THE TRUTH IS TOLD.
IN the bottom of that wonderful little trunk lay side by side two
little blue and white plaid dresses, made gabrielle fashion, with
ruffles around the bottom and around the neck. Never were dresses made
with more patient care. All the stitches were small and very neat.
And they represented hours and hours of steady work. Every stitch in
them had been taken by Nettie Decker. Long before she had thought of
such a thing as coming home, they had been commenced. Birthday presents
they were to be to the little sisters whom she had never seen. She had
earned the money to buy them. She had borrowed two little neighbors of
the same age, to fit them to, and with much advice and now and then a
little skilful handling from Mrs. Marshall, they were finally finished
to Nettie's great satisfaction.
It was the day the last stitch was set in them that she learned she was
to come herself and bring them.
She thought of them this afternoon. If the little girls would only let
her comb their hair and wash their faces and hands, she would put on
the new dresses. She had not intended to present them in that way, but
dresses as soiled and faded and worn as those the little sisters had
on, Nettie Decker had never worn.
She opened the trunk, with both children beside her, watching, and drew
out the dresses.
"Aren't these almost as pretty as red ones?" she asked, as she unfolded
them, and displayed the dainty ruffles.
"No," said Susie, "not near so pretty as red ones. But then they are
pretty. They aren't dresses at all; they are aprons. Are they for you
to wear?"
"No," said Nettie, "they are for two little girls to wear, who have
their hair combed beautifully, and their hands and faces very clean."
"Do you mean us?"
"I do if the description fits. I can think just how nice you would look
if your faces were clean and your hair was combed."
"We will put on the aprons," said Susie firmly, "but we won't have our
hair combed, nor our faces washed, and you need not try it."
But Miss Susie found that this new sister had as strong a will as she.
The trunk lid went down with a click, and Nettie rose up.
"Very well," she said, "then we will not waste time over them. I
brought them for you, and meant to put them on you this afternoon to
surprise mamma, but if you don't want them, they can lie in the trunk."
"I told you we did want them," said Susie, looking horribly cross. "I
said we would put them on."
"Yes, but you said some more which spoiled it. _I_ say that they cannot
go on until your faces and hands are so clean that they shine, and your
hair is combed beautifully."
"You can't make us have our hair combed."
"I shall not try," said Nettie, as though it was a matter of very small
importance to her. "I was willing to dress you all up prettily, but if
you don't choose to look like the little girls I saw on the cars, why
you can go dirty, of course. But you can't have the clean new dresses."
"Till when?"
"Not ever. Unless you are clean and neat."
"It hurts to have hair combed."
"I know it. Yours would hurt a good deal, because you don't have it
combed every day; if you kept it smooth and nice it would hardly hurt
at all. But I didn't suppose you were a cowardly little girl who was
afraid of a few pulls. If the dresses are not worth those, we had
better let them lie in the trunk."
Nettie was already beginning to understand her queer fierce little
sister. She had no idea of being thought a coward.
"Well," she said, after a thoughtful pause, "comb my hair if you like;
I don't care. Sate, you are going to have your hair combed, and you
needn't cry; because it won't do any good."
It was certainly a trial to all parties; and poor little Sate in spite
of this warning, did shed several tears; but Susie, though she frowned,
and choked, and once jerked the comb away and threw it across the
floor, did not let a single tear appear on her cheeks. And at last the
terrible tangles slipped out, and left silky folds of beautiful hair
that was willing to do whatever Nettie's skilful fingers told it. When
the faces and hands were clean, and the lovely blue dresses had been
arranged, Nettie stood back to look at them in genuine delight. What
pretty little girls they were! She sighed in two minutes after she
thought this. What did it mean that they looked so neglected and dirty?
"These must go in the wash," she said, as she gathered up the rags
which had been kicked off.
"Will we put these on in the morning?" asked Susie, in quite a mild
tone. She was looking down at herself and was very much pleased with
her changed appearance.
"Oh, no," Nettie said, "they are too light to play in. They are
dress-up clothes. You must have dark dresses on in the morning."
"We ain't got no dresses only them," and Susie pointed contemptuously
at the rags in Nettie's hand. This made poor Nettie sigh again. What
did it all mean?
However, there was no time for sighing. There was still a great deal to
be done.
"Now we must get tea," she said, bustling about. "Where does mother
keep the bread, and other things?"
"She don't keep them nowhere. We don't have no things. I go to the
bakery sometimes for bread, and for potatoes, and sometimes for
milk. I would go now; I just want to show that hateful little girl in
there my new dress, and my curls, but it isn't a bit of use to go. He
won't let us have another single thing without the money. He said so
yesterday, and he looked so cross he scared Sate; but I made faces at
him."
This called forth several questions as to where the bakery was, and
Nettie, finding that it was but a few steps away, and that the little
girls really bought most of the things which came from there, counted
out the required number of pennies from her poor little purse for a
loaf of bread and a pint of milk. In the cupboard was what had once
been butter, set on the upper shelf in a teacup. It was almost oil, now.
"If I had a lump of ice for this," Nettie murmured, "it might do.
Butter costs so much."
"They keep ice at the bakery," said that wise young woman, Susie, "but
we never buy it."
This brought two more pennies from the pocketbook; for to Nettie it
seemed quite impossible that butter in such a condition could be eaten.
So the ice was ordered, and two very neat, and very vain little bits of
girls started on their mission.
Tablecloths? Where would the new housekeeper find them? Where indeed!
Hunt through the room as she would, no trace of one was to be found.
She did not know that the Deckers had not used such an article in
months. She thought of the cupboard drawer at home, and of the neat
pile which was always waiting there, and at about this hour it had
been her duty to set the table and make everything ready for tea. It
would not do to think about it. There were sharper contrasts than
these. Her proposed present to her mother had been a tablecloth, not
very large nor very fine, but beautifully smooth and clean, and hemmed
by her own patient fingers. She must get it out to-night, as no other
appeared; and of course she could not set the table without one. So it
was spread on the clean table, and the few dishes arranged as well as
she could. There was a drawing of tea set up in another teacup, and
there was a sticky little tin teapot. Nettie, as she washed it, told it
that to-morrow she would scour it until it shone; then she made tea.
Meantime the little errand girls had returned with their purchases, the
butter was resting on a generous lump of ice, the bread which was found
to be stale, was toasted, a plate of cookies from the wonderful trunk
was added, and at last there was ready such a supper as had not been
eaten in that house for weeks. To be sure it looked to Nettie as though
there was very little to eat; but then she had not been used to living
at the Deckers. She began to be very nervous about the people who were
going to sit down at this neat table. Why did not some of them come?
The wise housekeeper knew that neither tea nor toast improved greatly
by standing, but she drew the teapot to the very edge of the stove,
covered the toast, and set it in the oven. Then she went softly to the
bedroom door and opened it. This time a pair of heavy eyes turned,
as the door creaked, and were fixed on her with a kind of bewildered
stare. She went softly in.
"How do you feel now?" she asked gently. "I have made a cup of tea and
a bit of toast for you. Shall I bring them now? The children said you
did not eat any dinner."
"Who are you?" asked the astonished woman, still regarding her with
that bewildered stare.
Nettie swallowed at the lump in her throat. It would be dreadful if she
should burst out crying and run away, as she felt exactly like doing.
"I am Nettie Decker," she said, and her lips quivered a little. "Father
sent for me, you know. Didn't you think I would be here to-day, ma'am?"
"You can't be Nan!"
I cannot begin to describe to you the astonishment there was in Mrs.
Decker's voice.
"Yes'm, I am. At least that is what father used to call me once in a
while, just for fun. My name is Nanette; but Auntie Marshall where I
live, or where I used to live"--she corrected herself, "always called
me Nettie. May I bring you the tea, ma'am? I think it will make you
feel better."
But the two children had stayed in the background as long as they
intended. They pushed forward, Susie eager-voiced:
"Look at us! See my curls, and see my new apron, only she says it is a
dress, but it ain't; it is made just like Jennie Brown's apron, ain't
it? But we ain't got no dresses on. She's got a white cloth on the
table, and cookies, and a lump of ice, and everything; and we had two
peaches. Old Jock gave us the bread. She sent the money, and I told him
to take his old money and give me some bread right straight."
How fast Susie could talk!
There was scarcely room for the slow sweet Satie to get in her gentle,
"and me too." Meaning look at my dress and hair. The bewildered mother
raised herself on her elbow and stared--from Nan to the little girls,
and then back to Nan. She was sufficiently astonished to satisfy even
Susie.
"Well, I never!" she said at last. "I didn't know, I mean I didn't
think"--then she stopped and pressed her hand to her head, and pushed
back the straggling hair behind her ears. "I took dizzy this morning,"
she said at last, addressing Nettie as though she were a grown-up
neighbor who had stepped in to see her, "and I staggered to the bed,
and didn't know nothing for a long while. I had a dreadful pain in
my head, and then I must have dropped to sleep. Here I've been all
day, if the day is gone. It must be after three o'clock if you've got
here. I meant to try to do something towards making things a little
more decent; though the land knows what it would have been; I don't.
There's nothing to do with. I didn't know till this morning that he had
the least notion of sending for you--though he's threatened it times
enough. I've been ailing all the spring, and this morning I just give
out. I don't know what is the matter with me. The bed goes round now,
and things get into a kind of a blur."
"Let me bring you a cup of tea and something to eat," said Nettie; "I
think you are faint." Then she vanished, the children following. She
was back in a few minutes, under her arm a white towel from her trunk;
this she spread on the barrel head which you will remember did duty as
a table. She spread it with one hand, little Sate carefully smoothing
out the other end. In her left hand she carried a cup of tea smoking
hot, and poor Mrs. Decker noticed that the cup shone. Susie followed
behind, an air of grave importance on her face, and in her hands a
plate, covered by a smaller one, which being taken off disclosed a
delicately browned slice of bread with a bit of butter spread carefully
over it.
"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Decker again, but she drank the tea with
feverish haste, stopping long enough to feel of the cup with a curious
look on her face. It was so smooth. There was a sound of heavy feet
outside, and the children appeared at the door and announced that
father and Norm had come. Nettie took the emptied cup, promising to
fill it again, urged the eating of the toast while it was hot, and went
with trembling heart to meet the father whom she had not seen in so
many years that she remembered very little about him.
A great rough-faced, unshaven man, with uncombed hair, ragged and dirty
shirt sleeves, ragged and dirty pants, a red face and eyes that seemed
but half open, and watery. Nothing less like what Nettie had imagined a
father, could well be described. However, if she had but known it, this
was a great improvement on the man who often came home to supper. He
was nearly sober, and greeted her with a rough sort of kindness, giving
her a kiss, which made her shrink and tremble. It was perfumed with
odors which she did not like.
"Well, Nan, my girl, you have grown into a fine young lady, have you?
Tall for your years, too. And smart, I'll be bound; you wouldn't be
your mother's girl if you wasn't. Is it you that has fixed up things
so? It is a good thing you have come to take care of us. We haven't had
anything decent here in so long, we've most forgot how to treat it.
Come on, Norm. This table looks something like living again."
And "Norm" shambled in. Rough, and uncombed, and unwashed, except a
dab at his hands which left long streaks of brown at the wrists. A
hard-looking boy, harder than Nettie had ever spoken to before. She
could not help thinking of Jim Daker who lived in a saloon not far from
her old home, and whom she had always passed with a hurried step, and
with eyes on the ground, and of whom she thought as of one who lived in
a different world from hers, and wondered how it felt to be down there
in the slum. Now here was a boy whom it was her duty to think of as a
brother; and he reminded her of Jim Daker!
Still there was something about Norm that she could not help half
liking. He had great brown, wistful-looking eyes, and an honest face.
She had not much chance, it is true, to observe the eyes; for he did
not look at her, nor speak, until his father said:
"Why don't you shake hands with Nan? You ought to be glad to see her.
You ain't used to such a looking supper as this."
The boy laughed, in an embarrassed way, and said he was sure he did
not know whether he was glad to see her or not: depended on what she
had come for. He gave her just a gleam then from the brown eyes, and
she smiled and held out her hand. He took it awkwardly enough, and
dropped it as suddenly as though it had been hot; then sat down in
haste at the table, where his step-father was already making havoc with
the toast. It was not a very substantial meal for people who had dined
on bread and cheese, and were hungering at that moment for beer; but
the man had spoken the truth, it was better than they generally found.
There was one part of the story, however, that he failed to tell: which
was, that he did not furnish money to get anything better. As for Susie
and Sate, they had become suddenly silent. They sat close together and
devoured their toast, like hungry children indeed, but also like scared
children. They gave occasional frightened glances at their father which
puzzled and pained Nettie. No suspicion of the truth had yet come to
her. Oh, yes, she had smelled the liquor when her father kissed her;
but she thought it was something which had to do with the machinery
around which he worked.
"Where is the old woman?" he asked suddenly, setting down his empty cup
which Nettie had filled for the third time. She looked up at him with a
startled air. To whom was he speaking and what old woman could he mean?
Her look seemed to make him cross. "What are you staring at?" he said
sharply. "Can't you answer a question? Where's your mother?"
Nettie hurried to answer; she was sick, had been real sick all day, but
was better now, and was trying to get up.
"She is everlastingly sick," the father said with a sneer; "you will
get used to that story if you live here long. I hope you ain't one of
the sickly kind, because we have heard enough of that."
This sentence and the tone in which it was spoken, brought the blood in
great waves to Nettie's face. It was the first time she had ever heard
a man speak of his wife in such a way. Norm looked up from his cookie,
and flashed angry eyes on his step-father for a moment, and said "he
didn't know as that was any wonder. She had enough to make any woman
sick."
"You shut up," said the father in increasing irritability; and the
children slipped out of their seats and moved toward the door, keeping
careful eyes on the father until they were fairly outside. Nettie
felt her limbs trembling so that her knees knocked together under the
table. But at last every crumb of toast was eaten, and every drop of
tea swallowed, and Mr. Decker pushed himself back from the table, and
spoke in a somewhat gentler tone: "Well, my girl, make yourself as
comfortable as you can. I'm glad to see you. We need your help, you'll
find, in more ways than one. You've been working for other folks long
enough. It is a poor place you've come to, and that's a fact. I ain't
what I used to be; I've been unfortunate. No fellow ever had worse
luck. Everything has gone wrong with me ever since your mother died.
A sick wife, and young ones to look after, and nobody to do a thing.
It is a hard life, but you might as well rough it with the rest of us.
You'll get along somehow, I s'pose. The rest of us always have. I've
got to go out for awhile. You tell the old woman to fix up some place
for you to sleep, and we'll do the best we can."
And he lounged away; Norm having left the table and the room some
minutes before. And this was the father to whom Nettie Decker had come
home!
She swallowed at the lump which seemed growing larger every minute in
her throat. She had choked back a great many tears that afternoon.
There was no time to cry. Some place must be fixed for her to sleep.
In the home that she had left, there was a little room with matting on
the floor, and a little white bed in the corner, and a pretty toilet
set that the carpenter's son had made her at odd times, and a wash bowl
and pitcher that had been her present on her eleventh birthday, and a
green rocking-chair that aunt Kate had sent her: not her own aunt Kate,
but Mrs. Marshall's sister who had adopted her as a niece, and these
things and many another little knickknack were all her own. The room
was empty to-night; but then Nettie must not cry!
She began to gather the dishes and get them ready for washing. Just as
she plunged her hands into the dishwater, the bedroom door opened, and
her mother came out, stepping feebly, like one just recovering from
severe illness.
"I'm dreadful weak," she said in answer to Nettie's inquiries, "but
I guess I'm better than I have been in a good while. I've had a rest
to-day; the first one I have had in three years. I don't know what made
me give out so, all of a sudden. I tried to keep on my feet, but I
couldn't do it no more than I could fly. You oughtn't to have to wash
them dishes, child, with your pretty hands and your pretty dress. Oh,
dear! I don't know what is to become of any of us."
"This is my work apron," said Nettie, trying to speak cheerily, "and
I am used to this work: I always helped with the tea dishes at home."
Then she plunged into the midst of the subject which was troubling her.
"Father said I was to ask you where I was to sleep."
"He better ask himself!" said the wilted woman, rousing to sudden
energy and indignation. "How does he think I know? There isn't the
first rag to make a bed of, nor a spot to put it, if there was. I say
it was a sin and a shame for him to send for you, and that's the truth!
If he had one decent child who had a place to stay, where she would
be took care of, he ought to have let you alone. You have come to an
awful home, child. You have got to know the truth, and you might as
well know it first as last. It is enough sight worse than you have seen
to-night, though I dare say you think this is bad enough. You don't
look nor act like what I was afraid of, and you must have had good
friends who took care of you; and he ought to have let you alone. This
is no place for a decent girl. It is bad enough for an old woman who
has given up, and never expects to have anything decent any more. He
won't provide any place for you, nor any clothes, and what we are to do
with one more mouth to feed is more than I can see. I wouldn't grudge
it to you, child, if we had it; but we are starved, half the time, and
that's the living truth."
"I won't eat much," said poor Nettie, trembling and quivering, "and I
will try very hard to help; but if you please, what makes things so?
Can't father get work?"
"Work! of course he can; as much as he can do. He is as good a
machinist to-day as there is in the shops; when they have a particular
job they want him to do it. He works hard enough by spells; why, child,
it's the drink. You didn't know it, did you? Well, you may as well know
it first as last. He was nearer sober to-night than he has been in a
week; but he wasn't so very sober or he wouldn't have been cross. He
used to be good and kind as the best of them, and we had things decent.
I never thought it would come to this, but it has, and it grows worse
every day. Yes, you may well turn pale, and cry out. Turning pale won't
do any good. And you may cry tears of blood, and them that sells the
rum to poor foolish men will go right on selling it as long as they
have money to pay, and kick them out when they haven't. That is the way
it is done, and it keeps going on here year after year, homes ruined,
and children made beggars, and them that have the making of the laws,
go right on and let it be done. I've watched it. And I've tried, too.
You needn't think I gave up and sat down to it without trying as hard
as ever woman could to struggle against the curse; but I've give up
now. Nothing is of any use. And the worst of it is my Norm is going the
same road."