"O, bah!" exclaimed Rufe, with disgust, stalking out of the room, banging a milk-pail, and waking the baby. "Be sharpening the knives, Wad, while I milk; then we'll dress that fawn in a hurry. Wish the fellow had left us the doe instead."

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW VINNIE MADE A JOURNEY.

Leaving Jack to drive home the borrowed mare in the harness of the stolen horse, and to take such measures as he can for the pursuit of the thief and the recovery of his property, we have now to say a few words of Mrs. Betterson's younger sister.

Vinnie had perhaps thriven quite as well in the plain Presbit household as she would have done in the home of the ambitious Caroline. The tasks early put upon her, instead of hardening and imbittering her, had made her self-reliant, helpful, and strong, with a grace like that acquired by girls who carry burdens on their heads. For it is thus that labors cheerfully performed, and trials borne with good-will and lightness of heart, give a power and a charm to body and mind.

It was now more than a year since George Greenwood, who had been brought up with her in his uncle's family, had left the farm, and gone to seek his fortune in the city. A great change in the house, and a very unhappy change for Vinnie, had been the result. It was not that she missed her foster-brother so much; but his going out had occasioned the coming in of another nephew, who brought a young wife with him. The nephew filled George's place on the farm, and the young wife showed a strong determination to take Vinnie's place in the household.

As long as she was conscious of being useful, in however humble a sphere, Vinnie was contented. She did her daily outward duty, and fed her heart with secret aspirations, and kept a brave, bright spirit through all. But now nothing was left to her but to contend for her rights with the new-comer, or to act the submissive part of drudge where she had almost ruled before. Strife was hateful to her; and why should she remain where her services were now scarcely needed?

So Vinnie lapsed into an unsettled state of mind, common enough to a certain cla.s.s of girls of her age, as well as to a larger cla.s.s of boys, when the great questions of practical life confront them: "What am I to be? What shall I do for a living?"

How ardently she wished she had money, so that she could spend two or three entire years at school! How eagerly she would have used those advantages for obtaining an education which so many, who have them, carelessly throw away! But Vinnie had nothing--could expect nothing--which she did not earn.

At one time she resolved to go to work in a factory; at another, to try teaching a district school; and again, to learn some trade, like that of dress-maker or milliner. Often she wished for the freedom to go out into the world and gain her livelihood like a boy.

In this mood of mind she received two letters. One was from Jack, describing his accidental visit to her sister's family. The other was from Caroline herself, who made that visit the occasion of writing a plaintive letter to her "dear, neglected Lavinia."

Many tears she shed over these letters. The touching picture Jack drew of the invalid Cecie, and the brave little Lilian, and of the sick mother and baby, with Caroline's sad confession of distress, and of her need of sympathy and help, wakened springs of love and pity in the young girl's heart. She forgot that she had anything to forgive. All her half-formed schemes for self-help and self-culture were at once discarded, and she formed a courageous resolution.

"I will go to Illinois," she said, "and take care of my poor sister and her sick children."

Such a journey, from Western New York, was no small undertaking in those days. But she did not shrink from it.

"What!" said Mrs. Presbit, when Vinnie's determination was announced to her, "you will go and work for a sister who has treated you so shamefully all these years? Only a half-sister, at that! I'm astonished at you! I thought you had more sperit."

"For anything she may have done wrong, I am sure she is sorry enough now," Vinnie replied.

"Yes, now she has need of you!" sneered Mrs. Presbit.

"Besides," Vinnie continued, "I ought to go, for the children's sake, if not for hers. Think of Cecie and the poor baby; and Lilian not ten years old, trying to do the housework! I can do so much for them!"

"No doubt of that; for I must say you are as handy and willing a girl as ever I see. But there's the Betterson side to the family,--two great, lubberly boys, according to your friend's account; a proud, domineering set, I warrant ye! The idee of making a slave of yourself for them!

You'll find it a mighty uncomf'table place, mark my word!"

"I hope no more so than the place I am in now,--excuse me for saying it, Aunt Presbit," added Vinnie, in a trembling voice. "It isn't your fault.

But you know how things are."

"O, la, yes! _she_ wants to go ahead, and order everything; and I think it's as well to let her,--though she'll find she can't run over _me_!

But I don't blame you the least mite, Vinnie, for feeling sensitive; and if you've made up your mind to go, I sha'n't hender ye,--I'll help ye all I can."

So it happened that, only four days after the receipt of her sister's letter, Vinnie, with all her worldly possessions contained in one not very large trunk, bid her friends good by, and, not without misgivings, set out alone on her long journey.

She took a packet-boat on the ca.n.a.l for Buffalo. At Buffalo, with the a.s.sistance of friends she had made on board the boat, she found the captain of a schooner, who agreed to give her a pa.s.sage around the lakes to Chicago, for four dollars. There were no railroads through Northern Ohio and across Michigan and Indiana in those days; and although there were steamboats on the lakes, Vinnie found that a pa.s.sage on one of them would cost more money than she could afford. So she was glad to go in the schooner.

The weather was fine, the winds favored, and the Heron made a quick trip. Vinnie, after two or three days of sea-sickness, enjoyed the voyage, which was made all the more pleasant to her by the friendship of the captain and his wife.

She was interested in all she saw,--in watching the waves, the sailors hauling the ropes, the swelling of the great sails,--in the vessels they met or pa.s.sed, the ports at which they touched,--the fort, the Indians, and the wonderfully clear depth of the water at Mackinaw. But the voyage grew tiresome toward the close, and her heart bounded with joy when the captain came into the cabin early one morning and announced that they had reached Chicago.

The great Western metropolis was then a town of no more than eight or ten thousand inhabitants, hastily and shabbily built on the low level of the plain stretching for miles back from the lake sh.o.r.e. In a short walk with the captain's wife, Vinnie saw about all of the place she cared to; noting particularly a load of hay "slewed," or mired, in the mud-holes of one of the princ.i.p.al streets; the sight of which made her wonder if a great and flourishing city could ever be built there!

Meanwhile the captain, by inquiry in the resorts of market-men, found a farmer who was going to drive out to the Long Woods settlement that afternoon, and who engaged to come with his wagon to the wharf where the Heron lay, and take off Vinnie and her trunk.

"O, how fortunate!" she exclaimed. "How good everybody is to me! Only think, I shall reach my sister's house to-night!"

CHAPTER IX.

VINNIE'S ADVENTURE.

In due time a rough farm-wagon was backed down upon the wharf, and a swarthy man, with a high, hooked nose, like the inverted prow of a ship, boarded the schooner, and scratched his head, through its shock of stiff, coa.r.s.e hair, by way of salutation to Vinnie, who came on deck to meet him.

"Do' no's you'll like ridin' with me, in a lumber-wagon, on a stiff board seat."

"O, I sha'n't mind!" said Vinnie, who was only too glad to go.

"What part of the settlement ye goin' to?" he asked, as he lifted one end of the trunk, while the captain took up the other.

"To Mr. Betterson's house; Mrs. Betterson is my sister," said Vinnie.

The man dropped his end of the trunk, and turned and glared at her.

"You've got holt o' the wrong man this time!" he said. "I don't take n.o.body in my wagon to the house of no sich a man as Lord Betterson. Ye may tell him as much."

"Will you take me to any house near by?" said the astonished Vinnie.

"Not if you're a connection of the Bettersons, I won't for no money!

I've nothin' to do with that family, but to hate and despise 'em. Tell 'em that too. But they know it a'ready. My name's Dudley Peakslow."

And, in spite of the captain's remonstrance, the angry man turned his back upon the schooner, and drove off in his wagon.

It took Vinnie a minute to recover from the shock his rude conduct gave her. Then she smiled faintly, and said,--

"It's too bad I couldn't have a ride in his old wagon! But he wouldn't be very agreeable company, would he?" So she tried to console herself for the disappointment. She had thought all along: "If I can do no better, I will take the stage to North Mills; Jack will help me get over to my sister's from there." And it now seemed as if she might have to take that route.

The schooner was discharging her miscellaneous freight of Eastern merchandise,--dry goods, groceries, hardware, boots and shoes,--and the captain was too much occupied to do anything more for her that afternoon.

She grew restless under the delay; and feeling that she ought to make one more effort to find a conveyance direct to Long Woods, she set off alone to make inquiries for herself.