I WUZ a strange thing to come most imegiatly after Cousin John Richard’s visit, and our almost excited interview with Deacon Henzy—that Thomas J. should make the dicker he did make, and havin’ made it, to think that before a very long time had passed over Josiah Allen’s bald head and mine (it wuz his head that wuz bald, not mine) that we two, Josiah Allen and me, should be started for where we wuz started for, to come back we knew not when.
Yes, it happened curius, curius as anything I ever see—that is, as some folks count curiosity. As for me, I feel that our ways are ordered and our paths marked out ahead on us.
You know when the country is new, somebody will go ahead through the forests and “blaze” the trees, so the settlers can foller on the path and not get lost.
Wall, I always feel that we poor mortals are sot down here in a new country—and a strange one, God knows—and the wilderness stretches out round us on every side, and we are likely to get lost, dretful likely.
But there is Somebody who goes ahead on us and marks out our pathway. He makes marks that His true children can see if they only look sharp enough, if they put on the specks of Faith and the blinders of Onworldliness, and look keen. And, above all, reach out their hands through the shadows, and keep close hold of the hand that guides ’em.
And all along the way, though dark shadows may be hoverin’ nigh, there is light, and glory, and peace, and pretty soon, bimeby they will come out into a large place, the fair open ground of Beauty and Desire, into all that they had hoped and longed for.
But I am a eppisodin’ fearful, and to resoom.
As I say, to the outside observer it seemed queer, queer as a dog, that after all our talk on the subject (and it seemed as if Providence had jest been a preparin’ us for what wuz to come), that I myself, Josiah Allen’s wife, should go with my faithful pardner down South to stay for we knew not how long.
Wall, the way on’t wuz, our son Thomas Jefferson, who is doin’ a powerful big bizness, made a dicker with a man from the South for a big piece of land of hisen, a old plantation that used to be splendid and prosperous before the war, but wuz now run down. The name of the place—for as near as I can make out they have a practice of namin’ them old plantations—wuz Belle Fanchon, a sort of a French name, I wuz told.
Wall, Thomas J., in the way of bizness, had got in his hands a summer hotel at a fashionable resort, and this man wanted to trade with him. He hadn’t owned this plantation long—it had come into his hands on a mortgage.
Wall, Thomas Jefferson was offered good terms, and he made the trade.
And early in the fall Maggie, our son’s wife, got kinder run down (she had a young child), and comin’ from a sort of a consumptive family on her father’s side, the doctor ordered her to go South for the winter.
He said, in her state of health (she had been weak as a cat for months) he wouldn’t like to resk the cold of our Northern winter.
Wall, of course when the doctor said this (Thomas Jefferson jest worships Maggie anyway) he thought at once of that old plantation of hisen, for he had made the bargain and took the place, a calculatin’ to sell it agin or rent it out.
And the upshot of the matter wuz that along the last of October, when Nater seemed all rigged out in her holiday colors of red and orange to bid ’em good-bye, our son Thomas Jefferson and Maggie, and little Snow, and the baby boy that had come to ’em a few months before, all set sail for Belle Fanchon, their plantation in Georgia.
Yes, the old girl (Nater) seemed to be a standin’ up on every hill-top a wavin’ her gorgeous bandana handkerchief to ’em in good-bye; and her blue gauze veil that floated from her forwerd looked some as if it had tears on it, it looked sort o’ dim like and hazy.
Josiah and I went to the depot with ’em, and on our way home Nater didn’t look very gay and festive to us neither, though she wuz dressed up in pretty bright colors—no, indeed!
Her gorgeous robes looked very misty and droopin’ to me. I didn’t weep, I wouldn’t be so simple as that. The tears sort o’ run down my face some, but I wouldn’t weep—I wouldn’t be so foolish when I knew that they wuz comin’ home in the spring, God willin’.
But the kisses they had all left on my face seemed to kinder draw me after ’em. And I felt that quite a number of things might happen between that time and the time when Nater and I would dress up agin to meet ’em—she in her pale green mantilly, and I in my good old London brown, and we would both sally out to welcome ’em home.
But I didn’t say much, I jest kep’ calm and demute on the outside, and got my pardner jest as good a dinner as if my heart wuzn’t a achin’.
I felt that I had to be serene anyway, for Josiah Allen was fearfully onstrung, and I knew that my influence (and vittles) wuz about the only things that could string him up agin.
So I biled my potatoes and briled my steak with a almost marble brow, and got a good, a extra good dinner for him as I say, and the vittles seemed to comfort him considerable.
Wall, time rolled along, as it has a way of doin’.
Good land! no skein of yarn, no matter how smooth it is, and no matter how neat the swifts run, nor how fast the winder is—nuthin’ of that kind can compare with the skein of life hung onto the swifts of time—how fast they run, how the threads fly, how impossible it is to stop ’em or make ’em go slower, or faster, or anything!
They jest turn, and turn, and turn, and the day’s reel offen the swifts, and the months and the years.
Why, if you jest stopped still in your tracks and meditated on it, it would be enough to make you half crazy with the idee—of that noiseless skein of life that Somebody somewhere is a windin’—Somebody a settin’ back in the shadows out of sight, a payin’ no attention to you if you try to find out who it is, and why he is a windin’, and how long he calculates to keep the skein a goin’, and what the yarn is a goin’ to be used for anyway, and why, and how, and what.
No answer can you get, no matter how hard you may holler, or how out of breath you may get a tryin’ to run round and find out.
You have got to jest set down and let it go on. And all the time you know the threads are a runnin’ without stoppin’, and a bein’ wound up by Somebody—Somebody who is able to hold all the innumerable threads and not get ’em mixed up any, and knows the meanin’ of every one of ’em, till bimeby the thread breaks, and the swifts stop.
But I am a eppisodin’. Wall, as I said, time rolled along till they had been down South most two months, and Thomas Jefferson wrote me that Maggie seemed a good deal better, and he wuz encouraged by the change in her.
When all of a sudden on a cold December evenin’ we got a letter from Maggie. Thomas Jefferson wuz took down sick, and the little girl.
And there wuz Maggie, that little delicate thing, there alone amongst strangers in a strange land.
And sez she, “Mother, what shall I do?”
That wuz about all she said in the way of complaint or agony. She wuzn’t one to pile up words, our daughter Maggie wuzn’t. But that wuz enough.
“Mother, what shall I do? what can I do?”
I illustrated the text, as artists say, while I wuz a readin’. I see her pale and patient face a bendin’ over the cradle of the infant, and little Snow, and over my boy, my Thomas Jefferson, who laid on my heart in his childhood till his image wuz engraved there for all time, and for eternity too, I think.
Wall, my mind wuz made up before I read the last words: “Your loving and sorrowful daughter, Maggie.”
Yes, my mind wuz all made up firm as a rock; and to give Josiah Allen credit, where credit is due, so wuz hisen—his mind wuz made up too.
He blowed his nose hard, and used his bandana on that, and his two eyes, and he said, “Them specks of hisen wuz jest a spilin’ his eyes.”
And I took up my gingham apron and wiped my eyes.
My spectacles sort o’ hurt my eyes, or sunthin’, and my first words wuz, “How soon can we start?”
And Josiah’s first words wuz, “I’ll go and talk it over with Ury. I guess to-morrow or next day.”
Wall, Ury and Philury moved right in and took charge of things and helped us off, and in less than a week’s time we wuz on our way down through the snow-drifts and icickles of the North to the greenness and bloom of the orange-trees and magnolias. Down from the ice-bound rivers of the North to the merry, leapin’ rivulets of Belle Fanchon. Down from the cold peace and calm of our Jonesville farm, down to the beauty and bloom of our boy’s home in the South land, the sorrow and pathos of his love-watched sick-bed, and our little Snow’s white-faced gladness.
We got there jest as the sun set. The country through which we had been a passin’ all day and for some time past wuz a hard and forbidden-lookin’ country—sand, sand, sand, on every side on us, and piled up in sand-heaps, and stretched out white and smooth and dreary-lookin’.
Anon, or mebby oftener, we would go by some places sort o’ sot out with orange-trees, so I spozed, and some other green trees. And once in a while we would see a house set back from the highway with a piazza a runnin’ round it, and mebby two on ’em.
And the children a playin’ round ’em, and the children a wanderin’ along the railroad-track and hangin’ about the depots wuz more than half on ’em black as a coal.
A contrast, I can tell you, to our own little Jonesvillians, with their freckled white faces and their tow locks a hangin’ over their forwerds.
The hair of these little boys and girls wuzn’t hair, it wuz wool, and it curled tight round their black forwerds. And their clothes wuz airy and unpretentious in the extreme; some on ’em had only jest enough on to hide their nakedness, and some on ’em hadn’t enough.
But our boy’s place wuz beautiful. It looked like a picture of fairy land, as we see it bathed in the red western light. And though we felt that we might on closter inspection see some faults in it, we couldn’t seem to see any then.
It wuz a big house, sort o’ light grey in color, with a piazza a runnin’ clear round it, and up on the next story another piazza jest as big, reared up and runnin’ all round—a verandy they called it.
And both stories of the piazza wuz almost covered with beautiful blossomin’ vines, great big sweet roses, and lots of other fragrant posies that I didn’t know the name of, but liked their looks first rate.
There wuz a little rivulet a runnin’ along at one side of the front yard, and its pleasant gurglin’ sound seemed dretful sort o’ friendly and pleasant to us.
The yard—the lawn they called it—wuz awful big. It wuz as big as from our house over to Deacon Gowdey’s, and acrost over to Submit Danker’ses, and I don’t know but bigger, and all sorts of gay tropical plants wuz sot out in bunches on the green grass, and there wuz lots of big beautiful trees a standin’ alone and in clusters, and a wide path led up from the gate to the front door, bordered with beautiful trees with shinin’ leaves, and there in the front door stood our daughter Maggie, white-faced, and gladder-lookin’ than I ever see her before.
How she did kiss me and her Pa too! She couldn’t seem to tell us enough, how glad she wuz to see us and to have us there.
And my boy, Thomas Jefferson, cried, he wuz so glad to see us.
He didn’t boohoo right out, but the tears come into his eyes fast—he wuz very weak yet; and I kissed them tears right offen his cheeks, and his Pa kissed him too. Thomas Jefferson wuz very weak, he wuz a sick boy. And I tell you, seein’ him lay there so white and thin put us both in mind, his Pa and me, what Jonesville and the world would be to us if our boy had slipped out of it.
We knew it would be like a playhouse with the lights all put out, and the best performer dumb and silent.
It would be like the world with the sun darkened, and the moon a refusin’ to give its light. We think enough of Thomas Jefferson—yes, indeed.
Oh, how glad little Snow wuz to see us! And right here, while I am a talkin’ about her, I may as well tell sunthin’ about her, for it has got to be told.
Snow is a beautiful child; she becomes her name well, though she wuzn’t named for real snow, but for her mother’s sirname. I say it without a mite of partiality. Some grandparents are so partial to their own offsprings that it is fairly sickenin’.
But if this child wuz the born granddaughter of the Zar of Russia or a French surf, I should say jest what I do say, that she is a wonderful child, both in beauty and demeanor.
She has got big violet blue eyes—not jest the color of her Pa’s, but jest the expression, soft and bright, and very deep-lookin’. Their gaze is so deep that no line has ever been found to measure its deepness.
When you meet their calm, direct look you see fur into ’em, and through ’em into another realm than ourn, a more beautiful and peaceful one, and one more riz up like, and inspired.
I often used to wonder what the child wuz a lookin’ for, her eyes seemed to be a lookin’ so fur, fur away, and always as if in search of sunthin’. I didn’t know what it wuz, but I knew it wuzn’t nuthin’ light and triflin’, from her looks.
Some picture of holiness and beauty, and yet sort o’ grand like, seemed before her rapt vision. But I couldn’t see what it wuz, nor Josiah, nor her Pa, nor her Ma.
Her hair is a light golden color, not yeller, nor yet orbun, but the color of the pure pale shiny gold you sometimes see in the western heavens when the sky is bright and glowin’.
It looked luminous, as if a light from some other land wuz a shinin’ on it onbeknown to us, and a lightin’ it up. You know how the sun sometimes, when it gets where we can’t see it, will shine out onto some pink and white cloud, and look as if the color wuz almost alive—so her hair looked round the rose pink and white of her pretty face.
Her little soft mouth seemed always jest on the pint of speakin’ some wonderful words of heavenly wisdom, the look on it wuz such, made in jest that way.
Not that she ever give utterance to any remark of national importance or anything of that kind.
But the expression wuz such you seemed to sort o’ look for it; and I always knew she had it in her to talk like a minister if she only sot out to.
And she did, in my opinion, make some very wise remarks, very. Josiah spoke to me about ’em several times, and said she went ahead of any minister or politician he ever see in the deepness of her mind.
And I told him he must be very careful and not show that he wuz partial to her on account of relationship. And I sez:
“Look at me; I never do. I always look at her with perfectly impartial and onprejudiced eyes, and therefore, therefore, Josiah, I can feel free to say that there never wuz such a child on earth before, and probable never will be agin;” and sez I, “if I wuz partial to her at all I shouldn’t dast to say that.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I dast to say what I am a minter; and I know that for deep argument and hard horse sense she will go ahead of any man on earth, no matter where he is or who he is, President, or Bishop, or anything.”
Josiah Allen has excellent judgment in such things; I feel that he has, and I knew he wuz simply statin’ the facts of the case.
Ever sence she wuz a very young infant, little Snow has made a practice of settin’ for hours and hours at a time a talkin’ to somebody that wuzn’t there; or, to state the truth plainer and truthfuller, somebody that we couldn’t see.
And she would smile up at ’em and seem to enjoy their company first rate before she could talk even, and when she begun to talk she would talk to ’em.
And I used to wonder if there wuz angels encamped round about her and neighborin’ with her; and I thought to myself I shouldn’t wonder a mite if there wuz.
Why, when she wuzn’t more than several months old she would jest lay in her little crib, with her short golden hair makin’ a sort of a halo round her white forwerd, and them wonderful heavenly eyes of hern lookin’ up, up—fur off—fur off—and a smilin’ at somebody or other, and a reachin’ out her little hands to somebody, a wavin’ ’em a greetin’ or a good-bye.
Curius! Who it wuz I’d gin a dollar bill any time, and more too, to have ketched a glimpse of the Form she see, and hearn the whispers or the music that fell on her ears, too fine and pure for our more earthly senses.
And most probable I never wuz any madder in my hull life than I wuz when old Dr. Cork, who wuz doctorin’ her Ma at that time, told me “It wuz wind.”
Wind! That is jest as much as he knew. But he wuz an old man, and I never laid it up aginst him, and I never said a word back, only jest this little triflin’ remark. I sez, sez I:
“The divine breath of Eden blowin’ down into pure souls below, inspirin’ ’em and makin’ ’em talk with tongues and see visions and dream dreams, has always been called ‘wind’ in the past, and I spoze it will be in the future, by fools.”
This little remark wuz everything that I said, and for all the world he looked and acted real meachin’, and meached off with his saddle-bags.
But now little Snow’s golden hair wuz a shinin’ out from the piller of sickness, the big prophetic eyes wuz shot up, and the forwerd wuz pale and wan.
But when she heard my voice she opened her eyes and tried to lift up her little snowflake of a hand—a little pretty gesture of greetin’ she always had—and her smile wuz sweet with all the sweetness of the love she had for me.
And she sez, as I took her into my arms gently and kissed her poor little pale face time and agin, she sez:
“My own Grandma!” Now jest see the deepness and pure wisdom of that remark!
Now, fools might say that because I wuz her father’s stepmother that I wuzn’t her own Grandmother.
But she see further down; she see into the eternal truth of things. She knew that by all the divine rights of a pure unselfish love and the kinship of congenial souls, that her Pa wuz my own boy, and she wuz my own, heart of my heart, soul of my soul.
Yes, there it wuz, jest as she had always done, goin’ right down into any deep subject or conundrum and gettin’ the right answer to it imegiatly and to once.
Curius, hain’t it? and she not more’n four and a half—exceedingly curius and beautiful.
And as I bent there over her, she put up her little thin hand to my cheek and touched it with a soft caress, then brushed my hair back with the lily soft fingers, and then touched my cheek agin lightly but lovingly.
It wuz as good as a kiss, or several of ’em, I don’t know which I would ruther have, if I had been told to chuse between ’em at the pint of the bayonet—some kisses, or these caressin’ little fingers on my face.
They wuz both sweet as sweet could be, and tender and lovin’. And she wuz “my own sweet little baby,” as I told her morn’n a dozen times.
I loved her and she loved me; and when you have said that you have said a good deal; you have said about all there is to say.
And I felt that I wuz glad enough that I could take holt and help take care on her, and win her back to health and strength agin, if it lay in human power.
There wuz a tall, handsome girl in the room when I went in, and I spozed, from her ladylike mean, that she wuz one of the neighbors, and she wuz there a neighborin’ with my daughter Maggie, for she seemed to be a doin’ everything she could to help.
And I spozed, and kep’ on a spozin’ for more than a hour, that she wuz a neighborin’, till after she went out of the room for a few minutes, Maggie said she wuz a young colored girl, a “quadroon” she called her, that she had hired to help take care of Snow.
Sez I in deep amaze:
“That girl colored?”
“Yes,” sez Maggie.
“Wall,” sez I, “she is handsomer than any girl I ever sot eyes on that wuz oncolored.”
“Yes,” sez Maggie, “Genny is a beautiful girl, and jest as good as she is pretty.”
“Wall,” sez I, “that is sayin’ a good deal.”
Maggie told me her name was Genieve, but they called her Genny.
Wall, my daughter Maggie had spells all that evenin’ and the next day of comin’ and puttin’ her arms round me, and sort o’ leanin’ up aginst me, as if she wuz so glad to lean up aginst sunthin’ that wouldn’t break down under her head. I see she had been dretful skairt and nervous about Thomas Jefferson and Snow, and I don’t blame her, for they wuz very sick children, very. And there she (in her own enjoyment of poor health too) had had all the care and responsibility on her own self.
But I tell you she seemed real contented when her head sort o’ rested and lay up aginst my shoulder, or breast-bone, or arm, or wherever it happened to lay.
And she sez, and kep’ a sayin’, with a voice that come from her heart, I knew:
“Oh, Mother! how glad, how thankful I am you have come!”
And Thomas Jefferson felt jest so, only more so. He would reach out his weak white hand towards me, and I would take it in both of my warm strong ones, and then he would shet up his eyes and look real peaceful, as if he wuz safe and could rest.
And he sez more than once, “Mother, I am goin’ to get well now you have come.”
And I sez, cheerful and chirk as could be, “Of course you be.”
I’d say it, happy actin’ as could be on the outside, but on the inside my heart kep’ a sinkin’ several inches, for he looked dretful sick, dretful.
Maggie, the weak one when they left Jonesville, wuz the strongest one now except the young babe, that wuz flourishin’ and as rosy as the roses that grew round the balcony where he used to lay in his little crib durin’ the hot days.
As soon as I got rested enough I took sights of comfort a walkin’ round the grounds and a smellin’ the sweet breath of the posies on every side of me.
And watchin’ the gay birds a flutterin’ back and forth like big livin’ blossoms on wing.
And a listenin’ to the song of the little rivulet as it wound its way round amongst the pretty shrubs and flowers, as if it wuz loath to leave so beautiful a place.
Yes, I see that our son Thomas Jefferson had done well to make the dicker he had made and get this place for his own.
There wuz several little hills or rises of ground on the lawn, and you could see from them the roofs and chimneys of two little villages a layin’ on each side of Belle Fanchon, and back of the house some distance riz up a low mountain, with trees a growin’ up clear to the top. It wuz over that mountain that we used to see the sun come up (when we did see it; there wuzn’t many of us that see that act of hisen, but it paid us when we did—paid us well).
First, there would be a faint pink tinge behind the tall green branches of the trees, then golden rays would shoot up like a flight of gold arrows out over the tree-tops, and then pink and yellow and pinkish white big fleecy clouds of light would roll up and tinge the hull east, and then the sun would slowly come in sight, and the world would be lit up agin.
Down the western side of Belle Fanchon stretched the fair country for a long ways—trees and green fields, and anon, or oftener, a handsome house, and fur off the silvery glimpse of a river, where I spoze our little rivulet wuz a hurryin’ away to jine in with it and journey to the sea.
Yes, it wuz a fair seen, a fair seen. I never see a prettier place than Belle Fanchon, and don’t expect to agin.
The way it come to be named Belle Fanchon wuz as follows—Maggie told me about it the very next day after I arrived and got there:
She said the man that used to own it had one little girl, the very apple of his eye, who wuz killed by poison give to her by a slave woman, out of revenge for her own child bein’ sold away from her. But it wuz done by the overseer; her Pa wuz innocent as a babe, but his heart was broke all the same.
THE SLAVE WOMAN WHO POISONED THE CHILD.
The little girl’s name wuz Fannie—named after the girlish wife he lost at her birth. And he bein’ a foreigner, so they say, he called her all sorts of pretty names in different languages, but most of all he called her Belle Fanchon.
And when the little girl died in this terrible way, though he had a housefull of boys—her half brothers—yet they said her Pa’s head wuz always bowed in grief after that. He jest shet himself up in the big old house, or wandered through the shadowy gardens, a dreamin’ of the little one he had loved and lost.
And he give her name to the place, and clung to it as long as he stayed there for her sake.
It is a kind of a pretty name, I thought when I first heard it, and I think so still.
The little girl lay buried on a low hill at one side of the grounds, amongst some evergreens, and tall rose bushes clasping round the little white cross over her pretty head, and the rivulet made a bend here and lay round one side of the hill where the little grave wuz, like a livin’, lovin’ arm claspin’ it round to keep it safe. And its song wuz dretful low and sweet and sort o’ sad too, as it swept along here through the green shadows and then out into the sunshine agin.
It wuz a place where the little girl used to play and think a sight of, so they said. And it wuz spozed that her Pa meant to be laid by her side.
But the fortunes of war swept him out of the beautiful old place and his shadowy, peaceful garden, him and his boys too, and they fill soldiers’ graves in the places where the fortune of war took ’em, and her Pa couldn’t get back to his little girl. And Belle Fanchon slept on alone under the whisperin’ pines—slept on in sunlight and moonlight, in peace and war.
Sleepin’ jest as sweet at one time as the other—when the roar of cannon swept along through the pines that wuz above her, as when the birds’ song made music in their rustlin’ tops.
And jest as calm and onafraid as if her kindred lay by her side.
Though it seemed kinder pitiful to me, when I looked at the small white headstone and thought how the darlin’ of the household, who had been so tenderly loved and protected, should lay there all alone under dark skies and tempests.
Nobody nigh her, poor little thing! and an alien people ownin’ the very land where her grave wuz made.
Poor little creeter! But that is how the place come to be named.
Snow loved to play there in that corner when she wuz well; she seemed to like it as well as the little one that used to play there.
As for Boy, he wuz too young to know what he did want or what he didn’t.
He used to spend a good deal of his time a layin’ in his little cradle out in the veranda, and Genieve used to set there by him when she wuzn’t needed in the sick-rooms.
And I declare for it if it wuzn’t a picture worth lookin’ at, after comin’, as I had, from the bareness and icy whiteness of a Jonesville winter and the prim humblyness of most of the Jonesville females, especially when they wuz arrayed in their woollen shawls and grey hoods and mittens. To be jest transplanted from scenes like them, and such females a shinin’ out from a background of icickles and bare apple-trees and snow-drifts.
And then to shet your eyes in Jonesville, as it were, and open ’em on a balcony all wreathed round with clamberin’ roses, and set up aginst a background of orange-trees hangin’ full of oranges and orange blossoms too, and in front of that balcony to see a little white crib with some soft lace over the top, and a perfectly beautiful male child a layin’ on it, and by the side of him a girl with a slender figure as graceful as any of the tall white flowers that wuz a swayin’ and bendin’ beneath the balmy South wind, under the warm blue sky.
A face of a fair oval, with full, sweet lips, and an expression heavenly sweet and yet sort o’ sad in it, and in the big dark eyes.
They wuz as beautiful eyes as I ever had seen, and I have seen some dretful pretty eyes in my time, but none more beautiful than these.
And there wuz a look into ’em as if she had been a studyin’ on things for some time that wuz sort o’ pitiful and kind o’ strange.
As if she had been a tryin’ to get the answer to some momentous question and deep conundrum, and hadn’t got it yet, and didn’t seem to know when she would get it.
Dretful sad eyes, and yet sort o’ prophetic and hopeful eyes too, once in a while.
Them eyes fairly drawed my attention offen the young babe, and I found that I wuz, in spite of myself, a payin’ more attention to the nurse than I did to the child, though he is a beautiful boy, beautiful and very forward.
Wall, I entered into conversation with Genieve, and I found that she had lived in that neighborhood ever sence she wuz a small child, her mother havin’ owned a small place not fur from Belle Fanchon.
Her mother had gone out nursin’ the sick, and Genieve had learnt t
