The Wide, Wide World

CHAPTER XIII

Before the sun was up the next morning, Mrs. Van Brunt came into Ellen's room and aroused her.

"It's a real shame to wake you up," she said, "when you were sleeping so finely; but 'Brahm wants to be off to his work, and won't stay for breakfast. Slept sound, did you?"

"Oh yes, indeed; as sound as a top," said Ellen, rubbing her eyes; "I am hardly awake yet."

"I declare it's too bad," said Mrs. Van Brunt, "but there's no help for it. You don't feel no headache, do you, nor pain in your bones?"

"No, ma'am, not a bit of it; I feel nicely."

"Ah! well," said Mrs. Van Brunt, "then your tumble into the brook didn't do you any mischief; I thought it wouldn't. Poor little soul!"

"I am very glad I did fall in," said Ellen, "for if I hadn't I shouldn't have come here, Mrs. Van Brunt."

The old lady instantly kissed her.

"Oh! mayn't I just take one look at the kitties?" said Ellen, when she was ready to go.

"Indeed you shall," said Mrs. Van Brunt, "if 'Brahm's hurry was ever so much; and it ain't besides. Come here, dear."

She took Ellen back to a waste lumber-room, where in a corner, on some old pieces of carpet, lay pussy and her family. How fondly Ellen's hand was passed over each little soft back! How hard it was for her to leave them!

"Wouldn't you like to take one home with you, dear?" said Mrs. Van Brunt at length.

"Oh! may I?" said Ellen, looking up in delight; "are you in earnest? Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. Van Brunt! Oh, I shall be so glad!"

"Well, choose one, then, dear; choose the one you like best, and 'Brahm shall carry it for you."

The choice was made, and Mrs. Van Brunt and Ellen returned to the kitchen, where Mr. Van Brunt had already been waiting some time. He shook his head when he saw what was in the basket his mother handed to him.

"That won't do," said he; "I can't do that, mother. I'll undertake to see Miss Ellen safe home, but the cat 'ud be more than I could manage. I think I'd hardly get off with a whole skin 'tween the one and t'other."

"Well, now!" said Mrs. Van Brunt.

Ellen gave a longing look at her black-and-white favourite, which was uneasily endeavouring to find out the height of the basket, and mewing at the same time with a most ungratified expression. However, though sadly disappointed, she submitted with a very good grace to what could not be helped. First setting down the little cat out of the basket it seemed to like so ill, and giving it one farewell pat and squeeze, she turned to the kind old lady who stood watching her, and throwing her arms around her neck, silently spoke her gratitude in a hearty hug and kiss.

"Good-bye, ma'am," said she; "I may come and see them some time again, and see you, mayn't I?"

"Indeed you shall, my darling," said the old woman, "just as often as you like; – just as often as you can get away. I'll make 'Brahm bring you home sometimes. 'Brahm, you'll bring her, won't you?"

"There's two words to that bargain, mother, I can tell you; but if I don't, I'll know the reason on't."

And away they went. Ellen drew two or three sighs at first, but she could not help brightening up soon. It was early – not sunrise; the cool freshness of the air was enough to give one new life and spirit; the sky was fair and bright; and Mr. Van Brunt marched along at a quick pace. Enlivened by the exercise, Ellen speedily forgot everything disagreeable; and her little head was filled with pleasant things. She watched where the silver light in the east foretold the sun's coming. She watched the silver changed to gold, till a rich yellow tint was flung over the whole landscape; and then broke the first rays of light upon the tops of the western hills – the sun was up. It was a new sight to Ellen.

"How beautiful! Oh, how beautiful!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," said Mr. Van Brunt, in his slow way, "it'll be a fine day for the field. I guess I'll go with the oxen over to that 'ere big meadow."

"Just look," said Ellen, "how the light comes creeping down the side of the mountain – now it has got to the wood – Oh, do look at the tops of the trees! Oh! I wish mamma was here."

Mr. Van Brunt didn't know what to say to this. He rather wished so too for her sake.

"There," said Ellen, "now the sunshine is on the fence, and the road, and everything. I wonder what is the reason that the sun shines first upon the top of the mountain, and then comes so slowly down the side; why don't it shine on the whole at once?"

Mr. Van Brunt shook his head in ignorance. "He guessed it always did so," he said.

"Yes," said Ellen, "I suppose it does, but that's the very thing – I want to know the reason why. And I noticed just now, it shone in my face before it touched my hands. Isn't it queer?"

"Humph! – there's a great many queer things, if you come to that," said Mr. Van Brunt philosophically.

But Ellen's head ran on from one thing to another, and her next question was not so wide of the subject as her companion might have thought.

"Mr. Van Brunt, are there any schools about here?"

"Schools?" said the person addressed. "Yes, there's plenty of schools."

"Good ones?" said Ellen.

"Well, I don't exactly know about that. There's Captain Conklin's. That had ought to be a good 'un. He's a regular smart man, they say."

"Whereabouts is that?" said Ellen.

"His school? It's a mile or so the other side of my house."

"And how far is it from your house to Aunt Fortune's?"

"A good deal better than two mile, but we'll be there before long. You ain't tired, be you?"

"No," said Ellen. But this reminder gave a new turn to her thoughts, and her spirits were suddenly checked. Her former brisk and springing step changed to so slow and lagging a one that Mr. Van Brunt more than once repeated his remark that he saw she was tired.

If it was that, Ellen grew tired very fast. She lagged more and more as they neared the house, and at last quite fell behind, and allowed Mr. Van Brunt to go in first.

Miss Fortune was busy about the breakfast, and as Mr. Van Brunt afterwards described it, "looking as if she could have bitten off a tenpenny nail," and indeed as if the operation would have been rather gratifying than otherwise. She gave them no notice at first, bustling to and fro with great energy, but all of a sudden she brought up directly in front of Ellen, and said —

"Why didn't you come home last night?"

The words were jerked out rather than spoken.

"I got wet in the brook," said Ellen, "and Mrs. Van Brunt was so kind as to keep me."

"Which way did you go out of the house yesterday?"

"Through the front door."

"The front door was locked."

"I unlocked it."

"What did you go out that way for?"

"I didn't want to come this way."

"Why not?" Ellen hesitated.

"Why not?" demanded Miss Fortune, still more emphatically than before.

"I didn't want to see you, ma'am," said Ellen, flushing.

"If ever you do so again!" said Miss Fortune in a kind of cold fury. "I've a great mind to whip you for this, as ever I had to eat."

The flush faded on Ellen's cheek, and a shiver visibly passed over her – not from fear. She stood with downcast eyes and compressed lips, a certain instinct of childish dignity warning her to be silent. Mr. Van Brunt put himself in between.

"Come, come!" said he, "this is getting to be too much of a good thing. Beat your cream, ma'am, as much as you like, or if you want to try your hand on something else you'll have to take me first, I promise you."

"Now don't you meddle, Van Brunt," said the lady sharply, "with what ain't no business o' yourn."

"I don't know about that," said Mr. Van Brunt. "Maybe it is my business; but meddle or no meddle, Miss Fortune, it is time for me to be in the field, and if you ha'n't no better breakfast for Miss Ellen and me than all this here, we'll just go right away hum again; but there's something in your kettle there that smells uncommonly nice, and I wish you'd just let us have it and no more words."

No more words did Miss Fortune waste on any one that morning. She went on with her work and dished up the breakfast in silence, and with a face that Ellen did not quite understand, only she thought she had never in her life seen one so disagreeable. The meal was a very solemn and uncomfortable one. Ellen could scarcely swallow, and her aunt was near in the same condition. Mr. Van Brunt and the old lady alone despatched their breakfast as usual, with no other attempts at conversation than the common mumbling on the part of the latter, which nobody minded, and one or two strange grunts from the former, the meaning of which, if they had any, nobody tried to find out.

There was a breach now between Ellen and her aunt that neither could make any effort to mend. Miss Fortune did not renew the disagreeable conversation that Mr. Van Brunt had broken off. She left Ellen entirely to herself, scarcely speaking to her, or seeming to know when she went out or came in. And this lasted day after day. Wearily they passed. After one or two, Mr. Van Brunt seemed to stand just where he did before in Miss Fortune's good graces, but not Ellen. To her, when others were not by, her face wore constantly something of the same cold, hard, disagreeable expression it had put on after Mr. Van Brunt's interference – a look that Ellen came to regard with absolute abhorrence. She kept away by herself as much as she could; but she did not know what to do with her time, and for want of something better often spent it in tears. She went to bed cheerless night after night, and arose spiritless morning after morning, and this lasted till Mr. Van Brunt more than once told his mother that "that poor little thing was going wandering about like a ghost, and growing thinner and paler every day, and he didn't know what she would come to if she went on so."

Ellen longed now for a letter with unspeakable longing, but none came. Day after day brought new disappointment, each day more hard to bear. Of her only friend, Mr. Van Brunt, she saw little. He was much away in the fields during the fine weather, and when it rained Ellen herself was prisoner at home, whither he never came but at meal times. The old grandmother was very much disposed to make much of her; but Ellen shrank, she hardly knew why, from her fond caresses, and never found herself alone with her if she could help it, for then she was regularly called to the old lady's side and obliged to go through a course of kissing, fondling, and praising she would gladly have escaped. In her aunt's presence this was seldom attempted, and never permitted to go on. Miss Fortune was sure to pull Ellen away and bid her mother "stop that palavering," avowing that "it made her sick." Ellen had one faint hope that her aunt would think of sending her to school, as she employed her in nothing at home, and certainly took small delight in her company; but no hint of the kind dropped from Miss Fortune's lips, and Ellen's longing look for this as well as for a word from her mother was daily doomed to be ungratified and to grow more keen by delay.

One pleasure only remained to Ellen in the course of the day, and that one she enjoyed with the carefulness of a miser. It was seeing the cows milked, morning and evening. For this she got up very early, and watched till the men came for the pails; and then away she bounded out of the house and to the barn-yard. There were the milky mothers, five in number, standing about, each in her own corner of the yard or cow-house, waiting to be relieved of their burden of milk. They were fine gentle animals, in excellent condition, and looking every way happy and comfortable; nothing living under Mr. Van Brunt's care was ever suffered to look otherwise. He was always in the barn or barn-yard at milking time, and under his protection Ellen felt safe and looked on at her ease. It was a very pretty scene – at least she thought so. The gentle cows standing quietly to be milked as if they enjoyed it, and munching the cud; and the white stream of milk foaming into the pails; then there was the interest of seeing whether Sam or Johnny would get through first; and how near Jane or Dolly would come to rivalling Streaky's fine pailful; and at last Ellen allowed Mr. Van Brunt to teach herself how to milk. She began with trembling, but learnt fast enough; and more than one pailful of milk that Miss Fortune strained had been, unknown to her, drawn by Ellen's fingers. These minutes in the farm-yard were the pleasantest in Ellen's day. While they lasted every care was forgotten, and her little face was as bright as the morning; but the milking was quickly over, and the cloud gathered on Ellen's brow almost as soon as the shadow of the house fell upon it.

"Where is the post-office, Mr. Van Brunt?" she asked one morning, as she stood watching the sharpening of an axe upon the grindstone. The axe was in that gentleman's hand, and its edge carefully laid to the whirling stone, which one of the farm boys was turning.

"Where is the post-office? Why, over to Thirlwall, to be sure," replied Mr. Van Brunt, glancing up at her from his work. "Faster, Johnny."

"And how often do letters come here?" said Ellen.

"Take care, Johnny! – some more water – mind your business, will you! – Just as often as I go to fetch 'em, Miss Ellen, and no oftener."

"And how often do you go, Mr. Van Brunt?"

"Only when I've some other errand, Miss Ellen; my grain would never be in the barn if I was running to post-office every other thing, and for what ain't there too. I don't get a letter but two or three times a year, I s'pose, though I call, I guess, half-a-dozen times."

"Ah, but there's one there now, or soon will be, I know, for me," said Ellen. "When do you think you'll go again, Mr. Van Brunt?"

"Now if I'd ha' knowed that I'd ha' gone to Thirlwall yesterday – I was within a mile of it. I don't see as I can go this week anyhow in the world; but I'll make some errand there the first day I can, Miss Ellen, that you may depend on. You shan't wait for your letter a bit longer than I can help."

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Van Brunt, you are very kind. Then the letters never come except when you go after them?"

"No – yes, they do come once in a while by old Mr. Swaim, but he ha'n't been here this great while."

"And who's he?" said Ellen.

"Oh, he's a queer old chip that goes round the country on all sorts of errands; he comes along once in a while. That'll do, Johnny. I believe this here tool is as sharp as I have any occasion for."

"What's the use of pouring water upon the grindstone?" said Ellen; "why wouldn't it do as well dry?"

"I can't tell, I am sure," replied Mr. Van Brunt, who was slowly drawing his thumb over the edge of the axe; "your questions are a good deal too sharp for me, Miss Ellen; I only know it would spoil the axe, or the grindstone, or both most likely."

"It's very odd," said Ellen thoughtfully; "I wish I knew everything. But, oh dear! I am not likely to know anything," said she, her countenance suddenly changing from its pleased inquisitive look to a cloud of disappointment and sorrow. Mr. Van Brunt noticed the change.

"Ain't your aunt going to send you to school, then?" said he.

"I don't know," said Ellen, sighing; "she never speaks about it, nor about anything else. But I declare I'll make her!" she exclaimed, changing again. "I'll go right in and ask her, and then she'll have to tell me. I will! I am tired of living so. I'll know what she means to do, and then I can tell you what I must do."

Mr. Van Brunt, seemingly dubious about the success of this line of conduct, stroked his chin and his axe alternately two or three times in silence, and finally walked off. Ellen, without waiting for her courage to cool, went directly into the house.

Miss Fortune, however, was not in the kitchen; to follow her into her secret haunts, the dairy, cellar, or lower kitchen, was not to be thought of. Ellen waited awhile, but her aunt did not come, and the excitement of the moment cooled down. She was not quite so ready to enter upon the business as she had felt at first; she had even some qualms about it.

"But I'll do it," said Ellen to herself; "it will be hard, but I'll do it!"

CHAPTER XIV

The next morning after breakfast Ellen found the chance she rather dreaded than wished for. Mr. Van Brunt had gone out; the old lady had not left her room, and Miss Fortune was quietly seated by the fire, busied with some mysteries of cooking. Like a true coward, Ellen could not make up her mind to bolt at once into the thick of the matter, but thought to come to it gradually – always a bad way.

"What is that, Aunt Fortune?" said she, after she had watched her with a beating heart for about five minutes.

"What is what?"

"I mean, what is that you are straining through the colander into that jar?"

"Hop-water."

"What is it for?"

"I'm scalding this meal with it to make turnpikes."

"Turnpikes!" said Ellen; "I thought turnpikes were high, smooth roads with toll-gates every now and then – that's what mamma told me they were."

"That's all the kind of turnpikes your mamma knew anything about, I reckon," said Miss Fortune, in a tone that conveyed the notion that Mrs. Montgomery's education had been very incomplete. "And indeed," she added immediately after, "if she had made more turnpikes and paid fewer tolls, it would have been just as well, I'm thinking."

Ellen felt the tone, if she did not thoroughly understand the words. She was silent a moment; then remembering her purpose, she began again. "What are these, then, Aunt Fortune?"

"Cakes, child, cakes! turnpike cakes – what I raise the bread with."

"What, those little brown cakes I have seen you melt in water and mix in the flour when you make bread?"

"Mercy on us! yes! you've seen hundreds of 'em since you've been here, if you never saw one before."

"I never did," said Ellen. "But what are they called turnpikes for?"

"The land knows! I don't. For mercy's sake stop asking me questions, Ellen; I don't know what's got into you; you'll drive me crazy."

"But there's one more question I want to ask very much," said Ellen, with her heart beating.

"Well, ask it then quick, and have done, and take yourself off. I have other fish to fry than to answer all your questions."

Miss Fortune, however, was still quietly seated by the fire stirring her meal and hop-water, and Ellen could not be quick; the words stuck in her throat – came out at last.

"Aunt Fortune, I wanted to ask you if I may go to school?"

"Yes."

Ellen's heart sprang with a feeling of joy, a little qualified by the peculiar dry tone in which the word was uttered.

"When may I go?"

"As soon as you like."

"Oh, thank you, ma'am. To which school shall I go, Aunt Fortune?"

"To whichever you like."

"But I don't know anything about them," said Ellen; "how can I tell which is best?"

Miss Fortune was silent.

"What schools are there near here?" said Ellen.

"There's Captain Conklin's down at the Cross, and Miss Emerson's at Thirlwall."

Ellen hesitated. The name was against her, but nevertheless she concluded on the whole that the lady's school would be the pleasantest.

"Is Miss Emerson any relation of yours?" she asked.

"No."

"I think I should like to go to her school the best. I will go there if you will let me – may I?"

"Yes."

"And I will begin next Monday – may I?"

"Yes."

Ellen wished exceedingly that her aunt would speak in some other tone of voice; it was a continual damper to her rising hopes.

"I'll get my books ready," said she; "and look 'em over a little too, I guess. But what will be the best way for me to go, Aunt Fortune?"

"I don't know."

"I couldn't walk so far, could I?"

"You know best."

"I couldn't, I am sure," said Ellen; "it's four miles to Thirlwall, Mr. Van Brunt said; that would be too much for me to walk twice a day; and I should be afraid besides."

A dead silence.

"But, Aunt Fortune, do please tell me what I am to do. How can I know unless you tell me? What way is there that I can go to school?"

"It is unfortunate that I don't keep a carriage," said Miss Fortune; "but Mr. Van Brunt can go for you morning and evening in the ox-cart, if that will answer."

"The ox-cart! But, dear me! it would take him all day, Aunt Fortune. It takes hours and hours to go and come with the oxen; Mr. Van Brunt wouldn't have time to do anything but carry me to school and bring me home."

"Of course; but that's of no consequence," said Miss Fortune, in the same dry tone.

"Then I can't go – there's no help for it," said Ellen despondingly. "Why didn't you say so before. When you said yes I thought you meant yes."

She covered her face. Miss Fortune rose with a half smile and carried her jar of scalded meal into the pantry. She then came back and commenced the operation of washing-up the breakfast things.

"Ah, if I only had a little pony," said Ellen, "that would carry me there and back, and go trotting about with me everywhere – how nice that would be!"

"Yes, that would be very nice! And who do you think would go trotting about after the pony? I suppose you would leave that to Mr. Van Brunt; and I should have to go trotting about after you, to pick you up in case you broke your neck in some ditch or gully; it would be a very nice affair altogether, I think."