Mildred Keith

Chapter Tenth

"Oh, Rhody Jane, Rhody Jane, I say just come an' look!"

"Look at what, Emmaret? you're always makin' a fuss about nothin'," returned Miss Lightcap scornfully, but nevertheless, stepping very promptly, plate and dishcloth in hand, to the front door whence the hasty summons had come.

"'Tain't nothin' this time," Emmaretta went on; "they're agoin' to Sunday school, them Keith girls, and just see how they're dressed up!"

"Did you ever see anything so fine?" chorused Minerva; "sech lovely dresses; and black silk aprons with colored lace onto 'em. Oh my! I wish I had one like 'em!"

"Maybe you shall some o' these days when your pop gits rich," said her mother, who was gazing from the window.

"But the bonnets is what takes me. Did you notice 'em, Rhoda Jane? they're gimp with blue ribbings and blue flowers."

"And the white and red in their faces makes them powerful becoming," remarked Gotobed, standing just outside.

But he turned his head the other way, shamefacedly, as Mildred, looking sweet and fair in white muslin and pink ribbons, followed her younger sisters into the street, and sent a casual glance in his direction.

"Don't she think she's some!" said Rhoda Jane enviously.

"And so she is; she looks like a posey," said Gotobed.

"Is that the grandmother? the old lady walking with Mr. Keith."

"No; Viny Apple says she's Mrs. Keith's aunt; and talks in the funniest way sometimes; – gets things hind part before – telling her to make up the floors and sweep the beds, and the like.

"There they're all out o' sight. I guess the mother's stayin' to home with the baby; Viny said she wasn't agoin' to, and I s'pose she's up stairs primpin'."

"And that's what you'd ought to be doin' 'forelong, if you're goin' to meetin', Rhoda Jane," observed Mrs. Lightcap, drawing in her head. "Hurry up now with them dishes. And you children walk right in here and hunt up your Sunday things, and wash your hands and faces and comb your hair; it'll be meetin' time 'fore we know it."

A narrow foot-path, bordered on each side by grass still wet with dew, led past the grove of saplings to the little church whither the Keiths were bound.

Mildred, lifting her white skirts daintily, and warning her sisters and brothers of the danger of wet and soiled shoes, should they step aside from the beaten track, picked her way with careful steps, rejoicing in the fact that the distance was not great.

The church membership was as yet very small; Sabbath school ditto. The newly arrived family made an important addition to the ranks of both teachers and scholars.

Two Bible classes were organized this morning and given, respectively, into the charge of Mr. Keith and Miss Stanhope; Rupert becoming a member of his father's, Mildred of Aunt Wealthy's. There were but two others in this latter class; Claudina Chetwood and Lucilla Grange; both intelligent, lady-like, refined girls, who made an agreeable impression upon Miss Stanhope and Mildred also. And this was mutual.

The morning service followed immediately upon the close of Sabbath school. The sermon was excellent; the singing, though not artistic, and somewhat interrupted by the necessity of lining out the hymn, on account of the scarcity of books, earnest and spirited; the people singing, apparently with the understanding and the heart also; the prayer was fervent, and the behavior of the congregation throughout the whole service was quiet and devotional.

Most of them were town folk, but a few families had come in from the surrounding country.

There was little display of fashion or style in dress; no one was expensively attired; most of the women and girls wore calico; but all were neat, some really tasteful; and in intellect and moral worth, the majority of faces would have compared favorably with an equal number in the older States.

People lingered after church for mutual introductions and the exchange of friendly remarks and inquiries. The Keiths were warmly welcomed, assured of intentions to call, hopes expressed that they would "like the place," feel quite at home in the church and be sociable; the country people adding "Come out and see us whenever you can."

Squire Chetwood and Mr. Keith, who had made acquaintance during the preceding week, now introduced their families; each with very excusable fatherly pride in the good looks and good manners of his offspring.

The young Chetwoods were nearly as numerous, as handsome and intelligent as the Keiths.

"I hope we shall be good friends," said Claudina, as she and Mildred walked away together. "Mother was not out to-day because of a headache; but she and I are coming to see your mother and you this week."

"We shall be pleased to see you," Mildred answered heartily, "and I am very glad to accept your offer of friendship."

They parted at Mr. Keith's door, mutually pleased, and Mildred carried a brighter face into the house than she had worn for weeks.

Her mother remarked upon it with delight.

"Yes, mother," she responded gayly, "I begin to feel a little happier about living here, now that I find we are to have good preaching, Sunday school – with an excellent and competent teacher for my share" – glancing archly at Aunt Wealthy's kindly, sensible face – "and pleasant friends;" going on to give a flattering description of the Chetwoods, particularly Claudina.

"I hope she will prove a valuable friend and a very great comfort to you, daughter," said Mrs. Keith. "You need young companionship and I am very glad to know that it will be provided."

The little girls had been up stairs putting away their best bonnets.

"Where's Viny?" asked Zillah, running back into the sitting-room where the older people still were.

"She went out telling me that she wouldn't be back till bedtime," replied the mother.

"Leaving us to do our own work!" cried Mildred. "Oh, mother, what made you let her?"

"Let her, my child? she did not ask my permission," laughed Mrs. Keith; "but indeed I think we are quite as well off without her for to-day; as we do no cooking on Sunday."

Before another week had passed, Mildred was ready to subscribe to the opinion that they were as well without her altogether – she having proved herself utterly inefficient, slow and slovenly about her work, unwilling to be directed, impertinent, bold and forward.

There was not a day when Mildred's indignation did not rise to fever heat in view of the many and aggravated sins of omission and commission on the part of their "help;" yet it seldom found vent in words. She was striving with determined purpose to rule her own spirit, and asking daily and hourly for strength for the conflict from Him who has said, "In me is thine help," "My strength is made perfect in weakness."

The example set her by her mother and aunt was also most helpful. They were both cheerful, patient, sunny-tempered women; never a word of fretfulness or complaint from the lips of either; Aunt Wealthy calm and serene as an unclouded summer day, Mrs. Keith often bringing to her aid a strong sense of the ludicrous; turning her vexations into occasions for jesting and mirth.

Mildred knew that they were trials nevertheless, and her love and admiration, and her resolve to show herself worthy to be the daughter of such a mother, grew apace.

To the affectionate heart of the unselfish girl there seemed no greater trial than seeing this dear mother overburdened with care and toil; but try as she might to take all the burdens on her young shoulders, it was utterly impossible; and while the conviction that to see her impatient and unhappy would add to her mother's troubles, helped her to maintain her self-control, the reflection that Viny's shortcomings added largely to those trials, made it tenfold more difficult to bear with them.

So also with the little tempers, untidinesses, and mischievous pranks of her younger brothers and sisters.

Home, even a happy home, is often a hard-fought battle-field; and who shall say that there is not sometimes more true courage displayed there than in another kind of conflict amid the roar of cannon and clash of arms, where earthly glory and renown are to be won.

The Chetwoods and Granges, and several others of the same standing in society, called that week; also Mr. Lord, the minister, brought his old mother who kept house for him, he being a bachelor.

When Viny happened to be the one to admit callers, she seemed to think it incumbent upon her to take a seat in the parlor with them and exert herself for their entertainment.

Mildred speedily undertook to disabuse her of this impression, but the girl haughtily informed her that "she had as good a right in the parlor as anybody else."

"But I wouldn't go into it to visit with anybody that didn't come to see me," said Mildred, with a determined effort to keep down her rising anger.

"Well, I guess they're about as likely to want to see me as any o' the rest; and if they don't they'd ought to. So there!"

"But you have your work to attend to."

"The work can wait. And the rest o' you's got plenty to do too."

The only remedy was to keep Viny busy in the kitchen while some of the family watched the doors into the streets and admitted visitors.

Even this stratagem sometimes failed and they could only console themselves that the visitors understood the situation.

"Ain't you goin' to call on the Keiths?" asked Gotobed Lightcap at the dinner table one day about the middle of the week.

"Who? me?" queried his mother; then pushing away her empty plate, and resting her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, while she looked reflectively off into vacancy. "Well, I s'pose a body'd ought to be neighborly, and I'm as willin' to do my part as the next one; but there's always a sight of work to do at home; and then I feel kinder backward 'bout callin' on 'em; they live so fine, you know; Viny Apple says they use real silver spoons and eat off real chaney every day; an' that's more'n we can do when we have company."

"Well, old woman, I guess the victuals don't taste no better for bein' eat off them things," responded her husband, cheerfully, passing his empty cup.

"Maybe. And they don't have no tea nor coffee for dinner, Viny says. I think it's real stingy."

"P'raps they don't want it," remarked Gotobed.

"Don't you b'lieve no such thing!" exclaimed Rhoda Jane, scornfully, "'tain't fashionable; and they'd ruther be fashionable than comfortable. Viny says they're awful stuck up; wouldn't let her come to the table or into the parlor if they could help themselves.

"But I don't keer, I'm not afeard on 'em, if mother is; and I'm goin' over there this afternoon; if it's only to let 'em see that I feel myself as good as they be any day; and I'll tell 'em so too, if they don't treat me right."

"Pshaw, Rhoda Jane, how you talk!" said her mother.

"Well, I'm spunky, mother; that's a fact; and I ain't a bit ashamed of it nuther."

"Don't you go if you can't behave yourself," said Gotobed, leaving the table and the room.

Mrs. Keith had gathered her children about her in the parlor, it being the shadiest and coolest apartment in the house in the afternoon. She, herself, Aunt Wealthy and the little girls were sewing, while Rupert kept the little boys quiet and interested with the making of a kite, and Mildred read aloud from Mrs. Sherwood's "Roxobelle."

Mildred had a clear, sweet-toned voice, enunciated distinctly, and read with feeling and expression; so that it was a pleasure to listen to her.

Rupert, Zillah and Ada were also good readers, and would take their turns as such; for this was no new thing, but one of the mother's ways of educating her children and training them to a love of literature.

While many another thing had been left behind in Ohio, they had brought all their books with them. Poetry, histories, biographies, books of travel, religious and scientific works, juvenile story-books and a few novels, all of the best class, were to be found among their treasured stores, reveled in by old and young.

Mr. Keith had his volumes of legal lore too, but with these the other members of the family seldom if ever cared to interfere.

Mrs. Sherwood was a favorite author with the young people; they were reading "Roxobelle" for the first time and had reached a most exciting part – the scene where the little dog had led Sophie Beauchamp into the room where his invalid and much abused mistress lay, chained by disease to her wretched bed, when Mrs. Lightcap and Rhoda Jane appeared in the open doorway.

They were dressed with the utmost simplicity – gowns, aprons and sunbonnets of calico, made without regard to fashion; no collars or cuffs; hands bare and brown; faces sunburnt, the mother's stolid, the girl's sufficiently sharp but lacking education and refinement.

It was far from being a welcome interruption. Mildred closed her book with a half suppressed sigh, the little girls exchanged glances of vexation and disappointment; Rupert, too scowled and uttered an exclamation of impatience half under his breath; but Mrs. Keith and Miss Stanhope rose smilingly, gave the visitors a cordial greeting, asked them to be seated and entered into conversation.

"It's powerful warm," remarked Mrs. Lightcap, accepting the offered chair and wiping the perspiration from her heated face with the corner of her apron.

"Yes, it has been an unusually warm day," responded Miss Stanhope, handing a fan; while Mrs. Keith asked if they would not take off their bonnets.

"Well ma'am, I don't care if I do," returned Mrs. Lightcap, pulling hers off and laying it on her lap; Rhoda Jane doing likewise.

"Let me lay them on the table," Mildred said, recovering her politeness.

"No, thank you; 'tain't worth while fur the few minutes we're agoin' to set; they's no ways hefty.

"Our names is Lightcap; this here's my daughter Rhoda Jane and she says to me, 'mother,' says she, 'we'd ought to be sociable with them new neighbors of ourn; let's go over and set a bit.' No, now what am I talkin' about?' 'twan't her nuther, 'twas Gote that spoke of it first, but my gal here was more'n willing to come."

"Yes, we always try to be neighborly," assented the girl. "How do you like Pleasant Plains, ladies?"

"It seems a pleasant town and we find very pleasant people in it," was Mrs. Keith's smiling rejoinder.

"That's the talk!" exclaimed Miss Lightcap laughing. "You'll do, Mis' Keith."

"Comin' so late you won't be able to raise no garden sass this year," remarked the mother; then went on to give a detailed account of what they had planted, what was growing well, and what was not, with an occasional digression to her husband, her cooking and housework, the occasional attacks of "agur" that interfered with her plans; and so on and so on – her daughter managing to slip in a word or two now and then.

At length they rose to go.

"How's Viny?" queried Rhoda Jane, addressing Mildred.

"Quite well, I believe," replied Mildred in a freezing tone, and drawing herself up with dignity.

"Tell her we come to see her too," laughed the girl, as she stepped from the door, "Good-bye. Hope you won't be ceremonious, but run in sociable any time o' day."

Chapter Eleventh

"The impudent thing!" exclaimed Mildred to her mother with a flushed and angry face; "putting us and our maid of all work on the same level! Visit her? Not I, indeed, and I do hope, mother, that neither you nor Aunt Wealthy will ever cross their threshold."

"My dear, she probably did not mean it," said Mrs. Keith.

"And now let us go on with our story. You have all waited quietly and politely like good children."

"Gotobed Lightcap! Lightcap! Gotobed Nightcap!" sang Cyril, tumbling about on the carpet. "O Don, don't you wish you had such a pretty name?"

"No, I wouldna; I just be Don."

"There, dears, don't talk now; sister's going to read," said their mother. "If you don't want to be still and listen you may run out and play in the yard."

"Somebody else tumin'," whispered Fan, pulling at her mother's skirts.

Mildred closed again the book she had just resumed, rose and inviting the new comer to enter, handed her a chair.

She was a tall, gaunt, sallow-complexioned woman of uncertain age, with yellow hair, pale watery blue eyes, and a sanctimonious expression of countenance.

Her dress was almost austere in its simplicity; a dove-colored calico, cotton gloves of a little darker shade, a white muslin handkerchief crossed on her bosom, a close straw bonnet with no trimming but a skirt of plain, white ribbon and a piece of the same put straight across the top, brought down over the ears and tied under the chin.

"My name is Drybread," she announced with a slight, stiff courtesy; then seating herself bolt upright on Mildred's offered chair, waited to be addressed.

"Mrs. or Miss?" queried Mrs. Keith pleasantly.

"Miss. And yours?"

"Mrs. Keith. Allow me to introduce my aunt, Miss Stanhope, and my daughter Mildred. These little people too belong to me."

"Gueth we do so?" said Don, showing a double row of pearly teeth, "cauth you're our own mamma. Ain't she, Cyril?"

"Do you go to school, my little man?" asked the visitor, unbending slightly in the stiffness of her manner.

"Ain't your man! don't like dwy bwead, 'cept when I'se vewy hungwy."

"Neither do I," chimed in Cyril. "And we don't go to school. Papa says we're not big enough."

"Don! Cyril! my little boys must not be rude," reproved the mamma. "Run away now to your plays."

"They're pretty children," remarked the caller as the twain disappeared.

"Very frank in the expression of their sentiments and wishes," the mother responded smiling.

"Extremely so, I should say;" added Mildred dryly.

"Is it not a mother's duty to curb and restrain?" queried the visitor, fixing her cold blue eyes upon Mrs. Keith's face.

"Certainly; where she deems it needful."

Mrs. Keith's tones were perfectly sweet-tempered; Mildred's not quite so, as she added with emphasis, "And no one so capable of judging when it is needful as my mother."

"Quite natural and proper sentiments for her daughter, no doubt. How do you like Pleasant Plains?"

The question was addressed more particularly to Miss Stanhope, and it was she who replied.

"We are quite disposed to like the place Miss Stalebread; the streets are widely pleasant and would be quite beautiful if the forest trees had been left."

"My name is Drybread! a good honest name; if not quite so aristocratic and fine sounding as Keith."

"Excuse me!" said Miss Stanhope. "I have an unfortunate kind of memory for names and had no intention of miscalling yours."

"Oh! then it's all right.

"Mrs. Keith, I'm a teacher; take young boys and girls of all ages. Perhaps you might feel like entrusting me with some of yours. I see you have quite a flock."

"I will take it into consideration," Mrs. Keith answered; "What branches do you teach?"

"Reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and English grammar."

"I've heard of teachers boarding round," remarked Mildred, assailed by a secret apprehension; "is that the way you do?"

"No; I live at home, at my father's."

Miss Drybread was scarcely out of earshot when Ada burst out vehemently.

"I don't want to be distrusted to her! she doesn't look distrusty, does she, Zillah? Mother please don't consider it!"

"But just say yes at once?" asked mother playfully, pressing a kiss upon the little flushed, anxious face.

"Oh no, no, no! please, mamma dear;" cried the child returning the caress and putting her arms lovingly about her mother's neck. "You didn't like her, did you?"

Mrs. Keith acknowledged laughingly that she had not been very favorably impressed, and Zillah joining in Ada's entreaties, presently promised that she would try to hear their lessons at home. A decision which was received with delight and a profusion of thanks and caresses.

Mildred was glad to find herself alone with her mother that evening for a short time, after the younger ones were in bed; for she had a plan to unfold.

It was that she should act as governess to her sisters, and the little boys, if they were considered old enough now to begin the ascent of the hill of science.

"My dear child!" the mother said with a look of proud affection into the glowing animated face, "I fully appreciate the love and self-devotion to me and the children that have prompted this plan of yours; but I am by no means willing to lay such heavy burdens on your young shoulders."

"But mother – "

"Wait a little, dearie, till I have said my say. Your own studies must be taken up again. Your father is greatly pleased with an arrangement he has just made for you and Rupert and Zillah to recite to Mr. Lord.

"The English branches, Latin, Greek and the higher mathematics, are what he is willing to undertake to teach."