THERE was a kettle of stew on the stove in the kitchen, kept hot from
supper for Betty, with fresh dumplings just mixed before the train came
in, and bread and butter with apple sauce and cookies. They made her sit
right down and eat, before she even took her hat off, and they all sat
around her and talked while she ate. It made her feel very much at home
as if somehow she was a real relative.
It came over her once how different all this was from the house which
she had called home all her life. The fine napery, the cut glass and
silver, the stately butler! And here was she eating off a stone china
plate thick enough for a table top, with a steel knife and fork and a
spoon with the silver worn off the bowl. She could not help wondering
what her stepmother would have said to the red and white tablecloth, and
the green shades at the windows. There was an old sofa covered with
carpet in the room, with a flannel patchwork pillow, and a cat cuddled
up cosily beside it purring away like a tea-kettle boiling. Somehow,
poor as it was, it seemed infinitely more attractive than any room she
had ever seen before, and she was charmed with the whole family. Bobbie
sat at the other end of the table with his elbows on the table and his
round eyes on her. When she smiled at him he winked one eye and grinned
and then wriggled down under the table out of sight.
The mother had tired kind eyes and a firm cheerful mouth like Jane's.
She took Betty right in as if she had been her sister's child.
"Come, now, get back there, Emily. Don't hang on Lizzie. She'll be tired
to death of you right at the start. Give her a little peace while she
eats her supper. How long have you and Jane been friends, Lizzie?" she
asked, eager for news of her own daughter.
Betty's cheeks flushed and her eyes grew troubled. She was very much
afraid that being Lizzie was going to be hard work:
"Why, not so very long," she said hesitatingly.
"Are you one of the girls in her factory?"
"Oh, no!" said Betty wildly, wondering what would come next. "We--just
met--that is--why--_out one evening_!" she finished desperately.
"Oh, I see!" said the mother. "Yes, she wrote about going out sometimes,
mostly to the movies. And to church. My children always make it a point
to go to church wherever they are. I brought 'em up that way. I hope you
go to church."
"I shall love to," said Betty eagerly.
"Is your mother living?" was the next question.
"No," answered Betty. "Mother and father are both dead and I've been
having rather a hard time. Jane was kind to me when I was in trouble."
"I'll warrant you! That's Jane!" beamed her mother happily. "Jane always
was a good girl, if I do say so. I knew Jane was at her tricks again
when she sent me that telegram."
"Ma's got you a place already!" burst out Nellie eagerly.
"Now, Nellie, you said you'd let Ma tell that!" reproached Bob. "You
never can keep your mouth shut."
"There! There! Bob, don't spoil the evening with anything unkind,"
warned the mother. "Yes, Lizzie, I got you a position. It just happened
I had the chance, and I took it, though I don't really b'lieve that
anythin' in this world just happens, of course. But it did seem
providential. Mrs. Hathaway wanted somebody to look after her little
girl. She's only three years old and she is possessed to run away every
chance she gets. Course I s'pose she's spoiled. Most rich children are.
Now, my children wouldn't have run away. They always thought too much
of what I said to make me trouble. But that's neither here nor there.
She does it, and besides her Ma is an invalid. She had an operation, so
she has to lie still a good bit, and can't be bothered. She wants
somebody just to take the little girl out walking and keep her happy in
the house, an' all."
"How lovely!" exclaimed Betty. "I shall enjoy it, I know."
"She's awful pretty!" declared Emily eagerly. "Got gold curls and blue
eyes just like you, and she has ever an' ever so many little dresses,
and wears pink shoes and blue shoes, an' rides a tricycle."
"How interesting!" said Betty.
"You'll get good wages," said the mother. "She said she'd give you six
dollars a week, an' mebbe more, an' you'd get some of your meals."
"Then I can pay my board to you," cried Betty.
"Don't worry about that, child. We'll fix that up somehow. We're awful
glad to have you come, and I guess we shall like each other real well.
Now, children, it's awful late. Get to bed. Scat! Lizzie can have her
bath an' get to bed, too. Come, mornin's half way here already!"
The children said good night and Betty was introduced to the tin bath
tub and improvised bathroom--a neat little addition to the kitchen
evidently intended originally for a laundry. She wanted to laugh when
she saw the primitive makeshifts, but instead the tears came into her
eyes to think how many luxuries she had taken all her life as a matter
of course and never realized how hard it was for people who had none. In
fact it had never really entered her head before that there were people
who had no bathrooms.
Betty was not exactly accustomed to washing her own hair, and with the
added problem of the dye it was quite a task; but she managed it at
last, using all the hot water, to get it so that the rinsing water was
clear, and her hair felt soft. Then, attired in the same warm nightgown
she had worn the night before, which Jane had thoughtfully put in the
suitcase--otherwise filled with old garments she wished to send
home--Betty pattered upstairs to the little room with the sloping roof
and the dormer window and crept into bed with Nellie. That young woman
had purposely stayed awake, and kept Betty as long as she could talk,
telling all the wonderful things she wanted to know about city life, and
Betty found herself in deep water sometimes because the city life she
knew about was so very different from the city life that Jane would
know. But at last sleep won, and Nellie had to give up because her last
question was answered with silence. The guest was deep in slumber.
The next morning the children took her over the house, out in the yard,
showing her everything. Then they had to take her down to the village
and explain all about the little town and its people. They were crazy
about Betty's beautiful hair and much disappointed when she would insist
on wearing her hat. It was a bright sunny morning, not very cold, and
they told her that nobody wore a hat except to church or to go on the
train, but Betty had a feeling that her hair might attract attention,
and in her first waking hours a great shadow of horror had settled upon
her when she realized that her people would leave no stone unturned to
find her. It was most important that she should do or be nothing whereby
she might be recognized. She even thought of getting a cap and apron to
wear when attending her small charge, but Nellie told her they didn't do
that in the country and she would be thought stuck up, so she desisted.
But she drew the blue serge skirt up as high above her waistband as
possible when she dressed in the morning so that she might look like a
little girl and no one would suspect her of being a runaway bride. Also
she had a consultation with herself in the small hours of the morning
while Nellie was still fast asleep, and settled with her conscience just
what she would tell about her past and what she would keep to herself.
There was a certain reserve that any one might have, and if she was
frank about a few facts no one would be likely to question further.
So next morning she told Mrs. Carson that since her parents' death she
had lived with a woman who knew her father well, but lately things had
been growing very unpleasant and she found she had to leave. She had
left under such conditions that she could not bring away anything that
belonged to her, so she would have to work and earn some more clothes.
Mrs. Carson looked into her sweet eyes and agreed that it was the best
thing she could do; they might follow her up and make all sorts of
trouble for her in her new home if she wrote for her things; and so the
matter dropped. They were simple folks, who took things at their face
value and were not over inquisitive.
On the third day there arrived a long letter from Jane in which she gave
certain suggestions concerning the new member of the family, and ended:
"Ma, she's got a story, but don't make her tell any more of it than she
wants. She's awful sensitive about it, and trust me, she's all right!
She's been through a lot. Just make her feel she's got some folks that
loves and trusts her."
Ma, wise beyond her generation and experience, said no more, and took
the little new daughter into her heart. She took the opportunity to
inform the village gossips that a friend of Jane's had come to rest up
and get a year's country air, boarding with them; and so the
amalgamation of Betty Stanhope into the life of the little town began.
The "job" proved to be for only part of the day, so that Betty was free
most of the mornings to help around the house and take almost a
daughter's place. That she was a rare girl is proved by the way she
entered into her new life. It was almost as if she had been born again,
and entered into a new universe, so widely was her path diverging from
everything which had been familiar in the old life. So deep had been her
distress before she came into it that this new existence, despite its
hard and unaccustomed work, seemed almost like heaven.
It is true there was much bad grammar and slang, but that did not
trouble Betty. She had been brought up to speak correctly, and it was
second nature to her, but no one had ever drummed it into her what a
crime against culture an illiterate way of speaking could be. She never
got into the way of speaking that way herself, but it seemed a part of
these people she had come to know and admire so thoroughly, as much as
for a rose to have thorns, and so she did not mind it. Her other world
had been so all-wrong for years that the hardships of this one were
nothing. She watched them patch and sacrifice cheerfully to buy their
few little plain coarse new things. She marveled at their sweetness and
content, where those of her world would have thought they could not
exist under the circumstances.
She learned to make that good stew with carrots and celery and parsley
and potatoes and the smallest possible amount of meat, that had tasted
so delicious the night she arrived. She learned the charms of the common
little bean, and was proud indeed the day she set upon the table a
luscious pan of her own baking, rich and sweet and brown with their
coating of molasses well baked through them. She even learned to make
bread and never let any one guess that she had always supposed it
something mysterious.
During the week that Nellie was preparing to go to the city, Betty had
lessons in sewing. Nellie would bring down an old garment, so faded and
worn that it would seem only fit for the rag-bag. She would rip and
wash, dye with a mysterious little package of stuff, press, and behold,
there would come forth pretty breadths of cloth, blue or brown or green,
or whatever color was desired. It seemed like magic. And then a box of
paper-patterns would be brought out, and the whole evening would be
spent in contriving how to get out a dress, with the help of trimmings
or sleeves of another material. Betty would watch and gradually try to
help, but she found there were so many strange things to be considered.
There, for instance, was the up and down of a thing and the right and
wrong of it. It was exactly like life. And one had to plan not to have
both sleeves for one arm, and to have the nap of the goods running down
always. It was as complicated as learning a new language. But at the end
of the week there came forth two pretty dresses and a blouse. Betty, as
she sat sewing plain seams and trying to help all she could, kept
thinking of the many beautiful frocks she had thrown aside in the years
gone by, and of the rich store of pretty things that she had left when
she fled. If only Nellie and Jane and little Emily could have them! Ah,
and if only she herself might have them now! How she needed them! For a
girl who had always had all she wanted it was a great change to get
along with this one coarse serge and aprons.
But the sewing and other work had not occupied them so fully that they
had not had time to introduce Betty into their little world. The very
next evening after she arrived she had been taken to that wonderful
church entertainment that the girls had told her about on the way from
the station, and there she had met the minister's wife and been invited
to her Sabbath school class.
Betty would not have thought of going if Nellie and her mother had not
insisted. In fact, she shrank unspeakably from going out into the little
village world. But it was plain that this was expected of her, and if
she remained here she must do as they wanted her to do. It was the least
return she could make to these kind people.
The question of whether or not she should remain began to come to her
insistently now. The children clamored every day for her to bind herself
for the winter, and Jane's mother had made her most welcome. She saw
that they really wanted her; why should she not stay? And yet it did
seem queer to arrange deliberately to spend a whole year in a poor
uncultured family. Still, where could she go and hope to remain unknown
if she attempted to get back into her own class? It was impossible. Her
mother had just the one elderly cousin whom she had always secretly
looked to to help her in any time of need, but his failing her and
sending that telegram without even a good wish in it, just at the last
minute, too, made her feel it was of no use to appeal to him. Besides,
that was the first place her stepmother would seek for her. She had many
good society friends, but none who would stand by her in trouble. No one
with whom she had ever been intimate enough to confide in. She had been
kept strangely alone in her little world after all, hedged in by
servants everywhere. And now that she was suddenly on her own
responsibility, she felt a great timidity in taking any step alone.
Sometimes at night when she thought what she had done she was so
frightened that her heart would beat wildly as if she were running away
from them all yet. It was like a nightmare that pursued her.
Mrs. Hathaway had sent for her and made arrangements for her to begin
her work with the little Elise the following week when the present
governess should leave, and Betty felt that this might prove a very
pleasant way to earn her living. The Hathaways lived in a great brick
house away back from the street in grounds that occupied what in the
city would have been a whole block. There was a high hedge about the
place so that one could not see the road, and there were flower-beds, a
great fountain, and a rustic summerhouse. Betty did not see why days
passed in such a pleasant place would not be delightful in summertime.
She was not altogether sure whether she would like to have to be a sort
of servant in the house--and of course these cold fall days she would
have to be much in the house--but the nursery had a big fireplace in it,
a long chest under the window where toys were kept, and many comfortable
chairs. That ought to be pleasant, too. Besides, she was not just out
looking for pleasant things on this trip. She was trying to get away
from unbearable ones, and she ought to be very thankful indeed to have
fallen on such comfort as she had.
There was another element in the Carson home that drew her strongly,
although she was shy about even thinking of it, and that was the frank,
outspoken Christianity. "Ma" tempered all her talk with it, adjusted all
her life to God and what He would think about her actions, spoke
constantly of what was right and wrong. Betty had never lived in an
atmosphere where right and wrong mattered. Something sweet and pure like
an instinct in her own soul had held her always from many of the ways
of those about her, perhaps the spirit of her sweet mother allowed to be
one of those who "bear them up, lest at any time they dash their feet
against a stone." Or it might have been some memory of the teachings of
her father, whom she adored, and who in his last days often talked with
her alone about how he and her own mother would want her to live. But
now, safe and quiet in this shelter of a real home, poor though it was,
the God-instinct stirred within her, caused her to wonder what He was,
why she was alive, and if He cared? One could not live with Mrs. Carson
without thinking something about her God, for He was an ever-present
help in all her times of need, and she never hesitated to give God the
glory for all she had achieved, and for all the blessings she had
received.
The very first Sabbath in the little white church stirred still deeper
her awakening interest in spiritual things. The minister's wife was a
sweet-faced woman who called her "my dear" and invited her to come and
see her, and when she began to teach the lesson Betty found to her
amazement that it was interesting. She spoke of God in much the same
familiar way that "Ma" had done, only with a gentler refinement, and
made the girls very sure that whatever anybody else believed, Mrs.
Thornley was a very intimate friend of Jesus Christ. Betty loved her at
once, but so shy was she that the minister's wife never dreamed it, and
remarked to her husband Sunday night after church, when they were having
their little, quiet Sabbath talk together, that she was afraid she was
going to have a hard time winning that little new girl that had come to
live with Mrs. Carson.
"Somehow I can't get away from the thought that she comes from
aristocracy somewhere," she added. "It's the way she turns her head, or
lifts her eyes or the quiet assurance with which she answers. And she
smiles, Charles, never grins like the rest. She is delicious, but
somehow I find myself wondering if I have remembered to black my shoes
and whether my hat is on straight, when she looks at me."
"Well, maybe she's the daughter of some black sheep who has gone down a
peg, and our Father has sent her here for you to help her back again,"
said her husband with an adorable look at his helper. "If anyone can do
it you can."
"I'm not so sure," she said, shaking her head. "She maybe doesn't need
me. She has Mrs. Carson, remember, and she is a host in herself. If
anybody can lead her to Christ she can, plain as she is."
"Undoubtedly you were meant to help, too, dear, or she would not have
been sent to you."
His wife smiled brilliantly a look of thorough understanding: "Oh, I
know. I'm not going to shirk any but I wish I knew more about her. She
is so sad and quiet, I can't seem to get at her."
Even at that moment Betty lay in her little cot bed under the roof
thinking about the minister's wife and what she had said about Christ
being always near, ready to show what to do, if one had the listening
heart and the ready spirit. Would Christ tell her what to do, she
wondered, now right here, if she were to ask him? Would He show her
whether to stay in this place or seek further to hide herself from the
world? Would He show her how to earn her living and make her life right
and sweet as it ought to be.
Then she closed her eyes and whispered softly under the sheltering
bedclothes, "O Christ, if you are here, please show me somehow and teach
me to understand."