tli.: n Alice, that I can easily manage to mako
A. ice's «.'lil frocks over for her."'
1:20 HOME.
" Thank you, Betsey ; but I would rather
Alice should take hers. A person in a situa-
tion Emily will hold, should never be degraded
in the eyes of others, or her own, by any such
sign of dependence or inferiority. That is a
very poor kindness done to the body, which
results in injury to the mind."
Aunt Betsey was reduced to biting her nails,
and her sister proceeded. " Emily's schooling,
it is true, will be expensive. Pity it is, that it
is so, in a country, where, of all others, good
teaching should be cheap and easily attained ;
but it is not so, at least in this city. How-
ever, Mr. Barclay is quite willing to meet the
expense, whatever it may be."
" Oh, I dare say, — ' Education the best
investment of capital,' — you know he is always
harping on that ; but when you have precious
little to invest, it is worth while to consider.
That's all I have to say."
" We have considered, Betsey. Mr. Barclay,
whose noble nature it is, as you know, to
impart of his abundance to others, — freely to
give what he so freely receives, — says that
his business was never more productive than
at this moment. We cannot therefore go on
fretting over our losses. We shall continue
to live frugally, and to educate our girls and
Emily to earn their own living, should it be
A HOME FOK THE HOMELESS. 121
necessary. Harry's highest ambition for Emily
is, that she should be qualified for a teacher.
He will himself be a greal assistance to her."
"That he will. He is not like other boys,
— Harry is not."
"I shall endeavor," continued Mrs. Barclay,
"in my domestic school, to qualify Emily for
the offices of wife and mother. These in all
human probability she will till, — she may
never be a teacher. You will help us, Betsey,
and we will not give grudgingly. If her faults
trouble us, let us remember how sadly the poor
child has been neglected. All children, the
best of them, require patience."
" Patience ! — yes, the patience of Job."
" Emily may prove better and more agreea-
ble than we expect, and we may be thankful
to Providence for enabling us to take the
homeless young creatures into the family."
Aunt Betsey was softened by being put in
the light of a participator in the boon to Emily,
and, as she took up her lamp to go to bed, she
said in a tone of real kindness, — " I'll try to
do my part."
Ah, if all the individuals of the human family
would " do their part, " there would be no
wanderers, no outcasts. The chain of mutual
dependence would be preserved unbroken,
strong, and bright. All would be linked
122 HOME.
together in the bonds of natural affection and
Christian love, — the bonds of unity and
peace.
CHAPTER X.
A PEEP INTO THE HIVE.
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shilling hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.
Watts.
Many persons who act from generous
impulses, are soon checked and disheartened
in a course of benevolence, merely from not
having judiciously surveyed the ground before
them and estimated the necessary amount of
efforts, that is, counted the cost. Those who
are true disciples of that devoted friend of
man, whose whole life was a succession of
painful efforts and self-sacrifice, will not
become wearied with a duty because it de-
mands labor and self-denial. The Barclays
knew that two additional members of their
family must bring them additional anxiety
and toil ; and, when it came, they endured it
A PEEP INTO THE HIVE. 123
cheerfully, yes, thankfully, aa faithful servants,
who are zealous to perform well an extra task
for a kind master.
Emily Norton, daintily bred and petted from
her infancy, had the habits, though not the
vicious dispositions, that sometimes grow out
of indulgence. Her pride and little vanities
had taken but slight root in her heart, and
they were swept away by the storm that
passed over her father's house. But never was
a little fine lady more thoroughly helpless and
good for nothing than Emily, when she entered
the Barclay family; but, once in that hive,
where every little busy bee did its appointed
task, where labor was rendered cheerful by
participation, and light by regularity and
order, she gradually worked into the ways of
the household, and enjoyed, through the whole
of her after-life, the happy results of well-
directed effort. But this was not achieved
without much watchfulness and patience on the
part of her benefactress, much good-natured
forbearance on the part of the children, and
many a struggle and heart-ache on the part
of the poor child.
Many a scene resembling the following,
occurred after she entered the family.
" You have promised to be one of my chil-
dren, dear Emily," said Mrs. Barclay, at the
124 HOME.
close of a long conversation with her ; " I intend
to treat you precisely as I do them." She
then went through with the enumeration of
various household offices which she expected
Emily to perform, and concluded with saying,
"The girls take care of their apartment week
and week about. I hold any want of neatness
and order in a young lady's room to be an
abomination, and I never excuse it. This is
Alice's week ; the next Mary's ; the week after
will be yours. In the mean time, observe how
they manage, and when it comes your turn,
you will have learned their way. Remember,
dear, there is a right and a wrong way to do
every thing."
Emilv was sure, that, before her turn came,
she should know how to take care of the room
as well as the other girls ; but Emily was yet
to learn that " practice alone makes perfect."
Her week came. Alice entered her mother's
room, and shutting the door after her, and low-
ering her voice, « Do mother," she said, "let
Mary go and do our room, and let Emily come
and tend the baby ;- it's the only thing she
is fit for."
" She certainly does that better than either
you or Mary. She gives her undivided atten-
tion to it, while you and Mary must always be
doing something else."
A PEEP INTO THE HIVE. 125
"I know that, mother, but then " —
" Then what ? "
"Tending baby is a lazy sort of business
that just suits Emily."
''She is not lazy about it ; on the contrary
she is indefatigable in trying to please Eme
and Effie's mother."
" So she is, ma'am, I own ; and so I wish you
would keep her at it, and let us do what she
can't do, and we like best."
"That would he hardly just to either Emily
or you, as there is a great deal besides tending
baby that a woman ought to know how to do,
and tending baby every woman must know
how to do."
"Well, I suppose she must learn, but I don't
know when, nor how. To tell the truth,
mother, she is a real cry-baby. It is almost
school-time, ami she has not touched the bi
vet. They are just as we left them, this
morning, — the bed-clothes stripped off, the
pillows on the window-sill airing, and she sit-
ting down and crying. I cannot get one
word out of her."
"Perhaps she cannot turn over the mat-
tresses, Alice."
" Mother ! — those light mattresses ! "
"Light to you, my dear, but you must
remember that Emily probably never made
1-26 HOME.
a bed in her life, and that what is light to you,
is an Herculean task to her. Suppose, Alice,
you were to goto live in another family, and
were required to do something you had
never done."
"I should try, mother; I should not sit down
and cry." And so she would have done ; for
Alice, though by some months younger than
Emily, had been in the habit of using all her
faculties of mind and body. She was a Hebe
in health, and the very spirit of cheerfulness, so
that no task looked formidable in her eyes.
" Alice," said her mother, " if you were to
see a poor child whose hands had been tied
up from her birth, who by gross mismanage-
ment had been robbed of the energy of her
mind, and half the health and strength natural
to her, would not you be grieved for her, and
take pains to restore her to the use of her
faculties ? "
" To be sure I should, mother."
" Then go back to Emily. Do not ask her
what troubles her. She will be ashamed to
tell you, but offer to help her turn over the
mattresses, and assist her in whatever else
seems to come awkwardly to her. Help her
bear her burden at first, and after a while she
will be able to bear it all herself. Be delicate
and gentle with her. dear. Above all, do not
A PEEP IXTO THE HIVE. 127
laugh at her. Don't come to me again. Set-
tle the matter yourself. It is best I should
not interfere."
From the moment Alice felt that the re-
sponsibility of getting Emily on, rested on
herself, she felt at mice eager for success; and,
more good-natured than the god in the fable,
she hurried hack to put her shoulder to the
wheel."
"Emily, dear," she said kindly, -I don't
think you feel very well this morning."
"Yes, I do, Alice, perfectly well." replied
Emily, in a voice that sounded as if it came
from the tombs.
"Well, come then, Emily, you had better
make haste,— il is just eight, — come, jump
up, — I will give you a lift. These mattress
are too heavy for you, till you can get used to
,lu '"^ ;11 "1 ""'ii they will seem as light as :l
leather;" and, suiting the action to the word,
she threw over the mattresses, while Emily
crept languidly to the other side of the bed.
"Now let's heat it up, Emily, and then we
Will have the clothe^ on in an instant. There,
Smooth that sheet down, dear. .Mother makes
us as particular as old women about making
up the beds, — lay the pillow Btraight, Emv,-
plummet and line, yon know, — now, hem
over the sheet this fashion, — there, it is done!
and I defy a Shaker to make a bed better."
128 HOME.
Emily was inspired by Alice's cheerful kind-
ness, and, when they went to the other bed,
she begged Alice to let her try to do it alone.
She tried, as if she had a mountain to move,
but all in vain. Alice looked the other way to
hide her smiles.
" I can't possibly do it ! " said Emily, despair-'
ingly.
" Poor thing ! " thought Alice, " her hands,
as mother says, have indeed been tied ; but
we'll contrive to loosen them/' "Take hold
here, Emily," she said ; " not with just the
little tips of your fingers, but so, — with your
whole hand, — there it goes! — Oh, you'll
soon learn."
" Do you really think I ever shall, Alice ? "
"Ever! Yes, indeed, very soon. I will
show you a little every day and you will
edge on by degrees. The world was not
made in a day, you know, as Aunt Betsey
says."
"But the sweeping, Alice? Do not, pray,
tell anybody, but I never swept a room in
my life."
A girl of her own age who did not know how
to sweep a room, seemed to Alice an object of
equal wonder and commiseration. She, how-
ever, suppressed the exclamation that rose to
her lips, and merely said, " Well, that is not
A TEEr I.VTii THE HIVE. 1'29
your fault, Emily ; take the broom and I will
show you."
Emily took it. " Oh not so, Emily, — no, not
so; — just sec me." Again Emily began, and
looked so anxious and worked so desperately
hard, that Alice could scarcely forbear laughing
outright. She did, however, and very kindly
and patiently continued to instruct Emily, till
the mighty task was finished.
" Oh! you will learn after a while,"' she said,
as poor Emily set down the broom and sunk
into a chair, out of breath and looking at her
reddened palms. "I will teach you to sweep,
and you shall teach me to dance, Emily."'
"Oh! you are very, very kind, Alice. I am
sure I think it is worth a great deal more to
know how to sweep than how to dance."
"And so do I," said Alice; "and yet we
take a great deal of pains for the one, and the
Other we learn, we don't know how."
Alice spoke truly. We learn, ice don't know
hoic, the arts of domestic life, — the manual of
a woman's household duties.
Some among Mrs. Barclay's friends won-
dered she did not "get more out of Martha,"
and they never could exhaust their astonish-
ment at what they called her inconsistency
(a very convenient, indefinite word) in giving
her girls accomplishments, strictly so called,
9
130 HOME.
and putting them to the humblest domestic
employments. The Barclays neither saw, nor
had they ever occasion to feel, this incompati-
bility. They believed that there was no way
so certain of giving their boys habits of order,
regularity, and neatness, and of inspiring them
with a grateful consideration for that sex whose*
lot it is to be the domestic ministers of boy
and man, as the being early accustomed to
receive household services from their mother
and sisters, — from those they respected and
loved. They believed, too, that their girls,
destined to play the parts of wives and moth-
ers, in a country where it is difficult and some-
times impossible to obtain servants, would be
made most independent and consequently most
happy, by having their getting along faculties
developed by use. These little operatives, by
light labors which encroached neither upon
their hours of study nor social pleasure, became
industrious, efficient, and orderly, and were
trained to be the dispensers of comfort in that
true and best sphere of woman, home. Equal,
too, would they be to either fortune : if mis-
tresses, capable, just, and considerate, towards
those who served them ; and if, perchance,
obliged to perform their own domestic labor,
their practical acquaintance with the 2>i'ocess
would make it light and cheerful.
A PEEP INTO THE HIVE. 131
Never, we believe, was there a oleasanter
domestic scene, than the home of the Barclays;
— Martha, the queen-bee, in her kitchen, as
clean as any parlor, or as (to use the superla-
tive degree of comparison) the kitchen of the
pale, joyless Shakers ; her little handmaids in
her school of mutual aid ami instruction, with
their sleeves rolled up from their fat, lair
arms, their curls tucked under their caps, and
their gingham aprons, learning the mysteries of
cake and pastry manufacture, pickling, preserv-
ing, and other coarser arts; while another little
maiden, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks
Hushed with exercise, might he heard plying
her broom ''upstairs and downstairs and
in the lady's chamber," and warbling songs
that might soothe the savage breast, for they
breathed the very soul of health and cheerful-
ness.
Nor were they in the least disqualified by
these household duties for more refined employ-
ments ; and when they assembled in the even-
ing, with their pretty work-boxes and fancy-
work, their hooks and drawing, they formed a
group to grace any drawing-room in the land.
Their Labors and their pleasures were transi-
tory, hut the vivifying spirit of love and intelli-
gence that informed them was abiding, and
was carrying them on to higher and higher
132
HOMB.
stages of improvement, and preparing them
for that period to which their efforts and
hopes pointed, when the terrestrial shall put
on the celestial.
CHAPTER XI.
GOING HOME TO GREENBROOK.
And yet, ere I descend to the grave,
May I a small bouse and large garden have,
And a few friends and many books, both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too.
Cowley.
The race, we well know, is not always to the
swift, nor the battle always to the strong ; and
the Barclays, like others, were sometimes
thwarted in their plans and disappointed in
their expectations. There were early indica-
tions in their eldest son of a fragile constitu-
tion, attended by the consequent preference
of mental to corporeal labor. He had a fond-
ness almost amounting to a passion for books,
and his father, who sympathized in his tastes,
and did not at first perceive the alarming-
influence of their gratification on his health,
encouraged them. " Charles's destiny is cer-
GOING HOME TO GEEEXBROOK. 133
tainly for one of the Learned professions," he
thought, and accordingly he stimulated him in
the pursuits that would qualify him for them.
But when, from thirteen to fifteen, he found
that he was losing the little vigor he possessed,
instead of gaining any, — that his eye was get-
ting the sunken, and his cheek the pale and
hollow appearance, that is so generally the
effect of sedentary life in our country (why,
the physiologist must explain), — he resolved
to change his pursuits; and he persuaded
Charles ( Charles was the most persuadable <>f
mortals) to abandon his hook- and go and
work on the farm at Greenbrook. u l had
rather, my dear boy," he said, "see you a com-
mon healthful Laborer in the country, than
such a miserable dyspeptic as are half our
lawyers, doctors, and ministers ; when Life is a
burden to the possessor, it is not apt to be very
profitable to anybody else."
So Charles henceforth passed nine months
of every year with the skilful cultivator to
whom Mr. Barclay rented his farm. At first
this seemed very much like exile to the poor
fellow; hut his character was too flexible and
too well-regulated, not to adapt itself to cir-
cumstances, and, instead of repining over
defeated hopes, he set himself to work to see
and increase the good of his new occupations.
134: HOME.
He found there was no occasion for his intel-
lect to sleep on a farm, but that mother Earth
had studies enough in her laboratory to employ
all the faculties of her children; that there
was a world of knowledge for the curious stu-
dent of nature in the difference of soils, in the
effect of temperatures, the nature of plants,
the composition and application of manures,
and the habitudes of animals. He felt an
interest that never abated, in the improvement
of the farm, and in beautifying it for the resi-
dence of the family. It was certainly to be
their home at some future day; and in the
mean time the mother and children came there
to pass three months of every year, and
always found some new charm, some new
manifestation of Charles's taste, and affection
for his family. The slope between the house
and the river, with its natural terraces, was
spread out to the morning sun, and Charles
thought it was treason against nature not to
improve it according to her suggestion. So
the green turf gave place to a well spaded gar-
den, where from year to year were planted
shrubs, vines, and fruit-trees. The strawberry
beds were doiibled, because strawberries were
"mother's favorite fruit." Unwearied pains
were taken to bring on the greengages for
father. A woody, scrawny lilao was permitted
GOING HOME TO GREEXBROOK. L35
Ikj. remain, because grandmamma lia<l said, " It
looked so natural that she loved to see it."
But, above all, an especial blessing seemed to
fall on Emily's favorite plants and flowers;
whatever she like- 1 sprung up like the roses
under the feet of the fairy's favorite, and grew
and luxuriated as if the sunbeams and the
dews of heaven were given to favoritism.
The garden was overrun with violets of every
species, and honeysuckles and white r08esgrew
like weeds about the old porch, mounted over
and even peeped into Emily's window, and ran
round the pretty well-curb which Charles
built over the old well, where "the old oaken
bucket, the moss-covered bucket," of his grand-
father's time, newly hooped, still swung.
There is a magic that can direct and double
the secret powers of nature ; andEmily Nor-
ton, bright, sweet-tempered, and lovely, mighl
call this magic into operation. The three sum-
mer months she passed at Green brook; the
three winter months Charles was in New
York; thus their intercourse was scarcely in-
terrupted, and, for aught any one observed,
it retained, from year to year, its frank, con-
fiding, and fraternal character.
But Charles did not limit his interest to the
family in New York. lie was a prodigious
favorite with the inhabitants of Creenbrook.
136 HOME.
The old people liked his " serious turn," and
prophesied that he would make his grand-
father's (the minister's) place good. The con-
temporaries of his parents pronounced him,
some of them, "just like his father," and others
"just like his mother," "but not quite equal to
either." Every social pleasure was imperfect
to the young, if Charles was not with them ;
and even the poor laborers, black and white,
said their work seemed light when Charles
worked with them. Does the question of the
transmission of the virtues belong to physi-
ology, or to philosophy and religion ?
We have now come to an important era
in the history of the Barclays ! Eight years,
busy, fruitful years, have glided away, — their
fortunes are repaired, — a partnership in the
printing establishment is formed between
Harry Norton and Wallace, and the family
are now actually realizing their long-cherished
hopes, and removing to Greenbrook. The old
parsonage, which had been built when there
was a " glut " of timber and a scarcity of every
thing else, had still a firm foundation and
sound rafters, and by dint of knocking away
the old porch (without detriment, let it be
observed, to Emily's favorites), making a little
addition here, and a little alteration there, it
looked like a most comfortable dwelling to the
GOING HOME TO GREENBROOK. 137
passing stranger, and to Mr. Barclay, like an
old friend in new apparel.
The Americans are sometimes reproached
with being deficient in that love for the home
of childhood, which is so general a feature of
the human race, that it was supposed to be
universal, till an exception was made to our
discredit. If this be so (we believe it is not,
at least in New England, for which, alone,
Ave can answer), it should be remembered, in
palliation of the unnatural sin, that our homes
are comparatively recent, not consecrated by
the memories of centuries, and that the Yankee
boy, from the earliest period of forecast, dreams
of seeking his fortune in the richer soil and
kinder climate which his far-spread country
provides for him. lie goes, but his heart lin-
gers at the homestead. Many a yeoman who
has felled the trees of the western forest have
we heard confess, that through weary months
he pined with that bitterest of all maladies,
home-sickness; and that, even after years had
passed, no day went by, that his thoughts did
not return to his father's house, nor night that
did not restore him to the oI<7 place. And
when age and hardship have furrowed his
cheek, and grayed and thinned his hair, and
bent his sturdy frame, he may be seen travel-
ling hundreds and hundreds of miles to revisit
138
HOME.
" the old place" — to linger about the haunts
of his childhood, and live over, for a few briel
<lays, the sunny hours of youth. Then (as we
have heard him) he says "I have a richei
farm at the West, than any in New England,
— it is a wonderful growing country — my
house is bigger than Colonel R— -'s or
Doctor P V (the palaces of his native
village), « but, dear me ! it has not the pleas-
ant look of the old place."
And if it be true that our hearts are dead to
this love of " our own, our native land," why
is it that so many, with the fire of enterprise
burning in their young bosoms, and the West
with mines of gold in its unbroken soil allur-
ing them, still linger about the old place,—
still patiently plough our stony hills, and sub-
due our cold morasses? No, God has not
denied, to any of his creatures, from the time
that the exiles of Judaea hung their harps on
the willows of a strange land, to the present
moment, that strong love of birthplace which
tempers, to the native, the fierce winds of the
north, and the fiercer heats of the Equator,—
which equalizes every soil, and gives that inimi-
table, that " pleasant look " to the old place.
A few evenings after the family were qui,
etly established at the old place, and in a soft,
fragrant June evening, they assembled on the
GOING nOME TO GREEXBROOK. 139
piazza, just as the moon was rising above the
hazy line of mountain that bounded the eastern
horizon, and sending a flood of softened radi-
ance through the valley. "Oh," exclaimed
Effie, "how much bigger the moon looks, than
it does in New York ! H
"That's because" — said William, eager
to impart a little science which he had just
acquired.
"Pshaw, Willie! I don't always want to
know the cause; everything here is bigger,
and brighter, and pleasanter, and sweeter
than in New York, because it is, and that is
enough."
William appealed to his father, whether it
were not best always to find out the reason of
the thing.
"Certainly, my dear boy, if you can ; unless
like Effie-, and Effie's father at this moment,