CHAPTER I.

THE GREEN PAIL.

"TAKE the green pail to carry the water up-stairs, and set the smaller one on the stove, with water in it, that I may have it hot presently," said Mrs. Ward. "Do you understand me?"

"Oh, yes, I know," answered Abbey, confidently.

Mrs. Ward closed the kitchen-door, and sat down in the shade on the back steps for a few minutes, to read the paper before going on with her day's work.

She had certainly earned a little rest. For she had been up since five o'clock, had prepared her husband's breakfast and sent him off to his work at seven o'clock, had swept and dusted her pretty little parlour and dining-room, and was presently to make bread and cakes, and a meat-pie to be eaten cold for next day's dinner. For, while she made it a rule never to do unnecessary cooking on Sunday, she "calculated," as she would have said, to provide something rather better than common for her husband's dinner on that day.

She was the wife of a hard-working, painstaking printer,—a man who never missed a day's work from idleness or a spree, but who yet had hard work enough to maintain his family at home, help support his old mother, keep his house and life insured, and make both ends of the year meet. Mrs. Ward had never kept a girl till quite lately. She had always been able to do all her own work, with the help of her daughter, who had been trained to usefulness from the time she could run alone. But Comfort Ward, though a strong and healthy girl up to the age of fourteen, had then begun to pine away and fade like a plant. The spring after her fifteenth birthday, she was laid to rest under the trees of Mount Faith Cemetery, in the sure and certain hope of a glorious immortality. Her illness was long and trying, and Mrs. Ward found herself so worn out after it was over, that her husband insisted on her having some one to help her in her household work.

So she hired Abbey Jenkins, a stout girl of fourteen, who had already lived in two or three different places, but for some reason (which no one seemed exactly to understand) had never stayed long in any one of them. Every one told Mrs. Jenkins that her Abbey could not possibly have a better place: Mrs. Ward was an excellent Christian woman, a capital housekeeper, understanding all sorts of work, and one who would do her duty by any girl who lived with her. Old Aunt Phœbe Ray added to her congratulations the remark that Mrs. Ward had a heap of patience, and could get on with Abbey if any one could; from which we may gather that Abbey was no particular favourite with the old lady.

Mrs. Ward was tired, and the shaded back steps made a very pleasant resting-place. She looked through the paper, and then sat for a few moments surveying her little garden-ground and considering how she could put in a row of Martinias and some new annual flower-seeds where every inch of room seemed already occupied,— when she perceived a smell as of burning paint.

"Somebody has got a hot fire," was her first thought. "It comes from the kitchen!" was her second.

She jumped up hastily and opened the door. There on the stove was her new, neatly-painted green water-pail, all blackened and blistered with the heat, the paint upon the bottom burned off, and filling the whole house with a most unsavory odour! She hastened to snatch it off, but the mischief was done. The pail was utterly spoiled.

Mrs. Ward was a woman who understood pretty well how to rule her own spirit. She did not utter a single hasty exclamation, but there was some sharpness in the tone with which she called "Abbey!" at the foot of the back stairs.

Abbey did not answer.

And Mrs. Ward, listening, heard a sort of rubbing and scrubbing sound, as of some one violently rubbing a carpet.

"What has she been about?" thought Mrs. Ward.

She stepped into the parlour, to lay down the paper. The first thing which caught her eye was a large and rapidly-spreading stain upon the newly whitened ceiling, from which water was falling drop by drop upon the matting below. She hurried up-stairs, and beheld a scene which explained the whole matter. The pail which Abbey had been told to set upon the stove lay on the floor, with the handle out, and Abbey was busily swabbing up the water with some large white cloth done up into a wad.

"What 'have' you been about, Abbey?" asked Mrs. Ward.

"The handle came out of the pail, and spilt the water," replied Abbey, with rather an air of injured innocence. "I didn't know it was loose."

"Didn't I tell you to set that pail on the stove and take the green one to carry up the water?" asked Mrs. Ward.

"I didn't understand," said Abbey.

"If you did not understand, it was because you did not pay attention," returned Mrs. Ward. "I told you, in perfectly plain English, to set this pail on the stove and carry the other up-stairs. And you have done exactly the contrary, and accomplished more mischief in one half-hour than your wages will be worth for a month to come. I think you had better go home to your mother. I cannot afford to keep a girl who cannot turn round without doing mischief, just because she will not attend to what is said to her. What are you rubbing the floor with? Let me see."

She took the cloth out of her hands and unfolded it, but the sight it presented did not tend to comfort her. It was an old but fine damask table-cloth, bearing the marks of careful preservation and mending, but now worn into two or three great holes by Abbey's rubbing. As Mrs. Ward looked at it, her colour rose, and the tears came into her eyes.

"My dear mother's cloth!—And the very last I had!" said she. "You had better go to bed, and stay there the rest of the day. There, at least, you will be out of mischief."

"I'm sure I didn't mean any thing—" and Abbey began her defence.

But Mrs. Ward interrupted her.

"Yes: there is exactly the trouble. You never do mean any thing, either good or bad. You don't mean any harm, perhaps, but you don't mean any good, either. You don't put your mind upon your work in the least degree, nor do you attend to any thing that is said to you. Half the mischief in the world is done by people who don't mean any thing. Another trouble is that you think you know every thing already,—instead of which you are a very ignorant little girl, deficient in almost every thing that should be known even by a girl of your age. And if you are ever going to be any thing but a real torment to every one about you, you will have to take a great deal of pains for it. Just because you would not attend to perfectly plain directions, you have done more mischief since you came into this house, only a month ago, than your work will be worth in six months if you do your very best. I don't think I can afford to keep you any longer. If I saw you improving, or taking pains to improve, I should feel differently; but you don't."

Mrs. Ward may be excused for feeling irritated. The parlour-ceiling had just been whitened, at considerable expense; the pail was a new one, and the table-cloth an heirloom which had been in her family for two or three generations. It was not Abbey's first piece of mischief, either. She had broken more cups, loosened more knife-handles and spotted more floors than Mrs. Ward had done in all her housekeeping. She had killed two or three valuable plants by throwing her dish-water upon them,—though she was expressly told what to do with it,—and broken down a Diana grape-vine, which Mr. Ward was nursing with great care, by throwing the coal-ashes upon it, instead of putting them in their proper place. In every one of these cases her excuse was that she didn't mean any thing; she didn't understand.

"What shall I do next?" asked Abbey, after Mrs. Ward had washed and hung up the unlucky table-cloth.

"You can take those towels and sit down to hem them in the kitchen, where I can see you while I am mixing my bread," replied Mrs. Ward.

"Can't I sit up in my room?" asked Abbey.

"No! Unless you are under my eye, you will hem half of them one way and half the other. And I cannot trust you to finish the work up-stairs by yourself."

"Well," said Abbey to herself, as she hunted up her thimble (which was never in its place), "I'm glad I don't worry so about every little thing. I believe in taking things easy, for my part."

It is worthy of notice that for every person who prides himself or herself on taking things easy, there is always some one else who has to take them hard in proportion. This was the case with Abbey and her friends. She had always taken things easy, ever since she was born.

As a little child, her mother had been proud of her daughter's placid disposition and had boasted that nothing ever put Abbey out. But as the child grew older, and became of an age to be helpful to her mother, Mrs. Miles did not find that Abbey lightened her cares at all. Somehow, she had a remarkable knack of "shirking,"—of slipping out of and away from every thing that she did not like to do,—of breaking and spoiling every thing she took in hand,—of being so long over her breakfast dishes that it was less trouble to her mother to wash them herself,—of getting the baby into scrapes whenever she was set to tend him,—of buying exactly the wrong thing whenever she was sent to market or to the grocer's, and never coming back till the last minute.

All this time, Abbey was as placid as possible. No scolding disturbed her temper or did her any good. She was always singing over her work. And as she had a sweet voice and sung with a good deal of taste, visitors were apt to remark how pleasant it was to have a child of such a happy disposition!

When Abbey was thirteen years old, her mother married again. Abbey's stepfather was a hard-working, energetic, well-principled man, who fully intended to do the part of a father by his wife's children. But he was what is called "short-tempered," and being, as I said, very hard-working and painstaking himself, he had not very much patience with the opposite qualities. Abbey found herself driven about and stirred up more than she had ever been before in her life.

Mrs. Jenkins felt sorry for her, but she had lately become awake to the fact that Abbey would have to earn her own living. And that, if she were ever to be good for any thing, it was quite time she began. Abbey, however, was more than a match for her stepfather. Her placidity of temper gave her a great advantage over his fretful position,—as cotton-bags are said to oppose the best resistance to cannon-balls.

But Mr. Jenkins had the advantage in one way, and at last he used it. He possessed "the power of the purse;" and he declared that he would no longer support Abbey in idleness: she should go out to work, and earn her own living in some one else's house, if not in her own home.

Abbey had been living out for four months, and she had been in three different places already. As I said, her mother was very glad when Mrs. Ward took her in hand. And Aunt Phœbe Ray, who had interested herself very much in finding places for Abbey, declared that Mrs. Ward could get on with the girl if any one could.