Part 1 (1/2)

We Girls: A Home Story.

by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.

CHAPTER I.

THE STORY BEGINS.

It begins right in the middle; but a story must begin somewhere.

The town is down below the hill.

It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against another hill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stop itself, just as it does on this side.

It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, large country town,--in fact, it has some time since come under city regulations,--thinking sufficiently well of itself, and, for that which it lacks, only twenty miles from the metropolis.

Up our hill straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken off the dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surrounded themselves with green gra.s.s, and are shaded with trees, and are called ”places.” There are the Marchbanks places, and the ”Haddens,” and the old Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, when the great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train; down in the town, where people keep shops, or doctors' or lawyers'

offices, or manage the Bank, and where the manufactories are, they eat at one, and have long afternoons; and the schools keep twice a day.

We lived in the town--that is, Mr. and Mrs. Holabird did, and their children, for such length of the time as their ages allowed--for nineteen years; and then we moved to Westover, and this story began.

They called it ”Westover,” more or less, years and years before; when there were no houses up the hill at all; only farm lands and pastures, and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other, in the sun. When anybody had need to climb over the crown, to get to the fields on this side, they called it ”going west over”; and so came the name.

We always thought it was a pretty, sunsetty name; but it isn't considered quite so fine to have a house here as to have it below the brow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to go down again. Or is it that people can't be distinctively genteel, if they get so far away from the common as no longer to well overlook it?

Grandfather Holabird--old Mr. Rufus,--I don't say whether he was my grandfather or not, for it doesn't matter which Holabird tells this story, or whether it is a Holabird at all--bought land here ever so many years ago, and built a large, plain, roomy house; and here the boys grew up,--Roderick and Rufus and Stephen and John.

Roderick went into the manufactory with his father,--who had himself come up from being a workman to being owner,--and learned the business, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C----, and lived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he was yet a young man. His wife went home to her family, and there were no little children. John lives in New York, and has two sons and three daughters.

There are of us--Stephen Holabird's family--just six. Stephen and his wife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs.

Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousins married two sisters. She came here when she had neither father nor mother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because ”Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own”; but of course, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, on the mere claim of the common cousins.h.i.+p.

Ruth Holabird is a quiet little body, but she has her own particular ways too.

There is one thing different in our house from most others. We are all known by our straight names. I say _known_; because we do have little pet ways of calling, among ourselves,--sometimes one way and sometimes another; but we don't let these get out of doors much. Mr. Holabird doesn't like it. So though up stairs, over our sewing, or our bed-making, or our dressing, we shorten or sweeten, or make a little fun,--though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks or behaves rather specially nice, or stays at the gla.s.s trying to do the first,--or Barbara gets only ”Barb” when she is sharper than common, or Stephen is ”Steve” when he's a dear, and ”Stiff” when he's obstinate,--we always _introduce_ ”my daughter Rosamond,” or ”my sister Barbara,” or,--but Ruth of course never gets nicknamed, because nothing could be easier or pleasanter than just ”Ruth,”--and Stephen is plain strong Stephen, because he is a boy and is expected to be a man some time. n.o.body writes to us, or speaks of us, except as we were christened. This is only rather a pity for Rosamond. Rose Holabird is such a pretty name. ”But it will keep,” her mother tells her. ”She wouldn't want to be everybody's Rose.”

Our moving to Westover was a great time.

That was because we had to move the house; which is what everybody does not do who moves into a house by any means.

We were very much astonished when Grandfather Holabird came in and told us, one morning, of his having bought it,--the empty Beaman house, that n.o.body had lived in for five years. The Haddens had bought the land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out and build, and so the old house was to be sold and moved away; and n.o.body but old Mr. Holabird owned land near enough to put it upon. For it was large and solid-built, and could not be taken far.

We were a great deal more astonished when he came in again, another day, and proposed that we should go and live in it.

We were all a good deal afraid of Grandfather Holabird. He had very strict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of what they ought to do _without_ it, when they didn't happen to have any.

Mrs. Stephen pulled down the green blinds when she saw him coming that day,--him and his cane. Barbara said she didn't exactly know which it was she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane without him, or even him without the cane; but both together were ”_scare-mendous_; they did put down so.”

Mrs. Holabird pulled down the blinds, because he would be sure to notice the new carpet the first thing; it was a cheap ingrain, and the old one had been all holes, so that Barbara had proposed putting up a board at the door,--”Private way; dangerous pa.s.sing.” And we had all made over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it: and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. But we couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was never time for the whole of it. And he knew that Mr. Stephen was troubled just now for his rent and taxes. For Stephen Holabird was the one in this family who couldn't make, or couldn't manage, money. There is always one. I don't know but it is usually the best one of all, in other ways.