Read Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels Online

Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (188 page)

 

Page 1078
of the subject that you appear to," said she. "My authority over Polly is, you know, of an extremely nominal kind."
"Still," said my grandmother, "you must be mistress in your own house. Polly, I am sure, knows her duty to you."
"Polly's idea of allegiance is very much like that of the old Spanish nobles to their king; it used to run somewhat thus: 'We, who are every way as good as you are, promise obedience to your government if you maintain our rights and liberties, but if not, not.' Now Polly's ideas of 'rights and liberties' are of a very set and particular nature, and I have found her generally disposed to make a good fight for them. Still, after all," she added, "the poor old thing loves me, and I think will be willing to indulge me in having a doll, if I really am set upon it. The only way I can carry my point with Polly is, to come down on her with a perfect avalanche of certainty, and so I have passed my word to you that I will be responsible for this child. Polly may scold and fret for a fortnight; but she is too good a Puritan to question whether people shall keep their promises. Polly abhors covenant-breaking with all her soul, and so in the end she will have to help me through."
"It's a pretty child," said my grandmother, "and an engaging one, and Polly may come to liking her."
"There's no saying," said Miss Mehitable. "You never know what you may find in the odd corners of an old maid's heart, when you fairly look into them. There are often unused hoards of maternal affection enough to set up an orphan-asylum; but it's like iron filings and a magnet,you must try them with a live child, and if there is anything in 'em you find it out. That little object," she said, looking over her shoulder at Tina, "made an instant commotion in the dust and rubbish of my forlorn old garret, and brought to light a deal that I thought had gone to the moles and the bats long ago. She will do me good, I can feel, with her little pertnesses and her airs and fancies. If you could know how chilly and lonesome an old house gets sometimes, particularly in autumn, when the equinoctial storm is brewing! A lively child is a godsend, even if she turns the whole house topsy-turvy."
"Well, a child can't always be a plaything," said Aunt Lois; "it's a solemn and awful responsibility."
"And if I don't take it, who will?" said Miss Mehitable,

 

Page 1079
gravely. "If a better one would, I would n't. I've no great confidence in myself. I profess no skill in human cobbling. I can only give house-room and shelter and love, and let come what will come. 'A man cannot escape what is written on his forehead,' the Turkish proverb says, and this poor child's history is all forewritten."
"The Lord will bless you for your goodness to the orphan," said my grandmother.
"I don't know about its being goodness. I take a fancy to her. I hunger for the child. There's no merit in wanting your bit of cake, and maybe taking it when it is n't good for you; but let's hope all's well that ends well. Since I have fairly claimed her for mine, I begin to feel a fierce right of property in her, and you'd see me fighting like an old hen with anybody that should try to get her away from me. You'll see me made an old fool of by her smart little ways and speeches; and I already am proud of her beauty. Did you ever see a brighter little minx?"
We looked across to the other end of the fireplace, where Miss Tina sat perched, with great contentment, on Sam Lawson's knee, listening with wide-open eyes to the accounts he was giving of the haunted house. The beautiful hair that Miss Asphyxia had cut so close had grown with each day, till now it stood up in half rings of reddish gold, through which the fire shone with a dancing light; and her great eyes seemed to radiate brightness from as many points as a diamond.
"Depend upon it, those children are of good blood," said Miss Mehitable, decisively. "You'll never make me believe that they will not be found to belong in some way to some reputable stock."
"Well, we know nothing about their parents," said my grandmother, "except what we heard second-hand through Sam Lawson. It was a wandering woman, sick and a stranger, who was taken down and died in Old Crab Smith's house, over in Needmore."
"One can tell, by the child's manner of speaking, that she has been brought up among educated people," said Miss Mehitable. "She is no little rustic. The boy, too, looks of the fine clay of the earth. But it's time for me to take little Miss Rattlebrain home with me, and get her into bed. Sleep is a gra-

 

Page 1080
cious state for children, and the first step in my new duties is a plain one." So saying, Miss Mehitable rose, and, stepping over to the other side of the fireplace, tapped Tina lightly on the shoulder. "Come, Pussy," she said, "get your bonnet, and we will go home."
Harry, who had watched all the movements between Miss Mehitable and his sister with intense interest, now stepped forward, blushing very much, but still with a quaint little old-fashioned air of manliness. "Is my sister going to live with you?"
"So we have agreed, my little man," said Miss Mehitable. "I hope you have no objection?"
"Will you let me come and see her sometimes?"
"Certainly; you will always be quite welcome."
"I want to see her sometimes, because my mother left her under my care. I sha'n't have a great deal of time to come in the daytime, because I must work for my living," he said, "but a little while sometimes at night, if you would let me."
"And what do you work at?" said Miss Mehitable, surveying the delicate boy with an air of some amusement.
"I used to pick up potatoes, and fodder the cattle, and do a great many things; and I am growing stronger every day, and by and by can do a great deal more."
"Well said, sonny," said my grandfather, laying his hand on Harry's head. "You speak like a smart boy. We can have you down to help tend sawmill."
"I wonder how many more boys will be wanted to help tend sawmill," said Aunt Lois.
"Well, good night, all," said Miss Mehitable, starting to go home.
Tina, however, stopped and left her side, and threw her arms round Harry's neck and kissed him. "Good night now. You'll come and see me to-morrow," she said.
"May I come too?" I said, almost before I thought.
"O, certainly, do come," said Tina, with that warm, earnest light in her eyes which seemed the very soul of hospitality.
"She'
ll like to have you, I know."
"The child is taking possession of the situation at once," said Miss Mehitable. "Well, Brighteyes, you may come too," she added, to me. "A precious row there will be among the

 

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old books when you all get together there";and Miss Mehitable with the gay, tripping figure by her side, left the room.
"Is this great, big, dark house yours?" said the child, as they came under the shadow of a dense thicket of syringas and lilacs that overhung the front of the house.
"Yes, this is Doubting Castle," said Miss Mehitable.
"And does Giant Despair live here?" said Tina. "Mamma showed me a picture of him once in a book."
"Well, he has tried many times to take possession," said Miss Mehitable, "but I do what I can to keep him out, and you must help me."
Saying this she opened the door of a large, old-fashioned room, that appeared to have served both the purposes of a study and parlor. It was revealed to view by the dusky, uncertain glimmer of a wood fire that had burned almost down on a pair of tall brass andirons. The sides of the room were filled to the ceiling with book-cases full of books. Some dark portraits of men and women were duskily revealed by the flickering light, as well as a wide, ample-bosomed chintz sofa and a great chintz-covered easy-chair. A table draped with a green cloth stood in a corner by the fire, strewn over with books and writing-materials, and sustaining a large work-basket.
"How dark it is!" said the child.
Miss Mehitable took a burning splinter of the wood, and lighted a candle in a tall, plated candlestick, that stood on the high, narrow mantel-piece over the fireplace. At this moment a side door opened, and a large-boned woman, dressed in a homespun stuff petticoat, with a short, loose sack of the same material, appeared at the door. Her face was freckled; her hair, of a carroty-yellow, was plastered closely to her head and secured by a horn comb; her eyes were so sharp and searching, that, as she fixed them on Tina, she blinked involuntarily. Around her neck she wore a large string of gold beads, the brilliant gleam of which, catching the firelight, revealed itself at once to Tina's eye, and caused her to regard the woman with curiosity.
She appeared to have opened the door with an intention of asking a question; but stopped and surveyed the child with a sharp expression of not very well-pleased astonishment. "I thought you spoke to me," she said, at last, to Miss Mehitable.

 

Page 1082
''You may warm my bed now, Polly," said Miss Mehitable; "I shall be ready to go up in a few moments."
Polly stood a moment more, as if awaiting some communication about the child; but as Miss Mehitable turned away, and appeared to be busying herself about the fire, Polly gave a sudden windy dart from the room, and closed the door with a bang that made the window-casings rattle.
"Why, what did she do that for?" said Tina.
"O, it 's Polly's way; she does everything with all her might," said Miss Mehitable.
"Don't she like
me?"
said the child.
"Probably not. She knows nothing about you, and she does not like new things."
"But won't she
ever
like me?" persisted Tina.
"That,
my dear, will depend in a great degree on yourself. If she sees that you are good and behave well, she will probably end by liking you; but old people like her are afraid that children will meddle with their things, and get them out of place."
"I mean to be good," said Tina, resolutely. "When I lived with Miss Asphyxia, I wanted to be bad, I tried to be bad; but now I am changed. I mean to be good, because you are good to me," and the child laid her head confidingly in Miss Mehitable's lap.
The dearest of all flattery to the old and uncomely is this caressing, confiding love of childhood, and Miss Mehitable felt a glow of pleasure about her dusky old heart at which she really wondered. "Can anything so fair really love
me?"
she asked herself. Alas! how much of this cheap-bought happiness goes to waste daily! While unclaimed children grow up loveless, men and women wither in lonely, craving solitude.
Polly again appeared at the door. "Your bed 's all warm, and you'd better go right up, else what's the use of warming it?"
"Yes, I'll come immediately," said Miss Mehitable, endeavoring steadfastly to look as if she did not see Polly's looks, and to act as if there had of course always been a little girl to sleep with her.
"Come, my little one."
My
little one! Miss Mehitable's heart gave a great throb at this possessive pronoun. It all seemed as

 

Page 1083
strange to her as a dream. A few hours ago, and she sat in the old windy, lonesome house, alone with the memories of dead friends, and feeling herself walking to the grave in a dismal solitude. Suddenly she awoke as from a dark dream, and found herself sole possessor of beauty, youth, and love, in a glowing little form, all her own, with no mortal to dispute it. She had a mother's right in a child. She might have a daughter's love. The whole house seemed changed. The dreary, lonesome great hall, with its tall, solemn-ticking clock, the wide, echoing staircase, up which Miss Mehitable had crept, shivering and alone, so many sad nights now gave back the chirpings of Tina's rattling gayety and the silvery echoes of her laugh, as, happy in her new lot, she danced up the stairway, stopping to ask eager questions on this and that, as anything struck her fancy. For Miss Tina had one of those buoyant, believing natures, born to ride always on the very top crest of every wave,one fully disposed to accept of good fortune in all its length and breadth, and to make the most of it at once.
"This is
our
home," she said, "is n't it?"
"Yes, darling," said Miss Mehitable, catching her in her arms fondly; "it is
our
home; we will have good times here together."
Tina threw her arms around Miss Mehitable's neck and kissed her. "I'm so glad! Harry said that God would find us a home as soon as it was best, and now here it comes."
Miss Mehitable set the child down by the side of a great dark wooden bedstead, with tall, carved posts, draped with curious curtains of India linen, where strange Oriental plants and birds, and quaint pagodas and figures in turbans, were all mingled together, like the phantasms in a dream. Then going to a tall chest of drawers, resplendent with many brass handles, which reached almost to the ceiling, she took a bunch of keys from her pocket and unlocked a drawer. A spasm as of pain passed over her face as she opened it, and her hands trembled with some suppressed emotion as she took up and laid down various articles, searching for something. At last she found what she wanted, and shook it out. It was a child's nightgown, of just the size needed by Tina. It was yellow with age, but made

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