A Little Girl in Old Salem Part 21

Giles has got way off; seems to me religion's dying out since they've begun to preach easy ways of getting to heaven and letting the bars down here and there. There's no struggle and sense of conviction nowadays; you just take it up as a business. And that child talks about heaven as if she'd had a glimpse of it and saw her father and mother there. Letty Orne was a church member in her younger days, but I don't believe the captain ever was. And they who don't repent will surely perish."

Eunice sighed. She could never get used to the thought that thousands of souls were brought into the world to perish eternally.

Cynthia tied on her Leghorn hat. It did have some black ribbon on it, and the strings were pa.s.sed under her chin and tied at one side. That and her silken gown gave her a quaint appearance, rather striking as well.

They walked down the street and turned corners. There was quite a procession of ladies bound for the same place. If they had been all buyers, Mr. Merrit would have made quite a fortune. But he was glad to have them come. They would describe the stock to their neighbors, and perhaps decide on what they wanted for themselves.

"Ah, Miss Winn!" exclaimed a pleasant-faced woman. "And that is Captain Leverett's little girl? Why, she looks as if she was quite well again.

We heard of her being so poorly. I suppose the shock of her father's death was dreadful! Poor little thing! And she's to be quite an heiress, I heard. What are they going to do with her? Won't she be sent to Boston to school?"

"Oh, I think not. Mr. Leverett has been teaching her a little."

They had fairly to elbow their way in. Long counters were piled with goods. Silks, laces, sheerest of muslins embroidered beautifully, lace wraps, India shawls, jewelry, caps, collars, handkerchiefs, stockings, slippers that were dainty enough for a Cinderella.

And all down one side were ranged tables, and jars, and vases, and articles one could hardly find a name for. Such exquisite carving, such odd figures painted and embroidered on silk, birds the like of which were never seen on land or sea, dragons that flew, and crawled, and climbed trees, and disported themselves on waves.

"Oh, it looks like home," cried Cynthia, for the moment forgetting herself. And she kept sauntering round among the beautiful things, her heart growing strangely light, and her pulses throbbing with a sort of joy.

She was almost hidden by a great pile of tapestry. The Indians had found some secrets of beauty as well as France, if they did make it with infinite pains. And this was made with the little hand-looms and joined together so neatly and the colors blended so harmoniously that it was like a dream. Only the little girl did not like the dragons and strange animals. She had never seen any real ones like them. They were in the stories Nalla used to tell.

Then some one else spoke to Miss Winn. "Is your little charge here?" she asked. "I'm quite anxious to see her. I've called twice on the Leveretts, and really asked for her once when they said she was quite ill. But I saw her out in the carriage with--isn't it her uncle? No?

And she's to be very well to do, I've heard. The idea of the Leverett women undertaking to bring up a child! They're good as gold and some of the best housekeepers in Salem, but I dare say they'll teach her to knit stockings, and make bedquilts, and braid rag mats, and do fifty-year-old things--make a regular little Puritan of her. I knew her mother quite well before she was married. Doesn't seem as if we were near of an age and went to school together. But some of the Ornes married in our line.

And I was married when I was seventeen, and now I'm a grandmother. How the years do fly on! And she had to die out in that heathen land; he too. Wasn't it odd about sending her here beforehand? I do want to see her."

"She is somewhere about, interested in all these foreign things." Miss Winn was not quite sure of the chattering woman. She had learned that the Leverett ladies were exclusive, whether from inclination or lack of time. They asked their minister and a few old family friends in to tea on rare occasions, and then it was cooking and baking and cleaning up the choice old silver and dusting and polis.h.i.+ng, and the next day clearing up. Everything out of the routine made so much extra work.

Among the few English-speaking people in India there had been a sort of free and easy sociability.

Cynthia meanwhile had slipped around the end of the counter and came up to them. She wanted to see the woman who had been to school with her mother. Then her mother was a little girl, perhaps no older than she.

Did she like it? Cynthia wondered.

"This is Captain Leverett's little daughter," Rachel announced rather stiffly.

"My--but you don't favor your mother at all. I'm Mrs. Turner and I knew her off and on. We lived about thirty miles above here. Then her folks died and she went to Boston, but she used to be at the Leveretts' a good deal. I married and came here. I'm living up North River way and have a house full of children--like steps--and one grandchild, and I'm just on the eve of thirty-seven. I've one little girl about your age, but she's ever so much bigger. I'd like you to be friends with her. The next older is a girl, too. Why, you'd have real nice times if the old aunties were willing. Do they keep her strict? And she's going to be a considerable heiress, I heard. I wonder where her eyes came from? They're not Leverett eyes, and her mother's were a clear blue, real china blue, but then there's different blues in china," and she laughed. "Sad about the captain, wasn't it? He should have lived to enjoy his fortune, and now his little girl will have it all. I must come and sc.r.a.pe acquaintance for the sake of my girls. You'd like them, I know, they're full of fun.

We're not strait-laced people--that's going out of date."

Then she pa.s.sed on. They wandered about a little more among the vases and jars and the paintings on silk. The air was heavy with sandalwood, and attar of rose, and incense. The fragrance seemed never to die out of those old things that became family heirlooms.

"Come," Rachel said, taking her by the hand. It was quite late in the afternoon now, and the shadows of everything were growing longer. She could not understand why it was at first, but now she knew. And the sun would be round there in Asia presently. In her secret heart she still believed the sun went round and the earth stood still, for in the movement people _must_ slip off. But then what held it in the air?

Cousin Chilian had a globe, but you see there was a strong wire through the middle, fastened to the frame at both ends. Perhaps the earth was fastened somewhere! She liked to make it revolve on its axis, and in imagination she crossed the oceans, and seas, and capes, and found her father again.

The stage had just come in. They paused on the corner, waiting for Cousin Chilian. Some one was with him--yes, it was Cousin Giles Leverett.

"Well, little woman," he began, "so I find you out here meandering round, and so much improved that I hardly know you. We were afraid in the winter you were going to slip away and leave all this fortune behind you, never having had a bit of good of it. But you look now as if you had taken a new lease. And you are positively growing!"

Chilian smiled at the remark. He had begun to think so himself. And she looked so pretty just now with the pink in her cheeks and the soft tendrils of hair about her forehead, the eager, luminous eyes. He reached out and took her hand.

"Have you been inspecting old Salem, and did you find any queer things?"

Cousin Giles asked.

"Oh, there was a great s.h.i.+pload of goods from India and it seemed almost as if you were walking through the booths at home, only there were no natives and no beggars or holy men----"

"Tut! tut! child; they are not holy men who are too lazy to move and waiting for other people to fill their mouths. If they were here we'd make them work or they'd have to starve. They're talking about missionaries being sent out to convert them. I heard a rousing sermon on Sunday, but it didn't loosen my purse-strings. Your greatest missionary is work, good hard labor, clearing up and planting. Suppose those old _Mayflower_ people had sat down and held out their hands for alms. Do you suppose our Indians would have filled 'em with their corn, and fish, and game? Not much. They'd tied 'em to a tree and set fire to 'em." When Cousin Giles was excited he made elisions of speech rather unusual for a Boston man. "They went to work and cut down trees, and built houses, and raised farm and garden truck, and made shoes and clothes, and roads and bridges, and built cities and towns, and shamed those countries thousands of years old. And now we're trying to help them by bringing over their goods and selling them."

"And creating extravagance, Elizabeth would say," returned Chilian, with a sort of humorous smile.

"Oh, you might as well keep the money going as to h.o.a.rd it up in an old stocking, so long as it is honestly yours. We're getting to be quite a notable country, Chilian Leverett."

They turned into Derby Street, and Cousin Giles paused to survey the garden.

"You've lots of things to enjoy here," he said. "I don't know but it's a sensible thing to take the good of what you have as you go along. And little Miss here will have enough without your adding to the store. You men of Salem ought to begin to do some big things--build a college."

"Oh, I think our young men would rather go to Harvard. We don't want to rival you. We shall be the biggest New England seaport. We'll divide up the glories."

Elizabeth was so taken by surprise that she was rather cross. She liked things planned beforehand. Now the tablecloth must come off. This one had been on since Sunday and it had two darns in it. And the old silver must come out.

"I don't believe Cousin Giles would ever notice," Eunice said. "And I do think the china prettier than that old silver."

"Well, it has the crown mark on it and the Leveretts owned it before they came from England. Giles' folks had some of it, too, but the Lord only knows what he's done with his. I dare say servants have made way with it, or banged it out of shape. Anybody can have china. Come, do be spry, Eunice."

Cynthia went upstairs and had her hair brushed and a clean ap.r.o.n put on, though the other was not soiled.

"Rachel, what is an heiress?" she asked.

"Why--some one, a woman, who inherits a good deal of money."

"Does she have to wait until she is a woman?"

"Why, no. Yes, in a way, too. She can have the money spent upon her, but she can't have it herself until she is twenty-one."

Cynthia wondered how it would seem to go and spend money, buy ever so many things. But she really couldn't think of anything she wanted, unless it was a house of her very own, and books, and pretty pictures, not portraits of old-fas.h.i.+oned men and women. And a pony and a dainty chaise. But then--she was such a little girl, and she wouldn't want to leave Cousin Chilian.

Elizabeth made delicious cream shortcake for supper. Cousin Giles said everything tasted better up here, perhaps it was the clear salt water.

There were so many fresh ponds and streams around Boston. But there were big plans for drainage and for docking out. Then Elizabeth was such a fine cook.

The two men sat out on the stoop in the summer moonlight and Cynthia thought Cousin Giles really quarrelled trying to establish the superiority of Boston. Then they talked about investments and Captain Leverett, and Giles said, "Cynthia will be one of the richest women of Salem. Chilian, you'll have to look sharp that some schemer doesn't marry her for her money."

"You must come to bed, Cynthia," declared Rachel. Through the open window they could hear Cousin Giles' voice plainly.

The men went the next morning to consider an investment Chilian had in view. It had been thought best to divide the sums coming in between Salem and Boston. Then they walked about and saw the improvements, the new docks being built to accommodate the s.h.i.+pping, the great fleet of boats, the busy s.h.i.+p-yard, the hurrying to and fro everywhere. It was not merely finery, but spices and articles used in the arts. Gum copal was brought from Zanzibar. Indigo came in, though they were trying to raise that at the South.

And when Giles saw the new streets and fine houses, and Mr. Derby's, that was to cost eighty thousand dollars, he did open his eyes in surprise. Though he said rather grudgingly:

"It's a shame for one little girl to have all that money. There should have been three or four children. Fifty years ago the Leveretts had such big families they bid fair to overrun the earth, and now they've dwindled down to next to nothing. Chilian, why don't you marry?"

"The same to yourself. Are you clinging to any old memory?"

"Well, not just that. I don't seem to have time. Now you are a fellow of leisure. Get about it, man, and hunt up a wife."