Hildegarde's Neighbors Part 11

"Tell them, by all means, my dear," said Mrs. Merryweather, cheerfully. "Did I do anything more foolish than usual? Oh, yes, I remember! I was measuring the whale-oil soap. Tell them, Gerty, if you think it would amuse them. I am not very useful," she added, turning to Mrs. Grahame, "but I do seem to give a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt, and that is a good thing."

"Well," said Gertrude, "you see, we had to squirt the roses, and mamma said she would make the whale-oil mixture for us, because it is such horrid stuff, and we had some errands to do first. So I came back after the errands, and she was measuring it out. Dear mamma! am I a wretch?"

"Not at all, my child," said her mother. "I richly deserve to be exposed; besides, one can always serve to point a moral. You see, Mrs. Grahame, the receipt said, 'half a pint of soap to a gallon of water! Now I had ten gallons of water, so I--tell what I was doing, cruel child."

"She had the pint measure," said Gerty, "and she was filling it half full and then pouring it into the water. She was going to do that ten times, you see; and I said, 'Why don't you fill it full, five times?' Darling mamma, I AM a wretch!"

"Yes, you are," cried Bell. "Poor mamma! dear mamma!"

The children all cl.u.s.tered round their mother, caressing her, and murmuring affectionate words. Mrs. Merryweather smiled in a happy, helpless way.

"I am a sad goose, good neighbours," she said; "but they always bring me out right, somehow. There now, darlings, sit down, and be good. And, by the way, Gertrude, I am minded to heap a coal of fire on your head. Didn't you tell me this morning that t.i.tus Labienus was always on a hill, or something like that?"

"Yes," said Gertrude. "So he is, and ever will remain so. Have you taken him down, dear mamma?"

"Not exactly!" said her mother. "But I have made a ballad about him, and I thought it might possibly amuse you all."

An eager shout arose, and all the young people gathered in a circle round the good lady's chair, while she read:--

"THE BALLAD OF t.i.tUS LABIENUS."

Now t.i.tus Labienus Was stationed on a hill; He sacrificed to Ja.n.u.s, Then stood up stark and still'

He stood and gazed before him, The best part of a week; Then, as if anguish tore him, Did Labienus speak:

"Oh, hearken, mighty Caesar I Oh, Caius Julius C., It really seems to me, sir, Things aren't as they should be.

I've looked into the future, I've gazed beyond the years, And as I'm not a butcher, My heart is wrung to tears.

"All Gaul it is divided In parts one, two and three, And bravely you and I did, In Britain o'er the sea.

In savage wilds the Teuton Has felt your hand of steel, Proud Rome you've set your boot on, And ground it 'neath your heel.

"But looking down the ages, There springs into my ken A land not in your pages, A land of coming men.

I would that it were handier 'Tis far across the sea: 'Tis Yankeedoodledandia, The land that is to be.

"A land of stately cities, A land of peace and truth: But oh! the thousand pities!

A land of weeping youth.

A land of school and college, Where youths and maidens go A-seeking after knowledge, But seeking it in woe.

"I hear the young men groaning!

I see the maidens fair, With sighs and bitter moaning, Tearing their long, fair hair.

And through the smoke of Ja.n.u.s Their cry comes sad and shrill, "Oh, t.i.tus Labienus, Come down from off that hill

"For centuries you've stood there, And gazed upon the Swiss; Yet never have withstood there An enemy like this.

The misery of seeking, The agony of doubt Of who on earth is speaking, And what 'tis all about."

"Now he had planned an action, And brought his forces round; But--well, there rose a faction, And ran the thing aground.

And--their offence was heinous, Yet Caesar had his will; And t.i.tus Labienus Was stationed on a hill.

"'Then the Helvetii rallied, To save themselves from wrack, And from the towns they sallied, And drove the Romans back.

The land was quite mounTAINous, Yet they were put to flight; And t.i.tus Labienus Was stationed on a height.

"'Then himself advised them Upon the rear to fall; But Dumnorix surprised them, And sounded a recall.

Quoth he, "The G.o.ds sustain us!

These ills we'll still surmount!"

And t.i.tus Labienus Was stationed on a mount."

"Thus comes the cry to hand here Across the western sea, From Yankeedoodledandia, The land that is to be.

My heart is wrung with sorrow; Hot springs the pitying tear.

Pray, Julius C., to-morrow Let me get down from here I

"Oh, send me to the valley!

Oh, send me to the town!

Bid me rebuff the sally, Or cut the stragglers down; Send me once more to battle With Vercingetorix; I'll drive his Gallic cattle, And stop his Gallic tricks.

"Oh! sooner shall my legion Around my standard fall; In grim Helvetic region, Or in galumphing Gaul; Sooner the foe enchain us, Sooner our life-blood spill, Than t.i.tus Labienus Stand longer on the hill!"

CHAPTER X.

A NEW LIFE.

"Bell," said Hildegarde, "I really think I must be a cat in disguise."

"What do you mean, dear?" inquired Bell, looking up from her dishpan.

"Why, I have had so many lives. This is the fifth, at the least computation. It is very extraordinary."

Quiet Bell waited, seeing that more was coming. The two girls were sitting on the end of a wharf, in the sparkling clearness of a September morning. Before them stretched a great lake, a sheet of silver, dotted as far as the eye could see with green islands.

Behind lay a pebbly beach, and farther up, nestled among a fringe of forest trees, stood a bark hut, with broad verandahs and overhanging eaves. Hildegarde looked up and around, her face shining with pleasure.

"They have all been so happy--the lives," she said. "But this surely is the most beautiful to look at. You see," here she turned again to her companion, "first I was a little girl, and then a big one, at home in New York; and a very singularly odious specimen of both I was."

"Am I expected to believe this?" asked Bell, quietly.

"Oh yes! because I know, you see, and I remember just how detestable I was. Children are so sometimes, you know, even with the very best parents, and I certainly had those. Well, at last I grew so unbearable that I had to be sent away. Oh, you need not raise your eyebrows, my dear! It's very nice of you, but you never saw me then. I don't mean that I was sent to the Reform School; but my father and mother had to go to California, and I was not strong, so the journey was not thought best for me; and besides, dear mamma saw that if I was ever going to amount to anything I must be taken away from the fashionable school and the set of girls I was getting intimate with. I wasn't intimate with mamma then; I didn't want to be. The other girls were not, and I thought it would be silly; think of it, Bell! Well, I was sent, a forlorn and furious child (fifteen years old though, the same age as dear, sweet Gertrude), to my mother's old nurse in the country,--a farmer's wife, living on a small farm, twenty miles from a city.

There, my dear, I first learned that there was a world outside the city of New York. I must tell you all about it some day,--the happy, blessed time I had with those dear people, and how I learned to know my own dearest ones while I was away from them. I buried that first Hildegarde, very dead, oh, very dead indeed!

Then the next summer I went to a new world, and my Rose went with me. I have told you about her, and how sweet she is, and how ill she was, and now how she is going to marry the good doctor who cured her of her lameness. We spent the summer with Cousin Wealthy Bond, a cousin of my mother's,--the loveliest old lady, living down in Maine. That was a very new world, Bell; and oh! I have a child there, a little boy, my Benny. At least, he is Cousin Wealthy's Benny now, for she is bringing him up as her own, and loves him really as if he were; but I always think of him as partly mine, because Rose and I found him in the hospital where we used to go to carry flowers. He had been very ill, and we got Cousin Wealthy to let him come to her house to get well. And through, that, somehow, there came to be a little convalescent home for the children from the hospital,--oh, I must tell you that story too, some day, and it is called Joyous Gard. Yes, of course I named it, and I was there for a month this spring, before you came, and had the most enchanting time. I took Hugh with me, and the only trouble was that Benny was madly jealous of him, and gave him no peace. Poor Benny! he is a dear, nice little boy, but not like Hugh, of course, and that exasperated him past belief. It was just like Lord Lardy and the waiter in the Bab Ballad, for Hugh was entirely unconscious, and would smile peacefully at Benny's demonstrations of wrath, thinking it all a joke.

"Oh, I could talk all day about Benny and Cousin Wealthy, and nice, funny Mrs. Brett, and all of them. Well, then, two years ago came our trouble, you know. Dear papa died, and we came out here, feeling very strange and lost. It was sad at first, of course; but oh, we have had such peace and happiness together, my mother dear and I! The last year, when we had grown used to doing without the dear one, and knew--but mamma always knew it--that we must make happiness for each other,--the last year has been a most lovely time. But sweet and happy as it has all been, Bell, still I have always had a small circle to love and to be with. Mamma, bless her, and at one time one set of dear friends, and at another time another; never many people at once, and life peaceful and lovely, but one day pretty much like another, you see. But since you all came, I have been in a new world altogether,--a great, merry, laughing world, with such lots of children and fun--"

"And noise!" put in Bell. "We are a dreadfully noisy set, I fear."

"Oh, noise is good," cried Hildegarde, "such happy, healthy noise as this. I love it, though it did startle me at first. It seemed pleasant enough to have you all next door; but then came this last development,--Cousin Wealthy's illness, and her sending for mamma, and your mother's kindness in bringing me out to this delightful place. It is all like a fairy tale. I used to hear of people's camping out, but I always thought I should hate it. Hate this!"

She looked up at the brilliant sky above her, and around at the shining lake, the dark trees drooping to the water's edge, the green islands sleeping in the sunshine. "Oh, pleasant place!" she sighed.

They were silent for a few moments; Bell was scouring dishpans till they shone like silver, while Hildegarde thoughtfully wrung out the dishcloths that she had been washing as she talked.