john munroe bell had been a lawyer in albany, state of new york, and as such had thriven well. he had thriven well as long as thrift and thriving on this earth had been allowed to him. but the almighty had seen fit to shorten his span.
early in life he had married a timid, anxious, pretty, good little wife, whose whole heart and mind had been given up to do his bidding and deserve his love. she had not only deserved it but had possessed it, and as long as john munroe bell had lived, henrietta bell—hetta as he called her—had been a woman rich in blessings. after twelve years of such blessings he had left her, and had left with her two daughters, a second hetta, and the heroine of our little story, susan bell.
a lawyer in albany may thrive passing well for eight or ten years, and yet not leave behind him any very large sum of money if he dies at the end of that time. some small modicum, some few thousand dollars, john bell had amassed, so that his widow and daughters were not absolutely driven to look for work or bread.
in those happy days when cash had begun to flow in plenteously to the young father of the family, he had taken it into his head to build for himself, or rather for his young female brood, a small neat house in the outskirts of saratoga springs. in doing so he was instigated as much by the excellence of the investment for his pocket as by the salubrity of the place for his girls. he furnished the house well, and then during some summer weeks his wife lived there, and sometimes he let it.
how the widow grieved when the lord of her heart and master of her mind was laid in the grave, i need not tell. she had already counted ten years of widowhood, and her children had grown to be young women beside her at the time of which i am now about to speak. since that sad day on which they had left albany they had lived together at the cottage at the springs. in winter their life had been lonely enough; but as soon as the hot weather began to drive the fainting citizens out from new york, they had always received two or three boarders—old ladies generally, and occasionally an old gentleman—persons of very steady habits, with whose pockets the widow’s moderate demands agreed better than the hotel charges. and so the bells lived for ten years.
that saratoga is a gay place in july, august, and september, the world knows well enough. to girls who go there with trunks full of muslin and crinoline, for whom a carriage and pair of horses is always waiting immediately after dinner, whose fathers’ pockets are bursting with dollars, it is a very gay place. dancing and flirtations come as a matter of course, and matrimony follows after with only too great rapidity. but the place was not very gay for hetta or susan bell.
in the first place the widow was a timid woman, and among other fears feared greatly that she should be thought guilty of setting traps for husbands. poor mothers! how often are they charged with this sin when their honest desires go no further than that their bairns may be “respectit like the lave.” and then she feared flirtations; flirtations that should be that and nothing more, flirtations that are so destructive of the heart’s sweetest essence. she feared love also, though she longed for that as well as feared it;—for her girls, i mean; all such feelings for herself were long laid under ground;—and then, like a timid creature as she was, she had other indefinite fears, and among them a great fear that those girls of hers would be left husbandless,—a phase of life which after her twelve years of bliss she regarded as anything but desirable. but the upshot was,—the upshot of so many fears and such small means,—that hetta and susan bell had but a dull life of it.
were it not that i am somewhat closely restricted in the number of my pages, i would describe at full the merits and beauties of hetta and susan bell. as it is i can but say a few words. at our period of their lives hetta was nearly one-and-twenty, and susan was just nineteen. hetta was a short, plump, demure young woman, with the softest smoothed hair, and the brownest brightest eyes. she was very useful in the house, good at corn cakes, and thought much, particularly in these latter months, of her religious duties. her sister in the privacy of their own little room would sometimes twit her with the admiring patience with which she would listen to the lengthened eloquence of mr. phineas beckard, the baptist minister. now mr. phineas beckard was a bachelor.
susan was not so good a girl in the kitchen or about the house as was her sister; but she was bright in the parlour, and if that motherly heart could have been made to give out its inmost secret—which however, it could not have been made to give out in any way painful to dear hetta—perhaps it might have been found that susan was loved with the closest love. she was taller than her sister, and lighter; her eyes were blue as were her mother’s; her hair was brighter than hetta’s, but not always so singularly neat. she had a dimple on her chin, whereas hetta had none; dimples on her cheeks too, when she smiled; and, oh, such a mouth! there; my allowance of pages permits no more.
one piercing cold winter’s day there came knocking at the widow’s door—a young man. winter days, when the ice of january is refrozen by the wind of february, are very cold at saratoga springs. in these days there was not often much to disturb the serenity of mrs. bell’s house; but on the day in question there came knocking at the door—a young man.
mrs. bell kept an old domestic, who had lived with them in those happy albany days. her name was kate o’brien, but though picturesque in name she was hardly so in person. she was a thick-set, noisy, good-natured old irishwoman, who had joined her lot to that of mrs. bell when the latter first began housekeeping, and knowing when she was well off; had remained in the same place from that day forth. she had known hetta as a baby, and, so to say, had seen susan’s birth.
“and what might you be wanting, sir?” said kate o’brien, apparently not quite pleased as she opened the door and let in all the cold air.
“i wish to see mrs. bell. is not this mrs. bell’s house?” said the young man, shaking the snow from out of the breast of his coat.
he did see mrs. bell, and we will now tell who he was, and why he had come, and how it came to pass that his carpet-bag was brought down to the widow’s house and one of the front bedrooms was prepared for him, and that he drank tea that night in the widow’s parlour.
his name was aaron dunn, and by profession he was an engineer. what peculiar misfortune in those days of frost and snow had befallen the line of rails which runs from schenectady to lake champlain, i never quite understood. banks and bridges had in some way come to grief, and on aaron dunn’s shoulders was thrown the burden of seeing that they were duly repaired. saratoga springs was the centre of these mishaps, and therefore at saratoga springs it was necessary that he should take up his temporary abode.
now there was at that time in new york city a mr. bell, great in railway matters—an uncle of the once thriving but now departed albany lawyer. he was a rich man, but he liked his riches himself; or at any rate had not found himself called upon to share them with the widow and daughters of his nephew. but when it chanced to come to pass that he had a hand in despatching aaron dunn to saratoga, he took the young man aside and recommended him to lodge with the widow. “there,” said he, “show her my card.” so much the rich uncle thought he might vouchsafe to do for the nephew’s widow.
mrs. bell and both her daughters were in the parlour when aaron dunn was shown in, snow and all. he told his story in a rough, shaky voice, for his teeth chattered; and he gave the card, almost wishing that he had gone to the empty big hotel, for the widow’s welcome was not at first quite warm.
the widow listened to him as he gave his message, and then she took the card and looked at it. hetta, who was sitting on the side of the fireplace facing the door, went on demurely with her work. susan gave one glance round—her back was to the stranger—and then another; and then she moved her chair a little nearer to the wall, so as to give the young man room to come to the fire, if he would. he did not come, but his eyes glanced upon susan bell; and he thought that the old man in new york was right, and that the big hotel would be cold and dull. it was a pretty face to look on that cold evening as she turned it up from the stocking she was mending.
“perhaps you don’t wish to take winter boarders, ma’am?” said aaron dunn.
“we never have done so yet, sir,” said mrs. bell timidly. could she let this young wolf in among her lamb-fold? he might be a wolf;—who could tell?
“mr. bell seemed to think it would suit,” said aaron.
had he acquiesced in her timidity and not pressed the point, it would have been all up with him. but the widow did not like to go against the big uncle; and so she said, “perhaps it may, sir.”
“i guess it will, finely,” said aaron. and then the widow seeing that the matter was so far settled, put down her work and came round into the passage. hetta followed her, for there would be housework to do. aaron gave himself another shake, settled the weekly number of dollars—with very little difficulty on his part, for he had caught another glance at susan’s face; and then went after his bag. ’twas thus that aaron dunn obtained an entrance into mrs. bell’s house. “but what if he be a wolf?” she said to herself over and over again that night, though not exactly in those words. ay, but there is another side to that question. what if he be a stalwart man, honest-minded, with clever eye, cunning hand, ready brain, broad back, and warm heart; in want of a wife mayhap; a man that can earn his own bread and another’s;—half a dozen others’ when the half dozen come? would not that be a good sort of lodger? such a question as that too did flit, just flit, across the widow’s sleepless mind. but then she thought so much more of the wolf! wolves, she had taught herself to think, were more common than stalwart, honest-minded, wife-desirous men.
“i wonder mother consented to take him,” said hetta, when they were in the little room together.
“and why shouldn’t she?” said susan. “it will be a help.”
“yes, it will be a little help,” said hetta. “but we have done very well hitherto without winter lodgers.”
“but uncle bell said she was to.”
“what is uncle bell to us?” said hetta, who had a spirit of her own. and she began to surmise within herself whether aaron dunn would join the baptist congregation, and whether phineas beckard would approve of this new move.
“he is a very well-behaved young man at any rate,” said susan, “and he draws beautifully. did you see those things he was doing?”
“he draws very well, i dare say,” said hetta, who regarded this as but a poor warranty for good behaviour. hetta also had some fear of wolves—not for herself perhaps; but for her sister.
aaron dunn’s work—the commencement of his work—lay at some distance from the springs, and he left every morning with a lot of workmen by an early train—almost before daylight. and every morning, cold and wintry as the mornings were, the widow got him his breakfast with her own hands. she took his dollars and would not leave him altogether to the awkward mercies of kate o’brien; nor would she trust her girls to attend upon the young man. hetta she might have trusted; but then susan would have asked why she was spared her share of such hardship.
in the evening, leaving his work when it was dark, aaron always returned, and then the evening was passed together. but they were passed with the most demure propriety. these women would make the tea, cut the bread and butter, and then sew; while aaron dunn, when the cups were removed, would always go to his plans and drawings.
on sundays they were more together; but even on this day there was cause of separation, for aaron went to the episcopalian church, rather to the disgust of hetta. in the afternoon, however, they were together; and then phineas beckard came in to tea on sundays, and he and aaron got to talking on religion; and though they disagreed pretty much, and would not give an inch either one or the other, nevertheless the minister told the widow, and hetta too probably, that the lad had good stuff in him, though he was so stiff-necked.
“but he should be more modest in talking on such matters with a minister,” said hetta.
the rev. phineas acknowledged that perhaps he should; but he was honest enough to repeat that the lad had stuff in him. “perhaps after all he is not a wolf,” said the widow to herself.
things went on in this way for above a month. aaron had declared to himself over and over again that that face was sweet to look upon, and had unconsciously promised to himself certain delights in talking and perhaps walking with the owner of it. but the walkings had not been achieved—nor even the talkings as yet. the truth was that dunn was bashful with young women, though he could be so stiff-necked with the minister.
and then he felt angry with himself, inasmuch as he had advanced no further; and as he lay in his bed—which perhaps those pretty hands had helped to make—he resolved that he would be a thought bolder in his bearing. he had no idea of making love to susan bell; of course not. but why should he not amuse himself by talking to a pretty girl when she sat so near him, evening after evening?
“what a very quiet young man he is,” said susan to her sister.
“he has his bread to earn, and sticks to his work,” said hetta. “no doubt he has his amusement when he is in the city,” added the elder sister, not wishing to leave too strong an impression of the young man’s virtue.
they had all now their settled places in the parlour. hetta sat on one side of the fire, close to the table, having that side to herself. there she sat always busy. she must have made every dress and bit of linen worn in the house, and hemmed every sheet and towel, so busy was she always. sometimes, once in a week or so, phineas beckard would come in, and then place was made for him between hetta’s usual seat and the table. for when there he would read out loud. on the other side, close also to the table, sat the widow, busy, but not savagely busy as her elder daughter. between mrs. bell and the wall, with her feet ever on the fender, susan used to sit; not absolutely idle, but doing work of some slender pretty sort, and talking ever and anon to her mother. opposite to them all, at the other side of the table, far away from the fire, would aaron dunn place himself with his plans and drawings before him.
“are you a judge of bridges, ma’am?” said aaron, the evening after he had made his resolution. ’twas thus he began his courtship.
“of bridges?” said mrs. bell—“oh dear no, sir.” but she put out her hand to take the little drawing which aaron handed to her.
“because that’s one i’ve planned for our bit of a new branch from moreau up to lake george. i guess miss susan knows something about bridges.”
“i guess i don’t,” said susan—“only that they oughtn’t to tumble down when the frost comes.”
“ha, ha, ha; no more they ought. i’ll tell mcevoy that.” mcevoy had been a former engineer on the line. “well, that won’t burst with any frost, i guess.”
“oh my! how pretty!” said the widow, and then susan of course jumped up to look over her mother’s shoulder.
the artful dodger! he had drawn and coloured a beautiful little sketch of a bridge; not an engineer’s plan with sections and measurements, vexatious to a woman’s eye, but a graceful little bridge with a string of cars running under it. you could almost hear the bell going.
“well; that is a pretty bridge,” said susan. “isn’t it, hetta?”
“i don’t know anything about bridges,” said hetta, to whose clever eyes the dodge was quite apparent. but in spite of her cleverness mrs. bell and susan had soon moved their chairs round to the table, and were looking through the contents of aaron’s portfolio. “but yet he may be a wolf,” thought the poor widow, just as she was kneeling down to say her prayers.
that evening certainly made a commencement. though hetta went on pertinaciously with the body of a new dress, the other two ladies did not put in another stitch that night. from his drawings aaron got to his instruments, and before bedtime was teaching susan how to draw parallel lines. susan found that she had quite an aptitude for parallel lines, and altogether had a good time of it that evening. it is dull to go on week after week, and month after month, talking only to one’s mother and sister. it is dull though one does not oneself recognise it to be so. a little change in such matters is so very pleasant. susan had not the slightest idea of regarding aaron as even a possible lover. but young ladies do like the conversation of young gentlemen. oh, my exceedingly proper prim old lady, you who are so shocked at this as a general doctrine, has it never occurred to you that the creator has so intended it?
susan understanding little of the how and why, knew that she had had a good time, and was rather in spirits as she went to bed. but hetta had been frightened by the dodge.
