We Girls: a Home Story

e middle; but a story

s down bel

st another hill, over opposite; up which it goes a little

ct, it has some time since come under city regulations,-thinking sufficiently wel

aces." There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens," and the old Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, when the great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train

children, for such length of the time as their ages allowed-for n

m lands and pastures, and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other, in the sun. When anybody had

have it below the brow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to go down again. Or is it tha

which Holabird tells this story, or whether it is a Holabird at all-bought land here ever so many years ag

, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C--, and lived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he was yet a yo

s second cousin; for two cousins married two sisters. She came here when she had neither father nor mother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because "Steph

ittle body, but she has he

ake a little fun,-though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks or behaves rather specially nice, or stays at the glass trying to do the first,-or Barbara gets only "Barb" when she is sharper than common, or Stephen is "Steve" when he's a dear, and "Stiff" when he's obstinate,-we always introduce "my daughter Rosamond," or "my sister Barbara," or,-but Ruth of course never gets nickna

Westover was

use; which is what everybody does not

d lived in for five years. The Haddens had bought the land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out and build, and so the old house was to be

en he came in again, another day, and p

strict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of wh

ra said she didn't exactly know which it was she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane witho

ing." And we had all made over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it: and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. But we couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was never time for the whole of it.

live a gentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among h

, when the loss and the worry came, he had to struggle as long as he could, and then go down with the rest, paying sixty cent

ll the vegetables we wanted from his garden, and at Thanksgiving a barrel of cranberries from his meadow. But these obliged us to buy an extra half-barrel

ney, don't buy anything,

le, don't breathe," Barbara

d, for all. That day, when he came in and astonished u

ng it with a strip of shag. Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an old black-co

d where did you get them

em up," Rosamond answered, mysterio

Stephen, looking up f

hemselves out on their underclothing, don't they?" she went on, quietly, putting th

you make us think

bout contrivances. Things mustn't be contrived; they must ha

me, and giving it the right set-up, that

own a magazine,

her pussy, that had tumbled out of her lap as she got up, and was stretching and mewing. "Want to go out doors and play, little cat? Well, y

take a long, thinking look out from under hers, through the sash of window left

nty of room out of doors; and yet people cr

thinking was s

s of 'out of doors.' And inside of that, a great contriving and going without, to

inds again; it was such a very little m

tell stories? We know lots of things that we don't tell all the time. We don't stop to think

after sentence. It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meant was, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I do t

that he said the real thing. When there

here in May, isn't

s,

perhaps, to come and live in it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now. Stephen might do s

out. Nobody thanked him or said a

fter we had hushed up

did not altogether like it, always, from him. She asked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keep her name herself, she said; that was

eep a cow!"

ny!" cried Stephen,

quite over for?" asked Rosamon

ople! Pray, why can't we have a colony of o

remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finished hat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being trul

that

ara. "No. Not a bit. Thi

something that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "mig

t mean to tease you," said Barbara, quickly. "But I do mean to be prou

t all those other great rooms? It will take ready money to move. I'm afraid we shall

e tried so hard to be willing t

re ever was a family that had so much opening and shetting! We just get a li

?" said Rosamond, laughing. "A mou

up together. Can't you see the philology of it? 'Squint' and 'peek.' Worcester can't put down

d tails together, in defiance-in aid,

rily. "It will be so bright out ther

, particularly," said Barbara,

long. It is all the same," said Ru

the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, put down with brass-

then, we

n raised a que

sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries, quite as one does go

a cow," mot

put in Stephen, who found

bara. "It's to be near to the parcel of g

you quote Scripture so

isn't there either. I don't know of a Rufus in al

der and Rufus'; and there's a Rufus

e's out in Scripture. But that is

over' now, instead of 'down,'"

ra sm

of 'up,' when she's to fetch us home from a tea-

n, if we have a garden."

bara. "And perlike

iving there instead of here," said father, cautiously

are Beaman best room. Also that the parlor carpet would make over, and leave pieces for rugs for some of our delightful stained floors. The little tables, and the two or three brackets, and the few pictures, and other art-ornaments, that only "strinkled," Barbara said, in two room

f west over to see his father; and Stephen had "piled" out into the kitchen, to communicate his delight to Winifred, with wh

whole number of windows to be provided, Winny had made up her gregarious mind that she could not give up her town connection, and go out to live in "s?ch a fersaakunness"; and as any remainder of ti

be two or three months, Winny, before we move, if we do go;

n to the little cat hersel'; an' indeed I niver tuk an intheresht in anny little cat but that littl

best bonnet on,-a rim of flowers and lace, with a wide expanse-of ungarnished head between it and the chignon it was supposed to accommodate,-and took her "afternoon out" to search for some new situation, where people were subject neither to sickness nor remov

ons,-sure to happen when anything greater does. When

the sitting-room out of that vacancy in the farther apartments which spre

f thy youth,' she must be 'now living upon the earth.' In fact, I don't doubt there's a long line of them yet, threaded in and out am

s the staying one," said Mr

iasm. Stephen, especially

wrote up over the kitchen chimney with the baker's chalk. We had five girls between that time and our moving to Westover, and

to day; how now this tree and now that shaded them: how we gradually came to see by the end of the Haddens' barn, and at last across it,-for the slope, though gradual, was long,-and how the sunset came in more and more, as we squared toward the west;

p anywhere, and thenceforward belong. Only, in fact, it couldn't; because, like some other things that seem a matter of choice,

went by. As we reached the broad, open crown, we saw away down beyond where it was still and woodsy; a

splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highest point had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-in excavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which we might so easil

t here, it was full

od a little way down against the roadside, and all around in the far margins of the fields were beautiful elms, and

l for the moving, that all the rambling, outrunning L, which had held the kitchens and woodsheds before, should be cut off and disposed of as mere lumber. It was only the main building-L-shaped sti

But Grandfather Holabird had planned the house before he offered it to us to live

ped, and stood staring around it with its many eyes,-wide open to the daylight, all its green winkers having been taken off,-to see wh

behind; and then through the long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in along the full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, and peeped in, on the longest summer days, at the very front. This was what he had got so far as to do by the time we moved in,-as if he stretched his very neck to find out the last there was to learn about it, an

high tints, and deepened the shadowy effects, of our few fine pictures. We had little of art, but that little was choice. It was Mr. Holabird's weakness, when money was easy with him, to bring home straws like these to the home nest. So we had, also, a good many nice books; for, one at a time, when there was no hurrying bill to be paid, they had not seemed much to buy; and in our brown room, where we sat every day,

will tell you presently what t

mes from,-who was willing to air her ignorance in our kitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, for the modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could not come indeed for less," said

hings set every one in a new place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the things were old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busy rush, at door or wind

oking abroad upon the family settlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building. "It is a

me to the ground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazza was open, unroofed: only at the front door

ld, and to look over through the beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always a round of bus

dering what new glory it would spread for us, and gathe

dropped down through the gold together, till they touched the very rim of the farthe

n't down," said Bar

tree-fringes stood up against it; the gentle winds swept through, as if creatures winged, invisible, went by; touched, one by one, with glory, the stars burned on

father?" Barbara said again, coming to where Mr

ow, and seas

summer. Only t

Stephen, as if he knew human nature,