University of Virginia Library

13. THE
BROTHER AND SISTER.

“Hurra!” exclaimed John Golding to his sister
Esther. “See what Mr. Brown has bought with
Biddy's eggs!”

The boy's eyes sparkled, and his hands trembled
with delight, while Esther's more serious countenance
lighted up with a quick smile.

The treasure John exhibited with such exultation,
was a worn copy of Goldsmith's Manners
and Customs. The title-page declared that it was
adorned with plates; but readers accustomed to the
present more beautiful style of publishing would
have been slow to admit that the straight, lank
figures, daubed with engraver's ink, were any ornament
to the volumes. To the unpractised eyes
of John and his sister, they were, however, gems
of Art; and the manner in which they were obtained
greatly increased their value. The children

had received a cake and two little chickens from
a neighbour, in payment for picking cranberries.
Never did chickens give rise to such extensive
speculations; not even the imaginary brood of the
famous milk-maid. The chickens would become
hens, and the hens would lay eggs, and Mr. Brown,
who drove the market-wagon, would sell the eggs,
and there were ever so many books in Boston, and
who could guess what wonderful stories they would
buy with their eggs? The vision was realized in
due time. The chickens did become hens, and laid
eggs; and Mr. Brown listened good-naturedly to
John's request to sell them and buy “a book, that
had pictures in it, and told about countries a way
off.” Goldsmith's Manners and Customs came as
the fruit of these instructions, and was hailed with
an outburst of joy.

Most boys would have chosen to buy marbles or
a drum; but John's earliest passion had been for a
book. The subtle influences which organize temperaments
and produce character, are not easily
traced. His intellectual activity certainly was not
derived from either of his parents; for they were
mere healthy sluggish animals. But there was a
tradition in the neighbourhood, that his maternal
grandmother was “an extraordinary woman in her
day; that few folks knew so much as she did; and
if her husband had been half as smart and calculating,
they would have been very fore-handed
people!”

The children of the “extraordinary woman” inherited
her husband's inert temperament, but her
own energetic character re-appeared in her grand-children;
and they had the good fortune to be born
in New England where the moral atmosphere stimulates
intellect, and the stream of knowledge flows
free and full to all the people. Esther was as eager
for information, as her more vivacious brother; and
though, as a woman, her pathway of life was more
obstructed, and all its growth more stinted, she
helped to lead him into broader avenues than she
herself was allowed to enter. Being two years older
than he, it was her delight to teach him the alphabet,
as soon as he could speak; and great was her
satisfaction when he knew all the letters in her little,
old primer, and could recite the couplet that
belonged to each. They conveyed no very distinct
idea to his mind, but Esther's praise made him very
vain of this accomplishment. A dozen times a day,
he shouted the whole twenty-four, all in a row, and
was quite out of breath when he arrived at:

The mother, who was a kindly but dull woman,
took little interest in their childish scrambling after
literature; but she sent them to the town-school,
for the sake of having them out of the way; and
she was somewhat proud that her children could

“read joining-hand,” as she called it, earlier than
neighbours of the same age. One day, when the
minister of the village called, she told John to
bring his book about Manners and Customs, and
let the minister hear how well they could read.
The good old man was much pleased with the
bright boy and his intelligent, motherly sister.
When their mother told him the story of the eggs,
he patted them on the head and said: “That's
right, my children. You can't be too fond of your
books. They are the best friends in the world.
If you ask them, they will tell you about every
thing!” This remark, uttered in a very serious
tone, made a deep impression. That evening, as
brother and sister sat on the door-step, eating their
supper of bread and milk, the sun set bright and
clear after a transient shower, and a beautiful rainbow
arched the entire heavens. “Oh, Esther, look
at that pretty rainbow!” exclaimed John. “Ah,
see! see! now there are two of 'em!” He gazed
at the beautiful phenomenon with all his soul in
his eyes, and added: “As soon as we have eggs
enough, we will get Mr. Brown to buy a book that
tells how rainbows are made, and where they come
from.” Esther replied, that she did wish the hens
would lay three eggs a day.

When the market-man was commissioned to purchase
another volume, he declared himself unable
to find one that told where rainbows came from.
In lieu thereof, he brought Bruce's Travels; and

an unfailing source of entertainment it proved.
Thus month by month their little library increased,
and their intellectual craving grew fast by the food
it fed on. They gathered berries, picked chips,
ran on errands, rose early, and worked late, to accumulate
sixpences.

When this is done merely to obtain animal indulgences,
or for the sake of possessing more than
others, there is something degrading in the servile
process; but when the object is pursuit of knowledge
for its own sake, all creeping things become
winged. Beautiful it is to see human souls thus
struggling with poverty and toil, sustained only by
those ministering angels, Hope and Faith! Those
who have life enough to struggle thus, are all the
stronger for the contest. For the vigorous intellect
it is better to be so placed than to be born in palaces.
Jean Paul says truly: “Wealth bears far
heavier on talent than poverty. Under gold mountains
and thrones, who knows how many a spiritual
giant may lie crushed down and buried?”

Esther and her brother were troubled with no
ambitious conjectures whether or not they could
ever become spiritual giants; they simply felt that
the acquisition of knowledge was present delight.
They thought little of hats and shoes, till father
and mother said these must be bought with a portion
of their wages; but after that, they were
doubly careful of their hats, and often carried their
shoes in their hands. Thus were they, in their

unconscious earnestness, living according to laws
which highest reason would prescribe for the whole
social fabric. They worked industriously at manual
labor, but always with a spiritual end in view;
and that spiritual end was their own chosen recreation.
They practised the most careful economy,
but it was neither mean nor painful, because it
was for a noble use, not for the mere sake of accumulation.

Though the poor parents were obliged to appropriate
a portion of the children's juvenile earnings,
there was one little fund that was entirely their
own. The two chickens had a progeny of chickens,
and these, in process of time, likewise laid eggs.
John picked up every stray grain of oats he could
find, because he had heard it was a good kind of
food to increase eggs; and busy little Esther saved
all the oyster shells she could find, to pound for
the hens in winter, when there was no gravel to
furnish material for the shells. The cackling of a
hen was to them an important event. Esther smiled
at her knitting as she heard it, and John, as he
plucked the weeds, raised up his head to listen.
Hens have been often laughed at for proclaiming
all abroad that another egg is in the world; but
John's brood had a right to crow over their mission.
Cackle away to thy heart's content, thou brown little
feather-top! Never mind their jibes and jeers!
Thy human superiors often become world-famous
by simply obeying an impulse, which, unconsciously

to themselves, evolves extensive and progressive
good; and thou art not the first prattling
egotist, who has worked for far higher results than
he had the ability to comprehend. Let him who
laughs at thy cackling, measure, if he can, what
share thy new-laid egg may have in changing the
destiny of man! It will aid in the culture of a
human soul. It will help to develop and stimulate
individual thought. And if generously aimed
and fearlessly uttered, may not that individual
thought pervade and modify the entire opinion of
society? And is not law the mere record of aggregate
opinion?

Truly the cackling hen brought no such thoughts
to simple Esther and her brother John. To them
it merely announced that another egg was laid, and
thereby another cent gained toward the purchase
of a new book. They talked the stories over by
the light of the moon, or recited to each other favorite
passages from Burns and Bloomfield. When
the field-labourers took their noon-day rest, you
would be sure to find John hidden away in the
shade of a haystack, devouring a book. His zeal
attracted the minister's attention, and he often stopped
to talk with him. One day, he said to the
mother, “This boy will make something extraordinary.
He must get an education. He must go
to college, ma'am.”

“Bless my heart, I might as well think of sending
him to the moon!” she replied.

But Esther heard it with a quick blush of pleasure
and pride; and henceforth the one absorbing
thought of her life was how to assist in sending
John to college. Busily she calculated how much
could be earned in two years by knitting, and binding
shoes, and braiding straw. John listened with
rapture to her plans, but his triumph was checked
midway by the recollection that his sister could
not go to college with him. “Why, Esther, you
have always been my teacher,” he said. “You
learn faster than I do, and you remember better.
Why don't women go to college?”

“They couldn't be lawyers, and ministers, and
judges, if they did,” answered Esther.

“Why not?” said John.

Esther's knowledge and reflection on the subject
stopped there, and she simply replied that women
never had done such things.

“Why, yes, they have,” said John. “The Bible
says that Deborah was a judge; and Queen Elizabeth
was more than a judge; and we read the other
day that Isabella of Spain knew how to direct an
army, and govern the state, better than her husband,
King Ferdinand. I am sure I don't see why
women shouldn't go to college.”

The boy, in the eagerness of brotherly love, had
started ideas which he was too ignorant to follow.
But in his simple question lies the germ of thoughts
that will revolutionize the world. For as surely as
there is a God of harmony in the universe, so surely

will woman one day become the acknowledged
equal and co-worker of man, in every department
of life; and yet be more truly gentle and affectionate
than she now is.

But Esther was too young to reflect on such
matters. She loved her brother, and she wanted
him to go to college; and with unquestioning diligence
she applied her faculties to the purpose, in
every way that was left open for her. She scarcely
allowed herself time to eat and sleep, and grudged
herself every article of apparel, so zealous was her
sisterly love. Poor girl! there was no one to teach
her the physical lawa, and she knew not that toiling
thus perpetually, without exercise for the body,
or recreation for the mind, was slow suicide. Month
after month she laboured, and seldom spoke of pains
in her side, and confused feelings in her head.
Even her favourite luxury of reading was almost
entirely relinquished; and John had little leisure
to read to her such books as were entertaining.
The minister had offered to hear him recite Latin
and Greek once a week, and he was too busy with
the classics, to have time for Voyages and Travels.
He often repeated his lessons to his sister, and from
his bald translations she here and there gleaned a
few ideas; but this kind of mental effort was little
profitable, and less enlivening. Blessed Nature
stood ever ready to refresh and strengthen her.
The golden dandelion blossoms smiled brightly in
her face, and the trees stretched their friendly arms

over her in blessing; but she had no time to listen
to their kind voices. It would have been difficult
to lure her aside from her arduous path, even if
she had known that it would lead to an open
tomb.

When an object is pursued with such concentrated
aim and persevering effort, it is almost always
attained. John taught school in the winters,
and worked at whatever his hand could find to do
in the summers. Esther hoarded all her earnings,
to add to the Education Fund, as they called it;
and their good friend the minister borrowed a hundred
dollars for them, to be repaid according to
their own convenience. At last, the darling hope
of many years was realized. John went to college,
and soon ranked among the best scholars of his
class. His sister still toiled, that he might have a
sufficiency of books and clothing. He studied hard,
and taught school during college vacations, and returned
home at the end of four years, attenuated
almost to a skeleton.

The new milk and cheese-whey, the breath of
the cows, and the verdure of the fields, refreshed
him, and in some degree restored his exhausted
strength. But now he was fretted with the question,
what to do with the education he had acquired
with so much hardship. An additional expenditure
of time and money was required to fit
him for either of the professions. He was not
stimulated by any strong preference for either of

them, and his generous soul resisted the idea of
taxing his sister's strength any further for his own
advantage. The old question of his boyhood returned
with additional force. Why should she,
with her noble nature and admirable faculties, be
forever penned up within the small routine of petty
cares, and mere mechanical efforts? Why should
she not share his destiny, and enjoy with him a
more expansive atmosphere for soul and body?
To this end he resolved to labour. He would earn
money by the readiest means that offered, and devote
his earnings to her improvement. But Esther
said, “If you educate me, dear John, what can I
do with my education? I can do nothing but teach
school; and for that I am sure my health is not
adequate. The doctor says I must take as much
exercise as possible.”

“The doctor!” exclaimed John. “Why, Esther,
you never told me you had been ill enough to consult
a physician.”

“It is merely a slight difficulty in my lungs,”
she replied. “I am going to spin on the great
wheel this winter; and I think that will cure me.
Do not trouble your kind heart about me, my dear
John. While I have any health and strength, I
will never consent to be a burden upon you, however
much you may urge it. I do not believe that
sisters ought to depend on brothers for support.
I am sure it is far better for the characters of
women to rely on their own energies. But sometimes

I think we have not a fair chance in the
world. I often wish, as you do, that it was easy
for us to obtain a more liberal education, and customary
to use that education in a freer scope for all
our faculties. But never mind, dear brother, the
door of your cage is open, and the world is all before
you. Go where you will, I know you will
never forget the sister, who loves you so dearly.
You are destined to go far ahead of me in life; but
your good heart will never allow you to be ashamed
of your poor untutored Esther.”

John folded her close to his heart, and turned
away to hide the gathering tears. He was more
than ever desirous to do something for the high culture
of that generous and affectionate soul. The
way to earn a moderate income was soon opened to
him. The widowed sister of one of the college
professors wanted a private tutor for her sons; and
John Golding was recommended by her brother.
Here he came in contact, for the first time, with
the outward refinements of life. Charming music,
harmonious colours, elegant furniture, and, above
all, the daily conversation of a cultivated woman,
breathed their gentle and refining influences over
his strong and honest soul. At first, he was shy
and awkward, but the kindly atmosphere around
him, gradually unfolded the sleeping flower-buds
within, and without thinking of the process, the
scholar became a gentleman. By careful economy,
he repaid Esther the sums she had advanced for

his education; but the question was forever renewed
how he should manage to have her share
his advantages, without sacrificing her noble spirit
of independence. His visits to the old homestead
reminded him, sometimes a little painfully, that he
was leaving his family far behind him in the career
of knowledge and refinement. His father chewed
tobacco, without much regard to cleanliness. His
kind old mother would cut the butter with the same
knife she had used in eating. She had done so all
her life, but he had never before noticed it, and it
vexed him to the heart to find himself so much
annoyed by it now. His serious, gentle sister, was
endowed with an unusual degree of natural refinement,
which is usually a better teacher of manners,
than mere conventional politeness. But once, when
he brought home one of his pupils, she came out
to meet them dressed in a new gown, of dingy blue
and brick-red, with figures large enough for bed-curtains.
He blushed, and was for a moment
ashamed of her; then he reproached himself that
his darling Esther could seem to him in any respect
vulgar. The next week he sent her a dress of delicate
material and quiet colours, and she had tact
enough to perceive, that this was a silent mode of
improving her taste.

The most painful thing connected with his own
superior culture was the spiritual distance it produced
between him and his honest parents. Their
relative positions were reversed. Father and mother

looked up with wondering deference to their children.
Like hens that have hatched ducks, they
knew not what to make of their progeny, thus
launching out on a fluid element, which they had
never tried. But he perceived the distance between
them far more clearly than they could. He could
receive the whole of their thought, but was constantly
obliged to check the utterance of his own,
from a consciousness that allusions the most common
to him, would be quite unintelligible to them.
“The butterfly may remember the grub, but the
grub has no knowledge of the butterfly.” With
Esther he had unalloyed pleasure of companionship;
for though ignorant of the world, and deficient
in culture, she was an intelligent listener,
and it charmed him to see her grow continually
under the influence of the sunshine he could bring
to her. How he loved to teach her! How he
longed to prove his gratitude by the consecration
of all his faculties and means to her use!

In little more than a year after he left college,
a delightful change came over his prospects. A
brother of the widow in whose family he had been
tutor, was appointed ambassador to Spain, and
through her influence he selected John Golding for
his private secretary. Esther, true to her unselfish
nature, urged him by all means to accept the offer.
“When you were a little boy,” said she, “you were
always eager to know about countries a great way
off. But we little thought then that our cackling

hens would ever bring you such a golden opportunity.”

John's satisfaction would have been complete,
if he could have taken Esther with him to that
balmy clime. But she had many objections to
offer. She said her rustic manners unfitted her
for the elegant circles in which he would move;
and he replied that she would catch the tone of
polished society far more readily than he could.
She reminded him that their parents needed his
assistance to repair the old dilapidated homestead,
and to purchase cows; and that he had promised
to devote to their use the first money he could
spare. He sighed, and made no answer; for he
felt that his pecuniary resources were altogether
inadequate to his generous wishes. Again the
question returned, “Why cannot women go abroad,
and earn their own way in the world, as well as
men?” The coming ages answered him, but he
did not hear the prophecy.

At last the hour of parting came. Painful it
was to both, but far more painful to Esther. The
young man went forth to seek novelty and adventure;
the young woman remained alone, in the
dull monotony of an uneventful life. And more
than this, she felt a mournful certainty that she
should never behold her darling brother again,
while he was cheered by hopes of a happy reunion,
and was forever building the most romantic
“castles in Spain.” She never told him how very

ill she was; and he thought her interrupted breath
was caused merely by the choking emotions of an
over-charged heart.

He deposited with a friend more money than
he could have prevailed upon her to accept, and
made a choice collection of books and engravings,
to cheer her during his absence. To the last moment,
he spoke of coming for her next year, and
carrying her to the sunny hills of Spain. With a
faint smile she promised to learn Spanish, that she
might be able to talk with her brother Don Scolardo;
and so with mutual struggle to suppress
their tears, the brother and sister, who had gone so
lovingly, hand in hand, over the rough paths of
life, parted just where the glancing summit of his
hopes rose bright before him.

A letter written on board ship was full of cheerful
visions of the quiet literary home they would
enjoy together in the coming years. The next letter
announced his arrival in Spain. Oh, the romantic
old castles, the picturesque mills, the rich
vineyards, the glowing oranges, the great swelling
bunches of grapes! He was half wild with enthusiasm,
and seemed to have no annoyance, except
the fact that he could not speak modern languages.
“I ought not,” said he, “to complain of the college-education
for which we toiled so hard, and which
has certainly opened for me the closed gateway of
a far nobler life than I could probably have entered
by any other means. But after all, dear Esther,

much of my time and money was spent for what I
cannot bring into use, and shall therefore soon for
get. Even my Latin was not taught me in a way
that enables me to talk freely with the learned foreigners
I meet. By the light of my present experience,
I can certainly devise a better plan of education
for my son, if I ever have one. Meanwhile,
dear sister, do not work too hard; and pray study
French and Spanish with all diligence; for laugh
as thou wilt at my `castles in Spain,' I will surely
come and bring thee here. Think of the golden
oranges and great luscious grapes, which thou wilt
never see in their beauty, till thou seest them here!
Think of seeing the Alhambra, with its golden lattice-work,
and flowery arabesques! Above all, imagine
thyself seated under a fig-tree, leaning on the
bosom of thy ever-loving brother!”

Poor Esther! This description of a genial climate
made her sigh; for while she read it, the
cold East winds of New England were cutting her
wounded lungs like dagger-points. But when she
answered the precious letter, she made no allusion
to this. She wrote playfully, concerning the health
of the cows and the hens; asked him to inform her
what was cackle in Spanish, for she reverenced the
word, and would fain know it in all languages.
Finally, she assured him, that she was studying
busily, to make herself ready to reside in the grand
castle he was building. The tears came to her eyes,
as she folded the letter, but she turned hastily aside,

that they might not drop on the paper. Never in
her life had she been willing to let her shadow cross
his sunshine.

It was the last letter she ever wrote. She had
sought to crown her brother with laurels on earth,
and his ministering angel crowned her with garlands
in heaven.

Three years afterwards, John stood by her humble
grave in his native village. The tears flowed
fast, as he thought to himself, “And I once blushed
for thee, thou great and noble soul, because thou
wert clothed in a vulgar dress! Ah, mean, ungrateful
wretch, that I was! And how stinted was
thy life, thou poor one!—A slow grinding martyrdom
from beginning to end.”

He remembered the wish she had so meekly expressed,
that women might have a more liberal
education, and a wider scope for their faculties.
“For thy sake, thou dear one,” said he, “I will be
the friend and brother of all women. To their improvement
and elevation will I consecrate my talent
and my education. This is the monument I
will build to thee; and I believe thy gentle spirit
will bless me for it in heaven.”

He soon after married a young woman, whose
character and early history strongly resembled his
beloved sister's. Aided by her, he devoted all his
energies to the establishment of a Normal School
for Young Women. Mind after mind unfolds under

his brotherly care, and goes forth to aid in the
redemption of woman, and the slow harmonizing
of our social discords.

Well might little brown feather-top cackle aloud;
for verily her mission was a great one.