CHAPTER I.

_LITTLE BROTHER._

RHODA BOWERS stood at the east window of her own room, busily engaged in "binding off" the neck of a little baby's shirt—one of a set which had occupied all the spare minutes which she could contrive to spend in her own room for the past few weeks. They were not many, for she had to assist her mother in the housework, and yet she had contrived to knit four little shirts of the softest wool and prettiest design for the new little brother who had lately come to the household. Rhoda had taken great pains with them, and she meant, if her mother could spare her, to go down this very afternoon to Aunt Hannah's and learn of her how to crochet the scalloped edge round the tops.

"How pretty they are!" she said as she bound off the last stitch and held the little garment up before her. "I am so glad Aunt Hannah knew how to make them. I only hope mother will like them. Heigho! I wonder if my own mother used to make any such pretty things for me when I was a baby? How I do wish I could remember the least thing about her! But I don't. It seems to me that the very first thing I recollect is Mrs. Munson feeding me with little bits of cold turkey in the nursery at 'The Home.' I wonder if the old place looks at all as it used to? Some time I think I will ask mother to let me go back there for a little visit. I should like to see them all again. But I dare say it is changed since my time. I think everything and everybody changes in this world." And Rhoda's face clouded a little as she stood looking out of the window, but it cleared up again, and she gave herself a kind of shake, as if to get rid of some incumbrance.

"There, now, Rhoda Bowers! Didn't I tell you never to let such a thought come into your head again as long as you lived? What do you mean by it? Don't you know that it is high time you were off if you mean to see Aunt Hannah this afternoon? And don't you think you would be more like a rational being if you went about your business? Answer me that, now!"

Having given herself this little lecture, Rhoda put her work into her pocket, got her hat, and went down stairs to her mother's room. There was a little fire, though it was a fine, mild day in the fall, and Mrs. Bowers sat by the stove nursing her baby. She was a pretty woman of thirty or thereabouts, and would have been pleasing but for a certain peevishness and, as it were, narrowness of expression which did not promise well.

"Dear little fellow!" said Rhoda, stooping down and kissing the baby. "How he does grow, doesn't he? I am so glad he is a boy. I always did want a little brother. But sister will be almost an old woman before you are grown-up, little man."

"A great many things may happen before he is grown-up," said Mrs. Bowers, on whom Rhoda's remark seemed to grate a little. "I wish you would not be always saying such things and looking forward so, Rhoda."

"Why not?" asked Rhoda. "I think it is so nice to look forward."

"It is a good thing to look backward sometimes," said Mrs. Bowers. "Where are you going now?"

"You know you said this morning that I might go down and spend the afternoon with Aunt Hannah," said Rhoda. "She is going away so soon I may not have another chance."

"Oh, very well. I do not see what you find so very attractive in Aunt Hannah, but I suppose almost any place is better than home."

Rhoda's face clouded again, and she looked as if some sharp answer might be lurking behind her compressed lips. If so, it was not allowed to escape, for she said, gently, though with some apparent effort,—

"I have set the table, and laid the fire all ready to light, and filled the tea-kettle, but I will come back in time to get the tea if you like, or I won't go at all if you want me, mother dear. Don't you feel so well this afternoon?"

Mrs. Bowers looked a little ashamed.

"Yes, child, only I am tired and worried about something. You mustn't mind if I am cross. You are a good girl, Rhoda, and always have been—I will say that, whatever happens. There! Run along and have a good long visit with Aunt Hannah, and stay till dark if you like. As you say, you may never have another chance—not in a good long time, at least; and the old lady has always been a kind friend to you. I only wish, for your sake, she were a little better off."

"Why?" asked Rhoda.

"Oh, because—because she might leave you something one of these days," answered Mrs. Bowers, arranging the baby's dress as she spoke.

"I suppose she is pretty poor?"

"Well, no; she has her place and about three hundred a year."

"How did she come to be left so, when her brother, Uncle Weightman, is so well off?" asked Rhoda.

"I don't know the rights of it," answered Mrs. Bowers. "There were two wills, I know, and by the last one the children were to share alike, but it wasn't signed or witnessed right, or something, and so they went by the first will, which gave everything to Jacob—only this little place and Aunt Hannah's property. But, Rhoda, you must remember not to call him Uncle Weightman to his face. You know he doesn't like it."

"No fear," said Rhoda, laughing; "I don't like him well enough for that. He is so domineering and interfering, I do wonder how father puts up with his ways so patiently."

"Well, he is getting an old man now, and your father is his heir by rights; so he naturally wants to please him. He can make us all rich if he chooses."

"Yes, but he won't choose, you'll see. He will go on saving all his life, and then think to make up by leaving his money to the Bible society or some such thing, and think himself very generous because he gives away his money when he can't keep it any longer. I never can see any goodness in such bequests."

"I don't know about that. But anyhow you must be careful, for your father would be very angry if you should do anything to offend Uncle Jacob."

"I'll be careful, never fear," said Rhoda. "But don't you really want me this afternoon, mother dear?"

"No, no, child. Run along and have a good time while you can."

Rhoda kissed her mother and the baby; and putting on her hat, she walked thoughtfully down the garden, jumped lightly over the rail fence, and took the path across the meadow which led "'cross-lots" to Aunt Hannah's little brown house on the edge of the mill-pond.

Rhoda Bowers was an orphan, but she had never felt the want of a mother's care, as many children do. Till she was seven years old she had lived at the old ladies' "Home" in Milby—an excellent institution founded some thirty years ago by two wealthy old ladies "for the maintenance of twenty widows or single women of good repute who should have passed the age of sixty years, and also, should the funds prove sufficient, of no more than eight poor little girls." The property belonging to "The Home" had greatly increased in value; and as all the funds were properly employed, both the old ladies and the little girls were made very comfortable indeed.

This institution had been Rhoda's home ever since she could remember, till one day Mr. and Mrs. Bowers of Boonville, attracted by her bright gray eyes and pretty curling black hair, had adopted her for their own. Rhoda had been rather homesick at first, but she soon became reconciled to the change, and had found her life as happy as that of most children.

Mr. Bowers lived on a farm about half a mile from the little village of Boonville, and had besides an interest in one of the mills on the Outlet, as the little river was called. He could not be called rich, but neither was he poor. The farm was a good one, and the mill, taking one year with another, was fairly productive. Mr. Bowers owned a nice pair of horses, and his wife dressed well and might have kept a servant-girl if she had chosen. In short, as Aunt Hannah Weightman said, James and Martha were about as well off as anybody in the world, if they could only think so.

But that was just the thing. They could not think so as long as Uncle Jacob Weightman counted his money by hundreds of thousands—as long as Mrs. Bowers's brother-in-law, Mr. Evans, owned one of the finest places in Hobarttown, and Mrs. Bowers's sister had three new dresses to her one, and could go to the springs and the seashore, and even to Europe, every summer of her life if she chose.

Mrs. Bowers fancied that her sister Anne "felt above her," which was not true, and that Anne cared for nothing but the things of this world, which was not true, either; and when Mrs. Evans, who had lost all her own children but one little delicate boy, proposed that Rhoda should spend the winter with her and go to school, Mrs. Bowers refused her consent with some acrimony, saying to her husband afterward that she thought Anne had enough without trying to get Rhoda away from her.

"She just wants Rhoda to wait on that boy of hers," said Mr. Bowers.

"Oh no, I don't think that," answered his wife; "Anne is no hand to save in that way. But she has always liked Rhoda, and she wanted her when we first took the child; but Rhoda isn't going, and that is all about it. She is doing well enough about school here, and I don't want her set up to feel above me."

Rhoda had been a good deal disappointed by this decision:—not that she was at all dissatisfied with her present condition, but she liked Aunt Anne and Uncle Evans, and she wanted to see a little more of the world than was to be found at Boonville; and besides that, she was very desirous of getting a thoroughly good education. She had nearly exhausted the capabilities of the district school, and Mrs. Maynard, the minister's wife, who had kindly undertaken to carry her on farther in her studies, had gone away. Yes, Rhoda would have liked to go to Hobarttown. But the offer had never been renewed, and now Mr. and Mrs. Evans were going to Europe, to be absent three or four years.

It was a disappointment certainly, but there was no help for it, and there was no use in making herself miserable over it, either—so Rhoda argued with herself, very sensibly; so she put away the thought of what she might have done at Hobarttown, and set herself to accomplish as much as she possibly could at home.

There was another cloud which had lately appeared in Rhoda's sky. She had said to herself that this cloud was all in her imagination, or at least was no more than a passing mist. But this afternoon, as she walked across the fields toward Aunt Hannah's, it assumed a more definite shape and consistency than it had ever done before, and she said to herself that she would ask Aunt Hannah about it.