Josephine Franklin

“ As the two children went down the stairs together, Nelly said,
“Isn’t she good, Melindy?”
Melinda was not accustomed to behave herself for so great a length of time; her stock of good conduct was now pretty nearly exhausted, so she answered rather sharply,
“Of course she is. I know that as well as you, without bein’ told.”
Nelly felt something choking her in her throat.
“I will not,” she said firmly to herself, “I will not answer back. I’ll do as Martin says, and make a friend of Melindy, if I can. She isn’t so very bad, after all. Why, I do believe I rather like her.” ”

“ Johnny looked around without answering. He saw that there was no help for it; they must return the way they came, long as it was, or stay in the woods all night.
“Come, Nelly,” he said, “we must go back on the same path, if we can.”
It was getting quite dusky. They took each other by the hand and trudged along. One by one the flowers dropped from Nelly’s full apron, to the ground, and at length her weary fingers unclasped, and the apron itself resumed its proper position. Everybody knows how easy it is to lose one’s way, and what a difficult thing it is to find it again. ”

“ Harrow’s son, Sidney, has come home, and oh, Miss Milly and Miss Elinor are so glad!”
“And so am I,” cried Nelly; “if ever there was good luck, that is.”
“I am not so sure about that,” said Melinda, with a sage, grown-up air; for she liked to seem like a woman, and often told her companions, “dear knows, if she wasn’t big enough to be thought one, she would like to know who was!”
"Why, isn’t Mr. Sidney a nice young man, Melindy?" asked Nelly, in bewilderment.
“Hush!” said Melinda, drawing her into a corner; “don’t talk so loud. ”

“ What’s that, Johnny, flopping about in the grass?”
She pointed to the rock-side, where, as Johnny soon saw, a decided “flopping” was indeed going on.
“A fish! a fish!” cried the boy, catching it and holding it up in both hands, so that Nell could look at it; “I’ll take it to Martin to put on the string with the rest. It must have floundered off.”
“Oh, let us put it back,” cried Nelly; “poor Mr. Fish! I think you would really like to try your hand at swimming again.”
“Fin, you mean,” laughed John; “fishes don’t have hands that ever I heard tell. Shall I let it go?” ”

“ Whoever showed the greatest interest, neatness and industry, was to be allowed to remain for a few hours after the closing of the school, in order to make a wreath [73] of evergreen to decorate a certain picture in Miss Elinor’s apartment. The Christmas holidays were near, and the little school-room had already received, at the willing hands of the children, a thorough dressing with laurel, pine, and hemlock-boughs. It had been for a week past the great delight of the pupils to weave, after school-hours, festoons for the whitewashed walls, and garlands for Miss Milly’s desk. ”

“ Sabbath as long as the evergreens are permitted to remain."
“I wish I could see a church looking like that,” remarked Nelly, stopping in her work, and looking meditatively about her.
“Miss Elinor,” said Melinda, “what do they mean when they say ‘as poor as a church-mouse?’ Why are church-mice poorer than house-mice?”
“Because,” was the reply, “in churches there are no nice pantries, filled with bread and meat, for the little plagues to feed upon. No stray crumbs lie on the floor,—no pans of milk are to be found at which to sip. So, you see, church-mice have a right to be considered poor.” ”

“ Doing good to Melindy is just of no account at all.”
“Did you ever try it?” asked Martin.
“Well, no-o. You see I could tell it was of no use. And Miss Harrow, she stands Melindy on a chair with a paper cap on her head, every day, at dinner-time.”
“Poor girl,” said Martin, [38] “I am sorry for her.”
"I’m not," said Nell, promptly, “it keeps her from mischief, you know.”
Martin was silent.
Comfort began to sing a tune over her fish, interrupting herself at times with a low, quaint laugh, as though particularly well pleased with some thought.
“What’s the matter, Comfort?” asked Nelly. ”

“ Make her go home, Robert, do.’
"‘Not a bit of it,’ said Robert, laughing; ‘did you never see a cat go to meeting before? Wildfire has attended regularly, every summer, for the last three years. She always follows us. The minister would not know how to preach without her.’
"‘But,’ said I, ‘how it must look! a cat in church! A dog would not be so bad. But a cat! Go home, Wildfire!’ and I took off my red shawl and shook it at her, and stamped my foot. ”

“ One very cold winter night Milly came into Mrs. Brooks’s kitchen, and asked Comfort, a colored woman who worked for the family, where her mistress [15] was. Comfort promptly led the way to the sitting-room, where grouped coseyly around the centre-table were the different members of the farmer’s family. A bright fire blazed on the hearth, and the woolen curtains were tightly drawn to keep out the winds that whistled around the farm-house. ”

“ The old colored woman tossed her apron over her head, and from the odd puffing noises that immediately began to sound from behind it, Nelly supposed she was weeping. She thought she must [58] have been mistaken, however, the next moment, for Comfort pulled down the apron a little savagely, as though ashamed of having indulged in such a luxury as a private groan or two, and in a stern voice bade Nelly go up in her (Comfort’s) room, feel under the bolster, on the side nearest the wall, and bring down to her the foot of a stocking which she would find there. ”

“ Milly Harrow sank upon a seat, before the fire on the hearth, and wept such bitter, heart-breaking tears as it is to be hoped no one who reads her story has ever known. She was a gentle, refined, well-educated girl of twenty, and had met much more sorrow than happiness.
[17] “Milly,” said the farmer’s wife kindly, and advancing as she spoke, from the open door of the pantry, “come here to the table and see how a bit of this roast fowl tastes. And try this glass of currant wine,—you need not be afraid of it, it is home-made. ”

“ I want you to fill a different rank in life from Comfort’s, Nelly.”
Tears were in Nelly’s eyes as she answered gravely,
[116] “Yes, ma’am.”
“Comfort is a servant, and you are my little daughter. I want you to be diligent, and cultivate a love of books. If you grow up in ignorance, you can never be esteemed a lady, even if you were as rich as an empress. I will give you the credit to say that you have improved very much since you have been with me, both in your conduct and in the language you use.”
“Comfort told me I mustn’t say ‘br’iling fish,’ as she did, because you did not! ”

“ A large, overhanging rock, under the shade of a tree, served, as Martin said, for a “roosting-place,” and from it they found the bites so frequent that quite a little string of fish was made, and hung on some dead roots that projected from the bank.
“What a wild place this is,” said Martin, looking around him, as he drew in his line for the fourth time.
“Yes,” said Sidney; “it is. That is the best of it. I wouldn’t give a fig for it if it wasn’t. Look at that cow coming to drink. I wonder where she hails from! How she looks at us!” ”

“ There were enough for all, and to spare; and when they left the clam-bed, still smoking and smouldering, to assemble around “table-rock,” as Melinda called it, where the daintier part of the feast [150] was spread, Martin said he had never tasted such finely roasted clams in his life.
“I expect,” said Miss Milly, “that the charm lies in our appetites.”
“Yes,” said Johnny Bixby, taking an enormous bite of cake, and, to Nelly’s great horror, speaking with his mouth full—“yes, I think goin’ on picnics and such like, is real hungry work.” ”

“ Not a man, woman, or child thinks of locking doors, out in that wild country. Thieves don’t seem to be found there, and everybody trusts his neighbor. If a tramper comes along, he is welcome to go in and help himself to whatever he wants. It is not an unusual thing on reaching home, after an absence of an hour or so, to find a poor, tired traveller, asleep in his chair, before the fire. Besides,” said Miss Elinor, with a twinkle in her eyes, “there is another excellent reason why the farmers out there never think of locking their doors.”
“Oh, I know!” cried Melinda ”

“ Just see how that hemlock sticks out!”
“Well,” said Miss Elinor, “I like to see stump fences, very much indeed, Melinda. I think they are beautiful. The great roots look like the hands of giants, with the fingers stretched out to grasp something. So you see, I don’t mind if you make my wreath look like them.”
“Father says stump fences are the very best kind,” remarked Melinda, knowingly.
“I guess not the very best, Melindy,” Nell ventured to say.
[86] “Yes, they are,” persisted Melinda, with a toss of her head; “father says they last forever,—and he knows, for he has tried ’em!” ”

“ In this house lived a family by the name of Harrow. It consisted of the widowed mother, a woman who had once moved in a far higher sphere of life, and her two daughters, Milly and Elinor. There was a son, too, people said, but he did not live at home, having had the ingratitude, some time before the Harrows moved to the village, to desert his home and run away to sea.
Mrs. Harrow and her children were very poor. No one knew but themselves how hard they found it to get work enough to earn their daily bread. ”

“ You must have our Martin for a day or two, to knock you together some long benches with backs, and Comfort can help you cover and cushion them with some old green baize that I have in the garret. What room can you give to the use of the schoolmistress, Mrs. Harrow?”
“Well,” said the old lady, smiling for the first time in a month, “the front room, down-stairs, is best, I think, because it opens directly on the road. I can take the furniture out, (what there is of it!) and clean it up like a June pink, in a day or two.”
[22]
“The carpet is rather shabby and threadbare,” suggested Milly. ”

“ Martin, a boy who lived at Mr. Brooks’, told Nelly that Miss Elinor fell at her post like a sentinel wounded on duty.
When the doctor came, he informed the farmer and his wife that their servant had lost the use of her limbs, through an affection of the spine, which had been brought on by lifting too heavy burdens, and she was indeed as unable to move hand or foot to help [13] herself as a baby could be. ”

“ Melinda, with a sigh, folded hers, and sat like a [79] picture of despair. The books were then collected, and examined carefully, while the scholars began to prepare to go home. Nelly was quite ready, when she was startled by hearing Miss Milly pronounce her name to the school as the winner of the prize.
“I find,” said Miss Harrow, [80] “that almost every child has taken unusual pains to-day, in writing; and I am pleased to see it, I can assure you. Where all have been so careful, it is very difficult to find one who stands highest; Nelly Box, however, I think deserves the reward. ”

“ She paused again, and with the little girl, looked at the chickens.
“Nelly,” she said, [115] “it has just struck me that you have been a great deal in the kitchen with Comfort, lately, of evenings. Now, though I respect and love Comfort for many things, I want you to stay more with your father, and Martin, and myself, in the sitting-room.”
“What?” Nelly cried, in innocent wonder; “isn’t Comfort good any longer?”
Mrs. Brooks smiled.
“Yes, dear, Comfort’s as good as ever. She tries to do her duty, and is a faithful old creature. ”