Mildred Keith - Complete 7 Book Collection. Finley Martha
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Wealthy saw it and came to the rescue. "Never mind, dearie; it will look very different when we have unpacked and arranged your furniture. With the help of curtains several rooms can be made out of this, and we'll do nicely."
"Yes, no doubt we shall, auntie," Mrs. Keith answered with determined cheerfulness. "That front room shall be yours—"
"No, no! you and Stuart must take that—"
"I'm quite set on having my own way in this," interrupted the younger lady in her turn. "It is the best room, and you must take it. Don't hesitate or object, for I should be afraid to have my little ones in there with that outside door opening on to nothing," she concluded, with a laugh.
"Well, wife, what do you think?" asked Mr. Keith, coming up the stairs.
"That we can be very happy here if we make up our minds to be content with our lot."
"That is like you, Marcia; always ready to make the best of everything," he said, with a pleased look.
"I think it's a dreadful place!" exclaimed Mildred, "like a great barn; and so dirty! plaster all over the floor and spattered on the windows too."
"I hope it can be cleaned," her father said, laughing at her rueful face. "Mrs. Prior can probably tell us where to find a woman to do it."
A little more time was spent in discussing plans for the arrangement of the inside of the dwelling; then they stepped into the side-yard and viewed it from the out.
A great dead wall of rough weather boarding broken by one window only and that in the second story, was what met their view as they looked up; down below, first a heap of sand, beyond that a wilderness of weeds and brushwood.
"I'm dumb with despair!" cried Mildred, folding her hands with a tragical air.
"Can dumb folks talk?" asked Cyril.
"As ugly as mud this side," remarked Zillah, turning up her nose scornfully as she scanned the unsightly wall.
"We'll cover it with vines," said Aunt Wealthy.
"And I'll clear the yard and sod it," added Rupert, seizing a great mullein stalk and pulling it up by the roots as he spoke. "Twon't be nearly so hard as the clearing the early pioneers of Ohio had to do, our grandfathers among the rest."
"That's the right way to look at it, my boy," responded Mr. Keith, heartily. "Come now, we'll lock up the house and go back to our hotel for the night."
"There's a log house nearly opposite," remarked Rupert, when they were in the street again, "and the next is a real shabby one-and-a-half-story frame with a blacksmith shop attached. We haven't the worst place in town after all. Ho! look at the sign, 'G. Lightcap;' what a name! 'specially for a blacksmith."
Mrs. Prior joined her guests in the parlor after the younger portion had gone to bed.
"Well, how did you like the house?" she asked.
"I hope we shall be able to make ourselves comfortable there," Mr. Keith answered, in a cheerful tone.
"You can get possession right away, I s'pose."
"Yes; and want to move in as quickly as possible, but must have some cleaning done first."
Mrs. Prior recommended a woman for that without waiting to be asked, and offered to "send round" at once and see if she could be engaged for the next day.
The offer was accepted with thanks and the messenger brought back word that Mrs. Rood would be at the house by six o'clock in the morning.
"But," suggested Aunt Wealthy in dismay, "she'll want hot water, soap, cloths, scrubbing brushes!"
"I'll lend a big iron kettle to heat the water," said the landlady; "a fire can be made in that kitchen fireplace, you know, or out doors, with the brush wood."
"And brushes and soap can be had at the stores, I presume," suggested Mr. Keith.
"Yes; and if they ain't open in time, I'll lend mine for her to start on."
"Thank you very much," said Mrs. Keith. "But, Stuart, we may as well unpack our own; I can tell you just which box to open."
"What a woman you are for doing things systematically, Marcia," he said, admiringly. "Yours is the best plan, I think. Can we be up in season to be on hand there at half-past five, think you?"
"We can try," she answered brightly, "Mrs. Prior, where is your market?"
"We haven't got to that yet, ma'am," replied the landlady, laughing and shaking her head.
"No market? why how do you manage without?"
"There's butcher shops where we can buy fresh meat once or twice a week—beef, veal, mutton, lamb, just whatever they happen to kill—and we put up our own salt pork, hams, dried beef, and so forth, and keep codfish and mackerel on hand.
"Most folks have their own chickens, and the country people bring 'em in too; and butter and eggs and vegetables; though a good many town folks have garden sass of their own raisin'; keep a cow and make their own butter."
"That's the most independent way," remarked Mr. Keith. "I think I must have a cow; if I can get a girl who can milk. Do you know of a good girl wanting a place, Mrs. Prior?"
"I wish I did; but they're dreadful scarce sir; and so sassy! you can't keep 'em unless you let 'em come to the table with the family; and you must be mighty careful what you ask 'em to do."
Chapter Seventh.
"I feel my sinews slacken'd with the fright,
And a cold sweat thrills down all o'er my limbs,
As if I were dissolving into water."
—Dryden's Tempest.
The Lightcaps were at supper; father and eldest son, each of whom stood six feet in his stockings, with shirt sleeves rolled up above their elbows, displaying brown sinewy arms; the mother in a faded calico, grizzled hair drawn straight back from a dull, careworn face and gathered into a little knot behind in which was stuck a yellow horn comb; years of incessant toil and frequent exposure to sun and wind had not improved a naturally dark, rough skin, and there was no attempt at adornment in her attire, not a collar or a ruffle to cover up the unsightliness of the yellow, wrinkled neck.
Rhoda Jane, the eldest daughter, seated at her father's right hand, was a fac-simile of what the mother had been in her girlhood, with perhaps an added touch of intelligence and a somewhat more bold and forward manner.
There were besides several younger children of both sexes, quite ordinary looking creatures and just now wholly taken up with the business in hand;—vieing with each other in the amount of bread and butter and molasses, fried potatoes and fried pork they could devour in a given space of time.
"Some new comers in town, mother," remarked Mr. Lightcap, helping himself to a second slice of pork. "The keelboat Mary Ann come up the river with a lot of travellers."
"Who, father? somebody that's going to stay?"
"Yes; that lawyer we heerd was comin', you know. What's his name?"
"Keith," said Rhoda Jane, "I heerd Miss Prior tell Damaris Drybread last Sunday after meetin'. And so they've come, hev they?"
"Yes; I had occasion to go up street a bit ago, and saw George Ward takin' 'em to the Union Hotel; the man hisself and two or three wimmin folks and a lot of young uns."
"Damaris was wishing there'd be some children;" remarked Rhoda Jane, "she wants more scholars."
"It don't foller they'd go to her if there was," put in her brother.
"Oh now you just shut up, Goto! you never did take no stock in Damaris."
"No, nor you neither, Rhoda Jane; 'cept once in