Helen and Arthur Part 8

"May G.o.d guide and sustain me," he cried, pausing and looking upward.

"May I go, sir?" asked Mittie, who had been watching her father's varying countenance, and felt somewhat awed by the deep solemnity and sadness that settled upon it. Her manner, if not affectionate was respectful, and he dismissed her with a gleaming hope that the clue to her heart's labyrinth--that labyrinth which seemed now closed with an immovable rock, might yet be discovered.

CHAPTER IV.

"Oh, wanton malice! deathful sport!

Could ye not spare my all?

But mark my words, on thy cold heart A fiery doom will fall."

The incident recorded in the last chapter, resulted in benefit to two of the actors. It gave a spring to the dormant energies of Helen, and a check to the vengeance of Mittie.

The winter glided imperceptibly away, and as imperceptibly vernal bloom and beauty stole over the face of nature.

In the spring of the year, Miss Thusa always engaged in a very interesting process--that is, bleaching the flaxen thread which she had been spinning during the winter. She now made a permanent home at Mr.

Gleason's, and superintended the household concerns, pursuing at the same time the occupation to which she had devoted the strength and intensity of her womanhood.

There was a beautiful gra.s.sy lawn extending from the southern side of the building, with a gradual slope towards the sun, whose margin was watered by the clearest, bluest, gayest little singing brook in the world. This was called Miss Thusa's bleaching ground, and nature seemed to have laid it out for her especial use. There was the smooth, fresh, green sward, all ready for her to lay her silky brown thread upon, and there was the pure water running by, where she could fill her watering pot, morning, noon and night, and saturate the fibres exposed to the sun's bleaching rays. And there was a thick row of blossoming lilac bushes shading the lower windows the whole breadth of the building, in which innumerable golden and azure-colored birds made their nests, and beguiled the spinster's labors with their melodious carrolings.

Helen delighted in a.s.sisting Miss Thusa in watering her thread, and watching the gradual change from brown to a pale brown, and then to a silver gray, melting away into snowy whiteness, like the bright brown locks of youth, fading away into the dim h.o.a.riness of age. When weary of dipping water from the wimpling brook, she would sit under the lilac bushes, and look at Miss Thusa's sybilline figure, moving slowly over the gra.s.s, swaying the watering-pot up and down in her right hand, scattering ten thousand liquid diamonds as she moved. Sometimes the rainbows followed her steps, and Helen thought it was a glorious sight.

One day as Helen tripped up and down the velvet sward by her side, admiring the silky white skeins spread mult.i.tudinously there, Miss Thusa, gave an oracular nod, and said she believed that was the last watering, that all they needed was one more night's dew, one more morning sun, and then they could be twisted in little hanks ready to be dispatched in various directions.

"I am proud of that thread," said Miss Thusa, casting back a lingering look of affection and pride as she closed the gate. "It is the best I ever spun--I don't believe there is a rough place in it from beginning to end. It was the best flax I ever had, in the first place. When I pulled it out and wound it round the distaff, it looked like ravelled silk, it was so smooth and fine. Then there's such a powerful quant.i.ty of it. Well, it's my winter's work."

Poor Miss Thusa! You had better take one more look on those beautiful, silvery rings--for never more will your eyes be gladdened by their beauty! There is a worm in your gourd, a canker in your flower, a cloud floating darkly over those s.h.i.+ning filaments.

It is astonis.h.i.+ng how wantonly the spirit of mischief sometimes revels in the bosom of childhood! What wild freaks and excursions its superabundant energies indulge in! And when mischief is led on by malice, it can work wonders in the way of destruction.

It happened that Mittie had a gathering of her school companions in the latter part of the day on which we have just entered. Helen, tired of their rude sports, walked away to some quiet nook, with the orphan child. Mittie played Queen over the rest, in a truly royal style. At last, weary of singing and jumping the rope, and singing "Merry O'Jenny," they launched into bolder amus.e.m.e.nts. They ran over the flower-beds, leaping from bed to bed, trampling down many a fair, vernal bud, and then trying their gymnastics by climbing the fences and the low trees. A white railing divided Miss Thusa's bleaching ground, with its winding rill, from the garden, and as they peeped at the white thread s.h.i.+ning on the gra.s.s, thinking the flaming sword of Miss Thusa's anger guarded that enclosure, Mittie suddenly exclaimed:

"Let us jump over and dance among Miss Thusa's thread. It will be better than all the rest."

"No, no," cried several, drawing back, "it would be wrong. And I'm afraid of her. I wouldn't make her mad for all the world."

"I'll leave the gate open, and she'll think the calves have broken in,"

cried Mittie, emboldened by the absence of her father, and feeling safety in numbers. "Cowards," repeated she, seeing they still drew back.

"Cowards!--just like Helen. I despise to see any one afraid of any thing. I hate old Madam Thusa, and every thing that belongs to her."

Vaulting over the fence, for there would have been no amus.e.m.e.nt in going through the gate, Mittie led the way to the forbidden ground, and it was not long before her companions, yielding to the influence of her bold, adventurous spirit, followed. Disdaining to cross the rustic bridge that spanned the brook, they took off their shoes and waded over its pebbly bed. They knew Miss Thusa's room was on the opposite side of the house, and while running round it, they had heard the hum of her busy wheel, so they did not fear her watching eye.

"Now," said Mittie, catching one of the skeins with her nimble feet, and tossing it in the air; "who will play cat's cradle with me?"

The idea of playing cat's cradle with the toes, for they had not resumed their shoes and stockings, was so original and laughable, it was received with acclamation, and wild with excitement they rushed in the midst of Miss Thusa's treasures--and such a twist and snarl as they made was never seen before. They tied more Gordian knots than a hundred Alexanders could sever, made more tangles than Princess Graciosa in the fairy tale could untie.

"What shall we do with it now?" they cried, when the novelty of the occupation wore off, and conscience began to give them a few remorseful twinges.

"Roll it up in a ball and throw it in the brook," said Mittie, "she'll think some of her witches have carried it off. I'll pay her for it," she added, with a scornful laugh, "if she finds us out and makes a fuss. It can't be worth more than a dollar--and I would give twice as much as that any time to spite the old thing."

So they wound up the dirty, tangled, ruined thread into a great ball, and plunged it into the stream that had so often laved the whitening filaments. Had Miss Thusa seen it sinking into the blue, sunny water, she would have felt as the mariner does when the corpse of a loved companion is let down into the burying wave.

In a few moments the gate was shut, the green slope smiled in answer to the mellow smile of the setting sun, the yellow birds frightened away by the noisy groups, flew back to their nests, among the fragrant lilacs, and the stream gurgled as calmly as if no costly wreck lay within its bosom.

When the last beam of the sinking sun glanced upon her distaff, turning the fibres to golden filaments, Miss Thusa paused, and the crank gave a sudden, upward jerk, as if rejoiced at the coming rest. Putting her wheel carefully in its accustomed corner, she descended the stairs, and bent her steps to the bleaching ground. She met Helen at the gate, who remembered the trysting hour.

"Bless the child," cried Miss Thusa, with a benevolent relaxation of her harsh features, "she never forgets any thing that's to do for another.

Never mind getting the watering-pot now. There'll be a plenty of dew falling."

Taking Helen by the hand she crossed the rustic bridge; but as she approached the green, she slackened her pace and drew her spectacles over her eyes. Then taking them off and rubbing them with her silk handkerchief, she put them on again and stood still, stooping forward, and gazing like one bewildered.

"Where is the thread, Miss Thusa?" exclaimed Helen, running before her, and springing on the slope. "When did you take it away?"

"Take it away!" cried she. "Take it away! I never _did_ take it away.

But _somebody_ has taken it--stolen it, carried it off, every skein of it--not a piece left the length of my finger, my finger nail. The vile thieves!--all my winter's labor--six long months' work--dead and buried!

for all me--"

"Poor Miss Thusa!" said Helen, in a pitying accent. She was afraid to say more--there was something so awe-inspiring in the mingled wrath and grief of Miss Thusa's countenance.

"What's the matter?" cried a spirited voice. Louis appeared on the bridge, swinging his hat in the air, his short, thick curls waving in the breeze.

"Somebody's stolen all Miss Thusa's thread," exclaimed Helen, running to meet him, "her nice thread, that was just white enough to put away. Only think, Louis, how wicked!"

"Oh! Miss Thusa, it can't be stolen," said Louis, coming to the spot where she stood, the image of indignant despair; "somebody has hidden it to tease you. I'll help you to find it."

This seemed so natural a supposition, that Miss Thusa's iron features relaxed a little, and she glanced round the enclosure, more in condescension than hope, surveying the boughs of the lilacs, drooping with their weight of purple blossoms, and peering at the gossamer's web.

Louis, in the meantime, turned towards the stream, now partially enveloped in the dusky shade of twilight, but there was one spot sparkling with the rosy light of sunset, and resting snugly 'mid the pebbles at the bottom, he spied a large, dingy ball.

"Ah! what's this big toad-stool, rising up in the water?" said he, seizing a pole that lay under the bridge, and sticking the end in the ball. "Why this looks as if it had been thread, Miss Thusa, but I don't know what you will call it now?"

Miss Thusa s.n.a.t.c.hed the dripping ball from the pole that bent beneath its weight, turned it round several times, bringing it nearer and nearer to her eyes at each revolution, then raised it above her head, as if about to dash it on the ground; but suddenly changing her resolution, she tightened her grasp, and strode into the path leading to the house.

"I know all about it now," she cried, "I heard the children romping and trampling round the house like a drove of wild colts, with Mittie at their head; it is she that has done it, and if I don't punish her, it will be because the Lord Almighty does it for me."

Even Louis could scarcely keep up with her rapid strides. He trembled for the consequences of her anger, just as it was, and followed close to see if Mittie, undaunted as she was, did not shrivel in her gaze.

Mittie was seated in a window, busily studying, or pretending to study, not even turning her head, though Miss Thusa's steps resounded as if she were shod with iron.

"Look round, Miss, if you please, and tell me if you know any thing of this," cried Miss Thusa, laying her left hand on her shoulder, and bringing the ball so close to her face that her nose came in contact with it.

Mittie jerked away from the hand laid upon her with no velvet pressure, without opening her lips, but the guilty blood rising to her face spoke eloquently; though she had a kind of Procrustes bed of her own, according to which she stretched or curtailed the truth, she had not the hardihood to tell an unmitigated falsehood, in the presence of her brother, too, and in the light of his truth-beaming eye.

"You are always accusing _me_ of every thing," said she, at length. "I didn't do it----all;" the last syllable was uttered in a low, indistinct tone.

"You are a mean coward," cried the spinster, hurling the ball across the room with such force that it rebounded against the wall. "You're a coward with all your audacity, and do tricks you are ashamed to acknowledge. You've spoiled the honest earnings of the whole winter, and destroyed the beautifullest suit of thread that ever was spun by mortal woman."