Aunt Madge's Story Part 9

"Why, didn't you hear 'Ria say she shouldn't have to mend my dresses?

That means I shan't be here, of course."

"Perhaps it means you'll be a better girl, and not tear 'em."

"O, no, it don't. 'Ria knows better 'n that. Didn't you hear her say she pitied poor cousin Lydia? Well, it's because she'll have _me_ in her house; and that's why 'Ria pities her."

"Then I wouldn't go to her house, if 'twill make her feel bad," said Fel.

"O, I know what makes you say that; its because you don't want me to go."

"Of course I don't. Who'd I have to play with?"

"Lize Jane Bean."

"H'm."

"Well, then, there's Dunie Foster; you think she's a great deal nicer 'n me."

"Now, Madge Parlin, I only said she kept her hair smoother; that's all I said."

"Well, there's Abby Gray and Sallie Gordon," added I, well pleased to watch the drooping of my little friend's mouth. "You can play with them while I'm gone. And there's your own brother Gust, that _you_ think 's so much politer 'n Ned."

"You know there's n.o.body I like to play with so well as I do you,"

said Fel, laying her cheek against mine, and we sat a while, thinking how dearly we did love each other. Then we saw Abner wheeling the chaise out of the barn. I ran down the steps from the tree, and asked,--

"Is anybody going anywhere, Abner?"

"Well, yes; I believe your pa's going over yonder," said he, pointing off to the hills.

"Anybody--anybody going with him?"

"He talks of taking the Deacon," said Abner, dryly, as he began to wrench off the wheels, and grease them.

"Madge, Madge, where are you?" called 'Ria, from the side door.

"Come into the house; I have something to tell you."

It was just as I expected. I was going to Bloomingdale to-morrow. The news had been kept from me till the last possible moment, for when I was excited about anything, I was noisier than ever, and as Ruthie said, "stirred up the house dreadfully."

Next morning father tucked me into the chaise, behind old Deacon. I didn't know why it was, but I couldn't help thinking about the hatchet, and wondering mother should have taken so much pains to get such a naughty girl ready. I had been told I might stay till after apple-gathering, and I was glad, for I wanted to make Fel as lonesome as she had made me those two weeks she spent in Boston. I had never been away from home but twice to stay over night, and my playmates couldn't any of them know my true value, of course.

But as I looked at the dear friends on the piazza, growing dearer every minute, especially mother, I had my doubts whether I cared much about cousin Lydia's apples.

"She'll be back with father," remarked Ned, "as homesick as a kitten."

"Just you see if I do!"

It was well we were driving away just then, for my brave laugh came very near ending in a sob.

"I'm on business," said father, whipping up the Deacon, "and shall come back to-morrow; but you can do as you please, Totty-wax--you can come with me, or wait a month or six weeks, and come with cousin Lydia."

I was disposing, privately, of a stray tear, and could not answer.

"Your cousin will take the cars," said he.

"Take the cars!" I slipped off the seat, and stood upright in my surprise. The railroad had only just been laid to one corner of Willowbrook, and I had never taken a car in my life; had never seen one; didn't even know how it looked. This had been a great mortification to me ever since Fel went to Boston.

"O, father," cried I, whirling round and getting caught in the reins, "did you say the cars? I s'posed cousin Lydia would come in a wagon, and I didn't know 's I cared about staying. _Did_ you say the cars?"

"There, there; don't fall out over the Deacon's back. Did you ever hear what the water-wagtail said?"

Then I knew father was laughing at me. When I was so happy I couldn't keep still, he often asked me if I ever heard what a small bird, called the water-wagtail, said, who thought the world was made for him:--

"Twas for my accommodation Nature rose when I was born; Should I die, the whole creation Back to nothing would return."

That was what the little bird said. But father was mistaken this time.

I felt remarkably humble for me. I had been thinking so much about the hatchet that I couldn't have a very high opinion of myself, to save my life.

It was twenty miles to cousin Lydia's. When we got there she was looking for us. I knew her very well, but had never been at her house before. It was a pretty white cottage, with woodbines creeping over it, and Boston pinks growing by the front door-stone. There was a red barn and barnyard on one side of the house, and a woodshed on the other; and in front of the porch door, facing the street, was a well, with an old oaken bucket, hanging on a pole. I had never seen a well-sweep before, and supposed it must be far nicer than a pump.

Cousin Lydia had a farmer husband in a striped frock, and a beautiful old mother in a black dress and double-frilled cap. Then there were her husband's two sisters, who lived with her, and a cat and a dog; but not a child to be seen.

I didn't feel quite clear in my mind about staying; but cousin Lydia seemed to expect I would, and showed me a little cheese-hoop, about as big round as a dinner-plate, saying she would press a cheese in it on purpose for me, and I might pick pigweed to "green" it, and tansy to give it a fine taste. So I should almost make the cheese myself; what would my mother say to that? Then there were the beehives, which were filling with honey, and some late chickens, which were going to chip out of the sh.e.l.l in a week. Remarkable events, every one; but it was the tansy cheese which decided me at last, and I told father he might go without me; I wanted to stay and make a visit.

It was not till he was fairly out of sight that I remembered what a long visit it would be. Why, I shouldn't see mother for as much as a month! A new and dreadful feeling swept over me, as if I was left all alone in the great empty world, with nothing to comfort me as long as I lived.

Samantha, one of Mr. Tenney's sisters, found me an hour afterwards sitting beside a chicken-coop, crying into my ap.r.o.n. She asked me if I was homesick. I thought not; I only wanted to see my mother, and I felt bad "right here," laying my hand on the pit of my stomach. The feeling was not to be described, but I did not know homesickness was the name for it.

Samantha consoled me as well as she could with colored beads to string, and a barrel of kittens out in the barn. I felt a little better at dinner time, for the dinner was very nice; but my spirits were still low.

Julia, the other young lady, was not very fond of little girls, and had no box of trinkets as Samantha had, or, at any rate, did not show any to me. She seemed to be always talking privacy with her sister, or with cousin Lydia, and always sending me out of the room. Not that she ever told me, in so many words, to go away--but just as if I didn't know what she meant!

"Don't you want to go out in the barn and hunt for eggs?" said she.

No, I certainly didn't. If I had wanted to I should have found it out without her speaking of it. But I was only a little girl; so I had to go, and couldn't answer back. The neighbors' children were few and far between; and though I strolled about for hours behind cousin Joseph Tenney and the hired man, there were times when I liked to see what was going on in the kitchen, and it was vexing to hear Julia say,--

"If I was a little girl about your age, I never should get tired of looking at that speckled bossy out in the barn."

Indeed! I almost wished she had to be fastened into the stall a while, just to _see_ if she wouldn't get tired of that speckled bossy.

But when the time came to make my cheese, I had a right to stay in the house. Cousin Lydia let me look on, and see it all done. First, I picked the pigweed and tansy, or how could she have made the cheese?

Then she strained some milk into a pan, and squeezed the green juices through a thin cloth. After that she put in a little rennet with a spoon.

"There," said she, "isn't that a pretty color? Watch it a few minutes, and you will see it grow thick, like blanc-mange, and that will be curd."

Then she made some white curd in another pan, without any green juice. After the curd "came," it was very interesting to cross it off with a pudding-stick, and this she let me do myself. Next morning she drained the curd in a cloth over a cheese-basket, and put on a stone to press out the whey. When it was drained dry enough, she let me cut it up in the chopping-tray, and she mixed the two curds together, the green and the white, salted them, and put them in that cunning hoop, and then set the hoop in the cheese-press, turned a crank, and weighed it down with a flatiron. There, that is the way to make a cheese. When it came out of the press it was a perfect little beauty, white, with irregular spots of green, like the streaks in marble cake. I knew then how that greedy Harry felt, in the story, when his mother sent him a plum cake, and he couldn't wait for a knife, but "gnawed it like a little dog."