A Little Girl in Old Salem, Amanda Minnie Douglas [the snowy day read aloud .TXT] 📗

to hear you say that, Miss Winn. They are talking of having a dancing-class in school. I hope mother will let me join it."

"And they teach it in schools there."

"And why shouldn't they here?" said Polly.

To be sure. Cynthia was much interested and made Polly promise to come again and tell her all about it. Old Salem was awakening rapidly from her rigid torpor.

"I wonder if I could ever have a party," she said to Cousin Leverett that evening. "When father comes home we might have what they did at the Perkinses when they went in their new place--a house-warming. Is that like a party?"

"About the same thing."

"Cousin Elizabeth thinks it wicked. Wouldn't she think dancing wicked?"

"I am afraid she would."

Cynthia sighed. No, she couldn't have a party here.

She waited quite eagerly for Polly's account. The little girl was in her own room. Miss Winn had gone out to get some medicine. Cynthia tried to be well sometimes, so she would not have to take the nauseous stuff. No one had invented medicated sugar pills at that time. She liked Cousin Elizabeth's cough syrup.

Polly was overflowing with spirits.

"Oh, I want to be big, right away. Bella Saltonstall was there and she's going into company next winter, she says. And she showed us some of the dancing steps and they just bewitch you. It's like this"--and Polly picked up her frock in a dainty manner and whirled about the vacant spaces in the room.

"But doesn't it tire you dreadfully? The girls in India stand still a great deal more and just sway about. They come in and dance for you."

"Tire you! Oh, no. That's the great fun, to do it yourself. Bella said it was--ex--something, and the word is in the spelling-book, but I never can remember the long words. Oh, I just wish I was fifteen and wasn't going to school any more. And then there's keeping company and getting married, and having your setting out. School seems stupid. There were two boys who wanted to come home with me, but mother said Ben must. Then I wished--well, I wished he was in college. He wants to go. Father says Mr. Leverett has infected him with the craze."

"If I was a boy, I'd like to go. Cousin Leverett is going to take me to Harvard next summer when they have their grand closing time."

"I'd rather be a girl and have a nice beau."

Plainly Polly had been saturated with dissipation.

Spring was suggesting her advent. The days were longer. The snow was disappearing.

"Oh, Cousin Leverett, look--there are some buds on the trees!" she cried.

"Yes. You can see them at intervals through the winter. They are wise little things, and swell and then shrink back in the cold."

"I'm so glad. I can soon go out. I get very tired some days. I like summer best."

"Yes. I do hope we shall have an early spring."

She looked up with smiling gladness.

That afternoon she had fallen asleep in the big chair. How almost transparent she was. The long lashes lay on the whiteness of her cheek--yes, it was really white. And there was very little color in her lips.

Abner Hayes came up from the warehouse with some papers the _Ulysses_ had just brought in.

"That the captain's poor little girl?"

"Yes; she's asleep. She hasn't been very well this winter, but the first nice balmy day I shall take her out driving. I've been almost afraid to have the air blow on her."

"Yes, she ought to live and enjoy all that big fortune. It's a thousand pities the captain couldn't have come back and enjoyed it with her. But we must all go when our time comes. You never hear a hard word said about him, and sure's there's a heaven he is in it."

Chilian held up his finger. Then he signed a paper that had to go back, and asked if the cargo of the _Ulysses_ was in good shape.

Elizabeth called him downstairs after that. There was a poor man wanting some sort of a position and Chilian promised to look out for him. He had been porter in a store, but the heavy lifting made him cough. He would have to get something lighter.

When he returned Cynthia was standing by his table, white as a little ghost. He almost dropped into the chair.

"Was I dreaming, or did that man say my father couldn't come back to Salem, that he--that he was----"

She swayed almost as if she would fall. He drew her down on his knee and her head sank on his shoulder. She was so still that he was startled. How many times he had wondered how he would get her told. Perhaps it had been wrong to wait.

"My little girl! My little Cynthia----"

"Wait," she breathed, and he held her closer. He had come to love her very much, though he had taken her unwillingly.

"Is it true? But no one would say such a thing if it were not. I had been asleep. I woke just as he said that. Perhaps I had been dreaming about our being together. And it seemed at first as if my tongue was stiff and I couldn't even make a sound. Did he go to heaven without me?"

Oh, what should he say to comfort her! She had so many feelings far under the surface.

"My little dear," and his voice was infinitely fond, "I want to tell you that he loved your mother tenderly. No one could have been better loved. In the course of a few hours she was snatched away from him. You were so little--five years ago. I doubt if there was ever a day in which he did not think of her. When you are grown and come to love some one with the strength of your whole heart, you will understand how great it is. And when the summons came for him his first thought was that he should see her, and with the next he must find a new home for his little girl, so he gave you to me. It is very hard just now, but you must think how happy they are together. Perhaps they both know you are here, where you will be cared for and made happy, for we all love you. Every one has not the same way of showing love, but Cousin Elizabeth has done everything she could for you this winter. And we don't want to lose you. You won't grudge them a few years together in that happy place?"

"Oh, are you quite sure there _is_ a heaven?"

Oh, Cynthia, you are not the first one who has asked to have it certified.

"Yes, dear; very sure," in the tone of faith.

"He loved mother very much?"

"Yes."

There was a long silence. He felt the slow beating of her little heart.

"Then I ought to be content, since he gave me to you, when he knew he was going away."

"It would have been very sad if you had been left alone there. Out of his great love he planned it this way, thinking the tidings would not come so hard after a while. And now you can always recall him as you saw him last and just think, in a moment of time God called and he stepped over the narrow space that seems such a mystery to us and met _her_. I wish we didn't invest death with so much that is painful, for it is God's way of calling us to a better land where there are no more partings. Sometime you and I will go over to them."

"I shouldn't feel afraid with you," she commented simply.

When the tea bell rang she asked to be carried to her room and laid on Rachel's little bed. He kissed her gently and turned away.

The next was his day in Boston. But late in the afternoon, after Miss Eunice had been visiting her an hour or so, she went to the study and sat by the window, where she could see him come. He glanced up and she waved her hand daintily. All day he had been wondering how he should find her.

"I haven't coughed but a very little to-day," she exclaimed. "Cousin Elizabeth made some new syrup. And the doctor was in. He said I was a little lazy, that I must be more energetic."

"I've been ordering a new carriage to-day. The old one was hardly worth repairing. And when you are stronger I think I'll buy a gentle pony and we can go out riding. You would not be afraid after a little?"

"Not with you."

Her confidence was very sweet.

"I'm going down to tea to-night. I was down at noon."

"Oh, you are improving. I hope there will come some warm weather and balmy airs."

"It was beautiful last spring. You know I never saw a real spring before."

She was bearing her loss and her sorrow beautifully. All day she had been thinking of the joy of those two when they met on the confines of that beautiful world. It made heaven seem so near, so real. Sometimes the tears came to her eyes. She was Cousin Chilian's little girl, so why should she feel lonely!

Once in a number of years spring comes early. It did this time, at the close of the century. People shook their heads and talked about "weather-breeders," and mentioned snow as late as May, when fruit trees had been in bloom. But nature had turned over a bright, clear leaf, that made the book of time fairly shine.

The carriage came and Cynthia was taken out. Miss Elizabeth wrapped her up like a mummy, and would put a brick, swathed in coverings, in the bottom for her feet. He had taken the ladies out occasionally, but of late years the sisters had been so busy they had little time for pleasure, they thought.

They crossed North Bridge and went up Danvers way. Oh, how lovely it was with the trees in baby leaf, and some wild things blossoming. And even then industry had planted itself. There on the farther bank of Waters River was the iron mill, where Dr. Nathan Read invented his scheme for cut nails. And he built a paddle-wheel steamboat that was a success before Robert Fulton tried his. And they passed the Page house, where General Gage had his office, and Madam Page had tea on the roof, because they had promised not to use tea in the house.

That amused Cynthia and he also told her of the woman, when tea first came to the country, who boiled the leaves and seasoned them, passing them around to her guests, who didn't think they were anything much in the vegetable line and too expensive ever to become general.

Birds sang about them, flocks of wild geese had started on their northward journey. What a wonderful world it was! And her father had been a boy here in Salem village, had lived in Cousin Chilian's house in the father's time, and her mother had been married in the stately parlor. Why, she could dream of their being real guests of the place. How odd she should come to live here. The life in India would be the dream presently.

She was very tired when Chilian lifted her out of the carriage and took her upstairs. Rachel put her