Chapter 1

Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly

Comfort Pease

And her Gold Ring

By

Mary E. Wilkins

Author of Prembroke, Jane Field, A Humble Romance, etc., etc.

Fleming H. Revell Company New-York Chicago Toronto MDCCCXCV

One of the first things which Comfort remembered being told was that she had been named for her Aunt Comfort, who had given her a gold ring and a gold dollar for her name. Comfort could not understand why. It always seemed to her that her aunt, and not she, had given the name, and that she should have given the ring and the dollar; but that was what her mother had told her. "Your Aunt Comfort gave you this beautiful gold ring and this gold dollar for your name," said she.

The ring and the dollar were kept in Mrs. Pease's little rosewood work-box, which she never used for needlework, but as a repository for her treasures. Her best cameo brooch was in there, too, and a lock of hair of Comfort's baby brother who died.

One of Comfort's chiefest delights was looking at her gold ring and gold dollar. When she was very good her mother would unlock the rosewood box and let her see them. She had never worn the ring--it was much too large for her. Aunt Comfort and her mother had each thought that it was foolish to buy a gold ring that she could outgrow. "If it was a chameleon ring I wouldn't care," said Aunt Comfort; "but it does seem a pity when it's a real gold ring." So the ring was bought a little too large for Comfort's mother. She was a very small woman, and Comfort was a large baby, and, moreover, favored her father's family, who were all well grown, and Aunt Comfort feared she might have larger fingers.

"Why, I've seen girls eight years old with fingers a good deal bigger than yours, Emily," she said. "Suppose Comfort shouldn't be able to get that ring on her finger after she's eight years old, what a pity 'twould be, when it's real gold, too!"

But when Comfort was eight years old she was very small for her age, and she could actually crowd two of her fingers--the little one and the third--into the ring. She begged her mother to let her wear it so, but she would not. "No," said she, "I sha'n't let you make yourself a laughing-stock by wearing a ring any such way as that. Besides, you couldn't use your fingers. You've got to wait till your hand grows to it."

So poor little Comfort waited, but she had a discouraged feeling sometimes that her hand never would grow to it. "Suppose I shouldn't be any bigger than you, mother," she said, "couldn't I ever wear the ring?"

"Hush! you will be bigger than I am. All your father's folks are, and you look just like them," said her mother, conclusively, and Comfort tried to have faith. The gold dollar also could only impart the simple delight of possession, for it was not to be spent. "I am going to give her a gold dollar to keep beside the ring," Aunt Comfort had said.

"What is it for?" Comfort asked sometimes when she gazed at it shining in its pink cotton bed in the top of the work-box.

"It's to keep," answered her mother.

Comfort grew to have a feeling, which she never expressed to anybody, that her gold dollar was somehow like Esau's birthright, and something dreadful would happen to her if she parted with it. She felt safer, because a "mess of pottage" didn't sound attractive to her, and she did not think she would ever be tempted to spend her gold dollar for that.

Comfort went to school when she was ten years old. She had not begun as early as most of the other girls, because she lived three quarters of a mile from the school-house and had many sore throats. The doctors had advised her mother to teach her at home; and she could do that, because she had been a teacher herself when she was a girl.

Comfort had not been to school one day before everybody in it knew about her gold ring and her dollar, and it happened in this way: She sat on the bench between Rosy and Matilda Stebbins, and Rosy had a ring on the middle finger of her left hand. Rosy was a fair, pretty little girl, with long light curls, which all the other girls admired and begged for the privilege of twisting. Rosy at recess usually had one or two of her friends standing at her back twisting her soft curls over their fingers.

Rosy wore pretty gowns and aprons, too, and she was always glancing down to see if her skirt was spread out nicely when she sat on the bench. Her sister Matilda had just as pretty gowns, but she was not pretty herself. However, she was a better scholar, although she was a year younger. That day she kept glancing across Comfort at her sister, and her black eyes twinkled angrily. Rosy sometimes sat with her left hand pressed affectedly against her pink cheek, with the ring-finger bent slightly outward; and then she held up her spelling-book before her with her left hand, and the same ostentatious finger.

Finally Matilda lost her patience, and she whispered across Comfort Pease. "You act like a ninny," said she to Rosy, with a fierce pucker of her red lips and a twinkle of her black eyes.

Rosy looked at her, and the pink spread softly all over her face and neck; but she still held her spelling-book high, and the middle finger with the ring wiggled at the back of it.

"It ain't anything but brass, neither," whispered Matilda.

"It ain't," Rosy whispered back.

"Smell of it."

Rosy crooked her arm around her face and began to cry. However, she cried quite easily, and everybody was accustomed to seeing her fair head bent over the hollow of her arm several times a day, so she created no excitement at all. Even the school-teacher simply glanced at her and said nothing. The school-teacher was an elderly woman who had taught school ever since she was sixteen. She was called very strict, and the little girls were all afraid of her. She could ferule a boy just as well as a man could. Her name was Miss Tabitha Hanks. She did not like Rosy Stebbins very well, although she tried to be impartial. Once at recess she pushed Charlotte Hutchins and Sarah Allen, who were twisting Rosy's curls, away, and gathered them all up herself in one hard hand. "I'd cut them all off if I were your mother," said she, with a sharp little tug; but when Rosy rolled her scared blue eyes up at her, she only laughed grimly and let go.

Now Miss Hanks just looked absently at Rosy weeping in the hollow of her blue gingham arm, then went over to the blackboard and began writing, in fair, large characters, "A rolling stone gathers no moss," for the scholars to copy in their copy-books. The temptation and the opportunity were too much for Comfort Pease. She nudged Matilda Stebbins and whispered in her ear, although she knew that whispering in school was wrong. "I've got a real gold ring," whispered Comfort.

Matilda turned astonished eyes upon her. "You ain't."

"Yes, I have."

"Who gave it to you?"

"My Aunt Comfort, for my name."

"Were you named for her?"

"Yes, and she gave me a real gold ring for it."

"Matilda Stebbins and Comfort Pease, stand out on the floor," said Miss Tabitha Hanks, sharply. Comfort gave a great jump--the teacher had been standing at the blackboard with her back toward them, and how had she seen? Never after that did Comfort feel quite safe from Miss Tabitha's eyes; even if they were on the other side of the wall she could not quite trust it.

"Step right out on the floor, Matilda and Comfort," repeated Miss Tabitha, and out the two little girls stepped. Comfort's knees shook, and she was quite pale. Matilda looked very sober, but her black eyes gave a defiant flash when she was out on the floor and saw that her sister Rosy had lowered her arm and was looking at her with gentle triumph. "You see what you've got because you called my ring brass," Rosy seemed to say; and Matilda gave a stern little nod at her, as if she replied, "It is brass."

Poor little Comfort did not feel much sustained by the possession of her real gold ring. It was dreadful to stand out there facing the school, which seemed to be a perfect dazzle of blue and black eyes all fastened upon her in her little red gown and gingham tier, in her little stout shoes, which turned in for very meekness, with her little dangling hands, which could not wear the gold ring, and her little strained face and whispering lips, and little vain heart, which was being punished for its little vanity.

They stood on the floor until recess. Comfort felt so weak and stiff that she could scarcely move when Miss Hanks said harshly, "Now you can go." She cast a piteous glance at Matilda, who immediately put her arms around her waist and pulled her along to the entry, where their hoods and cloaks hung. "Don't you cry," she whispered. "She's awful strict, but she won't hurt you a mite. She brought me a whole tumbler of currant jelly when I had the measles."

"I sha'n't whisper again as long as I live," half sobbed Comfort, putting on her hood.

"I sha'n't, either," said Matilda. "I never had to stand out on the floor before. I don't know what my mother will say when I tell her."

The two little girls went out in the snowy yard, and there was Rosy, with Charlotte Hutchins and Sarah Allen, and she was showing them her ring. It was again too much for sensible little Matilda, weary from her long stand on the floor. "Rosy Stebbins, you are a great ninny, acting so stuck up over that old brass ring," said she. "Comfort Pease has a real solid gold one, and she don't even wear it."

Rosy and Charlotte Hutchins and Sarah Allen all stared at Comfort. "Have you?" asked Charlotte Hutchins, in an awed tone. She was a doctor's daughter, and had many things that the other little girls had not; but even she had no gold ring--nothing but a chameleon.

"Yes, I have," replied Comfort, blushing modestly.

"Real gold?" asked Rosy, in a subdued voice.

"Yes."

Some other girls came up--some of the older ones, with their hair done up; and even some of the boys, towering lankily on the outskirts. Not one of these scholars in this country district school fifty years ago had ever owned a gold ring. All they had ever seen were their mothers' well-worn wedding-circlets.

"Comfort Pease has got a real gold ring," went from one to the other.

"Why don't she wear it, then?" demanded one of the big girls. She had very red cheeks, and her black hair was in two glossy braids, crossed and pinned at the back of her head, and surmounted by her mother's shell comb she had let her wear to school that day. She had come out to recess without her hood to show it.

"She's waiting for her hand to grow to it," explained Matilda, to whom Comfort had shyly whispered the whole story.

"Hold up your hand," ordered the big girl; and Comfort held up her little hand pink with the cold.

"H'm! looks big enough," said the big girl, and she adjusted her shell comb.

"I call it a likely story," said another big girl, in an audible whisper.

"The Peases don't have any more than other folks," said still another big girl. The little crowd dispersed with scornful giggles. Comfort turned redder and redder. Rosy and Charlotte and Sarah were looking at her curiously; only Matilda stood firm. "You are all just as mean as you can be!" she cried. "She has got a gold ring!"

Matilda Stebbins put her arm around Comfort, who was fairly crying. "Come," said she, "don't you mind anything about 'em, Comfort. Le'ss go in the school-house. I've got a splendid Baldwin apple in my dinner-pail, and I'll give you half of it. They're mad 'cause they haven't got any gold ring."

"I have got a gold ring," sobbed Comfort:

"Honest and true, Black and blue, Lay me down and cut me in two."

That was the awful truth-testing formula of the village children.

"Course you have," said Matilda, with indignant backward glances at the others. "Le'ss go and get that Baldwin apple."

Comfort went with Matilda; but it took more than a Baldwin apple to solace her; and her first day at school was a most unhappy one. It was very probable that the other scholars, and especially the elder ones, who had many important matters of their own in mind, thought little more about her and her gold ring after school had begun; but Comfort could not understand that. She had a feeling that the minds of the whole school were fixed upon her, and she was standing upon a sort of spiritual platform of shame, which was much worse than the school-room floor. If she saw one girl whisper to another, she directly thought it was about her. If a girl looked at her, her color rose, and her heart began to beat loudly, for she thought she was saying to herself, "Likely story!"

Comfort was thankful when it was time to go home, and she could trudge off alone down the snowy road. None of the others lived her way. She left them all at the turn of the road just below the school-house.

"Good-night, Comfort," Matilda Stebbins sang out loyally; but the big girl with red cheeks followed her with, "Wear that gold ring to school to-morrow, an' let us see it." Then everybody giggled, and poor Comfort fled out of sight. It seemed to her that she must wear that ring to school the next day. She made up her mind that she would ask her mother; but when she got home she found that her Grandmother Atkins had come, and also her Uncle Ebenezer and Aunt Susan. They had driven over from Barre, where they lived, and her grandmother was going to stay and make a little visit; but her uncle and aunt were going home soon, and her mother was hurrying to make some hot biscuits for supper.

So when Comfort came in she stopped short at the sight of the company, and had to kiss them all and answer their questions with shy politeness. Comfort was very fond of her grandmother, but this time she did not feel quite so delighted to see her as usual. As soon as she had got a chance she slipped into the pantry after her mother. "Mother," she whispered, pulling her apron softly, "can't I wear my gold ring to school to-morrow?"

"No, you can't. How many times have I got to tell you?" said her mother, mixing her biscuit dough energetically.

"Please let me, mother. They didn't believe I've got one."

"Let them believe it or not, just as they have a mind to," said her mother.

"They think I'm telling stories."

"What have you been telling about your ring in school for, when you ought to have been studying? Now, Comfort, I can't have you standing there teasing me any longer. I've got to get these biscuits into the oven; they must have some supper before they go home. You go right out and set the table. Get the clean table-cloth out of the drawer, and you may put on the best knives and forks. Not another word. You can't wear that gold ring until your hand grows to it, and that settles it."

Comfort went out and set the table, but she looked so dejected that the company all noticed it. She could not eat any of the hot biscuits when they sat down to supper, and she did not eat much of the company cake. "You don't feel sick, do you, child?" asked her grandmother, anxiously.

"No, ma'am," replied Comfort, and she swallowed a big lump in her throat.

"She ain't sick," said her mother, severely. "She's fretting because she can't wear her gold ring to school."

"O Comfort, you must wait till your hand grows to it," said her Aunt Susan.

"Yes, of course she must," said her Uncle Ebenezer.

"Eat your supper, and your hand will grow to it before long," said her father, who, left to himself, would have let Comfort wear the ring.

"It wouldn't do for you to wear that ring and lose it. It's real gold," said her grandmother. "Have another piece of the sweet-cake."

But Comfort wanted no more sweet-cake. She put both hands to her face and wept, and her mother sent her promptly out of the room and to bed. Comfort lay there and sobbed, and heard her Uncle Ebenezer's covered wagon roll out of the yard, and sobbed again. Then she fell asleep, and did not know it when her mother and grandmother came in and looked at her and kissed her.

"I'm sorry she feels so bad," said Comfort's mother, "but I can't let her wear that ring."

"No, you can't," said her grandmother. And they went out shading the candle.

Comfort said no more about the ring the next morning. She knew her mother too well. She did not eat much breakfast, and crept off miserably to school at a quarter past eight, and she had another unhappy day. Nobody had forgotten about the gold ring. She was teased about it at every opportunity. "Why didn't you wear that handsome gold ring?" asked the big girl with red cheeks, until poor Comfort got nearly distracted. It seemed to her that the time to go home would never come, and as if she could never endure to go to school again. That night she begged her mother to let her stay at home the next day. "No," said her mother; "you've begun to go to school, and you're going to school unless you're sick. Now this evening you had better sit down and write a letter to your Aunt Comfort. It's a long time since you wrote to her."

So Comfort sat down and wrote laboriously a letter to her Aunt Comfort, and thanked her anew, as she always did, for her gold ring and the gold dollar. "I wish to express my thanks again for the beautiful and valuable gifts which you presented me for my name," wrote Comfort, in the little stilted style of the day.

After the letter was written it was eight o'clock, and Comfort's mother said she had better go to bed.

"You look tired out," said she; "I guess you'll have to go to bed early if you're going to school."

"Can't I stay home to-morrow, mother?" pleaded Comfort, with sudden hope.

"No," said her mother; "you've got to go if you're able."

"Mother, can't I wear it just once?"

"Don't you bring that ring up again," said her mother. "Take your candle and go right upstairs."

Comfort gave a pitiful little sob.

"Now don't you go to crying over it," ordered her mother; and Comfort tried to choke back another sob as she went out of the room.

Comfort's father looked up from the _Old Farmer's Almanac_. He was going to Bolton the next day with a load of wood, and wanted to see what the weather would be, and so was consulting the almanac.

"What was it Comfort wanted?" he inquired.

"She wanted to wear that gold ring her Aunt Comfort gave her to school," replied Mrs. Pease. "And I've told her over and over again I shouldn't let her do it."

"It's a mile too big for her, and she'd be sure to lose it off," said Grandmother Atkins; "and it would be a pity to have anything happen to it, when it's real gold, too."

"She couldn't wind a rag round her finger under it, could she?" asked Comfort's father, hesitatingly.

"Wear a rag round her finger under it!" repeated Mrs. Pease. "I rather guess she can wait till her finger grows to it. You'd let that child do anything."

Mr. Pease did not say anything more, but studied the _Old Farmer's Almanac_ again, and found out it was likely to be fair weather for the season.

It was past midnight, and the hearth fire was raked down, and Comfort's father and mother and grandmother were all in bed and asleep, when a little figure in a white nightgown, holding a lighted candle, padding softly on little cold bare feet, came down the stairs. Comfort paused in the entry and listened. She could hear the clock tick and her father snore. The best parlor door was on the right. She lifted the brass catch cautiously, and pushed the door open. Then she stole into the best parlor. The close, icy air smote her like a breath from the north pole. There was no fire in the best parlor except on Thanksgiving day, and perhaps twice besides, when there was company to tea, from fall to spring. The cold therein seemed condensed and concentrated; the haircloth sofa and chairs and the mahogany table seemed to give out cold as stoves did heat.

There were two coffin-plates and funeral wreaths, which had belonged to the uncles of Comfort who had died before she was born, in frames on the wall, and these always scared Comfort.

She kept her eyes away from them as she went swiftly on her little bare feet, which had no feeling in them as they pressed the icy floor, across to the mahogany card-table, whereon was set the rosewood work-box.

Comfort set her candle on the table, and turned the key of the box with her stiff fingers. Then she raised the lid noiselessly, and there lay the ring in a little square compartment of the tray. Next to it, in the corner square, lay the gold dollar.

Comfort took the ring out, shut the box-lid down, turned the key, and fled. She thought some one called her name as she went upstairs, and she stopped and listened; but all she heard was the clock ticking and her father snoring and her heart beating. Then she kept on to her own chamber, and put out her candle, and crept into her feather-bed under the patchwork quilts. There she lay all night, wide awake, with the gold ring clasped tightly in her little cold fist.

When Comfort came downstairs the next morning there was a bright red spot on each cheek, and she was trembling as if she had a chill.

Her mother noticed it, and asked if she was cold, and Comfort said, "Yes, ma'am."

"Well, draw your stool up close to the fire and get warm," said her mother. "Breakfast is 'tmost ready. You can have some of the pancakes to carry to school for your dinner."

Comfort sat soberly in the chimney-corner until breakfast was ready, as her mother bade her. She was very silent, and did not say anything during breakfast unless some one asked her a question.

When she started for school her mother and grandmother stood in the window and watched her.

It was a very cold morning, and Mrs. Pease had put her green shawl on Comfort over her coat; and the little girl looked very short and stout as she trudged along between the snow-ridges which bordered the path, and yet there was a forlorn air about her.

"I don't know as the child was fit to go to school to-day," Mrs. Pease said, doubtfully.

"She didn't look very well, and she didn't eat much breakfast, either," said Grandmother Atkins.

"She was always crazy after hot pancakes, too," said her mother.

"Hadn't you better call her back, Em'ly?"

"No, I won't," said Mrs. Pease, turning away from the window. "She's begun to go to school, and I'm not going to take her out unless I'm sure she ain't able to go."

So Comfort Pease went on to school; and she had the gold ring in her pocket, which was tied around her waist with a string under her dress skirt, as was the fashion then. Comfort often felt of the pocket to be sure the ring was safe as she went along. It was bitterly cold; the snow creaked under her stout shoes. Besides the green shawl, her red tippet was wound twice around her neck and face; but her blue eyes peering over it were full of tears which the frosty wind forced into them, and her breath came short and quick. When she came in sight of the school-house she could see the straight column of smoke rising out of the chimney, it was so thin in the cold air. There were no scholars out in the yard, only a group coming down the road from the opposite direction. It was too cold to play out of doors before school, as usual.

Comfort pulled off her mittens, thrust her hand in her pocket dangling against her blue woolen petticoat, and drew out the gold ring.

Then she slipped it on over the third and fourth fingers of her left hand, put her mittens on again, and went on.

It was quite still in the school-house, although school had not begun, because Miss Tabitha Hanks had arrived. Her spare form, stiff and wide, and perpendicular as a board, showed above the desk. She wore a purple merino dress buttoned down the front with dark black buttons, and a great breastpin of twisted gold. Her hair was looped down over her ears in two folds like shiny drab satin. It scarcely looked like hair, the surface was so smooth and unbroken; and a great tortoise-shell comb topped it like a coronet.