real sense of the word—her mind looked back to no happier time than the
present; for though she could well remember being a dirty little child
like her brothers and sisters, with nothing to do but play or quarrel
as she felt inclined, yet she by no means wished the time back again.
The death of her father, and the consequent absence of his bottle
and his wild fits of intoxication, had left the family in a peaceful
state compared with those days; and since Clary had been at the
printing-office she had learned to love the sight of decently-dressed
people—had begun to take more pains to look nice herself; and above
all, had begun to feel that she would like to be happy and well-dressed
and respectable, if she only knew how. But they were very, very poor,
and there were a cluster of little mouths to fill,—as clamorous and
wide open as a nest of young swallows,—and never saying ‘enough.’ So
though she kept her face cleaner and her hair smoother, and, when
she could get them sewed hooks and eyes on her dress,—the march of
improvement rested there; and her face was as hopeless, her eye as
dull, as ever. For nobody had ever taught Clary about that ‘one thing
needful’ which can make up for the want of all others. She had never
been to church, she had never read the Bible—and indeed had none to
read. She thought that nothing but money could make them happy,—she
thought nobody could want anything but money; and was really not much
surprised that people were so loath to part with it. They must be that,
she thought, or the poor press-tenders could not be so very far removed
from the heads of the concern, in comfortable appearance.
“There were many of the women indeed that spent more upon their dress
than she did. A tawdry silk jacket worked all day at her right hand,
and a pair of earrings dangled all day before her; while her own dress
was but the coarsest calico; but Clary had somehow begun to wish for
neatness and comfort,—of course finery was forgotten.
“Never had she been much inclined to envy anybody, till one day the
head printer brought his two little children to the office; and Clary’s
heart beat quick time to her sorrowful thoughts all the hours after.
O to see those children at home with clean faces, and smooth hair,
and whole frocks and trousers! And now there were rags and dirt and
tangled locks, and no time to mend matters; and small stock of soap and
combs and needles to mend with. Clary went straight to bed when she got
home that night; and it was on the next morning that she awoke with the
question,
“‘Mother, what’s the use of living so?’
“But as her mother had said, she must live somehow; and getting wearily
out of bed, hastily too, for it was indeed late, Clary easily found her
way into such clothes as she had; and then, having with some difficulty
fastened the children into theirs, she seated them at the table where
her mother had by this time placed the breakfast; and herself stood by,
drinking a cup of the miserable coffee and tying on her bonnet at the
same time.
“‘Going to wash to-day, mother?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Then I’ll take some bread and not try to come home for dinner.’
“This was the ordinary course of things. Clary at the printing-press,
and her mother doing days’ work for people well off in the world; while
the younger children were locked in or locked out, as the case might
be.
“It was a foggy December morning,—not very cold, but with a drizzling
mist that was more chilling than snow; and by the time Clary reached
the office she felt as moody and uncomfortable as the weather. It was
warm enough in the office, but not very cheering she thought; though
some of the men looked as if they enjoyed life sufficiently well, as
with sleeves rolled up they whistled softly over their work, keeping
time with their heads if the tune were a particularly lively one.
“Clary put her bonnet and shawl in their place, and went to the press
she always tended. It was motionless now, and a man was just putting in
a new set of plates. Clary hardly noticed what he was doing—it mattered
so little to her what words were printed on those great sheets of paper
that she handled every day; though she could read, and very well; but
stood listlessly.
“‘What’s the matter, Clary?’ said the man. ‘You look dumpish this
morning. I’ve fixed you a new piece of work here that’ll be good for
that—they say poetry’s firstrate for the spirits.’
“Something good for her! She knew the man spoke jestingly, and yet as
he walked off Clary thought she would look and see what it was that he
was talking about. She had seen type enough to be able to spell it out
backwards, and bending over the plates she read at the corner next her,—
‘_O how happy_’—
“And then the machine was suddenly put in motion; and not faster could
she supply the sheets than the press drew them in, printed them, and
tossed them out in a nice pile at one end.
“Clary could not stop for one instant. But she had something to think
about. Again and again she repeated those three words to herself,
and wondered of whom they spoke, and what could be the rest of the
sentence. She could guess,—it must mean the people who were rich, and
had plenty of clothes, and plenty to eat, and time to sleep and to
walk about in the sunshine. The people who bought the meats that she
saw hanging up in the butchers’ shops, which she hardly knew by name
and much less by taste,—the beautiful ladies that she sometimes saw in
Broadway when she happened to get through work a little earlier than
usual—wrapped up in furs and velvets and looking as if they wouldn’t
know calico when they saw it,—the children that she had seen looking
out of carriage windows with little white lap-dogs; the curling ears
on the head of the dog and the curling feathers on the head of the
child seeming to Clary almost equally beautiful. Yes, those must be
the happy people; but then she would very much like to know more about
them—to read all those stories which the press was no doubt printing
off, of these same happy people—who never were poor and who had no
little ragged brothers and sisters. For the first time in her life
Clary wished the press would get out of order, for some other reason
than because she was tired. Her mind worked and worked upon those three
words till she was almost wild with the desire to read more. Perhaps
it told the way to be rich and happy,—and that cruel press kept moving
just as fast as it could. Not till twelve o’clock did it make a pause.
But at twelve o’clock there was a sudden hush; and hardly had the
rollers stopped their rolling, before Clary had left her place and gone
to that corner of the pile of printed sheets where she knew the words
must be. Yes, they were there—she found them easy enough; but what were
they?
‘O how happy are they
_Who the Saviour obey,
And have laid up their treasure above_.’
“Poor Clary! she could almost have cried over her disappointment; for
if the words had been Greek she could hardly have been more puzzled as
to their meaning. As I have said, she had never been to church—she had
never read the Bible;—and if ever she had heard the Saviour’s name, it
was from those who spoke it with neither love nor reverence. Her father
had been a drunkard,—her mother was a hard-working, well-meaning woman,
but as ignorant as Clary herself. No preacher of the gospel had ever
set foot in their house,—and ‘how should they believe on him of whom
they had not heard?’
“So Clary puzzled over the lines and could make nothing of them. The
word _treasure_ she did indeed understand; but where it was to be laid
up, and how, were as far from her as ever. And constantly her mind went
back to that second line—‘_Who the Saviour obey_.’
“‘I wonder if I couldn’t do that?’ she thought to herself,—‘if I
only knew how. Mother always said I was good about minding. It must
be so pleasant to be happy.—It doesn’t say that nobody can do it but
rich people, either,’—and again she read the words. They were at the
bottom of the sheet, and the next might not come to her press at
all, or not for some days. She looked over the rest of the sheet. A
great many of the hymns she could make nothing of at all,—the very
words—‘missionary,’ and ‘convert,’ and ‘ransom,’ were strange to her.
Then this hymn caught her eye, and she read,—
“Come to the mercy-seat,—
“Come to the place of prayer;
“Come, little children, to his feet,
“In whom ye live and are.
“Come to your God in prayer—
“Come to your Saviour now—
“While youthful skies are bright and fair,
“And health is on your brow.”
“Clary read no further. That did not suit her, she thought—there was
nothing bright about her way of life or herself. It seemed the old
thing again—the happy rich people. She went back and read the first one
over,—that did not seem so, and she sought further; wearily glancing
from hymn to hymn, but with a longing that not even the hard words
could check. At last she saw one verse, the first word of which she
knew well enough,—
“Poor, weak, and worthless, though I am,
“I have a rich almighty Friend,—
“Jesus the Saviour is his name,—
“He freely loves, and without end.”
“The words went right to the sore spot in Clary’s heart—the spot which
had ached for many a long day. Somebody to love her,—a rich friend;—if
she had written down her own wishes, they could hardly have been more
perfectly expressed; and the tears came so fast, that she had to move
away lest they should blot the paper. Bitter tears they were, yet not
such as she had often shed; for, she knew not how, those words seemed
to carry a possible hope of fulfilment—a half-promise—which her own
imaginations had never done. And the first line suited her so exactly,—
‘Poor, weak, and worthless.’
“‘I am all that,’ thought Clary, ‘but if this rich friend loves one
poor person he might another. ‘Jesus, the Saviour’—that must be the
same that the other verse speaks of. ‘_How happy are they who the
Saviour obey_—’ O I wish I knew how—I would do anything in the world to
be happy! And I suppose all these rich people know all about him, and
obey him, and that makes them so happy; for if he loves poor people he
must love the rich a great deal more.’
“One o’clock!
“The great clock struck, and the people came tramping back to
their work, or rose up from the corners where they had been eating
such dinner as they had brought. Clary had forgotten all about
hers—certainly it was an easy dinner to forget—but all the afternoon as
the press kept on its busy way, she lived upon those two verses which
she had learned by heart.
“She had no chance to read more when they left off work at night; but
all the way home she scarce saw either rich or poor for the intentness
with which her mind studied those words, and the hope and determination
with which she resolved to find out of whom they spoke. She almost
felt as if she had found him already—it seemed as if she was less
friendless than she had been in the morning; and though once and again
the remembered words filled her eyes with tears, any one who knew Clary
would have wondered at the step with which she went home.”
“Where did she read those words?” said Carl, who had listened with deep
attention.
“On my 272d page,” replied the hymn book. “For it so happened that I
was printing that very day.”
Carl turned to the 272d page and read the words, and then shutting the
hymn book desired him to go on with his story.
“‘What made you so early, Clary?’ said her mother, who had got home
first.
“‘Early is it?’ said Clary, when she could get breath to speak—for she
had run up all the three pair of stairs to their little room. ‘It’s the
same time as always, mother—only maybe I walked fast. O mother! I’ve
had such a happy day!’
“‘A happy day!’ said her mother, looking up in amazement at the life
of her voice and face that were wont to be so dull and listless. ‘Well
child—I’m glad on’t,—you never had many.’
“‘Such a happy day!’ repeated Clary. ‘O mother—I read such beautiful
words at the printing-office!’
“‘Did you fetch the soap I wanted?’ inquired her mother.
“No—Clary had forgotten it.
“‘Well don’t be so happy to-morrow that you’ll forget it,’ said her
mother. ‘Every living child here’s as dirty as a pig, and no way of
making ’em cleaner. Tidy up the room a little, can’t you, Clary?—I’ve
stood up on my two feet all day.’
“So had Clary, and some nights she would have said as much; but now
that new half hope of being happy—that new desire of doing all that
anybody could want her to do (she didn’t know why), gave her two feet
new strength; and she not only ‘tidied up’ the room, but even found a
little end of soap to tidy up the children withal; and then gave them
their supper and put them to bed with far less noise and confusion than
usual.
“Her mother was already seated by the one tallow candle, making coarse
shirts and overalls for a wholesale dealer; and Clary having at last
found her thimble in the pocket of the smallest pair of trousers, sat
down to work too. Never had her fingers moved so fast.
“‘Mother,’ she said, after a while, ‘did you ever hear anybody talk
about the Saviour?’
“Her mother stared.
“‘What on earth, child!’ she said. ‘Where have you been, and who’s been
putting notions in your head?’
“‘Nobody,’ said Clary—‘and I’ve been nowhere,—only to the office,
the same as usual. But I read some beautiful verses there, mother—at
dinner-time—that they were printing off on my press; and they made me
feel so—I can’t tell you how. But oh mother, they told about some great
rich friend of poor people—poor people like us, mother—worth nothing at
all, they said; and that everybody who obeyed him was happy.’
“‘You’d better not plague your head with such stuff,’ said her mother.
‘Nobody cares about poor folks like us. Why child, rich people wouldn’t
touch us with a pair of tongs! Haven’t I seen ’em draw up their frocks
as I went by—because mine was calico, and maybe not over clean because
I couldn’t buy soap and bread both? I tell you Clary, rich folks thinks
the poor has no right to breathe in the same world with ’em. I don’t
want to long, for one.’
“‘I didn’t say rich _people_,’ said Clary thoughtfully, but only this
one:—
‘Poor, weak, and worthless, though I am,
I have a rich almighty Friend.’
O mother! I wish I had!’
“‘Come child, shut up!’ said her mother, but not unkindly, for
something in Clary’s look and tone had stirred the long deadened
feeling within her. ‘I tell you child we must eat, and how is your work
to get done if you sit there crying in that fashion? The candle’s ’most
burnt out, too, and not another scrap in the house.’
“Clary dried her tears and went on with the overalls until the candle
had flickered its last; and then groped her way in the dark to the
little bed she and her mother occupied by that of the five children.
For sleeping all together thus, the coverings went further. Dark and
miserable it was; and yet when Clary laid herself down, overtaken at
last by the sleep which had pursued her all the evening; the last
thought in the poor child’s mind was of those hymns,—the word on which
her heart went to sleep was that ‘name which is above every name.’
‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!’
“To Clary’s great sorrow and disappointment, when she went next day
to the printing-office, the pile of printed paper had been removed;
and not only so, but a new set of plates given her instead of those
of the hymn book. Clary’s only comfort was to repeat over and over to
herself the words she had already learned, and to try to get at their
meaning. Sometimes she thought she would ask the foreman, who was very
pleasant and good-natured—but that was only while he was at some other
press,—whenever he came near hers, Clary was frightened and held her
head down lest he should guess what she was thinking of. And as week
after week passed on, she grew very weary and discouraged; yet still
clinging to those words as the last hope she had. If she could possibly
have forgotten them, she would have been almost desperate.
“The winter passed, and the spring came; and it was pleasanter now to
go down to the printing-office in the early morning, and to walk home
at night; and she could hear other people’s canaries sing, and see the
green grass and flowers in other people’s courtyards; and on Sunday as
she had no work she could sit out on the doorstep—if there weren’t too
many children about—or walk away from that miserable street into some
pleasanter one.
“She had walked about for a long time one Sunday, watching the people
that were coming from afternoon church; and now the sun was leaving the
street and she turned to leave it too,—taking a little cross street
which she had never been in before.
“It hardly deserved the name of street, for a single block was all
its length. The houses were not of the largest, but they looked neat
and comfortable, with their green blinds and gay curtains; and Spring
was there in her earliest dress—a green ground, well spotted with
hyacinths, snowdrops, and crocuses. It was very quiet, too, cut short
as it was at both ends; and the Sabbath of the great city seemed to
have quitted Broadway and established itself here.
“Upon one of the low flights of steps, Clary saw as she approached it,
sat a little girl having a book in her hand. With a dress after the
very pattern of Spring’s, a little warm shawl over her shoulders, and
a little chair that was just big enough, she sat there in the warm
sunshine which streamed down through a gap in the houses, turning over
the leaves of her book. If you had guessed the child’s name from her
looks, you would have called her ‘Sweet Content.’
“Clary stopped a little way off to look at her; thinking bitterly of
the five children she had left playing in the dirt at home; and as she
stopped, the little girl began to sing,—
‘O how happy are they
Who the Saviour obey,
And have laid up their treasure above.’
“The little voice had no more than brought these words to Clary’s ear,
when a carriage came rolling by and the rest of the verse was lost; but
in an instant Clary was at the house, and feeling as if this were the
only chance she ever should have, she opened the little gate and went
in.
“The child ceased singing and looked up at her in some surprise.
“‘I want to know——,’ said Clary,—and then suddenly recollecting her own
poor dress, and comparing it with the little picture before her, she
stopped short. But the words must come—they were spoken almost before
Clary herself was aware.
“‘Will you please to tell me who the Saviour is?’
“And then blushing and frightened she could almost have run away, but
something held her fast.
“The child’s eyes grew more and more wondering.
“‘Come in,’ she said gravely, getting up from her chair, and with some
difficulty keeping the book and the little shawl in their places.
“But Clary drew back.
“‘O yes—come in,’ said the child, tucking the little book under her
arm, and holding out her hand to Clary. ‘Please come in—mother will
tell you.’
“And following her little conductor, Clary found herself the next
minute in a pleasant, plain, and very neat room.
“‘Mother,’ said the child opening a door into the next room, but still
keeping her eye upon Clary lest she should run away.—‘Mother—here’s a
girl who never heard about Jesus.’
“‘I don’t understand thee, Eunice,’ said a pleasant voice, ‘but I will
come.’ And a most pleasant face and figure followed the voice.
“‘What did thee say, child?’ she inquired, with only a glance towards
Clary.
“‘Tell mother what you want,’ said the child encouragingly. ‘Mother,
she never heard about Jesus.’
[Illustration: “‘Tell mother what you want,’ said the child,
encouragingly. ‘Mother, she never heard about Jesus!’”—P. 224.]
“‘Thee never heard about him, poor child,’ said the lady approaching
Clary. ‘And how dost thou live in this world of troubles without such a
Friend?’
“‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ said Clary, weeping. ‘We are very poor, and
we never had any friends; and a long time ago in the winter I read a
verse at the printing-office about some one who loved poor people,—and
I thought maybe he would help us if he knew about us.’
“‘He knows all about thee now,’ said the good Mrs. Allen, with a look
of strange wonder and pity on her pleasant face. ‘Sit down here child,
and I will tell thee. Didst thou never hear about God?’
“‘Yes ma’am—’ said Clary, hesitatingly,—‘I believe I have. Mother says
‘God help us,’ sometimes. But we are very poor—nobody thinks much about
us.’
“‘God is the helper of the poor and the father of the fatherless,’
said Mrs. Allen with a grave but gentle voice,—‘thee must not doubt
that. Listen.—We had all sinned against God, and his justice said that
we must all be punished,—that we must be miserable in this world, and
when we die must go where no one can ever be happy. But though we were
all so bad, God pitied us and loved us still—yet he could not forgive
us, for he is perfectly just. It was as if we owed him a great debt,
and until that debt was paid we could not be his children. But we had
nothing to pay.
“‘Then the Son of God came down to earth, and bore all our sins and
sorrows, and died for us, and paid our great debt with his own most
precious blood.
“‘This is Jesus, the Saviour.’
“‘Yes ma’am,’ said Clary, whose heart had followed every word,—‘that’s
what the verse said,—
‘Jesus the Saviour, is his name,—
He freely loves, and without end.”
“She stood as if forgetting there was any one in the room; her eyes
fixed on the ground, and the quiet tears running down from them,—her
hands clasped with an earnestness that shewed how eagerly her mind
was taking in that ‘good news’—‘peace on earth and good will toward
men’—which was now preached to her for the first time.
“Little Eunice looked wistfully at her mother, but neither of them
spoke.
“At length Mrs. Allen came softly to Clary, and laying her hand on the
bowed head, she said,
“‘Jesus is the Friend of sinners—but then they must strive to sin no
more. Wilt thou do it? wilt thou love and obey the Saviour who has done
so much for thee?’
“A sunbeam shot across the girl’s face as she looked up for one moment,
and then bursting into tears, she said,
“‘Oh if I knew how!’
“‘Ask him and he will teach thee. Pray to Jesus whenever thou art in
trouble—when thy sins are too strong for thee, and thy love to him too
faint,—when thou art tired or sick or discouraged. Ask him to love thee
and make thee his child—ask him to prepare a place for thee in heaven.
For he hath said, ‘_If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do
it._’”
“Little Eunice had gone softly out of the room while her mother spoke,
and now returned with a little book in her hand, which was quietly
placed in Clary’s, after a look of assent from her mother.
“‘That’s a Bible,’—said Eunice, with a face of great pleasure. ‘And
you may have it and keep it always. I wish I had a hymn book for you
too, but I’ve only got this one, and my Sunday school teacher gave it
to me last Sunday. But the Bible is the word of God, and it will tell
you all about Jesus; and every bit of it is perfectly true. O you will
love it so much!—everybody does who loves Jesus. And won’t you come and
read in my hymn book sometimes?’
“‘Yes—come very often,’ said Mrs. Allen, ‘and we will talk of these
things.’
“And with a heart too full to speak, Clary left the house.
“But oh what a different walk home!
‘How happy are they
Who the Saviour obey—’
“She could understand that now, for with the simple faith of a child
she believed what had been told her, and with her whole heart received
the Friend of sinners to be her friend. Her earnest prayer that night,
her one desire, was to be his child and servant,—to obey him then
became sweet work; and thenceforth through all Clary’s life, if any one
had called her poor, she would have answered out of the little hymn
book that Eunice gave her for a Christmas present,—
‘Who made my heaven secure,
Will here all good provide:
While Christ is rich, can I be poor?
What can I want beside?’”
“Is that all?” said Carl when he had waited about two minutes for more.
“That is the story of one of my leaves,” said the hymn book.
“Well, I want to hear about all the others,” said Carl—“so tell me.”
“I can’t”—said the hymn book. “It would take me six weeks.”
“Were you Clary’s hymn-book?” said Carl.
“No, I was the other one—that belonged to little Eunice. But years
after that, several of us met in an old auction-room,—there I learned
some of the particulars that I have told you.”
“What is an auction-room?” said Carl.