Celia read the words over mechanically. She was not thinking so much of
what they said, as she was of what her aunt had written, or rather of
what she had not written, and what could be read between the lines, by
means of her knowledge of that aunt and her surroundings. In other words
Celia Murray was doing exactly what the words on the white ribbon told
her not to do. She was charging herself “with the weight of a year.” She
had picked up the cross of the coming months and was bending under it
already.
Her trouble was aunt Hannah. Oh, if she could but do something for her.
She knew very well that that little sentence about being a burden on
Nettie meant more than aunt Hannah would have her know. She knew that
aunt Hannah would never feel herself a burden on her niece Nettie,—for
whom she had slaved half her life, and was still slaving, unless
something had been said or done to make her feel so; and Celia, who
never had liked her cousin-in-law, Hiram, at any time, for more reasons
than mere prejudice, knew pretty well who it was that had made good,
faithful, untiring aunt Hannah feel that she was a burden.
Celia’s eyes flashed, and she caught her hands in each other in a quick
convulsive grasp. “Oh, if I could but do something to get aunt Hannah
out of that and have her with me!” she exclaimed aloud. “But here am I
with six dollars and a half a week; paying out four and a quarter for
this miserable hole they call a home; my clothes wearing out just as
fast as they can, and a possibility hanging over me that I may not suit
and may be discharged at any time. How can I ever get ahead enough to do
anything!”
She sat there thinking over her life and aunt Hannah’s. Her own mother
and Nettie’s mother had died within a year of each other. They were both
aunt Hannah’s sisters. Mr. Murray did not long survive his wife, and
Celia had gone to live with her cousins who were being mothered by aunt
Hannah, then a young, strong, sweet woman. Her uncle, Mr. Harmon, had
been a hard working, silent man, who had supplied the wants of his
family as well as he could, but that had not always been luxuriously,
for he had never been a successful man. The children had grown fast and
required many things. There were five of his own and Celia, who had
shared with the rest,—though never really getting her share, because of
her readiness to give up and the others’ readiness to take what she gave
up. Somehow the Harmon children had a streak of selfishness in them, and
they always seemed willing that aunt Hannah and Celia should take a back
seat whenever any one had to do so, which was nearly all the time. Celia
never resented this for herself, even in her heart; but for aunt Hannah
she often and often did so. That faithful woman spent the best years of
her life, doing for her sister’s children as if they had been her own,
and yet without the honor of being their mother, and feeling that the
home was her own. She had never married, she was simply aunt Hannah, an
excellent housekeeper, and the best substitute for a mother one could
imagine. As the children grew up they brought all their burdens to aunt
Hannah to bear, and when there were more than she could conveniently
carry, they would broadly hint that it was Celia’s place to help her,
for Celia was the outsider, the dependent, the moneyless one. It had
fallen to her lot to tend the babies till they grew from being tended
into boys, and then to follow after and pick up the things they left in
disorder in their wake. It was she who altered the girls’ dresses to
suit the style, and fashioned dainty hats from odds and ends, turning
and pressing them over to make them as good as new for some special
occasion. And then when it came her turn, it was she who had to stay at
home, because she had nothing to wear, and no time to make it over, and
nothing left to make over, because she had given it all to the others.
Then had come the day,—not so many weeks ago: Celia remembered it as
vividly as though it had happened but yesterday; she had gone over the
details so many times they were burned upon her brain. And yet, how long
the time really had been and how many changes had come! The boy came up
from the office with a scared face to say that something had happened to
Mr. Harmon, and then they had brought him home and the family all too
soon learned that there was no use in trying to resuscitate him,—all
hope had been over before he was taken from the office. Heart failure,
they said! And instantly following upon this had come that other phrase,
“financial failure,” and soon the orphans found they were penniless.
This was not so bad for the orphans, for they were fully grown and the
girls were both married. The three boys all had good positions and could
support themselves. But what of aunt Hannah and Celia? Nettie and Hiram
had taken aunt Hannah into their family, ill-disguising the fact that
she was asked because of the help she could give in bringing up and
caring for the children, but Celia had understood from the first that
there was no place for her.
She had been given a good education with the others, that is, a common
school course followed by a couple of years in the High School. She had
her two hands and her bright wits and nothing else. A neighbor had
offered to use her influence with a friend of a friend of a partner in a
city store, and the result was her position. She had learned since she
came that it was a good one as such things went. She had regular hours
for meals and occasional holidays, and her work was not heavy. She felt
that she ought to be thankful. She had accepted it, of course, there was
nothing else to be done, but she had looked at aunt Hannah with a heavy
heart and she knew aunt Hannah felt it as keenly. They had been very
close to each other, these two, who had been separated from the others,
in a sense, and had burdens to bear. Perhaps their sense of loneliness
in the world had made them cling the more to each other. Celia would
have liked to be able to say “Aunt Hannah, come with me. I can take care
of you now. You have cared for me all my life, now I will give you a
home and rest.” Ah! if that could have been! Celia drew her breath
quickly, and the tears came between the closed lids. She knew if she
once allowed the tears full sway, they would not stay till they had
swept all before them, and left her in no fit state to appear before
those dreadful, inquisitive boarders, or perhaps even to sell ribbons in
Dobson and Co.’s on Monday. No, she must not give way. She would read
that other letter and take her mind from these things, for certain it
was that she could do nothing more now than she had done, except to
write aunt Hannah a cheering letter, which she could not do unless she
grew cheerful herself.
So she opened the other letter.
It was from Rawley and Brown, a firm of lawyers on Fifth street,
desiring to know if she was Celia Murray, daughter of Henry Dean Murray
of so forth and so on, and if she was, would she please either write or
call upon them at her earliest possible convenience, producing such
evidences of her identity as she possessed.
The girl laughed as she read it over again. “The idea!” she said,
talking aloud to herself again as she had grown into the habit of doing
since she was alone, just to feel as if she were talking to some one.
“If they want to identify me, let them do so. I’m not asking anything of
them. If I’m I, prove it! How very funny! What for, I wonder? There
can’t be a fortune, I know, for father didn’t have a cent. I’m sure I’ve
had that dinged into my ears times enough by Nettie, and even Uncle
Joseph took pains to tell me that occasionally. Well, it is mysterious.”
She got up and began to walk about the room singing to herself the old
nursery rhyme:
“‘If it be me, as I suppose it be,
I’ve a little dog at home and he’ll know me;
If it be _I_, he’ll wag his little tail,
And if it be _not_ I, he’ll bark, and he’ll wail.’
“Dear me!” said Celia, “I’m worse off than the poor old woman who fell
asleep on the king’s highway. I haven’t even a little dog at home who’ll
know me.” She sighed and sat down, picking up the white ribbon that had
fallen to the floor. Then she read it over again carefully.
“How like aunt Hannah that sounds!” she said to herself, as she read the
poem slowly over, “‘Child of the Master, faithful and dear.’ I can hear
aunt Hannah saying that to me. She was always one to hunt out beautiful
things and say them to me as if they had been written all for my poor
self. If aunt Hannah had ever had time, I believe she would have been a
poet. She has it in her. How entirely I have been doing just exactly
what this poem says I must not do: choosing my cross for the coming
week. Yes, and bending my arm for to-morrow’s load. I have been thinking
what a dreary Sunday I should have, and wondering how I could endure it
all day long in this ugly, cold room. And I won’t stay down in that mean
parlor and listen to their horrible singing. It wouldn’t be right
anyway, for they have not the slightest idea of Sabbath keeping. Last
Sunday was one hurrah all day long. I wonder what that verse at the top
is—‘His allowance was a continual allowance.’ I declare I don’t
remember to have ever read it before. But trust aunt Hannah to ferret
out the unusual verses. I must look it up. Second Kings: who was it
about, anyway? The twenty-fifth chapter. Oh! here it is!” She read:
“‘And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the
captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on
the seven and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-me-rodach
king of Babylon in the year that he began to reign did lift up
the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison;
And he spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne
of the kings that were with him in Babylon;
And changed his prison garments: and he did eat bread
continually before him all the days of his life.
And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the
king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.’”
Celia paused and read the verses over again.
She began to see why her aunt had sent it to her, and more than that why
her heavenly Father had sent it to her. It was the same thought that was
in the bit of a poem. God was taking care of her. He was a king and he
was able to lift her head up out of prison, if this was a prison, and
set her even on a throne, and change her prison garments, and more than
that give her an allowance of grace to meet all the daily needs of her
life. A continual allowance: she need never worry lest it should give
out. It was “all the days of her life.” And aunt Hannah was his also. He
would care for her in the same way. There was nothing to be done but to
trust and do what he gave her to do. Perhaps it was unusually hard for
her to do that. She had always been so accustomed to looking ahead and
bearing burdens for others and planning for them. She recognized her
fault and resolved to think more about it. Meantime, obviously the next
duty for her to perform, and one by no means a cross, was for her to
write a long cheery letter to aunt Hannah, who she could easily see was
homesick for her already, though it was but a week since they had been
separated. She gathered together her writing materials, drew her chair a
little nearer the poor light, put on her heavy outdoor coat, for the
room was chilly, though it was only the latter part of October, and
began to write; thinking meanwhile that she could perhaps make a
pleasant Sabbath afternoon for herself out of the study of Jehoiachin,
who was so much a stranger to her that she had hardly remembered there
was such a person spoken of in the Bible.
The letter she wrote was long and cheerful. It abounded in pen pictures
of the places and things she had seen, and it contained descriptions in
detail of the different boarders. She tried not to tell the disagreeable
things, for she knew aunt Hannah would be quick to understand how hard
it all was for her to bear, and she would not lay a feather’s burden
upon those dear hard-worked shoulders. So she detailed merry
conversations, and made light of the poor fare, saying she had a very
good and a very cheap place they all told her and she guessed they were
right.
She also drew upon her imagination and described the dear little home
she was going to make for aunt Hannah to come and rest in and spend her
later years, and she told her she was going to begin right away to save
up for it. She made it all so real that the tears came to her eyes for
very longing for it, and one dropped down on the paper and blotted a
word. She hastily wiped it out, and then took a fresh page, for aunt
Hannah’s eyes were keen. She would be quick to know what made that blot.
She paused a minute with her pen in air ere she closed the letter.
Should she, or should she not tell aunt Hannah of that letter from the
lawyers? No, she would not until she saw whether it came to anything,
and if so, what. It might only worry her aunt. There were worries enough
at Hiram’s without her putting any more in the way. So she finished her
letter, sealed and addressed it, and then ran down to put it in the box.
As she returned from her errand into the misty outdoor world, and closed
the door behind her shivering, glad she did not have to go out any more,
she met the tall, lanky cook in untidy work dress and unkempt hair.
Celia noticed instantly that it was curly hair and black, like the one
she found in the stew the night she came. She was passing on upstairs
but the cook put out her hand and stopped her.
“Say,” she said in familiar tones, “I wish you’d jes’ step into Mis’
Morris’ room and stay a spell. She’s ben took dreadful sick this
evenin’, and I’ve ben with her off an’ on most all the time, an’ I’ve
got pies yet to bake fer to-morrow, an’ I can’t spend no more time up
there now. She ought to have some one, an’ the rest seems all to be gone
out ’cept that ol’ lady up there, an’ she’s gone to bed by this time, I
reckon.”
Celia could do nothing but consent to go, of course, though the task
looked anything but a pleasant one. Mrs. Morris had never struck her
pleasantly. She enquired as to the sickness. The woman didn’t exactly
know what was the matter. No, there had not been any physician sent for.
“There wan’t no one to go in the first place, and, secondly, doctors is
expensive things, take ’em anyway you will, medicine and all. Mrs.
Morris can’t afford no doctors. She’s most killed with debt now.”
Celia turned on the stairs, and followed the woman’s direction to find
Mrs. Morris’ room. Over in her mind came those words she had read a
little while ago.
“Daily, only, he says to thee,
‘Take up thy cross and follow me.’”
She smiled, and thought how soon the cross had come to her after she had
laid down the wrong one of a week ahead, and tapped softly on Mrs.
Morris’ door, lifting up her heart in a prayer that she might be shown
how to do or say the right thing if action were required of her. Then
she heard a strained voice, as of one in pain, call “Come in,” and she
opened the door.