Part 17 (1/2)

Then came a very busy time. There was preserving that every housewife attended to for winter use, pickling of various kinds, for there was no canning stock in those days to eke out. There were some queer fruits from India, and preserved ginger in curious jars that are highly esteemed to this day, but they were luxuries. Then a house-cleaning season, not as bad as the spring, but still bad enough. And flower seeds to be saved, garden seeds to be dried, so the beautiful quilt was rolled up in a thick sheet and put away for the present.

The little girl had made quite friends with the Upham children and went over there to tea all alone, but she felt very strange. They played tag and blind-man's buff, but Cynthia thought puss in the corner the most fun. Bentley was a nice big boy and very well mannered. Polly talked over her school and brought out her needlework, which was to be the bottom of a white frock. It would be only two yards round and she had almost a yard worked. Then she was making a sampler, with an oak and acorn vine around it, and it was to have four different kinds of lettering on it.

”I don't know when I shall get it done,” she said with a sigh.

Betty declared Dame Wilby was crosser than ever and Priscilla Lee wasn't coming back, nor Margaret Rand, and she was coaxing mother to let her go elsewhere.

After a while Cynthia declared she must go home. Cousin Chilian had said he would come for her, but the clock was striking nine and he had not come. He sometimes _did_ forget.

Bentley took his hat and walked beside her in quite a mannish way.

”I do hope you will come again,” he said. ”You were so pleasant when you were caught, and I do hate to have girls saying all the time, 'Now that isn't fair,' and squirming out.”

”But if you're playing you must take the best and the worst. I liked puss in the corner and didn't mind being the left-out p.u.s.s.y. I thought it was quite fun to hunt a corner again.”

Then they met Cousin Chilian, who had been playing a rather prolonged game of chess with a visitor. But Bentley kept on with them, and said good-night with a polite bow, adding, ”She must come again, Mr.

Leverett, we had such a very nice time.”

”And wasn't he nice!” exclaimed the child eagerly. ”He is like some of the grown-up men. I like big boys much better than the little ones.”

He smiled to himself at that.

Now there came cool nights and mornings, but the world was beautiful in its turning leaves, the fragrance of ripening fruit, and the late gorgeous-colored flowers. They took delightful walks and found so many curious places. Sometimes Bentley Upham met them and joined in their walks and talks. He thought the little girl knew a great deal. And that she had been in India, and China, and ever so many of the islands, was wonderful.

”Don't you ever sew?” he asked one afternoon, as they were rambling about.

”I don't like it much;” and she glanced up with fascinating archness. ”I suppose I shall have to some day, but Cousin Leverett thinks there is time enough.”

”I'm glad you don't,” in a hearty tone. ”I don't have any good of Polly any more. What with her white frock, and some lace she is making for a cape, and forty other things, she never has time for a game of anything, or a nice walk. And she doesn't care about study, though her lessons are so different. I don't know another girl who studies Latin, and it's so nice to talk it over. How rapidly you must have learned.”

He looked at her in admiration.

”Oh, I knew some of it before I came here. There was a chaplain in Calcutta who was--well, not exactly ill, but not well; and father took him with us on the vessel when he went for certain things, and he staid with us afterward. He used to read aloud, and it sounded so splendid!

Then he taught me. But Cousin Leverett said it wasn't quite right, so I am going over it. And he is teaching me a little French.”

”You know they think women don't need to know much beside housekeeping and sewing. I just hate to hear about ruffles cut on the straight or bias, and I couldn't tell what Dacca muslin, or jaconet, or dimity was to save myself. And eyelet work and French knots and run lace--that's what the big girls who come to see Polly talk about. But I like books, and studies, and different countries. I'd like to travel. But I don't know that I want to be a sea captain.”

They found some queer old houses that were odd enough. Mr. Leverett said they were almost two hundred years old, and that at first the place kept the old Indian name, Naumkeag. But the Reverend Francis Higginson gave it a new name out of the Bible--”In Salem also is His tabernacle.” The early pilgrims built a chapel at once.

”How close the houses are!”

It was a row that had survived the hand of improvement. There was a huge central chimney-stack, big enough for a modern factory, and the house seemed built around it. The second story overhung the first, and in some of them were small dormer windows looking like bird houses. And the little panes of greenish gla.s.s seemed to make windows all framework.

Cynthia was much interested in the Roger Williams house, and the story of the old minister.

”Why, I thought religion made people good and pleasant----” Then she checked herself, for often Cousin Elizabeth was _not_ pleasant. And she seemed more religious than Cousin Eunice. And Cousin Chilian rarely scolded or said a cross word--he never talked about religion, but he went to church on Sunday; they all did. She studied the Catechism, she could learn easily when she had a mind to, but she didn't understand it at all. She shocked Elizabeth by her irreverent questions. There was the old horn-book primer with--

”In Adam's fall We sinned all.”