The world would not have looked quite so dreary to her perhaps, if it
had not been her birthday. Somehow one persists in expecting something
unusual to happen on a birthday, no matter how many times one has had
nothing but disappointment.
Not that Celia Murray was really expecting anything, even a letter, on
this birthday, though she did stand shivering in the half light of the
dim, forlorn front room that served as a parlor for Mrs. Morris’
boarding-house, watching for the postman to reach their door. She did it
merely because she wished to be near, to get the letter at
once,—provided there was a letter,—and not that she really hoped for
one.
It was Saturday evening, and the close of a half holiday in the store in
which she usually stood all day long as saleswoman. The unusual half day
off was on account of some parade in the city. Celia had not spent her
afternoon at the parade. Instead, she had been in her small, cold, back
bedroom in the third story, attending to various worn garments which
needed mending. They had been spread out on the bed in a row, and she
had gone steadily down the line putting a few stitches here, a button
there, and setting in a patch in another, counting every minute of
daylight hoping to finish her work before it faded, for the gas in her
room was dim, the burner being old and worn out. She tried to be gay
over the work. She called it her “dress parade.” She knew it was the
best way in which to accomplish as much as she wished to do.
And now it was six o’clock, and she had turned down the wretched,
flickering light in her room and descended to the parlor to watch for
the postman.
He was late to-night, probably on account of the parade. She leaned her
forehead against the cold glass and looked out into the misty darkness.
Everything was murky and smoky. The passers-by seemed tired and in a
hurry. Some had their collars turned up. She wondered where they were
all going, and whether there were pleasant homes awaiting them. She let
her imagination picture the homes of some. There was a young working man
hurrying along with breezy step and swinging dinner pail. He had not
been to the parade. His parade was at home awaiting his coming,—a
laughing baby, a tidy wife, and the house redolent of fried onions and
sausage. She had passed houses often at night where these odors were
streaming forth from quickly opened and closed doors. The young man
would like it; it would be pleasant to him. And the thought brought no
less cheer to the watching girl because to her this supper would not be
in the least appetizing.
There passed by a strong old German, a day laborer perhaps. She pictured
the table full of noisy children of various ages, and the abundance of
sauerkraut and cheese and coffee and other viands set out. Then came a
stream of girls, some clerks like herself, and some mill girls. On other
evenings they would present a different appearance, but many of them
to-night were in holiday attire on account of the half holiday which had
been generally given throughout the city. These girls, some of them, had
homes of more or less attractiveness, and others, like herself, were
domiciled in boarding-houses. She sat down on one of the hard haircloth
chairs and looked around that parlor. In the dimness of the turned down
gas, it appeared more forlorn than usual. The ingrain carpet had long
ago lost any claims to respectability. It had a dragged out, sodden
appearance, and in places there were unmistakable holes. These, it is
true, had been twisted and turned about so as to come mostly under the
tables and sofa, but they were generally visible to the casual observer.
The parlor suite of haircloth, by reason of being much sat upon, had
lost the spring of youth, and several of the chairs and one end of the
sofa looked like fallen cake. There was an asthmatic cabinet organ at
the end of the room which had been left by some departing boarder,
(under compulsion) in lieu of his board. There were a few worn pieces of
music scattered upon it. Celia knew that the piece now open on the top
was that choice selection “The Cat came back,” which was a great
favorite with a young railroad brakeman who had a metallic tenor voice
and good lungs. He was one of the boarders and considered quite a singer
in the house. There was a feeble attempt at the æsthetic in the form of
a red, bedraggled chenille portière at the doorway, bordered with large
pink cabbage roses. The mantel had a worn plush scarf embroidered in a
style quite out of date and ugly in the extreme. On it stood a large
glass case of wax flowers, several cheap vases, and a match safe. Over
it hung a crayon portrait of the landlady’s departed husband, and
another of herself adorned the opposite wall, both done in staring
crayon work from tin types of ancient date, heavily and cheaply framed.
These with a marriage certificate of the clasped-hand-and-orange-wreath
order, framed in gilt, made up the adornments of the room.
Celia sighed as she looked about and took it all in once more. It was a
dreary place. She had been in it but a week. Would she ever get used to
it? She did not curl her lip in scorn as many other girls would have
done over that room and its furnishings. Neither did she feel that utter
distaste that is akin to hatred. Instead was a kind of pity in her heart
for it all, and for the poor lonely creatures who had no other place to
call home. Where there is such pity, there is sometimes love not far
away. She even rose, went to the doorway and looped the loose,
discouraged folds of the chenille curtain in more graceful fashion.
Somehow her fingers could not help doing so much toward making that room
different.
Then she sighed and went to the window again. She could see the belated
postman now across the street. She watched him as he flitted back and
forth, ringing this bell and that, and searching in the great leather
bag for papers or packages. His breath showed white against the dark
greyish-blue of the misty evening air. His grey uniform seemed to be a
part of the mist. The yellow glare of the street-lamp touched the gilt
buttons and made a bright spot of the letters on his cap as he paused a
moment to study an address before coming to their door.
Celia opened the door before he had time to ring and took the letters
from his hand. There were not many. The boarders in that house had not
many correspondents. She stepped into the parlor once more, and turned
up the gas now for a moment to see if there were any for herself.
Strange to say, there were two, rather thin and unpromising it is true,
but they gave a little touch of the unusual to the dull day. She noticed
that one bore a familiar postmark and was in her aunt’s handwriting. The
other held the city mark and seemed to be from some firm of lawyers. She
did not feel much curiosity concerning it. It was probably some
circular. It did not look in the least interesting. She pushed them both
quickly into her pocket as the front door opened letting in several
noisy boarders. She did not wish to read her letters in public. They
would keep till after supper. The bell was already ringing. It would not
be worth while to go upstairs before she went to the dining-room.
Experience taught her that the supper was at its very worst the minute
after the bell rang. If one waited one must take the consequences, and
“the consequences” were not desirable. The meals in that house were not
too tempting at any time. Not that she cared much for her supper, she
was too weary, but one must eat to live, and so she went to the
dining-room.
Out there the gas was turned to its highest. The coarse tablecloth was
none of the cleanest. In fact, it reminded one of former breakfasts and
dinners. The thick white dishes bore marks of hard usage. They were
nicked and cracked. There were plates of heavy, sour-looking bread at
either end of the table. The butter looked mussy and uninviting. The
inevitable, scanty supply of prunes stood before the plate of the young
German clerk, who was already in his chair helping himself to a liberal
dish. The German clerk was fond of prunes, and always got to the table
before any one else. Some of the others good-naturedly called him
selfish, and frequently passed meaning remarks veiled in thin jokes
concerning this habit of his; but if he understood he kept the matter to
himself, and was apparently not thin-skinned.
There was a stew for dinner that night. Celia dreaded stews since the
night of her arrival when she had found a long curly hair on her plate
in the gravy. There were such possibilities of utility in a stew. It was
brought on in little thick white dishes, doled out in exact portions.
There were great green fat pickles, suggesting copper in their pickling,
and there was a plate of cheese and another of crackers. A girl brought
each one a small spoonful of canned corn, but it was cold and scarcely
cooked at all, and the kernels were large and whole. Celia having tasted
it, pushed her dish back and did not touch it again. On the side table
was a row of plates each containing a slim, thin piece of pale-crusted
pie, its interior being dark and of an undefined character. Celia tried
to eat. The dishes were not all clean. Her spoon had a sticky handle and
so had her fork. The silver was all worn off the blade of her knife, and
she could not help thinking that perhaps it was done by being constantly
used to convey food to the mouth of the brakeman with the tenor voice.
One by one the boarders drifted in. It was surprising how quickly they
gathered after that bell rang. They knew what they had to depend upon in
the way of bread and butter, and it was first come first served. Little
Miss Burns sat across the table from Celia. She was thin and nervous and
laughed a good deal in an excited way, as if everything were unusually
funny, and she were in a constant state of embarrassing apology. There
were tired little lines around her eyes, and her mouth still wore a baby
droop, though she was well along in years. Celia noticed that she drank
only a cup of tea and nibbled a cracker. She did not look well. It was
plain the dinner was no more appetizing to her than to the young girl
who had so recently come there to board. She ought to have some delicate
thin slices of nicely browned toast and a cup of good tea with real
cream in it, and a fresh egg poached just right, or a tiny cup of good
strong beef bullion, Celia said to herself. She amused herself by
thinking how she would like to slip out in the kitchen and get them for
her, only—and she almost smiled at the thought—she would hardly find
the necessary articles with which to make all that out in the Morris
kitchen.
Next to Miss Burns sat two young girls, clerks in a three-cent store.
They carried a good deal of would-be style, and wore many bright rings
on their grimy fingers, whose nails were never cleaned nor cut
apparently—except by their teeth. These girls were rather pretty in a
coarse way, and laughed and talked a good deal in loud tones with the
tenor brakeman, whose name was Bob Yates, and with the other young men
boarders. These young men were respectively a clerk in a department
store, a student in the University, and a young teacher in the public
schools. Celia noticed that neither the student nor the school-teacher
ate heartily, and that the young dry goods salesman had a hollow cough.
How nice it would be if they all could have a good dinner just for once,
soup and roast beef, and good bread and vegetables, with a delicious
old-fashioned apple dumpling smoking hot, such as her aunt Hannah could
make. How she would enjoy giving it to them all. How she would like to
eat some of it herself! She sighed as she pushed back her plate with a
good half of the stew yet untouched, and felt that it was impossible to
eat another mouthful of that. Then she felt ashamed to think she cared
so much for mere eating, and tried to talk pleasantly to the little old
lady beside her, who occupied a small dismal room on the third floor and
seemed to stay in it most of the time. Celia had not yet found out her
occupation nor her standing in society, but she noticed that she
trembled when she tried to cut her meat, and she was shabbily clothed in
rusty black that looked as if it had served its time out several times
over.
Mrs. Morris came into the dining-room when the pie was being served. She
was large and worried-looking, and wore a soiled calico wrapper without
a collar. Her hair had not been combed since morning and some locks had
escaped in her neck and on her forehead and added to her generally
dejected appearance. She sat down heavily and wearily at the head of the
table, and added her spiritless voice to the conversation. She asked
them all how they enjoyed the parade and declared it would have been
enough parade for her if she could have “set down for a couple of
hours.” Then she sighed and drank a cup of tea from her saucer, holding
the saucer on the palm of her hand.
It all looked hopelessly dreary to Celia. And here she expected to spend
the home part of her life for several years at least, or if not here,
yet in some place equally destitute of anything which constitutes a
home.
Except for her brief conversation with the old lady on her right and a
few words to Miss Burns, she had spoken to no one during the meal, and
as soon as she had excused herself from the pie and folded her napkin,
she slipped upstairs to her room, for the thought of the two letters in
her pocket seemed more inviting than the pie. She turned the gas to its
highest though it did screech, that she might see to read her letters,
and then she drew them forth. Her aunt Hannah’s came first. She tore the
envelope. Only one sheet and not much written thereon. Aunt Hannah was
well, but very busy, for Nettie’s children were all down with whooping
cough and the baby had been quite sick, poor little thing, and she had
no time to write. Hiram, Nettie’s husband, too, had been ill and laid up
for a week, so aunt Hannah had been nursing night and day. She enclosed
a little bookmark to remember Celia’s birthday. She wished she could
send her something nice, but times were hard and Celia knew she had no
money, so she must take it out in love.
Hiram’s sickness and the doctor’s bills made things close for Nettie or
she would have remembered the birthday, too, perhaps. Aunt Hannah felt
that it was hard to have to be a burden on Nettie, now when the children
were young and she and Hiram needed every cent he could earn, but what
else could she do? She sent her love to her dear girl, however, and
wanted her to read the verse on the little ribbon enclosed and perhaps
it would do her good. She hoped Celia had a nice comfortable “homey”
place to board and would write soon.
That was all. The white ribbon bookmark was of satin and bore these
words:
“His allowance was a continual allowance . . . a daily rate. 2 Kings
xxv. 30,” and beneath in smaller letters:
“Charge not thyself with the weight of a year,
Child of the Master, faithful and dear,
Choose not the cross for the coming week,
For that is more than he bids thee seek.
Bend not thine arms for to-morrow’s load,
Thou mayest leave that to thy gracious God,
Daily, only he says to thee,
‘Take up thy cross and follow me.’”