Ester Ried Yet Speaking

CHAPTER VII. — “WHAT A LITTLE SCHEMER IT IS.”

A riot! Not among men, which is sufficiently terrifying; nor yet among women, which is worse; but that most awful of all sights and sounds of sin,—a riot among the children. Swearing, spitting at one another, tearing one another's hair, scratching like tigers, growling like wild beasts, throwing garbage at one another! This was the sort of crowd upon which Mrs. Roberts, in her black silk walking-suit, with her velvet hat and seal furs, presently came. She grasped at Dick's arm in horror, but a feeling that was more than terror was taking her strength away.

“Oh!” she said, and the agony in her voice really suggested more than terror to the young fellow beside her. “And they are little children! They cannot be more than seven or eight! Oh, what can I do?”

“You needn't be scared, mum!” There was a little hint of something like pity in Dick's voice. She clung to him so that he could not help feeling himself her protector. “It ain't an uncommon row at all; they mostly act like this; most likely one of 'em's found a bone and t' other one wants it, and then they're gone in for a row, and all the young ones crowd around and fight, on one side or t' other.”

Did this fearful explanation make the situation less terrible?

There was a lull, however, in the quarrel. The elegantly-dressed lady was seen approaching,—an unusual sight in that alley,—and both parties paused to get a view. Paused in their attentions to each other, that is; but at Mrs. Roberts they hooted and jeered, and one threw a handful of mud.

Then did Nimble Dick rise to his position as protector.

“Shut up, there! Stand aside, Pluck, and let us pass! Look out there, you Smirchy! Don't you throw that over here unless you want your head broke for you when I get back!”

This threat was thrown at a wretched little girl, who had dived her hand deeply into a box or cask of garbage, and brought it forth reeking with rotten apples, pork fat, and any liquid horror which the name suggests to you. She had her hand uplifted ready to throw, and was evidently intending to give the strange lady the benefit of what she had prepared for one of the rioters.

The assured tone in which Nimble Dick spoke had its effect; the combatants were all small, and he was large, and was evidently recognized as a power. There were some defiant glances thrown at him, but the motley crowd gave way, and allowed him to pass uninjured. Still he kept an alert watch of them until quite out of reach, and was not sparing of his admonitions.

“Hold on there, Bill,—I see that! Look out, Sally! You'll be sorry if you throw anything,—mind you that!”

And at last they were through the crowd. Not out of danger, it seemed; for there, directly in their narrow path, was a drunken man, swaying from side to side in the way which is so terrible to one unused to such sights. Dick felt the hold on his arm tighten, and was astonished at the sound of his own voice as he said, soothingly:—

“You needn't be scared at him, mum; that's only old Jock; he's as ugly as old Nick himself, but he knows better than to be very ugly to me. I can throw him in the gutter as easy as I could them young ones, and he knows it. That's Dirk's father, that is! Ain't he a beauty?”

And again Mrs. Roberts uttered an exclamation of dismay, and part of her terror went out in sorrow over the wrongs of a boy who had such a home and such a father. What ought to be expected of him?

That interminable alley was conquered at last, and they emerged into respectability on the broad avenue. Mrs. Roberts released her hold of her protector's arm, and his new character vanished on the instant.

“You're here, mum,” he said, with a saucy twinkle in his eye and a saucy leer on his face. “Can you get yourself home from this spot, or shall I borrow a wheelbarrow and tote you there?”

Much shaken with various emotions though she was, Mrs. Roberts forced herself to laugh. She would not frown on his fun when it was not positively sinful; he might not be aware that it was disrespectful; he might never have heard the word.

“I know the way now, thank you; at least I think I do. Can you tell me whether I take a green car or a yellow one to get to East Fifty-fifth Street?”

“You take a green one,” he said, quietly, his character of protector having returned to him with the question, which still showed her dependence on him.

“Thank you,” she said again, with great heartiness. “I shall never forget your care of me.” Her hand was in her pocket, and a bright coin was between her fingers. She longed to give it to Nimble Dick; he had saved her from so much this morning. And he was so miserably clad, surely he needed help. A moment's reflection, and she resolutely withdrew her hand. He should be paid by a simple hearty, “Thank you!” this morning, for kindness rendered. He might not consider it a current coin, but possibly it would be his first lesson in the courtesies of life.

Later in the day, when Mrs. Roberts was somewhat rested from her morning's campaign, young Ried received a little note:—

Dear Mr. Ried,—I know the names of all the boys, and inclose you a list. It is possible that you may fall in with some one during the day who can impart knowledge concerning them. Anyway, I thought you would like to know their names. Keep me posted, please, as to your success in making their acquaintance. We are allies, remember.

Yours for the Master,

Mrs. E.L. Roberts.

Alfred Ried twisted the delicate note-paper thoughtfully in his hand, a look of perplexity on his face. He felt committed for labor; glad was he, very, yet perplexed. He did not in the least know where to commence. Well, neither had this little lady; yet she had accomplished more in her one day's acquaintance than he after a lapse of weeks. Either she had found opportunities, or had made them. There must be chances; he would be sure to keep his eyes open after this.

In the handsome house on East Fifty-fifth Street, where Mr. Roberts had settled his bride, after a somewhat extended business tour, involving months of absence, matters were in train for a cosy evening in the library. That was the name of the beautiful room where the husband and wife sat down together; but it was quite unlike the conventional library. Books there were in lavish abundance, but there were also pictures and flowers and a singing-bird or two, and an utter absence of that severe attention to business details which characterizes most rooms so named. Little prettinesses, which Mr. Roberts smilingly admitted did not belong to a library, were yet established there, with an air of having come to stay. “We will call it the library for convenience,” the master of the house said, “and then we will put into it whatever we please. It shall be a conservatory, and a sewing-room and a lounging-room and anything else that you and I choose to make it.” And Mrs. Roberts gleefully assented, and gave free rein to her pretty tastes. Flossy Shipley had been wont to be much trammelled with the ways in which “they” did everything; but Mrs. Evan Roberts was learning that, in unimportant matters at least, they had a right to be a law unto themselves. Perhaps it helped her, to be aware that a large class of people were all ready to quote “Mrs. Evan Roberts” as authority on almost any point of taste.

On the evening in question Mr. Roberts, in dressing-gown and slippers, had drawn his lounging-chair to the drop-light, preparatory to a half-hour of reading aloud. But it transpired that there was something preparatory to that, or at least that must take the precedence. Certain business telegrams followed him home, which required the writing of two or three business letters.

“It will not take me long,” he explained to his wife, “and they are not complicated affairs, so I give you leave to talk right on while I dispatch them.” She laughed at this hint about her fondness for talk, but presently made use of the privilege.

“Evan, what sort of a young man do you consider Mr. Ried?”

“Ried? Who? Oh, my clerk? The very best sort; a most estimable fellow,—one of a thousand. By the way, did you tell him how you became interested in that sister of his?”

“Not yet; I want to get better acquainted. But, Evan, do you know where he boards?”

“Hardly; on Third Avenue somewhere, I believe; or possibly Second. The store register would show. Do you want his address!”

“Oh, I know where it is; but I mean what sort of a place is it?”

Mr. Roberts slightly elevated his shapely shoulders.

“It is a boarding-house, where many clerks board; that tells a doleful story to the initiated, I suspect. Poor fare and dismal surroundings; still, it is eminently respectable.”

“Where does he spend his Sabbaths?”

The rapidly-moving pen executed nearly two lines of handsome writing before Mr. Roberts was ready to respond to this question.

“Why, at church, principally, I fancy. He is very regular in his attendance at morning service, and the South End Mission absorbs his afternoons. I suppose he goes to church in the evening; but since we have been giving our attention to that evening mission I have not seen him.”

“Ah, but, Evan, I mean the rest of the time; those little bits of Sabbath time that are sacred to home. The twilight, for instance, or for an hour in the morning. Do you know what sort of a place he has for those times?”

Nearly three more lines added to the paper; then Mr. Roberts raised his head:—

“No, my dear, I don't. Now that you bring me face to face with the question, it seems a surprising thing to say that I should not know where a young man who has been for more than a year in our employ spends his choice bits of time, but I don't.”

“Then I want to tell you something about it. He has a dingy, fourth-story back room; small, I fancy, from the way in which he spoke of it, and not a speck of fire over! In such weather as this, how can a young man read his Bible, or even pray, under such circumstances?”

Mr. Roberts laid down his pen and sat erect, regarding his wife with a thoughtful, far-away air.

“Flossy,” he said at last, “it is an immense question! You open a perfect mine of anxiety and doubt. I have hovered around the edges for some time, but have generally contrived to shut my eyes and refuse to look into it, because I was afraid of what I might see; and because I did not know—what to do with my knowledge. I have not been the working member of the firm very long, you know, and my special field, until lately, has been the other side of the ocean; but I have been at home long enough to know that there are several hundred young men in our employ who are away from their homes; and knowing, as I do, the price of board in respectable houses, and knowing the salaries which the younger ones receive, it does not require a great deal of penetration to discover that they must have rather dreary homes here, to put it mildly. The fact is, Flossy, I haven't wanted to look into this thing very closely, because I do not see the remedy. Look at our house, for instance, with its three hundred clerks, we'll say, who are away from their friends; suppose one-half, or even one-third, of them are miserably situated, what can I do?”

“Are they not sufficiently well paid to have the ordinary comforts of life?”

“Doubtful. The truth is, what you and I call the ordinary comforts of life takes a good deal of money; and in the city, rents are high, and the boarding-house keepers have hard struggles to make their expenditures meet their income, and they carry economy to the very verge of meanness,—some of them fairly over the verge, I presume; and the result is cheap food, badly cooked,—because well-cooked food means high-priced help,—and cold rooms and dreariness and discomfort everywhere. Now what can be done about it? Then our house is only one of hundreds, and in many of these hundreds they employ more help and give less wages than we; in fact, I know that some of our clerks are looked upon with envy by a great many young men. We never have any trouble in supplying vacancies. People swarm around us, because we have the reputation of being liberal. We are not liberal, however; sometimes I am inclined to think we are hardly fair, yet there is nothing I can do. I am a junior partner, with a great deal of the responsibility, and a third of the voting power, and I can't get salaries raised. I've been working at that problem at intervals for a year, and have accomplished very little. Do you wonder that I keep my eyes as closely shut as I can?”

His wife's face wore a thoughtful, not to say perplexed look; she seemed to have no answer ready; and, after waiting a moment for it, Mr. Roberts bent himself again to the task of getting his business letters answered. Before he had written one more line, her face had cleared. She interrupted him:—

“Evan, when you talk about four hundred clerks, and multiply that by hundreds of houses and more hundreds of clerks, I cannot follow you at all. It is not that I am not impressed with the number,—I am,—it appalls me; but I don't want to be appalled; I want to be helpful. Perhaps just now there is nothing that I can do for the hundreds, so I want to narrow my thoughts down to what, possibly, I can do. What, for instance, can be done towards getting a good young man, like Alfred Ried, into a place that will be just a little bit like a home; that will give him a spot where he can study his Bible in comfort, and invite a friend with whom he wants to pray, or whom he wants to reach and help in any way? That isn't a huge problem. Can't it be solved?”

Her husband smiled.

“He is only one of thousands,” he said.

“Yes, I know; but he is one of thousands. Since we cannot reach thousands, shall we fail to reach one? Evan, I am only one of thousands, but, but how would you argue about me?”

Mr. Roberts laughed again.

“You are one out of thousands and thousands!” he said, emphatically.

A line more, and he signed the firm name with an unusually fine flourish.

“There! I've accomplished one letter. What do you want to do, Flossy?”

“I want Mr. Ried to have a room where he can invite one of my boys occasionally, and make him comfortable, and do for him what we cannot with our rooms; do for him what only a young man can do for a young man. I don't clearly know what I want further than that, but I see that one thing as a stepping-stone. Remember, I want all your thousands to have just as pleasant rooms, and I would like to help to bring it about, but I don't just now see the way.”

“Do you see the way to this?”

“No, but doesn't it seem as though we ought to be able to accomplish so much?”

“It does, certainly. What is your desire, Flossy? Do you want him to have a room in our house?”

She shook her head.

“No, that would not further my plan for those boys. I would like to have him here, and it would be a good thing for him,—at least I think it would; but I can see things which he could accomplish for these young men, set by himself, in a different part of the city. Besides, Evan, I have other plans for our rooms, entirely different ones, and some of them I am afraid you will think are very strange.”

He answered the doubt with a smile that said he had no fears of her or her plans.

“What a little schemer it is!” he said, looking down on her with fond, proud eyes. “Who would have imagined that she could plot, and plot so mysteriously? I used to think she was a very open-hearted woman.”

CHAPTER VIII. — “WHAT WOULD YOU DO, DEAR?”

She joined in his laugh albeit, there was a tender look in her eyes. After a moment, she said, gently:—

“It is not scheming, Evan; I am only trying to set about the work for which I have been chosen. I'll tell you how it all came to me. I was reading—my morning reading, you know—after you had gone; taking little dips here and there in the fashion that you think is so unsystematic, and I came upon this verse: 'He is a chosen vessel unto me,' you know, about Paul? Well, it came to me with a sudden sense of awe and beauty, the being chosen of God to do a great work. I stopped reading to think it out; what a grand moment it must have been to Paul when he realized it. And I began to feel almost sorry that we lived in such different times, with no such opportunities! I stopped right in the midst of my folly to remember that I was as certainly chosen of God as ever Paul was; for assuredly I did not come to him of myself, nor begin to love him of myself, and therefore he must indeed have chosen me; and I wondered whether probably each Christian had not a work to do as definite as Paul's—a work that would be given to no other, unless indeed the chosen one failed. I did not want to fail, and I asked God not to let me. Then, of course, I set to wondering what my work, or my part of some other person's work, could be. It was the morning after you had told me that about Ester Ried. You cannot think how that impressed me. I could not get away from the wonderment as to how her work was prospering, and whether there were chosen ones enough, or if there might possibly be a little place for me. I couldn't settle anything, and finally I decided to look at Paul's work a little while. Of course, it was not reasonable to suppose that the duties of the great apostle had anything in common with my bits of effort; still, I said, the directions given him may help me a little. And Evan, what do you think was the first thing I found? Why, this: 'The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldst know his will.' Surely, so far, the things for which both he and I were chosen were parallel. I looked further: 'And see that Just One.' That was the very next. Was not I, too, chosen for that? 'Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.' I said over the beautiful promise to assure myself that it was true, and went on: 'And shouldst hear the voice of his mouth.' Was it not strange, Evan? Certainly I shall hear my King speak, often and often, when I get home. Only think of it; so far Paul was not ahead of me. I hurried to find another reference to Paul's work, and I found this; let me read it to you.” Her bit of dainty sewing was suddenly pushed one side, and up from the depths of the rose-lined work-basket came a small, plainly-bound Bible, much marked; a rapid turning of the leaves, and the eager disciple read: “I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee. Now, Evan, you know the veriest child can be a witness if he knows anything about the facts; and I do certainly know some wonderful things about Jesus to which I could witness; and besides, isn't it reasonable to suppose that he will appear to me every day with things for me to witness to? And then I read this; Paul sent to the Gentiles, you know, but for what: 'To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified, by faith that is in me.' Evan, was there ever a more wonderful work to do in the world than that? And yet I cannot tell you how it made me feel to discover, or at least to realize, that a great deal of it was my work! Of course, I naturally began to ask myself, what Gentile was there for me to reach? Whose eyes must I try to open? Do you know, that very afternoon I met Mr. Ried, and heard of those boys? They interested me from the first, and what he told me about his sister increased the interest. Then when I saw them!—Evan, if ever boys were in the power of Satan they are; and to think that they may have an inheritance among them which are sanctified! This morning when I saw where some some of them lived, and imagined how they lived, I fell stunned for a moment. It seemed to me impossible. What means could possibly be found of sufficient power to fit them for such an inheritance? And then directly came the closing words of the commission: 'Through faith that is in me.' Evan, God will save them; and I think he will let me help.”

“Amen!” said Mr. Roberts, and his voice was husky. When his wife was in one of her exalted moods he always admired her with a sort of reverence. He had been for years an earnest worker. He carried business plans and business principles into the work; he studied cause and effect, and calculated and expected certain results to follow certain causes, like a mathematical problem; not that he by any means forgot the power of faith, or in any sense attempted to do his work alone. He was a Christian who spent much time on his knees; but little Flossy brought so much of the childlike, unquestioning spirit into her work, that sometimes he stood in awe, not knowing whether he could follow her. It was not so much a mathematical problem to be worked out, as it was the faith that can remove mountains.

Mr. Roberts often found himself quoting these lines when his wife gave him glimpses of her heart; and at such times he had no hesitancy in deciding that the steps she took were not alone, but the Lord was with her.

The postman's ring broke in on their quiet.

“I hope there are letters from home to-night,” Mrs. Roberts said, “real long ones. It is a week since we have heard.”

“And I ought to hope that they would require a first reading in private,” her husband answered, as he seized his neglected pen. “It is the only way in which these business letters will get answered. I find the temptation to talk to you irresistible.”

One letter! but that was of comfortable dimensions and weight.

“It is from Marion,” Mrs. Roberts said, delight in her voice, after the first glance at the familiar writing. She was presently lost in its many pages, and the business of letter-writing went on uninterruptedly for some time.

Mrs. Marion Dennis had not forgotten her fondness for her pretty little Flossy: nor forgotten that,—softly-innocent little creature though she was, she possessed a wisdom far above those who are credited with having keen insight; even a wisdom so subtle, and withal so tender, that its source could only be Infinite Wisdom. So she, in company with many others, was learning to turn to the friend so much younger than herself, as one in whom she could safely confide.

“Dear little Flossy,” so the letter ran, “I suppose, though you should live to be a white-haired old lady, sitting with placid face and fluted cap and spectacles, in your high-backed arm-chair, in the most treasured corner mayhap of some granddaughter's choicest room, I, writing to you, would still commence 'Dear little Flossy.' That I have to cover it from prying eyes by the dignified and respectable 'Mrs. Evan Roberts,' is almost a matter of amusement to me. I fancy I can see you making a journey through some of the Chautauqua avenues, picking your way daintily towards Palestine, bending lovingly over the small white stones that mark the village of Bethany,—a pink on your cheek, born, as I thought, of the excitement of being among those tiny photographs of the wonderful past, but born in part, I now believe, of the fact that Mr. Evan Roberts joined us in our walk. Oh, little mousie, how quiet you were!

“Well, many things have since transpired. We are old married women, you, and Ruth, and Eurie and I. I suppose the contrast in our lives,—the outward portion of them, I mean,—is still as strongly marked, perhaps more so, than it was when we were in Chautauqua together. We were girls then; we are matrons now, and with the taking on of that title, Ruth and I took special and great responsibilities. To-night it rains. Mr. Dennis has been called to the upper part of the city,—away out to Springdale, in fact,—to see a sick and dying man, and I am alone and almost lonely. If I could summon any one of the three to my aid and comfort I would. I am almost as lonely as I was on some of those evenings in the old boarding-house. Still there are differences; the smoky old stove is not; a summer warmth floats through the house, born of steam; no ill-smelling kerosene lamp offends your aesthetic friend to-night, but the softest of shaded drop-lights sheds a halo around me. Isn't that almost poetic? Moreover, oh blessed thought! I have no examination papers to prepare, no reports to make up; nothing to do but visit with you. Also, I will admit just to you, that this is another and most blessed difference between this and my lonely past. At almost any moment now I may hope for Dr. Dennis' ring, and when he comes all sense of loneliness will instantly depart. Ah! Flossy, dear Flossy, this is such a difference as even you cannot appreciate! You had your mother and father, and all your dear home friends, and I had no one; and besides,—here I hesitate, lest you may be too obtuse to understand the reasoning,—you have only added Mr. Roberts to your circle of treasures. He is grand and good, I know, and I like him without even a mental reservation; but, my dear, I have added Dr. Dennis! Can human language say more?

“Nonsense aside, sweet little woman, God has been very good to you and me. Yet, Flossy, do you remember how, during those last months in which we were together, I fell into the habit of telling you a great deal about the thorns, and admitted to you once that they pricked less when they had felt your smoothing touch? I want to tell you something. Our Gracie—I am so sorry for her, yet I don't know what to do. She is living a most unhappy life, and of course she shadows our lives also. I told you, dear, about Prof. Ellis. He is still trying to convince poor Gracie, that I, being her step-mother, must be her natural enemy; reminding her that before I came into the family her father was entirely willing to receive his calls, and allowed her to accept his attentions. Don't you see, it isn't strange at all that the poor little girl should believe him, and turn from me? She has many judicious helpers in her father's congregation. There are those who sigh over her almost in my hearing. 'Poor Gracie' they say, 'how changed she is! She used to be so bright and happy. There is something unnatural in these second-mother relations; all high-spirited children rebel.' Imagine such talk helping Gracie! Meantime, what do you suppose can be Prof. Ellis' motive? I cannot think that he cares for her; I almost do not believe that there is enough purity left in him even to admire a pure-hearted young girl; certainly not one with such high ideals and earnest ambitions as Gracie had. 'Why does she admire him?' I fancy I hear you asking. My dear, she doesn't; she thinks she does, and at seventeen such thoughts sometimes work irreparable mischief; but left alone, one of these days she would make the discovery that she was flattered by his attentions, because he is nearly fifteen years older than she, and is brilliant in conversation, and quoted as the finest musician in the city. I wish I knew more things about him; what I do know shows me plainly enough the sort of man he is; but with these guileless young things it seems as though one had to unmask wickedness very thoroughly before they will believe that it is anything but gossip or misrepresentation. He has gone away for a six weeks' vacation; I don't know where, nor does Dr. Dennis. Gracie knows, but does not enlighten me. Flossy, dear, could you give me a little wholesome advice, do you think? I wonder, sometimes, whether I was not too complacent over my proposed duties. Such schemed as I had! I was going to be the blessedest step-mother that girl ever had. That would not be saying much, possibly. Don't we all incline to think that the second mothers must be wrong, and the sons and daughters poor abused darlings? But I loved Gracie, you know, and she seemed to love me, and to be so happy over the thought of our near relationship. There is very little happiness from any such source during these days. Gracie has retired into dignity. She can be the most dignified young woman on occasion that I ever beheld. She is not rude to me, on the contrary she is ceremoniously polite; calls me Mrs. Dennis, and all that sort of thing, when necessity compels her to call me anything; but she speaks as little as possible; sits at table with us three times a day, when she cannot secure an excuse for absence that her father will accept; says 'Yes, sir,' and 'No, sir,' obediently to him, and 'No, ma'am, thank you,' to me, and that is the extent of our conversation. Generally her face is pale and her eyes red, and at the first possible moment she begs to be excused, and retires to the privacy of her own room and locks her door. Her father has stopped her music lessons; at least she preferred to have them stopped rather than take lessons of any other person, so she practices no more. She continues her German and French, and secures good reports from the professors, but there is an air of weariness and dreariness about everything she does that makes one alternate between a feeling of deep pity for her, and a desire to box her ears or shut her up in a corner until she can behave herself. As a rule, however, I am sorry for her. I was young once myself. I was undisciplined, I had no mother, and I had a thousand wild fancies, any one of which might have ruined me. What do you think you would do, dear, if Mr. Roberts had a daughter, and you were her mother? You are all in a flush, now, and have lain down this sheet and said aloud: 'What an idea! Marion does say the most absurd things!' Well, then, if you were Marion Dennis, and stood before God in the place of mother to Grace Dennis, what do you imagine you would do? I'll tell you my policy; I am uniformly cheerful in her presence—gay, if I can make gayety out of anything; not toward her father, you understand, because I can fancy that might irritate her. I really try to be gay toward Gracie herself; but can you imagine an attempt to be cheery with a tombstone? I study as much as I can, her tastes, in the ordering of dinner and desserts, and arrange the flowers that I know she likes best, and in short try to do all those little bits of nice things that I feel certain you would do in my place; and just here I may as well own that I learned these small prettinesses, studying you; never should have thought them out for myself. Flossy, Dr. Dennis is one of the most patient and long-suffering of men, but it is very hard for him to be patient with poor Gracie; harder than it is for me; first, because I know by personal experience just what a turbulent young creature a miss of seventeen or eighteen can be, and secondly, because it is upon me her displeasure falls most heavily, and that naturally he resents.

“Why am I writing all this to you? I don't, know, childie, really, save that I remember what a curious way you have of telling Jesus all about your friends and their trials, and I remember with great comfort that you are my friend. Don't imagine me as miserable; I can never be that so long as Christ is the present Helper that he is to me now; and you do not need to be told that I daily thank him for giving me my husband. But I think you will understand better than many would how earnestly I desire to fill the place of mother, to my bright young motherless Gracie, with her dangerous beauty and her dangerous talents and her capacity for being miserable. Oh, I want to do more than my duty; I want to love her with all my heart, and to have her love me. If it were not for that man, who always hated me, and who, I believe in my heart, has sought her out and is pressing his attentions upon her because he sees a possibility of stinging me through her, I might hope to fill the place in her heart that I thought I could.”

The letter closed abruptly at this point, and was finished a few days afterwards in a different strain, giving plenty of home news, and being full of the brightness which always sparkled in Marion's letters; but it was the first two or three pages to which Mrs. Roberts turned back, and which she thoughtfully re-read. Then she interrupted the busy pen:—

“Evan, are not the business letters nearly done? I want to read this to you, and then I want to talk to you.”

“Delightful prospects, both of them,” he said with energy, as he added the last hurried line, signed and delivered to his wife to enclose in its envelope, then pushed aside writing materials and sat back to enjoy.

“It isn't all delightful,” his wife said, shaking her head. “I did hope that poor Marion was going to have a few years of rest. Her life has been such a hard one.”

CHAPTER IX. — “TREMENDOUS FACTS!” HE SAID.

It is well that Mrs. Marion Dennis felt entirely safe in her friend Flossy's hands, for her affairs were very thoroughly talked over that evening, and sundry conclusions arrived at.

One question Mrs. Roberts asked her husband, at the close of the conference, which apparently had nothing to do with Marion Dennis' affairs:—

“Evan, do you know Dr. Everett?”

“Everett? Let me think—yes, I know of him; a young physician, comparatively, who had not been here long, and has made his mark.”

“In what direction?”

“Several, perhaps; but I have heard of him chiefly in the line of his profession. He was accidentally called to attend a young lady belonging to a very wealthy family out in Brookline. I say accidentally—that is a reverent way we have of speaking, you know; of course, I mean providentially. The nursery governess in the family was sick, and this Dr. Everett, who had fallen in with her somewhere, volunteered to cure her. He was calling on her one morning when the sick daughter, who, by the way, had been given up by her physician, was taken suddenly and alarmingly worse; in the emergency Dr. Everett was summoned, and while they waited for the regular physician he succeeded in doing such good service that he inspired the mother with confidence; she became anxious to put the case entirely into his hands, which was done, and the young lady recovered, and Dr. Everett's position, professionally, was assured. Isn't that an interesting little item for you? He is said to have marked success; and, of course, since the Brookline occurrence his practice is largely among the wealthy. How has your attention been called to him?”

“My protector this morning said he was a 'swell' doctor, who was attending that Calkins boy. I wondered if he did it because he loved Christ. He might be a helper. I want to call on that sick boy to-morrow if I can arrange it. I think I must take some one with me.”

“You may take me with you,” her husband said, emphatically.

However much trips through alleys with Nimble Dick might be conducive to that young man's moral development, Mr. Roberts felt that his wife had experimented sufficiently.

Thus it transpired that, dressed in the plainest, quietest garb which her wardrobe would furnish, Mrs. Roberts went to the alley the next morning accompanied by her husband.

In one sense it was a mistake that the first call in the alley should have been made on the Calkins family. It was calculated to give Mrs. Roberts mistaken ideas as to the manner in which poor people lived. A bare enough room, certainly, not even a bit of carpet laid before the bed, but it was a clean room. Floor and window and cupboard-door were as clean as water could make them; and the bed, while it looked hopelessly hard and dreadful to Mrs. Roberts, was really a pattern of neatness and purity to every dweller in that attic. There was a straw tick, covered with a dark calico spread, which did duty as a sheet, and the boy who lay on it was covered by a patched quilt that had been mended, and was clean. Wonderful things these to say of such a locality! Mr. Roberts suspected it, and Dr. Everett knew it. That gentleman was bending over his patient when the two guests arrived, and vouchsafed them not even a glance, while the dark-haired, dark-eyed, homely, decently-dressed girl gave Mrs. Roberts a seat on the one chair which the room contained, and set a stool for her husband that had been made of four old chair legs and a square board.

Sallie Calkins was somewhat flurried by this unexpected call. She had no idea who the people were, nor for what they had come. A vague fear that they might be in some way connected with her brother's “place” at the printing-office, which he was in such fear of losing that his night had been a restless one, made her hasten to say, in a tremulous voice:—

“The doctor thinks he will be well in a little while. It isn't a bad break, he says, and Mark wants to keep his place. He thinks, maybe, some of the alley boys would keep it for him, if you would be so kind.”

She was evidently addressing Mr. Roberts, but she looked at Flossy. The fair, sweet face, that gave her such sympathetic glances, seemed the one to appeal to. Mr. Roberts, however, discerned that he was mistaken for the employer, and immediately dispelled the idea by asking where the boy worked, and how the accident had happened.

“It was the elevator, sir,” she said, eagerly. “The chain broke, and it went down with a bang, and Mark was on it, and he rolled off somehow, he doesn't know how; and he has been that bad that he couldn't tell me if he had. He was kind of wild, sir, all night, and talking about his place.”

“Was there no one but you to be with him during the night?” Mrs. Roberts asked. “Where is the mother?”

“We've got no mother, ma'am; there is only Mark and me—and father,” she added, after a doubtful pause. “But father was not at home last night. Oh, I didn't need no one to take care of Mark. I wouldn't have left him.”

“And he likes to have you take care of him, I am sure. What do you give him to eat? He will need nourishing food, I think; beef teas and broths, and nice little tempting dishes, made with milk, perhaps. Are you his cook, too? I wonder if you wouldn't like to have me show you how to make good things for him? I've learned how to make some nice dishes that sick people like.”

Before the bewildered girl could answer, the doctor turned abruptly from his long examination of his patient, and gave the guests the first attention he had vouchsafed them. The truth was this man had had some unfortunate experiences with district visitors, and had perhaps an unreasonable prejudice against them as a class. “I can't help it, ma'am,” he said to Mrs. Saunders, when she was taking him to task one day. “There are exceptions, of course, at least we will hope there are; but if you had seen some of my specimens, you would be the first to wish an infusion of common sense could be introduced among them. As a rule, they offer a tract where they should give a loaf of bread or a bowl of broth; and wedge their advice and reproofs in with every helpful movement. It is like so many doses of medicine to the patient; to be endured because he is at their mercy, and can't help himself. They mean well, the most of them; but the trouble is, we have a way of making district visitors out of people who have nothing to do, and who have never learned that 'all the nations of the earth were made of one blood.'”

Something in Mrs. Roberts' tones or words seemed to interest him, and he turned toward her.

“Does this alley belong to you?” he asked, abruptly, his mind still full of the district visitor.

She regarded him with a puzzled air for a moment, then answered naïvely:—

“I don't think it does; if it did I would have some things ever so different.”

Dr. Everett laughed; and Mr. Roberts came forward and introduced himself.

“My wife has hardly answered you fully,” he said. “I am under the impression that she desires to adopt a certain portion of this alley; at least I have heard of little else since last Sabbath afternoon. She is in search of some stray sheep who have been put under her care.”

“Ah,” the doctor said, turning quickly to her, “a Sabbath-school teacher? Is this young man one of your scholars?”

“No,” she explained; “but she had heard of him while inquiring where one of her boys lived, and she had called to see if she could help in any way. Dirk Colson was the boy who, they told her, lived near this place.”

The eyes of the trim sister brightened.

“He lives on the next square,” she said. “Oh, ma'am, are you his teacher, and do you care for him? I'm so glad.”

“He is a favorite of yours, is he?” the doctor asked, looking from one speaking face to another, and seeming immensely interested in the matter.

“No, indeed!” the girl said, quickly. “He's horrid! But I'm sorry for his sister; and she wants Dirk to get on, and he never does get on; but I thought maybe such a kind of a teacher could help him.”

There was such intense and genuine admiration in the girl's voice for the vision of loveliness before her that Dr. Everett could not help smiling.

“It doesn't seem unlikely,” said he, with significance; and added: “Who is this Dirk Colson, who seems to be an object of interest?”

“He is one of the worst boys in the alley, sir; sometimes I think he is the very worst, because he is cross as well as hateful; but Mark is always kind of sorry for him, and says he has such a bad father he can't help it. And Mart—that's his sister—she is a friend of mine, and she feels bad about Dirk, but she can't do nothing; he ain't a bit like Mark there.”

The last words were spoken tenderly, and the sisterly eyes turned toward the boy on the bed, and obeying a sign from his eyes she went over to him. The doctor plied his questions:—

“Have you recently taken a class, madam? and is their general reputation as encouraging as this special scamp of whom we are hearing?”

His words almost jarred on Mrs. Roberts; she had already prayed enough for her boys to have a sort of tender feeling for them—a half desire to cover their faults from the gaze of the indifferent world. Did Dr. Everett represent the indifferent world, or did he love her Master? She wished she knew.

“There is nothing encouraging about them,” she said, with grave earnestness, “save the facts that they are made in the image of God, and that he wants them to 'turn from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them which are sanctified.'”

A rare flash of intelligence and appreciation greeted her now from those fine eyes bent so scrutinizingly on her.

“Tremendous facts!” he said. “Glorious possibilities! 'Himself hath said it.' I claim kinship with you; I am an heir of the same inheritance.”

He held a hand to each, and they were cordially grasped. Then Dr. Everett proceeded to business.

“There is enough to do,” he said; “everything is lacking here; there is severe poverty, united to the most scrupulous tenderness and the most tender love on the part of this brother and sister. I stumbled on the case, and will do professionally all that is needed. And I have a friend who would undoubtedly come to the rescue, but she is crowded just now. I shall be rejoiced to report to her a helper. Do you know Joy Saunders? Well, I wish you did; she is one whom you could appreciate. She is young, though, and without a husband to guard her, and there are some places to which she cannot come.”

“Has she learned that important fact?” asked Mr. Roberts, with a significant smile. Then some explanation seemed necessary. “This lady,” he said, “tried the alley alone yesterday, and lost her way, and went lower down,—quite near to Burk Street, I imagine.”

“And what happened?” The quick question and the doctor's tone suggested possibilities not pleasant.

“Oh, she met one of her new recruits,—as hard a boy, so one of the policemen on this beat tells me, as there is in the row,—and pressed him into service to escort her back to civilization; and strange to say, the fellow did it without placing any tricks.”

The doctor turned on the small lady a curious glance.

“I think you may be able to do something, even for Dirk Colson,” he said.

“Do you know him?”

He laughed over the eagerness of the question.

“Never heard of him before. I was only thinking of our friend's description of his awfulness. Ah, whom have we here?”

For the door had opened abruptly, and a pair of great blue eyes, set in a frame of tawny hair, all in a frizzle, had peered in on them. The vision was clothed in garments so torn the wonder was that they stayed on at all, and there was a general look of abject poverty about her to which Sallie Calkins, with all the bareness of her lot, was a stranger. She stood for just a moment, as if transfixed by astonishment at the unwonted sight in the room, then turned and sped away as swiftly and silently as she had come.

“That is Dirk's sister,” Sallie Calkins said, coming forward, her homely face aglow with shame. “She isn't a bad girl, ma'am, she doesn't mean to be, but she has a dreadful time. Her mother is sickly, and has to go out washing, times when she isn't able to sit up; and there'll be days when she can't hold up her head; and the father is bad, ma'am, and drinks, and swears, and sells things for drink till there ain't nothing left to sell; and Mart hasn't anything to mend her clothes with, and she doesn't know how, anyway; and she hasn't even got a comb to comb her hair with, her father he took it to sell; and everything there is horrid, and Dirk, he's awful.”

It was strange, she could not herself account for it; but with every added word of misery that set poor Dirk Colson lower and lower in the scale of humanity, there seemed to come into this woman's heart, and shine in her face, an assurance that he was to be a “chosen vessel unto God.”

The doctor was watching her again, curious, apparently, to see how this pitiful appeal for forbearance in judging of poor Mart affected her, and something in his face made her say, speaking low, “an inheritance among them which are sanctified.”

“Amen!” he said. And there came to Mrs. Roberts a feeling that this earnest prayer, for the second time repeated by two men who prayed, was a sort of seal from the Master.

She turned away from both gentlemen then; the tears were very near the surface. She must do something to tone down the beating of her heart. Sallie was at hand, and she went with her to another corner of the room, and a low-toned conversation was carried on, scraps of which floated back to the gentlemen in the form of “sheets,” “grape jelly,” “mutton broth,” “a soft pillow,” and the like.

“I feel my patient growing better,” the doctor said, with satisfaction.

“Is there no father here?” Mr. Roberts asked.

The doctor shook his head, but answered:—

“There is the most pitiful apology for a father that I ever saw,—a mere wreck of a man! Spends his time in a sort of weak drinking, if I may coin a phrase to describe him; he actually uses no energy even in that business. Just staggers around and bemoans his lot; a most unfortunate man, in his own estimation, with whom the world, through no fault of his, has gone wrong. He is never downright intoxicated, and never free from the effects of liquor. He is much like a wilted leaf in the hands of this boy and girl. They could pitch him out of the window without much difficulty, and if the fall did not kill him he would shed tears and say it was a hard world. But now, what do we see, when the name of father is so dishonored,—made a wreck, as it were? Why, the order of nature is reversed, and these children take on the protective. They are father and mother, and he is the weak, sinning child. The way that that boy and girl have worked to keep their miserable father from starving or freezing is something to astonish the very angels. They shield him, too; nobody who wants to reach their hearts must blame him. They are a study!—as different from the other inhabitants of the alley as the sky is different from that mud-hole down there. It isn't a good simile, either. There is no religion in their efforts. They are the veriest heathen.”

“How do you account for the development?”

The doctor shook his head:—

“I don't account for it; it is abnormal. There must have been a mother who left her impress. I can't learn anything about the mother—she died when the girl was an infant; but I would like to know her history. I venture to assert that she belonged to Christ, and that a gleam of the divine pity that she saw in him, and loved, left its impress on her children. That is somewhat mystical,” he added, smiling. “I rarely talk in this way; it must have been your wife who set me off.”

“But she is the most practical and energetic of beings!”

“Ay, so are the angels, I fancy; and make us think of heaven directly we hear the rustle of their wings. Has your wife been a Christian long?”

“Barely two years since she began to think of these things.”

“I thought as much. She impresses me as one who is being led; who does not choose to go alone; has not learned how, indeed. A very few Christians never learn how, and with them the Lord does his special work. Well, sir; I must go. I'm glad to have met you, and glad to leave you here. Good morning!”