Five thousand pounds

"The cottage homes of England, By thousands in her plains;"

but ours was one.

It stood on a bit of country road, with three or four other cottages, close outside a biggish town. We had a large pond in front, and lots of trees beyond and on both sides of the pond; and the shadows of the trees used to look very pretty on a summer evening, when the light from the sun came creeping through them with a red glow like firelight. The water would catch the glow, till it was all one sheet of brightness, and the trees seemed bending down to look at their own likenesses below, for every branch and twig and leaf might be seen there, pictured.

Sometimes a breeze would ruffle the surface, and then there were little wavelets, with red on one side and grey on the other, and the pictured branches and leaves had a snaky sort of movement in and out of one another. And if a duck swam across, leaving its little track, that made another break in the smooth picture.

I used to stand and watch these things, and wonder at the ripples and the brightness. Sometimes I asked father the "why" of this or that, for I was an inquisitive child, but he always said, "Don't know, my girl," and went off to his pipe; so it was not of much use to ask him. If I put the same questions to mother, she commonly said, "How can I tell? Don't bother!" and that shut me up.

And if I went to grannie, she would say, "Because God made it so, Phœbe." This was all right and true, but I would have liked to understand a little more about the beautiful things which God has made. I used to wonder then, and I often wonder now, how it is that people care so little to look into such matters.

Well, but I must go on about my home, the only home I ever knew in childish years.

It was a pretty cottage. Clematis grew over one side, and in front there was a rose-tree, which used to flower all the summer through and on almost into the winter. The roses were small and white, but how they did cluster! People often stopped to remark on them. We had a nice piece of flower-garden in front, stuffed full of sweet-williams and pinks, and such plain old-fashioned plants: none the less pretty for being old-fashioned, however. At the back there was a tiny strip of kitchen-garden too. The front door had a porch, and honeysuckle grew thickly all over it, with long trailing pieces, which had to be lifted and put aside when we went out or in.

Grannie had lived in this cottage all through her married life, and when her husband died she lived on there still, with her only boy,—my father,—working for him, and making him work for her.

Father's work was in the building firm of Johnstone & Co. We thought Mr. Johnstone a very grand person in our little town, because he was so rich, and wore such a thick gold watch-chain, and had such a big red stone in the ring on his little finger. But I dare say he would not have been thought so much of elsewhere. He was not a gentleman, and he very seldom spoke a kind word to any of his men, as I am sure he would have done if he had been a true gentleman.

Father was not a skilled workman, but he had good wages nevertheless, for he was steady and trustworthy.

He was always kind to us children. I never knew him anything else in those days. Sometimes he would speak up sharp in a passing way, but he never knocked us about or stormed at us, as I have seen men do with their children.

He was not a religious sort of man. He went to Church most Sundays, in the afternoon, to please grannie, and sat and nodded through the sermon. He would have done a good deal to please her, though he wouldn't do one thing which she wanted, and that was to leave his bed early enough for the morning Service—no, not even for her sake.

No, father was not religious. If he had been—not merely religious outwardly, but really serving God in his heart—I think our life after might have been different from what it was. It always seems to me, looking back, that poor father was like a fine ship at sea, without any rudder. For a while it may float along quietly enough, on a calm sea and with a fair wind. But let the wind change and grow strong, and it is carried helplessly away and cast upon the rocks. If he had had the rudder, yes, and the Pilot on board, the breeze would have been only for his good. But he had not.

I have many a time had this thought about poor father. He was such a kind man in those days, and so steady. He liked his pipe and his glass of beer, it is true, but he didn't go to excess with either, and he loved his home and seldom went to the public. He brought his wages straight home to grannie always; for it was grannie who managed things, not mother. They were very unlike each other. Grannie liked work, and mother couldn't abide it. Grannie could not be happy without everything neat and nice about her, and mother did not care how anything was. Grannie had always managed everything before father married, and she kept it on after he married. Mother did not mind. She liked to be saved trouble.

Mother was a pretty little woman, with blue eyes and a nice smile. But she was always untidy. Even grannie could not cure her of her untidiness. I don't know what the house would have been like, except for grannie: but that made all the difference. She never let a speck of dust lie anywhere, and she was a beautiful cook.

Grannie set herself early to train me into her ways, and I think I took after her naturally. "You know, Phœbe," she used to say sometimes, "if anything happens to me, it will all come upon you. Somehow, your mother doesn't seem to have the knack; and if somebody else beside her didn't keep things straight, there would be a terrible muddle. Maybe she would not mind, but your father would, and it's a terrible thing to live in a muddle. So see you do your best to learn."

I did do my best, and I think she found me an apt scholar. By fourteen years old I could turn-out tidy little dinners without any difficulty, and I was a capital hand at cleaning up; and as for sewing and darning, I don't really think there was another girl in the place who could have surpassed me.

I was a good deal more grannie's child than mother's. Mother cared most for Asaph. There were only two of us, and Asaph was two years younger than me. He was very like mother in looks and ways, little and pretty, with blue eyes and curly hair, and a sort of easy soft way of doing things. But he was not so easy as not to like having his own way, and he didn't take it softly if anybody crossed him. He loved to lie in bed too, and he hated lessons and work. And mother indulged him right and left. Grannie seldom meddled about Asaph, for it almost always raised a storm if she did.

Grannie was getting on in years, and her hair was white, but she still looked hearty and strong, and was very active and ready to help in many ways. She was religious and no mistake. It was religiousness of the right sort with her—not only going to Church and saying her prayers, as with some people; and not only talking good, as with some other people. She did go to Church of course, and I never knew a more regular Church-goer than she; and she did say her prayers regularly too. And I don't mean either that she could not talk if occasion served. We can generally speak now and then of the things we love best. But her religion didn't consist only in Church-going or in talk. She lived altogether to God and for God, and I don't really think she ever took a single step without considering first whether it was what God would have her do.