Daisy
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DAISY.
BY
ELIZABETH WETHERELL,
AUTHOR OF
"THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD," "QUEECHY,"
ETC., ETC.
LONDON:
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED,
WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
MISS PINSHON 9
CHAPTER II.
MY HOME 27
CHAPTER III.
THE MULTIPLICATION TABLE 45
CHAPTER IV.
SEVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE 68
CHAPTER V.
IN THE KITCHEN 97
CHAPTER VI.
WINTER AND SUMMER 119
CHAPTER VII.
SINGLEHANDED 149
CHAPTER VIII.
EGYPTIAN GLASS 165
CHAPTER IX.
SHOPPING 185
CHAPTER X.
SCHOOL 205
CHAPTER XI.
A PLACE IN THE WORLD 226
CHAPTER XII.
FRENCH DRESSES 244
CHAPTER XIII.
GREY COATS 275
CHAPTER XIV.
YANKEES 297
CHAPTER XV.
FORT PUTNAM 320
CHAPTER XVI.
HOPS 338
CHAPTER XVII.
OBEYING ORDERS 356
CHAPTER XVIII.
SOUTH AND NORTH 379
CHAPTER XIX.
ENTERED FOR THE WAR 392
DAISY.
CHAPTER I.
MISS PINSHON.
I want an excuse to myself for writing my own life; an excuse for the
indulgence of going it all over again, as I have so often gone over
bits. It has not been more remarkable than thousands of others. Yet
every life has in it a thread of present truth and possible glory. Let
me follow out the truth to the glory.
The first bright years of my childhood I will pass. They were
childishly bright. They lasted till my eleventh summer. Then the light
of heavenly truth was woven in with the web of my mortal existence;
and whatever the rest of the web has been, those golden threads have
always run through it all the rest of the way. Just as I reached my
birthday that summer and was ten years old, I became a Christian.
For the rest of that summer I was a glad child. The brightness of
those days is a treasure safe locked up in a chamber of my memory. I
have known other glad times too in my life; other times of even higher
enjoyment. But among all the dried flowers of my memory, there is not
one that keeps a fresher perfume or a stronger scent of its life than
this one. Those were the days without cloud; before life shadows had
begun to cast their blackness over the landscape. And even though such
shadows do go as well as come, and leave the intervals as sunlit as
ever; yet after that change of the first life shadow is once seen, it
is impossible to forget that it may come again and darken the sun. I
do not mean that the days of that summer were absolutely without
things to trouble me; I had changes of light and shade; but, on the
whole, nothing that did not heighten the light. They were pleasant
days that I had in Juanita's cottage at the time when my ankle was
broken; there were hours of sweetness with crippled Molly; and it was
simply delight I had all alone with my pony Loupe, driving over the
sunny and shady roads, free to do as I liked and go where I liked. And
how I enjoyed studying English history with my cousin Preston. It is
all stowed away in my heart, as fresh and sweet as at first. I will
not pull it out now. The change, and my first real life shadow came,
when my father was thrown from his horse and injured his head. Then
the doctors decided he must go abroad and travel, and mamma decided
that it was best that I should go to Magnolia with Aunt Gary and have
a governess.
There is no pleasure in thinking of those weeks. They went very
slowly, and yet very fast; while I counted every minute and noted
every step in the preparations. They were all over at last; my little
world was gone from me; and I was left alone with Aunt Gary.
Her preparations had been made too; and the day after the steamer
sailed we set off on our journey to the south. I do not know much
about that journey. The things by the way were like objects in a mist
to me and no more clearly discerned. Now and then there came a rift in
the mist; something woke me up out of my sorrow-dream; and of those
points and of what struck my eyes at those minutes I have a most
intense and vivid recollection. I can feel yet the still air of one
early morning's start, and hear the talk between my aunt and the hotel
people about the luggage. My aunt was a great traveller and wanted no
one to help her or manage for her. I remember acutely a beggar who
spoke to us on the sidewalk at Washington. We stayed over a few days
in Washington, and then hurried on; for when she was on the road my
Aunt Gary lost not a minute. We went, I presume, as fast as we could
without travelling all night; and our last day's journey added that
too.
By that time my head was getting steadied, perhaps, from the grief
which had bewildered it; or grief was settling down and taking its
proper place at the bottom of my heart, leaving the surface as usual.
For twelve hours that day we went by a slow railway train through a
country of weary monotony. Endless forests of pine seemed all that was
to be seen; scarce ever a village; here and there a miserable clearing
and forlorn-looking house; here and there stoppages of a few minutes
to let somebody out or take somebody in; once, to my great surprise, a
stop of rather more than a few minutes to accommodate a lady who
wanted some flowers gathered for her. I was surprised to see flowers
wild in the woods at that time of year, and much struck with the
politeness of the railway train that was willing to delay for such a
reason. We got out of the car for dinner, or for a short rest at
dinner-time. My aunt had brought her lunch in a basket. Then the
forests and the rumble of the cars began again. At one time the pine
forests were exchanged for oak, I remember; after that, nothing but
pine.
It was late in the day, when we left the cars at one of those solitary
wayside station-houses. I shall never forget the look and feeling of
the place. We had been for some miles going through a region of swamp
or swampy woods, where sometimes the rails were laid on piles in the
water. This little station-house was in the midst of such a region.
The woods were thick and tangled with vines everywhere beyond the edge
of the clearing; the ground was wet beneath them, and in places showed
standing water. There was scarcely a clearing; the forest was all
round the house; with only the two breaks in it where on one side and
on the other the iron rail track ran off into the distance. It was a
lonely place; almost nobody was there waiting for the train; one or
two forlorn coloured people and a long lank-looking countryman, were
all. Except what at first prevented my seeing anything else--my cousin
Preston. He met me just as I was going to get down from the car;
lifted me to the platform, and then with his looks and words almost
broke up the composure which for several days had been growing upon
me. It was not hardened yet to bear attacks. I was like a poor
shell-fish, which, having lost one coat of armour and defence, craves
a place of hiding and shelter for itself until its new coat be grown.
While he was begging me to come into the station-house and rest, I
stood still looking up the long line of railway by which we had come,
feeling as if my life lay at the other end of it, out of sight and
quite beyond reach. Yet I asked him not to call me "poor" Daisy. I was
very tired, and I suppose my nerves not very steady. Preston said we
must wait at that place for another train; there was a fork in the
road beyond, and this train would not go the right way. It would not
take us to Baytown. So he had me into the station-house.
It wearied me and so did all that my eyes lighted upon, strange though
it was. The bare room, not clean; the board partition, with swinging
doors, behind which, Preston said, were the cook and the baker! the
untidy waiting girls that came and went, with scant gowns and coarse
shoes, and no thread of white collar to relieve the dusky throat and
head rising out of the dark gown, and no apron at all. Preston did
what he could. He sent away the girls with their trays of eatables; he
had a table pulled out from the wall and wiped off, and then he
ordered a supper of eggs, and johnny cake, and all sorts of things.
But I could not eat. As soon as supper was over I went out on the
platform to watch the long lines of railway running off through the
forest, and wait for the coming train. The evening fell while we
looked; the train was late; and at last when it came I could only know
it in the distance by the red spark of its locomotive gleaming like a
firefly.
It was a freight train, there was but one passenger car, and that was
full. We got seats with difficulty, and apart from each other. I
hardly know whether that, or anything, could have made me more
forlorn. I was already stiff and weary with the twelve hours of
travelling we had gone through that day; inexpressibly weary in heart.
It seemed to me that I could not long endure the rumble and the jar
and the closeness of this last car. The passengers, too, had habits
which made me draw my clothes as tight around me as I could, and
shrink away mentally into the smallest compass possible. I had noticed
the like, to be sure, ever since we left Washington; but to-night, in
my weary, faint, and tired-out state of mind and body every unseemly
sight or sound struck my nerves with a sense of pain that was hardly
endurable. I wondered if the train would go on all night; it went very
slowly. And I noticed that nobody seemed impatient or had the air of
expecting that it would soon find its journey's end. I felt as if I
could not bear it many half hours. My next neighbour was a fat,
good-natured, old lady, who rather made matters worse by putting her
arm round me and hugging me up, and begging me to make a pillow of her
and go to sleep. My nerves were twitching with impatience and the
desire for relief; when suddenly the thought came to me that I might
please the Lord by being patient. I remember what a lull the thought
of Him brought; and yet how difficult it was not to be impatient, till
I fixed my mind on some Bible words--they were the words of the
twenty-third Psalm--and began to think and pray them over. So good
they were, that by and by they rested me. I dropped asleep and forgot
my aches and weariness until the train arrived at Baytown.
They took me to a hotel, then, and put me to bed, and I did not get up
for several days. I must have been feverish, for my fancies wandered
incessantly in unknown places with papa, in regions of the old world;
and sometimes, I think, took both him and myself to rest and home
where wanderings are over. After a few days this passed away. I was
able to come downstairs, and both Preston and his mother did their
best to take good care of me. Especially Preston. He brought me books,
and fruit, and birds to tempt me to eat, and was my kind and constant
companion when his mother was out, and indeed when she was in, too. So
I got better by the help of oranges and rice-birds. I could have got
better faster, but for my dread of a governess which was hanging over
me. I heard nothing about her and could not bear to ask. One day
Preston brought the matter up and asked if Daisy was going to have a
school-mistress?
"Certainly," my Aunt Gary said. "She must be educated, you know."