The English Orphans; Or, A Home in the New World. Mary Jane Holmes
Miss Grundy, "and wait until you're invited to speak. Goodness alive, look at that slop! Tip up the pail, quick."
By this time Mary had found courage to say she thought Alice would be better if she could have her usual bath every morning. This only increased Miss Grundy's wrath, and she whirled round so swiftly, that her forehead came in contact with the sharp edge of the cellar door, which chanced to be open.
"Good," softly whispered Rind, while the shuffling motion of her club feet showed how pleased she was.
Mary, on the contrary, was really distressed, for she knew the bumped head would be charged to her, and felt sure that she was further than ever from the attainment of her object. Still, after Miss Grundy's forehead was duly bathed in cold water, and bound up in a blue cotton handkerchief (the lady's favorite color), she again ventured to say, "Miss Grundy, if you will only let me wash Alice in my room, I'll promise she shan't disturb you again."
After a great deal of scolding and fretting about whims stuck-up notions, and paupers trying to be somebody, Miss Grundy, who really did not care a copper where Alice was washed, consented, and Mary ran joyfully up stairs with the bucket of clear, cold water, which was so soothing in its effects upon the feeble child, that in a short time she fell into a deep slumber. Mary gently laid her down, and then smoothing back the few silken curls which grew around her forehead, and kissing her white cheek, she returned to the kitchen, determined to please Miss Grundy that day, if possible.
But Miss Grundy was in the worst of humors, and the moment Mary appeared she called out, "Go straight back, and fetch that young one down here. Nobody's a goin' to have you racin' up stairs every ten minutes to see whether or no she sleeps with her eyes open or shet. She can stay here as well as not, and if she begins to stir, Patsy can jog the cradle."
Mary cast a fearful glance at Patsy, who nodded and smiled as if in approbation of Miss Grundy's command. She dared not disobey, so Alice and her cradle were transferred to the kitchen, which was all day long kept at nearly boiling heat from the stove room adjoining. Twice Mary attempted to shut the door between, but Miss Grundy bade her open it so she could "keep an eye on all that was going on." The new sights and faces round her, and more than all, Patsy's strange appearance, frightened Alice, who set up such loud screams that Miss Grundy shook her lustily, and then cuffed Patsy, who cried because the baby did, and pulling Mary's hair because she "most knew she felt gritty," she went back to the cheese-tub, muttering something about "Cain's being raised the hull time."
At last, wholly exhausted and overcome with the heat Alice ceased screaming, and with her eyes partly closed, she lay panting for breath, while Mary, half out of her senses tipped over the dishwater, broke the yellow pitcher, and spilled a pan of morning's milk.
"If there's a stick on the premises, I'll use it, or my name isn't Grundy," said the enraged woman, at the same time starting for a clump of alders which grew near the brook.
At this stage of affairs, Sal Furbush came dancing in curtseying, making faces, and asking Mary if she thought "the temperature of the kitchen conducive to health."
Mary instinctively drew nearer to her, as to a friend, and grasping her dress, whispered, "Oh, Sally, Aunt Sally, don't let her whip me for nothing," at the same time pointing towards Miss Grundy, who was returning with an alder switch, stripping off its leaves as she came.
"Whip you? I guess she won't," said Sal, and planting herself in the doorway as Miss Grundy came up, she asked, "Come you with hostile intentions?"
"Out of my way," said Miss Grundy. "I'll teach, that upstart to break things when she's mad." Pushing Sal aside, she entered the kitchen.
Mary retreated behind the cupboard door, and Miss Grundy was about to follow her, when Sal, with a nimble bound, sprang upon her back, and pulling her almost to the floor, snatched the whip from her hand, and broke it in twenty pieces. How the matter would have ended is uncertain, for at that moment Mr. Parker himself appeared, and to him Miss Grundy and Sal detailed their grievances, both in the same breath.
"I can't get at a word," said he, and turning to the pleasant-looking woman, who was quietly paring apples, he asked what it meant.
In a plain, straightforward manner, she told all, beginning from the time when Alice was first brought into the kitchen, and adding, as an opinion of her own, that the child was suffering from heat. Mr. Parker was a good-natured, though rather weak man, and in reality slightly feared Miss Grundy. On this occasion, however, he did not take sides with her but said, "It was ridiculous to have such works, and that if Mary wanted whipping, he would do it himself."
"But Sal Furbush," said Miss Grundy, as she adjusted her head-gear, which was slightly displaced, "can't she be shut up? There's bedlam to pay the whole durin' time when she's loose."
Mr. Parker knew this very well, but before he had time to answer, Mary looked pleadingly in his face, and said, "if you please, don't shut her up. She was not to blame, for I asked her to help me."
"Wall, wall, we'll let her off this time, I guess," said he; and as Uncle Peter just then put his head into the window, saying that "the lord of the manor was wanted without," Mr. Parker left, glad to get out of the muss so easily. No sooner was he gone, than Sal, catching up the cradle, sorted for the stairs, saying, "I won't work, but I can, and will take care of little Willie, and I choose to do it in a more congenial atmosphere." Then, as Mary looked a little startled, she added, "Never you fear, dearie, Sal knows what she's about, and she won't make the little boy the least bit of a face."
From that time there was no more trouble with Alice during the day, for she seemed to cling naturally to Sally, who hour after hour rocked and took care of her, while Mary, in the kitchen below, was busy with the thousand things which Miss Grundy found for her to do.
CHAPTER VII.
THE LINCOLNS
Mary had been at the poor-house about three weeks, when Miss Grundy one day ordered her to tie on her sun-bonnet, and run across the meadow and through the woods until she came to a rye stubble, then follow the footpath along the fence until she came to another strip of woods, with a brook running through it. "And just on the fur edge of them woods," said she, "you'll see the men folks to work; and do you tell 'em to come to their dinner quick."
Mary tied her sun-bonnet and hurried off, glad to escape for a few moments from the hot kitchen, with its endless round of washing dishes, scouring knives, wiping door-sills, and dusting chairs. She had no difficulty in finding the way and she almost screamed for joy, when she came suddenly upon the sparkling brook, which danced so merrily beneath the shadow of the tall woods.
"What a nice place this would be to sit and read," was her first exclamation, and then she sighed as she thought how small were her chances for reading now.
Quickly her thoughts traversed the past, and her tears mingled with the clear water which flowed at her feet, as she recalled the time when, blessed with a father's and mother's love, she could go to school and learn as other children did. She was roused from her sad reverie by the sound of voices, which she supposed proceeded from the men, whose tones, she fancied, were softer than usual. "If I can hear them, they can hear me," thought she, and shouting as loud as she could, she soon heard Mr. Parker's voice in answer, saying he would come directly.
It was a mild September day, and as Mary knew that Sal would take care of Alice, she determined not to hurry, but to follow the course of the stream, fancying she should find it to be the same which ran through the clothes-yard at home. She had not gone far, when she came suddenly upon a boy and two little girls, who seemed to be playing near the brook. In the features of the boy she recognized Henry Lincoln, and remembering what Billy had said of him, she was about turning away, when the smallest of the girls espied her, and called