EPHRAIM TAKES HOME THE BUNDLE.
The silence was broken by Madam Dalrymple’s dispatching Tipkins to
pay the waiting hackman. But the additional fifty cents was not
forthcoming. In its stead a dime was given Sophy and she was, also,
dispatched with a crispness that forbade her accompanying Jessica
upstairs, in search of a new frock, and that sent “her about her
business” with the reminder that she was to trouble that house no more.
“I will have the matter of the accident investigated and proper
restitution made. You can give Tipkins your address, Sophy Nestor, and
need not wait for Jessica to come downstairs. Tipkins, show the small
person out.”
Sophy stared but did not disobey, even though her soul longed for
one more glimpse of the lovely girl who had crossed her pathway, for
a moment, so to speak, and had vanished within the gloom of that
forbidding mansion. She was an impudent street child, in ordinary,
ready to “sass” anybody who interfered with her and all the more
“touchy” because of her deformity and the curiosity it aroused. But she
dared not sauce this wonderful old lady, who looked to her like some
of the fashionably draped wax figures in modistes’ windows and whose
voice was so icily quiet and stern.
She followed Tipkins’ wake with a meekness hitherto unknown, but a
meekness that was external only.
“Huh! She owns the inside of this house, she does, but she don’t own
the whole street, so there. And I’ll take my stand right out here in
the Square, and here I’ll sell my flowers--or bust! Then I’ll see
Jessica and if she can’t give it to me to-day, she’ll give me that
frock some other day. I hope it won’t be like that riding one she had
on, all tight and draggley, but--Goody! Them ten centses ’ll buy a real
lot of daffies offen the market folks, when market’s done, to-morrow.
I won’t ride in no street car, I won’t, but I’ll be right here in this
Square early to-morrow morning, and Jessie and me can talk through that
iron fence, same’s if we was close together. Them lions is only iron,
too, and I’m not a bit scared of ’em.”
These reflections passed through the hunchback’s mind as she received
the dime from Tipkins and had the door of the mansion closed in
her face. Then she seated herself on a bench in the park till she
remembered that in leaving the hack she had left the bundle of fresh
work in it, which she was taking home to Granny. At that memory she
sprang up dismayed and hurried homeward, fearing many things but most
of all that she would have to go without food for many meals to come
because of her forgetfulness. Granny wouldn’t punish her. She rarely
did by word or blow; but Sophy’s worst punishment would be the fact
that the bundle of goods was lost and that Granny would have to make
it good. Poor Granny! So old and so discouraged! Yet so much nicer in
every way, the loyal grandchild thought, than that rich old lady in the
mansion she had left.
“Why, Cousin Margaret! Where has Sophy gone?” asked Jessica, hurrying
back to the room where she had left her visitor, with her own prettiest
frock on her arm; even that beloved one of white with scarlet trimmings
which had been made for the happy _Navidad_.
“To where she belongs, I hope. Child, you must never, never do such a
thing again.”
“But, Cousin Margaret, I didn’t do it. It was Buster, poor fellow,
who was scared almost to death by those upstairs trains and the
automobiles. Why, they scare me, too, they sound so like a flock of
wild geese coming right down on your head. I hate them. I don’t see why
people ride in them when there are so many horses.”
“For once I agree with you. I also detest them, the modern,
disagreeable things. But that’s begging the question. I refer to your
disobedience in visiting that tenement house.”
“Why--But, Cousin Margaret! I didn’t know--you hadn’t really forbidden;
you’d only said I needn’t ever know anything about poor Avenue A and
the folks live on it, and I wouldn’t have known only Buster made me.
My mother says nothing happens by accident and that everything leads
to something else. Like this, seems if: If Buster hadn’t thrown poor
Sophy down, I’d never have know how poor she was and had the chance to
be good to her. I’m going to write my mother soon as I can and tell
her; and that’s the first time I ever was glad I was going to be an
‘heiress.’ Heiresses have lots of money and oh! dear! It will take all
we can ever dig out of that copper mine to take care of all the poor
folks in Avenue A. I shall ask my mother to have you, or Mr. Hale, or
whoever ’tis that keeps the money, to give me some right away. I can’t
bear to think of any nice old lady, like Granny Briggs, living in a
tiny room with only a bed and two chairs and a weeny, tiny stove in the
corner. She was so busy she couldn’t even stop to talk to me a minute.
It made me feel real tired just to look at her. I’m going to spend my
whole life helping poor Avenue A people, or others like them, and I’m
going to begin with Sophy and her grandmother. I just can’t forget
them, nor--nor the _poor smell_! I should hate that worse of all, that
poor smell. Wouldn’t you?”
Mrs. Dalrymple had listened in silence while her small relative thus
unburdened her soul, and now replied with considerable satisfaction:
“That’s the Waldron in you. I have tried, and once Gabriella did,
faithfully, to do what is known as ‘slumming;’ but the ‘poor smell’
conquered us both. I trust it will you, and certainly you have made a
good beginning, to detect it so instantly. Now, sit down and listen to
me. You are _going_ to be a rich young woman but you _are_ not yet.
You are but a very inexperienced child, who has just caught her first
glimpse of the ‘seamy side’ of life. It isn’t a pleasant side, and to
you it isn’t a necessary one. There are numberless organized charities
to provide for the wants of the poor and I subscribe to many of them.
I will have your name put down upon one or two lists and it must then
content you to know that you are helping, through others, those who
need. Personally, you can have nothing to do with the abjectly poor.
It isn’t fitting and it cannot be. So the next time you are tempted to
visit any such tenement as that of to-day please to remember that you
are under my authority and I forbid.
“Now, that is a longer lecture than I often give and I shall not repeat
it. You must remember and obey. Now go, ask Barnes to make a hot bath
ready for you and send everything you have on to the laundry. Except
your habit, which, of course, must go to a professional cleaner. I feel
as if you had brought that ‘poor smell’ into this very house!”
“Oh! no, Cousin Margaret, it isn’t that. It’s just the ordinary smell-y
kind of air is in here. I noticed it the moment I got here and Barnes
never opens the windows like she ought. My mother says that the more
outdoor air we get into the house the sweeter it is. Why, Cousin
Margaret, we never close the windows at Sobrante, except in the rainy
season and even then not many of them.
“And I’m sorry not to go right away as you want, but there’s something
been forgot. We left the bundle of sewing in that carriage and I
promised Sophy this frock. I couldn’t break my word, you know, so I
will have to go just the once more and after I find the carriage. Is it
in the street here, still?”
“Oh! you tiresome girl! What next? I did not for a moment suppose
that in inviting you to my house I was going to have its peace so
disturbed. Here have I been fretting away half the afternoon, about
your disappearance, instead of enjoying my drive in the park as I
should. Then when you do come home you do it bringing some probable
infection with you. Those tenements are never free from some contagious
disease, I’ve read, and I expect you’ll come down with scarlet fever,
or diphtheria, or some other terrible thing. That would mean a health
officer visiting and fumigation and other miserable annoyances.
“But, no. The hack has disappeared, the bundle of sewing with it--if
such there was. But you’ll not go seek it. I will send Ephraim and with
sufficient money in hand to pay for all possible injuries. Now, call
him and let’s have done with this unpleasant Nestor-Briggs affair.”
Jessica obeyed, uttering no further protest. Indeed, if dear old
“Forty-niner” were to take the matter in hand it would be promptly
and well done. Fortunately, too, it happened that scenting a possible
future customer, the hackman had early in their time of waiting given
Mr. Marsh his carriage number and the address at which he might usually
be found. Thither Ephraim departed, and shouldering the bundle himself,
reappeared at 221 Avenue A, just as the old lady and her grandchild
were sitting down to eat that last half-loaf, with gloomy faces and all
too vigorous appetites.
When Ephraim tapped at the rickety door and Sophy opened it, to see him
standing there with the lost bundle of blue denim on his shoulders, she
screamed with delight and, catching his hand, dragged him within.
“Why, why hold on, there, Sissy! I just come to fetch this back, that
was forgot, and to say in the name of Madam Dalrymple, my ‘Little
Captain’s’ present guardeen, as how she’d be glad to make good for
that accident of Buster’s and the succeeding troubles, and to fetch
this here little dress of Miss Jessica’s that she promised Sissy,
yonder. Mrs. Trent made it with her own hands and my ‘Captain’ wore it
a Christmas Day.”
With considerable reluctance, Ephraim was unrolling the little parcel
and displaying the charming contents. As he did so he could not refrain
from one glance at poor Sophy’s misshapen back and his wonderment as
to the garment’s fit. It actually grieved him to think of anything the
beloved mistress of Sobrante had handled being bestowed in this dingy
abode where even he could detect and shudder at the “poor smell.”
Nor was he at all prepared for the ready hospitality of the old
grandmother, who, while her grandchild was rapturously fondling and
examining the gift, all unconscious of the disparaging look the
sharpshooter had given her, quietly pushed Sophy’s chair back to the
bare table and said:
“We’re just eating our suppers, Mr.--”
“Marsh, ma’am, Ephraim Marsh, once of Californy, late of New York,
and originally hailing from Concord, in the good old State of New
Hampshire.”
He pronounced it “Cawnco’d,” and he gave to his r’s the peculiar
pronunciation which appealed to Granny Briggs’s old heart as his offer
of money had not done.
“_Marsh?_ Of _Concord_? Why, bless you, man, I was born there! I
myself!”
“You don’t! well, gosh all hemlocks! If I ain’t gladder’n I would be to
be struck by lightning and pretty much on the same order of things. A
girl from Cawnco’d! Shake. Name, please, as it is and as it was.”
“Briggs now, Badger it was. My father was the village shoemaker and
cobbler when the town was young and small,” cried the thin old lady,
her voice vibrant with unexpected delight, and so joyously altered in
appearance that Sophy ceased staring at her new frock and stared at her
grandmother instead.
“Well, well, well! I haven’t a word to say; except that it’s just as my
good mistress, Gabriella Trent says, _the Lord does lead_. To think of
it! Just to think of the strangeness of it for one single minute! Your
father was the shoemaker that my father, the tanner, sold his skins to!
Well-tanned hides they were, too, _same as my own_! Tanned so well and
so often that I got a little tired of the business and lit out ’fore
I was more’n half grown. Sophia Badger! Well, then, I reckon I _will_
stay and take a bite with you, just for the sake of old times; only,
I guess, by the look of things you haven’t been used to men-folk’s
appetites, lately. I saw a real decent-looking grocery store as I came
by. I’ll step down and pick up a few odds and ends, if you’ll let me.
I’ve been doing the cooking myself, lately, for the oddest family I
ever struck and ’twould be an agreeable change to eat somebody else’s
truck for once. More’n that, there never was a New Hampshire woman that
couldn’t cook to beat the world. How’s a rasher of bacon with eggs,
potato chips, and a prime cup of coffee? If I fetch ’em will you cook
them, Sophy Badger?”
“Will I not?” cried the now happy old woman, no whit ashamed to take
charity from such as hailed from Concord--magic word! In a moment
“Forty-niner” had disappeared, the bundle of work had been recklessly
tossed into a corner, the oil-stove had been lighted, Sophy dispatched
to a neighbor’s to borrow some needed dishes and frying pans, and the
whole atmosphere changed to that of a sunny room in a well furnished
home. Even the “poor smell” vanished when the sizzling bacon sent up
its own appetizing odors and Granny set the window wide to let in the
evening air. With that sunset breeze came, also, something which these
two had long needed and sadly; and that was--happiness.
Blessed Buster! Whose careless speed had brought it all about! Such
a supper as that Sophy Nestor could not remember. There was neither
stint nor caution about it, and though her elders’ soon satisfied
their own appetites, finding in their reminiscences a more delightful
mental food, the girl ate on and on, and when she could do no more was
not even bidden to take care of what was left against the morrow’s
breakfast.
But at last the feast was over. “Forty-niner” resolutely rose and tore
himself away. He had remembered with compunction that not only the
older people in Washington Square would also need their supper but that
Jessica would, too. So even this old friendship could not interfere
with his love for his “Little Captain” whose history he had given, with
all the tender embellishments his fond fancy pictured. Till even the
world-soured old Granny began to think the girl whom Sophy had called
an “angel” must be such, in truth; and left alone with her grandchild,
clasping the twenty-five good dollars which Madam had sent, with the
offer of more if this should not be satisfactory, the poor soul burst
into tears and expressions of affection. This almost frightened Sophy,
to whom such demonstrations were new, and she was glad when she was
bidden:
“Go to bed now, child, and dream of the good luck has come to us this
day! And to-morrow I’ll write my duty on a decent sheet of paper and
you shall carry it to that old Madam with a nice bunch of daffies--not
too stale nor faded. Go to bed, but--you may kiss me first.”
Back hurried Ephraim to that so different home in Washington Square;
and for once regardless of the etiquette he now so faithfully tried to
practice burst into Madam Dalrymple’s presence, exclaiming:
“That does beat all my first wife’s relations, as Aunt Sally Benton
would say. That little hunchback’s grandmother is no real pauper as we
thought. She’s just a bit down on her luck and as nice as lives. Why,
woman alive, _she hails from Cawnco’d_! Think of that! We were both
little tackers together in that blessed old town and my father used
to sell her father shoe-leather! Hooray, ‘Little Captain!’ That was a
lucky strike Buster made, when he hit Sophy Nestor!”
Even Jessica looked up disturbed at this unwonted behavior on her
“man’s” part, knowing full well how greatly Cousin Margaret would
disapprove, but the expression of that great dame’s countenance was
worth a study.
After a moment of amused silence, said she:
“Indeed! How remarkable! But, Ephraim, if you please, spare us any
more rhapsodies on the Avenue A residents. Jessica was bad enough
but--Ephraim, I would like my dinner.”
Instantly, the old man saluted, wheeled with his accustomed military
precision and vanished below stairs. But he felt as if he had been
dashed with icy water, while Jessica in sympathy found tears spring to
her eyes. But, Jessie, alas! did not as yet realize her full privilege
in being a Waldron.