Eventide

E >> Effie Afton >> Eventide

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29

"Sim," said the eloquent wife, as she glanced carelessly upon him, "where
are the portmanteaus?"

"In the entry," answered the small man, raising his eyes for a moment to
his fair consort's face.

"Bring them in and open them," said the lady, again sinking down in her
soft seat.

The small man disappeared in a twinkling, and the portmanteaus were soon
placed on the table, and their contents spread forth.

"I will now order some refreshment," said Mrs. Pimble;--"and while it is
preparing, we can amuse ourselves with the documents. What would you
prefer for your dinner, sister Simcoe?"

"Pea soup," returned the lady doctor; "that is my uniform dish,--simple
and plain."

"And Mr. Simcoe, what would he choose?"

"O, he has no choice!--anything that comes handiest will do for him."

Mrs. Pimble glanced toward Mr. Simcoe. Mr. Simcoe simpered and bowed. So
Mrs. Pimble swept into the kitchen to issue her commands. She started on
beholding Dilly Danforth bending over a wash-tub filled to the brim with
smoking linen, just out of a boiling suds. Darting one fiery glance
toward her forceless husband, sitting humped up over the stove, his head
supported on his hands, she exclaimed, "What does this mean?" Mr. Pimble
looked up vacantly; Peggy turned round from her occupation of washing the
dinner dishes, and Dilly kept to her wash-tub. No one seemed to
understand to whom the stately mistress addressed her brief
interrogatory. "Have you all lost your tongues?" at length exclaimed Mrs.
Pimble, in a louder tone; and, seizing her husband's chair, she gave it a
rough jerk, and demanded, "Are you dumb, Peter Pimble? What is that
beggar-woman,"--pointing toward Dilly,--"doing here?"

"Don't you see she is washing?" returned the husband, rather ironically.

"Well, by whose leave?"

"Mine."

"Yours?--and why have you brought a washerwoman into the house in my
absence, and without my permission?"

"Because all my linen was dirty."

"What if it was?"

"I wanted it washed."

"What for?"

"Because the spring courts are held in Olneyville next week."

"What if they are?"

"I would like to attend."

"You would, would you? No doubt, and confine me at home to superintend
the domestic affairs. No, Mr. Pimble, you don't enslave me in that
manner. I'm a free woman, and acknowledge no man master. I'll see if I'm
not mistress in my own house. Here, Dilly Danforth, take your hands out
of that wash-tub, and pack off home, instanter. There will be no more
washing done in my house to-day, or ever again, unless I order it done.
And you, Peggy Nonce, make a pea soup and broil a nice steak, with all
the appropriate dishes, and have a dinner prepared in half an hour, to
serve myself and guests."

There was an instant commotion in the kitchen, and the mistress swept
back to her guests in the parlor.

CHAPTER III.

"She is a saucy wench,
Somewhat o'er full
Of pranks, I think--but then with growing years
She will outgrow her mischief and become
As staid and sober as our hearts could choose."

OLD PLAY.

Mr. Salsify Mumbles was a grocer in a small way, and his good wife took
boarders,--young ladies and gentlemen from different parts of the
country, who came to attend Cedar Hill Seminary, a school of high repute
and extended celebrity. Her number was limited to three this summer,
because she conceived her health to be delicate, and because Mr. Salsify
had communicated to her in private that he was certainly "rising in his
profession;" and the quick-sighted lady foresaw the day speedily
approaching when she would no longer be obliged to perplex herself with
so ungrateful a class of beings as boarders, but should roll through the
streets of Wimbledon in her coach and four, the "observed of all
observers."

Mrs. Mumbles had one fair daughter, Mary Madeline, upon whom she doted
with true maternal fondness. This young lady was most perversely inclined
to smile upon one Mr. Dick Giblet, a clerk in her father's grocery. Mrs.
Mumbles was inconsolable, and Mr. Giblet was banished from the premises,
and taken into employ by the firm of Edson & Co., the largest merchants
in Wimbledon.

Rumor said these gentlemen were so well pleased with the young man, that
they had offered him a yearly salary of several hundred dollars, and
proposed, should he continue to perform his duties as well as hitherto,
to take him into the firm, on his coming of age. Mrs. Salsify now began
to regard Dick with different eyes, as what prudent mother would not? She
sent Mary Madeline to the store of Edson & Co., whenever she was in want
of a spool of cotton or yard of tape; but the young clerk had grown so
vain with his elevation, that he looked very loftily down upon her, bowed
in the most distant manner, and never exchanged more words with her than
were necessary in the buying and selling of an article. So Mary Madeline
told her mother, and upbraided her as the cause of the young man's cold
treatment. Mrs. Salsify bade her daughter be of good cheer. "'Twas all a
feint on Dick's part, to conceal his love till he was sure of hers,--all
would come round right in time." But Mary Madeline would not believe it,
and said she should die if she had to stay in the back store alone so
much, sorting spices and writing labels, for she was constantly thinking
of Dick, who used to be with her. She must have something to divert her
attention; and, at length, Mrs. Salsify hit upon the project of sending
her to school at the seminary one term. It was fitting that the daughter
of the rich Mr. Mumbles that was to be, should be possessed of suitable
polish and refinement to adorn the high circles in which her position
would call her to move. So Miss Mumbles answered to her name among the
two hundred scholars, male and female, that had assembled in the halls of
Cedar Hill Seminary, for the summer term. Quite a sensation she produced
in her gay muslin dress and fiery-colored silk apron; for Mrs. Salsify
declared her resolve to dress her tip-top. She was not the woman to half
do a thing, when she undertook; she always came up to the mark, or went a
little beyond. Better overshoot than fall short, was her motto. And when
Mary Madeline came home, on the evening of her debut at the seminary,
walking between the two young lady boarders, Amy Seaton and Jenny
Andrews, Mrs. Mumbles could not avoid drawing a comparison between the
three; and her daughter appeared to her like a blazing star between two
sombre clouds, for Miss Seaton and Miss Andrews, who were both orphans,
wore plain, dark gingham frocks and linen aprons. The third boarder was a
little brother of Miss Seaton's, about a dozen years of age. Charlie was
his name; a bright, intelligent boy, brimful of mischief and fun.

Mrs. Salsify kept no girl;--she could not find a good one, she said,--a
bad one she would not have, as long as she could manage to perform her
work herself, which she thought she could do with Mary Madeline's
assistance nights and mornings. It would not be for long, she trusted,
this slavery to boarders, for Mr. Salsify continued to inform her, at
stated intervals, that he was certainly "rising in his profession."

The husband and wife sat alone one evening, indulging in confidential
discourse, as 'tis said conjugal mates are wont to do on certain
occasions.

"Really," exclaimed Mrs. Mumbles, "it is astonishing, the quantity of
victuals these boarders consume. It is so unfeminine and indelicate for
young ladies to have appetites. I declare it quite shocks me to see the
large slices of bread and butter disappearing down Jenny Andrews' little
throat, and, as for that Charles Seaton, I believe he would eat a whole
plum pudding if he could get it. I left off making them long ago."

"I have not noticed one on the table for several days," returned Mr.
Salsify, "and, as I saw the last one was sent away untouched, I feared
they had detected the musty raisins."

"O, la, no! the greedy mugs don't know the difference, I assure you,"
answered the wife, "'twas only because they had stuffed themselves so
full of veal pie, that the pudding was not devoured." Just then Amy
Seaton came in and asked if she might get a lunch for Charlie, as he was
not in season for supper.

"O, yes!" answered Mrs. Salsify, in her blandest tone; "here are the
keys. I lock the pantry because Mr. Mumbles is so absent-minded he often
leaves the door open, and the cat gets in and devours the victuals. Get
just what you want for Charlie and a lunch for yourself and Jenny if you
choose."

"Thank you," said Amy taking the bunch of keys from Mrs. Salsify's hand.
Wide swung the pantry door on its creaking hinges, and Amy's eyes
brightened as she stepped in, thinking of the little feast they were to
have up stairs on the good lady's sudden fit of generosity. She glanced
her light eagerly along the shelves in search of pies and sweet cakes,
for she had seen Mrs. Salsify baking a large amount of good things that
morning; but nothing met her wistful gaze save a plateful of burnt
gingerbread crusts which had been picked over and left after the
evening's meal, a plate of refuse meat, and a few bits of salt cod-fish
in a broken saucer. She was about to go and tell Mrs. Mumbles her pantry
was destitute of victuals, when she recollected that lady superintended
her own work, and she should only inform her of what she already knew.
Several similar instances of the lady's singular generosity now occurred
to her mind. She recollected one day, on coming in unexpectedly from
school, of finding Mrs. Salsify buying a large quantity of cherries, and
of her saying she was going to pick them over, and would set them on the
dairy shelf where she might go and eat of them whenever she chose. But
Amy could not find them anywhere, and when she innocently asked Mrs.
Salsify where she had put them, that good lady, after blushing and
stammering a good deal, said they proved so dirty she was obliged to
throw them away. This and other similar occurrences decided Amy to say
nothing of the destitution of the pantry. So she returned the keys to her
boarding mistress, and, without a word, ascended to her room, where she
gave Charlie the bit of fish and crust of gingerbread she had obtained.

"Is this all I'm to have for my supper?" said he, looking ruefully on the
scanty, unpalatable food.

"'Tis all I can find in the pantry, bub," answered Amy; "can't you make
it answer for to-night? and to-morrow I will buy you something nice at
the bakery."

"Why," said Jenny, raising her dark, fun-loving eyes from a problem in
Euclid, "I saw Mrs. Mumbles baking mince pies, and custards and plum
cake, this morning."

"Bah," said Charlie, "I don't want any of her plum cake if she puts the
same kind of raisins in it she does in her puddings. But, Jenny, I think
I know where she keeps her nice victuals."

"Where?" asked Jenny, with an earnest look on Charlie's cunning face.

"Have you never noticed that great tin boiler under her bed?" Jenny burst
into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which Amy vainly endeavored to
silence, and directly Mary Madeline appeared and said, "Mother would like
to have a little less noise if they could favor her, as she had company
below." Then the three sat down on the floor, and Jenny and Charlie
planned a midnight attack upon the tin boiler. Amy, who was more sedate
and cautious, advised them to desist; but 'twas just the exploit for
Jenny's frolicsome, mischievous temperament. Charlie was to take a
pillow-case, and creep softly under the bed, and fill it from the
supposed contents of the mysterious boiler, while Jenny stood at the
kitchen door to assist him in bearing the precious burden to their room.
How slow the hours passed after the plot was formed ere it could be
carried into execution! Mrs. Salsify in the parlor below kept wishing her
visitors would go, for she had never seen the wicks in the camphene lamps
of so surprising a length. They flooded the whole room with light, and
she recollected Jenny Andrews had asked the privilege of trimming them
after they were last used. She dared not rise and pick them down, for
such narrow-souled persons as she are always fearful that the truth will
be known and their littleness exposed; so she sat in a perfect fever,
watching the fluid getting every moment lower, and scarcely heeding the
remarks of her guests. At length they took their departure, and Mrs.
Salsify rushed in a sort of frenzy to the lamps, and dropped the caps
over the blazing wicks.

"Mary Madeline," said Mr. Mumbles, reprovingly, "don't you know how to
trim a lamp properly? Enough fluid has been wasted to-night by means of
those long wicks to last two evenings with wicks of a proper length."

"'Tis none of Maddie's doings," returned Mrs. S., "she is more prudent
than that. 'Twas that hussy of a Jenny Andrews who trimmed them after
Miss Pinkerton was here the other night."

"Well, the girl ought to pay for the waste she has occasioned," said Mr.
Salsify, gruffly. "Let us retire now; I declare 'tis near eleven
o'clock." The conspirators in the room above heard with eager ears the
departure of the guests, and sat in perfect silence till midnight chimed
from the old clock tower. Then Charlie Seaton, pillow-case in hand, crept
silently down the stairs with Jenny close behind him. Mrs. Mumbles'
bed-room opened out of the kitchen, and the door was always standing
ajar. Thus Charlie's quick eye had detected the boiler while sitting at
the dining table directly opposite her room. As he now paused a moment in
the kitchen before crossing the forbidden precincts, the deep-drawn
sonorous breathings convinced him that Mr. and Mrs. Salsify Mumbles were
lulled in their deepest nocturnal slumbers. Gently dropping on his knees,
he crawled softly to the object of plunder. Lucky chance! the cover was
off, and the first thing his hand touched was a knife plunged to the hilt
in a large loaf. This he captured and deposited in his bag. Then followed
pies, tarts, etc., and last a small jar, which he took under his arm,
and, thus encumbered, crept on all-fours to the kitchen door, where Jenny
relieved him of the jar. They softly ascended the stairs, where Amy was
ready to receive them.

"How dared you take that jar?" said she; "what does it contain?"

"I don't know," said Charlie; "but I know what my pillow-case contains.
It was never so well lined before, Amy."

Thus saying, he commenced removing its contents, while Jenny pulled the
knife out of the loaf, which proved to be pound cake, uncovered the jar,
and pronounced it filled with cherry jam. "Ay," said Amy, "there's where
those cherries I saw her buying of Dilly Danforth went, then. She told me
they were so dirty she had to throw them away. But I think you had better
go and carry these things back."

"Never," said Charlie; "I am going to eat my fill once in Mrs. Mumbles'
house."

"But what will she say when she discovers her loss?"

"That is just what I'm anxious to know," said Jenny.

"So am I," returned Charlie, chopping off a large slice of pound cake and
dividing two pies in halves. "The old lady goes in for treating her
visitors well, don't she? I dare say these condiments were intended to
supply her guests for years. I wish we had some spoons to eat this cherry
jam."

"You had better carry that back," said Amy.

"No, I will not go down on my knees and crawl under Mrs. Salsify's bed
again to-night on any consideration."

"Neither would I," said Jenny, "the old adage is 'as well be killed for a
sheep as a lamb;' so let us enjoy ourselves to the utmost in our power.
Here is food enough, of the best kind too, to serve us well for the
remainder of our stay here, only a week longer you know. I'll keep it
locked in my trunk."

So saying, they cleared away, and Charlie bade good-night, and all
retired to bright visions of pound cake and cherry jelly.

CHAPTER IV.

"She was a lovely little ladye,
With blue eyes beaming sunnily;
And loved to carry charity
To the abodes of misery."

There was a tiny bark floating down the flower-bordered river that wound
so gracefully through the beautiful village of Wimbledon, and a smiling
little lady, in a neat gingham sun-bonnet, sat coseyly in the stern,
beneath the shady wing of the snow-white sail. A noble-looking lad plied
the oar with graceful ease, chatting merrily the while with the little
girl, and laughing at her constant and matronly care of a large basket
which was placed beside her, neatly covered with a snowy napkin. "One
would think that there were diamonds in that basket, Nell, you guard it
so carefully," said he.

"No, only nice pies mother gave me leave to take to Aunt Dilly Danforth,
the poor washerwoman," returned the little miss, again smoothing the
napkin and adjusting the basket in a new position. "I wish you would row
as carefully as you can, Neddie, so as not to jostle them much."

"So I will, sis," returned he; "let's sing the Boatman's Song as we glide
along." And their voices rose on the calm summer air clear and sweet as
the morning song of birds. Now and then their light barge touched the
shore, and Ned plucked flowers to twine in Ellen's hair. O, that ever,
down life's uncertain tide, these innocent young spirits might float as
calmly, happily on to the broad ocean of eternity!

"Is that the old shanty where Dilly lives?" said the lad at length,
pointing to a low black house, just beyond a clump of brushwood, which
they were swiftly approaching.

"Yes," said Ellen, gathering up her basket.

"Here I must lose you, then," said Ned; "how I wish you would go fishing
with me down to the cove!"

Ellen smiled. "Are you going to be all alone, Neddie?" asked she.

"Nobody but Charlie Seaton will be with me. You like him."

"Yes, I like him well enough," said Ellen, innocently; "but I would not
care to go a-fishing with him."

"Why not, sis?" inquired Ned.

"Because it would not be pretty for a little girl to go fishing with
boys."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the lad; "what a prudent little sis I have got! for all
the world like Amy Seaton. But I like Jenny Andrews better, she is so
full of fun and frolic. Did you know how she and Charlie Seaton robbed
old Mrs. Salsify Mumbles, one night not long since?"

"O, no! robbed her? That was wrong, surely."

"O, no! You see she nearly starved them, so they helped themselves to her
sweetmeats without invitation. That's all; not very wicked, I'm thinking,
Nell."

"I think it was wicked for her not to give them enough food, and wicked
for them to take it without her knowledge," said Ellen, after a pause.
"But what did she say when she discovered her loss?"

"Not a word. What could she say?" asked Ned.

"I could not guess, and therefore inquired," said Ellen. "Will Jenny come
to school next term?"

"Yes, Jenny, Amy and Charlie, and board at Dea. Allen's. That will be a
good place; only I fancy the deacon's long prayers and sober phiz will
prove a sad trial to Jenny. Well, you must go, sis," said he, pushing his
boat high up on the green, grassy bank, by a few skilful strokes of his
oar. Then assisting her out and placing the precious basket safely in her
arms, he was soon gliding down the smooth current again. Ellen directed
her steps toward the dilapidated dwelling a few yards before her, turning
frequently to catch a glimpse of her brother's little bark as it came in
view through some opening in the shrubbery that grew on the river's side.

One timid rap brought Willie Danforth to the door. The poor boy looked
quite embarrassed to behold pretty, neat Ellen Williams standing there on
the miserable, dirty threshold. "Good day, Willie," said she, pleasantly;
"is your mother at home?"

"No, miss, she is scrubbing floors at Mr. Pimble's," said Willie,
awkwardly enough.

"O, I am sorry she is gone, for I wanted to see her very much. Will you
let me come in and leave this basket for her?"

"O, yes!" answered the poor lad, "or I will carry it in for you."

"I can carry it very well," said Ellen, "if you will only let me go in."

"I would let you come in, Miss Ellen," returned Willie, "only I am afraid
it would frighten you to see such a sad, dirty place;" and the ragged
little fellow blushed crimson, as he thus revealed his poverty and
destitution.

Ellen pitied his embarrassment, and said, "I should like to go in,
Willie, because, if I saw what you needed, I could tell mother, and she
would make you more comfortable, I know."

The boy lifted the wooden latch of the inner room. The door opened with a
dismal creak, and Ellen entered. There was one old, broken-backed chair,
which he offered her, and sat down himself on a rough bench, with a
sorrowful, embarrassed expression on his pale, interesting features.
Ellen, still noticing Willie's painful confusion, knew not what to do
after placing her basket on the rude, wooden table, and began to regret
that she so strongly pressed an entrance.

"I told you you would be frightened," said the boy at length, in a
choking tone.

"O, I am not frightened!" returned Ellen, glad to speak now that he had
opened the way for her; "I am only sorry to find people living so
forlornly in our pretty, happy village. I thought you had a good nice
house to live in, for Mrs. Pimble said so, and that her husband rented it
to you for almost nothing, and that your mother--but I won't say any
more," said Ellen, stopping short in her discourse.

"Yes," said Willie, "tell me all she said, and then I will tell you
something."

"Well, then, she said your mother only went out washing to make folks
think she was needy, so they would give her food and clothing. 'Twas
wicked for her to say it, surely."

Willie's face grew pale as death, and then flushed crimson to the
temples.

"Don't look so," said Ellen, approaching the bench and putting her little
hand on his hot cheeks. "O, Willie! you are sick and tired," she
continued, soothingly; "will you not lay your head down on my lap, and
tell me all about your troubles?"

Willie's full heart overflowed. Those accents of kindness, so strange to
his ears, what a magic power they had! He leaned his dear bright head on
her soft little palm, and his low voice told in broken accents a tale of
want and suffering. Ellen wept, for her young heart was full of
tenderness and sympathy. The hours sped on, while they thus held
converse, till a hand on the latch aroused them. 'Twas Dilly returned
from her day's work at Mr. Pimble's. Willie sprang up to meet her. "O,
mother!" said he, "a sweet angel has come since you left me, this
morning, crying because I was so hungry."

"Alas, my boy!" said the woman, "I fear you must still go hungry, for I
have brought you nothing. Mr. Pimble says my week's work must go for
rent."

Now was Ellen's moment of joy, as she bounded across the broken floor and
lifted the napkin from her basket. "No, no, Willie,--no, no, Aunt Dilly,
you shall not go hungry to bed to-night. Look what mother has sent you!
How thoughtless of me not to have remembered my basket before, when
Willie has been suffering from hunger all these long, long hours!"

"O, no! I have not thought of being hungry since you came," said the boy.

Mrs. Danforth approached the basket and gazed on its contents with
tearful eyes. She had not seen the like on her table for many a day, and,
dropping on her knees, she breathed a silent prayer to God for his
goodness in putting it into the hearts of his children to remember her in
her need! Willie brought forth a small bundle of sticks and lighted a
fire, while Ellen ran and filled a black, broken-nosed tea-kettle, and
hung it on a hook over the blaze. It soon began to sing merrily, and the
children laughed and said it had caught some of their happiness. Then
Ellen took some tea from the paper her mother had wrapped so nicely, put
it in a cracked blue bowl, and Willie fixed a bed of coals for her to set
it on. Dilly sat all the while gazing with tearful eyes on the two
beaming faces which were constantly turned up to hers, to see if she gave
her approval to their movements. At length the repast was prepared, and,
after partaking with them, as Mrs. Danforth insisted upon her doing,
Ellen set out for home, with Willie by her side. He hesitated some at
first, when his mother told him he must accompany her, for his jacket was
ragged and his shoes out at the toes. But when Ellen said so
reproachfully he was "too bad, too bad, to make her go all the way home
alone," he brightened, and said "he would be very glad to go with her if
she would not be ashamed of him." So they set out together, each holding
a handle of the basket; Ellen bidding Aunt Dilly a cordial good-by, and
promising to come soon again and bring her mother. They met Mr. Pimble on
their way, who scowled and passed by in silence.

Ellen found her mother anxiously waiting her return. She heard with
pleasure and interest her little daughter's animated description of her
visit; but when she said she had promised to visit Aunt Dilly soon again,
and take her mother with her, Mrs. Williams looked sad.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29