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Title: On the mountain
or, Lost and found
Author: Lucy Ellen Guernsey
Release date: August 29, 2025 [eBook #76760]
Language: English
Original publication: Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1872
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE MOUNTAIN ***
Transcriber's notes: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
[Illustration: _On the Mountain.—Frontispiece._
"I am going to have more than that, now I am about it," said Sarah.]
ON THE MOUNTAIN;
OR,
LOST AND FOUND.
BY
LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY
AUTHOR OF "IRISH AMY," "OPPOSITE NEIGHBOURS," "COMFORT ALLISON,"
"THE TATTLER," "NELLY; OR, THE BEST INHERITANCE,"
"TWIN ROSES," "ETHEL'S TRIAL," "THE FAIRCHILDS,"
"THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL EXHIBITION," "THE RED PLANT,"
"PERCY'S HOLIDAYS," ETC.
——————————
PHILADELPHIA:
AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION
NO. 1122 CHESTNUT STREET.
——————————
NEW YORK: NO. 8 AND 10 BIBLE HOUSE, ASTOR PLACE.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by the
AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
————————————————— ————————————————
WESCOTT & THOMSON HENRY B. ASHMEAD
Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada. Printer, Philada.
CONTENTS.
——————
CHAPTER I.
FANNY
CHAPTER II.
SARAH
CHAPTER III.
CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER IV.
THE STUMBLING BLOCK
CHAPTER V.
DANGER
CHAPTER VI.
AT MEETING
CHAPTER VII.
THE OFFENCE GIVEN
CHAPTER VIII.
SARAH'S PLANS
CHAPTER IX.
THE LOST CHILD
CHAPTER X.
ON THE MOUNTAIN
CHAPTER XI.
THE SEARCH
CHAPTER XII.
REPENTANCE
ON THE MOUNTAIN.
——————
CHAPTER I.
_FANNY._
"GRANDMA, who was that old lady you were talking with, in the porch
after church?"
"I don't know," replied Mrs. Lilly, rather absently, for she was
thinking of the sermon she had heard, and had to come a long way back,
as it were, to answer Fanny's question. "It was old Mrs. Merrill, I
suppose. Oney, we must send her down something this week—some flour and
butter and a good piece of pork or a chicken."
"I don't mean 'her'," said Fanny, in a tone of great contempt. "As if
I cared for that old beggar woman with her poke bonnet as old as the
hills!"
"If you don't care for her, you might," said Mrs. Lilly, in a tone of
some displeasure. "Mrs. Merrill never begged in her life, and she is
a good Christian woman, though she is old and poor. I desire that you
will never let me hear you speak in that way of any old person again."
Fanny flounced in her seat and stuck out her lips, but she was too
desirous of having her questions answered to sulk as she sometimes did.
"But I don't mean Mrs. Merrill, grandmother: I know her very well. I
mean that old lady with white hair put up in rolls at the sides and a
large thin black shawl."
"Oh! That was Mrs. Cassell."
"What! Mrs. Cassell, who lives up in the great house on the hill? Well,
I never should have guessed that."
"Why not?" asked Mrs. Lilly.
"Oh, because she was dressed so plainly and she seemed so familiar with
everybody. I thought Mrs. Cassell was very rich and aristocratic and
all that."
"She 'is' very rich—richer than anybody about here, but I don't know
about the aristocracy. She is a very good, kind, charitable woman, and
everybody likes and respects her."
"Then I suppose the lady and gentleman with her were Mr. and Mrs. Hugh
Brandon?" continued Fanny, paying little attention to her grandmother's
remarks. "I don't think he looks so very different from other people,
if he has written books."
"How did you expect him to look?" asked Oney, laughing. "Did you expect
to see him with wings?"
"They say he is very dissipated," continued Fanny. "They say he drank
and gambled so and treated his wife so badly that his mother sent for
her home. But she would not come without her husband, so the old lady
had to take them both, and now he doesn't do anything but lie about and
smoke and chew opium all day long."
"What nonsense!" said Mrs. Lilly, in a tone of great displeasure.
"Mr. Brandon is, and always has been, a very studious, industrious,
religious young man. I have known him all his life. Who has been
telling you such a heap of slanders?"
"I guess I know," said Oney, as Fanny did not answer. "That sounds a
good deal like one of Mrs. Leyman's stories. I guess Sarah told you."
"Well, I don't care if she did. Mrs. Leyman heard it from Miss Clark,
who does Mrs. Brandon's washing sometimes, and Mrs. Cassell's too; so I
guess she knows all about them."
"A good reason for telling stories about them, because she works
for them!" said Oney. "Miss Clark had better look at home. Her own
character is none too good, for that matter."
"Let me never hear another such word from you, Fanny," said Mrs. Lilly.
"I have forbidden you playing with Sarah Leyman before now, and I tell
you again not to have anything to do with her. If I find you disobeying
me again, I shall punish you."
Fanny looked very angry, but she had learned by this time that her
grandmother was not a person to be trifled with, so she relapsed into a
sulky silence, and did not open her lips again till they reached home.
Then she went up stairs and shut herself into her own room. And when
she was called to dinner, she answered that she did not want any. If
Fanny had been at home, her mother would have been very much distressed
by her refusal to eat. She would have come up stairs and tried to coax
her by promising all sorts of good things. And when Fanny had made
fuss enough, she would have given up and eaten her dinner with a good
appetite. No such thing happened on this occasion.
"You had better come down and get your dinner, I guess," said Oney.
"You will be hungry before tea-time."
"I won't," returned Fanny, without turning round from the window. "I
wish you would go away and shut the door."
Oney did as she was desired. And no sooner had she gone down stairs
than Fanny stole to the head of them to listen.
"She says she doesn't want any dinner," she heard Oney say.
"Oh, very well, we will have ours," answered Mrs. Lilly. "You made a
chicken pie, didn't you?"
"Yes, and some raspberry pies and gingerbread. Hadn't I better carry
Fanny something?"
"No," replied her grandmother, decidedly; "let her come down if she
wants her dinner. However, I will give her another call." And she
opened the door so quickly that Fanny had no time to get away.
"You had better come down to your dinner, Fanny," said she. "You know
we shall have tea quite late on account of going to the five-o'clock
meeting."
"I don't want any dinner," said Fanny, sulkily.
"Are you sick?"
"No, but I don't want any dinner," replied Fanny, thinking that her
grandmother was going to give way and coax her, as her mother would
have done.
"Very well," said Mrs. Lilly. And she shut the door without another
word.
Fanny could hear the rattle of the knives and forks, and the
conversation between her grandmother and Oney about the sermon and
the Sunday-schools. It was clear that they were not going to send her
anything, and that nobody would suffer from her perversity but herself.
But still she could not make up her mind to sacrifice her pride and
come down stairs. She was very hungry, and very fond both of chicken
and raspberry pie, but nobody came to bring her any.
She thought she would try another line of conduct, and she burst out
crying and cried as loud as she could. She cried till she was tired,
but nobody came near her. For the truth was Mrs. Lilly had grown weary
of Fanny's airs, and had made up her mind that the girl must, as she
said, be broken in.
Finding that crying did no more good than sulking, Fanny presently
stopped. For as she had cried only to get her own way, she could stop
whenever she pleased. She went to the head of the stairs and listened.
She could hear Oney wiping up the dishes and singing—
"Awake, my soul, to joyful lays!"
And she could hear the gentle "creak, creak," of her grandmother's
rocking-chair, in which the old lady was apt to take a nap after
dinner. Everything else was quiet about the house, and out of doors
too, for that matter, except the chirping of the birds, the soft
sighing of the wind, saying "hush, hush," in the two great pine trees
behind the house, and now and then a low or bleat from the pastures.
She looked out of the window.
"Oh dear, how lonesome it is here!" she said to herself. "If I ever get
back to the city again, I shall know when I am well off. There! It is
only two o'clock," as the distant sound of the church clock came from
the village. "Only two o'clock, and we shall not have tea till seven,
I know. We never do on Sunday nights, because grandma and Oney always
go to that stupid meeting at the schoolhouse. Oh dear, how hungry I am!
I shall starve if I don't have something before tea-time. I mean to go
down and ask grandma for something to eat. No, I believe I will ask
Oney first."
Fanny went down to the kitchen, where she found everything in order and
Oney sitting by the shady window reading her Bible. Oney hardly ever
read any book but her Bible on Sunday, because she said she did not
have time to read all she wanted of it any other day.
"Oney, I want something to eat," said Fanny, decidedly. "Get me some
raspberry pie and gingerbread and a drink of milk directly."
"That isn't the way to ask for it," said Oney, quietly. "Besides, if
you want anything to eat, you must ask your grandma."
"Nonsense!" answered Fanny, loftily. "Get me something to eat this
minute, Oney, or you will be sorry."
"Maybe so," said Oney. But she did not stir.
Seeing that commanding did no good, Fanny tried coaxing.
"Come, Oney, do give me something to eat, and I will give you a real
nice present."
"You must ask your grandma, Fanny," was Oney's only reply.
"What is the matter?" asked Mrs. Lilly, coming into the kitchen. "What
are you crying for now, Fanny?" For Fanny was crying again louder than
ever.
"I want my dinner!" said Fanny, passionately. "I didn't come here to be
starved, and I won't stand it. Give me my dinner, I say!"
"You will not get it in that way," said Mrs. Lilly.
Fanny screamed louder than ever.
"Fanny, stop this minute!" said Mrs. Lilly, taking hold of Fanny's arm
in a way quite new to her. "Are you not ashamed of yourself?—A great
girl, fourteen years old! Do you think I am going to have my Sunday
broken up and the whole house disturbed for you? Stop this minute!"
Fanny obeyed, for she was frightened.
"Now, say 'Please, Oney, get me something to eat.'"
"Please get me something to eat," repeated Fanny, meekly.
"Get her a bowl of bread and milk, Oney," said Mrs. Lilly.
"I don't want bread and milk; I want some pie," sobbed Fanny.
"You cannot have any pie, and if you say any more, you will not have
any bread and milk," said her grandmother. "When you have eaten it,
go back to your room, and let me hear no more noise. You have made
yourself ridiculous enough for one day."
Fanny ate her bread and milk and went back to her room, feeling very
crest-fallen indeed. Never in all her short life had she suffered such
a "taking down." She had been for twelve years the only child at home.
Her father was away at his business from morning till night, and her
mother never restrained Fanny in the least.
Mrs. Lilly, the younger, had some new-fashioned theories on the
bringing up of children. She thought they should never be punished,
for fear of making them slaves, nor restrained from saying all they
pleased, lest they should become sly, nor checked in eating, drinking,
or play, for fear they should think too much of these things, nor
taught anything they did not wish to learn, lest their brains should be
overtaxed, or they should take a dislike to learning. She had practiced
all these theories on Fanny, and had not found much trouble so long as
the child stayed in the nursery.
But when Fanny was twelve years old, she had a little brother born, and
by and by a little sister, so that she found herself a person of much
less consequence than she had ever been before. The faults which had
seemed to her mother of little or no consequence when she was alone
were now found very inconvenient and disagreeable. It was not at all
pleasant to have Fanny saying before company whatever came into her
head, and interrupting and contradicting her elders without scruple, or
screaming and throwing herself down on the ground in the public street
so that the policeman came to see what the matter was, or running away
from school to play about the street and spend in sweet things the
money she had taken from her mother's purse. In short, Fanny was found
to be a very naughty, troublesome little girl. And when her mother's
health failed and it was decided that she must travel in Europe, the
nurse told the doctor that there would be no use in Mrs. Lilly's going
abroad unless Fanny stayed at home.
"She will keep her mother in a constant worry about her from morning
till night, and she will be in mischief from the time she goes away
till the time she comes home again. I would not have the charge of her
on shipboard for a thousand dollars, and if she is going, I am not. She
is more trouble than the babies ten times over."
"I believe you are right," said the doctor, who knew Fanny well. "But
what can be done with the child?"
"If her grandmother could take her, it would be the very best thing
that would happen to Fanny," said the nurse. "Mrs. Lilly is an
excellent, sensible woman. She would be kind to Fanny, and bring her
into order if anybody can. I don't blame the child so much as I do some
other folks, but she is just as hard to manage as if it were all her
own fault."
"I will talk to Mr. Lilly about the matter," said the doctor. "I think
you are right, nurse. It will never do for Fanny to go with her mother.
And if the old lady is willing, she is just the person to take charge
of the child."
There was a terrible scene with Fanny when she found that she was to go
to her grandmother's in the country instead of going abroad with her
father and mother. But her father was firm, and for once her mother did
not interfere. There was no help for it. Go she must, and she comforted
herself by thinking that at least she should do as she pleased at her
grandmother's, and be a very great lady indeed.
But here, too, she found herself disappointed. Mrs. Lilly was very kind
to Fanny and very forbearing with her, remembering how much she had
been indulged at home. But she very soon saw that it would be necessary
to assert her own authority and make Fanny submit. She was sorry that
the contest should come on a Sunday, but there seemed no help for it.
And she hoped that Fanny would herself see the folly as well as the
naughtiness of her conduct, and try to do better.
Mrs. Lilly was quite an old lady. She lived by herself in the old red
farm-house which stood in the very middle of her large farm, with no
company but Oney, the Indian woman whom she had brought up from a
baby, and a little boy whom she had taken from the poorhouse. The man
who helped manage her farm and took a part of it on shares lived in a
little house down on the roadside just by the gate of the lane that
led to the farm-house. Mrs. Lilly's house was a long, low, red wooden
building, and from the door one could see for a long distance, for the
farm lay high up on the side of the mountain. The house was very plain
and not specially convenient, but it was cool in summer and warm in
winter. It had abundance of closets and store-rooms, and from all the
windows up stairs and down there was something pleasant to be seen.
When the slate quarry was discovered and leased for so much money, many
people thought that Mrs. Lilly would build a new house or come down and
live in the village, but the old lady did neither. When her friends
asked her about it, she said the old house would last her time; that
she had come thither as a bride more than fifty years before and had
lived there ever since, and that no other place would seem like home to
her. When people talked to her son, he said he should like very much to
have his mother live with him (which was quite true), but the old lady
had her own fancies, and he thought it best to let her have her own
way, which was a very good thing, as she would undoubtedly have had it
at any rate. Both Mr. and Mrs. Lilly were very loving and dutiful to
their mother, and wrote to her every week. Her son sent her plenty of
books and papers, and fine tea and coffee such as he knew she liked,
and her daughter made her pretty caps and shawls, and sent her rare
green-house plants, and everybody was contented all round.
But Fanny was not satisfied at all in her new home. In the first place,
she was really lonely. She missed her school and the bustle of the
streets, and she was rather afraid of the solitude and of the great
dark mountain which rose so close and steep behind the house. Then,
so far from being considered a young lady, she was treated only as a
little girl, and made to behave better than she had ever done in her
life.
Then, too, her grandmother was surprised and distressed at the child's
ignorance. For Fanny, though she had been to a very expensive and
fashionable school, was not as far advanced at fourteen as she ought
to have been at nine. She could not say the multiplication table, and
knew next to nothing of English grammar, though she had begun French
and Latin. And when her grandmother told her that the world was round,
and showed her by means of a ball of yarn and a knitting needle how it
turned on its axis, Fanny was perfectly astonished and could hardly
believe it.
"Didn't you learn that in school, Fanny?" asked Oney.
"There was something about it in the geography book," said Fanny, "but
I never understood it. I thought the world was shaped just like the
map."
Still, Fanny was not unhappy. She liked the fresh air and the green
fields, she was very kindly treated, and she found even a certain
pleasure in being governed. She might have had a very nice time, if she
would have been a good girl and minded her grandmother. But this was
just what she could not make up her mind to do.
CHAPTER II.
_SARAH._
FANNY went back to her room feeling very much vexed and a good deal
ashamed. She did not at all like to be conquered, and she had certainly
had very much the worst of it in her contest with her grandmother. She
had not only failed in getting her own way, but she had made herself
ridiculous. Then, too, she had lost a very good dinner, a circumstance
to which she was by no means indifferent.
"How I wish I had just gone down at first!" she thought. "But then who
would have supposed she would take one up so? Oh dear, I wish I had
never come here. It is all the fault of that hateful old nurse and
doctor. I know mamma would have taken me only for them, and I should
be having a nice time in London this very day, instead of being poked
up in this lonesome place with nobody to play with but Sarah Leyman.
And now grandma says I must not go with her. But I don't care, I 'will'
play with her. Mamma always let me play with anybody I pleased, and I
guess she knows. I am not going to be made a slave of just because my
mother is sick—so there!"
"Fanny," called Mrs. Lilly from the foot of the stairs, "do you want to
go to the meeting to-night?"
Now Fanny liked very well to go to the meetings in the schoolhouse,
though she had called them stupid. The walk was a very pleasant one
through the woods and along the banks of the beautiful little river.
They were sure to see squirrels and chipmucks and perhaps a wild
rabbit, and the lambs in the pastures were so full of their pretty
plays that Fanny was never tired watching them. Then the old ladies
who came to the meeting took a great deal of notice of her, so that
though she did not care for the services, she rather liked to go to the
Sunday and Thursday meetings. But to-night she was just in the humour
to "quarrel with her bread and butter," as Oney said. So when her
grandmother asked her, she answered shortly that she did not want to go.
"You will be left alone in the house," said her grandmother.
"I would just as soon be alone as not," returned Fanny.
"To be sure, there is nothing to hurt you," said her grandmother, "but
I thought you might be afraid. However, you can do just as you please."
"I mean to do as I please, thank you," said Fanny, under her breath.
Mrs. Lilly, seeing that Fanny was still out of humour, said no more,
but shut the door, and presently went out with Oney. Fanny watched them
across the fields. And when they were quite out of sight, she went down
stairs into the pantry.
"I don't care; I mean to have some of that raspberry pie, anyhow," said
she.
But in vain did she search; she could find neither pie nor cake.
Mrs. Lilly was not in the habit of locking up such things, but she had
reason to think that Fanny helped herself slyly to a good deal more
than was good for her, and she had taken the precaution before she went
out to lock the door of the milkroom.
Fanny stamped her foot with vexation.
"Just like her, the stingy old thing! I don't care; I will have some in
spite of her."
"Some of what?" asked a voice behind her.
Fanny started violently, and turned round in a hurry to see Sarah
Leyman standing in the kitchen door.
"How you frightened me!" exclaimed Fanny, in an angry tone.
"Yes, you jumped as if you had been shot," returned Sarah, laughing.
"I saw your folks going to meeting, and I knew you would be alone. But
what is the matter? What have you been crying about?"
Fanny poured out the story of her wrongs with many exaggerations.
"What a shame!" said Sarah. "Folks think Mrs. Lilly is such a good
woman, too!"
"Well, I suppose she is," said Fanny, "but I think she is too bad to
treat me so. I know there are plenty of nice things in the milkroom,
but the door is locked and I can't find the key anywhere."
"Isn't there any other key that will fit the door?" asked Sarah.
Fanny brought all the keys of the house, but none of them fitted.
"Can't we climb in at the window?" asked Sarah. "'I' can, I know."
"You can't, bemuse there are bars across it."
"Bother!" Sarah stood considering for a minute, and then, as if struck
with a sudden thought, she ran out at the kitchen door.
Fanny followed her, and found her standing at the side of the milkroom.
This room was a "lean-to" built on the north side of the house, and two
or three of the clapboards were so arranged as to turn edgewise like
window-blinds to let the cool air in on the milk. Sarah was peeping
through these boards.
"Just look there!" said she as Fanny came up.
Fanny peeped in, in her turn, and saw a whole raspberry pie standing on
the broad shelf.
While she was looking, Sarah slipped off the jacket she wore, and
thrusting her bare arm through the slats, she pulled out the pie and
held it up in triumph.
"Well, I declare!" said Fanny, half pleased and half scared.
"I am going to have more than that, now I am about it," said Sarah.
And again putting her hand through the slats, she pulled out a large
cake of gingerbread. As she drew back her hand, however, she hit the
gingerbread against the edge of the slat and broke off a bit, which
fell into the milk.
"That was smart!" exclaimed Fanny. "What will you do now?"
"Let it alone, to be sure," replied Sarah. "But grandma will find it
when she skims the milk."
"Well, let her. She won't know how it came there, will she? Here, hold
the things while I put on my jacket."
Fanny did not quite relish Sarah's tone of command, but she did not
know how to object, and she did as she was told.
"Come now!" said Sarah, when she had put on her jacket and closed up
the slats again. "Let's go up to the spring and have a good time."
"But suppose grandma comes and catches us before we get through; what
shall we do then?" asked Fanny.
"She won't come home this hour and more, goosey. Meeting is not out
till six, and it is only five now. Besides, she always stops to talk to
every one. Come along!"
"I wish you would not call me names, Sarah Leyman," said Fanny,
angrily. "I am not used to it."
"Nonsense, child! Who minds being called a goose? Come along, and don't
waste all the time."
"I won't go up to the spring; it is too far," said Fanny. "You can go
if you like, and I will eat my piece here."
"'Your' piece!" returned Sarah, in a taunting tone. "Your piece,
indeed! I should like to know how it comes to be yours. Do you think I
am going to steal pies and cakes for 'you'?"
"Sarah Leyman, if you don't give me a piece of pie this minute, I will
tell grandma the instant she comes home."
"Oh, you will? And tell her too how you told me where all the things
were, and how you got all the keys to try the door, and how you ran
away and went down to the village the other day, and then said you had
been playing down by the brook all the time. Oh," said Sarah, "you will
make a fine figure telling of me. Suppose I tell of you; what then?"
Fanny burst into tears.
"Oh, come, don't cry," said Sarah, changing her tone. "I was only in
fun—only you see, Fanny, I don't like to hear you talk of telling of
me as if I had been the only one to blame. Come, let us go up to the
spring and have a nice time, and I will tell you what I heard Miss
Clarke tell mother about the Brandons."
Fanny did not feel at all satisfied, but she dried her tears and
followed Sarah through the garden and a small field beyond it, and then
a little way up the path which ascended the mountain, till they came to
the spring.
It was a beautiful place. Just at the foot of a high, steep ledge of
rocks was a little mossy dell shaded by great pine and spruce trees,
mixed with graceful white-stemmed birches. The ground was covered with
moss and ferns, and scattered over its surface lay several large rocks
covered with lovely green and brown mosses. The spring came running out
of the very heart of the mountain, as it seemed, about four feet from
the ground, in a stream as large as a man's wrist. And making a pretty
little cascade as it fell down the stones, it slipped away among the
roots of the great trees to join the river below. Almost all day long
this little glen was in shadow, but as the sun got low in the sky, it
shone in and lighted everything beautifully.
The girls sat down on a stone side by side, and Sarah divided the pie
with a knife which she took out of her pocket.
"Take care! Don't drop the juice on your dress," said she. "Here, wait
till I make you a dish."
"How will you make a dish?" asked Fanny.
"You'll see," said Sarah.
And going to the nearest birch tree, she cut round the bark and peeled
it off in a broad sheet. Then turning up the edges, she made of it a
very nice square dish and handed it to Fanny.
"How pretty!" exclaimed Fanny. "But won't it hurt the tree to take the
bark off so?"
"Oh no; it won't hurt the tree so long as you don't cut down through
the soft wood," replied Sarah. "I have heard Aunt Sally say that when
the country was new the school children used to learn to write on birch
bark."
"How funny! Won't any other bark do as well?"
"No; other trees won't peel as the birch does."
"How much you do know about such things!" remarked Fanny.
"Well, I ought to know. I don't know anything else." There was a
bitterness in Sarah's tone which made Fanny look up in surprise.
"It does make me mad," continued Sarah, "to see how other girls can go
to school and have books at home, and all—such fools as some of them
are too—and I never have a chance. It is too bad!"
"But you might go to school," said Fanny.
"Yes, I look like it, don't I?" returned Sarah, scornfully. "My clothes
are so nice! I think I see myself going down to the Union school among
all the young ladies, and being put into the baby-room to spell along
with the little ones. I did use to go sometimes when we had the old
district school up at the Corners, but it is altogether another thing
now."
Fanny did not know what to say to this, so she was silent, and went on
eating her pie.
"I tell you what," said Sarah: "if I had your chance, Fanny Lilly, I
wouldn't be such a dunce as you are."
"What do you mean?" asked Fanny, surprised.
"I mean just what I say. Here you have been to school all your life and
had good people to bring you up, and you have had, I dare say, hundreds
of dollars spent on your schooling already, and what do you amount to?
I don't see that you know much more than I do, and you are just as
ready to get into any sort of mischief as I am. I suppose your folks
are pious and believe in the Bible, and you have been to Sunday-school
all your life and learned the commandments, and everything, haven't
you?"
"Of course," replied Fanny; "I began to go to the infant school before
I can remember, and I could say all the catechism before I went into
the intermediate room. We have such splendid Sunday-school rooms at our
church in Boston—larger than the church is here, with a gallery all
round it for the Bible classes, and the walls all hung with pictures,
and with painted texts and with cushioned seats that turn like those in
the cars." And Fanny went on describing the beauties and glories of her
Sunday-school room, and, I am sorry to say, stretching the truth a good
deal in order to show Sarah how much superior was everything in Boston
to everything anywhere else.
Sarah listened silently, but with evident interest. And when Fanny had
concluded, she said, simply,—
"And after all that, you are not one bit better than I am."
Fanny was very much "taken aback." She had not expected any such answer.
"It just shows what all that stuff is worth," continued Sarah, breaking
the gingerbread in two and giving Fanny half. "After all that teaching
and preaching and reading the Bible and praying, here you are 'breaking
the Sabbath,' as old Mrs. Crane says, running away to eat stolen goods
on Sunday evening when your grandmother is at meeting. It just shows
that you don't believe one word of it, any more than pa does, for all
your talk. I wonder if anybody does?"
"Does what?" asked Fanny.
"Believe really in the Bible and all the minister preaches."
"Of course," said Fanny. "My father and mother do, and so do I."
"Oh, you do! Then, what are you here for?"
Fanny had no answer ready. She had never regarded the matter in that
way before.
"Well, never mind," said Sarah. "Here we are, and the pie is eaten up,
and there is no help for it now. I wonder how they are getting on at
the schoolhouse? I think I can hear Deacon Crane starting the tune this
minute."
And Sarah began to imitate first the deacon's way of singing, and then
stammering Mr. Wilson trying to make a prayer, and so on, till she had
Fanny in a fit of laughter, though something told her all the time that
Sarah was doing wrong, and that she was equally wrong to laugh at her.
"It is getting late, Fanny," said Sarah, checking herself suddenly.
"Hadn't you better be going home? Your folks will be back from meeting
by this time. Look at the sun."
Fanny looked, and was startled to see how low it was in the sky. "They
must have been home ever so long," said she. "What shall we do?"
"Oh, you needn't say 'we,'" returned Sarah, coolly. "It is nothing to
me. I've had my supper, and I mean to stay up here till the moon rises,
but I think you had better run along."
"But grandma will see me," said Fanny. "She will have missed me by this
time, and what shall I say?"
"Say you got tired of staying alone and went out for a walk, and that
you didn't know how late it was," returned Sarah, readily. "She won't
think anything of that. I have known her walk up here herself on a
Sunday evening."
"But what shall we do with the plate?"
"Hide it here," returned Sarah, putting the plate away in a kind of
little cavern under the rock on which they had been sitting. "There it
is safe enough, and we can have it to use again some time."
"But what shall I say when they miss the pie?"
"What you please," returned Sarah. "I guess you are as well able to
make up lies as I am to make them for you. Oh, you needn't look at me!
Didn't you tell me how you ran away from school at Boston, and all
the rest of it? Come, do run along! You won't make it any better by
waiting."
There was no help for it, and Fanny went on her way, wishing a hundred
times that she had stayed quietly at home. As she entered the garden,
she met Oney coming to look for her.
"Why, Fanny, where have you been?" asked Oney.
"I got tired of staying at home and went out for a walk," replied
Fanny. "I didn't know it was so late. How long have you been at home?"
"About half an hour. But come, supper is almost ready."
Mrs. Lilly was standing at the back door when they came in.
Fanny repeated her story, adding, "I am sorry I stayed so long,
grandma. I never thought how late it was till I looked at the sun, and
then I hurried home as fast as I could. There was no harm in my going
far a walk, was there?"
Fanny spoke in such a natural tone that Mrs. Lilly was quite deceived.
"Why, no, perhaps not, though you should not have left the house all
open. And besides, you know I like to know where you are. There is no
harm done, but I would rather you would not do so again."
"I won't," said Fanny, feeling a little self-reproach at the kind tone
in which her grandmother spoke. "And, grandma, I am sorry I was so
naughty this noon, but I will never do so again if you will forgive me
this time."
Mrs. Lilly was pleased that Fanny should thus confess her fault and ask
pardon of her own accord.
"I am sure I forgive you, my dear," said she, kissing Fanny. "I thought
you would think better of it. Go, now, and get ready for supper."
"Oh dear! I wish I hadn't done so!" said Fanny as she went up stairs.
"I wish I was good like grandma. I believe she is good, for all Sarah
says. Anyhow, it was all Sarah's fault. She made me do it."
CHAPTER III.
_CONSEQUENCES._
FANNY had only just come down stairs after washing her hands when Oney
came out of the milkroom with a very disturbed face.
"Did you see anybody about before you went away, Fanny?" she asked.
"No. Why?"
"Because somebody has been here, and some not very honest body,
either," answered Oney. "The pie I set on the milk-shelf is gone, plate
and all, and a card of gingerbread beside."
"That is queer," said Mrs. Lilly; "nobody could get into the milkroom,
because I had the key in my pocket all the time. I think you must be
mistaken, Oney. How many pies did you bake?"
"Only two; one we had for dinner and the other I set on the milk-shelf
before I went out."
"But nobody could have taken it, Oney, because the door was locked and
no one could get in without the key," argued Mrs. Lilly. "Are you sure
you baked two pies?"
"Now, Mrs. Lilly, don't you think I know?" asked Oney, who did not
quite like being called in question. "Didn't you say yourself that the
pie on the grate was rather overdone, and that I had better heat the
brick oven next time?"
"Very true; so I did," replied Mrs. Lilly. "Let me take a look."
She went into the milkroom, and Oney and Fanny followed her, Fanny
thinking it would look odd if she stayed behind.
"The pie stood just here," said Oney, marking the place, "and the
gingerbread here. I meant to set them up in the cupboard, but I forgot
it. And it is so odd that nothing else is gone. The loaf of cake is not
touched nor any of the cheeses."
"The pie and gingerbread were taken from the outside," said Mrs. Lilly,
who had been using her eyes while Oney was talking. "Don't you see the
crumbs here on the shelf, and the juice of the pie spilled on the edge
of the slat? Somebody has turned the slats and put his hand through,
and that accounts for nothing else being taken. See, here is a piece of
gingerbread in the milk."
"How sorry I am I went away!" said Fanny, speaking quite naturally,
for, I regret to say, she was no novice in the art of telling lies.
"Why, yes, it is a pity, though I don't know exactly what good you
would have done," said Mrs. Lilly.
"Probably if the thief had seen anybody about, he would not have
touched the things," said Oney. "The wonder is that, seeing the doors
all open, he did not enter the house."
"Perhaps that was the very thing that kept him out," remarked Fanny.
"He might think that nobody would leave the house in that way. But,
grandma, I am sure I shut the door, and I will tell you how I know:
because I came back and opened it again to let the cat go in to her
kittens."
"I noticed the open door the minute we came in sight of the house,"
said Oney. "Who could it have been? Do you suppose Willy could have
meddled with them?"
"Dear me, no! I hope not," said Mrs. Lilly, looking startled. "Willy
has been such a good boy lately, I should be sorry to think of his
going back to his old tricks."
"Besides, he has been away all day," remarked Fanny.
"He was down at the barn when we came home, for I heard him singing,"
said Oney. "Here he comes now. Willy, have you been here before to-day?"
Oney tried to speak just as usual, but of course she did not quite
succeed.
Willy was conscious of something peculiar in her manner, and blushed up
to the roots of his hair. "Yes, I came up to get the milk-pails, but
the door was locked," said he. "Why?"
"Some things have been taken from the milkroom—a pie and some
gingerbread," said Mrs. Lilly, adding, kindly, "but you need not look
so distressed. Nobody suspects you."
But Oney was not quite satisfied. The truth was that she had begun with
a little prejudice against Willy because Mrs. Lilly had taken him from
the poorhouse, and besides that, on his first coming to live at the
farm, Willy had now and then been caught helping himself to sugar and
cake, and such matters.
"How long have you been back from the village, Willy?" she asked.
"I don't know; I should think about an hour," replied Willy.
"And what have you been doing all that time?"
"I drove up the cows, and then I came to get the pails, but the door
was locked. So I went down to the barn and did up my other chores."
"Then you didn't come into the house at all, except to get the pails?"
"Why, yes, I went up to my room to change my clothes and put away my
books."
"And you didn't see anybody about?"
"No, of course not. I didn't go round any, only right up stairs and
down again," said Willy, colouring more deeply than before. "Yes, I
know what you think, Oney. You think I got the things, but you are
mistaken; I never touched them. Come now, Oney," he added, in a quieter
tone and smiling; "it isn't fair to put everything on me because my
father wasn't very respectable. You wouldn't like to have me accuse you
of killing Deacon Crane's sheep because your father and grandfather
used to take scalps, would you?"
Oney laughed: "That's so, Willy; I don't believe you had anything to do
with the theft. But the question is, who had?"
"Well, we won't talk about it any more, or let it spoil our Sunday,"
said Mrs. Lilly. "Come, Oney, let us have our supper, for I am sure
we are all ready for it, especially the children. Wash your hands and
face, Willy, and we will sit down."
When Fanny had first come to the farm, her dignity had been very much
hurt by thus sitting down with Oney and Willy at the same table. She
had spoken to her grandmother about it, but Mrs. Lilly only smiled, and
said it had always been her habit ever since she kept house, and she
thought Fanny would have to get used to it.
"But I am not used to it," said Fanny, loftily, "and I don't think my
father would like it at all. He is one of the richest men in Boston,
and my mother belongs to one of the very first families."
"Don't be a goose, child. Your father and Oney were brought up
together, and as for your mother, she knew all my ways before she sent
you here. And when she comes to visit me, she always conforms to them,
whereby she shows her real good breeding. What is good enough for her
is good enough for you."
That was all the satisfaction Fanny could get from her grandmother. She
consoled herself with thinking that, after all, Oney was not a common
servant, and that none of her fine friends need know anything about the
matter.
After tea was over, Mrs. Lilly sat down in the door to enjoy the
beautiful summer evening. Fanny sat on the step at her feet, and by and
by Willy came and joined them.
"How do you like your new teacher, Willy?" asked Mrs. Lilly.
"Oh, ever so much," replied Willy, warmly. "Only think! He has been
to Jerusalem and to the Sea of Galilee—to the very places. He told us
to-day how he and a Scotch gentleman hired a boat and went out fishing
at night just like the apostles—to see how it would seem, you know. And
he described the places to us, and said he would show us some pictures
of them—I forget the name—the kind you look at through a glass, you
know."
"Stereoscopic pictures," said Mrs. Lilly. "Mr. Brandon has been a great
traveller."
"And he has seen the Dead Sea and Mount Sinai and Nazareth and
Bethlehem," continued Willy, with enthusiasm.
"I don't believe it," said Fanny. "There are no such places now as
Nazareth and Bethlehem and those places in the Bible; are there,
grandma?"
"Why!" exclaimed Willy. "Why, Fanny!"
"To be sure there are, child," said Mrs. Lilly; "didn't you know that?
Jerusalem is still a city, though not like what it used to be, and so
are Nazareth and Bethlehem. Thousands of people go from all over the
world to visit them every year. I will find you a book of travels which
tells all about them. I must ask Mr. Brandon to show me his pictures. I
should like to see them very much."
"It would make the story seem very real if one could see all the places
with one's own eyes," remarked Oney. "I am something like Fanny in
that. I find it rather hard to believe that there is such a place as
Jerusalem, where people are living and going about at this minute."
"I don't suppose they are going about much just now," remarked Willy;
"I suppose it is about the middle of the night there. That seems
strange, too, doesn't it, Fanny?"
Fanny did not answer. She was very much ashamed to have exposed
her ignorance before Oney and Willy. For the ignorance itself she
did not care. As they sat in silence for a few minutes, looking
over the fields, they saw a small, active figure come down from the
mountain-side and cross the pasture.
"There goes Sarah Leyman," said Willy. "What a queer thing she is,
anyhow! I dare say she has been roaming over the mountains all day
long."
"Maybe it was Sarah that helped herself to the pie," remarked Oney.
"Possibly, though I don't like to think so," replied Mrs. Lilly.
"She is none too good for it, or her father either," said Oney.
"Poor thing! She has not had any great chance in her life," said Mrs.
Lilly, sighing.
"Well, I don't know," remarked Oney. "To be sure, her father is a
downright wicked man and does not believe in anything, but her aunt
Sally, that she was named for, was an excellent woman. And think how
many people have tried to make Sarah go to Sunday-school!"
"Yes, but there is the example at home all the time, Oney. And then she
has always been used to such a roving, out-of-door life that I suppose
she would really find it hard to settle down. It is a pity, for she is
naturally very smart, and might be as good a woman as the one for whom
she was named."
"But if you think she is so smart and might make such a good woman, why
is it you don't want me to play with her, grandma?" asked Fanny.
"Because, my dear, I think she is a great deal more likely to do you
harm than you are to do her good. She is very wild and reckless, uses
bad language, and has many bad habits."
"She will make fun of anything, even of the Bible," said Willy; "and
she doesn't care any more about Sunday than her father does. I heard
him going on the other day down at the store, and he said he would as
soon do a day's work on Sunday as on any other day."
"That wasn't saying much," said Oney, dryly.
"That's just what Squire Holden told him. 'Sam,' says he, 'you ain't
very fond of doing a day's work any time,' says he. Then Sam began to
swear and to talk against the Bible, till Squire Holden told him either
to shut up or quit the store."
"It is no wonder that poor Sarah doesn't amount to much," said Mrs.
Lilly, sighing again. "How thankful children ought to be who have good
homes and kind friends to tell them what is right!"
"I guess we 'are' thankful," said Willy. "Ain't we, Fanny?"
"Of course," said Fanny, but she did not feel what she said. It had
never yet entered her head or her heart to be thankful for anything.
"But some children do have good homes and kind friends to teach them,
and yet they don't turn out well," remarked Willy. "They lie and swear,
and do all sorts of bad things."
"Such children are a great deal more to be blamed than poor Sarah,"
said Mrs. Lilly. "You know, Willy, the Bible says that to whom much is
given, of him will much be required. But it is growing late, and we
must be up early in the morning, so we will have prayers and go to bed."
Fanny was not sorry to hear this, for she felt very uncomfortable both
in mind and body. She was mortified at having made such a display of
her ignorance. She knew that she had been very wicked, and she was
afraid of betraying herself or being found out.
Besides, she began to feel very sick. She had eaten half a raspberry
pie and a large piece of gingerbread up at the spring, and did not
want her supper in the least, but the bread and honey and cold ham and
sponge-cake and coffee were all so good, and she was so afraid that
her grandmother would suspect something wrong if she did not eat as
usual, that she made a hearty meal. The consequence was that she felt
very sick and her head ached violently. She hastened to bed, hoping to
forget her troubles in sleep, but she passed a restless night, and in
the morning was too ill to get up.
CHAPTER IV.
_THE STUMBLING BLOCK._
FOR two or three days Fanny was pretty sick, and did not sit up at all.
She was really frightened about herself, was sure she had some dreadful
disease, and was very angry at the old doctor from the village for
saying there was nothing serious the matter.
"I guess you don't know how badly I feel," said Fanny.
"I guess I have seen other little girls who had made themselves sick
by eating too much of grandma's nice cakes and pies," said the doctor,
smiling. "A little medicine and a few days of toast and gruel will make
you all right again, and then you must be more careful. If you eat so
many sweet things, you will get the dyspepsia, and then I cannot cure
you."
Fanny said no more, for she did not like the allusion to her having
eaten too much, and she was afraid of his asking inconvenient questions.
She was better in a few days, but it was a whole week before she was
able to go out of the house. During this time she was in a manner
forced to think a little, for she could not read all the time, and
her grandma was very busy helping Oney in the dairy, so Fanny was
left to herself for some hours of every day. As she looked back over
the time she had been at her grandmother's, she was not pleased with
herself. She was conscious that, so far from making the impression
she had intended, she had not made herself respected by anybody. Her
grandmother had threatened to punish her, and, as she confessed, not
without reason. Willy showed himself a better scholar than herself,
and had been surprised at her ignorance, and Sarah Leyman, so far
from being impressed with her superiority, had declared that Fanny
was no better than she was, for all her schooling. All this was very
disagreeable, and made Fanny very angry at herself and everybody else
as she remembered it.
Then again, Fanny's conscience was aroused. She realized for the first
time in her life what a naughty girl she had always been, and she
wondered, with a shudder, what would have become of her if she had
died. It was all true. She was not one bit better than Sarah Layman.
"But I am going to be better," said Fanny to herself. "I mean to read
my Bible and say my prayers and attend to the sermon and learn my
Sunday-school lessons. Grandma says that Willy is a real Christian. It
is a pity if I can't be as good as that little poorhouse boy."
This was not exactly a Christian spirit, but Fanny did not think of
that. She was as good as her word, however. She read three chapters in
the Bible every day, said all the prayers she could think of, and felt
very good indeed.
She went to church and Sunday-school and to the meeting at the
schoolhouse, and was so sober and attentive that her grandmother was
much pleased with her, and told her so. This set up Fanny still more in
her own conceit, and she was wonderfully well satisfied with herself.
"Fanny, do you Want to take a walk this afternoon?" asked her
grandmother one day when Fanny was quite well again. "It is very cool
and pleasant after the rain."
"Yes, grandma," replied Fanny; "I should like it very much."
"Then there are two people suited," said Mrs. Lilly, smiling. "I want
you to carry this basket down to old Mrs. Merrill, and you may stop at
the post-office and see if the papers have come. Put on your broad hat,
and don't walk to fast."
"May I play in the grove a little while when I come back?" asked Fanny.
"Yes, if you like, only don't stay too long or lose your papers."
Fanny, set out on her errand feeling very well pleased. She went first
to Mrs. Merrill's and left her basket of eggs and other good things.
"Dear, dear, how good your grandma is to think of me!" said the old
lady, much gratified. "And what a nice little girl you are to do
errands! I suppose you are Alvin's eldest girl, ain't you?"
"Yes, ma'am," answered Fanny.
"You look like your aunt Eunice," said Mrs. Merrill. "I mean as she did
at your age."
"I never knew that I had an Aunt Eunice," said Fanny.
"Oh, she died long before you were born, my dear. She was only sixteen
when she died—just the age of my Mary Jane. I remember as if it was
yesterday when we had our first Sunday-school in the village. Eunice
and my Mary Jane and Sally Leyman and Mrs. Cassell's eldest girl—her
name was Eugenia—they were all in one class, and the next year they all
joined the church the same Sunday. But Sally was the only one who lived
to be over thirty."
"Was Aunt Eunice pretty?" asked Fanny.
"Why, no, not so very—not what folks call handsome nowadays, but she
was so sweet in all her ways that nobody ever thought of her looks
after the first five minutes. I don't think I ever saw a better girl
than Eunice Lilly—such a consistent Christian, and yet nothing gloomy
about her, always ready to help on any fun there was no harm in, but as
firm as a rock when any one tried to make her join in what wasn't just
right. You will try to be like her, won't you?"
"Yes, ma'am, I mean to try."
"That's right. Here's your basket; and thank you very much, and your
grandma too."
"I mean to be just like Aunt Eunice," thought Fanny as she walked up
the quiet street. "I mean to be so good that everybody will love me and
praise me, just as they did her, and I mean to set a good example to
Harry and Nelly, and make everybody look up to me. I mean to be very
good indeed, and perhaps somebody will write my life some day."
Fanny's musings were interrupted by hearing her own name called. She
looked up and saw Mrs. Cassell leaning out of her carriage.
"Isn't this Miss Fanny Lilly?" asked Mrs. Cassell, politely.
"Yes, ma'am," answered Fanny.
"I have some books that I wish to send to your grandmother," said Mrs.
Cassell. "I intended to drive up and bring them myself, but I find I
shall be engaged to-morrow. If you will get into the carriage and ride
over to our house, I will give you the books, and Hiram shall bring you
down to the village again."
Fanny got into the carriage, and a few minutes brought her to Mrs.
Cassell's house. It was a beautiful old mansion built of dark red
bricks with trimmings of white marble, which is very abundant in that
part of the country. It stood a long way back from the road, and there
were many noble old trees about it. Everything about the house and
grounds was in perfect order, and Fanny thought she had never seen a
prettier place in her life.
"I must ask you to come in and wait a few minutes," said Mrs. Cassell.
"Annie shall take you to see the kittens and Guinea pigs and the rest
of her pets. Annie, where are you?"
"Here, grandma," answered a pleasant voice, and a little girl came out
of the next room. She was much younger than Fanny, being only about
seven years old. She was a blue-eyed, fair-haired, delicate-looking
child, and was very prettily dressed in a pink frock and white apron.
Fanny peeped through the half-opened door, and saw that the room out of
which Annie had come was a large library.
"This is Miss Fanny Lilly, my dear," said Mrs. Cassell; "Miss Fanny,
this is my granddaughter, Annie Mercer, from Detroit, who is come to
spend the summer with me."
Annie came forward, like a well-bred little girl, to speak to Fanny.
But Fanny, like many other girls who are bold in the wrong place, was
also shy in the wrong place, and made but a poor and awkward return.
"You may take Fanny to see the kittens and Guinea pigs, Annie, while T
do up the parcels," said Mrs. Cassell, kindly. "I suppose you have done
all your lessons?"
"Oh yes, grandma, and my sewing too," answered Annie. "I hemmed a yard
on my cap border, and Aunt Emma said it was very nicely done. I have
been helping Uncle Hugh cut the leaves of the new books. Come, Fanny."
"Do you like Guinea pigs?" asked Annie as she led the way along the
verandah at the back of the house.
"I don't know; I don't like pigs, anyway," answered Fanny.
Annie laughed.
"Oh, they are not real pigs, you know," said she. "They are little
wee things, and Uncle Hugh says they are more like rabbits than pigs.
See, here they are. I have to keep them shut up, away from old puss;
he would soon eat them. But he don't know any better, you know," added
Annie, apologizing for pussy. "He thinks they are some kind of mice."
Fanny looked down into the box, and saw half a dozen little creatures
about as large as young rabbits, spotted with black, brown, and yellow.
All of them that were not eating were asleep, and all that were not
asleep were eating, after the custom of Guinea pigs.
"Are they not pretty?" said Annie. "Old Mrs. Willson gave them to me. I
had only these two at first; all the rest are young ones."
Fanny did not care much for pets, and she was mortified at the mistake
she had made. But she looked at the Guinea pigs and said they were very
pretty.
"After all, they are stupid little things; you may pet and feed them
ever so long, and they never seem to care for anything but eating,"
said Annie. "But I don't suppose they are to blame for not knowing any
more."
"What will you do with them when you go home?" asked Fanny.
"I mean to take one pair home with me for a little lame boy who lives
near our house, and give the others away. I will give you a pair if you
like. Don't take them if you don't want them," she added, seeing that
Fanny hesitated; "I shall not be offended a bit."
"I guess I won't take them, then," said Fanny, "though I am much
obliged to you all the same. I am afraid I should forget to feed them,
or something."
By this time Fanny began to feel at her ease, and, as usual, she began
to ask questions.
"Do you learn lessons every day?"
"Yes; every day but Sunday."
"Who hears you say them?"
"Aunt Emma, generally, and sometimes Uncle Hugh. I used to go to school
when I was at home, but they do not think I am well enough now, and I
am glad of it, because I like doing my lessons with Aunt Emma."
"Where do you live when you are at home?" asked Fanny.
"In Detroit, in Michigan. Oh, it is a long way from here. We were two
or three days coming, and only think, Fanny! I had a beautiful doll,
all dressed in a travelling suit, and with a little morocco bag and
all, and I let a girl play with it on the cars, and she stole it when I
was asleep. Wasn't it a shame? But she hadn't any mother, I know, and
perhaps she didn't know any better."
By the time Mrs. Cassell called Fanny to take the books, the two girls
had become very good friends. When they went back to the parlour, Mr.
Brandon came out of the library with two or three pretty-looking books
in his hand.
"Are you fond of reading, Miss Fanny?" he asked, pleasantly.
"Yes, sir—some kinds," answered Fanny, doubtfully.
"'Some kinds' means stories, I suppose?" said Mr. Brandon, smiling.
"I believe one of my Sunday-school boys—Willy Beaubien—lives at your
house, does he not?"
"Yes, sir."
"I should like to have you carry him this book, if you will be so kind;
and here is one you will perhaps like to read yourself. Tell Willy he
shall have another when he has finished this."
"I wonder if Mr. Brandon knows that Willy is only grandma's hired boy,"
thought Fanny. But she did not say anything, and the carriage being
ready, she took her leave.
"Hiram had better take you home, I think," said Mrs. Cassell. "It is
a long walk, and up hill all the way. Drive to the entrance of Mrs.
Lilly's lane, Hiram."
Hiram obeyed, and left Fanny at the gate of the lane. Annie would have
thanked him for such a service, but Fanny never thought of doing so.
She had never been taught to be polite to servants, and she considered
them as a being much below herself in the social scale.
As she walked along, she was startled to hear somebody say, in a
laughing tone, "What a great lady, to be sure! She feels too fine to
speak to common folks."
Fanny turned round in a hurry.
The next minute Sarah Leyman jumped over the fence almost as lightly as
a deer, and walked along by her side.
"Where have you been, all so grand?" she asked.
"Nothing so very grand," replied Fanny, in a superior tone. "I dare say
it seems so to you, but I have often been in much finer carriages than
Mrs. Cassell's."
"Oh 'dear'!" said Sarah, mimicking Fanny's tone. "How wonderful we are,
to be sure! I wonder we can condescend to speak to anybody, much less
to a common person like poor Sarah Layman. But never mind. Let's go
into the grove and have a good time. What books have you got?"
"I am not going to play with you any more, Sarah," said Fanny, in what
she intended for a very impressive and dignified tone. "I don't want to
quarrel with you, and I am very sorry for you, but I am going to be a
Christian, and, of course, I can't have anything more to do with you."
"Well, I declare!" said Sarah, and then she burst into a ringing fit
of laughter. "What next? I should like to know how long since you felt
so?"
Fanny felt very much vexed, but she answered, in the same tone, "Since
I was sick. I was very low indeed, and the doctor thought I was dying
for ever so long—"
"That's a big one to begin with," interrupted Sarah. "I asked the
doctor about you myself, and he said that there was nothing more the
matter than that you had eaten too much, and that you would be about
again directly."
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Fanny, though she knew that Dr. Perkins
had told her the very same thing. "Where did you see him, I should like
to know?"
"I saw him go up to your house, and I waited for him at the gate and
asked him what was the matter. You see I thought about you, Fanny,
though you don't mean to play with me any more."
Sarah said these words with an expression of real feeling, and then,
suddenly changing her tone, she added, "By the way, as you have
made up your mind to be a Christian, I suppose you began by telling
your grandmother all about your helping to eat the stolen pie and
gingerbread, didn't you?"
"Of course not," replied Fanny, trying to keep up her tone of dignity
and reserve, but feeling all the time that she was making a signal
failure. "I didn't want to tell of you, Sarah, though I don't mean to
have anything more to do—with you," Fanny was going to conclude, but
she changed it into "such doings."
"Oh, you needn't mind 'me'," said Sarah. "I wouldn't have you go on
telling lies and deceiving your grandmother for anything. Come to think
of it, I believe I will be a good girl and a Christian myself, and then
I suppose we can play together again. But you can't be a Christian
without confessing your sins, you know, Fanny. I dare say Mrs. Lilly
is blaming somebody else for the pie all this time. Come, let us go
together and tell her all about it directly." And Sarah quickened her
steps in the direction of the farm-house.
Fanny looked at her to see if she were in fun, but she appeared quite
serious and determined.
"You are not in earnest?" said Fanny, in rather a scared tone.
"Yes, I am in earnest. Come, why don't you walk faster? You can tell
what I did, and I can tell what you did, or we can each tell of
ourselves. I guess that will be the best way, after all."
"But I can't—I dare not!" exclaimed Fanny, stopping short. "Oh, Sarah,
do come back!"
"Well, what now?" asked Sarah, turning and coming back, for she was
already some steps in advance. "What's the matter?"
"You won't tell grandma, will you?" asked Fanny, trembling.
"Why, of course," replied Sarah, coolly. "That's the way to begin, by
confessing our sins. When old Mrs. Burt joined the church last winter,
she went to Mrs. Hoyt's and told her that she had cheated her out of
three dollars by putting water in the milk she sold her, and paid her
back the money. Mrs. Hoyt said that was the right way to begin, and she
gave the money to the missionary collection. Besides, I dare say Mrs.
Lilly is suspecting some one else all the time."
Fanny knew that this was true, for she had heard her grandmother say
she thought the pie must have been taken by one of Mr. Wye's children.
"But—but I can't," she stammered. "I am afraid. I don't know what she
would do to me."
"Didn't she ask you anything about it?" asked Sarah.
"Yes, of course she did."
"And you told her all sorts of lies, I suppose, and mean to stick to
them; and yet you call yourself a Christian, and think you are too good
to play with me!" said Sarah, in a tone of contempt. "Well, I don't
care; I mean to tell her, anyhow."
Fanny sat down on a stone and burst into tears.
Sarah stood by her in silence a minute or two.
"So you don't want me to tell?" said she.
Fanny only sobbed.
"You will make your head ache with crying, and, besides, your grandma
will ask you what was the matter," said Sarah, presently. "Come, Fanny,
let's make a bargain. Don't you put on any airs to me and I won't tell
of you. But just as sure as you act again as you did just now, I will
go to Mrs. Lilly and tell her all about the pie and your running away.
I don't mind it when people are really good, like Mrs. Lilly and Aunt
Sally, but I do hate hypocrites. Come, will you agree to that?"
"I suppose I shall have to," said Fanny, rather sullenly.
"Well, then, kiss and be friends. And now tell me where you have been
this afternoon."
"I can't stay now, Sarah, indeed I can't," said Fanny, rising. "I have
been gone too long already, but I will tell you all about it another
time," she added, seeing Sarah's face darken—"to-morrow, perhaps."
"Well, come up to the spring to-morrow afternoon. And, Fanny, I wish
you would lend me a story-book. You have got ever so many, haven't you?"
"Yes, I brought a whole boxful, and Mr. Brandon lent me this one
to-day."
"Let me see it," said Sarah, taking it from her hand and turning over
the pages. "It looks nice; I would as soon have this as any."
Fanny felt very much vexed, but she dared not say a word.
"On the whole, I will let you read it first," continued Sarah,
returning the book. "There! Run along, and be sure you come to the
spring to-morrow, or I shall come down to the house and ask for you."
CHAPTER V.
_DANGER._
FANNY hurried along up to the hill, walking so fast that she soon put
herself out of breath and had to sit down and rest.
"Oh what a hateful thing she is!" she said to herself. "I wish she was
dead; I wish the bull would get out and kill her when she is going home
to-night. I don't care if it is wicked; I do wish so. There isn't one
bit of use in my trying to be good when she is around. I don't care; it
is all her fault."
When Fanny reached home, she found supper ready.
"We were just going to sit down without you," said her grandmother.
"What has kept you so long?"
Fanny gave a straightforward account of herself, except that, as it may
be guessed, she said nothing about Sarah Leyman.
"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Lilly; "I am glad you had a nice visit at
Mrs. Cassell's, and it was very kind in Mr. Brandon to lend you and
Willy such nice, pretty books."
"I wonder whether Mr. Brandon knows that Willy is a hired boy?" said
Fanny.
"I presume he does. Why?"
"Oh, nothing—only I was wondering whether, if he knew it, he would take
so much notice of him and lend him books, and so on."
"And I wonder whether he would take so much notice of Fanny if he knew
how she talked about him and his wife?" said Oney.
"I dare say it would not make much difference in either case," said
Mrs. Lilly, dryly. "Mr. Brandon is too much of a gentleman to think
less of a good boy because he works honestly for a living, or to mind
the idle gossip of two silly girls. Never mind, Willy; I hope Fanny
will know better some day."
"Mr. Brandon does know," said Willy. "He asked me where I lived, and I
told him all about it, and he said it was an excellent thing, and that
I couldn't be better off. I hope it is no disgrace to be a hired boy,
or man either."
"I hope not," said Mrs. Lilly. "Fanny's father was one."
"Why, grandma!" exclaimed Fanny. "You don't mean to say that 'my'
father was ever a hired boy."
"I mean just exactly that," said Mrs. Lilly. "He lived out three
winters at Judge Higley's, and worked for his board that he might go
to school, and afterward, when he was in college, he used to hire out
in harvest-time that he might help pay his way, for money was not very
plenty in those times."
"I wonder if I could go to college?" said Willy, while Fanny suddenly
subsided and became very busy in buttering her cakes.
"I don't know what should prevent you," said Mrs. Lilly, "but it is
early to be thinking about that."
"But there is no harm in thinking about it, is there?" asked Willy.
"No, my dear, not the least harm," replied Mrs. Lilly; "on the
contrary, there may be a great deal of good if you only think of it in
the right way."
"What would you like to be, Willy—a lawyer or a minister?" asked Oney.
"Neither, I think," replied Willy, soberly, and as if he had been
turning the matter over in his own mind for some time. "I think I
should like to be professor of a college, or else a State geologist,
like that gentleman who came here last summer and camped out on the
mountain with Mr. Brandon."
"Well done!" exclaimed Oney, laughing. "You mean to aim high, anyway."
"There is no reason that I know of why you should not be either," said
Mrs. Lilly, smoothing down Willy's black curls as he sat beside her at
the table. "A good many learned men have been worse off than Willy to
begin with."
"I don't think I am badly off at all," said Willy. "I think I am as
well off as any boy I know."
"Good for you!" said Oney, putting a large piece of cake on his plate.
"When you are president of a college, send for me, and I will come and
keep house for you."
Fanny ate her supper in silence, feeling very much disgusted.
"What a fuss they do make over him!" she thought. "And nobody takes any
more notice of me nor cares any more about me than if I was nothing at
all. I don't care. I'll 'make' them care about me some time. I mean
to be a missionary or something, and do a great deal of good, so that
every one shall talk about me and praise me. But there doesn't seem
to be much use in trying to be good so long as Sarah Leyman is round.
I wish I was in a convent or something, like that girl in my book who
went to the Moravian school in Germany. I mean to try, though. I will
be very good about everything else, and perhaps it won't matter so much
about Sarah. Grandma says we are all sinners, so I sha'n't be any worse
than the rest are."
The next day, and for a good many days afterward, Fanny and Sarah met
somewhere about the farm—either up by the spring or in the grove by
the side of the river. Once or twice Sarah had tempted Fanny up on
the mountain-side by telling her of the wonderful stones and flowers
and mosses to be found there. But Fanny did not much like these
expeditions. The loneliness scared her, and so did the thick dark
evergreens, the great rocks, and the strange sounds she heard every
time she listened.
"I don't see what you want to come here for," she said, pettishly, and
just ready to cry, one day when Sarah had coaxed her into visiting one
of her favourite haunts. "I think it is awfully lonesome and dismal,
and I don't like it one bit. One would think we were out of the world."
"Now, that is just what I like," said Sarah. "It is so solemn, and the
wind makes such strange noises. But you must never try to come up here
by yourself, Fanny," she added, gravely. "Promise me that you will not."
"No danger," said Fanny; "I don't like it well enough for that. Come,
do let us go down."
Sarah agreed, and they walked down the blind path which led to the
spring. When they reached it, they sat down to rest, and Sarah took out
of her pocket the last book Fanny had lent her and began to read.
"Don't read; it is so pokey," said Fanny. "I want to talk. You are very
fond of reading, all at once."
"This is such a nice book," returned Sarah. "All the people in it are
so natural."
She closed it, however, and they sat for some little time in silence.
"Well, why don't you talk?" said she, at last.
"I am listening," said Fanny. "I keep hearing such a strange noise,
like something growling or grumbling under ground. What can it be?"
Sarah laid her ear to the ground to listen like an Indian.
"It is the bull," said she, after a minute's silence. "He has got out
some how. We must run home as fast as we can. Now, don't begin to cry,"
she added, sharply. "That will only hinder you."
The two girls started for home, but as they came into the open field,
they saw the bull coming across the pasture straight toward them. Sarah
comprehended the situation in a moment, and had all her wits about her.
She was a girl of naturally strong mind, and her out-of-door life had
made her quick and self-reliant. Fanny wore a small red cloak. Sarah
snatched it from her shoulders, saying at the same time, in sharp,
clear tones,—
"Now, Fanny, do just as I tell you, and you will be all right. Walk
away behind me—don't run—and get over the wall. I'll take to the trees,
and I bet I can dodge him, but never mind me. If I am caught, run home
and call somebody. There! Now, while I take across the field—'now'!"
Fanny did as she was bid.
With wonderful agility Sarah started for another part of the field,
running like a deer. When she had gone some little way, she turned, and
began shaking the scarlet cloak. The bull, attracted by the colour, and
taking it, as all bulls do, as a personal insult to himself, instantly
abandoned his intended chase of Fanny and ran at Sarah. But Sarah was
too quick for him. She dodged out of sight, first behind one tree and
then another, till she saw that Fanny was safely over the rough stone
wall. Then picking up a good-sized stone, and wrapping the cloak round
it, she threw it at the bull with such a correct aim that the missile
struck him full in the forehead. The next minute she went over the wall
at one spring, and came round to where Fanny was lying on the ground
crying as if her heart would break.
"There! Don't cry. There is no more danger now," said Sarah,
soothingly. "Nothing is hurt but your cloak, and I guess you won't
get much of that," she added, peeping over the wall at the bull, who
was now expending all his rage on the scarlet flannel, tossing and
trampling it as if he had at last found the enemy he had been hunting
all his life.
"It is all your fault," sobbed Fanny, finding her voice. "I should
think you would have been ashamed, Sarah Leyman."
"Well, I declare!" said Sarah.
"You needn't have given him my cloak," continued Fanny. "It was an
opera flannel, and cost ever so much money."
"Which would you rather the bull should be tossing—me or the cloak?
It had to be the one or the other," said Sarah, very sensibly, and
naturally vexed at Fanny's unreasonable faultfinding. "I wonder what
you think would have become of you if I had not been here?"
For the first time it occurred to Fanny that Sarah had saved her life.
"To be sure, I don't know what I should have done," said she, "and I am
very much obliged to you, Sarah—only I don't like to have my pretty new
cloak spoiled."
"Nor I, but you would rather it should be the cloak than me, wouldn't
you, Fanny?"
"Of course," said Fanny; "but what shall I tell grandma?"
"What you please," said Sarah, shortly. "Tell her the bull chased you
and you dropped your cloak, or tell her the whole truth. Why not?"
"But then she will scold me for going with you," said Fanny.
Sarah turned and looked at her with an expression of wonder and
contempt in her great black eyes.
"I wonder what makes me care to go with 'you'?" she said, at last, in
an odd, choked voice.
Fanny was silent. She did not know what to say.
Sarah sat down on a stone and hid her face in her hands for a few
minutes.
"I say, Fanny," said she, looking up suddenly, "let's you and I set
out to be Christians in good earnest, instead of only pretending to be
good."
"I 'am' good now," replied Fanny, rather indignantly. "I read my Bible
and say my prayers every day, and I heard grandma say to Oney that I
had been very good lately, and I have, I know. I learned three hymns
yesterday of my own accord."
"Oh! Then, of course, Mrs. Lilly knows all about your running away, and
about the pie and all?"
"Why, no," said Fanny, hesitating. "I didn't think it worth while. What
would be the use? She thinks it was one of the Wye children, and she
may as well think so."
"The use would be that you would be telling the truth instead of
telling and acting lies all the time," said Sarah. "Now, it is of no
use, Fanny. You know you can't be a Christian in any such way as that.
Don't she ever say anything about the pie now?"
"Sometimes."
"And don't she ever ask you, when you come in, where you have been and
what you have been doing?"
"Why, yes, she almost always does."
"And then you tell her the truth, I suppose?"
"It is no business of yours what I tell her," replied Fanny, sullenly.
"Maybe not, but it is of yours," said Sarah. "Don't you know, Fanny,
the Bible says no one that loves or makes a lie can go to heaven? I
remember Aunt Sally's telling me that years ago."
"What makes you want to be a Christian, Sarah? I mean, what sets you to
thinking about it?" asked Fanny, trying to turn the conversation.
"Partly the books I have been reading, and partly some old journals and
letters of Aunt Sally's that I found in a trunk up in our garret, and
partly—well, I don't know that I can tell you if I try. All the best
people I know are religious. Pa was going on the other day about pious
people being all hypocrites, and says I, 'Pa, where would we have been
if pious people had not helped us last winter when you broke your leg?'"
"You would have an awful time with your father," remarked Fanny.
"We have that now," said Sarah.
"And you would have to go to church and Sunday-school and learn your
lessons," continued Fanny. "You couldn't run about all day Sunday and
weekday as you do now. You wouldn't like that at all."
"I don't think I should mind," said Sarah, thoughtfully. "Running about
is all very well, but one may have too much of it. I'll tell you what,
Fanny: I will try if you will. Let us go together and tell the old lady
all about it, and then we can begin in earnest. She won't be hard on
us, I know."
"I can't, I tell you," said Fanny, in an agony of alarm and vexation.
"She would whip me, I know, for she said the other day that she never
whipped pa but once, and that was for telling lies. And then they would
all despise me so. Oh, Sarah, don't! Wait till I go away, and then you
can tell her if you like."
"Well, I won't tell of you, only of myself," said Sarah.
"She will get it all out of you, you may be sure. She is so sharp! I am
afraid every day, as it is, that she will find me out."
"Don't you suppose God finds you out, Fanny?" asked Sarah, in a low
voice. "Don't you think that, for all your hymns and prayers and Bible
readings, you are only making believe all the time? Aunt Sally used to
say he knew our very inmost thoughts."
"Your aunt was a church-member, wasn't she?" asked Fanny, hoping to
divert Sarah's attention. "Mrs. Merrill told me something about her."
"She was a good woman, if ever there was one in this world," said
Sarah, with feeling. "If she had lived, I know I should have been very
different, but she died when I was only eight. But come, Fanny, let us
go and see your grandmother."
"I 'won't'! So there!" exclaimed Fanny. "And if you tell her, I'll run
away and go down to Boston all alone. I have got twenty dollars of my
own, and I can go on the cars; and I will, Sarah Leyman, if you tell
her one word. And besides, you can't tell her to-day," said Fanny, with
a sense of sudden relief. "She has gone away, and won't be home till
Saturday."
This was not true, for Mrs. Lilly expected to be at home next morning.
"If she isn't at home, of course I can't tell her," said Sarah. "You
had better go home now, Fanny. Be sure you tell them that the bull is
loose, because he may do some great mischief. Good-night."
Sarah turned and walked rapidly away across the fields.
Fanny watched her for a minute, and then went home. She informed Oney
that the bull was loose, that he had chased her and torn her flannel
cloak all to pieces, but she never said a word about Sarah Leyman.
CHAPTER VI.
_AT MEETING._
FOR a good many days Fanny saw nothing more of Sarah Leyman. She was
not at the spring or down by the river, nor did she come to the house,
as Fanny had feared she would.
One day, however, Willy came in, bringing a pretty little birch bark
basket filled with beautiful wild raspberries. He said Sarah Leyman had
met him in the lane and handed him the basket, asking him to give it to
Mrs. Lilly.
"What beautiful berries, and what a nice little basket the poor girl
has made!" said Mrs. Lilly, admiring the basket, which was indeed most
ingeniously made, and lined with fresh green leaves. "I wonder where
she found the berries? I thought they were all over."
"Up on the mountains somewhere, I dare say," replied Oney. "They always
ripen ten days later up there. I wonder she dares run about as she
does, but she seems to have no more fear than a wild creature. They say
she is often gone whole days and nights together."
"Grandma, why is it so dangerous to go on the mountain without a
guide?" asked Fanny. "Are there wild beasts to hurt anybody?"
"It is dangerous for several reasons," replied Mrs. Lilly. "In the
first place, it is very easy for inexperienced persons to lose
themselves, and there are many dangerous places."
"Such as what?" asked Fanny.
"Such as precipices and deep cracks between the rocks into which one
might fall and never be found again, and bogs in which you might be
smothered and swallowed up in the mud. Then, in the upper part of the
mountain, there are often sudden fogs and showers and cold winds which
would chill you to the bone in five minutes."
"Are there any wild beasts?"
"Not on this side, though even here, I suppose, one might meet a bear
or a wildcat now and then. But on the other side they say there are
both bears and panthers, besides plenty of rattlesnakes, though I have
not heard of any being killed very lately. But the mountain is a very
dangerous place, and you must never go up alone as Sarah does. It is a
thousand pities the poor child has not a better home."
"What is the matter with her home?" asked Fanny.
"Well, her father is a bad man, to begin with. He drinks very hard at
times; and though he is a skilful workman, he will never do a day's
work as long as he can help it. His mother is—well, I don't mean to
be hard upon her," said Mrs. Lilly, "but the truth is, she is nothing
but a nuisance—an idle, gossiping, tale-bearing, mischief-making
slattern. If she spent half the time in taking care of her house and
family that she does in running about the village, picking up and
repeating slanders and gossiping with old Miss Clarke, she might keep
things going on well enough. But as it is, they never have anything
comfortable or decent from one year's end to another."
"Who was Sarah's aunt Sally?" asked Fanny.
"She was Mr. Leyman's sister, but as different from him as light from
darkness. A better woman never breathed, and while she lived the family
were somewhat respectable. She used to do tailoring and dressmaking,
and sometimes she went out nursing. She was one of the best hands in a
sick-room that ever I saw."
"What did she die of?" asked Fanny.
"Of hard work principally—of toiling night and day to support her great
lazy brother and his family. I never saw a child grieve so at a death
as Sarah did for her aunt. She was only eight years old, poor little
wild thing! But when they came to screw down the coffin, she screamed,
and threw herself upon it and would not let anybody touch it, and they
had to take her away by force. Does Sarah ever say anything about her
aunt?"
"I don't know," answered Fanny, coolly. "I never see Sarah nowadays.
You told me not to play with her, so I don't."
Willy's black eyes shot a glance at Fanny which said a great deal, but
he spoke not a word.
Fanny felt the look, however, and wondered how much Willy knew, and
whether he would be likely to tell of her.
The next Sunday, as they were coming home from church in the village,
Mrs. Lilly said to Fanny, "We are going to have some company this week,
Fanny. Mrs. Cassell and Mr. and Mrs. Brandon and Annie are coming up
here to spend the day on Wednesday, and perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Brandon
may stay a few days."
"Oh how nice!" said Willy.
And Oney added, "It will seem like old times to have Mr. Brandon about
the house again. But I must be careful, now that he has grown such a
great man. As likely as not, I shall be calling him Hugh, the first
thing."
"I dare say it wouldn't do any harm if you did," said Mrs. Lilly.
"Where in the world did 'you' ever know Mr. Brandon?" asked Fanny, with
an emphasis on the "you" which was not very polite, to say the least.
"He used to live with us once," replied Oney. "He was rather a delicate
boy, and his father used to send him to the mountains in summer, and he
spent all his college vacations with us after his father died. Don't
you remember the description of our house in his book—I don't remember
the name, but that story about the war?"
"I never read any of Mr. Brandon's books," said Fanny.
"Why, Fanny!" exclaimed Willy, who had an untamable appetite for books,
and who was perpetually astonished by Fanny's indifference to them.
"Why, it has lain on the table all summer."
"Well, what of that?" returned Fanny, tartly. "Is that any reason why I
should read it?"
"It would be a reason with me," said Willy; "besides, it is so
interesting."
"There's an odds in folks, you see, Willy," said Oney. "But hadn't you
better study it up, Fanny? Mr. Brandon might ask you some questions
about it."
"Dear me! I hope not," said Fanny, in alarm. "Do you think he will,
grandma?"
"No, my dear. Authors are not very apt to talk about their own books."
"Do you think he would be offended if I were to ask him about some
things in his other book—I mean the one about South America?" asked
Willy.
"No; I dare say he would be pleased to find that you had read his book
so carefully."
"I am glad of that, because there are ever so many things that I want
to know more about," said Willy. "I mean to get the book and look it
over again."
"Well, I shouldn't think you would want to, Willy," said Fanny, who
had her private reasons for being alarmed at Willy's announcement. "It
would look like putting yourself forward, and I am sure Mr. Brandon
would not like it. He isn't used to associating with all sorts of
people," said Fanny, with a grand air. "He associates with the best
families in Boston."
"Oh!" said Willy. "Well, I don't know about the first families in
Boston, but I don't mean to keep any company I am ashamed to own,
Fanny."
This hint alarmed Fanny, and she did not speak another word all the way
home; she was afraid Willy knew too much.
That evening Fanny went with the rest to the five-o'clock meeting in
the schoolhouse down the road. They were rather early, and took their
usual seats on the side of the room. Fanny liked this, because she
could watch all who came in, and make her remarks on their dress and
manners. The room was pretty full at last, for it was a cool, pleasant
evening, and quite a number of people walked up from the village to
attend the service.
Just as the first hymn was being sung, Sarah Leyman came in and slipped
into a seat near the door. She had made herself as neat as she knew
how, and looked very handsome, for in spite of her dark skin, made
darker by exposure to all sorts of weather, Sarah was a beautiful girl.
She behaved with perfect propriety; and when she raised her head after
the first prayer, Fanny felt sure that she had been crying.
"Well, I declare!" said Fanny to herself. "I wonder what she will do
next? I wonder if she really means to do as she said! Oh dear! I am
sure I hope not, for then she will go and tell grandma."
And then for one moment Fanny saw how utterly mean and selfish she
was, and what a wicked and false life she was leading. That momentary
glimpse of herself might have done Fanny a great deal of good and saved
herself and others a great deal of distress if she had profited by
it. But she did not. She only went on thinking how she could possibly
manage to keep Sarah and her grandmother apart.
"Were you not surprised at seeing Sarah Leyman at meeting?" asked Oney
of Mrs. Lilly as they walked home together. "I should as soon have
expected to see one of the wild eagles off the mountain. But she looked
and behaved very well, didn't she?"
"Very well; and I was glad to see her there," replied Mrs. Lilly. "I
hope it is a good sign. I must try to have a talk with her some time. I
have a Testament that her aunt gave to my Eunice when they were girls
together; I think I will give it to Sarah. Perhaps she would read it
because it was her aunt's."
"I wouldn't, grandma," said Fanny; "she would only make all sorts of
fun of it, as she does of everything about religion. That's one reason
why I didn't want to play with her any more. She talked so she scared
me."
"I am sorry to hear that," said Mrs. Lilly.
"That's all she went to meeting for, I know," continued Fanny, growing
bolder, and determined at all hazards to prevent any chance of an
understanding between her grandmother and Sarah. "She will go home and
mimic the minister and deacon and poor Mr. Willson, and make all sorts
of fun of them. She has listened under the window on purpose before
now."
"Who told you?" asked Oney.
"She told me herself," returned Fanny, boldly. "I used to play with
her when I first came here, and I did play with her two or three times
after grandma forbade me, but I have not done it this long time—not
since I have been trying to be a good girl. If you talked to her ever
so kindly, she would only go away and make fun of you."
"Well, that wouldn't hurt me," said Mrs. Lilly, "and we can never know
what words will do good. I don't like to think that any girl can be a
hardened sinner at fifteen, and especially one who was the child of so
many prayers as Sarah."
"Mrs. Lilly," said Willy, "don't you think that a person who pretended
to be good and religious all the time that he knew he was wicked would
be a great deal harder to convert than one like Sarah Leyman?"
"No doubt," returned Mrs. Lilly. "Especially if the hypocrite were
self-deceived."
"I suppose hypocrites usually do impose on themselves more or less,"
remarked Oney.
"Almost always to some degree, I presume. A man who is destroying his
neighbour's body and soul by selling liquor, may very likely make
himself think that he is quite a good man because he gives away money
liberally; and another, who will cheat half an ounce in every pound he
sells, comforts himself by thinking that he keeps Sunday carefully,
and always has family prayers; and so of other things. I would rather
undertake to make an impression on poor Sarah, or even on Sam Leyman
himself, than on such a person. But I will certainly speak to Sarah if
I have a chance. It can at least do no harm. Oney, there is Squire Howe
before us, and I want to speak to him about drawing Mrs. Merrill some
wood. He said he would give her a load any time, and I dare say it will
be more convenient for him to do it before harvest."
Mrs. Lilly and Oney walked on quickly, and no sooner were the children
alone together than Willy broke out with more than his usual vehemence.
"Fanny Lilly, I do think that you are the very meanest creature that
ever lived in this world. Nobody but a girl could be so mean as
you are. You are as much worse than Sarah Leyman than she is worse
than—than Grandma Lilly," said Willy, finishing up with a grand climax.
"Why, Willy, what is the matter now?" asked Fanny. "What have I done to
you?"
"To me! You haven't done anything to me, only you are always hinting
about my being a hired boy and coming from the poorhouse, and Mr.
Brandon said himself that nobody but a snob would throw such a thing in
a fellow's face. But I don't care so much about that. It is the way you
treat Sarah Leyman that makes me despise you. As if I didn't know how
you have been with her day after day, going over to the Corners with
her, and all! As if I didn't know how she saved you from the bull! And
you never said one word about her, though it is the greatest wonder in
the world she wasn't killed."
"I should like to know how you found out anything about it," said
Fanny, trying to speak in an unconcerned manner.
"Because I saw it; that's all."
"I think you might have come to help us, than, instead of watching and
spying," said Fanny.
"I did come, but I was too late. I was up in the barn-loft and saw the
whole performance, but before I could get to you, it was all over. So I
went to find Mr. Wye and tell him about the bull. And after that, you
abuse her behind her back, and don't want your grandma to show her the
least kindness or even speak a good word to the poor girl. I suppose
you are afraid she will find out some of your secrets. I always thought
you knew more about that pie than you chose to tell."
Fanny was very angry, but she controlled herself; and answered,
quickly, "You are very much mistaken, Willy, as you will see when you
know all about it. I only met Sarah by accident that day. The only
reason that I didn't tell grandma and Oney how she saved me from the
bull was that she made me promise not to say a word about it, because
she said she left the bars down, and let out the bull herself. All
I said about her making fun of religion was every word true, only I
didn't tell it half as bad as it was, because I didn't like to repeat
such stuff, and because I didn't want to tell grandma how Sarah made
fun of her for praying in the meeting Thursday evening, and for sitting
at the table with a dirty nigger, like Oney. Those were her very words."
"Oney isn't a nigger, and if she was, she couldn't help it; and I don't
think nigger is a very pretty name to call any one," said Willy.
"Nor I; and that wasn't the worst she said, by a great deal. As for
the pie," continued Fanny, feeling that she was "in for it," and that
a few more lies would not make much difference—"as for the pie, you
are right, Willy. I do know—or at least I have a very good guess—where
it went, but I wasn't going to say what I thought when Sarah and I had
played together. I would like to have Sarah a good girl as well as
anybody, and I have talked to her myself, but there is no use in it.
She only makes fun of me, and I don't want her to make fun of grandma.
"I know I have hurt your feelings, sometimes, Willy, but I never meant
to do it, and I beg your pardon. You see things are very different here
from what they are in Boston. There were two girls who came to our
school last winter, and everybody liked them at first, but by and by
the girls found out that their mother was a dressmaker, and after that
a good many of the scholars would not speak to them. I heard Cousin
Emma tell of a gentleman who refused to be introduced to a young girl
at her house because he thought she was not genteel enough."
"If I had been master of the house, he would have seen the outside of
it pretty suddenly," said Willy, who had the instincts of a gentleman.
"Besides, I know all Boston people are not like that. Those gentlemen
who came up and camped out on the mountain last summer were as polite
and pleasant to everybody as they could be."
"Well, anyhow, that was the reason I didn't like to see Sarah at
meeting, because I knew why she had come," persisted Fanny, returning
to the first subject. "Of course I am thankful to her for saving me
from the bull, though she got me into the scrape in the first place,
but that doesn't prevent me from seeing her faults."
"Humph!" said Willy, not more than half satisfied. "Well, anyhow, I
hope Grandma Lilly will have a real good talk with her."
"And so do I, because, after all, it won't hurt grandma if Sarah does
make fun of her, and perhaps grandma may do her some good," said Fanny.
But in her heart she was determined that this talk should never take
place if she could help it.
CHAPTER VII.
_THE OFFENCE GIVEN._
THE next day, and the next, Fanny went up to the spring and down to the
grove, but she could see nothing of Sarah.
The next afternoon she was sent on an errand to the Corners. She went
"'cross-lots," as they say; and passing the end of Sam Leyman's garden,
she saw Sarah sitting at work on the back doorstep and called to her.
"Is that you, Fanny?" exclaimed Sarah, jumping up and coming to meet
Fanny with an expression of real pleasure on her face. "Where are you
going?"
"Over to the Corners for grandma. Don't you want to go with me?"
"I am afraid Mrs. Lilly wouldn't like it," said Sarah, hesitating in a
way very unusual with her.
"Seems to me you have taken a very sudden fit of goodness," said Fanny,
not at all pleased. "I wonder how long you have been so particular?
Ever since you went to meeting the other night, I suppose. But do come
a little way with me. I want to see you ever so much."
"Well, I don't care."
"I went down to the grove yesterday on purpose to find you," said
Fanny, in rather an injured tone, as they walked across the pasture
together. "I thought you would certainly be there. Why didn't you come?"
"Well, for two or three reasons; I was busy at home, for one thing,
mending and washing Ally's clothes, and trying to patch up some of my
own old frocks, so as to be a little more decent. And besides, Fanny,
to tell you the truth, I thought it would be rather mean after your
grandma spoke to me so kindly Sunday night."
"Oh yes; very kindly indeed—to your face," said Fanny, sneeringly.
"What do you mean?" asked Sarah.
"Oh, nothing—only Oney said she wondered what had brought 'that' Sarah
Leyman to meeting, and grandma said she presumed you had only come to
make fun of everything and everybody, and she thought you had better
stay away, at least till you had something decent to wear."
"Did Mrs. Lilly say that?" asked Sarah, in a low tone.
"She said a great deal more than that," replied Fanny, "and so did
the rest of the people?" And she proceeded to repeat a number of
contemptuous speeches which she professed to have overheard, till she
was stopped by Sarah's throwing herself on the ground and bursting out
into a passionate fit of crying.
"What is the matter?" asked Fanny, surprised and rather alarmed at the
storm she had raised. "What are you crying about?"
"I don't care so much for the rest of them," said Sarah, sitting up
with her black eyes flashing through her tears. "But Mrs. Lilly that I
thought was so good, and that spoke to me so kindly! I don't care; I
never will believe in anybody's goodness again. Fanny, are you telling
me the truth? Was your grandma really so mean and wicked as that?"
"I don't see anything so mean and wicked," said Fanny, rather scared,
but not at all understanding Sarah's state of mind. "She said what she
thought, I suppose."
"When did she say what she thought, when she was telling me to my face
that she was glad to see me and hoped I would come again, or when she
was talking against me behind my back, and saying she should think I
would be ashamed to show myself? Come now, Fanny! She did not really
say all that. You are making it up to tease me, I know."
"You can ask Willy, for he heard her," said Fanny, determined to stand
her ground, but beginning to wish she had not said anything.
"I have a great mind to go and ask Mrs. Lilly herself," said Sarah.
"You will get into a scrape if you do, I can tell you," said Fanny,
knowing that if Sarah and her grandmother came together, they would
soon arrive at an understanding. "Grandma knows that it was you who let
out the bull."
"It was 'not' me!" exclaimed Sarah, indignantly. "I 'never' leave the
bars down, and hardly ever go through them, and I had not seen the bull
that day."
"Well, anyhow, she thinks you did, and she is very angry about it. She
said if she caught you, she would have you sent where you would be
taken care of and kept out of mischief. And Mrs. Crane said you would
be a great deal better off in the asylum, and that grandma would be
doing a good turn to everybody."
"I should like to see them put me in the asylum!" exclaimed Sarah. "I
never will go there. I will kill myself or somebody else first." And
down went her head on the grass again in a tempest of grief and anger.
"I don't believe there is one single good person in all the world,"
she said, through her sobs. "I wonder whether there is anything good
anywhere? If it wasn't for poor Ally, I would go and jump into Pope's
hole this very day, and so be dead and buried at the same time."
Ally was Sarah's younger sister, and her special pet.
"I wonder if Aunt Sally was just such a hypocrite as your grandmother?"
continued Sarah, with a fresh burst of grief. "I wonder if all her
goodness was just lies and pretence?"
"You shall not call my grandmother a hypocrite, Sarah Leyman; I should
think you would be ashamed." And then Fanny stopped suddenly, for it
occurred to her that it was herself who had given her grandmother such
a character, and not Sarah. She could not in the least understand the
cause of Sarah's excessive grief, and thought she was only angry at
being laughed at.
"Oh come, never mind," said she, presently. "Why, it isn't anything so
very dreadful; and besides, if you want to come to meeting, you can
come, for all them."
"I shall never come again, never," said Sarah, sitting up and wiping
her eyes. "I did think that night I would try to be a Christian. I made
up my mind to it; I have said my prayers ever since, and I was going to
ask you to give me or lend me a Testament to read myself and to teach
Ally out of. Father won't have a Bible in the house, if he knows it,
but I would keep it hidden away where he could not find it. But it is
all over now. There is no use in trying."
The tone of hopeless despair in which Sarah said these words made its
way even into Fanny's blunt feelings. She began to feel a little sorry
for what she had done.
"Oh, I wouldn't say so," said she; "I wouldn't give it all up for
that—just because grandma isn't perfect. Just keep on and be good all
the same. I do."
"You do!—You!" said Sarah, in a tone of contemptuous wonder. "Fanny
Lilly, do you really think you are a good girl?"
Her tone and words made Fanny wince, but she stood her ground.
"Why, yes, I do," she replied. "I read my Bible and say my prayers
every day, and I have been reading ever so many good books. I learned
two hymns only yesterday. If that isn't being a good girl—"
"Well, it isn't—not according to my notion," said Sarah. "That would
not be my way of being good. Fanny," she added, with sudden energy, "if
you tell me that all you have said is just made up to tease me, I will
be your friend for ever, and I will do anything in the world for you. I
don't care; I mean to ask Mrs. Lilly about it, anyhow."
"Well, you can do as you please, of course," said Fanny, affecting an
unconcern which she by no means felt. "I shouldn't think you would like
to be taken and shut up with all those poorhouse children, and never
see Ally nor anybody again, but if you do, I don't know why I need
care. I went to see the asylum with grandma, and it did not look very
pleasant, I tell you."
The asylum spoken of by Fanny was one for poor children which had been
established at R— by the joint efforts of two counties. The children of
paupers were carried to this asylum instead of the poorhouse, and were
taught and cared for.
"Besides, I shouldn't know whether she told the truth or not if she
spoke ever so kindly to me," said Sarah. "I shall never know whether
anybody is true again, or anything, for that matter. Well, let it go. I
dare say it is all nonsense, as pa says, and that nobody cares whether
we are good or bad. Come, tell me the news. What has happened?"
"Nothing very particular that I know of, only old Mrs. Cassell and her
granddaughter and Mr. and Mrs. Brandon are coming up to our house to
spend the day on Wednesday, and Mr. and Mrs. Brandon are going to stay
for a visit. Oney is making all kinds of nice things. Oh, by the way,
Sarah, I want that volume of Mr. Brandon's travels that I lent you.
Willy has been hunting the house over for it."
"I'll get it when I go home," said Sarah. "He's another, I suppose."
"Another what?" asked Fanny.
"Another of the hypocrites," said Sarah.
"I didn't know he pretended to be anything so very good."
"Don't he? I met him up on the mountain last week. He was looking for
wild flowers, and I showed him some kinds he had never seen before; and
didn't he talk 'good'? I thought he was a wicked young man before, and
so I told him."
"Oh, Sarah, you never told Mr. Brandon all that stuff?"
"Yes, I did; and he only laughed and said, 'Don't be in such a hurry to
believe evil of people you don't know, my girl. Anybody as bright as
you ought to have something better to think about than idle, gossiping
stories.' And then I told him I was reading his book, but I couldn't
understand it very well. Oh, we had a real nice talk, I can tell you.
But I dare say he is all humbug, like the rest of them. Annie Cassell
is a cunning little thing, though. You bring her up to the spring, and
we will have a real nice time."
"I don't suppose grandma will let me," said Fanny.
"You needn't tell her all about it, you goose. Just tell her you want
to show Annie the spring. There is no harm in that."
"I don't know about it."
"If you don't, I will just come down to the house and ask to see you,
and tell your grandma you promised to come and bring Annie with you."
"You wouldn't tell such a lie?" said Fanny, alarmed.
"You'll see," was the answer. "Why shouldn't I tell lies as well as
other folks? Just as sure as you don't come, I will come down to the
house and ask for you. You needn't be afraid. You don't suppose I want
to hurt the child, do you?"
"No; of course not. Well, I will come if I can."
When Fanny reached home, she went to find her grandmother, who was in
the dairy. The truth was, she had seen Willy in the field, and was
by no means sure that he had not seen her walking with Sarah. So she
meant to be beforehand with him, in case he should have any intention
of telling of her. So first putting Mr. Brandon's book down behind the
parlour table that it might have the appearance of having fallen by
accident, she went into the milkroom, where Mrs. Lilly was working over
her butter—an operation which she always performed herself if possible.
"Grandma," said she, "I met Sarah Leyman at the Corners; and she walked
over home with me. I couldn't get rid of her without being rude, and I
knew you wouldn't want me to hurt her feelings."
"Of course not," said Mrs. Lilly, feeling pleased that Fanny should
come to her so frankly. "Don't be unkind to her in any way. How did she
seem to feel?"
"Oh, just as usual," said Fanny. "She says she thinks all religious
people are hypocrites alike."
"I wonder whether she thinks her aunt Sally was one?" said Mrs. Lilly.
"I asked her that, and she said she didn't remember much about her, but
she didn't believe there was much to choose."
"Poor child!" said Mrs. Lilly, sighing.
"Well, I suppose one ought to be sorry for her, and yet I could not
help being angry," said Fanny. "I told her she ought to be ashamed,
but she went on worse than ever. I do believe she will make fun of
anything. I never heard her so bad as she was to-day."
"That may be only a sign that her heart is touched," said Mrs. Lilly.
"She may be trying to silence her conscience. Those have a great deal
to answer for who have brought her up in such a way."
"Yes, indeed," said Oney, who had just come in with her hands full of
cake warm from the oven. "'Whoso shall offend one of these little ones,
it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.' I wouldn't like to have
the responsibility that rests on that girl's father and mother."
"I hoped for better things from seeing Sarah at the meeting," said Mrs.
Lilly, "but Fanny tells me she only makes fun of the whole thing. But
it may be only that she is trying to put down conviction in her own
mind. You must be very careful what you say to her, Fanny. I wish I
could get a chance for a quiet talk with her."
"Has Willy found that book yet?" asked Fanny, feeling very
uncomfortable, and wishing to change the subject before anything else
was said.
"No, not yet; I can't think what has become of it," replied Mrs. Lilly.
"I hope it is not lost."
"I believe I will go and take a look for it; perhaps I may find it in
some place Willy has overlooked," said Fanny. "I am pretty good at
finding things."
"Do, my dear, and dust the books in the parlour at the same time. And,
Fanny, you may get out all the Indian curiosities, and arrange them;
they will help to amuse Annie."
Fanny dusted and arranged and put everything in nice order, trying to
become so much interested in her work as not to think of anything else,
for the words of Oney rang in her ears very uncomfortably. "Whosoever
offendeth one of these little ones—" Fanny thought that did not sound
quite right, and she opened the book to see.
"Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which 'believe' in 'me,—'"
That did not mend the matter, and she shut the book and laid it down
as if it burned her fingers. Was not this just what, she had done? Had
she not offended Sarah just as she was beginning to believe? Had she
not done her best to prevent her from taking another step in that path
which the poor girl was just trying to enter—the path which led to
safety, to happiness and salvation? Suppose Sarah should never repent
and become a Christian, whose would be the fault?
"Well, I couldn't help it," said Fanny to herself. "I couldn't have her
coming up here and talking to grandma, and telling her everything, as I
am sure she would the very first thing if grandma coaxed her a little.
I don't see how I can help going to the spring to-morrow, either, but
I must be sure and make Annie promise not to tell. Tiresome little
torment! I wish she wasn't coming at all. I dare say she will get me
into some scrape or other."
Fanny busied herself till tea-time with the books and curiosities, and
in unpacking her doll and its clothes, which had remained in their box
ever since she left home. When Oney called her to supper, she came into
the kitchen, holding up the missing book in triumph.
"See what I have found," said she.
"Oh, Mr. Brandon's book! How glad I am!" exclaimed Willy, with
sparkling eyes. "Where did you find it? I have hunted all over for it."
"It was behind the table in the parlour," said Fanny. "You couldn't
have looked very sharp, Willy."
Willy looked as if he did not know how to believe his ears.
"Why, Fanny!" he exclaimed. "I don't see how that can be. I moved the
table and looked behind it this very morning, and I am sure the book
was not there then, or I would have seen it."
"I am sure it was," answered Fanny, positively. "I found it when I
was dusting the parlour. I happened to think I would move out the
table, and down fell the book directly. So you see, Willy, you must be
mistaken."
"Perhaps you only thought you would move it, or you might not have
moved it far enough," said Mrs. Lilly. "Never mind; I am glad the book
is found."
"Well, if that isn't the strangest thing, I wouldn't say so," said
Willy to Oney when they were alone together. "Oney, I know just as well
as I know anything that the book was not there this morning. I pulled
the table clear away from the wall, and looked behind it and under the
cloth and everywhere."
"So did I," said Oney. "I am sure that it was not there."
"Then why didn't you say so?" asked Willy, a little vexed.
"Because I am an Indian, and know how to hold my tongue—a thing which I
sometimes think white folks never learn," said Oney, smiling. "Where's
the use in making a fuss?"
"But Fanny is so awful deceitful," said Willy; "I do think Mrs. Lilly
ought to know."
"Oh, she'll find out, never you fear," replied Oney; "and I would
rather she found out of herself, without any help of mine. You see,
Fanny is playing 'good' just now, and the old lady thinks she is just
right. I have given her two or three hints, but she would not hear, and
the other day she as much as told me she was afraid I was jealous of
Fanny. So I made up my mind to let matters alone, and you had better do
the same."
CHAPTER VIII.
_SARAH'S PLANS._
THE next day was Wednesday—the day appointed for Mrs. Cassell's visit.
Fanny remembered it the moment she opened her eyes, and did not exactly
know whether she were glad or sorry.
"I should be glad, only for going up to the spring," she thought, "but
perhaps, after all, Annie's grandmother won't let her go, and then I
shall have a good excuse. I don't care: I mean to have a good time,
anyway. And even if Sarah does come to the spring, grandma need not
know that I expected her. How bad she did feel yesterday! I wonder
what ailed her? I shouldn't think she need mind so much. They can't do
anything to her."
In truth, Fanny was quite incapable of understanding Sarah's feelings.
With Fanny, partly from her natural disposition and more from the way
in which she had been brought up, self was everything. She judged of
everything as it affected herself. What pleased her or afforded her
any advantage was right; whatever displeased or annoyed her was wrong.
She would not have shed a tear at finding out her best friend in the
greatest crime or meanness, so long as it did not affect herself.
She liked Sarah in her fashion, because Sarah's wit and wild stories
amused her, and because she was, on the whole, an agreeable playmate,
and it never troubled her in the least to think that Sarah was a very
naughty girl and in a fair way of going to utter destruction. She
loved her father as well as she was capable of loving anybody, but
the most disgraceful failure on his part would have affected her less
unpleasantly than his refusal to pay fifty dollars for some dress or
trinket on which she had set her heart. In fact, self was her idol,
her god. Whoever sacrificed to that god was right in her eyes; whoever
treated her deity with neglect or disrespect was wrong, no matter how
good he might otherwise be.
It was very different with Sarah Leyman. Utterly wild and untaught as
she was and had been ever since she was eight years old, the poor child
had a heart capable of devoted attachment and of great sacrifices.
Till she was eight years old, Aunt Sally had been her all—her friend,
teacher, protector, and playmate, all in one. Mrs. Leyman often said
before her sister and daughter that Sarah took after her aunt a great
deal more than she did after her mother, and predicted that she should
turn out just such another saint—saint being a term of the deepest
reproach in the vocabulary of people like Mrs. Leyman.
Everything that Sarah knew she learned from Aunt Sally, who taught
her to say her prayers and read her Bible, and to know that she had a
Father in heaven who would always love her and take care of her. But
Aunt Sally died at thirty, because she hadn't any ambition according to
her sister-in-law—in reality, of hard work and anxiety and grief and
shame. Poor Sarah was left without a friend. Two or three people would
have taken her for her aunt's sake, Mrs. Lilly among the rest, but her
father would not hear of binding her out, and nobody wanted to be at
the trouble of dressing and teaching and becoming attached to her, only
to have her taken away as soon as she was old enough to become useful.
Moreover, Mr. Leyman made it a condition that Sarah should not go to
church or Sunday-school or be "taught any priestcraft and superstition."
So Sarah grew up with no education except what she picked up herself
by reading such books as fell in her way and by going for a few weeks
at a time to the district school. Here she learned to write and cipher
a little. Aunt Sally had taught her to read almost before she could
remember, and she heard the Bible read and read it in turn with the
other children, and now and then an earnest teacher would try to put
into the child's mind some sense of the truths of religion, so that she
was not absolutely ignorant on that subject.
But during the last year, she had lost that small chance. The three
or four small district schools in and around the village had been
consolidated into one grand union school, attended by all the young
ladies of the village, and Sarah was too proud to show herself among
those who were so much better dressed and educated than herself.
Sarah's father was what he called a freethinker, which in his case
meant nothing more nor less than an impudent, reckless creature,
regarding the laws neither of God nor man. He made a regular business
of ostentatiously breaking the Sabbath, and as far as possible, he
brought up his children in the same way. The training had produced its
legitimate fruits. One son was already in the penitentiary, and the
other had escaped a like fate only by running away and going to sea.
Mrs. Leyman was pretty much what Mrs. Lilly had described her. She had
come of a decent family, and there were those who were willing to show
her kindness for the sake of her father and mother. But Mrs. Leyman
was one of those people who take two or three miles for every ell that
is given them. If she had an invitation to any house in the village
or at the Corners—the little hamlet which had grown up at the slate
quarry—she made such an invitation a pretext for a dozen visits at
least. If anybody gave her a pail of skim milk or buttermilk one day,
she would send the next for a piece of cheese or butter, or to borrow a
washboard or flat-iron; and those who were weak enough to lend to her
seldom saw their property again.
Her chief pleasures in life were strong green tea and scandal. A small
property which still remained to her from her father's estate supplied
her with means for purchasing the first. For the second she was chiefly
indebted to Miss Clarke, the washerwoman and tailoress employed in
good families for her abilities in doing up fine muslins and making
children's clothes. Miss Clarke was an inveterate collector of news
and scandal, and the worse a story was, the better it pleased her. She
was, to put it in plain English, an inveterate and malicious liar,
and she improved her natural gifts in that direction by taking opium.
Such was Mrs. Leyman's chosen friend, and from her did she obtain all
those stories of the secret sins and shortcomings of church-members and
respectable people with which she entertained her husband.
Sarah listened to her mother's tales because she liked anything in the
shape of a story, and because, being sensible of the degradation of her
own family, she took a sullen satisfaction in thinking that others were
no better. But she despised her mother and almost hated her father,
and she would have run away from home long before now, only for Ally,
her poor little sickly sister. It was Ally who kept Sarah at home for
the few hours that she ever spent there from the beginning to the end
of warm weather. For her sake, Sarah recalled all she could of Aunt
Sally's hymns and verses, her Bible, and other stories. For Ally she
learned Sunday-school hymns and borrowed Sunday-school books from the
other children, and gathered flowers and berries and everything that
could comfort and amuse the child in her sick times.
It was Mrs. Lilly's kindness to Ally which had made Sarah like her
in the first place. Poor Sarah was a very naughty girl—there was
unfortunately no doubt of that—but she would have been a great deal
worse only for Ally, and for the half-remembered lessons learned
at Aunt Sally's knee. But for these things and for an undefined
something—she could hardly tell what—which had lately been creeping
over her, and making her feel a kind of hope that she might some time
become better and happier, she would have run away and left the family
to its fate.
What Sarah found to love in Fanny it would, perhaps, be hard to say,
but she did love her, and would have done anything for her. Fanny
was very pretty, for one thing. She had nice manners and a pleasant
way of speaking when she was pleased, and she could tell tales of a
world of which Sarah knew nothing, and which she fancied must be more
wonderful and beautiful than her own. Sarah soon found out that Fanny
was shallow, and she had begun to feel, rather than suspect, that she
was false: but she was one of those people who, having loved once, love
always, and she was still devoted to Fanny with her whole heart and
soul.
Sarah could hardly have told what led her to go to the meeting
on Sunday evening. She had never attended before, though all the
neighbours went, especially Mrs. Lilly, and she had a feeling that
everything Mrs. Lilly did must be good. She had been quite serious
in what she had said to Fanny after the adventure of the bull. She
did want to be a good girl, a true Christian like Mrs. Lilly and Aunt
Sally, but she did not know how to begin. Perhaps she might find out
at the meeting. So she made up her mind to go and try, and she found
out that, at any rate, it was very pleasant, though rather awful. Those
things which she had mimicked for Fanny's amusement—Deacon Crane's
broad accent and Mr. Howe's bad grammar—did not now strike her as so
absurd because she felt as she never had done, that both the deacon
and Mr. Howe were talking to some very real Presence: not the less
real because unseen. The singing, the Bible reading, the speaking,
all touched her heart, and the kindness with which she was met by
everybody, especially Mrs. Lilly, increased the charm.
They had all seemed so glad to see her there, and had asked her to come
again. Sarah made up her mind that she would go again, that she would
somehow have a Bible and read it and teach Ally to read it, and she
would try her best to be a good Christian girl. And then to find out
that these people who had seemed so glad to see her were laughing at
her and plotting to separate her from Ally and put her in prison, to
find out that Mrs. Lilly was capable of such treachery—Mrs. Lilly, whom
she had always considered as the very model of everything good,—this it
was, and no hurt vanity, which had caused the violent burst of feeling
which Fanny could not understand. This it was which made her feel as if
there were no real truth or goodness anywhere, and no use in trying to
do right, since religious people were, after all, no better than any
one else. This was the mischief Fanny had done, and at which she might
well have stood appalled if she had at all understood it.
But she did not. She was sorry to have made Sarah feel so badly, but
she was glad to have prevented any chance of an explanation between
Sarah and her grandmother. To be sure, this was not much like the
missionary work over which she had been dreaming lately, and which was
one day to make her famous and admired. But perhaps Sarah might not
have been good, anyway, or perhaps she would become a Christian, after
all. And, anyhow, she could not help it now, so there was no use in
thinking about it any more.
[Illustration: _On the Mountain._ "Here is a nicer cup than that."]
This was always Fanny's way of consoling herself and quieting her
conscience when it happened to be disturbed: "I can't help it now, so
there is no use in worrying myself about it."
She jumped up and dressed herself as nicely as possible, and ran down
stairs to help her grandmother with the milk without stopping to say
her prayers, as she had been very careful to do lately.
Mrs. Cassell had promised to come early, and by ten o'clock the
carriage was seen by Fanny's eager eyes coming slowly up the long
ascent. Mrs. Lilly's farm lay mostly on the first rise of the mountain,
as it was called, a kind of broad terrace ascending from the river,
which ran through the valley, to a nearly level plain of some quarter
of a mile in extent. Besides this, Mrs. Lilly owned a broad strip of
meadow-land along the river, and a large extent of pasture and forests
extending to the "No man's land" and cloudland on the top of the great
mountain which overlooked Hillsborough.
To Annie, coming from Detroit, where the land is literally as flat as
a pancake and the river looks as if it had been spilled on the top
of the ground, this country of mountains and swift-running streams,
"of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills," was
a land of enchantment. It was as beautiful as fairyland the little
girl thought, but, like fairyland, it was also rather alarming in
respect that one never knew exactly what might be coming next. She had
received the announcement that they were going to make a visit up on
the mountain with some inward misgivings. And when she found herself
going up and up without seeming ever to come to the end, she began to
wish herself at home. But when she finally arrived and was met by Mrs.
Lilly's cordial welcome, all her fears vanished, and she was quite
ready to respond to the old lady's kindness, and to enjoy herself
thoroughly.
"And where is Hugh?" asked Mrs. Lilly. "I hope he is not going to
disappoint us."
"Hugh will come up this afternoon," said Mrs. Brandon. "He was all
ready this morning, and indeed came with us as far as the post-office,
when he found a bundle of proof-sheets lying in wait for him, so he had
to return and devote himself to them. He will ride up this afternoon as
soon as he finishes his work. But proof-sheets are like time and tide:
they wait for no man."
"No, I suppose not," said Mrs. Lilly. "Well, I am sorry, but it is not
as if this was the only day there was, so you needn't look so doleful,
Willy. But come, you had better get your things off. You know the way
up stairs, Emma."
As soon as Annie had disposed of the piece of cake which Mrs. Lilly was
sure she must need after her ride, Fanny took possession of her. She
was fond of children in her selfish way—that is, she liked to play with
them as if they were dolls, and amuse herself with them as long as they
were "good,"—that is, just so long as they did exactly what she wished.
Annie would have been quite contented to look out of the windows and
amuse herself with the Indian curiosities, of which Mrs. Lilly had a
great collection, but it was one of Fanny's ways that she never could
enjoy herself in the presence of grown people. She could not be easy
till she had drawn Annie out of the parlour and carried her off to her
own room, where she got out her doll to amuse her visitor. They played
with it for some time, and then Fanny proposed that they should go out.
"Can we go and see the raccoon?" said Annie. "Uncle Hugh said Willy had
a tame raccoon."
"Oh yes, you shall see everything, and I will take you to the
prettiest place you ever saw," replied Fanny, who felt very amiable
and patronizing. "I will show you the spring up in the woods, and
everything."
"That will be nice," said Annie, "but we must ask grandma first."
"Of course," said Fanny; "I will go and ask her now while you dress the
doll."
"Take Annie up to the spring?" repeated Mrs. Lilly, aloud, after Fanny
had whispered in her ear. "Why, yes, I suppose so, if Mrs. Cassell has
no objection."
"Where is the spring?" asked Mrs. Cassell.
"Only a little way off—just upon the side of the hill. You can almost
see it from this window. It is a very pretty place, and there is no
danger for them to run into. Fanny spends half her time there, I think.
But, Fanny, remember, you must not go into the woods."
"No, ma'am," answered Fanny.
"And don't leave Annie alone anywhere," said Mrs. Cassell. "Remember
she has always been brought up in the city, and knows nothing about
taking care of herself. Promise me that you will keep close by her."
"I will," answered Fanny. "I will not leave her alone a minute. Please
let Willy ring the bell in the garden, grandma, when you want us to
come in."
"Very well," said Mrs. Lilly; "we shall not have dinner till two, so
you will have a nice time to play and enjoy yourselves."
Fanny put on Annie's hat and jacket, and then led her out to see the
raccoon and the guinea hens. As they were looking at the former, Willy
came up.
"Now, Willy, you may just go away," said Fanny, sharply. "We don't want
you around after us."
Annie looked surprised. She was not used to hear people spoken to in
that way.
"It is my raccoon, and I suppose I have a right to look at it,"
returned Willy.
"Are you Willy Beaubien?" asked Annie.
"Yes," replied Willy, rather shyly, but added, presently, "I have seen
you at Sunday-school. Don't you want to see Cooney eat? He looks real
cunning."
"Oh yes," exclaimed Annie, much interested. "What does he eat?"
"Oh, anything that he can get. I will run and ask Oney for some cake
for him."
"Come, Annie, let's run away while he is gone," said Fanny.
"I don't want to," answered Annie; "I want to see the raccoon eat."
Fanny was tempted to speak sharply, but recollecting herself, she said,
"I shouldn't think you would care about that. Come, we sha'n't have any
time at all."
But Annie had a little will of her own as well as Fanny, and she would
not stir till Willy came back with the cake, and till she had seen the
raccoon eat, and had agreed with Willy that he was very cunning and
looked as if he knew everything.
"Just as if he knew what we were talking about!" said Annie. "I guess
you like animals very well, don't you, Willy?"
"Yes," answered Willy. "I was going to ask you whether you would let me
see your Guinea pigs, some time."
"Yes, indeed, and give you a pair, if you like," replied Annie,
smiling; "I am sure you would be good to them."
"I don't believe grandma will let him have them," said Fanny, growing
cross, as usual, as soon as she was not the chief object of attention.
"She says Willy has so many playthings now that he doesn't attend to
his work."
"I guess you stretched that a little," said Willy. "Anyhow, I can ask
her."
"Well, do come, Annie, if you are ever coming," said Fanny.
The truth was, she was growing uneasy. She had seen Sarah going up to
the spring some time before, and was afraid of her losing patience and
putting into execution her threat of coming down to the house.
Annie saw that for some reason Fanny was really annoyed, and she at
once gave up looking at the guinea hens and followed her conductor
through the garden and across the fields.
"See, here is the spring," said Fanny, when they reached the little
mossy dell so often spoken of. "See how it comes running out of the
mountain-side. Isn't it pretty?"
"Beautiful!" said Annie. "How clear and cool it is! Is it good to
drink?"
"Yes, very. There is a cup here somewhere. Oh, here it is." And Fanny
produced a somewhat rusty tin cup from under a stone, rinsed it, and
filled it from the spring for Annie to drink.
"Here is a nicer cup than that," said Sarah Leyman, coming out from
among the bushes, holding in her hand a large scallop shell, such as is
frequently brought from Florida and Key West by travellers. "I found
it this morning among some things in our garret, and brought it up on
purpose for Annie to drink out of."
"Did you?" asked Annie, looking wonderingly at the dark, handsome girl.
"That was very good of you. But how did you know that I was coming up
here to-day?"
"Oh, a little bird told me," answered Sarah, playfully. "The little
bird told me that a fairy was coming up to visit the spring, and would
want something pretty to drink out of. Here, drink, little fairy."
"Oh how nice!" said Annie, after she had drank from the shell, which
Sarah held to her lips. "I don't think I ever tasted such good water."
"More people than you have thought so," said Sarah. "I was reading a
letter last night that your aunt wrote to my aunt from India, in which
she said she would give all the fruit in India for one drink from this
very spring."
"Was that my aunt Eugenia, and did she write to your aunt?" asked
Annie, very much interested. "How nice that is! I should think that
ought to make us some sort of cousins, shouldn't you?"
"Very distant cousins," answered Sarah, laughing. "Your name 'is'
Annie, isn't it?"
"Yes—Annie Eugenia Mercer. I was named for my aunt and grandmother."
"And where do you live when you are at home, Annie Eugenia?"
"In Detroit," replied Annie.
"I suppose it is a great way off?"
"Oh yes; we were a night and two days coming, and we stopped one night
at Albany. And oh, Fanny," exclaimed Annie, "you know I told you how
that girl stole my doll on the cars?"
"Yes," answered Fanny. "Why?"
"Don't you think, day before yesterday, Uncle Hugh came up from the
cars, and brought a great parcel directed to me. And when I opened it,
there was a beautiful doll all dressed, and a letter from this very
girl telling me she was sorry she had been so wicked, and she hoped I
would forgive her, and that my doll was spoiled, but she had sent me
another. Wasn't that nice?"
"Very nice," said Fanny.
"I didn't care so very much about the doll; though, after all, one
can't have too many dolls," said Annie, sagely. "But it was nice to
think she should be sorry and want to make up for what she had done.
Grandma said it was beginning in the right way if Celia—the girl's name
was Celia—really meant to be a good girl."
"What was beginning right?" asked Sarah—"Sending back the doll or
saying she was sorry?"
"Both," replied Annie. "Grandma said—I am not sure that I can tell it
just right—"
"Never mind," said Sarah, who seemed very much interested. "Tell it as
well as you can."
"She said we must confess all our sins to God if we want them forgiven;
and if they are against our neighbours—that is, if they have done harm
to anybody, you know—"
"Yes," said Sarah, "I understand."
"Then we must go to them and try to make up, and if we have done them
any damage, we must make it good. I didn't quite understand that at
first, and grandma said if I had borrowed Mary Patterson's scissors,
and lost or spoiled them, it wouldn't be enough to say I was sorry; I
must buy her a new pair if I possibly could. So she said it was right
in Celia to send me a new doll."
"I see," said Sarah. "Don't you think you are a happy little girl to
have such a good grandma?"
"Yes, indeed!" said Annie, with emphasis. "Mary Patterson says I ought
to be thankful every day that I have such good friends to take care of
me."
"Who is Mary Patterson?" asked Fanny. She was not very easy under this
conversation, and she was, moreover, in a great hurry to improve the
time in finding out all about Annie's family history.
"Mary is my nurse," replied Annie. "She has lived at our house ever
since I can remember, and we think everything of her."
"How many servants does your mother keep?" was Fanny's next question.
"Oh, let me see: there is Mary Patterson and old Mary the cook—only we
don't call her 'old' Mary because mamma says it isn't polite, so we all
call her Willis—and Jane the chambermaid, and Arthur, papa's servant,
that was with him in the war, and John the coachman."
"Your father must be very rich to keep so many servants."
"Well, I suppose he is," replied Annie, simply. "I heard Uncle Harris
say that papa was worth almost a million of dollars. That is a great
deal, isn't it?"
"Why, yes, quite a good deal," said Sarah, laughing.
"My father is worth two millions," said Fanny, "and there are people
on our street richer than that. But I didn't suppose anybody out West
was as well off as that. I thought only poor people went West, and that
they lived in log houses and never had anything nice."
"I don't think there are any log houses in Detroit, though I have seen
them in the country," said Annie. "Detroit is a very pretty place,
though not as nice as it is here, because it is all so flat. There
isn't the least little bit of a hill anywhere round. If that hill Mr.
Willson lives on were in Detroit, they would think it was a mountain."
"And what would they say to such a mountain as this?" asked Sarah.
"I don't know; I suppose they would be afraid of it, as I was when I
first came here," said Annie.
"Oh, you needn't be afraid; he is a pretty good old mountain," said
Sarah, who seemed very much taken with the pretty little child. "See
what the mountain sent you by me." And going to a ledge of rock close
by a kind of natural shelf, she produced two of her pretty little
baskets, one filled with red raspberries, the other with blueberries.
"Oh how pretty!" exclaimed Annie. "Did the mountain send them to me? I
am sure he was very kind."
"Yes; he told me to tell you that you were welcome to eat his berries
and drink out of his spring, but you must never climb up on his back,
because that is no place for little girls."
"Well, I won't. Tell him so, with my love. I should like to do
something for him. I might work him a slipper—you know they talk of the
foot of a mountain sometimes—only I shouldn't know where to get a piece
of canvas big enough."
"How silly you are!" aid Fanny, who never could understand a joke. "The
mountain isn't alive. It is only a great heap of rocks and dirt."
"I know it," said Annie. "I was only making believe."
Annie ate her berries, and then began admiring the mosses which grew
all about the spring.
"I know where there are much prettier mosses than these," said Sarah,
"but the place is too far for you to walk. Don't you want to sit here a
few minutes while Fanny and I go and get you some snail shells?"
"I don't know," said Annie, rather doubtfully. "If you won't be gone
long."
"Oh no, only a few minutes. You just sit still here or play about on
the rocks, but don't go away from the spring, whatever you do. Come,
Fanny, I want to speak to you. I have something to tell you and to ask
you."
"I don't know about leaving Annie. I am afraid she will get into some
mischief or other," said Fanny, hesitating a little, though she was
very anxious to hear what Sarah had to tell. She had seen all the
morning, through all Sarah's playfulness with Annie, that she had
something more than usual on her mind, and she was very desirous of
finding out what it was.
"I don't see what mischief she can get into," said Sarah, looking about
her and considering. "There are no snakes. The wicked old bull is shut
up in his stable, and the cattle are all away at the farther pasture.
Even if she should take a notion to run home, she can't miss her way.
You are not afraid to stay here a few minutes, are you, Annie?"
"No," said Annie—"only don't be long."
"Oh no; we will be back in a very few minutes."
"And you will bring me some snail shells, won't you?"
"Yes, if I can find them, and I am pretty sure I can. After all, Fanny,
perhaps we had better not leave her alone. She is such a little thing
she might get scared, and I can tell you some other day."
Fanny thought she saw in these last words an indication that Sarah had
repented and did not mean to tell her what she had on her mind, and
this made her all the more anxious to find out what it was. So she
answered, decidedly,—
"Yes, I shall go, too. Mind, Annie, that you don't stir away from this
place or you will get lost."
To do Sarah justice, she had not the least idea that in leaving Annie
alone at the spring she was exposing her to any danger. The children
she was acquainted with played in the woods all day long and made
excursions after berries and flowers without any fear. She knew that
there were no snakes and no wild animals bigger than a rabbit to be met
with at this time of year, and she had really taken pains to assure
herself that the bull was safely shut up in his stable. She wanted very
much to speak to Fanny, and she did not see that she was likely to have
another chance very soon.
Fanny was much more to blame than Sarah, for she had promised
faithfully not to leave Annie alone for ever so short a time, and she
ought to have kept her word. She knew this very well, but she said to
herself that no harm would come to her, and that she must hear what
Sarah had to say.
Sarah led the way in silence a short distance up the mountain, and then
turned aside into the woods.
"Well?" said Fanny, as Sarah stopped and began gathering some
wintergreen shoots. "Well?" she repeated, impatiently, as Sarah did not
speak. "What do you want to say to me?"
"Fanny," said Sarah, "I want you to do me a very great favour."
"Well, what?"
"You told me you had a good deal of money of your own."
"Yes; my father gave me twenty dollars, and I have only spent a little
of it. Why?"
"I want you to lend me ten dollars," said Sarah. "There! The murder is
out."
Fanny looked very much taken aback. "Why do you want ten dollars?" she
asked, with a good deal of suspicion in her tone.
"I will tell you all about it if you will listen," said Sarah. "Sit
down here on this log."
The two girls sat down side by side, and Sarah went on in rather a low
tone:
"After I left you yesterday, I went up in our garret and pulled out all
Aunt Sally's old letters to read. There were a good many from Annie's
aunt Eugenia in India, and from Mary Jane Merrill and other people. But
at last I found the letters I wanted. They were from my Aunt Caroline,
my mother's sister, over in Concord. She used to be a schoolteacher,
but I knew she had married since, and I wanted to know what sort of
woman she was. The letters were very nice indeed, and sounded a good
deal like Aunt Sally herself. Then I asked ma about Aunt Caroline, and
ma said she had married a rich man and felt above all her relations.
But I kept on asking questions till I found out that Aunt Caroline had
lost all her own children, and that she had wanted to adopt me or Ally
when we were little, but father would not let either of us go. I made
ma show me the last letter she had from Aunt Caroline, and it was a
real good letter, and I made out that she had always helped ma a great
deal."
"Well," said Fanny, impatiently, "what has that to do with my lending
you ten dollars?"
"Just this," replied Sarah: "I have been thinking the matter over, and
I have made up my mind what to do. If you will lend me ten dollars, I
will go and see Aunt Caroline myself, and try to persuade her to take
Ally to live with her. I don't think pa would care now. He don't like
Ally because she is so plain and sickly. Then, if I succeed, I will get
a place to work in a mill or somewhere, and take care of myself."
"Why don't you write to your aunt?" asked Fanny.
"Because I can't write very well, and I want to see Aunt Caroline and
talk to her myself. If I have ten dollars, I can get myself a decent
frock and hat, so that she need not be ashamed of me, and the rest of
the money will pay my fare to Concord and back."
"If your aunt is rich, I should think she would lend you the money,"
said Fanny.
"I don't want to begin by asking her for money for myself," said Sarah,
colouring. "She doesn't know anything about me. But if you will lend it
to me, I will pay you back the very first money I earn."
"Oh, of course," said Fanny, sarcastically.
Sarah's eyes flashed. "Don't you believe me?" she asked.
Fanny was rather alarmed, and continued, in a superior but more
friendly tone, "I suppose you think you would, but this is all
nonsense, Sarah. It is the greatest wild-goose chase I ever heard of.
Suppose you go to Concord, what good will it do? Your aunt won't do
anything for you. As likely as not, she won't let you come into her
house. And as for her adopting Ally, you might as well expect her to
adopt a black baby. I know, because my mother is one of the managers of
the orphan asylum, and I have heard her say that the people who take
children always want a healthy, pretty child with curly hair."
"And what becomes of all the ugly, straight-haired children?" asked
Sarah.
"Oh, I don't know. They get bound out, or something. Anyhow, nobody
wants them, and I am sure your aunt wouldn't want Ally. You see it is
all nonsense, Sarah. You couldn't do anything if you tried."
"Then you won't lend me the money, Fanny?" said Sarah, in a tone of
deep mortification and disappointment.
"No, because I don't think there would be any use in it. You had a
great deal better stay where you are, or else write a letter to your
aunt and ask her to send you some money."
"I can't write, I tell you," said Sarah, flushing crimson. "I can't
put one sentence together and spell the words right." She paused a
moment, and then spoke again with more earnestness than before, and in
a pleading tone very different from her usual off-hand manner:
"Come, Fanny, do lend me this money. It won't be very much to you even
if you have to do without it a year, and it will be everything to me.
I can't leave home while Ally is there, whatever happens, and I feel
almost sure that Aunt Caroline will take the child if I can only see
her and tell her how things are, which I couldn't do in a letter if
I could write ever so well. If Ally is only safe, I know I can find
some place where I can earn money. I can learn any kind of work easily
enough if I only give my mind to it, and I will send you every dollar I
earn. Come, Fanny, don't say 'No.' Why won't you lend it to me?"
"Because I want it myself," said Fanny, coming to the true reason at
last. "I have only that twenty dollars to last me for pocket-money till
my father comes home, and I am always wanting candy or something that
grandma won't buy for me. As likely as not you never would pay me, and
then I should lose it altogether."
"Don't you think I am honest, Fanny? I risked more than that for you
the day we met the bull," said Sarah, with a quiver in her voice. "I
didn't stop to think whether you would ever pay me."
"That is different," said Fanny.
"Yes, there is a good deal of difference between risking your life and
risking ten dollars," said Sarah, dryly. "Fanny, why did you ever make
friends with me if you don't care enough for me to do as much as that
for me?"
"Because I had no one else to play with, and it was so stupid at
grandma's with nobody to speak to," said Fanny, speaking the truth for
once.
"Then, if you had any one else to play with—anybody more genteel—you
wouldn't care any more about me?"
"Well, no, I don't know that I should. You see, Sarah, you are very
different from me."
"Very different," said Sarah, rising—"so different that the less we
have to do with each other, the better."
As she spoke, she went a little farther into the wood and began to turn
over the fallen sticks and leaves.
Fanny followed her, feeling rather uneasy.
"What are you looking for?" she asked.
"Some shells for Annie," answered Sarah, without looking up. "You had
better go to her. She may get tired of staying alone."
"I don't want to go without you," said Fanny.
Sarah did not reply; but having found what she sought, she turned back.
"I suppose you are very angry with me?" said Fanny, presently.
"No, I am not," returned Sarah. "I am angry at myself for ever having
cared for you."
"You say so because you are vexed at not getting the money," said
Fanny, "but I think you are very unreasonable."
"If you say another word, I will box your ears," said Sarah. In another
moment she added, more gently, "I am sorry I said that. I shall never
see you again, and I did love you dearly, Fanny."
The tone in which Sarah said this showed that she at least was not
heartless.
"What makes you say that?" asked Fanny.
"Because it is true. I shall go to Aunt Caroline's, if I have to walk
every step. Besides, I never want to see you again—never!"
As Sarah said these words, the two girls came in sight of the spring.
Annie was not there.
CHAPTER IX.
_THE LOST CHILD._
"THERE, now! See what a scrape you have got me into!" said Fanny,
angrily. "Tiresome little thing! She has run off home; and now she will
tell them that I left her alone."
"Well, what of that?" returned Sarah. "What harm was there in your
leaving her alone a few minutes in a safe place?"
"Because I promised I wouldn't, stupid! That's why."
"Did you really promise not to leave her alone?" asked Sarah, gravely.
"Of course I did. Her grandmother wouldn't let her come unless I
promised not to leave her alone anywhere. A nice scrape you have got me
into with your secrets!"
"You never told me you had promised, so don't lay all the blame on me,"
said Sarah. "Besides, I wanted to come back and wait till another time,
and you wouldn't. I don't suppose there is any harm done. She has got
tired and run back to the house. Fanny," said Sarah, suddenly starting
and turning pale, "you don't suppose she has started to find us, do
you?"
"No, of course not," returned Fanny, impatiently. "What do you want to
put such a notion into one's head for?"
"I never thought of her doing such a thing," continued Sarah, looking
very uneasy. "I should never forgive myself in the world if any harm
should happen to the dear little thing. Do run down to the house and
make sure that she is safe."
"Oh yes, that is all you think about," said Fanny, in an injured tone.
"You don't care anything about what they will say to me, I suppose."
"Well, no, not much," returned Sarah. "Why should I? I don't suppose
they will break any of your bones, and you haven't shown any very
particular regard to my feelings. But why don't you go?"
"Of course—" Fanny began, but Sarah interrupted her.
"Now, just look here, Fanny, if you don't go, I shall go myself. I
suppose, of course, that Annie is safe, but I want to know for certain.
I can't bear to think of her wandering in the woods half scared to
death, and perhaps falling into Pope's hole."
"For goodness' sake, what is Pope's hole?" asked Fanny. "I have heard
of it ever since I came here, and I don't know what any one means by
it."
"It is a deep, deep gulley—a hole in the mountain nobody knows how
deep—with high steep walls of rock all around it, and it is half
full of water, and under the water is soft black mud. Cattle get in
sometimes, and never get out again. A man named Pope fell in when the
country was new, and for two or three years nobody knew what had become
of him. But one very dry summer, when the water was low, somebody saw
a gun lying partly out of the water. So he got somebody to let him
down with ropes, and then he found Pope's gun and his watch, but they
never found the body. It is an awful dark place to look into. But come,
Fanny, do run home. Wave your handkerchief at the back door, and then I
shall know if she is safe."
Seeing that there was no help for it, Fanny obeyed. She did not or
would not believe that Annie was lost, and she dreaded only the reproof
she was sure to receive for leaving the child alone at the spring. She
reached the house without seeing anybody, and went straight up to her
own room, turning, however, at the door to wave her handkerchief.
Sarah saw the signal, and satisfied that the child was safe, she went
back to the spruce wood, and sat down to consider what she should do
next.
"It is time the children were at home," said Mrs. Lilly, presently.
"Oney, you may tell Willy to ring the bell in the garden."
Oney called Willy, and then went up stairs for a clean apron. As she
did so she bethought herself to look into Fanny's room and see whether
there was a supply of water and clean towels. To her great surprise,
she found Fanny sitting by the window reading.
"Why, Fanny!" she exclaimed, in surprise. "I thought you were up at the
spring with Annie. Where is she?"
"Down stairs in the parlour, of course," said Fanny, vainly trying to
speak in an ordinary tone. "I wish you would not come into my room
without knocking, Oney."
"I didn't know you were at home," replied Oney. "But are you sure Annie
is down stairs? I haven't seen her."
"Of course she is. Do go away and let me alone, can't you?"
Oney began at once to suspect that something was wrong. She had no
confidence in Fanny, and she had seen nothing of little Annie. She went
directly down stairs and opened the parlour door.
"Well, Oney, have you come to tell us that dinner is ready?" asked Mrs.
Lilly.
"Dinner is pretty nearly ready," replied Oney. "Is Annie here?"
"Annie? No," answered Mrs. Cassell, starting. "Have the children come
in? I have not seen them."
"Fanny is up in her room, and she just now told me that Annie was down
here," said Oney.
Mrs. Cassell turned pale. She was rather a nervous woman, and she
naturally felt a great deal of responsibility about Annie.
"Don't be frightened," said Mrs. Lilly. "I dare say she is out with
Willy looking at the chickens." As she spoke, she went to the foot of
the stairs and called, "Fanny, come down directly."
"I have got my shoes and stockings off, grandma," answered Fanny, who
had indeed stripped them off with all speed the moment Oney had left
the room.
Mrs. Lilly went up stairs.
"Why are you barefooted?" was her first question.
"I wet my feet, and had to change my shoes and stockings," answered
Fanny, searching in her drawer for a pair of stockings, and taking a
long time to find them.
Mrs. Lilly's quick eye fell on the boots which Fanny had just taken off.
"Your shoes are as dry as a bone," said she, taking one of them in her
hand. "But never mind that now. Where is Annie?"
"Down stairs, I suppose," answered Fanny, shortly.
"Where did you leave her?"
"I didn't leave her at all. She ran away from me and came home," said
Fanny. "Cross, hateful little thing! I wish she had never come here."
"Put on your shoes and stockings and come down stairs," said Mrs.
Lilly. "Don't spend time looking in the drawer. Put on those you took
off."
There was that in Mrs. Lilly's voice and manner which made Fanny afraid
to trifle any longer. She put on her shoes and stockings, and followed
down stairs sulkily enough.
"Now," said she, "tell us just where you left Annie."
Short as the time was in which to do it, Fanny had made up her story,
and she told it glibly enough:
"I was cutting some birch bark for Annie, and I dropped my knife, and
while I was looking for it, Annie said she did not like the woods and
she would go back to the house. I told her to wait a minute and I would
go with her, but she began to cry and scream and say she would go
alone. Then I went with her to the garden and watched her almost into
the house, and then I went back to find my knife."
"That does not sound at all like Annie," said Mrs. Brandon. "She is not
apt to cry because she cannot have her own way."
"I don't know anything about that," said Fanny, pertly. "I know she
screamed loud enough this morning. I should have come all the way with
her, only I wanted to find my knife, and I didn't see what harm could
happen to her between the garden fence and the house."
"Where can she be?" said Mrs. Cassell.
"She may have gone away with Willy," replied Mrs. Lilly. "He is very
fond of children, and very likely he has taken her off to see some
wonderful sights in the barn."
"Willy is up in his room," said Oney. "I will call him."
But Willy could give no account of Annie. He had not seen her since
they were feeding the raccoon.
"What shall we do?" said Mrs. Cassell. "Where can the child have gone?
Is there any well or cistern that she can fall into?"
"Oh no. I never allow such things to be left uncovered. Fanny, are you
telling the truth? Did you really come with Annie as far as the garden
fence?"
"Yes, I did," answered Fanny, positively. "I stood at the fence and
watched her clear to the back door."
"Were you and Annie alone at the spring, or did you have company?"
asked Willy.
Fanny made a face, and did not answer.
"Why don't you answer Willy's question?" asked Mrs. Lilly. "Was Sarah
Leyman with you? I presume it was Sarah that Willy meant."
"No," answered Fanny, boldly. "Sarah is very angry with me, and won't
speak to me because I would not give her some money. She said, the last
time I saw her, that she never meant to speak to me again."
"But where can Annie be?" asked Willy. "I will go out and look round
the yard. Maybe she has gone to see the coon again."
But in vain did they search the garden and yard; no Annie was to be
found. By this time the alarm grew very serious, and in the midst of
it, Mr. Brandon made his appearance.
"You see I did come, after all," said he, gayly, as he entered the
parlour. "I found my proofs could wait a day, so I put them in my
pocket and came along. But what is the matter?" he asked, in alarm, for
Mrs. Brandon burst into tears on seeing him.
"Oh, Hugh, Annie is lost!" exclaimed his wife and mother together.
"Lost!" exclaimed Mr. Brandon. "What do you mean?"
Mrs. Lilly told the story as she had heard it from Fanny, adding that
they had searched the farm over, and that both Oney and Willy were
still looking. Mr. Brandon stood thinking for a moment.
"Come here, Fanny," said he, sitting down and drawing her toward him.
"Come here; I want to talk to you. Now, don't cry, but tell me the
plain truth. How far did you go with Annie?"
"To the garden fence," replied Fanny.
"The back garden fence?"
Fanny assented.
"How did Annie get over the fence?"
"I let down the bars."
"How could you do that when there are none?" asked Mrs. Lilly.
"I don't mean that. I took down two or three rails and put them up
again."
"Well, what then?"
"Then I stood and watched her into the house, and then I went back to
find my knife."
"Why did Annie want to come into the house?" was the next question.
"I don't know. I suppose she was afraid to stay alone." This was an
unlucky slip.
"To stay alone!" repeated Mr. Brandon. "To stay alone where?"
"She was not really alone," said Fanny, seeing what a blunder she had
made; "only she was down by the spring and I was up on the bank cutting
the birch bark for her to play with."
"You are sure you did not go out of sight?"
"No," answered Fanny, snappishly. "I have said so ten times already."
"You did not leave her to go away for anything but the bark?"
"Only for the shells, and we were not gone five minutes, I am sure,"
said Fanny, making another slip.
"'We'! Who was with you besides Annie?"
"I just wish you would let me alone," cried Fanny, bursting into a
violent fit of crying. "You confuse me so I don't know what I am about."
"But who do you mean by 'we'?" persisted Mr. Brandon. "Who was with you
besides Annie?"
"Nobody; and I wish she had not been there, either, the cross, hateful
little thing! I won't stay here another day," continued Fanny, working
herself into a passion. "I will go to Boston if I have to live in the
poorhouse. I won't stay here to be called a liar."
"Nobody has called you a liar, but I very much fear that you are one,"
said Mr. Brandon, gravely. "Mrs. Lilly, I am sorry to say so, but this
girl is not speaking the truth. I believe she either went away and left
Annie alone at the spring, or else sent her home alone."
"I am afraid you are right," said Mrs. Lilly, much distressed. "Fanny,
do tell the truth. Think how much depends upon it—poor Annie's life,
perhaps. Did you leave Annie alone at the spring?"
"No, I tell you," snapped Fanny.
"Why did you not come home with her?" asked Mrs. Cassell. "You promised
me not to leave her a moment."
"I didn't leave her alone."
"Then what did you mean by saying you were not gone ten minutes?"
"I didn't say so." And that was all that could be got out of Fanny. She
would only cry, and declare that she would go home to Boston.
"We are wasting time," said Mr. Brandon, looking at his watch. "It is
three o'clock now. Are there any men about the place, Mrs. Lilly?"
"No. Mr. Wye is over at B—, and Pat went away two or three days ago."
"We must have help," said Mr. Brandon. "Are you sure the farm has been
thoroughly searched?"
"I believe so," answered Mrs. Lilly. "Can you think of any place where
we have not looked, Oney?"
"There is the old quarry," said Oney, rather reluctantly.
"Heaven help us!" groaned Mrs. Lilly. "She would never go there,
surely. Fanny, you did not go near the old quarry, did you?"
"No," said Fanny.
"Besides, it is all covered up," said Mrs. Lilly.
Oney shook her head.
"It is not covered over," said she. "I have just been down to see,
and the boards are gone. If Annie had taken a fancy to go and see the
sheep—"
"We must have it searched at once," said Mr. Brandon. "Willy, bring me
the rake, a stout string, and the largest pole you can find."
"Let me go with you," said Oney. "Mrs. Lilly, do make them eat
something, or at least drink a cup of tea. The old lady looks ready to
faint, and it is enough to kill Emma."
The old quarry was a deep pit which had been dug in the search for
slates. It was full of water, and was usually kept closely covered, but
now, as Oney had said, the boards were gone. In fact, Sam Leyman had
helped himself to them only the night before for the purpose of mending
his pig-pen. Mr. Brandon made a drag of the rake and some poles, and
satisfied himself that Annie was not in the water.
"Well, so far, no news is good news," he said, trying to speak
cheerfully, as he entered the parlour. "We must have help at once and
search the woods. I have sent Willy over to Willson's and to call the
Crane boys, and they will rouse all the men in the neighbourhood."
It was now four o'clock, and there was no time to lose. Willy was a
fast runner, and soon left word at Deacon Crane's and Mr. Willson's
that a child was lost on the mountains, and before half an hour, four
or five stout young men were on their way to Mrs. Lilly's.
As Willy came back through the edge of the woods, he met Sarah Leyman
slowly descending the steep path which here led up the mountain-side.
When Sarah had seen Fanny's signal, she went back to the spruce wood
where they had been talking together, and sat down to think what she
should do next. She was deeply disappointed and mortified. She had made
up her mind that Fanny would certainly lend her the money, for she
argued, "I am sure I would do as much for her in a minute if I had the
money to lend."
Building on this very uncertain foundation, she had arranged all her
plans. She did not mean to tell of her intended journey at home, for
she knew that neither her father nor her mother would consent, and she
had very little notion of honouring or obeying her parents. She had
one decent dress. She would buy herself a hat and some other things,
and take the night train, which would land her at Concord early in the
morning—she was too often away all night for her absence to excite any
surprise—and she would ask her aunt to write from Concord as soon as
she had found her. She felt sure that Aunt Caroline would take Ally if
the matter were properly represented to her.
"And then," thought Sarah, "I will buy a decent calico frock and go to
work at anything I can find to do, and I will save every cent till I
have enough to pay Fanny, and perhaps do something for ma."
This was Sarah's plan, which she had thought over till it appeared
perfectly easy and reasonable—always provided that Fanny would lend her
the money.
But Fanny had absolutely refused to lend her the money, and for no
better reason than that she wanted to use it herself for things which
her grandmother would not buy for her. Sarah could hardly believe it
even now. She had exposed her own life for Fanny, and Fanny would not
deny herself an ounce of sugar-plums for her.
Sarah, as I have said, was by nature generous and loyal. She had begun
by loving Fanny dearly, and by fancying that such a pretty, graceful
girl must be all but perfect. And though she had found out her mistake,
she had gone on loving Fanny, and in some degree trusting her. But that
was all over now. Her idol was effectually shattered, and with it, as
it seemed, all her fine plans for helping herself and Ally. She did not
know where to look for the money which was necessary for the carrying
out of her scheme. She did not know of any way in which she could earn
it, or anybody she could ask to lend it to her, unless, indeed, Mrs.
Lilly would help her.
This was a new idea, and Sarah turned it over in her mind as she sat on
the dry, rocky ground under the spruce trees. Mrs. Lilly had never been
anything but kind to her, and Sarah was not disposed to resent the old
lady's having forbidden Fanny to play with her.
"I should feel just so in her place, I know," she thought. "Though,
after all, I don't see that Fanny is so much better than I am, only her
folks are respectable. I wish I hadn't touched the pie. It was real
mean. I wonder if she did laugh at me that night I came to the meeting?
I don't half believe it. I believe Fanny made up the story to scare me.
She was dreadfully afraid to have me see the old lady, for fear she
should find out something. I have a great mind to go and see her—not
to-day, though, because she has company. What a cunning, sweet little
thing Annie is! I can think of Ally being just like her if she only had
a chance."
And then Sarah began thinking over what Annie had said about Celia's
returning the doll, and to wonder, if she should follow Celia's
example, whether it would not be a right way of beginning that "being
good" which she still desired; and a verse came into her mind which she
had heard long ago.
"What was that? 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive us
our sins'—something like that; Aunt Sally used to say it, and I guess
it is in the Bible somewhere. If only I could tell of myself and not of
Fanny! I don't want to get her into trouble."
Sarah sat still for some time, now pondering Annie's simple remarks,
now turning over in her mind various plans, possible and impossible,
for the accomplishment of her purpose. At last she rose, and ascending
the mountain for some distance, she began a busy search for certain
ferns and flowering plants which grow in those higher regions.
"Mr. Brandon seemed to think so much of them," she said to herself, "I
will carry him a bunch of them, and maybe I shall get a chance to speak
to the old lady."
Sarah had succeeded in her search, and, with full hands, was descending
the hill toward the house, when she met Willy.
"Sarah, have you seen little Annie Mercer?" was Willy's first greeting.
"Seen her? No—not since twelve or one o'clock," replied Sarah, in
surprise. "Why? What do you mean? What has happened to Annie?"
"That is just what nobody knows," replied Willy. "She went up to the
spring with Fanny this morning, and Fanny says she brought her back as
far as the garden fence and watched her almost into the house, but she
never came in, and we can't find her anywhere. Where was she when you
saw her?"
"She was up at the spring with Fanny," answered Sarah. "Does Fanny say
she took Annie back to the garden?"
"Yes, but we don't know what to believe, she tells so many different
stories."
Sarah had a quick mind, and even while Willy was speaking, she saw all
the terrible possibilities of the case.
"It is not true, Willy," said she, speaking low, but fast and clearly.
"Fanny never went back with Annie. We left her alone at the spring.
I never thought of any danger, and I wanted to speak to Fanny, so I
told Annie to wait at the spring and I would bring her some shells.
Then Fanny and I went up on the hill and talked a little while, and I
found a lot of snail shells. See, here they are now. When we came back,
Annie was gone. I supposed, of course, she had gone home, and yet I
felt a little uneasy, so I made Fanny go home, and told her to wave
her handkerchief if it was all right. She did wave it, and I thought
Annie was safe. Willy, she is lost in the woods; she has gone up on the
mountain."
"Why do you think she has gone up?" asked Willy.
"Lost children always do," replied Sarah. "They always go up and up.
* Don't stop to talk. Run home and tell them how it was, and bid them
send for old John Steeprock and his dog directly. Tell them that it was
my fault, but that I never thought of any danger, and that I am going
to look for Annie myself."
* This is the general belief in mountainous countries. I do not vouch
for its truth.
"But you will be lost too," said Willy, divided between anger and
admiration. "It is almost night, and you will lose your way, and
perhaps die in the woods."
"Never mind me," returned Sarah. "I know the mountain pretty well, and
sha'n't die for staying out one night in the woods. And if I should,
nobody will miss me but Ally. Never mind me, but run home; only, Willy—"
Willy came back to hear.
"Tell Mrs. Lilly I stole the pie and I am sorry, and ask her, if
anything happens to me, to be good to Ally."
And Sarah turned and went rapidly up the steep path.
Willy ran down toward the house and speedily entered the parlour, where
Mr. Brandon was again trying to extract the truth from Fanny. Fanny now
varied so far from her first story as to say that she only came with
Annie to the fence and went back again.
"That is all stuff, Mr. Brandon," said Willy, unceremoniously bursting
into the conversation. "Fanny never came with her an inch. She went
up in the spruce woods with Sarah Leyman, and left Annie alone at the
spring."
"How do you know, Willy?" asked Mrs. Lilly. "Who told you?"
"Sarah herself told me just now," replied Willy. And he repeated the
conversation he had just held with Sarah, adding, "And, Grandma Lilly,
she says she took that pie that day, and she is very sorry, and if
anything happens to her, will you please be good to Ally?"
"Where is Sarah Leyman?" asked Mrs. Lilly.
"She has gone up on the mountain to look for Annie."
"Lord help her, what can she do?" said Mrs. Lilly. "She will only be
lost herself."
"I don't know about that," said Willy; "Sarah knows the mountain pretty
well. And oh, I forgot: Sarah says you must go up the mountain, because
lost children always go up, and you must send for old John Steeprock
and his dog directly."
"That is an excellent suggestion," said Mr. Brandon. "I did not know
the old man was alive."
"He! He will live for ever, I believe," said Oney, speaking according
to the common Indian belief, "unless he gets tired of it, and stops of
his own accord. Suppose I jump on John Crane's horse and go after the
old man myself. I can coax him round if he happens to be in one of his
sulky fits."
"Do, Oney! Oh, Fanny, if you had only told us this at first, instead of
lying so!" exclaimed Mrs. Lilly, wringing her hands. "Just see how much
time we have lost by your wickedness!"
"I don't care. I'm sure it was not my fault that Sarah wanted to speak
to me," replied Fanny. "And I should have told, only you told me not
to play with Sarah. And I'm sure I couldn't help it, and I didn't mean
to," cried Fanny, with a full burst of sobs. "It is all your fault,
telling me not to play with her."
"Go up to your room and stay there," said Mrs. Lilly. "I wish you had
never come into my house."
"I'm sure I didn't want to come," sobbed Fanny. "I wanted to go with my
mother, and I always knew that you didn't know how to manage me."
Mrs. Lilly took Fanny by the man and led her to her own room. What
happened there I have no means of knowing, but I very much suspect that
Fanny got, as the nurses say, "something to cry for." If she did, it
must be confessed that she got no more than her deserts.
In a very short time, Oney came back with John Steeprock, an old Indian
of her own tribe, who had lived on the outskirts of the mountain time
out of mind, and from his strength and activity seemed likely to live
much longer. Steeprock listened to the story.
"Bad—bad!" said he, shaking his head. "S'pose fog come down, little
girl maybe die. S'pose she full into hole—bad business!"
Mr. Brandon was about to speak, but Oney whispered to him, "Don't
interrupt him; let him manage his own way. If you put him in a bad
humour, you won't get any good of him. Let him go on his own way."
Old Steeprock ruminated for a minute in silence. Then he said, "You got
little girl's shoe?"
Mrs. Cassell had bought a second pair of shoes for Annie, and she
quickly produced them.
"Good!" said the old man, taking them in his hand. "Now we go up to the
spring. You call the other boys."
The searching party were soon assembled at the spring. It was now
nearly six o'clock, and a fine though cool evening. Steeprock looked
about him, examined the ground carefully, and at last seemed to make up
his mind.
"You let me be captain?" he asked.
"Yes, yes. Manage it your own way," said two or three of the men.
"Good!" returned the old man, evidently much gratified. "You all got
guns or pistols?"
Three or four guns and revolvers were produced.
"Good!" said Steeprock, again. "Now, then, you Crane boys, go 'that'
way; you Willsons, go 'that' way," indicating the direction with his
finger. "If you find her alive, shoot three times; if dead, only once."
The men moved off, leaving Steeprock and Mr. Brandon by the spring.
Steeprock called his dog, which was hunting about in the fallen leaves,
talked to him in the Indian language, and held Annie's little shoe to
his nose. The dog smelled it, wagged his tail, and began snuffing the
ground, till, having found what he sought, he set off at a rapid pace
up the path which Fanny and Sarah had taken.
CHAPTER X.
_ON THE MOUNTAIN._
AND where was Annie all this time? Hurrying along toward the top of the
great mountain as fast as her weary little legs could carry her, often
stumbling and falling, now and then sitting down to rest and get her
breath and cry for "grandma" and "Fanny," and then drying her tears and
setting off again.
Annie had waited at the spring for what seemed a very long time, though
in reality it was not more than twenty minutes. She had never been
alone in the woods before. Indeed, she had never been in the woods at
all, and she began to be a little scared at the loneliness, and at the
kind of murmuring, whispering silence which prevailed around her.
She thought at first that she would go home, and then she reflected
that perhaps grandma would not like it if she came home alone. She
was not quite sure that she could climb the fence, and Sarah had
said something, she did not know exactly what, about a bull. Then an
odd fancy came into her silly little head. Mary Patterson, who was
an English girl, had told her about the gypsies and how they stole
children. What if that dark, wild-looking girl with the curly hair
should be a gypsy, who had coaxed Fanny into the woods to do her some
mischief?
"But I won't believe any such nonsense," said Annie, stoutly. "Fanny
knew her before, and she was real good to me. I dare say she is looking
for snail shells all the time. I wonder if there would be any harm in
my going a little way up the path to see if they are coming?"
Annie hesitated a minute or two, and then she concluded to venture.
She went a little way and then a little farther, and then she saw a
very pretty sight—no less than a family of young squirrels at play on
a fallen tree. She watched them for a few minutes, and then ventured
a little nearer and a little nearer. Then she saw a beautiful flower,
and thought she would get it for Uncle Hugh. She did so, and then all
at once bethinking herself that the girls might come back and miss her,
she turned round and hurried back toward the spring.
She walked on and on, wondering that she did not come to the place,
and that she saw so many things which she had not noticed before.
Meantime, the path, such as it was, grew narrower and rougher, till all
at once Annie found herself at a spring, indeed, but not the one she
had left nor at all like it. This spring boiled up in a little pool at
the foot of a precipice so high that Annie could hardly see the top,
and the rocks seemed just ready to fall on her head. In fact, many of
them had already fallen, and lay round in wild confusion, while the
earth between them was soft and boggy, so that Annie had wet her boots
through and through before she was aware.
In the midst of the rocks and in the water lay a good many bones
bleached and scattered. Annie did not know enough to perceive that
they were the bones of a sheep or calf. She had a kind of horror of
dry bones, and would never touch or go near one if she could help it,
and she turned and hurried away out of sight of the place. She had the
sense to see that this was not the spring she had left, and she thought
she must return to that as quickly as possible.
So she turned and ran back again, taking, as she supposed, the same
path, but she only involved herself in fresh difficulties. And at last,
thoroughly bewildered, she sat down to rest and to think what she had
better do. She looked round. The place was so entirely strange that it
might almost have been in another world from that which the little girl
had inhabited hitherto. Great black evergreen trees grew all around
her, and the ground beneath was brown and slippery from the fallen
spruce and hemlock needles. Great rocks peeped through the soil, or lay
scattered upon it, as if they had at some time fallen from the sky.
Everything was very still, but as Annie listened she heard at a great
distance, as it seemed, a strange wild scream and then another. It was
the cry of the eagles which lived on the upper part of the mountain,
but Annie did not know that. Gradually, as she sat there, the knowledge
grew upon her that she did not know where she was, that she was
lost—lost on the great mountain, where Sarah had warned her not to go
on any account, where, as she knew, more than one person had been lost
and never found again. Perhaps the bones were those of people who had
strayed away before her, who had died all alone in the woods and had
never even been buried.
That was a silly fancy, but Annie was only a very little girl, and
older and wiser people have lost their heads on being lost in the
woods. She burst into tears and called aloud for grandma and Uncle
Hugh, but stopped suddenly, for somebody or something in the woods
seemed mocking her, repeating the words over and over again, fainter
and fainter every time. It was only the mountain echo, but Annie did
not know anything about echoes. She was frightened at the sound; and
starting to her feet, she ran away as fast as she could, which was not
very fast, for the ground began to be very steep and rugged.
By this time, Annie was quite beside herself. She remembered that
they had come up hill all the way to Mrs. Lilly's, and that grandma
had told her before leaving home that morning that Mrs. Lilly lived
on the mountain, and she reasoned in her confused little mind that if
she could only climb high enough, she should find the old red house
and grandma. So she climbed on, often falling and hurting herself, now
getting on easily a little way, now stopping to rest. And once finding
a bed of soft green moss, she lay down and slept for two or three
hours, the deep, heavy sleep of exhaustion.
When she awoke, it was nearly dark in the woods, for the sun was below
the mountain-top, though he still shone on the other side. Annie felt
weak and exhausted, but her sleep had refreshed her, and after she
remembered where she was and how she came there, she rose and struggled
on.
At last she could go no farther, and it was well she could not, for she
was now come into a very dangerous part of the mountain, where there
were many deep holes and cracks, some of them partly filled with water.
If she had fallen into one of them, she would probably never be found
again either dead or alive, for the place had an ill name, and few even
of the boldest hunters ever came near it.
Annie sat down on the ground in dumb despair, too wretched even to
cry, too hopeless to make another effort. She sat on the ground, with
her elbows on her knees and her hands supporting her chin, and thought
about herself and her condition almost as if she had been another
person. She was lost on the mountain like the poor hunter she had heard
of; and, like him, she would most likely never be found again. She
would die there in that lonely place and never go home, never see the
new baby sister who had come since she left home, and never, never see
papa and mamma any more.
She thought of her little cousin Grace Belden—how she had died in
her crib in the safe, warm nursery, with mamma holding her hands and
talking to her about heaven and the Lord Jesus. There would be nobody
to hold her hand and talk to her when she was dying, nor to dress her
body in soft white cashmere and lay it tenderly in the little white
coffin, as they had done with Grace—nobody to take her to the church
and read the funeral service, and sing a funeral hymn so softly and
sweetly, as Mrs. Terry and her daughters had done for Grace. Perhaps
the robins would cover her body with leaves, as they had done with the
babes in the wood, and the angels would come and carry her away to
heaven. She did not think she should be afraid of them if they looked
like the picture which hung in mamma's room at home.
But oh, she did want to see mamma once more. She rose and tried to
walk, but she sat down directly. One of her boots had come off, and she
had so hurt her foot on the sharp stones that it bled. Besides, her
head was dizzy, and a mist came over her eyes when she stood up. No;
she must just sit still where she was, and perhaps somebody would come.
She had lighted on a place where she could sit down and lean her
back against a rock. She had not climbed directly up, but rather in
a slanting direction along the side of the mountain. Still, she had
climbed very high—higher than any one would believe who did not know
how fast and how far lost children will travel.
The wind blew cool, and Annie was thinly dressed, for it had been a
warm day, and nobody had expected her to be out in the evening. The
cold and fatigue made her drowsy, and she was almost asleep, when she
suddenly started to her feet. Had she dreamed it? Was it one of the
voices which had mocked her in the woods and whispered in the tops of
the trees, or had some one called her name? She listened intently. Yes,
it was so.
"Annie! Annie Mercer!" rung out in a clear voice. "Annie, are you here?"
"Yes, oh yes!" called Annie, in a joyful tone. "Oh, do come!"
"I am coming. Keep still where you are. Don't stir!" called the voice
again.
Annie stood like a statue, hardly breathing. She heard steps among
the dry leaves, and in another moment, Sarah Leyman burst through the
bushes and caught the child in her arms.
"You blessed, dear little thing, I have found you at last!" exclaimed
Sarah, kissing Annie as if she would eat her up. "But how in the world
did you ever come here? Were you scared at the spring?"
"I was very naughty," said Annie, penitently. "I ought to have minded,
but I didn't. And I went up the hill to find you, and there I saw some
squirrels. And I tried to go back, and then I came to a place where it
was all wet, and there were bones," said Annie, in a terrified whisper.
"I thought they were the bones of people who had been lost; were they?"
"Oh no," said Sarah; "they were the bones of some animal which had
fallen off the rocks. Well, what then?"
"Then I knew that I was lost, and I tried to find my way, and I
couldn't, and when I came up here I couldn't get any further, and so I
sat down."
"And a very good thing you did," said Sarah. "But who would have
thought of your getting so far?"
"How did you find me?" asked Annie.
"That's more than I can tell you, Annie. I followed your track pretty
well to the green spring, and then it was pretty much all chance or
something else—I don't know what. I could see that you had started to
go up the hill, and I kept on after you, till by and by I found the
place where you lay down and left your hat. See, here it is. Then I
knew I was right so far, and I don't know why, but I felt sure you had
come up here." And Sarah kissed Annie once more.
"It was very good in you to come and find me," said Annie, returning
the kiss. "I thought I should die all alone, and nobody would know
where I was, nor bury me, nor anything," she continued, piteously. "And
when I called, something kept mocking me, and whispering in the trees
overhead."
"That was only the echo and the wind in the trees," replied Sarah. "It
could not hurt you."
"I didn't know that," said Annie; "it made me afraid. Won't you take me
home to grandma?"
Sarah's face darkened. She compressed her lips and looked round her. It
was now dark, and though the moon was risen, she gave them but little
light.
"Why, there's the trouble, Annie," said she. "I don't see how we are to
get home to-night."
"But I must go home," said the little girl, her wide blue eyes full of
terror. "I can't stay out in the woods all night. Oh, please, please,
do take me home to grandma!" wailed the poor child, in piteous tones.
"It is so dreadful up here, and I want to go to my own little bed."
Sarah sat down and took Annie on her lap, holding her fast, for the
poor child was so horrified at the thought of staying out all night
that she had started to run away.
"Annie dear, listen to me," said she, kindly but firmly. "Stop crying,
and sit still and try to listen and understand."
Annie was a docile little thing, and she had always been taught to
mind. She stopped struggling, sat still, and presently checked her sobs
and looked up in Sarah's face.
"I am good now," said she. "Won't you take me home?"
"I want to tell you about it," said Sarah, still holding her. "I should
like to take you home and to go home myself. I don't want to stay out
in the woods any more than you do. But you see it is quite dark, only
the moon shines a little. There are a great many dangerous holes and
precipices round here. And if we should try to go down the mountain in
the dark, we should most likely fall and be killed, and then we should
never see grandma any more. I don't see but we must stay here till
morning, and then we will go down."
"But we haven't any beds nor any supper," objected Annie. "And I am so
hungry, I don't know what to do."
Sarah put her hand into her pocket and brought out two ginger cakes
which she had brought from home.
"Here is some supper for you," said she; "and as for beds, we must do
the best we can. Sit still here and eat your cakes, and I will see what
I can do. There! Don't be frightened; I am not going away," she said,
in a soothing tone, as Annie threw her arms around her neck and clung
to her. "I wouldn't leave you for anything."
Somewhat reassured and very hungry, Annie sat down and ate her cakes,
while Sarah looked about among the rocks, where she presently found a
little nook well enough suited to her purpose—a kind of recess or cave
formed by two great slabs of stone, leaning one against the other.
"This will do," said she to herself; "now for a bed."
She dared not go far away to seek materials, but she broke off all
the evergreen boughs within reach, and arranged them into a couch,
spreading her own apron over them.
"There! That is the best that I can do," said she, returning to Annie's
side. "It is no great thing of a bed, but it is better than nothing.
Now let me loosen your clothes, and you shall lie down and sleep like a
little kitten, and I will watch by you. Don't be afraid. I don't think
anything will come near us."
"And will you hear me say my prayers?" asked Annie. "Grandma always
does, or mamma when I am at home. Oh dear! What would mamma say if she
could see where I am?"
"I am very glad she does not," was Sarah's thought. But she only said,
"Yes, dear, I will hear you say your prayers."
Annie knelt down and repeated her simple prayer, ending, as usual,
with, "God bless papa and mamma, grandmamma and all my friends, and
dear little baby sister;" to which she added, "And bless Sarah because
she came to find me, and please keep us safe, and let somebody come and
find us pretty soon."
"Now lie down and let me cover you up warm," said Sarah, after a little
silence. "I will sit down here close by you."
She laid Annie down as she spoke, and heaped the branches under her
head, so as to make a pillow. Then she laid the child's jacket over her
and put more branches over her feet.
"Thank you," said Annie. "May I say my evening hymn now?"
"Yes, do. Say all the hymns you know. I love to hear them. Are you
warm?"
"Not very," said Annie.
Sarah took off her woollen frock and laid it over the child, and then
sat down by her.
"Now listen, Annie," said she, impressively, laying her hand on the
child's arm. "When you wake up, whether it is night or morning, don't
you stir. You may speak to me, but if I don't answer, don't you move.
Lie still, and somebody will come and find you. Will you remember?"
"Yes," answered Annie; "I will do just as you tell me."
"That is a good girl. Now, say your hymns and try to go to sleep."
Annie began to repeat her hymn, but presently her voice died away and
she was silent.
Sarah hoped she was asleep, but presently she roused up again:
"Sarah!"
"Well, dear, here I am."
"I forgot to say my Bible verse—the verse I learn every morning, you
know."
"Well, say it now."
"'I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only
makest me dwell in safety,'" repeated Annie, reverently. "I don't think
we ought to be afraid, Sarah. I think he will take care of us."
"Annie," said Sarah, "suppose you had been very naughty indeed. Do you
think he would take care of you or care anything about you then?"
"Why, yes," answered Annie, simply, "because he does take care of all
the wicked people all the time. They couldn't live if he didn't."
A great wonder rose in Sarah's mind. Had her heavenly Father really
been taking care of her all this time, as Aunt Sally used to say he
would? She thought of all the risks she had run in her wild rambles, of
her encounter with the bull. Had he really taken care of her? Was it
his hand which had guided her to Annie? "And suppose we have been very
wicked and are sorry and want to be good, what must we do?" she asked.
"We must be very sorry and ask him to forgive us and make us better,
and we must try never to do so again," she answered.
"And will he forgive us and help us if we do so?"
"Yes, it says so in the Bible. I don't remember the words."
"Never mind," said Sarah. "Go to sleep like a good girl, and remember
what I said to you about lying still."
"I will," said Annie. "Please kiss me goodnight."
The two children—for Sarah was not much more—kissed each other
tenderly. Then Annie lay down to sleep, and Sarah sat by her, shivering
with the cold, her bare arms exposed to the wind. At last she crept
close to Annie's side, within the shelter of the rock; and leaning
against the side of the little cave, she fell into an uneasy slumber.
[Illustration: _On the Mountain._ "If you find her, you shall have more
dollars than ever you saw in your life."]
CHAPTER XI.
_THE SEARCH._
JOHN STEEPROCK'S dog guided his master and Mr. Brandon straight to the
green spring, but there he seemed puzzled. He smelt about, ran here
and there, and finally came back to his master, as if baffled in the
search. Steeprock patted him, talked to him in his own language, and
again showed him the little shoe, and the dog again set off up the
side of the mountain, but at a slower pace and as if still somewhat
uncertain.
"What ails him?" asked Mr. Brandon.
"Somebody else been here—been here only a little while ago. Don't you
be scared, Hugh. Dog know heap."
"So I see," replied Hugh. "John, if you find her, you shall have more
dollars than ever you saw in your life."
"Dollars very good," said the Indian, philosophically—"good to buy
tobacco and powder, and clothes," he added, after some consideration.
"But s'pose you no got one dollar in the world, me find nice little
girl all the same. You light um lantern."
"What do you think the chances are?" asked Hugh as he stopped to light
the lantern.
"Don't know," was answered rather gruffly. "Tell better when we get
through."
"Perhaps the others will find her first."
"They no find her," said Steeprock. "They good boys—want to do
something; so me tell them run, go where they do no harm," he added, in
a tone of benevolent condescension. "You and me, we get um out of the
way, and then go find her. Me old man, but know something yet."
"I should think so," said Hugh, laughing despite his anxiety. "How old
are you?"
"Don't know, exactly," replied the Indian. "You know when the great war
was when King George's men fight the Yankees at Bennington?"
"Yes," said Hugh.
"Well, then me tall boy, about like John Crane. Then I went on the
war-path with my father, the first time I ever take scalps."
"Why, you must be over a hundred years old," said Hugh, in surprise.
"Is that possible?"
"Very old man—just as I tell you. That day I took two scalps—got
'em now. When I die, I leave 'em to you, Hugh," said John, with a
benevolent air and tone, as of one who bestows a valuable curiosity.
"You good boy. I always like you. Waugh!" exclaimed John, interrupting
himself with the Indian's startling and inexpressible exclamation of
surprise as he held his light to the ground.
"What now?" asked Hugh.
"Another girl gone up here—not long ago, either. That make the dog so
puzzled and uneasy."
"Another girl!" exclaimed Hugh, in astonishment. "How do you know?"
"How I know anything? How you know what words mean when you read um
book? See um track plain as writing. Gone up about two hours ago."
"It must be Sarah Leyman," said Hugh. "Willy said she had gone to look
for Annie."
"Maybe so. That Leyman girl all same as Indian. Waugh!" exclaimed
Steeprock again as the dog came running back to them with something in
his mouth. It was Annie's little boot.
"All right," said Steeprock, showing it to Hugh. "She been right up
here, and the other after her."
"Then she must be near, dead or alive," said Hugh.
The Indian shook his head gravely.
"Maybe so—maybe not. Lost children travel very fast. Maybe she gone
clear up above the trees. Come on." And he resumed his walk, climbing
the more difficult path so fast that Hugh, though an experienced
woodsman, had some trouble in keeping up with him.
Sarah had slept about two hours, when she was awakened by the cold. She
put her hand on Annie. The child felt warm and was breathing softly.
She rose with some difficulty, for she was stiff with the cold and from
the cramped position in which she had been sitting. The moon had now
risen high enough to throw a good deal of light on the place where they
were, and Sarah could see to move about a little. She walked to and
fro on the narrow level platform in front of Annie's shelter, to warm
herself, and then began to pull more evergreen boughs and to lay them
over Annie.
"I must keep awake if I can," she said to herself. "If I sleep, I shall
be chilled to death, and then what will become of the child? I don't
care so much about myself. I know Mrs. Lilly would find some way to
befriend Ally, and perhaps she would be all the better without me."
As she spoke these words half aloud, she brushed Annie's face with one
of the branches she was laying over her. Annie opened her eyes.
"What are you doing, Mary?" she said, in a sleepy tone.
"Getting some more clothes to lay over you," replied Sarah. "Are you
warm enough?"
"Yes, I am as warm as toast, but the bed feels so hard and lumpy."
Then waking more fully and realizing where she was, she broke out into
a pitiful little wail: "Oh, Sarah, I thought I was at home in my own
nursery, and mamma was just saying, 'Annie, don't let Pick lie on the
clean pillow.' Oh dear! I shall never see mamma nor Pick any more."
Sarah could not speak, but she put her arms round Annie and kissed her
and held her in a close embrace.
"Am I naughty to cry?" asked Annie, presently.
"No, dear, you are not naughty, but I wouldn't cry if I could help it.
You will only make yourself sick, and I am sure mamma would not like
that. Tell me all about Pick. Is he your dog?"
"No; he is my cat, and I have had him—oh, such a long time!"
Sarah asked various questions about Pick, and Annie was gradually
diverted from her grief to talk of his beauty and accomplishments.
"You haven't any brothers and sisters, have you?" asked Sarah.
"No; only little baby sister that I haven't seen yet. Grace Belden used
to live at our house and be my sister, but she is dead now. She died
in the winter before I came here. People die everywhere, don't they,
Sarah?"
"Yes, dear, and they live everywhere too," answered Sarah.
"Grace never went up on the mountain," continued Annie, pursuing the
current of her own thoughts. "She never went into any dangerous places,
and she had mamma and Mary to take care of her."
"And yet she died, you see," said Sarah. "And people have been in much
more dangerous places than this, and yet they have lived."
"Have they?" asked Annie. "What sort of places?"
"Shipwrecks and earthquakes and battles and fires," said Sarah. "I read
the other day of a baby which was carried off by a tiger, and yet it
was saved."
"My papa has been in a great many battles, and he never was even
wounded," said Annie. "Do you think we shall ever get away from here,
Sarah?"
"Oh yes," returned Sarah, hopefully. "Everybody will be looking for you
by this time. But you must mind what I tell you, and not stir from this
place, whatever happens."
"I will mind," said Annie. "But won't you be here, Sarah?"
"Yes, but I might be asleep or something," answered Sarah.
She began to realize their position more clearly than she had done
before. They were a long way from any frequented part of the mountain.
It was very cold, and she was thinly dressed, even if she had not given
up her frock to Annie, and she thought it not unlikely that she might
be chilled to death by morning.
"Annie," said she, "do you know any more Bible verses?"
"Oh yes, a great many."
"Say them for me, will you? They will help to pass away the time."
Annie repeated her texts reverently. Sarah listened with fixed
attention.
"Say that again," said she, as Annie repeated, "'Come unto me, all ye
that labour.' Who said that?"
"The Lord Jesus," answered Annie; "and oh, Sarah, I know some more
pretty verses, about a lost sheep. They were in my lesson last Sunday."
And Annie repeated the parable beginning, "'What man of you, having an
hundred sheep—'"
"Grandma said that meant the Lord Jesus," said Annie. "She said his
people were his sheep; and when one of them strays away and gets
lost, he goes and finds him and brings him back. 'We' are lost in the
wilderness, you know, Sarah."
"I know 'I' am," said Sarah, sadly.
"And so I think he will send some one to find us. Is it almost morning?"
"Not yet, but it will be pretty soon. I guess you had better lie down
again. I am afraid you will catch cold."
"I 'am' cold," said Annie, shivering. "Are you?"
"Lie down, and I will lie down by you; then we can keep each other
warm."
Annie was soon asleep again, but Sarah could not sleep. She was too
cold and anxious; and besides that, her head was full of new ideas. Was
God really her Father? Had he taken care of her all these years that
she had gone on never thinking of him or caring to please him? Did he
really love her, and was she one of those lost sheep the Lord had come
to find?
She began to think over all she had heard about him. It was not much.
As she had truly told Fanny, her father would not permit good books to
come into his house. All she knew of the sacred volume she had learned
by reading it in the district school, and she had never been to school
very regularly. Yet she could remember a good many things, after all.
There was the verse Deacon Crane had talked about at the meeting that
night.
Suppose she should confess her sins then and there, would He indeed
forgive them and take them all away, as the deacon had said? Yes, it
was all true. She felt quite sure that it was true. She hid her face
in her hands for a long time; and when she again raised it, her bright
black eyes were wet with tears, and her face wore an expression of
peaceful awe.
She drew the covering closer over Annie, and lay down as near as
possible to her side, repeating Annie's verse, "'I will both lay me
down in peace, and sleep.'"
She had hardly lost herself five minutes when something roused her.
She sat up and listened intently. Yes, some animal was coming up the
mountain-side directly toward them. She could hear the patter of its
feet on the dry leaves, and her heart beat fast and thick. Could it be
a wolf or a panther? It was not unlikely, for there were plenty of them
on the other side of the mountain, she knew. She could now hear the
sound distinctly, and see the movement of the branches below. Oh for
a club or a stout stick! She snatched up a stone—the only weapon she
could find—and threw herself directly before Annie, but she dropped it
the next moment as the supposed wolf pushed his way through the bushes
and sprung upon her neck, licking her face and hands and yelping with
delight.
Hugh and Steeprock were still some distance below, and had stopped an
instant to take breath, when Fox came dashing down toward them. He ran
to his master, jumped upon him, and then ran back the way he had come.
The Indian uttered a yell which resounded far and wide; and springing
forward as if his great age had been no more than five-and-twenty, he
bounded up the mountain-side at a pace which left Hugh far behind.
Hugh followed as quickly as he could, and stood at his side. The old
man was bending down, and beckoned him to approach.
There lay Annie, fast asleep on her bed of leaves, and across the
entrance of the little cave lay Sarah, looking as if she were in the
sleep that knows no waking in this world.
"Are they dead?" Hugh managed somehow to ask.
"Not the little one," replied Steeprock. "She fast asleep. You got
bottle in your pocket?"
Hugh produced his travelling-flask, and with some difficulty forced
some of the spirit it contained between Sarah's lips. She gasped,
sighed, and opened her eyes.
"Where is Annie?" was her first question.
"Here, safe and sound. Annie dear, wake up. Here is Uncle Hugh come for
you."
"Uncle Hugh!" said Annie, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "How did you
come here?"
"I came after you, my little lost lamb," said Mr. Brandon, taking Annie
in his arms, "but I see somebody was before me. My dear girl, what has
become of your frock?"
"I put it over Annie," said Sarah, blushing crimson, and shrinking into
the farthest corner of the cave, as she suddenly remembered that she
was half undressed. "I was so afraid she would freeze to death." And
pulling out her dress from among the green branches, she slipped it on
with all speed.
"Ugh! S'pose you freeze yourself," said Steeprock. "What you say now,
Hugh? Didn't I tell you another girl gone up here? Old Indian no fool,
eh?"
"No, indeed! But who could guess that they could both reach this place
without being killed?"
"God took care of us, I guess," said Annie, who was now quite cool and
collected. "But how did you know where we were?"
"It was this good old man who found you, my dear," said Hugh, turning
to Steeprock, who was composedly filling his pipe by way of improving
the time. "But I am afraid all our finding would have been in vain,
only for Sarah. My dear girl, how shall we ever thank you?"
"You needn't thank me at all," replied Sarah, rather gruffly. "Annie
never would have been lost only for me. It was all my fault, leaving
her alone in the first place."
"No, it wasn't your fault, either," said Annie, rather petulantly. "I
ought to have minded, and stayed at the spring when you went to get the
snail shells for me. Did you find any?"
"Yes, here they are in my pocket," said Sarah, laughing rather
hysterically. "I will get you something prettier some day."
"And you made my bed and put your own frock over me, and heard me say
my prayers, and all," continued Annie. "I think you are the 'bestest'
girl in the world."
"Pretty nice girl!" said Steeprock, approvingly. "Once I had a daughter
just so big. You pretty nice girl too. S'pose you got kiss for old
Indian?"
Annie put up her face to be kissed, though. She felt considerable awe
of the old man.
"Now we go home," continued Steeprock. "You take the baby, and I take
this one."
"I'm not a baby," said Annie, indignantly. "I am seven years old, and I
can read and write."
"Oh no; you great big woman," said the Indian, soothingly. "All the
same; you let Hugh carry you."
Annie was very willing to be carried, and the party set out to return.
The proverb that "to go down the hill is easy" is not always true, by
any means. The descent in the present instance was both difficult and
dangerous. They could only go very slowly and carefully, and Sarah, who
was much exhausted, fell more than once.
"You fire your pistol," said Steeprock, at last. "Maybe someone hear
and come to meet us. This girl can't walk much farther. She clear worn
out."
"Never mind me," said Sarah, sitting down wearily. "I can stay here
very well. Just carry Annie home, and leave me here."
"That would not do at all," said Mr. Brandon. He fired three shots as
he spoke—the signal which had been agreed upon.
An answering shout told that he had been heard, and presently three or
four of the young men came up. A volley of shots now rang through the
woods, proclaiming to all within hearing that the lost child was found.
Two of the Crane boys made a "lady chair" with their hands, and Sarah
was persuaded to let herself be carried down to the red house. She
began to feel very tired and confused, and nearly fell from her seat
more than once.
Mrs. Cassell and Mrs. Lilly were called out by the shouts, and met the
party in the garden.
"It was all my fault, grandma," called out Annie as soon as she saw
Mrs. Cassell. "Sarah thinks it was hers, but it wasn't. And she found
me 'way up in the mountain, and made me a nice little bed."
"It was even so," said Mr. Brandon. "Sarah found her first, and her
care and good sense saved the child's life."
"Bless you, my dear!" said Mrs. Lilly, taking Sarah in her arms and
kissing her. "But how cold you are! You are shivering all over. You
must go right to bed and have some hot soup. Oney has it all ready on
the stove."
"I guess I had better go home," said Sarah, wearily. "I shall make you
too much trouble."
"You don't stir a foot this night," said Mrs. Lilly, positively. "You
must go to bed directly."
Sarah was in no condition to resist Mrs. Lilly's strenuous kindness,
even if she had wished to do so. A deathly faintness was stealing over
her; and when she was undressed by Oney and put into bed, her head
sank on the pillow as if it would never rise again. She wanted nothing
but to lie still. But Oney, whose experienced eye knew the symptoms
of dangerous exhaustion, would not let her sleep till she had taken
several spoonfuls of strong hot soup.
At last, all was still. The neighbours who had helped in the search
were dismissed with thanks. Old Steeprock camped down on the kitchen
floor, with his dog beside him, preferring that accommodation to
Willy's bed, which the boy offered him. Annie was already asleep in her
grandmother's arms, and all was quiet about the old red house.
CHAPTER XII.
_REPENTANCE._
THE next day Annie did not get up, but in the course of a week, she was
playing about as lively as ever. But Sarah still lay on her sick-bed,
and it seemed doubtful whether she would ever rise from it again. The
chill she had received on the mountain resulted in an attack of acute
rheumatism, which chained her hand and foot, and was accompanied by a
severe cough.
It was well for her that she was at Mrs. Lilly's instead of at home.
Mrs. Lilly put her into the best bedroom down stairs, and she and Oney
waited on her night and day, while Mrs. Cassell and Mrs. Brandon made
her up a set of nice underclothes, and nobody thought anything too
much to do for the girl who had risked her own life to save little
Annie. Sarah's mother came to see her, and would fain have established
herself at the red house altogether, but she was nothing of a nurse,
and it seemed as if she could not come near Sarah without hurting her.
Besides, as Oney said, she needed twice as much waiting on as Sarah
herself. And so Mrs. Lilly, who was not a woman to be imposed upon,
soon gave her to understand that Sarah did not need her, and that she
had better go home and take care of her own house and family.
Mrs. Leyman departed, shaking off the dust from her feet, and declaring
that she would never enter the house again, whatever happened. They had
got Sarah away from her, she said, and now they might take care of her
till they were tired of it. They were a set of Pharisees, anyhow, who
never would do anything for poor folks except in their own way; and if
Sarah was going to join them and turn against her, she (Mrs. Leyman)
would have no more to do with her.
For three or four weeks Sarah lay very sick, and Dr. Perkins came every
day to see her. She was wonderfully patient and grateful for all that
was done for her, and Mrs. Lilly said it was surprising to see the
wild girl so tamed. One day, when Sarah was able to talk a little, she
called the old lady to her bedside.
"Mrs. Lilly," said she, "do you think I shall ever get well?"
"I don't know, my dear," answered Mrs. Lilly, frankly. "I hope so, but
nobody can say for certain."
"Did Willy tell you what I told him that day—I mean about the pie and
the gingerbread?" asked Sarah.
"Yes; he told me that you got them, and that you were sorry. Did you
ever take anything else?"
"No," replied Sarah; "only I have sometimes picked an apple when I was
going through the orchard. I got the pie more in fun than for anything
else."
"So I supposed," said Mrs. Lilly. "Did Fanny know about it?"
"I don't want to say anything about Fanny," replied Sarah. Then, after
a pause: "Mrs. Lilly, did you and Oney really make fun of me for coming
to the meeting that night, and say you should think I would be ashamed
to come looking so?"
"Of course not," answered Mrs. Lilly. "I was very glad to see you
there, as I told you at the time. Who could have told you such a story?"
"Never mind," said Sarah. "Somebody did, and I was just fool enough
to believe it. It almost killed me, I can tell you. I made up my mind
that night that I would try to be good, and I was going to ask you to
give me a Bible or Testament, and then Fanny—" Sarah stopped short and
looked very much vexed.
"Go on," said Mrs. Lilly, quietly. "'And then Fanny—'"
"I didn't mean to tell," said Sarah, "but it is out now. Well, Fanny
told me how you made fun of me for coming, and said you meant to shut
me up in the asylum. That almost broke my heart, for I always thought
you were so good—like Aunt Sally. And when I heard that, it made me
feel as if there was nothing real or true in heaven or earth, and I
might as well do one thing as another."
"Poor child! I don't wonder. But now tell me, Sarah—for it is very
important that I should know the true story—did Fanny have anything to
do with stealing the pie?"
"Well, I suppose I may as well, though I never meant to say a word
about it," said Sarah. And she went on to give the whole history of
that unlucky Sunday afternoon.
"I felt sorry enough afterward," she concluded, "and I wanted to tell
you so, and to make it up somehow, but Fanny seemed afraid to have me
say a word, and I thought it would be mean to get her into a scrape
after I had eaten my share of the pie. I sent you the raspberries,
though, to make up. And afterward, when the bull chased us—I don't know
whether you heard about that—"
"Yes, Willy told me."
"Well, then I wanted to tell you again, but Fanny wouldn't consent. She
said afterward that you were very angry with me for letting the bull
out of his pasture, but indeed I didn't do it."
"He did not get out of the pasture," said Mrs. Lilly. "He was in
his stable, and I don't know to this day how he got loose. I always
supposed it was some of Pat's carelessness, and never thought of
blaming you."
"Well, there is no use in going over it all," said Sarah, wearily.
"Only that night when I was up on the mountain with Annie, I heard her
say her little prayers and verses before she went to sleep. And she
told me some things in her innocent way that encouraged me, and I made
up my mind that if I got down alive, I would try to be a Christian like
Aunt Sally. And I want you to tell me how, for I don't know any more
about it than a wild Indian or a heathen."
"I am sure I will tell you all I know, my dear child," said Mrs. Lilly,
much affected. "The way is very plain and easy, as the Scripture says,
'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved'—believe
that he came to save all of us, and you in particular; that he died to
redeem you, and that he now lives in heaven to intercede for you."
"Do you mean that he really cares about 'me'—me in particular?" asked
Sarah, with eyes full of wonder.
"I mean just that, Sarah. You are one of the lost sheep that, he came
to seek and to save. If you will but believe on him, your sins will
be forgiven and washed away, and God will give you the Holy Spirit to
dwell in your heart and help you to do right."
"It seems too good to be true," said Sarah. "Is it in the Bible? Read
it to me, please, will you?"
Mrs. Lilly brought her old Bible and read, and Sarah lay and listened
till a look of sweet peace and contentment stole over her face. But
presently she grew troubled again.
"I have been so wicked," said she. "I never really knew before how bad
I have been. It doesn't seem as if he could ever forgive 'me'."
"'Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow,'"
repeated Mrs. Lilly. "Scarlet is the hardest colour to get out. The
paper-makers say so, and they have to use the red rags to make that
reddish blotting-paper that you have seen. When God forgives us, he
washes away our sins and makes our souls clean and white again. And so
he will do by you, if you ask him to do it for his dear Son's sake."
"I am sure I 'am' sorry," murmured Sarah. "Mrs. Lilly, please ask him
for me."
Mrs. Lilly prayed with Sarah, and Sarah joined in the prayer with her
whole heart.
"Now you have talked enough for once," said Mrs. Lilly, after a little
silence. "Another time we will take the subject up again."
"I want to say one thing more," said Sarah, eagerly—"only one thing,
because I may not be able to talk another time. Please sit down and let
me tell you, and then my mind will be quite easy."
Mrs. Lilly sat down again, wisely thinking it better to let Sarah free
her mind, and Sarah went over her plan for seeing her Aunt Caroline and
persuading her to take Ally.
"Was that what you wanted Fanny to give you the money for?" asked Mrs.
Lilly.
"Yes, but I never asked her to give it to me. I only wanted to borrow
it till I could earn something. But won't you write to Aunt Caroline
yourself, and tell her the story and ask her to take Ally and bring her
up? She may have her all to herself, and I won't even come near her if
Aunt Caroline doesn't want me to. Ally is real clever and good, though
she isn't pretty, and I am sure Aunt Caroline would like her and do
well by her. Won't you ask her, please?"
"I will write this very day," said Mrs. Lilly. "I think your plan is
an excellent one. But now you must rest, and try to sleep before the
doctor comes, or he will scold us all round for letting you talk so
much."
Mrs. Lilly wrote that day, as she had promised, and read the letter to
Sarah, but she added a postscript which she did not think it necessary
to show.
The result was that Aunt Caroline came over to see the state of things
for herself. She made acquaintance with the girls and talked matters
over with Mrs. Lilly, and finally she carried Ally home to live with
her, taking the precaution to have her legally bound till she came of
age.
Mr. Leyman demurred at first, but certain little matters in the line
of stealing lumber and iron from the quarries having come to Squire
Holden's ears, it was hinted to Mr. Leyman that unless he consented to
do what was deemed best for his children, the place would speedily be
made too hot to hold him. Mr. Leyman sold his place not long afterward,
and he and his wife, accompanied by Miss Clarke, went off to Utah,
regretted by nobody in Hillsborough.
And where was Fanny all this time? Fanny was more unhappy and more
ashamed than she had ever been before in all her life. She had made up
her mind that as Annie was found, and, as she expressed it, no great
harm was done, after all, things would go on just as usual.
She had come down to the breakfast table next morning prepared to be
very amiable, and even expecting to be something of a heroine for her
share in the adventure. She was astounded when Mrs. Lilly ordered her
back to her room with an admonition not to leave it again till she had
permission, which, she added, would not be very soon. In vain Fanny
cried and protested that she didn't mean to and she couldn't help it.
Mrs. Lilly was deaf to all such excuses. She saw that Fanny needed a
severe lesson, and she meant that it should not be wanting.
For a whole week Fanny stayed in her room, with nobody to speak to,
and no other recreation than a very short walk every day with her
grandmother or Oney. When she was at last permitted to come down
stairs, she found that her troubles were by no means at an end. Nobody
took any notice of her. Nobody asked her any questions or listened when
she spoke, her grandmother only saying,—
"I don't want to hear anything from you, Fanny. You have told so many
lies that nobody can believe a word you say, and so I prefer that you
should say nothing."
Fanny was not allowed to go out of sight of the door, and she was
made in every way to feel that nobody trusted her. At first she tried
to harden herself and think that she did not care, and then that she
was terribly abused, but all did not answer. She was very miserable,
and began to wish in earnest to be a good girl. The first sign of
improvement was seen in her beginning to wait upon Sarah, who was now
able to sit up and to use her hands a little, though she could not walk
or even bear her weight at all. Fanny had begun by keeping entirely out
of her way, and putting on a very injured look whenever Sarah's name
was mentioned before her. But now she began to do little offices for
the invalid—to bring her fresh water and set flowers on the table by
her side, at first without speaking a word. One day she rather timidly
asked Sarah if she should read for her.
"Oh yes, please," said Sarah, eagerly. "My eyes are so soon tired, and
it hurts me to hold the book."
"I will read to you every day if you want me to," said Fanny. "I love
to read aloud."
"I am sure I shall be glad to have you," said Sarah. "Fanny, are you
angry with me now?"
"No," replied Fanny, sadly, "but I did not know whether you would care
to have me talk to you. Nobody does, nowadays."
Sarah did not exactly know what to say, so she bent forward and kissed
Fanny. Fanny returned the kiss and burst into tears.
"Don't cry," said Sarah, tenderly.
"I can't help it," sobbed Fanny, "I am so very unhappy. But I won't
bother you with my crying. I have made trouble enough already."
"Fanny," said Sarah, detaining her as Fanny was about to go away, "why
don't you tell Grandma Lilly all about it, and ask her to forgive you?
I am sure she would if you asked her. She did me."
"You were not half so bad as I have been," said Fanny. "Oh, Sarah, I
was so mean to you. I told you grandma made fun of you, and it wasn't
true. And all the time I used to play with you, I felt so above you."
"I know you did," answered Sarah. "I never could understand why;
though, of course, your folks were rich and respectable, and all that,
but that was no merit of yours. But never mind now. Come, Fanny, tell
grandma all about it. I am sure you will feel better, and that she will
forgive you, and it will be all right again."
Fanny shook her head sadly. "I don't feel as if it would ever be right
again," said she. "Don't you want a hot brick for your feet?"
"Yes, please. They are cold nearly all the time."
The next day Oney was going over to R—, and Fanny timidly asked if she
might send for some worsted.
"Yes, if you choose," said Mrs. Lilly. "Why do you want it?"
"I want to crochet some thick, warm slippers for Sarah. She says her
feet are cold all the time."
"Very well," said Mrs. Lilly, evidently pleased. "Tell Oney what you
want, and she will buy it for you."
"I would rather buy it with my own money, please," said Fanny.
"Oh, very well. If you want to make Sarah a pretty present, I have no
objection, my dear."
It was the first time Mrs. Lilly had said "my dear" since that unlucky
day, and the words brought the tears into Fanny's eyes. She had begun
to feel the value of that kindness and affection which she had always
accepted as her just due.
"I am sure I should like to do something for somebody," said she.
"You can do a great deal for everybody, Fanny, but then you must begin
in the right way."
Oney bought the worsted, and Fanny began the slippers. She was rather
apt to grow tired of work and throw it aside when it was half done, but
she persevered with the slippers, and Sarah was delighted with them.
"I never saw anything so pretty, and how soft and warm they are!" said
she. "If I had some wool, I would try making a pair for Grandma Lilly.
I know how to crochet a little."
Now, Fanny had decided in her own mind to use the rest of the wool for
a pair of slippers for herself. But as Sarah said this, a thought came
into her mind, and she acted on it immediately.
"You may have this wool if you want it, Sarah; then the present will be
partly yours and partly mine."
"Oh, thank you," said Sarah. "But suppose you make one and I the other?"
"Well, just as you like," answered Fanny. And this was almost the first
time in her life that she had ever sacrificed her own pleasure or
convenience to another person.
"Fanny," said Sarah as she laid down her work to rest her hands—"Fanny,
have you made it right with Grandma Lilly yet?"
"No," returned Fanny, sighing. "I don't see that things are any nearer
to coming round than ever."
"Things don't 'come' round, Fanny. You have got to cut them round or
roll them round, or something."
"Maybe so. But, you see, the trouble is, I don't know how to begin.
Grandma don't believe a word I say, and no wonder," said Fanny,
sighing. "I have been such a liar all my life. I don't know how to
believe myself when I say I am sorry. I hate myself, and I wish I was
somebody else. However, I believe I will tell her. Things can't be much
worse than they are."
"Do," said Sarah. "Tell her to-night when you are going to the
schoolhouse:" for it was Thursday night, and some sort of religious
service was always held in the schoolhouse on that evening.
Fanny was as good as her word. That night, coming home from the
Corners, she confessed everything without reserve, telling her
grandmother of many acts of disobedience which she had never suspected.
"I don't know whether you will believe me or not, grandma," she
concluded, "but indeed I am telling the truth now."
"I believe you, Fanny," said Mrs. Lilly.
"I shouldn't blame you if you didn't," continued Fanny, "I have told
so many lies. Grandma," she added, in a low, frightened voice, "I told
lies to God when I said my prayers. I said I was sorry when I wasn't,
and when I meant all the time to do the very same things again. Do you
think he will ever forgive me?"
"Certainly, my child. He will not only forgive you, but will help you
to do better another time. Now, Fanny, can you tell me what has been
the root of all your troubles?—What has made you disobey me so many
times?"
"I wanted my own way," said Fanny, after a little consideration.
"Exactly; and when you had done so very wrong that Sunday, and Sarah
wanted to come and confess, as I know she did, why did you hinder
her? Why did you take so much pains to prevent her from going to the
meetings and from coming to talk to me, as she intended doing?"
"I thought you would find out all about me and punish me. I wanted you
to think I was a good girl when I wasn't."
"Then, my dear, it has been your love of self which has been at the
bottom of all the mischief. Don't you see that it is so?"
"I know it," said Fanny, promptly. "It has always been just so. I never
could bear to give up to anybody or do anything for anybody unless
it was something that I liked myself, and yet I thought people ought
always to give up to me. And everybody did give up to me at home,
till Arthur came. Mamma used to say it made children deceitful to be
contradicted."
"Do you think that excuses you now, Fanny?" asked Mrs. Lilly, thinking,
however, that the tree had borne such fruit as might have been expected.
"No, grandma, but you don't know how hard it is for me to give up the
least little thing that I want. It seems as if I couldn't. That day on
the mountain, Sarah didn't want to leave Annie alone. After we started
to go away, she wanted to come back, and I wouldn't let her, because I
wanted to know what she had to say. And, after all, I would not lend
her the money."
"There was nothing wrong in that," observed Mrs. Lilly. "It would not
have been proper for you to lend such a large sum without asking me.
Sarah herself sees that now."
Fanny shook her head. "That was not the reason," said she. "I was ready
enough to spend the money in other ways—to buy candy and 'dime novels,'
such as I knew you wouldn't want me to have. And then I told so many
lies about Annie. She might have been found directly and Sarah might
have been well this minute. Do you think Sarah will ever be well again?"
"I don't know, my dear. Her state is very discouraging. I do not see
that she gains the use of her feet in the least. But, Fanny, how is it
to be with you hereafter? Do you mean to go on in the same way, living
for self and nothing else?"
"Not if I can help it, grandma. I have tried not to be selfish lately,
and I have asked God to help me, too, but it is hard work."
"Yes, I dare say—much harder than if you had been trained to give up
for others when you were young."
"I don't want you to blame mamma, grandma," said Fanny, flushing a
little. "It wasn't her fault at all. I am sure she meant to do just
right."
"We won't blame anybody, dear," said Mrs. Lilly, not displeased by this
little outbreak. "We will only try to do better in future. I will give
you a verse, Fanny, which I think may help you: 'Whosoever will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.'
Do you know who said that?"
"The Lord Jesus."
"Yes, and he says again: 'Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come
after me, cannot be my disciple.' You must try as much as you can to
deny 'yourself'—to put yourself out of the question and live for other
people. You must think about yourself as little as possible, and never
lose a chance of putting yourself aside when you can do good or even
give pleasure by it."
"It doesn't seem as though it was in me to do that," said Fanny,
shaking her head. "Grandma, I should just like to be made new, to be
made over altogether."
"Well, dear, that is just what your heavenly Father is ready to do for
you—to 'create a clean heart and renew a right spirit' within you,
as the Psalm says. If you ask him, he will so change your heart and
disposition that you will love to do his will. You will love him, and
because you love him, you will want to be like him and to make your
whole life one sacrifice to him. I do not say that you will not do
wrong a great many times, but whenever you do, you will be sorry and
not rest till God has forgiven you. If you persevere in this course,
you will grow more and more like him every day. Your life will be a
blessing to all around you and the beginning of eternal happiness to
yourself."
All the rest of the summer Sarah sat helpless in her arm-chair, unable
to stand for a moment. One bright day in September, Mrs. Cassell came
up to see Mrs. Lilly and consult her about a plan for the sick girl's
benefit. Mrs. Cassell had a friend at the head of a great institution
where some wonderful cures had been performed on rheumatic patients.
Doctor Henry was to be at Mrs. Cassell's house on a certain day, and
Mrs. Cassell proposed to bring him up to examine Sarah and see if
anything could be done for her. Mrs. Lilly consented, but thought Sarah
had better not know anything about the matter, and to this Mrs. Cassell
agreed. Mrs. Lilly herself was not at all hopeful about Sarah, and she
did not think it best to excite the child's own hopes of recovery.
Doctor Henry came at the appointed day, and examined Sarah very
carefully before pronouncing an opinion. He thought she might be cured,
but she would need a long course of treatment and great care.
"I should like to take her home with me and see what can be done," said
the doctor. "Has she any friends?"
"Plenty," said Mrs. Lilly. "If you will undertake the case, I will pay
her expenses. My children do not need my help, and I have more money
than I know what to do with."
"With your permission, Mrs. Lilly, that is our part of the business,"
said Mrs. Cassell, smiling. "My son-in-law has written to me to spare
no expense."
"Well, we won't quarrel about it," said Mrs. Lilly. "When would you
like to have her go, doctor?"
"I shall be here again in two weeks, and will take her home with me,"
answered the doctor.
And so it was settled. Sarah was to return with the doctor, and Oney
was to go with her and see her settled. Sarah did not know whether to
be pleased or sorry. She had been happier since her illness than ever
before in her life, and she dreaded to leave Mrs. Lilly and Fanny, whom
she loved more than ever. But then she was very anxious to get well and
be able to earn her own living as well as to do something for Ally, now
happily domesticated with Aunt Caroline.
"I can't make up my mind whether I like it or not," she said, in answer
to Oney's question. "I am glad it has been all settled for me; for if I
had to choose, I should not know what to say."
"Well, it is all settled, you see, so you needn't say anything at all,"
remarked Oney. "Fanny, if you sew so steadily all day, you will have a
headache again. Run out to the barn and hunt up some fresh eggs, that
is a good girl."
"How she has worked making my things!" remarked Sarah, after Fanny
had left the room. "She used to say that she hated sewing. It seems a
shame that every one should be working so hard for me, and I can't do
anything."
"It has been a very good thing for Fanny, though," said Oney, "and has
given me more hopes of her than anything else. I believe she will turn
out a good girl yet, and that is more than I would have said of her six
months ago—or of you, either, for that matter," added Oney to herself.
Sarah went away to "The Cure," and, contrary to her expectation, she
found herself very happy there. Every one was kind to her, and after
she once began to amend, her health improved rapidly.
A lady who was staying in the house undertook to teach her in the
things she so much wanted to know. And very happy was Sarah when she
succeeded in writing a letter to Fanny without one misspelled word.
But Sarah found something else beside her health at the Spring. She
found her business and place in life. As she grew better and able to
go about the house, she showed a remarkable aptitude for nursing and
waiting on the sick. Doctor Henry, who saw most things that went on
around him, one day called Sarah into his office.
"You are almost well now," said he, after he had asked her several
questions about her health. "What are you going to do with yourself?"
"I must go to work at something," answered Sarah. "There is no use in
my living on Grandma Lilly any more. I don't know enough to teach, so I
suppose I must go out to work."
"The world is running over with teachers," remarked the doctor, "and
there are plenty of other things to be done."
And then he proceeded to open his plan, which was that Sarah should be
regularly educated for a nurse. "You seem to have a natural talent for
that sort of thing, and it is a pity it should be wasted. I have been
surprised to see how handily you adapt yourself to the work. Have you
ever had any experience?"
"Only what I have gained in waiting on Ally," said Sarah.
"However you learned it, you certainly have it," said the doctor.
"A skilful nurse is sure to have plenty of practice, and that of a
profitable kind, and there is no place in which a good woman can make
herself more useful. To be sure, it is hard work."
"Everything worth doing is hard work sometimes," remarked Sarah, "but I
think doing nothing is the hardest work of all."
"Very true," said Doctor Henry. "Well, take time to think and pray
over it, and write to your friends. If you decide to undertake the
profession, I will find a place in the house for you, and will see that
you have all needful instruction."
Sarah did think and pray over the matter, and finally concluded to
accept the doctor's offer.
"Well, I must say I did wonder at your choice of a profession when I
heard of it," said Fanny, on one of their meetings at the red house,
which Sarah still called home, and whither she always came to spend her
vacations. "I think I should rather do almost anything else. And you
know, Sarah, grandma and Mrs. Cassell both offered to educate you for
a teacher. How did it happen that you decided to take up nursing for a
business?"
"I can't pretend to tell you all about it," replied Sarah, "only when I
began to go about, I wanted something to do, and I began to wait on a
sick lady whose room was next mine. So one thing led to another, and I
seemed just to have found my place. I did not so much choose it as it
chose me. Besides, I like to be a person of consequence," she added,
smiling. "Teachers go begging nowadays, but people come begging for
nurses. There are twice too many of the one and not half enough of the
other."
"So it seems. I wonder how many letters you have had since you came
here? Grandma says you work a great deal too hard."
"I don't mean to work so hard another year," said Sarah. "I am going to
rest and study and have a nice time with Ally, and in order to do that,
I must lay up some money. And now, Fanny, what do you mean to be?"
"To be Fanny, I guess," returned Fanny, smiling. "I shall never be
anything great or grand in the world. I shall just go on filling up
the chinks and rounding the corners, threading needles for other folks
to sew with, and carrying bricks for other people's houses. I used to
think that I should like to go into a convent or a sisterhood, but I
can tell you I find there are plenty of ways to be useful in every-day
life, and that one can be just as self-denying and work just as hard in
a gypsy hat as in a cambric cap or a black serge veil."
"Annie has found her vocation, too, with all those little brothers and
sisters of hers," said Sarah. "You don't know what a grave, motherly
little thing she is, though her face isn't a day older than when she
was lost on the mountain."
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