Part 7 (1/2)
She wiped away her tears, and her busy fingers were soon preparing warm hoods and dresses to protect her little ones from the bitter cold during the journey that lay before us, for in the course of two or three months father had by hard toil earned money sufficient to send for us. I remember very well that journey over the mountains covered with snow into the State of Vermont, and our establishment in what was called the 'small house by the ledge' in the little neighborhood of houses cl.u.s.tering on and about the old Minot estate.
”You children, accustomed as you have been from your infancy to the attractive text-books of the present day, would quite scorn the system of instruction at the school I attended in Westhaven. I went there three winters, but although I soon rose to the first cla.s.s in reading and spelling, in which branches I was unusually precocious, my education was confined entirely to those two departments of learning.
Few text-books were then used in the school, for the parents of the children were generally too poor to pay for many, and the musty old Grammar and Arithmetic were kept in reserve for the older scholars. On account of my youth the teacher did not advance me, and I went again and again through the old Spelling-book, and learnt by heart what was called the 'fore part of the book'--some dry rules of orthography, which never conveyed the slightest idea to my mind, although I repeated them, parrot-like, without missing a word, and which the teacher never thought of explaining to me. From the spelling-book I was in time promoted to the New Testament (not as easy reading as might have been selected, by the way). This was followed by the American Preceptor, and subsequently by Murray's 'English Reader,' a work reserved for the most advanced scholars.
”My brothers did not go to school during the summer months, for their services were then required to a.s.sist father in his work; and I, too, had to leave school every day at eleven o'clock to carry their dinner to them at the place, a mile and a half distant, where they were clearing a portion of the Minot estate.
”When brother Horace was thirteen years old he was taken out of school, as the teacher could instruct him no longer. I was kept at home also, and brother taught me, giving me lessons in arithmetic and penmans.h.i.+p, which studies had been prohibited me at school. Here commenced a most tender attachment and sympathy between brother and I. As there were two children--Barnes and sister Arminda--between us, our difference of years had hitherto kept us somewhat apart; but after brother had been for several months my instructor we were from that time the nearest in heart in our large household.
”I think that mother must have entirely regained her spirits during the four years that we lived in Vermont, for I remember that men, women, and children alike delighted in her society, and our house was the centre of the little neighborhood. We resided very near the school-house, and rarely did a morning pa.s.s without a visit from some of the girls, to have a few words of greeting from mother on their way to their lessons. When recess time came, they would arrive in numbers to spend the time with her, and beg for a song or a story from the inexhaustible supply with which her memory was stored, and there they would remain, fascinated by her sweet, low voice until she would be obliged to playfully chase them out of the house to compel them to return to school. From the teacher, for tardiness, punishment was a very frequent occurrence, but it made slight impression upon the girls in comparison with the enjoyment of listening to one of mother's thrilling or romantic stories, for the following day they would return to our house to again risk the penalty.
”I told you that brother taught me after we were taken out of school.
He was the gentlest and kindest of instructors, and was always ready to lay down his own book to help me out of any difficulty that my lesson presented, although it was by no means easy to make him close his book under other circ.u.mstances; such as the solicitations of his young friends to join them in a game.
”I have described father to you as a stern man in his every-day intercourse with us, but although his motto was 'Work,' he was always willing to grant us a holiday or a play-hour, when he thought we had earned it. He would relax his dignity, too, somewhat when young people came to pa.s.s the evening with us; would encourage us to play games and dance, and would often join us; for, although he never played cards himself, nor would he allow them to be played in his house, he himself taught us how to dance.
”When our young friends came to see us, there was much rejoicing from brother Barnes, who was full of life and spirits, and always ready to play, and from Arminda and myself; but brother Horace, not at all allured by blind-man's-buff or a dance, would retire to a corner with a pine knot (for in those days candles were few), preferring the companions.h.i.+p of his book to our merry games. Coaxing was all in vain: the only means of inducing him to join us was to s.n.a.t.c.h away his book and hide it; but even then he preferred to gather us quietly about him and tell us stories. I remember that before he left home he had related to us, among other things, the thousand and one stories of the 'Arabian Nights,' and 'Robinson Crusoe.' This gift of story-telling he inherited from mother, whose talent in that line certainly equalled that of the beautiful Sultana Scheherazade herself. At this time, although I had never seen a copy of Shakespeare, I was familiar with the names and plots of all his imaginative, and many of his historical plays, which mother would relate to us in her own words, embellished now and then with bits of the original verse, as she sat at her spinning-wheel, or busied herself about the household work.
”It was, I think, at this same time--our last year in Vermont--that a large ball, for young people only, was given in our neighborhood. Much speculation was excited among our young friends as to whether Horace would dance at this ball, and especially if he would fetch a partner with him. It was the general opinion that he would not, as he did not bear a high reputation for gallantry. Great, then, was the astonishment of all present when Horace entered the ballroom with Anne Bush, the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, upon his arm. He opened the ball with her, and his deportment quite silenced those who had questioned his appearance.
”Before long, preparations for another journey were in progress.
Father had earned money sufficient to buy some land, and I heard that we were going to Pennsylvania. I was, however, too young to be much impressed by this news, and it was not until I saw mother once more in tears that its importance was apparent to me. This time mother wept as bitterly as before, for not only was she to be separated by a greater distance from her family in New Hamps.h.i.+re, to whom she was fondly attached, and from the pleasant circle of friends she had made in Westhaven, but her darling among us children, her beautiful eldest boy, of whom she was so proud, was to be left in Vermont.”
CHAPTER IX.
A Picnic at Croton Dam--The Waterworks--A Game of Twenty Questions--Gabrielle as a Logician--Evangeline's Betrothal--Marguerite's Letter--Description of Chappaqua--Visitors--Edmonia Lewis.
_June 26_.
Gabrielle and I have just returned from spending the day at Croton Dam.
A large party from the prominent families of Chappaqua was organized by Miss Murray, the pretty daughter of one of our neighbors, and at nine o'clock a number of carriages, packed to overflowing with young people and lunch-baskets, and led off by a four-horse wagon, started caravan-wise from the place of rendezvous, Mr. Murray's elegant grounds.
The drive was a very pretty one, skirting for some distance the beautiful little lake that supplies the great thirsty city of New York; and the spot chosen for the picnic--shady, terrace-like heights, with a gradual slope to meet the water, and a rough bench here and there--was declared the most suitable place in the world to lay the cloth. One or two members of the party remained behind to unload the carriages, count the broken dishes, and estimate the proportion of contributions--many people fetching salt in abundance but forgetting sugar, whilst others furnished elaborately frosted cakes, but omitted such necessaries as knives and forks. Meantime, we climbed the stone steps leading to the waterworks, and after a glimpse of the seething dark-green water through the heavy iron grating, we hunted up the overseer and asked him to unlock the doors for us, that we might have a nearer view. He a.s.sented, and admitted us very obligingly, giving us meantime a graphic description of the yearly journey of the Inspector in a boat down the dark pa.s.sage to New York, and pointing out the low narrow place of entry from the water-house where they must lie down in the boat.
Dinner hour is generally a most interesting moment in a picnic, and this was the time when the young gentlemen showed their gallantry by partaking only of such viands as had come from the baskets of their favorites among the young ladies.
A cloth was spread upon the ground; seats were extemporized for the ladies out of carriage cus.h.i.+ons, waterproofs and wraps; the knives, forks and plates were dealt out as impartially as possible, and we pa.s.sed a very merry hour.
When the repast was over, the party dispersed--some to play croquet, others to row upon the lake, or to stroll about under the trees; some young ladies produced books and bright bits of fancy-work, while Gabrielle, Arthur and I, with our pretty captain, Miss Murray, and one of her attendant cavaliers, decided to pa.s.s away the time by playing a game--no trivial game, however; neither ”consequences” nor fortune-telling, but an eminently scientific one ent.i.tled ”Twenty Questions.” For the benefit of the uninitiated I will remark that the oracle chooses a subject (silently), and the others are allowed to put twenty questions to him to enable them to divine it--usually commencing with ”Is the object that you have in your mind to be found in the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom?”
Gabrielle is very clever in this somewhat abstruse game, for she possesses her mother's spirit of inquiry and love of reasoning, and she pa.s.ses entire evenings with Arthur, pursuing the most perplexing and intangible subjects. She and Arthur are admirably matched in this game; for if she is unparalleled in the quickness with which she will follow up a clue and triumphantly announce the mysterious object, after asking eighteen or nineteen questions, Arthur is no less adroit in selecting unusual subjects, and so artfully parrying her questions as to give her the least possible a.s.sistance. I often hear them call to each other--
”I have chosen a subject; you will never in the world guess it!”
Then follows an hour of questions and reasoning, with inferences drawn and rejected, and a display of sophistry that would do credit to a more fully fledged lawyer than Arthur is at present.