One morning, about eleven o’clock, Molly Poppleton was up in the
third-story hall attending to the rooms on that floor. The chambermaid
was not well, and Molly had been put back in her work a good deal, so
that it was late and she was in a hurry. She thumped the water pitchers
down hard, slammed the doors, and punched the pillows into shape with
extra vigor on this account, but, suddenly, in the midst of making up
the University student’s bed, she came to a sharp halt and straightened
up to listen. She was not mistaken. She certainly had heard sounds of
distress. They grew clearer now as she went to the hall door, and she
quickly located them. They were low, half-suppressed sobs, following
quickly upon one another, as though the weeper were in deep distress.
After listening, she marched down the hall, and without more ceremony
threw open the door of a room. There lay Mamie Williams across the foot
of her unmade bed crying bitterly and shaking with sobs. Molly Poppleton
was at all times a straightforward maiden, and she believed in coming to
the point at once; it was the way she had been brought up. So, without
apology for intruding into the young girl’s trouble, she demanded what
was the matter.
Mamie raised her head long enough to show a red nose and blurred eyes,
and to see who had come in without knocking. Then she went on crying
harder than ever.
Molly shut the door with a slam and said:
“For mercy’s sake, do tell me what’s the matter? Are you hurt? Do you
want a doctor? Or are some of your friends dead?”
Mamie shook her head and finally controlled herself sufficiently to sob
out:
“No, M-m-molly. It’s my heart! It’s broke!”
“Oh, well, if that’s all, you’ll get over it! They always do! I’ve been
there myself, and I know that state don’t last long. You better get up
and wash your face while I make the bed.” And Molly proceeded
energetically to throw open the windows and shake up the pillows.
“Oh Molly! You don’t know. You never was crossed in love!” wailed the
miserable girl, without stirring, and then she sobbed the harder.
Molly turned irately from the bureau where she had begun to dust.
“Crossed in fiddlesticks!” she said, sharply. “You’ll find you ain’t
near so hard hurt as you think for. And as for me, I’ve had my chances
in my time like other girls, and plenty of ’em at that, an’ I perferred
to live single. It’s much more independent. It’s my opinion you ain’t
old enough to be away from home anyway. You better go back to your ma if
you’ve got one.”
But as this only set Miss Mamie to crying the harder, the perplexed
Molly marched down to find Miss Grant and report the case.
“Miss Grant, you’re needed up there in that three-center room. That
silly thing is actin’ like a fool over some poor sickly fellow, that
couldn’t support her ef she got him, I s’pose. She says she’s been
crossed in love an’ her heart’s broke, an’ she’s cryin’ fer dear life.
It’s my opinion she better be crossed with a good spankin’, an’ I
wouldn’t feel sorry to be the one to give it to her neither.”
But the latter part of this sentiment was lost upon her hearer who had
already started with swift steps for the third story.
A moment later Mamie felt a cool hand on her hot forehead, and Miss
Grant stooped down and took her in her arms and kissed her. She was so
surprised to be kissed, that she stopped crying for a minute. Then the
sympathy of the eyes that met hers started her tears afresh, and she
buried her head in the motherly arms held out to her and cried like a
hurt child who had found a comforter. After she had cried a few minutes
and been soothed by the woman who seemed to have the gift of soothing
from above, as others have a gift for music or painting, she was able to
tell her poor little sad, commonplace story.
“It was Mr. Harold Adams at the store. And he was awful handsome. The
girls all thought so. I fell in love with him the first time I saw him.
Yes ma’am, he was the head clerk there, all this winter he had charge.
The owner went to Hew York and left him here to run the business. He was
awful smart, they said. He used to pay me lots of attention at first,
and he’s told me many a time he loved me better than any one else”—here
she broke into fresh sobs—“and it was only when that ugly girl with
bleached hair and a pretty face came, he got to going with her, and now
I’d planned a way to look nicer than her and get him back, and he’s been
real nice to me for a whole week—she was away—they all said she was
sick, but now it turns out she was getting ready to be married, and he’s
to be sent to have full charge of a three-cent store up in Ohio, and
they say she’s going along. The girls had it all ready to tell me this
morning when I went in to the store, and they just couldn’t laugh enough
at me, till I nearly sank through the floor. They was always jealous of
me. First one twitted me an’ then another, till I got so mad and felt so
bad I just come home. He’s a goin’ to marry her, they say, an’ it’s all
been no use after all, an’ oh, my heart’s just broke!”
It is commonly supposed that women who do not marry and have no children
cannot enter into the feelings of young people, and are not able to
sympathize with them. But God had somehow given this woman a sweet
insight into natures in distress, which helped her to be able to give
comfort wherever she went, to say the right word and do the right
action. She bent down now and kissed the tear-wet face.
“You’re awful kind,” moaned poor Mamie. “But you don’t know how it is
yourself. You ain’t never been crossed in love.”
A shadow of the passing of a great dark cloud, tipped with brilliant
light, went across Miss Grant’s face, leaving the reflection of the
light there, ere she spoke again.
“Listen! Mamie,” she said, and her voice was very sweet and tender, and
her eyes looked soft and dewy, as though she saw things beyond the range
of human vision, “I want to tell you a story all about myself.”
Yes, she actually went back to those dear, bright days so long ago, when
she had found a kindred spirit and had lived in a sweet elysium of hope,
and dreamed those rose-colored visions of youth. Some women would have
counted it a desecration to the memory of her dead hopes and sacred love
before the eyes of a vulgar girl who wept over a man a hundredfold more
vulgar; would have thought it an evidence of lack of good taste and
delicacy to do so. Not so this woman. Had she not sent swift petitions
to the throne as she came up the stairs asking for guidance? She felt in
her heart that this story of hers, which had never before passed her
lips to mortal ear, told here, might help this poor, friendless,
untaught girl: might, perhaps, lead her to see life in a different way,
and to begin to try to live it for the God above, instead of for her own
selfish pleasure. And she knew the man she had loved, who had been in
heaven these years, well enough to be certain he would be glad also to
have her tell the story, if it could in any wise help a soul to find
comfort. And so she told it, simply and eloquently. She even let herself
dwell on the tender passages, the little things that make such a story
beautiful in the eyes of a girl. She spoke about the flowers he had sent
her, the pretty, simple gowns she had worn that he admired, and the
ribbon he stooped and kissed, as it floated from her throat, that last
time he parted from her, saying she would soon be with him now to stay;
and how she treasured it yet.
Before she was half-way through the story, Mamie had dried her eyes and
sat up on the bed, her face expressing intense interest. She had
forgotten her own troubles in the trouble of another. Her tears, which
were dried on her own sorrows soon flowed silently for Miss Grant. She
wondered at that peaceful face, which shone bright even through the mist
that would gather in her eyes, as she told of the dark days when her
hopes were taken from her, and of the time when she wandered about
forlorn, until the Lord spoke to her and comforted her. When the story
was finished, Mamie found she could look up and talk. She seemed to have
risen above her recent grief. There was a longing for something in her
heart, she scarcely knew what.
“I always thought it would be an awful thing to be an old maid,” she
said, bluntly, “but if I could look like you, and be like you, I
wouldn’t mind it—not much!” There was a look of admiration on her face.
It was not much encouragement, but Miss Grant was not one who let her
work depend upon results. She went steadily on talking, cheering,
advising, drawing out the girl, until she had a pretty thorough
understanding of what her life had been hitherto. She did not wonder
that the heart seemed broken, nor that what seemed to the poor girl to
be the life love had been freely given to an unworthy object. What
better had been set before the girl? She had been untaught and unguided.
Before she left her, Mamie had confided to her the story of her Bible
reading and of all her thoughts about the garments of fine linen, and
this missionary of the Most High had sifted out from the chaff of
foolish talk and worldly longings the grain of earnest desire after
better things and found joy, the joy of encouragement in it. She even
knelt beside the girl with her arm about her waist, and prayed for her
as Mamie had never heard herself prayed for before, and then, instead of
sending her back to the atmosphere of selfish strivings and silly
thoughts of what should be noble things, she advised her to stay away
from the three-cent store, at least for that day, and come down in the
kitchen, as she had some work for her there which might take her mind
off her trouble for a little while.
It is true that Molly sniffed when she saw her come into the kitchen
with her red eyes washed and a white apron on, but Miss Grant wisely
sent Molly to work in another part of the house, and herself carefully
inducted the awkward novice into the mysteries of making some most
delectable cake, to be used in the celebration of Miss Burns’ birthday
that evening. It spoke well for Miss Grant’s ability to read human
nature, that she chose cake to teach Mamie. If it had been a lesson in
bread-making or how to cook potatoes, it is doubtful if the girl would
have been interested. Cake, now, somehow, seemed “sort of stylish,” and
belonged to the festive side of eating; therefore she enjoyed learning
how to make it nicely, and she came to the dinner-table that evening
beaming with satisfaction over the cake which she had iced and decorated
with smilax and candles herself. She told them all that she made the
cake, and it received much praise, especially from Bob Yates, who asked
for a second piece and said some low words of commendation that brought
a smile and a bright flush into the girl’s face, just as Molly passed
the ice cream which was also a part of the evening’s celebration.
“H’m!” said that worthy woman coming out into the kitchen the better to
converse with herself, “I thought so! She’s got over it sooner than most
of ’em. It generally takes over night at least just to let the glue dry,
but she must have used some lightnin’ stuff. Her heart ain’t more’n skin
deep anyway.”