Mary Erskine

CHAPTER III.

MARY ER­SK­INE'S VIS­ITORS.

Mary Er­sk­ine's an­tic­ipa­tions of hap­pi­ness in be­ing the mis­tress of her own in­de­pen­dent home were very high, but they were more than re­al­ized.

The place which had been cho­sen for the house was not on­ly a suit­able one in re­spect to con­ve­nience, but it was a very pleas­ant one. It was near the brook which, as has al­ready been said, came cas­cad­ing down from among the forests and moun­tains, and pass­ing along near one side of Al­bert's clear­ing, flowed across the road, and fi­nal­ly emp­tied in­to the great stream. The house was placed near the brook, in or­der that Al­bert might have a wa­ter­ing-​place at hand for his hors­es and cat­tle when he should have stocked his farm. In felling the for­est Al­bert left a fringe of trees along the banks of the brook, that it might be cool and shady there when the cat­tle went down to drink. There was a spring of pure cold wa­ter boil­ing up from be­neath some rocks not far from the brook, on the side to­ward the clear­ing. The wa­ter from this spring flowed down along a lit­tle mossy dell, un­til it reached the brook. The bed over which this lit­tle rivulet flowed was stony, and yet no stones were to be seen. They all had the ap­pear­ance of round­ed tufts of soft green moss, so com­plete­ly were they all cov­ered and hid­den by the beau­ti­ful ver­dure.

Al­bert was very much pleased when he dis­cov­ered this spring, and traced its lit­tle mossy rivulet down to the brook. He thought that Mary Er­sk­ine would like it. So he avoid­ed cut­ting down any of the trees from the dell, or from around the spring, and in cut­ting down those which grew near it, he took care to make them fall away from the dell, so that in burn­ing they should not in­jure the trees which he wished to save. Thus that part of the wood which shad­ed and shel­tered the spring and the dell, es­caped the fire.

The house was placed in such a po­si­tion that this spring was di­rect­ly be­hind it, and Al­bert made a smooth and pret­ty path lead­ing down to it; or rather he made the path smooth, and na­ture made it pret­ty. For no soon­er had he com­plet­ed his work up­on it than na­ture be­gan to adorn it by a pro­fu­sion of the rich­est and green­est grass and flow­ers, which she caused to spring up on ei­ther side. It was so in fact in all Al­bert's op­er­ations up­on his farm. Al­most ev­ery thing that he did was for some pur­pose of con­ve­nience and util­ity, and he him­self un­der­took noth­ing more than was nec­es­sary to se­cure the use­ful end. But his kind and play­ful co-​op­er­ator, na­ture, would al­ways take up the work where he left it, and be­gin at once to beau­ti­fy it with her rich and lux­uri­ant ver­dure. For ex­am­ple, as soon as the fires went out over the clear­ing, she be­gan, with her sun and rain, to blanch the black­ened stumps, and to gnaw at their foun­da­tions with her tooth of de­cay. If Al­bert made a road or a path she round­ed its an­gles, soft­ened away all the rough­ness that his plow or hoe had left in it, and fringed it with grass and flow­ers. The soli­tary and slen­der trees which had been left stand­ing here and there around the clear­ing, hav­ing es­caped the fire, she took un­der her spe­cial care--throw­ing out new and thrifty branch­es from them, in ev­ery di­rec­tion, and thus giv­ing them mas­sive and lux­uri­ant forms, to beau­ti­fy the land­scape, and to form shady re­treats for the flocks and herds which might in sub­se­quent years graze up­on the ground. Thus while Al­bert de­vot­ed him­self to the sub­stan­tial and use­ful im­prove­ments which were re­quired up­on his farm, with a view sim­ply to prof­it, na­ture took the work of or­na­ment­ing it un­der her own spe­cial and par­tic­ular charge.

The sphere of Mary Er­sk­ine's du­ties and plea­sures was with­in doors. Her con­ve­niences for house-​keep­ing were some­what lim­it­ed at first, but Al­bert, who kept him­self busy at work on his land all day, spent the evenings in his shan­ty shop, mak­ing var­ious house­hold im­ple­ments and ar­ti­cles of fur­ni­ture for her. Mary sat with him, usu­al­ly, at such times, knit­ting by the side of the great, blaz­ing fire, made part­ly for the sake of the light that it af­ford­ed, and part­ly for the warmth, which was re­quired to tem­per the cool­ness of the au­tum­nal evenings. Mary took a very spe­cial in­ter­est in the progress of Al­bert's work, ev­ery thing which he made be­ing for her. Each new ac­qui­si­tion, as one ar­ti­cle af­ter an­oth­er was com­plet­ed and de­liv­ered in­to her pos­ses­sion, gave her fresh plea­sure: and she de­posit­ed it in its prop­er place in her house with a feel­ing of great sat­is­fac­tion and pride.

“Mary Er­sk­ine,” said Al­bert one evening--for though she was mar­ried, and her name thus re­al­ly changed, Al­bert him­self, as well as ev­ery body else, went on call­ing her Mary Er­sk­ine just as be­fore--“it is rather hard to make you wait so long for these con­ve­niences, es­pe­cial­ly as there is no ne­ces­si­ty for it. We need not have paid for our land this three years. I might have tak­en the mon­ey and built a hand­some house, and fur­nished it for you at once.”

“And so have been in debt for the land,” said Mary.

“Yes,” said Al­bert. “I could have paid off that debt by the prof­its of the farm­ing. I can lay up a hun­dred dol­lars a year, cer­tain­ly.”

“No,” said Mary Er­sk­ine. “I like this plan the best. We will pay as we go along. It will be a great deal bet­ter to have the three hun­dred dol­lars for some­thing else than to pay old debts with. We will build a bet­ter house than this if we want one, one of these years, when we get the mon­ey. But I like this house very much as it is. Per­haps, how­ev­er, it is on­ly be­cause it is my own.”

It was not al­to­geth­er the idea that it was her own that made Mary Er­sk­ine like her house. The in­te­ri­or of it was very pleas­ant in­deed, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter Al­bert had com­plet­ed the fur­nish­ing of it, and had laid the floor. It con­tained but one room, it is true, but that was a very spa­cious one. There were, in fact, two apart­ments en­closed by the walls and the roof, though on­ly one of them could strict­ly be called a room. The oth­er was rather a shed, or stoop, and it was en­tered from the front by a wide open­ing, like a great shed door. The en­trance to the house prop­er was by a door open­ing from this stoop, so as to be shel­tered from the storms in win­ter. There was a very large fire place made of stones in the mid­dle of one side of the room, with a large flat stone for a hearth in front of it. This hearth stone was very smooth, and Mary Er­sk­ine kept it al­ways very bright and clean. On one side of the fire was what they called a set­tle, which was a long wood­en seat with a very high back. It was placed on the side of the fire to­ward the door, so that it an­swered the pur­pose of a screen to keep off any cold cur­rents of air, which might come in on blus­ter­ing win­ter nights, around the door. On the oth­er side of the fire was a small and \ very el­egant ma­hogany work ta­ble. This was a present to Mary Er­sk­ine from Mrs. Bell on the day of her mar­riage. There were draw­ers in this ta­ble con­tain­ing sundry con­ve­niences. The up­per draw­er was made to an­swer the pur­pose of a desk, and it had an ink­stand in a small di­vi­sion in one cor­ner. Mrs. Bell had thought of tak­ing this ink­stand out, and putting in some spools, or some­thing else which Mary Er­sk­ine would be able to use. But Mary her­self would not al­low her to make such a change. She said it was true that she could not write, but that was no rea­son why she should not have an ink­stand. So she filled the ink­stand with ink, and fur­nished the desk com­plete­ly in oth­er re­spects, by putting in six sheets of pa­per, a pen, and sev­er­al wafers. The truth was, she thought it pos­si­ble that an oc­ca­sion might arise some time or oth­er, at which Al­bert might wish to write a let­ter; and if such a case should oc­cur, it would give her great plea­sure to have him write his let­ter at her desk.

Be­yond the work ta­ble, on one of the sides of the room, was a cup­board, and next to the cup­board a large win­dow. This was the on­ly win­dow in the house, and it had a sash which would rise and fall. Mary Er­sk­ine had made white cur­tains for this win­dow, which could be part­ed in the mid­dle, and hung up up­on nails driv­en in­to the logs which formed the wall of the house, one on each side. Of what use these cur­tains could be ex­cept to make the room look more snug and pleas­ant with­in, it would be dif­fi­cult to say; for there was on­ly one vast ex­panse of forests and moun­tains on that side of the house, so that there was no­body to look in.

On the back side of the room, in one cor­ner, was the bed. It was sup­port­ed up­on a bed­stead which Al­bert had made. The bed­stead had high posts, and was cov­ered, like the win­dow, with cur­tains. In the oth­er cor­ner was the place for the loom, with the spin­ning-​wheel be­tween the loom and the bed. When Mary Er­sk­ine was us­ing the spin­ning-​wheel, she brought it out in­to the cen­ter of the room. The loom was not yet fin­ished. Al­bert was build­ing it, work­ing up­on it from time to time as he had op­por­tu­ni­ty. The frame of it was up, and some of the ma­chin­ery was made.

Mary Er­sk­ine kept most of her clothes in a trunk; but Al­bert was mak­ing her a bu­reau.

In­stead of find­ing it lone­some at her new home, as Mrs. Bell had pre­dict­ed, Mary Er­sk­ine had plen­ty of com­pa­ny. The girls from the vil­lage, whom she used to know, were very fond of com­ing out to see her. Many of them were much younger than she was, and they loved to ram­ble about in the woods around Mary Er­sk­ine's house, and to play along the bank of the brook. Mary used to show them too, ev­ery time they came, the new ar­ti­cles which Al­bert had made for her, and to ex­plain to them the grad­ual progress of the im­prove­ments. Mary Bell her­self was very fond of go­ing to see Mary Er­sk­ine,--though she was of course at that time too young to go alone. Some­times how­ev­er Mrs. Bell would send her out in the morn­ing and let her re­main all day, play­ing, very hap­pi­ly, around the door and down by the spring. She used to play all day among the logs and stumps, and up­on the sandy beach by the side of the brook, and yet when she went home at night she al­ways looked as nice, and her clothes were as neat and as clean as when she went in the morn­ing. Mrs. Bell won­dered at this, and on ob­serv­ing that it con­tin­ued to be so, re­peat­ed­ly, af­ter sev­er­al vis­its, she asked Mary Bell how it hap­pened that Mary Er­sk­ine kept her so nice.

“Oh,” said Mary Bell, “I al­ways put on my work­ing frock when I go out to Mary Er­sk­ine's.”

The work­ing frock was a plain, loose woolen dress, which Mary Er­sk­ine made for Mary Bell, and which Mary Bell, al­ways put on in the morn­ing, when­ev­er she came to the farm. Her own dress was tak­en off and laid care­ful­ly away up­on the bed, un­der the cur­tains. Her shoes and stock­ings were tak­en off too, so that she might play in the brook if she pleased, though Mary Er­sk­ine told her it was not best to re­main in the wa­ter long enough to have her feet get very cold.

When Mary Bell was dressed thus in her work­ing frock, she was al­lowed to play wher­ev­er she pleased, so that she en­joyed al­most an ab­so­lute and un­bound­ed lib­er­ty. And yet there were some re­stric­tions. She must not go across the brook, for fear that she might get lost in the woods, nor go out of sight of the house in any di­rec­tion. She might build fires up­on any of the stumps or logs, but not with­in cer­tain lim­its of dis­tance from the house, lest she should set the house on fire. And she must not touch the axe, for fear that she might cut her­self, nor climb up­on the wood-​pile, for fear that it might fall down up­on her. With some such re­stric­tions as these, she could do what­ev­er she pleased.

She was very much de­light­ed, one morn­ing in Septem­ber, when she was play­ing around the house in her work­ing frock, at find­ing a great hole or hol­low un­der a stump, which she im­me­di­ate­ly re­solved to have for her oven. She was sit­ting down up­on the ground by the side of it, and she be­gan to call out as loud as she could,

“Mary Er­sk­ine! Mary Er­sk­ine!”

But Mary Er­sk­ine did not an­swer. Mary Bell could hear the sound of the spin­ning-​wheel in the house, and she won­dered why the spin­ner could not hear her, when she called so loud.

She lis­tened, watch­ing for the paus­es in the buzzing sound of the wheel, and en­deav­ored to call out in the paus­es,--but with no bet­ter suc­cess than be­fore. At last she got up and walked along to­ward the house, swing­ing in her hand a small wood­en shov­el, which Al­bert had made for her to dig wells with in the sand on the mar­gin of the brook.

“Mary Er­sk­ine!” said she, when she got to the door of the house, “didn't you hear me call­ing for you?”

“Yes,” said Mary Er­sk­ine.

“Then why did not you come?” said Mary Bell.

“Be­cause I was dis­obe­di­ent,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “and now I sup­pose I must be pun­ished.”

“Well,” said Mary Bell. The ex­pres­sion of dis­sat­is­fac­tion and re­proof up­on Mary Bell's coun­te­nance was changed im­me­di­ate­ly in­to one of sur­prise and plea­sure, at the idea of Mary Er­sk­ine's be­ing pun­ished for dis­obey­ing _her_. So she said,

“Well. And what shall your pun­ish­ment be?”

“What did you want me for?” asked Mary Er­sk­ine.

“I want­ed you to see my oven.”

“Have you got an oven?” asked Mary Er­sk­ine.

“Yes,” said Mary Bell, “It is un­der a stump. I have got some wood, and now I want some fire.”

“Very well,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “get your fire-​pan.”

Mary Bell's fire-​pan, was an old tin dip­per with a long han­dle. It had been worn out as a dip­per, and so they used to let Mary Bell have it to car­ry her fire in. There were sev­er­al small holes in the bot­tom of the dip­per, so com­plete­ly was it worn out: but this made it all the bet­ter for a fire-​pan, since the air which came up through the holes, fanned the coals and kept them alive. This dip­per was very valu­able, too, for an­oth­er pur­pose. Mary Bell was ac­cus­tomed, some­times, to go down to the brook and dip up wa­ter with it, in or­der to see the wa­ter stream down in­to the brook again, through these holes, in a sort of a show­er.

Mary Bell went, ac­cord­ing­ly, for her fire-​pan, which she found in its place in the open stoop or shed. She came in­to the house, and Mary Er­sk­ine, rak­ing open the ash­es in the fire-​place, took out two large coals with the tongs, and dropped them in­to the dip­per. Mary Bell held the dip­per at arm's length be­fore her, and be­gan to walk along.

“Hold it out up­on one side,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “and then if you fall down, you will not fall up­on your fire.”

Mary Bell, obey­ing this in­junc­tion, went out to her oven and put the coals in at the mouth of it. Then she be­gan to gath­er sticks, and lit­tle branch­es, and strips of birch bark, and oth­er sil­van com­bustibles, which she found scat­tered about the ground, and put them up­on the coals to make the fire. She stopped now and then a minute or two to rest and to lis­ten to the sound of Mary Er­sk­ine's spin­ning. At last some sud­den thought seemed to come in­to her head, and throw­ing down up­on the ground a hand­ful of sticks which she had in her hand, and was just ready to put up­on the fire, she got up and walked to­ward the house.

“Mary Er­sk­ine,” said she, “I al­most for­got about your pun­ish­ment.”

“Yes,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “I hoped that you had for­got about it, al­to­geth­er.”

“Why?” said Mary Bell.

“Be­cause,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “I don't like to be pun­ished.”

“But you _must_ be pun­ished,” said Mary Bell, very pos­itive­ly, “and-​what shall your pun­ish­ment be?”

“How would it do,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, go­ing on, how­ev­er, all the time with her spin­ning, “for me to have to give you two pota­toes to roast in your oven?--or one? One pota­to will be enough pun­ish­ment for such a lit­tle dis­obe­di­ence.”

“No; two,” said Mary Bell.

“Well, two,” said Mary Er­sk­ine. “You may go and get them in a pail out in the stoop. But you must wash them first, be­fore you put them in the oven. You can wash them down at the brook.”

“I am afraid that I shall get my fin­gers smut­ty,” said Mary Bell, “at my oven, for the stump is pret­ty black.”

“No mat­ter if you do,” said Mary Er­sk­ine. “You can go down and wash them at the brook.”

“And my frock, too,” said Mary Bell.

“No mat­ter for that ei­ther,” said Mary Er­sk­ine; “on­ly keep it as clean as you can.”

So Mary Bell took the two pota­toes and went down to the brook to wash them. She found, how­ev­er, when she reached the brook, that there was a square piece of bark ly­ing up­on the mar­gin of the wa­ter, and she de­ter­mined to push it in and sail it, for her ship, putting the two pota­toes on for car­go. Af­ter sail­ing the pota­toes about for some time, her eye chanced to fall up­on a smooth spot in the sand, which she thought would make a good place for a gar­den. So she de­ter­mined to _plant_ her pota­toes in­stead of roast­ing them.

She ac­cord­ing­ly dug a hole in the sand with her fin­gers, and put the pota­toes in, and then af­ter cov­er­ing them, over with the sand, she went to the oven to get her fire-​pan for her wa­ter­ing-​pot, in or­der to wa­ter her gar­den.

The holes in the bot­tom of the dip­per made it an ex­cel­lent wa­ter­ing-​pot, pro­vid­ed the gar­den to be wa­tered was not too far from the brook: for the show­er would al­ways be­gin to fall the in­stant the dip­per was lift­ed out of the wa­ter.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: MARY BELL AT THE BROOK.]

Af­ter wa­ter­ing her gar­den again and again, Mary Bell con­clud­ed on the whole not to wait for her pota­toes to grow, but dug them up and be­gan to wash them in the brook, to make them ready for the roast­ing. Her lit­tle feet sank in­to the sand at the mar­gin of the wa­ter while she held the pota­toes in the stream, one in each hand, and watched the cur­rent as it swept swift­ly by them. Af­ter a while she took them out and put them in the sun up­on a flat stone to dry, and when they were dry she car­ried them to her oven and buried them in the hot em­bers there.

Thus Mary Bell would amuse her­self, hour af­ter hour of the long day, when she went to vis­it Mary Er­sk­ine, with an end­less va­ri­ety of child­ish imag­in­ings. Her work­ing-​frock be­came in fact, in her mind, the em­blem of com­plete and per­fect lib­er­ty and hap­pi­ness, un­bound­ed and un­al­loyed.

The oth­er chil­dren of the vil­lage, too, were ac­cus­tomed to come out and see Mary Er­sk­ine, and some­times old­er and more cer­emo­ni­ous com­pa­ny still. There was one young la­dy named Anne Sophia, who, hav­ing been a near neigh­bor of Mrs. Bell's, was con­sid­er­ably ac­quaint­ed with Mary Er­sk­ine, though as the two young ladies had very dif­fer­ent tastes and habits of mind, they nev­er be­came very in­ti­mate friends. Anne Sophia was fond of dress and of com­pa­ny. Her thoughts were al­ways run­ning up­on vil­lage sub­jects and vil­lage peo­ple, and her high­est am­bi­tion was to live there. She had been, while Mary Er­sk­ine had lived at Mrs. Bell's, very much in­ter­est­ed in a young man named Gor­don. He was a clerk in a store in the vil­lage. He was a very agree­able young man, and much more gen­teel and pol­ished in his per­son­al ap­pear­ance than Al­bert. He had great in­flu­ence among the young men of the vil­lage, be­ing the lead­er in all the ex­cur­sions and par­ties of plea­sure which were formed among them. Anne Sophia knew very well that Mr. Gor­don liked to see young ladies hand­some­ly dressed when they ap­peared in pub­lic, and part­ly to please him, and part­ly to grat­ify that very prop­er feel­ing of plea­sure which all young ladies have in ap­pear­ing well, she spent a large part of earn­ings in dress. She was not par­tic­ular­ly ex­trav­agant, nor did she get in­to debt; but she did not, like Mary Er­sk­ine, at­tempt to lay up any of her wages. She of­ten en­deav­ored to per­suade Mary Er­sk­ine to fol­low her ex­am­ple. “It is of no use,” said she, “for girls like you and me to try to lay up mon­ey. If we are ev­er mar­ried we shall make our hus­bands take care of us; and if we are not mar­ried we shall not want our sav­ings, for we can al­ways earn what we need as we go along.”

Mary Er­sk­ine had no re­ply at hand to make to this rea­son­ing, but she was not con­vinced by it, so she went on pur­su­ing her own course, while Anne Sophia pur­sued hers. Anne Sophia was a very ca­pa­ble and in­tel­li­gent girl, and as Mr. Gor­don thought, would do cred­it to any so­ci­ety in which she might be called to move. He be­came more and more in­ter­est­ed in her, and it hap­pened that they formed an en­gage­ment to be mar­ried, just about the time that Al­bert made his pro­pos­al to Mary Er­sk­ine.

Mr. Gor­don was a very promis­ing busi­ness man, and had an of­fer from the mer­chant with whom he was em­ployed as a clerk, to en­ter in­to part­ner­ship with him, just be­fore the time of his en­gage­ment. He de­clined this of­fer, de­ter­min­ing rather to go in­to busi­ness in­de­pen­dent­ly. He had laid up about as much mon­ey as Al­bert had, and by means of this, and the ex­cel­lent let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion which he ob­tained from the vil­lage peo­ple, he ob­tained a large stock of goods, on cred­it, in the city. When buy­ing his goods he al­so bought a small quan­ti­ty of hand­some fur­ni­ture, on the same terms. He hired a store. He al­so hired a small white house, with green trees around it, and a pret­ty gar­den be­hind. He was mar­ried near­ly at the same time with Al­bert, and Anne Sophia in tak­ing pos­ses­sion of her gen­teel and beau­ti­ful vil­lage home, was as hap­py as Mary Er­sk­ine was in her syl­van soli­tude. Mr. Gor­don told her that he had made a cal­cu­la­tion, and he thought there was no doubt that, if busi­ness was tol­er­ably good that win­ter, he should be able to clear enough to pay all his ex­pens­es and to pay for his fur­ni­ture.

His cal­cu­la­tions proved to be cor­rect. Busi­ness was very good. He paid for his fur­ni­ture, and bought as much more on a new cred­it in the spring.

Anne Sophia came out to make a call up­on Mary Er­sk­ine, about a month af­ter she had got es­tab­lished in her new home. She came in the morn­ing. Mr. Gor­don brought her in a chaise as far as to the cor­ner, and she walked the rest of the way. She was dressed very hand­some­ly, and yet in pret­ty good taste. It was not whol­ly a call of cer­emo­ny, for Anne Sophia felt re­al­ly a strong at­tach­ment to Mary Er­sk­ine, and had a great de­sire to see her in her new home.

When she rose to take her leave, af­ter her call was end­ed, she asked Mary Er­sk­ine to come to the vil­lage and see her as soon as she could. “I meant to have called up­on you long be­fore this,” said she, “but I have been so busy, and we have had so much com­pa­ny. But I want to see you very much in­deed. We have a beau­ti­ful house, and I have a great de­sire to show it to you. I think you have got a beau­ti­ful place here for a farm, one of these days; but you ought to make your hus­band build you a bet­ter house. He is as able to do it as my hus­band is to get me one, I have no doubt.”

Mary Er­sk­ine had no doubt ei­ther. She did not say so how­ev­er, but on­ly replied that she liked her house very well. The re­al rea­son why she liked it so much was one that Anne Sophia did not con­sid­er. The rea­son was that it was her own. Where­as Anne Sophia lived in a house, which, pret­ty as it was, be­longed to oth­er peo­ple.

All these things, it must be re­mem­bered, took place eight or ten years be­fore the time when Mal­leville and Phon­ny went to vis­it Mary Er­sk­ine, and when Mary Bell was on­ly four or five years old. Phon­ny and Mal­leville, as well as a great many oth­er chil­dren, had grown up from in­fan­cy since that time. In fact, the Jem­my who fell from his horse and sprained his an­kle the day they came, was Jem­my Gor­don, Anne Sophia's old­est son.