MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
I must write on, though I shall come so soon; for now I have hardly any thing else to do. I have finished all that lay upon me, and only wait the good time of setting out. Mrs. Jervis said, I must be low in pocket, for what I had laid out; and so would have presented me with two guineas of her five; but I could not take them of her, because, poor gentlewoman, she pays old debts for her children, that were extravagant, and wants them herself. This, though, was very good in her.
I am sorry I shall have but little to bring with me; but I know you won't, you are so good!--and I will work the harder, when I come home, if I can get a little plain-work, or any thing, to do. But all your neighbourhood is so poor, that I fear I shall want work, except, may be, dame Mumford can help me to something, from any good family she is acquainted with.
Here, what a sad thing it is! I have been brought up wrong, as matters stand. For, you know, my good lady, now in heaven, loved singing and dancing; and, as she would have it, I had a voice, she made me learn both; and often and often has she made me sing her an innocent song, and a good psalm too, and dance before her. And I must learn to flower and draw too, and to work fine work with my needle; why, all this too I have got pretty tolerably at my finger's end, as they say; and she used to praise me, and was a good judge of such matters.
Well now, what is all this to the purpose, as things have turned about?
Why, no more nor less, than that I am like the grasshopper in the fable, which I have read of in my lady's book, as follows:--[See the Aesop's Fables which have lately been selected and reformed from those of Sir R. L'Estrange, and the most eminent mythologists.]
'As the ants were airing their provisions one winter, a hungry grasshopper (as suppose it was poor I) begged a charity of them. They told him, That he should have wrought in summer, if he would not have wanted in winter. Well, says the grasshopper, but I was not idle neither; for I sung out the whole season. Nay, then, said they, you'll e'en do well to make a merry year of it, and dance in winter to the time you sung in summer.'
So I shall make a fine figure with my singing and my dancing, when I come home to you! Nay, I shall be unfit even for a May-day holiday-time; for these minuets, rigadoons, and French dances, that I have been practising, will make me but ill company for my milk-maid companions that are to be. To be sure I had better, as things stand, have learned to wash and scour, and brew and bake, and such like. Put I hope, if I can't get work, and can meet with a place, to learn these soon, if any body will have the goodness to bear with me till I am able: For, notwithstanding what my master says, I hope I have an humble and teachable mind; and, next to God's grace, that's all my comfort: for I shall think nothing too mean that is honest. It may be a little hard at first; but woe to my proud heart, if I find it so on trial; for I will make it bend to its condition, or break it.
I have read of a good bishop that was to be burnt for his religion; and he tried how he could bear it, by putting his fingers into the lighted candle: So I, t'other day, tried, when Rachel's back was turned, if I could not scour a pewter plate she had begun. I see I could do't by degrees: It only blistered my hand in two places.
All the matter is, if I could get plain-work enough, I need not spoil my fingers. But if I can't, I hope to make my hands as red as a blood- pudding, and as hard as a beechen trencher, to accommodate them to my condition.--But I must break off; here's somebody coming.
'Tis only our Hannah with a message from Mrs. Jervis.--But, hold, here's somebody else. Well, it is only Rachel.
I am as much frighted, as were the city mouse and the country mouse, in the same book of fables, at every thing that stirs. O! I have a power of these things to entertain you with in winter evenings, when I come home. If I can but get work, with a little time for reading, I hope we shall be very happy over our peat fires.
What made me hint to you, that I should bring but little with me, is this:
You must know, I did intend to do, as I have this afternoon: and that is, I took all my clothes, and all my linen, and I divided them into three parcels, as I had before told Mrs. Jervis I intended to do; and I said, It is now Monday, Mrs. Jervis, and I am to go away on Thursday morning betimes; so, though I know you don't doubt my honesty, I beg you will look over my poor matters, and let every one have what belongs to them; for, said I, you know I am resolved to take with me only what I can properly call my own.
Said she, (I did not know her drift then; to be sure she meant well; but I did not thank her for it, when I did know it,) Let your things be brought down in the green-room, and I will do any thing you will have me do.
With all my heart, said I, green-room or any where; but I think you might step up, and see 'em as they lie.
However, I fetched 'em down, and laid them in three parcels, as before; and, when I had done, I went down to call her up to look at them.
Now, it seems, she had prepared my master for this scene, unknown to me; and in this green-room was a closet, with a sash-door, and a curtain before it; for there she puts her sweet-meats and such things; and she did it, it seems, to turn his heart, as knowing what I intended, I suppose that he should make me take the things; for, if he had, I should have made money of them, to help us when we got together; for, to be sure, I could never have appeared in them.
Well, as I was saying, he had got, unknown to me, into this closet; I suppose while I went to call Mrs. Jervis: and she since owned to me, it was at his desire, when she told him something of what I intended, or else she would not have done it: though I have reason, I am sure, to remember the last closet-work.
So I said, when she came up, Here, Mrs. Jervis, is the first parcel; I will spread it all abroad. These are the things my good lady gave me.-- In the first place, said I--and so I went on describing the clothes and linen my lady had given me, mingling blessings, as I proceeded, for her goodness to me; and when I had turned over that parcel, I said, Well, so much for the first parcel, Mrs. Jervis; that was my lady's gifts. Now I come to the presents of my dear virtuous master: Hey, you know closet for that! Mrs. Jervis. She laughed, and said, I never saw such a comical girl in my life! But go on. I will, Mrs. Jervis, said I, as soon as I have opened the bundle; for I was as brisk and as pert as could be, little thinking who heard me.
Now here, Mrs. Jervis, said I, are my ever worthy master's presents; and then I particularised all those in the second bundle. After which, I turned to my own, and said,
Now, Mrs. Jervis, comes poor Pamela's bundle; and a little one it is to the others. First, here is a calico nightgown, that I used to wear o' mornings. 'Twill be rather too good for me when I get home; but I must have something. Then there is a quilted calamanco coat, and a pair of stockings I bought of the pedlar, and my straw-hat with blue strings; and a remnant of Scots cloth, which will make two shirts and two shifts, the same I have on, for my poor father and mother. And here are four other shifts, one the fellow to that I have on; another pretty good one, and the other two old fine ones, that will serve me to turn and wind with at home, for they are not worth leaving behind me; and here are two pair of shoes, I have taken the lace off, which I will burn, and may be will fetch me some little matter at a pinch, with an old silver buckle or two.
What do you laugh for, Mrs. Jervis? said I.--Why you are like an April day; you cry and laugh in a breath.
Well, let me see; ay, here is a cotton handkerchief I bought of the pedlar--there should be another somewhere. O, here it is! and here too are my new-bought knit mitten