"Ah! but where will you find a stouter heart, or a steadier hand and eye, than belong to good old Reuben Olmstead? He can put many of the young men to shame, thanks to his temperate life! Your father is one of the best types of his cla.s.s, Sara,--brave, honest, and true,--did you know it?"

As she spoke, she led the girl from the tiny entry, with three of its corners cut off by doors, into a pleasant room lighted by the aforesaid bay window. It had a bright red-and-green square of carpeting in the centre, with edges of fine India matting; a large cabinet of seash.e.l.ls and other marine curiosities occupied one end; a parrot was chained to a high perch near an open Franklin stove at the other, and the walls between were decorated with queer plates and platters of dragon-china, while great bunches of ta.s.sel-like gra.s.ses and wings of brilliant feathered fowl filled the odd s.p.a.ces.

Motioning her guest to a small easy-chair, Miss Prudence Plunkett took her own, one of those straight-backed, calico-cushioned wooden rockers dear to our grandmothers, and drew it up opposite the girl's.

"No, child, you musn't worry! Reuben Olmstead's a good sailor yet, and, better than all, a good man. His Father will look after him more tenderly than you can," giving her cap an odd little jerky nod, which caused the parrot to suddenly croak out,--

"'Taint neither!" "Hush, Poll, n.o.body's talking to you! It's astonishing, my dear, how much that creature knows. She thinks when I nod my head I'm trying to convince her of something, and it always makes her quarrelsome."

"'Tis too!" croaked the bird again, determined to get up an argument, if only with herself.

Sara had to smile in spite of her sadness, at which the creature gave such an odd, guttural chuckle, that she laughed outright.

"That's right; pretty Poll, nice Poll! Cheer up, cheer up!" she rattled off, looking, through all these merry outbursts, so unutterably solemn, that the effect was ludicrous in the extreme.

"Silly thing!" said Sara, wiping her eyes. "She always will be heard; but while I think of it, I must tell you how I've enjoyed your 'Studies in Russia' that you lent me, Miss Prue. It must be fine to travel and see the world!"

"Yes; and it's decidedly comfortable, too, to sit by a good fire and see it through other people's eyes, Sara. These thrilling adventures, these close shaves from shipwreck, fire, frost, and robbery, are much pleasanter to read about than to realize, I imagine. Do you know, I always feel like adding a special thanksgiving for books to my daily prayer. What _would_ my lonely life be without them?"

Sara's eyes kindled.

"I've felt so, too, Miss Prue; and another for you, because you have helped me to enjoy so many!"

"All right, my dear, remember me in every prayer, if you will. It's doubtless better thanks than I deserve, but I won't refuse anything so good; and now what shall it be to-day, more Russia?"

"You said something about one,--'A Trip through Siberia,' wasn't it?"

"Oh, yes!"

The elder woman stepped across the room, and opened a gla.s.s door screened by a thick red curtain, thus displaying several book-shelves thickly packed, from which she selected the volume named; then handing it to Sara, who had risen to depart, said gently,--

"My dear, I don't like that little line between your eyes; it looks like discontent; or is it only study?"

Sara flushed.

"Something of both, perhaps."

"Smooth it out, child, smooth it out! No one can hope for wisdom until he has learned patience; now is your time to cultivate your own. Did you ever see a mountain top that could be reached without a hard scramble, Sara?"

"I never saw a mountain top at all, Miss Prue," smiling whimsically.

The elder woman laughed.

"Then you have so much the more in store for you; for I'm sure you will see one some day, if it is only the Delectable Mountains above.

Meanwhile, climb on, and keep looking up."

"I'll try," said Sara humbly, and took her departure, comforted and inspired, as always, by this cheery old maid, whose lover had lain over twenty years beneath the waves, never forgotten, never replaced, in the strong, true heart of his unmarried widow.

When Sara reached home she found need for her patience at once, for the baby was crying, and her mother looked cross and fretful.

"Wall," she said in her shrillest tone, as the door closed behind the girl, "you've come at last, hev you? An' another book, I'll be bound!

Pity you couldn't turn into one, yourself; you'd be about as much use as now, I guess!"

"Then we'd both be 'bound,' mother, wouldn't we?" trying to speak lightly. "Give baby to me, won't you, you're tired."

She held out her arms to the screaming child, who went to her at once, growing more quiet the moment he felt her tender clasp.

"There! Now I hope I kin git a minute to myself. Where you been, anyhow, Sairay?"

"At Miss Prue's--she called me in. Mother, there's been a pin p.r.i.c.king him! See here, poor little fellow!" and Sara held up the bent bit of torture, then threw it into the fire, while the relieved baby smiled up at her through his tears and cooed lovingly.

"It beats all how he likes you, Sairay!" said the mother in an apologetic tone. "I never thought of a pin, an' it allus makes me ready to fly when he yells so. What did Miss Prue hev to say?" "Oh, not much; her parrot kept interrupting," laughing a little. "I always talk with her about her books or curiosities, nearly; how pretty it is there!"

"Miss Plunkett comes o' good stock. Her folks hev been sea-captings ever sence they was pirates, I guess. And she's rich too; she must hev as much as two thousand in the savings bank down to Norcross, 'sides her nice home."

"She's good!" said Sara with emphasis, as if nothing else counted for much.

"Wall, n.o.body's goin' to say she ain't in Killamet, Sairay, leastways, not many. In course she's ruther top-headed an' lofty, but it's in the blood. Ole Cap'n Plunkett was the same, and my! his wife,--Mis'

Pettibone thet was,--she was thet high an' mighty ye couldn't come anigh her with a ten-foot pole! So it's nateral fur Miss Prue. Now, Sairay, I'm goin' over to my cousin Lizy's a while, an' if baby--why, he's gone to sleep, ain't he?"

Sara nodded smilingly, and her mollified mother said, more gently,--

"Wall, my dear, lay him in the cradle, an' then you kin hev a good time a-readin' while I'm gone. I s'pose you kain't help takin' to books arter all, seein' as your ma was a school-ma'am."

"Thank you," said Sara, more for the kindness of the tone than the words, and the little domestic squall that time pa.s.sed over quite harmlessly.

But these were of daily, almost hourly occurrence. Sara's larger, broader nature tried to ignore the petty pin-p.r.i.c.ks of her stepmother's narrower, more fretful one; but at times her whole soul rose up in rebellion, and she flashed out some fiercely sarcastic or denunciatory answer that reduced the latter to tears and moans, which in time forced from the girl concessions and apologies.

To do the little woman justice, she was often sorely tried by Sara's grand, self-contained airs,--unconscious as they were,--and by her obliviousness to many of the trivialities and practicalities of life.

Mrs. Olmstead loved gossip, and Sara loathed it. The woman delighted in going to tea-drinkings, and afterward relating in detail every dish served (with its recipe), and every dress worn upon the momentous occasion; the girl could not remember a thing she had eaten an hour later, nor a single detail of any costume.

"But, Sairay," her mother would urge, after the former's visits to Miss Prue or Mrs. Norris, places to which she was seldom asked herself, except with great formality once a year perhaps; for the early and life- long friendship these families had extended to Sara's own mother was not so freely bestowed upon her successor. "But, Sairay, think! You say Mis'

Jedge Peters from Weskisset was there; _kain't_ you tell what she wore? Was it black silk, or green cashmere? and was the sleeves coat, or mutton-leg? and do think if she had on a cap, kain't you?"

"I know she looked very nice," Sara would reply helplessly; "but, really, I can't think, mother. You see, she was telling about the work in the hospitals,--the Flower Mission, they call it,--and I was so interested I couldn't take my eyes off her face."

"Wall, then, the supper, Sairay. You must know what you was eatin', child! Did Mis' Norris use her rale chany that the cap'n brung over, or only the gold-banded? And did she hev on them queer furrin' presarves, with ginger an' spices in 'em, or only home-made?"

"Well, let me see. I think they had spices, that is, I'm not quite sure, for Captain Klister was there, and he got to 'reeling off a yarn,' as he said, about the mutiny at Benares in '57, when he was buying silks and shawls there, and I didn't notice just what was served, I was listening so intently."

At which the poor woman, greedy for news, would flare up and abuse her stepdaughter roundly, bringing up, each time, every former delinquency, till Sara either turned under the weight of them and felled her with a sarcasm, or, more wisely, fled to her attic and her books for solace.

Thus some weeks slipped by, bringing milder and more settled weather; but, as if winter and spring had roused all their forces to repulse the irresistible oncoming of the summer, along towards the beginning of May there was a cold storm of wind and sleet, lasting three days, which blasted the too confiding and premature fruit-buds, and ruthlessly cut off the heads of all the peeping, early wild-flowers.

Sara, surrounded by the children, stood looking from the window one afternoon, soon after this storm broke.

"How glad I am she didn't take baby!" she said, pressing the little fellow's cheek against her own. "I felt those last two sultry days were weather-breeders. Do you remember whether she took her heavy shawl, Molly?"

"No, I don't b'lieve she did; wait, I'll see."