The Story of a Summer | Page 8

her spiritual, others in her temporal, welfare; some advise change of air as beneficial after her affliction, and alternately she is offered a home in Colorado and Maine. But such letters form the exception; usually the writer has a favor to request. The most modest of the petitions are for Ida's autograph or photograph, while others request loans of different sums from units to thousands. She is occasionally informed that the writer has a baby named Ida Greeley, and it is intimated that a present from the godmother would be acceptable. Again she is asked to assist in building a church, or to clothe and educate some poor girl--her own cast-off wardrobe of colored clothes will be accepted, the writer graciously says, although new dresses would be preferable.
One letter dated Lebanon is chiefly upon the virtues of a _lucky stone_, which the writer will as a great favor sell to Miss Greeley for twenty-five dollars. All further misfortune will, she says, be averted from Ida if she becomes its owner; the stone is especially recommended as beneficial in love-affairs, and, the writer kindly adds, it is not to be taken internally.
Another letter is from the mother of a young invalid girl, begging Miss Greeley, whom she knows by report to be very wealthy and charitably inclined, to make her daughter a present of a melodeon, as music, she thinks, might help to pass away the tedious hours of illness.
Sometimes Ida is solicited to open a correspondence for the improvement of her unknown friend, or to dispose of some one's literary wares, while offers of marriage from her unseen admirers are of almost daily occurrence. I think I would not exaggerate in saying she might reckon by the bushel these letters, written generally in very questionable grammar, and worse chirography. In very few instances has she ever replied to them, for they have been usually from people possessing so little claim upon her, that the favors they so boldly requested could only be viewed in the light of impertinence.
One letter, couched in somewhat enigmatical terms, was dated from Baltimore, and was explicit upon one point only--that it was the manifest will of Providence that Ida should marry him--S. M. Hudson. We read the letter together, laughed a little over it, and threw it into the waste basket. Time passed, and we came out here. Ida was greeted upon her arrival by another letter from the mysterious Hudson, who, not at all discomfited by the cool reception, of his proposal, addressed her as his future wife, and announced that he had come on from Baltimore to marry her, that he was now in New York, and would wait there to hear from her.
"The man is certainly crazy!" exclaimed Marguerite.
"Indeed he is!" said mamma, reading his rambling sentences very slowly: "I should judge him to be perfectly insane, and I only hope he will not come out here to pay his fiancée a visit."
"You know he requests me to send him funds to defray his expenses, Aunt Esther," said Ida quietly; "perhaps the lack of money will avert such a calamity."
"What an unromantic conclusion to a love-letter!" said Gabrielle scornfully.
The conversation turned to the depredations of the neighbors and neighbors' children upon the property. "Mr. Greeley's place" had always been looked upon in the light of public property, and intruders walked and drove through the grounds quite as a matter of course, and helped themselves freely to whatever they liked in the floral, fruit, or vegetable line. The young ladies, however, decided that they had submitted to such conduct quite long enough, and we sent to Sing Sing for some printed handbills warning trespassers off the place.
Two or three days passed, and we had entirely forgotten Ida's erratic admirer, when Gabrielle returned from a morning walk with the information that an intoxicated man was sitting upon the steps of the side-hill house. She met mamma and Ida starting for a little stroll, and communicated this unpleasant news to them. Mamma, however, is not timid, and she walked on with Ida, determined to view the invader from afar, and then summon Bernard to dismiss him.
A figure was sitting, as Gabrielle said, upon the piazza of the new house, but was so motionless that Ida exclaimed laughingly:
"It is a scarecrow placed there by some one in retaliation for our notice to trespassers to keep off the grounds."
As they passed it, however, the scarecrow slowly lifted its head and addressed them with:
"Is this Mr. Greeley's place?"
"Yes," said mamma.
"And is this young lady Miss Ida?"
"Yes."
"You have received, I believe, a few letters from me, Miss Ida: my name is Hudson."
Fortunately our family are not of a fainting disposition, for a tête-à-tête with a lunatic was a situation requiring some nerve and perfect self-control; so, although mamma and