“ALL A-GROWIN’ AND A-BLOWIN’.”
It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings. Not that lodgings are
scarce in London. There are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed,
where the house that did not say “Apartments” in its window would be
the exception.
But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal. She must be economical,
for her funds were running low; she must be near the British Museum,
for she wanted to consult many authorities for the book about “Noted
Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to retrieve her fortunes; she wanted
quiet, too, and reasonably pretty things about her.
For a week she had spent most of her time in quest of the place where
she could settle herself comfortably for a few months. It was the gray
March weather. The mornings were dark, and the gloom of coming dusk
settled down early; and, during all the hours between, Miss Endell
had been busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks, “climbing the
stairs of others.”
At last, after much consideration, she had decided to make a certain
flight of stairs her own. She had taken the drawing-room floor of No.
30 Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of success she had
paid her bill at the Charing Cross Hotel, and driven to her new home.
The drawing-room floor--that is to say, the suite of rooms up
one flight of stairs from the street--is the most important part
of a London lodging-house. Whoever is kept waiting, when “the
drawing-room”--as it is the fashion to designate the lodger who
occupies that apartment--rings, the ring must at once be “answered to.”
That floor rents for as much as all the rest of the house put together,
and is the chief dependence of anxious landladies.
Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a person of importance. Her
boxes were brought upstairs, and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled
about cheerfully, helping her to arrange things.
At last every thing was comfortably placed, and the tired new-comer
settled herself in a low chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and
glanced around her.
Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible dust. The door was
open, and in the doorway was framed a singular face, that of a pale,
slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for the face, and
great eager eyes, with such a wistful, silent longing in them as Miss
Endell had never seen before.
At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught sight of the child, and cried
out a little crossly,--
“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as you wasn’t to ’ang round the
new lady, a-worritin’ her?”
The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears sprang to the great,
sad eyes; but he was silently turning away, when Miss Endell herself
spoke. She was not specially fond of children; but she had a kind
heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face of the child touched it.
“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said kindly. “Come in, my little
man, and tell me what your name is.”
The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak.
“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is your name?”
“Bless you, ma’am, he _can’t_ speak!” said Mrs. Stone.
“Can’t speak?”
“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws, he can hear as well as
anybody, and he knows all you say to him; but there’s something the
matter. The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors, she was
sure, as could help him, but I haint any money to try experiments.
“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father died before he was born, and
his mother lived just long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me
to take care of him.
“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a worrit. What with empty
rooms, and lodgers as didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money
enough ahead to spend on doctors.
“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’ round. You’d get sick o’ that.
The last ‘drawing-room’ said it made her that nervous to see him; and I
halways thought she went off partly for that.”
“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid; but let him sit down
here by the fire, and when I find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.”
Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his station on a stool in a
corner of the hearth-rug.
Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from time to time she
looked at the boy. His face was pale and wistful still, but a
half-smile, as sad as tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he
was gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every line of her face
in his memory for ever.
For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs. Stone came to lay the cloth
for dinner, and sent him away to bed.
The next morning he appeared again; and soon it grew to be his habit to
sit, almost all the day through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks.
In spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of her thoughts.
Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few close and vital interests
in her life. She got to feel as if it belonged to her, in a certain
way, to look after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still than
herself.
Often she took an hour from her work to read little tales to him, and
it was reward enough to see how his eyes brightened, and the color
came into his pale little face. She used to think that if her work
succeeded, Johnny should also be the better for it. As soon as the
first edition of “Noted Irishwomen” was sold, she would have the best
medical advice for him; and if there were such a thing as giving those
lips language, it should be done.
“Should you _like_ to speak to me, Johnny?” she asked one day suddenly.
The boy looked at her, for one moment, with eyes that seemed to grow
larger and larger. Then came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook
him so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect of her own
words. She bent over and put her hand on his head.
“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly.
I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little dumb boy “dear”
before, in all his eleven years of life. He looked up through his
tears, with a glad, strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing
had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture, he kissed the
hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and the slippered foot that peeped out
beneath it.
I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good women that comes
out toward all helpless creatures; and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s
heart. After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable. Often she
took him with her on her walks, and always when she worked he kept his
silent vigil on the hearth-rug.
Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could not bear to be without
flowers. She did not care much for the cut and wired bouquets of the
florist, but she seldom came home from her walks without some handful
of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets or forget-me-nots. Now and then
she bought a tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed how lovingly
she tended it--how she watched it bursting from bud to flower.
He got to know that this strange, bright creature whom he idolized
loved flowers, and loved tea-roses best of all. A wild desire grew in
him to buy her tea-roses--not one, only, but a whole bunch. He spent
his days in thinking how it was to be done, and his nights in dreaming
about it. A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed in his
life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose, much less a bunch of them.
One day Miss Endell took him with her when she went to see a friend. It
was a prosperous, good-natured, rich woman in whose house they found
themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,” Miss Endell said; and
Johnny wandered down the long room, quite out of ear-shot.
Then she told his pathetic little story, and her friend’s careless yet
kind heart was touched. When it was time for Miss Endell to go, she
summoned Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave the boy a
half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown.
Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime, and lifted his
wistful, inquiring eyes.
“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer; “and don’t let any
one take it away from you.”
Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver meant but one thing
to Johnny,--tea-roses, unlimited tea-roses.
The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,--a low, slow fever. His
aunt was kind enough to him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would
have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell.
She had him brought each morning into her room, and kept him all day
lying on her sofa, giving him now a kind word, now a draught of cold
water, and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in them.
One day Johnny drew something from his bosom, and put it into Miss
Endell’s hand. It was the silver half-crown. He made her understand,
by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it for him; and she
dropped it into a drawer of her writing-desk.
At last Johnny began to get well. June came, with all its summer sights
and sounds, and strength came with its softer winds to the poor little
waif. One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out his hand. She
understood, and dropped the half-crown into it. He hid it, with a sort
of passion, in his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this little
waif, then, care so much for money?
As soon as he could stand, he took up his station on the balcony
outside the windows, and watched and watched.
His friend thought only that the sights and sounds of the street amused
him. She was working on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was nearing
its conclusion, and it quite suited her that Johnny found the street so
interesting.
As for the child, he was possessed by only one idea,--tea-roses. He
watched to see the hand-barrows come along, flower-laden and tempting.
These same hand-barrows are a feature of London street life. They
are full of plants growing in pots, and also there are plenty of
cut flowers. The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’ and
a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in the cry. It seems part
of the summer itself.
Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched and watched. Flowers
enough went by,--geraniums glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white
heath, violets,--only never any tea-roses.
But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar cry, “_All a-growin’
and a-blowin’!_” and lo! as if they had bloomed for his need, there
were tea-roses--whole loads of tea-roses!
Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady Morgan. She never noticed
when the little silent figure left the window, and hurried downstairs.
Out into the street that little figure went, and on and on, in hot
pursuit of the flower-barrow, which by this time had quite the start of
him.
Down one street, up another, he ran, and always with the silver
half-crown tightly clasped in the palm of his little hand.
At last a customer detained the barrow; and Johnny hurried up to it,
panting and breathless. He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and
then he held out his silver half-crown.
The flower-seller looked at him curiously, “Why don’t you speak, young
’un?” he said. “Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth o’ them
tea-roses?”
Johnny nodded vehemently.
The man took up a great handful of the pale sweet flowers, and thrust
them into the boy’s hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and
putting it away in a sort of pouch, along with many silver mates.
As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme moments, and his came
then. He held in his hand the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he
was going to give them to her.
All his life he had felt himself in every one’s way. She, only, had
made him welcome to her side. She had called him “dear,”--and now
there was something he could do for her. She had loved one tea-rose:
how much, then, would she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart
swelled with a great wave of pride and joy.
He thought of nothing but his flowers,--how should he?--and he never
even heard or saw the butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as
John Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment, something had pushed him
down,--something rolled and crunched over him,--and he knew nothing;
but he held the flowers tight through it all.
“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said the butcher-boy, who had
got down from his cart by this time, and was addressing the quickly
assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and lift un up into my cart, and
I’ll carry un home.”
An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor child’s dumb lips as
they lifted him; but his hold on the tea-roses never loosened.
They carried him home, and into the house. Mrs. Stone was shocked and
grieved; and she took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her
class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady Morgan, heard cries and
shrieks, and dropped her pen and hastened downstairs.
“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone and Miss Endell, white and
silent, drew near.
But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying fast. The butcher-boy had
hurried off for a doctor and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid, and
her lodger, stood by helplessly.
Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on Miss Endell. A great sweet
smile of triumph curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his
face. With one grand last effort, he put out the bunch of tea-roses,
and pressed them into her hand.
And then, as if death had somehow been more merciful to him than life,
and had in some way loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out the
only words he had ever spoken--was ever to speak,--
“_For you!_”
At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless like the rest, for
death was stronger than all his skill. The shock and the hurt together
had quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so swiftly.
Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering lips. As she did so,
the tea-roses she held touched the little face.
Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or both together, which
seemed for one moment to recall the departing soul?
He looked up; it was his last look, and it took in the sweet woman who
had been so gentle and so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand.
His face kindled with a great joy. A hero might have looked like that
who had died for his country, or a man who had given his life joyfully
for child or wife.
Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and that creature had loved
tea-roses. What _could_ life have held so sweet as the death that found
him when he was striving to give her her heart’s desire?