Matilda's spirits were not quite used up by the morning's experience,
for after dinner she put on her bonnet, and took her Bible, and set off
on an expedition, with out asking leave of anybody. She was bent upon
getting to Lilac Lane. "If I do not get there to-day, I don't know when
I shall," she said to herself. "There is no telling what Aunt Candy
will do."
She got there without any difficulty. It was an overcast, Aprilish day,
with low clouds, and now and then a drop of rain falling. Matilda did
not care for that. It was all the pleasanter walking. Lilac Lane was at
some distance from home, and the sun had a good deal of power on sunny
days now. The mud was all gone by this time; in its place a thick
groundwork of dust. Winter frost was replaced by soft spring air; but
that gave a chance for the lane odours to come out--not the fragrance
of hawthorn and primrose, by any means. Nor any such pleasant sight to
be seen. Poor, straggling, forlorn houses; broken fences, or no
courtyards at all; thick dust, and no footway; garbage, and ashes, and
bones, but never even so much as a green potato patch to greet the eye,
much less a rose or a pink; an iron shop, and a livery stable at the
entrance of the lane, seeming dignified and elegant buildings by
comparison with what came afterwards. Few living things were abroad; a
boy or two, and two or three babies making discomposure in the dust,
were about all. Matilda wondered if every one of those houses did not
need to have the message carried to them? Where was she to begin?
"Does Mrs. Eldridge live in this house, or in that?" Matilda asked a
boy in her way.
"In nary one."
"Where _does_ she live?"
"Old Sally Eldridge? Sam's grandmother?"
"I don't know anything about Sam," said Matilda. "She lives alone."
"Well, _she_ lives alone. That's her door yonder--where the cat sits."
"Thank you." Matilda thought to ask if the boy went to Sunday-school;
but she felt as if all the force she had would be wanted to carry her
through the visit to Mrs. Eldridge. It was a forlorn-looking doorway;
the upper half of the door swinging partly open; the cottage dropping
down on one side, as if it was tired of the years when it had stood up;
not a speck of paint to be seen anywhere, and little, bare, broken
windows, not even patched with rags. Matilda walked up to the door and
knocked, sorely appalled at the view she got through the half-open
doorway. No answer. She knocked again. Then a weak, "Who is it?"
Matilda let herself in. There was a worn and torn rag carpet; an
unswept floor; boards and walls that had not known the touch of water
or soap in many, many months; a rusty little stove with no fire in it;
and a poor old woman, who looked in all respects like her surroundings;
worn and torn and dusty and unwashed and neglected. To her Matilda
turned, with a great sinking of heart. What could _she_ do?
"Who's here?" said the old woman, who did not seem to have her sight
clear.
"Matilda Englefield."
"I don't know no such a person."
"Maybe you would like to know me," said Matilda. "I am come to see you."
"What fur? I hain't sent for nobody. Who told you to come?"
"No, I know you didn't. But I wanted to come and see you, Mrs.
Eldridge."
"What fur? You're a little gal, bain't you?"
"Yes, ma'am; and I thought maybe you would like to have me read a
chapter in the Bible to you."
"A _what?_" said the old woman with strong emphasis.
"A chapter in the Bible. I thought--perhaps you couldn't see to read it
yourself."
"Read?" said the old creature. "Never could. I never could see to read,
for I never knowed how. No, I never knowed how; I didn't."
"You would like to hear reading, now, wouldn't you? I came to read to
you a chapter--if you'll let me--out of the Bible."
"A chapter?" the old woman repeated--"what's a chapter now? It's no
odds; 'taint bread, nor 'taint 'baccy."
"No, it is not tobacco," said Matilda; "but it is better than tobacco."
"Couldn't ye get me some 'baccy, now?" said the old woman, as if with a
sudden thought. But Matilda did not see her way clear to that; and the
hope failing, the failure of everything seemed to be expressed in a
long-drawn "heigh-ho!" which ran wearily down all the notes of the
gamut. Matilda felt she was not getting on. The place and the woman
were inexpressibly forlorn to her.
"Who sent ye fur to come here?" was next asked.
"Nobody sent me."
"What fur did ye come?"
"I thought you would like to hear a little reading."
"'Taint a song, is it? I used fur to hear songs oncet; they don't sing
songs in this village. They sells good 'baccy, though. Heigh-ho!"
Matilda grew desperate. She was not making any headway. As a last
expedient, she opened her book, plunged into the work, and gave in the
hearing of Mrs. Eldridge a few of its wonderful sentences. Maybe those
words would reach her, thought Matilda. She read slowly the
twenty-third psalm, and then went back to the opening verse and read it
again.
"'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.'"
Mrs. Eldridge had been very still.
"A shepherd," she repeated, when Matilda had stopped;--"he used fur to
be a shepherd."
Matilda wondered very much what the old lady was thinking of. Her next
words made it clearer.
"He kept sheep fur Mr.--Mr.--him they called the Judge; I don't mind
who he was. He kept sheep for him, he did."
"Judge Brockenhurst?"
"That was it--I can't speak his name; he kept his sheep. It was a big
place."
"Yes, I know Judge Brockenhurst's place," said Matilda; "he has a great
many sheep. _Who_ kept them?"
"He did, dear. My old man. He kept 'em. It's long sen."
"Well, didn't he take good care of them, the sheep?"
"My old man? Ay, did he. There warn't no better a shepherd in the
country. He took care of 'em. The Judge sot a great deal by him."
"How did he take care of them?" Matilda asked.
"Oh, I don' know. He watched 'em, and he took 'em round, and he didn't
let no harm happen to 'em. He didn't."
"Well, this I read was about the Good Shepherd and _His_ sheep. He
takes care of them, too. Don't you think the Lord Jesus takes care of
His sheep?"
"He don't take no care o' me," said the poor old woman. "There ain't no
care took o' me anywheres--neither in heaven nor in earth. No, there
ain't."
"But are you one of His sheep?" said Matilda, doubtfully.
"Eh?" said the woman, pricking up her ears, as it were.
"Are you one of the Lord's sheep, Mrs. Eldridge?"
"Am I one of 'em? I'm poor enough fur to be took care of; I am, and
there ain't no care took o' me. Neither in heaven nor on earth. No,
there ain't."
"But are you one of His sheep?" Matilda persisted. "His sheep follow
Him. Did you ever do that, ma'am? Were you ever a servant of the Lord
Jesus?"
"A servant? I warn't no servant, nowheres," was the answer. "I had no
need to do that. We was 'spectable folks, and we had our own home and
lived in it, we did. I warn't never no servant o' nobody."
"But we all ought to be God's servants," said Matilda.
"Eh?--I hain't done no harm, I hain't. Nobody never said as I done 'em
no harm."
"But the servants of Jesus love Him, and obey Him, and do what He
says," Matilda repeated, growing eager. "They do just what He says, and
they love Him, and they love everybody, because He gives them new
hearts."
"I don't know as He never give me nothing," said Mrs. Eldridge.
"Did you ever ask Him for a new heart? and did you ever try to please
Him? Then you would be one of His sheep, and He would take care of you."
"Nobody takes no care o' me," said the poor woman, stolidly.
"Listen," said Matilda. "This is what he says--
"'I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the
sheep.' He cared so much for you as that. 'I am the good shepherd, and
know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the Father knoweth Me, even so
know I the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep.'
"He cared so much for you as that. He died that you might be forgiven
and live. Don't say He didn't care?"
"I didn't know as He'd never done nothing fur me," said Mrs. Eldridge.
"He did that. Listen, now, please,"
"'My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I
give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall
any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is
greater than all; and none is able to pluck them out of My Father's
hand. I and My Father are one.'"
Matilda lifted her head and sought, in the faded blue eye over against
her, if she could find any response to these words. She fancied there
was a quieter thoughtfulness in it.
"That has a good sound," was the old woman's comment, uttered
presently. "But I'm old now, and I can't do nothing; and there ain't
nobody to take care o' me. There ain't."
Matilda glanced over the desolate room. It was dusty, dirty, neglected,
and poverty stricken. What if _she_ had been sent to "take care" of
Mrs. Eldridge? The thought was exceedingly disagreeable; but once come,
she could not get rid of it.
"What do you want, Mrs. Eldridge?" she asked at length.
"I don't want no more readin'. But it has a good sound--a good sound."
"What would you like to have somebody do for you? not reading."
"There was folks as cared fur me," said the old woman. "There ain't
none no more. No more. There ain't no one as cares."
"But if there _was_ some one--what would you tell her to do for
you?--now, to-day?"
"Any one as cared would know," said Mrs. Eldridge. "There's 'most all
to do. 'Spect I'd have a cup o' tea for my supper--'spect I would."
"Don't you have tea? Won't you have it to-night?"
The feeble eye looked over at the little rusty stove.
"There ain't no fire," she said; "nor nothing to make fire; it's cold;
and there ain't nobody to go out and get it fur me--I can't go pick up
sticks no more. An' if I had the fire, there ain't no tea. There ain't
no one as cares."
"But what will you have then?" said Matilda. "What do you have for
supper?"
"Go and look," said Mrs. Eldridge, turning her head towards a corner
cupboard, the doors of which stood a little open. "If there's anything,
it's there; if it ain't all eat up."
Matilda hesitated; then thought she had better know the state of
things, since she had leave; and crossed to the cupboard door. It was a
problem with her how to open it; so long, long it was since anything
clean had touched the place; she made the end of her glove finger do
duty and pulled the cupboard leaves open.
She never forgot what she saw there, nor the story of lonely and
desolate life which it told. Two cups and saucers, one standing in a
back corner, unused and full of cobwebs, the other cracked, soiled,
grimy, and full of flies. Something had been in it; what, Matilda could
not examine. On the bare shelf lay a half loaf of bread, pretty dry,
with a knife alongside. A plate of broken meat, also full of flies, and
looking, Matilda thought, fit for the flies alone, was there; a cup
half full of salt; an empty vinegar cruet, an old shawl, ditto hood; a
pitcher with no water; an old muslin cap, half soiled; a faded bit of
ribband, and a morsel of cheese flanked by a bitten piece of
gingerbread. Matilda came back sick at heart.
"Where do you sleep, Mrs. Eldridge? and who makes your bed? Or can you
make it?"
"Sleep?" said the old woman. "Nobody cares. I sleep in yonder."
Matilda looked, doubted, finally crossed the room again and pushed a
little inwards the door Mrs. Eldridge had looked at. She came back
quickly. So close, so ill-smelling, so miserable to her nice senses,
the room within was; with its huddled up bundle of dirty coverlets, and
the soiled bed under them on the floor. Not much of a bed either, and
not much else in the room. A great burden was gathering on Matilda's
heart and shoulders; the burden of the wants of her neighbour, and her
own responsibilities.
The afternoon was now waning; what was to be done? Matilda tried to
think that somebody would come in and do what she herself was very
unwilling to do; but conscience reminded her that it was very unlikely.
Did that neglected cupboard give much promise of kind attendance or
faithful supply? or that rusty stove look like neighbourly care? But
then Matilda pleaded to herself that she had her own work, and not much
time; and that such a dirty place was very unfit for her nice little
hands.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Eldridge," she said, lingering. "I'll come and see you
again."
"'Taint a pleasant place to come to," said the old woman. "'Taint a
pleasant place fur nobody. And nobody comes to it. Nobody comes."
"I'll come, though," said Matilda. She could do so much as that, she
thought. "Good-bye. I must go home."
She left the old woman and the house, and began her walk. The lane, she
observed, looked as if other houses and other people in it might be as
ill off as those she had been visiting. "She is not worse than a number
of others, I dare say," thought Matilda. "I could not visit them all,
and I could not certainly take care of them all. It really makes little
difference on the whole, whether or no I kindle Mrs. Eldridge's fire.
It is delightful to get away from the place."
And then Matilda tried to think that in making her visit and reading to
the old woman, she had really done a good deal; made a good afternoon's
work. Nobody else had done even so much as that; not even anybody in
all Shadywalk. The walk home was quite pleasant, under the soothing
influence of these thoughts. Nevertheless, a little secret point of
uneasiness remained at Matilda's heart. She did not stop to look at it,
until she and Maria went up to bed. Then, as usual, while Maria got
ready for sleep, Matilda knelt down before the table where her open
Bible lay under the lamp; and there conscience met her.
And when conscience meets any one, it is the same thing as to say that
the Lord meets him.
That was what Matilda felt this night. For her reading fell upon the
story of the woman who brought the precious ointment for the head of
Jesus, and poured it upon His feet also; whom the Lord, when she was
chidden, commended; saying, "Ye have the poor with you always, and
whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but Me ye have not always. She
hath done what she could."
Had Matilda? And these poor whom we have always with us, she
recollected that in another place the Lord in a sort identifies Himself
with them, saying that what is done to His poor is done to Himself.
Mrs. Eldridge was not indeed one of the Lord's children, but that did
not help the matter. "For perhaps she will be," Matilda said to
herself. And what if the Lord had sent Matilda there now to be His
messenger? The success of the message might depend on the behaviour of
the messenger. But above all it pressed upon Matilda's heart that she
had not done what she _could;_ and that in declining to make a fire in
Mrs. Eldridge's rusty little stove and in shrinking from waiting upon
her, she had lost a chance of waiting upon, perhaps, the Lord himself.
"And it was such a good chance," thought Matilda; "such a good
afternoon; and there is no telling when I may get another. It was such
a good opportunity. And I lost it."
The pain of a lost opportunity was something she had not counted upon.
It pressed hard, and was not easy to get rid of. The disagreeableness
of the place and the service faded into nothing before this pain.
Matilda went to bed with a sore heart, resolving to watch for the very
first chance to do what she had neglected to do this afternoon.
But Lilac Lane looked very disagreeable to her thoughts the next day,
and the sharp effect of the Bible words had faded somewhat.
"Maria," she said as they were washing up the dishes after
breakfast,--"I wish you would help me in something."
"What?"
"Do you call yourself a member of the Band yet?"
"Of course I do. What do you ask for?"
"I did not know," said Matilda, sighing. "You don't _do_ the things
promised in the covenant. I didn't know but you had given it all up."
"What don't I do?" inquired Maria, fiercely.
"Don't be angry, please, Maria. I do not mean to make you angry."
"What don't I do, Matilda?"
"You know, the covenant says, 'we stand ready to do His will.' He has
commanded that we should be baptized and join the Church, and that we
should follow Him--you know how, Maria. And you don't seem to like to
do it."
"Is that all?"
"That is all about that."
"Then, if you will mind your affairs, Matilda, I will try and mind
mine. And I will be much obliged to you."
"Then you will not help me?"
"Help in what?"
"There is a poor woman, Maria," said her little sister, lowering her
voice, "a poor old woman, who has no one to take care of her, and
hardly anything to live upon. She lives--you can't think how she
lives!--in the most miserable little house, dirty and all; and without
fire or anybody to sweep her room, or make her bed, or make a cup of
tea for her. If you would help me, we might do something to make her
comfortable."
"Where is she?"
"In Lilac Lane."
"Have you been to see her?"
"Yes."
"What do you think Aunt Candy would say if she knew it?"
"Will you help me, Maria?"
"Help make her bed and sweep her room?"
"Yes, and get her a cup of tea sometimes, and a clean supper."
"A clean supper!" exclaimed Maria. "Well! Yes, I guess I'll help you,
when I have nothing of my own to do. When the dinner gets itself, and
the house stays swept and dusted, and Aunt Candy lives without cakes
for breakfast."
Matilda was silent.
"But I'll tell you what, Matilda," said her sister, "Aunt Candy will
never let you do this sort of work. You may as well give it up
peaceably, and not worry yourself nor anybody else. She'll never let
you go into Lilac Lane--not to speak of getting dirty people's dinners.
You may as well quit it."
"Don't tell her, Maria."
"You'll tell her yourself, first thing," said Maria, scornfully.
Matilda had to go up-stairs soon to her reading in her aunt's room. It
was even more unintelligible, the reading, this time than before;
because Matilda's head was running so busily on something else.
"You do not read well, child," said her aunt.
"No, ma'am. I do not understand it."
"But it is about what you have just done, Matilda. It is about the
ordinance of baptism, and the life proper to a person who has been
received into the Church. You ought to understand that."
"I _do_ understand it, in the Bible."
"What does the Bible say about it?"
"It says,--'My sheep hear My voice: and I know them, and they follow
Me.'"
"What do you mean by 'following Him'?"
"Why, living the sort of life He lived, and doing what He tells us to
do."
"How do you propose to live the sort of life He lived? It's almost
blasphemy."
"Why, no, aunt Candy; He tells us to do it."
"Do what?"
"Live the sort of life He lived. He says we must follow Him."
"Well, how, for instance? In what?"
"You know how _He_ lived," said Matilda. "He helped people, and He
taught people, and He cured people; He was always doing good to people,
and trying to make them good. Especially poor, miserable people, that
nobody cared for."
"Trying to make them good!" said Mrs. Candy. "As if His omnipotence
could not have made them good in a minute."
"Then why didn't He?" said Matilda, simply. "It _sounds_ as if He was
trying to make them good."
"Well, child--it's no use talking; I wish I had had the training of you
earlier," said Mrs. Candy. "You are so prepossessed with ideas that
border on fanaticism, that it is a hard matter to get you into right
habits of thinking. Come here and take your darning."
So Matilda did. The darning was not wearisome at all to-day, so busy
her thoughts were with the question of Mrs. Eldridge; how much or how
little Matilda ought to do for her, how much she _could_, and what were
the best arrangements to be set on foot. So intent she was on these
questions, that the darning was done with the greatest patience, and
therefore with the greatest success. Mrs. Candy and her daughter even
looked at each other and smiled over the demure, thoughtful little face
of the workwoman; and Matilda got praise for her work.
She had made up her mind meanwhile that "she hath done what she
could"--should be her rule to go by. So as the after noon was fair, and
Mrs. Candy and her daughter both gone to make a visit at some miles'
distance, Matilda sallied forth.
"Did she give you leave?" Maria asked, as she saw her sister getting
ready.
"No."
"She wants you to ask leave always."
"I never used to do that," said Matilda. Her voice choked before she
could finish her sentence.
"You will get into trouble."
"One trouble is better than another, though," said Matilda; and she
went.
She went first to Mr. Sample's, and asked how much a pound of tea cost.
"The last I sent your aunt," said Mr. Sample, "was one fifty a pound;
and worth it. Don't she approve the flavour?"
"I believe so. But I want a little of another kind, Mr. Sample--if you
have any that is good, and not so high."
"I have an excellent Oolong here for a dollar. Will you try that?"
"Please give me a quarter of a pound."
"She will like it," said Mr. Sample, weighing the quantity and putting
it up; "it really has as much body as the other sort, and I think it is
very nearly as good. The other is fifty cents a pound more. Tell Mrs.
Candy I can serve her with this if she prefers."
"I want a loaf of bread too, if you please."
"Baking failed?" said Mr. Sample. "Here, Jem, give this little girl a
loaf."
He himself went to attend another customer, so Matilda paid for her
purchases without any more questions being asked her. She went to
another store for a little butter, and there also laid in a few
herrings; and then, with a full basket and a light heart, took the way
to Lilac Lane.