DAWNING PROSPERITY.
Little James Laurence worked manfully in his new vocation. He carried
home packages of tea, pounds of sausages, and paper bags stuffed with
crackers, quicker than any boy of his size was ever known to do before.
He ran errands up and down stairs for Kate Gorman, and soon learned to
toss “Jerusha Maria” in the air with an adroitness that threw her into
an ecstasy of crowing, and set her long clothes to fluttering through
and through, like the plumage of a bird. He learned to put on her tiny
socks when she shook them from her plump, little feet; and never touched
the top of her head without trembling for the delicate spot there, which
Mrs. Smith had anxiously warned him of. He kept the child’s cradle in a
soft, monotonous jog while she slept, without complaint, though the day
was ever so bright, and the cheery sound of boys playing marbles, on the
side-walk, tempted him sorely at times.
For all this James got his board, and two dollars a week, a sum that
brought a marvellous quantity of groceries every Saturday night, as Mrs.
Smith reckoned up accounts, and sent the boy home rejoicing to spend the
Sabbath with his family.
Eva, too, had received her last instalment of wages, and Mrs. Laurence
grew stronger and stronger each day, as that heavy burden of anxiety was
lifted from her shoulders. As for Ruth, who lived in the happiness of
those around her, this gleam of sunshine revived her strength and beauty
as if she had been a flower. With the reaction of infinite relief, she
began to wonder if there was anything on earth that she could do for the
general happiness.
To say that Mrs. Smith was the good angel of this little household,
would be to cast a certain degree of ridicule on this robust,
ruddy-faced, and genial-hearted woman: for she had nothing of the angel
about her, except that sweet snow-plumed spirit of mercy that brooded in
her warm heart, as doves make a nest of soft materials, and glorify them
with the cooing music of perfect love.
No, Mrs. Smith was not an angel, by any means. She had some household
ways that angels would have considered out of place, not to mention her
name, which was the reverse of poetical to say nothing of the seraphic.
Sometimes the good woman scolded her husband roundly, and once or
twice—I tell this with infinite reluctance—she had been known to snatch
Jerusha Maria from the soft depths of her cradle, after that young lady
had cried till her face was of a lovely purple, and shake her till the
feathers would have flown, had her mother been an angel, and thus
endowed her with the plumage of a seraph.
In fact, Mrs. Smith was a kind, wholesome specimen of the middle class
American housewife, and a good friend to the Laurence family. That was
all. She had, when business grew prosperous, taken a lad from the
street, rather more impulsively than we have seen her adopt our friend
James, and believing herself to have met with success on that occasion,
was the more willing to try a new experiment of mercy. But, like a good
many other kind-hearted people, she forgot to guard herself against the
infirmities of human jealousy, and was quite reckless of the fact that
Jared Boyce received his fellow clerk with scowls of dissatisfaction,
and that sneers of disdain curled his incipient red moustache, whenever
the lad came near him.
This youth was left in charge of the store whenever Smith went out to
make purchases, and his wife was called up stairs, which happened
frequently, as time wore on, for Jerusha Maria was cutting her teeth in
a vicious state of mind, and Kate Gorman had more than she could do in
the kitchen.
Of course, this threw young James more frequently into the store, where
Jared found occasion to impose all sorts of petty indignities upon him.
These crafty annoyances the boy, too noble for complaint, bore with a
degree of manliness that threatened to baffle the object his enemy had
in view. One thing James saw clearly and felt, as only a proud,
sensitive child could, Jared Boyce did not want him about. Why?
James asked himself this question again and again, with tears in his
eyes, sometimes in the depths of the night, when a vague sense of
trouble would keep him awake, sometimes when burdened with a heavy
basket in the street; but he took counsel of no one, and bore his own
trouble in silence like a little man as he was.
After awhile things changed somewhat with the lad. Jared cast off his
morose bearing, and made some cringing advances toward cordiality, from
which the boy shrunk with sensitive dread.
One day, when James had gone out with some packages, Smith came into the
store in haste, while a countryman who had brought in a load of produce,
waited at the counter with a whip in his hand.
“Thirty-seven dollars,” said Smith, opening the money drawer and
counting some bank notes that he found there. “No need of waiting;
generally enough on hand for small amounts like this. Ha, Boyce! who has
been paying out money. I’m ten dollars short. Run up and ask the old
woman if she’s taken any. If she has, tell her to shell out, the man is
waiting!”
Boyce turned slowly, and went up stairs. He paused once or twice while
ascending, and bit his white lips, as if doubtful what course to pursue.
Then he lifted his head with a dash, ran the fingers of one hand through
his fire-red hair, and flung open the door where Mrs. Smith was sitting
with “Jerusha Maria” on her lap, rubbing her gums with the handle of a
dessert-spoon, in the desperate hope that she was aiding a refractory
tooth to cut.
“Mrs. Smith, the boss wants to know if you’ve took any money from out of
the drawer. He wants to make up a bill.”
“What, me! Goodness gracious! What do I want of money, with Jerusha
Maria crying her eyes out, and I trying my best to set her teeth of an
edge. Tell Smith not to make a fool of himself, but search his own
pockets. Dear me! will that man never have no consideration!”
“Then you haven’t got the money?” said Jared, looking over Mrs. Smith’s
head, as if he were questioning the wall.
“Money! Not a cent! Don’t bother me!” cried the dame flinging down the
spoon, and searching the child’s mouth with her motherly finger. “What
do I know about the store, with this little angel screaming like mad
with the ache of her precious gums! There, there! mother knows they buse
her darling! Oh, goodness! Kate Gorman, come here. I’m sure there’s one
coming through just under my finger; look, now.”
Kate set down a saucer she was wiping, dried her hands hastily on the
dish towel, and came forward beaming with expectation.
“Just turn her purty face to the light,” she cried, sinking on her two
knees before the child, and peering into the mouth in which sobs and
screams were half smothered. By gorry! and so it is, true enough! like
the pint of a needle agin yer finger. There, now, the swate crathur will
have some peace an’ quietness. “Boyce, go down an’ tell the master that
it has come, and not stand gauking there.”
Boyce, who had been in no haste to go down, closed the door softly, and
stood ruminating on the outside. Directly his face brightened with some
new-born thought, and he entered the store with his usual manner.
“Mrs. Smith says she hasn’t took a cent from the draw, boss.”
“Hasn’t taken a cent from the drawer!” exclaimed Smith, excitedly. “Then
where the thunder has that ten-dollar bill gone! I left three in that
identical drawer not more en half an hour ago, and now only two is left.
Who has been back of the counter since I went out?”
“Not a soul but me and Mrs. Smith’s new boy, Jim.”
Smith’s countenance fell. He went to the drawer again, drew it
completely out from under the counter, turned it bottom up, with a bang,
and once more searched every fragment of paper with care.
Then he remembered the countryman, who was waiting patiently, and
assorting out some small bills, paid him in moody silence.
Boyce was very busy all this time re-arranging boxes, and dusting the
counter; but his furtive eyes now and then turned upon Smith with the
look of a hound that fears chastisement, and his work was done in a
quick, nervous fashion, quite unusual to him.
Meantime, little Jim came in with an empty basket on his arm, bright and
radiant as a June morning. Smith lifted his eyes from the desk where he
stood, and when he saw that cheerful, honest face, his own brightened.
He had intended to question the boy, but thought of his wife, and had
not the heart to do it.
“There is another basket to be taken to Mrs. Lambert’s cook, who comes
down all this way because of one of the footmen being the cousin of my
poor dead mother; so look sharp and get the things there in time,” said
Boyce, swinging a basket up to the counter. “Tell her every article is
choice, as choice can be, such as we don’t give to common customers, by
no manner of means. There, now, heave away!”