Produced by J. Erickson, T. Allen, B. Trapaga and
Distributed Proofreaders
ESTER RIED
YET SPEAKING.
By Pansy
Author Of “Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking On,” “Hall In The Grove,” “A New
Gift On The Family Tree,” “Five Friends,” “Mary Burton,” “The Pocket
Measure,” “Ester Ried,” Etc., Etc.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. IT MAY BE THAT SHE IS WORKING STILL
CHAPTER II. WHAT DID IT ALL AMOUNT TO, ANYHOW?
CHAPTER III. ANYTHING UNCOMMON ABOUT ME?
CHAPTER IV. I DON'T BLAME THEM
CHAPTER V. A CHRISTIAN HOME
CHAPTER VI. SATAN HE HAS 'EM ALL THE WEEK
CHAPTER VII. WHAT A LITTLE SCHEMER IT IS
CHAPTER VIII. WHAT WOULD YOU DO, DEAR?
CHAPTER IX. “TREMENDOUS FACTS!” HE SAID
CHAPTER X. AND SHE ALWAYS TRIED
CHAPTER XI. I HAVE BUT TO TRY AGAIN
CHAPTER XII. I WANT THEM TO GET USED TO PARLORS
CHAPTER XIII. LET US BE FASHIONABLE
CHAPTER XIV. “SOMETHING'S HAPPENED!”
CHAPTER XV. WHAT MADE HER DIFFERENT?
CHAPTER XVI. HERE WAS HIS OPPORTUNITY
CHAPTER XVII. I WONDER WHAT THEY'RE ALL AFTER
CHAPTER XVIII. YOURN'S THE WAY
CHAPTER XIX. WE HAVE BEGUN BACKWARDS
CHAPTER XX. OH, WHAT A NICE THOUGHT!
CHAPTER XXI. HAD HIS EXPERIMENT BEEN TOO SEVERE?
CHAPTER XXII. SOME PEOPLE ARE HARD TO WARN
CHAPTER XXIII. PART OF THE GREAT WELL-TO-DO WORLD
CHAPTER XXIV. FOR YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT MAY COME
CHAPTER XXV. WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH?
CHAPTER XXVI. “O LORD, TAKE DIRK TOO!”
CHAPTER XXVII. AN AWFUL PROBLEM
CHAPTER XXVIII. MAY SHE GO WITH ME?
CHAPTER XXIX. WHAT IF I BELONGED?
CHAPTER XXX. IT IS NO MADE-UP AFFAIR
CHAPTER XXXI. THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM
CHAPTER I.
“IT MAY BE THAT SHE IS WORKING STILL.”
It was raining drearily, and but few people were abroad--that is, few,
comparatively speaking, though the streets seemed full of hurrying,
dripping mortals. In the large dry-goods store business was by no means
so brisk as on sunny days, and one of the younger clerks, whose station
was near a window looking out upon the thoroughfare, had time to
stand gazing at the passers-by. They did not seem to interest him
particularly, or else they puzzled him. His young, handsome face wore
a thoughtful look, almost a troubled expression about the eyes, which
seemed to be gazing beyond the passers-by. Just across the aisle from
him, a lady, seated in one of the easy chairs set for the accommodation
of shoppers, waited and watched him,--a young and pretty woman,
tastefully, even elegantly dressed, yet her costume was quite in
keeping with the stormy day. The young man's face seemed to have special
interest for her, though he apparently was unaware of her existence.
A close observer would have discovered that she was watching him with
deeply interested eyes. Whatever served to hold the thoughts of
the young man apparently grew in perplexity, for the troubled look
continually deepened. At last, forgetting the possible listener, he
addressed the dripping clouds, perhaps,--at least, he was looking at
them:--
“I don't know how to do it; but something ought to be done. It is worse
than folly to expect good from the way that things are now managed.
Ester would have known just what, and how; and how interested she would
have been! I try to do her work, and to 'redeem the time;' but the
simple truth is, I don't know how, and nobody else seems to.”
These sentences were not given all at once, but murmured from time to
time at his unsympathetic audience outside.
Patter, patter, patter, drip, drip, drip! steady, uncompromising
business. It was all the answer the clouds vouchsafed him.
With the listener inside it was different. The interested look changed
to an eager one. She left her seat and moved toward the absorbed young
man, breaking in on his reverie with the clearest of voices:--
“I beg your pardon,--but are you thinking of your sister? You are
Mr. Ried, I believe? I have heard of your sister's life, and of her
beautiful death, through a dear friend of my husband, who loved Ester.
I have always wanted to know more about her. I wanted to get acquainted
with you, so I might ask you things about her. I am waiting now for my
husband to come and introduce us. But perhaps it isn't necessary. Do you
know who I am?”
“It is Mrs. Roberts, I believe?” the young man said, struggling with his
astonishment and embarrassment.
“Yes, and you are Mr. Alfred Ried. Well, now we know each other without
any further ceremony. Will you tell me a little about your sister, Mr.
Ried? You were thinking of her just now.”
“I was missing her just now,” said he, trying to smile, “as I very often
am. I was a little fellow when she died; but the older I grow the more
difficult I find it to see how the world can spare her. She was so full
of plans for work, and there are so few like her.”
“It may be that she is working still, in the person of her brother.”
He shook his head energetically, though his face flushed.
“No, I can only blunder vaguely over work that I know she, with her
energetic ways and quick wits, could have done, and done well. It
happens that she was especially interested in a class of people of whom
I know something. They need help, and I don't know how to help them. It
seems to me that she could have done it.”
“Will you tell me who the people are?”
“It is a set of boys for whom nobody cares,” he said, speaking sadly;
“it hardly seems possible that there could ever have been a time when
anybody cared for them, though I suppose their mothers did when they
were little fellows.”
Thus spoke the ignorant young man,--ignorant of the depths to which sin
will sink human nature, but rich in the memory of mother-love.
“I think of my sister Ester in connection with them,” he said, speaking
apologetically, “because she was peculiarly interested in wild young
fellows like them; she thought they might be reached,--that there might
be ways invented for reaching them, such as had not been yet. She had
plans, and they were good ones. I thought so then, little fellow that I
was, and I think so now, only nobody is at work carrying them out; and I
wonder sometimes if Ester could have been needed in heaven half as much
as she is needed on earth. She used to talk to me a great deal about
what might be done. I think now that she wanted to put me in the way of
taking up some of the work that she would have done; but she mistook her
material. I can't do it.”
“Are you sure? You are young yet, and besides, you may be doing more
than you think. Couldn't I help? What is there that needs doing for
these particular young men?”
“Everything!” he said, excitedly. “If you should see them you would get
a faint idea of it. They come occasionally down to the Sabbath-school
at the South End; in fact, they come quite frequently, though I'm sure
I can't see why. It certainly isn't for any good that they get. Their
actions, Mrs. Roberts, surpass anything that I ever imagined.”
“Who is their teacher?”
“That would be a difficult question to answer. They have a different
teacher every Sabbath. No one is willing to undertake the class twice.
They have tried all the teachers who attend regularly, and several who
have volunteered for once, and never would attempt it a second time.
Just now, there is no one who will make a venture.”
“Have you tried?”
He shook his head emphatically.
“I know at least so much. Why, Mrs. Roberts, some of them are as old as
I, and, indeed, I think one or two are older. No; we have secured the
best teachers that we could for them, but each one has been a failure. I
suppose they must go.”
“Go where?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“What an awful question! Where _will_ they go, Mrs. Roberts, if we let
them slip now?”
He was tremendously in earnest. One could not help feeling that he had
studied the possibilities, and felt the danger.
“Suppose I try to help! Shall I come and take that class next Sabbath?”
This simple, directly-put question brought the young man suddenly from
the heights of his excitement into visible embarrassment. He looked down
on the small, fair lady, reaching hardly to his shoulder, attired in
that unmistakable way which bespeaks the lady of wealth and culture, and
could imagine nothing more incongruous than to have her seated before
that class of swearing, spitting, fighting boys. Not that her wealth or
her culture was an objection, but she looked so utterly unlike what he
had imagined their teacher must be,--she was so small, so frail, so
fair and sweet, and ignorant of the ways of the great wicked world, and
especially of those great wicked boys! What could he say to her?
He was so manifestly embarrassed that the small lady laughed.
“You think I cannot do it,” she said, almost gayly.
He hastened to answer her.
“Indeed, you have no idea of the sort of class it is. I have given you
no conception of it; I cannot. You would think yourself before a set of
uncaged animals.”
“Yes, and in case of failure I should only be where the others are, who
have tried and failed. If you will introduce me, and your superintendent
will let me, I mean to try; and that will relieve you of the dilemma of
being entirely without a teacher for them.”
Young Ried had nothing to say. He thought the attempt a piece of
folly,--a worse than useless experiment; but how was he to say so to the
wife of his employer?
That gentleman appeared just then, making haste.
“I was unavoidably detained,” he explained; “I feared you would grow
weary of waiting. Ah, Ried, my wife has introduced herself, I see. Is he
the young man you were speaking of, Mrs. Roberts?”
“The very young man,--Ester Ried's brother. He doesn't know how glad
I am to have met him. Some day when we are better acquainted, and you
trust me more fully, I am going to tell you how I became so deeply
interested in your dear sister. Meantime this little matter should be
definitely settled. Mr. Roberts, I have invited myself to take a class
to-morrow down at the South End Mission.”
“Have you, indeed?”
Mr. Roberts spoke heartily, and seemed by no means dismayed,--only a
trifle perplexed as to details.
“How can we manage it, Flossy? My prison class takes me in an opposite
direction at the same hour, you know.”
“Yes, I thought of that; I propose to ask Mr. Ried to call for me, and
show me the way, and vouch for my good intentions after I reach there.
Do you suppose he will do it?” She looked smilingly from her husband to
young Ried, and both waited for his answer.
“I obey directions,” he said, bowing respectfully to Mr. Roberts. “Am I
to have the honor of being detailed for that service to-morrow?”
“So Mrs. Roberts says,” was the good-humored reply, and then the
merchant took his wife away to their waiting carriage that had drawn up
before the door, leaving Alfred Ried, if the truth must be told, in a
fume.
“Much she knows what she is talking about!” he said, jerking certain
boxes out of their places on the shelves, and then banging them back
again, seeming to suppose that he was by this process putting his
department in order for closing. “Little bit of a dressed-up doll! They
will tear her into ribbons, metaphorically, if not literally, before
this time to-morrow! She thinks, because she is the wife of Evan
Roberts, the great merchant, she can go anywhere and do anything, and
that people will respect her. She has never had anything to do with
a set of fellows who care less than nothing about money and position,
except to be ten times more insolent and outrageous in their conduct
than they would if she had less of it! I shall feel like a born idiot in
presenting this pretty little doll to teach that class! Mr. Durant will
think I have lost what few wits I had! What can possess the woman to
want to try? It is just because she has no conception of what she is
about! But Mr. Roberts must know--I wonder what he means by permitting
it?”
In very much the same state of mind did our young man pilot his new and
unsought-for recruit into the crowded mission rooms of the South End on
the following Sabbath afternoon. She looked not one whit less able to
compete with the terrors which awaited the teacher of the formidable
class.
Her dress was simplicity itself, according to Mrs. Roberts' ideas of
simplicity; yet, from the row of ostrich tips that bobbed and nodded at
each other, all around the front of her velvet hat, to the buttons of
her neat-fitting boots, she seemed to bring a new atmosphere into the
room.
Yesterday's rain was over, and the pleasant south windows were aglow
with sunshine. As Mrs. Roberts sat down the sunbeams came and played
about her face, and she seemed in keeping with them, and with nothing
else around her.
The superintendent bestowed curious glances on her during the opening
exercises. He had seen the shadow on young Ried's face when he seated
her, and had found time to question.
“Whom have we here?”
“Mrs. Evan Roberts. She wants to try the vacant class! _I_ did not ask
her, Mr. Durant; she invited herself.”
Mr. Durant looked over at her, and tried to keep his eyes from smiling.
“She looks very diminutive in every way for such an undertaking. They
will frighten her out before she commences, will they not?”
“I presume so; but I didn't know what to do. She wanted to come, and I
could not tell her she must not.”
“No, of course,--the occasion is too rare to lose. Very few people ask
the privilege of trying that class. There is no teacher for them to-day;
and your Mrs. Roberts must learn by experience that some things are more
difficult than others. I will let her try it.”
Meantime, “the boys” of the dreaded class were studying the new face.
She was the only person not already seated before a class, and they
naturally judged that she was to be their next victim. They looked at
her and then at one another, and winked and coughed and sneezed and
nudged elbows and giggled outright, every one of them,--meantime chewing
tobacco with all their might, and expectorating freely wherever he
judged it would be most offensive.
Alfred Ried watched them, inwardly groaning. Being used to their faces,
he could plainly read that they anticipated a richer time than usual,
and rejoiced greatly over the youth and beauty of their victim.
But young Ried was not the only one who watched. Mrs. Roberts, without
seeming to be aware of their presence, lost not a wriggle or a nudge.
She was studying her material; and it must be confessed that they
startled her not a little. They represented a different type of
humanity from her Chautauqua boys, or her boys in the old church at
home,--rather, an advanced stage of both those types.
When Mr. Durant came toward her, the look on his face was not
reassuring, it so plainly said that he expected failure, and was sorry
for her as well as for himself. However, with as good grace as he could
assume, he led her to the seat prepared for the teacher, and gave her a
formal introduction.
“Boys, this is Mrs. Roberts, who is willing to try to teach you to-day.
I _wish_ you would show her that you know how to behave yourselves.”
Mrs. Roberts wished that he had left her to introduce herself, or that
he had said almost anything rather than what he did; the mischievous
gleam in several pairs of eyes said that they meant to show her
something that they considered far more interesting than that.
Many were the sympathetic glances that were bestowed on the young and
pretty lady as she went to her task. As for Alfred Ried, there was more
than sympathy in his face. He was vexed with the young volunteer and
vexed with himself.
He told himself savagely that this was what came of his silly habit of
thinking aloud. If only he had kept his anxieties about that class to
himself, Mrs. Roberts would never have heard of it, and been tempted to
put herself in such a ridiculous position; and if this episode did not
break him of the habit, he did not know what would.
He was presently, however, given a class of small boys, with enough
of original and acquired depravity about them to keep him intensely
employed, and the entire school settled to work.