The Other Girls

nt in for brick loaves. He was only struck down helpless; to lie there and be waited on; to linger, and wonder why he lingered; to fe

hat would have involved a breaking up and a move, which Ingraham himself was

was so far restored and comfortable that he

I know how. The men will all stay

e little bakery office, where she sat upon the high stool at her father's desk. She gave each his week's wages, asking each one, as he si

e said. "Will you all

d the stupidest-if a quick heart and a willing will can be stupid-of

adical experiments in this trust-work, done for her father, to hold things as they were for him. Brick loaves, family loaves, rolls, brown bread, crackers,

to do better than men; one of the bits of world business that women forced to work outside of homes might accomplish. Once, men had been necessary for the big, heavy, multiplied labor; now, there was machinery to help, for kneading, for rolling; there was

u have anything really to do, really to say? Opportunities are widening in the very nature and development of things; they are showing themselves at many a turn; but they give definite business, here and there; they quiet down those who take real hold. Outcry i

n work from the neighbors, and from ladies like Miss Euphrasia Kirkbright, and Mrs. Greenlea

ttle fine rolls for her mother, and some sugar cookies. Ray and Dot were both there. Dot was sitting with her sewing, putting in finishing stitches, butt

since we moved into the Turn.

lso in the first place, before she knew that others called it so. She liked it; it was one of those names that tell just what a thing

he Argenters would expect them to call; and truly, the Argenter

more quietly

k," she said. "We hardly go to see our old friends. Bu

ugh I said so. I want you to come right in and see me. I never c

all again. It was a last shading off of the old acquaintance; a decent remembrance of them in their low estate, just not to be snobbish on the vulgar face of it; a visit that

own upon the sofa. Mrs. Argenter had drooped, physically, ever since the grief and change. It depends upon what one's life is, and where is the spring of it, and what it feeds upon, how one rallies from a shock of any sort. The ozone had been taken out of her atmosphere. There was

, when Ray and Dot were gone, and she came

re very kind to me the day of my accident, you remember. I called first, you see! And besides,

" Mrs. Argenter answered, listlessly, tur

, "that I shall be a great deal happier and better to know such girls; people we have got to live amongst, and ought to live a litt

ly forget th

r a little space to reach across. You mayn't be born quite in the purple, as Susan Nipper would say, but it isn't any reason you

genter. "My life is torn up by the

with Mrs. Knoxwell, the old blacksmith's wife, or Mrs. Pevear, the carriage-painter's? Or even good, homely Mrs. Ingraham, over the bake-shop? It is

; she had an hour or two of quiet between the noon business and the night; then she was always glad to see Sylvie Argenter come down the street with her little purple straw work-basket swinging from her forefinger, or a book in her hand. Sylvie and Ray read new books together from the Dorbury library, and old ones from Mrs. Argenter's book-shelves. Dot was not so often with them; her leisure was given more to her flower beds, where all sorts of blooms,-bright petunias and verbenas, delicate sweet

aps, of a village away off, or a piece of the harbor, or a peep at the hills. But you are right down amongst such niceness! There's the river, close by; you can hear it all night, tumbling along behind the mills and the houses; there are the woods just down the lane beside the bakehouse; and here is the door-stone and the shady trellis, and the yard crowded full of flowers, as if they had all co

id a sweet, cheery voice behind them. They all turned ro

born out of the living. The Lord, up the

d?" said Sylvie. She understood Miss Euphrasia, and chimed quickly int

at showed in glimpses beneath the arches of the trees and across the openings behind the village buildings. "'New eve

er live like that?" asked

ing of the sun makes his worlds around him, doesn't it? We shall create outside of us whatever is in us. We do it now, more

way of putting little round, practical periods to things. She did not do it with int

ment. You cannot touch one link of spiritual fact, without drawing a whole chain after it. Some other time, laying hold somewhere else, the same sayings will be brought to mind again, to con

ure was fluid to the truth, as the atoms she spoke of. Talking with her, you saw, as in a divine kaleidoscope, the gleams and shiftings a

said, even from the pulpit-very much. She believed in a sermon, and letting it go. And a

use that has come upon such speaking, she broke it herself, with a very simp

tle under-ker

ng, and expression of living. That was what made Miss Euphrasia's "words" chord so pleasantly, always, without any jar, upon whatever string was being played; and the impulse and e

ith delicate lace. She folded them small, and put them in a soft paper. Miss Kirkbright took the

me? I have missed a real call that I meant to

as they walked on, having said good-

ile. They will be married in the fall, and go out to England. He has relatives there; his mother's family. There is an uncle living near Manchester; a

ing to England? I am ever so

We are all made to like fresh corners to turn, unless they seem very dark ones, or unl

de after a pause in which she realized to herself th

uch preparations are mad

ly in her fingers. "I wish I could do some of them. I mean,"-she gathered herself up bravely to say,-"I should like dearly to do anything

dear?" asked Miss Kirkbright, in her k

count up so at the grocer's. And a little nice meat every day,-which we have to have,-turns out so very expe

ffort and excitement of telling he

work,-and a poor girl would waste everything if I left her to go on. And I don't know much, myself. If Sa

ehold. From Mrs. Argenter's hot water, and large bath, and late breakfast in the morning to her glass of milk at nine o'clock at night, which she never could remember to carry up herself from the tea-table,-she needed one person constantly to

Euphrasia. "And Amy will like it all the better for your doing. Yo

usly as this Miss Euphrasia? She did it by taking right hold of the

and Sylvie sat down on a great flat projecting rock in the shaded walk beside the rail

as hard to get into a village, if you weren't born in it, as it is to get into upper-ten-dom. Mrs. Knoxwell called, and looked round all the time with her nose up in a sort of a way,-well, it was just like a dog sniffing round for

we mustn't take thought for raiment, you see. The body is more. And at last,-

ouching and linking for Sylvie to follow. She h

le me; or any outside. And I know it isn't actual clot

s in, to feel itself by and to be manifest; history, circumstance. 'Raiment,'-'garment,'-the words always stand for this, beyond their temp

ts before Him, when He rode into

nk about our own raiment any more. He will give it to us, as He gives it to the lilies; and the glory of it will be something that we could not in any way spin

t we hadn't any goodness of our own; t

tifying' is setting everything right for them, and round them, and in them: his rightness is sufficient for them; they need not go about, worrying, to establish their own. The minute they give up their wrongness, and fall into its line, it works for them as no working of their own could do. God doesn't forgive a soul ideally, and leave it a mere clean, naked consciousness; He brings forth the best robe a

stened with a

iment.' Your words-the words you find o

te these words, inspired. We talk about their being inspired, as if it were a passive thing; and quarrel about it, and forget to breathe ourselves. It is all there, just as live as it ever was; it is given over again every time we go for it;

gs,'-that words in the Bible stand

ss Kirkbri

gian?" Sylvie asked

reat deal to Swedenborg: but when his time comes, He doesn't give all in any one place, or to any one soul; his coming is as the lightening from the one part to the other part under heaven. Lightening-not lightning; it is wrongly printed so, I think. He set the sun in the sky, once and forever, when He came in his Christ; since then, day after day dawns, everywhere, and uttereth speech;

we have had! How d

e off. They could see the red top of it ris

out!" said Sylvie. "I wish I

't y

en as these flowers will that I am taking to her. I can take,-but I can't give, and I always feel so

mes, who need the very first gift of truth, so much! We can only keep near and dear to each other, Sylvie, and near and dear to the Lord. Then there are the two lines; and things that are equal-or similarly related

verybody with it," said Sylvie, squeezing her

, always the subtle cheer and strength of it, that nestled into her heart underneath all her upper thinkings and

made pleasant signs about their altered condition, were passed into established use, and dulled into wornness and commonness.

fence them out altogether from what they had been. Amy Sherrett and Miss Kirkbright thought well of the Ingrahams, and maintained all their dealings with them in a friendly-even intimate-fashion. If Sylvie chose to sit with them of an afternoon, it was no more than Miss Euphrasia did. Also, the old Miss Goodwyns, who lived up the Turn behind the maples, were privileged to offer Miss Kirkbright a cup of tea when she went in there, as she would often for an hour's talk over knitting work and books that

eve in it herself, but clearly and thankfully recognizing, on her own part the reality,-that she

Kents were a little jealous and suspicious of her overtures, as she had said, and would not quite let her in. Besides, she did not draw

? A village desirable he was, at any rate. Of course, Sylvie Argenter could not go very much to his home, to make a voluntary intimacy. And all these, if she and they had cared mutually ever so much, would hare been under Mrs. Argenter's proscription as mere common work-and-trade people whom nobody knew beyond their vocations. There was this essential difference between the baker's daughters whom th

ridge, and when the country house at Roxeter was closed, Miss Euphrasia took rooms in Boston for the winter, where her winter work all lay, and Mr. Sherrett, who was a Representative to Congress, went to Washington for the session. There were no more calls; no more pleasant spending of occasional days at the Sherrett Place; no mor

were unlinked from those of Miss Kirkbright, and just dropped into next-door matter of course, Mrs. Argenter fretted. Marion Ken

to be never more mentioned or remembered, I will explain that it is a style of upper dress most eminently un-daisy-like in expression and ef

bundled and massed as to remind one of the slang phrase "piling on the agony." But Marion Kent came to Sylvie for the first idea of her light loops and touches: then she developed it, as her sort do, tremendously; she did

Bowen w

and a little enticing gingerbread work about the eaves and porch,-which was to be vacated at that time; and it happened that, through some unforeseen circumstances, t

unday in her bride-bonnet, instead of getting her every-other-Sunday forenoon and hurrying home to fricassee Mrs. Argenter's chicken or sweet-bread, and boil her cauliflower; and so she gave warning the next morning when she was emptying Mrs.

f the Irish kitchen element, which if one once meddles with, it is almost hopeless to get o

-pins; a fourth wore Mrs. Argenter's cambric skirts on Sunday, "for a finish, jist to make 'em worth while for the washin'," and trod out the heels of three pairs of Sylvie's best stockings, for a like considerate and economical reason. Another declined peremptorily the use of a flat-iron stand, and burnt out triangular pieces from the ironing sheet and blanket; and when Sylvie remonstrated with her about the skirt-board, which she had newly covered,

ecent servant into. They came, and looked, and went away; half-dozens of them. The stove was burnt out; there was a hole through into the oven; nothing but an entire new one would do, and a new one would cost forty dollars. Poor Sylvie toiled and worried; she went to Mrs. Ingraham and the Miss Goodwyns, and Sabina Galvin, for ad

eight hundred and seventy-five dollars. They bought their new stove, and some other things; they hired, at last, two girls for the winter, at three dollars and two and a half, respectively; this was a saving to what they had b

How long would they have any income, if such a piece

country for the summer would save up to pay for rooms in town for the winter. She couldn't bear another hot season in that village,-nor a cold one, either. A second winter would be just madness. What could two women

be able to answer a word. But the lease,-for another year? What s

ho really stood behin

e simpleness and frugal prettiness,-of th

ion. That month of May was harsh and stormy. Nothing could be done about moving until clearer and finer weath

er; and he had called, in a half-friendly, half-professional way,

t may be, to turn it into a quietness and content. When Sylvie had heard all that Doctor Sainswell had to say, she put away her money anxie

ent to see

oyer," he said; he could no

moment; they need pay the rent only for the time of their occupancy

t have been less so, had she seen Mr. Sherrett's face when he read his agent

bravely! And it can't help being worse by and by. Well, one can't live people's lives for t

e, there cam

ulation is formidable, when one has to turn out and dispose of everything anew. She began with the attic; the trunks and the boxes. She had to give away a great deal that would have been of service had they cont

g, when one afternoon, as, still in her wrapper, she was busy at the topmost shelves of her mother's wardrobe, with

bird and M

said. She laughed, she turned red, and the tears very nearly spra

other dress? Can't you learn to get names right ever, Katy? Miss Kir

he tied a little violet-edged black ribbon through the toss and rumple, and somehow it looked all rig

glad she was to see them. For she remembered then why she was so glad; she remembered the

way. We are going to Lebanon for a little while; then we shall find some quiet place, in the mountains, perhaps. In

, as yet undisturbed; at all that, with such la

, dear! What will yo

ngraham is to take my plants for me till we come back to Boston; t

utes. He only sat and listened, with a sober shadow in his handsom

he told her that he had come

rd of Merit list, you see; I've earned my good time; been grinding awfully all winter. I've even got a part for

to the question he asked quizzically for a cover to his real eage

fore Cl

bout then. I

much as if he thought he

you up and up," she said, "through whole counties of wonderful wild beauty; the sacred places of simple living that can never be crowded and profaned. It is a nook to hide away in when one gets discouraged with the world. It consoles you with seeing how great and safe the worl

this was only a call with Aunt Euphrasia; everything that they might have in their minds could not be spoken, even if they could have seen it quite clearly enough to spe

tie his horse, Miss Euphrasia turn

te safe and easy

t worry. There is money enough for a good while if we don't mind using it. A

with a break; but her voice w

Kirkbright asked, looki

ee. All that comes hard to me-after mother's feebleness-is the changing; the not staying of anything any

ly. "When things work and change, in spite of us, we may know

heart and voice sprang to tear

ngs?" she said, earnestly. "I

ow brave and good the child was. She could not help it, although, wise woman that

fore," was Ro

as old and as wise as we please, but in some things the young peo

ently, "do you think I have bee

ndeed.

elf. I haven't had anything to do with horses this winter; I sent Red Squirrel off into the country. What is the reason, Aunt

andle powers, and to use them; it is the very manliest instinct of a man by which he loves them. Only, he is terribly mistaken if he stop

a whole mile he made no answer. Then

, just now. I begin to see. It may be just because I might do something, that I haven't. Aunt Euphrasia, I've done being a boy, and p

be; but it is a thing to consider seriously, before you g

nonsense. I mean to ta

find yourself out, and then tal

ther word all the way over the Mill Dam and up Beacon Hill, and Aunt Euphrasia let him bless

his horse to the livery stable, he went round

ng, "I want a talk with you, father. Can I ha

f conscious bracing up to a difficult matter. He repressed his first instinctive inqui

. "Step in there; the man will be up

partment; a little study, beyond

e, while Mr. Sherrett went to the mantel, found a match and

tter not go abroad, if you don't mind. I'm rather waking up to the idea of earning my own way first,-before I take it. It's time I was doing some

his was a new phase. He wondered how de

ish to study a pro

r a gentleman,-a man, I hope. But I should like to take hold of something and make it go. I'll tell you why, father. I want to see what's in

dney, and sh

f course, we

his boy as a man, with all a man's hopes and wishes quickening him to a serious purpose; at last, touched sympathetically, as a good father must be, with the very desire of his child, and the fears and uncertainties that may environ it. What he suggested, what he proposed and promi

word of it, decisively, till

father? You don't remem

smile. "If anything happens, come to me. Meanwhile,-you

angel of his to watch ove

e it here f