MONTEAGLE

BY

PANSY [Isabella Alden]

AUTHOR OF

Man of the House Christie's Christmas Little Fishers: and their nets Ester Ried Eighty-seven Chautauqua Girls Ruth Erskine's Crosses An Endless Chain Interrupted and others

BOSTON

D LOTHROP COMPANY

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS

COPYRIGHT, 1888 BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY.

CONTENTS. ————————

CHAPTER I.

A MORNING DRIVE

CHAPTER II.

A FORTUNATE THING

CHAPTER III.

THE START

CHAPTER IV.

A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT

CHAPTER V.

A MORNING MEETING

CHAPTER VI.

A LECTURE AND A SERMON

CHAPTER VII.

A LITTLE LOGICIAN

CHAPTER VIII.

TRUE TO HER PLEDGE

CHAPTER IX.

SETTLING THE PUZZLE

CHAPTER X.

SILENT FORCES

CHAPTER XI.

A SURPRISE

CHAPTER XII.

A HAPPY TRANSFER

MONTEAGLE. ————————

CHAPTER I.

A MORNING DRIVE.

"YES," said Mrs. Hammond, a little sigh in her voice as she spoke, "Mr. Hart is going with us; I don't know how long he will stay. I'm afraid there is very little on Monteagle to hold him."

Two children sat on the extreme end of the broken steps; one was pale, thin, hollow-eyed and sorrowful. The other was rosy-cheeked, chubby, and dirty. The pale one was perhaps twelve years old; the other, somewhat younger.

"Only hear that name!" said the hollow-eyed girl. "Monteagle! Doesn't it make you feel cool just to think it over?"

"I didn't think it over," said Rosy Cheek. "What is it, and where is it?"

"I don't know where it is," spoken very wearily, as though it was an effort to speak at all. "In Heaven, maybe; the word sounds like it. Monteagle! It must be high, and cool, and still. I wonder what it feels like to be cool and still? Oh! How 'hot' it is! O dear me!"

There was such a world of longing and weariness in the sentence, that Mrs. Hammond turned and looked curiously at the girl; then uttered a little exclamation of surprise, and perhaps dismay.

"Who is that girl, and what is the matter with her?"

The man who was busy with a troublesome strap which had to do with Mrs. Hammond's phaeton, glanced up for a moment, then said:

"That is my girl, ma'am, if you mean the pale one. There ain't anything the matter with her now, only weakness, the doctor says. She's had the fever—been dreadful sick. There was a spell when I thought she wouldn't pull through, nohow, but she did, up to a certain p'int, there she stopped, and there she hangs—jest crawls about all day; doesn't eat nothing, and doesn't sleep nights, only off and on, you know. I dunno what to do with her."

Mrs. Hammond looked again at the girl who had dropped into a listless attitude, a very photograph of discouraged weakness. The rosy-cheeked younger one in a much soiled dress had slipped away. Mrs. Hammond looked from the girl to the low, small, tumble-down building on the steps of which she sat, imagined the room in which she must spend her nights, imagined the table at which she must sit down to eat her "nothing," and murmured, "Poor thing!" with another long-drawn sigh.

How could one be expected to gain strength in such a home as that must be!

"Who takes care of you and your daughter?"

She had turned again to the man at the carriage.

He gave a short half-laugh as he answered slowly: "Well, as to that, what care we get we have to give to ourselves. Her and me live alone; since the boy went to work for his board, at the meat market, I've took care of her the best I could, since she got on her feet again; and when she was sick, the neighbors was kind. The doctor was, too—uncommon kind; stayed the most of two nights himself, and brought his woman once or twice to see her; but she's gone now; up to Monteagle, along with the rest of the world. I suppose it is cool up there ma'am?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Hammond, with another sigh. "It is cool there; poor thing! I don't see how she is ever to get well in such a place."

This last, in undertone; then louder: "She is Northern born, too, I think you said?"

"Who, ma'am, the girl? O yes; we're from the North."

It was the man's turn to sigh now. "We come down here to try the climate for her mother—but it didn't do; we came too late, or something. The mother died the very next summer, and we've had to pull along alone. There, ma'am, I think that buckle is all right now; it won't come out again of itself in a hurry. It's lucky I happened to be around; it might have made you trouble. Why, no, ma'am, I don't want no pay for a job like that; it didn't take ten minutes, and it ain't in my line anyhow."

"What can she do when she is well?" asked Mrs. Hammond, holding out the shining silver.

"What, my girl? Why, as to that, I dunno as she can be said to know how to do anything. She works along as well as she can; and we make out to live, but you see it is pretty nigh four years since her mother died; and she was a young thing then. She ain't had no chance. I ain't got no change, Mis' Hammond, and I don't want no pay, neither."

"I don't want change, Mr. West; it is worth a dollar to me to know that all the buckles and straps are in order. I shall leave that matter of hauling the dirt in your hands, then. It can be done just as well while I am away; Mr. Hart will be back and forth, I presume, and he can direct you if you need any directions; good-morning!" And the little pony phaeton drove away.

As the fat little white pony carefully drew the carriage around the curve, his mistress heard a weak, petulant voice say: "O father, it is 'so' hot; I don't know what to do."

"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Hammond for the third time. "I don't know what she will do. It is very warm indeed. She thinks Monteagle sounds like Heaven. I presume it would seem almost like Heaven to her. If there was anything she could do—" And then Mrs. Hammond looked at her watch, and spoke sharply to the fat pony, and they went home at a brisk trot.

It was a lovely home. Before even the pony turned in at the tree-lined carriage drive which wound quite around the house, you would have known by the air of quiet elegance which hung gracefully over everything in sight, that you were coming to a home that commanded money and culture. In the wide handsome hall everything was in order, and the rooms opening from them were cool, and dark, and elegant. Yet Mrs. Hammond as she dropped sun hat and umbrella on a white sofa, and trailed her white morning shawl over the soft carpet toward an easy chair, said:

"O dear! It is warm everywhere. I wish we were on the mountain this minute." Even as she spoke, she thought of that hollow-eyed West girl again. When, after a few minutes of rest, she mounted the long winding flight of stairs to the nursery, the sight which met her eyes was not calculated to cool her.

Miss Ethel Hammond was on an investigating tour. At this particular minute she belonged in a wide white crib rolled into the coolest, shadiest corner of the northwestern veranda, eyes closed, lovely face shaded from intruding bugs and flies by a network of delicate creamy lace, and Jeannette, the nurse, within easy range of the treasure. Where Jeannette was just now, was not apparent, but Miss Ethel was certainly not in her crib. Her eyes were very wide open, and she had the room to herself.

BABY ETHEL.

By dint of much energy, she had succeeded in pulling one of the heavy chairs before the object of her most intense desire, and, climbing in, was in the act of leaning forward to grasp it, when Mrs. Hammond opened the door. "It" was a rare and wonderfully mounted clock, heavy enough to put Ethel's busy inquiring brain at rest forever, should the strong little hands succeed in pulling it over on her; or, failing in that, should she lose her balance and pitch head-first against the corner of the cruel marble.

No time for exclamations; rather, enough presence of mind to avoid them. With swift, silent steps she moved across the room; a long room, and seeming to the startled mother miles long, just then. A moment more and she had the wide-awake, energetic, struggling, disappointed baby in her arms. So near to its life-purpose only to be thwarted!

The first thing the mother did, was to kiss Ethel; though her mouth was wide open, and from it were issuing loud, disappointed yells.

The next thing was to think aloud: "That is as much confidence as I was afraid I could place in Jeannette. She is good for ruffling, and tucking, and ironing the baby's dresses, but not for watching her."

The next was to say within her heart, "I should think 'she' might be able to help keep a baby out of mischief."

But this last thought was not about Jeannette.

CHAPTER II.

A FORTUNATE THING.

MR. WEST and his daughter were at breakfast. At least they were sitting before a small square table that held part of a loaf of baker's bread, and a saucer in which floated a sickly yellowish mass named butter, for which only the flies seemed to have a relish; and they, poor creatures, paid for their appetites by their lives. Dilly was constantly engaged in fishing out victim after victim who seemed determined to sacrifice himself in the oily flood.

The little room in which the table was set, had but one window, and that an eastern, and the morning sun had a fierce spite against it, apparently, for he flashed in, even at this comparatively early hour, red and angry, revealing dust and cobwebs, and the bodies of dead moths, and bugs, of every shape and size. The floor was bare and soiled; the three chairs were sadly worn; the low mantel was decorated as the mantels of such rooms are wont to be, with scraps of paper, little bundles of left-over things for which there was no place, a bunch of dried wild flowers, which Dilly had saved because they were once so pretty, and because she hardly ever had any flowers, and could not bear to throw them away; besides which, there were a fork, a spoon, and a soiled cup, left over from yesterday's effort at cooking; and around this spoon, and fork, and cup, the flies had gathered in such masses that they were simply black humps rising out of the surrounding dust.

Yet this was not the home of a drunkard; Mr. West wail a sober, hard-working man, who wasted no money on himself, save that which went for his daily smoke; and he labored under the usual wild delusions, first, that tobacco was necessary to sustain his failing strength, secondly, that it cost a very trifle, not worthy to be counted among the family economies. It was simply a home where hard grinding poverty, occasioned by fire, and flood, and other misfortunes, had brought in its train sickness and death, and left these two to struggle on as best they could. Their "best" was very feeble this morning. Mr. West sturdily ate at his stale and indeed almost moldy bit of bread, grimly dipping it in the oil occasionally, to make it slip down more easily, and stealthily watched Dilly as she turned her piece over on her plate with a knife, looked doubtfully at the under side, turned it back again, and finally took a very little nibble from its outer edge, and sat back discouraged.

"You can't eat a mite this morning, can you, my girl? And it's another scorching day—worse than yesterday, I'm afraid; I don't know what we are going to do." And he heaved such a weary sigh that Dilly, who was almost too sorry for herself to endure it, became so sorry for him that despite her efforts at self-control, the tears seemed rushing into her throat to choke her.

"Don't bother about me, father," she said at last, when she could get her voice. "I ain't a mite hungry, so of course I don't need to eat; and it'll be cooler sometime; then I'll feel better."

"I don't know when," said the father gloomily, referring to the weather. "It ain't August yet, and everybody says that will be a scorcher, this year; and folks who go on day after day without being a mite hungry, don't get strength any too fast. You ought to have something nourishing, but where you are going to get it beats me."

"Of course it does, father. Never mind, I don't want anything; it seems to me I couldn't eat, this morning, not if there was toast, and egg, and milk, and everything."

But this made the father sigh again, and made Dilly so sorry she had spoken that the tears rushed back, and this time a few of them had their way, and rolled down her cheek. Toast and egg were dainties that her mother used to make for her when she was sick; no longer ago than last spring when eggs were scarcest, and had not been seen in the West family for weeks and weeks, she remembered. And the father remembered it too, how Dilly was sick for several days, not dangerously, but a little "down," the mother said, and needed petting; and how one morning there was a covered dish at her place, which, being uncovered with care, disclosed a lovely fresh egg lying on a slice of the daintiest bit of toast, of just such a delicate brown as only a mother could make. How was it possible to keep back tears as she thought of these things?

The father did not wonder at the tears, but drooped his head lower, and at last, when he thought Dilly too much occupied to notice, put up the back of his hard hand and brushed away one or two of his own.

It was well for them both that something happened, just then, to change the current of their thoughts. Dilly saw it first, and exclaimed: "Father, there is Mrs. Hammond's phaeton at the door again. I do hope she has not changed her mind about the work; because I thought—" And there Dilly stopped.

"What did you think, my girl?" the father said, rising hastily, and looking about for his old straw hat.

"It's no matter, father," and a faint flush stole into the sallow face. "I thought maybe she would let you pick a flower or two, when you were there at work; I would so like a sweet-smelling flower. She had one in the carriage yesterday, but I don't suppose she gives away her flowers."

Mr. West went out without saying a word.

Dilly, when she was five or six years old, frolicked about, all the summer day, in a great garden full of old-fashioned flowers, and picked as many as she would. I don't suppose she had an idea how it made her father's heart ache to think that now she longed in vain for one little sweet-smelling blossom. Children know very little about father's hearts.

But what Mrs. Hammond wanted nearly took the breath away from the astonished father. Dilly watched them curiously while they talked, rather while Mrs. Hammond talked, and her father, after a first startled exclamation, listened, whether in pleasure, as well as in intense surprise, Dilly could not be certain.

"She's coming in!" Dilly exclaimed at last, leaving the window suddenly, and giving the little table an excited push to get it further into the background, dusting a chair with her apron, hanging a towel, which was thrown across the back of another chair, in a corner, as much out of sight as possible, and by these preparations so exhausting her strength, or rather her weakness, that she sat flushed and panting when at last Mrs. Hammond finally appeared at the door.

"Good-morning," she said pleasantly. "She looks a little better this morning, I think, or, is it the heat which has flushed her face?"

The room was insufferably warm. Though there was no fire in the shabby little cook stove, and had not been that day, it was warmer than any room in Mrs. Hammond's house ever became.

Mr. West brought forward the dusted chair for the lady, and she dropped gracefully into it, trailing her delicate white robes and rich embroidery on the bare, and not clean, floor, in a way which made Dilly shiver. Then he said with a troubled look at the girl, "I don't see no great change for the better, ma'am; she ain't eat a mite this morning, and folks can't get strong without eating, I s'pose. Though how folks are going to eat, when—" And there the poor father stopped.

Mrs. Hammond finished the sentence: "When the weather is so oppressive. That is true; this heat takes away the appetites of even well persons."

Mrs. Hammond had no experience with poverty, save that which was given by an occasional glance of her eyes around the homes of the poor; and though she thought she understood all about it, I cannot describe to you how shocked she would have been, had she known that a dry and nearly moldy piece of bread was the only temptation to eat which had been before Dilly that morning.

However, she did appreciate the heat, and made haste to get herself out of it. "You live in such a very close part of the town, Mr. West, I do not see how she is ever to gain strength here; there is no chance for a circulation of air."

Which is a fortunate thing for you, dear Mrs. Hammond, if you did but know it; for the air which would circulate through here if it had a chance, would come direct from the stables and out-houses clustered thick on the East side, or from the over-crowded tenement houses on the North. But the lady knew nothing of all this.

She turned to the girl and spoke rapidly: "I have been talking with your father about you. What is your name?"

"Fidelia, ma'am, but they all call me Dilly."

"Well, Fidelia, I have been asking your father to let you go with me to the mountains; I am going to-morrow. I fancy that after a few days of mountain air you would grow strong enough to look after my little Ethel while she is out of doors, and keep her out of harm's way. What do you say, would you like to try it? It is not far from home, you know; only on Monteagle—a few hours' ride."

But father and visitor had both over-estimated poor Dilly's strength, or else did not understand the strength of her longing for a breath of cool air. The very word "mountains," coupled with the bare possibility of her seeing them, made her feel sick and faint. The room began to whirl about in the most unaccountable manner; Mrs. Hammond faded into the merest gray speck, but rose up without sound and floated to her side, and reached out a white hand which sparkled with rings, and then—Dilly knew no more.

Where she went to, or how long she stayed, she did not know, but when she opened her eyes again, she was spread out on all three of the chairs, and her father was putting little dabbles of warm water over her face with what poor Dilly knew was the cup-cloth! And Mrs. Hammond with an air of the greatest concern stood helplessly looking on, and shuddering a little as the muddy-looking drops from the cloth gathered in a dark puddle on the dark floor.

"Are you better, my girl?" Mr. West asked, his voice as gentle and as full of anxiety as it could have been if the cloth with which he mopped her face had been of the softest linen.

Dilly gasped, and struggled, and pushed away the cloth with her hand, making a great effort to sit up.

"What's the matter?" she asked, "I ain't sick."

"Lie still, my girl, don't try to sit up yet; you fainted dead away while the lady was talking to you. It's the heat, I s'pose. You see, ma'am," turning to Mrs. Hammond, and shaking his head with a troubled air, "she hasn't got any strength to build on; I'm afraid she wouldn't be able to do a thing—she's all tuckered out."

There was the deepest anxiety in his voice. It was clear that the thought of the mountain air had touched the only ray of hope for his girl which this father's heart had left, yet he must be honest, and own that he did not believe she could be of use.

"She would try her level best, ma'am; and before she was sick she was as handy a little woman as could be found; and she is fond of little folks, and as good as gold to them; but the fever has burnt all the life out of her—you see how it is."

"Yes," said Mrs. Hammond, with sudden energy, "I see how it is; and I see she will get no strength so long as she stays here. I think you would do well, Mr. West, to get her ready to go with me to-morrow morning; I am going to take the early train, to avoid as much of the heat as possible. I think the mountain air will help her—in fact, I am almost sure of it. Wouldn't you like to try it, my poor girl?"

"Oh!" said Dilly, drawing a long tremulous sigh, and turning a pair of great earnest eyes which were now dim with a film of tears, full on the lady's face. "I can't think it is possible that I could go; it would be almost like going to heaven."