could guess in what direction she had gone. Tender-hearted little
Gracie cried over her departure; Mrs. Brierly felt very anxious and
uneasy, but they could only wait. And it was three days before any
news came. It was brought, at last, by an odd messenger. A market-man
stopped with his wagon before the house, and, ringing the bell, asked
to see the mistress, and was shown upstairs.
"Did a young girl, sort of delicate lookin', leave you lately, ma'am?"
"Yes, on Tuesday morning. Can you tell me any thing of her?"
"Well, you see, I get up nigh about in the middle of the night to get
things ready for market, and Wednesday morning I found a girl lying in
a dead faint on my barn floor. I called my wife, and we brought her
to, and wife asked her where she came from. 'Mrs. Brierly's, No. 775
Tremont Street,' she answered, straight enough; and then she went off
again, and the next time we brought her to there was no more sense to
be got out of her. She just kept saying over something about finding
the country, and 'it ain't there.'
"I had to come off to market, but we carried her into the house, and
in the middle of the forenoon wife see the doctor goin' by, and she
jest called to him. He said it was brain fever; and she don't get any
better; and wife said I'd better stop at 775, and if there was a Mrs.
Brierly here, why, I could let her know. We live at Highville, about
fifteen miles from Boston; and if you ask for Job Smith's you'll find
my house."
So poor little Ruthy had walked all those lonesome miles to find the
country that Gifford saw, and had found, instead, pain and weariness,
and who knew what more?
That day Mrs. Brierly drove out there, and took Nurse Morris with her;
Ruthy recognized neither of them, and at length Mrs. Brierly drove
sadly away, leaving Nurse Morris behind to care for the sick child, as
busy Mrs. Job Smith, with all her kindliness, was unable to do.
And after a while the fever wore itself out, and Ruthy, a white wraith
of a girl, was carried back into the chamber of peace, where the
country Gifford saw was hanging on the wall. But the days went by, and
the spring came slowly up that way, and the young summer followed,
and Ruthy was still a pale, white wraith, and grew no rosier and no
stronger.
"Do get well, Ruthy," loving little Gracie used to say, "and we'll take
you to find the country." But Ruthy would shake her head with a slow,
mournful motion, and answer,--
"No use, Miss Gracie, it is in the picture, but it ain't anywhere
else."
And by and by they began to know that Ruthy would never go where
pleasant paths led through the wood's green enchantment, or peaceful
meadows smiled in the summer sunshine. Sorrow and privation and
weariness had done their work too well, and the little heart, that
beat so much too fast now, would stop beating soon. But Ruthy was very
happy. The unrest that had possessed her before she went to find the
country was all over. She had tried her experiment, and found out, as
she thought, that the true country was not to be reached by earthly
winding ways, and she was content to watch it as Gifford painted it,
and dream her silent dreams, which no one knew, as she watched.
One night when Gracie bade her good-night and danced away, she looked
after her with the old, wistful wonder in her eyes, and then looked up
at Mrs. Brierly.
"How beautiful God can make children, ma'am. I think they'll _all_ be
so, in the true country." Then reaching forward she took Mrs. Brierly's
hand and touched it for the first time with her humble, grateful lips.
"Oh, ma'am," she said, "you are so dear and good."
The next morning, when they found her lying still, she was whiter
than ever. She would never speak again to tell her disappointment or
her joy, but a wonderful smile, a smile of triumph, was frozen on her
young, wistful mouth, and Mrs. Brierly, looking at her, stooped to kiss
Gracie's tears away, and said,--
"Do not cry, my darling,--I think, at last, Ruthy has found the true
country."
JOB GOLDING'S CHRISTMAS.
It was very strange, thought old Job Golding, that he couldn't
be master of his own mind. He had lived a great many years, and
neither remorse nor memory had ever been in the habit of disturbing
him; but now it seemed to him as if the very foundations of his
life were breaking up. He was through with his day's work,--he had
dined comfortably,--he sat in an easy-chair, in a luxurious room
whose crimson hangings shut out the still cold of the December
afternoon,--for the 24th of December it was. He was all ready to enjoy
himself. How singular that this state of things should remind him of a
coming time when his life work would be all done,--even as his day's
work was all done now,--when he would be ready to sit down in the
afternoon and look over the balance sheet of his deeds. How curiously
the old days came trooping in slow procession before him.
His dead wife; he had not loved her much when she was with him, but
how vivid was his memory of her now! He could see her moving round the
house, noiseless as a shadow, never intruding on him, after he had once
or twice answered her gruffly, but going on her own meek, still ways,
with her face growing whiter every day. He began to understand, as he
looked back, why her strength had failed and she had been ready, when
her baby came, to float out on the tide and let it drift her into God's
haven. She had had enough to eat and to drink, but he saw now that he
had left her heart to starve. He seemed to see her white, still face,
as he looked at it the last time before they screwed down the coffin
lid, with the dumb reproach frozen on it, the eyes, that would never
again plead vainly, closed for ever.
He recalled how passionately the three-days-old baby cried in another
room, just at that moment, moving all the people gathered at the
funeral with a thrill of pity for the poor little motherless morsel.
She _was_ a passionate, wilful baby, all through her babyhood, he
remembered. She wanted--missed without knowing what the lack was--the
love which her mother would have given her, and protested against fate
with all the might of her lungs. But, as soon as she grew old enough to
understand how useless it was, _she_ had grown quiet, too; just like
her mother. He recalled her, all through her girlhood, a shy, still
girl, always obedient and submissive, but never drawing very near him.
Did she have tastes, he wondered--wants, longings? She never told him.
But suddenly, when she was eighteen, the old, passionate spirit that
had made her cry so when she was a baby must have awakened again, he
thought; for she fell in love then, and married in defiance of his
wishes. He remembered her standing proudly before him, and asking,--
"Father, do you know any thing against Harry Church?"
"Yes," he had answered wrathfully; "I know that he is as poor as Job
was when he sat among the ashes; he can't keep a wife."
"Any thing else, father?" looking him steadily in the eye.
"No, that's enough," he had thundered; "and I'll tell you, besides,
that if you marry him you must lie in the bed you will make. My doors
will never open to you again, never."
He met with a will as strong as his own that time. She _did_ marry
Harry Church, and went away with him from her father's house. She had
written home more than once afterwards, but he had sent the letters
all back unopened. He wished, to-day, that he knew what had been in
them; whether she had been suffering for any thing. He wondered why he
had opposed the marriage so much. Harry Church had been a clerk in his
store; faithful, intelligent, industrious, only--poor. In that word lay
the head and front of his offending. He, Job Golding, was rich,--had
been rich all his lifetime,--but what special thing had riches done for
him? He was an old man now, and all alone. "All alone;" he kept saying
that over and over, with a sort of vague self-pity.
And all this time a message was on its way to him.
He heard a ring at the door, but he went on with his thoughts, and did
not trouble himself about it. Meantime, two persons had been admitted
into the hall below; a man and a little girl, eight years old, perhaps.
Her companion took off her hood and her warm wrappings, and the child
stood there,--a dainty, delicate creature,--her golden curls drooping
softly round her face, with its large blue eyes and parted scarlet
lips. The housekeeper had come into the hall, and she turned pale as
she saw that little face.
"Miss Amy's child," she said to the man, nervously. "It is as much as
my place is worth to let her come in here."
"You are Mrs. Osgood, are you not?" said the little girl, looking at
her.
"Hear the blessed lamb! Who in this world told you there _was_ a Mrs.
Osgood?"
"Mamma. You loved mamma, didn't you? She said you were always so kind
to her."
"Loved your ma? Well, I _did_ love her. The old house has never been
the same since she went out of it."
"Then you'll let me go up alone and see grandpa? That is what mamma
said I was to do."
Mrs. Osgood hesitated a moment, then love and memory triumphed over
fear, and she said,--
"Yes, you shall. Heaven forbid I should hinder you! Go right upstairs
and open the first door."
The man who had come with her sat down in the hall to wait, and the
little figure, with its gleaming, golden hair, tripped on alone.
She opened the door softly, and went in. She did not speak; perhaps
the stern-looking old man sitting there awed her to silence. She
just stepped up to him and handed him a letter. He took it, scarcely
noticing, so busy was he with his thoughts, at the hand of what strange
messenger. He looked at the outside. It was his daughter's writing.
Ten years ago he had sent her last letter back unopened; but this
one,--what influence apart from himself moved him to read it? It was
not long, but it commenced with "Dear father." He had never been a dear
father to her, he thought.
She had waited all these silent years, she told him, because she was
determined never to write to him again until they were rich enough for
him to know that she did not write from any need of his help. They had
passed these ten years in the West, and Heaven had prospered them. Her
husband was a rich man, now; and she wanted from her father only his
love,--wanted only that death should not come between them, and either
of them go to her mother's side without having been reconciled to the
other.
"Let _her_ lips speak to you from the grave," she wrote; "her lips,
which you must have loved once, and which never grew old or lost their
youth's brightness,--let them plead with you to be reconciled to her
child. Surely, you will not turn away from the messenger I send,--your
own grandchild."
The messenger,--he had forgotten about her. He turned and she was
standing there, like a spirit, on his hearthstone, with her white face
and her gleaming golden hair. He looked at her, and saw her father's
broad, full brow and thoughtful eyes, and below them the sweetness of
her mother's smile. His grandchild--his! His heart throbbed chokingly.
He grew hungry to clasp her,--to feel her soft arms clinging round his
neck, her tender lips kissing away the furrows of his hard life from
his face. But he feared to startle her. He tried to speak gently,--he,
to whom gentleness was so new and strange.
"Come here, little girl," he said; and she went up to him fearlessly.
"Can you tell me how old you are, and what your name is?"
"I am eight, grandpapa, and my name is Amy."
Another Amy! He felt the great sobs rising up from his heart, but he
choked them back.
"What have they told you about me?" he asked her anxiously. Could it be
possible, he wondered, that they had not taught her to hate him?
"They always told me that you were far away toward where the sun rose;
and if I were good they would fetch me to see you some day. And every
night I say in my prayers, 'God bless papa and mamma, and God bless
grandpapa.'"
"Why _didn't_ they fetch you; what made them let you come alone?"
"Mamma said she would surprise you with your big grandchild. They are
waiting at the hotel, and John is down-stairs. They want you to come
back with me. Will you, grandpapa?"
Mrs. Osgood looked on in wonder, as her master came downstairs and put
on his overcoat,--came down holding the child's hand in his, her golden
hair floating beside him. Was that old Job Golding?
He stepped into the carriage in which careful Mistress Amy had sent her
messenger. The horses did not go fast enough. He would have been in a
fever of impatience, but the child's hand in his quieted him. Through
it all he was wondering vaguely what it meant,--whether he were his own
old self, or some one else.
At last they were there, and the child led him in,--up the long hotel
stairs, across hall and corridor,--until, at length, she opened a door
and said cheerily,--
"Mamma, here's grandpapa."
His head swam. He was fain to sit down, and there were his own Amy's
arms about his neck. Why had he never known what he lost, in losing the
sweetness of her love, through all these vanished years? He held her
fast now, and he heard her voice close to his ear:--
"Father, are we reconciled at last?"
"I don't know, daughter, until you've told me whether you've forgiven
me."
"There need be no talk about forgiveness," she said. "You went
according to your own light. It is enough that God has brought us
together again in peace. I thought that no one could resist my little
Amy, least of all her grandpapa."
He looked up, and the child stood by, silently; the firelight
glittering in her golden hair, her face shining strangely sweet. He
put out his arms and drew her into them, close--where no child, not
even his own, had ever nestled before. Oh, how much he had missed in
life! he thought. He felt her clinging hold round his neck,--her kisses
dropped upon his face like the pitying dew from heaven, and he--_was_
it himself, or another soul in his place?
"Here, father," Amy's voice had a cheerful ring to it, and her happy
married life had made of her a fine, contented, matronly-appearing
woman, "here are Harry and the boys waiting to speak to you."
He shook his son-in-law's hand heartily. Old feuds, old things,
were over now, and all was become new. Then he looked at the
boys,--six-years-old Hal, three-years-old Geordie,--brave, merry little
fellows, of whom he should be proud some day; only they could never be
to him quite like this girl in his arms,--his first-found grandchild.
He sat there among them, surrounded by the peace and warmth of their
household love, and felt as if a new life had come. He did not go away
until long after, by the rules of any well-ordered nursery, those three
pairs of bright little eyes should have been closed in sleep; but they
must sit up to see the last of grandpapa. When, at length, he went, he
told them that they must all come home to him on the morrow,--there
must be no more staying at hotels, when his big, lonesome house was
waiting for them.
"To-morrow is Christmas," his daughter said, half doubtfully.
"All the better. If Christmas was never kept in my house, it ought to
be. Come round to dinner,--three o'clock sharp,--and bring all the
boxes with you. That will give you time to pack up, and Mrs. Osgood
time to get your rooms ready."
"Boxes and boys,--won't they be too much for you, father?"
"When they are I'll tell you,"--with a last touch of the old gruffness.
Then he went out on the street, and began looking for Christmas
gifts. It was new business for him, but he went into it earnestly and
anxiously. It was so late, and every one seemed so busy, he thought it
would never do to trust to the shopmen for sending things home. So he
perambulated the streets like a bewildered Santa Claus,--and went home,
at last, laden with books and toys and jewels and bon-bons,--with
a doll that could walk, and a parrot that could talk, and no end of
sweets and confections.
He called Mrs. Osgood to help him put them away, and when they were
all disposed of he said, with a curious attempt at maintaining his old
sternness and dignity, which caused the good woman a secret smile,--
"Mrs. Osgood, I hope you will do yourself and me credit to-morrow. My
daughter, Mrs. Church, is coming home with her husband and children,
and I want the best Christmas dinner you can get up, to be on the table
at a quarter-past three."
Mrs. Osgood had always loved Miss Amy, in the old days, and had been
hoping against hope, all these years, for the reconciliation which
had come now. So her heart was in her task, and the dinner was a
master-piece,--a real work of genius, as she used to say, when she told
the story afterwards.
Amy, and Amy's husband, and the roystering boys, and, best of all, the
little girl close at grandpapa's side, with her happy eyes shining, and
her golden hair gleaming, and her quiet, womanly little ways,--what
a jubilant party they were! And among them all Job Golding saw, or
fancied that he saw, another face, over which, almost thirty years ago,
he had seen the grave-sod piled,--a face sad and wistful no longer, but
bright with a strange glory. No one else saw _her_, he knew, for the
gay laughs were going round, but close at his side she seemed to stand;
and he heard, or fancied that he heard, a whisper from her parted lips,
which only his ear caught,--the Christmas anthem,--
"Peace on earth and good will toward men."
MY COMFORTER.
I got up and hung a shawl over the canary's cage to keep him quiet. He
had been singing all day, till it seemed to me I could not bear it any
longer. That morning the doctor had told me that my mother would never
be any better. She was liable, he said, to die at any time. At the
longest, it was only a question of days or weeks. And my mother was all
I had in the world.
My father had been dead a year. In his lifetime we had lived in a
pleasant country home. He had been employed in the county bank, and we
had lived most comfortably, and even with some pretensions to elegance.
I had been sent to school, and learned a little French, a little music,
and something of art. I had, too, a great deal of skill in fancy work,
and had been used to find in that and my painting my amusements.
Indeed, we all had what are called elegant tastes,--tastes which suited
a much larger income than ours, and we indulged them. This was unwise,
perhaps. People said so, at any rate, when my father died suddenly, and
left us with no property and no dependence save our home.
It was to escape alike their censure and their pity, as much as because
I fancied I could find more openings for employment, that I persuaded
mother to join me in selling our little place, and remove to New York.
She was willing enough to do this. I think that it was a relief to
her to go away from all the familiar sights and sounds which kept so
constantly before her the memory of the dead husband who had made her
life among them so blessed. She fancied, perhaps, that when she was
among unfamiliar things the first bitterness of her grief would wear
away. But with her, as it proved, change of place was only change of
pain. She was not made of the stuff to which forgetfulness is possible.
Our home and furniture brought us a little over three thousand
dollars, and with this sum we went to New York. In spite of my mourning
for my father I had the elasticity of youth, and I did not make this
removal, enter into this wide, strange, new life, without my share of
the high hopes and brilliant anticipations of youth.
We went first to a hotel, and then looked up a boarding-place in a
quiet, unpretentious street, suited to our means. We expected to use
two or three hundred dollars before we got well established; and then
I hoped to earn enough to keep us, with the help of the interest of
the three thousand we should still have remaining, without encroaching
upon the principal. I might have succeeded, perhaps,--for I was not
long in procuring fancy work from two fashionable trimming stores,--if,
when we had been there a little while, my mother's health had not begun
seriously to decline. I think she made an effort to live on, after all
the joy of her life was dead, for my sake; but she failed, and by and
by she grew weary and gave up the struggle.
Of course her illness brought upon us new expenses. I would have for
her the best medical advice, however she might protest against it as
useless; and there were various little comforts and luxuries that I
could not and would not deny myself the pleasure of procuring for her.
So we were gradually going behindhand all the time. This had troubled
me a little; but now that the doctor had spoken my mother's doom, the
matter of dollars and cents faded into utter insignificance. There
would be more than enough to take care of her to the last, and after
that I could not bring myself to think. I would have shuddered at the
thought of self-destruction, but I believe the prayer was in my mind,
every moment in the day, that God would let me care for her till the
end, and then lie down and die beside her. So I carried back the work
I had from Richmond's and La Pierre's, and spent all my time with
her,--my darling.
Often when I tried to talk with her, the thought how soon she would be
past all hearing would rise up and choke me, and I would turn away to
hide the sudden rush of tears. It was on Wednesday the doctor had told
me what I must expect; and up to Saturday night I had kept it from her,
trying my poor best to wear a cheerful face. That night I sat beside
her in the twilight. She was on the lounge, bolstered up with pillows,
and I on a low hassock, which brought my face on a level with hers. We
had been silent a long time, since the last ray of sunset touched our
western windows, and now the dusk had fallen so that we could see each
other no longer. At last out of the shadows came her voice, clear and
sweet,--
"Beyond the sowing and the reaping,
Beyond the watching and the weeping,
Beyond the waking and the sleeping,
I shall be soon."
Then she put out her hand and touched my wet face.
"Do not grieve, my darling," she said,--oh, how tenderly,--"because I
am going home. The only pang I feel is for you, and it will not be long
before you come."
"It may be years," I said, bitterly. "I am young and strong. Oh, I wish
I wasn't,--if God would only take me too, and not make me stay in this
great, empty world without you!"
"I think, darling, He will send you a comforter."
"Oh, I am not so bad that I do not want His Spirit. I do believe; I do
try to follow the dear Lord; but I want a human comforter,--something
to see and feel,--tender lips, gentle fingers. The flesh is so weak."
"And I meant a human comforter. I believe He will send you one in His
own time and way,--when you learn, perhaps, to forget yourself in
helping some one still more desolate."
"As if that could be. O, mother, when you are gone there won't be in
the whole wide world such a lonesome, aching heart as mine."
"People always say that, dear; always think there is no sorrow like
their sorrow, until God teaches them better, either by making their own
burden heavier, or by showing them how to help some one else. God grant
it may be this last with you, Bessie."
"But is there no hope, mother?" I said, with a wild longing for a
little of the comfort a doubt would give.
"I think none. Dr. West told you so Wednesday, did he not? and you have
been trying to keep it from me,--as if I could not read it in your
face, every time you looked at me."
All reserve broke down then. I was in her arms, sobbing and crying on
her bosom; I that so soon would have no mother's bosom for my refuge
any more for ever.
The doctor had said her life was a question of days or weeks. She lived
four weeks after he told me that, and then one night she talked with
me a long, long time. At last she said she was tired, and would go to
sleep. Then she kissed me, as she always did, and turned her gentle
face toward the wall. She awoke again in another world than ours. But
by the calm blessedness of the smile on the dead face I knew that her
soul had departed in peace. It was a smile that made her young and fair
again, as the mother I remembered away back in my childhood.
Oh, what a desolate funeral that was! I had no friends near enough to
give them any claim to be sent for, and I wanted no one. I made all the
arrangements myself, and the third day I buried my dead. I remember the
minister, after the funeral rites were over, stopped a moment beside
the grave to speak a few words of sympathy to me, sole mourner. But I
was deaf with sorrow. I made no answer, and presently he turned away.
I don't know how long I stood there. After a while my driver came up,
touching his hat, respectfully, and asked,--
"Would ye plaise to start soon, miss?" and mechanically I went toward
the carriage, and he put me in and shut the door. So I went back to the
desolate room where she had died.