WAITING FOR NEWS.
There is not, upon the face of the earth, more harassing trouble than
that which springs out of ignorance and suspense. Eva and Ruth Laurence
had but a wild and vague idea of the evil that had fallen on the two
most beloved members of their little household. They knew nothing of the
law, and imprisonment to them was an awful blending of suffering and
disgrace, to which the unchecked imagination lent unknown horrors.
They sat together for a time in dead silence, each afraid to speak, lest
she should add something to the distress of the other. But, as time wore
on, this stillness became intolerable. Eva sprang to her feet and began
to walk the room, with the wild restless tread of a panther in its cage;
while Ruth clasped both slender hands over her bosom, and let the tears
run unchecked, from under her closed eyelids.
“Oh, Ruth, Ruth! what must we do!” cried out Eva, wringing her hands and
wrenching them apart with impetuous force. “I cannot stay here waiting
in this way; _he_ ought not to ask it.”
“But what can we do? Ah, me! how helpless we poor girls are!” said Ruth,
opening her eyes, and wiping away the tears with her trembling hand.
“Even your strength would be wasted, and I am so weak.”
“Oh, if I had something to lift—some great load to carry—sister, sister,
I can believe now how ready persecuted women were to walk, unshod, among
hot ploughshares. I could do it to save them and bring them back to us
safe. I could! I could!”
“My sister, my own, own Eva, be patient. It would be only wasted
strength if you could do all this; be patient and wait!”
“Wait, wait! that is a woman’s destiny in this world,” said Eva, with
passionate vehemence; “but how can we—how can we? The pain of it is
driving me wild!”
“Remember,” answered Ruth, speaking softly in her sweet patience, “we
have a strong, good man at work for us. Is there no strength and hope in
that?”
“But I want to do something; I must, I must.”
“Dear Eva, what can you do? Is it nothing that we have already won such
a friend? have patience, sister.”
“Patience, Ruth, I have nothing but apprehension and fear. Think of her,
our mother, so still, so proud. Yes, yes, the proudest woman I ever saw,
with all our poverty and struggles; think of her in the hands of a
policeman—in a cell of the tombs.”
“I do think of it, and it leaves me weak as a child; but Eva, there is a
God above.”
Eva turned away from the sweet invalid with a gesture of sharp
impatience.
“Yet our mother, and the dearest, brightest, noblest boy that ever
lived, are forced from their homes, and innocent as angels, dragged like
wolves through our streets. I cannot understand it; I _cannot_
understand it!”
“Oh, Eva, Eva, have some faith in the justice of God, in the energy and
goodness of this man who has already done so much for us. I am sure he
will bring them back again!”
“But the time lengthens so. It is hours and hours since she was taken
away! All night long that poor child has been shut up in a prison. Oh,
it is terrible!”
“Ah, here is something; a carriage stops at the door. It brings us news,
good or bad,” cried Ruth, now as much excited as her sister. “Run to the
door, Eva.”
Eva had already sprung into the little entry, opened the door and met
Mrs. Smith half way from the gate.
“What, what is it? Where are they?” she enquired, breathless with dread
and impatience.
Mrs. Smith took the girl in her arms and kissed her, leaving a stain of
tears on her cheek.
“Don’t be afraid; don’t be anxious. They’ll both be here in less than no
time; I jumped into a hack which Smith will have to pay for, thank
goodness, and made the driver hurry up his horses to an extent that they
will never think of.”
“Then they are free? they are coming?”
“Free as birds, and coming along full split, no mistake about that. They
wanted me to take the empty seat, but I had not the face to do it after
Smith’s conduct; though he did melt right down and try to back out when
he saw how I took on.”
By the time this stream of words had heralded the good woman’s news, she
was in the parlor, had half lifted Ruth from her couch, and was
lavishing hearty kisses on her pale face.
“What has happened? what did they do down there? No wonder you want to
know all about it. Well, I went straight down to the Tombs, which is
just the lonesomest pile of stones inside, that you ever set eyes on;
pillars like them Sampson carried off on his shoulders, and stone rooms
that chill one like graves. Well, I wandered about among them hunting up
your mother and that precious boy, till I found them at last in a room
full of benches with a short counter along one end, and a man sitting
behind it, and there stood your mother looking stern and gray as a rock
in the winter, and there was little Jimmy a standing by her with his big
eyes full of tears, which he kept wiping away, for fear folks might see
him cry, poor darling; and that fellow Boyce had been telling his lies,
and Smith was backing him up, and things looked awful cloudy till I up
and had my say, though Smith was standing there wanting to stop me, and
Mr. Ross, my friend Mrs. Carter’s brother, come in and stood by your
mother like a monument. But I would have my say, and I did.”
“I haven’t any doubt, girls, that this speech of mine did the business;
but another woman came in and finished up the whole thing. She was Jared
Boyce’s brother’s wife. And they did the robbing and stealing, and hid
the things in your wood-house. I wish you could have seen the scamp
Boyce, when the woman told on him; he was just as gray as ashes, and all
skimped up; you wouldn’t have known him—anyway, I shouldn’t; and Smith
is just about the sheepiest man you ever sot eyes on, and wants me to
say how awful sorry he is, which I won’t; and what a fool he has been,
which I will.
“There, now! Didn’t I tell you! Here they come, all in one carriage,
just as good as new. Let me lift you up, Ruthy, and you can see ’em get
out, Mr. Ross and all, who is a gentleman, if one ever lived. There,
there!”
Trembling with joy, Ruth looked out and saw Eva darting down the front
walk with her arms extended.
Little James leaped into them and clung to her neck, covering her face
with kisses; then he made a bound into the house, and Ruth saw no more;
for his arms were around her, and his voice filled the room with its
sobbing gladness.
Directly Eva came in clinging to her mother, who moved up the walk with
her usual grave step, and put aside her bonnet and shawl before she said
a word. Then she came up to Ruth, knelt by her side, and laid her head
upon the cushion like one who throws down a heavy burden and longs to
rest herself awhile.
Gentle Ruth drew close to the old woman, and with tearful kisses,
softened the stony grayness of her lips, until they began to tremble.
Then her whole frame shook, and, clinging to the girl, she cried out,
“Oh, God be thanked, I am home again!” in a voice that made every one in
the room weep; for feelings so restrained and pent up are terrible in
their force when they once break bounds.
Mrs. Smith sat down in the corner of the room and cried piteously as she
took in the deep pathos of this reunion. She had begun to soften toward
her husband, accepting his sin upon her own shoulders; and thus sat
condemned before the family he had so grievously afflicted.
The boy James saw this, and went up to her, wiping away the tears from
his radiant eyes.
“Oh, what should we have done if you had not been our friend?” he said;
“poor mother would have been there all alone with me; but you did not
forget us.”
“Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy! You will never want to live with us again,” said the
good woman.
“Won’t I though!” answered the boy, eagerly.
“For a time,” interposed Mr. Ross; “so long as he works for any one,
Mrs. Smith; but we must put him to school and through the City College.
Don’t you think so, madam?”
“What me, _me_! You don’t mean it, Mr. Ross?”
“But I do mean it.”
“Eva, Ruth, mother! do you hear that? Hurra! This morning I was in a
prison-cell that seemed dug out of a rock; and now—now I’m going to
college! Why don’t you stop crying and say Hurra! every one of you,
Hurra!”