Sitting at the window one cold frosty morning I saw little Eva Yarnell
passing the house with a bundle of clothes under each arm. Eva is a girl
of twelve years, and an orphan. Her mother died when she was but six
years old. I’ve always been interested in the child because she had been
shifted from pillar to post, as the saying goes, one relative keeping the
little girl as long as their means lasted, when she would be moved on to
another aunt or uncle or cousin or grandmother. Her relatives were all
poor, and it seemed as though Providence was forcing little Eva to share
all the poverty and want of her relatives.
She has at times been a schoolmate of my boy, so when he came into the
room I asked him where little Eva was moving to.
“Oh, she’s all right now, papa!” the boy exclaimed. “She’s going to live
with Bingman’s, just above town, on a farm. She’s such a good worker, and
I believe Mrs. Bingman will appreciate Eva and make it pleasant for her.
The poor child is just about naked, and I’m sure Mrs. Bingman will dress
her better than she was ever dressed in her life.”
I caught my boy’s hopeful feeling and inwardly rejoiced over little
Eva’s good fortune. But after sitting for a time thinking about the life
of orphan Eva, it struck me forcibly about the child’s recommendation.
“She’s such a good worker,” my boy said. Working her way through life “at
the age of twelve.” “What an age! What a stern life for a girl of twelve!
God help you, child, and send you a kind mistress!” I said aloud, as I
turned to my desk with a queer sad feeling tugging at my heart.
Lately I had written a sketch describing the heart-aches of Foster’s
colored boy, of whom he sang in the tender words of “The Old Folks at
Home,”—the far off home on the Suanee river; and I had cried over the boy
I had pictured in my mind, because I, too, have suffered with heart-aches
and loneliness and soul hunger. But here was a little homeless girl who
could never more dream of a mother back in the old home. There was no one
at home to wish her back again, not even a home. There was no one waiting
with heart-aches to see her, unless there are heart-aches beyond the
grave.
I opened the door to catch a last glimpse of the little orphan and saw
her bravely trudging up the wet street, occasionally shifting the bundles
from one arm to the other, for one of the bundles was much larger than
the other—so large that it cramped her chubby arm while holding it close
to her body.
“Such a good worker!” The words persisted in coming back to me, leaving a
sadness at my heart that could not be shaken off. How long has she been a
good worker? When did she first learn how to work? Such an age for such a
grand reputation!
I thought of the drones all over the country who never win such a
reputation, though they live on the fat of the land, and feel as far
above little Eva Yarnell as the gods are supposed to feel above a toad.
In whom, I wonder, do the gods feel the most interest—in Eva Yarnell, or
in the fat and sleek drones who sit in upholstered chairs and try to mold
the opinions of the world.
I do not know—I can not believe that this world is ruled by the hand
of love, no odds whether that hand is divine or not. Law is stern,
severe and unrelenting; the one side padded with the down of mercy,
but the reverse side rough with cruel thorns and painful projections.
And the reverse side seems always turned towards the weak and the
helpless—towards the motherless orphan I had in my mind—little Eva
Yarnell.
“Such a worker!” Such an age! God send her kind mistress and a sheltering
home!