CHAPTER XIII. — “LET US BE FASHIONABLE.”
One feature of the hour was not only entirely new to the boys, but gave them a curious feeling, the name of which they did not understand. When the last one sat back in his chair, thereby admitting himself vanquished, Mrs. Roberts, looking at the young man who sat at the foot of the table, said:—
“Will you return thanks?”
What did that mean? To be sure they had heard of thanking people, but even they were aware that it was an unusual thing for persons to demand thanks for themselves. They watched; behold, the young man bowed his head, and these were the words he spoke:—
“Dear Saviour, we thank thee for the joys of this evening. We pray thee to teach us so to live that we may all meet some day in our Father's house. Amen.”
The boys looked at one another, then looked down at their plates. Their sole experience of prayer was connected with the South End Mission. To meet it at a supper-table was a revelation. Did the people who lived in grand houses, and had such wonderful things to eat, always pray at their supper-tables? This was the problem which they were turning over in their minds.
Returning to the parlor, Gracie went at once to the piano. She had spent a good deal of Monday, settling the question of what to play, and had chosen the most sparkling music she could find. I am anxious to have it recorded, that, all uncultured as they were, these boys neither talked nor laughed during the music, but appeared at least to listen. It was Dirk Colton who sat nearest to the piano, and who listened in that indescribable way which always flatters a musician.
“Do you like it?” Gracie asked, running off the final notes in a tinkle of melody.
His dark face flushed a deep red.
“I dunno,” he said, with an awkward laugh; “it's queer sounding. I don't see how you make so many tinkles. Do you make all your fingers go at once on those black and white things?”
“Not quite; but sometimes they have to dance about in a very lively fashion. I have to keep my wits at work, I assure you.”
“Is it hard to do?”
“Not very, nowadays. When I first commenced, the practising was horrid; I hated it.”
“What made you do it, then?”
“Oh, the same reason which makes people do a great many things that they don't like,” she said, lightly; “I wanted the results. I knew if I worked at it steadily the time would come when I should not only enjoy it myself, but be able to give pleasure to other people. Why? Don't you ever do things that you don't particularly like?”
He shrugged his shoulders, and bestowed on her a very wise look.
“Often enough,” he said fiercely, and he thought of his drunken father. “But then I wouldn't if I could help it.”
“That would depend on whether you thought the thing would pay in the end, would it not?”
Then, without waiting for an answer, she asked “What is your business?”
“My business?” with a curiously puzzled air.
“Yes; how do you spend your time?”
“Hunting up something to eat,” he said, with a grim smile; visions of his aimless loafing appearing before him as the only occupation he could be said to have. It had not occurred to him to try to mislead her, but she evidently did not understand.
“Oh, yes,” she said, seriously, “so I suppose. Isn't it queer how busy men and women have to be day after day, and year after year, just getting themselves and others something to eat? Do you have other people to help get it for? Mother, for instance, and little brothers and sisters?”
“I've got a mother,” he said, “and a sister.”
“And that makes work easier, does it not? I always thought it would be stupid to work all the time just for one's self. But I meant, What do you work at in order to get the something to eat,—there are so many different ways?”
“How do you know I work at all?”
Dirk's voice was growing sullen; a consciousness that he would appear at a disadvantage in admitting himself an idler in a busy world was dawning upon him as an entirely new idea. At his question, Gracie turned on her music-stool and regarded him with surprise.
“Why, of course you work,” she said; “people all do.”
She was not acting a part. Her experience among poor people was limited to that outwardly respectable class who, however disreputable their conduct might be on Sabbath, had, nevertheless a Monday occupation with which they pretended to earn a living.
Dirk shrugged his shoulders again.
“Do they?” he said.
Her evident ignorance of the world made him good-natured. She was not trying to preach to him, he decided. A thing which Dirk hated, in common with all persons of his class.
But the lull in the music had started conversation in other parts of the room.
Dirk heard young Ried's question:—
“Mrs. Roberts, do you know of any young man looking for work? I heard of a good situation this afternoon. Oh, there are plenty of applicants, but the gentleman is an old friend of my brother-in-law, and I could speak a helpful word for somebody.”
“I have no one in mind,” Mrs. Roberts said, and she glanced eagerly at the boys lounging in various attitudes in her easy chairs. Only three of them she knew made any pretence of earning their living. Did Alfred mean one of them? “Here is a chance for you, young gentlemen,” she said, lightly, “who bids for a situation?”
“What is the place?”
It was Dirk Colson who asked the question. Ever since he could remember he was supposed to have been hunting for work, but I am not sure that he ever felt quite such a desire to find it as at that moment.
“It is at Gray's, on Ninth Street, a good chance; but the one who secures it must have a fair knowledge of figures.”
“Oh, land!” said Dirk, sinking lower in his easy-chair. “No use in me asking about it.”
“Are figures your weak point?” Mrs. Roberts asked, smiling on him. “I can sympathize with you; I had to work harder over arithmetic than at any other study; but I learned to like it. Do you know I think it should be a favorite study with you? It is so nice to conquer an obstinate-looking row of figures, and fairly oblige the right result to appear. What did you find hardest about the study, Mr. Colson?”
The others chuckled, but Dirk glowered at them fiercely.
“There's nothin' to laugh about as I see,” he said. “I didn't find nothin' hard, because I never had no chance to try. I never went to no school, nor had books, nor nothin'; now that's the truth, and I'm blamed if I ain't going to own it.”
“What a good thing it is that you are young.” This was her animated answer. “There is a chance to make up for lost time. Mr. Ried, I have such a nice idea. I heard you and Dr. Everett speaking of the Literary Club the other night. Why cannot we have a literary club of our own? A reading circle, or something of that sort? Suppose we should meet once a week and read aloud something interesting, and have talks about it afterwards. Do you ever read aloud?”
If Mrs. Roberts in all sincerity had not been one of the most simple-hearted, and in some respects ignorant little creatures on the face of the globe, she could never, with serious face, have addressed such a question to Nimble Dick.
Young Ried could not have done it, for he realized the folly of supposing that Nimble Dick ever read anything. By just so much was Mrs. Roberts ahead of him. She supposed that these boys had their literature, and read it, and perhaps met somewhere on occasion and read together. This made it possible for her to ask surprising questions with honest face.
“Bless me!” said Nimble Dick, startled into an upright posture; “oh, no, mum, never.”
And even Dirk Colson laughed at the expression on his face.
“Still I think you would enjoy it, after a little practice, and I can't help fancying you would make a good reader.”
The boys were all laughing now, Nimble Dick with the rest.
“You're in for an awful blunder there,” he said, good-naturedly. “I'm like Black Dirk, never had no chances, and didn't do nothin' worth speakin' of with them that I had. Why, bless your body, mum! I can't even read to myself! I make the awfulest work you ever heard of spellin' out the show-bills. I have to get Black Dirk to help me; and him and me is a team.”
By this time Dirk's face had lost its smile, and his fierce eyes were flashing; but the hostess was serene.
“That doesn't prove anything against my statement. I was speaking of what could be, not necessarily of what was. Let us have a club. The more I think of the plan the more it pleases me. I'll tell you! The word 'club' doesn't quite suit me. Let us be fashionable. Gracie, don't you know how fashionable it is becoming to have 'evenings' set apart for special occasions? Mr. Ried, you know Mrs. Judson's 'Tuesday evenings,' and Mrs. Symond's 'Friday evenings?' Very well, let us have our 'Monday evenings,' in which we will do all sorts of nice things; sometimes literary, sometimes musical, and sometimes—well, anything that we please. What do you say, gentlemen; shall we organize? Mr. Ried, will you give Monday evenings to us? Gracie, you are my guest, and cannot, of course, refuse.”
It was a novel idea, certainly. Even Alfred, while trying to heartily second her, was in doubt as to what she could hope to accomplish by it. As for the boys, not one of them promised to attend; but neither did they refuse. Mrs. Roberts presently left the subject, seeming to consider her point carried, and proposed a visit to the conservatory.
I think it very doubtful whether the boy lives who does not like flowers. There are those who seem to consider it a mark of manliness to affect indifference to them; but these, as they grow older—become real men—generally lay this bit of folly aside. Then there are those, plenty of them, who really do not know that they care for flowers. The boys, ushered for the first time in their lives into the full bloom of a conservatory, were, most of them, of this latter stamp.
What a scene of beauty it was! Great white callas, bending their graceful cups; great red and yellow roses, making the air rich with their breath; vines and mosses and ferns and small flowers in almost endless variety. Alfred and Gracie moved among the glories; the latter exhausting all her superlatives in honest delight, although she had visited the spot a dozen times that day; and Alfred, who had been less favored, was hardly less eager and responsive than she. But Mrs. Roberts watched the boys.
It was all very well for those two to enjoy her flowers; of course they would. But what language would the silent, lovely things speak to her untutored boys? They said not a word; not one of them. They made no exclamations; they had no superlatives at command. But Stephen Crowley stooped before a lovely carnation, and smelled, and smelled, drawing in long breaths, as though he meant to take its fragrance all away with him; and Nimble Dick picked up the straying end of an ivy, and restored it to its support again, in a way that was not to be lost sight of by one who was looking for hearts; and Dirk Colson brushed back his matted hair and stood long before a great, pure lily, and looked down into its heart with an expression on his face that his teacher never forgot.
She came over to him presently, standing beside him, saying nothing. Then at last she reached forth her hand and broke the lily from its stalk. He started, almost as if something had struck him.
“What did you do that for?” And his voice was fierce.
“I want you to take this for me to your sister—the girl with beautiful golden hair; I saw her one day, and I shall remember her hair and eyes. She will like this flower, and she will like you to bring it to her.
“Gracie”—raising her voice—“gather some flowers will you, and make into bouquets? These young gentlemen will like to carry them to some one. There must be mothers at home who will enjoy bouquets brought by their sons.”
Over this gently-spoken sentence Nimble Dick laughed a hard, derisive laugh. It made the dark blood flow into black Dirk's indignant face. Even Alfred Ried lost self-control for a moment, and flashed a glance at him out of angry eyes. How could there be any hope of a boy who sneered at his mother? Yet you need not judge him too harshly.
He thought of his mother, indeed, when he laughed; but alas! he thought of her as drunk. And he knew her scarcely at all, save as that word described her. How could “mother” mean to him what it meant to Alfred Ried? what it meant even to Dirk Colson, whose mother, weak indeed in body and spirit, full of complaining words, oftentimes weakly bitter words to him, yet patched his clothes so long as she could get patches and thread, and would have washed them if she could have got soap, and been able to bring the water, and if her only tub hadn't been in pawn. Oh, yes, there are degrees in mothers.
Mrs. Roberts, meantime, broke off blossoms with lavish hand, and made bouquets for Nimble Dick and for Dirk. He took the bright-hued ones with a smile, but the lily he held by itself, and still looked at it.
They went away at last noisily; growing almost, if not quite, rough towards one another, at least, and directly they were out of the door, Nimble Dick gave a whoop that would have chilled the blood of nervous women. But matron and maiden looked at each other and laughed.
“We have kept them pent up all the evening, and that is the escape-valve being raised to avoid a general explosion.” This was Mrs. Roberts' explanation.
They were quite alone. Alfred, on being invited in low tones to tarry and talk things over, had shaken his head, and replied, significantly:—
“Thank you! no; I am one of them, and must stand on the same level.”
“You are right,” Mrs. Roberts said, smilingly; “you must have been an apt pupil, my friend. That dear sister taught you a great deal.”
He held up the bouquet which she had made for him.
“I am going to put it before Ester's picture,” he said; “her work is going on.”
“Well,” said Gracie, “it is over, and we lived through it. And they did all come! I am amazed over that! And how they did eat! I suppose the next thing is to open all the windows and air out. Flossy Roberts, I'm afraid you are going insane. The idea of your inviting that horde here every Monday. What a parlor you would have! And they would breed a pestilence! They won't come, to be sure; but just imagine it if they should! I really think Mr. Roberts ought to send you home for Dr. Mitchell to look after. Well, Flossy, what next?”
“Next, dear, you must pray. Pray as you never have done before, for the souls of these boys, and for the success of my 'Monday evenings.' Gracie, we are at work for immortal souls. Think of it! they must live forever. Shall they, through all eternity, keep dropping lower and lower, or shall they wear crowns?”
CHAPTER XIV. — “SOMETHING'S HAPPENED!”
Sallie Calkins sat in a common little rocking-chair and rocked; and while she rocked she sewed, setting neat stitches in a brown coat which was already patched and darned and was threadbare in many places. There was a look of deep content on Sallie's face. There were many reasons for it.
Dr. Everett had that morning pronounced Mark's broken limb to be healing rapidly. He had also reported that Mark's place was to be held open for him by his employers. At this present moment, Mark, arrayed in a clean shirt, was resting on a very white sheet, his head reposing on a real feather pillow dressed in white and frilled. Over him was carefully spread another of those wonderful sheets, and to make the crowning glory, a white quilt, warm and soft, tucked him in on every side. How could Sallie but rejoice? All about the room there had been changes. A neat little table stood at the bed's side. It was covered with a white cloth, and a china bowl set thereon with a silver spoon beside it; a delicate goblet and china pitcher also, both carefully covered with a napkin. Did Mrs. Roberts know how homely Sallie gloried in the thinness of that china and the fineness of that napkin? How does it happen that some of the very poor seem born with such aesthetic tastes? Mrs. Roberts had intuitions, and was given to certain acts, concerning which she could not give to others satisfactory explanations. Therefore, she sometimes left china where others would have judged the plainest stoneware more prudent and sensible.
A bit of bright carpet was spread at the side of the bed. A fire glowed in the neatly-brushed stove. A white muslin curtain hung at the window; and the chair in which Sallie rocked and sewed was new and gayly painted.
There were other traces of Mrs. Roberts. You might not have noticed them, but it seemed to Sallie that her fingers had touched everywhere. Yet the lady herself thought that she had done very little. She had held her inclinations in check with severe judgment.
The door opened softly, and a mass of golden hair, from out of which peered great eyes, peeped cautiously in.
“Alone?” it said, nodding first toward the figure on the bed, and intimating that she was aware of Mark's presence, and did not mean him.
“Yes,” said Sallie, “come in; Mark's asleep, but you won't disturb him; he don't disturb easy; he sleeps just like a baby since the doctor stopped that pain in his knee. There's my new chair; just try it and see how nice it is.”
Saying which, she got herself out of the little rocker in haste, and pushed it toward her guest, meantime taking a plain wooden chair, also new, and adding:—
“Did you ever hear of anybody like her before?”
“Something's happened!” said Mart Colson, ignoring the reference to the mysterious pronoun,—her voice so full of a new and strange meaning that had Sallie been acquainted with the word she might have said it was filled with awe.
As it was, she only exclaimed, “What?” in an intensely interested tone.
“Why, look here! I brought it along to show you.”
Whereupon she produced from under her piece of torn shawl a large broken-nosed pitcher, a piece of brown paper carefully tied over the top. She untied the bit of calico string with fingers that shook from excitement.
“Look in there!” she exclaimed at last, triumph in her tone, reaching forward the pitcher.
Sallie looked, and drew in her breath with a long, expressive “O-h!”
There, reposing in stately beauty, lay the great white lily with its golden bell.
“Yes, I should think so!” Mart said, satisfied with the expression. “Did you ever see anything like that before? It ain't made of wax nor anything else that folks ever made. It's alive! I felt of it. It looks like velvet and satin and all them lovely store things; but it doesn't feel so; it feels alive, and it grew. But, Sallie Calkins, if you should live a hundred years, and guess all the time, you never could guess where I got it. Sallie Calkins, if you'll believe it, Dirk gave it to me!”
“Dirk?”
“Yes, he did!”
Who would have supposed Mart Colson's voice capable of such a triumphant ring?
“You see the way of it was: Last night he didn't come for his supper at all, and that always scares me dreadful. I'm expecting something to happen, you know. Father, he didn't come either; for the matter of that, he hasn't come yet; and mother, she was awful tired, and hadn't had no dinner to speak of, and she just broke down and took on awful. Mother don't often cry, and it's good she don't, for she just goes into it with all her might when the time comes. It wasn't about father—she's used to him, you know, and don't expect nothing else; but Dirk drives her wild with what may happen to him. I was worried about him, too, but I was mad at him; it seemed too awful mean in him to stay away and scare mother. At last I got her to go to bed, and she was all tuckered out, and went to sleep.
“Then I wrapped myself in the quilt and sat down to wait; but I got asleep, and I dreamed I saw her; she had wings to each side of her, and she flew over the tops of all those houses and made them turn white like the snow looks when it is coming down before it drops into the gutters. Wasn't that queer? Well, some noise woke me up. I was sitting flat on the floor by mother, and I sat up straight all of a tremble. And there was the old stool, and the brown pitcher on it, half-full of water, and this wonderful thing stood in it looking at me. And Dirk, he stood off the other side looking at it.
“'It's for you, and she sent it.' That's what he said to me; and I wasn't real wide awake, you know. I suppose that's what made his voice sound so queer; and what do you think I said? I was thinking of my dream, and says I: 'Did she have her wings on?' Then Dirk made a queer noise; it was a laugh, but it sounded most like a cry. 'I guess so,' says he, and then he turned and went off to bed. And I can't get any more out of him; he is as snarly when I ask any questions as though he was mad about it all. If it hadn't been for this great white thing I might have thought this morning that it all belonged to the dream. But Dirk brought this home from somewhere, and put it in the pitcher, and give it to me his own self; that's sure.”
The story closed in triumph.
“It is beautiful!” said Sallie, the brown jacket slipping to the floor, while she bent over the lily. “It is beautiful, all of it, and it looks just like her, and sounds like her, wings and all; of course she sent it.”
“And Dirk brought it.” That part of the story Mart Colson did not forget.
Sometimes it seems to me a pity that hearts are not laid bare to the gaze of others. What, for instance, might not this little incident have done for Dirk Colson had he known how the starved heart of his sister fed on the thought that he brought her the flower?
Still, on the other hand, I don't know what the effect would have been on Mart had she known what a tremendous amount of courage it had taken to present the flower to her. A dozen times on the way home had Dirk been on the point of consigning it to the gutter. He carry home a flower! If it had been a loaf of bread he thought it would be more consistent. Someway he recognized a fine sarcasm in the thought that he, who had never in his life contributed towards the necessities of the family, should carry to that dreary home a flower! Yet the fair lily did its work well during that long walk from East Fifty-fifth Street to the shadow of the alley. It made Dirk Colson tell it fiercely that he hated himself; that he was a brute and a loafer,—a blot on the earth, and ought not to live. Why didn't he go to work? Why didn't he have things to bring home to Mart every little while, as Mark Calkins did to Sallie? Hadn't he seen Mark, only a few evenings before he was hurt, with a pair of girl's shoes strung over his shoulder, and heard him whistle as he ran, two steps at a time, up the rickety stairs? What would Mart think if he should bring her home a pair of shoes? What would she think of his bringing her a flower? She would sneer, of course: and, in the mood which then possessed him, Dirk said angrily that she had a right to sneer, and would be a fool not to; and yet he hated the thought of it. There was nothing in life that Dirk hated more than sneers; and he had been fed on them ever since he could remember.
He was altogether unprepared for the reception which the lily received. That suggestion about wings, which seemed so apt, had brought the “queer” sound to his voice that Mart had noticed. If only she had understood, and not spoiled, next morning, the effect of her words.
In the prosaic daylight, the illusion of “wings” being banished, she was bent on knowing how Dirk came into possession of the lily.
“Who sent it, Dirk? I don't believe anybody told you to give it to me. Who would care about my having a flower? Where did you get it?”
“Where do you s'pose?” Dirk's voice was ominously gruff. It is a painful truth that by daylight he was ashamed of his part of the transaction. “I told you she sent it. It's noways likely that I'd take the trouble to make up a lie about that weed. How do I know what she wanted you to have it for? Maybe she thought it matched your looks.”
There was a bitter sneer in Dirk's voice, yet all the time he heard the sweet, low voice saying, “That girl with the beautiful golden hair.” Suppose he should tell Mart that? Why not? Let me tell you that Dirk Colson would not have repeated that sentence for the world! And yet he did not know why.
Mart's face burned red under his sneer.
“How am I to know who 'she' is?” she said, in bitter scorn. “Some of your bar-room beauties, for whom you dance and whistle, I suppose. You can tell her I would rather have my shawl out of pawn, or some shoes for my feet, enough sight. What do I care for a great flower mocking at me?”
“Pitch it into the fire, then; and it will be many a long day before I bring you anything else,” said Dirk, pushing himself angrily back from the table, where he had been eating bread dipped in a choice bit of pork fat.
“There isn't a bit of danger of my doing that,” she called after him, mockingly. “There isn't a spark of fire, nor likely to be to-day, unless some of your admirers send me a shovel of coal. Mercy knows, I wish they would.”
He mercifully lost part of this sentence, for the reason that before it was concluded he was moving with long, angry strides up the alley.
And then Mart took the broken-nosed pitcher away into the furthermost corner, although she was alone in the room, and laid her face against the cool, pure lily, and wept into it great burning tears. Poor, ignorant soul! She wanted, oh, how she wanted Dirk to be brave and good like Mark Calkins—her one type of manhood. Yet she did not know that she was crushing out the germ which might have grown in his heart. True, she knew herself to be very different from Sallie, but the thought, poor soul, that that was because Mark was so different from Dirk.
Isn't it a pity that the sweet-faced lily could not have told its tender story to both these ignorant ones?
CHAPTER XV. — “WHAT MADE HER DIFFERENT?”
“I have heard a good deal about your sister that has interested me. Do you like to talk of her?”
This was the question which Gracie Dennis asked of young Ried as he stood beside her at the piano. She had been playing, and had come to the music alcove for the purpose of turning her music; but now she was touching sweet chords here and there aimlessly, and waiting for his answer.
At the further end of the parlor Mrs. Roberts was entertaining a caller; but the distance between them was so great that, in effect, the young people were alone.
“I like nothing better than to talk of her.” Mr. Ried said, with animation; “but I don't know so much about her as I wish I did. She went away when I was quite young. I used to say 'she died,' but since I have awakened to see her cherished plans being carried on all around me I cannot think of her as dead.”
“That is what I want to talk about,—her work, or her plans for work. What made her so different from other people, Mr. Ried. Wasn't she different?”
The young man regarded the question thoughtfully before answering.
“Not from all the people,” he said at last; “but certainly very different from some. I used to think that all Christians were like her, of course; then, when I saw my mistake, I went to the other extreme, and thought there were none like her on earth. I have discovered that the medium position is the correct one.”
“But what I want to know is, what made her different? It wasn't her age. Mrs. Roberts thinks she was young?”
“She was hardly nineteen when she died. Oh, no, it wasn't age; she told me that she used to be very different. She was a Christian from childhood, but she said that she was ashamed to claim the name. There was nothing Christlike about her; still she was a member of the Church. As I remember her, and as I look at other people, my judgment is that, in her early Christian life, she was much like most of the Christians with whom you and I are familiar.”
“And what made her different? Was it—that is—do you think it was because she was to die so soon that she had a special experience?”
“Not at all,” he said, promptly; “it was before she realized anything about her condition that the great change took place in her. My brother-in-law says that she supposed herself to be in perfect health at the time when she was most marked in her Christian life.”
“Ah! but you don't understand; I mean more than that. It is difficult to tell what I mean; I mean—but you know, of course, God knew that she was soon to go to heaven. I thought, perhaps, he gave her a special experience on that account.”
“No; oh, no,” he said, speaking with great earnestness. “Ester was particularly anxious that no one should suppose her experience exceptional. Little fellow though I was, it seemed to be her desire that I should fully understand this. Don't let anybody make you think that because you are a little boy you must be a sort of half-way Christian,' she used to say, and her eyes would glow with feeling. 'I tried that way for years,' she said, 'and I want you to understand that it is not only sinful, but there is not a particle of happiness to be gotten out of it—not a particle; and I would give almost nothing for what such a Christian can accomplish. The harm one does, more than overbalances all effort for Christ.' I think, perhaps, she felt more deeply on that than on almost any subject; and it was because she thought she had wasted so many years.”
“Then do you think that there is, or rather that there should be, no difference in Christians? Have all the same work to do?”
“Not that, quite, of course,—or, I don't know, either. Isn't it all different forms of the Master's work. The children of the home may have each a different task, but each is needed to make the home what it should be, and each worker needs the same spirit of love and unselfishness to enable him to do his part. It isn't a perfect illustration, Miss Dennis. I'm not skillful in that direction; but I know what I mean, and that is a comfort.”
“And I know what you mean,” Gracie said, not joining in his laugh; “but I am not sure that I believe it. Why, Mr. Ried, that would make a very solemn thing of living.”
“Well, did you suppose it was other than solemn? I'm sure it makes a triumphant thing of it, too; and without it we are only a lot of wax figures, dancing to pass the time away.”
“But don't you really think that people have a right to have any nice times?”
“Miss Dennis, did you ever see any person who had nicer times than your friend, Mrs. Roberts?”
“Well, Flossy is peculiar; her tastes all seem to lie in this direction; though once they did not, I admit. Papa used to think that she had no talent for anything but dancing. Something changed Flossy's entire character. No one who knew her two years ago could possibly deny that.”
“She will serve as an illustration, then, to explain my meaning. I believe, Miss Dennis, that religion should have sufficient power over us to change all our tastes and plans in life, fitting them to the Saviour's use.”
“But what would such a rule as that do with most of the Christians of your acquaintance?”
“Ah! I am old and experienced enough to warn you not to make shipwreck of your happiness on that shoal. I hovered around it, and vexed my soul over the whole bewildering question until I suddenly discovered that I was held absolutely responsible only for my own soul, and that the Lord would look after his own.”
For a time there was no answer to this.
Gracie let her fingers wander with apparent aimlessness over the keys, drawing out soft, sweet strains. Suddenly she said:—
“What do you expect Flossy will accomplish with that last scheme of hers? I ought to beg her pardon for the familiar name, but I have known her ever since I was a child. Don't you think her attempts for those boys rather hopeless?”
Instantly the young man's eyes filled with tears, and when he spoke his voice indicated deep emotion.
“I can hardly tell you how I feel about those boys. I have been anxious for them so long and felt so hopeless. Do you remember how Elijah sat under a juniper tree, discouraged, and said that he was the only one who had not bowed the knee to Baal, and the Lord told him he was mistaken, that there were five thousand others? It sounds ridiculously egotistical, but I have felt at times something like that; as though I was the only one who cared whether the poor fellows went to destruction or not. But since I have met Mrs. Roberts, and seen how intense she is and single-hearted, and since through her I have met Dr. Everett, and seen how they are trying to work at the same problem, and since I have come to know how Mr. Roberts is at work all the time for young men; and, above all, since that wonderful evening here last Monday, when I saw how two gifted ladies understood the art of turning their accomplishments to account, in order to take those poor fellows captive for Christ, I discovered that there were ways of solving this problem about which I had known nothing, and people to carry it through. It was simply glorious in you to give those fellows such music as you did, and to accomplish by it what you did. My life has been narrow, Miss Dennis; I never saw the piano used for Christ before.”
Gracie looked down at the keys, her face aglow. It was a new experience, this being classed among the Christian workers of the world; making her music for other purposes than to amuse the gay friends who chanced to gather around her. She made the keys speak loudly for a few minutes, then softening them, said:—
“You must not class me with Flossy, Mr. Ried. I only did what she wanted done. I am not in the least like her, unselfish and gentle and all that.”
But his reply, spoken low, was pleasant to her ears:—
“'By their fruits ye shall know them.'”
He evidently looked upon her as a worker. She could not help feeling that it was pleasant to be so classed. What an intense young man he was! Not in the least like those with whom she had hitherto been most familiar.
There was another voice in the front parlor—a strong, vigorous voice that carried a sense of power with it.
“Ah!” said Ried, his eyes bright, his face eager; “that is Dr. Everett. Just study him if you want another type of the sort of Christian about whom we have been talking; the grandest man!”
Gracie, shielded by the distance, turned on her stool and studied him. Certainly he did not look much as though he were appointed for early death. What a splendid physique it was!
And how thoroughly wide awake and interested he was in the subject under discussion. Bits of the talk floated back to the two at the piano.
“Oh, he is young,” Dr. Everett was saying; “I hope for returned vigor in time; but there must be long weeks of patience before he will be ready for his old employment.”
“Do you know of whom he is speaking?” Gracie asked.
“I fancy it is that Calkins boy, the one with the broken limb. He is deeply interested in the poor fellow, and is trying to plan employment of some less wearing sort for him, I believe. Dr. Everett is always intensely interested in somebody.”
“Is it always the very poor?”
Alfred laughed.
“Not always. I know several quite well-to-do fellows in whom he keeps a careful oversight; but he is grandly interested in the poor. He is taking rank as one of the most successful physicians in the city, and, of course, he is pressed for time; yet he is so continually at the call of the poor that people begin to speak of him as the poor man's doctor. He told me he was proud of that title.”
At this point the musicians were appealed to to come to the front parlor, and Gracie had opportunity for a nearer study of the man whom she could not help but admire. He was not likely to suffer from a nearer view; at least, not while Gracie was in the mood that then possessed her. He greeted her cordially, and at once brought her into the conversation by appealing to her for a decision, seeming to take it for granted that she was of the same spirit with himself.
This young lady was taking lessons of life that were designed to be helpful to her if she would but let them. A thoroughly well-educated and cultured gentleman, well fitted to take high rank in society, not in the ministry, and yet thoroughly absorbed in what she had hitherto almost unconsciously set down as ministers' work was a mystery to her. Moreover, for the second time that evening, she felt a curious sense of satisfaction in being classed among the energetic workers of the world. The pretty school-girl, who had lived all her young life in a neighborhood where she was “Gracie Dennis,” looked up to, indeed, by her set, and having a decided influence of her own, yet felt it to be a novel experience to hear herself addressed in a clear, firm voice after this manner:—
“Miss Dennis, what means would you advise for interesting a company of young girls in reading, regularly, books which would be of use to them? Of course, I speak of a class of girls who have done no reading of any account heretofore, and who have no knowledge in the matter.”
“It is something about which I have not thought at all,” said Gracie, her pretty face all in a flush. “But I should suppose the way would be to take one girl at a time, and study her, to find what would be likely to interest and help her, and also to get such an influence over her that she would read what I wanted her to.”
“First catch your hare, eh? Good!” said the doctor, with an approving glance towards Mrs. Roberts. “The longer I live the more convinced am I that individual effort is what accomplishes the great things in this world.”
There was more talk about this and kindred matters; and Gracie found herself drawn out, and her interest excited on themes about which she had supposed she knew nothing.
Then occurred an interruption,—a ringing of the door-bell.
“For Miss Dennis,” said the messenger; but she handed the card to Mrs. Roberts.
There was just a moment of hesitation, while that lady apparently studied the name, then she said, composedly:—
“This is Professor Ellis, Gracie. Do you wish to receive him this evening?”
Since I have known Mrs. Roberts well, I have studied her innocently sincere manner, with not a little curiosity as to the probable effect on the world, suppose it were possible for others to adopt her method. The actual practical effect with her is that she succeeds often in wisely deceiving, while intending to be perfectly sincere. For instance, her question to Gracie after a moment of hesitation, during which she asked herself, “What ought I to do?” and immediately answered herself, “There is nothing for me to do, but to be perfectly straight-forward.”
Her question was intended to say to Gracie: “I trust you. What your father has directed you to do, I feel sure you will obey.” But it said different things from that to Gracie. Ever since she had been told that she might make her old acquaintance, Flossy, a visit, this highly-strung young lady had been suspicious that this was a device of her stepmother to get pleasantly rid of her for a few weeks. She surmised that a very carefully elaborate account of her sins had been written out by this same stepmother for the benefit of her young hostess, and that special directions had been given for guarding her from the wolf, Professor Ellis. She would have spoiled the entire scheme by haughtily refusing to leave home had not the innocent delight of a young girl over the thought of visiting a beautiful strange city gotten the better of her pride. The gently-put question of her hostess disarmed a whole nest of suspicions. It was hardly possible that it had been hinted to Flossy that her guest might attempt to elope with this man, else she would not with serene face be asking whether it was her wish to receive him.
“If you please,” she made haste to answer, her cheeks glowing the while, and Mrs. Roberts gave instant direction that the gentleman be shown to the parlor.
There were several new lessons set for Miss Gracie Dennis to learn that evening. One was that Professor Ellis, with his faultless dress and excessive politeness, his finished bows and smiles, that would have done credit to any ball-room in the land, his accurate knowledge of all the printed rules of etiquette, yet in Mrs. Roberts' parlor, contrasted with Dr. Everett, and even with young Ried, the dry-goods clerk, appeared at a disadvantage.
She was slow in learning the lesson: on that first evening she simply stared at it in bewilderment. What did it mean? There was an attempt to draw the professor into the circle, to continue the conversation that had been so animated and interesting before his entrance. The effect was much like that produced in striking a discordant note in a hitherto faultless piece of music. Young men out of business needing help, needing an encouraging word, an out-stretched hand! Professor Ellis had words, and hands, but he might have been without either for all the help they gave him in responding to efforts like these. Books to help uplift the young, to give them high ideas of life, to enthuse them with desires to live for a purpose! Truly he could only stare blankly at the suggestion. What did he know of books written for such purposes? Yet Gracie had supposed him to be literary in his tastes and pursuits. Certainly he read French? Yes, French novels! He was quite familiar with some of such a character that, had Gracie been a good French scholar and ever likely to come in contact with a copy of them, he would not have dared to mention their names in her presence. More than once of late had the stepmother wished that her young daughter understood the language well enough to be aware that the man whom she admired used frequently smooth-sounding French oaths. But alas for Gracie, when he had so poisoned her mother's influence over this dangerously pretty girl, that she would have believed his word at any time rather than that mother's. Well, he read other than French novels; Charles Reade, for instance, and some of the more recent authors fashionable in certain circles. It is true that Gracie was not acquainted with them, that her father would not allow a copy of their books to come freely into his home, and Gracie was much too honorable to read them in private. But it is also true that while professing to admire this trait in her, as charming in a young daughter, the professor had also, pityingly and gently, told this young daughter that these things were her father's concessions to the narrow age and trammelled profession to which he belonged; that the fact was, free thought was discouraged, because there was that in every church which would not bear its light; that her wise father was one of a hundred in recognizing this, and trying to shield her while she was young.
You are also to remember that she was young, and therefore forgive her that she did not detect the contradictory sophistry in the professor's words. He really understood how to sugar-coat poison as well as any man of his stamp could.