MORE BURGLARS.
"ETHEL, do you know of a good woman who wants a place as seamstress and
so on?" asked Anne Burgers, as they met in the school-room, where Ethel
still went for her Italian lessons.
They were both very early, and had the ante-room quite to themselves.
Ethel answered the question by another.
"Why, what has become of your Mary?"
"Oh, she has gone to work with a dressmaker. You know she has not had
a single fit since her accident, and is growing quite strong and well.
And so, because we have kept her when nobody else would have her, and
taken care of her all through her illness, she is going to leave us the
first minute she is good for something. That is not the least like the
grateful and devoted servants in the little books; but I am afraid it
is something which happens rather often in real life."
"'The man who benefits his fellow-creatures in the expectation of being
rewarded by their gratitude, will be often condemned to suffer the
pangs of disappointment.' I read that in a book," said Ethel.
"I thought you didn't make it up yourself. But do you know of anybody?
For a seamstress we must have, and one who knows how to run the
sewing-machine."
"There is Mary Anne Lee, Cathy's sister, you know!" said Ethel. "She
understands all sorts of work; and she told me that she had partly made
up her mind to go to a place, if Cathy went to the hospital. You might
see her. I wish she would go to your mother's; it would be a great deal
better for her than, living there alone."
"She seems a nice woman, too," said Anna, reflectively; "and then she
could help us about our Sunday-school work."
Ethel laughed. "I heard an editor say once that one trouble of being
connected with a paper was that a man came to look upon everything in
heaven and earth only as material for articles. I think you and I are
in the same danger. We make the universe revolve round that Iron Hill
Mission."
"Well, it might just as well revolve round that as anything else, for
aught I know. By the way, do you know that Millar girl?"
And hereupon the two girls plunged into a whole ocean of that sort of
Sunday-school talk which may be heard whenever two earnest teachers of
the same school come together.
"But about Mary Anne: do you think she would come?"
"It would be easy to find out. The chief obstacle in the way seemed to
be the want of some place to stow her things."
"She might put them in our garret. They would be safe there, and not at
all in any one's way. Well, I will tell mother about her."
"Here are the two missionaries in earnest consultation, as usual!" said
Margaret Fleming, as she came in with her cousin, Milly Davis. "What is
the great point of interest now? Has Jane Stubbs got the measles, or
Johnny Brown torn his new jacket and trowsers?"
"Laugh as much as you like," said Anna, good-humoredly. "If you once
got engaged in the school, you would understand the feeling better.
Come, Maggy, come and take a class! We want another teacher or two ever
so much!"
"I have been thinking of it,—that is, if you want me," said Margaret.
"Our school is full enough both of teachers and scholars."
"Oh, do!" exclaimed Ethel. "My infants are running over their room, and
I could give you a nice little class directly. I am sure my brother
would be ever so much pleased. Won't you come, Milly?"
"No, thank you," returned Milly. "I don't fancy being mixed up with all
sorts of children. If one could ever find such poor people as one reads
about in books,—English books especially,—there would be some pleasure
in it; but one never sees such poor people here!"
"Nor anywhere else, I suspect," said Ethel. "One does not set about
any sort of missionary work for pleasure; and just think, Nelly, what
the missionaries have to go through. When they go out in the villages
round the mission, the ladies very often sleep in the huts with the
whole family, goats and buffaloes and all; and sometimes the buffaloes
get loose and fight with one another. Fancy being in a room with two
fighting buffaloes!"
"That would be a poor place for you, Ethel," said Margaret, laughing.
"Oh, I am not half as much afraid of cows as I used to be," replied
Ethel, laughing in her turn. "I can pass a cow in the street with
considerable confidence. But, Nelly, what is to become of all the poor
people, and all the heathen, if no one is to go near them for fear of
entomological specimens?"
"You used to be as much afraid of them as anybody," retorted Nelly. "I
remember how you screamed out in Sunday-school because you saw a spider
on your dress."
"I don't think I am quite as great a fool as I used to be," said Ethel,
candidly. "But if I had been ever so silly, that does not answer my
question, Nelly."
"And, besides, Ethel don't scream at insects any more," said Anna.
"Do you know, she played through a long hymn and never missed a note,
though she had a great June-bug kicking and scratching her neck, under
her dress, all the time."
"I did, really," said Ethel.
"But why didn't you take it out?"
"I couldn't get at it," said Ethel. "I assure you, I never played such
a long piece of music in my life,—not even our duet at examination last
year."
"Well, I don't believe I could have done as much as that," said Nelly,
in honest admiration. "But tell me truly, Ethel, do you really like
going among those Iron Hill people?"
"I do, honestly," replied Ethel. "I didn't at first. I was afraid of
the people, and I did not know how to get on with them. I had an idea
that one must adopt some peculiar way of talking,—like something in
a book; and that the people ought to be humble, and grateful, and
all that. But I soon found out my mistake, by Henry's help; and now
I get on pretty well. Of course, one meets with disagreeable things,
sometimes; and you have to go when you don't feel like it, and would
rather stay at home; but then you know, Nelly, we are not sent into the
world just to please ourselves, and to do nothing but what we like."
"What 'are' we sent for," asked Nelly, abruptly. "I am sure 'I' don't
know."
"I will tell you what I think about it, if you won't think I am
preaching," said Ethel, blushing.
"Preach away," returned Nelly. "I would as soon hear you as any other."
"I think, then, that we are God's servants, and are sent here to do his
work," said Ethel. "Not so much his servants, either, as his children.
He lays out our work for us, and we are to do it. Sometimes it is
easy,—sometimes it is very hard; but hard or easy, he expects us to do
it the best we can, with all the helps He gives us; and it is no excuse
for us to say that the work is disagreeable, and we don't like it, and
so on. We may neglect our work and go pleasure-seeking, but we shall
gain nothing by that. We only have to work so much harder, and our
work, comes to nothing. It is all thrown away."
"And suppose we fail?" said Nelly.
"That is the beauty of working for Him,—we can't fail," replied Ethel,
with animation. "We may fail in accomplishing the very particular thing
which we undertake to do,—we may make ever so many mistakes; but if our
work is done for him, he accepts the intention, and will bring good
out of our very mistakes. But if we go on cautiously, and heedfully,
and are willing to be directed by those who have experience, we need
not make any such dreadful mistakes. I don't know whether I make you
understand, Nelly."
"Oh yes, I understand. Thank you for your sermon, Ethel. It has, at
least, the merit of being short and plain."
"If you would only try and act on it, Nelly dear!" said Anna.
"What, you too? That is more than I bargained for," said Nelly, but
without any of her usual irritation. "Well, I will think about it."
"I will tell you one very nice thing you might do," said Ethel. "You
know we are getting ready a box to send to Miss Beecher's school at O—.
Now, if you would paint some of your pretty pictures,—you and Margaret
make such lovely little landscapes and flowers,—they would go into the
box nicely, and be very acceptable as presents to the girls, and the
teachers too."
"Well, I will," said Nelly. "I say, why wouldn't a lot of photographs
be nice?—Pictures of public buildings and scenery and so on? My brother
would give me no end of them."
"They would be the very thing," replied Ethel.
"And by the way, I can give you ever so many calico pieces for your
sewing-school, if you want them. Aunt Nancy gave me a great bagful,
which she has been collecting for ever so long. But don't you care
about patchwork?"
"Indeed we do!" exclaimed Anna. "We never can have enough. You will be
a darling, Nelly, if you can give us some pretty new pieces of calico;
and if you could find time to baste some of them—"
"I shall be better yet! Well, I will see what I can do," said Nelly, as
she turned away.
"Won't it be a triumph, if we get Nelly Davis at work for the
sewing-school?"
"We must be very careful," said Ethel. "If she gets the least notion
that we are trying to manage her, she will fly off directly."
"Well, girls, you ought to make great allowance for Nelly," said
Margaret Fleming. "She is sometimes a trial,—nobody knows that better
than I do,—but she has had a great deal to contend with. Of course, I
can't tell family secrets, but she did have a dreadful home before she
came to grandmother's. Her father and mother always quarrelled, and
whenever one petted her, the other always spited her. It is no wonder
her temper was spoiled. It will be a grand thing for her if you can get
her engaged in anything, so as to make her forget her own feelings, and
leave off watching people to see whether they don't mean to affront her
in some way. Well, I will come up next Sunday; but how shall I find the
place?"
"I will call for you," said Anna; and so the affair was settled.
Before the end of the week Cathy Lee was safely established in the
hospital, and Mary Anne had gone to work at Mrs. Burger's.
"I sha'n't earn so much money," she said to one of her shop
acquaintances who wondered at her for "going out;" "but then I shall
have a home. I get two dollars a week instead of five, but then I shall
have no expenses but my dress, which doesn't cost much, and what I do
for Cathy."
"But then, when you work in the shop, you are independent," said the
other. "I think a great deal of that. I come and go as I please, out of
shop-hours, and am accountable to nobody."
"Independence is not always a good thing," said Mary Anne, severely.
"There is another reason why I am willing to live out, and that is that
I may have some time to be with Cathy. Mrs. Burgers will let me have
two afternoons in the week to spend with her."
It is not to be supposed that Ethel and Anna met with no vexations
and disappointments in their efforts upon Iron Hill. They had their
full share of naughty children and dull children and unreasonable
mothers who whipped and scolded their offspring without mercy, but were
furiously angry at their receiving the most gentle reproof from anybody
else. But as my object has been to give a history of Ethel herself, and
not of her school, I have not thought it best to use up space and time
in narrating too many particulars.
There was no doubt whatever that the school had done Ethel a great deal
of good. She had lost that excessive timidity which used to make her
appear haughty and cold, when she was only shy and awkward. She had
learned to talk fearlessly to all sorts of people, and without thinking
in the least of her own dignity. She had learned to forget herself. She
had learned to face cows, and dogs, and horse-cars, and all the other
dreadful dangers which used to make her miserable; and at the end of
her day's work she was only too glad to be carried home in the doctor's
chaise behind his most spirited horse.
She went up to the hospital to see Cathy Lee, and carried newspapers
and fruit to the men in the soldiers' wards, without the slightest
hesitation. She had sat up all night with one of her little scholars,
the child of a widow on the hill; and when the child died, toward
morning, she went bravely the length of two vacant lots to call up Mrs.
Trim, and helped her to lay out the poor little corpse. Was this the
Ethel who, six months before, had been afraid to go into the garden
because Richard Trim, now her faithful ally and devoted servant, was
leaning over the rails? Yes, the very same,—with this difference, that
she had learned to live to her Master, instead of to herself,—with
this difference, that she had some object in life besides living on
easily and pleasantly from day to day, avoiding everything irksome or
disagreeable, and excusing all her shortcomings and faults by the one
apology, "It is natural to me, and I can't help it."
For Ethel all the time kept her great object steadily in view. She
had made up her mind to be a missionary; and had put herself on a six
months' probation, to see whether it would be a possible thing that she
should fit herself for the place. It was for this end that she courted
every opportunity of making herself useful at home and abroad, that she
strove to learn every sort of domestic work, that she went to market,
and learned to bake, and did up her own muslins,—and would have done
her own washing, if Mrs. Jones could have been brought to allow it, and
resolutely disciplined herself to overcome her fears of insects and
other crawling creatures. It was for this that she studied her Bible so
diligently, with all the helps she could find, and stored her memory
with illustrations of Scripture. Her probation was almost at an end,
when her labours at the Hill met with a disagreeable interruption. She
sprained her ankle, and the manner of it was this:
Ethel had not quite forgotten her fears of burglars, and she was apt
to start at any unusual noise at night. She was doing her best to
discipline herself out of these fancies, as she called them, and, as
often happens in such cases, she was rather inclined to go to the
opposite extreme. Thus it happened, one night, that she absolutely
refused for some time to believe, or, indeed, to listen to the report
of her own ears, which, about one o'clock, assured her that somebody
was walking about under her windows.
"It is just one of your fancies," she said to herself; severely. "You
are always imagining some terrible bugbear or other."
But the ears insisting on the correctness of their report, and adding
the further information that somebody or something was trying the
blinds. Ethel first sat up in bed and listened, and then crept to the
window, which, as usual, was open at the top, and did the same; and the
more she listened, the more certain she became that there was something
very suspicious going on below. She pushed up the sash very softly.
The noise stopped for a moment or two, as though the intruders were
listening, and then went on again.
Ethel ventured to peep out, and could see distinctly that there were
two men at least near the corner of the house, and that they were
working at the shutters of the kitchen window. Ethel's heart sprang
up into her throat. What was to be done now? She sat down to steady
herself a moment and to think. She remembered that the doctor had once
said the best thing for any one to do under such circumstances was to
make as much noise as possible; and she was just going to give her bell
a violent pull, when she thought of Emily. A sudden alarm would be very
bad for her: Ethel was cool enough to think of that.
Emily slept up in the third story still,—her room below obstinately
insisting on smelling of paint and varnish whenever it was shut up
a little while; and the doctor had caused his night-bell to be so
altered that it rang in Jones's room. Then Jones would go to the door,
and finding out the state of the case, either called Dr. Ray, or else
sent the ringer away to a young physician, a friend and protégé of
the doctor's, who was only willing to be called up at night. In an
instant, Ethel had reflected that if she went down and pulled the
office-bell, Jones would come to the door as usual, and she would tell
him the story, and send him to call his master, without alarming Emily,
or leading her to think that anything unusual was the matter. If Mr.
Dalton had been at home, Ethel's natural course would have been to call
him; but he was away in New York.
Could she do it? The office was quite on the other side of the house,
and there was always a light kept there and in the hall. Suppose the
robbers should see her,—suppose they were already in the house? Ethel's
heart grew sick with fear,—not for herself, but for Emily, if she
should be waked suddenly by the appearance of a burglar in her room
(for the doctor never would lock his door).
"It must be done, that's all!" said Ethel desperately, to herself.
She slipped on her dressing-gown, put her feet into her slippers
without stopping for her stockings, succeeded in opening her door
without noise, and, getting down to the office door, she carefully and
softly unlocked it, and gave the bell a sharp and sudden pull. As she
did so, she inadvertently stepped off the doorsill. Her slipper turned
to one side, and she felt a sudden sharp, sickening pain in her ankle;
but she gave the bell another pull, shut the door, and, too sick and
faint to stand another moment, dropped on a chair.
She knew the bell had rung, for she had heard the distant tinkle; but
it seemed half an hour before Jones, coming down-stairs, opened his
mouth for an exclamation, which was nipped in the bud by Ethel's sharp,
imperative whisper.
"Hush! Don't make a noise, and alarm Mrs. Ray. There are burglars
trying to get into the kitchen. I saw them. Go call Dr. Ray, as quietly
as you can."
"Are you sure, Miss?" asked Jones, incredulously. "Wasn't it just a
notion of yours?"
"I tell you I saw them, and they are there now," returned Ethel, in the
same sharp whisper. "I peeped out through the blinds."
"I'll go and listen," said Jones, evidently still thinking the burglars
all a creation of Ethel's fancy. He went back to the kitchen, taking a
match from the safe as he passed.
"There's somebody at the pantry, sure enough," said he, returning,
after a minute's listening. "Three men, at least, I should say. They
are doing nothing now, but listening. I had best call the doctor."
The doctor was called, as if to an ordinary case, and came down
yawning, to be astonished by Jones's story, and the sight of Ethel in
her dressing-gown. He heard the story, and seemed, at first, disposed
to treat the whole as one of Ethel's terrors, until Jones confirmed its
truth.
"They will be gone now with all this bustle, no doubt," said he. "Let
us go and explore. Dear, are you afraid to stay here?"
"No," said Ethel. "Only go quick."
Then Ethel heard the splutter of a match, and saw the gas lighted in
the kitchen; and the next moment somebody ran along the gravel path,
and Ethel heard him jump over the fence.
"They are gone now, anyhow," said the doctor, coming back. "You had
better go up-stairs to bed, and Jones and I will explore. But what's
the matter?" As Ethel tried to rise, and sank back in the chair.
"I have hurt my foot, somehow," said Ethel. "I sprained it, I think, by
slipping off the step as I was ringing the bell."
"Whew!" whistled the doctor. "Let me look. I should think you had
sprained it! You poor little dear, you have hurt yourself badly. You
must let me carry you up-stairs."
And before Ethel had time to object, she was taken up in the doctor's
strong arms, and safely deposited in her own bed. The ankle was
examined and bandaged, and Ethel made as comfortable as circumstances
would admit. Mrs. Jones came to sit with her for the rest of the night.
"You have not been gone long," said Emily, sleepily, as the doctor came
back. "What was it?"
"Nothing very serious, I hope," replied Dr. Ray, with an inward
thanksgiving that his wife had not been alarmed.
"Only a slight accident. I did all that was necessary without leaving
the house."
"I thought I heard you moving about."
"Yes; I went into the kitchen and pantry. Go to sleep now, there's a
jewel."
In the morning Emily heard the story, and very much surprised she was.
"We have much reason to be thankful to Ethel," said the doctor. "It
was a great exercise of courage and presence of mind for any one, and
especially for Ethel. The worst of it is that in going about in the
dark, she has sprained her ankle, and I am afraid she will be laid up
for a while."
"Poor little dear, what a pity!" said Emily. "Only to think of her
going down to the door and ringing the bell herself, to save me. I
always told you she had the elements of a fine woman in her. But who
would have believed her capable of such an exploit, six months ago?"
"Henry's coming has been the making of her, and I fear it will be the
means of losing her as well," remarked the doctor. "I am much mistaken
if she is not training herself to go out with him when he returns to
the East."
"I have thought of the same thing a good many times lately," answered
Emily, sighing. "I know it has always been a favourite plan of Henry's.
It would be a great sacrifice to let her go, but I don't know that we
ought to discourage her."
"By no means. Let her train herself as much as she likes. It gives her
a grand object in life, which is just what she wants. There are three
years to spare before she needs to decide, and a great many things may
happen in that time. Ethel is a wonderfully pretty girl, and she grows
more attractive every day."
"I know what you mean," said Emily; "but, Matthew, if she should at
last decide to go, what will you say?"
"Then it will all depend on her health," replied the doctor. "If she is
as well and strong as she promises to be, I should not feel justified
in holding her back. Do you notice how much better she is than she
used to be? We don't hear any more about the heart disease since the
sewing-school began."