June 1,1844. Wellboro, Mass.
Dearest Mother and Brother :-
This is the last letter I shall write before I come home to stay. Joy, joy! We are very busy with reviews and examinations. I have done well in Latin, I think; but I am not so sure of my Algebra. I am the same laughing little girl, your own Doris, and yet I cannot explain how, I am not the same, but Wordsworth says just what I mean, on his first return home from college:
"The things which were the same and yet appeared
Far otherwise."
Miss Grey gives us such beautiful talks, and she often tells us of her school life at Mt. Holyoke Seminary and of Miss Mary Lyon. She asked all of us, who thought of being teachers, to meet her in her own room on Sunday afternoon. Mother, I went, for I have decided to teach, if you are willing. I know I am not ready yet, and I want to be at home now more than anything, but some time when I am older and know enough, I should like to teach.
I wish I could describe that little meeting, but I can't. You can't tell exactly how you feel when your heart swells up in your throat, and you can't keep the tears back to save your life; and you are not all sorry, but you want to be good more than anything else in the world. Miss Grey read to us from her Mt. Holyoke note-book, and had us copy this passage from Miss Lyon's lecture:
"Such is the value of immortal beings, that all who have the care of youth ought to make every sacrifice for their good, and if need be perhaps lay down their lives. With this motive in view, the teachers in this school endeavor to make it the best possible in their power."
"Teachers may be strict without harshness, and having decided on what is best, they should seek to carry it out in the most kind and acceptable manner."
She said that these words of Miss Lyon had made teaching a sacred calling to her, and that she hoped that we would never dare to teach with any lower ideals. We understood, as she talked to us, why she was different from any school teacher we have known.
After Mark is through college, maybe I can go to Mt. Holyoke, see and hear Miss Lyon too, and learn to be a teacher. I am going to study hard at home next year, and get ready as fast as I can. Next week I am coming home--home.
Your own little Doris.
Doris returned to her home, her room, with its window of PEACE, and to her beloved Juna. We find this entry for
August 5, 1844. The dear delight of being home again can never be put on paper, even for you, my Juna, who share my innermost thoughts. Keren has gone back to Mrs. Jones to get ready to teach. She has a school which is to open in September. I believe that Mr. and Jones really love her, but they are so crusted over with a reserve that will not let them show it that poor Keren is starved. She always feels that they are kind at heart. They show that in many ways. I don't see why people can't say nice things if they feel them, the worId would be so much more comfortable.
Well, our family do not believe in putting off showing their love until some one is dead. We do it right along, and life becomes rich to all just for that reason. I have seen something of the world, Juna, and have found that out.
I am back in my own place, washing dishes again. I can't help singing as I do it. I am so glad to be sewing, cooking, making butter and cheese. Mother will never let me learn to spin or weave. She says that will go out with her generation, as a home industry, and I must not begin.
Mark is busy on the farm these hot days. I sometimes wish that I were a boy so that I could share his burdens, but when I tell him that he only laughs and says that a blue-eyed Crinkles is better than any boy.
Sometimes mother, Keren and I go to the woods with our sewing and knitting, carrying our supper in a basket, and Mark comes to eat with us. The walk home in the twilight is so sweet. The katydids keep up their endless dispute, and all the woodsy sounds of fluttering leaves and sleepy birds fill the summer air with harmony. That is something I have learned this year. There is a morning song, a noon song, a night song, of living, growing things; of flying, singing things, and it all makes one harmony.
October 10. A long letter came to-day from Keren. She is teaching a district school, and has all sorts of funny experiences. She gets two dollars a week, and boards around, a week apiece for each pupil. She is up in the hills, and it is getting cold there already, and as a warm bedroom is almost unheard of, she expects to freeze to the bedclothes and skate on her water pitcher. She says that she is sure of one place to warm her hands in - her fiery hair. Keren will never get on good terms with her pretty hair. She has a keen sense of humor, for all her quiet ways, and that will help her through the hard places. Listen to this, Juna:
A big boy was reading in his New Testament other day, "Strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," and he read slowly, with great labor, "Strain at a g-a-t-e and swallow a s-a-w-m-i-l-l."
She has bright scholars, and I am sure she is good teacher. Mother and Mark say that she is very clever. She read three books of Caesar while she was here, besides her reviews, and did most of the housework. She is still studying by herself.
January 1, 1845. Dear Juna, I write again on my birthday in my own room. I have just turned back to the first page of my journal, written three years ago. How young, how very young it sounds! Yet I called myself grown-up at fifteen, and I was such a child! I said to mother this morning, as she gave me her birthday kiss:
"The cares of life are settling on me," and I laughed and hugged her hard. She answered:
"Never let the cares of life settle on you, my daughter; bear them valiantly as they come, but keep your heart sunny and sweet." She hesitated a moment, as if she would say something more, gave me another kiss and went away. Mark and I are troubled about mother; she does not seem as strong as usual. She has always been so well that I fear I have taken her busy unselfish life too much for granted, though I have tried to heIp all I could. Sometimes she sits down suddenly, panting for breath, and when I hurry to her she says: "It is nothing, child; it will soon be over. Run along to your work." I run along, with an anxious feeling in my heart that hurts. Then she comes smiling: "All right now, daughter; soon over." But I mean to be very watchful and relieve her of every possible care. That is to be my special work this year. There was never such another mother.
Jan. 20. I am trying to spend at least two hours a day on my Virgil. Mark hears my lesson as soon as the supper dishes are done. I begged him to let me help him do the milking, so that he could get more time to study, but would not for a long time. At last he consented, and now we both look forward to that half-hour, morning and evening. I love the old barn, sweet with hay and milky smells. I have named the cow I like best after you, Juna, and she has such soft brown eyes, and a white star in her brown face, that you must love her as I do. Mark milks Cowslip and Buttercup (I think those are very suitable names for cows) while I am milking Juna, but I never come out ahead, try as hard as ever I can.
February 15. A paper fell out of my grammar to-day that I had never seen before. I opened it, and what do you suppose I found, Juna? The writing was John Allen's I knew well enough before I saw his name:
"Te semper amabo,
Tu es pulcherrima.
De te diem totam cogito,
Noctem totam cogito (de te).
Vale, Doris mea,
John."
Strange that I had never seen it before, but it was very small. I laughed until I cried, the silly boy. It is too foolish to show to mother, but - I suppose I must be silly too - I put it away in my treasure box.
March 1. How the days and weeks are slipping away, Juna. I forgot to put down in my last writing a very important thing. I was sitting beside Mark one evening while he studied his Greek, and picked up his grammar. It looked queer enough with such spider tracks for letters.
"What are you reading, Mark?" I said.
"Homer, sis - the Iliad, the Greek side of the siege of Troy. You are reading the Trojan side as Aeneas tells it to Dido."
"I want to learn it too; is it very hard? Do you think a female can learn it?"
"It is not easy, but I know this female can if she can find the time; how will you manage that?"
"Mother insists that I do not undertake to sew now. She finds it easier to do that and less housework, and she says she must keep busy or she will never get well, though I keep her from it all I can. I am sure that I can squeeze the day and get a half-hour, and I can pin a paper up in front of me when I wash dishes. It does not, take all my pomers of body and mind to handle a dishcloth. But how about your time? You ought not to spend another minute on me."
I think we can arrange it, Doris. Jonah, Mr. Jones's hired man, is coming over to work for three hours every day, so it all comes around right. It is so good to have you at home, Crinkles."
I have written every word of this conversation, it is so important.
What would Mr. Mather say if he knew!
May 1. Mother is growing stronger, and we are so happy. Our doctor called yesterday and found her much improved. He is an old man with hair as white as snow, and I have known him all my life. He patted my hair when he went away and said:
"The care of her children has done more for her than all my medicine. Go on, my child, and she will get well."
The day haa been warm and sunny. After dinner mother said:
"Daughter, how would you like to go over to the wood lot and look for some Mayflowers? They must surely be out."
So mother and I went slowly across the south pasture, through the bars into the woods. The hemlocks are showing tiny yellow tips, a promise of their new growth, buds are swelling on maple and oak, and all the air is full of a sort of thrill of growing that makes me glad to be alive. I put my ear down to the ground, and it seemed as though I could hear everything stirring and stretching up toward the light. We found great clumps of pink and white Mayflower - "Sweet as the breath of Heaven," mother said as she buried her face in the wild fragrance she was carrying home.
May 15. Mark and I had a long talk to-day after the dinner dishes were washed. We all went to church this morning (I don't dislike Mr. Mather as much as I did), and while mother rested we went out to the barn, climbed up on the haymow and sat before the upper door that opens toward the south. The warm spring sunshine shone in and we looked out on the greenness and loveliness of the Connecticut valley.
"Is there anything more beautiful in all this world, Mark?" I said.
"I don't know, Doris," he answered; "I have seen very little of the world, but I am sure it must be good on the outside at least. I am a man now and I want to do my part in it."
"Are you going to be a minister, Mark?" I said. "Have you had a call?"
"No, Doris," he answered slowly, as if measuring his words; "I believe that every one has a call to some special work, whether it is preaching, making shoes, farming, teaching or anything else. Somehow I never can see far into my future."
"You will do something great, I know," I said (for I think Mark is very clever). "I wish you could go to college now. But tell me what you want to do."
"I have been all my life so eager to know, with a great hunger to learn, till it has seemed like fire shut up in my bones. Now I want to give and give as well as learn," he said. "It has been a great pleasure to teach Keren and you. I want to be a teacher, well trained, to help on others who long as I always have to know."
I threw a big armful of hay on him to keep the tremble out of my voice, and said before he could look at me:
"What a pity you have to stay on the farm and work so hard. I wish I could help and set you free at once."
He threw off the hay and turned his great gray eyes to meet mine, smiled his grave, sweet smile - so different from his teasing laugh - clasped his strong brown hands over his knee, and said:
"Doris, I am ashamed to say that there have been times when I have felt it hard, but only for a little while. No opportunity in life could greater than to take care of mother - she is a wonderful mother - and you. I should be a coward and a knave if I were not glad to do it, and far more if I were able."
"But you are almost ready for college, aren't you?" I asked.
"Yes, quite ready, Mr. Mather says, and a little more. I shall go on studying with him. He will not let me thank him; he says he does it all for the sake of his only son, who died when he was a little child. You don't hate him as you did, Doris?"
"No, I never really hated him," I said, feeling some sorry because Mark cared. "How could I when he was so good to you? But he made me angry when he talked about females, as if we were not worth teaching. Do you think I get angry as I used to?"
"No, indeed; I haven't called you Pepper Pot for a long time, have I?" He pulled a curl that always hangs over my ear. "'You are getting really salubrious in your atmosphere, even when an east wind blows, inside or out. Then I must say, Miss Banner, that you are doing finely in Latin, and no teacher could ask for better work than you are doing in Greek. Really, Doris, I am surprised."
How big and proud I felt, Juna! We talked and talked. Mark is like a friend as well as brother. He is my Great Heart, like him who cared for Christiana, Mercy and the children in Pilgrim's Progress. I am sure my brother will be a great man some day. I must be good for his sake and mother's and work as much as I can.
0ct. 15. This has been a glorious day, when all fulness and ripeness are in the golden air. I wonder whether anywhere else in all the world there is such a wonderful pageant of color as autumn brings to us. As I grow older I feel a deeper meaning in the blue of the sky, the everchanging panorama of color and light in the valley and on the hillsides. I see in them God, the great Artist of the universe.
Somehow to-day I have a feeling of unusual seriousness, in which there is much gratitude. Mother is wonderfully better. The doctor says that she has passed the crisis and will be entirely well again, but that she must still be taken care of. It has been hard for Amelia to be so far away this year, but she, Mark and I are very happy that we are not going to lose her.
I have been looking over my note-book, kept at school last year. Miss Grey had us copy extracts of Miss Lyon's talks as she gave them to us. Here are two of them:
"Those obtain the greatest happiness who seek it indirectly by promoting that of others. 'Let love through all your actions run,' in every deed, look, word and thought."
"How much happier you would be to live a thousand lives besides yourself, rather than to live in yourself alone. This throwing out the whole soul in powerful, vigorous, disinterested action for others, no matter how self-denying, will make you receive a hundred-fold in return. First you must give yourself to Christ, and then go about like Him. He was never striving for a place in which to live."
"Religion is fitted to make us better in every situation in life."
Miss Grey told us of a girl who asked to be excused from calisthenics so that she might have more time to read her Bible, and Miss Lyon told her that it mas just as much her duty to learn her lessons and take exercise as it was to read her Bible and pray. I think it happened to Miss Grey herself, but she did not say so.
I showed these extracts to mother, and she said (I could tell no one but you, Juna):
"My little Doris is proving these things true by her own sweet unselfishness."
I dropped my head on her dear shoulder and cried a happy little cry. After all, maybe I, quick-tempered, mischievous Doris, am improving a little. At least mother thinks so, and I am as happy as I can be.
Then mother and I had a long talk. Mark must come first, of course; but she hopes that I may go to Mt. Holyoke some day. Oh, Juna, think of it!