LiitKARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS \ / Print bT fl. Andre AMY LEE; OR-, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. "SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY:' SHAKSPKARB. BY THE AUTHOR OF "OUR PARISH." j.i. BOSTON: HIGGINS & BRADLEY, 20 Washington St. 1856. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1855, by BROWN, BAZIN, AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District 0'* Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE I U N K T . CONTENTS. Page. CHAPTER I. A WRECK OF A MAN, 7 T CHAPTER H. THE BESETTING SIN, - - - - 17 CHAPTER in. THE END OF IT, 27 CHAPTER IV. ABOUT THE FUTURE, 88 CHAPTER V. A JOURNEY ALONE, CHAPTER VI. MRS. GUMMEL, 64 CHAPTER VIE. A LOOK AT THE VILLAGE, 75 CHAPTER Vin. HUNTING UP PUPILS, 87 CHAPTER IX. THE FIRST SUNDAY, 100 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. OPENING SCHOOL, - - 112 CHAPTER XI. LEAVES FROM A JOURNAL, . - 124 CHAPTER XH. SATURDAY AFTERNOON, .... 133 CHAPTER XTTT. DOLLY TATTERAGS, 142 CHAPTER XTV. THE TATTERAG FAMILY, - - - -155 'CHAPTER XV. OLIVE ADAMS, 169 CHAPTER XVI. IVY LODGE, 178 CHAPTER XVH. LEAVES FROM A JOURNAL, 189 CHAPTER XVIH. PROGRESS,- . - -1 V.^. 197 CHAPTER XIX. DOLLY IN A NEW PLACE, 205 CHAPTER XX. THE SCHOOL EXAMINATION, 219 CHAPTER XXI. DEATH AT THE DOOR, . 224 CHAPTER XXII. AMY AT THE PARSONAGE, ' CONTENTS. V CHAPTER XXIII. THE SNOW STORM, 246 CHAPTER XXIY. A NEW COMEB, 264 CHAPTER XXV. QUITE A SURPRISE, 276 CHAPTER XXYL MRS. BUCCLEBEE'S INFLUENCE, 287 CHAPTER XXYH. THE PITCHER AT THE FOUNTAIN, 299 CHAPTER XXYin. BACK TO BOSTON, 814 CHAPTER XXIX. A PICTURE OF TROUBLE, 823 CHAPTER XXX. DESPAIR, CHAPTER XXXT T CARRYING A MATTER HOME, 347 CHAPTER XXXII. ONCE AGAIN, 357 CHAPTER XXXm. RECONCILIATION AND PEACE. 366 CHAPTER XXXIY. AND THE LAST, - . - . . . -373 1* AMY LEE. CHAPTER I. A WRECK OF A MAN. THE fire shone in the shovel, the tongs, and the poker, Bending its pleasant glow over the room. Though the carpet was somewhat faded and worn, its figures bright ened a good deal in the light, and made the little apart ment look unusually cheerful. A small table was drawn out into the middle of the. floor, and spread with a white napkin. Before the bright coal fire that burned in the grate stood a large easy chair, stuffed, and covered with a dull chintz, within whose broad arms half reclined the wasted and weary figure of a man. Now he lifted his hands from the sides of his chair, and employed them as screens for his eyes ; now he let them fall again into their old places, and dropped back his head exhaustingly, as if there were no more strength left in him. m 8 AMY LEE. " Amy," said he, in a tone of querulousness that seemed his habit, " when are we going to have supper ? It's always so late, when I want it early." " Why, it's not yet quite six o'clock, father," answered a very sweet voice from another part of the room. " We always have it sent in at six, you know. Are you hun gry to-night, father ? " "No ; hut I want my supper." " O, well, I guess it will he along very soon now. They're generally pretty punctual with our meals, I think. Sometimes, you know, they have more to do. I would try and be as patient as I could, father." And the daughter began a gentle bustle about the room, thinking that thus he might feel that something was being done to hasten the preparations for his evening meal. She moved the chairs, replaced the little stand, dusted the table under the glass, went round picking up threads and frayed ends of cloth from the carpet, stirred the fire with the poker, set a chair for herself near the little stand opposite that of her father, and finally brushed out the imaginary wrinkles from her apron, and smoothed down her abundant hair with the palms of both hands. All the time her father kept whining and groaning ; and when at last she stood before him with her hands on her head, her face expressive of such unbounded gratefulness and pleasure, his eyes studied her features with a look that should have betrayed the most searching self-condemnation. A. WlcECK OF A MAN. 9 It was near the end of winter, a very rough and trying one to poor people every where, and unpleasantly long and, tedious even to those whose circumstances had heaped all comforts and luxuries around them. Fuel had been scarce, and provisions very high, and every thing else went up in price correspondingly. Many a blue lip had begged along the streets during the last three months for help, and many a poverty-stricken family had wondered day after day where the next meal was to come from, when the one at which they sat should be over. In a retired part of Boston, where a short and narrow street branched off from a much more populous and busy one, was the respectable boarding house kept by Mrs. Dozy. Not often were carriages to be seen passing through this street, for it was much out of the way of the railroad stations, and nothing was to be gained by so cir cuitous a route of travel. Occasionally drays and heavy carts, with a file of stalwart horses drawing them, would rattle through, filling the place with sharp echoes of wheels, and hoofs, and noisy shouts ; but as a general thing it was an uncommonly quiet street, given up to the use and enjoyment of nervous old ladies and profoundly contemplative old gentlemen. There was a small drug gist's shop on the corner, and half way down hung out the sign of a modest shoemaker. A great many men passed through, in the course of the day, with little tin pails swinging in their hands, the bright and unmistakable proofs of industrious day laborers. 10 AMY LEE. Amy Lee had been home herself but a little while, and in that time she had done much to -calm the shattered nervous system of her poor father. The moment she had thrown off her bonnet and shawl, she was at his side, in quiring after his wants and his happiness. And even while she stooped down to take out the numbness from her fingers in the blaze, he began his usual whining com plaints, and she her customary offices of patience and love. " O, well, father," said she, after hearing him a moment, "I'm sure I wouldn't mind it. You'll soon get over these bad feelings, you know, and then you will laugh to think what little things troubled you so. Come, cheer up, father. The winter's most over, you know, and it will soon be spring, and then we are going out a little^ in ths country, on the warm days. Won't that be grand?" And she shrugged her shoulders, and suffered a smile to break over her face that should have melted the heart of a cynic. "I don't know," groaned her parent. "I'm sure 1 don't know. Why, Amy, what are we coming to ? / can't understand. You can't go on in this way, and work all the time, year in and year out." " Why not, I want to know ? I have done it, and I can keep on doing it. What is easier than that ? " " Yes, but we ought to ought to have some thing to depend upon. Only your hands, how little that is ! We ought to have something in the bank ; and how shall we find it there ? or when ? " A WRECK OP A MAN. 11 "You don't look at the bright side, father. What have we to do with the bank ? I can teach my few scholars in their music lessons, and that is quite enough to support us here. What more do we either of us need than a living ? You borrow fears, I am afraid, father. You shouldn't do that. Here I am right by your side, and here I will stay as long as you live. While I can earn any thing, you shall be cared for. And when I can't " She stopped without meaning to. " What then ? When you can't ! When you can't ! " eagerly broke in her dejected parent, hastening to catch up this unhappy possibility. " We can still trust in God," calmly answered Amy, " even as we do now." "Ah, but ah, but but it's not such a pleasant thing to be a beggar, now. If I could only work myself, Amy. But I can't ; no, I can't. I really don't believe I ever shall again. O, O, ! " and with these words he threw back his head in the great chair, let fall his thin and almost fleshless hands, and the tears followed each other down his cheeks as fast as if they ran from the eyes of a very child. It was amazing to behold the mastery that disease had acquired over him. He had no strength, no hope, no energy. He looked up to that single girl with as much trust as to a power, that he already confessed vastly his superior. In her white hands lay his very means of existence, and on. her happy face slept the pic tures in which he found all his daily enjoyment. 12 AMY LEE. The moment she saw to what a state of prostration his nervous system was reduced, she drew up a little stool to his side, and taking his hand in her own, began the task of quieting him. She appealed to every feeling of his heart to bring him out of this situation ; assuring him that there was no need whatever that he should go to work again, for her own receipts were amply sufficient to take care of them both. And she bade him try and com pose himself, begging him not to give up so readily to these changeable moods, but to resist them with all bravery till he should succeed in conquering them forever. A tender sight it was to see this young girl, thus sup porting and steadying her father. . She had strength enough and courage enough, to endure the trials that might be put upon both. Frail as she was at best, she -could neverthe less bear up stoutly under trouble. Because she did not rely on herself. She knew well that she was on all sides surrounded with a Power, faithful trust in whom was never betrayed. And though afflictions might multiply upon her a hundred fold, still her trust would never be shaken ; and with her heart thus disposed, for her there was no such thing as affliction, or perplexity, or fear, or despair. It is a blessed condition, indeed, into which any humble and simple soul may enter. Amy's father had fceen in his day a very respectable member of the legal profession. His business was exten sive, and he seemed to prosper. While Amy was not more than three years old he hid lost his wife, who left A WKECK OF A MAN. 13 only this dear child to him in remembrance of their brief but happy union. He never married again, but seemed from that time to centre all his affections on little Amy. She grew up in the enjoyment of excellent advantages, entering at the best schools, and going through their several courses with marked credit. He gave her oppor tunities to perfect herself in music ; and now, when she had reached her nineteenth year, for our story finds her just entering upon it, it happened that this musical skill of hers was exactly the thing that was to provide subsistence for both of them. A wretched habit, that he seemed totally unable either to control or break away from, had brought her father to his present lamentable condition ; and now that he was no longer permitted to gratify his appetite as regularly as before, and only at such times as he could furtively appro priate, he had sunk down like a dying flame into a state almost of bodily and intellectual paralysis, and given himself up to perpetual fretfulness and dejection. It was certainly a great care for any one to watch all his chang ing moods and minister faithfully to his many frivolous wants ; lout he was blessed with a child who stood ever ready to perform both these duties, and esteemed it an inestimable privilege, too, to be the means of providing a livelihood for them both. It was an example of a pure devotion. Amy's father was a confirmed opium eater. Little by little the habit had stolen over him, sullying one bright 2 14 AMY LEE. lole was point of his character after another, till the wh( blackened with the most lamentable darkness. While the powerful drug was kept from him, he showed signs of returning vigor, but they were generally not much more than signs. His mental energies had been gradu ally undermined, till now there was nothing left for them to lean upon, and they too fell with the rest of his quali ties, making a wide and complete ruin. Whenever he could manage, however, to get a taste of the destroying drug, for the time it brightened up his faculties, and shed a fitful and artificial light over his usual gloom. This was the more lamentable to witness, inasmuch as it brought out in brighter relief the wasted spots of his cankered nature, and invariably suggested the profounder darkness and gloom that would follow the indulgence very speedily after. At this time, he had been without any stimulus of this character for several weeks. The weather had been severely cold, and forbade his going out of his room ; and sitting there in his chair gazing into the fire, and brooding gloomily over the glowing coals, he had by slow degrees grown to be so very weak and childish, that he needed in truth more atfention than ever. Amy saw that his strength was gradually failing him, and had seriously asked herself if it were not best to consult a physician. Still there was nothing alarming in any of his symptoms, or apparent reason for more fear than was customary. She sat by his side, holding his wasted hand, and try ing gently to soothe him. A WRECK OF A MAN. 15 " If I had any strength, Amy," said he, looking va cantly about the room. " What would you do then, father ? " she inquired. " You shouldn't work so." " Ah, but I know you worry yourself too much abcftit that. Now just suppose I had nothing at all to do couldn't find any thing to do, when I most needed it ; shouldn't we be worse off then, father, than we are now ? There are people more wretched than even you and I are. I've seen them with my own eyes, this very wintelr. But I had only pity and sympathy for them. That might not have been very much, but it was all I had ; it was my poor little mite." " I wish / had a poor little mite, Amy, to throw into our treasury." "You have you have, father; and not such a little one, either. Don't you know you have ? " " What is it ? What ? I should be glad to cast it in, Amy." "It's your love for me, father. Tiat makes me richer every day than all else. O, if I could tell you, and if you could understand, what a satisfaction it is for me to be useful to you, when you have done so much all my life for me ! " The father threw his other hand across her shoulder, and uttered a groan. It sounded as if it really came from the depths of his heart. Just then Mrs. Dozy's servant girl brought in the . W AMY LEE. supper on a tray, and placed it on the little stand. Then inquiring of Amy if there was any thing more wanting, she went out of the room and shut the door behind her. And this little family of two father and daughter drew up to the board, while she poured the tea from their miniature pot, and he sipped it and tried as hard as he could for a moment to seem altogether happy. CHAPTER II. THE BESETTING SIN. SUCH were the conditions on which Amy and her father lived in the house of Mrs. Dozy, that it was quite the same as if they were keeping house alone by them selves. Amy hired a couple of rooms, and it was stipu lated that their meals should be regularly sent in to them. This latter arrangement helped along that feeling of inde pendence which her father so much desired to cherish, besides securing to both of them an amount of quiet that they otherwise might not in such a position have been able to find. And it relieved Amy of considerable anx iety, too, as Mrs. Dozy was always quite willing, when the former was absent with her pupils, to drop in occa sionally upon her father, and see that he was in every respect comfortable and wanted for nothing. A few days only after the evening scene selected for opening the story, Amy took leave of her father as usual, and went crat to her labor. It was after dinner, and the air was much Hander and sunnier than it had lately been, possibly giving distant and indistinct hints of the coming spring, * 18 AMY LEE. " Now you'll make yourself as easy as you can, father," were her last words to him, as she stooped down and left a child's kiss on his cheek. " If you want any thing while I am gone, you can just step into the other room, you know, and Mrs. Dozy will wait on you. Good by, father. I shall hurry back to read to you, you know." " Yes, yes, yes," said her father, in a voice that lacked the slightest betrayal either of energy or feeling. And so sinking his head back in the chair, he commenced rubbing his hands together, and gave up to the sluggish courses of his thought. Amy tripped down the stairs and lightly along the street. She had three lessons to give that afternoon, and they would occupy her about an hour each. The people she met seemed to wear pleasanter faces than usual, and she imagined it must be from the secret influence of the weather. There are such days and half days sometimes in every winter, that fairly cheat one's senses out of the thraldom of the season's bleakness, and warm the heart as with the most genial sunshine. For an hour, perhaps, her father sat quietly in his chair after she had gone, drifting slowly and idly along whither soever the changing tides of his feeling carried him. He looked in the fire of coals ; he looked at his thin hands ; he looked up at the papered wall ; and he looked into the fire again. This was listlessness, surely, if any thing was, and even his weakened intellect could not fail so to be hold it. THE BESETTING SIN. 19 Tired at length with the recurrence of these same old shades of feeling, he got up from his chair and began to pace slowly up and down the room. Now and then he stopped to look in the little glass that hung over the bureau ; and when he did so, he brushed his gray hair lightly off from his temples with one hand, saying in a loud whisper to himself the while " Getting to be old ! getting to be old ! " And then he crossed both hands be hind him, and fell into his slow walk again. Finally, as he came up before the window once more, he paused to look out. When he stopped he meant only to gratify the moment's idle whim ; but that single little moment made a great change in his destiny. The pleasant sun was shining down the sides of the houses over the way, and lay in irregular strips here and there along the street, furnishing shadows of the chimneys, and parapets, and gables, that surmounted some of the dwellings in that vicinity. The street was exceedingly quiet, scarcely a stray dustman's cart rattling lightly over the stones, and only a few doves fluttering about from one spot to another in quest of such chance provender as their bright red eyes could espy. " So still ! " said he to himself, looking out medita tively. " It carries me back carries me back ! Those doves now, over there, how happy they are ! how happy ! Why can't I be happy, too ? I can be, if I like, I know. Dreams bring happiness, and I know what makes dreams ! I can sit here by this window, though I am alone, and be 20 AMY LEE. as happy as they. Who can hinder ? It will all be in this brain," he touched his hand to his forehead, " in this brain." That moment he had fallen again. For, turning swiftly away from where he was standing, he began to walk the floor much more excitedly, and went straight at last to the drawers of Amy in her little room. The opium fiend had seized him. He was ready to go wherever it bade him follow. " If she has left her key in the drawer," said he, doubtingly. " Yes, she has ! she has ! " And he pulled out the drawer with the haste of a man who was a much more violent robber than he. As soon as he had opened it, he proceeded to rummage for her purse. He handled a very various assortment indeed of things alternately useful and ornamental, and at last laid his hand upon the object most desired. Taking the purse from the corner, he felt of its two pockets, and stood and leisurely made his calculation. " Perhaps if I take out what silver change I want," said he tc himself, " it will never be missed at all ; whereas, if I should go to robbing her of a bank bill, she could not help finding it out the first time she goes to her purse. Robbing her, did I say ? It's not robbing her at all. Isn't she my daughter my own child? Doesn't she labor for me as well as for herself? Isn't this just as much my money as it is hers ? No, no, indeed ; talk of robbing, forsooth, when a man takes what he needs from THE BESETTING SIN. 21 the purse of his own child ! I'll help myself then. I am so much in want of a little only a little, just to console me, and to bring together these shattered feelings, and to raise the spirits to a healthiar tone ! I can't abide this way of living long. I don't think I can get through another day, unless I have opium." Thinking thus to silence the feeble protests of his con science altogether, he set about emptying his daughter's purse of all its contents, spreading them around on the top of her little dresser. As his eyes caught the bewil dering brightness of the hoarded heap of silver, and ran over the figures that fixed the value to her little wad of bank notes, his brain became suddenly dizzy, and he assumed an air of strength that seemed in him almost preternatural. " There ! there ! there ! " whispered he, picking out with a great deal of care one piece of money after another ; After a general and a rather poetic exordium, he went on with a minute and lively description of the opening spring and summer. He entered at once into the subject with his whole heart. He spoke of the earliest and most welcome signs of spring, such as the whistle of the frogs at the marsh, and the first notes of the returned robin, and described the new joys even those faint and trifling sounds awoke in the human breast, that was always pre pared to greet them. Then he entered, with the expan sion of his subject, upon a view of the world after the influences of the summer had really begun to reign ; how the sun was pleasant to the bodily feelings, and did not fail even to warm the genial soil of the heart ; how the frequent showers opened the warmed earth, fertilizing the furrows from the very clouds that thus literally dropped fatness ; how the grass grew dark and thick, and began to wave in the rolling billows of the wind, ready for the glittering scythe of the mower ; how the cattle straggled every where over the green pasture lands, and the hill sides were white with the heavy fleeces of sheep ; how the flowers climbed about the doors and windows of one's dwelling, and gemmed the meadows like stars in a vast heaven, and fringed the flowing courses of the living water THE FIRST SUNDAY. 109 brooks ; how the trees were full of singing birds, that mingled their songs with the ravishing fragrance of the blossoms, and heightened their bright and indescribable beauty with the many colors of their own brilliant plu mage ; and how both heaven above and earth beneath answered each to* the other in unfolding and illustrating the vast love of God for his whole creation. Thence he passed on in glowing language to descant upon the need there was that we should all have grati tude ; that love should continually abound within us, and increase towards God and towards man forevermore ; that we should become more and more childlike, and truthful, and humble, never setting up our own desires against the higher and better laws of the God who rules over us and in us ; and, finally, that we should seek and pray for nothing so much as faith that faith which taught us to lie low and obedient in the Lord's vast power, ascrib ing evermore to him the glory, because by every means he has thus clearly revealed to us his blessed purposes and grace. The appeal with which his discourse closed was so feel ing and eloquent as to send a thrill of glad emotion to many a bosom in that little country church, and make them desire a closer walk all their days with God, and a calmer, more peaceful, more thoroughly religious frame of mind. Not that Mr. Parsons was a man who prided him self on the possession of so rare a gift as eloquence, or scarcely was conscious of even possessing that quality ; for 10 110 AMY LEE. had such a pride stepped into his heart, that moment the true gift would have departed ; it does not dwell with presumption, and will never consent to take up its abode with vanity. But he was so simple, and earnest, and childlike in his feelings, his sympathies were always so acute and active both with outward and inward nature, he let his thoughts run the round of all the better and pro- founder emotions of the human heart so easily, that his eloquence was no more than the simplest report, made with all joyfulness, of his insight into what other men are still willing to call mysteries, and still willing not to know except from the moving lips of those who now and then address them. The evening seemed to Amy a calm and holy time indeed. - All labor had ceased for so long ; the street was so quiet and calm ; the twilight had come down with such a sense of sweet joy and peace ; the hands of care seemed folded so resignedly in the lap of labor ; there were so many silent influences stealing from the land scape, from the air, from the stillness itself in which the thoughts half slept, that Amy felt that if this was one of the blessed enjoyments of the country life, it was truly worth quite all the pleasures of the uneasy town together. And she laid her head that night on her pillow, glad beyond her ability to express it that her lines hud at last fallen to her in such pleasant places. Her soul was filled with gratefulness and love ; and these would perpetually THE FIRST SUNDAY. Ill overflow their boundaries, and make green and new the influences that would go unseen out of her heart during all the days, and weeks, and months of her abode in this quiet and happy place. CHAPTER X. OPENING SCHOOL. MONDAY morning came ; and with key in hand, the key to that same padlock Mr. Parsons was inclined to make so much fun about, Amy walked with a pleasant countenance over to the school house, and opened the door that was to let her in to her summer labors. As soon as she stepped across the threshold, she seemed to breathe the mixed atmosphere of all the winter and summer schools that had been kept there before she had even heard of such a nook as Valley Village. The room was close and musty. She bustled round immediately, and opened every window; and as the door still stood wide open in the entry, she felt certain of securing a freshening draught of air. The benches she proceeded to arrange over again, so as to answer more conveniently the designs of her government economy. And, finally, after all things had been fixed to her mind, she passed a little time in pacing up and down the floor, looking now at the ceiling and cobwebs, and now out the windows over the fields and distant gardens. In the course of that short and solitary walk, she (112) OPENING SCHOOL. 113 reviewed the way of her life and fortunes since the death of her father with much thoughtfulness and care. From the point to which her mind would continually revert with such persistence, she went forward slowly through the armies of fears and anxieties that afterwards beleaguered her soul, sweeping the many chords of feeling that had vibrated sadly and sorrowfully since that dark day, re hearsing the little histories of her plans, and hopes, and designs, and desires, coming along on her journey again to this same Valley Village, where she now found herself waiting to begin her first day of usefulness"^ "and at last devoutly thanking her kind heavenly Father thatfhe had itill provided for her, and had never ceased to remember tier as one of his own created children. The tears stole into her eyes, through whose dim veil she still regarded" the promising landscape. " O, if I can but do the whole of my duty!" said she within herself. " If I do not come short in the very least of my promises ! If I can but go on in perfect trust and peace from day to day, pursuing my humble occupation in the spirit of love, looking for my only reward in the good itself that will flow from my faith and obedience." And' her heart offered a silent, but fervent supplication, praying God, her Father, to bestow on her the spirit whose Jjruit was nothing but goodness, and gentleness, and love. This was, in truth, the opening prayer of her little school a silent prayer, offered in solitude, while her feet walked slowly the floor of that quiet school house. 10* 114 AMY LEE. Presently she saw a shadow fall across the threshold ; then two ; then three ; and then a whole nest and knot of shadows. She stepped towards the door, and a snarl of happy faces saluted her with looks of joy. " Good morning ! good morning, dears ! " Amy called to them, extending both hands with gladness. " Come ; won't you come in and stay with me this forenoon, and see what we can learn all together ? Come ! " And the little ones, who happened to be every one girls, glanced round smiling on each other, and then stepped, half tim idly, half roguishly, in. " Now we'll have a nice time of it won't we ? " said Amy, her own beautiful face attracting them to her even more than her words. " Come ; let's take off our things, you see I've got mine off, and then we will all sit down and tell who we are, and what we have, come to school for, and if we are going to love each other all summer long, and where we live, and every thing about it. Come, little girls, let me take off your hoods and shawls." She began the work by disrobing the one next her ; but no sooner did they see what was to be done, than the rest performed each one the task for herself, smiling the while at one another, as if in a long time they had enjoyed nothing better. " Now we will sit down," Amy directed, pointing to the vacant benches. "There 4 that is very pleasant and pretty. I think we shall have a nice time of it yet." OPENING SCHOOL. 115 And again the little ones looked at each other and laughed. While she stood before them all, talking to them in the kindest and sweetest tones, telling them what they had come there for, and what she was going to do, too, and successfully interesting them beyond what she had at first dared to hope for, others entered the room, boys and girls together, the former standing foremost in the little groups, while the latter were modestly leaning against the benches or the wall. And these she welcomed as fast as they came, assisting them to take off their caps and bon nets, and laying her hands gently on" their heads, and by her looks and words trying to impress them with the love she felt for them all. It is needless to say that those who came last were as well received and as much delighted as those who had got there before them. So agreeable did Amy try to make every thing seem in their eyes, they hardly felt that they were in that usually forbidding place called a school room, but rather that they had got together there to have a good time of it, and very likely as mat ters at first looked to wind up with broken crockery housekeeping, and a general tea drink off of bits of glis tening china. Amy had as fine tact as feeling. She knew how im portant it was to enlist the affections of her little school, first of all. If she could rely upon their love, she was certain that the most difficult part of her work was already done. 116 AMY LEE. Among those present, she found the children of many of the parents whom she had seen at church the day before ; indeed, she recognized the faces of many of the children themselves. There were those of Mr. Brown, the overseer in the mills ; and all three of Mr. Marsh, the farmer ; and two of the blacksmith, Mr. Davy, whose anvil was undoubtedly ringing at that moment with the hearty strokes of his hammer; and all four of tl^e store keeper, Mr. Moore ; and the only little girl of Dr. Sill- by ; and Well, not to enumerate them one by one, Amy found that she could count sixteen; and sixteen was a highly promising number, too, she thought, to make a beginning with. Her heart rejoiced, on looking round upon her little flock ; and she knew how many kind and generous words the good clergyman and his wife had spoken for her through the village. The forenoon slipped away before she was aware of it. Those three hours of the morning, that sometimes drag so slowly for many and many an instructor, for Amy were crowded with real delight. She thought she should ex aggerate in no wise, nor affect in the least a happiness that she did not possess, if she confessed that those three first hours of her school-keeping life were the pleasantest she had known in -a long, long time. When the village bell rung for noon, she found a row of eager eyes glistening all round the room in expecta tion of release ; and she dismissed them with: a pleasant word, bidding them come early to school again in the. OPENING SCHOOL. 117 afternoon, and wishing them a happy play time during the intermission. And Amy went home herself to din ner, scarcely conscious whether she walked or ran all the way. " How do you come on ? " Mrs. Gummel asked her, with a face expressive of the deepest interest in her un dertaking. " O, so famously ! You ought to drop in and see for yourself what a perfect queen I am there among my little subjects." " Well, well, if I ain't glad enough for it ! But how many of them did you get together this morning ? " she pursued. "What number do you count, to begin with? " " Sixteen," answered Amy, her eyes dilating with pleas ure. " Only think of it, Mrs. Gummel." So Mrs. Gummel did stand a moment, and did think of it. At length she seemed to comprehend the whole of the matter, and exclaimed to Amy, extending her left hand towards her as she spoke, " That's a good beginning, Miss Lee. That's really better than I dared to hope for." And with a few additional words of a congratulatory character, she begged her to sit down with herself and Henry to dinner, for it was quite ready. Not long after dinner, for Amy felt as if she could net stay at home quietly while she was so deeply inter ested in her new charge, she threw on her shawl and bonnet again, and hurried away to her occupation. As 118 AMY LEE. she drew near the old school house, she saw her little flock at play about the building the girls, some of them, at mimic housekeeping under one of the brown stone walls, and the boys at more active games on the turf. Their faces were glowing with health and happi ness. As soon as they caught sight of her, they involun tarily ceased from their more boisterous sport, and stood around seemingly in doubt whether, to be more pleased or afraid at her approach. They did not yet fully under stand her nature. Amy was quick to perceive their hesitancy, and not less quick to set their feelings in motion again in the right direction. So she went round among the various groups, asking them what they were playing at, putting her hand beneath some few of their dimpled chins to get a better view of their bright faces, telling them that some day she meant to come out herself and romp with them a little while, and offering such remarks as would naturally be most pleasing and conciliatory to them. And after she had gone into her school room, even, she was obliged by the beautiful attractiveness of the sight to pause before a window, and regard them at their enjoy ment. She thought of her own childhood, lost in the past forever ; that glowing season of life, when there is nothing but a warm and bursting imagination to sketch the world with so attractively ; that time of pomps and shows, ever more marching in stately and bewildering procession for ward forward we know not and think not whither. OIENING SCHOOL. 119 Many were the lights, and many, too, the shadows, that sailed like straggling clouds at that moment over the heaven of her soul. She could easily go back 0, so easily ! But to come forward, to hurry on, to leave the beautiful and romantic past behind, and to realize that it was all all gone, and she at this very moment stand ing in the midst of hearts as young as hers had been, standing among them, not to romp and play in the gentle spring winds, as they were playing, but to teach them to regard her as their instructor, as gifted with a wisdom and an experience that did not belong at all to them, this was a something to call up her deepest feelings from their wonted hiding-places, and almost extort a sigh that these .blessed days had departed forever. Presently, to break the web of these sadly delicious feelings, she stepped to the door and called them in. There was not one, she observed with pleasure, who hesi tated or delayed as soon as the call was given. They came trooping in through the little door,sfairly surround ing her. Their eyes were glistening ; their faces were ruddy and glowing ; they were smiling and laughing with one another ; and the best of humor seemed to prevail among them all. Soon after seating them, and when they had managed to get rested a little from the fatigue of their playground sports, Amy stepped to the front of them, and gave notice that she was going to teach them to sing. This intelli gence was received immediately with marked evidences 120 AMY LEE. of delight. She saw she had struck the right chord, and knew that harmony would come out of it. And in the course of the afternoon, she began that series of primary lessons in vocal music, which eventuated in so much good to her youthful pupils, and such increased happiness to herself. At nearly the close of the afternoon exercises, the min ister came in. He told Amy he had merely called to see what success she started with, and to help her on in her undertaking with a pleasant word or two. She thanked him many times for the kind interest he had taken in her welfare, adding that it was her intention to stop at the parsonage on her way home at night, and inform him of the exact state of things. Both agreed that so good a beginning was sufficient cause for self-congratulation, and highly encouraging for continued effort. Then Mr. Parsons whose appearance among them the children all seemed to welcome with unaffected pleasure proceeded to talk with them while they were sitting on the benches, and to tell them the reason why their mothers and fathers sent them to school, and to explain why they ought to love their teacher and each other. And he went on in that agreeable strain to them, illus trating his remarks by pleasant stories and most apt anec dotes, showing what the worth of knowledge was to every one; and how little it was worth, too, without a kind temper, a sweet and gentle disposition, and a pure and noble heart. " Unless your heart is educated," he said to OPENING SCHOOL. 121 them, " all the education you can give your head will but serve at length to make you more -wretched and misera ble." Mr. Parsons was one of the clear-sighted men in this world who understand how much greater the soul is than the mere intellect, and how like a disease the culture only of the latter in time grows to be. At the close of the school hours, therefore, he offered a brief and feeling prayer before the pupils, and they re ceived their dismissal. There was many a one who said aloud, on getting out into the open air again, " I shall come all the time Miss Lee keeps." And many a one reported in an excited manner to his or her parents that night of the delight they experienced in that first day's schooling under the new teacher. Amy and the clergyman walked slowly homewards, conversing upon the promises and prospects. Not a sin gle proper opportunity did she suffer to pass unimproved, that allowed her to express in any way her gratefulness to him for his sympathy and counsel. Already, as they walked on, she felt as if she had known him for years. It suggested itself to her thoughts that she had found a valuable friend where she had least been looking for one. While she was oppressed in secret with the haunting fears of loneliness and friendlessness, she made the discovery that the best of friends had suddenly been raised up for her on every side. And in deep thankfulness her heart lifted itself to God, ascribing to him the welcome, wel come whole. 11 122 AMY LEE. Leaving Mr. Parsons at his own gate, she tripped along over the grassy street with a light foot and a much lighter heart. She felt as if joy was all around and within her. She loved every one whom she in that tumultuous moment could think of. She would have embraced all her friends, all the world, and called them each one "dear brother" and "dear sister." As her eyes chased the colors that streamed in such delicate tints along the sky, or lost their glances in amazing bewilder ment among the green sprays of the trees that lined the village street, or looked down to admire the soft carpet of grass that Nature had spread so carefully for her feet, she wished for nothing but to clasp her hands together in ecstatic delight, and pray that all the world might be as happy as she. Mrs. Gummel and Henry both received her narratives respecting this auspicious day's labor with a great deal of interest ; the former good woman ! continually interrupting Amy with such, rapid and fervent exclama tions of joy as came first to her tongue. She said she could not really have believed that Amy was to have such good luck at the very beginning of it ; and yet she always knew that the people of Valley Village were not a kind that would let such a needful enterprise as this go a-begging. And between congratulations and plans, sketching out lines of what was to come, and dwelling thankfully upon what had already occurred, the evening soon passed away. OPENING SCHOOL. 123 prayers that night camo from a heart filled with a joy that was unspeakable ; for she felt as for a long time the weakness of our poor humanity would not let her feel that God had indeed drawn very nigh her with his all-providing, all-protecting hand. CHAPTER XI. LEAVES FROM A JOURNAL. FOB some little time past Amy had kept a journal ; over which she sat down at her table, and from day to day indulged in the pleasure of a free and untrammelled intercourse with herself; making for her own eye alone such confessions as her heart daily had to give up, and mingling wish with experience, prayer with regrets, and speculation with fresh narrative so intricately, that in order to get at the one it was necessary to read it page by page, keeping swift company with her changing thoughts and feelings. I shall assume the liberty of believing that occasional extracts from this journal will be welcome to the readers of this narrative of her experiences ; much more so, indeed, than the mere history which my own pen has at tempted to delineate, inasmuch as the former are brought away directly from her innermost life and from the depths pf her being. Such extracts as the following are presented to the reader in this place : (124) LEAVES FROM A JOURNAL 125 " Sunday night. This is my first Sunday in this little village. If I only liked it before, I must confess I am in love with it now. " Went to church all day, and enjoyed exceedingly the devotional exercises. The discourses from the clergyman Mr. Parsons were most excellent. The one in the forenoon took hold upon my feelings in particular. He gave us such beautifully flowing descriptions of God's unmeasured goodness, as discoverable in the world about us, I almost wished he would go on in that strain till nightfall. His burning words moved and melted me. When I brought home to my own heart so many proofs of its thankless feelings, of its forge tfulness of Him who sustains me from hour to hour and day to day, of its dis position to rise up and desire for itself a good that is at war with his most fatherly designs, I saw too plainly in what a slough of despondency I should always lie, unable to help myself in the least out of its treacherous depths, unless I corrected my former thought at once, and ac knowledged only him to be my Lord and Father. " O the power and the beauty with which the outer world testifies to the benevolence of God ! If we would but behold and read the pages that are written thickly with lessons for us on every hand ! If we would put off this vanity, this selfishness, this feeling that we are some thing of ourselves, and become learners like little children ; live only the life that a deep and holy faith directs ; cease to be proud of our own external possessions, or our inter* 11* 126 AMY LEE. Hal attainments, feeling that we can be nothing and do nothing except the Father shines through us ; learn, first of all, faith, and then love, and then patience, how much more spiritual indeed would the world become, producing works that would more and more abound to its own glory and the glory of the Father ! " I am sitting alone to-night in my little chamber, with nothing to interrupt the course of my thoughts. They will take me back and away to the other times, and the other scenes, but the sorrow does not darken ; it only shades. I repose so joyfully at this hour in the arms of my ynd Father, no earthly dispensation can make my heart rebellious against Him by whose ordering it is. I feel that what is for my good will surely come to me ; and none the less shall I greet it because I do not follow my own short-seeing desires in its pursuit. God knows, and God orders. I am assured that 'he doeth all things well.' " This sweet little village I trust I may find a nursery for my better thoughts. The silence that perpetually reigns about the place, broken only by the occasional shouts of glad children, is very sweet indeed to me. I am glad to be rid of the stunning rattle of carts, and the cry of strange voices. This brooding stillness is like a balm ; and I know it will heal a spirit that has already been wounded as mine has. I always had a desire to taste the pleasures of a rural life, and at last I am gratified. But in no one thing have I yet been able to see such a marked difference between the city and the country as in LEAYES FROM: A JOURNAL. 127 the observance of this day that has drawn to its close. Here Sunday is truly a blessed and a beautiful time. It forms a festival day indeed for the soul. I have had such feelings stirred within me by what I have seen and been surrounded with to-day, as I never thought belonged to my being. The stillness seems so holy. The very at mosphere encircles you with a spirit of praise and prayer. " Monday night. It is quiet every w r here. I do not hear so much as a sound all over the street. When I put aside my curtains to look out the window, I can see three or four lights on the opposite side, half concealed by the thickening foliage of the trees ; and I think of those who are sitting by them, either reading, or chatting, or sewing. These are pleasant sights to eyes that delight to look into human hearts. They draw me more than crowds, or art ful pictures, or tumultuous enjoyments. About many a table, I know, are gathered the loving inmates of these households, whose thoughts are knit closely in bands of affection. They are talking with one another at this very hour of what has been done through the day, what is purposed for the morrow, and of how deep is their simple devotion each to the other. I always thought I should love this calm way of life ; but I was not prepared to find such abundant resources of enjoyment in it. I am taught how little and false is much of what we deem happiness in the world, when it is looked for in outward shows and external circumstances. How deep, how vast, how rich, and how exhaustless are the resources of the inner lifr, I 128 AMY LEE. cannot tell ; I am made glad beyond utterance in being allowed to catch only a glimpse of them. I long, I love, I hope, I aspire, in the light of these entrancing gleams from heaven, and pray with all my heart that it may all all become real and earnest in my daily life and con versation. " This is the first day of my little school. I have now begun a project that is to occupy my attention for the entire summer ; if circumstances favor, I may even be induced to keep this present retirement for a much longer time. I have had more pupils than I at first thought I should get, and try to be accordingly grateful. Good Mr. Parsons and his wife have done a great deal more for me than I asked, and more than I shall ever repay. They have gone about themselves with my proposal to open a school in the village, and laid it before all the families where there were any children to send. And the result is what I have seen to-day. How happy this kindness has made me ! It opens to my sight visions of dear, delightful friendships such as I have not before in my whole sflort life experienced. And Mr. Parsons further showed the interest he took in my new enterprise, by walking over to the school house this afternoon, and drop ping a few words of kindness both for my pupils and myself. " This school keeping is going to be a delightful task to me, I know. I love so much the society of fresh and innocent children. They make my thoughts sweet and LEAVES FROM A JOURNAL. 129 clean, and my heart pure. From their childish talk I learn simplicity ; and truth seems a possession that enters not into the soul without this first condition of simplicity. " Yet there is some sort of a sadness connected with this occupation, or at least with my earliest experience in it, that will not wholly take its shadow off my feelings. How can I forget for a single moment ? How can I ever allow myself to pass over the days that are gone ? How can I cease to remember, when memory is always so active, and sketches its pictures so vividly ? " I cannot look in the faces of these dear children of mine for I must begin now to call them mine with out feeling a strange sensation that my own childhood is gone. It is difficult exactly to realize that such is the truth. And yet it is not because of my dissatisfaction with the new positions into which each new day seems to lead me ; I am calm, and contented, and, I trust for my self, entirely happy. I entertain no fears_ for the future, for I am well assured that He who has created me and brought me thus far in safety will provide ; if I do but work and live, work and live in this faith, what is there that I should have reason to fear ? " But these dancing pictures of childhood will work a mysterious influence. Even while they steal over my thought with their strange sadness, they likewise fascinate beyond description. I love to stand by the window, as. I did this day, and watch the little ones at play on the grass about the school house door. I love to listen to their 130 AMY LEE. merry voices, so clear, so free from deceit and distrust, so full of a whole-hearted innocence ! I love to look into their guileless faces, and study youth, and simplicity, and truth. They seem like good angels about my path ; and in their company I feel that I may be perpetually young. These days are golden days to them, as they are once in life to every one. They drop richness on the youthful heart from sun to sun. They are filled full with joys that linger, like the recollection of old flavors on the palate, to the last hour of life upon the enchanted memory. I would keep myself always young. Not all the petty cares and anxieties of this present life should have power to make a single wrinkle on my face, or draw a single sigh from my heart." " Wednesday. I have taken occasion to make several calls around the village, on the mothers of my pupils; and they have received me, without a single exception, with open cordiality. I felt rejoiced to find so much good feeling around me. I can go on with a great deal better spirit about my daily duties, and know that I am not laboring alone. It is so pleasant to be assured of the sympathy and cooperation of others. " Mrs. Davy, the wife of the village blacksmith, seems one of the best women in the world. And I am much pleased, too, with the appearance of her daughter Mary. She tells me she is a member of the village choir, which makes me think a little more tenderly of her, I must con fess ; for music is such a refinement for the feelings, and LEAVES FROM A JOURNAL. 131 makes one more bond of friendship and love. I have invited Mary to come into my school whenever she would, and help us at our singing exercise in the afternoon. How much I could enjoy any thing like that ! " " Thursday. Such beautiful weather as we are having is beyond the expectations of all. People say it is an uncommonly forward season ; and, little as I am able to judge of the fact from my acquaintance with rural affairs, I should think that such was the case. " It delights me to go out to my little school in the morning, feeling the freshness of this balmy air. The dandelions already are thick in the turf all along the vil lage street, and the buttercups are beginning to blossom, too. It makes the grass look as if it concealed beds of gold, of which only these small and bright flecks show themselves through the dark green covering. As I walk along to school, I am as happy as the children whom I see trudging on at a distance before me. I feel as if I could start off and chase the dancing butterflies, too, and clap down my bonnet over them with quite as boisterous a joy as they. " These maple trees are dense with their spreading and thickening shadows. I could not have believed, without seeing it for myself, what a magical change this shade has wrought for the entire street ; the tender leaves, still so delicate in their deepening hues, make such a pleasant covering for the boughs, I almost wish I were myself a bird, to build my home somewhere in their airy cr ambers, 132 AMY LEE. where I could catch the earliest glimpse of the red dawn, or sit and watch in calmness the stars that burn in such mysterious clusters all over the heavens at night. " It is really a picture of repose, and none the less attractive on that account, the men going in the early morning to their labor in the far-off fields, driving away cart loads of ploughs, and harrows, and chains. There is a look of independence about them, too, that seems to be wanting in those whom I have been accustomed to see in the town streets. I must say I like the sign, for it con fesses plainly enough to freer hearts and a smaller burden of mere worldly vanity. *' To-day I have written a letter to Mrs. Dozy, giving her a brief account of my journey here, of what so fortu nately befell me on the way, and how I am getting on. I think the good woman will rejoice for me wi-th her whole heart ; for I took my leave of her in such a confused state of feeling, that she could not discover the resignation and courage I tried all the while to exhibit but, alas ! ex hibited so poorly at the best. I hope Mrs. Dozy, when she. receives this letter, will be somewhat comforted. I have told her where I find the strength that sustains me through all that comes, and how freely it flows into my heart for the earnest asking. There need be nothing in this world to fear; if we put the foolish croakings and warnings of those who have no faith behind us altogether, we may be strong, and courageous, and filled with com fort to the end of our days." CHAPTER XII. SATURDAY AFTERNOON. THREE weeks had gone already. It was now the very last of May. And so rapidly had the season advanced, that the earth was teeming with the beauties that had burst from its soil, and Nature seemed to go reeling under her load of blossoms and flowers. Amy had become acquainted personally with the par ents of every one of her pupils, visiting them as soon after opening her school as she could find time. The impres sions she had at first entertained respecting them were daily confirmed and extended. They promised her all the assistance she could desire in her work. They offered her such pleasant counsel as would make her feel most easy among them. They spoke words of encouragement, and affection, and deep sympathy. The school itself thrived steadily. There were now twenty-two pupils, and she did not desire to have any more if she could. The children all learned at an early day to love her, feeling a trust in her affection such as childhood every where desires to repose in its elders and superiors. She paced the floor of her miniature domain 12 (133) 134 AMY LEE. with a light step ; for her heart was in her work, and she was happy. It is to be questioned if even the young scholars themselves were at any time of gayer spirits than she. As she stood day after day and talked so affectionately t : them all, or sat in that old-fashioned chair with a flag seat and heard them severally read, or spell, or recite the wonderful discoveries they had made among the two dozen and more letters of the alphabet, she looked indeed a picture of perfect happiness and contentment. Amy Lee possessed a talent for that which would much outshine her present humble employment, and she very well knew it. But she had thoroughly searched her heart ; she had studied with close attentiveness all the habits of her mind ; she had considered the insidiousness with which a particular sorrow is often apt to make its way into the inner recesses of the nature ; and this was the simple, but highly useful occupation she had chosen, by whose quiet pursuit she knew she could best promote her happiness. To-day she was glad to teach an infant school ; to-morrow she would be as glad to perform any other duty that offered, even were it less in the estimation of the vain world than this. Amy tried not to live to opinions, but to herself. In this way alone could she get at the life that has the real truth in its heart. Thus she dwelt at the very centre of her being, and not at the circumference ; and the central heart would be more sure now to radiate to the surface, and thence to the lives of those around her in all possible directions. SATURDAY AFTERNOON. 135 These Saturday afternoons, in her own school days, were the blank half pages in the little book of the week. Then she used to look forward to them, she remembered, with a dancing heart. That was the time when she played with the other children in silent garrets, if it hap pened to rain, or in delightful gardens and back yards, if it was pleasant. The recollections of the house-playing scenes, when pies were made from mud and baked on pieces of shivered plates and saucers, and when they all used to sit down round a large rock and drink as many cups of tea as they supposed themselves capable of hold ing ; of the rides she used to take with her playmates in a highly imaginary way, crossing the country, water not excepted, at a rate that would almost put the style of telegraph travel out of conceit with itself; and of the dear old garrets under whose eaves she had repeatedly crawled, listening with a fast-beating heart to the mystery of the rain, all such endeared recollections swarmed about her at times like these, and she almost felt as if she must call out for the companions that had since de parted and died. Amy was fond of living over her enjoyments yet a second time, and, a third. She held that a pleasure repeated was as good as a new pleasure. And she also held with that, that of all our pleasures none were capable of yielding so rich a store of delight as those which in themselves were the very simplest. So she bethought herself, it being the last Saturday 136 AMY LEE. afternoon in May, to take a stroll over the village north ward, and up among the slopes of the higher lands, and by herself to live over again the old and happy times of her childish days. She got along as far as the school house, however, and could not go by ; it seemed really impera tive that she should just cast a look in at the window, and see how still the place appeared. While she was standing and indulging her fancies in their idle waywardness, the sound of footsteps fell on her ear, and turning about, she discovered one of her own pupils coming round the corner of the building. It was little Susy Moore. The child did not at first see her, but was walking forward with her hands behind her, and her eyes to the ground. She seemed in a highly con templative mood. "Why, Susy ! " exclaimed Amy, in surprise. The child stopped suddenly and looked up. There was such an expression of mixed surprise and delight in her countenance, Amy could hardly restrain herself from rush ing forward and catching her up in her arms. *' Dear little one," said she, " what are you doing here all alone?" " Looking for Charlie," answered the girl. " Have you seen Charlie, Miss Lee ? " " No, I haven't. Has he been here with you this afternoon ? " "We came over to the school house to play," said Susy. "All the other girls were coming, too. And SATURDAY AFTERNOON. 137 brother Charlie came with me when I came. Haven't you seen Charlie, truly, Miss Lee % ? " " Indeed I haven't," answered Amy a second time. " But I will help you hunt for him, though. Where do you suppose he went ? " " I don't know. He's run away ; and mother said, if he didn't stay with me, I must come home." " I'm afraid you will have to go home, then. Poor little Susy ! Your brother shouldn't leave you in this way should he ? We'll find him if we can, at any rate." So *^my took her by the hand, and hunted about in every, direction for the roguish delinquent. First they went to the opposite wall, and Amy looked over it up and down its length as far as she could see. Then they ap proached the street, and gazed one way and the other. Then Amy searched in all directions about the school house. But to no purpose. Nothing whatever was to be discovered of the runaway. " How strange this is ! " said Amy, as if talking to herself; and immediately they turned the back corner of the building. A little, dark, doubled-up object presented itself to their sight just as they got round the other side, and Amy half started with surprise. As she hesitated a moment to learn what it could be, whom should her eyes fall on but the roguish little brother 12* 138 AMY LEE. of Susy, his head bent considerably downwards, and his jacket pulled completely over it ! The instant Susy recognized him, she let go of Amy's hand, and ran up to him, pulling his head out of its hiding-place, and commencing playfully to upbraid him for his faithlessness. When he looked up and saw who was with his sister, he hung his head for shame. He did not know what to say, or where to begin. "You shouldn't hide away from your little sister should you ? " Amy asked him, scarcely able herself to keep her soberness at seeing the ludicrous situation in which he had placed himself. He half smiled, rubbed his shoulder against the side of the house, worked his fingers busily together, and looked down steadily at the ground. " You wasn't a-goin' to run away from me was you, Charley ? " said Susy, throwing her arms about him as far as they would go. " I only wanted to scare her," he replied, looking a trifle more up towards Amy's face. " Then I'm sure I wouldn't try to scare my little sister," said the latter, stooping down and joining their hands. " Play with her, but don't ever run away from her." And thus cautioning and advising the children, Amy amused herself with them till the other expected ones came up. There they straggled along, mostly girls, intent on a good Saturday afternoon's play around the old school house. Amy regarded them with real delight. She knew how SATURDAY AFTERNOON. 139 much enjoyment was in all this, and again those indefina ble longings for a returned childhood revisited her heart. Perhaps she lingered and amused herself with them for half an hour. She marked out new territories for their little households ; she sat and piled up cobble stones under the wall till there were no more left for her to put her hand on; and she initiated them into many novel playground mysteries they had never before heard of. And when she finally withdrew from their midst, and prepared to continue her afternoon walk wherever her eyes might entice and her feet carry her, they all formed in one silent group as she was leaving, and stood gazing affectionately after her till she was out of sight. " 0, blessed memory of childhood ! " exclaimed Amy aloud, getting on a little over the grassy road. " How sweet it is to the human soul ! How sweet it is ! " Her course conducted her a long distance to the north ward of the village, and to the point where the mountains began to come down and meet in the road. She came to the old bridge, made so roughly of heavy logs and- tim bers, and stopped in the middle of it, leaning on the rail. It was a still hour, and a still scene. The water below flowed tranquilly and silent. She could scarcely catch the sound of a gush or a gurgle from either shore. The green boughs were some of them dipping in the limpid current, and lifting themselves slowly and with a graceful motion. So still was the hour, so quiet the scene, so tranquil every association that feeling or memory flung about her, sho 140 AMY LEE. felt that she could remain there till the evening shadows trooped down the mountains, and live many and many a rich experience in the time that would pass so swiftly. She leaned her arm on the rude rail of the bridge, and her head on her hand. " It is like human life like my own life," her lips involuntarily murmured, while she looked down into the stream. " So swift, so smooth, so noiseless." And with tears in her eyes at length she turned away. Striking into a wild-looking meadow, or pasture land, from the road, she climbed among rocks and brambles, ascending greenly carpeted slopes and toiling up ascent after ascent till her breath grew quite short and difficult ; when she finally sat down upon a natural cushion of moss that tufted a rock close at hand, and in the shadow of a young walnut tree gazed off over the village. She found she had attained to quite a height, even a greater one than she had expected that -afternoon to reach. There lay Valley Village almost at her feet. It was a beautiful cluster of plain and unpretending houses, whose roofs were darkened by the shade of the street maples. Only a nest of little dwellings lay hidden among those trees, right in the lap of the quiet valley. It seemed as if she could hold it all in the hollow of her hand. Her delighted eyes caught the shining thread of the river at a point just below the bridge she had so lately crossed, and followed it onward in its winding courses, onward and onward still, now half secreted by an interposing SATURDAY AFTERNOON". 141 knoll of grassy earth, now plunging itself into the sleepy shadows of entangling bush, and brake, and brier, till it swept along by the village in its bright career, and de bouched into the basin far down, where the great water wheels of the mills were daily fed with its dashing power. Behind her still rose the greater heights of the moun tain, afar off at their summits clothed with a dense forest. She could behold many a pile of craggy rocks beetling up in the most grand and surprising configurations, and longed already to climb them to their very peaks, and there to look abroad over the face of the extended land scape, and feel that she never, never was so free. All around her was grass and leaves, fresh and green. Above spread the boundless blue sky, with hardly a feather of a cloud sailing across its dreamy sea. Below stretched out a broad landscape of astonishing variety, and fresh ness, and suggestive beauty. Not an object did her eyes alight upon that did not answer as a symbol for some cor responding emotion in her soul. She sat there entranced. Words would poorly have answered the end of conveying the varying feelings that drifted across her heart. There was but one thought within her, but one affection, but one desire ; and that was of and for God. And for one whole most enriching hour did she there silently gaze, and dream, and pray, and aspire. CHAPTER XIII. DOLLY TATTERAGS. ONE of her pupils remained with her a while, after school was out one afternoon in early June, and seemed waiting to communicate something. The child was the daughter of a farmer at the northern part of the village, and Amy called her Ann Rackett. " Are you waiting for me, Ann ? " asked Amy, turning round in surprise to find she had staid so long after all the others had gone. The little one hesitated, and began to pull at her apron by way of working off some of her embarrassment. . Amy stepped nearer, and took hold of her hand to encourage her. "What does Ann want with me to-night?" she asked again, in a kind voice. " Does she want to say any thing to me ? " " If you please, ma'am if you please " And there the young thing stopped. " Well, then," encouraged Amy, " what if I do please ? Don't be at all afraid to tell me what you wish to, Ann. Come, let us sit down together on this bench here, and (142) DOLLY TATTEBAGS. 143 then you shall tell me all about it. Now, what was it you wanted me to do, if I pleased ? " . With an effort the child got it finally all out. " Dolly wants to come to school," said she. " I told her so much about you, she wants to come, too." " But who is Dolly ? That is somebody I have not yet seen ; , Dolly who ? " " Dolly Tatterags," she answered, looking up into her .* teacher's face as with surprise that she did not understand what " Dolly " meant. " Well, but who is Dolly Tatterags ? Can't you tell me ? Where does she live ? " " 'Way up over the hill," answered the child, pointing in that direction with an outstretched arm. " Has she got a mother, then, and a father ? " asked Amy. ;^ - " O, yes*; and a good many brothers and sisters, too." "Well, but why doesn't she come to school, then? Are you sure she wants to ? " " O, I know she does," said the child, gathering confi dence. " She told me so herself. I know she wants to come." " Do you live near where she floes ? " " It's a good ways further over to her house ; but she comes to our house sometimes, and then she and I play together." & * \ i " Well, will you tell her, *he next time you see her, that she is welcome to come to school, and that I shall be 144 AMY LEE. glad to have her come ? Will you tell her that, and that I say so?" " Yes, ma'am ; but but " And then a silence. u But what, child ? Don't you want to tell her what I say?" " 0, yes ; but but her father's so poor." It all flashed over Amy, and a sweet fountain sent its living waters gushing out from her heart. " Dear child ! " she softly and tenderly exclaimed. " Is that the reason why she doesn't come ? Is that the only reason because her father is poor ? " " She says she wants to come dreadfully, and learn something, like the other girls ; but her mother told her they couldn't afford to send her, and so she says she tries to stay at home. But she wants to come, and she told me so ; and I didn't know what to do." " Did she ask you to say any thing to me about it ? " inquired Amy. " O, no ; she only said that she would like to come so much. I'm sorry her father is so poor ; I love Dolly Tatterags very much." Amy instinctively drew the child nearer to her heart. ** Then she didn't tell you to say any thing to me about coming to school ? " " O, no, ma'am ; no, ma'am." " And you thought of it all yourself, did you, dear Ann ? " DOLLY TATTERAGS. 145 The little one hung her head, not certain but she had done something entirely wrong. " You are a good girl, Annie," said Amy ; " and you shall go and tell her that she may come to school if her father is poor. She needn't stay away for that. Now, will you bring her with you by next Monday ? Will you promise not to come without her ? " Little Ann looked too delighted to speak. Her eyes were glowing with pleasure. " Tell her Miss Lee says she may read and spell with all the other children, and learn to sew and sing, too. She needn't pay any thing for it, either. She may come just as much as if her father wasn't poor. Now, do you think you can tell her that ? Do you think you shan't forget any of it ? " " I guess I can," quickly answered the delighted girl. " 0, I know Dolly'll be so glad to go to school. I know she will." And without further ceremony, forgetful where she was or with whom she was talking, little Ann Rackett skipped out of the school room, and skipped like a young cricket off home. It was one of Amy's ways to produce as much happi ness with her limited facilities as possible. The instant the child left her again to herself, she resolved to go over and see the Tatterag family between then and Monday morning herself. Ann might first have the boundless satisfaction of communiciting such unexpected inteUigenca 13 149 AMY LEE. to little Dolly and her mother ; but she likewise would herself enjoy the delight of making them happy. This was one little instance of Amy's kind considerateness. The first thing to be done, therefore, on reaching home, was to ask Mrs. Gummel all about the history and situa tion of the Tatterags. She had her feelings suddenly en listed in their behalf. The very name of their child pleased her in a manner that it would be impossible to explain. She knew there was a something about them that drew her sympathies. And then she told Mrs. Gummel, too, about the way in which their names had been first brought to her notice. " Well," began her friend, eager to impart such infor mation as was needed most, " Ann Rackett has told you truly enough that they are poor. Mr. Tatterags himself is a woodchopper. He goes out into the forests in winter, and works for the farmers, chopping the logs they carry to market the next winter. It's a hard way of getting a living, I do suppose," added Mrs. .. Gummel ; " but it seems to be what he's best fitted for. And people all say he's a good hand at woodchopping. I've had him cut up many a wood pile for me." " He can get work enough, then ? " asked Amy. " Why," said Mrs. Gummel, " I suppose so ; but he's intolerably lazy not dissolute, that I ever heard of, but indolent, without any sort of calculation, and indisposed to do any more work than barely enough to help him along. And his wife, too, isn't thought to be any differ- DOLLY TATTEBAGS. 147 ent. She's what we call a ' complaining woman.' Noth ing ever goes rigLt with her. She is always finding fault with her husband and with whatever happens ; forever brooding over the worst side of things, and making a bugbear for herself out of nothing at all. I do not say this to slander her, for that is certainly not my wish ; but every body knows just how it is, and you have asked to know only what is so generally understood." " But how many children have they ? " pursued Amy, growing more thoughtful. " There are more than half a dozen of them, I know ; but how many more, is really more than I can tell you. You'll find the number usual for very poor people, I think, however." " I'll go over and see them myself Saturday afternoon," said Amy, " and learn if I can do any thing for them. This little Dolly shall certainly come to school, if she will, money or no money ; that's the last thing for me to think of." The time between then and Saturday went off rapidly and quietly. The next opportunity she had she asked Ann what Dolly said to the message she carried her. " She said she didn't believe her mother'd let her come now," answered the child. " Not let her come ! But why not ? Doesn't her mother want Dolly to learn all she can ? " " But Dolly's afraid you won't like her, after she's got here ; and she told me so herself." 148 AMY LEE. " Don't you like her ? " '* I guess I do," she answered smiling/y. " Then don't you think 7 shall ? " " I told her you would, and how you wanted to see her at school 'long with the other girls ; but she's afraid ; she says she don't know ; and she don't dare to ask her mother any thing about it, for she feels so sure her mother'll make her stay at home with the rest of 'em." "Well, never mind," said Amy; "I think we will manage to get her here in some way." Early on Saturday afternoon, therefore, she left her room to walk over to the residence of the Tatterags. Mrs. Gummel had directed her with all possible particularity, so that there was little danger of her missing her way. The route lay not far from the walk Amy took before, as described in the last chapter, only that she would be obliged to climb the opposite hill from the one she then climbed. The afternoon was delicious and inspiring. The air was not at all too hot, but occasional draughts fanned her temples and face, and kept her continually refreshed. If she walked a little too fast at any time, as soon as she felt fatigued she sat down upon a rock or a stone until she was rested again. She crossed the bridge, but not without stopping as before to lean on its rail, and gaze for a few minutes thoughtfully into the stream that swam below. In that place, and in that position, the same sweet and holy TOLLY TATTEEAGS. 149 feelings flowed like that clear current through her heart. She caught glimpses of the same beautiful dreams dancing in the water, and saw heaven in the same blue and almost cloudless sky that threw its deep concave far, far beneath the bed of the stream. As she passed on, she found the narrow road that Mrs. Gummel had been so careful to describe conducting her up the high lands on her left. She turned in at once, and went on resolutely. At one time she was pacing a level of quite considerable breadth and extent ; then she came to a steep acclivity, where mossy rocks and trunks of old trees were confusedly piled together, but through which the narrow cart path carried her with due precision and regularity. She toiled along with wonderful courage, and felt that the task was good for her. The odors from the pines that in spots were sprinkled around invigorated her lungs. She feasted on the fragrance of the wild flowers that were hidden by thousands among the trees and rocks. She felt a sense of new physical power, as the draughts of air came whirling down from the old mountain top, and saluting her eyes, her cheeks, her forehead, and her lips. Her thoughts danced in perfect harmony, and her pulses tripped to a perfect tune, as she sat down from time to time during the ascent, and gazed in mute rapture over the living landscape of June. Walking and stopping, toiling and resting, thinking now of one thing and now of another, she finally reached a broad steppe, over which the road still conducted her, and 13* 150 AMY LEE. afterwards wound with a sudden turn around the sharp shoulder of the mountain. The view from this natural terrace was of all others most enchanting ; it was more to Amy's soul it was sublime. She sought a convenient resting-place after so much persevering travel, and sat down a few moments to enjoy the sight that so filled her eyes and her heart. " O that there were some dear one here, to share all this beauty with me ! " exclaimed she aloud. " To have it only to myself, to be alone in a place like this, who would wish it ? I would tell something of my rapture to the heart of another, that is enchanted just like mine." While she still sat there, viewing the magnificent scene around her, she was startled by hearing what she thought the cry of a child. It sounded very faint, and not very near. She erected her form and listened attentively. Again she heard it ; and again. And now she was cer tain from what direction it came. Still intent to catch every variety of the cry, and perceiving that it continually came nearer and nearer, she turned to look towards the spot where the path turned the sharp angle of the moun tain, and in a very short time discovered the cause of her alarm. There was a little girl coming round the corner at a slow pace, with one hand to her eyes, crying bitterly. Amy continued gazing at her; for she was not only interested to know what could be the matter, but she was equally certain that this little thing was one of the Tat- DOLLY TATTERAGS. 151 terag family. And she kept her seat quietly, waiting for the young stranger's nearer approach. Along she came, but now her wail seemed to lose some what of its strength and volume. As she proceeded, she dropped her hand from her eyes, and began to look down over the lovely valley. It seemed as if she well knew sh< had got to the place where the most beauty was to be seen, and there ceased from her grief to enjoy what was always ready for her eyes. Amy could not but be struck with the attitude and fea tures of the child. At once she made her mind up it was Dolly Tatterags. There she stood, keeping the posture her little figure had just assumed. She looked as if the view of such a wonderful glory had dried her tears, stopped the sobbings of her sorrow, and called upon her to admire and wonder in silence. Her head was bare ; and brown locks, curled and tan gled all together, showered over her naked shoulders. She wore an exceedingly short frock of faded calico, not over- clean pantalets, and went barefooted. The sleeves, too, of her frock were short, revealing fat and pretty arms, though considerably browned by the spring winds and the summer suns. For a minute or two she gazed in earnest thoughtful- ness over the valley below. Then slowly she looked away, and turned to regard the familiar objects around her. The very first one her eyes fell on was Amy. The latter 152 AMY LEE. was looking at her as well, and saw that this sudden dis covery caused her a great deal of surprise, and perhaps fear. So she called out to her at once, still keeping the seat she had chosen, " What is the matter, my little girl ? What are you crying so about ? " The other immediately dropped her eyes to the ground, and commenced working her feet and toes busily. Amy saw that she was somewhat in fear of her, as well as embarrassed; and she got up and went to her. "Won't you tell me what your name is?" she asked, taking her by the hand. "It's Dolly," was the answer, though the child still kept her eyes upon the ground. "Dolly, is it? Well, I thought it was," said Amy. " And Dolly is a very nice name, too, for a little girl ; don't you think it is ? " Now the child took courage to look up timidly, though not yet into Amy's face, and smile as faintly as her small courage would suffer her. " What is the rest of your name ? Can't you tell me ? " Amy pursued, putting one hand under her brown chin. " Dolly what ? " " Dolly Tatterags." It came out round and full. " Well, I thought it might be you, after all. I have heard of you before, I guess ; and you have heard of me, too. Don't you know little Annie Rackett ? " In reply to this, the eyes of Dolly met those of her DOLLY TATTEKAGS. 153 interrogator with a most expressive sparkle and glow. The child's eyes were a beautiful dark blue ; and Amy saw how radiant they were at the first glance. *' Aren't you the little girl who wanted to come to my school ? " asked Amy, now holdimg her hand in both her own, while she stooped down that she might the better watch the working of her features. " Yes, ma'am," she answered timidly. " And you're coming, aren't you ? I told Annie to tell you to be sure and come Monday, if you didn't before. Bid she tell you what I said about it ? " Dolly assured her faintly that she did. " Well, then, wasn't you coming ? " The tears again stole into the child's eyes, and Amy thought she had never seen such a picture of returning sorrow. "Why, what is the matter? What is the matter? And what was it you was crying about just now, when you came round the corner ? " The little stranger's bosom now began to heave, her lip to quiver again, and in spite of herself she soon sobbed aloud. The tears ran down her cheeks, and dropped in the grass at her feet. " Why, won't you tell me what it is that troubles you so much ? " Amy insisted, caressing her affectionately. "You mustn't cry so, for it won't do you any good. Come, tell me all about your trouble, and let me see if I can't do something now to make you feel better. Come ; 154 AMY LEE. is it ? Why do you cry so ? Won't you tell me, now ? " A moment the child hesitated. Then she told the whole in a single sob of a breath. "Mother says I shan't go to school with the other girls." And she began to cry as hard as she could cry. Amy drew her to her arms, and continued for a long time trying by every method to soothe and pacify her. She told her that she would go home with her, and see her mother, and ask her to let her go. She promised to do all she could to induce her parents to accede to her proposal, and had no doubt they would listen to what she would have to say about it. And so after a time she stopped crying, while Amy wiped away the tears with her own handkerchief. But her little bosom still heaved with the quick-drawn sobs, and the cloud still rested on her face, shading it with a look of sorrow. CHAPTER XIV. THE TATTERAG FAMILY. WHEN Dolly had become entirely calm, Amy rose and walked with her guidance in the direction of the home of her parents. After coming to this angle, or shoulder, of the moun tain's side, she could see that the road conducted in a still more devious course, leading them rather down than up the slope, and into a small copse of live oaks, walnuts, and chestnuts. As soon as they had passed through that, she discovered that a broad extent of open field spread out before her, swelling gently with 'risings of verdure-covered land, on which there were few or no trees, and the whole picture of which in her eye was a smoothly-rounded and evenly-sloping bit of landscape. Its appearance was won derfully soft and inviting. Round the inner edge of this tract the road skirted, which they persistently pursued, talking pleasantly all the way. At length, as they came to a particular spot where more stones than usual seemed to be scattered about the ground, Dolly suddenly interrupted her companion's talk, by exclaiming, (155) 156 JLMY LEE. " There ! We must turn in here." Scattered trees grew on that side the path, and they at once turned into the track that made its dark, broad line through them. Their way was still downwards, till they came out from the midst of the trees all at once on a little clearing that bore marks of human occupancy. Amy looked with all her eyes ; and straight before her stood a little, story-and-a-half brown house, neither shingled on the roof nor clapboarded at its sides, with a stone chimney rising from the middle of it, and the low door, which was exactly the dividing line of the dwelling's front, standing wide open. There was an apology for a fence around the front yard, that had been made by separate contributions of rail, stones, brushwood, and old boards, on the inner side of which, and to the right and left hand of the house, lay what might charitably be admitted a garden. There were a few hills of scraggy beans in this enclosure, trying the best they could to clamber without assistance up the jagged, ragged, unseemly, and irregular little platoon of freshly-cut birch bean poles ; also, some hills of squashes, that thrust their big golden blossoms through the insufficient fence, offering half their eventual products to any stragglers who might chance to be going that way when their full ripeness had overtaken them. And Amy could see hills of corn, and of potatoes, and a little patch here and there of some other esculent, known there abouts as so many different specimens of " garden sarse." THE TATTEBAa FAMILY. 157 It was all very well indeed, but it lacked the essential look of tidiness. A pig was running around at his pleas ure outside the fence ; and the one-sided gate was fastened as far as it could be with a curled-up leather strap, hitch ing over a rusty nail in the post. Dolly let go Amy's hand, and ran forward to open the gate. As they passed up to the door, their feet fell on hard-worn ground, smooth as the paths in an old rope- walk. Chickens were running around the yard, and in and out the door. Dolly kept considerably ahead, and began to run about and cry, " Shoo ! shoo ! " to them, waving her arms and hands. They went through the door, and Amy stood next in a little square entry, the boards beneath her feet yielding to every pressure occasioned by her moving. The little girl went into a room at the right, and Amy could hear her say in a rather low voice, " Mother ! mother ! there's somebody here ; there's somebody to the door, mother ! " " Good land ! who's to the door, child ? What does he want ? Tell him Israel ain't to home." Amy, seeing that the woman did not understand what was meant, was on the point of stepping forward into the room, when she caught the words of Dolly again, and hesitated. " It ain't a man, mother," said she ; " it's a lady" Immediately she could hear the movements of the child's parent to make preparations for a visitor. 14 * 158 MY LEE. " Why didn't you come and tell me of it before, child ? Land ! how every thing looks here ! " And then she began to step in the direction of the door. As she came in full view of Amy, who had till this moment purposely secreted herself around the door post, she stopped short in her sudden surprise, gazed vacantly in her face, and began to smooth down her hair with the palm of each hand. " Good afternoon," said Amy, smiling pleasantly. " Afternoon," answered the woman in a half whisper, still staring at Amy, and laboring now to smooth out the folds of her frock. Amy thought she would wait and let her invite her in ; but as she showed no symptoms of doing so, there was nothing left but to begin an explanation of her errand. ' "You may perhaps think it is strange that I have come in on you in this way ; but I found your little girl over on the mountain, and became so much interested in her that I wanted to come and see her mother. She was cry ing so bitterly, I took pity on her." "What was you crying about, Doll?" asked her mother, turning to where she was then standing right behind her. The child hung her head. " I will tell you," said Amy, pleasantly. " In fact, I will begin and tell the whole story." And as Amy at this announcement made a feigned movement as if she would like to go in and sit down, the THE TA.TTERAO FAMILY. 159 woman stepped back from the door which she had been blockading, and remarked with all the civility that she seemed to understand, " Perhaps you'll come in and take a chair.'* "Thank you," offered Amy in reply. "I think I should like to ; for I am very tired, climbing this moun tain." As soon, therefore, as she had occupied the chair that Dolly's mother dusted out so hastily for her, Amy cast her eyes around the apartment to get a more thorough impres sion of their condition, and continued, " Your little girl was crying so hard," said she, " I went to her to learn what was the matter. She wouldn't tell me at first ; but afterwards she said it was because her mother wouldn't let her go to school with the other children." " That's pretty, now ain't it, Dolly ? " said the mother, giving little Dolly a very sharp and cutting look, that made her hang her head. " O, don't blame her at all, I beg of you, ma'am," pleaded Amy in her behalf. " I'm sure she wouldn't have told me any thing about it except for my persisting to know. She didn't want to tell me at all ; but I kept beg ging to find out. So that J am in fault about it, if any one is. I certainly hope I've done no harm, for I didn't intend any such thing." " 0, no ; nothing of that," the woman assured her, falling in with the agreeable tone and temper that Amy 160 AMY LEE. displayed. " But she needn't tell all she knows, if 'Jw true." " No, that she needn't ; hut to confess the whole to you, ma'am, I had heard of little Dolly here through one of my scholars." " Then you're the schoolmistress," interrupted the wo man in great surprise. "Well, I thought you must be, the minute I set eyes on you in the door. Why, who'd ha* thought of this ? " And she looked confusedly around the cluttered apartment, as if she would give almost any thing if her visitor would step out a few minutes, and let her put the room more " to rights." Amy instantly de tected her sudden embarrassment, and availed herself of the opportunity to turn her attention another way. " I only walked overj" she continued, " to beg of you, as a particular favor, a favor to myself, to let little Dolly come to school to me. I've heard of her, and I want to do as much for her as I can for any of the rest of my pupils. Besides, she really seems to me to deserve all the instruction she needs. I think'she is a very promising child," she added in a lower voice. The mother was instantly mollified. " But we couldn't think of paying a quarter's schooling for a single child we've got," said she. " I don't know as you know it, but we're nothing but poor folks up here, and there don't seem to be much use in tryin'. So we give it up entirely, and are as contented as we know how to be, to say nothin' about it." THE TATTEEAG FAMILY. 161 " Well, but I have come to ask if you will not allow me to give her the schooling. I do not wish you to pay me an)' thing. I do not need it." " O," answered the mother, " I'm glad to see one person that ain't as poor as we are. But I don't know ; it's hard gettin' along in this way." " As for that matter," Amy went on, " I am not better off than you are. I suppose you have to work to secure a living, and so do I. So what is the great difference between us, after all ? " "Yes, but but your work pays you somethin'. Now, we're glad enough, if, with all our children, we can only get along. "We're thankful, I say, even for that much." " Well," answered Amy musingly, and doubting either the propriety or profit of pursuing that point any further at this time, " I don't know. But why won't you just allow Dolly to come into school with all the rest of the children ? She may learn to read, and to sew, and to sing, and to do whatever the others learn to do ; and you shall be welcome to her schooling, I'm sure." " Indeed, you're very kind, ma'am very kind. But I don't know what her father'd say to it. Perhaps he'd agree to it, but I can't say." " I rather think he would have no objections," said Amy ; " at least, I hope not." " The child's got no clothes," added her mother, much softened by Amy's generous and kirfdly manner. " 0, yes, I have, mother," interrupted Dolly herself. 14* 162 AMY LEE. " Can't I wear my pink frock, you know ? And I've got a nice sun bonnet, too." Her mother faintly smiled, as if she was not much used to it. " But you haven't got any shoes," said she, looking at the little toes that were at work on the bare floor. " I will give her a new pair," offered Amy. " O, you're very kind, ma'am, I'm sure." " And I will see that she wants for nothing that will make her look tidy and comfortable. Now will you say she may come ? " " Aha ! " the mother half laughed out ; " you're very kind, I know. I wish that half the folks hereabout were as good as you." " Perhaps they are ; I don't know. At any rate, let us do right, you know, whether other people do or not. Isn't that the way ? " Her only answer was an affirmative nod of the head. " I think you have got a delightful spot up here to live in," Amy continued, changing the course of her remarks a little. " What a fine view you get of all the village below ! " " It ain't quite so pleasant in winter, I guess you'd think," the mother replied. " That may be ; but will you tell me where any land scape view is pleasant in winter ? I admit that you can find a great many sublime scenes, but none, to my mind, that are quite as enticing as those of summer. The only THE TATTEBAO FAMILY. 163 really delightful spot in winter, is, J think, one's own home." The woman silently assented. " If you let Dolly go to school this summer, I think you will find me a frequent visitor up this way. I have been so charmed with what I have seen this afternoon, that I do not really want to go down again into the valley. But I shall go with a much lighter heart, I can tell you, if you consent to my proposal. Don't you want to go to school, Dolly ? " "Yes, ma'am," the child promptly answered. And then her mother's face again broke out in one of her sick ly smiles. " I'll think about it, at any rate," said the latter, " as you've taken so much more interest in her than any body else ever did, and seein' you've been so kind as to come clear up here jest for that. I'll see what her father has to say." Just then an infant's cry broke forth from the pine cra dle in the farther corner of the room, and the mother hastened to take it up into her arms. When she had fairly got hold of it, she began to try to hush it with such family phrases and voices as had sufficed for the training of the whole line of its predecessors. Amy looked at the child's face to see if it interested her as much as Dolly did. It was very doubtful. Its eyes were as yet but half open ; its hair was sticking out as if all the rest of the children had taken turns in having a good pull at it j its 164 AMY LEE. dress was terribly soiled and much too short for an infant's style of drapery ; and its face showed signs of a terrible scarcity of water in that neighborhood. For all this, it was its mother's own child, and a mother's heart beat as warmly to its little heart as if it were the child of a prin cess in royal arms. Amy now beckoned Dolly to her, and suffered her to lean against her, while she threw her own arm over the little girl's shoulders. " Dolly ! " sharply called out her mother, as soon as she saw her position. " What do you lay up on the lady so for ? " " O, I drew her up to me," Amy explained. " I wanted to talk with her a little about what she was going to do when you let her come to school. I am very fond of chil dren, you see." Dolly's mother said nothing more, affecting to be per fectly pacified ; and, in truth, there was something very influential for her in the tones of Amy's voice. She had at last found one person whom she acknowledged to be capable of persuading and dissuading her. Perhaps it was because Amy had set out with nothing but the sim ple power of love, which others may have been more chary in exhibiting in her presence. While this little scene was enacting, in rushed the whole tribe, from the least unto the greatest. Such a snarl of them ! Such heads ! such faces ! such eyes ! How they stopped ! How short they breathed ! How eagerly they stared ! THE TATTEEAG FAMILY. 165 "Are these all yours ?" asked Amy, not a little affected with the ludicrousness of the sight. " Yes'm," she answered ; " and a wuss set o' children I guess you never did see. Jackson ! why don't ye wipe your nose there ? " she called out to one of the boys. " Hain't ye got no handkerchief ? -lizabeth Tatterags ! don't you see there's a lady here ? An' do you dare to cut up any o' your shines now ? These children " as if speaking to herself now "will be the death of me some day, I know. Can't make 'em mind, more'n so many mules." They stood grouped in the farther corner, staring at their sister thus leaning on Amy, and now and then ex changing smiles and knowing looks with her. Amy could not help thinking she had never seen such a hard-looking little horde before. Of the many sights of human pov erty she had witnessed, this stood ready to bear off the palm. "You've a good house full, haven't you?" she said to the mother encouragingly. "I haven't seen as many, children together in one family in a long time." The woman said, " Well, she didn't know," and smiled, and turned over the baby in her arms on its other side. Then she took another searching look over her brood, shaking her head at one, gazing with a very severe intent- ness at another, making a wry face at a third, stamping her foot at a fourth, then bestowing a quick glance at Dolly, who still stood at Amy's side, and finally concen- 166 A.UY LEE. trating all her observational powers on the infant in her arms. " I don't see for the life of me," said she, turning full on Amy, " how it is you manage with children. I'm sure I shouldn't think you'd be goin' round tryin' to git more. You must have your hands full all the time. How do you manage with 'em, pray ? " Amy smiled. " 0, well," she returned, " I try and make them all love me. I don't think there is any better way than that." The woman seemed incredulously astonished at so sim ple a rule as this. " But what if they won't love ye ? What if they can't be made to love ye ? " Her earnestness raised another smile on the counte nance of Amy. " What " she persisted " if there's no such thing as love in 'em ? All that, I think myself, is a very pretty matter to talk about; but to go to work where there's nothing to work on, that's quite another affair. E-liza- beth Tatterags ! le still ! " This last emphatic charge was caused by the discovery that the girl so named was busily engaged in pulling the hair of an elder brother in the little squad, and then dodg ing back behind one of the others for concealment. " I'm sure," said Mrs. Tatterags, stepping to the low window, and stooping down to look out, " I don't see's Isril is a-comin'. I don't know 'xacly where he is. He THE TATTEBAG FAMILY. 167 may be here in a very few minutes, and lie may not be home till dark ; or he may be here in a few minutes. I shouldn't wonder if he was ; and I shouldn't wonder if he warn't, too. Children, don't ye know where'bouts your father is ? " They all sounded up in a snarl of voices, " He's gone a-fishin', for I seen him." "No, he hain't, nuther; for I seen him go down into the medder, with a hoe on his shoulder." " He said how't he was a-goin' over to Mr. Rackett's, to help him grind some scythes." The mother was confused. Amy was still more so. It was impossible to unravel a meaning from the heart of such an entangled jumble. Some time passed, during which Amy exerted herself to reach their better feelings. She held some further conversation with the mother, urging her all the while to consent that little Dolly should be sent to school, and explaining to her in various ways how she would be the gainer by it. And seeing that there was little prospect of the father's coming home before it would be too late for her to think of descending the mountain, she rose to take her leave, "Well," said she, at parting, "I will expect to see Dolly, then, on Monday shall I not ? " " 0, la sakes ! I'm sure I don't know. I don't know what to say about it. But I'll see, wken her father comes home." 168 AMY LEE. "Yes, mother," pleaded the child, pulling at her gown; " do let me go." Amy looked to see if her mother would say " yes." "We'll see; we'll see, ma'am," added the woman. "You're very good, at any rate; and I'm not one that ever means to forgit such things. I wish you good day, ma'am. Good day." In a few minutes Amy had doubled the spur of the mountain, and stood on the broad plateau, gazing at the western sky. It was beautiful indeed. The clouds were piled masses of purple and gold. They formed pavilions of matchless grandeur and glory. In the soul of the wor shipful girl they awoke grand aspirations, and stirred inexpressible longings after the beauty that is hidden within the veil. Dolly did come to school on Monday; and Amy ex pressed her pleasure by presenting her, after school hours were over, with a nice pair of new shoes, bidding her assist her mother all she could at home, and try and be as good a little girl as she knew how. - : m ,. , CHAPTER XV. OLIVE ADAMS. AMY had been home but a short time one afternoon, after having dismissed her school, when Mrs. Gummel tapped on her door, and informed her that there was a visitor below, who wished to see her. " Mr. Parsons, I conclude," said Amy, rising, and put ting away her portfolio. " No, it's Olive Adams ; Mrs. Bucclebee's niece, you know." "Ah! I'll be right down, Mrs. Gummel! I must smooth out my hair a little, for I look like a fright." Mrs. Gummel left her, and in a few minutes she was in the room with her visitor, talking away with her at a famous rate. One would think they had both been ac quainted for months. " I have been promising myself the pleasure of a call on you this long time," said Olive. " I have thought a great deal of you, and felt that you must want for society here ; you have probably been accustomed to a great deal more than one would be apt to find in a place like this." " 0, no," answered Amy; "I have been yery little in 15 (169) 170 AMY LEE. society. I have been compelled, from my earliest days, to look chiefly for enjoyment within myself. I had the mis fortune to lose my mother when I was quite young." Olive seemed much moved by this unexpected confession. " I am without a mother myself," said she, in a lower and a touching tone. Immediately a strong and silent pledge of friendship had passed between them. Both motherless both hun gering and thirsting for such love as none but a mother's heart knows how to give both abiding in the shadow of the same ceaseless sorrow it was wholly natural that they should give each to the other her deepest sympathies without hesitation. There was a short pause. Amy broke the silence herself. 41 1 suppose you have lived in Valley Village a long time," said she. " Do you not think it a charming place ? '* " O, only three years," answered Olive. " It is a pretty spot, as every one says who comes this way. I have be come very much attached to it too. I walk a great deal, and so I think I can form a pretty candid judgment. Do you like walking? " " Very much ; I usually ramble away every pleasant Saturday afternoon, and at night after school I very fre quently take a little scroll, My favorite walk is over in the direction of the bridge, at the north, I like to climb up that mountain." " That is a fine walk. I have often taken it myself. But as we live more to the westward, on what one might OLIVE ADAMS. 171 call a by-road, I am more in the habit of rambling across the ^meadows and pastures in that neighborhood. I can enjoy quite a pleasant view of our little village from over there, and of the river where it runs below nearer the mills. Then we have woods not a great way from us, and I go into them at times, and gather wild flowers of all sorts. I have got to be quite a botanist, I find, merely from picking such blossoms as I fall in with in the woods." " I should be glad to go on your little excursions with you," said Amy. " I like nothing better in the world." " Should you ? should you ? Well, if there could be any thing more to my mind ! I'm sure I should be de lighted to have you. And I've been about so much alone too, aunt begins to think I must have seen all there is worth seeing. Sometimes she calls me a great romp." " I shall certainly take the first opportunity," returned Amy, " to call on you for one of these exercises. I think you will find, too, that / am somewhat accustomed to it. You'll not tire, I hope." Her friend laughed. *' Never do you fear for that," said she. '* In fact, I do not doubt we both shall get all the exercise that will be good for us." " My time is not as much at my own disposal as yours probably is," continued Amy. " But what I do have I mean to make the most of. And there's nothing I like more, in pleasant weather, than to ramble in the fields and woods. I am very glad you have consented to my becom ing your companion." 172 JLMY LEE. " I think J shall have more reason to be pleased with it than you will," returned her companion. " But how large a school have you now ? " " I count twenty- three," said Amy. " Well done ! That's a very noisy little nest of them isn't it?" " A very pleasant little nest," replied Amy, smiling. " I don't find any fault with their being noisy. I rather like it, if any thing." " Do you, indeed ? Well done ! But it does me good to hear one make such candid confessions. Now, if I like a tiling, I am always ready to say so ; and I'm none the less backward about telling of it if I don't like it. I must say I have a partiality for candid people." " So have I," assented Amy. " Nothing is gained by deceit, I verily believe. It works its own destruction, always." " I wonder if 7 would make a good school teacher," said Olive, looking down musingly upon the carpet. " What do you think, Miss Lee ? It seems to me some times as if I wasn't doing any thing for any body. My idle way of life reproaches me." "Well, I don't know. I am not yet enough acquainted with your feelings to tell you. In truth, I hardly know yet whether I am going to become a passable teacher or not myself." " You don't .hear what people say of you then, I suppose." Amy smiled. It was the first praise she had received OLIVE ADAMS. 173 in her new field of labor ; and few can understand how sweet it was. " Have you much patience with children ? " she inquired of Olive, turning the subject. " I could tell better how good a teacher you might make after I find out that." " Patience ? Yes no yes ; I declare," and she bowed her head as she laughed aloud, "I can't tell whether I've got any patience or not. But at any rate, when you get better acquainted with me, and with my ways, you shall find out the exact truth ; and you shall tell me too. Will you promise that ? " Amy felt a little inclined to hesitate ; but the matfner of Olive was exceedingly affectionate and unconstrained, and they had both suffered from the same grief. " Then you're not always inclined to be candid ? " in terrupted Olive, seeing her hesitation. Amy's face broke out in a highly genial smile ; so genial that her companion felt her heart drawn to her even more strongly than before. " Yes, I mean to be candid," answered Amy. " But you must teach me one lesson in it that I've not yet learned. I hardly know how to answer you as I should." And Olive laughed again, and the boundaries of reserve were faster and faster melting away. Mrs. Gummel came in at this juncture, and helped along the pleasant understanding that had so naturally sprung up. Olive was young yet, perhaps about the same age with Amy. She had received excellent training, and enjoyed 15* 174 AMY LEE. the advantages of the best schools. Her father had been at great pains with her during his lifetime, none of which had been relaxed by her mother. And now her aunt car ried forward the work, though it must be confessed she was hardly the same woman that Olive's mother was. She took different views of the world ; had a greater pride ; stood more on empty formularies ; and made as much as possible of social state and position. Yet withal was she regarded as a generous woman, an excellent neighbor, and bestowing charities with an open and ready hand. Her niece was a sprightly and vivacious girl, a child yet in all her feelings. If she took a sudden fancy to romp across the fields, walls and fences stood not a whit in her way. She was warm-hearted, frank to the last degree, and full of the most generous impulses. What she thought she was very apt to say without any reserve. She seemed to keep nothing back, and best liked those who were equally ingenuous and candid with herself. In person, Amy saw at a single glance that her new friend was much to be admired. With a perfectly sym metrical figure, she possessed a face that was full of fresh ness, and an eye that expressed a language never wholly written. People would very likely have said she was handsome ; and so they could not help saying of Amy : but -the types of their personal beauty were strikingly distinct. And this, in turn, quickened still more the already excited sympathies on both sides, making them first admire, and then love one another. A beautiful face OLIVE ADAMS. 175 has a wonderful power. Never is it so powerful over the heart, as when it expresses the serenity, and the sweetness, and the love, that lie at the centre of the being. Olive had such a face, in a large degree ; but Amy had it still more strikingly. It was enough, however, that they were captivated at the very first with one another. That alone promised a long and close friendship. " I was talking with Miss Lee," said Olive, addressing Mrs. Gummel, " about what sort of a teacher I should make. What do you think of it ? " " Well," answered that lady, rather evasively, " I don't know why you wouldn't make a good one." " There, now ! Just hear that ! Now, I beg you to take Mrs. Gummel's word for it, after this, and set me down at once for a proficient in that line." " I am very willing to, I am sure," answered Amy. " Mrs. Gummel's judgment is probably a great deal better than mine." *' Are you fond of young children ? " Mrs. Gummel further asked her. " 0, very ; very, I assure you. Where's Henry now ? Bring in Henry, and just see for yourself!" And she went off again in a merry peal of laughter. " I think I'll offer to come over to the school house some day, Miss Lee, and assist you. How should you like a little help of that sort ? " " 0, I should be very glad to have you come in at any time," answered Amy. " If. you would but like the work s 176 AMY LEE. as much as I do, there would be room for us to enter into partnership." " What a capital idea that would be, though ! Mrs. Gummel, how do you think the firm would sound to the W0 rld Lee and Adams ? What do you think of it now ? " " I don't think you could get a better one," said Mrs. Gummel. "Why don't you, seriously, try it? Wouldn't there be scholars enough to support such a project ? " " O,