Five years of youth

Near the small town of A——, distant thirty miles from London, stood a farm-house, surrounded by a few acres of well-cultivated ground. There was a green before the door; and in the midst of the green stood an old elm, and under the elm was a pump. There was a sort of basin under the pump, and there were gathered together the goslings as soon as hatched, leaving the large pond in the farm-yard for the use of the ducks and ducklings, and the larger birds of their own race. There were hen-coops placed on the grass, which were furnished with an abundant population; and there was a constant fluttering of wings about the pigeon-house, where the old ones of the flock would perch at one of the entrance holes, and glance up and down and around, perching their heads, and making their beautiful necks glitter in the sunshine with twenty different colours. At a little distance was a rookery, a scene of incessant activity, as the eyes and ears of all who were within hearing could testify. The farmer’s children were generally in the farm-yard, seeing the cows milked, or playing duck-and-drake on the pond; and the boys followed the team with their father, or went into the field with old Robin, the hedger and ditcher, trying to help him with their little spades and wheelbarrow; while the girls fed the chickens, or stole into the dairy behind their mother.

It sometimes happened, that two little girls, who were evidently not of Farmer Rickham’s family, were seen playing with the children on the green. From their dress alone, no one would have supposed them to be young ladies; but their manners and conversation proved them to be, in some respects, well educated. All strangers who saw them looked again, wondering who could have the care of them, and what sort of management they had been subjected to. Their frocks, made sometimes of silk, and sometimes of calico, as it might happen, were generally torn, and always dirty; their shoes were all, from the sky-blue kid to the coarse black leather, down at the heel, so as to display a large round hole in the stocking. If Mary had a silk bonnet, and Anna a straw, the one was used as a cradle for the kitten, and the other as a basket to hold strawberries. Of course, all this inspired a stranger with disgust; but if occasion led him to speak to either sister, he was favourably impressed by the modesty of manner, and simplicity of speech, by which they were distinguished from many young persons more fortunate in their external appearance. They were the only children of Mr. Byerley, who lived at A——.

One fine May morning they went, as they often did, to see Nurse Rickham, as they called the farmer’s wife. While Mary was looking for eggs among the nettles, Anna amused herself with helping nurse to get dinner ready. When she came up from the potatoe hole with her apron full of potatoes, (for nurse had insisted on tying on an apron,) she stood in the middle of the kitchen for a minute or two, looking closely at Mrs. Rickham’s gown. Mrs. Rickham turned round surprise.

“I never saw you in this gown before, nurse,” said Anna.

“’Tis a very old gown, Miss Anna; I’ve worn it this many a year.” And nurse coloured, and looked uncomfortable.

“I have seen it before, I am sure, nurse; though not on you; and yet I thought it had been blue. I don’t remember mamma in any thing green. Was it not mamma’s?”

“My dear, it was. But who could have thought of your remembering that, so many years as it was ago? I have always kept it out of your sister’s sight, because she, being older, might perhaps remember it; but to-day you took me by surprise with it on, and I persuaded myself there was no need to change it.”

“No need at all, nurse; but I should just like to see if Mary would know it again.”

When Mary was called in, she did not remember having ever seen the gown before.

“Well, how odd that is!” said Mrs. Rickham, “that Miss Anna should remember better than you do, when she was only three years old when my mistress died, and you were five.”

“Oh! but I remember many things that Anna cannot,” said Mary: “I remember my coming to stay here when papa and mamma went to London. How long ago is that, nurse?”

“Let me see: my mistress died seven years ago, and she went to London every year for three years before she died, and it was the first visit when you came to me, the year Miss Anna was born. My dear, you can’t possibly remember so long ago as ten years, when you could only just go alone.”

“Oh! but I do,” said Mary; “and it is just the trying to run about the green by myself that I remember. You had a wooden step at the door then; and I used to take fast hold of the door-post, and put down first one foot and then the other; and when I could not reach the ground, I sat down on the step and slid, so that I fell softly on my hands and knees.”

“Bless the child!” cried the nurse; “’tis all true; but what can make you remember it?”

“Ah! that I don’t know; but I can tell you of some other things. Do you remember whether I cried the first night you put me to bed?”

“Yes, Miss, you did; for I said to my husband, that you had got into a bad habit with your new maid, of crying when you went to bed. However, it was only for that night, I think.”

“It was because the bed creaked, and frightened me; and the feel of the coarse sheets was not like what I had been accustomed to. And that old elm too, how its rough bark hurt my little hands when I used to try to get round it.”

“Well, I will never say again that children can’t remember back to two years old,” said nurse.

“I think I could not have been older than that when I cut off the fingers of Miss Oliver’s gloves,” said Anna. “Do you remember that, Mary?”

Mary laughed heartily at the recollection.

“What a little rogue you looked, Anna, peeping from under the table between the folds of the cloth; while Miss Oliver was so busy talking to mamma about the patterns, and unrolling and drawing on her gloves in an absent fit! And poor mamma tried to look grave, and could not, when the fingers’ ends came through.”

“Miss Anna was always the child for fun,” said nurse.

“There was as much fright as fun in that joke, however,” said Anna. “When I had done my cutting, I could not roll up the gloves again for a long time; and I felt so sure of being punished, that I heartily wished the finger tips on again. I shall never forget how glad I was to see mamma laugh.”

Mrs. Rickham turned away and sighed, and Mary and Anna looked at one another with sadness in their faces.

“I know, nurse,” said Mary, “that you do not like to hear us talk in this way about mamma. But only consider how very little we remember of her, and how trifling that little is. We only talk about it because we would not forget even this much.”

“It is all very natural, my dears; but when I think about her, as I do every day, and when I see how like her you are, Miss Anna especially, I can’t help grieving when I think how much more chance there would be of your growing up to be like her, if you could remember for yourselves what she was.”

Here nurse Rickham stood and looked at the young ladies from head to foot, and began to smooth down their rough hair with her hand. They knew well enough what would come next to be anxious to make their escape; so, to avoid a lecture on tidiness, one ran to help little Tommy to pump, and the other to gather some flowers for papa.

Mary had not finished gathering her flowers when the farmer came in to dinner; and when Tommy was called away from the pump to eat his dumpling, Anna thought it time to set about the recovery of her bonnet, which hung, out of reach, from the branches of the elm. When she had used stick, rake, and pole to no purpose, she climbed the tree far enough to be able to shake the bough on which the bonnet hung, and from which it presently fell into the pool. In her haste down to snatch it out of the water before it should be wet through, she tore her frock-skirt almost from top to bottom.

“Mary! Mary!” cried she, running to the garden, with her dripping hat in one hand, and the terrible rent gathered up in the other, “can you give me some pins to make my frock tidy till we get home?”

“Tidy!” said Mary, laughing: “nurse will think it an odd sort of tidiness; but let us see what we can do.”

“Please to wipe my bonnet then, while I pin up this great hole, and then let us go home directly.”

When they went to bid nurse good bye, she begged them to wait a few minutes, if they could, as she wished to walk to the town with them as soon as her husband should have dined. This delay gave Anna an opportunity of hanging up her bonnet and handkerchief to dry in the sun; so she stuck them on a bush, and amused herself with watching the bees till nurse was ready.

It appeared that her errand was to their father’s house, and her business with the young ladies’ maid, whom she blamed for allowing them to appear as they had come to the farm that morning. Every body in Mr. Byerley’s house knew that Nurse Rickham was privileged to say and do what she pleased when the young ladies were in question, and that she was as capable as any body about them of deciding what it was proper for them to be, and to do, and to wear. The maid therefore only justified herself by saying, that the young ladies were more troublesome about their things than any children she ever had to wait upon, pleasant and good as they were in other matters; and that she thought they were really too old to need to have a servant to tell them always what to put on; though, to be sure, it made a great difference their having no mother to teach them such things. Nobody knew, she said, how anxious she was to do what was proper for them; and as a proof, she would beg Mrs. Rickham’s opinion about some purchases she was going to make for them.

It always grieved Mrs. Rickham that Mr. Byerley should have resisted the advice of all his friends in so important a point as the domestic education of his children. He was known to have so strong a prejudice against schools, that no one thought of persuading him to place his daughters in one. Besides, his health was infirm, and his spirits variable, so that it would have been too hard upon him to have relinquished the society which alone could make his home cheerful to him. It appeared to all sensible people, that the best plan would have been to have invited some respectable elderly lady to take up her abode with his daughters, and supply, as far as might be, that guidance which the best of fathers cannot afford. To this plan, however, as often as proposed, he refused to listen, declaring his determination to educate his daughters himself, independently of all assistance but that of masters for accomplishments.

For such a task he was well qualified by high principle and extensive information, and by his full appreciation of what is valuable and beautiful in female character; but he had some eccentricities which were likely to impair the effects of his most earnest and judicious endeavours. He was also much engaged in public life, and had therefore less command of his time than was desirable on account of his children, who were allowed to dispose of their leisure more freely in his absence than was at all consistent with those habits of regular industry, which, at their ages, (ten and twelve,) ought to have been formed and confirmed. A great deal was accomplished by means of the close application to which they were accustomed while pursuing their studies in his presence; but much valuable time was wasted by bad management in his absence.

Dinner waited long this day, as was often the case: Mr. Byerley was engaged in his study with a gentleman, whom he was assisting to draw up resolutions for a public meeting. When he entered the dining-room, he saw his girls sitting close together, reading out of the same book so intently, that they did not hear him approach. Standing behind them, and looking over their heads, he read aloud,

Aye, that was a dinner in Eden—a dinner very unlike ours, which is probably cold by this time. Come, come, ’tis very late.”

The girls, who had started and closed the book hastily at the sound of his voice, ran to take their places at the table.

Mary remarked that her papa had not been out, if she might guess by his gown and slippers being still on, as at breakfast. Anna supposed that it was because he wore his slippers that he had startled them, though they had been watching for him just before.

“Mary,” said Mr. Byerley, “what made you shut your book in such a hurry when I put my head in between you?”

“I hardly know,” said Mary; “but I believe I was not quite sure whether you wished us to read Paradise Lost yet.”

“You might have known in a moment by asking.”

“Yes; but Mr. Wilkins was with you, and I knew you were busy; and the book was lying open, and we did not mean to read on, only we could not help it.”

“It has done you no harm, I dare say, my dears; and if it had, it would have been my fault for leaving such a book in your way. Would you like to see more of it?”

“I like the little I read, papa; but I do not know how I should like the whole.”

“The whole! I should be sorry to be obliged to read all that,” said Anna. “I like the Arguments best. Why are they called the Arguments, papa?”

“Because, by Argument, is properly meant a subject of thought. The Argument of a poem is the subject, the story; and in Paradise Lost, and most long poems, it is given in prose, like a table of contents.”

“I like getting at the story at once, instead of fishing it out from the poetry.”

“If the story is all you care about, you are very right,” said her father; “but the story is the last thing people of taste think about in a fine poem.”

“Then Mary is a person of taste, I suppose; for she was in a great hurry to get to the grave part.”

“If she likes the grave part, she may go to it again,” said Mr. Byerley. “She would not like it if she did not understand it; and the more she understands and relishes it, the more likely she is to become a woman of taste. But I have another argument to propose to you both. Bid you ever hear me speak of Mrs. Fletcher of Southampton?”

“Yes, papa: you showed us a letter of her’s once: you remember it, Anna.”

“About her little girl that died? O yes, I remember that letter, and I want to see it again.”

“You shall, my dear; and you will soon see Mrs. Fletcher too. She is coming to stay with us for a few days.”

“Any body with her, papa?”

“Yes, her husband, of course; and perhaps two of her daughters. They come on Wednesday; so you must consult Mrs. Rickham how you are to make room for them all, and I am sure you will try to make their visit pleasant.”

Mary and Anna were troubled with no fears on the subject, for they were accustomed to receive their father’s friends, and had never been conscious of any awkwardness in doing so. If they had now any doubts, it was about the pleasure they might have in Miss Fletcher’s society; for they had never had any companions of their own age, or any playmates except the farmers children.

When their father called them into his study to repeat the lessons which had been omitted in the morning, Anna stretched herself and yawned, preparatory to collecting her books and exercises.

“What, Anna! yawning at the very idea of being employed! Better wait till you are tired, surely.”

“I can stretch again then, papa. I wonder whether you ever do. I never saw you; but I suppose you are tired sometimes, like other people.”

“Very tired, my dear; and never more so than when you are rattling nonsense, instead of opening your books. There is a time for all things.”

It was now Anna’s time for looking grave; and she read her page of Virgil as steadily as if she had been ten years older. Nothing was heard in the study for the next two hours, but the single voice of the reader, and the scratching pen of the writer. When the last school-book was closed, the girls looked at their father. He pointed to the book-case, where the large Bible was placed; and while Mary took it down, Anna drew a seat to each side of her father’s large study-chair. They read and talked, and read again, till the servant came to say that tea had been ready some time. Anna forgot her intention of yawning again. They never remembered having been weary of reading the Bible with their father; for he made them understand it clearly, as far as they went: he talked and encouraged them to talk freely on the thousand subjects which made religion interesting; and his voice was never so soft, or his manner so tender, as at those times.

After tea, Mary, who saw that her father was troubled with headache, as was often the case, pointed to the field, where the evening shadows were lengthening in the golden light of the setting sun, and asked him if a walk would not do him good. He was too tired to go out, he said; but he should like some music, which generally refreshed him more than any thing. So he established himself on the sofa; and Mary, who played very well, opened her piano, and amused him till it was quite dark. Before he dismissed his children for the night, he called Anna to sit on the low stool beside him.

“Our days fly away fast, Anna; do not they?”

“Yes, papa; but not so fast as I should like. I want to be older, that I may have more of my own way.”

“You unreasonable child! People tell me I let you run wild already. What more do you want?”

“I want to take journeys, and to leave off learning some things that are tiresome, and to learn others that must be very entertaining; and I want to send Farmer Rickham’s children to school, and to build an hospital here, and several other things. What a will I would make, if I was a woman!”

“If you had any thing to leave, I suppose you mean,” said her father, laughing. “But, seriously, my dear, don’t you think it as well that people should be taught to do no harm before they form grand schemes for doing good; and that they should learn to do good in a small way, before they form plans too large for them to manage?”

“Like Sally Benson and her bird.”

“What was that?”

“She thought she should like to help her brother’s birds in building their nests; (you know he has three pairs, in a very large cage;) so she got them some moss that she thought better than what he had provided, and she went a great distance to get it; and she was a long time searching for a plant that she was told they would like to eat; and she watched and watched them, and was very busy trying to make them build. But O, papa!”

“Well, what happened?”

“Why, she frightened them so with putting her fingers between the wires, that they would not make their nests properly; and she had got the wrong plant after all, and one of them died from eating it. And what was far worse, she forgot, all the time, to feed her own canary; and she found it dead at the bottom of the cage one day.”

“Aye, that is the way with young minds till they get experience; and I am afraid it would be the way with you, if you had more of your own will, as you say.”

“Why, papa, what harm do you think I should do?”

“Consider whether you do none already. Have you done nothing on this one day that can be hurtful to anybody? You need not tell me, if you find you have; but satisfy yourself—that’s all.”

“I will tell you, however, papa. I ran away when nurse was going to say something I did not wish to hear. I saw she looked vexed, and I am afraid little Kitty saw it too; and perhaps I have put it into her head to do the same.”

“You must put a better behaviour into her head as soon as you can, then. Now try and recollect if you have done any good to-day.”

Anna thought some time, and looked sad when she owned she could recollect nothing.

“I am afraid you are hardly fit for building an hospital yet, Anna,” said Mr. Byerley. “However, to comfort you, I can assure you that you have done me some good to-day.”

“You mean, by making you forget your headache. But that was accident, so it does not suit what we were talking about; but I will try to make it better another time, for fear you should be the first person to go into my hospital, when I build it.”

Mr. Byerley smiled as he kissed her and sent her to bed.