Read Ebook: The Shield of Love by Farjeon B L Benjamin Leopold

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Ebook has 1161 lines and 64788 words, and 24 pages

Grandmother says I will have a great deal to answer for, because Anna looks up to me so and tries to do everything that I do and thinks whatever I say is "gospel truth." The other day the girls at school were disputing with her about something and she said, "It is so, if it ain't so, for Calline said so." I shall have to "toe the mark," as Grandfather says, if she keeps watch of me all the time and walks in my footsteps.

We asked Grandmother this evening if we could sit out in the kitchen with Bridget and Hannah and the hired man, Thomas Holleran. She said we could take turns and each stay ten minutes by the clock. It gave us a little change. I read once that "variety is the spice of life." They sit around the table and each one has a candle, and Thomas reads aloud to the girls while they sew. He and Bridget are Catholics, but Hannah is a member of our Church. The girls have lived here always, I think, but I don't know for sure, as I have not lived here always myself, but we have to get a new hired man sometimes. Grandmother says if you are as good to your girls as you are to yourself they will stay a long time. I am sure that is Grandmother's rule. Mrs. McCarty, who lives on Brook Street , washes for us Mondays, and Grandmother always has a lunch for her at eleven o'clock and goes out herself to see that she sits down and eats it. Mrs. McCarty told us Monday that Mrs. Brockle's niece was dead, who lives next door to her. Grandmother sent us over with some things for their comfort and told us to say that we were sorry they were in trouble. We went and when we came back Anna told Grandmother that I said, "Never mind, Mrs. Brockle, some day we will all be dead." I am sure that I said something better than that.

We played snap the whip at recess to-day and I was on the end and was snapped off against the fence. It hurt me so, that Anna cried. It is not a very good game for girls, especially for the one on the end.

"In Adam's fall we sinned all. My Book and heart shall never part. The Cat doth play and after slay. The Dog doth bite a thief at night."

When she came to the end of it and said,

"Zaccheus he, did climb a tree, his Lord to see."

she said she heard some one say, "The tree broke down and let him fall and he did not see his Lord at all." Grandmother said it was very wicked indeed and she hoped Anna would try and forget it.

We go to school to Miss Zilpha Clark in her own house on Gibson Street. Other girls who go are Laura Chapin, Julia Phelps, Mary Paul, Bessie Seymour, Lucilla and Mary Field, Louisa Benjamin, Nannie Corson, Kittie Marshall, Abbie Clark and several other girls. I like Abbie Clark the best of all the girls in school excepting of course my sister Anna.

We go through a great many figures and sing "A Life on the Ocean Wave," "What Fairy-like Music Steals Over the Sea," "Lightly Row, Lightly Row, O'er the Glassy Waves We Go," and "O Come, Come Away," and other songs. Mrs. Judge Taylor wrote one song on purpose for us.

A squaw walked right into our kitchen to-day with a blanket over her head and had beaded purses to sell.

This is my composition which I wrote: "Which of the seasons is the pleasantest? Grim winter with its cold snows and whistling winds, or pleasant spring with its green grass and budding trees, or warm summer with its ripening fruit and beautiful flowers, or delightful autumn with its golden fruit and splendid sunsets? I think that I like all the seasons very well. In winter comes the blazing fire and Christmas treat. Then we can have sleigh-rides and play in the snow and generally get pretty cold noses and toses. In spring we have a great deal of rain and very often snow and therefore we do not enjoy that season as much as we would if it was dry weather, but we should remember that April showers bring May flowers. In summer we can hear the birds warbling their sweet notes in the trees and we have a great many strawberries, currants, gooseberries and cherries, which I like very much, indeed, and I think summer is a very pleasant season. In autumn we have some of our choicest fruits, such as peaches, pears, apples, grapes and plums and plenty of flowers in the former part, but in the latter, about in November, the wind begins to blow and the leaves to fall and the flowers to wither and die. Then cold winter with its sleigh-rides comes round again." After I had written this I went to bed. Anna tied her shoe strings in hard knots so she could sit up later.

"'Tis religion that can give Sweetest pleasure while we live, 'Tis religion can supply Solid comfort when we die."

We chose sides and spelled down at school to-day. Julia Phelps and I stood up the last and both went down on the same word--eulogism. I don't see the use of that "e." Miss Clark gave us twenty words which we had to bring into some stories which we wrote. It was real fun to hear them. Every one was different.

This evening as we sat before the fire place with Grandmother, she taught us how to play "Cat's Cradle," with a string on our fingers.

Lucilla and Louisa Field were over to our house to dinner to-day. We had a very good dinner indeed. In the afternoon, Grandmother told me that I might go over to Aunt Ann's on condition that I would not stay, but I stayed too long and got my indian rubbers real muddy and Grandmother did not like it. I then ate my supper and went to bed at ten minutes to eight o'clock.

We told her we should think she would rather invite white ladies, but she said Chloe was a poor old slave and as Grandfather had gone to Saratoga she thought it was a good time to have her. She said God made of one blood all the people on the face of the earth, so we knew she would do it and we didn't say any more. When we talk too much, Grandfather always says N. C. . She sent a carriage for Chloe and she came and had a nice dinner, not in the kitchen either. Grandmother asked her if there was any one else she would like to see before she went home and she said, "Yes, Miss Rebekah Gorham," so she told the coachman to take her down there and wait for her to make a call and then take her home and he did. Chloe said she had a very nice time, so probably Grandmother was all right as she generally is, but I could not be as good as she is, if I should try one hundred years.

"Honor and shame from no condition rise, Act well your part, there all the honor lies."

I think he is a very smart young man and will make a good doctor to the heathen.

I handed in a composition, too, about the eclipse, but I don't think Miss Clark liked it as well as she did Anna's, because it had something in it about "the beggarly elements of the world." She asked me where I got it and I told her that it was in a nice story book that Grandmother gave me to read entitled "Elizabeth Thornton or the Flower and Fruit of Female Piety, and other sketches," by Samuel Irenaeus Prime. This was one of the other sketches: It commenced by telling how the moon came between the sun and the earth, and then went on about the beggarly elements. Miss Clark asked me if I knew what they meant and I told her no, but I thought they sounded good. She just smiled and never scolded me at all. I suppose next time I must make it all up myself.

There is a Mr. Packer in town, who teaches all the children to sing. He had a concert in Bemis Hall last night and he put Anna on the top row of the pyramid of beauty and about one hundred children in rows below. She ought to have worn a white dress as the others did but Grandmother said her new pink bar?ge would do. I curled her hair all around in about thirty curls and she looked very nice. She waved the flag in the shape of the letter S and sang "The Star Spangled Banner," and all the others joined in the chorus. It was perfectly grand.

Rev. Mr. Dickey, of Rochester, agent for the Seaman's Friend Society, preached this morning about the poor little canal boy. His text was from the 107th Psalm, 23rd verse, "They that go down into the sea in ships." He has the queerest voice and stops off between his words. When we got home Anna said she would show us how he preached and she described what he said about a sailor in time of war. She said, "A ball came--and struck him there--another ball came--and struck him there--he raised his faithful sword--and went on--to victory--or death." I expected Grandfather would reprove her, but he just smiled a queer sort of smile and Grandmother put her handkerchief up to her face, as she always does when she is amused about anything. I never heard her laugh out loud, but I suppose she likes funny things as well as anybody. She did just the same, this morning, when Grandfather asked Anna where the sun rose, and she said "over by Gen. Granger's house and sets behind the Methodist church." She said she saw it herself and should never forget it when any one asked her which was east or west. I think she makes up more things than any one I know of.

"Early to bed and early to rise Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

"Upward I lift mine eyes, From God is all my aid; The God that built the skies, And earth and nature made.

"God is the tower To which I fly His grace is nigh In every hour."

He always prays for the oil of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

This evening I wrote a letter to John and a little "poetry" to Father, but it did not amount to much. I am going to write some a great deal better some day. Grandfather had some letters to write this morning, and got up before three o'clock to write them! He slept about three-quarters of an hour to-night in his chair.

Mr. Lathrop, of the seminary, is superintendent of the Sunday School now and he had a present to-day from Miss Betsey Chapin, and several visitors came in to see it presented: Dr. Daggett, Mr. and Mrs. Alex. Howell, Mr. Tousley, Mr. Stowe, Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Granger and several others. The present was a certificate of life membership to something; I did not hear what. It was just a large piece of parchment, but they said it cost . Miss Lizzie Bull is my Sunday School teacher now. She asked us last Sunday to look up a place in the Bible where the trees held a consultation together, to see which one should reign over them. I did not remember any such thing, but I looked it up in the concordance and found it in Judges 9: 8. I found the meaning of it in Scott's Commentary and wrote it down and she was very much pleased, and told us next Sunday to find out all about Absalom.

This is Allie Field's birthday. He got a pair of slippers from Mary with the soles all on; a pair of mittens from Miss Eliza Chapin, and Miss Rebecca Gorham is going to give him a pair of stockings when she gets them done.

I went to school this afternoon and kept the rules, so to-night I had the satisfaction of saying "perfect" when called upon, and if I did not like to keep the rules, it is some pleasure to say that.

Grandfather heard to-day of the death of his sister, Lydia, who was Mrs. Lyman Beecher. She was Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher's ter hand did Miss Sutherland smile upon. One was poor Bob Grantham, the other yourself. But you did not hold an equal place in her regard. She smiled upon poor Bob because she loved him, she smiled upon you because you were the bosom friend of the gentleman she loved. Into the sincerity of your feelings for her I do not inquire; I pass over what does not concern me, and I come to the commencement of an important chapter in this lady's life, which opens with her marriage with Robert Grantham."

"You pass over what does not concern you," said Mr. Fox-Cordery. "What, then, is your object in dragging the lady's name into the conversation?"

"You will learn presently. The chapter opens brightly, but we have only to turn a leaf and we see clouds gathering. Mark you; from all I can gather these two loved each other with a very perfect love; but poor Bob had one besetting vice which darkened his life and hers, and which eventually ruined both. He was an inveterate gamester. The seeds of this vice, which you helped to nourish in our school days, were firmly implanted in him when he grew to manhood. He was, as I have already said, weak, and easily led, and no doubt the harpies who are always on the watch for such as he encouraged him and fattened upon him. He had not the strength to withstand temptation, and he fell lower and lower. Observe, Fox, that in the narration of the story I am merely giving you a plain recital of facts."

"Or what you suppose to be facts," interrupted Mr. Fox-Cordery.

"A plain recital of facts," repeated John Dixon, "the truth of which can be substantiated. I do not ask you whether you took a hand in poor Bob's ruin, and profited by it. That some harpies did is not to be doubted, because in the end poor Bob lost every penny of his fortune, which all found its way into their pockets, as the weak schoolboy's ten pounds found their way regularly every month into yours. I do not seek to excuse poor Bob; there is a thin line which separates weakness and folly from sin, and Bob was one of the many who stepped over this line. I have reflected deeply upon his wretched history. Knowing the goodness of his heart and the sweetness of his disposition, I have wondered how he could have been so blind as not to see that he was breaking the heart of the woman he loved and had sworn to protect; her nature must also have been one of rare goodness that she did not force it upon him, that she did not take the strongest means to show him the miserable pit he was digging for them. I have wondered, too, how, through another influence than that of his wife, he himself should not have awakened from his fatal infatuation. They had a child, a little girl, and his instinctive tenderness for children should have stepped in to save him. I am not myself a gambler, and I cannot realize the complete power which the vice obtains over a man's moral perception, sapping all that is noble and worthy in him, and destroying all the finer instincts of his nature. Happily Mrs. Grantham had a fortune in her own right over which her husband had no control; some portion of it went, I believe, to save him from disgrace--and then the end came. I have related the story in its broad outlines; there must have been scenes of agony between husband and wife of which I know nothing, but it is not difficult to imagine them. During the whole of these miserable years, Fox, you remained the close friend and associate of this unhappy couple, and you know what the end of it was."

"What I know I know," said Mr. Fox-Cordery, "and I do not propose to enlist you in my confidence."

"I do not ask you to do so. It was probably during these years that Mrs. Grantham learned to rely upon you and to trust to your counsel and judgment. You have maintained your position to this day."

"Well?"

"In the course of the business I transacted for you I became somewhat familiar with Mrs. Grantham's pecuniary affairs. You are, in a certain sense, her trustee and guardian; you have the management of her little fortune; it was partly with respect to the investments you made for her that we severed our connection."

"That I dismissed you from my service," corrected Mr. Fox-Cordery. "You had the presumption to suppose that you had the right to interfere in my management. I opened your eyes to your position, and sent you packing."

"As it suited me to accept employment when you offered it to me, so it suited me to leave your service at the time I did. A better situation was open to me, with the prospect of a future partnership. On the day I left you I went to my new situation, and have been in it ever since. In a short time I shall become a partner in the firm of Paxton and Freshfield, solicitors, Bedford Row."

"It is not of the slightest interest to me, Mr. Dixon, whether you become a partner in this firm or go to the dogs. I can forecast which of the two is the more likely."

"Had you the disposition of my future I know pretty well what it would be; but I promise you disappointment. Although you take no interest in the circumstances of my becoming a partner in Paxton and Freshfield I will leave our address with you, in case you may wish to consult me."

He laid a card upon the table, of which Mr. Fox-Cordery took no notice.

"This, then," he said, "is the reason of your intrusion. To solicit my patronage? You would have made a good commercial traveler."

"You are miles from the truth. I do not think we would undertake your business. I leave my card for private, not for professional reasons. What I have stated to you leads directly to the object of my visit. I have hitherto asked you no questions; perhaps you will not object to my asking you one or two now?"

"Say what you please. I can answer or not, at my discretion."

"I decline to answer idle questions."

"Whether you have seen it or not, an advertisement in its personal columns has certainly escaped your attention, or you would not have met this particular question so calmly. The advertisement, as you will see--I have brought the paper with me--was inserted by my firm. It will interest you to read it."

If Mr. Robert Grantham, born in Leamington, Warwickshire, will call upon Messrs. Paxton and Freshfield, solicitors, Bedford Row, London, he will hear of something to his advantage.

To read so short an advertisement would occupy a man scarcely half a minute, but Mr. Fox-Cordery stood for several minutes at the window, with his back turned to John Dixon. Perhaps there was something in the prospect of the dreary back wall that interested him, for he stood quite still, and did not speak. His contemplation at an end, he faced his visitor, and handed back the paper.

"Have you anything to remark?" inquired John Dixon.

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