Harry, who had watched all the movements between Miss Mehitable and his sister with intense interest, now stepped forward, blushing very much, but still with a quaint little old-fashioned air of manliness. “Is my sister going to live with you?”
“So we have agreed, my little man,” said Miss Mehitable. “I hope you have no objection?”
“Will you let me come and see her sometimes?”
“Certainly; you will always be quite welcome.”
“I want to see her sometimes, because my mother left her under my care. I shan’t have a great deal of time to come in the daytime, because I must work for my living,” he said. “but a little while sometimes at night, if you would let me.”
“And what do you work at?” said Miss Mehitable, surveying the delicate boy with an air of some amusement.
“I used to pick up potatoes, and fodder the cattle, and do a great many things; and I am growing stronger every day, and by and by can do a great deal more.”
“Well said, sonny,” said my grandfather, laying his hand on Harry’s head. “You speak like a smart boy. We can have you down to help tend sawmill.”
“I wonder how many more boys will be wanted to help tend sawmill,” said Aunt Lois.
“Well, good night, all,” said Miss Mehitable starting to go home.
Tina, however, stopped and left her side, and threw her arms round Harry’s neck and kissed him. “Good night now. You ‘ll come and see me to-morrow;” she said.
“May I come too?” I said, almost before I thought.
“O, certainly, do come,” said Tina, with that warm, earnest light in her eyes which seemed the very soul of hospitality. “She ‘ll like to have you, I know.”
“The child is taking possession of the situation at once,” Miss Mehitable. “Well, Brighteyes, you may come too,” she added, to me. “A precious row there will be among the books when you all get together there”; – and Miss Mehitable with the gay, tripping figure by her side, left the room.
“Is this great, big, dark house yours?” said the child, as they came under the shadow of a dense thicket of syringas and lilacs that overhung the front of the house.
“Yes, this is Doubting Castle,” said Miss Mehitable.
“And does Giant Despair live here?” said Tina. “Mamma showed me a picture of him once in a book.”
“Well, he has tried many times to take possession,” said Miss Mehitable, “but I do what I can to keep him out, and you must help me.”
Saying this she opened the door of a large, old-fashioned room, that appeared to have served both the purposes of a study and parlor. It was revealed to view by the dusky, uncertain glimmer of a wood fire that had burned almost down on a pair of tall brass andirons. The sides of the room were filled to the ceiling with book-cases full of books. Some dark portraits of men and women were duskily revealed by the flickering light, as well as a wide, ample-bosomed chintz sofa and a great chintz-covered easy-chair. A table draped with a green cloth stood in a corner by the fire, strewn over with books and writing-materials, and sustaining a large work-basket.
“How dark it is!” said the child.
Miss Mehitable took a burning splinter of the wood, and lighted a candle in a tall, plated candlestick, that stood on the high, narrow mantel-piece over the fireplace. At this moment a side door opened, and a large-boned woman, dressed in a homespun stuff petticoat, with a short, loose sack of the same material, appeared at the door. Her face was freckled; her hair, of a carroty-yellow, was plastered closely to her head and secured by a horn comb; her eyes were so sharp and searching, that, as she fixed them on Tina, she blinked involuntarily. Around her neck she wore a large string of gold beads, the brilliant gleam of which, catching the firelight, revealed itself at once to Tina’s eye, and caused her to regard the woman with curiosity.
She appeared to have opened the door with an intention of asking a question; but stopped and surveyed the child with a sharp expression of not very well-pleased astonishment. “I thought you spoke to me,” she said, at last, to Miss Mehitable.
“You may warm my bed now, Polly,” said Miss Mehitable. “I shall be ready to go up in a few moments.”
Polly stood a moment more, as if awaiting some communication about the child; but as Miss Mehitable turned away, and appeared to be busying herself about the fire, Polly gave a sudden windy dart from the room, and closed the door with a bang that made the window-casings rattle.
“Why, what did she do that for?” said Tina.
“O, it ‘s Polly’s way; she does everything with all her might.” said Miss Mehitable.
“Don’t she like me?” said the child.
“Probably not. She knows nothing about you, and she does not like new things.”
“But won’t she ever like me?” persisted Tina.
“That, my dear, will depend in a great degree on yourself. If she sees that you are good and behave well, she will probably end by liking you; but old people like her are afraid that children will meddle with their things, and get them out of place.”
“I mean to be good,” said Tina, resolutely. “When I lived with Miss Asphyxia, I wanted to be bad, I tried to be bad: but now I am changed. I mean to be good, because you are good to me,” and the child laid her head confidingly in Miss Mehitable’s lap.
The dearest of all flattery to the old and uncomely is this caressing, confiding love of childhood, and Miss Mehitable felt a glow of pleasure about her dusky old heart, at which she really wondered. “Can anything so fair really love me?” she asked herself. Alas! how much of this cheap-bought happiness goes to waste daily! While unclaimed children grow up loveless, men and women wither in lonely, craving solitude.
Polly again appeared at the door. “Your bed’s all warm, and you ‘d better go right up, else what ‘s the use of warming it?”
“Yes, I ‘ll come immediately,” said Miss Mehitable, endeavoring steadfastly to look as if she did not see Polly’s looks, and to act as if there had of course always been a little girl to sleep with her.
“Come, my little one.” My little one! Miss Mehitable’s heart gave a great throb at this possessive pronoun. It all seemed as strange to her as a dream. A few hours ago, and she sat in the old windy, lonesome house, alone with the memories of dead friends, and feeling herself walking to the grave in a dismal solitude. Suddenly she awoke as from a dark dream, and found herself sole possessor of beauty, youth, and love, in a glowing little form, all her own, with no mortal to dispute it. She had a mother’s right in a child. She might have a daughter’s love. The whole house seemed changed. The dreary, lonesome great hall, with its tall, solemn-ticking clock, the wide, echoing staircase, up which Miss Mehitable had crept, shivering and alone, so many sad nights, now gave back the chirpings of Tina’s rattling gayety and the silvery echoes of her laugh, as, happy in her new lot, she danced up the stairway, stopping to ask eager questions on this and that, as anything struck her fancy. For Miss Tina had one of those buoyant, believing natures, born to ride always on the very top crest of every wave, – one fully disposed to accept of good fortune in all its length and breadth, and to make the most of it at once.
“This is our home,” she said, “is n’t it?
“Yes, darling,” said Miss Mehitable, catching her in her arms fondly; “it is our home; we will have good times here together.”
Tina threw her arms around Miss Mehitable’s neck and kissed her. “I ‘m so glad! Harry said that God would find us a home as soon as it was best, and now here it comes.”
Miss Mehitable set the child down by the side of a great dark wooden bedstead, with tall, carved posts, draped with curious curtains of India linen, where strange Oriental plants and birds, and quaint pagodas and figures in turbans, were all mingled together, like the phantasms in a dream. Then going to a tall chest of drawers, resplendent with many brass handles, which reached almost to the ceiling, she took a bunch of keys from her pocket and unlocked a drawer. A spasm as of pain passed over her face as she opened
it, and her hands trembled with some suppressed emotion as she took up and laid down various articles, searching for something. At last she found what she wanted, and shook it out. It was a child’s nightgown, of just the size needed by Tina. It was yellow with age, but made with dainty care. She sat down by the child and began a movement towards undressing her.
“Shall I say my prayers to you,” said Tina, “before I go to bed?”
“Certainly,” said Miss Mehitable; “by all means.”
“They are rather long,” said the child, apologetically, – “that is, if I say all that Harry does. Harry said mamma wanted us to say them all every night. It takes some time.”
“O, by all means say all,” said Miss Mehitable.
Tina kneeled down by her and put her hands in hers, and said the Lord’s Prayer, and the psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd.” She had a natural turn for elocution, this little one, and spoke her words with a grace and an apparent understanding not ordinary in childhood.
“There ‘s a hymn, besides,” she said. “It belongs to the prayer.”
“Well, let us have that,” said Miss Mehitable.
Tina repeated, –
“One there is above all others
Well deserves the name of Friend;
His is love beyond a brother’s,
Costly, free, and knows no end.”
She had an earnest, half-heroic way of repeating, and as she gazed into her listener’s eyes she perceived, by a subtile instinct, that what she was saying affected her deeply. She stopped, wondering.
“Go on, my love,” said Miss Mehitable.
Tina continued, with enthusiasm, feeling that she was making an impression on her auditor:
“Which of all our friends, to save us,
Could or would have shed his blood?
But the Saviour died to have us
Reconciled in him to God.
“When he lived on earth abaséd,
Friend of sinners was his name;
Now, above all glory raiséd,
He rejoiceth in the same.”
“O my, child, where did you learn that hymn?” said Miss Mehitable, to whom the words were new. Simple and homely as they were, they had struck on some inner nerve, which was vibrating with intense feeling. Tears were standing in her eyes.
“It was mamma’s hymn,” said Tina. “She always used to say it. There is one more verse,” she added.
“O for grace our hearts to soften!
Teach us, Lord, at length to love;
We, alas! forget too often
What a Friend we have above.”
“Is that the secret of all earthly sorrow, then?” said Miss Mehitable aloud, in involuntary soliloquy. The sound of her own voice seemed to startle her. She sighed deeply, and kissed the child. “Thank you, my darling. It does me good to hear you,” she said.
The child had entered so earnestly, so passionately even, into the spirit of the words she had been repeating, that she seemed to Miss Mehitable to be transfigured into an angel messenger, sent to inspire faith in God’s love in a darkened, despairing soul. She put her into bed; but Tina immediately asserted her claim to an earthly nature by stretching herself exultingly in the warm bed, with an exclamation of vivid pleasure.
“How different this seems from my cold old bed at Miss Asphyxia’s!” she said. “O, that horrid woman! how I hate her!” she added, with a scowl and a frown, which made the angelhood of the child more than questionable.
Miss Mehitable’s vision melted. It was not a child of heaven, but a little mortal sinner, that she was tucking up for the night; and she felt constrained to essay her first effort at moral training.
“My dear,” she said, “did you not say, to-night, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’? Do you know what that means?”
“O yes,” said Tina, readily.
“Well, if your Heavenly Father should forgive your sins just as you forgive Miss Asphyxia, how would you like that?”
There was a silence. The large bright eyes grew round and reflective, as they peered out from between the sheets and the pillow. At last she said, in a modified voice: “Well, I won’t hate her any more. But,” she added, with increased vivacity, “I may think she ‘s hateful, may n’t I?”
Is there ever a hard question in morals that children do not drive straight at, in their wide-eyed questioning?
Miss Mehitable felt inclined to laugh, but said, gravely: “I would n’t advise you to think evil about her. Perhaps she is a poor woman that never had any one to love her, or anything to love, and it has made her hard.”
Tina looked at Miss Mehitable earnestly, as if she were pondering the remark. “She told me that she was put to work younger than I was,” she said, “and kept at it all the time.”
“And perhaps, if you had been kept at work all your life in that hard way, you would have grown up to be just like her.”
“Well, then, I ‘m sorry for her,” said Tina. “There ‘s nobody loves her, that ‘s a fact. Nobody can love her, unless it ‘s God. He loves every one, Harry says.”
“Well, good night, my darling,” said Miss Mehitable, kissing her. “I shall come to bed pretty soon. I will leave you a candle,” she added; “because this is a strange place.”
“How good you are!” said Tina. “I used to be so afraid in the dark, at Miss Asphyxia’s; and I was so wicked all day, that I was afraid of God too, at night. I used sometimes to think I heard something chewing under my bed; and I thought it was a wolf, and would eat me up.”
“Poor little darling!” said Miss Mehitable. “Would you rather I sat by you till you went to sleep?”
“No, thank you; I don’t like to trouble you,” said the child. “If you leave a candle I sha’ n’t be afraid. And, besides, I ‘ve said my prayers now. I didn’t use to say them one bit at Miss Asphyxia’s. She would tell me to say my prayers, and then bang the door so hard, and I would feel cross, and think I would n’t. But I am better now, because you love me.”
Miss Mehitable returned to the parlor, and sat down to ponder over her fire; and the result of her ponderings shall be given in a letter which she immediately began writing, at the green-covered table.
CHAPTER XIX.
MISS MEHITABLE’S LETTER, AND THE REPLY, GIVING FURTHER HINTS OF THE STORY.
MY DEAR BROTHER: – Since I wrote you last, so strange a change has taken place in my life that even now I walk about as in a dream, and hardly know myself. The events of a few hours have made everything in the world seem to me to as different from what it ever seemed before as death is from life.
Not to keep you waiting, after so solemn a preface, I will announce to you first, briefly, what it is, and then, secondly, how it happened.
Well, then, I have adopted a child, in my dry and wilted old age. She is a beautiful and engaging little creature, full of life and spirits, – full of warm affections, – thrown an absolute waif and stray on the sands of life. Her mother was an unknown Englishwoman, – probably some relict of the retired English army. She died in great destitution, in the neighboring town of Needmore, leaving on the world two singularly interesting children, a boy and a girl. They were, of course, taken in charge by the parish, and fell to the lot of old Crab Smith and his sister, Miss Asphyxia, – just think of it! I think I need say no more than this about their lot.
In a short time they ran away from cruel treatment; lived in a desolate little housekeeping way in the old Dench house; till finally Sam Lawson, lounging about in his general and universal way, picked them up. He brought them, of course, where every wandering, distressed thing comes, – to Deacon Badger’s.
Now I suppose the Deacon is comfortably off in the world, as our New England farmers go, but his ability to maintain general charges of housekeeping for all mankind may seriously be doubted. Lois Badger, who does the work of Martha in that establishment, came over to me, yesterday afternoon, quite distressed in her mind about it. Lois is a worthy creature, – rath
er sharp, to be sure, but, when her edge is turned the right way, none the worse for that, – and really I thought she had the right of it, to some extent.
People in general are so resigned to have other folks made burnt sacrifices, that it did not appear to me probable that there was a creature in Oldtown who would do anything more than rejoice that Deacon Badger felt able to take the children. After I had made some rather bitter reflections on the world, and its selfishness, in the style that we all practise, the thought suddenly occurred to me, What do you, more than others? And that idea, together with the beauty and charms of the poor little waif, decided me to take this bold step. I shut my eyes, and took it, – not without quaking in my shoes for fear of Polly; but I have carried my point in her very face, without so much as saying by your leave.
The little one has just been taken up stairs and tucked up warmly in my own bed, with one of our poor little Emily’s old nightgowns on. They fit her exactly, and I exult over her as one that findeth great spoil
Polly has not yet declared herself, except by slamming the door very hard when she first made the discovery of the child’s presence in the house. I presume there is an equinoctial gale gathering, but I say nothing; for, after all, Polly is a good creature, and will blow herself round into the right quarter, in time, as our northeast rain-storms generally do. People always accommodate themselves to certainties.
I cannot but regard the coming of this child to me at this time as a messenger of mercy from God, to save me from sinking into utter despair. I have been so lonely, so miserable, so utterly, inexpressibly wretched of late, that it has seemed that, if something did not happen to help me, I must lose my reason. Our family disposition to melancholy is a hard enough thing to manage under the most prosperous circumstances. I remember my father’s paroxysms of gloom; they used to frighten me when I was a little girl, and laid a heavy burden on the heart of our dear angel mother. Whatever that curse is, we all inherit it. In the heart of every one of us children there is that fearful black drop, like that which the Koran says the angel showed to Mahomet. It is an inexplicable something which always predisposes us to sadness, but in which any real, appreciable sorrow strikes a terribly deep and long root. Shakespeare describes this thing, as he does everything else –
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 259