For some weeks Gilbert had been perfecting a number of handsomely
finished medicine cabinets (which were furnished with racks for bottles
and drawers for boxes, sponges, and all the various healing
paraphernalia which every well-regulated household keeps at hand for
emergencies), and now that the question of subsistence was so seriously
confronting them once more, he determined to canvass from house to house
and endeavor to sell them. Knowing that the homes of the rich would be
closed against him, he could only hope to gain access to those of the
middle and poorer classes, among whom he meant to provoke what thought
and inquiry he could regarding the establishment of a society of
universal brotherhood. Beyond the five great principles enunciated by
the eloquent clergyman, all ideas were as yet in a nebulous state.
Having established the fact of a desire for the proposed reform, the
three instigators—for Elsie was already heart and hand in the projected
work—believed that wisdom would be given them for the rounding and
perfecting of details. “There is one thing to be remembered,” said
Margaret, “that to-day no less than yesterday a tree is known by its
fruit, and love to God can only be reached in the minds of the oppressed
through love to man. First prove to men that you love their souls
because you love the God that created them, and you will then be able to
convey to them some of the greater truths of a divine and spiritual
love.”
“Is not that material doctrine?” asked Elsie.
“No, I do not think so. The world has been mystified too long. The plain
and simple doctrine of a human, interested, generous love even a child
can understand, and God does not despise the day of small things.”
“How otherwise can you reach a material nature than by material
symbols?” asked Gilbert.
“Even as a child learns to rely upon love and gradually reaches back to
the motive and inspiration of that love, so back of this earthly
brotherhood men will come to see the radiance and truth of divinity
overshadowing it.”
“Ah, if mankind can only be made to look at it in that light! But what
are we going to do, Gilbert, in this new order with the besotted and
brutish natures that live only for self?”
“Give them all the personal friendliness we can and help them to outgrow
their evil natures.”
“It will take generations of refining influences to do that, I am
afraid. So much clings to the flesh that is bred in the bone.”
“True; but we are to-day only small factors in the great scheme of human
civilization. What we leave unfinished other hands may take up. In any
event, whether of failure or success, we three, weird fates maybe,” said
Gilbert with a smile, “we know that for us happiness lies in doing what
we can to lighten the heavy load of oppression and injustice under which
our brothers are groaning.”
“Amen!” exclaimed Elsie, printing a resounding kiss upon Gilbert’s
cheek. “You look like another Savonarola, only a trifle handsomer, I
must admit.”
“Give me the inspiration of his genius and the force of his eloquence,
and I’ll will you my good looks.”
“Thanks! Herbert says I’ll do as I am,” she exclaimed, drawing herself
up to her full height and flushing and dimpling as roguishly as a
mischievous child.
“By the way, Elsie, how are you and your millionaire lover going to
reconcile the very opposite views you hold on various vital questions?”
Elsie’s face grew sober instantly. “I don’t like to think about it,
Gilbert. I’m so happy now that I’m only waiting. Perhaps—some time—God
knows!” and tears routed the smiles on the volatile face.
“There! don’t worry about it,” said Gilbert. “He’s a jolly good fellow,
anyhow, and we wouldn’t be any worse than a number of well-known
personages of history if we let conscience succumb to the narcotizing
influence of his pieces of silver.”
There was an unusual twinkle in the eyes of the sober Gilbert, which
provoked Elsie to say: “Go to, thou reformer! What need hast thou of any
man’s silver?”
With Elsie’s return home, her faculty for turning off work, and her fund
of good-humor, the circumference of the Busy Fingers Club was constantly
increasing. Now that Gilbert was away so much, she took his place at the
bench on the Saturdays allotted to the Club, and if she did not exhibit
his dexterity in directing and executing work, she yet preserved order
and made fast friends of the boys under her charge. She was so fertile
in suggestion that a good many new ideas took shape in inventive heads
and found expression in beautiful and useful things in wood. “Some day,”
said Elsie sagely, “we’ll have a bazaar and sell these things, and oh,
won’t we be rich!”
“What’ll we do with our money?” cried the boys.
“Put it in the bank until we can find some great and glorious need for
it.”
“Like buying me a bicycle!” shouted one of the lads.
“And me a base-ball outfit!”
“And me a fiddle!”
“And me a musical top!”
“And me a white elephant!” cried Elsie. But the laugh did not rout the
idea of doing something in the way of a bazaar. It spread among the
girls and incited them to renewed effort; and it grew to be an open
secret in the neighborhood that in the glowing but indefinite sometime,
great things were to be achieved by the now well-known Busy Fingers
Club.
It was the last of November and Antoine had returned from the hospital,
able to walk with the aid of one crutch and the promise of discarding
that when exercise and development had perfected the cure. A happier
woman than Lizzette Minaud seldom walked the earth. All her dreams and
anticipations of good fortune seemed to be winging their way to
realization. Antoine was getting well; for now that the lad had been
lifted to his full stature, the deformed shoulders seemed to be
straightening, the color came and went in the once pale cheeks, and the
laughter in his heart made a constant music for her.
“Oh, eet ees all von blessed Providence, mon Herbeart,” she cried as he
sat at her right hand, the honored guest at the little banquet she had
prepared at Idlewild to welcome Antoine’s home-coming. “Surely le bon
Dieu direct ze noble heart to help my boy, and——”
“Fall in love with Elsie,” suggested Herbert, who felt a little fearful
of a lachrymose scene in which he might be called upon to play actor.
“Certainement!” laughed Lizzette. “Eet ees ze match made in heaven.”
“Occasional sulphurous fumes about it when I scold, eh, Herbert?” cried
Elsie.
“Oh, just enough as yet to light the flame of a ready wit. Whether
there’ll ever be any greater combustion remains to be seen.”
“Well, I couldn’t be any happier over it if I stood in Herbert’s place,”
ejaculated Antoine, which grave announcement, in view of his twelve
years of maturity, was met with marked hilarity by the little circle.
“And I’m sure,” added Antoine, in no way abashed, “if Herbert is never
blown up until Elsie lights the fuse he’ll walk the earth a good while;
for I don’t believe she knows how to scold.”
“Antoine, my lad, six months of seclusion have made you singularly
trustful. Elsie has scolded me ever since I knew her, and I’ve grown so
used to it in the last few weeks that I regard it in the light of a
tonic—like quinine or any other excellent bitter.”
“Antoine,” said Elsie in a stage whisper, “have you noticed how improved
in health and appearance our mutual friend Mr. Lynn seems to be? It is
all the result of the exercise induced by trying to ward off some home
truths I’ve been thrusting at him.”
“Ze fumes of sulphur!” cried Lizzette. “I protest zey rise no higher. I
fear ze combustion.”
“They are a somewhat singular pair of lovers,” interposed Margaret. “It
is a rare thing when they are not sparring, but as they seem to enjoy it
and Herbert has not yet asked for a body-guard, I seldom interpose an
objection.”
“Which, in view of the young man’s unprotected situation, is very
considerate of you,” said Elsie with a defiant toss of her head. “It is
my opinion, however, that there are more entertaining themes than the
peculiarities of a couple of commonplace individuals. Mr. Lynn, will you
please give us a lecture on good manners?”
“I shall be most happy to do so when my audience narrows to one
listener.”
“And he is before the mirror,” retorted Elsie.
“Hush!” said Antoine; “stop that quarrelling! I’m going to sing.” And
closing his eyes and crossing his hands before him, he began to croon,
in well-portrayed negro accent and intonation, the lines of a little
dialect song:
“De way is dark an’ rough an’ long,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
Doan’t git too deep in de slew ob wrong,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
“Dey’s cross-roads heah an’ cross-roads dar,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
But hope is de sign-board shinin’ like a star,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
“Jes’ keep a-joggin’ tru’ de san’ an’ clay,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
Dar’s lub at de eend ob de ’arthly way,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
“De eyes some time mighty full ob teahs,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
But lub is de lawd ob de slabe ob feahs,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
“So jes’ keep smilin’ in de face ob woe,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!
Dar’s a happy lan’ whar de good shall go,
Go slow, hol’ hard, chillun!”
The clear soprano voice rolled out the words and notes with the abandon
of his Ethiopian prototype, and Elsie turned and laid an arm around the
lad’s neck as she exclaimed: “Antoine Minaud! Where in the world did you
find that song?”
“In here,” said Antoine, significantly tapping his temple.
“An improvisator!” cried Elsie ecstatically. “Herbert, we’re in the
presence of genius.”
“So I perceive. Where did you discover the faculty, Antoine?”
“At the hospital.”
“Can you improvise instantly?”
“Give me a theme and see.”
“Well, take my lady’s eyes,” said Herbert with a low bow to Elsie.
“Her nose rather! That would be more in keeping,” retorted Elsie.
“All right,” laughed Antoine, and scarcely a moment later he was
carolling a rollicking Irish jig to words that seemed to follow the tune
as if they had been fitted with the utmost carefulness.
“My lady’s nose—
You wouldn’t suppose
A poet could rave about it,
But as it lies
Between her eyes,
She wouldn’t look well without it!
“An ‘ornery’ nose
Can smell a rose,
But hers has more to do, sir!
It scornful tips
Above her lips,
At follies she finds in you, sir!”
“Bravo, Antoine!” cried Elsie, jumping up and bringing his violin. “Now
play it.”
And as the violin dashed into the abandon of the melody, she grasped
Gilbert by the shoulders and the two went whirling off into a jig.
“That’s inspiring,” cried Herbert, catching up Lizzette and dashing
after them. The dishes rattled, the pictures shook, the stove trembled,
the floors creaked, but on they danced, madder and merrier as the violin
actually shrieked in glee, until Margaret cried aghast:
“Ho! ‘Tom the Piper’s Son!’ Stop! Stop! I beg. It is a veritable
witches’ dance.”
“Come on, my solemn sister,” and Elsie caught Margaret around the waist
and dragged her into the merry scramble.
“My poor old bones!” cried Lizzette, sinking into a chair. “Antoine’s a
necromancer! I almost grow young again.” The fiddle stopped, but only
for a moment, for by a sudden transition it swept away into an old-time
melody:
“Sleep on thy pillow,
Happy and light,
As the moon on the billow
Reposes at night.”
The old fiddle seemed to have awakened to new life under the touch of
the new Antoine, and Herbert could scarcely repress a glow of
satisfaction as he looked at the lad. “Specific kindness does vastly
more for the world than general good-will. If I might be permitted to
spend the better part of my income on this little circle, I should feel
that I had done enough for humanity; but the worst part of it is, this
little circle has such exalted ideas of independence, and Elsie—bless
her and bother her!—shuts the door in my face continually. I don’t more
than half like the muddle, anyway!”
The winter wore away with but few radical changes. Mrs. Mason’s
opposition to Herbert’s marriage to Elsie showed no diminution, and
after numberless and fruitless intercessions on his part he finally took
up his quarters at a hotel, and Mrs. Mason closed her house and went to
Europe. His sister’s opposition and Elsie’s persistent refusal to marry
him as long as the present bitterness remained between them, kept
Herbert in a constant state of dissatisfaction. The world was quite too
much upside down with the conflict of ideas, and men no longer seemed to
be permitted to work out their own lines of happiness without treading
on somebody’s toes. Helen’s sole objection to Elsie had been the
capacity in which she had served them, and the consequent fear of
society’s verdict. He didn’t care a bit more for Helen’s narrow world,
than he did for Elsie’s quixotic schemes for a regenerated humanity. He
wanted simply to be happy in his own way and according to his highest
light. Helen and Elsie had both called him selfish, and both from
opposite standpoints. As to the truth of their judgments, he didn’t
care. He only knew that an overmastering love for Elsie as the
sweetest-natured, most piquant, and original woman he had ever met held
him fast in an irrevocable bondage, and but for an obstinacy on Elsie’s
part, as settled as it was difficult to understand, he would have cut
the Gordian knot by an immediate marriage and absolute defiance of
Helen. Lizzette had been right when she told Herbert he did not know
Elsie’s nature. It was developing a faculty for self-abnegation that
alarmed him. There were times when the sweetest and most sacred love
shone in her eyes, and the barriers of restraint were broken down by the
utmost sympathy of thought and feeling; at others the spirit of a martyr
looked out from their translucent depths and an invisible yet conscious
wall seemed to separate them. Herbert trembled in vague alarm whenever
he encountered this look, lying but thinly veiled beneath the mobile
face. But with a man’s blindness he could not see that the love which he
arrogated to himself and which shut out the world as of little moment,
was only broadening her sympathies and making divine revelations of its
beauty and value. Love with all its sacredness and possibilities,
holding close to the one dear image enshrined in the holy of holies of
her heart, had opened wide its door to suffering mankind. So vividly
burned the fire on the altar of her love that she turned as if with
outstretched arms, crying: “O ye who are cold and hungry! Here ye will
find warmth and shelter.”
It is rarely that a man understands either the motive or development of
a love like this, and he is quite apt through ignorance or jealousy to
quarrel with any of its various manifestations. To Herbert many of
Elsie’s ideas on the great and vexed social questions of the day seemed
the acme of absurdity, and he cherished the fond hope that when she was
once transplanted to regions of luxurious ease, they would die from
inanition. He looked upon them as the natural outgrowth of a
circumscribed horizon and constant association with the seamy side of
life. “When she sees what art, science, culture, and wealth can do for
those she loves, her sympathies will not wander so far, but will narrow
down to an area wherein we can walk hand in hand.”
Thus Herbert often assured himself as he became daily more conscious of
the undercurrent of feeling and belief that was gradually widening in
her nature.
The winter had been an unusually long and severe one, and the resources
of the little family had often been severely taxed to keep the wolf from
the door. Herbert’s alert eyes had discovered this fact, and he had
taken to leaving sundry packages of groceries and provisions of various
kinds in the most unheard-of places, trusting to time to discover them
and good sense to appropriate and say nothing. Margaret had found them
stuffed under the cushions of the chairs, behind pictures, tucked under
the book-rack, and impelled by a need sharper than even Elsie had
guessed, since into Margaret’s hands had been transferred the domestic
machinery, had, as Herbert hoped, used them without inquiry. “It is one
of God’s balances,” she said to herself, “that may one day even up. It
is a delicate and generous act for which I can only be thankful and keep
silent.”
To Gilbert the winter had been a revelation of suffering and vice that
had only stirred deeper the pool of the living faith within his heart.
In his vocation as peddler he had found access to much of the hidden
life of poverty and crime which escapes even the most far-sighted
general observers. Wherever he had been able to pierce the strata of
callousness which the severest forms of poverty invariably create, he
had found the same helpless appeal that has for so many generations
sounded down the aisles of time—give us something to hope for, believe
in, trust in! Something palpable that we can touch, feel, and know.
Inquiry as to churches surrounding them usually elicited a shrug of the
shoulders and the reply: “They are not for such as me. If I dares to go,
they talks about a far-off God that I doesn’t understand, and hitches
their fine clothes away from me as if my rags would pisen ’em!”
The more that Gilbert came to know the impulses stirring in these
benumbed hearts, the more he and Margaret felt the need of establishing
a ground of intercommunication between them. To be able to meet these
wretched mortals upon their own plane and lead them along, by paths they
could understand, up to the great truths of time and eternity, and to
make palpable to them that God’s love is not a mere abstraction, but a
revivifying, humanizing influence—what dearer work could one ask? And
yet how was it possible in their straightened circumstances to make even
a beginning of this work? Elsie’s fertility of resource solved the
problem.
“Make the Busy Fingers Club a factor in the case. Let them hold their
long-talked-of bazaar, rent the necessary room, and christen the project
‘The Children’s Home Meeting.’ Then let Gilbert go among his poor, tell
them of the wonderful violinist and improvisator, Antoine Minaud, and
promise them a free concert on some Sunday night. After the concert,
have a few moments for social intercourse, in which all four of the
principal instigators and abettors in the scheme endeavor to make the
acquaintance of those in the room, and then let Gilbert or Margaret give
them a few—only a few—of the simple truths of every-day living and
learning. It is a very simple beginning,” added Elsie dubiously.
“And for that reason the best,” said Margaret decidedly.
The members of the little club were enthusiastic abettors of the scheme
as outlined to them by Margaret and Elsie. The name which Elsie had so
happily bestowed upon the project instantly won upon their regard and
made them noisy advertisers of their work throughout the neighborhood.
The rooms of a member occupying the lower floor of the tenement-house
were secured for the use of the bazaar, and what audience the handiwork
of the little folks did not attract, the music of Antoine’s violin
succeeded in catching and holding. Altogether the bazaar was pronounced
a success by its delighted originators, and at its close there was money
enough to pay the rent of the hall for one night and possibly two. Then
came the work of training the children for the concert. Elsie took
especial care that every song should breathe the tenderness, the mercy,
the helpfulness of divine love, and the sweet, clear voices of the
children, trained to the subtile sympathy of expression by her innate
appreciation, made many of the songs long to be remembered.
It was a curious and motley throng that assembled in the hall one Sunday
night in response to Gilbert’s invitation, as he stood at the door and
took every comer by the hand. Women with shawls over their heads, with
babies asleep on their breasts, men with hats pulled low over eyes that
cast furtive glances of unrest and suspicion, brazen-faced and
gaudily-dressed creatures with their calling stamped upon their
countenances, ragged and barefooted children, pale-faced and distorted
cripples, came slowly and half-reluctantly into the room. It was
something so new, so unlike anything they had ever been offered, that
they were more than half afraid it was a trap, and that it would end in
their being preached at, told how vile they were, and warned to flee
from the wrath of an angry and a jealous God. They had heard these words
so many times and had felt, deep within disquieted and tumultuous
bosoms, the wide gulf between the prosperous promulgators of the church
and their own degraded and unhappy condition. Yet somehow they all
trusted Gilbert; there was something in the clear, earnest, boyish face
that won the most suspicious nature, and it was because they had felt
that he was truly their friend that they had ventured to come. The hall
was a barren, smoke-begrimed, illy-ventilated room, but Elsie and the
children had made what effort they could with meagreness of material to
brighten it up. Above the platform, where stood Elsie’s organ and where
the semicircle of children was ranged, those in the audience who could
read beheld in large letters, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so unto them.” Over the windows hung gay cotton banners
bearing such inscriptions as “Love is lord of all.” “A cup of cold water
to the thirsty.” “A kind word maketh the heart glad.” “A true heart is
one of earth’s jewels.” “A little child shall lead them.”
Antoine’s violin caught the inspiration of the hour and spoke in almost
human tones the pathos, the prayer, and the hope of each bosom. The airs
were those of simple, well-known hymns, many of them so familiar as to
be almost household words, and when in response to Gilbert’s invitation
the audience arose and sang the choruses, there were not many lips that
remained motionless. They had doubtless heretofore been hummed many
times by the same careless, unthinking voices; now they seemed to strike
deep into some inner fibre of feeling, and many a furtive tear rolled
from beneath quivering and downcast lashes. The children sang, as Elsie
declared, “like little angels;” but the crowning event of the evening
was Antoine’s improvisation. Advancing to the center of the platform on
his one crutch, he began in a low, plaintive, and touchingly-sweet
voice:
“My heart is sair wi’ muckle woe,
God knows! God knows!
I ken nae mair the way to go,
God knows!
“My feet are cut, my shoon are gane,
God knows! God knows!
And every step is hurt wi’ pain,
God knows!
“Nae light is roun’ aboot my way,
God knows! God knows!
I canna see the sun of day,
God knows!
“I faint and fall in sairest need,
God knows! God knows!
And men go by wi’ little heed,
God knows!
“Sae little costs the kindly word,
God knows! God knows!
Sae sad it is sae seldom heard,
God knows!
“Sae bitter is the thirsting lip,
God knows! God knows!
Some time mayhap love’s cup we’ll sip,
God knows!”
Before Antoine had finished, men and women were rocking back and forth
and sobbing like children, and when the last strains of the song died
away, it seemed minutes before any one spoke, and then a woman, who an
hour before had entered the room with a brazen face and a foul-mouthed
ejaculation, cried out in heart-broken tones: “Oh, sing it again—God
knows! God knows!”
Softly, as if taken up and echoed by angel voices, Antoine sang once
more the last stanza, and before the lingering notes were lost on the
air, he was at the woman’s side clasping her hand in his.
Instantly Gilbert, with Margaret and Elsie on either side and Lizzette
and the children following, left the platform to mingle with and take
the hands of those present. They passed among them with words of cheer
and good-will, and when order was again called, there was an
unmistakable look of eager expectancy upon the faces that was balm to
the watchful eyes of Margaret and Gilbert. Advancing to the front of the
platform, the latter said simply:
“My friends: I am glad you trusted me sufficiently to come here
to-night. We hope to have many more such nights together, and I only ask
you in going away to remember that, sad as is the pathway of life for
many of us, there is light ahead. The soul of man through which God
seeks to work the salvation of the world is not dead but sleepeth.
Slowly it is awaking, and love that abides in the world shall some time
teach men that its universal practice must be ‘Whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so unto them.’”