The English Orphans; Or, A Home in the New WorldHolmes, Mary Jane
General
The English Orphans; Or, A Home in the New World
Holmes, Mary Jane
Orphans -- Fiction
For once the merry Jenny cried, wondering how she could help being
healthy and fat. Before Mrs. Lincoln left Chicopee, she made a
discovery, which resulted in the removal of Jenny to Boston. With the
exception of the year at Mount Holyoke, Jenny had never before passed
a winter in the country, and now everything delighted her. In spite of
her governess's remonstrance, all her leisure moments were spent in
the open air, and besides her long walks, she frequently joined the
scholars, who from the district school came over at recess to slide
down the long hill in the rear of Mrs. Campbell's barns and stables.
For Jenny to ride down hill at all was bad enough, "but to do so with
_district school_ girls, and then be drawn up by coarse, vulgar boys,
was far worse;" and the offender was told to be in readiness to
accompany her mother home, for she could not stay in Chicopee another
week.
"Oh, I'm so glad," said Rose, "for now I shan't freeze to death
nights."
Mrs. Lincoln demanded what she meant, and was told that Jenny insisted
upon having the window down from the top, let the weather be what it
might; "and," added Rose 'when the wind blows hard I am positively
obliged to hold on to the sheets to keep myself in bed!"
"A Mount Holyoke freak," said Mrs. Lincoln. "I wish to mercy neither
of you had ever gone there."
Rose answered by a low cough, which her mother did not hear, or at
least did not notice. Jenny, who loved the country and the country
people, was not much pleased with her mother's plan. But for once Mrs.
Lincoln was determined, and after stealing one more sled-ride down the
long hill, and bidding farewell to the old desk in the school-house,
sacred for the name carved three years before with Billy Bender's
jack-knife, Jenny went back with her mother to Boston, leaving Rose to
droop and fade in the hot, unwholesome atmosphere of Miss Hinton's
school-room.
Not long after Jenny's return to the city, she wrote to Mary an
amusing account of her mother's reason for removing her from Chicopee.
"But on the whole, I am glad to be at home," said she, "for I see
Billy Bender almost every day. I first met him coming down Washington
Street, and he walked with me clear to our gate. Ida Selden had a
party last week, and owing to George Moreland's influence, Billy was
there. He was very attentive to me, though Henry says 'twas right the
other way. But it wasn't. I didn't ask him to go out to supper with
me. I only told him I'd introduce him to somebody who would go, and he
immediately offered me his arm. Oh, how mother scolded, and how angry
she got when she asked me if I wasn't ashamed, and I told her I
wasn't!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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