The Merryweathers

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

  CHAPTER VI.

  A DISCUSSION

  THE morning reading was over, but the girls lingered in the pine parlor,where the whole family had been gathered to hear some thrilling chaptersof Parkman. Margaret and Bell had their sewing, Gertrude herdrawing-board; Peggy was carving the handle of a walking-stick, whileKitty struggled with some refractory knitting-needles.

  It was a pleasant place in which they were sitting: a little clear spaceof pine-needles, embroidered here and there with tiny ferns, and shut inby walls of dusky pine, soft and fragrant. The tree-trunks madeexcellent (though sometimes rather sticky) chair-backs; the sunshinefiltered in through the branches overhead, making a golden half-lightwhich was the very essence of restfulness.

  "Oh, pleasant place!" said Margaret, breaking the silence that hadfollowed the departure of the rest of the family. "How strange it seems,sitting here in this green peace and quiet, to read of all thoseterrible happenings. How can it be the same world?"

  "He was a man, that La Salle!" exclaimed Peggy. "I never heard of such aman. Think of that winter voyage! Think of that man, brought up inluxury, with every kind of accomplishment, and that kind of thing,wading in snow-water up to his knees, and sleeping on the frozen ground,rolled in his blanket, while his clothes dried and froze stiff on thetrees! think of him standing alone against courts and savages, andwinning every time--till he was killed by those wretches. It is thegreatest story I ever read. Now, if all history were like this,Margaret, I never should complain."

  "Don't you like history, Peggy?" asked Bell, looking up in wonder.

  "I used to detest it," said Peggy, laughing. "Julius Caesar, and Williamthe Conqueror, and all those people used to bore me dreadfully, thoughMargaret did her very best to make them interesting; didn't you, youdear?"

  "I tried, Peggy," said Margaret, with a smile; "but you never wouldadmit that they were real people, just as real as if they were aliveto-day."

  "Oh, well, of course I know they were alive once, but so were mummies,and you can't expect me to be interested in _them_. However, I think Ireally am improving. 'Hereward' brought William alive for me, it trulydid; and this Parkman book delights me. Oh! I should like to have madethat voyage down the Mississippi, girls! I think, on the whole, I wouldrather be Cavalier de La Salle than any one I ever heard of."

  "In spite of all the suffering and tragedy?" said Gertrude. "I could notsay that, much as I admire him."

  "Who would you be, if you could choose? Let us all say!" cried Bell. "Anew game! two minutes for reflection!" and she took out her watch with abusiness-like air.

  "Oh!" cried Gertrude. "But there are so many!"

  "Silence!" said Bell; and there was an instant of absolute stillness.Taking advantage of it, a chipmunk ran across the brown carpet, andpausing midway, sat up on his haunches and surveyed the new and singularmountain ranges that had risen on his horizon. One of the mountainsstirred--whisk! he was gone.

  "Time's up!" said Bell. "Margaret, I will begin with you. With allhistory to choose from, who will you be?"

  "Oh! must I be first?" cried Margaret. "As Gertrude says, there are somany; and yet when you come to think them over, there is somethingagainst every one; I mean something one would not like to do or tosuffer. But,--on the whole,--I _think_ I would be Elizabeth of Hungary."

  "Our Lady of the Roses? Well, she was lovely, though I should be sorryto marry her husband. The story would have been somewhat different if Ihad; but I am not a saint. Peggy, your turn!"

  "This man we are reading about!" said Peggy, decidedly. "La Salle!"

  "Toots!"

  "Bell, you know I never _can_ decide between Shakespeare and Raphael. Ihave to be both; they lived quite far enough apart for separateincarnations."

  "Greedy, grasping girl!" said Bell. "Kitty, who are you?"

  "Jim Hawkins!" said Kitty, promptly.

  "No fiction allowed this time, Missy, only history!"

  "Oh, dear! well, then--Francis Drake!"

  "Bound to have a pirate, aren't you, Kitty?" said Gertrude,mischievously.

  "He wasn't a pirate!" cried Kitty, indignantly. "He was a great hero."

  "_L'un n'empechait pas l'autre_, in those days!" said Bell.

  "Well, now for yourself, Bell!" said Margaret. "It is your turn."

  "Oh, I didn't need any two minutes," said Bell. "I am always William theSilent. I should be Beethoven if it were not for the deafness, but thatI could not have borne."

  "You all want to be men, don't you?" observed Margaret, thoughtfully.

  "Why--yes, so we do! you are the only one who chose a woman."

  "Everybody would be a man if they could!" cried Peggy, throwing grammarto the winds, as she was apt to do when excited.

  "No, indeed, everybody would not!" cried Margaret, her soft eyeslighting up. "Nothing would induce me to be a man."

  "I don't think you would make a very good one, to be sure!" said Peggy,looking affectionately at her cousin. "But I bet--I mean wager--you toldme I might say 'wager,' Margaret!--that none of the other girls wouldhesitate a minute if they had the chance. I wouldn't! Think of it! Nopetticoats, no fuss, no having to remember to do this, and not to dothat; and no hairpins, or gloves, or best hats--"

  "Ah!" said Bell; "that is only the smallest part, Peggy. I don't mindthe hairpin part--though of course it is a joy to get out here anddispense with them--but still, that is only a trifle. The thing I thinkabout is the freedom, the strength, the power to go right ahead and _do_things!" and, as she spoke, Bell threw her head back and stretched herarms abroad with a vigorous gesture. "Of course we girls are all welland strong, but it isn't the same strength as a man's. We areconstantly running up against things we cannot, ought not to do. I _do_envy the boys, I cannot help it."

  "Yes!" cried Margaret, leaning forward, a soft flush rising to hercheeks. "I know--it is glorious to see them; but, Bell, isn't the veryweakness part of our strength? Isn't it just because women _know_the--the things they cannot do, that they are able to understand andsympathize, and--and help, in ways that men cannot, because they do notknow?"

  "I think Margaret is right!" said Gertrude, slowly. "And besides, thereis strength and strength, Bell. For long endurance of pain or hardship,the woman will outlast the man nine times out of ten, I believe; and Iheard Doctor Strong say once that women would often bear pain quietlythat would set a man raving. Yes, I come over to your side, MayMargaret. I would take Joan of Arc, if it were not for the stake. Letme see--oh, I know! I will be Grace Darling."

  "Who was she?" asked Kitty.

  "The lighthouse-keeper's daughter, at Longstone, off the Yorkshirecoast. A ship, the _Forfarshire_, was wrecked on the rocks near by, andthere seemed no chance of saving any of the crew; but Grace persuadedher father to try, and just those two rowed out, in a most terriblestorm, to the reef on which the vessel had been wrecked, and saved thenine men, all that were left out of sixty-three, who were clinging tothe rocks, waiting for death. Why wasn't that just as fine as commandingan army, or even leading a forlorn hope in battle? Then there was dearMargaret Roper--I think she is the one for you, May Margaret!--andCochrane's Bonny Grizzy, and--oh, ever and ever so many of them. Yes, Itake up my stand once and for all on my own side."

  "Well!" said Bell, shaking her head. "I hear what you say, Betsy, butit makes no difference,--does it, Peggy?--though I admit the force ofyour remarks."

  "Not a bit!" said Peggy. "I wouldn't have been Mrs. La Salle for afarm."

  "There wasn't any!" said Margaret.

  "The principle remains the same," said Peggy, "as Miss Russell used tosay."

  "There is another thing!" said Margaret. "Your life out here, Bell,shows me how much girls _can_ do; I mean in the active, outdoor,athletic way. More than I ever dreamed they could do. It really seems tome that, except just for the petticoats, you have very few drawbacks. Isuppose it is having all the brothers. Why, you know as much as they doabout the woods and all."

  "Yes, it's partly the boys," said Bell; "but it is much mo
re Papa. Yousee, from the time we could walk, he has always taken us out into thewoods and fields, and made us use our eyes and ears, and talked to usabout things. We should not know anything, if it were not for Papa."

  "He does seem to know almost everything!" said Margaret. "I never sawany one like him."

  "There _isn't_ any one like him," said Gertrude, decidedly. "What haveyou got there, Margaret?"

  Margaret had drawn a letter from her pocket, and was looking it over.

  "An argument on my side," she said, smiling. "May I read it aloud?"

  "Do! do!" cried all the girls.

  Margaret smoothed out the crumpled pages affectionately. "He carried itin his pocket two days before he remembered to post it!" she said. "Ijudge from the date, and the appearance of the envelope. There was candyin his pocket, and"--she sniffed at the letter--"yes! tar, withoutdoubt. Now listen!

  "'DEAR COUSIN MARGARET:--We miss you awfully, and Uncle John says it is no kind of a house without you, and it isn't. We went a walk yesterday, Susan D. and me and the dogs, because you know it was Sunday; Uncle John was coming too, but he had roomatizm and coud not. Well Cousin Margaret, we walked over the big hill and just then the dogs began howling and yelling in the most awful manner, and running round and round like they were crazy; and we ran to see what was up, and we found out, I tell you! It was white hornets, about ten thousand of them, and the dogs had rolled in a nest of them, and they were stinging their noses, and they flew at us with perfeck fewry, I mean the hornets did. I hollered and ran, but Susan D. said wait she knew what to do, so she said "Come on," and we ran down to the brook and she took mud and put it on my stings before she touched her own, and it took a good deal of the pane out though not all. And then she put it on the dogs' noses, and they understood like persons, and poked them into the mud themselves and soon forgot their pane. But I thought I would tell you this Cousin Margaret, because Susan D. did really behave like a perfeck brick, and you always said girls were as brave as boys but I never thought so before but now I do; because I hollered right out when they stung me which I am ashamed of. You said confession was good for the sole, and so I think: so now I will say good-by from

  "'BASIL.'"

  "What a dear boy!" cried Gertrude.

  "Oh, he is!" said Margaret, the happy tears springing to her eyes. "Heis one of the very dearest boys that ever lived, Gertrude; so manly andhonest, and so funny, too. Gerald knows him!" she added, shyly. "I wishhe had been at home when you were there, Peggy."

  "Yes; he must be a brick!" said Peggy. "Now, Margaret, you know he is,and you know that nothing but 'brick' expresses what I mean. Girls, Iappeal to you. Margaret wants me to talk like a professor all the time,and I am not a professor, and am never likely to be one. Bell, isn't'brick' all right?"

  Bell looked conscious. "I confess I say it, Peggy; I confess it seemsmuch heartier than the same thing in what my mother calls good English.Still--I believe it would sound very queer to me if she used it; themother, I mean."

  "Grace used to say 'a quadrangular piece of baked clay!'" said Gertrude."Don't you remember, Peggy?"

  "So she did--dear thing! Well, but, Bell, would you have girls talk justthe way grown-up people do? It would sound awfully stiff and poky. Idon't mean that it sounds so when your mother talks!" she cried; "ofcourse you know I don't mean that. But girls _aren't_ grown-up, youknow."

  "But they are going to be!" said Margaret. "If they don't learn goodEnglish now, how are they going to do it later? It does seem to me aterrible pity, with all our great, glorious language, to use so littleof it, and to use it so often wrong. You may think me priggish andprofessorial, and anything else you like, Peggy dear, but that is what Ithink."

  "I love you to distraction," said Peggy; "you are an angel, but I thinkyou carry it too far. What would you say instead of 'brick?' how wouldyou describe this boy--who simply _is_ a brick?"

  Margaret reflected. "I should say he was a nice, manly boy!" she said,presently.

  "Nice! now, Margaret! 'nice' is niminy, you know it is, and piminy too."

  "The great advantage of 'brick,'" said Bell, "is that it is one word,and 'nice manly boy' is three, and doesn't mean the same thing then."

  "There!" cried Peggy, in triumph. "What do you say to that, Margaret?Find one word in your old 'good English' that does express 'brick?'"

  "Well--it isn't easy!" Margaret admitted. "'Trump' is the only one I canthink of, and I suppose that was slang fifty years ago."

  "The mother says that when a word has held its own for twenty years, itisn't slang any more," said Gertrude. "The question is--"

  At this moment the sound of a horn was heard; a long, ringing blast,followed by a second and a third.

  The girls sprang to their feet. "Hurrah for a swim!" cried Bell. "Come,bricks and trumps--I'll race you all to the tents!" And off they wentwith a flash of petticoats, leaving the chipmunk to speculate on thesudden upheavals of nature.