The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-04-07
CHAPTER III.
A NEW

A NEW DEPARTURE.
Perhaps Sarah Paris, as she gave both
hands to Harry, and as she turned and
went up stairs. did not consider that the
incident was exhausted" as entirely as
he did. But, with the same self-contrOl
which she had exercised ever since the
sudden announcement of the sleigh-ride,
she held herself ON pleasant thoughts of
the various successes of the party, and
fairly laughed aloud, as to her poor, sleepy
auntshetoldit briefhistory. For, as the girl
went to her own bedroom, she stopped for a
moment to tell Mrs. Chapman that all was
well. and hat they had all returned safely
after a perfectly splendid time"
The reader may believe it or not. but true
it is that the good girl undressed herself
quickly, did not stop a moment to look out
at the moon, knelt by her bedside and re-
peated her accustomed prayer, and in less
than a minute was sound asleep. If the
ride and conversation with Harry Curwin
had seemed to her in any sense critical, the
crisis was not one which hindered much
life. Nor had she any dreams which
she remembered, whether of sleigh
bells or of sunset, whether of flip or
of roasted turkey, whether of country
pumpkin" or of the courtly cavalier. She
slept the sleep of the righteous and of the
yOuIg, dreamless and, indeed, motiOnless,
until at noon her aunt Huldah Weakened
her, and asked if she thought she were
enough rested to dress herself fOr dinner.
The girl started with amazement that she
had slept all the morning. Such a thing
had never happened since she was born.
And, as dinner went by, she constantly
turned the laugh upon herself by calling
herself the %sluggard and the aunt of the
Il, r.or m oo1,ny 1An An- Io-I &
she had not done rightly in coming to her.
Dear, stately old General Thomas. who, at
three-scOre-and ten, maintained the ele-
gance of manner which he a picked up
when he was with the feet before Louis
burg, asked her, as he always did, who was
the belle. And to the admiring group of
aunt and %grandaunt, granduncle and
cousins, she told the story of the great
sleigh-ride. She left out. what
times she would say that she
was the belle, and some times that Jane
Endicott was. He said he knew less of the
party at the end of her story than he knew
at the beginning. But all of them knew
that she had welAenjoyed it all. and theold
General made to her the compliment which
he had made a thousand times before. that
she had brought her roses through all the
brighter for the exposure to the night air.
All which. indeed, was true.
Was all this gayety and raillery the nat
ural outgrowth of a night of good sleep. and
of sound health, we'll fed and INDUCED in
plentiful supplies of oxygen and exercise!
Or was there in it, not noticed even by
those who loved her, the least possible ele-
ment, Just a flavor of defiancef Was here
the stanch, stout determination of a brave
girl, who had highly determined, that she
would measure herself against the world,
and meant to begin by showing to the world
that she would take hold of the first duty
which came along. and would do it thor
Oughly wells Who shall sayf Not this
writer.
Only this is sure, that after the generous
dinner which Aunt Huldah had ordered
with personal care, after lounging a little
with the rest in the great parlOr, Miss
Sarah excused herself in the rather formal
fashion Of that day, and found her way to
which waited on all her wishes there, she
was permitted to keep her own fire.
AS if she were fOreOrdained to do this
thing, as if she were the daughter of Jeph-
tina advancing in a sort of triumph to the
altar. she crossed the room to the table
where her Bible lay, she took from a drawer
a little ink-bOttle and uncOrked it, drew
from another drawer a large sheet of paper,
such as people used in those days of enor-
addresses her letter to Mr.. Manasseh Cut
Ter. who is gratefully remembered in our
time as being one of the handful of men
who made the first arrangements for plant
ing Ohio.
[Sdrah Paris TO MandSseh Cutler
SALEM, Feb. Is, 1870.
My Dear Mr.. C~utler-Icome to you to claim your
promise sooner than you supposed; and though
we parted in joke / am now writing In earnest.
have made up my mind to go to the Muskin-
gum. / told you that i should. viii you make
inquiry for me and find some family whom You
like who are going, and who would be willing to
take me with them as one of their partyi Do
not be afraid but that can bear rough life as
we'll as anybody. shall be no trouble to any
one, and 1 will do my share of the work on the
way.
for me TO see If they want me to teach the school.
Very likely they have somebody much better
myself of use, as my poor mother would have
been proud to have me do; and II the worst
comes to the worst, 1 can return again to Essex
county.
am wholly in earnest in what / write, and 1
want to be sure to go as soon as the soonest go.
My dear Mr.. Cutler, L can never thank You
20 my brothers. and you see that / trust to that
same kindness now. Your own little girl,
SARAH PARIS.
The girl wrote without the slightest hest
tation, and in fact the letter had burned
itself into her mind before she began. For
really, she had been thinking of it forthese
two days, and it was the certainty that she
was going to take this stroke, and to cut
herself off from all the life she had been
living up till now, which had given that
sort of calmness and decision to her move
ments even in preparing for the frolic and
in the frolic itself, which afterward all her
friends remembered. But she did not pro-
pose to take into her confidence, even now.
her uncles or her aunts, or indeed anybody
in the household. 1t would be time enough
for that when the good parsons letter
came.
Sarah Paris had indeed the right to
make her own determination where she
would go and where she would live. The
girl hardly remembered her father, who
had never recovered from the exposure
which he had gone through with at Valley
Forge. i'm the terrible winter there. With
her mother she had been almost q sister.
and the death of her mother. when she was
herself but seventeen or eighteen years old,
had made a mark in her character which
was never effaced. But. as perhaps the
reader has seen already. the girl was
sprightly and brave. and knew how to take
life on the best terms. She had come as
soon as her mother died to the home of her
dear Aunt Huldah; she had entered into
the life and duties of the home with heart
and shirt and she knew that She WAS in