OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH.
Events which could not be foreseen, were destined to work great changes
in the circumstances of several of our characters. One of these—the
death of good Mrs. Buzzell—we will pass over quickly, for it is not
specially profitable to linger over such scenes of bereavement as the
loss of a dear and true friend.
The rich Buzzells in Oakdale had never recognized her existence except
in a purely conventional way, and as they were only relatives of her
husband, she felt perfectly justified in disposing of her property as
she saw fit. She gave all her real estate in trust with “the firm of
Dykes, Delano & Company, florists, for Minnie, daughter of Dan Forest
and Susie Dykes.” “It is the best thing I can do for her,” she said, a
day or two before she died, while caressing the child, who stood by the
arm of “auntie’s” big chair. “It will make her independent, in a modest
way; so if she chooses to enjoy the luxury of living an old maid, she
can do so.”
“I sha’n’t be a ole maid,” said the young lady, replying to the first
intelligible words of Mrs. Buzzell.
“I suppose not, dear. You’ll give some man the chance to break your
heart. I only say you can if you wish,” said Mrs. Buzzell. Her furniture
and personal property she gave to Susie, and to the firm, a present of
one thousand dollars; and so, having set her “house in order,” as she
said, leaving a kind message for Mrs. Forest, who had so long neglected
her, and holding the hand of her well-beloved Dr. Forest, she dropped
into her rest, apparently without a shadow of pain.
Some two months after this event, Dr. Forest was roused from his warm
bed by a policeman, requesting him to go quickly to the station-house to
see if he could revive an unfortunate, who had just been dragged from
the icy river.
“Don’t wait for me,” said the doctor, coming to the head of the stairs
in his night-gown. “Go back, and have her stripped and put into warm
blankets. Lay her on her stomach and rub her till I come.”
The doctor found the rough functionaries at the police-station working
over the patient as he had directed, their sympathies being more active
from the fact that she was young, and evidently pretty; though not much
beauty could be recognized in the deathly pallor, the half-closed
eyelids, and the drenched and matted hair that clung to her face and
neck. The men pronounced her dead. “I hope not,” said the doctor,
hastily relieving himself of his overcoat and coming forward. “I think
we may revive her,” he said, after pinching her flesh and watching
intently for signs of circulation. He gave his orders quickly, and then
commenced the slow and difficult process of discharging the water from
the lungs and inflating them. To the squeamish, and to the unscientific,
the operations of the doctor with this ghastly, limp subject, would have
seemed unsightly; but no careful observer could have failed to admire
Dr. Forest, seeing him thus professionally absorbed. He was excited, as
you could see by the intense expression of his whole face, but
commanding every muscle perfectly, never hesitating, never making a
false or awkward motion, he continued his work for about forty minutes,
though it would have seemed much longer to a mere spectator. One of
these, the officer in charge, seeing no sign of life and becoming
impatient with so much apparently useless effort, said in a low tone,
“Oh, what is the use, doctor? Anybody can see she is dead.”
“My dear sir,” said the doctor, without looking up, “your opinion don’t
amount to much in this instance. See! the color is coming; we have saved
her!” None but the quick, well-trained eye of the doctor could see any
change yet, however; but in a few minutes it was apparent to all. One of
the men recognized the young girl as one he had seen at “old mother
Torbit’s,” who was well known as the keeper of a disreputable house.
“Poor little woman!” said the officer. “It’s questionable whether we’ve
done her a favor. I think any very unhappy wretch has a right to seek a
short cut out of his misery.”
“Suppose the short cut don’t get you out of the misery,” said another
policeman, who was placing fresh bottles of hot water at the patient’s
feet.
“The world has a right to our lives,” said the doctor. “We have scarcely
a moral right to destroy ourselves, and certainly not while we are free
from hideous and certainly mortal diseases.”
There was little to be done after respiration had been restored to the
patient. In a few minutes she opened her eyes and drew the blankets
higher over her breast. One of the officers was struck by this movement,
and called the doctor’s attention to it, saying, “She has some modesty
left. She can’t be wholly lost.”
“Of course not, or she would not have attempted suicide,” said the
doctor; “but shame at exposing the person is no evidence of purity in
itself. It is a higher sense of purity that keeps men and women from
courses that degrade the moral nature.” After a while the doctor asked
if there were no better beds in the station than the one on which the
girl lay—a miserable old mattress, stretched on a rickety iron bedstead.
Being informed that there were not, except in the rooms of the officers,
the doctor made up his mind suddenly, and sent one of the men for a
hack. As he was wrapping another blanket around the girl, preparatory to
her removal, she looked around wildly, and exclaimed, “Oh, why did you
take me from the river?”
“My dear,” said the doctor, kindly, “I’m going to take you where you
will find sympathy and love, if you are only a sensible girl.”
“Oh, I was dead. I know I was dead, and it was all over;” and she sobbed
and moaned in a low tone that touched the tender heart of the doctor. He
said: “Well, my dear child, just consider yourself resurrected into a
new life. Shut the past all out. You have a good face, and a nice round
head. I shall expect great things of you;” and he smoothed back her wet
hair, in a gentle, fatherly fashion, that made her sobs break out anew.
Of course the doctor drove to the home of Clara and Susie. Where else
could he take a poor, abandoned woman for womanly sympathy and help?
Hearing the carriage drive up to the gate, and then the loud ring at the
door, Clara was alarmed. Throwing on her dressing-gown and putting her
bare feet in slippers, she ran down before the servant was out of bed.
Her first thought was that something had happened to her father. She was
quickly reassured when she opened the door. He had already dismissed the
hackman, and stood on the porch with his burden in his arms.
“Papa, dear! What is it? But come in quickly, out of the cold. I was
afraid something had happened to you.” The doctor laid the partially
unconscious girl down, as he said, “It is a poor girl, dragged from the
river to-night. The police-station is such a beastly place I couldn’t
leave her there.”
“We must get her into bed at once,” said Clara, opening the blankets
timidly to see the face. What bed? she was thinking. The one guest-room
was too immaculate for such uses—“too cold, too,” she said aloud. “I
think we must carry her to my bed. Is she—nice, papa?”
“She must, at least, be well washed _outside_,” said the doctor, with
grim humor, amused at the feminine scruple of his daughter.
“Well, papa, we’ll put her right into my warm bed. Won’t that be best?”
“Yes, dear. The warmth is what she needs, and your bed must be warmed by
a magnetism that should be good for a Magdalen.” Here the new servant,
Ellen, came in. Mary, Mrs. Buzzell’s old servant, had taken a vacation,
and was visiting her friends in a distant State. Ellen stared at the
muffled figure, but her amazement was intense when, in Clara’s room, the
partial removal of the blankets revealed a perfectly limp, nude form.
“Mother of God, doctor! Where are the craythur’s clothes?” Clara soon
produced a bed-gown, and wrapping her in this, placed her in bed and
revived her with stimulants. At this juncture Susie entered, and
dismissed Ellen. Then followed an amiable dispute between Susie and
Clara, as to which should watch with the patient.
“Well, my girls,” the doctor said, holding an arm about each and kissing
their foreheads alternately, “I will go home and get some sleep. You
will take good care of this poor child, and make her forgive us for
bringing her back to life. She came to, once, at the station, and
reproached us for taking her from the river. Keep giving her this wine,
a teaspoonful at a time, and by-and-by something more nourishing. I’ll
come over after breakfast. I’m afraid she may have a fever, and give you
a great deal of trouble; but I couldn’t—well, I couldn’t do anything but
bring her here.”
“You did perfectly right, papa, as you always do. Of course, this will
prove another blessing in disguise. Do you think she is conscious now?”
“Yes; she hears all we say, in a dreamy kind of way, I think.”
The two women sat by the patient until daylight. She had opened her eyes
many times, looking around as if wondering whether she was awake or
dreaming. At last, she looked at Susie earnestly for a long time, and
then began to cry. Susie comforted her in the kindest way, telling her
she was among friends, where she would find plenty to do, and need never
go back to her old life. Later in the morning she woke much refreshed,
after a long sleep. At first she thought she was alone; but hearing a
soft, low singing, she rose up in bed and saw a golden-haired angel, as
she almost believed, sitting on the carpet, turning over the leaves of a
picture-book. Seeing the stranger awake, the child climbed upon the foot
of the bed, folded her hands demurely, and looked into the new face.
“What is your name, little girl?”
“My name is Minnie, and I am my doctor’s pet.”
“Who is your doctor?”
“My doctor! Don’t you know? Why, he brought you here in his arms last
night. Mamma said so. Don’t you want to go down and see our
conservatory?” Min asked, after a pause, anxious to be quite hospitable.
“I fear I am too weak, you sweet little pet, but I should like some
water very much.”
“Well, my dear, I will bring you some,” said the little lady,
patronizingly, sliding down from the bed. Susie came back with Minnie,
bringing some wine gruel; and as she gave it, she asked the girl’s name.
“My name is Annie Gilder. I will tell you all about myself. I am not so
bad as you think I am. I will tell you all. Shall I?”
“Yes, if you like,” answered Susie; “as much as you like, or nothing. I
do not think you are bad. I am sure you love truth and honesty better
than falsehood and dishonor. Your face shows me that. This evening, if
you like, we will come and sit by you.” Annie expressed her gratitude in
a simple, touching way, said she was much better, and would soon be able
to work and be of some use in return for all the kindness she had
received. She expressed the greatest admiration for Minnie. She had
never in her life, she said, seen so lovely a child. “She will not tell
me her name,” continued Annie, “but she says she is her doctor’s pet.”
“She will be called Minnie Forest,” said Susie. “You may as well know
now as at any time, that her father is the doctor’s only son, and that I
was never married to him. You see I also have had my troubles, but I
have lived through them.”
“Oh, how you must have suffered!” exclaimed Annie. “I was not so brave
as you, was I? But oh! I felt that I must die, and be where I could
forget my awful suffering.”
“Don’t think of them any more,” said Susie, with feeling. “You can live
with us, and work with us in our flower business. Who knows what
happiness may be in store for you?”
In the evening the doctor called, having been unable in the morning to
do more than call at the door, when Clara told him that the patient was
doing well. At the sight of him, Annie seized his hand and kissed it
with tears. “I am glad already that you saved me,” she said; “and oh! I
feel that I am among blessed angels. I never met such dear, noble women
before. I wonder if there are any others in the whole world like them.
To-night I am going to tell them my history. Will you stay and hear it?
I should like to have you.” The doctor stayed, and that evening the
three friends heard a most pitiful story, which was very nearly as
follows:
“I was born in ——, about twenty miles from here. My father is a farmer,
and a deacon in the church. I am the oldest of six children. All my
early years were very sad. I had to work hard all the time, and went to
school only in winter, for I had to take care of the younger children. I
loved to go to school, but it was hard to keep up with my class, because
I had to stay home Mondays and Tuesdays to help about the washing and
ironing, and often other days also. I don’t know how I ever learned
anything, for my father would never let me have a lamp in my room when I
wished to study my lessons. It was very cruel in him, for I loved to
read and study, and during the day I never had a moment. He used to whip
me when I disobeyed him about borrowing books and papers to read. A girl
who lived near, used to lend me her _Waverly Magazines_. That was six
years ago, when I was ten years old. One day my mother told him; and he
came to my room in an awful rage, and burned them all, though I cried
and begged him on my knees to spare them, because they were not mine. It
was no use, and my friend was much distressed, for she used to keep them
all. I cried over it for days, and my mother was very angry with what
she called my silliness. She thought I ought to be a very happy girl,
but I was not. I could not be happy. Everything I wished to do was
discouraged in every way. They thought me wicked because I was
dissatisfied with the poor, cheap clothes my father allowed me; and I
was dissatisfied, for my father was not poor. He always had money in the
bank. I was never allowed a single pretty dress, like other girls, nor
to go to any of their parties. My father called them all kissing
parties, and both he and mother said they were ashamed of me because I
wished to go. Mother cared for nothing but work, and I could not take
the same pleasure in scrubbing and cooking that she did, though I did it
all the time, and would have willingly, if I could have been allowed to
read or to have any pleasures.
“In our school there was one scholar named George Storrs—the brightest
and handsomest of all. I think I always loved him since I was a very
little girl; but he never noticed me much until one year ago last
August, when one day, on my way to the village, he joined me, and we
walked together. The road lay through a beautiful wood, where there was
a pond close by the road, full of water-lilies. We stopped, and George
took off his shoes and waded in to get me some. Just as he came out with
them, I saw my father coming from the village, and only a little
distance from us. I screamed with fright, and flew into the bushes.
George followed me, and I told him my fears. He told me my father should
not hurt me, and I clung to him in an agony of dread. My father passed
as though he had not seen me; but oh, how I dreaded to go home that day.
I feared he would actually kill me in his anger. The state I was in, and
George’s kindness, made me tell him of my life at home. He pitied me,
and spoke tender words to me—the first I had ever heard. You cannot
wonder that I clung to his words, and loved him with all my heart. I
told him so. I could not help it. He said I was a good girl, and he had
always loved me, and some time he would help me to get away from home.
In a month he was to come to this place and work in the _Oakdale
Republican_ office as compositor. Three times after that I met him in
the same place, for my fears had been groundless—my father had not seen
me. George promised to write me, and he kept his word, and during a
whole year I was happy, in spite of everything. Of course, I had to have
him write me under a false name, and I had much trouble to get my
letters. There was no one I could trust, and a hundred questions were
asked whenever I wished to go to the village. I knew that my love for
George was the highest and noblest thing in my soul, and yet I had to
conceal it like a crime. Oh, it was so hard! My mother loves her
children, I know. She works hard for them; but when she gives them food
enough, keeps their clothes decent, and prays for them every day, she
feels that she has done all. I do not blame her in the least; but oh! I
should have worshipped her, if she had made me trust her like a friend.
She never told me of myself—of the changes that happen to girls at a
certain age; and when I passed that period I was horrified. I wondered
if it were not some dreadful divine punishment sent to me because I did
my hair prettily, and tried to manage, with my scanty materials, to make
my dress more becoming. For this I was considered bad and perverse by my
father. You may wonder at what I am telling you, but it is the solemn
truth. In my distress I went to Laura Eliot, a girl much older than
myself, who had for three years loaned me books whenever I went to the
village. I had never been intimate with her, for she had considered me a
mere child, I suppose, and loaned me the books because she was
interested in my passion for them. She told me very kindly many things I
ought to have learned from my mother, and after that, treated me more
like a friend. She lived alone with her father, who was a drunkard, but
a man of education, and she had been talked about. I think it was all
false. My father never found out about the books she loaned me, but when
he learned that I had called on Laura he was angry, and threatened to
cowhide me if I ever set foot in her house again; but I did not obey
him. I had made a large pocket that I used to tie on under my dress so I
could secrete the books. I read in this way a great many works of Scott,
Goldsmith, the poems of Shelley, Burns and Tennyson, and ever so many
novels. Laura gave me a little tin oil lamp, which I kept supplied with
oil out of money that I kept back cent by cent when I sold butter or
eggs for my mother. It was wrong, I know, but mother used to cheat
father in the same way. He never allowed her to sell butter or cheese
for herself, but it was the only way she could get any money. I kept her
secret, of course, for there was no sympathy between me and my father.
“One day, only two weeks ago, I went to the village against my mother’s
wish. I had urged her to let me go for a month in vain, and I could not
resist, for I knew there must be a letter from George. To my great
disappointment, there was only one, and it had been lying there over
three weeks. That night, after I went to bed, while I was reading
George’s old letters to make up my loss—they were all the joy I had—”
Here poor Annie broke down and cried bitterly. “Poor girl!” said Clara,
soothing her. “I am ashamed, papa, that I have ever been unhappy myself,
when there is so much misery in the world. Did you ever hear such
inhumanity, papa?”
“Yes,” he said, “I have heard many similar confessions in my life. For
cruelty, bigotry, tyranny to wives and children, commend me to your
ignorant, skinflint New England farmer.” Clara told Annie she was
exhausted, and had better rest. Susie had been crying half the time.
“Oh, let me finish, I beg you. There is little more to tell.”
“While I was reading my letters, my father, armed with his cowhide, came
in. I suppose he had seen my light shining through my window, though I
always curtained it carefully; and no doubt mother had told him of my
going to the village. He seized my letters, and read enough to know they
were from a lover. He commanded me to tell him who wrote them, but I was
angry at the idea of his coming to whip me like a child, when I was
almost sixteen years old. At my refusal, he dragged me from my bed in my
chemise and whipped me cruelly. It is two weeks ago, and you can see the
marks on me yet. My little sister, who slept with me, woke and screamed,
‘Don’t kill Annie! Father, father, don’t kill Annie!’ At which he laid
the whip over her and forced her into silence. I was so outraged that I
boldly told him I wished he were burning in the hell he always told me I
should go to. I told him to kill me—that it was all I asked of such an
inhuman father. This only made him more angry and his blows the harder.
Finding I would not tell him who wrote my letters, he left me,
commending me to the mercy of God. I told him I despised the God that
could be pleased with such as he. He said it was his duty to punish me
until he ‘broke my will,’ and that the next morning he should come
again.
“When the house was silent—I suppose two hours or so after he left—I
rose, and taking some matches, for he had carried my lamp away, I groped
my way down into the parlor, where my mother kept her purse hidden in a
chest of drawers. I stole two dollars, half of all poor mother had
secreted from my father.”
For some time Annie could not go on. The doctor felt her pulse, and
giving her some wine, allowed her to finish.
“I then went back, packed up some things in a paper bundle, and waited
until I thought it must be near dawn; and then I kissed my little sister
and stole out of the house. I walked five miles to the next town, where
the stage to this place passes through. The stage fare was just two
dollars, and that was all I had. At noon the stage stopped at a hotel,
and all the passengers, except a woman and her child, got out. She asked
me some questions, and gave me some bread and meat from her basket. When
I got here, and found the printing-office, George was gone, and there
was no one but a boy, who was washing the ink from his hands at a sink.
He could not tell me where George lived, and I was ashamed to go
anywhere to inquire for him. I was ashamed of my bundle, of my clothes,
of everything, and I was ready to sink with my misery. I knew not what
to do; but I could not stand in the street; so I walked away from the
village, crying bitterly under my old green vail all the time. I went
into a grove, which I have found since was Mr. Kendrick’s, and sat down
in a little summer-house and cried. I stayed there all night, and slept
a good deal, for it was not a very cold night; but in the morning I felt
cold and faint. Then I reflected that I could not tell George I had
stayed all night in the woods, like a vagabond, and the stage, by which
only I could have come, did not arrive except at night; so I wandered to
and from this grove all day. Oh, the long, wretched hours! You can
imagine them, but I cannot describe them by words.
“I found George. He was greatly surprised to see me, but not glad, I
knew. He walked across the Common with me, and I told him my story, or
some of it; told him I would find work. He took me to a hotel, the
cheapest, as I wished him to, and there left me to another night of
misery. The next evening he called, and there was something of his old
manner, in his words to me. He thought I could not get work, and that I
had better go home. That was dreadful—from him too. The next day, and
for over a week, I tried to get work. I asked the landlord to take me as
a chamber-maid—everything failed, and as I could not pay my board, one
evening, on going to my room, I found my few things at the door, and the
door locked. I knew not what to do, and not caring if I died or lived, I
walked out to the Common and sat down in the cold. While I was there, a
well-dressed girl spoke to me kindly, and asked me why I cried. I told
her in a few words, and she took me home with her, and was very kind to
me. I did not know what kind of a house it was. Old Mrs. Torbit was a
horrid woman, and laughed at me when I wished to work for her. I will
not say what she told me, but I did not listen to her. I was there only
one night and the next day. The second evening, as I was walking down
the stairs, George Storrs came out of the parlor. He looked at me with
horror, and then rushed out of the house. I flew to my room, and
throwing on my shawl and hat, rushed out and followed him, and overtook
him as he was crossing the bridge. I seized his arm in despair, but he
flung me off with reproaches, because I had not gone home as he advised
me. He would not believe I was innocent of bad acts in that house, and
while I was talking to him even, he left me without one word. Then I
knew beyond a doubt that he did not love me. He could be cold and cruel
too. My suffering, my tears, could not affect him, and then I determined
to go out of this terrible world. I stood there on the bridge, saying I
know not what, but loud enough I thought for the whole village to hear
me. O God! how I pitied myself. ‘Poor Annie! Poor Annie!’ I cried many
times, and then I threw myself into the cold river. I remember the icy
chill, the awful strangling, which seemed to last so long, and then a
terrible ringing in my ears, and I thought I was dying without pain. * *
That is all, dear good friends. The rest you know.”
The “dear good friends” then comforted her in every way they knew. Susie
and Clara, with tears, kissed her tenderly, and assured her they would
not fail her.
“Oh! if some good angel had sent me here to you!” said Annie. “If I had
only known anybody could help poor Annie, and feel for her as you do, I
should have been spared so much! See, I am worn to a skeleton, almost,
and when I left home I was not thin at all. Thank God! for the friends
he has sent me.”
“Dear girl,” said the doctor, with emotion, “I trust all your sorrows
are over. To-morrow I shall have something to tell you.” And with this
the doctor left her.