 | CHAPTER XIV.
VISITORS. The English orphans, or, A home in the new
world |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
VISITORS.
The Tuesday following Mary's arrival at Mrs. Mason's,
there was a social gathering at the house of Mr. Knight.
This gathering could hardly be called a tea party, but came
more directly under the head of an “afternoon's visit,” for
by two o'clock every guest had arrived, and the “north
room” was filled with ladies, whose tongues, like their
hands, were in full play. Leathern reticules, delicate embroidery,
and gold thimbles were not then in vogue in Rice
Corner; but on the contrary, some of Mrs. Knight's visitors
brought with them large, old-fashioned work-bags, from
which the ends of the polished knitting-needles were discernible;
while another apologized for the magnitude of her
work, saying that “her man had fretted about his trousers
until she herself began to think it was time to finish them;
and so when she found Miss Mason wasn't to be there, she
had just brought them along.”
In spite of her uniform kindness, Mrs. Mason was regarded
by some of her neighbors as a bugbear, and this allusion
to her immediately turned the conversation in that
direction.
“Now, do tell,” said Widow Perkins, vigorously rapping
her snuff-box and passing it around. “Now, do tell if it's
true that Miss Mason has took a girl from the town-house?”
On being assured that such was the fact, she continued,
“Now I will give up. Plagued as she is for things, what
could have possessed her?”
“I was not aware that she was very much troubled to
live,” said Mrs. Knight, whose way of thinking, and manner
of expressing herself, was entirely unlike Mrs. Perkins.
“Wall, she is,” was Mrs. Perkins's reply; and then hitching
her chair closer to the group near her, and sinking her
voice to a whisper, she added, “You mustn't speak of it on
any account, for I wouldn't have it go from me, but my
Sally Ann was over there t'other day, and neither Miss Mason
nor Judy was to home. Sally Ann has a sight of
curiosity,—I don't know nothing under the sun where she
gets it, for I hain't a mite,—Wall, as I was tellin' you,
there was nobody to home, and Sally Ann she slips down
cellar and peeks into the pork barrel, and as true as you
live, there warn't a piece there. Now, when country folks
get out of salt pork, they are what I call middlin' poor.”
And Mrs. Perkins finished her speech with the largest
pinch of maccaboy she could possibly hold between her
thumb and forefinger.
“Miss Perkins,” said an old lady who was famous for
occasionally rubbing the widow down, “Miss Perkins, that's
just as folks think. It's no worse to be out of pork than
'tis to eat codfish the whole durin' time.”
This was a home thrust, for Mrs. Perkins, who always
kept one or two boarders, and among them the school-teacher,
was notorious for feeding them on codfish.
Bridling up in a twinkling, her little gray eyes flashed
fire as she replied, “I s'pose it's me you mean, Miss Bates;
but I guess I've a right to eat what I'm a mind to. I only
ask a dollar and ninepence a week for boarding the school-marm—”
“And makes money at that,” whispered a rosy-cheeked,
girlish-looking woman, who the summer before had been the
“school-marm,” and who now bore the name of a thrifty
young farmer.
Mrs. Perkins, however, did not notice this interruption,
but proceeded with, “Yes, a dollar and ninepence is all I
ever ask, and if I kept them so dreadful slim, I guess the
committee man wouldn't always come to me the first one.”
“Mrs. Perkins, here's the pint,” said Mrs. Bates, dropping
a stitch in her zeal to explain matters; “you see the
cheaper they get the school-ma'am boarded, the further the
money goes, and the longer school they have. Don't you
understand it?”
Mrs. Knight, fancying that affairs were assuming altogether
too formidable an aspect, adroitly turned the conversation
upon the heroine of our story, saying how glad she
was that Mary had at last found so good a home.
“So am I,” said Mrs. Bates; “for we all know that Mrs.
Mason will take just as good care of her, as though she were
her own; and she's had a mighty hard time of it, knocked
around there at the poor-house under Polly Grundy's
thumb.”
“They do say,” said Mrs. Perkins, whose anger had
somewhat cooled, “They do say that Miss Grundy is mowing
a wide swath over there, and really expects to have Mr.
Parker, if his wife happens to die.”
In her girlhood Mrs. Perkins had herself fancied Mr.
Parker, and now in her widowhood, she felt an unusual interest
in the failing health of his wife. No one replied to
her remark, and Mrs. Bates continued: “It really used to
make my heart ache to see the little forlorn thing sit there
in the gallery, fixed up so old and fussy, and then to see her
sister prinked out like a milliner's show window, a puckerin'
have actually seen her turn up her nose at her,—so—” and
Mrs. Bates's nasal organ went up towards her eyebrows in
imitation of the look which Ella sometimes gave Mary.
“It's wicked in me, perhaps,” said Mrs. Bates, “but pride
must have a fall, and I do hope I shall live to see the day
when Ella Campbell won't be half as well off as her sister.”
“I think Mrs. Campbell is answerable for some of Ella's
conduct,” said Mrs. Knight, “for I believe she suffered her
to visit the poor-house but once while Mary was there.”
“I guess she'll come oftener now she's living with a city
bug,” rejoined Mrs. Perkins.
Just then there was the sound of carriage wheels, and a
woman near the door exclaimed, “If you'll believe it there
she is now, going right straight into Mrs. Mason's yard.”
“Well, if that don't beat me,” said Mrs. Perkins.
“Seems to me I'd have waited a little longer for look's sake.
Can you see what she's got on from here?” and the lady
made a rush for the window to ascertain if possible that important
fact.
Meantime the carriage steps were let down and Mrs.
Campbell alighted. As Mrs. Knight's guests had surmised,
she was far more ready to visit Mary now than heretofore.
Ella, too, had been duly informed by her waiting-maid that
she needn't mind denying that she had a sister to the Boston
girls who were spending a summer in Chicopee.
“To be sure,” said Sarah, “she'll never be a fine lady
like you and live in the city; but then Mrs. Mason is a very
respectable woman, and will no doubt put her to a trade,
which is better than being a town pauper; so you mustn't
feel above her any more, for it's wicked, and Mrs. Campbell
wouldn't like it, for you know she and I are trying to bring
you up in the fear of the Lord.”
Accordingly Ella was prepared to greet her sister more
cordially than she had done before in a long time, and Mary
that day took her first lesson in learning that too often friends
come and go with prosperity. But she did not think of it
then. She only knew that her sister's arm was around her
neck, and her sister's kiss upon her cheek. With a cry of
joy, she exclaimed, “Oh, Ella, I knew you'd be glad to find
me so happy.”
But Ella wasn't particularly glad. She was too thoroughly
heartless to care for any one except herself, and her
reception of her sister was more the result of Sarah's lesson,
and of a wish expressed by Mrs. Campbell, that she would
“try and behave as well as she could towards Mary.” Mrs.
Campbell, too, kissed the little girl, and expressed her pleasure
at finding her so pleasantly situated; and then dropping
languidly upon the sofa, asked for Mrs. Mason, who soon
appeared, and received her visitor with her accustomed politeness.
“And so you, too, have cared for the orphan,” said Mrs.
Campbell. “Well, you will find it a task to rear her as she
should be reared, but a consciousness of doing right makes
every thing seem easy. My dear, (speaking to Ella,) run
out and play awhile with your sister, I wish to see Mrs.
Mason alone.”
“You may go into the garden,” said Mrs. Mason to
Mary, who arose to obey; but Ella hung back, saying she
“didn't want to go,—the garden was all nasty, and she should
dirty her clothes.”
“But, my child,” said Mrs. Campbell, “I wish to have
you go, and you love to obey me, do you not?”
Still Ella hesitated, and when Mary took hold of her
hand, she jerked it away, saying, “Let me be.”
At last she was persuaded to leave the room, but on
her ear to the keyhole.
“I guess I know how to cheat her,” said she in a whisper.
“I've been sent off before, but I listened and heard
her talk about me.”
“Talk about you!” repeated Mary. “What did she
say?”
“Oh, `set me up,' as Sarah says,” returned Ella; and
Mary, who had never had the advantage of a waiting maid,
and who consequently was not so well posted on “slang
terms,” asked what “setting up” meant.
“Why,” returned Ella, “she tells them how handsome
and smart I am, and repeats some cunning thing I've said or
done; and sometimes she tells it right before me, and that's
why I didn't want to come out.”
This time, however, Mrs. Campbell's conversation related
more particularly to Mary.
“My dear Mrs. Mason,” she began, “you do not know
how great a load you have removed from my mind by taking
Mary from the poor-house.”
“I can readily understand,” said Mrs. Mason, “why
you should feel more than a passing interest in the sister of
your adopted daughter, and I assure you I shall endeavor to
treat her just as I would wish a child of mine treated, were
it thrown upon the wide world.”
“Of course you will,” returned Mrs. Campbell, “and I
only wish you had it in your power to do more for her, and
in this perhaps I am selfish. I felt badly about her being
in the poor-house, but truth compels me to say, that it was
more on Ella's account than her own. I shall give Ella
every advantage which money can purchase, and I am excusable
I think for saying that she is admirably fitted to adorn
any station in life; therefore it cannot but be exceedingly
the other was one for a length of time. This, however, cannot
be helped, and now, as I said before I only wish it were
in your power to do more for Mary. I, of course, know that
you are poor, but I do not think less of you for that—”
Mrs. Mason's body became slightly more erect, but she
made no reply, and Mrs. Campbell continued.
“Still I hope you will make every exertion in your
power to educate and polish Mary as much as possible, so
that if by chance Ella in after years should come in contact
with her, she would not feel,—ahem,—would not,—would
not be—”
“Ashamed to own her sister, I suppose you would say,”
interrupted Mrs. Mason. “Ashamed to acknowledge that
the same blood flowed in her veins, that the same roof once
sheltered them, and that the same mother bent lovingly over
their pillows, calling them her children.”
“Why, not exactly that,” said Mrs. Campbell, fidgeting
in her chair and growing very red. “I think there is a difference
between feeling mortified and ashamed. Now you
must know that Ella would not be particularly pleased to
have a homely, stupid, rawboned country girl pointed out as
her sister to a circle of fashionable acquaintances in Boston,
where I intend taking her as soon as her education is finished;
and I think it well enough for Mary to understand, that with
the best you can do for her there will still be a great difference
between her own and her sister's position.”
“Excuse me, madam,” again interrupted Mrs. Mason, “a
stupid, awkward country girl Mary is not, and never will be.
In point of intellect she is far superior to her sister, and
possesses more graceful and lady-like manners. Instead of
Ella's being ashamed of her, I fancy it will be just the reverse,
unless your daughter's foolish vanity and utter selfishness
in the short time Mary has been with me, I have learned to
love her, and my heart already warms towards her as towards
a daughter, and I cannot calmly hear her spoken of so contemptuously.”
During this conversation, Ella had remained listening at
the keyhole, and as the voices grew louder and more earnest,
Mary, too, distinguished what they said. She was too young
to appreciate it fully, but she understood enough to wound
her deeply; and as she just then heard Ella say there was a
carriage coming, she sprang up the stairs, and entering her
own room, threw herself upon the bed and burst into tears.
Erelong a little chubby face looked in at the door, and
a voice which went to Mary's heart, exclaimed, “Why-ee,—
Mary,—crying the first time I come to see you!”
It was Jenny, and in a moment the girls were in each
other's arms.
“Rose has gone to the garden with Ella,” said Jenny,
“but she told me where to find you, and I came right up
here. Oh, what a nice little room, so different from mine,
with my things scattered every where. But what is the
matter? Don't you like to live with Mrs. Mason?”
“Yes, very much,” answered Mary. “It isn't that,” and
then she told what she had overheard.
“It's perfectly ridiculous and out of character for Mrs.
Campbell to talk so,” said Jenny, looking very wise. “And
it's all false, too. You are not stupid, nor awkward, nor
very homely either; Billy Bender says so, and he knows. I
saw him this morning, and he talked ever so much about you.
Next fall he's going to Wilbraham to study Latin and Chinese
too, I believe, I don't know though. Henry laughs and
says, `a plough-jogger study Latin!' But I guess Billy will
some day be a bigger man than Henry, don't you?”
Mary was sure of it; and then Jenny proceeded to open
her budget of news concerning the inmates of the poor-house.
“Sal Furbush,” said she, “is raving crazy now you are gone;
and they had to shut her up, but yesterday she broke away
and came over to our house. Tasso was with her, and growled
so at Henry that he ran up garret, and then, like a great
hateful, threw bricks at the dog. I told Sally I was coming
to see you, and she said, `Ask her if she has taken the first
step towards the publication of my novel. Tell her, too,
that the Glory of Israel has departed, and that I would drown
myself if it were not for my clothes, which I fear Mrs.
Grundy would wear out!' ”
Here Rose called to her sister to come down, and accordingly
the two girls descended together to the parlor, where
they found Mrs. Lincoln. She was riding out, she said, and
had just stopped a moment to inquire after Mrs. Mason's
health and to ask for a very few flowers,—they did look so
tempting! She was of course perfectly delighted to meet
Mrs. Campbell, and Mrs. Campbell was perfectly delighted
to meet her; and drawing their chairs together, they conversed
for a long time about Mrs. So and So, who either had
come, or was coming from Boston to spend the summer.
“I am so glad,” said Mrs. Lincoln, “for we need something
to keep us alive. I don't see, Mrs. Campbell, how you
manage to live here through the winter, no society nor any
thing.”
Here Mrs. Mason ventured to ask if there were not some
very pleasant and intelligent ladies in the village.
“Oh, ye-es,” said Mrs. Lincoln, with a peculiar twist to
her mouth, which Jenny said she always used when she was
“putting on.” “They are well enough, but they are not
the kind of folks we would recognize at home. At least
they don't belong to `our set,' speaking to Mrs. Campbell,
casual observer that Mrs. Lincoln's was the ruling spirit to
which Mrs. Campbell readily yielded, thinking that so perfect
a model of gentility could not err. Mr. Knight possibly
might have enlightened her a little with regard to her
friend's pedigree, but he was not present, and for half an
hour more the two ladies talked together of their city acquaintances,
without once seeeming to remember that Mrs.
Mason, too, had formerly known them all intimately. At
last Mrs. Lincoln arose, saying she must go, as she had already
stopped much longer than she intended, “but when I
get with you,” said she, turning to Mrs. Campbell, “I
never know when to leave.”
Mrs. Mason invited her to remain to tea, saying it was
nearly ready. Mrs. Campbell, who had also arisen, waited
for Mrs. Lincoln to decide, which she soon did by reseating
herself and saying, laughingly, “I don't know but I'll stay
for a taste of those delicious looking strawberries I saw your
servant carry past the window.”
Erelong the little tea-bell rang, and Mrs. Lincoln, who
had not before spoken to Mary, now turned haughtily towards
her, requesting her to watch while they were at supper
and see if the coachman did not drive off with the horses
as he sometimes did. Mary could not trust herself to reply
for she had agreed to sit next Jenny at table, and had in
her own mind decided to give her little friend her share of
berries. She glanced once at Mrs. Mason, who apparently
did not notice her, and then gulping down her tears, took her
station by the window, where she could see the coachman,
who, instead of meditating a drive around the neighborhood,
was fast asleep upon the box. Jenny did not miss her companion
until she was sitting down to the table, and then noticing
an empty plate between herself and her mother, who
impolitely called out, “Here, mother, sit along and make
room for Mary. That's her place. Why, where is she?
Mrs. Mason, may I call her?”
Mrs. Mason, who had seen and heard more than Mary fancied,
and who in seating her guests had contrived to bring
Mary's plate next to Mrs. Lincoln, nodded, and Jenny springing
up ran to the parlor, where Mary stood counting flies,
looking up at the ceiling, and trying various other ways to
keep from crying. Seizing both her hands Jenny almost
dragged her into the dining-room, where she found it rather
difficult squeezing in between her mother and Rose, whose
elbows took up much more room than was necessary. A
timely pinch, however, duly administered, sent the young
lady along an inch or so, and Jenny and Mary were at last
fairly seated.
Mrs. Lincoln reddened,—Mrs. Campbell looked concerned,—Mrs.
Mason amused,—Rose angry,—Mary mortified,—while
Ella, who was not quick enough to understand, did
not look at all except at her strawberries, which disappeared
rapidly. Then in order to attract attention, she scraped her
saucer as loudly as possible; but for once Mrs. Mason was
very obtuse, not even taking the hint when Mrs. Campbell
removed a portion of her own fruit to the plate of the pouting
child, bidding her “eat something besides berries.”
After a time Mrs. Lincoln thought proper to break the
silence which she had preserved, and taking up her fork,
said, “You have been buying some new silver, haven't you?”
“They were a present to me from my friend, Miss Martha
Selden,” was Mrs. Mason's reply.
“Possible!” said Mrs. Campbell.
“Indeed!” said Mrs. Lincoln, and again closely examining
the fork, she continued, “Aunt Martha is really getting
Ida is provided for, and there'll be no particular need of her
money in that quarter.”
“Provided for? How?” asked Mrs. Mason, and Mrs.
Lincoln answered, “Why didn't you know that Mr. Selden's
orphan nephew, George Moreland, had come over from England
to live with him? He is heir to a large fortune, and
it is said that both Mr. Selden and Aunt Martha are straining
every nerve to eventually bring about a match between
George and Ida.”
There was no reason why Mary should blush at the
mention of George Moreland, still she did do so, while Jenny
slyly stepped upon her toes. But her embarrassment was unobserved,
for what did she, a pauper girl, know or care about
one whose future destiny, and wife too, were even then the
subject of more than one scheming mother's speculations.
Mrs. Mason smiled, and said she thought it very much like
child's play, for if she remembered rightly Ida couldn't be
more than thirteen or fourteen.
“About that,” returned Mrs. Lincoln; “but the young
man is older,—eighteen or nineteen, I think.”
“No, mother,” interrupted Jenny, who was as good at
keeping ages as some old women, “he isn't but seventeen.”
“Really,” rejoined Mrs. Campbell, “I wouldn't wonder
if our little Jenny had some designs on him herself, she is
so anxious to make him out young.”
“Oh, fy,” returned Jenny. “He can't begin with Billy
Bender!”
Mrs. Lincoln frowned, and turning to her daughter, said,
“I have repeatedly requested, and now I command you not
to bring up Billy Bender in comparison with every thing
and every body.”
“And pray, who is Billy Bender?” asked Mrs. Mason;
country boy, who used to work for Mr. Lincoln, and
now he's on the town farm, I believe.”
“But he's working there,” said Jenny, “and he's going
to get money enough to go to school next fall at Wilbraham;
and I heard father say he deserved a great deal of credit for
it, and that men that made themselves, or else men that
didn't, I've forgot which, were always the smartest.”
Here the older portion of the company laughed, and
Mrs. Lincoln, bidding her daughter not to try to tell any
thing unless she could get it straight, again resumed the
subject of the silver forks, saying to Mrs. Mason, “I should
think you'd be so glad. For my part I'm perfectly wedded
to a silver fork, and positively I could not eat without one.”
“But, mother,” interrupted Jenny, “Grandma Howland
hasn't any, and I don't believe she ever had, for once when
we were there and you carried yours to eat with, don't you
remember she showed you a little two-tined one, and asked
if the victuals didn't taste just as good when you lived at
home and worked in the,—that great big noisy building,—I
forget the name of it?”
It was fortunate for Jenny's after happiness that Mrs.
Campbell was just then listening intently for something
which Ella was whispering in her ear, consequently she did
not hear the remark, which possibly might have enlightened
her a little with regard to her friend's early days. Tea being
over, the ladies announced their intention of leaving, and
Mrs. Mason, recollecting Mrs. Lincoln's request for flowers,
invited them into the garden, where she bade them help
themselves. It required, however, almost a martyr's patience
for her to stand quietly by, while her choicest flowers were
torn from their stalks, and it was with a sigh of relief that
guests away.
Could she have listened to their remarks, as on a piece
of wide road their carriages kept side by side for a mile or
more, she would probably have felt amply repaid for her
flowers and trouble too.
“Dear me,” said Mrs. Campbell, “I never could live in
such a lonely out of the way place.”
“Nor I either,” returned Mrs. Lincoln, “but I think
Mrs. Mason appears more at home here than in the city. I
suppose you know she was a poor girl when Mr. Mason
married her, and such people almost always show their
breeding. Still she is a good sort of a woman, and it is
well enough to have some such nice place to visit and get
fruit. Weren't those delicious berries, and ain't these splendid
rosebuds?”
“I guess, though,” said Jenny, glancing at her mother's
huge bouquet, “Mrs. Mason didn't expect you to gather
quite so many. And Rose, too, trampled down a beautiful
lily without ever apologizing.”
“And what if I did?” retorted Rose. “She and that
girl have nothing to do but fix it up.”
This allusion to Mary, reminded Mrs. Campbell of her
conversation with Mrs. Mason, and laughingly she repeated
it. “I never knew before,” said she, “that Mrs. Mason had
so much spirit. Why, she really seemed quite angry, and
tried hard to make Mary out beautiful, and graceful, and
all that.”
“And,” chimed in Ella, who was angry at Mrs. Mason for
defending her sister, and angry at her sister for being defended,
“don't you think she said that Mary ought to be
ashamed of me.”
“Is it possible she was so impudent!” said Mrs. Lincoln;
freely, but so much one gets for patronizing such creatures.”
Here the road became narrow, and as the western sky
showed indications of a storm, the coachmen were told to
drive home as soon as possible.
Mrs. Campbell's advice with regard to Mary, made no
difference whatever with Mrs. Mason's plans. She had
always intended doing for her whatever she could, and
knowing that a good education was of far more value than
money, she determined to give her every advantage which
lay in her power. There was that summer a most excellent
school in Rice Corner, and as Mrs. Mason had fortunately no
prejudices against a district school, where so many of our
best and greatest men have been educated, she resolved to
send her little protegé, as soon as her wardrobe should be in
a suitable condition. Accordingly in a few days Mary
became a regular attendant at the old brown school-house,
where for a time we will leave her, and, passing silently over
a period of several years, again in another chapter open the
scene in the metropolis of the “Old Bay State.”
| CHAPTER XIV.
VISITORS. The English orphans, or, A home in the new
world | |