University of Virginia Library

A RAINY DAY.

A slow and continuous rain had been falling all night and all
day. Toward evening, the western clouds took a yellow tinge
that showed where the sun was; but no beams struggled
through. Dense and gray, in all the valleys, lay the mist, and
it hung about the hills in detached patches, thinner and whiter,
and among the trees crept lazily from bough to bough. Now
and then a bird came from its covert of leaves, or other shelter,
and perching on the topmost fence rail, fluttered its wings and
pecked the loose feathers from its breast, and twittered feebly;
but the rain still drizzling on, ruffled its plumage presently, and
flying away discouraged, it grew still. The chickens, in little
groups, huddled under the low-spreading cherry trees, or beneath
the currant bushes, and with the spray glistening on their
breasts, red and speckled and brown, stood with closed eyes,
waiting for the night.

The autumn, unusually mild, was wearing to its close. There
had been no sharp frosts to blacken the flower-stalks, and they
stood about the garden with some dying and dead blossoms
clinging to them yet, withering away like mummies. The
gorgeous foliage, the chiefest glory of our western autumns,
was this year fading and falling with none of its accustomed
beauty, and the dark belt of forest, topped with the clouds,
which half encloses the vicinity of Clovernook, looked dreary
and sombre enough. Since the event described in our last
chapter, years have come and gone; all over all the neighborhood
cottages and villas have thickened, and the undulating
meadows, till the horizon, dropping on their bosoms, cuts off
the view, are full of heavy-fleeced sheep, broad-shouldered oxen,

and deep-uddered kine, and the land is ridged with furrows,
and plenteous in milk and wool.

A half-dozen spires may now be seen from the house where
Ellie was born, and where, within her memory, there was but
one; and wealth and population have increased in the same
degree; but the old homestead, where passed her childish
years, with its hard experiences, is among the things that were.
Thistles bloom among the hearthstones—the earth almost covers
the beams where the porch used to be—the porch, where the
blue morning-glories bloomed in summer, curtaining out the
sunshine, and about which red hollihocks flaunted, and yellow
sunflowers leaned down to the west. Where the garden was,
a few apple and cherry trees remain, unpruned and neglected.
The sweetbrier that clambered against the wall and even up
to the eaves, with its notched leaves and pale and delicate roses,
making all the house fragrant, is broken and matted together,
half living and half dead. On the summit of the slope near
by, stands a new dwelling, not fine nor stately, but decent and
substantial, where the remnant of the Hadlys have their home—
the remnant, for of the circle once so wide some are wanderers,
some have left the world. Rebecca, young and beautiful,
half a woman, half a child, sighed not nor looked earthward
when the still angel saluted her, “where the brook and
river meet,” and straightening with icy hands the rippled length
of her dark tresses, took the flowers out, and bound them under
the napkin. And Lucy—the gentle and loving Lucy—did not
linger long. She never lived to know how full of sorrow the
world is. When her ninth summer came round, her dark deep
eyes lost their sunshine, and day by day she drooped, as if the
dust were settling heavier and heavier in her golden hair, until
the silent messenger took her in his arms. The spring rains
fell, broadening and deepening the young blades of the wheat,
and filling the green velvety troughs that lay along the meadows
with soft warm floods; but with the lambs the gentle
child came thither no more.

A little girl had once come from the city to see her who wore
a white dress. Lucy was not a child of poverty, but she was a
rustic, and her garments of a simple and homely fashion; and to

have one of white, that should look like that of the wealthy
little visitor, was among her chief desires. Sometimes she
ventured to give this wish expression, but was chilled into
silence by the admonition that she “had better wish to be a
better girl.” When the white dress was put on, and fitted
under her golden curls, and drawn down over her feet, she
knew it not nor smiled that it was gained.

From all her cares and toils the mother has gone, too: the
grass is growing high and warm about her headstone. She was
a good woman—more severe in family discipline, perhaps, than
was necessary, but rigid in the performance of what she deemed
her duty, busy early and late, not for herself, but her children,
and when the circle was narrowed of two, her heart was broken,
her occupation was gone, and the restless fever of unsatisfied
longing consumed her life—fever that would not be abated 'till
the seraphs folded their white wings about her forehead, and
cooled its burning.

Others have grown up into manhood and womanhood, and
gone forth to create new interests and make new homes, and in
the new house Ellie is now the oldest child. She is no longer
young, though in the sober prime of womanhood. Young
sisters have sprung up into girlhood, dear, very dear to her,
but scarcely filling the places of those who are in the grave.
The weight of early care has fallen on her, and a temperament
naturally melancholy has become habitually sad, and discontented,
and embittered. Her father is a good man, a kind man,
but all his habits and thoughts and ideas reflect a past generation.
No innovation, however much for the better, disturbs
the tenor of his way, but the farming is done, and the dinner is
eaten, and the dress is worn, all in the old-fashioned style.
Ellie's gowns must be made as her mother's were, and last
as long. Times have changed, but he sees not that the frugal
habits of the pioneer past are unsuited to the opulent present.

The old slender furniture looked badly in the new house, and
the naked floors required stouter hands than Ellie's to keep
them white. But the idea of carpets or of new chairs was preposterous.
Neither was it admissable that any of the household
labor, even its drudgery, should be performed by a servant.

There was nothing to do, Mr. Hadly said, since spinning
and weaving were done away with. Ellie had had but
small educational advantages—less even than her younger
sisters; but her intellectual endowments were naturally superior.
She had read what chance and opportunity afforded, and
had thought a great deal; yet, at twenty-five, she had only the
reputation of being a smart sort of country girl. She was
modest, diffident even, and had passed her life in the greatest
retirement, for the wealthy and fashionable society of the
neighborhood found no attractions in her, nor had she ever made
any overtures for its recognition. The consciousness of being
entitled to a more elevated position, induced some discontent
at the circumstances by which she was ruled, and at last embittered
her naturally amiable temper.

But let me return to the autumn and the rain.

Before the hearth of an old-fashioned and simply-furnished
room—the broad hearth upon which the logs were blazing—
two persons are seated. The elder is Ellie, with smooth brown
hair, parted plainly over a Grecian forehead, shadowed with
sorrow and care, but unwrinkled yet, and wearing a simple
dress of chintz. She is sewing on a child's garment, and listening
to “Marmion,” from which Zoe, who sits near her, is
reading. Zoe is pretty, prettier than her sister, and almost ten
years younger. They are brunettes. Ellie is the taller and
more graceful, Zoe the more round and ruby-complexioned,
her face having the tint of newly-winnowed wheat over which
falls the crimson sunset. Her hair in black heavy curls clusters
over her shoulders, and her eyes, blacker still, sparkle with
laughing light. In her dress there is more style than in that of
her sister, and on her forehead there is no care, and her hands
are occupied with no task.

“Beautiful! isn't it beautiful?” exclaimed Zoe, putting down
the volume and turning to Ellie. “How I should like to read
the novels, also!” and rising and going to the window she said,
“If it were not raining, I should be tempted to go and borrow
them: they would help us wile away the long evenings
that are coming, and I am so tired of the old books we have!

But we can't step out of doors for two or three days. Just see
how it's raining!”

“Perhaps the clouds may break away,” said Ellie, who
always spoke more hopefully than she felt: “it looks bright
about the sunset; but if it were not raining I think you would
scarcely venture out;” and a little less genially she added, “I
don't know any one I should want to ask to lend me books.”
Zoe had opened the door, and looking forth earnestly into the
rain, said nothing, and Ellie continued, “Do you, Zoe?”

“No, none whom I think of,” said the young girl, her first
ardent impulse checked and chilled.

Briskly down the hill comes a one-horse chaise, the ringing
hoofs of the gay animal strike sharply on the newly-washed
stone surface of the road, his breath curls whitening away from
his nostrils, and his slim silky ears are bent forward, for he is
nearing home; but the curtains are drawn closely down, so that
the solitary inmate rides drily and comfortably. Ellie, who is
sitting by the fire, busy with her thoughts and her sewing, hears
not the rattling of the wheels, nor sees the smile that from under
the curtains accompanies the familiar salutation, nor does she
hear the voice saying, “Don't you envy me?” but she sees the
kindled light in Zoe's face, and hears her light laughter as she
answers, “Most certainly.”

“Certainly what?” asks Ellie, dropping her work and looking
up. “How chilly it is,” says Zoe, closing the door; and coming
forward she resumes her old seat, and explains that she was
speaking to Mr. Harmstead, who was, as she supposes, just
returning home from the city to his country seat, which, as the
reader remembers, joined Mr. Hadly's farm. “What a pleasant,
agreeable person he is,” continued Zoe, half to herself
and half to Ellie; “my chilled resolve is strengthened again—I
will ask him for those books yet, one of these days.”

“Humph!” said Ellie, looking musingly and sadly into the
fire, and adding, after a moment, “I suppose he is to those
whom he condescends to honor with his society.”

“He can't honor us very well if we won't receive his
civilities.”

“I have never had occasion to slight the civilities either of

him or any one else,” answered Ellie, half sadly, half bitterly,
and her sewing falling in her lap, she sat gazing abstractedly
into the fire.

Zoe tried a more cheerful vein for some time; now of household
matters, now of what the neighbors were doing, and now
of the new dress she proposed for herself. “I want it very
gay,” she said, “with a ground of either orange or red, spotted
with black;” and smiling, self-satisfied, she looked at Ellie for
some sanction of her taste.

Ellie smiled too, but such a smile! I cannot describe it;
it was scorn, pity, and commiseration, all combined; but she
remained provokingly silent.

“What do you look that way for?” asked Zoe, in childish
and pouting anger.

“Don't I look to please you? I can't help it, Zoe, that I am
not fair to look on; for myself, I have become nearly reconciled
to my plainness, but I cannot expect you, who are so much
younger and prettier, to consider me with equal indulgence for
my defects—you must look the other way, my dear;” and she
patted the cheek of her sister playfully, and smiled again; this
time graciously as it were, and as though Zoe had actually regarded
her in the light she had herself assumed, and as though
she could afford to be regarded so.

Zoe did look the other way, and covering her face with her
brown hands, tears silently forced a way through them; and
so, as the fire began to make the light in the room uncertain,
ghostly—for the patch of yellow western clouds had gone into
blackness—the sisters sat before it, moody and uncomfortable.

Night fell gloomily enough; the wind, which had gone sobbing
across hills and among the leaves that filled the woods
with sodden masses and long faded furrows, only now and then
through the day, veered about at sunset, and from the chill
northeast swept in heavy and frequent gusts, rattling the windows
of the parlor, and occasionally blowing the red flames
down close against the blue hearth.

The crickets crept out from their snug, warm crevices, and
from the ends of the blazing logs and the empty corners of the
great fireplace sung in answer to the storm, the storm that fell

now in impetuous and drenching floods, and now pattered lightly
against the pane, as the half moon, breaking away the clouds,
pressed earthward her pale melancholy face, for presently the
black squadrons marshalled and beat her back to the dark, and
the rain descended again as though its fountains were all broken
up. It was a lonesome, desolate night.

However dreary and dismal a long autumn rain may be in its
effect on the heart, it is soothing and softening, especially
during the night-time, and Zoe, who was petulant, but not really
ill-tempered, began to feel sorrowful rather than angry. Putting
the embers together, and drawing nearer to Ellie, she said,
as though she had not been weeping, as though there were nothing
to be vexed about, “Now, if we only had that book!”

“Yes, if we had it,” said Ellie; and the sisters relapsed into
silence—haply listening to the creaking of the elm-bough against
the wall, haply to the whine of the spotted watch dog that
crouched close against the doorsill and would not be driven
thence by the storm.

“Such nights make me sad,” Zoe said, breaking the silence,
“I think more of the times when I was a child, and there were
so many of us to gather about the fire at night, and our merriment
would not let us hear the storm. How desolate it is in
the graveyard to night. I am half afraid to think of it—the
cold wet leaves dropping on the still mounds, and the long
white grass beaten away from the headstones. Oh, Ellie, I wish
we did not have to die; we might be so happy here!”

“You will not think so when you are as old as I am,” answered
Ellie, smiling sadly, “they who are gone are done with
care and suffering, and will not have to die any more. I think
they are rather to be envied. What is this night of storms to
them? And you, who are living, you who have youth and
health and hope, are made mournful by it.”

“If we had some stirring tale or poem, and I could read
aloud, we should not hear the storm nor be lonely any more,”
and rising and going to the table, she rummaged through the
meagre and ill-selected books, though she was well aware of
the names and qualities of them all; and turning, empty-handed,
away, she resumed her seat with a sigh, saying, “If

ever this rain is over, I will call and ask Mr. Harmstead to lend
me something to read, for charity's sake, if for nothing else.”

A low growl of the watch dog arrested the conversation, and
it was followed by a heavy stamping on the broad flagstones
before the kitchen door, and a loud rap.

Zoe, who ran, half in hope that something was about to occur
which would relieve this ennui, and half in fear that some dread
accident had befallen a traveller, perhaps a near friend, returned
in a moment, her face aglow with pleasure, and bearing in one
hand a neat parcel and a small note, the edges of which glittered
as she turned it to the blaze to read the address—saying,
as she did so, “You see fortune favors me; I believe even
hoping for the best has influence to bring it; Mr. Harmstead
has anticipated my wishes, I think, for it was his black boy,
Cæsar, who brought the package, which seems to be books, and
this note”—and lighting the lamp, she threw the note into
Ellie's lap to read, adding, gaily, “I can't read any thing but a
schoolmaster's hand, you know.”

Unfolding the paper, Ellie read:

“What induces this affability in the gentleman of Willow
Dale?” said Ellie, refolding the note. Willow Dale was the
name of Mr. Harmstead's farm.

“I suppose he is willing to recognise us as human beings,”
replied Zoe, “and for myself, I don't see that he is our superior
in any way. It is not in our stars, Ellie, but in ourselves,
that we are such very humble persons, and there is no need at
all that we should live in this isolation but for your foolish humility
and diffidence. What if Mr. Harmstead's parlor has a
bright carpet on the floor and yours has not; what if Mr.
Harmstead has five hundred books and you have only five;

and what if he dines with silver plate and you without; must
you therefore insist that you are of a lower range in intellect,
in feeling, in all that makes a real distinction in society?”

“You talk eloquently,” Ellie said, “but before carrying your
ideas into practice, I have a little story to tell;” and so, having
trimmed the lamp and stirred the coals, Ellie laid aside the
new volumes and the note, and saying by way of preface that
what was in her mind was yet no “story,” she proceeded to
relate what is contained in the next chapter.