THE LIBRARY 
 
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 LOS ANGELES 
 
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 INSIDE OUR GATE
 
 INSIDE OUR GATE 
 
 BY 
 
 CHRISTINE CHAPLIN BRUSH 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE COLONEL'S OPERA CLOAK" 
 
 BOSTON ' < 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 1890
 
 Copyright, 1889 
 
 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 nfbtrsitB 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE
 
 PS 
 
 INSIDE OUR GATE. 
 
 I. 
 
 FOR a year after we got settled in our own house, 
 we were ministered to by what Allan called a 
 moving procession of poor cooks. I no sooner got 
 used to a cook's name than she went away. I al 
 ways called the one who was present by the name 
 of her predecessor, and had just decided to use only 
 the generic name of "Cook," when our affairs took 
 a turn for the better. 
 
 It makes me laugh now to think of that procession. 
 At first untidiness seemed to be the prevailing fault, 
 but after a while I found a cook who was neat. She 
 was a Norwegian woman, and was determined to do 
 everything after the fashion of Christiania, or not at 
 all. She positively would not give a second rising to 
 the bread. " No, no ! " she would say, setting her lips 
 firmly ; " good, good ! see, good ! " and then would 
 look admiringly at the low, heavy loaf. Still, I surely 
 
 1592788
 
 Inside our Gate. 
 
 thought I should be able to teach her. Never was 
 there such a spotless cook; and she would wash all 
 day in a fresh print dress, with white frill and white 
 apron, and never look even ruffled when the day's 
 work was done. 
 
 There was a pot-closet in the shed kitchen, which 
 by reason of old age and low company was hopelessly 
 dingy. Chloride of potash was kept in it, and that 
 only. A broad smile played over Josephine's face 
 when she first peered into it. 
 
 " I make it good," she said. 
 
 I never went into the kitchen for days afterward 
 to give an order that I was not greeted by a sight 
 of the soles of Josephine's big shoes ; she herself was 
 in the pot-closet, scrubbing. I think she lived in it 
 most of the time. She was an exquisite laundress too. 
 Allan's shirts were a joy to him. If I got discouraged, 
 Allan would say, 
 
 " Oh, I would n't let her go. She '11 learn the ways 
 of this country soon, and those shirts ! " 
 
 If it had n't been for those shirts, I should have sent 
 her away at the end of a week. Josephine was worth 
 trying to teach, however, for we knew that she was 
 neat, for one thing, and for another, she was glad to 
 live in the country, as few indeed were. 
 
 She made friends with an old brindled cat that be-
 
 Inside o^tr Gate. 
 
 longed in the barn. She named him Jonas, which she 
 pronounced " Yonas." Josephine and Yonas were in 
 separable. He was a fierce fighter, and generally had 
 a torn ear, or a piece of fur hanging loose, or limped. 
 Before Josephine came, we had called him " the burg 
 lar," from his prowling step and disreputable air; but 
 now we called him Yonas too. He made the nights 
 hideous with his awful long-drawn howls and heart 
 rending cries, that suggested a whole orphan asylum 
 of colicky babies. After Josephine adopted him, she 
 used to entice him early in the evening into the shed 
 and shut him up. One evening he escaped her and 
 spent the whole night abroad. In the morning he 
 came into the kitchen with a cat's claw hanging in 
 his ear; and another day Josephine took one from 
 his eyelid. He idolized Josephine. He sat by the 
 pot-closet with her ; he followed her to the barn and 
 back. But he looked upon the rest of the family as 
 his natural enemies, and would flee when I appeared 
 in the kitchen, or stand still and howl with terror if he 
 saw Allan in the barn. 
 
 Josephine had asked me at the intelligence office 
 if there were any Norwegians in town. I had been 
 obliged to say no ; but I had spoken without knowl 
 edge, for Allan told me afterward that there was a 
 young Norwegian at the livery stable. I could not
 
 8 Inside our Gate. 
 
 expect the little pot-closet to continue to charm her 
 much longer, and Yonas might prove false. So having 
 determined to teach her, she was so neat ! I sug 
 gested to Allan that the next time he was in the village 
 he should learn whether the Norwegian man was re 
 spectable, and if so, ask him to come to see Josephine. 
 The next day I happened to see Mr. Frink, the 
 stable-man, in the street, and asked him about the 
 young man (whose name was Peter Hummel), and 
 told him that my cook would be glad to hear her 
 native tongue, and that I wished he would send 
 Peter to see her. The order boy from the grocery, 
 hearing Josephine's labored English, told her that 
 there was a man who " talked her kind " in town, 
 and Josephine sent him an invitation on her own 
 account 
 
 The very next afternoon Peter appeared, rosy and 
 light-haired, square and lumbering, and knocked at 
 the kitchen door. He was a young fellow of per 
 haps twenty-four or twenty-five, and Josephine was 
 at least ten years older. He came again the follow 
 ing afternoon about five o'clock, and Josephine took 
 her knitting and sat on the kitchen piazza with him. 
 Before her sat Yonas peacefully washing his face and 
 not even spitting at his rival. The fourth day of their 
 acquaintance was Sunday. Peter came in the afternoon
 
 Inside our Gate. 
 
 and escorted Josephine to church, and later we saw 
 them come walking home, hand in hand. Monday 
 night he came again. On Tuesday night Josephine 
 came to me in tears ; Peter had not come. 
 
 " Why, probably he had some work to do," said I. 
 " He can't come every night, of course." 
 
 " Oh, no, there is some matter. I say I want live 
 in city; and he say, 'No, here' and he is sad." 
 
 After all my efforts to teach her, she was going back 
 to the city ! 
 
 " Why does he care where you live? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, he ask to marry me, and I say, ' yas.' Then 
 he say he live here. An' I say no, in city. He not 
 like that. I 'fraid he come no more. If he do come, 
 I live here ! Oh, yas, I live here." 
 
 " Oh, don't worry ! " said I ; "if he does n't come 
 to-night, I'll send for him. But," I added, "before 
 you promise to marry him you should first know if 
 he is a good man. You must be careful." 
 
 " Oh, I know all," she replied ; " I haf ask him. I 
 say to him, 'You good man?' And he say, 'Yas.' 
 'You love God?' 'Yas.' 'You yoin the church?' 
 He say, ' No, but I likes to yoin it.' " 
 
 " But, Josephine," I said, " is n't he very young? " 
 
 "Yas," answered Josephine; "but I don't mind 
 young."
 
 io Inside our Gate. 
 
 I had n't thought of it in that light. 
 
 " Yas," continued Josephine, " he young. He stay 
 strong long time and save money." 
 
 The next night Peter came. I went into the kitchen 
 about nine o'clock, and there he and Josephine sat, 
 their chairs side by side, straight against the wall, each 
 with a hymn-book, singing piously and out of tune. 
 Yonas sat on the table and stared solemnly at them 
 with glassy eyes, overawed, I suppose, by Peter's 
 " meowing." 
 
 Not long after that, Josephine caught cold and had 
 a slight cough. Peter was generous, but he wooed 
 with no trifles; he was no silly fellow to waste his 
 money on candies and flowers. And so he forthwith 
 bought and presented Josephine with two flannel un 
 dershirts, which she showed me with pride. 
 
 "He make good man," she said. 
 
 This present certainly was evidence that he was a 
 "good pervider." 
 
 One day Josephine and Peter went to the city to 
 have their photographs taken. Josephine presented 
 me with one. There she and Peter stood, facing square 
 to the front, bolt upright, and holding hands. Jose 
 phine said they looked rather "stoif;" but I thought 
 that gave the picture the merit of being lifelike. I 
 wish I had a picture of them as they sat that night in
 
 Inside our Gate. 1 1 
 
 the kitchen, while Yonas stared at them like a witch' 
 godmother ! 
 
 Under Josephine's care Yonas had become a plump, 
 glossy, prosperous-looking cat. One night we heard 
 Josephine's voice at the back door, calling " Yonas ! 
 Yonas ! Yonas ! " But no Yonas appeared. The next 
 morning while we were at breakfast, the portly Yonas 
 burst into the dining-room, rushed across the floor, 
 ran straight up the wall, dashed out through the win 
 dow, and rolled over in a fit. The next morning I 
 saw him sitting on a kitchen chair, thin, bedraggled, 
 and with his eyes crossed : a unique possession is a 
 cross-eyed cat ! After this Yonas looked very sick 
 and wretched. I said he must be drowned. Jo 
 sephine remarked, 
 
 " I say to Peter he drown Yonas ; but he said, ' No, 
 Yonas always been good to him ! ' " 
 
 So I called at the drug-store a mile away, at the other 
 end of the village, and asked as a favor to have a man 
 sent to chloroform Yonas ; but no man appeared. 
 Yonas and his ills passed from my mind. 
 
 At dusk one evening I heard the door-bell ring. 
 Josephine went to the door, and a long-continued 
 conversation followed. Fearing that she would per 
 haps misunderstand some important message, I went 
 to the head of the stairs and listened.
 
 12 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " So you 're sure he won't be in to-night ? " 
 
 " Yes, I sure. He never in now in the evening." 
 
 " Well, what time do you think he will be in ? " 
 
 " I think breakfast-time or dinner-time." 
 
 " I '11 call to-morrow then, and " 
 
 "Josephine," I called down, "he will be in in a few 
 moments. He is nearly always in evenings." 
 
 I was in my dressing-wrapper. I could n't go down ; 
 so I called over the banisters, " Will you please step 
 into the hall, sir, and take a seat. Mr. Burroughs will 
 be in in a few moments." I always say "moments" 
 when I am vexed ; I generally say " minutes." 
 
 The man stepped in. 
 
 " T was the cat I called for, ma'am," he said ; " the 
 girl said he was out and would n't be in till morning. 
 I 'm sent by the drug-store to chloroform him." 
 
 " Oh ! " I said. There was n't anything else to say. 
 I am very glad that " Oh " has been provided for such 
 occasions. 
 
 Shortly after this Josephine and Peter were married, 
 and went to live in the city, after all ! 
 
 I had paid Josephine high wages all the time she 
 was with me, but she had never learned to cook. She 
 was paid chiefly not for cooking, but for consenting to 
 live in the country. My nurse or I had had to care 
 fully oversee her cooking. She was not amiable ; she
 
 Inside our Gale. 13 
 
 was even unamiable. But "she was so neat," we 
 always said. And when we speak of her now we still 
 say, "But she was so neat," as if it were neatness, not 
 charity, that covered every failing. 
 
 She came back the next year to show me her baby. 
 His name was Oscar. Little Douglas seriously in 
 sisted afterward that she had said it was " Horse-car." 
 He was a big unbleached infant. He looked a good 
 deal like the bread she used to make. He wasn't 
 like my babies. I suppose he was a Christiania baby. 
 
 The faces of some of our procession of cooks I can 
 not now call up before my mind, and hardly a name 
 remains to identify certain fading visions. 
 
 All I can remember of one is a tale she told me to 
 prove the wickedness and worthlessness of physicians, 
 indeed, she fairly looked upon them all as pick 
 pockets and murderers combined, especially the "stu- 
 dients at the hospitals." She came to my room, one 
 day, for orders, when I lay in bed with a sick head 
 ache ; and standing at the foot-board, she advised me, 
 no matter what befell me, never to let a doctor get 
 inside the door. 
 
 " Why, ma'am," said she, " me aunt has a young 
 son, me own cousin, and he got tuck in the leg one 
 day, and it wint on gettin' worse and far worse, till
 
 14 Inside our Gate. 
 
 she 'd spint nigh a tay-pot full of money, the doctors a- 
 comin' and a-comin' as if there was n't no place to go 
 to but me aunt's. And at last says one of thim, 
 ' Take him to the hospital,' says he ; ' his leg will have 
 to be tuck off.' Me aunt said his leg should niver be 
 tuck off; but he brought another doctor, and they 
 gazed on the leg, and at last says they to me aunt, 
 ' Wud ye rather have a dead son wid two legs, or a 
 livin' son wid one leg?' 
 
 " Well, the day come, and off they tuck him for 
 the studients to practize their devices upon; but his 
 mother, says she, ' I 'm a-goin' too.' So whin they gets 
 him undone and laid out on the table, and me aunt 
 has the clo'es he had tuck off under her arm, and the 
 studients tuck out their long knives and began to 
 sharp them, me aunt she began to feel stirred up to 
 the stomick, and the room began to swim round, so 
 says she, startin' up quite wild, 'Give me me b'y, ye 
 bloody butchers, a-thirstin' for me Timmy's leg.' And 
 wid that she caught him off the table and just fled 
 away wid him. And there was an old woman livin' 
 in the same court, and says she, ' I can mind Timmy's 
 leg till he can lape like a grasshopper.' 
 
 " So she poultiched his leg, and she poultiched his 
 leg for a month continual, and wud ye belave it, 
 ma'am, he 's now that strong and lively that the wake
 
 Inside our Gate. 15 
 
 before I lift me aunt, he jist lep over the house, 
 ma'am, he jist lep over the house? Then I knew 
 Nora Twohig," continued this foe of the doctors, 
 " and she had a thumb that left her no pace day or 
 night. So says the doctor, ' Ye must go to the hos 
 pital, and have the studients amputate ye,' says he. 
 So her thumb hurt her so, that at last she jist wint to 
 the hospital, and they tuck her hi a room, and they 
 began to sharp up their knives, looking quite cheerful 
 betimes ; and whin she beheld all the preparation, she 
 jist put on a most doleful look on her face, and 
 gaspin' as if she were a-dyin'. She sat by the door, 
 and says she, ' Oh, doctor dear, lit me jist step to the 
 door for a brith of frish air ; I 'm jist stiflin' ! ' And 
 she flid away and niver wint back again. She says 
 they quite lost track o' her, for though she looked 
 back at iviry corner, they were not a chasin' her. She 
 war scared to go out-doors for siveral days for fear 
 they 'd ketch her. Thin she wint to a drug-store, 
 and says the man to her, ' Ye must poultiche your 
 self; ' and so she did, and whin I see her last time 
 she could hit out as good wid one hand as wid the 
 other." 
 
 Once I had spent five days of one week in the 
 intelligence office. Not one woman there of the sort
 
 1 6 Inside our Gate. 
 
 I wanted would go out of town. I was reckless in 
 the way of wages, but that made no difference. The 
 thrifty, fresh-faced _ Swedes smiled and shook their 
 heads and bent their knee-joints in curtsies, but they 
 " did n't want to go out city." I expected guests ; I 
 must have somebody ; I was wearied out. At last 
 the calm, obliging man of the office brought me the 
 only soul who would go out of town. 
 
 She was an oldish woman, in a print gown, with 
 a kind voice and pleasant face. I did n't want her ; 
 I knew I did n't want her, but I engaged her. At the 
 appointed hour I returned to the office to meet her, 
 almost hoping that she had broken her tryst. Alas ! 
 she was there, not in the clean print she had worn, 
 but " got up " in her best clothes, a draggled bonnet, 
 a velvet dolman, consisting of practically nothing but 
 its name, and a bundle as big as she could carry in 
 both arms, done up in newspaper, from the confines 
 of which odd bits of clothing peered out. I got to 
 the curbstone with her. I paused. I thought I 'd 
 give her a dollar and buy her off; but she turned to me 
 and said she " had a feelin' that she was goin' home," 
 with such a pleasant smile, that I couldn't do it. 
 Neither could I indorse her as mine. As the horse- 
 car approached, I gave her change and a ticket, and 
 told her to get out at the end of the route and await
 
 Inside our Gate. 17 
 
 me at the steam-car station. Then Douglas and I 
 took the next horse-car that followed. 
 
 I did not look at my lady at the station, except for 
 a sly glance when the car was ready to indicate to 
 her that she was to get into it. I sat quite at the 
 other end of the car, knowing that she would keep 
 her eye on me. I talked with my friends. I went 
 out of the car without a glance behind me. She got 
 out too. I told her to walk on till she reached a long 
 light-brown house with a large lawn and trees. 
 
 Then I saw Mrs. Dillon, a lady whom I knew but 
 slightly, approaching. She smiled as she met me. 
 " I 've just been to call on you," she said. I stopped 
 to express my regrets for my absence. Biddy stopped 
 too, and leaned against the fence, with her vast bundle 
 before her. I motioned to Douglas to go on with 
 her. I laughed ; but with tears in my heart I felt as 
 if Biddy were an awful sign to the public of me and 
 my housekeeping. " Don't think my housekeeping is 
 on that scale," said I, pointing to the old woman. I 
 told Mrs. Dillon how I had sat five days in the office, 
 and that this was the only creature who would come 
 out of town in the Fall to my kitchen. I said I did n't 
 want her now I had her. I thought Mrs. Dillon 
 seemed more amused than was polite. She laughed 
 until the tears came into her eyes.
 
 1 8 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " My dear," she said, " I brought that very woman 
 out here yesterday, and sent her back this morning. 
 It does seem sometimes as if something anything 
 must be better than nothing, doesn't it?" 
 
 I gave Bridget a receipt that night for my breakfast 
 rolls. 
 
 " But I can't read, mum," said she. 
 
 " Oh, dear ! shall I have to stand and see you meas 
 ure and weigh everything out? " said I. 
 
 " I 'm rale sorry," she replied. " All me sisters and 
 brothers rade well ; I was a giddy thing. Me mother 
 used often to say, ' Oh, Biddy, if you 're so idle, girrul, 
 ye '11 cry two tears out of one eye sometime ; ' and now 
 the time 's come, mum." 
 
 She wore a green alpaca dress, faded, of course, and 
 rumpled, and with great black slate-shaped patches on 
 it, one of them right in the middle of her back. I 
 felt impelled to do sums on her with white chalk. I 
 could n't " stand " her. Inefficiency and amiability 
 make a most aggravating combination. I paid her a 
 week's wages ; and she went off the third day. 
 
 Once, in a strait, Debby, my nurse, who had been 
 with me for years, went to work in the kitchen, and I 
 tried to get a new nurse. Nurses might be more 
 easily found than cooks, we thought. I had once read
 
 Inside our Gate. 19 
 
 in the back of a cook-book that it was utterly wrong 
 and almost wicked to tell any of the trials or details of 
 housekeeping to one's husband, and that never under 
 any circumstances should one allude to servants in 
 talking to one's acquaintance, or speak of one servant 
 to another. When I was married, I determined to 
 follow this good advice to the very letter. What was 
 my horror in the first year in this house to find that no 
 subject of conversation with Allan and my neighbors 
 rose so frequently to my lips as the subject of servants, 
 and I even compared notes about servants on the 
 cars. The pattern of the wall-paper in the intelligence 
 office, and the faces I saw there, flitted through my 
 dreams, and the sound of my foot-falls upon the oil 
 cloth on its floor echoed in my ears without ceasing. 
 I began to feel aggrieved when I went into the office 
 if my usual chair by the iron safe was occupied, as 
 if a stranger had taken my reserved seat ! The pleas 
 ant Swede who kept the office greeted me always 
 with cordiality. I had never " fighted " about a ser 
 vant with him. He confided to me the characteristics 
 of different ladies as they went out. Pleased would 
 they have been if they had heard him ! 
 
 He looked upon me as a friend. Behind the parti 
 tion I knew what went on and who were there, for he 
 told me. I knew that the old, old women, who came
 
 2O Inside our Gate. 
 
 and went, asked to have places found for them, though 
 they did n't wish places, and knew no one would 
 employ them ; but they came there day after day to 
 keep warm by the big stove and to hear the gossip 
 of the place. They gave free advice to the young 
 girls about wages and hours of service, and "days 
 out" They brought their knitting and a bit of lunch 
 in a newspaper; it was a woman's club, their 
 Sorosis. 
 
 Not tell Allan about my adventures at " the office ! " 
 why, he could hardly wait till I got my bonnet off to 
 hear about them. 
 
 But not only at the office did I hear of servants. 
 People who heard of my trials began to write to 
 me and offer their protegees. Once a lady living in 
 the city wrote asking me to try as nursery-maid an 
 excellent young girl who was unfortunately slightly 
 deaf and slightly near-sighted. Of course I 'd try 
 her; I wondered that the lady should mention such 
 trifles. 
 
 The excellent girl came. 
 
 I sent her every day to the post-office with Douglas, 
 who was then five years old, and I charged her not to 
 allow Douglas ever to step on the track that ran along 
 the middle of the road. After they had been taking 
 these trips for a week, I happened one day to say
 
 Inside our Gate. 21 
 
 to Douglas, "Of course you never step on the car 
 track." 
 
 " Oh, yes, we do, mamma," he answered ; " we walk 
 always on the track, on those wood-pieces that go 
 across ; but she is very careful. She says she can't see 
 or hear very well, and that as sopn as I see the cars 
 coming and hear them 'oot, I must tell her, and we '11 
 get off." 
 
 " The lady " had n't told me anything about a near 
 sighted conscience. 
 
 Another correspondent was much interested in a 
 young German girl, and wished me to try her. She 
 had lived, so the girl said, among "Christian Ameri 
 cans " in the city, and was fond of children and the 
 country; and she was very amiable, and could read 
 English, and her family were very respectable. So 
 she came. 
 
 After she had been one week in the house, she 
 asked to go home for a certain sack she had for 
 gotten. She did not return that night, as she had 
 promised. The next day she appeared with a rather 
 flurried manner, and said, "Oh, Mrs. Burroughs, I 
 found when I went home that my mother was getting 
 so old and feeble that she'll have to have me at 
 home."
 
 22 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " She can't be but a week older than she was last 
 week," said I. " How aged was she then? " 
 
 " Forty-seven. But oh, she looks so much older than 
 she did last week that I think I '11 have to leave." 
 
 " Why did n't you come home last night, as you 
 promised to do, Kate?" I asked. 
 
 "Because I had to wait to see mother, she was 
 out cleaning house ; and they 're goin' to have an ex 
 hibition at the Sunday-school, and they had been for 
 me to speak a piece, and they are lonely without me 
 at home." 
 
 Well, I appreciated her feelings, the " me and my 
 folks " feelings. I 'd rather have my " own folks " 
 with nothing, than all the joys of earth without them. 
 
 I had by this time tried representatives of nearly 
 every nation, and nearly every religious denomination. 
 I told Allan as I went off one morning that I should 
 no doubt come' back with a little yellow Chinaman. 
 
 At last, however, instead of a Chinaman I brought 
 home a tall colored woman. She was a capital cook, 
 and seemed cheerful, and sang hymns at her work. 
 One night I went early to bed with a headache. Late 
 in the evening I was awakened suddenly by a rustling 
 at my bedside. I opened my eyes in a fright, and 
 saw Nancy standing beside me. ,
 
 Inside our Gate. 23 
 
 "Oh, Mis' Burroughs," said she, in a sepulchral 
 tone, " I 'se committed an awful crime, oh, an 
 awful crime." 
 
 " What is it, Nancy," I cried, starting up in alarm. 
 Had she poisoned me? 
 
 " Oh, I 'se broke one of you' best chiny plates, 
 oh, do forgive me ! " 
 
 One plate ! That was a mild extent of breaking. 
 Nancy considered breaking china as the worst of 
 sins, stealing made no noise and was not always 
 discovered. 
 
 One day Nancy came to me with a long strip of 
 old black silk in her hand. 
 
 "Are you willin' I should use dis silk?" she asked. 
 
 "What for, a duster?" said I. "It is a duster 
 now." 
 
 " Oh, no ; I wants ter give a weddin' present to a 
 friend o' mine, and I thought when I see that in the 
 duster closet what a lovely sash it would make." 
 
 I presented the silk at once and some blue fringe 
 for the ends ; and the next day I was favored with a 
 sight of the completed gift. It was lined with black 
 cambric, and made up in a great bow. Nancy said 
 afterward that her friend was " dreffle " pleased with 
 it, and wore it at the wedding. 
 
 When I came home one Sunday from church, there
 
 24 Inside our Gate. 
 
 had been no preparation for dinner. No Nancy was 
 in the kitchen. Debby was in the nursery with Elinor, 
 and thought the dinner was nearly ready; she said 
 she had heard Nancy upstairs not an hour before. 
 But Nancy had departed, and taken ten dollars of 
 Debby's with her ! Debby said she had told her the 
 night before that she was very lonesome away from 
 prayer meetings, and did n't think she should stay 
 long. 
 
 There are memories of a black boy, Edward, about 
 seventeen years old, who spent a few weeks with us ; he 
 arrived on the same train with an uncle of ours who 
 was coming out to dine. " Oh, there 's Uncle Henry 
 and Edward coming up the sidewalk," exclaimed 
 Douglas, who was looking for the expected darky; 
 and little Elinor, looking out of the window, clapped 
 her hands and cried, " Oh, Uncle Henry and Uncle 
 Edward are coming ! I 'm glad I have a nice black 
 uncle now ! " We often spoke of him as " Uncle 
 Edward." 
 
 He had come from a family of numberless brothers 
 and sisters, and from a tenement-house in a city ; and 
 he could not adjust himself to the country and to lim 
 ited company. The cook heard him crying after he 
 had gone to bed on the night of his arrival, and came
 
 Inside our Gate. 25 
 
 to tell me, fearing he was ill; he wouldn't answer 
 when she asked him at his door. I made Allan go 
 to his room. 
 
 " What made you stay so long," I asked when he 
 returned to the study. 
 
 "I had to have a lantern lighted to leave in his 
 room ; he was afraid of spooks, he said." 
 
 "The great baby ! " said I, laughing. 
 
 " He has been living in three rooms, with a dozen 
 or so in the family," said Allan ; " and he 's lonely." 
 
 The next day, as Allan was passing the garden, 
 where "Uncle Edward ".was at work, he said cheer 
 fully, "Well, Edward, this is fine air to-day." 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir," said Edward, sadly. " I don' fin' 
 no fault wi' de air ; if dere was as much company as 
 dere is air, it would be a very fine place, sir." 
 
 He went to Sunday-school the few weeks he was 
 with us. " Where does your lesson begin next week ? " 
 Allan asked him, as he met him at the gate with his 
 book in his hand, one Sunday. 
 
 " It begins at ' What did he do next,' sir." 
 
 And Edward, it turned out, was a widower ! Think 
 of a widower not yet seventeen years old. 
 
 Debby Johnson was so good and commonplace that 
 there was never anything to tell about her. She was
 
 26 Inside our Gate. 
 
 like one of those bits of machinery, well oiled but un 
 seen, which keep the great flying arms and spinning- 
 wheels in order, and ready to do the work. She sang 
 out of tune, and she had but one song : 
 
 " The night was dark and fearful ; 
 The blast went wailing by ; " 
 
 but she sang the tune in quick-step time, which par 
 tially robbed it of its terrors. She had an orange- 
 colored scarf with broch ends, which she wore 
 always on public occasions, spread out flat over her 
 shoulders ; and she carried a dark-blue parasolette, as 
 she called it, with deep fringe, and a pagoda top. 
 When the cover wore out, she ripped it off, and using 
 it for a pattern, she re-covered the frame with silk of 
 the same shade. 
 
 Her brother and she owned a farm in Vermont, and 
 thither she meant to repair in her old age and live in 
 " her side of the house," when she had amassed suffi 
 cient fortune to live in idleness, and her ideas of a 
 fortune were limited, for the farm could only support 
 her brother's family. She was a tall brawny Yankee 
 woman, very sensible and very capable. No poetry 
 about Deborah Johnson, and yet it seemed as if the 
 dew had left the grass and the sunshine left the day 
 when Debby went back to Vermont to take care of
 
 Inside our Gate. 27 
 
 the motherless children of her brother. T hoped he 
 would marry when " the year was out," so that I could 
 have her back ; but instead of that he died, and then 
 Debby's lot was fixed for the rest of her life. 
 
 The cook I had just then wished to be " upstairs 
 girl," so a cook was now wanted. Of course Debby's 
 departure made it necessary to begin once more my 
 pilgrimages to the intelligence office. I knew that the 
 genial Swede would welcome me warmly as I entered, 
 and say I was " quite a stranger." I believe he had 
 not seen me for nearly three weeks. But I was about 
 to secure immunity from my visits to his office for a 
 long time. Everything comes to him who waits. I 
 had spent a good part of a year waiting in that of 
 fice, and at last
 
 II. 
 
 DOUGLAS and I went into the intelligence office 
 one day. He and the Swede were, alas, old 
 friends. He gave Douglas a picture of a steamer, on 
 pink paper with careful directions on it in the Scandi 
 navian language for getting transatlantic passage, as 
 if we wanted to sail away " to Norraway, to Norraway, 
 to Norraway o'er the faem." 
 
 A few spruce young Swedes were sitting on a yellow 
 settee by the door, and in a corner apart sat a timid- 
 looking old man. He appeared so utterly forlorn that 
 I asked the young man at the desk, Mr. Johanssen, if 
 it were possible that that old man was looking for a 
 place. He told me that the old man had left Den 
 mark with a party of men from his native town, to go 
 to his married daughter " out West." He was so old 
 that it was thought best to intrust one of the men 
 with his money, his tickets, and the check of his little 
 blue chest. This man also had the letter in his keep 
 ing, with the directions for getting him to his daugh 
 ter's very door. But one night in changing cars at a 
 junction somewhere, he missed his party and found
 
 Inside our Gate. 29 
 
 himself alone, helpless, without money, in a strange 
 country. "New York " was all he could say in English, 
 and he gave that confidently in reply to every ques 
 tion. Poor soul ! He might as well have said western 
 hemisphere. Some one, supposing New York to be 
 his home, put him on a return train, and he arrived 
 in the city, where he was soon arrested as a vagrant. 
 He was found sitting on a curb-stone, the tears 
 running down his cheeks. As no one could un 
 derstand him, this Swede, the keeper of the office, 
 who was somewhat learned in Scandinavian dialects, 
 was sent for to interview him. Now for two weeks he 
 had cared for the old man, paying board for him at a 
 decent house where he himself lodged. The old man 
 was so grateful that he could n't bear to have his one 
 friend out of his sight, and sat every day from morn 
 ing till night in sight of him in the office. Nothing 
 had been heard from his friends ; and as he did n't 
 know the name of the place where his daughter lived, 
 it was hopeless to attempt to find her, and he was 
 to be sent back to Denmark, to his native town, at 
 once. 
 
 Douglas listened with wide-open eyes to the tale. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " said I, " I am as sorry for the poor 
 daughter who is waiting for him as for the old man 
 himself. It is terrible."
 
 30 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Douglas pulled at my dress and showed me a little 
 pile of pennies in his hand. " I might give these to 
 him and just smile at him," said he. 
 
 The old man had a far-away look in his faded eyes. 
 Was he thinking of that home which was all of earth 
 that was familiar to him, far across the seas, or of 
 his daughter, as remote, as utterly lost to him as if he 
 had gone to the life beyond? We went up to him. 
 Douglas touched him and held out the money. Then 
 as the old man did not take it, the little fellow opened 
 the closed and withered hand which lay upon his 
 knee, put the pennies in it, and shut the fingers over 
 them. Then looking into the old man's face, he 
 smiled a smile so full of good-will that the weary face 
 lighted up, and the old man laid his other hand on 
 my little boy's head and raised his eyes, as if he 
 sought a blessing on him. The tears came into my 
 eyes. 
 
 Just then the door opened, and a fresh-looking 
 young woman came in, with a child in her arms who 
 was dressed more for health than for style, for she 
 had red flannel pantalettes coming down to her little 
 ankles. There was also a rosy-cheeked boy of about 
 ten years, wearing a Glengary cap and a gay plaid 
 neck-tie. " That 's a thrifty mechanic's wife," thought 
 I, "who has come to get a young girl to help her
 
 Inside our Gate. 31 
 
 through the Winter." After a minute's talk at the 
 desk, Mr. Johanssen brought the thrifty-looking little 
 party to me, and seating the young woman before me 
 said, " I think she will suit you." 
 
 " Are these your children? " I asked in dismay. 
 
 " Oh, no, ma'am," said the pretty Scotch girl, with 
 a bright smile. Then in her pleasant Glasgow ac 
 cent she told me that these were her cousin's children, 
 and that she was just in " twa weeks frae Canada, and 
 twa years come Christmas frae Scotland." Then she 
 opened her satchel and spread before my admiring 
 eyes my tired eyes used to looking at crumpled, 
 dingy, lying references sheets of fresh note-paper, 
 each certifying to Catharine Elizabeth Drummond's 
 good character and capabilities. These papers had 
 started from Scotland, and had been certified to in 
 Canada, and again in New York, by some one con 
 nected with the Young Men's Christian Association. 
 
 After we had discussed these letters for some time, 
 for " Tibbie " was loath to let me off till I had read 
 every line, I asked her what wages she had had. 
 
 " Perhaps ye had best try me," said Tibbie, " then 
 ye can batter mak' up your mind what I 'm worth 
 to ye." 
 
 I had surely found a " new kind of girl." Douglas 
 had been engaged during this time in looking the boy
 
 32 Inside our Gate. 
 
 carefully over. " I have a boy in a picture," said he, 
 at last, " with a cap on like yours, and -it says under 
 the picture 
 
 " ' Here is Johnny on his Shelty, 
 Ridin', racin', helty-skelty.' " 
 
 " That 's a Scotch cap," said Tibbie, " and that 's 
 a Scotch laddie beneath it Tak' off your cap, Rob, 
 and mak' a bow ! " 
 
 " My grandmother was Scotch," spoke up Douglas. 
 " I like the Scotch, they are such good fighters. I 
 bet Bruce or Wallace could beat all the English there 
 are in one day." 
 
 The young woman laughed, a joyous laugh. " Sae 
 ye 'd fight for Prince Chairley, wad ye ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," said Douglas ; " I 'm part Scotch, so I 'd 
 have to." 
 
 Then the Scotch boy broke in, and demanded 
 seriously of Douglas, "Are ye an Orangeman?" 
 
 Now Douglas was beyond his depths ; but he 
 bravely answered, " Yes," casting an eye at the bag, 
 with a lurking hope that oranges might be hidden 
 away under the " credentials," as Tibbie called them. 
 
 At last it was arranged that Tibbie should meet us 
 at three o'clock at the station. I wanted to begin to 
 own her as soon as I could. Rob and Douglas parted 
 with promises of meeting again, and one of the creden-
 
 Inside our Gate. 33 
 
 tials was rescued from the baby, who was just prepar 
 ing to chew it. 
 
 " I might as well write me name and character upon 
 the shiftin' sands as to give it to yer keepin'," said Tib 
 bie, addressing the baby. And they went off with a 
 farewell wave and " da, da " from the baby to the in 
 telligence office in general. 
 
 When we arrived at the station, we found Tibbie 
 seated, with a square tin box on one side and a round 
 tin box on the other, both japanned in brown. They 
 at once suggested crackers and cookies. But no, one 
 held a bonnet, and the other some Scotch gingham 
 dresses and white linen aprons. 
 
 With Tibbie's advent, new joy came into the house 
 hold. She had her faults, and so have I mine. I 
 knew better than to look for angels at Mr. Johans- 
 sen's office. For one thing, she seemed to possess 
 a changeable day-calendar of her own arranging, by 
 which her sun set, rose, and set again, according to 
 her suggestion. Sometimes breakfast was half an hour 
 before the appointed time, sometimes half an hour 
 after ; but it was always good when it came. If the 
 breakfast was late, she cheerfully announced that she 
 rose early that morning and had cleaned all the silver 
 before breakfast. If we were called to the table when 
 first awakened, she would announce that having extra 
 3
 
 34 Inside our Gate. 
 
 work to do, she could n't be hindered by sluggards 1 
 As Allan's business did not tie him to early trains, Tib 
 bie soon subjugated the family to her will. 
 
 One morning, when we had been waiting for half 
 an hour to be called to the table, my neat and smil 
 ing cook invited me into the kitchen to show me a 
 "snow-white wall and sweet closets," which she had 
 whitewashed while all the family were asleep. " I 
 got through in the closet and blacknit me stove just 
 as the clock was strikin' twa. Sae I a bit o'erslept 
 mesel'," she said. 
 
 A neat kitchen, orderly closets, a daintily kept 
 bread-box ! Oh, Tibbie, a good day greeted my eyes 
 when I met you ! And Tibbie was happy too. 
 
 " It 's a blessed thing," said Tibbie to me one day, 
 when a delightful old minister had been dining with 
 us, " it 's a blessed thing to dwell where the fear o' 
 God is before the eyes o' folk, instead o' the fear o' 
 men. Now when I lived just oot o' Glasgow at 
 Colonel Landly's, and see their reckless way o' livin', 
 the colonel a-pourin' brandy into his cheese, and 
 takin' a hot toddy before ganging to his bed, I felt 
 as if I were abidin' under the tower o' Siloam. An' 
 had it not been for the colonel's leddy, I wad nae hae 
 stayed there one day. She an' mesel' were the only 
 abstainers in the hoose. I said once tae her when the
 
 Inside our Gate. 35 
 
 colonel was quite silly in drink, ' Dear Mistress Landly, 
 how can ye live wi' him ; why don't ye tak' yer own 
 money and gang awa' by yoursel' ? ' ' Tibbie, Tibbie,' 
 says the dear leddy, wi' the tears in her een, ' I love 
 him for what he was, and what I hope he will be. 
 The varra God,' says she, ' that made us has to look 
 at something beside oursels in order to love us, even 
 the best o' us.' 
 
 " Ah," added Tibbie, " but that was a fine castle o' a 
 hoose ; and the clock in the great hall had a long line 
 o' soldiers come marchin' pot o' it at the callin' o' the 
 hours. An' in the drawin'-room, I most fell faintin' 
 when I first gaed in an' see them white marble folk 
 standin' here an' there wi'out a scrap o' claes to their 
 names. I asket the colonel's leddy aboot het, an' if she 
 could na' wind some o' those soft silks aboot them she 
 had brought from India, but she only laughet ; she said 
 that they was made from images found in Rome ages 
 ago. She was a holy leddy," added Tibbie, thought 
 fully, "but by livin' wi' the colonel she had become 
 contaminated by his ideas." 
 
 With Tibbie's advent a new life opened to Douglas. 
 He had always been strictly forbidden to go into the 
 kitchen, but now he might sit if he chose for an hour 
 at a time on one end of the ironing- table, lost to every 
 thing but Tibbie's wonderful tales, the tales of the
 
 36 Inside our Gate. 
 
 shepherd cousins who " cam down frae the Hielands " 
 to sell their flocks every year, and who after the sale 
 always called on Tibbie's mother ; " five big Hieland 
 men i' their kilts an' their bunnits wi' a string o' 
 collie-dogs behind 'em." The dogs used to sit sol 
 emnly round, she said, with their best manners, as if 
 they too were far-off cousins. She told how she would 
 keep watch for her father's boat he was a pilot 
 through " the bit winder on the stair," and how she 
 " would always see him first o' ony and flee down tae 
 the wharf, an' gie a fly in' leap intil the boat, a leap 
 that frighted the very sailors." 
 
 All Tibbie's friends and acquaintances became 
 familiar to the entire family. She quoted Colonel 
 Landly on all points of table dainties, or men's 
 dress. She undertook the care of Allan's boots 
 after a fashion learned of the colonel's page ; and 
 Allan walked in boots that glittered after that. To 
 me, " Mrs. Clark " and " Mrs. Martin " and " Maggie 
 Tullock" and "Elizabeth Fountain" were soon well 
 known. I should, I am sure, have known any one of 
 them who might have walked in unannounced. 
 
 It was a great charm to Tibbie to live in the house 
 with people of Scotch blood "only one generation 
 back," where she might use her Glasgow accent not 
 only without rebuke, but to the pleasure of the house-
 
 Inside our Gate. 37 
 
 hold. Ah, " Rabbie Burns " was not left to charm in 
 Scotland alone. Scotch songs echoed continually 
 through our kitchen. Elinor picked them up after 
 a fashion. 
 
 " Come, fill up your horses ; 
 
 Come, fill up your men, 
 
 And awa' wi' the bunnits o' Bonnie Dundee ! " 
 
 ran one of her versions, sung in her sweet little voice 
 on one note, sparrow-fashion. 
 
 One day when the children and I were alone at 
 dinner, Tibbie came in with a plate of bread. I made 
 some remark that brought out a quotation from Burns 
 from her, and when once Tibbie uttered that name, it 
 became a text on which she could open an endless 
 discourse. 
 
 She set the plate on the side-table, and, lost to 
 the present, she began to recite a poem composed by 
 the Rev. Mr. Somebody on the unveiling of the Burns 
 Monument at Glasgow. 
 
 These lines have stayed with me : 
 
 " He asket bread, and they gied him nane ; 
 But when he was dead they gied him a stane." 
 
 "Ay, ay," said Tibbie, "what a concourse there 
 was that day, all flockin' to the moniment ! and when 
 the unveilin' o' 't took place, I first felt the cauld shivers 
 runnin' down me spine, and the blood a-surgin' to me
 
 38 Inside our Gate. 
 
 heid. Ay," and Tibbie wiped a tear from her eye, 
 "an* his cauld hand o' stane hauldin' a daisy, the 
 crimson-tippit daisy, ye ken. 
 
 " It was a great thing," continued Tibbie, " for one 
 mon to speak oot a' that was in the heart o' a nation. 
 That was a true word the auld wives said at the birth 
 
 o' him, 
 
 " ' We '11 aye be proud o' Robin ! ' " 
 
 She sighed, she smiled ; and then she was in my 
 dining-room once more. And taking up the plate, 
 she passed it about the table and left the room in 
 silence. 
 
 Little Elinor got down from her chair, and opened 
 the door after Tibbie. 
 
 " Never mind, Tibbie," she said, " the next time he 
 comes we '11 let him take tea with you and show Scott 
 to him." 
 
 The one thing that perfectly cemented the friend 
 ship between Tibbie and Douglas was a present he 
 made her on her first Christmas with us, "The Life 
 and Poems of Robert Burns," illustrated, and bound 
 in a bright red cover. She soon had bits of blue yarn 
 for book-marks between the leaves. She knew the 
 book from cover to cover by heart, but she loved to 
 look at the pictures, and now and then to refresh her 
 memory.
 
 Inside our Gate. 39 
 
 Douglas learned to dance a Highland fling on the 
 kitchen floor, while Elinor stood first on one leg and 
 then on the other, and she thumped with both with all 
 her might when Tibbie " came in " on the chorus. I 
 heard Tibbie one day advising Douglas to wash his 
 hands. " Come," said she, " your bans wad file the 
 Logan water, an' yer hair needs cutting, too ; ye look 
 like a Nazarite."
 
 III. 
 
 TT was on a sweet day in May that we came first to 
 look at this house. It seemed as if June had 
 stepped into May to see that all was going well. I 
 always feel as if we bought that day with the house. 
 When one buys a house in the country, what wonder 
 ful things are thrown in, all the sky for one thing. 
 and the sound of the wind in the trees at night, and 
 the mist on the morning fields. 
 
 We really bought this house the moment we came 
 in sight of it, before I had looked through the kitchen, 
 or Allan had inquired into the question of repairs. It 
 possessed at once a wonderful charm for us ; it was 
 an instance of love at first sight. 
 
 " What a dear, homelike place !'" said I. 
 
 " The trees are there, the orchard is there, the house 
 is there, and a barn is there [we had not expected a 
 barn] ; and anything that is n't there in the way of 
 modern improvements," said Allan, cheerfully, "we 
 can put in next Spring." 
 
 " Bountiful ' next Spring ' ! " said I.
 
 Inside our Gate. 41 
 
 Then we laughed. We had met several "next 
 Springs " with unfulfilled promises, which nevertheless 
 always pointed encouragingly, as they vanished, to 
 their fellows on the way. 
 
 Perhaps if we had looked at the kitchen first, or at 
 the cellar, which was under the parlor and well-nigh 
 an eighth of a mile from the kitchen, we might at least 
 have paused to consider. But we had looked at the 
 spacious square parlor first, with its six windows, and 
 at the chambers above, where the old cherry-trees 
 fairly thrust their budding boughs in at the windows ; 
 and we had seen the cheerful dining-room, with its 
 open fireplace bordered with a row of old blue tiles. 
 There were six different scenes on the tiles, of Dutch 
 houses, Dutch windmills with careering sails, Dutch 
 boats, and Dutch people skating up and down on 
 Dutch canals. The six followed one another in order, 
 and then began over again, as if that were all there 
 was of Holland. Windmills and boats and Dutch 
 folk skating, was n't that a treasure to find behind 
 an old zinc fireboard? And the mantel was high 
 and carved in fans, a big fan in the middle, a small 
 fan on each side, and so gradually down to little 
 " hemi-demi-semi-quaver " fans at each end. 
 
 When we did look at the old kitchen " devoid " of 
 se-t tubs and of faucets, and with two small-paned
 
 42 Inside our Gate. 
 
 windows, my heart failed me. But Allan said (he 
 had been mightily taken with the last room we had 
 seen, at the head of the front stairs, an L room 
 with three windows and a fireplace), Allan said, 
 " As there 's no such thing as finding absolute per 
 fection in this world, suppose we choose a house for 
 our own pleasure instead of the cook's ? " 
 
 We looked at other houses, but Allan could never 
 get away from the pleasing vision of his study, that 
 little room set apart in the L, up three steps, with a 
 bolt on the door and a big iron key. 
 
 If one wishes to buy a house, it should be looked 
 at every month for a year. But then, I dare say, it 
 would not be bought at all, for we mortals are such 
 poor, unreasoning creatures that one little inconven 
 ience outweighs a hundred blessings. Still, to actu 
 ally own a house is to be content with it, as content 
 goes in this world. One accepts it as the marriage 
 contract is accepted, for better or for worse. It is 
 true that the cherry-trees did bring flies by the thou 
 sands, but I reflected that there were people who had 
 had it laid upon them to smell ailanthus-trees all their 
 lives, and saw visions of travellers in the desert strain 
 ing their eyes in vain to catch sight of the fronds of 
 even one distant tree. Thus I piously encouraged my 
 soul by reflecting on the greater woes of my fellows.
 
 Inside our Gate. 43 
 
 The lack of bells was distressing in this straggling 
 house, where instead of a group, we owned a proces 
 sion of rooms. I could not have summoned my nurse 
 from the far-away kitchen whither she had been sent 
 for a glass of water, even if she had chosen as I 
 sometimes thought she did to follow the example 
 of Father Abraham, who seems to have stopped and 
 dug a well every time he wanted a drink. Yet I 
 would not have exchanged this house, warmed and 
 brooded over by the sun, cooled by the wings of the 
 wind, shaded by the green comfort of trees, for our 
 late handsome, but lofty "flat." 
 
 It was delightful to own a house. We had owned 
 a home for years, but never a house to put it in be 
 fore ; and how wearisome a thing it is to live in hired 
 houses, only tenants know. For the sake of getting 
 a settled home of our own, it was even well worth 
 while to go through the exertions of " moving " again. 
 
 For some time before we actually got settled here, 
 my brain refused to act except in the line of fitting 
 square carpets to long rooms or wide shades to 
 narrow windows. Allan laughed at me for hum 
 ming continually : " When shall my labors have an 
 end?" or "Oh, let us anew our journey pursue!" 
 My sleep was uneasy. I would start up in the night 
 with the fear that the casters for my favorite easy-
 
 44 Inside our Gate. 
 
 chair had been lost ; and in church it would suddenly 
 occur to me that they were tied inside the bagging 
 cover which had not yet been removed. The abnor 
 mal condition of constantly putting our Penates into 
 boxes and taking them out again seemed to be our 
 normal condition. 
 
 Allan insisted on having each box marked with a 
 list of its contents. Allan is a methodical man, one 
 of those praiseworthy persons who can put his hand 
 on anything in the dark, but packing gets the upper 
 hand of the most orderly of persons sometimes. In 
 our last moving I saw a box inscribed " white vest, 
 lamp-shade, and so forth." I had to laugh, but I 
 sympathized with Allan. Just think of all the odd 
 things there were to pack ! That big white piqu 
 vest that Uncle Joseph wore when he visited us once, 
 and left behind by mistake when he went away. 
 That was years ago, and I often think still, after I Ve 
 retired for the night and can't see to it at once, that 
 the vest ought really to be returned to Uncle Joseph. 
 I dare say I should have given it away before this 
 if I had known whom to give it to. If you had ever 
 seen Uncle Joseph in it, you could n't present it to 
 a tramp. To whom could I give a large white piqu6 
 vest? Then there was that figured globe of the great 
 astral lamp, with the dangling glasses that had been
 
 Inside our Gate. 45 
 
 my admiration in the parlor at home when I was 
 little. We never had a moss-covered bucket at home, 
 but this filled its place in my imagination, and I 
 would n't throw that away if it did n't fit anything. 
 
 The " and so forths " in Allan's box were a bundle 
 of old photographs and some daguerrotypes of rela 
 tives in hoops and wearing bonnets with posies inside, 
 and ambrotypes, which at the last moment had been 
 found in a little table drawer without a key; also a 
 small, green, mouldy-looking idol which had been 
 presented to us by an " agent " of a missionary society, 
 who had often stopped at my grandfather's house, and 
 who had " descended " to my father and so on to me. 
 We always took the idol when we moved. To throw 
 away an idol would have seemed a mark of disrespect 
 to foreign missions, although we did use it just once, 
 when the hammer was lost, to crack nuts on a 
 flatiron. There was also a little dollar clock that 
 would n't go. 
 
 If King Solomon could have written about Allan's 
 box, he would no doubt have said, 
 
 There be four things which be " and so forths," 
 
 An idol in a Christian land ; 
 
 A clock that will not tell time ; 
 
 A large pique* vest ; 
 
 A lamp-shade that will not fit.
 
 46 Inside our Gate. 
 
 We had thought a little of building ; but I am glad 
 we bought this old house instead. I like places where 
 people have lived before me. A new house has only 
 memories of painters and plasterers about it, and of 
 visits to paper-stores, and of the weariness of selecting 
 the right color of paint for the outside, which is the 
 wrong color after it is on. I wish you could have 
 seen this house before we mingled our taste with that 
 of those who had gone before us. Years ago my 
 house was the parsonage of this town, before the new 
 parsonage was built next to the church. After that it 
 was occupied by an old minister who had lived in an 
 adjoining parish, and who after his parishioners had 
 brought to his notice the fact indisputable that he 
 was not as young as he had been once, bought this 
 house and took boys to fit for college. The old or 
 chard at the back of the house remains as it was, 
 a veritable apple-tree orchard. It is not one of the 
 new-fashioned orchards that go with Queen Anne 
 houses, where little dwarf trees are placed, a few 
 show apples growing on each, in neat circles of earth, 
 as if dropped, stand and all, from a toy village. This 
 is an orchard with old trees that lay their heads 
 together, old trees with leaning trunks of rough bark, 
 with nests and chirps and trills behind the blossoms, 
 and later vyith boughs heavy with apples and bending
 
 Inside our Gate. 47 
 
 low. And at evening, when over a far low hill, hazy 
 and blue, the sun slips away in golden glory, then 
 the trees stand rugged and dark, massed against the 
 yellow stretch of sky. This coloring reminds me 
 of a picture I 've not seen for years, painted by 
 Innis, of heavy forest-trees, dark against a sunset sky, 
 and along the woodpath a laborer plodding away 
 toward the sunset and his home. There was a poem 
 in that picture. 
 
 In the old minister's time, our side-yard was a large 
 old-fashioned box-bordered garden. The first day I 
 came here I found a lilac crocus in blossom, and later 
 one scarlet tulip. There were straggling rose-bushes 
 everywhere, and a strawberry shrub and a wegelia-bush 
 and a great tree of althea. Between this garden and 
 the orchard was a berry-garden, the untrimmed bushes 
 hanging over their fallen supports. In the middle 
 of the garden was a clump of lilac-bushes which 
 were almost large enough to be called trees, and not 
 far away a laburnum-bush. We soon pulled up the 
 rows of old box, and turned the garden into a great 
 green lawn. I was willing the half-dead box should 
 go, but I wished its pungent, clean smell might have 
 remained behind. 
 
 Bordering the broad path from the front gate, 
 a hospitable gate that swings inward, not a gate that
 
 48 Inside our Gate. 
 
 pushes you back upon the sidewalk, on one side is 
 a row of old locust-trees, with rough furrowed bark, 
 that stretch high like columns, before the branches 
 spread. It is strange that so rough a trunk should 
 be crowned with leaves so dainty and fern-like, and 
 with delicate fragrant blossoms. Whether these trees 
 are so old that their sap flows sluggishly, or whether it 
 is an accepted rule of etiquette among locust-trees to 
 come late and go early, I do not know. But I see 
 that the maples along the sidewalk long precede them 
 in their leafing in the Spring ; and in the Fall, while 
 all the other trees are yet fresh and green, the tiny 
 locust-leaves are already flying through the air. We 
 shall have to put wire netting about the well (I 've 
 said that every Summer), the locust-leaves float down 
 in such numbers. 
 
 The delicious water of that well has always been a 
 joy to me; but I believe Undine's uncle must have 
 got into it lately. Timothy Farrel " previnted " a 
 kitten from falling into it one day. Another day the 
 nurse dropped her spectacles down there; but when 
 the next pail of water was drawn, the glasses came 
 riding triumphantly up astride the bucket. A little 
 girl passing from Sunday-school stopped here once 
 to get a drink, and lost her Bible down the well and 
 a good supply of small Scripture cards. A boy who
 
 Inside our Gate. 49 
 
 was weeding the garden lost his hat there, and he and 
 several assistants spent an hour in rescuing it. We 
 lately brought up an infant frog in the bucket, but 
 we sent him right back to his mamma. Plumbers 
 and water-pipes are not the only evils connected 
 with water, you see. 
 
 My neighbors have told me something of the people 
 who used to live here. The old minister, they said, 
 had a sister, Miss Lois ; a gentle little maiden lady 
 with white hair in puffs, a tiny lace cap, and a white 
 lace kerchief round her neck. Miss Lois was an ex 
 cellent nurse, and always willing to sit up at night with 
 sick folk in town. The old minister and she were 
 both fond of flowers, and were often seen working to 
 gether in the garden. One of my neighbors gave me 
 an oleander-tree in a square green box, which had 
 belonged to Miss Lois. It stands in a sunny corner 
 of the dining-room, just where it stood when she 
 was here. My favorite corner was her corner too, it 
 seems. I felt quite as if she were a relative, and 
 as if I ought at least to have put on a black ribbon 
 for her. Oh, dear, I wish she were alive and here this 
 minute ! How easy I should feel about the children 
 when I am away from home, if she were only about 
 with her roll of linen and her peppermint bottle ! I 
 wish I could meet her gentle little ghost about the 
 4
 
 50 Inside our Gate. 
 
 house and prevail upon her to haunt us. I often 
 think of the old minister as going about the garden 
 walks with his hands behind him, like another old min 
 ister I knew when I was little, who used to sing as he 
 walked : 
 
 " The Lord into his garden came ; 
 The roses yield a sweet perfume, 
 The lilies thrive and grow." 
 
 I wish his ghost would come too. 
 
 I love my street which is half a road, for not 
 along streets, but along roads are daisies and wild 
 roses found, and golden-rod and asters. My road 
 slopes suddenly at its foot toward " the Narrows," 
 so that we cannot see the beach, but as we look 
 down we see sloops glide by, and flitting sails. I 
 have a friend whose house is near the foot of the 
 road, and on the shore ot the Narrows. It is 
 only a strip of sea that she sees, with no dim hori 
 zon, no phantom ships. But still she looks out 
 upon part of the world's highway to a great city, 
 and ships go by from far countries, heralded some 
 times by booming cannon from the fort. So well 
 has she come to know the flags of other nations, 
 that as she sits in the deep old fashioned window- 
 seat, or rocks her baby at her chamber window, she 
 knows when ships come in from Spain or Germany,
 
 Inside our Gate. 51 
 
 from England or from France, all brave in white and 
 red and blue. 
 
 Upon those waters there is constant passing. The 
 little tugs go steaming up and down as pompously 
 as if all the business of the world were intrusted to 
 them. The prize yachts sail there, and sloops go by, 
 and row-boats from quarantine. At twilight, rafts float 
 past with crowds of Italian workmen, and on board 
 bonfires glow, and torches flare, as on they float. 
 And when the land grows dim across the Narrows 
 and is almost lost in night, suddenly a thousand lights 
 peep out and make it a garden of stars. 
 
 Between our house and our next neighbor's lie long 
 fields. I never knew how beautiful the soft brown of 
 the freshly-ploughed earth is in the Springtime until 
 I lived here and owned some of it ; and here and 
 there the fields are dotted with bobbing figures, 
 boys and German women planting potatoes. This 
 year one woman wears a gown of lilac print, and on 
 her head an orange-colored handkerchief. I thank 
 the old woman for her dress ; it is grateful to my 
 eyes. I wonder if any one has ever raised a prayer 
 of thanks for bright colors. I '11 do it now. We do 
 not own these Bouguereaus or Millets or Bonheurs 
 of ours all the year, but we always own them in 
 the Springtime. Sometimes my old German woman
 
 52 Inside our Gate. 
 
 stands ^ hoeing near my fence. Her face is seamed 
 with years, but she looks content and cheerful ; and 
 when she raises her head and catches my eye, as I 
 sit at the window, she bows and smiles. If I am in 
 the garden when she goes home at night, I go to the 
 gate and speak to her. " Old Bertha " she is called, 
 and she drops a little curtsy and kisses my hand. 
 She sits on a strip of grass by our fence to eat her 
 dinner. One day Douglas was her guest. It was 
 a pretty picture to see them sitting side by side. 
 Douglas was overwhelmed with gratitude, and after 
 that he often saved some dainty to share with his 
 friend. He wishes I could have tasted her good 
 bread ! One day I saw a big bundle of shawls lying 
 under the fence, and after a while a young woman 
 who had been working in the field came toward it, 
 unrolled it, and settled herself to nurse a baby. I 
 went out to speak with her. She showed me her 
 baby with pride, and told me that it was nine days 
 old ; and both of them lived and thrived. 
 
 Across the street, in the long fields which lie away 
 to the east, the men are ploughing up the hard earth 
 into soft loam ; a white horse and a brown horse, a 
 man with a blue shirt, and a song thrown in. A 
 little dog goes behind the man, up and down, up and 
 down the long furrows. Ploughing is weary work, the
 
 Inside our Gate. 53 
 
 little dog thinks, but it must be done. And he looks 
 forward to the long night when he can lay his weary 
 little head upon his tail and rest. 
 
 Outside the fence on pleasant days the Italian 
 women are gathering the leaves and roots of the dan 
 delions, and packing them in great bags on their 
 backs. They come back every year with the dande 
 lion. The women look just as they should look, 
 only they have the wrong background. Their color 
 ing is rich, their gowns are bright, their showy jewelry 
 dangles from ear and neck. At dusk you think they 
 must step into a Florentine gilt frame for the night ; 
 they must surely have stepped out of one to come 
 here. Alas, what dens they do seek for the night ! 
 In the outskirts of the city one day I saw a real 
 Bouguereau baby, with his orange, as usual, and his 
 handsome mother; and he was scraping contentedly 
 on an ash-heap with a stick. 
 
 Every night at dusk an old darky ambles by on a 
 mule, a bit of Georgia or Car'lina passing by. The 
 children wave their hands and shout good- night fran 
 tically from the fence. He waves his hand and laughs 
 his chuckling laugh. Elinor calls him " Uncle Ned " 
 and loves him. Douglas wishes that he too could 
 ride "a nice thin ass with a slender tail." 
 
 And sometimes, " all on a Monday morning," like
 
 54 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Prince Charley, the soldiers from the fort dash 
 by on horseback, their blue capes with red linings 
 streaming in the wind. The clatter of the horses' 
 hoofs summons the children to the garden fence in 
 flying haste. The sun gleams on the bugle. Douglas 
 waves his fi%g, waves it wildly "so that the soldiers 
 won't notice that there are n't enough stars." His little 
 patriotic heart swells. He knows the call " boots, 
 saddles, and away ! " The soldiers smile at the little 
 folk, as they dash by in a cloud of dusty glory. The 
 children's eyes gleam with excitement. " Oh," cries 
 Douglas, " I feel as if I could hug my country ! " But 
 on the days when the artillery-men ride slowly by, 
 with the mounted cannon lumbering along, the chil 
 dren look grave. There is a hint here of something 
 more than is suggested by the gleaming bugle and the 
 dashing horsemen in blue and red. 
 
 Our town is a delightful out-of-door town. I never 
 cared for a village with streets and yards, gloomy and 
 damp with dense shade-trees. We have all the air 
 and sea-winds too, and all the light in the world, for 
 we own the whole of the sky. From the nursery 
 windows can be seen the sweet light of morning shin 
 ing over three miles of level fields that stretch away 
 to the sea, and to the glittering towers of the hotels 
 on the far beach, which shine snowy white. I cannot
 
 Inside our Gate. 55 
 
 see the distant marsh meadows, in golden greens and 
 browns, with rank rows of flag-lilies, and great stalks 
 of marshmallows, whose pink trumpets glow and put 
 to shame all the garden hollyhocks ; but I know that 
 they are there, and that some of the sabbatias linger 
 yet. Around the far horizon is a soft haze of foliage, 
 from which the spire of a distant church peeps out ; 
 and at dusk houses appear here and there that were 
 invisible all day, their windows ablaze with the rays 
 of the departing sun. Those little houses seem only 
 to spring into existence when the day dies and 
 weary folk need rest. 
 
 My town brought its name from beyond the sea. 
 It has a name that conjures up a picture of dikes 
 and windmills and canals and memories of stanch, 
 brave souls. I live on Church Lane. Do you not 
 like an old stone church, lichen-tinted, with a square 
 tower all vine-clad? Such a church we have. In 
 Summer we catch only peeps of it through the maple- 
 boughs from our south windows ; but in Winter it is 
 clearly seen through a delicate tracery of leafless 
 branches. 
 
 Years and years ago the very stones of our old 
 church formed another building, one fashioned by the 
 settlers from beyond the sea. That church was oc 
 tagonal ; and the tiled roof rose in a sharp slant to the
 
 56 Inside our Gate. 
 
 little bell tower in the middle, where a brass weather 
 cock veered in the wind. The Bible on the pulpit- 
 cushion was printed in Holland, in the Dutch tongue, 
 and an hour-glass stood beside it. From the sound 
 ing-board above the high pulpit hung a golden dove. 
 
 The graveyard is still as quaint a place as could 
 well be found. There are no walks laid out, save 
 along the fence, where a wide path, grass-grown, is 
 left unused. To go about the yard you must step on 
 the green sod between the graves. 
 
 The land belongs to the church, not to the town, 
 although it was quite the same thing, I imagine, in 
 the old days. There are no family plots set apart by 
 stone curbings or by fences, for it is a gathering of 
 kindred and of neighbors. There are a few great 
 weeping-willows, and a white poplar with green and 
 silver leaves which seem to twinkle out the flying 
 minutes to the eye as they quiver in the lightest 
 breeze. 
 
 The wild flowers grow luxuriantly along the line of 
 the fence, and the myrtle which loving hands planted 
 long ago runs far and wide through the grass, bloom 
 ing on graves which were not there when it was 
 planted. In one corner are the graves of the colored 
 people, who were slaves here in generations gone by ; 
 and far back from the road there is a low granite
 
 Inside our Gate. 57 
 
 table, moss-grown and crumbling, which looks like an 
 altar, and as if the sweet smoke of incense should rise 
 from it morn and night. Now, when the friends stand 
 sorrowing by a new grave, and wait in silence for 
 the words from the minister, " Dust to dust, and the 
 spirit to God who gave it," then the church-bell tolls 
 from the stone tower, as if to include all the dwellers 
 in town in the sorrow, and to repeat to them, " Dust 
 to dust, and the spirit to God who gave it." 
 
 A kindly old fashion prevailed in town till within 
 a year or two. The sexton of the church, at the 
 request of the family into which death had come, 
 went through the town inviting each family to attend 
 the funeral, as if to say, " Come, weep with them 
 that weep, as one that comforteth the mourners." 
 
 At right angles with our street lies the King's High 
 way. O visions of royal pageants ! Up that road, 
 in days gone by, troops of red-coats marched, by 
 order of a king ; and later, by order of the people, 
 from a near port the red-coats sailed away. Up this 
 same road the splendid mail-coach, with its six horses, 
 came swinging into town every day to the clear sound 
 of a horn, and pulled up at the tavern door, on the 
 corner of Church Lane and the King's Highway. 
 We stand in one room of that old tavern now when 
 we are waiting for the steam -cars. Across the wide
 
 58 Inside our Gate. 
 
 arched hall can be seen the carved doorways of the 
 parlors, and a peep of the mantel with a spread eagle 
 carved across its whole length. 
 
 On the other side of the street stands a long low 
 house, half stone, half wood, with overhanging eaves 
 and windows of many panes, one of which bears the 
 name of the British officer with whom eloped the 
 pretty girl that lived there how many years ago ! 
 
 As I have said, my road at one end runs into the 
 Narrows. The other end vanishes in a paved and 
 cobbled city street four miles away. All night long 
 the western horizon reflects in a dull gleam the un- 
 quenched city lights. There is a strange unrest about 
 it ; but in the east the soft darkness comforts wakeful 
 eyes like sleep.
 
 IV. 
 
 PERHAPS you have heard of the pleasure of see 
 ing a picture grow. I will tell you my experience. 
 One day I received a note from Pauline. My cousin 
 Pauline is an artist ; and she is young and pretty, for 
 which I am grateful, for I always feel under a personal 
 obligation to youth and beauty. Her hair grows 
 prettily about her brow in waves and rings ; her little 
 nose tilts up ; her teeth are white and small. I don't 
 know what charm lies in her eyes. I think it is the 
 charming way she looks out of them. But about her 
 mouth and chin there is a little resolute air which 
 makes one feel easy about her future. She is a merry 
 little body, and her laugh is very pleasant ; as Sarah 
 " Jinkins " says, " She 's good to hev." 
 
 She works with all her might and loves her work. 
 She used to tell me every time she came to see me 
 how much money the long gray stocking under the 
 eaves had in it. She 'd come oftener to see us, she 
 said, if it was n't for the car-fare (it 's fifty-five cents 
 from the city and back). She used to tell me that she
 
 60 Inside our Gate. 
 
 longed for us, then plunged her hand, alas, far down 
 into the stocking leg, weighed us and weighed Europe 
 and couldn't decide, and then tossed up a penny, 
 heads, Cousin Molly ; tails, Europe. 
 
 After her old grandmother died, with whom she 
 lived in western Massachusetts, she set out bravely to 
 be an artist. 
 
 This was the young lady who wrote in rather a 
 melancholy strain to tell me that she was having a 
 very hard time with her models. A little French 
 girl whom she had discovered after a long search 
 and engaged to pose as a little girl sewing, had 
 proved good for nothing ; she insisted on wiping 
 her little nose constantly on a large red cotton hand 
 kerchief, and getting out of position. Now Pauline 
 wished to come to our house to begin another pic 
 ture ; and she concluded her note by asking if there 
 were any geese in our town. Judging that there was 
 no covert insult in the question, I replied that I knew 
 of three geese, their name was Jones ; and those 
 three, two white and one gray, were owned by a 
 woman who sold me milk, and I doubted not they 
 could be hired by the day as models. In answer 
 came another note from Pauline, naming a day when 
 she would arrive, and asking that the geese might be 
 ready for her.
 
 Inside our Gate. 61 
 
 A few days afterward a strange procession filed 
 through our house to an unused bedroom, which 
 sudden rain had forced us to substitute for the barn 
 as a studio for the painting of animal life. Pauline 
 led the way, carrying an easel ; Douglas followed 
 with the paints; after him, Elinor, who had been in 
 trusted with a glass of water, for the geese, appropri 
 ately, were to be painted in water-colors ; then Tibbie, 
 struggling with three frantic, " squawking " geese. I 
 brought up the rear with three flatirons, to which the 
 geese were to be anchored with soft wide strips of 
 cloth, a sort of improvised ball and chain. Mary 
 Shannon laid an old sweeping-sheet upon the carpet, 
 and we proceeded to arrange the models, scattering 
 some crumbs before them to occupy their minds and 
 fill their time pleasantly. 
 
 But as soon as the great geese were settled to our 
 minds, they at once began to get unsettled ; the little 
 French model was a wooden image compared with 
 them. If Pauline began to sketch them in while they 
 were hissing toward the right, they at once hissed 
 toward the left, stretching out and drawing in their long 
 necks, as if they were leagued together to defeat some 
 sinister design which they suspected on our part. 
 
 " They are thirsty," I exclaimed ; " why did n't I 
 think of that? Mary, get a basin of water."
 
 62 Inside our Gate. 
 
 We placed the tin basin which she brought on the 
 middle of the sheet. The old gray gander at once set 
 his skinny claw on it and tipped it over. There was a 
 rush for cloths to sop up the water. 
 
 " Mary," said I, reprovingly, " you should have 
 brought a heavy china basin that they could n't 
 upset." 
 
 When Mary returned with a large china basin, 
 Pauline was sketching the biggest white goose as she 
 stood motionless, her long neck outstretched and her 
 yellow bill raised in an insulting manner, as if she said, 
 "I'm Mrs. Jones's goose; whose goose are you?" 
 The instant the basin was set on the floor, this goose 
 just flapped her wings and squatted down in it, sending 
 out such a shower as caused us all to retreat. 
 
 " Oh, Mary," I cried, " bring that piece of old in 
 grain carpet, and take this wet sheet away." 
 
 As soon as the gray gander and the other white 
 goose saw their companion's comfortable seat in the 
 basin, they both wanted to sit in the basin too ; but 
 the attempt only produced a wild fluttering of wings 
 that did not at all disturb the soaking goose, which 
 sat there so calm and collected that I am sure if 
 Pauline had wished to paint three geese squatting in 
 basins she could have depended on her models ; but 
 her idea was to paint them waddling up a path and
 
 Inside our Gate. 63 
 
 demanding entrance through a gate which was to be 
 guarded by a small boy, barring their way to an en 
 ticing puddle. And she liked her subject better than 
 that selected by the geese. 
 
 Suddenly the goose in the basin hopped to the 
 floor, tipping the basin over as she hopped. " Mary ! 
 Quick, bring the rubber sheet ! " 
 
 Mary flew to the hall closet and brought it. Then 
 she, with Tibbie's help, bore out the ingrain carpet, 
 as they before bore out the sheet, laid down the rub 
 ber sheet, and sopped up the carpet for the second 
 time. The geese seemed rather weary by this time, 
 and so they stood still ; and Pauline painted away with 
 great zeal till lunch-time. 
 
 "I suppose you haven't a gate," called Pauline to 
 me. She was again settled at her work. 
 
 I had already provided the trees and the sky for that 
 picture, besides the small boy and three geese, and 
 a real puddle, too. She wanted a gate now ; and she 
 asked for it in a jaunty way, as if I kept loose gates 
 lying about my house, like spools or pins. She said 
 little Douglas must lean over a gate to get just the 
 pose she wished. She had tried him over a towel-rack, 
 and it would n't work. 
 
 " Do you insist on a green gate ? " I asked ; " be 
 cause I have none."
 
 64 Inside our Gate. 
 
 She did not 
 
 " I have a white gate," said I, " that used to bar 
 the stairs when the children were little; it is in the 
 garret." 
 
 I sat at this moment in my own room. Across the 
 hall was my best guest-chamber. I had just put up 
 new curtains in the windows, and I had left the door 
 open to get the effect from my room. I had never 
 really finished that room to my liking till that day; 
 it was a pretty room. 
 
 Oh, that gate ! " Mary ! " I called. She came, 
 expecting to be sent after a tin sheet for the geese, 
 or to take up the carpet, or the floor. "Mary, in 
 the front of the garret you will find a white gate, 
 and " 
 
 "A gate, ma'am?" 
 
 " Yes, a gate painted white. Bring it down to Miss 
 Pauline." 
 
 She went up the garret stairs. 
 
 I sat with my hands in my lap, still gazing into my 
 pretty guest-chamber. It was in cream and pink. 
 The paper I had found on the wall, a cream ground 
 with pink prince's feathers set here and there upon 
 it, oh, so pretty and old-fashioned ! The wood 
 work had been of a light pea-green ; but that was now 
 changed to a soft cream-color, and I had cream-
 
 Inside our Gate. 65 
 
 colored cretonne with pink roses at the windows, and 
 a crash ! 
 
 I looked up. There was a stout leg thrust through 
 the ceiling of my finished, my beloved room ! - a 
 stout leg, with a black boot and unbleached stocking ; 
 Mary's leg ! 
 
 " Woe betide me ! " I cried ; " she has gone through 
 the unfloored part of the garret." 
 
 I sat motionless. Pauline and the children rushed 
 into my room under the impression that there were 
 extra geese and extra basins in my part of the 
 house. My eyes were fixed on the opposite room. 
 Pauline, horrified, saw the leg drawn up into the 
 ceiling; then she looked at the heap of plaster on 
 the floor. 
 
 "What is it?" she cried. 
 
 " It is Mary, getting your gate," said I. " What 
 will you have next, one of the chimneys, or a bottle 
 of water from the River Jordan, or the hanging garden 
 of Babylon? just ask for one or all ! " 
 
 Pauline, in a big linen apron, with a maul-stick in 
 her hand, stood perfectly still ; then with a burst of 
 ill- timed laughter she ran to the garret door. 
 
 " Are you hurt, Mary? " she cried. 
 
 " No, ma'am," said Mary ; " I found the gate ; " 
 and she appeared, lugging it down the stairs. 
 5
 
 66 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " Of course you are dead, Mary," said I. " Is 
 your leg broken? Weren't you frightened out of 
 your wits? " 
 
 " Well, I was a bit took off me guard," said Mary, 
 in her quiet way ; but she looked aghast as she be 
 held the ruin before her, the heap of dusty rubbish in 
 the room where we had just hung the pink curtains, 
 and which she had said was " so sweet it made her 
 mouth water." 
 
 My father was a minister, and his house had been a 
 hospitable one. So many people made it headquarters, 
 coming as suited themselves, that we children were 
 never surprised to wake in another room than the one 
 where we had gone to sleep ; we only wondered 
 " who had come." Sometimes these frequenters came 
 all at once, and then confusion reigned. On such 
 occasions a woman, Nabby Stone, who had lived with 
 my mother early in her married life, invariably ap 
 peared also to relate tales of her domestic woes, and 
 to beg for old clothes. We called such a day a 
 Nabby Stone day ; but our old cook always spoke of 
 it as " one of thim 'ere days." Now this was a 
 Nabby -Stone day, one of " thim 'ere " days. I 
 must have inherited them. 
 
 At last the plaster was cleared up, the windows were 
 left open, the geese submitted, Douglas looked over
 
 Inside our Gate. 67 
 
 the gate, and we began to think that the pig had got 
 over the stile, when 
 
 Our dog Scott is a gentle creature, sensitive to an 
 inflection of the voice, obedient to a marvel, but he 
 had shown a desire to run away. Now, we didn't 
 propose to own a dog who wished to live with some 
 one else, so Allan chained poor Scott in the back 
 yard for several days. He wailed and howled and 
 besought to be released; he had been used to liv 
 ing with the family, to a dainty bit at the table, a 
 warm corner in the nursery,, and he was very much 
 humiliated at being chained. This morning he had 
 seen the geese brought " squawking " in, and had 
 greatly desired to learn further particulars. At last, 
 with constant pulling, he wriggled the little stake out 
 of the ground and rushed into the house, dragging 
 his chain after him. Upstairs he flew, and presented 
 himself without warning in the " studio." He jumped 
 on Pauline ; he knocked Douglas down ; he barked 
 at the geese. Driven from the " studio," he ran to 
 the nursery and hid under the bed, whence he was 
 soon dragged out, chewing little Elinor's rolling-pin 
 to bits. He caught a little book from Elinor's hand 
 and tore it to pieces, and then fled downstairs like 
 an escaped convict. 
 
 In the back-yard our next neighbor's sleek little
 
 68 Inside our Gate. 
 
 brown dog was regaling himself with a plate of bones. 
 He was Scott's good comrade, the friend of his games, 
 but now Scott seized him by the throat; he shook 
 him, amid yells of terror from the little dog, till Tibbie 
 flew to the rescue. Away dashed Scott to the clothes- 
 yard, where " Mr. Yellow," our most respectable and 
 middle-aged cat, sat on a box viewing the conflict. 
 He dashed at this new victim. Mr. Yellow, taken 
 unawares, fled to the barn for safety. Scott caught 
 him on the way by his long yellow tail and actually 
 broke it, yes, broke his tail, so that though under 
 Tibbie's pitying care it healed, it never waved again, 
 only trailed like a yellow rag behind him to the end 
 of his days. 
 
 What an hour of wild oats ! A book destroyed, a 
 rolling-pin chewed, a dog choked, and a cat with a 
 broken tail ! 
 
 After this, Scott went to the front piazza and lay 
 quietly down, panting and taking little naps. Tran 
 quilly he saw hens passing by. Unmoved he saw 
 " Robin Hall," the striped cat, spit at him as he passed 
 up the path. He did not bark at the little brown 
 dog, who now stood on his hind-legs on his own 
 side of the fence and looked between, the pickets at 
 him. He never noticed the suspender pecller ; and 
 stranger than all, when Tibbie at dusk brought out
 
 Inside our Gate. 69 
 
 the three geese, and according to Mrs. Jones's direc 
 tions set them down in the road heading toward their 
 home, he let them waddle off unmolested. He crept 
 into the house early in the evening, apologized to 
 every member of the family by going around the 
 room and licking their hands and looking very hum 
 ble, with his tail between his legs. 
 
 The next day the geese were brought back, the 
 picture was finished, the mason mended the ceiling, 
 and two months later the picture was sold, and hangs 
 on the wall of a charming private gallery in New York. 
 
 Pauline, filled with remorse, promised to paint me 
 a picture. I asked her not to put a gate in it, or a 
 goose, or a basin ; but to paint me, myself, lying in 
 bed in a nice white gown, with my hands folded and 
 my eyes closed. 
 
 I think that check which Pauline fluttered in my 
 face ought to have belonged to me.
 
 V. 
 
 ONCE upon a time, years ago, before I ever knew 
 that Allan was alive, when life was sweet with 
 out Douglas and Elinor, we declared one spring, with 
 the voice of the united family, that we could not live 
 another Summer without a house of our own. We 
 did not aspire to a country-house ; we only wanted a 
 house in the country. We were the kind of people 
 made not to board. We did n't like to do fancy work ; 
 we did n't like to sit on a piazza dressed up from 
 morning till night, talking of things we had no interest 
 in to people we did not care for. " Summer boarders " 
 as a class are dull beyond measure. I dare say in 
 their usual surroundings they would prove interesting 
 enough, but as summer boarders they seem like a me 
 nagerie, the polar bear from his ice cake, the tiger 
 from his jungle, the monkey from his palm-tree, and 
 the buffalo from his prairie forced into unnatural sur 
 roundings and showing on a background of dingy 
 canvas, while, to follow out the simile, there seems to 
 be the same lack of sympathy between the collection 
 and the keepers.
 
 Inside our Gate. 71 
 
 That very Spring, all unexpectedly, we got our wish. 
 We found a little village in the heart of nature ; it lies 
 there still, with the breath of the pine and the voice 
 of the sea, and over the sea the south wind blowing. 
 
 Our cottage stood upon a hill that overlooked a 
 bay, a great quiet bay lying in the arms of the 
 fields. Dear little cottage ! although it is a day and 
 night's journey from my own home, it is inside my 
 gate, since for pleasant memories' sake it is always 
 inside my heart. 
 
 We were the first city people to go to the village ; 
 and we were perfect strangers to the villagers. We 
 gathered up all the furniture we could spare from our 
 city house, bought what else we needed, and sent it 
 down in advance to be stored in the barn. The day 
 came for our departure, and we were in the gayest of 
 spirits, although we knew we were to arrive in a strange 
 place in darkness, at an unlighted house. But our 
 big lunch-basket was well stored ; and was there not 
 kindling ordered for the fire and candles to light us 
 withal ? 
 
 But what a wonder ! When the stage drew up at 
 the house, the lighted windows shone, the door was 
 ajar, a fire upon the hearth greeted us, and in the 
 dining-room the table was set and covered with 
 dainties, bread white as milk, delicious cake, a blue-
 
 72 Inside our Gate. 
 
 fish in the oven, and doughnuts ; such doughnuts ' 
 light, egg-shaped, and wrapped in a mist of white 
 sugar. And not a soul was there ! It was like the 
 feasts that fairies provide for wandering princes ! It 
 had seemed a hard thing to some kindly souls in the 
 village that strangers should come at night, unwel- 
 comed, and in this pleasant way they had made us 
 their guests. 
 
 " The captain's nephew," from whom we had 
 bought the house, he had urged us in vain to ' buy 
 the feather-beds, had flaunted a cellar among its 
 attractions, as if a cellar was a telephone or an elec 
 tric bell ; but the cellar could not be found, no, it 
 could not be found, hunt as we would, outside and in. 
 Doors opened into bedrooms and into closets ; but 
 no door admitted us to a cellar. While we were still 
 hunting, " the nephew," having heard that the cellar 
 had run away, called in, and triumphantly lifting a 
 trap-door in one corner of the painted floor of the 
 kitchen, disclosed a dry well, a whitewashed well, 
 with shelves round its sides and a ladder leading into 
 it. The cook soon learned to back down quite grace 
 fully, when occasion required. 
 
 The " nephew " said there was a good " dungeon " 
 too. We had never expected to own a dungeon ; and 
 this proved to be a little cock-loft in the roof. We
 
 Inside our Gate. 73 
 
 had not been promised a big pink conch-shell to 
 keep the kitchen door from closing ; but it was there. 
 There were no fastenings to hold up the windows ; 
 concordances, Greek books, and histories propped 
 them till my father, in desperation at the vile use his 
 beloved books had come to, whittled some strong 
 sticks, and after that we gagged the windows. The 
 stairs were steep. A ship-carpenter had built the 
 house, and we had ropes fixed on either side of 
 the enclosed stairs to " haul ourselves aloft." The 
 dining-room we called the secret chamber, because 
 there were five doors in it, two windows, and only 
 enough space left for a great fireplace, a brick oven, and 
 three closets in the wall. There was a little door in 
 one corner about two feet high, opening into the 
 kitchen, which we supposed must have been for the 
 convenience of the " captain " when calling, " Al- 
 phonso, apportez le pate de foie gras." 
 
 Dear little house, what a joy it was to us all ! It 
 was our first own house, and we loved it like a first 
 baby. We brought woodbine from the island to adorn 
 it, maples from the wood, and brier-roses from the 
 lane. I remember one day, several miles from home, 
 seeing some magnificent daisies growing in a thick 
 white border round a potato-patch in a field. We 
 sprang out, shovel in hand (we always carried a shovel
 
 74 Inside our Gate. 
 
 on our drives), to secure some roots. At that very 
 moment the owner of the potatoes appeared upon the 
 scene and watched us, lost in wonder. He laughed 
 scornfully as we asked his leave to dig up the daisies. 
 He evidently thought, upon seeing the shovel, that 
 we had come for the potatoes, and on being discov 
 ered, had tried to cover our retreat with this flimsy 
 show of asking for daisies. He winked as he re 
 marked, "They ain't many folks that hires a wagon 
 to fetch white weeds home." 
 
 That Summer we neighbored with the bay and the 
 woods, and with the flowers. On the wall before me 
 hangs a water-color of pink bindweed vines, an arm 
 ful of them, tangled in meadow grasses. I remember 
 a Summer morning, the day just breaking, still, fresh, 
 dewy, like a baby's waking, when my brother Maurice 
 and I sought for the bindweed blossoms in the 
 meadows by the bay. It was high tide, and the 
 water was creeping through the grasses up to the bind 
 weed vines. That meadow must half forget it is a 
 meadow when the tide is high. 
 
 There was a long main street running through the 
 village north and south. Toward the north it led 
 through a sweet-scented wood, to the station. We 
 never chose that road, because it did lead, even though 
 through miles of a ferny, green, and odorous wood,
 
 Inside our Gate. 75 
 
 toward the city's heat and noise. We loved to take the 
 road toward the east, for then the sea always seemed 
 to journey with us. If we lost it when we rode into 
 the valleys, we found it again when we came to the 
 hill-tops ; when the pine woods hid it, still we knew it 
 was there, its blue expanse, its white-caps, its burden 
 of glittering stars, and the ships on the horizon. Here 
 and there, where the white beaches curved, lay little 
 groups of houses ; along the road the flowers grew thick 
 and sweet, and the beach-grass spread its spears into 
 the tangled thickets of wild roses. Now and then we 
 caught glimpses of calm blue lakes lying in green hol 
 lows, and on the distant hills lone little houses stood. 
 
 We never drove to the end of that road, though we 
 went miles and miles. We believed that it was like 
 the road in the German story, which went on and 
 on and had no end. 
 
 In the village, roads and lanes ran hither and thither, 
 but always somehow reached the bay. Along the 
 roads tiny whitewashed cottages were scattered. still, 
 peaceful homes, you 'd think, yet there had been 
 strange scenes in some of them, for love, anger, wild 
 longings, passions live wherever souls abide. 
 
 Of wood-roads there were plenty, crossing and re- 
 crossing, seemingly only for our pleasure, untravelled, 
 grassy, berry-bordered roads, as idle as we. When we
 
 76 Inside our Gate. 
 
 wearied of driving, or rather when some unusual de 
 mand called for " the sorrel " and " the gray," we 
 floated in our little sail-boat, the "You and I," about 
 the bay, or flitted through " the opening " into the 
 open sea and out to the bell-buoy. At night, if we 
 waked, we often heard the bell-buoy tolling, or the 
 clock of the high white church on the hill in the next 
 village striking the hour in the stillness. 
 
 When we tired of the sea, of the motion of the 
 waves, of the restless bell-buoy, we could still take 
 our way inland rowing on a silent river between the 
 mainland and the island, under a bridge and past tiny 
 islands, and close by little pastures which seemed like 
 folds, or by pine-trees where great crows alighted on 
 the top-branches, or circled about waiting for their 
 weary comrades; and still on, past serried ranks of 
 cat-tails in the swamps, growing in neat rows as if they 
 thought they were rows of corn. Cat- tails never grew 
 in that way in years gone by, I am sure ; I think they 
 must have put on airs since they have come into fash 
 ion in city homes and studios. Then we glided into a 
 still inland bay, for we were on a tidal river, a 
 little salt-water bay that had never seen the sea, nor 
 guessed perhaps of its grand relative. Its shores were 
 low, and along its bank spread marshy meadows in 
 pink browns and golden greens. Along the curving
 
 Inside our Gate. 77 
 
 path of this silvery river we swept into a cove, with 
 surprise the first time, and always with pleasure. to 
 find a little house and mill, nestling in such stillness 
 that every sound we made startled the silence. " Our 
 mill," we called it, for we never saw a soul about the 
 place. Rowing homeward in the early evening we 
 passed over rose-tinted water under the bridge toward 
 the setting sun, while sometimes overhead stood a faint 
 moon. 
 
 We made acquaintance too with the great island in 
 the bay, the island of a . thousand acres, with steep 
 wooded shores where the beach-plum purples. The 
 grass was blue with berries, and red with the mock 
 cranberry ; woodbine garlanded the trees till they 
 looked like bands of wood-nymphs. Where the land 
 lies low between the bay and sea, just at " the open 
 ing," the little gold shells glitter and the scallop-shells 
 tempt the children, and " outside " the real sea-waves 
 tumble and toss, and the bell-buoy lolls and tolls. 
 Captain Kidd's gold lies on that island. Ah, yes, it 
 does ! and when the wind blows high and the night 
 is the darkest, " Hannah Screechum's " voice rises 
 shrill and wild above the tempest. I never heard it, 
 I am at home on dark, wild nights, but Cap 
 tain Lif ' has heard her time and time again, and he 
 knows.
 
 78 Inside our Gate. 
 
 A pretty grass grows all about the fields and road 
 sides, the merest threads for stems, with the tiniest of 
 dark-red seeds hanging thick upon them. In the early 
 morning, when the spiders' webs cover the fields, 
 webs of dewy silver, this grass shows through the 
 gauze in most exquisite lilac and purple, and the fields 
 seem covered with heliotrope. Yes, the very grasses 
 I know well, for I know my little village as a mother 
 knows her baby. 
 
 There is a pleasant walk to the East Bay, over a hill 
 wooded with low pines ; the path winds in and out 
 around bayberry clumps and berry-bushes as if to ac 
 commodate them, and many little brown birds are al 
 ways hopping about there. Though the hill is half a 
 mile from the sea, the little path is all of white sea- 
 sand. Asters, yellow and white, grow there in the 
 late Summer days as freely and as kindly as if they had 
 good earth to sustain them. From the hill you look 
 over great stretches of the purple marsh rosemary, 
 and turning to the left, where the bluffs used to stretch 
 in lonely beauty, lo ! Queen Anne has been there, as 
 the line of red roofs along the far shore tells us. 
 
 And here I must introduce Mary Ellen, a member 
 of the family who is specially associated in my mind 
 with this village. One afternoon, several years be 
 fore we found our country home, going into the par-
 
 Inside our Gate, 79 
 
 lor of our city house, I found a Maltese cat sitting 
 sedately in a chair, as if to receive callers. From that 
 moment of her appearance she became a member of 
 the family. We had had cats by the dozen, but never 
 a cat like this one. We always felt that she was a 
 human being in the form of a cat, and that the spell 
 might be broken at any moment, for instance, on the 
 seventh day of the seventh month, or by the influence 
 of some special strain of music heard by chance. She 
 possessed something of the spirit of Mr. F's aunt, in 
 the scorn with which she looked upon the follies of 
 the world and the foibles of mankind. 
 
 Somehow, I don't remember just how it was, the 
 name of Mary Ellen settled upon her. It should have 
 been Thomas, but as Dick said, since that name has 
 descended upon her, let it pass for a nom de plume. 
 So his name was Mary Ellen, and not being able to 
 break the meshes of habit, we always spoke of him 
 as "she." 
 
 As I said, she at once became a member of the 
 family. We had small doubt that she could talk had 
 she chosen. Her face was very expressive, and she 
 was evidently full of thoughts ; but she adopted the 
 plan, so to speak, of communicating with us through 
 interpreters, employing us by turn as mediums, and 
 availing herself of our services as a busy man uses
 
 So Inside our Gate. 
 
 a typewriter. She freely took part in the family dis 
 cussions and conversations. Subjects approached in 
 a gingerly manner by other members of the family, 
 personal matters she struck directly at. 
 
 The mediums spoke with a peculiar accent, and in 
 a tone slightly resembling a mew. Any sentiment ex 
 pressed in this tone was known at once to be Mary 
 Ellen's. 
 
 The youngest member of the family, who often 
 fretted under pointed remarks from his elders on 
 toilet and table manners, received orders from Mary 
 Ellen, unruffled. 
 
 If some hesitation was shown about giving Maurice 
 permission to go to a base-ball match a mile away, 
 Mary Ellen would perhaps remark, through Dick, 
 " There are those who forget that they were once 
 young ; " or if an older brother knew it was not a fit 
 place for the little brother, Mary Ellen's " Mejum " 
 would say, " Never think of it, base-ball ! fiase-bM ! 
 Why, the evil is written on its very face ! I shall not 
 attend to-day myself. When I go, you shall." The 
 little boy would laugh and give in, when he would have 
 balked at an ordinary denial. 
 
 Mary Ellen did not spare the weakness even of 
 the elders of the family. " There is a gentleman in 
 this State," she would say, " not to mention county
 
 Inside our Gate. 81 
 
 or town, or narrow it to this room, who has carried 
 an important letter, unmailed, in his pocket for three 
 days. Let me never hear of this sort of thing again ! 
 You know a letter is not a jack-knife or a lead-pencil, 
 to live in a pocket ; it is written to send somewhere." 
 Then father would laugh. He had been known to 
 say at other times, " Dear me, those letters ! Well, 
 why will you give me letters to mail when the house 
 is full of boys? " 
 
 She once gave a description of herself. " I am, to 
 begin with, a cat, a Maltese cat ; I suppose a Knight 
 of Malta very likely, but called by the unlearned, Malty. 
 I am a multum in parvo, an e pluribus unum, which I 
 will explain. I have a tongue which can lap; it is 
 also a comb ; the other side of it is a soft brush, a 
 pink flesh-brush, a dish-towel. I have a good supply 
 of liquid soap in my mouth, which I take to be " Bab 
 bitt's Best." My eyes gaze equally well upon the sun 
 lit day or moonlit night. I wear a white diamond on 
 my breast ; diamonds are valuable, mine is an inch 
 each way. When I sit down I have well-filled pockets 
 on each side, I should judge there was a large 
 orange in each one ; but strange and inexplicable as 
 it may appear, as soon as I rise to get an orange to 
 present to a friend, pockets and oranges alike disap 
 pear. Since some of the arts are lost, and some of the 
 6
 
 82 Inside our Gate. 
 
 tribes are lost, I suppose I need not wonder that my 
 pockets are lost. When I am short of subjects, I often 
 think of these things. Some folks don't know about 
 them, and so of course they can't think of them." 
 
 One Spring, the lease of our city house having ex 
 pired, we took another not many blocks away. After 
 a day or two Mary Ellen was missing. We would 
 have advertised for our beauty with a reward, but that 
 a friend of ours who had done that, giving an exact 
 description of her yellow cat, was made wretched for 
 a week by having dozens of cats brought to her house, 
 of every variety, from young kittens to old veterans 
 of the fences, black, striped, gray, of every color ex 
 cept yellow. 
 
 Finally Maurice and I bethought ourselves of going 
 to one of our neighbors in the street we had left. 
 She inquired of her cook, who declared she knew the 
 cat, and had seen her about the yard and fences. 
 " A very large wild Malty cat." We could n't imagine 
 Mary Ellen wild, but we offered the cook a reward if 
 she would entice this Maltese cat into the cellar. 
 
 One night a servant came to say that the cat was 
 caught. They had set a saucer of milk just inside the 
 cellar door, and then shut the door from the outside. 
 " But," said the girl, " Mrs. Holden says you can't get 
 her now, she is afraid ; for Mrs. Holden and all the
 
 Inside our Gate. 83 
 
 boarders have been down calling her ; and she is be 
 hind the furnace where all the empty tin cans are, 
 a- howling most awful." 
 
 Maurice and I went at once to the house. The 
 " boarders " had retired to their rooms, and silence 
 reigned in the cellar. At the top of the cellar stairs 
 I stood and called, " Mary Ellen, Mary Ellen, poor 
 old pussy ! " 
 
 A shriek of joy, a meaw of delight; the tomato-cans 
 could be heard rolling in all directions ; a scramble, 
 and up the stairs flew Mary Ellen, and jumped into 
 my arms. The cook was astonished j she " never see 
 anything like it," she said. Mary Ellen let the family 
 pat her, and then she went to Maurice, who carried 
 her home in his arms purring as she cuddled up to 
 him. She could never hear tomato-cans referred to 
 afterward, that subject she wished to be blotted 
 out from the topics of conversation, also " boarders." 
 
 Mary Ellen had never been in the country before 
 the year we bought the cottage. We had often re 
 membered her by sending fresh catnip to her in let 
 ters when we were away, so that she had some inkling 
 of the joys of country life ; but now that we were to 
 have a house, of course she was to go, she and the 
 setter pup Don, whose sworn enemy she was. 
 
 I laugh now when I think of the carriage in which
 
 84 Inside our Gate. 
 
 we went to the station, Mary Ellen and I ; for no one 
 of the family would go in the carriage with us. She 
 got out of the shawl in which she was wrapped, and 
 scrambled all over the carriage ; it was a Maltese car 
 riage by the time we got out. I gave the driver a 
 good extra fee to brush the hairs off, but it 's on my 
 conscience that I did n't give him half enough. 
 
 At the station I met Maurice with his pup, which 
 was all wriggle and paws, with a stick for a tail. I 
 had entirely concealed Mary Ellen in the shawl, but 
 it was an animated bundle that I bore. In one corner 
 of the station Maurice suggested that he should put the 
 few things from his valise into my bag, and that we 
 then put Mary Ellen into the valise. We did it, and 
 instead of locking the valise we only tied the handles 
 together, to give her air. Then when the train was 
 ready, I walked bravely out with my bag, through the 
 opening of which sometimes a gray nose sniffed, and 
 sometimes a gray tail waved or a gray paw clawed, 
 covered by the shawl over my arm. 
 
 In the car I put the valise on the seat beside me. 
 The rest of the family were ashamed of us, and sat 
 quite at the other end of the car. As the conductor 
 reached out for my ticket, the bag rolled off the seat ; 
 he politely picked it up. At once it rolled off the 
 seat again ; he picked it up once more ; but before
 
 Inside our Gate. 85 
 
 he could move on, it was a third time at his feet, and 
 as he stooped to take it, a veritable spit sounded from 
 its depths, and a gray paw struck at him. Maurice, 
 the conductor, and I, all laughed outright, as the valise 
 rolled on the floor. 
 
 The morning after our arrival, I looked out of the 
 window and saw Mary Ellen plunging clumsily, head 
 first, down the trunk of a big cherry-tree. Right be 
 hind her a striped cat, who had apparently been giving 
 her lessons in bird-killing, was coming down slowly, 
 sailor-fashion, head up, paw after paw. Poor city 
 Mary Ellen ! 
 
 In a yard across the street I saw hens complacently 
 clucking about in an enclosure surrounded by a fish 
 net stretched between poles. After breakfast, Maurice 
 showed me a bird's nest in an apple-tree. A little 
 brown bird owned it, and the nest was woven chiefly 
 of bleached ribbons of the seaweed. We had seen 
 that same sort of little bird in the White Mountains, 
 and her nest there was made of silver birch bark 
 stripped fine. 
 
 Mary Ellen was an apt pupil ; she soon brought a 
 big, strange-looking bird into the house. It had a 
 large beak ; but it was tailless. We rescued it from 
 her, and I kept it in my room for several days, feeding 
 it carefully. No one knew what sort of bird it was,
 
 86 Inside our Gate. 
 
 if not a young owl ; but young owls have tails. Mary 
 Ellen felt the loss of her victim very keenly, and 
 sat all day by my door, hoping for a chance to re 
 capture it. 
 
 Then the bird died, and Maurice dug it a grave 
 and buried it under the big willow. Mary Ellen 
 followed the remains as chief mourner, and could 
 hardly be prevailed upon to leave the spot. The next 
 day Hilda, in sweeping Maurice's room, moved the 
 bed, and behind it, in a far corner, found the bird's 
 tail. Mary Ellen looked thoughtful when it was shown 
 to her, but she made no explanations. 
 
 Often poor town-bred Mary Ellen sat in the door 
 way and gazed earnestly and solemnly at the long 
 row of willows along the fence. As the leaves trem 
 bled and quivered, her face grew sharp and her little 
 nose twitched, they tempted her as birds in motion 
 would ; but if a breeze sprang up and the boughs 
 swayed, and the whole lithe tree waked to life, she 
 was startled, her ears lay back, she glared with her 
 green eyes, then suddenly she would turn and fly up 
 stairs to hide till her fright was over. She had never 
 known trees before, or rather, she felt that these were 
 wild untamed creatures, not like the stiff young maples 
 in our city street, which lived in green wooden cages 
 and could n't get at her.
 
 In-side our Gate. 87 
 
 One day, a little cousin who was visiting at our 
 house was kept indoors by a cold, and to amuse him 
 I made a bonnet for Mary Ellen. It was called an 
 opera bonnet, as it had a great deal of white lace, 
 blue strings, a red rose, and a big ostrich-feather. 
 She wore with it, over the face, a black-lace veil 
 dotted with beads. About her shoulders she had a 
 plaid blue-and-white silk handkerchief. She began 
 to walk backward as soon as she was put upon the 
 floor, remarking that she had often heard of back 
 sliders, but had never been one before, and singing 
 as she backed, 
 
 " Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight ! " 
 
 She said she was in the right, because ladies always back 
 out of Victoria's drawing-room ; and that if one can 
 back out of a bargain, why not back out of a bonnet ? 
 
 Soon after this a neighbor whose little sister had 
 been ill came to borrow Mary Ellen to show her in 
 her gorgeous array to the invalid ; so Mary Ellen was 
 decked out and went off in the young lady's arms. 
 Hardly halfway to her destination, overcome with 
 fright, she struggled away from Miss Helen, and fled 
 to parts unknown. This was in the morning, and 
 nothing more was seen of the poor pussy that day, 
 though Miss Helen brought home the ostrich-plume,
 
 88 Inside our Gate. 
 
 the little girl from across the street found the red rose 
 and the veil in her barn, and the shawl was fluttering 
 over the grass. 
 
 The next morning when Hilda opened the kitchen 
 door at dawn, there sat Mary Ellen, jaded and hag 
 gard, her soft fur rough and brushed up the wrong way, 
 and her tail full of burrs. The opera bonnet was still 
 tied round her neck, only the blue bow of the strings 
 was behind, and the bonnet hung in front like a bib. 
 She was generally rather loquacious, and willing to de 
 scribe scenes through which she had passed ; but of 
 this escapade she refused to disclose anything. Her 
 spirit declined to speak through the mediums ; and the 
 details of that adventure will have to stand along with 
 Sir John Franklin's exploration, and the names of 
 those who built the Pyramids. 
 
 Mary Ellen assumed such high and mighty airs that 
 it amused the family to help her carry out her plans. 
 There was one chair, easy above all the other easy- 
 chairs, in which she always settled herself. When she 
 walked solemnly into the parlor, whoever happened to 
 be in that chair would rise and offer it to her, and she 
 always accepted it as her right, without thanks. But 
 there was one person my mother who not only 
 would not give it up to her, but would push her out 
 when she wanted the chair herself. Then Mary Ellen
 
 Inside our Gate. 89 
 
 would sit facing her on the floor, glaring at her with 
 green glassy eyes till her patience was exhausted or 
 her indignation had cooled, when she would take the 
 next best place. She was supposed on this account to 
 cherish rooted animosity to my mother ; and one day 
 she wrote an essay, one of the boys being the medium 
 this time, with the title, " Pride must have a fall." 
 
 " I don't wish to call persons out by name," said 
 she ; " but there is one present whose pride is too 
 high. Some day she '11 fall, she '11 fall out of a certain 
 chair if she is n't humbler. . Cats were sacred among 
 the Egyptians ; you never were. Your clothes don't 
 fit well ; mine do, just see how they fit round my 
 eyes and claws. You have only one life ; I have nine. 
 You may not look upon a king ; I can." 
 
 Mary Ellen loved a siesta in a certain low clump of 
 lilacs by the fence, so Maurice put an old knit shawl in 
 its depths ; and almost always, if she was not in the 
 parlor, and was called, she would emerge from "the 
 bower which Eveline wove," as she called it. If a 
 newspaper was put upon the floor, tent-fashion, she 
 would at once go and sit under it, remarking, " Speak 
 ing of caves, how is Machpelah getting on ? " Some 
 times we bought clams for her, and while they were 
 cooking (for she would not eat them raw) she would 
 sit on a kitchen chair and inhale the fragrant steam,
 
 90 Inside our Gate. 
 
 sniffing and wiggling her nose. I Ve seen "her eat a 
 live eel, remarking as 'we passed, "Why gaze at me? 
 A former queen of the Sandwich Islands sat in a yel 
 low satin gown and ate a squirming fish." 
 
 Once Mary Ellen had a habit of lying on the win 
 dow-seat against the mosquito netting ; it was only 
 cotton netting, and as she lolled against it, it sagged 
 with her weight and made a sort of little hammock. 
 The Venetian shade was down one day, and a guest, 
 who was calling, sat with her back against the blind. 
 Suddenly, just at the lady's shoulder a loud sneeze 
 was heard. She sprang from her seat ; we all ran to 
 the window, where a struggle was going on behind the 
 shade ; and pulling this aside, we saw the netting give 
 way and Mary Ellen's portly form descend to the 
 ground with a thud ! The lady was a stranger and 
 had never met Mary Ellen ; and as she did not see 
 the cat, yet heard us cry, " Oh, it was Mary Ellen ! " 
 we always felt from her manner afterward, although 
 we made a full explanation, that she had saddled us 
 with a crazy relative who stood outside the parlor 
 windows and sneezed at callers. 
 
 In the Fall, when we went back to the city, Mary 
 Ellen went in her shawl. As we entered the station, 
 whom should we see sitting there but Senator Charles 
 Sumner. He soon rose from his chair and went out
 
 Inside our Gate. 91 
 
 upon the platform. Mary Ellen in her gray fur gown 
 at once jumped into the chair, and sat there as calmly 
 as if she felt that it was as well filled as before. 
 She often alluded to that journey as " the time Charles 
 Sumner and I sat in the same chair," or "the day 
 when Charles Sumner and I travelled up from our 
 town," boasting of her fine associates, after the fash 
 ion of her betters. 
 
 For six Summers Mary Ellen accompanied us to the 
 cottage, and grew familiar with the journey and wi'th 
 all the pleasures of country life. At the end of that 
 sixth Summer my father and Tom had gone up to vote. 
 My mother and Hilda had preceded them, for we were 
 again moving into a new house, and much had to be 
 done ; and Sarah the cook was left with Maurice and 
 me to close the house. 
 
 To "close the house" meant to get the various odds 
 and ends up to the city ; and the list comprised Don, 
 Mary Ellen, Cousin Kitty's guitar, a bundle of canes 
 and umbrellas, a great armful of mossy branches and 
 twigs, handbags and shawls. There were three of us 
 to divide the spoils. It was easy enough getting to 
 the station, but getting into the cars was quite another 
 affair. The stage-driver took a part of our bundles 
 in his arms, and led the procession up the car aisle, 
 facing the passengers. Everybody smiled. We cer-
 
 92 Inside our Gate. 
 
 tainly looked like a travelling circus with trained an 
 imals. Mary Ellen stuck her head out of her shawl j 
 Don got under our feet. After we were settled in 
 the seat at the farthest extremity, a jocose woman 
 walked the whole length of the car to present me 
 with one small cone that had dropped from my 
 pine-branches. 
 
 At last we reached the city. Sarah took a car 
 riage with the inanimate objects, and Maurice and I 
 shared a carriage with Don and Mary Ellen. It 
 was a weary drive. Every time the carriage swayed, 
 Mary Ellen thought Don was coming to attack her, 
 and she kept herself in a warlike attitude during the 
 entire drive, with a perfectly tigerish expression on 
 her face. 
 
 We descended from the carriage and entered the 
 new house. Mary Ellen gazed around her in despair ; 
 this was not home. She sprang from my arms, rushed 
 into the dining-room, thence into the pantry, jumped 
 into the dumb-waiter, which was unfastened, de 
 scended with a terrible thump and a clatter of spoons 
 and forks to the lower regions, fled through the open 
 door before the astonished Hilda's eyes, and never was 
 seen again by the eyes that had beheld her so long. 
 We always had considered her as some one trans 
 formed, and so, since the time of her departure, we
 
 Inside our Gate. 93 
 
 have often thought we discovered traces of her ex 
 pression or voice or manner in people we have met. 
 There was one old lady of whom we had strong sus 
 picions ; a sudden twitching of the nose, and the way 
 she caught her ball of worsted when it fell upon the 
 floor, were very suggestive. It was a suspicious cir 
 cumstance also that the old lady wore blue glasses to 
 conceal her eyes. Of course it was impossible to ask 
 the question, and so the mystery remains; but we 
 think nothing can prevent us from thinking well, 
 I was always good to her, and it was n't a month after 
 she went that I made Allan's acquaintance. Let those 
 carp who will. 
 
 Don the setter who was also our comrade for years, 
 and who was taken back and forth to the country every 
 year was as mild as a May morning, except to hens. 
 My mother was not fond of animals, but Don was de 
 termined to gain her favor. Several times one Sum 
 mer he brought in a dead hen and presented it to 
 her. Not meeting with the reward he had expected, 
 he brought one day, by the legs, a fine white hen, 
 alive and cackling with terror. We inquired for the 
 owner diligently, but he never was found, and we 
 presented the hen to one of our neighbors. Don 
 received so many whippings for killing hens, that at 
 last he arranged a little plan for his own pleasure.
 
 94 Inside our Gate. 
 
 When he saw a hen, he would dash at her and 
 squeeze her till she " squawked," and then let her go 
 in a cloud of loose feathers. 
 
 One season there was a " dry spell," and as there 
 were few wells in the region, people looked on their 
 cisterns and hogsheads of water as on gold. One 
 afternoon, while taking a drive, we passed a little house 
 all shut up, as if the family were out for the afternoon. 
 Don made a raid into the yard, and jumped into a great 
 sunk tub of water by the kitchen door, where he wal 
 lowed and splashed and stirred up its depths as only a 
 setter can ; then he flew on after us. When we came 
 back at dusk, the house was open ; a woman was set 
 ting a table in the kitchen, and we saw a man carrying 
 a pail of water into the kitchen door, we hoped not 
 for the tea-kettle ! I 've always felt mean when I Ve 
 passed that house since then. 
 
 Don was a very mild dog, as I have said ; but 
 one morning, as he was lying in the kitchen door, a 
 " vegetable man " suddenly turning the corner startled 
 him from his nap. He flew at the man, caught him 
 by the trousers, and ripped one leg nearly up to the 
 waist. The man shrieked ; and that sent Hilda flying 
 into the parlor. My mother, taking it for granted that 
 the man was bitten and that he was very angry, ven 
 tured to the door to ask about it. There stood the
 
 Inside oiir Gate. 95 
 
 " vegetable man " holding the cloth about his leg, and 
 when he saw her he asked in a very mild tone if she 
 would please lend him a thread and needle. " I really 
 must apologize," he said, "for coming so suddenly 
 upon the dog. He is quite excusable ; but I regret 
 this rent, because I have on my best pants. My wife 
 insisted on my wearing them, as I was coming to the 
 village ; but it can't be helped now." 
 
 Hilda gave him a stout thread and needle, and 
 he sat on the back step and "sewed himself up." 
 Meanwhile, my mother, quite taken aback by his mild 
 manner, sought out a pair of my oldest brother's 
 trousers and brought them to him and gave him two 
 dollars. 
 
 " I am under great obligations to you, ma'am," said 
 he. "These pants I have only cost three fifty, and 
 the pair you have given me are worth fully that. 
 I am afraid my wife will think I have overreached 
 you. You must let me give you a basket of pears." 
 
 My mother insisted on buying the pears, and he 
 went off in very high spirits, saying, " Don't blame 
 the dog ; he was entirely excusable, entirely." 
 
 Some weeks after this my brother couldn't find a 
 certain pair of trousers that he wanted to wear. 
 They were almost new, he said ; and he was sure he 
 left them in his closet when he went to the city.
 
 g6 Inside our Gate. 
 
 My mother opened her eyes at me. " Were they ex 
 pensive trousers?" she asked. 
 
 " No," said he, " I only paid twelve dollars for 
 them ; but they were new, and I liked them." 
 
 The fate of those trousers became a family mystery. 
 
 " Don't look at me in that insulting way when 
 you speak of those trousers," Mary Ellen would say, 
 through Maurice, who had no idea where the trousers 
 had gone. " I always wear clear gray myself, and 
 neither borrow nor lend." 
 
 Don never told, though he might have excused 
 himself on the same ground. 
 
 Don could never get walking enough. He would 
 come and beg the boys to take him out ; he could n't 
 bear to walk alone. If Tom said, " Maurice, do you 
 want to go for a walk ? " Don would start out of the 
 deepest sleep and be ready on the instant. When 
 they did not wish his company, they would spell, 
 "Do you want to go for a walk?" In a few days 
 he learned the meaning of the syllables. You might 
 spell a long string of words, while he stood staring in 
 tently at you, and the instant " D-o y-o-u w-a-n-t," was 
 introduced, he was frantic with eagerness to be off. 
 Always after prayers my father took him for a walk. 
 He began to look on morning devotions as a neces 
 sary but foolish preliminary to a promenade, as the cat
 
 Inside our Gate. 97 
 
 in " Middlemarch " looked on the setting of the tea- 
 table as a foolish preliminary to her saucer of milk. 
 When morning prayers began, Don always sat sedately 
 in the corner with a heavy and serious countenance. 
 As the prayer approached its end, his interest quick 
 ened, his ears stood up, and finally when " Amen " 
 was pronounced, he burst from his place with a wild 
 yelp of joy, Amen meaning in his ears, " Come on, 
 old fellow, it is time for our -walk." He was a spoiled 
 dog, the baby of the family, and obeyed only the dic 
 tates of his own sweet will. He always insisted on 
 going to the bay with us when we went sailing, though 
 having by experience found him an uncomfortable 
 shipmate in a small boat, we tried to shut him in the 
 barn before we left. 
 
 But one day, before setting out for a sail, we could 
 not find him. When we reached the bay, however, 
 there he was, slinking round the boat-house. He 
 evaded us till we were well off, when he ran around 
 the shore, expecting to meet us on the other side. 
 Seeing, after a minute, that we did not mean to land 
 on the opposite shore, he flung himself into the water 
 and swam for the boat. Then he tried to scramble 
 up the side, wailing, dripping, shivering, whining, till 
 Maurice could stand it no longer ; and making us all 
 sit on one side, he dragged the wretched creature into 
 7
 
 98 Inside our Gate. 
 
 the boat, and up on the deck, where Don proceeded 
 to shake himself, much to my mother's disgust. 
 
 As he continued to shiver, Maurice got from the 
 cabin an old ulster and put it on him. He put Don's 
 fore-legs into the sleeves, turned up the cuffs, buttoned 
 the coat up in front, and then made him sit in the 
 corner of the seat by the cabin. There he sat, warmed 
 and comfortable, but with his head wet and a despon 
 dent expression on his face, the funniest old mariner 
 ever seen. 
 
 Maurice made up a story for him of a shipwreck on 
 the brig " Mary Ellen," how he was anxious to get 
 home to his widowed mother and seven young chil 
 dren, whose only support he was ; how he lost his 
 chest and his ship, and there he sat, the water 
 dripping from his chin and nose, looking as if he knew 
 every word of it was true, and was indorsing it by his 
 solemn attention. 
 
 Elinor and Douglas never tire of hearing of Don 
 and his adventures; they know him from his photo 
 graph, sent us by the friend to whom he was given. 
 They were very sober when they heard that he had 
 died, at an advanced age ; and though I had not seen 
 the dear old fellow for years, it gave me a pang to 
 know that he had left the world. 
 
 That first Summer, there have been sixteen Sum-
 
 Inside our Gate. 99 
 
 mers since, we never went on an errandless drive ; 
 there was a chronic errand, andirons and spinning- 
 wheels. 
 
 One day, in the woods, we met an old man driving 
 an open wagon. He was the old man who " brought 
 fruit round," and both he, and his horse with the false 
 tail, were familiar objects in the village. This day he 
 was " carting " herring and strawberries. 
 
 " The man in the wilderness he asked me 
 How many strawberries grew in the sea ; 
 And I answered him, as I thought good, 
 As many red herring as grow in the wood." 
 
 We had never expected to meet that historic person ; 
 yet here he was. 
 
 Another day we chose a long road which led up 
 toward a point of high land, from which we had heard 
 there was a most beautiful view ; but to see it we must 
 pass through the private grounds belonging to the 
 great mansion on the bluff. We stopped a man on 
 the road to ask him if the owner of the place allowed 
 people to drive through his grounds. He looked us 
 carefully over. " Well," said he, after a pause, " you 
 can go ; the gate ain't locked, and he won't hurt yer. 
 For myself, I should n't venture. He is one of them 
 big bugs, nobody ain't good enough for him ; he is 
 what 's called an obstreperous man."
 
 ioo Inside our Gate. 
 
 Tom took up the reins, the sorrel adjusted his joints 
 for a start, but the man lingered ; he had evidently 
 something on his mind. 
 
 " The fact is," he said, " that when that house was 
 done, the day the folks moved in, my wife, who 's a 
 very neighborly sort of a woman, says to me, ' I Ve 
 moved twice, and I know how it is, and I Ve a mind 
 to send Anson up with two of my fresh pies this 
 mornin' ; if J was new here, I 'd thank them for doing 
 it for me.' My wife 's a great pie-baker. So up she 
 sent 'em, and pretty soon little Anson conies back 
 with fifty cents for the pies. I never see my wife 
 so worked up. She cried, and I was mad ; for Anson 
 said he told 'em they was a present. So that evenin' 
 I took the two quarters and I went up myself and 
 asked for the owner. He come out, very grand, but 
 he could n't scare me ; and so I told him that we was 
 neighbors, and the pies was a present. And he says, 
 ' Thank you, but my wife prefers to pay for them.' 
 So I flung the quarters on the table, and says I, ' I 'm 
 no pie-pedler ; I 'm an American citizen, and I s'posed 
 you was.' And I went home." 
 
 Poor fellow, the iron of that bitter sarcasm about 
 the American citizen he was sure had entered into the 
 soul of the haughty aristocrat. We sympathized with 
 him. We told him that we wished his wife had sent
 
 Inside our Gate. 101 
 
 the pies to us ; and then we drove on. We did n't 
 care to " see the view." 
 
 We could see the mansion-house across the water 
 from our cottage. All that day we looked at it with 
 a certain awe, as if a flaming sword guarded the gate 
 way. The owner of the house possessed a sort of 
 fascination for us, so near and yet so far he seemed 
 from our little world. We began to make merry over 
 him ; we wondered if he tasted the pies and liked 
 them. We tested everything we owned by his imagined 
 standard. We learned that his name was Brampton- 
 Wells. Tom called him Stratford-on-Avon. Judging 
 from the hyphen, that blow of " the man's " had been 
 a light one. An American citizen why, that was no 
 glory to him, probably. 
 
 During the Summer we received a letter from a 
 friend of ours who lived abroad, saying that her cousin, 
 Mrs. Brampton- Wells, had a Summer house in the 
 town where we were living, and that she should write 
 to her to call on us. 
 
 That made us merrier. We knew our friend would 
 forget to write, we knew the letter could n't reach town 
 that season if she did ; but we began to prepare sub 
 jects of conversation. Of course we must n't mention 
 " trading " with the old man with the false-tailed horse 
 for "sickle pears," nor speak of buying peanuts, freshly
 
 IO2 Inside our Gate. 
 
 roasted, from the "baker's cart." We decided that 
 we would let my father read Homer aloud while Mr. 
 and Mrs. Brampton- Wells were knocking at the door, 
 and that different members of the family should enter 
 the room during the call, asking for Browning, Emer 
 son, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There was a 
 wide field for conjecture, as we didn't know on what 
 they prided themselves. 
 
 If Mrs. Brampton- Wells called, my cousin Kitty was 
 to speak of Worth as being her dressmaker (Kitty 
 had one of her aunt's dresses, which came from him, 
 made over twice for herself), or to allude to a relative 
 who had been of high rank in the Revolutionary 
 army. Kitty thought she 'd speak too of the por 
 tiere she saw in Paris, made from the yellow satin 
 gown of the Emperor of China. Maurice said he 'd 
 ask if anything had been heard of the lost Pleiad 
 lately. 
 
 Tom said he had thought it hard enough to live up 
 to his mother's standard ; but he 'd give in even to this 
 new one, if Mrs. Brampton- Wells would dare to walk 
 for a quarter of a mile in front of his mother. She 
 always took exception to our gait, or to the set of our 
 clothes, and she would often say to us, but especially 
 to Tom, who had had a good law practice for years, 
 " Hold up your head," or " Turn out your feet, dear ;
 
 Inside our Gate. 103 
 
 throw back your shoulders." She could never believe 
 we were not children. 
 
 As the whole family could not get into the carriage 
 at once, we would say that one or another must stay at 
 home to-day for fear Mr. Brampton-Wells might call. 
 That has been a good little joke ; it has lasted well. 
 
 Once in a while nowadays we wonder if Mrs. 
 Brampton-Wells will notice if we turn the skirt of a 
 dress, or if Mr. Brampton-Wells will approve the cut 
 of a new coat. We don't know whether the gentleman 
 is alive or dead ; we never saw his face ; but for us he 
 is immortal. 
 
 Mrs. Smith, the friend who had given us the setter 
 pup, was very much interested in our little house. As 
 soon as we were settled, we asked her to visit us. A 
 few days before she came, she sent us a big box of 
 plants from the greenhouse " to adorn the garden." We 
 had not dreamed of having a garden. Portulaca seed 
 had been scattered through the grass the year before, 
 and now the bright little flowers of every color peeped 
 up here and there. My mother wanted a rockery, 
 and as there were no stones to speak of on our land, 
 we had had a cart-load brought from the beach ; but 
 the earth was poor, the plants withered away, and the 
 rockery became a jest and a by-word. When Cousin
 
 IO4 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Ferris came to see us he thought it was one of those 
 places mentioned in Scripture, where every one pass 
 ing by wagged the head and cast a stone. 
 
 We had tried to have a little bed of nasturtiums 
 near the front door. Maurice spaded it up and en 
 riched the earth ; but Mary Ellen at once chose it 
 for a resting-place, and for hours would lie stretched 
 at length in the soft retreat, and the seeds declined 
 to come up. We remonstrated with her, and stuck 
 little sticks in the flower-bed ; but she scratched them 
 up and took her siesta as usual. She remarked that 
 " the ones who first called it a bed were the ones to 
 quarrel with ; she 'd never thought of lying there till 
 she heard it spoken of as a bed, and then she felt she 
 was only doing the appropriate thing to lie upon it." 
 So we gave up the nasturtiums. 
 
 When Mrs. Smith's present came, we at once had 
 a great bed made in the front yard, rounded up with 
 a high mound of rich earth, and then the thrifty plants 
 were set out, some in flowering glory. My father did 
 the work ; but we instructed him if he saw Mr. Bramp- 
 ton-Wells coming, to rush into the side-yard and lie 
 down in the hammock with the Greek Testament in his 
 hand ; or if he should be actually caught at work, to 
 speak in a broad Irish brogue, as if he were the 
 gardener.
 
 Inside our Gate. 105 
 
 Mrs. Smith arrived. We were so glad that the big 
 mound was done. After tea we sat in the little parlor, 
 each watching the other's mouths to get a chance to 
 speak, when my father said, " Oh, turn your head, Mrs. 
 Smith, and see the beautiful flowers you sent us, set 
 out and thriving finely." 
 
 She looked out of the window, then turned to us 
 with a blank expression. We looked out too, and 
 there, where the fine mound had been, was a great 
 deep hole, while Don, with all his soul in his work, 
 was industriously throwing out the last of our fine 
 garden with his hind-legs. 
 
 We never tried to have a flower-garden after that 
 first Summer. But what need of a garden when the 
 fields all around us were bright with flowers, lupines 
 and great pink marshmallows, and mulleins reigning 
 in velvet grandeur, where rosemary purpled the 
 marsh meadows, and roses, daisies, yes, and cardinal- 
 flowers too in their season, abounded along lanes and 
 roads? Ah me, how clearly we remember the days 
 when we went gypsying J
 
 VI. 
 
 LIFE was never dull to Tibbie. After the heroes had 
 sailed to one far port and another, a cat interest 
 arose. " Tommy Barn " had died, and the family 
 were " short of cats," as Douglas said. A neighbor 
 who had an over-supply of kittens presented Tibbie 
 with a yellow one that was introduced under the 
 name of Mr. Yellow. He was a mild " beastie," and 
 would allow Elinor to build block-houses around him, 
 and sleep calmly just where she placed him. Tibbie 
 soon developed the talent of the " Pied Piper," and 
 from church and shop, kittens and cats appeared in 
 her train. " Thomas Shannon," a striped, plump kit 
 ten, was named for our nurse's brother, and " Robin 
 McNair " for a friend of Tibbie's. Then a melancholy 
 gray cat appeared one morning sitting on the kitchen 
 window-sill. She was a good fat cat, but of a sad 
 frame of mind, so that she even paused in her meals 
 to call attention to her woes like a street beggar, willy- 
 nilly ; and we named her " Mrs. Gummidge."
 
 Inside our Gate. 107 
 
 Two wild cats from the barn became domesticated, 
 and lay in the kitchen with easy minds, as if it were a 
 sort of cats' club-room. The wild cats we called 
 " Granny Gray " and the " Wild Daughter." It was a 
 common occurrence, but always an exciting one, when 
 kittens arrived. When Tibbie came into the nursery 
 with her apron gathered up in her hand, that meant 
 kittens. The choosing followed, and then the nam 
 ing, and invariably a near day of loud lamenting over 
 the sudden and unaccountable absence of the larger 
 number of the treasures. . Tibbie gave a distinct per 
 sonality to each cat. Granny Gray Tibbie represented 
 as a most devoted mother and amiable old lady. At 
 one time the Wild Daughter had kittens. Mysterious 
 disappearances, sudden disasters, thinned the family 
 down to one, a certain " Bobby White." Granny, real 
 izing that her daughter was young and flighty, and with 
 the usual tenderness of a grandmother, adopted Bobby, 
 and let his mother lie for long naps in luxurious ease 
 in Tibbie's kitchen. 
 
 One day the sad news came to the nursery thac 
 Bobby White was very ill. The children went out to 
 the barn with Tibbie, where she had arranged a nice 
 little hospital, with bits of old carpet, and a saucer of 
 milk in which catnip had been steeped. Tibbie 
 helped the children up the ladder, and then they saw
 
 io8 Inside our Gate. 
 
 the strange sight of little Bobby White lying between 
 his grandmother and his mother. First one cat and 
 then the other would lick his pretty fur ; but there was 
 no help either in love or catnip for Bobby, and he 
 soon stretched out his little legs and died. 
 
 " 'T was a sad and yet an improvin' sight," said Tib 
 bie to me, " to see them twa wise folk o' cats a-sittin' 
 by their deid. The human beasties that neglects their 
 bairns could gaze wi' profit an' gang away wi' bowed 
 heid." 
 
 A neighbor who owned a fine Jersey cow had not 
 sufficient pasturage for her in his yard, so we invited 
 the cow to be a guest in our orchard and back-yard. 
 We had not expected to provide her with social joys ; 
 but Tibbie, with her love of animals, at once took the 
 cow into her affections and spent a good deal of time 
 in her society. About every half hour she pulled up 
 the stake and led the cow to fresh fields and pastures 
 new. She watered her till I thought there couldn't 
 be a drop of milk left in her. She selected apples for 
 her. The cow soon looked upon her as a dear friend, 
 and lowed with joy whenever she appeared. 
 
 One day the great barn door was open, and also the 
 back door which led out into the fields, that were owned 
 by a German farmer and were then green with thrifty
 
 Inside our Gate. 109 
 
 tomato-plants. Mistress Moolly pulled up her stake 
 and went unseen by any of us through the barn, and 
 hurried over the fields, doubtless, poor mother, in 
 search of her calf, which the day before had been 
 taken from her. Tibbie supposed that the owner 
 had sent for the cow, and till she happened to be 
 in the barn late in the afternoon she did not know 
 that Moolly had fled. As she stood in the back door, 
 she saw two men hurrying over the field. They came 
 to her with the sad tale that the cow had destroyed 
 five dollars' worth of the plants. They took the cow 
 to her own home, and the cow's master settled with 
 them for the mischief she had done. But Tibbie was 
 uneasy, and felt that she had not kept her eye as she 
 might on the "beastie." 
 
 One day shortly after this, Tibbie flew upstairs in 
 terror. It was a busy day; I had guests, and every 
 moment was worth a great deal to me. 
 
 "The cow has gone again," said Tibbie. 
 
 I hurried downstairs ; Douglas looked in the coal- 
 shed, in the trees, over the fence, and down the street. 
 We ran to the barn. The back door was locked. She 
 must have jumped over the fence. In despair I told 
 Tibbie to put on her hat and run to the village to tell 
 the owner the news. 
 
 "Oh, dear," said the "lady of the house" when
 
 no Inside our Gate. 
 
 she heard Tibbie's message. " How much trouble 
 we have put you to ! " And she sent out word to 
 the boy in the barn to go and hunt up the cow. 
 
 " Run away ! " said the boy, " where to? " 
 
 "Where, to be sure?" said Tibbie. 
 
 "She couldn't jump a five-foot fence," said the 
 boy. 
 
 " It 's no more nor three foot," said Tibbie. 
 
 The boy opened the back-door of the barn where 
 he sat, and looked out There was the cow con 
 tentedly grazing in a little yard enclosed with a high 
 board-fence. 
 
 " Hoo did she git here ? " demanded Tibbie, in 
 great surprise. " She must hae leapet our front gate 
 an' come home by the road." 
 
 "She never 's been to your house," said the boy. 
 " Mr. William told me not to take her to-day." 
 
 Then Tibbie remembered that she had n't seen the 
 cow that morning. She described the scene to me 
 when she returned, almost breathless. 
 
 "I war more amazed to see that cow than war 
 Saul when he descried his father's asses approachin'," 
 she said ; " an' noo to my dinner." 
 
 We began to feel as if we were to have a regular 
 succession of ages under Tibbie, like the Paleozoic
 
 Inside our Gate. in 
 
 and Mesozoic. After the cat era and the cow era, 
 came the hen era. 
 
 As fate would have it, we owned a hen- yard ; and 
 when one of our neighbors who was leaving town 
 wanted to sell his hens, it seemed the most appro 
 priate thing for us to buy them. Thenceforth, Tib 
 bie thought of little but hens. She fairly lived in the 
 hen-house ; and bran-pudding and corn and crumbs 
 took the lead of food for the family. Tibbie had 
 the "hen fever." Now we were to have eggs and 
 pressed chicken. She placed unwilling hens on nests, 
 and insisted on their "setting." She chased them 
 back to business if they were caught strolling about ; 
 and finally the hens gave in and consented to " set" 
 Forty young chickens came out ; and Tibbie became 
 more deeply interested than before. 
 
 "Six hens and forty chickens," said Tibbie, in 
 triumph. 
 
 One night we were roused from slumber by the 
 sounds of warfare, growling under the window, 
 barking in the back-yard, sudden " squawks," omi 
 nous silences. 
 
 " It is a dog eating the chickens," said I ; " and 
 good luck to him ! May he eat up the whole 
 forty ! " 
 
 But in the morning only twenty were found dead.
 
 112 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Instead of lessening Tibbie's vigilance, the need of 
 guarding the remnant was more apparent than be 
 fore. The hens were chased into the yard every 
 afternoon and locked up, but the number lessened 
 day by day. One day Elinor, in going to the barn, 
 passed by one old hen that was scratching vigorously 
 for a large brood of chickens. The child tripped, and 
 the old hen, terrified for her chickens' safety, flew right 
 in the little girl's face, pecking and flapping her wings 
 furiously. A roar of terror and pain reached Tibbie's 
 ears. She rushed out and rescued the " lassie," who 
 was borne into the house in a very limp condition. 
 Strange to say, the old hen had scratched her little 
 cheeks and beat her wings in her face till the whites 
 of her eyes were bloodshot. For some time Elinor 
 classed hens among wild beasts ! 
 
 Finally between dogs and rats and cats and an 
 occasional family feast, the number of hens was re 
 duced to three. One of these had stolen a nest un 
 der the barn late in the Fall, against Tibbie's re 
 monstrances, and produced one chicken, the feet of 
 which had been frozen, and he clumped about on two 
 clawless pegs. I could hardly resist throwing a penny 
 to the poor little image as I passed him bravely 
 stumping down the path. 
 
 One day Allan, happening to hear an Irishman in
 
 Inside our Gate. 113 
 
 the village say that he was going into the " hen trade," 
 presented him with the few remaining fowls. And so 
 we were left with an empty hen-yard again. 
 
 Tibbie was generosity itself; but her sense of justice 
 was very keen. Not a hair's breadth would she allow 
 herself to be overreached. She was exceedingly angry 
 at the boys that slipped into the yard and stole fruit, 
 and was always laying traps for them. One night 
 she heard some one shaking the pear-tree near the 
 kitchen, a tree which bore delicious early pears, 
 and she at once flew out with a bundle of kindling- 
 wood which she threw recklessly into the tree. The 
 boys hastily retreated over the back fence. She then 
 gathered the pears on the ground, and kept a light in 
 her window all night as a warning to the boys. Before 
 dawn she rose and cleared the tree and the grass of 
 fallen fruit. Shortly after this she was rejoiced to see 
 two little colored girls sisters of the marauders of 
 the night before, as she suspected come in at the 
 large gate with a great basket and proceed to the pear- 
 tree and begin to search in the grass for pears. 
 
 " Guid-mornin'," said Tibbie's voice at the kitchen 
 door. 
 
 " Good-mornin','' said the biggest girl ; " please 
 ma'am, may we have some pears?"
 
 114 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " Surely," said Tibbie, " why not? Help yourselves ; 
 there 's a ladder if you wish to climb the tree." 
 
 She stood at the door and watched them as they 
 picked up a few gnarly or decayed pears and threw 
 them away. 
 
 " Perhaps," she suggested, " that tree has n't bore 
 this year." 
 
 " Oh, yes, it has," replied the little girls ; " it was full 
 last night." 
 
 "Hoo do you know?" asked Tibbie, severely. 
 "Noo gang awa' an' tell your brithers frae me that 
 all our fruit-trees is to be swished o'er wi' a wash 
 of parish green ; and I hope they '11 come and eat 
 all the pears they want." 
 
 There was a dangerous light in Tibbie's eye, I 
 imagine, for the little girls suddenly, as she told me, 
 took to their heels and fled. 
 
 Tibbie's return from one of her trips to the city was 
 an exciting time, though the excitement really began 
 before she started. After having decided to go on a 
 certain morning train, she would proceed to lay out 
 work enough to keep her at home all day ; perhaps 
 she would decide to make raisin-cake, the stoning 
 of the raisins alone occupying at least an hour, or 
 she would take Elinor's best big collars to iron. Once,
 
 Inside our Gate. 115 
 
 after the raisins were stoned, she realized that either 
 her journey or the cake must be given up, and she 
 stayed at home to finish the cake ; another time she 
 put the things away, even after she had sifted the flour. 
 
 On these occasions I would send the nurse flying 
 to the kitchen to say that if she were going on the 
 eleven o'clock train she must hurry, as it was nearly 
 eleven. " More haste, less speed," she would reply 
 coolly. About ten minutes before the train left she 
 would dash to her room and reappear, fresh and 
 blooming, flurried but confident. 
 
 " Tibbie," I would call as she left the house, " you 
 can't catch that train." 
 
 "Surely I must," she would reply, and start to run 
 down the street. 
 
 Then she would of course arrive too late, and have to 
 sit an hour in the station. Once, thinking it a pity to 
 waste the time there waiting for the next train, she re 
 turned home and with her bonnet on assisted the nurse 
 in getting lunch, and was too late for the next train. 
 
 She always came to my room, on her return from 
 the city, to relate her adventures, and Allan always 
 made an errand there to hear the story. She would 
 stand in the doorway with her purchases in her arms, 
 introduce each package to me and state the reason for 
 buying each article.
 
 1 1 6 Inside our Gate. 
 
 She was once very much amused by a clerk's trying 
 to urge upon her a pair of long buttonless kid gloves. 
 " I asket him," said Tibbie, " if he took me for a fule, 
 a-paying for kid that was poked awa' up under me 
 sleeves, or did he think I 'd wear it all wrinkled aboot 
 me arm, like a stockin' wi'out a garter ; sae I just left 
 the shop an' gaed awa' to ' Eight Aveney,' where I 
 asket for some lisle-thread gloves. I asket a young 
 fellow for them, and instead o' fetchin' them, he just 
 leant quite over the counter, an' says he, ' Lass, when 
 cam ye frae Glasky?' I was quite took aback, for 
 I 've clear forgot all my Scotch speech, sae I replied 
 tae him, ' Hoo kenned ye that I cam frae Glasky at 
 a'?' Says he, smilin,' 'Lass, ye'r speech bewrayeth 
 ye,' an' then stretchin' his han' across tae me, says 
 he, * I 've been three weeks oot ; an' this is the first 
 word I've heard o' Glasky speech. Gie me your 
 han', lass ; when frien's meet, hearts warm.' We had 
 a verra pleasant discourse," added Tibbie, " an' he 
 desired me to call in again an' have another con 
 ference wi' him. He didna ken any o' my folk, but 
 I discoursed wi' him on the Burns Monument an' 
 on St George's Cross. He'd bought things at all 
 the shops at Glasky, an' he 'd been tae Mr. Dunlop's 
 church; so it was all verra consolin' tae him, puir 
 laddie."
 
 Inside our Gate. 117 
 
 Sometimes Tibbie would come home lugging a great 
 market-basket which she had borrowed from her 
 cousin, full of things she thought would tempt our 
 appetites, and which we could not get in our town. 
 Once she saw what she thought to be a remarkably 
 cheap dish-pan and tin dipper; and she bore them 
 along with her great armful of paper packages. If she 
 promised to come home the same night, we were 
 as sure of her coming as of the darkness itself. But 
 once she failed to appear; the late trains came in, 
 but no Tibbie. I felt anxious and fearful that some 
 ill had overtaken her. 
 
 As she probably could not get a train in the morning 
 early enough to bring her before breakfast, I planned 
 for Rosy, who was taking Mary's place for a week, to 
 get the breakfast. About six o'clock the next morning, 
 Rosy came running to the nursery, and waked me 
 and the children, crying that Tibbie was in the kitchen 
 making the fire. 
 
 I ran down in my wrapper, and there was Tibbie 
 stepping briskly about the kitchen, and singing her 
 favorite song, " Roy's wife of Aldivalloch." 
 
 " Where in the world were you, Tibbie, last night ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " Weel," said Tibbie, "as I got oot o' the horse-car 
 in New York, I slippet, an' hangin' on to the car to
 
 n8 Inside our Gate. 
 
 straighten meseP, I wrenched me wrist, me left wrist. 
 I almost fainted wi' the pain ; an' a gentleman an' a 
 policeman helpet me into a chemist's, where the young 
 man done me up. An' then I had to remain till the 
 pain was over ; so when I got to the depot, the last 
 train was left, an' so I jus' walket oot." 
 
 " Walked out six miles ! not alone, Tibbie, at eleven 
 o'clock at night?" 
 
 " Why not? " said Tibbie. " I Ve nae fear o' ghosts 
 nor goblins, nor the Evil One himsel', and there wad 
 no' be likely to be folk a-walkin' about for pleisure 
 on a railroad track at that time o' night. There are 
 them," added Tibbie, pointedly, " whas' souls are filled 
 wi' superstition, like them that bows to stocks and 
 stones. There 's Wully Mann at home ; he told me 
 that in the kirkyard, by the auld kirk, he 'd seen 
 spirits a-goin' ' blunk, blunk,' on the graves o' unbap- 
 tized infants. 'An' what for?' says I. ' That 's what 
 I dinna ken,' says he ; ' but I gaes twa miles oot o' 
 my way to avoid them.' ' Puir silly lad,' says I ; 
 ' it 's the Will o' the Wisp an' nae spirits that costs ye 
 that lang road an' wears oot ye'r bittes or ye'r ain 
 hide.' 
 
 " Ay, ay," said Tibbie, making ready to peel the 
 potatoes ; " it will be a braw time when we can be 
 set free frae the frailties and follies o' th' flesh."
 
 Inside our Gate. 119 
 
 " But, Tibbie, where did you stay last night ? " 
 " Weel, I didna wish to arouse ye ; an' sae I went 
 to Mistress Kennedy's an' routed them up, an' I cam 
 here before light an' got in the coal-house window. I 
 knew if I wasna here to lock up that Rosy wud leave 
 some place open. She 'd locked the front door secure 
 I kenn'd weel. She 's aye thinkin' o' the front o' every 
 thing; her gown is brawer nor her underclaes, an' her 
 front hair maun be crimpet, though the back is rough 
 as a Shelty's mane." 
 
 " It is verra strange," she said to me, after one of 
 her trips to the city, " how the Scotch speech clings 
 to a body. Just as I was gettin' oot a horse-car 
 in ' Sixt ' Aveny,' the conductor says to me, ' Hoo 's 
 Glasky ? ' I turned round upon him an' he winket 
 an' says, ' Will ye lat me down noo,' a-mockin' me. 
 Weel, my betters has been mocked before me, frae 
 Elijah to the Covenanters." 
 
 There was an old man about town whom Tibbie 
 especially detested, as she considered him lazy. At 
 one time an old lounge had been taken to the barn 
 and set down at one end of it by the back door, which 
 was usually open, till it could be disposed of. 
 
 On the lounge, in the cool corner, Tibbie one day 
 found poor Timothy Hughes taking a nap, his empty
 
 I2O Inside our Gate. 
 
 lunch-pail by his side. She shut the door near him, 
 and locked it on the outside. He awoke as she did 
 so, and called, " Tibbie, don't ye lock the door, I 'm 
 in the barran ; " but she walked straight into the house. 
 After an hour or so, she went out on the pretence of 
 getting kindling, unlocked the door, and went uncon 
 cernedly in. Timothy was all worn out with pounding 
 on the door, and hoarse with calling. " Why did n't 
 ye let me out, Tibbie?" said he; "I've nigh about 
 screeched me lungs out." 
 
 "Well, it won't hurt 'em," said Tibbie; "they'd 
 been having a fine rest. I thought as ye were sleep- 
 in' sae weel, it was a sin to disturb ye." 
 
 " Had n't I the lawn to mow before the master gets 
 back?" cried Timothy. 
 
 "Oh, had ye? Weel, if I'd 'a' known that, I'd 
 have waked ye ; but I thought ye must 'a' hired some 
 body to mow for ye. Mowin' was ne'er done by 
 sluggards." 
 
 " I Ve took a nap every day at me mowin' and 
 never wasted me time before," said Timothy. 
 
 " Have ye ? Weel, then, I hold mesel' quite respon 
 sible for it by setting the lounge out here as a tempta 
 tion, so fly round an' work lively an' mak' up for lost 
 time. Ye must be weel revived noo." 
 
 The next night at dusk, I saw a friend of Tibbie's,
 
 Inside our Gate. 121 
 
 a stout young blacksmith, helping Tibbie to drag 
 the lounge back into the store-room. 
 
 " What is that for, Tibbie ? " said I. " Is n't that 
 the broken lounge ? " 
 
 " Weel, in my een it was but a broken lounge ; but 
 it proved a temptation and the snare of the fowler in 
 Timothy Hughes's een, so I Ve withdrawn it from him." 
 
 Poor Timothy the next day looked in vain for his 
 soft corner. He then sat on a box in the barn and 
 leaned his head on the boards ; but that was too hard 
 a pillow, and he returned to the mowing, much to 
 Tibbie's satisfaction. 
 
 One night Tibbie went into the next town, and on 
 her return told me that she had been much impressed 
 by what she had heard. On one side of the street 
 was a large lager beer and drinking saloon, a place 
 where " billiards and gambling cards war played," 
 and where rough young men from the city gathered 
 in the evening. This place was brilliantly lighted this 
 Summer evening; all she could hear as she passed 
 was the clicking of balls. Suddenly from this saloon a 
 woman's voice broke the stillness, rising in song. The 
 first words Tibbie lost, but the chorus rang out 
 
 clearly, 
 
 " Tears and poverty ebb and flow, 
 Tears and poverty ebb and flow."
 
 122 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " And," said Tibbie, " across the street was the 
 lighted chapel, an' I heard the voices of the children 
 practising for the concert, singing like the angels, 
 ' Hallelujah, hallelujah, glory to God in the highest ! ' 
 What think ye o' that, Mistress Burroughs?" asked 
 Tibbie ; " I felt as if I was walkin' a strait and 
 narrow way betwixt the two eternal states o' bein'." 
 
 Once Tibbie went to Coney Island with her friends, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy. 
 
 " I had quite an encounter," she said, on her return, 
 " wi' a fortin-teller. She had builded hersel' a bit 
 house upon the shiftin' sand, like the foolish man 
 in the Scripter, wi' one winder in the front to relieve 
 hersel' o' her sin an' folly through. Weel, as we passet 
 by, she hailed me an' asket me wad I hae me fortin 
 told. Sae thinkin' the time had come for me to de 
 liver me testimony, I just halted in the front o' her, 
 an' says I, ' What gied ye the power to be searchin' 
 into the deep things o' God ? Weel do I ken that it 
 is naught but a leein' abomination that ye practise. 
 We are forbid in the word o' God frae consortin' wi' 
 fortin-tellers or soothsayers or conjurers or them that, 
 like the father o' lees, mak's and practizes them. Do 
 ye call to mind what the Apostle said to Simon, " Ye'r 
 money perish wi' ye " ? Are ye the witch o' Endor that
 
 Inside our Gate. 123 
 
 ye wad produce Samuel to our admiring een ? Mair 
 like, ye 'd marshal oot the De'il an' his angels.' By 
 this time," said Tibbie, " there was quite a collection 
 of folk ; and the daughter o' Heth slappet down her 
 winder, an' Mrs. Kennedy she drawed me awa'."
 
 VII. 
 
 OCOTT is one of our family He is a Scottish 
 VJ American, born in New York State, of Scottish 
 parents. Handsome, polite, faithful to his friends, 
 civil to strangers, the most sensitive soul alive to 
 praise or blame is Scott, our collie-dog. So perfect 
 are his manners, so delicate his sense of the fitness of 
 things, that when occasionally he does some doglike 
 act, we are quite shocked. He is perfectly obedient 
 even to little Elinor. He has his likes and dislikes, 
 as do others, but his loving heart will not let him carry 
 out his own wishes against the wishes of another. 
 
 The strangest thing is that Scott never had any 
 training such as dogs are supposed to need. The 
 friend who gave him to us told me that from a baby 
 I cannot say a pup he had been different from 
 other dogs about the place. When Scott was brought 
 from his birthplace and sent to the stables in his new 
 home, a fierce bull-terrier that had brought all the other 
 dogs into subjection flew at him, counting on easy 
 game in the gentle collie. But he had mistaken his
 
 Inside our Gate. 125 
 
 opponent. As he dashed at the new-comer, show 
 ing his gleaming teeth and bristling like a little fiend, 
 Scott, with a leap, went over his head, seized him by 
 the tail, and whirled him around till he was glad to 
 slink away. Every day for nearly three weeks this 
 game was played, the collie always coming out best ; 
 and after that the bull-terrier would run when he saw 
 Scott coming, though he never offered to give fight, 
 but was inclined to be friendly. And indeed, before 
 long they became good comrades and play-fellows. 
 
 I told the children what Scott's master had said, 
 that he was obedient because he was loving, and was 
 wise too in making a friend from an enemy. 
 
 " Oh," cried Douglas, in a burst of enthusiasm, 
 " is n't he good, better than I am ? Scott won't 
 have to change much to get ready for heaven ! " 
 
 Then Scott is a good nurse. No one could injure 
 the children if Scott were present. He doesn't like 
 to have a stranger lift Elinor. He gets up from his 
 corner to say "oof;" and if that mild remark is dis 
 regarded he steps up and gives a quick bark. He is 
 also a watchman. He sleeps in the nursery, but the 
 whole house is open to him ; and if he hears an un 
 usual sound he goes downstairs and walks about and 
 gives a few gruff barks. 
 
 As we go from room to room in the daytime, Scott
 
 126 Inside our Gate. 
 
 always follows. He plays ball and bean bags with 
 Elinor. He lies on the sofa while she puts a sweep 
 ing-cap on him, a pillow under his head, and a rug 
 over him, and unresisting, he plays Red Riding Hood's 
 Grandmother. He is often sleeping in the nursery 
 corner with a "Tarn o' Shanter" on his head, or an 
 old bonnet, or with ribbons for bracelets on his paws. 
 At the first sound of little voices in the morning, he 
 rouses himself, and goes to the children, lays his lovely 
 head by them, licks their hands, and then goes back 
 to his favorite corner, and " flops " down for another 
 nap. He can play too ; he can leap over piles of 
 chairs and towel-racks. From where he stands he 
 rises like a bird on the wing, and fairly floats through 
 the air ; it is a pretty sight Douglas shows him off to 
 the school-children as they go to and from school, and 
 is proud of his beautiful friend, as he flies over the 
 fence at his command. 
 
 We have had dogs who insisted on being fed at the 
 table, and who would go about and " tap " our arms to 
 draw our attention. Never so does Scott. He gen 
 erally lies under a sofa or a table ; but if he is very 
 hungry, he goes and sits by some one without a sign 
 or sound, he just sits and looks. But Douglas can 
 not go on eating if Scott has chosen him ; he cannot 
 bear that earnest entreating gaze. Truly it is the gaze
 
 Inside our Gate. 127 
 
 of the " Ancient Mariner : " after he has set his eye 
 on one he never takes it off till his hunger is satisfied. 
 Douglas sometimes puts up his hand to his face to 
 shut Scott from his vision ; but after a moment Scott 
 slips round to the other side, and still gazes. 
 
 One day Douglas was very much depressed with this 
 unwearied vigilance, and he put his handkerchief be 
 fore his eyes. That was awkward, and in a moment 
 little Elinor, touched by her brother's low spirits, 
 slipped out of her chair, and came and stood be 
 tween him and the eager eyes of Scott, holding her 
 large napkin up like a screen between the dog and 
 his little master while Douglas went cheerfully on with 
 his dinner. 
 
 One night the nurse was away, and after the children 
 were in bed I went out for the evening, leaving Tibbie 
 sitting in the upper hall, to read by the light there till 
 the little children were asleep. Then she was to re 
 turn to her work downstairs, leaving her kitchen door 
 open, and Scott for nurse in the upper hall. At last 
 the little folk were asleep, and Tibbie started to go 
 downstairs. 
 
 " Oof ! " said Scott, starting up from his nap ; " bow 
 wow wow ! " 
 
 Fearing that he would wake the children, she went 
 back and patted him, and sat down for a moment
 
 128 Inside our Gale. 
 
 more. Then she tried again to go down; but he 
 barked again and louder and louder, as she went on 
 toward the kitchen. She tried several times in the 
 evening to go down, but he would not let her. I 
 suppose the unusual silence of the house oppressed 
 him ; or more likely he thought I had left her in 
 charge, and determined that she should not play 
 me false. 
 
 Not a harsh word will Scott allow between the 
 children. If he is sleeping in a distant room, at the 
 faintest sound of an unloving voice he is on the 
 spot. " Oof, oof ! " says the peacemaker. The 
 children accept his reproof. " Oof, oof ! " says 
 Scott. " Hear Scott, he says ' be loving,' " says lit 
 tle Elinor, and Douglas apologizes to him, 
 
 " Scott, I was n't quarrelling with her. I only 
 wanted that book a minute, and she wouldn't let 
 me have it." 
 
 And then Scott lies down near by with his eye on 
 his little charges. 
 
 I can scarcely separate the children and Scott and 
 this dear old house in my thoughts. I remember one 
 day when Douglas with Scott at his heels came to the 
 parlor window, flattening his small nose there, and 
 making a little blur of breath on the pane and stretch 
 ing his gray eyes to see if I was in the room. He
 
 Inside our Gate. 129 
 
 had news of exceeding interest to tell me. He had 
 just lost a tooth ; it got caught in the hammock twine 
 when he was swinging, and came out. He opened his 
 mouth to show me a row of white baby teeth, with 
 a little blank space, and two " big boy's teeth " halfway 
 through. Dear Douglas ! he was in the chrysalis state 
 then, his long fair hair had just been cut off, but 
 his kilts remained to show that he had been little. 
 
 Soon the kilts had to be discarded. He became 
 such an expert climber that he went through the 
 apple-trees like a squirrel; but unlike a squirrel he 
 was obliged to " shin up " the trunks. The kilts were 
 merely fringes of rags. The first knee-breeches were 
 bought "just to climb in;" but that was the end of 
 kilts. " Give me knee-breeches or give me death," 
 cried the soul of the " big boy " within him. 
 
 I remember a day too, when I stood at the win 
 dow watching the children in the garden. 
 
 " Mother," cried Douglas, seeing me, " I dag the 
 garden ready for your seeds." Douglas is very criti 
 cal in the use of English, no irregular verbs for 
 Douglas ! 
 
 Little Elinor was working away with a toy hoe with 
 great energy. What manner of seed she was plan 
 ning for I know not, unless it was a cocoa-nut or a 
 whole watermelon, for the hole was a foot deep at 
 9
 
 130 Inside our Gate. 
 
 V* 
 
 least Then, tired, she sat on a box to rest, order 
 ing her friend Scott, who had been playing over 
 seer, to finish her work. He at once obeyed her, 
 digging with his fore-legs, and kicking showers of 
 dirt out between his hind-legs. He worked with en 
 thusiasm, his imagination fired by little Elinor's occa 
 sional, " Sic 'em, Scott." 
 
 The little picture frofrj the study window I shall 
 never forget, the grass in the foreground, and the 
 berry-bushes in the background, and the sky over all, 
 and the little figures which make its beauty ; all are 
 mine. 
 
 One day I watched the children play store with 
 green apples under a tree, Douglas in a gray flannel 
 suit, a red necktie, and a yellow-and-black toboggan 
 cap. Nothing short of ninety degrees in the shade 
 could displace that beloved cap. The tassel on the 
 end stuck out ; one was reminded of Mr. Pickwick's 
 night-cap. 
 
 Elinor shopped in a blue gingham apron which 
 came to her ankles. She looked like the Maid in the 
 Moon, with her round face, her dear face full of 
 kissing places. 
 
 She drew one doll in a baby carriage, and held a 
 drooping rag infant over her shoulder. In one hand 
 she carried a basket. She wore an anxious expression,
 
 Inside our Gate. 131 
 
 weighed down, poor lady, with a housekeeper's cares 
 and a mother's duties. 
 
 Then they journeyed to the city in a wheelbarrow, 
 and then marched to war with a flag and trumpet. 
 As it is the drama of life which they are playing day 
 by day, each scene must needs be soon over, for at 
 the shortest it is a drama with many scenes. Scott 
 follows for a private, Scott, wonderful creation, 
 comrade, careful nursery-maid, sympathizing friend, 
 wise policeman ; all at the tender age of two and 
 a half. 
 
 Away race this trio still, day by day over lawn and 
 path, and at night sleep in one room, Scott at the 
 head of his little master's bed. Dear Douglas, dear 
 Elinor ! but, ah, me ! I must think too of the other 
 little child, whose dear face I seem always to see be 
 tween them, the little brother of whom they whisper 
 in their prayers, and whose presence abides with me 
 through sad days and through merry days and always 
 will. 
 
 One day several little girls on their way home from 
 school stopped to admire Douglas's new wagon. He 
 wished to show off before the ladies, and galloped up 
 and down the path at a terrible rate, Scott barking a 
 remonstrance at his heels, till at last he tripped and 
 fell, and the wagon ran over him. His poor little
 
 132 Inside our Gate. 
 
 hands were scratched with gravel, and he howled with 
 pain. The little girls took to their heels and fled, and 
 the young gentleman was borne into the house in the 
 arms of a maid. 
 
 Little Elinor flew to him with outstretched hands. 
 " Here 's love ! " she cried, and hugged him as he 
 struggled. Poor Douglas always resented being hurt, 
 and felt as if the earth and the inhabitants thereof had 
 conspired to injure him. 
 
 " Oh, mother," he wept as he looked at the poor 
 scraped little palms, " help me into bed." 
 
 " I '11 undress you," said Elinor, proceeding to put 
 away his clothes as I took them off. 
 
 After he was bound up and comforted, she took her 
 little rocking-chair to his bed and began to read from a 
 copy of Robert Browning upside down. (Dear Elinor ! 
 sometimes I think when really reading Browning that 
 the book must be upside down.) She composed as 
 she read, 
 
 " A child who lay in slumbers deep, 
 Her soldier toys stood close by her ; 
 And very close they stood to her, 
 Her little crib a-dotting round, 
 To guard it as the angels do." 
 
 " Pho ! " said Douglas, fretfully, "that 's poetry." 
 " Well," said the cheerful little nurse, " never mind
 
 Inside our Gate. 133 
 
 if it is j it 's going to end in the story of a big, big 
 man who ate folks, and then got eaten up himself. 
 Do you ache now, Douglas, you poor little boy?" 
 
 " Yes, awfully," said Douglas. " I tell you I was 
 frightened when I fell under that wagon." 
 
 " I guess you frightened somebody else," said Mary 
 Shannon ; " for the butcher's boy drew his horse right 
 up and stopped till I 'd carried you in." 
 
 " Well, he ought to have got out and comforted 
 Douglas ; he 's a mean, mean boy," said little Elinor ; 
 " I sha'n't look at his wagon the next time he goes 
 by. I shall say, ' Sic 'em, Scott ; ' " and being thus 
 adjured, Scott said " oof." 
 
 Did you ever think that dogs are types of different 
 classes of men? It is not so with horses. Horses 
 are gentle or wilful, strong or weak, dilapidated and for 
 lorn, or fine and spirited animals. A horse is never 
 low; dogs sometimes are, for dogs are more human 
 than horses. You remember Bill Sykes's dog. I 've 
 seen plenty like him, dogs that look like the loung 
 ers about groggeries, poker-players, prize-fighters, as if 
 they swore, and always barked in slang ; low-lived dogs, 
 snub-nosed, thick-necked, bow-legged. Then there 
 are dogs like common dull ordinary folk, and little 
 sharp homeless curs that have to look out for them 
 selves, and count with bootblacks and newsboys.
 
 134 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Scott is a thorough gentleman, a friend, a com 
 panion, entirely one of us, human. He, like Mary 
 Ellen, does not speak English, merely as a matter of 
 choice. He prefers to speak through an interpreter, 
 one or another of the family. He gave, through one of 
 his interpreters, a receipt the other day for a collie : un 
 measured love and faithfulness, and a merry heart, with 
 a fur cover soft as silk ; and what is this but a fur angel? 
 
 We had never owned a collie before Scott came. 
 Newfoundland dogs and tan terriers and setters had 
 been our canine companions. With all our petting, 
 we could never get at the heart of a Newfoundland 
 dog. We brought up three from puppies ; but after 
 they had stayed with us and chewed up our rubbers 
 and regularly torn the morning paper, and devoured 
 our substance with their enormous appetites, they 
 the three, one at a time went deliberately away and 
 settled with other families. One, black Ned, chose 
 an old German who worked on the railroad ; and 
 though the old man honestly brought him back, he 
 would not stay, and so after having paid for his 
 return three times, we formally presented him to the 
 old man, and one day Allan saw the two sitting lov 
 ingly side by side by the track at noon eating out of 
 one dinner-pail, turn about, and old Ned quoted 
 doubtless, as Allan passed,
 
 Inside our Gate. 135 
 
 " If he be not fair for me, 
 What care I how fair he be ? " 
 
 I could n't love a terrier. I like a dog with soft 
 fur, not a little shivering creature in tights. Then as 
 for setters, they must run ; running is a setter's life. 
 Our old Don would follow on a drive of fifteen miles 
 each way, doubling the distance with his dashes and 
 raids, and would then want to wrestle with a neigh 
 bor's dog on his return, and be ready and alert for a 
 long walk in the evening. 
 
 But Scott, dear Scott (he has a secret he will 
 not divulge, whether he is called a Scot, or is 
 named for Sir Walter ; we choose to spell it Scott), 
 Scott, true to his ancestry, is a watcher, one who stays 
 by to look after things. He has children and a house 
 to guard, instead of sheep upon the heathery hills, and 
 here he stays, with only runs and frolics with his chil 
 dren in the garden ; and though he sleep, 't is always 
 with an anxious heart and listening ear. 
 
 Sometimes when the children are going to bed, I 
 tell a story for Scott, who sits by with pricked-up 
 ears and fixed attention, as he hears his name often 
 introduced. 
 
 " ' I often remember,' says Scott " (say I), " ' seeing 
 my dear collie-mother as she sat by the glowing fire at 
 twilight, telling us fine tales of the hills of Scotland
 
 136 Inside our Gate. 
 
 where she and my father watched sheep. When a 
 deep snow fell and the little lambs got covered in it, 
 we used to run around and scent them ; and then we 
 would dig a little hole at the spot where we traced 
 one, and run over and dig another hole, the shepherd 
 following us and digging down and getting the lam- 
 mies out, while we found out the places for him 
 to dig."' 
 
 " That was very kind in your mother, Scotty dear," 
 says Elinor, stopping half undressed to hug her friend ; 
 "if I got under the snow, would you dig me out?" 
 Scott licks the little hand that pats him. " He says 
 he would," says Elinor. 
 
 If there is occasion to bark, Scott can bark. Some 
 times a passing " glass-put-in man " shakes his fist at 
 him, as he sits on the piazza, and he is obliged to re 
 sent the insult. Sometimes a dog runs by, and Scott 
 feels sure that he is the wrong dog, and he tells him 
 so. It is seldom, in fact, that the right clog does go 
 by. It seems to him like having a dog forced on his 
 acquaintance to see one whom he has never seen 
 before go boldly by in his street, or on his sidewalk. 
 
 One day as I was sitting reading in the parlor, my 
 ear was caught by an odd sound, and looking toward 
 the window I saw there a little dog, a clumsy tan 
 terrier with his ears cropped off entirely. He was
 
 Inside our Gate. 137 
 
 tapping on the pane with his paw; he wanted to 
 come in. 
 
 Tibbie took a stick and drove him away. She said 
 he looked as if his name was " Mickey." In about an 
 hour he was again begging to come in. The barn was 
 open. The dog could have gone there for warmth in 
 the hay ; but no, he tapped at the parlor window and 
 whined. When Scott went into the yard, he took no 
 notice of the little dog, that jumped on him and 
 seemed overjoyed to see him ; but he bore his atten 
 tions with patience. When the door opened to let 
 Scott in, the little dog wailed aloud at being left 
 outside. At last we captured him and locked him in 
 the barn. 
 
 The next morning he was tapping on the panes. 
 " He says, ' Scott 's inside ; why can't I come in ? ' ' 
 interpreted little Elinor. 
 
 Scott was always incensed at dogs who trespassed 
 on our grounds, that he would not allow ; but he 
 seemed to accept this little chap. As he lay sunning 
 himself on the piazza, the little dog sat at the gate 
 and notified him of passers-by by barking when they 
 reached the gate. Scott would give a lazy " oof" from 
 the piazza. The pedlers he let go with this mild re 
 buke, and the rag-picker with his hook and basket got 
 no worse. " Bark on, small dog," he seemed to say;
 
 138 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " earn your board by vigilance, and save my time." 
 It was evident that Scott had determined to keep a 
 dog himself. He had always been on the alert for a 
 noise ; but now in the parlor he lay and snored in 
 ease of mind, for he kept a dog outside that would 
 bark " to arms " if necessary. Days passed away, 
 but the little dog stayed on. He was now called 
 Scott's dog. 
 
 One morning as the children were playing on the 
 sidewalk with Scott and his dog, they saw a little old 
 Irishman jogging along on a dirt-cart. As he neared 
 them, he drew up his horse and exclaimed joyfully, 
 
 " Why, Nigger, is that you, me boy? I thought 
 I 'd lost ye." 
 
 "Is that little dog yours?" cried Douglas. "He 
 just came here and would live at our house. We Ve 
 fed him for most a week." 
 
 " Thank ye," said the little old man, getting down 
 from his seat to take the dog, who was making frantic 
 efforts to get into the cart ; " thank the little gentle 
 man, Nigger; bow yer head, sir." And being further 
 admonished by a tap on his head, the little dog with 
 out ears rose on his thin hind-legs, dropped his paws, 
 and nodded his thanks and a good-by all in one. 
 And then, being lifted into the dirt-cart, he rode off, 
 sitting on the seat beside the old man, whose arm
 
 Inside our Gate. 139 
 
 was around him. Scott barked furiously, and dashed 
 after the man who was stealing his dog, and after 
 the traitor who was deserting him. Then he came 
 back, and he and the children stood and gazed down 
 the road till the new friend was lost to sight round a 
 corner. 
 
 I think that children are the most entertaining of 
 companions ; the most interesting, the most marvel 
 lous of comrades. I relate, I explain, and, behold ! 
 I discover some day that the things I told had quite 
 another meaning to them from the one I intended. 
 Dear little well-balanced, blank minds ! how funny 
 they are, in their lack of experience of even the com 
 monest things ! 
 
 I suppose God looks on our bewildered, untrained, 
 finite minds as we look on the children's, and He tries 
 to explain to us out of the wonders of His omniscience, 
 by the Bible and by His works, but we cannot grasp 
 His thought. The strangest thing we do, the most 
 ignorant and foolish, is to limit His love, when by 
 word and work He tells us that it is limitless. The 
 time will come, in the new life, when we shall smile 
 and wonder at the childish narrow views we took in 
 this world, even as little Elinor does now at the silly 
 things she did when she was " little." How wonder-
 
 140 Inside our Gate. 
 
 ful it all will be when we know even as we are known ! 
 To God's knowledge we must seem as perverse as our 
 baby seemed to me when I showed her the letters on 
 her blocks. 
 
 " Baby," said I, in perfect assurance of my knowl 
 edge, "that is S." 
 
 "It is not," she asserted. 
 
 "And this is T." 
 
 " It is not." 
 
 Still, though I said, " Mamma knows best," and 
 went on to different letters, " It is not," was her 
 only answer. 
 
 One day I was looking at an atlas, and Elinor 
 pressed close to me to look too. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 I pointed out a crinkled black line on the page. 
 "That is the Mississippi River; I was looking for a 
 town on the river," I answered. 
 
 Elinor looked at me with surprised eyes. " That is 
 not a river," she said ; " it is a pencil-mark. A river 
 is made of water ; Douglas said so ! " 
 
 " Yes, a river is water ; but this is a sort of picture 
 of a river." 
 
 " It is not," said Elinor ; " there 's a picture of a 
 river in the parlor, with pictures of the boats on it." 
 
 I gave it up and changed the subject.
 
 Inside our Gate. 141 
 
 One night, after Elinor had said " Amen " to her 
 prayer, she stopped and said, " Nobody can see 
 'Amen.'" 
 
 "When you read," I said, "you can see 'Amen' 
 in a book." 
 
 " Yes," she insisted, " but you can't ever, anywhere, 
 see an ' Amen.' " 
 
 " Oh, you mean that it is like ' good-morning ' or 
 ' good-night,' or ' how-do-you-do ' ? " 
 
 "Yes," she said; "I can see you and see Douglas 
 and see Scott and the pin-cushion, but I can't see 
 ' Amen.' " 
 
 She had discovered nouns. 
 
 And Douglas added, " It is n't good English either, 
 to say ' Amen ' ; it ought to be A man" 
 
 Alas, had I not explained the very night before that 
 "Amen" meant, "so be it," or "let it be so," or "let 
 me have an answer to what I have asked " ? 
 
 I came across a bundle of old letters lately which I 
 had written to my brother Dick. They were family 
 letters, full of the children's every-day doings and say 
 ings. I was much struck with the confused state of 
 the little minds, with their rag-bag knowledge, real and 
 fancied treasures, a strange medley waiting to be ar 
 ranged and classified, distributed, I hope, as Mr. Lo 
 well's delightful knowledge seems to be, in pigeon-
 
 142 Inside our Gate. 
 
 holes and drawers of his mind, ready for instant 
 use. 
 
 One day when I was going to Philadelphia with 
 Douglas, a long lank boy in outgrown clothes and 
 with his hair hanging in elf-locks came through the 
 cars selling candy. " Hullo ! " said Douglas to the 
 boy, " I know you. You are Barnaby Rudge. How 's 
 your crow ? " The boy stared at him and passed 
 on. I asked Douglas what he meant, and I dis 
 covered that the poor little soul had thought that 
 all the characters with which he was familiar in our 
 illustrated Dickens were photographed from life and 
 were likely to be encountered at any time. 
 
 When little Elinor was given a doll's trunk she 
 gazed at it with joy, then with a sudden cloud upon 
 her face she ran to me and said, " Mamma, do 
 you think that rough fellow who stole little David 
 Copperfield's trunk in the picture, and cried ' Pollis ! 
 pollis ! ' will steal my little trunk too ? " and, behold ! 
 little Elinor had shared her brother's belief. 
 
 Douglas had heard with much interest of the 
 Dinornis and Epiornis. But he could hardly keep 
 back the tears of disappointment when he beheld the 
 skeletons in the Natural History Rooms. " Surely, 
 you call a bird with such stout legs a bird that 
 could carry a man a large bird ? " said I.
 
 Inside our Gate. 143 
 
 " Mother," said the small boy of great expectations, 
 " I thought from what you read that they were as high 
 as the barn." 
 
 But the whale's teeth went beyond anything he had 
 ever dreamed of in the way of teeth. He wished 
 very much to know the market price of such teeth. 
 I could n't tell him. 
 
 "But," he persisted, "are we rich enough to buy a 
 few whale's teeth?" 
 
 " Yes, I am quite sure that we are," I said. 
 
 I overheard him boast to a little boy over the fence 
 a few days afterward of our affluence in being able to 
 indulge in whale's teeth. 
 
 At the circus the gigantic Jumbo did not sur 
 prise him. "^VVhen are the large elephants coming 
 in?" asked he. It was the same with the ten-horse 
 Roman chariot ; oh, no, he had thought, he said, that 
 it was to be like the big picture in our parlor, where 
 the chariot dashed through the sky. Guide's Aurora ! 
 Poor Mr. Barnum did n't dream of such a rival ! 
 
 The mandrill monkey did impress him. He said 
 he thought Mr. Darwin had n't a better monkey in his 
 collection than that. And behold, he had looked on 
 the illustrations in one of Darwin's books as on a circus 
 advertisement, and on Mr. Darwin as a collector of 
 monkeys.
 
 144 Inside our Gate. 
 
 But the one thing at the circus that perfectly suited 
 him was the clown. This new sort of person burst 
 upon him in all his gay striped glory, a vision of un 
 told rapture. Oh, the clown, the clown ! the leaps he 
 could take, the faces he could make ! He meant to 
 be a clown as soon as he grew up ; yes, the day he 
 was twenty-one. He cut paper clowns, he painted 
 clowns, he bought a clown mask. 
 
 At times in Douglas's short life he made for him 
 self various standards of wisdom. His own knowledge 
 was the standard, as with older and wiser folk. At this 
 time an infallible sign to him of the utter and hopeless 
 ignorance of any one he met, was the use of " ain't." 
 
 The next Spring his uncle took him for a birthday 
 treat to the circus. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " said we, " now we '11 hear of nothing 
 for weeks but the clown, the clown, and of all the 
 brilliant remarks he may make." 
 
 But not so. Douglas rushed into the house at night, 
 horror and disappointment on his face. 
 
 " Mother," he cried, " what do you suppose the 
 clown said? " 
 
 I had to confess that imagination failed me. 
 
 " Why, mother," exclaimed the disappointed little 
 boy, " the clown, the down said ain't" 
 
 His idol was shattered !
 
 Inside our Gate. 145 
 
 When I read " Tom Brown's School-days " to him I 
 did n't dare to read the " ain'ts " which the boys used 
 constantly in their talk, fearing that Rugby would sink 
 so low in his estimation as a temple of learning that it 
 never could be raised again. 
 
 It takes a long time to learn not to express decided 
 opinions on matters one knows nothing about. I had 
 a very decided opinion that no child should be taught 
 to read till he was seven or eight years old, and that 
 then he could learn readily in a few months. I felt 
 angry at the very idea of beating such a thing as read 
 ing and spelling into baby brains; but I've taught a 
 child now, and changed my mind. 
 
 My boy was more than seven years old when I un 
 dertook to introduce him to the "word-system." I 
 knew that was the best system. In order to give the 
 system a fair trial, he really ought not to have known 
 his letters, but somehow he had picked them up. I 
 made the statement to begin with, that the printed 
 word " boy " (pointing to it) was a word that meant 
 "boy." 
 
 " You know, Douglas," said I, " that people make 
 sounds in telling about things. You call those sounds 
 'talking.' Those sounds are words. When I say, 
 'Look out of the window and see that boy '" 
 
 10
 
 146 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Douglas looked out of the window eagerly. "There 
 is n't any boy," he said. 
 
 " No ; but you see when I said those words you 
 knew what I meant. You looked out to see a boy. 
 You did n't think I meant the big locust-tree when I 
 said ' boy.' So this word in the book is a sign for the 
 word ' boy ' [I remembered by this time that it was a 
 sign of a word]. When I look on this book, that word 
 there [pointing] means ' boy ' to my eyes, just as the 
 sound when I speak it means ' boy ' to your ears. Do 
 you understand what I mean?" 
 
 " No," said Douglas ; " because those letters you 
 are pointing to are n't a word ; they 're only just letters 
 b and o and y" 
 
 " But words are made of letters, my dear," said I. 
 
 " Mamma, b-o-y, does n't sound like ' boy.' " 
 
 " But listen to the sound of the letters in ' boy,' " 
 said I, trying to give the letters the sounds they really 
 have in the word. 
 
 " That 's right, that sounds it," said Douglas ; " but 
 If and o and y does n't sound it, mamma." 
 
 There was nothing before me but to begin at the 
 foundation of the English language. " This thing C 
 is a sign, and it has a name, ' C,' and it has a sound 
 no, alas ! it has two sounds. It has one sound like k, 
 when you say * cat ; ' and it has another sound, a
 
 Inside our Gate. 147 
 
 hissing sound made between your teeth, as when you 
 say 'cent.' " 
 
 G was a desperate letter ; it was soft when Douglas 
 was looking for a hard G, and it was hard and solid 
 when he was looking for a soft G. And why was W 
 not called "double F" when it really was two Fs, and 
 what was the use of having an 6" at all when soft C 
 would do as well, asked the poor little boy. Then 
 the ths, and the s/is, and whs, and oughs and K silent 
 before N! Dear, dear ! I found I was not only in 
 troducing my son but myself also, to the English 
 language. 
 
 A seemed a perfect fiend incarnate. In the Primer 
 this little column set forth its claims to the title : 
 
 Ape, 
 
 Apple, 
 
 Art. 
 
 At last Douglas began to read. " See the cat. Hear 
 the dog. See the white hen. See the bag of corn." 
 He stumbled along through a few pages, expecting 
 doubtless day by day to come upon some fine tale ; 
 but when we turned a page and began, " I see a 
 man, a hoe and a rake, and a dog and a shed. Ann 
 has a bird, and Dan has a gun," Douglas looked at 
 me with tears gathering in his gray eyes. 
 
 "Mamma," said he, reproachfully, "I don't care
 
 148 Inside our Gate. 
 
 to read such baby stuff, like little fellows that wear 
 kilts and have n't had a horse-clipper on their heads, 
 or owned a foot-ball, or been to a circus three 
 times." 
 
 Sure enough, poor fellow, why should he want to 
 read it ? Why had I, stupid mother, forced such pap 
 on a boy of seven and a half years, who had been fed 
 freely on the Bible, the " Pilgrim's Progress," Dickens's 
 and Hawthorne's stories, Andersen's fairy stories and 
 " Robinson Crusoe," not to mention English and 
 Scotch ballads by the dozen? I sighed for very 
 gratitude to my mother. I never could remember 
 learning to read. 
 
 After that, I let him read the tos and its and ofs, 
 and just told him outright the hard words (did n't 
 some great English teacher teach Latin after that 
 fashion ?). Poor soul ! he always called was " saw," 
 and saw " was," which somewhat startled me ; I 
 thought he might be going to read backward for a 
 last variety. 
 
 I sought then for a little American History for a 
 reading-book and found one in words of one sylla 
 ble. But what words ! They cramped the meaning 
 and forced poor English upon us, awkward, ill-turned 
 sentences. Such books ought to be written in easy 
 words which children are used to, the syllables sepa-
 
 Inside our Gate. 149 
 
 rated and dealt out, one syllable at a time, to small 
 brains. 
 
 But the little History interested the child. Even 
 Elinor stopped in her play to hear about " Christopher 
 Columbia," as she called him, and Bunker Hill. 
 The events followed each other in such rapid succes 
 sion in the little book that she probably thought that 
 Christopher Columbus fought and died on Bunker 
 Hill. 
 
 I was reading parts of " Marmion " to Douglas. 
 He was delighted with it. When the original Douglas, 
 learning of the forgery of a friend's name by Marmion, 
 cries out in gratitude to Heaven that his sons can 
 neither read nor write, my little Douglas shouted, 
 " Oh, mamma ! you see everybody does n't care about 
 the children learning; I wish you didn't" 
 
 Douglas took kindly to geography. I introduced 
 it to him in this wise. I bought a thirty-cent paper- 
 covered atlas, and slipping out the leaves, I let him 
 repaint the faintly-tinted maps and retrace the rivers 
 and mountains ; and by this agreeable method he 
 learned a good deal about geography. He would 
 call Siberia " Exile," and Wales " Quails," and Turkey 
 oh, he made very merry over Turkey, as if it had 
 been named Rooster. Afterward I found some out 
 line maps, over which he had to exercise his brain a
 
 150 Inside our Gate. 
 
 little in placing the rivers and mountains as best he 
 could by looking at a finished map. We have now a 
 fine map of England marked with the counties, and of 
 this we have made together quite a careful study. I 
 have read Dickens's " Child's History of England " 
 three times through to Douglas ; and we carefully 
 looked up the places mentioned, on our map. He 
 can name all the counties and point them out 
 
 Every story that we read, many pictures that we 
 see, seem to people island or shore for him. He sees 
 the galleys of the Romans seeking tin and lead in 
 Cornwall, and the Pilgrims leaving their home in 
 Devon. I dare say the Roman galleys and the " May 
 flower" run dangerously near to collision in his little 
 brain ; for what are dates to him ? He " locates " on 
 his map Victor Hugo's island, views of which he has 
 seen in a magazine, and the island where Tennyson 
 (who owns Excalibur) has his Summer home ; he can 
 find the town where John Bunyan lived, and he almost 
 expects to see Mr. Peggotty sitting on Yarmouth, and 
 Shakespeare on Stratford-on-Avon. He knows Robin 
 Hood's county and that of the wicked sheriff. 
 
 My way of teaching geography is a slower but a 
 surer way than by memorizing the names of places. 
 Douglas has been through a simple account of Paul's 
 journeys with me, using an ancient atlas ; it entertained
 
 Inside our Gate. 151 
 
 him wonderfully. He will not be left, if I can help it, 
 in the bewildering maze in which was the little boy 
 who asked one of my friends in Sunday-school, " Where 
 are these places you are talking about ? They are not 
 on the map in our Geography. Are they in heaven ? " 
 
 I am glad that Douglas got hold of a little English 
 history before he began on America. He is delighted 
 to find reasons in his knowledge of English places and 
 events for the naming of the States and many towns 
 by the early settlers. He sees the reason, too, why, 
 when Columbus was seeking India and thought he 
 had found it, he named the 'American natives Indians. 
 
 One day I happened to see a set of gay-colored 
 embossed pictures in a stationer's window, the kings 
 and queens of England at two cents a sovereign, 
 as low a price as could well be asked for kings and 
 queens. Each sovereign was decked in the proper 
 costume, and each, from William the Norman down 
 to Victoria, bore a little tag with the appropriate name, 
 the date of birth, death, and coronation, and the prin 
 cipal events of the reign. We found pictures too 
 of Boadicea dashing about in her chariot, of Alfred 
 harping in the Danes' camp, of Canute sitting in a 
 chair by the wild sea waves, of John signing Magna 
 Charta, of the great London fire, and of the Spanish 
 Armada. Then we bought a scrap-book, and Douglas
 
 152 Inside our Gate. 
 
 and I began our illustrated English History. We have 
 found many other interesting pictures at different sta 
 tioners' or toyshops, and we have (always in the em 
 bossed pictures) many of Shakespeare's characters. 
 The historical pictures we place on fly-leaves by the 
 kings they belong to, the others on fly-leaves by 
 Elizabeth's page. 
 
 We have also on fly-leaves the soldiers of Eng 
 land, from the Normans down to the present queen, 
 each in his proper day and generation, and in his 
 proper uniform, if one may speak of a coat of mail 
 as a uniform. We have heads of the great English 
 inventors surrounded by little pictures of their inven 
 tions, and Nelson and Wellington after the same fash 
 ion surrounded by battles, medals, and monuments, 
 and each is placed in our book according to his date. 
 Our last purchase was a picture of the Tower of Lon 
 don, and of the queen's various castles. What delight 
 ful pegs these kings and queens are to hang history on ! 
 
 This book is brought out at each history lesson, 
 this dear and gorgeous book. Little Elinor looks at 
 it with admiration ; she showed it to a guest one day. 
 " This is King John," she said ; " he was a very weak 
 king. Douglas says," adding by way of explanation, 
 " he could hardly walk." "This one is Mary Bloody," 
 she went on. " These are the little Princes in the
 
 Inside our Gate. 153 
 
 Tower ; and that is Hubert, a kind man who tried to 
 save them, but he could n't." 
 
 Elinor sat playing with her dolls one day, while 
 Douglas was learning his history lesson. It was about 
 Joan of Arc, and told how the "wicked earl sent to 
 have her dragged off to the stake." Elinor burst into 
 the lesson, asking, "Why did Joan of Arc let those 
 bad men take her off? Why did n't she go in a closet 
 when they called on her, and shut the door tight and 
 stay there till the men had gone, and then send for her 
 father to let her out ? " 
 
 I explained that she could n't help being taken 
 away, that they dragged her ; but Elinor was still sure 
 that she was a " foolish girl," and that if, with sufficient 
 foresight, she had stepped into the closet so that the 
 people would think she had gone out when the men 
 who inquired for her rang for her at the door, they 
 would have been defeated in their evil plans. Well, 
 let it be so ; even grown people can't always see from 
 others' standpoints, but only from their own little 
 ant-hills. 
 
 One day I was reading to Douglas about the 
 Apostle Paul, and of his being beaten with stripes. 
 " Well, Paul ought to be beated," cried Elinor, burst 
 ing fiercely in, holding her beloved " Shut Eye " by 
 the leg ; " for I saw Paul get little Peter Smidt's bat
 
 154 Inside our Gate. 
 
 away and pound little Yacob with it. I thumped on 
 the pane, but he wouldn't mind." 
 
 There was only one Paul for Elinor. The great 
 apostle to the Gentiles was no other to her than little 
 Dutch Paul in long trousers and suspenders, from the 
 tenement-house in the back field, fighting with his 
 little brother Yacob. What but years will settle a 
 small boy's brain, who after reading " The Wonder 
 Book " calls Pegasus Ptggotty, and who with fresh vis 
 ions of Christiana and Mercy before him plays croquet 
 with " wicket gates " ? 
 
 I did n't dream of taking up English grammar with 
 Douglas until I came across a delightful little book, 
 " Grammar-Land ; " then I tried it on Douglas's mind 
 and it fitted very well. Little Elinor draws up her 
 chair when the scarlet covers are opened, and asks for 
 a peep at the rich funny Mr. Noun and little poor, poor 
 Article. The parts of speech are personified and called 
 up before Judge Grammar in court to get settled for 
 good, and the whole plan is so cleverly worked out 
 that a child can never forget the clear definitions nor 
 help enjoying the fun. 
 
 " It is sad," says Elinor, " that little Article has only 
 two words for his own. an 'a' and a 'the.'" 
 
 " And was n't Article funny," says Douglas, " to 
 say ' an ' meant the same as ' a,' it was only ' a '
 
 Inside our Gate. 155 
 
 with his overcoat on ! and it 's true that he always 
 does run before Mr. Noun, the dog, an apple, the 
 cat." 
 
 Mr. Adjective, who squeezes in between little Ar 
 ticle and Mr. Noun to tell everybody if Mr. Noun's 
 words are good or bad words, is another friend. Oh, 
 it all passes for a merry tale ! but it is a sugared pill, 
 and the virtue is left to work. 
 
 Then we attacked arithmetic. Douglas easily mas 
 tered the four tables, and went on to the tables of 
 English and American money, of common weights 
 and measures. Of course we go over and over the 
 tables, and the little sly examples that follow them. 
 
 One day I began, " If one banana costs seven cents, 
 how much " 
 
 "Seven cents for one banana," cried Douglas, 
 " who 'd give that ? At Mr. Wist's you only pay 
 three cents apiece, and at the market you can get 
 two for five cents ; what a skin ! " 
 
 At last we rise above our surprise at the extortioner's 
 price and go on to " English money." 
 
 " Twenty-one shillings make a guinea," says Douglas. 
 
 " I Ve seen live guinea-hens and guinea-pigs," says 
 little Elinor. 
 
 " Oh, Elinor, these guineas are money," explains 
 Douglas, in a large way.
 
 156 Inside our Gate. 
 
 . Elinor laughs. " Oh, I did n't know there was any 
 guinea-pig money before." 
 
 One morning I opened at the table for measuring 
 horses. " Oh, let me learn that ! " cried Douglas ; 
 " and is there a table for measuring cows ; and how 
 about hens? " 
 
 If there were only a kindergarten near by, I know 
 of two little pupils for it. 
 
 My children, in common with all others, have a 
 great fondness for pictures ; and I have taken pains 
 that they should have plenty of good ones to see. 
 Douglas now can distinguish in the magazines quite 
 as quickly as I can the drawings of the different 
 artists ; and he criticises them. " Mamma, this girl 
 does n't look at the book in her hand ; she is look 
 ing over the edge of it ; " or, " I think that child's 
 head is too big for his body ; " or, " Oh, is n't that 
 a nice picture? Those boys look just as merry as 
 they ought to when they are having such fun." 
 
 In an old Bible History we own, the pictures are 
 very poor. One incongruity particularly excites Doug 
 las's derision. Elijah in two pictures (illustrations of 
 one transaction) is represented as a middle-aged 
 smooth-faced man and as an aged man with a 
 beard, and all in an hour's time. Once when 
 Douglas was shut up in the house with a cold, he
 
 Inside our Gate. 157 
 
 wanted to color Abbey's illustrations of "She Stoops 
 to Conquer." I suppose some people would have 
 thought it a shame to let him do it ; but I thought 
 it the best lesson I could give him in drawing. He 
 always uses my paints, and he washes the colors very 
 daintily about the outlines ; so with delicate colors and 
 care, and after long consultations with me as to the 
 ladies' gowns, the pictures were finished. 
 
 Of course Elinor, little mocking-bird, wanted to 
 paint too; but she was quite content to take one 
 color, green or blue, and " smooch " it all over the pic 
 tures. One day she stood watching Douglas for a 
 long time as he worked, and then she came to me 
 with a troubled look in her eyes. 
 
 " Mamma," she said, " I want some skin-color." 
 That was the end of paintings in one color for 
 Elinor. One day, when she was over two years old, 
 she made a sudden attempt to draw from life. She 
 had our pretty nurse sit down motionless ; she her 
 self had often been model for my cousin Pauline, 
 and knew how the thing was done. She folded 
 Mary's hands, she arranged her dress ; then seating 
 herself with a big piece of paper, she began to put 
 Mary's eyes up in one corner of the paper, her white 
 teeth (which Mary could not conceal for laughter) in 
 another corner, her nose somewhere in the middle,
 
 158 Inside our Gate. 
 
 with no sign of an outline of a head, and no proper re 
 lation of one feature to another. She was thoroughly 
 pleased with her performance too, and showed it round 
 as Mary's portrait 
 
 What a glimpse that gave me into the vacant art 
 department of my daughter's mind ! 
 
 In her ordinary drawing, Elinor makes the legs 
 come right out of the neck, which is a strange but 
 common error in the drawings of little children. As 
 Elinor is a sensible child and constantly looking at 
 good pictures, I can't understand this. Still I need 
 not wonder at my little maid when I remember a 
 picture which was once shown me, "an oil picture," 
 as the owner proudly explained, in which the shadows 
 fell in two directions, those from the house to the 
 right, and from a neighboring castle and tree to the 
 left. The mountains were as smooth and round as 
 moulds of blancmange ; and up a pine-tree in the 
 foreground a tiger was climbing for dear life, to es 
 cape an elephant that was vigorously prodding him 
 from below. 
 
 The woman to whom this picture belonged lived in 
 a charming country, with the " Adriondacks," as she 
 called them, in the distance. She had looked on fair 
 skies and beautiful foliage, on sun and shadow, all her 
 life. Why was it that she could n't see that this picture
 
 Inside our Gate. 159 
 
 was a travesty on Nature ? Perhaps she thought if the 
 people at the antipodes are perverse enough to sleep 
 while we wake, and wake while we sleep, everything 
 was equally disordered and upset in their land ; that 
 tigers frequented castle-gardens in company with 
 elephants, and that shadows fell both ways at once. 
 She was a smart, quick-witted Yankee woman, the 
 best of housekeepers, and skilled at her needle ; her 
 eyes were quick enough to spy dust, and no pattern of 
 knit or crocheted edging was too intricate for her. I 
 wonder if perhaps such people do not look on pic 
 tures as they do on poetry, as something quite out 
 of ordinary every-day life, in which one must excuse 
 freaks of nature, as we give poetic license and let 
 poets' people talk in rhyme, or look upon "As You 
 Like It " not as an exhibition of real life, but as a 
 romance. 
 
 When Pauline came to our house to sketch, she 
 often used Douglas as a model. We used to discuss 
 names for her pictures, and Douglas listened to these 
 discussions with great apparent interest. One picture 
 was painted in our dining-room ; and he was delighted 
 as he" saw the carved old-fashioned mantelpiece ap 
 pearing on the paper, and the various articles of 
 furniture coming out one after another. Our pretty 
 friend Dolly Newell sat idly by the spinning-wheel,
 
 160 Inside our Gate. 
 
 with drooping eyes, and a young gallant, Uncle Mau 
 rice, in oldtime costume, was standing in embarrassed 
 silence on the other side, holding a large bouquet be 
 hind him which he had brought to present to Dolly, 
 
 Douglas was overjoyed. " Oh, what are you going 
 to name it, Cousin Pauline and mamma ? What 's the 
 picture's name?" 
 
 " I should name it ' The First Step,' " said I. 
 
 Pauline was pleased, and Douglas seemed satisfied. 
 He was about five years old at this time and could 
 cut very good figures of people and animals from 
 paper, with his round-pointed scissors. That after 
 noon he cut a large goat out of brown paper, an 
 old Billy-goat with horns and a long beard, and 
 brought it to me to write " the name " on it. 
 
 " What shall we call it? " I asked. 
 
 " Call it ' The Sweet Light of Evening,' " said the 
 little artist. 
 
 How merry we made over that ! Dear Douglas, 
 what 's in a name ? Of course he could n't connect 
 " The First Step " with a girl and a spinning-wheel 
 and a young fellow in knickerbockers carrying a 
 bunch of posies. I had named it, he evidently 
 thought, as a boy is named Billy or Tommy, to 
 suit his mother's taste, not to describe the boy's 
 characteristics.
 
 Inside our Gate. 161 
 
 How pleasant it is when the children begin to see 
 with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and under 
 stand a little from our standpoints ! Then they begin 
 to be the choicest of comrades with their fresh ways of 
 looking and hearing. 
 
 I was glad this Spring when my boy came to me in 
 haste, crying, " Oh, mother, come to the hall window 
 to see something beautiful ! " It was beautiful : the 
 sky was clear above the wide brown fields ; in this 
 broad background a man in a blue blouse and a red 
 shirt was following a machine drawn by a white horse, 
 a machine which scattered a fertilizer in great wafts 
 of dust from either side as it advanced. Beyond him 
 a man was sowing seed, throwing it to right and left ; 
 and we saw it all through a mass of white cherry- 
 blossoms. As we stood looking at the picture, Susan 
 Harris came up the stairs with a piece of ticking over- 
 her arms, on which she had been sewing. She stopped 
 as she saw us looking from the window, and said, " It 's 
 turned out a good day, hain't it? I needn't a-brought 
 my umberella with me." Then she took another look ; 
 "Well," she said in a tone of reproof, "there's William 
 Evans with his red shirt sticking out under his blue 
 jumper, pretty well out-growed, I should say." Ah, 
 Miss Harris, I 'm afraid you never read the old story 
 about "eyes and no eyes!"
 
 1 62 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Between Douglas and Elinor came "the little 
 brother," very near to Douglas, while indeed he 
 was but a mere baby himself; but he adopted him at 
 once. " Douglas's baby," he called him ; " Douglas's 
 baby," we all called him, it almost seemed his 
 name. He was still so little when he left us that 
 to one who has never owned and lost a child, it 
 would be a surpassing wonder, a thing inexplicable, 
 how such a short tarrying of a little soul with us 
 could leave us with so great a longing, and his loss with 
 a wound too deep to heal. Douglas now remembers 
 but one thing about him, a day when Debby took 
 him and the baby into a daisy-field, and the baby 
 picked the white petals from the flowers, and threw 
 them away, as fast as Douglas gave them to him. 
 
 The children like to listen to stories of the baby, 
 of how he loved to watch the leaves fluttering in the 
 trees, taking the waving of the branches as a special 
 courtesy to him, and waving his little hand and bowing 
 and smiling, saying " by-by." A single leaf he called 
 a "by-by." 
 
 I think it is very wonderful to see how real love may 
 exist without sight. Elinor, who has only heard of the 
 baby, feels him to be as real and dear as I do. She 
 knows he lives with Jesus, who is her friend, and who 
 is ready to listen to her at any moment ; and so she
 
 Inside our Gate. 163 
 
 may, she thinks, send messages to the " little brother " 
 at any time. She often thanks God for him in her 
 prayer, sends her love to him, and in the dark I often 
 hear a little kiss which she adds to her night's greeting. 
 Sometimes she sends kisses to others there whom she 
 has loved. 
 
 For many years we went regularly for long Summers 
 to the cottage by the Bay; then sickness and busi 
 ness separated us, and death came among us, and 
 the cottage seemed like a pleasant memory alone. 
 But it was still ours, and it was there we turned when 
 the baby became ill. We hoped the sweet, invigorat 
 ing air would restore him ; alas, it could not ! But it 
 did much for me, and a sympathy seemed to come to 
 me in my sorrow from the very sky and the familiar 
 trees. They seemed like silent, tender friends. 
 
 I shall never forget the kindness of the village 
 people. A man came one day to the kitchen door 
 selling berries.. Debby was there trying to amuse 
 Douglas and keep him still. She told the man of our 
 sick baby. "Yes, I know of it," he said. "I live 
 some way out of the village, but I heard it mentioned 
 in a prayer at the meeting last week. I am very 
 sorry for you all." 
 
 The cook forgot one night to keep the baby's milk 
 separate from the rest, the milk that came from one
 
 164 Inside our Gate. 
 
 particular cow, and it was after eight o'clock when 
 Debby found that there was no milk to give him his 
 medicine in. 
 
 "Oh, what shall we do?" I cried; " we can't get 
 any till morning ! Perhaps he won't touch his medi 
 cine in water, and he will cry for the milk ! " 
 
 " I '11 see what I can do/' said Debby. It hurt her 
 almost as much as it did me to have the dear beautiful 
 baby troubled. 
 
 The baby slept on past his hour for taking the milk. 
 I wanted Debby. Hilda said she saw her go out of 
 the gate. Half an hour and more went by. The 
 night was dark ; and a drizzling rain was falling. 
 Still, mercifully the baby slept. Then I heard voices, 
 and saw the glimmer of a lantern coming up the hill. 
 Presently our gate latch clicked, and then I heard 
 Debby's voice in the kitchen. In a moment more she 
 came to me with a little pitcher in her hand. 
 
 " I got it," she said in triumph. " Cap'n Darling 
 went to the pasture and milked Kitty. I thought 
 Mrs. Darling might have a little of Kitty's milk by 
 itself, and so I just ran down to see. The house 
 was all dark ; but I knocked at the door, and after 
 a while Mrs. Darling put her head out of the end 
 window, with a nightcap on, and asked what I wanted. 
 She said the cap'n was in bed and had a real bad pain,
 
 Inside our Gate. 165 
 
 but she 'd see what he could do ; she knew there 
 was n't a bit of Kitty's milk in the house. Then 
 she lighted a lamp and let me in, and Cap'n Dar 
 ling dressed himself; and when he found it was rain 
 ing he came back and put on that big yellow oil-skin 
 coat he goes fishing in, and a cap like it, and lit a 
 lantern, and went into the field and milked Kitty. It 
 took him a long time, he said, to find Kitty in the 
 dark; he thought the huckleberry-bushes were cows 
 two or three times, and then he got the wrong cow ; 
 but here the milk is. He walked up the hill to 
 light me." 
 
 " How good he was ! " I said. 
 
 " I don't know as you ever heard, Mrs. Burroughs," 
 said Debby, " that they had another child besides that 
 son who died a few years ago ? " 
 
 " No," I said. 
 
 "Well," continued Debby, "he said they lost a little 
 girl long ago ; and ever since we came he felt awful 
 sorry for us and the sick baby. Mrs. Darling took 
 a lamp in the parlor while he was out, and showed 
 me the picture of the little girl in one of those old- 
 fashioned little covers. She was a real pretty child. 
 It seems hard not to have one left when they are 
 old." 
 
 Poor Cap'n Darling ! He had done that kindness
 
 1 66 Inside our Gate. 
 
 out of love for a little child who had been dead for 
 thirty years. How beautiful love is ! I sat and 
 thought of it by the dear baby's bed in the dark 
 ness, and it comforted me. 
 
 With the very last day of Summer the baby went 
 from us. So sweet he looked, his little cheeks and 
 hands still brown from the Summer sun and air in 
 which he had lived, lying freshly dressed in his 
 own little bed. The woodbine covered the little 
 white-curtained window at the foot of the bed. I 
 did n't wish a flower about him. He never had 
 had flowers about him when he slept. 
 
 Dear little lamb ! I could not bear to touch his cold 
 cheek, but I laid my cheek softly on his light hair 
 again and again and again ; it was the only caress 
 I could give and not be chilled to my heart. 
 
 I shall never forget that morning when Allan and 
 I went down the street toward the East Bay, with the 
 heaviest hearts we had ever carried. It was a fresh, 
 sweet day, with a light breeze blowing ; all the willow- 
 trees were bending and swaying, and the white oaks 
 with their stout trunks, rich in silver bark and golden 
 lichens, fluttered their pale-green leaves against the 
 fair blue sky, as we had seen them hundreds of 
 times before. All along the roadside the wild pinks 
 were fragrant.
 
 Inside our Gate. 167 
 
 As we turned the corner by the big willows, we 
 came suddenly upon the wide stretch of the Bay and 
 sea. The soft noise of the waves upon the beach 
 reached us long before the sight of them. There, too, 
 was the white cottage on the low hillside where we 
 were going, with the great poplars in front and the 
 yard full of gay flowers. Yet my heart failed me as I 
 saw it, for we were going there for the little baby's 
 last bed. 
 
 We went up the narrow path bordered with white 
 shells, saw the parrot sitting on his perch by the 
 kitchen door, the parrot which the sailor son had 
 brought from Brazil. Mrs. Day stood waiting for us at 
 the open door. She held my hand close as she wished 
 me good-morning. We went into the little sitting- 
 room and sat down in silence, for we could not speak. 
 
 " I know what you 've come for," she said in a 
 minute. " My husband is n't at home, but I can at 
 tend to it as well as he can." Her eyes filled with 
 tears. " I felt real sorry for you," she said, " when I 
 heard of it yesterday. I 've known the same trouble 
 three times." 
 
 " How did you bear it > " I asked her. " It seems 
 to me I cannot live with this aching heart. I can't 
 think of anything else. It seems to me that my heart 
 beats, 'baby, baby, baby,' asleep and awake."
 
 1 68 Inside our Gate. 
 
 "You know this is your first loss by death," she 
 said. " The first I knew of it too was when I lost 
 my first baby ; but I never felt that same grief again, 
 though I 've lost two children since and many friends. 
 It seemed before the baby died that none of my folks 
 could die, and now I know they can just like other 
 people's. The first time is the worst time. 
 
 " I '11 take you to the shop now," she said, rising ; 
 and we followed her through a long pleasant kitchen 
 to a back-yard which was fenced in with a white 
 washed fence, and seemed a sort of cosey out-of-door 
 room. We crossed the yard to the shop. " It is an 
 odd shop," she said, replying to Allan's look of sur 
 prise. "It used to be a deck-house on a schooner. 
 My husband bought it and put a second story on it to 
 dry cranberries in ; and he works at his carpentering 
 in this room. I suppose it does look queer to see the 
 bulging sides and the little slanting windows." 
 
 The sun streamed into the long narrow room. The 
 floor was covered with shavings, and the air was sweet 
 with the smell of pine wood. In a minute Mrs. Day 
 brought from an inner room a little white casket and 
 laid it on the carpenter's bench by which we stood. 
 None of us could speak for tears. It seemed to me 
 my heart must break. At last she said (her hand 
 on mine), " No matter how resigned we are to God's
 
 Inside our Gate. 169 
 
 will, no matter if we do know that the baby is far 
 better off, the pain must come. Oh, I wish I could 
 put two years over your head ! Time does help to 
 heal." 
 
 " It never can heal my sorrow," I cried ; " the sun 
 can never shine the same for me. My life will never 
 be the same." 
 
 " No, the sorrow will never leave you," she an 
 swered quietly ; " but by that time you will have got 
 used to bearing the pain. It will not be a surprise to 
 you any more, nor a strange thing that you think of 
 all the time. I surely ought to know," she added. 
 
 I put my hand upon the lining of the little casket. 
 " It feels so hard," I said. " I know that it is foolish 
 to say it, but could it be made a little softer?" 
 
 " To be sure it can," she said. " I '11 do it myself. 
 I am about as handy with tools as father and the 
 boys. Why, I 've some wool my sister-in-law from 
 Vermont sent me from her own sheep. I '11 untack 
 the lining and put a soft layer of that all round 
 the sides and across the bottom. Would that com 
 fort you? " 
 
 I could only smile gratefully. Was n't that a motherly 
 thing to offer? 
 
 " Then this evening after dark," she said, " I '11 let 
 my Willy carry it to your house. '
 
 170 Inside our Gale. 
 
 " Oh," I said, " it is dreadful to think of putting my 
 baby in the ground. I feel as if I could never sleep, 
 thinking of the cold rains and snow on that little 
 spot." 
 
 " Why do you have it done, then?" she said. "The 
 tomb has just been fixed over. It is whitewashed all 
 sweet and clean inside, and the floor is spread with 
 sea-sand, and nobody has been laid there except Mary 
 Fletcher ; you knew her. Her husband wants to buy 
 a lot in the town he lives in, in Vermont, so she is 
 there still." 
 
 Yes, I had known her, a quiet, gentle little woman 
 to whom I would have trusted my baby at any time ; 
 and it was strange how this relieved me, the very 
 thought eased the pain. 
 
 The little graveyard was familiar to me too. It lies 
 on a hillside sloping toward the south, and from it you 
 can look down on the sea with the white-sailed boats 
 and the far-off ships, dim and ghostly on the horizon 
 as if they were bearing souls away to the world in 
 visible. Nature had been left to brighten the spot in 
 her own way. The fairest grasses, and wild roses, and 
 daisies, and later, golden rod and asters, in wonder 
 ful color and of many kinds, glorified the place. It 
 lay in peace and quietness day and night, like a cham 
 ber of rest, with no sounds but the breath of the
 
 Inside our Gale. 171 
 
 winds and the measured rush of the sea waves on 
 the shore. 
 
 We went out through the gate in the white fence 
 into the side-yard, where the barn stood. I knew that 
 barn when it was an old windmill and stood in Mr. 
 Abram Wilder's field, throwing its aimless arms about 
 in every breeze. I remembered when it was moved 
 here and made into a barn, an odd barn, with a 
 base broader than its top, and the door opening in the 
 inclined plane of the side. Mrs. Day offered to har 
 ness up the horse if we would wait, and take us home. 
 
 But no ; I wanted to walk. It seemed to me that I 
 never could rest again, that I must walk and work 
 without ceasing. Mrs. Day gave me a sprig of lemon 
 verbena which she picked through the whitewashed 
 fence, and stood looking after us as we went down 
 the road. 
 
 A little farther on we met Henry Leeds, driving 
 in his open wagon, and as usual sitting in his green 
 chair, as if he had just lifted a portion of his kitchen 
 floor and what happened to be standing on it upon 
 wheels, and started off. He drove up to the path 
 when he saw us, stopped and held out his hand to 
 me, and then to Allan. " I only just heard of it to 
 the store," he said. "The Lord comfort you and 
 help you to bear it ! Can I do anything for you? "
 
 172 Inside our Gate. 
 
 We thanked him and said no ; but we should have 
 said that he already had done us a kindness, as had 
 the kindly woman we had just left, for my heart was 
 not as heavy going home as when I came. 
 
 But, oh, that little room in the cottage ! We could 
 not bear to go in ; we could not bear to stay away. 
 Little Douglas had peeped in, and gone away whis 
 pering, " I must step softly ; Debby won't like it if I 
 wake her baby." 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Darling, who was very 
 feeble, came toiling up the hill to the cottage. She 
 brought with her a little cream jug, shaded from pur 
 ple to gold with a gilded band of roughened china 
 round it, and purple flowers about the base, a very 
 pretty old-fashioned thing. She said she had heard 
 that I was fond of old-fashioned china, and so she had 
 brought me this ; it had belonged to her grandmother. 
 Then she took from her bag a daguerreotype and 
 showed me the picture of the little daughter of whom 
 Debby had told me, a sweet-faced child. She told 
 me that she used to dress her for church in a light 
 blue merino and a little lace cape with the " pattern 
 run in," and blue ribbons on her hat. She told me 
 what the neighbors had said about her, the little 
 Elizabeth, of how she would sit by her in the Sum 
 mer afternoons and sew on her " patch," and how
 
 Inside our Gate. 173 
 
 sweet her voice was for singing. No one could guess 
 what a comfort it was to me to listen to her. 
 
 It seemed to me that I belonged with her to a band 
 whose hearts were bound together by a secret which 
 could not be known till this sorrow had been tasted ; 
 and people who knew it not seemed to offer words 
 without meaning when they tried to comfort me. If 
 a stranger said to me, " I 've known it," it was like 
 balm to my wound. 
 
 That same day we sat in the little parlor, Allan and 
 I, with idle hands. It seemed to me, after the haste, 
 the sleepless days and nights, that the very world had 
 ceased to move. Over and over rang these little lines 
 through my head, 
 
 " Only the dear God knows how hearts 
 Beat on, the while they break." 
 
 Captain Darling came in at the open door. He 
 was a town officer and had come to ask the baby's 
 name and age. It was comforting to have a kind and 
 sympathizing neighbor come on this errand. " My 
 wife told me she 'd been here to-day," he said. " She 
 told you that we 'd been through with all this trouble. 
 Since you Ve been here, wife and I have talked over 
 our loss a good deal, and it seems very fresh and 
 near to us, though it was thirty year ago, come 3d of
 
 174 Inside our Gate. 
 
 next October." His honest, kindly eyes were full of 
 tears. He shook my hand, still held it, and shook it 
 again. Then he took Allan's hand. 
 
 Allan asked him about the tomb. Surely, surely, 
 he said, we could lay the baby in the " new tomb." 
 He 'd attend to all that ; and if after a while, we 
 wanted a little grave, if we 'd just write to him he 'd 
 do it all himself, near his own plot; and he added, 
 " I used to tend the baby a good deal," as if to prove 
 to us that it would be lovingly done. 
 
 " Nobody can help you bear it," he said, turning to 
 go, and yet loath to leave us. " I would help you if 
 I could. It seems almost as if the Lord did n't help, 
 but He does ; if He did n't, and you did n't know 
 you 'd see the child again, you 'd feel the difference."
 
 VIII. 
 
 ONE morning Douglas and I started off together, 
 as we had done so often, for the intelligence 
 office. It turned out a day of good luck for us. 
 On this day our star was propitious, and I engaged 
 the very first nurse I spoke to. Her references were 
 excellent, and she really was attractive, fresh, rosy, 
 and buxom. I felt that she was to prove a comfort 
 to me. Having settled the hour of her coming, and 
 having selected a train for her and marked the 
 time-table, which looked with its rows of figures like 
 a multiplication-table, Douglas and I set out for a 
 little merry-making, a mild one, to be sure, but any 
 thing assumes an air of festivity which frees one from 
 an intelligence office. 
 
 First, we went to a bird-store in a distant side 
 street, a place that we had discovered by chance one 
 day, a bird-store where guinea-pigs were also to be 
 found, and doves and a cage of monkeys. There was 
 a peacock there too, boxed in a cage of slats between 
 which he thrust his neck of exquisite blue, or was
 
 176 Inside our Gate, 
 
 it green, or was it gold? Something was wanting 
 about that peacock : it must have been a big vase 
 and a balustrade, such as always accompany peacocks 
 in pictures. But we really went to see the monkeys. 
 There was a bold, bad old monkey in a cage in the 
 window. He stared at the people that crowded about 
 the window, turning his head and gazing critically, 
 as if they were monkeys and he were the spectator. 
 There were also two little monkeys, new arrivals, 
 timid, gentle little creatures, that sat in the corner 
 farthest from the window, with their backs toward the 
 crowd and with their arms about each other. 
 
 We went into the store. We had been there before 
 to call on the monkeys and birds, and the store-keeper 
 was glad to see us. When he saw the red apple 
 Douglas had brought, he took out a big jack-knife and 
 cut it in quarters for the monkey. As I reached the 
 cage with a piece of apple in my fingers, it slipped to 
 the floor. As I stooped to get it, I was struck, as it 
 seemed, by a blizzard. My veil was torn off, my bon 
 net dragged to one side, my hair pulled over my fore 
 head with a jerk that brought the tears to my eyes. 
 
 The man rushed to my rescue, and delivered me 
 from the long hairy arm of the bad old monkey, who 
 retired, chattering, to the end of the cage. There was 
 a shout of derisive glee from the boys outside. The
 
 Inside our Gate. 177 
 
 man kindly straightened my bonnet, according to a 
 man's light, for there was no looking-glass there ; 
 and after we had made believe that we wanted to look 
 at bird-seed and white mice for ten minutes, till a 
 fresh relay of boys had appeared outside, we went 
 out hastily, and looking no man in the face hurried 
 to the block below, where there was a little circulating 
 library and shop of old books kept by a woman. This 
 woman owned a looking-glass, and aided by it I made 
 myself fairly presentable. It took some time, and she 
 had to bring me a little tomato pin-cushion, with 
 needles and a spool of silk, that I might securely sew 
 on again the knot of velvet that the monkey had nearly 
 pulled from my bonnet. 
 
 As I sat and sewed, I felt as if I must have been 
 invited to spend the day and bring my work with me ; 
 and I became, so to speak, rather intimate with the 
 " circulating librarian," as she called herself. Among 
 other things we discussed primers ; I wanted one for 
 Elinor, and there were several kinds in the store. 
 One of them contained such exercises as these, 
 
 " B-e-1-l-e, a fine young lady. 
 " B-e-1-1, a sounding vessel," 
 
 and the following lines, which were surely concocted 
 by Dr. Johnson,
 
 178 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " T-o-l-l, a sum exacted by law for passage on a pri 
 vate way. 
 
 " T-o-l-l, the repeated reverberation of a bell." 
 
 The little shop was narrow and low, and the walls 
 were covered with books. I picked up " The 
 Mother's Recompense " and " Home Influence " 
 how old they made me feel ! and then the " Lamp 
 lighter." 
 
 "Do you have any call for these books?" said I. 
 " I should think the new cheap novels would entirely 
 take the place of them." 
 
 " Oh, these are not to sell ; they belong to our circu 
 lating library," said the woman. " They Ve just come 
 in and have n't been covered yet, but they "11 take. 
 Anything about ' mother ' or ' home ' is sure to take." 
 
 " Or about heaven? " I suggested. 
 
 " No, oh, no," said she ; " sermons don't take at all 
 in circulating libraries." 
 
 These titles had revived old memories. " Do T. S. 
 Arthur's books sell? Do you keep them? Do you 
 have ' Maiden, Wife, and Mother ? '" I asked at a 
 venture. 
 
 " Oh, yes, we always keep them, and they circulate 
 well." 
 
 "And Rev. E. P. Roe," I asked, "his books, I 
 suppose, are always out?"
 
 Inside our Gate. 179 
 
 " Always," she said. " One is hardly returned be 
 fore it is out again. For deep books," she went on, 
 " for deep books and for old valuable books, my 
 husband has a fine trade. Learned gentlemen come 
 here when they are writing on great subjects, and want 
 to hunt up old books. My husband can always put 
 them on the track of them." 
 
 She brought a curious edition of Bunyan to show 
 me, poems, so called, and fugitive pieces, illustrated 
 with fine freedom, a freedom which released the 
 artist altogether from the restraints of truth and fact. 
 A boy chased a butterfly bigger than his head, wav 
 ing a hat that would have fitted the butterfly ; and 
 " the fowler that set the snare " captured a perfect 
 megatherium. 
 
 A large window at the end of the store looked out 
 into a paved yard in which stood one fine tree. There 
 was a little space between the houses at the rear, so 
 that there was a patch of blue sky to be seen be 
 yond the tree-branches. The tree was just coming 
 into leaf. 
 
 " Beautiful, is n't it ? " said the woman, looking to 
 ward the window. " I often," she continued, " hold a 
 book up just under my eyes to shut off the brick walls 
 and the tree-trunk, and with those budding branches 
 against the sky I can quite imagine myself out in
 
 180 Inside our Gate. 
 
 the country. It must be getting beautiful there now. 
 Have you seen it this Spring?" 
 
 " I live in the country," I said. 
 
 " Oh, what a pleasure ! My husband and I hope 
 to own a little place in the country sometime ; and are 
 the apple-trees in blossom ? " 
 
 A little old woman in a brown Mother Hubbard, 
 with a black-lace cap with purple ribbons, she was 
 the husband's mother, was sitting by the window. 
 She broke in here to say that when she was a young 
 girl in England, she used to think the first primrose 
 was worth a fortune. Her father was a haberdasher 
 in London, and they seldom went out into the coun 
 try, so that the primroses really made Summer for 
 them. 
 
 " They carried them about London streets to sell," 
 she said, " in great baskets on their backs ; and I sup 
 pose they do still. And, oh, it was a fine sight in May 
 to see the blooming plants hawked about the streets, 
 and every window-sill, from cellar to attic, from the 
 little houses near the mews to the grand folk's homes 
 in the squares, all with window-boxes glowing with 
 flowers ! But I 've never been back to see it." 
 
 " It is all there is to see still," I said. " Only a 
 few years ago I was in London in the Spring, and 
 the window-boxes were full of geranium, and Covent
 
 Inside our Gate. 181 
 
 Garden Market was like Summer itself with armfuls of 
 wall-flower and roses ; and the men went about selling 
 the potted plants in hand- carts, and calling, 
 
 " ' Flowers a-growin' ! Flowers a-bloin' ! ' " 
 
 "And the little girls cryin' early in the mornin', 
 ' Water cresses ! Water cresses ! ' in a sort of tune ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Yes, just the same." 
 
 "Ay," she said, "all goes on the same; but the 
 ones who made England dear to me have all gone to 
 a better country. Oh, when I was married and came 
 here, I used to be longin' and longin' to get back to 
 England ! But now they are all gone ; it is n't Eng 
 land at all that I long for now, but for that land. 
 Catharine here," she continued, " and my son, they 
 are always hopin' that the next Spring they '11 have a 
 home in the country, for they are young [Catharine 
 was every day of sixty], but I shall soon see the leaves 
 of the Tree of Life. I 'm eighty-five years old. But 
 't is a pleasant thought ; 't is a pleasant thought ! It 
 cheers me to sit and think of it." 
 
 Douglas, who had been listening attentively to the 
 old woman, gathering the idea that she was anxious 
 to get to some pleasant country place she had in 
 mind, stepped up to her and said. 
 
 " Why, you ought to come and live at our house ;
 
 1 82 Inside our Gate. 
 
 we have plenty of trees and flowers, and there are lots 
 of people in our town." 
 
 " Bless your little heart ! " said the old woman, 
 " bless your little heart ! I thank you, but soon I am 
 goin' to a pleasanter town and pleasanter house than 
 yours, fine as they may be. Don't ye know where 
 people go when they get through with this world ? " 
 
 "Oh, did you mean that you are going to heaven?" 
 said Douglas, his face lighting up with a pleasant sur 
 prise. " I know all about heaven. My brother lives 
 there, and lots of my friends, and my grandmother 
 too. You '11 like her. They '11 look out for you. 
 My brother will be good to you ; you must tell him 
 about me. Are you going soon ? " 
 
 "God willin'," said the old woman. 
 
 I could n't bear to go away, but we had to. We 
 parted like old friends, and when we were walking to 
 the house where I was to verify one of my new nurse's 
 references we planned about sending a big box of 
 apple-blossoms to surprise our new acquaintances. 
 
 " And would n't it be nice to put that bird's nest in 
 the box with the blossoms ? " said Douglas ; " and 
 you could write a note to say that we didn't steal 
 it from a bird, but just found it on the path after a 
 high wind. She was a nice old lady," continued he, 
 after a pause, " I think they '11 like her up in heaven."
 
 Inside our Gate. 183 
 
 I like to see the inside of houses. Rooms are al 
 most like people; they are like people's biographies, 
 surely. They tell of the taste of the owner, be they 
 ever so poor. 
 
 We went up the steps of an old-fashioned house 
 on a corner. It was surrounded by shabby boarding- 
 houses, and the busy streets of shops were only round 
 the corner; but it had a respectable air that shamed 
 the neighborhood. A middle-aged servant opened the 
 door and put us into the parlor, where we sat in silence 
 and looked about us. The room had very high ceil 
 ings, yellow walls, and a great deal of stucco orna 
 ment like wedding-cake trimming about the cornices. 
 There were tall shaded marble vases on the mantel, 
 and a worsted-work Eli and Samuel over it. After 
 the omnipresent peacock plush and red plush and old- 
 gold plush and ebony and cherry, it was not only a 
 relief to see mahogany-and-haircloth furniture, but it 
 was positively a pleasure to my eye. Douglas, to be 
 sure, slipped off his seat every time he moved, but he 
 liked that. The old piano had square legs. There 
 were indifferent portraits in oil on the wall, and the 
 usual pale lifeless water-color flowers of school-days 
 long gone by. Under the pier-table was a sanded 
 board with a weeping willow on it, all made of crimped 
 green tissue-paper. And it was a wonder how that lit-
 
 184 Inside our Gate. 
 
 tie gilt milking-stool had forced its way into this parlor, 
 a little milking-stool with apple-blossoms painted on 
 it, and its legs tied up with a bow of ribbons, orange 
 and green. Poor little milking-stool, without its cow 
 and its maid and its grassy field ! How lonely it must 
 have felt in a parlor ! On the door hung a banner 
 of purple velvet trimmed with gold fringe, and on 
 the banner these consoling words, " Ever Faithful." 
 Whether the banner was faithful to the door, or 
 faithful to the family, it did not say ; but so long as 
 it was faithful to its own ideal, whatever its ideal 
 might be, it is enough. 
 
 Behind the sofa, with its claw-feet, I saw two little 
 portraits in water-color, about the size of miniatures. 
 They were framed in deep unburntshed gilt frames. 
 They were charming, so lifelike and attractive. One 
 was of an old man sitting in his shirt-sleeves working 
 away with a chisel on a wooden eagle he was carv 
 ing. His sleeves were a pale pink, and his vest a 
 gray-blue ; and he worked away for dear life on his 
 eagle, and his spectacles were set back on his fore 
 head. He was so absorbed in his work that you 'd 
 have had to shake him before he would hear you call 
 him to dinner. 
 
 The old woman in the other frame sat calmly 
 knitting with her eyes on her work. She had a
 
 Inside our Gate. 185 
 
 close thin muslin cap on her head through which 
 her hair showed, and the strings were thrown over 
 her shoulders as if she were warm. She had a gray 
 gown on and a white kerchief round her neck, and 
 she looked as alive and real as many a live old lady 
 I have seen, sitting and knitting and thinking in the 
 leisure hour before tea. 
 
 We heard steps approaching, and I settled myself 
 properly on the haircloth sofa. An old lady and 
 another lady, whom I knew to be a maiden daughter, 
 came in. They had pleasant manners and made ex 
 cuses for delaying me. The mother was old, and knew 
 it, and was content. But " Miss Matilda," with her big 
 front piece of frizzes, and her large panier and super 
 abundance of false teeth, was making a determined 
 clutch at departing youth ; and she it must have been 
 that imported the milking-stool and the banner into 
 this ancient parlor. Poor Miss Matilda ! " I insist on 
 belonging to this day and generation," she seemed to 
 say by her youthful manner. 
 
 I asked about my new nurse, who had lived with 
 Mrs. Frothingham's married daughter, and my im 
 pressions were confirmed. Mary Shannon was a treas 
 ure. Then I told them how charming I thought the 
 portraits. 
 
 The elder lady was pleased; but she evidently
 
 1 86 Inside our Gate. 
 
 thought little of my taste in preferring the little 
 water-colors to the big oil portraits. I don't know 
 why oil pictures are treated by so many people with 
 a respect which is not granted by them to water- 
 colors. Oil and water are both cheap enough, for that 
 matter. 
 
 Mrs. Frothingham kept the little portraits, she said, 
 because her cousin, Mr. Frederic Bowers, who was an 
 artist, painted them of her aunt and uncle, " just as he 
 caught them one day," I knew that well. He had 
 painted a picture of that same sort of her brother in 
 his youth, and she sent Miss Matilda to fetch it from 
 her chamber. 
 
 " This was my brother," she said. He was a sweet, 
 bright-faced young fellow in a jacket with a blue rib 
 bon at his throat and a turn-over white collar. 
 
 " My brother John," she said ; " he became a clergy 
 man, Rev. John Hubert" 
 
 My eyes flew wide open. 
 
 " Not the old minister that lived so long in our 
 town? Miss Lois wasn't your sister, was she?" I 
 cried. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " said the old lady, delighted. " Did you 
 know her ? Did you know Brother John ? " 
 
 I had been so pleased to hear of her friends that 
 it was something of a come-down to say that my
 
 Inside our Gate. 187 
 
 acquaintance with them had only begun after their de 
 cease. But she was pleased to hear of the oleander- 
 tree, and of the kind things I had heard of her brother 
 and sister in our town. Poor old lady, she seemed as 
 pleased as if I had brought a message to her from 
 the spirit world ! She said I might have a copy made 
 of Brother John's picture, and any other of the por 
 traits I wished. She had no picture of Miss Lois, but 
 she had a photograph of her. I was afraid to look at 
 it. I was glad Miss Matilda could n't find it. The 
 old lady was going to make Miss Matilda go into the 
 attic and look in the trunks for it, but I said I must 
 hasten to my train ; and I parted with them as with 
 new-found relatives. 
 
 The city horse-car that carries us to our railroad 
 station is a dark-red one with black trimming. That 
 day we underwent the usual experience of country 
 people, who, with just time to catch the train, see car 
 after car appear and disappear, all but the right one. 
 We saw the green car, and the yellow, and the dark- 
 green with orange trimming, and the light-yellow with 
 brown trimming, roll by. At last the red car did 
 come. 
 
 I often pity the drivers and conductors on the 
 horse-cars on the road. They have to eat their meals 
 out of tin pails right under the eyes of the passengers ;
 
 1 88 Inside our Gate. 
 
 but one day I saw a pleasant sight. A young woman 
 in a fresh calico gown and big white apron brought 
 the conductor his luncheon in a basket. She met the 
 car at the foot of the hill, and got in and sat with the 
 young fellow in one corner while he ate his dinner. 
 He spread a fresh white napkin in his lap and ate 
 with a plated fork. They talked and laughed in an 
 undertone, and made a little home in the corner. 
 The car seemed to me, the only occupant, to be their 
 dining-room, and the long narrow advertisements of 
 Sapolio and shoes, and the warnings to passengers, 
 to melt into mottoes of " Welcome " and " God bless 
 our Home ; " and I felt as if I were an ill-bred person 
 who had intruded on a private family. 
 
 When we reached home, Scott came over the fence 
 like a bird on the wing. Far down the street he 
 had taken us for enemies, for spies, for sons of Belial, 
 and barked at us with his legs apart ; but a wave of 
 Douglas's hand and a yodle, and he came dashing 
 toward us, wild with joy. And so we went on, protest 
 ing against his embraces and kisses, and taking up his 
 mind by throwing sticks for him to chase. 
 
 That very same evening, as we were just through 
 tea, there were wafted in the sounds of music. It 
 was "ground out" music, to be sure, but it was all 
 the same to the children. Elinor got down from her
 
 Inside our Gate. 189 
 
 chair after a struggle, and ran to the window, looked 
 out, and then turned to me with a radiant face. 
 
 " Mother, it is my old organ-grinder man, my 
 dear old friend," she said; "and he has a monkey, a 
 live, winking monkey." 
 
 " I dare say, Mary," said Allan, " it has got round 
 that you have a monkey mania. How many monkeys 
 does this make to-day?" 
 
 Douglas was at the window ; Allan went too, and 
 the table was deserted. The monkey climbed to the 
 piazza and jumped upon the rocking-horse, old "Rough 
 and Ready," choosing to sit facing the horse's tail. 
 He wore red breeches, a little cutaway coat, and a 
 bonnet with feathers, a real Mrs. Boffin bonnet. 
 Elinor wanted at once to know if he was a lady or 
 gentleman monkey. We had to take the children out 
 to feed the monkey. He accepted a cracker and ate 
 it contentedly till a tea-cake was handed him, when 
 he laid the cracker on the path. He climbed the 
 trees, he churned with a toy churn, he swept the gravel 
 with a tiny broom, he fiddled on a little fiddle, but all 
 with such a solemn air, as if he saw no fun in the 
 thing himself, but was willing to amuse us for a 
 consideration. 
 
 Elinor slipped into the house and helped herself from 
 the cake-basket. She gave her " dear old friend " a
 
 i go Inside our Gate. 
 
 handful of cake, which he stopped to take right in the 
 middle of " The Sweet By-and-By," making the pres 
 ent a long-drawn groan. 
 
 Elinor wanted the monkey to perform his tricks over 
 again, but the man shook his head. " Too tire, 
 monkey work all day, monkey too tire." The poor 
 little monkey did look tired. He sat on the grass and 
 leaned against a tree-trunk. Scott, who had not been 
 thought of, came running from behind the house ; 
 but he stopped with his legs outspread, and peered 
 round the corner like one inspecting a suspicious 
 character. He barked short, frightened barks. Allan 
 invited him to join us, but he dashed upon the piazza, 
 with his tail between his legs, and disappeared in the 
 house. We found him afterward under the nursery 
 bed, trembling with terror. I suppose it was a shock 
 to his nervous system to see that little black old man, 
 as he supposed, covered with fur and adorned with a 
 long tail. In a minute the little monkey sprang upon 
 the organ, then upon the shoulder of the Italian, com 
 fortably settled his head, put both arms round the old 
 man's neck, and looked at us, blinking his white eyes 
 under his bonnet. 
 
 The old man laughed. " Too tire," he said, and 
 patted his little partner. Elinor wished to walk up 
 the road a little way to " welcome them off; " but we
 
 Inside our Gate. 191 
 
 persuaded her to stand on the gate-post and wave a 
 farewell. " Come to-morrow," she called ; and the 
 old man nodded and waved his hand as well as he 
 could with his monkey round his neck and the organ 
 on his back. 
 
 Douglas watched him up the road. " He looks like 
 Pilgrim's Progress with the burden of sin on his back," 
 he said.
 
 IX. 
 
 TIBBIE had a cousin, "Tammas," the father of 
 Rob, whom Tibbie had with her when we first 
 met her. We had a great respect for Tammas from 
 all we heard of him from Tibbie. We had never seen 
 him, for he was a sailor and seldom at home. And 
 then there was another cousin who was a " rigger ; " 
 he had formerly been a sailor too, he went to sea 
 first when he was nine years old, and had a medal from 
 the Marquis of Lome for saving a life. In Tibbie's 
 album we met these and many other worthies face to 
 face. "Me only brither Sandy," and " me only sister 
 Winifred, wha lives in Toronto wi' me faither's sister," 
 and " Mrs. Clark " and all the other goodly company 
 were there. 
 
 There came a sunny Sunday in May, when the 
 trees, white with blossoms, stood like tents on the 
 green grass, and the long rows of maples were in 
 leaf, and the unopened leaves of grape-vines were 
 pink like rosebuds, and the bare branches of the 
 locusts tried in vain to persuade us that Winter
 
 Inside our Gate. 193 
 
 lingered, in vain, since a Summer sky blessed the 
 day, and the bluebirds had dared the sparrows. 
 To crown this sweet day with glory, just before din 
 ner, as Douglas was sitting on the kitchen steps, up 
 the walk, in at the gate, along the path to the well, 
 came Sandy. 
 
 Douglas divined who it was at once. Overjoyed, 
 he rushed into the kitchen, crying, " Tibbie, Sandy 's 
 come." 
 
 Tibbie ran to the door, and cried, " Saw ye Johnny 
 comin' ? " 
 
 "Ay, but wi'oot his white cockade or his doggie 
 rinnin'," replied Sandy, laughing. Sure enough, it 
 was Sandy in the flesh. 
 
 When he was seated in the kitchen, Douglas stood 
 before him, gazing in unfeigned admiration. Here 
 was the hero at last, with light hair, sunburnt face, 
 and bright blue eyes like Tibbie's, and with the 
 very anchor on his right hand that Tibbie had de 
 scribed, and the thistle, and cross and crown on his 
 wrist, and on the other hand lots of little pictures, 
 oars crossed, and a flag. And though Douglas could 
 not see through the coat-sleeve, he knew that on his 
 right arm was printed, " Alexander David Drummond, 
 Glasgow, Scotland ; " and he knew that all across his 
 breast was drawn in blue a big ship under full sail, 
 13
 
 194 Inside our Gate. 
 
 "The Caledonia." Ah, that Douglas could see, he al 
 most believed, right through the coat and shirt. This 
 was surely a brother worth owning, one who could 
 pour out tales of adventure, and was himself a real 
 picture-book besides. He was rich too, in Douglas's 
 eyes ; for Tibbie had boasted of his wonderful wages as 
 a first-class rigger and ship-carpenter, as well as sailor. 
 
 "And this laddie," said Tibbie, introducing Doug 
 las, " is a Scottish American, like what ye are yourseF, 
 Sandy. Do ye mind the day ye begged me mither for 
 a pair of bittes [boots], an' she sayed ' Ye maun bide 
 a wee till after the queen's taxes is paid ' ? An ye 
 flung yoursel' on the floor a-cryin' oot, 'What's the 
 queen's taxes?' an' she sayed tae yer, 'The money 
 we has to give to support the queen ; ' an' ye shrieked 
 oot, ' The beggar ! An' hae I to gae wi'oot me bittes 
 tae support the queen ? I '11 none o' her ! ' ' 
 
 Sandy " minded " it. 
 
 Then Douglas had to ask Sandy if he had the famous 
 medal about him, but Sandy said that was " behind " 
 in Scotland. 
 
 " Oh," said little Douglas, " I thought you wore it 
 round your neck on a string ; " adding immediately, 
 " Were you ever wrecked on a desert island ? " 
 
 " No, but I Ve been wrecked." 
 
 Just then Tibbie announced that dinner was ready,
 
 Inside our Gate. 195 
 
 and Douglas went reluctantly to the dining-room. 
 Soon after dinner Sandy had to go back to the city. 
 It was a blow to Douglas ; but he followed the hero to 
 the big gate, climbed on the gate-post and watched 
 him till he turned the corner to the station. 
 
 But this was only one hero, the leader of a pro 
 cession of heroes, and Sunday was the best day to ex 
 pect them. Douglas would run home before us from 
 church, and rush to the kitchen crying, " Tibbie, did 
 any come? " 
 
 Behold, one Sunday, there was Johnny McPhail, 
 steward on the Thistle Line. Douglas was very proud 
 to be of the same blood as these distinguished guests 
 of Tibbie's. If Tibbie forgot to mention the fact, he 
 announced it himself, " I 'm most half Scotch." 
 
 " Indeed," says Johnny McPhail, " ye look all 
 Scotch; an' can ye say 'Good-night' in Scotch?" 
 
 " Guid-nicht," says Douglas. 
 
 " I '11 accept ye for me countryman now," says 
 Johnny. 
 
 " But I '11 have to vote in America," says Douglas, 
 " because I was born here, and the American flag is 
 my own flag." 
 
 " I '11 allow ye to do that too," says Johnny, " for 
 I 'm a good bit of an American myseF, for I 'm goin' 
 to marry an American girl."
 
 196 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Then Douglas took a chair near Johnny to hear Tib 
 bie tell, amid bursts of laughter, how she had taken 
 Willy Todd, " Wully Toad," she called him, " for 
 to show him the city." 
 
 " The innocent ! " she cried, " all gotten up in his 
 hame claes." She had taken him, she said, in the ele 
 vated cars, where he sat for a while quite unconscious 
 that he was creating a sensation " in his tartan breeks 
 and vest and a big bonnet wi' a cock's plume on his 
 heid, an' a silver thistle on a big Cairngorm stone in his 
 cravat, and a big club o' a staff. But at last says he, 
 'Tibbie', says he, 'what ails ye, lass, that the folk are a- 
 speerin' at ye ? ' Says I, burstin' oot laughin', seein' 
 the eyes o' all glistenin' aboot me, says I, 'Wully, 
 ye daft laddie, they 're a-speerin' at ye. Dinna ye see 
 ye 're a show ? ' An' never could Bell McKenzie 
 nor me get him oot agin, till he war all rigged out 
 anew." 
 
 Johnny McPhail laughed. " The last time I saw 
 Wully," said he, " was in Glasgow, where he was 
 a-stayin' wi' the Maxwells a week or twa before sailin', 
 and Tarn Maxwell was jeerin' at him for always a- 
 sayin' tae everything, ' Dae it as unto the Lord ; ' 
 an' he was that afeared o' the City o' Sin, as he 
 cal'd Glasgow, that he always went aboot wi' his 
 Bible in his hand. ' Will ye gae tae the theatre ? '
 
 Inside our Gate. 197 
 
 Tarn asket him one night. Says he quite simple 
 like, 'Can I dae it as unto the Lord?'" 
 
 But Tibbie would n't laugh now. " There is a 
 queerness," said she, shaking her head, " that we a' 
 should follow after, instead o' laughin' at them that 
 has it." 
 
 Here Douglas, who felt that a blight had fallen upon 
 the merry talk, asked " Mister McPhail " if he could 
 dance a Highland fling; and that caused Johnny to 
 describe the Caledonian games, and then he promised 
 to come out some time and bring a pair of stilts for 
 Douglas. Then, alas, Johnny McPhail had to go away 
 too ! 
 
 One Sunday afternoon Douglas was sitting in the 
 study with me, and on his feet were fastened his new 
 skates, which, although it was now Summer, had just 
 been given him, at his special request, for a birthday 
 present. We were conversing on two subjects, he 
 on one and I on the other. 
 
 "This is the road the conquerors took when they 
 came into Babylon, Douglas," said I, pointing to a 
 crooked red line on the map spread before us. 
 
 " Can you tell the new engine by its whistle, 
 mother?" said he. 
 
 " No, my dear ; and here is the " 
 
 " Why, mother ! can't you ? It is just as easy \ it
 
 198 Inside our Gate. 
 
 gives three little toots and then a whistle. Did n't you 
 know which engines went by the church, this morning, 
 the Tilly West and the North End?" 
 
 " Well, we '11 talk about the engines by and by. I 
 am going to tell you now about the wonderful hanging 
 gardens of Babylon. Right in there " 
 
 " The name of the new engine is the Raven's 
 Head," said Douglas. " You 've noticed how much 
 larger it is than the North End, haven't you?" 
 
 " I did n't know they had a new engine," I said. 
 " Now, right here " 
 
 " Why, it was put on last Thursday ! You went in 
 with it ! What engine did you think you went in 
 with?" 
 
 " I did n't know. I don't know any of the engines 
 by the whistles," I had to admit. " Now, these gardens 
 were one of the Seven " 
 
 " Why, you ought to learn them," said Douglas. 
 
 " Douglas," said I, " I want you to look at this map 
 and pay attention. Do you see this line ? " 
 
 " Yes, mamma." 
 
 " Well, that is where the conquerors came " 
 
 " I learned them all in one day," said Douglas ; 
 " so could you if you tried. Every time one whistled 
 at the station, I ran to the corner to see its name, 
 and"
 
 Inside our Gate. 199 
 
 Suddenly a change came upon Douglas's face, as he 
 looked out at the open window. 
 
 " A whole lot of Tibbie's Scotchmen ! " 
 
 Sure enough ! five brawny Scotchmen were coming 
 in at the gate. Tibbie too had spied them as they 
 turned to the kitchen piazza. 
 
 " Tarn, is it ye ? " 
 
 " It 's me, Tibbie, lass ; hoo are ye ? " 
 
 " Where 's me marmalade ? " 
 
 " I 'm not frae Scotland at a'. I 'm just frae 
 Injy." 
 
 " Why didna ye fetch Bell Mackim along ? " 
 
 Then their voices were lost in the kitchen. 
 
 Presently Tibbie appeared at my door all radiant. 
 " Mrs. Burroughs," she cried, " sax great Scotchmen 
 frae Injy, and what '11 I dae wi' 'em? Not one soul 
 o' 'em hae I seen for four years ! " 
 
 " Ask them to take tea with you if you wish to," 
 said I, " if you 've got enough for a bite about." 
 
 " Oh, let me take tea with them too," cried 
 Douglas. " Tibbie, can't I ? I 'm more 'n half Scotch, 
 and my name 's Scotch, and I know about Burns, 
 Tibbie." 
 
 "Of course ye can, if your mither '11 lat ye," said 
 Tibbie. 
 
 " You 'd better let Tibbie have her company to her
 
 2OO Inside our Gate. 
 
 self at tea," said I ; " but you and Elinor may see 
 them while she is getting tea for us." 
 
 " And take Scott too," cried Douglas. " I guess 
 they '11 think we are all right if we have a Scotch 
 dog." 
 
 At the eager sound of Douglas's voice Elinor had 
 run in from the nursery. She finally took in the situa 
 tion. " Oh, put on my plaid dress to please Tibbie's 
 Scotchmen," she cried ; " and I '11 go down and say 
 'guid-by' to them." 
 
 " You must n't say that. You must say ' Guid-day ' 
 to them," said Douglas, in a superior way. 
 
 Tibbie was well pleased that her guests were so 
 satisfactory. " I '11 just boil a pot o' potatoes and boil 
 eggs and beat up a bowl of pease-brose and mak' a 
 cup o' coffee," said she, beaming, " an' many thanks, 
 Mistress Burroughs." 
 
 Elinor's plaid dress was now on. Scott was on the 
 alert to see his countrymen, and the children followed 
 Tibbie downstairs. 
 
 " Ho ! " cried a man's voice as the procession en 
 tered the kitchen, " here are twa laddies an' a collie- 
 dug." 
 
 " I 'm not a laddie," said Elinor ; " I 'm a lassie. 
 Tibbie says I 'm a Lowland lass because I eat pease- 
 brose for my breakfast."
 
 Inside our Gate. 201 
 
 " An' sae ye are," replied Tibbie ; " an' noo stan' up 
 an' say ' Wully Wunkie ' for 'em." 
 
 Tibbie was still excited when evening came and the 
 party of friends had departed. "Oh, Mistress Bur 
 roughs," said she, " when we sat to the table not one 
 o' 'em wad say grace, sae I just repeated Burns's 
 blessin' a-standin', while a' o' them held up their right 
 han's. Ye ken the blessin' ? 
 
 " ' Some hae meat an' canna eat ; 
 
 An' some wad eat that want it. 
 But we hae meat an' we can eat, 
 An' sae the Lord be thankit.' 
 
 An' there was one o' the men I wish ye had seen, 
 Hugh McGrigor " Herein her excitement Tibbie 
 fell into " Glasky " full and free. " His mither was 
 neebor tae my mither ; an' we an' the McGrigors ran 
 thegither whiles we was children. She was a widow 
 woman, an' had reared four sons, an' a' was married 
 an' set up for themselves but Hugh, an' he stuck tae 
 his mither and give her his pay every Saturday nicht. 
 She went mendin', an' often she gaed out wi' her 
 griddle a-cookin' cakies. Oh, oft tae our hoose I 've 
 heard her tell o' Hughie's guidness tae her, never 
 bringin' a bit o' a lass to be set over her heid ; an' 
 she 'd allays end up wi', ' Hughie's mither '11 be his 
 fortin' yet.'
 
 2O2 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " Well, twa years ago Mistress McGrigor cam' hur- 
 ryin' to Mistress Calders wi' a lawyer's letter. It was 
 to tell the wull of her old cousin Peter Frazer, who had 
 gone to Melbourne when he was just a bit laddie, an' 
 had never been back to Scotland, though he were 
 always a-comin'. Well, he had died at ninety-two 
 year old, leavin' a fortin' o' one thousand pound to 
 Mistress McGrigor. But," said Tibbie, " the strangest 
 part o' the wull was this. Says it, ' She maun build a 
 cot wi' part o' the money by our auld home by the 
 river Clyde whar the salmon rise.' Noo," said Tibbie, 
 with wide-open eyes, and speaking slowly, " never, 
 wi'in memory o' the auldest body we knew, had the 
 salmon rose in the river Clyde. There war no cots 
 then, but just wharfs and quays and ships and blocks 
 o' houses thick, and the water was that filthy and full 
 o' pisen that if a man droppet in the Clyde by acci 
 dent an' got a mouthful o' 't it was his sure death. 
 
 "Poor auld body," continued Tibbie, shaking her 
 head, "an 1 he a-thinkin' for seventy long year may 
 hap o' the home cot by the river Clyde whar the sal 
 mon rise, an' it all wipet oot clean off the face o' the 
 earth. The Lord deliver us frae buildin* oor eternal 
 hopes on a like false foundation ! "
 
 X. 
 
 "\T 7ITH Mary Shannon came Irish songs and 
 * " stories. For a little time Tibbie's Scotch 
 tales were not called for. There was Mary's visit to 
 her old aunts, Aunt Bridget and Aunt Mitty, who lived 
 in a little stone farm-house all whitewashed like snow, 
 and made lovely by vines of pink roses which ran over 
 the thatched roof and just peeped into the bedroom 
 window, " a-noddin' to ye in the mornin', them roses." 
 And this was only the starting-point for the story of an 
 old donkey that went every morning " to the gentle 
 man's place," dragging a little cart loaded with milk- 
 cans, and accompanied only by a blind dog who, if 
 the gate chanced to be shut, would bark till one of 
 the maids heard him and came to open it. Then 
 there were eggs to be found and counted, and sold at 
 the great house. " Oh, that was a fine house, Douglas 
 dear," said Mary, proudly, "with a winder in it for 
 every day in the year ! " 
 
 Then there was the sea-wall where Mary used to 
 sit and watch the "white birds flittin' and the sun
 
 204 Inside our Gate. 
 
 dancin' on the waves," while she knit long gray-wool 
 stockings. And the wonderful taste of the potatoes 
 that Aunt Mitty roasted in the ashes on the hearth ! 
 " Oh, that was a taste like none other, Douglas dear ! " 
 And there was a fine merry little cricket in a black 
 jacket Mary told it as if this special cricket had 
 donned a black jacket to call on her and her aunts, 
 that lived somewhere in a crack in the hearth, and 
 came out at dusk and piped for them in the firelight. 
 
 But the tale that pleased little Elinor most ("Such a 
 pitiful story," she said) was of a little lamb in Aunt 
 Mitty's flock that did not know its mother "after 
 she came up from the shearin', with her beautiful wool 
 all gone. While the shepherd was washin' the sheep 
 in the brook, the little lammie bleated on the shore 
 for its mother ; but when the poor mother wanted to 
 get to her lammie and nurse it, the bit lammie ran 
 away in fear. It went hungry all day, just bleatin' 
 and bleatin' ; but mind ye," here the children would 
 straighten up and open their eyes wide, " mind ye, 
 when the dark night came and the lammie could not 
 see the changed look of his mother, but only just 
 heard the kind voice of her, oh ! he knew her voice 
 well, and just fled to her and lay by her, cuddlin', and 
 got his sweet supper and slept all night by her in 
 peace."
 
 Inside our Gate. 205 
 
 " I 'm so glad the little lamb knew his mother at 
 last," said little Elinor. " When I go there to your 
 aunts, Mary, I shall pat that little lamb and give him 
 clover and salt. Do you think he will like me?" 
 
 Mary was sure he would, and if he had grown, as 
 perhaps he had by this time, big and rough, there 
 would be another little one like him to frisk in the 
 field with her. 
 
 Then there were new songs, new to the children : 
 " Oh, dear, what can the matter be ; " and 
 
 " On the green banks of Shannon, when Sheilah was nigh, 
 No blithe Irish lad was so happy as I ; " 
 
 and 
 
 " When Pat came o'er the hill, 
 
 He whistled loud and shrill ; " 
 and 
 
 " She milked the dun cow, 
 That ne'er offered to stir ; 
 
 Though cross 't was to others, 't was gentle to her, 
 My own little Kathleen, my Kathleen O' Moore." 
 
 Douglas made me bring from the sacred recesses 
 of the family treasury a tall silver porringer, with the 
 name of an Irish ancestor engraved upon it, Maurice 
 O'Neil, the Paul Revere spoons bearing the initials 
 of later generations of O'Neils, with the greenish-golden 
 satin vest and breeches of one of the great-grand 
 fathers, and a set of silver buckles studded with bril-
 
 206 Inside our Gate. 
 
 liants. Mary looked admiringly at the relics, and 
 Douglas said, " Mary, very likely I am a relative of 
 yours ; perhaps my great-great-grandfather has called 
 on your aunts, and seen the donkey and the blind 
 dog." 
 
 The ballad of " The Sailor Boy " made a deep im 
 pression on Douglas. He suggested learning it to re 
 peat in Sunday-school, the only appropriateness con 
 sisting evidently in its "telling about a dead sailor." 
 Here it is just as Mary used to sing it : 
 
 THE SAILOR BOY. 
 
 " EARLY, early in the Spring, 
 My love Willy went to serve the king ; 
 The raging seas and the wind blew high, 
 Which parted me and my sailor b'y. 
 
 " Father, father, make me a boat, 
 That on the ocean I may float 1 
 And every ship that will pass by, 
 I will inquire for my sailor b'y." 
 
 This lady had not gone far, 
 Until she met with a man-of-war, 
 Saying, " Captain, captain, tell me true, 
 If my love Willy 's on board of you." 
 
 "What color of clothes does your Willy wear? 
 
 And what's the color of your sailor's hair?" 
 " His hair was light and his jacket blue ; 
 
 It 's easily known that his heart was true."
 
 Inside our Gate. 207 
 
 " I fear, great lady, your Willy is gone ; 
 I fear, great lady, your sailor is drowned. 
 From yon green island as we passed by 
 We lost nine more and your sailor b'y." 
 
 She wrung her hands and tore her hair, 
 
 Like one distracted in despair, 
 
 Saying, " How can I live when my Willy 's gone ? 
 
 How can I live with my sailor drowned? " 
 
 She threw her boat against the rocks, 
 Saying, " Captain, captain, dress in black, 
 And, all you sailors, come do the same, 
 From the cabin back to the mainmast high. 
 Come mourn with me for my sailor b'y ; 
 Come mourn with me for my sailor b'y ; 
 Come mourn with me for my sailor b'y."
 
 XI. 
 
 town where Allan was born was to have a 
 -L centennial celebration, and we decided to at 
 tend it. Then came an invitation to Allan to make 
 an address on the second day of the festivities. Of 
 course I wanted to hear that, even after he had read 
 it through to me six times. I wanted to see how 
 other people would look when he read it to them. 
 
 Allan's immediate family had gone from the town 
 years before, but he still had a few distant relatives 
 there. Madam Granger was his great-aunt, and the 
 Morris family were his second cousins. 
 
 We meant to stay at the hotel and have a free, 
 pleasant time by ourselves, but when I received a note 
 from Miss Theresa Morris, who lived with Madam 
 Granger, saying that her aunt wanted to receive Allan 
 and me as her guests, we were very glad to accept 
 the invitation. She bid Miss Morris say that she was 
 very anxious to see me ; she had heard such agreeable 
 accounts of Allan's wife. This was pleasant, for the 
 poor old lady had seen me only a few years before,
 
 Inside our Gate. 209 
 
 when Allan and I were her guests for a day or two, 
 and now she had forgotten all about it ! 
 
 Madam Granger lived in a beautiful old place, with 
 a splendid park and a smooth lawn, which stretched 
 down to a lake, wide and beautiful, with one side 
 thickly wooded, while on the other side, as far as you 
 could see, were green fields dotted with lovely homes. 
 That lake was famed in history and romance, and 
 haunted by spirits brave and bold. When you called 
 them they would answer, loud and merrily as Robin 
 Hood; but they fled as they answered, for the last 
 sound was but a whispered echo. 
 
 The old lady of the mansion lived in a spacious room 
 on the first floor looking toward the lake. She con 
 stantly inhabited that room and the parlor adjoining it. 
 Old Madam Fortesque I always thought of, as she 
 sat straight up in her chair in a black silk gown, and 
 with a white lace cap with long tabs over her shoulders. 
 Though she was so old, her head was very clear, and 
 she had a soft pink lingering in her cheeks, and her 
 hair waved in little natural curls round her forehead. 
 
 I remember the first time I saw her, as she sat in 
 her Summer parlor, erect and stately to receive me, 
 in her lap a big white ostrich-feather fan ; and that 
 Miss Agatha Morris, a niece who then lived with her, 
 after we had eaten a dainty little lunch with " Madam
 
 2io Inside oiir Gate. 
 
 Aunt," as she called her, showed me over the house, 
 and I saw the beautiful old china cups from which 
 Washington and Lafayette had drunk, and the old- 
 fashioned cut glass, and the dark parlors with furni 
 ture all in linen covers. When the maid opened the 
 shutters to show me Madam Granger's portrait at 
 seventeen, it made the room look drearier than be 
 fore, this sudden stream of sunlight. It was strange 
 to look at this beauty standing life-size in all the 
 bravery of youth, with blue sky behind her and a 
 Spring landscape, and she in white, and then to cross 
 the chill, wide hall, with its dark old portraits, and see 
 the same woman old, stately (eighty-five then), sitting 
 in an easy-chair with a cane at hand, and to believe 
 that they could be the same. 
 
 In looking at such a marvellous change in this short 
 life, it does not appear so strange a thing that these 
 souls of ours shall some day possess other bodies, their 
 own, and yet celestial, for in that glorious change 
 we shall pass into the beauty of immortal youth. 
 
 Allan and I were sitting in the study together one 
 evening. " Oh, dear," said I, " I do want to go to 
 Moorlands, but I don't want to go and feel uneasy 
 about the children. I 'd rather stay at home than do 
 that. Oh, for a woman relative, a maiden aunt, an 
 unmarried sister ! "
 
 Inside our Gate. 211 
 
 "Why don't you send for May?" asked Allan. 
 " She 's coming here soon for a visit, anyway, and 
 she 'd let you off for two days, I know. She was n't 
 born in that town, and won't care to go herself." 
 
 " Oh, what a lovely thought ! " said I. " I '11 write 
 to her this minute ; and if she will come now I '11 get 
 everything planned so that the house will run itself for 
 those days. Mary is so good with the children, and 
 Tibbie will attend to everything downstairs." 
 
 I sat down to write a letter to my husband's sister 
 May, who was visiting her sister, Mrs. Weston, in 
 Northfield. She came once a year from Delaware, and 
 I knew she 'd help me out if she could. 
 
 In a few days her answer came. She would gladly 
 come, she said ; but she would have to bring her Willy 
 with her, and Gracie Weston would have to come too 
 to show her the way, for she always got bewildered in 
 New York. 
 
 This was delightful. If Gracie came, May would not 
 be lonely ; but how about the night in this big 
 country house ? My relatives might be timid, though I 
 had written that Scott was an able defender. Why 
 not write to my brother Maurice ? He 'd come out to 
 oblige me, I knew, for one night. So I wrote to him, 
 and he replied that he would come ; that he was glad 
 it was Wednesday night, for he had promised Tom
 
 212 Inside our Gate. 
 
 (another brother of mine) to stay with his family while 
 he was in St. Louis ; and that Tom was not to be home 
 till Wednesday night. 
 
 " Oh ! " I said to Allan that night, " there is noth 
 ing that cannot be arranged, if people will only take 
 hold of things in the right time and place. I hate that 
 talk of being ruled by circumstances. How beautifully 
 everything is working ! My new bonnet came home 
 too ; and it is a beauty." 
 
 That night Mary came upstairs to say that her 
 sister in the city was very ill, and they had sent for 
 her to take care of her. 
 
 " I '11 have to go," she said. " I 'm very sorry, but 
 I '11 go and get that young American girl, Miranda, 
 who is going to leave Mrs. Thompson to-morrow, 
 and I '11 stay and show her about everything to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 " Never mind, Molly, don't get down-hearted ; you 
 shall go," said Allan. " May and Grace can put the 
 children to bed and see that they are dressed, for one 
 day, and the new girl can make beds and manage for 
 two days surely." 
 
 Miranda came ; and the next morning began the 
 day when my sister-in-law was to come. On that 
 morning, at gray dawn, came Miranda to my door, 
 to say that Tibbie was very sick and could n't get
 
 Inside our Gate. 213 
 
 up. I hurried to her room. She looked white and 
 suffering. 
 
 " Why, Tibbie, what is the matter? " I cried. 
 
 "Oh, nothing," said Tibbie, "but that I've an 
 awfu' pain in my side, and a beatin' sair heid. Oh, 
 I don't know what ails me ! " 
 
 " Did you feel sick yesterday, Tibbie? " 
 
 " Well, I did i' th' afternoon." 
 
 " How do you feel sick? " 
 
 "Well, for one thing, blood has been pourin' frae 
 my mouth." 
 
 I saw that she was very sick and sent for a doc 
 tor. When he came he asked Tibbie countless 
 questions, and found out nothing as to the cause 
 of her illness, but left her something that he hoped 
 would relieve her. After he had been gone some 
 time, she sent for me to tell me that she had just 
 thought that perhaps the falling downstairs " had 
 something to do wi' it." It seemed that she had 
 fallen down the kitchen stairs the day before, during 
 my absence in the city. This was the first I had 
 heard of it. 
 
 She said that Miranda had not been two minutes in 
 the house before she knew we might as well have 
 dressed up a broomstick and stood it in the corner 
 and saved our money ; that after I was gone she tried
 
 214 Inside our Gate. 
 
 to hurry her up and she only replied, " I was never 
 born to kill myself workin'." 
 
 " An' I was that mad," said Tibbie, " that I seized 
 the chair I wanted her to carry downstairs, and a 
 lamp and a pitcher, and I flew down the back stairs 
 and just tumbled and stuck the leg o' the chair into 
 my side, an' rolled over an' bumpet my heid on the 
 iron leg o' the mangle." 
 
 "Oh, Tibbie," I cried, "of course it was the fall 
 that hurt you. Why did n't you tell the doctor about 
 it?" 
 
 " I just never thought o' it." 
 
 The doctor looked grave when I told him of Tibbie's 
 accident. He said she must lie still certainly for a 
 week. 
 
 Good-by, centennial ! 
 
 That afternoon the three guests arrived, and being 
 relatives, they soon heard of our condition and at once 
 offered to " help out." 
 
 " Why, you shall not stay at home ; can't you send 
 for a woman for the day? It 's only one night you are 
 to be gone ; and surely Miranda can manage to do the 
 rest, and Grace and I will take care of Douglas and 
 Elinor," said Auntie May. 
 
 So I began to think I might go to the " centennial " 
 after all.
 
 Inside our Gate. 215 
 
 " If Tibbie is in bed no one will remember to lock 
 the outside cellar door," said Allan. " You must tell 
 May to see to it." 
 
 " Oh, I know what I '11 do," said I. " I '11 write 
 out a paper for Miranda, to tell her just what she 
 must do about locking up at night ; and then I '11 
 
 write a list for Maurice so that he can see that she 
 
 f 
 
 does all these things. I think May has enough to 
 do without keeping blinds and cellar doors on her 
 mind." 
 
 Miranda's list was as follows : 
 
 " Lock cellar door and shake it to see that it is fast. 
 
 " Draw in the blinds. 
 
 " See that three fastenings are locked on every window. 
 
 " Lock two inside kitchen doors. 
 
 " Lock back-stairs door. 
 
 " Bolt front and back hall doors and lock with key. 
 
 " Take pitcher of water and a tumbler to each room at 
 nine o'clock. 
 
 " Set a pitcher of hot water at each bedroom door at 
 seven o'clock in the morning, and knock. 
 
 " See that the night-lamp is not turned too high or 
 too low. 
 
 " Put silver in Mr. Maurice's closet. 
 
 " Put two chairs at the head of the front stairs, fastened 
 together and tied to the banisters [this was to keep Scott 
 upstairs with the family] with the red braid in the black 
 table-drawer, the little top-drawer."
 
 216 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Then I wrote for Maurice : 
 
 " DEAR MAURICE, Miranda is new, that is, she is 
 new to me, and does n't know the ways of the house. 
 I have written out a list for her. I -wish you would see 
 that she follows my instructions." 
 
 Then followed my instructions in this wise : 
 
 " See that front and back hall doors have been locked 
 and bolted. 
 
 "Ask Miranda if she has taken a pitcher of cold water 
 and a tumbler to each room at night, etc." 
 
 The next morning I awoke with a start. It was 
 very light, and alas ! it was very late. I could not hear 
 a sound about the house, so I hurried on my wrapper 
 and went to the servants' room. Miranda was still 
 in bed. 
 
 " Why, Miranda, what 's the matter with you ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh ! " she groaned, "I Ve such a sick headache 
 that I can't stand up. I 've tried twice, and I am so 
 dizzy I can't see." 
 
 I turned and saw Tibbie putting on her stockings. 
 I had to order her back to bed. I 'd rather have 
 Tibbie though sick than a dozen Mirandas in good 
 health. I went back to my room. 
 
 " Come, Mr. Allan," I said, " you must flee down
 
 Inside our Gate. 217 
 
 and make a kitchen fire while I dress Elinor and 
 myself." 
 
 I sent Douglas for Maggie Wylie, and had breakfast 
 half ready by the time she arrived. This looked en 
 couraging for the " centennial." Three guests, two 
 servants sick ! 
 
 Allan said he would wait till morning for me ; so 
 we rose betimes to get things in order for the day. 
 I telegraphed to my brother that I had decided to go 
 to Moorlands only for one day, and so he need not 
 come out for a night as he had promised. 
 
 Maggie Wylie was on hand again to get breakfast 
 and attend to the kitchen generally. I had engaged 
 a nurse in the neighborhood to stay for the day too 
 (for Miranda was only crawling about like a fly on a 
 mild day in March) and attend to Tibbie, who had 
 to have medicine and hot poultices every hour. 
 
 After breakfast little Douglas called me into the 
 hall. " Mamma," said he, " I have a bad pain in my 
 stomach. You won't go away and leave me with a 
 pain in my stomach, will you, mamma ? " He put his 
 arms round my neck. 
 
 "No, my dearie," said I; "but you'll be all well 
 after I give you a little hot peppermint." But he 
 was n't. 
 
 As it came on toward ten o'clock, I told Allan I
 
 218 Inside our Gate. 
 
 was so tired that I felt as if I 'd just returned from as 
 sisting at the original settlement of Jamestown, and 
 that he would have to go alone. He saw that the 
 thing was settled, so off he went. 
 
 About five minutes after I had seen him go down 
 the street, I heard his voice in the dining-room. I 
 flew downstairs ; he had a pair of driving gloves on, 
 and was tinkering at the stove. 
 
 " Miranda ran after me to say that one side of the 
 stove was falling down," he said. It appeared that 
 she had tried to put coal in through an ornamental 
 door instead of the one with hinges and a handle. 
 One look at his watch, and off flew Allan. And thus 
 it was that I failed to attend the centennial celebration 
 of the town where my husband was born. 
 
 Later I found Tibbie on her knees in the kitchen 
 clearing out the stove oven. She said she had meant 
 to get at it for several days, and now that we had extra 
 help in the house she thought the time had come. In 
 an hour from that time we had to send for the doctor 
 again, and she was sick in bed for a month. 
 
 On Friday I got a note from my brother Maurice. 
 He said that when the town where Allan was born had 
 its second " centennial," he hoped we would go, if at 
 all, without planning for it beforehand. 
 
 He continued :
 
 Inside our Gate. 219 
 
 "After getting your telegram that you did not want 
 me on Wednesday night, I heard at Tom's store that he 
 was not expected back till Thursday night. I knew they 
 would be glad to have me at the house, though I could 
 not go early. But after I had been to the Marshalls' to 
 dine, and then to a concert with Kitty Marshall, I went 
 uptown. I got in with my latch-key and crept upstairs 
 softly, as I found the house wrapped in slumber, or its 
 inmates, rather. When I reached my room and lighted 
 the gas, there was Tom in my bed, my single bed. 
 
 " We had a laugh when I punched him awake, and 
 he left the bed to me and went downstairs. It seems 
 he had only got in about an hour before, and knowing he 
 was unexpected, had crept up to the hall room to avoid 
 waking the children. 
 
 " When he reached the door of his own room, he softly 
 turned the knob. The door was locked. He was afraid to 
 make a noise for fear of waking and frightening the baby, 
 so he dressed himself and lay on the parlor sofa all night, 
 with a camel's hair shawl and a fur rug for covering. 
 
 " In the morning he frightened one of the maids almost 
 out of her wits, as she turned and saw him asleep after 
 opening the parlor blinds ; and she shrieked and flew up 
 stairs. The shriek waked Tom, who appeared, wrapped 
 in his shawl like Sitting Bull or a Roman senator, and 
 explained things to the surprised family. Tom sends 
 love, and hopes your next family tidal wave won't reach 
 as far as his house." 
 
 Allan came home on Thursday. Madam Granger 
 had been so touched by my husband's account of my
 
 220 Inside our Gate. 
 
 disappointment that she sent me by express a Wedg 
 wood pitcher over a hundred years old, of cream color, 
 with dull red flowers on it, and also two tall silver 
 candlesticks and the snuffer and tray. Tom thinks 
 these gifts ought to belong to him; but I surely 
 needed some recompense for being amiable under 
 such trying circumstances.
 
 XII. 
 
 BEYOND the fields on which our windows look out 
 is a fine mansion-house, of which we only get 
 peeps through the thick foliage. We call it " Major 
 Lovejoy's place," but Douglas calls it " Jerry's house." 
 Jerry works for the major. Though Douglas must 
 know better, he seems to think that his friend Jerry, 
 whom he has known and admired ever since Elinor 
 was a mere baby, owns the major, the house, the 
 horses, and the whole estate. Jerry is his dear friend. 
 Douglas used to walk up the road and talk over the 
 fence with him as he worked, and thus the friendship 
 ripened. If his heart is as fair as his face, I thought, 
 he may well be trusted with my boy. He is sunburnt, 
 of course ; but you see that his forehead is white when 
 he raises his cap to you. His hair curls all over his 
 head, and his teeth are white and even. He has the 
 most charming of all brogues, a Tipperary brogue 
 with a "whir" and a roll. 
 
 One day, early in the acquaintance, I walked up the 
 road and had a little talk with Jerry. I told him how
 
 222 Inside our Gate. 
 
 much Douglas liked him and wished to be with him, 
 and asked if I might trust my boy to him without fear 
 of his learning anything that would grieve me. 
 
 " 'Deed, ma'am," said Jerry, earnestly, " ye may 
 trust him wid me ; I '11 guard him like a mother." 
 
 What a proud boy Douglas was when he got on the 
 wagon, and with Jerry drove jolting to the lower field ! 
 There he would stand in the wagon, holding the reins, 
 while the vegetables were loaded in. I 've seen him sit 
 at one side of the field for an hour, watching Jerry's 
 cow, he who could n't sit still for ten minutes to 
 learn a lesson. I sympathize with him. It is pleas- 
 anter to sit on a fence in the Summer sunshine and 
 watch a friendly cow nibble the sweet grass, while the 
 birds sing and the butterflies flit through the air, 
 than to stay in a room studying the multiplication- 
 table. 
 
 Douglas never failed to be at the barn at milking- 
 time, for Jerry always sang as he milked. I told him 
 to ask Jerry to write down his milking-song for me ; 
 and so he did, with a lead pencil on a shingle : 
 
 " Oh, Granny Gray, let down your milk! 
 Your horns are gold, your tail is silk ; 
 Oh, Granny Gray, let down your milk, 
 And don't be boddering me 1 " 
 
 It was a nice little song. I liked it too.
 
 Inside our Gate. 223 
 
 One day Douglas brought home a fine tale, he 
 and Jerry had been hunting ! 
 
 "Hunting what?" 
 
 " A skunk ! " 
 
 " How did you hunt it? " 
 
 " Oh, we took Jerry's dog Rover, and ran all round 
 the outside of the barn ; and Rover got so excited, 
 and barked and smelt in every hole under the barn 
 and sneezed, and would not go into the hole, no 
 matter how much we ' sicked ' him, 'cause he knew 
 there was a skunk there ! Was n't he a wise dog ? 
 I wouldn't go into a hole .to let a skunk catch me, 
 would you, mother? And, mother," he went on, 
 "Jerry and a boy that's working on the place to 
 day, to help Jerry, had a shooting-match. I tell you 
 Jerry is a splendid shot. He beat that boy all 
 hollow." 
 
 " Mercy, Douglas ! how distressed I should have 
 been if I had known there was any shooting there ! " 
 
 " Oh, mother dear, Jerry called me the ' empire ' 
 to see which beat; and he set me on top of the 
 chicken-house before he began way off behind 
 them." 
 
 " Well, what did they shoot, skunks or sparrows? " 
 
 " Oh, neither. They just put some old tomato-cans 
 up on a post and fired at them. That boy could n't
 
 224 Inside our Gate. 
 
 hit at all, but Jerry sent the can flying every time. I 
 bet I mean I think Jerry would make a splendid 
 soldier ; he 's such a good shot and so brave ! He 
 says he 'd just as lief walk from here to Greenland, 
 in the middle of the night, all alone." 
 
 This dog Rover, who had shown so much discretion 
 in the " hunt," was a big Newfoundland. Besides be 
 ing a friend of Jerry and of Douglas, he was a very 
 dear and intimate friend of the cow. When she was 
 taken for the day into the lower field for pasture, Rover 
 was worried and uneasy, and every little while would 
 go to the barn and peer anxiously in ; but when she 
 returned at night it was wonderful to see the joyful 
 meeting of the two friends. Cows are generally very 
 much afraid of dogs when they have calves, but when 
 "Jinny's" calf arrived she showed no fear of Rover. 
 She let him come freely about her and her precious 
 calf, and would lick first one and then the other. 
 
 Jerry 's new horses were the finest in the world, 
 Douglas thought, and as for Jerry's uncle, Douglas 
 looked on him with a sort of admiring awe. He 
 looked like a funny Irish Neptune with a trident, as 
 he sat in the back of the cart with a pitchfork in his 
 hands. In reality he was a kind little old man who 
 lived with Jerry at Major Lovejoy's, and helped him 
 on the farm ; but to Douglas he was the rich " uncle
 
 Inside our Gate. 225 
 
 from India," for Jerry had told him that his uncle paid 
 his passage out for him when he was a lad. 
 
 One day when Douglas had been describing with 
 deep respect the wealth of Jerry's uncle and his 
 kindness to Jerry, as evidenced that day by digging 
 potatoes, I said, 
 
 "What is his business? He can't have any if he 
 works with Jerry all the time." 
 
 "Oh, he only comes to help in the busy season." 
 " What is his business when he is at home? " 
 "Well," said little Douglas, screwing up his fore 
 head, " I don 't really know ; but I think yes, I 'm 
 sure that he is a broker." 
 
 "Oh, it rains so," said little Douglas one day, "what 
 can I do ! I 'd go on working on the tea-kettle holder, 
 only I broke my worsted needle yesterday." 
 
 " I have n't another that will carry that thick 
 worsted," I said. "Go and work with your tools." 
 
 A few minutes afterward Douglas appeared at my 
 chamber door, in rubber boots and overcoat, with a 
 wet umbrella in his hand. " I got one," he said, hold 
 ing up a big darning-needle in triumph. " Tibbie's 
 wouldn't hold the worsted, and Mary had only fine 
 ones ; and I remembered and dashed on my boots 
 and ran up the road to the field where Jerry's uncle
 
 226 Inside our Gate. 
 
 is working, he does n't mind rain, and he was just 
 singing his old song about 
 
 ' Oh, give me me wattle, 
 Me work is nigh done.' " 
 
 " He does n't darn his stockings in the field, in the 
 rain, does he? " I asked. " I know few brokers do." 
 
 " Oh, mother ! No ; but he carried a big needle 
 stuck inside his coat to take splinters out of his fingers 
 the days they were mending the fence along Jerry's 
 land, and I just thought of it and borrowed it of him. 
 He was very polite. I told him if I lost it I 'd buy 
 him another ; and would n't it be nice, when the tea 
 kettle holder is done, to give it to him, because he was 
 so kind to lend me this? " 
 
 There came a time not long after this when another 
 side of Jerry's character was revealed, and he showed 
 himself able to serve his little friend in other ways than 
 in directing hunts and shooting-matches. 
 
 One morning, during the time when the children 
 were sick with scarlet fever, Jerry called, as he had 
 often done before, to inquire for Douglas and Elinor. 
 I happendd to be in the kitchen when he came in. 
 
 "'Deed, Mrs. Burroughs," said he, "you're looking 
 quite low yourself, ma'am." 
 
 " I am worn out, Jerry," said I, " taking care of
 
 Inside our Gate. 227 
 
 your friend. Douglas has taken such a dislike to the 
 nurse that he can't even drink water she has brought 
 to him ; and while he is sick he has to be quieted and 
 given his own way." 
 
 " An' do ye take all the care o' him day an' night," 
 asked Jerry, " an' look after the little girrl too ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course. Mr. Burroughs and I divide the 
 nights. We don't dare to trust the nurse alone." 
 
 "Dear me! Dear me!" said Jerry. "An 1 can't 
 Tibbie give ye a lift, or Carl?" 
 
 " No, they are busy all the time, and we can't get 
 any one to come and help now; everybody is afraid 
 of the fever." 
 
 " I 'in not afraid o' it," said Jerry, "an' I 've a room 
 o' me own over the stable where nobody need come 
 with me, an' the major an' his family is away for two 
 months ; so I '11 just come down for a bit o' the night 
 to relieve ye, if Douglas would put up wid me, and ye 
 could get a wink o' slape at the same time." 
 
 Sleep, sleep ! oh, that was what I longed for ! It 
 was a constant struggle to keep my eyes open. 
 
 "May I go up an' look at the b'y now?" asked 
 Jerry. 
 
 Douglas had just waked from uneasy slumbers and 
 was tossing about the bed when we went in. A smile 
 broke over his face.
 
 228 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " Oh, Jerry," he said, " oh, Jerry, are you coming 
 to visit me ? " 
 
 " Not now," said Jerry ; " but if ye '11 be a good b'y 
 the day, I '11 come in an' walk wid ye to-night. I '11 
 walk ye up an' down a-singin' soft in your ear. How 
 will ye like that?" 
 
 " I 'd like that, Jerry ; and I 'd let you give me my 
 medicine too, besides carrying me," said Douglas, who 
 had come to think it a favor to others to wait upon 
 him. 
 
 " 'Deed, will ye ? " said Jerry, accepting the offer in 
 the spirit in which it was made. " Well, I '11 be gettin' 
 proud as a paycock when I see mesilf puttin' the pills 
 down yer neck. Good-by, now ; I '11 be round about 
 half-past eight o'clock." 
 
 Up and down the long nursery I could hear Jerry's 
 firm tread. I knew little Douglas was just as I had 
 left him, snuggled up in his arms, warm and safe and 
 happy. I could catch now and then the refrain of 
 his low song, 
 
 " The fill' o' the house o' Irish love 
 Is Mary Ann Malone." 
 
 Elinor was sleeping sweetly, and her father was 
 watching her. I fell asleep with an easier heart than
 
 Inside our Gate. 229 
 
 I had had for many a day. After a while I woke, and 
 now the words of the song ran, 
 
 " He boddered and tazed me, 
 Yet somehow he plazed me, 
 That thrubblesome Barney O'Haye." 
 
 I could not hear the even step as before, so I 
 slipped quietly into the nursery. Jerry motioned 
 me away. He had put Douglas in his bed, and 
 was now sitting singing softly by his side. 
 
 " I '11 call ye at the time for the physic," he said ; 
 "till then slape sound." 
 
 I crept back oh, so gladly ! to bed, and slept 
 for another hour, as I supposed. Then Jerry roused 
 me by tapping at the door. 
 
 "Ye said," said Jerry, "ye never roused him to 
 give him his physic ; an' as he slep' on, I let ye sleep 
 on likewise." 
 
 " What, Jerry, have I slept the whole night ? Is it 
 morning? " 
 
 " It is half-past four o'clock. Good-by to ye, ma'am. 
 I '11 be back to-night ; I 'm goin' to me bed now for 
 a nap, an' then I '11 be all in order for the day." 
 
 After a week or two Douglas began to improve 
 rapidly. He could sit up in bed in his little blue- 
 and-gray wrapper, and look over the pictures in 
 "Harper's Weekly," and cut figures from paper
 
 230 Inside our Gate. 
 
 with his round-pointed scissors. Still Jerry insisted 
 on coming, and how gladly I allowed it, I cannot 
 tell. My ministering angel was named Jerry Phelan, 
 a ministering angel with a rich Irish brogue roll 
 ing out through smiles and white teeth. 
 
 In one of George McDonald's stories he tells of a 
 timid little orphan who was forced by cruel persons 
 she lived with to sleep in a lonely garret where rats 
 abounded. The child heard them running and jump 
 ing about, and lay in an agony of terror. In her fear 
 she called upon God for help. The door creaked, 
 and an angel appeared, in the form of a cat ; the 
 rats ran away, and she slept in peace, with her furry 
 angel lying beside her. I always liked that little 
 story. I only wished that Jerry had a twin angel to 
 care equally well for Elinor. 
 
 Elinor had her antics too. She would n't take a pill 
 till one had first been offered to the engraving of Sir 
 Walter Scott which hung in her room. Simple as we 
 felt in doing it, this ceremony had to be gone through 
 with every time we gave her her medicine. I had to 
 make a night-gown, too, for a woolly white lamb that 
 she hugged day and night, "Elinor's little lamb," 
 she always called it. We always had to sing, " Elinor 
 had a little lamb," or she at once wailed aloud, be 
 lieving that some unknown Mary had appropriated her
 
 Inside our Gale. 231 
 
 beloved lamb. How sharply the black, shiny, shoe- 
 button eyes of that woolly lamb used to stare at me 
 from the cradle in the night-watches ! " Eternal vig 
 ilance is the price of liberty," they seemed to say. 
 
 All day, Douglas cut papers and painted the pictures 
 in illustrated periodicals. We had piles of " Harper's 
 Weeklies" in the attic, an accumulation of twelve 
 years. Douglas and Elinor had looked them through 
 for years; but they were always fresh. I don't see 
 how I could have got through that Winter without 
 them. 
 
 Jerry was lost in amazement at the productions of 
 Douglas's paints and scissors. He went away every 
 day laden with brown-paper donkeys, and goats, and 
 birds of Paradise with long fringed tails. Every night 
 he was welcomed with joy in Douglas's room, after 
 he had taken a comfortable lunch in the kitchen. 
 
 " 'Deed, Mrs. Burroughs," said Jerry to me one 
 night, " I thought I 'd just bust for fear o' laughin' 
 last night. Douglas told me a fine tale of what a 
 catcher he was in base-ball ; and he said the first 
 thing he was going to buy when he riz up, was a 
 base-ball mask and a stummick protector, an' 
 him lyin' in the bed, so little and so white ! But 
 he has a fine large sovvl in him, ma'am ; days when 
 he comes to see me, he sits on the fence and talks o'
 
 232 Inside our Gate. 
 
 base-ball, an' rolls up his sleeves to show me uncle and 
 me his muscle. Me uncle has always to turn away 
 and blow his nose like an old fish-horn, to kape the 
 laugh in him. Me uncle is quite took up with him 
 too, for while the other b'ys about calls him ' owld man ' 
 an' ' Daddy Phelan,' Douglas calls him ' Mr. Phelan,' 
 an' has promised to give him a tay-kittle howlder that 
 he is a-workin' for him. One time he was a-tellin' us 
 about the wars o' England an' Scotland, an' about 
 Robin Hood, an' he sung us a fine song about Robin 
 Hood an' his silver horn. Whin me uncle heard he 
 was sick, says he, ' I Ve been a-lookin' for it ; that 's 
 the sort that dies young. His mind is too big for his 
 body,' says he. Now, whin I told him the b'y was 
 gittin' better, says he, ' Thin he 's to be spared to be 
 one o' the great min o' the world.' Says he, ' I knew 
 a man whin he was a bit o' a b'y, who come to be an 
 alderman o' New York City; an' Douglas is a finer 
 lad now nor he was ! ' ' 
 
 During this siege of scarlet fever I had an odd 
 specimen of a nurse from Vermont, the nurse whom 
 Douglas so disliked. Like Tibbie's, her friends were the 
 most important people in the world. Jonestown was 
 the centre of the universe to Miss Dibbals, as his 
 home was to the old Scotchman who said, " Paris is 
 a varra fine town to them as canna bide in Peebles."
 
 Inside our Gate. 233 
 
 Her knowledge of New York was gained from a 
 visit to the metropolis when she came down to the 
 hospital to have an operation performed upon one of 
 her eyes. She had lost the sight of this eye and wore 
 spectacles, with one dark-blue glass and one empty 
 frame through which a sharp little blue eye gleamed. 
 Her figure was gaunt, and her hair scant and sandy- 
 colored. She had " a voice " too, a queer, cracked 
 voice full of quavers and wavers ; and as she always 
 " pitched her tune " on her highest note, the high 
 notes of the song were only a shrill squeak. I used 
 to wonder how the baby could go to sleep to her 
 lullaby of, 
 
 " Oh, come my pardner in distress, 
 My comfort in the wilderness ; 
 Oh, come ! oh, come with me, 
 Where pleasures never die-e-e-e ! " 
 
 Perhaps the baby went to sleep to get rid of it 
 
 Miss Dibbals had a great deal to say about the 
 hospital and her feelings when she first arrived and was 
 shown into a room where she waited for fifteen min 
 utes, while a black child with weak eyes and two 
 cross-eyed white children stood in a row and stared 
 at her in silence. I derived from her also varied in 
 formation about the " octave nerve " and the " Irish 
 of the eye."
 
 234 Inside our Gate. 
 
 She used to speak with pride of being an intimate 
 friend of a certain Mrs. Jones of Jonestown, whose 
 daughter had married a rich German gentleman who 
 drove his horses " tantrum," and who chose to live in 
 America (in Hoboken, I believe), though he owned the 
 handsomest place in Germany, as if Germany were 
 only another Jonestown. This German gentleman 
 owned a brewery ; but he brewed a kind of beer that 
 did n't make people drunk. He seemed a most esti 
 mable person. 
 
 Shut in as we were for the time, and forced to be 
 close companions, it rather amused me to draw her 
 out upon the subject of Mrs. Jones and her other Jones 
 town friends. " Mrs. Jones is one of the Jones's," she 
 said. 
 
 She had another friend, Mrs. Talbot, who had just 
 money enough to live on if she saved every possible 
 cent and dyed her shawl, dresses, and feathers, and 
 whose skill in this art and mystery was so great that 
 she was still able to be richly and fashionably attired. 
 Mrs. Talbot had a son, Wesley, who was big and 
 strong, but underwitted. Still, he could work at cut 
 ting wood or drawing sand and the like. Once Mrs. 
 Talbot had an invitation to go to Rutland to the cattle- 
 show, and for weeks she exerted herself to get up a 
 suitable wardrobe. She dyed a gray shawl a beautiful
 
 Inside our Gate. 235 
 
 magenta, and some white ribbon the very same shade 
 for her bonnet, and mended everything and put new 
 braid on her dresses ; and her sister-in-law, who lived 
 in the other part of the house, pressed the shawl till 
 it looked like new, and knit her some edging for her 
 collar, so that altogether her wardrobe was a success. 
 
 The money for the journey had been earned by Wes 
 ley by a week's work at Mr. Giles's wood-pile, the only 
 trouble being that Mr. Giles was " slow pay." Still, as 
 Wesley knew that he must bring home that three dollars 
 and a half on Wednesday night if he wanted five cents 
 for peanuts, it was believed that he would dun Mr. 
 Giles at short intervals all day. 
 
 What was Mrs. Talbot's horror when Wesley came 
 rushing into the house on his return from work, beam 
 ing with joy and excitement, to show her a Waterbury 
 watch which Mr. Giles had given him in payment for 
 his work. She told him he should have no five cents 
 for peanuts ; but he only paused long enough in wind 
 ing up his watch to slap his pocket, which was reso 
 nant with peanut-shells. He had confided all his affairs 
 to Mr. Giles, who had given him five cents to boot. 
 " There was nothin' to be done," said Miss Dibbals, 
 " but jest to unpack and stay to home. She could n't 
 raise three dollars and a half that night." 
 
 "Why didn't her sister-in-law lend it to her?" I
 
 236 Inside our Gate. 
 
 asked. It seemed to me I could n't have her lose that 
 visit. 
 
 " Why, she was jest as hard up as Maria Talbot 
 was, plenty to eat but very little ready money ; and 
 besides, she had lent her two dollars that she 'd laid by 
 for Spring," rejoined Miss Dibbals, rather tartly, as if I 
 had insinuated that the sister-in-law was stingy. 
 
 " She felt awful about it," continued Miss Dibbals. 
 " She said she could hardly stand it to see Wesley set all 
 evenin' windin' and windin' and windin' that watch and 
 crackin' and crackin' on them nuts ; she had worked 
 so hard to get ready, and she had n't been away out 
 of town for twelve years. This place she was goin' to 
 visit in Rutland was where a cousin of hers lived that 
 colored photographs and had jest got married to a man 
 that kep' a boardin'-house there ; and she was expectin' 
 a real lively time, for the folks that had side-shows 
 boarded to this house, and always give 'em free tickets, 
 and it was right across the street from the show 
 grounds. But she jest had to unpack and stay to 
 home." 
 
 " But why in the world did n't she take the watch 
 back and make the man give her the money?" 
 
 " She might 'a' done that, only she was too quick- 
 spoken and told Wesley that she was goin' to, and he 
 went out and hid it in the barn."
 
 Inside our Gale, 237 
 
 Another night she told me about Mrs. Talbot's sister- 
 in-law and brother-in-law, a bachelor and an old 
 maid who lived in the other half of the house. Every 
 body called him " Uncle William " and her " Friend 
 Frances." I asked if they were Quakers, since she 
 was called Friend Frances ; but Miss Dibbals said no, 
 they 'd always been Methodists, and she was called 
 Friend Frances just because folks wanted to call her 
 that, which I thought was the pleasantest reason that 
 could have been given. 
 
 Uncle William and Friend Frances had once been 
 so well off that they were able to " take papers ; " 
 and at that same time a nephew in New Bedford was 
 in easy circumstances too and sent them " Harper's 
 Weekly," so that with their "Christian Union" and 
 the Jonestown " Herald," they had all the literature 
 they could digest. These pleasant times went on for 
 several years, while the piles of carefully preserved 
 papers grew higher and higher ; but in these " hard 
 times " they cheerfully returned to the old piles, and 
 now, Miss Dibbals said, for about five years they had 
 reread their old stock "Winters." 
 
 Uncle William was feeble and could only do a little 
 work about the farm. Friend Frances bought the 
 sugar and coffee and " store findin's " out of her pit 
 tance and did the housework. They could not afford
 
 238 Inside our Gate. 
 
 to keep even a boy to help them ; but they were so 
 hospitable that any one of their acquaintance might 
 find a home in their house without warning. Miss 
 Dibbals herself, who was distantly connected with 
 them through her stepmother, used to stay there 
 months at a time when she was n't " out." 
 
 From all Miss Dibbals told me, I can see as plainly 
 as if I were there myself, on the visit I long to make 
 to them, the large old kitchen where Uncle William 
 sits on Winter evenings by the fire, smoking his pipe, 
 while Friend Frances clears away the tea dishes. 
 When this is done he takes down his violin, and as 
 soon as he begins to play, the old gray cat jumps 
 upon his shoulder and sits there quietly until he 
 touches certain plaintive notes that jar on Tilly's 
 nerves ; then she stretches out her paw and claws 
 the strings with a prolonged " ow-w-w." Through the 
 "Arkansas Traveller," or any merry tune, Tilly sits 
 unmoved. She has no sense of humor; cats rarely 
 have after their first youth. 
 
 There was an old resident of Jonestown, a worthless 
 fellow, who drank more than was good for him, and 
 often put up for the Winter in the poorhouse. Occa 
 sionally he made himself Uncle William's guest ; and 
 he was never sent away, though he stayed for weeks. 
 The violin was a great attraction to this old vagabond.
 
 Inside our Gate. 239 
 
 He could play well, and he would lay the instrument 
 against his rough old cheek and play and play, while 
 Uncle William listened and smoked. Friend Frances 
 used to get tired and slip away to bed. Whenever she 
 saw the old fellow coming down the lane, she would 
 run first to her brother and beg him not to bring the 
 violin out unless John asked for it, for after getting his 
 hand on it.it seemed as if he could not lay it down. 
 
 Uncle William was so fond of animals too, Miss 
 Dibbals told us, that he made friends with every living 
 thing. The squirrels from the woods behind the barn 
 came down freely and fed with the chickens. Uncle 
 William owned the woods and would never allow a 
 gun to be fired in them. There was a sun-dial by the 
 back door, and a milk-house built over a spring, and 
 behind the house ran a river where they had a row- 
 boat. Uncle William often roved the woods or rowed 
 up the river to the " Far Meadows " to get wild flow 
 ers, for he knew where to find every sort that grew in 
 town. Miss Dibbals said the Episcopal minister used 
 often to go with him for flowers. " He pressed 'em," 
 she added with a smile of pitying contempt, as one 
 might speak of a clergyman who made a collection of 
 buttons. 
 
 After Miss Dibbals left the hospital, she took the 
 opportunity to visit some of the Jonestown folk, who
 
 240 Inside our Gate. 
 
 had been forced by untoward circumstances to move 
 from that enchanting spot to New York City. 
 
 A young man who was a letter-carrier in New York 
 had returned, most naturally, to Jonestown to get a 
 wife, " for he could n't tell who he was gettin' if he 
 married in New York," Miss Dibbals said. " He 
 married Luella Eels. Luella was a real capable girl, 
 and was n't goin' to be a burden to him, so when they 
 returned to the city to live she looked round to see 
 how she could help, and finally she decided to keep 
 a paper and cheap book stand, a real nice little 
 place like a room, with just a window open in front 
 to sell out of. 
 
 "She had quite a chance to read between cus 
 tomers ; and she used to tell me and her husband 
 real interestin' stories, nights, that she 'd read. There 
 was one real excitin' one in the New York ' Weekly,' 
 about a Mr. Atherton, who ran away from his wife 
 when they had n't been long married ; and years after 
 ward he met her and did n't know her, and offered 
 himself to her, and she married him and then told 
 him that she had been married to him before." 
 
 " And he never had a suspicion that he had seen 
 her before?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, no ; because she had changed her name and 
 wore a light curly wig."
 
 Inside our Gate. 241 
 
 " What stuff they do make up ! " said I. " It 
 couldn't be so." 
 
 " Well, it was so," said Miss Dibbals, " for I bought 
 the paper it was in to send to Jonestown. It give the 
 man's name, Re^znald yitherton. And it give the street 
 and number in New York City where he lived, and 
 said she boarded at the Fletcher House in Canal 
 Street. We passed that way one day to see if it 
 was there ; and, sure enough, there was ' Fletcher 
 House ' on the sign. Why, they would n't dare to 
 give ages, names, streets, number, and all, if it 
 wasn't so." 
 
 I said no more. 
 
 She knew a photographer in New York, Mr. 
 Weeks, a Jonestown man. She told me once that 
 no fortune-teller could get round her, for Mr. Weeks 
 knew a photographer away uptown in Eighth Avenue, 
 whose wife was called " Madame Susette " and made 
 lots of money as a fortune-teller. " You see, the way 
 was," said Miss Dibbals, " the man would photograph 
 people on paper, and not put on some sort of acid 
 that fetches the picture out. Mr. Weeks said it 
 looked like a plain piece of paper. Then when 
 a man come to get his fortune told, she 'd tell him 
 a lot of stuff, and then offer to' show him his girl's 
 picture. She 'd lay one of these papers into a saucer 
 16
 
 242 Inside our Gate. 
 
 that she said had nothin' but water in it, but it had 
 this stuff her husband had fixed ; and the first thing 
 he 'd know, he 'd see a girl's face lookin' out of the 
 saucer at him. Mr. Weeks said he 'd been intro 
 duced to this man's wife once in the gallery ; so he 
 thought he 'd go to Madame Susette and see if it was 
 true what he 'd heard about her. When he went in he 
 says, ' How d' ye do ? ' but she made out she did n't 
 know him, and showed him one o' these girls' heads ; 
 and when he said he guessed that must be his second 
 wife, and asked her who took the photograph, she 
 looked real mad ; and the next time her husband saw 
 Mr. Weeks he would n't even speak to him."
 
 XIII. 
 
 NOW, who do you suppose entered our gate? 
 The little god of love himself! He came 
 to the kitchen door and asked for Tibbie. He 
 came disguised, the goose, as if we would n't know 
 him, 
 
 " Having once met him, one does n't forget him." 
 
 He was disguised first, as Rabby Brown, sailor; but 
 the second time he asked for Tibbie, he gave the 
 name of Peter McFarlane, baker. 
 
 Rabby was a big sunburnt sailor, who looked as if 
 nothing could stir him from his settled calm. I could 
 hear Tibbie's tongue flying when he was there, and oc 
 casionally a murmur from him or a low laugh. He 
 came often, for he was just in from India, and was 
 soon to sail for Glasgow. Sometimes he sat silent on 
 the kitchen piazza., while Tibbie busied herself within. 
 When they went out for a little stroll about the 
 yard, Elinor and Douglas always followed behind 
 with the collie-dog behind them. One afternoon, 
 not long before Rabby sailed, Tibbie kept him
 
 244 Inside our Gate. 
 
 for two hours in the cherry-trees picking fruit to 
 preserve ; and another day she gave him the lawn- 
 mower "just to roll over the grass," occasionally 
 stepping out to point to a place he had skipped, 
 or to show how to guide the mower round the trees. 
 Finally his ship was to sail, and Tibbie went to see 
 him off. 
 
 That night I said to her, "Tibbie, Rabby Brown 
 came here so often while he was on shore that I 
 thought maybe he 'd want to marry you before he 
 sailed." 
 
 " Weel, he did," admitted Tibbie ; " but I tauld him 
 I couldna attend to it noo when the Spring .cleanin' 
 had been put off so late, wi' sickness i' th' family, ex 
 tra blanket-washin', and the kitchen tae be whitened, 
 and carpaets tae be repaired. Sae he said that 
 when / was ready I would know weel that he 'd be 
 waitin', ready also. An' noo, hoo about the blankets ? 
 Will ye hae the black woman or the German woman 
 to assist me ? Ah, could I but tak' them to a stream 
 an' hae the lads to pipe the while, I 'd dance on the 
 blankets merrily." 
 
 One night " Meester McFarlane " came and asked 
 for me. After Tibbie had shown him into the dining- 
 room, and announced my visitor, she went into the 
 kitchen. I supposed he had come to attend to some
 
 Inside our Gate. 245 
 
 business with me I had a bill at his shop be 
 fore he settled down to courting in the kitchen. 
 
 He sat stiff and solemn on the edge of the sofa. 
 After he greeted me, there was a long silence, so I 
 said, " I believe you wanted to see me, Mr. McFarlane ; 
 the bill was right, was it not?" 
 
 " Yes, Mistress Burroughs," said he ; " but I called 
 to discourse wi' ye about Catharine Elizabeth Drum- 
 mond. I Ve made her an honorable offer of holy 
 matrimony, an' I canna male' oot if she 's ta'en me or 
 no. I '11 no bear triflin' wi' ; I 'm no lad. One night 
 she is enticin', one night obdurate." 
 
 " Perhaps Tibbie does n't know her own mind yet," 
 I said. And with a feeling of general loyalty to my 
 sex, I added, " Tibbie has another lover, I believe ; 
 perhaps she has not decided." The man seemed 
 actually to grow rigid, so I hastened to say, " But 
 if she has promised to marry you, she should not 
 trifle with you. Has she promised?" 
 
 " Weel, no, I canna say she hae," said Mr. McFar 
 lane, doubtfully. " She has never just committed her 
 self; but she has said that she liket auld men better 
 than lads, an' she asket me once how me affairs stood, 
 an' I told her quite explicit. She told me quite fair, 
 as if we was gettin' things settled, that she was an ab 
 stainer, and asket if I was. I confessed that I was no
 
 246 Inside our Gate. 
 
 abstainer and yet no drinker, though on a New Year 
 we had always had a toddy ; so she made me promise 
 to become an abstainer, an' I did. I hear that she is 
 a verra thrifty lass an' would mak' a guid wife, an' she 
 is comely ; but I canna be rinnin' like a doggie at her 
 heels at my age. To-night or never, says I. Perhaps 
 ye 'd ca' her in, ma'am, an' be done wi' it." 
 
 " Would it not be better to see her by herself? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " No," said " Meester McFarlane," with dignity, " I 
 prefar witnesses to the transaction. I 'm na lad " 
 that seemed a favorite expression whose truth needed 
 no other witness than his well-wigged head " to be 
 makin' love by the light o' the moon, or trampin' the 
 brae in th' dew. Na, na ; ca' her in." 
 
 I had not far to go, Tibbie was listening at 
 the door ; but I walked across the back hall and the 
 kitchen and summoned her by a beckoning finger. 
 I knew she had heard all. 
 
 Tibbie followed me in and sat at the other side of 
 the room, after demurely saying, " Guid-evenin' to 
 you, Meester McFarlane ; I hope ye 're weel." 
 
 " I 'm quite weel, thank ye, an' hope ye are the 
 same," he replied stiffly. 
 
 " Tibbie," I said, " Mr. McFarlane asked to have 
 you called in ; he will tell you what he wishes to say."
 
 Inside our Gate. 247 
 
 " I just called to say, Miss Catharine Elizabeth 
 Drummond, that I made ye an offer o' matrimony 
 this day week, an' I wad like an answer." 
 
 Tibbie looked as innocent as a lamb. "Weel, 
 sir," she said, " if a' ye require is an answer, I sup 
 pose as long as ye get an answer, ye dinna care what 
 it may be." 
 
 " Ye ken weel that I care," replied the suitor, dog 
 gedly. " The last time I was here, ye made objection 
 to me bein' a baker ; but ye suld pick that bone wi' 
 me faither for apprenticin' me to that trade. Ye re- 
 market that ye 'd always intended to marry wi' a sailor ; 
 but I canna be a sailor a-grippin' wet ropes, nor climb- 
 in' up bare poles like a dancin' bear, to pleesure even 
 ye, at my time o' life." 
 
 Mr. McFarlane's temper was up a bit; he didn't 
 know Tibbie as well as I did. A firm expression was 
 settling about her mouth, and a glitter was in her 
 eye. 
 
 "What settled objection hae ye to a baker?" he 
 continued. 
 
 "It always mak's me sick to me stomick," replied 
 Tibbie, " to think o' flour an' water muddled thegither 
 by men- folk. I 've heered that they tramps crackers 
 wi' their feet too, Heaven forbid ! " 
 
 This was too much for Mr. McFarlane. " Hae ye
 
 248 Inside our Gate. 
 
 nae tasted baker's bread in ye'r life," said he, warmly, 
 "or crackers, lass?" 
 
 "Weel, I maun confess I hae," returned Tibbie, in 
 a provokingly calm voice, " when I was a bit o' a lass 
 an' didna ken what I was eatin' ; we a' maun eat our 
 peck o' dirt." 
 
 " An' hae ye nae eaten baker's bread sin' ye were 
 grown?" 
 
 It sounded like a stern controversy between con 
 sumer and manufacturer, rather than like a conversa 
 tion between lover and sweetheart. 
 
 "Weel, I hae," admitted Tibbie, "when took wi' 
 the pangs o' hunger, and considerin' what the chosen 
 people eat in th 1 destruction o' Jerusalem ; but I eat 
 it wi' me eyes fixet on the ceilin', an' repeatin' a verse 
 o' Scripture to divert me mind till it were weel gulpet 
 doun." 
 
 "Sae," said Mr. McFarlane, rising stiffly, "I'll bid 
 ye guid-evenin'." 
 
 " But," said Tibbie, he paused to listen, "I 
 may nae like a mon's trade an' like the mon. I can, 
 thank Heaven, mak' me ain bread an' bannocks as 
 well as me ain New- Year cake an' parritch. I 'm be 
 holden to none for that I thought ye said ye wanted 
 a body to stan' in your shop behin' your cookies." 
 
 "Weel?"
 
 Inside our Gate. 249 
 
 " Weel, I couldna do that. It wad mak' me wild in 
 me heid to stan wi' idle ban's like an auld hen, on 
 one leg and thin on the ither, waitin' for folk to come 
 i' th' shop, suitin' themsel's in the time." 
 
 " I said that me wife did help me in th' shop, an' 
 sae she did ; an' she knitted too, the whiles, an' baket 
 an' brewed, and let lodgin's, moreover." 
 
 " I believe ye," said Tibbie ; " she did a' that, an' 
 more too, and then, quite wore oot, just stretchet 
 herself oot an' died." 
 
 " An' ye wad like to be a married woman, an' yet 
 sit cocket up in th' parlor wi' a glass case o'er ye, 
 quite removet frae the ills o' life ? " said he, in a bitter, 
 sarcastic tone. 
 
 " I 'd nae sit in your parlor," said Tibbie, with 
 flushed cheeks, " if you 'd gie me all the siller i' th' 
 warld. I dinna believe ye care for me, but only for 
 the work ye 'd get oot o' me to save ye wi' a house 
 maid an' a dark. Ye'r auld heart is nae mair true 
 nor is ye'r fine heid o' deceitful hair." 
 
 I thought now it was time for me to leave the room ; 
 but I had not gone halfway upstairs, when Mr. Mc- 
 Farlane came out of the dining-room, and began a 
 struggle with the door. I returned to pull the night- 
 latch for him. 
 
 " Guid-nicht, Mistress Burroughs," said he. " I
 
 250 Inside our Gate. 
 
 thank the Lord, wha has enlightened my een an* 
 opened me ears an' delivered rne frae the snares 
 of a termagant. In the words o' Solomon, I 'd 
 rather dwell in the house-top alane, than wi' a 
 brawlin' woman in a wide hoose. Guid-nicht." 
 
 I did not speak to Tibbie of her discarded lover, 
 nor did she refer to him for a week or more. I went 
 into the kitchen one day to give an order, and after 
 that was settled Tibbie began, 
 
 "Did ye hear that Meester McFarlane was 
 married?" 
 
 " No ; not to you, Tibbie ? " 
 
 Tibbie burst out laughing. " Na, not to me, but to 
 a widow wi' a big lad an' a lass. Heaven was quite 
 considerate to him, he '11 be thinkin', providin' him wi' 
 a errant-boy an' a clark an' a wife a' in one whip. 
 He was too canny for me. I 'd far sooner hae Rabby 
 Brown an' only his sailor's pay than an auld carle 
 like Meester McFarlane. I made a' my gibes about 
 the trade just tae fret Meester McFarlane, but 't war 
 nae the shop nor the trade that I objected tae, but 
 just tae Meester McFarlane himsel'. I wish Rabby 
 Brown had that fine shop," she added with a sigh, 
 "and Meester McFarlane a-shinnin' up the mast, 
 I 'd nae object to gie a helpin' hand then, i' the shop. 
 I hae been alternatin 1 the twa o' them in my mind,"
 
 Inside our Gate. 251 
 
 she continued, " for some time, an' I think I '11 hae 
 Rabby noo. If I 'd married Meester McFarlane I 'd 
 hae been naught but Meestress McFarlane, for he 's 
 the mulishest-headedest Scotchman ! but if I marry 
 Rab I '11 be Tibbie Drummond the same, wi' just 
 Brown tacket on. I 'd nae be wearyin' did he mean 
 this thing or the ither thing, for I ken Rabby through 
 an' through, an' he kens me as weel. If he wants me, 
 he aye kens what he 's gettin' ; he 's seen me merry 
 an' sad an' mad. I 'm aye tae him like a gown that '11 
 nae fade i' th' sun or fray i' th' wearin' or shrink i' th' 
 washin' ; he 's aye content wi' me. But I 'm nae quite 
 settled in me mind about marryin' at a' ; it 's a lottery, 
 a lottery." 
 
 The first year Tibbie was with us, I did not feel 
 strong, and was eating only the simplest of foods. 
 
 " Ye must eat pease-brose," said Tibbie ; " a' the 
 Scotch doctors wad tell ye that for a consideration, but 
 I '11 tell ye wi'out one. There 's na cookin' to it ; but 
 when I infuse the tea I pour boiling water into a bowl 
 an' stir up the meal wi' a bit o' salt till it 's smooth as 
 satin, an' then ye '11 sup it wi' milk. Ye can eat it frae 
 a saucer ; but ye should eat it frae a bowl an' a cup o' 
 milk handy. A spoonful o' brose an' a sup o' milk, 
 that 's the true way."
 
 252 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " I don't think I 'd like it," said I. " I don't like 
 any sort of porridge." 
 
 " That 's a verra wrong feelin', then," said Tibbie. 
 " Ye maun just conquer it Like the Syrian captain, 
 ye maun hae som' gran' physic ; ye '11 no tak' the wash 
 an' be clean." 
 
 " Well, I will try it perhaps sometime," said I ; 
 " but I don't believe our grocer keeps it." 
 
 " I ken weel that he does not," said Tibbie, proudly ; 
 " it 's sold by naebody but just John Mclntire, Scottish 
 grocer, in the city. Shall I send to-day for a tin can 
 o' it?" 
 
 " We can't to-day. Mr. Burroughs has gone, 
 and " 
 
 Tibbie made a sudden rush out of the kitchen door, 
 and returned in a moment, panting, breathless, but 
 content 
 
 "I just caught the express," she said, "an" sent for 
 the pease meal." 
 
 The next morning at breakfast the pease- brose was 
 set before us, hot and smooth. 
 
 " What is this ? " said Allan, as Tibbie placed a 
 saucerful before him. 
 
 He tasted it and raised his eyebrows. " You can 
 take it away," said he ; "I don't like it." 
 
 " Nor I," said I. I could n't eat it.
 
 Inside our Gate. 253 
 
 " I don' like it," said little Elinor, shivering and 
 " making a mouth ; " " it 's nas'y." 
 
 " It 's a pity ye don't tak' kindly to it," said Tibbie. 
 " Ye maun just buckle down to it till ye do ; it 's for 
 ye'r good. As Paul said tae Timothy, who was in 
 like case wi' ye, tak' it for ye'r often infirmities." 
 
 Tibbie stood by Elinor's chair. " Open ye'r mouth, 
 Elinor ! " 
 
 " I don' want it ; it 's nas'y," said the child, shut 
 ting her little mouth tight. 
 
 " Come, lassie, be a braw Lowland lass ; we '11 nae 
 eat oats like the ponies an' the Hielanders." 
 
 Thus adjured, Elinor opened her mouth, and by 
 dint of coaxing Tibbie fed her the whole saucerful. 
 
 " There," she cried in triumph to me, " ye see hoo 
 it was done, line upon line ; by the time ye 've eat 
 it a week or twa, ye '11 no sorrow that I was firm 
 wi' ye." 
 
 Allan and I exchanged smiles, tempered with fear, 
 and well might we, for the pease-brose appeared upon 
 the breakfast-table the next morning, and so on for a 
 week, while Tibbie stood by never wavering. 
 
 " I 've a funny little story to tell you about Tibbie," 
 said I, as we settled down comfortably in the parlor 
 one evening. 
 
 " Nothing about pease-brose, is it? " asked Allan.
 
 254 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " No, it 's about the Giant's Causeway. Tibbie was 
 visiting some friends who promised to take her to see 
 a wonderful sight. They told her of a little chain- 
 bridge which crossed from the mainland, a bridge 
 about twenty feet above the water. No one, so it was 
 said, had ever crossed this bridge, which was built, 
 Tibbie says, simply to show how contemptible are the 
 works of man beside those of God. Every one went 
 by boat, the offer of a china tea-set by the old 
 woman on the island not having tempted any one to 
 walk over it. The chains run cross-wise, and the bridge 
 is very narrow. Well, Tibbie announced to Mrs. Mann 
 and Mrs. Tulloch that she should walk across. Mrs. 
 Mann offered her ten shillings if she would n't go, but 
 she would." 
 
 " I believe it," said Allan. 
 
 " Mrs. Mann and her sister were rowed over in a 
 boat, and they kept as nearly as they could under the 
 bridge, expecting every minute that Tibbie would fall 
 through. Mrs. Mann carried Tibbie's shoes and a 
 pair of stockings, for Tibbie had to go, if go she 
 would, in her stocking feet, that her feet might cling 
 to the chains. She says that when she got half 
 way there, it 's a mile across, she 'd a mind to 
 drop through, but she just grit her teeth and kept 
 on."
 
 Inside our Gate. 255 
 
 " I '11 warrant she did," said Allan. 
 
 " And when the painful walk was over, her feet were 
 sore beyond measure, so that she had to put them in a 
 hot bath, which the old woman who had charge of the 
 place gave her. Just think of a walk of a mile on 
 swaying chains in stocking feet ! She has the stuff in 
 her that makes martyrs." 
 
 " Yes," said Allan, " or the stuff that makes martyrs 
 of other people." 
 
 " She said it was a lovely place where she landed, 
 a whitewashed stone cottage with a thatched roof, and 
 a lovely garden full of pansies, and what she called 
 ' piano-roses,' but which were peonies, I imagine. 
 Inside, the beds were in the wall like berths, with 
 checked linen curtains of blue and white before 
 them, and " 
 
 " Did she get the china? " asked Allan. 
 
 " No," said I, " not all of it, because she could n't 
 walk back ; but the old woman gave her a cream-jug 
 and a cup and saucer, all gilded, for the walk she did 
 take. And the old woman wore a big ruffled cap, 
 with the ruffles edged with lace, and " 
 
 Allan had been thinking. " Mary," said he, " don't 
 balk any more about that pease-brose. We 've got 
 to eat it, that 's plain ; and so the sooner we buckle 
 down to it the better. I '11 eat mine like a little lamb
 
 256 Inside our Gate. 
 
 to-morrow if you will I feel powerless in Tibbie's 
 hands." 
 
 "Well, I will," said I. "I asked Mr. Campbell 
 about it, and he said it was excellent food ; and really, 
 Allan, it begins to have a nutty sweetness to me, a 
 taste as of roasted chestnuts." 
 
 We looked at each other and laughed. And so the 
 pease-brose took its place in the family circle.
 
 XIV. 
 
 nPHERE was to be a temperance convention in 
 -*- our town. The ladies of the village had been 
 from house to house to stir up the people's minds, and 
 to ask gifts of cake and cold meat for the great colla 
 tion in the hall. They evidently thought that the 
 most agreeable way of disposing of the evil of intem 
 perance would be for all to rise up and " squinch it," 
 as Tibbie would say, in one day. 
 
 Two days before the convention, one of the ladies 
 who was on the committee for selecting speakers came 
 to tell me that their principal speaker, Mr. Crittenden 
 Brown, had been called away from home to Ohio to 
 his old father's death-bed. 
 
 " What shall we do ? Do you know of any one we 
 could get? " she asked me in despair. 
 
 I wished I could help her ; but I did n't know a 
 single temperance lecturer. 
 
 That evening, after being lost in thought for some 
 time, I cried triumphantly to Allan, who was, by aid 
 17
 
 258 Inside our Gale. 
 
 of the evening paper, attending the prison convention, 
 "Why wouldn't Cousin Edward do?" 
 
 "For what position do you propose him?" asked 
 Allan, looking over the top of his paper. 
 
 " Why, to make the first speech at the temperance 
 meeting, of course." 
 
 "Does he make temperance speeches?" asked 
 Allan. 
 
 " He can," I replied ; " you know he is very de 
 cided on that question, and he has a great talent for pub 
 lic speaking. Why are n't you more interested, Allan ? 
 If we are going 'to live in this town we must interest 
 ourselves in its affairs, and be willing to exert ourselves 
 for its good." 
 
 " But this is exerting your cousin," he said. 
 
 " Well, I shall ask him," I said ; and I at once wrote 
 as follows : 
 
 " DEAR COUSIN EDWARD, I know several things 
 about you. I know you are a very busy man ; but I 
 know you are a very kind man ; and I know you are a 
 good temperance man. Will you not come and help us 
 by speaking at our temperance convention ? Do not say 
 no. Gough is dead and Jerry IMcAuley is dead 
 
 " He knows they are dead," said Allan, impolitely 
 reading over my shoulder. " Why not go on and tell 
 him Washington is dead, William Penn is dead "
 
 Inside our Gate. 259 
 
 " Don't be too funny," said I ; " I was only going 
 to say that all the great lecturers were dead, and that 
 therefore he would have to come." 
 
 The lady who had been so troubled about the 
 speaker was delighted when I told her that my cousin, 
 Mr. Edward Rollins, would come, for I had received 
 a favorable reply from him. 
 
 The evening came. I had a fine dinner prepared, 
 to be on the table at half-past six o'clock, when Edward 
 would be there. He did not come. He came in the 
 seven o'clock train ; the meeting was to open at eight. 
 My cousin hardly touched my nice dinner ; but Allan 
 did, just as if it were a tribute to him. 
 
 " Are you nervous before speaking, Cousin Edward," 
 I asked, " that you can't taste your dinner? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said he ; " but I have been very busy 
 to-day, unusually busy. I had a large mail to get off 
 by to-day's steamer, and I am tired and have a bad 
 headache ; but that will pass off." 
 
 " The excitement of speaking will cure it," I said. 
 
 "It would be better to cure it before speaking," 
 said Allan. " Give him some red pepper with boiling 
 water poured on it; that always helps me." 
 
 " Or a little baking soda," said I, "a salt-spoonful 
 in cold water, that is good ; or a cup of hot tea with 
 out milk or sugar."
 
 260 Inside our Gate. 
 
 We tried everything on him, but we saw him get 
 paler and paler. 
 
 " Mary," said he, " if you will excuse me I '11 lie 
 down for a few minutes and get a nap That will make 
 me entirely well ; it always does." 
 
 A nap ! why, in twenty-five minutes the exercises 
 would begin. 
 
 At last it was arranged that Allan should go alone 
 to the hall and say that Mr. Rollins had been unex 
 pectedly delayed for a short time. I would come 
 with Edward after the nap. 
 
 So Allan reluctantly went off alone. I bathed my 
 cousin's brow with peppermint and laudanum. I 
 should have given him a little dose of brandy but 
 that it seemed so inappropriate a remedy just then. I 
 put hot flannels on his head, vinegar and water, 
 and cologne. I put a mustard paste on the back of 
 his neck. He thought then he could sleep. I went 
 back to him at quarter after eight Now he must 
 
 go- 
 
 " My dear Mary," said he, struggling to open his 
 eyes, "temperance or no temperance, I can never 
 speak to-night, never ; no, not to save my life ! " 
 
 I saw that he could n't I had had just such head 
 aches, when husband, children, and life counted for 
 nothing in the present sickening pain.
 
 Inside our Gate. 261 
 
 " Then I think I '11 go and take Tibbie with me," 
 said I, " for something must be done." 
 
 " Do," he said, as he turned with a groan upon his 
 pillow. 
 
 It was half- past eight when I got to the hall. I sat 
 down near the door and looked about for some one 
 to carry a message to my husband. A little girl, a 
 pert little girl in white with a blue ribbon on her 
 shoulder, was reciting a " poem," every verse ending, 
 " To help the cause along." It seemed to be a sneer 
 at me. A gentleman on the platform rose and said, 
 " We have been informed that Mr. Edward Rollins, 
 who is to address us, has been detained for a short 
 season." 
 
 There was a long silence. The ticking of the great 
 clock over the door grew painfully loud. At last Allan 
 gave out the number of a hymn, and while the audi 
 ence were singing he came down the aisle. Tibbie and 
 I slipped out and waited for him in the vestibule. 
 
 " Well, Mary," said he, " where in the world is 
 Edward? I have been sitting on needles and pins. 
 I gave out a good long hymn, but they 're in the 
 third verse already. It 's the only time I ever heard 
 an audience sing too fast. Will Edward be here 
 soon ? " And Allan took out his watch. 
 
 " He is positively sick," I said. " He just cannot
 
 262 Inside our Gate. 
 
 come. They must get on as best they may. I 'm 
 sorry, but it can't be helped." 
 
 Allan scribbled a note to the president and sent it 
 up by a small boy. Then he went home to see if 
 Edward needed a doctor, and Tibbie and I entered 
 the hall again. 
 
 It made me shiver as I sat there and heard the 
 audience swinging rapidly along through the seventh 
 and last verse of the hymn, to think what would 
 happen when silence came again. Here had half a 
 dozen ladies been planning for this evening as the 
 grand climax of the convention ; and the speaker had 
 been specially imported from the city for the occasion, 
 and the president had already told the audience of 
 the " rich treat " before them, and expectation was on 
 tiptoe, and 
 
 The end of the hymn was reached. The people 
 settled themselves in their seats and prepared to listen. 
 That dreadful clock began again to tick louder and 
 louder. 
 
 " I am exceedingly sorry to say," said the president, 
 rising slowly, " that Mr. Rollins, the brilliant temper 
 ance speaker who was to have charmed you this even 
 ing, is suffering from a serious attack of sickness, and 
 will not be able to be with us. Eloquent gentlemen 
 are present, however," he continued, looking round
 
 Inside our Gate. 263 
 
 upon the speakers who figured on the programme as 
 " and others," " who will fill his place ; and I am sure 
 that in this audience there must be some who, if 
 unaccustomed to public speaking, have yet words of 
 moment to say to us on this vital subject." 
 
 He turned toward one of the auxiliary speakers on 
 the platform, intending to introduce him, when sud 
 denly a volunteer in the audience, acting upon the 
 hint with which the president had closed, rose with 
 unexpected promptness to his feet. He was not far 
 from me ; and I recognized him at once as Tim 
 Macnamara, a poor waif who, about a year before, had 
 drifted into the quiet haven of our church, and since 
 that time had attended every service, and always sat 
 as quiet as a statue. 
 
 " Ladies and jintlemin," he began, waving his hand 
 toward the respectable middle-aged people who com 
 posed the audience, " ladies and jintlemin, I want to 
 warn ye not to go into any of thim painted-up eatin'- 
 houses, with lights with colored red glass on thim, 
 and that says on thim, ' Ladies' and Jints' Oyster- 
 Saloons.' No, ladies and jintlemin, ye '11 find there 
 whiskey and bad rum and bad words and fightin', in 
 place of the oysters ye 're lookin' for, and in the win 
 ders ye '11 see long bottles a-lyin' on their sides ; and 
 that 's the way thim lies that dhrinks what 's in 'em."
 
 264 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Our minister, who sat a little in front of him, moved 
 uneasily in his seat, and began to turn the leaves of 
 his hymn-book. This did not seem exactly the kind 
 of speech which the occasion called for; but Mac- 
 namara, quite unconscious of the sensation he was 
 producing, went on, 
 
 " Sure it 's mesilf that knows that same ; for ivery 
 night for many a long day I was into thim places an' 
 was turned out in the strate whin me money was gone 
 an' whin me head was addled with the dhrink, an' me 
 legs faltherin' under me. An' what with dhrink, an' 
 losin' me work through that same, an' all me frinds 
 turnin' their backs on me, sure it was sthraight to ruin 
 ation I was goin' whin, glory be to God ! I come to this 
 place. I am that j'yful to-night that I can't kape me 
 sate, nor kape me tongue still in me jaws. Oh, 
 manny 's the time I Ve sung the song (ye all know 
 it), ' I 'm the happiest Paddy out ; ' but to-night I can 
 sing it with quite a different manin'. Thank the Lord, 
 I 'm a new man, clane widin and widout ! Indade, 
 to-night as I was a-puttin' on the blue necktie which 
 me Sunday-school teacher give me Christmas, an' I 
 a-lookin' in the glass, says I to mesilf, ' Mac, ye '11 have 
 to be introduced to yersilf, man.' 
 
 " Now I must tell ye of the great elevation that 's 
 come to me. Ye all know that there was a timper-
 
 Inside our Gate. 265 
 
 ance meetin' held here less nor a year ago by the 
 Y. M. C. A. I was dragged in here that night by a 
 man that was half dhrunk, as I war mesilf. It was all 
 lighted up here, an' we thought it was one of thim 
 fine dhrinkin'-saloons like thim on the Bowery. So I 
 was overcome, an' sat me down on a settee by the 
 door. 
 
 "Thin a man got up just in front of me, an' he 
 puts his hand on me head an' he asked God to take 
 me an' make something out of me. Says I aloud to 
 mesilf an' to the man that fetched me in, says I, ' He 
 can't do it.' Says the man who was spakin', it was 
 D'acon Mason, who is sittin' in the front sate now on the 
 lift, says he, ' If the Lord made ye, ye poor cretur, 
 an innocent baby,' says he, ' he can make ye over as 
 good as new, can't he ? ' says he. ' Well, then, I 'm 
 agreed,' says I, ' an' why don't he ? ' Says he, ' Ask 
 him, thin.' ' Lord,' says I, ' make me as good as 
 new !' 
 
 " After the meetin', for ye must mind it war a tim- 
 perance meetin' an' not a saloon at all, D'acon Mason 
 tuck me to a dacent lodgin' an' give me a bed that 
 night, an' had me all freshened up in some of his 
 own clo'es, these are some of his clo'es, ladies and 
 jintlemin" (he held up his arms), "and after I got 
 me breakfast, says I, ' What 's the matter wid me ? I 'm
 
 266 Inside our Gate. 
 
 cravin' a dhrink of water, and I don't want no stronger 
 dhrink,' says I. Says D'acon Mason, ' You 're clothed 
 an' in ye'r right mind,' says he ; and so I was. In thim 
 days I did n't know much, only whin D'acon Mason 
 asked me wud I like to start fresh, I thought I 'd 
 just like to throw me old self away entirely, old clo'es 
 and all. 
 
 " Thin the minister tuck me and taught me of the 
 love of God ; an' a lady in Sunday-school, Miss 
 Lamson it was, the lady in the third sate with the red 
 ribbon in her hat, says she, ' Put away ye'r sin from 
 ye, and Jesus will be your friend and brother,' says 
 she. 
 
 " Says I, ' I never had a brother, but I know what 
 that manes ; he 'd walk wid me and talk wid me and 
 sup and slape wid me.' 
 
 "Says she, 'The Lord Jesus will be always wid 
 ye ; but be careful,' says she, 'not to get into no bad 
 places ; for, sure, ye wud n't drag him into no low 
 places to grieve him, nor wud ye lave him alone on 
 the sidewalk while ye wint in.' 
 
 " Says I. ' I '11 not, while breath is in me.' 
 
 " Says she, ' Jesus is not like your brother in bein' 
 sinful like yersilf, but he '11 make yer pure like him- 
 silf if ye '11 talk wid him an' then rade the Bible to 
 get his answers ; for that book," says she, ' was writ for
 
 Inside our Gale. 267 
 
 you, Macnamara, as much as if ye was the only man 
 
 in the world.' 
 
 " But last week I just wanted to go and see the man 
 
 that kapes the place I used often to get dhrink in, and 
 
 who 'd give me the loan of his sidewalk afterward. 
 
 So I wint down and wint in, afther sayin' a prayer first. 
 
 It was in the mornin', an' there was nobody ilse there ; 
 
 so I wint up to him quite bowld. ' How do ye do, 
 
 Misther O'Brien?' says I. Then I see he didn't 
 
 know me, it was sort o' dark in the basement, 
 
 an' says I, 'Have ye seen a man round lately by 
 
 the name o' Macnamara?' 
 
 " Says he, ' No, I guess the fillow 's tuck up, or is 
 
 dead ; but it 's small matter, for he was good for naught 
 
 and nothin',' says he. 
 
 "'Did he dhrink?' says I. 
 
 " ' He did,' says he ; 'he was always dhrunk.' 
 
 " Thin, forgittin' mesilf, says I, ' And if dhrink made 
 
 me good for naught, why did ye fill me wid it ? ' 
 
 says I. 
 
 " ' Macnamara, man,' says he, ' this is not you ? ' 
 " Says I, lookin' him in the eye, ' It 's mesilf.' 
 "Says he, 'Sit down, man, an' take somethin', an' 
 
 tell me about your good luck, seein' as we are 
 
 alone.' 
 
 " Thin, remimberin' what the tacher told me, says I,
 
 268 Inside our Gate. 
 
 quite quiet like, ' We 're not alone ; there 's one wid 
 me,' says I. 
 
 " Thin he looked over his shoulder, scared, an' says 
 he, ' Who 's here ? ' kind o' whisperin' like. 
 
 " Says I, ' Some one that was n't ashamed to come 
 in wid me, for he come to save sinners an' cares for 
 'em, the one who has made me over, clane widin and 
 widout. He 's standin' here by your side an' lookin' 
 at ye ; the Lord Jesus Christ is his name.' 
 
 " ' Macnamara,' says he, ' ye scare me ; have yer 
 lost yer wits ? ' 
 
 " ' No,' says I, ' I 've found 'em.' 
 
 "So I talked and told him all that had befell me; 
 and whin I came away I says, ' Now I Ve no grudge 
 to ye, an' every day I 'm askin' the Lord to lead ye 
 out of this place, an' he will.' An' I come away leavin' 
 him starin'. But me tacher said I was so simple she 
 was afeared to have me callin' round on me old 
 friends ; so I was a-wonderin' what I could do for 
 the Lord whin the home missionary jintleman came 
 along. 
 
 " And now I 'm to tell ye of the great elevation 
 that 's befell me. Ye remimber of course ye do 
 the missionary jintleman from out Wist that prached 
 before ye, 'a wake last Sunday. Ye know he told 
 about the poor craturs. that 's a-comin' all the time
 
 Inside our Gate. 269 
 
 from across the says to sittle near him, till they are 
 quite thick under his fate. Well, that avenin' I wint 
 an' talked to our minister and to the missionary jintle- 
 man, an' tould him I wanted to go out an' hilp him. 
 Says I, ' I '11 take care of your horse, an' shovel snow, 
 an' I can scrub floors for your wife,' for ye remimber 
 he tould that his wife could git nobody to hilp her. 
 An' says I, ' I can do some cookin',' for, ladies and 
 jintlemin, ye see I Ve been helper at hotels and board- 
 in'-houses, an' I know well how to do housework. 
 Says I to him, ' I Ve got clo'es enough to last me me 
 lifetime, thanks to D'acon Mason an' his son an" his 
 son-in-law, so that will cost nothin'.' 
 
 " Now perhaps, ladies and jintlemin, ye think I 'm 
 not aqual to the work, but I '11 just prove it to ye. 
 Besides bein' helper in the hotels, I 've been a deal 
 about stables, an' I 've taken care of race-horses, 
 for race-horses, ye mind, is very delicate an' needs 
 great care. Why, ye Ve all heard of the Surrey Lass, 
 the bay mare that tuck the prize at the Sheepshead- 
 Bay race, three years gone, against the Black Prince. 
 They 'd heavy odds on her, ye mind. Well, lit me 
 till ye," his tone grew proud and he straightened 
 himself up, " well, I had charge entire of her whin- 
 iver the trainer was away. She 'd come to me quite 
 jintle. Whin I 'd say, ' Give us yer fut, Lass,' she 'd
 
 270 Inside our Gate. 
 
 hold out her forefut like a dog an' rub her cheek on 
 me, an' whining whin she hear me v'ice. Oh, she war 
 a fine mare, slinder as a wilier-wisp war she ! Ah, 
 ladies and jintlemin, all this time I war bein' fitted for 
 the Lord's work, and niver did I know it. 
 
 " Now, ye see if I can go to the Wist wid the 
 missionary jintleman next wake, what a foine space 
 of time he '11 have for prayin' an' prachin', an' me 
 a-groomin' the horse an' a-shovellin' the snow. For 
 mesilf, I can jist slip into any corner in a barn or a 
 shed to say me own prayers. Thin, when the mis 
 sionary sees any wretched cratur just good for naught, 
 he can pint him at me, sayin', ' Yon once war dirtier 
 an' drunkener an' wickeder nor you, an' look at him 
 now, by the love o' God, clane widin an' widout.' 
 Thin the cost of me kapin' will be small, through me 
 appetite bein' but moderate, me havin' a wake stomach. 
 And if I can go wid him, and he 's wantin' me, 
 it will kape me from fallin', kapin' close to him a- 
 carryin' tracts round and the loike. Oh, and be 
 sides money for me kapin', I 'd have to have money 
 for me ticket out, just out, for I'll bide forever 
 whin I gits there. D'acon Mason, won't ye pass the 
 box?" 
 
 Deacon Mason rose, and said that as our poor 
 friend had been so anxious to go, and as he could
 
 Inside our Gate. 271 
 
 be of great service to the overworked missionary, 
 the church had decided to send him ; and that 
 therefore there was no need of a collection, but 
 that he hoped the good wishes and prayers of all 
 who sympathized with one who had fought down 
 his evil habits would go with him. 
 
 Poor Macnamara put his head down and burst into 
 tears. " 'Deed, D'acon Mason," said he, " I '11 ne'er 
 forgit ye dead or alive." 
 
 During the paus.e and rustle of conversation that 
 followed the dramatic ending of poor Macnamara's 
 speech, I slipped out of the hall and went home. 
 
 I found Cousin Edward in the parlor. His nap had 
 completely cured his headache ; he lay on the sofa 
 and looked cheerful, too cheerful. 
 
 "Well, now," said he, "if this next hour was the 
 hour of the meeting, I could speak easily. I feel just 
 in a speaking mood." 
 
 " It is too late now," said I, mournfully, " and every 
 thing went wrong. It was queer that you had such a 
 headache to-night." 
 
 Allan hastened to say that no one ever urged a head 
 ache upon himself. 
 
 " It was certainly strange," said Cousin Edward ; 
 " and I Ve just thought of the cause. To-day, as I 
 was hurrying along the street, I met a German gentle-
 
 272 Inside our Gate. 
 
 man who was very anxious to speak to me on a matter 
 of business. I said I had n't one minute, but he was 
 very urgent and almost forced me into a little restau 
 rant near where we stood, saying, ' While we lunch we 
 can talk.' He ordered a sandwich and lager beer. I 
 had no time to wait till meat was cooked ; I was warm, 
 and the beer looked cool, and well I took a glass 
 too." 
 
 "Lager beer?" I asked grimly. 
 
 " Yes ; I really have n't tasted a glass in sixteen 
 years before, and it entirely upset me. I don't think 
 I ever had a worse headache in my life ; it must have 
 been that." 
 
 So my temperance lecturer had been drinking ! 
 " Well, well, well," thought I, " this is a strange 
 world ! I don't care if his old head does ache. 
 Not to drink for sixteen years, and then to spoil 
 my convention ! " 
 
 I put this thought in words when I was in my room 
 with Allan. 
 
 Said he, "You ought to be glad it made his head 
 ache, because it will be a lesson to him, and raise him 
 to an honored manhood. I 'm sure you treated him 
 very well; that was a good dinner. But it's always 
 the way with prodigal sons. Till the dinner came on 
 the table, I must confess that I regretted that fine
 
 Inside our Gate. 273 
 
 brown turkey that I saw you sending off to the tem 
 perance convention this morning. But virtue was re 
 warded ; for I, the saint, ate up the dinner that was 
 cooked for your sinner." 
 
 It made me quite angry the next morning, when my 
 relative he was only a married-on relative bade us 
 good-by, thanking me for my kind care, and saying the 
 night's sleep in the country had quite refreshed him, 
 and went cheerfully away, holding his silk umbrella, 
 like a cane, by its silver handle, and turning occa 
 sionally to shake it back at Elinor, who was watching 
 him from the parlor window. I wanted to shake my 
 fist at him. 
 
 I felt injured all day. I felt depressed, as if I kept 
 an Inebriate's Home, or a lager-beer saloon. 
 
 What the convention accomplished we could not 
 know, of course ; but when the best is done that one 
 can do, there it must be left. 
 
 Two years passed after the unusual temperance 
 meeting, and Macnamara had almost faded from my 
 memory, when one evening " D'acon Mason " called 
 on us, and after speaking of that memorable occasion, 
 showed us a letter from the missionary with whom 
 Macnamara had volunteered to act as an assistant in 
 practical Christianity. This was what he said about 
 the warm-hearted Irishman : 
 18
 
 274 Inside our Gate. 
 
 "After Macnamara's coming to us, life put on a new 
 face. He at once took the heavy housework from my 
 feeble wife, going at it with such enthusiasm' that it was 
 a pleasure to see him about. My boys followed him 
 around from morning till night, his sweet temper and 
 merry ways, his whistling and feats of jumping making 
 him an engaging comrade. I watched him carefully, 
 knowing that he had been picked out of a slough, but 
 never did I know of a low word or act. He was, as he 
 often said, 'clane widin and widout.' He seemed over 
 whelmed with gratitude for a home and kind friends, and 
 never seemed satisfied that he had done enough for us. 
 
 " Last Winter one of our poor neighbors on the prairie 
 died, and his wife and child were thrown upon me to sup 
 port until we could hear from their friends in England. 
 Poor Mac, as we called him, rose to be a hero. He got 
 odd jobs in the village ; he stinted himself of his food, till 
 I stopped that; and in every way he tried through the 
 Winter to save and earn, that the burden might not fall 
 too heavily on me, nor the care on my wife. The baby 
 was a sickly little thing, and often he would w;ilk the floor 
 with it at night, up and down the little sitting-room, to 
 give its mother rest. We all loved the poor fellow ; I 
 cannot tell you how much we loved him. 
 
 " In the Spring, the woman went back to England; and 
 then we began to notice that Mac did not seem as strong 
 as before. He had a hacking cough, and a color in his 
 cheeks that alarmed me. We tried to save him in every 
 way ; but it was of no use, work he would. We sometimes 
 cheated ourselves into the belief that he was suffering 
 from a heavy cold. Just a week ago, one morning, he
 
 Inside our Gate, 275 
 
 did not come down to make the kitchen fire, and I went 
 to his room. He lay quietly, with his cheek upon his 
 hand, in that deep rest which must come to all of us. 
 
 " I can assure you there was grief and sincere sorrow 
 in our house that day, and ever since. I thought the 
 boys would break their very hearts over their loss ; and 
 as for me and my wife, we know that we shall never see 
 in this world a purer, nobler, more devoted soul than 
 Macnamara, nor can we meet with a greater loss until 
 our own family is divided by death."
 
 XV. 
 
 AT last we were settled in our little seashore house 
 again. All sweet and cheerful it was, with fresh 
 cream-colored paper and paint. I feel almost equal 
 to a crusade against dark paint and paper. A dark, 
 sunless room and a light, sunny one lower or raise 
 my spirits as quickly as a change of weather affects 
 the little woman in the barometer. 
 
 The fire was kindled again upon our hearth, for we 
 always have a little fire, just for the sake of its cheery 
 company, whenever the days are cool enough to fur 
 nish the least pretext ; the very breeze we left there 
 the Summer before came with its greeting through 
 doors and windows ; the blue bay lay in peaceful 
 beauty, it was all there. When the curtains should 
 be hung and the rugs laid down, we could say, we 
 always do, "This is last Summer." 
 
 And now Pauline was to come to visit us. She was 
 coming from the mountains, where she had been with 
 a party of artists for a month or two. Though the 
 house was in order, I knew I should feel unsettled till
 
 Inside our Gate. 277 
 
 she got there ; for nearly every cottage at the " Open 
 Sea," a mile away, had an artist for a guest, and as yet 
 I had none. Sketching-umbrellas were thick as toad 
 stools in the village, and I wanted an artist to set 
 forth from my cottage too, every day, with a big um 
 brella and a stool, and settle down in the field, or by 
 the seaside, as if making a morning call on Nature. 
 
 Now, our town might become immortal through me, 
 by means of her. Its byways and hedges might shine 
 on the Exhibition walls that year ; and even our own 
 portraits, in her sketches, might hang upon the walls 
 of the great. 
 
 I knew the very places for Pauline to sketch. 
 There was Mrs. Mason's old low, straggling house on 
 the corner, with its weather-stained sheds stuck on 
 here and there, as if all the sheds that had no object 
 in life had just drifted up and stranded there. The 
 sheds were vine-covered, and about the roofs flocks 
 of white pigeons were always hovering. Mrs. Mason 
 must come out too, with her blue apron filled with 
 corn, to feed the pigeons. Then the winding road 
 and the willows and the peep of bay, ah, everything 
 was there that ought to be there. 
 
 And then, I wanted Pauline to paint Mrs. Darling's 
 big pink pitcher, crowded full of " bouncing Bets," and 
 grasses. Pauline almost paints the fragrance into her
 
 278 Inside our Gate. 
 
 flowers. The bouncing Bets are sweet as honey, and 
 every shade of pink lives in them. I knew one thing : 
 I would n't call that picture Heaven forbid ! "A 
 Symphony in Pink ! " We would just call it its true 
 name, "Aunt Betsey's Posies." 
 
 I have still another picture that I saw in my room 
 only last night, that I want Pauline to paint some day : 
 Elinor's little old shoes thrown down by her red stock 
 ings, and a great handful of withered flowers, the 
 last harvest of her little day. "The Reaper's Work 
 is Done," I shall name that. Pauline will sell it to 
 the first mother that walks into the Exhibition ; and 
 she '11 have to paint at least half a dozen copies for the 
 mothers that will want to buy it. 
 
 So the afternoon came that was to bring Pauline. 
 Allan and I drove to the station, seven miles away, 
 to meet her. Halfway there, we found a brown vel 
 veteen coat in the road. Neither of us wanted a 
 velveteen coat, but of course we picked it up. The 
 pockets were empty. I said it was a good coat, and 
 after a little brushing, we could lay it away with Uncle 
 Joseph's vest and the "and so forths ; " but we must 
 try to find its owner first. 
 
 " I wonder whose mantle it can be," said Allan ; " I 
 should be afraid to put it on." 
 
 Six ladies got out of the train, but no Pauline.
 
 Inside our Gate. 279 
 
 Strange ; this was n't like Pauline ; but then people 
 are continually doing things unlike themselves. 
 
 There was nothing to be done but to go home. 
 During the last half-hour of our drive the wind rose, 
 and black clouds covered the sky : later the rain 
 came pouring down. When we reached the house, I 
 ran as fast as I could from the carriage into my little 
 parlor, while Allan drove off with the horse. 
 
 There, in my own special chair, beside a bright fire 
 which had not been lighted when we went out, sat a 
 young man reading my magazine. I knew how the 
 big bear felt when he saw Silver Hair. The young 
 man sprang to his feet. He said he had ventured 
 to take refuge in my cottage, as he had been caught 
 in the rain without an umbrella, and was a mile from 
 the " Open Sea," where he was staying ; and that my 
 maid had kindly lighted the fire. His name, he told 
 me, was David Wilson. Before long Allan appeared, 
 and soon after that tea was on the table. As the rain 
 was still pouring, we took our guest out to tea. We 
 told him of our fruitless errand, that we had gone to 
 fetch a beautiful young lady home, and had only 
 come back with a velveteen coat with no money in 
 the pockets, that we had found in the road. 
 
 " It must be my coat," said he ; and, sure enough, 
 when Mary brought it from my bundle of shawls it
 
 280 Inside our Gate. 
 
 proved to be his coat, which he had lost from a car 
 riage that very afternoon. It was funny that while 
 we were bringing the coat to its owner the owner 
 had come to his coat. " It was like Bo-peep and 
 her sheep's tails," said little Douglas. 
 
 But I was anxious about Pauline. What if she had 
 missed her train and should come on the four o'clock 
 train and arrive after dark and get lost? 
 
 " I '11 warrant Pauline will manage," said Allan. 
 " In all probability, however, she will wait till the 
 train to-morrow, and we'll drive over for her again." 
 
 About an hour after this Mr. Wilson departed with 
 his velveteen coat, and sheltered under my umbrella. 
 Half- past eight. " No Pauline to night," we said. It 
 was nearly nine o'clock when the sound of wheels 
 roused me from the book I was reading. It was still 
 raining. 
 
 " Hark ! yes, that is the stage ! it has stopped. Put 
 a light in the window, no, hold it in the door 
 way ! It 's Pauline's voice. Leave the trunk on the 
 piazza ! Allan, take the bag ! So you are here at last, 
 Pauline ! What was the matter? Did you lose the 
 train?" 
 
 " Oh, let her have something to eat before she says 
 anything," said Allan. He pulled a little table to the 
 fire. Mary soon brought in a tray with a hot supper.
 
 Inside our Gate. 281 
 
 I lighted new candles in the tall silver candlesticks. 
 Allan poked the fire till it flamed and crackled. 
 
 " Now eat and drink," said I ; " but bite as fast as 
 you can and remain a lady, for I am waiting to hear. 
 How came the stage to be so late ? " 
 
 Pauline stood before the fire warming her hands. 
 How pretty she looked ! _ I was proud of my little 
 cousin. 
 
 " Before I taste my supper," said she, " I must tell 
 my adventure. I missed my train this afternoon, and 
 had to come down in this late one. I remembered 
 you told me that you lived at the Bay, so I thought it 
 would be easy enough to find you. The driver said 
 your cottage was near the hotel. He dropped pas 
 sengers here and there at little cottages and cross 
 roads, and then coursed on till he came through 
 the darkness to a lighted hotel. Then he said he 
 had made a mistake, and that your cottage was a 
 mile away; but he said he would bring me here 
 as soon as he had eaten his supper. He said he 
 had n't had time to get a mouthful since noon, and 
 it seemed only reasonable that he should want his 
 supper, at eight o'clock. He had to take off my 
 trunk to get at another one, and he set it on the 
 piazza. I went into the parlor to wait. 
 
 "After I 'd waited about three-quarters of an hour,
 
 282 Inside oiir Gate. 
 
 I went to the office to inquire about him, and, behold, 
 the clerk said the stage-driver had gone ! ' I guess 
 he must have forgotten you,' he said ; and there I was, 
 trunk and all. I was in despair. I did n't want to 
 drive round the country with some strange man, in 
 the darkness and the rain, so I thought my best 
 plan was to stay there all night, and find you in 
 the morning. 
 
 " When I asked for a room, the clerk said there was 
 'not a vacant one in the house. ' But I must have 
 one,' I said. Then he stepped out on the piazza, as 
 if to consult his guiding star, and pretty soon came 
 back to say that I could have the room of a young 
 man who had gone across the Sound for the night. 
 So up I went to take off my hat, and stood in the 
 middle of the room, feeling like a perfect intruder, 
 with the young man's things scattered all about the 
 room, when a rap came on the door, and I opened 
 it to behold a handsome young man. Of course I 
 thought it was the one who owned the room, come 
 to turn me out ; but, no, he said he had come to 
 take me to my cousins ; that you expected me this 
 afternoon, and were not looking for me to-night. He 
 said the stage had gone, but that there was a little 
 ' barge ' at the door which was going to the village, 
 and that he would take me to your door safely. He
 
 Inside our Gate. 283 
 
 helped me on with my sack, took my bag, and es 
 corted me to the barge, one of Cleopatra's, I sup 
 pose, and got in with me, and landed me safely 
 here. He said he had left your cottage only an hour 
 ago. Now, Mary, who is that young man?" 
 
 Then I told Pauline all I knew of her Mercury. 
 "How soon virtue is rewarded," said I, "and in 
 what overflowing measure it has come to me ! I find 
 an old velveteen coat for him, and he finds Pauline 
 for me. What can I do for him ? I '11 give him that 
 umbrella he borrowed." 
 
 " Perhaps he 'd rather have Pauline," said Allan. 
 
 Pauline laughed. " No lover for me," she said ; 
 "hard cash is what I want." 
 
 " Pauline, you are not engaged to a rich old man, 
 are you," said I, gazing sternly at her, as Allan went 
 out to look after her trunk, " some forlorn, glass- 
 eyed, false old man, just to get to Europe ? " 
 
 " Mercy, no, Mary ! But I have had an offer, 
 my second. The first was a young man who kept an 
 apothecary's shop in our town. One day I went in 
 there, I 'd been, of course, dozens of times before ; 
 he went to the same church too. I bought a hair 
 brush and comb, and he insisted on not taking any 
 pay for them. I just laid down the money and walked 
 out of the shop very stiffly. The next day I got a let-
 
 284 Inside our Gate. 
 
 ter from him in a blue-lined envelope, with an offer 
 of marriage." 
 
 " And this one, Pauline ? " 
 
 " Well, this one was from a little pale Episcopal 
 minister, with a big head and curly hair, a widower, 
 with a little girl about seven, and small twins. Think 
 of it ! I heard he had had six churches." 
 
 "All at once?" 
 
 "No, he had moved six times. Now, I like to 
 travel," said Pauline ; " but I would n't care to take 
 my furniture and the twins every time. Miss Wilder 
 said if I married him I 'd have to have my wedding- 
 presents put on casters ! I did n't care a scrap for 
 him, but I 've felt like a mean sneak ever since, be 
 cause he did need some one dreadfully to straighten 
 out his affairs, and I know I could have done it 
 beautifully. I can't get over the look of that poor 
 child of his, who .came to church with her dress 
 buttoned in front instead of behind. It made the 
 sleeves backside front, and a perfect fright of her ; 
 and she was a cunning little soul too. I suppose 
 her father dressed her, poor man. I see that I am 
 destined to be like that girl who had twenty offers, 
 but all of them ineligible." 
 
 After Pauline had had her tea, we sat round the fire 
 till it died away, and talked, while the rain still fell.
 
 Inside our Gate. 285 
 
 Then I took Pauline upstairs to introduce her to her 
 little room. It was a pleasant room, with white cur 
 tains at the windows, a white-draped dressing-table, a 
 queer little window opening on the stairway, and soft 
 pink roses trailing over the paper, printed roses, of 
 course. 
 
 Then I repeated a good-night couplet adapted for 
 Pauline, after the fashion of a lady we had heard of, 
 who always repeated one at night at the doors of her 
 guests' rooms, 
 
 " Stranger, sleep, thy car-fare o'er ; 
 Sleep the sleep that knows no waking." 
 
 The next day Mr. Wilson came to return the um 
 brella. Dear me, how things do turn out ! he was an ar 
 tist too, it seemed, and he had lived four years abroad. 
 Poor little Pauline looked envious when she heard that. 
 
 He sat on the piazza for an hour to get acquainted. 
 As there was no one to do it for us, we told him who 
 we were, and he told us who he was. His grandfather 
 was Scotch, and so was ours, delightful coincidence ! 
 We asked him if his grandfather was a "V. P." or Free 
 Church. Our grandfather was of the State Church ; 
 so was his (he said). He had an aunt who lived in 
 Essex County, Massachusetts, and we had an uncle in 
 Suffolk County.
 
 286 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Then we took a turn at books. Pauline said she 
 never felt really introduced to any one who had not 
 read " Cousin Phillis " and "The Village on the Cliff." 
 He said he would send for them that day. 
 
 " And ' Posson Jone' ' too," said I. " I never in 
 vite any one to dinner who does not read and love 
 ' Posson Jone'.' " 
 
 He added that to his list. 
 
 " I would n't stand that," said Allan, who sat with 
 his paper at the window that opened on the piazza. 
 " You can't tell where those two women will lead 
 you. They '11 put Doddridge's ' Rise and Progress,' 
 or Cruden's Concordance on your list next, or 
 Townsend's ' Arrangement,' or or Blunt's ' Coinci 
 dences ; ' they have n't read them, but they '11 pretend 
 they have. The titles of books that they know from 
 their grandfather's library are enough to make one 
 shudder." 
 
 But the young man did n't seem troubled. 
 
 One morning he came to show us a lot of his 
 sketches that he had sent for. They were really 
 beautiful. He rose in Pauline's estimation as the mer 
 cury rises when one lays a warm finger on the glass. 
 
 He showed us a capital sketch of an old Yankee 
 skipper, Captain Millets. He said some of his friends 
 were very anxious to go to the little seashore town
 
 Inside our Gate. 287 
 
 where the captain's wife took boarders; but warned 
 by the experience of some who went the Summer be 
 fore, they stipulated for a private table, the old cap 
 tain being such an incessant talker that the boarders 
 were fairly exhausted, rather than refreshed, after each 
 meal. 
 
 The evening they arrived (they were a party of 
 young men) they were very merry, and were made 
 merrier by hearing a smothered laugh follow each little 
 joke or story. The laugh seemed to proceed from a 
 closet in the dining-room, the door of which was ajar. 
 They found out afterward that the old gentleman 
 whom they had defrauded of their society at table 
 took his meals at the same hour from a shelf in the 
 " buttry," as he called it, from which retreat he could 
 hear every word they said. 
 
 They pretended not to know that he was there, and 
 one would say, " I must ask Captain Millets what time 
 I must be off for the fishing to-morrow," when at once 
 a disembodied voice would announce, " Half-past four 
 sharp, and bait fixed over night." 
 
 Some one said one morning that the drive must be 
 given up, as the sorrel horse was sick. " He 's dead," 
 said the voice, " died this mornin'. They gin him 
 camphire ; they had n't ought to gin him camphire." 
 
 Another day one of them said, " There go those
 
 288 Inside our Gate. 
 
 three old maids I told you of, ' Trypheny ' and 
 ' Tryphosy,' and I don't know the third one's 
 name." Said the voice, " 'T ought a been Tryagin, 
 but it is ' Malviny.' " 
 
 Sometimes the captain stood so close to the closet 
 door, in his eagerness to catch every word, that they 
 could hear him breathe. There was something irre 
 sistibly funny in the dead silence that reigned when 
 they wickedly lowered their voices as they neared the 
 point of some exciting tale. 
 
 When Mr. Wilson asked the captain to sit for him, 
 he was overjoyed, and came in half an hour afterward, 
 in his Sunday clothes, his hair all plastered down with 
 water, and his face polished by the use of soap-suds 
 and a crash towel. 
 
 " I meant to paint him," said Mr. Wilson, " in 
 his every-day clothes, whittling out a boat, or tipped 
 back in a chair reading his paper; but when I saw 
 him, I put him right in, polish and all, and called 
 the sketch * Ready for his Second Courting.' " 
 
 " Delightful ! " said I ; "if we don't go abroad next 
 Summer, Pauline, we must go there." 
 
 We praised his sketches, every one, for they were 
 charming. 
 
 " I '11 tell you what they remind me of," I said, 
 holding one off at arm's length, " the modern
 
 Inside our Gate. 289 
 
 Spanish pictures that I saw in Paris. I shall never 
 forget one exquisite little Rico, full as it could be of 
 sunshine and air and breezes, a little living minute 
 caught upon the paper." 
 
 Mr. Wilson seemed to find our town a region 
 full of inspiration ; he stayed on through the whole 
 Summer, and as we knew him better we admired still 
 more his talent as an artist and liked him as a friend. 
 
 Now I might well feel elated. I owned two artists, 
 two sketching-umbrellas, and two stools ; and it seemed 
 sometimes as if we were also to have two hearts that 
 beat as one, for somehow it happened that David Wilson 
 joined all our parties. We walked, we drove together, 
 and he and Pauline sketched. 
 
 The last drive we took that Summer was an event 
 ful one. We set off in an open beach-wagon for 
 Lake Misconet, miles away, the artists taking all their 
 " paraphernalia " along. We were to stop at any 
 symptom of inspiration and give them a chance to put 
 their thoughts on paper. Five or six miles from home 
 we turned into a charming wood-road, according to 
 my direction, and after a mile or two came to a queer 
 little weather-stained cottage and to the end of the 
 road. 
 
 " To think of owning the end of a road ! " said 
 Pauline, "a road full of trees and light and shade as 
 19
 
 290 Inside our Gate. 
 
 thick as leaves, and birds and squirrels for neighbors 
 and company ! " 
 
 It was a lovely spot, a little clearing of an acre 
 or two, with a low cottage standing close to the road, 
 a little turnstile set in the rickety lichen-tinted fence, 
 a millstone for a doorstep, the yard full of bouncing 
 Bets, and cypress-weed with its evil color and rank 
 growth of slimy stem creeping beyond the yard out 
 into the ruts of the road. Not a soul appeared to be 
 about the place. It was evidently a deserted house. 
 
 " We are wrong," said I ; "we should have taken 
 the road toward the left." 
 
 " No matter," cried Pauline ; " our souls guided us 
 here, for I feel inspired." 
 
 " So do I," cried Mr. Wilson. 
 
 " Have you noticed," said Allan to me in a low 
 tone, "that your new friend always seems inspired 
 when Pauline does?" 
 
 Noticed it ! anybody who was not blind must have 
 seen it. But I only said, "Why? Have you? Do 
 you think he is interested in her?" 
 
 "Well, I thought so to-day. It crossed my mind 
 for the first time yesterday." 
 
 "Allan," said I, in a whisper, "don't tell Pauline 
 that I told you, but she has had an offer this Summer 
 from an Episcopal clergyman."
 
 Inside our Gate. 291 
 
 "Whew ! was he a bishop? " said Allan. " Did she 
 accept him ? '' 
 
 " She has n't yet," said I. 
 
 Mr. Wilson had already set up his easel, and was 
 preparing to sketch. Pauline stood near him. 
 
 " Come, Pauline," said I, " let us peep into the 
 windows of the deserted house ; how solemn it seems, 
 this dead home, in all the sunlight of the Summer ! " 
 
 Through one window we saw a big fireplace black 
 ened by the smoke of many years ; bricks lay here 
 and there on the floor, as they had fallen from the 
 chimney. In the middle of the room stood two high- 
 backed rush-bottomed chairs facing each other. In the 
 other front room stood a red bedstead, with a ticking of 
 straw on it and a comforter half on the floor. A chest 
 of drawers was in one corner, from the open drawer 
 of which hung a dark garment of some sort. On the 
 hearth was a candlestick holding a half-burned candle. 
 It all looked very dreary. 
 
 "This is a horrible sort of a deserted house," said I. 
 " A deserted house should be empty. I can almost 
 see two old ghosts hobnobbing in those chairs, and I 
 believe they slept in this bed, and have been trying 
 on the old people's clothes ; I only hope they have not 
 put an end to the old people themselves. I believe 
 they are looking at us through the windows now."
 
 29 2 Inside our Gate. 
 
 "Flattening their noses on the pane," said Allan, 
 who had joined us ; " let us go in. Have you ever 
 called on a ghost; should we send cards?" 
 
 He pressed the iron latch, which yielded to his 
 touch, and threw back the door. 
 
 " Oh, don't go in," said I. 
 
 " No," said Pauline. " I could n't face a ghost in 
 the sunlight ; a ghost in the moonlight is natural and 
 proper." 
 
 " Let us go up to that orchard on the hill," said I 
 to Allan, thinking the artists would perhaps do as well 
 if left by themselves. 
 
 Such old, worn-out apple-trees they were ! The 
 trunks looked like weather-beaten logs, all the bark 
 hidden under patches of yellow and green lichen. 
 They were too old and tired to stand straight. They 
 stood knee-deep in grass, and seemed companionable 
 and " folksy," leaning toward one another and whisper 
 ing, for what else was that sound among the leaves ? 
 
 
 
 whispering of Springs and Autumns long gone, when 
 blossoms were fairer than nowadays, and fruit was 
 sweeter. Under one tree stood a broken bee-hive ; 
 apple-blossom honey those bees must have made, 
 food fit for the gods. The hive was sugar-loaf shape, 
 like Dr. Watts' bee-hives, " where little Howdoth used 
 to live," said Allan.
 
 Inside our Gate. 293 
 
 "The artists must surely make a sketch of this 
 orchard," I said, looking about on all its charming 
 details. 
 
 I ought to have married an artist instead of a lawyer ; 
 what a prize I should have been ! A bunch of weeds, 
 a roadside shed, a bend in the road, I can spy their 
 capabilities at once. I don't have to wait, as some 
 people do, to see from a mountain-top all the king 
 doms of the earth in a moment of time, and then cry 
 out, "What a picture that would make!" which 
 same it wouldn't. 
 
 In a hollow near by there was a little old mill, one 
 side of which had given up trying to stand any longer, 
 why should it, since the wheel had ceased to turn 
 and the stones were idle ? Deep down in the ravine 
 the dark fozy stream loitered, for its work too was over, 
 and the wild grape-vines reached down to its cool 
 brink, and turning back, climbed by the pine-trees 
 on the bank into the sunshine and the wind. 
 
 When we came back what wonders our artist had 
 wrought ! He had conjured up a little house on his 
 paper, a little house, already ancient, with roof 
 lichen-grown, and bulging outside chimney, all built 
 and old in sixty minutes. The sky was there too, and 
 great drifts of cloud, and the abele-tree behind the 
 house stretching far above the low roof.
 
 294 Inside our Gate. 
 
 As we told him about the orchard and the mill, he 
 went on painting, bringing out from white chaos the 
 well and the well-sweep, and causing the grass to 
 spring fresh and green about the doorstep, as if he 
 had rain and sunshine at his call. 
 
 "But the old man turning your 'grin'-s'n,' " asked 
 Pauline, " where is he ? and the old woman ' shooing 
 the fowels,' where is she?" 
 
 " Oh, it does n't need people," said Mr. Wilson. 
 " I shall say on a little gilt tablet on the frame that 
 he 's gone to the Corner for groceries, and she 's 
 'rode along of him' to to " 
 
 "To see Sophrony's baby," said I ; "and really one 
 can hardly believe this reason is not the true one. The 
 old place does not seem like a deserted house in this 
 cheerful light." 
 
 "No, it should have been sketched at dusk for a 
 haunted house," said Pauline, "and just the faintest 
 suspicion of a face at that window, a ghost's face, 
 and called 'The Dead Home.' 
 
 " But," she went on, " I like it best as it is, all sun 
 shiny. I would like to get into the picture myself and 
 live there." 
 
 I was turning away just at this moment to look for 
 Allan ; but as I went I thought I caught in earnest 
 tones something like, but no, I shall not tell even
 
 Inside our Gate. 295 
 
 what I thought I heard, and when from a safe dis 
 tance I looked round, the artist had dropped block and 
 brushes, the loose sheets from his portfolio fluttered on 
 the grass, and he and Pauline were disappearing in the 
 wood-path that led to the old mill. 
 
 I went back and picked up his belongings ; that was 
 only fair. It was their day ; I 'd had mine. Allan was 
 sitting on the well platform, sound asleep, and sleeping 
 sweetly too, for his fingers were between the leaves of 
 the "Forum," so that he knew he wasn't wasting his 
 time. 
 
 It was a long time before the artists came back, 
 with excuses about having been to look at the mill 
 we had said they ought to sketch ; and it was growing 
 late as we set out again to find the road to the lake. 
 Fortunately, we had not gone very far out of our way, 
 and a few miles brought us there. 
 
 The lake came up to my promise. It was dotted 
 with well-wooded islands, and little sandy beaches 
 broke the line of overhanging trees along its shore. 
 
 " Now," said Allan, " I will remark, as host, that 
 this is the finest lake within a radius of twenty-five 
 miles ; that it has seven islands, and is fourteen miles 
 in circumference. How beautiful the reflection of the 
 clouds in the water, also of the trees ! It reminds 
 me of Lucerne, where Tell didn't shoot the tyrant
 
 296 Inside our Gate. 
 
 Gessler. You may now feel easy, friends, my duty is 
 done. Fall to, eat, and be merry ! " 
 
 We stayed there till dusk, because we wanted to 
 show Pauline how the moon looked in that town. 
 Suddenly, as we were driving back, a chilly gust swept 
 down upon us; and while we were putting on our 
 wraps, it grew very dark, a few drops fell, and then a 
 shower pelted upon our unsheltered heads. 
 
 "Shall we drive on?" asked Allan. "We shall 
 soon be drenched at this rate. There is no house 
 till we reach the village." 
 
 "Why not take shelter in our deserted house?" 
 asked Mr. Wilson. "We are near that, and I think 
 we are in for a real storm." 
 
 " Oh, do," cried Pauline ; " and we can burn up the 
 ghosts' chairs and bedsteads. Oh, let us go there; 
 and the fun of it too ! " 
 
 In a little time we were entering the door which 
 Pauline had declined to enter in the daylight Mr. 
 Wilson had matches. 
 
 " Here is the ghosts' candle," said Pauline ; " we 
 can see by that to break up the furniture." 
 
 But Mr. Wilson found some old boards, and soon 
 built a blazing fire on the hearth. 
 
 " Still," said Pauline, " keep an eye out. I feel as 
 if the ghosts were in bed in the next room."
 
 Inside our Gate. 297 
 
 Allan and Mr. Wilson went out to put the horses 
 in the barn. The rain beat against the uncurtained 
 windows ; the dense darkness was only broken by the 
 firelight flashing on the raindrops which beat and 
 beat against the panes. The vines by the windows 
 tapped and rattled on the glass ; it would have been 
 eerie enough, had we not expected our protectors 
 back in a few minutes. 
 
 Pauline sprang up when they came in. " Oh," she 
 cried in a pitying tone, looking at Mr. Wilson's wet 
 coat, " how wet you are ! You '11 surely take cold ; 
 come near the fire." 
 
 Allan looked at me. " I am as wet as he is, and 
 wetter too," he whispered; "but she doesn't worry 
 about my coat. I bet on Wilson; do you bet on 
 the Episcopal clergyman?" 
 
 Allan sat on a box, leaning his head against the wall, 
 and under the combined influence of fatigue and the 
 warmth of the fire, was beginning to doze. Pauline 
 also had subsided in a corner ; while I sat on one side 
 of the fireplace talking with Mr. Wilson, who sat op 
 posite me facing a door which led into a back room. 
 The warmth was evidently affecting him too, and he 
 had hard work to keep his eyes open. Suddenly, 
 however, they opened very wide and stared at some 
 thing over my shoulder.
 
 298 Inside our Gate. 
 
 " What is it ? " said I, turning in the direction of the 
 door. 
 
 " As sure as I 'm alive," said Mr. Wilson, " I saw 
 the head of an old woman, in a nightcap, peep round 
 the corner of those enclosed stairs that lead from that 
 room." 
 
 " Impossible," said I ; " you must have dreamed 
 it." He shook his head. Then we sat in perfect 
 silence, watching the old stairs. A long time we 
 looked, so long in fact that a smile was beginning 
 to creep into my eyes, when before them flashed a 
 glimpse of white, it was an old woman's head in a 
 nightcap ! 
 
 The faintest of retreating footsteps sounded on the 
 stairs. We looked at each other blankly. 
 
 " Perhaps it is some one who has taken shelter here, 
 like ourselves," said he. 
 
 "But old ladies caught in unexpected tempests 
 don't have their nightcaps along," said I. 
 
 " Perhaps she is the old woman out of the barome 
 ter," said Mr. Wilson. After a few minutes came the 
 faint footfall, and just as the old woman's face ap 
 peared, Mr. Wilson and I stood up. As she saw us 
 she gave such a scream of terror as I never heard 
 before, and scampered up the stairs. 
 
 Allan and Pauline started to their feet. " Oh, what
 
 Inside our Gate. 299 
 
 is it?" they cried; and then they saw that we were 
 laughing. 
 
 " We supposed we had seen a ghost," said I ; " and 
 it is a veritable old lady who came downstairs in night 
 gown and cap to peep at us." 
 
 "Who is she? "cried Pauline. "Have you asked 
 her?" 
 
 "You speak to her," said Mr. Wilson to Pauline. 
 
 " Oh, when I thought it was a ghost," said I, " the 
 most proper chill stole up my spine and froze my 
 veins ! I can write a ghost-story now." 
 
 "Don't be afraid," said Pauline, in a reassuring 
 voice, as she stood at the foot of the stairs, " we are 
 only some people from the Bay who were caught in 
 the storm and came here for shelter. How did you 
 come here ? " 
 
 We heard a voice from above saying, " I ain't 
 scared, seein' there is wimmin there ; but you 'd ought 
 to have knocked. That wa'n't no way to walk into 
 my house and make a fire out of my boards 'thout 
 askin' me." 
 
 " You must excuse us," I added. " We were 
 caught in the rain, miles from home, and we did n't 
 know you lived here. We thought it was a deserted 
 house." 
 
 " 'T ain't no such thing," said the old woman, indig-
 
 3OO Inside our Gate. 
 
 nantly ; " it 's a real good house. We 've lived here 
 forty years in comfort, and never seen a soul except 
 the folks we knew that come a purpose to see us ; but 
 now I sha'n't take no more comfort, I shall be so afraid 
 of tramps. When we come home to-day and found 
 crumbs on the doorstep and see some loose papers 
 round, I felt sort of skittish then." 
 
 Soon the old woman appeared downstairs dressed. 
 " Mercy on us ! " said she, " an' so you thought our 
 house was deserted ? Well, it was, sort of. We Ve 
 been thinkin' of repairin' for some time along back ; 
 and when Sarah's baby come and I had to be there 
 anyway, I said to father he 'd better go too, and go 
 back and forth to feed the cow. And then we 
 thought it would be a good chance to repair, and so 
 he and Sarah's husband come about a week ago and 
 carried the furniture all upstairs to get ready for the 
 carpenter; and then it was such a long way, 'bout 
 five miles, for father to be going over, they just took 
 the cow home to Sarah's, and the hens. I knew 
 things was n't left right, because men- folks don't know 
 how, and I said I must come over this afternoon 
 and see ; and we brought some cooked victuals so 's 
 to stay over night, and we 're going back to-morrow. 
 We 'd just got asleep when you bust in the door and 
 we woke up in a dreadful fright. Father he said I 'd
 
 Inside our Gate. 301 
 
 better lay, but I could n't seem to ; but I was scared 
 when I see that young man stand up as if he was 
 goin' to ketch me." 
 
 " I don't wonder you were frightened," said I. 
 
 The old woman was very curious to know just who 
 we were and our names. I explained to her as best 
 I could. 
 
 "And these folks," said she, "who might they be? 
 Is that your wife ? " she asked, looking from Pauline 
 to Mr. Wilson. 
 
 " Not yet," said the young man, coolly, smiling at 
 Allan and me. 
 
 " Hush ! " cried Pauline, reproachfully. 
 
 " Hello," said Allan, in a stage whisper to me, " I 
 thought she was engaged to an Episcopal bishop ! " 
 
 " She did n't tell me so," said Mr. Wilson, smiling 
 and taking Pauline's hand. " I suppose I ought to 
 have chosen a more formal time and way," he went 
 on, " to ask your approval as your cousin's protec 
 tors, but the exigencies of the moment seem to be 
 too much for me." 
 
 Well, we were not exactly surprised, but it did seem 
 rather sudden. However, we really liked David Wilson, 
 and we gave the young people our blessing, while the 
 old woman looked on in some astonishment at the scene 
 which was taking place in her unfrequented cottage.
 
 302 Inside our Gate. 
 
 The rain ceased about an hour after this, and we 
 departed, greatly to the old woman's regret. We left 
 some money with her to pay for " busting in the 
 door," and for the fright we had given her. 
 
 I thought it was my duty, as a married woman, to 
 have a little talk with Pauline on this important occa 
 sion, so I went to her room that very night I seated 
 myself in a little rocking-chair, and she sat before me 
 taking out her hairpins, and shaking her curly hair 
 about her. 
 
 " My dear," said I, " I feel it is my duty, now that 
 you are engaged, to tell you that life is something 
 besides play." 
 
 "Yes 'm,"'said Pauline, " so I Ve heard." 
 
 " Oh, yes, my dear," I went on, " the very best of 
 men of^en have peculiarities which are hard to put up 
 with ; even Allan, who you know is perfect, had little 
 ways one had to get used to, or well, for instance, 
 he comes always and complains if his stockings are 
 rolled up in pairs in his drawer instead of being 
 spread out one upon another, do you see ? " 
 
 " If such a trial as that should come to me," said 
 Pauline, " I should just give way under it ; but I hope 
 I sha'n't be called upon to bear it ; yes 'm, I hope 
 not." 
 
 " Don't laugh, Pauline ! Listen ; I knew a man
 
 Inside our Gate. 303 
 
 once who just would do one thing perfectly hateful, 
 and only one. There was plenty of closet room in 
 the house, and yet he would stand a pair of long- 
 legged boots in the corner of his wife's dressing-room ; 
 would, despite all she could say. What would you do 
 in such a case as that ? " 
 
 " Paint them red and fill them with dried grasses," 
 she replied in her jaunty way. 
 
 " I am not joking, you understand," said I. 
 
 " Yes 'm," said she. 
 
 " Then I knew a man who saved a girl from drown 
 ing. It was a very brave act and nearly cost him his 
 life. Then he fell in love with her and married her \ 
 but afterward he was very disagreeable about his coffee 
 and his biscuits, though they were good enough, 
 I Ve tasted them, and would run his hand over 
 the banisters and show her the dust, and sniffed when 
 the kerosene lamp was lighted in the library, as if it 
 had a horrid smell, when it was exquisitely clean. 
 How would you stand that? Really a noble man, 
 you know, who was simply uncomfortable to live with. 
 What would you do in such a case ? " 
 
 " Fall down the well and get almost drowned every 
 day just to keep his greatness uppermost," said Pau 
 line, flippantly. " Yes 'm, that 's what I 'd do." 
 
 The girl sat there in her white skirts and frilled
 
 304 Inside our Gate. 
 
 dressing-sack, her hair falling over her shoulders, her 
 eyes shining with happiness. 
 
 " Well, good-night, my dear," said I, smiling at her, 
 " pleasant dreams and every blessing ! " 
 
 " Good- night, Molly," she said. 
 
 As soon as I had shut the door it flew open. Out 
 she ran and caught me in her arms and kissed me. 
 
 " Oh, Molly dear, I am so happy," she said. 
 
 " You dear, dear, good little Pauline ! " said I. 
 " You deserve to be happy ; you shall be happy ; you 
 will be happy; good-night." 
 
 David Wilson has no relatives. He says he wished 
 to own us, Allan and me and the children, and 
 marrying Pauline was the only way to do it. He has 
 plenty of money left him by an aunt who was evi 
 dently a very " thoughtful " person ; and they will be 
 married in October and go at once to Europe. 
 
 There is no royal road to learning, we have all 
 heard ; but there is, it seems, a short cut to Europe. 
 
 University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 THE COLONEL'S OPERA CLOAK, 
 
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 TWENTY LESSONS IN COOKEEY. 
 
 Compiled from the Boston School Kitchen Text-Book, by Mrs. D. A. 
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 Price, 40 cents per set. 
 
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 " The twenty cooking-lessons include plain directions for about one hundred 
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 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 LONDON OF TO-DAY, 1889. 
 
 By CHARLES E. PASCOE. Numerous illustrations. Fourth year of 
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 MARTIN LUTHER, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 
 
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 " Reason in Religion," " Atheism in Philosophy," etc. 121110. Cloth. 
 Price, $2.00. 
 
 THE UNITED STATES OF YESTEBDAY AND OF TO-MOBBOW. 
 
 By WILLIAM BARROWS, D.D., author of "Oregon; the Struggle for 
 Possession," "The Indian Side of the Indian Question," etc. i vol. 
 i6mo. Cloth. Price, 1.25. 
 
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 country, it was quite natural that a miscellaneous information should be -solicited 
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 " For various reasons it has seemed best to let this information group itself 
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 HISTOBY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISBAEL, 
 
 Till the Time of Kins; David. By ERNEST RENAN, author of " Life 
 of Jesus." Demy 8vo. Cloth. Price, $2.50. 
 
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 5
 
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 6
 
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 SUNDAY-SCHOOL STORIES 
 
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 Price, Jj5i.oo. 
 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL STORIES 
 
 On the Golden Texts of the International Lessons of 1889. Second 
 Half, July-December. By Rev. EDWARD E. HALE. i6mo. Cloth. 
 Price, $1.00. 
 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL STORIES FOR LITTLE CHILDREN 
 
 On the Golden Texts of the International Lessons of 1889. July~ 
 December. By Miss LUCRETIA P. HALE and Mrs. BERNARD WHIT 
 MAN. One volume. Square i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 
 
 "The publishers of this volume issued in January a collection of twenty-six 
 stories founded upon the texts of the International Course for the first six months of 
 this year. They will issue this month a series of twenty-six stories corresponding 
 to the lessons of the last six months of the year. These stories are written by what 
 in the Wadsworth Clubs we call a 'Ten,' several of them by myself, and the 
 others by my sisters, my children, and by Mrs. Bernard Whitman, the Secretary 
 of the Ten Times One orders. It is pleasant to acknowledge the interest and 
 favor with which the collection already published has been received by teachers 
 of Sunday-schools. But it had scarcely appeared before we received an earnest 
 
 elps them or their teachers helps 
 felt at once some surprise that the general wish for such a collection had not been 
 sooner acknowledged and provided for. I therefore urged Mrs. Whitman and 
 my sister Lucretia to undertake at once the compilation of a volume which should 
 meet the purposes of the younger classes in all our Sunday-schools, as they 
 engaged in the study of the International texts for this year. They have under 
 taken this very pleasant office, and the reader has in hand the stories which they 
 have provided for the little people. 
 
 " It is published at the same time with the collection for older boys and girls, 
 which, as before, was written by what I am tempted to call my own ' Ten.' lioth 
 of them are published with our best hopes and prayers for the welfare of the 
 young people for whom they are written." Edward E. Hale. 
 
 ROGER BERKELEY'S PROBATION. 
 
 A Story. By HELEN CAMPBELL, author of " Prisoners of Poverty," 
 " Miss Melinda's Opportunity," "Mrs. Hcrndon's Income," "The What- 
 to-do Club." I2mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 "It is one of those stories that always appeal to the sympathies, and will find 
 a large circle of readers among those who still believe in the courage, gratitude, 
 and fidelity of man. The tale is well conceived and prettily set in an old- 
 fashioned country house, the characters are in the main well drawn, and the 
 climax very effective. The author's style is bright and lively, and though the 
 materials she has used are not new, they arc most pleasantly modelled to suit 
 her ends." Commonwealth.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 PRISONERS OF POVERTY ABROAD. 
 
 By HELEN CAMPBELL, author of "Prisoners of Poverty," "The 
 What-to-do Club," etc. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00 ; paper covers, 50 
 
 cents. 
 
 ook is quite as serious and appealing as the other, and shows about the same 
 irivation in conditions and inequalities in wages." Boston Globe. 
 
 A RAMBLING STORY. 
 
 By MARY COWDEN CLARKE. A new edition. i6mo. Cloth. Price, 
 
 $1.00 ; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 " In ' A Rambling Story' Mary Cowden Clarke, whose more serious Shake 
 spearian studies have made her name pleasantly and honorably known to students, 
 tells a romantic tale of art. love, adventure, and travel. . . . The story has for 
 its heroes and heroines, principal and subordinate, true, high-hearted, romantic 
 characters, and is simply, pleasantly, and at times delightfully told, and abounds 
 in word-picturing and phrasing and romantic incidents." Chicago Tribune. 
 
 A WOODLAND WOOING. 
 
 A Story. By ELEANOR PUTNAM. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 
 
 " The reader must be dull indeed who could not be won from his summer 
 drowsiness by enjoyment of the breeziness and cheeriness, the unforced brightness 
 and charming originality of this, the most amusing ' summer novel ' which has up 
 to date found its way to our table. Its pages breathe of youth and summer 
 weather, of clover-fields and mountain brooks. One is quickened with a sense of 
 something near and sweet and wholesome in its pleasant company. It is the 
 story of a summer's 'camping-out,' told in alternate chapters by a brother and 
 sister, of the frank, jolly, rather 'picklesome ' sort." Exchange. 
 
 COUNTER-CURRENTS. 
 
 A Story. By the author of "Justina." i6mo. Cloth. Price, 75 
 cents. 
 
 " ' Counter-Currents,' by the anonymous author of ' Justina ' is well worth 
 being read, and attentively. It is a sweet, uplifting story, with vigorously drawn 
 characters and scenes, indeed it is occasionally trulv dramatic, and with many 
 blendings of tender feeling and delicate analysis. Moreover, without seeming to 
 aim to do so unduly, it teaches several most important practical lessons in an 
 unmistakable manner." Congregationalist. 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S COMPLETE WORKS. 
 
 From the text of the Rev. ALEXANDER DYCE'S second edition. With 
 Portrait, Memoir, and Glossary. A cheap edition. 7 vols. i6mo. Cloth. 
 Price, #5.25. 
 
 The " Alexander Dyce " edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems is pre 
 sumedly one of the most accurate among the many editions which have been 
 published. The interpretation of the text has the indorsement of our best 
 scholars, both in England and America. The edition is issued in small, handy 
 volumes, compact and durably bound, and contains a glossary.
 
 Messrs. Roberts BrotJiers Publications. 
 
 THE TETJTH ABOUT CLEMENT KER. 
 
 A Novel. By GEORGE FLEMING, author of " Kismet," " Mirage," 
 " Head of Medusa," etc. 161110. Price, 75 cents. 
 
 "Under the name of 'George Fleming,' Miss Julia Fletcher has for more 
 than a decade been ministering to the pleasure of readers of the better sort of 
 fiction ; but we do not remember that in all that period she has produced a more 
 thoroughly original and artistic novel than ' The Truth about Clement Ker.' 
 From the literary point of view Miss Fletcher's work has always been of a rare 
 and charming quality. Her style is nervous, graceful, impressive, strong. . . . 
 The plot is admirably managed. Nothing could surpass the skill with which the 
 interest is slowly brought to centre upon the hidden chamber in the ruins, and 
 ihe haunting terror of the closing chapters is something to be remembered. 
 Here again the author enforces the artistic creed ot nothing too much. The 
 mystery remains a mystery to the last, or at any rate is only to be solved by the 
 reader's ingenuity." Boston Beacon. 
 
 ROMANCES OF REAL LIFE. 
 
 First and Second Series (sold separately). Selected and annotated by 
 LEIGH HUNT, author of "The Book of the Sonnet," "The Seer," "A 
 Day by the Fire," etc. 2 vols. i6mo. Price, 75 cents each. 
 
 Crimes, virtues, humors, plots, agonies, heroical sacrifices, mysteries of the 
 most extraordinary description, though taking place in ihe most ordinary walks 
 of life are the staple commodity of this book; all true, and over the greater 
 portion of them hangs the greatest ot" all interests domestic interest. 
 
 FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 
 
 A Comparison. By PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON. One volume. 
 I2mo. Cloth. Price, $2.00. 
 
 " Mr. Hamerton's comparison of the two nations follows a very methodical 
 order. He compares them, step by step, in reference to education, patriotism, 
 politics, religion, virtues, customs, and society. The chapters on the virtues 
 which are philosophically classified under the heads of truth, justice, purity, tem 
 perance, thrift, cleanliness, and courage abound in suggestive observations." 
 Academy. 
 
 INSIDE OUR GATE. 
 
 A Story. By Mrs. CHRISTINE C. BRUSH. Author of " The Colo 
 nel's Opera Cloak," in the " No Name Series." i6mo. Cloth. Price, 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 " One of the most amusing stories of the season is ' Inside our Gate,' by 
 Christine Chaplin Brush, the author of the ' Colonel's Opera Cloak,' a book 
 which achieved a great popular success several years ago. In her new book the 
 writer has sustained her reputation, and gives us reproductions of quaint charac 
 ters met with in household experiences that are full of an entertaining truthfulness 
 to life. Swedish, Scotch, Irish, and rustic American peculiarities are brought 
 forward in this volume with a realism that shows the author has carefully studied 
 the subjects chosen for illustration. The young or old matron who has been 
 obliged to haunt intelligence-offices in search of servants will tind in these pages 
 matter highly suggestive of her own trials and tribulations, set forth in a bright 
 and piquant manner that will make very spicy reading in the hours that can be 
 spared from domestic duties." Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 THE STORY OF REALMAH. 
 
 By Sir ARTHUR HELPS, author of "Friends in Council," "Casimir 
 Maremma," etc. i6mo. Cloth. Price, 75 cents.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 CASIMIB MAEEMMA. 
 
 A Story. By Sir ARTHUR HELPS, author of "Friends in Council," 
 " The Story of Realmah," etc. First American edition. i6mo. Cloth. 
 Price, 75 cents. 
 
 BY LEAFY WAYS. 
 
 Brief Studies in the Book of Nature. By F. A. KNIGHT. With nu 
 merous beautiful illustrations by E. T. Compton. i2mo. Cloth. Price, 
 
 $2 .00. 
 
 "The author leads us through all the varying year in a series of delightful 
 chapters. It is hard to single out one as superior to another. His diction has a 
 character of its own. So ingeniously does he blend what he has seen with what 
 lie has read, and all in such an original manner, that one feels one's self in 
 the presence of a new master. He transmutes the spirit of the country into the 
 language of the town in a way which appeals alike to the naturalist and to the 
 man of letters. His very table of contents is enough to make a Londoner long 
 for another holiday." London Academy. 
 
 THE LITTLE PILGBIM : Further Experiences. 
 
 On the Dark Mountains. The Land of Darkness. i6mo. Cloth, limp. 
 Price, 60 cents. 
 
 This volume is uniform with our edition of " A Little Pilgrim," and is a 
 continuation of that book. 
 
 STOKIES OF THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 By Mrs. MARGARET O. W. OLIPHANT. Including the four books 
 hitherto published anonymously, viz : " A Little Pilgrim : In the Unseen ; " 
 "The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences, etc. ;" "Old Lady Mary, a 
 Story of the Seen and the Unseen ; " " The Open Door. The Portrait : 
 Two Stories of the Seen and the Unseen." In one volume. 161110. 
 Cloth. Price, gi. 25. 
 
 WITH SA'DI IN THE GABDEN; 
 
 Or, The Book of Love. Being the " Ishk " or third chapter of the 
 " Bostan " of the Persian poet Sa'di, embodied in a dialogue held in the 
 garden of the Taj Mahal, at Agra. By Sir ED\VIN ARNOLD, M.A., 
 K.C.I.E., C.S.I. One volume. i6mo. Cloth. Uniform with "The 
 Light of Asia," " Pearls of the Faith," etc. Price, 1.00. 
 
 '"With Sa'di in the Garden,' by Sir Edwin Arnold, continues the service of 
 making English readers acquainted with the classical poetry of the East, in which 
 the author has been so long and so successfully engaged. This is in most respects 
 the most interesting contribution Sir Edwin has given. It is a more connected 
 story, and its motive is clearer than in his other translations and paraphrases. 
 The poems from Sa'di abound in rare beauty of thought and fancy, and are 
 delightful independently of the text in which they are embedded. The wonder 
 fully flexible, idiomatic, and strong and chaste English of Sir Edwin Arnold has 
 a special charm of its own ; and his command over English diction has been 
 nowhere shown by him with greater fulness, brilliancy, and force than in this 
 volume, which appeals strongly to every finely cultivated taste and every lover of 
 poetry in its finest and truest essence." Saturday Evening Gazette*
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIB EDWIN ARNOLD. 
 2 vols. i2mo. Cloth, gilt. Price, $4.00. 
 
 This edition includes all of the Poetical Works previously published in eight 
 volumes, thus condensing them into a portable and permanent form. 
 
 ETHICAL RELIGION. 
 
 By WILLIAM MACKINTIRE SALTER. tamo. Cloth. Price, $1.50. 
 
 " It should be read by all who wish to know the real spirit and purpose of 
 the ethical movement. It is a valuable addition to the movement, one of the best 
 fruits it has yet produced. The book does not pretend to be a philosophical 
 treatise ; its purpose is purely practical and moral. The moral purpose that holds 
 ethical societies together and animates their work is here strongly and beautifully 
 presented. Every page is a call to the higher life. The gospel of the supremacy 
 of ethics is nobly vindicated." Ethical Record. 
 
 MISS EYRE FROM BOSTON, AND OTHERS. 
 
 By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. One volume. iGmo. Cloth, 
 Price, $1.25; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 "Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton's stories are always certain to be worth 
 reading; for the author understands human nature thoroughly, she has the gift 
 of devising original motives, her style is piquant, jnd her satire almost uncon 
 scious in its felicity. ' Miss Eyre from Boston ' is a book that all gently -nurtured, 
 good-hearted girls ought to delight in reading." The Beacon. 
 
 IN THE 6ABDEN OF DREAMS. 
 
 Lyrics and Sonnets. By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. Author of 
 "Poem by L. C. M.," "Random Rambles," "Miss Eyre from Boston," 
 etc. i6mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price, 1.50. 
 
 CHATA AND CHINITA. 
 
 A Story. By Mrs. LOUISE PALMER HEAVEN. Uniform in style 
 with " Ramona." One volume. i2mo. Cloth. Price, 1.50. 
 
 " The local color is novel, the plot striking, and the character-sketches are 
 vivid. Even if the reader be averse to stories of adventure, he will find his 
 interest captured here at the start, and pre>ceed breathlessly to the end of ' Chata 
 and Chinita.' . . . The reader's inierest is sustained throughout the book, and 
 the narrative, from beginning to end, is boih picturesque and absorbing. Un 
 doubtedly there are too many characters introduced into the story, and sometimes 
 the reader is fairly bewildered by the rapid succession of exciting events; but in 
 making the criticism we must remember that the writer's aim has been to give us 
 a living picture of a plowing period of Mexican life, to write, in tact, that old- 
 fashioned article known as a romance. That she has accomplished this difficult 
 task brilliantly, no one can deny. Few readers who once take up her fascinating 
 taie of love and adventure will lay it down without finishing it. 'Chata and 
 Chinita 'is in many ways a remarkable novel." Boston Transcript. 
 
 BELIEF. 
 
 By GEORGE L. CHANEY. i6mo. Cloth. Price, Ji.oo. 
 
 A series of discourses under the several headings of Man, God, Christ, 
 Heaven. Hell, etc., the object of which is to find some basis of truth and reality 
 on which to plant the feet of active charity, and where a genuine devotion may 
 kneel without superstition or tear.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications, 
 
 A FEW MORE VERSES. 
 
 By SUSAN COOLIDGE. One volume. i6mo. Cloth. Price, 1.00. 
 An entirely new collection, and companion to the first volume, " Verses 
 by S. C.," of which the "New Haven Palladium" says: 
 
 "_' Verses,' a modest name for a casket of gems, a collection of rare and 
 beautiful literary pearls." 
 
 A MODEEN MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 By LOUISA M. ALCOTT, author of "Little Women." One volume. 
 i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50. 
 
 "A Modern Mephistopheles" was written by Miss Alcott for the "No 
 Name Series " of novels, and is now for the first time published with her name as 
 its author. In this volume is included a new story (60 pp.), never before printed, 
 entitled " A Whisper in the Dark." 
 
 LOUISA M. ALCOTT: 
 
 Her Life, Letters, and Journals. Edited by EDNAH D. CHENEY. 
 With portraits and view of the Alcott Home in Concord. One volume. 
 i6mo. Uniform with " Little Women." Price, $i. 50. 
 
 Mrs. Cheney has allowed this popular author to tell the story of her early 
 struggles, her successes, and prosperity and life-work, in her own inimitable 
 style, gracefully weaving the daily record of this sweet and useful life into a gar 
 land of iinmortelles in a manner at once pleasing and within the comprehension of 
 the thousands of readers and admirers of Miss Alcott's books. It might truly be 
 called the biography of " Little Women." 
 
 The volume is enriched by the addition of two new portraits of Miss Alcott, 
 one taken at the time she went into the service of her country as a hospital nurse, 
 the other when she was in the full maturity of her popular career. 
 
 PORTFOLIO PAPERS. 
 
 By PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON. With a portrait of the author, 
 etched from the life, by Henri Manesse. I2mo. Cloth. Price, $2.00. 
 
 " Portfolio Papers consists of numerous short biographies and essays selected 
 from his admirable art periodical by their author, in the belief that they were of 
 permanent interest and worth collection in handier form than that in which they 
 were originally given to the public. They include biographies of Constable, Etty, 
 Chintreuil, Adrien, Guignet and Goya ; a series of ' Notes on ./Esthetics,' essays 
 on 'Style,' ' Soul and Matter in the Fine Arts,' ' The Nature of Fine Arts,' 
 and 'Can Science Help Art?' and five 'Conversations on Book Illustration,' 
 the whole forming a delightful volume, to be read with pleasure by all people 
 of cultivated taste. To dwell upon the grace, the pithiness, and the polish of 
 Mr. Hamerton's literary style is not necessary at this late date, and it would be 
 equally superfluous to emphasize the authority and the taste with which he writes 
 about art. This book, which is prefaced by an etched portrait of the author, is 
 abundant in that charm and that edifying comment that make Mr. Hamerton 
 one of the most attractive and satisfying of art critics to read." Saturday 
 Evening Gazette.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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