clamor by half a hundred boys just let loose from school; then the
clang of bells, quick, imperative, not startling people from their
midnight dreams, but checking them mid-way in the daily rush of toil
and pleasure.
Uncle Thed, taking an early dinner to catch the train, left his fork
sticking straight up in a mouthful of meat, and dashed away to his
shop. Farmer Vance clapped his hat on his head, and then flew round and
round the house to find it. Old Mrs. Pratt threw her silver spoons into
the sink, and locked up her dish-pan in the china-closet.
Ding! ding! ding!
“It’s the factory,” cried somebody.
“The factory where Phosy Harte works,” echoed a group of girls huddled,
with white faces, into Say Ellis’s yard.
“Lucky it’s just noon; all the hands will be out. The old thing will go
like tinder,” said the crowd surging past.
But they were not all out. In the upper story Phosy was busily at work,
making up the odd minutes taken for her walk. Half a dozen of the other
girls had gathered round her, hats in hand, laughing, talking, not
catching the faintest sound from below, not even noticing the smell of
smoke which had emptied the other rooms in half the usual time. Nobody
thought to warn them in the selfish scramble for safety. When at last
they opened the door to go down, a dense, black column of smoke met
them, and through it, enticed by the little draught from the door, came
a sharp, pointed tongue of fire, up, up, wrapping the old stairway
in a sheet of flame, and cutting off all chance of escape in that
direction. They ran to the windows.
“Ladders!” shouted the crowd. But alas! not one was long enough to
reach them.
“Splice it!” “Bring ropes!” “No, mattresses!” “Carpets!” “They must
jump!”
Men jostled each other in mad haste for they knew not what.
“Jump! It’s your only chance!”
One after another the frightened girls flung themselves down, one to
be caught safely in the strong arms of a stalwart fireman, another
reaching the ground with simply a sprained ankle, still another with a
broken arm; while a fourth, falling beyond the mattress, was taken up
bruised and bleeding, but alive, and life is dear at any cost.
Only Phosy Harte and Judy Ryan were left,—Judy a poor, deformed girl,
half crippled, who would not, dared not jump, and Phosy, waiting,
coaxing, beseeching.
“It will be too late.”
There are soft mattresses and strong carpets below. Phosy begs, almost
pushes the poor girl out, and she reaches the ground safely; but flame
and smoke have driven Phosy back.
“The other window!” shouts the crowd, and half-blinded she springs over
the low sill just as a fireman, who has succeeded in finding a long
ladder, is raising it in place; she strikes it heavily, and drops limp
and lifeless.
They lift her tenderly. One faint moan, a gasp,—that is all.
Back to the old house they carry her, past the little garden she had
risen so early that very morning to weed, into the low room, with its
close, sudsy, smoky atmosphere, which she will never brighten more.
“And nobody’ll never know the comfort an’ help she’s ben to me these
last few months,” said the poor, over-worked mother, wringing her hands
helplessly. “I ain’t been to none of yer meetin’s for years, but if
it’s them what made her so handy an’ happy-like I’d be glad to try it
meself. She’s asked me enough, the Lord knows, an’ I allers meant to go
sometime, jest to please her. Oh! I’ll never forgit how she’s prayed
nights with them childern—”
There four little voices took up the wail of grief, and more than one
rough fireman drew his sleeve hurriedly across his eyes.
“She is through with all suffering,” said good old Dr. Helps, who had
been working busily over the poor, crushed body.
“It’s a blessed thing for the child,” said Deacon Carter, as they
walked away, “but it’s a strange Providence that took the one bit of
leaven out of that miserable batch of humanity.”
Upon the pine coffin, the girls in Miss Cox’s class laid a wreath
of beautiful hot-house flowers; but all over the lid, and inside,
around the pale face and over the white robe, were fresh, fragrant
pond-lilies, their subtile perfume filling the room. No one knew who
scattered them there, only as Miss Marvin laid one tenderly between
the waxen fingers, Bill Finnegan said huskily, “Thank’ee, ma’am; she
liked ’em best of anything.”
The next Sabbath and the next, in the empty seat where Phosy had always
sat, lay a bunch of the same pure, lovely lilies. Nobody knew how they
came there, but their sweet breath seemed like pleasant memories of
her who had gone. The fourth Sabbath an awkward, ungainly figure, in
coarse homespun, shuffled down the aisle and stopped beside the row of
neatly-dressed boys. Dick moved a little nearer to Varley, and motioned
the new-comer to sit down.
“I—it’s Bill Finnegan, ma’am, an’ he’ll not be gettin’ in the way,” he
stammered, as Miss Marvin left her seat to speak with him. “You see,
_she_ was allus askin’ me to come, but I didn’t think so much about it,
then. I’d like, bein’ as this was her class, if you don’t mind. I’ll do
the best I can; she was forever talkin’ about the things she heard tell
of here, an’ ef I could learn, I’m thinkin’ it won’t harm a feller.”
Up-stairs, in the pew nearest the door, sat Mrs. Harte in the faded
black bonnet which had done her service when her husband’s mother died
years before, when “Daniel” was sober and industrious,—sat, with the
tears running down her cheeks, getting, as she phrased it, “a fill of
the good things Phosy talked so much about, to stand her through the
long, lonesome week.”
And not many days afterwards there came to Dr. Helps’ door—for the
doctor’s genial, sympathizing heart was known far and wide—a great,
rough man, with blood-shotten eyes and haggard face.
“I want to sign the pledge, if so be you think it’s any use,” he
said. “I’m only old Dan Harte, that ev’rybody gin up long ago, except
_her_,—Tryphosy. _She_ kep’ talkin’ an’ talkin’ in sech a lovin’ way,
an’ only the Sunday afore, when she went away to meetin’ she kissed
me. I was sober for a wonder, an’ sez she, ‘Father, if the Bible is
true, what will you do when you come to die?’ I can’t git them words
out of my ears, an’ you see I know there must be a something, to so
kind of change Tryphosy from the fiery, hifalutin thing she was, to the
purty-spoken, quiet, happy little cretur she got to be. And I thought
mabbee, seein’ I’d quit drinkin’ ag’in an’ ag’in, an’ couldn’t never
hold out, if there was anything in this ere religion Phosy got hold of,
to help a feller, it’s Dan Harte what wants it.”
Good old Dr. Helps! not content to send away this weak fellow-mortal
with a chapter of good advice, and some harmless tonic from his
medicine-case, but who could and did kneel down beside him then and
there, with a faith strong enough to hold up even this wreck of
humanity for the Divine healing. Surely of him shall it be true,
“Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will
hear.”
And down in a dirty alley-way, between two tenement houses, Judy Ryan
was teaching half a dozen ragged urchins a hymn Phosy used always to
be singing about the mill. She had caught it at the prayer-meeting;
and somehow plain, homely Boylston had suited her even better than
the livelier Sabbath-School melodies. In her quaint fashion she had
explained the words to Judy, and now, through her, was she not yet
speaking to the poor, neglected souls in Pinch Alley? Wasn’t the
“little leaven” working still?
X.
PHOSY’S HYMN.
“If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou
forsake Him, He will cast thee off forever.”
“My son, know thou the Lord,
Thy father’s God obey;
Seek his protecting care by night,
His guardian hand by day.
Call while he may be found,
Seek him while he is near;
Serve him with all thy heart and mind,
And worship him with fear.
If thou wilt seek his face,
His ear will hear thy cry;
Then shalt thou find his mercy sure,
His grace forever nigh.
But if thou leave thy God,
Nor choose the path to heaven,
Then shalt thou perish in thy sins,
And never be forgiven.”
XI.
MAYBEE’S REBELLION.
“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.”
Maybee waked up out of sorts. Nothing went right. Her berries were
sour, her fritters “wrinkly,” her egg-toast “smushy.”
After breakfast she went out to play, and in half an hour had contrived
to break one of Sue’s croquet-mallets, lose Tod’s ball, left by mistake
in her pocket, and upset the board on which Bridget was drying sweet
corn. She came in, hot and tired, and crosser than ever.
“Untie my bonnet, quick!” was the first thing mamma heard.
“How do little girls ask?” she inquired.
“I don’t care! I want it off, quick; it’s hot, and Bridget tied it so
hard I’m most choked.”
“Well, say ‘Please,’ and mamma will try to make her little girl more
comfortable.”
“Oh dear! I always have to do something horrid. I’ll untie it my own
self,” whined Maybee, tugging at the strings of her big shaker till she
had drawn them into the tightest of hard knots; then she picked and
twisted and pulled, but the depraved sun-bonnet only screwed around
against her nose, or tilted up till it really threatened to strangle
her. So at last she sat still on the hassock, her elbows on her knees,
her chin in her hands, tears and perspiration making grimy furrows over
her cheeks, the poor shaker bent into a triangle, from the apex of
which looked out two defiant black eyes.
“When Maybee says ‘Please,’ mamma will help her.”
But Maybee wouldn’t say Please, and the little bent shaker wandered
off to the play-room. She was never tired of “keeping house”; but—in
a sun-bonnet! Oh dear! She tried to “make believe” it was a cap like
old Mrs. Pratt’s, but all the same, it would be dreadfully in the way.
When she wanted to look for anything, she must turn way around; she
couldn’t “cuddle up” Loretta Luella the least bit; she couldn’t play go
to parties, and as for going to bed, there would be nothing to do but
lie flat on her back and stare at the ceiling.
She ran hopefully down stairs when the dinner-bell rang, sure that
mamma would relent; for how could she ever manage to find her wee mouth
inside that big bonnet?
“Say ‘Please,’” said mamma.
Maybee shook her head and clambered sulkily into her high chair.
“What’s this,—a small butcher wagon? Bless me! if there isn’t somebody
inside!” said papa taking the shaker between his two hands and tipping
it back till he could see the grimy little face. “Isn’t it time the
colt had its blinders off, mamma?”
“When she will say ‘Please,’” said mamma pleasantly.
“Oh! _that’s_ the way the wind blows,” and papa, after asking a
blessing, began carving the nice roast.
Jenny King had come home with Sue, and try as hard as they could, the
triangular sun-bonnet, bobbing this way and that, was too much for
their gravity. They all laughed at last, which sent Maybee off in high
dudgeon, although she had scarcely eaten a mouthful. There was to be
chocolate blanc-mange for dessert: she really must have some of that,
and slipping into the kitchen she began coaxing Bridget to untie the
knot.
“Shure, an’ it’s beyant me,” said Bridget, after two or three
ineffectual efforts. “It’s too big an’ clumsy me fingers are intirely.”
So Maybee stole back into the parlor, curled up on the sofa, and
listened to the cheerful rattle of dishes and hum of voices, growing,
oh! so dreadfully hungry.
By and by she saw Jenny and Sue go off with their baskets. After
berries, to be sure, and she might have gone with them.
A little later mamma came in with her sewing.
“Won’t Maybee say ‘Please’ now, and have on a clean dress?”
But Maybee only sat still, and looked straight out of the window.
It _was_ trying when callers were announced that the poor little shaker
must trudge disconsolately up-stairs again. But it would be tea-time
pretty soon. Wouldn’t mamma let her dear little girl have any supper?
Why, she would certainly starve to death before morning. Didn’t it
make folks sick to starve to death? and wouldn’t they have to have the
doctor? Then how would mamma feel? If she should die—but no; Maybee
would rather not think about that, herself. None but good people went
to heaven, and good people said “Please,” she supposed. _She_ didn’t
want to. She hated “Please.” And—why hadn’t she thought before? she
could just go and get the scissors, and cut that knot right straight
off. Mamma’s work-basket was in the sewing-room. Armed with the big
shears, one little fat hand grasping each handle, she climbed up to the
bureau-glass, carefully put them astride the troublesome knot, and
gave a quick snip.
Something sharp went into her chin, something warm trickled down her
neck. Had she cut her throat? That always “bleeded folks to death.” She
gasped a little, sat down on the floor, and began mopping up the stream
of warm blood with a pillow-sham. She felt weak and tired, but she
couldn’t lie down, for there was the knot tight as ever.
“Sue! Sue!” she called faintly, as somebody ran past the door.
“I can’t stop; Jennie and I are going home with Bell,” answered Sue,
half way down the stairs.
But somebody must help her.
“Bridget, O Bridget! do come up here a minute,” she called softly down
the back stairs.
“An’ shure, it’s not I that’ll be laving me work to look after the
likes of ye,” muttered Bridget, heated and tired with her ironing.
What should she do? She crept slowly down the stairs and through the
back entry, the big pillow-sham stuffed into the front of the shaker,
and quite concealing the tall clothes-bars of freshly-ironed linen
Bridget had just set out to air. Over they came, completely covering
her.
“Mamma! mamma! O my mamma!” she screamed. “Oh-h! please, my dear mamma!
_please!_ PLEASE! ’fore I’m deaded over an’ over.”
That call wasn’t in vain. Strong arms picked her tenderly up; soft,
skilful fingers untied the hateful knot, and bathed the poor, aching
face; loving lips kissed away the tears.
“Oh, but it’s been such a horrid day!” whispered Maybee to papa, when
supper had been eaten and it was time to say good-night.
“Dear me! How did it happen?” said papa.
“I happened it myself,” returned Maybee soberly. “Folks most always do,
don’t they?”
“Exactly,” said papa. “The trouble that comes of sin we mostly put
ourselves into.”
“An’ what does peoples do who haven’t any mammas to pull ’em out?”
inquired Maybee anxiously.
“Whom did Maybee grieve besides mother, to-day?”
“God,” she answered solemnly.
“And only God can help us out of sin. Even mamma cannot keep Maybee
from being just so naughty again, but God can. Remember that, little
one, and ask him to-night to make you always his own good little girl.”
XII.
“BECAUSE.”
“Because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but
transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of
the Lord commanded.”
“What _is_ the matter?” inquired Maybee, coming suddenly upon Tod,
sitting on the door-step, with one fist screwed into either eye, and
big, round tears dropping off the end of his nose.
“My new knife, it’s all losed!” and Tod buried half his face in a small
square of Centennial cotton.
“Oh me suz! an’ I’ve lost your ball,” returned Maybee consolingly.
“There’s never a shower ’thout it rains, my papa says,” which misquoted
proverb Tod proceeded to illustrate with a fresh burst of grief.
“You see,” continued Maybee, “Sue said I mustn’t fire it that way,
because it would go in the tall grass. I shouldn’t never thought of it
if she hadn’t, and now papa won’t let me go and get it.”
“My hasn’t got anyfing,” wailed Tod, behind his handkerchief.
“It’ll be in the hay if the cows don’t eat it,” said Maybee cheerily.
“Where’d you lose your knife?”
“Over in the marsh; it sinked, you know.”
“How came you playing down there?”
“Wented myself.”
“Who said you might?”
“Nobody,” very faintly.
“Oh!” said Maybee significantly, “naughty boys always lose their knives
or something; but never mind, let’s go an’ see Aunty McFane and little
Peter.”
“Can’t,” said Tod dejectedly.
“Why not?”
“Can’t go frough the gate for one, two, three days; mamma said so.”
“What for?”
“’Cause—’cause—my runned away.”
“Well,” with a long-drawn breath, “let’s go on the front pizarro and
play steam-boat; only—you’d better have a clean apron on. Such awful
patched pants, an’ that jacket! Why, you’re ever so much the biggest!”
“Can’t help it,” said Tod sulkily. “Can’t have no other clothes on for
the greatest long while.”
“Well, if I sha’n’t give it up! What for?”
“’Cause—’cause I played with the grindstone in my best jacket.”
“The-od-o-re Smith! Aunty’s told you over and over again she’d punish
you if you did.”
“My knows it,” said Tod meekly: “an’ my mamma’s so pur-sistent; might
have finked she would.”
“Of course. What a goose! Well, then, let’s go in the shed and play
store.”
“Isn’t any fings there. Mamma’s locked ’em all up, ’cause my kep’
forgetting—no, cause my didn’t want to put ’em away when she said it
was time”; and Tod stared straight up at the blue sky overhead.
“I hate ‘becauses,’” said Maybee emphatically,—“_that_ kind, anyhow. I
just had miserable times, my own self, all yesterday.”
“’Cause why?” asked Tod, with alacrity.
“_Be_cause my strings all knotted up tight—no; ’twasn’t, neither; I
just wouldn’t say ‘Please,’ and the ‘becauses’ kept happening right
along,—horrid, all of ’em. There’s always one with things you ought to
do and don’t want to, and things you want awfully to do and mustn’t.
They’re tied right tight on, too. And then there’s a nice kind, when
you get a ticket because you’ve sewed your seam, or something. I wish
they’d made ’em all like that.”
“Are you sure which is the best kind?” asked aunty, coming out on the
stoop, and sitting down between them. “What did papa snip the baby’s
hands for, this morning, Tod?”
“Oh! ’cause her _will_ put her fingers in the sugar-blowl,” returned
Tod contemptuously.
“Was that a good or bad ‘because’?”
“Why, my s’poses her don’t like to be snipped; but you know if we
’lowed her to touch fings, her might burn her on the teapot, an’
spill the gwavy, an’ every-fing; ’sides it isn’t polite, an’ we must
learn her to behave,” concluded Tod, with an air of superior wisdom.
“That is just it,” said mamma, drawing the little reasoner into her
lap. “We all need to learn a great many things that we should not if
there were no ‘becauses.’ God lets the bad ‘becauses’ _happen_, as
Maybee says, to teach us how to be better, or to keep us from something
that would harm us. Let me tell you a little story all in rhyme, and
then we’ll see if we can’t happen the ‘good becauses,’ by doing just
what God wants us to.”
XIII.
WHY FRED WAS PUNISHED.
“The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at
all acquit the wicked.”
Our Fred, the merriest boy ever seen,
Was now in disgrace. We were all so sad.
But saddest of all was his mother, I ween,
The dearest mamma a boy ever had.
She had argued, entreated, commanded in vain.
Poor, foolish Fred still refused to obey.
Poor, foolish Fred! who would sadly complain
To do without mamma one single whole day.
So strong and so loving, so wise and so good,
So ready to help, so patient to bear,—
Could any one do what his dear mamma could?
Or take of her boy such fond watch and care?
She waited and waited, but Fred only grew
More sullen and stubborn; then, with a tear,
She said, oh! so slowly, “It never will do
To leave him unpunished, tho’ never so dear.”
The verdict was given,—at home to remain
That day of all days, the Fourth of July.
And mother, whose lips framed the sentence so stern,
Grieved more than we all, her boy to deny.
Patient to wait, strong and loving to help,
But firm against wrong,—he’ll thank her, someday,—
The mother, who, seeing the gain through the pain,
With punishment barred Sin’s broad, tempting way.
And so our Father in Heaven doth wait,
Lovingly, patiently; once and again
Calling us back from the broad, gilded gate
Which leads down to death, through sorrow and shame.
His love, strong and tender to help and to bless,
Though stern and unyielding, is love no less
When it bars the way with punishment sore,
Than when it waits at the Open Door.
PART THIRD.
I.
FARMER VANCE.
“Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being
astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.”
Farmer Vance and his wife were taking tea at Mr. Sherman’s. Mrs. Vance
and Mrs. Sherman were old schoolmates, and always exchanged yearly
visits.
The two gentlemen had talked over the coming election, specie payment,
business prospects, and came finally to the Centennial.
Did Mr. Vance think of going? Well, he didn’t know; should like to well
enough. Fact was, he’d been unfortunate about his help all summer,—had
them off and on; couldn’t think of going unless he found some reliable
man to look after things. By the way, did Mr. Sherman know of anybody
who wanted to hire out for the rest of the season?
Yes; Mr. Sherman was sure he knew of just the man, or at least a man
who needed just such a place. He had been employing him for a few
weeks, and could vouch for his willingness and ability. It was Dan
Harte, living in that little old house on the corner—
“Dan Harte!” echoed Mr. Vance, laying down his knife and fork.
“Yes, Dan Harte,” repeated Mr. Sherman, reaching for another biscuit;
“and a better gardener I wouldn’t ask for.”
“How many sprees has he had in the time?”
“Not one.”
“You’re joking now. Why, I know Dan. He worked for me, years ago. As
you say, he was willing and competent, but he _would_ have his times.
He was soaked through and through with whiskey then, and he has been
going down hill ever since.”
“But you see, he has turned square around and is going up now.”
“Oh, sho! he’s done that time and again. You remember the temperance
flurry we had three years ago? I helped the thing along then, mostly on
account of such fellows as Dan. Don’t believe in so much fuss myself,
although I don’t make a practice of using the stuff. But, as I was
saying, Dan signed the pledge. Wasn’t the least bit of use; he was
dead drunk in less than a week. I wouldn’t give that,”—snapping his
fingers,—“for all his promises and pledges.”
“I confess I should have little faith myself were it not that now he
has an Endorser whose word never fails,” rejoined Mr. Sherman, quietly.
Mr. Vance looked his surprise, and politely waited for his host to
proceed.
“I do not say he will _not_ fall again,” resumed Mr. Sherman, “but I
_do_ say that so long as he keeps his trust where it is now, on the
Divine arm, he will stand firm. Dr. Helps called my attention to his
case first. He said he believed the man had become a Christian, and
he was anxious to get him employment out of doors, away from those low
groggeries around the mills. I could quite easily create a supply for
the evident demand, and am not sorry I did. One can’t do a better thing
than to extend a helping hand to a fallen brother.”
“Oh, of course, of course; but my word for it, he’ll give in to his
appetite again, sooner or later. It’s in the nature of things. I
haven’t your faith in this church business. Haven’t been inside one
myself for twenty years, to say the least; never brought up my boy
to, either. Folks all prophesied he’d go to destruction, but I ain’t
ashamed to stand him alongside of Carter’s boy, to-day.”
Mr. Sherman lifted his eyebrows slightly.
What but the very church influences the father despised had checked the
boy in his downward career and led him up to better things?
“Dick is very steady at church,” he remarked.
“Yes, oh, yes! he and his mother have taken to it of late. I let them
have their own way; that’s my creed—every man as he thinks—liberal,
you see. Freedom is what our forefathers came over here for.”
“Freedom to worship God,” amended Mr. Sherman, quietly. “I believe in
that liberality. If a man will truly worship God after the dictates
of an enlightened conscience, I won’t quarrel about his creed. But I
want him to let the true light shine on his conscience, not merely the
flickering flame of reason or science.”
“Can’t all see alike; don’t believe in any of it myself,” rejoined Mr.
Vance, pushing back from the table. “Come, let’s have a look at Dan. If
I thought it would last long enough to pay, I’d really like to hire the
fellow.”
Some six weeks later Mr. Sherman met the farmer on the street, and
stopped to inquire after his new workman.