University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
GLENWOOD.

Through the rich crimson curtains which shaded Rose Lincoln's
sleeping room, the golden beams of a warm March
sun were stealing, lighting up the thin features of the sick
girl with a glow so nearly resembling health, that Jenny,
when she came to wish her sister good morning, started with
surprise at seeing her look so well.

“Why, Rose, you are better,” said she, kissing the fair
cheek on which the ray of sunlight was resting.

Rose had just awoke from her deep morning slumber,
and now remembering that this was the day appointed for
her dreaded journey to Glenwood, she burst into tears, wondering
“why they would persist in dragging her from
home.”

“It's only a pretence to get me away, I know,” said she,
“and you may as well confess it at once. You are tired of
waiting upon me.”

Mr. Lincoln now came in to see his daughter, but all his
attempts to soothe her were in vain. She only replied,
“Let me stay at home, here in this room, my own room;”
adding more in anger than sorrow, “I'll try to die as soon as
I can, and be out of the way, if that's what you want!”

“Oh, Rose, Rose! poor father don't deserve that,” said
Jenny, raising her hand as if to stay her sister's thoughtless
words, while Mr. Lincoln, laying his face upon the pillow so

that his silvered locks mingled with the dark tresses of his
child, wept bitterly,—bitterly.

And still he could not tell her why she must leave her
home. He would rather bear her unjust reproaches, than
have her know that they were beggars; for a sudden shock,
the physician said, might at any time end her life. Thoroughly
selfish as she was, Rose still loved her father dearly,
and when she saw him thus moved, and knew that she was
the cause, she repented of her hasty words, and laying her
long white arm across his neck, asked forgiveness for what
she had said.

“I will go to Glenwood,” said she; “but must I stay
there long?”

“Not long, not long, my child,” was the father's reply,
and Jenny brushed away a tear as she too thought, “not
long.”

And so, with the belief that her stay was to be short,
Rose passively suffered them to dress her for the journey,
which was to be performed partly by railway and partly in a
carriage. For the first time since the night of his engagement
with Ella Campbell, Henry was this morning free from intoxicating
drinks. He had heard them say that Rose must die,
but it had seemed to him like an unpleasant dream, from
which he now awoke to find it a reality. They had brought
her down from her chamber, and laid her upon the sofa in
the parlor, where Henry came unexpectedly upon her. He
had not seen her for several days, and when he found her
lying there so pale and still, her long eyelashes resting
heavily upon her colorless cheek, and her small white hands
hanging listlessly by her side, he softly approached her,
thinking her asleep, kissed her brow, cheek and lips, whispering
as he did so, “Poor girl! poor Rosa! so young and
beautiful.”

Rose started, and wiping from her forehead the tear her
brother had left there, she looked anxiously around. Henry
was gone, but his words had awakened in her mind a new
and startling idea. Was she going to die? Did they think
so, and was this the reason of Henry's unwonted tenderness?
and sinking back upon her pillows, she wept as only those
weep to whom, in the full flush of youth and beauty, death
comes a dreaded and unwelcome guest.

“I cannot die,—I will not die,” said she at last, rousing
herself with sudden energy; “I feel that within me which
says I shall not die. The air of Glenwood will do me good,
and grandma's skill in nursing is wonderful.”

Consoled by these reflections, she became more calm, and
had her father now given his consent for her to remain in
Boston, she would of her own accord have gone to Glenwood.

The morning train bound for Albany stood in the depot,
waiting the signal to start; and just before the final “all
aboard” was sounded, a handsome equipage drove slowly up,
and from it alighted Mr. Lincoln, bearing in his arms his
daughter, whose head rested wearily upon his shoulder.
Accompanying him were his wife, Jenny, and a gray-haired
man, the family physician. Together they entered the rear
car, and instantly there was a hasty turning of heads, a
shaking of eurls, and low whispers, as each noticed and
commented upon the unearthly beauty of Rose, who in her
father's arms, lay as if wholly exhausted with the effort she
had made.

The sight of her, so young, so fair, and apparently so
low, hushed all selfish feelings, and a gay bridal party who
had taken possession of the ladies' saloon, immediately came
forward, offering it to Mr. Lincoln, who readily accepted it,

and laying Rose upon the long settee, he made her as comfortable
as possible with the numerous pillows and cushions
he had brought with him. As the creaking engine moved
slowly out of Boston, Rose asked that the window might be
raised, and leaning upon her elbow, she looked out upon her
native city, which she was leaving for ever. Some such idea
came to her mind; but quickly repressing it, she turned
towards her father, saying with a smile, “I shall be better
when I see Boston again.”

Mr. Lincoln turned away to hide a tear, for he had no
hope that she would ever return. Towards nightfall
of the next day they reached Glenwood, and Rose, more
fatigued than she was willing to acknowledge, now that she
was so determined to get well, was lifted from the carriage
and carried into the house. Mrs. Howland hastened forward
to receive her, and for once Rose forgot to notice
whether the cut of her cap was of this year's fashion or
last.

“I am weary,” she said. “Lay me where I can rest.”
And with the grandmother leading the way, the father carried
his child to the chamber prepared for her with so much
care.

“It's worse than I thought 'twas,” said Mrs. Howland,
returning to the parlor below, where her daughter, after
looking in vain for the big rocking-chair, had thrown herself
with a sigh upon the chintz-covered lounge. “It's a deal
worse than I thought 'twas. Hasn't she catched cold, or
been exposed some way?”

“Not in the least,” returned Mrs. Lincoln, twirling the
golden stopper of her smelling bottle. “The foundation of
her sickness was laid at Mount Holyoke, and the whole faculty
ought to be indicated for manslaughter.”

Jenny's clear, truthful eyes turned towards her mother,

who frowned darkly, and continued: “She was as well as
any one until she went there, and I consider it my duty to
warn all parents against sending their daughters to a place
where neither health, manners, nor any thing else is attended
to, except religion and housework.”

Jenny had not quite got over her childish habit of occasionally
setting her mother right on some points, and she
could not forbear saying that Dr. Kleber thought Rose injured
herself by attending Mrs. Russell's party.

“Dr. Kleber doesn't know any more about it than I do,”
returned her mother. “He's always minding other folks'
business, and so are you. I guess you'd better go up stairs,
and see if Rose doesn't want something.”

Jenny obeyed, and as she entered her sister's chamber,
Rose lifted her head languidly from her pillow, and pointing
to a window, which had been opened that she might breathe
more freely, said, “Just listen; don't you hear that horrid
croaking?”

Jenny laughed aloud, for she knew Rose had heard
“that horrid croaking” more than a hundred times in
Chicopee, but in Glenwood every thing must necessarily
assume a goblin form and sound. Seating herself upon the
foot of the bed, she said, “Why, that's the frogs. I love to
hear them dearly. It makes me feel both sad and happy,
just as the crickets do that sing under the hearth in our old
home at Chicopee.”

Jenny's whole heart was in the country, and she could
not so well sympathize with her nervous, sensitive sister,
who shrank from country sights and country sounds. Accidentally
spying some tall locust branches swinging in the
evening breeze before the east window, she again spoke to
Jenny, telling her to look and see if the tree leaned against

the house, “for if it does,” said she, “and creaks, I shan't
sleep a wink to-night.”

After assuring her that the tree was all right, Jenny
added, “I love to hear the wind howl through these old
trees, and were it not for you, I should wish it might blow
so that I could lie awake and hear it.”

When it grew darker, and the stars began to come out,
Jenny was told “to close the shutters.”

“Now, Rose,” said she, “you are making half of this,
for you know as well as I, that grandma's house hasn't got
any shutters.”

“Oh, mercy, no more it hasn't. What shall I do?”
said Rose, half crying with vexation. “That coarse muslin
stuff is worse than nothing, and everybody'll be looking in
to see me.”

“They'll have to climb to the top of the trees, then,”
said Jenny, “for the ground descends in every direction,
and the road, too, is so far away. Besides that, who is
there that wants to see you?”

Rose didn't know. She was sure there was somebody,
and when Mrs. Howland came up with one of the nicest little
suppers on a small tea-tray, how was she shocked to find
the window covered with her best blankets, which were safely
packed away in the closet adjoining.

“Rose was afraid somebody would look in and see
her,” said Jenny, as she read her grandmother's astonishment
in her face.

“Look in and see her!” repeated Mrs. Howland. “I've
undressed without curtains there forty years, and I'll be
bound nobody ever peeked at me. But come,” she added,
“set up, and see if you can't eat a mouthful or so. Here's
some broiled chicken, a slice of toast, some currant jelly that

I made myself, and the swimminest cup of black tea you
ever see. It'll eenamost bear up an egg.”

“Sweetened with brown sugar, ain't it?” said Rose, sipping
a little of the tea.

In great distress the good old lady replied that she was
out of white sugar, but some folks loved brown just as well.

“Ugh! Take it away,” said Rose. “It makes me sick,
and I don't believe I can eat another mite,” but in spite of
her belief the food rapidly disappeared, while she alternately
made fun of the little silver spoons, her grandmother's bridal
gift, and found fault because the jelly was not put up in
porcelain jars, instead of the old blue earthen tea-cup, tied
over with a piece of paper!

Until a late hour that night, did Rose keep the whole
household (her mother excepted) on the alert, doing the
thousand useless things which her nervous fancy prompted.
First the front door, usually secured with a bit of whittled
shingle, must be nailed, “or somebody would break in.”
Next, the windows, which in the rising wind began to rattle,
must be made fast with divers knives, scissors, combs and
keys; and lastly, the old clock must be stopped, for Rose was
not accustomed to its striking, and it would keep her awake!

“Dear me!” said the tired old grandmother, when, at
about midnight, she repaired to her own cosy little bedroom,
“how fidgety she is. I should of s'posed that livin' in
the city so, she'd got used to noises.”

In a day or two Mr. Lincoln and Jenny went back to
Boston, bearing with them a long list of articles which Rose
must and would have. As they were leaving the house Mrs.
Howland brought out her black leathern wallet, and forcing
two ten dollar bills into Jenny's hand, whispered, “Take it
to pay for them things. Your pa has need enough for his
money, and this is some I've earned along, knitting, and selling

butter. At first I thought I would get a new chamber
carpet, but the old one answers my turn very well, so take it,
and buy Rose every thing she wants.”

And all this time the thankless girl up stairs was fretting
and muttering about her grandmother's stinginess, in not
having a better carpet “than the old faded thing, which
looked as if manufactured before the flood!