Nobody had driven by in all the time that Betty had sat in the fence corner until now there was a noise of wheels in the distance. It seemed suddenly as if the session were over, and Betty, quite restored to her usual serenity, said good-by to her solitary self and the cheerful wild-flowers. "I am going to be good, papa," she thought with a warm love in her hopeful heart, as she looked out through the young black cherry-trees to see who was going by in the road. "Seth! Seth Pond!" she called, "Where are you going?" for it proved to be that important member of the aunts' household, with the old wagon and Jimmy, the old black horse.
"Goin' to mill," answered Seth, recognizing the voice and looking about him, much pleased. "Want to come? be pleased to have ye," and Betty was over the fence in a minute and appeared to his view from behind the thicket. I dare say the flowers waved a farewell and looked fondly after her as she drove away.
Seth was not in the least vexed by his thoughts. He was much gratified by Betty's company and behaved with great dignity, giving her much information about the hay crop, and how many tons were likely to be cut in this field and the next. They could not drive very fast because the wagon was well loaded with bags of corn, and so they jogged on at an even pace, though Seth flourished his whip a good deal, striking sometimes at the old horse, and sometimes at the bushes by the roadside.
"Do you expect I shall ever get to be much of a hand to play the violin?" he inquired with much earnestness.
"I don't know, Seth," answered Betty, a little distressed by the responsibility of answering. "Do you mean to be a musician and do nothing else?"
"I used to count on it when I was little," said Seth humbly. "I heard a fellow play splendid in a show once, and I just used to lay awake nights an' be good for nothin' days, wonderin' how I could learn; but I can play now 'bout's good's he could, I s'pose, an' it don't seem to be nothin'. Them tunes in the book you give me let in some light on me as to what playin' was. I mean them tough ones over in the back part."
"I suppose you would have to go away and study; teachers cost a great deal. That is, the best ones do."
"They're wuth it; I don't grudge 'em the best they get," said Seth, honorably. "I've got to think o' marm, you see, up-country. She couldn't get along nohow without my wages comin' in. You see I send her the most part. I ain't to no expense myself while I live there to Miss Leicester's. If there was only me I'd fetch it to live somehow up in somebody's garret, and go to one o' them crack teachers after I'd saved up consid'able. Then I'd go to work again an' practice them lessons till I earnt some more. But I ain't never goin' to pinch marm; she worked an' slaved an' picked huckleberries and went out nussin' and tailorin' an' any work she could git, slick or rough, an' give me everything she could till I got a little schoolin' together and was big enough to work. She's kind o' slim now; I think she worked too hard. I was awful homesick when I was first to your aunts', but Jonathan he used me real good. He come there a boy from up to our place just the same, an' used to know marm. Miss Leicester she lets me go up and spend Sunday consid'able often. Marm's all alone except what use she gets of the neighbors comin' in. But seems if I'd lived for nothin', if I can't learn to play a fiddle better than I can now," and Seth struck hard with his whip at an unoffending thistle.
"Then you're sure to do it," said Betty. "I believe you must learn, Seth. Where there's a will there's a way."
"Why, that's just what Sereny says," exclaimed Seth with surprise. "Well, they say 't was the little dog that kep' runnin' that got there Saturday night."
"Should you play in concerts, do you suppose?" asked Betty, with reverence for such overpowering ambition in the rough lad.
"You bet, an' travel with shows an' things," responded Seth. "But if I kep' to work on somethin' else that give mother an' me a good livin', I'd like to be the one they sent for all round this part of the country when they wanted first-rate playin'; an' I'd be ready, you know, and just make the old fiddle squeak lovely for dancin' or set pieces for weddings an' any occasions that might rise. I'd like to be the player, an' I tell ye I'm goin' to be 'fore I die. Marm she knows I can, but one spell she used to expect 't would draw me into bad company."
"Oh you wouldn't let it, I'm sure, Seth," agreed Betty, with pleasing confidence. "I like to hear you play now," she said. "I wish we could get you a teacher. Perhaps papa can tell you, and—well, we'll see."
"I'd just like to have you see marm," said Seth shyly as they drove to the mill door. "She'd like you an' you'd like her. I don't suppose your aunts would let you go up-country, would they? It's pretty up there; mountains, an' cleared pastur's way up their sides higher 'n you'd git in an afternoon. You can see way down here right from our house,' he whispered, as they stopped before the mill, door.
Betty thought it was very pleasant in the old mill. While Seth and the miller were transacting their business, she went to one of the little windows on the side next the swift rushing mill-stream and looked out awhile, and watched some swallows and the clear water and the house on the other side where the miller lived. Then she was shown how the corn was ground and tasted the hot meal as it came sifting down from the little boxes on the band, and the miller even had the big wheel stopped in its dripping dark closet where it seemed to labor hard to keep the mill going. "Something works hard for us in our lives to make them all come right," she thought with wistful gratitude, and looked with new interest at the busy maze of wheels and hoppers and rude machinery that joggled on steadily from the touch of the hidden wheel and the plash of its live water. She wandered out into the sunshine and down the river side a little way. There was a clean yellow sandy bottom in one place with shoals of frisky little minnows and a small green island only a little way out, and Betty was much tempted to take off her shoes and stockings and wade across. Her toes curled themselves in their shoes with pleased anticipation, but she thought with a sigh that she was too tall to go wading now, that is, near a public place like the mill. It was impossible not to give a heavy sigh over such lost delights. Then she looked up at the mill and discovered that there were only one or two high and dusty windows at that end, and down she sat on the short green turf to pull off the shoes and stockings as fast as she could, lest second thoughts might again hinder this last wade. She gathered her petticoats and over to the island she splashed, causing awful apprehension of disaster among the minnows.
The green island was a delightful place indeed; the upper end was near the roaring dam, and the water plashed and dashed as it ran away on either side. There were two or three young elms and some alders on the island, and the alders were full of clematis just coming into bloom. The lower end of this strip of island-ground was much less noisy, and Betty went down to sit there after she had seen two or three turtles slide into the water, and more minnows slip away into deeper pools out of sight. There was a pleasant damp smell of cool water, and a ripple of light went dancing up the high stone foundation of the old mill. Betty could still hear the great wet wheel lumbering round. She thought that she never had found a more delightful place, so much business was going on all about her and yet it was so quiet there, and as she looked under a young alder what should she see but a wild duck on its nest. Even if the shy thing had fluttered off at her approach, it had gone back again, and now watched her steadily as if to be ready to fly, yet not really frightened. It was a dear kind of relationship to be in this wild little place with another living creature, and Betty settled herself on the soft turf, against the straight young elm trunk, determined not to give another glance in the duck's direction. It would be great fun to come and see it go away with its ducklings when they were hatched, if one only knew the proper minute. She wished that she could paint a picture of the mill and the river, or could write a song about it, even if she could not sing it, so many girls had such gifts and did not care half so much for them as Betty herself would. Dear Betty! she did not know what a rare gift she had in being able to enjoy so many things, and to understand the pictures and songs of every day.
Then it was time to wade back to shore, and so she rose and left the duck to her peaceful seclusion, not knowing how often she would think of this pretty place in years to come. The best thing about such pleasures is that they seem more and more delightful, as years go on. Seth was just coming to tell Betty that the meal was all ground and ready when she appeared discreetly from behind the willows that grew at the mill end, and so they drove home without anything exciting to mark the way.
Betty had taken many music lessons, but she was by no means a musician, and seldom played for the pleasure of it. For some reason, after tea was over that evening she opened Aunt Barbara's piano and began to play a gay military march which she had toilsomely learned from one of the familiar English operas. She played it once or twice, and played it very well; in fact, an old gentleman who was going slowly along the street stopped and leaned on the fence to listen. He had been a captain in the militia in the days of the old New England trainings, and now though he walked with two canes and was quite decrepit, he liked to be reminded of his military service, and the march gave him a great pleasure and made him young again while he stood there beating time on the front fence, and nodding his head. One may often give pleasure without knowing it, if one does pleasant things.
Next morning, early after breakfast, Betty appeared at Miss Mary Leicester's door with an armful of mending. Aunt Mary waked up early and had her breakfast in bed, and liked very much to be called upon afterward and to hear something pleasant. One of the windows of her room looked down into the garden and it was cool and shady there at this time of the day, so Betty seated herself with a dutiful and sober feeling not unmixed with enjoyment.
"I have thought ever since yesterday that I was too severe, my dear," said Aunt Mary somewhat wistfully from her three pillows. "But you see, Betty, I am so conscious of the mistakes of my own life that I wish to help you to avoid them. It is a terrible thing to become dependent upon other people,—especially if they are busy people," she added plaintively.
"Oh, I ought to have managed everything better," responded Betty, looking at the ends of two fingers that had poked directly through a stocking toe. "I don't mean to let things get so bad again. I never do when I am with papa, because—I know better. But it has been such fun to play since I came to Tideshead! I don't feel a bit grown up here."
Aunt Mary looked at little Betty with an affectionate smile.
"I think fifteen is such a funny age," Betty went on; "you seem to just perch there between being a little girl and a young lady, and first you think you are one and then you think you are the other. I feel like a bird on a bough, or as if I were living in a railway station, waiting for a train to come in before I could do anything."
Betty said this gravely, and then felt a little shy and self-conscious. Aunt Mary watched her as she sat by the window sewing, and was wise enough not to answer, but she could not help thinking that Betty was a dear girl. It was one of Aunt Mary's very best days, and there were some things one could say more easily to her than to Aunt Barbara, though Aunt Barbara was what Betty was pleased to irreverently call her pal.
"I do wish that I had a talent for something," said Betty. "I can't sing: if I could, I am sure that I would sing for everybody who asked me. I don't see what makes people so silly about it; hear that old robin now!" and they both laughed. "Nobody asks me to play who knows anything about music. I wish I had Aunt Barbara's fingers; I don't believe I can ever learn. I told papa it was just throwing money away, and he said it was good to know how to play even a little, and good for my hands, to make them quick and clever."
"You played that march very well last night," said Aunt Mary kindly.
"Oh, that sort of thing! But I mean other music, the hard things that papa likes. There is one of the Chopin nocturnes that Mrs. Duncan plays, oh, it is so beautiful! I wish you and Aunt Barbara knew it."
"You must ask Aunt Barbara to practice it. I like to have her keep on playing. We used to hear a great deal of music when I was well enough to go to Boston in the winter, years ago," and Aunt Mary sighed. "I think it is a great thing to have a gift for home life, as you really have, Betty dear."
"Papa and I have been in such queer holes," laughed Betty. "Mrs. Duncan and some of our friends are never tired of hearing about them. But you know we always try to do the same things. If I hadn't any other teacher when we were just flying about, papa always heard my lessons and made me keep lesson hours; and he goes on with his affairs and we are quite orderly, indeed we are, so it doesn't make much difference where we happen to be. Then I have been whole winters in London, and Mrs. Duncan looks after us a good deal."
"Mary Duncan is a wise and charming woman," said Aunt Mary.
"All the big Duncans are so nice to the little ones!" said Betty; "but papa and I can be old or young just as we choose, and we try to make up for not being a large family," which seemed to amuse both Aunt Mary and Letty, who had just come in.
The hour soon slipped by and Betty's needle had done great execution, but a little heap was laid aside for the rag-bag as too hopeless a wreck for any mending. It was plain that too much trust had been reposed in strange washerwomen, for one could put a finger through the underwaists anywhere, such damaging soap had evidently been used to make them clean. Betty had heard that paper clothes were coming into fashion from Japan, and informed her aunt of this probable change for the better with great glee. Then she went away to the garden to cut some flowers for the house, and found Aunt Barbara there before her, tying up the hollyhock stalks to some stakes that Seth Pond was driving down. Aunt Barbara had a shallow basket and was going to cut the sweet-clover flowers that morning, to dry and put on her linen shelves along with some sprigs of lavender, and this pleasant employment took another half hour.
"Aunt Mary was so dear this morning!" said Betty, as they stood on opposite sides of a tall sweet-clover top.
"She feels pretty well, then," answered Miss Leicester, much pleased.
"Yes," said Betty, snipping away industriously; "she didn't wish to be pitied one bit. Don't you think we could give her some chloroform, Aunt Bab, and put her on the steamer and take her to England? She would get so excited and have such a good time and be well forever after."
"I really have thought so," acknowledged Aunt Barbara, smiling at Betty's audacity. "But your Aunt Mary has suffered many things, and has lost her motive power. She cannot rouse herself when she wishes to, nowadays, but must take life as it comes. I can see that it was a mistake to yield years ago to her nervous illness, but I was not so wise then, and now it is too late. You know, Betty, she had a great sorrow, and has never been the same person since."
"So had papa when mamma died," said Betty gravely, and trying hard to understand; "but he cured himself by just living for other people, and thinking whether they were happy."
"It is the only way, dear," said Aunt Barbara, "but when you are older you will know better how it has been with my poor sister."
Betty said no more, but she had many thoughts. Something that had been said about losing one's motive power had struck very deep. She had said something herself about waiting for her train in the station, and she had a sudden vision of the aimlessness of it, and of even the train bills and advertisements on the wall. She was eager, as all girls are, for one single controlling fate or fortune to call out all her growing energies, but she was aware at this moment that she herself must choose and provide; she must learn to throw herself heartily into her life just as it was. It was a moment of clear vision to Betty Leicester, and her cheeks flushed with bright color. It wasn't the thing one had to do, but the way one learned to do it, that distinguished one's life. Perhaps she could be famous for every-day homely things and have a real genius for something so simple that nobody else had thought of it. That night when Betty said her prayers one new thing came into her mind to be asked for, and was a great help, so that she often remembered it afterward. "Help me to have a good time doing every-day things, and to make my work my pleasure."
X.
UP-COUNTRY
Aunt Barbara and Betty had finished their breakfast in the cool breakfast-room, or little dining-room as it was sometimes called by the family. This looked out on the short elm-shaded grass of the side yard, but it was apt to get too warm later in the day. The dining-room was much larger, and had most of the family portraits in it and a ponderous sideboard and side tables, and Betty sometimes thought that a good deal of machinery had to be set running there to give a quiet dinner or supper just to Aunt Barbara and herself. But the little dining-room was very cosy, with a small sideboard and a tall clock and an old looking-glass and very old-fashioned slender wooden armchairs. The sun came dancing in through the leaves at a square window. The breakfast-room was nearer the kitchen, and Serena had a sociable custom of appearing now and then to ask Miss Leicester about the housekeeping.
"There now, Miss Barb'ra," she exclaimed, putting her head in at the door, while Betty and her aunt still lingered. "You excuse me this time, but here's Jonathan considers it best to go off up-country looking for winter's wood, of all things! I told him I'd like to ride up long of him to see sister Sarah when he went, but I never expected he'd select the very day I set two weeks ago for us to pick the currants."
"But one day will make very little difference; I thought yesterday when you spoke of them that they needed a little more sun," said Miss Leicester persuasively.
"'T will bring the jelly right into the last o' the week when there's enough to do any way." One would have thought that Serena was being forced into unpleasant duty, but this was her way of beginning a day's pleasure, and Miss Leicester had been familiar with it for many years.
"He's goin' right off; puttin' the hosses in now; never gives nobody a moment to consider," grumbled Serena, but Miss Leicester laughed and bade the good soul hurry and get herself ready. There was nothing to be done that day that Letty could not manage, or Letty's sister would come over in the afternoon, or Mrs. Grimshaw, the extra helper who was frequently on hand. "I think Jonathan is wise not to give you any more time to think about it. There's no use in scouring the whole house outside and in before you take a day's pleasure," she suggested cheerfully.
"I like to have my mind at rest," responded Serena, but still there was something unsaid. Betty's eyes were eager, but she considerately waited for Serena to speak first. "You see, Miss Barb'ra, Jonathan's got to take up the rag-bags, 't is most a year since I got 'em up to sister Sarah's before, and they're in the way here, we all know, and I've got some bundles beside, and I told Seth Pond to run out an' pick a mess o' snap beans. Sister Sarah's piece is very late land and I s'pose she won't have any; and Jonathan he knows when I start I fill up more than the little wagon; so he's got the big one, and that makes empty seats, an' Miss Betty was saying that when I was goin' up again"—
"You are base conspirators, both of you," said Aunt Barbara, much amused. "It is a delightful day; the weather couldn't be better. Now hurry, Betty, and don't keep Serena waiting."
"If it's so that you really want to go, Miss Betty."
"I do, indeed, Miss Serena," responded Betty with great spirit, and off she ran up-stairs, while her aunt hurried to find something to send by way of remembrance, not only to Serena's sister Sarah, but to Seth's mother, who lived two miles this side.
There was great excitement for the next half hour. Everybody behaved as if there were danger of missing a train, and Seth and Letty were sent this way and that, and Serena gave as many last charges as if she meant to be absent a fortnight, while Jonathan, already in the wagon, grumbled at the delay and shouted to the horses if they so much as lifted a foot at a fly. When they had fairly started he gave a chuckle of satisfaction and said that he didn't expect when he was harnessing to get off until much as an hour later, whereat Serena with unwonted levity called him a "deceivin' old sarpent." The wind was blowing gently from the north, and was cool enough to make one comfortable in a jacket, though Betty could not be persuaded that hers was needed. Serena's shawl was pinned neatly about her shoulders. She sat alone on the back seat of the wagon, for Jonathan had said that it would ride better not to be too heavy behind and therefore Betty was keeping him company in front, of which scheme Serena had her own secret opinion. The piece-bags took up a large part of the spare seat. Sister Sarah was lame and took great joy in working the waste material of the Leicester house into rugs and rag carpets, and it was one of Serena's joys to fill the round piece-bags even to bursting.
Then there were the beans, and the bundles large and small, and Betty was in charge of a package of newspapers and magazines and patent medicine almanacs and interesting circulars of all sorts which Seth had been saving for his mother.
Jonathan was a tall, thin man, with a shrewd clean-shaven face. He wore a new straw hat that day, with a faded linen coat, and a much washed-out plaid gingham cravat under his shirt collar. The best hat was worn on Betty's account, and was evidently a little stiff and uncomfortable, for he took it off once or twice and looked into the crown soberly and then put it on again.
"Sorry you wore it, I s'pose?" observed Serena on one of these occasions.
"Got to wear it some time," answered Jonathan gruffly, so that nobody thought best to speak of the hat again even when a sudden puff of wind blew it over into a field. Betty had been ready to put on one of her old play-gowns, as she still called them, but upon reflection decided that it would be hardly respectful when she had been invited to go visiting with such kind and proper friends, and indeed Serena had given her a hasty and complacent glance from head to foot when she came down dressed in one of the prettiest of the London ginghams. Mrs. Duncan, Betty's kind friend and adviser, had been sure that these ginghams would all four be needed to clothe our heroine comfortably through the summer, that is to judge from experience in other summers; but it made a difference in the stress put upon ginghams, to be a year older.
The up-country road wound first among farms and within sight of the river, then it took a sudden northward turn and there were not so many white elder flowers by the way as there were junipers and young birches. There were long reaches through the cool woods, and the road was always rising to a higher part of the country, veritable up-country, among the hills. From one high point where they stopped to let the horses rest a minute there was a beautiful view of the low lands that lay toward the sea, and the river which ran southward in shining lines. It would be hard to say who most enjoyed the morning. The elder members of the party seldom felt themselves free for a holiday, and Betty was always ready to enjoy whatever came in her way; but there was a delicious novelty in being asked to spend a day with Serena and Jonathan. They were hostess and host, and Betty felt an unusual spirit of deference and gratitude toward them; it seemed as if they were both quite conscious of a different relationship toward Betty from that at home. It was wonderful to see what cordial greetings most of the people gave them along the road, and how many warm friends they seemed to possess. The farther they went, the more struck by this was our Betty, who gave a little sigh at some unworded thought about always being a newcomer and stranger. She had begun to feel so recognized and at home in Tideshead that it was a little hard now to find herself unknown again.
But Serena liked to tell her who every one was, and there was as much friendly interest shown in Miss Betty Leicester as any heart could wish.
They had gone almost fourteen miles, and Betty was just nearing the end of a long description of her experiences at the Queen's Jubilee, when Jonathan said: "Now you can rec'lect just where you put the mark in. I don't calc'late to lose none of it, but here we've got to stop top of the hill an' see Seth's folks. You've got them papers an' things handy, ain't you, Serena?"
Betty saw a yellow story-and-a-half house by the roadside with some queer little sheds and outbuildings, and looked with great interest to see if any one came to the window. "Seth's folks" meant nobody but his mother, who lived alone as Betty knew, and there she was standing in the door, a kind-faced, round-shouldered little creature, who had the patient, half-apprehensive look of those women who live alone in lonely places. She threw her big clean gingham apron over her head and came forward just as Jonathan had got out of the wagon and Betty followed him.
"There, bless ye!" said "Seth's folks." "I waked up this morning kind of expecting that I should see somebody from down Seth's way. I expect he's well's common?"
"Oh, yes," responded Jonathan. "We had to leave him to keep house. He was full o' messages, but I can't seem to remember none on 'em now."
"No matter, so long I know's he's well," said the little woman, shaking hands with Betty and looking at her delightedly. "Now I want you all to come in and stop to dinner," but Serena could not even be persuaded to "'light down" on account of her duty to sister Sarah. Betty carried in the armful of reading matter and Mrs. Pond followed her, and while our friend looked at the plain little house and fancied Seth practicing his tunes, and saw the beautiful cone frame which he had helped his mother to make, the hospitable little mother was getting some home-made root-beer out of a big stone jug, and soon served it to her three guests in pretty old-fashioned blue and white mugs. Betty thought she had never tasted anything so delicious as the flavor of spice and pleasing bitterness in the cold drink, and Jonathan smacked his lips loudly and promised to call for more as he came back. Mrs. Pond took another good long look at Betty before they parted. "I wasn't expectin' you to be so much of a young lady, I do' know's you be quite growed up yet, though," she said. This was not the least of the pleasures of that day, and they went on next to sister Sarah's, where Betty and Serena and the freight were to be left while Jonathan went off about his business.
It almost seemed as if up-country existed for the sake of its market town of Tideshead. Betty had been there once or twice in her childhood, but her memories even of sister Sarah were rather indistinct. She had taken a long nap once on the patchwork quilt in the bedroom, and had waked to find four or five women hooking a large rug in the kitchen, all talking together, which had made an impression upon her young mind. It was strawberry-time too on that last visit. But sister Sarah remembered a great deal more about it than this, and was delighted to see Betty once more. There was the very rug on the floor, already beginning to look worn. One could remember it by a white, or rather a gray, rabbit under some large green leaves which made part of the design. It was impossible to say how many rugs there were in the house, as if life went on for the sole purpose of making hooked and braided rugs. Those in the kitchen at Aunt Barbara's were evidently the work of sister Sarah's industrious fingers. Serena might have left the place of her birth the week before instead of nearly forty years, if one might judge by the manner in which she hung her bonnet and shawl on a nail behind the door and put her gray thread gloves into the table drawer.
Sister Sarah looked like a neat little nun, and limped painfully as she went about the room. Sometimes she used a crutch, but she seemed as lame with it as without it, and she was such a brisk little creature in spirit, and was so little depressed by her misfortune that one felt it would be unwelcome to express any pity. Betty knew that sometimes the poor woman suffered a great deal of pain and could not move at all, and that a neighbor who also lived alone came at those times and stayed with her for a few weeks. "Sister Sarah ain't one mite lame in her mind," Serena said proudly one day, and Betty found this to be the truth. She did not like to read, however, and told Betty that it was never anything but a task, except to study geography, and she only had one old geography, fairly worn to pieces, which she knew by heart, with all its lists of towns and countries and rivers, the productions and boundaries and capitals and climatic conditions and wild animals were at her tongue's end for anybody who cared to hear them. "The old folks used to think she'd better exercise her memory learning hymns, and Sister Sarah favored geography," Serena once explained; "but she knows what other folks knows, and has got a head crammed full o' learning. She never forgets nothing, whilst I leak by the way, myself, and do' know whether I know anything or not," she ended triumphantly.