University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
MEMMY AND BEBBY.

Yes, Richard loved these children; and loved to be with
them, and to amuse them, and to be amused by them.
After his nap, — for he had had no sleep since the night
before, and many things had happened, in the mean time, to
excite and tire him, — after his nap, he came down into the
kitchen, and sat by the stove. The children began their
pranks, — they could not let them alone. Their mother was
preparing for baking, and she could neither bear their pranks
nor their presence; so she sent them into the middle of the
room. They could not stop at that, but went clear over to
Uncle Richard's knee, and rebounding thence, they fetched
up with the other side of the room. They seemed to move
together as we imagine the Siamese twins to have done,
when they were children; having one will and one centre
of gravitation, like boys in a boat, or leaves in a whirlwind.
Then, again, it was evident they had separate wills, and
sometimes a sharp individuality of will would show itself.
Memmy was the oldest, and the strongest, and we should
expect her to lead off. So she did; but not always.
Bebby's little individuality was mighty strong when it got
roused, and it made up in storming what it lacked in solid
weight. It was like a cat frightening a great dog by demonstration,
— sheer demonstration. But Memmy generally
went ahead; and Bebby wanted to do what Memmy did.
They climbed to the window, and entertained themselves
with the frost that glittered on the glass. Memmy printed
her hand in it; holding it there till palm, thumb and fingers,

melted their image into the glass; and Bebby did the same.
It was cold work, and Bebby's fingers were red; but she was
persevering; and when Memmy called to Uncle Richard to
look at what she had done, Bebby did so too. Not that
Bebby could speak a word; but she had a finger that was
full of the energy of utterance; and she had a scream, too,
that needed no interpretation, and her lips quivered eloquence.
And then, — as if she possessed neither finger, nor
throat, nor lips, — there was her eye; that told everything.
Poor piece of dumbness! she had a superfluity of organs;
and her eye alone would have made way for her through
the world, sans everything else.

Memmy laid down to it, as we say, and applied her face
to the window, and she produced chin, lips, nose, eye-brows
thereon; and turning to Uncle Richard, to show him what
she had done, there glared, from the great ice-mountains
which the frost creates on windows, this hideous ice-mask;
and did n't Uncle pretend to be frightened? and did n't
Memmy laugh? But Bebby got up something as good, and
more humorous; for she laughed, herself, while she was
making it; and then her mouth was so pinched with the
cold, she could hardly laugh, and tears streamed down
through what she did laugh.

Memmy then took a slate-pencil, and Uncle had to fit
Bebby a sharp stick, and they set to work, scratching figures
in the frost. Memmy effected rude houses, and ruder rings
for heads, and triangular skirts, and points for feet, and
called the whole boys and girls. Bebby scratched at random,
straight lines, and cross lines; but it was all the same to
her, and she meant it to be all the same to everybody else;
and she, in her way, called it boys and girls and houses,
and her eyes sparkled, her lungs exploded, her frame
vibrated all over, when she told it.

But we must come back of what we have written, a little;
we are overstating the case. We say Bebby could not
talk; people generally said so, and we incidentally fell into
the common error. But it would not do to say this before
Memmy; she would be instantly upon you. “Bebby can
talk; she can say `Ma, Ma,' and `No, No,' and `dum,
dum,' and `bye, bye,' and `there!' She has got teeth,
now!” It was an old idea of Memmy's that Bebby could
not talk because she had no teeth; she said the gums covered
her teeth all up, and the words, too. But the teeth
came, — at least, two or three of them got out of their
entanglement, — and then she could talk; and she did talk.
So declared Memmy; and when the Mother of the Child
and the Father spoke of its defect and backwardness in
this respect, Memmy always came forward with a stout
demurrer.

We say this, that the children may have full justice;
and we say it for Richard's sake, who took Memmy's side
in the controversy, and always defended the ground that
Bebby could talk.

Uncle Richard was reading a newspaper, but — the selfish
imps! — they would not tolerate that; they would have no
interference with their rights; they were news enough for
him; accident and incident; hair-breadth escapes; wonderful
discoveries; they were foreign news and domestic
news; they had their poet's corner, and their page of
romance. And they had some original thoughts on perpetual
motion and the quadrature of the circle, and were
crowded with pictorial advertisements of as many strange
things as Barnum has in his Museum.

Bebby was more blond, and soft, and supple, than Memmy,
or than Memmy ever had been. Memmy's hair was darker,
and lay smooth on her head; but Bebby's was all in a toss,

and always in a toss; it was not curly, but flocculent, and
had a pearly lustre, and it hung on her like the fringe of
the smoke-tree, and looked like a ferment of snow, a little
cloud of snow-dust flying about the room.

Memmy pulled off her shoes and stockings, — this was not
allowed, but mother's back was turned, and Uncle looked on
so smilingly, — and Bebby's were off in a trice; and they
went pattering and tripping barefoot. Memmy got into the
bed-room, and hid, and cooped; and Bebby found her; and
there were great bursts of astonishment and pleasure. Then
Bebby undertook to do the same; but she cooped before she
got to her hiding-place, and then she frisked round trying to
find herself, and this made them still more obstreperous.

Mother went out of the room a moment, leaving a bowl
of Indian meal on the table. No sooner did Memmy spy
this, and see the coast clear, than she pushed a chair alongside
the table, and fell to dabbling in the meal. Bebby
must follow suit; she shoved a chair all the way across
the room, and they both stood on the margin of the meal-bowl.
This was rare sport; it was something new for
Bebby, — she never had got so far before, — she had never
thrust her hands into meal. Memmy had, — Memmy was
used to it. But Bebby, she was awed, and she was enraptured;
she was on Pisgah's top, and Canaan lay fairly before
her, — only she was a little afraid of Jordan. Why
should she crow so? Why should she be so all in a tremble?
What did she want of the meal? But into it she
dove both arms, to the elbows; she lifted it with her
hand, she crumpled it in her fist, she sifted it through her
fingers; she made piles of it, and scattered them. Then
she looked at her fingers, and on her dress, and on the
table; and when she saw the meal spilled everywhere, she
seemed half frightened. Had n't she a conscience, and

was n't some fiery young Nemesis scourging her inside?—
Did she love the feeling of the soft powder? had she a passion
for dust? would she wallow in the mire, if she had a
chance? Inexplicable little meal-stirrer! Memmy sprinkled
some on Bebby's head, and Bebby tried to reciprocate the
favor. Mother came back. “Richard,” she screamed,
“how could you let them do so?” Richard had done nothing
about the matter, except to look on. “Was n't that
enough?” said she; “could n't you see it? did n't you see
it?” Seizing Bebby by the shoulders, she held the child
square round, for Richard to look at. “Her tire,” she continued,
“was span-clean this morning; her hair is full of it!
O, I shall go off the handle! Have you no heart, brother?
Could n't you feel, as well as see?” “It is nothing very
bad, I hope,” said Richard. “All covered with this dirty
meal!” exclaimed Roxy. “Your meal is not dirty, is it,
sister?” “Don't joke, brother! It is a serious case; the
children are forming very bad habits!”

“Habits of what?” asked Richard.

“Habits of getting into things,” she replied.

“That is not a bad habit, — is it?”

“Habits of getting dirty. And I always said, if ever I
had a child, it should be kept clean. If there is anything
in the world most disagreeable, it is a dirty child.”

“The children are not disagreeable to me,” said Richard.

“They are not to me,” rejoined his sister; “but they are
to other people.”

“It seems to me,” added Richard, “I would not trouble
myself much about other people, if I was satisfied myself.
`Other people' are numerous; and if the little ones are to be
adjusted to their caprice, I fear they will have a hard time
of it in life, and will wonder what they were born for. Besides,

`other people' are a good ways off, and have really
small concern in Memmy and Bebby.”

“We do not know how far off they are, any more than
we do death; and we ought always to be prepared, as Elder
Jabson says. If Mrs. Mellow should call, — oh Richard! —
Wash your face, Memmy! — I am expecting callers to-day.
I want you to kindle a fire in the air-tight in the parlor.”

Richard went on this errand, and the children followed
him. But their mother drew them back, saying, “You
shall not go into the parlor! I have often told you not to go
into the parlor. I always said, if ever I had a child, it
should not go into the parlor. I will have one place in the
house fit to be in!”

The room, into which Richard had not been before,
acquired all at once a singular consequence to his eye. He
looked carefully around it; he walked softly over it, as if
some rare mystery lurked in the midst of it. It was the
largest room in the house, and apparently the most open
and pleasant. It had windows enough, at least, to favor the
notion of light and freedom; four of them, that must command
fine views, — views, when the curtains were up, and
the ice and snow were gone. In the mean while, as a substitute
for these out-of-door objects, the curtains afforded
certain attempts at scenery, — a yellow castle, a whittling of
a stream of water; and on the west side, right in face of the
sunset, was a picture of the sun setting in a botch of green
paint. The room was well furnished with sofa, carpet,
looking-glass, cane-bottomed chairs; a mahogany card-table
stood under the looking-glass, containing books, a card-basket,
a small solar lamp, and several daguerreotypes. The
mantel-piece was decorated with plated candlesticks, a bluetinted
cologne-bottle, a bouquet of wax flowers, and a stromb
shell.

Richard inspected the contents of the table. He found
the books were gifts, gilded and embossed, — most of them
old ones, and such as his sister received before her marriage.
There were also little books, Christmas presents of the
father to the children. On the sofa lay a cloak and shawl,
and a leghorn bonnet, trimmed with green, and lined with
flowers.

“Well,” thought Richard, “nothing very terrible in this.”
Now, our friend was naturally of a serious turn of mind;
but somehow, at this time, lighter feelings came over him,
and he might have gone as far as a certain Methodist young
man did, who was obliged to confess to his class-leader the
sin of perpetrating a joke. At least, he went so far as to
pretend to joke — pretend to see the ludicrous side of things.
“What can there be in the parlor to render it so frightful?
Will the chairs fall to pieces?” He shook a couple of
them. “Are there trap-doors in the floor, to let the children
through?” He tried two or three places, springing down
with his whole weight on his heels. “Perhaps the harem-scarems
will have the walls down on their heads!” He
sounded different parts with his fist. “Would the curtain-pictures
terrify them? That is possible, but it were easy
to roll up the curtains, and there would be a fine view from
the windows. Yes,” he continued, “this must be very fine,
in summer. What a lake the dam makes! it would hold
a thousand like father's. The houses and gardens, trees
and mountains, beyond, must be very fine.” The world
without sobered him, and so occupied him he did not perceive
the entrance of the children. Somehow they had got
into the room, and Memmy was running to show her Christmas
present, and Bebby had climbed the sofa, and got her
mother's bonnet on backside before, and her gloves palm
side up, and was trying to wrap herself in the cloak.

Richard's humor had not so far evaporated but he enjoyed
the sight of Bebby, and particularly when she thrust her
hands through the cloak, with the thumbs on the off-side,
and the fingers looking as if they would be glad to accommodate
the little usurper, but had laughed themselves to
death in the attempt, and had no strength left. But this
was recreation at too great cost; too great for the mother,
who bolted into the room, and soon had her ambitious child
deplumed, and restored to its proper simplicity.

“It troubles you, Roxy,” said Richard.

“It does,” she answered; “and I think you and Asa are
not considerate, — not considerate of what we women endure.
You act as if we had n't any feelings!”

“You mean, the children act so.”

“The children would not act so if they were only rightly
governed; and there can be no government when the men
do not take hold and help the women. — Get down from the
sofa, Memmy! I have given you positive orders never to
get on there.”

“What is the sofa made for?” asked Richard.

“Not for children to dirty and wear out with their feet.
We shall have nothing fit for company long, at this rate.
— Put up that book!”

“It is my present,” replied the child; “papa gave it to
me.”

“It is yours to keep, not to be torn up,” answered the
mother.

Richard began to think there was some fact in what he
had regarded as fiction, and that there was danger to the
children in the parlor. They touched the card-table, and
their hands were snatched off; they climbed into the chairs,
and were hastily taken down; they approached the walls,
and were warned away; and presently, as if the floor itself

might prove treacherous, and let them incontinently into the
cellar, they were driven from the room.

The street-bell rang, and Richard was desired to go to
the door. He found there two ladies, one of whom surprised
him a little in the person of Miss Plumy Alicia
Eyre. They were shown to the parlor, where his sister
introduced them. The one whom he had never seen was
Mrs. Cyphers. Miss Eyre had on a small white silk bonnet,
with pink linings, and richly ribboned in the same
color; a swan's-down victorine floated on her neck; her
hands were quietly hidden in an African lynx muff. Mrs.
Cyphers wore a straw bonnet, with plaid trimmings; a
drab-colored sack, heavily fringed; and she was further
insured against the weather by a genet muff and tippet.

What did these ladies want? To make a call; to discharge
a ceremony; to demonstrate their friendly feeling;
to talk about the weather, and say how cold the morning
had been, but that it was growing warmer?

Miss Eyre inquired for the children, observing, at the
same time, that Mrs. Munk had two of the handsomest
children in town.

Now, Mrs. Munk began to be in her element; now she
would triumph; now she would show Richard the advantage
of keeping children neat. Uncle went for the darlings.
Alas for the uncertainty of human expectations,
and the probability that one will not conquer just when he
thinks he is going to! The children had been to the wet
sink, — then they had got the ash-hole door open, and poked
out the ashes, and nibbled at the coals. But Uncle Richard,
— hard-hearted man! — brought them in just as they
were! What consternation! His sister would have gone
into hysterics; but Miss Eyre and Mrs. Cyphers said the
children were beautiful, — would take them into their laps,

and would kiss them, and all that; and Uncle Richard
would not take them away; nay, he seemed determined
that Memmy should go into Miss Eyre's lap, and Bebby
into Mrs. Cyphers'.

This scene was soon ended, and the children dismissed;
and both Miss Eyre and Mrs. Cyphers seemed more lively
than ever, after it. Both were delighted with the children;
and to such an extent did they carry their good feelings,
that even Mrs. Munk was willing to drop the subject from
her mind; and she soon recovered from her humiliation.

“Little things,” said Miss Eyre.

“Not worth minding,” added Mrs. Cyphers.

“They are not little things,” rejoined Richard; “and I
do mind them.”

“You are joking, Mr. Edney,” said Plumy Alicia, who
sat next to Richard, on the sofa, and turned her face towards
him engagingly.

“He dotes on the children,” observed his sister, who began
to think they would account her brother a dunce; “and
he has some strange notions about them.”

“I thought our young men were not capable of serious
emotion,” said Plumy Alicia, — “that they had no deep feeling.”
The swan's-down victorine, falling from her shoulders
and touching his hand, was very soft. There was
tenderness in her words, that touched him too. Was he
prepared to meet those fascinations, of which he had obscurely
heard? Why did he look so at her? Would he
fathom the nature of that power which had, like some invisible
engine, shaken the Mill? Was he so ignorant of himself
as to suppose he could handle that fire and not be
burned? But Miss Eyre was engaged to Clover, and he
would only look at her as a strange, singular being, who
was soon to be married to an equally mysterious man.

Was she ignorant of the power she was capable of exerting?
Was she insensible of the precise moment when it
took effect? We should answer both these questions in the
negative.

Miss Eyre was one who in certain circles would be reputed
somewhat coarse, — somewhat unlettered. She certainly
had not that refinement which a more thorough study, and
training in some other form of society, ordinarily impart.
Yet Richard was not in a state to discriminate on these
points; or, rather, so far as he was curious at all, he attended
not so much the manner as the hidden force and character
of the lady.

It had been rumored that Captain Creamer was a rejected
suitor of Miss Eyre's; indeed, so much as this had been intimated
in Richard's hearing at the Mill, — a circumstance
that shed fresh interest on what sat near him.

But what were these things to Richard? Nothing,
nothing at all; and he would probably have never thought
of them except, — what we foreboded, — except for the
swan's-down victorine, and that piercing, flattering eye.

“Did I not see you in the crowd at Whichcomb's, this
morning?” she asked. Richard answered that he was there.
“They said you were there in the night,” she continued;
“but I could not believe it.” He replied that the Captain
obliged him to keep guard over the old man. “You had
pleasant prisoners,” she said. “They are sadly in trouble,”
replied Richard. “Sad to be arraigned as common thieves,”
was the answer.

Richard dropped the victorine as if it had been a cold toad,
and walked towards the stove. “Would you bring that
against them?” he asked.

“Not that alone, — not that, without other things,” replied
Miss Eyre. “I know what poverty is; I am not ashamed

to say I have been poor; my only boast is, that I have risen
above difficulties.”

Richard was again touched, but he did not resume his
seat on the sofa.

“They are poor,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied, “but that is not all.”

“Proud, perhaps you would add?”

“I am proud; I would not give much for a person that
has no pride.”

“What do you mean?” pursued Richard.

“I mean,” she answered, “that they have felt above their
work, — that they would rather do anything than work.”

“You do not mean that they are vicious?”

“I do not mean to say that. They came here poor, and
they have continued poor. But they could not find society
good enough in the Factories, nor in the weave-room, nor
in the superintendent's house; and they were but spoolers.
Now, Mrs. Cyphers was the wife of a superintendent; and
in alluding to a house of that name, Miss Eyre played off
the glossy end of her victorine on the person of that lady,
as much as to say, “You see what a woman they rejected.
It seemed,” continued she, “as if nothing short of Dr.
Chassford's, or Judge Burp's, or the Governor's, would satisfy
them.”

“I do not know these people,” replied Richard, “nor do I
appreciate the distinctions to which you refer.”

“You will know,” replied Miss Eyre. “You have not
been in the city long. They attended Dr. Broadwell's
Church, as if they were as good as the people that go there.”

“Is not the Church one?” asked Richard. “Are not all
the Churches equal?”

“Mr. Edney surely cannot be so ignorant,” rejoined the
lady, with a smile. “The Church is not one; it is far

from being one. It is a good many. Some of the Churches
are aristocratic, while others keep on the level of common
people.”

“Is not Dr. Broadwell a good man?”

“He may be, for all that I know.”

“Are not his people good people?”

“That is nothing to the point. They are haughty, fashionable,
high-stomached.”

“There may have been other reasons why these girls
liked to attend there.”

“I dare say there are; I dare say Junia could give you
fifty reasons. She has a tongue of her own!”

“She did say no clergyman had been to see them.”

“Nothing more likely,” interposed Mrs. Cyphers. “They
boarded a while at Swindler's; then they went to Cain's,
and finally they got up to Whichcomb's; and no mortal
could tell where they would come out, they rose so fast.”

“Whichcomb's is higher than Swindler's?” observed
Richard.

“Half a dollar a week higher,” replied Mrs. Cyphers.
“Pies for breakfast higher, — an extra course of a Sunday
higher; to say nothing of Mrs. Whichcomb's jellies and
cream. I boarded at Whichcomb's, I would have you to
know, until our marriage.”

“There would seem to be aristocracy among the boarding-houses,”
said Richard.

“Who would not try to keep above the mean, ignorant,
stupid Swindler's?” asked Mrs. Cyphers. “And there is a
difference, Sir, there is a difference between the weave-room
and the warping-room, — between a dresser and a grinder;
and, though I say it that should n't say it, between a superintendent's
wife and the watchman's wife.”

“All have the liberty to rise that wish to?” said Richard.

“All that deserve to!” replied Miss Eyre, casting a
searching, but rather equivocal, glance at Richard.

But Richard did not notice it; he was thinking of the
Orphans. “Violet is very sick.” The ladies assented.
“She needs attentions.”

“If Junia does not engross them all,” added Miss Eyre.
She added this in a way that she meant to be playful; but
Richard took it quite seriously.

“You are unjust to them,” said Richard; — he said this
sternly.

“We would not be,” replied Miss Eyre, deprecatingly.
Richard added nothing.

“We have other calls in hand,” said Miss Eyre, “and
must bid you good-morning.”

They left the house; Miss Eyre went out with that
calmness which dignified sorrow can so well assume. But
Richard was not moved.

Having discovered where the Orphans were wont to worship,
he would go and see the minister of the church. He
found the reverend gentleman at home. Doctor Broadwell
was of mature years, — indeed, a little past the meridian of
life. But time, that crowned him with virtues and honors,
had raised the summit so high, — if the little piece of fancy
will be tolerated, — the top of it was covered with snow.
He was gray. The lines on his forehead were marks of
strength not less than of age; they indicated rather the
vigor of thought than the corrosions of decay; like the
furrows of the sea, which are large and deep only because
the sea is large and deep. His face shone with benevolence,
that cheered and vivified whatever object it alighted upon,
and invited to its beams all sorrow, want and desolateness.
The Doctor replied to Richard that two girls, with an old
man, had been seen at his church, and partaken of his communion;

that he had endeavored to see them, but could
not trace them, and would be glad to be conducted to their
room.

They went to Whichcomb's, where Richard parted with
the minister, and returned home.