Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards - Queen Hildegarde

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"Well, Huldy," said the farmer, looking up from his eggs and bacon with
a cheery smile, "here ye be, eh? Rested after yer journey, be ye?"

"Yes, thank you!" said Hilda, coldly.

"Have some chick'n!" he continued, putting nearly half a chicken on her
plate. "An' a leetle bacon, jes' ter liven it up, hey? That's right!
It's my idee thet most everythin' 's the better for a bit o' bacon,
unless it's soft custard. I d' 'no ez thet 'ud go with it pitickler.
Haw! haw!"

Hilda kept her eyes on her plate, determined to pay no attention to the
vulgar pleasantries of this unkempt monster. It was hard enough to eat
with a steel fork, without being further tormented. But the farmer
seemed determined to drag her into conversation.

"How's yer ha-alth in gineral, Huldy? Pooty rugged, be ye? Seems to me
ye look kin' o' peaked."

"I am quite well!" It was Queen Hildegarde who spoke now, in icy tones;
but her coldness had no effect on her loquacious host.

"I s'pose ye'll want ter lay by a day or two, till ye git used ter
things, like; but then I sh'll want ye ter take holt. We're short-handed
now, and a smart, likely gal kin be a sight o' help. There's the cows
ter milk--the' ain't but one o' them thet's real ugly, and _she_ only
kicks with the off hind-leg; so 't's easy enough ter look out for her."

Hilda looked up in horror and amazement, and caught a twinkle in the
farmer's eye which told her that he was quizzing her. The angry blood
surged up even to the roots of her hair; but she disdained to reply, and
continued to crumble her bread in silence.

"Father, what ails you?" said kind Dame Hartley. "Why can't you let the
child alone? She's tired yet, and she doesn't understand your joking
ways.--Don't you mind the farmer, dear, one bit; his heart's in the
right place, but he do love to tease."

But the good woman's gentle words were harder to bear, at that moment,
than her husband's untimely jesting. Hilda's heart swelled high. She
felt that in another moment the tears must come; and murmuring a word of
excuse, she hastily pushed back her chair and left the room.

An hour after, Hilda was sitting by the window of her own room, looking
listlessly out on the soft summer evening, and listening to the
melancholy cry of the whippoorwill, when she heard voices below. The
farmer was sitting with his pipe in the vine-clad porch just under the
window; and now his wife had joined him, after "redding up" the kitchen,
and giving orders for the next morning to the tidy maidservant.

"Well, Marm Lucy," said Farmer Hartley's gruff, hearty voice, "now thet
you have your fine bird, I sh'd like to know what you're a-goin' to do
with her. She's as pretty as a pictur, but a stuck-up piece as ever I
see. Don't favor her mother, nor father either, as I can see."

"Poor child!" said Dame Hartley, with a sigh, "I fear she will have a
hard time of it before she comes to herself. But I promised Miss Mildred
that I would try my best; and you said you would help me, Jacob."

"So I did, and so I will!" replied the farmer. "But tell me agin, what
was Miss Mildred's idee? I got the giner'l drift of it, but I can't seem
to put it together exactly. I didn't s'pose the gal was _this_ kind,
anyhow."

"She told me," Dame Hartley said, "that this child--her only one, Jacob!
you know what that means--was getting into ways she didn't like. Going
about with other city misses, who cared for nothing but pleasure, and
who flattered and petted her because of her beauty and her pretty, proud
ways (and maybe because of her father's money too; though Miss Mildred
didn't say that), she was getting to think too much of herself, and to
care too much for fine dresses and sweetmeats and idle chatter about
nothing at all." (How Hilda's cheeks burned as she remembered the long
seances in her room, she on the sofa, and Madge in the arm-chair, with
the box of Huyler's or Maillard's best always between them! Had they
ever talked of anything "worth the while," as mamma would say? She
remembered mamma's coming in upon them once or twice, with her sweet,
grave face. She remembered, too, a certain uneasy feeling she had had
for a moment--only for a moment--when the door closed behind her mother.
But Madge had laughed, and said, "Isn't your mother perfectly sweet? She
doesn't mind a bit, does she?" and she had answered, "Oh, no!" and had
forgotten it in the account of Helen McIvor's new bonnet.) "And then
Miss Mildred said, 'I had meant to take her into the country with me
this summer, and try to show the child what life really means, and let
her learn to know her brothers and sisters in the different walks of
this life, and how they live, and what they do. I want her to see for
herself what a tiny bit of the world, and what a silly, useless, gilded
bit, is the little set of fashionable girls whom she has chosen for her
friends. But this sudden call to California has disarranged all my
plans. I cannot take her with me there, for the child is not well, and
country air and quiet are necessary for her bodily health. And so, Nurse
Lucy,' she says, 'I want _you_ to take my child, and do by her as you
did by me!'

"'Oh! Miss Mildred,' I said, 'do you think she can be happy or contented
here? I'll do my best; I'm sure you know that! But if she's as you say,
she is a very different child to what you were, Miss Mildred dear.'

"'She will not be happy at first,' says Miss Mildred. 'But she has a
really noble nature, Nurse Lucy, and I am very sure that it will triumph
over the follies and faults which are on the outside.'

"And then she kissed me, the dear! and came up and helped me set the
little room to rights, and kissed the pillows, sweet lady, and cried
over them a bit. Ah me! 'tis hard parting from our children, even for a
little while, that it is."

Dame Hartley paused and sighed. Then she said: "And so, here the child
is, for good or for ill, and we must do our very best by her, Jacob, you
as well as I. What ailed you to-night, to tease her so at supper? I
thought shame of you, my man."

"Well, Marm Lucy," said the farmer, "I don't hardly know what ailed me.
But I tell ye what, 'twas either laugh or cry for me, and I thought
laughin' was better nor t'other. To see that gal a-settin' there, with
her pretty head tossed up, and her fine, mincin' ways, as if 'twas an
honor to the vittles to put them in her mouth; and to think of my
maid--" He stopped abruptly, and rising from the bench, began to pace up
and down the garden-path. His wife joined him after a moment, and the
two walked slowly to and fro together, talking in low tones, while the
soft summer darkness gathered closer and closer, and the pleasant
night-sounds woke, cricket and katydid and the distant whippoorwill
filling the air with a cheerful murmur.

Long, long sat Hildegarde at the window, thinking more deeply than she
had ever thought in her life before. Different passions held her young
mind in control while she sat motionless, gazing into the darkness with
wide-open eyes. First anger burned high, flooding her cheek with hot
blushes, making her temples throb and her hands clench themselves in a
passion of resentment. But to this succeeded a mood of deep sadness, of
despair, as she thought; though at fifteen one knows not, happily, the
meaning of despair.

Was this all true? Was she no better, no wiser, than the silly girls of
her set? She had always felt herself so far above them mentally; they
had always so frankly acknowledged her supremacy; she knew she was
considered a "very superior girl:" was it true that her only superiority
lay in possessing powers which she never chose to exert? And then came
the bitter thought: "What have I ever done to prove myself wiser than
they?" Alas for the answer! Hilda hid her face in her hands, and it was
shame instead of anger that now sent the crimson flush over her cheeks.
Her mother despised her! Her mother--perhaps her father too! They loved
her, of course; the tender love had never failed, and would never fail.
They were proud of her too, in a way. And yet they despised her; they
must despise her! How could they help it? Her mother, whose days were a
ceaseless round of work for others, without a thought of herself; her
father, active, energetic, business-like,--what must her life seem to
them? How was it that she had never seen, never dreamed before, that she
was an idle, silly, frivolous girl? The revelation came upon her with
stunning force. These people too, these coarse country people, despised
her and laughed at her! The thought was more than she could bear. She
sprang up, feeling as if she were suffocating, and walked up and down
the little room with hurried and nervous steps. Then suddenly there came
into her mind one sentence of her mother's that Dame Hartley had
repeated: "Hilda has a really noble nature--" What was the rest?
Something about triumphing over the faults and follies which lay
outside. Had her mother really said that? Did she believe, trust in, her
silly daughter? The girl stood still, with clasped hands and bowed head.
The tumult within her seemed to die away, and in its place something was
trembling into life, the like of which Hilda Graham had never known,
never thought of, before; faint and timid at first, but destined to gain
strength and to grow from that one moment,--a wish, a hope, finally a
resolve.

CHAPTER IV.

THE NEW HILDA.

The morning came laughing into Hilda's room, and woke her with such a
flash of sunshine and trill of bird-song that she sprang up smiling,
whether she would or no. Indeed, she felt happier than she could have
believed to be possible. The anger, the despair, even the
self-humiliation and anguish of repentance, were gone with the night.
Morning was here,--a new day and a new life. "Here is the new
Hildegarde!" she cried as she plunged her face into the clear, sparkling
water. "Do you see me, blue dragons? Shake paws, you foolish creatures,
and don't stand ramping and glaring at each other in that way! Here is a
new girl come to see you. The old one was a minx,--do you hear,
dragons?" The dragons heard, but were too polite to say anything; and as
for not ramping, why they had ramped and glared for fifty years, and had
no idea of making a change at their time of life.

The gilt cherubs round the little mirror were more amiable, and smiled
cheerfully at Hilda as she brushed and braided her hair, and put on the
pretty blue gingham frock. "We have no clothes ourselves," they seemed
to say, "but we appreciate good ones when we see them!" Indeed, the
frock fitted to perfection. "And after all," said the new Hilda as she
twirled round in front of the glass, "what _is_ the use of an
overskirt?" after which astounding utterance, this young person
proceeded to do something still more singular. After a moment's
hesitation she drew out one of the white aprons which she had scornfully
laid in the very lowest drawer only twelve hours before, tied it round
her slender waist, and then, with an entirely satisfied little nod at
the mirror, she tripped lightly downstairs and into the kitchen. Dame
Hartley was washing dishes at the farther end of the room, in her neat
little cedar dish-tub, with her neat little mop; and she nearly dropped
the blue and white platter from her hands when she heard Hilda's
cheerful "Good morning, Nurse Lucy!" and, turning, saw the girl smiling
like a vision of morning.

"My dear," she cried, "sure I thought you were fast asleep still. I was
going up to wake you as soon as I had done my dishes. And did you sleep
well your first night at Hartley's Glen?"

"Oh, yes! I slept very sound indeed," said Hilda, lightly. And then,
coming close up to Dame Hartley, she said in an altered tone, and with
heightened color: "Nurse Lucy, I did not behave well last night, and I
want to tell you that I am sorry. I am not like mamma, but I want to
grow a little like her, if I can, and you must help me, please!"

Her voice faltered, and good Nurse Lucy, laying down her mop, took the
slender figure in her motherly arms, from which it did not now shrink
away.

"My lamb!" she said; "Miss Mildred's own dear child! You look liker your
blessed mother this minute than I ever thought you would. Help you? That
I will, with all my heart!--though I doubt if you need much help, coming
to yourself so soon as this. Well, well!"

"Coming to herself!" It was the same phrase the good dame had used the
night before, and it struck Hilda's mind with renewed force. Yes, she
had come to herself,--her new self, which was to be so different from
the old. How strange it all was! What should she do now, to prove the
new Hilda and try her strength? Something must be done at once; the time
for folded hands and listless revery was gone by.

"Shall I--may I help you to get breakfast?" she asked aloud, rather
timidly.

"Breakfast? Bless you, honey, we had breakfast two hours ago. We farmers
are early birds, you know. But you can lay a plate and napkin for
yourself, if you like, while I drop a couple of fresh eggs and toast a
bit of bacon for you. Do you like bacon, then?"

Rather disappointed at the failure of her first attempt to be useful,
Hilda laid the snowy napkin on the shining table, and chose a pretty
blue and white plate from the well-stocked shelves of the dresser.

"And now open that cupboard, my lamb," said her hostess, "and you'll
find the loaf, and a piece of honeycomb, and some raspberries. I'll
bring a pat of butter and some milk from the dairy, where it's all cool
for you."

"Raspberries!" cried Hilda. "Oh, how delightful! Why, the dew is still
on them, Nurse Lucy! And how pretty they look, with the cool green
leaves round them!"

"Ay!" said the good woman, "Jacob brought them in not ten minutes ago.
He thought you would like them fresh from the bushes."

Hilda's cheek rivalled the raspberries in bloom as she bent over them to
inhale their fragrance. The farmer had picked these himself for
her,--had probably left his work to do so; and she had called him an
odious old savage, and an unkempt monster, and--oh dear! decidedly, the
old Hilda was a very disagreeable girl. But here were the eggs, each
blushing behind its veil of white, and here was the milk, and a little
firm nugget in a green leaf, which was too beautiful to be butter, and
yet too good to be anything else. And the new Hilda might eat her
breakfast with a thankful heart, and did so. The white rose nodded to
her from the west window much more cordially than it had done the night
before. It even brought out a little new bud to take a peep at the girl
who now smiled, instead of scowling across the room. The vines rustled
and shook, and two bright black eyes peeped between the leaves.
"Tweet!" said the robin, ruffling his scarlet waistcoat a little. "When
you have quite finished your worms, you may come out, and I will show
you the garden. There are cherries!" and away he flew, while Hilda
laughed and clapped her hands, for she had understood every word.

"May I go out into the garden?" she asked, when she had finished her
breakfast and taken her first lesson in dish-washing, in spite of Dame
Hartley's protest. "And isn't there something I can do there, please? I
want to work; I don't want to be idle any longer."

"Well, honey," replied the dame, "there are currants to pick, if you
like such work as that. I am going to make jelly to-morrow; and if you
like to begin the picking, I will come and help you when my bread is out
of the oven."

Gladly Hilda flew up to her room for the broad-leaved hat with the
daisy-wreath; and then, taking the wide, shallow basket which Dame
Hartley handed her, she fairly danced out of the door, over the bit of
green, and into the garden.

Ah! the sweet, heartsome country garden that this was,--the very thought
of it is a rest and a pleasure. Straight down the middle ran a little
gravel path, with a border of fragrant clove-pinks on either side,
planted so close together that one saw only the masses of pale pink
blossoms resting on their bed of slender silvery leaves. And over the
border! Oh the wealth of flowers, the blaze of crimson and purple and
gold, the bells that swung, the spires that sprang heavenward, the
clusters that nodded and whispered together in the morning breeze! Here
were ranks upon ranks of silver lilies, drawn up in military fashion,
and marshalled by clumps of splendid tiger-lilies,--the drum-majors of
the flower-garden. Here were roses of every sort, blushing and paling,
glowing in gold and mantling in crimson. And the carnations showed their
delicate fringes, and the geraniums blazed, and the heliotrope
languished, and the "Puritan pansies" lifted their sweet faces and
looked gravely about, as if reproving the other flowers for their
frivolity; while shy Mignonette, thinking herself well hidden behind her
green leaves, still made her presence known by the exquisite perfume
which all her gay sisters would have been glad to borrow.

Over all went the sunbeams, rollicking and playing; and through all went
Hildegarde, her heart filled with a new delight, feeling as if she had
never lived before. She talked to the flowers. She bent and kissed the
damask rose, which was too beautiful to pluck. She put her cheek against
a lily's satin-silver petals, and started when an angry bee flew out and
buzzed against her nose. But where were the currant-bushes? Ah! there
they were,--a row of stout green bushes, forming a hedge at the bottom
of the garden.

Hilda fell busily to work, filling her basket with the fine, ruddy
clusters. "How beautiful they are!" she thought, holding up a bunch so
that the sunlight shone through it. "And these pale, pinky golden ones,
which show all the delicate veins inside. Really, I _must_ eat this fat
bunch; they are like fairy grapes! The butler fay comes and picks a
cluster every evening, and carries it on a lily-leaf platter to the
queen as she sits supping on honey-cakes and dew under the damask
rose-bush."

While fingers and fancy were thus busily employed, Hilda was startled by
the sound of a voice which seemed to come from beyond the
currant-bushes, very near her. She stood quite still and listened.

"A-g, ag," said the voice; "g-l-o-m, glom,--agglom; e-r er,--agglomer;
a-t-e, ate,--agglomerate." There was a pause, and then it began again:
"A-g, ag; g-l-o-m, glom," etc.

Hilda's curiosity was now thoroughly aroused; and laying down her
basket, she cautiously parted the leaves and peeped through. She hardly
knew what she expected to see. What she did see was a boy about ten
years old, in a flannel shirt and a pair of ragged breeches, busily
weeding a row of carrots; for this was the vegetable garden, which lay
behind the currant-bushes. On one side of the boy was a huge heap of
weeds; on the other lay a tattered book, at which he glanced from time
to time, though without leaving his work. "A-n, an," he was now saying;
"t-i, ti,--anti; c-i-p, cip,--anticip; a-t-e, ate,--anti_cip_ate. 'To
expect.' Well! that _is_ a good un. Why can't they _say_ expect, 'stead
o' breakin' their jawsen with a word like that? Anti_cip_-ate! Well, I
swan! I hope he enjoyed eatin' it. Sh'd think 't'd ha giv' him the
dyspepsy, anyhow."

At this Hilda could contain herself no longer, but burst into a merry
peal of laughter; and as the boy started up with staring eyes and open
mouth, she pushed the bushes aside and came towards him. "I am sorry I
laughed," she said, not unkindly. "You said that so funnily, I couldn't
help it. You did not pronounce the word quite right, either. It is
an_ti_cipate, not antic_ip_-ate."

[Illustration: "SHE PUSHED THE BUSHES ASIDE AND CAME TOWARDS HIM"]

The boy looked half bewildered and half grateful. "An_ti_cipate!" he
repeated, slowly. "Thanky, miss! it's a onreasonable sort o' word,
'pears ter me." And he bent over his carrots again.

But Hilda did not return to her currant-picking. She was interested in
this freckled, tow-headed boy, wrestling with four-syllabled words while
he worked.

"Why do you study your lesson out here?" she asked, sitting down on a
convenient stump, and refreshing herself with another bunch of white
currants. "Couldn't you learn it better indoors?"

"Dunno!" replied the boy. "Ain't got no time ter stay indoors."

"You might learn it in the evening!" suggested Hilda.

"I can't keep awake evenin's," said the boy, simply. "Hev to be up at
four o'clock to let the cows out, an' I git sleepy, come night. An' I
like it here too," he added. "I can l'arn 'em easier, weedin'; take ten
weeds to a word."

"Ten weeds to a word?" repeated Hilda. "I don't understand you."

"Why," said the boy, looking up at her with wide-open blue eyes, "I take
a good stiff word (I like 'em stiff, like that an--an_ti_cipate feller),
and I says it over and over while I pull up ten weeds,--big weeds, o'
course, pusley and sich. I don't count chickweed. By the time the weeds
is up, I know the word, I've larned fifteen this spell!" and he glanced
proudly at his tattered spelling-book as he tugged away at a mammoth
root of pusley, which stretched its ugly, sprawling length of fleshy
arms on every side.

Hilda watched him for some moments, many new thoughts revolving in her
head. How many country boys were there who taught themselves in this
way? How many, among the clever girls at Mademoiselle Haut-ton's
school, had this sort of ambition to learn, of pride in learning? Had
she, the best scholar in her class, had it? She had always known her
lessons, because they were easy for her to learn, because she had a
quick eye and ear, and a good memory. She could not help learning,
Mademoiselle said. But this,--this was something different!

"What is your name?" she asked, with a new interest.

"Bubble Chirk," replied the freckled boy, with one eye on his book, and
the other measuring a tall spire of pigweed, towards which he stretched
his hand.

"WHAT!" cried Hilda, in amazement.

"Bubble Chirk!" said the boy. "Kin' o' curus name, ain't it? The hull of
it's Zerubbabel Chirk; but most folks ain't got time to say all that. It
trips you up, too, sort o'. Bubble's what they call me; 'nless it's
Bub."

The contrast between the boy's earnest and rather pathetic face, and
his absurdly volatile name, was almost too much for Hilda's gravity. But
she checked the laugh which rose to her lips, and asked: "Don't you go
to school at all, Bubble? It is a pity that you shouldn't, when you are
so fond of study."

"Gin'lly go for a spell in the winter," replied Bubble. "They ain't no
school in summer, y' know. Boys hes to work, round here. Mam ain't got
nobody but me 'n Pink, sence father died."

"Who is Pink?" asked Hilda, gently.

"My sister," replied Bubble. "Thet ain't _her_ real name, nuther. Mam
hed her christened Pinkrosia, along o' her bein' so fond o' roses, Mam
was; but we don't call her nothin' only Pink."

"Pink Chirk!" repeated Hilda to herself. "What a name! What can a girl
be like who is called Pink Chirk?"

But now Bubble seemed to think that it was his turn to ask questions. "I
reckon you're the gal that's come to stay at Mr. Hartley's?" he said in
an interrogative tone.

Hilda's brow darkened for a moment at the word "gal," which came with
innocent frankness from the lips of the ragged urchin before her. But
the next moment she remembered that it was only the old Hilda who cared
about such trifles; so she answered pleasantly enough:

"Yes, I am staying at Mr. Hartley's. I only came yesterday, but I am to
stay some time."

"And what mought _your_ name be?" inquired Master Chirk.

"Hildegardis Graham." It was gently said, in a very different voice from
that which had answered Farmer Hartley in the same words the night
before; but it made a startling impression on Bubble Chirk.

"Hildy--" he began; and then, giving it up, he said simply: "Well, I
swan! Do ye kerry all that round with ye all the time?"

Hilda laughed outright at this.

"Oh, no!" she said; "I am called Hilda generally."

"But you kin spell the hull of it?" asked the boy anxiously.

"Yes, certainly!" Bubble's eager look subsided into one of mingled awe
and admiration.

"Reckon ye must know a heap," he said, rather wistfully. "Wish't I did!"

Hilda looked at him for a moment without speaking. Her old self was
whispering to her. "Take care what you do!" it said. "This is a coarse,
common, dirty boy. He smells of the stable; his hair is full of hay; his
hands are beyond description. What have you in common with such a
creature? He has not even the sense to know that he is your inferior."
"I don't care!" said the new Hilda. "I know what mamma would do if she
were here, and I shall do it,--or try to do it, at least. Hold your
tongue, you supercilious minx!"

"Bubble," she said aloud, "would you like me to teach you a little,
while I am here? I think perhaps I could help you with your lessons."

The boy looked up with a sudden flash in his blue eyes, while his face
grew crimson with pleasure.

"Would I like it?" he cried eagerly. But the next moment the glow faded,
and he looked awkwardly down at his ragged book and still more ragged
clothes. "Guess I ain't no time to l'arn that way," he muttered in
confusion.

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