Nine Little Goslings Part 8

"I don't know what's come to her," said poor Mrs. Forcythe. "She's not like the same child at all." And old Mrs. Clapp, who had been very fond of Mary, declared that she never knew a girl so altered.

"She's the most _contrary_ piece you ever saw," she said to her daughter. "I could have given her a right-down good slap just now for the way she spoke to her mother. It's all her fault that the baby took cold. She don't lift a hand to help, and I expect as sure as Fate that we'll have Mrs. Forcythe sick before we get through. I wouldn't have believed that such a likely girl as Mary Forcythe could act so."

Poor "contrary" Mary! She was very unhappy. The fatal last morning came.

All the boxes were packed. The drays, laden with furniture and beds, stood at the gate. Mrs. Clapp, and Mrs. Elder, the cla.s.s-leader, were going over the house collecting last things and doing last jobs. Mary wandered out alone into the garden for a farewell look at her pets.

"Good-by, pansies," she said, bending over them. There were only five in the bed now, for Mary had taken up one and packed it in paper to carry with her. A big tear hopped down her nose and splashed into the middle of the yellow pansy, her favorite of all. It turned up its bright kitten-face just the same. None of them minded Mary's going away.

Flowers are sometimes so unkind to people.

"Good-by, rose-bush," proceeded Mary, turning from the pansy-bed.

"Good-by, honey-suckle. Good-by, peony. Good-by, matter-i-mony." This sounds funny, but Mary only meant by it a vine with a small purple flower which grew over the back-door. "Good-by, lilac," she went on.

"Good-by, gra.s.s plot." This brought her to the gate. The wagon stood waiting to carry them to the railroad, three miles away. Mrs. Forcythe, with the baby in her arms, was just getting in. "Hurry, Mary," called her father. Slowly she opened the gate, slowly shut it. Her father helped her over the wheel. She sat down beside Frank. Mrs. Clapp waved her handkerchief, then put it to her eyes. Mary took a long look at the pretty garden just budding with spring, and burst into tears. Mr.

Forcythe chirruped to the horse; they were off,--and that was their good-by to Valley Hill.

Redding was certainly very different. It was an old-fashioned town with narrow streets, which smelt of fish. Most of the people were sailors, or had something to do with ships. There were several nice churches, and outside the town a few handsome houses, but there were a great many poor people in the place and not many rich ones.

In the very narrowest of all the streets stood the parsonage; a little brick house with a paved yard behind, just wide enough for clothes-lines. When the wash was hung out there was not an inch to spare on either side. Mary gave up all hope as soon as she saw it. There was not room even for _one_ pansy. The windows looked out on chimneys and roofs and other backyards, with lines of wet clothes flapping in the sun. Not a tree was to be seen. Any one might be excused for thinking it doleful; and Mary, having made up her mind beforehand to dislike it, found it easy to keep her resolution.

There was no possibility of getting things to rights that night; though several people came in to help, and a comfortable supper was ready spread for the travellers on their arrival. Mrs. Forcythe was cheered by this kindness, but Mary could not be cheerful. She had to sleep upon a mattress laid on the floor. At another time this would have been fun, but now it did not seem funny at all; it was only part and parcel of the misery of coming to live in Redding. She cried herself to sleep, and came down in the morning with swollen eyelids and a disposition to make the very worst of things,--easy enough for any girl to do if she sets about it.

She scarcely thanked her father when he went out and bought a red pot for the unlucky pansy, which, after its travels and its night in brown paper, looked as disconsolate as Mary herself. "I know it'll die right away," she muttered as she set it on the window-sill. "Oh, dear, there's mother calling. What _does_ she want?"

"Mary, dear," said Mrs. Forcythe when she went down, "where have you been? I want you to put away the dishes for me."

"I'm so tired," objected Mary crossly.

"Don't you think that mother must be tired too?" asked her father gravely.

Mary blushed and began to place the cups and plates on the cupboard shelves. Her slow movements attracted her father's attention.

"What's the matter?" he said. "At Valley Hill you were as brisk as a bee, always wanting to help in every thing. Here you seem unwilling to move. How is it?"

"I--don't--like--Redding," broke out Mary in a burst of petulance.

"You haven't seen it yet."

"Yes, I have, Papa. I've seen it as much as I want to. It's horrid!"

"I never knew her to behave so before," said Mr. Forcythe in a perplexed tone, as Mary, having unpacked the dishes, sobbed her way upstairs.

"She'll brighten when we are settled," replied Mrs. Forcythe, indulgent as mothers are, and ready to hope the best of her child. "Oh, dear!

there's the baby waked up. Would you call Mary to go to him?"

So it went on all that week. Mr. and Mrs. Forcythe were very patient with Mary, hoping always that this evil mood would pa.s.s, and their bright, helpful little daughter come back to them again. She never refused to do any thing that was asked of her; but you know the difference between willing and unwilling service: Mary just did the tasks set her, no more, and as soon as they were finished fled to her own room to fret and cry. Her father took her out to walk and showed her the new church, but Mary thought the church ugly, and the outside view of Redding as unpleasant as the inside one. Dull streets, small houses everywhere; no gardens, except now and then a single bed, edged with a row of stiff c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.ls by way of fence, and planted with pert sweet-williams or crown imperials. These Mary thought were worse than no flowers at all. Every thing smelt of fish. The very sea was made ugly by warehouses and shabby wharves. The people they met were strangers; and, altogether, the effect of Mary's walk was to send her back more homesick than ever for Valley Hill.

By Friday night the little parsonage was in order. Mrs. Forcythe was a capital manager. She planned and contrived, turned and twisted and made things comfortable in a surprising way. But she overtired herself greatly in doing this, and on Sat.u.r.day morning Mary was waked by her father calling from below that mother was very ill, and she must come down at once and stay with her while he went for a doctor.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mary, as she hurried on her clothes. "Now mother is sick. It's all this hateful Redding. She never was sick when we lived in the country."

But the hard mood melted the moment she saw her mother's pale face and feeble smile.

"I hope I'm not going to be very ill," said Mrs. Forcythe; "probably it's only that I have tired myself out. You'll have to be 'Mamma' for a day or two, Mary dear. Make Papa as comfortable as you can. See that Frank has his lunch put up for school, and don't let Peter take cold.

Oh, dear!--my head aches so hard that I can't talk. I know you'll do your best Mary, won't you?"

Guess how Mary felt at this appeal! All her better nature came back in a moment. She saw how wrong she had been in nursing her selfish griefs, and letting this dear mother over-work herself. "O mother, I will, indeed I will!" she cried, kissing the pale face; and, only waiting to draw the blind so that the sun should not shine in, she flew downstairs, eager to do all she could to make up for past ill-conduct.

The Doctor came. He said Mrs. Forcythe was threatened with fever, and must be kept very quiet for several days. Mary had never in her life worked so hard as she did that Sat.u.r.day. There was breakfast, dinner, supper to get, dishes to wash, water to heat, the fire to tend, rooms to dust, beds to make, the baby to keep out of mischief. She was very tired by night, but her heart felt lighter than it had for many days past. Do you wonder at this? I can tell you the reason. Mary's troubles were selfish troubles, and the moment she forgot herself in thinking of somebody else, they became small and began to creep away.

"Pitty, pitty!" said little Peter, as he heard her singing over her dish-washing. Mary caught him up and gave him a hearty kiss,--a real Valley Hill kiss, such as she had given no one since they came to Redding.

"Mary is doing famously," Mr. Forcythe told his wife that night. "She has a first-rate head on her shoulders for a girl of her age." Mary heard him, and was pleased. She liked--we all like--to be counted useful and valuable. The bit of praise sent her back to her work with redoubled zeal.

Next morning Mrs. Forcythe was a little better. Her head ached less; she sat up on her pillows and drank a cup of tea. Mary was smoothing her mother's hair with soft pats of the brush, when suddenly the church bells began to ring. She had never heard such sounds before. The bell at Valley Hill was cracked, and went tang--tang--tang, as if the meeting-house were an old cow walking slowly about. These bells had a dozen different voices,--some deep and solemn, others bright and clear, but all beautiful; and across their pealing a soft, delicious chime from the tower of the Episcopal church went to and fro, and wove itself in and out like a thread of silver embroidery. Mary dropped the brush, and clasped her hands tight. It was like listening to a song of which she could not hear enough. When the last tinkle of the chime died away, she unclasped her hands, and, turning from the window, cried, "O mother!

wasn't that lovely? There is _one_ pleasant thing in Redding, after all!"

I do not think matters ever seemed so hard again after that morning when Mary made friends with the church bells. It was the beginning of a better understanding between her and her new home; and there is a great deal in beginnings, even though they may work slowly toward their ends.

By the close of the week Mrs. Forcythe was downstairs again, weak and pale, but able to sit in her chair and direct things, which Mary felt to be a great comfort. The parishioners began to call. There were no rich people among them; but it was a hard-working, active parish, and did a great deal for its means. The Sunday-school was large and flourishing; there was a missionary a.s.sociation, a home missionary a.s.sociation, a mite society, and a sewing circle, which met every week to make clothes for the poor and partake of tea, soda biscuit, and six sorts of cake.

Beside these, a new project had just been started, "The Seamen's Daughters' Industrial Society;" or, in other words, a sewing-school for little girls whose fathers were sailors. There were plenty of such little girls in Redding.

"Your daughter will join, of course," said Mrs. Wallis, when she came to call on her minister's wife. "It's important that the pastor's family should take a part in every good work." Mrs. Wallis was the most energetic woman of the congregation,--at the head of every thing.

"I'm afraid Mary's sewing is not good enough," replied Mrs. Forcythe.

"She isn't very skilful with her needle yet."

"Oh! she knows enough to teach those ignorant little creatures. Half of them are foreigners, and never touch a needle in their homes. It's every thing to give them some ideas beyond their own shiftless ways."

"Would you like to try, Mary?" asked her mother.

"I--don't--know," replied Mary, afraid to refuse, because Mrs. Wallis looked so sharp and decided.

"Very well, then I'll call for you on Sat.u.r.day, at half-past ten," went on Mrs. Wallis, quite regardless of Mary's hesitating tone. "I'm glad you'll come. It would never do not to have some of the minister's family. Sat.u.r.day morning, at half-past ten! Good-by, Mrs. Forcythe.

Don't get up; you look peaked still. To-morrow is baking day, and I shall send you a green-currant pie. Perhaps _that'll_ do you good." With these words she departed.

"Must I really teach in that school?" asked Mary dolefully.

"I think you'd better. The people expect it, and it will be a good thing for you to practise sewing a little," replied her mother. "I daresay it will be pleasanter than you think."

"It seems so funny that I should be set to teach any one to sew," said Mary, bursting into a laugh. "Don't you recollect how Mrs. Clapp used to scold me, and say I 'gobbled' my darns?"

"You mustn't 'gobble' before the seamen's daughters," said Mrs.

Forcythe, smiling. "It will be a capital lesson for you to try to teach what you haven't quite learned yourself."

Punctual as the clock Mrs. Wallis appeared on Sat.u.r.day, and bore the unwilling Mary away to the sewing-school. Mrs. Forcythe watched them from the window. She couldn't help laughing, their movements were so comically different,--Mrs. Wallis was so brisk and decided, while Mary lagged behind, dragging one slow foot after the other as if each moment she longed to stop and dared not. Very different was her movement, however, two hours later, when she returned. She came with a kind of burst, her eyes bright with excitement, and her cheeks pinker than they had been since she left Valley Hill.

"O mother, it is _so_ nice! Ever so many children were there,--thirty at least; and Mrs. Wallis said I might choose any five I liked to be my cla.s.s. First, I chose the dearest little Irish girl. Her name is Norah, and she's just as pretty as she can be, only her face was dreadfully dirty, and her clothes all rags. Then her little sister Kathleen cried to come; so I took her too. Then I chose a cunning little German tot named Gretchen. She has yellow hair, braided in tight little tails down her back, and is a good deal cleaner than the rest, but not very clean, you know; and she hadn't any shoes at all. Then Mrs. Wallis brought up the funniest little French girl, with a name I can't p.r.o.nounce. I'm going to call her Amy. And the last of all is an American, real pretty.

Her name is Rachel Gray. Her father is gone on a whaling voyage, and won't be back for three years. Don't they sound nice, mother? I think I shall like teaching them so much!"