CHAPTER XVIII

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_HOME._

HOW strange it seemed, that first evening at home!—so strange and yet so familiar. There was all the old furniture I knew so well, and the old faces, all less changed than I should have expected after a three years' absence. Mother had grown somewhat thin, and I saw gray threads in her hair, but her colour was good, and, on the whole, she looked better than when I left her. Jeanne too looked older and graver, and Ruth and Harry had grown almost out of my knowledge, though Ruth kept her baby face, and was, if anything, prettier than ever. As to Rose, she had come to that age after which coloured women never seem to change.

How much I had to tell and to hear!—As that Ezra had entered college in the Junior year, and expected to graduate this coming commencement, when he would go back to Lee for a while to study divinity with good Mr. Henderson. (That was the way divinity was usually studied in those days. After a young man had finished his college course he went to live with some clergyman, under whose direction he pursued his theological studies, and whom he helped in the work of the parish. Mr. Henderson had almost always one or two students with him when we lived in Lee. I don't think it was at all a bad plan.) Tom was still in Salisbury with his uncle, doing very well, and likely to become a partner in due time. Jeanne still had the school in the village. She had received the offer of a better place in the Dartmouth academy, but she would not leave mother, at least not till I came home. Ruth and Harry went to school, and Ruth had learned to spin, and had worked a magnificent sampler, which was to be framed. Father's farm was improving, and he had come out of the Albany business a great deal better than he expected, so that the family were once more in easy circumstances; but he liked Vermont, and had no notion of going back to Lee.

Of course I had in my turn a great deal to tell about my travels and the people I had seen. Then my trunks were opened, and I distributed my presents, in which I had the good fortune to please everybody, especially Rose, who was delighted with her ear-rings, and Harry, to whom I had brought a grand knife with a corkscrew in it. To be sure, he never had any corks to draw, but it was a great thing to be able to do so. Mother was pleased with a fine copy of Cowper which Mrs. Deborah had sent her, and Ruth delighted equally by a great jointed doll and a well-furnished work-box. And so we sat and talked and listened and admired, till at last mother declared nobody would be up in time to milk in the morning, and sent us all off to bed.

Jeanne and Ruth slept together, and I was to have for the present a room to myself. Mother had fitted it up nicely with the Chinese linen hangings which used to decorate our best bed-room in Lee, and there were all my old valued possessions. When I waked in the morning, it seemed to me almost a dream that I had ever been so far away.

But the feeling was dispelled when I rose and looked out of the window. The outside world was all strange to me, and very dreary I must say it looked. I had left everything in blossom in England—the woods bursting into leaf and full of violets, primroses, and all sorts of pretty flowers, the turf starred with daisies, and the hedges beginning to be white with bloom. Here the spring was late even for Vermont. The trees were almost as naked as in winter, the grass, where there was any grass, had hardly started, the fields were encumbered with huge pine stumps, half-burned logs, and stone heaps, and the great hill which arose between me and the sunrise was black with gloomy spruces. I learned afterward to look upon the view from that window as a very fine one, but my taste for the picturesque was not greatly developed at that time, and I must say it looked very dismal.

"It is home—home," I repeated to myself; and I hastened to dress and to say my prayers, that I might run down stairs and milk my own cow, Snowball, which father had told me was the best cow he had. But, lo and behold! My hands had lost their old skill, and cramped dreadfully. Snowball was uneasy at the presence of a stranger, and at last I had to give it up.

I was kept pretty busy that day putting away my possessions and answering the questions and remarks of Ruth, who followed me like my shadow. I remember both she and Harry were quite indignant when I told them that King George was a nice-looking old gentleman, very much like Deacon Bradley in Lee.

"Deacon Bradley was a good man, and King George is a wicked, bad man," said he, indignantly. "He made his soldiers kill the people at Bunker Hill, and Jeanne's father. You ought not to say so, Olive."

I tried to explain to Harry that it was not King George alone who was responsible for the war, but I don't think I succeeded. I suppose nobody in these days can form a notion of the way the Americans of that time felt toward King George.

It was not till the next day, when Ruth had gone down to see some of her school-mates and to display her treasures, that mother and I had a chance for a good, long talk. I told her all my experiences and heard all that had happened at home. Mother said she had become quite contented with the change. The climate suited her and the farm was an excellent one, especially for stock of all kinds. Father had bought an interest in a saw-mill, which was doing an excellent business, and he had discovered on his farm a ledge of fine white marble which must some day become valuable.

He had improved the house, and was going to improve it still more. We had pleasant neighbours, and there was very good society in the village, and an excellent minister. Mother said kindly that she hoped I would not be home-sick, but she was afraid I would find the change very great.

I would have given all the finery with which Mr. Wyndham's kindness had endowed me to be able to say honestly that I was not home-sick, but the feeling had been growing on me for forty-eight hours. I was very much ashamed of it, and very much vexed at myself; but there was no denying the fact.

It was not that my own personal accommodations were not as good as any I had been used to at school, or even at Mrs. Deborah's, but all things out of doors—the stumps, the rail fences, the rough, half-cleared fields, the bare trees, the rough roads—were so forbidding and dismal. I thought of the garden at Melcombe, where the violets and lilies of the valley ran riot on the bank under the elm trees, where the porch and arbour were covered with sweet honey-suckle, and passion-flower and jessamine and roses seemed to grow of their own accord and blossomed all summer long; of the shrubbery, with its holly and laurestine and filberts and beautiful mossy, shady walks. I thought of the lanes protected by high hedge-rows where the rose campion blossomed till Christmas, and the periwinkle covered the banks. And then I remembered the library and the piano and pictures, and—what I was most of all ashamed of—Mrs. Austin's clotted creams and junkets and apricot tarts and almond cakes.

It was not that I wanted to go back—I don't think I should have been undecided for a moment if the offer had been made me then and there—but nevertheless the fact remained that I was unhappy. I said to myself that now I was in a free country, where every one had a chance, where poor people did not live in pigsties, and highway robberies and public hangings of a dozen people at a time were not of almost daily occurrence. I remembered the poor woman who had been hung in London while I was there for stealing ten shillings, and recalled Mrs. Tibbs, the cottager's wife with ten children, in a room where the rain made a puddle on the clay floor under the candle, and the worms dropped from the rotten thatch on her bed, and I thought of Mr. Henderson, and contrasted him with the squire of the next parish to ours, who always seemed too much absorbed in his studies to have a kind word or a smile to bestow on the children. But all would not do. My mind would go back to the pleasant things—the flowers and green fields and Mr. Fuller, who was as kind as Mr. Henderson himself. There was no denying it, and I shed tears of vexation and shame over the fact that I regretted England.

But I was never one to sit down and cry over what I could not have, and I knew what my part was. I remembered a sentence in the catechism which I had learned to please my teacher, which ran thus, after enumerating many duties of the "second table:"

"To learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and do my duty in that state of life unto which it than please God to call me."

I had admired the sentence when I first learned it. Now it came back to me with new meaning. "To do my duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call me." What was my duty? Clearly not to fret because I could not live in two places at once, because I could not eat my cake and have my cake, because I could not at once enjoy all the pleasures and advantages of two countries. But it "was" my duty to be cheerful and contented, to make the very best of the place where I was and the pleasures and blessings I enjoyed. It was my duty to help mother in every possible way, to set a good example to Ruth and Harry, and to show that all the kindness and petting I had enjoyed had not spoiled me. It might be hard work, I said to myself, to settle down into a plain farmer's daughter, but I meant that no farmer's daughter should be more helpful and careful than I. It might be hard, but I had not now to learn where to look for strength when things were hard.

Young as I was, I knew from experience that faithful prayer is always answered, and that "thou, Lord, hast never failed them that seek thee," was only a literal statement of a literal fact. And I found now, as I had always found before, the help I needed. I suppose the natural versatility of my disposition was an assistance to me; but however that might be, in a week's time I was as much at home as if I had never been away. I got out my old wheel, and soon recovered my old sleight-of-hand.

Miss Tabby Wheelwright, our neighbour, who was not the most amiable person in the world, coming in and finding me spinning and singing—for I could spin and sing now—remarked, with a decided sneer, that she should not expect a fine London miss to know how to use the big wheel, whereat I had the audacity to propose a trial of skill and speed, and actually beat her by three knots and a half. I am afraid Miss Tabby did not like me better for it, but I propitiated her by giving her a skein of Devonshire lace thread to mend her veil, and by showing her the real lace darning-stitch.

Of course I had to make a great many new acquaintances, and to answer a great many questions. We were about half a mile from the village, where there were now about five hundred inhabitants, a meeting-house, two or three stores, a good school-house, and the foundation of a county academy. Mr. Winslow was the minister, and he had a nice wife and three or four very pleasant boys and girls. There were a good many young people in the place; and as Jeanne knew them all, and was a favourite with all, there was no lack of society. Indeed, it was not long before mother gently hinted that I was visiting too much for my own good, and suggested that it was a pity I should forget all that I had learned.

Among the contents of the box of books which Mr. Wyndham had given me were the histories of Mr. Hume and Doctor Robertson, and mother now suggested that we young ladies should meet one or two afternoons in the week with our sewing and take turns in reading aloud, thus, as she said—mother always liked to turn a sentence well—enjoying the pleasures of society and improving our minds at the same time. Jeanne and the Winslow girls took up the idea with enthusiasm, and most of the others fell in with it after I had assured them that such reading-parties were fashionable among literary people in London, and that I had been present by special favour at one where two live authors were in the company.

The reading-circle was organized, and was a great success. Remembering Mrs. Deborah's charity work-basket, I had proposed that we should spend every other afternoon in working for the poor—a scheme which was received with great applause, and which only failed from the trifling difficulty that after diligent inquiry we could find no poor people to work for. We did not confine ourselves to history, but sometimes recreated ourselves with poetry and other lighter studies, and sometimes we discussed what we read. No doubt we branched off very considerably from our grand subjects a good many times into the lighter ones of embroidery patterns and dress fashions, but that was all very innocent and did us no harm. And often, too, we fell into graver discourse, which did us a great deal of good, and led some of our number to think more seriously than they had ever done before. I was naturally something of an oracle from the fact of having seen so much more of the world than any of my companions, though I was two or three years the youngest of them, and I might have grown very conceited but for the checks I received at home, where I was still nobody but little Olive, laughed at by my father, not seldom snubbed by Rose, and obliged to be just as obedient as Harry himself.

On the whole, it was a very pleasant summer, after all. I wrote to my English friends, and twice had a great package of letters from them all, and, joy of joys, in the fall Mr. Wyndham sent me a piano! It was a very small affair—hardly bigger than a music-box as compared to those in use nowadays—but it was a good one, and, for a wonder, arrived without any injury from the journey. It was the best piano seen in those parts, and made a great sensation. Mr. Winslow, who understood music, tuned it for me, and with what delight did I get out my music and play my lessons—my "pieces," as the girls say now—for the edification of my friends!

"Yes, it's very fine," said Miss Tabby Wheelwright, who was the kill-joy of the neighbourhood and always saw danger and sin lurking under everything that was pleasant—"yes, it's very nice, Olly, if only you can have that and heaven too."

"Why can't she, Miss Tabby?" asked Harry. "I am sure we hear about harps in heaven."

"But not pianos, Harry," answered Miss Wheelwright, severely.

"Well, harps go by strings and pianos go by strings, so what is the difference?"

Miss Tabby was not quite prepared to answer this reasoning, so she only sighed and "hoped my gifts would not prove to be too much for my grace."

I began to give Ruth music-lessons directly, and found her an apt scholar. Presently, Symantha Winslow wanted to learn, and then her uncle in New York sent her a piano also. Mr. Winslow hunted out his long-disused flute, and we used to have some very nice little concerts.

The end of that summer, however, was overclouded. The small-pox broke out in the vicinity. Very few of us young people had had the disease, for which there was then no known certain preventive but inoculation, which could hardly be called a preventive, either. Dr. Jenner was making his experiments on vaccination and trying to make people believe in its virtues, while a sermon was actually preached against him in an English cathedral, and stories were gravely printed and seriously believed of children out of whose heads cows' horns had grown, and others who had bleated and eaten grass like calves, in consequence of having been subjected to this process. It was not till several years after the time of which I am writing that vaccination became general.

In 1800 ninety-two persons out of every thousand died of small-pox in Great Britain, and of those who recovered many were made blind and others dreadfully disfigured for life. But something like half a century before—I do not now remember the exact date—Lady Montague, a lady of great talents and fashion, as the phrase was then, introduced into England the practice of engrafting or inoculating for small-pox. She had learned it in Turkey, and succeeded, in spite of much opposition and ridicule, in making it popular in England. No doubt she thereby saved many valuable lives and much suffering. It was found that persons who had the small-pox by inoculation seldom died, and not only so, but they were rarely marked or disfigured by the disease. Often they were hardly sick at all. I remember hearing mother say that when she went to the hospital with some six other girls to have the disease, the selectmen of the town promised a new silk dress to the one who should dance a reel every day during her confinement. Every one of the young ladies earned the silk dress, though my mother confessed that on some occasions the figure was rather languidly walked through.

It was now decided by the proper authorities that a small-pox hospital was to be established at Castle Hill, and all the young persons of a certain age were to go through the ordeal of inoculation, I among the rest. Jeanne had had the disease as a child, and Ruth was thought too young. The Stanley house, as it was called, was selected for the use of the girls. It was a comfortable, roomy, cheerful mansion—in fact, it was one of the best houses in the place, though it had been uninhabited for several years save by the old woman who took care of it. I believe it was some way involved in a law-suit. Mrs. Prudence Withal, a very agreeable and sensible widow lady, whose only child was one of the patients, was to matronize and superintend us, and Rose came to wait on us and to help do the work. The house was comfortably fitted up with everything necessary and desirable, and such clothes as were absolutely needful were sent thither, together with abundant stores of fuel and eatables. It happened very luckily that a parcel of books which Mr. Wyndham had sent me with the piano, but which had been supposed lost, turned up at this juncture. It contained, among other things, some of Miss Austin's and Mrs. Inchbald's tales, a chess-board, and abundance of new patterns for work which promised us much diversion.

On Sunday we were publicly prayed for and four of our number, the Winslows, Jane Withal, and myself, joined the church. It was a very solemn season with ourselves and our friends, for we all felt it might be the last time we should ever join together in public worship. I drew up a will disposing of all my little possessions, and wrote a letter to Mrs. Deborah and Mr. Wyndham, to be sent in case of my death. Not that I believed I was going to die. I was young and strong, and very few did die under the effects of inoculation, but still I knew I might be called away, and I thought it would save mother trouble if I wrote out my wishes beforehand. I don't think I was a miracle of wisdom, by any means, but I wish all grown-up people would show as much sense in that respect as I did at fifteen. It would save a great deal of vexation, injustice, and misery.

On Monday morning I bade home and friends good-bye, charging Ruth to be diligent with her music and not to forget to close the piano when she had finished her lessons. Father carried me over to the Stanley mansion, where I found my young friends already assembled; and bidding me keep up good courage, he left me to my fate.

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