Belle Gordon
Belle Gordon was a Christian; she had learned or tried to realize what
is meant by the apostle Paul when he said, "Ye are bought with a price."
To her those words meant the obligation she was under to her heavenly
Father, for the goodness and mercy that had surrounded her life, for the
patience that had borne with her errors and sins, and above all for the
gift of his dear Son, the ever blessed Christ. Faith to her was not a
rich traditional inheritance, a set of formulated opinions, received
without investigation, and adopted without reflection. She could not
believe because others did, and however plausible or popular a thing
might be she was too conscientious to say she believed it if she did
not, and when she became serious on the subject of religion it was like
entering into a wilderness of doubt and distress. She had been taught to
look upon God, more as the great and dreadful God, than as the tender
loving Father of his human children, and so strong was the power of
association, that she found it hard to believe that God is good, and yet
until she could believe this there seemed to be no resting place for her
soul; but in course of time the shadows were lifted from her life. Faith
took the place of doubting, and in the precious promises of the Bible
she felt that her soul had found a safe and sure anchorage. If others
believed because they had never doubted, she believed because she had
doubted and her doubts had been dispelled by the rays of heaven, and
believing, she had entered into rest. Feeling that she was bought with a
price, she realized that she was not her own, but the captive of Divine
Love, and that her talents were not given her to hide beneath a bushel
or to use for merely selfish enjoyments. That her time was not her own
to be frittered away by the demands of fashion or to be spent in
unavailing regrets. Every reform which had for its object the lessening
of human misery, or the increase of human happiness, found in her an
earnest ally. On the subject of temperance she was terribly in earnest.
Every fiber of her heart responded to its onward movement. There was no
hut or den where human beings congregated that she felt was too vile or
too repulsive to enter, if by so doing she could help lift some fallen
soul out of the depths of sin and degradation. While some doubted the
soundness of her religious opinions, none doubted the orthodoxy of her
life. Little children in darkened homes smiled as the sunlight of her
presence came over their paths; reformed men looked upon her as a loving
counsellor and faithful friend and sister; women wretched and sorrowful,
dragged down from love and light, by the intemperance of their husbands,
brought to her their heavy burdens, and by her sympathy and tender
consideration she helped them bear them. She was not rich in this
world's goods, but she was affluent in tenderness, sympathy, and love,
and out of the fullness of her heart, she was a real minister of mercy
among the poor and degraded. Believing that the inner life developed the
outer, she considered the poor, and strove to awaken within them
self-reliance, and self-control, feeling that one of the surest ways to
render people helpless or dangerous is to crush out their self-respect
and self-reliance. She thought it one of the greatest privileges of her
life to be permitted to scatter flowers by the wayside of life. Other
women might write beautiful poems; she did more. She made her life a
thing of brightness and beauty.
* * * * *
"Do you think she will die?" said Belle Gordon, bending tenderly over a
pale and fainting woman, whose face in spite of its attenuation showed
traces of great beauty.
"Not if she is properly cared for; she has fainted from exhaustion
brought on by overwork and want of proper food." Tears gathered in the
eyes of Belle Gordon as she lifted the beautiful head upon her lap and
chafed the pale hands to bring back warmth and circulation.
"Let her be removed to her home as soon as possible," said the doctor.
"The air is too heavy and damp for her."
"I wonder where she lives," said Belle thoughtfully, scanning her face,
as the features began to show[4] returning animation.
"Round the corner," said an urchin, "she's Joe Cough's wife. I seed her
going down the street with a great big bundle, and Mam said, she looked
like she was going to topple over."
"Where is her husband?"
"I don't know, I 'spec he's down to Jim Green's saloon."
"What does he do?"
"He don't do nothing, but Mam says she works awful hard. Come this way,"
said he with a quickness gathered by his constant contact with street
life.
Up two flights of rickety stairs they carried the wasted form of Mary
Gough, and laid her tenderly upon a clean but very poor bed. In spite of
her extreme poverty there was an air of neatness in the desolate room.
Belle looked around and found an old tea pot in which there were a few
leaves. There were some dry crusts in the cupboard, while two little
children crouched by the embers in the grate, and cried for the mother.
Belle soon found a few coals in an old basin with which she replenished
the fire, and covering up the sick woman as carefully as she could,
stepped into the nearest grocery and replenished her basket with some of
good the things of life.
"Is it not too heavy for you[r] might?" said Paul Clifford from whose
grocery Belle had bought her supplies.
"Can I not send them home for you?"
"No I don't want them sent home. They are for a poor woman and her
suffering children, who live about a square from here in Lear's Court."
Paul stood thoughtfully a moment before handing her the basket, and
said--"That court has a very bad reputation; had I not better accompany
you? I hope you will not consider my offer as an intrusion, but I do not
think it is safe for you to venture there alone."
"If you think it is not safe I will accept of your company; but I never
thought of danger for myself in the presence of that fainting woman and
her hungry children. Do you know her? Her name is Mrs. Gough." "I think
I do. If it is the person I mean, I remember her when she was as
lighthearted and happy a girl as I ever saw, but she married against her
parents' consent, a worthless fellow named Joe Gough, and in a short
time she disappeared from the village and I suppose she has come home,
broken in health and broken in spirit."
"And I am afraid she has come home to die. Are her parents still alive?"
"Yes, but her father never forgave her. Her mother I believe would take
her to her heart as readily as she ever did, but her husband has an iron
will and she has got to submit to him."
"Where do they live?"
"At No 200 Rouen St. but here we are at the door." Paul carried the
basket up stairs, and sat down quietly, while Belle prepared some
refreshing tea and toast for the feeble mother; and some bread and milk
for the hungry children.
"What shall I do?" said Belle looking tenderly upon the wan face, "I
hate to leave her alone and yet I confess I do not prefer spending the
night here."
"Of course not," said Paul looking thoughtfully into the flickering fire
of the grate.
"Oh! I have it now; I know a very respectable woman who occasionally
cleans out my store. Just wait a few moments, and I think I can find
her," said Paul Clifford turning to the door. In a short time he
returned bringing with him a pleasant looking woman whose face in spite
of the poverty of her dress had a look of genuine refinement which comes
not so much from mingling with people of culture as from the culture of
her own moral and spiritual nature. She had learned to "look up and not
to look down." To lend a helping hand wherever she felt it was needed.
Her life was spent in humble usefulness. She was poor in this world's
goods, but rich in faith and good works. No poor person who asked her
for bread ever went away empty. Sometimes people would say, "I wouldn't
give him a mouthful; he is not worthy," and then she would say in the
tenderest and sweetest manner:
"Suppose our heavenly Father only gave to us because we are worthy; what
would any of us have?" I know she once said of a miserable sot with whom
she shared her scanty food, that he is a wretched creature, but I wanted
to get at his heart, and the best way to it was through his stomach. I
never like to preach religion to hungry people. There is something very
beautiful about the charity of the poor, they give not as the rich of
their abundance, but of their limited earnings, gifts which when given
in a right spirit bring a blessing with them.