University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

One afternoon in the following July, tired of walking in the
known fields, and of carrying a nest of mice, which I had discovered
under a hay-rick, I concluded I would begin a system
of education with them; so arranging them on a grape leaf,
which I had pulled off by the alder bushes along the stone wall,
I started homeward. Going in by the kitchen I saw Temperance
wiping the dust from the best china, which elated me, for it
was a sign that we were going to have company to tea.

“You evil child,” she said, “where have you been? Your
mother has wanted you these hours, to dress you in your red
French calico with wings to it. Some of the members are
coming to tea; Miss Seneth Jellatt, and she that was Clarissa
Tripp, Snow now, and Mis Sophrony G. Dexter, and
more besides.”

I put my mice in a basket, and begged Temperance to allow
me to finish wiping the china; she consented, adjuring me not
to let it fall. “Mis Morgeson would die if any of it should be
broken.” I adored it, too. Each piece had a peach, or pear,
or a bunch of cherries painted on it, in lustrous brown. The
handles were like gold cords, and the covers had knobs of gilt
grapes.

“What preserves are you going to put on the table?” I
asked.

“Them West Ingy things Capen Curtis's son brought home,

and quartered quince, though I expect Mis Dexter will remark
that the surup is ropy.”

“I wish you wouldn't have cheese.”

“We must have cheese,” she said solemnly. “I expect
they'll drink our green tea till they make bladders of themselves,
it is so good. Your father is a first-rate man; he is
an excellent provider, and any woman ought to be proud of
him, for he does buy number one in provisions.”

I looked at her with admiration and respect.

“Capen Curtis,” she continued, pursuing a train of thought
which the preserves had started, “will never come home, I
guess. He has been in furen parts forever and a day; his
wife has looked for him, a-twirling her thumb and fingers,
every day for ten years. I heard your mother had engaged
her to go in the new house; she'll take the upper hand of us
all. Your grandfather, Mr. John Morgeson, is willing to part
with her; tired of her I s'pose. She has been housekeeping
there, off and on, these thirty years. She's fifty, if she is a
day, is Hepsy Curtis.”

“Is she as stingy as you are?” I asked.

“You'll find out for yourself, Miss. I rather think you
won't be allowed to crumble over the buttery shelves.”

I finished the cups, and was watching her while she grated
loaf sugar over a pile of doughnuts, when mother entered, and
begged me to come up stairs with her to be dressed.

“Where is Verry, mother?”

“In the parlor, with a lemon in one hand and Robinson
Crusoe in the other. She will be good, she says. Cassy, you
won't teaze me to-day, will you?”

“No, indeed, mother,” and clapping my hands, “I like
you too well.”

She laughed.

“These Morgesons beat the dogs,” I heard Temperance say,
as we shut the door, and went up stairs.

I skipped over the shiny lead-colored floor of the chamber
in my stockings, while mother was taking from the bureau a
clean suit for me, and singing “Bonny Doon,” with the sweetest
voice in the world. She soon arrayed me in my red calico
dress, spotted with yellow stars. I was proud of its buckram
undersleeves, though they scratched my arms, and admired its
wings, which extended over the protecting buckram.

“It is three o'clock; the company will come soon. Be careful
of your dress. You must stand by me at the table to hand
the cups of tea.”

She left me standing in a chair, so that I might see my pantalettes
in the high-hung glass, and the effect of my balloon-like
sleeves. Then I went back to the kitchen to show myself to
Temperance, and to enjoy the progress of tea.

The table was laid in the long keeping-room adjoining the
kitchen. It was covered with a striped cloth of crimson and
blue, smooth as satin to the touch. Temperance had turned
the plates upside down around the table, and placed in a
straight line through the middle a row of edibles. She was
going to have waffles, she said, and short cake; they were all
ready to bake, and she wished to the Lord they would come,
and have it over with. With the silver sugar tongs I slyly
nipped lumps of sugar for my private eating, and surveyed my
features in the distorting mirror of the pot-bellied silver tea
pot, ordinarily laid up in flannel, on which were Grandfather
Locke's initials, intermingled with those of his first wife, Rachel
Somers. When the company had arrived, Temperance
advised me to go in the parlor.

“Sit down, when you get there, and show less,” she said.
I went in softly, and stood behind mother's chair, slightly
abashed for a moment in the presence of the party—some
eight or ten ladies, dressed in black Levantine, or cinnamon-colored
silks, who were seated in rocking chairs, all the rocking
chairs in the house having been carried to the parlor for
the occasion. They were knitting, and every one had a square
velvet work bag. Most of them wore lace caps, trimmed with
white satin ribbon. They were larger, more rotund, and older
than mother, whose appearance struck me by contrast. Perhaps
it was the first time that I observed her dress; her face
I must have studied before, for I knew all her moods by it.
Her long, lustreless, brown hair was twisted round a high-topped
tortoise shell comb; it was so heavy and so carelessly
twisted, that the comb started backwards, threatening to fall
out. She had minute rings of filagreed gold in her ears. Her
dress was a grey Pongee, simply made, and short; I could see
her round-toed, morocco shoes, tied with black ribbon. She
usually took out her shoe strings, not liking the trouble of
tying them. A ruffle of fine lace fell round her throat, and
the sleeves of her short-waisted dress were puffed at the shoulders.
Her small white hands were folded in her lap, for she
was idle; on the little finger of her left hand twinkled a brilliant
garnet ring, set round with diamonds. Her face was colorless;
the forehead extremely low, the nose and mouth finely
cut, the eyes a heavenly blue. Although youth had gone, she

was beautiful, and had an indescribable air of individuality
She influenced all who were near her; her atmosphere enveloped
them. She was not aware of it; she was too indifferent
to the world to observe what effect she had in it, and only
realized what she was to herself, being a self-tormentor.
Whether she attracted, or repelled, the power was the same.
I make no attempt to analyze her character. I describe her
as she appeared, and as my memory now holds her. I never
understood her, and for that reason she attracted my attention.
I felt puzzled now, she seemed so different from anybody else.
My observation was next drawn to Veronica, who, entirely at
home, walked up and down the room in a blue cambric dress.
She was twisting in her fingers a fine gold chain, which hung
from her neck. I caught her cunning glance as she flourished
some tansey leaves before her face, imitating Mrs. Dexter to
the life. I laughed, and she came to me

“See,” she said softly, “I have something from heaven.”
She lifted her white apron, and I saw under it, pinned to her
dress, a splendid black butterfly, spotted with red and gold.

“It is mine,” she said, “you shall not touch it. God blew
it in through the window; but it has not breathed yet.”

“Pooh; I have three mice in the kitchen.”

“Where is the mother?”

“In the hay-rick, I suppose.”

“I hate you,” she said in an enraged voice. “I would strike
you, if it wasn't for this holy butterfly.”

“Cassandria,” said Mrs. Dexter, “does look like her pa; the
likeness is ex-tri-ordinary. They say my William resembles
me; but parients are no judges.”

A faint murmur rose from the knitters, which signified
agreement with her remark.

“I do think,” she continued, “that it is high time Dr.
Snell had a colleague; he has outlived his usefulness. I never
could say that I thought he was the right kind of man for our
congregation; his principalls as a man, I have nothing to say
against; but why don't we have revivals?”

When Mrs. Dexter wished to be elegant she stepped out of
the vernacular. She was about to speak again when the whole
party broke into a loud talk on the subject she had started,
not observing Temperance, who appeared at the door, and
beckoned to mother. I followed her out.

“The members are goin' it, aint they?” she said. “Do see
if things are about right, Mis Morgeson.' Mother made a few
deviations from the straight lines in which Temperance had

ranged the viands, and told her to put the tea on the tray, and
the chairs round the table.

“There's no place for Mr. Morgeson,” observed Temperance.

“He is in Milford,” mother replied.

“The brethren won't come, I s'pose, till after dark?”

“I suppose not.”

“Glad to get rid of their wives' clack, I guess.”

From the silence which followed mother's return to the parlor,
I concluded they were performing the ancient ceremony of
waiting for some one to go through the doorway first. They
came at last with an air of indifference, as if the idea of eating
had not yet occurred, and delayed taking seats till mother
urged it; they then drew up to the table hastily, turned the
plates right side up, spread large silk handkerchiefs over their
laps, and, with their eyes fixed on space, preserved a dead
silence, which was only broken by mother's inquiries about their
taste in milk or sugar. Temperance came in with plates of
waffles and buttered short cake, which she offered with a cut
and thrust air, saying, as she did so, “I expect you can't eat
them; I know they are tough.”

Everybody, however, accepted both. She then handed
round the preserves, and went out to bake more waffles.

By this time the cups had circled the table, but no one had
tasted a morsel.

“Do help yourselves,” mother entreated, whereat they fell
upon the waffles.

“Temperance is as good a cook as ever,” said one; “she is
a prize, isn't she Mis Morgeson?”

“She is faithful and industrious,” mother replied.

All began at once on the subject of help and were as suddenly
quenched by the re-appearance of Temperance, with
fresh waffles, and a dish of apple fritters.

“Do eat these if you can, ladies; the apples are only russets,
and they are kinder dead for flavoring. I see you don't
eat a mite; I expected you could not; its poor trash.” And
she passed the cake along, everybody taking a piece of each
kind.

After drinking a good many cups of tea, and praising it,
their asceticism gave way to its social effect, and they began to
gossip, ridiculing their neighbors, and occasionally launching
inuendoes against their absent lords. It is well known that
when women meet together they do not discuss their rights,
but take them, by revealing the little weaknesses and peculiarities

of their husbands. The worst wife-driver would be confounded
at the air of easy superiority assumed on these occasions,
by the meekest and most unsuspicious of her sex. Insinuations
of So and So's not being any better than she should
be passed from mouth to mouth, with a glance at me; and I
heard the proverb of “Little pitchers,” when mother rose suddenly
from the table, and led the way to the parlor.

“Where is Veronica?” asked Temperance, who was piling
the débris of the feast. “She has been in mischief, I'll warrant;
find her, Cassandra.”

She was up stairs putting away her butterfly, in the leaves
of her little Bible. She came down with me, and Temperance
coaxed her to eat her supper, by vowing that she should be
sick abed, unless she liked her fritters and waffles. I thought
of my mice, while making a desultory meal standing, and went
to look at them; they were gone. Wondering if Temperance
had thrown the creatures away, I remembered that I had been
foolish enough to tell Veronica, and rushed back to her. When
she saw me, she raised a saucer to her face, pretending to
drink from it.

“Verry, where are the mice?”

“Are they gone?”

“Tell me.”

“What will you do if I don't?”

“I know,” and I flew up stairs, tore the poor butterfly from
between the leaves of the Bible, crushed it in my hand, and
brought it down to her. She did not cry when she saw it, but
choked a little, and turned away her head.

It was now dark, and hearing a bustle in the entry I looked
out, and saw several staid men slowly rubbing their feet on the
door mat; the husbands had come to escort their wives home,
and by nine o'clock they all went. Veronica and I staid by
the door after they had gone.

“Look at Mrs. Dexter,” she said; “I put the mice in her
work bag.”

I burst into a laugh, which she joined in, till she cried.

“I am sorry about the butterfly, Verry.” And I attempted
to take her hand, but she pushed me away, and marched off whistling.

A few days after this, sitting near the window at twilight, intent
upon a picture in a book of travels, of a Hindoo swinging
from a high pole with hooks in his flesh, and trying to imagine
how much it hurt him, my attention was arrested by a mention
of my name in a conversation held between mother and Mr.

Park, one of the neighbors. He occasionally spent an evening
at our house, passing it in polemical discussion. He revised
and enlarged the prayers and exhortations which he had made
in the conference meetings, as he repeated them to mother,
with his eyes fixed on her. The good man was a little vain
of his having the formulas of his creed at his tongue's end.
While she listened, she sometimes lost the thread of his discourse;
her eyes wandered, she appeared lost in a region beyond
polemic pales. When she returned she argued also, as
if to convince herself that she could rightly distinguish between
Truth and Illusion. She never discussed religious
topics with father. Like all the Morgesons, he was Orthodox,
accepting what had been provided for his spiritual accommodation.
He thought it well that existing Institutions should
not be disturbed. “Something worse might be established
instead.” His turn of mind, in short, was not Evangelical.

“Are the Hindoos in earnest, mother?” and I thrust the
picture before her; she warned me off.

“Do you think, Mr. Park, that Cassandra can understand
the law of transgression?”

An acute perception that it was in my power to escape a
moral penalty, by wilful ignorance, was revealed to me. I
felt I could continue the privilege of sinning with impunity.
His answer was complicated, and he quoted several passages
from the Scriptures. Presently he began to sing, and I grew
lonesome; the life within me seemed a black cave.

Temperance opened the door. “Is Veronica going to bed
to-night?” she asked.