Part 36 (1/2)

Not long after Sally's departure a handsome carriage, drawn by two fine bay horses, pa.s.sed our house; and as the windows were down we could plainly discern a pale, delicate-looking lady, wrapped in shawls, a tall, stylish-looking girl, another one about my own age, and two beautiful little boys.

”That's the Gilberts, I know,” said Anna. ”Oh, I'm so glad Sally's gone, for now we shall have the full particulars;” and again we waited as impatiently for Sally's return as we had once done before for grandma.

At last, to our great relief, the green ribbons and blue shawl were descried in the distance, and ere long Sally was with us, ejaculating, ”Oh, my--mercy me!” etc., thus giving us an inkling of what was to follow. ”Of all the sights that ever I have seen,” said she, folding up the blue shawl, and smoothing down the pink calico. ”There's carpeting enough to cover every crack and crevice--all pure bristles, too!”

Here I t.i.ttered, whereupon Sally angrily retorted, that ”she guessed she knew how to talk proper, if she hadn't studied grammar.”

”Never mind,” said Anna, ”go on; brussels carpeting and what else?”

”Mercy knows what else,” answered Sally. ”I can't begin to guess the names of half the things. There's mahogany, and rosewood, and marble fixin's--and in Miss Gilbert's room there's lace curtains and silk damson ones”--

A look from Anna restrained me this time, and Sally continued.

”Mercy Jenkins is there, helpin', and she says Mr. Gilbert told 'em, his wife never et a piece of salt pork in her life, and knew no more how bread was made than a child two years old.”

”What a simple critter she must be,” said grandma, while Anna asked if she saw Mrs. Gilbert, and if that tall girl was her daughter.

”Yes, I seen her,” answered Sally, ”and I guess she's weakly, for the minit she got into the house she lay down on the sofa, which Mr. Gilbert says cost seventy-five dollars. That tall, proud-lookin' thing they call Miss Adaline, but I'll warrant you don't catch me puttin' on the miss. I called her Adaline, and you had orto seen how her big eyes looked at me.

Says she, at last, 'Are you one of pa's new servants?'

”'Servants!' says I, 'no, indeed; I'm Mrs. Michael Welsh, one of your nighest neighbors.'

”Then I told her that there were two nice girls lived in the house with me, and she'd better get acquainted with 'em right away; and then with the hatefulest of all hateful laughs, she asked if 'they wore gla.s.s beads and went barefoot.'”

I fancied that neither Juliet nor Anna were greatly pleased at being introduced by Sally, the housemaid, to the elegant Adaline Gilbert, who had come to the country with anything but a favorable impression of its inhabitants. The second daughter, the one about my own age, Sally said they called Nellie; ”and a nice, clever creature she is, too--not a bit stuck up like t'other one. Why, I do believe she'd walked every big beast in the barn before she'd been there half an hour, and the last I saw of her she was coaxing a cow to lie still while she got upon her back!”

How my heart warmed toward the romping Nellie, and how I wondered if after that beam-walking exploit her hooks and eyes were all in their places! The two little boys, Sally said, were twins, Edward and Egbert, or, as they were familiarly called, Bert and Eddie. This was nearly all she had learned, if we except the fact that the family ate with silver forks, and drank wine after dinner. This last, mother p.r.o.nounced heterodox, while I, who dearly loved the juice of the grape, and sometimes left finger marks on the top shelf, whither I had climbed for a sip from grandma's decanter, secretly hoped I should some day dine with Nellie Gilbert, and drink all the wine I wanted, thinking how many times I'd rinse my mouth so mother shouldn't smell my breath!

In the course of a few weeks the affairs of the Gilbert family were pretty generally canva.s.sed in Rice Corner, Mercy Jenkins giving it as her opinion that ”Miss Gilbert was much the likeliest of the two, and that Mr. Gilbert was cross, overbearing, and big feeling.”

CHAPTER II.

NELLIE.

As yet I had only seen Nellie in the distance, and was about despairing of making her acquaintance when accident threw her in my way. Directly opposite our house, and just across a long green meadow, was a piece of woods which belonged to Mr. Gilbert, and there, one afternoon early in May, I saw Nellie. I had seen her there before, but never dared approach her; and now I divided my time between watching her and a dense black cloud which had appeared in the west, and was fast approaching the zenith. I was just thinking how nice it would be if the rain should drive her to our house for shelter, when patter, patter came the large drops in my face; thicker and faster they fell, until it seemed like a perfect deluge; and through the almost blinding sheet of rain I descried Nellie coming toward me at a furious rate. With the agility of a fawn she bounded over the gate, and with the exclamation of, ”Ain't I wetter than a drownded rat?” we were perfectly well acquainted.

It took but a short time to divest her of her dripping garments, and array her in some of mine, which Sally said ”fitted her to a T,” though I fancied she looked sadly out of place in my linen pantalets and long-sleeved dress. She was a great lover of fun and frolic, and in less than half an hour had ”ridden to Boston” on Joe's rocking-horse, turned the little wheel faster than even I dared to turn it, tried on grandma's stays, and then, as a crowning feat, tried the rather dangerous experiment of riding down the garret stairs on a board! The clatter brought up grandma, and I felt some doubts about her relis.h.i.+ng a kind of play which savored so much of what she called ”a racket,” but the soft brown eyes which looked at her so pleadingly were too full of love, gentleness, and mischief to be resisted, and permission for ”one more ride” was given, ”provided she'd promise not to break her neck.”

Oh, what fun we had that afternoon! What a big rent she tore in my gingham frock, and what a ”dear, delightful old haunted castle of a thing” she p.r.o.nounced our house to be. Darling, darling Nellie! I shut my eyes and she comes before me again, the same bright, beautiful creature she was when I saw her first, as she was when I saw her for the last, last time.

It rained until dark, and Nellie, who confidently expected to stay all night, had whispered to me her intention of ”tying our toes together,”

when there came a tremendous rap upon the door, and without waiting to be bidden in walked Mr. Gilbert, puffing and swelling, and making himself perfectly at home, in a kind of off-hand manner, which had in it so much of condescension that I was disgusted, and when sure Nellie would not see me I made at him a wry face, thereby feeling greatly relieved!

After managing to let mother know how expensive his family was, how much he paid yearly for wines and cigars, and how much Adaline's education and piano had cost, he arose to go, saying to his daughter. ”Come, puss, take off those--ahem--those habiliments, and let's be off!”

Nellie obeyed, and just before she was ready to start, she asked when I would come and spend the day with her.