Joanna Mathews - Bessie on Her Travels

Bessie colored all over face and neck.

“Oh! please don’t,” she said. “I’m so sorry I said that; but I was such a little child then, I didn’t know any better. I wouldn’t say such a saucy thing now for a great deal.”

“You need not be sorry about it, Bessie: I am not.”

“Please don’t speak about it any more, ma’am,” pleaded the child. “Couldn’t you let bygones be bygones?”

“What do you mean by ‘bygones’?” asked the gentleman.

“I thought it meant, sir,” said Bessie, modestly, “when a person had done something they were sorry for, not to say any thing more about it.”

“Very well,” said the lady, still smiling. “It shall be so, if you wish it, Bessie. And now tell me how your mamma and Maggie and all the rest are.”

“Oh! they are all very well, except mamma, and she is better, and we are travelling to do her good; and a great many things happened to us, Miss Adams, since you knew us before.”

“I don’t think it has ‘happened’ to you to grow much,” said the lady.

“Oh, yes’m!” answered Bessie. “I used to be five, and now I’m seven; and I’ve been to school too. We’ve all grown pretty old. Baby can walk and talk now.”

“And how do you like my doctor?” asked “Miss Adams,” as Bessie still called her, glancing round at the gentleman who stood beside her.

Bessie looked up at him, and he looked down at her, and when their eyes met, both smiled.

“I like him: he looks good and nice;” and the little girl, who had already twisted a rose or two into the bosom of the lady’s dress, now handed two or three to the doctor in her own graceful, gracious little way.

“What are you going to do with all those bouquets you have tied up so tastily?” asked Dr. Gordon.

Bessie told him whom they were for.

“And who is this for?” asked Mrs. Gordon, – for so she told Bessie to call her, – pointing to that which the small fingers were now arranging.

“It’s for a little girl down at the steamer, who is rather hard off, and does not have a nice time, and has extremely ugly clothes,” answered Bessie. “But then if they are the best she has, and she has no mother, no one ought to laugh at her: ought they?”

“Certainly not: who was so unkind?” asked Mrs. Gordon.

“Some children who didn’t behave half so nice as she did, ma’am.”

“Ah!” said the doctor; “and was that boy you were talking to just now one of them?”

“Why, yes, sir,” said Bessie, with some hesitation. “But how did you know it?”

“Oh! I am a good guesser,” answered Dr. Gordon.

“I don’t know if I ought to have said that to him,” said Bessie, thoughtfully. “I b’lieve I was pretty severe.”

At this Mrs. Gordon went off into another fit of laughter; and the doctor smiled as he answered, —

“It was pretty severe, it is true, Bessie; but not more so than he deserved, especially if he had been teasing some poor child who could not defend herself.”

Bessie colored, and answered, “But I’m afraid I did it more ’cause I was angry for his being impolite to me than for his teasing Lucy.”

“But tell us all about it; and did you say the child had no mother?” said Mrs. Gordon.

In reply, Bessie told all she knew about Lucy, omitting, however, to give any account of the unkindness of Arthur Lathrop and his brother and sisters to the poor child. This was noticed by both Dr. and Mrs. Gordon, but they pressed her no farther, seeing she did not wish to speak of it.

“There’s another will be glad to come,” said Mrs. Gordon, eagerly, to her husband. “That will make five. You’ll see this engineer and speak to him about it: won’t you, Aleck?”

“All in good time, dear,” he answered quietly.

Five what? Bessie wondered; and where would Lucy be glad to come? But as she supposed they would tell her if they wished her to know, she asked no questions.

But her curiosity was not gratified just then, for the doctor now said to his wife, —

“Come, Clara, we are keeping our friends waiting. You must tell little Bessie about your plans some other time.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Gordon. “We have to go to a sick friend here in the house, Bessie; but I shall come to call on your mamma to-morrow, and then I shall see you again and ask her to let you come to me; for I have something to tell you, in which I think you will be interested.”

“Don’t you live here, ma’am?” asked Bessie.

“Here? yes, here in Savannah, but not in the hotel; and I want you to come to my house. By the way, where is Maggie? I thought you were always together.”

“Most always,” said Bessie; “but Maggie and the other children went with Mr. Powers and papa to see a cotton-press; and mamma thought I was too tired, so I told Maggie she need not mind leaving me. And now I am glad I did not go.”

“And I am sure I am glad,” said Mrs. Gordon, as she kissed Bessie for good-by, and once more told her she should be sure to see her the next day, and would arrange with her mamma the time when she and Maggie might come and spend the day with her.

Bessie was very anxious to know what Mrs. Gordon could have to tell her which was to interest her so much, and which seemed in some way to concern Lucy Waters; but she was a little doubtful regarding the prospect of spending the whole day with her old enemy “Miss Adams,” not feeling at all sure that she would like it, or that she might not fall into some trouble, in spite of the very evident and pleasing change in that lady.

Maggie was not at all doubtful, and positively declared that she would not go on any account; and she tried to persuade Bessie to join her in begging their mother to refuse Mrs. Gordon’s invitation to them.

“For Bessie,” she said, “you know a ‘bird in the hand is worth two in the bush;’ and so, even if Miss Adams is so much better than she used to be, it is wiser to stay away from her, and not give her the chance of being disagreeable if she wanted to be.”

Maggie had been much given to the use of proverbs lately, as you will have perceived; and if one could possibly be fitted to her purpose, it was made to serve, as on this occasion.

But Bessie did not feel as if they had any excuse for refusing the invitation so kindly given, nor did mamma when she was appealed to.

“You certainly need not go if you do not wish it, my darlings,” she said; “but do you think it likely, Maggie, that Mrs. Gordon would invite you to her house, and then treat you unkindly? She must be a good deal changed, it seems to me; and would it not look as if you were unforgiving, if you refuse her kindness?”

“Oh! I forgive her, mamma,” said Maggie, “though it was my own Bessie she plagued so, but then I thought her old habits might be too strong for her, and break out again.”

“You forgive, but don’t forget, eh, Maggie? Suppose you were Mrs. Gordon, how would you like Miss Adams’ faults to be treasured up against you, and allowed to stand in the way when you wished to show good-will and kindness?”

“I wouldn’t like it at all, mamma; and I suppose it’s not very Golden Ruley for me to say I won’t go; so, if she asks us, I’ll make up my mind to it.”

Mrs. Gordon came the next day, according to promise, to call on Mrs. Bradford; and invited not only Maggie and Bessie, but also Belle and Lily, to spend the whole of Friday with her, promising to call for them in the morning and bring them back at night.

But perhaps you will find it more interesting to read Maggie’s own account of this visit, which she wrote to Colonel Rush.

“Dear Uncle Horace, – Things are so very surprising in this world that you never quite know how they are going to turn out, of which the case is at present, Miss Adams or who was Miss Adams but now Mrs. Gordon and you will remember her at Quam Beach but under unpleasant circumstances to which we will not refer but forget as well as forgive as mamma reminded me. But you would be surprised to see how much she is improved and so different to what she used to be which was greatly to be desired of all her friends and a pleasure to all who wish her well. So seeing she wished to make up for past offenses we went to spend the day with her and she was very horspitable. She came in her carriage to take us to her house which is most handsome with roses and flowers of many kinds of which she brought mamma a whole lot at the same time and invited all the big people to dinner the next day. I think all this shows she repents sincerely and is not the same woman but much changed and ought to be encouraged to keep on doing well. She has a nice husband named Dr. Gordon, but sober which is not his own fault if he was born so and I pity him. And a sweet baby boy named Aleck and crows and laughs with pleasure at us. But I hope by no means you think we think him so sweet as May Bessie which he is not and May Bessie is so near to us, which also he is not and we love her far the best. Miss Adams was very kind to us all day, indeed quite fond but most of all to Bessie, and she played with us and amused us and I was glad I did not let the devil which is a word that is not best to write unless it is necessary get the upper hand and make me stay away out of revenge or being shy.