登陆注册
5288400000001

第1章 I. A DIFFERENCE IN HEARTS(1)

"I DON'know as I cal'lated to be the makin' of any child," Miranda had said as she folded Aurelia's letter and laid it in the light-stand drawer. "I s'posed of course Aurelia would send us the one we asked for, but it's just like her to palm off that wild young one on somebody else."

"You remember we said that Rebecca, or even Jenny might come, in case Hannah could n't," interposed Jane.

"I know we did, but we hadn't any notion it would turn out that way," grumbled Miranda.

"She was a mite of a thing when we saw her three years ago," ventured Jane; "she's had time to improve."

"And time to grow worse!"

"Won't it be kind of a privilege to put her on the right track?" asked Jane timidly.

"I don' know about the privilege part; it'll be considerable work, I guess. If her mother hasn't got her on the right track by now, she won't take to it herself all of a sudden."

This depressed and depressing frame of mind had lasted until th eventful day dawned on which Rebecca was to arrive.

"If she makes as much work after she comes as she has before, we might as well give up hope of ever gettin' any rest," sighed Miranda as she hung the dish towels on the barberry bushes at the side door.

"But we should have had to clean house, Rebecca or no Rebecca," urged Jane; "and I can't see why you've scrubbed and washed and baked as you have for that one child, nor why you've about bought out Watson's stock of dry goods."

"I know Aurelia if you don't," responded Miranda. "I've seen her house, and I've seen that batch o' children, wearin' one another's clothes and never carin' whether they had 'em on right side out or not; I know what they've had to live and dress on, and so do you. That child will like as not come here with a bundle o' things borrowed from the rest o' the family. She'll have Hannah's shoes and John's undershirts and Mark's socks most likely. I suppose she never had a thimble on her finger in her life, but she'll know the feelin' o' one before she's been here many days. I've bought a piece of unbleached muslin and a piece o' brown gingham for her to make up; that'll keep her busy. Of course she won't pick up anything after herself; she probably never saw a duster, and she'll be as hard to train into our ways as if she was a heathen."

"She'll make a dif'rence," acknowledged Jane, "but she may turn out more biddable than we think."

"She'll mind when she's spoken to, biddable or not," remarked Miranda with a shake of the last towel.

Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood.

She was just, conscientious, economical, industrious; a regular attendant at church and Sunday-school, and a member of the State Missionary and Bible societies, but in the presence of all these chilly virtues you longed for one warm little fault, or lacking that, one likable failing, something to make you sure that she was thoroughly alive. She had never had any education other than that of the neighborhood district school, for her desires and ambitions had all pointed to the management of the house, the farm, and the dairy. Jane, on the other hand, had gone to an academy, and also to a boarding-school for young ladies; so had Aurelia; and after all the years that had elapsed there was still a slight difference in language and in manner between the elder and the two younger sisters.

Jane, too, had had the inestimable advantage of a sorrow; not the natural grief at the loss of her aged father and mother, for she had been resigned to let them go; but something far deeper. She was engaged to marry young, Tom Carter, who had nothing to marry on, it is true, but who was sure to have, some time or other.

Then the war broke out. Tom enlisted at the first call. Up to that time Jane had loved him with a quiet, friendly sort of affection, and had given her country a mild emotion of the same sort. But the strife, the danger, the anxiety of the time, set new currents of feeling in motion. Life became something other than the three meals a day, the round of cooking, washing, sewing, and churchgoing. Personal gossip vanished from the village conversation. Big things took the place of trifling ones, --sacred sorrows of wives and mothers, pangs of fathers and husbands, self-denials, sympathies, new desire to bear one another's burdens. Men and women grew fast in those days of the nation's trouble and danger, and Jane awoke from the vague dull dream she had hitherto called life to new hopes, new fears, new purposes. Then after a year's anxiety, a year when one never looked in the newspaper without dread and sickness of suspense, came the telegram saying that Tom was wounded; and without so much as asking Miranda's leave, she packed her trunk and started for the South. She was in time to hold Tom's hand through hours of pain; to show him for once the heart of a prim New England girl when it is ablaze with love and grief; to put her arms about him so that he could have a home to die in, and that was all;--all, but it served.

It carried her through weary months of nursing--nursing of other soldiers for Tom's dear sake; it sent her home a better woman; and though she had never left Riverboro in all the years that lay between, and had grown into the counterfeit presentment of her sister and of all other thin, spare, New England spinsters, it was something of a counterfeit, and underneath was still the faint echo of that wild heartbeat of her girlhood. Having learned the trick of beating and loving and suffering, the poor faithful heart persisted, although it lived on memories and carried on its sentimental operations mostly in secret.

"You're soft, Jane," said Miranda once; "you allers was soft, and you allers will be. If't wa'n't for me keeping you stiffened up, I b'lieve you'd leak out o' the house into the dooryard."

It was already past the appointed hour for Mr. Cobb and his coach to be lumbering down the street.

同类推荐
  • 漱玉词

    漱玉词

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 狂夫之言

    狂夫之言

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 肉门

    肉门

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 損齋備忘錄

    損齋備忘錄

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 画山水赋

    画山水赋

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 玄苍域

    玄苍域

    曾经的年轻一辈第一人又怎样?不还是因为美人而陨落!但那又关我何事……看我凌胜回来,笑傲玄苍!
  • 国民校草别惹我

    国民校草别惹我

    “蒋景晨,你闹够了吗!我赌不起几年了!”阮童咬牙说着。却招来国民校草蒋景晨一句柔声,“你不是想等到我吗?如你所愿。”“该死的,别惹我!惹不起,本姑娘躲得起!”--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 倾世小毒医

    倾世小毒医

    她是精通毒药的鬼手神偷,一朝穿越,成为废物丑女。说她废?契约上古神器,身怀绝顶灵根。说她丑?摘下面具,分分钟甩白莲花一百条街。渣男跪求复合,神兽追着契约。再次睁开眼,她风华尽显,艳惊天下!
  • 文娱复兴

    文娱复兴

    新书《电影世界大拯救》已发,求大家支持。
  • 无运

    无运

    曾经万古无一的肖帝皇,因软肋被骗至死人禁地,九死无生。当以凡人之躯再次临世时,发现整个天地早以物是人非。且看肖乐轩如何以凡人之躯,再次在这片天地掀起滔天巨浪。背叛者,应当背刺之刑,凭饿鬼啃食,钉死在轮回间直至灵魂消散。
  • 嫡女重生:繁华故李

    嫡女重生:繁华故李

    前世的种种在李孤烟的脑海中一幕幕放映着。闺中密友的背叛。相公的背叛。李孤烟认知的好人,却在最后一刻才发现自己的人生,终究是场戏。是李孤烟入戏太深,还是别人瞒的够深沉?既然上天给李孤烟一次重生的机会,那么,李孤烟誓死不会重蹈覆辙,反则,浴火重生!
  • 拳变纪略

    拳变纪略

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 毕业式

    毕业式

    《巴金文学院签约作家书系:毕业式》作者地方大学毕业入伍的经历,影响到她的作品呈现出两类主要的主题:一类是反映部队生活的题材,展现了新的历史环境下,社会生活在部队的折射,以及新一代的军人他们的生活情感,还有一类题材是写农村少女,这类题材在作者笔下都有着淡淡的但又挥之不去的酸涩滋味。
  • 刘伯温后人盗墓手记

    刘伯温后人盗墓手记

    刘伯温的嫡系后人刘季北上闯荡,鬼使神差的宿命下,住进了北京四九城出了名儿的邪地鸦宅。在好奇心的驱使下,刘季进入了鸦宅禁地,发现了的大量尸蜡……从此,刘季走上了探索成吉思汗皇陵之路,也因此身陷几大古老家族的世代恩怨之中。而后,盗墓四大派系的人马纷纷登场,国内外黑白两道同……
  • 没有任何借口

    没有任何借口

    “没有任何借口”是美国西点军校奉行的最重要的行为准则,是西点军校传授给每一位新生的第一个理念。它强化的是每一位学员想尽办法去完成任何一项任务,而不是为没有完成任务去寻找借口,哪怕看似合理的借口。其核心是敬业、责任、服从,诚实。这一理念是提升企业凝聚力,建设企业文化的最重...