GRETCHEN.
German Gretchen was absent from the mill one morning. No one noticed it
except Miss Peters, who marked her down for one less day's wages. The
young girl, who had drifted into the manufacturing town, as so many do,
in search of work, had never been a favorite or attracted particular
attention. She was a fair work-woman, obeyed rules, and went her way to
the boarding-house when night came; but she made no friends either there
or at the mill, and it would scarcely have been noticed had she
disappeared altogether. Somehow she had floated into Sunday-school, and
been placed in the class which afterward became Etta Mountjoy's, but
here her apparent stolidity made her perhaps the least interesting of
all the girls. Perhaps this was in part owing to the fact that one is
not likely to be very talkative in a strange language.
But Gretchen had a heart, although no one in Squantown had yet found,
or cared to find, it. It was safe at home in the fatherland, where the
house-mother and father had as much as they could do to put enough black
bread to support life into the mouths of the five little children, too
young to do as she had done, when she accompanied a neighbor's family,
who were emigrating to seek their fortune in the New World. These
neighbors had gone to the far West, and not caring to be burdened with a
possibly unproductive member of their party, had left the little girl in
the hands of a German employment agency, through which she had found her
way to Squantown Mills.
Gretchen had many homesick hours when she would have given a great deal
more than she possessed to be at home again sharing the poverty and
hardships of the Old World, but she expressed her feelings to no one.
Indeed, she knew no one to whom she could have expressed them. She did
her day's work faithfully, receiving her regular payment of fifty cents,
and occasionally a little more, which little she resolutely put away at
the bottom of her box, to be sent home to her mother and the little
ones when there should be a good opportunity.
But now Gretchen was absent from her work one, two, three, four days. It
was Miss Peters's duty to report all absentees on Saturday night, and
she did so after the hands had been paid off and gone home. The
book-keeper noted the absence in his pages, asked if work was so
pressing as to make the appointment of a substitute necessary or
advisable, and being answered in the negative quite forgot to inform his
employer of the girl's absence.
But when Sunday came, and Gretchen was absent from the place in the
class which she had so regularly occupied, it was a different thing.
Etta, among her other activities, had from the first been a good visitor
of absentees. Indeed, when her scholars lived with their families, as in
the case of Katie and one or two of the other girls, she had made more
visits and laid down the law more than was quite agreeable in all cases.
Now, with her newly awakened sense of responsibility toward the immortal
souls placed under her charge, she had begun to watch over them as one
who must give account of their souls. She had several times thought of
looking up Gretchen, in order to become acquainted with her
surroundings, etc., but had not yet put her design into execution, and
now the girl's absence from the class gave her teacher the very
opportunity she desired.
As soon as tea was over, in the long June twilight, Etta put on her hat,
and walked down the hill upon which the grand house stood to the valley,
in which was the long row of boarding-houses occupied by such of the
mill-hands as had no homes in the place. It was stiflingly hot down
here, though it had been cool and fresh on the high ground above, and
the young lady, who had not often visited the purlieus of the mill, felt
as though she could scarcely breathe, and did not wonder that men sat at
the open windows in their shirtsleeves, and that tired-looking women
seemed gasping for air. The bare wooden buildings, with their long rows
of windows and doors all of the same pattern; the smooth, beaten yards,
all just alike; the swarms of children making it seem anything but
Sunday-like with their noise; the teeming population, which made the
tenements resemble ant-hills, and seemed to forbid any idea of privacy,
looked very dreadful to her.
On the other side of the street was a long row of brick cottages, each
inhabited by two or more families, the distinctive sign of each being
the family pig, kept, for greater convenience, in the front yard, from
which odors, not the most choice in their nature, were constantly wafted
across the way. In the doorways of most of these lounged Irishmen
smoking and swearing, in some cases in a state of intoxication; for,
although the rules of the mill concerning drinking were very strict, and
no habitual drinker was ever knowingly engaged in it, it was impossible
to prevent the men from depositing a part of the earnings received every
Saturday night in the hands of one or two liquor-dealers whom the law
licensed to sell death and ruin to their fellow-men.
How dreadful, thought the young lady, to be compelled to spend one's
life in such wretched surroundings. Is it any wonder that the women
become hopeless slatterns, and that the children grow up in vice and
sin? How thankful I ought to be to the heavenly Father who has
surrounded me with such different influences! how I wish I might do
something to raise and elevate these, and give them a few of the
blessings of which I have so many!
Etta Mountjoy had grown since that early June Sunday when she had
visited her pastor in such sorrow and perplexity. She had read and seen
and thought more and more of the wonderful love of our heavenly Father
in surrounding her with so many blessings and in sending his only Son to
be her Saviour and friend. She looked back upon the life of
self-pleasing she had so long led with sorrow amounting to disgust. How
could she have been so ungrateful? How could she have failed to love One
so altogether lovely? She was learning now to find pleasure in prayer,
and the Bible, which had been to her such a dull book, began to be more
interesting than any story which she had formerly devoured. And she was
trying, faintly and with many relapses, it is true, to take up her
neglected duties, especially those which had been most distasteful to
her, and perform them steadily "as unto the Lord." Out of all this was
springing up in her a desire to do something for Christ--something which
would be, if not a return for his favors, at least a token of her
gratitude to him. To-night just such an opportunity as she had desired
came to her hand.
If Etta had only known it, the dwellings of the operatives at Squantown
were palatial compared to those into which the working-classes are
huddled in cities; for here the many windows opened upon pure fresh air
and green fields, the little yards were scrupulously clean, and vines
clambered up the sides of the doors and windows, even to the roofs. The
fare, plain as it was, was not tainted by exposure in a city market, or
by being hawked about the city streets, and the price of living was no
higher than the wages received in the mill enabled the people to pay.
The young teacher had the number of the house at which her scholar
boarded written down in her class-book, and at that number she at once
knocked. No one came for some time, but at last repeated raps brought
the woman who kept the house, and who might perhaps be excused for her
want of greater promptitude on the ground of having so many dishes to
wash after the boarders' tea.
In answer to Miss Etta's inquiries the woman answered civilly enough,
for it would not do to offend one of "the family," that Gretchen's room
was the back garret; that she believed the girl had been sick for a day
or two, but she had not had time to look after her, though she had sent
her little boy up with her meals. The child couldn't have eaten much,
for the tray came down almost as it went up. She had been trying to find
time to go upstairs all day, and was just meaning to do so now that her
dishes were done. She would go up now, and let the young lady know how
her scholar was.
"Let me go with you," said Etta; but the request was only a form, as the
girl usually did just as she pleased without waiting for anybody's
permission, and, indeed, the woman of the house knew no reason why, on
this occasion, she should not follow her own inclination.
Three flights of stairs were climbed, a long narrow hall, studded with
doors on each side, traversed, and Mrs. Doyle opened one in the
southwest corner of the house, where, the sun having beaten on the
sloping roof all the afternoon, the temperature was something fearful.
The room was small, for Mr. Mountjoy had built the boarding-houses, and
desired to try the experiment of each inmate having a separate room
instead of a great many men or women being herded together in open
dormitories. It contained simply a cot, a wooden chair, and a table upon
which stood conveniences for washing and the untasted supper. On the cot
lay the German girl, blazing with fever and tossing about in the
greatest discomfort. At first she did not know her visitors, and seemed
a little frightened at seeing the room so full. But presently,
recognizing her Sunday-school teacher, she grasped her hand and drew her
down to the side of the bed, pointing to her German Bible, in which she
had been trying to study her Sunday-school lesson.
Etta was touched, and began to think there might be some interest in
even the plain, undemonstrative Gretchen. She bent down to ask her some
questions about her sickness, during which Mrs. Doyle hurried to throw
the one window wide open, and to make the disordered room fit to be
seen.
"The child is very ill, I am afraid," said Etta, coming across to the
window and speaking to the woman in very low tones; "don't you think
so?"
"Yes, I am afraid she is," said the person addressed, uneasily, for
severe illness in a large, crowded boarding-house is no light matter.
She and her children were dependent upon their boarders, and a sudden
panic might empty the house.
"Can't you send for a doctor, Mrs. Doyle? Papa will gladly pay him, I
know."
"Yes; Johnny could run, I suppose, but he'd be sure to tell somebody,
and I wouldn't like it to get about till we know what it is, any way."
"Please go yourself, then. It's after tea, and there isn't much to do."
"But suppose the girl gets worse, and begins to scream and frightens the
boarders."
"Oh, I '11 stay with her till you come back. I'd rather; I shall be so
anxious to hear what the doctor says. Please go, Mrs. Doyle, and
hurry."
Etta Mountjoy had a way with her that could not be resisted by most
people, and even Mrs. Doyle, not overgifted with the milk of human
kindness, could not refuse her. So she went downstairs, and only
stopping to put on her bonnet and tell her eldest daughter to go on with
the preparations for breakfast,--which always had to be made over
night,--as she was going out for a little while, walked swiftly down the
street.
Etta sat on the hard chair by the patient's bed, and for some time
watched the tossing limbs, heavy breathing, and flushed, excited face.
She was not used to sickness. Indeed, she had never seen it since her
mother died, so long ago that she could not remember the pain and the
suffering, but only the terrible results, which were pale, cold death,
the coffin, the funeral, and the grave.
Did all severe sickness end in death, she wondered? Was this strong,
healthy girl about to die? And if so, was she ready? She had never
thought of the possibility of death in connection with any of her
scholars. Had she taught them the things which alone could be of value
to them when they came to stand face to face with a holy God? What
advantage then would be familiarity with dates, with geography, and with
catechisms? How would they then blame her for not having pointed them to
the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world? The
responsibility of undertaking to deal with human souls, upon which she
had so thoughtlessly rushed, now seemed to her something terrible. True,
she had not then known or understood anything about it; but,
nevertheless, it now seemed to her a great sin, and an earnest prayer
for forgiveness rose up from her heart, accompanied by another for the
salvation of the sick girl before her.
Meanwhile the moments rolled slowly by: the sick girl tossed and moaned;
the church-bells rang for evening service, first merrily, as glad to
call the people to the house of God; then slowly, as loth to stop while
any more stragglers might be induced to come; then with one or two long
sobs for those who, in spite of all persuasion and all "long-suffering
patience," wilfully stay outside, stopped, and the silence was only
broken by the shouts of the noisy children below. Even these ceased at
last, and as the sunset glow faded--flame red changing to pale yellow,
and that again to cool, sombre gray--the time of waiting seemed to the
unskilled watcher well-nigh interminable.