If any fair proportion of my readers were likely to be members of my own
profession, I should expect the above announcement to call forth more
sympathetic handkerchiefs than have waved in unison for many a day. But
I don’t expect anything of the sort; I know my business too well to
suppose for a moment that any boarding-house proprietor, no matter how
full her rooms, or how good pay her boarders are, ever finds time to
read a story. Even if they did, they’d be so lost in wonder at one of
themselves finding time to _write_ a story, that they’d forget the whole
plot and point of the thing.
I can’t help it, though—I _must_ tell about poor dear Mrs. Perry, even
if I run the risk of cook’s overdoing the beef, so that Mr. Bluff, who
is English, and the best of pay, can’t get the rare cut he loves so
well. Mrs. Perry’s story has run in my head so long, that it has made me
forget to take change from the grocer at least once to my knowledge, and
even made me lose a good boarder, by showing a room before the bed was
made up. They say that poets get things out of their heads by writing
them down, and I don’t know why boarding-house keepers can’t do the same
thing.
It’s about three months since Mrs. Perry came here to board. I’m very
sure about the time, and it was the day I was to pay my quarter’s rent,
and to-morrow will be quarter-day again; thank the Lord I’ve got the
money ready.
I _didn’t_ have the money ready then, though, and the landlord left his
temper behind him, instead of a receipt, and I was just having a little
cry in my apron, and asking the Lord _why_ it was that a poor lone woman
who was working her finger-ends off should have such a hard time, when
the door-bell rang.
“That’s the landlord again. _I_ know his ways, the mean wretch!” said I
to myself, hastily rubbing my eyes dry, and making up before the mirror
in the hat-tree as fierce a face as I could. Then I snatched open the
door, and tried to make believe my heart _wasn’t_ in my mouth.
But the landlord wasn’t there, and I’ve always been a little sorry, for
I was looking so savage, that a wee little woman, who _was_ at the door,
trembled all over, and started to go down the steps.
“Don’t go, ma’am,” I said, very quickly, with the best smile I could put
on (and I think I’ve been long enough in the business to give the right
kind of a smile to a person that looks like a new boarder). “Don’t go—I
thought it was—I thought it was—somebody else that rang. Come in, do.”
She looked as if I was doing her a great honor, and I thought that
looked like poor pay, but I was too glad at not seeing the landlord just
then to care if I did lose _one_ week’s board; besides, she didn’t look
as if she _could_ eat much.
“I see you advertise a small bedroom to let,” said she, looking
appealing-like, as if she was going to beat me down on the strength of
being poor. “How much is it a week?”
“Eight dollars,” said I, rather shortly. Seven dollars was all I
expected to get, but I put on one, so as to be beaten down without
losing anything. “I can get eight from a single gentleman, the only
objection being that he wants to keep a dog in the back yard.”
“Oh, I’ll pay it,” said she, quickly taking out her pocketbook. “I’ll
take it for six weeks, anyhow.”
I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I made up my mind to read
a penitential passage of Scripture as soon as I closed the bargain with
her, but, remembering the Book says to be reconciled to your brother
before laying your gift on the altar, I says, quick as I could, for fear
that if I thought over it again I couldn’t be honest:
“You shall have it for seven, my dear madame, if you’re going to stay so
long, and I’ll do your washing without extra charge.”
This last I said to punish myself for suspecting an innocent little
lady.
“Oh, thank you—thank you _very_ much,” said she, and then she began to
cry.
I knew _that_ wasn’t for effect, for we were already agreed on terms,
and she had her pocketbook open showing more money that _I_ ever have at
a time, unless it’s rent-day.
She tried to stop crying by burying her face in her hands, and it made
her look so much smaller and _so_ pitiful that I picked her right up, as
if she was a baby, and kissed her. Then she cried harder, and I—a woman
over forty, too—couldn’t find anything better to do than to cry with
her.
I knew her whole story within five minutes—knew it perfectly well before
I’d fairly shown her the room and got it aired.
They were from the West, and had been married about a year. She hadn’t a
relative in the world, but _his_ folks had friends in Philadelphia, so
he’d got a place as clerk in a big clothing factory, at twelve hundred
dollars a year. They’d been keeping house, just as cozy as could be in
four rooms, and were as happy as anybody in the world, when one night he
didn’t come home.
She was almost frantic about him all night long, and first thing in the
morning she was at the factory. She waited until all the clerks got
there, but George—his name was George Perry—didn’t come. The proprietor
was a good-hearted man, and went with her to the police-office, and they
telegraphed all over the city; but there didn’t seem to be any such man
found dead or drunk, or arrested for anything.
She hadn’t heard a word from him since. Her husband’s family’s friends
were rich—the stuck up brutes!— but they seemed to be annoyed by her
coming so often to ask if there wasn’t any other way of looking for him,
so she, like the modest, frightened little thing she was, staid away
from them. Then somebody told her that New York was the place everybody
went to, so she sold all her furniture and pawned almost all her
clothes, and came to New York with about fifty dollars in her pocket.
“What I’ll do when that’s gone I don’t know,” said she, commencing to
cry again, “unless I find George. I won’t live on _you_, though, ma’am,”
she said, lifting her face up quickly out of her handkerchief; “I won’t,
indeed. I’ll go to the poorhouse first. But——”
Then she cried worse than before, and I cried, too, and took her in my
arms, and called her a poor little thing, and told her she shouldn’t go
to any poorhouse, but should stay with me and be my daughter.
I don’t know how I came to say it, for, goodness knows, I find it hard
enough to keep out of the poorhouse myself, but I did say it, and I
meant it, too.
Her things were all in a little valise, and she soon had the room to
rights, and when I went up again in a few minutes to carry her a cup of
tea, she pointed to her husband’s picture which she had hung on the
wall, and asked me if I didn’t think he was very handsome.
I said yes, but I’m glad she looked at the tea instead of me, for I
believe she’d seen by my face that I didn’t like her George. The fact
is, men look very differently to their wives or sweethearts than they do
to older people and to boarding-house keepers. There was nothing vicious
about George Perry’s face, but if he’d been a boarder of mine, I’d have
insisted on my board promptly—not for fear of his trying to cheat me,
but because if he saw anything else he wanted, he’d spend his money
without thinking of what he owed.
I felt so certain that he’d got into some mischief or trouble, and was
afraid or ashamed to come back to his wife, that I risked the price of
three ribs of prime roasting beef in the following “Personal”
advertisement:
“GEORGE P.—Your wife don’t know anything about it, and is dying
to see you. Answer through Personals.”
But no answer came, and his wife grew more and more poorly, and I
couldn’t help seeing what was the matter with her. Then her money ran
out, and she talked of going away, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I just
took her to my own room, which was the back parlor, and told her she
wasn’t to think again of going away; that she was to be my daughter, and
I would be her mother, until she found George again.
I was afraid, for _her_ sake, that it meant we were to be with each
other for ever, for there was no sign of George.
She wrote to his family in the West, but _they_ hadn’t heard anything
from him or about him, and they took pains not to invite her there, or
even to say anything about giving her a helping hand.
There was only one thing left to do, and that was to pray, and pray I
_did_, more constantly and earnestly than I ever did before, although,
the good Lord knows there _have_ been times, about quarter-day, when I
haven’t kept much peace before the Throne.
Finally, one day Mrs. Perry was taken unusually bad, and the doctor had
to be sent for in a hurry. We were in her room—the doctor and Mrs. Perry
and I—I was endeavoring to comfort and strengthen the poor thing, when
the servant knocked, and said a lady and gentleman had come to look at
rooms.
I didn’t _dare_ to lose boarders, for I’d had three empty rooms for a
month, so I hurried into the parlor. I was almost knocked down for a
second, for the gentleman was George Perry, and no mistake, if the
picture his wife had was to be trusted.
In a second more I was cooler and clearer-headed than I ever was in my
life before. I felt more like an angel of the Lord than a boarding-house
keeper.
“Kate,” said I, to the servant “show the lady all the rooms.”
Kate stared, for I’d never trusted her, or any other girl, with such
important work, and she knew it. She went though, followed by the lady,
who, though she seemed a weak, silly sort of thing, I _hated_ with all
my might. Then I turned quickly, and said:
“Don’t you want a room for your wife, too, George Perry?”
He stared at me a moment, and then turned pale and looked confused. Then
he tried to rally himself, and he said:
“You seem to know me, ma’am.”
“Yes,” said I; “and I know Mrs. Perry, too; and if ever a woman needed
her husband she does _now_, even if her husband _is_ a rascal.”
He tried to be angry, but he couldn’t. He walked up and down the room
once or twice, his face twitching all the time, and then he said, a word
or two at a time:
“I wish I could—poor girl!—God forgive me!—what _can_ I do?—I wish I was
dead!”
“You wouldn’t be any use to _any_body then but the Evil One, George
Perry, and you’re not ready to see _him_ just yet,” said I.
Just then there came a low, long groan from the backroom, and at the
same time some one came into the parlor. I was too excited to notice who
it was; and George Perry, when he heard the groan, stopped short and
exclaimed:
“Good God! who’s that?”
“Your wife,” said I, almost ready to scream, I was so wrought up.
He hid his face in his hands, and trembled all over.
There was half a minute’s silence—it seemed half an hour—and then we
heard a long, thin wail from a voice that hadn’t ever been heard on
earth before.
“What’s that?” said Perry, in a hoarse whisper, his eyes almost starting
out of his head, and hands thrown up.
“Your baby—just born,” said I. “Will you take rooms for your family
_now_, George Perry?” I asked.
“_I_ sha’n’t stand in the way,” said a voice behind me.
I turned around quickly, just in time to see, with her eyes full of
tears, the woman who had come with George go out the door and shut the
hall-door behind her.
“Thank God!” said George, dropping on his knees.
“Amen!” said I, hurrying out of the parlor and locking the door behind
me.
I thought if he wanted to pray while on his knees he shouldn’t be
disturbed, while if he should suddenly be tempted to follow his late
companion, _I_ shouldn’t be held at the Judgment day for any share of
the guilt.
I found the doctor bustling about, getting ready to go, and Mrs. Perry
looking very peaceful and happy, with a little bundle hugged up close to
her.
“I guess the Lord will bring him _now_,” said Mrs. Perry, “if it’s only
to see his little boy.”
“Like enough, my dear,” said I, thanking the Lord for opening the
question, for my wits were all gone by this time, and I hadn’t any more
idea of what to do than the man in the moon; “but,” said I, “He won’t
bring him till you’re well, and able to bear the excitement.”
“Oh, I could bear it any time now,” said she, very calmly, “It would
seem just as natural as could be to have him come in and kiss me, and
see his baby and bless it.”
“Would it?” I asked, with my heart all in a dance. “Well, trust the Lord
to do just what’s right.”
I hurried out and opened the parlor-door. There stood George Perry,
changed so I hardly knew him. He seemed years older; his thick lips
seemed to have suddenly grown thin, and were pressed tightly together,
and there was such an appealing look from his eyes.
“Be very careful now,” I whispered, “and you may see them. She expects
you, and don’t imagine anything has gone wrong.”
I took him into the room, and she looked up with a face like what I hope
the angels have. I didn’t see anything more, for my eyes filled up all
of a sudden, so I hurried up-stairs into an empty room, and spent half
an hour crying and thanking the Lord.
There was a pretty to-do at the dinner table that day. I’d intended to
have _souffle_ for desert, and I always make my own _souffles_; but I
forgot everything but the Perrys, and the boarders grumbled awfully. I
didn’t care, though; I was too happy to feel abused.
I don’t know how George Perry explained his absence to his wife; perhaps
he hasn’t done it at all. But I know she seems to be the happiest woman
alive, and that _he_ don’t seem to care for anything in the world but
his wife and baby.
As to the woman who came with him to look at a room, I haven’t seen her
since; but if she happens to read this story, she may have the
consolation of knowing that there’s an old woman who remembers her one
good deed, and prays for her often and earnestly.
[Illustration]
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