Read Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels Online

Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (202 page)

Page 1113

vent her growing up like yourself. I don't doubt you conscientiously intended to do your duty by her, and I beg you to believe that you need have no further trouble with her."

"Goodness gracious knows," said Miss Asphyxia, "the child ain't much to fight over,she was nothin' but a plague; and I'd rather have done all she did any day, than to 'a' had her round under my feet. I hate young uns, anyway."

"Then why, my good woman, do you object to parting with her?"

"Who said I did object? I don't care nothin' about parting with her; all is, when I begin a thing I like to go through with it."

"But if it is n't worth going through with," said Miss Mehitable, "it's as well to leave it, is it not?"

"And I'd got her clothes made,not that they're worth so very much, but then they're worth just what they
are
worth, anyway," said Miss Asphyxia.

Here Tina made a sudden impulsive dart from Miss Mehitable's lap, and ran out of the back door, and over to her new home, and up into the closet of the chamber where was hanging the new suit of homespun in which Miss Asphyxia had arrayed her. She took it down and rolled the articles all together in a tight bundle, which she secured with a string, and, before the party in the kitchen had ceased wondering at her flight, suddenly reappeared, with flushed cheeks and dilated eyes, and tossed the bundle into Miss Asphyxia's lap. "There's every bit you ever gave me," she said; "I don't want to keep a single thing."

"My dear, is that a proper way to speak?" said Miss Mehitable, reprovingly; but Tina saw my grandmother's broad shoulders joggling with a secret laugh, and discerned twinkling lines in the reproving gravity which Miss Mehitable tried to assume. She felt pretty sure of her ground by this time.

"Well, it's no use talkin'," said Miss Asphyxia, rising. "If folks think they're able to bring up a beggar child like a lady, it's their lookout and not mine. I wan n't aware," she added, with severe irony, "that Parson Rossiter left so much of an estate that you could afford to bring up other folks' children in silks and satins."

Page 1114

"Our estate is n't much," said Miss Mehitable, good-naturedly, "but we shall make the best of it."

"Well, now, you just mark my words, Miss Rossiter," said Miss Asphyxia, "that 'ere child will never grow up a smart woman with
your
bringing' up; she'll jest run right over
you,
and you'll let her have her head in everything. I see jest how 't 'll be; I don't want nobody to tell me."

"I dare say you are quite right, Miss Smith," said Miss Mehitable; "I have n't the slightest opinion of my own powers in that line; but she may be happy with me, for all that."

"Happy?" repeated Miss Asphyxia, with an odd intonation, as if she were repeating a sound of something imperfectly comprehended, and altogether out of her line. "O, well, if folks is goin' to begin to talk about
that,
I hain't got time; it don't seem to me that
that'
s what this 'ere world's for."

"What is it for, then?" said Miss Mehitable, who felt an odd sort of interest in the human specimen before her.

"Meant for? Why, for hard work, I s'pose; that's all I ever found it for. Talk about coddling! it's little we get o' that, the way the Lord fixes things in this world, dear knows. He's pretty up and down with us, by all they tell us. You must take things right off, when they're goin'. Ef you don't, so much the worse for you; they won't wait for you. Lose an hour in the morning, and you may chase it till ye drop down, you never'll catch it! That's the way things goes, and I should like to know who's a going to stop to quiddle with young uns? 'T ain't me, that's certain; so, as there's no more to be made by this 'ere talk, I may's well be goin'. You're welcome to the young un, ef you say so; I jest wanted you to know that what I begun I'd 'a' gone through with, ef you had n't stepped in; and I did n't want no reflections on my good name, neither, for I had my ideas of what's right, and can have 'em yet, I s'pose, if Mis' Badger does think I've got a heart of stone. I should like to know how I'm to have any other when I ain't elected, and I don't see as I am, or likely to be, and I don't see neither why I ain't full as good as a good many that be."

"Well, well, Miss Smith," said Miss Mehitable, "we can't any of us enter into those mysteries, but I respect your mo-

Page 1115

tives, and would be happy to see you any time you will call, and I'm in hopes to teach this little girl to treat you properly," she said, taking the child's hand.

"Likely story," said Miss Asphyxia, with a short, hard laugh. "She'll get ahead o' you, you'll see that: but I don't hold malice, so good morning,"and Miss Asphyxia suddenly and promptly departed, and was soon seen driving away at a violent pace.

"Upon my word, that woman is n't so bad, now," said Miss Mehitable, looking after her, while she leisurely inhaled a pinch of snuff.

"O, I'm so glad you did n't let her have me!" said Tina.

"To think of a creature so dry and dreary, so devoid even of the conception of enjoyment in life," said Miss Mehitable, "hurrying through life without a moment's rest,without even the capacity of resting if she could,and all for what?"

"For my part, mother, I think you were down too hard on her," said Aunt Lois.

"Not a bit," said my grandmother, cheerily. "Such folks ought to be talked to; it may set her to thinking, and do her good. I've had it on my heart to give that woman a piece of my mind ever since the children came here. Come here, my poor little dear," said she to Tina, with one of her impulsive outgushes of motherliness. "I know you must be hungry by this time; come into the buttery, and see what I've got for you."

Now there was an indiscreet championship of Miss Tina, a backing of her in her treatment of Miss Asphyxia, in this overflow, which Aunt Lois severely disapproved, and which struck Miss Mehitable as not being the very best thing to enforce her own teachings of decorum and propriety.

The small young lady tilted into the buttery after my grandmother, with the flushed cheeks and triumphant air of a victor, and they heard her little tongue running with the full assurance of having a sympathetic listener.

"Now mother will spoil that child, if you let her," said Aunt Lois. "She's the greatest hand to spoil children; she always lets 'em have what they ask for. I expect Susy's boys 'll be raising Cain round the house; they would if it was n't for

Page 1116

me. They have only to follow mother into that buttery, and out they come with great slices of bread and butter, any time of day,yes, and even sugar on it, if you'll believe me."

"And does 'em good, too," said my grandmother, who reappeared from the buttery, with Miss Tina tilting and dancing before her, with a confirmatory slice of bread and butter and sugar in her hand. "Tastes good, don't it, dear?" said she, giving the child a jovial chuck under her little chin.

"Yes indeed," said Miss Tina; "I'd like to have old nasty Sphyxy see now."

"Tut, tut! my dear," said grandmother; "good little girls don't call names";but at the same time the venerable gentlewoman nodded and winked in the most open manner across the curly head at Miss Mehitable, and her portly shoulders shook with laughter, so that the young culprit was not in the least abashed at the reproof.

"Mother, I do wonder at you!" said Aunt Lois, indignantly.

"Never you mind, Lois; I guess I've brought up more children than ever you did," said my grandmother, cheerily. "There, my little dear," she added, "you may run down to your play now, and never fear that anybody's going to get
you."

Miss Tina, upon this hint, gladly ran off to finish an architectural structure of pebbles by the river, which she was busy in building at the time when the awful vision of Miss Asphyxia appeared; and my grandmother returned to her buttery to attend to a few matters which had been left unfinished in the morning's work.

"It is a very serious responsibility," said Miss Mehitable, when she had knit awhile in silence, "at my time of life, to charge one's self with the education of a child. One treats one's self to a child as one buys a picture or a flower, but the child will not remain a picture or flower, and then comes the awful question, what it may grow to be, and what share you may have in determining it future."

"Well, old Parson Moore used to preach the best sermons on family government that ever I heard," said Aunt Lois. "He said you must begin in the very beginning and break a child's will,short off,nothing to be done without that. I remem-

Page 1117

ber he whipped little Titus, his first son, off and on, nearly a whole day, to make him pick up a pocket-handkerchief."

Here the edifying conversation was interrupted by a loud explosive expletive from the buttery, which showed that my grandmother was listening with anything but approbation.

"F
IDDLESTICKS
!" quoth she.

"And did he succeed in entirely subduing the child's will in that one effort?" said Miss Mehitable, musingly.

"Well, no. Mrs. Moore told me he had to have twenty or thirty just such spells before he brought him under; but he persevered, and he broke his will at last,at least so far that he always minded when his father was round."

"F
IDDLESTICKS
!" quoth my grandmother, in a yet louder and more explosive tone.

"Mrs. Badger does not appear to sympathize with your views," said Miss Mehitable.

"O, mother? Of course she don't; she has her own ways and doings, and she won't hear to reason," said Aunt Lois.

"Come, come, Lois; I never knew an old maid who did n't think she knew just how to bring up children," said my grandmother. "Wish you could have tried yourself with that sort of doxy when you was little. Guess if I'd broke your will, I should ha' had to break you for good an' all, for your will is about all there is of you! But I tell you, I had too much to do to spend a whole forenoon making you pick up a pocket-handkerchief. When you did n't mind, I hit you a good clip, and picked it up myself; and when you would n't go where I wanted you, I picked you up, neck and crop, and put you there. That was my government. I let your will take care of itself. I thought the Lord had given you a pretty strong one, and he knew what 't was for, and could take care of it in his own time, which hain't come yet, as I see."

Now this last was one of those personal thrusts with which dear family friends are apt to give arguments a practical application; and Aunt Lois's spare, thin cheeks flushed up as she said, in an aggrieved tone: "Well, I s'pose I'm dreadful, of course. Mother always contrives to turn round on me."

"Well, Lois, I hate to hear folks talk nonsense," said my grandmother, who by this time had got a pot of cream under

Page 1118

her arm, which she was stirring with the pudding-stick; and this afforded her an opportunity for emphasizing her sentences with occasional dumps of the same.

"People don't need to talk to me," she said, "about Parson Moore's government. Tite Moore was n't any great shakes, after all the row they made about him. He was well enough while his father was round, but about the worst boy that ever I saw when his eye was off from him. Good or bad, my children was about the same behind my back that they were before my face, anyway."

"Well, now, there was Aunt Sally Morse," said Aunt Lois, steadily ignoring the point of my grandmother's discourse. "There was a woman that brought up children exactly to suit me. Everything went like clock-work with her babies; they were nursed just so often, and no more; they were put down to sleep at just such a time, and nobody was allowed to rock 'em, or sing to 'em, or fuss with 'em. If they cried, she just whipped them till they stopped; and when they began to toddle about, she never put things out of their reach, but just slapped their hands whenever they touched them, till they learnt to let things alone."

"Slapped their hands!" quoth my grandmother, "and learnt them to let things alone! I'd like to ha' seen that tried on my children. Sally had a set of white, still children, that were all just like dipped candles by natur', and she laid it all to her management; and look at 'em now they're grown up. They're decent, respectable folks, but noways better than other folks' children. Lucinda Morse ain't a bit better than you are, Lois, if she was whipped and made to lie still when she was a baby, and you were taken up and rocked when you cried. All is, they had hard times when they were little, and cried themselves to sleep nights, and were hectored and worried when they ought to have been taking some comfort. Ain't the world hard enough, without fighting babies, I want to know? I hate to see a woman that don't want to rock her own baby, and is contriving ways all the time to shirk the care of it. Why, if all the world was that way, there would be no sense in Scriptur'. 'As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,' the Bible says, taking for granted that mothers were made to comfort children and give them good

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