THE DREAMER.
The light of a June morning lent a warm and cheerful look to the broad
streets, and under its influence even the dingy lanes and alleys looked
a little less gloomy than usual. The spell which had lain upon the city
during the night season was broken. Here and there might be seen a
vegetable cart or a milk wagon rumbling through the streets, of late so
silent and deserted. Sleepy clerks unlocked the shops and warehouses,
and swept them in readiness for the business of the day. Hackmen betook
themselves to the steamboat landings in the hope of obtaining a fare
before breakfast. Creeping out from beneath old wagons and stray corners
where they had been able to procure shelter and lodging, came the
newsboys, those useful adjuncts to our modern civilization. Little time
wasted they on the duties of the toilet, but shook themselves wide
awake, and with the keen instinct of trade, hurried to the newspaper
offices to secure their pile of merchandise.
Morning found no sluggards at Mrs. Morton’s boarding-house. With the
first flush of dawn she was astir, ordering about her servants, and
superintending the preparations for breakfast. This must be ready at an
early hour, since her boarders were, for the most part, engaged in some
daily avocation which required their early attention.
With the early sun Helen rose. Her father was still sleeping. From the
nail on which it hung she took down her bonnet, and, with a tin pail
depending from her arm, she left the room with softened tread, lest she
might awaken her father. Betaking herself to a baker’s near by, she
bought a couple of loaves of bread, and stopping a milkman, had her pail
filled with milk. A half-pound of butter purchased at a grocery
completed her simple marketing, and she hastened home.
When she entered the boarding-house, her cheeks were flushed with
exercise, her eyes sparkled with a pleasant light, and her rare beauty,
despite her plain attire, appeared to unusual advantage. She returned
just in time to meet the boarders descending to breakfast. Her childish
beauty did not fail to attract attention. Conscious of being observed,
Helen blushed a deeper crimson, which added to the charm of her beauty.
“Hey! What have we here?” exclaimed Alphonso Eustace, the dashing young
clerk, fixing a glance of undisguised admiration upon her embarrassed
face. “A very Peri, by Jove! Deign to inform me, fair maid, by what name
thou art known.”
So saying, he purposely placed himself directly in her path.
“Will you let me pass, sir?” said Helen, uneasily. “My father is waiting
for me.”
“Your father! Then you live here. I am glad of that. We shall be well
acquainted before long, I hope. Won’t you tell me your name?”
“My name is Helen Ford,” said the child, rather reluctantly, for the
clerk did not impress her favorably.
“And mine is Alphonso Eustace. Let us shake hands to our better
acquaintance.”
“I have both hands full,” returned Helen, who did not much relish the
freedom of her new acquaintance.
“Then I will await another opportunity. But you don’t seem gracious, my
dear. You must be very tired, carrying that heavy pail. Allow me to
carry it for you.”
“I am not at all tired, and I would much rather carry it myself.”
Helen managed to slip by, much to her relief, and somewhat to the
discomfiture of the young clerk, who could not conceal from himself that
his overtures had met with a decided rebuff.
“Never mind,” thought he; “we shall be better acquainted by and by.”
“By the way, Mrs. Morton,” he inquired, “tell me something about the
little fairy I met on the stairs. I tried to scrape acquaintance with
her, but she gave me very short answers.”
“I suppose it was Helen Ford,” returned the landlady. “She is a little
fairy, as you say. Is your coffee right, M’lle Fanchette?”
“Quite right,” replied that lady, sipping it. “What room do the little
girl and her father occupy?”
“The fourth story back.”
“Ah, indeed!” said M’lle Fanchette, elevating her eyebrows. It was easy
to see that lodging in the fourth story back was sufficient in her eyes
to stamp Helen as one whose acquaintance it was quite beneath her
dignity to cultivate.
“She has a very sweet, attractive face,” said Martha Grey.
“Beautiful! angelic!” exclaimed Mr. Eustace, with enthusiasm.
“I don’t see anything very beautiful or angelic about her,” remarked
M’lle Fanchette, who would much prefer to have had her dashing
neighbor’s admiration bestowed upon herself.
“You should have seen the beautiful flush upon her cheeks.”
“So I did.”
“And did you not admire it?”
“I happened to look into the kitchen yesterday,” returned M’lle
Fanchette, passing her plate for some toast, “and I saw Bridget who had
been over the hot stove all day, with just such a pair of red cheeks.
Did I admire her?”
There was a momentary silence. All who had seen Helen, felt the
injustice of the comparison.
“There is no accounting for tastes,” interrupted the landlady, somewhat
indignantly. “If you had seen the tenderness with which she waits upon
her father, who, poor man, seems quite incapable of taking care of
himself, you would find that she has a heart as beautiful as her face.
Her beauty is not her only attraction.”
“What does her father do?”
“That is more than I can tell. Helen says that he is an inventor, and
that he has made some discovery which is going to make them rich.”
“After all,” thought M’lle Fanchette, “it may be well to notice her. But
they are poor now?” she said aloud.
“Yes. They seem to have little baggage, and dress quite plainly. They
cannot have much property.”
Meanwhile, Helen, quite unconscious that she had been a subject of
discussion among the boarders, drew out the table into the middle of the
room, and spread over it a neat white cloth. She then placed upon it two
bowls of different sizes into which she poured the milk. Several slices
were cut from one of the loaves and laid on a plate. Near by stood the
butter. These simple preparations being concluded, she called upon her
father to partake.
“You are a good girl, Helen,” said he, rousing for the moment from his
fit of abstraction. “You are a good girl, and I don’t know how I should
get along without you.”
“And I am sure I could not get along without you, papa,” was her reply,
accompanied with a glance of affection.
“Have you not always cared for me, Helen, and given up the society of
those of your own age in order to minister to my comfort? But it shall
not always be so. Some day I shall be rich——”
“When you have completed your invention, papa.”
“Yes, when that is completed,” said her father, earnestly. “Then we
shall be rich and honored, and my Helen shall be dressed in silks, and
ride in a carriage of her own.”
“You are quite sure you shall succeed, papa?”
“I am sure of it,” he answered, in a tone of quiet conviction. “I only
fear that some one will be beforehand with me, and snatch away the honor
for which I am toiling. To me it seems passing strange that mankind
should have been content for so many years to grope about upon the earth
and never striven to rise into the nobler element of the air, while the
sea, which presents difficulties as great, is traversed in every part.
For me,” he continued, assuming a loftier mien, and pacing the small
room proudly,—“for me it remains to open a new highway to the world.
What compared with this will be the proudest triumphs of modern science?
How like a snail shall we regard the locomotive, which now seems a
miracle of swiftness! Borne aloft by the appliances which I shall
furnish, man will emulate the proud flight of the eagle. He will skim
over land and sea, and in his airy flight look down upon the monuments
of human skill and industry flitting before him, like the shifting
scenes of a panorama.”
“It will be a glorious destiny,” said the child, “and how proud I shall
feel of you who have done all this!”
“While we are speaking, time passes,” said the father. “I should be at
work even now. I must bring hither my implements without delay. Every
moment wasted before I attain my object, is not my loss, only, but the
world’s.”
“Wait till I have cleared away the table, papa, and I will go with you.”
This was speedily done, and the two descended the stairs, and went forth
into the busy streets hand in hand. Helen diligently cared for the
safety of her father, who, plunged into his usual abstraction, would
more than once have been run over by some passing vehicle but for her
guardianship.