ROGER’S STORY.
Hester’s advent into the kitchen was followed by a great commotion, and
Ruey forgot to pour any water upon the tea designed for Roger, but set
the pot upon the hot stove, where it soon began to melt with the heat.
But neither Hester nor Ruey heeded it, so absorbed were they in the
little bundle which the former had laid upon the table, and which showed
unmistakable signs of life and vigorous babyhood by kicking at the shawl
which enveloped it, and thrusting out two little fat, dimpled fists,
which beat the air as the child began to scream lustily and try to free
itself from its wrappings.
“The Lord have mercy on us! what have you got?” Ruey exclaimed, while
Hester, with a pale face and compressed lip, replied:
“A brat that some vile woman in the cars asked Roger to hold while she
got out at a station. Of course she didn’t go back, and so, fool-like,
he brought it home, because it was pretty, he said, and he felt so sorry
for it. I always knew he had a soft spot, but I didn’t think it would
show itself this way.”
It was the first time Hester had ever breathed a word of complaint
against the boy Roger, whose kindness of heart and great fondness for
children were proverbial; and now, sorry that she had done so, she tried
to make amends by taking the struggling child from the table and freeing
it from the shawl which she had carried with her to the depot, never
guessing the purpose to which it would be applied. It was a very pretty,
fat-faced baby, apparently nine or ten months old, and the hazel eyes
were bright as buttons, Ruey said, her heart warming at once toward the
little stranger, at whom Hester looked askance. There was a heavy growth
of dark brown hair upon the head, with just enough curl in it to make it
lie in rings about the forehead and neck. The clothes, though soiled by
travelling, were neatly made, and showed marks of pains and care; while
about the neck was a fine gold chain, to which was attached a tiny
locket, with the initials “L. G.” engraved upon it. These things came
out one by one as Hester and Ruey together examined the child, which did
not evince the least fear of them, but which, when Ruey stroked its
cheek caressingly, looked up in her face with a coaxing, cooing noise,
and stretched its arms toward her.
“Little darling,” the motherly girl exclaimed, taking it at once from
Hester’s lap and hugging it to her bosom. “I’m so glad it is here,—the
house will be as merry again with a baby in it.”
“Do you think Roger will keep it? You must be crazy,” Hester said
sharply, when Frank, who had divided his time between the parlor and
kitchen, and who had just come from the former, chimed in:
“Yes, he will,—he told mother so. He said he always wanted a sister, and
he should keep her, and mother’s rowin’ him for it.”
By this it will be seen that the child was the topic of conversation in
the parlor as well as kitchen, Mrs. Walter Scott asking numberless
questions, and Roger explaining as far as was possible what was to
himself a mystery. A young woman, carrying a baby in her arms, and
looking very tired and frightened, had come into the car at Cincinnati,
he said, and asked to sit with him. She was a pretty, dark-faced woman,
with bright black eyes, which seemed to look right through one, and
which examined him very sharply. She did not talk much to him, but
appeared to be wrapped in thoughts which must have been very amusing, as
she would occasionally laugh quietly to herself, and then relapse into
an abstracted mood. Roger thought now that she seemed a little strange,
though at the time he had no suspicions of her, and was very kind to the
baby, whom she asked him to hold. He was exceedingly fond of children,
especially little girls, and he took this one readily, and fed it with
candy, with which his pockets were always filled. In this way they
travelled until it began to grow dark and they stopped at ——, a town
fifty miles or more from Cincinnati. Here the woman asked him to look
after her baby a few moments while she went into the next car, to see a
friend.
“If she gets hungry, give her some milk,” she added, taking a bottle
from the little basket which she had with her under the seat.
Without the slightest hesitation Roger consented to play the part of
nurse to the little girl, who was sleeping at the time, and whom the
mother, if mother she were, had lain upon the unoccupied seat in front.
Bending close to the round, flushed face, the woman whispered something;
then, with a kiss upon the lips, as if in benediction, she went out, and
Roger saw her no more. He did not notice whether she went into another
car or left the train entirely. He only knew that a half hour passed and
she did not return; then another half hour went by; and some passengers
claimed one of the seats occupied by him and his charge. In lifting the
child he woke her, but instead of crying, she rubbed her pretty eyes
with her little fists, and then, with a smile, laid her head confidingly
against his bosom and was soon sleeping again. So long as she remained
quiet, Roger felt no special uneasiness about the mother’s protracted
absence, which had now lengthened into nearly two hours; but when at
last the child began to cry, and neither candy, nor milk, nor pounding
on the car window, nor his lead pencil, nor his jack-knife, nor watch
had any effect upon her, he began to grow very anxious, and to the woman
in front who asked rather sharply, “what was the matter, and what he was
doing with that child alone,” he said,—
“I am taking care of her while her mother sees a friend in the next car.
I wish she would come back. She’s been gone ever so long.”
The cries were screams by this time,—loud, passionate screams, which
indicated great strength of lungs, and roused up the drowsy passengers,
who began, some of them, to grumble, while one suggested “pitching the
brat out of the window.”
With his face very red, and the perspiration starting out about his
mouth, Roger arose, and tried, by walking up and down the aisle, to hush
the little one into quiet. Once he thought of going into the next car in
quest of the missing mother,—then, thinking to himself that she surely
would return ere long, he abandoned the idea, and resumed his seat with
the now quiet child. And so another hour went by, and they were nearly a
hundred miles from the place where the woman had left him. Had Roger
been older, a suspicion of foul play would have come to him long before
this; but, the soul of honor himself, he believed in everybody else, and
not a doubt crossed his mind that anything was wrong until the woman who
had first spoken to him began to question him again, and ask if it was
his sister he was caring for so kindly. Then the story came out, and
Roger felt as if smothering, when the woman exclaimed, “Why, boy, the
child has been deserted. It is left on your hands. The mother will never
come to claim it.”
For an instant the car and everything in it turned dark to poor Roger,
who gasped, “You must be mistaken. She is in the next car, sure. Hold
the baby, and I’ll find her.”
There was a moment’s hesitancy on the part of the woman,—a fear lest
she, too, might be duped; but another look at the boy’s frank, ingenuous
face, reassured her. There was no evil in those clear, blue eyes which
met hers so imploringly, and she took the child in her arms, while he
went for the missing mother,—went through the adjoining car and the
next,—peering anxiously into every face, but not finding the one he
sought. Then he came back, and went through the rear car, but all in
vain. The dark-faced woman with the glittering eyes and strange smile,
was gone! The baby was deserted and left on Roger’s hands. He understood
it perfectly, and the understanding seemed suddenly to add years of
discretion and experience to him. Slowly he went back to the waiting
woman, and without a word took the child from her, and letting his
boyish face drop over it, he whispered, “Your mother has abandoned you,
little one, but I will care for you.”
He was adopting the poor forsaken child,—was accepting his awkward
situation, and when that was done he reported his success. There was an
ejaculation of horror and surprise on the woman’s part; a quick rising
up from her seat to “do something,” or “tell somebody” of the terrible
thing which had transpired before their very eyes. There was a great
excitement now in the car, and the passengers crowded around the boy,
who told them all he knew, and then to their suggestions as to ways and
means of finding the unnatural parent, quietly replied, “I shan’t try to
find her. She could not be what she ought, and the baby is better
without her.”
“But what can you do with a baby,” a chorus of voices asked; and Roger
replied with the air of twenty-five rather than fourteen, “I have money.
I can see that she is taken care of.”
“The beginning of a very pretty little romance,” one of the younger
ladies said, and then, as the conductor appeared, he was pounced upon
and the story told to him, and suggestions made that he should stop the
train, or telegraph back, or do something.
“What shall I stop the train for, and whom shall I telegraph to?” he
asked. “It is a plain case of desertion, and the mother is miles and
miles away from —— by this time. There would be no such thing as tracing
her. Such things are of frequent occurrence; but I will make all
necessary inquiries when I go back to-morrow, and will see that the
child is given to the proper authorities, who will either get it a
place, or put it in the poor-house.”
At the mention of the poor-house, Roger’s eyes, usually so mild in their
expression, flashed defiantly upon the conductor. While the crowd around
him had been talking, a faint doubt as to the practicability of his
taking the child had crossed his mind. His father was dead, he had his
education to get, and Millbank might perhaps be shut up, or let to
strangers for several years to come. And what then could be done with
Baby. These were his sober-second thoughts after his first indignant
burst at finding the child deserted, and had some respectable,
kind-looking woman then offered to take his charge from his hands, he
might have given it up. But from the poor-house arrangement he recoiled
in horror, remembering a sweet-faced, blue-eyed little girl, with
tangled hair and milk-white feet, whom he had seen sitting on the door
of the poor-house in Belvidere. She had been found in a stable, and sent
to the almshouse. Nobody cared for her,—nobody but Roger, who often fed
her with apples and candy, and wished there was something better for her
than life in that dark dreary house among the hills. And it was to just
such a life, if not a worse one, that the cruel conductor would doom the
Baby left in his care.
“If I can help it, Baby shall never go to the poor-house,” Roger said;
and when a lady, who admired the spirit of the boy, asked him, “Have you
a mother?” he answered, “No, nor father either, but I have Hester”; and
as if that settled it, he put the child on the end of the seat farthest
away from the crowd, which gradually dispersed, while the conductor,
after inquiring Roger’s name and address, went about his business of
collecting tickets, and left him to himself.
That he ever got comfortably from Cleveland to Belvidere with his rather
troublesome charge, was almost a miracle, and he would not have done so
but for the many friendly hands stretched out to help him. As far as
Buffalo, there were those in the car who knew of the strange incident,
and who watched, and encouraged, and helped him, but after Buffalo was
left behind he was wholly among strangers. Still, a boy travelling with
a baby could not fail to attract attention, and many inquiries were made
of him as to the whys and wherefores of his singular position. He did
not think it necessary to make very lucid explanations. He said, “She is
my sister; not my own, but my adopted sister, whom I am taking home;”
and he blessed his good angel, which caused the child to sleep so much
of the time, as he thus avoided notice and remarks which were
distasteful to him. Occasionally, a thought of what Hester might say
would make him a little uncomfortable. She was the only one who could
possibly object,—the only one in fact who had a right to object,—for
with the great shock of his father’s death Roger had been made to feel
that he was now the rightful master at Millbank. His prospective
inheritance had been talked of at once in the family of the clergyman,
who had moved from Belvidere to St. Louis, and with whom Roger was
preparing for college when the news of his loss came to him.
Mr. Morrison had said to him, “You are rich, my boy. You are owner of
Millbank, but do not let your wealth become a snare. Do good with your
money, and remember that a tenth, at least, belongs by right to the
Lord.”
And amidst the keen pain which he felt at his father’s death, Roger had
thought how much good he would do, and how he would imitate his noble
friend and teacher, Mr. Morrison, who, from his scanty income,
cheerfully gave more than a tenth, and still never lacked for food or
raiment. That Baby was sent direct from Heaven to test his principles,
he made himself believe; and by the time the mountains of Massachusetts
were reached he began to feel quite composed, except on the subject of
Hester. She _did_ trouble him a little, and he wished the first meeting
with her was over. With careful forethought he telegraphed for her to
meet him, and then when he saw her he held the child to her at once, and
hastily told her a part of his story, and felt his heart grow heavy as
lead, when he saw how she shrank from the little one as if there had
been pollution in its touch.
“I reckon Mrs. Walter Scott will ride a high hoss when she knows what
you done,” Hester said, when at last they were in the carriage and
driving toward home.
At the mention of Mrs. Walter Scott, Roger grew uneasy. He had a dread
of his stylish sister-in-law, with her lofty manner and air of
superiority, and he shrank nervously from what she might say.
“O Hester!” he exclaimed. “Is Helen at Millbank; and will she put on her
_biggest ways_?”
“You needn’t be afraid of _Helen Brown_. ’Tain’t none of her business if
you bring a hundred young ones to Millbank,” Hester said, and as she
said it she came very near going over to the enemy, and espousing the
cause of the poor little waif in her arms, out of sheer defiance to Mrs.
Walter Scott, who was sure to _snub_ the stranger, as she had snubbed
Roger before her.
Matters were in this state when the carriage finally stopped at
Millbank, and Hester insisted upon taking the child through the kitchen
door, as the way most befitting for it. But Roger said no; and so it was
up the broad stone steps, and across the wide piazza, and into the
handsome hall, that Baby was carried upon her first entrance to
Millbank.