Kitabı oku: «A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg», sayfa 5
CHAPTER V
HOW THE WORLD WIDENED
The summer passed rapidly. Daffodil found many things to entertain her, but grandfather demanded much of her time. He took his morning walk with her hand in his, but he did not go as far as formerly. Then, on his return, he had a nap in his chair. He lost his appetite during the latter part of the season. In the afternoon he took a long nap. Daffodil read to him now, and he did not appear to notice her blunders.
"Father fails rapidly, I think," Mrs. Bradin said to her husband.
He shook his head with a slow, sympathetic movement.
"We shall miss him very much. And Dilly will feel it. I am sorry to have her know the mystery no child can understand."
"We won't go for a walk this morning, Dilly," he said one day in later August. "The air is very close. We will wait until evening."
"But you go to bed so early."
"Yes, I'm getting old," with his faint, sweet smile.
"But everybody says you must live to be a hundred. That's a whole century."
"Sometimes I feel as if it were two centuries since I began. But it has been a pleasant journey toward the last. I'm glad to have had you, Dilly."
"I'm glad, too," the child said with her bright smile.
"Now you may sing to me a little."
So she sang him to sleep. Then she went to wait on her grandmother. Her mother was sewing by the window in their sleeping-room.
"Go and look at grandfather," she said presently.
"He is still asleep. Mother, I wish you would show me that stitch I began yesterday."
So she sat down at her work.
Mrs. Bradin went to her father. His head had drooped a little forward. She placed her hand on his forehead, and drew a long quivering breath. The summons had come, peacefully, for him.
She was still standing there when her husband entered, and at a glance he knew what had happened.
"It is best so," he said.
Barbe was startled beyond measure. Latterly her thoughts had been revolving much about herself, and though she had remarked the slow alteration, she had put off the assumption of the great change. Somewhere in the winter – maybe spring, and here it was with the ripening of summer.
They carried him to his room and laid him tenderly on his bed. A long, well-used life it had been.
To Daffodil it was a profound mystery. No child could comprehend it. This was the journey grandfather had spoken of, that she had imagined going back to France.
"What is it, mother? How do people go to heaven?" she asked.
"Some day we will talk it all over, when you can understand better. We must all go sometime. And we shall see each other there."
"Then it isn't so bad as never seeing one again," and there was a great tremble in her voice.
"No, dear. And God knows about the best times. We must trust to that."
He looked so peaceful the day of the burial that Daffodil thought he must be simply asleep. She said good-by to him softly. There had been no tragedy about it, but a quiet, reverent passing away.
Still, they missed him very much. Barbe wanted to set away the chair that had been so much to him. She could not bear to see it empty.
"Oh, no, mother," pleaded Daffodil. "When I go and sit in it I can talk to him, and he seems to come back and answer me. It's so lovely where he is and there isn't any winter. Think of having flowers all the year round. And no one ever is ill. There are such beautiful walks, and woods full of birds, the like of which one never sees here. And I can put my head down on his shoulder, just as I used, and I can feel his hand holding mine. Oh, no, don't take it away, for then I should lose him."
The child's eyes had a wonderful exalted light in them, and her voice had a tender, appealing sound, that went to the mother's heart. She was thankful, too, that Daffodil had no terror of death. She shrank from it as from some dread spectre standing in her way.
The child missed him most in her walks. Norah liked neighbors to chaff and gossip with; rambles, with no special motive, did not appeal to her. Gran'mere was always busy, her mother was easily tired out. She rode, as of old, with grandad, but she could not use the pillion, her arms were too short to go around his stout body. Her father took her out with him when he could; he did a good deal of surveying. On Saturday Ned Langdale would hunt them up, and one day he brought Archie, who was three years younger, and not exactly stupid, either, but always wanting to examine the beginning of things, and how the Indians came to own the continent, and why the Africans were black and had woolly hair and in the country called Asia they were yellow? And if God created only two at first, how did they come to be so different? And how did Adam know what to name the animals? Were there people living in the stars?
"Oh, do hush up," his mother would exclaim impatiently. "You are enough to turn one's brain upside down! And you can't say half the multiplication table. I don't believe you know how many black beans make five!"
It had been a great puzzle to him. He sprung it on Daffodil one day.
She considered. "Why, five would be five of anything, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, how quick you are with a good reason, too. I couldn't see into it for ever so long. I'm awful dull."
Then they both laughed. His face was such a good honest one, but not full of mirth, like Ned's.
They were really nice boys, and her father felt he could trust her with them. But he wished there were some tolerably well trained girls for her to know.
Then the winter came on again. Her father had to go to Philadelphia on some business, and there were stirring times in the brave old city. They missed him so much. Grandfather Bradin was promoted to the whole name now, as there was no chance of confusion, but the little girl as often endearingly called him "gran."
Bernard Carrick brought home with him great-grandfather's will that had been made five years before, and intrusted to a legal friend, who was, like himself, a Huguenot refugee. To his wife Felix Duvernay had entrusted his strong box, with the gold pieces that were almost heirlooms, and various jewels, to do with whatever she chose. There were some deeds of property that he brought home with him, and the will.
"I was amazed," he said to Barbe. "Why, there are acres and acres of ground that will be worth a mint of money some day. And it is all securely made over to Daffodil Carrick. Your father and I are appointed guardians, and this Mr. de Ronville is administrator. His father was exiled about the same time, but he came at once to America. It seems a little queer that great-grandfather shouldn't have made more of it."
"I think, after the purchase he felt rather sore about it, as if it was a foolish bargain. But he thought then that the French would be the real rulers of America," said Mrs. Bradin. "Yet he never alluded to the will; and you know he was always very fond of Dilly, and that there was no other child."
"Dear old man! When Dilly is grown up she will be an heiress. It can only be leased until she comes of age. I wish it was on this side of the river. Well, as my father says, 'it will neither eat nor drink,' except the rains of heaven. We won't proclaim it on the housetops."
So matters went on just the same. No one gave much thought to "over the river" then.
One morning Mrs. Carrick was not very well. Norah came over, and there was grave consulting. She took Dilly back with her, and in the afternoon grandad bundled her up and drove her over to the mill with him, and was very jolly. They did not return until dusk, and then Norry's supper had such a savory fragrance she decided to share it. Norry had been over to the other house, and "mother" had a bad headache, and Dilly was to stay all night. She had brought over her nightgown.
"That's funny!" exclaimed Daffodil. "Mother seldom has a headache. Oh," with a sudden alarm, "you don't think mother will be ill for weeks and weeks, and grow pale and thin, as she did before father came home."
"Oh, no;" and Norry threw up her head with a laugh. "She'll be up again in no time."
Grandad was teaching the little girl to play checkers, and she was deeply interested. Norry was knitting a long woollen stocking for him, and sang bits of gay Irish songs. But by and by the little girl began to yawn, and made some bad plays.
"You're sleepy," said grandad.
"Yes, I can't get over to the king row;" and she smiled. "But you just wait until to-morrow, when I'm bright and fresh."
So Norry put her to bed, and, leaving grandad to read the Gazette, she ran over to see how it fared with Barbe, and did not come home until morning. Grandad had a nice fire, and had made the coffee.
"Oh, dear," began Daffodil, coming out in her trained nightgown, as they made garments for children to grow in, in those days, "isn't it funny? When I woke up I couldn't think where I was, and it came into my mind about little Bridget, that fairies took away for seven years. Then I would be fourteen."
"That's some of Norry's nonsense. Get on your clothes, and come and have these grand griddle cakes and sausage, that'll make you sing in your sleep."
"Why not when I am awake?" with laughing eyes.
"Anybody can do that. But it takes something extra good to make you sing in your sleep."
She thought they were quite good enough, and wondered how it would seem to sing in the night, and the dark, and if she could hear herself.
Then her father came after her. Grandad wrung his hand and said, "Lad, I wish you joy and the best of luck."
What did that mean?
"Daffodil, something wonderful has happened to us, and I hope – you will like it. We are very happy over it. We have a little boy who came in the night. A little brother for you. And we want you to be glad."
"Oh, was that what grandad meant?" she asked gravely.
"Yes. You see, girls marry and give up their name. But a boy carries it on. And grandad hated to have the name die out. He will be very proud of the boy, but I think no one will be quite as dear to him as Daffodil."
The child was revolving various thoughts in her mind, and made no comment. When they entered the house, Grandmother Bradin took off her hat and cloak, and kissed her very fondly. Her father watched the small serious face. Then he sat down in the big chair, and took her on his knee.
"Dilly," he began in a pleading tone, "I hope you won't feel as if – as if you would be crowded out. We have had you the longest, and you were our first sweet joy. We can never love any other child quite like that. And nothing can ever change our love for you. So you must not feel jealous because we shall love him and be glad to have him – "
"Oh, that was what you said a long time ago, when you first came home – that I was jealous. No, I didn't like mother to love you so much. And you were strange, and you can't love any one all at once;" incoherently.
"But you are not jealous now?"
"No. It didn't take her love from me, only a little while."
"It did not take it away at all. And there were two people to love you, instead of one. Suppose I had felt hurt because you loved grandfather so much?"
"Was it like that?" She raised her lovely eyes with an appealing light in them. "And was I very bad?"
He stooped and kissed her. "It was very natural, and the only thing, the best thing, is to wait until the other one understands. You love me now?"
She reached up and twined her arms about his neck.
"I love you very much," she returned in an earnest tone. "And I am gladder than ever to have you love me, now that grandfather has gone away. But I don't want any one else to go."
He clasped her more tightly. No, any other break in the circle would mean a more poignant grief. There was no one to spare.
"And you will not mind if we love the little boy a good deal?"
"No – since it is a little boy. I am glad it is not a girl, that you chose a boy," she made answer simply.
"We all wanted the boy. Dilly, I am glad to have you love me, and I hope it will grow stronger as you grow older, and understand how sweet affection really is."
Mr. Bradin called him away. He put Daffodil in the chair and she leaned her head down and whispered to grandfather that a little boy had come, and she was going to be glad, because they all wanted him. And then a curious thought flashed over her. Death and life are profound mysteries, even out of childhood.
"Would you like to see the baby?" asked gran'mere Bradin.
"Oh, yes."
Her mother glanced up out of fond dark eyes. Why, she was as pale as in her long sickness, but not so thin. She said, "Kiss me, Daffodil."
"Oh, mother!"
"And here is little brother."
Daffodil's first feeling was disappointment. She had thought of some angelic beauty. He was red and crumpled up, and there was a crown of thick black hair, and his mouth was puckered up. The mother patted his little face.
"He will look better by and by," she said reassuringly.
"Mother, I was thinking – it came to me in the chair – isn't it old grandfather come back to us again to live his life over? You know, everything begins little. The flowers die, but they spring up again, most of them in the same places."
"Why, child, that is a pretty thought;" and the mother smiled. "And he will have his name, only Grandfather Carrick must have his in, so it will be Alexander Felix Duvernay."
"I don't want him to be called Sandy."
"I think he won't be. And, Daffodil, you won't mind – I mean, you won't feel jealous. We wanted him so much." There was a touch of anxiety in the mother's voice.
"Oh, no. Father asked me that. No, you may love him ever so much, while you love me as well."
"She takes it very calmly," said Gran'mere Bradin afterward. "Some children as old as she, and been the only one so long, would have made a great fuss. We have all spoiled her a little, but she has such a sweet temper. It is the Duvernay temper;" smiling.
"I hope I have a good share of it," resumed Barbe.
The baby was not small, and he grew by the hour. He had soft, large dark eyes. Grandad did not like so much French about him, but he was glad to have a grandson, even at that estate. He soon bleached out, though he was not fair like Daffodil.
"I'll have to see about making a fortune for him," said grandad. "Though those acres of wood and farmland will not amount to much, and I don't see what a girl can do with a farm."
But the acres lay smiling in the sunshine, perhaps dreaming of the time when they should be homes of beauty.
Meanwhile events had been going on rapidly, if not harmoniously, for a stable government for the Colonies. And there must be some sort of a head. A government of the largest liberty it must be, the states forming a great federation for protection and advancement. Out of the discussion came the Federal Constitution, and a President, the man who had never lost faith in the possibility of a great nation.
There were, of course, a few dissenting voices, and many fears. For the nation was only an infant.
"What did I tell you," said grandad to his son. He had to argue, it was one of his satisfactions. "Four years, they say. In two years the silly things will make him a king, and in ten years you'll be fighting for liberty again. There's no money to be had – we shall be glad enough to run back to England, and beg to be taken in. The French will throw us over."
"Don't look so far ahead." Bernard kept his temper under these onslaughts. But he did hate to have his father haranguing little crowds here and there over the spirits that were being so largely manufactured.
"Oh, yes! And have them catch us unprepared. Where's the money coming from to build a navy, to pay new soldiers when the old ones are half starving, to keep your grand President. You see, he'll have a court and a style, while we common folks can kneel outside the gates."
"We're going to look out for our own town, and let the men at the helm take care of the larger interests. We have everything for a fine city, and work for all, so we will take up the nearby business."
People were straggling in; they are generally gregarious. And there was plenty of work. There was felling of trees, a sawmill, and rough log houses were meant for only temporary housing. Wharfs and docks sprung up by magic. Then the school was merged into the Pittsburg Academy, afterward to be the University of Pennsylvania. Smaller schools came into existence, yet they were a great working people, and in those years the three R's were esteemed the most necessary.
Then, after a heated discussion, Pittsburg was established as the county seat, which enhanced its prestige. Some rigorous laws were passed, and a ducking stool was set up at the junction of the three rivers, much to the disgust of the better classes. At first there were crowds haunting the place, and jokes bandied about, but there was found small use for it.
"It's a good thing," said Sandy Carrick. "It'll keep the women in check, anyhow."
"Isn't it as well for the men?" asked Norah mischievously. "An', Sandy, you better look out, ye're scoldin' about the country 'cause you daren't try much of it on me. Don't I keep your house clean, mend your clothes, and knit you long stockings, so's you shan't get rheumatiz in your knees. An' if you know a woman who cooks a better meal of vittles, you had better go an' board with her."
She was so pretty and saucy that Sandy turned on his heel and laughed.
Then the Mayflower, with a lot of New England emigrants, passed Pittsburg for the shores of the Muskingum.
"Them Eastern states must just have overflowed," was the verdict. "Goin' out to Ohio, an' spreadin' theirselves abroad as bait for the Indians, when there's civilized lands lyin' about."
And as if Pittsburg was not large enough, they turned to consider Alleghany, and began to lay it out. It would make another fine city.
Meanwhile matters went on prosperously, with the Carricks and the Bradins. Bernard added a room to his house for Daffodil, and placed a window so she could see her mother's garden of posies. The baby grew amazingly, was well and strong, and positively pretty, looking a little like his mother, getting teeth without any trouble, walking, saying all manner of crooked words, and then straightening them, being a jolly, healthy child, and Norah's heart was bound up in him. She borrowed him half her time.
"I'd be a happier woman with a houseful of them," she said, "Sandy always insisted he didn't care, but I know he does. He's just ready to eat up little Sandy without a grain of salt."
They would call him that, while his home name was Felix. His father called him baby at first, then son. He liked everybody, but he adored his own father. Barbe stood a little in the background, not that she loved him less, but she gave a continual thanksgiving that he had met with such a warm welcome.
Daffodil was amused at his pretty ways, and the cunning bits of mischief that she often kept from his mother. She was so certain of her father's affection now. She took a warm interest in his doings, she sided with him about the country, and listened delightedly to the stories of bravery and endurance, and absolutely quarrelled with grandad when he predicted the wretched times that would follow throwing off the protection of the mother country, and the surety that an appeal would be made again for her protection.
"An' just look at what they are saying about your precious Washington! They'll turn him out before he's served his four years. No two of them think alike! And how's the money to be raised for expenses! You silly child, you don't know anything about it. An' your father's a gey fule!"
"I'll never come in this house again, grandad!" with a dignity that made her pink cheeks red and her blue eyes black.
"Then sure you'll never go out of it on such terms!" and grandad caught her and scrubbed her with his stubby beard, and hugged her so tight she was glad to promise she would come to-morrow. And likely she ran over that very evening.
"He's not worth the minding," Norry would declare. "He don't believe the half of it, and says it to see you spurt up. He's half the time spilin' for a quarrel that has no more in it than an empty eggshell."
Daffodil began to have some new interests in her life. She was growing rapidly, she went to school, and met children of her own age. Several chapels had been started, and there was a real clergyman, though they could not have him regularly, and then a reader took the service. The men had various outdoor diversions that had been brought from "the old country," and were never loath to join the women's frolics, at which there was dancing, and, it must be admitted, not a little drinking.
Norah took her out occasionally, "for," she said to Barbe, "it isn't just right to make an old woman of her. They love the fun when they're young, and that's natural, an' it's a sin to crowd them out of it."
Barbe was very domestic. Her house, her little boy, her sewing and spinning, filled up all her time. The child was a marvel to her. He was so bright and active, so pretty and merry, but altogether different from Daffodil.
Once when they had talked over great-grandfather's bequest, Bernard had said, "It seems almost a pity that Dilly had not been the boy, with that great estate to come to him. A man can do so much more in a business way than a woman. Not but that the boy will be cared for, father's heart is set on him. And I shall see that he is well provided for if I live."
Bernard Carrick was deeply interested in the welfare and advancement of the town, and found much work to do outside of the farm that his father-in-law attended to, indeed, had the greater interest in. Sandy Carrick had a great outlying tract. Grain of all kinds, especially wheat, grew for the mere planting in the virgin soil. And the staple product of the time was whiskey. Nearly every farmer had a still. The morality of drinking was not called in question, and the better class of people were temperate. It was the great thing they could exchange for their needs. They sent it over the mountains to Kentucky and Ohio. They built rough sort of tugs, and freighted it through the Ohio to the Mississippi, disposing of it anywhere along the route. The mouth of the great river was still in the hands of the Spanish.
It must be confessed, since the birth of Felix, Barbe had shared her motherhood a good deal with Norah, who laid claim largely to Daffodil. They wandered through the woods together, for the child peopled them with the old stories that Norah's faith made so real. She stopped for her at school, and brought her home to supper. Grandad at times tried to tease her. Strangely enough she was never jealous, even of her father's love for the little brother. And she said to grandad:
"You may love him all you like. He is a boy. Men ought to love boys. And he is named after you, though I don't like the name."
"Oh, you don't! One grandfather is as good as the other, and I'm nearer of kin. It's a good old Scotch name, an' they're good as the French any day."
"I don't like Sandy."
"And I don't like Felix. But I put up with it. You won't make a Frenchman out of him. I'll see to that;" and he gave a funny wink out of his eye.
"And if some day he should want to go to France?"
"I'll see that he doesn't. This place will be big enough and good enough for him. There's fortunes to be made here. I'm going to leave him mine, an' I'll bet you a gallon of whiskey it'll be worth more than your wild land."
"Well, I shan't care!" archly, and with laughing eyes. "I like the woods and the birds and the squirrels. Some day I'll have a house built, and I'll take Norah to live with me."
"You will, hey? I'll have something to say about that. Do you suppose I'll stay here and starve?"
He tried to look very angry, but she knew all about his face, and his tone, and said nonchalantly, "Oh, you can go over to the other house and get something to eat."
"Well, we'll see, little Miss Madam. You'll be gravely mistook!"
So they jested and pretended to bicker. Then grandad set up Norah with a pony and a sort of jaunting car, that would only hold two. For Daffodil could no longer keep her seat in the old fashion, neither would her arms reach around grandad.
Sometimes Norah took out Barbe and the little boy. For Daffodil went to school quite regularly about eight months of the year. The remaining time most of the children were needed to help at home.
Any other child would have been spoiled with the favoritism at school. The older ones helped her at her lessons, and in those days there were no easy kindergarten methods. They gave her tidbits of their luncheons, they piled her little basket with fruit, although she insisted there was so much at home. They brought her some strange flower they had found, they hovered about her as if there was some impelling sweetness, some charm. She had a way of dispensing her regard impartially, but with so tender a grace that no one was hurt.
"I just wish we could go to the same school," Ned Langdale said in one of the Sunday rambles. He was always on the lookout for Norah and her.
"But – the big boys go there."
"Yes. Oh, you wouldn't like it a bit. Beside, you couldn't. And the lessons are just awful. And the thrashings – "
"Don't. I can't hear about that;" shaking her pretty golden head.
"No. Girls oughtn't. But they say it's good for children – "
"For boys. Why, are boys worse than girls?"
"Oh, they are not. I know some girls who are mean, and tricky, and don't tell the truth. All girls are not like you."
"Maybe it's because everybody is so good to me. I couldn't be bad in return, you know."
"Oh, I just wish you were my sister, and lived with us."
"Well, you see that couldn't have been. God sent me to mother."
"But a fellow can wish it."
"It's queer, but there are a great many things wishing doesn't bring. I suppose it's because they can't happen."
He gave a sigh.
She knew how to dance now; Norah had taught her, but it comes natural to most children, and it did to her. She used to dance by herself, and sometimes whirl little brother round, to the great amusement of her father.
Ned used to stray over summer evenings to hear Mr. Carrick talk about the war, and the dangers he had escaped. He never told the hardest side of it, not even to Barbe.
There were other boys who made various errands, and if she was not home, went over to Sandy's for her.
"This thing must stop," grandad said angrily. "What are they running after such a child as that for? Oh, don't tell me it's some trumped-up errand. It's just to sit and look at her as if they never saw a girl before! She's pretty to look at, to be sure, but she's not going to have lovers in a long time yet."
"Sandy, don't get your head fuddled with that kind of nonsense. It's a heap worse than whiskey."
Sandy gave an indignant grunt.
