Episode 20

Still, there remained in the family two younger daughters, and Charlie, besides Miss Patsey and Mrs. Hubbard. By the exertions and guidance of Patsey, the assistance of friends, and their own good conduct, the young people, in due time, were all growing up, endowed with good principles, good educations, and with respectable prospects opening before them. At the period of our narrative, the third daughter hoped shortly to become an under-governess in the school where she had been educated; and Mary, the youngest of the family, had such a decided taste for music, that it was thought she would have no difficulty in supporting herself, by giving lessons, in the course of two or three years. Of all the family, Charlie was the one that caused his friends the most anxiety. He was a fine, spirited, intelligent boy; and Uncle Josie had promised to procure a situation for him, with his son-in-law, a commission-merchant and auctioneer, in New York. This plan was very pleasing to Mrs. Hubbard and Miss Patsey; but, unfortunately, Charlie seemed to have no taste for making money, and a fondness for pictures and pencils, that amounted almost to a passion. Here was an unexpected obstacle; Charlie was the pet and spoiled child of the family. All the rest of the young people had been quite satisfied with the different means of support that had offered for each; and they had followed their respective careers with so much quiet good sense, that Charlie's remonstrances against the counting-house, and his strong fancy for an artist's life, was something quite new, and which Miss Patsey scarcely knew how to answer. There was nothing in the least poetical or romantic about Patsey Hubbard, who was all honest kindness and straight-forward common sense. She had no feeling whatever for the fine arts; never read a work of imagination; scarcely knew one tune from another; and had never looked with pleasure at any picture, but one, a portrait of her own respected father, which still occupied the place of honour in their little parlour, nearly covering one side of the wall. This painting, to speak frankly, was anything but a valuable work of art, or a good likeness of the worthy minister. The face was flat and unmeaning, entirely devoid of expression or relief; the body was stiff and hard, like sheet-iron, having, also, much the color of that material, so far as it was covered by the black ministerial coat. One arm was stretched across a table, conspicuous from a carrot-coloured cloth, and the hand was extended over a pile of folios; but it looked quite unequal to the task of opening them. The other arm was disposed of in some manner satisfactory to the artist, no doubt, but by no means easy for the spectator to discover, since the brick-coloured drapery which formed the back-ground to the whole, certainly encroached on the side where nature had placed it. Such as it was, however, Miss Patsey admired this painting more than any she had ever seen, and its gilt frame was always carefully covered with green gauze, no longer necessary to preserve the gilding, but rather to conceal its blackened lustre; but Charlie's sister belonged to that class of amateurs who consider the frame as an integral part of the work of art. It was, perhaps, the most promising fact regarding any future hopes of young Hubbard's, as an artist, that this same portrait was far from satisfying his taste, uncultivated as it was. Charlie was, for a long time, so much ashamed of his passion for drawing, that he carefully concealed the little bits of paper on which he made his sketches, as well as the few old, coarse engravings he had picked up to copy. But, one day, Miss Patsey accidentally discovered these treasures between the leaves of a number of the Longbridge Freeman, carefully stowed away in an old chest of drawers in the little garret-room where Charlie slept. She found there a head of Washington; one of Dr. Blair; a view of Boston; and an old French print called L'Ete, representing a shepherdess making hay in high-heeled shoes and a hoop; there were copies of these on bits of paper of all sizes, done with the pen or lead-pencil; and lastly, a number of odd-looking sketches of Charlie's own invention. The sight of these labours of art, was far from giving Miss Patsey pleasure, although it accounted for the surprising disappearance of her writing-paper, and the extraordinary clipping, she had remarked, of late, on all notes and letters that were left lying about, from which every scrap of white paper was sure to be cut off. She spoke to Charlie on the subject, and, of course, he had to confess. But he did not reform; on the contrary, matters soon grew worse, for he began to neglect his studies. It happened that he passed the whole summer at home, as the school where his brother had been assistant, and he himself a pupil, was broken up. At last, Miss Patsey talked to him so seriously, about wasting time on trifles, that Charlie, who was a sensible, warm-hearted boy, and well aware of the exertions his sister had made for him, promised amendment, and actually burnt all his own sketches, though the precious engravings were still preserved. This improvement only lasted a while, however, when he again took to drawing. This time he resolutely respected Miss Patsey's paper, but that only made matters worse, for he became more ambitious; he began to sketch from nature; and, having a special fancy for landscape, he used to carry his slate and arithmetic into the fields; and, instead of becoming more expert in compound interest, he would sit for hours composing pictures, and attempting every possible variety in the views of the same little mill-pond, within a short distance of the house. He soon became quite expert in the management of his slate and pencil, and showed a good deal of ingenuity in rubbing in and out the white shading on the black ground, something in the manner of a stump-drawing; but, of course, these sketches all disappeared before Charlie went to take his regular lesson in book-keeping, from the neighbour who had promised to keep him in practice until the winter, when he was to enter the counting-house.