University of Virginia Library

I.

In latter April, earth one bud and leaf,
Three girls looked downward from their window-perch:
Three maidens in their different maiden-bloom;
Three buds in their rough calyxes,—for sweet
And rosebud-like is girlhood everywhere;
In culture or wild freedom, lovely still
With promises of all the undawned years.
Three damsels at a casement in old time,
In some high castle-turret, where they wrought
Tapestry for royal mistresses, had been
A picture for a painter, or a theme
For a stray minstrel: full as worthy these.
Under the open window where they stood
A river ran; green farm-lands lay beyond,
And forests, dark against the dreamy hills:
A river less romantic than the Rhine,
Yet fringed with its unwritten histories,—
New England's beautiful blue Merrimack.
And they were idle as queens' ladies now,—
Three girls in their work-aprons, gazing out
Upon the swirling freshet; for the stream
Had risen to a flood, and made the factory-wheels
Drag slow, and slower, till they almost stopped.
The spindle scarcely turned, the thread ran slack,
And lazily the shuttle crossed the web.
Slight watching their work needed; so they stood
And gave free voice to thoughts and fantasies
That groaning shaft and ceaseless clattering loom
Were wont to clamor down.
The room was dim
With April's rainy light, that here and there
Came in through greenery of geranium leaves
Grown lush and fragrant to the window-tops,
Bringing a hint of gardens and thick woods.
The light leaf-shadowings stole tenderly
Over those three girl-figures in their nook,—
Esther, and Eleanor, and Isabel.
Esther was tall and strong, with gold-brown hair
That rippled sunshine to her feet, almost,
When she undid its coil; and sunny light
Seemed ever to stream outward from her mind,
Large, fair, well ordered. Elder-sister-like
Was she to Eleanor and Isabel,
A little while ago two stranger-girls
Adrift in this new city, seeking work;
A mother to the orphan Eleanor,
Whose only heirloom from rich ancestors
Was slow consumption, hers by sure entail.
“Isabel,”—it was Eleanor who spoke,—
“You should have been a lady! Every turn
Of shoulder, every poise of arm or foot,
Reminds me of the graceful dames who stooped
To pet me at my father's festivals.
I never see you in that working-gown
And coarse stuff apron, but I find myself
Murmuring ‘There 's Cinderella!’”
Where 's the shoe?
O for a fairy-coach, a godmother!”
Laughed Isabel; “for I, in honest truth,
Have also dreamed of these things.”
“And the prince?”
Asked Esther. Why did foolish Isabel blush?
“Perhaps I am a lady, Eleanor,”
She said, in haste, the sunset of her cheek
Fading along its oval, brown and rich,
And dying in deep dimples. “‘Now sit still
And be a little lady, Isabel!’
My mother used to say, when company
Came to take tea with us, and she had fears
That I should be too much myself. And I,
Who had a lady painted on my brain
From English story-books, with folded hands
And puckered lips, sat picturing myself
Some proud earl's daughter. ‘Lady!’ Who defines
That word correctly?”
“Who defines what word?
Ask me, young woman.”
And a gay moon-face,
With laughter pencillings about the eyes,
Round as two moons, and tresses crinkling brown
Over a forehead smooth as infancy's,
Shone in between the looms.
“Well, tell us, then,
What ‘lady’ means: for, Minta Summerfield,
They say I'm like one; not the real thing!”
“Not know what ‘lady’ means, young Isabel,
Seeing me straight before you? Esther Hale,
The Lady Isabel doubts Lady Me!
I 've heard you called a walking dictionary,—
Enlighten us, please!”
“‘Lady’ or ‘girl’ or ‘woman,’
Whichever word you choose,” said Esther, “each
Means excellence and sweetness. ‘Lady,’ though,
Can slip its true sense, leaving an outside
Easy to imitate. At first it meant
‘Giver of loaves.’ I 've heard it rhymed, this way:—

THE LOAF-GIVER.

“That suits me, Esther,” Minta said. “You know
I am Minerva's lady half the year;
That is to say, I deal out learning's pap
To country babes, in District Number Three,
Under Chocorua's shadow. In plain words,
I am a schoolma'am in the summer-time,
As now I am a Lady of the Loom.
Come up and see me, girls! I'll give you bread
White as that Juno-woman's in the song,
Made with my own hands, too. And you may feast
Your eyes on stones,—our mountain-peaks,—besides;
All you down-country folks are fond of them.”
“How beautiful!” said Esther. “If we could!”
For Esther, born of Puritans by the sea
That washes Plymouth Rock, within the curve
Of the long arm that Cape Cod reaches out
Toward Cape Ann's shoulder, never yet had seen
The mountains, save in glamour of her dreams.
“Come, then, for Eleanor's sake! Her cheeks will bloom
With pinks in place of lilies. Quite too much
Of the fine-lady look her pale face wears
For any working-girl. With yellow cream,
Raspberries, brook-trout, and mountain-blackberries,
We'll make a woman of her,” Minta said.
“‘Lady’ again!” cried Isabel. “Now I know
There 's something more in it than feeding folks
With bread or with ideas. Eleanor says
I look a lady; you say she looks one.
I think it 's in the dress, the air, the gait—”
“Yes, there 's a ladyish drawl and wriggle, too,
Easy enough to catch; and furbelows—
Made usually of silk or satin, though,”
Said Minta, giving Isabel's gown a twitch
Upon its fluttering ruffles, which betrayed
Faint reminiscences of yesterday
Among the looms, in sundry spots of grease.
Strange! Eleanor, in her large coarse apron wrapped,
Walked past the oily wheels immaculate,
As saints have trodden on coals without a smirch;
While Isabel groaned daily over stains
Almost indelible.
With Isabel's face
After her reddening like an angry cloud,
Minta retreated; vanishing from sight
In the room's farthest shadow.
Esther spoke,
Half to herself, half to the other two:
“Not long ago I read a doleful wail
From some town-dame, that now even factory-girls
Shine with gold watches, and you cannot tell,
Therefore, who are the ladies. Well-a-day!
If one could buy and hang about the neck
The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,
'T would make a bawble even of that.”
“But say,
Esther, whom do you call a lady?”
“She,
Dear Isabel, who is so in her mind,—
Harbors no millinery jealousies,
Holds no conventional standards. She may wear
Dainty kid gloves, or wear no gloves at all;
May work at wash-boards or embroidery-frames:
This is her mark,—she lives not for herself.
Our Lord has given us ‘Service’ for a badge.
True ladies, following him, seek not to be
Ministered unto, but to minister.”
Then all grew thoughtful; whereat Eleanor,
With gentle tact, called out,—
“A hymn! a tune!
Let us sing, sisters, now the preaching 's done!
Look! how the slanting sunbeams light the slope
Across the river!”
And her voice arose
Clear as an oriole's, in a grand psalm-tune
Married to one of Watts' old-fashioned hymns:—
Then, as a spring becomes a rivulet,
The notes grew light; psalms bubbled into songs,
Songs into ballads,—homely Scottish strains
That vibrate on the heart-strings as no flight
Or fall of operatic somerset
Can ever. Eleanor's unschooled notes fled on
Through the swan-music of the “Land o' the Leal,”
“My ain Countree,” and tender “Auld Lang Syne,”
Touched many an ancient border-melody,
And slipped through carol, roundelay, and catch
So liltingly, the others joined, perforce.
Meanwhile the river rose, and downward bore
Strange booty, stolen from the upper farms,—
A fence, a hen-coop, torn roots of old trees,
And once a little cottage, half unroofed.
That stopped the music, and the singers three
Leaned out in wonder, while their thoughts went up
To the stream's far-off sources.
And they talked,
While the slow day slid into afternoon,
Of Minta's mountain-home; of summits gray
Rising from mist, or hiding in deep cloud;
Of the great land-slips; and the placid lakes,
Mirrors of haughty peaks; of the strong flood
Rushing below them,—how its infancy
Lay cradled amid blue Franconia hills,
Laughing up at the Old Man of the Notch,
Whose stony face into far Nothing looks
With all a mortal wise-head's gravity;
Of Conway intervales, their carpets green
Laid broad and soft before the vast rock-gate
Into the sanctuary of the hills;
And of dark passes to that cloud-crowned peak
Which bears the name the New World most reveres.
And Esther, longing, said, “What think you, girls?
Can we afford to go?”
Pale Eleanor
Looked up, her face moonlighted with a smile
Of pleasure at the thought; while Isabel
Grew serious, thinking of her empty purse,
On which her ribbons flamed a commentary;
But said,—
“O, I know mountains well enough!
Hard-faced old neighbors in the wilds of Maine,
Where I spent all my childhood. I will wait
Here for my fairy prince and godmother,
While you go browsing on the Granite Hills.”
Just then the overseer, passing by them, said,
“A holiday! The river's will is up
To stop the mills, and for a while you are free.”
It was a welcome word. The three glad girls
Slipped off work-aprons, bonnets caught, and shawls,
And went out for a walk among green trees,
Like souls released from earth to Paradise.