Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring.

by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.

One of the first things which Comfort remembered being told was that she had been named for her Aunt Comfort, who had given her a gold ring and a gold dollar for her name. Comfort could not understand why. It always seemed to her that her aunt, and not she, had given the name, and that she should have given the ring and the dollar; but that was what her mother had told her. "Your Aunt Comfort gave you this beautiful gold ring and this gold dollar for your name," said she.

The ring and the dollar were kept in Mrs. Pease's little rosewood work-box, which she never used for needlework, but as a repository for her treasures. Her best cameo brooch was in there, too, and a lock of hair of Comfort's baby brother who died.

One of Comfort's chiefest delights was looking at her gold ring and gold dollar. When she was very good her mother would unlock the rosewood box and let her see them. She had never worn the ring--it was much too large for her. Aunt Comfort and her mother had each thought that it was foolish to buy a gold ring that she could outgrow. "If it was a chameleon ring I wouldn't care," said Aunt Comfort; "but it does seem a pity when it's a real gold ring." So the ring was bought a little too large for Comfort's mother. She was a very small woman, and Comfort was a large baby, and, moreover, favored her father's family, who were all well grown, and Aunt Comfort feared she might have larger fingers.

"Why, I've seen girls eight years old with fingers a good deal bigger than yours, Emily," she said. "Suppose Comfort shouldn't be able to get that ring on her finger after she's eight years old, what a pity 'twould be, when it's real gold, too!"

But when Comfort was eight years old she was very small for her age, and she could actually crowd two of her fingers--the little one and the third--into the ring. She begged her mother to let her wear it so, but she would not. "No," said she, "I sha'n't let you make yourself a laughing-stock by wearing a ring any such way as that.

Besides, you couldn't use your fingers. You've got to wait till your hand grows to it."

So poor little Comfort waited, but she had a discouraged feeling sometimes that her hand never would grow to it. "Suppose I shouldn't be any bigger than you, mother," she said, "couldn't I ever wear the ring?"

"Hush! you will be bigger than I am. All your father's folks are, and you look just like them," said her mother, conclusively, and Comfort tried to have faith. The gold dollar also could only impart the simple delight of possession, for it was not to be spent. "I am going to give her a gold dollar to keep beside the ring," Aunt Comfort had said.

"What is it for?" Comfort asked sometimes when she gazed at it shining in its pink cotton bed in the top of the work-box.

"It's to keep," answered her mother.

Comfort grew to have a feeling, which she never expressed to anybody, that her gold dollar was somehow like Esau's birthright, and something dreadful would happen to her if she parted with it. She felt safer, because a "mess of pottage" didn't sound attractive to her, and she did not think she would ever be tempted to spend her gold dollar for that.

Comfort went to school when she was ten years old. She had not begun as early as most of the other girls, because she lived three quarters of a mile from the school-house and had many sore throats. The doctors had advised her mother to teach her at home; and she could do that, because she had been a teacher herself when she was a girl.

Comfort had not been to school one day before everybody in it knew about her gold ring and her dollar, and it happened in this way: She sat on the bench between Rosy and Matilda Stebbins, and Rosy had a ring on the middle finger of her left hand. Rosy was a fair, pretty little girl, with long light curls, which all the other girls admired and begged for the privilege of twisting. Rosy at recess usually had one or two of her friends standing at her back twisting her soft curls over their fingers.

Rosy wore pretty gowns and ap.r.o.ns, too, and she was always glancing down to see if her skirt was spread out nicely when she sat on the bench. Her sister Matilda had just as pretty gowns, but she was not pretty herself. However, she was a better scholar, although she was a year younger. That day she kept glancing across Comfort at her sister, and her black eyes twinkled angrily. Rosy sometimes sat with her left hand pressed affectedly against her pink cheek, with the ring-finger bent slightly outward; and then she held up her spelling-book before her with her left hand, and the same ostentatious finger.

Finally Matilda lost her patience, and she whispered across Comfort Pease. "You act like a ninny," said she to Rosy, with a fierce pucker of her red lips and a twinkle of her black eyes.

Rosy looked at her, and the pink spread softly all over her face and neck; but she still held her spelling-book high, and the middle finger with the ring wiggled at the back of it.

"It ain't anything but bra.s.s, neither," whispered Matilda.

"It ain't," Rosy whispered back.

"Smell of it."

Rosy crooked her arm around her face and began to cry. However, she cried quite easily, and everybody was accustomed to seeing her fair head bent over the hollow of her arm several times a day, so she created no excitement at all. Even the school-teacher simply glanced at her and said nothing. The school-teacher was an elderly woman who had taught school ever since she was sixteen. She was called very strict, and the little girls were all afraid of her. She could ferule a boy just as well as a man could. Her name was Miss Tabitha Hanks.

She did not like Rosy Stebbins very well, although she tried to be impartial. Once at recess she pushed Charlotte Hutchins and Sarah Allen, who were twisting Rosy's curls, away, and gathered them all up herself in one hard hand. "I'd cut them all off if I were your mother," said she, with a sharp little tug; but when Rosy rolled her scared blue eyes up at her, she only laughed grimly and let go.

Now Miss Hanks just looked absently at Rosy weeping in the hollow of her blue gingham arm, then went over to the blackboard and began writing, in fair, large characters, "A rolling stone gathers no moss," for the scholars to copy in their copy-books. The temptation and the opportunity were too much for Comfort Pease. She nudged Matilda Stebbins and whispered in her ear, although she knew that whispering in school was wrong. "I've got a real gold ring,"

whispered Comfort.

Matilda turned astonished eyes upon her. "You ain't."

"Yes, I have."

"Who gave it to you?"

"My Aunt Comfort, for my name."

"Were you named for her?"

"Yes, and she gave me a real gold ring for it."

"Matilda Stebbins and Comfort Pease, stand out on the floor," said Miss Tabitha Hanks, sharply. Comfort gave a great jump--the teacher had been standing at the blackboard with her back toward them, and how had she seen? Never after that did Comfort feel quite safe from Miss Tabitha's eyes; even if they were on the other side of the wall she could not quite trust it.

"Step right out on the floor, Matilda and Comfort," repeated Miss Tabitha, and out the two little girls stepped. Comfort's knees shook, and she was quite pale. Matilda looked very sober, but her black eyes gave a defiant flash when she was out on the floor and saw that her sister Rosy had lowered her arm and was looking at her with gentle triumph. "You see what you've got because you called my ring bra.s.s,"

Rosy seemed to say; and Matilda gave a stern little nod at her, as if she replied, "It is bra.s.s."

Poor little Comfort did not feel much sustained by the possession of her real gold ring. It was dreadful to stand out there facing the school, which seemed to be a perfect dazzle of blue and black eyes all fastened upon her in her little red gown and gingham tier, in her little stout shoes, which turned in for very meekness, with her little dangling hands, which could not wear the gold ring, and her little strained face and whispering lips, and little vain heart, which was being punished for its little vanity.

They stood on the floor until recess. Comfort felt so weak and stiff that she could scarcely move when Miss Hanks said harshly, "Now you can go." She cast a piteous glance at Matilda, who immediately put her arms around her waist and pulled her along to the entry, where their hoods and cloaks hung. "Don't you cry," she whispered. "She's awful strict, but she won't hurt you a mite. She brought me a whole tumbler of currant jelly when I had the measles."

"I sha'n't whisper again as long as I live," half sobbed Comfort, putting on her hood.

"I sha'n't, either," said Matilda. "I never had to stand out on the floor before. I don't know what my mother will say when I tell her."

The two little girls went out in the snowy yard, and there was Rosy, with Charlotte Hutchins and Sarah Allen, and she was showing them her ring. It was again too much for sensible little Matilda, weary from her long stand on the floor. "Rosy Stebbins, you are a great ninny, acting so stuck up over that old bra.s.s ring," said she. "Comfort Pease has a real solid gold one, and she don't even wear it."

Rosy and Charlotte Hutchins and Sarah Allen all stared at Comfort.

"Have you?" asked Charlotte Hutchins, in an awed tone. She was a doctor's daughter, and had many things that the other little girls had not; but even she had no gold ring--nothing but a chameleon.

"Yes, I have," replied Comfort, blushing modestly.

"Real gold?" asked Rosy, in a subdued voice.

"Yes."

Some other girls came up--some of the older ones, with their hair done up; and even some of the boys, towering lankily on the outskirts. Not one of these scholars in this country district school fifty years ago had ever owned a gold ring. All they had ever seen were their mothers' well-worn wedding-circlets.

"Comfort Pease has got a real gold ring," went from one to the other.

"Why don't she wear it, then?" demanded one of the big girls. She had very red cheeks, and her black hair was in two glossy braids, crossed and pinned at the back of her head, and surmounted by her mother's sh.e.l.l comb she had let her wear to school that day. She had come out to recess without her hood to show it.

"She's waiting for her hand to grow to it," explained Matilda, to whom Comfort had shyly whispered the whole story.

"Hold up your hand," ordered the big girl; and Comfort held up her little hand pink with the cold.

"H'm! looks big enough," said the big girl, and she adjusted her sh.e.l.l comb.

"I call it a likely story," said another big girl, in an audible whisper.

"The Peases don't have any more than other folks," said still another big girl. The little crowd dispersed with scornful giggles. Comfort turned redder and redder. Rosy and Charlotte and Sarah were looking at her curiously; only Matilda stood firm. "You are all just as mean as you can be!" she cried. "She has got a gold ring!"