SOMETHING HAPPENS.
"Athirst! athirst! The sandy soil
Bears no glad trace of leaf or tree;
No grass-blade sigheth to the heaven
Its little drop of ecstasy.
"Yet other fields are spreading wide
Green bosoms to the bounteous sun;
And palms and cedars shall sublime
Their rapture for thee,--waiting one!"
"Take us down to see the apple woman," said Master Herbert, going out
with Glory and the baby one day when his school didn't keep, and Mrs.
Grubbling had a headache, and wanted to get them all off out of the way.
Bridget Foye sat at her apple stand in the cheery morning sunlight, red
cheeks and russets ranged fair and tempting before her, and a pile of
roasted peanuts, and one of delicate molasses candy, such as nobody but
she knew how to make, at either end of the board.
Bridget Foye was the tidiest, kindliest, merriest apple woman in all
Mishaumok. Everybody whose daily path lay across that southeast corner
of the Common, knew her well, and had a smile, and perhaps a penny for
her; and got a smile and a God-bless-you, and, for the penny, a rosy or
a golden apple, or some of her crisp candy in return.
Glory and the baby, sitting down to rest on one of the benches close by,
as their habit was, had one day made a nearer acquaintance with blithe
Bridget. I think it began with Glory--who held the baby up to see the
passing show of a portion of a menagerie in the street, and heard two
girls, stopping just before her to look, likewise, say they'd go and see
it perform next day--uttering something of her old soliloquy about "good
times," and why she "warn't ever in any of 'em." However it was, Mrs.
Foye, in her buxom cheeriness, was drawn to give some of it forth to the
uncouth-looking, companionless girl, and not only began a chat with her,
after the momentary stir in the street was over, and she had settled
herself upon her stool, and leaning her back against a tree, set
vigorously to work again at knitting a stout blue yarn stocking, but
also treated Bubby and Baby to some bits of her sweet merchandise, and
told them about the bears and the monkeys that had gone by, shut up in
the gay, red-and-yellow-painted wagons.
So it became, after this first opening, Glory's chief pleasure to get
out with the children now and then, of a sunny day, and sit here on the
bench by Bridget Foye, and hear her talk, and tell her, confidentially,
some of her small, incessant troubles. It was one more life to draw
from--a hearty, bright, and wholesome life, besides. She had, at last,
in this great, tumultuous, indifferent city, a friendship and a
resource.
But there was a certain fair spot of delicate honor in Glory's nature
that would not let her bring Bubby and Baby in any apparent hope of what
they might get, gratuitously, into their mouths. She laid it down, a
rule, with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with
her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so
unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks
went by--hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks
of sore pining for a morsel of heart food--before she was free of her
own conscience to go and take it.
Bridget told stories to Herbert--strange, nonsensical fables, to be
sure--stuff that many an overwise mother, bringing up her children by
hard rule and theory, might have utterly forbidden as harmful trash--yet
that never put an evil into his heart, nor crowded, I dare to say, a
better thought out of his brain. Glory liked the stories as well,
almost, as the child. One moral always ran through them all. Troubles
always, somehow, came to an end; good creatures and children got safe
out of them all, and lived happy ever after; and the fierce, and
cunning, and bad--the wolves, and foxes, and witches--trapped themselves
in their own wickedness, and came to deplorable ends.
"Tell us about the little red hen," said Herbert, paying his money, and
munching his candy.
"An' thin ye'll trundle yer hoop out to the big tree, an' lave Glory an'
me our lane for a minute?"
"Faith, an' I will that," said the boy--aping, ambitiously, the racy
Irish accent.
"Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country,
livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a
little rid hin. Nice an' quite she was, and nivir did no kind o' harrum
in her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a
crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid
awake o' nights, and he prowled round shly iy a daytime, thinkin' always
so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her
up for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin nivir went intil her bit
iv a house, but she locked the door afther her, an' pit the kay in her
pocket. So the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an'
he laid awake nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, on' sorra a
ha'porth o' the little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came
a shcame intil his wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin',
over his shouldher, and he says till his mother, says he, 'Mother, have
the pot all bilin' agin' I come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin
to-night for our shupper.' An' away he wint, over the hill, an' came
craping shly and soft through the woods to where the little rid hin
lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An' shure, jist at the very minute
that he got along, out comes the little rid hin out iv the door, to pick
up shticks to bile her taykettle. 'Begorra, now, but I'll have yees,'
says the shly ould fox, and in he shlips, unbeknownst, intil the house,
an' hides behind the door. An' in comes the little rid hin, a minute
afther, with her apron full of shticks, an' shuts to the door an' locks
it, an' pits the kay in her pocket. An' thin she turns round--an' there
shtands the baste iv a fox in the corner. Well, thin, what did she do,
but jist dhrop down her shticks, and fly up in a great fright and
flutter to the big bame acrass inside o' the roof, where the fox
couldn't get at her?
"'Ah, ha!' says the ould fox, 'I'll soon bring yees down out o' that!'
An' he began to whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter an' fashter
an' fashter, on the floor, after his big, bushy tail, till the little
rid hin got so dizzy wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down off the
bame, and the fox whipped her up and popped her intil his bag, and
shtarted off home in a minute. An' he wint up the wood, an' down the
wood, half the day long, with the little rid hin shut up shmotherin' in
the bag. Sorra a know she knowd where she was, at all, at all. She
thought she was all biled an' ate up, an' finished, shure! But, by an'
by, she renumbered herself, an' pit her hand in her pocket, and tuk out
her little bright schissors, and shnipped a big hole in the bag behind,
an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone, an' popped it intil the
bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door.
"An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big shtone at his
back thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little
rid hin was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in
sight iv his din in the rocks, and shpied his ould mother a-watchin' for
him at the door, he says, 'Mother! have ye the pot bilin'?' An' the ould
mother says, 'Sure an' it is; an' have ye the little rid hin?' 'Yes,
jist here in me bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in,' says
he.
"An' the ould mother fox she lifted the lid o' the pot, and the rashkill
untied the bag, and hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in
the big, heavy shtone. An' the bilin' wather shplashed up all over the
rogue iv a fox, an' his mother, an' shcalded them both to death. An' the
little rid hin lived safe in her house foriver afther."
"Ah!" breathed Bubby, in intense relief, for perhaps the twentieth time.
"Now tell about the girl that went to seek her fortune!"
"Away wid ye!" cried Bridget Foye. "Kape yer promish, an' lave that till
ye come back!"
So Herbert and his hoop trundled off to the big tree.
"An' how are yees now, honey?" says Bridget to Glory, a whole catechism
of questions in the one inquiry. "Have ye come till any good times yit?"
"Oh, Mrs. Foye," says Glory, "I think I'm tied up tight in the bag, an'
I'll never get out, except it's into the hot water!"
"An' havint ye nivir a pair iv schissors in yer pocket?" asks Bridget.
"I don't know," says poor Glory, hopelessly. And just then Master
Herbert comes trundling back, and Bridget tells him the story of the
girl that went to seek her fortune and came to be a queen.
Glory half thinks that, some day or other, she, too, will start off and
seek her fortune.
The next morning, Sunday--never a holiday, and scarcely a holy day to
her--Glory sits at the front window, with the inevitable baby in her
arms.
Mrs. Grubbling is upstairs getting ready for church. After baby has his
forenoon drink, and is got off to sleep--supposing he shall be
complaisant, and go--Glory is to dust up, and set table, and warm the
dinner, and be all ready to bring it up when the elder Grubbling shall
have returned.
Out at the Pembertons' green gate she sees the tidy parlor maid come, in
her smart shawl and new, bright ribbons; holding up her pretty printed
mousseline dress with one hand, as she steps down upon the street, and
so revealing the white hem of a clean starched skirt; while the other
hand is occupied with the little Catholic prayer book and a folded
handkerchief. Actually, gloves on her hands, too. The gate closes with a
cord and pulley after her, and somehow the hem of the fresh,
outspreading crinoline gets caught in it, as it shuts. So she turns half
round, and takes both hands to push it open and release herself. Doing
so, something slips from between the folds of her handkerchief, and
drops upon the ground. A bright half dollar, which was going to pay some
of her little church dues to-day. And she hurries on, never missing it
out of her grasp, and is halfway down the side street before Glory can
set the baby suddenly on the carpet, rush out at the front door,
regardless that Mrs. Grubbling's chamber window overlooks her from
above, pick up the coin, and overtake her.
"I saw you drop it by the gate," is all she says, as she puts it into
Katie Ryan's hand.
Katie stares with surprise, turning round at the touch upon her
shoulder, and beholding the strange figure, and the still stranger
evidence of honesty and good will.
"Indeed, and I'm thoroughly obliged to ye," says she, barely in time,
for the odd figure is already retreating up the street. "It's the
red-headed girl over at Grubbling's," she continues to herself. "Well,
anyhow, she's an honest, kind-hearted crature, and I'll not forget it of
her."
Glory has made another friend.
"Well, Glory McWhirk, this is very pretty doings indeed!" began Mrs.
Grubbling, meeting the little handmaiden at the parlor door. "So this is
the way, is it, when my back is turned for a minute? That poor baby
dumped down on the floor, to crawl up to the hot stove, or do any other
horrid thing he likes, while you go flacketting out, bareheaded, into
the streets, after a topping jade like that? You can't have any
high-flown acquaintances while you live in my house, I tell you now,
once and for all. Are you going to take up that baby or not?" Mrs.
Grubbling had been thus far effectually heading Glory off, by standing
square in the parlor doorway. "Or perhaps, I'd better stay at home and
take care of him myself," she added, in a tone of superlative irony.
Poor Glory, meekly murmuring that it was only to give back some money
the girl had dropped, slid past her mistress submissively, like a sentry
caught off his post and warned of mortal punishment, and shouldered arms
once more; that is, picked up the baby, who, as if taking the cue from
his mother, and made conscious of his grievance, had at this moment
begun to cry.
Glory had a good cry of her own first, and then, "killing two birds with
one stone," pacified herself and the baby "all under one."
After this, Katie Ryan never came out at the green gate, of a Sunday on
the way to church, or of a week day to run down the little back street
of an errand, but she gave a glance up at the Grubblings' windows; and
if she caught sight of Glory's illumined head, nodded her own, with its
pretty, dark-brown locks, quite pleasant and friendly. And between these
chance recognitions of Katie's, and the good apple woman's occasional
sympathy, the world began to brighten a little, even for poor Glory.
Still, good times went on--grand, wonderful good times--all around her.
And she caught distant glimpses, but "wasn't in 'em."
One day, as she hurried home from the grocer's with half-a-dozen eggs
and two lemons, Katie ran out from the gate, and met her halfway down
Budd Street.
"I've been watchin' for ye," said she. "I seen ye go out of an errand,
an' I've been lookin' for ye back. There's to be a grand party at our
house to-morrow night, an' I thought maybe ye'd like to get lave, an'
run over to take a peep at it. Put on yer best frock, and make yer hair
tidy, an' I'll see to yer gettin' a good chance."
Poor Glory colored up, as Mrs. Grabbling might have done if the
President's wife had bidden her. Not so, either. With a glow of feeling,
and an oppression of gratitude, and a humility of delight, that Mrs.
Grubbling, under any circumstances whatever, could have known nothing
about.
"If I only can," she managed to utter, "and, anyhow, I'm sure I'm
thankful to ye a thousand times."
And that night she sat up in her little attic room, after everybody else
was in bed, mending, in a poor fashion, a rent in the faded "best
frock," and sewing a bit of cotton lace in the neck thereof that she had
picked out of the ragbag, and surreptitiously washed and ironed.
Next morning, she went about her homely tasks with an alacrity that Mrs.
Grubbling, knowing nothing of the hope that had been let in upon her
dreariness, attributed wholly to the salutary effect of a "good
scolding" she had administered the day before. The work she got out of
the girl that Thursday forenoon! Never once did Glory leave her
scrubbing, or her dusting, or her stove polishing, to glance from the
windows into the street, though the market boys, and the waiters, and
the confectioners' parcels were going in at the Pembertons' gate, and
the man from the greenhouse, even, drove his cart up, filled with
beautiful plants for the staircase.
She waited, as in our toils we wait for Heaven--trusting to the joy that
was to come.
After dinner, she spoke, with fear and trembling. Her lips turned quite
white with anxiety as she stood before Mrs. Grubbling with the baby in
her arms.
"Please, mum," says Glory, tremulously, "Katie Ryan asked me over for a
little while to-night to look at the party."
Mrs. Grubbling actually felt a jealousy, as if her poor, untutored
handmaid were taking precedence of herself.
"What party?" she snapped.
"At the Pembertons', mum. I thought you knew about it."
"And what if I do? Maybe I'm going, myself."
Glory opened her eyes wide in mingled consternation and surprise.
"I didn't think you was, mum. But if you is----"
"You're willing, I suppose," retorted her mistress, laughing, in a
bitter way. "I'm very much obliged. But I'm going out to-night, anyhow,
whether it's there or not, and you can't be spared. Besides, you needn't
think you're going to begin with going out evenings yet a while. At your
age! A pretty thing! There--go along, and don't bother me."
Glory went along; and only the baby--of mortal listeners--heard the
suffering cry that went up from her poor, pinched, and chilled, and
disappointed heart.
"Oh, baby, baby! it was _too_ good a time! I'd ought to a knowed I
couldn't be in it!"
Only a stone's throw from those brightly lighted windows of the
Pembertons'! Their superfluous radiance pouring out lavishly across the
narrow street, searched even through the dim panes behind which Glory
sat, resting her tired arms, after tucking away their ordinary burden in
his crib, and answering Herbert's wearisome questions, who from his
trundle bed kept asking, ceaselessly:
"What are they doing now? Can't you see, Glory?"
"Hush, hush!" said Glory, breathlessly, as a burst of brilliant melody
floated over to her ear. "They're making music now. Don't you hear?"
"No. How can I, with my head in the pillow? I'm coming there to sit with
you, Glory." And the boy scrambled from his feed to the window.
"No, no! you'll ketch cold. Besides, you'd oughter go to sleep.
Well--only for a little bit of a minute, then," as Herbert persisted,
and climbing upon her lap, flattened his face against the window pane.
Glory gathered up her skirt about his shoulders and held him for a
while, begging him uneasily, over and over, to "be a good boy, and go
back to bed." No; he wouldn't be a good boy, and he wouldn't go back to
bed, till the music paused. Then, by dint of promising that if it began
again she would open the window a "teenty little crack," so that he
might hear it better, she coaxed him to the point of yielding, and
tucked him, chilly, yet half unwilling, in the trundle.
Back again, to look and listen. And, oh, wonderful and unexpected
fortune! A beneficent hand has drawn up the white linen shade at one of
the back parlor windows to slide the sash a little from the top. It was
Katie, whom her young mistress, standing with her partner at that corner
of the room, had called in from the hall to do it.
"No, no," whispered the young lady, hastily, as her companion moved to
render her the service she desired, "let Katie come in. She'll get such
a good look down the room at the dancers." There was no abated
admiration in the young man's eye, as he turned back to her side, and
allowed her kindly intention to be fulfilled.
Did Katie surmise, in her turn, with the freemasonry of her class, how
it was with her humble friend over the way--that she couldn't get let
out for the evening, and that she would be sure to be looking and
listening from her old post opposite? However it was, the linen shade
was not lowered again, and there between the lace and crimson curtains
stood revealed the graceful young figure of Edith Pemberton, in her
floating ball robes, with the wreath of morning-glories in her hair.
"Oh, my sakes and sorrows! Ain't she just like a princess? Ain't it a
splendid time? And I come so near to be in it! But I ain't; and I s'pose
I shan't ever get a chance again. Maybe Katie'd get me over of a common
workday though, some time, to help her a bit or so. Wouldn't I be glad
to?"
"Oh, for gracious, child! Don't ever come here again. You'll catch your
death. You'll have the croup and whooping cought, and everything
to-morrow." This to Herbert, who had of course tumbled out of bed again
at Glory's first rapturous exclamation.
"No, I won't!" cried the boy, rebelliously; "I'll stay as long as I
like. And I'll tell my ma how you was a-wantin' to go away and be the
Pembertons' girl. Won't she lam you when she hears that?"
"You can tell wicked lies if you want to, Master Herbert; but you know I
never said such a word, nor ever thought of it. Of course I couldn't if
I wanted to ever so bad."
"Couldn't live there? I guess not. Think they'd have a girl like you?
What a lookin' you'd be, a-comin' to the front door answerin' the bell!"
Here the doorbell rang suddenly and sharply, and Master Herbert
fancying, as did Glory, that it was his mother come back, scrambled
into his bed again and covered himself up, while the girl ran down to
answer the summons.
It was Katie Ryan, with cakes and sweetmeats.
"I've jist rin in to fetch ye these. Miss Edith gave 'em me, so ye
needn't be feared. I knows ye're sich an honest one. An' it's a tearin'
shame, if ever there was, that ye couldn't come over for a bit of
diversion. Why don't ye quit this?"
"Oh, hush!" whispered Glory, with a gesture up the staircase, where she
had just left the little pitcher with fearfully long ears. "And thank
you kindly, over and over, I'm sure. It's real good o' you to think o'
me so--oh!" And Glory couldn't say anything more for a quick little sob
that came in her throat, and caught the last word up into a spasm.
"Pooh! it's just nothing at all. I'd do something better nor that if I
had the chance; an' I'd adwise ye to get out o' this if ye can. Good-by.
I've set the parlor windy open, an' the shade's up. I knew it would jist
be a conwenience."
Glory ran up the back stairs to the top of the house, and hid away the
sweet things in her own room to "make a party" with next day. And then
she went down and tented over the crib with an old woolen shawl, and set
a high-backed rocking chair to keep the draft from Herbert, and opened
the window "a teenty crack." In five minutes the slight freshening of
the air and the soothing of the music had sent the boy to sleep, and
watchful Glory closed the window and set things in their ordinary
arrangement once more.
Next morning Herbert made hoarse complaint.
"What did you let him do, Glory, to catch such a cold?" asked Mrs.
Grabbling.
"Nothing, mum, only he would get out of bed to hear the music," replied
the girl.
"Well, you opened the window, you know you did, and Katie Ryan came over
and kept the front door open. And you said how you wished you could go
over there and do their chores. I told you I'd tell."
"It's wicked lies, mum," burst out Glory, indignant.
"Do you dare to tell him he lies, right before my face, you
good-for-nothing girl?" shrieked the exasperated mother. "Where do you
expect to go to?"
"I don't expect to go nowheres, mum; and I wouldn't say it was lies if
he didn't tell what wasn't true."
"How should such a thing come into his head if you didn't say it?"
"There's many things comes into his head," answered Glory, stoutly, "and
I think you'd oughter believe me first, when I never told you a lie in
my life, and you did ketch Master Herbert fibbing, jist the other day,
but."
Somehow, Glory had grown strangely bold in her own behalf since she had
come to feel there was a bit of sympathy somewhere for her in the world.
"I know now where he learns it," retorted the mistress, with persistent
and angry injustice.
Glory's face blazed up, and she took an involuntary step to the woman's
side at the warrantless accusation.
"You don't mean that, mum, and you'd oughter take it back," said she,
excited beyond all fear and habit of submission.
Mrs. Grubbling raised her hand passionately, and struck the girl upon
the cheek.
"I mean _that_, then, for your impudence! Don't answer me up again!"
"No, mum," said Glory, in a low, strange tone; quite white now, except
where the vindictive fingers had left their crimson streaks. And she
went off out of the room without another word.
Over the knife board she revolved her wrongs, and sharpened at length
the keen edge of desperate resolution.
"Please, mum," said she, in the old form of address, but with quite a
new manner, that, in the little dependant of less than fifteen, startled
the hard mistress, "I ain't noways bound to you, am I?"
She propounded her question, stopping short in her return toward the
china closet through the sitting room.
"Bound? What do you mean?" parried Mrs. Grubbling, dimly foreshadowing
to herself what it would be if Glory should break loose, and go.
"To stay, mum, and you to keep me, till I'm growed up," answered Glory,
briefly.
"There's no binding about it," replied the mistress. "Of course I
wouldn't be held to anything of that sort. I shan't keep you any longer
than you behave yourself."
"Then, if you please, mum, I think I'll go," said Glory. And she burst
into a passion of tears.
"Humph! Where?" asked Mrs. Grubbling.
"I don't know, yet," said Glory, the sarcasm drying her tears. "I s'pose
I can go to a office."
"And where'll you get your meals and your lodgings till you find a
place?" The cat thought she had her paw on the mouse, now, and could
play with her as securely and cruelly as she pleased.
"If you go away at all," continued Mrs. Grubbling, with what she deemed
a finishing stroke of policy, "you go straight off. I'll have no dancing
back and forth to offices from here."
"Do you mean right off, this minute?" asked Glory, aghast.
"Yes just that. Pack up and go, or else let me hear no more about it."
The next thing in Glory's programme of duty was to lay the table for
dinner. But she went out of the room, and slowly off, upstairs.
Pretty soon she came down again, with her eyes very tearful, and her
shabby shawl and bonnet on.
"I'm going, mum," said she, as one resolved to face calmly whatever
might befall. "I didn't mean it to be sudden, but it are. And I wouldn't
never a gone, if I'd a thought anybody cared for me the leastest bit
that ever was. I wouldn't mind bein' worked and put upon, and not havin'
any good times; but when people hates me, and goes to say I doesn't tell
the truth"--here Glory broke down, and the tears poured over her stained
cheeks again, and she essayed once more to dry them, which reminded her
that her hands again were full.
"It's some goodies--from the party, mum"--she struggled to say between
short breaths and sobs, "that Katie Ryan give me--an' I kept--to make a
party--for the children, with--to-day, mum--when the chores was
done--and I'll leave 'em--for 'em--if you please."
Glory laid her coals of fire upon the table as she spoke. Master Herbert
eyed them, as one utterly unconscious of a scorch.
"I s'pose I might come back and get my bundle," said Glory, standing
still in the hope of one last kindly or relenting word.
"Oh, yes, if you get a place," said her mistress, dryly, affecting to
treat the whole affair as a childish, though unwonted burst of
petulance.
But Glory, not daring, unbidden, even to kiss the baby, went steadily
and sorrowfully out into the street, and drew the door behind her, that
shut with a catch lock, and fastened her out into the wide world.
Not stopping to think, she hurried on, up Budd and down Branch Street,
and across the green common path to the apple stand and Bridget Foye.
"I've done it! I've gone! And I don't know what to do, nor where to go
to!"
"Arrah, poor little rid hin! So, ye've found yer schiasors, have ye, an'
let yersel' loose out o' the bag? Well, it's I that is glad, though I
wouldn't pit ye up till it," says Bridget Foye.
Poor little red hen. She had cut a hole, and jumped out of the bag, to
be sure; but here she was, "all alone by herself" once more, and the
foxes--Want and Cruelty--ravening after her all through the great,
dreary wood!
This day, at least, passed comfortably enough, however, although with an
undertone of sadness--in the sunshine, by Bridget's apple stand,
watching the gay passers-by, and shaping some humble hopes and plans for
the future. For dinner, she shared Mrs. Foye's plain bread and cheese,
and made a dessert of an apple and a handful of peanuts. At night
Bridget took her home and gave her shelter, and the next day she started
her off with a "God bless ye and good luck till ye," in the charge of an
older girl who lodged in the same building, and who was also "out after
a place."