 | CHAPTER X. The Morgesons |  |
10. CHAPTER X.
The atmosphere of my two lives was so different, that when
I passed into one, the other ceased to affect me. I forgot all
that I suffered and hated at Miss Black's, as soon as I crossed
the threshold, and entered grand'ther's house. The difference
kept up a healthy mean; either alone, would perhaps have been
more than I could then have sustained. All that year my life
was narrowed to that house, my school, and the church. Father
offered to take me to ride, when he came to Barmouth, of
conveying power of the horse, created such a fearful and realizing
sense of escape, that I gave up riding with him Aunt
Mercy seldom left home; my schoolmates did not invite me to
visit them; the sea shore was too distant for me to ramble
there; the storehouses and wharves by the river side offered
no agreeable saunterings; and the street, in aunt Mercy's estimation,
was not the place for an idle promenade. My exercise,
therefore, was confined to the garden—a pleasant spot, now
that midsummer had come, and inhabited with winged and
crawling creatures, with whom I claimed companionship, especially
with the red, furry caterpillars, that have, alas, nearly
passed away, and given place to a variegated, fantastic tribe,
which gentleman farmers are fond of writing about.
Mother rode over to Barmouth occasionally, but seemed
more glad when she went away, than when she came. Veronica
came with her once, but said she would come no more while
I was there. She, too, would wait till the end of the year, for
I spoiled the place. She said this so calmly, that I never
thought of being offended by it. I told her the episode of the
pink calico. “It is a lovely color,” she said, when I showed
it to her “If you like, I will take it home and burn it.”
As I developed the dramatic part of my story—the blow
given Charlotte Alden, Verry rubbed her face shrinkingly, as
if she had felt the blow. “Let me see your hand,” she asked;
“did I ever strike anybody?”
“You threw a pail of salt down stairs, once, upon my head,
and put out my sight.”
“I wish, when you come home, you would pound Mr. Park;
he talks too much about the Resurrection. And,” she added
mysteriously, “he likes mother.”
“Likes mother!” I said aghast.
“He watches her so when she holds Arthur! Why do you
stare at me? Why do I talk to you? I am going. Now
mind, I shall never leave home to go to any school; I shall
know enough without.”
While Veronica was holding this placable talk with me, I
noted that she had the high-bred air, the absence of which I
deplored in myself.
How cool and unimpressionable she looked! There was
nothing in her face and bearing to provoke that nameless curiosity
which leads us to experiment upon, and excite one's emotions.
She did not attract me. My mind wandered to what I
had heard Mary Bennett say, in recess one day, that her brother
that I was the handsomest girl in Miss Black's school.
“Is it possible!” replied the girl to whom she had made the
remark. “I never should think of calling her pretty.”
“Stop, Veronica,” I called; “am I pretty?” She turned
back. “Everybody in Surrey says so; and everybody says I
am not.” And she banged the door against me.
She did not come to Barmouth again. She was ill in the
winter, and father said she was queerer than ever, and more
trouble. The summer passed, and I had no particular torment,
except Miss Black's tormenting me in reference to Composition.
I could not do justice to the themes she gave us,
not having the books from which she took them at command.
I betrayed an ignorance which excited her utmost contempt, on
“The Scenery of Singapore,” “The Habits of the Hottentos,”
and “The Relative Merits of Homer and Virgil.”
In October Sally and Ruth Aiken came for the fall sewing.
They had farmed it all summer, they said, and were tanned so
deep a hue, that their faces bore no small resemblance to ham.
Ruth brought me some apples in an ochre-colored bag and
Sally eyed me with her old severity. As they took their accustomed
seats at the table, I thought they had swallowed the
interval of time which had gone by since they left, so precisely
the same was the moment of their leaving, and that of their
coming back. I knew grand'ther no better than when I saw
him first. He was sociable to those who visited the house;
but never with those abiding in his family. Me, he never noticed,
except when I ate less than usual; then he peered into
my face, and said, “What ails you?” We had the benefit of
his taciturn presence continually, for he rarely went out; and
although he did not interfere with aunt Mercy's work, he supervised
it, weighed and measured every article that was used,
and kept the cellar and garden in perfect order.
It was approaching the season of killing the pig, and he conferred
often with aunt Mercy on the subject. The weather
was watched, and the pig poked daily, in the hope that the fat
was thickening on his ribs. When the day of his destiny arrived,
there was almost confusion in the house, and for a week
after, of evenings, grand'ther went about with a lantern, and
was not himself till a new occupant was obtained for the vacant
pen, and all his idiosyncrasies revealed and understood. The
sausages and ham which we had shortly after, formed an era
in our living, and grand'ther sarcastically remarked—that I
and at his being kept in the garden.
“I don't laugh, grand'ther, at your beautiful pigeons, that
live in the pig-sty roof; it is just the place for them.”
“Yes,” he answered, briskly rubbing his hands, “but they
eat the pig's corn, and I can't afford that; I shall have to shoot
them, I guess.”
“Oh, don't, grand'ther.”
“I will, this very day. Where's the gun, Mercy?”
In an hour the pigeons were shot, except two which had flown
away.
“Why did you ask him not to shoot the pigeons?” said
aunt Mercy. “If you had said nothing, he would not have
done it.”
“He is a disagreeable relation,” I answered, “and I am
glad he is a tailor.”
Aunt Mercy reproved me; but the loss of the pigeons vexed
her. Perhaps grand'ther thought so, for that night he asked
after her geraniums, and told her that a gardener had promised
him some fine slips for her. She looked pleased, but did
not thank him. There was already a beautiful stand of flowers
in the middle room, which was odorous the year round with
their perfume.
The weather was now cold, and we congregated about the
fire; for there was no other comfortable room in the house.
One afternoon, when I was digging in aunt Mercy's geranium
pots, and picking off the dead leaves, two deacons came to visit
grand'ther, and, hovering over the fire with him, complained
of the lukewarmness of the church brethren in regard to the
spiritual condition of the Society. A shower of grace was
needed; there were reviving symptoms in some of the neighboring
churches, but none in Barmouth. Something must be
done—a fast-day appointed, or especial prayer meetings held.
This was on Saturday; the next day the ceremony of the
Lord's Supper would take place, and grand'ther recommended
that the minister should be asked to suggest something to the
church, which might remove it from its hardness.
“Are the vessels scoured, Mercy?” he asked after the deacons
had gone.
“I have no sand.”
He presently brought her a biggin of fine white sand, which
brought the shore of Surrey to my mind's eye. I followed her
as she carried it to the well-room, where I saw, on the meal
chest, two large pewter plates, two flagons of the same metal,
owner's name. They were soon cleaned. Then she made a
fire in the oven, and mixed loaves into a peculiar shape, and
launched them into the oven. She watched the bread carefully,
and took it out before it had time to brown.
“This work belongs to the deacon's wives,” she said; “but
it has been done in this house for years.”
“The bread is unlike our bread.”
“Because it is unleavened.”
Grand'ther carried it into the church, after she had cut it
with a sharp knife so that at the touch it would fall apart into
square bits. When the remains were brought back, I went to
the closet, where they were deposited, and took a piece of the
bread, eating it reflectively, to test its solemnizing powers. I
felt none, and when aunt Mercy boiled the remnants with milk
for a pudding, the sacred ideality of the ceremony I had seen
at church was destroyed for me.
Was it a pity that my life was not conducted on Nature's
plan, who shows us the beautiful, by concealing the interior?
We do not see the roots of her roses, and she hides from us
all skeletons.
November passed, with its Thanksgiving—the sole day of all
the year which grand'ther celebrated, by buying a goose for
dinner, which goose was stewed with rye dumplings, that slid
over my plate like glass balls. Sally and Ruth betook themselves
to their farm, and hybernated. December came, and
with it a young woman named Caroline, to learn the tailor's
trade. Lively and pretty, she was incapable of fusing into our
atmosphere. She broke the silence of the morning by singing
the “Star-spangled Banner,” or the “Braes of Balquhither,”
and disturbed the monotony of the evenings by making molasses
candy, which grand'ther ate, and which seemed to have a
mollifying influence. She was afflicted with a chronic sore
throat; her favorite remedy was red pepper tea, which she
made just before bed time, boiling the pepper pods while we
were at prayers, and as soon as grand'ther said “Amen,” swooping
the porringer from the fire, and bearing it to the buttery,
where she sipped it scalding hot. I took the pepper tea, for
the sake of the sensation of having my throat stung, till I strangled.
Grand'ther kept his eye on Caroline; but his eye had
no disturbing effect. She had no perception of his character;
was fearless with him, and went contrary to all his ideas, and
he liked her for it. She even reproved him for keeping such
a long face. Her sewing, which was very bad, tried his patience
widow, he would have given up the task of teaching her the
trade. She said she knew she couldn't learn it; what was the
use of trying? She should go out West, and thought she might
make a good home-missionary, as she did, for she married a
poor young man of medium ability, who had forsaken the trade
of a cooper, to study for the ministry, and, having too little
talent to hope for the charge of a church in any flourishing
village, was helped off to Ohio by the Society of Home Missions.
She came to see me in Surrey ten years afterwards, a gaunt,
hollow-eyed woman, of forbidding manners, and an implacable
faith in no rewards or punishments this side of the grave.
I suffered so from the cold that December, that I informed
mother of the fact by letter. She wrote back:
“My child have courage. One of these days you will feel a
tender pity, when you think of your mother's girlhood. You
are learning how she lived at your age. I trembled at the
prosperity of your opening life, and believed it best for you to
have a period of contrast. I thought you would, by and by,
understand me better than I do myself; for you are not like
me, Cassy, you are like your father. You shall never go back
to Barmouth, unless you wish it. Dear Cassy, do you pray
any? I send you some new petticoats, and a shawl. Does
Mercy warm the bed for you? Your affectionate mother.”
I dressed and undressed in aunt Mercy's room, which was
under the roof, with benumbed fingers. My hair was like the
coat of a cow in frosty weather; it was so frowzy, and
so divided against itself that when I tried to comb it, it
streamed out like the tail of a comet. Aunt Mercy discovered
that I was afflicted with chilblains, and had a good cry over
them, telling me, at the same moment, that my French slippers
were the cause. We had but one fire in the house, except the
fire in the shop, which was allowed to go down at sunset.
Sometimes I found a remaining warmth in the goose,
which had been left in the ashes, and borrowed it for my stiffened
fingers. I did not get thoroughly warm all day, for the
fire in the middle room, made of green wood, was continually
in the process of being stifled with a greener stick, as
the others kindled. The school room was warm; but I had a
back seat by a window, where my feet were iced by a current,
and my head exposed to a draught. In January I had so bad
an ague, that I was confined at home a week, under a
mild regimen of blisters and poultices.
I grew fast, in spite of all my discomforts. Aunt Mercy
were no tucks. I had assumed a womanly shape. Stiff as my
hands were, and purple as were my arms, I could see that they
were plump and well-shaped. I had lost the meagreness of
childhood, and I began to feel a new and delightful affluence.
What an appetite I had, too!
“The creature will eat us out of house and home,”
said grand'ther one day, looking at me, for him good humoredly.
“Well, don't shoot me, as you shot the pigeons.”
“Pah, have pigeons a soul?”
In February the weather softened, and a great revival broke
out. It was the dullest time of the year in Barmouth.
The ships were at sea still, and the farmers had only to fodder
their cattle, so that everybody could attend the protracted
meeting. It was the same as Sunday at our house
for nine days. Miss Black, in consequence of the awakening,
dismissed the school for two weeks, that the pupils might
profit, in what she told us was The Scheme of Salvation.
Caroline was among the first converts. I observed her
from the moment I was told she was under Conviction, till she
experienced Religion. She sang no more of mornings, and the
making of molasses candy was suspended in the evenings. I
thought her less pleasing, and felt shy of holding ordinary
conversation with her, for had she not been set apart for
a mysterious work? I perceived that when she sewed between
meetings, her work was worse done than ever; but grand'ther
made no mention of it. I went with aunt Mercy
to meeting three times a day, and employed myself in scanning
the countenances around me, curious to discover the first
symptoms of Conviction.
One night, when grand'ther came in to prayers, he told
aunt Mercy that Pardon Hitch was awfully distressed in mind,
in view of his sins. She replied thas she thought him a good
man.
“As good as any unregenerate man can be.”
“I might as well be a thorough reprobate, then,” I thought,
“like Sal Thompson, who seems remarkably happy, as to try
to behave as well as Pardon Hitch, who is a model in Barmouth.”
When we went to church the next morning, I saw him in
one of the back pews, leaning against the rail, as if he had no
strength. His face was full of anguish. He sat there motionless
all day. He was prayed for, but did not seem to hear the
prayers. At night his wife led him home. By the end of the
uttering an inarticulate cry. We all looked. The tears were
streaming down his pale face, which was lighted up by a smile
of joy. He seemed like a man escaped from some great danger,
torn, bruised, breathless, but alive. The minister left the
pulpit to shake hands with him; the brethren crowded round
and congratulated him, and the meeting broke up at once.
Neither grand'ther nor aunt Mercy had spoken to me concerning
my interest in Religion; but on that very evening Mr.
Boold, the minister, came in to tea and asked me, while he was
taking off his overcoat, if I knew that Christ had died for me?
I answered that I was not sure of it.
“Do you read your Bible, child?”
“Every day.”
“And what does it teach you?”
“I do not know.”
“Miss Mercy, I will thank you for another cup. `Now
is the day, and now is the hour; come unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.'”
“But I do not want rest; I have no burden,” I said.
“Cassandra,” thundered grand'ther, “have you no respect
for God nor man?”
“Have you read,” went on the minister, “the memoir
of Nathan Dickerman? A mere child, he realized his burden
of sin in time, and died sanctified.”
I thought it best to say no more. Aunt Mercy looked disturbed,
and left the table as soon as she could with decency.
“Cassandra,” she said when we were alone, “what will become
of you?”
“What will, indeed? You have always said that I was possessed.
Why did you not explain this fact to Mr. Boold?”
She kissed me,—her usual treatment when she was perplexed.
The revival culminated and declined. Sixty new members
were admitted into the church, and things settled into the old
state. School was resumed; I found that not one of my
schoolmates had met with a change, but Miss Black did
not touch on the topic. My year was nearly out; March had
come and gone, and it was now April. One mild day in the
latter part of the month, the girls went to the yard at recess.
Charlotte Alden said pleasantly, that the weather was fair
enough for out-of-doors play, and asked if I would try the tilt.
I gave a cordial assent. We balanced the board so that each
could seat herself, and began to tilt slowly. As she was heavy,
her. She asked if I dared to go higher. “Oh yes, if you
wish it.” Happening to look round I caught her winking at
the girls near us, and felt that she was brewing mischief, but I
had no time to dwell on it. She bore the end she was on to
the ground, with a sudden jerk, and I fell from the other, some
eight feet, struck a stone, and fainted.
The next thing that I recollect was aunt Mercy's carrying
me across the street in her arms. She had seen my fall from
the window. Reaching the house she let me slide on the floor
in a heap, and began to wring her hands, and stamp her feet.
“I am not hurt, aunt Mercy.”
“You are nearly killed, you know you are. This is your
last day at that miserable school. I am going for the Doctor,
as soon as you say you won't faint again.”
My education at Miss Black's was finished with a blow. I
had been mentally knocked about the whole period; but I believe
my mind was only stimulated into the reception of a few
Latinized words.
When aunt Mercy represented to Miss Black that I was not
to return to school, and that she feared I had not made the improvement
that was expected, Miss Black asked with hauteur,
what had been expected—what my friends could expect?
Aunt Mercy was intimidated, and retired as soon as she had
paid her the last quarter's bills.
A week after my tournament with Charlotte Alden I went
back to Surrey. There was little preparation to make—few
friends to bid farewell. Ruth and Sally had emerged from
their farm, and were sewing again at grand'ther's. Sally bade
me remember that riches took to themselves wings and flew
away; she hoped they had not been a snare to my mother; but
she wasn't what she was, it was a fact.
“No, she isn't,” Ruth affirmed. “Do you remember, Sally,
when she came out to the farm once, and rode the white colt
bare-back round the big meadow, with her hair flying?”
“Hold your tongue, Ruth.”
Ruth looked penitent as she gave me a paper of hollyhock
seeds, and said the flowers were a beautiful blood red, and that
I must plant them near the sink drain. Caroline had already
gone home, so aunt Mercy had nothing cheery, but her plants
and her snuff; for she had lately contracted the habit of snuff-taking,
but very privately.
“Train her well, Locke; she is skittish,” said grand'ther,
as we got into the chaise to go home.
“Grand'ther, if I am ever rich enough to own a peaked-roof
pig-sty, will you come and see me?”
“Away with you.” And he went nimbly back to the house,
chafing his little hands.
| CHAPTER X. The Morgesons | |