and swinging an irresistible
+temptation. In the higher boughs were cosey crotches where one could
+sit, and read, and even sleep, without danger of falling. I and my court
+of small darkies had spent one whole July Saturday in and under the "big
+sweeting," when the apples were nominally ripe. I was Elijah, and my
+attendants were the ravens who plied me with sweetings in all stages of
+development until I could not have swallowed another to save the
+combined kingdoms of Judah and Israel. I was ill all night after the
+surfeit, but I bore the sweetings no grudge for my misplaced confidence
+in the human stomach.
+
+We three runaways camped down under the brooding branches. The unshorn
+and uncropped turf was thick and dry as a parlor carpet. Bud crept
+lawlessly about, picking up twigs and pebbles, and trying his first four
+teeth upon them. He was a discreet baby, never swallowing what he could
+not bite into. His real names were William Skipwith Burwell. Somebody
+had dubbed him "Rosebud," in the first moon of his sublunary existence,
+and the abbreviation was inevitable. He would probably remain "Bud"
+until he entered Hampton Sidney. The chances were even that the
+alliterative temptation of "Bud Burwell" would tack the label upon him
+for life. Changes were troublesome, and Powhatan County people were
+opposed to taking trouble. The name of their own county usually lost the
+second syllable in sliding between their lips.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle threw herself down at full-length on the grass,
+pillowed her bright head upon her arms, and stared contentedly into the
+apple boughs.
+
+"This is what I call taking one's comfort!" she breathed.
+
+I sat down by her, my short legs tucked under me, Bedouin-wise. That was
+one good thing--among many--about being out-of-doors with nobody by but
+her or the colored children. I could sit cross-legged. If I forgot my
+manners and did it in the house, my mother, or Mam' Chloe, pulled my
+legs out straight in front of me, or shook them down, and reminded me
+that I was going to be a young lady before long. As if that were my
+fault, or as if it could be helped! My heart glowed with gratification
+in observing that Cousin Molly Belle had laid one slim ankle over the
+other. I hitched myself a little nearer to her and lapsed into the
+confidential tone she encouraged in our _tete-a-tetes_.
+
+"Don't you just love to cross your--_feet_?"
+
+My modest hesitation was not lost upon her. She laughed.
+
+"I like to cross my _legs_--and I do it!"
+
+"Mam' Chloe says people ought to think little ladies haven't any
+legs,--that their feet are just pinned to the bottom of their
+pantalettes."
+
+"Mam' Chloe is an--echo!"
+
+"That wasn't what you began to say,--was it?" asked I, diffidently.
+
+She laughed again, tweaking my ear, affectionately, and telling me that
+I was a "monkey, and too sharp to be safe."
+
+Her eyes were full of laughter and laziness; the color in her cheeks was
+that of a velvet perpetual rose, shading into peach-blow, then into pure
+white that never took freckle or tan from the hottest sun.
+
+Have I said that her hair was auburn, and curled like grape tendrils,
+from the nape of the neck to the forehead? The color was singular. In
+the shade it was that of a perfectly groomed bay horse. When the sun
+struck it, it got all alive, as if there were light under it, as well as
+over it, and was, unmistakably, red. She made more fun of it than
+anybody else, but at heart she loved her hair, and would not have
+exchanged it for paley-gold or ebony tresses. Bud had fastened his
+chubby hands in it to steady himself on his perch, as she ran, and
+pulled some of it loose from her comb. A thick curl strayed over her
+arm, bare almost to the shoulder, as was the warm-weather custom of
+young ladies of that time. She drew it around before her eyes, thinning
+it into a silky veil, holding it high up and letting it slip, strand by
+strand, between her and the light.
+
+A notion--indefinable in words--that a wealth of charms was wasted upon
+one observant little girl and a non-observant baby, led me to inquire:--
+
+"Would you, sure enough, rather be out here than in the house, talking
+to them all?"
+
+"I am tired of 'them all,' Molly. They tire me to death."
+
+"Some grown people are not tiresome," I essayed. "There's Mr. Frank
+Morton, now. I _like_ him!"
+
+"Oh, you do--do you? Why?" still shredding the veil of curls between her
+and the sun.
+
+"Well, one thing is, he talks _straight_. He doesn't talk 'round about,
+and sideways, and crossways, to children. Nor make fun of my questions.
+He just answers right along and plain."
+
+"I don't think I quite know what you mean, Namesake."
+
+"Why, you see it's this way,--the other day I asked him if he didn't
+think you were a heap prettier than any other lady he ever saw, and he
+never so much as cracked a smile. He just put his arm 'round me--he
+never did that but twice before--and he said up-and-down, as serious as
+anything--'Yes, I do, Molly!' And he does make the beautifullest
+chinquapin whistles! They go on whistling after they are dry. You see,
+the trouble with the whistles other people make for me, is that they
+shrivel all up by next day, and there isn't a bit of whistle left in
+them."
+
+"That's the way with most of my whistles, too, Namesake. And then I
+throw them away and want new ones. Heigh-ho! What's the use of a whistle
+when all the whistle has gone out of it? I must ask Mr. Frank Morton how
+he makes his."
+
+I gave a jump and a little squeak.
+
+"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle! there's a great, _big_ race-horse on you!"
+
+He had tumbled out of the apple boughs upon the folds of her skirt and
+before I could capture him, a second fell after him. I was upon my feet
+in a twinkling, seized first one, then the other, by their attenuated
+middles, and held them up, all kicking and sprawling, between a thumb
+and finger of each hand. I knew the tricks and the manners of what I
+learned, many years later, that naturalists describe as the _mantis
+religiosa_, or praying-mantis, because in off-hours,--_i.e._ when they
+are not foraging or fighting--they will sit upon their hind quarters and
+"fold the stout anterior legs in a manner suggesting hands folded in
+prayer."
+
+I had caught dozens of them and fed them for days in a box with coarse
+lace tied over the top to prevent escape, and studied their habits, and
+humored their propensities by putting several together in the prison
+that forthwith became an arena, in which _duello_ and general scrimmage
+relieved one another in enchanting succession.
+
+I explained now, to my diverted companion, that I held them by their
+backs so that they could not bite me, and pointed out the wicked heads
+turning almost quite around in their savage efforts to avenge their
+capture. I was sure, I said excitedly, that these two were fighting up
+in the tree, and that was the way they happened to drop so close
+together. Had she never seen devil's race-horses fight? Mother didn't
+like that name for them, so I 'most always said just "race-horses"
+plain, _so_. Only, when they were very cross, the other word would slip
+out.
+
+"If I were to let them go this minute, they'd begin to fight, 'stead of
+running away," I concluded. "S'pose we try them."
+
+Entering into my humor, she improvised a cockpit by spreading her
+pocket-handkerchief upon the ground, and I liberated the gladiators.
+
+They more than justified my account of their ferocity by grappling on
+the instant, each rising to his full height and hurling himself at his
+opponent's throat.
+
+"You see they are acquainted with one another," I commented, as umpire
+and manager. "They just begin where they left off up in the tree."
+
+It was an exciting display. Cousin Molly Belle raised herself upon her
+elbow; I doubled tightly under me what I now let myself think of as my
+legs, and spread both hands flat on the grass, to lean over the arena.
+In the hush that followed the onslaught the babbling song Bud crooned
+to himself as he crawled over the sun-and-shade dappled turf harmonized
+with the sleepy shaking of the leaves about us. Such another
+happy-hearted baby was never seen. And so wise, as I have said, for a
+yearling! never getting into mischief, and afraid of nothing.
+
+I peeped through a kinetoscope last winter at a prize fight. I have
+never beheld anything that so closely and humiliatingly resembled the
+battle on the cambric square under the big sweeting. The wary advance
+after the recoil from the first encounter; the circling about at close
+quarters, each watching for his antagonist's weak point, the sudden
+clutch, embrace, and wrestle, which I, with umpiric instinct,
+interrupted, once and again, to prolong the combat,--none of these were
+wanting from either exhibition.
+
+At length, I left the combatants to follow the bent of native savagery,
+and then came such warm and inartistic work as patrons of the human ring
+would decry as barbarous and out-of-date. They bit venomously, below
+the belt, they grabbed at and hung on to any part of the body that came
+handy; they rolled over and over, intertwined so closely as to appear
+like one convulsed, centipedal monster. Finally, one half of the
+creature gave a violent kick and was still. As the victor shook himself
+free of the carcass we saw the head he had bitten from the other's neck
+roll from under the survivor. Withdrawing an inch or two from the
+remains, he sat up on his hind quarters, and "folded his stout anterior
+legs" sanctimoniously in a battle-prayer. His devotions ended, he
+proceeded to lick his wound and readjust himself generally.
+
+"I'm sorry I didn't separate them," said Cousin Molly Belle, shaking her
+handkerchief with coy finger-tips. "I don't think I care to see such
+another fight. It gives me the creeps."
+
+"I think it is very inter_es_ting," replied I. "'Tisn't as if they had
+souls, you see. They just die and don't go anywhere."
+
+A disagreeable noise joined Bud's cooing and babbling, and made us turn
+quickly. Right before us, and within six feet of the helpless baby, who
+had sat up to regard the phenomenon with innocent wonder, was an
+enormous sow with a brood of hungry young ones at her heels. Her vicious
+grunt, her gloating eyes, her dripping jaws, and projecting tusks,
+bespoke her dangerous. Only yesterday I had seen her, prowling in the
+barn-yard, seize and devour, one after another, three downy ducklings
+before the stable-boys could beat her off. In the terror of this moment,
+the scene flashed back to me, and I seemed to hear again the crunching
+of those slavering jaws.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle swooped down upon Bud, and had him upon her shoulder
+before I could join my piping cry to her shout that rang out like a
+silver trumpet. The huge beast halted, made as though she would turn,
+then gave an angry, squealing grunt, and lunged toward us. Not a loose
+stick or stone was within reach. If there had been, there was not time
+to pick it up.
+
+"Run for the fence! Run!" called the brave girl to me, and met the
+voracious brute with a kick, so well aimed that the high heel of her
+shoe struck full upon the eye next to her. In the respite gained by the
+sow's stagger and recoil, our defender overtook me, caught my hand, and
+fled along the path traced in the trampled broom-straw, through which we
+had waded merrily awhile ago. We had not taken a dozen steps when we
+heard the enemy roaring behind us.
+
+"Oh!" gasped I, running with all my might meanwhile. "She will eat up
+Bud! Like she--ate--up--the--little--ducks!"
+
+"She shall eat me first!"
+
+I knew she meant it, and that it was true. The fence was not more than
+fifty yards away. It looked a mile off, and the wild grass was as tough
+and treacherous as it had been pliant and sweet when we had danced
+through it. I was a swift runner and my limbs obeyed me well. I was
+conscious, moreover, of the strong upbearing of my companion's hand that
+lent wings to my feet. If I were to stumble, she would not let me fall.
+This persuasion kept mind and heart in me.
+
+Yet the sow would have caught up with us had not a pig set up a piteous
+squeal, as it lost its way or was entangled by the grass. The mother
+went back to reassure it with a series of staccato gruntings, very
+unlike those with which she renewed the chase.
+
+We were at the fence. I scrambled over, spent and shaking, hardly able
+to receive the precious load that was lowered to me. As Cousin Molly
+Belle dropped after us, our pursuer's snout was poked between the lower
+rails in a last and futile attempt to get at the baby's fat legs.
+
+"_Then_ I got mad all through!" Cousin Molly Belle told my mother, in
+recounting the adventure.
+
+Her white face flamed scarlet in a second. A pile of disused pea sticks
+lay in the fence corner. She seized one, and jumped over the fence
+again. Wielding her weapon as if it were a flail, she brought it down
+upon the ugly head and raw-boned body; and as the sow turned tail to
+run, belabored her through the orchard to the gap by which she had
+entered.
+
+The conqueror returned to me, flushed, but unsmiling. I had Bud tight in
+my arms, and was laughing and crying together.
+
+"It was funny to see you lam her and to see her run," I sobbed between
+giggles that hurt me more than the sobs.
+
+She sat down on the grass, and clasped the baby to her heart. He cooed
+joyously, and held up a sweet open mouth for a kiss. He got, not one,
+but twenty kisses upon his wet lips, his pink face, his curly head, and
+the bonny eyes that were bluer than the sky. Then she bent to give me
+one--so long and tender that it checked sob and giggle.
+
+"We will never make devil's race-horses fight again, Namesake. They have
+a right to their lives. And a life is a very precious thing!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+Van Diemen's Land
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I learned to read that winter. How nobody knew, and I least of all.
+Looking backward, I seem to have gone to sleep one night, an ignoramus,
+and awakened next morning knowing letters, yet never having learned.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle's solution of the puzzle submitted to her by my
+mystified mother was characteristic:--
+
+"It is the fable of Munchausen's frozen horn over again. All the
+learning you have been pumping into the poor child for two years has
+thawed out. I always told you that she had brains if you would wait
+until they woke up."
+
+I might speak of that enchanted season as my birth-winter. My mental
+awakening was into another world, so much wider and fuller than that
+with which I had been well content up to this time, that life was a
+continual ecstasy. I discovered, early in December, that, as Mr. Wegg
+was to immortalize himself by saying a quarter-century later--"all print
+was open" to me. By the middle of February I had gone three times
+through the inimitable classic, _Cobwebs-to-catch-Flies_, and read at
+least six other books through twice, besides being up to my eyes and
+over the head of my understanding in _Sandford and Merton_, that most
+fascinating of prosy impossibilities. Beside the classic I have named,
+and _Rosamond_, _Harry and Lucy_, Berquin's _Children's Friend_, Mrs.
+Sherwood's _Little Henry and His Bearer_ and _Fairchild Family_, _Anna
+Ross_ and _Helen Maurice_, we had no books that were written expressly
+for children. No prepared pap being at hand, we expressed real
+nourishment for the mind--relishful juices that made intellectual bone
+and muscle--from the strong meat upon which our elders fed.
+
+Did we comprehend all, or one-third of what we read, or heard read?
+
+Less, probably, than one-sixth, but we got far more than would seem
+credible to one who has been led up a graciously inclined plane of
+learning. Our manner of receiving and digesting mind-food was very much
+like Bud's way of testing unknown substances that might be edible. We
+rejected what hurt our teeth. What we got we kept.
+
+The current of my outer life was quiet to apparent dulness. After
+breakfast Mary 'Liza and I had our lessons with my mother in "the
+chamber." In another year we would have a governess, but the mothers of
+that time always taught their children to read and write, to spell and
+cipher through Emerson's _First Arithmetic_. I have known several who
+never sent their boys and girls to school, even preparing the lads for
+college. We had our reading, beginning with a chapter in the Bible,
+then, our spelling and writing, and sums. After these, my mother read
+aloud from Grimshaw's _History of England_, simplifying the language
+when she considered it necessary, which was not often, while Mary 'Liza
+made up the first set of chemises (in the vernacular "shimmys,") she had
+undertaken for herself, and I knit twenty rounds on a stocking. My
+mother put in a "mark" of black silk every morning from which I could
+count the rounds upward. Mary 'Liza had knit a dozen pairs in all. In
+the tops of six, she had knit in openwork her initials "M. E. B." I had
+no ambitions in that direction. My views on the subject of ornamental
+initials and sampler autographs were put into pregnant English at a
+subsequent date by the elder Weller. He professed to have received at
+second-hand from the charity-boy, set to con the alphabet, what the
+retired stage-driver applied to matrimony--to wit, that it was not worth
+while to go through so much to get so little. Knitting delighted not me,
+nor stitching either.
+
+Lessons and work over, the day began for me in joyful earnest. The rest
+of the morning and all the evening were mine to use, or abuse, as I
+liked. We applied "evening" to the hours between the three o'clock
+dinner and bedtime. We may have caught the phrase from our Bible
+readings. The morning and the evening were the day.
+
+Early in the fall I had begged permission from my mother to utilize a
+deserted chicken-house as a play-room. It was long and narrow; one side
+was barred with upright slats that admitted light and air to the former
+inmates; one end was taken up by the door; the other and the back were
+solid boards, the house having been built in the angle of a fence. My
+mother had the interior cleaned and whitewashed. I think she was glad to
+provide a decent "den" for me nearer home than the Old Orchard and the
+more distant woods, and she was losing hold of her hope of making me
+into a pattern daughter. It gives me a twinge to recollect how
+thanklessly I accepted what must have been an act of self-denial on her
+part, perhaps even a compromise with conscience. Mam' Chloe--by my
+mother's orders, as I know now--hunted up some breadths of faded carpet
+in the garret, Uncle Ike beat the dust out of them, then nailed them up
+along the slatted side to keep the wind away. These I called my "arras,"
+having picked up the word from hearing my father read Shakespeare aloud
+at night after we were in the trundle-bed. Other breadths covered the
+rough flooring, and I had a castle of which I was the undisputed
+mistress--a court where I reigned, a queen.
+
+Enthroned in a backless chair, I was, by turns, Mrs. Burwell (my own
+mother), Helen Maurice's Aunt Felix, Rosamond's mother, Rebecca, the
+Lady Rowena (my father began _Ivanhoe_ in January), Mrs. Fairchild,
+Deborah, Mrs. Murray of _Anna Ross_, Naomi, and Ophelia. Once, I "did"
+Job by wrapping a meal-sack--for sackcloth--about me, and, sitting upon
+the ground, throwing ashes over my head and into the air, the while
+four colored boys, previously instructed, burst in one by one, with news
+of the mischief wrought by Sabean, lightning, Chaldean, and cyclone. A
+dramatization of Queen Esther, upon which I had set my heart, was, at
+last, given up because I could not be King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther at
+one and the same time.
+
+When the castle was too bleak for even child-comfort, Aunt 'Ritta, the
+cook, let us heat bricks in the kitchen fire, and showed us how to wrap
+them in rags to keep in the warmth. Clad in my red cloak, a wadded hood
+of the same color tied over my ears, and my feet upon a swathed brick, I
+was in no danger of taking cold.
+
+Mary 'Liza put her neat little nose in at the door one raw day when she
+was walking for exercise, and wondered, gently, "how I could stand it."
+
+"I am afraid the smell would give me a headache, and the cold would give
+me a sore throat," she said still gently.
+
+I never had either from the time the leaves fell until they came again.
+Except when, about once a month, some matron from a near or distant
+plantation brought one or more of her children with her when she drove
+over to "spend the day" with my mother, I had no white playfellow near
+my own age. Mary 'Liza "was not fond of playing," although she would do
+it when we had company who could be entertained in no other way. As a
+rule, when not engaged with lessons and chemises, she took care in a
+matronly way of Dorinda, Rozillah's successor, and "behaved."
+
+On the Sundays when we did not go to church because the weather was bad,
+or there was no preaching within twenty miles of us, or my mother was
+not well, or the roads were impassable with mire or frost, Mary 'Liza
+and I learned two questions in the Shorter Catechism, and she learned
+the references as well. We also committed a hymn to memory, and five
+verses of a psalm. Beyond this, no religious exercise was binding upon
+us, and there was a great deal of the day to be got rid of. Mary 'Liza
+read the memoirs of _Mary Lothrop_ and _Nathan W. Dickerman_, seated
+upright on her cricket at one corner of the chamber fireplace, and in
+the evening, if the day were pleasant, took her Bible to Mam' Chloe's
+room or even as far as "the quarters," and read aloud to the servants
+whole chapters out of Jeremiah and Paul's Epistles. They used to predict
+that she would marry a preacher (which, by the way, she did in the
+fulness of time, a red-headed widower preacher, with five boys).
+
+I liked to go to church, because I saw there people dressed in their
+prettiest clothes, and they sang hymns. Prayers and sermon were
+attendant and unavoidable evils. My legs went to sleep, and a big girl
+"going on six" was too old to follow suit. We read none but good books
+on Sunday. _Little Henry and His Bearer_, _Anna Ross_, and _Helen
+Maurice_ were allowed; the memoirs I have named were advised. The
+_Fairchild Family_ "partook too much of the nature of fiction to be
+quite suitable for Sabbath reading." So Rev. Cornelius Lee, our pastor,
+had decided when the doubtful volume was submitted to him. After that,
+it was locked up Saturday night, along with _Sandford and Merton_ and
+Miss Edgeworth's _Moral Tales_.
+
+I minded the deprivation less after I converted the playhouse into a
+family chapel, and held services there on stay-at-home Sundays. My
+audience comprised all the small negroes on the place,--about twenty in
+number,--and they were willing attendants. A barrel was set, the whole
+head up, at the upper end of the room; upon this was my chair. I sat in
+it during the singing, and mounted upon it while reading and exhorting.
+Subtle reverence, which I could not analyze, held me back from "offering
+prayer." What we were doing was only "making believe" after all, and
+belief in the All-seeing Eye, the All-hearing Ear, the Judge of idle
+words and blasphemous thoughts, was as old as my knowledge of my own
+being. But sing we could and did, and I read from the Scriptures of the
+Old and the New Testaments, usually from the narrative portions, with a
+psalm or two to "beat the upward flame" in our hearts.
+
+And then I would preach a sermon.
+
+Our chapel had been in good running order for over two months, when on a
+certain drizzly Sunday early in March, I arose discreetly upon my
+ticklish pulpit to announce through my nose, "We will commence our
+services by singing the three-hundredth-and-thirty-third hymn--'Come
+thou Fount of every blessing.'"
+
+As mine was the only hymn-book in the assembly, the mention of the
+number was a bit of supererogatory business. The omission of the formula
+would have been a breach of chapel etiquette. I raised the tune, and
+every other pair of lungs there joined in without fear of criticism or
+favor of his neighbors' ears. Some of the duller and lesser children
+smothered or decapitated a word here and there in the main body of the
+hymn. All knew the chorus, and it shook the unceiled roof:--
+
+   "Away, away, away to glory!
+   My name's written on the throne.
+   My home's in yonder worl' o' glory,
+   Where my Redeemer reigns alone."
+
+Warmed by the vigorous preliminary, I read the sixth chapter of
+Revelation, still through my nose, catching my breath audibly at the end
+of each clause. This oratorical touch was copied with ludicrous accuracy
+from Rev. Wesley Greene, a circuit-rider who had conducted an
+"arbor-meeting" at Fine Creek meeting-house last summer. Our negroes
+were all Baptists, and considered themselves remiss, as devout hearers
+of aught that partook of the nature of a religious service, if they did
+not respond at intervals with groans and pious ejaculations. Their
+children, as gravely imitative as juvenile Simiae, came up nobly to their
+parts in our exercises.
+
+The acknowledged leader in the responses, and my Grand Vizier in the
+ordering of my small kingdom, my stage-manager and lieutenant-general,
+was a girl of twelve, Mariposa by name. She received the fanciful title
+from a young visitor to the plantation who had studied Spanish.
+"Mariposa" meant butterfly, she told the baby's mother, who gratefully
+accepted the compliment to her newly born daughter. The mother and her
+mates called her "Mary Posy." The mistress, who was fond of the madcap
+sponsor, retained the original pronunciation.
+
+Mariposa was as black as tar, and to-day was clothed in a yellow
+homespun frock. Her hair was twisted and bound into two upright tags
+that projected above her temples. Altogether, she was not unlike a
+gigantic black-and-tan moth, a resemblance heightened by the
+aforementioned _antennae_, albeit lessened by the baby she always carried
+on some portion of her wiry frame. She was the toughest, most supple,
+and most versatile creature I ever saw, of any color or clime. The baby
+was disposed decorously across her knees on this occasion, and she was
+one of the five auditors who had brought along their own crickets or
+chairs. She had confiscated some older woman's splint-bottomed
+rocking-chair and lugged it to the very front, as she had a right to do.
+
+I had heard Mam' Chloe say of one of Rev. Wesley Greene's sermons, "I
+tell you, Miss Ma'y, the Sperrit struck him that day, an' he jes'
+_r'arred_!"
+
+Something struck my worthy lieutenant during my reading of the white,
+red, black, and pale horses of the Apocalypse and their awesome riders,
+and the others following her lead, my voice was drowned by the
+"Hum-_hums_!" and "Glorys!" and "Hallelujahs!" and "Bless de Lords!"
+arising from all sides.
+
+"It isn't polite for folks in the seats to talk louder than the
+preacher," I had to admonish them in my natural voice and manner. "I
+hope you won't be so noisy while I'm preaching."
+
+Nevertheless, when I gave out my text, the struck Mariposa, rolling
+from side to side with the motion of a "weaving" horse on her
+rocking-chair--that squeaked dismally--was so wrought upon by the ring
+of unknown and high-sounding syllables as to set up a dreary drone like
+the hum of an exaggerated bumblebee, and to keep it up. This did not
+disconcert me. I had expected to stir the imagination of my hearers, for
+my own was aglow.
+
+Mary 'Liza, in reciting her geography lesson on Friday, had several
+times spoken of "Van Diemen's Land." Without the remotest conception of
+where or what it was--whether continent, or island, or town--I fastened,
+in fancy, upon her words, and constructed a hypothesis relative to the
+mysterious locality. Why I should have strung it upon the same strand of
+condemnation and doom with Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, Capernaum
+and Chorazin, I may have known then. I have no idea now why this was
+done, or the derivation of the inclusive curse.
+
+Van Diemen's Land, thus damned, fell naturally into line with the "Come
+and see!" of the "living creatures," and the "Death and Hell," and the
+prophecy of killing with sword and with famine and the wild beasts of
+the field. I was in a quiver of excitement that made my head and heart
+hot, and my feet and hands cold, as I fairly shouted my text:--
+
+"For oh! Van Diemen's Land shall be no more!"
+
+Mariposa's rhythmic hum was broken into irregular bars by groans and
+gruntings and sighings--all, I was gratified to note, modulated to the
+standard of civility I had indicated. I had made a hortatory hit, and it
+was encored. I spread wide my hands, in one of which was the New
+Testament, and reiterated the text with greater unction and volume:--
+
+"For, oh, my brethren! Van Diemen's Land shall be no more!"
+
+The chair careened under my ill-advised energy; the barrel toppled
+forward, and I shot, like a rocket, clear over Mariposa's head, breaking
+my fall somewhat upon another girl and baby, and landing in the middle
+of the congregation, with my nose against one of the swathed bricks.
+
+I seldom cried when hurt, Cousin Molly Belle having told me long ago
+that a brave soldier made no noise when his head was shot off. But I
+screamed lustily now in the belief that my nose was broken and I
+bleeding to death. The deluge of gore was frightful to inexperienced
+eyes.
+
+My father's voice, kindly authoritative, bidding me "be still!" hushed
+my roaring. As tears and blood were stanched, I saw his face bending
+over me, full of concern that yet fought with amusement I did not
+comprehend. I could not doubt that he pitied me, when he carried me,
+bloody and dirty as I was, into the chamber, and stood by while my
+mother and Mam' Chloe set me to rights. The shock of the fall and the
+fright left me sick and trembling. The trundle-bed was drawn out to half
+its width and I was laid upon it, wrapped in my little dressing-gown, a
+bottle of camphor in my nerveless hand.
+
+"I am afraid you were playing on Sunday," said my mother, more in sorrow
+than in anger.
+
+"Indeed, and indeed, mother, I was not playing!" I broke forth,
+earnestly, my swollen nose making the pious twang involuntary and full
+of unction. "I was _preaching_!"
+
+My father walked to the fireplace to hide the laugh he could no longer
+suppress.
+
+"It is true, my dear!" my over-quick ears caught his remark as she
+followed him. "I heard the singing, and went to see what was going on."
+
+His voice sank into a low, rapid recitation, and I lost the rest until
+it rose upon another laugh.
+
+"She and Van Diemen's Land went down together!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+Oiled Calico
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A few days after the disaster in the family chapel, my mother's cousin,
+Mrs. Bray, came to see us, bringing her daughter Lucy. Their home had
+been in Henrico County, but Mr. Bray had "the western fever." My mother
+and Aunt Eliza Carter said so in my hearing before the Brays' visit, and
+when they arrived I was surprised to see him looking so well and strong
+and that he had a hearty appetite. They were on their way to Ohio,
+travelling in their own carriage, and having also along with them a huge
+covered wagon, drawn by four fine horses, and packed full of furniture.
+This wagon was rolled into an empty carriage-house and kept there,
+locked up, while they stayed.
+
+They had planned to spend Sunday with us, just to say "Good-by," and to
+move on, on Monday. On Saturday night, Cousin Mary Bray was taken ill,
+and before morning the tiniest baby I ever saw was born. It was very
+weak, too, and cried like a kitten all the time it was awake. The mother
+had to be kept perfectly quiet. The dogs were sent to "the quarters,"
+and everybody went about on tiptoe and talked in whispers. It was very
+dreadful until Monday morning, when an enchanting change was made in
+domestic arrangements.
+
+The house was a rambling building, with three separate staircases--none
+of them back stairs--and two wings, besides what I made my father laugh
+by calling "the tail," in which was "the chamber." Cousin Mary Bray's
+room was in the second story of the south wing, which was connected by a
+corridor with the main house. In the north wing was a lumber room that
+had once been used as a bedroom, and had a good fireplace. Mam' Chloe
+set a couple of men to pile trunks, old chairs, bedsteads, and the like,
+in one corner, and two maids to sweeping and cleaning up the dust; and
+when half of the room was empty and "broom-clean," had a fire kindled,
+and our playthings and ourselves taken over to that end of the house. In
+the corner farthest from the fire were heaped a mattress, a feather-bed,
+some old blankets and comfortables, and this became, forthwith, our
+favorite resort. Even Mary 'Liza entered into the fun of climbing upon
+the pile that let us sink down, _down_, ever so far, and, pulling the
+blankets over us, making believe that we were in a big covered wagon,
+and going to Ohio. Our dolls, and a few other toys, went with us, and we
+munched ginger cakes and apples, and played that it was night and we
+were to sleep in the wagon, and that the wind howling under the eaves
+was wolves, roaring 'round and 'round the camp-fire, looking for little
+girls to eat. Mary 'Liza was Mr. Bray, I was Cousin Mary, Lucy was just
+herself, and she did her part well.
+
+On Tuesday, which I heard Mam' Chloe say to my mother in a solemn sort
+of way was "the third day," our dinner was brought upstairs. We set the
+table for ourselves by covering a packing-box with an old sheet, and
+putting our plates and mugs and the dishes holding our food upon it.
+Mary 'Liza was at the foot of the table, I at the head, and Lucy sat up,
+prim and well-behaved, at the side, saying, "Yes, ma'am," to me and,
+"No, thank you, sir," to Mary 'Liza. We were making merry over the feast
+when the door opened and my mother came in with her maid Marthy, who had
+a plate in her hand with three round cakes on it. Pound-cake, baked in
+little pans, and warm from the oven! I danced and screamed for joy. Mary
+'Liza sat still, her hands in her lap, and said, "Thank you," when her
+cake was put on her plate. Lucy laughed all over her face without saying
+anything, but when my mother sat down on a chair to rest after climbing
+the stairs, the child ran to her and put both arms around her neck and
+laid her cheek on her shoulder.
+
+I can see her now--the picture was so pretty! Her hair was dark brown
+and waved naturally away from her forehead, making her face rather oval
+than round; her gray eyes were clear and large, and, when she was not
+smiling or talking, there was a serious shadow far down in them. She had
+a dear little mouth, and I liked to make her laugh that I might see the
+dimples come and go in her cheeks.
+
+Her frock was a new material to Mary 'Liza and me,--bright red, with a
+tiny black clover leaf dotting it. They called the stuff "oiled calico,"
+and, by putting my nose close to it, I could distinguish an odor that
+was something like oil. What we knew as "Turkey red," many years later,
+resembled it somewhat, but the oiled calico was much finer and softer.
+
+My mother lifted the slight figure to her lap, and I pressed close to
+her other side, nibbling my cake, crumb by crumb, to make it last
+longer. I had a habit of swallowing my goodies as soon as I got them.
+Mary 'Liza always put aside part of hers "until next time."
+
+At Christmas I had made a valiant effort to be economical and
+forehanded, and got the plantation carpenter to knock together a
+savings-bank for me, with a hole in the top. Into this I put half of the
+candy, raisins, and almonds given to me in the holidays and for a
+fortnight afterward. The self-denial went hard with me, but I consoled
+myself each night with the anticipation of opening day. The end of the
+fortnight arrived at last. I promised my sable cohort such a spread in
+the playhouse as it and they had never beheld. Barratier, Mariposa's
+brother, borrowed a hammer and chisel from "the shop," and pried off the
+lid. All crowded close to peep in. The box was almost full. Sticks of
+peppermint candy, with ribbons of red and white winding about them (a
+barber's pole reminds me of them to this hour); lollipops, also of
+peppermint, that would just go into my mouth and let the roof down and
+the teeth meet; cubes of amber lemon candy; and, most delicately
+delicious of all, squares of pink rose-candy that dissolved upon the
+tongue and smelt like the Vale of Cashmere to the very last grain;
+bunches of raisins, which we--and Jacky Horner--called "plums"; almonds,
+palm-nuts, filberts; small ginger cakes of a cut and size that Aunt
+'Ritta would not make for us unless she were in a particularly good
+humor;--the sight called forth a round-eyed and round-mouthed
+"_Aw-w-w!_" from the heads packed in a solid circle, as necks craned
+eagerly forward.
+
+For five heavenly minutes I was a fairy-godmother, a Lady Bountiful,
+with whom the ability to give was coequal with the desire. I made them
+sit down in rows on the carpeted boards. I hope there was not sacrilege
+in thinking, as I gave the order, how and where a similar command had
+been spoken. Beginning with the babies, I put a bit of candy upon each
+greedy palm, bidding my pensioners wait until I gave the signal to eat
+it. Then I took a pink cube between my thumb and finger, waved it
+theatrically above my head, and popped it into my mouth. Every other
+mouth opened simultaneously.
+
+Even now I hurry over the telling. The treasure-chest was of green pine
+boards. The contents were so strongly impregnated with turpentine that
+not a morsel was eatable. The weest pickaninny spat it out and squalled
+because the turpentine burned his tongue.
+
+I could dwell tearfully--possibly profitably--upon the moral of the
+adventure, had I not left Lucy Bray all this time on my mother's lap,
+and myself fingering the oiled calico in covetous admiration.
+
+"Mother," I said, "I wish, next time you go to Richmond, you would buy
+me a frock like this. Don't you think it is pretty?"
+
+"Very pretty, Molly. But I do not like to have you wear cotton in the
+winter. I am afraid you might catch fire. Haven't you a worsted frock
+that you can put on to-morrow, Lucy? It would be safer while you
+children are up here so much alone."
+
+Lucy was an old-fashioned little body from being the only child for so
+long and being so much with her mother. Instead of answering directly,
+she stopped to think, a pucker drawn between her brows with the effort.
+
+"I don't believe I have, Cousin Mary," she said slowly. "'Most all my
+best clothes are packed up, and the trunks are in the wagon. We didn't
+mean to stay here more than two days, you know. It wouldn't be worth
+while to unpack the trunks, I s'pose? Mamma will be well enough to go on
+to Ohio pretty soon, won't she?"
+
+"I hope so, dear."
+
+My mother drew her up to her and kissed the brown head. She, too, was
+thoughtful. I supposed that she was wondering if she would better
+unpack those trunks. I was not glad that Cousin Mary Bray was sick, but
+I was in no hurry for her to get well enough to travel. I had never had
+another visitor whose ways of playing suited me as well as Lucy's. She
+was a year older than I, and a year younger than Mary 'Liza, and she got
+along beautifully with both of us. Then there was her cat, Alexander the
+Great, that she was taking to Ohio with her. He was the biggest cat any
+of us had ever known, with a coat of the longest, softest fur you can
+imagine, all pure gray, without a white or black hair on him, and he had
+lots of fun and sense. Mary 'Liza wanted, at first, to make believe that
+he was a hungry wolf, but Lucy would not hear of it until I proposed he
+should be a tame wolf we had taken when he was a baby and trained to
+defend us. He really seemed to understand what was expected of him, and
+when we lay down in the feather-bed and huddled close together under
+the covers, and whispered, as the wind screamed around the corners of
+the house:--
+
+"There they are again! Don't you s'pose they'll be afraid of the fire?
+Wolves always are, you know,"--and Lucy would answer:--
+
+"Faithful Alexander will take care of us."
+
+Alexander would prowl up and down the room and stalk around the bed,
+never offering to get upon it, until we called out to one another:--
+
+"Another morning, and we are still safe!"
+
+Then, he would leap into Lucy's arms, and purr, and tickle her nose with
+his whiskers, until she couldn't speak for laughing. She had had him
+ever since he was born, and he slept on the foot of her bed at night.
+While she sat in my mother's lap, he was winding himself in and out
+between her feet, his tail carried aloft like a soldier's plume, and
+purring almost as loudly as a watchman's rattle. My mother looked down,
+presently, at him, and checked the absent-minded passes of her hand
+over Lucy's hair.
+
+"Give him some milk, Marthy," she said, smiling. "I wish you had a coat
+like his, Lucy. I shouldn't be afraid then of your taking cold, or of
+your going too near the fire. Marthy! to-morrow you must hunt up a
+fender to put here, and see if one of your Miss Mary 'Liza's last
+winter's frocks won't fit Miss Lucy. It would do very well for her to
+play in. We must take good care of her while--this bad weather lasts."
+
+I fancy she would have finished the sentence differently but for fear of
+saddening the child by intimating that her mother might be ill for a
+long time. She kissed Lucy in putting her down, and patted my shoulder,
+telling me to "be a good girl and very kind to my cousin."
+
+"I am glad you all are so comfortable and happy here," she added. "I
+could not have you downstairs just now. Carry these things down, Marthy,
+and run up every little while to see how the young ladies are getting
+on. Be sure and keep up a good fire, Mary 'Liza, my dear. I trust you to
+look after the other children."
+
+When she had gone I went to the window and flattened my nose against the
+glass to peer into the storm. It was a dormer-window, and the March snow
+was drifted high upon the roof on both sides of it, and upon the jutting
+eaves above it, until I looked out, as through a tunnel, into the
+jutting tree-tops. Beyond was a mad whirl of snowflakes that hid the
+nearest hills. The wind whined and scolded, and now and then arose into
+a hoarse bellow. I shivered, and slipped my cold hands up the sleeves of
+my stuff frock. We had circassian frocks for every day, and merino for
+Sundays. Our under petticoats were of flannel, and we wore, outside of
+these, quilted skirts interlined with wool. My mother had a nervous
+dread of fire.
+
+A shriek of laughter turned me to the more cheerful scene behind me.
+Alexander the Great was chasing his own tail as violently as if he had
+just discovered it and considered it as an offence to his dignity. Lucy
+was clapping her hands to egg him on, and Mary 'Liza had sat down upon
+the pile of bedding to laugh at her ease. Before leaving the room Marthy
+had piled wood upon the andirons as high as she could reach up the
+chimney-throat without grazing her hands in withdrawing them, as was the
+rule in fire-architecture on Virginia plantations. The March wind,
+finding its way through many a crack and cranny, beat at the flames
+until they flared this way and that. The cat dashed dizzily across the
+hearth, and Lucy, with a cry of alarm, darted forward to snatch him from
+the dangerous neighborhood. She caught hold of him, and pulled him away,
+and the draught whipped her skirts into the hottest heart of the fire.
+
+It was the work of an instant. The oily dressing of the cotton fabric
+may have made it the more inflammable. Rooted to the floor by horror, I
+saw a column of flame flash past me to the door, and heard the piercing
+wail grow fainter down the stairs.
+
+My mother heard it in the distant room where the sick woman was sleeping
+quietly, the tiny baby on her arm. Shutting the door as she came out,
+the hostess flew across the house to the north wing, and met the burning
+child on the stairs. Eluding her by keeping close to the wall, she
+gained the upper room, saw, at one wild glance that her own little ones
+were safe, tore a blanket from the bed, overtook Lucy at the stair-foot,
+and smothered the flames with it.
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+What Was Done With Musidora
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The details of Lucy Bray's death were told to me by others. My childish
+recollection held every feature of that first awful scene as tenaciously
+as if the flames had kindled upon me, and not upon my hapless
+playfellow. What followed is a hazy kaleidoscope, lurid and vague, until
+my scattered thoughts settled to the perception that I was making a long
+visit at Uncle Carter's and sharing Cousin Molly Belle's room and bed.
+
+She made me a new rag-doll-baby while I was there. That was the first
+thing that "brought me round," as Aunt Eliza phrased it. For one whole
+day when it was raining and blowing out of doors, I had eyes and
+thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that miraculous doll-baby,
+as she grew and glowed into an entity under the fingers of my
+best-beloved crony. She was a blonde after she ceased to be a blank. Her
+eyes were blue, her cheeks were shaded carmine; she had a real nose
+raised above the dead level of her countenance, stuffed artistically,
+and kept in shape by well-applied stitches. Finally,--and half a century
+thereafter I thrill in thinking of it,--an intellectual cranium was
+covered with a cunningly fashioned wig of Cousin Molly Belle's own silky
+auburn hair.
+
+This last and transcendent touch was added after I went to bed one
+night. The superb creation, arrayed in a lovely light purple French
+calico frock that could be taken off at night and put on in the morning,
+and sure enough underclothes, all tucked and trimmed, smiled from my
+pillow into my eyes when I unclosed them at the touch of the morning
+light.
+
+I christened my beauty "Mollabella," and would not change the name for
+her maker's gentle remonstrances and all my college cousin Burwell's
+teasing.
+
+Musidora had lapsed, little by little, into chronic invalidism, spending
+much of her time in bed. She was uncomely to any eyes but mine, and I
+would not subject her to unkind criticism. Her case was made hopeless by
+the officious kindness of Argus, a Newfoundland puppy, in bringing her
+to the playhouse one day after I had purposely left her tucked up snugly
+under three blankets inside of my reversed cricket by the dining-room
+fire. The attention was well meant, and he could not be expected to know
+that to drag sickly Musidora by the left leg through the mud until the
+infirm member parted company with the body, and to finish the journey
+with the head between his teeth, was not a happy device by which to win
+her owner's regard. I forgave him, in time, but Musidora was, after
+this last misadventure, a problem. I wondered much, sadly and silently,
+what other little girls did with doll-babies who died natural deaths.
+Not like Rozillah, who was never mentioned in my hearing, unless I were
+very naughty indeed, and heroic treatment was indicated.
+
+The day after my return home, the question was solved.
+
+In the fortnight of my absence great changes had befallen our household.
+Lucy and her mother and the tiny scrap of a baby had died, and been laid
+under the snow in the Burwell burying-ground on the hillside beyond the
+Old Orchard. Mr. Bray had gone to Ohio along with the big covered wagon.
+Alexander the Great went with him in the carriage. With tears in her
+sweet eyes, my mother told me how fond the father was of Lucy's pet, and
+how strangely the cat had acted in staying on Lucy's grave all the time
+until Mr. Bray took him away by force and carried him off in the
+carriage with him.
+
+From my retinue of vassals I had, in the chicken playhouse, a fuller and
+more circumstantial account of all that had passed during those gloomy
+days. The pleasant weather that succeeded the March snowstorm had given
+place to a cold, sweeping rain. I scampered as fast as I could across
+the yard to my castle, my red cloak over my head, and we had to shut the
+door to exclude the slant sheets of rain. All gathered in the upper end
+of the room where my chair stood, the only seat there except the floor.
+To the accompaniment of hissing rain and angry winds, the gruesome
+particulars of the triple funeral were narrated. Mariposa--with the baby
+on her lap--was chief spokeswoman, but nearly every one present had some
+item of his own, authentic or imaginary, to add. All were sure that the
+three whose fate had aroused the whole county to a passion of pity and
+regret were angels in heaven.
+
+[Illustration: THE BIRTH OF MOLLABELLA.
+
+"I had eyes and thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that
+miraculous doll-baby."]
+
+"Mammy, _she_ say, s'long as po' Miss Lucy was bu'n' so bad, 'twas
+mussiful fur to let her go," said Mariposa, rolling the baby over on
+his pudgy stomach, and patting his back to "bring up the wind." "_She_
+say, _ef_ one o' we-alls was to get bu'nt or cripple', or pufformed, or
+ennything like that, she's jes' pray all night an' all day--'Good Lord,
+_take_ 'em! Heavenly Marster! put 'em out o' they mizzry!' An' Ung'
+Jack, _he_ say, seems ef everything that's put in the groun' comes up
+beautifuller 'n 'twas when it went in. He tell how the seeds, _they_
+tu'n into flowers, an' apples an' watermillions, an' all that, an' how
+folks tu'n inter angills."
+
+I cried myself to sleep that night. My mother, kept wakeful, doubtless,
+by her own sad thoughts, heard the sobs I tried to stifle with the
+bedclothes, and came to me with talk of the dear Saviour who had taken
+little Lucy to his arms, and of her happiness in being forever with the
+Lord.
+
+I did not tell her--what child would?--that, while I missed and grieved
+for the companion of those three happy days, a deeper heartache forced
+up the tears.
+
+For I knew now what must be done with Musidora.
+
+I had taken her to bed with me that night for the first time in many
+weeks. Mary 'Liza was amused, in an amiable way, when she saw the bundle
+done up in red flannel--Musidora's rheumatism was _awful!_--that I
+hugged up to me.
+
+"I never let Dorinda sleep with me," she observed. "I am afraid of
+hurting her. But I suppose you can't hurt Musidora. Why don't you give
+her to one of the colored children? She is really a sight."
+
+"Nobody asked you to look at her!" retorted I, crossly, putting my hand
+over the unfeatured face. "Mam' Chloe says, 'Handsome is as handsome
+does.' Anyhow, my doll-baby doesn't say mean things to folks."
+
+The little bout raised the tear-level nearer to the escape-pipe. It was
+easy to cry when Mary 'Liza's breathing assured me that she was asleep.
+It also confirmed my resolution to have the poor, deformed dear dead
+and buried without useless delay.
+
+I cannot decide what moved me to bear her off secretly to the
+seldom-used staircase in the north wing to prepare her for her last long
+sleep. I escaped thither the next morning, as soon as lessons were over,
+and seated myself half-way up the steep staircase. It was scarred in
+many places by fire and smoke. No amount of scrubbing could quite efface
+the traces of the catastrophe. I looked at them for a long time before
+beginning my sad task, and did not shrink from the sight. My state of
+mind was distinctly morbid. Children were not reckoned to have nerves at
+that date, and little notice was taken of their silent moods. That I
+should voluntarily seek a solitary quarter of the house, which was
+shunned by others, never entered my mother's or my nurse's mind.
+
+I had abundance of time in which to be as miserable as I thought I ought
+to be, and diligently nursed such sickly, sentimental fancies as ought
+to be foreign to a healthy young mind, while I divested maimed and
+sightless Musidora of her flannel mufflings and dressed her in a clean
+night-gown. Without saying what I meant to do with it I had begged a
+square of white cambric from Mam' Chloe, and set about notching it with
+a pair of blunt scissors. Mariposa had described a winding-sheet
+minutely to me, and I meant that my dead doll-baby should be decently
+laid out. The notching took a tedious time, and the bows of the blunt
+scissors left purple furrows upon thumb and fingers. Uncle Ike had given
+me an empty raisin box. I lined it with Musidora's own mattress and
+quilt, spread the "pinked" cambric on them, laid the remains (no
+figurative phrase in this connection) upon this bed, folding the one arm
+left to the unfortunate across her breast, and wrapped the edges of the
+winding-sheet over her face. With difficulty I coaxed the points of four
+projecting nails left in the lid into corresponding holes in the box,
+and having no hammer, sat down upon the top to make them fast, bouncing
+up and down a few times to make a good job of it.
+
+I sat still awhile after closing the casket, and rehearsed mentally the
+order of the obsequies. I had, thus far, made no arrangements for them
+beyond instructing the colored children to meet me in the Old Orchard
+under the big sweeting when the sun reached the "noonmark" my father
+had, to please me, cut in the fence by the playhouse door. They would be
+there in force and on time. I would get myself and burden out of the end
+door of the north wing and steal around the yard fence to the back of
+the garden without being seen. I knew how Mary 'Liza would smile and
+hitch up her straight, clean nose at the box and its contents, and I had
+a boding fear lest grown people might disapprove of and forbid the
+funeral.
+
+Upon that my heart was fully set. The grief of losing the ceremony would
+be harder to endure than the delicious mournfulness with which I had
+systematically imbued my soul. I chose four boys of uniform size for
+pall-bearers; Barratier was to have a spade ready and to dig the grave,
+and when it was filled in we would sing a hymn. Mourning garments were
+the knotty point. I, as Musidora's mother, could not appear at her
+funeral in the crimson circassian frock I wore at present. That would
+upset everything.
+
+A happy thought struck me. I recollected to have seen in the
+lumber-room, hanging upon some pegs high upon the wall, a row of old
+bonnets, and a black one among them. Other black things could be had for
+the hunting. I was a fanciful child, too used to conjuring up weird
+situations and make-believe happenings to be easily scared by what other
+children might dread. Nor was I then, or ever, a physical coward. As
+soon as the idea of visiting that upper room came to me I acted upon it.
+Tripping up the narrow stairs, I pushed hard against the door. It stuck
+in the frame, and I was fearing it might be locked when it gave way
+suddenly and I almost fell into the chamber. It was a dreary place,
+although the spring sunshine poured broadly from wall to wall. The
+charred brands of the fire that had wrought such woe were cold in the
+corners of the hearth, having toppled, head-foremost and backward, over
+the andirons after burning through in the middle. The old blankets and
+comfortables were huddled upon the mattress and trailed upon the floor,
+as my mother had left them in snatching one to throw about Lucy. A ball
+with which Alexander the Great had played was in a corner. But for the
+dead fire and the living sunshine and the stillness that met me on the
+threshold like a draught of icy air, we might have left the place not
+three minutes ago.
+
+I learned, subsequently, that my mother had been sadly prostrated by the
+terrible threefold disaster, and had never had the nerve to re-visit
+the place where it began. None of the servants would have gone near it
+of their own free will. A queer, unfamiliar tremor I did not recognize
+as superstitious dread contracted my heart, and arrested me just within
+the doorway. The box, from which we had eaten our dinner, was in the
+middle of the floor, the three crickets pushed a little way back from
+it, and half-way between the fireplace and a window in the gable was the
+rocking-chair my mother had occupied while she held Lucy on her lap.
+Faded calico covered the seat, a valance of the same hung about the
+legs; two of the upright spindles were missing from the back. I took in
+every feature of the haunted room before I rushed over to the wall where
+the bonnets hung, climbed upon a chair, grabbed the black bonnet, and
+espying a black silk apron dependent from another peg, jerked it down,
+and ran off shakily, with my booty. The queer trembling had got into my
+legs, and as I went downstairs I steadied myself against the wall,
+avoiding, as I had not thought of doing as I went up, the scorched
+streaks on the walls and the stains on the steps. Even after I stood in
+the safe shelter of the garden fence, my heart beat so loudly that I put
+the raisin box down upon the grass, and pulled myself together.
+
+The sunshine was genial to my chilled frame; through the palings I could
+see double rows of hyacinths, tulips, and butter-and-eggs, edging the
+walks, and bushes of lilacs and snowballs almost in bloom, just as they
+had looked before I went up to the lumber-room. The serene naturalness
+of it all restored my wits to me; I unrolled the apron which I had
+wrapped about the bonnet, and reawakened, as from a nightmare, to the
+business of the hour.
+
+When I presented myself to the group awaiting me under the big sweeting,
+a low, but fervent, groan of admiration broke forth as from one breast.
+The bonnet covered my head generously, jutting six inches beyond my
+nose. The crepe curtain at the back descended to my shoulder-blades and
+flapped at the sides like the wings of a dejected crow. I had made a
+mourning-cloak of the apron by tying it, hind part before, about my
+neck, whence it drooped to my heels. Mariposa said--respectful of the
+genius manifest in my caparison--that I looked "mos' ezzac'ly like a
+real, sure-'nough widder." The boys were impressed into gravity becoming
+the occasion, and obeyed, with never a snicker or a grimace, my
+instructions as to the conduct of the ceremony.
+
+I walked directly behind the coffin; Mariposa, with the baby on her left
+hip, marched next, arm-in-arm with another girl, who carried her baby--a
+very young one--over her shoulder, its head wobbling helplessly as she
+walked. The rest came after us, two-and-two, through the Old Orchard,
+out through the draw-bars at the lower end, and into the graveyard
+beyond.
+
+It was a retired, and not an unlovely spot. A brick wall, splashed with
+ochre and gray lichens, enclosed six generations of dead Burwells and
+their next of kin. A locked gate kept out trespassers. Long streamers of
+brier and wild berry bushes, purple and ashy with the mantling sap
+drawn upward by the March sunshine, were matted over the older graves; a
+spreading "honey-shuck" tree arose near the middle of the badly kept
+square, and smaller trees flourished here and there. An apple tree,
+flushed with blossoms, leaned over the wall above the place selected for
+Musidora's grave.
+
+Barratier struck his perpendicular spade into the black soil in a truly
+workmanlike manner, utilizing the foundation of the wall as one side of
+the oblong pit. The coffin was lowered into place by means of
+tow-strings, provided by thoughtful Mariposa. There was no reason, save
+her punctilio of "doin' things jes' like folks," why Barratier, or I,
+for that matter, should not have stooped and laid the casket in the
+eighteen-inch-deep hole with our bare hands. But lowered it was in
+funereal style, and covered with apple blossoms, before the bearers
+returned the black earth to the excavation and mounded it into proper
+shape. I stood at the head of the grave, my handkerchief at my eyes,
+trying with all my might to feel sorry enough to cry. The excitement of
+the conventional ceremonies, and the complacent consciousness of being
+the principal actor in it, and doing the thing creditably, drew the
+sting out of what would have been real grief had the flutter of my
+spirits allowed me to think. I believe that, if maturer mourners would
+be as frank as I, we should find that my experience was not singular,
+nor my reluctant composure unnatural.
+
+Mariposa had her emotions better in hand. She sobbed volubly, wiping
+away real tears with the baby's calico slip, and three other girls
+accomplished commendable snivels. An embarrassing halt brought down my
+handkerchief and hushed audible mourning. The affair was not over. Every
+eye was riveted expectantly upon me, and I had forgotten what came next.
+Mariposa plucked my cloak and whispered in my ear:--
+
+"Thar oughter be a pra'ar now!"
+
+The propriety of the suggestion was obvious. I had seen pictures of
+funerals and knew how the officiating clergyman appeared in committing
+"dust to dust, ashes to ashes." But there was the fear aforementioned of
+breaking a Commandment by addressing the Almighty in a make-believe
+service.
+
+"'Tain't a fun'ral 'thout thars a pra'ar!" Mariposa muttered
+insistently.
+
+Nerved by the exigency, I lifted both hands and eyes toward the sky:--
+
+"World without end, Amen and Amen!"
+
+"A-a-_men_!" groaned my faithful lieutenant. Her emphasis assured me
+that the inspiration I had obeyed was a felicitous touch. She pressed
+still closer to me, mindful of my dignity, and prompted me further, in
+an artistic mutter, without using her lips.
+
+"The services o' this solemn 'casion will be close' by er hymn."
+
+I uttered it as if she had not given the cue, and "lined out" the hymn I
+had pitched upon as eminently appropriate for the "solemn 'casion."
+
+   "When I can read my title clear
+   To mansions in the skies."
+
+Mariposa raised the tune and carried it, the rest of the band screaming
+in her wake.
+
+   "I'll bid farewell to every fear
+   And wipe my weeping eyes,"
+
+I continued in a nasal sing-song.
+
+The chorus was plain sailing before a spanking breeze;
+
+   "And wipe my weeping eye-eye-_eyes_!
+   And wipe my weeping eye-er-_ese_!
+   I'll bid farewell to every fear
+   And wipe my weeping eyes."
+
+Like the echo of the final screech a fearsome wail arose from within the
+enclosure,--a long-drawn cry, repeated while we stared into one
+another's blanched faces, too affrighted for words.
+
+Mariposa was the first to recover the use of her tongue and limbs.
+
+"_Th' ghos' o' the little baby!_" she yelled, and took to her nimble
+heels at a rate that made it impossible for the fleetest of her fellow
+fugitives to overtake her.
+
+I was left all alone.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Leaning against the outside of the brick wall, too stunned to join in my
+companions' stampede, I yet did not lose my senses. Neither did I cry
+out or whimper. Children have gone into convulsions and become idiotic
+for less cause. I was phenomenally healthy, and, as I have said, no
+coward. Before the hindmost deserter gained the draw-bars my reason was
+on the return path. I had the signal advantage above my comrades of not
+believing in ghosts. My father had asserted to me positively, once and
+again, that no such things existed, and put himself to much trouble to
+explain natural phenomena that are often misinterpreted by the ignorant
+and superstitious into supernatural manifestations. His orders were
+strict that the servants should never retail ghost stories in our
+hearing; and he was obeyed by the elder negroes. Mam' Chloe, whatever
+may have been her reserved rights of private judgment, backed him up
+dutifully with the epigram:--
+
+"Folks that's gone to the bad place _can't_ get out to come back, an'
+them that's in heaven don't _want_ to."
+
+The cry I had heard certainly sounded like the weak wail of Cousin Mary
+Bray's skinny little baby, but God and the dear angels would never let
+the helpless, tiny mite wander back to earth alone. My mother had said
+to me, last night, that it would never cry any more.
+
+"It was in pain all the while it was here," she reminded me. "It never
+awoke that it did not begin to cry. Think how sweet it must be for it
+not to suffer now. I think that God sent for it to come to heaven
+because He was so sorry for it."
+
+Strength flowed into my soul with the recollection. My mother never said
+what was not exactly true. Happy, safe, and saving faith of childhood in
+a parent's wisdom, a parent's word, a parent's power!
+
+Curious, rather than frightened, I stepped over Musidora's grave, and
+hurried around to the locked gate. Two unsodded mounds were near the
+entrance. One was long, and one short. Stretched upon this last was
+something that moved slightly and cried again, yet more piteously, when
+I called to it. The sight sent me flying like a flushed partridge
+through the Old Orchard to the garden fence, over it and up the middle
+walk of the garden. While yet afar off, I saw my father standing there
+talking with the gardener. Evidently the scattered horde had not spread
+an alarm. My father turned at my loud panting, and eyed me with
+astonishment. Without pausing to consider why he should be amazed, I
+caught hold of him and shrieked my news:--
+
+"Father! father! it is Alexander the Great come back to look for Lucy!"
+
+My father seldom scolded. He more rarely punished without inquiry. He
+was stern now and spoke sharply.
+
+"What is the meaning of this nonsense, Molly? You are forever getting up
+some new sensation. There is such a thing as having too much
+'make-believe.' I would rather have a little sensible truth now and
+then."
+
+"But, father, really and truly--" chokingly, for his words were as drawn
+swords to my loving heart.
+
+He pushed my hand away from his arm.
+
+"When you look and behave less like a crazy child, I will hear what you
+have to say. Where did you get those things?"
+
+I wished that the ground would open and swallow me away from his cold,
+contemptuous eye. I had forgotten my ridiculous costume entirely. The
+shame and humiliation of having exposed myself to his just criticism,
+the added disgrace of the grinning gardener's enjoyment of the figure I
+had cut--the absurd coal-scuttle of a bonnet hanging down my back, the
+black silk apron streaming behind me like a half-inflated
+balloon--overwhelmed me with speechless confusion. I hung my head in an
+agony.
+
+"Where did you get them, I say?" repeated my father.
+
+"Up in the lumber-room," I stammered, faintly and sheepishly.
+
+"Go, put them back where you found them! Then, come to me. As I was
+saying, James--"
+
+He went on with his directions to the gardener.
+
+I slunk away, forgetful of everything except my personal discomfiture,
+dodging from one clump of shrubbery to another, lest I should be seen
+from the windows of the house, going almost on all-fours in exposed
+stretches of walk or garden-beds, and so making my retreat to the side
+door of the north wing. I had stripped off the hateful masquerade
+habiliments and rolled them into a compact bundle, but anybody who met
+me would ask what I was carrying under my arm, and I could bear no more
+that day. Unable to contain myself a minute longer, I sank down in the
+solitude of the steep staircase leading to the lumber-room, and had my
+cry--if not out--so nearly to the end that I felt adequate to making my
+judge see reason,--if only he would not look at me as if he were ashamed
+of his daughter! Was it very wrong to take those things on the sly?
+Would I be punished for it? Had he told my mother yet? And did Mary
+'Liza know about it? I could never, never tell her that I had worn the
+_nasty_ bonnet and cloak as mourning to Musidora's funeral. I would be
+whipped first.
+
+Crying again in anticipation of the dilemma, I trudged slowly up the
+steps, and pushed back the door, which stuck fast again although I did
+not recollect shutting it.
+
+"Just's if somebody was leaning against it!" said I, pettishly, and
+flung my whole weight against the lower panel.
+
+The door flew back and I fell headlong, face downward, on the floor, the
+bundle flying ahead of me clear to the hearth. I picked myself up,
+rubbed my smarting palms and, in a vile humor, recovered the detestable
+cause of all the trouble. I boxed the lop-ears of the bonnet, and gave
+the apron a vicious shake, in restoring them to their respective pegs.
+Then, I backed down from the chair on which I had been standing, and
+started for the door. A feeble cry stopped me as if a shot had passed
+through me.
+
+The room was in afternoon shadow, and the blinds of the larger of the
+two windows had blown shut. The cry quavered out again, and at the same
+instant I saw--or verily believed that I saw with my natural
+eyes--Cousin Mary Bray seated in the rocking-chair between the hearth
+and the window, holding a baby in her arms. She was rocking gently back
+and forth, her face was pale and peaceful, and she wore a sort of dim
+gray dress. Thus much I had seen when my father called loudly to me from
+the bottom of the steps:--
+
+"Molly! what are you doing up there? Come down directly! do you hear?"
+
+The apparition disappeared on the instant, and as I moved toward the
+door, I stumbled over something soft that mewed miserably. In a second I
+had it in my arms,--a rack of bones covered with muddy, tangled gray
+fur,--and rushed down the stairs.
+
+"I told you so, father! don't you see? It is Alexander the Great. Now,
+isn't it?"
+
+Will it be believed that the commotion attendant upon the recognition of
+the wanderer, the talk, conjectures and questions, the nursing and
+feeding, and cosseting the creature who was at the point of death from
+starvation and fatigue--put all thought of revealing what I had beheld
+in the haunted chamber out of my head, until, when I recalled it in all
+its vividness, I simply could not speak of it? It was all like a swift,
+bad dream, the telling of which might revive the unpleasant sensation
+it created in passing. I do not pretend to explain a child's reserve on
+subjects which have gone very far into the deeps of a consciousness that
+never lets them go. Perhaps the solution is partly in the poverty of a
+vocabulary which lags painfully behind the development of thought and
+emotion. Certain it is that I was a woman grown before I ever confided
+to a living soul what I thought sat in the rocking-chair in the haunted
+room, brooding peacefully above a quieted baby.
+
+Lucy's cat--guided by what instinct only his Creator and ours knows--had
+found his way to her grave over two hundred miles of fen, field, and
+forest. Not finding her there, he had tracked me to the room where she
+had last played with him. When carried to other parts of the house, he
+cried piteously all day and all night. When the north wing was locked
+against him, he went back to the grave and could not be coaxed away.
+Finally, my mother proposed that he be allowed to stay there, until
+cold weather. He was the plantation-pet all summer, growing plump, but
+never playful, with nourishing food and rest. His meals were sent to him
+twice a day, but he partially supported himself by catching birds and
+field-mice in the burying-ground, which he never left. We got used to
+his presence there after a while, and his habit of patrolling the top of
+the wall, several times a day, for exercise, or under the impression
+that he was guarding the short green mound where he slept every night.
+
+As the winter approached repeated efforts were made to tempt him to the
+house, and when they were ineffectual my father took him there in his
+own arms. The cat refused food and sleep, keeping the household awake
+with his cries, and in the morning flew so savagely at his jailers that
+we were obliged to let him go.
+
+The fiercest tempest known in mid-Virginia for forty years beset us on
+the anniversary of Lucy's death, and raged for three days. When the
+drifts in the graveyard melted, we found Alexander the Great dead at his
+post.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+Just For Fun
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The floor of the summer-house at Uncle Carter's was of lovely white
+sand, and did not soil my clean pink gingham frock, although I sat down
+flat upon it. Under one of the three benches that furnished it, I had
+dug a vault yesterday. It was modelled upon the description given in
+_The Fairchild Family_ of one belonging to a nobleman's estate. My
+self-education was essentially Squeersian. When I read a thing, I
+forthwith went and did it. The gardener had lent me a trowel, and I had
+found a thin, flat stone that served as a cover. Digging was easy work
+in the top-dressing of sand and the substratum of loose, dry soil.
+
+There were eight niches in the vault--two on a side. When all was
+finished, I sallied forth in quest of occupants. My vault was stocked by
+nightfall. In one niche was a dead sparrow my cousin Burwell had shot by
+mistake and thrown away. In a second was a frog on which a horse or cow
+had trod, crippling it so badly that Uncle Carter mercifully killed it
+with a blow of his stick. The poultry-yard and an epidemic of pip
+supplied me with two more silent tenants. A mouse-trap strangled a
+fifth, the gardener's mole-trap yielded up a sixth. Nos. 7 and 8 were
+land-terrapins ("tar'pens," in negro dialect), which I knew must be dead
+when I found them, although I could discern no sign of violence. Their
+shells were shut so tightly that I could not force a straw between the
+upper and lower, and no amount of kicking and thumping elicited any sign
+of life.
+
+An innovation upon the Fairchild pattern was the deposit in the bottom
+of the vault of a tumbler full of flies which Aunt Eliza told the
+dining room servant to throw into the kitchen fire. A primitive snare
+for these destroyers of the housewife's peace was made by filling a
+tumbler within an inch of the brim with strong soap-suds, and fitting
+upon the top a round cover of thick "sugar-loaf paper," with a hole in
+the middle. Molasses was smeared all around this hole upon the under
+side of the paper, and an alluring drop or two on the top attracted
+attention to the larger supply of sweets. At least a quart of flies, per
+day, were caught in this way in the height of the season before window
+and door screens were invented.
+
+I waylaid the man and tumbler in the back porch.
+
+"Are they dead, sure enough?" I whispered.
+
+"Dead as a door-nail, little mistis."
+
+"Give 'em to me, please! I'll bury them."
+
+He complied, good-naturedly. I poured the contents of the glass into the
+vault, and strewed fine dry sand over them an inch deep. Then I fitted
+on the flat stone, and said nothing to anybody of my new branch of
+industry.
+
+I was tired of being called "an old-fashioned child!" My mother's oft
+and resigned ejaculation--"What _next_, I wonder!" was to my ears a
+covert reproach for not being "steady" and "a comfort," like Mary 'Liza.
+Even my less critical father's shout of laughter at any unusual freak or
+experiment abraded my moral cuticle sometimes. At home the colored
+children would have entered heartily into my mortuary enterprise,--yes!
+and kept my counsel. The reticence of the serf exceeds in dumb
+doggedness that of a misunderstood child. But I did not play with Uncle
+Carter's little negroes. Every Southern child comprehended the
+distinction between "home-folks" and other people's servants.
+
+Not that I was ever lonely. What I called "things" were an unfailing
+resource to me. An ant-hill was entertainment for a whole forenoon; I
+watched bees and their hives by the hour; my vault kept me busy and
+happy all day. If Cousin Molly Belle suspected what I was about, she
+asked no questions, and refrained from spying upon me. When dressed
+clean in the afternoon, for the second time since breakfast,--the
+manufacture of mud-pies, puddings, and cakes, and the baking of several
+batches in the sun, having engrossed the morning,--I took _The Fairchild
+Family_ out into the summer-house and reread, for the tenth time, the
+account of the opening of the family vault.
+
+Why, I reasoned within myself, should innocent dumb creatures be thrown
+away like dead leaves, when they have stopped living? It would be kind
+in me, or in anybody, to bury them in vaults, and to write Bible verses
+and all that on their tombstones. I would dig another vault to-morrow
+and look around for things to put into it,--and still another the next
+day. I had, in imagination, honeycombed the space under the benches with
+catacombs, and my book was clean forgotten, before I saw a movement in
+the sandy flooring, close to the edge of the flat stone sealing the
+mouth of the vault. I leaned forward to inspect it more nearly. The
+stone had been undermined at one side, and a hole left there, through
+which a line of flies, gray with dust, was feebly crawling into the
+sunshine. There seemed to be a thousand of them, all dusty, but some
+more active than others. As soon as they were quite clear of the hole,
+they dispersed in various directions, some alighting upon twigs and
+blades of grass, some flying up to the benches, where they sat cleaning
+their bodies and wings with their feet and mouths.
+
+I worked my hands into the hole and raised the stone. A cloud of
+resurrected flies arose in my astonished face. The vault was quick with
+them. The dry sand, warmed by the sun, that I had sifted over them, had
+acted as a hot blanket upon the chilled body of a dying man. When I got
+rid of the swarm I examined the vault. Both of the terrapins were
+missing. The sapping and mining was their work. Through the tunnel thus
+excavated they had regained their liberty, and released a mighty host of
+fellow-captives.
+
+"The rest of you are _dead_, anyhow!" said I, aloud, intensely chagrined
+at the cheat practised upon my benevolent nature, and I shoved the stone
+back over the violated vault.
+
+A shadow fell upon the white sand. Looking up, I saw a young gentleman
+in the door of the summer-house, smiling down at me. At the first glance
+I took him for my cousin Burwell, who was at home on his vacation. A
+second undeceived me. I scrambled to my feet and stared hard at the
+stranger who stood with his hands behind him, still smiling, but not
+saying a word. He was nattily dressed in a blue cloth coat and trousers,
+and a white waistcoat. A white satin stock of the latest style encircled
+a slender neck; he wore shiny boots, a leghorn hat was set jauntily
+above a crop of black curls. I was never shy, having been accustomed
+from my birth to meeting strangers and to "entertaining company" when
+called upon to do so. Yet I was strangely embarrassed by the merry eyes
+fixed silently upon me.
+
+"How do you do, sir!" I said, dropping a little courtesy, as well-bred
+children still did in that part of the civilized world.
+
+Still without speaking, the stranger drew nearer and stooped to kiss me.
+This was going several steps too far. I clapped one hand over my mouth
+and pushed him away with the other.
+
+"Cousin Molly Belle! _oh_, Cousin Molly Belle!" I screamed between my
+fingers.
+
+She was the only member of the family at home, my uncle, aunt, and their
+two sons having gone on an all-day visit to a plantation some miles
+away.
+
+"Why, Namesake! don't you know me?"
+
+Her voice answered in my very ear, her arm held me as I ceased
+struggling.
+
+I laughed like a mad thing in the excess of my relief and surprise, and
+when she sat down, I climbed to her knee for a good look at her
+disguise.
+
+"Cousin Burwell's clothes!" I said analytically. "And his hat. But your
+hair is black."
+
+She lifted the hat to show that she had on a black wig.
+
+"It belonged to poor Grandpapa when he was young. He had a fever and his
+head was shaved. I found it in a box on the top shelf of mother's
+closet, and tried it on just for fun. I liked myself so well in the
+glass that I thought I'd see how I would have looked if Burwell had been
+the girl, and I the boy. I know now that I ought to have been. I mean to
+be--just for fun--until they all come home. I'm in exactly the humor to
+do something outrageous. I'm tired to death of everyday doings and
+everyday people, and my everyday self. You and I are going to have a
+real spree, a glorious frolic, and nobody else is to know a single
+thing about it. Flora" (her maid) "helped me on with this rig. She is as
+close as wax, and you never tell tales,--Oh, yes! I know--" as I opened
+my mouth eagerly--"you would have your tongue pulled out by the roots
+before you would get me into trouble. And there would be all sorts of
+trouble if I were found out."
+
+She tied my sunbonnet, made of the same pink gingham as my frock, under
+my chin, and we set forward gleefully upon our spree. To begin with, we
+jumped over the yard palings, so that we should not have to pass in
+sight of the house and kitchen, in order to get into the lane leading to
+the public road. We called it "a lane." Now it would be an avenue, or
+drive. The finest Lombardy poplars in Powhatan County bordered it; sheep
+mint, pennyroyal, sweetbrier, and wild thyme grew up close to the
+wheel-track and gave out a goodly smell as we brushed by and trod upon
+them. I was in a high gale of spirits, and prattled as fast as my
+tongue could run, flattered beyond expression by the choice of myself as
+an accomplice in the frolic.
+
+"It's a pity you _can't_ change places with Cousin Burwell!" I
+regretted. "You'd be a heap handsomer gentleman than he is. And it must
+be just fine not to have to hold up your frocks when you want to run
+fast, and to climb trees and jump fences. Would it be sure-enough
+wrong--I don't mean not lady-like--but would it be _sinful_ for you to
+dress that way all the time?"
+
+"People seem to think so, Namesake. They think so so much that it is
+against the law for a woman to wear a man's clothes, or for a man to
+wear a woman's. Though why any man with a grain of sense in his head
+should ever want to put on _skirts_, I can't see. If I were to meet a
+magistrate while I have on these--_things_,"--flicking her trousers with
+a switch she had cut from a hickory sapling,--"he would have a right to
+put me in jail."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle!" squeezing her hand hard. "S'pose we should!"
+
+"I'm Cousin Burwell until we get home. No 's'pose,' you little goosie!
+If we did, we'd take to the woods, and outrun him. Or, we'd climb a
+tree."
+
+We were in the highroad, striding the ruts and skipping over stones like
+two boys on the way home from school. There was pleasanter walking in
+bridle-paths and wood-roads branching off from the thoroughfare every
+few rods. I think the madcap chose the rutty and mud-holey route because
+there was, at least, a chance that we might have to plunge into the
+bushes to hide, or to brave the scrutiny of strangers and acquaintances.
+The sauce of danger made the escapade the more attractive.
+
+Half a mile from home a creek, shallow, but broad, crossed the road. We
+could not pass over dry-shod and had to go up the bank into the low
+grounds to find a long log laid from side to side of a narrower part of
+the stream. My companion hoisted me upon her back and ran along the
+uncertain bridge as fleetly as a squirrel.
+
+"How far are we going?" I asked, as she set me down.
+
+"Around by Tom's Hill, and then cut across the field home. It's more
+than a mile. Can you walk so far?"
+
+"I walked two miles at a time, once!" I boasted.
+
+"You are a brave little lightwood knot!"
+
+She was "fey"--_exaltee_--in the state of lighthearted-and
+lightheadedness for which sober, literal, decorous English has no
+synonym. As we went, she danced and sang, and laughed out joyously at
+everything and at nothing, and talked the most fascinating nonsense--all
+in the role of "Cousin Burwell." She could imitate him to perfection;
+her strut and swagger and slang threw me into paroxysms of delight. We
+picked huckleberries, and dived into the woods to feast upon wild plums
+that had ten drops of syrupy juice between tough skins and flinty
+stones encased in the pulp of bitterness, and gathered handfuls of wild
+flowers because their beauty tempted sight and touch, and with no
+intention of taking them home with us. Two of Pan's dryads turned loose
+for a holiday could not have sported more irrationally.
+
+We met neither man nor beast until we had climbed Tom's Hill, a stony
+eminence from the top of which, as the neighbors were proud of saying,
+one could see six dwelling-houses, each with its group of outbuildings,
+representing six fine plantations. A saddle-horse was tied to a
+persimmon tree a hundred yards or so down the other side. He whinnied at
+sight of us, and Cousin Molly Belle ran up to him.
+
+"Well done, Snap! old fellow! clothes don't make any difference to
+you--do they?"
+
+It was Mr. Frank Morton's riding horse, and the fence by which he stood
+bounded an extensive tobacco field belonging to Mr. Frank Morton's
+brother. About the middle of the field was a tobacco barn, and by
+climbing upon the top rail of the fence so as to overlook a row of
+sassafras saplings, I could see a group of men about the door. Their
+backs were toward us, and if they had looked our way they could not have
+seen us, when I got down.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle's eyes were two dancing stars. She clapped her hands
+in riotous glee. Without a word she untied the bridle from the tree,
+vaulted into the saddle, drew me up in front of her, and before I could
+put a question we were pacing briskly down the hill. At the bottom we
+struck into a cross-road leading to Uncle Carter's plantation. Cousin
+Molly Belle was laughing too heartily to speak distinctly, and I joined
+in with all my heart, with a very imperfect appreciation of the extent
+of the practical joke. Mr. Frank Morton would not have to walk home. He
+had only to go to his brother's house when he missed Snap and borrow a
+horse, and Snap would be sent back safely to him in good time.
+
+"What d'you s'pose he'll say when he comes to the fence and Snap isn't
+there?" queried I, at length.
+
+"Oh, _don't_ I wish I were hiding somewhere near enough to hear and see
+him!" another and yet more infectious outburst. "That would be the best
+part of the joke. I'm going to turn Snap loose when we get to our outer
+gate, and hit him a crack with my switch and start him toward home.
+He'll not tell tales out of school--will you, old boy?" slapping his
+neck affectionately. "Mr. Frank Morton will never guess why the horse
+thief let such a fine animal get away from him, when once he had got
+him. I can hear him now, telling me the story, and I'll look as grave as
+a dozen judges, and wonder as hard as he does--and--_Hark!_"
+
+We were, perhaps, half a mile from the place where we had found Snap,
+but, as I have said, Tom's Hill was a stony ledge, running like a sharp
+backbone between fertile fields, and we heard from afar off the
+clattering hoofs of a horse pressed to his utmost speed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+My First Lie, and What Came of It.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"He is after us!" exclaimed Cousin Molly Belle, and brought down her
+switch stingingly upon Snap's flanks.
+
+Tightening her arm about me, she urged him from canter to gallop, from a
+gallop to a run. The trees swept by us like lightning; the wind tore the
+breath from our lungs, but I had no thought of fear. My cousin was a
+fearless rider, and the perfectly broken hunter under us flew as
+steadily and as straight as a blue martin. Against the back of my head
+Cousin Molly Belle's heart was pounding like an unbalanced trip-hammer.
+I wondered if it were possible that she was frightened, and twisted my
+face around to get a glimpse of hers. It was as white as a sheet, and
+her teeth were set hard upon her lower lip. Within a stone's throw of
+Uncle Carter's outer gate she brought the horse down to a walk, then to
+a full stop, and slipped to the ground. Her face was so pale and rigid
+as she set me upon my feet that I began to tremble.
+
+"Are you scared?" I faltered.
+
+"Scared to death, child! Hush!"
+
+She turned Snap's head in the direction from which we had come, and
+struck him smartly with her switch, in letting go of the bridle.
+
+"Go home, sir! Go!"
+
+He galloped off, stirrups and mane flying, and she drew a deep, agitated
+breath.
+
+"If ever I get into such a scrape again!"
+
+She bent low and listened; the scared look settled again upon her face.
+Through the stillness of the summer afternoon, we heard a sharp "Whoa!"
+faint but clear, when, as we judged, Snap neared our pursuer. The pause
+of a second ensued, and the hoofs, doubled in number and resonance,
+sounded nearer and nearer, thundering over the soft ground, clicking
+against the stones, like a charge of cavalry. Cousin Molly Belle was so
+white that a few freckles, never seen through her usually brilliant
+complexion, made a line of sallow dots across her cheek bones and the
+bridge of her nose. Clutching me more roughly than she had ever touched
+me before, she thrust me well into the heart of a tall cedar whose
+lowest boughs grew out horizontally and swept the earth.
+
+"Don't move or speak!" she whispered fiercely and forced her way to the
+hole of the tree.
+
+I heard the grating of the bark under her feet, and felt the branches
+shake, then grow quiet. She was well up the tree, and hidden by the
+bushy foliage. The tumultuous beat of the charging hoofs echoed more and
+more loudly. The rider would be upon us in another minute. Escape
+through the gate and down the avenue to the house was out of the
+question. We would have been in sight from the road for several hundred
+yards, and a few seconds would be lost in opening the gate.
+
+On my part, the adventure was, thus far, pure fun, and the excitement
+delicious. I giggled in my sleeve in the anticipation of hearing the
+furious hoofs sweep past and lose themselves in the distance on the
+false scent. I had not had time to speculate as to why my companion was
+"scared to death."
+
+The clatter was abreast of, and behind me in the road when the
+imperative "Whoa!" again arrested it. I knew the voice now. A man leaped
+to the ground; hasty footsteps struck across the turf edging the
+highway; dry sticks cracked, my bushy covert was jarred, and Mr. Frank
+Morton stood before me, parting the branches to get a good look at me.
+My pink gingham had betrayed me.
+
+"Molly Burwell! what are you doing here?"
+
+As if prompted by a telepathic despatch from the fugitive overhead, I
+began to pick the bluish white berries studding the twigs and to cram
+them into my mouth.
+
+"Picking cedar-berries!" I retorted coolly, cocking a saucy eye at him.
+
+"Who came with you?"
+
+I stood on tiptoe to tug at a fat cedar-ball, glossy, brown, and deeply
+pitted.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Frank! won't you please cut it off for me?"
+
+He whipped out his knife and severed the twig.
+
+"Did you come all the way from the house alone?"
+
+I had never, within my memory, told a deliberate lie. My cheeks burned
+like fire; my eyes dropped guiltily. My tongue did not trip or tangle.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There was a dread silence. My ears rang, my heart was sinking slowly and
+sickeningly into my heels. I had bethought myself just as he put the
+question, that Cousin Molly Belle might be put in jail if he found out
+that she had been with me, and had on her brother's clothes. As a
+well-tutored child in a Presbyterian family, I knew what becomes of
+liars when they leave off living and lying together. My teeth ceased to
+chatter and met with a snap. The loyal heart rallied to the help of the
+guilty tongue. I raised my eyes in sullen defiance.
+
+"It isn't so _dreadful_ far! I came all by my loney-toney self!"
+
+My friend laughed.
+
+"My dear little girl, there is no great harm in that. Only, I wouldn't
+run away again if I were you. Your aunt might be uneasy if she missed
+you."
+
+"She isn't at home," I answered incautiously. "She 'n' Uncle Carter 'n'
+Cousin Burwell 'n' Cousin Dick have gone to Mr. Cunningham's."
+
+"Ah!" The ejaculation was not regretful. "Isn't Miss Molly Belle at
+home? You would be sorry to make _her_ anxious, I know."
+
+The cedar-branches thrilled slightly, as at the flight of a startled
+bird. Mr. Frank did not notice it, but the movement nerved me. I spoke
+hastily, walking away from the tree toward the gate.
+
+"Oh, yes, _she's_ at home! I reckon she must have been taking a nap when
+I came away. I'm going right back now."
+
+I had never dreamed that lying was such an easy performance.
+
+"I'll take you home. Wait a minute!"
+
+Snap was grazing on the roadside. Another saddle-horse stood by with
+drooping head, his bridle hanging loosely in the bend of Mr. Frank's
+arm. I was lifted to Snap's back; my escort walked beside me through the
+gate, and along the lane, one hand on me, and leading the second horse.
+
+"I suppose you are wondering what I am doing with two horses," he said
+lightly. "It is a very funny story. I'll tell you and Miss Molly Belle
+when we get to the house. It will make you both laugh."
+
+He had given me Snap's bridle to hold, as if I were riding all by
+myself. He thought it would please me. In other circumstances I should
+have been glad and proud to be so mounted, and by him. But from my lofty
+seat I could see over his head across the field of corn which lay to the
+left of the road. Something or somebody was running between the close
+rows in a straight line from the plantation gate to the house. Running
+like a deer, or a greyhound--or Cousin Molly Belle. She must get home
+and up to her room before we got there.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Frank!" I cried. "I have dropped my cedar-ball!" And when he
+had picked it up, "Won't you please make Snap walk very slow? I am
+afraid I might fall off."
+
+"What has got into you to-day, little Duchess?" He had a dozen pet names
+for me, and my heart smote me sore at sight of his kind, honest face.
+"It isn't like you to be afraid of horses,--and you and Snap are old
+friends. You will never be such a rider as Miss Molly Belle if you learn
+to be nervous."
+
+Not another sound fell from my lips until I was put down gently at the
+front gate of my uncle's house, and Flora bustled out, cross lines in
+her forehead and cross tones in her voice.
+
+"I do declar', Miss Molly--(How-you-do, Mars' Frank?) I do declar', Miss
+Molly, you're enough to drive anybody crazy with you' wild tomboy ways.
+Me 'n' Miss Molly Belle, we've been jes' raisin' the plantation fo' you,
+and hyar you come home a-riding Mars' Frank Mo'ton's horse, gran' as you
+please, and nobody knowin' whar you been ever sence dinner-time. Miss
+Molly Belle 'll be mighty obleeged to you for fotchin' of her home,
+Mars' Frank. She'll be down pretty soon for to tell you so herself. Walk
+into the parlor, please, sir. Jim, you take Mr. Mo'ton's horses to
+the stable. And Miss Molly, you jes' stay thar 'n' ent'tain Mr. Mo'ton
+like a little lady tell you' cousin comes down sta'rs."
+
+[Illustration: THE END OF THE PRANK.
+
+"I was put down at my uncle's house, and Flora bustled out."]
+
+I obeyed with docility that must have surprised the autocrat. Meek and
+miserable, I preceded the guest to the parlor, although every minute
+spent under his unsuspecting eyes was a danger and a pain. I made no
+attempt to "entertain him." Seated upon a high chair, my feet swinging
+dolefully six inches above the floor, I fingered the wretched
+cedar-ball, redolent of rosin through much bruising, my pink sunbonnet
+hanging from the knotted strings to the small of my back, and with
+difficulty refrained from crying. I had never been wretched just in that
+way before. Two imperative duties had met plump and face to face, with a
+shock that jarred all preconceived principles of belief and action out
+of plumb. Cousin Molly Belle had trusted me to keep her secret, and I
+saw no way of doing it except to lie outright and repeatedly. The sin
+lashed my conscience until I could have located in my corporeal frame
+the exact whereabouts of the uncomfortable possession. So absorbed was I
+by individual upbraidings that Flora's barefaced fabrication of the
+search her young mistress and she had had for the runaway passed
+unrebuked by so much as a look. It was no comfort to me to hear another
+person lie even more glibly than myself. Flora was an ignorant colored
+person, I, a baptized white child of the covenant who could read the
+Bible for herself.
+
+Mr. Morton tried to make me talk by well-concerted questions. Children
+are best approached through the interrogative mood. It offers just so
+many nails set in a sure place upon which to hang conversation. He was a
+handsome, well-set-up young fellow, and, if somewhat graver by nature
+and habit than most of Cousin Molly Belle's beaux, suited my taste best
+of them all. Yesterday I should have been tickled clean out of the
+proprieties by the chance of talking to him all by myself for twenty
+minutes, sitting up in Aunt Eliza's parlor, just like grown folks.
+
+The twenty minutes were like one hundred in sloth and weight before the
+tap of high heels on the oaken stairs and the swish of skirts against
+the banisters advised us who was coming.
+
+She walked into the room with her head high and chin level; her eyes
+shone and her coloring was superb. She had never been more beautiful,
+and never so dignified. Her admirer felt both of these facts, and was
+moved to mute inquiry into the cause of the singular mood. His glowing
+eyes questioned hers while she shook hands with him and then sat down,
+and held out her hand silently to me, without a smile. I went as
+straight to her as a wounded bird to shelter, dropped upon a stool
+beside her and rested my cheek against her knee, my hand in a grasp that
+was close and loving, and--or so I fancied--monitory. My heart retorted
+upon writhing conscience that she was worth sinning for. I added,
+dogged and desperate, that I would do it again, if she needed to have it
+done.
+
+"Flora says that you have been very uneasy about this little lady," said
+Mr. Frank, the dumb questioning still in his eyes, while he led the talk
+into safer paths. "And that you have been hunting for her all over the
+plantation."
+
+"Flora said what was not true. I knew where she was, and did not look
+for her at all or anywhere."
+
+The metallic quality in her voice did not belong to it, and her
+articulation was carefully clear, not at all like the gliding vowels and
+consonantal elisions that help make musical the speech of the Southern
+girl.
+
+Mr. Frank looked puzzled. Had I not been present, he would have got at
+the answer to the enigma. I felt this, but my hand was still in Cousin
+Molly's, and I comprehended that she willed me to stay where I was.
+
+"I have had an adventure, if she has not," resumed Mr. Frank, merrily.
+"You may have seen me arrive with two saddle-horses? I was on my way
+here, riding Snap. As I passed John's upper tobacco-field, I saw him at
+the barn. So I tied Snap to a tree and went to speak to John. While we
+were talking a negro ran up, all out of breath, to say that a man and a
+woman had stolen my horse. The negro was too far off to recognize the
+fellow, but he saw him untie Snap, mount him, help a little woman in a
+red dress to get up behind him, and then ride away at a rattling pace.
+Fortunately, John's riding-horse was standing at the barn door. I was in
+the saddle before the story was done, put him at the nearest fence, and
+was after the thieves. I must have gained upon them--Wildfire can outrun
+any other horse in the county, and I did not spare him--for the rascals
+left their booty and got away with whole skins. I met Snap just this
+side of Willis's Creek, going home like the sensible creature he is. He
+had been ridden hard, and there were welts on his sides where he had
+been whipped, but I got him back safe. It was a risky thing--their
+stealing him. Everybody about here knows the star in his forehead and
+his white hind foot. The first white man that met the thieves would have
+taken them up. I have no doubt that they belonged to a gang of gypsies
+that are roaming through this neighborhood. A wagon-load of them passed
+our house yesterday and camped last night at the Crossroads. I saw them
+there last night as I went home from Court. On my way back this evening
+I'll give them a call and let them understand that this is an unhealthy
+country for that sort of gentry. Horse-thieves and grapevines are found
+conveniently near to one another, sometimes."
+
+In the horror of the hearing, I must have cried out but for the warning
+squeeze that made my finger-joints slip upon each other and the bones
+ache. The muscles of my face stiffened until I felt it losing all
+resemblance to Molly Burwell. I was sure that it looked like a gray old
+woman's, and instinctively turned it into the folds of my cousin's
+skirt. Suppose Mr. Frank had called upon the gypsies before coming here!
+If he had not come to us at all to-day--what would have happened? Would
+he have had the innocent strangers hanged upon the convenient grapevine?
+Could he be prevented from doing this now unless the truth were told
+him? _That_, of course, was not to be thought of. Better have the gypsy
+gang driven out of the county and a man and a woman strung up, than let
+Cousin Molly Belle go to jail for wearing men's clothes. She would die
+sooner than confess to any man, least of all to this one, that she had
+worn--_pantaloons!_--and ridden Snap as people who wear the things
+always ride.
+
+How little I knew her was to be proved.
+
+She let go my fingers all at once, pressed her palms together hard, and
+sat up very straight, settling her eyes upon Mr. Frank's. When she
+spoke, the metallic ring was that of a taut piano-string.
+
+"You will please not go near the gypsies. _I_ stole your horse. Just for
+fun, you know. And wretched fun it was. I saw him standing there, and
+the temptation to play a trick upon you was too much for me. I meant to
+let him go and send him back when I got to our gate. I did it sooner
+than I expected, because I heard you coming and knew in a minute that
+you must be on Wildfire, and that Snap stood no chance of keeping ahead
+of him."
+
+The listener's face was a study. He stood up and stared down at her, at
+first in incredulous stupefaction, then, frowningly.
+
+"_You--took--my--horse!_ You were that 'little woman,' then? Who was the
+man?"
+
+"There was no man. The negro did not see straight, or he told you a lie.
+Molly was with me, and, as you see, her frock is pink. We were out
+walking. We both got on the horse. It was a silly, silly prank, and all
+my fault."
+
+The frown disappeared; the perplexity remained. He glanced at me, and
+my eyes fell. I so wanted Mr. Frank Morton to think well of me!
+
+"But Molly said--" he began.
+
+She took him up quickly.
+
+"I know what Molly said. I was close by and heard every word. She was
+trying to shield me. I told her that I could be put in jail if anybody
+knew what I had done. I tempted the poor, loyal, loving little soul to
+tell the first falsehood that ever soiled her tongue. It was a wicked--a
+vile--a _mean_ thing in me! I loathe myself when I think of it. Oh,
+Namesake!"--encircling me suddenly with her arm--"we will ask God
+together to forgive us. I am the sinner--not you!"
+
+I was wetting her sleeve with tears, shed more for her distress than for
+my sin.
+
+Mr. Frank Morton made a step toward her.
+
+"I don't comprehend you yet--quite. You could not have imagined that you
+could ever go to jail if you had stolen every horse in my stable--and
+everything else I have? Don't give another thought to the matter. It was
+a harmless bit of fun that hurt nobody. As to Molly's fibbing--I was the
+tempter. What was the child to do? I think all the more of her for
+standing between you and possible trouble."
+
+"I tempted Molly to tell her first lie!" She waived aside the hand he
+would have laid upon my head. "I shall recollect that as long as I live.
+I deserve to suffer for it. And I mean to punish myself by telling you
+the whole truth."
+
+In the energy of her resolve, she, too, arose to her feet. A sort of
+ague went from her head to her feet. For an instant there was not a sign
+of color in her cheeks, then, a great billow of blushes beat her face
+down upon her hands. If I had not been clinging to her skirt I could
+hardly have got the meaning of the muffled words. Her lover had to bend
+his head to catch them.
+
+"_I had on a suit of Burwell's clothes!_"
+
+She threw up her head so abruptly that her face almost touched his
+before he could start back.
+
+"_Now_"--she flung out passionately--"you will despise me! And you ought
+to!"
+
+Her rush toward the door was intercepted by his quicker action. He
+seized both of her hands and would not let her pass.
+
+"On the contrary, I never respected you before as I do this moment. You
+shall believe this, Molly Belle!"
+
+Not a symptom of a "Miss"! And he the most punctilious of men in
+everything pertaining to polite address and chivalric reverence for
+women! His eyes had strange flashes in them when he turned to me. He was
+grave, but with a gravity that overlaid smiles. His voice was very
+gentle:--
+
+"Molly, run away to play--there's a dear child!"
+
+As I obeyed, I saw that he had not let go of Cousin Molly Belle's
+hands.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+My Pets
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Like my games, my stockings, and my frocks, they were home-made. We had
+no caged birds. Our yards and woods thrilled with bird-song all day long
+for eight months of the year, and mocking-birds filled June and July
+nights with music sweeter and more varied than the storied strain of the
+nightingale. I had never seen a canary, and knew nothing of him except
+as I had read of one in what I called a "pair of verses" to which I took
+a fancy. I used to sing them to a tune of my own making when
+grown-uppers were not listening:--
+
+   "Mary had a little bird,
+     Feathers bright and yellow,
+   Slender legs--upon my word
+     He was a pretty fellow.
+
+   "Sweetest songs he often sung
+     Which much delighted Mary,
+   And often where his cage was hung
+     She stood to hear Canary."
+
+I classed Mary 'Liza with the grown-uppers. She loved cats, adopting two
+when they were blind kittens, and bringing them up in just such staid
+habits as made her incomparable among children. At six months of age
+they would doze at her feet on the rug while she studied, or ciphered,
+or read aloud, or stitched upon those everlasting chemises. When she
+took a walk for exercise (she never ran, or hopped, or skipped) they
+trotted demurely in the path, beside or behind her, indifferent to
+butterflies and grasshoppers, and as intent upon Behavior as their
+mistress. They were always fat and sleek, and ate civilized
+victuals,--bread, milk, and cooked meats cut into decent, miminy-piminy
+mouthfuls. Not one of them was ever known to commit the vulgarity of
+catching a mouse. Mary 'Liza considered it cruel, and eating raw flesh
+"a dirty habit." She, the cats, and Dorinda composed a Happy Family in
+which--barring the Rozillah episode--no accidents ever happened.
+
+From earliest childhood my love for living creatures as companions and
+pets was a passion that wrought much anguish to me, and more casualties
+in the dumb animal kingdom than would be credited, were I to set down
+the full tale of my bantlings, and the fate of each. At a tender age, I
+sturdily refused to "call mine" the downiest darlings of the
+poultry-yard. There would be a few weeks of having, and loving, and
+fattening, and then the axe and the bloody log at the woodpile, and the
+stormy tears of bereavement. It mattered not to Aunt 'Ritta that my
+foster-children had names to which they answered, that they would feed
+from my hand, and hop on my shoulder, and run quacking, or squawking,
+or piping, or chirping, at my heels across the yard, and follow me to
+the field like dogs. When the day and the hour--always unexpected to
+me--came, I "called and they answered not again," until, taught by
+bitter experience, I "struck" petting tame and edible living things,
+once and finally.
+
+The miniature menagerie I then set up on my own account, and, as I shall
+show, to the detriment of everything entered upon the rolls, was stocked
+principally by the services of my colored contingent.
+
+Among the first inmates--they all became patients in the long, or short
+run--were two striped ground squirrels (chipmunks) who were caught in a
+box with a falling door, and presented to me by Barratier. He lent me
+the box to keep them in. I fed and watered them warily and successfully
+for a couple of days by lifting the door an inch, having previously
+rapped upon it to scare the prisoners to the other end, then slipping in
+the dish of water and the nuts, sugar, or fruit that were the day's
+rations. Supposing that kindness and comfortable quarters had tamed them
+into appreciation of my services and intentions, I raised the door two
+inches higher on the third day, and took a good look at the beauties
+huddled trembling in their safe corner. Their bright eyes were alluring,
+their quiescence was encouraging. I spoke to them in dulcet accents, and
+advanced a friendly hand. They met it more than half-way, one leaping
+upon my bare arm, running up to my shoulder, and, with one bound over my
+head, regaining his lost freedom. I caught his less active brother by
+the tail as he was sneaking under the door, and held him tight. In a
+quarter-jiffy he whisked his little body around and dug his teeth into
+my finger, and, as I still held on to his tail, incontinently shed the
+skin of the same, leaving it in my grasp. The last I ever saw of him was
+the flaunt of a gory, ghastly pennant, as the bearer vanished under a
+heap of stones. I flung the bloody casing from me with abhorrence. Now I
+can hope that another grew upon the denuded bones. Then I hoped it
+would not. The insult was gross.
+
+The immediate successor of the ingrates was a mouse bestowed upon me by
+one of the stable hands. I named the waif "Caspar Hauser" forthwith,
+being fresh from the perusal of the history of that engaging fraud, and
+inducted him into a spare rat-trap set about closely with wires. A
+horsehair sparrow's nest was lined with raw cotton and put in one
+corner, a toy saucer of water in the other, and in the third a toy plate
+filled with cracked hickory nuts, interspersed with bits of sugar. Then
+I sat down upon the floor beside him, and began the business of taming
+him by getting him used to seeing me, cultivating his acquaintance by
+poking my finger between the bars, talking and singing to him, and
+endeavoring, by other ingenious devices, to make him feel at home. He
+scampered around the confines of his domicile, as in a treadmill, all
+the time I was thus employed, and could not be induced to touch his
+food.
+
+Mary 'Liza and I had outgrown the trundle-bed, and had a room to
+ourselves upstairs. Into this I surreptitiously conveyed the improvised
+cage that night and hid it under the bed. When my bedfellow had fallen
+asleep, I got up softly, lighted a candle, and took a peep at my pet. He
+had gone regularly to bed after disposing of some of the nuts and
+scattering the remnants in every direction, and now lay curled up in the
+cotton-wool in the prettiest, most homelike way imaginable, fast asleep.
+
+I hung over him, entranced. He was tamed! Before long he would be
+following me all over the house, playing hide-and-seek in corners,
+sitting upon his hind legs beside my plate at table, and nibbling such
+tidbits as I might give him. One particularly bright picture of our
+common future was of taking him to church, smuggling him into the pocket
+of my Sunday frock, and after settling myself comfortably upon my knees
+before a corner seat during the "long prayer," taking Caspar Hauser out
+and letting him play on the bench. What a boon his society would
+be--what a relief his antics while Mr. Lee droned through innumerable
+"We pray Thees!"
+
+After I went back to bed I pursued these and other enchanting visions
+into dreamland. The next day I took Caspar Hauser into the garden for
+air and sunshine. His liveliness was something inconceivable by the
+human imagination. He chased himself frantically around the cage,
+regardless of my tender exhortations, until I began to fear that taming
+was a more tedious process than I had supposed. I set the cage upon the
+grass where the sun was hottest, withdrawing myself into the shade as
+less in need of light and warmth, and read a volume of Berquin's
+_Children's Friend_ in full sight of Caspar Hauser. Whenever I turned a
+page I would stick my finger between the wires and chirrup encouragingly
+to the captive, all with a single eye to getting him used to me. His
+speed and staying powers were equally extraordinary, but I was cheered,
+when the forenoon was spent and I picked up the cage to take him in, by
+observing that he ran more deliberately and with occasional pauses. By
+the time I got him upstairs he lay down for a nap. He was still
+slumbering at my supper-time, and had not got his nap out when I went to
+bed, nor yet when breakfast was eaten and lessons said, next morning.
+
+I had made up my mind by now that he was sick, and carried him into the
+garden once more. I had read that wild creatures physic themselves if
+allowed to seek such plants as instinct tells them are specifics for
+their ailments. Lifting Caspar Hauser from his woolly bed, I stroked him
+and called him by name. He was so tame by now that he did not struggle
+upon my palm. Only the rise and fall of his furry sides showed that he
+was alive. He was limp and helpless, and to me very lovable. I laid him
+upon a strip of turf hot with the sunshine that had steeped it for five
+hours. He had a liberal choice of healing herbs. Parsley, sage, mint,
+tansy, peppergrass, catnip, and sweet marjoram, rue and bergamot and
+balsam, flourished within a hundred lengths of his small body. While I
+watched him he stretched himself as a baby at awakening, and began to
+crawl weakly toward the tansy bed. To save him needless exertion I
+pulled a handful of the yellow heads and offered them to his inquisitive
+nose. Mam' Chloe had given me tansy tea for a bad cold last winter. It
+tasted nasty, but I got well. Instinct had "indicated" tansy to Caspar
+Hauser. He refused the panacea dumbly, and made, still feebly, for the
+parsley patch. I let him go a yard or more, when, fearing lest he might
+lose himself in the maze of luxuriant herbage, I dragged him tenderly
+back by the tail to the hot turf.
+
+He had grown so tame that he never moved again.
+
+The funeral took place that afternoon. We buried him next to Musidora. I
+had had enough of vaults, regarding them, with reason, as uncertain
+places of sepulture for the presumably defunct. I had never heard, or
+read, of cremation. I had had the misfortune to break my slate a few
+days before, and the biggest fragment made a nice tombstone for Caspar
+Hauser. With a nail and with infinite toil I produced a suitable
+epitaph.
+
+               HERE LIES
+             HIS AFLICTED
+       MISS M. BURWELL'S
+         FATHEFULL LIT
+       TLE FREND AN
+     D TAME PLA
+   YFELOW AND
+     SUFFERER
+       C. H.
+
+There was not room for the whole name, but, as I told my fellow-mourners
+when I read the inscription to them, since we all knew it, the omission
+was of no consequence. I could have wished that the slate had broken
+straight, so that the inscription would have gone in better. However,
+one cannot control circumstance when it takes the shape of a fracture.
+
+Within twenty-four hours after Caspar Hauser's decease he was succeeded
+by Bay. His name in its entirety, was Baffin's Bay. The alliterative
+unctuousness of the title pleased me, as Mary 'Liza pronounced it
+smoothly in her geography lesson, the day on which Hamilcar, the
+carriage driver, drove over a young "old hare" in the road, and knocked
+one of the poor thing's eyes out. It was taken up for dead, but
+presently began to kick, and the ownership reverted to me. It lived a
+week, and for hours at a time was so nearly comfortable as to eat
+sparingly of milk, lettuce, cabbage, and clover, with which I supplied
+it lavishly twice a day. I likewise treated the wounded eye with
+balsam-capeiva and balm of Gilead ointment, sovereign appliances for the
+bruises and cut fingers of that generation. A lemon box, with slats
+nailed across the front by faithful Barratier, was the hospital in which
+I laid Bay up for repairs. Him, too, I carried daily into the garden,
+for change of air. He condescended to approve of the parsley patch,
+limping through it as gracefully as the long tape tied to his right hind
+leg would allow.
+
+When, upon the third day of his residence in civilized quarters, he had
+a convulsion in the very middle of the parsley patch, I thought it a
+playful antic, and was amused and gratified thereat. The second time
+this happened, James, the gardener, chanced to witness the performance
+and informed me, brutally, that "that old hyar had throwed a fit, and
+was boun' to die 'fore long.
+
+"That 'ar lick on de side o' de hade done de bizness fur him, sure. De
+brain am injerred. Mighty easy thing fur to injer a Molly Cottontail's
+brain. He ain't got much, an' hit lies close to de top o' de hade."
+
+For forty-eight hours before Bay died, the spasms were distressingly
+frequent, but I would not have him killed. James might be wrong. Good
+nursing and plenty of fresh air might bring my patient around. For fear
+my parents might insist that he should be put out of his misery, I
+removed the hospital to the playhouse, and gave him the range of the
+place, forbidding the colored children to tell what was going on. His
+agonies were nearly over when, in the distraction of anxiety, I took
+Cousin Frank Morton into confidence. He had ridden over with a message
+from Cousin Molly Belle.
+
+(Have I mentioned that they had been married for six months?)
+
+The message was to the effect that I must spend the day and night with
+her. My mother gave ready consent.
+
+"Molly has been too pale for several days, and has little or no
+appetite," she said, looking affectionately at me. "The change will do
+her good, and there is no other place where she enjoys a visit more than
+at your house. Molly! can't you thank Cousin Frank for taking the
+trouble to come for you?"
+
+Strained by conflicting emotions, I fidgeted awkwardly about Cousin
+Frank's chair, pinching the hem of my apron into folds, and shifting
+from one foot to the other.
+
+"I want to go _dreadfully_!" I got out at length, almost ready to cry.
+"_But_--Cousin Frank--wouldn't you like to look at Bay? He's an old hare
+that I am taming."
+
+While speaking, I started for the door, and he came after me. My mother
+exclaimed, provoked, yet laughing, that I was "getting more ridiculous
+every day," but I knew my man, and did not stop.
+
+Bay was throwing a particularly hard fit when we got to him. His cries
+had something humanlike in them that pierced ears and heart.
+
+"My dear child!" uttered the shocked visitor. "How long has this been
+going on?"
+
+Upon hearing that the poor thing had never seemed really well from the
+day he was hurt, and had been "going on like this for four days,
+hand-running," he was quite angry--for him.
+
+"I wonder that your mother let you keep him when he was in this state,"
+he said seriously; and, seeing the tears I could not drive back, he sat
+down on my chair and drew me up to him. "It would be better to kill the
+poor creature, at once, dear. He can never be better."
+
+I begged him not to tell my mother about Bay's sickness. I had become
+very fond of him, and he was so sweet and patient--and tame,--and I just
+couldn't bear to have him killed. Whether he would have granted my
+petition or not was not to be tested. While I was speaking, Bay uttered
+a shrill scream, leaped up high in the air, and fell over on his back,
+dead.
+
+We hurried on the funeral that I might go home with Cousin Frank that
+evening. I pulled up the tombstone from the head of Caspar Hauser's
+grave and made an epitaph on the other side for Bay. There might not be
+another slate broken in the family for months. At the present rate of
+mortality among my pensioners, it behooved me to be economical. I had
+not time to indite such an elaborate testimonial to the worth of the
+deceased as graced Caspar Hauser's last resting-place. Yet I thought
+the tribute not amiss, and the drop into poetry elated me and
+electrified my audience. The lines were engraved perpendicularly upon
+the slate to give the rhyme effective room:--
+
+   "Alas! and Alack A DAY!
+   Poor Litle BAFFINS BAY!"
+
+My visit lasted three days instead of one and a half. I brought back
+with me something worthy of the pride that swelled my happy heart to
+aching. One of Cousin Frank's men had taken two young hares alive, and
+given them to his mistress a week ago, and she and Cousin Frank had
+arranged a pleasant surprise for me. Before I had been in the house an
+hour I was taken to the dining room to see the dear little things
+already housed in a cage, made by the plantation carpenter. None of your
+lemon-box makeshifts, but a strong case in the shape of a cottage, of
+planed wood, painted white on the outside. There were two rooms in it
+with a round door in the dividing wall. One was half full of soft,
+sweet-smelling hay for Darby and Joan to sleep upon. Their names were
+ready-made, too. The other room was a parlor where they were to eat and
+to live in the daytime. Broad leather straps by which the box could be
+carried were made to look like chimneys.
+
+The whole family collected to admire my treasures when I got home, and
+Mary 'Liza was so much interested in Darby and Joan that she brought up
+her cats, Cinderella and Preciosa, to be introduced and make friends
+with "their new cousins"--so she said. Cinderella was black-and-white,
+Preciosa yellow-and-white, very large, and with long fur as soft and
+fine as raw silk. Mary 'Liza put them down close to the cottage.
+
+"You must be very good and never hurt either of the beautiful hares--you
+hear?" she said, and we all looked on to see what they would do.
+
+Bless your soul! they walked once around the cottage in a lazy,
+indifferent, supercilious way, hardly glancing at their "new cousins,"
+then Preciosa yawned, tiptoed back to her place on the rug, doubled her
+toes in under her, and half closed her "greenery-yallery" eyes in real,
+or simulated slumber. Cinderella purred about her mistress until she
+seated herself again to work upon her seventh chemise, then jumped up
+into her lap and composed herself to slumber.
+
+After that, I had no fear that the well-fed, pampered creatures would
+molest my pets. Everybody sympathized in my good fortune. The weather
+was intensely warm, and Uncle Ike's own august hands rigged up a shelf
+against the garden fence, making what I called a "situation" for my
+cottage. Not even Argus could get at them there, had he been evilly
+disposed, and he had excellent principles for a puppy. Darby and Joan
+nibbled lettuce and cabbage from my fingers inside of three days, and if
+they were in the bedroom when I approached their dwelling, would bustle
+out to see if it were milk, or greens, or, maybe, clover blossoms that I
+had for them.
+
+The happy, happy days went by, and I announced to my father one evening
+as we sat at supper that I really "began to believe the curse was lifted
+from my pets."
+
+"The curse! Mary Hobson Burwell! what a word!" cried my mother.
+
+My father held up his hand.
+
+"One moment, if you please, mother! Explain yourself, Molly!"
+
+"I mean," answered I, bravely, "that it used to seem as if a wicked
+fairy had cursed a curse upon anything I took a fancy to. Like the girl
+in the song, and her tree and flower, and dear gazelle, you know. But
+Darby and Joan make me hope--"
+
+The words were blasted upon my tongue by a terrible scream.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+Circumstantial Evidence
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The garden gate was close to the dining-room windows, and the windows
+were not high above the ground. I rushed for the nearest. The moon was
+bright, and I was in time to see three cats jump down from the shelf on
+which the cottage was "situated," and dart away in as many different
+directions. One ran close along the wall of the house, and I recognized
+Preciosa. Hurling myself over the window-sill, I was the first of our
+startled party to reach the scene of the tragedy.
+
+The attack had been made from the three exposed sides of the cottage,
+the cats thrusting their claws between the bars and dragging my
+darlings up against these.
+
+My father opened the cottage door and took out the mangled, palpitating
+bodies.
+
+"Oh, father!" I shrieked. "Are they killed?"
+
+"Yes, my daughter."
+
+Then I went crazy. So raging and raving crazy that when I came partially
+to my senses, I did not recollect what I had been saying or doing since
+I heard the awful truth. I had been removed from the dark and bloody
+ground in some way and by somebody, for I was lying on my mother's bed.
+The consciousness of where I was had in it some drops of the oil of
+consolation. Next to the close embrace of the mother's arms there is no
+other resting-place on earth that so aptly typifies the safety and
+healing grace of Heaven to the child of whatever age, as Mother's Bed.
+
+In our house, to be laid upon that miracle of elastic fluffiness was to
+become, in fancy, a blessed ghost, cradled upon a cloud. The sick
+child, the hurt child, the repentant child--were received into that holy
+asylum without other certificate than his or her need.
+
+Finding myself there made me feel that there might still be something
+worth living for, and to care for. My mother was by me and her arm was
+under my head; my father stood at the foot of the bed, kind and
+compassionate; Mam' Chloe was putting a bottle of hot water to my feet,
+and there was a strong smell of cologne in the air. I was very weak; my
+head felt queer and light, and although I was not crying, something
+seemed to grab me inside and shake me every little while--a short, sharp
+shake that made me gasp. Before I could open my eyes I heard my mother's
+voice say:--
+
+"I wish the dear child did not take things so much to heart. It will
+bring her a great deal of sorrow in her future life."
+
+Ah, blessed mother of mine! for so many years beyond the sight and
+hearing of the vicissitudes of that life, then new and all
+untried--yours was but a partial prophecy. Against the sorrows born of
+"taking things so much to heart," I set a wealth of joy and beauty and
+love that have been made mine own by the same nature and habit.
+
+What she said or meant was little to me at that moment, for as I blinked
+confusedly about me, I saw Mary 'Liza, neat and upright, in her own
+especial chair by the window, and Preciosa was on her lap.
+
+An electric bolt quivered through me. I started up and pointed at the
+placid pair, my hand shaking like a leaf, my voice thick with
+spluttering wrath:--
+
+"_She_ did it! I want her killed."
+
+"Dear child, lie down, don't talk, you are dreaming," cooed my mother,
+trying to force me gently down to the pillow.
+
+I put her aside, and tried to form articulate words.
+
+"_That, cat, did, it!_ I saw her. I'll kill her! Let me get up."
+
+My father came to my mother's help.
+
+"Take the cat out of the room, Mary Eliza," he ordered calmly. And to
+me--"Now, Molly, we will hear what you have to say."
+
+He heard and weighed the evidence before I was put to bed in my own
+room. My head still went around queerly when I raised it, but my mind
+was clear. He sat by me and stroked my hand gently while he got my
+testimony. His kindness to his orphaned niece was unfailing, but he
+seldom caressed her, and nobody ever romped with her. He listened to my
+story first, and as patiently as if he were not to hear any other.
+
+I was hotly positive that the big cat I had seen jump from the shelf and
+dash by the window so close to me that I could have touched her by
+leaning over the sill, was Preciosa. There was no other cat of her size
+and color on the plantation. Beyond this conviction the prosecution had
+not a scrap of testimony to offer. On the side of the accused were the
+record of a blameless life; the lack of motive, inasmuch as the accused
+was fed abundantly with daily bread far more convenient for her than the
+raw flesh she had never desired before,--and, as a "clincher," an alibi
+was set up by Preciosa's mistress, who, coming into the chamber a few
+minutes after the disaster, had found the cat sleeping upon the rug just
+as she had left her when the supper bell rang,--and with never a speck
+of blood on her paws and fur.
+
+"She had licked it off, then!" I stormed. "I tell you I did see her! I
+did! I _did_! I DID! Father! you know I wouldn't tell a story about
+it--don't you?"
+
+"I believe that you think you saw her, my daughter. We all believe that.
+But you may have been mistaken. You were very much excited, and the cat
+ran fast, and it was in the night, recollect, and the moon is not as
+bright as the day. Altogether, we must take it for granted that Preciosa
+is not guilty, and keep a sharp lookout for the strange cat that did
+the mischief."
+
+"It was Preciosa--hateful old thing!" I insisted, angry and sullen. "She
+ought to be killed!"
+
+My father arose with decision that showed the case was concluded.
+
+"Mother! you will see that our little daughter does not talk any more
+about this to-night? She will, I hope, feel differently in the morning."
+
+I did not. In saying my prayers at bedtime I pointedly omitted--"Forgive
+us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I did
+not mean to forgive Preciosa. Furthermore, I was not at peace with her
+mistress and advocate. The more I mused, the hotter the fire burned,
+until I was ready to convict my father of injustice, and my mother of
+rank favoritism for the alien. I sulked violently at breakfast, and as I
+was not reproved, grew so stubborn and disrespectful over my lessons
+that I was sent to my room to stay there until dinner was ready. The
+term of banishment had still an hour to run, and I was leaning, listless
+and wretched, out of the window when Mam' Chloe and Uncle Ike met in the
+yard directly beneath, and part of the low dialogue reached me.
+
+"Ef I could onct ketch that Precious-O-sir in some o' her tricks, you'd
+see the fur fly,--mind!" said the butler.
+
+"I suttinly is mighty sorry for po' Miss Molly," answered his wife.
+"Looks-if hur heart is pretty nigh broke. It's right down pitiful to see
+how much sto' she sot by them young old hyars. You mus' see ef you can't
+get her some mo'."
+
+I dropped my head on the window-sill and cried out the tears that
+scalded my lids at the unexpected touch of sympathy. Then I fell to
+thinking and with a purpose.
+
+I went down to dinner with a tolerably composed countenance, a good
+appetite, and a well-digested scheme of vengeance in my mind. Uncle Ike
+was my only co-conspirator. I think I can see him now as he rolled back
+against the garden fence to laugh as I unfolded my design.
+
+"Ef you ain't the _beater_!" he chuckled, his pepper-and-salt poll
+tilted to one shoulder, and eyeing me with undisguised admiration. "An'
+you say nobody ain' put it into your hade?"
+
+"I haven't said a word about it to anybody else, Uncle Ike. You'll help
+me,--won't you?"
+
+He doubled himself up like a dyspeptic jack-knife, the ingenuity of the
+plot gaining upon his imagination.
+
+I pressed my advantage:--
+
+"And don't tell Mam' Chloe--please! She'll think it is cruel. But it
+isn't. It's just only justice. And it can't bring _them_ back."
+
+I clenched my fists, and my eyes filled.
+
+"That's so, Miss Molly, that's so," sobering instantly. "It is mighty
+hard on you--powerful hard."
+
+"And, Uncle Ike,"--hurrying to get it out lest my voice should
+fail,--"please don't let anybody give me any more old hares, or any
+'live things to keep. They'll just die, or be murdered by other folks'
+cats--or something. It's no use making myself happy for a little while
+just to be sorry for ever and ever so long afterward."
+
+With which epigram I ran away, afraid to try to utter another word.
+
+That evening we were all on the front porch. The air was breezeless, the
+moon as yellow as brass through sultry fogs. My mother, in a white
+dress, lay back in her rocking-chair and fanned herself languidly. My
+father smoked his Powhatan pipe upon the steps, leaning against one
+pillar of the roof. Mary 'Liza in pale-blue lawn, occupied the other end
+of the step. Her hands were in her lap. Cinderella dozed upon a fold of
+her skirt. Dorinda had been undressed and rocked to sleep at sunset.
+Preciosa had gone upstairs at the same time. I saw her lying upon the
+foot of our bed after supper, her eyes narrowed to slender slits with
+sleep or slyness. I had a shrewd impression that if I were to go
+upstairs now I should not find her in the same place. Instead of
+verifying the surmise in this way I stole noiselessly out of the family
+group, sauntering along carelessly until I turned the corner of the
+house, after which I ran like a lapwing to the garden gate, the
+rendezvous agreed upon between Uncle Ike and myself.
+
+He was there with the various "properties" I had ordered.
+
+_Imprimis_, a big dish-pan; _second_, a monstrous black pot from which
+steam arose into the hot night; _third_, a stout twine, to one end of
+which was attached a brick; a lump of raw liver dangled at the other. By
+my directions the pan was balanced upon the shelf where the cottage had
+stood, so that a slight pull would overset it, the brick was laid in the
+bottom, the string with the liver attachment hanging over the side.
+Lastly, Uncle Ike mounted upon the stool I was wont to use when I
+visited my murdered dears, and filled the pan from the pot. All being
+ready, we conspirators withdrew to the unlighted dining room, and
+stationed ourselves at a window.
+
+Our watch was not tedious. I was the first to discern a moving speck in
+the dim vista of the walk leading from the gate far down the garden. It
+enlarged and assumed a definite form, slowly. Evidently it was a scout,
+and the advance a reconnoissance. Feline artifice was in every line and
+motion. A ray of misty moonlight lay athwart the entrance to the garden.
+The gate was propped open. As the cat crossed it, we recognized a wily
+and wicked old Tom from the stable, a disreputable plebeian prowler,
+never tolerated in the house grounds. I hardly smothered an ejaculation
+as dainty Preciosa glided into the illuminated area and took part in the
+furtive inspection of the preparations made for the reception of last
+night's marauders. A third, and yet a fourth, miscreant joined the
+first two, and heads were laid together in a council of war.
+
+The liver hung high. Tom rose upon his hind feet, clawed the air
+futilely and came down sheepishly upon all fours. Next, a small, nimble
+black cat jumped and fell short of the bait. Uncle Ike snickered, and I
+drew in my breath excitedly, as the pampered exquisite, My Lady
+Preciosa, tripped mincingly into the open. The moon shone out obligingly
+to let us see her fall into position, her head upraised toward the
+tempting morsel--(pig's liver, and none too fresh at that)--her
+crouching body thrown well back upon the haunches, her tail, enlarged to
+double the usual size, waving sinuously from side to side in leisurely
+calculation of distance and chances. Suddenly she launched her supple
+body into space like a catapult, caught the meat between her claws,
+swung in the air for a victorious half-second--and then, the deluge!
+
+A chorus of screeches, a frantic stampede in all directions, and the
+arena was clear of all except the home-made infernal machine,--the empty
+dish-pan upside down on the ground, the brick, the string, and the raw
+meat lying under it.
+
+The caterwauling, Uncle Ike's "ky-yi!" and my scream of laughter,
+brought the porch-party to the spot. By previous agreement neither of us
+mentioned Preciosa's name. I had to pinch myself violently to contain
+the unseemly mirth bottled up in my wicked soul when Mary 'Liza was "so
+glad the horrible creatures were punished," and "hoped" gently "that
+Molly was convinced, now, that poor, dear Preciosa was innocent."
+
+"By the way, where _is_ Preciosa?" asked my father.
+
+"She seemed so sleepy that I gave her her supper, and put her to bed,
+when I took Dorinda upstairs," said her surety.
+
+Perhaps my father partly interpreted the gleam in my eyes and the
+quivering muscles about my uncontrollable mouth, for he glanced keenly
+at me and made as if he would let the inquiry drop. Not so my mother.
+She bade Mary 'Liza run upstairs and make sure that Preciosa was there.
+
+"I want my dear little girl to be entirely satisfied that her cousin was
+right, and that she did the cat an injustice," she said with judicial
+mildness.
+
+Preciosa was not in our room, and she stayed out all night, greatly to
+her owner's alarm and distress. Her habits were so regular, her
+deportment was always so impeccable that the circumstance assumed the
+proportions of an Event by breakfast time. My mother was anxious, Mary
+'Liza sorrowful, and my father shook his head more gravely than the
+occasion seemed to warrant.
+
+"Molly may not have been so far wrong after all," he observed to my
+mother, "in spite of the array of circumstantial evidence against her."
+
+My mother was unconvinced.
+
+"Previous good behavior should count for much in such a case," she
+urged. "And our little Molly is too apt to jump at conclusions. We
+cannot be too careful how we accuse others of sins which they may never
+have committed."
+
+I understood what they said perfectly. They never talked down to us.
+That was one reason we were called "old-fashioned" and "precocious" by
+people who had one set of words for their own use, and another for
+children. My parents considered, and I think rightly, that the best and
+most correct forms of speech should be taught to mere infants, that it
+is as easy to train a child to be grammatical as to let it lapse into
+all sorts of slovenly inaccuracies that must be unlearned at school, and
+in society. So, when they talked of "circumstantial evidence" I had a
+fair inkling of what the phrase conveyed. Preciosa was upon trial for
+misdemeanor, and I for backbiting.
+
+I ate away industriously to keep from "answering back,"--a cardinal
+offence in nursery government. Mary 'Liza had no appetite, but she,
+also, remained silent, and there was moisture under her eyelids.
+
+"We will suspend judgment--" began my father, and interrupted himself to
+ask--"What _have_ you got there, Ike?"
+
+The butler grinned from ear to ear, and broke into uncontrollable
+cachinnations in depositing his burden upon the floor.
+
+"One of the stable-boys foun' it in the lof', suh."
+
+He could say no more, and would not have been heard had he gone on, for
+my father roared, my mother fairly shrieked with laughter, and I went
+into hysterics, while Mam' Chloe and Gilbert joined in the general
+racket from the doorway.
+
+An abject nondescript cringed at Mary 'Liza's feet, whimpering
+piteously. The devil's broth concocted by Uncle Ike, according to my
+receipt, was warm starch, made blue with indigo. A few red peppers were
+boiled in it to dissuade the cats from licking it off before it could
+dry. It adhered to every individual hair of Preciosa's body. She looked
+like an azure porcupine. I had thought, at first, of using soot as
+coloring matter, but the thought of the blue appealed to my sense of the
+congruous ridiculous. I was more than content with the result. Why a
+blue cat should be more mirth-provoking than a yellow may not be
+explicable, but the fact remains. Even Mary 'Liza shrank from contact
+with the absurd object, and the moisture condensed into falling drops.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Mary! do you think it _can_ be Preciosa? It looks like
+a--_monster_!"
+
+With tears running down his cheeks, and his sides shaking with gusts of
+merriment, my father took me upon his knee, and gave me the funniest
+kiss I ever had--a jerky kiss, as if a bee had bobbed against my mouth.
+
+"You'll be the death of me yet, child!" And after another series of
+side-shakings--"So much for circumstantial evidence!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+Frankenstein
+
+
+The morning was biting cold. A northwest wind had been busy for hours
+sweeping and dusting the sky until, now that it was resting from its
+labors, the blue vault was as clean and bright as our mahogany
+dining-table after Uncle Ike had polished it with beeswax and rosin.
+
+At the breakfast-table the butter splintered off under the knife, and
+the milk was frozen so hard that Mary 'Liza and I sugared it and made
+believe it was ice-cream. When Gilbert, the under dining-room servant,
+brought in the buckwheat cakes and waffles from the kitchen, he had to
+cover them with a hot plate, and then run as hard as he could go across
+the yard to the house, to keep them from chilling on the way.
+
+There are no buckwheat cakes nowadays, like those that Aunt 'Ritta
+made--glossy brown, all of a size, and porous as a sponge. It was great
+fun to butter them, and then press them with the flat of a knife-blade,
+to see spurts and spouts rise from the surface like so many hot oil
+geysers.
+
+That was the morning when I made the eight-cakes-and-one-sausage speech
+that passed into a family proverb. The night before I had thrown a
+candle-end, four inches long, into the fire, and my mother had told me
+it was a Christian duty to be economical, defining the word for me.
+Bent, as usual, upon practising what I learned, I divided my sausage
+into eight bits, and ate one with each cake.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle and Cousin Frank Morton had stayed all night with us,
+and the talk at table was so lively that nobody noticed what I was
+about. We were not allowed to chatter during meals when others than the
+family were present, or, indeed, at any other time if grown people were
+talking, until invited by them to take part in the conversation. So I
+waited for a lull in the chat to say aside to my mother at whose left
+hand I sat:--
+
+"Mother! I have made one sausage do for eight buckwheat cakes. Wasn't
+that economical?"
+
+Even Cousin Molly Belle laughed, the "aside" being more audible than I
+meant to have it. True, she hugged me the next minute, her chair being
+next to mine on the other side, but her eyes were lively with amusement,
+and I saw that she was ready to break out again.
+
+My poor dainty mother actually blushed. It was not fashionable then for
+ladies, and little girls who were going to be ladies, to have hearty
+appetites. School-girls were instructed that no well-bred young lady
+ever ate more than two biscuits at breakfast or supper, and one was more
+refined than two. The pinion of a partridge sufficed the Lydia Languish
+of that day for the meat course of a dinner, and to be hungry was to be
+coarse. My mother was a sensible matron who did not lean to extreme
+views on any subject, but she did not rise superior to a mortification
+such as this. When she said distressfully:--
+
+"Molly! Eight cakes! I am ashamed that you should be so greedy!" I
+comprehended that my offence was rank, and that not her taste alone, but
+her sensibilities, suffered.
+
+I got hot all over, as was my custom when self-convicted of sin, and sat
+abashed, appetite and spirits put to flight together.
+
+My father pulled his face straight.
+
+"Never mind this time, mother! Better pay meat bills than doctor's
+bills. And, on a cold day, a restless little body like hers needs a
+great deal of carbon to keep the fires going. Eight buckwheat cakes and
+a thumping big sausage represent just so much animal heat."
+
+By and by, when I got a chance to speak to him alone, I asked him what
+carbon was, and what he meant by the fires and animal heat. He was at
+work at his table in "the office" in the yard, the Mortons having gone
+home, but he put down his pen and talked to me for quite a while upon
+nutrition and food values. He did not use those terms. They had not come
+into vogue even with medical men and writers upon anatomy. Still, his
+simple lecture made me comprehend that what I ate kept me alive and warm
+and active, and how certain kinds of food made blood, and others,
+muscle, and others were of little or no use in keeping up animal heat,
+without which there could be no life.
+
+I asked him if we could keep a dead thing warm if it would come to life
+again. I was thinking of all my dead pets. It was pathetic,--the
+familiarity of a seven-year-old with death and dissolution,--but of this
+I was not aware.
+
+He answered very gravely:--
+
+"We cannot keep dead things warm, daughter. When animal heat goes, life
+goes."
+
+"And when animal heat comes, does life come?" I queried. "Is that what
+makes things alive?"
+
+"Yes, dear. I have not time to explain it to you now. I am very busy.
+Some other time we will talk more about it."
+
+I carried a spandy new idea, and a stirring, into the garden with me at
+noon, as a chicken runs away to a corner with a crumb. The sun shone
+brightly, and I easily kept comfortable by skipping up and down a long
+walk, bordered on the northern side by an arbor-vitae hedge. I did not
+know that resinous evergreens really give out warmth, but I had found
+out, for myself, that this was the warmest nook of the grounds in
+winter, and haunted it exceedingly.
+
+"When animal heat comes, life comes," I repeated aloud, in dancing
+along.
+
+The sentence sounded important, and pleased my ears. Presently, I would
+set about getting all the meaning I could extract from it, and
+experiment upon my acquisition. All my mental currency went into active
+circulation.
+
+An odd-looking thing lay in the middle of the path, that was not there
+when I came down awhile ago. I thought, at the first glance, that it was
+a hedgehog. I had seen pictures of the animal, and knew that when hunted
+so closely that it cannot escape it rolls itself into a prickly ball.
+This queer object was an oblong roll, about six inches in length and two
+inches thick, and covered with very coarse brown fur or wool. I picked
+it up. It was very cold. Then it could not be alive. It was light as a
+puffball. Then it was empty. For the rest it was a puzzle. I ran with it
+to Mam' Chloe, who was getting Bud to sleep in my mother's chamber.
+
+She cast a look at my "find," and sniffed impatiently.
+
+"Always huntin' and foolin' long some trash or nuther! Fetchin' er ole
+dade sunflower in ter show me when I'm doin' my bes' ter git this
+blessed sugar-plum pie to sleep so's I ken git to my mendin'. Go 'long,
+Miss Molly!"
+
+I was used to her moods, clement and adverse, and I stood my ground.
+
+"Are you _sure_ it's a sunflower, mammy?"
+
+"What you take me fur, chile? Don' I know a sunflower that's run ter
+seed las' summer, an' is empty an' dade as Furious [Pharaoh] now? I got
+no time to steddy 'bout sech foolishness."
+
+I walked off,--not crestfallen, but blithe. One word had shunted my
+ideas upon a new track. She called this nondescript--which might, or
+might not, be the dried and warped disk of a sunflower that had cast its
+seeds--"dead." What should hinder me from making it alive? It looked
+like a hedgehog, or some other animal. It _should_ be an animal! Food of
+the right kind, and plenty of heat, were all it needed.
+
+"Carbon and animal heat!" uttered I, consequentially, swelling with the
+prospective joy of creation.
+
+Already I foresaw, in imagination, the tremor of the coming breath
+running through the uncouth body that would then put out, from
+mysterious hiding-places, head and limbs and tail, as buds unfold into
+flowers. I would confide to nobody what I was going to undertake. But I
+would do it! I would keep up animal heat, hour after hour, day after
+day, until my--Creature--breathed and moved and grew!
+
+Without delay I hied me to the kitchen, and begged a cold sausage and a
+pone of corn-bread from Aunt 'Ritta. She made no objection beyond asking
+why I "wanted sassage 'n' corn-bread in de middle o' de mawnin', 'stead
+o' piece o' cake, or somethin' sweet."
+
+"Because the weather is so cold," I replied briefly, and got what I
+wished with a grunt of "Dat's so, honey!" Negroes are constitutionally
+averse to winter and cold, and recognize, without knowing why, the
+carboniferous properties of pork and pone. I bore my treasures off to
+the dining room, shut the door, and began my experiment in the hottest
+flare of the fireshine.
+
+[Illustration: MOLLY'S EXPERIMENT.
+
+"I hied me to the kitchen and begged a cold sausage and a pone of
+corn-bread from Aunt 'Ritta."]
+
+The sunflower disk was a curiosity to me. It had curled inward upon
+itself, leaving a considerable cavity within. I stuffed this with the
+bread and sausage, crumbled fine, ruminating, the while, upon the
+probability that the sausage and cakes I had devoured presented the like
+appearance by the time they reached my stomach. When the variegated and
+viscid compound was tucked away, I wound a soft string about the disk to
+keep it in shape, and enveloped it, first in raw cotton, then in a bit
+of red flannel. In my uncertainty as to which end would bourgeon into a
+head, and from which would be evolved the tail, I left both ends open
+that IT might be able to breathe when breath came. Lastly, I secreted it
+under my cricket. It was what was known as "a box cricket," and the
+enclosing sides came to within three inches of the floor. It stood at
+the warmest corner of the hearth, and I was well-nigh roasted by the
+time I had sat upon it long enough to read the chapter in _Sandford and
+Merton_ that tells of poor soft Tommy's choice of the shorter end of
+the pole on which the load was hung, as likely to be the lighter. I
+guessed that it was now time for me to expect to hear the birth-cry of
+my Creature, or at least to detect some thrill of life. Lifting a corner
+of the mufflings, I insinuated a tentative finger.
+
+IT was warm! And before I withdrew my finger from the rough brown coat I
+was confident that I felt a throb like a pulse heave ITS sides. It is
+not an exaggeration to say that I was faint with excitement as I
+replaced the wrappings. I had never heard of Pygmalion and his statue.
+It was thirty years thereafter before I read Mary Shelley's
+_Frankenstein_. When I did read it I could not fail to recall the
+picture of the country-bred child, palpitating with awed delight in the
+belief that she had wrested Something from Nothing. Youth alone is
+absolutely fearless. The presumption of ignorance is akin to sublimity.
+
+I sat down again to ecstatic dreamings. IT would be all my own when IT
+was made--a pet so much better worth the having and holding than any
+that had preceded it in my affections, that I thought of them--even of
+the ever-lamented Darby and Joan--with compassionate contempt. I
+pictured to myself the astonishment of the household, white and colored,
+in beholding the miracle; the sensation in the neighborhood and county
+when the news of what had come to pass was bruited abroad. From the
+outermost border of Powhatan, from Chesterfield, and mayhap from over
+the river separating Powhatan from Goochland, people would flock to see
+me and wonder. Grown-uppers, who had never heard my name until now,
+would tell other strangers what Mary Hobson Burwell, aged seven, had
+done. I should be CELEBRATED!
+
+I sat and roasted, shifting my position occasionally that another side
+might get "done," and seemed to pore over my book until dinner was
+ready.
+
+"You are eating next to nothing, Molly," remarked my mother, casually,
+during the meal. "Have you been to see 'Ritta since breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," I answered meekly; and she did not observe that I colored
+uneasily.
+
+Back to my watch I went when the table was cleared, and the others had
+quitted the room. Uncle Ike replenished the fire, and commended my good
+sense in "huggin' the chimbley-corner in sech cole weather," before he
+left me to solitude, to _Sandford and Merton_, and to "Frank." I had
+resolved to name him for my dear cousin-in-law. When I came to read
+_Frankenstein_ I marvelled at the coincidence. Frank continued warm, as
+I ascertained by quarter-hourly pokes, but he did not stir. I must be
+patient. Precious things were slow of growth.
+
+Full as my mind and heart were of thoughts and hopes too big for
+expression, my behavior was so nearly normal that no troublesome
+questions were propounded. I had no difficulty in keeping my secret.
+Imaginative children have more secrets to guard than adults ever think
+of harboring.
+
+I took Frank to bed with me, smuggling him under my pillow, and going to
+sleep with my hand on him. He was getting warmer every hour.
+
+At midnight a cry--a series of cries--aroused the slumbering household,
+and drew my father and mother to my room. I had been awakened from sleep
+too sound for dreams by the bite of sharp teeth upon the thick of my
+thumb. Even the certainty that Frank had evolved a mouth, and that it
+was in good working order, could not cheat me into forgetfulness of the
+terror and pain of that awakening. I jerked my hand from under the
+pillow and shook Something off upon the floor. I heard it fall, and I
+heard it run. Frankenstein could not have conceived more intense horror
+and loathing for his foul, misshapen offspring than overpowered me at
+that terrible instant. The light in my father's hand showed blood
+streaming from my thumb and dripping upon the coverlet.
+
+"A mouse, or maybe a young rat, has bitten her," my mother pronounced
+without hesitation. "And no wonder! See how greasy her hand is! Faugh!
+How very careless in Chloe to put the child to bed in such a state! Be
+quiet, Molly! This should be a lesson to you not to go to bed again
+without washing your hands. You are old enough to think of such things
+for yourself. My dear child, can't you stop crying? It is not like you
+to make so much noise over a little hurt."
+
+"She is frightened out of her senses," said my father. "And you must
+admit that it was rather startling to be aroused by feeling a mouse's
+teeth nibbling at her hand."
+
+I clung to his neck, shivering with fright and cold. My sobs were
+uncontrollable.
+
+"It wasn't a mo-use!" I got out, presently. "Nor a ra-at, either!"
+
+"Not a mouse or a rat! How do you know? Did you see it?"
+
+"It was _Fra-a-nk_!" I gulped. "Oh! I'm afraid to stay here! He is in
+the room somewhere! He will come after me again!"
+
+The scene was ended by my going in my father's arms to my mother's bed
+for the rest of the night. My mother stayed upstairs with Mary 'Liza.
+
+"But I did not sleep well," was her grieved report at breakfast. "The
+pillows smelled horribly of sausage, I suppose because Molly's hands
+were so greasy. Marthy! see that the pillow-cases are changed this
+morning."
+
+Before Marthy got upstairs, I mustered and dragooned sufficient courage
+to enable me to visit the room. Still trembling and full of loathing at
+what I must see, I turned over the pillow. The red flannel was
+there--and the raw cotton--and inside of all, IT--Frank no longer--as
+cold as a stone!
+
+I took it up with the tongs and threw it out of the window--and said
+never a word about it to anybody.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+My Prize Beet
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I had been seven years old for so long that I alluded to myself
+habitually as "almost eight." We had our governess now, Miss Davidson, a
+handsome, amiable, and somewhat sentimental Bostonian recommended by a
+Richmond friend of my father. Four other girls studied with us. Two of
+them, Paulina and Sarah Hobson, were our second cousins. They stayed at
+our house from Monday morning until Friday evening, going home for
+Sunday, unless the weather were bad. Madeline and Rosa Pemberton were
+day scholars, the Pemberton plantation adjoining ours.
+
+I was the youngest of the six, and while I fancy that I was rather a
+favorite with Miss Davidson, I endured much from the girls on account of
+my inferiority in age, as well as because of my "old-fashioned,
+conceited ways." That was one reason I spoke of being almost eight. I
+was trying to grow up to what they complained of as "getting above"
+myself.
+
+The frank brutality of school children of both sexes, as contrasted with
+the unselfish forbearance (or the show of it) and the suave courtesy of
+well-bred men and women, is an instructive study in the evolution of
+ethics. The youngest boy or girl in class or college is the weakest wolf
+in the pack, the under dog in the fight. I had all of a little girl's
+natural desire for new playfellows and the dreamer's passion for more
+material for castle-building. The prospect of "the school" was
+ravishing. I constructed scenes and rehearsed conversations, with the
+cast of coming actors, until the quartette must have been super-or
+sub-human, had they come up to one tithe of my requirements.
+
+In plain and very homely fact, they were four commonplace, provincial
+girls of average natural intelligence, in age varying from twelve to
+fourteen. They studied because they would be called upon to recite, and
+recited fairly well for fear of reproof and bad marks should they be
+derelict. Out of school, books and bookish thoughts were cast to the
+four winds of heaven. Their talk was cheery chatter, as brainless as the
+rattle of grasshoppers in the summer grass.
+
+Mary 'Liza towered above them in scholastic attainments, although the
+junior of the youngest of them, keeping at the head of every class with
+unostentatious ease. I am afraid that I may have done my orphaned cousin
+seeming injustice in former chapters of this autobiography. Her temper
+was even, and her nature was finer than her prim, priggish ways would
+have led the casual acquaintance to suppose. She was
+ultra-conscientious, and naturally so exemplary that her good behavior
+was a snare. She could not sympathize with my temptations to naughtiness
+and many falls from good-girlhood. I mention this to introduce what was
+a surprise to me at the time. She never joined in the persecutions of me
+that were the labor and the pastime of the other girls. It would have
+been asking too much to expect her to champion me openly. I was
+affectionately grateful to her for holding herself aloof when baiting me
+was the amusement of the hour.
+
+My mother had lamented that I took life so much to heart. It took itself
+to my heart now, uninvited. I was headstrong and headlong, hot in love,
+and honest in hatred; with a brain full of absurd fancies, all of which
+were beloved by their author. I had browsed at will in my father's
+library, poring by the hour over books twenty years too old for me, yet,
+by mental cuticular absorption, taking in and assimilating much that
+contributed to the formation of taste and character. My familiar use of
+language that sounded pedantic because I got it from books, my frequent
+references to characters I had known in print, were gibberish and
+vanity of vanities to my new associates. My very plays were
+unintelligible to girls who had never heard of William Wallace, and
+Robert Bruce, and Thaddeus of Warsaw, or read, on Sunday afternoons, of
+Tobias and the Angel, Judith and Holofernes, and Christiana and her
+children.
+
+Not one of the four had an intellectual ambition. Mary 'Liza's
+scholarship did not excite their envy because she was quiet and
+inoffensive. Proficiency in her studies was "one of her ways." I was
+talkative and aggressive, and needed taking down. They set themselves
+systematically about the performance of the duty. The work was done
+deftly and discreetly, out of the sight and hearing of our elders. Young
+and raw as I was, I was too wise to tell tales on them. By the time I
+was four years old that lesson was rubbed into my consciousness by the
+gruesome rhyme:--
+
+   "Tell-tale tit!
+   Your tongue shall be slit,
+   And every dog in our town
+   Shall have a little bit!"
+
+This apparently tedious preamble yet leads by an air-line to the first
+Agricultural Fair ever held at Powhatan Court House. The date was
+October fifteenth, and all the gentlemen and ladies in the county were
+entreated to send exhibits of plantation products and feminine
+handiwork. Enthusiasm ran from homestead to homestead with the speed and
+heat of a March fire in pine woods. Cattle, tobacco, grain, vegetables,
+fruit, flowers, bedquilts, poultry, bees, knitting,
+embroideries,--nothing was talked of but the finest specimens of these
+that would be "in strong and beauteous order ranged," upon the important
+day.
+
+Madeline Pemberton had "done" a chair-cover in cross-stitch that her
+mother said ought to get the first prize, and was dead sure to take the
+third; Mary 'Liza was knitting a pair of shell-pattern, openwork
+stockings as fine as a cobweb, in which there would not be a knot or a
+dropped stitch, and Paulina Hobson was putting her eyes out over a
+linen-cambric handkerchief under Miss Davidson's direction. Fine sewing
+and embroidery were taught by governesses then. Sarah Hobson had pieced
+a crib quilt containing one thousand and twelve tiny squares. I was
+supposed to be left out in the cold. I would not knit, and to sew I was
+ashamed because I did it so badly. Nobody paid any attention to me when
+comparing notes and queries touching the great show.
+
+Yet I nursed an ambition of my own to which no one was privy except
+Spotswoode, a gray-headed, and proverbially taciturn field-hand, without
+whose knowledge and cooperation the purpose could not have been carried
+out.
+
+Wandering, one July afternoon, on the outskirts of a corn-field--the
+same in which I once lost Musidora--I happened upon a "volunteer"
+mangel-wurzel beet that had sprung up in a fence corner, a quarter of a
+mile away from any of its kindred. Attracted by the beauty of the
+translucent, red-veined leaves, I called to Spotswoode who was ploughing
+between the corn rows, and asked him what it was. Adopting the waif,
+then and there, I dug what I called "my little garden" about it,
+Spotswoode tugging up the stoutest roots and clearing out the
+wire-grass. With an occasional hand's turn and toss from him I
+cultivated the vagrant into extraordinary size and vigor. Not a day
+passed in which I did not visit it. Not a blade of grass or a weed was
+allowed to invade the charmed circle, and many a spadeful of fresh
+mould, black with fatness, was worked about the swelling tuber by my
+kind field-hand. He knew that it was to be sent to the Fair in the
+fulness of time, and believed with me that "not another beet there could
+hold a candle to it."
+
+As the air thickened and heated with rumors of the prodigies to be
+revealed on the fifteenth to the lasting honor of Old Powhatan, it was
+harder and harder to keep what I knew to myself. I had purposed not to
+reveal the secret until my father's wagons were in loading with other
+mammoth esculents and his finest corn and tobacco. Then--so ran the
+programme--I would march up, bearing my beet with me. It was to be dug
+up and cleaned by Spotswoode on the evening of the fourteenth, and kept
+safely in hiding for me. I could depend upon his literal obedience,
+albeit he never had an original idea.
+
+Temptation befell, and overcame me, on the afternoon of October
+thirteenth, a date I was not likely, thenceforward, to forget. All six
+of us girls were gathered in the porch, listening to, and relating,
+stories of what this one had raised, and that one had made. Mr.
+Pemberton had a seven-hundred-pound pig, and Mr. Hobson a rooster more
+beautiful than a bird of Paradise. The syrup of Mrs. Hobson's preserves
+was as clear as spring water, and Mrs. Pemberton's water melon-rind
+sweetmeats had as good as taken the prize.
+
+Paulina Hobson sat on the top step of the porch. She was very fair, and
+her hair was nearly as white as her skin. She was fourteen years old,
+and wore a grass-green lawn frock. Her eyes were of a paler green, she
+had a nasty laugh, and her teeth were not good.
+
+"Isn't it nice that all five of us are going to send something?" she
+said complacently. "You know that nobody but exhibitors can go into the
+tent for the first hour--from eleven to twelve--so's they can see
+everything before the crowd gets in. Who'll you stay with, Miss Molly
+Mumchance, when we all leave you?"
+
+I had not spoken while the talk went on, for fear something might slip
+out and betray me, prematurely, but I took fire at this.
+
+"I'm going in, myself!" I snapped out.
+
+"Oh, you are? What are you going to exhibit, may we ask?" with her nasty
+laugh.
+
+"The biggest beet in the world! It measures a yard around."
+
+"Hoo! hoo! hoo!" squealed Paulina so loudly that my father, who was
+coming in the gate with my mother, Miss Davidson, Uncle Carter, and Aunt
+Eliza, said pleasantly:--
+
+"What is the joke, young ladies? Mayn't we laugh, too?"
+
+Madeline Pemberton answered. Miss Davidson had to reprove her every day
+for forwardness.
+
+"Why, Mr. Burwell,"--laughing with affected violence,--"Molly says she
+is going to send some beets to the Fair that measure ever so many yards
+around."
+
+"I didn't!" cried I, in a passion. "You know that isn't true!"
+
+My father moved toward me.
+
+"What _did_ you say, daughter?"
+
+I hung my head. If I told, where would be the surprise and the visioned
+triumph?
+
+"What did you say, Molly?" repeated my father, in quiet gravity.
+
+"I said _one_ beet, and that it measured one yard," stammered I,
+reluctantly.
+
+"That was bad enough. When so many older people are trying to see who
+can tell the biggest story, little girls ought to be especially
+careful."
+
+His eyes did not go to Madeline, but his emphasis did. The thought of
+being classed with her lent me coherence and courage. I looked up.
+
+"I have one beet, father, that is a yard 'round. I raised it myself. If
+you don't believe me, you can ask Spotswoode."
+
+"I don't ask my servants if my daughter is telling the truth. Where is
+your beet?"
+
+I pointed.
+
+"Away over yonder--the other side of the corn-field."
+
+Paulina and Rosa tittered, Madeline giggled,--then all three pretended
+to smother the demonstration with their handkerchiefs and behind their
+hands. Mary 'Liza looked scared and sorry. My father took hold of my
+hand.
+
+"Take me to see it!"
+
+The others fell into Indian file behind us, as we marched outside of
+the garden fence and past the Old Orchard where the rays of the sinking
+sun shot horizontal shafts under the trees to our very feet, and so to
+the corn-field. I did not glance behind to see who entered it after us,
+but pushed right ahead between the stalks, the stiff blades switching my
+cheeks. When we neared the "garden," I ran forward, flushed and
+impatient, not to display my prize, but to clear myself by proving my
+words. An envious, jagged blade slashed my forehead as I tore by. I did
+not feel it at the moment, or for half an hour after it began to bleed.
+
+For--_the beet was gone!_
+
+The cleared space was there to show where something had been cultivated;
+the bare earth was raked level. Not so much as the hole from which my
+beet had been ravished remained in circumstantial evidence. The rest of
+the party arrived while I stood transfixed, the picture of detected
+guilt. To the rustle of the corn, and the shuffle of feet over the
+furrows succeeded a horrible hush. Then, a chorus of mocking girlish
+cackles, led by Paulina Hobson's discordant screech, smote the sunset
+air and covered me with a pall of infamy. Paulina caught at the fence
+for support as she laughed; Madeline bent double and reeled sideways.
+
+I clutched my father's hand, drowning and suffocating in the waves of
+despairing agony; I shook my tight fist at the insulting quartette.
+
+"They--_they_--took it! It was here this morning. It was here just after
+dinner to-day!"
+
+"Be quiet, girls!" ordered my judge-advocate. "Molly! I want the exact
+truth. If you accuse them, you must prove what you say. Things have gone
+too far to stop here. Didn't you say that Spotswoode knew something
+about the affair?"
+
+"He knows all about it. He helped me, ever so many times, and he saw how
+big it was," I ejaculated vehemently.
+
+"We shall probably find him at the stables, feeding the horses."
+
+Back we trudged by my air-line, well-worn but narrow. I fancy that my
+father took note of my familiarity with the path, but he did not speak
+of it. I marched in front of him, gloomy and desperate. Some of the
+others talked low as they straggled along. The girls kept up a hissing
+whispering, for which I hated them with my whole soul. I think that my
+mother and Miss Davidson shed some furtive tears, for my case was black,
+and they were tender-hearted.
+
+Spotswoode was looking after his plough-horses, as my father had
+conjectured. At his master's shout, he emerged from the stalls and
+presented himself in the stable door. Ungainly, dirty, bare-footed, his
+ragged wool hat on the back of his unkempt woolly poll, his jaw dropping
+in idiotic amazement at sight of the party--he was a ludicrous figure in
+the bath of late sunshine that brought out every uncomely item of the
+picture. Preoccupied and distraught as I was, I saw how the dust from
+the stable floor floated in golden clouds to the cobwebbed rafters, as
+the sun struck past the man in the doorway and glorified the murky
+interior.
+
+I rushed through the yard, heedless of manure heaps, and young pigs and
+calves scattered by my impetuous approach.
+
+"Oh, Spotswoode!" in a voice that cracked and went to pieces as I ran,
+"somebody has stolen my beet! You can tell father--"
+
+A hot valve closed in my windpipe and shut out the rest.
+
+Spotswoode's jaw hung more loosely; his eyes were utterly vacant.
+
+"Ya-as, little Mistis!" he drawled, and slunk back into the stable.
+
+"What do you mean, sir? Come back here, this minute!" called his master.
+
+When he reappeared, he carried in both hands, extended, after the
+similitude of a pre-historic monkey making a votive offering--something
+dark-red and pot-bellied, and more immense than I had dreamed it could
+look. A cluster of cropped leaves crowned it, a taper root, a foot
+long, depended from the bottom.
+
+"I done been dig it up fo' you an' wash it, dis ebenin', 'stid o'
+termorrer," drawled my vindicator. "So's ter hab it all ready fur the
+Fyar."
+
+Mute and triumphant, I received it in a rapturous embrace, set it on a
+bench by the stable door, and passed the hem of my muslin apron about
+it. The ends just met.
+
+"That's how I knew how big it was," I said simply. "Mother told me that
+my apron was a yard wide. I measured it while it was in the ground."
+
+The beet--and its history--went to the Fair, and a prize was awarded to
+"_Miss Mary Hobson Burwell, For best specimen of Mangel Wurzel, raised
+by Herself._"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+Two Adventures
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In a country neighborhood where half the people were cousins to the
+other half, gossip could not but spring up and flourish as lushly as
+pursley,--named by the Indians, "the white man's foot."
+
+The gossip was usually kindly; sometimes it was captious, now and then
+it was almost malicious. Everything depends upon the medium through
+which the floating matter in the air is strained.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle's best friends thought and said that she chose
+judiciously in marrying the clean-lived, high-minded gentleman who had
+loved her before she was grown and whom she loved dearly in return. Her
+next best friends intimated that the most popular girl in the county
+might have done better for herself than to take Frank Morton, as fine a
+fellow as ever lived, but whose share of his father's estate was a small
+plantation with a tolerable house upon it, a dozen "hands" and, maybe, a
+thousand dollars or so in bonds and stocks. The girls she had
+out-belled, the girls' mothers, and sundry youths to whom Mrs. Frank
+Morton had given the mitten in her singlehood, said openly that she had
+quite thrown herself away in settling down to house-keeping,
+poultry-raising, and home-making in an out-of-the-way farmstead, with
+little society except that of a man ten years older, and thirty years
+soberer, than herself.
+
+What a different story I could have told to those who doubted, and those
+who pitied! Nowhere in all our broad and bonny State did human lives
+flow on more smoothly and radiantly than in the white house nestled
+under the great oak that was a landmark for miles around. It had but
+five rooms, kitchen, store-room, smoke-house, and other domestic offices
+being in detached buildings, as was the custom of the region and times.
+If there had been fifty they could not have held the happiness that
+streamed through the five as lavishly as the sunshine, and, like the
+sunshine, was newly made every day.
+
+I was going on ten years old when my sweet mother gave a little sister
+to Bud and me. She had been with us but three days when Cousin Molly
+Belle drove over for me and the small hair trunk that meant a visit of
+several days when it went along. This time it signified four of the very
+_loveliest_ weeks of my life, and two Adventures.
+
+The blessed grandchildren, at whose instance these tales of that
+all-so-long-ago are written with flying pen and brimming heart, and
+sometimes eyes so moist that the lines waver and swim upon the page,
+will have it--as their parents insisted before them--that "we never,
+never can have such good times and so many happenings as you had when
+you were new."
+
+If I smile quietly in telling over to myself the simple elements and
+few, out of which the good times were made, and how tame the happenings
+would be to modern young folk, I cannot gainsay the truth that my daily
+life was full and rich, and that every hour had a peculiar interest.
+
+For one thing, there was a baby at Oakholme, a bouncing boy, sturdy of
+limb and of lung, and so like both his parents in all the good qualities
+possible to a baby, as to leave nothing to be desired by the best
+friends aforesaid, and no room for criticism on the part of the
+malcontents. Out-of-doors were chickens, ducks, turkeys, guinea-fowls,
+pigs, calves, pigeons, and a couple of colts,--all, like the baby boy,
+the best of their kind. What time was left on our hands after each had
+had its meed of attention, was more than consumed by a library such as
+few young planters had collected in a county where choice literature was
+as much household plenishing as beds, tables, and candlesticks.
+
+It was July, and the days were at their longest according to the
+Warrock's Almanac that hung over Cousin Frank's desk in a corner of the
+dining room. They were never so short to me before.
+
+Adventure No. 1 befell us one forenoon, as Cousin Molly Belle and I were
+topping and tailing gooseberries for tarts, on the side porch. Baby
+Carter was on the mat at our feet, bulging his eyes and swelling his
+cheeks in futile efforts to extort a squeak from a chinquapin whistle
+his father had made for him. The kind that, as you may recollect, kept
+the whistle in them over night, and did not shrivel up.
+
+"It's there, old fellow, if you really know how to get it out," Cousin
+Frank told his son and heir. "Everything depends upon yourself."
+
+"Like other things that people fret for," moralized the mother.
+
+Nevertheless, she reached down for the whistle, wiped the mouthpiece
+dry, and sent the baby into ecstasies by executing "Yankee Doodle"
+flourishingly upon it. A chinquapin fife lends itself more readily to
+the patriotic, step-and-go-fetch-it melody than to any other in the
+national _repertoire_. Carter crowed, opened his mouth wide, and beat
+his fat pink palms together.
+
+"Just as they applaud the clown at the circus!" said the performer. "He
+already recognizes his mother's talents."
+
+"If he ever fails to do that, I'll flog him out of his boots!" retorted
+the father.
+
+A wild commotion at "the quarters" cut his speech short. Women shrieked,
+children bellowed, men roared, and two words disentangled themselves
+from the turmoil.
+
+"_Mad_ dog! _mad_ dog!" pronounced, as the warning cry is spoken
+everywhere at the South, with a heavy accent on the first word.
+
+Cousin Frank whipped up the baby; Cousin Molly thrust her hand under the
+collar of Hector, a fine pointer who lay on the floor, and, urging me
+before them, they hustled us all into the house in the half twinkle of
+an eye. In another, Cousin Frank was driving a load of buckshot into his
+gun faster than it was ever loaded before, even by him, and he was a
+hunting expert.
+
+"Dear!" his wife caught the hand laid on the door-knob; her eyes were
+wild and imploring.
+
+"Yes, my darling!"
+
+He was out and the door was shut.
+
+We flew to the window. Right up the path leading by the quarters from
+the spring at the foot of the hill, trotted an enormous bull dog. Half a
+dozen men were pelting him with stones from a respectful distance. He
+paid no attention to stones or shouts. Keeping the straight path, his
+brute head wagging drunkenly, he was making directly for the open
+yard-gate, from which a gravel walk led to the porch where we had been
+sitting. Snap, his master's favorite hunter, and the petted darling of
+his mistress, was hitched to the rack by the gate, ready-saddled for
+Cousin Frank's morning round of the plantation. At the noise behind him,
+the intelligent creature threw up his handsome head, glanced over his
+shoulder, and began to plunge and snort, as if aware of the danger. His
+master spoke soothingly as he planted his own body between him and the
+ugly beast.
+
+"Steady, old boy! steady!"
+
+In saying it he raised the gun to his shoulder. It was all done so
+quickly that I had hardly seen the livid horror in Cousin Molly Belle's
+face when the good gun spoke, the muzzle within ten yards of the dog's
+head, and he rolled over in the path.
+
+"What if you had missed him! He would have been upon you before you
+could reload!" shuddered the wife, as we ran out to meet Cousin Frank.
+
+"I did not mean to miss him. If I had, I should have clubbed my gun and
+brained him. No, dear love! it would not 'have done as well had I fired
+at him over the palings.' Snap was on the other side of the gate.
+And"--with an arch flash he might have learned from her--"you and
+Namesake and I think the world and all of Snap, you know."
+
+It was the only allusion he ever made in my hearing to the escapade that
+won him his wife.
+
+We learned, within a few hours, that the dog had bitten several cows,
+five other dogs, and a valuable colt, before he reached Oakholme.
+
+I was always very fond of Cousin Frank. Henceforward, he stepped into
+the vanguard of my heroes. I did not believe that Israel Putnam could
+have done anything more daring than what I had witnessed in the safe
+place in which he put us "before he sallied forth into the very jaws of
+death." That was the way I described it to myself.
+
+Tramping through the lower pasture at his side that afternoon I tried to
+voice my admiration to him, but used less inflated language. I dearly
+enjoyed these long walks over the plantation in his company. He was an
+excellent farmer, and kept no overseer. I learned a great deal of
+forestry and botany from his talk. If he adapted himself, consciously,
+to my understanding, he did not let me perceive it. The recollection of
+his unfailing patience and his apparent satisfaction in the society of
+the child who worshipped him and his wife, has been a useful lesson to
+me in my intercourse with the young. I had told Cousin Molly Belle, a
+long time ago, that he "talked straight to children," with none of the
+involved meanings and would-be humorous turns of speech with which some
+grown-uppers diverted themselves and mystified us.
+
+When he smiled at my well-mouthed, "Do you know, Cousin Frank, that your
+bravery may have saved at least four lives--Cousin Molly Belle's, and
+baby's, and Snap's, and mine?"--I felt that he was not laughing at me
+inside, as the manner of some is.
+
+"I don't know about that, Namesake." Nobody but himself and his wife was
+allowed to call me that. They were one, you know. "All of you would
+probably have got out of the way, except Snap. It _would_ have been a
+great pity to have him bitten. But here is a wee bit of a thing that
+could, and would, save a good many lives if people were as well
+acquainted with it as they ought to be. I am surprised that it is so
+little known in a part of the country where snakes abound as they do
+about here."
+
+He stooped to gather, and gave to me, some succulent sprigs from a plant
+that grew in profusion along the branch running through the meadow.
+
+"It is a cure for a snake-bite if bruised into a poultice and bound upon
+the place soon after one is bitten. My father showed it to me a great
+many years ago, when I was a little shaver, and told me how he had
+learned about it from an old Indian herb-doctor. He tried it several
+times for moccasin-and adder-and copperhead-bites among his servants,
+and it was a cure in every instance. It grows on both sides of this
+branch, and nowhere else that I know of on the plantation. My father was
+an admirable botanist."
+
+"So are you," said I, stoutly.
+
+"Oh, no. As the saying is, his chips were worth more than my logs."
+
+No law of nature is more nearly invariable than that Events are twins,
+and often triplets. That very evening, after supper, Cousin Frank was on
+his way from the stables to the house, and saw what he mistook for a
+carriage whip lying in the walk. The moon was shining and he had no
+doubt as to what the thing was when he stooped to pick it up. Before he
+touched it, it made one swift writhe and dart and struck him on the
+wrist.
+
+Cousin Molly Belle was laying Carter in the cradle, the last note of her
+lullaby upon her lips when her husband entered. He clutched his right
+wrist tightly with the left hand and was pale, but his voice was steady
+and gentle.
+
+"Dear," he said, "don't be frightened, but I have been bitten by a
+snake. A copperhead, I think. Get me some whiskey, please."
+
+"The whiskey, Flora! Quick!" called the wife to her maid who stood by.
+"Pour out a tumblerful and give it to him."
+
+For herself, she fell upon her knees, seized her husband's wrist and
+carried it to her mouth. This I saw, and heard the first words of his
+startled protest as the dear lips closed upon the wound. I was out of
+the room and clear of the house the next minute and speeding down the
+path and hill to the lower pasture.
+
+The snake was at large, and might waylay me from any bush or tuft of
+grass. The moonbeams were ghostly and the stillness of the wide solitude
+was eerie. Being but a child,--and a girl-child,--I thought of these
+things, and of the likelihood of meeting runaway negroes, and mad dogs,
+and stray sane curs whose duty it was to attack nocturnal trespassers,
+and of a vicious bull never let out to roam the pasture except at night.
+I was afraid of them all, intellectually. My heart was too full of a
+mightier dread to let bugbears turn me back. I ran right on until the
+branch, a silver ribbon on the dark bosom of the meadow, was before me.
+Grasses and weeds were laden with dew, and the water whirled and
+whispered about the roots. I could have believed that the purling formed
+itself into words when I knelt down to fumble for the snake-bite cure. I
+would not let myself be scared. I kept saying over and over--"To save
+his life! to save his life!"
+
+In the intensity of my excitement, language that I was afraid was
+blasphemous, yet could not exclude from my mind, pressed upon me:--
+
+"_He saved others. Himself he cannot save!_"
+
+He might be dying now. He had said that the poultice ought to be applied
+at once. Horrid stories of what had happened to people who were bitten
+by rattlesnakes and cobras tormented me, and would not be beaten off.
+
+"A copperhead, I think he said. How could he know that it was not a
+cobra? Would he swell up, turn black, and expire in convulsions before I
+could reach him?" I said "expire in convulsions," out of a book.
+Everyday Virginia vernacular fell short of the exigency.
+
+My feet were drenched, my pantalettes and skirts were bedraggled up to
+the knees, my eyes were large and black in my colorless face, when I
+burst into the chamber, and threw the bunch of priceless herbs into
+Cousin Molly Belle's lap. I was too spent for speech.
+
+Cousin Frank's coat and vest were off; his right shirt-sleeve was rolled
+up to the shoulder, and he was holding his hand and wrist in a deep
+bowl of warm water. The air reeked with the fumes of whiskey and
+hartshorn.
+
+I concluded, when I came to think of it the next day, that the whiskey
+must have been doing antidotal work by getting into his head, for he
+laughed outright at sight of the specific I had brought. Then,
+tears--real tears and plenty of them--suffused his eyes and made his
+voice weak and husky. Or--was it the whiskey?
+
+"You are a dear, brave, thoughtful Namesake!" he said, clearing his
+throat. "Darling!" to his wife who was eyeing the herbs
+wonderingly,--"She has been all the way to the lower meadow for those. I
+showed her the snake-bite cure to-day. Bruise them and put them on my
+wrist. Then Namesake must get off her wet clothes and go to bed. The
+danger is over."
+
+I was thirty years old before I found out that what I had risked so much
+to procure was not the panacea he had showed me, but common jewel-weed,
+or wild touch-me-not, a species of the _Impatiens_ of botanists,
+harmless, but not curative.
+
+And they had never let me guess what a blunder I had made!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+Miss Nancy's Nerves
+
+
+The Gateses were our distant relatives. Not nearer than fourth
+cousins-in-law, I fancy, but we counted them among our "kinfolks" in
+Virginia, calling Mrs. Gates "Cousin Nancy," and Captain Gates, "Cousin
+'Ratio." His proper name was Horatio, of course, and he belonged to the
+family that gave the Revolutionary hero, Horatio Gates, to his country.
+
+I was slowly getting over the whooping-cough, having taken it, as I took
+most "catching" things that fell in my way,--with all my might. I began
+to whoop the last of April, and kept it up all summer, when every other
+child on the plantation was entirely well.
+
+Captain Gates drove over to our house by the time the breakfast-table
+was cleared one sultry August day, bringing in his roomy double buggy a
+basket of Georgia peaches--brunettes with crimson cheeks--and the
+biggest watermelon I had ever seen, as a neighborly gift to my mother.
+
+"Miss Nancy gave me no peace of my life till I got off with them," he
+said in his loud, breezy tones. "There's none of her kin she sets more
+store by than by Cousin Ma'y Anna Burwell. And she's as proud as a
+peacock of our fruit. I tell her a judgment will come upon her for it.
+As I take it, Old Marster sends the rain upon the unjust as well as upon
+the just, and if it's our turn this year, somebody else's turn will come
+next year, and yet we'll be as good Christians then as we are now. It's
+one of His ways that's past finding out. Howdy'e, little lady!" putting
+out a brawny hand to pull me between his knees.
+
+I was standing a yard or so away, but right in front of him, my hands
+behind me, my eyes and ears, and, I'm afraid, my mouth, open to his
+hearty talk. I had never heard God called "Old Marster" before, and if I
+had not been taught that children ought not to criticise what grown
+people say and do, I should have been quite sure that it was wrong. I
+did not want to think any harm of Cousin 'Ratio, and determined that I
+would not, when he drew a great finger gently over my thin cheek, and
+looked down at me with kindly, pitying eyes.
+
+"Tut! tut! tut! this is too bad! too bad! We must fill up this gulley
+somehow, Cousin Ma'y Anna. Other folks' victuals are the best physic I
+know for that sort of work. Miss Nancy would cry her eyes out if I was
+to go home with the story that little Molly Burwell had coughed her
+bones pretty near as bare as barrel-staves, and I didn't try to cover
+them up again. A week in my peach-orchard and watermelon-patch, with
+quarts of cream and Miss Nancy's breakfasts, dinners, and suppers--is
+what she wants. Get her bonnet, and stick a tooth-brush and a
+pocket-handkerchief into a bandbox, Chloe, for I'm going to take her
+home with me, right straight off."
+
+My mother shook her head smilingly at the thought of the week's visit.
+
+"The child coughs so badly at night that I don't like to have her away
+from me, Cousin 'Ratio. But change of air, even for a day, would do her
+good. Her father and I will come for her about sundown."
+
+Thus it happened, that, decked in a clean pink calico frock and white
+muslin apron, I was hoisted to my perch in the high gig beside Cousin
+'Ratio, and set off to spend a whole day at Cold Comfort.
+
+The name was so out of keeping with Cousin 'Ratio's kind, red face and
+funny ways, and the warm, sweet-smelling day, that I couldn't help
+asking him on the way "why he called his house such a _shivery_ name?"
+
+The gig swayed and creaked under his laugh.
+
+"That was just the reason my grandmother gave for naming it. You see,
+the house stands on the top of a hill, and all the winds from three
+counties get at it in winter. The house my grandfather put up was of
+wood, and none too tight in the joints, and the poor old lady, his
+wife--my step-grandmother she was--had rheumatism, and suffered a heap
+all the year 'round. So, nothing would do but it must be 'Cold Comfort,'
+and Cold Comfort it has been ever since. We Gateses have a way of giving
+in to our wives in 'most everything. Everything that's reasonable, I
+mean. And we don't pick out unreasonable girls for wives."
+
+The fat, sleek horse was taking his own lazy pace in a mile of shady
+road, cut through the heart of a pine forest. The ground was brown and
+soft with pine needles, and the high gig swung and creaked a sort of
+drowsy tune. Cousin 'Ratio tapped the wheel nearest him with his whip,
+and fell into talk with himself, rather than with the child under his
+elbow.
+
+"Now, there's Miss Nancy! There's been a heap of fun poked at me, first
+and last, for building my house in the shape I did. Though, for the
+life of me, I can't see why I should be obleeged to live in a
+four-square box because every other man-Jack in Pow'tan County builds
+his in that way. Miss Nancy was always mighty nervous from the time she
+was a child; I knew it when I married her. Fact is, she says to me:
+'Cap'n Gates, I'm as nervous as a witch, and I'm afraid you'll get out
+of patience with me sometimes, and I wouldn't blame you if you did.'
+And, says I,--my hand right on my heart,--'Miss Nancy Miller! if you'll
+take _me_ as I am, I'll be proud and happy to take _you_ as you are,
+nerves and all!' says I. 'The proudest man in the State of Virginia,'
+says I. 'Call it a bargain.'
+
+"And she did--bless her soul! It was the best bargain that ever I made,
+or ever expect to make, too. Some men marry Temper, and some Extravagant
+Notions, and some Vanity, and some Jealous, Suspicious Dispositions, and
+some, again, Stinginess--Good gracious! there's no end to the
+disagreeable things men _do_ marry! I married _Nerves!_ and with them,
+the best and sweetest and, to my way of thinking, the prettiest woman in
+the County and State, and the Universe, and I've been thankful for it
+every day and every hour since--God bless her!"
+
+I waited for him to say something more until I began to wonder, then to
+get impatient, that he let the horse jog along, the soft creak of the
+gig keeping time with the leisurely motions of the pampered beast, the
+master's eyes fixed upon the wheel he was tapping with his whip, as if
+he had forgotten me entirely.
+
+I made a bold effort to reopen the conversation.
+
+"I suppose Cousin Nancy asked you to build your house round, instead of
+square?"
+
+I had heard so many different stories about the odd structure which was
+one of the county curiosities that I was anxious to get at the truth.
+
+He laughed low and pleasantly:--
+
+"Ask me! Not she, bless your soul! She would never have thought of such
+a thing. 'Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights
+because I knew she couldn't sleep for the roaring and whistling around
+the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and
+between the window-sashes like a bumblebee as big as a whale. It made
+her feel so lonesome and blue that many's the time I've heard her crying
+to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. We were going to pull
+down the old house, anyhow. It was a rickety concern, and inconvenient
+as could be. So I got Miss Nancy to tell me how many rooms and closets
+and all that she'd like to have in a house that was to be built on
+purpose for her, and for nobody else, and I made a plan of it all on
+paper, and then I sent her up to stay with her mother in Buckingham
+County for six months, going up to see her myself every Saturday to
+spend Sunday--like a nigger going to his 'wife-house,'"--here he stopped
+to laugh again--"until the last window-shutter was hung, and all the
+furniture put back and in order--Je_rew_salem! how I _did_ work! Then I
+brought her home. I wish you could have seen her face when we came in
+sight of the solid brick house--round as a cheese box--and I told her I
+had it built in that shape, so's she should never be made sorrowful, nor
+kept awake again by the wind a-cutting up shines around sharp corners,
+so long as we both should live--Amen!"
+
+He jerked a blazing red bandanna handkerchief out of his pocket, turning
+his face clear away from me to do it, and blew his nose until the woods
+rang as with the echoes of a foxhunter's horn, then rolled the
+handkerchief into a ball and polished his face with it in the oddest
+possible fashion.
+
+Most of the tales current about the round brick house had something to
+do with Cousin Nancy's whims, especially with her dislike to hearing the
+wind blow around the corners. Young as I was, I felt, after hearing
+Cousin 'Ratio's story, that he had done a beautiful thing in planning
+the ingenious surprise for his delicate wife. It crossed my mind, too,
+that she might have thought the house as ridiculous as other people did,
+yet pretended to like it sooner than hurt his feelings. She must be a
+good and devoted wife. Furthermore, I got into my foolish head the
+notion that it was nice and interesting to have Nerves. I resolved to
+get a set of my own at an early opportunity and to work them well. To
+this end, I would watch Cousin Nancy's ways and copy them as closely as
+a little girl could copy the behavior of a grown-up heroine.
+
+She met us in the porch of the house, crying out with pleasure at sight
+of me.
+
+"That's a little lady, not to be afraid to come all by herself to see
+two quiet old folks!" she said as she kissed me. "I ought to have had a
+dozen girls and boys for you to play with by this time--but I haven't a
+single one."
+
+She laughed in saying it, yet with such sincere regret of face and
+accent that I answered, without taking time to think:--
+
+"I'm mighty sorry you haven't!" Catching myself up, I blundered on: "Not
+that you and Cousin 'Ratio are not company enough for me. But it seems a
+pity that, in this pretty place, with so many peaches and watermelons
+and flowers--and pigeons--and chickens--and all that--there are not any
+children to eat, and to play with them--and keep you company. I've heard
+mother say, 'Home wouldn't be Home without the babies.'"
+
+"Your mother is right, child! Your mother is right!"
+
+The words seemed to stick in her throat, and to scrape it as she got
+them out. Then, to my horror, she sank into a rocking-chair, and,
+throwing her hands over her face, began to cry, with queer little
+squeals between the sobs that shook her all over.
+
+[Illustration: A TEA-PARTY IN THE SUMMER-HOUSE.
+
+"Dovey appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream."]
+
+Malviny, her mulatto maid, ran to her with a bottle of hartshorn, and
+Cousin 'Ratio knelt upon the floor by her and put his arm about her,
+and fanned her with a turkey-tail fan, and another colored woman rushed
+off to the kitchen, and was back in a jiffy with a bunch of feathers all
+on fire, and making a dreadful smell, and stuck them under her
+mistress's nose. I backed to the door with a wild notion of getting out
+of the way, and running back home, yet could not tear myself away from
+the unusual scene.
+
+As soon as Cousin Nancy could speak, she laughed at sight of my
+face,--the tears still dripping all the way to her chin,--and held out
+her arms:--
+
+"Poor little lammie! did I frighten the life out of her? You mustn't
+mind my nervous turns, dear. They don't mean anything."
+
+"I was afraid I had said something I oughtn't to," I faltered, on the
+verge of tears. "I'm sorry if I did!"
+
+Whereupon I was drawn close to her, and kissed three times to assure me
+that I was the "best little girl in the world, and that she wouldn't
+give way again."
+
+"But, you see, I had got so nervous because you were gone so long, and
+you drove that skittish colt, and I was sure something had happened,"
+she explained to her husband, who still stood by her, stroking the back
+of her hand, in awkward fondness. He stooped to lay his bearded face
+against hers.
+
+"That's like you! Always thinking of other people, and never of
+yourself!" he said admiringly.
+
+She thought a great deal of me for the rest of my visit, ordering
+Malviny to cut out and make a doll's pelisse for me of a lovely piece of
+red silk, saying that she would have done it herself if sewing did not
+make her so nervous.
+
+"I haven't darned a sock or hemmed a pocket-handkerchief for Cap'n Gates
+in ten years. If he were not the best man on earth, he would have sent
+me packing long ago."
+
+She despatched another servant to the garret for some toys her sister's
+children had left with her last year, and gave me permission to pull all
+the flowers I wanted in the garden. I carried three maimed dolls, a
+headless horse, a three-legged cat, and a Britannia tea-set to a
+summer-house at the end of a long walk, and made believe that I was
+Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, of whom I had read in a tattered copy
+of Shakespeare I found in a lumber closet. By and by, Malviny brought
+out to me a pretty china plate with four sugar cakes, shaped like ivy
+leaves, and a glass of very sweet lemonade. Awhile later, Dovey, a
+half-grown girl, appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream,
+plentifully sugared.
+
+"Mistis says you must eat 'em all, for she knows you mus' be mighty
+thirsty, and peaches is coolin' for little ladies whar's been sick."
+
+There were still some cake crumbs and a spoonful of peaches left when I
+saw Cousin Nancy herself come sailing down the walk.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+Side-Blades & Water-Melons
+
+
+My far-away cousin could never have been pretty except to a fond
+husband's eyes. I should have liked to think her tolerably good-looking
+now, since he loved her so dearly and praised her so enthusiastically,
+and she was so much more than good to me. I could not help using and
+believing the eyes that showed me a tall, lean woman whose skin, once
+fair, was now nearly as yellow as the freckles spattered all over her
+forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. Nose and chin were long, her
+cheek-bones were high, her eyes were pale, the lashes so light and thin
+as to be scarcely visible at all, and her scanty flaxen hair was
+dragged tightly away from a high bony forehead. Her gown to-day was
+white cambric, as clean, as glossy, and as opaque as cream-laid
+letter-paper. Her head was bare, and she carried over it a green parasol
+which made her complexion livid. Her voice was soft and sweet, and her
+manners were liked by everybody. I was glad to think of these things,
+and to feel the charm of tone and manner, as she asked if I "would not
+like to pay a visit to the peaches and watermelons."
+
+I should have preferred to stay where I was, having got very well
+acquainted with my attendant fairies, and eaten enough sweets to take
+the edge from my appetite, even for ripe, fresh fruit. Still, I got up
+with a tolerable show of cordiality, comprehending that she meant to
+please me, took the hand she offered, and was soon out of the cool shade
+in the open field separating garden from orchard. Captain Gates was
+really as proud of his reputation as the most successful fruit-grower
+in the county as his wife was, although he affected to ridicule her
+weakness in the same direction. There were two acres of peach trees,
+most of them laden with fruit. When pressed to "eat all I could
+swallow," I managed to do away with three immense globes of
+crimson-and-gold, and then gave out, shamefacedly:--
+
+"You see I am so little, and the peaches are so big!" I urged. "I hold
+just so many and no more."
+
+"Of course, you comical little thing!" interrupted Cousin Nancy, highly
+amused. "By and by, on our way back from the watermelon patch, maybe
+there will be more room. I shan't ask you to pick the melons from the
+vines and eat _them_ by the dozen. Come along!"
+
+She did not seem to mind the heat that struck upon my face and head like
+the breath of an oven, as we crossed another open field, to that in
+which Captain Gates's famous melons lay by the hundred, growing larger
+and more luscious in the August sunlight that warmed them through and
+through. Some were dark green, some light green, some were streaked and
+mottled with white-and-green.
+
+"Oh, Cousin Nancy!" I cried, "I did not know there were so many in the
+world! What _will_ you do with them all?"
+
+She led the way farther into the network of vines, the rank leaves and
+starry blossoms bobbing about her feet. The fruit and flowers of Cold
+Comfort did something toward filling the place left void in her heart by
+the lack of the children that had never come. She stood still and looked
+over the wide patch as if she had made every melon there, and meant to
+have the full credit for her work.
+
+"Do with them, monkey! Why they are as good as a silver mine--the
+beauties! Every full-grown one stands for a quarter of a dollar. We send
+six wagon-loads to Richmond every week, and people come for them from
+every direction--as far as across the river in Goochland; and we give
+dozens away to our neighbors, and the negroes come at night to steal
+them--Oh! _oh!!_ OH!!!"
+
+She gathered her skirts tightly and high above her ankles with both
+hands, letting the green parasol tumble, head foremost, to the ground,
+and screeched as if she had trod upon a yellow-jacket's nest. She was
+going to have Nerves again, with no hartshorn, or burnt feathers, or
+turkey-tail fan, or Cousin 'Ratio near. I started to run to the house
+for help, but she grabbed my frock frantically.
+
+"If you budge one inch you are a dead child!" she wheezed, her pale eyes
+bulging from the sockets. "Cap'n Gates and the overseer came out here
+last night and just sowed all this patch with side-blades!"
+(Scythe-blades.) "Edges up! Sharp as razors and thick as thieves!
+Hundreds of them! To keep the negroes from stealing any more of them! I
+heard Cap'n Gates tell them he was going to do it, and the overseer told
+them this morning that they _had_ done it. And I haven't an atom of an
+idea where a solitary one of the murderous things is! We are as good as
+dead if we try to get out. We might tread upon one, at the first step!
+How could I forget it? Oh, how could I?"
+
+I felt the blood drain away from my face, and I trembled as violently as
+she. Then a thought came to me, and I got it out between chattering
+teeth.
+
+"We didn't tread on any of them coming into the patch."
+
+"That was sheer providence, honey. We _might_ have been cut in two
+before we had gone ten yards."
+
+"But, Cousin Nancy!" catching at her hands as she began to wring them
+again, and to sob and squeal as she had done in the morning. "Listen! I
+am sure I could go out by the very same path! Let's try! We can't stay
+here always."
+
+"_Path!_ There isn't a sign of a path! Look!"
+
+She pointed a bony finger in the direction we had come. The leaves and
+blossoms disturbed by our feet and skirts were as still as the hundreds
+and thousands of other leaves on all sides of us. We had not bruised a
+vine, or left a footprint, that we could see. The sun poured down upon
+us like fire from heaven; we were in the middle of the patch that
+seemed, to my horrified eyes, miles and miles in extent, and not another
+creature was in sight.
+
+"Our only hope is to scream as loud as ever we can," said Cousin Nancy.
+"Nobody knows where we are; the hands are all in the tobacco, a mile on
+the other side of the house, and Cap'n Gates and Mr. Owen may be even
+farther off, for all I know. If we can't make anybody hear us, the Lord
+have mercy upon our souls! We shall have sunstroke inside of an hour."
+
+I picked up the green parasol, and with clumsy, shaking fingers opened
+it, and stood on tiptoe to hold it over her head, crying, meantime, as
+piteously as she, such was the contagion of hysterical terror. Then,
+with one accord, we lifted up our voices, weak with weeping, in a thin
+screech. I said "Help! help! help!" she cried, "Murder! murder!" and
+"Cap'n _Ga-a-tes!_" We made enough noise to startle the dogs in the
+house-yard and at the stables, and brought from the nearer "quarters"
+and corn-field a gang of negroes, of all sizes and ages, all running at
+the top of their speed, and the faster as they descried us. It would
+have been excruciatingly funny at any other time, and to one that was
+not an actor in the drama, to observe that not one man, woman, or
+pickaninny of the excited crowd offered to pass the confines of the
+melon patch. Each one was mindful of the hundreds of buried side-blades
+with their edges uppermost, and almost all were bare-footed.
+
+"Run! some of you-all, for Marster an' Mr. Owen!" shrieked Malviny,
+getting her wits together before the others could rally theirs. The
+shrill order arose above the chorus of groans and cries and pitying
+exclamations, and Cousin Nancy, on hearing it, gave one wild cry, and
+dropped where she stood, a heap of white cambric, head, arms, and green
+parasol, crushing the vines, and her head just grazing a mammoth melon.
+
+I had never been so frightened in all my life as when I got hold of her
+head, and tried to lift it. It was as heavy as lead. Too much terrified
+and too foolish to bethink myself that a cut would bleed, I concluded
+that she had struck one of the murderous blades, and it had killed her.
+Her eyes were closed; her jaw had fallen; her cheek lay close against
+that of the big melon, and the vines met over her nose. It was a ghastly
+and a grotesque spectacle, and I behaved as any other nine-year-old
+would--jumped up and down and screamed, beating my palms together, and
+calling alternately for "Father!" and "Cousin 'Ratio!"
+
+Since that horrible moment I have believed stories read and heard of
+people being scared to death, or into insanity. In the great, round
+world, there was nothing present to me but a cruel expanse of green
+below, a white-hot sky above, and at my feet a dead woman, killed by
+the razor-like blades thick-set under every leaf, and guarding every
+melon. Then all this was swept out of sight by a black wave that took me
+off my feet.
+
+I awoke in the shade of the peach orchard. Mr. Owen, the overseer, had
+laid me down on the grass, and I heard him say, "She's all right now." I
+sat up and stared around me. Cousin Nancy, still in a dead faint, was
+stretched upon the ground a little way off, a fluttering swarm of women
+about her, with water, brandy, hartshorn, cologne, fans, and burning
+feathers, and Cousin 'Ratio, kneeling over her, was calling in her ear,
+the tears running down his bristly cheeks.
+
+"Miss Nancy! honey! sugar-lump! wake up! it's me, dearie! The danger is
+all over. What a _doggoned_ fool I was to put the side-blades there!"
+
+When she at last revived, she was taken to the house and put to bed. She
+was not yet able to sit up when my father and mother drove over for me
+in the cool of the afternoon.
+
+"My tomfoolery came near to being the end of the poor dear," said Cousin
+'Ratio, walking with us to the carriage, when we had taken leave of his
+wife. "I feel mighty bad about it, too, as you may suppose, for it was
+my fault in not reminding her of those cussed side-blades. Between
+ourselves, Burwell,"--coming nearer to my father and glancing over his
+shoulder to be sure none of the servants were within hearing,--"Owen and
+I put just exactly _two_ in the whole patch, and they were near the
+fence. Miss Nancy never went within a Sabbath day's journey of them. We
+made a mighty parade of toting twenty of them past the quarters, taking
+two of the hands along to help. They laid them down by the fence, and we
+came down after dark and carried all but two off to the old tobacco
+barn, and hid them there. I wasn't likely to rust my best side-blades by
+burying them in the dirt. But I'd rather have ruined them all and lost
+every blessed melon on the place, than have given Miss Nancy's Nerves
+such a shock."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+Old Madam Leigh
+
+
+Nobody seemed to know how everybody got into the way of calling her "Old
+Madam Leigh." It was not a Virginia custom, and there was not another
+old lady in the neighborhood to whom the title of "Madam" was ever
+given. After she had lived to be the oldest woman in the county, the
+"Old" was prefixed, naturally enough.
+
+I got to know her through Cousin Molly Belle.
+
+"I declare, Frank, Molly has never seen Queen Mab and her hummers!" she
+said at dinner one day. "I'm ashamed of myself for not having taken her
+there. It's just the sort of thing she would enjoy."
+
+When Mrs. Frank Morton was ashamed of having done anything, or having
+left anything undone, the next, and a quick step with her, was to mend
+the fault without further waste of words. We went over to Old Madam
+Leigh's that same afternoon,--she, Cousin Frank, and I,--on horseback,
+"the road to Queen Mab's palace being the vilest in the State," as my
+hostess averred.
+
+I thought it a delightful road. It left the main highway a mile beyond
+Cousin Frank's plantation gate, and lost its way in oak and hickory
+woods, where the trees touched over our heads. I said they were "trying
+to shake hands with one another."
+
+"They will be hugging one another before we go much farther," said
+Cousin Frank.
+
+As they did when we began to climb a long hill, washed into crooked
+gullies by the water that tore down to the creek at the bottom whenever
+it rained hard. After this was a short and steeper hill, and then
+another long one, and we were on the edge of a clearing, very bright and
+sunny after the green glooms of the forest.
+
+"Does Queen Mab drive this way, often, in her chariot-and-four?" I
+inquired, as we struck into a gentle gallop along a grassy lane.
+
+"Queen Mab's chariot has not been out of the carriage-house in
+twenty-five years," answered Cousin Molly Belle. "There is another road
+from her house to where everyday people live, but it would take us a
+long way around. Mother can recollect when this was a good road, and
+much travelled."
+
+"Doesn't she make any visits?"
+
+"Never to human beings."
+
+"Doesn't she go to church?"
+
+"Not that I have ever heard of."
+
+"Cousin Molly Belle!" in an awed tone. "Is she a _heathen_?"
+
+"She is very old, Namesake. Nearly ninety."
+
+She said it gravely and gently, and Cousin Frank repeated a verse of
+poetry I did not know then:--
+
+   "He prayeth best who loveth best
+   All things both great and small;
+   For the dear God who loveth us,
+   He made and loveth all."
+
+It was so nice that I turned it over in my mind several times before I
+asked another question. My mother sometimes called me "an animated
+interrogation-point."
+
+"Is Old Madam Leigh married?"
+
+"She has been married. She would not be 'Madam' if she had not been. She
+has been a widow for a long, long time. She had two children--twins--a
+boy and a girl. They lived to be twenty years old, and then died."
+
+"Not both at the same time, Cousin Molly Belle?" for her tone suggested
+something very sorrowful.
+
+"Yes, Molly dear. The sister fell into the river and the brother, in
+swimming out to save her, was seized with the cramp and sank before he
+could reach her. The mother has lived alone ever since, except for her
+servants. They are very good and faithful. Then, she has her hummers and
+her pygmies, who are a great deal of company to her."
+
+"_Pigs!_" in intense disgust. "She can't be a very neat person."
+
+A peal of laughter from my companions broke off the speech.
+
+"You'll change your mind shortly," said Cousin Frank, cantering ahead to
+open a gate in the rail fence.
+
+We saw the house from the gate,--a wee bit of a gray cottage, one story
+high, literally covered with honeysuckles of every kind I had ever heard
+of, and now in fullest bloom. An enormous catalpa tree, also in flower,
+stood in front of the cottage, shading all but one gable, and that
+looked as if it were made of glass. Between this gable and the garden
+were two spreading acacia trees, tufted with the tassel-like blossoms.
+The deep front porch was curtained with white jessamine, and as we
+walked up the gravelled path leading to it, Madam Leigh stood in the
+doorway.
+
+She was a tiny old lady, no taller than I was, and wore a white dress,
+fine and sheer. Cousin Molly Belle told me afterward that it was India
+muslin, and that she wore white, winter and summer. The waist of the
+gown was very short, the skirt was straight, and fell to the in-step of
+a foot no bigger than a baby's. Her cap was also old-fashioned, made of
+lace, with a full crimped border under which her hair, silvery-white,
+was dressed in short, round curls on each side of her forehead. Her skin
+reminded me of a bit of rice-paper I had picked up from the floor one
+day. It had dropped out of the back of my father's watch, and Bud had
+found it and played with it until it was creased and cracked all over
+like "crazed" china, yet not torn. Old Madam Leigh's face could not be
+said to be wrinkled, for the lines were shallow. They were as fine as if
+made with an inkless crow quill, and so close together you would have
+thought there was not room for another. Her eyes were dark and bright
+She had French blood in her veins, and showed it in her quick glance and
+lively motions.
+
+She took us directly into "the chamber" on the left side of the hall
+that cut the house in two. Everything there was white, too,--bed and
+curtains and chair-covers being of white dimity, trimmed with lace. The
+walls were almost covered with portraits. Some were very old. Two of the
+brightest hung opposite the bed where Madam Leigh must see them as soon
+as she opened her eyes in the morning. One was of a pretty girl in a
+white frock, low-necked and short-sleeved, with a red rose in the
+bodice, making the fair skin it rested against all the fairer. Her eyes
+were dark and sweet; short brown curls, like Madam Leigh's white ones,
+clustered about her temples. The other picture was that of a handsome
+boy of twenty, or thereabouts, and strikingly like his sister. A dog,
+with silky ears, leaned his head against his young master's arm.
+
+I tried hard not to stare at these portraits,--to me the most
+interesting things in the room,--for I knew they must be the
+twin-children who had died together, ever and ever so many years ago.
+The instinct of kindly breeding told me that it would not be polite to
+remind the mother of her loss by looking inquisitively at them. But I
+could not help stealing a glance at one and the other when the grown
+people were intent in talk. Looking led to dreaming, as I was left to
+myself and the thoughts suggested by the portraits. I arranged it in my
+mind that brother and sister were very fond of each other; that the
+sister had fallen into the river where the current was strong, from some
+such place as Maiden's Adventure, on Mr. Pemberton's plantation, where
+the water was deep above a roaring fall. I thought how she called to her
+brother, and how he answered, and I wondered--a chill running down my
+spine and catching at my heart--who carried the awful news to the
+mother. How could she bear it? how live in this lonely place with
+nobody to keep her from thinking of, and missing, her husband and her
+children, nobody to care whether she were glad or sorry, sick or well,
+alive or dead?
+
+I did not know that my mouth was drawn down at the corners, that my eyes
+were mournful, and my whole aspect that of a sadly bored little girl,
+who felt herself to be left entirely out of the thoughts of her friends
+and the hostess--until Madam Leigh's voice made me start, as if I had
+been asleep.
+
+"I am afraid this little lady finds all this mighty stupid."
+
+I think the old-time practice of calling girl-children "little ladies,"
+kept them in wholesome remembrance of the necessity of behaving as such.
+At any rate, I was instantly aware that I ought to be sitting up
+straight upon my cricket, and seeming to be interested in what was going
+on. Had not my mother reproved me, times without number, for dreaming in
+company and for absent-minded ways that made me heedless of others'
+comfort? "It is selfish and rude not to pay attention to what people are
+saying when you are with them"--was a nursery rule I ought to have had
+well by heart.
+
+It was natural, then, that I should turn as red as a cardinal flower,
+and fidget uneasily, and stutter when I tried to set myself right with
+my venerable hostess:--
+
+"Oh, no, ma'am. I'm not a bit tired. I'm sorry--if--"
+
+"There's nothing to be sorry for, my dear. If anybody has been rude it
+is I who ought to have provided some other entertainment for you than
+sitting still, and trying with all your might to understand big folks'
+talk."
+
+Her voice was clearer than one would have expected in such an old lady,
+and she did not mumble as if she were chewing her words, as a great many
+old people do. She spoke very distinctly, pronouncing every syllable in
+each word. She told me, when we were better acquainted, that she read
+aloud for an hour every day, for fear she might fall into careless ways
+of speaking, seeing, as she did, so few educated white people, and,
+sometimes, talking with nobody but her colored servants for a week at a
+time. She held herself very straight when seated, and in walking, and
+stepped as lightly as a young person, as she got up and took me by the
+hand, smiling at me in the friendliest way imaginable, and, saying "I
+must introduce you to my family," led me across the hall, and opened a
+door on the other side.
+
+As soon as we were inside of the door, she shut it quickly behind us,
+and I stood stock-still with amazement at what I saw and heard.
+
+It was a large room, with two windows at the front and two at the back,
+while the gable we had seen from the lane was almost filled with sashes,
+as in a greenhouse. Close against these sashes, now so bright with the
+Southern sun that I was half-blinded for an instant, were rows of
+shelves, crowded with cut flowers in vases, and growing flowers in pots.
+Most of the sashes were open, and the space thus left was screened by
+twine netting, something like fine fish seines. Old Madam Leigh had
+netted each of these squares herself, as I learned afterward. The same
+protected back and front windows. About the open windows, and around the
+flowers, flew and floated what I thought, at first, were at least one
+hundred humming-birds. Madam Leigh said there were but twenty-five, all
+told. The whir of their rapid wings filled the air, the gleam of their
+brilliant breasts and backs was like living jewels.
+
+"_Oh-h-h-h!!_" was all I could utter, as I clasped my hands in admiring
+wonder at the beauty and the strangeness of it all, and a queer lump
+came into my throat, as if I were frightened or sorry, and I knew I was
+only delighted past speaking. Madam let me alone for a minute, before
+she laid her small, wrinkled hands upon my shoulders and turned me about
+to see something I had not observed in my raptures over the marvellous
+birds.
+
+Against the wall beyond the door was a long, broad table, or rather
+counter, and upon it was a village of small houses, rows upon rows of
+them. Outside of the village and the streets were other and larger
+houses, in groups of two and three, with dooryards and gardens, and then
+came half a dozen farm-houses surrounded by fields and gardens. In the
+village there were stores and a Court House, and a Clerk's Office and a
+Jail, surrounded by a Public Square, exactly like that at Powhatan Court
+House, and two taverns with signs hanging outside of them. Trees lined
+the streets, and vines were running over the houses. Then, there were
+wells, and wood-piles with men chopping wood at them, and cow-pens with
+cows and calves, and pig-pens filled with pigs. Men were driving wagons
+along the roads, and a fine carriage with four horses harnessed to it
+and a coachman on the box stood before the larger of the two taverns.
+The footman, hat in hand, was helping two elegantly dressed ladies out
+of the carriage, and the landlady, with two colored maids behind her,
+was upon the portico waiting to receive them. Men were digging in the
+corn and tobacco fields; there were turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese,
+and boys riding horses to water and driving the cows home to be milked.
+
+Was ever such another Wonderland revealed to a child who had never been
+in a toy-shop and never owned a doll that was not home-made?
+
+I screamed and capered with joy, like the crazy thing I was, for a whole
+minute after my eyes fell upon the mimic settlement. Then I fell to
+examining the "entertainment" more closely, and discovered that
+everything, except the mosses that imitated the trees, vines, and other
+growing things, was made of corn-stalks and corn-husks--"shucks" as
+Virginians call them. The human creatures and the dumb animals were
+carved out of the firm, dried pith of the stalks, and afterward painted
+with water colors. The clothes of men and women were made of the soft
+inner shucks, dried carefully to the pliability of silk. Log and frame
+houses were built of the canes themselves; the smallest were used whole,
+the larger were split. Peeping into the open doors and windows I saw
+that each house was furnished with beds, tables, and chairs, also made
+of corn-stalks, pith, and shucks.
+
+At the far end of the counter were six bird-cages, constructed of thin
+strips of corn-canes, each supplied with perches and water vessels.
+
+"Those are my reform prisons," Madam Leigh said to my cousins, who had
+followed and begged to be let in. "You see,"--to me,--"when one of my
+hummers becomes cross or quarrelsome, I separate him from the rest and
+shut him up in one of these cages until he is in a better humor. I am
+sorry to say that they have pretty peppery tempers, and hardly a day
+passes in which I do not have to interfere to stop their fighting."
+
+I had no reason to feel myself slighted now. She went all round the room
+with me, showing her pets and telling me interesting stories of their
+habits and dispositions. Each had a name, and some answered to their
+names when she called them. At least, she thought that they did, and I
+did not doubt it when I saw them swoop down to dip their bills in the
+flowers she held up, as she called "Sprite" and "Bright," and "Sweet"
+and "Swift," and the like crisp, short names in a voice that was like
+the tinkle of a little bell. It was a pretty sight,--the tiny woman, all
+white from cap to toe, standing in the full tide of sunbeams, bunches of
+honeysuckle and catalpa flowers, half as big as herself, in her arms,
+the elf-like face smiling out of them at the eagerness of her feathered
+darlings, darting and glancing and gleaming and humming about her, as if
+she had been a larger edition of themselves, and not of a different
+genus. She made me stand by her while this was going on, saying that the
+hummers were "too well-bred to be afraid of her friends, and were
+especially fond of little people."
+
+"The honeysuckles first made me think of collecting them," went on the
+pleasant tinkle. "When they are in full bloom the frisky little
+creatures swarm in them all day long. They like white and yellow
+jessamine, too, and catalpa flowers and lilies and acacia blossoms. Ten
+years ago I found one of their nests upon a low limb of a tulip-poplar
+tree. Here it is! It looks like a knob of mossy bark, you see. There
+were two eggs in it. I cut off the limb carefully, and set it in a pot
+of water in this room. It was full of blossoms, and the water kept these
+alive. The window was left open and nobody--not even myself--came in
+here for a week. As I had hoped, the mother and father bird found the
+nest, and went on sitting on the eggs as if it had not been moved. One
+night, after the baby birds were hatched, I went softly to the outside
+of the window and let down the sash. That was the beginning of my
+aviary. That's a hard word for you--isn't it, Molly? It means a family
+of birds, such as I have here."
+
+"I don't believe there is another like it in the world," said Cousin
+Molly Belle. "I've always declared that you are a fairy, and charm your
+hummers. I described it and them once to a famous ornithologist. That's
+a real jaw-breaker, Namesake, and means one who knows everything about
+all sorts of birds--or thinks he does. I met this or-nith-ol-o-gist in
+New York last May. He said it was impossible to tame and raise families
+of wild birds, especially humming-birds. And when I said I had seen it
+with my own eyes, times without number, he looked polite--and
+unbelieving."
+
+Madam Leigh was so much amused that the flowers shook in her shrivelled
+mites of hands.
+
+"Many learned strangers have been to see the 'impossibility,'" she said,
+her voice shaken by laughter.
+
+(Cousin Molly Belle had the knack of saying just the thing that would
+please everybody, and saying it in the right way and at the right
+time.)
+
+"Of course I have not raised them all from the eggs," continued Madam.
+"We catch new birds every year, and some are never quite tame. So your
+or-nith-ol-o-gist"--pronouncing it in the same comical way that Cousin
+Molly Belle had done--"was not altogether in the wrong. But they get
+used to their new life much sooner because there are so many of their
+own kind about them. When I find that a couple are thinking of going to
+house-keeping, I root a branch of poplar, or hickory, or maple, in a tub
+of moist earth, and curtain off a corner where they will not be
+disturbed in the nesting-time."
+
+"That was the very thing the celebrated or-nith-ol-o-gist said was
+absolutely impossible," cried Cousin Molly Belle. "Even though I told
+him that, if he would pay us a visit, I would show him the cosey corner,
+and the pretty bride and gallant bridegroom building their nest."
+
+"A great many things happen to each of us that others would not believe,
+no matter how solemnly we might declare them to be true," said Madam
+Leigh, very seriously.
+
+I had a notion that she was thinking of other things in her strangely
+desolated life besides the aviary and the learned man who knew all about
+birds.
+
+"To me, the most singular part of my management of my hummers is that I
+succeed in making them comfortable and contented in the winter," she
+said. "For their forefathers and foremothers have been going South at
+the first sign of frost for six thousand years or so. I have a stove put
+up in here, covered with wire netting to hinder the little dears from
+flying against it; then I keep an even temperature and fill the room
+with flowers. It has, as you see, a southern exposure. I live here with
+them all day long. When it begins to grow dark, I say, 'Good night' and
+go across to my chamber. At bedtime I look in to make sure the fire will
+keep in until morning, and that my darlings are all right. While
+daylight lasts we are very happy together. I am busy with my pygmies
+and my flowers. I feed the hummers with sugar-and-water in winter, with
+a taste of honey on Sundays"--laughing cheerily. "To make them glad that
+Sunday has come, you know. I've an idea that they need stronger food in
+cold weather than in summer. It helps tame them to make them eat from
+the tip of my finger. I take a great deal of pains to keep a succession
+of plants in flower, for, after all, hive-honey isn't quite as pure and
+delicate after it has gone through the bee's body as when the hummer
+sips it fresh from the flower-cup. You must come over next winter, Molly
+Belle, and bring the little lady to see my nasturtiums, and hyacinths,
+and morning-glories. Roses and cape-jessamines, and the like are of no
+use to us. Our flowers must be shaped like wine-glasses, with a drop of
+honey-dew in the bottom, to please us perfectly. The hummers and I
+understand that. You wouldn't believe how much company we are for one
+another, or how much I learn from them. Even my silly mannikins give
+work to my fingers and keep my thoughts steady."
+
+Cousin Molly Belle put her arms around the wee old lady and hugged her
+hard--the honeysuckles and catalpas falling to the floor.
+
+"All this is the loveliest thing I ever heard!" laughing to keep from
+crying. "I hope you will live to be a hundred years old, and give the
+lie to or-nith-ol-o-gists every day you live. And Molly and I will come
+to see you, often and often, whenever she is at our house. You dear,
+brave, sensible, lion-hearted, _royal_ Queen Mab!"
+
+She kept her word. It was one of her many ways to do more than she had
+promised. I never paid a visit to my dearest cousins, the Frank Mortons,
+without riding, or driving, up through the woods, and across the creek,
+and up the two long, and the one short, hill, and along the grass-grown
+lane to the gray cottage that always reminded me of a "hummer's" nest
+masked with moss. I spent a good deal of that summer with Cousin Molly
+Belle, and one week in the very middle of December.
+
+The weather was very mild for midwinter, and the great south room felt
+too warm to me. So warm that I began to feel sleepy and a little dizzy,
+and Madam Leigh noticed the yawn I could not quite swallow.
+
+"Put on your hood and cloak, little lady," she said, "and run into the
+garden to see if you cannot find some roses for your cousin. Betty tells
+me there has been so little frost this season that the rose-bushes are
+still all in leaf."
+
+I scampered off willingly, and did not show myself in the house again
+until the sun almost touched the tree-tops. I gathered chrysanthemums
+and nasturtiums and late heartsease, and at least a dozen roses and
+buds, and, wandering farther and farther down the quiet paths, I saw
+what I had never noticed before--that there was a small graveyard at the
+back of the garden, of which it formed a part. An arbor, thickly
+curtained with a Florida honeysuckle that kept its leaves all winter,
+was at one side of the burial-place; a walk, edged with box, stretched
+from it straight up to the house-yard. Now that the trees were bare, I
+saw that old Madam Leigh could have a full view, through the windows in
+the south gable, of the arbor, and the two white headstones before it:--
+
+             JOHN AND RUTH LEIGH.
+
+   TWIN-CHILDREN OF EDWARD AND JUDITH LEIGH.
+
+            BORN SEPTEMBER 3, 1790.
+
+             DIED AUGUST 1, 1810.
+
+   "_I was dumb; I opened not my mouth, because_ THOU
+                           _didst it._"
+
+I sat down in the summer-house and had a long thinking spell, all by
+myself. Too young to word the emotions that swelled my heart, the
+thoughts that oppressed my brain, there was, all the while, in heart and
+head, the recollection of the story she had told of her manner of
+getting the first pair of humming-birds--and how she had stolen softly
+around to the window after dark, and shut the parents in with their
+nestlings.
+
+I never saw her again. On Christmas morning the maid, who came as usual
+to awake and dress her mistress, found that she had died in her sleep.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+Out into the World
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Cousin Burwell Carter fell in love with our handsome, amiable Boston
+governess, Miss Davidson, and married her when I was ten years of age.
+She comforted my mother for her loss by sending for her younger sister,
+who was even prettier than herself, and had such winsome ways that Mr.
+John Morton, Cousin Frank's bachelor brother, married her at the end of
+her first session in our school-room.
+
+My father looked quizzically grave when the two sisters recommended a
+Miss Bradnor of Springfield, Massachusetts, as a person who was sure to
+please our parents and to bring us on finely in our studies.
+
+"Is she pretty and marriageable?" he asked. "My business, nowadays,
+seems to be providing the eligible bachelors of Powhatan with wives. It
+is pleasant enough from one standpoint, and that is the young men's. But
+my children must be educated."
+
+Both young matrons assured him, earnestly, that Miss Bradnor was "a
+predestined old maid--a man-hater, in fact--and was likely to remain a
+fixture in our school-room as long as we needed her." When she arrived I
+was surprised to see a prim, quiet little personage who looked too
+gentle to hate any one. She fitted easily into her place in our family
+and soon proved herself the prize we had been promised, being a born
+instructor, and loving her profession. She awoke my mind as nobody else
+had done. I fancied that I could feel it stretch, and grow, and get
+hungry while she taught me. The more it was fed, the hungrier it grew,
+and the more eagerly it stretched itself. I studied Comstock's _Natural
+Philosophy_ with Miss Bradnor, and Vose's _Astronomy_, and Lyell's
+_Elements of Geology_, Bancroft's _History of the United States_, and
+_Watts on the Mind_, and began French and Latin. It was such a busy,
+happy year that I was actually sorry when vacation began.
+
+I was sorrier yet when a letter was received from Miss Bradnor, saying
+that she "had been betrothed for ten years to an exemplary gentleman who
+now claimed the fulfilment of her pledge. Before the letter could reach
+us she would (D. V.) have become Mrs. Calvin Chapin. She hoped the
+unforeseen reversal of her plans for the ensuing year would not occasion
+serious inconvenience to her dear and respected friends, Mr. and Mrs.
+Burwell."
+
+"It takes the prim sort to give us such surprises!" exclaimed my mother.
+
+"It takes all sorts and conditions of women, _I_ think!" rejoined my
+father, dryly. "I foresee that the Richmond plan will have to be carried
+out, after all. Governesses are kittle cattle, at the best. And we have
+had three of the very best."
+
+As may be supposed, I was consumed by curiosity to know what "the
+Richmond plan" could be. The city I had never yet seen had been made
+tenfold more interesting to me within a year by the removal of the Frank
+Mortons to that place. Cousin Frank had gone into the Commission
+business there with an uncle who had no son to succeed him in the firm.
+But, although I pricked up my ears smartly at my father's unguarded
+remark, I had to smother my excitement as best I could, and study
+patience--surely the hardest lesson ever set for the young. When older
+people were talking with one another, it was esteemed an impertinence in
+children to interrupt them by questions.
+
+"If it were best for you to understand what we were saying, we would
+take pains to explain it to you," my mother would say when we broke this
+one of her rules. And, still oftener, "Little girls should trust their
+fathers and mothers to tell them at the right time all that they ought
+to know."
+
+The right time in this instance was one moonlight September night, soon
+after Mary 'Liza and I had gone to bed. My mother had a habit of coming
+up to our room, and sitting down by the bed in the dark, or without
+other light than the moon, to have a little talk with us. "To give us a
+good appetite for our dreams," she would say in her merry way. We dearly
+enjoyed these visits, especially on Sunday nights, when we told her what
+we had been reading and thinking that day, and repeated the hymns we
+loved best.
+
+This was on Monday night, and she began by telling us that Miss Judy
+Curran was coming the next day, to make our fall and winter frocks, and
+that there would be a pretty busy time with us all for the rest of the
+month, as we were going to school in Richmond, the fifth day of October.
+
+"Your father and I do not believe in boarding-schools," she continued.
+"We think that God gives our children to us to be brought up and
+educated, as far as possible, by us, their parents, and not to be made
+over to hirelings at the very time when they are most easily led right
+or wrong. There are, however, excellent reasons why you should begin now
+to know more of the world than you can learn in a quiet country
+neighborhood such as this. We are thankful to be able to give you the
+advantages of a city school, without depriving you of good
+home-training. You are to live with your Cousin Molly Belle, and be
+day-scholars in Mrs. Nunham's seminary."
+
+Even Mary 'Liza gave a little jump under the sheet at the astounding
+news, while I leaped clean out of bed, and danced around the room in my
+night-gown, clapping my hands and uttering small shrieks of ecstasy.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! goody! goody! mother! it is like a fairy tale!"
+
+I was somewhat abashed, and decidedly ashamed of my transport when the
+blessed mother said gently, after a little sigh:--
+
+"Of course I shall miss my daughters sadly, but I hope what we are doing
+is for their good. If I were less sure of this, I could not part with
+them."
+
+From the hour in which her first-born baby was laid in her arms, until
+she closed her eyes in the sleep from which our wild weeping could not
+awaken her, her ever-present thought was the children's best good.
+Nothing that could secure that was self-denial on her part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have come to Richmond to write this chapter. From my window I look
+down upon the pavement trodden by my feet twice a day for ten months out
+of twelve, during four school years. The house in which I sojourn
+belongs to a younger brother of him who figures in my story as "Bud." It
+occupies the site of the large, yellow frame building in which Mrs.
+Nunham taught her "young ladies," more than forty years ago.
+
+[Illustration: HOW I CAME TO TOWN.
+
+"My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself, each of us holding to
+one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies walked."]
+
+I smile, as fancy reconstructs the group that turned the corner into
+this street, a block away, on the fifth of October of that memorable
+year in the forties. My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself,
+each of us holding to one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies in the
+country walked together then. He was a well-built, clear-eyed,
+clean-lived, upright gentleman, whom God had made and whom the world had
+not spoiled. My cousin and I were dressed exactly alike. Into every
+detail of daily life my mother carried her principle of treating the
+orphan as her own child. Our country-made frocks were of dark-green
+merino, becoming to my blond companion, and anything but becoming to my
+sun-browned skin. Over the frocks were neat black silk aprons with
+pockets. White linen-cambric frills, hemstitched by hand, and carefully
+crimped, were at our throats and wrists, and sunbonnets upon our heads,
+or rather, "slatted" hoods that could be folded at pleasure. These were
+of dark-green silk, to match the merinos, and ribbon of the same color
+was quilled around the capes, crowns, and brims. Our silk gloves were
+also dark green, and my mother had knit them herself.
+
+Every item of our school costume was prescribed by her before we left
+home. I comprehend now, why the water stood in Cousin Molly Belle's
+eyes, while dancing lights played under the water, when we presented
+ourselves at breakfast-time, dressed for the important first day in the
+Seminary. I appreciate, furthermore, as it was not possible I should
+then, the tact and delicacy with which she gradually modified our
+everyday and Sunday attire into something more in accordance with that
+of our school-fellows.
+
+As we found out for ourselves, before the day was over, we were little
+girls in the midst of young ladies, so far as dress and carriage went.
+We were imbued with the idea--gathered from the talk of friends and
+acquaintances, and our much reading of English story-books--that we were
+to be "polished" by our city associations. It was a shock and a
+down-topple of our expectations to be thrown, without preparation, into
+the society of girls whose manners were very little, if at all, more
+refined than those of the quartette who with us constituted Miss
+Davidson's home school. We were even more confounded at the discovery
+that our home-education had so rooted and grounded us in the rudiments
+of learning that we were classed, after the preliminary examination,
+with girls older than we by four and five years. The circumstance did
+not make us popular with our comrades.
+
+As if my cheeks had tingled under the assault but to-day, I recall the
+exclamation of a girl of fifteen who sat next to me while the
+examination in history was held. Her father was a distinguished citizen
+of Richmond, and her mother a leader in fashionable society.
+
+"Lord, child! how smart you think yourself, to be sure!" she said aloud,
+turning squarely about to look into my face.
+
+I had answered as quietly and briefly as I could, the questions put to
+me, and tried politely not to look scandalized at her flippant
+failures.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know!" "Never heard of him!" "If I ever knew, I've
+forgotten all about it!"--were, to my notion, a disgrace, and her cool
+effrontery would have been severely rebuked by our governess, and have
+met with still sterner judgment from my mother.
+
+At recess this offensive young person headed a coterie that surrounded
+us, criticised our clothes, and catechised us as to our home, our
+family, and our mode of home living. Among other choice _bon mots_ from
+the Honorable Member's daughter was the inquiry--"if we got the pattern
+of our wagon-cover hoods from Mrs. Noah?"
+
+I told Cousin Molly Belle that night, that "the whole pack were
+ill-bred, rude, and unbearable."
+
+She agreed heartily with two of my epithets, and took me up on the
+third:--
+
+"Nothing is 'unbearable,' Namesake, except the thought of our own folly
+or sin. Still, this is a part of the discipline of life I would spare
+you, if I could. Endure hardness as a good soldier, and shame their want
+of breeding by the perfection of yours. An unmannerly schoolgirl is the
+cruellest of tormentors, and"--with a ring of her voice and a snap of
+her eyes that were refreshing and characteristic--"I should like to have
+the handling of that crew for an hour or two!"
+
+I snuggled up close to her, already measurably consoled, and ready as
+usual, with one of the speeches that stamped me as "old-fashioned."
+
+"We are like two wild pigeons, tied by the foot, in a yard full of
+peacocks. I would rather be a pigeon than a peacock. But pecks and
+struts and screamings are not agreeable, for all that."
+
+Nor was it agreeable to be the only girls in our class-room who were not
+invited to a party given the middle of November, by one of the nicest of
+our new acquaintances. She had been quite friendly with us, and the very
+day the invitations were sent out, laid a sprig of citronaloes silently
+on my lap, during a French lesson. The smile that went with the scented
+leaves was sweeter still, and made my heart and face glow. When we were
+getting our wraps and bonnets in the cloak-room, at the close of the
+afternoon session, I edged nearer and nearer to her, pretending to hunt
+for my overshoes, meaning to say a word of thanks as soon as the group
+about her thinned. I got so near to her that I caught what she was
+saying in a low voice to her intimates:--
+
+"I just _hated_ not to invite the Burwells, but they do look so
+countryfied! like little old women cut short after they were made. And I
+don't believe either of them has a party dress to her name. They would
+be a pair of sights in a roomful of well-dressed people."
+
+I slipped away with a barbed arrow in my self-love, and a hard,
+resentful pain at my heart, on my mother's account. Fierce tears scalded
+the inside of my eyelids as I recalled her weeks of loving preparation
+for our school life, the thousand of stitches set by her dear hands,
+the gentle smile of satisfaction with which she had surveyed our
+finished wardrobe. When I was in my own room at Cousin Molly's, I hugged
+and kissed and cried over the slatted hood, vowing vengefully to study
+so hard, and to rise so fast in my classes, and to acquit myself so
+nobly in the sight of my teachers, as to compel the admiration of the
+proud who rose up against me, and who compassed me about like bees.
+David's "cussing psalms" came readily and forcibly to my help in the
+hour of bitter humiliation.
+
+If my wrath was unhallowed, it wrought the peaceable fruits of
+righteousness. The barb had gone too deep to be uncovered even to Cousin
+Molly Belle, but the hurt made a student of me. Giving up all thought of
+popularity and polish, I devoted myself to my school work with assiduity
+that threatened injury to my health before the half-term was over. But
+for my best and most clear-sighted of cousins I might have become a
+misanthropic invalid.
+
+On the very day of the now hateful party, she took us for a long
+drive,--the whole length of Main Street, the sidewalks of which were
+thronged with promenaders and shoppers. She stopped the carriage--a
+handsome equipage, with a smart coachman and two spanking grays--at
+Samanni's and bought us a whole pound, apiece, of delicious candy, and
+treated us to Albemarle pippins to take home with us, and ice-cream
+eaten on the spot. Next, we went to Drinker and Morris's, the
+fashionable bookstore, and she told us to pick out, each for herself,
+the books we would like best to have. Mary 'Liza chose _The School-girl
+in France_, and I, _The Scottish Chiefs_. (I have it to this day.) We
+finished our excursion by a visit to St. John's Church and
+burying-ground. Cousin Molly Belle's grandfather had heard Patrick
+Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech, and she made the scene very plain to
+us as we strolled along the dim aisles, streaked with flaming bars of
+sunset, striking through the western window upon the very spot where the
+great orator had stood.
+
+By the time I had finished my supper, and was settled before the fire
+with my book, the memories of my jaunt making glad my whole being, I had
+clean forgotten party and slight, and did not care a fig--for that one
+night--if I _was_ countryfied and had not a party dress to my name. The
+real things were mine,--home-loves and the world of books and
+imagination,--possessions which the scorning of those who were at ease,
+and the contempt of the proud could not molest or take away.
+
+I was reading _The Scottish Chiefs_ for the second time,--out of school,
+of course,--and studying with might and main, when something came to
+pass that altered the tone of my mates, converted oppressors into
+champions, and made a moderate heroine of me.
+
+There were sixteen of us in the senior Geography Class, I being the
+youngest. The practice of "turning down" for incorrect answers to
+questions was common at that date, even in Young Ladies' Seminaries.
+When the class was formed, we were seated according to age, but thanks
+to my governesses' drill, I had mounted steadily until I was now but one
+from the top--or, as we put it, was "next to head." The topmost place
+had been held for over a month by Mary Morgan, a slovenly and indolent
+girl of sixteen, who wrote poetry and had a great deal of old blue blood
+in her veins, as she was fond of informing all who had the patience to
+listen to her. Her recitations in most of her classes were so imperfect
+that everybody was surprised at her keeping an honorable place in any
+until the whisper went around that she smuggled "help-papers" into the
+class with her.
+
+I am told that the use of "ponies," and much less reputable aids to
+perfect recitation in school and in college, is not considered
+dishonorable among the youth of the present age. Unmannerly and cruel as
+the girls in our seminary appeared to me, they had a certain sense of
+honor, a respect for truth and fair-dealing that bespoke better things
+than their surface-conduct indicated. When it was certainly known that
+Mary Morgan carried into the recitation-room notes of the lesson,
+written upon bits of paper, and tucked up her sleeve, or hidden in the
+folds of her dress, popular indignation arose to a bubbling boil. A
+tale-bearer would have been drummed out of school, and not a lisp of the
+shameful truth was carried to the teacher, the second Miss Nunham, who
+was near-sighted and unsuspicious. The geography lesson was the most
+exciting event of the day,--a prize-ring, in which the two at the head
+of the class were chief actors. When a question reached Mary Morgan, the
+class held its breath for a time. When she answered with glib accuracy,
+the breath exhaled in chagrin audible to all but the teacher. Out of
+class I was noticed, cheered, and commended, and exhorted to hold on in
+the course of truth and uprightness--encouragement corresponding to the
+rubbing down and bracing bestowed by his guardians upon the pugilist.
+And still the geography questions went around, and Mary Morgan was head
+and I next to head.
+
+At last, on the fifteenth of December, came the tug of war in the shape
+of a review of the exercises of the last month, and Mary Morgan was
+armed for the fray by half a dozen long slips of paper covered with
+characters in very black ink. Presuming upon the teacher's short-sighted
+eyes, and nerved by a sense of the gravity of the situation, she boldly
+laid the papers upon the bench between her and myself, and consulted
+them from time to time, with coolness that would have been heroic had it
+not been impudent. The recitation was half over, when the girl who sat
+next below me "made a long arm" behind my back, and abstracted one of
+the abhorrent slips without the knowledge of the owner. She perceived
+the loss as the questions were again nearing her, gave one frightened
+glance at the floor on all sides of her, colored violently; made a
+desperate rally of memory and courage when the question reached her,
+answered so wildly that the teacher gave her a second trial, and, in
+pity for her distress, still a third.
+
+Such a simple question as it was! I can never forget it. "What large
+island lies south of Hindostan?"
+
+Nor can I forget the pale dismay of the face turned to me as the teacher
+said, reluctantly,--"Next."
+
+I had never liked the girl; latterly, I had despised her and regarded
+her as my enemy. I did not analyze the revulsion of feeling that made me
+hesitate while one could have counted ten, before saying in a low,
+constrained voice,--"Ceylon!"
+
+The deposed pupil sank to the middle of the class before the recitation
+was over, much to the bewilderment of the single-minded teacher. By the
+morrow she was at the bottom of the line and so far across the outer
+confines of Coventry that she never got back. That was our way of
+looking at "cribs" half a century ago.
+
+It is not ten years since I met the banished scholar in a metropolitan
+reception-room, and a few minutes afterward, another old schoolfellow,
+who said in one and the same breath, "Do you know that Mary Morgan is
+here?" and, "I suppose it is uncharitable, but I can never forget that
+she used to cheat in her recitations at Mrs. Nunham's."
+
+We went home "for Christmas." My father sent the carriage for us. The
+roomy family coach he never allowed to get shabby. The "squabs," _i.e._
+padded inner curtains to exclude the cold in winter, were in, and there
+were thick shawls and a pillow apiece and two footstoves for our comfort
+in the thirty-mile drive, and upon the front seat, gorgeous in a new
+shawl of many and daring colors, her snowy turban wound about head and
+ears, was Mam' Chloe, the comfortablest thing there. Hamilcar, the
+carriage-driver, (we did not say "coachman") had on his Christmas suit,
+including a shaggy overcoat for which his master had given him an order
+upon a Richmond tailor, and was spruce exceedingly. To ensure our
+perfect safety and respectability we had an outrider in the shape of
+Mr. James Ireton, a young fellow-countryman, who was returning from a
+business trip to town.
+
+The boxes under the seats--an old-fashioned convenience, capable of
+containing a gentleman's entire wardrobe and half of a lady's--were
+brimful of Christmas gifts and "goodies," and parcels stuffed with the
+same wedged Mam' Chloe in the exact middle of the front seat. A big
+hair-trunk was strapped upon the rack behind, and a box packed by Cousin
+Molly Belle was between Hamilcar's feet.
+
+It began to snow before we had left the city a mile behind us, but that
+made things all the merrier. How we chuckled with laughter as the fast
+flakes stuck upon Mr. Ireton's hat and overcoat and leggings, until he
+looked like a polar bear but for his face that got redder as the rest of
+his body whitened, until, with his shining teeth and powdered hair, he
+made us think of Santa Claus. When we let down the carriage-window to
+tell him so, he drew a pipe from his pocket, got behind the carriage to
+screen it from the wind while he was lighting it, and rode up again
+alongside of us, puffing away at it to carry out the likeness.
+
+We set out at nine o'clock, and at one o'clock stopped at Flat Rock, a
+well-known house of entertainment, for an early dinner and a generous
+feed for the horses. The roads were heavy with winter mud, red and
+sticky. It looked like strawberry ice-cream as the wheels and hoofs
+churned it up with the snow. Mam' Chloe laughed until her fat sides
+quaked when I said that. How good she was to us that day! how good
+everybody was! and how good it was to be just what I was, and where I
+was--off on a royal spree in the splendidest snowstorm I had ever seen,
+and Home and Christmas at the end of the journey.
+
+Darkness fell by four o'clock, and, but for the whiteness of the earth,
+we would not have been able to see the trees on the side of the road
+when we came in sight of the house. Not a shutter had been closed, and
+every window was aglow with fire and lamplight, golden and pink through
+the snowy veil shifting and swaying between them and our happy eyes.
+
+When, for me, Life's little day--full, rich, and blessed, for all that
+storm and wreck and blight have, once and again, befallen me, as was
+God's will, and therefore, for my eternal good--when, for me, Life's
+little day darkens to its outgoing, may the lights of the Home that
+changes not, save from glory to glory, shine out for me through night
+and chill with such loving welcome as gleamed in those ruddy windows!
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE FAMOUS PEPPER BOOKS
+
+BY MARGARET SIDNEY
+
+IN ORDER OF PUBLICATION
+
+Five Little Peppers and How they Grew.~ Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50,
+postpaid.
+
+This was an instantaneous success; it has become a genuine child
+classic.
+
+~Five Little Peppers Midway.~ Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.
+
+"A perfect Cheeryble of a book."--_Boston Herald._
+
+~Five Little Peppers Grown Up.~ Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.
+
+This shows the Five Little Peppers as "grown up," with all the struggles
+and successes of young manhood and womanhood.
+
+~Phronsie Pepper.~ Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50, postpaid.
+
+It is the story of Phronsie, the youngest and dearest of all the
+Peppers.
+
+~The Stories Polly Pepper Told.~ Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Jessie
+McDermott and Etheldred B. Barry. $1.50, postpaid.
+
+Wherever there exists a child or a "grown-up," there will be a welcome
+for these charming and delightful "Stories Polly Pepper Told."
+
+~The Adventures of Joel Pepper.~ Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Sears
+Gallagher. $1.50, postpaid.
+
+As bright and just as certain to be a child's favorite as the others in
+the famous series. Harum-scarum "Joey" is lovable.
+
+~Five Little Peppers Abroad.~ Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Fanny Y. Cory.
+$1.50, postpaid.
+
+The "Peppers Abroad" adds another most delightful book to this famous
+series.
+
+~Five Little Peppers at School.~ Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated by Hermann
+Heyer. $1.50, postpaid.
+
+Of all the fascinating adventures and experiences of the "Peppers," none
+will surpass those contained in this volume.
+
+~Five Little Peppers and Their Friends.~ Illustrated by Eugenie M.
+Wireman. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50, postpaid.
+
+The newest of the stories of the children's favorites--the Pepper boys
+and girls.
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ethel In Fairyland
+
+By EDITH REBECCA BOLSTER
+
+Small 4to. Six illustrations by Hermann Heyer. Pictorial cover in color.
+Price, $1.00.
+
+"Ethel in Fairyland," by Edith R. Bolster, is a delightful little
+allegory. A child falls asleep and dreams that she has a number of
+adventures in a wood, where she meets various people personifying the
+moral qualities, like bad temper, unkindness, and envy, and learns a
+good lesson from them to tell her mother when she awakes the next
+morning. The book is written in a way to please both mothers and
+children.
+
+
+A Japanese Garland
+
+By FLORENCE PELTIER
+
+Small 4to. Four illustrations by Genjiro Yeto. Pictorial cover in color.
+Price, $1.00.
+
+"A Japanese Garland," by Florence Peltier, is one of the most charming
+books for young people published of late. It tells of a Japanese lad,
+adopted by an American, who has a number of American boys and girls as
+friends, to whom he tells a series of folk-lore tales associated with
+the flowers of Japan. The meetings to hear the stories occur at the
+different houses of the children, and there is always some sort of
+entertainment at the end of the narration, to furnish variety and life.
+By means of this story-frame much interesting information about Japanese
+customs and superstitions, also social life, is conveyed, while the
+picturesque stories hold the attention. The book is appropriately
+illustrated by G. Yeto, the noted Japanese artist.
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Partnership In Magic
+
+By CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS
+
+Author of "Just Rhymes," "The Four Masted Cat Boat," and "Yankee
+Enchantments." 12mo. Four illustrations. Price, $1.25.
+
+"A Partnership in Magic," by Charles B. Loomis, the widely known
+humorist, is an extremely original and clever juvenile, Mr. Loomis's
+first piece of long fiction. It has a fairy-tale motive in an entirely
+realistic setting. A country boy, who has a marvellous power of plucking
+fruit from the bare branches of any tree, goes to New York, and with a
+friend starts in the fruit business, and makes a large sum of money in a
+couple of weeks of their partnership. There is a cruel stepfather, and
+his adventures in New York in search of the boy, together with the many
+city scenes in connection with the hero's experiences, make it a highly
+amusing and graphic story. It is written in Mr. Loomis's peculiar vein
+of quiet, but effective fun.
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Defending The Bank
+
+By EDWARD S. VAN ZILE
+
+Author of "With Sword and Crucifix," etc. Four illustrations by I. B.
+Hazelton. 12 mo. Pictorial cover in color. Price, $1.25.
+
+"Defending the Bank," by Edward S. Van Zile, is a most amusing and
+interesting detective story for boys and girls, in which a couple of
+bright boys and girls appoint themselves amateur detectives and are able
+to run down a couple of bank robbers who are planning to rob the bank of
+which the father of one of the boys is president. This is at once an
+exciting and wholesome tale, of which the scene is laid in Troy, N. Y.,
+the former home of the author. It will be widely welcomed.
+
+
+The Mutineers
+
+By EUSTACE L. WILLIAMS
+
+Author of "The Substitute Quarterback." 12mo. Four illustrations by I.
+B. Hazelton. Pictorial cover in color. Price, $1.25.
+
+"The Mutineers" is a rattling boys' story by Mr. Eustace L. Williams of
+the Louisville _Courier-Journal_. It gives a picture of life in a large
+boarding-school, where a certain set of boys control the athletics, and
+shows how their unjust power was broken by the hero of the tale, who
+forms a rival baseball nine and manages to defeat his opponents, thus
+bringing a better state of things in the school socially and as to
+sports. The story is full of lively action, and deals with baseball and
+general athletic interests in a large school in a manner which shows
+that the author is thoroughly acquainted with and sympathetic to his
+subject.
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Little Citizen
+
+By M. E. WALLER
+
+~Illustrated by H. Burgess, 12mo, blue cloth, illustrated cover, $1.25~
+
+This is a right royal, good juvenile story. It has the narrative of the
+development of a waif of New York streets in the simple and wholesome
+life of a Vermont farmer neighborhood. The lad, Miffins, is taken into
+the household of Jacob Foss, a farmer. The story tells of the
+transformation wrought in Miffins's character. It is a story of heart
+power; and with its study of the evolution of a street gamin into a
+useful little citizen, and with its graphic descriptions of Vermont
+country life in summer and winter, it makes a book of unusual power and
+interest.
+
+Lothrop Publishing Company--Boston
+
+A Little Maid of Concord Town
+
+A Romance of the American Revolution
+
+~By MARGARET SIDNEY. One volume, 12mo, illustrated by F. T. Merrill,
+$1.50~
+
+A delightful Revolutionary romance of life, love and adventure in old
+Concord. The author lived for fifteen years in the home of Hawthorne, in
+Concord, and knows the interesting town thoroughly.
+
+Debby Parlin, the heroine, lived in a little house on the Lexington
+Road, still standing, and was surrounded by all the stir and excitement
+of the months of preparation and the days of action at the beginning of
+our struggle for freedom.
+
+
+By Way of the Wilderness
+
+~By "PANSY" (Mrs. G. R. Alden) and MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON. 12mo, cloth,
+illustrated by Charlotte Harding, $1.50~
+
+This story of Wayne Pierson and how he evaded or met the tests of
+misunderstanding, environment, false position, opportunity and
+self-pride; how he lost his father and found him again, almost lost his
+home and found it again, almost lost himself and found alike his
+manhood, his conscience and his heart is told us in Pansy's best vein,
+ably supplemented by Mrs. Livingston's collaboration.
+
+
+The Children On The Top Floor
+
+By NINA RHOADES
+
+Author of "Only Dollie," "Little Girl Next Door," "Winifred's Neighbors"
+
+Illustrated by Bertha G. Davidson Large 12mo Cloth 300 pages $1.00
+
+Little Winifred Hamilton, the child heroine of this book, lives in the
+second of the four stories of a New York apartment-house. On the top
+floor are two very interesting children--Betty, a little older than
+Winifred, who is ten, and Jack, a brave little cripple, who is a year
+younger. The widowed mother, proud and distant until won over by the
+kindness of good friends, shows unmistakably that something very
+different from poverty and loneliness has been familiar to her, which
+fact is also very evident from the character and breeding of her
+children. In the end comes a glad reunion, and good fortune for crippled
+Jack, and Winifred's kind little heart has indirectly caused great
+happiness to many others. This is the strongest story Miss Rhoades has
+yet given us, excellent as have been her others.
+
+
+ONLY DOLLIE
+
+By NINA RHOADES
+
+Author of "The Little Girl Next Door," "Winifred's Neighbors," "The
+Children On The Top Floor"
+
+New Cover Design Illustrated Square 12mo Cloth $1.00
+
+This is a brightly written story of a girl of twelve, who, when the
+mystery of her birth is solved, like Cinderella, passes from drudgery to
+better circumstances. There is nothing strained or unnatural at any
+point. All descriptions or portrayals of character are life-like, and
+the book has an indescribable appealing quality which wins sympathy and
+secures success.
+
+     "It is delightful reading at all times."--_Cedar Rapids (Ia.)
+     Republican._
+
+     "The author has written with admirable restraint, and has exhibited
+     in her character-drawing a keen observance of real
+     life."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+     "It is well written, the story runs smoothly, the idea is good, and
+     it is handled with ability."--_Chicago Journal._
+
+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
+the publishers._
+
+LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense--A Difficult Child
+
+By EDNA A. FOSTER
+
+Editor Children's Page "Youth's Companion"
+
+Illustrated by MARY AVER 12mo Cloth Price, $1.00
+
+"It is an interesting study of the development of an uncommon little
+girl. She is thoroughly natural, and the situations in which she is
+placed are seldom strained. She has no mother, and circumstances place
+her in the care of an older girl who also has no mother. How one child
+may be trained while another may be only taught, is made very clear. It
+is an attractive little story quite worth the reading."--_The
+Universalist Leader, Boston._
+
+"It is a book which girls from eight to eighteen will read with interest
+and which careful guardians and mothers will be glad to have them
+read."--_Times, Chattanooga, Tenn._
+
+"We would strongly advise all mothers of growing boys and girls to
+hasten to procure a copy of this delightful book for the home
+library--and, above all, to make a point of reading it carefully
+themselves before turning it over to the juveniles."--_Designer, New
+York, N. Y._
+
+"It is a truthful and discerning study of a gifted child, and should be
+read by all who have children under their care. It is probably the best
+new girl's book of the year."--_Springfield (Mass.) Republican._
+
+"The book is excellent, whether viewed as a story for the children, or
+as a suggestive study for those who have to do with the education of
+children."--_Zion's Herald, Boston._
+
+"The story may be commended as first-rate in construction, and with a
+happy style of teaching moral lessons."--_Chicago Journal._
+
+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
+the publishers._
+
+LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LITTLE BETTY BLEW
+
+Her Strange Experiences and Adventures in Indian Land
+
+BY ANNIE M. BARNES
+
+Illustrated by FRANK T. MERRILL 12mo Cloth with gold and colors 300
+pages Price $1.25
+
+One of the very best books with which to satisfy a young reader's
+natural desire for an "Indian story" is this one of little Betty Blew
+and what she saw and experienced when her family removed from
+Dorchester, Mass., two hundred years ago, to their home on the Ashley
+River above Charleston, South Carolina. Although Betty is but a small
+maid she is so wise and true that she charms all, and there are a number
+of characters who will interest boys as well as girls, and old as well
+as young.
+
+There are many Indians who figure most importantly in many exciting
+scenes, but the book, though a splendid "Indian story," is far more than
+that. It is an unusually entertaining tale of the making of a portion of
+our country, with plenty of information as well as incident to commend
+it, and the account of a delightful family life in the brave old times.
+It is good to notice that this story is to be the first of a colonial
+series, which will surely be a favorite with children and their parents.
+Mr. Merrill's illustrations are of unusual excellence, even for that
+gifted artist, and the binding is rich and beautiful.
+
+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers_
+
+LEE AND SHEPARD BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Winifred's Neighbors
+
+BY NINA RHOADES
+
+Author of "Only Dollie" and "The Little Girl Next Door" Illustrated by
+BERTHA G. DAVIDSON Large 12mo Cloth $1.00
+
+"The Little Girl Next Door" has been more persistently re-ordered than
+almost any other children's book of last season, and Miss Rhoades's new
+story deserves equal popularity. Little Winifred's efforts to find some
+children of whom she reads in a book lead to the acquaintance of a
+neighbor of the same name, and this acquaintance proves of the greatest
+importance to Winifred's own family. Through it all she is just such a
+little girl as other girls ought to know, and the story will hold the
+interest of all ages.
+
+
+The Little Girl Next Door
+
+BY NINA RHOADES
+
+Author of "Only Dollie" Illustrated by BERTHA G. DAVIDSON Large 12mo
+Cloth $1.00
+
+A delightful story of true and genuine friendship between an impulsive
+little girl in a fine New York home and a little blind girl in an
+apartment next door. The little girl's determination to cultivate the
+acquaintance, begun out of the window during a rainy day, triumphs over
+the barriers of caste, and the little blind girl proves to be in every
+way a worthy companion. Later a mystery of birth is cleared up, and the
+little blind girl proves to be of gentle birth as well as of gentle
+manners.
+
+
+Only Dollie
+
+BY NINA RHOADES
+
+Square 12mo Cloth Illustrated by BERTHA DAVIDSON $1.00
+
+This is a brightly written story of a girl of twelve, who when the
+mystery of her birth is solved, like Cinderella, passes from drudgery to
+better circumstances. There is nothing strained or unnatural at any
+point. All descriptions or portrayals of character are life-like, and
+the book has an indescribable appealing quality which wins sympathy and
+secures success.
+
+LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's When Grandmamma Was New, by Marion Harland
+
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