Hettys Strange History | Page 9

other
servants all that she had said, and that it would lose nothing in the
recital; and, as for the future, one of Hetty's first principles of action
was an old proverb which her grandfather had explained to her when
she was a little girl,--
"Don't cross bridges till you come to them."

III.
The gratitude with which James Little's wife received Hetty's
proposition was so great that it softened even her father-in-law's heart.
"I do believe, Hetty," he said, when he gave her their answer, "I do
believe that poor girl has suffered more 'n we've given her credit for.
When I explained to her that you was goin' to take her right in to be like
one o' your own family, she turned as white as a sheet, and says she,--
"'You don't mean it, father: she won't ever dare to:' and when I said,
says I,--
"'Yes, she does: Hetty Gunn ain't a girl not to know what she means to
do. And that's just what she says she's goin' to do with you and Jim,'
she broke right out crying, out loud, just like a little baby, and says
she,--
"'If the Lord don't bless Hetty Gunn for bein' so good to us! she sha'n't
ever be sorry for it's long's she lives.'"
"Of course I sha'n't," said Hetty, bluntly. "I never was sorry yet for any
thing I did which was right, and I am as sure this is right as I am that I
am alive. When will they come?"
"Sarah said she would come right over to-day, if you'd like to have her
help you; and Jim he could fix up things at home, and shut the house up.
Jim said they'd better not let the house till you had tried how it worked
havin' 'em here. Jim don't seem very sanguine about it. Poor fellow, he's
got the spirit all taken out of him."
"Well, well, we'll put it back again, see if we don't, before the year is
out," replied Hetty, with a beaming smile, which made her face
beautiful.
It happened fortunately that poor Sarah Little first came to her new
home alone, rather than with her husband. The years of solitude and

disgrace through which they had lived, had made him dogged and
defiant of manner, but had made her humble and quiet. She still kept a
good deal of the beauty of her youth; and there were few persons who
could be unmoved by the upward glance of her saddened blue eyes. In
less than five minutes, she conquered old Nan, and secured her as an
ally for ever. As she entered the house, Hetty met her, and saying
cordially,--
"I'm glad to see you, Sally. It was so good of you to come right over at
once; we have a great deal to do,"--she kissed her on her forehead.
Sarah burst into tears. Nan stood by with a sullen face. Turning towards
her involuntarily, perhaps because she hardly dared to speak to Hetty,
Sarah said,--
"Oh, Nan, I'm only crying because she is so kind to me. I can't help it;"
and the poor thing sank into a chair and sobbed. No wonder! it was six
years since she had returned to her native village, a shame-stricken
woman, bearing in her arms the child whose birth had been her disgrace.
That its father was now her husband did little or nothing to repair the
loss which her weakness and wrong-doing had entailed on her. If there
be a pitiless community in this world, it is a small New England village.
Calvinism, in its sternest aspects, broods over it; narrowness and
monotony make rigid the hearts which theology has chilled; and a grim
Pharisaism, born of a certain sort of intellectual keen-wittedness,
completes the cruel inhumanity. It was six years since poor Sarah Little,
baby in arms, had come into such an air as this,--six years, and until
this moment, when Hetty Gunn kissed her forehead and spoke to her
with affection, no woman had ever said to her a kindly word. When the
baby died, not a neighbor came to its funeral. The minister, the
weeping father and mother, and the stern-looking grandfather, alone
followed the little unwelcomed one to its grave. After that, Sarah rarely
went out of her house except at night. The tradesmen with whom she
had to deal came slowly to have a pitying respect for her. The minister
went occasionally to see her, and in his clumsy way thought he
perceived what he called "the right spirit" in her. Sarah dreaded his
calls more than any thing else. What made her isolation much harder to

bear was the fact that, only two years before, every young girl in the
county had been her friend. There