NORA'S DREAM.
Mr. Alden found that Dr. Blanchard quite agreed with him as to the
importance of getting their patient removed to the hospital. The doctor
thought that her case was by no means hopeless, provided she could be
supplied with the constant care and nourishment she so urgently needed,
and this could scarcely be secured for her except in the hospital. Dr.
Blanchard, who had all the ready, practical kindness which usually marks
members of the medical profession, added to that of a naturally kind
heart, willingly undertook to make the arrangements for the invalid's
removal.
Miss Blanchard returned next morning with an encouraging report. The
care and nourishing food given frequently during the night had produced
a decided improvement; and though the disease was deeply seated, and the
patient was reduced to extreme weakness, she had youth and strong
vitality on her side, notwithstanding all the privations and misery she
had evidently endured. From Lizzie Mason, who had sat with her for an
hour or two of her vigil, Nora had heard, while the patient lay
unconscious in a heavy slumber, some details about her past life which
had gone to her heart, and had made her realize, with a sickening
sensation, something of that struggle for life which a poor friendless
woman, cast adrift in a busy world, must often endure.
Miss Blanchard felt herself strongly drawn toward the pale, wistful
young girl, who had been so ready to sacrifice her own sorely-needed
rest in order to care for the invalid, and had drawn from her many
particulars of her hard-working life. It was a simple story, told in a
very matter-of-fact, uncomplaining way; but involuntary tears of
indignant sympathy started to the listener's thoughtful eyes at the
unconscious revelation of hard, unremitting, monotonous toil for eleven,
twelve, and sometimes thirteen hours a day, as the pressure of work
required, and that under conditions unhealthy enough to depress the most
vigorous young life.
"But cannot you find something better than that?" Nora asked; "some
healthier as well as pleasanter work? Would it not be better to take to
domestic service? Every one says it is so difficult to find girls
qualified to do it faithfully and well, and I am sure you would do both.
You know there is nothing in serving others to lower any right
self-respect," she added, quietly; "and who it was who said that He came
not to be ministered to but to minister."
"Yes," said Lizzie, "I heard Mr. Alden preach beautifully about that! I
often go to his church, Sunday evenings, for it's the nearest, and he
speaks so plain-like, I do admire to hear him. But it's not _that_
indeed, miss! I'd love, myself, to be in a good, quiet house, where one
could sit down when one was tired, and not have to go out in the dark,
all sorts of mornings, and have to be on the go all day! But, you see,
if I live at home I can give mother my board, an' that's such a help to
her. An' if I was in a place, I'd have to wear good clothes, an' that
would eat up all my earnin's, an' mother needs all I can do to help her
and the children. An' then my brother Jim's a little wild, and if I'm at
home, I can look after him a bit."
Nora, interested in getting for herself a definite idea of this girl's
daily life, drew her out a little more about this brother, the eldest of
the family. He worked in the mill, too, and would be a great help to the
family if it were not for his unsteadiness, which had run away with a
good deal of his earnings, and he had once or twice been on the point of
being discharged.
"He has never been the same boy," Lizzie said, sadly, "since he has
taken up with Nelly Grove."
"That was the girl you were talking to this evening when I passed you,
was it not?" asked Miss Blanchard.
"Yes, that was Nelly. She's not a bad-hearted little thing, but she's
awful flighty and fond of pleasure. She's an orphan, too, an' her
friends live in the country, so she hasn't any one to look after her
here. I think she'd be good enough to Jim, if she was let alone, but
there's a gentleman"--and Lizzie lowered her voice still further--"as
turns her head with compliments an' attentions, an' it makes Jim so
jealous that he just goes off on a tear, whenever he finds out about it,
unless I can manage to coax him and stop him."
"I see," said Miss Blanchard, thoughtfully; "but what a shame it is!"
And so, by force of cruel fate, as it seemed, this girl was as truly
chained by invisible fetters to her daily toil among those relentless
wheels and pulleys, as if she were a galley-slave. The plantation
slaves, on the whole, were not so badly off. They had their regular
hours of toil, but their hours of relaxation were free from care, and
full of fun and frolic, and--which was another great relief--they had
frequent change of labor. Roland Graeme's words occurred to her mind
with a new force and significance. But how was it? Did not the Heavenly
Father in whom she had been taught to believe, care for the sparrows,
and did He not much more care for helpless girls? Was His care not for
Lizzie as well as for her, in her pleasant, protected life? It was too
deep a problem, and she remembered a saying of Goethe, which she had
lately read that "Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe,
but to find out what he has to do, and then to do that." And if she
could hereafter do anything to help her less favored sisters, she then
and there registered an unspoken vow that she would do what she could.
The following being as mild a day as was likely to occur that season,
Dr. Blanchard recommended that Mrs. Travers should be at once removed to
the St. Barnabas Hospital. But it was a task of some difficulty to gain
her consent. She seemed to cling tenaciously to the privacy of her
wretched little room, and to shrink nervously from the idea of a common
hospital ward. She so clearly bore the impress of refinement and
culture, that Nora felt as if it were inflicting an indignity on her to
ask her to endure the trial; and she offered to bear, herself, the
expense of a private room for a month, if the patient would consent to
the removal. But what then was to be done with the little girl? She
could not go to the hospital, and there seemed to be no room for her in
Lizzie's overcrowded home.
"I'll take her in," said Mr. Alden, with his good-humored smile, as they
were consulting over the difficulties in the way. But Nora demurred. He
had enough of his own, and she did not want to put one more care on Mrs.
Alden or Gracie. She took her sister-in-law aside for consultation, and
presently returned triumphant. "Sophy says I may have her here," she
said to her brother. "She's such a dear little grave creature, I don't
think she'll give any trouble, and she will help to amuse Eddie and
Daisy. They are almost too much for nurse, now baby's growing so
lively."
"Trust Nora for finding the bright side of everything," said Dr.
Blanchard, laughing. "She's a born optimist."
"Indeed, I thought I was growing pessimistic last night," said Nora.
"It's horrible to find out, really, how so many people have to live!"
she added, looking at Mr. Alden, with a perplexed look in her eyes, and
a shadow over her usually bright face.
"And you've had no rest yet!" interposed her brother. "You must go and
lie down at once. I'll see the poor woman transferred to her new
quarters as safely as may be, and bring the child here; and you can go
to see the mother another time."
Nora went to her dainty, quiet room--such a contrast to the one in which
she had spent the night!--and, lying down on the soft luxurious bed, she
tried to close her tired eyes in sleep; but it was rather a failure. A
healthy young _physique_, accustomed to sleep only at regular hours,
does not readily adapt itself to irregular rest; and heart and brain
were still too much excited to encourage sleep. The aspect of the
miserable little room seemed photographed on her inner sight; the
oppressed breathing of the invalid, the sad glimpses into other people's
lives, haunted her whenever she closed her eyes. As she lay there on her
soft couch in the daintily-appointed room, with the pretty things about
her with which girls like to surround themselves, and the light softly
shaded to make an artificial twilight, visions rose before her of
droning wheels and flashing shuttles, of long arrays of frames, such as
she had seen in the factory some time before; and the thought of the
girls with feelings and nerves like her own, tending, through so many
weary hours, these senseless and relentless machines, oppressed her
quick sensibilities like a nightmare. Then, when at last she fell into a
brief, troubled slumber, she dreamed that she was following some one
through mile after mile of endless corridors, all lined with that
inexorable, never-ceasing machinery, tended by armies of pale, slender
girls, many of them children. And whenever she desired to sit down to
rest, her conductor kept beckoning her onward, and she seemed compelled
to follow, on--on--would it never end! And as her companion looked round
impatiently to urge her advance, she saw for the first time that it was
the young man who had been her guide and escort the preceding evening.
And, just then, Eddie, stealing on tip-toe into the room to see if
"Auntie were awake yet," dispersed the illusion, and she awoke to a glad
consciousness of liberty and restfulness, yet with a strange sense of
latent pain behind it.
Nora lay still a little longer, thinking with some interest of the
curious way in which the sights and sounds of waking hours interweave
themselves into new and absurd combinations, when the guiding will is
for the time off duty. She was naturally introspective, and had a
special turn for psychological studies, in which her brother's line of
thought harmonized with her own. But suddenly she was startled by sounds
that stole into the quietude--sounds of a child's unrestrained, sobbing
grief, intermingled with unsuccessful attempts at consolation.