THE LADY IN BLACK.
"I 've had a little adventure," said Polly to her mother one afternoon.
"I went out, for the sake of the ride, on the Sutler Street cable-cars
with Milly Foster. When we came to the end of the line, Milly walked
down to Greary Street to take her car home. I went with her to the
corner, and as I was coming back I saw a lady in black alighting from
an elegant carriage. She had a coachman and a footman, both with weeds
on their hats, and she seemed very sad and grave; but she had such a
sweet, beautiful face that I was sorry for her the first moment I
looked at her. She walked along in front of me toward the cemetery,
and there we met those boys that stand about the gate with bouquets.
She glanced at the flowers as if she would like to buy some, but you
know how hideous they always are, every color of the rainbow crowded in
tightly together, and she looked away, dissatisfied. I don't know why
she had n't brought some with her,--she looked rich enough to buy a
whole conservatory; perhaps she had n't expected to drive there.
However, Milly Foster had given me a whole armful of beautiful
flowers,--you know she has a 'white garden:' there were white sweet
peas, Lamarque roses, and three stalks of snowy Eucharist lilies. I
need n't tell my own mother that I did n't stop to think twice; I just
stepped up to her and said, 'I should like to give you my flowers,
please. I don't need them, and I am sure they are just sweet and
lovely enough for the place you want to lay them.'
"The tears came into her eyes,--she was just ready to cry at anything,
you know,--and she took them at once, and said, squeezing my hand very
tightly, 'I will take them, dear. The grave of my own, and my only,
little girl lies far away from this,--the snow is falling on it
to-day,--but whenever I cannot give the flowers to her, I always find
the resting-places of other children, and lay them there. I know it
makes her happy, for she was born on Christmas Day, and she was full of
the Christmas spirit, always thinking of other people, never of
herself.'
"She did look so pale, and sad, and sweet, that I began to think of you
without your troublesome Polly, or your troublesome Polly without you;
and she was pleased with the flowers and glad that I understood, and
willing to love anything that was a girl or that was young,--oh, you
know, mamacita,--and so I began to cry a little, too; and the first
thing I knew I kissed her, which was most informal, if not positively
impertinent. But she seemed to like it, for she kissed me back again,
and I ran and jumped on the car, and here I am! You will have to eat
your dinner without any flowers, madam, for you have a vulgarly strong,
healthy daughter, and the poor lady in black has n't."
This was Polly's first impression of "the lady in black," and thus
began an acquaintance which was destined before many months to play a
very important part in Polly's fortunes and misfortunes.
What the lady in black thought of Polly, then and subsequently, was
told at her own fireside, where she sat, some six weeks later, chatting
over an after-dinner cup of coffee with her brother-in-law.
"Take the armchair, John," said Mrs. Bird; "for I have 'lots to tell
you,' as the young folks say. I was in the Children's Hospital about
five o'clock to-day. I have n't been there for three months, and I
felt guilty about it. The matron asked me to go upstairs into the
children's sitting-room, the one Donald and I fitted up in memory of
Carol. She said that a young lady was telling stories to the children,
but that I might go right up and walk in. I opened the door softly,
though I don't think the children would have noticed if I had fired a
cannon in their midst, and stood there, spellbound by the loveliest,
most touching scene I ever witnessed. The room has an open fire, and
in a low chair, with the firelight shining on her face, sat that
charming, impulsive girl who gave me the flowers at the cemetery--I
told you about her. She was telling stories to the children. There
were fifteen or twenty of them in the room, all the semi-invalids and
convalescents, I should think, and they were gathered about her like
flies round a saucer of honey. Every child that could, was doing its
best to get a bit of her dress to touch, or a finger of her hand to
hold, or an inch of her chair to lean upon. They were the usual pale,
weary-looking children, most of them with splints and weights and
crutches, and through the folding-doors that opened into the next room
I could see three more tiny things sitting up in their cots and
drinking in every word with eagerness and transport.
"And I don't wonder. There is magic in that girl for sick or sorrowing
people. I wish you could have seen and heard her. Her hair is full of
warmth and color; her lips and cheeks are pink; her eyes are bright
with health and mischief, and beaming with love, too; her smile is like
sunshine, and her voice as glad as a wild bird's. I never saw a
creature so alive and radiant, and I could feel that the weak little
creatures drank in her strength and vigor, without depleting her, as
flowers drink in the sunlight.
"As she stood up and made ready to go, she caught sight of me, and
ejaculated, with the most astonished face, 'Why, it is my lady in
black!' Then, with a blush, she added, 'Excuse me! I spoke without
thinking--I always do. I have thought of you very often since I gave
you the flowers; and as I did n't know your name, I have always called
you my lady in black.'
"'I should be very glad to be your "lady" in any color,' I answered,
'and my other name is Mrs. Bird.' Then I asked her if she would not
come and see me. She said, 'Yes, with pleasure,' and told me also that
her mother was ill, and that she left her as little as possible;
whereupon I offered to go and see her instead.
"Now, here endeth the first lesson, and here beginneth the second,
namely, my new plan, on which I wish to ask your advice. You know that
all the money Donald and I used to spend on Carol's nurses, physicians,
and what not, we give away each Christmas Day in memory of her. It may
be that we give it in monthly installments, but we try to plan it and
let people know about it on that day. I propose to create a new
profession for talented young women who like to be helpful to others as
well as to themselves. I propose to offer this little Miss Oliver, say
twenty-five dollars a month, if she will go regularly to the Children's
Hospital and to the various orphan asylums just before supper and just
before bedtime, and sing and tell stories to the children for an hour.
I want to ask her to give two hours a day only, going to each place
once or twice a week; but of course she will need a good deal of time
for preparation. If she accepts, I will see the managers of the
various institutions, offer her services, and arrange for the hours. I
am confident that they will receive my protegee with delight, and I am
sure that I shall bring the good old art of story-telling into fashion
again, through this gifted girl. Now, John, what do you think?"
"I heartily approve, as usual. It is a novelty, but I cannot see why
it 's not perfectly expedient, and I certainly can think of no other
way in which a monthly expenditure of twenty-five dollars will carry so
much genuine delight and comfort to so many different children. Carol
would sing for joy if she could know of your plan."
"Perhaps she does know it," said Mrs. Bird softly.
And so it was settled.
Polly's joy and gratitude at Mrs. Bird's proposal baffles the powers of
the narrator. It was one of those things pleasant to behold, charming
to imagine, but impossible to describe. After Mrs. Bird's carriage had
been whirled away, she watched at the window for Edgar, and, when she
saw him nearing the steps, did not wait for him to unlock the door, but
opened it from the top of the stairs, and flew down them to the landing
as lightly as a feather.
As for Edgar himself, he was coming up with unprecedented speed, and
they nearly fell into each other's arms as they both exclaimed, in one
breath, "Hurrah!" and then, in another, "Who told you?"
"How did you know it?" asked Edgar. "Has Tom Mills been here?"
"What is anybody by the name of Mills to me in my present state of
mind!" exclaimed Polly. "Have you some good news, too? If so, speak
out quickly."
"Good news? I should think I had; what else were you hurrahing about?
I 've won the scholarship, and I have a chance to earn some money! Tom
Mills's eyes are in bad condition, and the oculist says he must wear
blue goggles and not look at a book for two months. His father wrote
to me to-day, and he asks if I will read over the day's lessons with
Tom every afternoon or evening, so that he can keep up with the class;
and says that if I will do him this great service he will be glad to
pay me any reasonable sum. He 'ventured' to write me on Professor
Hope's recommendation."
"Oh, Edgar, that is too, too good!" cried Polly, jumping up and down in
delight. "Now hear my news. What do you suppose has happened?"
"Turned-up noses have come into style."
"Insulting! That is n't the spirit I showed when you told me your good
news."
"You 've found the leak in the gas stove."
"On the contrary, I don't care if all the gas in our establishment
leaks from now to--the millennium. Guess again, stupid!"
"Somebody has left you a million."
"No, no!" (scornfully.) "Well, I can't wait your snail's pace. My
lady in black, Mrs. Donald Bird, has been here all the afternoon, and
she offers me twenty-five dollars a month to give up the Baer cubs and
tell stories two hours a day in the orphan asylums and the Children's
Hospital! Just what I love to do! Just what I always longed to do!
Just what I would do if I were a billionaire! Is n't it heavenly?"
"Well, well! We are in luck, Polly. Hurrah! Fortune smiles at last
on the Noble-Oliver household. Let's have a jollification! Oh, I
forgot. Tom Mills wants to come to dinner. Will you mind?"
"Let him come, goggles and all, we 'll have the lame and the halt, as
well as the blind, if we happen to see any. Mamma won't care. I told
her we 'd have a feast to-night that should vie with any of the old
Roman banquets! Here 's my purse; please go down on Sutter
Street--ride both ways--and buy anything extravagant and unseasonable
you can find. Get forced tomatoes; we'll have 'chops and tomato sauce'
à la Mrs. Bardell; order fried oysters in a browned loaf; get a quart
of ice cream, the most expensive variety they have, a loaf of the
richest cake in the bakery, and two chocolate eclairs apiece. Buy
hothouse roses, or orchids, for the table, and give five cents to that
dirty little boy on the corner there. In short, as Frank Stockton
says, 'Let us so live while we are up that we shall forget we have ever
been down'!" and Polly plunged upstairs to make a toilet worthy of the
occasion.
The banquet was such a festive occasion that Yung Lee's Chinese reserve
was sorely tried, and he giggled more than once, while waiting on the
table.
Polly had donned a trailing black silk skirt of her mother's, with a
white chuddah shawl for a court train, and a white lace waist to top
it. Her hair was wound into a knot on the crown of her head and
adorned with three long black ostrich feathers, which soared to a great
height, and presented a most magnificent and queenly appearance.
Tom Mills, whose father was four times a millionaire, wondered why they
never had such gay times at his home, and tried to fancy his sister
Blanche sparkling and glowing and beaming over the prospect of earning
twenty-five dollars a month.
Then, when bedtime came, Polly and her mother talked it all over in the
dark.
"Oh, mamacita, I am so happy! It's such a lovely beginning, and I
shall be so glad, so glad to do it! I hope Mrs. Bird did n't invent
the plan for my good, for I have been frightfully shabby each time she
has seen me, but she says she thinks of nothing but the children. Now
we will have some pretty things, won't we? And oh! do you think, not
just now, but some time in the distant centuries, I can have a string
of gold beads?"
"I do, indeed," sighed Mrs. Oliver. "You are certainly in no danger of
being spoiled by luxury in your youth, my poor little Pollykins; but
you will get all these things some time, I feel sure, if they are good
for you, and if they belong to you. You remember the lines I read the
other day:--
"'Hast not thy share? On winged feet,
Lo! it rushes thee to meet;
And all that Nature made thy own,
Floating in air or pent in stone,
Will rive the hills and swim the sea
And, like thy shadow, follow thee.'"
"Yes," said Polly contentedly; "I am satisfied. My share of the
world's work is rushing to meet me. To-night I could just say with
Sarah Jewett's Country Doctor, 'My God, I thank thee for my future.'"