XXV
THE SUMMER’S HARVEST
“Well, Brenda,” said Julia, when they had walked a short distance from the house. “How do you enjoy being a detective?”
“Well, I did n’t detect so very much, did I? But really I feel relieved that that pleasant Portuguese of ours is n’t Miguel Silva. If it had n’t been for Mrs. Moriarty, I should hardly have been able to believe the story about the twins. Why, it’s one of the strangest things that I ever knew.”
By this time the situation had been explained to Amy, who hitherto had not fully understood it.
“There’s one thing,” she said. “It may some time be possible for Luis Silva to recover part of that money from his brother, and return it to Mrs. Rosa.”
“Why, yes,” responded Brenda, “I ’ll get papa to talk to him about it. Poor Mrs. Silva! About the only good that I have ever done with my camera was to take those pictures of her little boy. It’s strange that she never had any taken herself. I’ve promised to send her half a dozen more. Well, now that I have Derby Street off my mind, what are we to see next?”
“Why, Hawthorne’s birthplace, I suppose,” replied Amy. “It is not very far from here, and the house of the seven gables, if you feel like walking to it.”
“We can call this a Hawthorne trip,” said Julia, as they looked at the plain wooden house where the great romancer was born, and compared notes about the various works of his that they liked best.
They walked down to the old Charter Street Burying-Ground (expressly at Julia’s request) and read the inscriptions on the old graves, and gazed at the large square house adjoining the graveyard, which is the model for the old house in “Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret.”
Finally, at Miss South’s suggestion, for she saw that they were all growing tired, they engaged a carriage, and in the hour and a half of their drive around the old town, there was little worth seeing that they left unseen.
They saw the site of the old prison where those accused of witchcraft had been held, they went into the Court House, and gazed at Bridget Bishop’s death warrant, and they wondered that even two hundred years ago so strange a delusion could have flourished in a Christian country.
“But Salem and the Puritans must n’t take the whole blame,” explained Miss South. “The New England delusion was only a faint echo of a belief in witchcraft that had persisted for a good while in various European countries. Only nineteen were hanged at Salem, yet, dreadful as it seems that any should have been victims of such a delusion, these nineteen are but a small number compared with the hundreds who, about the same time, suffered death for the same charges in other countries.”
“It’s rather strange, though, is n’t it, that the Salem shops should be filled with all kinds of witch souvenirs,” said Julia, pointing to one window in which were several pieces of china and silver bric-à-brac, all representing a witch and broomstick.
“It certainly is twitting on facts,” replied Miss South.
“We are now going to see a house that is n’t exactly what it claims to be,” said Amy. “It’s called the Roger Williams House, although Roger Williams probably never lived there, and it is also spoken of as ‘the witch house,’ although no witches were ever seen there.”
“Then why the name?”
“Well, during the witchcraft trials, one of the judges, named Curwen, resided there.”
“It’s a pity to have it turned into a shop.” Julia would have liked to see all old houses preserved in their original condition.
“Oh, no,” cried Brenda, “it’s just the place to get souvenirs; I’m going in,” and as the others followed her up the narrow stairs into the low-studded room, they decided that the old building seemed ancient enough to bear out its claim to being the oldest house in Salem.
Before they drove to the railroad station, Amy asked the driver to take them through Chestnut Street, where Julia lost her heart to the elegant, stately mansions that seemed to speak of the leisurely lives of those who dwell in them to-day.
“Even to-day,” she said, “Salem is a little out of the current of the ordinary work-a-day world. I might not like to live here always, but I believe that I should enjoy a year or two in Chestnut Street. Would n’t you, Brenda?”
“Not I,” replied her pretty cousin, shaking her head. “While I’m in the world, I want to be in a place that’s alive. Why, even the electric cars seem out of place in Salem, and if I lived here, I should never dare speak above my breath.”
“I wish that you were coming to Rockley with us,” said Julia to Miss South as they parted at the station. “Amy is to spend the night with us, and it would be delightful, if you could.”
“But I cannot,” and Miss South shook her head. “My grandmother, I fear, will think that I have been away too long as it is. But I shall hope to see you soon.”
It happened, however, that several weeks passed before Miss South saw the girls from Rockley again. In fact, it was not until some time after they had all returned to town. For a sudden change in the weather sent Madame DuLaunay back to the city a day or two after the excursion to Salem, and Miss South had time only to write her good-bye.
Mr. Barlow was highly amused with Brenda’s vivid account of her visit to Mrs. Silva.
“It’s a pity that you had n’t a pair of handcuffs with you, as long as you turned private detective. If you had n’t had so large an escort, I should have been greatly displeased with you for prowling about in a neighborhood where you were not acquainted.”
“Well, I was rather glad when Mrs. Moriarty appeared. She seemed quite like an old friend. I don’t think that I could have believed Mrs. Silva, except for her.”
“But you had seen her only once before. How could you know that she was telling the truth?”
“Oh, you’d know at once if you should see her, you’d be sure that she was perfectly truthful. Besides, she was once the Pounders’ laundress, and—”
“Well, does that give her a moral certificate?”
“Oh, well, Frances herself admitted that she was a very good woman,—for one of that class—she said. She had to admit that, for Nora did n’t like her finding fault with us for having made Mrs. Moriarty’s acquaintance on the way to Nahant.”
As a result of the Salem visit, Luis Silva called one Sunday at Mr. Barlow’s, and although he would not accept any direct reward for what he had done to save Brenda from a bicycle accident, he did permit Mr. Barlow to give him some legal advice in the matter of a lawsuit that was pending between him and one of his countrymen, and he assured Mr. Barlow that this was worth much more to him than any money.
September, with its shorter days, passed along rather quickly. The reading class went on with more vigor than in the early part of the summer, and for the first time in her life Brenda found herself taking an interest in books for some reason besides their mere power of entertaining her.
Thus she became interested in Madame D’Arblay’s Diary, by having first heard Julia read aloud Macaulay’s essay on this attractive woman. To be sure, she only dipped into the diary, reading the description of the visit which Madame D’Arblay and her little boy paid to Queen Charlotte, as well as some of the earlier chapters,—notably where Miss Burney, when lady-in-waiting to the Queen, had so fine an opportunity to witness the trial of Warren Hastings. Some chapters from Irving’s “Life of Washington” also made a part of the programme. One of them contained the famous description of the great general crossing the Delaware, and the passage describing the “amphibious regiment ” made up of Marblehead men. There was a little poetry on the programme, too; for when, to Amy’s horror, Brenda admitted that she had never read “Evangeline,”—the only way to reinstate herself, of course, was to become acquainted as quickly as possible with the Acadian heroine.
“Cranford,” however, which earlier in the season Brenda had read of her own volition, was the book that she selected as the subject of the essay which Miss Crawdon had requested her pupils to have ready when school opened. Although this is not properly part of the present story, it may be said that not one, even of the older girls, had a brighter or more interesting essay; and her success so spurred Brenda on, that from that time composition-writing became one of her favorite exercises.
It is not to be supposed, of course, that until she met Amy, Brenda had never read any serious books. But such reading on her part had been fragmentary, while in summer she had rather made a rule for herself that only the very lightest reading was permissible. But the comments and the explanations made by Julia and Amy when she read with them, their allusion to books, and to authors with whom she had no acquaintance piqued Brenda to such an extent, that she ceased to pride herself on her ignorance of what she called “deep books.” As a matter of fact, when a girl has reached this point, she is far on the road to wisdom. Only the girl who thinks her own way absolutely better than that of any one else is in danger of making no progress in knowledge.
Nora’s stray words about the Flower Mission had borne good fruit in Brenda’s mind. Although the season was rather far advanced before she did much work in the matter of collecting and arranging flowers for the poor, still, at Amy’s suggestion, the flowers were freshly gathered on the mornings when the reading class met. Then, while one of the trio read, the other two arranged them in suitable bunches. Instead of going to the regular Flower Mission, these flowers from Rockley were sent to one of the Settlement houses, as it was always possible for some of the residents there to distribute them as soon as they arrived. Some such arrangement was necessary, as the girls, in spite of their zeal, were not able to have the hamper ready at precisely the same hour on given days of the week. Amy was of great help in this work, because in the neighborhood of her house were more wild flowers than immediately around Rockley. Flowers from the garden were not abundant in September, for this was the month in which the most of their flower work was done, and Amy’s wild flowers were Brenda’s sole dependence.
The good influence which Amy exercised over Brenda was, naturally enough, observed with great pleasure by Mr. and Mrs. Barlow. They appreciated it all the more, because they knew that it was exercised almost without any realization on Amy’s part that she was doing anything for Brenda. Simply by acting herself, she had made herself so attractive to the latter that the more serious standards of Amy seemed to Brenda well worth adopting. Naturally, she could n’t make them wholly her own, or at least, not all at once; and yet she had taken several steps forward in the direction of higher ideals.
Julia, too, liked Amy very much. But Julia’s character was already more nearly formed than Brenda’s, and less likely to be influenced. As she was much the same kind of girl as Amy, why was not her influence on her cousin equally great? It is not in my power to answer this question exactly. But many young girls will admit that the members of their household are the last persons whose influence they are willing to acknowledge. Brenda had overcome her early prejudice against Julia, and she seldom now showed opposition to anything that her cousin suggested. But remembering the experience of the past winter, Julia was always slow in suggesting things to her cousin. The indirect influence of Julia was stronger than she herself realized, and she was very glad indeed that Brenda had been attracted to a girl of Amy’s fine character.
She could not help smiling when she noticed that “The Countess” novels had disappeared from her cousin’s book-shelves.
“I might have argued against them for weeks, without affecting Brenda in the least. She would have thought that books that I called a waste of time to read myself would not be equally harmful to her. She would have thought that I was measuring everything by a College standard. But Amy—well, Amy is a girl like herself, a few months younger in fact, and she has succeeded, without any effort on her own part, in making Brenda admire her. Why, Brenda is almost anxious to follow in Amy’s footsteps! A mere cousin does n’t count for much at such a time.”
Julia’s words were probably as near a true explanation of Brenda’s feeling as any that could be given.