IN DAYS OF WAITING.
"Bent o'er her babe, her eyes dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingled with the milk he drew
Gave the sad presage of his future years--
The child of misery, baptized in tears."--_John Langhorne_.
The days of Anna's waiting lagged. She lost all count of time and
season. Each day was painfully like its predecessor, a period of time
to be gone through with, as best she could. She realized after her
mother's death what the gentle companionship had been to her, what a
prop the frail mother had become in her hour of need. For a great
change had come over the querulous invalid with the beginning of her
daughter's troubles, the grievances of the woman of the world were
forgotten in the anxiety of the mother, and never by look or word did
she chide her daughter, or make her affliction anything but easier to
bear by her gentle presence.
Anna, sunk in the stupor of her own grief, did not realize the comfort
of her mother's presence until it was too late. She shrank from the
strangers with whom they made their little home--a middle aged
shopkeeper and his wife, who had been glad enough to rent them two
unused rooms in their house at a low figure. They were not lacking in
sympathy for young "Mrs. Lennox," but their disposition to ask
questions made Anna shun them as she would have an infection. After
her mother's death, they tried harder than ever to be kind to her, but
the listless girl, who spent her days gazing at nothing, was hardly
aware of their comings and goings.
"If you would only try to eat a bit, my dear," said the corpulent Mrs.
Smith, bustling into Anna's room. "And land sakes, don't take on so.
There you set in that chair all day long. Just rouse yourself, my
dear; there ain't no trouble, however bad, but could be wuss."
To this dismal philosophy, Anna would return a wan smile, while she
felt her heart almost break within her.
"And, Mrs. Lennox, don't mind what I say to you. I am old enough to be
your grandmother, but if you have quarreled with any one, don't be too
spunky now about making up. Spunk is all right in its place, but its
place ain't at the bedside of a young woman who's got to face the trial
of her life. If you have quarreled with any one--your--your husband,
say, now is the time to make it up, since your ma is gone."
The old woman looked at her with a strange mixture of motherliness and
curiosity. As she said to her husband a dozen times a day, "her heart
just ached for that pore young thing upstairs," but this tender
solicitude did not prevent her ears from aching, at the same time, to
hear Anna's story.
"Thank you very much for your kind interest, Mrs. Smith; but really,
you must let me judge of my own affairs." There was a dignity about
the girl that brooked no further interference.
"That's right, my dear, and I wouldn't have thought of suggesting it,
but you do seem that young--well, I must be going down to put the
potatoes on for dinner. If you want anything, just ring your bell."
There was not the least resentment cherished by the corpulent Mrs.
Smith. The girl's answer confirmed her opinion from the first. "She
would not send for her husband, because there wasn't no husband to send
for." She mentioned her convictions to her husband and added she meant
to write to sister Eliza that very night.
"Sister Eliza has an uncommon light hand with babies and that pore
young thing'll be hard pushed to pay the doctor, let alone a nurse."
These essentially feminine details regarding the talents of Sister
Eliza, did not especially interest Smith, who continued his favorite
occupation--or rather, joint occupations, of whittling and
expectorating. Nevertheless, the letter to Sister Eliza was written,
and not a minute sooner than was necessary; for, the little soul that
was to bring with it forgetfulness for all the agony through which its
mother had lived during that awful year, came very soon after the
arrival of Sister Eliza.
Anna had felt in those days of waiting that she could never again be
happy; that for her "finis" had been written by the fates. But, as she
lay with the dark-haired baby on her breast, she found herself planning
for the little girl's future; even happy in the building of those
heavenly air-castles that young mothers never weary of building. She
felt the necessity of growing strong so that she could work early and
late, for baby must have everything, even if mother went without.
Sometimes a fleeting likeness to Sanderson would flit across the
child's face, and a spasm of pain would clutch at Anna's heart, but she
would forget it next moment in one of baby's most heavenly smiles.
She could think of him now without a shudder; even a lingering remnant
of tenderness would flare up in her heart when she remembered he was
the baby's father. Perhaps he would see the child sometime, and her
sweet baby ways would plead to him more eloquently than could all her
words to right the wrong he had done, and so the days slipped by and
the little mother was happy, after the long drawn out days of waiting
and misery. She would sing the baby to sleep in her low contralto
voice, and feel that it mattered not whether the world smiled or
frowned on her, so long as baby approved.
But this blessed state of affairs was not long to continue. Anna, as
she grew stronger, felt the necessity of seeking employment, but to
this the baby proved a formidable obstacle. No one would give a young
woman, hampered with a child, work. She would come back to the baby at
night worn out in mind and body, after a day of fruitless searching.
These long trips of the little mother, with the consequent long absence
and exhaustion on her return, did not improve the little one's health,
and almost before Anna realized it was ailing, the baby sickened and
died. It was her cruelest blow. For the child's sake she had taken up
her interest in life, made plans; and was ready to work her fingers to
the bone, but it was not to be and with the first falling of the clods
on the little coffin, Anna felt the last ray of hope extinguished from
her heart.