“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for I may want to find you
again.”
“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of stairs; and if I’m not
there Tom always is.”
“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly, after the woman had
gone. “Didn’t I tell you that he was sick? You see now,--‘Tom’s always
there.’”
“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I don’t think he is. He is
much more likely to be her child.”
“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You say that to be
contradictious. Now, it is not nice to be contradictious; besides, she
wouldn’t look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her boy.”
But weeks passed on, and nothing more was heard of Mrs. Graham, until,
at last, Thanksgiving Day was near at hand. Kitty was to have a new
dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had undertaken to finish it, found that
she had not time.
“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,” cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can
drive me down to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.”
Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a few minutes Luke had brought
to the door the one-horse coupé, which had been the last year’s
Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and in which Miss Kitty
was always glad to make an excuse for going out.
Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two flights of stairs, and
tapped on the door, on which was a printed card with the name of Mrs.
Graham.
A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical sweetness in it,
answered,--
“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.”
If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice for a man.
“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought wilful Kitty. “It’s rather
curious how often mamma _is_ right, when I come to think of it.”
She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s husband, nor yet her
son, but a girl, whose face looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own
age, whose shoulders and waist told the same story; but whose lower
limbs seemed curiously misshapen and shrunken--no larger, in fact, than
those of a mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face, not at all
sad. Short, thick brown hair curled round it, and big brown eyes, full
of good-humor, met Kitty’s curious glance.
“_I_ am Tom,” the same musical voice--which made Kitty think of a
bird’s warble--said, in a tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open
the door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.”
“And why--what--Tom”--
Kitty struggled desperately with the question she had begun to ask, and
Tom kindly helped her out.
“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a boy’s name; or why can’t I
walk? I’m Tom because my father called me Tomasina, after his mother,
and we can’t afford such long names in this house; and I can’t walk
because I pulled a kettle of boiling water over on myself when I was
six years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at all. I was
left, you see, in a room by myself, while mother was busy somewhere
else, and when she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled me out
from under the kettle, and saved the upper half of me all right.”
“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the quick tears rushing to her
eyes. “It must have almost killed your mother.”
“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober. She never laughs, but
she never frets either; and oh, how good she is to me!”
Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed to her so bare. It was
spotlessly clean, and Tom’s chair was soft and comfortable--as indeed
a chair ought to be which must be sat in from morning till night.
Opposite to it were a few pictures on the wall,--engravings taken from
books and magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham by some of her
lady customers. Within easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a
rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored worsteds, while
a book or two lay beside them.
“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting her errand in her
sympathy--forgetting, too, that Luke and his impatient horse were
waiting below.
“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into the street sometimes; but
I’ve grown too heavy for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull,
even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how many things I see from
my window; and then I make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells
them; and then I sing.”
Kitty stepped to the window to see what range of vision it offered, and
her eye fell on Luke. She recalled her business.
“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew two or three days for
me this week.”
Tom was alert and business-like at once.
“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;” and she drew toward her a
little book, and looked it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could
have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you want so much. Please write
your name against them.”
Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote her name and address
with the little toy-pencil at the end of her chatelaine; and then she
turned to go, but it was Tom’s turn to question.
“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which seemed so like the clear
carol of a bird, “would you mind telling me how old you are? I’m
sixteen myself.”
“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty.
“And you have a father and mother both, haven’t you?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty.
“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two. Must you go now? And I
wonder if I shall ever see you again?”
“Yes, you _will_ see me again,” answered Kitty cheerily; and then,
moved by a sudden impulse of her kind, frank young heart, she bent
over and touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the poor girl
who must sit prisoner there for ever, and yet who kept this bright
cheerfulness all the time.
“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty, bursting into her mother’s
room like a fresh wind, “and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t _he
_at all--she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t walk--not a step since
she was six years old.”
And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little story, and got to crying
over it herself, and made her mother cry, too, before she was through.
After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown study. Finally she
came out of it, and began talking in her usual impulsive manner.
“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving, mamma? There’s not a single
pretty thing in that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush; and
every thing did look so bare and clean and poverty-stricken; and I know
they’ll never afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes, mamma,
dear! I know you’ll say yes, _because_ you’re such a dear, and you love
to make every one happy.”
“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make papa happy, must I not?
You know he never wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa and
grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you would not like to spoil papa’s
old-fashioned Thanksgiving Day.”
Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice of her mother’s
remark, and there was no more to be said. She sat thinking over her
disappointment in a silence which her mother was the one to break.
“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,” said this wise mamma, who
was herself every bit as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as
much about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs. Graham and Tom would
just as much prefer being alone together as papa prefers to be alone
with his family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice dinner
prepared for them, and let you go and take it to them in the coupé?
Mrs. Graham is hardly the woman one could take such a liberty with; but
I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of sending dinner to Tom.”
“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle suffered, and her
hair was in danger, as was apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome
with emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous squeeze.
Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out. She was to go in the
coupé and take Bridget and the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by
the horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty and brought down
Tom for a drive; and while they were gone Bridget would take the basket
in, and see that every thing was right, and then go home.
Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think she enjoyed the prospect
of Tom’s ride, herself, just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham
was sewing there she made the arrangement with her, approaching the
subject so delicately that the most sensitive of women could not be
hurt, and putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in the light
of a personal favor to Kitty, who had taken such a fancy to Tom.
The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty called her mother into
her room. Mrs. Greenough saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm,
soft jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat.
“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother mine? They are the last
winter’s clothes that I grew away from, and have taken leave of. May
Tom have them?”
“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them to Tom’s mother.”
Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing task. She stole into
the sewing-room with the things in her arms.
“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not to let Tom know she’s
going to ride until I get there, because I want to see how surprised
she’ll look?”
“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”
“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat and dress that I wore last
year, and I’ve grown away from them. Would you mind letting Tom wear
them?”
“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes,
which presently she wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked
gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do you think I am so
weakly, wickedly proud as to be hurt because you take an interest in
my poor girl, and want to put a little happiness into her life,--that
still, sad life which she bears so patiently? God bless you, Miss
Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it won’t be because I shall get tired of
asking Him.”
“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket till I come, for fear
she’ll think something?”
At last Mrs. Graham smiled--an actual smile.
“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll keep the hat and jacket out
of sight, and I’ll have the dress on her, all ready.”
When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered to put on the new
fineries that Mrs. Graham had finished with such loving care; scarcely
gave a thought to the family festivities at home, so eager was she
about Tom’s Thanksgiving. She was to go to Hudson Street just at noon,
so that Tom might have the benefit of the utmost warmth of which the
chill November day was capable.
First she saw the dinner packed. There was a turkey, and
cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and plum-pudding, and a great cake
full of plums, too, and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who
had heard about the dinner with real interest, brought out a bottle of
particularly nice sherry, and said to his wife,--
“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up souls good, once in the
year.”
At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and the basket filled all the
spare space in the coupé, and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke
took the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while Bridget stood by
the horse’s head, according to the programme. He set the basket down
in the hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in opening the
door, and then he stood out of sight himself, while Kitty went in.
There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,--a proud, happy-looking Tom
as you could find in Boston that Thanksgiving Day.
“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager Kitty. “Will you go?”
It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see the look on Tom’s
face,--the joy and wonder, and then the doubt, as the breathless
question came,--
“How _will_ I get downstairs?”
And then Luke was called in, and that mystery was solved. And then out
of a closet came the warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather;
and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles round her lips, and she
tried to say something, and broke down utterly. And then big, strong
Luke took her up as if she were a baby and marched downstairs with her,
while she heard Kitty say,--but it all seemed to her like a dream, and
Kitty’s voice like a voice in a dream,--
“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this time of year. It was
so lovely out-doors six weeks ago.”
Through Beach Street they went, and then through Boylston, and the
Common was beside them, with its tree-boughs traced against the
November sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond, and the dome of the
State House glittered goldenly, and there were merry people walking
about everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on; and at last Tom
breathed a long, deep breath which was almost a sob, and cried,--
“Did _you_ think there was nothing pretty to see to-day--_this_ day?
Why, I didn’t know there was such a world!”
The clocks had struck twelve when they left Hudson Street; the bells
were ringing for one when they entered it again. Bridget was gone, but
a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head, and Kitty ran lightly
upstairs, followed by Luke, with Tom in his arms.
Kitty threw open the door, and there was a table spread with as good a
Thanksgiving dinner as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair drawn
up beside it. Luke set his light burden down.
Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations. She saw Tom’s
brown eyes as they rested on the table, and that was enough. She bent
for one moment over the bright face,--the cheeks which the out-door
air had painted red as the rose that had just opened in honor of the
day,--and left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss, and then
went silently down the stairs, leaving Tom and Tom’s mother to their
Thanksgiving.