IN THE MORNING.
A sudden burst of sunshine had come in on the Laurence family,
brightening the darkness around them. It glinted through the white
curtains, where they floated over the window, as the morning dawned upon
them. At daylight every one was astir and full of cheerful activity; the
cloud, which had so long hung blackly over that family, had turned its
silver lining, and the very edge seemed radiant.
The boy was up earliest of all, building a fire in the stove, and making
ready for his mother to come down. He was singing to himself all the
time, while a bright tin tea kettle kept up a murmuring accompaniment,
and softened the air with its vapory steam.
Then the good housewife came down, pale, gaunt, but unconsciously almost
smiling, and Eva followed, supporting Ruth with both arms, until the
invalid dropped into a chair, and drew a breath of exquisite
satisfaction, as she looked over the little table her mother’s deft
hands had spread.
There was no prodigal display at this cheerful meal; but to sit once
more at a table, even sparsely spread, was a delight to the whole
family. So thankful smiles dawned softly on those wan faces, and
pleasant looks were cast through the window, when Mrs. Smith parted the
purple morning glories with her two hands, and called out in a kind,
cheery voice,
“Well, good folks, how do you find yourselves this morning?”
Little Jim gave a leap from his seat, opened the door, and let in Mrs.
Smith, with a gush of fresh air, that seemed to set all the
morning-glory bells to trembling with delight as they peeped into the
room and tossed drops of dew over the window-sill.
“There, now, that’s something like!” said the dame, gloating over the
scene as if every living soul at the table were her own especial
property. “Mercy on us! how we have all chirked up since last night.
Well, Jimmy, what about the coal?”
“Oh! I’m on hand!” answered the boy, pushing up the sleeves of his
jacket. “That beef-steak has made me tough as an oak-knot and springy as
a steel-trap. Just show me the thing that is to be done, and see if I
don’t do it.”
The good dame regarded the delicate child with infinite compassion, as
he made his little boast.
“Yes, yes,” she said, “you shall do anything you want to by-and-by, when
good living has toughened you up. But just now we must give you light
jobs, such as carrying home single parcels, and helping a little at the
counter, maybe now and then—but you mightn’t like that?”
“Like what? Why, Mrs. Smith, I’m just in for liking anything!”
“But then you are so manly, and this is girls’ work.”
A flush of scarlet came over that bright face, but it passed away in an
instant; and holding up his arms, James asked the good woman if those
hands and wrists were not slender and white as any girl’s.
At this Mrs. Smith laughed till her sides shook, and declared that, boy
or girl, he was a splendid little fellow as the sun ever shone on; and
if Mrs. Laurence felt as if she could spare him he might come up to the
grocery, and when there was no light jobs for him to do, there was the
cradle to rock, and the baby to tend up stairs.
Again the hot scarlet swept its way to the lad’s face, and a choking
sense of shame rose to his throat; but he conquered the rebellious
feelings like a hero, and protested, half crying, when he meant to
laugh, that tending a baby must be prime fun, and rocking a cradle like
rowing a boat. Just what he had wanted to do all his life. Besides, Mrs.
Smith’s baby was such a first-class young one he wondered that any girl
could be strong enough to hold her.
“Then it is all settled, Jimmy, dear!” exclaimed the good wife. “Smith
couldn’t make much of an opening for a little chap as had got to learn
the business before he could be of any use; so Kate Gorman and I thought
how handy it would be to have some one about the baby now and then, just
for that, and running the fancy errands, as I call them,—John Smith
don’t like lazy people about him, and we musn’t eat the bread of
idleness, you know, James.”
“I want to earn every mouthful of bread I eat,” said the boy, bravely,
“and enough for others, too. If you’ll set me to washing dishes and
peeling potatoes, I’ll try and do it well. See if I don’t.”
“Come along, then,” cried the woman, taking his hand with a firm clasp.
“You’re willing, Mrs. Laurence?”
The poor, pale mother turned wistfully to her boy, who looked her firmly
in the eyes, and smiled as if rocking cradles and tending babies were
the great aim and glory of his young life.
“It will be in the house, and—and you’ll be a mother to him, Mrs.
Smith?”
“Won’t I?” answered the dame.
“And you will let him come home sometimes?”
“Every night of his life, and three times a day, if you want him.
Goodness gracious! you don’t expect that we intend to work a little
fellow like that every hour in the twenty-four. I didn’t come here like
a highway robber to run off with your son, and make a white slave of
him; but just to give him what he seems to want, something to do, and
something to eat.”
“And I’m in a hurry to begin,” said James, piling up his school-books on
a set of hanging-shelves over the fire-place, and resolutely suppressing
a big sigh that rose to his lips. “Perhaps the coal would have been too
much for me. At any rate, I can do the other. But I say, Mrs. Smith?”
“Well, Jimmy. Just thought of something, I see.”
“Can I sleep at home? Ruth there is awful timid, and is sure to lie
awake without a man in the house. Besides, mother, who has always been
used to it, and Eva, who likes to have me about.”
“Indeed, I do, darling!” cried Eva, kissing the bright, young face; and
turning to Mrs. Smith, she said, tenderly, “He does seem to be a
protection, and we all love him so.”
“Of course, you do! He’s just the lovingest little shaver in the world!
I only hope that John Smith, junior, will be up to his mark, which I
think he will, being bright as a new dollar, if sich things are in these
greenbacky days. As for sleeping at home, I never had any other idea.
Now, come away, Jimmy, or something else will turn up; and my time is
short, having left Kate Gorman tending Jerusha Maria, and breakfast on
the table, which Smith won’t touch a mouthful of till I am there to cut
up and pour out, being of that loving nature—though he does, sometimes,
cut up a little rusty with customers. Come, Jimmy.”
James pulled down his sleeves, and put on his cap, after which he kissed
his mother and sisters with clinging affection, as if he were starting
on a whaling voyage, and marched off to the grocery, side by side with
Mrs. Smith, who stopped in the store long enough to fill his pockets
with nuts and raisins. Then she took him up stairs, and laid the baby
she called Jerusha Maria into his arms, and taught him, with brief
scolding, how to arrange his knees, so that the little curly head and
the feet, in their tiny worsted socks, should not come too closely
together, while the rest of that plump body dropped through, and was
ignominiously doubled up, which happened, I am ashamed to say, more than
was proper during the first half-hour of the lad’s promotion.
At these times Mrs. Smith would turn very red, and wonder if she had
done quite wisely in the first outburst of her warm-hearted charity.
While Kate Gorman paused in her work now and then to shake out the
child’s long skirts and settle her comfortable, where she could bury her
chubby hands in the boy’s hair, and refresh herself with a vigorous pull
now and then, all of which James Laurence endured with the smiling
stoicism of a young Indian.