NORA'S GOOD LUCK
It does not seem very good in the beginning--but you shall see. One
cold winter night a man in the city came home crazy with drink. I will
not tell you what he did to his trembling daughter who was all the
family left, except one thing: he put her out of the house and told
her never to come back. It was a very poor house, hardly any comforts
in it, but it was the only home the child knew and she was twelve
years old. When she was turned out of it, her only thought was to hide
herself away where no one could find her.
This was in the edge of the city, and she wandered about a little till
she came to a new barn where there was an opening in the foundations
big enough for her to crawl in. When she saw this, by the light of the
street lamp, she crept into the hole and far back in one corner where
she thought no one would ever find her--and there she lay.
The house to which that barn belonged held two boys and a dog, and the
next day, when the three were playing together, as they generally
were, the dog began to act strangely. He smelled around that hole,
then ran in, and barked and growled and seemed much excited.
"I guess there's a cat in there," said one of the boys, calling the
dog out. He came, but in a minute rushed back, and barked more and
seemed to be pulling at something.
This aroused the curiosity of the boys, who got down by the opening
and peered in. It was so dark that they could see nothing, but the dog
refusing to come out, they went into the house and brought out a
candle, and by the light of that, saw what looked like a bundle of
rags, which, however, stirred a little as the dog tugged at it.
Then the boys called to her to come out; they threw sticks to see if
she were alive; they tried all ways they could think of, and at last
they went away. But soon they came back and men with them. Nora,
through half-shut eyes, could see them. She knew their blue coats and
bright stars--they were policemen.
They called, they coaxed, they commanded, but she did not move. They
found a boy small enough to crawl under the barn, and he went in. He
found that she was alive, but she would not speak. Never a wish or a
hope crossed the child's mind, except a wish to be let alone.
At last the boy, by the directions of the policemen, pulled her
towards the opening. She did not resist--she did not know how to
resist; her whole life had been a crushing submission to everything.
Finally the men could reach her, and the poor, little, half-dead
figure was brought to the light.
"Poor soul!" said one of the men, almost tenderly. "She's near dead
with cold and hunger."
She could not walk. Kind though rough hands carried her to the station
house, where a warm fire and a few spoonfuls of broth--hastily
procured from a restaurant--brought her wholly back to life, and she
sat up in her chair and faced a row of pitying faces with all her
young misery.
Little by little her story was drawn from her.
But what to do with her--that was the question. She was not an
offender against the law, and this institution was not for the
protection of misfortune, but for the punishment of crime. They did
the best they could. They fed her, made her a comfortable bed on a
bench in the station house, and the next morning the whole story went
into the papers.
This story was read by a lady of wealth over her morning coffee. She
had lately been reading an account of the poor in our large cities,
and had begun to think it was her duty to do something to help. With
more money than she could use, and not a relative in the world, there
was no reason why she should not make at least one child happy, and
educate it for a useful life.
On reading the story of Nora, with the added statement that her father
had been arrested and placed in a retreat where he would not soon get
out, the thought struck her that here was her chance to make the
experiment.
After her breakfast, Miss Barnes ordered her carriage and went out.
After driving about a little, she ordered her coachman to drive to the
B---- Street police station. He looked astonished, but of course
obeyed, and in a short time, the dingy station house received an
unusual visitor.
The moment Miss Barnes entered the room, she saw the child, and knew
she was the one she had come to see. As for Nora, she had never seen a
beautiful, happy-looking woman, and she could not take her eyes off
her face.
Miss Barnes asked a few questions. Who was going to take her? Who were
her friends? She learned that she had none, that her father had been
arrested for vagrancy, and would be sent to the bridewell.
"Where is the child to go?" at last she asked.
"Indeed, ma'am, I don't know, unless she goes into the streets," said
the policeman.
"I'll take her," said Miss Barnes.
"It'll be a heavenly charity if you do, ma'am," replied the man.
Miss Barnes turned to the girl.
"Nora, will you go with me?"
"Yes 'm," gasped Nora, with hungry soul looking out of her eyes.
"Come, then," said the lady shortly, leading the way out.
Thomas, holding the door of the carriage, was struck dumb with horror
to see the apparition, but the timid little figure kept close to his
mistress, and she wore such a look that the old servant dared not
speak.
"To a respectable bath house," was Miss Barnes's order.
Thomas bowed, reached his seat somehow, and drove off.
"Not pretty, decidedly," thought Miss Barnes, looking steadily at the
wondering face opposite hers, "but at least not coarse. Dress will
improve her."
At the door of the bathing rooms, Thomas again threw open the carriage
door. Miss Barnes went in with Nora, gave her into the hands of the
young woman in charge, with directions to have her thoroughly bathed
and combed, and otherwise made ready for new clothes that she would
bring.
The amazed young woman marched off with the unresisting Nora, and Miss
Barnes went shopping. She bought a complete outfit, from hat to shoes,
and in an hour returned to the bath rooms, to find Nora waiting. She
was soon dressed, much to her own surprise, for she hardly knew the
names of half the articles she had on, and they were once more in the
carriage. As for Thomas, he thought wonders would never cease that
morning.
As they rolled home, Miss Barnes said:--
"Now, Nora, you're to live with me and be my girl. You're not Nora
Dennis; you're Nora Barnes. You're to forget your old life--at least
as much as you can," she added, seeing a shade come over Nora's face.
"And on no account are you to speak of it to the servants in my house.
Do you understand?"
"Yes 'm," said Nora.
"I shall try to make your life happy," Miss Barnes went on a little
more tenderly. "I shall educate you"--
"Please, ma'am, what's that?" asked Nora timidly.
"Teach you to read and write," said Miss Barnes, wincing as she
reflected how much there was to do in this neglected field.
"And, Nora," she went on, "I shall expect you to do as I tell you, and
always to tell me the truth."
"Shall I stay at your house and be warm?" asked Nora.
"Always, poor child, if you try to do right," said Miss Barnes.
"Are these things mine?" was the next question, looking lovingly at
her pretty blue dress and cloak.
"Yes, and you shall have plenty of clothes, and always enough to eat,
Nora. I hope you will never again be so miserable as I found you."
Nora could not comprehend what had come to her. She sat there as
though stupefied, only now and then whispering to herself, "Always
enough to eat, always warm."
"Thomas," said Miss Barnes, in her most peremptory manner, as he held
the carriage-door for her to alight, "I especially desire that you
should not mention to any one where I got this child. I want to make a
new life for her, and I trust to your honor to keep her secret."
Thomas touched his hat.
"Indeed, you may be sure of me, Miss Barnes."
And faithfully he kept his word, although all the household was in
consternation when Miss Barnes installed the child as her adopted
daughter, procured a governess for her, had a complete outfit of
suitable clothes prepared, and, above all, took unwearied pains to
teach her all the little things necessary to place her on a level with
the girls she would meet when she went to school.
Nora soon learned the ways and manners of a lady. She seemed to be
instinctively delicate and lady-like. She was pretty, too, when her
face grew plump and the hungry look went out of her eyes.
Miss Barnes, though on the sharp lookout, never discovered a vice in
her. Whatever may have been her original faults, she seemed to have
shed them with her rags, and the great gratitude she felt for her
benefactor overwhelmed everything. She seemed to live but to do
something for Miss Barnes.
To Nora, life was like a dream--a dream of heaven, at that. Always
warm, always fed, always safe from roughness, surrounded by things so
beautiful she scarcely dared to touch them; every want attended to
before it was felt. It was too wonderful to seem true. In dreams she
would often return to the desolate shanty, where the winds blew
through the cracks, and the rickety old stove was no better fed than
her mother and herself.
Five years rolled away. Miss Barnes grew to love this child of poverty
very much, and to be grieved that she showed none of the joy of youth.
For Nora walked around as though in a dream. She was always anxious to
please, always cheerful, but never gay. She was too subdued. She
never spoke loud. She never slammed a door, she never laughed.
"Nora," said she one day, after studying her face some time in
silence, "why are you not like other young girls?"
"Why am I unlike them?" asked Nora, looking up from the book she was
reading.
"You're not a bit like any young girl I ever saw," said Miss Barnes;
"you're too sober, you never laugh and play."
"I don't know how to play," said Nora, in a low tone; "I never did."
"Poor child," said Miss Barnes, "you never had any childhood. I wanted
to give you one, but you were too old when I took you. Why, you're a
regular old woman."
"Am I?" said Nora, with a smile.
"I don't know what I'll do to you," Miss Barnes went on. "I'd like to
make you over."
"I wish you could," said Nora earnestly. "I try to be like other
girls, but somehow I can't. I seem always to have a sort of weight on
my heart."
"Nora, isn't there something you would like that I haven't done for
you? Haven't you a wish?"
"Oh!" cried Nora, "I can't wish for anything, you make me too happy,
but"--she hesitated, and tears began to fall fast--"I can't forget my
old life, it comes back in my dreams, it is always before me. I don't
want to tell you, but I must. I can't help thinking about the many
miserable girls, such as I was, living in horrid shanties, starved,
frozen, beaten, wretched."
"Then you have a wish?" said Miss Barnes softly.
"Oh, it seems so ungrateful!" Nora sobbed. "Such a poor return for the
life you have given me! I have tried to forget. I can't tell what is
right for me to do. I'm sorry I said anything."
"No, Nora," said Miss Barnes promptly. "You should tell me all your
wishes and feelings. If they are wrong, I can help you outgrow them;
if right"--she hesitated--"why, I must help you."
Nora fell on her knees with the most impulsive movement Miss Barnes,
had ever seen.
"Oh, I do believe you are an angel!"
"Far from it, Nora," said Miss Barnes smiling, "but I've set out to
make you happy, and if I find whims and notions in your head, I
suppose I'll have to follow them out. But seriously, dear child, I
must say I have had a little uneasy feeling of responsibility in my
heart ever since I've had you. And there's nothing to hinder my being
as odd as I please, and now let me hear your plans."
"I have no plans. I have only longings to do something for them."
Well; plans grew fast as they always do when planners are anxious to
do something. Long into the night they talked, and the very next day
the work began. Nora captured a poor little girl who came to beg, and
took her in to Miss Barnes, in spite of the horror of the servants.
They found she had no parents, and decided to take her, and Nora went
on to make her decent, with more pleasure than she had ever known.
So it went on; before the end of a month, Miss Barnes found herself
more interested than she had been in anything. And Nora grew bright
and happy as the months rolled by, and one after another wretched girl
was gathered out of the streets and brought to a home.
As soon as one girl was trained and fitted to take a place in some
one's kitchen, or sewing-room, or nursery, a dozen places opened to
her. By telling a little of her story, Miss Barnes interested her new
mistress in the girl, who was thus started out in a useful,
independent life.
This institution, though it never had a name, grew and flourished, and
Nora still lives in the Barnes Home, manages the Barnes income, and
"lends a hand" wherever needed.
* * * * *
"And that's the story of how the Barnes Home came to be," said Mrs.
Wilson, in ending.
"And was that nice lady that you went to see about a maid," cried
Kristy eagerly, turning to her mother, "was she Nora?"
"Yes," said her mother, "she was Nora."
"That was fine!" said Kristy. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Wilson."
"That story of a great charity, started through one poor girl," said
Mrs. Wilson, "reminds me of another that I heard lately; shall I tell
it, Kristy?"
"Oh, do!" said Kristy.