A Little Girl in Old Salem Part 10

"And we haven't much to amuse a child. When it clears up we must find some little folks. Does it seem very strange to you?"

"I haven't lived with big women much, except Rachel. And the houses are so different. You get things about, and the servants pick them up. There are so many servants. Sometimes there are white children, but not many.

Their mothers take them back to England. Or they die."

She uttered the last sadly, and her long lashes drooped.

He wondered a little how she had stood the climate. She looked more like a foreigner than a native of Salem town.

"What did you do there?" He hardly knew how to talk to a little girl.

"Oh, a great many things. I went to ride in a curious sort of cart--the natives pulled it. Then the children came and played in the court. They threw up b.a.l.l.s and caught them, ever so many, and they played curious games on the stones, and acrobatic feats, and sung, and danced, and acted stories of funny things. Then father read to me, and told me about Salem when he was a little boy. You can't really think the grown-up people were little, like you."

"And that one day you will be big like them."

She pushed up her sleeve. They were large and made just big enough for her hand at the wrist, not at all like the straight, small sleeves of the Puritan children. After surveying it a moment, she said gravely:

"I can't understand _how_ you grow. You must be pushed out all the time by something inside."

"You have just hit it;" and he smiled approvingly. "It is the forces inside. There is a curious factory inside of us that keeps working, day and night, that supplies the blood, the warmth, the strength, and is always pus.h.i.+ng out; it even enlarges the bones until one is grown and finished, as one may say. And the food you eat, the air you breathe, are the supplies."

"But you go on eating and breathing. Why don't you go on growing?"

There was a curious little knot in her forehead where the lines crossed, and she raised her eyes questioningly to him. What wonderful eyes they were!

"I suppose it is partly this: You employ your mind and your body and they need more nourishment. Then--well, I think it is the restraining law of nature, else we should all be giants. In very hot countries and very cold countries they do not grow so large."

He could not go into the intricacies of physiology, as he did with some of the students.

"You did not go to school?"

"Oh, no!" She laughed softly. "The native schools were funny. They sat on mats and did not have any books, but repeated after the teacher. And, sometimes, he beat them dreadfully. There were some English people had a school, but it was to teach the language to the natives. And then Mr.

Cathcart came to stay with father. He had been the chaplain somewhere and wasn't well, so they gave him a--a----"

"Furlough?" suggested Chilian.

"Yes; father sent him out in one of the boats. He began to teach me some things. I could read, you know. And I could talk Hindostani some--with the children. Then I learned to spell and p.r.o.nounce the words better. He had a few books of verses that were beautiful. I learned some of them by heart. And Latin."

"Latin!" in surprise.

"He had some books and a Testament. It was grand in the sound, and I liked it. There were many things, cases and such, that I couldn't get quite straight, but after a little I could read, and then make it over into English."

When he was eight he was reading Latin and beginning French. Some of the Boston women he knew were very good French scholars, though education was not looked upon as a necessity for women. It seemed odd to him--this little girl in Calcutta learning Latin.

"Let us see how far you have gone." Teaching never irked him when he once set about it.

He hunted up a simple Latin primer.

"Come around this side;" and he drew her nearer to him. There had been no little girls to train and teach, and for a moment he felt embarra.s.sed. But she took it as a matter of course, and he could see she was all interest.

It had been, as he supposed, rather desultory teaching. But she took the corrections and explanations with a sweetness that was quite enchanting.

And she could translate quite well, in an idiomatic fas.h.i.+on. Really, with the right kind of training she would make a good scholar.

"Oh, you must be tired of standing," he said presently. "How thoughtless of me. I have no little chairs, so I must hunt one up, but this will have to do now. That will be more comfortable. Now we can go on."

She laughed at her own little blunders in a cheerful fas.h.i.+on, and made haste to correct them. And then he found that she knew several of the old Latin hymns by heart, as they had been favorites of the English clergyman.

They were interrupted by a light tap at the door. He said "Come"; and turned his head.

It was Miss Winn.

"Pardon me. We couldn't imagine where Cynthia was. Hasn't she been an annoyance?"

"Oh, no; we have had a very nice time."

"But--had you not better come downstairs. Miss Eunice is sewing her pretty patchwork again."

"Oh, let me stay," she pleaded. "Do I bother you?"

It crossed his mind just then that in the years to come more than one man would yield to the sweet persuasiveness of those eyes.

"Yes, let her stay. She is no trouble. Indeed, we are studying."

Miss Winn was glad of his indors.e.m.e.nt. Miss Elizabeth had been "worrying" for the last ten minutes. She had crept softly up to the garret, quite sure she should find the child in mischief. Then she had glanced into the "best chamber," but there was no sign of her there.

"Very well," replied Miss Winn.

Cynthia drew a long breath presently.

"Oh, you are tired!" he exclaimed. "Run over to the window and tell me how the sky looks. I think it doesn't rain now."

She slipped down, stood still for a moment, then turned and clapped her hands, laughing deliciously.

"Oh, there is blue sky, and a great yellow streak. The clouds are trying to hide the sun, but they can't. Oh, see, see!"

She danced up and down the room like a fairy in the long ray of suns.h.i.+ne that illumined the apartment.

"Oh, are you not glad!" She turned such a joyous face to him that he smiled and came over to the window that nearly faced the west.

"Better than the Latin?"

"Well--I like both;" archly.

He raised the window. A warm breath of delightful air rushed in, making the room with the fire seem chilly by contrast. He drew in long reviving breaths. Spring had truly come. To-morrow the swelling buds would burst.

"We must have a little Latin every day. And occasionally a walk in the suns.h.i.+ne. Twice a week I go down to Boston, but the other days will be ours."

"I like your room," she said frankly. "But what sights of books! Do you read them all?"

"Not very often. I do not believe I have read them all through. But I need them for reference, and some I like very much."