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THE PANSY
EDITED BY "PANSY" MRS. G. R. ALDEN.
D. LOTHROP& CO.
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_Volume 13, Number 26._ Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO.
_May 1, 1886._
THE PANSY.
[Illustration: HOWARD'S HENS.]
"DILIGENT IN BUSINESS."
IF there ever was a boy who needed to turn over a new leaf and write
at the top as a motto, "Diligent in business," that boy was Howard
Grinnell.
If his mother asked him to do anything, he always replied, "I will in
a minute." He said this so often that I wonder he was not called "in a
minute" by everybody. It would have been a very appropriate name.
Howard had the charge of the hens, at least that was the way they put
it, but I think that Mrs. Grinnell was the one upon whom the burden
rested. Every morning after breakfast she found it necessary to ask,
"Howard, have you fed the hens?"
"Not yet, but I am going to."
"Well, go right away, or you will forget it."
"No, I will not forget, I am going in a minute; I just want to look at
the weather report."
Half an hour later Howard appears from the direction of the east meadow
with his hands full of meadow lilies which he presents to his mother,
saying:
"The very first! Put them in the antique vase, please. And set it under
the mantle, will you, mamma?"
"Thank you, dear, they are beautiful! I will arrange them at once."
Then as she turned away, "The hens?"
"O, I forgot! I'll go now."
"Seems to me," said Mr. Grinnell one morning, "that you have carried
that on your shoulders about long enough. Howard should attend to his
business without prompting. It did very well at first, but the time has
come when he must be held responsible for the prompt discharge of the
duty, else take away the privilege. Howard!"
"Sir?" responded the boy, turning back on his way to the barn.
"After this you are not to be reminded of your work, and if the hens
are not cared for before breakfast, I will do it myself, and you will
not have any benefit from the eggs, either in money or as food; it will
be some little extra trouble for your mother, but you will be provided
with food prepared without eggs unless you are faithful to your trust."
"Yes, sir." And Howard went on his way. I do not think he made any
resolutions; he thought it would be easy enough to attend to the duty
as required, and gave himself up to the examination of a weed which had
sprung up in the yard and which was a new one to him. The next morning
he remembered the hens, but the second morning though remembering
he thought of something he wished to hunt up in the cyclopædia, and
stopped in the library until the breakfast bell rang.
For breakfast there was ham and eggs, and corn muffins. Howard was a
little surprised when his father passed him a plate with only a potato
on it. He was about to remonstrate, when he caught the significant look
on his mother's face, and remembered the compact. He wisely made the
best of it and decided that he would try a bowl of bread and milk.
After breakfast Mr. Grinnell fed the hens, and at night he brought in
the eggs, saying to his wife:
"I would like some boiled eggs for supper; as Bridget is away, we can
get along very well with bread and butter and eggs. Didn't I see you
making a sponge cake this morning?"
"Yes." Then they both laughed, but Mr. Grinnell sobered immediately and
said:
"It is rather hard on the boy when he is so fond of eggs, but it is
quite time he had a lesson. His dilatory habits will be a hindrance to
his success as long as he lives unless he is cured."
Now, privately, I do not believe that Mr. or Mrs. Grinnell enjoyed
their supper of boiled eggs and sponge cake. I know the mother would
much rather have eaten dry bread and given the boy her supper, but she
and her husband chatted over the meal as if everything were quite as
usual. Howard ate his bread and butter, missing the canned fruit which
Mrs. Grinnell remarked she thought they could do without as they had
the extra indulgence of boiled eggs. Now I do not suppose any of you
boys are surprised to hear that Howard, after asking to be excused
some time before his father and mother were through with their supper,
banged the door slightly as he left the room.
However, the next morning the hens received attention at the proper
time. And so far as that one duty was concerned he did not need
another lesson, but he was not yet made over into the prompt boy which
his father desired him to be. That woodbox! O, boys! Do you shrug your
shoulders and say, "I don't blame him?" The woodbox is a dread to boys,
I well know. Howard Grinnell did not particularly dislike the work of
filling the box, but he was never quite ready to do it. He was always
putting it off until he had finished reading the morning paper, or
been the rounds of the garden and meadows to see if there were any new
flowers out or any new birds' nests, and at length the school bell
would ring and he would go off to school having forgotten that there
was such a thing in the wide world as a woodbox. One morning Mrs.
Grinnell said, "Howard, Bridget will need a box full of wood to-day;
she has a large ironing."
"Yes, ma'am," said Howard dreamily from the depths of an arm-chair
where he had established himself with a new orchid and a botany. Mrs.
Grinnell was busy, and gave the matter no farther attention until two
hours later Bridget announced that the wood was out.
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Grinnell, "that boy went off without filling the
box, after all!" After a moment's thought she said: "Well, Bridget,
Howard cannot expect his clothes to be ironed with cold irons. You may
hang all his things upon the bars without ironing, and he will have to
wear them so. Perhaps you and I can get wood enough for the rest."
Bridget thought it a good joke to play upon Master Howard, and her
good nature returned in view of the sport she would have at the boy's
expense.
You may imagine that Howard did not enjoy wearing his rough-dried
garments, but he was forced to do so. And as he was a somewhat
fastidious boy, it was quite a trial to go to school in that plight.
It was by such lessons as this that Mr. and Mrs. Grinnell sought to
cure Howard of his fault; and one day when Mrs. Grinnell was looking
over same mottoes, she discovered one handsomely illuminated which
struck her as being just the one for her son's room. It was this:
"Diligent in business, serving the Lord!"
FAYE HUNTINGTON.
HOW IT BECAME POSSIBLE.
"THAT is impossible!" and Mrs. Frazee turned away to hide the tears
that were ready to fall. The doctor had just said, "I must tell you
plainly, she has no chance for life here; she can never get through the
spring months in this stifled air. If you take her into the country at
once I have not the slightest doubt of complete recovery; she is sure
to rally with fresh air and country living. She ought to go at once."
And to this Mrs. Frazee had made answer, "It is impossible!" and indeed
it did seem impossible. Where was the money to come from for a journey?
Annie Frazee had been ill all winter; first it was the measles, then
later the whooping-cough. How that cough did hang on! Day after day the
child seemed to grow weaker, though they kept hoping for improvement.
They were too poor to have constant medical attendance, but a
kind-hearted physician who had been consulted when the cough had proved
too obstinate to yield to the mother's nursing, had fallen into the
habit of dropping in for a moment whenever he was in the neighborhood.
It was one of those bright mornings of early spring. Doctor Emmons had
been called to prescribe for Mrs. Murphy's baby. Mrs. Murphy lived away
up at the top of the tall tenement house of which the Frazees occupied
two rooms on the second floor. The doctor stopped for a few moments
on his way down, and his quick professional eye noted immediately the
change in Annie since his last call, and he made the plain statement
which so distressed the poor mother.
"If it could be," she said over and over when Doctor Emmons had gone on
his busy way, "but it is impossible!"
Suddenly as she was going sadly about taking up the work she must do,
and repeating the sorrowful sentence, "It is impossible!" she seemed
to hear a voice saying, "The things which are impossible with men, are
possible with God."
The voice seemed far away, and though Mrs. Frazee was startled she soon
realized that it was a memory of words she had read long ago, and as
she reflected she knew that they were the words of Christ himself.
[Illustration: ANNIE'S WINDOW.]
Away back in her girlhood Mrs. Frazee had professed to be a follower
of Jesus. The good seed sown in her heart in the Sunday-school seemed
to promise to bring forth fruit; but presently the pleasures of life,
and afterwards the cares, crowded in upon her Christian life, until it
seemed to have withered away. Dropping Christian duties one by one,
putting away the privileges of a servant of God, she had for a long
time been living away from Christ, struggling under her sorrows without
aid from above. And that morning along with the memory of the words,
"With God all things are possible," came the thought, "But this is
not for me! I cannot claim anything from God; I have so long wandered
from Christ, so long denied my Master that I have no right to come
in his name asking for help!" Then after a little while thoughts of
the prodigal came to her, and then by and by, stepping softly so as
not to disturb Annie who had fallen into a light sleep, and saying in
a whisper so faint that only the ear of the Infinite could hear, "I
will arise and go to my Father," she passed into the other room, and,
closing the door, knelt down alone with God to confess her sin and to
plead for forgiveness. When did Christ ever turn away from a weary,
burdened and repentant soul?
When Mrs. Frazee came back to the room where Annie was still sleeping,
and looked into the pale face, she murmured, "If it be thy will, dear
Father, spare my child." The possibility of bringing about a removal of
her darling into the country seemed as remote as ever. Yet now and then
there came the thought, "With God all things are possible!"
* * * * *
In a pleasant home in the upper part of the city a cheerful group sat
at breakfast.
"If I go home with uncle Ben, I have ever so much to do to-day," said
Ethel Miller, a bright young girl of fifteen.
"You girls always have so much to do," replied her brother John, two
years younger. "I could get ready to go into the country for a few
days in five minutes, but I suppose you will have to spend half a day
deciding what to take, and the other half in packing two or three
trunks!" he added with a smile.
"You are quite mistaken; I am not going to take even one trunk. But I
have some calls to make."
"Calls!" said uncle Ben, arching his eyebrows. "I supposed that as you
were a schoolgirl yet, you were exempt from that form of fashionable
nonsense."
"Oh! I do not mean fashionable calls," replied Ethel; "but you see I
am on the lookout committee, and Mr. Myers told me yesterday that the
Frazee girl who has been sick all winter seems to be failing, and I
ought to go there before I go away. And there are one or two more on my
list who live down that way, so I may as well call on them all while I
am about it."
"What will you do this morning, Benjamin?" asked Mr. William Miller,
Ethel's father.
"If Ethel will take me along, I think I will go with her, and on the
way back I will drop in at the store and go to lunch with you. And this
afternoon I propose to give myself over to John."
This arrangement gave general satisfaction, only Mrs. Miller suggested
that she, being left out of the plans, should claim the evening for
herself.
Several things happened to delay Ethel and uncle Ben, so that it was
quite a little after noon when they reached the home of the Frazees.
Ethel in her new spring suit, with her dainty ways and bright face, was
a pleasant sight to the invalid, and uncle Ben seemed to Mrs. Frazee to
bring in a whiff of that country air which she had been longing for.
It all came about naturally enough. Ethel's inquiries brought out
the information that Annie was not gaining and that the doctor had
recommended country air. And Mrs. Frazee said, "We have not had time
to plan yet, but I hope a way will be opened for her to go, though it
seems just now to be impossible."
Uncle Ben listened, meantime taking in the barenness of the room as to
its furnishings. Presently he asked a few questions, not in any sense
obtrusive, but such as a sympathetic stranger might ask if he knew how,
and uncle Ben did know how. Then he said, turning to Ethel: "Suppose we
take your friend here home with us? There's room enough out there, and
your aunt would not let her want for care."
Ethel's eyes beamed. "That would be just the thing! May we take her,
Mrs. Frazee?" Then Ethel explained that uncle Ben lived about forty
miles away in the country, that she was going home with him for a week,
and that Annie would be a very welcome guest if she could go.
"You see," said Mr. Benjamin Miller, "if it agrees with her out there
she can stay on after Ethel comes back to school; Ethel being with her
for the first few days will help her to get used to the place."
Mrs. Frazee was too much overcome to express her joy at this unexpected
turn of affairs. She tried to say it was too much, that they were
strangers to him, and could not expect such kindness; but uncle Ben
said:
"It's all right! This seems to be the next bit of work that the Lord
has set for me to do, and it is not an unpleasant task, I'm thinking.
Someway he gives me pleasant things to do, mostly!"
So it was settled, and a week later Mrs. Frazee's heart was cheered by
a letter from Annie herself. She wrote:
MY DEAR MAMMA:
I am getting stronger every day. It is lovely here. The
house is the prettiest I ever saw, and my room is just
as cunning as it can be. A pair of birds are building
a nest under the eaves close to my window. Mrs. Miller
brought up some plants in pots for my window. Before
Miss Ethel went away she went down the river to where
the pussy willows grow and brought me some catkins.
Mr. Miller is going to take me out for a ride this
afternoon. I have all the milk I can drink, and I do
not cough at all nights. I wiped the dishes for Mrs.
Miller this morning. So you may know I am better.
ANNIE.
Mrs. Frazee dropped the letter in her lap, and clasping her hands said,
"My God, I thank thee!" Presently Doctor Emmons tapped at the door, and
entering, looked about in surprise.
"What have you done with my patient?"
"O doctor! didn't you know? She has gone into the country and I have a
letter here from her. She is getting well!"
"Of course she is! But how did it happen?" And then Mrs. Frazee had to
tell the story to the wondering doctor. As she ended she added, "And I
have found out that 'all things are possible with God.'"
FAYE HUNTINGTON.
- - - - - - -
SOME little folks are apt so say,
When asked their task to touch,
"I'll put it off, at least, to-day;
It cannot matter much."
Time is always on the wing;
You cannot stop its flight;
Then do at once your little tasks;
You'll happier be at night.
But little duties still put off
Will end in "Never done;"
And "By-and-by is time enough"
Has ruined many a one.--_Well Spring._
SIX O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING.
GOD IS A SPIRIT: AND THEY THAT WORSHIP HIM MUST WORSHIP
HIM IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.
ONE SOWETH AND ANOTHER REAPETH.
JESUS SAITH UNTO HIM, GO THY WAY, THY SON LIVETH.
WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE?
JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE.
IN came the children, one evening when they were to have a story, and
Rollo laid the verses in Grandma Burton's lap. The room looked very
pretty that evening. There was a bright coal fire burning in the grate,
which lighted everything beautifully, and Grandma herself was the
prettiest object in it. So the children thought, anyway.
"Yes," she said, "I know a story about that last one. It happened a
great many years ago, as the most of my stories do. Are you all ready?"
The hassock and chairs were by this time fixed in their accustomed
places, and the silence kept by all the children showed that they were
ready for the story, without Harold's announcement to that effect. So
Grandma began:
"It was one day in November, just before Thanksgiving, when I was about
twelve years old, that my brother Fred and I received a note from a
lady who lived out in the country a mile or two, which said that she
wanted us to come and spend Thanksgiving with her. We were both very
fond of Mrs. Watson, and were delighted when father said we might go.
"So that afternoon he harnessed Old Gray to the sleigh, and took us
around to Mrs. Watson's. It was quite cold, I remember, and father said
he guessed there would be a big snowstorm in the night. The house we
were going to was a little low one, that was old-fashioned even then,
and with only one story.
"Mrs. Watson came to the gate to meet us, and showed us into her warm
kitchen, while father said good-by, and hurried home. We had some nice
fresh milk and bread for supper, and went to bed early. I was very
tired, and didn't waken till I heard the big clock strike six, so I
hurried up, and dressed very fast, all the time wondering what made the
room so dark. I couldn't see out of doors, because of the curtain at
the little window.
"When I came into the other room, I saw my brother up on a chair at
the window, looking over what seemed to be a white sheet tacked to
it, and Mrs. Watson watching him. 'You can't see anything but snow,'
he said presently, 'for the little hill hides the road.' 'Why, what
is the matter?' I asked, surprising them so that Fred nearly fell off
his chair. And how frightened I was when I found the snow had drifted
against the house, so that we could neither see out of the windows, nor
get out of the door!
"My!" said Sarah. "Why, we never see so much snow as that here,
Grandma."
"I know, dear," said Grandma Burton, "but where I lived when I was a
little girl was much farther North than we are now, you know, and I
remember that in the winters we often used to go out sleighriding, and
ride over the tops of the fences, not being able to see them at all."
"What fun! Now go on, Grandma."
"Well, we tried to make a way through the drift, but didn't succeed. My
brother said he thought he could shovel a path, but Mrs. Watson told
him she had lent her big shovel to Mr. Smith the day before, while his
was getting mended, and had only a little one for the fire. So all
there was to do was to get breakfast, and wait for some one to come and
dig as out of the drift, or rather, dig the drift away from us.
"We did pretty well for breakfast, only we hadn't any bread. 'I was out
of flour,' said Mrs. Watson, 'before I knew it, and Mr. Jones was to
bring me another barrel this morning, but I don't suppose he will come,
now that there is so much snow.' The turkey was there in the pantry, so
were the cranberries; Mrs. Watson let Fred and me help cook them for
dinner, and we tried to make the best of our condition, and think as
little as possible of the great wall of snow outside the house. But it
was hard work; every little while the tears would come into my eyes,
to think of my dear father and mother at home, not knowing how we were
snowed up in the little red farmhouse.
"A little while after breakfast we all sat down to have family worship,
and Mrs. Watson, taking down her big old Bible, read part of the sixth
chapter of John. I remember it now, just as well as I did years ago,
how she read about Jesus' feeding that great multitude, when they had
nothing to eat. And then how he told his disciples afterward what was
the best bread to have, and said, 'I am the bread of life: he that
cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst.'
"'Children,' said Mrs. Watson, when she had finished reading, 'Jesus
can give us the bread we eat, and the bread of life, just as well now
as he could then. Let us ask him for the two kinds.' And then we knelt
down, and she prayed very earnestly that God would not only give us the
bread that we needed then to eat, but would also give us the blessed
bread of life. And I am sure Fred and I prayed too.
"The dinner was a pretty good one, with the turkey and all, but we
missed the bread again. It is wonderful how much you do need that,
no matter what else you have. I had often thought, before that
Thanksgiving, that I could get along just as well without bread as with
it, if I had plenty of other things, but I saw, in just that one day,
how necessary it was.
"We had a pretty lonely afternoon. Nearly always, when we went to see
Mrs. Watson, we had a very good time, but with that great wall of snow
outside the house, and the weather growing colder and colder, so that
it couldn't melt, it was impossible to be very happy, no matter how
much we tried. It seemed awful to go to bed feeling so badly, though I
knew that father would be after us in the morning. Every little while,
all the afternoon, I would flatten my nose against the window, and
after looking at the snow a minute, I would shut my eyes tight, and
pray to God that he would have somebody come and help us soon. And I
really thought he would answer.
"When supper time came, and the clock struck six, we were all real
glad, I guess, for we hadn't eaten so very much for dinner, and were
pretty hungry; besides, supper would give us something to do. But there
wasn't much of it--no bread, and no milk--only a little cold turkey for
each of us, for the coal was all gone, and we couldn't cook anything.
The room was growing cold. I put mother's shawl around me, and Fred put
on his overcoat, while Mrs. Watson got her shawl too. We had to light
a candle long before supper time, it got dark so early, when only a
little bit of light could come in at the windows.
"So there we sat, in the cold kitchen. Once or twice Mrs. Watson
suggested that my brother and I should go to bed, but he was sure he
didn't want to--neither did I. So she got out an old game of checkers,
and we played awhile, till we grew sleepy in spite of ourselves, and I
dropped off into dreamland with my head on Mrs. Watson's lap, and Fred
with his on the table. I didn't waken till the clock struck ten, and
then I sat up and looked about me in surprise. I could hardly remember
where I was, when suddenly I heard a dull thud, which made all of us
jump.
"We opened the front door wide. Just as we did so, a great mass of snow
came into our faces, soon a snow-shovel appeared, and next--the face
of my father! O, how glad we were! He stepped into the room, and threw
his arms about Fred and me, covering us with a coating of snow. Two or
three more men came in then, one of them with a basket which had been
sent by my mother, and as Mrs. Watson took off the cover, I spied a
huge piece of bread and butter, and contented myself with that. You
can't think how good it was to have some bread again! It seemed a year
since I had had any!
"That's about all there is to tell, except that in the morning father
drove Fred and me home in the sleigh, just as we had come. The reason
the verse made me think of that Thanksgiving was that I had never
before realized how valuable and necessary bread was, and why Jesus
called himself 'the bread of life.'
"My brother told me, a great many years later, that he believed that
day was the first time he ever really made up his mind to come to the
'Bread of life,' and never hunger again."
"Why didn't they come sooner?" asked Rollo.
"They didn't know Mrs. Watson's house was snowed up so. It was out
in the country, you know, and the snow hadn't drifted so badly in
the town. But they missed us from meeting in the morning, and in the
afternoon a man came into town, and told them he had seen the house
with the wall of snow all around it. So they got their shovels, and
came right out to help us."
"I think it was dreadful!" said Marion.
"But God was taking care of us, dearie," said Grandma, "and he heard
and answered our prayers."
PARANETE.
[Illustration: OUR BABY.]
_Volume 13, Number 27._ Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO.
_May 8, 1886._
THE PANSY.
[Illustration: GOING A-MAYING.]
REACHING OUT.
(_A further Account of Nettie Decker and her Friends._)
BY PANSY.
CHAPTER VII.
"YOU see," said Jerry, as Nettie came, protesting as she walked that
she could stay but a few minutes, because there was Norm's collar,
and she had four nice apples out of which she was going to make
some splendid apple dumplings for dinner, "you see we must contrive
something to keep a young fellow like Norm busy, if we are going to
hold him after he is caught. It doesn't do to catch a fish and leave
him on the edge of the bank near enough to flounce himself back into
the water. Norm ought to be set to work to help along the plans, and
kept so busy that he wouldn't have time to get tired of them."
"But how could that be done?" Nettie said in wondering tones, which
nevertheless had a note of admiration in them. Jerry went so deeply
into things, it almost took her breath away to follow him.
"Just so; that's the problem which ought to be thought out. I can think
of things enough; but the room, and the tools to begin with, are the
trouble."
"What have you thought of? What would you do if you could?"
"O my!" said Jerry, with a little laugh; "don't ask me that question,
or your folks will have no apple dumplings to-day. I don't believe
there is any end to the things which I would do if I could. But the
first beginnings of them are like this: suppose we had a few dollars
capital, and a room."
"You might as well suppose we had a palace, and a million dollars,"
said Nettie, with a long-drawn sigh.
"No, because I don't expect either of those things; but I do mean to
have a room and a few dollars in capital for this thing some day; only,
you see, I don't want to wait for them."
"Well, go on; what then?"
"Why, then we would start an eating-house, you and I, on a little
bit of a scale, you know. We would have bread with some kind of
meat between, and coffee, in cold weather, and lemonade in hot,
and a few apples, and now and then some nuts, and a good deal of
gingerbread--soft, like what auntie Smith makes--and some ginger-snaps
like those Mrs. Dix sent us from the country, and, well, you know the
names of things better than I do. Real good things, I mean, but which
don't cost much. Such as you, and Sarah Ann, and a good many bright
girls learn how to make, without using a great deal of money. Those
things are all rather cheap, which I have mentioned, because we have
them at our house quite often, and the Smiths are poor, you know. But
they are made so nice that they are just capital. Well, I would have
them for sale, just as cheap as could possibly be afforded; a great
deal cheaper than beer, or cigars, and I would have the room bright and
cheery; warm in winter, and as cool as I could make it in summer; then
I would have slips of paper scattered about the town, inviting young
folks to come in and get a lunch; then when they came, I would have
picture papers if I could, for them to look at, and games to play, real
nice jolly games, and some kind of music going on now and then. I'd
run opposition to that old grocery around the corner from Crossman's,
with its fiddle and its whiskey. That's the beginning of what I would
do. Just what I told you about, that first night we talked it over.
The fellows, lots of them, have nowhere to go; it keeps growing in my
mind, the need for doing something of the sort. I never pass that mean
grocery without thinking of it."
You should have seen Nettie's eyes! The little touch of discouragement
was gone out of them, and they were full of intense thought.
"I can see," she said at last, "just how splendid it might grow to be.
But what did you mean about Norm? there isn't any work for him in such
a plan. At least, I mean, not until he was interested to help for the
sake of others."
"Yes, there is, plenty of business for him. Don't you see? I would have
this room open evenings, after the work was done, and I would have Norm
head manager. He should wait on customers, and keep accounts. When the
thing got going he would be as busy as a bee; and he is just the sort
of fellow to do that kind of thing well, and like it too," he added.
"O Jerry," said Nettie, and her hands were clasped so closely that the
blood flowed back into her wrists, "was there ever a nicer thought than
that in the world! I know it would succeed; and Norm would like it so
much. Norm likes to do things for others, if he only had the chance."
"I know it; and he likes to do things in a business way, and keep
everything straight. Oh! he would be just the one. If we only had a
room, there is nothing to hinder our beginning in a very small way.
Those chickens are growing as fast as they can, and by Thanksgiving
there will be a couple of them ready to broil; then the little old
grandmothers did so well."
"I know it; who would have supposed that almost four dollars could be
made out of some daisy grandmothers! Miss Sherrill gave me one dollar
and ninety-five cents which she said was just half of what they had
earned. I do think it was so nice in her to give us that chance! She
couldn't have known how much we wanted the money. Jerry, why couldn't
we begin, just with that? It would start us, and then if the things
sold, why, the money from them would keep us started until we found a
way to earn more. Why can't we?"
"Room," said Jerry, with commendable brevity. "Why, we have a room;
there's the front one that we just put in such nice order. Why not? It
is large enough for now, and maybe when our business grew we could get
another one somehow."
Jerry stopped fitting the toe of his boot to a hole which he had made
in the ground, and looked at the eager young woman of business before
him. "Do you mean your mother would let us have the room, and the
chance in the kitchen, to go into such business?"
"Mother would do _anything_," said Nettie emphatically, "anything in
the world which might possibly keep Norm in the house evenings; you
don't know how dreadfully she feels about Norm. She thinks father," and
there Nettie stopped. How could a daughter put it into words that her
mother was afraid her father would lead his son astray?
"I know," said Jerry. "See here, Nettie, what is the matter with your
father? I never saw him look so still, and--well, queer, in some way.
Mr. Smith says he doesn't think he is drinking a drop; but he looks
unlike himself, somehow, and I can't decide how."
"I don't know," said Nettie, in a low voice. "We don't know what to
think of him. He hasn't been so long without drinking, mother says, in
four years. But he doesn't act right; or, I mean, natural. He isn't
cross, as drinking beer makes him, but he isn't pleasant, as he was
for a day or two. He is real sober; hardly speaks at all, nor notices
the things I make; and I try just as hard to please him! He eats
everything, but he does it as though he didn't know he was eating.
Mother thinks he is in some trouble, but she can't tell what. He can't
be afraid of losing his place--because mother says he was threatened
that two or three times when he was drinking so hard, and he didn't
seem to mind it at all; and why should he be discharged now, when he
works hard every day? Last Saturday night he brought home more money
than he has in years. Mother cried when she saw what there was, but
she had debts to pay, so we didn't get much start out of it after all.
Then we spend a good deal in coffee; we have it three times a day, hot
and strong; I can see father seems to need it; and I have heard that
it helped men who were trying not to drink. When I told mother that,
she said he should have it if she had to beg for it on her knees. But
I don't know what is the matter with father now. Sometimes mother is
afraid there is a disease coming on him such as men have who drink;
she says he doesn't sleep very well nights, and he groans some, when
he is asleep. Mother tries hard," said Nettie, in a closing burst of
confidence, "and she _does_ have such a hard time! If we could only
save Norm for her."
"I'll tell you who your mother looks like, or would look like if she
were dressed up, you know. Did you ever see Mrs. Burt?"
"The woman who lives in the cottage where the vines climb all around
the front, and who has birds, and a baby? I saw her yesterday. You
don't think mother looks like her!"
"She would," said Jerry, positively, "if she had on a pink and white
dress and a white fold about her neck. I passed there last night, while
Mrs. Burt was sitting out by that window garden of hers, with her baby
in her arms; Mr. Burt sat on one of the steps, and they were talking
and laughing together. I could not help noticing how much like your
mother she looked when she turned her side face. Oh! she is younger,
of course; she looks almost as though she might be your mother's
daughter. I was thinking what fun it would be if she were, and we could
go and visit her, and get her to help us about all sorts of things.
Mr. Burt knows how to do every kind of work about building a house, or
fixing up a room."
[Illustration: THE BURT COTTAGE.]
"He is a nice man, isn't he?"
"Why, yes, nice enough; he is steady and works hard. Mr. Smith thinks
he is quite a pattern; he has bought that little house where he lives,
and fixed it all up with vines and things; but I should like him better
if he didn't puff tobacco smoke into his wife's face when he talked
with her. He doesn't begin to be so good a workman as your father,
nor to know so much in a hundred ways. I think your father is a very
nice-looking man when he is dressed up. He looks smart, and he is
smart. Mr. Smith says there isn't a man in town who can do the sort of
work that he can at the shop, and that he could get very high wages and
be promoted and all that, if"--
Jerry stopped suddenly, and Nettie finished the sentence with a
sigh. She too had passed the Burt cottage and admired its beauty and
neatness. To think that Mr. Burt owned it, and was a younger man by
fifteen years at least than her father--and was not so good a workman!
then see how well he dressed his wife; and little Bobby Burt looked as
neat and pretty in Sunday-school as the best of them. It was very hard
that there must be such a difference in homes. If she could only live
in a house like the Burt cottage, and have things nice about her as
they did, and have her father and mother sit together and talk, as Mr.
and Mrs. Burt did, she should be perfectly happy, Nettie told herself.
Then she sprang up from the log and declared that she must not waste
another minute of time; but that Jerry's plan was the best one she had
ever heard, and she believed they could begin it.
With this thought still in mind, after the dinner dishes were carefully
cleared away, and her mother, returned from the day's ironing, had
been treated to a piece of the apple dumpling warmed over for her, and
had said it was as nice a bit as she ever tasted, Nettie began on the
subject which had been in her thoughts all day:
"What would you think of us young folks going into business?"
"Going into business!"
"Yes'm. Jerry and Norm and me. Jerry has a plan; he has been telling me
about it this morning. It is nice if we can only carry it out; and I
shouldn't wonder if we could. That is, if you think well of it."
"I begin to think there isn't much that you and Jerry can't do, with
Norm, or with anybody else, if you try; and you both appear to be ready
to try to do all you can for everybody."
Mrs. Decker's tone was so hearty and pleased, that you would not have
known her for the same woman who looked forward dismally but a few
weeks ago to Nettie's home-coming. Her heart had so warmed to the girl
in her efforts for father and brother, that she was almost ready to
agree to anything which she could have to propose. So Nettie, well
pleased with this beginning, unfolded with great clearness and detail,
Jerry's wonderful plan for not only catching Norm, but setting him up
in business.
Mrs. Decker listened, and questioned and cross-questioned, sewing
swiftly the while on Norm's jacket which had been torn, and which
was being skilfully darned in view of the evening to be spent at the
parsonage.
"Well," she said at last, "it looks wild to me, I own; I should as
soon try to fly, as of making anything like that work in this town;
but then, you've made things work, you two, that I'd no notion could
be done, and between you, you seem to kind of bewitch Norm. He's done
things for you that I would no sooner have thought of asking of him
than I would have asked him to fly up to the moon; and this may be
another of them. Anyhow, if you've a mind to try it, I won't be the
one to stop you. I've been that scared for Norm, that I'm ready for
anything. Oh! the _room_, of course you may use it. If you wanted to
have a circus in there, I think I'd agree, wild animals and all; I've
had worse than wild animals in my day. No, your father won't object; he
thinks what you do is about right, I guess. And for the matter of that,
he doesn't object to anything nowadays; I don't know what to make of
him."
The sentence ended with a long-drawn, troubled sigh.
Just what this strange change in her husband meant, Mrs. Decker could
not decide; and each theory which she started in her mind about it,
looked worse than the last.
Norm's collar was ready for him, so was his jacket. He was somewhat
surly; the truth was, he had received what he called a "bid" to
the merry-making which was to take place in the back room of the
grocery, around the corner from Crossman's, and he was a good deal
tried to think he had cut himself off by what he called a "spooney"
promise, from enjoying the evening there. At the same time there was
a certain sense of largeness in saying he could not come because he
had received an invitation elsewhere, which gave him a momentary
pleasure. To be sure the boys coaxed until they had discovered the
place of his engagement, and joked him the rest of the time, until he
was half-inclined to wish he had never heard of the parsonage; but for
all that, a certain something in Norman which marked him as different
from some boys, held him to his word when it was passed; and he had
no thought of breaking from his engagement. It was an evening such as
Norman had reason to remember. For the first time in his life he sat
in a pleasantly furnished home, among ladies and gentlemen, and heard
himself spoken to as one who "belonged."
Three ladies were there from the city, and two gentlemen whom Norman
had never seen before; all friends of the Sherrills come out to spend
a day with them. They were not only unlike any people whom he had ever
seen before, but, if he had known it, unlike a great many ladies and
gentlemen, in that their chief aim in life was to be found in their
Master's service; and a boy about whom they knew nothing, save that he
was poor, and surrounded by temptations, and Satan desired to have him,
was in their eyes so much stray material which they were bound to bring
back to the rightful owner if they could.
To this end they talked to Norman. Not in the form of a lecture, but
with bright, winning words, on topics which he could understand, not
only, but actually on certain topics about which he knew more than
they! For instance, there was a cave about two miles from the town,
of which they had heard, but had never seen; and Norm had explored
every crevice in it many a time. He knew on which side of the river
it was located, whether the entrance was from the east or the south;
just how far one could walk through it, just how far one could creep
in it, after walking had become impossible, and a dozen other things
which it had not occurred to him were of interest to anybody else. In
fact, Norm discovered in the course of the hour that there was such a
thing as conversation. Not that he made use of that word, in thinking
it over; his thoughts, if they could have been seen, would have been
something like this: "These are swell folks, but I can understand what
they say, and they seem to understand what I say, and don't stare as
though I was a wild animal escaped from the woods. I wonder what makes
the difference between them and other folks?"
But when the music began! I have no words to describe to you what
it was to Norm to sit close to an organ and hear its softest notes,
and feel the thrill of its heavy bass tones, and be appealed to
occasionally as to whether he liked this or that the best, and to
have a piece sung because the player thought it would please him; she
selected it that morning, she told him, with this thought in view.
"Decker, you ought to learn to play," said one of the guests who had
watched him through the last piece. "You _look_ music, right out of
your eyes. Miss Sherrill, here is a pupil for you who might do you
credit. Have you ever had any instrument, Decker?"
Then Norm came back to every-day life, and flushed and stammered. "No,
he hadn't, and was not likely to;" and wondered what they would think
if they were to see the corner grocery where he spent most of his
leisure time.
The questioner laughed pleasantly. "Oh, I'm not so sure of that. I
have a friend who plays the violin in a way to bring tears to people's
eyes, and he never touched one until he was thirty years old; hadn't
time until then. He was an apprentice, and had his trade to master,
and himself to get well started in it before he had time for music;
but when he came to leisure, he made music a delight to himself and to
others."
"A great deal can be done with leisure time," said another of the
guests. "Mr. Sherrill, you remember Myers, your college classmate? He
did not learn to read, you know, until he was seventeen."
"What?" said Norm, astonished out of his diffidence; "didn't know how
to read!"
"No," repeated the gentleman, "not until he was seventeen. He had a
hard childhood--was kicked about in the world, with no leisure and no
help, had to work evenings as well as days, but when he was seventeen
he fell into kinder hands, and had a couple of hours each evening all
to himself, and he mastered reading, not only, but all the common
studies, and graduated from college with honor when he was twenty-six."
Now Norm had all his evenings to lounge about in, and had not known
what to do with them; and he could read quite well.
THE TWO LITTLE PIGS.