“I DON'T BLAME THEM.”
It was not a “pet” name. Poor Mart Colson would not have known what to
do with a pet name. Her life had not taught her how to use such phrases;
how she came to be named Martha, she did not know; but a hollow-eyed,
sad-voiced woman could have told her of a country home, long ago, where
there were daffodils blowing in the early spring, almost under the snow;
where, later, the earth was turned into sky, or the stars came down and
gleamed all over her father's fields, so plentiful were the dandelions;
and the breath of the clover came in at all the open windows, and the
cows--her father's cows--coming home from pasture, and the tinkle of
their bells were sights and sounds familiar to her ear. She sat there
one summer evening, in the back-door, watching the glory and the peace,
and studying, between times, her Sabbath lesson. Often and often the
words came back to her in future years. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her
sister and Lazarus.” That was one of the verses. Was it a dim memory of
the words, and a sort of blind reaching out after their fulfilment, that
led her to name her poor little two-days-old baby, Martha? The old home
had vanished, the sweet-scented meadows, the tinkling bells, the peace
and the plenty, were as utterly things of the past as though they had
not been. Mother, and father, and one brother, were gone, lying in
grass-grown, neglected graves; and she--why the two-days-old
baby's father was _drunk_; and had been for three weeks! A hard,
hateful-sounding word,--coarse, almost. Why don't I say intoxicated? Oh,
because I can't! I've no desire to find smooth-sounding words with which
to cover the sin of that baby's father. But the mother named her Martha.
She never told her why, if, indeed, she herself fully knew; it was not
a family name. Gradually, after the fashion of the times, she sought to
shorten the name; and because they had not sweet, short words, as “Pet,”
and “Dear” and “Sweet,”--all such belong to happy homes,--they grew to
calling her Mart. And now even she herself hardly realized that she had
ever owned to any other call. Poor Mart! I find myself wanting to use
the adjective over and over again when I speak of her. Such a desolate,
loveless life! Always a drunken father,--she had never known any other;
always a sharp-toned, weary-eyed, disheartened mother, who shut her
tenderness for the child within herself, as one who could not afford to
show it. Then Dirk, the one brother, going astray almost as soon as
he was born. What wonder, from such a home? Yet Mart wondered and felt
bitter over it. Why could not Dirk be like some others of whom she knew?
Like Sallie Calkin's brother, for instance, who worked day and night,
and brought home, often and often, an apple, or a herring, or sometimes
even a picture paper for Sallie! Mart was sharp-tongued; all her life
had taught her to be so. She spoke sharp words out of the bitterness of
her heart at Dirk, and of late rarely anything but sharp words, yet--and
this was Mart's secret, hidden away as if it were something of which to
be ashamed--she _loved_ Dirk, loved him fiercely, with all the pent-up
wealth of her young heart; and often, _because_ she loved him, she was
harsh and bitter towards him, though she did not herself understand why
this should be.
As for Dirk, he walked rapidly but for a few blocks; his dinner had been
too insufficient to give him strength, after the first aimless anger had
subsided. Then came the question what to do with himself. Why hadn't he
gone with the fellows? More than likely some of them had contrived a way
to get a dinner. Why had he persisted in sullenly leaving them all and
going home?
He had not the least idea why he had been impelled to go home. Now
that he was fairly away from home again, he had no idea what to do with
himself. A place where he could warm his feet and his hands, where
he could get a bite to eat, possibly,--this last would be an immense
attraction, but was not a necessity, and he did not expect it,--but
warmth, at least, he felt that he must have. Where would he find it?
What place had been provided for such as he? He ought by this time to
have been earning his own living, to have had a corner which he could
call home, earned by himself, where some of the decencies of life were
gathered. Of course he ought; but the painful fact to meet just now, was
that he had not done his duty. He had gone astray; not so far but that
there were plenty of chances to go farther, greater deeps to which he
might yet reach, but far enough to all but break any watchful mother's
heart; only that _his_ mother's heart was broken before he was born. The
simple question waiting to be solved was this: Having done as poorly for
himself as under the circumstances he well could, what was Dirk Colson
to do next? He had no idea; neither, apparently, had multitudes of
Christian people engaged in praying that the Father's will might be done
on earth, even as it was in heaven. The young man walked six blocks down
the respectable avenue, lined with pleasant homes, where the people went
to church, and read their Bibles, and had family prayers, and kept holy
the Sabbath day. Not a door among them all opened and held out a winning
signal to arrest his heedless feet. Not so Satan! Is he ever caught
idling at his post?
Just around the corner from the respectable avenue (and around the
corner Dirk presently turned, still uncertain what to do, where to find
the warmth he craved) then the winning invitations for such as he began
to present themselves. Saloons, and saloons, and saloons! How many of
them were there? Far outnumbering the churches! Pleasant they looked,
too; opening doors, ever and anon, revealing brightness and warmth
within. They would like to see him inside. Of this Dirk was sure; not
that he had money, but he had something that in such places often served
him well,--a decided and dangerous talent for imitating any and every
peculiarity of voice or manner that had chanced to come under his
notice. He could make the fellows in these saloons roar with laughter.
If he did particularly well, they were willing to order for him a glass
of beer, or a fairly good cigar; in any case he had a chance to get
warm. This was actually Dirk's only present source of income! Yet he
shrank from it; he could not have told you why, but on this particular
Sabbath he was averse to earning his coveted warmth in this way. He
walked resolutely by two or three places where he had reason to think he
might be welcomed, wondering vaguely whether there wasn't something
else a fellow could do to keep himself from freezing. Oddly enough there
seemed to be something about the glimmer of sunshine as he saw it in
Mart's hair that kept him from halting before any of the places open to
him. What if she had come out with him to take a walk; he could not
have taken her into one of them! Then, poor fellow, he set himself to
wondering where the place was, open and warmed, to which he could take
Mart. There were places, several of them, in the large city; but Dirk
knew nothing about them, and he was acquainted with the saloons. He
thought of another thing; he had been invited to call at a house on East
Fifty-fifth Street. Suppose he should walk up there this very afternoon
and ring the bell, and say that he had come to call! What would happen
then? Whereupon he laughed aloud. The fancy seemed to him so utterly
preposterous. The idea of _his_ making a call! The utter improbability
of his ever seeing the inside of one of the East Fifty-fifth Street
mansions!
Still remained that hopeless question: What should he do with himself?
The sun was quite gone now, and a cold wind was blowing up freshly
from the north. It blew directly through Dirk's threadbare garments. He
turned suddenly and slipped inside one of the worst of the many saloons
which literally lined this end of the street. He had refused to go with
the boys to Poke's, an hour or two before, and this was several grades
below Poke's in decency! But it was growing dark, and he was cold.
There was one young man who saw him dash down those cellar stairs,
who stood still and looked at him, his face darkening the while with
discouragement. This, then, was all the afternoon's Sabbath-school had
accomplished for him. To be sure he was not disappointed at the result;
it was no more than he had expected; but it was so discouraging to be an
eye-witness to the degradation to which these young wretches had fallen!
Of course the young man was Alfred Ried, and he went home, and
was dreary, over all sorts of failures in Christian work, mission
Sabbath-schools especially; and their own, more especially than any
other.
Among the early shoppers on Monday morning came Mrs. Evan Roberts.
Shopping, however, seemed to be a small part of her business. She came
directly to young Ried's counter, and addressed him very much as though
she had ceased talking with him but a moment before:--
“Mr. Ried, what can you and I do for those boys during the week?”
But Alfred was at his gloomiest.
“I don't see that we can do anything for them at any time,” he said,
dismally. “What is an hour on Sunday, set against all the rest of the
time? They go from the school-room to the rum saloons, and dawdle away
the rest of the day. Yesterday I met that young Colson going into one
of the worst saloons on Dey Street. They are not to blame, either.” This
last in a fiercer tone, after a slight pause. “I don't blame them;
they have nowhere else to go, and nothing to do; and it is cold on the
streets, and warm in the saloons.”
If he expected the small lady, who was regarding him so steadily, to
take the other side of this question, he was disappointed. She spoke
quietly enough, but with the earnestness of conviction.
“Those are startling facts. I do not see how one could be surprised that
the results are they are; and the practical question forces itself upon
us, What are we to do under the circumstances? Mr. Ried, you have had
your eyes open in regard to this subject for some time; what have you
thought out?”
Now was Mr. Alfred Ried embarrassed. It was true that his eyes had been
long open to the subject; it was true that he had given it a great deal
of what he had called thought. But with those alert eyes fixed on his
face, her whole manner indicating intense earnestness, he suddenly
realized that all his thought had been to no purpose, had accomplished
nothing, unless it had served to give him a feeling almost of irritation
against the boys, and their teachers who made failures, and the people
who folded their hands and let things go to ruin. Here confronted him
one, whose hands were not folded, though they rested quietly enough
on the counter before him. He began to feel that there might be latent
power in them.
“I have nothing to say,” and he said it at last with flushed face and
embarrassed voice; “I have thought out nothing. The whole thing seemed
hopeless to me with my utter lack of resources. My sister had schemes,
many of them, and they seemed to me good ones, even then; they seem
better now, only I cannot carry them out.”
She caught at the name.
“Your sister? Ester Ried? Good! Let us carry them out, you and I, and as
many more as we can get to help us. She is at work yet,--don't you see?
What is that prophecy about her?--that voice which the prophet heard,
you know, 'And I heard a voice saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the
dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that
they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.'”
How strangely the words sounded, repeated in her low, clear voice, amid
the hum of business on every side! Alfred Ried felt singularly moved.
He had been a highly strung, imaginative child. He had been his sister
Ester's almost constant companion during those last months in which
she was slowly fading out of sight. While Julia held steadily to her
mother's side, and learned to do many helpful things, he had been
stationed chief nurse in Ester's room, to see that she lacked for no
tender care during the hours when others must be away from her. And
those hours she had tenderly improved. He remembered to this day just
how she looked, with a pink flush all over her cheeks, and a bright
light in her eyes, as she talked to him of the things that she and Dr.
Douglass had meant to do for boys,--neglected, homeless, friendless
boys. Oh, the plans they had carefully thought out, to reach after these
forsaken ones! He remembered that his own cheeks had grown hot while he
listened, and the blood had seemed to race like fire through his veins
when she said, “God wants _me_ for something else, Alfred; but you will
do my work when you get to be a man; you will find helpers, and carry
it on as I wanted to do.” He had made no audible answer, but he had told
himself sturdily again and again that he certainly would. Yet here
he was, barely of age, and almost soured by disappointments. Certain
well-meant attempts having proved failures, and having not found
the helpers whom he had eagerly expected, the magnitude of the work
impressed itself upon him more remorselessly each hour. Yet now he
seemed to feel again the thrill in his veins, and he felt almost under
the power of his sister's eye while those words were in his ears:
“They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” Might
it possibly be that this was one of the “helpers” of whom Ester used to
talk, sent by God himself to take up her planned work and follow it out?
Yet she was so utterly unlike his memory of Ester! She had seemed to
him a self-reliant, strong-toned woman; Mrs. Roberts was so small and
frail-looking, and so fashionably dressed, and how those boys had acted
with her only yesterday! What could she possibly do?
Customers came just then, to change the current of his thoughts. They
wanted round collars, and deep collars, and fichus, and edges, and a
hundred little irritating things. Young Ried, usually so gracious
and patient, had much ado to keep from showing his annoyance over the
smallness of all their wishes.
Meantime Mrs. Roberts, who had taken a seat, entered apparently with
absorption into the relative merits of round or pointed collars with a
young lady acquaintance. She patiently measured to discover whether the
turned-down corner of one was a quarter of an inch deeper than the other
or not; she gave, with due deliberation, her opinion as to whether the
points were more becoming to the young lady's style of beauty than the
rolling fronts, and even went to the trouble of unfastening her furs to
show still another style that she liked better than either; sending
the disgusted Alfred to an entirely different box in search of a like
pattern. As he went, his lip curled visibly. What a fool he had been
to allow himself to get momentarily excited over this doll! How
preposterous in him to mention his dead sister's name to her! She had
already forgotten the entire matter, and was deep in the merits of
collars! His first estimate of her had been the correct one. Her
mind was just about as deep, he believed, as the tiny collar she was
measuring. What a farce it was to talk to her about helping those poor
fellows! She probably thought a few soup tickets, and a chance for a
good Christmas dinner at some of the public charity halls, was the way
to reach and reform them. _He_ shouldn't help her; she mustn't expect
it. Doubtless she did not. Probably she had by this time forgotten that
she had suggested it. Why need she putter here about a few collars for a
young lady in her own circle to wear with her morning dresses? That was
just it, he told himself. It was because she _was_ in her circle, and
because the collars were to be honored by being worn by such as she,
that they became important, and the boys and their desperate needs sunk
into insignificance. Well, he wished they would both go, and leave him
to himself; give him a chance to rally from his momentary excitement, of
which he was now ashamed.
At last the collars were bought,--but not until the counter was strewn
with different sorts; and the lady, with many bright little nothings
for last words, moved off to another part of the store, and Mrs. Roberts
whirled on her seat until her eyes were in full view again, and said:
“What were some of her plans, Mr. Ried?”