They called her Treesa. She was not young. That she had ever been was
hard to realize. Whatever her childhood, and however the years had
brought her up to woman's estate, there was no footprint upon the worn
face of the gladsome time we call youth. No light in the eye of other
and happier days. No echo in the quiet heart, of bounding pulses, or
ever a sweet enthusiasm. The treadmill of duty in life's most trivial
task, enthralled her every faculty. Her daily round was in a large
hotel--an arena of toil circumscribed by four brick walls. Her domain
was the parlor floor; that sacred area of rosy vistas and costly suites,
where she was as proud to tread as a king in his royal glory. Where
beauty and fashion made for her a panorama of short glimpses amid pauses
of broom and duster.
The maids on the other floors might earn the wage just as honorably;
Treesa permitted no trespass upon her exalted territory. The bridal
chambers, the private sitting rooms, the luxurious sleeping
apartments--these were her pride and her joy. The Excelsior had a
reputation, national and international. Princes and potentates had
slumbered in Treesa's chambers. The "nobility and the gentry" had been
feted there. Year after year her pale eyes had watched over the welfare
of distinguished visitors, American and foreign. They had seen the help
come and go; she was still the "girl of the parlor floor." Discreet,
silent, honest, they might well allow her a share of caprice. "Cranky"
they called her, yet no one found fault. She neglected no duty. The lady
manager of the interior was not always the same. She changed from time
to time; Treesa was always the same, and always there. At length there
came a dainty little woman, full of native pluck, who was born to rule,
and rule she did, to the limit of her jurisdiction. Though so far apart,
a kindred chord was struck between mistress and maid. The high spirit
that smouldered in these two never crossed; but with the smallest
tangible demonstration they were fast friends. The girl's horizon now
bordered a triune interest;--the church, the mistress, and the parlor
floor. Gaunt and spare, she trod her beat. Shy of manner, with eyes
looking nowhere, she seemed a human machine of the broom. A woman
without kith or kin, without a history, and apparently without a memory.
Never sick, never absent, never a letter from friends, never a visit
away. The old habitues of the house liked her. She gave no sign of favor
or disfavor, till at last it was their way to respect her and leave her
alone. But whenever a mission of trust was needed Treesa was the one
called upon.
But as the calmest stream is ruffled at some time on its course, so
there comes to every human life a shock that upturns hidden forces. And
this came to Treesa. It was when she was one day summoned to the private
office downstairs: that dread tribunal for the wrongdoers of the large
household--a locality as little heeded by the girl as any other foreign
place, albeit there had been new and strange proprietors as the years
went by. Without so much as a ripple of excitement upon her homely
features, she came down and stood within the door, respectfully awaiting
orders. The two arbiters of her destiny were in close conference upon
ways and means. Expense must be cut down. There must be a weeding out.
Raising his head and looking in some curiosity at the queer apparition,
the new partner said: "Are you Teresa O'Toole?"
"Me name is that same, sir," she said, meeting the eyes. "An' what thin,
sir?" she added, as for a moment he was silent.
"Yes--ah--" he went on, this time not exactly confronting the expectant
face--"We've been thinking, Teresa--we were just saying--that you are
getting along in years now, and--ah--the fact is, we think you ought to
have a rest. Some one younger, and stronger, ought to relieve you, and
give you a chance to pick up. You are a good girl," with encouraging
justice, "a very good girl, and have been faithful and honest. But we--"
he hesitated, as Treesa's lean face suddenly darkened with an unwonted
flush. Then she broke out:
"An' is it me dischairge ye'd be afther givin' me, sir?"
"Well, yes, about that, it amounts to that, I suppose," admitted the
great man. "You see, my good woman," he ventured softly, noting the
breakers ahead, "the fact is--"
"Well, thin," she burst forth in righteous wrath, placing her hard, red
arms akimbo, and struggling to loose her tongue, "I'll be afther tellin'
yees, I'll not take a dischairge from yees, sir! It's here I've been
this fifty year, an' more. I was the first gurll in the house, for sure
I come before the likes of yees was born an' before yees iver darkened
the doors. It's no fault can be found with me. I'll stay right here!"
and turning, she went out.
There was silence in the office. Then the senior partner, his eye
twinkling, spoke:
"What are we going to do about it?"
"Why, nothing", drily said the other, "nothing, I suppose; you heard
what she said, I presume she will stay on."
And stay on she did, her one dominant idea as fixed as the polar star.
As the years rolled by she might have rested from her labors, but for
this sense of devotion to duty. Even a monthly pittance will count
through the ages; so Treesa's savings came at last to foot up into the
thousands. Not even good Father Clement could have told the amount, or
where she kept it. Like herself, it was a mystery. She continued to
hoard and to hide, with no misgiving of loss by thief, or by accident;
with no forewarning of danger. Yet dire calamity was impending.
It was past midnight when the veteran chambermaid was awakened by the
sound of crackling wood and the smell of stifling smoke. To spring out
of bed was the work of a moment, the aged limbs obedient to her call;
then all her faculties alert, she thrust her hand into a hidden recess
of the mattress, and clutching a bulky package from its depths, made her
way out into the corridor, where the smoke was still thicker, on down
the stairs from the servants' dormitory to the floor below. Staggering
to the manager's door she pounded with all her strength till those
within were aroused; and dizzy from fright and half-suffocation, she
ran to the fire alarm, banging the gong till doors flew open right and
left, and the halls were alive with people. The cry of "Fire!" on all
sides now added to the din. More alarms were turned in till ample help
was at hand. While the hotel manager's orders were being obeyed, and the
guests were deserting their rooms for greater safety in the lobby below,
Treesa was struggling to get back to the servant's floor, whence now
issued screams of terror, as, for the first time, the flames were seen
creeping in close proximity to the maid's quarters. In vain the firemen,
who were now cutting holes in the floor to insert the hose, tried to
intercept her. Bent upon serving her fellow-servants, she disappeared
through the blinding smoke Crawling flat upon her face up the stairs
to avoid the onset of the fumes, the girl reached the glass door that
imprisoned the terrified creatures, burst it through with one powerful
blow, and forced them out upon the fire escape, where now, too, the
firemen's ladders were seen manned by the helmeted brigade. All bruised
and bleeding from the splintered glass, and still clutching fast the
rescued package, Treesa turned to retrace her steps, her only thought
now being to save the parlor floor and its treasures. Again she eluded
those who would have guarded her from danger, and made a hurried dash
for the stairway, when a sudden rush of flame, now fanned by the air,
blinded her, and she fell to the landing, dropping the bulk of her
holdings, where the fire greedily licked it to destruction.
Tender hands lifted her and conveyed her, crushed and unconscious, to
a temporary couch, where it was found, when the surgeon came, that her
hip was dislocated. To the mistress alone would she unloose what her
bleeding hand still held, as she whispered, "Put it away, safe--Masses
for me soul--Father Clement."
But Treesa did not die. The morning papers rang with her heroism, but
none then knew that she had lost the hoarded earnings of a life-time;
that the one package saved represented but a small proportion of her
treasure. She was taken to a hospital, and, fortunately for her peace
of mind, the house was closed for repairs. During the weeks of building,
the old bones were mending. The sufferer counted the days with jealous
watching. When an agony of fear seized upon her lest she might never go
back, only the mistress or the kindly priest had power to quiet her, She
was promised over and over again that she should not be supplanted.
When the hotel opened anew, the daily press blazoned to the world the
fact, giving a personal paragraph to the officials, and including a
list of well-known names, among them the humble one of Teresa O'Toole,
who had been a chambermaid there during sixty years. This scrap of paper
was held fast in the horny fingers, and seemed to the fevered senses to
keep alive the link between her and the only home she knew.
Hither she was borne at last to a small room that was to be her
portion and her pension forevermore. Her old quarters, austere and clean
and bare, had been effaced by the carpenter's hammer, and this corner
retreat had been partitioned from a domestic recess in the rear. But
it was on the parlor floor, that fetich of a devoted life. Crippled
and useless, Treesa was an object of unobtrusive care. She kept her
shrunken savings about her person, more unwilling than ever to trust
the unexplored fields of finance. She grew querulous. She must be
getting to her work again. Would the mistress be after letting her earn
something--on the parlor floor, she tremulously added. Smiling sadly,
permission was granted. Fondly the old creature took up her broom and
duster--bought anew for her--and limped painfully toward the beloved
rooms--the bridal chambers--the choicest suites where beauty and fashion
came. What a journey now! The grand parlors and long corridors were
interminable vistas of elegance and luxury. And--ah! what was that
clinging to the velvet carpet pile? A bit of paper carelessly let fall?
And--yes, was there dust on the polished marble of yon table? Alas! that
her dim eyes should live to behold the desecration. What shiftless
wretch was doing the parlor floor, and she a useless block in her room!
The shock told. She staggered to a gorgeous sofa near the offending bit
of rubbish, and sunk down in the act of reaching for it. This was the
beginning of the end. Lying on her bed sleep deserted the fading eyes.
An attendant was provided, who grew accustomed to mutterings she could
not understand. She ceased to listen. In pity the mistress came often
and sat beside the couch. She listened and understood. She gathered the
last wishes of the dying, and received as a sacred charge all that the
sufferer had to leave. Still the angel of death tarried, until sweet
peace shed a radiance over the departing soul, whose faith was steadfast
to church and heaven.
At the first faint ray of dawn the mistress arose and went to her. The
bed was empty, the nurse asleep. Following the instinct of the moment,
the lady hastened along the quiet corridors to where the night taper
showed the still form of the devoted veteran stretched out on the thick,
soft carpet, her cold fingers clasping the new broom and duster.