The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems | Page 5

in those days oftener than once in three months.
You might perish a thousand times before you could get assistance
from the East. O, no! there was nothing to be done, except to make the
best of the situation."
"Certainly, you had some friends among your fellow-immigrants who
interested themselves in your behalf to find you a home? Somebody
besides your guardian already mentioned."
"The most of them were as badly off as myself. Many had lost near
friends. I was not the only widow; but some women had lost their
husbands who had several young children. They looked upon me as
comparatively fortunate. Men had lost wives, and these were the most
wretched of all; for a woman can contrive some way to take care of her
children, where a man is perfectly helpless. Families, finding no houses
to go into by themselves, were huddled together in any shelter that
could be procured. The lines of partition in houses were often as
imaginary as the parallels of latitude on the earth; or were defined by a
window, or a particular board in the wall. O, I couldn't live in that way.
My object was to get a real home somewhere. As soon as I could, I
rented a room in a house with a good family, for the sake of the
protection they would be to me, and went to work to earn a living. Of
course, people were forward enough with their suggestions."
"Of what, for instance?"

"Most persons--in fact everybody that I talked with--said I should have
to marry. But I could not think of it; the mention of it always made me
sick that first winter. I was recovering strength, and was young; so I
thought I need not despair."
"Such a woman could not but have plenty of offers, in a new country
especially; but I understand how you must have felt. You could not
marry so soon after your husband's death, and it revolted you to be
approached on the subject. A wife's love is not so easily transferred."
"You speak as any one might think, not having been in my
circumstances. But there was something more than that in the feeling I
had. I could not realize the fact of Mr. Greyfield's death. It was as if he
had only fallen behind the train, and might come up with us any day. I
waited for him all that winter."
"How distressing!" I could not help saying. Mrs. Greyfield sat silent for
some minutes, while the storm raged furiously without. She rested her
cheek on her hand and gazed into the glowing embers, as if the past
were all pictured there in living colors. For me to say, as I did, "how
distressing," no doubt seemed to her the merest platitude. There are no
conventional forms for the expression of the utmost grief or sympathy.
Silence is most eloquent, but I could not keep silence. At last I asked,
"What did she do to earn a living?"
"I learned to make men's clothes. There was a clothing store in the
place that gave me employment. First I made vests, and then pants; and
finally I got to be quite expert, and could earn several dollars a day. But
a dollar did not buy much in those times; and oh, the crying spells that I
had over my work, before I had mastered it sufficiently to have
confidence in myself. Sancho Panza blessed the man that invented
sleep--I say, blessed be the woman that invented crying-fits, for they
save thousands and thousands of women from madness, annually!"
This was a return to that sprightly manner of speech that was one of
Mrs. Greyfield's peculiar attractions; and which often cropped out in
the least expected places. But though she smiled, it was easy to see that
tears would not be far to seek. "And yet," I said, "it is a bad habit to

cultivate--the habit of weeping. It wastes the blood at a fearful rate."
"Don't I know it? But it is safer than frenzy. Why I used--but I'll not tell
you about that yet. I set out to explain to you my marriage with Mr.
Seabrook. As I told you, everybody said I must marry; and the reasons
they gave were, that I must have somebody to support me; that it was
not safe for me to live alone; that my son would need a man's
restraining hand when he came to be a few years older; and that I,
myself, was too young to live without love!--therefore the only correct
thing to do was to take a husband--a good one, if you could get him--a
husband, anyway. As spring came round, and my mind regained
something of its natural elasticity, and my personal appearance
probably improved