Chapter 9. Betty's Reflections

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_ CHAPTER IX. BETTY'S REFLECTIONS

AS Betty shut the gate behind her one day and walked down the main street of Tideshead she felt more than ever as if the past four years had been a dream, and as if she were exactly the same girl who had paid that last visit when she was eleven years old. Yet she seemed to herself to have clearer eyes than before; her years of travel had taught her to observe, the best gift that traveling can bestow. She saw new beauties in the gardens and the queer-shaped porches over the front doors, and noticed particularly the cupolas of one or two barns that were clear and sharp in their good outlines. More than all, she was astonished at the beauty of the old trees. Tideshead was not a forest of maples, like many other New England towns, but there were oaks along the village streets, and ash-trees, and willows, beside great elms in stately rows, and silver poplars, and mountain ashes, and even some fruit-trees along the roadsides outside the village. Betty remembered a story that she had often heard with great interest about one of the old Tideshead ministers who had been much beloved, and whose influence was still felt. Every year he had brought ten trees from the woods and planted them either on the streets or in his neighbor's yards; one year he chose one sort of tree and the next another, and at last, when he grew older and could not go far afield in his search he asked his friends for fruit-trees and planted them for the benefit of wayfarers. These had made a delightful memorial of the good old man, but many of the trees had fallen by this time, and though everybody said that they ought to be replaced, and complained of such shiftless neglect, as usual what was everybody's business was nobody's business, and Tideshead looked as if it were sorry to be forgotten. Betty had been used to the thrifty English and French care of woodlands, and felt as if it were a great pity not to take better care of the precious legacy. Aunt Barbara sometimes sent Jonathan and Seth Pond to care for the trees that needed pruning or covering at the roots, but hardly any one else in Tideshead did anything but chop them up and clear them away when they blew down.

It seemed very strange that all the old houses were so handsome and all the new ones so ugly. A stranger might wonder, why, with the good proportions, and even a touch of simple elegance that the house builders of the last century almost always gave, their successors seemed to have no idea of either, and to take no lessons from the good models before their eyes. "Makeshifts o' splendor," sensible old Serena called some of the new houses which had run much to cheap decoration and irregular roofs and fancy colors of paint. But the old minister's elms and willows hung their green boughs before some of these architectural failures as if to kindly screen them from the passers-by. They looked like imitations of houses, one or two of them, and as if they were put down to fill spaces, and not meant to live in, as the old plain-roofed and wide-roomed dwellings are. The sober old village looked here and there as if it were a placid elderly lady upon whom a child had put it's own gay raiment. People do not consider the becomingness of a building to its surroundings as they should, but Betty did not make this clear to herself exactly, though she was sorry at the change in the familiar streets. She was more delighted than she knew because she felt so complete a sense of belongingness; as if she were indeed made of the very dust of Tideshead, and were a part of it. It was much better than getting used to new places, though even in the dullest ones she had known there was some charm and some attaching quality ever to be remembered. She liked dearly to think of some of the places where she and papa had made their home, but after all there was the temporary feeling about every one. She could bear transplanting from most of them with equanimity, no matter how deep her roots had seemed to strike.

After she had posted her letters there was a question of what to do next. She had really come out for a walk, but Mary Beck's mother had a dressmaker that day and Becky was not at liberty; and Nelly Foster was busy, too. The Grants were away for a few days on a visit; it was a lonely morning with our friend, who felt a hearty wish for one of her usual companions. She strayed out toward the fields and seated herself in the shade of Becky's favorite tree, looking off toward the hills. The country was very green and fresh-looking after a long rain, and the farmers were out cutting the later hay in the lower meadows. She could hear the mowing-machines like the whirr of great locusts, and the men's voices as they shouted to each other and the horses. On the field side of the fence, in the field corner, she and Becky had made a comfortable seat by putting a piece of board across the angle of the two fences, and there was a black cherry-tree thicket near, so that the two girls could not be seen from the road as they sat there. As Betty perched herself here alone she could look along the road, but not be discovered easily. She wished for Becky more than ever after the first few minutes, but her thoughts were very busy. She had had a misunderstanding with both the aunts that morning, and was still moved by a little pity for herself. They had grown used to their own orderly habits, and it seemed to be no trouble to them to keep their possessions in order, and Betty had found them standing before an open bureau drawer in her room quite aghast with the general disarray, and also with the buttonless and be-ripped condition of different articles of her underclothing. They had laughed good-naturedly and were not so hard upon Betty as they meant to be, when they saw her shame-stricken face, and Betty herself tried to laugh. She did not mind Aunt Barbara's seeing the things so much as Aunt Mary's aggravating assumption that it was a perfectly hopeless case, and nothing could be done about it.

"Nobody knows how or where they were washed," Aunt Barbara said in her brisk way; and though she looked very stern, Betty knew that she meant it partly for an excuse.

"You certainly ought to have been looking them over in this rainy weather," complained Aunt Mary. "A young lady of your age is expected to keep her clothing in exquisite order."

Betty hated being called a young lady of her age.

"I hope that you take better care of your father's wardrobe than this: why, there isn't a whole thing here, and they are most expensive new things, one can see; unmended and spoiled." Aunt Mary held up a pretty underwaist and sighed deeply.

"Mrs. Duncan chose them with me; one doesn't have to give so much for such things in London," explained Betty somewhat hotly. "It is no use to pick out ugly things to wear."

"Dear, dear!" said Aunt Barbara, "don't fret about it, either of you! We'll look them over by and by, Betty, and see what can be done;" and she shut the drawer upon the pathetic relics. "You must be ready to meet your responsibilities better than this," she said sharply to her niece, but Betty was already hurrying out of the door. She did not mind Aunt Barbara, but Aunt Mary in the distressing silk wrapper that belonged to cross days was too much for one to bear. They had no business to be looking over her bureau drawer; then Betty was sorry for having been so ill-natured about it. Letty had told her, earlier, that some of her clothes could not be worn again until they were mended, and Aunt Barbara had, no doubt, been consulted also, and was wondering what was best to be done. Betty's great pride had been in being able to take care of papa, and she had almost boasted of her skill, and of her management of housekeeping affairs when they were in lodgings. She was too old now to be treated like a child, and hated being what Serena called "stood over."

Betty's temper was usually very good, and such provocations could not make her miserable very long. As she sat under the oak-tree she even laughed at the remembrance of Aunt Mary's expression of perfect hopelessness as she held up the underwaist. Aunt Barbara's favorite maxim that there was "nothing so inconvenient as disorder" seemed to have deeper reason and wisdom than ever. Betty considered the propriety of throwing away all her subterfuges of pins, so that a proper stitch must be inevitably taken when it was needed. Pins in underclothes are not always comfortable, but our heroine was apt to be in a hurry, and to suffer the consequences in more ways than one. She made some brave resolutions now, and promised herself to look over her belongings, and to mend all that could be mended and throw away the remainder rags that very day after dinner. Betty was fond of making good resolutions, and it seemed to help her much about keeping them if she wrote them down. She had learned lately from Aunt Barbara, who complained of forgetting things over night, to make little lists of things to be done, and it appeared a good deal easier to mark off the items on the list one by one, than to carry them in one's mind and wonder what should be done next. Our friend liked to make notes about life in general and her own responsibilities, and had many serious thoughts now that she was growing older.

She made her lead pencil as pointed as possible with a knife newly sharpened by Jonathan, and wrote at the end of her slip of paper, which had come out much crumpled from her pocket: "Look over my clothes and every one of my stockings, and put them in as good order as possible." Then she smoothed out another larger piece of paper on her knee and read it. One day she had copied some scattered sentences from a book, and prefaced them with some things that her father often had said: "Learn the right way to do things. Do everything that you can for yourself. Try to make yourself fit to live with other people. Try to avoid making other people wait upon you. Remember that every person stands in a different place from every other and so sees life from a different point of view. Remember that nobody likes to be proved in the wrong, and be careful in what manner you say things to people that they do not wish to hear."

Betty read slowly with great approval at first, but the end seemed disturbing. "That's just what Aunt Mary likes!" she reflected, with suddenly rising wrath. "She says things over twice, for fear I don't hear them the first time. I wish she would let me alone!" but Betty's conscience smote her at this point. She really was beginning to wish most heartily that she were good, and like every one else wished for the approval of others as well as for the peace of her own conscience. This was a black-mark day when she had neither, and she thought about her life more intently than usual. When she liked herself everybody liked her, but when she was on bad terms with herself everybody else seemed ready to join in the stern disapproval. Papa was always ready to lend a helping hand at such times, but papa was far away. Nothing was so pleasant as usual that morning, and a fog of discouragement seemed to shut out all the sunshine in Betty Leicester's heart. She did not often get low-spirited, but for that hour all the excitement of coming to Tideshead and being liked and befriended by her old friends had vanished and left only a miserable hopelessness in its place. The road of life appeared to lead nowhere, and perhaps our friend missed the constant change and excitement of interest brought to her by living alongside such a busy, inspiriting life as her father's. Here in Tideshead she had to provide her own motive power instead of being tributary to a stronger current.

"I don't seem to have anything to do," thought Betty. "I used to be so busy all the time last spring in London and never had half time enough, and now everything is raveling out instead of knitting up. I poke through the days hoping something nice will happen, just like the Tideshead girls." This thought came with a curious flash of self-recognition such as rarely comes, and always is the minute of inspiration. "I must think and think what to do," Betty went on, leaning her cheek on her hand and looking off at the blue mountains far to the northward. There was a tuft of rudbeckias in bloom near by, and just then the breeze made them bow at her as if they were watching and approved her serious thoughts. They had indeed a friendly and cheering look, as if there were still much hope in life, and Betty forgot herself for a minute as she was suddenly conscious of their companionship. She even gave the gay yellow flowers a friendly nod, and resolved to carry some of them home to the aunts. It would be a good thing to make a rule for devoting the first half hour after breakfast to the care of her clothes and that sort of thing: then she could take the next hour for her writing. But it was often very pleasant to scurry down into the garden or to the yard for a word with Jonathan or Seth. Aunt Barbara was always busy housekeeping with Serena just after breakfast, and Betty was left to herself for a while; it would take stern principle to settle at once to the day's work, but to-morrow morning the plan should be tried. Betty had offered, soon after she came, to take care of the flowers in the house, to pick fresh ones or to put fresh water in the vases, but she had forgotten to do it regularly of late, though Aunt Barbara had been so pleased in the beginning. "I ought to do my part in the house," she thought, and again the gay "rude beckies" nodded approval, and a catbird overhead said a great deal on the subject which was difficult to understand but very insistent. Betty was beginning to be cheerful again; in truth, nothing gets a girl out of a tangle of provocations and bewilderments and regrets like going out into the fields alone.

Nobody had driven by in all the time that Betty had sat in the fence corner until now there was a noise of wheels in the distance. It seemed suddenly as if the session were over, and Betty, quite restored to her usual serenity, said good-by to her solitary self and the cheerful wild-flowers. "I am going to be good, papa," she thought with a warm love in her hopeful heart, as she looked out through the young black cherry-trees to see who was going by in the road. "Seth! Seth Pond!" she called, "Where are you going?" for it proved to be that important member of the aunts' household, with the old wagon and Jimmy, the old black horse.

"Goin' to mill," answered Seth, recognizing the voice and looking about him, much pleased. "Want to come? be pleased to have ye," and Betty was over the fence in a minute and appeared to his view from behind the thicket. I dare say the flowers waved a farewell and looked fondly after her as she drove away.

Seth was not in the least vexed by his thoughts. He was much gratified by Betty's company and behaved with great dignity, giving her much information about the hay crop, and how many tons were likely to be cut in this field and the next. They could not drive very fast because the wagon was well loaded with bags of corn, and so they jogged on at an even pace, though Seth flourished his whip a good deal, striking sometimes at the old horse, and sometimes at the bushes by the roadside.

"Do you expect I shall ever get to be much of a hand to play the violin?" he inquired with much earnestness.

"I don't know, Seth," answered Betty, a little distressed by the responsibility of answering. "Do you mean to be a musician and do nothing else?"

"I used to count on it when I was little," said Seth humbly. "I heard a fellow play splendid in a show once, and I just used to lay awake nights an' be good for nothin' days, wonderin' how I could learn; but I can play now 'bout's good's he could, I s'pose, an' it don't seem to be nothin'. Them tunes in the book you give me let in some light on me as to what playin' was. I mean them tough ones over in the back part."

"I suppose you would have to go away and study; teachers cost a great deal. That is, the best ones do."

"They're wuth it; I don't grudge 'em the best they get," said Seth, honorably. "I've got to think o' marm, you see, up-country. She couldn't get along nohow without my wages comin' in. You see I send her the most part. I ain't to no expense myself while I live there to Miss Leicester's. If there was only me I'd fetch it to live somehow up in somebody's garret, and go to one o' them crack teachers after I'd saved up consid'able. Then I'd go to work again an' practice them lessons till I earnt some more. But I ain't never goin' to pinch marm; she worked an' slaved an' picked huckleberries and went out nussin' and tailorin' an' any work she could git, slick or rough, an' give me everything she could till I got a little schoolin' together and was big enough to work. She's kind o' slim now; I think she worked too hard. I was awful homesick when I was first to your aunts', but Jonathan he used me real good. He come there a boy from up to our place just the same, an' used to know marm. Miss Leicester she lets me go up and spend Sunday consid'able often. Marm's all alone except what use she gets of the neighbors comin' in. But seems if I'd lived for nothin', if I can't learn to play a fiddle better than I can now," and Seth struck hard with his whip at an unoffending thistle.

"Then you're sure to do it," said Betty. "I believe you _must_ learn, Seth. Where there's a will there's a way."

"Why, that's just what Sereny says," exclaimed Seth with surprise. "Well, they say 't was the little dog that kep' runnin' that got there Saturday night."

"Should you play in concerts, do you suppose?" asked Betty, with reverence for such overpowering ambition in the rough lad.

"You bet, an' travel with shows an' things," responded Seth. "But if I kep' to work on somethin' else that give mother an' me a good livin', I'd like to be the one they sent for all round this part of the country when they wanted first-rate playin'; an' I'd be ready, you know, and just make the old fiddle squeak lovely for dancin' or set pieces for weddings an' any occasions that might rise. I'd like to be _the_ player, an' I tell ye I'm goin' to be 'fore I die. Marm she knows I can, but one spell she used to expect 't would draw me into bad company."

"Oh you wouldn't let it, I'm sure, Seth," agreed Betty, with pleasing confidence. "I like to hear you play now," she said. "I wish we could get you a teacher. Perhaps papa can tell you, and--well, we'll see."

"I'd just like to have you see marm," said Seth shyly as they drove to the mill door. "She'd like you an' you'd like her. I don't suppose your aunts would let you go up-country, would they? It's pretty up there; mountains, an' cleared pastur's way up their sides higher 'n you'd git in an afternoon. You can see way down here right from our house," he whispered, as they stopped before the mill, door.

Betty thought it was very pleasant in the old mill. While Seth and the miller were transacting their business, she went to one of the little windows on the side next the swift rushing mill-stream and looked out awhile, and watched some swallows and the clear water and the house on the other side where the miller lived. Then she was shown how the corn was ground and tasted the hot meal as it came sifting down from the little boxes on the band, and the miller even had the big wheel stopped in its dripping dark closet where it seemed to labor hard to keep the mill going. "Something works hard for us in our lives to make them all come right," she thought with wistful gratitude, and looked with new interest at the busy maze of wheels and hoppers and rude machinery that joggled on steadily from the touch of the hidden wheel and the plash of its live water. She wandered out into the sunshine and down the river side a little way. There was a clean yellow sandy bottom in one place with shoals of frisky little minnows and a small green island only a little way out, and Betty was much tempted to take off her shoes and stockings and wade across. Her toes curled themselves in their shoes with pleased anticipation, but she thought with a sigh that she was too tall to go wading now, that is, near a public place like the mill. It was impossible not to give a heavy sigh over such lost delights. Then she looked up at the mill and discovered that there were only one or two high and dusty windows at that end, and down she sat on the short green turf to pull off the shoes and stockings as fast as she could, lest second thoughts might again hinder this last wade. She gathered her petticoats and over to the island she splashed, causing awful apprehension of disaster among the minnows.

The green island was a delightful place indeed; the upper end was near the roaring dam, and the water plashed and dashed as it ran away on either side. There were two or three young elms and some alders on the island, and the alders were full of clematis just coming into bloom. The lower end of this strip of island-ground was much less noisy, and Betty went down to sit there after she had seen two or three turtles slide into the water, and more minnows slip away into deeper pools out of sight. There was a pleasant damp smell of cool water, and a ripple of light went dancing up the high stone foundation of the old mill. Betty could still hear the great wet wheel lumbering round. She thought that she never had found a more delightful place, so much business was going on all about her and yet it was so quiet there, and as she looked under a young alder what should she see but a wild duck on its nest. Even if the shy thing had fluttered off at her approach, it had gone back again, and now watched her steadily as if to be ready to fly, yet not really frightened. It was a dear kind of relationship to be in this wild little place with another living creature, and Betty settled herself on the soft turf, against the straight young elm trunk, determined not to give another glance in the duck's direction. It would be great fun to come and see it go away with its ducklings when they were hatched, if one only knew the proper minute. She wished that she could paint a picture of the mill and the river, or could write a song about it, even if she could not sing it, so many girls had such gifts and did not care half so much for them as Betty herself would. Dear Betty! she did not know what a rare gift she had in being able to enjoy so many things, and to understand the pictures and songs of every day.

Then it was time to wade back to shore, and so she rose and left the duck to her peaceful seclusion, not knowing how often she would think of this pretty place in years to come. The best thing about such pleasures is that they seem more and more delightful, as years go on. Seth was just coming to tell Betty that the meal was all ground and ready when she appeared discreetly from behind the willows that grew at the mill end, and so they drove home without anything exciting to mark the way.

Betty had taken many music lessons, but she was by no means a musician, and seldom played for the pleasure of it. For some reason, after tea was over that evening she opened Aunt Barbara's piano and began to play a gay military march which she had toilsomely learned from one of the familiar English operas. She played it once or twice, and played it very well; in fact, an old gentleman who was going slowly along the street stopped and leaned on the fence to listen. He had been a captain in the militia in the days of the old New England trainings, and now though he walked with two canes and was quite decrepit, he liked to be reminded of his military service, and the march gave him a great pleasure and made him young again while he stood there beating time on the front fence, and nodding his head. One may often give pleasure without knowing it, if one does pleasant things.

Next morning, early after breakfast, Betty appeared at Miss Mary Leicester's door with an armful of mending. Aunt Mary waked up early and had her breakfast in bed, and liked very much to be called upon afterward and to hear something pleasant. One of the windows of her room looked down into the garden and it was cool and shady there at this time of the day, so Betty seated herself with a dutiful and sober feeling not unmixed with enjoyment.

"I have thought ever since yesterday that I was too severe, my dear," said Aunt Mary somewhat wistfully from her three pillows. "But you see, Betty, I am so conscious of the mistakes of my own life that I wish to help you to avoid them. It is a terrible thing to become dependent upon other people,--especially if they are busy people," she added plaintively.

"Oh, I ought to have managed everything better," responded Betty, looking at the ends of two fingers that had poked directly through a stocking toe. "I don't mean to let things get so bad again. I never do when I am with papa, because--I know better. But it has been such fun to play since I came to Tideshead! I don't feel a bit grown up here."

Aunt Mary looked at little Betty with an affectionate smile.

"I think fifteen is such a funny age," Betty went on; "you seem to just perch there between being a little girl and a young lady, and first you think you are one and then you think you are the other. I feel like a bird on a bough, or as if I were living in a railway station, waiting for a train to come in before I could do anything."

Betty said this gravely, and then felt a little shy and self-conscious. Aunt Mary watched her as she sat by the window sewing, and was wise enough not to answer, but she could not help thinking that Betty was a dear girl. It was one of Aunt Mary's very best days, and there were some things one could say more easily to her than to Aunt Barbara, though Aunt Barbara was what Betty was pleased to irreverently call her pal.

"I do wish that I had a talent for something," said Betty. "I can't sing: if I could, I am sure that I would sing for everybody who asked me. I don't see what makes people so silly about it; hear that old robin now!" and they both laughed. "Nobody asks me to play who knows anything about music. I wish I had Aunt Barbara's fingers; I don't believe I can ever learn. I told papa it was just throwing money away, and he said it was good to know how to play even a little, and good for my hands, to make them quick and clever."

"You played that march very well last night," said Aunt Mary kindly.

"Oh, that sort of thing! But I mean other music, the hard things that papa likes. There is one of the Chopin nocturnes that Mrs. Duncan plays, oh, it is so beautiful! I wish you and Aunt Barbara knew it."

"You must ask Aunt Barbara to practice it. I like to have her keep on playing. We used to hear a great deal of music when I was well enough to go to Boston in the winter, years ago," and Aunt Mary sighed. "I think it is a great thing to have a gift for home life, as you really have, Betty dear."

"Papa and I have been in such queer holes," laughed Betty. "Mrs. Duncan and some of our friends are never tired of hearing about them. But you know we always try to do the same things. If I hadn't any other teacher when we were just flying about, papa always heard my lessons and made me keep lesson hours; and he goes on with his affairs and we are quite orderly, indeed we are, so it doesn't make much difference where we happen to be. Then I have been whole winters in London, and Mrs. Duncan looks after us a good deal."

"Mary Duncan is a wise and charming woman," said Aunt Mary.

"All the big Duncans are so nice to the little ones!" said Betty; "but papa and I can be old or young just as we choose, and we try to make up for not being a large family," which seemed to amuse both Aunt Mary and Letty, who had just come in.

The hour soon slipped by and Betty's needle had done great execution, but a little heap was laid aside for the rag-bag as too hopeless a wreck for any mending. It was plain that too much trust had been reposed in strange washerwomen, for one could put a finger through the underwaists anywhere, such damaging soap had evidently been used to make them clean. Betty had heard that paper clothes were coming into fashion from Japan, and informed her aunt of this probable change for the better with great glee. Then she went away to the garden to cut some flowers for the house, and found Aunt Barbara there before her, tying up the hollyhock stalks to some stakes that Seth Pond was driving down. Aunt Barbara had a shallow basket and was going to cut the sweet-clover flowers that morning, to dry and put on her linen shelves along with some sprigs of lavender, and this pleasant employment took another half hour.

"Aunt Mary was so dear this morning!" said Betty, as they stood on opposite sides of a tall sweet-clover top.

"She feels pretty well, then," answered Miss Leicester, much pleased.

"Yes," said Betty, snipping away industriously; "she didn't wish to be pitied one bit. Don't you think we could give her some chloroform, Aunt Bab, and put her on the steamer and take her to England? She would get so excited and have such a good time and be well forever after."

"I really have thought so," acknowledged Aunt Barbara, smiling at Betty's audacity. "But your Aunt Mary has suffered many things, and has lost her motive power. She cannot rouse herself when she wishes to, nowadays, but must take life as it comes. I can see that it was a mistake to yield years ago to her nervous illness, but I was not so wise then, and now it is too late. You know, Betty, she had a great sorrow, and has never been the same person since."

"So had papa when mamma died," said Betty gravely, and trying hard to understand; "but he cured himself by just living for other people, and thinking whether _they_ were happy."

"It is the only way, dear," said Aunt Barbara, "but when you are older you will know better how it has been with my poor sister."

Betty said no more, but she had many thoughts. Something that had been said about losing one's motive power had struck very deep. She had said something herself about waiting for her train in the station, and she had a sudden vision of the aimlessness of it, and of even the train bills and advertisements on the wall. She was eager, as all girls are, for one single controlling fate or fortune to call out all her growing energies, but she was aware at this moment that she herself must choose and provide; she must learn to throw herself heartily into her life just as it was. It was a moment of clear vision to Betty Leicester, and her cheeks flushed with bright color. It wasn't the thing one had to do, but the way one learned to do it, that distinguished one's life. Perhaps she could be famous for every-day homely things and have a real genius for something so simple that nobody else had thought of it. That night when Betty said her prayers one new thing came into her mind to be asked for, and was a great help, so that she often remembered it afterward. "Help me to have a good time doing every-day things, and to make my work my pleasure." _

Read next: Chapter 10. Up-Country

Read previous: Chapter 8. A Chapter Of Letters

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