“Good morning, Zekiel,” said John Pray. “Glad to see you--you must
tell the old lady to go ahead and finish this pile of vests in a
twinkling; business is brisk now. Why, what’s this?” said he. “These
vests unfinished? How’s that? Don’t the pay suit? What’s the trouble
now?”
“Don’t,” said Zekiel--“don’t--stop a bit--I’m as tough as any man--but
there’s some things I can’t stand;” and he dashed a tear away.
“What’s the matter now?” asked John. “Is the old lady dissatisfied
with her pay?”
“Don’t--I say,” said Zekiel;--“hold up--don’t harrow a man that
way--she’s dead--I tell you stone dead. She never’ll make no more vests
for nobody. I never shall forget what I saw there this morning, never.
“You see she was old and infirm, and wan’t fit to work for any body
any how; but she had a little gran’child, fresh as a rose-bud, and she
did it for her, you see. Well, this morning I harnessed the old gray
horse--the black one is lame since Sunday--and reined up at her door, as
usual, to get the bundle. I knocked, and nobody came; then I knocked
again, then little rose-bud came tip-toeing to the door, with her finger
on her pretty lip, so--and whispered, ‘grandma is asleep; she has not
woke up this great while.’ So I said--‘You’d better speak to her and
say, here’s Zekiel, come for the bundle, cause you know she is partiklar
like about sending it.’ So the little rose-bud went up to the bed-side,
and said--‘Grandma, here is Zekiel, come for the vests.’ The old lady
didn’t say nothing, and rose-bud asked me to speak to her. I went up,
and--John Pray--the old lady was stone dead, and how was I going to tell
that to little rose-bud?”
“You don’t mean to tell me that the child was all alone with the
corpse--nobody to see to the poor thing?” asked John.
“But I do, though,” said Zekiel; “it was enough to break a body’s
heart, and she so innocent like. I never was so put to it in my life, to
know what to do. There she had gone and tidied up the kitchen, hung the
tea-kettle on the fire as well as she knew how, and sat waiting for her
gran’mother to ‘wake up,’ as she called it. How could I tell her she was
_dead_? Blast me if I could, to this minute.”
“But you didn’t come away and leave her so?” asked John.
“No,” replied Zekiel, “for a peddler came in, and little rose-bud ran
up, glad-like, to see him; then I beckoned him one side, and told him
just how it was, and he turned as white as a turnip, and great big tears
rolled down his face, as he took little rose-bud up in his arms and
kissed her. Then he told me he was a kind of a relation like, and poor,
but that he would take the child and do the best he could by her; and I
knew he must be clever, for children are powerful ’cute, and never take
to cranky folks, any how--and so I left them, and came blubbering into
town. I vow it was enough to make the very stones cry, to see little
rose-bud take on so, after the old lady.”
* * * * *
There was no litigious will to be read, no costly effects to quarrel
about, in Lucy Ford’s poor cottage, and yet Golconda’s mines were all
too poor to buy the priceless treasures to which the peddler fell
heir--Mary’s picture and Mary’s child!
With such talismans, what should he fear? what could he not
accomplish? He no longer walked with his head bowed upon his breast. The
pure love of that sinless little one restored his long-lost
self-respect. Life was dear to him. His eye regained its luster; his
step its firmness. Even his humble calling, now more than ever
necessary, became to him dignified and attractive. Fanny should have an
education worthy of Mary’s child. For the present, till he had amassed a
little capital, he must find her a home in some quiet farmer’s family,
where he could oversee her, in his occasional visits.
Dear little Fanny! with her smiles and tears, she had already twined
herself round every fiber of his heart. “Cousin John,” as the peddler
taught her to call him, “was to take care of her always, and she was to
love him dearly--dearly--better than any body, but mamma and grandma.”