ONE RAY OF LIGHT.
As he passed, he looked up at the academy, set far back in its yard of
many maple trees, and saw that the great white door was closed, as if
shut upon him forever. The leaden windows stared at him with silent
disapproval; a sudden wind came and swung the half-open gate to the
yard, which closed with a click, making it seem that an unseen hand had
thrust it tight against him and held it barred.
Farther along the street stood a square, old-fashioned,
story-and-a-half house, with a more modern ell and shed adjoining, and
a wretched sagging barn, that lurched on its foundations, and was only
kept from toppling farther, and possibly falling, by long, crude timber
props, set against its side. The front yard of the house was enclosed
by a straggling picket fence. As well as the fence, the weather-washed
buildings, with loose clapboards here and there, stood greatly in want
of paint and repairs.
This was the home of Mrs. Jones, a widow with three children to
support, and here Ben had found a bare, scantily-furnished room that
was within his means. The widow regarded as of material assistance in
her battle against poverty the rent money of seventy-five cents a week,
which her roomer had agreed to pay in advance.
For all of her misfortune and the constant strain of her toil to keep
the wolf from the door and a roof over the heads of herself and her
children, Mrs. Jones was singularly happy and cheerful. It is true the
wounds of the battle had left scars, but they were healed or hidden by
this strong-hearted woman, who seldom referred to them save in a
buoyant manner.
Jimmy Jones, a puny, pale-faced child of eight, permanently lamed by
hip disease, which made one leg shorter than the other, was hanging on
the rickety gate, as usual, and seemed to be waiting Ben’s appearance,
hobbling out to meet him when he came along the road.
“You’re awful late,” cried the lame lad, in a thin, high-pitched voice,
which attested his affliction and weakness. “I’ve been watchin’. I saw
lots of other fellers go by, but then I waited an’ waited, an’ you
didn’t come.”
A lump rose in Ben’s throat, and into his chilled heart crept a faint
glow. Here was some one who took an interest in him, some one who did
not regard him with aversion and scorn, even though it was only a poor
little cripple.
Jimmy Jones had reminded Ben of his own blind brother, Jerry, which had
led him to seek to make friends with the lame boy, and to talk with him
in a manner that quickly won the confidence of the child. This was his
reward; in this time when his heart was sore and heavy with the belief
that he was detested of all the world, Jimmy watched and waited for him
at the gate, and came limping toward him with a cheery greeting.
Ben stooped and caught up the tiny chap, who was pitifully light,
swinging him to a comfortable position on his bent left arm.
“So you were watching for me, were you, Jimmy?” he said, in a
wonderfully soft voice for him. “That was fine of you, and I won’t
forget it.”
“Yep, I waited. What made you so late? I wanted to tell you, I set that
box-trap you fixed for me so it would work, an’ what do you think I
ketched? Bet you can’t guess.”
“A squirrel,” hazarded Ben.
“Nope, a cat!” laughed the little fellow, and Ben whistled in pretended
great surprise. “But I let her go. We don’t want no cats; we got enough
now. But that jest shows the trap will work all right now, an’ I’ll
have a squirrel next, I bet y’u.”
“Sure you will,” agreed Ben, as he passed through the gate and caught a
glimpse of the buxom widow, who, hearing voices, had hastened from the
kitchen to peer out. “You’ll be a great trapper, Jimmy; not a doubt of
it.”
“Say, if I ketch a squirrel, will you help me make a cage for him?”
asked Jimmy eagerly.
“I don’t know,” answered Ben soberly. “If I can, I will; but——”
“Course you ken! Didn’t you fix the trap? I expect you know how to make
ev’ry kind of thing like that.”
“If I have a chance to make it, I will,” promised Ben, as he gently
placed the boy on the steps and forced to his face a smile that robbed
it in a remarkable way of its uncomeliness.
“I don’t s’pose we ken begin now?”
“It’s too late to-night, and I’m in a hurry. We’ll have to put it off,
Jimmy.”
The smile vanished from his face the moment he passed round the corner
of the house on his way to the back door. “Poor little Jimmy!” he
thought. “I can’t help you make your squirrel-cage, as I’m not going to
stay here long enough to do it.”
He ascended the narrow, uncarpeted stairs to his small, uncarpeted room
over the kitchen, where a loose board rattled beneath his feet, and the
dull light from a single window showed him the old-fashioned,
low-posted, corded bedstead—with its straw tick, coarse sheets and
patchwork quilt—pushed back beneath the sloping rafters of the roof.
Besides the bed, there was in the room for furniture a broken-backed
rocking-chair; a small table with a split top, on which stood a common
kerosene hand-lamp; a dingy white earthen water pitcher and bowl—the
former with a circular piece broken out of its nose—sitting on a
washstand, made of a long box stood on one end, with a muslin curtain
hanging in front of it. His trunk was pushed into a corner of the room
opposite the bed.
Another part of the room, which served as a wardrobe, or was intended
for that purpose, was set off by a calico curtain. The kitchen chimney
ran up through one end of the room and served to heat it a little—a
very little.
Such a room as this was the best Ben Stone could afford to pay for from
his meager savings. He had been satisfied, and had thought it would do
him very well; for Mrs. Jones had genially assured him that on evenings
when the weather became colder he would be welcome to sit and study by
the open fire in the sitting-room, a concession for which he had been
duly grateful.
But now he would need it no more; his hopes, his plans, his dreams were
ended. He sat down dumbly on the broken chair, his hard, square hands
lying helpless in his lap. The shadows of the dingy little chamber
crept upon him from the corners; and the shadows of his life hovered
thick about him.
Finally he became aware of the smell of cooking, which came to him from
below, and slowly the consciousness that he was hungry grew upon him.
It did not matter; he told himself so. There was in his heart a greater
hunger that might never be satisfied.
It had grown quite dark and he struck a light, after which he pulled
out his small battered trunk and lifted the lid. Then, in a mechanical
manner, he began packing it with his few belongings.
At last the craving of his stomach became so insistent that he took
down a square tin box from a shelf behind the calico curtain and opened
it on the little table. It had been full when he came on Monday, but
now there was left only the end of a stale loaf of bread and a few
crumbs of cheese. These, however, were better than nothing, and he was
about to make the best use of them, when there sounded a step outside
his door, followed by a knock that gave him a start.
Had it come so soon? Would they give him no more time? Well, then, he
must meet them; and, with his face gray and set, he opened the door.
With a long, nicked, blue platter, that served as a tray, Mrs. Jones
stood outside and beamed upon him. On the tray were a knife, a fork,
pewter spoons, and dishes of food, from one of which—a steaming
bowl—came a most delightful odor.
“Land sakes!” said the widow. “Them stairs is awful in the dark, an’ I
didn’t darst bring a lamp; I hed my han’s full. I brought y’u somethin’
hot to eat; I hope y’u don’t mind. It ain’t right for a big, growin’
youngster like you to be alwus a-eatin’ cold vittles, ’specially when
he’s studyin’ hard. It’s bad f’r the dejesshun; an’ Joel—my late
departed—he alwus had somethin’ the matter with his dejesshun. It kep’
him from workin’ reg’ler an’ kinder sp’iled his prospects, poor man!
an’ left me in straightened circumstances when he passed away. But I
ain’t a-repinin’ or complainin’; there is lots in this world a heap
wuss off’n I be, an’ I’m satisfied that I’ve got a great deal to be
thankful f’r. If I’d thought, I’d a-brought up somethin’ f’r a
tablecloth, but mebbe you can git along.”
She had entered while talking, bringing with her, besides the odor of
food, another odor of soapsuds, which clung to her from her constant
labor at the washtubs, where, with hard, backaching toil, she
uncomplainingly scrubbed out a subsistence. For Mrs. Jones took in
washings, and in Oakdale there was not another whose clothes were so
white and spotless, and whose work was done so faithfully.
Ben was so taken aback that he stood speechless in the middle of the
floor, watching her as she arranged the dishes on the table.
“There’s some beef stew,” she said, depositing the steaming bowl. “An’
here’s hot bread an’ butter, an’ some doughnuts I fried to-day. Joel
alwus uster say my doughnuts was the best he ever tasted, an’ he did
eat a monst’rus pile of ’em. I don’t think they was the best thing in
the world f’r his dejesshun, either. Mis’ Collins give me some apples
this mornin’, an’ I made a new apple pie. I thought y’u might like to
try it, though it ain’t very good, an’ I brought y’u up a piece. An’
here’s a glass of milk. Jimmy he likes milk, an’ I hev to keep it in
the house f’r him. He don’t eat much, nohow. I saw you with Jimmy when
you come in, an’ I noticed you looked kinder tired an’ pale, an’ I says
to myself, ‘What that boy needs is a good hot supper.’ Jimmy he’s bin
talkin’ about you all day, an’ how y’u fixed his squirrel trap. Now,
you jest set right up here, an’ fall to.”
She had arranged the dishes and placed the old chair at the table,
after which, as had become habitual with her on rising from the
wash-tub, she wiped her hands on her apron and rested them on her hips,
her arms akimbo. She was smiling at him in such a healthy, motherly
manner, that her whole face seemed to glow like the genial face of the
sun when it appears after a dark and cloudy day.
To say that Ben was touched, would be to fail utterly in expressing the
smallest degree of his feelings, yet he was a silent, undemonstrative
fellow, and now he groped in vain for satisfactory words with which to
thank the widow. Unattractive and uncomely he was, beyond question, but
now his unspeakable gratitude to this kind woman so softened and
transformed his face that, could they have seen him, those who fancied
they knew him well would have been astonished at the change.
“Mrs. Jones,” he faltered, “I—I—how can I——”
“Now you set right down, an’ let the victuals stop y’ur mouth,” she
laughed. “You’ve bin good to my Jimmy, an’ I don’t forgit nobody who’s
good to him. I’d asked y’u down to supper with us, but you’re so kinder
backward an’ diffident, that I thought p’raps y’u wouldn’t come, an’
Mamie said she knowed y’u wouldn’t.”
Ben felt certain that back of this was Mamie’s dislike for him, which
something told him had developed in her the moment she first saw him.
She was the older daughter, a strong, healthy girl of seventeen, who
never helped her mother about the work, who dressed in such cheap
finery as she could obtain by hook or crook, who took music lessons on
a rented melodeon paid for out of her mother’s hard earnings, who felt
herself to be a lady unfortunately born out of her sphere, and who was
unquestionably ashamed of her surviving parent and her brother and
sister.
“Set right down,” persisted Mrs. Jones, as she took hold of him and
pushed him into the chair. “I want to see y’u eatin’. That’s Mamie!”
she exclaimed, her face lighting with pride, as the sound of the
melodeon came from a distant part of the house. “She’s gittin’ so she
can play real fine. She don’t seem to keer much f’r books an’ study,
but I’m sartin she’ll become a great musician if she keeps on. If Sadie
was only more like her; but Sadie she keeps havin’ them chills. I think
she took ’em of her father, f’r when he warn’t ailin’ with his
dejesshun he was shakin’ with a chill, an’ between one thing an’
t’other, he had a hard time of it. It ain’t to be wondered at that he
died with debt piled up and a mortgage on the place; but I don’t want
you to think I’m complainin’, an’ if the good Lord lets me keep my
health an’ strength, I’ll pay up ev’ry dollar somehow. How is the stew?”
“It—it’s splendid!” declared Ben, who had begun to eat; and truly
nothing had ever before seemed to taste so good.
As he ate, the widow continued to talk in the same strain,
strong-hearted, hopeful, cheerful, for all of the ill-fortune that had
attended her, and for all of the mighty load on her shoulders. He began
to perceive that there was something heroic in this woman, and his
admiration for her grew, while in his heart her thoughtful kindness had
planted the seed of affection.
The warm bread was white and light and delicious, and somehow the smell
of the melting butter upon it made him think vaguely of green fields
and wild flowers and strawberries. Then the doughnuts—such doughnuts as
they were! Ben could well understand how the “late departed” must have
fairly reveled in his wife’s doughnuts; and, if such perfect
productions of the culinary art could produce the result, it was fully
comprehensible why Mr. Jones’ “dejesshun” had been damaged.
But the pie was the crowning triumph. The crust was so flaky that it
seemed to melt in the boy’s mouth, and the apple filling had a taste
and flavor that had been imparted to it in some magical manner by the
genius of the woman who seemed to bestow something sweet and wholesome
upon the very atmosphere about her.
With her entrance into that room, she had brought a ray of light that
was growing stronger and stronger. He felt it shining upon him; he felt
it warming his chilled soul and driving the shadows from his gloomy
heart; he felt it giving him new courage to face the world and fight
against fate—fight until he conquered.
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