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NOBODY’S ROSE
A STORY FOR GIRLS
BOOKS BY ADELE E. THOMPSON.
The Brave Heart Series.
Five Volumes. Illustrated. Each $1.25.
BETTY SELDON, PATRIOT,
A Girl’s Part in the Revolution.
BRAVE HEART ELIZABETH,
A Story of the Ohio Frontier.
A LASSIE OF THE ISLES,
A Story of the Old and New Worlds.
POLLY OF THE PINES,
A Patriot Girl of the Carolinas.
AMERICAN PATTY,
A Story of 1812.
* * * * *
BECK’S FORTUNE,
A Story of School and Seminary Life.
Illustrated by LOUIS MEYNELL. $1.25.
NOBODY’S ROSE,
Or The Girlhood of Rose Shannon.
Illustrated by A. G. LEARNED. Price, Net $1.00. Postpaid $1.12.
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON.
[Illustration: “NOW I’M ROSE, I’M NOBODY’S ROSE!”—_Page 270._]
NOBODY’S ROSE
OR
THE GIRLHOOD OF ROSE SHANNON
BY
ADELE E. THOMPSON
ILLUSTRATED BY A. G. LEARNED
[Illustration: Decoration]
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Published, August, 1912
_All Rights Reserved_
NOBODY’S ROSE
NORWOOD PRESS
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
HOW POSEY CAME ADRIFT 11
CHAPTER II
AN EXPOSURE 30
CHAPTER III
THE NEW HOME 42
CHAPTER IV
THE NEW LIFE 54
CHAPTER V
THE PICNIC 71
CHAPTER VI
THE STORM BREAKS 85
CHAPTER VII
A DESPERATE RESOLVE 93
CHAPTER VIII
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE 108
CHAPTER IX
TWO HAPPY TRAVELERS 123
CHAPTER X
BEN’S STORY 135
CHAPTER XI
A STORM, AND A SHELTER 147
CHAPTER XII
A PARTING OF WAYS 162
CHAPTER XIII
A DOOR OPENS 173
CHAPTER XIV
POSEY BECOMES ROSE 185
CHAPTER XV
AT THE FIFIELDS’ 195
CHAPTER XVI
UNDER A CLOUD 206
CHAPTER XVII
SUNSHINE AGAIN 219
CHAPTER XVIII
GREAT-UNCLE SAMUEL 236
CHAPTER XIX
ROSE FINDS A RESTING-PLACE 247
CHAPTER XX
PAYING DEBTS 257
CHAPTER XXI
THE BOX FROM GREAT-AUNT SARAH 266
CHAPTER XXII
QUIET DAYS 275
CHAPTER XXIII
A VISIT FROM AN OLD FRIEND 284
CHAPTER XXIV
AND COLLEGE NEXT 294
ILLUSTRATIONS
“Now I’m Rose, I’m nobody’s Rose!”
(Page 270) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Out of the door of the cabinet a white,
shadowy little figure had lightly floated 32
It was an hour that Posey never forgot 76
“When I get a farm I shall need somebody to keep the house” 144
“Here is a clue to Rose’s family” 216
“Clear Jarvis and no mistake” 238
NOBODY’S ROSE
CHAPTER I
HOW POSEY CAME ADRIFT
Out in the open country the day was dull and grey, with low-hanging
clouds and occasional drops of slow-falling rain, but in the city
the clouds of smoke hung still lower than those of the sky, and the
dropping soot-flakes made black the moisture gathered on the roofs of
the houses, the leaves of the trees, and the sidewalks trodden by many
feet.
It was on a city street, one where the smoke-clouds from the tall
chimneys trailed low and the soot fell in its largest flakes, that ever
and again a sound asserted itself above the beat of hurrying feet. The
sound was not loud, only a little girl sobbing softly to herself as
she shrank with her head on her arm at one side of an open stairway;
and the words that she repeated over and over to herself, “What shall
I do? Where shall I go?” were less in the nature of questions than a
lamentation. But children tearful, loudly, even vociferously tearful,
were in that vicinity so frequent that people passed and repassed the
child without giving to her thought or heed.
For the street was one more populous than select, and while the tall
red brick houses that bordered it had once aspired to something of the
aristocratic, they were now hopelessly sunken to the tenement stage;
while the neighboring region leading through the sandy open square of
the Haymarket, where loads of hay always stood awaiting purchasers,
down the long steep hill to the river, with its crowded shipping and
its border of great lumber yards, shops, and factories, had never made
pretense to anything except poverty of the most open and unattractive
kind. In summer the whole region fairly swarmed with the overflowing
inmates of the overcrowded houses. Children were everywhere, in large
part barefooted, ragged, and so dirty that they might easily have been
taken for an outgrowth of the sandheaps in which they burrowed and
buried themselves when tired of the delights of the street. To see
them there, in utter indifference to the constant passing of heavily
loaded teams sometimes prompted the inquiry as to how many were daily
killed? But though, on occasion, they were dragged from under the very
horses’ hoofs by the untidy women whose shrill voices were so often
heard sounding from open doors and windows, few were the accidents to
either life or limb.
The not distant city market house increased the crowds, especially at
certain hours of the day, as also the street venders and itinerants who
contributed their full share to the noise and confusion. Hook-nosed old
men, with bags over their shoulders, and shrill cries of “P-a-p-e-r
r-a-g-s” abounded; the organ-grinder with his monkey was a frequent
figure, with the invariable crowd of youngsters at his heels; the
maimed and the blind, wearing placards appealing to the public
sympathy and extending tin cups for contributions, were to be found
on the corners; the scissors-grinder’s bell was a common sound, as
were the sonorous offers of “Glassputin.” Here was a man loudly and
monotonously appealing to the credulity of the public, and soliciting
patronage for his wonderful fortune-telling birds, a little company
of dingy and forlorn-looking canaries, who by the selection of sundry
envelopes were supposed to reveal the past, present, and future. There,
another man exhibited a row of plates with heavy weights attached, and
extolled the wonderful merits of his cement for mending crockery, while
the sellers of small wares, combs, pocketbooks, letter-paper, cheap
jewelry, and the like, added their calls to the rest.
A few of the houses still retained a dingy scrap of yard, where
thin and trampled grass blades made an effort to grow, but the most
part had been built out to the street and converted into cheap
restaurants, cheap clothing shops, cheap furniture shops, and the class
of establishments that are cheap indeed, especially as regards the
character of their wares.
In such a confusion of people and sounds it is not strange that a small
girl crying to herself would attract so little attention that even the
big, fat policeman on that beat passed her a number of times before
he noticed her, and then did not stop, as he saw that she was well
dressed. At last, as she still remained crouched down in a dejected
little heap, he stopped, moved as much by the thought of a little girl
in his own home as from a sense of duty, with the inquiry, “Here, Sis,
what’s the matter with you?”
She started up at the brusque but not unkindly tone, and lifting from
her sheltering arm a round and dimpled face, with wide grey eyes,
now swollen and disfigured with tears, answered brokenly and in a
half-frightened voice, for the policeman stood to her as the terror
rather than the guardian of the law, “Oh, I don’t know what to do! I
don’t know where to go!”
“You don’t, eh? Well, it seems to me you are a pretty big girl to get
lost; where do you live?”
“I don’t live anywhere,” with a fresh sob.
“That’s rather queer, not to live anywhere,” and he looked at her a
trifle more sternly. “What’s your name, if you have any?”
“Posey Sharpe.”
“Oh, indeed,” and he glanced at the stairway before him, where a small
black sign with gilt lettering on the step just above her head read,
“Madam Atheldena Sharpe,
“CLAIRVOYANT.”
“So that was your mother, was it, who raised all that row here last
night?”
“No, she wasn’t my mother, but I lived with her.”
“If she wasn’t, how comes it your name is the same?”
“It isn’t, really, only I’ve lived with her so long that people called
me that. She said I was her niece, but I wasn’t any relation at all.”
He looked at the sign again, “Madam Sharpe. Well,” with a chuckle at
his own witticism, “she wasn’t sharp enough to keep from being exposed.
And you were the spirit child, I suppose?”
Posey nodded, a very dejected-looking spirit she seemed at that moment.
“Well, when she took herself off so suddenly why didn’t you go with
her?”
“I ran up under the roof and hid, and I didn’t know till this morning
that she had gone.”
“I see; and was she so good to you, and did you think so much of her
that you are taking on this way?”
Posey hesitated a moment. “She might have been better, and she might
have been worse,” she answered with a candor of simplicity. “But I
haven’t anybody else to live with, and I didn’t think she’d use me so.”
“I see; it was rather rough.” There was sympathy in his tone, and even
in the way he tapped his knee with his polished club.
“And,” continued Posey, “this morning the man who owns the place came
and he was awfully mad and cross. He said Madam Sharpe owed him for
rent, and that she had hurt the reputation of the building, and he told
me to put my things in my trunk, and he shoved it out into the hall
and told me to clear out, and he locked the door so I couldn’t go in
again. And I haven’t had any dinner, nor I haven’t a cent of money, nor
anywhere to go, and I don’t know what’ll become of me,” and she wrung
her hands with another burst of tears.
Here was the cause of her misery—the semblance of home, care, and
protection, poor though it was, had been suddenly stricken away,
leaving her a helpless, solitary estray, a bit of flotsam at the mercy
of the world’s buffeting currents. Nor was her misery softened by even
the dubious bliss of ignorance that most children enjoy as to the
sterner realities of life, for already in her eleven years she had
learned only too well what poverty implies, and how sad a thing it is
to be friendless and homeless.
Poor little Posey, with her soft eyes, dimpled mouth, and rosy face,
she seemed made for sunshine and caresses. Scant indeed, however, had
been her measure of either. Her earliest remembrance had been of a
home of two rooms in a tenement, a poor place, from which her father
was often absent, and sometimes returned with an unsteady step; but a
home which held the greatest earthly gift, a loving, tender mother.
She was a pale, sweet, sad-faced young mother, who shed many tears,
and lavished on her little daughter all the wealth of love the heart
can bestow on its one treasure. But as time went by she grew thinner
and paler, the flush on her cheek deeper, and her cough sharper, more
frequent, till even Posey, with a child’s apprehension, would throw her
little arms around her neck, with a vague fear of what she could not
have told herself. Then came a time when her mother could not rise from
her bed; and at last, when Posey was six years old, the thread of life
that had been so long failing suddenly snapped.
When the mother realized that the end was at hand she called her child
to her and kissed her again and again. “Darling,” she said, holding
her to her as though mother-love would prove itself stronger than even
death, “Mamma is going away, going to leave you.”
“Where are you going to, Mamma?”
“God wants me to come to Him, to heaven.”
“Oh, don’t go!” and Posey clung to her, frightened both by her look and
tone. “Don’t leave me, take me with you if you go.”
“Mamma cannot, dear, though she would, oh, so gladly. But I want you to
listen now, and though you are only a little girl, never, never forget
what I am saying. Be good, wherever you are try to be good, always
tell the truth, always be honest, and every night say the prayer I have
taught you; remember that mamma has gone to heaven and will wait for
you; and above all remember, remember always, that God loves you and
will take care of you.”
“Do you know where my husband is?” she asked a little later of the
neighboring woman who was caring for her.
“No, but I can try and find him.” In her own mind she thought it would
be no difficult task.
“It’s no matter,” was the weary answer of the wife, who had sadly
learned long before that her husband’s presence was slight cause for
happiness. “Tell him good-by for me, and to send a letter he will
find in my workbox to my mother; so she will know that I asked her
forgiveness before I died. And I want her, as I know she will for my
sake, to take my child.”
Her voice that had been growing weaker and weaker failed as she
whispered the last word. A slight coughing-fit followed, there were a
few fluttering breaths, and the nurse who had been holding her hand
laid it softly down.
“Oh, what is the matter with my mamma?” cried Posey in a frightened
tone. “What makes her look so white; and lie so still? Mamma, Mamma,
speak to me, do!”
But the ear that had always listened to her slightest call, would
hear her no more. And the woman lifting kindly in her arms the now
motherless child, terror-stricken and sobbing, though too young to
understand the great loss and sorrow that had come to her, carried her
gently from the room.
When the absent husband at last came home and was told his wife’s last
message he listened to it moodily. “I don’t know any great reason she
had to ask her mother’s forgiveness, just because she married me,” he
said. “I’m not the worst man in the world, by a long way, if her mother
did make such a fuss about it. And as for letting her have Posey to
bring up and set against me, I’ll do nothing of the kind. I can take
care of my own child, and I shall do it.”
A natural and praiseworthy sentiment, this last, had he been a sober,
industrious man, but unfortunately for himself and all connected
with him he was neither. As a consequence, in the days that followed
his little girl suffered much from neglect, and often from privation.
Sometimes he feasted her on candy and sweetmeats till she was almost
sick, and again, and more often, he left her to fare as best she might,
and go hungry unless some neighbor fed her, while many were the nights
she lay awake trembling in the darkness in her little bed, afraid of
the dark, and almost more afraid of hearing the unsteady steps that
would announce a drunken father.
But when her mother had been dead less than a year, there was a
disturbance one evening in a near-by saloon. Revolvers were used, and
one man, present but not involved in the quarrel, was fatally wounded.
Posey never saw her father again. Taken to a hospital, public charity
cared for him in his last hours and laid him in his grave. When they
came to tell his child of his death they found her playing merrily
with a doll she had made for herself of a rolled-up apron and a little
shoulder-shawl.
It was hardly to be expected that she would comprehend her loss. For
that matter, she hardly knew that she had met with one, and Mrs.
Malone, across the hall, was decidedly of the opinion that she had
not. For her mother she had grieved long and passionately; that her
father was gone made but slight impression. She had received from him
so little of affection that she did not miss its absence, and as to
kindness and care, she had as much from the neighbors.
For a time she was passed from one to another of these, sharing the
proverbial charity of the poor, minding babies, running errands, and
doing such little tasks as her years and strength permitted. There
was a kind-hearted reluctance among these humble friends to handing
her over to public charity. A remembrance of her mother’s wish for
her still lingered, and Mrs. Malone even tried to find the letter she
had spoken of, but no doubt her husband had destroyed it. There was
occasional talk of an effort to find this grandmother, but Posey knew
nothing of her whereabouts, every one else was equally ignorant, and it
never went beyond the talk.
It was at this time that Posey came under the notice of Madam Atheldena
Sharpe, a lady who was making her wits provide her support, and who
was quick to see how a pretty and easily taught child might be a help
towards that end. To her taking possession of Posey there was no one to
object. None of the few people she knew felt able to assume the burden
of her support. To most of them the clairvoyant with her showy manners
and fine-sounding phrases seemed a very imposing person, and Posey was
counted a fortunate child to have found such a protector.
So Posey entered on the second phase of her life, bearing with her
pitifully few mementos of her vanished home—a china dog her father had
bought her in an unwontedly generous mood, a book of children’s poems,
out of which her mother had read to her and taught her to read, a
locket that had belonged to her mother, and her pocket Bible.
It was but a short time till new attractions were added to “Madam’s”
_séances_—mysterious bells rang, an equally mysterious tambourine was
tinkled; and presently out of a cabinet, that now made part of the
furnishing of the room, appeared what was understood to be a spirit
materialized, an ethereal-looking little figure in the dim light, with
long golden hair and floating white draperies.
As to the question of right or wrong in all this the child gave little
thought. At first she had been too young and the various details had
been but so many tasks; then as she grew older and began to realize
the humbug behind that needed such constant and careful guarding from
discovery, she was inclined to laugh at people for being so easily
duped. But in the main it was to her simply a means of living, the way
in which their bread and butter came.
For the ignorance of most children as to the value of money, or its
need in daily life had with Posey been early and sadly dispelled.
Better than many an older person she understood not only its necessity
but how to make the most of it. From behind some door or curtain she
would watch the people as they came to consult the clairvoyant, or
gathered for a _séance_, as eagerly as the “Madam” herself; she knew
exactly what each would add to the family purse, and so could tell
pretty well in advance if the next day’s dinner would be scanty or
plenty, and whether the medium would be pleasant or the contrary. For
though not destitute of kindly impulses her mood was apt to vary in
large measure with her success.
In their changing life Posey was soon far from the city where she had
lived, and finding her of even more value than she had expected Madam
Sharpe gave to the child her own name, and took all possible pains to
efface all remembrance of her earlier life, at the same time impressing
on her the fact of her homeless and friendless condition, and that but
for her kindness she would be a little beggar on the street; so that,
as was her intention, Posey grew into the belief that Madam Atheldena
Sharpe was all that stood between her and absolute distress, and with
that picture constantly before her she yielded the more readily to that
lady’s frequent exactions and petulance.
That she might become still more valuable, she was sent to school
whenever their stay in a place permitted, though seldom was that long
enough for the forming of friendships. Indeed Madam Sharpe did not
encourage such, for though singularly trusty, still she was always
afraid that to other children Posey might be tempted to betray some
jealously guarded secrets. For this reason, fortunately for her, Posey
was never allowed the freedom of the streets, or the acquaintance of
the children among whom she was thrown.
As soon as she grew old enough the “Madam” made her useful in domestic
matters. She was taught to sweep and dust the rooms, to go to market,
to prepare their simple meals, and to attend to most of the “light
housekeeping” which best suited Madam Sharpe’s finances and business.
In the evenings if people enough came to form a “circle” she had her
part to take in the “manifestations,” which was to her only another of
her daily tasks, and when ended she was quickly and gladly in bed and
asleep.
So Posey’s life was by no means an idle one. She had enough to do to
fill the most of her time, and for the rest, though often she was
lonely and longed for companionship, still she had been accustomed
from a little child to amusing herself and so had acquired numberless
resources to that end. Perhaps the most important result of this way of
life was the distinctness in which it kept her mother’s memory, which
might have faded had existence for her been happier or less monotonous.
Facts and events grew blurred and indistinct, but her mother remained
as vivid as a living presence.
No doubt with time imagination added its share till the remembrance
grew into her ideal of all that was true and pure and lovely, as it
was her greatest solace and comfort. Her words, except those last ones
fixed by the solemnity of death, she did not so much remember, but
the tenor of her mother’s teachings, her influence, her personality,
were indelibly stamped on her mind. In every grief her first impulsive
thought was, “Oh, my mamma!” as though even that mute appeal was a
consolation; while the reflection, “Would Mamma like to have me?”
influenced her actions more than the actual presence of many a living
mother. Never a night did she omit to kneel and repeat the prayer she
had learned at her knee. Though she had long known them all by heart,
she never grew tired of the book of child’s poems out of which her
mother had read to her. Often of an evening sitting alone and lonely,
out of her vague and fragmentary memories she would try to recall the
songs she had sung and the stories she had told her; and many a night
when the day had been hard in her small world did she cry herself to
sleep with the yearning plaint on her lips, “I do so want to see my
mamma!” All this had the effect of keeping her strangely pure, and
through the atmosphere of sordid deceit, if not worse, that surrounded
her she walked as if guided and led by the mother-hand so long still
and folded.