 | CHAPTER IX. Dollars and cents |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
I wear the hoop petticoat, and am all in calicoes, when the finest are in silks.
Spectator.
I SAID the season wore on; and yet it was hardly that,
it rather flew. Flew very quietly, for the two or three
people we liked best to see came but seldom; and not
even “Miss Howard” would leave her books for mere
bonnets and coats, unless when it seemed absolutely necessary.
So morning visiters were left to my stepmother
and to Miss Holbrook—who was sufficiently amenable to the
charms of society—and Kate and I kept ourselves as usefully
busy as Mr. Howard could desire. Stephanie often
joined us and would work in good earnest for a while; but
a double rap would always banish Euclid and set her to
speculating upon `who that could be'. In the afternoon
we were of course altogether and saw whoever came; and
as Kate's habits became better known it did seem that
the late circle increased at the expense of the early one.
At all events we had company enough to keep us from
loneliness, and for the rest we amused ourselves with
Kate's harp, reading, flowers, walks, and the moonlight
reflections in our lake,—“Luna and Luna” as we called
them.
Early in the fall Mr. Ned Howard removed to Baltimore.
This was a sudden determination, but he had grown
tired of the Moon—or his wife had, which answered just as
well—and after very short debate and preparation they
went;—we paying and receiving one farewell visit. This
change was a trial to us all; and we looked sorrowfully at
the deserted house, and thought of the kind heart and smile
that had so often come to us from thence. O what a blessed
thing that man has not foreknowledge!—how even then
to our citadel, and we knew it not!
It had been matter of grave deliberation as the cold
weather drew on, where we should spend it. To have town
life and country life succeed each other had always been
our intention. But now that hopes and interests and means
too, were fairly shipped upon “the full tide of successful
experiment,” Mr. Howard thought he had better look after
them; and perhaps felt that one establishment speeded the
dollars quite fast enough,—so we concluded to winter at
Glen Luna.
Plans and debates on other points were called for, but
that was in the in-door department. The fact was, that the
stream of dollars did not run our way; and we found it
not always easy to intercept and turn them to our own
purposes. And when they could not be had, of necessity
a substitute must,—such a one as woman's wit can furnish.
“But if we are to stay here, mamma,” said Kate one
morning, “we must at least go to town for a few days, to
get winter dresses, and all that, you know.”
“I think we shall need nothing but what we have,” said
Mrs. Howard musingly.
“Why my dear mamma! there is not one of us but
Stephanie that has even a bonnet; and as to wearing those
we had last winter, they are a great deal too slight for the
country,—the first wind that came sweeping over these
woods would go right through them—the bonnets, I
mean.”
“I know that, dear Kate—we cannot wear those—but I
think we can do without any. You know since Mr. Cary
was taken sick there has been no church to go to, and there
is like to be none; and for all purposes of walking I am
sure nice hoods will answer very well,—for them we have
materials.”
“But visits, mamma?”—
“All the neighbours we need go to see on this side are
very few and very near, and sensible. I know Miss Easy
would welcome a hood as heartily as a bonnet. Visits at
the Moon may wait till spring.”
“Yes,—to be sure,” Kate said; “but it seems very
strange mamma, and I don't quite see the reason of it.”
“I hope it will not be so, long,” said Mrs. Howard, “but
at present your father has a great deal on his hands.”
“Yes, mamma, but I cannot conceive what that has to
do with our dresses,—it seems to me that we are the most
important.”
And Kate looked up with an air that quite rivalled Don
Quixote in his defiance to windmills. Mrs. Howard's face
rather grew graver and sadder.
“I don't care much about the thing itself,” Kate went on,
—“it is not that,—but the principle, mamma—the reasonableness.”
“There are few principles more important to a woman,
my dear child, than that of patient submission to circumstances.
They are very seldom brought about by her own
agency,—her work is not to build, but to beautify; and
that may be done in a log cabin. Money is less plenty
than it was, and we must try to see how little we can cost.
We have nice dresses enough for visiting, Katie, and at
home calicoes will best suit our means and therefore best
suit us. I shall like to see how you will beautify them,”
she added with a smile.
“How many things which I call impossible or wrong,
you prove to be possible and right, mamma,” said Kate.
“I wish I could always take the right view of things at
first!”
“To be sure of doing that,” said my stepmother, fondly
passing her hand over the fair brow that was looking so
thoughtful; “to be quite sure of taking the right view of
things, Katie, one must always take the right stand,—upon
duty and not upon inclination. But if you sometimes make
a mistake, you never refuse to see and own that your position
was a wrong one.”
The calicoes were sent for and we made them up—for
the first time. I thought myself quite dressed in one,
especially when I wore too an apron of new white cotton.
Ah I was a simple child! but so little had dress ever been
a part of ourselves, that the transition from one style to
another seemed very slight. It mattered but little to our
light hearts whether caterpillars or jennys spun for us.
Mr. Howard knew nothing of all this—it may be questioned
whether he even knew that we had asked him for
calico vs. silk, he would have said,
“Have anything you want—there is money enough,—
just make out a list and I'll get you fifty yards of anything.”
But we knew there never could be money enough while
there were too many calls for it; and our debates were
quietly settled without a reference. As to the mere fact
of our wearing one thing instead of another,—if Mr.
Howard noticed it at all, it was probably to remark upon
our taste instead of our economy. My stepmother knew
better, saw clearer, than he did, which way improvements
were tending, and made a vain attempt to counterbalance,
—it would not do. Things have their due weight only in
the philosopher's apparatus,—where
When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale.”
Late in October my father left home for some time on
business, and came back as we thought in remarkably good
spirits. But we got no clue till tea was over.
“Well!” he said with a vigorous shove of his tea-cup,
“I've been buying some of the most beautiful cattle you
ever saw.”
“Not buying?” said Mrs. Howard.
“Yes buying—to the tune of six or eight. Let me see,”
—and taking a paper from his pocket he went on.
“There is first `Lady Howard' (she shall be yours Kate
my dear),—a beautiful frosted Durham: I think she's the
finest creature I ever set eyes on.”
“That's well,” said Kate laughing—“I shouldn't like to
have mediocrity bear my name.”
“She's handsome enough to bear anybody's name,” said
my father enthusiastically, “and has more fine points than
I ever saw in any other animal. Then `Snow-drop'—a
white two-year old. `Auld Reekie'—a fine Ayrshire heifer.”
“But my dear father,” said Kate, “who did help you
with that list of names?—Edinburgh isn't in Ayrshire.”
“They both happen to be in Scotland,” said Mr. Howard;
“and as to the names Kate, the cows may have dubbed
themselves for all hand I had in it. Well, next comes
`Lord Clive', two yearlings; and `Sunbeam'—an eight-months'
calf that I think may prove the finest of the lot.
She's a perfect beauty.”
“But what could you be thinking of, to buy so many
cattle just at the beginning of winter?” said Mrs. Howard.
“What could I be thinking of? a dairy next summer and
prize cattle for the fair. Why Van Alstein (who is a very
clever fellow, by the way,) says there is no surer way of
investing money.”
“No surer way of losing it, I'm afraid,” said Mrs. Howard.
“But you haven't half enough hay to keep them till
spring.”
“Plenty, for I mean to have it all cut and mixed with
brewers' grains. I must have some mangers put up to-morrow;
and I have bought a cutting machine that will make
inch-lengths of the hay in no time. Is there a fire in my
study? I have some writing to do.”
“He is absolutely crazy!” said Mrs. Howard as my
father left the room.
“Why don't you tell him so mamma?” said Kate.
“It does little good to speak when the thing is done;
and besides I don't know that I ought. Your father must
know his own affairs, one would think,—and yet these `investments'
make me nervous.”
“But would these people mislead him mamma? maybe
it will all turn out as he thinks.”
“Well—we will hope so,” said my stepmother with a
very unhopeful face.
The cattle came, and very beautiful they were, and in
fine condition. Even my stepmother was mollified by the
expression of Lady Howard's eye as she stretched her
tongue over the fence for a turnip. It seemed impossible
that such fine creatures should ever look less well and
thriving; and the mere step of Ezra Barrington about the
yard, gave promise they should not starve to death that
winter.
We were eating dinner one day soon after this, when
Caddie rushed in with
“If ye plase sir, the cow's in the mud beyont.”
“In the mud? what cow?” said my father.
“It's her that was coming from Squire Bulger's, Andy
says sir.”
“Where in the name of all uncommon sense did she
find any mud to get into?” said my father.
“Meself doesn't know sir—it's a soft spot some place.”
“As high up as Andy's head I suspect. Most extraordinary
thing that a boy and a cow couldn't travel the high
road without walking into the first ditch they met!”
“More cows to be fed!” said Mrs. Howard.
“More cows to get out of the mud, my dear—which is
the present matter in hand. Have you any rope in the
house?”
“None but the clothes line.”
“Well give me that then! how many clothes lines do
you think one cow would buy?—study that to restore your
equanimity.”
And seizing the coil of clean rope which Caddie brought
in, my father set off with all the men he could muster to
find and help the unfortunate cow.
Then Kate and Stephanie and I laughed, and Mrs.
Howard looked grave and then joined us,—in which merry
mood we finished dinner.
“My mind is quite clear now about papa's being bewitched!”
said Kate. “I don't suppose he would care if
all Philadelphia were to see him!”
“He would have small reason to care,” said Mrs. Howard,—“it
is none of Philadelphia's business. Your father
judges of propriety by his own sense—not by other people's
want of it.”
“I wonder if everybody else in this region does such
things!”
“You had better ask Mr. Collingwood,” said Stephanie,
—“it's to be hoped he knows something in the neighbourhood
besides ladies.”
The afternoon passed till long-shadow time, and nobody
came back; and then partly anxious and partly curious we
walked out to seek tidings. The scene in the barnyard
was worthy the pencil of Paul Potter.
The cow was alive indeed, but too much exhausted to
get up from the sled which had brought her there; and
being of a somewhat spare habit she looked none the less
strip of dun colour along her back bone in rather bold
relief. Hard by stood the oxen—loosed from the sled but
not unyoked, quietly chewing the cud, and perhaps ruminating
as well upon the probable fate of the load they had
conveyed out of “the soft spot.” Away off, Andy was
holloing after Sunbeam's vagaries, and the rest of the
cattle followed in single file the windings of the brook;
while cocks strode majestically about the yard and hens
hopped upstairs to roost, and the real sunbeams were
saying very plainly, goodnight. Mr. Howard stood with
arms folded looking at the cow; and Ezra Barrington who
was rubbing her head and side with a wisp of straw, discontentedly
remarked,
“If she'd been taken care of as I take care o' cattle, I'd
ha' had her kicken up her heels by this time, instead o'
having to pull her out o' the mud!”
“What could make you buy such a looking cow, papa?”
said Kate.
“She's not in very good condition, to be sure,” said my
father, “but that is easily mended; and she has some excellent
points and will make a fine milker. And now she
must have a name.”
“Let's call her Lady Bulger,” said Kate laughing,—
“which is both an expression of politeness to the Squire
and of our hopes that the cow may grow fat.”
Even my father had to laugh at this, and we left Lady
Bulger and walked back to tea.
It became a constant amusement to go to the barn at
feeding-time. Even when the weather grew cold and the
road was but a beaten track in the snow, we would run
over at the end of the short winter day to see the hay cut
and distributed, and then to watch the cows as in emulation
of human nature they pushed and hooked each other
about from manger to manger, nor were ever satisfied with
their own.
We were all there one afternoon, leaning over the fence
and smiling at the strange cries and gestures which Mr.
Barrington bestowed impartially upon Andy and the cows;
when Squire Suydam's English farmer came by. He stopped
and stood talking.
“Bad 'abit, sir,” said Roberts shaking his head as Snow-drop
executed a most prolonged lick upon one of her shoulders,—“very
bad 'abit sir!”
“Why?” said my father.
“They lick off so much of the 'air sir, and then swallow
it. I saw a calf once sir that died—most beautiful calf I
ever saw in my life!—and nobody could tell what was the
matter with him. Well sir, they cut him open after he
was dead; and they found a ball of 'air in his stomach as
big as your two fists, sir!”
“A ball of air in the calf's stomach!” cried Stephanie.
“I've heard of a soap-bubble, but—why Kate what do you
mean by stopping my mouth?—I say I shouldn't think
that would stand swallowing.”
“You may be glad they had both walked away,” said
Kate gravely.
“Why? you think I should have had a lecture? Not a
bit,—Mr. Howard would have laughed—he couldn't have
helped it.”
“But just suppose Roberts had heard you.”
“Fiddlesticks! do you suppose he would have been
scared at the sound of a little h'english? Come, let's go
home,—they won't have done their talk in a week, and
Something wicked this way comes',—
“Will you go mamma?” said Kate.
“No, I shall stay for your father. But you had better
all run home as fast as you can—it is getting very cold;
and Andy is just going with the milk so you will have an
escort.”
“He will”—said Stephanie. “My goodness how he
would run if anything appeared `suddently'! I think I see
the capsizing of the milk-oails. And how you do run, both
of you! do stop!”
“But I am so chilly.”
“Stop, nevertheless,—in other words moderate your pace
—in other words walk slower. If you go rushing into the
house at that rate, you've no idea what you will rush
against. What do you suppose I meant by `the pricking
of my thumbs'?”
“Nonsense”—said Kate coolly.
“Well I meant sense for once. You see while your eyes
were intent upon the cattle, mine saw where `a little skiff
shot to the bay'; and I have no doubt—just walk and not
run round this corner, will you?—that its contents are
quietly reposing in our drawing-room. At all events,” added
she as we entered the hall, “their caps are at rest on the
hat-stand.”
Kate gave her one reproving glance, and then composing
her muscles, gravely entered the drawing-room.
Sure enough we found visiters—Captain De Camp and
Lieutenant Henderson,—which last having voted three legs
of his chair a nuisance, was quietly balancing himself on
the fourth with his head against the open study door.
“Fine season for walking, Miss Howard,” said the Captain.
“Very fine,” said Kate. “I hope Mrs. De Camp is well
enough to enjoy it properly?”
“Quite well, thank you,” said the Captain putting his
head and neck at right angles.
“But don't you think,” said Mr. Henderson, who had a
slight lisp, “don't you think Mith Howard it ith very
fatiguing to walk in thuch cold weather?”
“Fatiguing? O no,” said Kate smiling; “I think it is
very pleasant. I get fatigued if I do not walk, Mr. Henderson.”
“So do I,” said the Captain. “I wanted to march off
after you at once, but Henderson wouldn't hear of it.”
“One hath to walk tho fatht!”—explained the Lieutenant.
“You would have had a quick step to march to if you
had been with us,” said Stephanie. “I don't doubt you
would have been fatigued.”
“Impossible, I should think, in such company,” said Captain
De Camp. “Have you been walking far, Miss Howard?”
“Only to our little settlement of barns and barnyard.
It is almost a pity you did not take so much trouble as
such a walk can give, and then papa could have displayed
his new cattle.”
“Did you ever know,” said Stephanie, “that 'air is very
pernicious to calves?”
“Ah?” said the Captain,—“pernicious?”
“Very,”—said Stephanie with a grave nod of her head.
“I always supposed the more they had of it the better,
Miss Holbrook.”
That's what I used to think,” said Miss Holbrook, “but
Squire Suydam's Englishman says they should be brought
up as much as possible on the 'air-tight principle.”
The officers stared, and Kate and I were on the verge
of uncontrollable merriment, when Stephanie changed her
ground.
“Have you been bird's-nesting lately, Captain?”
“Not lately—no, I have not been there in some time,”
said the Captain with a rapid laugh.
“Birdthnethting!” said Mr. Henderson.
The Captain explained.
“O I thee!—Mith Holbrook ith quite thevere.”
“But those are excellent people, Miss Holbrook,—they
really are, though you would not think it. Most excellent
people!” said the Captain with a face of grave consideration.
“I should think it,” said Kate quietly.
“Miss Howard,” said he turning to her, “you have not
seen the new Sulphur spring near the Moon, and the fine
building that is being erected for the water-drinkers?”
“No,” said Kate.
“I should be exceedingly happy to escort you there some
day, if you will permit me.”
“And Mith Holbrook—” said Mr. Henderson from his
centre of equipoise.
“Certainly!” said the Captain bowing.
“O thpare your `certainly,'” said his friend languidly,—
“I will take that honour upon mythelf.”
“I will go, in a minute,” said Stephanie,—“and so will
Kate—of course.”
“I should like to go,” said Kate; and then rather hesitatingly
she added, “but I don't think I can.”
“I hope I may disregard that doubt. A few days of this
weather will shut up the lake, and I assure you Miss Howard
you let me come for you next week?”
“But suppose you were to come when I had made up
my mind I could not go?”
“Then I should at least have the pleasure of seeing you,”
said the Captain; and there it rested, and the gentlemen
took leave.
“You are a strange girl, for a truthteller,” said Stephanie,
—“what doubt could you possibly have?”
“Whether papa would wish me to go.”
They went off upstairs, and as I sat alone in the twilight
I heard Mr. and Mrs. Howard come in.
“What does that man come here for?” said my father in
an annoyed tone of voice.
“What man?”
“De Camp—I wish he'd do it!”
“Do what?” said my stepmother laughing.
Mr. Howard vouchsafed no reply but an impatient glance,
and then hearing Kate as she came singing down stairs, he
walked off into the study and shut the door.
“Mamma,” said Kate, “I have got myself into such a
scrape!”
“Such a scrape?”
“Yes—or Captain De Camp has.”
Mrs. Howard really looked startled for a moment, as
if my father's last words might have been prophetic, but
Kate went on.
“You see mamma, he wants me to go to the Sulphur
spring with him, and I demurred at first, not knowing what
you would think of it; but at last I half consented that he
should come for me next week. And then, after he had
gone, it flashed upon me that I have no bonnet! now what
am I to do? and what do you suppose papa would say to
the plan any way?”
“I will see to that,” said Mrs. Howard; “and as to the
rest Katie, I will make you a bonnet.”
“O no mamma! you can't!”
“O yes I can and will,—so you need think no more
about it.”
She was as good as her word, and before the next week
Kate was provided with a sufficiently nice bonnet; but at
out! nobody wanted to go through that week again.
“The skating is as fine as possible,” said Captain De Camp
when he entered our sitting-room Wednesday morning,—
“it is perfectly delightful!”
“But I hope you are not going to skate back with me?”
said Kate.
“Certainly not!” said the Captain with one of his strange
little laughs,—“on no account! I wouldn't deprive myself
of the pleasure of your company Miss Howard, by running
away from it in that style. But I suppose I may infer from
your question that the doubt of last week is nowhere?”
“I found it not quite so substantial as you represent the
ice to be.”
“Melted away as the ice froze?” said the Captain with
secret delight at something.
Kate read his thought more truly than he read hers.
“I never could understand,” she said, “why gentlemen
feel so much amusement whenever they find or think they
find, fear in a woman. They are so often mistaken too—as
you are in this case, Captain De Camp.”
The Captain was quite willing she should say more about
his mistakes, but she did not.
“That ith becauthe they find tho much delight in coming
to the rethcue—ith it not, Mith Howard?” said Mr. Henderson.
“The gentlemen ought to know, sir—” said Kate;—“if
they do not, how can I?”
“The gentlemen ought to go,” said Stephanie, while one
of them laughed and the other considered,—“and the ladies
too.”
“But Miss Grace,” said the Captain, “aren't you going?
Come, I can take care of you all—or at least of you both,—
I suppose Henderson will attach himself to Miss Holbrook.
Run and get your bonnet.”
I told him no, and with a very smiling face, for I felt
exceedingly amused. There was no touch of shame or
mortification in my mind, but it seemed a very funny thing
that my reason should be the want of a bonnet, and that
the Captain should tell me to put it on, and be quite unable
to guess why I didn't.
I stood watching the diminishing figures as they crossed
the ice, with a feeling that if I could have gone with them it
would have been pleasant; but that in the present state of
things it was rather amusing to stay at home.
| CHAPTER IX. Dollars and cents | |