CHAPTER XXVII.
AUNT BETSY GOES ON A JOURNEY.
Just through the woods, where Uncle Ephraim was wont to exercise old Whitey, was a narrow strip of land, extending from the highway to the pond, and fertile in nothing except the huckleberry bushes, where the large, dark fruit grew so abundantly, and the rocky ledges over which a few sheep roamed, seeking for the short gra.s.s and stunted herbs, which gave them a meager sustenance. As a whole it was comparatively valueless, but to Aunt Betsy Barlow it was of great importance, as it was her own--her property--her share--set off from the old estate--the land on which she paid taxes willingly--the real estate the deed of which was lying undisturbed in her hair trunk, where it had lain for years. Several dispositions the good old lady had mentally made of this property, sometimes dividing it equally between Helen and Katy, sometimes willing it all to the former, and again, when she thought of Mark Ray, leaving the interest of it to some missionary society in which she was greatly interested.
How then was the poor woman amazed and confounded when suddenly there appeared a claimant to her property; not the whole, but a part, and that part taking in the big sweet apple tree and the very best of the berry bushes, leaving her nothing but rocks and bogs, a pucker cherry tree, a patch of tansy, and one small tree, whose gnarly apples were not fit, she said, to feed the pigs.
Of course she was indignant, and all the more so because the claimant was prepared to prove that the line fence was not where it should be, but ran into his own dominions for the width of two or three rods, a fact he had just discovered by looking over a bundle of deeds, in which the boundaries of his own farm were clearly defined.
In her distress Aunt Betsy"s first thoughts were turned to Wilford as the man who could redress her wrongs if any one, and a long letter was written to him in which her grievances were told in detail and his advice solicited. Commencing with "My dear Wilford," closing with "Your respected ant," sealed with a wafer, stamped with her thimble, and directed bottom side up, it nevertheless found its way to No. ---- Broadway, and into Wilford"s hands. But with a frown and pish of contempt he tossed it into the grate, and vain were all Aunt Betsy"s inquiries as to whether there was any letter for her when Uncle Ephraim came home from the office. Letters there were from Helen, and sometimes one from Katy, but none from Wilford, none for her, and her days were pa.s.sed in great perplexity and distress, until another idea took possession of her mind. She would go to New York herself! She had never traveled over half a dozen miles in the cars, it was true, but it was time she had, and now that she had a new bonnet and shawl, as good as anybody"s, she could go to York as well as not!
Wholly useless were the expostulations of the family, for she would not listen to them, nor believe that she would not be welcome at that house on Madison Square, to which even Mrs. Lennox had never been invited since Katy was fairly settled in it. Much at first had been said of her coming, and of the room she was to occupy; but all that had ceased, and in the mother"s heart there had been a painful doubt as to the reason of the silence, until Helen"s letters enlightened her, telling her it was not Katy, for she was still unchanged--was still the loving, impulsive creature who, if she could, would take all Silverton to her arms. It was Wilford who had built so high a wall between Katy and her friends; Wilford who at first had endured Helen because he must, but who now kept her with him from choice, even though she was sometimes greatly in his way, especially when her will clashed with his and her stronger arguments for the right swept his own aside. Far better than she used, did Mrs. Lennox understand her son-in-law, and she shrank in horror from suffering her aunt to go where she would be so serious an annoyance, frankly telling her the reason for her objections, and asking if she wished to mortify the girls.
At this Aunt Betsy took umbrage at once.
"She"d like to know what there was about her to mortify anybody? Wasn"t her black silk dress made long and full, and the old pongee fixed into a Balmoral, and hadn"t she a bran-new cap with purple ribbon, and couldn"t she travel in her delaine, and didn"t she wear hoops always now, except at cleanin" house times? Didn"t she nuss both the girls, especially Catherine, carrying her in her arms one whole night when she had the canker-rash, and everybody thought she"d die; and when she swallered that tin whistle didn"t she spat her on the back and swing her in the air till she came to and blew the whistle clear across the room? Tell her that Catherine would be ashamed? she knew better!"
Then as a doubt began to cross her own mind as to Wilford"s readiness to entertain her at his house, she continued:
"At any rate, the Tubbses, who moved from Silverton last fall, and who were living in such style on the Bowery, wouldn"t be ashamed, and I can stop with them at first, till I see how the land lies. They have invited me to come, both Miss Tubbs and "Tilda, and they are nice folks, who belong to the Orthodox Church. Tom is in town now, and if I see him I shall talk with him about it, even if I never go."
Most devoutly did Mrs. Lennox and Aunt Hannah hope that Tom would return to New York without honoring the farmhouse with a call; but unfortunately for them he came that very afternoon, and instead of throwing obstacles in Aunt Betsy"s way, urged her warmly to make the proposed visit.
"Mother would be so glad to see an old neighbor," the honest youth said, "for she did not know many folks in the city. "Till had made some flashy acquaintances, of whom he did not think much, and they kept a few boarders, but n.o.body had called, and mother was real lonesome. He wished Miss Barlow would come; she would have no difficulty in finding them,"
and on a bit of paper he marked out the route of the Fourth Avenue cars, which pa.s.sed their door, and which Aunt Betsy would take after arriving at the New Haven depot. "If he knew when she was coming he would meet her," he said, but Aunt Betsy could not tell; she was not quite certain whether she should go at all, she was so violently opposed.
Still she did not give it up entirely, and when, a few days after Tom"s return to New York, there came a pressing invitation from the daughter Matilda, or Mattie, as she signed herself, the fever again ran high, and this time with but little hope of its abating.
"We shall be delighted, both mother and me," Mattie wrote. "I will show you all the lions of the city, and when you get tired of us you can go up to Mrs. Cameron"s. I know exactly where they live, and have seen her at the opera in full dress, looking like a queen."
Over the last part of this letter Aunt Betsy pondered for some time.
That as good an orthodox as Miss Tubbs should let her girl go to the opera, pa.s.sed her. She had wondered at Helen"s going, but then she was a "Piscopal, and them "Piscopals had queer notions about usin" the world and not abusin" it. Still, as Helen did not attend the theatre and did attend the opera, there must be a difference in the two places, and into the old lady"s heart there slowly crept the thought that possibly she might try the opera too, if "Tilda Tubbs would go, and promise never to tell the folks at Silverton! She should like to see what it was, and also what full dress meant, though she s"posed it was pilin" on all the clothes you had so as to make a show; but if she wore her black silk gown with her best bunnet and shawl, she guessed that would be dress enough for her.
This settled, Aunt Betsy began to devise the best means of getting off with the least opposition. Both Morris and her brother would be absent from town during the next week, and she finally resolved to take that opportunity for starting on her visit to New York, wisely concluding to keep her own counsel until she was quite ready. Accordingly, on the very day Morris and the deacon left Silverton, she announced her intention so quietly and decidedly that further opposition was useless, and Mrs.
Lennox did what she could to make her aunt presentable. And Aunt Betsy did look very respectable in her dark delaine, with her hat and shawl, both Morris" gift, and both in very good taste. As for the black silk and the new cap, they were carefully folded away, one in a box and the other in a satchel she carried on her arm, and in one compartment of which were sundry papers of fennel, caraway, and catnip, intended for Katy"s baby, and which could be sent to it from New York. There was also a package of dried plums and peaches for Katy herself, and a few cakes of yeast of her own make, better than any they had in the city! Thus equipped she one morning took her seat in the Boston and New York train, which carried her swiftly on toward Springfield.
"If anybody can find their way in New York, it is Betsy," Aunt Hannah said to Mrs. Lennox, as the day wore on and their thoughts went after the lone woman, who with satchel, umbrella and capbox, was felicitating in the luxury of a whole seat, and the near neighborhood of a very nice young man, who listened with well-bred interest while she told of her troubles concerning the sheep pasture, and how she was going to New York to consult a first-rate lawyer.
Once she thought to tell who the lawyer was, and perhaps enhance her own merits in the eyes of her auditors by announcing herself as aunt to Mrs.
Wilford Cameron, of whom she had no doubt he had heard--nay, more, whom he possibly knew, inasmuch as his home was in New York, though he spent much of his time at West Point, where he had been educated. But certain disagreeable remembrances of Aunt Hannah"s parting injunction, "not to tell everybody in the cars that she was Katy"s aunt," kept her silent on that point, and so Lieutenant Bob Reynolds failed to be enlightened with regard to the relationship existing between the fastidious Wilford Cameron of Madison Square, and the quaint old lady whose very first act on entering the car amused him vastly. At a glance he saw that she was unused to traveling, and as the car was crowded, he had kindly offered his seat near the door, taking the side one under the window, and so close to her that she gave him her capbox to hold while she adjusted her other bundles. This done and herself comfortably settled, she was just remarking that she liked being close to the door in case of a fire, when the conductor appeared, extending his hand officially toward her as the first one convenient. For an instant Aunt Betsy scanned him closely, thinking she surely had never seen him before, but as he seemed to claim acquaintance she could not find it in her kind heart to ignore him altogether, and so she grasped the offered hand, which she tried to shake, saying apologetically:
"Pretty well, thank you, but you"ve got the better of me, as I don"t justly recall your name."
Instantly the eyes of the young man under the window met those of the conductor with a look which changed the frown gathering in the face of the latter into a comical smile as he withdrew his hand and shouted:
"Ticket, madam, your ticket!"
"For the land"s sake, have I got to give that up so quick, when it"s at the bottom of my satchel," Aunt Betsy replied, somewhat crestfallen at her mistake, and fumbling in her pocket for the key, which was finally produced, and one by one the paper parcels of fennel, caraway, and catnip, dried plums, peaches and yeast cakes, were taken out, until at the very bottom, as she had said, the ticket was found, the conductor waiting patiently, and advising her, by way of avoiding future trouble, to pin the card to her shawl, where it could be seen.
"A right nice man," was Aunt Betsy"s mental comment, but for a long time there was a red spot on her cheeks as she felt that she had made herself ridiculous, and hoped the girls would never hear of it.
The young man, however, helped to rea.s.sure her, and in telling him her troubles she forgot her chagrin, feeling very sorry that he was going on to Albany, and so down the river to West Point. West Point was a.s.sociated in Aunt Betsy"s mind with that handful of n.o.ble men who within the walls of Sumter were then the center of so much interest, and at parting with her companion she said to him:
"Young man, you are a soldier, I take it, from your havin" been to school at West Point. Maybe you"ll never have to use your learning, but if you do, stick to the old flag. Don"t you go against that, and if an old woman"s prayers for your safety can do any good, be sure you"ll have mine."
She raised her hand reverently, and Lieutenant Bob felt a kind of awe steal over him as if he might one day need that benediction, the first perhaps given in the cause now so terribly agitating all hearts both North and South.
"I"ll remember what you say," he answered, and then as a new idea was presented he took out a card, and writing a few lines upon it, bade her hand it to the conductor just as she was getting into the city.
Without her gla.s.ses Aunt Betsy could not read, and thinking it did not matter now, she thrust the card into her pocket, and bidding her companion good-by, took her seat in the other train. Lonely and a very little homesick she began to feel; for her new neighbors were not one-half as willing to talk as Bob had been, and she finally relapsed into silence, which resulted in a quiet sleep, from which she awoke just as they were entering the long, dark tunnel, which she would have likened to Purgatory had she believed in such a place.
"I didn"t know we ran into cellars," she said, faintly; but n.o.body heeded her, or cared for the anxious and now timid-looking woman, who grew more and more anxious, until suddenly remembering the card, she drew it from her pocket, and the next time the conductor appeared handed it to him, watching him while he read that "Lieutenant Robert Reynolds would consider it as a personal favor if he would see the bearer into the Fourth Avenue cars."
Surely there is a Providence which watches over all; and Lieutenant Reynolds" thoughtfulness was not a mere chance, but the answer to the simple trust Aunt Betsy had that G.o.d would take her safely to New York, never doubting until she reached it that she had been heard. And even then she did not doubt it long, for the conductor knew Lieutenant Bob, and attended as faithfully to his wishes as if it had been a born princess instead of Aunt Betsy Barlow whom he led to a street car, ascertaining the number on the Bowery where she wished to stop, and reporting to that conductor, who bowed in acquiescence, after glancing at the woman, and knowing intuitively that she was from the country.
Could she have divested herself wholly of the fear that the conductor would forget to put her off at the right place, Aunt Betsy would have enjoyed that ride very much; and as it was, she looked around with interest, thinking New York a mightily cluttered-up place, and wondering if all the folks were in the streets. "They must be a gadding set," she thought; and then, as a lady in flaunting robes took a seat beside her, crowding her into a narrow s.p.a.ce, the good old dame thought to show that she did not resent it, by an attempt at sociability, asking if she knew "Mrs. Peter Tubbs, whose husband kept a store on the Bowery?"
"I have not that honor," was the haughty reply, the lady drawing up her costly shawl and moving a little away from her interlocutor, who continued: "I thought like enough you might have seen "Tilda, or Mattie she calls herself now. She is a right nice girl, and Tom is a very forrard boy."
To this there was no reply; and as the lady soon left the car, Aunt Betsy did not make another attempt at conversation, except to ask once how far they were from the Bowery, adding, as she received a civil answer, "You don"t know Mr. Peter Tubbs?"
The worthy man was evidently a stranger to the occupants of that car, and so Aunt Betsy employed her time in wondering if they kept up a sight of style. She presumed they did from what "Tilda had written to one of Captain Perry"s girls about their front parlor, and back parlor, and library; but she did so hope their boarders were not the stuck up kind.
In Mrs. Peter Tubbs herself she had the utmost confidence, knowing her to be a kind, friendly woman; and so her heart did not beat quite as fast as it would otherwise have done when the car stopped at last upon a crossing, and the conductor pointed back a few doors to the right, telling her that was her number.
"I should s"pose he might have driv right up, instead of leaving me here," she said, looking wistfully at the retreating car, which now seemed almost like home. "Coats, and trousers, and jackets! I wonder if there is nothing else to be seen here," she continued, as her eye caught the long line of clothing so conspicuously displayed in that part of the Bowery. ""Tain"t no great shakes," was the feeling struggling into Aunt Betsy"s mind, as with Tom"s outline map in hand she peered at the numbers of the doors, finding the right one at last, and ringing the bell with a force which brought Mattie at once to the rescue.
If Mattie was not glad to see her guest, she seemed to be, which answered every purpose for the tired woman, who followed her into the dark, narrow hall, filled with the sickly odor of the kitchen, and up the narrow stairs, through a still darker hall, and into the front parlor, which looked out upon the Bowery. This was comparatively comfortable, for there was a fire in the stove, and the carpet the same which Aunt Betsy remembered to have seen in Mrs. Tubbs" best room at Silverton. But the diminutive dimensions of the apartment struck her at once, and she mentally decided that it must be the "libry." But, alas!
the so-called "library" was a large-sized closet, or single room, at the other end of the hall, and now used as an _omnium gatherum_ for the various articles Mrs. Tubbs found necessary for her "back parlor," or dining-room, where the table was set cornerwise, its soiled linen and dingy napkins presenting a striking contrast to the snowy cloth which always covered the table at the farmhouse, while the dry, baker"s bread, and the frowsy b.u.t.ter were almost more than Aunt Betsy could swallow, hungry as she was.
But all this was half an hour after the time when Mrs. Tubbs came in to meet her, expressing genuine pleasure at seeing her there, and feeling what she said; for Mrs. Tubbs did not take kindly to city life, and the sight of a familiar face, which brought the country with it, was very welcome to her. Mattie, on the contrary, liked New York, and there was scarcely a street where she had not been, with Tom for a protector; while she was perfectly conversant with all the respectable places of amus.e.m.e.nt--with their different prices and different grades of patrons.
She knew where Wilford Cameron"s office was, and also his house, for she had walked by the latter many times, admiring the elegant curtains and feasting her eyes upon the glimpses of inside grandeur, which she occasionally obtained as some one came out or went in. Once she had seen Helen and Katy enter their carriage, which the colored coachman drove away, but she had never ventured to accost them. Katy would not have known her if she had, for the family had come to Silverton while she was at Canandaigua, and as, after her return to Silverton, until her marriage, Mattie had been in one of the Lawrence factories, they had never met. With Helen, however, she had a speaking acquaintance; but she had never presumed upon it in New York, though to some of her young friends she had told how she once sat in the same pew with Mrs. Wilford Cameron"s sister when she went to the "Episcopal meeting," and the consideration which this fact procured for her from those who had heard of Mrs. Wilford Cameron, of Madison Square, awoke in her the ambition to know more of that lady, and, if possible, gain an entrance to her dwelling. To this end she favored Aunt Betsy"s visit, hoping thus to accomplish her object, for, of course, when Miss Barlow went to Mrs.
Cameron"s, she was the proper person to go with her and point the way.
This was the secret of Mattie"s letter to Aunt Betsy, and the warmth with which she welcomed her to that tenement on the Bowery, over a clothing store, and so small that it is not strange Aunt Betsy wondered where they all slept, never dreaming of the many devices known to city housekeepers, who can change a handsome parlor into a kitchen or sleeping-room, and _vice versa_, with little or no trouble. But she found it out at last, lifting her hands in speechless amazement, when, as the hour for retiring came, what she imagined the parlor bookcase was converted into a comfortable bed, on which her first night in New York was pa.s.sed in comfort if not in perfect quiet.
The next day had been set apart by Mattie for showing their guest the city and possibly calling on Mrs. Wilford; but the poor old lady, unused to travel and excitement, was too tired to venture out, seeing from the window more than she had seen in all her life before, and coming to the conclusion that New York must contain "a sight of folks," judging from the crowds who pa.s.sed that way and the glimpses she caught of other crowds in the streets beyond. Still in some things she was disappointed.
New York was not so grand as she had imagined it to be--not as grand as Helen"s letters would imply; and she "didn"t suppose everybody lived upstairs and kept men"s clothes to sell." The boarders, too, troubled her. They were well enough, it is true, but they were neither fine ladies nor gentlemen, such as Wilford and Katy; and Aunt Betsy, while receiving every attention which Mrs. Tubbs could give her, was guilty of wishing herself back in the clean, bright kitchen at home, where the windows looked out upon woods and fields instead of that never-ceasing rush which made her dizzy and faint. On the whole she was as nearly homesick as she well could be, and so when Mattie asked if she would like to go out that evening, she caught eagerly at the idea, as it involved a change, and again the opera came before her mind, in spite of her attempts to thrust it away.
"Did "Tilda know if Katy went to the opera now? Did she s"pose she would be there to-night? Was it far to the show house? What was the price--and was it a very wicked place?"
To all these queries Mattie answered readily. She presumed Katy would be there, as it was a new opera. It was not so very far. Distance in the city was nothing, and it was not a wicked place, but over the price Mattie faltered. Tickets for Aunt Betsy, herself and Tom, who of course must go with them, would cost more than her father had to give. The theatre was preferable, as that came within their means, and she suggested Laura Keene"s; but from that Aunt Betsy recoiled as from Pandemonium itself.
Catch her at a theatre--her, a deacon"s sister, looked up to for a sample, and who run once for vice-president of the Sewing Society in Silverton! It was too terrible to think of. But the opera seemed different. Helen went there; it could not be very wrong, particularly as the tickets were so high that bad folks could not go, and taking out her purse Aunt Betsy counted its contents carefully, holding the bills thoughtfully for a moment, while she seemed to be balancing between what she knew was safe and what she feared might be wrong, at least in the eyes of Silverton.
"But Silverton will never know it," the tempter whispered, "and it is worth something to see the girls in full dress."
This decided it, and Aunt Betsy generously offered "to pay the fiddler,"
as she termed it, "provided "Tilda would never let it get to Silverton that Betsy Barlow was seen inside a playhouse!" To Mrs. Tubbs it seemed impossible that Aunt Betsy could be in earnest, but when she was, she put no impediments in her way; and so, conspicuous among the crowd of transient visitors who that night entered the Academy of Music was Aunt Betsy Barlow, chaperoned by Miss Mattie Tubbs and protected by Tom, a shrewd, well-grown youth of seventeen, who pa.s.sed for some years older, and consequently was a sufficient escort for the ladies under his charge. It was not his first visit there and he managed to procure a seat which commanded a good view of several private boxes, and among them that of Wilford Cameron. This Mattie, who remembered where she had seen both Helen and Katy, pointed out to the excited woman gazing about her in a maze of bewilderment, and half doubting her own ident.i.ty with the Betsy Barlow who, six weeks before, if charged with such a sin as she was now committing, would have exclaimed, "Is thy servant a dog to do this thing?" Yet here she was, a deacon"s sister, a candidate for the vice-presidency of the Silverton Sewing Society, a woman who, for sixty-three years and a-half, had led a blameless life, frowning upon all worldly amus.e.m.e.nts and setting herself for a burning light to others--here she was in her black silk dress, her best shawl pinned across her chest, and her bonnet tied in a square bow which reached nearly to her ears, which Mattie Tubbs, who tied it, had said was all the style. Here she was, in that huge building, where the lights were so blinding and the crowd so great that she shut her eyes involuntarily, while she tried to realize what she could be doing.