University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
THE BELLE OF RICE CORNER.

Yes, Rice Corner had a belle, but it was not I. Oh, no,
nobody ever mistook me for a belle, or much of anything
else, in fact; I was simply “Mary Jane,” or, if that was
not consise enough, “Crazy Jane,” set the matter all
right. The belle of which I speak was a bona fide one—
fine complexion, handsome features, beautiful eyes, curling
hair and all. And yet, in her composition there was
something wanting, something very essential, too; for
she lacked soul, and would at any time have sold her best
friend for a flattering compliment.

Still Carrie Howard was generally a favorite. The old
people liked her because her sparkling eye and merry
laugh brought back to them a gleam of youth; the young
people liked her, because to dislike her would seem like
envy; and I, who was nothing, liked her because she was
pretty, and I greatly admired beauty, though I am not
certain that I should not have liked a handsome rose-bud
quite as well as I did Carrie Howard's beautiful face, for
beautiful she was.

Her mother, good, plain Mrs. Howard, was entirely unlike
her daughter. She was simply “Mrs. Capt. Howard,”
or, in other words, “Aunt Eunice,” whose benevolent
smile and kindly beaming eye carried contentment
wherever she went. Really, I don't know how Rice Corner
could have existed one day without the presence of
Aunt Eunice. Was there a cut foot or hand in the neighborhood,
hers was the salve which healed it, almost as soon
as applied. Was there a pale, fretful baby, Aunt Eunice's
large bundle of catnip was sure to soothe it and did a sick

person need watchers, Aunt Eunice was the one who,
three nights out of the seven, trod softly and quietly
about the sick-room, anticipating each want before you
yourself knew what it was, and smoothing your tumbled
pillow so gently that you almost felt it a luxury to be
sick, for the sake of being nursed by Aunt Eunice. The
very dogs and cats winked more composedly when she
appeared; and even the chickens learned her voice almost
as soon as they did the cluck of their “maternal
ancestor.”

But we must stop, or we shall make Aunt Eunice
out to be the belle, instead of Carrie, who, instead of
imitating her mother in her acts of kindness, sat all day
in the large old parlor, thumping away on a rickety piano,
or trying to transfer to broadcloth a poor little kittie,
whose face was sufficiently indicative of surprise at finding
its limbs so frightfully distorted.

When Carrie was fifteen years of age, her father, concluding
that she knew all which could possibly be learned
in the little brown house, where Joe and Jim once fought
so fiercely, sent her for three years to Albany. It was
currently reported that the uncle with whom she boarded,
received his pay in butter, cheese, potatoes, apples, and
other commodities, which were the product of Capt.
Howard's farm. Whether this was true or not, I am
not prepared to say, but I suppose it was, for it was
told by those who had no ostensible business, except to
attend to other people's affairs, and I am sure they ought
to have known all about it, and probably did.

I cannot help thinking that Captain Howard made a
mistake in sending Carrie away; for when at the end of
three years she had “finished her education,” and returned
home, she was not half so good a scholar as some
of those who had pored patiently over their books in the

old brown house. Even I could beat her in spelling, for
soon after she came home the boys teased for a spelling-school.
I rather think they were quite as anxious for a
chance to go home with the girls as they were to have
their knowledge of Webster tested. Be that as it may,
Carrie was there, and was, of course, chosen first; but I,
“little crazy Jane,” spelled the whole school down! I
thought Carrie was not quite so handsome as she might
be, when with an angry frown she dropped into her seat,
hissed by a big, cross-eyed, red-haired boy, in the corner,
because she happened to spell pumpkin, “p-u-n pun k-i-n
kin, punkin.” I do not think she ever quite forgave me
for the pert, loud way in which I spelled the word correctly,
for she never gave me any more calicoes or silks,
and instead of calling me “Mollie,” as she had before
done, she now addressed me as “Miss Mary.”

Carrie possessed one accomplishment which the other
girls did not. She could play the piano most skillfully,
although as yet she had no instrument. Three weeks,
however, after her return, a rich man, who lived in the
village which was known as “Over the River,” failed, and
all his furniture was sold at auction. Many were the surmises
of my grandmother, on the morning of the sale, as
to what “Cap'n Howard could be going to buy at the
vandue and put in the big lumber wagon,” which he
drove past our house.

As the day drew to a close, I was posted at the window
to telegraph as soon as “Cap'n Howard's” white horses
appeared over the hill. They came at last, but the long
box in his wagon told no secret. Father, however, explained
all, by saying that he had bid off Mr. Talbott's
old piano for seventy dollars! Grandma shook her head
mournfully at the degeneracy of the age, while sister
Anna spoke sneeringly of Mr. Talbott's cracked piano.

Next day, arrayed in my Sunday red merino and white
apron—a present from some cousin out west—I went to
see Carrie; and truly, the music she drew from that old
piano charmed me more than the finest performances since
have done. Carrie and her piano were now the theme of
every tongue, and many wondered how Captain Howard
could afford to pay for three years' music lessons; but this
was a mystery yet to be solved.