The Golden Shoemaker | Page 6

The child was seated on a chair, with her chubby legs hanging wearily down, and a woe-begone expression on her face. Taking courage from the absence of her dreadful aunt, Marian asked her father to give her some of her toys, and to let her play. Finding, to his surprise, on questioning the child, that she had been forbidden to touch her playthings without express permission, and that they were put away in the drawer, he readily gave her such of them as she desired, and crowned her happiness by remaining to play with her till Aunt Jemima returned.
This incident created a feeling of uneasiness in the father's mind; but it was a circumstance of another kind which fully revealed to him the actual state of things. Passing through the room one evening when Marian was on the point of going to bed, he paused to listen to the evening prayer of his child. She knelt, in her little night-clothes, at Aunt Jemima's knee. The father sighed, as he waited for the sound of the simple words which had been learnt at the dictation of the tender mother-voice which was now for ever still. What, then, were his astonishment and pain when Marian, instead of repeating her mother's prayer, entered upon the recital of a string of theological declarations which Aunt Jemima dictated to her one by one!
"Cobbler" Horn strode forward, and laid a strong repressive hand upon the child; and Aunt Jemima will never forget the flash of his eye and the stern tones of his voice, as he demanded that Marian should be permitted to pray her mother's prayer.
After this he noticed frequent signs of the tyranny of which Marian was the victim, and interposed at many points. But it was only in part that he was able to counteract the cruel discipline to which Aunt Jemima was subjecting his child.
CHAPTER IV.
"ME LUN AWAY."
Winter passed drearily away--a wet one, as it happened, with never once the white gleam of snow, and scarcely a touch of the healthy sting of frost. "Cobbler" Horn had not ceased to sorrow for his dead wife; and, when the spring was well advanced, there befell him another, and scarcely less severe bereavement, though of a different kind.
There had been no improvement in the relations between Aunt Jemima and the child. Aunt Jemima still maintained the harsh system of discipline which she had adopted at first; and the result was that the child had been led to regard her father's sister with as near an approach to hatred as was possible to her loving little heart. Marian's heart was big, almost to bursting, with concealed sorrow. Like her father, young as she was, she found it easier to bear grief than to tell it out. She did not want her father to know how miserable she was. Her childish soul was filled with bitterness, and her young life was being spoiled. Such of her pleasures as had not been taken from her were divested of all their charm. Almost her sole remaining joy was to snatch, now and then, a bit of clandestine love with her father, when, on some rare occasion, Aunt Jemima happened to be out of the way.
Recognising the uselessness of resisting a hand so hard and strong as that of Aunt Jemima, Marian had lately meditated another way of escape from the wretchedness of her lot. She contemplated an expedient which occurs more readily than any other to the youthful victim of oppression, but which had probably never before presented itself to the mind of a child so young. The expedient is one, indeed, which seldom effects its purpose, and is usually productive of a plentiful crop of troubles. But Marian had no fear. She was full of one thought. She could not any longer endure Aunt Jemima; and she must make it impossible for Aunt Jemima to scold, or smack, or restrain her any more. She must escape, without delay, from the sound of Aunt Jemima's harsh voice, and place herself beyond the reach of Aunt Jemima's rough hand. True, there was her father. How could she leave him? This would have been impossible to her if she had realised what she was about to do. But it seemed so easy and pleasant to slip out into the bright spring morning, and trot away into the mysterious and delightful country, which lay outside the town. Nor did she dream of the hardships and danger which might be awaiting her out in the strange, unloving world, into which she had so lightly resolved to launch her little life. So it came to pass that, on a certain bright May morning, Marian took her opportunity, and went out into the world.
Marian's opportunity was furnished by the fact that Aunt Jemima had