Rhoda's Education by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

AUNT HANNAH WEIGHTMAN lived in a little red house near the edge of the mill-pond, as it was called, though it was little more than a widening of the Outlet, caused by the dam which supplied Mr. Francis's mills. The situation was a very pretty one. On one side of the house lay Aunt Hannah's garden, green with well-conditioned vegetables and gay with flowers, not only of the commoner but also of the rarer kinds, for she was one of those people for whom everything grows. On the other side lay three or four acres of pasture-land, enough, with some help, to keep Aunt Hannah's white cow, most wonderful of milkers both for quantity and quality, and where grew in their season the finest mushrooms in the country.

The "door-yard" of the little dwelling was crowded with lilacs and other blossoming shrubs; the plain board fence and rough stone walls were covered with Virginia creepers, clematis, and morning-glories, and the turf was so neat and green as to give rise to a report among the school-boys that Aunt Hannah dressed it every morning with a hairbrush and a fine-tooth comb. The house was dark red, with rather dusky and faded green blinds. There were three rooms besides the kitchen below and two above; and as Aunt Hannah had inherited the household goods both of mother and grandmother, there was no lack of solid, respectable, old-fashioned furniture.

"How pretty it looks! " said Rhoda to herself as she came across the pasture and stopped a moment to bestow a pat on old Snowball. "It ought to be put in a picture. One could tell who lived there by the outside of the house. It looks just like Aunt Hannah herself. What lots of button mushrooms! I shall have a fine time with them when my work is done."

As Rhoda drew near the side window, she heard within what boded no good to her pleasant afternoon-namely, the sharp, thin, and growling voice of Mr. Jacob Weightman, Aunt Hannah's brother, of whom she stood in great fear. Now I am aware that very few voices could succeed in being sharp and growling at the same time, but Uncle Jacob's accomplished this feat.

"Oh dear! " thought Rhoda. "There goes my nice visit. He will just stay and scold all the afternoon, I dare say. I wish I hadn't put on my new dress. He will be sure to say something about it. I mean to go round to the back door and wait; perhaps he will go away some time or other."

Rhoda sat down on the step at the back kitchen door, and occupied herself alternately in watching the lights and shadows on the stream and in playing with the white Persian kitten Fuzzyball, which romped about the yard, while her equally white and long-haired mother sat couched by Rhoda's side in all the calm dignity befitting a lady who had come all the way from Bombay.

As Rhoda sat on the step she could not help hearing through the window parts of Uncle Jacob's exhortation.

"It is all nonsense, Hannah," she heard him say, "perfect nonsense, for you to take up so much house-room. The house is arranged just right for two families, and it is too bad to be so extravagant. You could live in the east half, if you must keep house, and rent the other part for a dollar a week. It is quite large enough-quite."

"I don't think so," answered Aunt Hannah, quietly. "I like my house to myself and I never yet saw the roof large enough to cover two families."

"Then there is that cow," continued Art Weightman, disregarding the interruption, "Where is the sense of your keeping a cow?"

"To give milk," answered Aunt Hannah.

"To give milk, indeed! " said Uncle Jacob, in a tone as if Miss Hannah had said the cow was good to read aloud or to calculate the longitude. "As if you wanted a cow to give milk! Why, you can't use more than a quart a day at the outside, and what becomes of the rest, I want to know? I don't hear of your selling any."

Aunt Hannah did not seem to feel obliged to gratify her brother's curiosity, for she remained silent.

"Umph! " said Rhoda to herself. "Perhaps if he should ask Widow Makay and poor old Aunty Sarah, they might tell him something about the milk; though I don't exactly see what business it is of his."

But Uncle Jacob was continuing his lecture:

"The fact is, Hannah, you are no manager at all; you don't know how to save. The right way would be for you to break up housekeeping and board somewhere, for two or three dollars a week, fat and kill that old cow, and rent your house and land. Then it would bring you in a good, handsome sum, whereas now you don't get your living out of it; and you might lay up money every year. Why, you might die a rich woman if you would only be guided by me and take care of things."

"Possibly, Jacob, but I prefer living a rich woman," said Aunt Hannah. "I have enough as it is to make me very comfortable, and to help others a little, and I don't exactly see what good it would do me to die rich, unless I could take my money along with me, which does not seem very practicable. I like to have my own house over my head and my own land around me; and as I have nobody dependent upon me, I don't see that I have any particular motive for saving more money than will serve to take care of me if I should be long sick, and bury me when I am dead; and that I have done already. So you see I feel quite easy on that score."

"You might think of somebody besides yourself," said Uncle Jacob. "There is that boy of John Bowers's."

"Oh, he is likely to be well enough off," said Aunt Hannah. "If I were to save, it would not be for the boy, but for the girl."