A Little Girl in Old Salem Part 16

"Oh, when do you suppose he will come? It seems so long to wait."

Rachel smiled to keep the tears out of her eyes.

Chilian Leverett made a call and a brief explanation to Dame Wilby. She admitted she had been hasty, but the children were unusually trying. She was getting to be an old body and maybe she hadn't as much patience as years ago. Cynthia said so many odd things that the children _would_ giggle. She was slow in some things, and it seemed hard for her to learn tables, but she was not a bad child.

So the tempest blew over. Elizabeth preserved a rather injured silence, but Eunice was cheerful and ready to entertain Cynthia with stories of the time when she was a little girl. Chilian arranged for her to spend most of the mornings with him when he was at home. She liked so very much to hear him read. The histories of that time were rather dry and long spun out, but he had a way of skipping the moralizing and the endless disquisitions and adding a little more vividness to people and incidents. It inspired him to watch her face changing with every emotion, her eyes deepening or brightening, and the slight mark in her forehead where lines of perplexity crossed. Then they would talk it all over. Often he was puzzled with her endless "whys" that he could not rightly explain to a child's limited understanding. Sometimes she would say, "Why, I would have done so," and he found her course would be on the side of the finest right, if not what was considered feasible.

The spelling was a trial when the words were a little obscure. And though she had a wonderful knack of guessing at things, she surely was not born for a mathematician. He had a fine, quick mind in that respect.

But the Latin was a delight to her and she delved away at the difficult parts for the sake of what she called the grand and beautiful sound. His rendering of it enchanted her.

"I don't see any sense in educating her like a boy," declared Elizabeth.

"And she can't do a decent bit of hemming. She ought to work a sampler and learn the letters to mark her own clothes. We did it before we were her age. Chilian thinks you can hire people to do these things for you, but it seems so helpless not to be able to do them for yourself.

Housekeeping is of more account than all this folderol. She can never be a college professor."

"But women _are_ keeping schools," interposed Eunice.

"They don't teach Latin and all kinds of nonsense. That Miss Miller was here a few days ago to see if we didn't want our niece--folks are beginning to call her that--to see if we did not want her to take lessons on the spinet. I was so glad she did not appeal to Chilian, though he was out. I said, 'No,' very decidedly, 'that she had a good many things to learn before she tackled that.' And she said she ought to be trained while her fingers were flexible, and I said I thought was.h.i.+ng would make them flexible enough. And there's fine ironing."

"There's no need of either for her," protested Eunice.

"Oh, you don't know. There might be a war again. And a trouble about money. I'm sure there is talk enough and the country raising loans all the time, one party pulling one way, one the other. People are getting awfully extravagant nowadays. Patty Conant gave seven dollars a yard for her new black silk, and there were twelve yards. It broke pretty well into a hundred, and there was some fancy gimp and fringe and the making.

Of course, there's going to be two weddings in the family, and I don't suppose Patty will ever buy another handsome gown at her time of life.

Abner brought her home that elegant c.r.a.pe shawl, with the fringe and netting nearly half a yard deep. Maybe 'twas a present, she let it go that way."

"Of course, there's money enough among the Conants," Eunice commented gently.

"As I said--one can't always tell what will come to pa.s.s, nor how much need you may have for your money. But I'm thankful my heart is not set on the pomps and vanities of this world. And children ought to be brought up to some useful habits."

It was a fact that Cynthia did not take to the useful branches of womanly living. She abhorred hemming--and such work as she made of it!

Miss Eunice groaned over it.

"But you ought to have seen what I did two or three weeks ago," and she laughed with a gay ring. "Such st.i.tches! When I made them nice on the top, they were dreadful underneath, and the cotton thread was almost black. What is the use of taking such little bits of st.i.tches?"

"Why--they look prettier. And--it is the right thing to do."

"But you know Rachel can hem all the ruffles. And Cousin Elizabeth said ruffles were vanity. I'd like my frocks just as well to be plain."

"There would have to be nice st.i.tches in the hem."

"Rachel didn't sew when she was little. A great lady took her to Scotland, to wait on her, to get her shawl when she was a little cool, and fan her when she was warm, and carry messages, and drive out in the carriage with her. They had servants for everything. And then--she was ten years old--she sent her to a school, where she learned everything.

But she doesn't know all the tables and a great many other things."

"But she knows what fits her for her station in life."

Cynthia looked puzzled. "What is your station in life?" she asked with an accent of curiosity.

"Oh, child, it is where you are placed; and the work of life is the duties that grow out of it--and your duty towards G.o.d."

Cynthia dropped into thought.

"Then my duty now is to study. I like it; that is, I like a good many things in it. And when my father comes home it will be changed, I suppose. You can't stay a little girl always."

"But you will have to learn to keep house," returned Eunice.

"Oh, I'll have some one to do that. Men never have to cook or keep house. Oh, yes; all the cooks on the s.h.i.+p were men. Wasn't that funny!"

she continued.

She laughed with so much innocent merriment that Miss Eunice laughed too.

"I suppose you have to do various things in your life," she sagely remarked, after a pause.

"Then you must learn to do the various things now."

"I believe I won't ever get married. I'll live with father always, and we will have some one to keep the house, and Rachel will make the clothes. And I'll read aloud to father. We'll have a carriage and go out riding, and talk about India. I remember so many things just by thinking them over. Isn't it queer, when for a long time they have gone out of your mind? Oh, dear Cousin Eunice, what makes you sigh?"

Cousin Eunice took off her gla.s.ses, wiped them vigorously, and then wiped her eyes.

"It is a bad habit I have." But she was thinking of the dream of the little girl that could never come true.

The two days in the week that Chilian went into Boston were long to Cynthia. She sat in his room and studied. He had given her a small table to herself and a shelf in a sort of miscellaneous bookcase. He found that she never trespa.s.sed and that she did really study her two hours, sometimes longer when the task was not so easily mastered. There _was_ some of the old Leverett blood in her, but it had a picturesque strain.

She placed every book at its prettiest, and her papers were gathered up and taken down to the kitchen when she was done with them. She was beginning to write quite well.

Then in the afternoon she went to walk with Rachel to show her the curious places Cousin Leverett had told her about. And there were still beautiful woods around the town, where they found wild flowers and sa.s.safras buds.

Elizabeth was very much engrossed. She had cleared the garret spick and span, scrubbed up the floor, wiped off her quilting frames, and put in her white quilt, rolling up both sides so she could get at the middle.

There was to be a circle, with clover leaves on the outside. Then long leaves rayed off from the exact middle. She had all the patterns marked out. When that was done a wreath went around next--oak leaves and acorns.

She had groaned over the time the little girl devoted to Latin, but she never thought all this a waste of precious hours. She would never need it and she could not decide upon any relative she would like to leave it to. There was one quilt of this pattern in Salem and, though white quilts were made, few could afford to spend so much time over them.

There were knitted quilts, with ball fringe around four sides, and the tester fringed the same way. Old ladies kept up their habits of industry in this manner when they were past hard work.

Eunice had finished her basket quilt and it was really a work of art.

But she was out in the flower garden a good deal in the early morning and late afternoon. Cynthia sometimes kept her company, but she was not an expert in gardening science. In the evening they sat out on the porch, and a neighbor called perhaps. Or she walked over to South River if it was moonlight. And, oh, how beautiful everything was!

But it was not all quilting with Miss Elizabeth. In July wild green grapes were gathered for preserves. Cynthia thought it quite fun to help "pit" them. You cut them through the middle and with a small pointed knife took out the seeds. She tired of it presently and did not cut them evenly, beside she was afraid of cutting her thumb.

Cousin Elizabeth went about getting dinner, which was quite a simple thing when Chilian was away, and at night they had a high tea.

"I'll cut them," said Eunice, "and you can pick out the seeds. But maybe you are tired;" with a glance of solicitude.

"Yes, I'm tired, but I'm going to keep straight on until dinner-time,"

she answered pluckily.

"You are a brave little girl."

But Cousin Elizabeth said, "Well, for once you have made yourself useful."

There was a great point of interest just then for the people on this side of the town. Front Street was the old river path that had followed the sh.o.r.e line. One end was known now as Wharf Street, and was beginning to be lined with docks. Up farther to what is now Ess.e.x Street there had stood a house with a history. Its owner had been a Tory, and just before the war broke out he entertained Governor Gage and the civil and military staff. Timothy Pickering had been summoned to the Governor's presence, but he kept his Excellency so long in an indecent pa.s.sion that the town-meeting had to be adjourned. Troops were ordered up from the Neck and for a while an encounter seemed imminent. Later, when the Colonists were in the ascendency, Colonel Browne's estate was confiscated, and after the close of the war it was turned over to Mr.

Elias Derby. Now he was removing it to make way for a much finer residence and, being a notably patriotic citizen, he did not enjoy the stigma of a Tory house. Parts were carried away as curiosities, and there were some beautiful carvings and fine newel posts that found a place in new homes as mementoes. Afterward, Mr. Derby built the handsomest and costliest house in Salem, with grounds laid out magnificently.