Chapter 9 REBELLION.

But the poor, perhaps fortunately, have little time for mourning. As the first hint of the long winter came in on the September's equinox, poor Sara had to rouse herself, and she began to look about her with despairing eyes. Friends, so far, had been most kind, and the little family had never actually suffered; but now that the few summer resources for picking up an occasional dollar were ended, what had they to look forward to in the long months to come?

Reuben Olmstead had owned the poor little cottage in which they lived, so a roof over their heads might be counted on, but not much besides; for his share in the last fishing-expedition, promptly paid over by Jasper, had soon been swallowed up by the family's needs, so greatly reduced had they become before it arrived.

Sara was not, perhaps, a good financier,-few girls of barely eighteen are,-but she had done her best, and her feeling had often been that of a mother-bird, wearied by a long day's search for worms, who always finds the mouths stretched wide as ever, clamoring for more. The task of filling those mouths seemed a hopeless one.

"What can I do?" she thought, as she sat huddled over the tiny fire one day, waiting for the children to come home from school. "The flour is all gone, and the potatoes nearly, and so little wood!"

She shivered, then turned to see if the sleeping baby were well covered, and resumed her dreary musing.

"I don't wonder our people almost welcome a wreck when they are so poor. Of course it's wicked; but if there must be storms, and ships have got to go to pieces-God forgive me! I believe I was almost wishing for one, myself! If there were only something I could do; but what can I? Here are the children; they must be cared for, and the baby above all,-what can one do when there's a baby to look after? I suppose some would say, ask her people to take him; but who is there? Her mother is dead, and her father a deaf old man who can't live long; she had no sisters, and her brothers are sailors who are off all the time. There's only her cousin 'Liza, and I couldn't give the poor little fellow up to that hard, coarse woman; besides, I promised her and I promised father to care for him myself. If I could go out into the world, it seems as if I might find a place; I am strong and young, and not afraid to work, but here there is no opportunity."

Then, after a long, silent gaze into the fire,-

"God certainly knows all about it; he could help me if he would; I wonder why he doesn't? Does he treat us as I sometimes do baby-corner us all up till there's only one way to go, and so make us walk straight? But to walk straight now looks as if it led to starvation."

Her head drooped lower, and her thoughts grew too roving and uncontrolled for connected expression; in fact, her brooding had become almost actual dreaming, when the door swung back with a bang, and the two children rushed in, Molly screaming with laughter and resistance as she fled before Morton, who was close at her heels.

"Sara! Sara! make him stop! I"-

She was stopped herself by a sudden crash, and all three stood in blank affright and astonishment as the oval, gilt-framed mirror, which hung between the front windows, fell to the floor in the midst of them, and shivered into a dozen pieces. It had been one of the proud possessions of their own mother when she came to the house as a bride, and was the principal ornament of their humble living-room, as all swiftly remembered; and besides, there was that gloomy superstition which had been instilled into them since infancy,-a broken mirror meant death and disaster.

Even Sara was not proof against this. In fact, there are scarcely any of us, no matter how good and wise we may be, who do not have some such pet remnant of barbarism clinging to our souls; and Sara now stood, pale and aghast as the others, looking at that fateful, shattered glass! The baby, thus rudely awakened, set up a lively scream, which broke the spell of awed silence that seemed to have held them all until now. Molly, with a flounce of resignation, cried out,-

"Well, it's more trouble, of course, but we're getting used to it fast!"

Sara said, rather sharply,-

"Go get the baby, Molly, and be quiet, if you can; and, Morton, help me gather up the bits." While Morton, who was already down on the floor, remarked in his slow, thoughtful way,-

"I don't see what we've done, Sara, to have things keep happening so dreadful, do you?"

Sara did not know. Just then the usual sweetness of her nature seemed turning to gall. If she could have put her thoughts into words, she would have said it seemed as if some awful Thing, instead of the God of love, sat up aloft mocking at her wretchedness; and she felt for the instant, as she crossed the floor after the old broom, an impotent rage, almost scorn, of this mighty power which could stoop to deal such malignant blows against a helpless girl.

It was but a moment,-one of those fierce, instantaneous rebellions of the natural heart, which overcome us all at times of utter wretchedness,-then, just as she laid hands on the broom, there came a cry, a choked, wondering cry from Morton,-"Sara! O Sara!"

She turned; what now?

The boy, in removing the larger fragments of the glass from the boards at the back of the frame, had come across something slipped in between, and now held it up with shaking hands and shining eyes. It was a neat pile of greenbacks, laid out straight and trim, with a paper band pinned around them. Sara looked, comprehended, and felt like falling on her knees in repentant gratitude!

But, instead, she sprang towards him, and caught the package from his hands. Twice she counted it; could it be possible? Here were three hundred dollars; a sum that seemed like a fortune to the girl.

Three hundred dollars between them and suffering; and the Thing up aloft became instantly a Friend, a Father, and a God!

Molly, attempting a pirouette with the baby, now stumbled amid the debris, and for an instant distracted Sara's attention, as she sprang to steady her, and catch the imperilled little one from her irresponsible arms, and Morton remarked hesitantly,-

"Say, Sara, I guess I wasn't feeling just right about things, and I declare this makes me sort of ashamed!"

"Ashamed? Pshaw! Well, it doesn't me!" cried Molly, dancing about. "Now

I can have a new dress, and some shoes-

"'Way hay, storm along, John,

Old Stormy, he'"-

"Molly! Molly! How often must I tell you not to sing those coarse sailor songs? Now, do sit down, before you cut your feet on this glass. Morton, you see poor mother did divide that money, after all. I presume she left out just a few dollars for every-day expenses, which was what baby threw in the fire, but this must be the bulk of the money that father brought from Squire Scrantoun's."

"Yes," said Morton, still with solemn emphasis; "and perhaps, Sara, broken looking-glasses don't always mean that somebody's going to die; if they did, this would have broken last summer, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know just what to think, Morton," squeezing the baby for very joy, while this great gladness made her eyes brilliant, "only I guess we aren't forgotten, after all! I want to remember that always now, no matter how sorrowful we may be; will you help me, Morton?"

"If I don't forget myself," said her brother; "it's kinder hard to feel good when everything goes contrary, but I'll try;" and as he spoke, she saw him select a sliver of the broken glass, and, wrapping it in a bit of paper, lay it away in a drawer where he was allowed to keep his few treasures.

"Why, what's that for, Morton?" she asked curiously.

He flushed a little, then said very low,-

"It's to make us remember," and she felt that the whole circumstance must have made a deep impression on the boy.

Not so Molly. She mourned the glass because now she had no better place before which to arrange her curls than in one of the larger pieces left, which, being cracked, gave her such a resemblance to a certain old fisherman with a broken nose, who was her special aversion, that she hated to look at herself, which was, possibly, not a bad thing, for she was in danger of growing vain of her pretty, piquant face these days.

But for a long time Sara went about the humble home with a humbler heart. She felt that she had been a traitor to her Kingly Father, and took the pretty little white cross madame had sent her and pinned it up, face inwards, against the wall.

"I am not worthy to wear it," she said, "until I have done something to atone for my rebellion."

But the winter passed quietly away; and, if no opportunity offered for any great deed of atonement, there were always the little worries of every day to be patiently borne, not the least of which was a sort of nagging spirit which had gone abroad among the old neighbors and friends of the Olmstead family. Possibly they were a trifle jealous of Sara's looks and bearing; it may be those who had predicted failure for her, "because them as keeps so stiddy to books ain't apt to hev much sense at things what caounts," were disappointed that she succeeded so well, or,-let us be charitable,-perhaps they thought the children all needed a little maternal scolding on general principles; anyhow, whatever they thought, there was something unpleasant in the air.

Sara felt it keenly, and drew still farther into her shell of reticence, keeping closely to her studies and home duties, until the neighbors had some excuse for their plaints that "she didn't care for nothin' nor nobody but them pesky books!"

One day Mrs. Updyke came in, sniffing as usual, and casting a hasty glance about the room with her cold, restless eyes.

"How d'ye do, Sairay?" she remarked, loosening her shawl. "I thort as how ye mought be lonesome, so I come over an' brung my knittin' a while; you got some on hand tew, I s'pose?"

"Well, not knitting, but I've sewing," said Sara, trying to feel hospitable, and wondering what Mrs. Updyke would think if she should confess that she scarcely knew the meaning of that word "lonesome." "Let me take your hood and shawl, won't you?"

"Waal, while I set; is the babby's well as usual?" with a keen glance at the little fellow, who was happily dragging a pasteboard cart on spool wheels about the floor.

"Very well, thank you; and grows so fast! He walks nicely now, and can say 'Monnie,' and 'Mawta,' and 'Wawa,'-that's me,-besides several other words."

"H'm; got any flannils onto him?" "Oh, yes; I made some out of father's old ones," with a sigh at the beloved name.

"Ye did, hey? Hope they fit som'ers near."

She now critically examined the room once more; but as it was far neater than her own, she could not reasonably find any fault there, so started on a new tack.

"How old's Morton?"

"Twelve next summer."

"Gittin' to be a big boy, ain't he?"

"Yes, and such a good one! He is a great help to me."

"Waal, he orter be; some boys o' twelve airns their own livin', don't ye know?"

"Yes; and Morton can do something when it comes warmer, but he needs more schooling yet, though, indeed, he often does odd jobs on a Saturday that bring in a little. He's an industrious boy, and I want him to have a good education."

"Waal, as to thet, some folks thinks too much o' book-larnin', I say! Your fayther didn't hev much o' it to boast on, an' see what a good pervider he was. Books is well enough, but sense is better, an' forehandedness is best o' all."

As she talked, her needles clicked sharply amid the clouded blue yarn of her half-formed sock, and her eyes, almost as sharp, kept roving about, while the uneasy nose seemed determined to root out anything that might escape them. Just then Molly came in breezily, her curls flying, and her cheeks a bright pink, and, seeing the visitor, managed, all in one instant, to give Sara a lightning glimpse of a most disgusted little visage, even while she turned with a dimpling smile to say,-

"Why, Mrs. Updyke, is it you? Then that must be why Zeba Osterhaus and Betty Pulcher were crossing the street in front of your house; I guess they couldn't get in."

"Crossin' the street-where? Jest below?" beginning to wind up her yarn hurriedly. "Hed they railly been to my haouse?"

"Well, I'm not sure, but I think so; I didn't ask 'em where they'd been."

"And be they to thet little stuck-up Mis' Gurney's naow?"

"They went in there-yes."

"H'm. Jest bring my shawl, Sairay. Come to think on't, I've got an arrant there myself this arternoon-come nigh to disremembering it. Waal, good-day; why don't ye come over ever? When ye want advice, or anythin', I'm allers there," and the woman ambled swiftly away, having quite forgotten the lecture she had prepared for the "shiftless, bookish gal" she was leaving, and only intent on learning what Zeba and Betty could want with her opposite neighbor.

Molly dropped into a chair, and laughed merrily.

"Didn't I get rid of her slick, though? Say, Sara, what does she make you think of?"

"Hush, Molly, she's a good soul, and means well."

"So's a cow, but you don't want her trampling all over your garden! I'll tell you what she's like-an old rabbit in a cap. She keeps her nose going just the same, and her ears are even longer."

"Molly! Molly!"

"Well, it's so, and you can't deny it. Do you know, Sara, she stopped Morton and me this morning, when we were going to school, and told him it was a shame for him to 'set araound, a-livin' on his sister, and he ought to get a berth in one of the fishing-smacks, and would if he had any grit to him.' It made Mort as blue as anything, and he's gone down to Uncle Jabez Wanamead's now, to see about shipping."

"Molly, are you sure?" springing up in excitement. "I won't have it. He's too young, and hasn't had half schooling enough; and, Molly, are you certain he went there?"

Molly nodded, quite enjoying this excitement in her usually placid sister.

"Then I must go after him, and leave you to tend Neddie. Oh, why can't people mind their own affairs?"

Poor Sara, trembling all over, started hastily towards the wardrobe for her outer wraps, when a stamping outside the door arrested her, and in a moment the boy entered, knocking the last bit of snow from his boots as he did so.

Sara's eyes, bent upon him, discovered something in his expression which made her cry out,-"Morton, what have you been doing?"

"Doing? Why"-

"Tell me the truth!" she commanded, almost fiercely.

He turned upon Molly with sudden anger.

"Have you been tattling? I'll bet you have!"

"No, but I told Sara; you didn't tell me not to."

"Lots of good 'twould have done, if I had! You never kept a thing in your life-never!"

"Did, too, Morton Olmstead!" her pout melting swiftly into a mischievous smile.

"Well, what, I'd like to know?"

"My shell chain-so there! You've tried and tried to get it away, and you never could!" at which comforting remembrance she broke into a laugh, which was so infectious even Morton had to smile.

But he turned from her with a disdainful gesture, only to meet Sara's anxious, questioning eyes.

"Well, I've shipped," he answered doggedly, "that's what!"

"Morton!" With the word all the strength seemed to go out of her, and she dropped weakly into a chair.

"Who with?" she asked sternly, for once forgetting even grammatical rules in her intense dismay.

"With Uncle Jabez Wanamead; he's going out in a week or two, and needs a boy."

"Morton, you can't go!" a determined look settling over her white face. "It's a rough, dreadful life! Old Jabez drinks like a fish, and you'll have to mix his grog a dozen times a day; then you'll have all the dirty work to do, day and night, and be sent aloft where a cat couldn't cling, with the boat pitching like a sturgeon, and, as likely as not, be thrown to the deck with a broken arm, if you're not killed outright. And when all's said and done, you'll never be anything-_any_thing but a fisherman!"

"What else was pa?" stoutly. "Anybody'd think you was ashamed of him!"

She hesitated for a moment, and in her excitement began pacing the room, her face working with contending emotions, while the children sat still and watched her, awed into silence. At length she stopped before them, and seated herself in the chair which had always been that father's when at home, and said, in a voice so sweet and sad that it thrilled even Molly's careless little soul,-

"No, Morton, never, never ashamed of our father! Instead, I love and revere him, for he was a true, good man,-'one of nature's noblemen,' as Miss Prue once said,-but, listen, Morton! It wasn't because he was a fisherman, but in spite of it; for, though it is a life that makes men brave, sturdy, fearless, and honest, it makes them also rough, profane, and careless in life and death; in fact, it develops their bodies, but not their minds or souls.

"And, O Morton, I so want you to be all that father was, and something more. I want you to be educated and refined. That Mr. Glendenning was as brave as the best of our fishermen, and dared face any storm, but how kind he was, and gentle! How respectful to poor Zeba, how thoughtful for his aunt and uncle, and what a gentleman in every way! Morton, I want you to be a gentleman too."

"He can't, Sara," put in Molly, her eyes big and round, "he's too poor; a man's got to have at least a hundred dollars to be a gentleman, and Morton hasn't but three cents."

Sara smiled, and the boy looked slowly from one to the other in a ruminating way.

"But everybody's twitting me with being a lazy good-for-nothing, Sara, and I can't stand it! Besides, I told Uncle Jabe I'd go, and now I've got to."

"You can't; I forbid it!" her eyes flashing. "Go at once and tell him that it is not to be thought of."

It was an unwise speech, as Sara instantly felt; for Morton, though he could be coaxed into almost anything, was worse than a mule when driven. Now the dogged look she was learning to dread settled over his face, and he squared his shoulders sturdily.

"Well, I guess you'll find I can, Sara Olmstead, and it will take somebody older and bigger'n you to stop me, too! So 'forbid' till you're tired, if you like; I've given my word, and I'm going-that's settled!"

The poor girl's heart sank like lead, and she could have bitten her unruly tongue out for those foolish words. She knew only too well that Morton would have the support of nearly all their friends in Killamet, who could see no reason why he should not follow his father's calling, and begin, like him, at the bottom of the ladder, as "the boy."

Though they knew the hardness of the life, they reasoned that it "helped toughen a youngster, and make a man of him." To them, Sara's ideas were foolish and high-flown, their notion of a "gentleman" being too often associated with city "lubbers" who came down to spy out the land-and sea-in their ridiculous knickerbockers and helmets, and who did not know a jib from a spanker, or had any idea when a sailor spoke of the "hull" of his vessel, that he referred to anything but the sum of its component parts! Gentlemen, as a class, were not held in high esteem at Killamet. Even Captain Norris laughed at fine manners, and would doubtless say,-

"Oh, give the boy a chance to try his sea-legs, if he wants to-a little toughening won't hurt him."

No one but Miss Prue would thoroughly sympathize with, and stand by her, and what were she and Miss Prue against so many?

They ate their supper in a glowering silence, unusual in that cottage, even Molly for once being oppressed by the gloomy faces about her; then, still in silence, she washed the few dishes, while Sara undressed the baby; Morton, meanwhile, taking up a school-book, in which he sat apparently absorbed, until his twin, happening to pass behind him, stopped, and, with a flip of her dish-towel, cried out,-

"Why-y, Mort Olmstead, you're studying your g'oggerfy upside down!"

He gave her a scowl, but his face flushed sensitively, as he quickly reversed the book, and Sara, turning a little from the fire, where she was cuddling the baby, met his eyes with so loving and tender a look that he could scarcely bear it. Something rose in his throat, threatened to rise in his eyes too, and feeling that his only safety lay in flight, he muttered that he had an errand down town, caught up his hat and worsted tippet, and ran out of the door, nearly knocking some one over who stood upon the step. "Well, I like being welcomed with open arms," laughed a manly voice outside; "but there is such a thing as too hearty a greeting, eh, Morton?" and the boy, too dazed to speak, re-entered the room, followed by Mr. Robert Glendenning.