A Little Girl in Old Salem

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Cousin Eunice took off her glasses, wiped them vigorously, and then
wiped her eyes.

"It is a bad habit I have." But she was thinking of the dream of the
little girl that could never come true.

The two days in the week that Chilian went into Boston were long to
Cynthia. She sat in his room and studied. He had given her a small table
to herself and a shelf in a sort of miscellaneous bookcase. He found
that she never trespassed and that she did really study her two hours,
sometimes longer when the task was not so easily mastered. There _was_
some of the old Leverett blood in her, but it had a picturesque strain.
She placed every book at its prettiest, and her papers were gathered up
and taken down to the kitchen when she was done with them. She was
beginning to write quite well.

Then in the afternoon she went to walk with Rachel to show her the
curious places Cousin Leverett had told her about. And there were still
beautiful woods around the town, where they found wild flowers and
sassafras buds.

Elizabeth was very much engrossed. She had cleared the garret spick and
span, scrubbed up the floor, wiped off her quilting frames, and put in
her white quilt, rolling up both sides so she could get at the middle.
There was to be a circle, with clover leaves on the outside. Then long
leaves rayed off from the exact middle. She had all the patterns marked
out. When that was done a wreath went around next--oak leaves and
acorns.

She had groaned over the time the little girl devoted to Latin, but she
never thought all this a waste of precious hours. She would never need
it and she could not decide upon any relative she would like to leave it
to. There was one quilt of this pattern in Salem and, though white
quilts were made, few could afford to spend so much time over them.
There were knitted quilts, with ball fringe around four sides, and the
tester fringed the same way. Old ladies kept up their habits of industry
in this manner when they were past hard work.

Eunice had finished her basket quilt and it was really a work of art.
But she was out in the flower garden a good deal in the early morning
and late afternoon. Cynthia sometimes kept her company, but she was not
an expert in gardening science. In the evening they sat out on the
porch, and a neighbor called perhaps. Or she walked over to South River
if it was moonlight. And, oh, how beautiful everything was!

But it was not all quilting with Miss Elizabeth. In July wild green
grapes were gathered for preserves. Cynthia thought it quite fun to help
"pit" them. You cut them through the middle and with a small pointed
knife took out the seeds. She tired of it presently and did not cut them
evenly, beside she was afraid of cutting her thumb.

Cousin Elizabeth went about getting dinner, which was quite a simple
thing when Chilian was away, and at night they had a high tea.

"I'll cut them," said Eunice, "and you can pick out the seeds. But maybe
you are tired;" with a glance of solicitude.

"Yes, I'm tired, but I'm going to keep straight on until dinner-time,"
she answered pluckily.

"You are a brave little girl."

But Cousin Elizabeth said, "Well, for once you have made yourself
useful."

There was a great point of interest just then for the people on this
side of the town. Front Street was the old river path that had followed
the shore line. One end was known now as Wharf Street, and was beginning
to be lined with docks. Up farther to what is now Essex Street there had
stood a house with a history. Its owner had been a Tory, and just before
the war broke out he entertained Governor Gage and the civil and
military staff. Timothy Pickering had been summoned to the Governor's
presence, but he kept his Excellency so long in an indecent passion that
the town-meeting had to be adjourned. Troops were ordered up from the
Neck and for a while an encounter seemed imminent. Later, when the
Colonists were in the ascendency, Colonel Browne's estate was
confiscated, and after the close of the war it was turned over to Mr.
Elias Derby. Now he was removing it to make way for a much finer
residence and, being a notably patriotic citizen, he did not enjoy the
stigma of a Tory house. Parts were carried away as curiosities, and
there were some beautiful carvings and fine newel posts that found a
place in new homes as mementoes. Afterward, Mr. Derby built the
handsomest and costliest house in Salem, with grounds laid out
magnificently.

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 pussy. 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 glass 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."

"I don't see how that could be when we were not there!" she said almost
defiantly.

"It means the nature we inherited."

"But I don't think that fair!"

"You don't know, you never can understand until you are in a state of
grace. Don't ask such impertinent questions. You are a little heathen
child."

Then she asked Cousin Chilian what "a state of grace" meant.

"I think it is the willingness to do right, to be truthful, kindly,
obliging. It is all comprised in the Golden Rule--to love God with all
your heart and your neighbor as yourself, not to do anything to him that
you would not like to have done to yourself, and to do to him whatever
you would like him to do for you. That is enough for a little girl."

"That sounds like Confucius," she said thoughtfully.

But she went back to Roger Williams when Bentley said he was one of his
heroes.

"What did he do?" she asked, interested.

"Well, he founded the City of Providence. And if William Penn is to be
honored for founding a city of brotherly love, Roger Williams deserves
it for establishing a city where different sects should agree without
persecuting each other. You see, they banished him from Salem back to
England because he thought a man had some right to his own opinions, so
long as he worshipped God. So he went to Providence instead. He walked
all the way with just his pocket compass to guide him, and how he must
have worked to make a dwelling-place for himself and his friends in the
dead of winter! There were some Quakers already there, who had been
banished from other settlements, and they all resolved to be friendly.
Yes, I call him a hero!"

Cynthia studied the house with the little courtyard and the great tree
shading it.

"Polly said it was the Witch House," she remarked.

"That was because there were trials for witchcraft. You are too young to
hear about that," Chilian said decisively, with a glance at Bentley.

CHAPTER VIII

SORROW'S CROWN OF SORROW

Occasionally they went down to the warehouse, and while Chilian was busy
some of the captains or mates would speak to her. They knew about her
father and one sad fact she did not know. For she had settled in her
mind that Captain Corwin would bring him back and that it would take a
long, long while. So she tried to be content and if not teasing or
fretting was one of the ways of being good, she tried her utmost to keep
to that. She was too brave to tell falsehoods to shield herself from any
inadvertent wrongdoing, even if Cousin Elizabeth did sometimes say:

"You ought to be soundly whipped. To spare the rod is to spoil the
child."

She thought if anybody ever did whip her she should hate him all the
rest of her life. Servants and workmen were beaten in India, and it
seemed degrading. She did not know that Cousin Chilian had insisted that
she should never be struck. He was understanding more every day how her
father had loved her, and finding sweet traits in her unfolding.

She liked these rough bronzed men to touch their odd hats to her and
call her Missy. Some of them had seen her in Calcutta and knew her
father. And when she said, "It takes a long, long while to go there and
come back, but when Captain Corwin brings him he is going to live here
and will never go to sea any more"--"No, that he never will, missy;" and
the sailor drew his hand across his eyes.

Oh, how full the wharves were with shipping! Flags and pennons waved,
and white sails; others, gray with age and weather, flapped in the wind.
She liked to see them start out; she always sent a message by them in
the full faith of childhood. And there were the fishermen in the cove
lower down. Fishing was quite a great business.

Cousin Giles had made his visit and spent two whole days down in the
warehouse, when they had not taken her. But she helped Cousin Eunice cut
the stems of the sweet garden herbs for drying, and the others for
perfumery. There was lavender, the blossoms had been gathered long ago,
and sweet marjoram and sweet clover. She always gathered the full-blown
rose leaves and sewed them up in little bags and laid them among the
household stores. Everything was so fragrant. Cynthia thought she liked
it better than sandalwood and the pungent Oriental perfumes.

Then came the autumnal storms, when the vessels hugged the docks
securely at anchor. The house was chilly all through and fires were in
order. Some two or three miles below there was a wreck of an East
Indiaman, and for days fragments floated around. Some lives were lost,
and the little girl shuddered over the accounts.

All the foliage began to turn and fall. The late flowers hung their
heads. It had been a beautiful autumn, people said to pay up for the
late spring.

There had been a little discussion about a school again.

"She seems so small, and in some things diffident," Chilian said. "The
winters are long and cold, and she has not been used to them. Cousin
Giles thinks her very delicate."

"She isn't like children raised here, but she's quite as strong as
common. She oughtn't be pampered and made any more finicking than she
is. A girl almost ten. What is she going to be good for, I'd like to
know?"

Cousin Giles had not made much headway with her. He was large and strong
with an emphatic voice, and a head of thick, strong white hair, a rather
full face, and penetrating eyes. He had advised about investments,
though he thought no place had the outlook of Boston. But Salem was
ahead of her in foreign trade.

Chilian Leverett felt very careful of the little girl. For if she died a
large part of her fortune came to him. He really wished it had not been
left that way. There was an East India Marine Society that had many
curiosities--stored in rooms on the third floor of the Stearns building.
It had a wider scope than that and was to assist widows and orphans of
deceased members, who were all to be those "who had actually navigated
the seas beyond Cape of Good Hope, or Cape Horn, as masters or
supercargoes of vessels belonging to Salem." To this Anthony had
bequeathed many curiosities and a gift. There was talk of enlarging its
scope, which was begun shortly after this.

Matters had settled to an amicable basis in the Leverett house. Rachel
had won the respect of Elizabeth, who prayed daily for her conversion
from heathendom and that she might see the claims the Christian religion
had upon her. Eunice and she were more really friendly. She made some
acquaintances outside and most people thought she must be some relation
of the captain's. She had proved herself very efficient in several cases
of illness, for in those days neighbors were truly neighborly.

Cynthia did shrink from the cold, though there were good fires kept in
the house. This winter Chilian had a stove put up in the hall, very much
against Elizabeth's desires. Quite large logs could be slipped in and
they would lie there and smoulder, lasting sometimes all night. It was a
great innovation and extravagance, though wood seemed almost
inexhaustible in those days. And it was considered unhealthy to sleep in
warm rooms, though people would shut themselves up close and have no
fresh air.

Then the snow came, but it was a greater success in the inland towns,
and there were sledding and sleigh-riding. The boys and girls had great
times building forts and having snowballing contests. But the little
girl caught a cold and had a cough that alarmed her guardian a good deal
and made him more indulgent than ever, to Elizabeth's disgust.

She was not really ill, only pale and languid and seemed to grow
thinner. She was much fairer than any one could have supposed and her
eyes looked large and wistful. Chilian put some pillows in the big
rocking-chair and tilted it back so that she could almost lie down on
it.

"You are so good to me," she would say with her sweet, faint smile.

Bentley came in now and then of an evening, and she liked to hear what
they were doing at school. Polly, too, made visits; they had a
half-holiday on Saturday. She always brought some work, and Elizabeth
considered her a very industrious girl. She was going to a birthday
party of one of her mates.

"What do they do at parties?" inquired the little girl.

"Oh, they play games. There's stagecoach. Everybody but one has a seat.
He blows a horn and sings out, 'Stage for Boston,' or any place. Then
every one has to change seats. Such a scrambling and scurrying time! and
the one who gets left has to take the horn."

"It's something like puss in the corner."

"Only ever so many can play this. Then there's 'What's my thought like?'
That's rather hard, but funny. I like twirling the platter. If you
don't catch it when it comes near you, you must pay a forfeit. And
redeeming them is lots of fun, for you are told to do all sorts of
ridiculous things. Then there's some goodies and mottoes and you can
exchange with a boy. But Kate Saltonstall's big sister had a party where
they danced. Eliza wanted some dancing, but her mother said so many
people did not approve of it for children."

"And don't you have some one to come and dance for you?"

"Oh, what a queer idea! The fun is in dancing yourself with a real nice
boy. Some people think it awfully wrong. Do you, Miss Winn?"

"No, indeed. When I was a child in England we went out and danced on the
green. Everybody did. And when there were doings at the great
houses--like Christmas, and weddings, and coming of age--the ladies, in
their silks and satins and laces, came down in the servants' hall and
danced with the butler and the footmen, and my lord took out some of the
maids. I don't think dancing hurts any one."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Miss Winn. They are talking of having a
dancing-class in school. I hope mother will let me join it."

"And they teach it in schools there."

"And why shouldn't they here?" said Polly.

To be sure. Cynthia was much interested and made Polly promise to come
again and tell her all about it. Old Salem was awakening rapidly from
her rigid torpor.

"I wonder if I could ever have a party," she said to Cousin Leverett
that evening. "When father comes home we might have what they did at the
Perkinses when they went in their new place--a house-warming. Is that
like a party?"

"About the same thing."

"Cousin Elizabeth thinks it wicked. Wouldn't she think dancing wicked?"

"I am afraid she would."

Cynthia sighed. No, she couldn't have a party here.

She waited quite eagerly for Polly's account. The little girl was in her
own room. Miss Winn had gone out to get some medicine. Cynthia tried to
be well sometimes, so she would not have to take the nauseous stuff. No
one had invented medicated sugar pills at that time. She liked Cousin
Elizabeth's cough syrup.

Polly was overflowing with spirits.

"Oh, I want to be big, right away. Bella Saltonstall was there and she's
going into company next winter, she says. And she showed us some of the
dancing steps and they just bewitch you. It's like this"--and Polly
picked up her frock in a dainty manner and whirled about the vacant
spaces in the room.

"But doesn't it tire you dreadfully? The girls in India stand still a
great deal more and just sway about. They come in and dance for you."

"Tire you! Oh, no. That's the great fun, to do it yourself. Bella said
it was--ex--something, and the word is in the spelling-book, but I never
can remember the long words. Oh, I just wish I was fifteen and wasn't
going to school any more. And then there's keeping company and getting
married, and having your setting out. School seems stupid. There were
two boys who wanted to come home with me, but mother said Ben must. Then
I wished--well, I wished he was in college. He wants to go. Father says
Mr. Leverett has infected him with the craze."

"If I was a boy, I'd like to go. Cousin Leverett is going to take me to
Harvard next summer when they have their grand closing time."

"I'd rather be a girl and have a nice beau."

Plainly Polly had been saturated with dissipation.

Spring was suggesting her advent. The days were longer. The snow was
disappearing.

"Oh, Cousin Leverett, look--there are some buds on the trees!" she
cried.

"Yes. You can see them at intervals through the winter. They are wise
little things, and swell and then shrink back in the cold."

"I'm so glad. I can soon go out. I get very tired some days. I like
summer best."

"Yes. I do hope we shall have an early spring."

She looked up with smiling gladness.

That afternoon she had fallen asleep in the big chair. How almost
transparent she was. The long lashes lay on the whiteness of her
cheek--yes, it was really white. And there was very little color in her
lips.

Abner Hayes came up from the warehouse with some papers the _Ulysses_
had just brought in.

"That the captain's poor little girl?"

"Yes; she's asleep. She hasn't been very well this winter, but the first
nice balmy day I shall take her out driving. I've been almost afraid to
have the air blow on her."

"Yes, she ought to live and enjoy all that big fortune. It's a thousand
pities the captain couldn't have come back and enjoyed it with her. But
we must all go when our time comes. You never hear a hard word said
about him, and sure's there's a heaven he is in it."

Chilian held up his finger. Then he signed a paper that had to go back,
and asked if the cargo of the _Ulysses_ was in good shape.

Elizabeth called him downstairs after that. There was a poor man wanting
some sort of a position and Chilian promised to look out for him. He had
been porter in a store, but the heavy lifting made him cough. He would
have to get something lighter.

When he returned Cynthia was standing by his table, white as a little
ghost. He almost dropped into the chair.

"Was I dreaming, or did that man say my father couldn't come back to
Salem, that he--that he was----"

She swayed almost as if she would fall. He drew her down on his knee and
her head sank on his shoulder. She was so still that he was startled.
How many times he had wondered how he would get her told. Perhaps it had
been wrong to wait.

"My little girl! My little Cynthia----"

"Wait," she breathed, and he held her closer. He had come to love her
very much, though he had taken her unwillingly.

"Is it true? But no one would say such a thing if it were not. I had
been asleep. I woke just as he said that. Perhaps I had been dreaming
about our being together. And it seemed at first as if my tongue was
stiff and I couldn't even make a sound. Did he go to heaven without me?"

Oh, what should he say to comfort her! She had so many feelings far
under the surface.

"My little dear," and his voice was infinitely fond, "I want to tell you
that he loved your mother tenderly. No one could have been better loved.
In the course of a few hours she was snatched away from him. You were so
little--five years ago. I doubt if there was ever a day in which he did
not think of her. When you are grown and come to love some one with the
strength of your whole heart, you will understand how great it is. And
when the summons came for him his first thought was that he should see
her, and with the next he must find a new home for his little girl, so
he gave you to me. It is very hard just now, but you must think how
happy they are together. Perhaps they both know you are here, where you
will be cared for and made happy, for we all love you. Every one has not
the same way of showing love, but Cousin Elizabeth has done everything
she could for you this winter. And we don't want to lose you. You won't
grudge them a few years together in that happy place?"

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