RHODA'S EDUCATION;

OR,

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING.

BY

LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY

AUTHOR OF

"IRISH AMY," "COMFORT ALLISON," "THE TATTLER," "NELLY; OR THE BEST INHERITANCE," "TWIN ROSES," "ETHEL'S TRIAL," "THE FAIRCHILDS," "THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL EXHIBITION," "THE RED PLANT," "PERCY'S HOLIDAYS," "ON THE MOUNTAIN; OR, LOST AND FOUND," "CLARIBEL; OR, OUT OF PRISON," "JENNY AND THE INSECTS," ETC.

——————————

PHILADELPHIA:

AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION

NO. 1122 CHESTNUT STREET. —————————— NEW YORK: NO. 8 AND 10 BIBLE HOUSE, ASTOR PLACE.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by the AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

————————————————— ———————————————— WESCOTT & THOMSON HENRY B. ASHMEAD Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada. Printer, Philada.

CONTENTS. ——————

CHAP.

I. LITTLE BROTHER

II. AUNT HANNAH

III. THE CLOUD GROWS

IV. THE CHANGE

V. A NEW LIFE

VI. MISS BROWN

VII. AFFAIRS AT BOONVILLE

VIII. A NEW HOME

IX. MRS. FERRAND'S

X. SYSTEM

XI. THE ORIGIN OF THE HARP

XII. AN OLD ENEMY

XIII. A NEW FRIEND

XIV. MISS DAVIS'S LETTER

XV. WHAT A BIT OF SOAP DID

XVI. MISS THURSTON

XVII. DOCTOR DOUGLASS

XVIII. SCHOOL

XIX. THE END

PREFACE. ——————

IF this book does not make its own moral plain, it is a failure. I merely wish to preclude a certain kind of criticism by saying that all the most improbable incidents contained in the tale are literally true. I could point out more than one Professor Sampson, and any manager of an orphan school or any similar institution can relate stories of conduct as heartless as that of Mr. and Mrs. Bowers. I hope the book may be read with profit both by young people and their parents. LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY.

RHODA'S EDUCATION. ——————

CHAPTER I.

LITTLE BROTHER.

RHODA BOWERS stood at the east window of her own room, busily engaged in "binding off" the neck of a little baby's shirt—one of a set which had occupied all the spare minutes which she could contrive to spend in her own room for the past few weeks. They were not many, for she had to assist her mother in the housework, and yet she had contrived to knit four little shirts of the softest wool and prettiest design for the new little brother who had lately come to the household. Rhoda had taken great pains with them, and she meant, if her mother could spare her, to go down this very afternoon to Aunt Hannah's and learn of her how to crochet the scalloped edge round the tops.

"How pretty they are!" she said as she bound off the last stitch and held the little garment up before her. "I am so glad Aunt Hannah knew how to make them. I only hope mother will like them. Heigho! I wonder if my own mother used to make any such pretty things for me when I was a baby? How I do wish I could remember the least thing about her! But I don't. It seems to me that the very first thing I recollect is Mrs. Munson feeding me with little bits of cold turkey in the nursery at 'The Home.' I wonder if the old place looks at all as it used to? Some time I think I will ask mother to let me go back there for a little visit. I should like to see them all again. But I dare say it is changed since my time. I think everything and everybody changes in this world." And Rhoda's face clouded a little as she stood looking out of the window, but it cleared up again, and she gave herself a kind of shake, as if to get rid of some incumbrance.

"There, now, Rhoda Bowers! Didn't I tell you never to let such a thought come into your head again as long as you lived? What do you mean by it? Don't you know that it is high time you were off if you mean to see Aunt Hannah this afternoon? And don't you think you would be more like a rational being if you went about your business? Answer me that, now!"

Having given herself this little lecture, Rhoda put her work into her pocket, got her hat, and went down stairs to her mother's room. There was a little fire, though it was a fine, mild day in the fall, and Mrs. Bowers sat by the stove nursing her baby. She was a pretty woman of thirty or thereabouts, and would have been pleasing but for a certain peevishness and, as it were, narrowness of expression which did not promise well.

"Dear little fellow!" said Rhoda, stooping down and kissing the baby. "How he does grow, doesn't he? I am so glad he is a boy. I always did want a little brother. But sister will be almost an old woman before you are grown-up, little man."

"A great many things may happen before he is grown-up," said Mrs. Bowers, on whom Rhoda's remark seemed to grate a little. "I wish you would not be always saying such things and looking forward so, Rhoda."

"Why not?" asked Rhoda. "I think it is so nice to look forward."

"It is a good thing to look backward sometimes," said Mrs. Bowers. "Where are you going now?"

"You know you said this morning that I might go down and spend the afternoon with Aunt Hannah," said Rhoda. "She is going away so soon I may not have another chance."

"Oh, very well. I do not see what you find so very attractive in Aunt Hannah, but I suppose almost any place is better than home."

Rhoda's face clouded again, and she looked as if some sharp answer might be lurking behind her compressed lips. If so, it was not allowed to escape, for she said, gently, though with some apparent effort,—

"I have set the table, and laid the fire all ready to light, and filled the tea-kettle, but I will come back in time to get the tea if you like, or I won't go at all if you want me, mother dear. Don't you feel so well this afternoon?"

Mrs. Bowers looked a little ashamed.

"Yes, child, only I am tired and worried about something. You mustn't mind if I am cross. You are a good girl, Rhoda, and always have been—I will say that, whatever happens. There! Run along and have a good long visit with Aunt Hannah, and stay till dark if you like. As you say, you may never have another chance—not in a good long time, at least; and the old lady has always been a kind friend to you. I only wish, for your sake, she were a little better off."

"Why?" asked Rhoda.

"Oh, because—because she might leave you something one of these days," answered Mrs. Bowers, arranging the baby's dress as she spoke.

"I suppose she is pretty poor?"

"Well, no; she has her place and about three hundred a year."

"How did she come to be left so, when her brother, Uncle Weightman, is so well off?" asked Rhoda.

"I don't know the rights of it," answered Mrs. Bowers. "There were two wills, I know, and by the last one the children were to share alike, but it wasn't signed or witnessed right, or something, and so they went by the first will, which gave everything to Jacob—only this little place and Aunt Hannah's property. But, Rhoda, you must remember not to call him Uncle Weightman to his face. You know he doesn't like it."

"No fear," said Rhoda, laughing; "I don't like him well enough for that. He is so domineering and interfering, I do wonder how father puts up with his ways so patiently."

"Well, he is getting an old man now, and your father is his heir by rights; so he naturally wants to please him. He can make us all rich if he chooses."

"Yes, but he won't choose, you'll see. He will go on saving all his life, and then think to make up by leaving his money to the Bible society or some such thing, and think himself very generous because he gives away his money when he can't keep it any longer. I never can see any goodness in such bequests."

"I don't know about that. But anyhow you must be careful, for your father would be very angry if you should do anything to offend Uncle Jacob."

"I'll be careful, never fear," said Rhoda. "But don't you really want me this afternoon, mother dear?"

"No, no, child. Run along and have a good time while you can."

Rhoda kissed her mother and the baby; and putting on her hat, she walked thoughtfully down the garden, jumped lightly over the rail fence, and took the path across the meadow which led "'cross-lots" to Aunt Hannah's little brown house on the edge of the mill-pond.

Rhoda Bowers was an orphan, but she had never felt the want of a mother's care, as many children do. Till she was seven years old she had lived at the old ladies' "Home" in Milby—an excellent institution founded some thirty years ago by two wealthy old ladies "for the maintenance of twenty widows or single women of good repute who should have passed the age of sixty years, and also, should the funds prove sufficient, of no more than eight poor little girls." The property belonging to "The Home" had greatly increased in value; and as all the funds were properly employed, both the old ladies and the little girls were made very comfortable indeed.

This institution had been Rhoda's home ever since she could remember, till one day Mr. and Mrs. Bowers of Boonville, attracted by her bright gray eyes and pretty curling black hair, had adopted her for their own. Rhoda had been rather homesick at first, but she soon became reconciled to the change, and had found her life as happy as that of most children.

Mr. Bowers lived on a farm about half a mile from the little village of Boonville, and had besides an interest in one of the mills on the Outlet, as the little river was called. He could not be called rich, but neither was he poor. The farm was a good one, and the mill, taking one year with another, was fairly productive. Mr. Bowers owned a nice pair of horses, and his wife dressed well and might have kept a servant-girl if she had chosen. In short, as Aunt Hannah Weightman said, James and Martha were about as well off as anybody in the world, if they could only think so.

But that was just the thing. They could not think so as long as Uncle Jacob Weightman counted his money by hundreds of thousands—as long as Mrs. Bowers's brother-in-law, Mr. Evans, owned one of the finest places in Hobarttown, and Mrs. Bowers's sister had three new dresses to her one, and could go to the springs and the seashore, and even to Europe, every summer of her life if she chose.

Mrs. Bowers fancied that her sister Anne "felt above her," which was not true, and that Anne cared for nothing but the things of this world, which was not true, either; and when Mrs. Evans, who had lost all her own children but one little delicate boy, proposed that Rhoda should spend the winter with her and go to school, Mrs. Bowers refused her consent with some acrimony, saying to her husband afterward that she thought Anne had enough without trying to get Rhoda away from her.

"She just wants Rhoda to wait on that boy of hers," said Mr. Bowers.

"Oh no, I don't think that," answered his wife; "Anne is no hand to save in that way. But she has always liked Rhoda, and she wanted her when we first took the child; but Rhoda isn't going, and that is all about it. She is doing well enough about school here, and I don't want her set up to feel above me."

Rhoda had been a good deal disappointed by this decision:—not that she was at all dissatisfied with her present condition, but she liked Aunt Anne and Uncle Evans, and she wanted to see a little more of the world than was to be found at Boonville; and besides that, she was very desirous of getting a thoroughly good education. She had nearly exhausted the capabilities of the district school, and Mrs. Maynard, the minister's wife, who had kindly undertaken to carry her on farther in her studies, had gone away. Yes, Rhoda would have liked to go to Hobarttown. But the offer had never been renewed, and now Mr. and Mrs. Evans were going to Europe, to be absent three or four years.

It was a disappointment certainly, but there was no help for it, and there was no use in making herself miserable over it, either—so Rhoda argued with herself, very sensibly; so she put away the thought of what she might have done at Hobarttown, and set herself to accomplish as much as she possibly could at home.

There was another cloud which had lately appeared in Rhoda's sky. She had said to herself that this cloud was all in her imagination, or at least was no more than a passing mist. But this afternoon, as she walked across the fields toward Aunt Hannah's, it assumed a more definite shape and consistency than it had ever done before, and she said to herself that she would ask Aunt Hannah about it.

CHAPTER II.

AUNT HANNAH.

AUNT HANNAH WEIGHTMAN lived in a little red house near the edge of the mill-pond, as it was called, though it was little more than a widening of the Outlet, caused by the dam which supplied Mr. Francis's mills. The situation was a very pretty one. On one side of the house lay Aunt Hannah's garden, green with well-conditioned vegetables and gay with flowers, not only of the commoner but also of the rarer kinds, for she was one of those people for whom everything grows. On the other side lay three or four acres of pasture-land, enough, with some help, to keep Aunt Hannah's white cow, most wonderful of milkers both for quantity and quality, and where grew in their season the finest mushrooms in the country.

The "door-yard" of the little dwelling was crowded with lilacs and other blossoming shrubs; the plain board fence and rough stone walls were covered with Virginia creepers, clematis, and morning-glories, and the turf was so neat and green as to give rise to a report among the school-boys that Aunt Hannah dressed it every morning with a hairbrush and a fine-tooth comb. The house was dark red, with rather dusky and faded green blinds. There were three rooms besides the kitchen below and two above; and as Aunt Hannah had inherited the household goods both of mother and grandmother, there was no lack of solid, respectable, old-fashioned furniture.

"How pretty it looks!" said Rhoda to herself as she came across the pasture and stopped a moment to bestow a pat on old Snowball. "It ought to be put in a picture. One could tell who lived there by the outside of the house. It looks just like Aunt Hannah herself. What lots of button mushrooms! I shall have a fine time with them when my work is done."

As Rhoda drew near the side window, she heard within what boded no good to her pleasant afternoon—namely, the sharp, thin, and growling voice of Mr. Jacob Weightman, Aunt Hannah's brother, of whom she stood in great fear. Now I am aware that very few voices could succeed in being sharp and growling at the same time, but Uncle Jacob's accomplished this feat.

"Oh dear!" thought Rhoda. "There goes my nice visit. He will just stay and scold all the afternoon, I dare say. I wish I hadn't put on my new dress. He will be sure to say something about it. I mean to go round to the back door and wait; perhaps he will go away some time or other."

Rhoda sat down on the step at the back kitchen door, and occupied herself alternately in watching the lights and shadows on the stream and in playing with the white Persian kitten Fuzzyball, which romped about the yard, while her equally white and long-haired mother sat couched by Rhoda's side in all the calm dignity befitting a lady who had come all the way from Bombay.

As Rhoda sat on the step she could not help hearing through the window parts of Uncle Jacob's exhortation.

"It is all nonsense, Hannah," she heard him say, "perfect nonsense, for you to take up so much house-room. The house is arranged just right for two families, and it is too bad to be so extravagant. You could live in the east half, if you must keep house, and rent the other part for a dollar a week. It is quite large enough—quite."

"I don't think so," answered Aunt Hannah, quietly. "I like my house to myself and I never yet saw the roof large enough to cover two families."

"Then there is that cow," continued Art Weightman, disregarding the interruption, "Where is the sense of your keeping a cow?"

"To give milk," answered Aunt Hannah.

"To give milk, indeed!" said Uncle Jacob, in a tone as if Miss Hannah had said the cow was good to read aloud or to calculate the longitude. "As if you wanted a cow to give milk! Why, you can't use more than a quart a day at the outside, and what becomes of the rest, I want to know? I don't hear of your selling any."

Aunt Hannah did not seem to feel obliged to gratify her brother's curiosity, for she remained silent.

"Umph!" said Rhoda to herself. "Perhaps if he should ask Widow Makay and poor old Aunty Sarah, they might tell him something about the milk; though I don't exactly see what business it is of his."

But Uncle Jacob was continuing his lecture:

"The fact is, Hannah, you are no manager at all; you don't know how to save. The right way would be for you to break up housekeeping and board somewhere, for two or three dollars a week, fat and kill that old cow, and rent your house and land. Then it would bring you in a good, handsome sum, whereas now you don't get your living out of it; and you might lay up money every year. Why, you might die a rich woman if you would only be guided by me and take care of things."

"Possibly, Jacob, but I prefer living a rich woman," said Aunt Hannah. "I have enough as it is to make me very comfortable, and to help others a little, and I don't exactly see what good it would do me to die rich, unless I could take my money along with me, which does not seem very practicable. I like to have my own house over my head and my own land around me; and as I have nobody dependent upon me, I don't see that I have any particular motive for saving more money than will serve to take care of me if I should be long sick, and bury me when I am dead; and that I have done already. So you see I feel quite easy on that score."

"You might think of somebody besides yourself," said Uncle Jacob. "There is that boy of John Bowers's."

"Oh, he is likely to be well enough off," said Aunt Hannah. "If I were to save, it would not be for the boy, but for the girl."

"The girl is no relation to you, or them either," growled Mr. Weightman. "She has never done work enough to pay for her board, and she never will. It has all been a piece of nonsense from the taking of her in the first place to the present time. They ought to have taught her to work, and kept her at it, instead of sending her to school and dressing her up as fine as a lady. Why, Mr. Shepherd's bound-girl does more than half the work, and she is only twelve years old. Mrs. Shepherd says she can do quite a large washing now."

Boiling over with indignation, Rhoda jumped up and came into the kitchen, knocking down a pail as she did so and making a tremendous clatter. As she was picking it up, Aunt Hannah opened the inner door:

"Are you there, child. I thought I heard somebody come in a while ago. Have you been sitting here all the time?"

"Yes," said Rhoda. "Aunt Hannah, I didn't mean to listen, but I could not help hearing."

"Never mind, dear; there is no harm done."

"Listeners never hear any good of themselves," said Uncle Jacob, with an ill-natured sneer.

"That depends on whom they listen to, Uncle Jacob," answered Rhoda, in her vexation committing two offences—one in answering at all, and the other in saying "Uncle." "One might listen to Aunt Hannah all day, and never hear ill either of himself or anybody else."

"There! Never mind," interposed Aunt Hannah. "Don't you want to take the basket and see if you can find any mushrooms? They ought to be plenty after the rains last night. There! Never mind, dear," she whispered again, patting Rhoda's hot cheek with her soft withered hand. "Run away a little. It will be all right when you come back, and we will have a nice time together."