CHAPTER XIV.

LIFE IN THE WOODS.

SIX weeks had passed since the date of our last chapter. The woods around Hemlock Valley were beginning to put on here and there a dash of red or a shade of brown, and the autumn-blossoming flowers in the gardens were in all their glory; the boys were making daily excursions to the woods to bring home ferns and mosses for the parlour windows. All the "Agricultural Transactions," "Patent-office Reports," and other books of that nature were filled with gay autumn leaves in process of pressing (the only use, by the way, that I ever found for such volumes), and Mrs. Andrews complained pathetically that she could not open an atlas or a dictionary without being covered by a shower of falling foliage.

Marion McGregor was leaning on the gate in front of the house, looking over the fields toward the pasture, and feeling very disconsolate. She was more utterly discontented and unhappy than she had ever been even at Holford, and that was saying a great deal.

We have seen how baseless were all the castles in the air she had built on Hemlock Valley. Instead of a rude, irreligious, ill-bred household, she had found a polite, well-ordered family, the older children kind and helpful to their parents and each other, the younger well governed and affectionate, and all perfectly obedient and respectful—far more so, indeed, than she had ever learned to be.

She had never forgotten—I may say she had never forgiven—her first lesson on that point after her arrival. Some question was being eagerly discussed at the breakfast-table, and Mrs. Van Alstine had pronounced an opinion, to which Marion replied in a tone of contempt:

"Nonsense, mother! How can you say so? That has nothing to do with the matter. You don't know anything about it."

Marion had not intended to show any special disrespect to her mother, of which, to do her justice, she was incapable. She had spoken to Aunt Baby in the same way dozens of times, and unless grandfather happened to hear, nobody took any notice. But now there was a dead silence. Six pair of indignant dark eyes were turned on her at once, and after a moment, Mr. Van Alstine said gravely, but in a tone that carried more weight than a great many scoldings,—

"Marion, my girl, that is not the way to speak to your mother. Don't ever let me hear such a thing again."

Marion was overwhelmed with shame and confusion, but as usual the shame and confusion were not directed so much to the fault as to the impression it had made on others. What would they think of her? How they would look down on her! They would think she had no breeding at all. She burst into tears, rose, and left the table, but nobody came to call her back or took any notice of her till school time.

Then Mrs. Andrews had come to find her.

"I am not coming down," sobbed Marion.

"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mrs. Andrews, kindly but decidedly. "That would be very silly. There is no use in wasting the whole day because you have begun it badly. The way to manifest repentance is not by crying over your fault, but by owning it and trying to do better."

"I don't think I did anything so very dreadful," said Marion, as usual in arms for her own defence.

"Do you remember how angry you were the other day because Bessy told you she didn't want you interfering with her Latin lessons?" said Mrs. Andrews.

"Well, Bessy was very impertinent to me, and she always is impertinent. She ought to remember that I am her aunt and a great deal older than she."

"Well, which demands most respect, an aunt or a mother? However, there is no time to argue the point. I shall expect you in the school-room in ten minutes."

Marion came down in the required time, but she was very sulky, and went to her own room again the moment school was over. She never spoke a word at the dinner-table, but nobody seemed to notice her silence, and she felt that her offended dignity was all thrown away.

Marion had been disappointed in every way. Idle as she had been in school for the last two years, she had somehow imagined that she should be very much in advance of her brothers, and she had made the most amiable plans for helping them in their studies. But, alas! even little Rob and Hector were better at parsing English than herself. Bram criticised her false quantities in Latin without mercy, and even Mrs. Andrews smiled at some of her translations. Instead of being prepared to help her brothers, she was obliged to strain every nerve in the endeavour to keep up with them. The idle and careless habits of study in which she had lately indulged did not help her at all. It was very mortifying.

Marion had not forgotten her resolution to help her mother in housekeeping, but she was as unfortunate in this as in other directions. She had begun by putting the boys' rooms in order, beginning with Frank's and Abram's, where she had found stored away a great quantity of trash, as she called it. There was a long set of shelves, evidently of domestic manufacture, filled with labelled stones and specimens of various kinds, and all, it must be acknowledged, somewhat dusty, while in a large basket in one corner were piled a quantity of short sticks of wood.

"How silly of Frank to keep this wood up here, when he has no stove!" thought Marion.

She took down all the contents of the shelves, dusted them, and restored them in the order which seemed to her best, and then, piling the wood in the basket, she carried it down and threw it into the kitchen wood-box. She was busy in the school-room not long afterward, when Frank came down, followed by Bram.

"Marion, have you been in my room?" he asked, in measured tones, as if determined not to speak sharply, come what might.

"Yes," answered Marion, all unconscious of the mischief she had done, and as she thought perceiving an opening for one of those moral lessons which seemed likely to be wasted by keeping. "I have put it all in nice order, and I hope you will keep it so. There can be no excuse for such disorder even in a boy. You certainly don't want a great basket of wood in your room this time of year."

"Oh!" said Frank, preserving his enforced composure. "And what have you done with this basket of wood that I didn't want, if I may venture to ask?"

"I took it down and put it in the kitchen, wood-box, where it ought to be," answered Marion. "Why should you speak so, Frank? I don't think that is very kind, after I have just taken so much pains for you."

"Then another time, I wish you would let my room alone," exclaimed Frank, his temper giving way at last. "Pains, indeed! I wish you had been a hundred miles off before you touched it. I should think any idiot would have known better."

"Frank, old boy!" said Bram, warningly.

"Well, I do," said Frank. "It is too bad! After all the pains I had taken, to go and throw away—" Frank's voice broke down, and he evidently had much to do not to burst out crying.

"Frank, my son, what is the matter?" said his mother, entering the room and looking with surprise to see Frank's emotion and Marion's face of anger. "I hope you haven't been getting in a passion again."

Frank tried to speak, but failed and rushed out of the room.

"What is the matter?" said Mrs. Van Alstine, again.

"There is nothing the matter, only Frank has been making a fuss about nothing," said Marion, in her most dignified manner; "but I suppose he will be sustained in it, of course."

"There is a good deal the matter, I think," said Bram, more moved than was at all usual, for he had the most placid temper in the family. "Marion has been putting our room in order, and she has jumbled all our geological specimens together and thrown Frank's native woods into the kitchen wood-box."

"What, not the collection of native woods he has been making so long?" said Mrs. Van Alstine. "Not that he was making for Professor G. of the woods of Pennsylvania? Oh, Marion!"

"Yes, mamma, she has. Frank has had them all seasoned up in the loft at the factory. We have been busy ever so long planing and polishing one side, so as to show the grain when manufactured, and yesterday we brought them all up-stairs to arrange and put the labels on."

"Poor Frank! No wonder he is vexed," said her mother. "He has been a year making that collection, and it was really very complete and valuable. Marion, my dear, don't you know I told you not to meddle with the boys' things?"

"I should like to know how I was to put their rooms in order without meddling," said Marion, injured, as usual.

"But you were not asked to put them in order, only to make the beds and lay clean cloths on the bureaus and stands. I hope you have not been going on so in Harry's room?"

"Harry's room was not in such a state. I only piled up his books and papers in some kind of order."

"And so lost all the references he has been finding for his essay this week past," said Abram. "Well, I declare, sis, you have made a good morning's work."

"It isn't quite so bad as it might be, after all," said Frank, reappearing with a brighter face. "Maggy had sense enough to see that so many pieces of wood, all the same size and all carefully polished on one side, could not be common kindling wood. The dear old soul said she had put two or three in the stove 'afore she noticed.' But when she came to look, she saw that, she said, 'They was some of Mr. Frank's curiosities and nonsense,' and she carefully laid them all on one side. She shall have the nicest calico dress I can find in Ivanhoe."

"Maggy is a sensible, careful woman," said his mother, looking very much relieved. "I am glad your collection is saved, Frank, and I am sure you won't bear malice to poor Marie."

"Poor Marie!" Marion's proud heart swelled. Had it come to that?

"Of course not," said Frank. "Never mind, Marie; what could one expect but that MeGregors should make raids? We shall have to give you black mail, as people used to give to your forbear, Rob Roy. Come, Bram, let's go and put the stones in order."

Marion had read "Rob Roy," but she was too angry to enjoy the joke, even if it had not been against herself. The moment the boys were gone she burst forth:

"Well, mother, I must say I think you are rather too bad to take the part of those rude boys against me."

"Why not? They were right and you were wrong. I told you specially what I wanted of you; and if you had obeyed, it would have been all right."

"It was just so about Rob's going fishing," continued Marion. "I told him he should not go because it looked likely to rain, and you let him go directly. I don't see how I am to manage at all if you do so; and Cousin Helen is just as bad. If I say a word to the little boys or to Betsy or Eiley in the school-room, all the thanks I get is, 'Marion, don't interfere, if you please,' and of course I can't influence them in the least. I came here to be useful and to help you," said Marion, with pathetic dignity; "but if that is the way it is always going to be, I don't see how I can do anything."

"If you want to help people acceptably, you must do it in their way, and not in yours," said her mother. "It is anything but a help to have you contradict my directions or interfere with the other children. You see what a great misfortune nearly happened this morning simply because you did not obey directions. Only for Maggy's having more observation and discretion than yourself, the whole of Frank's valuable collection would have been destroyed."

"Oh, very well!" said Marion, actually trembling with anger. "If Maggy is to be put over my head as well as the children, I think it is time I went away. I should like to go directly, if you please. I see plainly that I am not wanted here."

"You will never be wanted anywhere, Marion, unless you learn a little Christian humility," said her mother, more severely than usual. "You are setting a very bad example to Bessy and the other children. Cousin Helen has complained of you more than once for meddling and interfering. Unless you try to do better, I shall have to speak to your father. I can't think what Barbara was about to spoil you so."

Marion burst into tears.

"There is no use in crying," said her mother, with some sharpness, for she was not well and very busy. "Try to do better another time, that is all."

Marion retreated to her own room to go though her usual fit of crying, and then of mortification and vain regret. But, as usual, her regret was not so much that she had done wrong, as that others would think her wrong, and, above all, that they would think her silly. It was not "How could I be so obstinate and self-conceited as not to follow mother's directions?" but "How silly I was not to see that those were not common sticks of firewood! Even Maggy, that stupid old Irish woman, knew better. And I need not have been so angry and have spoken so to mother. What will they all think of me? Oh dear. There never was anybody pursued by such an evil fate as I am. I meant to be so amiable and set such a good example, and now I have lost all chance of ever influencing those boys."

"Oh, come, sis, never mind any more about the scientific woodpile," said Frank, an hour or two afterward, finding Marion leaning on the verandah railing with a very doleful face. "I am sorry I was so sharp; but you must admit it was rather aggravating to have my fine collection that I had been making so long tumbled into the kitchen wood-box. Come, don't mind anything about it. Don't you want to go up the Cedar Run with us? We are going after ground-pine and ferns to dress up Stannie's room. You know she is coming to-morrow. You have never seen the Cedar Run. There is a dear little waterfall on it; and when Stannie comes, we mean to have a tea-party up there. Come!"

"I'm sure you are very good, Frank," said Marion, her ill-humour fairly overcome by his good-nature.

"Fiddle!" said Frank, boy-fashion. "What is the use of laying up things? Come, put on your oldest and shortest dress, for we are going 'cross lots, and you'll see sights in the way of climbing fences, I can tell you."

And so this matter seemed happily disposed of, but Marion still felt very unhappy. She had made herself laughed at, she had shown less sense than Maggy. The boys would despise her, and her mother would think she was not a Christian.

I once read in a Roman Catholic book of devotion a direction which has always seemed to me full of wisdom:

"When you are convicted of a fault, acknowledge it openly and frankly, repent of it heartily, and then put it out of your mind entirely."

Marion did none of these things. She would not confess frankly even to herself that she had done wrong in disobeying her mother.

"I suppose I ought to have done as she told me, but then she need not treat me as a child." And this "but then" spoiled the admission. Neither was her repentance hearty; and so far from putting it out of her mind, she kept turning it over and over and imagining a scene in which she was the aggrieved party and her mother and brothers were obliged to make acknowledgments to her.

Stanley Andrews came, and proved to be a pleasant fresh, unaffected girl, ready to please and be pleased, throwing herself into the family life at Hemlock Valley as if she belonged to it, and making it the brighter and pleasanter for her presence. Bessy clung to her like a burr.

Bessy and Marion had not got on well together. She had somewhat resented and a good deal laughed at Marion's attempt to exact the respect due to her age and position.

"You are nobody but a school-girl like myself, and I am sure you don't know so much more than I do," said the uncompromising young woman. "Of course I'll call you 'aunty' if you want me to, but I think it is ridiculous, when we are so nearly of an age. Bram and Frank are six months older than you, so I suppose I ought to call them 'uncles.' I say, 'Uncle Bram'!"

"Uncle!" said Bram. "How long since, Betsy?"

"Well, Marion says she is 'Aunt Marion,' so I suppose what is sauce for the 'aunt' is sauce for the 'uncle,' isn't it?" asked Bessy, demurely.

"There is no danger of any want of sauce where you are," said Bram. "Never mind, Marion; we all know Betsy."

But Marion did mind very much—so much that she carried the matter to her mother.

"I don't think I would mind, dear," said poor Eiley, who began to wish that she had left Marion where she was. "You see the children have come along so near together they have been more like brothers and sisters than anything else. It may not have been the best way, but we can't help it now, and I don't think I would try."

Stanley was a year older than Marion. She was in the Senior class at Round Springs, and would graduate in another year, but she did not stand on her dignity at all. She walked and rode, gathered specimens with the older boys, talked metaphysics and philosophy with Harry, music with Bessy, and dolls with little Eileen Overbeck with equal willingness and apparently equal pleasure. Her mother would not allow her to do any lessons in vacation-time except her music, and Stanley took possession of the piano in school-hours, working hard at exercises and studies of all sorts, and now and then disporting herself in a Strauss waltz or a song. She was fully prepared to find a pleasant companion in Marion, and met her with simple cordiality.

Marion wished to respond, but she was thinking of herself and the impression she was likely to make, and consequently she was at once awkward and condescending.

"Aunt Eugenia doesn't seem as well as usual, I think," remarked Stanley at dinner one day. "She seems nervous and more like being irritable than I have ever seen her. She didn't even care about the snuff that I brought her."

"I have noticed a change for several days," said Mrs. Van Alstine. "She is uneasy all the time, as if she missed something, and she doesn't have a nap in the afternoon, as she used to."

"That won't do," said Mr. Van Alstine. "We must have the doctor over. I'll go in and see her after dinner."

Mr. Van Alstine was as good as his word, but Aunt Eugenia would not hear of the doctor.

"It is nothing, Ezra, only—Well, the fact is, I suppose, I miss my snuff."

"Your snuff!" said her nephew. "And how happens it that you haven't any snuff? The Scotchman will go after some directly."

"No, thank you, Ezra. The truth is, Marion has said so much about its being a bad habit and making me so disagreeable, and that it was inconsistent in a Christian to use tobacco, that I thought I would try to do without it."

The red spark shot from Mr. Van Alstine's eyes, and then he laughed:

"If ever I saw such a girl! I believe she wouldn't hesitate to regulate the solar system if she could only get her hand on the crank. She was talking to Overbeck the other day on the wickedness of selling the men tobacco at the store. But this won't do, Aunt Eugenia. I don't say I think snuff-taking a good habit, and I wouldn't advise young people to use tobacco in any shape, but I don't think eighty-eight is a good time to begin to leave it off, especially when one is blind into the bargain."

"I don't suppose I should have begun it if I hadn't always been blind," said Aunt Eugenia, "though the best and the most elegant people took snuff when I was young."

"To be sure; my mother always did. Come, now, let me fill your snuff-box and make you comfortable."

"But don't find fault with Marion," said the kind-hearted old lady, accepting the long used and sorely missed stimulant. "Marion naturally doesn't know what it is to have no eyes. She means well, I am sure, and she is very kind in reading to me. She is only a little conceited, and time will cure that."

"More than a little, I am afraid," said Mr. Van Alstine. "Never fear, auntie; I shall not be hard upon her, but I have seen for some time that Marion needs taking down a little. She has sense enough, if she did not think she had more than any one else in the world."

Nevertheless, Marion thought Mr. Van Alstine was very hard on her.

"See here, my girl, I want to tell you something," said he as he found her sitting on the verandah with a book. "Did you ever hear how it was that Mr. Abbott Lawrence made his great fortune?"

"No, sir," answered Marion, all unsuspicious.

"Well, I'll tell you: it was by minding his own business. I'm afraid you won't make one in the same way unless you begin pretty soon. I am very glad to have you do all you can for auntie, but don't meddle with her snuff-box again."

This was all he said, but it was enough to make Marion abandon her book and betake herself to melancholy musings leaning over the gate. The prospect was not a very lively one. There was nothing to see but the horse-barn across the road, where old James was impartially dividing a piece of meat among his army of cats; the mule-pasture with the road winding through it which led to the saw-mill; and beyond, unlimited woods clothing the sides of the valley. A mule-wagon heavily loaded with bark was coming up the road, another load was being weighed on the scales opposite the store, and Mr. Overbeck, in his shirt-sleeves, was attending to the process. There was nobody else in sight. Marion leaned on the gate and looked up and down the street.

"Oh dear!" she sighed. "I used to think it was stupid and tiresome at grandfather's, but it is ten times worse here. I might have known better than to interfere with Aunt Eugenia's snuff-box. Of course, with such an old lady, how ridiculous it was! Oh dear! I thought I was going to have so much influence here and do so much good, and now I wish I had not come. I never can make them respect me after this, and there is no use in trying. There's Stanley, now. I don't believe she cares one bit about having an influence or setting an example, and she can do just what she pleases. She has broken Bessy of saying 'Hallo!' and Eiley of drawling and saying 'Yas-m,' and the boys think there is nobody like her. I believe it is because she has been to boarding-school so much. I wish I could go, but I never can have half a chance."

She looked up as she spoke, and saw Gertrude Van Alstine's carriage coming over the hill.