Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (229 page)

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Page 1271
tunity of learning, not long after, by overhearing him tell her young charge that she was an angel, and that he asked nothing more of Heaven than to be allowed to follow her lead through life. Now Miss Tina accepted this, as she did all other incense, with great satisfaction. Not that she had the slightest idea of taking this clumsy-footed theological follower round the world with her; but having the highest possible respect for him, knowing that Miss Mehitable and the minister and his wife thought him a person of consideration, she had felt it her duty to
please
him,had taxed her powers of pleasing to the utmost, in his own line, and had met with this gratifying evidence of success.
Miss Mehitable was for once really angry. She sent for her cousin to a private interview, and thus addressed him:
"Cousin Mordecai, I thought you were a man of sense when I put this child under your care! My great trouble in bringing her up is, that everybody flatters her and defers to her; but I thought that in you I had got a man that could be depended on!"
"I do
not
flatter her, cousin," replied the young minister, earnestly.
"You pretend you don't flatter her? did n't I hear you calling her an angel?"
"Well, I don't care if I did; she
is
an angel," said Mr. Mordecai Rossiter, with tears in his eyes; "she is the most perfectly heavenly being I ever saw!"
"Ah! bah!" said Miss Mehitable, with intense disgust; "what fools you men are!"
Miss Mehitable now, much as she disliked it, felt bound to have some cautionary conversation with Miss Tina.
"My dear," she said; "you must be very careful in your treatment of Cousin Mordecai. I overheard some things he said to you this morning which I do not approve of."
"O yes, Aunty, he does talk in a silly way sometimes. Men always begin to talk that way to me. Why, you've no idea the things they will say. Well, of course I don't believe them; it's only a foolish way they have, but they all talk just alike."
"But I thought my cousin would have had his mind on better things," said Miss Mehitable. "The idea of his making love to you!"

 

Page 1272
"I know it; only think of it, Aunty! how very funny it is! and there, I have n't done a single thing to make him. I've been just as religious as I could be, and said hymns to him, and everything, and given him good advice,ever so much,because, you see, he did n't know about a great many things till I told him."
"But, my dear, all this is going to make him too fond of you; you know you ought not to be thinking of such things now."
"What things, Aunty?" said the catechumen, innocently.
"Why, love and marriage; that's what such feelings will come to, if you encourage them."
"Marriage! O dear me, what nonsense!" and Tina laughed till the room rang again. "Why, dear Aunty, what absurd ideas have got into your head! Of course you can't think that he's thinking of any such thing; he's only getting very fond of me, and I'm trying to make him have a good time,that's all."
But Miss Tina found that was not all, and was provoked beyond endurance at the question proposed to her in plain terms, whether she would not look upon her teacher as one destined in a year or two to become her husband. Thereupon at once the whole gay fabric dissolved like a dream. Tina was as vexed at the proposition as a young unbroken colt is at the sight of a halter. She cried, and said she did n't like him, she could n't bear him, and she never wanted to see him again,that he was silly and ridiculous to talk so to a little girl. And Miss Mehitable sat down to write a long letter to her brother, to inquire what she should do next.

 

Page 1273
XXXI.
What Shall We Do with Tina?
''My dear brother:I am in a complete
embarras
what to do with Tina. She is the very light of my eyes,the sweetest, gayest, brightest, and best-meaning little mortal that ever was made; but somehow or other I fear I am not the one that ought to have undertaken to bring her up.
"She has a good deal of self-will; so much that I have long felt it would be quite impossible for me to control her merely by authority. In fact I laid down my sceptre long ago, such as it was. I never did have much of a gift in that way. But Tina's self-will runs in the channel of a most charming persuasiveness. She has all sorts of pretty phrases, and would talk a bird off from a bush, or a trout out of a brook, by dint of sheer persistent eloquence; and she is always so delightfully certain that her way is the right one and the best for me and all concerned. Then she has no end of those peculiar gifts of entertainment which are rather dangerous things for a young woman. She is a born mimic, she is a natural actress, and she has always a repartee or a smart saying quite
apropos
at the tip of her tongue. All this makes her an immense favorite with people who have no responsibility about her,who merely want to be amused with her drolleries, and then shake their heads wisely when she is gone, and say that Miss Mehitable Rossiter ought to keep a close hand on that girl.
"It seems to be the common understanding that everybody but me is to spoil her; for there is n't anybody, not even Dr. Lothrop and his wife, that won't connive at her mimicking and fripperies, and then talk gravely with me afterward about the danger of these things, as if I were the only person to say anything disagreeable to her. But then, I can see very plainly that the little chit is in danger on all sides of becoming trivial and superficial,of mistaking wit for wisdom, and thinking she has answered an argument when she has said a smart thing and raised a laugh.

 

Page 1274
"Of late, trouble of another kind has been added. Tina is a little turned of fifteen; she is going to be very beautiful; she is very pretty now; and, in addition to all my other perplexities, the men are beginning to talk that atrocious kind of nonsense to her which they seem to think they must talk to young girls. I have had to take her away from the school on account of the schoolmaster, and when I put her under the care of Cousin Mordecai Rossiter, whom I thought old enough, and discreet enough, to make a useful teacher to her, he has acted like a natural fool. I have no kind of patience with him. I would not have believed a man could be so devoid of common sense. I shall have to send Tina somewhere,though I can't bear to part with her, and it seems like taking the very sunshine out of the house; so I remember what you told me about sending her up to you.
"Lady Lothrop and Lois Badger and I have been talking together, and we think the boys might as well go up too to your academy, as our present schoolmaster is not very competent, and you will give them a thorough fitting for college."
To this came the following reply:
"S
ISTER
M
EHITABLE
:The thing has happened that I have foreseen. Send her up here; she shall board in the minister's family; and his daughter Esther, who is wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best, shall help keep her in order.
"Send the boys along, too; they are bright fellows, as I remember, and I would like to have a hand at them. One of them might live with us and do the out-door chores and help hoe in the garden, and the other might do the same for the minister. So send them along
"
Your affectionate brother,
"J
ONATHAN
R
OSSITER
."
This was an era in our lives. Harry and I from this time felt ourselves to be
men,
and thereafter adopted the habit of speaking of ourselves familiarly as "a man of my character," "a man of my age," and "a man in my circumstances." The comfort and dignity which this imparted to us were wonderful. We also discussed Tina in a very paternal way, and

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