CHAPTER XIX

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_THE WEEKS OF SECLUSION._

SO here we were, eight girls condemned to spend some weeks in the same house with no society but our own, and we naturally regarded each other very curiously. Four of us, the Winslows, Jane Withal, and myself, were intimate, being all members of the reading-circle. The other four were Salome Loveland, sister to Doctor Perkins's wife, Content Hoyt, Bell Atkins, Mrs. Adams's "bound-girl," and Hannah Frisbie. Salome was a stranger to all of us. She was a serious, rather prim, but pleasant girl, the oldest of the party, and said to be uncommonly well educated and intelligent. Content Hoyt was a bright girl of thirteen; Bell Atkins was a year younger.

I had heard Mrs. Adams tell mother only the day before, between meetings, that "Bell would do more work and more play, make more trouble and be more help, than any other two girls she ever saw." Bell's mother had stopped at Mrs. Adams's house one Saturday night, very tired and very sick, and begged for a shelter, and good Mrs. Adams took her in and nursed her as if she had been a sister. She died, however, in three days' time, unable to give much account of herself save that her name was Atkins, that her husband had died in Montreal, and that she had friends in Boston who she thought would take her in if she could get there, but who those friends were Mrs. Adams could not understand. She was decently buried, and Mrs. Adams kept little Bell, having her bound by the town authorities. This was a common way of providing for orphans and forlorn children in those days. A girl was apprenticed till she was eighteen or twenty-one. She was entitled to a certain amount of schooling, and made one of the family in most cases; and when she came of age, she usually received a cow, a sum of money, and some articles of furniture.

Bell was a pretty little brown thing, with black curly hair and wide, intelligent, wistful black eyes. I took a great fancy to her directly, as we all did, indeed, and was all the time possessed with the feeling that I had seen her before, if I could only remember where.

I will not deny that there were some rather suspiciously red eyes and noses among us as we assembled in the parlour after our friends were gone, but we were all quiet and greeted each other cheerfully. Self-command was part of a New England girl's education in those days, and I think almost all children learned very early to consider crying as something rather disgraceful, to be checked as quickly as possible. The only exception to the rule was Hannah Frisbie, who was still sobbing and sniffing dolefully behind her handkerchief.

"Well, girls!" said Mrs. Withal, in her peculiarly clear, cheerful voice. "Here we are, you see, ten of us, counting Mom Rose, shut up to each other's society for some weeks. Now, it depends altogether on ourselves whether we shall have a good time or not. There is no reason why we should not have a very nice one, for the next fortnight at least, if we only make up our minds to be patient, forbearing, and pleasant."

We all agreed to this proposition except Hannah, who only wept the more.

"The first thing is to settle about our rooms," continued Mrs. Withal. "Suppose, then, we go over the house and consider it."

This also was agreed to, and we proceeded to examine the premises. There was a large bed-room down stairs, with a smaller one opening out of it, the same up stairs, with two smaller rooms and one over the kitchen, all comfortable, airy, and decently furnished. Then arose the question how they were to be divided.

"Let's draw lots," said Bell.

"A very good idea," pronounced Mrs. Withal.

Slips of paper were prepared, with the names of the rooms, and we all drew in turn. The large room below fell to Abby Winslow and myself, and the little one to Bell Atkins. Symantha Winslow and Content Hoyt had the corresponding one above, and Salome Loveland that inside of it. Hannah Frisbie had a pretty little room up stairs, and Mrs. Withal and Jane the other large room. Rose slept over the kitchen.

"But I can't sleep in that room; I shall be afraid," sobbed, or rather whined, Hannah. "It is the meanest room in the whole lot, and I think it's too bad—" The rest was lost in sobs.

"I will change with you, Miss Frisbie," said Miss Loveland, kindly—"that is, if the others are willing." And she looked at Symantha and Content.

Content made a little face. Symantha answered for both:

"I am willing, I am sure, but I don't see what there is to be afraid of."

"But I know you don't want me," sobbed Hannah. "I know you feel above me. Oh dear, oh dear! I'm so home-sick. I shall die, I know."

"Nonsense!" said Content, who knew Hannah better than the rest of us. "She won't be any better satisfied if she does change; and we agreed to go by the drawing. If Hannah is afraid, she can fasten her door, or else she can leave it open, and we will leave ours open too. Let things alone as they are, do!"

Hannah sobbed and wailed afresh.

"Well, what are you crying for now?"

"It's my feelings," sobbed Hannah.

"Look here, Hannah Frisbie," said the warning voice of Rose, speaking all of a sudden from the depths of a dark closet where she was rummaging; "are you going to stop that noise, or are you going to wait till I come there?"

Hannah jumped as if she had been shot. What she thought Rose would do to her I don't know, but she stopped crying on the instant, and we had no more feelings for the present.

"Now we will arrange our things, and after that," said Mrs. Withal, "we will consider farther how we shall occupy our time; for it won't do to be idle, you know."

"No, indeed," said the spirit of New England, responding heartily to the national sentiment; and we dispersed to our several quarters to put our rooms in order.

At noon we met for dinner. Rose was a capital cook, as I have said, and it was plain she did not mean to hide her light under a bushel.

"And now let us settle how we are to employ our time," said Symantha Winslow, who was tremendously systematic. "We all have plenty of books, especially Olivia, who has brought a whole library."

"I hope they are not all dreadfully improving and instructive ones?" said Content, half under her breath.

"No, indeed; there are plenty of story-books. Trust me for that: I am very fond of stories." I answered.

Symantha looked at us in a gently reproving manner, and continued:

"I propose that we take so much time every day for solid reading."

"Let's keep school," said Bell, in her peculiarly sudden manner, "and let Mrs. Withal be school-ma'am."

"Indeed, I don't think that a bad notion, Bell," said Mrs. Withal; "only we will all be school-ma'ams and all scholars. I dare say we can all learn something of each other. What can you teach, Bell?"

"Me? I don't know anything, only just to help about the house and do things as they come along," answered Bell. "I expect to do all the learning."

"I should say you had done some of it already," said Miss Loveland.

"And you, Olivia: what can you teach?"

"I'm sure I don't know, only music, if I had the piano," I answered, considering. "Oh yes! I know ever so many lace and darning-stitches that Mrs. Austin taught me. I have brought all my French books, and thought I would try to go on with French. I began it in England, but I only studied a few weeks."

"I have studied French in New York," said Miss Loveland, modestly. "I shall be very glad to help you if I can."

"Let's all study it," said Abby Winslow. "I'll tell you what, girls: we're going to have a good time."

"Good time, indeed!" said Hannah, with a sound between a sniff and a sob. "I don't see no good times."

After some further consultation and an examination of our resources, we settled our plans. I had brought my French books, as I said, and Miss Loveland would send for hers when her brother came that afternoon. Mrs. Withal at once laid down the wholesome law that we must all put our own rooms in order and help about the other work of the house just as long as we were able. We were to have breakfast at half-past six and prayers directly after; from this time till twelve we were to study or read some grave book: Robertson's "Scotland" was the one we pitched upon. Symantha and Miss Loveland would have preferred "Locke on the Understanding," but gave way when it was represented that such a book would be of no use or interest to Bell and Content. Every afternoon we were to walk a certain number of times round the field which was the limit of our enclosure; or if the weather was stormy, we were to take an equal amount of lively exercise in-doors. The evenings were to be spent sociably in any amusement or occupation we liked. On Sunday we would have a religious service, and a prayer-meeting one evening at least in the week.

"Capital!" said Doctor Perkins, when he heard our plan. "Couldn't be better. I tell you, girls, if you'll keep that up all through, I shall feel proud of you, and I will take you all over to Middlebury sleigh-riding the very first snow that comes."

"I sha'n't be there," sighed Hannah.

"Why not?"

"Because I shall die," returned Hannah. "I don't never expect to get out of this house alive. My feelings will kill me, I'm sure, if nothing else does."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" was the answer from the doctor, whose breeding was not of the most ceremonious kind. "Come, girls, get your arms ready, and let's have it over. Mind, Hannah, if you make a fuss, I'll give you a double dose. Come, who is first?"

Bell was first, as usual, and we were soon all inoculated. The doctor called Rose and gave her his instructions about our diet. We were to have good, nourishing food, with as little of grease and salt as possible; to which Rose replied that she guessed she knew how to cook before he was born or thought of.

"Yes, I dare say, but you'll have to obey orders, for all that," answered the doctor, good-humouredly. "Well, girls, you are all right now. Mind you keep so."

The next day we began our studies with an hour of French for those who chose it. I undertook to get Bell forward in grammar and spelling, and Symantha pored over a Simson's "Euclid" she had found among her father's books. At half-past ten we had a recess, and after that we read aloud in turn while the others worked. In the afternoon we walked or romped, or exercised in any way we pleased, for an hour or two, and then came the doctor for his daily visit, bringing notes and messages and news from the outside world. In the evening we read aloud, worked, played games, or told stories, as the fit took us, and went to bed at nine o'clock. I can honestly say that we were all reasonably amiable, unselfish, and desirous of pleasing each other to edification, and I think it speaks pretty well for us that, shut up as we were, we never for the whole time had a serious quarrel.

Hannah Frisbie was the only "contrary feather," as Mrs. Withal said. Nothing pleased her. She would not join in the French because she "didn't see no use in it," and she would not join the grammar class with Bell and Content because she said she "guessed she wasn't going to be patronized by Olive Corbet, if she had been to England to school. She guessed her folks were as good as Corbet's folks any day, for all their pianos and airs." If we tried to conciliate and coax her, we wanted to patronize her; if we let her alone, we felt above her; and when Mrs. Withal took her to task, she burst into floods of tears and declared that she couldn't help it if she had more feelings than the rest. She knew she should be miserable, and she was miserable. Worse than all, she actually tried to run away and go home.

"You wicked, selfish girl! You ought to be whipped, that you ought!" exclaimed Bell Atkins, with flashing eyes. "You ought to be shut up in prison. Just think, girls! She was actually going out of the gate when I caught her."

"You are a wicked girl, Hannah, and no mistake," said Miss Loveland, severely. "What were you thinking of? Do you wish to expose all your family to the disease?"

"I want to go home, and I will go home: so now!" bellowed Hannah. (I don't know any other word that so well expresses the noise she made.) "You ain't any of you got any feeling for me."

"And you haven't any feeling for anybody but yourself," said I. "Pretend to love your little sister, and then want to give her the small-pox!"

"Yes, very much she loves her, when she is always slapping and hustling the poor little thing," said Content. "Talking of people feeling above you, anybody ought to feel above you, you mean thing!"

"Let her alone, girls," said Salome, who was the usual smoother and peace-maker. "Since she spoils all our comfort, let's leave her alone entirely. We have tried our best to make it pleasant for her, but it does no good, and the best way is to think no more about her."

"I shall tell Mrs. Withal, though," said Bell, decidedly.

"I think you ought," said Miss Loveland.

And so we all agreed, though Hannah, scared at the probable consequences to herself, cried louder than ever and begged hard for mercy.

Mrs. Withal was very good-natured, but she was also very decided. Hannah did not appear again that day, and the next she had a private audience with Doctor Perkins. She did not try to run away again.

Bell Atkins was the pet of the house, and this again was one of Hannah's grievances—that we should think so much more of that "little bound-girl" than we did of her. But it was impossible not to love Bell, she was so pleasant, so cheerful and obliging, and at the same time so intelligent. She drank in new ideas like water, and often amused us by the oddity of her comments on what was read. She made surprising progress also in her studies, and I had to do my best to keep up with her.

I was still haunted with her resemblance to somebody I had seen, and one day, when we were alone together, I asked her if she remembered anything before she came to live with Mrs. Adams.

"Not much," said she, sadly—"nothing very nice. I can't tell whether I remember anything. Sometimes the things are so queer I think I must have dreamed them."

"What things?" I asked.

She began to consider, with an odd, far-off look in her eyes:

"I remember people in such funny dresses. There was one fat man who was always good to me, and I always think of him with a crown on his head. And there were women with spangled gowns and crowns, and wings too sometimes. I seem to remember staying all day in a little room that looked into a back yard, but at night mother used to take me to a place where there were lights and music, and queer things all about—great tall pictures and ropes hanging about, and the people in funny dresses."

I had seen a pantomime when I was in London, and I guessed at once that this description referred to a theatre or some similar place of public amusement.

"Well, what then? Don't you remember your father?"

Bell's face darkened.

"I don't want to remember him," said she. "It is all mixed up after that. I know we came on a ship—to Montreal, I suppose—and father died. Then mother said if she could go to Boston some one would take care of me, she knew. But mother was sick, and then—You know the rest."

"Yes, I know. It was very sad," said I. "But, Bell, you have a good home now."

"Yes, indeed!" answered Bell, her bright eyes growing brighter through her tears. "I don't believe any girl has a better one."

"Have you anything that belonged to your mother?"

"Mrs. Adams has—mother's wedding-ring and a locket and a book or two. One of the books has a name in it. It might perhaps have been her name before she was married, you know. I will ask Mrs. Adams to let you see it some time if you like."

"Do!" said I; and there the talk ended.

I shall not trouble you with the not very agreeable details of our illness. Suffice it to say that we all had the disorder very lightly, so that there was not a day when we were all absent from our meals or did not keep up at least the semblance of our usual employments. Hannah Frisbie was the least sick and made the most fuss, and Salome Loveland suffered most and made no fuss at all. We had the best of care. We kept a three weeks' quarantine after all were quite recovered; and when we were ready to go home, Dr. Perkins made us a little speech, in which he praised us to the skies. I am the last survivor of that family. We were drawn very close together during that period of seclusion, and kept up our friendship as long as we lived.

It is quite surprising to me, when I review it, to see how much real hard study we accomplished during the three hours a day that we devoted to our books. I am sure we learned more French in those few weeks working by ourselves, with our grammars and dictionaries, than many a girl in school learns with a good master and every other advantage in a whole school-year. I used to tell my girls so sometimes in after years, but the only answer I ever got was, "Oh, well, Mrs. Brown, you were different." I think in one way we "were" different from many girls of the present day. We were brought up to think knowledge one of the most desirable things in the world for its own sake, and to consider lessons a privilege instead of either a hardship or as just so much drudgery to be gone through before arriving at the privileges of young-ladyhood.

Of all our number, Bell Atkins I think gained most. Mrs. Adams, with whom she lived, had taken pains to give her good principles, and had indeed taught her so far as she was able, but she was uneducated as any New England woman of decent parentage ever was in those days, and the manners of the whole family were anything but elegant. When Bell first came to the Stanley mansion, she thought nothing of putting her own knife or spoon into any dish she fancied, and her other table manners were on a par with this specimen. But she soon saw that the rest of us did not do these things and were annoyed by them, and after that she was constantly on the watch to see what other people thought proper, and to conform her ways to theirs. It was the same with her manner of speaking, sitting, etc. Mrs. Withal remarked that she seemed to take naturally to good manners, but I don't think that was it exactly. She possessed quick perceptions, to be sure, but so did Hannah Frisbie, who never improved in anything. The truth was that Bell was truly anxious to make herself agreeable, and, more than that, she was truly humble-minded and ready to esteem others better than herself. Depend upon it, Mrs. Sherwood was right in saying that if you see a person associating with well-bred people, and still remaining incorrigibly awkward and ill-bred, you may set that person down as either very stupid or prodigiously self-conceited.

Nor was it only in manners that Bell improved. She seemed to have a real hunger for knowledge, and nothing came amiss to her. She listened to the history reading as she worked at her satin-stitch, and took in every word, and often while we were busy about something else she would break out with some remark which showed that she had been turning the subject over in her mind. She questioned me about my travels, and Miss Salome Loveland about New York, and Abby Winslow about New Haven, where she had been brought up.

"Just to think of the chance some folks have!" said she, with a long sigh, after hearing my account of my music-lessons in London; for I had music-lessons in London, though I forgot to mention them in the proper place.

"Perhaps your chance will come some time, Bell," said Salome, who, like all the rest of us, was very fond of the bright little "bound-girl."

"It's come now, I guess," answered Bell. "I don't know as I want a better chance than I've got now. And I don't want chances at home, neither—either, I mean. Mrs. Adams may not know much about books, but she knows about being good—all there is to know, I guess."

If Bell learned the most, Hannah Frisbie improved least—in fact, I don't think she improved at all either in book-knowledge or anything else. And the reason was as plain in her case as in Bell's: she did not see the need of any improvement. If any one suggested a change in manners, dress, or anything else, Hannah always had an answer ready: she "guessed her folks were as good as our folks, she didn't want none of our cityfied ways, or she wasn't going to be patronized by anybody." She thought she showed her independence when she put her fork into the dish instead of asking to be helped, and wiped her mouth on her sleeve or the table-cloth.

Mrs. Withal, who, good-natured as she was, could be very positive on occasion, broke her for the time of some of these tricks by threatening to send her away from the table, and actually doing it in one instance.

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