FIRST STEPS TO IMPROVEMENT.
It was a stormy evening. Gerty was standing at the window, watching for
True's returning from his lamplighting. She was neatly dressed, her hair
smooth, her face and hands clean. She was now quite well--better than
for years before her sickness; a pale, slender-looking child, with eyes
and mouth disproportionately large to her other features; her look of
suffering had given place to a happy though rather grave expression. On
the wide window-sill in front of her sat a plump and venerable cat,
parent to Gerty's lost darling, and for that reason very dear to her;
she was quietly stroking its back, while the constant purring that the
old veteran kept up proved her satisfaction at the arrangement.
Suddenly a rumbling, tumbling sound was heard in the wall. The house was
old, and furnished with ample accommodation for rats. One would have
thought a chimney was falling brick by brick. But it did not alarm
Gerty; she was used to rat-inhabited walls, and accustomed to hearing
such sounds all her life, when she slept in the garret at Nan Grant's.
Not so, however, with the ancient grimalkin, who pricked up her ears,
and gave every sign of a disposition to rush into battle.
Gerty glanced round the room with an air of satisfaction; then,
clambering upon the window-sill, where she could see the lamplighter as
he entered the gate, she took the cat in her arms, smoothed her dress,
and gave a look of pride at her shoes and stockings, and strove to
become patient. But it would not do; she could not be patient; it seemed
to her that he never came so late before, and she was beginning to think
he never would come at all, when he turned into the gate. He had brought
some person with him. He did not look tall enough to be Mr. Cooper, but
she concluded it must be he, for whoever it was stopped at his door
further up the yard and went it. Impatient as Gerty had been for True's
arrival, she did not run to meet him as usual, but waited until she
heard him come in through the shed, where he was in the habit of
stopping to hang up his ladder and lantern. She then ran and hid behind
the door by which he must enter the room. She evidently had some great
surprise in store for him. The cat was more mindful of her manners, and
went to meet him, rubbing her head against his legs, which was her
customary welcome.
"Hollo, whiskers," said True, "where's my little gal?"
He shut the door behind him as he spoke, thus disclosing Gerty to view.
She sprang forward with a bound, laughed, and looked first at her own
clothes and then in True's face, to see what he would think of her
appearance.
"Well, I declare!" said he, lifting her up in his arms, and carrying her
nearer to the light; "little folks do look famous! New frock, apron,
shoes! got 'em all on! And who fixed your hair? My! you an't none too
handsome, sartain, but you do look famous nice!"
"Mrs. Sullivan dressed me all up, and brushed my hair; and _more
too_--don't you see what _else_ she has done?"
True followed Gerty's eyes as they wandered around the room. He looked
amazed to satisfy her anticipations, great as they had been. He had been
gone since morning, and things had indeed undergone a transformation.
Woman's hands had evidently been at work clearing up and setting to
rights.
Until Gerty came to live with True his home had never been subjected to
female intrusion. Living alone, and entertaining scarcely any visitors,
he tried to make himself comfortable in his own way, regardless of
appearances. In his humble apartment sweeping day came but seldom, and
spring-cleaning was unknown. The corners of the ceiling were festooned
with cob-webs; the mantle-piece had accumulated a curious medley of
things, while there was no end to the rubbish that had collected under
the grate. During Gerty's illness, a bed made up on the floor for True,
and the various articles required in her sick-room, had increased the
clutter to such an extent that one almost needed a pilot to conduct him
in safety through the apartment.
Mrs. Sullivan was the soul of neatness in her rooms, in her own dress
for simplicity, and freedom from the least speck or stain. It was to
nurse Gerty, and take care of her in True's absence, that she first
entered a room the reverse of her own; the contrast was painful to her,
and it would have been a real pleasure to clear up and put it to rights;
and she resolved as soon as Gerty got well, to exert herself in the
cause of cleanliness and order, which was, in her eyes, the cause of
virtue and happiness, so completely did she identify outward neatness
and purity with inward peace.
On the day previous to that on which the great cleaning operations took
place, Gerty was observed by Mrs. Sullivan standing in the passage near
her door, and looking wistfully in. "Come in, Gerty," said the kind
little woman; "come in and see me.--Here," added she, seeing how timid
the child felt in intruding into a strange room; "you may sit up here by
the table and see me iron. This is your little dress. I am smoothing it
out, and then your things will all be done! You'll be glad of some new
clothes, shan't you?"
"Very glad, marm," said Gerty. "Am I to take them away, and keep them
all myself?"
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Sullivan.
"I don't know where I'll put 'em all; there an't no place in our
room--at least, no very nice place," said Gerty, glancing at the open
drawer, in which Mrs. Sullivan was placing the little dress, adding it
to a pile of neatly-folded garments.
"Why, part of them, you know, you'll be wearing," said Mrs. Sullivan;
"and we must find some good place for the rest."
"You've got good places for things," said Gerty, looking round the room;
"this is a beautiful room."
"Why, it isn't very different from Mr. Flint's. It's just the same size,
and two front windows like his. My cupboard is the best; yours is only a
three-cornered one; but that's all the difference."
"Oh, but yours don't look a bit like ours. You haven't got any bed here,
and all the chairs stand in a row, and the table shines, and the floor
is so clean, and the stove is new, and the sun comes in so bright! I
wish our room was like this! I think ours is not half so big. Why, Uncle
True stumbled over the tongs this morning, and he said there wasn't room
to swing a cat."
"Where were the tongs?" said Mrs. Sullivan.
"About the middle of the floor, marm."
"Well, you see I don't keep things in the middle of the floor. I think
if your room were all cleaned up, and places found for everything, it
would look almost as well as mine."
"I wish it could be made as nice," said Gerty; "but what could be done
with those beds?"
"I've been thinking about that. There's that little pantry--or
bathing-room, I think it must have been when this house was new, and
rich people lived in it; that's large enough to hold a small bedstead
and a chair or two; 'twould be quite a comfortable little chamber for
you. The rubbish in it might just as well be thrown away."
"Oh, that'll be nice!" said Gerty; "then Uncle True can have his bed
back again, and I'll sleep on the floor in there."
"No," said Mrs. Sullivan; "you shan't sleep on the floor. I've got a
very good little cross-legged bedstead that my Willie slept on when he
lived at home; and I'll lend it to you, if you'll take good care of it
and of everything else that is put into your room."
"Oh, I will," said Gerty. "But can I?" added she, hesitating; "do you
think I can? I don't know how to do anything."
"You never have been taught to do anything, my child; but a girl eight
years old can do many things if she is patient and tries to learn. I
could teach you to do a great deal that would be useful, and that would
help your Uncle True very much."
"What could I do?"
"You could sweep the room every day, you could make the beds, with a
little help in turning them; you could set the table, toast the bread,
and wash the dishes. Perhaps you would not do these things so well at
first; but you would keep improving, and get to be a nice little
housekeeper."
"Oh, I wish I could do something for Uncle True!" said Gerty; "but how
could I ever begin?"
"In the first place, you must have things cleaned up for you. If I
thought Mr. Flint would like it, I'd get Kate M'Carty to come in some
day and help us; and I think we could greatly improve his home."
"Oh, I know he'd like it," said Gerty; "'twould be grand! May I help?"
"Yes, you may do what you can; but Kate'll be the best hand; she's
strong, and knows how to do cleaning very well."
"Who's she?" said Gerty.
"Kate?--She's Mrs. M'Carty's daughter in the next house. Mr. Flint does
them many a good turn--saws wood, and so on. They do most of his
washing; but they can't half pay him all the kindness he's done that
family. Kate's a clever girl; she'll be glad to come and work for him
any day. I'll ask her."
"Will she come to-morrow?"
"Perhaps she will."
"Uncle True's going to be gone all day to-morrow," said Gerty; "he's
going to get in Mr. Eustace's coal. Wouldn't it be a good time?"
"Very," said Mrs. Sullivan. "I'll try and get Kate to come to-morrow."
Kate came. The room was thoroughly cleaned and put in order. Gerty's new
clothes were delivered to her own keeping; she was neatly dressed in one
suit, the other placed in a little chest found in the pantry, and which
accommodated her small wardrobe very well.
It was the result of Mrs. Sullivan's, Kate's, and Gerty's combined
labour which astonished True on his return from his work; and the
pleasure he manifested made the day a memorable one in Gerty's life, one
to be marked in her memory as long as she lived, as being the first in
which she had known _that_ happiness--perhaps the highest earth,
affords--of feeling that she had been instrumental in giving joy to
another. Gerty had entered heart and soul into the work, when she had
been allowed. She could say with truth, "_We_ did it--Mrs. Sullivan,
Kate, and _I_." None but a loving heart like Mrs. Sullivan's would have
sympathized in the feeling which made Gerty so eager to help. But _she_
did, and allotted to her many little services, which the child felt
herself more blessed in being permitted to perform than she would have
done at almost any gift bestowed upon her. She led True about to show
him how cleverly Mrs. Sullivan had made the most of the room and the
furniture; how, by moving the bed into a recess, she had reserved the
whole square-area, and made a parlour of it. It was some time before he
could be made to believe that half of his property had not been spirited
away, so incomprehensible was it to him that so much additional space
and comfort could be acquired by a little system. But his astonishment
and Gerty's delight reached their climax when she took him into the
lumber-closet, now transformed into a snug and comfortable bed-room.
"Well, I declare! Well, I declare!" was all the old man could say. He
sat down beside the stove, now polished, and made, as Gerty declared,
new, just like Mrs. Sullivan's; warmed his hands, for they were cold
with being out in the frosty evening, and then took a general view of
his reformed domicile, and of Gerty, who was about to set the table, and
toast the bread for supper. Standing on a chair, she was taking down the
cups and saucers from among the regular rows of dishes shining in
three-cornered cupboard, being deposited on the lower shelf, where she
could reach them from the floor, a plate containing some smoothly cut
slices of bread, which the thoughtful Mrs. Sullivan had prepared for
her. True watched her motions for a minute or two, and then indulged in
a short soliloquy. "Mrs. Sullivan's a clever woman, sartain, and they've
made my old house here complete, and Gerty's getting to be like the
apple of my eye, and I'm as happy a man as----"