for supper. I was turning over in my mind what we could cook up, for I
feel real hollow. It's a kind of chilly day." And she sat down by the
stove, while Polly hobbled to the table, with one hand to her ear to
catch the first sound of the good news, and the other holding some
baked potatoes in her apron. That hand was twisted with rheumatism,
for the disease ran in the family. She was afraid every day that she
should have to give up making the candy on the next; for it hurt her
so to use it. She was continually being harrowed by the idea of its
becoming quite useless, and that the candy might not be so good; and
then what would become of them? Becky Marley was often troubled by the
same thought. Yet they were almost always good-natured, poor old
women; and, though Polly Sharpe's pleasures and privileges were by far
the fewest of anybody's I ever knew, I think she was as glad in those
days to know the dandelions were in bloom as if she could see them;
and she got more good from the fragments of the Sunday-morning sermon
that sister Becky brought home than many a listener did from the whole
service.
The potatoes were done to a turn, Mrs. Marley shouted; and then Polly
sat down close by her to hear the news.
"You know I have been worrying about the cold weather a-coming, and my
rheumatics; and I was afeared to change my stand, on account of losing
custom. Well, to-day it all come over me to once that I might move
down a piece on Grant Place,--that new street that's cut through to
St. Mary. I've noticed for some time past that almost all my reg'lar
customers turns down that way, so this morning I thought I'd step down
that way too, and see if there was a chance. And after I gets into the
street I sees people stopping and looking at something as they went
along; and so I goes down to see; and it is one of them hothouses,
full of plants a-growing like it was mid-summer. It belongs to the big
Sydney house on the corner. There's a good place to sit right at the
corner of it, and I'm going to move over there to-morrow. I thought as
how I wouldn't leave Jefferson Street to-day, for it was too sudden.
You see folks stops and looks at the plants, and there wasn't any wind
there to-day. There! I wish you could see them flowers."
Sister Polly was very pleased, and, after the potatoes and bread were
eaten, she brought on an apple pie that had been sent up by
Mrs. Welch, the washer-woman who lived on the floor next but one
below. She was going away for three or four days, having been offered
good pay to do some cleaning in a new house, and her board besides,
near her work. So you see that evening was quite a jubilee.
The next day Mrs. Marley's wildest expectations were realized; for she
was warm as toast the whole morning, and sold all her candy, and went
home by two o'clock. That had never happened but once or twice before.
"Why, I shouldn't wonder if we could lay up considerable this winter,"
said she to Polly.
Miss Sydney did not like the idea of the old candy-woman's being
there. Children came to buy of her, and the street seemed noisier than
ever at times. Perhaps she might have to leave the house, after all.
But one may get used to almost any thing; and as the days went by she
was surprised to find that she was not half so much annoyed as at
first; and one afternoon she found herself standing at one of the
dining-room windows, and watching the people go by. I do not think she
had shown so much interest as this in the world at large for many
years. I think it must have been from noticing the pleasure her
flowers gave the people who stopped to look at them that she began to
think herself selfish, and to be aware how completely indifferent she
had grown to any claims the world might have upon her. And one
morning, when she heard somebody say, "Why, it's like a glimpse into
the tropics! Oh! I wish I could have such a conservatory!" she
thought, "Here I have kept this all to myself for all these years,
when so many others might have enjoyed it too!" But then the old
feeling of independence came over her. The greenhouse was out of
people's way; she surely couldn't have let people in whom she didn't
know; however, she was glad, now that the street was cut, that some
one had more pleasure, if she had not. After all, it was a
satisfaction to our friend; and from this time the seeds of kindness
and charity and helpfulness began to show themselves above the ground
in the almost empty garden of her heart. I will tell you how they grew
and blossomed; and as strangers came to see her real flowers, and to
look in at the conservatory windows from the cold city street, instead
of winter to see a bit of imprisoned summer, so friend after friend
came to find there was another garden in her own heart, and Miss
Sydney learned the blessedness there is in loving and giving and
helping.
For it is sure we never shall know what it is to lack friends, if we
keep our hearts ready to receive them. If we are growing good and kind
and helpful, those who wish for help and kindness will surely find us
out. A tree covered with good fruit is never unnoticed in the fields.
If we bear thorns and briers, we can't expect people to take very
great pains to come and gather them. It is thought by many persons to
be not only a bad plan, but an ill-bred thing, to give out to more
than a few carefully selected friends. But it came to her more and
more that there was great selfishness and short-sightedness in this.
One naturally has a horror of dragging the secrets and treasures of
one's heart and thought out to the light of day. One may be willing to
go without the good that may come to one's own self through many
friendships; but, after all, God does not teach us, and train our
lives, only that we may come to something ourselves. He helps men most
through other men's lives; and we must take from him, and give out
again, all we can, wherever we can, remembering that the great God is
always trying to be the friend of the least of us. The danger is, that
we oftenest give our friendship selfishly; we do not think of our
friends, but of ourselves. One never can find one's self beggared;
love is a treasure that does not lessen, but grows, as we spend it.
The passers-by seemed so delighted with some new plants which she and
John had arranged one day, that, as she was going out in the afternoon
to drive, she stopped just as she was going to step into the carriage,
and said she thought she would go round and look at the conservatory
from the outside. So John turned the horses, and followed. It was a
very cold day, and there were few people in the street. Every thing
was so cheerless out of doors, and the flowers looked so summer-like!
No wonder the people liked to stop, poor souls! For the richer, more
comfortable ones lived farther up town. It was not in the shopping
region; and, except the business-men who went by morning and evening,
almost every one was poor.
Miss Sydney had never known what the candy-woman sold before, for she
could not see any thing but the top of her rusty black bonnet from the
window. But now she saw that the candy was exactly like that she and
her sister used to buy years upon years ago; and she stopped to speak
to the old woman, and to buy some, to the utter amazement of her
coachman. Mrs. Marley was excited by so grand a customer, and was a
great while counting out the drumsticks, and wrapping them up. While
Miss Sydney stood there, a thin, pitiful little girl came along,
carrying a clumsy baby. They stopped, and the baby tried to reach down
for a piece. The girl was quite as wistful; but she pulled him back,
and walked on to the flowers. "Oh! pitty, pitty!" said the baby, while
the dirty little hands patted the glass delightedly.
"Move along there," said John gruffly; for it was his business to keep
that glass clean and bright.
The girl looked round, frightened, and, seeing that the coachman was
big and cross-looking, the forlorn little soul went away. "Baby want
to walk? You're so heavy!" said she in a fretful, tired way. But the
baby was half crying, and held her tight. He had meant to stay some
time longer, and look at those pretty, bright things, since he could
not have the candy.
Mrs. Marley felt as if her customer might think her stingy, and
proceeded to explain that she couldn't think of giving her candy away.
"Bless you, ma'am, I wouldn't have a stick left by nine o'clock."
Miss Sydney "never gave money to street-beggars." But these children
had not begged, and somehow she pitied them very much, they looked so
hungry. And she called them back. There was a queer tone to her voice;
and she nearly cried after she had given the package of candy to them,
and thrown a dollar upon the board in front of Mrs. Marley, and found
herself in the carriage, driving away. Had she been very silly? and
what could John have thought? But the children were so glad; and the
old candy-woman had said, "God bless you, mum!"
After this, Miss Sydney could not keep up her old interest in her own
affairs. She felt restless and dissatisfied, and wondered how she
could have done the same things over and over so contentedly for so
many years. You may be sure, that, if Grant Place had been unthought
of, she would have lived on in the same fashion to the end of her
days. But after this she used to look out of the window; and she sat a
great deal in the conservatory, when it was not too warm there, behind
some tall callas. The servants found her usually standing in the
dining-room; for she listened for footsteps, and was half-ashamed to
have them notice that she had changed in the least. We are all given
to foolish behavior of this kind once in a while. We are often
restrained because we feel bound to conform to people's idea of us. We
must be such persons as we imagine our friends think us to be. They
believe that we have made up our minds about them, and are apt to show
us only that behavior which they think we expect. They are afraid of
us sometimes. They think we cannot sympathize with them. Our friend
felt almost as if she were yielding to some sin in this strange
interest in the passers-by. She had lived so monotonous a life, that
any change could not have failed to be somewhat alarming. She told
Bessie Thorne afterward, that one day she came upon that verse of
Keble's Hymn for St. Matthew's Day. Do you remember it?--
"There are, in this loud, stunning tide
Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide
Of the everlasting chime;
Who carry music in their heart
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,
Plying their daily task with busier feet
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat."
It seemed as if it were a message to herself, and she could not help
going to the window a few minutes afterward. The faces were mostly
tired-looking and dissatisfied. Some people looked very eager and
hurried, but none very contented. It was the literal daily bread they
thought of; and, when two fashionably-dressed ladies chanced to go by
the window, their faces were strangely like their poorer neighbors in
expression. Miss Sydney wondered what the love for one's neighbor
could be; if she could ever feel it herself. She did not even like
these people whom she watched, and yet every day, for years and years,
she had acknowledged them her brothers and sisters when she said, "Our
Father who art in heaven."
It seemed as if Miss Sydney, of all people, might have been
independent and unfettered. It is so much harder for us who belong to
a family for we are hindered by the thought of people's noticing our
attempts at reform. It is like surrendering some opinion ignominiously
which we have fought for. It is a kind of "giving in." But when she
had acknowledged to herself that she had been in the wrong, that she
was a selfish, thoughtless old woman, that she was alone, without
friends, and it had been her own fault, she was puzzled to know how to
do better. She could not begin to be very charitable all at once. The
more she realized what her own character had become, the more hopeless
and necessary seemed reform.
Such times as this come to many of us, both in knowing ourselves and
our friends. An awakening, one might call it,--an opening of the blind
eyes of our spiritual selves. And our ears are open to some of the
voices which call us; while others might as well be silent, for all
the heed we give them. We go on, from day to day, doing, with more or
less faithfulness, that part of our work we have wit enough to
comprehend; but one day suddenly we are shown a broader field,
stretching out into the distance, and know that from this also we may
bring in a harvest by and by, and with God's help.
Miss Sydney meant to be better,--not alone for the sake of having
friends, not alone to quiet her conscience, but because she knew she
had been so far from living a Christian life, and she was bitterly
ashamed. This was all she needed,--all any of us need,--to know that
we must be better men and women for God's sake; that we cannot be
better without his help, and that his help may be had for the asking.
But where should she begin? She had always treated her servants
kindly, and they were the people she knew best. She would surely try
to be more interested in the friends she met; but it was nearly
Christmas time, and people rarely came to call. Every one was busy.
Becky Marley's cheery face haunted her; and one day after having
looked down from the window on the top of her bonnet, she remembered
that she did not get any candy, after all, and she would go round to
see the old lady again, she looked poor, and she would give her some
money. Miss Sydney dressed herself for the street, and closed the door
behind her very carefully, as if she were a mischievous child running
away. It was very cold, and there were hardly a dozen persons to be
seen in the streets, and Mrs. Marley had evidently been crying.
"I should like some of your candy," said our friend. "You know I
didn't take any, after all, the other day." And then she felt very
conscious and awkward, fearing that the candy-woman thought she wished
to remind her of her generosity.
"Two of the large packages, if you please. But, dear me! aren't you
very cold, sitting here in the wind?" and Miss Sydney shivered, in
spite of her warm wrappings.
It was the look of sympathy that was answered first, for it was more
comforting than even the prospect of money, sorely as Mrs. Marley
needed that.
"Yes, mum, I've had the rheumatics this winter awful. But the wind
here!--why, it ain't nothing to what it blows round in Jefferson
Street, where I used to sit. I shouldn't be out to-day, but I was
called upon sudden to pay my molasses bill, when I'd just paid my
rent; and I don't know how ever I can. There's sister Polly--she's
dead lame and deaf. I s'pose we'll both be in the almshouse afore
spring. I'm an old woman to be earning a living out o' doors in winter
weather."
There was no mistaking the fact that Miss Sydney was in earnest when
she said, "I'm so sorry! Can't I help you?"
Somehow she did not feel so awkward, and she enjoyed very much hearing
this bit of confidence.
"But my trade has improved wonderful since I came here. People mostly
stops to see them beautiful flowers; and then they sees me, and stops
and buys something. Well, there's some days when I gets down-hearted,
and I just looks up there, and sees them flowers blooming so cheerful,
and I says, 'There! this world ain't all cold and poor and old, like I
be; and the Lord he ain't never tired of us, with our worrying about
what he's a-doing with us; and heaven's a-coming before long anyhow!'"
And the Widow Marley stopped to dry her eyes with the corner of her
shawl.
Miss Sydney asked her to go round to the kitchen, and warm herself;
and, on finding out more of her new acquaintance's difficulties, she
sent her home happy, with money enough to pay the dreaded bill, and a
basket of good things which furnished such a supper for herself and
sister Polly as they had not seen for a long time. And their fortunes
were bettered from that day. "If it hadn't been for the flowers, I
should ha' been freezing my old bones on Jefferson Street this minute,
I s'pose," said the Widow Marley.
Miss Sydney went back to the dining-room after her _protegee_ had
gone, and felt a comfortable sense of satisfaction in what she had
done. It had all come about in such an easy way too! A little later
she went into the conservatory, and worked among her plants. She
really felt so much younger and happier; and once, as she stood still,
looking at some lilies-of-the-valley that John had been forcing into
bloom, she did not notice that a young lady was looking through the
window at her very earnestly.
III.
That same evening Mrs. Thorne and Bessie were sitting up late in their
library. It was snowing very fast, and had been since three o'clock;
and no one had called. They had begun the evening by reading and
writing, and now were ending it with a talk.
"Mamma," said Bessie, after there had been a pause, "whom do you
suppose I have taken a fancy to? And do you know, I pity her so
much!--Miss Sydney."
"But I don't know that she is so much to be pitied," said Mrs. Thorne,
smiling at the enthusiastic tone. "She must have every thing she
wants. She lives all alone, and hasn't any intimate friends, but, if a
person chooses such a life, why, what can we do? What made you think
of her?"
"I have been trying to think of one real friend she has. Everybody is
polite enough to her, and I never heard that any one disliked her; but
she must be forlorn sometimes. I came through that new street by her
house to-day: that's how I happened to think of her. Her greenhouse is
perfectly beautiful, and I stopped to look in. I always supposed she
was cold as ice (I'm sure she looks so); but she was standing out in
one corner, looking down at some flowers with just the sweetest face.
Perhaps she is shy. She used to be very good-natured to me when I was
a child, and used to go there with you. I don't think she knows me
since I came home: at any rate, I mean to go to see her some day."
"I certainly would," said Mrs. Thorne. "She will be perfectly polite
to you, at all events. And perhaps she may be lonely, though I rather
doubt it; not that I wish to discourage you, my dear. I haven't seen
her in a long time, for we have missed each other's calls. She never
went into society much; but she used to be a very elegant woman, and
is now, for that matter."
"I pity her," said Bessie persistently. "I think I should be very fond
of her if she would let me. She looked so kind as she stood among the
flowers to-day! I wonder what she was thinking about. Oh! do you think
she would mind if I asked her to give me some flowers for the
hospital?"
Bessie Thorne is a very dear girl. Miss Sydney must have been
hard-hearted if she had received her coldly one afternoon a few days
afterward, she seemed so refreshingly young and girlish a guest as she
rose to meet the mistress of that solemn, old-fashioned drawing-room.
Miss Sydney had had a re-action from the pleasure her charity had
given her, and was feeling bewildered, unhappy, and old that day.
"What can she wish to see me for, I wonder?" thought she, as she
closed her book, and looked at Miss Thorne's card herself, to be sure
the servant had read it right. But, when she saw the girl herself, her
pleasure showed itself unmistakably in her face.
"Are you really glad to see me?" said Bessie in her frankest way, with
a very gratified smile. "I was afraid you might think it was very odd
in me to come. I used to like so much to call upon you with mamma when
I was a little girl! And the other day I saw you in your conservatory,
and I have wished to come and see you ever since."
"I am very glad to see you, my dear," said Miss Sydney, for the second
time. "I have been quite forgotten by the young people of late years.
I was sorry to miss Mrs. Thorne's call. Is she quite well? I meant to
return it one day this week, and I thought only last night I would ask
about you. You have been abroad, I think?"
Was not this an auspicious beginning? I cannot tell you all that
happened that afternoon, for I have told so long a story already. But
you will imagine it was the beginning of an intimacy that gave great
pleasure, and did great good, to both the elder woman and the younger.
It is hard to tell the pleasure which the love and friendship of a
fresh, bright girl like Bessie Thorne, may give an older person. There
is such a satisfaction in being convinced that one is still
interesting and still lovable, though the years that are gone have
each kept some gift or grace, and the possibilities of life seem to
have been realized and decided. There are days of our old age when
there seems so little left in life, that living is a mere formality.
This busy world seems done with the old, however dear their memories
of it, however strong their claims upon it. They are old: their life
now is only waiting and resting. It may be quite right that we
sometimes speak of second childhood, because we must be children
before we are grown; and the life to come must find us, will find us,
ready for service. Our old people have lived in the world so long;
they think they know it so well: but the young man is master of the
trade of living, and the old man only his blundering apprentice.
Miss Sydney's solemnest and most unprepared servant was startled to
find Bessie Thorne and his mistress sitting cosily together before the
dining-room fire. Bessie had a paper full of cut flowers to leave at
the Children's Hospital on her way home. Miss Sydney had given
liberally to the contribution for that object; but she never had
suspected how interesting it was until Bessie told her, and she said
she should like to go some day, and see the building and its occupants
for herself. And the girl told her of other interests that were near
her kind young heart,--not all charitable interests,--and they parted
intimate friends.
"I never felt such a charming certainty of being agreeable," wrote
Bessie that night to a friend of hers. "She seemed so interested in
every thing, and, as I told you, so pleased with my coming to see her.
I have promised to go there very often. She told me in the saddest way
that she had been feeling so old and useless and friendless, and she
was very confidential. Imagine her being confidential with me! She
seemed to me just like myself as I was last year,--you remember,--just
beginning to realize what life ought to be, and trying, in a
frightened, blind kind of way, to be good and useful. She said she was
just beginning to understand her selfishness. She told me I had done
her ever so much good; and I couldn't help the tears coming into my
eyes. I wished so much you were there, or some one who could help her
more; but I suppose God knew when he sent me. Doesn't it seem strange
that an old woman should talk to me in this way, and come to me for
help? I am afraid people would laugh at the very idea. And only to
think of her living on and on, year after year, and then being changed
so! She kissed me when I came away, and I carried the flowers to the
hospital. I shall always be fond of that conservatory, because, if I
hadn't stopped to look in that day, I might never have thought of her.
"There was one strange thing happened, which I must tell you about,
though it is so late. She has grown very much interested in an old
candy-woman, and told me about her; and do you know that this evening
uncle Jack came in, and asked if we knew of anybody who would do for
janitress--at the Natural History rooms, I think he said. There is
good pay, and she would just sell catalogues, and look after things a
little. Of course the candy-woman may not be competent; but, from what
Miss Sydney told me, I think she is just the person."
The next Sunday the minister read this extract from "Queen's Gardens"
in his sermon. Two of his listeners never had half understood its
meaning before as they did then. Bessie was in church, and Miss Sydney
suddenly turned her head, and smiled at her young friend, to the great
amazement of the people who sat in the pews near by. What _could_ have
come over Miss Sydney?