The English Orphans Part 6

Mary replied that she had studied it a few months in Worcester, and a few weeks in Chicopee.

"Oh, I am so glad," said Sal, "for now I shall have an a.s.sociate. Why, the greatest objection I have to the kind of people one meets with here, is that they are so horribly vulgar in their conversation and murder the Queen's English so dreadfully. But won't you and I have good times saying the rules in concert?"

Unfortunately Mary's knowledge of grammar was rather limited, and as she did not exactly fancy Sal's proposition, she answered that she had nearly forgotten all she ever knew of grammar.

"Oh, that's nothing, child that's nothing," said Sal. "It will return to you gradually. Why, things that happened forty years ago and were forgotten twenty years ago come back to me every day, but then I always did forget more in one night than some people, Miss Grundy, for instance, ever knew in all their life."

"Have you lived here long?" asked Mary.

"Yes, a great while," and the expression of Sally's face grew graver, as she added, "Perhaps you don't know that I lost little Willie, and then Willie's father died too, and left me all alone. Their graves are away on the great western prairies, beneath the buckeye trees, and one night when the winter wind was howling fearfully, I fancied I heard little Willie's voice calling to me from out the raging storm. So I lay down on the turf above my lost darling, and slept so long, that when I awoke my hair had all turned gray and I was in Chicopee, where Willie's father used to live. After a while they brought me here and said I was crazy, but I wasn't. My head was clear as a bell, and I knew as much as I ever did, only I couldn't tell it, because, you see, the right words wouldn't come. But I don't care now I've found some one who knows grammar. How many _genders_ are there, child?"

"Four," answered Mary, who had been studying Smith.

Instantly Sal seized Mary's hands, and nearly wrenching them off in her joy, capered and danced about the room, leaping over the cradle, and finally exclaiming, "Capital! You think just as I do, don't you?

And have the same opinion of her? What are the genders, dear? Repeat them"

"Masculine, Feminine, Neuter and Common," said Mary

"O, get out with your _common_ gender," screamed Sal. "_My_ grammar don't read so. It says Masculine, Feminine Neuter and _Grundy_ gender, to which last but one thing in the world belongs, and that is the lady below with the cast iron back and India-rubber tongue."

"Do you mean Mrs. Grundy?" asked Mary, and Sal replied, "_Mrs.

Grundy_? and who may Mrs. Grundy be? Oh, I understand, she's been stuffing you."

"Been what?" said Mary.

"Excuse me," answered Sal. "That's a slang term I've picked up since I've been here. It's so easy to get contaminated, when one is constantly a.s.sociated with such low people. I mean that during my temporary seclusion Miss Grundy has probably given you erroneous impressions which I take pleasure in correcting. She has no more right to order us boarders around, and say when we shall breathe and when we shan't, than I have. She's nothing more nor less than a town pauper herself, and has to work at that."

"So do we all," interrupted Mary, and Sal continued. "On that point you are slightly mistaken, my dear. I don't have to. I didn't come here to work. They tried it once."

Here pus.h.i.+ng her tangled hair back from her brow, she pointed to a long scar, saying, "Do you see that?" Mary nodded, and Sal continued: "When I first came here, the overseer was a bad man, not at all like Mr. Parker. One day he told me to wash the dinner dishes, and to use more than a pint of water, too, so I gathered them up and threw them into the well; but this method of was.h.i.+ng did not suit the overseer's ideas of housekeeping, so he took a raw hide, and said he would either 'break my will,' or 'break my neck,' and because he could not break my will, and dared not break my neck, he contented himself with breaking my head. Every blow that he struck me was like melted lead poured into my brains, which puffed out like sausages, and have never recovered their wonted dimensions. The town took the matter up, but I don't remember much about it, for I went to sleep again, and when I woke the overseer was gone, and Mr. Parker was here in his place. I was chained like a wild beast under the garret stairs, and Miss Grundy's broad, stiff back was hung there for a door. n.o.body asks me to work now, but occasionally, just for pastime, I go into Mrs.

Parker's room and read to her, and tell her about my Willie, who went away."

"How long has Mrs. Parker been sick?" asked Mary.

"I'm no judge of time," answered Sal, "but it seems a great while, for since her illness Miss Grundy has been at the helm in the kitchen, and perhaps it is all right that she should be, for somebody must manage, and, as I had declared I would not work, 'twould hardly have been consistent to change my mind. And then, too, Miss Grundy seems admirably suited for the place. Her _forte_ is among pots and kettles, and she will get the most work out of the boarders, keep them on the least fare, and put more money into Mr. Parker's pocket at the end of a year, than any one he could hire, and this is the secret of his bearing so much from her."

"But why does she want to fill his pockets with money?"

Sal gave a knowing wink and replied, "You are not old enough to see into every thing, so I dare say you wouldn't understand me if I should hint that Mrs. Parker has the consumption, and can't live always."

Mary's looks plainly told that this remark had given her no idea whatever, and Sal continued, "I knew you wouldn't understand, for you haven't my discernment to begin with, and then you were never sent away to school, were you?"

"No, ma'am, was you?" asked Mary.

"Say '_were you_,' if you please, it is more euphonious Yes, I was at school in Leicester two years, and was called the best grammarian there, but since I've sojourned with this kind of people, I've nearly lost my refinement. To be sure I aim at exclusiveness, and now you've come I shall cut them all, with the exception of Uncle Peter, who would be rather genteel if he knew more of grammar."

Just then Alice awoke, and Sally, who had not observed her before, sprang forward with a scream of joy, and seizing the child in her arms, threw her up towards the ceiling, catching her as she came down as easily as she would a feather. Strange to say Alice neither manifested any fear of the woman, nor dislike of the play, but laid her head on Sally's shoulder as naturally as if it had been her mother.

"Dear little fellow," said Sal, "he looks like Willie, only not half so handsome."

"She isn't a boy," quickly interrupted Mary. "Her name is Alice."

"No consequence," said Sally, "he's Willie to me;" and ever after, in spite of Mary's remonstrance, she persisted in speaking of Alice as "he," and "the little boy."

Mary soon found that the poor-house with Sal Furbush shut up, and the poor-house with Sal at liberty, were quite different affairs. Now it was no longer lonely, for Sal's fertile imagination was constantly suggesting something new, either by way of pastime or mischief.

Towards Miss Grundy, she and the other paupers evinced a strong dislike, owing, in a great measure, to the air of superiority which that lady thought proper to a.s.sume, and which was hardly more than natural considering the position which she occupied. She was a capital housekeeper, and to one unacquainted with the circ.u.mstances it seemed strange, why a person, apparently so strong and healthy, should be in the Alms-House. Unfortunately, however, she was subject to fits, which made her presence so unpleasant to the people with whom she lived that at last, no one was willing to hire her. About that time, too, she was taken very ill, and as she had no relatives, she was removed to the poor-house, where she had remained ever since.

When Mrs. Parker became too feeble to work, Miss Grundy immediately stepped into her place, filling it so well, that as Sal had said, Mr.

Parker bore a great deal from her, knowing that no one whom he could hire would do as well, or save as much as she did. Sal Furbush she could neither manage nor make work, and she vented her spite towards her by getting her shut up on the slightest pretexts. Sal knew very well to whom she was indebted for her "temporary seclusions," as she called them, and she exerted herself to repay the debt with interest.

Sometimes on a sultry summer morning, when the perspiration stood thickly on Miss Grundy's face as she bent over a red-hot cook-stove in the kitchen, Sal with her, feet in the brook, which ran through the back yard, and a big palm-leaf fan in her hand, would call out from some shady spot, "Hallo, Miss Grundy, don't you wish you were a lady boarder, and could be as cool and as comfortable as I am?"

Occasionally, too, when safely fastened in the pantry enjoying her green tea and Boston crackers, she would be startled with the words, "That must have an excellent relis.h.!.+" and looking up, she would spy Sal, cosily seated on the top shelf, eyeing her movements complacently, and offering, perhaps, to a.s.sist her if she found the tea too strong!

Miss Grundy wore a wig, and as she seemed disturbed whenever the fact was mentioned, the walls of the house both inside and out were frequently ornamented with ludicrous pictures of herself, in which she was sometimes represented as entirely bald-headed, while with spectacles on the end of her nose, she appeared to be peering hither and thither in quest of her wig. On these occasions Miss Grundy's wrath knew no bounds, and going to Mr. Parker she would lay the case before him in so aggravated a form, that at last to get rid of her, he would promise that, for the next offence, Sal should be shut up. In this way the poor woman, to use her own words, "was secluded from the visible world nearly half the time."

With the other inmates of the house, however, she was a special favorite, and many were the kind turns which she had done for the lame woman, whom Miss Grundy took delight in reminding that "she didn't half earn the salt to her porridge."

Next to the wig, nothing more annoyed Miss Grundy than to see Sal, with grammar in hand, perched upon the window sill or table, and repeating at the top of her voice the "rules," of which every fourth one seemed to have been made with direct reference to herself. But it was of no use for Miss Grundy to complain of this, for as Sal said, "Mr. Parker merely winked at it as the vagaries of a disordered mind,"

and she was free to quote her grammar from morning till night.

Whenever she was crazier than usual, her command of language was proportionately greater, and her references to her grammar more frequent, while no one in the house could venture a remark without being immediately corrected for some impropriety of speech.

Uncle Peter, who had a high opinion of Sally's abilities, always did his best to converse as she directed, but in her "inspired days" even he became utterly confounded, and once when in one of her lofty strains, she had labored hard to impress upon him the all-important fact that _adjectives_ are frequently changed into _adverbs_ by the suffix "ly," the old man, quite out of his wits with his efforts to understand and profit by her teachings, was guilty of a laughable blunder.

"Uncle Peter," said she, "did you notice how unusually funnily Miss Grundy's wig was arranged at dinner to-day?"

Thinking that he fully understood the reply which he was expected to make, and anxious to make amends for his former stupidity, Uncle Peter promptly replied, "No, madam I did not-_ly_.'"

The look of horror which Sally's face a.s.sumed, convinced Uncle Peter that he had failed in his attempts at speaking grammatically, and with a sudden determination never again to try, he precipitately left the house, and for the next two hours amused himself by playing "Bruce's Address" upon his old cracked fiddle. From that time Sal gave up all hopes of educating Uncle Peter, and confined herself mostly to literary efforts, of which we shall speak hereafter.

The night following Sal's first acquaintance with Mary, Alice cried until nearly day dawn. The milk which Miss Grundy's stinginess allowed her, was not particularly conducive to her health, and besides that, she missed the invigorating bath to which she had been accustomed during her mother's lifetime. Mary had spoken of it two or three times, but Miss Grundy only jerked her shoulders, saying, "she guessed she wasn't going to have such a slush around the house. You can bring her down," said she, "to the sink, and pump as much water on her as you like;" so Mary said no more about it until the night of which we have spoken, and then she determined on making one more effort. But her heart almost failed her, when, on entering the kitchen, she saw how the chairs and Miss Grundy's shoulders danced round. She well knew that something was wrong, and attributing it to Alice's crying, she awaited in silence for the storm to burst.

"Rind," said Miss Grundy to the girl with crooked feet, who was was.h.i.+ng the milk-pail, "ain't there nary spare room in the dark pa.s.sage?"

"None but the wool room, as I know on," was Rind's sullen response.

"Well, wool room 'tis then,--for, as for my being kep' awake night after night, by a good for nothin' young one, that hain't no business here, any way, I shan't do it. So (speaking to Mary) you may just pick up your duds and move this very morning."

"Going to put 'em in with the wool?" asked Rind, suspending operations, and holding up the pail so that the water ran out of the spout.

"You shet up," said Miss Grundy, "and wait until you're invited to speak. Goodness alive, look at that slop! Tip up the pail, quick."

By this time Mary had found courage to say she thought Alice would be better if she could have her usual bath every morning. This only increased Miss Grundy's wrath, and she whirled round so swiftly, that her forehead came in contact with the sharp edge of the cellar door, which chanced to be open.

"Good," softly whispered Rind, while the shuffling motion of her club feet showed how pleased she was.

Mary, on the contrary, was really distressed, for she knew the b.u.mped head would be charged to her, and felt sure that she was further than ever from the attainment of her object. Still, after Miss Grundy's forehead was duly bathed in cold water, and bound up in a blue cotton handkerchief (the lady's favorite color), she again ventured to say, "Miss Grundy, if you will only let me wash Alice in my room, I'll promise she shan't disturb you again."

After a great deal of scolding and fretting about whims stuck-up notions, and paupers trying to be somebody, Miss Grundy, who really did not care a copper where Alice was washed, consented, and Mary ran joyfully up stairs with the bucket of clear, cold water, which was so soothing in its effects upon the feeble child, that in a short time she fell into a deep slumber. Mary gently laid her down, and then smoothing back the few silken curls which grew around her forehead, and kissing her white cheek, she returned to the kitchen, determined to please Miss Grundy that day, if possible.

But Miss Grundy was in the worst of humors, and the moment Mary appeared she called out, "Go straight back, and fetch that young one down here. n.o.body's a goin' to have you racin' up stairs every ten minutes to see whether or no she sleeps with her eyes open or shet.

She can stay here as well as not, and if she begins to stir, Patsy can jog the cradle."