Mary Erskine | Page 8

looked at little Mary Bell too,
playing upon the grass, and wondered what she would do when Mary
Erskine was gone.
After a short pause spent in reflections like these, Mrs. Bell resumed
the conversation by saying,
"Well, Mary,--and what do you think of the plan?"
"Why--I don't know," said Mary Erskine, timidly and doubtfully.
"You are very young," said Mrs. Bell.
"Yes," said Mary Erskine, "I always was very young. I was very young
when my father died; and afterwards, when my mother died, I was very
young to be left all alone, and to go out to work and earn my living.
And now I am very young, I know. But then I am eighteen."
"Are you eighteen?" asked Mrs. Bell.
"Yes," said Mary Erskine, "I was eighteen the day before yesterday."
"It is a lonesome place,--out beyond Kater's Corner," said Mrs. Bell,
after another pause.
"Yes," said Mary Erskine, "but I am not afraid of lonesomeness. I never
cared about seeing a great many people."
"And you will have to work very hard," continued Mrs. Bell.
"I know that," replied Mary; "but then I am not afraid of work any
more than I am of lonesomeness. I began to work when I was five years
old, and I have worked ever since,--and I like it."
"Then, besides," said Mrs. Bell, "I don't know what I shall do with my

Mary when you have gone away. You have had the care of her ever
since she was born."
Mary Erskine did not reply to this. She turned her head away farther
and farther from Mrs. Bell, looking over the railing of the stoop toward
the white roses. In a minute or two she got up suddenly from her seat,
and still keeping her face averted from Mrs. Bell, she went in by the
stoop door into the house, and disappeared. In about ten minutes she
came round the corner of the house, at the place where Mary Bell was
playing, and with a radiant and happy face, and tones as joyous as ever,
she told her little charge that they would have one game of hide and go
seek, in the asparagus, and that then it would be time for her to go to
bed.
Two days after this, Albert closed the bargain for his land, and began
his work upon it. The farm, or rather the lot, for the farm was yet to be
made, consisted of a hundred and sixty acres of land, all in forest. A
great deal of the land was mountainous and rocky, fit only for
woodland and pasturage. There were, however, a great many fertile
vales and dells, and at one place along the bank of a stream, there was a
broad tract which Albert thought would make, when the trees were
felled and it was brought into grass, a "beautiful piece of intervale."
Albert commenced his operations by felling several acres of trees, on a
part of his lot which was nearest the corner. A road, which had been
laid out through the woods, led across his land near this place. The
trees and bushes had been cut away so as to open a space wide enough
for a sled road in winter. In summer there was nothing but a wild path,
winding among rocks, stumps, trunks of fallen trees, and other forest
obstructions. A person on foot could get along very well, and even a
horse with a rider upon his back, but there was no chance for any thing
on wheels. Albert said that it would not be possible to get even a
wheelbarrow in.
Albert, however, took great pleasure in going back and forth over this
road, morning and evening, with his axe upon his shoulder, and a pack
upon his back containing his dinner, while felling his trees. When they
were all down, he left them for some weeks drying in the sun, and then

set them on fire. He chose for the burning, the afternoon of a hot and
sultry day, when a fresh breeze was blowing from the west, which he
knew would fan the flames and increase the conflagration. It was
important to do this, as the amount of subsequent labor which he would
have to perform, would depend upon how completely the trees were
consumed. His fire succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations,
and the next day he brought Mary Erskine in to see what a "splendid
burn" he had had, and to choose a spot for the log house which he was
going to build for her.
Mary Erskine was extremely pleased with the appearance of Albert's
clearing. The area which had been opened ascended a little from the
road, and presented a gently undulating surface, which Mary Erskine
thought would make very beautiful