A Little Girl in Old Salem

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"Oh, are you quite sure there _is_ a heaven?"

Oh, Cynthia, you are not the first one who has asked to have it
certified.

"Yes, dear; very sure," in the tone of faith.

"He loved mother very much?"

"Yes."

There was a long silence. He felt the slow beating of her little heart.

"Then I ought to be content, since he gave me to you, when he knew he
was going away."

"It would have been very sad if you had been left alone there. Out of
his great love he planned it this way, thinking the tidings would not
come so hard after a while. And now you can always recall him as you saw
him last and just think, in a moment of time God called and he stepped
over the narrow space that seems such a mystery to us and met _her_. I
wish we didn't invest death with so much that is painful, for it is
God's way of calling us to a better land where there are no more
partings. Sometime you and I will go over to them."

"I shouldn't feel afraid with you," she commented simply.

When the tea bell rang she asked to be carried to her room and laid on
Rachel's little bed. He kissed her gently and turned away.

The next was his day in Boston. But late in the afternoon, after Miss
Eunice had been visiting her an hour or so, she went to the study and
sat by the window, where she could see him come. He glanced up and she
waved her hand daintily. All day he had been wondering how he should
find her.

"I haven't coughed but a very little to-day," she exclaimed. "Cousin
Elizabeth made some new syrup. And the doctor was in. He said I was a
little lazy, that I must be more energetic."

"I've been ordering a new carriage to-day. The old one was hardly worth
repairing. And when you are stronger I think I'll buy a gentle pony and
we can go out riding. You would not be afraid after a little?"

"Not with you."

Her confidence was very sweet.

"I'm going down to tea to-night. I was down at noon."

"Oh, you are improving. I hope there will come some warm weather and
balmy airs."

"It was beautiful last spring. You know I never saw a real spring
before."

She was bearing her loss and her sorrow beautifully. All day she had
been thinking of the joy of those two when they met on the confines of
that beautiful world. It made heaven seem so near, so real. Sometimes
the tears came to her eyes. She was Cousin Chilian's little girl, so why
should she feel lonely!

Once in a number of years spring comes early. It did this time, at the
close of the century. People shook their heads and talked about
"weather-breeders," and mentioned snow as late as May, when fruit trees
had been in bloom. But nature had turned over a bright, clear leaf, that
made the book of time fairly shine.

The carriage came and Cynthia was taken out. Miss Elizabeth wrapped her
up like a mummy, and would put a brick, swathed in coverings, in the
bottom for her feet. He had taken the ladies out occasionally, but of
late years the sisters had been so busy they had little time for
pleasure, they thought.

They crossed North Bridge and went up Danvers way. Oh, how lovely it was
with the trees in baby leaf, and some wild things blossoming. And even
then industry had planted itself. There on the farther bank of Waters
River was the iron mill, where Dr. Nathan Read invented his scheme for
cut nails. And he built a paddle-wheel steamboat that was a success
before Robert Fulton tried his. And they passed the Page house, where
General Gage had his office, and Madam Page had tea on the roof, because
they had promised not to use tea in the house.

That amused Cynthia and he also told her of the woman, when tea first
came to the country, who boiled the leaves and seasoned them, passing
them around to her guests, who didn't think they were anything much in
the vegetable line and too expensive ever to become general.

Birds sang about them, flocks of wild geese had started on their
northward journey. What a wonderful world it was! And her father had
been a boy here in Salem village, had lived in Cousin Chilian's house in
the father's time, and her mother had been married in the stately
parlor. Why, she could dream of their being real guests of the place.
How odd she should come to live here. The life in India would be the
dream presently.

She was very tired when Chilian lifted her out of the carriage and took
her upstairs. Rachel put her to bed for a while and gave her a cup of
hot tea--mint and catnip--which was a great restorer, or so considered,
in those days. She came down to supper and was quite bright.

Every day she improved a little. Eunice said she was getting 'climated.

Elizabeth wondered if she had any deep feeling. She had expected to see
her "take on" terribly. Chilian begged her not to disturb the child's
faith that both parents were in heaven.

"Letty Orne, that was, might have been one of the elect, but sea
captains are seldom considered safe in the fold, as children of grace. I
never heard that he had any evidence. And 'tisn't safe to count on
meeting them unless you've had some sign."

"We must leave a good many of these things to God. His ways are better
than our short-sighted wisdom."

Elizabeth was never quite sure of Chilian. So much study, and reading,
and college talk, and the new theories, and what they called
discoveries, were enough to unsettle one's faith, and she feared for
him. Younger children than Cynthia had gone through the throes of
conviction--she had herself, and she longed to see her in this state.

But the child was quite her olden self. What with the change of climate
and her illness she was many shades fairer, and her hair was losing its
queer sunburned color. Her thin frame began to fill out, her face grew
rounder, and her smile was sweetness itself.

"But she hasn't grown a mite since she came. Leverett people are all of
a fair size. I don't know a little runt among them," persisted
Elizabeth.

"I wish I could grow," she sighed in confidence to Chilian.

"Never mind. Then you will always be my little girl," he would answer
consolingly.

CHAPTER IX

LESSONS OF LIFE

Even Chilian wondered that the little girl took the death of her father
so calmly. Elizabeth called it unnatural and questioned whether the
child had any deep feeling.

"I don't believe she's shed a tear. And, Eunice, the child ought to go
in black."

The child was trying to get used to changed ideas. If her mother was
glad and happy, now that they were again united, why should she be
sorry? It seemed selfish to her as if she grudged them the joy. And
Cousin Chilian was trying every way to entertain her, to help her on to
perfect recovery. Sometimes, when she sat alone in the study, the soft
eyes would overflow and the tears course silently down her cheeks. She
never cried in the tempestuous way of some children. But she knew now
she had counted a good deal on their having a home together. Rachel
would keep the house and she and her father would take walks and have a
garden, where she could cut flowers and have them in the house. Cousin
Elizabeth said they made a litter. And now she should never go down to
the wharf and see him standing on the deck, and wave her hand to him,
as she used when he went on short journeys in India. They would have a
low carry-all and ride around, as she would tell him all she had learned
about Salem. And they would have people in to drink tea and have pretty
dishes on the table. Perhaps he would give her a party. But she didn't
know any children, except the Uphams. It might be better to go to school
so that she could get acquainted.

Chilian was a good deal startled about the black garments.

"She is so little and thin," he objected. "I never did like children in
black; it seems as if you weighted them down with woe. And he has been
dead so many months now."

"But one ought to pay decent respect to a custom sanctioned by all
civilized people. There will be a talk about it. Folks may think it our
fault."

"I do not believe half a dozen people would notice it. It's only a
custom after all. I never did like it. We will see how she feels about
it."

"Chilian, you make that child of as much importance as if she was a
woman grown. You will have your hands full by and by. She will think
every one must bow down to her and consult her whims and fancies."

"We will see;" nodding indifferently.

He didn't want her around in garments of woe. Very gently he mentioned
the subject.

She glanced up out of sweet, entreating eyes. She had been standing by
him, looking over a very choice book of engravings.

"Yes," she returned. "Rachel spoke of it. And you know there are some
people who wear white, and some who put on yellow. Black isn't a nice
color. Do you like it?"

He shook his head.

"It is the inside of me that aches now and then, when I think I shall
never see him come sailing back, that I must be a long while without him
until I go to their land. But he must be very happy with mother, and
that is what I think of when I feel how hard it is;" and the tears stole
softly down her cheeks. "I have Rachel and you, and he said you would
always love me and care for me. But I try not to feel sorry, and if I
had on a black frock I couldn't help but think of it all the time. Then
I should be sorry inside and outside both, and is it right to make
yourself unhappy when you believe people have gone to heaven?"

She said it so simply that he was deeply moved. She had been alone with
her sorrow all this time, when they had thought her indifferent.

"You need not wear black--I wish you would not. I want you to get real
well and happy. And you are a brave little girl to think of them and
refrain from grief."

She wiped away the tears lest they should fall on the book.

"At first it was quite dreadful to me. I couldn't say anything. Then I
remembered how we used to talk of mother, as if she was only in the next
room. And then I sit here and think, when the sky is such a splendid
blue and there come little white rifts in it, as if somewhere it opened,
I can almost see them. Can't people come back for a few moments?"

"Only in dreams, I imagine."

"I can _almost_ see them. And they are so glad to be together. And I
know father says, 'Cynthia will come by and by.' But twenty years, or
thirty years, is a long while to wait."

Perhaps she wouldn't need to wait so long, he thought, as he noted the
transparent face.

"And now I should be sorry to go away from you," she said, with grave
sweetness.

"I think your father meant you should stay a long while with me when he
gave you to me;" and he pressed her closer to his heart.

So she did not wear mourning, to Elizabeth's very real displeasure.
There was no further talk about the school, but she did try to sew a
little and began the sampler. Cousin Eunice was her guide here. She
brought out hers that was over fifty years old, and all the colors were
fading.

"I wonder if I shall live fifty years," she mused.

Driving about was her great entertainment. You could go to Marblehead,
which was a peninsula. There were the fishery huts and the men curing
and drying fish. Sometimes they took passage in one of the numerous
sailing vessels and went in and out the irregular shore, and saw Boston
from the bay. It seemed in those times as if it might get drowned out,
there was so much water around it.

"And if it should float off out to sea, some day," she half inquired,
laughingly.

He was glad to hear her soft, sweet laugh again.

She thought she liked Salem best, and even now people began to talk of
old Salem, there had been so many improvements since the time Governor
Bradford had written:

"Almost ten years we lived here alone,--
In other places there were few or none;
For Salem was the next of any fame
That began to augment New England's name."

And then it went by the old Indian name and was called Naumkeag. And she
found that it was older than Boston, and had been the seat of government
twice, and that Governor Burnett, finding Boston unmanageable, had
convened the General Court here for two years. That was in 1728, and now
it was 1800.

"But no one lives a hundred years," she said.

"Oh, yes; there are a number of persons who have lived that long. Now
and then a person lives in three centuries, is born the last year of
one, goes through a whole century, and dies in the next one."

"What a long, long while!" she sighed.

And there was the old Court House where the Stamp Act was denounced. She
wanted to know all about that, and he was fond of explaining things,
the sort of teacher habit, but there was nothing dogmatic about it. Here
were houses where the Leveretts had lived, third or fourth cousins who
had married with the Graingers, and the Lyndes, and the Saltonstalls,
and the Hales. It is so in the course of a hundred or two years, when
emigration does not come in to disturb the purity of the blood.

The little girl really began to improve. Her hair was taking on a
brighter tint and in the warm weather the uneven ends curled about her
forehead in dainty rings, her complexion was many shades fairer, her
cheeks rounded out, and her chin began to show the cleft in it. She was
more like her olden self, quite merry at times.

The summer went on as usual. Gardening, berry-picking, and she helped
with the gooseberries, the briery vines she did not like. There were
jars of jam and preserves, rose leaves to gather, and all the mornings
were crowded full. Often in the afternoon she went up in the garret to
see Miss Eunice spin--sometimes on the big wheel, at others with flax on
the small wheel. She liked the whirring sound, and it was a mystery to
her how the thread came out so fine and even.

Elizabeth had taken the white quilt out of its wrappings, it did not get
finished the summer before. A neighbor had let her copy a new pattern
for the border that had come from New York. And she heard there had
been imported white woven quilts with wonderful figures in them.

"Then one wouldn't have to quilt any more. Shan't you be glad, Cousin
Elizabeth?"

"Glad!" She gave a kind of snort and pushed the needle into her finger,
and had to stop lest a drop of blood might mar the whiteness. "Well, I'm
not as lazy as that comes to, and I don't see how they can put much
beauty in them. You can change blue and white and show a pattern, but
where it is all white! Why, you couldn't tell it from a tablecloth."

It was warm up in the garret, and what with drying herbs, and the sun
pouring on the shingles, there was a rather close, peculiar air. Cynthia
stood by the open window, where the sweet summer wind went by, laden
with the fragrance of newly cut grasses and the silk of the corn that
was just tasselling out. The hills rose up, tree-crowned; white clouds
floated by overhead, and out beyond was the great ocean that led to
other countries--to India she thought of so often.

Oh, how the birds sang! She was so sorry Cousin Eunice had to sit and
spin, when there was such a beautiful world all around, and Cousin
Elizabeth pricked her fingers quilting. She heard her sigh, but she did
not dare look around. She had that nice sense of delicacy, rather
unusual in a child. But then she wasn't an everyday child.

"Cynthia," called Rachel from the foot of the stairs, "don't you want to
go out for a walk? They've been unloading the _Mingo_, and they have a
store of new things at the Merrits'."

That was the great East India emporium.

"Oh, yes!" She skipped across the floor and ran downstairs lightly.

"That child's like a whirlwind," exclaimed Elizabeth crossly.

"But we ought to be glad she's so much better. I was really afraid in
the spring we wouldn't have her long."

"Oh, the Leverett stock is tough."

"But her mother died young."

"Of that horrid India fever. No, I didn't truly think she would die. If
she had, I wonder where all the money would go? Chilian is awful
close-mouthed about it. But it would have to go somewhere. 'Tisn't at
all likely he'd leave word for it to be thrown back in the sea."

"No; oh, no."

"There's some talk about missionaries going out to try to convert the
heathen. But Giles thinks it would cost more than it would amount to.
Giles has got way off; seems to me religion's dying out since they've
begun to preach easy ways of getting to heaven and letting the bars down
here and there. There's no struggle and sense of conviction nowadays;
you just take it up as a business. And that child talks about heaven as
if she'd had a glimpse of it and saw her father and mother there. Letty
Orne was a church member in her younger days, but I don't believe the
captain ever was. And they who don't repent will surely perish."

Eunice sighed. She could never get used to the thought that thousands of
souls were brought into the world to perish eternally.

Cynthia tied on her Leghorn hat. It did have some black ribbon on it,
and the strings were passed under her chin and tied at one side. That
and her silken gown gave her a quaint appearance, rather striking as
well.

They walked down the street and turned corners. There was quite a
procession of ladies bound for the same place. If they had been all
buyers, Mr. Merrit would have made quite a fortune. But he was glad to
have them come. They would describe the stock to their neighbors, and
perhaps decide on what they wanted for themselves.

"Ah, Miss Winn!" exclaimed a pleasant-faced woman. "And that is Captain
Leverett's little girl? Why, she looks as if she was quite well again.
We heard of her being so poorly. I suppose the shock of her father's
death was dreadful! Poor little thing! And she's to be quite an heiress,
I heard. What are they going to do with her? Won't she be sent to Boston
to school?"

"Oh, I think not. Mr. Leverett has been teaching her a little."

They had fairly to elbow their way in. Long counters were piled with
goods. Silks, laces, sheerest of muslins embroidered beautifully, lace
wraps, India shawls, jewelry, caps, collars, handkerchiefs, stockings,
slippers that were dainty enough for a Cinderella.

And all down one side were ranged tables, and jars, and vases, and
articles one could hardly find a name for. Such exquisite carving, such
odd figures painted and embroidered on silk, birds the like of which
were never seen on land or sea, dragons that flew, and crawled, and
climbed trees, and disported themselves on waves.

"Oh, it looks like home," cried Cynthia, for the moment forgetting
herself. And she kept sauntering round among the beautiful things, her
heart growing strangely light, and her pulses throbbing with a sort of
joy.

She was almost hidden by a great pile of tapestry. The Indians had found
some secrets of beauty as well as France, if they did make it with
infinite pains. And this was made with the little hand-looms and joined
together so neatly and the colors blended so harmoniously that it was
like a dream. Only the little girl did not like the dragons and strange
animals. She had never seen any real ones like them. They were in the
stories Nalla used to tell.

Then some one else spoke to Miss Winn. "Is your little charge here?" she
asked. "I'm quite anxious to see her. I've called twice on the
Leveretts, and really asked for her once when they said she was quite
ill. But I saw her out in the carriage with--isn't it her uncle? No?
And she's to be very well to do, I've heard. The idea of the Leverett
women undertaking to bring up a child! They're good as gold and some of
the best housekeepers in Salem, but I dare say they'll teach her to knit
stockings, and make bedquilts, and braid rag mats, and do fifty-year-old
things--make a regular little Puritan of her. I knew her mother quite
well before she was married. Doesn't seem as if we were near of an age
and went to school together. But some of the Ornes married in our line.
And I was married when I was seventeen, and now I'm a grandmother. How
the years do fly on! And she had to die out in that heathen land; he
too. Wasn't it odd about sending her here beforehand? I do want to see
her."

"She is somewhere about, interested in all these foreign things." Miss
Winn was not quite sure of the chattering woman. She had learned that
the Leverett ladies were exclusive, whether from inclination or lack of
time. They asked their minister and a few old family friends in to tea
on rare occasions, and then it was cooking and baking and cleaning up
the choice old silver and dusting and polishing, and the next day
clearing up. Everything out of the routine made so much extra work.
Among the few English-speaking people in India there had been a sort of
free and easy sociability.

Cynthia meanwhile had slipped around the end of the counter and came up
to them. She wanted to see the woman who had been to school with her
mother. Then her mother was a little girl, perhaps no older than she.
Did she like it? Cynthia wondered.

"This is Captain Leverett's little daughter," Rachel announced rather
stiffly.

"My--but you don't favor your mother at all. I'm Mrs. Turner and I knew
her off and on. We lived about thirty miles above here. Then her folks
died and she went to Boston, but she used to be at the Leveretts' a good
deal. I married and came here. I'm living up North River way and have a
house full of children--like steps--and one grandchild, and I'm just on
the eve of thirty-seven. I've one little girl about your age, but she's
ever so much bigger. I'd like you to be friends with her. The next older
is a girl, too. Why, you'd have real nice times if the old aunties were
willing. Do they keep her strict? And she's going to be a considerable
heiress, I heard. I wonder where her eyes came from? They're not
Leverett eyes, and her mother's were a clear blue, real china blue, but
then there's different blues in china," and she laughed. "Sad about the
captain, wasn't it? He should have lived to enjoy his fortune, and now
his little girl will have it all. I must come and scrape acquaintance
for the sake of my girls. You'd like them, I know, they're full of fun.
We're not strait-laced people--that's going out of date."

Then she passed on. They wandered about a little more among the vases
and jars and the paintings on silk. The air was heavy with sandalwood,
and attar of rose, and incense. The fragrance seemed never to die out of
those old things that became family heirlooms.

"Come," Rachel said, taking her by the hand. It was quite late in the
afternoon now, and the shadows of everything were growing longer. She
could not understand why it was at first, but now she knew. And the sun
would be round there in Asia presently. In her secret heart she still
believed the sun went round and the earth stood still, for in the
movement people _must_ slip off. But then what held it in the air?
Cousin Chilian had a globe, but you see there was a strong wire through
the middle, fastened to the frame at both ends. Perhaps the earth was
fastened somewhere! She liked to make it revolve on its axis, and in
imagination she crossed the oceans, and seas, and capes, and found her
father again.

The stage had just come in. They paused on the corner, waiting for
Cousin Chilian. Some one was with him--yes, it was Cousin Giles
Leverett.

"Well, little woman," he began, "so I find you out here meandering
round, and so much improved that I hardly know you. We were afraid in
the winter you were going to slip away and leave all this fortune behind
you, never having had a bit of good of it. But you look now as if you
had taken a new lease. And you are positively growing!"

Chilian smiled at the remark. He had begun to think so himself. And she
looked so pretty just now with the pink in her cheeks and the soft
tendrils of hair about her forehead, the eager, luminous eyes. He
reached out and took her hand.

"Have you been inspecting old Salem, and did you find any queer things?"
Cousin Giles asked.

"Oh, there was a great shipload of goods from India and it seemed almost
as if you were walking through the booths at home, only there were no
natives and no beggars or holy men----"

"Tut! tut! child; they are not holy men who are too lazy to move and
waiting for other people to fill their mouths. If they were here we'd
make them work or they'd have to starve. They're talking about
missionaries being sent out to convert them. I heard a rousing sermon on
Sunday, but it didn't loosen my purse-strings. Your greatest missionary
is work, good hard labor, clearing up and planting. Suppose those old
_Mayflower_ people had sat down and held out their hands for alms. Do
you suppose our Indians would have filled 'em with their corn, and fish,
and game? Not much. They'd tied 'em to a tree and set fire to 'em." When
Cousin Giles was excited he made elisions of speech rather unusual for a
Boston man. "They went to work and cut down trees, and built houses, and
raised farm and garden truck, and made shoes and clothes, and roads and
bridges, and built cities and towns, and shamed those countries
thousands of years old. And now we're trying to help them by bringing
over their goods and selling them."

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