Sarah Ann

“ It was growing dark one Thursday evening, and Sarah Ann had just brought the lamp into her mistress's parlour. Miss Michin turned up the light slowly, remarking, as she did so, "I don't want this glass to crack. I might do nothing else but buy lamp-glasses if I left the turning-up of them to Sarah Ann. This one has been boiled, which, Mrs. Dodd says, is a good thing to make them stand heat." Then she broke off suddenly, and stared at her apprentice, exclaiming, "Nancy, child, how pale you look! You must leave off and go home. You shall have a nice cup of tea first. Where do you feel bad?" ”

“ The two Misses Teetum sat one at either end—Miss Ann, thin, severe, precise; Miss Sarah, stout, coy, and a trifle kittenish, as doubtless became a young woman of forty-seven, and her sister's junior by eight years. Miss Ann had evidently passed the dead-line of middle age, and had given up the fight, and was fast becoming a very prim and very proper old lady, but Miss Sarah, being out of range, could still smile, and nod her head, and shake her curls, and laugh little, hollow, girlish laughs, and otherwise disport herself in a light and kittenish way, after the manner of her day and age. ”

“ So pretty you can't help looking at her. She's coming down to visit Ann, I hope. If you don't see her every day she's here, I shall lose my good opinion of you. It will be a sure sign that your eyes don't know how, to enjoy themselves."
"We shall all see her and fall in love with her, too, probably," said Sarah.
"She's made on the right pattern of the best material," Abe went on. "She's full of fun and I thought it would be a great thing for Ann. She hasn't had any one to play with of her own age and standing since Bim went away. I was thinking of Harry, too. He needs somebody to play with." ”

“ There she stood, quite forgetful of her duties; the clock in the hall struck its warning note—she did not even hear it; some one might at any moment enter and surprise her in the midst of her idleness and disobedience—she never once thought of it, so busily was she watching every thing in the garden.
The man finished his morning's work and went away, but Sarah did not move. A pair of robins had flown into the tall pear-tree, and were holding an animated conversation, interspersed with bursts and gushes of song. ”

“ But Sarah saw nothing but a newly-made grave, and stretched upon its fresh sods the form of a human being. A feeling of awe came over the maiden's heart. She moved reverently onward, feeling that she was in the sanctuary of the dead. The form was Malaeska's. One arm fell over the grave, and her long hair, in all its mournful change of color, had been swept back from her forehead, and lay tangled amid the rank grass. The sod on which her head rested was sprinkled over with tiny white blossoms. A handful lay crushed beneath her cheek, and sent up a faint odor over the marble face. ”

“ He gloried in exalting his chosen one; while his affianced wife, and her family, were convinced that nothing could be more noble than his conduct, in thus selecting a humble and comparatively portionless girl to share his fortune.
On the afternoon of the second day after her return home, Sarah entered the parlor with her bonnet on and shawl flung over her arm, prepared for a walk. Her lover was lying on the crimson cushions of the settee, with his fine eyes half closed, and a book nearly falling from his listless hand. ”

“ Sarah sat gazing on the turf, with the warm blood mantling to her cheek, ashamed and yet eager to converse more fully on the subject which flooded her young heart with supreme content. The Indian continued motionless, lost in a train of sad thoughts conjured up by the last word uttered; at length she laid her hand on that of her companion, and spoke; her voice was sad, and tears stood in her eyes.
"In a few days you go from me again—oh, it is very wearisome to be always alone; the heart pines for something to love. ”

“ Sarah pursued the foot-path, which she had so often trod through the forest, with a heart that beat quicker at the sight of each familiar bush or forest-tree.
"Poor woman, she must have been very lonely," she murmured, more than once, when the golden blossoms of a spice-bush, or the tendrils of a vine trailing over the path, told how seldom it had been traveled of late, and her heart imperceptibly became saddened by the thoughts of her friend. ”

“ But Sarah was courageous as well as sensitive. She came to Manhattan to study; no matter if her heart ached, the brain must work; her father had made great sacrifices to give her six months at this expensive school; his money and kindness must not be thrown away.
Thus the brave girl reasoned, and, smothering the haunting wish for home, she took up her tasks with energy.
Meantime Jones returned home with a heavy heart and a new assortment of spring goods, that threw every female heart in Catskill into a flutter of excitement. ”

“ Beyond all this, Sarah had keepsakes from the children, with a store of pretty bracelets and fancy baskets from Malaeska, who parted with her in tenderness and sorrow; for one more like a wild grape-vine, putting out its tendrils everywhere for support, she was cast to the earth again.
After all, Sarah did not find the excitement of her journey so very interesting, and but for the presence of her father on the sloop, she would have been fairly homesick before the white sails of the sloop had rounded the Point. ”

“ The old gentleman was better again; able to be wheeled out of doors into the sunshine; and there was nothing he liked so much as sitting in the garden, his wife knitting by his side, Sarah studying at his feet, and the robins singing in the pear-trees overhead, as if feeling it a sacred duty to pay their rent by morning advances of melody. ”

“ Still the garden was paradise. She saw the snow fall, white and cold, over lawn and gravel-walk, bending down the evergreens and tender shrubs, while long, bright icicles hung along the gables or broke into fragments on the ground beneath. Still the garden was paradise; for love has no season, and desolation is unknown where he exists, even though his sacred presence is unsuspected. Long before the promised period arrived, there was no falsehood in Madame Monot's assertion that her pupil should be perfect; for a lovelier or more graceful young creature than Sarah Jones could not well exist. ”

“ The youth looked upon her for a moment with his bright, gleeful eyes, then, throwing off his hat and sweeping back the damp chestnut curls from his forehead, he sat down by her side, and cast a glance of laughing defiance at his relative.
"Come out here and get the kisses, Aunt Sarah, I have made up my mind to stay among the flowers!" ”

“ Danforth would look up blandly from her work and remark in an innocent way to her husband, "That it was really beautiful to see how completely Sarah took to her lessons and how kindly William stayed at home to help her. Really," she thought, "traveling abroad did improve a person's disposition wonderfully. It gives a young man so much steadiness of character. There was William, now, who was so fond of excitement, and never could be persuaded to stay at home before, he could barely be driven across the threshold now." ”

“ Besides all this plenteousness in the commissary department, the good lady brought out wonderful specimens of her own handiwork in the form of knit muffles, fine yarn stockings, and colored wristlets, that she had been years in knitting for Sarah's outfit when she should be called upon to undertake this perilous adventure into the great world. ”

“ Jones sat down and drew the young girl into her lap.
"Well, Sarah," she said, smoothing down the rich hair that lay against her bosom, "Your father and I have been talking about you to-day. You are almost sixteen, and can spin your day's work with any girl in the settlement. Your father says that after you have learned to weave and make cheese, he will send you down to Manhattan to school." ”

“ Then, the hillside and all the broad plain was a forest of heavy timbered land, but the bank of the creek was much in its present condition. The undergrowth throve a little more luxuriantly, and the "Hoppy Nose" shot out from it covered with a thick coating of grass, but shrubless with the exception of two or three saplings and a few clumps of wild-flowers.
As the moon arose on the night after Sarah Jones' interview with the Indian woman, that singular being stood upon the "Hoppy Nose," waiting the appearance of young Danforth. ”

“ Save that one being, there is not a savage, male or female, whom I should not rejoice to see exterminated from the face of the earth. Do not, I pray you, look so terribly shocked, my sweet girl; I acknowledge the feeling to be a prejudice too violent for adequate foundation, but it was grounded in my nature by one whom I respected and loved as my own life, and it will cling to my heart as long as there is a pulse left in it."
"I have no predeliction for savages as a race," said Sarah, after a few moments' silence, gratified to find some shadow of reason for her lover's violence ”

“ That pretty garden which she looked down upon, was a sore temptation to her; and had Madame Monot known how it distracted Sarah's [Pg 73] attention, there is every reason to believe that she would have been removed in all haste to the opposite side of the house, where if she chose to idle at her casement, there would be nothing more entertaining than a hard brick wall to look at. Just then, the garden was more attractive than at any other season of the year. ”

“ There is one thing you must remember about the amœba; it must have its food or protein ready made. It has no power like the yeast or protococcus cell to make it for itself. So these little jelly-lumps we find in the blood and the ponds must be animals. You remember, I told you all vegetables make protein, while all animals eat it up. This little amœba animal gets its full share. He is a perfect little gourmand, taking in every thing that comes in his way. The human amœbae are more fastidious in their taste. They do not swallow their food whole like the wild amœbæ. ”

“ People have been trying to prove for two hundred years or more that these little specks of life can make themselves. Some time I will tell you how you can prove that this is not true. These little torulæ float about in the air, or sleep in any dry place, never showing that they are alive till they are planted in some nest or nidus. When the cook dries her yeast-cakes, she puts all the little torulæ to sleep, and there they go into winter quarters, or hibernate in their cells, like the bears in their caves. ”

“ At first you might think them whiskers, as they grow out around the mouth, but tentacle means a feeler or holder, and with its tentacles you will see how our little friend feels and holds its food, and carries it to his mouth, almost as you use you fingers. ”

“ He has another odd way of laying down his arms when he is frightened by a great noise, such as thunder, or the tiring of a cannon. It is no uncommon thing to find a number of these broken swords lying about among the rocks, showing where there has been a lobster fright or fight. ”

“ You will probably notice first a number of bubbles, like soap-bubbles; but, instead of common air, the yeast-bubbles contain a gas made by the yeast—carbonic-acid gas. Next you will notice the brownish color of the yeast; it grows thicker and muddy, and after an hour or so begins to rise. This rising the chemists call fermentation; biologists call it growing. The spoonful has become a cupful. The yeast is really alive, and it is one of the simplest forms of life. In studying biology, then, or the science of life, we begin at what seems the beginning. ”

“ The line that divides the animal from the vegetable kingdom is not very well marked, but there are two reasons why the torula is not an animal. In the first place, its jelly or protoplasm is shut up in a close sac, but the protoplasm-jelly of animal cells forms a wall of itself. In the second place, the torula can make its own food or protein out of the raw material it finds in the liquid, while the animal cells seem to have no such power; they must have their protein already made, and their work is to destroy it. ”

“ Now, I have told you the torula grows—it has life; but how does it grow—as a mineral, a vegetable, or an animal? The mineral grows larger and larger by additions made to its outside. This is called growth by accretion. But the torula or yeast-cell grows by taking in new substance in among the particles of its old substance, and this kind of growth is called by a long name—intussusception. ”

“ So much for the outside sac of the cell—now for the inside. The cell-jelly, or proto-plasm, is made of water, fat, mineral matters, and protein. The water we already know. The fat is made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The minerals belong to the simple elements.
The protein we know but little about. We are sure that it contains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, with a little sulphur or phosphorus, or both, and we know that it is found in all living matter. There is no life without it, so it has been called the "basis of life." ”

“ The sunlight is the fire by which this chemist heats his crucible, or melting-pot. Into this crucible he puts the poisonous gas, carbonic acid, that he gets from the air, and melts it up into carbon and oxygen, the two substances of which it is made. He keeps the carbon to feed upon, and gives back the pure oxygen to the air again. Thus he works from sunrise to sunset. His hours are regulated by the sun, instead of by Congress. You never hear of an "eight-hour movement" or a "strike" among the chlorophyll laborers. As soon as the sun goes down they go to bed, like honest workmen. ”