Read Ebook: The Fairchilds by Guernsey Lucy Ellen

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Ebook has 1040 lines and 45152 words, and 21 pages

Eben could recollect very little of his former life in England, but one thing he always declared he knew for certain,--that Tom Collins was not really his uncle. He remembered his father hardly at all, his mother very clearly, but he could not tell the name of the place where he had lived. It was in the country, he was sure of that. There was a gray church with a very high tower, and bells that made music. The first time Eben went to Hobartown and heard the college chime, he burst out crying, and being at last persuaded to tell the cause of his grief, he said his mamma used to hold him up to the window to hear the bells make music at home. He remembered that he went to school every day in a house close by the church where there were boys and girls, and the girls wore red capes or cloaks. One day they told him his mamma was dead, and after that he could remember nothing distinctly till he found himself on the sea with Tom Collins and his wife, very sick, and crying for his mamma. Tom's wife had been kind to him at first, and saved him more than one beating, but after a while she got very queer. She used to keep a little bottle of something black, and drink it, and then she did not seem to care what happened to him. Mr. Fairchild wrote down carefully all the particulars he could collect from Eben respecting his early life at home, thinking that some time or other he might find out something regarding the boy's parentage.

The winter that Flora was sixteen, Mr. Fairchild died. He had always been considered rather a wealthy man, as he owned a large and well-cultivated farm and was a successful raiser of stock, and every one supposed that the widow and her children would be well off. But it turned out that Mr. Fairchild had endorsed for a large amount for a neighbour. Mr. Furness had got tired of farming--such a slow and hard way of making money--so he had sold his farm, and with a large and expensive stock of goods, he had set up a store in the city some thirty miles away. His venture turned out as so many such ventures do. He failed utterly. Mr. Fairchild was called upon to pay his share, and when all was done, he found himself left with just a thousand dollars and a little place in Boonville to call his own and leave to his children. Grief and self-reproach brought on a paralytic shock, of which he died after some weeks of illness.

"Take care of your mother, my dears," were almost his last words to his children. "She has her little ways--all of us have--but she has been a good, faithful wife to me and a good mother to you. You will have to judge and decide for yourselves about many things, I know; but don't cross your mother if you can help it, and try to have patience, even if she is a little trying."

It was a mercy, as Eben said cheerfully, that they had such a nice little place in the village to go to when they were obliged to leave the farm. The house was small; but it was convenient, pleasant, and, like everything owned by Mr. Fairchild, in good repair; and there was quite a piece of land belonging to it, with a little orchard and a well-stocked garden. Mrs. Fairchild had her furniture, of course, and old General Dent bought in her favourite cow and gave it to her, requesting as a personal favour that it might run in the pasture with his own.

Flora had learned to run a sewing machine while away on a visit. She had twenty dollars of her own left her by an aunt, and with this she decided, after much consideration, to make the first payment on a good machine. Everything Flora had learned she learned thoroughly, and before she had ever expected to earn her living thereby, she had prepared herself to do so by acquiring great skill in using the machine on the finer kinds of fabric. She had friends at the Springs, which had become a popular summer resort, and she hoped by their aid, and that of Keziah Cooke, who took a great deal of washing from the Cure and the hotel, to be able to maintain herself and help to support her mother.

She had been fortunate at the very outset. Keziah, or Kissy, as she was much more commonly called, washed for a very fashionable and wealthy lady who wanted some copies made, as the artists say, of certain wonderfully-constructed under garments which had been sent her from Paris as patterns. Kissy secured the work for Flora, and Flora executed it to the perfect satisfaction of her employer. According to the usual course of stories, I ought now to go on and say that the fashionable lady screwed her poor work-woman down in price to the last penny, and kept her calling again and again for her pay. Such was not the case. Miss Barnard was as liberal and kind-hearted as she was rich and fashionable. She not only paid Flora a good price, but she recommended her to all her acquaintances, and the consequence was that, at the time our story begins, Flora had in the house as much fine work as would keep her busy for a month, and had already made a second payment on her machine. She was fortunate in liking her work, and took as much interest in copying all the tucks, ruffles, and embroidery of Miss Barnard's Paris-made night-dresses and skirts as she had ever done in following out the intricacies of a piece of worsted work. She preferred sewing to farm-work, and if she could a little have forgotten her grief for her father, and the disappointment about Eben's education, she would not very much have regretted the change in their circumstances.

Eben had not yet succeeded in finding anything to do for a living. He was naturally unwilling to give up the plan of going to college and afterwards studying medicine,--a plan on which his heart had been set for the past three years, and which he had talked over with Mr. Fairchild a hundred times. As many times since his father's death he had gone over the circumstances in his own mind, trying to see some way in which to bring about the accomplishment of his desires. He had at last come to a conclusion, and that conclusion he had announced to his mother and sister this very afternoon. He must go to work at any honest employment he could find, at which he could earn wages enough to support himself, and his schemes of study must be laid aside to some future time, if not given up altogether.

"But there's no need of doing that," said Eben to himself as he walked up the bank of the stream towards the mill. "I can keep it in mind, and maybe it will be brought about for me yet. I am sure it will, if it is best, and I won't worry about it, there! But try to do the best I can in whatever place I can find."

Eben stopped short in his walk, and stood looking across the fields towards the west for a minute or two. Then he broke out into a cheery whistle, and walked quickly on towards the mill.

As he came within sight of the dam, he broke off his whistling, and with an exclamation jumped over the fence and ran down to the edge of the pond. The cause of his haste was soon apparent. Somebody had tied a horse to a tree close to the edge of the water. The horse, in his impatience at the tormenting flies, had backed from under the tree towards the edge of the pond behind him. The consequence was that the hind wheels had gone over the bank into the water, and the fore wheels, with the old horse, were like to follow them before any one saw what was going on. Eben sprung to the wagon and tried to lift it up on the bank, at the same time calling for help, but as no help came, and the task proved beyond his own strength, he dexterously cut the traces and let the load go, thus saving the horse at the expense of the wagon. While he was patting and soothing the poor trembling beast, Jeduthun Cooke jumped out of the mill window, and came down the sloping bank like a deer.

"Well done, you!" was his first exclamation. "I was in the upper story when I looked out and saw you, and I don't believe I made more than two steps for each flight of stairs. Where's the wagon?"

"In the water," said Eben, coolly "at least I suppose so, for there's where it was going the last time I saw it. I knew I couldn't save horse and wagon both, so I cut the traces and let the thing slide."

"Cut the traces! And suppose the horse had kicked your brains out?"

"He hadn't much chance to kick, poor old fellow, and besides, I didn't think anything about that."

"I dare say you didn't. It must have been a foolish one that hitched the horse so near the bank, to begin with. Come, let's lead him to a safe place, and you come in and rest. You look kind of white and beat out."

"I do feel out of breath," admitted Eben. "You see I tried to pull the wagon up, in the first place, and it was too heavy for me. Whose is it, anyway?"

"It belongs to Mr. Wilbur. He has been up here to see Mr. Antis about getting his boy Tom a place in the mill."

Eben's face fell. "Then I am just in time to be too late," said he. "That is just what I was coming after."

"Oh, but this isn't such a place as you would want," returned Jeduthun. "It is the same that Jerry Blythe had. You wouldn't want to do such work."

"I want to do any work that I can earn my living by," said Eben. "I can't live on mother and Flora, and I won't, and I must go at anything I can find to do. It won't answer to be too particular in such a case, you know."

"Do tell!" said Jeduthun. "Why, I thought you was left pretty well off, and that you was going to Hobartown to college?"

"There is no use in talking about that now," replied Eben. "Do you think Mr. Antis has promised this place to Tom Wilbur, Jeduthun?"

"I'm afraid he has, and I am dreadful sorry for it, for one. I don't believe he'll amount to shucks, and it would have been very nice to have you round, Eben."

"Thank you, Jeduthun. I am sure it would have been nice for me. But why don't you think Tom will amount to anything?"

Jeduthun did not exactly know, only he had a notion that Tom Wilbur hadn't "any snap" to him. "I wouldn't be afraid to bet something, if I ever did bet, that the old man left Tom to fasten up that horse. But come, we won't give it up yet. Come in and see the boss. Maybe he can find something else for you to do, and if he does, you wouldn't want to work for a better man."

Mr. Antis was very sorry as well as Jeduthun, for he knew and liked Eben.

"You are just the kind of boy I want," said he, "so I should think from what I have heard of you--but a promise is a promise, you know, Eben."

"Yes, sir, I know it," said Eben. "Of course, if you have promised Tom the place, that is all about it."

"I have promised to give him a trial," said Mr. Antis. "I can't tell how he will answer my purpose beforehand."

"You don't know of anything else for me to do, Mr. Antis?" asked Eben. "I am very anxious to get to work as soon as I can."

Mr. Antis rose and walked about the office considering. "Well, no, Eben--nothing, at least, that you would want to do."

"Wanting hasn't much to do with it, Mr. Antis," replied Eben. "If a thing has got to be done, it doesn't matter much, to my notion, whether one wants to do it or not."

Mr. Antis smiled. "That is a very rational way of looking at the subject, Eben. But do you feel as if you must go to work directly? Wouldn't it be better to wait a little till the right thing comes along?"

Eben smiled in his turn. "The right thing is just as likely to come along when I am at work as when I am doing nothing, Mr. Antis, isn't it?"

"True for you, Eben--just as likely, and likelier. Well, now, I will tell you what I was thinking of. We want a boy about the house to do chores; you know what I mean by that?"

"Yes, sir; to run errands, and take care of the cow, and work in the garden, and so on."

"Exactly. We are more than usually in want of such a boy just now, for Mrs. Antis is doing her own work, and needs a good deal of help, and if we were to try to have Tom Wilbur take the place, I know how that would be. He would be certain to be wanted at the mill just when he was most needed at the house. I am sure Mrs. Antis would like to have you about her. She likes pleasant, quiet people."

"She's got a right to," said Jeduthun. "She's a quiet, pleasant person herself."

"Could I board at home, sir? I think mother and Flora would like to have me at home, and I would help them a little at odd times."

"Why, yes, I suppose you could, if I could depend upon your being on hand early in the morning."

"And what wages would you give?"

"Well, if you boarded at home, I think I could give you twelve dollars a month. But, Eben, are you really serious? Would your mother be willing to have you take such a place?"

"I am quite serious, Mr. Antis. I must go to work at something, you see, and it won't do to be too particular. Mother feels bad at my having to give up school, anyway, but I think after a little, she will be reconciled to it."

"Flora has got on nicely, my wife tells me," remarked Mr. Antis. "She says the girl goes to work like a woman. But I always knew there was plenty of good stuff in Flora."

"Well, and now I must go to work like a man and find out whether there is any good stuff in me," replied Eben, smiling. "I think I should like the place, Mr. Antis, but I should wish to talk with mother and Flora, if you don't mind letting me have the refusal of the situation till to-morrow."

"For a week if you like. And, Eben, if you don't mind, would you just stop at the store as you go along, and ask Mr. Hallet to send over some tea? I have had so much to think of, I forgot all about it."

"Kissy says Hallet hasn't any tea fit to drink," remarked Jeduthun. "We get all ours over at the Springs."

"I know it, and if I had anybody to send--"

"I could go if I had a horse," said Eben, modestly. "There would be plenty of time to drive over and back before dark."

"Oh, there are horses enough," replied Mr. Antis, evidently pleased. "Go up to the house and get the buggy and the old gray. Take Flora along. The ride will be good for her, and I dare say she has errands of her own to do."

EBEN AND FLORA TAKE A DRIVE.

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