Chapter Eleventh
"Zeal and duty are not slow:
But on occasion's forelock watchful wait."
– Milton.
"The impudent thing!" exclaimed Mildred to her mother with a flushed and angry face; "putting us and our maid of all work on the same level! Visit her? Not I, indeed, and I do hope, mother, that neither you nor Aunt Wealthy will ever cross their threshold."
"My dear, she probably did not mean it," said Mrs. Keith.
"And now let us go on with our story. You have all waited quietly and politely like good children."
"Gotobed Lightcap! Lightcap! Gotobed Nightcap!" sang Cyril, tumbling about on the carpet. "O Don, don't you wish you had such a pretty name?"
"No, I wouldna; I just be Don."
"There, dears, don't talk now; sister's going to read," said their mother. "If you don't want to be still and listen you may run out and play in the yard."
"Somebody else tumin'," whispered Fan, pulling at her mother's skirts.
Mildred closed again the book she had just resumed, rose and inviting the new comer to enter, handed her a chair.
She was a tall, gaunt, sallow-complexioned woman of uncertain age, with yellow hair, pale watery blue eyes, and a sanctimonious expression of countenance.
Her dress was almost austere in its simplicity; a dove-colored calico, cotton gloves of a little darker shade, a white muslin handkerchief crossed on her bosom, a close straw bonnet with no trimming but a skirt of plain, white ribbon and a piece of the same put straight across the top, brought down over the ears and tied under the chin.
"My name is Drybread," she announced with a slight, stiff courtesy; then seating herself bolt upright on Mildred's offered chair, waited to be addressed.
"Mrs. or Miss?" queried Mrs. Keith pleasantly.
"Miss. And yours?"
"Mrs. Keith. Allow me to introduce my aunt, Miss Stanhope, and my daughter Mildred. These little people too belong to me."
"Gueth we do so?" said Don, showing a double row of pearly teeth, "cauth you're our own mamma. Ain't she, Cyril?"
"Do you go to school, my little man?" asked the visitor, unbending slightly in the stiffness of her manner.
"Ain't your man! don't like dwy bwead, 'cept when I'se vewy hungwy."
"Neither do I," chimed in Cyril. "And we don't go to school. Papa says we're not big enough."
"Don! Cyril! my little boys must not be rude," reproved the mamma. "Run away now to your plays."
"They're pretty children," remarked the caller as the twain disappeared.
"Very frank in the expression of their sentiments and wishes," the mother responded smiling.
"Extremely so, I should say;" added Mildred dryly.
"Is it not a mother's duty to curb and restrain?" queried the visitor, fixing her cold blue eyes upon Mrs. Keith's face.
"Certainly; where she deems it needful."
Mrs. Keith's tones were perfectly sweet-tempered; Mildred's not quite so, as she added with emphasis, "And no one so capable of judging when it is needful as my mother."
"Quite natural and proper sentiments for her daughter, no doubt. How do you like Pleasant Plains?"
The question was addressed more particularly to Miss Stanhope, and it was she who replied.
"We are quite disposed to like the place Miss Stalebread; the streets are widely pleasant and would be quite beautiful if the forest trees had been left."
"My name is Drybread! a good honest name; if not quite so aristocratic and fine sounding as Keith."
"Excuse me!" said Miss Stanhope. "I have an unfortunate kind of memory for names and had no intention of miscalling yours."
"Oh! then it's all right.
"Mrs. Keith, I'm a teacher; take young boys and girls of all ages. Perhaps you might feel like entrusting me with some of yours. I see you have quite a flock."
"I will take it into consideration," Mrs. Keith answered; "What branches do you teach?"
"Reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and English grammar."
"I've heard of teachers boarding round," remarked Mildred, assailed by a secret apprehension; "is that the way you do?"
"No; I live at home, at my father's."
Miss Drybread was scarcely out of earshot when Ada burst out vehemently.
"I don't want to be distrusted to her! she doesn't look distrusty, does she, Zillah? Mother please don't consider it!"
"But just say yes at once?" asked mother playfully, pressing a kiss upon the little flushed, anxious face.
"Oh no, no, no! please, mamma dear;" cried the child returning the caress and putting her arms lovingly about her mother's neck. "You didn't like her, did you?"
Mrs. Keith acknowledged laughingly that she had not been very favorably impressed, and Zillah joining in Ada's entreaties, presently promised that she would try to hear their lessons at home. A decision which was received with delight and a profusion of thanks and caresses.
Mildred was glad to find herself alone with her mother that evening for a short time, after the younger ones were in bed; for she had a plan to unfold.
It was that she should act as governess to her sisters, and the little boys, if they were considered old enough now to begin the ascent of the hill of science.
"My dear child!" the mother said with a look of proud affection into the glowing animated face, "I fully appreciate the love and self-devotion to me and the children that have prompted this plan of yours; but I am by no means willing to lay such heavy burdens on your young shoulders."
"But mother – "
"Wait a little, dearie, till I have said my say. Your own studies must be taken up again. Your father is greatly pleased with an arrangement he has just made for you and Rupert and Zillah to recite to Mr. Lord.
"The English branches, Latin, Greek and the higher mathematics, are what he is willing to undertake to teach."
Mildred's eyes sparkled. "O mother, how glad I am! Will he open a school?"
"No; only hear recitations for a couple of hours every week-day except Saturdays, which he says he must have unbroken for his pulpit preparations.
"Your father thinks he is very glad of the opportunity to add a little to his salary; which, of course, is quite small."
"Then we study at home? I shall like that. But he won't take little ones?"
"No; none that are too young to learn Latin. Your father wants Zillah to begin that now; and he hopes that a few others will join the class – some of the Chetwoods, perhaps."
Mildred's face was all aglow with delight; for she had a great thirst for knowledge, and there had seemed small hope of satisfying it in this little frontier town where the means for acquiring a liberal education were so scant and poor.
"So you see, daughter, you will have no lack of employment," Mrs. Keith went on; "especially as with such inefficient help in the kitchen and with general housework, I shall often be compelled to call upon you; or rather," she added, with a slight caress, "to accept the assistance you are only too ready to give."
"It is too bad!" cried the girl, indignantly; "that Viny doesn't earn her salt! I wonder how you can have patience with her, mother, if I were her mistress I'd have sent her off at a moment's warning long before this."
"Let us try to imitate God's patience with us, which is infinite;" Mrs. Keith answered low and reverently; "let us bear with her a little longer. But indeed, I do not know that we could fill her place with any one who would be more competent or satisfactory in any way."
"I'm afraid that is quite true; but it does seem too hard that such a woman as my gifted, intellectual, accomplished mother should have to spend her life in the drudgery of housework, cooking, mending and taking care of babies."
"No, dear; you are taking a wrong view of it. God appoints our lot; he chooses all our changes for us; Jesus, the God-man, dignified manual labor by making it his own employment during a great part of his life on earth; and 'it is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord.'
"Besides, what sweeter work can a mother have than the care and training of her own offspring?"
"But then the cooking, mother, and all the rest of it!"
"Well, dear, the health, and consequently the happiness and usefulness of my husband and children, depend very largely upon the proper preparation of their food; so that is no mean task."
"Ah, mother, you are determined to make out a good case and not to believe yourself hardly used," said Mildred, smiling, yet speaking in a half petulant tone.
"No, I am not hardly used; my life is crowned with mercies, of the very least of which I am utterly unworthy," her mother answered, gently.
"And, my child, I find that any work is sweet when done 'heartily as to the Lord and not unto men!' What sweeter than a service of love! 'Be ye followers of God as dear children.'"
"Yes," said Aunt Wealthy, coming in at the moment; "'as dear children,' not as servants or slaves, but doing the will of God from the heart; not that we may be saved, but because we are saved; our obedience not the ground of our acceptance; but the proof of our love to Him, our faith in Him who freely gives us the redemption purchased for us by His own blood. Oh what a blessed religion it is! how sweet to belong to Jesus and to owe everything to him!"
"I feel it so," Mrs. Keith said, with an undertone of deep joy in her sweet voice.
"And I," whispered Mildred, laying her head in her mother's lap as she knelt at her side, as had been her wont in childish days.
They were all silent after that for many minutes, sitting there in the gloaming; Mrs. Keith's hand passing softly, caressingly over her daughter's hair and cheeks; then Mildred spoke.
"Let me try it, mother dear; teaching the children, I mean. You know there is nothing helps one more to be thorough; and I want to fit myself for teaching if ever I should have my own living to earn."
"Well, well, my child, you may try."
"That's my own dear mother!" exclaimed the girl joyfully, starting up to catch and kiss the hand that had been caressing her. "Now, I must arrange my plans. I shall have to be very systematic in order to do all I wish."
"Yes," said Miss Stanhope, "one can accomplish very little without system, but often a great deal with it."
Mildred set to work with cheerfulness and a great deal of energy and determination, and showed herself not easily conquered by difficulties; the rest of that week was given to planning and preparing for her work, and on the following Monday her long neglected studies were resumed and her duties as family governess entered upon.
These took up the morning from nine to twelve, but by early rising and diligence she was able to do a good deal about the house before the hour for lessons to begin.
Her mother insisted that she must have an hour for recreation every afternoon, taking a walk when the weather permitted; then another for study, and the two with Mr. Lord left but a small margin for anything else; the sewing and reading with mother and sisters usually filled out the remainder of the day.
Sometimes her plans worked well and she was able to go through the round of self-imposed duties with satisfaction to herself and to that of her mother and aunt, who looked on with great interest and were ever on the watch to lend a helping hand and keep hindrances out of her way.
But these last would come now and again, in the shape of callers, accidents, mischievous pranks on the part of the little ones or delinquencies on that of the maid of all work, till at times Mildred's patience and determination were sorely tried.
She would grow discouraged, be nearly ready to give up, then summon all her energies to the task, battle with her difficulties and for a time rise superior to them.
But a new foe appeared upon the field and vanquished her. It was the ague, attacking now one, and now another of the family; soon they were seldom all well and it was no uncommon thing for two or three to be down with it at once. Viny took it and left, and they hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry.
Governessing had to be given up, nursing and housework substituted for that and for sewing and reading, while still for some weeks longer the lessons with Mr. Lord were kept up; but at length they also had to be dropped, for Mildred herself succumbed to the malaria and grew too weak, ill and depressed for study.
Chapter Twelfth
"We're not ourselves,
When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind
To suffer with the body."
– Shaks. King Lear.
The neighbors were very kind; coming in with offers of assistance in nursing the sick, bringing dainties to tempt their appetites, encouraging them with the assurance that they were but sharing the common lot; "almost everybody expected a chill about once in two or three weeks; especially this time of year; and they weren't often disappointed, and thought themselves fortunate if they could stop at one paroxysm till the week came round again.
"Quinine would generally stop it, and when people had a long siege of the ague, they often got used to it so far as to manage to keep up and about their work; if not at all times at least between the chills, which as a general thing came only every other day.
"Indeed it was no unusual thing for them to feel quite bright and well on the intermediate day."
The Lightcaps were not a whit behind the others in these little acts of kindness. Rhoda Jane forgot her envy of Mildred on learning that she was sick and seemed to have lost her relish for food.
One morning Miss Stanhope, who was getting breakfast, was favored with an early call from Miss Lightcap.
She appeared at the open kitchen door basket in hand, and marched in without stopping to knock. "I heerd Miss Mildred was sick and couldn't eat nothin'," she said; "and I knowed you hadn't no garden sass o' your own; so I fetched over some tomats; we have a lot this year, real splendid big ones, and there ain't nothin' tastes better when you're gettin' over the agur, than tomats.
"Just you cut 'em up with vinegar and pepper and salt, and if she don't say they're first-rate eatin' – I'm mistaken; that's all."
"Thank you, you're very kind, Miss Nightcap," said Aunt Wealthy, looking so pleased and grateful that the girl could not take the misnomer as an intentional insult.
"Pshaw!" she said, "it's nothin'; we've plenty of 'em."
Having emptied her basket upon the table, she was starting for the door, but looked back.
"Say, do you want a girl?"
"Yes, indeed, if we can get one that's worth anything."
"Well, Celestia Ann Hunsinger told me she wouldn't mind coming here for a spell; 'cause she wants money to git new clo'es."
"What sort of a girl is she?"
"Pretty high-strung and spunky, but some punkuns for work."
"Thank you. I'll tell Mrs. Keith about it, and send you word directly after breakfast."
"All right. I guess she'll come if you want her."
She was scarcely gone when the door at the foot of the stairs opened, and Mildred's pale face appeared.
"Aunt Wealthy, it is too bad to see you at work here. Let me get breakfast. I do think I can. The children are dressing each other, mother has the baby and won't let me do anything up there."
"Well, you'll not find me a whit more tractable," returned Miss Stanhope. "Let you get breakfast, indeed! I'd be worse than a brute if I did.
"Go into the sitting-room and lie down on the lounge," she continued taking up one of the finest tomatoes and beginning to divest it of its skin, "and I'll bring you something presently that I really hope will taste good to you.
"That Miss Heavycap brought you a present. She's not over refined, but good-hearted, I think, in spite of her rude ways and rough talk."
"Yes, they have been very kind and neighborly; I wish they were the sort of people one could enjoy being intimate with," Mildred said, languidly. "Auntie, let me skin those tomatoes."
"Child, you look ready to drop."
"Do I?" smiling faintly, "well, I'll sit down to it. I really can't let you do everything. How fine and large these are; are they what Rhoda Jane brought?"
"Yes; for your breakfast. I hope you'll relish them; and the corn-pone I have in the oven, too."
"See here! haven't I learned how?" cried Rupert exultingly, stepping in at the open door and holding up a foaming bucket of milk "Viny never persuaded old Suky to give us so much."
"It's beautiful," said Aunt Wealthy, taking it from him with a congratulatory smile. "I'll strain it at once before the cream begins to rise."
"I'll carry the pans down cellar. And what more can I do, auntie?"
"You may draw the butter up out of the well, presently, when breakfast is quite ready."
"And let it down again when the meal's over. Hello, Milly! is that you? how white and weak you look!"
"Yes," she said, laying the last tomato in the dish, "I believe I'll have to lie down, as Aunt Wealthy bade me, till breakfast is ready."
She tottered into the sitting-room and laid herself down on the lounge feeling so miserably weak and forlorn, so homesick for the old home where they had all enjoyed good health, that the tears would come in spite of every effort to restrain them.
Breakfast was to be eaten here; the table was already set, neatly, too, with snowy cloth, shining silver and delicate china; but there was a look of discomfort about the room that vexed and tried her orderly soul; sand on the carpet, dust on the furniture, children's toys and a few articles of clothing scattered here and there – and she had no strength to rise and put it in order.
"And no one else is much better able," she sighed to herself, "for Aunt Wealthy, mother and Zillah have all had chills within a week. Oh dear, this dreadful country! why did we ever come to it!"
She heard her father's voice in the kitchen.
"Here, Aunt Wealthy, is some steak; rather better than usual, I think; can we have a bit broiled for breakfast?" and Miss Stanhope's cheery tones in reply,
"Yes, Stuart, I'll put it right on. I'm so glad you succeeded in getting some fresh meat. It's something of a rarity to us in these days, and I hope they'll all relish it, Marcia and Milly, especially; for they both need something to build up their strength."
"Where are they? not able to be up?"
His tone was anxious and concerned.
Mildred did not catch the words of Miss Stanhope's reply, but the door opened, her father came to her side, stooped over her and kissed her pale cheek tenderly.
"How are you, daughter? Don't be discouraged; we'll have you all right before long."
"O father, I'm so out of heart," she sobbed, raising herself to put her arms round his neck and lay her head on his shoulder.
"Oh, that won't do! you must be brave and hopeful," he said, stroking her hair. "You're not so very ill, my child; ague is not a dangerous disease."
"It isn't that, but there's so much to be done and nobody to do it; we're all so poorly."
"Don't fret about the work; we'll find some one to do it."
"But they don't do it right. Viny never would spread up a bed straight or sweep or dust without leaving half the dirt behind her. And when she washed she faded the calicoes, shrank the flannels and made the white clothes a wretched color, though she tore them to pieces with hard rubbing and wringing."
"Well, we'll have just to try not to mind these trifles or be too particular," he said, soothingly. "Ah, here comes the breakfast," as Miss Stanhope, Rupert, Zillah and Ada trooped in, each bearing a dish, "let me help you to the table."
"I don't feel in the least hungry," she objected.
"Then eat to please father."
"And mother too," said Mrs. Keith coming in with Baby Annis in her arms. "Come, daughter, dear, auntie has prepared an excellent meal for us. With some help from our kind neighbors too, I hear."
"Yes," assented Miss Stanhope, "and I've directed them according to preparations and they do taste good. Come now; when I see you eating, I'll tell you a bit of news the girl brought besides."
Mildred laughed, felt her spirits begin to rise, tasted the tomatoes, pronounced them excellent and went on to make a good hearty meal.
The world looked brighter after that.
It had been decided to try Miss Hunsinger if she could be got. Mr. Keith went in search of her shortly after breakfast, and within an hour she was duly installed into office.
She was a tall, strong woman with a large proportion of bone and muscle; ditto of self-conceit and impudence united to uncommon energy and decision, and a faculty of turning off a great amount of work; doing it thoroughly well too.
At first she seemed a great improvement upon Viny, and Mildred's heart rejoiced in a complete sweeping, dusting and setting to rights of the whole house.
The children had been sent out to play in the shade of the sapling grove, while Mrs. Keith superintended the operations of the new help, and Miss Stanhope and Mildred, in the parlor, busied themselves, the one with the week's mending for the family, the other over her sometime neglected studies.
"She's a real new broom – is my Celestia Ann," said Mrs. Keith, coming cheerily in, "leaves no dirty corners or cobwebs, no wrinkles in sheets or spreads."
"O, mother, what a blessing?" cried Mildred, "if she'll only stay so."
"Ah, there's the rub! she cannot be a rose without a thorn. What was it Rhoda Jane said of her, Aunt Wealthy?"
The old lady reflected a moment ere she answered.
"Large potatoes, I think it was, Marcia; and I understood it to mean that she was a good worker. Something also that gave me the impression that she might be high-tempered and saucy. But as you say, we cannot expect thorns without roses."
"She's getting dinner now," remarked Mrs. Keith, "and seems to feel as much at home there as about her other work. I've told her what to get, and showed her where everything is; and now I shall leave her to her own devices; and see what will be the result."
Half an hour later the door of the parlor, where now the whole family were gathered, was thrown open with the announcement,
"Dinner's ready; all on the table here."
Having given the summons Miss Hunsinger rushed back to the table in advance of the family, seated herself, spread out her elbows upon it and with a nonchalant air said, "Come, folks, it's all ready; set right up."
There was a rapid exchange of glances among the party addressed, but not a word of remonstrance or disapproval was uttered. Physically unequal to the work that must be done, they were helpless in the hands of their "help."
The meal was begun in a profound silence which she was the first to break.
"Ther's some hot biscuits out thar," with a jerk of the head toward the kitchen door.
"You may bring some in," said Mrs. Keith.
"Just let one o' your gals do it this time, I will next. Turn about fair play you know."
Mildred's eyes flashed, and she opened her lips to speak; then closed them firmly as she thought of the consequences to her mother and aunt should this girl be sent away before she was able to take up even a part of the burden of the work.
"I'll go, mother," said Zillah, hastily leaving her place, "I don't mind it; but if I were paid for doing it, I would want to earn my money by doing it myself."
"Well, my dear, what do you think of your new help?" queried Mr. Keith, mischievously when they had withdrawn to the privacy of the parlor.
"The thorn is rather large and sharp," she answered laughing, "but we are not the only people in the world who must make a choice of evils."
"For my part," said Mildred severely, "I think it's a species of dishonesty to take pay for doing the work of a family and then ask them to do it themselves."
"Aren't you a trifle too hard on her, dear?" said Miss Stanhope. "It was very forward and impertinent, but I think hardly dishonest, because she is not expected to do quite all the work of the family."
"Here comes Emmaretta Lightcap," said Ada, who was standing in the open doorway. "She has an old faded calico dress, and sunbonnet and bare feet, just as usual; and a tin pan in her hands."
"Come in, Emmaretta."
The little girl stepped over the threshold and approaching Mrs. Keith said,
"Here's more tomats mother sent you and a bird for her," pointing to Mildred, "Gote he's been out shootin' and he sent it to her."
"He's very kind, take him my thanks for it," said Mildred, coloring, and vexed with herself for doing so. "Please tell your sister, too, that I thank her for the tomatoes and that I liked them very much."
"Are you a comin' to our school? cause Miss Damaris, she said you was," said the child, turning to Ada, while waiting for her pan, which Zillah had carried away to empty it.
"No! no, indeed!" cried Ada; "I don't like her, and wouldn't go there for anything!"
"Hush, hush, Ada! you don't know Miss Drybread," said Mrs. Keith, quite surprised at the outbreak.
"Yes, mother; don't you remember she was here one day?"
"Rhoda Jane, she's comin' over to see you this evenin'," said the little maid, taking her pan and departing.
Mildred's countenance fell; she appreciated Rhoda Jane's kindness; but could not enjoy her society.
"Why, Ada," said Mr. Keith, "I knew nothing of your dislike to Miss Drybread; and so when she met me in the street this morning and asked me to send her a scholar, I thought of Milly's sickness and that she must not have so much to do, and promised that you should go."
"O father!" exclaimed the child beginning to cry.
Then they all tried to comfort her, and finally she grew in a measure reconciled to her fate.