 | CHAPTER III. The Morgesons |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
“Mrs. Saunders,” said mother, “don't let that soap boil
over. Cassy, keep away from it.”
“Lord,” replied Mrs. Saunders, “there's no fat in the bones
to bile. Cassy's grown dreadful fast, ain't she? How long
has the old man been dead, Mis Morgeson?”
“Three years, Mrs. Saunders.”
“How time do fly,” remarked Mrs. Saunders, mopping her
wrinkled face with a dark blue handkerchief. “The winter's
sass is hardly put in the cellar, 'fore we have to cut off the
sprouts, and up the taters for planting agin. We shall all
foller him soon.” And she stirred the bones in the great kettle
with the vigor of an ogress.
When I heard her ask the question about Grandfather
Locke, the interval that had elapsed since his death swept
back through my mind. What a little girl I was at the time!
How much had since happened! But no thought remained
with me long. I was about to settle what I had been thinking
of, whether I would go down to the beach and wade, or up into
the woods for snake flowers till school-time, when my attention
was again arrested by Mrs. Saunders saying, “I spose Marm
Tamor went off with a large slice, and Mr. John Morgeson is
mad to this day?”
Mother was prevented from answering by the appearance of
the said Mr. John Morgeson, who darkened the threshold of
the kitchen door, but advanced no farther. I looked at him
with curiosity; if he were mad, he might be interesting He
was a large, portly man, over sixty, with splendid black hair
slightly grizzled, a prominent nose, and fair complexion. I
did not like him, and determined not to speak to him.
“Say good morning, Cassandra,” said mother, in a low voice.
“No,” I answered loudly, “I am not fond of my grandfather.”
Mrs. Saunders mopped her face again, grinning with delight
behind her handkerchief.
“Debby, my wife, wants you, Mis Saunders, after you have
made Mary's soap,” he said.
“Surely,” she answered.
“Where is the black horse to-day?” he asked mother.
“Locke has gone to Milford with him.”
“I wanted the black horse to-day,” he said, turning away.
“He's a mighty grand man, he is,” commented Mrs. Saunders.
“I am pesky glad, Mis Morgeson, that you have never
put foot in his house. I 'plaud your sperit!”
“School time, Cassy,” said mother. “Will you have some
gingerbread to carry? Tell me when you come home what
you have read in the New Testament.”
“My boy does read beautiful,” said Mrs. Saunders.
“Where's the potash, Mis Morgeson?”
I heard the bell toll as I loitered along the roadside, pulling
a dandelion here and there, for it was in the month of May,
and throwing it in the rut for the next wheel to crush. When
I reached the school house I saw through the open door that
the New Testament exercise was over. The teacher, Mrs. Desire
Cushman, a tall slender woman, in a flounced calico dress,
was walking up and down the room, with a small ferule in one
hand, and an arithmetic in the other; a class of boys and girls
stood in a zig-zag line before her, swaying to and fro, and
drawling in a sing-song voice the multiplication table. She
was yawning as I entered, which exercise forbade her speaking,
and I took my seat without a reprimand. The flies were
just coming; I watched their sticky legs as they feebly crawled
over my old unpainted notched desk, and crumbled my gingerbread
for them; but they seemed to have no appetite.
Some of the younger children were drowsy already, lulled by
the hum of the whisperers. Feeling very dull I asked permission
to go to the water pail for a drink; let the tin cup fall
into the water so that the floor might be splashed; made faces
at the good scholars, and did what I could to make the time
pass agreeably. At noon mother sent my dinner, with the
request that I should stay till night, on account of my being
in the way while the household was in the crisis of soap-making
and whitewashing. I was exasperated, but I staid. In
the afternoon the minister came with two strangers to visit the
school. I went through my lessons with dignified inaccuracy,
and was commended. Going back I happened to step on a
loose board under my seat. I determined to punish Mrs. Desire
for the undeserved praise I had just received, and pushed
detected me she turned white with anger. I pushed it
again, making so much noise that the visitors turned to see the
cause. She shook her head in my direction, and I knew what
was in store, as we had been at enmity a long time, and she
only waited for a decisive piece of mischief on my part. As
soon as the visitors had gone, she said in a loud voice, “Cassandra
Morgeson, take your books and go home. You shall
not come here another day.”
I was glad to go, and marched home with the air of a conqueror.
I went into the keeping room where mother sat
with a basket of sewing. Temperance Tinkham, the help,
a maiden of thirty, was laying the table for supper.
“Don't wrinkle the table-cloth,” she said crossly; “and
hang up your bonnet in the entry, where it belongs,” taking it
from me as she gave the order, and going out to hang it up
herself.
“I am turned out of school, mother, for pushing a board
with my foot.”
“Hi,” said father, who was waiting for his supper; “come
here,” and he whistled to me. He took me on his knee, while
mother looked at me with doubt and sorrow.
“She is almost a woman, Mary.”
“Locke, do you know that I am thirty-eight?”
“And you are thirty-three, father,” I exclaimed. He looked
younger. I thought then that he was handsome; he had a
frank, firm face, an abundance of light, curly hair, and was
very robust. I took off his white beaver hat, and pushed the
curls away from his forehead. He had his riding whip in his
hand. I took that, too, and snapped it at our little dog, Kip.
Father had new clothes on, which pleased me—a lavender-colored
coat, with brass buttons, and trousers of the same color.
I mentally composed for myself a suit to match his, and
thought how well we should look calling at Lady Teazle's house
in London; only I was worried because my bonnet seemed to
be too large for me. A loud crash in the kitchen disturbed
my dream. Temperance rushed in, dragging my sister Veronica,
whose hair was streaming with milk; she had pulled a
panful over her from the buttery shelf, while Temperance
was taking up the supper. Father laughed, but mother
said:
“What have I done, to be so tormented by these terrible
children?”
Her mild blue eyes blazed; she stamped her foot, and
Veronica sat down on the floor, with her eyes fixed upon her,
and I leaned against the wall. It was a gust that I knew
would soon blow over. Veronica knew it also. At the right
moment she cried out: “Help Verry, she is sorry.”
“Do eat your supper,” Temperance called out in a loud
voice. “The hash is burnt to flinders.”
She remained in the room to comment on our appetites, and
encourage Veronica, who was never hungry, to eat.
Veronica was an elfish creature. She was nine years old,
but diminutive and pale. Her long, silky, brown hair, which
was as straight as an Indian's, like mother's, and which she
tore out when angry, usually covered her face, and her wild
eyes looked wilder still peeping through it. She was too
strange looking for ordinary people to call her pretty, and so
odd in her behavior, so full of tricks, that I did not love her.
She was a silent child, and liked to be alone. But whoever
had the charge of her had to be watchful. She tasted everything,
and burnt everything within her reach. A blazing fire
was too strong a temptation to be resisted. The disappearance
of all loose articles was ascribed to her; but nothing was said
to her about it, for punishment made her more impish and
daring in her pursuits. She had a habit of frightening us by
hiding, and appearing from places where no one had thought
of looking for her. People shook their heads when they observed
her. The Morgesons smiled significantly when she
was spoken of, and asked:
“Do you think she is like her mother?”
There was a conflict in mother's mind respecting Veronica.
She did not love her as she loved me; but she strove the
harder to fulfil her duty towards her. When Verry suffered
long and mysterious illnesses, which made her helpless for
weeks, she watched her day and night, but rarely caressed her.
At other times Verry was left pretty much to herself and her
own ways, which were so separate from mine that I scarcely
saw her. We grew up ignorant of each other's character,
though Verry knew me better than I knew her; in time I
discovered that she had closely observed me, when I was most
unawares.
We began to prosper about this time.
“Old Locke Morgeson had a long head,” people said, when
they talked of our affairs. Father had profited by his grandfather's
plans, and his means, too; less visionary, he had modified
and brought out practically many of his projections. Old
and hope, that father was the man to carry out his ideas; but
he advised John to make his investments with him, for John
was well-off, having married two wives and two farms, so that
a company of the name might be founded. Besides money he
left to father a tract of ground running north and south, a few
rods beyond the old house, and desired him to build upon it.
This father was now doing, and we expected to get into our new
house before autumn. The old mansion was to stand empty.
All the Morgesons wished to put money in the new company,
as soon, they said, as father could prove to them that it would
be profitable. They were ready to own shares in the ships
which he expected to build, when it was certain that they
would make lucky voyages. He declined their offers, but they
all “knuckled” to the man who had been bold enough to
break the life-long stagnation of Surrey, and with hands and
wills supine approved his plans as they matured. His mind
was filled with the hope of creating a great business which
should improve Surrey. New streets had been cut through
his property and that of grandfather, who, narrow as he was,
could not resist the popular spirit; lots had been laid out,
and cottages even had gone up upon them. To matters of
minor importance father gave little heed; his domestic life
was fast becoming a habit The constant enlargement of his
schemes was already a necessary stimulant. Intense activity—
activity that was not subservient to self-interest, or to self-consciousness—was
his ruling characteristic.
Of course I did not go back to Mrs. Desire's school. Mother
said that I must now make myself useful at home. She sent
me to Temperance, and Temperance sent me to play, or told
me to go “a visitin'.” I did not care to visit, for in consequence
of being turned out of school, which was considered an
indelible disgrace, and always remembered, my schoolmates
regarded me in the light of a Pariah, and put on insufferably
superior airs when they saw me. So, like Veronica, I amused
myself, and passed days on the sea shore, or in the fields and
woods, mother keeping me at home long enough to make
a square of patchwork each day and to hear her read a
Psalm—a duty which I bore with patience, by guessing when
the “Selahs” would come in, and by counting them But
wherever I was, or whatever I did, no feeling of beauty ever
stole into my heart. I never turned my face up to the sky to
watch the passing of a cloud, or mused before the undulating
space of sea, or looked down upon the earth with the curiosity
governed by my sensations, which continually changed, and
passed away—to come again, and deposit a vague want of occupation
which ignorantly haunted me. The literal images of
all things which I saw were impressed on my shapeless mind,
to be reproduced afterwards by faculties then latent. But
what satisfaction was that? Doubtless the ideal faculty was
active in Veronica from the beginning; in me it was developed
by the experience of years. No remembrance of any ideal
condition comes with the remembrance of my childish days,
and I conclude that my mind, if I had any, existed in so rudimental
a state, that it had no influence upon my character.
| CHAPTER III. The Morgesons | |