"Only when I've some other errand, Miss Ellen; my grain would never be in the barn if I was running to post-office every other thing, and for what ain't there too. I don't get a letter but two or three times a year, I s'pose, though I call, I guess, half-a-dozen times."
"Ah, but there's one there now, or soon will be, I know, for me," said Ellen. "When do you think you'll go again, Mr. Van Brunt?"
"Now if I'd ha' knowed that I'd ha' gone to Thirlwall yesterday – I was within a mile of it. I don't see as I can go this week anyhow in the world; but I'll make some errand there the first day I can, Miss Ellen, that you may depend on. You shan't wait for your letter a bit longer than I can help."
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Van Brunt, you are very kind. Then the letters never come except when you go after them?"
"No – yes, they do come once in a while by old Mr. Swaim, but he ha'n't been here this great while."
"And who's he?" said Ellen.
"Oh, he's a queer old chip that goes round the country on all sorts of errands; he comes along once in a while. That'll do, Johnny. I believe this here tool is as sharp as I have any occasion for."
"What's the use of pouring water upon the grindstone?" said Ellen; "why wouldn't it do as well dry?"
"I can't tell, I am sure," replied Mr. Van Brunt, who was slowly drawing his thumb over the edge of the axe; "your questions are a good deal too sharp for me, Miss Ellen; I only know it would spoil the axe, or the grindstone, or both most likely."
"It's very odd," said Ellen thoughtfully; "I wish I knew everything. But, oh dear! I am not likely to know anything," said she, her countenance suddenly changing from its pleased inquisitive look to a cloud of disappointment and sorrow. Mr. Van Brunt noticed the change.
"Ain't your aunt going to send you to school, then?" said he.
"I don't know," said Ellen, sighing; "she never speaks about it, nor about anything else. But I declare I'll make her!" she exclaimed, changing again. "I'll go right in and ask her, and then she'll have to tell me. I will! I am tired of living so. I'll know what she means to do, and then I can tell you what I must do."
Mr. Van Brunt, seemingly dubious about the success of this line of conduct, stroked his chin and his axe alternately two or three times in silence, and finally walked off. Ellen, without waiting for her courage to cool, went directly into the house.
Miss Fortune, however, was not in the kitchen; to follow her into her secret haunts, the dairy, cellar, or lower kitchen, was not to be thought of. Ellen waited awhile, but her aunt did not come, and the excitement of the moment cooled down. She was not quite so ready to enter upon the business as she had felt at first; she had even some qualms about it.
"But I'll do it," said Ellen to herself; "it will be hard, but I'll do it!"
CHAPTER XIV
For my part, he keeps me here rustically
At home, or, to speak more properly, stays
Me here at home unkept.
– As You Like It.
The next morning after breakfast Ellen found the chance she rather dreaded than wished for. Mr. Van Brunt had gone out; the old lady had not left her room, and Miss Fortune was quietly seated by the fire, busied with some mysteries of cooking. Like a true coward, Ellen could not make up her mind to bolt at once into the thick of the matter, but thought to come to it gradually – always a bad way.
"What is that, Aunt Fortune?" said she, after she had watched her with a beating heart for about five minutes.
"What is what?"
"I mean, what is that you are straining through the colander into that jar?"
"Hop-water."
"What is it for?"
"I'm scalding this meal with it to make turnpikes."
"Turnpikes!" said Ellen; "I thought turnpikes were high, smooth roads with toll-gates every now and then – that's what mamma told me they were."
"That's all the kind of turnpikes your mamma knew anything about, I reckon," said Miss Fortune, in a tone that conveyed the notion that Mrs. Montgomery's education had been very incomplete. "And indeed," she added immediately after, "if she had made more turnpikes and paid fewer tolls, it would have been just as well, I'm thinking."
Ellen felt the tone, if she did not thoroughly understand the words. She was silent a moment; then remembering her purpose, she began again. "What are these, then, Aunt Fortune?"
"Cakes, child, cakes! turnpike cakes – what I raise the bread with."
"What, those little brown cakes I have seen you melt in water and mix in the flour when you make bread?"
"Mercy on us! yes! you've seen hundreds of 'em since you've been here, if you never saw one before."
"I never did," said Ellen. "But what are they called turnpikes for?"
"The land knows! I don't. For mercy's sake stop asking me questions, Ellen; I don't know what's got into you; you'll drive me crazy."
"But there's one more question I want to ask very much," said Ellen, with her heart beating.
"Well, ask it then quick, and have done, and take yourself off. I have other fish to fry than to answer all your questions."
Miss Fortune, however, was still quietly seated by the fire stirring her meal and hop-water, and Ellen could not be quick; the words stuck in her throat – came out at last.
"Aunt Fortune, I wanted to ask you if I may go to school?"
"Yes."
Ellen's heart sprang with a feeling of joy, a little qualified by the peculiar dry tone in which the word was uttered.
"When may I go?"
"As soon as you like."
"Oh, thank you, ma'am. To which school shall I go, Aunt Fortune?"
"To whichever you like."
"But I don't know anything about them," said Ellen; "how can I tell which is best?"
Miss Fortune was silent.
"What schools are there near here?" said Ellen.
"There's Captain Conklin's down at the Cross, and Miss Emerson's at Thirlwall."
Ellen hesitated. The name was against her, but nevertheless she concluded on the whole that the lady's school would be the pleasantest.
"Is Miss Emerson any relation of yours?" she asked.
"No."
"I think I should like to go to her school the best. I will go there if you will let me – may I?"
"Yes."
"And I will begin next Monday – may I?"
"Yes."
Ellen wished exceedingly that her aunt would speak in some other tone of voice; it was a continual damper to her rising hopes.
"I'll get my books ready," said she; "and look 'em over a little too, I guess. But what will be the best way for me to go, Aunt Fortune?"
"I don't know."
"I couldn't walk so far, could I?"
"You know best."
"I couldn't, I am sure," said Ellen; "it's four miles to Thirlwall, Mr. Van Brunt said; that would be too much for me to walk twice a day; and I should be afraid besides."
A dead silence.
"But, Aunt Fortune, do please tell me what I am to do. How can I know unless you tell me? What way is there that I can go to school?"
"It is unfortunate that I don't keep a carriage," said Miss Fortune; "but Mr. Van Brunt can go for you morning and evening in the ox-cart, if that will answer."
"The ox-cart! But, dear me! it would take him all day, Aunt Fortune. It takes hours and hours to go and come with the oxen; Mr. Van Brunt wouldn't have time to do anything but carry me to school and bring me home."
"Of course; but that's of no consequence," said Miss Fortune, in the same dry tone.
"Then I can't go – there's no help for it," said Ellen despondingly. "Why didn't you say so before. When you said yes I thought you meant yes."
She covered her face. Miss Fortune rose with a half smile and carried her jar of scalded meal into the pantry. She then came back and commenced the operation of washing-up the breakfast things.
"Ah, if I only had a little pony," said Ellen, "that would carry me there and back, and go trotting about with me everywhere – how nice that would be!"
"Yes, that would be very nice! And who do you think would go trotting about after the pony? I suppose you would leave that to Mr. Van Brunt; and I should have to go trotting about after you, to pick you up in case you broke your neck in some ditch or gully; it would be a very nice affair altogether, I think."
Ellen was silent. Her hopes had fallen to the ground, and her disappointment was unsoothed by one word of kindness or sympathy. With all her old grievances fresh in her mind, she sat thinking her aunt was the very most disagreeable person she ever had the misfortune to meet with. No amiable feelings were working within her; and the cloud on her brow was of displeasure and disgust, as well as sadness and sorrow. Her aunt saw it.
"What are you thinking of?" said she rather sharply.
"I am thinking," said Ellen, "I am very sorry I cannot go to school."
"Why, what do you want to learn so much? You know how to read and write and cipher, don't you?"
"Read and write and cipher?" said Ellen: "to be sure I do; but that's nothing – that's only the beginning."
"Well, what do you want to learn besides?"
"Oh, a great many things."
"Well, what?"
"Oh, a great many things," said Ellen; "French, and Italian, and Latin, and music, and arithmetic, and chemistry, and all about animals and plants and insects – I forget what it's called – and – oh, I can't recollect; a great many things. Every now and then I think of something I want to learn; I can't remember them now. But I'm doing nothing," said Ellen sadly; "learning nothing – I am not studying and improving myself as I meant to; mamma will be disappointed when she comes back, and I meant to please her so much!" The tears were fast coming; she put her hand upon her eyes to force them back.
"If you are so tired of being idle," said Miss Fortune, "I'll warrant I'll give you something to do; and something to learn too, that you want enough more than all those crinkumcrankums; I wonder what good they'd ever do you! That's the way your mother was brought up, I suppose. If she had been trained to use her hands and do something useful instead of thinking herself above it, maybe she wouldn't have had to go to sea for her health just now; it doesn't do for women to be bookworms."
"Mamma isn't a bookworm!" said Ellen indignantly; "I don't know what you mean; and she never thinks herself above being useful; it's very strange you should say so when you don't know anything about her."
"I know she ha'n't brought you up to know manners, anyhow," said Miss Fortune. "Look here, I'll give you something to do – just you put those plates and dishes together ready for washing, while I am downstairs."
Ellen obeyed, unwillingly enough. She had neither knowledge of the business nor any liking for it; so it is no wonder Miss Fortune at her return was not well pleased.
"But I never did such a thing before," said Ellen.
"There it is now!" said Miss Fortune. "I wonder where your eyes have been every single time that I have done it since you have been here. I should think your own sense might have told you! But you're too busy learning of Mr. Van Brunt to know what's going on in the house. Is that what you call made ready for washing? Now just have the goodness to scrape every plate clean off and put them nicely in a pile here; and turn out the slops out of the tea-cups and saucers and set them by themselves. Well! what makes you handle them so? Are you afraid they'll burn you?"
"I don't like to take hold of things people have drunk out of," said Ellen, who was indeed touching the cups and saucers very delicately with the tips of her fingers.
"Look here," said Miss Fortune, "don't you let me hear no more of that, or I vow I'll give you something to do you won't like. Now put the spoons here, and the knives and forks together here; and carry the salt-cellar and the pepper-box and the butter and the sugar into the buttery."
"I don't know where to put them," said Ellen.
"Come along, then, and I'll show you; it's time you did. I reckon you'll feel better when you've something to do, and you shall have plenty. There – put them in that cupboard, and set the butter up here, and put the bread in this box, do you see? now don't let me have to show you twice over."
This was Ellen's first introduction to the buttery; she had never dared to go in there before. It was a long, light closet or pantry, lined on the left side, and at the further end, with wide shelves up to the ceiling. On these shelves stood many capacious pans and basins of tin and earthenware, filled with milk, and most of them coated with superb yellow cream. Midway was the window, before which Miss Fortune was accustomed to skim her milk, and at the side of it was the mouth of a wooden pipe, or covered trough, which conveyed the refuse milk down to an enormous hogshead standing at the lower kitchen door, whence it was drawn as wanted for the use of the pigs. Beyond the window in the buttery, and on the higher shelves, were rows of yellow cheeses; forty or fifty were there at least. On the right hand of the door was the cupboard, and a short range of shelves, which held in ordinary all sorts of matters for the table, both dishes and eatables. Floor and shelves were well painted with thick yellow paint, hard and shining, and clean as could be; and there was a faint pleasant smell of dairy things.
Ellen did not find out all this at once, but in the course of a day or two, during which her visits to the buttery were many. Miss Fortune kept her word, and found her plenty to do; Ellen's life soon became a pretty busy one. She did not like this at all; it was a kind of work she had no love for; yet no doubt it was a good exchange for the miserable moping life she had lately led. Anything was better than that. One concern, however, lay upon poor Ellen's mind with pressing weight – her neglected studies and wasted time; for no better than wasted she counted it. "What shall I do?" she said to herself after several of these busy days had passed; "I am doing nothing – I am learning nothing – I shall forget all I have learnt, directly. At this rate I shall not know any more than all these people around me; and what will mamma say? – Well, if I can't go to school I know what I will do," she said, taking a sudden resolve, "I'll study by myself! I'll see what I can do; it will be better than nothing, any way. I'll begin this very day!"
With new life Ellen sprang upstairs to her room, and forthwith began pulling all the things out of her trunk to get at her books. They were at the very bottom; and by the time she had reached them half the floor was strewn with the various articles of her wardrobe; without minding them in her first eagerness, Ellen pounced at the books.
"Here you are, my dear Numa Pompilius," said she, drawing out a little French book she had just begun to read, "and here you are, old grammar and dictionary; and here is my history – very glad to see you, Mr. Goldsmith! And what in the world's this? – wrapped up as if it was something great – oh, my expositor! I am not glad to see you, I am sure; never want to look at your face or your back again. My copy-book! – I wonder who'll set copies for me now! My arithmetic – that's you! Geography and atlas – all right! And my slate! – but dear me! I don't believe I've such a thing as a slate-pencil in the world. Where shall I get one, I wonder? Well, I'll manage. And that's all – that's all, I believe."
With all her heart Ellen would have begun her studying at once, but there were all her things on the floor silently saying, "Put us up first."
"I declare," said she to herself, "it's too bad to have nothing in the shape of a bureau to keep one's clothes in. I wonder if I am to live in a trunk, as mamma says, all the time I am here, and have to go down to the bottom of it every time I want a pocket-handkerchief or a pair of stockings. How I do despise those grey stockings! But what can I do? It's too bad to squeeze my nice things up so. I wonder what is behind those doors! I'll find out, I know, before long."
On the north side of Ellen's room were three doors. She had never opened them, but now took it into her head to see what was there, thinking she might possibly find what would help her out of her difficulty. She had some little fear of meddling with anything in her aunt's domain, so she fastened her own door to guard against interruption while she was busied in making discoveries.
At the foot of her bed, in the corner, was one large door fastened by a button, as indeed they were all. This opened, she found, upon a flight of stairs, leading as she supposed to the garret; but Ellen did not care to go up and see. They were lighted by half of a large window, across the middle of which the stairs went up. She quickly shut that door and opened the next, a little one. Here she found a tiny closet under the stairs, lighted by the other half of the window. There was nothing in it but a broad low shelf or step under the stairs, where Ellen presently decided she could stow away her books very nicely. "It only wants a little brushing out," said Ellen, "and it will do very well." The other door, in the other corner, admitted her to a large light closet, perfectly empty. "Now if there were only some hooks or pegs here," thought Ellen, "to hang up dresses on – but why shouldn't I drive some nails? I will! I will! Oh, that'll be fine!"
Unfastening her door in a hurry she ran downstairs, and her heart beating between pleasure and the excitement of daring so far without her aunt's knowledge, she ran out and crossed the chip-yard to the barn, where she had some hope of finding Mr. Van Brunt. By the time she got to the little cow-house door a great noise of knocking or pounding in the barn made her sure he was there, and she went on to the lower barn-floor. There he was, he and the two farm boys (who, by-the-bye, were grown men), all three threshing wheat. Ellen stopped at the door, and for a minute forgot what she had come for in the pleasure of looking at them. The clean floor was strewn with grain, upon which the heavy flails came down one after another with quick regular beat – one – two – three – one – two – three, – keeping perfect time. The pleasant sound could be heard afar off, though, indeed, where Ellen stood it was rather too loud to be pleasant. Her little voice had no chance of being heard; she stood still and waited. Presently Johnny, who was opposite, caught a sight of her, and without stopping his work said to his leader, "Somebody there for you, Mr. Van Brunt." That gentleman's flail ceased its motion, then he threw it down and went to the door to help Ellen up the high step.
"Well," said he, "have you come out to see what's going on?"
"No," said Ellen, "I've been looking – but Mr. Van Brunt, could you be so good as to let me have a hammer and half-a-dozen nails?"
"A hammer and half-a-dozen nails? Come this way," said he.
They went out of the barn-yard and across the chip-yard to an out-house below the garden and not far from the spout, called the poultry-house, though it was quite as much the property of the hogs, who had a regular sleeping apartment there, where corn was always fed out to the fatting ones. Opening a kind of granary storeroom, where the corn for this purpose was stored, Mr. Van Brunt took down from a shelf a large hammer and a box of nails, and asked Ellen what size she wanted.
"Pretty large."
"So?"
"No; a good deal bigger yet I should like."
"'A good deal bigger yet' – who wants 'em?"
"I do," said Ellen, smiling.
"You do! Do you think your little arms can manage the big hammer?"
"I don't know. I guess so; I'll try."
"Where do you want 'em driv?"
"Up in a closet in my room," said Ellen, speaking as softly as if she had feared her aunt was at the corner; "I want 'em to hang up dresses and things."
Mr. Van Brunt half smiled, and put up the hammer and nails on the shelf again.
"Now, I'll tell you what we'll do," said he; "you can't manage them big things. I'll put 'em up for you to-night when I come in to supper."
"But I'm afraid she won't let you," said Ellen doubtfully.
"Never you mind about that," said he; "I'll fix it. Maybe we won't ask her."
"Oh, thank you," said Ellen joyfully, her face recovering its full sunshine in answer to his smile; and, clapping her hands, she ran back to the house, while more slowly Mr. Van Brunt returned to the threshers. Ellen seized dust-pan and brush and ran up to her room, and setting about the business with right good will, she soon had her closets in beautiful order. The books, writing-desk, and work-box were then bestowed very carefully in the one; in the other her coats and dresses, neatly folded up in a pile on the floor, waiting till the nails should be driven. Then the remainder of her things were gathered up from the floor, and neatly arranged in the trunk again. Having done all this, Ellen's satisfaction was unbounded. By this time dinner was ready. As soon after dinner as she could escape from Miss Fortune's calls upon her, Ellen stole up to her room and her books, and began work in earnest. The whole afternoon was spent over sums, and verbs, and maps, and pages of history. A little before tea, as Ellen was setting the table, Mr. Van Brunt came into the kitchen with a bag on his back.
"What have you got there, Mr. Van Brunt?" said Miss Fortune.
"A bag of seed corn."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"Put it up in the garret for safe keeping."
"Set it down in the corner, and I'll take it up to-morrow."
"Thank you, ma'am, – rather go myself, if it's all the same to you. You needn't be scared, I've left my shoes at the door. Miss Ellen, I believe I've got to go through your room."
Ellen was glad to run before to hide her laughter. When they reached her room, Mr. Van Brunt produced a hammer out of the bag, and taking a handful of nails from his pocket, put up a fine row of them along her closet wall; then, while she hung up her dresses, he went on to the garret, and Ellen heard him hammering there too. Presently he came down, and they returned to the kitchen.
"What's all that knocking?" said Miss Fortune.
"I've been driving some nails," said Mr. Van Brunt coolly.
"Up in the garret!"
"Yes, and in Miss Ellen's closet; she said she wanted some."
"You should ha' spoke to me about it," said Miss Fortune to Ellen. There was displeasure enough in her face; but she said no more, and the matter blew over much better than Ellen had feared.
Ellen steadily pursued her plan of studying, in spite of some discouragements.
A letter written about ten days after gave her mother an account of her endeavours and of her success. It was a despairing account. Ellen complained that she wanted help to understand, and lacked time to study; that her aunt kept her busy, and, she believed, took pleasure in breaking her off from her books; and she bitterly said her mother must expect to find an ignorant little daughter when she came home. It ended with, "Oh, if I could just see you, and kiss you, and put my arms round you, mamma, I'd be willing to die."
This letter was despatched the next morning by Mr. Van Brunt; and Ellen waited and watched with great anxiety for his return from Thirlwall in the afternoon.