For a delicate girl, like Clemence Graystone, this country school
teaching proved very laborious work. But she bent to it bravely. It was
easy to see that these rude little savages whom she taught, fairly
worshipped her. Children have an innate love of the pure and good.
Perhaps because they are themselves innocent, until the great, wicked
world contaminates them. At any rate, the bright young creature who came
among them every morning, seemed to them a being from another sphere,
the embodiment of their childish ideas of purity and beauty, and they
had for her somewhat of that awe that the devotees of the East feel for
the gods they worship.
She sat before them, with the slant sunlight of a July day falling on
her fair, sweet face.
"The week is drawing to a close, and you have all worked faithfully,"
she said, and taking a snowy manuscript from the desk, "now you shall
have your reward. Instead of translating a little French story, as I at
first intended, I have written an original one, especially for you."
A noisy cheer greeted this announcement.
"Is it true?" asked several voices.
"Yes, it is true," she responded, "and if you will be quiet, I will read
it to you." And she began as follows:
"THE STORY OF ANGEL WAY."
"Her name was Angelica, but her little school friends called her
'Angie,' and those who loved her, 'Angel.' This last pet term of a fond
mother, seemed not ill applied, when one looked at the serene face, and
the drooping violet eyes, with the prophetic shadow of her fate in their
earnest, haunting depths. Indeed, the meaning of Angelica, in the flower
world, is 'Inspiration,' and I think Angel's must have come from God.
When you looked at her, she seemed like one set apart for some special
work, like those 'chosen ones' we love to read of. Truly, as has been so
gracefully said, 'to bear, and love and live,' is a woman's patient lot.
Yes, to suffer pain, to bear uncomplainingly through weary years, a load
of grief and shame for others, though she herself may have sinned not,
till at last it grows too great for her feeble strength, and Death
comes, not as the 'King of Terrors,' but a welcome messenger, for whose
coming the weary woman has waited and longed, ever since hope died out,
and she knew life held for her nothing but wretchedness and woe.
"This little girl, I am going to tell you about, lived in the very heart
of a great city, up dismal flights of stairs, at the very top of a huge
brick building, where a great many poor people congregated together and
called it home.
"There were four of them, Mr. and Mrs. Way, and Angel, and the baby whom
they called Mary. There had been another member of the little family,
but God had taken her, and Grandma Way's placid face was no longer seen
bending over the old family Bible, in the chimney corner. It was very
evident to everybody but the one who should have been the first to
observe a change, that the hard-working wife and mother would soon
follow her. Toil, and care and sorrow, were surely wearing out her life,
but there were none to pity her but little Angel, and she was only a
child.
"She was shy and bashful, too, and afraid almost of her own shadow, but
every night she knelt down and prayed to God to show her how she could
be useful to those she loved. And the time was surely coming when all
her little strength would be tried to the uttermost.
"One night little Angel was aroused from her sleep by shrieks, and
groans and curses, and the sound of a heavy blow, and she sprang from
her little bed, to find her mother stretched senseless upon the floor,
with the blood trickling from a wound in her head, and a group of
uncouth, neighboring women gathered about her.
"'Lord save us!' they ejaculated, 'there's the child, we'd clean forgot
her.'
"'Mamma, mamma!' wailed the little creature, 'is she dead?'
"'There, there, dearie, don't take on so,' said good-natured Mrs.
Maloney. 'It's not dead she is at all. You see, the father came home,
after bein' on a bit of a spree, with a touch of delirium, and raised a
good deal of a fuss, and they took him away where he'll have to behave
himself till the whisky gets out of his head.'
"'There, she's comin' to now, raise her up, Mis' Macarty, till I give
her a little of this to drink. How do you feel now, poor thing?'
"'Why, what is it all about? How came I here?' said Mrs. Way, wildly;
then, as her memory returned to her, she clasped Angel's little figure
closely, and wept convulsively.
"'Don't take on so!' and, 'Let her alone, I tell you, it will do her
good!' and, 'Do you want the woman to git the hysterics?' came
indiscriminately from the females bending over her. Then Mrs. Maloney
bustled away to make her a reviving cup of tea, and little widow
Macarty, with her soft voice and pleasant way, soothed the heart-broken
woman.
"'Never you mind, ma'am, everybody has trouble of some kind. Remember
the children that's left, and keep your strength to work for them.'
"'You are good and kind,' moaned the sufferer, 'but I've nothing to
reward your services.'
"'Can't I do a neighbor a kindness without their talking about pay?
Suppose I should fall sick myself, maybe I'd have to pay before hand to
get a little help. Your lookin' better a ready. Don't make the tea too
strong, Mrs. Maloney, to excite her, and I think a bit of dry toast
would be just the thing to sort of tempt her appetite.'
"Mrs. Way sat up, and a Doctor, who had been sent for, dressed her
wounds, and pronounced her case not dangerous. 'You need not anticipate
any great harm from the blow, madam,' he said, 'but your general health
needs recuperating. Your mind acts on your body, and you must be kept
free from excitement of any kind.'
"'Free from excitement,' she thought bitterly, after all was hushed in
silence, and she lay weak and faint, watching the slumbers of the
innocent children beside her. 'My God, pity me!' 'What have I done to
deserve this cruel fate?' She thought of the long, miserable hours she
had passed alone with her helpless darlings, listening for the unsteady
footsteps of him who had vowed to protect her, and guard her from life's
ills. And this was the end. She wished she could die, but for the
children, what would become of them? 'Free from excitement,' indeed. An
unprotected woman, with two small children, and only one pair of hands
to work with, and these disabled, and food and fire to get, and a roof
to shelter them, to say nothing of warm comfortable clothing.'
"'She got up too quick, and worried too much,' said the Doctor, when he
was called again a few weeks later. 'I can do nothing for her. Where's
that wretch of a husband?'
"'In the workhouse,' sobbed Mrs. Maloney. 'What will become of the
children when she's dead?'
"'Have to send them to the Orphan Asylum, I suppose. Dear me! I never
could see what poor people wanted with so many children, anyway,' and
the elegant Dr. Dash sauntered down the four flights of stairs, humming
a fashionable opera, and speculating how much that beautiful Miss
Osborne really possessed in her own right.
"'Indeed, they won't go to the Orphan Asylum,' said little Mrs. Macarty,
'if I have to work and sustain them myself. The sweet, pretty darlings!
How would I feel if that was my own Katy, now?'
"Nobody being able to say just how she would feel in that emergency, she
bustled round, sniffing at imaginary Orphan Asylums, and nodding her
head sagaciously, saying, 'We will show them a thing or two about Orphan
Asylums, won't we now?'
"But little Angel had a plan of her own. Away down in her child's heart
there was a sacred memory of a mother's anxious, tear-stained face, and
grandma trying to comfort her with the message that had been the solace
of her own grief-stricken old age:
"'Never despair, daughter! Remember, 'whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth.' I had a heavenly dream about William, last night, and I
feel sure that he'll find the right way at last. We'll pray for him
together, and surely God will hear us.'
"'I believe that, Mother Way,' said the wife, eagerly. 'I could not die
and leave him to perish. He loves his children devotedly, and I believe
this child (drawing Angel nearer to her) has been sent by God for his
salvation.'
"'May the Lord bless and strengthen her for the work,' said grandma in a
tremulous voice, laying her thin hand upon the child's head, and Angel
felt from that moment set apart, consecrated, as it were, by the last
words of that dying saint, for that night, Grandma Way went to heaven.
She remembered it now, and knew the time had come for her to act her
part. Mrs. Macarty became her sole confidential adviser.
"'I am twelve years old,' said Angel, 'and baby Matie is nearly two; I
can take care of her, if you will show me a little now and then, and I
am going to try and get along here till my father comes back again.'
"'Just hear the little woman, now,' said her listener, in open-mouthed
admiration. 'Sure it would be a tiptop way to manage, and I'll do my
best to help you through with it.'
"And this committee of two on ways and means proved so efficient, that
when William Way returned, sober and downcast, Angel just lifted up
little Mary, as bright and happy as if nothing had ever occurred to
sadden them, and that this very room had not recently been the scene of
a dreadful tragedy, of which the helpless babes were the only witnesses.
"'Ain't it wonderful?' said Mrs. Maloney, that same day; 'Way's got off
with just sixty days, and come back again, and that child putting on the
airs of a woman, a tryin' to keep house for him.'
"'And I'm sure that's right enough,' said Mrs. Macarty. 'They could not
make it out that he killed the woman directly, and who cares for poor
folks? She's dead and gone, and that's the end of her. Little them that
makes the laws care! If it was one of them there rich men on the avenue,
or a flaunting theater actress, or somebody had got jealous of somebody
else, and committed murder, there'd be a fine sensation. An' there'd be
pictures in all the shop windows, of how he or she looked in all sorts
of situations, how they looked when they was a dyin', and how they
looked after they was dead; and what the murderer eat for his supper the
night it all got found out, or whether he did not eat anything at all;
and how many fine ladies had been to console him, and how many equally
fine ministers had been to pray with him. The newsboys would be
shriekin' 'murder!' at every crossin', and every corner you turned, it
would be 'hev a paper, mum, with the latest proceedings about the
trial?' And to crown all, you'd come home, half distracted, to find the
children playing with little gallowses, and askin' when pa was goin' to
murder somebody, till you felt chilled to the very marrow of your
bones.'
'But poor folks, that live in attics, ain't considered human. I tell you
what, though, if Mis' Way had a seen her children starving, and stole a
loaf of bread to save their lives, there would have been a stir about
it, and a pile of policemen from here to the corner, to 'enforce the
law,' and they'd have talked in all the churches, about the depravity of
the poor in these cities, and then sent another thousand or two to the
heathens. The Lord only knows what the world's a comin' to.'
'And the Lord only cares, I don't,' said Mrs. Maloney, flouncing off.
The honest truth was, she was a little jealous of her more intelligent
neighbor, (for human nature is much the same from the garret to the
drawing-room.) Mrs. Macarty needn't think _she_ was talked down, if she
did, now and then, get in a word that she had picked up out to service,
that the rest of the folks in the block could not understand. One of the
Maloney's, direct from Galway, wasn't to be put down by any low Irish.
She'd go in and see the babies herself, and patronize them too. So, for
spite, she took a dish of steaming potatoes, and left little Mike
roaring, and went in to have a gossip.
"'Oh, thank you, Mrs. Maloney,' said Angel, who was fluttering around,
setting the table, 'this will be so nice for papa--there he comes now.'
"A footstep sounded without, and the man came in, looking haggard and
wan. 'The dirty villain,' muttered Mrs. Maloney, shuffling past him; but
Angel came forward, and smoothed the hot temples, and talked in her
pretty, bird-like voice. Two great tears rolled out from the hollow
eyes, and a prayer that God must have heard, welled up from the depths
of a penitent heart.
"Three peaceful, happy years rolled away. Angel was a tall girl of
fifteen, and Mary five. They lived in a little cottage in the outskirts
of the town, and the neighbors envied them their contented lot, and even
strangers paused to admire their pretty home, and these fair, beautiful
children. But sin once more entered their little Paradise. William Way
again relapsed into dissipation, and 'the state of that man was worse
than before.' The fire died out upon the hearth stone, and want, with
gaunt, wolfish face, met them wherever they turned. And he, who should
have protected, gave them only blows and curses. Everything went for
drink. Angel tried courageously to find employment, but her slender
wages were rudely taken from her, and half the time they went cold and
hungry. Little Mary had always been extremely delicate, and she sunk
under it and died, and was buried beside her mother. Angel despaired
then, and went on for the future in a kind of maze of bewilderment,
doing that which her hand found to do mechanically. Only God, who had
bereft her, pitied her still, and helped her to resist temptation when
it came to her.
"As her mother had done before her, Angel dragged out the weary years,
almost hopeless; and the one object of her toil and solicitude, was only
a pitiful wreck of the former stalwart William Way. Only a miserable,
wretched creature, that grovelled in the mire of its own degradation,
and from whose bosom the last spark of manhood seemed to have forever
fled. To look upon him, you would ask, 'Can this being have a soul?'
"And fifteen more years dragged their weary round, and Angel was thirty,
and a haggard, care-worn woman. It was a sin and a shame, people said,
to wreck that girl's life, when she had many a chance where she might
have married, and enjoyed the comfort of having a home of her own. And
there were even those mean enough to deride her for her sacrifice, and
tell her she had no ambition, and call her a fool for her pains; but she
did not mind them.
"She felt glad that she had not, when, one day, the Doctor pronounced,
over a broken limb that he was bandaging, that William Way was not long
for this world.
"'It's wonderful how he has held on so long, at the dreadful rate he has
gone on, but the last few years have told on him. He can't survive this
last shock.'
"There was but little time for preparation for a future world; but Angel
had faith, and, even at the eleventh hour, it met with its reward. When
she closed the dying eyes, she felt that she could trust the penitent
soul to the mercy of Him who created it, and 'who can make the vilest
clean.'
"For herself, she knew that 'when time shall be no more,' she should
find eternal peace."
There was a quick, gasping sob, and Clemence looked up, as she finished,
to see a little figure in faded blue calico, flying frantically down the
road.
"Which of the scholars left?" she asked.
"Only Ruth Lynn," said Maurice Wayne. "_Her_ father used to drink, and
fell in the mill pond about a year ago, and got drowned. Her mother's
sick, too, and Dr. Little says she can't live, and has give up goin' to
see her any longer, 'cause she can't pay. He's stingy mean to do it, for
he goes twice a day to see that spiteful old Mrs. March, and I'm sure
_she_ can't live, for ma said yesterday that all her money couldn't save
her. When I grow up, I'm going to be a doctor, and I'll look after every
poor person twice as good as I will a rich one. That's what I'll do."
"I did not know before that Ruth's mother was so very ill," said
Clemence. "I must go and see her."
She forgot it again, though, until about a week after, when the roll was
called, and she marked again "absent" after Ruth's name, as she had
already done several times before.
"She can't come any more," said Maurice, "her mother's worse, and they
say she won't live much longer."
Clemence felt conscience-stricken at having forgotten her, and set out
for the little one-roomed cabin directly after school was dismissed.
She found the direst poverty and wretchedness. A dark-haired,
strong-featured woman lay on a couch under a window, where there was
scarcely a whole pane of glass, and which was stuffed full of rags to
keep out the draught. A stove, at which a frowsy neighbor was cooking
some fat slices of pork, for the sick woman, filled the apartment with
stifling heat and greasy odors.
"There's the schoolma'am," she heard in a loud whisper, as she paused
for a moment upon the threshold. The invalid tried to raise herself, and
gave a look of dismay at the squalid scene. Poor Mrs. Lynn had been a
noted housekeeper, in her days of prosperity, and even at her greatest
need, nobody could ever call her neglectful, either of her house or
little Ruth, who, though always poorly clad, looked clean and wholesome.
Clemence read the whole at a glance.
"Do not apologise," she interrupted, as the strange neighbor poured out
a profusion of deprecatory exclamations, "I heard that Mrs. Lynn was
ill, and came over to see if I could not assist in some way. Don't allow
me to disturb you, madam. How does she feel now?"
"Well, pretty poorly; ain't it so, Mrs. Lynn? Don't you feel as though
your time was short here below? School-ma'am's been askin."
"Yes, I'm most gone," was the feeble response, "and I should rejoice to
be freed from my troubles, only for the child. I don't have faith to see
just how it's a goin to work for the best, for there will be none to
comfort little Ruth after I'm gone."
"Well, you must just trust in the Lord. That's what the minister told
you, and he knows, for he's had a good chance to try it, preachin' all
the time without half enough pay, and a donation now and then. Any way,
it will be all the same a hundred years hence. There's the vittals I've
been gettin ready, and now this young woman's come to sit by you, I'll
run home and look after Tommy. Expect he's in the cistern by this time.
If you want me, you can send Ruth, you know. Good night."
"Good night, and thank you, Mrs. Deane," said the widow, and then turned
again to Clemence, "They told me you was pretty, Miss," she said, gazing
with pleasure at the pure, sweet face. "My Ruth just loved you from the
first. You don't know how grateful I have felt towards you for being
kind to the little fatherless creature."
"Oh, don't thank me, indeed," said Clemence, "you would not, if you only
knew how I have been reproaching myself for not coming before. Tell me
something I can do for you."
"There is not much more for me in this world," was the reply; "but I
feel burdened with care about the child. I suppose you can't understand
a mother's feelings, young lady, and it is weak in me to give up so, but
I can't die and leave my little helpless girl alone in the world. Oh, if
I could only take her with me?"
"I see how you are situated," said Clemence, "you need a friend to help
you. Have you no relatives to look to?"
"No one in the whole, wide world. Little Ruth and me are alone. You must
have heard how her father died. My poor, misguided husband! He might
have surrounded us with plenty, but evil companions dragged him on to a
dreadful end. He was an only son. His parents died, and left him with a
few hundred dollars. I had always hired out before I was married, for I
had no one to look to, as I was an orphan. I had, however, saved quite a
little sum out of my wages, and this, with what James had, gave us quite
a fair start in life. But he took to drink, and that was the last of our
happiness. I have buried five children, and this girl is the only one
left. Would that God had taken her, too."
"How you must have suffered," said her young listener, down whose face
sympathetic tears had been streaming, during the woman's pathetic
recital. "It cannot be that you will be left to despair in your dying
hour. Try and hope for the best, and be resigned to what may be in store
for you, remembering it is His will."
"I do try," said the woman, meekly; "and you, will you pray for me?"
"Gladly, if you wish," said Clemence, sinking down beside the couch.
"There, I feel stronger now," said the invalid. "You must surely have
been sent by God to comfort me."
Clemence's face was radiant with a light that told whence came her pure
joy. She glided around softly, preparing a tempting supper out of the
delicacies she had brought to the sick woman. Then she drew a chair
again beside her, preparatory to a night of watching.
The woman fell into an uneasy slumber, and the hours waned, as the girl
kept faithful "watch and ward." With the early morning light came a
change.
"Ruth, run for the neighbors," said Clemence, in frightened tones. "Your
mother is worse," and the half-dressed child fled out of the house,
crying bitterly.
"Ruth, Ruth!" called the sufferer, "my poor darling."
Clemence came to her side, "I sent her after Mrs Deane," she said,
soothingly, "she will be back in a few moments."
"It will be too late. I am going--oh, Father, forgive me? I cannot die
in peace--my little Ruth, my little, helpless, confiding daughter, child
of my love, I cannot leave her."
The great, hollow eyes fastened themselves imploringly on her face. The
young watcher felt as if the minutes were hours. She listened for the
footsteps that came not. The woman's breath came quick in little gasps.
She tried to speak, turned on her pillow and uttered a feeble word of
anguish. Her eyes again sought the face of the young watcher, and she
strove again to syllable incoherent questions. Clemence came nearer and
bent over her, asking in earnest, agitated tones,
"Will you trust your child with me? She shall be my own, own sister, and
I will work for her, and love her, and watch over her, while life
lasts?"
A faint pressure of the cold hand, and a look of heavenly peace in the
dying eyes, was her only reply.
"She is gone!" said Clemence, as Mrs. Deane appeared in the doorway,
"Come to me Ruth, you have lost your mother, but you have found a
sister," and she clasped the sobbing little one to her arms.
"Well, if that don't beat all," said Mrs. Wynn. "Whoever heard of such
goin's on? What is the girl goin' to do with that beggar-child, I'd like
to know? A lone female, too, with no one to protect her, and nothing but
one pair of hands. She's spoilt her market by that move. There ain't a
young feller in Waveland got courage enough to make up to her now, for
all that pretty face; nobody wants to take a young'un that don't belong
to 'em, on their hands to support. She's clean crazy to do it.
"Rose, you'll have to finish the dishes and clean up, if it _is_
Saturday, for I'm a goin' round to Miss Pryor's. I can't keep that to
myself over Sunday, not if a whole passel of ministers was to come here
to dinner, and I love my reputation for neatness, entirely."
It was a fearful responsibility, but now that she had taken it, or
rather had it forced upon her by fate, Clemence felt thankful that she
was thought worthy of the charge. She began to love the little, helpless
creature, who looked to her now for every good. She took pleasure in
combing the soft, brown hair, that had, hitherto, been twisted into an
awkward knot, into pretty, graceful curls, and it would be hard to
believe that the little, slender, sable-clad child, with the serious,
brown eyes, that always followed Clemence with looks of love in their
yearning, amber depths, could possibly be the same wild, sly, little
Ruth Lynn, whom we first knew.
Notwithstanding Mrs. Wynn's adverse prediction, Clemence's "strange
freak," as they called it in the little village, was not condemned by
every one. There were a few liberal-minded ones, who saw at once how the
case stood, and resolved to uphold the girl in her course, though they
feared for the future, in which there was the possibility of failure.
And, much to Clemence's astonishment, the gallant Philemon W. Strain,
editor, came out with a glowing account of the whole affair in the next
issue of the Clarion, in a three column article, headed "Ruth, the
Village Child," complimenting the young schoolmistress in such
high-flown terms, that a rival editor, who read it, thought that she
must be of a literary turn, and wrote to her to solicit contributions to
his paper, and another authority in a neighboring village, wanted to
write her life, and was only pacified by being allowed to dedicate a
poem to our young heroine, which, happily for her nerves, was never
published, for being sent by the ambitious strippling to a popular
magazine, was only heard of again under the head of "respectfully
declined," accompanied by some severe and cutting remarks, to the effect
that the writer had better look to his grammar and orthography, which
uncalled for sarcasm, cruelly, but effectually extinguished what might,
perhaps, have been a light, that, in the future, might had illumined the
world with its effulgent rays.