Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/752

744 "Is she living now?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed."

"Does she sing now?" asked Jerusha.

"Well,—not much."

"Then," said I, "she must be married, too."

"No, she is not," said Aunt Clara, with a plaintive and very positive emphasis on the negative particle,—"no, she is not."

"Then why does she not sing?" I asked.

"Nobody will look over the same note-book with her," said Jerusha.

"O, you girls may have your own fun now," said Aunt Clara. "You will see the world with a sadder face by and by."

"Not if we look at it through your spectacles, aunty," I answered.

"Dear me; well, the Lord has been kind, to me," said Aunt Clara, "if I am a spinster still. But we must make haste. The old folks are coming back."

"Old folks!" I thought, and Aunt Clara is older than either of them. Father stopped and gave an ugly weed a whack with his cane. Then he stooped and rooted it up, Sabbath-day though it was. I presume he considered it an ox in a pit, for the moment.

Aunt Clara continued:—"The same tune you were at this afternoon used to be a great favorite in our school. It's as old as the hills. I wonder if Israel did not let out his voice in it! And Sally, she wouldn't be behind him, I warrant you."

Jerusha and I exchanged glances.

"It happened, one evening,—and that's what I was laughing at this afternoon. You see, the singing-master, if the music was not going to suit him, would pull the class straight up in the middle of it, and make them begin again. The giggling girl that I was speaking of, she was always fuller of her own nonsense than of learning. This particular evening she was tempted of the Evil One to alter the words to her own purposes, just for the confusion of those close to her; and a dreadful mess she would get them into. It was wrong, very wrong indeed," Aunt Clara added, with a face that was meant to be serious, while her voice laughed, in spite of her.

"On this evening, they were singing the very tune, as I told you. Something went wrong. The singing-master stopped his viol, and called out to the class to stop singing. But the heedless girl had got into mischief, and could not stop with the rest, or she did not hear, or she did not wish to. So on she went, all alone, right out, at the top of her voice:—

"And there she broke down, and sat down, and, graceless hussy as she was, laughed as if she was mad. The truth was, that 'vying with Israel' was a byword with us. We were always teasing Sally about her vying with Israel, as she certainly did, while they sung out of the same book, and thought a deal more of each other than they did of the music. Everybody took the joke, and such a time as there was! Prudence Clark, who turned round and looked at me in meeting to-day, she laughed the most spitefully of anybody, for she had a great notion of your fath—I mean of Israel. As to Israel and Sarah, if ever you did see two persons who did not know whether to stand still or to run, to cry or to laugh, they were the couple. The master, he tried to read us a solemn lecture; but he was so full of suppressed fun that he hugged his viol under his arm till one of the strings snapped. That gave the pitch, and we had a laughing chorus. All joined in, except Israel and Sarah. She pouted, and I do believe he grit his teeth." Here Aunt Clara gave herself up to the comic reminiscence, till her eyes filled again.

"Well, and what came of it all?" asked Jerusha.

"Why, it broke up the school for that season, and made town-talk for nine days. Parson Oliver,—he was a young man then,—he went for to give the mischievous girl a good