CHAPTER VI

.

_THE GREAT BREAK._

MY life went on the even tenor of its way as I have described it till I was eleven years old. At this time I was large of my age, though not as strong in health as most of my school-mates, and I was farther advanced in my studies than I think most girls of eleven are nowadays. I could read, write, and spell English very well. I had gone as far as square root in arithmetic. I was parsing in Young's "Night Thoughts," and could give every rule in Murray's grammar by number and most of the notes to the same, and had written all the exercises. I had executed a marvellous sampler, and was now engaged on a fine white cambric flounce which was intended to contain a specimen of every known variety of satin-stitch, knot, and lace-stitch. I had grown rather superior to the attractions of dolls, and had made over to Ruth all my possessions in that line, always excepting my beautiful Lanesborough doll, which had to me the sacredness of a precious relic, and which I never meant to part with. I had become skilful in various house-keeping mysteries, and was considered an excellent spinner for my age.

I do not think my moral improvement had kept pace with my intellectual gain. I was very sensitive to praise and blame, very proud, and inclined to be jealous and to think myself ill-treated. At the same time, I was rather reserved; and instead of "telling everything right out," as Ruth did, I used to brood over and magnify my troubles till they assumed very large proportions.

Jeanne's absence from home was a great trouble to me. She was now a woman grown, and for the last few mouths she had been teaching very successfully in Cousin Lemuel's district, coming home every other Saturday and returning with Lemuel's family on Sunday afternoon. Ruth was a dear, sunshiny little soul, and I loved her with all my heart, but she did not in the least make Jeanne's place good. Tom was away with one of my Salisbury uncles, learning the iron business, to which he always had a great bent, and Ezra was intent on earning the means to go through college and fitting himself for the same.

Ezra had always been very good to me, and never teased me, as Tom did, but his mind was naturally very much occupied with his own studies and plans, and he had once or twice cut short my confidences and my catalogue of grievances by telling me that I thought quite too much about my little self, which was no doubt true. He also told me that I should not be all the time looking out for affronts and imagining that people meant to overlook me or hurt my feelings, but that I should busy my mind in thinking what I could do to give pleasure to others. This was excellent advice, but not much to the taste of the morbid, conceited little girl I then was. I was, in fact, just in the state of the heroine of the story-books Alice sometimes brings me home, who find themselves misunderstood and unappreciated at home and sigh for a wider career than helping their own mothers to mend their own clothes and cook their own dinners. I can't say it ever entered my mind to be dissatisfied with mother, who was still my model of all perfection, and whom I would have done well to imitate, but I did think it hard that she should have to give so much time to Harry while she had so little to spare for me.

In the latter part of this summer a change came over the spirit of our usually happy household. Father lost his accustomed cheerfulness and was absent-minded and gloomy, sometimes displaying an irritability which nobody had ever seen in him before. Ezra's face was dark as night for a few days; and when it cleared up a little, the expression was by no means what it had been before, but rather a look of settled patience and resolution. He had several private conferences with father and mother in their bed-room. I was busy in the yard one day during the last of these conferences; and though I scorned to listen, I did catch a few words.

"God help me!" said father in a voice such as I had never heard from him before. "My son, your very goodness wrings my heart and makes me reproach myself more than I did before."

"Don't say that, father," answered Ezra. "You acted for the best, and that is all any one can do."

"And it will turn out for the best," said my mother, with an evident effort to speak cheerfully. "We should never have known what good children we have been blessed with only for this misfortune."

Then there was a little silence, and presently I heard father's voice in prayer. I stole away to my own particular retiring-place in one of the little rooms up stairs, and cried bitterly, partly because I perceived that some misfortune had happened to my father or brother, I did not know which, and partly because I saw that there was a family secret from which I was excluded.

"They don't think any more of me than they do of old Rose," I thought; "and I dare say Rose knows all about it, for I know I heard her crying last night. And when Jeanne comes home, she and Ezra will go away together and talk about it, and nobody will say a word to me."

In truth, secret conferences had been rather frequent between Ezra and Jeanne of late, which was another of my grievances, for I considered Jeanne to be my own private property.

The next Saturday was not Jeanne's regular day for coming home, but Ezra harnessed up old Fanny to Mr. Hyde's little wagon, which would only hold two, and went after her. I did not see why he could not have taken our own wagon, and thus have made room for me, especially as he knew how much I wanted to see Margaret and Emma.

"Nobody ever wants me nowadays," I said to Rose; "I might as well not have a home at all."

"Look here, child! You don't know what you're talking about," answered Rose, sharply; "you'd better be thankful for your home while you've got it. Folks that don't know when they're well off, first they know their well-off-ness gets taken away, and serve 'em right too."

I was a little awe-struck by Rose's words and manner, but I had no notion of giving up my grievance.

"They might tell me what is the matter, then," said I, discontentedly. "Everybody look so miserable and talks in corners and cries, and nobody will tell me what the matter is. It's too bad!"

I did not know that my mother was in the pantry, but as I spoke she appeared at the door with a pie in her hand, which she gave to Rose to put into the oven.

"The child is right so far," said she; "it is not fair to keep her out of what concerns her as much as anybody else. Get your work and bring it into my room, Olive, and I will tell you all about it."

I obeyed with a heart beating between gratification and alarm, for I saw by my mother's face that something serious was the matter. Harry was just waking up from his nap, and mother washed his face and sent him out to play. Then she took her work and sat down, and in as plain and simple words as she could she told me the whole story. My father had been induced to go into a sort of partnership with his stepbrother, who was doing what seemed a flourishing business in Albany, and to mortgage his farm in order to furnish capital. I learned afterward that mother had been very much opposed to the plan, but she said nothing of this to me. I suppose my father must have been rather careless in making investigations into the business, or else his partner must have been a dishonest man. Anyhow, though I do not to this day understand the particulars, the end was that the concern failed, and my father found that not only must the property he had received from his father's estate be sacrificed, but he would have to sell his farm. All that remained from the wreck was a piece of nearly wild farming-land which grandfather owned in Vermont, and a few hundred dollars of mother's, which father would never consent to touch.

"Then we shall not live in this house any more?" said I, hardly taking in the extent of the calamity.

"No," answered mother; "this house is not ours any more."

"And haven't we any house at all?"

"No, no house at all of our own, and no land, unless father goes to live on his farm in Vermont. Then Ezra will have to give up going to college, for the present at least, because his help will be needed at home."

For the first time the full measure of our misfortune seemed to dawn upon me. Ezra must give up going to college and being a minister; Jeanne must give up her school. We must all go away to a strange, savage place among the mountains—such a place, probably, as the Millars used to live in—away from church and Jenny Hyde and school, and everything that made life worth having. Probably we should have to sell the cows and horses—my own cow Snowball and Jeanne's black colt; and—dreadful to think!—even my tortoise-shell cat and her kitten might have to be left behind. I burst into tears and cried bitterly.

"Oh, it's too bad, it's too bad!" I exclaimed, passionately, amid my sobs. "Father ought not to have had anything to do with that bad man. He ought to have known better. It's too bad!"

"Olive, hush!" said my mother, more sternly than she had ever spoken to me before. "Never let me hear one word of blame toward your father from one of his children. It was for their good he acted—because he wanted to give them a better education than he thought he could afford as things were. He was deceived and imposed upon, and his plans have turned out badly, but he acted for the best, and that is all any one can do. Never, whatever happens, never let me hear you blame your father."

Mother was called out at this moment to attend to some visitors, and there was no time to talk further, even if I had not been too much awed by her manner to continue the subject; but my mind was full of a kind of stunned, and at the same time rebellious, grief. I felt as a man may do who sees all his possessions swallowed up by an earthquake shock or destroyed by some unexpected attack of an enemy. I went slowly up stairs and shut myself up in the garret, and tried to think how it would seem to leave our old home and go to a new place where there was neither church nor school, nor stores nor neighbours—where there would probably be wolves and bears and snakes, and Indians too, very likely. From thinking I fell to dreaming, and was just in the midst of a night-attack of Indians when I was waked by Jeanne's gentle voice:

"Why, Olly, I have been looking everywhere for you. What made you come up to this dusty place and go to sleep on the floor? See what Margaret and Emma have been making for you." And sitting down by my side, she displayed to my view a "work-bag," curiously embroidered in what we used in those days to call queen-stitch.

Jeanne spoke so cheerfully that at first I thought she could not have heard the story, but on looking at her. I saw that, though her face was calm, and even bright, it was very pale and her eyes were red with crying: but she sought to compose herself for my sake.

I hardly glanced at the work-bag, which for some time had been the object of my most ardent desires; but throwing my arms round her neck, I exclaimed, passionately,—

"Oh, Jeanne, don't you know? Isn't it too bad—too hard for anything?"

"It is very hard for father and mother, and rather hard for Ezra, because he must put off going to college," answered Jeanne, "but I don't think we younger ones need mind it so very much. I believe, for myself, I rather like the idea of going to a new place."

"Well, I don't—I think it is horrid," said I, vehemently. "I can't bear the thought of it. To go away among the Indians, where there is no school or library or church or—"

"But, Olly, you are making up a story to scare yourself," said Jeanne. "It is not as bad as that, by any means."

"I thought it was all wild land?" said I.

"Father's farm is mostly wild land," answered Jeanne, "but it is only half a mile from a very nice little village where there is a school and a minister, and where the people are building a church. John Norris has been there, and he was at Cousin Lem's last night and told us all about it."

I began to feel a very little comforted.

"And anyhow, Olly, if it is ever so bad, we shall only make matters worse by fretting and repining," continued Jeanne. "It 'is' hard on father and mother to give up the home where they have always lived and go away among strangers, and it is all the harder for father because he thinks he has been to blame. It must be our part to make things as easy as we can for them, and not give ourselves useless trouble about ourselves."

"I don't see how we can do anything to make things easy," said I, feeling a good deal ashamed as I remembered how selfish my grief had been.

"We can do a great deal by putting a good face on the matter and not giving up to our grief," answered Jeanne; "that is one great thing. And we can remember how many things we have left, be thankful for; that is another. Why, Olly, I did not think 'you' would be the one to give up and break down," added Jeanne, in a tone of gentle reproach—"you who have always been wishing for something to happen, and feeling sorry that there were no martyrs or heroes in these days."

"I didn't mean anything like 'this,'" I answered, feeling not a little mortified. "I meant things like those that happened to John Rogers or the other people in the 'Book of Martyrs.'"

"I don't suppose trouble ever comes in just the shape we would like to have it," said Jeanne, with a very shady little smile; "if it did, it would not be trouble at all. But, Olive, you don't consider that these martyrs had all the daily troubles and trials that we have. Do you think Mistress Rogers found it any easier to see to the dinners and mend the stockings and attend to the lessons of all those ten children because her husband was in prison and she didn't know when her own turn might come to leave her little flock and never see them again? Do you think it would be one bit easier to put up with the loss of our home if we knew that any time—perhaps this very day—father and mother might be carried off and we might never see them till we saw them carried out to be burned alive?"

"No, of course not," I answered; "but all you can say, Jeanne, don't keep me from thinking it very hard that—that—" Something in my throat cut short the sentence.

"Of course it is," said Jeanne. "I don't pretend to deny it: it 'is' very hard. All I say is it is worse for father and mother and for Ezra than it is for you and me, and therefore we ought to help them to bear it instead of making it worse for them. Now is the time for us to show how we love them, and to make some return for all they have done for us."

I felt that there were both truth and consolation in this view of the case.

"I can bear anything if I can only be a comfort to mother," said I; "but how can I, Jeanne?"

"By being cheerful and making the best of everything," answered Jeanne—"by taking extra pains with your work, and by taking care of and amusing Harry, so that mother won't have so much to do. And, after all, Olive, it won't be so very bad," continued Jeanne. "We shall all be together, except Tom."

"Why, where will Tom be?" I interrupted.

"Oh, he is going to stay with uncle, where he is now."

"Why shouldn't he be the one to stay with father and help on the farm instead of Ezra?" I asked.

"Because he is younger and not so strong; and besides, Olive, you know how Tom is."

I knew very well that there was no use in trying to make Tom do anything he did not like. It cost more than it came to, and he was sure to slip out sooner or later and leave the task unfinished, or so finished that it would have been better left undone. Tom was always an odd one in our family.

"We shall all be together," continued Jeanne. "We shall have to rough it for a while, no doubt, but then we shall have the pleasure of seeing things grow better and better every year, and of doing good too, I dare say. Perhaps we might even have a Sunday-school like that one father read about in the paper Mr. Hyde lent us."

Jeanne went on talking in this cheerful strain till she had talked me, and perhaps herself, into quite a brilliant view of our prospects, and almost made it appear that breaking up our home in Massachusetts and going to Vermont was the best thing that could possibly happen to us.

That night at prayers father read the chapter which tells about Abraham's going out from his own home into a strange land, and prayed that the change which had been sent upon us might be blessed to us, "and that thy servant may be forgiven if his sin has brought about this trouble, and may it be under thy hand the means of good to those whom I desired to benefit in another way." When I heard the tremour in my father's voice as he pronounced these words, all the anger I had felt in my heart melted away, and I prayed earnestly in my turn that I might be forgiven for my undutiful thoughts, and that I might indeed be a comfort to my father and mother.

Long after all the children, and even father and mother, had gone to bed, Ezra and Jeanne sat talking by the kitchen fire, and as I lay and listened to their voices a new thought came into my mind regarding them. I lost no time in informing myself on the subject; and when Jeanne at last came to bed, I asked her, bluntly,—

"Jeanne, are you and Ezra going to be married?"

"Some time, perhaps," answered Jeanne, softly, but without any confusion. "But you must not say a word about it, Olive, for nothing is settled yet, and it may be a long time first, especially if Ezra is ever to be a minister. Now, remember, dear, I trust you not to tell!"

I promised to be faithful, and fell asleep, thinking what a grand minister's wife Jeanne would make.

##