JACK’S HOME.
Jack’s four rooms on the second floor, No. 30 —— street, though plain
and poor, compared with the splendors of Oakwood, were very pleasant
rooms at all times; and on the morning of the day when Edna was
expected, they were swept and dusted, and put in order much earlier than
was usual for Aunt Luna, who was not gifted with remarkably swift powers
of locomotion.
The front room answered the double purpose of parlor by day and sleeping
room by night, the bed disappearing in the shape of a broad,
luxurious-looking sofa, or lounge, whose neat covering of green and
white chintz, with the soft, motherly cushions, gave no hint of the
bedding stowed carefully away beneath. The carpet also was green, of a
light, cheerful pattern, while the easy chairs were covered with the
same material. Plain muslin curtains were draped gracefully back from
the windows, in one of which a bird-cage was hanging, and in the other a
wire basket of moss, from which the German ivy hung in festoons, and
then was trained back to the wall, making for both the windows a
beautiful cornice, and reaching still further on to a pretty chromo
which it surrounded with a network of leaves. Over the mantel was
another and a larger-sized chromo, and on the wall opposite two or three
first-class engravings. These, with a few brackets and vases, a
book-case of well-chosen books, and a head of Schiller and Dante,
completed the furniture of the room, if we except the bright fire
blazing in the grate and the pretty lion’s-head rug lying before the
fender.
To the left of the front windows was a door opening into the hall
bedroom, Jack’s room, with its single bed, its strip of carpeting, its
one chair, its little square stand, and on the wall a porcelain-type of
Georgie, whose black eyes, though soft and beautiful, seemed to have in
them a look of contempt, as if they scorned their humble surroundings.
A narrow passage, with closets and shelves on either side, divided the
parlor from the room in the rear, which also did double service as
dining-room and kitchen, where Luna baked, and washed, and ironed, and
served her master’s meals with as much care and attention as if he had
been the richest man in the city, and dined each day from solid plate.
Old Luna’s sleeping apartment was the little room or closet off from the
kitchen, which she kept so neat and tidy that few would have shrunk from
resting there in her easy chair, or even from sleeping, if need be, in
her clean, wholesome-looking bed.
And here Jack lived content and happy till his mother died. With her
death a great light had gone from his dwelling, for the mother and son
were tenderly attached; but whatever Jack suffered, he suffered alone,
in the privacy of his own room, or out in the dark streets, which he
often traversed at night after his work was done. There was seldom a
trace of sadness in his genial, good-natured face when he went back to
Annie, who, since her accident and his mother’s death, had at times been
given to fits of weeping and depression.
“I want somethin’, and I don’t know,” was what she had said at first
when questioned as to the cause of her grief.
Gradually the want had resolved itself into an intense longing for
“sister Georgie,” whom the child regarded as little less than an angel,
almost worshipping the beautiful picture which she sometimes had brought
to her bed, where she could see it and talk to it when Jack was away and
Luna busy in the kitchen.
With all the eagerness of a child, she had waited for Georgie’s coming;
and when Jack’s telegram from Iona had told her there must necessarily
be a delay, she cried herself into a headache, and finally went to sleep
with her white cheek pressed against the portrait of Georgie, who was
not worthy of this child’s pure love, and whose heart was as cold and
hard as the block of porcelain which shadowed forth her marvellous
beauty.
It was a very sad heart which Jack Heyford carried up the stairs to his
home on that day of his return, for he knew how bitter was the
disappointment in store for the expectant little one, who had been
dressed and waiting so long, and whose blue eyes shone like stars when
the familiar step was heard upon the stairs. One look of welcome they
gave to Jack, and then darted past him out into the passage,—out into
vacancy; Georgie was not there.
“Oh, Jack,” and the eyes were like Georgie Burton’s, when looking afar
off. “Where is sister? Didn’t she come with you?”
Jack told her where Georgie was as gently as possible, and without a
word or tone which sounded like blame, and Annie listened to him; and
when he said, “she bade me tell you not to cry, but be a good girl, and
she will soon come to you,” the pretty lip quivered in a grieved kind of
way, and the breath came in quick gasps as the child tried to do her
sister’s bidding.
“Is it naughty to cry? then I won’t. I will try and be a good girl, but
oh, I am sorrier than Georgie can guess,” Annie said at last, and Jack
felt something rising to his lips like a curse upon the heartless woman
this little child loved so much.
He gave her the chocolates, and the doll, and the puzzle, and the book,
and sighed to see how quietly she put them away without so much as
tasting her favorite candies. And then he told her about the terrible
accident, and of Edna, who, he said was so young, and pretty, and who
was suffering such terrible sorrow. Annie was interested, and the tears
she had repressed to please Georgie, flowed in torrents now, as she
said:
“I am so sorry for the lady, and I want to see her so much, and I mean
to pray for her that Heaven will make it better for her sometime;” and
that night, while Edna in her lonely bed at Mrs. Dana’s was weeping over
her desolation and feeling so friendless and alone, a little crippled
child lay on its back, and with hands clasped reverently, prayed for the
poor lady whose husband was killed; prayed that “Heaven would bring it
right some day, and make it better, and make her well, and make her
happy, and make her another husband for Christ’s sake.” “I reckon that
will do,” Annie whispered softly. “Mother said, ‘ask for Christ’s sake,
and believe you’ll have it, and you will,’ but then”—and here a dark
doubt of unbelief began to creep in—“if that is so, why didn’t sister
come? I asked God to send her, and I believed He would just as hard, and
He didn’t. Maybe it’s that lie I told the other day;” and again the
waxen hands were folded, while the little trusting child asked, as she
had done many times, to be forgiven for the falsehood told to Jack two
weeks before.
She had confessed it to Jack, and he had forgiven her, and promised not
to tell Georgie when she came. She had also confessed it to God many
times, and asked Him not to let her do such naughty things; and now when
she told Him about it again, she felt as if that one sin was forgiven,
but away down in her heart was a shadow of unbelief, the first she had
ever known. She had trusted Heaven, and her faith was firm as a rock
that Georgie would come. But the contrary had been the case; Georgie had
not come; Heaven had not heard and answered her, and she could not
account for it. Poor child, she is not the first or the only one who has
found it hard to understand just what Christ meant when He said, “What
things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye shall receive
them, and ye shall have them.”