CHAPTER XXV

EVENTS

Sunday came.

Doctor Garde’s little girl was richer by one music lesson, which Miss Melissa herself gave her; and by a blue shirred silk bonnet and muslin-gingham dress, as well as long black mitts, the like of which she had never seen before. Sunday was an important day in Sharon. This old Massachusetts colony retained many Puritan customs. All day the various church bells rang--for Sunday-school, for forenoon, afternoon and evening services. Miss Melissa and Bluebell moved on crowded sidewalks on their way to church. The little girl was astonished by the architecture which she saw around her. The church they entered seemed a sublime pile. They ascended a flight of broad steps, and passed through a matted vestibule into the vastest and whitest place Doctor Garde’s little girl had ever seen. The aisles were carpeted, many of the seats were cushioned, the pulpit was a sumptuous small parlor by itself, and music, so full and mighty that it made the air shudder with delight, came from some invisible place. She followed Miss Melissa’s rustling clothes up the central aisle, and was placed beside her in one of the most comfortably padded pews, with footstools under foot, and books in the racks. The tremendous congregation spread on every hand. There were no men’s side and women’s side! Families sat in their own seats. The bald head of a father might be seen beside the dancing, bonneted head of his daughter. Everybody seemed solemn but exceedingly comfortable; and when the music ceased nothing but a whisper of fans could be heard. Through a door at one side of the pulpit came a saint-faced man, who ascended and opened the Bible. He looked very nice, and not a bit like that Mr. Joel Clark at the Rocky Fork who cruelly mortified her one Sunday when she ventured to peep between the leaves of her book while he was preaching in very loud and long-sounding words. Her eye had just caught an old English wood-cut--possibly one of Bewick’s--when it seemed the world was tumbling about her ears! She could not believe her senses. Mr. Clark was pointing his finger at _her_, and sinking her in seas of shame.

“That little girl,” said he, “who is reading there, had better close her book and listen to the sermon.”

Then the whole congregation looked at her as if they had always known she was a wretch. Perintha Pancost and Minerva Ridenour, who were just going to look into their books, sat up and appeared virtuously wrapped in the discourse, while Mr. Clark went on as if it were just right to crush a shrinking child by the way. And may be it _was_ right. How did Bluebell know? He was a grown-up, good man, and a preacher, and she a little girl, of no account except in her relationship to Doctor Garde. She held the tears back with heroic struggles, but her face burned with hot blood; a mark was set upon her; and whenever Mr. Clark came around on the circuit, she could not bear to pass under his eye; and if he made an address to the Sunday-school, she cowered down behind the tall seats. This preacher in the Sharon church did not look as if he would point out little girls: therefore Bluebell liked him. The congregation stood up and turned around to sing, and then she saw the source of the music: two or three key-boards like a treble piano, on which a young man played, and a great row of pipes in a mass of woodwork which she did not understand. There were some people who stood in a class holding singing-books, and this singing-school was up in a high place like a slice of a second story, and this second story extended also around the sides of the church.

Miss Libbie Biggar sat in a pew the other side of a partition, in the most beautiful cherry silk bonnet, tied under her chin with ribbon. It was made like Bluebell’s, with a slight flare. What else Miss Libbie wore, was concealed by the high partition. Beside her sat an old lady as fair as a lily, in mourning clothes. But that her hair was as white as dandelion-down. Bluebell must have believed her young; for nowhere in the church could be found a smoother, more delicate face. An old woman, according to Bluebell’s observation, was a bent, brown person, wrinkled like a withered apple, like Granny Ridenour.

The two little girls exchanged glances; then the people stood up; they sang out of books instead of having their hymns lined two lines at a time by the minister, which Bluebell thought a great improvement herself.

Libbie took advantage of this new position to lean over the partition and whisper:

“I’m going to call on you to-morrow. We went to Newark, so I couldn’t come before. Orpha and Orrell are coming too.”

“Yes,” nodded Bluebell in trepidation, making signs, for the minister seemed looking over people’s heads at them. She wanted to ask what made him lay a pile of writing on the pulpit beside the Bible. The people suddenly kneeled, and Bluebell hurried to drop to her footstool as she saw Aunt Melissa do. It was all beautiful, and made her feel good; but Libbie Biggar reached over the partition to whisper again:

“You’ve got a pretty bonnet.”

Her grandmother pulled her dress as she subsided, and Bluebell could hear her industriously turning over hymn-book leaves. Then everybody resumed his seat; and the music which had so pleased her glad ear at first, began again triumphantly, and the people in the class up-stairs sang a very beautiful piece, which never afterwards quite left Bluebell’s mind. She learned in time to know it as the Te Deum.

“There’s Orrell,” whispered Libbie again, indicating a flossy-haired child at the side of the church.

“Oh, don’t!” begged Bluebell; “he mightn’t like it.” She cast her eye at the pulpit.

“Our minister don’t care. I like him. He takes tea at our house. His boy whispers and squirms all the time. Look at him up there.”

Bluebell looked at the boy in a front pew, and felt thankful to see him twisting very restlessly. He was a handsome little fellow; but, as Mr. Cook would say, not in harmony with his environments.

The sermon began, and Libbie’s grandmother moved nearer to her.

“I don’t have to come at evening, do you?” said Libbie to Bluebell, when service was over.

“I don’t know,” said Bluebell.

They moved out in different streams of people, and did not see each other again.

After dinner. Aunt Melissa brought out her good books and instructed her namesake. They read some poems; and, before the gas was lighted, had a long talk, sitting with their arms around each other, in which the duties of guardian and charge were discussed.

On Monday morning Bluebell practised her music lesson while Aunt Melissa was shopping. After dinner she put on the muslin-gingham, for in this town people frequently wore their Sunday clothes on common days!--and sat down by her auntie to learn herring-bone stitch. The French clock on the mantel ticked: it was black marble, with a shepherd leaning across the top; the piano stood open; when Bluebell had stitched a strip or two, she might practise again. Afternoon checker-work moved on the porch, and shadows chased each other up and down the pillars. Bluebell felt like some grand little girl in a story, who had a fairy godmother. How pleased father would be to see her learning to be such a lady! Probably at that moment the scholars in the log school-house were just mopping their faces after recess. What fun they had had!--but how different the log school-house was from Aunt Melissa’s drawing-room! Bluebell’s polish at this period began to have a vulgar, varnishy odor. She wondered if it was the proper thing to have gone to school in a log school-house. Libbie Biggar had evidently never done such a thing, and that pretty, fluff-haired girl at church could not understand how the benches had a queer, foreign smell, and Mr. Pitzer let them have such good times. Doctor Garde’s little girl was noting the differences in externals, and the refining influence of beautiful surroundings; and in her anxiety to improve, she was in danger of forgetting what she owed to the country hills.

The knocker was lifted and came down with a boom, ushering in the prettiest and most laughable bit of comedy. Miss Libbie Biggar introduced her friends Misses Orrell Pratt and Orpha Rose, and the three diminutive ladies sat down in large chairs, and acted grown-up. They had on all their ornaments, and their white dresses were distended with the hoops which at that time were coming into vogue. Sweet and kissable in their ribbons and bright bonnets, they were a charming study as to manners. Orrell held her little sunshade in her crossed hands, and drooped her eyelids prettily, as she inquired about Miss Melissa’s health, and delivered her mamma’s compliments. Bluebell, at a signal from Miss Calder, had put her work out of hands, and she too sat up, trying to reflect as faithfully as a mirror these pinks and patterns of juvenile society.

Miss Orpha had difficulty with the small wire frame-work, known as a skeleton, which surrounded her person, but she managed it with a great deal of tact.

“How do you like Sharon?” inquired Miss Biggar, as if she had never done so rude a thing as to talk across partitions in church.

“Oh, I think it’s beautiful!” exclaimed Bluebell, with immediate consciousness that enthusiasm was out of place in the presence of such well-balanced ladies.

“Where did you live before you came here?” inquired Miss Orpha.

Bluebell blushed! When she was older she blushed to remember that she blushed. But these girls seemed so finished, and she was so little in accord with their past, that her beginnings looked raw and humble.

“It was a very hilly place called the Rocky Fork.”

“There are a great many hills here,” remarked Miss Orrell.

“Yes; they are very pretty.”

Bluebell’s nerves twitched, she was on such a strain of propriety.

If the conversation flagged, the young ladies sat looking at each other and their young hostess, or Miss Calder, with calm, unchildlike nonchalance, which threw Doctor Garde’s little girl almost into despair. Her former standard of being agreeable was to talk much and fluently; a pause was a breach of politeness, and put pins and needles into her flesh. How then could she ever hope to attain to such silent self-possession? Afterwards, at school, she discovered that Orrell was naturally dull, and Orpha not half as charming and amiable as first acquaintance seemed to warrant. She asked them about their dolls without arousing much maternal enthusiasm. As they went away, however, their voices could be heard in quick chatter along the street. Timidity had not ruled them in the least. They had simply been making a proper, dressed-up call, like their mammas did.

Then followed, in due course, that great day of the party. Bluebell was nearly worn out with anticipation before afternoon came. She had a new fluffy dress of a material called tarletan, spread over innumerable skirts and a skeleton. Aunt Melissa became her maid, and filled the office with the greatest care. The little girl’s hair was braided loosely and tied in two ropes with long satin ribbon. Miss Melissa was guilty of shoeing her in white satin slippers, but they were heelless. This vision of little girl paraded up and down before the long glass in the parlor, overlooking her thin arms, and delighted with her fairy disguise. Promptly at four o’clock, some ladies and gentlemen began to arrive, some under the chaperonage of mothers or elder sisters, but the majority in twos, or covies like partridges. Bluebell, previously instructed, and much awed by the good company, did not run to meet her future playmates and ask them to go to the play-house, or up-stairs to the garret for a play; even the luxury of a chicken funeral was far from her mind. She stood by Aunt Melissa, and each little girl and boy, on emerging from the dressing-room and entering the parlor, was presented to her. There was a dressing-room up-stairs for the boys; the girls took off their hats and laid down their parasols in Aunt Melissa’s room. And they had doting elders who stood by and retwisted their curls or adjusted the “set” of their hoops.

When everybody had arrived, the parlors swam with sweet faces, white full-blown tarletan flowers, white pants and black jackets. The boys had not the ease of the girls: it drew Bluebell’s heart to them to see their awkward postures and attempts at behaving. The boys intended to come out strong at tea-time.

The older people who came along started games; the children played “Hunt the Slipper,” and this created some real noise and scrambling. Then they played “Forfeits” and “Consequences;” and just before supper a grown young lady in enormous crinoline sat down at the piano and cried, “Partners for a French Four.”

Immediately certain little couples took their places on the floor, and Johnny Pratt, evidently prodded by his sister, stepped up to Bluebell.

“Come on,” said Johnny.

“What they going to play?”

“Goin’ to dance a French Four.”

But Doctor Grarde’s little girl hung back, full of dismay.

“Come on!” exclaimed Libbie Biggar, “it’s your party and you have to lead off. Isn’t that the way, Miss Ann?”

The young lady at the piano turned half-way around and said she believed it was. She looked at Doctor Garde’s disconcerted little girl with a kind smile.

“What’s the trouble?”

Oh, it was dreadful to have the room full of children and several irreproachable grown-up folks looking at her as if she were some peculiar savage.

“Why don’t you come on?” cried Libbie with an impatient stamp.

“But I don’t know how. I sha’n’t mind if somebody else plays in my place.”

Somebody else would not do, in the eyes of a few sticklers; so Bluebell was pushed and huddled through the figures, and merrily laughed at. And it seemed the most dreadful performance she had ever heard of, and mortified her sadly. She was consumed with a desire to step and act gracefully; the motion was exhilarating; but how could she put her toe out just so, and remember which hand to give every time! The others made precise steps with which she was unacquainted, and to imitate them in her timid way was to make a caricature of herself.

Aunt Melissa came in from the dining-room like a friendly sail to a half-wrecked sailor, and made a few smiling excuses for her little friend. Then she marshalled the children out, and their guardians looked in at the dining-room door to see what a charming company they made. Admiring mothers assisted Aunt Melissa in serving refreshments, and from the first biscuit to the last dish of pink ice-cream there were exclamations of delight over the table.

After supper they played in the grounds until sunset; other games in the parlors followed; and by eight o’clock the last little girl was going home saying she had had a lovely time.

And all these things made a deep impression on Doctor Garde’s little girl. She felt elated notwithstanding the French Four, and kissed Aunt Melissa with quite the air of Libbie Biggar. Miss Calder was delighted with the pleasure she had given. Her own individuality was very slight: to be amiable and appear as well as the best Sharon people was her standard of manners, and she was glad to see her charge conforming to them.

Still, the sap of the woods is strong, and will rise in veins which it has nurtured. After all this civilized excitement, Bluebell fell asleep late, and dreamed a wordless and rhymeless dream which had no beginning or end, but chimed along, bringing the smell of ferns and oak-leaves, sweet-brier and sassafras, and the very breath of trees, all around her. Nobody sings the full expression of dreams: if this dream had been sung, perhaps it would have sounded--

Oh, there was a very funny little pink-eyed man; His hair stood out as only silk of dandelion can; He whistled up the morning, and down the afternoon, And slept inside a hollow tree all covered up with moon; His dress was made of moss-hair that greener branches studs. And fringed around with catkins of palest willow-buds; He drove a sled of oak-leaf with katydids a span-- Oho! this world is rosy to a pink-eyed man!

His feet he bathed in violets; he tapped the big paw-paw, And sucked, astride May-apple forks, each apple that he saw; Peppermint and pennyroyal, sheep’s-sorrel had he, Spicewood and sassafras, and nuts from nutty tree; His pockets sagged with dewdrops so bright they shone like sparks, And he teetered on a grass-blade and threw the cores at marks. He made a spider spin him a gray hammock on her plan,-- Sing, oh, this world is rosy to a pink-eyed man!

He made a brook-stone chimney within his little garth, And piled a heap of fireflies to sparkle on his hearth; All overhead were carvings of ancient wormy sort; He tied up ants in couples and made them hunt for sport; He had a little long-bow of throstle-quill; for string He tore a strip of bat-leather out of a gray bat’s wing; And when he shot one June-bug, why, twenty others ran,-- Aha! this world is rosy to a pink-eyed man!

His boat was half a butternut all scooped and polished clear; He had a crew of water-skates, and he need only steer; He always wore an acorn-cap for fear his hair might burn; And he sat upon a toadstool and fanned him with a fern; Or in an empty bird’s nest he piped whole afternoons; The gnats would dance by thousands to hear such merry tunes; The long sweet time in honey-drops of amber clearness ran,-- And oh, this world is rosy to a pink-eyed man!