Chapter 8

"Did he know that the North American Indians would be blessed in him? Did he know they would learn that the Great Spirit had a Son, Jesus Christ? And that Jesus Christ was descended from him?"

"I--don't--know," said Marjorie, doubtfully. "I get all mixed up."

"It was because all the world would be blessed that he was so anxious to have a son. And, then, after Isaac was born and married for years and years the promise did not seem to come true, for he had no child. Must the faithful, hopeful old father die with his hope deferred? We read that Abraham died in a good old age, an old man, full of years, and Isaac and Ishmael buried him, and farther on in the same chapter we find that the twin boys are born, Jacob and Esau. But their old grandfather was dead. He knew now how true God is to his promises, because he was in Heaven, but we can't help wishing he had seen those two strong boys from one of whom the Saviour of the whole world was to descend. But if we look at Abraham's age when he died, and comparing it with Isaac's when the twins were born, we find that the old man, truly, had to wait twenty years before they were born, but that he really lived to see them seventeen or eighteen years of age. He lived to tell them with his own lips about that wonderful promise of God."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Marjorie, enthusiastically.

"He had another long time to wait, too," said Linnet.

"Yes, he had hard times all along," almost sighed Miss Prudence.

Forty years old did not mean to her that her hard times were all over.

"But he had such a good time with the boys," said Marjorie, who never could see the dark side of anything. "Just to think of _dates_ telling us such a beautiful thing."

"That's all you hate, dates and punctuation," Linnet declared; "but I can't see the use of ever so many other things."

"If God thought it worth while to make the earth and people it and furnish it and govern it with laws, don't you think it worth your poor little while to learn what he has done?" queried Miss Prudence, gently.

"Oh!" exclaimed Linnet, "is _that_ it?"

"Just it," said Miss Prudence, smiling, "and some day I will go over with you each study by itself and show you how it will educate you and help you the better to do something he asks you to do."

"Oh, how splendid!" cried Linnet. "Before I go to school, so the books won't seem hard and dry?"

"Yes, any day that you will come to me. Marjorie may come too, even though she loves to study."

"I wonder if you can find any good in Natural Philosophy," muttered Linnet, "and in doing the examples in it. And in remembering the signs of the Zodiac! Mr. Holmes makes us learn everything; he won't let us skip."

"He is a fine teacher, and you might have had, if you had been so minded, a good preparation for your city school."

"I haven't," said Linnet. "If it were not for seeing the girls and learning how to be like city girls, I would rather stay home."

"Perhaps that knowledge would not improve you. What then?"

"Why, Miss Prudence!" exclaimed Marjorie, "don't you think we country girls are away behind the age?"

"In the matter of dates! But you need not be. With such a teacher as you have you ought to do as well as any city girl of your age. And there's always a course of reading by yourself."

"It isn't always," laughed Linnet, "it is only for the studiously disposed."

"I was a country girl, and when I went to the city to school I did not fail in my examination."

"Oh, _you_!" cried Linnet.

"I see no reason why you, in your happy, refined, Christian home, with all the sweet influences of your healthful, hardy lives, should not be as perfectly the lady as any girl I know."

Marjorie clapped her hands. Oh, if Hollis might only hear this! And Miss Prudence _knew_.

"I thought I had to go to a city school, else I couldn't be refined and lady-like," said Linnet.

"That does not follow. All city girls are not refined and lady-like; they may have a style that you haven't, but that style is not always to their advantage. It is true that I do not find many young ladies in your little village that I wish you to take as models, but the fault is in them, as well as in some of their surroundings. You have music, you have books, you have perfection of beauty in shore and sea, you have the Holy Spirit, the Educator of mankind."

The girls were awed and silent.

"I have been shocked at the rudeness of city girls, and I have been charmed with the tact and courtesy of more than one country maiden. Nowadays education and the truest culture may be had everywhere."

"Even in Middlefield," laughed Marjorie her heart brimming over with the thought that, after all, she might be as truly a lady as Helen Rheid.

If Linnet had been as excited as Marjorie was, at that moment, she would have given a bound into the grass and danced all around. But Marjorie only sat still trembling with a flush in eyes and cheeks.

"I think I'll keep a list of the books I read," decided Marjorie after a quiet moment.

"That's a good plan. I'll show you a list I made in my girlhood, some day. But you mustn't read as many as an Englishman read,--Thomas Henry Buckle,--his library comprised twenty-two thousand."

"He didn't read them _all,_" cried Linnet.

"He read parts of all, and some attentively, I dare say. He was a rapid reader and had the rare faculty of being able to seize on what he needed to use. He often read three volumes a day. But I don't advise you to copy him. I want you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. He could absorb, but, we'll take it for granted that you must plod on steadily, step by step. He read through Johnson's Dictionary to enlarge his vocabulary."

"Vocabulary!" repeated Linnet.

"His stock of words," exclaimed Marjorie. "Miss Prudence!" with a new energy in her voice, "I'm going to read Webster through."

"Well," smiled Miss Prudence.

"Don't you believe I _can?_"

"Oh, yes."

"Then I will. I'll be like Buckle in one thing. I'll plan to read so many pages a day. We've got a splendid one; mother got it by getting subscriptions to some paper. Mother will do _anything_ to help us on, Miss Prudence."

"I have learned that. I have a plan to propose to her by and by."

"Oh, can't you tell us?" entreated Linnet, forgetting her work.

"Not yet."

"Does it concern _us?_" asked Marjorie.

"Yes, both of you."

Two hours since it had "concerned" only Marjorie, but in this hour under the apple-tree Miss Prudence had been moved to include Linnet, also. Linnet was not Marjorie, she had mentally reasoned, but she was Linnet and had her own niche in the world. Was she not also one of her little sisters that were in the world and not of it?

"When may we know?" questioned Linnet

"That depends. Before I leave your grandfather's, I hope."

"I know it is something good and wonderful, because you thought of it," said Marjorie. "Perhaps it is as good as one of our day-dreams coming true."

"It may be something very like one of them, but the time may not be yet. It will not do you any harm to know there's something pleasant ahead, if it can be arranged."

"I do like to know things that are going to happen to us," Linnet confessed. "I used to wish I could dream and have the dreams come true."

"Like the wicked ancients who used to wrap themselves in skins of beasts and stay among the graves and monuments to sleep and dream--and in the temples of the idols, thinking the departed or the idols would foretell to them in dreams. Isaiah reproves the Jews for doing this. And Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to 'The Lady of the Lake,' tells us something about a similar superstition among the Scotch."

"I like to know about superstitions," said Linnet, "but I'd be afraid to do that."

"Miss Prudence, I haven't read 'The Lady of the Lake'!" exclaimed Marjorie.

"No, imitator of Buckle, you haven't. But I'll send it to you when I go home."

"What did Buckle _do_ with all his learning?" inquired Marjorie.

"I haven't told you about half of his learning. He wrote a work of great learning, that startled the world somewhat, called 'The History of Civilization,' in which he attempted to prove that the differences between nations and peoples were almost solely to be attributed to physical causes that food had more to do with the character of a nation than faith."

"Didn't the Israelites live on the same food that the Philistines did?" asked Marjorie, "and didn't--"

"Are you getting ready to refute him? The Jews could not eat pork, you remember."

"And because they didn't eat pork they believed in one true God!" exclaimed Marjorie, indignantly. "I don't like his book, Miss Prudence."

"Neither do I. And we need not read it, even if he did study twenty-two thousand books and Johnson's Dictionary to help him write it."

"Why didn't he study Webster?" asked Linnet.

"Can't you think and tell me?"

"No."

"Can you not, Marjorie?"

"Because he was English, I suppose, and Johnson wrote the English Dictionary and Webster the American."

"An Irish lady told me the other day that Webster was no authority. I wish I could tell you all about Johnson; I love him, admire him, and pity him."

Marjorie laughed and squeezed Miss Prudence's hand. "Don't you wish you could tell us about every _body_ and every _thing_, Miss Prudence?"

"And then help you use the knowledge. I am glad of your question, Marjorie, 'What did Mr. Buckle _do_ with his knowledge?' If I should learn a new thing this week and not use it next week I should feel guilty."

"I don't know how to use knowledge," said Linnet.

"You are putting your knowledge of tatting to very good service."

"Miss Prudence, will you use your things on me?" inquired Marjorie, soberly.

"That is just what I am hoping to do."

"Hillo! Hillo! Hillo!" sounded a voice behind the woodshed. After a moment a tall figure emerged around a corner, arrayed in coarse working clothes, with a saw over his shoulders.

"Hillo! gals, I can't find your father. Tell him I left my saw here for him to file."

"I will," Linnet called back.

"That's African John," explained Linnet as the figure disappeared around the corner of the woodshed. "I wish I had asked him to stay and tell you some of his adventures."

"_African_ John. He is not an African;" said Miss Prudence.

"No, oh no; he's Captain Rheid's cousin. People call him that because he was three years in Africa. He was left on the coast. It happened this way. He was only a sailor and he went ashore with another sailor and they got lost in a jungle or something like it and when they came back to the shore they saw the sails of their ship in the distance and knew it had gone off and left them. The man with him fell down dead on the sand and he had to stay three years before a ship came. He's an old man now and that happened years and years ago. Captain Rheid can't tell anything more frightful than that. Mother had a brother lost at sea, they supposed so, for he never came back; if I ever have anybody go and not come back I'll never, never, _never_ give him up."

"Never, never, never give him up," echoed Miss Prudence in her heart.

"They thought Will Rheid was lost once, but he came back! Linnet didn't give him up, and his father and mother almost did."

"I'd never give him up," said Linnet again, emphatically.

"Will Rheid," teased Marjorie, "or anybody?"

"Anybody," replied Linnet, but she twitched at her work and broke her thread.

"Now, girls, I'm going in to talk to your mother awhile, and then perhaps Linnet will walk part of the way home with me," said Miss Prudence.

"To talk about _that_," cried Marjorie.

"I'll tell you by and by."

VIII.

BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS.

"I am rather made for giving than taking."--_Mrs. Browning._

Mrs. West had been awakened from her nap with an uncomfortable feeling that something disagreeable had happened or was about to happen; she felt "impressed" she would have told you. Pushing the light quilt away from her face she arose with a decided vigor, determined to "work it off" if it were merely physical; she brushed her iron gray hair with steady strokes and already began to feel as if her presentiment were groundless; she bathed her cheeks in cool water, she dressed herself carefully in her worn black and white barège, put on her afternoon cap, a bit of black lace with bows of narrow black ribbon, fastened the linen collar Linnet had worked with button-hole stitch with the round gold and black enamelled pin that contained locks of the light hair of her two lost babes, and then felt herself ready for the afternoon, even ready for the minister and his stylish wife, if they should chance to call. But she was not ready without her afternoon work; she would feel fidgety unless she had something to keep her fingers moving; the afternoon work happened to be a long white wool stocking for Linnet's winter wear. Linnet must have new ones, she decided; she would have no time to darn old ones, and Marjorie might make the old ones do another winter; it was high time for Marjorie to learn to mend.

The four shining knitting needles were clicking in the doorway of the broad little entry that opened out to the green front yard when Miss Prudence found her way around to the front of the house. The ample figure and contented face made a picture worth looking at, and Miss Prudence looked at it a moment before she announced her presence by speaking.

"Mrs. West, I want to come to see you a little while--may I?"

Miss Prudence had a pretty, appealing way of speaking, oftentimes, that caused people to feel as if she were not quite grown up. There was something akin to childlikeness in her voice and words and manner, to-day. She had never felt so humble in her life, as to-day when her whole life loomed up before her--one great disappointment.

"I was just thinking that I would go and find you after I had turned the heel; I haven't had a talk with you yet."

"I want it," returned the younger lady, seating herself on the upper step and leaning back against the door post. "I've been wanting to be _mothered_ all day. I have felt as if the sunshine were taking me into its arms, and as if the soft warm grass were my mother's lap."

"Dear child, you have had trouble in your life, haven't you?" replied the motherly voice.

Miss Prudence was not impulsive, at least she believed that she had outgrown yielding to a sudden rush of feeling, but at these words she burst into weeping, and drawing nearer dropped her head in the broad lap.

"There, there, deary! Cry, if it makes you feel any better," hushed the voice that had rocked babies to sleep.

After several moments of self-contained sobbing Miss Prudence raised her head. "I've never told any one, but I feel as if I wanted to tell you. It is so long that it makes me feel old to speak of it. It is twenty years ago since it happened. I had a friend that I love as girls love the man they have chosen to marry; father admired him, and said he was glad to leave me with such a protector. Mother had been dead about a year and father was dying with consumption; they had no one to leave me with excepting this friend; he was older than I, years older, but I admired him all the more for that. Father had perfect trust in him. I think the trouble hastened father's death. He had a position of trust--a great deal of money passed through his hands. Like every girl I liked diamonds and he satisfied me with them; father used to look grave and say: 'Prudie, your mother didn't care for such things.' But I cared for mine. I had more jewels than any of my friends; and he used to promise that I should have everything I asked for. But I did not want anything if I might have him. My wedding dress was made--our wedding tour was all planned: we were to come home to his beautiful house and father was to be with us. Father and I were so contented over our plans; he seemed just like himself that last evening that we laughed and talked. But he--my friend was troubled and left early; when he went away he caught me in his arms and held me. 'God bless you, bless you' he said, and then he said, 'May he forgive me!' I could not sleep that night, the words sounded in my ears. In the morning I unburdened myself to father, I always told him everything, and he was as frightened as I. Before two days we knew all. He had taken--money--that was not his own, thousands of dollars, and he was tried and sentenced. I sent them all my diamonds and everything that would bring money, but that was only a little of the whole. They sent him--to state-prison, to hard labor, for a term of five years. Father died soon after and I had not any one nearer than an aunt or cousin. I thought my heart broke with the shame and dishonor. I have lived in many places since. I have money enough to do as I like--because I do not like to do very much, perhaps. But I can't forget. I can't forget the shame. And I trusted him so! I believed in him. He had buried a young wife years ago, and was old and wise and good! When I see diamonds they burn into me like live coals. I would have given up my property and worked for my living, but father made me bind myself with a solemn promise that I would not do it. But I have sought out many that he wronged, and given them all my interest but the sum I compelled myself to live on. I have educated two or three orphans, and I help every month several widows and one or two helpless people who suffered through him. Father would be glad of that, if he knew how comfortably I can live on a limited income. I have made my will, remembering a number of people, and if they die before I do, I shall keep trace of their children. I do all I can; I would, rather give all my money up, but it is my father's money until I die."

Mrs. West removed a knitting needle from between her lips and knit it into the heel she had "turned."

"Where is he--now?" she asked.

"I never saw him after that night--he never wrote to me; I went to him in prison but he refused to see me. I have heard of him many times through his brother; he fled to Europe as soon as he was released, and has never returned home--to my knowledge. I think his brother has not heard from him for some years. When I said I had not a friend, I did not mention this brother; he was young when it happened, too young to have any pity for his brother; he was very kind to me, they all were. This brother was a half-brother--there were two mothers--and much younger."

"What was his name?"

Mrs. West did not mean to be inquisitive, but she did want to know and not simply for the sake of knowing.

"Excuse me--but I must keep the secret for his brother's sake. He's the only one left."

"I may not know the name of the bank then?"

"If you knew that you would know all. But _I_ know that your husband lost his small patrimony in it--twenty-five hundred dollars--"

"H'm," escaped Mrs. West's closely pressed lips.

"And that is one strong reason why I want to educate your two daughters."

The knitting dropped from the unsteady fingers.

"And I've fretted and fretted about that money, and asked the Lord how my girls ever were to be educated."

"You know now," said Miss Prudence. "I had to tell you, for I feared that you would not listen to my plan. You may guess how I felt when your sister-in-law, Mrs. Easton, told me that she was to take Linnet for a year or two and let her go to school. At first I could not see my way clear, my money is all spent for a year to come--I only thought of taking Marjorie home with me--but, I have arranged it so that I can spare a little; I have been often applied to to take music pupils, and if I do that I can take one of the girls home with me and send her to school; next year I will take all the expense upon myself, wardrobe and all. There is a cheap way of living in large cities as well as an expensive one. If Linnet goes to Boston with her aunt, she will be kept busy out of school hours. Mrs. Easton is very kindhearted but she considers no one where her children are concerned. If I wore diamonds that Linnet's money purchased, aren't you willing she shall eat bread and butter my money purchases?"

"But you gave the diamonds up?"

"I wore them, though."

"That diamond plea has done duty a good many times, I guess," said Mrs. West, smiling down upon the head in her lap.

"No, it hasn't. His brother has done many things for me; people are ready enough to take money from his brother, and the widows are my friends. It has not been difficult. It would have been without him."

"The nights I've laid awake and made plans. My little boys died in babyhood. I imagine their father and I would have mortgaged the farm, and I would have taken in washing, and he would have gone back to his trade to send those boys through college. But the girls don't need a college education. The boys might have been ministers--one of them, at least. But I would like the girls to have a piano, they both play so well on the melodeon! I would like them to be--well, like you, Miss Prudence, and not like their rough, hardworking old mother. I've shed tears enough about their education, and told the Lord about it times enough. If the Boston plan didn't suit, we had another, Graham and I--he always listens and depends upon my judgment. I'm afraid, sometimes, I depend upon my own judgment more than upon the Lord's wisdom. But this plan was--" the knitting needle was being pushed vigorously through her back hair now, "to exchange the farm for a house and lot in town--Middlefield is quite a town, you know--and he was to go back to his trade, and I was to take boarders, and the girls were to take turns in schooling and accomplishments. I am not over young myself, and he isn't over strong, but we had decided on that. I shed some tears over it, and he looked pale and couldn't sleep, for we've counted on this place as the home of our old age which isn't so far off as it was when he put that twenty-five hundred dollars into that bank. But I do breathe freer if I think we may have this place to live and die on, small as it is and the poor living it gives us. Father's place isn't much to speak of, and James will come in for his share of that, so we haven't much to count on anywhere. I don't know, though," the knitting needle was doing duty in the stocking again, "about taking _your_ money. You were not his wife, you hadn't spent it or connived at his knavery."

"I felt myself to be his wife--I am happier in making all the reparation in my power. All I could do for one old lady was to place her in The Old Ladies' Home. I know very few of the instances; I would not harrow my soul with hearing of those I could not help. I have done very little, but that little has been my exceeding comfort."

"I guess so," said Mrs. West, in a husky voice. "I'll tell father what you say, we'll talk it over and see. I know you love my girls--especially Marjorie."

"I love them both," was the quick reply.

"Linnet is older, she ought to have the first chance."

Miss Prudence thought, but did not say, "As Laban said about Leah," she only said, "I do not object to that. We do Marjorie no injustice. This is Linnet's schooltime. There does seem to be a justice in giving the first chance to the firstborn, although God chose Jacob instead of the elder Esau, and Joseph instead of his older brethren, and there was little David anointed when his brothers were refused."

Miss Prudence's tone was most serious, but her eyes were full of fun. She was turning the partial mother's weapons against herself.

"But David and Jacob and Joseph were different from the others," returned the mother, gravely, "and in this case, the elder is as good as the younger."

It almost slipped off Miss Prudence's tongue, "But she will not take the education Marjorie will," but she wisely checked herself and replied that both the girls were as precious as precious could be.