BY the time that the weather became settled in the spring, Robert's
health was again fully established, and he was able to do more work
than ever. His horticultural tastes found full scope in Mrs. Huntley's
flower-garden, which garden was her especial pet, and the pride of her
heart. She had never allowed any former gardener to set foot within
its sacred boundaries, but Robert displayed such genuine love for her
favorites, and went into such ecstasies over the first bunch of blue
and white hyacinths, that she allowed him henceforth to assist her in
all her nice operations, and even to weed, and hoe, and rake, when she
was not there to overlook him. Besides, he reigned supreme over the
kitchen-garden, tying up raspberries, trimming currant-bushes, and
planting seeds according to his own pleasure, and evincing so much
discretion and taste, that the Doctor had seldom occasion to interfere
with his arrangements.
As he could not, of course, attend to his garden at home, Dr. George
allowed him to cultivate, on his own account, a small piece of ground
at the back of the orchard. Here he planted the seeds he had purchased
with his own money, and here Benny and Mark, coming up before and after
school, received their first lessons in the sublime art of weeding
onions.
Celia continued her work in the factor where some changes had occurred,
which made a decided change for the worse in her situation. In the
first place, Mr. Westall married and went away to the city, his place
being supplied by an overseer who took no interest in the hands, except
to see that they did not slight their work. He allowed them to talk as
much, and on such subjects as they pleased, and as many of the girls
had been far from well brought up, Celia often heard things which
made her feel very uncomfortably, and wish herself anywhere else. A
year before, she would have been in great danger, but now she had a
principle within, which might possibly preserve her from contamination.
Still she would sometimes find herself listening to the stories related
by her companions in the intervals of labor, and thinking of them
afterwards, and though she always checked herself as soon as she became
aware of it, it made her very unhappy.
Her two friends Miss Green and Ruth Cummings, also left the mill, the
one to teach a little school in a neighboring village, the other to go
into a family, to do house-work. Miss Green strongly urged Celia to do
the same, as soon as she possibly could.
"The mill is no place for you now, Celia; things are entirely changed
there. Mr. Smith takes no sort of oversight of the girls' doings, and
some of them are up to any sort of mischief. You are young, and likely
enough to be led astray, and I should certainly advise you to get a
place in some respectable family as soon as possible."
"Lydia Hinds says she would not work in a family for any thing,"
observed Celia. "She says she lived with Mrs. Ainsworth once, and that
she could not go out anywhere without coming to ask, and telling where
she was going, and Mrs. Ainsworth would not let her be out after nine
o'clock."
"Lydia Hinds is a foolish, giddy girl," returned Miss Green with some
severity; "and if you listen to her, you will be certain to get into
trouble. The things of which she complains, are the very ones which
should make a sensible girl like her place. Do you suppose Miss Maude
Huntley ever goes anywhere, without first asking her mother?"
"No!" replied Celia. "I know she does not, and her mother is very
particular about always knowing where she is. One night while Robert
was sick, Miss Maude went home from school with one of the young
ladies, and staid till nine o'clock, without telling her mother where
she was going, and Mrs. Huntley was very much displeased about it. But
all mothers are not so very particular."
"Nor all mistresses, but all sensible ones are, especially with girls
of your age. If you live with a lady, you should always go to her, just
as if she were your mother, and never do any thing without asking. A
great many giddy girls I know, prefer to live in rooms by themselves,
and take in sewing, or work in the mills, instead of going into
families, because they fancy it is a fine thing to be independent; and
a nice piece of work they make of it sometimes."
"I should like to live in a family, I am sure," said Celia; "and I
would look for a place in a minute, if mother would let me, but she
won't. She says I ought to have more self-respect than to think of such
a thing. But for my part, I think that people who are not above being
helped by the poor-master, should not feel bad about going out to work."
"Pride takes all sorts of curious shapes, my dear. But now bear in mind
what I say, and get a place as soon as you can. Don't have any thing
to do with the foolish talk of the girls about beaux and such things;
and don't listen to them if you can help it. Above all, be very careful
what you read. I have seen Lydia finds reading such books as any decent
girl ought to be ashamed to look into; and nine tenths of the yellow
and green-covered pamphlets which the girls have among them, are not
fit to light a fire with. Let them all alone; that is the best way for
you. You can procure books enough from the district and parish library,
to occupy your leisure hours without running any risk of getting what
is not proper for you. Well, my dear, I have preached you quite a
sermon; I hope I have not tired you."
"No, indeed!" replied Celia. "I could hear you preach all day without
being tired."
"Then I will add a little more. You will have a new teacher in
Sunday-school, I presume, or perhaps be put into one of the larger
classes. Do not fail to go every Sunday, and to have your lessons
perfectly. I hope, Celia, that you love to read your Bible?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"And to pray?"
"Yes ma'am," returned Celia in a lower tone.
"Then, my dear, remember that these two things must be your great
safe-guards. Whenever you find yourself tempted to do wrong, as you
will often be, pray for strength to resist that temptation; whenever
you feel that you have sinned in any way, lose no time in asking
forgiveness and strength for the future. When you are perplexed and
troubled and know not which way to turn, go to God, and ask Him to
enlighten you; cast all your desires and plans before him, and he will
make your way very plain before you. God bless and keep you, my dear! I
feel badly about leaving you here, in the midst of so much evil; but I
hope He will soon show you a way out of it."
Celia felt forlorn enough, when Miss Green and Ruth were both gone,
and she could hardly bear to go into the mill, next day; but there
was no help for it, so she went, fully resolved to attend only to her
work, and have nothing to do with the follies of the girls. For many
days, she persevered in this resolution, but after a while she became
careless, and relaxed her guard. She began to listen with interest to
the talk and stories of the girls, and even joined in them herself. She
went out walking in the evening once or twice, with Lydia Hinds, and
one or two of her male associates; but chancing, happily for her, to
meet Robert on one of these occasions, he gave her such a lecture on
the subject, that she was afraid to do it again.
Still, she talked with Lydia and listened to her, and thus having begun
a degree of intimacy, she found it hard to leave off. Then she began
to read a little at a time, in some of the books, that Miss Green had
cautioned her against, and finally went so far as to borrow one of
them, and take it home with her. Her Bible lost its interest for her,
and lay neglected day after day; her Sunday-school lessons were very
badly learned, and she began to feel ashamed, when her new friend
laughed at her for going every Sunday, like a little girl. Thus she
was once more in the downward way, which might have led her to utter
destruction, had she not been mercifully arrested, before she had taken
any fatal step.
It was very warm weather. The authorities of Grandville were not
remarkably careful about cleaning the streets, and keeping the sewers
in order, despite the energetic representations of Dr. George, and
his brother-in-law. Mr. Ellison talked sanitary reform with all his
might, and threatened to preach a sermon about it, but all to very
little purpose. People were still allowed to keep pigs in their
back-gardens, and to pour their slops into the street to dry away in
the sun. Mr. Haylett still rented the Union for a drinking-house, and
got a good rent for it, too, though the drains were all stopped up,
and the cellars filled with water. Mr. Jones was not forced to remove
his slaughter-house, though it was a terrible nuisance to all the
thickly-settled neighborhood; to be sure, none but poor Dutch and Irish
families lived there. And when Dr. George complained that the streets
were never cleaned, that the drains were very offensive, and that all
sorts of rubbish was thrown into the river, now very low, as was usual
at that season, he only got himself laughed at, for being so notional.
Well, by and by people began to talk about the cholera. It had made
its appearance in the neighboring city of B., and was very bad there,
and a great many people were leaving the city in consequence; so the
Grandville people stopped going to B. to do their shopping, greatly to
the delight of the merchants in the village, who were much benefited
thereby. The doctor and the minister urged more and more strongly the
necessity of taking urgent measures to cleanse and purify the village,
and now people began to be seriously angry with them for trying to
create a panic.
"Did not every one know," Mr. Haylett said, "that people were very
often frightened into the disorder? Nothing could be worse than to go
and make every one think that they must certainly have the disorder;
such measures would be certain to bring it on." He even did not scruple
to accuse the Doctor of trying to serve his own ends in getting
customers for himself. As for Mr. Ellison, Mr. Haylett was of opinion
that a minister's business was to preach the Gospel, and not to go
poking round among the lower classes, looking into their cellars and
cisterns, and trying to make them discontented with their houses and
their landlords.
By and by, a man who lived down near the slaughter-house, in one of Mr.
Haylett's tenements, died very suddenly. He went home from his work,
in the afternoon, a little unwell, and before morning he was dead; so
sudden was he taken, that there was no time to send for a doctor. It
was cholera morbus—clearly cholera morbus, Mr. Haylett said—at the same
time taking good care to keep away from that part of the village.
But Dr. Huntley talked with the priest, who, the man being a Roman
Catholic, had been sent for in his last moments, and made up his
own mind as to the matter. Mr. O'Brien had seen a great deal of the
disease during his ministrations in the neighboring city, and he had no
hesitation in telling the Doctor that he considered it a clear case of
cholera, adding, that in his opinion, it would not be the last.
Dr. George thought so, too, and so it proved. He was sent for, before
night, to see the wife of the man who was first attacked; and before
the next evening not only this woman, but another in the same house,
had died, and two or three of the neighbors lay sick enough. There
was no doubt now of the nature of the disease, though many people
still persisted that there was no danger, and declaimed angrily enough
against those who, by active sanitary measures, wished to "create a
panic."
The merchants were very indignant at the proposition made by Mr.
Ellison, that the number of cases should be published daily,
(Grandville, as became a place of its importance, had a daily paper,)
in order that people might know exactly how bad the disease was, and
not be deceived by rumors which always made things appear worse than
they really were. So it went on from day to day, and nothing was done
that should have been done. The pestilence increased frightfully. Dr.
George and Mr. Ellison were called upon at all hours of the day and
night; whole families were prostrated at once in the poorer parts of
the village, and people began to wonder where it would end.
In the midst of the distress, Celia came home from the factory rather
late one night to find Benny quite unwell, complaining of pain and
sickness at the stomach. He was rather subject to such attacks, so
she was not at all alarmed. But after giving him a little hot tea and
bathing his feet, she put him to bed early, and thought little more
about the matter, except to visit him again before she retired, when
she found him sleeping soundly. Her own bed-room was next to that of
the boys, and she was awakened from her first nap to find little Mark
crying by her bed.
"Benny is very sick," he said. "I can't make him say any thing that I
can understand, only he says his feet cramp. Do get up and see him."
"You must run for the doctor, Mark," she said as soon as she had a look
at Benny; "I am afraid he is very sick indeed."
"I am afraid to go in the dark," said Mark, crying afresh. "Jim Dolan
says there is a ghost down by the old church that comes out at night."
"Jim Dolan is a dunce," replied Celia. "Come, Mark, dear, do go as
quick as you can. Nothing will hurt you; there are no such thing as
ghosts, you know."
"Oh! But there are!" persisted Mark. "For Jim's father saw this one
once, and it chased him."
"Well, then, stay here and I will go myself; I am not afraid of the
ghost."
But Mark was as unwilling to stay alone with Benny as to go alone for
the doctor, and Celia concluded that she must call her mother and leave
her with Ben while she did her errand herself.
She did not take much by her motion. Mrs. Merritt, peevish at being
awakened, at first insisted that nothing more than common ailed the
child, and that it was nonsense to send for the doctor. Finally, when
she did get frightened, she would not be left alone either, and thus a
precious hour was wasted in useless remonstrances, the boy all the time
growing worse.
Finally, just as Celia was getting desperate, she heard some one
passing in the street. The firm, steady step and clear whistle of the
stranger showed that he was sober, at any rate, and she opened the
window and called, "Who is there?"
"Hullo," was the answer, "any thing the matter?"
"Yes," replied Celia, "my little brother is very sick. I am afraid he
is dying, and I have no one to send for the doctor."
"I'll send him," replied the man at once, "I am going right past there.
Who shall I say wants him?"
"Celia Merritt, and please tell him to make haste; and, oh! Do tell my
brother Robert to come home directly. He lives at the Doctor's. Tell
him Benny is very sick."
The stranger set off on his errand of kindness, with an apparent hearty
good will, and after what seemed an age to poor Celia, Robert made
his appearance, but without the Doctor. He had been called in another
direction, and Mrs. Huntley promised to send him the moment he came in.
Meantime she had given Robert careful directions what to do in case the
child should be very ill.
Very ill indeed he was, and grew worse every moment, despite the care
of his brother and sister, so that when the Doctor appeared, as he did
about five o'clock in the morning, the case was hopeless. The child was
in the last stages of collapse, and died a few minutes after sunrise.
As soon as possible, a coffin was procured, and at sunset Robert and
Celia saw him deposited in his last resting-place by the side of his
baby sister.
This was a terrible blow to Celia; she was not exactly aware how far
she had wandered from the right way till it came upon her; but now
she naturally sought refuge in prayer, and was distressed that it did
not as formerly afford her relief in her distress. There now seemed
no one to hear her; her attention wandered in spite of herself, and
thoughts from the book she had lately been reading—such thoughts as
she had indulged with pleasure—haunted her, showing themselves in all
their true ugliness. How deeply now did she repent having forgotten
the councils of her truest friend, and silenced the voice of her own
conscience, as she had done of late. Bitterly, bitterly she wept, and
most earnestly she prayed for forgiveness; and when at last, in answer
to her prayers, a degree of peace was vouchsafed to her, she felt
humbled in the very dust as she thought of what she had done.
But she had little time for thought now, and perhaps it was as well for
her that all her attention was necessarily occupied. Before the next
morning, Mark was attacked with the same disease, and though his case
was taken in time to save his life, he was very ill for some days, and
required constant attention. At last he grew better, and was able to
sit up, and Celia began to hope that the worst was over, and that she
and her brother might be able to take the rest they so much needed.
One day, when she had been out to do some marketing, and returned, she
found her mother eating some cherries which one of the neighbors had
given her.
"Why, mother!" she exclaimed in terror. "How can you eat those things?
You will surely have the cholera. Don't you know the Doctor said there
could be nothing worse than sour fruit?"
"They are not sour; they are as ripe as they can be."
"But pray don't eat any more; I hope you have not given Mark any of
them."
"I am not such a fool as to give fruit to a sick child, I hope. Of
course I have not; but there is no danger of their hurting me," she
continued, finishing the last of them as she spoke.
Celia was distressed and terrified; but there was nothing to be done,
except to watch the first approach of the malady, and meet it in time.
For some time no bad symptoms appeared, and she hoped that she might
have been alarmed for nothing. But the next day showed that she was
mistaken: before the evening of the third day, Mrs. Merritt was dying
in spite of all that could be done to save her.
As she bent over the body of her mother, now as cold as a corpse, and
almost breathless, Celia forgot all that had been wrong; she forgot the
indolence, the shiftlessness, the false pride, and remembered only what
was good. She thought now of the young woman who came to the house as
her father's second wife, when Robert was seven and she six years old;
how pretty and neat she was, and how kindly she had talked to them,
the first night that she put them to bed. She remembered how much more
comfortable they were for a long time after she came, till illness and
discomfort had made her indolent, and the removal of her own family
had taken away the spur which prompted her to show them that all their
predictions of misery were unfounded.
How she longed to have her speak once more; to have her show some signs
of intelligence, that she might ask her pardon for the many instances
of disrespect and disobedience of which she painfully felt she had been
guilty. But the poor soul never spoke nor opened her eyes again; and
not long after sunset, her children closed her eyes and prepared her
for the grave as decently as they could; the husband for whose sake she
had deserted her home and broken the hearts of her parents, lying in a
state of stupid intoxication in the next room. How very very seldom do
runaway matches turn out happily! We almost wish they never did.
In three days' time, the house was deserted. Mark who was almost
entirely recovered, was taken to board by a kind neighbor, till he
could be placed as an apprentice with some respectable farmer or
mechanic. While Mr. Merritt, who had not been sober for three weeks,
was taken to the poor-house. At first, Robert could not hear of such a
thing; but he yielded at last to the representations of the poor-master
and the Doctor.
"Your father will be perfectly comfortable there," said good Mr.
Wheeler; "you can go and see him whenever you please, and above all, he
will not have any thing to drink there."
This last argument was decisive. Robert could not help hoping, that
when his father was entirely out of the sight and reach of liquor, he
might perhaps reform. Dr. George was not very sanguine, but he held his
peace and allowed the children to please themselves with the prospect
of their father's amendment. Celia went to Mrs. Vanderburgh's to stay
a while, till she could put her clothes in order, and till her friends
could find her a place. She at first inclined to a situation in the
village, but this was decidedly opposed by Robert; for though he felt
that he should miss his sister sadly, he was most desirous to see her
placed out of the reach of all her factory associations, of which he
knew the danger much better than she did.
Celia herself had the sense to see the force of her brother's
representations, and hearing that Mrs. Dennison's girl had left her,
she requested her kind friend, Mrs. Huntley, to obtain the place for
her. Mrs. Dennison was quite willing to make trial of any body whom
Mrs. Huntley recommended, and thus the affair was finally settled.