CHAPTER IV.

"I must needs be friends with thee." -Love's Labor Lost.

THE enterprise into which Rachel Fredet had thrown herself, with the unconscious gallantry of youth, was one before which older persons, of more experience, would have shuddered. She was herself an orphan, and her only brother and only sister were so placed that she had not, and could not claim, any share in their training. The school-course generally followed by girls in Mrs. Merriam's school was finished, and, although Aunt Huldah would gladly have kept such a pupil with her a year longer, Rachel knew that she should feel lonely without her special companions. Nay, more than this, she was in her eighteenth year, life was before her, and she had upon her the inevitable eagerness to begin. The country, at that time, needed the service of every loyal child. Indeed, she does at all times; but at that time her loyal children saw this as they do not always see it, and where should she serve? This was the simple question she had put to herself, without the slightest thought of martyrdom or of heroism. A ready answer was that she could be one of those who were ready to teach negro children. She knew enough to know that she did not know much. She was not vain; and though she doubtless did over-rate the value of what she had learned at Aunt Huldah's school, she was not such

a fool as to think she knew everything. Still she knew her letters, and she knew that twice two was four. She could at least teach so much to little negroes, or as it was still the fashion to say, to little "contrabands," whose training had not carried them so far.

To go farther, and to ask whether she were competent to live alone in a community at least thoughtless if not hostile to her purpose, was a question which never crossed Rachel's mind. To ask whether she had the experience of life, the power for order or discipline, the common-sense, indeed, which should be sufficient to set in motion a school for men and women perhaps, certainly for young men and young women, and for boys and girls who had never known any discipline but that of the plantationthis also was a question about which she had never occupied herself. She took it for granted that she could do these things. She took it for granted that her strength would be as her day was. She wanted to teach these little black children. That much she knew. She had applied to a Committee of a Freedman's Aid Society, and this committee, with some reluctance based on her youth and inexperience, had so far given way to her evident unselfishness, and to a sort of poise which appeared in all that she did and said, that they had accepted her as one of their teachers with special reference to a particular sub-de

partment of work, which, as it happened in fact, Rachel had never attended to for an hour.

Thus simply was.Rachel Fredet engaged in one of those almost spontaneous movements, which, though it will be soon forgotten, was one of the most curious in American history, and, for those who will learn, one of the most instructive. In much the same way in which she enlisted, and for much the same motives, thousands upon thousands of the best trained men and women in America stepped cheerfully forward into the business of "leveling up" the plantation negroes of the South, at the time when the hand of war, carrying out the purpose of God, set them free. History has yet to state, what nobody yet fully knows, the full result of this generous movement, which sent into the most delicate and difficult work conceivable, some of the most highly trained and enthusiastic apostles. But there is, even now, no lack of separate instances well-known, which show how fortunate it was for this nation that at that moment it had really a surplus of its very best force to employ in the enterprise most difficult of all.

Fortunately for Rachel, she was tired enough after the day's ride, which carried her from Brooklyn to Georgetown, to sleep the sleep of the righteous in that first night in her new quarters. Neither waking thoughts of loneliness nor dreams of honors disturbed the blessed rest of which omnipotent seventeen is well nigh sure. Nor was she wholly dressed when a strange rumbling on the outer stair-way, with knockings and callings loud and voluble, announced that Aunt Dolly was on her way with breakfast such as she thought fit for the "schoolmisses," and that she had enlisted Philemon, her oldest boy, in the work of hospitality so far that he was bringing up, in advance, a white pine table from Aunt Dolly's own establishment, upon which the breakfast itself was to be placed. Nor had Rachel herself finished the hearty meal which Aunt Dolly's exquisite cooking had provided, when that worthy woman again came hurrying up the outer steps, which were the access to Rachel's castle, to announce the

arrival of "carriage company." Rachel herself went to the window now to see the descent from a handsome carriage of a lady who hurried up the stair-way, knocked, and was, of course, at once admitted. "Then you have come, my poor dear child," the stranger said eagerly, as she looked with admiration on Rachel's blushing face, caught her by both hands and kissed her. "We were so sorry to fail you. But everything went wrong. Your detention, and all that, you know! I staid myself at the depot till six. But all is well that ends well. I hope you were not frightened to death."

Rachel laughed, cleared one of the chairs for her eager visitor to sit down, and made as light of her alarm as she could with truth.

"And Aunt Dolly has taken good care of you? Aunt Dolly! take care of me! I left home before there was a coal on fire in the house. Take care of me, Aunt Dolly, and bring me a cup of coffee just as hot and just as nice as this cup of Miss Fredet's." And then as Aunt Dolly departed with a smile stretching from ear to ear;

"Dear Miss Fredet, this is a horrid barrack we have put you in, and we know it; but they are decent people down-stairs, and is not Aunt Dolly splendid? I hope it is not long you will have to be here, and if you say so you shall have a room in a hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue ?”

No; Rachel would not say so. The pros and cons of the matter had been decided by letter, and after counsel with Aunt Huldah before she started. She would not waver now, though she owned she had been homesick. "I will make it seem like home," she said bravely.

Then the impetuous Mrs. Templeman had to explain that the particular side-enterprise for which Rachel had been engaged must be postponed; that in fact, for a few weeks Rachel would be of more use at the Constitution barracks; that, indeed, it was providential that she had arrived when she did, so that she could go to work there this morning. What would have happened had not Rachel arrived, neither Mrs. Templeman nor any others of the town-meeting who carried on this enterprise could tell.