"WELCOME HOME"
Mildred felt that she had become a working-woman in very truth as
she cleaned the dingy closets, vindictively prying into corners
and crevices that had been unmolested by generations of tenants,
and the rich color produced by summer heat and unwonted exertion
deepened at the thought, "What would Vinton Arnold, what would
his mother think if they saw me now? The latter would undoubtedly
remark," she murmured, in bitterness of spirit, "that I had at
last found my true sphere, and was engaged in befitting tasks; but
should I lose in his eyes?"
Indeed she would not, either in his eyes or in those of any other
man capable of appreciating womanly grace. Genuine beauty is a
rare and wonderful gift, and, like genius, triumphs over adverse
circumstances, and is often enhanced by them. Even prosaic Mrs.
Wheaton was compelled to pause from time to time to admire the
slender, supple form whose perfect outlines were revealed by the
stooping, twisting, and reaching required by the nature of the
labor. But the varying expressions of her face, revealing a mind
as active as the busy hands, were a richer study. The impact of
her brush was vigorous, and with looks of aversion and disgust she
would cleanse away the grimy stains as if they were an essential
part of the moral as well as gross material life of the former
occupants. To a refined nature association forms no slight element
in the constitution of a home; and horrible conjectures concerning
repulsive indications of the vulgar people who once kennelled
where others would live decently and purely are among the manifold
miseries of tenement life. In spite of all her will-power, Mildred
shuddered, and shrank from even this remote contact with a phase
of humanity peculiarly revolting to her, and the protest of her
innate delicacy would often appear strongly upon her face.
"The worst of it is," she muttered, "that soap and water cannot
blot out thoughts of the people who were here before us."
But thoughts of other people, some of whom were very dear to her,
brought varying expressions, and once she smiled and said to herself,
"Roger Atwood now thinks, no doubt, that in me he has seen another
'ghost of a woman,' weighing a little less than 'two hundred.' Of
all my little affairs of that nature, his was the most preposterous
and absurd. That one human being should expect and seek from another
what is so impossible to give produces a certain half-humorous
irritation that is indescribable."
Stout Mrs. Wheaton's mind and fancy were not so busy as her hands,
and when twelve o'clock came she knew the hour, although carrying
no watch. She had interrupted Mildred's musings from time to time,
but had received rather absent replies, for the actual inception
of a life of toil occasioned many thoughts.
When, however, the practical woman remarked, "I've a hinside 'int
that hit's time we took a bite together," Mildred awakened to an
honest and hungry approval of the suggestion.
"I don't like to intrude upon you, Mrs. Wheaton," she said. "Isn't
there some place near where I can go?"
"Hindeed there his--right down to my room, hif ye're not habove
my company. I can brew yer has good a cup o' tea has hany cook in
the land, and we'll find somethin' nourishin' to go vith hit."
"Mrs. Wheaton, you are a genuine friend. I'm so glad you were
here and willing to help me, for you make me feel safer and more
hopeful. You seem brave and not afraid of being poor, and I want
to learn your courage. So far from being above your company, I am
very grateful for it, and I shall try to repay your kindness with
like neighborly return when I can; but when it comes to actual
expense you must let me pay my way. How is it you are so brave and
cheery when, as you say, you are alone with several children to
support?"
"I'll tell yer vhile we heat hour dinner; so lock the door and come
vith me."
Mrs. Wheaton's room was plain, indeed, but neat and homelike. A
variegated and much-patched carpet covered part of the floor, which
was bare around the ample cooking-stove, whereon a wholesome dinner
soon smoked with appetizing odors. Her daughter, a young girl about
twelve years of age, assisted in the preparations, and then went
to call the other children, who were playing on the sidewalk.
'"Ow is it I'm so brave and cheery?" Mrs. Wheaton at last answered
with a sunshiny smile. "I've a stout pair hof harms, I've a stout
body, and I've a downright belief that the Lord means veil by
me and mine. I'm try in' to do my best, and hit's 'is biziness to
take care hof the rest. Hand 'E 'as so far. I've been a bit 'ungry
meself now and then, but the children halways 'ad enough. So I vork
and trust and lose no time and strength ha-vorrying. Things'll all
come hout right some day; and I've no time to be doin' the Lord's
vork bin carryin' the burden hon my shoulders, hif they are broad.
'Ere's the children; now sit right down vith hus, and velcome. Since
we're neighbors we'll be neighborly and friendly like; and before
yer know hit, yer'll be snug and comfortable hin your hown rooms,
and yer can be jist as 'appy bin 'em has hever yer vas him yer
life. Bein' poor and 'aving to vork hain't the vorst troubles in
the vorld."
The good woman's stout, cheery spirit and homely faith were just
the tonics that Mildred needed, and they were all the more effective
because combined with the exhilarating tea and wholesome food.
Therefore instead of a weary and depressing day, in which body and
spirit acted and reacted on each other until the evening brought
shadows deeper than the night, her courage and cheerfulness grew
with the hours of sustained and healthful toil, and when her father
appeared at six o'clock her smile warmed his heart. At the cost
of no slight effort he had so reduced his doses of morphia that
neither she nor any one could have detected anything unnatural in
his manner. He praised their work unstintedly, and thanked Mrs.
Wheaton for her kindness with such warm Southern frankness that
her eyes grew moist with gratification. Indeed the rooms had grown
so clean and wholesome that Mr. Jocelyn said that they looked
homelike already. Mrs. Wheaton assured Mildred that if she would
be content, she could be made quite comfortable on a lounge in her
large living-room, and the young girl won her heart completely by
saying that she would rather stay with her than go to the Fifth
Avenue Hotel. Her words were sincere, for in accordance with her
nature her heart was already drawn toward the place which gave even
promise of a home, and the hearty kindness received there made her
shrink from the strange, indifferent world without.
Her father asked her to resume her travelling dress, and then by a
street-car they soon reached a quiet restaurant near Central Park,
from which the outlook was upon trees and shrubbery. The people
of New York are singularly fortunate in their ability to reach, at
slight expense of money and time, many places where the air is pure,
and the sense of beauty can find abundant gratification. Mildred
felt that only extreme poverty could rob them in summer of many
simple yet genuine pleasures. When, after their frugal supper, she
and her father strolled through a path winding around a miniature
lake on which swans were floating, she believed that one of her chief
fears might be unfounded. Her love of beauty need not be stifled,
since there was so much, even in the crowded town, which could be
seen without cost.
"Papa," she said, "our lives will not be meagre and colorless unless
we make them so. Every tree and shrub--indeed every leaf upon them
and every ripple on the water--seems beautiful to me this evening.
I do not fear working hard if we can often have these inexpensive
pleasures. The thing in poverty that has most troubled me was the
fear that one's nature might become blunted, callous, and unresponsive.
A starved soul and heart seem to me infinitely worse than a starved
body. Thank God, this beautiful place is as free to us now as ever,
and I think we enjoy it more than many of those people in yonder
carriages. Then at the cost of a few pennies we can get many a breezy
outlook, and fill our lungs with fresh air on the ferryboats. So
don't let us be downhearted, papa, and mope while we are waiting
for better days. Each day may bring us something that we can enjoy
with honest zest."
"God bless you, Millie," replied her father. "We'll try to do just
as you suggest." Nevertheless he sighed deeply. She was free; he
was a slave. In the depths of the placid lake the graceful swans,
the pretty wooded shores, were faithfully reflected. In Mildred's
clear blue eyes the truth of her words, the goodness and sincerity
of her heart, were revealed with equal certainty. His eyes were
downcast and fixed on an abyss which no soul has ever fathomed.
"Great God!" he murmured, "I must escape; I shall--I WILL escape;"
but while Mildred stepped into a florist's shop to purchase a
blooming plant for Mrs. Wheaton, he furtively took from his pocket
a small paper of white-looking powder--just the amount which
experience had taught him he could take and not betray himself.
As a result she was delighted to find him genial and wakeful until
they parted rather late in the old mansion wherein, she jestingly
said, she proposed to build their nest, like a barn-swallow, the
following day.
After a brief consultation with Mrs. Wheaton the next morning
Mildred told her father to send for the rest of the family at once,
and that she would be ready for them. The household goods arrived
promptly from their place of storage, and she was positively happy
while transforming the bare rooms into a home that every hour grew
more inviting. They had retained, when giving up their house in the
spring, more furniture than was sufficient for the limited space
they would now occupy, and Mildred had enough material and taste to
banish the impression of poverty almost wholly from their two rooms.
She had the good sense, also, to make the question of appearances
always secondary to that of comfort, and rigorously excluded what
was bulky and unnecessary. "I don't like crowded rooms," she
said, "and mamma must have just as little to care for and tax her
strength as possible." One side of the large room was partitioned
off as a sleeping apartment for her father, mother, and the two
children, and was made private by curtains of dark, inexpensive
material. The remainder and larger part facing the east was to be
kitchen, dining and living room. Mrs. Wheaton did the heavy work,
and looked on in delighted wonder as the young girl, with a gift
peculiarly her own, gave an air of grace and homelike coziness to
every part. Hers was a true woman's touch in woman's undisputed
realm, and her father, with strange alternations of sighs and
smiles, assisted her after his return from business. Gas had never
been introduced in the old house, and so two pretty shaded lamps
were bought. One stood on the lofty, old-fashioned mantel, which
was so high that Mildred could pass under it without stooping, and
the other on the table that was to serve for many uses.
"If we should put a crane in the fireplace," Mr. Jocelyn dreamily
mused, "I could imagine that we were at my old home in the South;"
but she had said they could not afford that amount of sentiment,
and therefore a stove was obtained of the same model that shrewd
Mrs. Wheaton had found so well adapted to varied uses.
After two busy days their task was wellnigh completed, and Mildred
slept in her own little room, which she was to share with Belle,
and her weariness, and the sense that the resting-place was hers
by honest right, brought dreamless and refreshing sleep. For the
sake of "auld lang syne," her father kindled a fire on the hearth,
and sat brooding over it, looking regretfully back into the past,
and with distrustful eyes toward the future. The dark commercial
outlook filled that future with many uncertain elements; and yet,
alas! he felt that he himself was becoming the chief element of
uncertainty in the problem of their coming life. There were times
when he could distinguish between his real prospects and his vague
opium dreams, but this power of correct judgment was passing from
him. When not under the influence of the drug everything looked dull,
leaden, and hopeless. Thus he alternated between utter dejection,
for which there would have been no cause were he in his normal
condition, and sanguine hopes and expectations that were still more
baseless. He had not gone to a physician and made known his condition,
as he had intended while on his brief visit to the country; his
pride had revolted at such a confession of weakness, and he felt
that surely he would have sufficient strength of mind to break the
spell unaided. But, so far from breaking it, every day had increased
its power.
The effects of opium and the strength of the habit, as is the case
with other stimulants, vary with the temperament and constitution
of the victims. A few can use it with comparative moderation and
with no great detriment for a long time, especially if they allow
considerable intervals to elapse between the periods of indulgence,
but they eventually sink into as horrible a thraldom as that which
degrades the least cautious. Upon far more the drug promptly fastens
its deathly grip, and too often when they awaken to their danger
they find themselves almost powerless. Still if they would then
seek a physician's advice and resolutely cease using the poison in
any form, they would regain their physical and mental tone within
a comparatively brief time. I am glad to believe that some do
stop at this period and escape. Their sufferings for a time must
be severe, and yet they are nothing compared with the tortures
awaiting them if they do not abstain. The majority, however,
temporize and attempt a gradual reformation. There is not a ray of
hope or the faintest prospect of cure for those who at this stage
adopt half-way measures. They soon learn that they cannot maintain
the moderation which they have resolved upon. A healthful man of
good habits may be said to be at par. One indulgence in opium lifts
him far above par, but in the inevitable reaction he sinks below
it, and wronged nature will not rally at once; therefore she is
hastened and spurred by the stimulant, and the man rises above par
again, yet not quite so high as before, and he sinks lower in the
reaction. With this process often repeated the system soon begins
to lose its elasticity; the man sinks lower and more heavily
every time; the amount of the drug that once produced a delightful
exhilaration soon scarcely brings him up to par, and he must
steadily strengthen the fatal leverage until at last even a deadly
dose cannot lift him into any condition like his old exhilaration
or serenity.
There are a vast number of men and women who ought never to take
stimulants at all. They had better die than to begin to use them
habitually, and even to touch them is hazardous. There is slumbering
in their natures a predisposition toward their excessive use which
a slight indulgence may kindle into a consuming, clamorous desire.
Opium had apparently found something peculiarly congenial in Mr.
Jocelyn's temperament and constitution, and at first it had rewarded
him with experiences more delightful than most of its votaries
enjoy. But it is not very long content to remain a servant, and in
many instances very speedily becomes the most terrible of masters.
He had already reached such an advanced stage of dependence upon it
that its withdrawal would now leave him weak, helpless, and almost
distracted for a time. It would probably cost him his situation;
his weakness would be revealed to his family and to the world, and
the knowledge of it might prevent his obtaining employment elsewhere;
therefore he felt that he must hide the vice and fight it to its
death in absolute secrecy. Under the terrible necromancy of his sin
the wife from whom he had scarcely concealed a thought in preceding
years was the one whom he most feared. As yet the habit was a sin,
because he had the power to overcome it if he would simply resolve
to do right regardless of the consequences; and these would be
slight indeed compared with the results of further indulgence. He
had better lose his situation a hundred times; he had better see
his family faint from hunger for weeks together, should such an
ordeal be an essential part of his struggle for freedom, for only
by such an unfaltering effort could he regain the solid ground on
which enduring happiness and prosperity could be built. As it was,
he was rapidly approaching a point where his habit would become a
terrible and uncontrollable disease, for which he would still be
morally responsible--a responsibility, however, in which, before
the bar of true justice, the physician who first gave the drug
without adequate caution would deeply share. He felt his danger as
he sat cowering over the dying fire; even with its warmth added to
that of the summer night he shivered at his peril, but he did not
appreciate it in any proper sense. He resolved again, as he often
had before, that each day should witness increasing progress, then
feeling that he MUST sleep he bared his arm and sent enough of
Magendie's solution into his system to produce such rest as opium
bestows.
To her surprise Mildred found the awakening of her father a difficult
task the following morning. The boat on which his wife and children
were to arrive was probably already at the wharf, and she had thought
he would be up with the sun to meet them, but he seemed oppressed
with an untimely stupor. When at last he appeared he explained that
the fire on the hearth had induced a fit of brooding over the past
and future, and that he had sat up late.
"Here's a cup of coffee, papa," she said briskly, "and it will wake
you up. I'll have breakfast ready for you all by the time you can
return, and I'm so eager to see mamma that I could fly to her."
Mortified that he should even appear dilatory at such a time,
he hastened away, but he was far beyond such a mild stimulant as
coffee. Even now, when events were occurring which would naturally
sustain from their deep personal interest, he found himself reduced
to an almost complete dependence on an unnatural support. Before
sleeping he had appealed to his dread master, and his first waking
moments brought a renewed act of homage. Opium was becoming his
god, his religion. Already it stood between him and his wife and
children. It was steadily undermining his character, and if not
abandoned would soon leave but the hollow semblance of a man.
As the steamboat arrived in the night, Mrs. Jocelyn had no sense of
disappointment at not being met, and through Mildred's persistency
it was still early when her husband appeared. His greeting was so
affectionate, and he appeared so well after his hasty walk, that
the old glad, hopeful look came into her eyes. To Belle and the
children, coming back to the city was like coming home as in former
years, only a little earlier. The farm had grown to be somewhat of
an old story, and Belle had long since voted it dull.
"Well, Nan, we've come down to two rooms in very truth, and in an
old, old house, too, that will remind you of some of the oldest in
the South," and he drew such a humorous and forlorn picture of their
future abode that his wife felt that he had indeed taken her at
her word, and that they would scarcely have a place to lay their
heads, much less to live in any proper sense; and when she stopped
before the quaint and decrepit house without any front door; when
she followed her husband up the forlorn stairway to what seemed a
side entrance with its most dismal outlook, she believed that the
time for fortitude had come, in bitter truth. The hall was dark
to her sun-blinded eyes, as it had been to Mildred's, yet not so
dark but that she saw doors open and felt herself scanned with an
unblushing curiosity by slattern-looking women, her near neighbors,
and the thought that they were so very near made her shiver. As for
Belle, she did not take pains to hide her disgust. With a sinking
heart and faltering courage the poor gentlewoman mounted the winding
stairs, but before she reached the top there was a rush from an
open doorway, and Mildred clasped her in close embrace.
"Welcome home!" she cried, in her clear, sweet, girlish voice.
"Home, Millie! what a mockery that word is in this strange, strange
place!" she half whispered, half sobbed in her daughter's ear.
"Courage, mamma. We promised papa we'd ask nothing better than he
could afford," Mildred murmured. "Don't let him see tears--he has
already put Fred down and is turning to welcome you to the best
home he can offer."
Had the rooms been cells only, with but a pallet of straw upon the
floors, Mrs. Jocelyn would have responded to that appeal, and she
stepped forward resolved to smile and appear pleased with everything,
no matter how stifled she might feel for want of space, air, and
light.
But when she crossed the threshold into the spacious, sun-lighted
room, and looked up at the high ceiling and across its wide area;
when she had glanced around and seen on every side the results of
the strong spells laid upon stout Mrs. Wheaton by Mildred's domestic
magic, and the dainty touches with which the solid work had been
supplemented, her face lighted up with a sweet surprise.
"Oh, OH, how much better this is than you led me to expect! Is all
this really ours? Can we afford so large a room? Here are the dear
old things, too, with which I first went to housekeeping." Then
stepping to her husband's aide she put her arm around his neck as
she looked into his eyes and said, "Martin, this is home. Thank
God, it is home-like after all. With you and the children around
me I can be more than content--I can be very happy in this place.
I feared that we might be too crowded, and that the children might
suffer."
"Of course you didn't think of yourself, Nan. Millie's the good
fairy to thank for all this. The way she and another female divinity
have conjured in these rooms the last three days is a matter wholly
beyond the masculine mind."
"Father did a great deal, too, and did it much better than you could
expect from a man. But, come, I'm mistress of this small fraction
of the venerable mansion till after breakfast, and then, mamma,
I'll put the baton of rule in your hands. I've burned my fingers
and spoiled my complexion over the stove, and I don't intend that
a cold breakfast shall be the result."
"Millie," cried Belle, rushing out of the second room, which she
had inspected in her lightning-like way before greeting her sister,
"our room is lovely. You are a gem, an onyx, a fickle wild rose.
It's all splendid--a perpetual picnic place, to which we'll bring
our own provisions and cook 'em our own way. No boss biddies in
this establishment. It's ever so much better than I expected after
you once get here; but as the hymn goes, 'How dark and dismal is
the way!'"
It was with difficulty that the children, wild over the novelty of
it all, could be settled quietly at the table. It was the family's
first meal in a tenement-house. The father's eye grew moist as he
looked around his board and said, deep in his heart, "Never did a
sweeter, fairer group grace a table in this house, although it has
stood more than a century. If for their sakes I cannot be a man--"
"Martin," began his wife, her delicate features flushing a little,
"before we partake of this our first meal I want you all to join
me in your hearts while I say from the depths of mine, God bless
our home."
An hour later, as he went down-town, Mr. Jocelyn finished his
sentence. "If for the sake of such a wife and such children I cannot
stop, I'm damned."