Sarah's Ground (9781439115855) Read Free

purpose. I must stare my problem in the eye.

Two
    I have the job! I have the job!
    Miss Cunningham is a dear. A small, nervous lady who wears hoops and a shawl and spectacles, yet still can’t see well enough. She desperately needs someone to keep records when she takes over Mount Vernon, to write letters to the Association, and to do other correspondence. I suspect she needs someone to read her mail to her too.
    She is just so glad that I come well recommended. Besides the letters from the Maxwells and the Goodriches (who have influence), she had a letter about me from a Mr. Gould (who has means) stating my qualifications. “Lovely to look at,” the letter said, “knows French as well as English, dresses with a French influence, schooled in New Orleans.”
That can’t all be me,
I told myself. And I felt guilty for being an impostor. But then, I suppose most people are, when you get down to it. And I suppose, too, that living with all these high-toned people for the past two years has done something for me after all.
    And I discovered that Miss Cunningham herself holds sway over many people.
    She is the head of the Association that purchasedMount Vernon. She is the regent, the high-muck-a-muck, the queen bee. There is a vice-regent in every state, she told me, who is a lady of great esteem. Without getting boring about it, under Miss Cunningham’s influence they purchased Mount Vernon from Mr. John Augustine Washington only after much persuasion. They paid $200,000!
    The place was falling down around everybody’s ears, for heaven’s sake. Lord knows why Mr. John Augustine neglected it so. Mayhap he didn’t have the money, what with six children to support. Imagine that! A Washington not having the money. Isn’t life sad sometimes?
    Anyway, she knows everybody, this lady. And to raise money she and the Association got Currier and Ives, printmakers, to issue a series of Mount Vernon pictures. They have gotten
Harper’s Monthly
magazine to run an illustrated article. And Mr. Godey’s
Lady’s Book
to endorse the plan to preserve Washington’s home and grave, and to solicit subscriptions for donations. Miss Cunningham even knows old Colonel Seaton, who has been running the
National Intelligencer
since 1812.
    This is a serious undertaking. Important people are involved. There is nothing frivolous about it, and now I am rather frightened.
    Suppose they find out I am only eighteen? Will they think me dishonest? Will they put me in jail? What rule have I broken this time?
    Oh, I mustn’t think of that. Miss Cunningham says I remind her of her daughter. We had a high tea in Willard’s ladies’ tearoom. The waitress whispered that a colored woman came to the hotel this morning who is named Elizabeth Keckley. And she is to be a dressmaker for Mrs. Lincoln. She came at the behest of a Miss Whitney from New York, to take that lady’s measurements.
    Oh, it’s exciting being here.
    Miss Cunningham asked me what I think of Mr. Lincoln. It was part of the interview. What do I think of him? Why, I hadn’t really given him much thought yet, though I think he will be a good man. He seems honest enough, I told her. And humble. And then I gave her the proper answer, the one I knew she wanted to hear.
    â€œI have no feelings one way or the other,” I told her. “I have vowed to remain neutral in the coming fray.”
    She was pleased.
Don’t forget,
I told myself,
she is a Southerner
. For the moment, of course, I knew I was violating one of Miss Semple’s commandments, which is never to give an opinion just to please somebody. But oh, I did want the job. But right or wrong, I really do not have an opinion of Mr. Lincoln. How could I? He came to us from the wild middle states and nobody knows him. He is a stranger amongst us.
    Then she said she had one more question and we would be finished. But I never found out what that question was. Because at