The experience of the morning certainly was rather scattering in its
tendency, as far as any sober thought or work was concerned. The young
people were brimful of life and fun and excitement; and it was not
possible for Matilda to escape the infection. Nevertheless after lunch
she had firmness enough left to put on her coat and hat and trudge off
to Sunday school by herself. Norton said he had not "slept out," and
would not go. Matilda went, with her little watch safe in her breast.
Getting out into the cold air and setting her feet upon the snowy
streets, had somewhat the effect of breaking a spell. For a while, that
seemed now a very long while, Matilda had been in a whirl of
expectation and pleasure and in a kind of dream of enchantment; nothing
but soft luxury and visions of delight and one thing after another to
make the child think she had got into very fairyland. But the streets
outside were not fairyland; and the sharp air pinched her cheek with a
grip which was not tender or flattering at all. The sense began to come
back to Matilda that everybody was not having such rose-coloured dreams
as she, nor living in summer-heated rooms. Nay, she saw children that
were ill dressed, on their way like her; some who were insufficiently
dressed; a multitude who were not nicely dressed; the contrast was very
unpleasant, and a certain feeling of uneasiness and of responsibility
and of desire to make other people comfortable crept over her anew.
Then she remembered that she could not reach many, she could not do
much; and she came into school and took her seat at last with a
concentrated desire to do at least something effectual towards rescuing
Sarah Staples from her miserable circumstances. After the lesson was
done and the scholars were dismissed, Matilda asked Mr. Wharncliffe if
she could speak to him?
"Is it a minute's work? or several minutes?" he inquired.
"I don't know, sir; I think, several minutes."
"Then wait a minute, and we will walk home together."
Matilda liked that, and presently in the clear late light of the waning
winter afternoon, she and her teacher sallied forth into the street
hand in hand.
"Now what is it?" he asked.
"About Sarah, Mr. Wharncliffe."
"Well? What about her?"
"I have been thinking a great deal, Mr. Wharncliffe, how to manage it;
because I had not a great deal of money myself, and I did not know
whether I could get help or no; but now I think I _shall_ have some
help; and I wanted to consult you to know what I had best do."
"What do you want to do?"
"First, I want to get her out of that dreadful place into a comfortable
room somewhere."
"Suppose you do it, how is she going to stay in it?"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"The rent of such a room as you speak of would be, say seventy-five
cents or a dollar a week. How are Sarah and her mother to pay that?"
"O I should have to pay it for them. I could do that, I think."
"For how long?"
Matilda looked at her teacher and did not immediately answer. She had
not looked ahead so far as that.
"It is necessary to take all things into consideration," he said,
answering her look. "You would not wish to put Sarah and her mother
into a place of comfort for a little while, merely to let them fall out
of it again?"
"O no, sir!"
"How are they to be maintained in it?"
Matilda pondered.
"I could take care of the rent, I think, I mean _we_ could, for a
while; for a year, perhaps; by that time couldn't they pay it, don't
you think?"
"How?"
"By their work; by their earnings."
"But now, and for a long time past, their work has not enabled them to
pay for anything better than they have got."
"Couldn't they do something better, Mr. Wharncliffe? something else?
that would give them more money?"
"What work could you help them to, that would pay better?"
"I don't know, sir," said Matilda, looking up wistfully in her
teacher's face. "I don't know anything about such things. Can _you_
tell me? What work is there that they could get. What the other poor
people do?"
"There are other things," said Mr. Wharncliffe thoughtfully. "There are
better and better paying sorts of sewing; what Mrs. Staples does is
very coarse, and she gets very little for it. But machine work
now-a-days puts hand work at a disadvantage."
"What is machine work, sir?"
"Work done on a sewing machine. With a machine a woman can do I
suppose, ten times as much in a day, and with more ease to herself."
"Well, wouldn't Mrs. Staples work on a machine?"
"I do not know. I think she used to take in washing once. She could do
that again, if she had a better room and conveniences."
"And does that pay better?"
"I believe so. Indeed I am sure."
"Then she might do washing," said Matilda; "and Sarah might sew on a
machine, Mr. Wharncliffe."
"She has not got one, you know."
"If we could get her one? Wouldn't that be nice, Mr. Wharncliffe?"
"My dear child, a good sewing machine costs a good deal of money."
"But _if_ we could, Mr. Wharncliffe? I said _if_."
"Nothing could be better. Perhaps, by and by, it might be managed. In
the mean time, Sarah might learn, and possibly get work; or get a
machine and pay for it gradually by doing work for the makers. Such
arrangements are made."
"How much does a sewing machine cost?"
"From forty five to sixty dollars."
"Forty five," repeated Matilda gravely. "But, Mr. Wharncliffe, in the
first place the thing to do is to get them out of that place into a new
room. Might we not do that? and don't you think the rest can be
managed, somehow?"
"If we do that, the rest _must_ be managed, if possible. It is always
greater kindness and a far greater benefit, Matilda, to help poor
people to take care of themselves, than to save them that care."
"Why, sir?"
"People are better and happier and stronger, working for their living
and earning it, and keeping the sense of independence, than they are
when living on the money of other people and losing their own
self-respect. That is very ruinous to character. Avoid it always, in
all your efforts to help people."
"Yes, I see," said Matilda thoughtfully. "But, Mr. Wharncliffe, Sarah
and her mother cannot do anything to get in a better way while they
live in that cellar. They want some help just at first. Don't they?"
"Certainly; and I think we have struck the right line of action to
pursue for them. Help to put them in the way of being comfortably
independent, is just what they want."
"Then the first thing is a lodging," said Matilda, with a relieved and
brightening face. "How can we find one, Mr. Wharncliffe? I don't want
them to know about it till we get it all settled and ready for them to
move into."
"Ready for them?" said Mr. Wharncliffe inquiringly.
"Yes, sir; you know they have nothing to put into a nice room now, if
they had one."
"Aren't you laying plans beyond your means?"
"Beyond _mine;_ but I shall have some help. I don't know exactly how
much, but some."
"Well, you will let me help too if necessary," said the gentleman. "And
I will look out for a lodging."
"O thank you! Will you, sir?"
"To be sure. That is one way I am going to help."
"And when you have found one, you will let me know?"
"Whom else? Certainly, I will. I shall take no step without your
direction."
"O thank you, sir!" said Matilda again.
They had been walking up the Avenue during this talk, to have
uninterrupted time for it; now they had turned about to come home.
Clear and bright and cold the sun was leaving the streets and lingering
about the house roofs and chimneys; and the steeples of churches were
shining marks of light on one side, on the other dark spires against
the western sky. Mr. Wharncliffe and Matilda quickened their steps,
which the frosty air made it pleasant to do. She supposed that the
subject of their conversation was ended for the present, and so was
somewhat surprised to hear the next question from her companion. It
came out after some little pause.
"Matilda what has put this in your head?"
"This we have been talking of? Why I wanted to make Sarah comfortable.
I could not bear to have her in that dreadful place. Mr. Wharncliffe,
don't you think it is dreadful?"
"I do think it is dreadful; and your feeling very natural. Then you
want to go to this expense and trouble for the comfort of knowing that
she is comfortable?"
"I think so," said Matilda, somewhat puzzled. "I could not bear to
think of her there."
"All perfectly right, Matilda," said her friend smiling. "I only want,
while you are taking care of Sarah, to take care of you."
"How, sir?"
"There are so many ways in which good things may be done; and I wish
you to take the best."
"What ways do you mean, sir? I do not understand."
"There is one way of doing kind things, merely or chiefly to save one's
self from the uncomfortable feeling that the sight of misery gives.
Kind people of that sort are benevolent in spots, just when they see or
hear of something that touches them, and never at any other time.
Others do kind things because they like to have a name for generosity,
and giving money costs them nothing."
Matilda looked inquiringly up in Mr. Wharncliffe's face. "It made me
very uncomfortable to see Sarah in that place," she said; "and to think
of her in it."
"A third sort of kindness," Mr. Wharncliffe went on smiling, "is done
because people love the Lord Jesus, and so love all whom he loves, and
like to do the work he wants done."
"But it makes them feel badly to see people suffering?" said Matilda.
"Undoubtedly. They are the tenderest of all. But they will do as much
for people they never saw, as for those at hand; and their spring of
kindness never dries up. It is a perpetual flow. When they do not see
objects on which to spend it, they seek them out."
Matilda pondered matters a little. Then she lifted a very honest face
towards her companion.
"Which reason did you think made me want to do this for Sarah, sir?"
"I wanted _you_ to think about it."
"Don't you think, Mr. Wharncliffe, it is very difficult to find out
really why one does things?"
"Very difficult," said Mr. Wharncliffe with a comical drawing of his
lips; "but very useful."
"I do not _think_," began Matilda again, very gravely, "I do not
_think_ my wanting to do this for Sarah was just to make myself feel
comfortable."
"I do not think it, my child; but it is no harm to have your attention
directed to the question. In all such matters, keep your action pure;
let every thing be done for Christ, and then it will be all right. For
instance, Matilda, when the real motive is self, or when there is no
higher at work, one is easily tempted to do too much in a given case;
to indulge one's self with great effects and astonishing liberality;
when, if it were simply for Christ, one would be moderate and simple
and prudent, and keep a due proportion in things."
"Yes," said Matilda looking puzzled,--"I understand. You will help me
keep a 'proper proportion' in what I do for Sarah Staples, Mr.
Wharncliffe?"
"How much are you thinking of doing?"
"I want to get her into a comfortable room," said Matilda. "That is
first. Then--they have no furniture, Mr. Wharncliffe?"
"You want to get them some?"
"Would that be too much? a little? common things, of course, but what
they cannot be comfortable without."
"How much money do you propose to spend on Sarah at this time?"
"I do not know. I know about how much I have, but I can't tell yet how
much help I shall get. I want to do what _ought_ to be done."
The last words were said with such an accent of earnest determination,
that Mr. Wharncliffe again had almost smiled at his scholar; but he did
not. He went on quite gravely:--
"A room and some necessary furniture, I should think, could be managed."
"Then we want to get them into a way of earning more."
"Yes. I will see about that. And about the room. And I can get what you
want in furniture, at a second hand place, where the articles will cost
very little."
"That's good," said Matilda. "Well, Mr. Wharncliffe, all _that_ will
not be too much?"
"I think not."
Matilda hesitated, and then added doubtfully, "Don't you think they
want clean dresses?"
Mr. Wharncliffe smiled now.
"Where shall we stop?" said he.
"But they are very--uncomfortable," said Matilda, after waiting to
choose a word. Her teacher thought for a minute of Sarah's well-worn,
faded, lank, best dress, and how little evidently there was under it to
keep the child warm, and his brow grew very sober indeed, and his blue
eye misty.
"I'll not check you, Matilda," he said, "unless I see you going to some
great extravagance. Go on, and I'll help, and we'll try to make one bad
spot at least a little better. Good-bye!"
With a smile and a nod he parted from her at her own door, and Matilda
ran up the steps and ran in with a whole little gale of pleasure
freshening through her heart.
There was a gale of another sort blowing through the house that
evening, and making the household lively. Pleasure was not wanting to
it, though it was pleasure of another sort and largely mixed with
excitement. The three other young ones were full of plans for the
holiday week, reminiscences of the last evening, comparison and
discussion of presents, and of people. Matilda in the midst of them
listened and was amused, and thought of her gold watch and of Sarah
with great secret throbs of delight in her heart.
"So you were the witch, grandmother," said Norton. "I knew it. I was
sure of it. What did you do it for?"
"Do what, boy?"
"Take up a witch's trade?"
"I have not laid it down yet."
"No, ma'am; but what put it in your head?"
"I wanted my share of the fun," said the old lady.
"Did you get it, grandmamma?" asked David.
"Yes. A very good share."
"Did you ask everybody such questions as you asked us?" Norton inquired.
"I did not want to know the same thing about all of you."
"No, ma'am. Did you find out a good deal, grandmother?"
But Mrs. Lloyd laughed and declined to answer.
"There is something more I want to find out," she said. "I want to know
what makes this little girl look so happy. She doesn't say a word, but
her smiles speak for her!"
"Who, Matilda?" said Norton.
"It's easy enough to be smiling," said Judy with slight scorn.
"You might practise it then a little, and do no hurt," remarked Norton.
"Nobody ought to be always smiling," returned Judy. "It's vulgar. And
it doesn't mean anything, either."
"Hush, Judy," said her mother.
"What were you smiling about, Matilda?" Mrs. Lloyd asked.
"A great many things I was thinking of, ma'am."
But the little girl's face was so gleeful as she answered, and the
smile and the sparkle were so pleasant, that the old lady's curiosity
was raised.
"A great many things?" she repeated, "A _great many_ things to be glad
of? I should like to know what they are. Come, I will make a bargain
with you. I will give you a silver penny for your thoughts; and my
silver penny shall be a golden half-eagle."
"For my _thoughts_, ma'am?" said Matilda, half bewildered; while the
other young ones burst out like a pack of hounds after their leader.
"A half-eagle," Mrs. Lloyd repeated, "for _all_ your thoughts; if you
will give me them all. I want to know all the things you are feeling so
glad about."
"Grandmamma, you'll do as much for me?" cried Judy. "Only, mine will
take an eagle to bring them down. They fly high. You might have bought
hers, I am confident, for a duck or a pigeon."
"I should like to make a bargain too, grandmother," said Norton; "if
you are in that mood."
"Do you think your thoughts are worth anything?" said his
grandmother;--"to anybody but yourself?"
"Whose are?" said David.
"Mine are not," said Matilda. She had flushed high, for she saw that
the old lady was in earnest; and five dollars was a good deal to her
just now.
"Everything is worth what it will fetch, though," said David. "I advise
you to close with the offer, Matilda. Five dollars is five dollars, you
know."
Matilda's eyes went doubtfully to Mrs. Lloyd.
"Yes," said the old lady smiling. "I will stand to my part of the
bargain, if you will stand to yours. But mind, I want _all_."
"There were so many things," Matilda began; "it would take me a good
while to tell them."
"Never mind; we have nothing better to do," said Mrs. Lloyd. "We are at
leisure."
"Time's nothing," said Norton, in great amusement.
"At ten dollars or so an hour," added David.
Poor Matilda was in some difficulty. She was furnishing the
entertainment of the whole circle; for even Mrs. Bartholomew put down
her paper, and Mrs. Laval was smiling, and Mrs. Lloyd was waiting, and
the children were all open-eyed. But she had nothing to be ashamed of;
and five dollars!--
"I was feeling glad about my watch," she began, "and about my
picture--O so very glad! I think they have hardly been out of my mind
all day."
"Picture? what picture?" said Judy.
"Hush!" said her grandmother.
"She didn't have any picture!" Judy went on. Matilda looked at her and
said nothing.
"Did you?" said Judy. "What was it? Is it in a locket?"
"You can attend to her afterwards, Matilda," said Mrs. Lloyd. "At
present you are engaged with me. There is nobody here but you and me."
Matilda sincerely wished it had been so; but she had several curious
pairs of ears listening to her.
"Then I was glad, I believe, about all the pleasure of last night, and
the Christmas tree, and my other presents; but that wasn't all. To-day
has been so very pleasant, and this afternoon particularly."
"This afternoon!" cried Judy. "Why she was away at that horrid Sunday
school."
"She don't think it is horrid," said Norton, displeased.
"You don't mean she shall get through what she has to say," remarked
David.
"If you would all hold your tongues, there would be some chance," said
Mrs. Lloyd. "Try again, Matilda. Was there more? What made the
afternoon so pleasant?"
"It always is at that school," said Matilda. "But besides that, this
afternoon I believe I got some help for something I want to do; and
thinking about that, and about what I want to do, was part of I what
was feeling so glad about."
"Well if that isn't a confused statement of facts!" said Judy. "Feeling
so glad about,--when?"
"When Mrs. Lloyd asked me what I was smiling at."
"But I am to have your thoughts, you know," said Mrs. Lloyd, with a
rather pleasant smile. "You have not told me yet _what_ it is you want
to do, the thought of which is so agreeable."
"I did tell it, to the witch last night," said Matilda. "Do you want me
to tell it again, now, ma'am?"
"Certainly. You don't think I am a witch, do you?"
On that point Matilda did not give her thoughts; but as desired, she
told the story, briefly, of Sarah and her home, and of the reforms
proposed in the latter. The attention of her hearers was marked,
although most of them indeed had known the matter before.
"What was there in all this to make you so very glad?" inquired Judy.
Matilda hesitated, and could not find what to say.
"Pink has her own ways of being happy you see," Norton remarked.
"She is not the only one, I hope," said David.
"The only one, what?" said Judy sharply. "You are as bad as she is,
David, to-night, for talking thick."
"Have we got through, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Lloyd kindly.
"Through all the things that were making me feel glad?" said Matilda.
"No, ma'am--not quite." And she stopped and flushed.
"Let us have it," said Mrs. Lloyd. "A bargain is a bargain."
"Yes, ma'am," said Matilda. "I am afraid--I was afraid--perhaps you
wouldn't understand me. I was glad of all these things;--and then, I
thought, I was so glad that I knew about Jesus; and that I am his
child; and that he has given me all these other things to be glad
about, and this work to do for Sarah!"
There was a profound silence for a minute or two. Judy was astonished
out of speech. David, perhaps, disgusted. Norton was a little proud
that Matilda had independence enough to dare to speak out, even if he
chafed a little under the subject of her plain speaking. The elder
ladies looked at one another with an odd expression in their eyes. When
Mrs. Lloyd spoke she went back to the practical question.
"How much money do you expect it will take, to do what you want for
these poor people, Matilda?"
"I don't know, ma'am, yet. My teacher will find out and tell me."
"Is it your teacher who has suggested the plan?"
"The plan?--O no, ma'am," said Matilda. "It is my plan. I have been
talking him into it."
"Who is he?" Mrs. Lloyd asked.
"Mr. Wharncliffe."
"What Wharncliffe? Is he any connection of General Wharncliffe?"
"His brother," said Norton.
This seemed, Matilda did not know why, to give satisfaction to her
elders. Mrs. Lloyd went on with an unbent face.
"How much money have you got, Matilda, to work with?"
"Not a great deal, ma'am; I have saved a little. It won't take such a
_very_ great deal to get all I want. It is only common things."
"Saved!" Judy burst out. "_Saved!_ Now we have got at it. This is the
secret. _This_ is why we are such good temperance people and think it's
wicked to buy liqueur glasses. O yes! we save our money that way, no
doubt."
"Judy," said her brother, "I'm ashamed of you."
"No need," said Judy coolly. "Keep it for yourself, next occasion."
"What is all this?" said Mrs. Lloyd.
"Nothing that had better go any further," said Mrs. Laval. "Nothing of
any consequence, mother."
"It is of no consequence," said Judy, "because David and Norton made it
up."
"And Judy didn't," said Norton.
"Not I; it was your affair," said the young lady. "My connections are
not given to saving."
"That is very true indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Bartholomew, bursting out
into a laugh; "and you, Judy, least of all your 'connections.'"
"But what is all this?" repeated Mrs. Lloyd, seeing that the faces
around her were moved by very various sorts of expression. It had to
come out. Judy and Norton told the story between them, with some
difficulty. Matilda felt very sorry, and very doubtful of the effect.
David looked exceedingly dissatisfied. Mrs. Lloyd listened with
unchanged gravity.
"There! you may call it what you like," Judy said in conclusion. "But I
like to have things go by their right names."
"It wouldn't be always best for you," said her brother.
"Do you think it is wrong, my dear, to drink wine?" Mrs. Lloyd asked,
addressing Matilda.
Matilda did not well know what to answer. She, a child, what business
had she to 'think' anything about the right or the wrong of things done
by people so much older and wiser than herself? And yet, that did not
change the truth, and the truth was what she must answer.
"I have promised not to do it," she said, almost shrinkingly.
"That affects your own drinking or not drinking. Do you think it is
wrong for other people?"
Again Matilda hesitated. She would have welcomed almost any
interruption of Judy's; but this time Judy kept as still as a mouse.
And so did everybody else. Matilda's colour came and went.
"If you please, ma'am," she said at last, "I don't want to say what you
will think rude."
"I will not think it rude," said Mrs. Lloyd with a little laugh. "I
want to know what notion such a child as you has got in her head. _Do_
you think it is wrong?"
"Yes, ma'am," Matilda-answered softly.
"Hear her!" cried Judy. "She has got an idea that wine is money in
another form, and heavy to drink."
Matilda thought that Judy had unwittingly put her very meaning into the
words; but she did not say so.
"My dear," said Mrs. Lloyd, "I have drunk wine all my life. It has
never hurt me."
Matilda was silent.
"Is that your notion, that it is unwholesome?"
"No, ma'am."
"What then?"
"People take too much of it," said Matilda; "and it ruins them; and if
all good people would let it alone, wouldn't it help to make the rest
let it alone?"
"Insufferable piggishness!" said Mrs. Bartholomew. "You must excuse me,
Zara. I hope you will teach your adopted child better manners, arid get
rid of a little of this superb folly."
"I am not so sure about the folly," said Mrs. Laval.
"I am sure about the manners," said Mrs. Lloyd. "She has said nothing
but what I have made her say. Now, my dear, you have fulfilled your
part of the bargain between us, and I will do my part."
The old lady produced a gold five dollar piece from her purse and put
it in Matilda's hand. Then drawing the child kindly towards her, she
added,
"And from this time you must call me grandmamma, will you? as the
others do; and I will call you my grandchild."
She kissed the astonished Matilda, and the subject was dismissed. At
least by the elders; the young people did not so easily let it drop. No
sooner were they by themselves than Judy held forth in a long tirade,
about "presumption" and "artfulness" and "underhand ways;" waxing warm
as she went on; till Norton was provoked to answer, and the debate
between them grew hot. Matilda said never a word, nor did David; she
kept outwardly very quiet; but an hour after, if anybody could have
seen her he would have seen a little figure cuddled down in a corner of
her own room and weeping abundant tears. So ended the Christmas Sunday
and the Christmas festival.