University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE LINCOLNS.

Mary had been at the poor-house about three weeks, when
Miss Grundy one day ordered her to tie on her sun-bonnet,
and run across the meadow and through the woods until she
came to a rye stubble, then follow the footpath along the
fence until she came to another strip of woods, with a brook
running through it. “And just on the fur edge of them
woods,” said she, “you'll see the men folks to work; and do
you tell 'em to come to their dinner quick.”

Mary tied her sun-bonnet and hurried off, glad to escape
for a few moments from the hot kitchen, with its endless
round of washing dishes, scouring knives, wiping door-sills,
and dusting chairs. She had no difficulty in finding the way,
and she almost screamed for joy, when she came suddenly
upon the sparkling brook, which danced so merrily beneath
the shadow of the tall woods.

“What a nice place this would be to sit and read,” was
her first exclamation, and then she sighed as she thought
how small were her chances for reading now.

Quickly her thoughts traversed the past, and her tears
mingled with the clear water which flowed at her feet, as she
recalled the time when, blessed with a father's and mother's
love, she could go to school and learn as other children did.
She was roused from her sad reverie by the sound of voices,
which she supposed proceeded from the men, whose tones,

she fancied, were softer than usual. “If I can hear them,
they can hear me,” thought she, and shouting as loud as she
could, she soon heard Mr. Parker's voice in answer, saying,
he would come directly.

It was a mild September day, and as Mary knew that
Sal would take care of Alice, she determined not to hurry,
but to follow the course of the stream, fancying she should
find it to be the same which ran through the clothes-yard at
home. She had not gone far, when she came suddenly upon
a boy and two little girls, who seemed to be playing near the
brook. In the features of the boy she recognized Henry
Lincoln, and remembering what Billy had said of him, she
was about turning away, when the smallest of the girls
espied her, and called out, “Look here, Rose, I reckon
that's Mary Howard. I'm going to speak to her.”

“Jenny Lincoln, you mustn't do any such thing. Mother
won't like it,” answered the girl called Rose.

But whether “mother would like it,” or not, Jenny did
not stop to think, and going towards Mary she said, “Have
you come to play in the woods?”

“No,” was Mary's reply. “I came to call the folks to
dinner.”

“Oh, that was you that screamed so loud. I couldn't
think who it was, but it can't be dinner time?”

“Yes 'tis; it's noon.”

“Well we don't have dinner until two, and we can stay
here till that time. Won't you play with us?”

“No, I can't, I must go back and work,” said Mary.

“Work!” repeated Jenny. “I think it's bad enough to
have to live in that old house without working, but come and
see our fish-pond;” and taking Mary's hand, she led her to
a wide part of the stream where the water had been dammed
up until it was nearly two feet deep and clear as crystal.

Looking in, Mary could see the pebbles on the bottom, while
a fish occasionally darted out and then disappeared.

“I made this almost all myself,” said Jenny. “Henry
wouldn't help me because he's so ugly, and Rose was afraid
of blacking her fingers. But I don't care. Mother says I'm
a great,—great,—I've forgotten the word, but it means dirty
and careless, and I guess I do look like a fright, don't I?”

Mary now for the first time noticed the appearance of her
companion, and readily guessed that the word which she
could not remember, was “slattern.” She was a fat, chubby
little girl, with a round, sunny face and laughing blue
eyes, while her brown hair hung around her forehead in
short, tangled curls. The front breadth of her pink gingham
dress was plastered with mud. One of her shoe-strings was
untied, and the other one gone. The bottom of one pantalet
was entirely torn off, and the other rolled nearly to the knee
disclosing a pair of ankles of no Liliputian dimensions. The
strings of her white sun-bonnet were twisted into a hard knot,
and the bonnet itself hung down her back, partially hiding
the chasm made by the absence of three or four hooks and
eyes. Altogether she was just the kind of little girl which
one often finds in the country swinging on gates and making
mud pies.

Mary was naturally very neat; and in reply to Jenny's
question as to whether she looked like a fright, she answered,
“I like your face better than I do your dress, because it is
clean.”

“Why, so was my dress this morning,” said Jenny, “but
there can't any body play in the mud and not get dirty.
My pantalet hung by a few threads, and as I wanted a rag
to wash my earthens with, I tore it off. Why don't you
wear pantalets?”

Mary blushed painfully, as she tried to hide her bare

feet with her dress, but she answered, “When mother died
I had only two pair, and Miss Grundy says I sha'nt wear
them every day. It makes too much washing.”

“Miss Grundy! She's a spiteful old thing. She shook
me once because I laughed at that droll picture Sal Furbush
drew of her on the front door. I am afraid of Sal, ain't
you?”

“I was at first, but she's very kind to me, and I like her
now.”

“Well, I always run when I see her. She makes such
faces and shakes her fist so. But if she's kind to you, I'll
like her too. You go away (speaking to Henry), and not
come here to bother us.”

Henry gave a contemptuous whistle, and pointing to Mary's
feet, said, “Ain't they delicate? Most as small as her
teeth!”

The tears came into Mary's eyes, and Jenny, throwing a
stick at her brother, exclaimed, “For shame, Henry Lincoln!
You always was the meanest boy. Her feet ain't any bigger
than mine. See,” and she stuck up her little dumpy
foot, about twice as thick as Mary's.

“Cracky!” said Henry, with another whistle. “That
may be, too, and not be so very small, for yours are as big
as stone-boats, any day, and your ankles are just the size of
the piano legs.” So saying, he threw a large stone into the
water, spattering both the girls, but wetting Jenny the most.
After this he walked away apparently well pleased with his
performance.

“Isn't he hateful?” said Jenny, wiping the water from
her neck and shoulders; “but grandma says all boys are so
until they do something with the oats,—I've forgot what.
But there's one boy who isn't ugly. Do you know Billy
Bender?”

“Billy Bender? Oh, yes,” said Mary quickly, “he is all
the friend I've got in the world except Sal Furbush.”

“Well, he worked for my pa last summer, and oh, I liked
him so much. I think he's the bestest boy in the world.
And isn't his face beautiful?”

“I never thought of it,” said Mary. “What makes you
think him so handsome?”

“Oh, I don't know unless it's because he makes such
nice popple whistles!” and as if the argument were conclusive,
Jenny unrolled her pantalet, and tried to wipe some of
the mud from her dress, at the same time glancing towards
her sister, who at some little distance was reclining against
an old oak tree, and poring intently over “Fairy Tales for
Children.”

Seeing that she was not observed, Jenny drew nearer to
Mary and said, “If you'll never tell any body as long as you
live and breathe, I'll tell you something.”

Mary gave the required promise, and Jenny continued:
“I shouldn't like to have my mother know it, for she scolds
all the time now about my `vulgar tastes,' though I'm sure
Rose likes the same things that I do, except Billy Bender,
and it's about him I was going to tell you. He was so pleasant
I couldn't help loving him, if mother did say I mustn't.
He used to talk to me about keeping clean, and once I tried
a whole week, and I only dirtied four dresses and three pair
of pantalets in all that time. Oh, how handsome and funny
his eyes looked when I told him about it. He took me in
his lap, and said that was more than he thought a little girl
ought to dirty. Did you ever see any boy you loved as well
as you do Billy Bender?”

Mary hesitated a moment, for much as she liked Billy,
there was another whom she loved better, though he had
never been one half as kind to her as Billy had. After a

time she answered, “Yes, I like, or I did like George Moreland,
but I shall never see him again;” and then she told
Jenny of her home in England, of the long, dreary voyage
to America, and of her father's death; but when she came to
the sad night when her mother and Franky died, she could
not go on, and laying her face in Jenny's lap, she cried for a
long time. Jenny's tears flowed, too, but she tried to
restrain them, for she saw that Rose had shut her book and
was watching her movements.

Ere long, however, she resumed her reading, and then
Jenny, softly caressing Mary, said, “Don't cry so, for I'll love
you, and we'll have good times together too. We live in Boston
every winter, but it will be most six weeks before we go,
and I mean to see you every day.”

“In Boston?” said Mary, inquiringly. “George lives
in Boston.”

Jenny was silent a moment, and then suddenly clapping
her hands together, she exclaimed, “I know George Moreland.
He lives just opposite our house, and is Ida Selden's
cousin. Why he's most as handsome as Billy Bender, only
he teases you more. I'll tell him about you, for mother
says he's got lots of money, and perhaps he'll give you
some.”

Mary felt that she wouldn't for the world have George
know she was in the poor-house, and she quickly answered,
“No, no, you mustn't tell him a word about me. I don't
want you to. Promise that you won't.”

Loth as Jenny was to make such a promise, she finally
did, adding, “I guess I won't tell Rose either, for she and
Ida are great friends. George says he don't know which he
likes best, though he thinks Rose the handsomest. He likes
handsome girls, and so do I.”

Mary knew she had no beauty of which to boast, but Ella

had, so she very naturally mentioned her sister, saying how
much she wished to see her.

“Why, you can see her at church,” answered Jenny.
“Why don't you ever go?”

“I am going next Sunday, Sally and I,” was Mary's
reply. “Billy told me the last time he was here that he
would come and stay with Alice.”

“Oh, I'm glad, and I hope they'll put you in my Sabbath
school class, for Ella is in it, but if they do I'll contrive to
have Rose sit off a good ways because,—because—”

Here Jenny paused, but seeing that Mary was waiting
for her to finish the sentence, she added, “She's proud, and
sometimes laughs at poor girls.”

“Thank you, Miss Jenny Lincoln,” said Rose, coming
forward. “I'll tell mother of this new intimacy, and she'll
put a stop to it, I'll assure you. But come along, I'm going
home.”

Jenny arose to obey, but whispered to Mary, “You'll
find me most any time in these woods. I'd ask you to come
to our house, only mother wouldn't let you sit in the parlor.
I shall see you Sunday,—Good-bye.”

Mary watched her until she disappeared among the bushes,
and then she too started for home, with a lighter heart than
she had known before for many a day. She had found a
new friend, and though Miss Grundy scolded because she
had been gone so long, and threatened to shut her up in Sal
Furbush's cage, she did not mind it, and actually commenced
humming a tune while Miss Grundy was storming about a
bowl of sour milk which she had found in the cupboard. A
sharp box on her ears brought her song to an end and the
tears into her eyes, but she thought of Jenny, and the fact
that she too knew George made him seem nearer, and when
Miss Grundy did not see her she hastily drew the golden

locket from her bosom, and glancing at the handsome, boyish
face it revealed, quickly thrust it back as she heard a quick
step in the passage.

She had no opportunity of seeing Jenny again that week,
for she was kept busy from morning till night, running here
and there, first after eggs, then after water, next for potatoes,
and then after wood. And still Miss Grundy told her
fifty times a day that “she didn't half pay her way, to say
nothing about the young one.”

“Bolt at once,” said Sal. “Bolt, and say you didn't come
here to work: that's the way I did.”

Mary was willing to do whatever she could, but she often
wished Mrs. Parker were able to be round, for then she was
sure she would not have to work so hard. She had several
times been sent of errands to Mrs. Parker's room, and that
lady had always spoken kindly to her, asking her if she was
tired, or what made her look so pale. It was through Mrs.
Parker's influence, too, that she had obtained permission to
attend church the following Sabbath. Mrs. Parker was a
professor of religion, and before her illness, some of the family
had attended church every Sunday. But since she had
been sick, her husband had thought it hardly worth while to
harness up his horses, though he said any one might go who
chose to walk. Few, however, were able to walk; so they
remained at home, and Sunday was usually the noisiest day
in the week. Sal Furbush generally took the lead, and
mounting the kitchen table, sung camp-meeting hymns as
loud as she could scream. Uncle Peter fiddled, Patsy nodded
and laughed, the girl with crooked feet by way of increasing
the bedlam would sometimes draw a file across the
stove-pipe, while Miss Grundy scolded, and declared “she
could not and would not have such a noise.”

“Shut your head, madam, and there'll be less,” was Sal's

ready rejoinder, as at the end of a verse she paused for
breath.

The first Sabbath Mary looked on in perfect amazement,
but the next one she spent in her own room, and after a deal
of trouble, succeeded in coaxing Sal to stay there too, listening
while she read to her from her little Bible. But the
reading was perplexing business, for Sal constantly corrected
her pronunciation, or stopped her while she expounded
Scripture, and at last in a fit of impatience Mary tossed the
book into the crazy creature's lap, asking her to read herself.

This was exactly what Sal wanted, and taking the foot
of Mary's bed for her rostrum, she read and preached so
furiously, that Mary felt almost glad when Miss Grundy
came up to stop the racket, and locked Sal in her own
room.