St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1892-06-16
WEST NORTHWEST.

the city as nearly as possible in that
direction. which, if you followed far
enough-for seventy miles, in fact
you would come to a small town
where my cousin Christopher lived,
before his health broke down and
his father lost all his money in spec
ulation Chris had always been deli
cate, but no one thought very seri-
ously of it. till he had this fearful i'll
ness when his life was despaired of;
and though he recovered more or
less, as consumptive people some
times do, he only got better to find
that his father was bankrupt, and
that he himself must work while he
his family
So hearing of a young fellow in
MertOn-our great manufacturing
city-who wanted a private tutor,
Chris came to coach him and to
board with us; for we were a large
family, and mother said we could do
it as cheaply for him as he would be
likely to do it anywhere else, and put
by something into the bargain. Not
that we should have wanted to gain
by having Chris, if we had had
money enough of our own; but then
we never had.
There were so many of us, and
father only earned 9130 a year; and
mother was an invalid, and the
dodgers were continually coming to
grief in some way that compelled
them to leave without settling their
accounts. And the younger ones
were still at school, and Bob only
earned ten shillings a week, and
Arthur had a scholarship at Oxford
that was never enough to keep him,
and Milly, our showcard, as we called
her, would not take a situation, or
do anything whatever but get en-
gagged to one young man after an
other, each worse than the last
She really monopolized the draw
ing room with having them to after
noon tea-which we could not afford
But it did not matter about the draw
ing room, for that was horrible, with
an old grand piano whose lid was
loose, and with walls that crumbled
and let the nails out so that the
brackets tumbled down on peoples
heads-but mother would have them
put up again. And there was always
dreadful atmosphere of hearthrugs
and old antimacassars. Then Harriet,
our one servant, had no time to dust,
and l could only dust the drawing
,so07,o 7o7.Oroa71u Or6o wool. fhQ1,a
were so many other things to do and
the SCOT was so trying.
There could be no place on the earth
grimier than Merton. We had the
chimneys swept as often as we could
afford it, but it seemed to me that
other people never swept theirs at
all, and as soon as the windows were
opened the SCOT came in, darkening
the air like the plague of locusts and
settling down over everything that
was Just scrubbed clean till one felt
as if one could lie down and die The
fogs were full of it-you never saw
such substantial fogs. Chris said
once that they were meat and drink
to him; and they happened every
other day And what with SCOT and
fogs and mothers neuralgia and
Milly's engagements and family Of
nine-life was not life; but it was
still less existence 1t was one long
scramble.
l felt sorry beforehand for Chris,
knowing how different things had
been for him year ago, when he
did not know that he would never be
strong again, or that his father had
speculated away every thing Iknew
he was not accustomed to house
like ours, and l knew that if l did
not look after him a little nobody
would. 1t seemed likely that Milly
would not even firt with him, be-
cause he was consumptive; at least,
she had asked already whether it
was catching, and said that it would
be funereal to have him in the house
So / made his room as nice as /
could-it was the attic next mine
1t had not been repapered for years,
because we said the walls were damp.
They were not really, but we had no
money. Still, it looked clean when I
had done-I remember standing still
and watching a great flake of SCOT
that was lowering in through the
window in an undecided way-and
even got some nasturtiums out of the
back garden and put them in vase.
They were dingy, like everything
else, but they looked green and vel
low, and better than nothing.
l remember had only just done
when Chris came and was shown