A Little Girl in Old Salem

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"Did you like the school?" Miss Winn inquired in the hall.

"No, I didn't. And I don't seem to know anything;" in a discouraged
tone.

"Oh, you will learn."

It was warm in the afternoon. Two of the boys were decidedly bad and
were punished. They positively roared. Cynthia spelled, and spelled, and
studied--"One and one are two," "one and two are three," and after a
while it dawned on her that it was just one more every time. Why, she
had known that all the time, only it hadn't been put in a table.

It grew very tiresome after a while. She asked if she couldn't have
recess with the big girls, but was sharply refused. In truth the good
dame grew very weary herself, and was glad when five o'clock came and
she could go out in the garden and recruit her tired nerves.

The stage was stopping at the door. Oh, how glad she was to see Cousin
Leverett. He smiled down in the flushed face.

"How did the school go?" he asked.

She hung her head. "I don't like it. I have to be with the little class
because I don't know tables, but I learned all the one times. That was
easy enough when you came to see into it. But--nine and nine?"

"Eighteen," he answered promptly.

"And you answered it right offhand!" She gave a soft, cheerful laugh.
"Oh, do you suppose I shall ever know so much?"

"There was a time when I didn't know it."

"Truly?" She looked incredulous.

"Truly. And I had quite hard work remembering to spell correctly."

"I studied two lines. This morning I missed two words, but this
afternoon I knew them all. And I can't write on the slate. The pencil
wabbles so, and then it gives an awful squeak that goes all over you.
And I can't do sums. And there's all the tables to learn. And I don't
like the teacher. I wish Miss Eunice could teach me. Or maybe Rachel
might."

"I might help you a little. But you read well?"

"She said it was too--too"--she wrinkled up her forehead--"too affected,
like a play-actor."

"Nonsense!" he cried disapprovingly. "We will see about some other
school presently. Would you like to take a walk with me? I'm tired of
the long stage-ride."

"Oh, so much!" She caught one hand in both of hers and gave a few skips
of joy.

"Let us go over to the river."

Of course, he should have gone in and announced their resolve. But he
was so used to considering only himself, and he realized that it must
have been a tiresome day to her. They went over Lafayette Street, which
was only a lane, and then turned up the stream.

Oh, how sweet the air was with the odorous dampness and the smell of
new growths, tree and grass. The sun, low in the west, slanted golden
gleams through the tree branches which chased each other over the grassy
spaces, as if they were quite alive and at merry-making. There were
sedgy plants in bloom, jack-in-the-pulpit, and what might have been a
lily, with a more euphonious name. Iridescent flies were skimming about,
now and then a fish made a stir and dazzle. Squirrels ran up and down
the trees and chattered, robins were singing joyously, the thrush with
her soft, plaintive note. She glanced up now and then and caught his
eye, and he felt she was happy. It was a delightful thing, after all, to
render some one truly happy. Perhaps children were more easily
satisfied, more responsive.

"Oh," he said presently, "we must go back or we will lose our supper,
and Cousin Elizabeth will scold."

"I shouldn't think she would dare to scold you;" raising wondering eyes.

"Why not?" He wondered what reason she would give.

"Because you are a man."

"She scolds Silas."

"Oh, that is different."

"How--different? We are both men. He is quite as tall as I."

"But you see--well, he is something like a servant. She tells him what
to do, and if he doesn't do it right she can find fault with it. But
you are--well, the house is yours. You can do what pleases you."

"Quite reasoned out, little one;" and he laughed with an approving
sound.

"It's curious that you scold people you like, and other people may do
the same thing and--is it because you don't dare to? If it is wrong in
the one place, why not in the other?"

"Perhaps politeness restrains us."

"I don't like people to scold. Miss Eunice never does."

"Eunice has a sweet nature. Doesn't Miss Winn ever scold you?"

"Well--I suppose I am bad and wilful sometimes, and then she has the
right. But when you do things that do not matter----"

Miss Winn was walking in the garden. Cynthia waved her hand, but walked
leisurely forward.

"I couldn't imagine what had become of you."

"It was my fault," interposed Chilian. "I met her at the gate and asked
her to go for a walk."

"And with that soiled apron!"

"That came off the slate. I hadn't any desk. It was hard to hold it on
my knee."

"You might have come in for a clean one. Run upstairs and change it."

But she was destined to meet Cousin Elizabeth in the hall. The elder
caught her arm roughly.

"Where have you been gadding to, bad girl? Didn't you know you must
come straight home from school? Here we have been worried half to death
about you, and I'm tired as a dog, trotting 'round all day. You deserve
a good whipping;" and she shook her. She would have enjoyed slapping her
soundly. But Chilian entered at that instant.

"She is going upstairs for a clean apron," he said. "I took her off for
a walk."

"She might have asked whether she could go or not," snapped Elizabeth.
"She's the most lawless thing!"

"It was my place. Don't blame the child!"

"Well, supper's ready."

She didn't have her apron on quite straight and her hair was a little
frowsy. Elizabeth had proposed it should be cut short on the neck for
the summer, but Miss Winn had objected.

"Such a great mop! No child wears it!"

Cynthia came in quietly and took her place. After her first cup of tea
Elizabeth thawed a little, enough to announce that two of the Appleton
children were ill, they thought with scarlet fever.

Chilian expressed some sympathy.

"And how was the school, Cynthia? We thought you might have been kept in
for some of your good deeds, as children are so seldom bad."

"I--I didn't like it," she answered simply.

"Children can't have just what they like in this world," was Elizabeth's
rejoinder.

"Nor grown people either," was Chilian's softening comment. Then he
changed the subject. He had seen Cousin Giles, who proposed to pay them
a visit, coming on some Saturday.

"Have you any lesson to learn?" he asked of Cynthia. "If so, bring your
book and come to my room."

"Oh, thank you!" Her face was radiant with delight.

Where had she left her book? Dame Wilby had told her to take it home and
study. Surely she had brought it--oh, yes! she had put it just inside
the gate under the great clump of ribbon grass. If only Cousin
Elizabeth's sharp eyes had not seen it. But there it was, safe enough.

She was delighted to go to Cousin Chilian's room, though she never
presumed. She seemed to have an innate sort of delicacy that he wondered
at.

The spelling was soon mastered. It was the rather unusual words that
puzzled her. Then they attacked the tables and he practised her in
making figures. Like most children left to themselves, she printed
instead of writing.

"Oh!" she cried with a wistful yet joyous emphasis, "I wish I could come
to school to you. And I'd like to be the only scholar."

"But you ought to be with little girls."

"I don't like them very much."

Then Miss Winn came for her. "You are very good to take so much
trouble," she said.

"Oh, I like you so much, so much!" she exclaimed with her sweet eyes as
well as her lips.

He recalled then the day on board the vessel, when she had besought in
her impetuous fashion that he should kiss her. She had never offered the
caress since. She was not an effusive child.

Her position at school was rather anomalous. A younger woman might have
managed differently. There was a new scholar that rather crowded them on
the bench. And the boy back of her did some sly things that annoyed her.
He gave her hair a twitch now and then. One day he dropped a little toad
on her book, at which she screamed, though an instant after she was not
at all afraid. Of course, he was whipped for that, and for once she did
not feel sorry.

"You're a great ninny to be afraid of a toad not bigger than a button,"
he said scornfully. "I'll get you whipped some day to make up for it,
see if I don't."

Thursday was unfortunate and she was kept in for some rather saucy
replies. When she returned they were in the sitting-room and had been
discussing some household matters. She surveyed them with a courageous
but indignant air.

"I've quit," she exclaimed. "I'm not going there to school any more."

She stood up very straight, her eyes flashing.

"What!" ejaculated Cousin Elizabeth.

"Why, I've quit! She wanted to make me say I was sorry and beg her
pardon, and she threatened to keep me all night, but I knew some of you
would come, at least Rachel."

"And I suppose you were a saucy, naughty girl!"

"What happened?" asked Chilian quietly.

"Why, you see--I went up to her table with the figures I had been making
on my slate. I'd done some of them over three times, for Tommy Marsh
joggled my elbow. Then I went back to my seat. We're crowded now, and I
went to sit down and sat on the floor. I do believe Sadie Green did it
on purpose--moved so there wasn't room enough for me to sit. And Tom
laughed, then all the children laughed, and Dame Wilby said, 'Get up,
Cynthy Leverett,' and I said 'My name isn't Cynthy, if you please, and I
haven't any seat to sit on if I do get up.' And then the children
laughed again, and I don't quite know what did happen, but I was so
angry. Then she said all the children should stay in for laughing. She
called me to the desk and I went. The slate was broken and I laid it on
the table. Then she said wasn't I sorry for being saucy, and I said I
wasn't. It was bad enough to fall on the floor, for I might have hurt
myself. Then she took up her switch, and I said: 'You strike me, if you
dare!' Then she pushed me in a little closet place, and there I staid
until after school was out. Then she said, 'Would I tell Miss Leverett
to come over?' and I said Mr. Leverett was my guardian and I would tell
him, but I wasn't coming to school any more, and that Tommy Marsh
pinched me and pulled my hair, and called me wild Indian. And so--I've
quit. You can't make me go again. I'll run away first and go on some of
the boats."

There was a blaze of scarlet on her cheeks and her eyes flashed fire,
but she stood up straight and defiant, when another child might have
broken down and cried. Chilian Leverett always remembered the picture
she made--small, dark, and spirited.

"No," he exclaimed, "you need not go back." Then he rose and took her
hand that was cold and trembling. "You will not go back. Let us find
Miss Winn----"

"Chilian!" warned Elizabeth.

He led Cynthia from the room, up the stairs. Miss Winn sat there sewing.
She clasped her arms about him, he could fairly feel the throb in them.

"Oh," she cried with a strange sort of sweetness. "I love you. You are
so good to me, and I have told you just the truth."

Then she buried her face on Miss Winn's bosom.

Chilian went downstairs. He laughed, yet he was deeply touched by her
audacity and bravery.

"Elizabeth," he announced; "I will see Mrs. Wilby. Let the matter die
out, do not refer to it. I did not think it quite the school for her. We
will find something else."

"Chilian, I must make one effort for you and her. Going on this way will
be her ruin. I should insist upon her going back to school and
apologizing to Mrs. Wilby. I wouldn't let a chit like that order what a
household of grown people should do and make them bow down to her. You
will be sorry for it in the end. You have had no experience with
children, you have seen so few. And a man hasn't the judgment----"

His usually serene temper was getting ruffled, and with such characters
the end is often obstinacy.

"If she is to make a disturbance here, become a bone of contention with
us, I will send her away. Cousin Giles is taking a great interest in
her. There are good boarding-schools in Boston, or she and Miss Winn
could have a home together under his supervision. There is enough to
provide for them."

"And you would turn her over to that half-heathen woman!" in a horrified
tone. "Then I wash my hands of the matter. Send her to perdition, if you
will."

CHAPTER VII

CHANGEFUL LIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD

Elizabeth Leverett busied herself about the supper. She felt as one does
in the threatening of a thunderstorm, when the clouds roll up and the
rumbling is low and distant and one studies the sky with presentiments.
Then it comes nearer, flirts a little with the elements, breaks open and
shows the blue that the scurrying wind soon hides and the real storm
bursts. She had believed all along that it must come.

She was not an ungracious or a selfish woman outside of her own home.
She was good to the sick and the needy, she gave of her time and
strength. In the home there was a sense of ownership, of the
self-appropriation so often termed duty. Everything had gone on smoothly
for years. She had settled that Chilian would not marry. Such a bookish
man, whose interests lay chiefly with men, did not need a wife when
there was some one at hand to make him comfortable. And that he surely
was. He understood and enjoyed it. He had only to suggest to have. Her
affection for him was like that for a younger brother. Even Eunice could
not minister so well for his comfort, though, like Mary of Bible lore,
she often added a delicate pleasure in listening to matters or
incidents that interested him.

Elizabeth had settled to the idea of a little heathen soul that she was
to lead aright. Missionary work in godless lands had not made much
advance and, having no mother, who was there to warn her of the great
peril of her soul? Seafaring men were not much given to thought of the
other world. Perhaps there was some grace for them in the hours of
peril, she had heard they prayed to God in an extremity; and there was
the dying thief. But on land no one had a right to count on this.

The child had changed everything. Even Eunice seemed to have lost the
sharp distinction. Miss Winn belonged to the ungodly, that was
clear--though she was upright, honest, neat, and in some ways sensible.
But her ideas about the child were foreign and reprehensible--dangerous
even. The child was no worse than others, not as bad as some, for she
had either by nature or training a delicate respect for the property of
others. She never meddled. She asked few questions even when she stood
by the kitchen table and watched the mysteries of cake and pie making
and the delicacies of cooking. It was the right to herself that annoyed
Elizabeth. People had hardly begun to suspect that children had any
rights.

"But if she went away? If she was swallowed up in the vortex of the more
populous city"--greater, Salem would not have admitted. "If the child's
soul was finally lost, would she be quite clear? Would she have done all
that she could for her salvation?"

She thought of it as she prepared the supper. She surveyed the
inviting-looking table and then rang the bell. Eunice brought in a
handful of flowers. Chilian came--and Miss Winn.

"Cynthia has gone to bed, she does not want any supper," was her quiet
announcement.

Elizabeth would have sent her to bed supperless, and approved of a
severer punishment.

Miss Winn asked some questions about Boston.

"I have quite a desire to see it," she added.

Yes, she would no doubt plan for a removal. Then the child would be
forever lost. And a Leverett, too, come of a strong God-fearing family!

The child, when she had hidden her face on Rachel's bosom, gave some
dry, hard sobs that shook her small frame. Rachel smoothed her hair,
patted the shoulder softly, and said "Dear" in a caressing tone. Then
had come a torrent of tears, a wild hysterical weeping. She did not
attempt to check it, but took Cynthia in her arms as if she had been a
baby.

"I'm not going to that school any more," she said brokenly, after a
while.

"What happened, dear?"

Cynthia raised her head. "It was very mean, as if I had done it on
purpose! Why, I might have hurt myself;" indignantly.

"How was it?" gently.

And then the story came tumbling out. She saw a certain ludicrous aspect
in it now, and laughed a little herself. "I couldn't help being saucy.
And I thought she was going to strike me. Tommy Marsh began to laugh
first. The slate broke----"

"Are you quite sure you were not hurt?"

"Well, my arm hurt a little at first, but it is all well now. But I
shan't go back to school,--no, not even to please Cousin Leverett, and I
like him best of any one."

"I'm going down to supper, dear. Shall I bring up yours?"

"I don't want any. I couldn't eat anything. And I can't have Cousin
Elizabeth's sharp eyes looking at me. Oh, I'm glad I am not her little
girl! I like you a million times better, Rachel;" hugging her
rapturously. "I think I'd like to have a glass of milk. And may I lie on
your little bed?"

"Yes, dear."

She was asleep when Rachel came up and it was past nine when she woke,
drank her milk, and went to bed for the night.

How gaily the birds were singing the next morning, and the sunbeams were
playing hide-and-seek through the branches that dance in the soft wind.
All the air was sweet and the little girl couldn't help being
light-hearted. She sang, too; not measured hymns of sorrow and
repentance, but a gay lilt that followed the bird voices. And she went
down to breakfast and said her good-morning cheerfully.

"That child has the assurance of the Evil One," Elizabeth thought.

Cynthia waylaid Cousin Chilian as he was going down the path.

"I meant what I said yesterday. I won't go to that school any more. If
there was some other--only--only I wish you could teach me until I could
get up straight in all the things, so the other children wouldn't laugh
when I made blunders. I suppose it does sound funny;" and a smile
hovered about the seriousness.

"We will consider another school," he returned kindly, smiling himself
at the remembrance of the tempest of yesterday.

She persuaded Rachel to go out to walk and they went over to the bridge.
She had been so interested in the story of it. Before it had faded from
the minds of men it was to be splendidly commemorated as a point of
interest in the old town.

"I like real stories," she said. "I don't understand about the war, but
it is fine to think the Salem men made the British soldiers go back when
all the while the cannon and other arms were hidden away. You don't
mind, Rachel, if the Colonists did beat England, do you? I'm a Colonist,
you know."

"That is long ago, and we are all friends now. I think the Colonists
were very brave and persevering and they deserved their liberty. I have
heard your father talk about the war."

"Oh, when do you suppose he will come? It seems so long to wait."

Rachel smiled to keep the tears out of her eyes.

Chilian Leverett made a call and a brief explanation to Dame Wilby. She
admitted she had been hasty, but the children were unusually trying. She
was getting to be an old body and maybe she hadn't as much patience as
years ago. Cynthia said so many odd things that the children _would_
giggle. She was slow in some things, and it seemed hard for her to learn
tables, but she was not a bad child.

So the tempest blew over. Elizabeth preserved a rather injured silence,
but Eunice was cheerful and ready to entertain Cynthia with stories of
the time when she was a little girl. Chilian arranged for her to spend
most of the mornings with him when he was at home. She liked so very
much to hear him read. The histories of that time were rather dry and
long spun out, but he had a way of skipping the moralizing and the
endless disquisitions and adding a little more vividness to people and
incidents. It inspired him to watch her face changing with every
emotion, her eyes deepening or brightening, and the slight mark in her
forehead where lines of perplexity crossed. Then they would talk it all
over. Often he was puzzled with her endless "whys" that he could not
rightly explain to a child's limited understanding. Sometimes she would
say, "Why, I would have done so," and he found her course would be on
the side of the finest right, if not what was considered feasible.

The spelling was a trial when the words were a little obscure. And
though she had a wonderful knack of guessing at things, she surely was
not born for a mathematician. He had a fine, quick mind in that respect.
But the Latin was a delight to her and she delved away at the difficult
parts for the sake of what she called the grand and beautiful sound. His
rendering of it enchanted her.

"I don't see any sense in educating her like a boy," declared Elizabeth.
"And she can't do a decent bit of hemming. She ought to work a sampler
and learn the letters to mark her own clothes. We did it before we were
her age. Chilian thinks you can hire people to do these things for you,
but it seems so helpless not to be able to do them for yourself.
Housekeeping is of more account than all this folderol. She can never be
a college professor."

"But women _are_ keeping schools," interposed Eunice.

"They don't teach Latin and all kinds of nonsense. That Miss Miller was
here a few days ago to see if we didn't want our niece--folks are
beginning to call her that--to see if we did not want her to take
lessons on the spinet. I was so glad she did not appeal to Chilian,
though he was out. I said, 'No,' very decidedly, 'that she had a good
many things to learn before she tackled that.' And she said she ought
to be trained while her fingers were flexible, and I said I thought
washing would make them flexible enough. And there's fine ironing."

"There's no need of either for her," protested Eunice.

"Oh, you don't know. There might be a war again. And a trouble about
money. I'm sure there is talk enough and the country raising loans all
the time, one party pulling one way, one the other. People are getting
awfully extravagant nowadays. Patty Conant gave seven dollars a yard for
her new black silk, and there were twelve yards. It broke pretty well
into a hundred, and there was some fancy gimp and fringe and the making.
Of course, there's going to be two weddings in the family, and I don't
suppose Patty will ever buy another handsome gown at her time of life.
Abner brought her home that elegant crape shawl, with the fringe and
netting nearly half a yard deep. Maybe 'twas a present, she let it go
that way."

"Of course, there's money enough among the Conants," Eunice commented
gently.

"As I said--one can't always tell what will come to pass, nor how much
need you may have for your money. But I'm thankful my heart is not set
on the pomps and vanities of this world. And children ought to be
brought up to some useful habits."

It was a fact that Cynthia did not take to the useful branches of
womanly living. She abhorred hemming--and such work as she made of it!
Miss Eunice groaned over it.

"But you ought to have seen what I did two or three weeks ago," and she
laughed with a gay ring. "Such stitches! When I made them nice on the
top, they were dreadful underneath, and the cotton thread was almost
black. What is the use of taking such little bits of stitches?"

"Why--they look prettier. And--it is the right thing to do."

"But you know Rachel can hem all the ruffles. And Cousin Elizabeth said
ruffles were vanity. I'd like my frocks just as well to be plain."

"There would have to be nice stitches in the hem."

"Rachel didn't sew when she was little. A great lady took her to
Scotland, to wait on her, to get her shawl when she was a little cool,
and fan her when she was warm, and carry messages, and drive out in the
carriage with her. They had servants for everything. And then--she was
ten years old--she sent her to a school, where she learned everything.
But she doesn't know all the tables and a great many other things."

"But she knows what fits her for her station in life."

Cynthia looked puzzled. "What is your station in life?" she asked with
an accent of curiosity.

"Oh, child, it is where you are placed; and the work of life is the
duties that grow out of it--and your duty towards God."

Cynthia dropped into thought.

"Then my duty now is to study. I like it; that is, I like a good many
things in it. And when my father comes home it will be changed, I
suppose. You can't stay a little girl always."

"But you will have to learn to keep house," returned Eunice.

"Oh, I'll have some one to do that. Men never have to cook or keep
house. Oh, yes; all the cooks on the ship were men. Wasn't that funny!"
she continued.

She laughed with so much innocent merriment that Miss Eunice laughed
too.

"I suppose you have to do various things in your life," she sagely
remarked, after a pause.

"Then you must learn to do the various things now."

"I believe I won't ever get married. I'll live with father always, and
we will have some one to keep the house, and Rachel will make the
clothes. And I'll read aloud to father. We'll have a carriage and go out
riding, and talk about India. I remember so many things just by thinking
them over. Isn't it queer, when for a long time they have gone out of
your mind? Oh, dear Cousin Eunice, what makes you sigh?"

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