Home as Found Part 34

"I rather think it is, Jenny; the French are very n.i.g.g.ardly, and give their poor carrots to live on, and so they have adopted the word, I suppose. You, Byansy-Alzumy-Ann, (Bianca-Alzuma-Ann!)"

"Marm!"

"Byansy-Alzumy-Ann! who taught you to call me marm! Is this the way you have learned your catechism? Say, ma', this instant."

"Ma'."

"Take your bonnet, my child, and run down to Mrs. Wheaton's, and ask her if any thing new has turned up about the Point, this morning; and, do you hear, Byansy-Alzumy-Ann Abbott--how the child starts away, as if she were sent on a matter of life and death!"

"Why, ma', I want to hear the news, too."

"Very likely, my dear, but, by stopping to get your errand, you may learn more than by being in such a hurry. Stop in at Mrs. Green's, and ask how the people liked the lecture of the strange parson, last evening--and ask her if she can lend me a watering-pot, Now, run, and be back as soon as possible. Never loiter when you carry news, child."

"No one has a right to stop the man, I believe, Miss Abbott," put in Jenny, very appositely.

"That, indeed, have they not, or else we could not calculate the consequences. You may remember, Jenny, the pious, even, had to give up that point, public convenience being; too strong for them. Roger- Demetrius-Benjamin!"--calling to a second boy, two years younger than his brother--"your eyes are better than mine--who are all those people collected together in the street. Is not Mr. Howel among them?"

"I do not know, ma'!" answered Roger-Demetrius-Benjamin, gaping.

"Then run, this minute, and see, and don't stop to look for your hat.

As you come back, step into the tailor's shop and ask if your new jacket is most done, and what the news is? I rather think, Jenny, we shall find out something worth hearing, in the course of the day. By the way, they do say that Grace Van Cortlandt, Eve Effingham's cousin, is under concern."

"Well, she is the last person I should think would be troubled about any thing, for every body says she is so desperate rich she might eat off of silver, if she liked; and she is sure of being married, some time or other."

"That ought to lighten her concern, you think. Oh! it does my heart good when I see any of those flaunty people right well exercised!

Nothing would make me happier than to see Eve Effingham groaning fairly in the spirit! That would teach her to take away the people's Points."

"But, Miss Abbott, then she would become almost as good a woman as you are yourself,"

"I am a miserable, graceless, awfully wicked sinner! Twenty times a day do I doubt whether I am actually converted or not. Sin has got such a hold of my very heart-strings, that I sometimes think they will crack before it lets go. Rinaldo-Rinaldini-Timothy, my child, do you toddle across the way, and give my compliments to Mrs. Hulbert, and inquire if it be true that young d.i.c.kson, the lawyer, is really engaged to Aspasia Tubbs or not? and borrow a skimmer, or a tin pot, or any thing you can carry, for we may want something of the sort in the course of the day. I do believe, Jenny, that a worse creature than myself is hardly to be found in Templeton."

"Why, Miss Abbott," returned Jenny, who had heard too much of this self-abas.e.m.e.nt to be much alarmed at it, "this is giving almost as bad an account of yourself, as I heard somebody, that I won't name, give of you last week."

"And who is your somebody, I should like to know? I dare say, one no better than a formalist, who thinks that reading prayers out of a book, kneeling, bowing, and changing gowns, is religion! Thank Heaven, I'm pretty indifferent to the opinions of such people.

Harkee, Jenny; if I thought I was no better than some persons I could name, I'd give the point of salvation up, in despair!"

"Miss Abbott," roared a rugged, dirty-faced, bare-footed boy, who entered without knocking, and stood in the middle of the room, with his hat on, with a suddenness that denoted great readiness in entering other people's possessions; "Miss Abbott, ma' wants to know if you are likely to go from home this week?"

"Why, what in nature can she want to know that for, Ordeal b.u.mgrum?"

Mrs. Abbott p.r.o.nounced this singular name, however, "Ordeel."

"Oh! she _warnts_ to know."

"So do I _warnt_ to know; and know I will. Run home this instant, and ask your mother why she has sent you here with this message. Jenny, I am much exercised to find out the reason Mrs. b.u.mgrum should have sent Ordeal over with such a question."

"I did hear that Miss b.u.mgrum intended to make a journey herself, and she may want your company."

"Here comes Ordeal back, and we shall soon be out of the clouds. What a boy that is for errands. He is worth all my sons put together. You never see him losing time by going round by the streets, but away he goes over the garden fences like a cat, or he will whip through a house, if standing in his way, as if he were its owner, should the door happen to be open. Well, Ordeal?"

But Ordeal was out of breath, and although Jenny shook him, as if to shake the news out of him, and Mrs. Abbott actually shook her fist, in her impatience to be enlightened, nothing could induce the child to speak, until he had recovered his wind.

"I believe he does it on purpose," said the provoked maid.

"It's just like him!" cried the mistress; "the very best news-carrier in the village is actually spoilt because he is thick-winded."

"I wish folks wouldn't make their fences so high," Ordeal exclaimed, the instant he found breath. "I can't see of what use it is to make a fence people can't climb!"

"What does your mother say?" cried Jenny repeating her shake, _con amore_.

"Ma, wants to know, Miss Abbott, if you don't intend to use it yourself, if you will lend her your name for a few days, to go to Utica with? She says folks don't treat her half as well when she is called b.u.mgrum, as when she has another name, and she thinks she'd like to try yours, this time."

"Is that all!--You needn't have been so hurried about such a trifle, Ordeal. Give my compliments to your mother, and tell her she is quite welcome to my name, and I hope it will be serviceable to her."

"She says she is willing to pay for the use of it, if you will tell her what the damage will be."

"Oh! it's not worth while to speak of such a trifle I dare say she will bring it back quite as good as when she took it away. I am no such unneighbourly or aristocratical person as to wish to keep my name all to myself. Tell your mother she is welcome to mine, and to keep it as long as she likes, and not to say any thing about pay; I may want to borrow hers, or something else, one of these days, though, to say the truth, my neighbours _are_ apt to complain of me as unfriendly and proud for not borrowing as much as a good neighbour ought."

Ordeal departed, leaving Mrs. Abbot in some such condition as that of the man who had no shadow. A rap at the door interrupted the further discussion of the old subject, and Mr. Steadfast Dodge appeared in answer to the permission to enter. Mr. Dodge and Mrs. Abbott were congenial spirits, in the way of news, he living by it, and she living on it.

"You are very welcome, Mr. Dodge," the mistress of the house commenced; "I hear you pa.s.sed the day, yesterday, up at the Effinghamses."

"Why, yes, Mrs. Abbott, the Effinghams insisted on it, and I could not well get over the sacrifice, after having been their s.h.i.+pmate so long. Besides it is a little relief to talk French, when one has been so long in the daily practice of it."

"I hear there is company at the house?"

"Two of our fellow-travellers, merely. An English baronet, and a young man of whom less is known than one could wish. He is a mysterious person, and I hate mystery, Mrs. Abbott."

"In that, then, Mr. Dodge, you and I are alike. I think every thing should be known. Indeed, that is not a free country in which there are any secrets. I keep nothing from my neighbours, and, to own the truth, I do not like my neighbours to keep any thing from me."

"Then you'll hardly like the Effinghams, for I never yet met with a more close-mouthed family. Although I was so long in the s.h.i.+p with Miss Eve, I never heard her once speak of her want of appet.i.te; of sea-sickness, or of any thing relating to her ailings even: no? can you imagine how close she is on the subject of the beaux; I do not think I ever heard her use the word, or so much as allude to any walk or ride she ever took with a single man. I set her down, Mrs. Abbott, as unqualifiedly artful!"

"That you may with certainty, sir, for there is no more sure sign that a young woman is all the while thinking of the beaux, than her never mentioning them."

"That I believe to be human nature; no ingenuous person ever thinks much of the particular subject of conversation. What is your opinion, Mrs. Abbott, of the contemplated match at the Wigwam?"

"Match!" exclaimed Mrs. Abbott.--"What, already! It is the most indecent thing I ever heard of! Why, Mr. Dodge, the family has not been home a fortnight, and to think so soon of getting married! It is quite as bad as a widower's marrying within the month."

Mrs. Abbott made a distinction, habitually, between the cases of widowers and widows, as the first, she maintained, might get married whenever they pleased, and the latter only when they got offers; and she felt just that sort of horror of a man's thinking of marrying too soon after the death of his wife, as might be expected in one who actually thought of a second husband before the first was dead.

"Why, yes," returned Steadfast, "it is a little premature, perhaps, though they have been long acquainted. Still, as you say, it would be more decent to wait and see what may turn up in a country, that, to them, may be said to be a foreign land."

"But, who are the parties, Mr. Dodge."

"Miss Eve Effingham, and Mr. John Effingham"

"Mr. John Effingham!" exclaimed the lady, who had lent her name to a neighbour, aghast, for this was knocking one of her own day-dreams in the head, "well this is too much! But he shall not marry her, sir; the law will prevent it, and we live in a country of laws. A man cannot marry his own niece."

"It is excessively improper, and ought to be put a stop to. And yet these Effinghams do very much as they please."