“I declare I am astonished at this child!” said the lady.
And therewith she displayed Jane’s purchases. A little meal and meat had
been sent home. The rest she had with her. First, there was a goblet of
strained honey; then a bundle of candy “for baby,” a package of tea “for
father,” and a chip straw hat, with three gayly colored ribbons, “for
herself.” And that’s where the money had gone!
“I am just put out with her,” said the arbitress of my affairs, after
Jane had gathered up her treasures and departed. “To waste her money
like that! I can imagine how the poor, half-starved child couldn’t help
buying the honey-goblet; I should die myself if I didn’t have something
sweet; but how she came to buy that hat and ribbons I can’t see!”
Ah, blue-eyed woman! There’s a yearning in the feminine soul stronger
than hunger. There’s a passion there that starvation cannot conquer. The
hat and ribbons were bought in response to that craving. The hat, I’ll
bet thee, was bought before the honey,—aye, before the meal or meat.
“Can’t understand it?” Then, my spouse, I’ll explain: Jane is a woman!
I must confess that I was pleased at the misdirection of Jane’s funds.
Have you ever had a child deep in a long-continued stupor from fever?
How delighted you were then when, tempted by some trifle, he gave signs
of eagerness! So I was rejoiced to see that the long years of suffering
had not crushed hope and emotion out of this girl’s life.
The tea and the candy showed that her affections, working up to the
father and drawn to the baby, were all right. The honey gave evidence
that the fresh impulses of childhood had not been nipped and chilled.
The hat and ribbons—best and most hopeful purchase of all—proved that
the womanly vanity and love of prettiness still fluttered in her young
soul. Nothing is so charming and so feminine in woman as the passion for
dress. Laugh at it as we may, I think that men will agree that there is
nothing so pathetic as a young woman out of whom all hope of fine
appearance has been pressed. A gay ribbon is the sign in which woman
conquers. I wager that Eve made a neat, many-colored thing of
fig-leaves.
But to return to Jane.
I know that this desultory sketch should be closed with something
unusual. Jane should die or get married. But she’s too young for either.
And so her life is running on ever. She plods the streets as she used to
do. She has quit selling the flaming scraps she used to sell, and now
knits her young but resolute brow over crochet work, which she sells at
marvelous prices. Her path is flecked with more sunshine than ever
before, and at Sunday-school she is as smart a little woman as can be
seen. If the shadow of a staggering figure, that falls so often across
her course, could be lifted, she would have little else to grieve over.
Not that she complains of this—not a bit of it. “Poor father is sick so
much. How can he be expected to work?” And so she goes on, with her
woman’s nature clinging to him closer than ever; even as the ivy clings
to the old ruin. Hiding his shame from the world, wrapping him in the
plenitude of her faith, and binding up his shattered resolves with her
heart-strings.
And as for Bob:
I am strongly tempted to tell a lie, and say that he is either sober or
dead. But he is neither. He is the same shiftless, irresponsible fellow
that I have known for three years. His face is heavier, his eyes are
smaller, his nose redder, his flesh more moist than ever. But in the
depth of his debauch there seems to have been winged some idea of the
excellence of Jane’s life, and the fineness of her martyrdom. He catches
me anywhere he sees me, and, falling on my shirt-front, weeps copious
tears of praise and pop-skull, while talking of her. He swears by her.
By the way, I must do him justice. Yesterday he came to me very much
affected. He was white-lipped, and trembling, and hungry. He had spent
the night in the gutter, and the policeman who was scattering the
disinfecting lime, either careless or wise beyond his kind, had powdered
him all over. He seemed to be terribly in earnest. He raised his
trembling hand to his hat and touched the place where the crape used to
be, and swore that he intended to reform, for good and all. “S’elp me
Jane!” he said.
I have not seen him since. I hope that the iron has at last entered his
soul and will hold him steadfast. Ha! that sounds like him stumbling up
the steps now. Hey! he has rolled back to the bottom! Here he comes
again. That must be him. “Of course!”
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