Mrs. Clifton _was_ going down street, as Miss Tufts had said; going to
"the baby's" grave, for she could bear the deserted nursery and empty
cradle no longer. It was something to be near the little form, though
the spirit which shone through the sweet eyes had winged its way to Him
who gave it; and so she passes the little wicket-gate, and winds her way
among other graves, over which other mothers, like her, have wept. Some
of them, carefully kept, others overrun with briars and nettles; seas
perhaps, rolling between some babe and her under whose heart it once
stirred with embryo life; or, far away, perhaps, the mother too, may be
sleeping, waiting, as does her solitary babe, for that day when the dead
who are in their graves, shall hear _His_ voice, and come forth!
Mrs. Clifton nears her baby's grave. A little form is bending over it, a
slender, delicate child, whose clustering curls, as she stoops, quite
hide her sweet face. Somebody else loves "the baby," for the little
grave is dotted over with flowers, simple enough, indeed, but love's own
offering. The mother draws nearer, smiling through her tears the
while--the child looks up; it is Rose.
"Bless you! bless you, my darling," Mrs. Clifton murmurs, and draws her
to her bosom.
"Why did you strew flowers on my baby, dear?" asked Mrs. Clifton, wiping
her eyes.
"Because I was so sorry for you," said Rose, timidly, "I thought perhaps
it would make you happy, when you came here, to see them."
"Did any one ever die whom you loved?" asked Mary.
Rose's lip quivered, the tears gathered slowly in her eyes, and hung
trembling on her lashes, as she nodded her little head.
"Who, my darling?" asked Mary, drawing the child nearer to her.
"My mother, my own dear mother!" said the weeping child, drawn to her
kind questioner by the mutual sympathy of sorrow.
"Rose--Rose--Rose!" screamed the shrill voice of Dolly from over the
wall.
"Oh, I must go! indeed I must; please don't tell, please don't say any
thing," and Rose, hastily wiping away her tears, ran breathlessly toward
the little wicket-gate.
"Now I'd just like to know, miss, where you have been without leave?"
asked Dolly.
"Daffy told me you wanted me to go out of sight till after the company
was gone," said Rose, "and I thought I would just step over into the
church-yard, and put some daisies on the baby's grave."
"Ridikilis!" exclaimed Dolly; "just as if that baby knew what was top of
it; it is perfectly disgusting--you are just like your mother exactly.
Now go along into the house."
Rose entered the back parlor and sat down at the little window to her
work.
"Rose," said Dolly, about half an hour after, "don't your hair trouble
you when you are sewing?"
Rose looked up in astonishment at this demonstration of interest on the
part of her tormentor.
"I don't know," she answered; "I never thought any thing about it."
("Now don't go to cutting it," whispered Daffy; "it looks so pretty.")
"I think it is spoiling her eyes," said Dolly; "bring me the scissors,
Rose," and Dolly notched her locks in and out, in as jagged a manner as
she knew how. As for the offending eyes which Miss Tufts had
complimented, they were too useful to be extinguished, and as there was
no helping the "bird in her mouth," or the "pretty way she had with
her," Dolly resolved to keep Rose out of sight as much as possible, with
her sewing in the attic, which she designated as Rose's bed-room; and,
in pursuance of this determination, she was ordered up there.
Every body knows what a country attic is, with its hot, sloping,
pitch-oozing roof, with its indescribable paraphernalia of dried mullen,
elder-blow, thorough-wort, and tansy; with its refuse garden-tools,
boxes, baskets, and chests of odds and ends; its spider-webs and its
rat-holes.
A salamander could scarcely have endured Dolly's attic that hot August
noon. Rose sat down on the rickety old bed, under the heated eaves, to
ply her needle. There was an opening in the roof, but the breeze seemed
to blow over it, not into it. Rose made little progress with her sewing,
for her temples began to throb painfully, and her fingers almost refused
their office. Now she rubs her forehead and eyes, for a mist seems to be
gathering over them; now she pulls her needle slowly out again, and now
dizziness overpowers her, and she falls forward upon the floor.
"Now just hear that noise," exclaimed Dolly; "hear that young one
capering round that attic instead of doing her work. I'll soon settle
that:" and taking her little riding-whip from behind the old-fashioned
claw-footed clock in the corner, she mounted up stairs into the attic.
Phew! how hot it was--the perspiration started at every step, and this
fact did not tend to the diminution of Dolly's rage.
"You needn't play asleep now, because it won't do," said she, laying the
whip vigorously round the prostrate child. "I shall whip you till you
get up and ask my pardon, d'ye hear?"
There is not much satisfaction in whipping a person who does not appear
to feel it, and Dolly turned Rose over to see what was the cause of her
obtuseness; the face was so ghastly white that even she was for a moment
daunted.
But it is _only_ for a moment. Going to the head of the stairs, she
calls, "Daffy?"
"Look here, now," said Dolly, "see what comes of that young one's going
into grave-yards, where all those horrid dead people lie moldering; take
her up, Daffy, and carry her down into your bed-room; there's a whole
day's work lost now for that nonsense; she won't be able to do another
stitch to-day."
Days, weeks, and months passed on, no lightening of the heavy load; but
now the active spirit which seemed always devising fresh means of
torture for the child, was itself prostrated by sickness. A fever had
settled upon Dolly's strong frame and iron nerves, and reduced her to
almost childish helplessness. Ah--who glides so gently, so tirelessly up
stairs and down, bearing burdens under which her feeble frame totters?
Who runs to the doctor's, and the apothecary's, who spreads the napkin
over the little light-stand, that no rattle of spoons, glasses, and
phials, may disturb the chance naps or jar the nerves of the invalid?
And who, when she has done her best to please, bears the querulous
fretfulness of disease and ill temper, with lamb-like patience?
Who but Rose?
"Why are you crying?" asked Daffy, as Rose stood by the kitchen table
upon which she had just set down some glasses. "What is the matter with
you?"
"I am so sorry that I can not please Aunt Dolly; she says I have not
done a single thing right for her since she was sick; and indeed, Daffy,
I have tried _very_ hard," and Rose sobbed again: "I thought
perhaps--that--Aunt--Dolly--might love me a little when she got well."
"Never you mind, Rose," said the distressed Daffy, twitching at her
thread, "never you mind, she's a--a--there's a six-pence for you Rose."
"No, I thank you," said Rose, returning it, "I don't want money--I
want--I want--somebody to love me," said the poor tired child, hiding
her face in her apron.
"Never you mind," said Daffy, again, rubbing her sleeve into her own
eyes, "you shall--you shall--
"Lor', I don't know what to say to you--Dolly's a--a--well she's sick
and childish," said Daffy, ending her sentence in a very different
manner from what she had intended.
"Perhaps it _is_ that," said the good little creature, brightening up,
"I did not think of that. How cruel it was for me to think her unkind,
when she was only sick; I am glad you said that, Daffy," and Rose wiped
her eyes and went back into the sick chamber.
"It's awful to hold in when a body's so rampageous mad," said Daffy,
jumping up and oversetting her basket of spools, cotton, needles, pins,
etc. "I shouldn't wonder if I burst right out some day, to think of that
poor, patient little creature being snubbed so, after being on her tired
little legs these six weeks, traveling up and down, here and there, and
lying on the floor side of Dolly's bed, night after night, and all after
the way she has been treated too (for I have eyes if I don't say
nothing), and as long as nobody hears me, I'll just out with it; Dolly
has no more heart than that pine table," and Daffy gave it a vindictive
thump.
"There--now I feel better--I wish I dared tell her so to her face--but
it isn't in me; she makes me shrivel all up, when she puts on one of her
horrid looks, and I can't be looking out for a new place with this
rheumatism fastening on me every time the wind blows; I don't know what
is to become of the poor child, bless her sweet face."