Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 40, February, 1861 | Page 9

up to see him, and so it was.
Now it can't be pleasant for any family to have such a thing turn up, especially if there's a pretty girl in it; and I suppose I was as pretty as the general run, at that time,--perhaps Cousin Stephen thought a trifle prettier; pink cheeks, blue eyes, and hair the color and shine of a chestnut when it bursts the burr, can't be had without one 's rather pleasant-looking; and then I'm very good-natured and quick-tempered, and I've got a voice for singing, and I sing in the choir, and a'n't afraid to open my mouth. I don't look much like Lurindy, to be sure; but then Lurindy's an old maid,--as much as twenty-five,--and don't go to singing-school.--At least, these thoughts ran through my head as I watched Aunt Mimy down the hill.--Lurindy a'n't so very pretty, I continued to think,--but she's so very good, it makes up. At sewing-circle and quilting and frolics, I'm as good as any; but somehow I'm never any 'count at home; that's because Lurindy is by, at home. Well, Lurindy has a little box in her drawer, and there's a letter in it, and an old geranium-leaf, and a piece of black silk ribbon that looks too broad for anything but a sailor's necktie, and a shell. I don't know what she wants to keep such old stuff for, I'm sure.
We're none so rich,--I suppose I may as well tell the truth, that we're nearly as poor as poor can be. We've got the farm, but it's such a small one that mother and I can carry it on ourselves, with now and then a day's help or a bee,--but a bee's about as broad as it is long,--and we raise just enough to help the year out, but don't sell. We've got a cow and the filly and some sheep; and mother shears and cards, and Lurindy spins,--I can't spin, it makes my head swim,--and I knit, knit socks and sell them. Sometimes I have needles almost as big as a pipe-stem, and choose the coarse, uneven yarn of the thrums, and then the work goes off like machinery. Why, I can knit two pair, and sometimes three, a day, and get just as much for them as I do for the nice ones,--they're warm. But when I want to knit well, as I did the day Aunt Mimy was in, I take my best blue needles and my fine white yarn from the long wool, and it takes me from daybreak till sundown to knit one pair. I don't know why Aunt Jemimy should have said what she did about my socks; I'm sure Stephen hadn't been any nearer them than he had to the cabbage-bag Lurindy was netting, and there wasn't such a nice knitter in town as I, everybody will tell you. She always did seem to take particular pleasure in hectoring and badgering me to death.
Well, I wasn't going to be put down by Aunt Mimy, so I made the needles fly while mother was gone for the doctor. By-and-by I heard a knock up in Stephen's room,--I suppose he wanted something,--but Lurindy didn't hear it, and I didn't so much want to go, so I sat still and began to count out loud the stitches to my narrowings. By-and-by he knocked again.
"Lurindy," says I, "a'n't that Steve a-knocking?"
"Yes," says she,--"why don't you go?"--for I had been tending him a good deal that day.
"Well," says I, "there's a number of reasons; one is, I'm just binding off my heel."
Lurindy looked at me a minute, then all at once she smiled.
"Well, Emmy," says she, "if you like a smooth skin more than a smooth conscience, you're welcome,"--and went up-stairs herself.
I suppose I had ought to 'a' gone, and I suppose I'd ought to wanted to have gone, but somehow it wasn't so much fear as that I didn't want to see Stephen himself now. So Lurindy stayed up chamber, and was there when mother and the doctor come. And the doctor said he feared Aunt Mimy was right, and nobody but mother and Lurindy must go near Stephen, (you see, he found Lurindy there,) and they must have as little communication with me as possible. And his boots creaked down the back-stairs, and then he went.
Mother came down a little while after, for some water to put on Stephen's head, which was a good deal worse, she said; and about the middle of the evening I heard her crying for me to come and help them hold him,--he was raving. I didn't go very quick; I said, "Yes,--just as soon as I've narrowed off my toe"; and when at last I pushed back my chair to go, mother called in a disapproving voice