growing stronger, and that she expected him to be her great, brave boy,
by and by, who would take care of her all the days of her life.
Meantime, other boys, in other homes, talked to other mothers. For the
very first time the evil spirit of envy had crept into quiet Westbrook.
Why should Ralph Rosenburgh have every thing he wanted, and they
nothing? What clothes he wore,--and a watch, a real gold watch they had
seen him take out of his pocket,--and those ponies; for wherever they
began they always ended with those ponies. And, as not all the mothers
in Westbrook were wise, any more than elsewhere in the world, while the
wise ones would say that strong boy-legs were worth more than horses'
legs, the weak ones would foster the evil spirit, and answer,--
"He ain't a bit better than you are, with all his watches and ponies.
Pride will have a fall some day, see if it don't, and he may be glad
enough to stand in your shoes yet, before he dies."
Jack Smalley was the son of one of these injudicious mothers, and so
his envy grew, unchecked; till he nourished a vigorous hatred for Ralph
Rosenburgh in his heart, without ever having exchanged a single word
with him.
It was a hatred, however, of which its object never could have dreamed.
He had been so accustomed to be petted and pitied, and he was so
very sorry for himself, that he could not be a wide-awake, vigorous,
ball-playing, leaping, running boy, it would never have occurred to him
that any one else could fail to see his condition in the same light.
So he went steadily on the even tenor of his way, gaining something day
by day and week by week, and hoping--how earnestly no one knew--for
the happy time when Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed might stand idle in
their stalls, and he go about on his own feet with the rest.
The cold weather came on early that year. Before the middle of December
Westbrook pond was frozen over, and then began the winter's fun. Every
afternoon Ralph Rosenburgh drove his ponies down to the very edge of
the pond, and sat there for awhile, a patient looker-on at the frolics
he could not share.
With Christmas, however, there came to him from the fond, maternal
Santa Claus, a chair constructed on purpose for pushing over the ice,
and then he became a daily partaker in the festivities upon the pond.
The chair was modelled after a certain kind of invalid, garden chair,
which is arranged to be either propelled by some one else from behind,
or by the occupant turning a kind of crank at the sides.
Ralph soon learned to manage it for himself, and finding himself strong
enough to do so, he used to make the iron-gray man stay with the
ponies, while he himself moved round among the skaters.
And, now that he seemed really one of themselves, the young people,
all except Jack Smalley, began to feel a kindly interest in him. Jack
alone went on hating him more and more, finding daily fresh causes of
offence in this boy who wore velvet and fur in place of his own coarse
gray cloth, and woollen, hand-knit comforter. What was he, this puny
wretch, without pluck enough to stand on his own legs, that he should
wear the garments of a young prince? You see that Master Smalley
had the primitive idea of young princes, and supposed them clad in
everlasting velvet and ermine. But there were no princes in America,
thank Heaven, and nobody in Westbrook wanted fools round who tried to
look like king's sons. Very innocent of trying to look like any one was
poor Ralph, if the truth had been known,--this mother's darling of a
boy, who took no more thought of his attire than a weed, but whom Mrs.
Rosenburgh wrapped assiduously in all that was softest and warmest, as
she had, all his life, surrounded him with warmth and softness.
After a while there came a January afternoon, over which a gray, moist
sky brooded. Already the ice had shown some symptoms of breaking up,
and everybody was out, making the most of it while it lasted.
Among the rest Ralph Rosenburgh came down to the pond,--left
Pease-blossom and Mustard seed in the iron-gray man's charge, as usual,
and began to propel himself over the ice, with arms whose increasing
vigor was a daily and happy astonishment to himself.
At last he wandered away a little from most of the skaters. He felt
himself and his chair rather in their way, they were wheeling and
zigzagging so swiftly, and he moved along the pond quite rapidly toward
the eastern end.
It chanced that no one noticed his course except Jack Smalley, and Jack
knew that he was going directly toward a place where the ice had been
recently cut, and where it was thin and treacherous now. Slowly Jack
followed him.
"I'd like to see him and that fine chair of his get a good ducking,"
Jack muttered. "It would serve him right. I guess all them prince's
feathers and fineries would look a little more like common folks',
after they'd been soused."
I do not think another and darker possibility crossed Jack's mind.
Hating Ralph Rosenburgh though he did, I do not think one wish for his
death had ever entered his heart. He himself had been in the water,
time and again, and got no other harm from it than perhaps a hard cold.
He did not realize what a different thing it would be for this delicate
invalid, seated in his heavy chair. And so Ralph propelled himself
along toward destruction, and Jack, with an evil sneer on his face,
skated slowly after him.
Suddenly a third figure shot from the group of skaters,--the fastest
skater of them all, and the one boy in the world whom Jack Smalley
loved,--his own cousin, Nelson Smalley.
He, too, had turned his eyes and seen in what fatal direction the chair
with the delicate, golden-haired invalid in it was tending. He did not
speak a word: he had but one thought,--to reach Ralph Rosenburgh in
time to save him. He skated on, with the swiftness of light. And Jack
Smalley saw him coming, nearing him, passing him, on toward the thin
ice. Now, indeed, he shrieked at the top of his voice,--
"Nell, Nell, come back. The ice out there is thin. Come back--come
back. Don't you hear?"
"I hear," floated backward on the wind from the flying figure; "I hear,
but don't you see Rosenburgh? I must save him."
Then Jack himself skated after, making what speed he might. But he
seemed to himself slow as a snail; and already Rosenburgh was very near
the treacherous ice, and Nelson was almost up with him, flying like
the wind. He heard Nelson's voice:
"Stop, Rosenburgh, stop. The ice beyond you is just a crust. Stop, you
will be drowned."
And then he heard a plash, and looked. It was Nelson, who had gone on,
and gone under, unable to arrest, in time, his own headlong speed. And
then, while he himself was shrieking madly for help, he saw Rosenburgh,
prince's feathers and all, just throw himself out of his chair, and
down into the cold, seething water where Nelson Smalley had gone under.
The ice grew thin suddenly, just where the saw had cut it squarely
away, so the chair stood still upon the solid ice, and by that
Rosenburgh held with one hand, while with the other he grasped the long
hair of Nelson Smalley, who was rising for the first time. Excitement
was giving him unnatural strength, but for how long could he hold on?
Now, at last, the skaters had perceived the real state of the case, and
such a wail as one might hear afterwards through his dreams for ever,
went up to the bending sky. Hurry, all who can. Run, iron-gray man, as
you never ran before, or how shall you drive home to that boy's waiting
mother?
How was it done? How is it ever done? Who can ever tell in such a
crisis? I do not know how long they were in reaching the thin ice, for
at such times moments seem hours, and seconds are bits of eternity.
But Rosenburgh held on, and the iron-gray man threw himself flat upon
the cracking ice, with the boys holding fast to him, and drew them
both out, and then Rosenburgh turned limp and white on his hands, and
whether he was dead or not he could not tell.
There were enough others to care for Smalley, and already the older
ones had begun trying to restore him, and some of the younger were
running in various directions for wiser aid. So the iron-gray man just
lifted his own young master in his arms, and got him straight into the
pony wagon, and drove Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed home as they had
never been driven before.
At the gate he met Dr. Simms coming out, and told his story in a
few words. It was almost an hour before the blue eyes opened again,
and the mother felt sure that her boy was still hers to have and to
hold, to love and to cherish. Indeed, it was many days before she
felt altogether safe and sure about him. She was constantly expecting
some after consequences from his exposure,--some fever, or cough, or
terrible nervous prostration. But, strangely enough, he seemed to be
none the worse; and one day, after a careful examination of him, Dr.
Simms said to her,--
"I venture to tell you, now, what I have thought all along. This has
been the very best thing for him that could possibly have happened. The
severe shock was exactly what he needed, though certainly it was what I
should not have dared to take the responsibility of subjecting him to.
He is going to be the better and stronger for it."
"And the brave, splendid fellow who was risking his own life to save
him?"
"Is all right too. Duckings are good for boys, not a doubt of it. Trust
me, this cold bath will go far to make a man of yours."
And the doctor was right. The languid pulses which that awful peril had
quickened never throbbed so languidly again. It was Ralph Rosenburgh's
awakening to a new life. Somehow the shyness in him passed away with
the weakness, and he became a general favorite.
The boys no longer envied him his ponies, when one or other of them was
always asked to share his drives; and their cure was completed when he
grew strong enough to take part in all their sports, when Pease-blossom
and Mustard-seed were left to "eat their heads off" in their stall, and
Ralph Rosenburgh and his chosen and dearest friend, Nelson Smalley,
scaled rocks and climbed hills with the best of them.
This strong friendship would have cost Jack Smalley some envious pangs,
perhaps, if the awful terror of that January afternoon had not made him
afraid of the evil in his own soul.
MY LOST SISTER: A CONFESSION.
I have a confession to make. When I went home from my
grandmother's,--being set down at the home-door by the stage-driver,
in whose care I had been placed,--and found my little sister in my
mother's arms, a quick growing hate of her struck its black roots in my
heart. I know that this seems unnatural. In most houses the baby is the
very light and joy of them,--the little idol to whom, from the least to
the greatest, the whole family do willing homage.
But remember that I had grown to be ten years old, with no rival near
the throne, accustomed to be the first object with my father and
mother, petted, indulged, as much "the baby" as if I had worn white
long clothes. It was not strange that it should come hard to be deposed
from my throne of babyhood in one moment.
When I went into the house, Nurse Sikes met me with a smile which
struck me like a blow.
"Somebody's got her nose broke, I guess," she said, with a tantalizing
laugh.
Before this, no one had spoken to me about the new-comer, and there, I
think, was where the wrong began; but the woman's meaning flashed into
my mind in a moment, and I tossed my head scornfully, without speaking.
Nurse Sikes was probably not an ill-natured woman,--she could not have
been, since no face was so welcome as hers in the sick rooms of all the
neighborhood,--but she was a very injudicious one. I suppose my idle,
vain contempt and indignation amused her, and so she went on provoking
me.
"Ho, ho, Miss Fine Airs! doesn't want to see her baby sister, don't
she? Well, to tell the truth, I don't think you'll be much missed. Papa
and Mamma are pretty well wrapped up in Miss Baby. _She's_ a novelty,
you know, and I guess she'll be taken care of, even if you don't
trouble yourself."
I would not for worlds have let her see the passion of grief and rage
which shook me. I went out of her sight, and fled, not to my own room,
which opened from my mother's, but to a remote spare chamber, and there
I bore my pain alone.
To cry would have infinitely relieved me, but my evil pride restrained
me from that. They should not see my eyes red, and know how I felt;
I would die first, I said, bitterly, to myself, I, who had cried out
every sorrow of my life, hitherto, on my mother's tender bosom. After a
while I heard them calling me,--
"Annie! Annie! Annie! Why, the child came in half an hour ago. Where is
she?"
Then I knew I must go down. So I looked at myself in the glass, and saw
a face which, indeed, no tears stained, but which was disfigured by
pride and passion; and thinking to myself,--'No one will notice how _I_
look, now,' I went to my mother's room.
"Come here, my darling," her gentle voice said, "come and look at
baby."
Baby! Could she not say a fond word to me, after I had been away from
home two weeks, without bringing in baby! I moved reluctantly toward
her.
"Baby is twelve days old," she went on, wistfully, seeing my sullen
mien. "I wouldn't let any one tell you, for I thought it would be such
a surprise."
"A surprise, indeed!" I echoed her word with a scorn in my voice, which
must have pained that gentle heart sorely.
"Isn't she sweet?" and, still trying to win my love for her new
treasure, mamma uncovered the little, dimpled, rosy face, and held it
toward me.
"I suppose so; I don't think I care for babies," I said, ungraciously.
"But you do care for mamma, and you haven't so much as kissed _me_ yet,
my darling."
Perhaps if, even then, she could have put her arms around me, and held
me fast against her loving heart, as she used to when I was grieved or
naughty, it might have driven away the evil spirit, and made me her own
child again; but she could not, for there, in her lap, was baby. So I
took her kiss passively, returned it coldly, and then went away.
It seems so incredible to my grown-up self, looking back upon it, that
I could have gone on hating my baby sister more and more, that I can
scarcely expect you to believe it; and I think I would hardly write out
this, my confession, did I not hope it might lead some other, tempted
as I was, to examine her heart in time, and root out from it the evil
weed of jealousy, which bears always such bitter fruit.
From the first, little Lilias, or Lily, as they all called her, was a
singularly lovely child. As a baby, she cried very little, and never in
anger. Nothing but real pain ever made the red lips quiver, or filled
the violet eyes with tears. She never could see any face more grave
than usual without trying, in her baby fashion, to brighten it. I can
remember, oh, how distinctly, times when my father would come home,
worn and tired, and she would, quite untold, go through her little
_rôle_ of accomplishments till she won a smile from him, clapping her
fairy hands, nodding her gleaming, golden head, showing her two small
teeth,--all the little winning wiles she had.
She was a very frail, delicate child, always, and she did not walk
nearly as early as other children. But she talked very soon indeed. She
was scarcely ten months old, when she learned to call us all by our
names; and, strangely enough, mine was the first name she spoke. "Nan!
Nan! Nan!" she would call me, half the day, like a little silver-voiced
parrot.
She was very fond of me, in a certain way. I never tended her unless I
was obliged, and my mother, noticing with deep grief my spirit toward
my little sister, waited for the evil feeling to wear itself out, and
seldom called on me to amuse the child, or to give up for her sake any
whim or fancy of my own. Lily was not used, therefore, to have me hold
or play with her.
Perhaps she thought I _could_ not, but it seemed to afford her infinite
satisfaction just to have me in her sight. It may be she felt, in some
vague way, that I was nearer babyhood than the rest, and so more of
her kind. At any rate, she always seemed perfectly happy and content
when she could watch me, at any of my pursuits; and when I left the
room, the little silvery voice would call after me,--
"Nan! Nan! Nan!"
She was a full year and a half old before she began to walk, and then
she was so small and delicate that she looked as you might fancy a baby
out of fairy land would look, flitting round on her tiniest of feet,
her yellow hair glinting goldenly in every chance sunbeam, and her
wistful eyes blue as a blue flower.
How could I help loving her? Ay, how could I?
I fancy I must have loved her a little, even then, only I had grown
so in the habit of regarding her as an interloper, a rival, an alien,
who was taking from me all which had formerly been mine, that I never
owned, even in the silence of my own heart, to any softening toward her.
Father and mother were good to me beyond my deserts, and beyond my
poor words to describe. I have known, since, with what infinite love
and grief they sorrowed over me, while waiting for this evil growth in
my heart to be uprooted, as they felt sure it would be, some time. They
had the wisdom to know that reproof would be vain, and simply to love
me and be silent.
But if they loved _me_, and were to me most patient and kind, they were
devoted to little Lily, as was natural. She was so frail and so fair,
so needed their constant watchfulness, that it is not strange she had
it.
One day, when she was two years old and I was twelve, I sat in a corner
of the sitting-room, putting a dissected map together, while a lady was
calling upon my mother. She looked earnestly and long at Lily; but that
was not uncommon; the child's dainty beauty was a pleasant thing to
watch. At last, after she had risen to go, she said, as if she couldn't
help saying it,--
"Take good care of that little one, Mrs. Allen. She looks to me like
one of the children the angels love."
I saw the quick dew suffuse my mother's eyes, as she made some answer
which I failed to hear, and then went to the door with her guest.
Am I to tell all the sad and bitter truth? I understood, as well as
they did, that they thought our Lily so frail we should have hard work
to make her flourish in the cold soil of the earth; and for one moment
a feeling of evil triumph swelled my heart. When she was gone, I should
be _all_ to my father and mother, as I used to be before she came. They
would love me, when they had no one else to love.
I felt a guilty flush mounting to my cheeks, and I swept my map into
its box hastily, and got up to leave the room. As I went out of the
door Lily's voice followed me, sweetly shrill,--"Nan! Nan! Nan!" and,
for the very first time in my life, a conviction smote me that there
would be a sense of loss when that voice could never follow me again,
with its soft calling, through all the years.
The next summer was a strange, warm, oppressive summer,--the summer of
'56. With its July heats our Lily began to droop. Such care as she
had, such nursing, such love! But she had been always like a blossom
from heaven, sprung up by mistake in the rough soil of this world, and
she needed for her healing the wind which blows for ever through the
leaves of the tree of life.
She soon grew so weak that she could not run about any more, but would
lie all day, except when, for a change, my mother held her in her arms,
in a little rose-curtained crib, out from which the blue, wistful eyes
followed all our movements, with a sweet, loving, lingering look, which
I cannot describe. On me, in especial, that long gaze used to rest; and
never could I leave the room without that sweet, small voice calling
after me plaintively.
There came a day, at last, when the doctor sat half an hour by Lily's
side, watching her with grave, silent face, and then went into another
room alone with my mother. He came out first, and went away, and when
she followed him, her eyes were very red. I knew afterwards, what I
suspected the moment I saw her face, that he had been telling her that
she must make up her mind to part with her little darling.
My heart was not quite stone, after all, for it grew strangely soft and
strangely afraid then. She was going home to God, this little Lily of
heaven; and would she tell Him that I had hated, all through, the baby
sister He had given me? I went away by myself and prayed. I had said
my prayers night and morning, all my life, but this was quite another
thing, this cry of the child's heart becoming conscious of its guilt
and woe, to the pitying Father.
At last, I went to my mother. Lily was asleep, and mamma sat by her
side, pale as death, but with face that made no complaint. I knelt down
beside her.
"O mother!" I cried, "I have been so wicked,--and now I cannot undo
it! Oh, if I could! Oh, if I could only die,--I who am not fit to
live,--and let you keep Lily!"
She bent over me, and drew me into her arms, against her bosom.
"If you are not fit to live, my darling, you are not fit to die," she
said gently. "I can better part with Lily, for she is pure yet as when
God gave her to me. I have seen your sin and your suffering, and I
have known your repentance would come."
"Oh, it has, it has! Mother, how can I bear it? _Will_ she go home to
God, and tell Him I have hated her?"
"Do you think she could tell _Him_ any thing which He does not know?
But Lily has never found out what hate means. She has always loved you,
and she does not know but that all the world loves her. The pain which
your sin has caused has not rested on Lily,--thank God for that."
"But I might have made her happier,--I might have been good to
her,--and now, perhaps I shall never have any little sister any more in
all the world."
Just then the child awoke, and put out her frail little hands, with a
low, sweet call I was destined to listen for in vain through all the
empty, after years. I ran to her, and took her in my arms. She saw the
tears upon my face, and touched them with her mites of fingers.
"Naughty Nan," she said, in fond reproach, "naughty Nan, to cry,--make
Lily cry too."
And then I wiped away my tears, and tried to be cheerful; but, oh, how
heavy my heart was! and, mourn as I would, I could not bring back the
dead months and days wherein I might have loved my little sister, and
had hated her instead.
What else?
Nothing, but that, with the fading summer flowers, she, too, faded and
died. In her case was wrought no miracle of healing. "We all do fade
as the leaf;" but she had never been a strong, green leaf, tossed by
summer winds, freshened by summer rains, gay in summer sunshine. Just
a pale, sweet day-lily, that lived her little life, and died with the
sunset. And the first words she ever spoke, were the last words, also.
She opened her tender eyes after a long silence, during which she had
scarcely seemed to breathe, and they rested on me.
"Nan! Nan! Nan!" she cried, as if it were a call to follow her into the
strange, new life, the strange, new world, whither, a moment after, she
was gone.
If there has been any good in my life since then, if I have striven at
all to be tender and gentle and unselfish, let me offer such struggles
as a tribute to her memory, as one lays flowers upon an altar or a
grave. Whither she has gone, I pray God to guide my feet also, in His
own good time and way; and I shall know that I have reached the place
whither my longings tend, when I hear, soft falling through the eternal
air, her low, sweet call,--
"Nan! Nan! Nan! Welcome, Nan!"
WHAT CAME TO OLIVE HAYGARTH.
A CHRISTMAS STORY.
It was the afternoon of the 24th of December, a dull, gray afternoon,
with a sky frowning over it which was all one cloud, but from which
neither rain nor snow fell. A certain insinuating breath of cold was
in the air, more penetrating than the crisp, keen wind of the sharpest
January day.
Olive Haygarth shivered as she walked along the bleakest side of
Harrison Avenue, down town. She was making her way to Dock Square, to
carry home to a clothing store some vests which she and her mother had
just completed.
After a while she turned and walked across into Washington Street, for
an impulse came over her to see all the bright Christmas things in the
shop windows, and the gay, glad people, getting ready to keep holiday.
She had meant, when she set out on her walk, to avoid them, for
she knew that her mood was bitter enough already. She had left no
brightness behind her at home. There were but two of them, herself and
her mother, and they were poor people, with only their needles between
them and want.