Faith Gartney's Girlhood by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney (people reading books TXT) 📕

bunch of great red cherries, as big as your two hands!"

"Where?"

"I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass."

Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little sister's perfections.

"I'll tell you, mamma. I've been thinking we need not keep Mahala, if you don't wish. She has been so used to do nothing but run round after Hendie, that, really, she isn't much good about the house; and I'll take Hendie's trundle bed into my room, and there'll be one less chamber to take care of; and you know we always dust and arrange down here."

"Yes--but the sweeping, Faithie! And the washing! Parthenia never would get through with it all."

"Well, somebody might come and help wash. And I guess I can sweep."

"But I can't bear to put you to such work, darling! You need your time for other things."

"I have ever so much time, mother! And, besides, as Aunt Faith says, I don't believe it makes so very much matter _what_ we do. I was talking to her, the other day, about doing coarse work, and living a narrow, common kind of life, and what do you think she said?"

"I can't tell, of course. Something blunt and original."

"We were out in the garden. She pointed to some plants that were coming up from seeds, that had just two tough, clumsy, coarse leaves. 'What do you call them?' said auntie. 'Cotyledons, aren't they?' said I. 'I don't know what they are in botany,' said she; 'but I know the use of 'em. They'll last a while, and help feed up what's growing inside and underneath, and by and by they'll drop off, when they're done with, and you'll see what's been coming of it. Folks can't live the best right out at first, any more than plants can. I guess we all want some kind of--cotyledons.'"

Mrs. Gartney's eyes shone with affection, and something that affection called there, as she looked upon her daughter.

"I guess the cotyledons won't hinder your growing," said she.

And so, in a few days after, Mahala was dismissed, and Faith took upon herself new duties.

It was a bright, happy face that glanced hither and thither, about the house, those fair summer mornings; and it wasn't the hands alone that were busy, as under their dexterous and delicate touch all things arranged themselves in attractive and graceful order. Thought straightened and cleared itself, as furniture and books were dusted and set right; and while the carpet brightened under the broom, something else brightened and strengthened, also, within.

It is so true, what the author of "Euthanasy" tells us, that exercise of limb and muscle develops not only themselves, but what is in us as we work.

"Every stroke of the hammer upon the anvil hardens a little what is at the time the temper of the smith's mind."

"The toil of the plowman furrows the ground, and so it does his brow with wrinkles, visibly; and invisibly, but quite as certainly, it furrows the current of feeling, common with him at his work, into an almost unchangeable channel."

Faith's life purpose deepened as she did each daily task. She had hold, already, of the "high and holy work of love" that had been prophesied.

"I am sure of one thing, mother," said she, gayly; "if I don't learn much that is new, I am bringing old knowledge into play. It's the same thing, taken hold of at different ends. I've learned to draw straight lines, and shape pictures; and so there isn't any difficulty in sweeping a carpet clean, or setting chairs straight. I never shall wonder again that a woman who never heard of a right angle can't lay a table even."


CHAPTER XVI.

"BLESSED BE YE, POOR."

"And so we yearn, and so we sigh,
And reach for more than we can see; And, witless of our folded wings,
Walk Paradise, unconsciously."

October came, and brought small dividends. The expenses upon the farm had necessarily been considerable, also, to put things in "good running order." Mr. Gartney's health, though greatly improved, was not yet so confidently to be relied on, as to make it advisable for him to think of any change, as yet, with a view to business. Indeed, there was little opportunity for business, to tempt him. Everything was flat. Mr. Gartney must wait. Mrs. Gartney and Faith felt, though they talked of waiting, that the prospect really before them was that of a careful, obscure life, upon a very limited income. The house in Mishaumok had stood vacant all the summer. There was hope, of course, of letting it now, as the winter season came on, but rents were falling, and people were timid and discouraged.

October was beautiful at Kinnicutt. And Faith, when she looked out over the glory of woods and sky, felt rich with the great wealth of the world, and forgot about economies and privations. She was so glad they had come here with their altered plans, and had not struggled shabbily and drearily on in Mishaumok!

It was only when some chance bit of news from the city, or a girlish, gossipy note from some school friend found its way to Cross Corners, that she felt, a little keenly, her denials--realized how the world she had lived in all her life was going on without her.

It was the old plaint that Glory made, in her dark days of childhood--this feeling of despondency and loss that assailed Faith now and then--"such lots of good times in the world, and she not in 'em!"

Mrs. Etherege and Saidie were coming home. Gertrude Rushleigh, Saidie's old intimate, was to be married on the twenty-eighth, and had fixed her wedding thus for the last of the month, that Miss Gartney might arrive to keep her promise of long time, by officiating as bridesmaid.

The family eclipse would not overshadow Saidie. She had made her place in the world now, and with her aunt's aid and countenance, would keep it. It was quite different with Faith--disappearing, as she had done, from notice, before ever actually "coming out."

"It was a thousand pities," Aunt Etherege said, when she and Saidie discussed with Mrs. Gartney, at Cross Corners, the family affairs. "And things just as they were, too! Why, another year might have settled matters for her, so that this need never have happened! At any rate, the child shouldn't be moped up here, all winter!"

Mrs. Etherege had engaged rooms, on her arrival, at the Mishaumok House; and it seemed to be taken for granted by her, and by Saidie as well, that this coming home was a mere visit; that Miss Gartney would, of course, spend the greater part of the winter with her aunt; and that lady extended also an invitation to Mishaumok for a month--including the wedding festivities at the Rushleighs'--to Faith.

Faith shook her head. She "knew she couldn't be spared so long." Secretly, she doubted whether it would be a good plan to go back and get a peep at things that might send her home discontented and unhappy.

But her mother reasoned otherwise. Faithie must go. "The child mustn't be moped up." She would get on, somehow, without her. Mothers always can. So Faith, by a compromise, went for a fortnight. She couldn't quite resist her newly returned sister.

Besides, a pressing personal invitation had come from Margaret Rushleigh to Faith herself, with a little private announcement at the end, that "Paul was refractory, and utterly refused to act as fourth groomsman, unless Faith Gartney were got to come and stand with him."

Faith tore off the postscript, and might have lit it at her cheeks, but dropped it, of habit, into the fire; and then the note was at the disposal of the family.

It was a whirl of wonderful excitement to Faith--that fortnight! So many people to see, so much to hear, and in the midst of all, the gorgeous wedding festival!

What wonder if a little dream flitted through her head, as she stood there, in the marriage group, at Paul Rushleigh's side, and looked about her on the magnificent fashion, wherein the affection of new relatives and old friends had made itself tangible; and heard the kindly words of the elder Mr. Rushleigh to Kate Livingston, who stood with his son Philip, and whose bridal, it was well known, was to come next? Jewels, and silver, and gold, are such flashing, concrete evidences of love! And the courtly condescension of an old and world-honored man to the young girl whom his son has chosen, is such a winning and distinguishing thing!

Paul Rushleigh had finished his college course, and was to go abroad this winter--between the weddings, as he said--for his brother Philip's was to take place in the coming spring. After that--things were not quite settled, but something was to be arranged for him meanwhile--he would have to begin his work in the world; and then--he supposed it would be time for him to find a helpmate. Marrying was like dying, he believed; when a family once began to go off there was soon an end of it!

Blushes were the livery of the evening, and Faith's deeper glow at this audacious rattle passed unheeded, except, perhaps, as it might be somewhat willfully interpreted.

There were two or three parties made for the newly married couple in the week that followed. The week after, Paul Rushleigh, with the bride and groom, was to sail for Europe. At each of these brilliant entertainments he constituted himself, as in duty bound, Faith's knight and sworn attendant; and a superb bouquet for each occasion, the result of the ransack of successive greenhouses, came punctually, from him, to her door. For years afterwards--perhaps for all her life--Faith couldn't smell heliotrope, and geranium, and orange flowers, without floating back, momentarily, into the dream of those few, enchanted days!

She stayed in Mishaumok a little beyond the limit she had fixed for herself, to go, with the others, on board the steamer at the time of her sailing, and see the gay party off. Paul Rushleigh had more significant words, and another gift of flowers as a farewell.

When she carried these last to her own room, to put them in water, on her return, something she had not noticed before glittered among their stems. It was a delicate little ring, of twisted gold, with a forget-me-not in turquoise and enamel upon the top.

Faith was half pleased, half frightened, and wholly ashamed.

Paul Rushleigh was miles out on the Atlantic. There was no help for it, she thought. It had been cunningly done.

And so, in the short November days, she went back to Kinnicutt.

The east parlor had to be shut up now, for the winter. The family gathering place was the sunny little sitting room; and with closed doors and doubled windows, they began, for the first time, to find that they were really living in a little bit of a house.

It was very pretty, though, with the rich carpet and the crimson curtains that had come from Hickory Street, replacing the white muslin draperies and straw matting of the summer; and the books and vases, and statuettes and pictures, gathered into so small space, seemed to fill the room with luxury and beauty.

Faith nestled her little workstand into a nook