BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE PREACHING.
Desire Ledwith had a great many secrets to keep. Everybody came and
told her one.
All these girls whom she knew, had histories; troubles,
perplexities, wrongs, temptations,--greater or less. Gradually, they
all confessed to her. The wrong side of the world's patchwork looked
ugly to her, sometimes.
Now, here came Bel Bree; with her story, and her little leather bag;
her homelessness, her friendlessness. No, not that; for Desire
Ledwith herself contradicted it; even Mrs. Pimminy and Miss Smalley
were a great deal better than nothing. Not friendlessness, then,
exactly; but _belonglessness_.
Desire sent down to Leicester Place for Bel's box; for Cheeps also.
Bel wrote a note to Miss Smalley, asking her to take in Bartholomew.
What came of that, I may as well tell here as anywhere; it will not
take long. It is not really an integral part of our story, but I
think you will like to know.
Miss Smalley herself answered the note. It was easy enough to evade
any close questions on her part; she thought it was "a good deal
more suitable for Bel not to stay at Mrs. Pimminy's alone, and she
wasn't an atom surprised to know she had concluded so;" besides,
Miss Smalley was very much preoccupied with her own concerns.
"There was the room," she said; "and there was the furniture. Now,
would Bel Bree let the things to her, just as they stood, if
she,--well, if Mr. Sparrow,--for she didn't mind telling Bel that
she and Mr. Sparrow had made up their minds to look after each
other's comfort as well as they could the rest of their lives,
seeing how liable we all were to need comfort and company, at fires
and things;--if Mr. Sparrow hired the room of Mrs. Pimminy? And as
to Bartholomew, Mr. Sparrow wouldn't mind him, and she didn't think
Bartholomew would object to Mr. Sparrow. Cats rather took to him, he
thought. They would make the creature welcome, and make much of him;
and not expect it to be considered at all."
Bel concluded the arrangement. She thought it would be a comfort to
know that Aunt Blin's little place was not all broken up, but that
somebody was happy there; that Bartholomew had his old corner of the
rug, and his airings on the sunny window-sill; and Miss
Smalley--Mrs. Sparrow that was to be--would pay her fifteen dollars
a year for the things, and make them last.
"That carpet?" she had said; "why, it hadn't begun to pocket yet;
and there hadn't been any breadths changed; and the mats saved the
hearth-front and the doorway, and she could lay down more. And it
would turn, when it came to that, and last on--as long as ever.
There was six years in that carpet, without darning, if there was a
single day; and Mr. Sparrow always took off his boots and put on his
slippers, the minute ever he got in."
Desire's library was full on Wednesday evenings, now. The girls came
for instruction, for social companionship, for comfort. On the table
in the dining-room were almost always little parcels waiting, ready
done up for one and another; little things Desire and Hazel "thought
of" beforehand, as what they "might like and find convenient; and
what they"--Desire and Hazel--"happened to have." Sometimes it was a
paper of nice prunes for a delicate appetite that was kept too much
to dry, economical food. Perhaps it was a jar of "Liebig's Extract"
for Emma Hollen, that she might make beef-tea for herself; or a
remnant of flannel that "would just do for a couple of undervests."
It was sure to be something just right; something with a real
thought in it.
And out here in the dining-room, as they took their little
parcels,--or lingering in the hall aside from the others, or
stopping in a corner of the library,--they would have their "words"
with Desire and Hazel and Sylvie; always some confidence, or some
question, or some telling of how this or that had gone on or turned
out.
In these days after the Great Fire, no wonder that the dozen or
fifteen became twenty, or even thirty; the very pigeons and sparrows
tell each other where the people are who love and feed them; no
wonder that all the chairs had to be brought in, and that the room
was full; that the room in heart and brain, for sympathy and plan
and counsel, was crowded also, or would have been, if heart and
brain were not made to grow as fast as they take in tendernesses and
thoughts. If, too, one need did not fit right in and help another;
and if being "right in the midst of the work" did not continually
give light and suggestion and opportunity.
Bel Bree came among them now, with her heart full.
"I know it better than ever," she said to Miss Desire. "I _know_
that what ever so many of these girls want, most of all, is _home_.
A place to work in where they can rest between whiles, if it is only
for snatches; not to be out, and on their feet, and just _driving_,
with the minutes at their heels, all day long. Girls want to work
under cover; they can favor themselves then, and not slight the work
either. And especially, they want to _belong_ somewhere. They can't
fling themselves about, separate, anywhere, without a great many
getting spoiled, or lost. They want some signs of care over them;
and I believe there are places where they could have it. If they can
put twenty tucks into a white petticoat for a cent a piece, and work
half a day at it, and find their own fire and bread and tea, why
can't they do it for half a cent a tuck, even, in people's houses,
where they can have fire and lodging and meals, and a name, at any
rate, of being seen to?"
"Say so to them, Bel. Tell them yourself, what you mean to do, and
find out who will do it with you. If this movement could come from
the girls themselves,--if two or three would join together and
begin,--I believe the leaven would work. I believe it is the next
thing, and that somebody is to lead the way. Why not you?"
That night, the Read-and-Talk left off the reading. Miss Ledwith
told them that there was so much to say,--so much she wanted a word
from them about,--that they would give up the books for one evening.
They would think about home, instead of far-off places; about
themselves,--each other,--and things that were laid out for them to
do, instead of people who had taken their turn at the world's work
hundreds of years ago. They would try and talk it out,--this hard
question of work, and place, and living; and see, if they could,
what way was provided,--as in the nature of things there must be
some way,--for everybody to be busy, and everybody to be better
satisfied. She thought Bel Bree had got a notion of one way, that
was open, or might be, to a good many, a way that it remained,
perhaps, for themselves to open rightly.
"Now, Bel, just tell us all how you feel about it. There isn't any
of us whom you wouldn't say it to alone; and every one of us is only
listening separately. When you have finished, somebody else may have
a word to answer."
"I don't know as I _could_ finish," said Bel Bree, "except by going
and living it out. And that is just what I think we have got to do.
I've said it before; the girls know I have; but I'm surer than ever
of it now. Why, where does all the work come from, but out of the
homes? I know some kinds may always have to be done in the lump; but
there's ever so much that might be done where it is wanted, and
everybody be better off. We want homes; and we want real people to
work for; those two things. I _know_ we do. A lot of _stuff_, and
miles of stitches, ain't _work_; it don't make real human beings, I
think. It makes business, I suppose, and money; I don't know what it
all comes round to, though, for anybody; more spending, perhaps, and
more having, but not half so much being. At any rate, it don't come
round in that to us; and we've got to look out for ourselves. If we
get right, who knows but other folks may get righter in consequence?
What I think is, that wherever there's a family,--a father and a
mother and little children,--there's work to do, and a home to do it
in; and we girls who haven't homes and little children, and perhaps
sha'n't ever have,--ain't much likely to have as things are
now,--could be happier and safer, and more used to what we ought to
be used to in case we should,"--(Bel's sentences were getting to be
very rambling and involved, but her thoughts urged her on, and
everybody's in the room followed her),--"if we went right in where
the things were wanted, and did them. The sewing,--and the
cooking,--and the sweeping, too; everything; I mean, whatever we
could; any of it. You call it 'living out,' and say you won't do it,
but what you do _now_ is the living out! We could _afford_ to go and
say to people who are worrying about poor help and awful
wages,--'We'll come and do well by you for half the money. We know
what homes are worth.' And wouldn't some of them think the
millennium was come? _I_ am going to try it."
Bel stopped. She did not think of such a thing as having made a
speech; she had only said a little--just as it came--of what she was
full of.
"You'll get packed in with a lot of dirty servants. You won't have
the home. You'll only have the work of it."
"No, Kate Sencerbox. I sha'n't do that; because I'm going to
persuade you to go with me. And we'll make the home, if they give us
ever so little a corner of it. And as soon as they find out what we
are, they'll treat us accordingly."
Kate Sencerbox shrugged her shoulders.
"The world isn't going to be made all over in a day,--nor Boston
either; not if it _is_ all burnt up to begin with."
"That is true, Kate," said Desire Ledwith. "You will have
difficulties. But you have difficulties now. And wouldn't it be
worth while to change these that are growing worse, for such as
might grow better? Wouldn't it be grand to begin to make even a
little piece of the world over?"
"We could start with new people," said Bel. "Young people. They are
the very ones that have the hardest time with the old sort of
servants. We could go out of town, where the old sort won't stay.
You see it's _homes_ we're after; real ones; and to help make them;
and it's homes they hate!"
"Where did you find it all out, Bel?"
"I don't know. Talk; and newspapers. And it's in the air."
Bel was her old, quick, bright, earnest self, taking hold of this
thing that she so truly meant. She turned round to it eagerly,
escaping from the thoughts which she resolutely flung out of her
mind. There was perhaps a slight impetus of this hurry of escape in
her eagerness. But Bel was strong; strong in her purity; in her real
poet-nature, that reached for and demanded the real soul of living;
in her incapacity to care for the shadow or pretense,--far more the
_sullied_ sham,--of anything. Contempt of the evil had come swiftly
to cure the sting of the evil. Satan would fain have had her, to
sift her like wheat; but she had been prayed for; and now that she
was saved, she was inspired to strengthen her sisters.
"I don't think I could do anything but sewing," said Emma Hollen,
plaintively. "I'm not strong enough. And ladies won't see to their
own sewing, now, in their houses. It's so much easier to go right
into Feede & Treddle's, and buy ready-made, that we've done the
stitching for at forty cents a day, hard work, and find ourselves!"
"I don't say that every girl in Boston can walk right into a nice
good home, and be given something to do there. But I say there's no
danger of too many trying it yet awhile; and by the time they do,
maybe we'll have changed things a little for them. I'm willing to be
the thin edge of the wedge," said Bel Bree.
"Right things have the power. God sees to that," said Desire. "The
right cannot stop working. The life is in it."
"The thing I think of," said Elise Mokey, decidedly, "is suller
kitchens. I ain't ready to be put underground,--not yet awhile. Not
even by way of going to heaven, every night; or as near as four
flights can carry me."
"In the country they don't have cellar kitchens. And anyway, there's
always a window, and a fire; and with things clean and cheerful, and
some green thing growing for Cheeps to sing to, I'll do," said Bel.
"You've got to begin with what there is, as the Pilgrim Fathers
did."
Ray Ingraham could have told them, if she had been there this
Wednesday evening, how Dot had begun. Miss Ledwith said nothing
about it, because she felt that it was an exceptional case. She
would not put a falsely flattering precedent before these girls, to
win them to an experiment which with them might prove a hard and
disappointing one. Desire Ledwith was absolutely fair-minded in
everything she did. The feeling on their part that she was so, was
what gave them their trust in her. To bring a subject to her
consideration and judgment, was to bring it into clear sunlight.
Dot had gone up to Z----, to live with the Kincaids, at the Horse
Shoe.
Drops of quicksilver, if they are put anywise near together, will
run into each other. And that is the law of the kingdom of good.
Circumstances are far more fluid to the blessed magnetism than we
think. The whole tendency of the right, neighborly life is to reach
forth and draw together; to bring into one circle of communication
people and plans of one spirit and purpose. Then, before we know how
it is, we find them linking and fitting here and there, helping
wonderfully to make a beautiful organism of result that we could not
have planned or foreseen beforehand, any more than we could have
planned our own bodies. It is the growing up into one body in
Christ.
Hazel Ripwinkley said it all came of "knowing the Muffin Man:" and
so it did. The Bread-Giver; the Provider. It is queer they should
have made such an unconscious parable in that nonsense-play. But you
can't help making parables, do what you will.
Rosamond Kincaid had her hands full now, she had her little Stephen.
He came like a little angel of delight, in one way; the real, heart
way; but another,--the practical way of day's doing and
ordering,--he came like a little Hun, overrunning and devastating
everything.
While Rosamond had been up-stairs, and Mrs. Waters had been nursing
her, and Miss Arabel coming in and out to see that all was straight
below, it had been lovely; it was the peace of heaven.
But when Mrs. Waters--who was one of those born nurses whom
everybody who has any sort of claim sends for in all emergency of
sickness--had to pack up her valise and go to Portland, where her
niece's son was taken with rheumatic fever, and her niece had
another bleeding at the lungs; when the days grew short, and the
nights long, and the baby _would_ not settle his relations with the
solar system, but having begun his earthly career in the night-time,
kept a dead reckoning accordingly, and continued to make the
midnight hours his hours of demand and enterprise,--the nice little
systematic calculations by which the household had been regulated
fell into hopeless uncertainties.
Dorris had so many music scholars now, that she was obliged to
leave home at nine in the morning; and at night she was very tired.
It was indispensable for her and for Kenneth that dinner should be
punctual. Rosamond could not let Miss Arabel's labors of love grow
into matter-of-course service.
And then there were all the sewing and mending to do; which had not
been anything to think of when there had been plenty of time; but
which, now that the baby devoured all the minutes, and made a
houseful of work beside, began to grow threatening with inevitable
procrastinations.
[Barbara Goldthwaite, who was at home at West Hill with _her_ baby,
averred that _these_ were the angels who came to declare that time
should be no longer.]
Rosamond would not have a nursery maid; she "would not give up her
baby to anybody;" neither would she let a "kitchen girl" into her
paradisiacal realm of shining tins, and top-over cups, and white,
hemmed dishcloths.
"Let's have a companion!" said Dorris. "Let's afford her together."
When their "Christian Register" came, that very week, there was Dot
Ingraham's advertisement.
Mr. Kincaid went into the city, and round to Pilgrim Street, and
found her; and now, in this November when every machine girl in
Boston was thrown back upon her savings, or her friends, or the
public contribution, she was tucking up little short dresses for
Stephen, whom Rosamond, according to the family tradition, called
resolutely by his name, and whom she would, at five months old, put
into the freedom of frocks, "in which he could begin to feel himself
a little human being, and not a tadpole."
Dot helped in the kitchen, too; but this was a home kitchen. She
became one of themselves, for whatever there was to be done.
Especially she took triumphant care of Rosamond's stand of plants,
which, under her quickly recognized touch and tending, rushed
tumultuously into a green splendor, and even at this early winter
time, showed eager little buds of bloom, of all that could bloom.
They had books and loud reading over their work. Everything got
done, and there were leisure hours again. Dot earned four dollars a
week, and once a fortnight went home and spent a Sunday with her
mother.
All went blessedly at the Horse Shoe; but there is not a Horse Shoe
everywhere. It is always a piece of luck to find one.
Desire Ledwith knew that; so she held her peace about it for a
while, among these girls to whom Bel Bree was preaching her crusade.
All they knew was that Dot Ingraham and her machine were gone away
into a family eighteen miles from Boston.
"If _you_ find anything for me to do, Miss Ledwith, I'll do it,"
said Kate Sencerbox. "But I won't go into one of those offices, nor
off into the country for the winter. I want to keep something to
hold on to,--not run out to sea without a rope."
Desire did not propose advertising, as she had done to Dot; she
would let Kate wait a week. A week in the new condition of things
might teach her a good deal.