Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1903 — Sunny Bank Farm [ARTICLE]

Sunny Bank Farm

BY FLOYD LIVINGSTON

{ CHAPTER .1. —- Far away among the New England Mila stands a large old-fashioned (arm fcouse, around whose hearth stone not many years agone a band of merry, noisy Children played—myself the merriest, noisiest of them all. It stood upon an eminence overlooking a broad strip of rolling meadow land, nt the extremity of which was the old gray rock, where the golden rod and sassafras grew, where the green ivy crept over the crumbling wall, and where, under the shadow of the thorn apple tree, we built oar play houses, drinking our tea from the acorn •sneers, and painting our dolls’ faces with the red juice of the poke berries, (Which grew there in great abundance. Just opposite our house, and across the green meadow, was a shady grove, where, in the spring time, the singing birds made their nests, and where, when the breath of winter was on the snow-clad hllla, Liiiie, Carrie and I, and our taller, (Stronger brothers dragged our sleds, dashing swiftly down the steep hill, and away ■over the ice-covered valley below. Truly, •nrs was a joyous childhood, and burs ■a happy home; for never elsewhere fell •the summer's -goldA sunlight so softly, land never was music sweeter than was )the murmur of the dancing water brook Wrhieh ran past out door, and down the, Jong green lane, losing itself nt last in the* £m old woods, which stretched away to e westward, seeming to my childish imagination the boundary line between this world and the next. In the deep shadow of those woods 1 jkave sat alolfe for many an hour, watching the white, feathery clouds as they glimmered through the dense foliage, and musing, I scarcely knew of what. Strange fancies filled my brain, and oftentimes, as I sat there in the hazy light of an autumnal afternoon, there came and talked with me myriads of little people, unseen, it is true, but still »eal to me. There, on a mossy bank, I felt the first longings for fame, though ■I did not thus designate it then. I only knew that I wanted a name which should Bve when I was gone—a name of which my mother should be proud. It had been to me a day of peculiar trial. At school everything had gone wrong. I preferred filing my slate with verses, instead of proving on it that four times twenty were eighty, and that eighty, divided by twenty, equaled four, and my teacher must seeds find fault with me, calling me “lazy,” and compelling me to sit between two hateful boys, with warty hands, who amused themselves by telling me how big my eyes and feet were. I hardly think I should now mind that mode of punishment, provided I could choose tho boys, hut I did then; and in the worst of humors, 1 started for home, where other annoyances awaited me. Sally, the house maid, scolded me for upsetting $ pan c f milk on her clean pantry fihclL calling me “the carelessest young one she ever aaw," and predicting that “I’d one day come to the gallus if I didn't mend my ways."

Juliet, my oldest sister, scolded me for wearing, without her consent, her shell aide comb, which, in climbing through n hole in the plastering of the school house. I accidentally broke. Grandmother scolded me for mounting to the top of her Ugh chest of drawers to see what was fa them; and to crown all, when toward sunset, I came in from n romp in the hern, with my yellpw hair flying all over my face, my drees burst open, my apron split from the top downward, and my sun bonnet hanging down my back, my mother reproved me severely, telling me 1 was “a sight to behold.” My heart came up in my throat, and with the angry response that “I couldn't help my looks —l didn’t make myself,” I started through the door, and running down the lung lane to the grape vine, my favorite resort, I threw myself upon the ground and burying my face In the tall grass. ,wept bitterly, wishing I had never been horn, or, being born, that the ban of ugiiaess were not upon me. Mother doesn't love me. 1 thought—nobody loves me: and then I wished that 1 could die, for 1 had heard that the first dead of a family, uo matter how unprepossessing they had been in life, were sure to be the best beloved in the memory of the living. To die, then, that I might be loved, wag all I asked for, ns I lay there weeping alone, and thinking fa my childish grief that never before was a girl, nine summers old, so wretched as myself. And then I fell asleep, unconscious that tho daylight was fast declining, and that the heavy dew was falling upon my uncovered head. Meantime, at home many inquiries were being mads concerning my whereabouts. and when, at lu?t, night came sn and I was stilt away, my oldest brother was sent In quest of me. ° I was just dreaming that the trumpet of fame was sounding forth my name, when. nla<! 1 awoke to find it was only brother Chartie, making the woods resound with F'Roaa Lee! Where are you? Why dou’t you answer?” He stumbled over me ns 1 lay. Seising me by the shoulder, he exclaimed, ’’You are a pretty bird, scaring us out of a year's gruwth. Mother’ll scold you well for this." But he was mistaken, for mother's aaanner toward me was greatly changed. The torn apron and the chewed bonnet strings were all forgotten, and in the kindest tons she asked, “If 1 were not cold, and why 1 went to sleep on the rasa.” There were tears in my eyes, but winked hard and forced them back, until Lissie brought me a piece of custard pis—my special favorite—which, she said, “she had saved for me, because she knew how much I loved it.” This was too much, abd sitting lowa In Carrie's little chair, I cried aloud, st.ytag tn reply to the oft-repeated questions •a to wbat ailed roe, that "I didn't know, e»ly 1 was so glad.” "Hyetericky as a witch.” was Sally's characteristic comment on my strange behavior; at the same time she suggested that 1 be put to bed. That night I waa tired and restless, taming uneasily Upon my pillow, pushing Ltaale'a arm from my neck, because k kept ms from breathing, and lying awake until I heard tMI long clock in grandma’s room strike the hour of twelve. Than l slept, but dreamed there a heavy prin in my head, which

made me moan in my sleep, and that mother, attracted by the sound, came to my side, feeing my pulse, and saying, “What ails you, Rosa?" “There was nothing ailed me,” I said; but in tho morning when I awoke, the pain was atill there, though I would not acknowledge It, for scarcely anything could tempt me to stay away from school; #o at the usual hour I started, but the road was long and wearisome, and twice I sat down to rest. Arrived at school, everything seemed strange, and when Maria, the girl who shared my desk, produced a love letter from Tom Jenkins, which she had found on my side of the desk, and in which he made a formal offer of himself, freckles and all, I did not even smile. Taking my book, I attempted to study, but the words ran together, the objects in the room chased each other in circles, the teached seemed to be a great way off, while between her and me was a gathering darkness which soon shut out every object from my view. For a few moments all was confusion, and when nt last my faculties returned I was lying on the recitation bench, my head resting in the teacher's lap, while my hair and dress were so wet that I fancied I'd been out In a drenching shower. Everybody was ao kind and spoke so softly to me that, with a vague impression that something had happened, I began to cry. Just then father, who had been sent for, appeared, and taking me in his arms, started for home, while Lizzie followed. At the door father naked of mother, who met us, “Whers shall I put her ?” but era she could reply, I snid, “On grandmother's bed.” And there, among the soft pillows and snowy linen, on which I had often looked with almost envious eyes, and which now seemed so much to rest me, I was laid. Of the weary weeks which followed, I have only a confused recollection. I know that the room was darkened ns far as possible, and that before the window at the foot of the bed, grandmn’s black shawl was hung, one corner being occasionally pinned back when more light was needed. They sent to Spencer for Dr. Lamb, who, together with Dr. Griffin, held a council over 'me, and said that I must die. I saw mother when they told her. She turned pale as death, and with a cry of anguish pressed her hand upon her side; but she did not weep. I wondered at jt then, and thought she cared less than Lizzie, who aat at the foot of the bed, sobbing so loudly that the fever burned more fiercely in my veins, and the physician snid it must not be; she must leave the room, or keep quiet.

It waa Monday, nnd a few hours afterward, as Sally was passing the door, grandma handed her my dirtjt crumpled sun bonnet, bidding her wash it and put it away. Sally’s voice trembled ns she replied, “No, uo; leave it as it is; for when she's gone, nothing wiH look so much like her as that *jaaimed bonnet with its ehewed-tjp strings." A gush of tears waa grandma’s only answer; and after I got well, I found the bonnet carefully rolled up in a sheet of clean white paper and laid away in Sally’.a drawer. There were days and nights of entire unconsciousness, and then with the vague feeling of one awakening from a long, disturbed sleep, I nwoke again to life and reason. The windows of my room were closed; but without, I heard the patter of the September rain, and the sound of the autumnal wind ns it swept past tho house. Gathered at my side were my father, mother, brothers, sisters, grandmother; aud all v as iny eyes rested upon their faces, I thought, were paler and more careworn than when I last looked upon them. Something, too, in their dress disturbed me; but, before I could speak, a voice which I knew to be Dr. Griffin's, said, “She is better; she will live.”

The fourth day after the crisis I was alone with Lizzie, whom, for a long time, 1 importuned to give me a mirror that I could see myself oucc more. Yielding at length to my entreaties, she handed me a small looking glass—a wedding gift to my grandmother—and with the consoling remark that "I wouldn't always ltok so,” awaited the result. I am older than I was then, hut even now I cannot repress a smile as I bring before my mind the shorn head, the wasted face with high cheek bones, and the big blue eyes, in which there was a look of “craxy Sal,” which met my view. With the angry exclamation, “They’ll hate me worse than ever, I'm so ugly,*' 1 dashed the mirror upon the floor, breaking it in a thousand pieces. Lizzie knew what 1 meant, nnd twining her arms about m> neck, she said. “Lton't talk so, Hosa: we love you dearly, nnd it almost killed us w hen we thought you Cduldu't live. Y'ou know big men never cry, aud pa the least of all. Why, he didn't shed a tear when lit ”

Hero she stopped suddenly, os if on a forbidden subject; but soon resuming the conversation, she continued; “But the day Dr. Lamb was here and told us yon would die. he was out uuder the eherry tree by our play house, nnd when Carrie asked him if you'd never play there any more, he didu't answer, but turned Ms face toward the bnru aud cried so hard and so loud that grandma came out and pitied him, smoothing his hair just like he was a little boy. Brother Charlie, too, lay right down on the grass, and said he'd give everything he'd got if hc'd^never calk'd you ’bung-eyed,’ nor made fun of you, for he loved you best of all. Then there was poor Jamie kept calling for ‘Y’osa.’ "

Here Lizzie broke down entirely, saying, "I can't tell y< j any more; don't ask me." x Suddenly it occurred to me that 1 had neither seen nor heard little Jamie, the youngest of us all, the pet and darling of our household. Rapidly my thoughts traversed the past. “Japile was dead!” I did not need that Lizzie should tell me so. 1 knew It was true; and when the first great shock was 6rer, I questioned lo r of fils death, how and when it occurred. It stems that I was at first taken with scarlet fever, which soon assumed another form, bat not until it had Communicated itself to Jamie, who, after a few days’ suffering, had died. I had ever been his favorite, and to the last he had called for ae to come; my grandmother.

with the superstition natural to her age, construing it into an omen that I waa spon to follow him. Desolate and dreary seemed the house; and when I was able to go from room to room, oh! how my heart ached as I missed the prattle of our baby boy. Away to the garret, where no one could see it, they had carried hia empty cradle; but I sought it out; and as I thought of the soft, brown curls I had ao often seen resting there, and would never see again, I jgat down. by.JttL.side jaM-went most “bitterly. The withered, yellow ieavesoF autumn were falling upon his grave ere I was able to visit it, and at its head stood a simple stone, on which was inscribed, “Our Jamie.” As I leaned against the cold marble, and in fancy saw by its side —what had well-nigh been —another mound, and another stone, bearing upon it the name of “Rosa," I involuntarily shuddered; while from my heart there went up a silent thanksgiving that God, in His wise providence, had ordered it otherwise. From that sickness I date a more healthful state of mind and feeling, and though I still shrunk from any allusion to my personal appearance, I never again doubted the love of those who had manifested so much solicitude for me when ill, and who watched over me so tenderly during the period of my convalescence, which was long and wearisome, for the snows of an -early winter lay upon the frozen ground ere I was well enough to take my accustomed place in the cld brown school house at the foot of the long hill.

CHAPTER 11. Thanksgiving! How many reminiscences of the olden time does that word call up, when sons and daughters, they who had wandered far and wide, whose locks, once brown and shining with the sunlight of youth, now give tokens that autumnal frosts of life are falling slowly upon them, return once more to the old hearth stone, and, for a brief space, grow young again amid the festive scenes of Thanksgiving day. I shall not speak of our feelings as we missed our baby brother, for-they who have loßt from their fireside an active, playful child, understand far better than I can describe, the loneliness, the longing for something gone, which becomes almost a part of their being, although at times they may seem to forget. Children’s grief is seldom as lasting as that of mature years; and hence it is not strange if I sometimes forget my sorrow iu the joyous anticipation of Thanksgiving day, which was then to me but another name for plum puddings, chicken pies, meeting dresses, morocco shoes, city cousins, a fire in the parlor, and last, though not least, the privilege of sitting at the first table, and using grandma’s six tiny silver spoons, with the initials of her maiden name marked upon them. On such occasions my thoughts invariably took a leap backward, and looking nt grandma’s wrinkled face and white, shining hair, I would wonder if she ever were young like me; and if, being young, she swung on gates or climbed trees, s.nd walked the great beams, as I did. Then, with another bound, my thoughts would penetrate the future when I, a dignified grandmother, should recline m my armchair, stately and stiff, in my-heavy satin and silver gray, while my oldest son, a man just my father’s size, should render me all the homage and respect due to one of my age. P* myself, too, I had several times tried on grandma’s clothes, spectacles, cap and nil; and then, seated~in her chair, with the big Bible in my lap, I had expounded Scripture to the imaginary children around me, frequently reprimanding Rosa for her inattention, asking her what “she thought would become of her if she didn’t stop wriggling so in her chair, and learn ‘the chief end of man.’ ”

The Thanksgiving succeeding Jamie’s death nnd my own recovery from sickness great preparations were made, it being confidently expected that my father's brother, who lived in Boston, would be with us, together with his wife, a lady whose reputation for sociability and suavity of was. with us, rather below par. She was my uncle’s second wife, and rumor Baid that neither himself nor his home was ns comfortablt as they once had been. From the same reliable source, too, we learned that she breakfasted in her own room at ten, dined at three, mndc or received calls until six, went to parties, soirees, or the theater in the evening, and seldom got to bed until two o’clock in the morning; a inode of living which was pronounced little better than heathenish by grandma. Mother, who was more discreet, very wisely advised her not to interfere with the arranfiements of her daughter-in-law. "It would do no good,” she said, “and might possibly make matters worse.” Unlike most old people, grandma was'not very much set in her own way. and to mother's suggestion she replied that, “Mebby she shouldn’t say anything: 'twould depend on how many airs Charlotte put on." ' To me the expected visit was a sore trial; for, notwithstanding my cheeks and neck- were rounder and fuller than they had ever been, my head, with its young crop of short, stiff hair, was a terrible annoyance, and more than once I bad cried rffc I saw in fancy the derisive smile with which my dreaded aunt Charlotte was sure to greet me. At last sister Anna, who possessed a great deal of taste in such mntters. nnd who ought to have been a milliner, contrived for the “picked chicken,” ns she called me, IP black lace cap. which fitted me ao well, and was so vastly becoming, that I lost all my fears, and. child-like, began to count the days which must ellipse before I could wear it. Meautime, in the kitchen there was a loud rattling of dishes, n beating of eggs, and calling for wood, with which to heat the great brick oven, grandma having pronounced the stove unfit for baking a" Thanksgiving dinner. From tke cornfield behind the bam a golden pumpkin, four times larger than my head and about the same color, was gathered, and aft.»r Icing brought to the house, was pared, cut open, scraped and sliced into a little tin kettle with a copper bottom, where for hours it stewed and sputtered, filling the atmosphere with a faint, sickly odor, which I think was the main cause of the severe headache I took to bed with me. Mother, on the contrary, differed from me, she associated it in some way with the rapid disappearance of the raisins, cinnamon, sugar and ao forth, which. In sundry brown papers, lay opqn upon the table. The next morning. Just as the first gray streaks of daylight were appearing in the east, I awoke, fiffding, to my great joy, that my headache was gone. Rising upon my elbow and leaning far ont of bed, I pushed aside the striped curtain

whiqh shaded the window, looking oat upon the ground below, aaw, to mj utter dismay, that it waa covered with snow. To me there is nothing pleasant in a enow storm, a snow batik or a snow clond; and when a child, I used to think that with the fall of the first flake there came over my spirits a chill, which waa not removed until the Bpring time, when, with its cause, it melted away; and even now, when, with my rubber toots, I dare brave any drift not more than five feet have any particular loVe for snow; and as from my window I watch the descent! of the feathery flakes, I always feel hn irresistible desire to make at them wry faces—my favorite method of showing my dislike. On the morning of which I have spoken, I vented my displeasure in the usual way, and then I fell into a deep sleep, from which I was at last awakened by the loud shouts of my brothers, who, in the meadow across tha road, were pelting each other with balls, occasionally rolling over in. the pure,, white snow, which they hailed as an old and well-loved friend. (To be continued.)