CHAPTER XXVII. — “AN AWFUL PROBLEM”
Isn't it strange, the ways the Lord takes to answer prayers?
Much prayer had been made for Dirk Colson, but few had thought of his sister. Sallie Calkins, it is true, had come with trembling steps into the light of Christ's love, and had immediately desired to have Mart enjoy it with her, but was very trembling and doubting as to her ability to reach Mart, or to influence her in the right direction. She sent the bonnet and cape to the lecture with a prayer, but she did not look for the prayer to be answered. Verily, He has to be content with faith “less than a grain of mustard-seed.”
Was the rest of the story an answer to prayer? We are to remember that He has strange ways. Events startling enough in their import followed each other in rapid succession. In the first place, Dirk's father, poor, wrecked man, returned no more. Whether he had wandered among the network of railroads which lined the southern portion of the city, and lost his life there, or whether he had fallen into the river, or just how he had disappeared, could not be discovered. There were three men killed by an accident on the road one night, but their disfigured bodies were buried before Dirk heard of it. There was a man seen struggling in the water off the lower wharf one evening, but he sank before help could reach him, and his body was not recovered. There were half a dozen men killed by a boiler explosion, but that was not heard of in time to look into it. There were so many ways in which the wreck might have gone out of life and left no sign. They were safe in supposing that he was intoxicated, and that was about all they could be perfectly sure of, concerning him; that, and the fact that he came no more. Of course, there was no such search for him as is made for the man of respectability and position. To one who had some idea of the worth of a soul, it was pitiful to see what a tiny ripple this disappearance made on the surface of life.
A moment of startled questioning by those who lived in the immediate neighborhood; a few women with aprons thrown over their heads congregating in groups around the pump, or before the door of the bakery; a crowd of dirty children, stopping their play for a moment, and speaking lower;—then the tide of noisy, fighting, swearing life went on.
One was gone out from it. Whither? None knew, few cared; and there were such crowds and crowds left, how could he be missed?
One missed him,—an abused, insulted, downtrodden woman. One whom, years before, he had promised to love and cherish until death parted them, and had broken the vows almost as soon as taken, and never renewed them again. Yet that woman wept bitter tears over his absence; watched for him, listened nightly for his staggering footsteps; rose up from her heap of straw in the corner in the middle of the night, and set wide open the cellar door, and listened to the angry voices floating down to her from some drunken brawl further up the street, if, perchance, she might hear his; listened, and held her breath, and quivered all over with hope and fear: then crept back to her miserable bed, covered her head with the ragged quilt, and cried herself into a few hours of forgetfulness.
“She is crying herself to death about him!” Mart said. There was surprise mingled with awe in her voice.
She told it to Dirk, and the two stood thoughtfully for a moment looking out at the one window. They carefully avoided looking at each other. They did not understand. To them there was simply relief in the father's absence. They had no trace of love for him in their hearts. The word “father” meant nothing to them but misery. Still there was that in them which respected the mother's grief; they tried to shield her. Dirk, of his own thoughtfulness, brought home a bit of tea in a paper, and bought half a pint of milk at the corner bakery; and Mart took lessons of Sallie, and made a delicate slice of toast, and borrowed Sallie's one cup and saucer to serve the tea in. She was disappointed that the mother cried, and could hardly drink the tea. She was even almost vexed that the mother said with tears that “poor Jock always did like tea so much, and she had always thought that maybe if he could have had it hot and strong he would not have taken to the drink.”
Mart had no faith in this, no belief that anything in her father's past life could have kept him from the drink; but she held herself silent, and let the tears have their way. All the time she had in her heart one great solemn regret. There was one who would have helped her father; would and could have saved him, even from rum. What if she, his daughter, had known the Lord Jesus, and could have taken the miserable father to Him and had him transformed! Mart had no doubt about His power to do it. An unanswerable argument had been given her. No infidel need try to assail her now.
But the father! Why had everybody kept silence, and let him sink away?
Awful!
Why had not she known Christ? Why had she not listened to Sallie but a week before? Why had not Dirk learned the way and saved his father? An awful problem! Mart's life must henceforth be shadowed by it.
Meantime what was Mrs. Roberts to do for this new-born soul? How was she to help her, and, through her, to help her brother?
She, in her elegant home, sat down to study this problem.
Life at East Fifty-fifth Street was so far removed from life in the alley that she knew nothing about the missing father. Days passed, and, busy with many claims of society, she had made no movement toward helping the girl, and knew as yet no way to do it; yet she carried her on her heart. Monday evening came and went, and still she had been detained from any effort.
One afternoon her thoughts shaped themselves into action. She would go and see Mart. She would get Dirk to protect her in her journey down the alley; also, in accomplishing this, she would accomplish another thing. She would call on Dirk at his place of business. The chief of the office was a Christian man; yet she had reason to believe that he knew less about Dirk, and cared much less for him, than he did for his little dog, who sat in the window and barked at passers-by.
She had no difficulty in securing attention. Ladies were not often admitted, but a card bearing the name “Mrs. Evan Roberts” was sufficient passport among any of the business men of the city.
Mr. Stone was more than ready, he was eager to serve her. What could he do for the elegantly-dressed lady whose carriage waited at the door, while she came in person among the bales and boxes? Her business must be urgent.
It was. Could she speak with Mr. Colson just for a moment? She would not detain him long; but she wished to make an appointment with him for the next day.
“Mr. Colson!” The chief and his perplexed assistant looked at each other thoughtfully, and shook their heads. There was no such person connected with their establishment. She must have the wrong number.
No; she was positive.
“He told me only three days ago that he was in your employ. He is on the third floor, I believe.”
The gentlemen looked at each other again.
“Colson!” repeated Mr. Stone. “There is certainly a mistake. Briggs is in charge on the third floor front, and Dickson has the back rooms. No, Mrs. Roberts, we have no such name among our men, I am positive.”
But Mrs. Roberts gently held her ground. She was sure she was not mistaken, for she had talked with him about his work and the different men. He was in Mr. Briggs' department, she felt quite sure. He was not a foreman, she explained, but quite a young man; had been there but a few weeks, and Dr. Everett was the one who had interested himself in securing the place.
Light of some sort began to dawn on the perplexed faces of the gentlemen.
“Can she mean black Dirk, do you suppose?” questioned the elder, looking hard at his associate.
Then came the sweet voice of the visitor.
“Oh, no; he is not a colored gentleman. His name is Colson,—Mr. Derrick Colson.”
“That is the one,” said the gentleman, quickly. Should he laugh or be annoyed?
It took but a moment after that to summon “Mr. Derrick Colson.” Black he was, certainly, not only by reason of his naturally dark skin, but because of the grimy work, whatever it was, which fell to his lot. His big apron was soiled with ink and oil, and daubed with bits of dark color which seemed not to be either.
He came forward with his usual shambling gait, and an additional shade of sullenness apparent on his face, but it glowed a swarthy red when he recognized the lady.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Colson,” she said, and she held forth her delicately-gloved hand.
His own went forward to meet it; then drew suddenly back.
“It is not clean enough,” he said; “there's ink or something on it.”'
But the lavender kids were not withdrawn.
“Never mind the ink; a little honest soil never hurt anybody,” and the rough, dark hand was taken in her own.
Then occurred a few moments' chat; at least the lady chatted with easy familiarity. She referred to the “Social Parlors,” to the “Monday Evenings,” to Miss Dennis' “Musicale,” to half a dozen themes about which the bewildered gentlemen within hearing knew nothing.
Could it be that the low-voiced, gentle lady was trying to give them a lesson as well as to talk with Dirk? Finally she made an appointment for the next afternoon. Would his employer be so kind as to excuse him for an hour, if convenient? Certainly, it would be convenient to please Mrs. Evan Roberts.
Dirk was very much embarrassed. He blushed and stammered, and did not know how to answer any of the kindnesses; but there were two things during the interview which gave Mrs. Roberts more pleasure than you, perhaps, are able to understand.
One was, that at sight of her he had suddenly snatched off the paper cap which he wore, and the other, that having set it again on his head as he turned from her, he glanced back from the door, and, in answer to her bow and smile, lifted the ugly little cap with an air that was an exact imitation of young Ried, and yet so well done that you would not have thought of it as an imitation.
Mrs. Roberts could have clapped her hands; but she did not. Instead she said, sweetly:—
“I am very glad that Mr. Colson is in the employ of a Christian gentleman. He is greatly in need of help from all Christian sources, and I am sure there is that in him which will respond to judicious effort.”
Then she let the bewildered man attend her to her carriage, and went her way rejoicing.
But there were plans being laid for her at that moment of which she knew nothing.
To-morrow she would go and see the golden-haired girl. In a neatly-packed basket she had certain things, among them a bonnet and a sack that she knew would fit the hair and face, and she believed would give Mart pleasure. If only she could contrive a natural way to give them to her, and there could be planned ways of keeping them safe from the pawnbroker's grasp. All this time she knew nothing of the fact that the hand which had grasped for years to furnish the pawnbroker was stilled forever. It had not once occurred to Dirk to tell her. It is a solemn fact that in this greater excitement he had actually forgotten it! As for the “Christian employer,” he did not know of it to tell. He had not so much as known whether black Dirk had a father or not. He was simply a street rough, whom Dr. Everett was trying experiments with; and because there was an unusual pressure on the office, and poor help was better than none, he was helping the experiment.
However, when Dirk went home from the office that night he remembered that the father was gone.
Mart met him at the door, a look of solemn determination on her face.
“Dirk,” she said, “she's going; as sure as you live, she's going. She's been bad all the afternoon. Sallie says that Mark's doctor will come to see her,—she knows he will, and Mark shall go for him as soon as he comes home; but I don't mean to wait for no doctor. I want her to come. She knows the way, and I want mother to be told it right, so there won't be no mistake. You go for her, Dirk, right off straight. There ain't any time to lose, for I tell you now she's going. She's been failing all along, you know, and she has just cried herself down. Dirk, will you go for her as fast as you can?”
The confusion of pronouns might have bewildered you. They did not Dirk. “Her” meant to him exactly what it did to Mart. He could not think how it could possibly mean any other person. But this was astounding news about his mother! It was one thing to have a father disappear, whom he had simply feared, until he had learned to hate; it was quite another thing to talk about the going away of the only one who had ever tried to mend his clothes, and who had sat up nights to wash them when she could.
He strode past Mart into the wretched room, and looked at the bed in the corner.
The mother was asleep, but on her face was a strange change—a something that he had never seen there before, worn and sunken as it always was. It made him understand Mart's fears.
“I'll go,” he said huskily, and rushed from the house.
“Her” carriage was just rolling down the avenue as his swift feet cleared the alley. He knew the horses. He was a little ahead of them; but it was not probable that the driver would stop for him.
“Won't you stop that carriage?” he said in breathless haste to a policeman at the corner; “I've got to speak to the lady that's in it.”
“I'll be quite likely to, no doubt!” said the policeman, in quiet irony. “What rascality are you up to now, Dirk? Can't you be decent for a few days?”
But Dirk was trying to free himself from the detaining hand, and threw up one arm in a sort of despairing gesture to the coachman. Mr. Roberts caught the signal, recognized the face, and in another moment the horses stood restlessly by the curb-stone, and Dirk, his embarrassment gone, told his brief story rapidly.
“Father went off a spell ago, and never came back; and mother, she is sickly, and it set her crying; and she's going, Mart thinks, and I guess it's so; and Mart wants you to come and show her the way. She said you knew how, and you would come.”
CHAPTER XXVIII. — “MAY SHE GO WITH ME?”
Of course she went. And, of course, now that the truth was known, much was done. Dr. Everett was summoned. The wretched bed, with its distressing rags, were turned out together, and a comfortable one took its place. Broths and teas and jellies and physical comfort of every kind were furnished, and the doctor did his best to battle with the disease that long years of want and misery had fastened upon their victim. It was all too late, of course. It was true, what Mr. Roberts sadly said, that half of the effort, expended years or even months before, might have saved the poor, tortured life; but now!
How awful those “too lates” are! Isn't it a wonder that we ever take the risk of having one ring in our ears forever? There was one thing over which some of these Christian workers shed tears of joy.
“I am too late,” said Dr. Everett, “but my Master has as much power to-day as ever. He can save her.”
And He did. The poor, tired woman, who years before had remembered an old story well enough to name her one daughter “Martha,” in memory of the one who “loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,” roused her dull heart at the mention of His name, and listened while the wonderful story was told her that He loved not only Martha and her sister, but her own poor, sinful, wrecked self; loved her enough to reach after her, and call and wait, and prepare for her a home in His glory.
Dear! Why has not some one come with the news before? Surely she would have listened during these long, sad years. Well, they made the way plain. Neither was it a difficult thing to do. The woman was weary and travel-stained and afraid, and longed for nothing so much as a place of refuge. She knew that she was a sinner; she knew that she was, and had been for many a year, powerless to help herself. Why should she not hail with joy the story of a great and willing Helper?
“Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” She opened her eyes with a gleam of eagerness to hear the words. “Weary?”' Yes, indeed! “Heavy laden?” Who more so? If the call was not for her, whom could it mean? What else? Why, what, but the glorious old story, “I will give you rest?” What wonder that she closed her eyes and smiled! What wonder that the first words after that were: “I'll come; show me how.” And He showed her how.
“Dirk,” the sister said, when the mother had gone the last and only restful journey of her life, “Dirk, she went to heaven; and I'm going. I've been wanting to tell you for more than a week, but I didn't know how. He asked me to, and I'm going. Now you must. 'Cause we never had a good time here, and she'll kind of expect it in heaven, and be looking out for you; she always looked out for you, Dirk.”
Then did Dirk lose his half-sullen self-control, and great tears rolled down his dark cheeks.
But the sister shed no tears. She had serious business to attend to. Dirk must go to heaven now without fail.
One day there was an unusual scene in the alley. It was no uncommon thing to see a coffin carried out from there, but on this day there was a hearse, and a minister in Dr. Everett's carriage, and Dirk and his sister, in neat apparel, came out together and were seated in Mr. Roberts' carriage; and all the boys of the Monday-evening Class walked arm in arm after the slow-moving carriages; and the children of the alley stopped their placing and their fighting, and the women stood silent in doorways, and took, most of them, their very first lesson in the proprieties of life.
“She's got a ride in a carriage at last, poor soul!” said one, thinking of the worn-out body in the coffin; and another said: “I wonder what poor old Jock would think of all this?”
But the scene made its impression, and left its lesson. I think the voices of some of them were lower during the rest of the day because of it.
What next? It was the question that filled Mrs. Roberts' thoughts. Something must be done for Dirk and Mart. That fearful alley was no place for human beings; certainly not for these two. But what to do with them was a question not easily answered.
Various plans were proposed. Sallie Calkins' two rooms were much better than the cellar in which the Colson family had lived; and there was a chance to rent a room next to Sallie's, with a closet opening from it for Dirk. How would it do to have them board with Sallie? The suggestion came first from Gracie Dennis, and sounded reasonable. Mrs. Roberts was almost ashamed to dislike it as much as she did. Sallie's neat rooms were home now. The father, for this length of time at least, held to his pledge; and son and daughter were radiant over him. He had gone to work, and already the two rooms were taking on an air of greater comfort because of the little things that he proudly brought home.
Sallie was doing her part wisely. The table was regularly laid now, with a white cloth and knives and forks; and two new cups and plates had been added to the dishes. Would it be wise to invade this home just at this juncture and introduce boarders? Mrs. Roberts did not believe that it would. It was not as though the father had an established character, and stood ready to shield his children; they were still acting the protective, and he had but too recently risen from the depths where Dirk and Mart had laughed and jeered at him. Besides, the rooms were located in that dreadful alley; and, do what she would, Mrs. Roberts could not feel that that dangerously-beautiful face could find a safe abiding-place in that alley. Some other way must be thought of.
Their immediate future was arranged through the intervention of a house agent; for even that dreary and desolate cellar had its agent, who was eager to secure his rent. He was unwise enough to undertake to interview Mrs. Roberts as she descended from her carriage, not long after it had followed Mart's mother to the grave.
He considered this effort of his a special stroke of business energy. He wanted to be patient with the poor, he said; there wasn't an agent in the city who waited for them oftener than he did; but business was business, and it stood to reason that he could not depend on a fellow like Dirk. It had been bad enough when the mother was there, but he couldn't think of such a thing as risking it now. What was he to understand? Did she mean to rent the room for them, and for how long? Because it was his duty to look out for the future.
What would be more natural than for Mrs. Roberts, with those two young things looking on, to say that of course she would be responsible for the rent as long as they lived in the room? Thus reasoned the house agent.
Instead of which, Mrs. Roberts turned toward Dirk, her face flushed over the hardness of a man who could stop a boy and girl on such business on their way from their mother's grave, and said:—
“If I were in your place, Mr. Colson, I should not rent these rooms at all. They are not suited to your sister's needs. I am sure you can do better.”
The agent was disgusted. “Mr. Colson,” indeed! The disreputable young scamp whom nobody trusted. He would show this silly woman a fact or two.
“Business is business” he repeated, doggedly. “Either they must take the room, and pay the rent in advance, or else they must hustle out this very night.” He had waited now three days after time for decency's sake, and more than that he couldn't and wouldn't do.
Dirk stood looking from one to the other; the red coming and going on his swarthy face. Here was responsibility! He had not thought of it before. The mother was not there to count out the hoarded rent with trembling fingers, and save the wretched home to them for another month. She would never be there again. He had nothing with which to pay rent; he had nowhere to move. Yet she had called him Mr. Colson, and seemed to expect him to act for himself and Mart.
It was she who answered the agent, but she spoke to Dirk.
“Very well; I suppose you are quite as willing to leave here to-night as at any time? If I were you, I would leave immediately. Let your sister come home with me for the night, and until you have time to make other arrangements.”
Mr. Roberts had been summoned to a bank meeting, and had sent Ried to attend his wife. He came forward now, from the carriage where he had stood waiting, and laid a hand on Dirk's arm.
“And you come home with me to-night, Colson,” he said in a cordial tone, such as he might have used with any young friend; “then we shall have a chance to talk things over and make plans.”
“That is nice,” Mrs. Roberts said, quickly, rejoicing in her heart over Ried's promptness to act. “Then you can get away from this wretched place at once. Mr. Roberts will see to the removal of your goods, whatever you need, and the agent can call on him in the morning. That will be the simplest way to settle it all. May she go with me?”
A slight, caressing movement of a gloved hand on the girl's arm accompanied this question.
Mart was silent with bewilderment. When had Dirk ever before been asked what she might do, or might not do? At first she was half inclined to scorn the suggestion. Then, suddenly, it came to her with a sense of relief and protection: she was not alone; it was Dirk's business to think of and care for her. Would he do it?
As for Dirk, no wonder that his face was deeply flushed. New thoughts were struggling in his heart. He was to decide for Mart; he was the head of the home now. Mrs. Roberts waited anxiously. She longed exceedingly to rouse in the boy, who was already grown to the stature of a man, a sense of responsibility.
A moment more, and he had shaken himself free from the spell which seemed to bind him.
“We'll do as you say.” He spoke with the air of a man who had assumed his proper place and taken up his duties. “Mart, you go along with her, and I'll see about things to-morrow.”
And Mart, for the first time in her life, received and obeyed in silence a direction from her brother.
Possibly Mrs. Roberts may have been mistaken, but she thought that much had been accomplished that day.
Yet none of them realized whereunto this thing would grow.
Mrs. Roberts, when she ushered Mart that evening into the pink room again, and showed her how to manage the hot and cold water, and which bell to ring if she needed anything, and in every imaginable way treated her as a guest, whom it was pleasant to serve, had really no plans just then—no hobby to ride—but simply acted out the dictates of her heart. You will remember that her Christian life had been always unconventional. The very fact that during her early girlhood she had been painfully trammelled by what “they” would say or think, seemed to have had its influence over her later experiences. Since she had been made free, she would be free, indeed; that is, with the liberty with which Christ makes us free. What would please Him she resolved should be the one thought to which she would give careful attention. Now, it is perhaps worthy of mention, that this closely following disciple did not once stop to determine whether it would please Him to give such tender care to this stray child of His, or whether she would be considered doing not just the thing, in His eyes, if she entertained her in the pink room.
About what He could have her do next, she gave much thought. And it was not for days, or rather weeks, that she caught the possibility of His meaning that the pink room should really be the girl's own.
It was just this way. The weeks went by, and no plan for settling Mart comfortably elsewhere met Mrs. Roberts' approval. There was constantly some excellent reason why the one mentioned would not do.
Meantime they became, she and Gracie Dennis, more and more deeply interested in Mart. In her wardrobe first. “Wherever she lives she should have respectable clothing; thus much is easily settled.” So the matron decreed, and Gracie did not gainsay it. She became absorbed in preparing it. Such fascinating work! So many things were needed, and her skin was so delicate, and her eyes so blue, and Gracie's choice of shades and textures fitted her so precisely. Then, when dressed, simple though her toilet was, her remarkable beauty shone out so conspicuously as to alarm Mrs. Roberts whenever she thought of her in shop or store.
Several times during the weeks, she visited Sallie Calkins, and looked about her with a thoughtful air, and came away feeling that it would not do. There was Mark, growing into manhood, a good boy, hard-working, respectable, proud of his good, homely sister, and of his reformed father. The two rooms were taking on every sort of homely comfort that Sallie's skill, helped by Mrs. Roberts' suggestions, could devise. It was growing into a model little home in its way, but there was not a corner in it where Mart would fit.
Then, as the days passed, a subtle, fascinating change began to come over Mart. She slipped quietly into certain household duties. She showed marvellous skill with her needle; such skill, indeed, that Gracie Dennis said more than once: “I'll tell you, Flossy, what to do with her: put her in a good establishment, and let her learn the dressmaking trade. She could make her fortune in time.” And Mrs. Roberts smiled, and assented to the statement, but not to the proposition. There was no dressmaking establishment known to her where she was willing to place so young and pretty and ignorant a girl. But she was quite willing that Mart should learn the looping of dresses, and the fitting of sacks and collars and ruffles; and take many a stitch for her, as well as for Gracie. She was willing to have her do a dozen little nameless things, the ways of doing which she had caught up; until at last the touch of her fingers began to be felt about the rooms, and Mrs. Roberts began to notice that she should miss Mart when she went away. Still, from the first time she said this, the thought came afterward with a smile of satisfaction, and it was but a week afterward that she caught herself phrasing it, that she should miss her if she went away.
What about Dirk? Young Ried could have told you more of him during these days than anybody else. He still stayed at the boarding-house. Mrs. Saunders, the mistress of it, was one whom, if you had known her, you would feel sure could interest herself heartily in such as he. There was a bit of a room next to Ried's. To be sure, it had been used for a clothes-press, and it took the busy housekeeper half a day to plan how she could get along without it; but she planned, and offered it to Ried for his protégé.
“Just for the present, you know, until he sees what he can do, poor fellow,” she said, and Ried accepted the little room joyfully, and helped fit it up.
CHAPTER XXIX. — “WHAT IF I BELONGED?”
You think things are taking very rapid strides? Well, don't you know that there come periods when they do just that thing, or appear to? Why, even the buds on the trees teach us the lesson. How many springtimes have you gone to your bed feeling that the season was late, and the trees were bare, and the fruits would all be backward, and Nature was dawdling along in a very wearisome fashion; and awakened in the morning to find that there had in the night been a gentle rain, and a movement of mysterious power among the buds and the grasses, and that now, in the morning sunshine, the world had burst into bloom? Yet, did you really suppose, after all, that the work was done in one night?
There was progress of several sorts in the class at the South End. Even a casual observer could have seen a change in the boys that first Sunday after they had attended Dirk's mother to the grave. The dignity of that hour of sorrow was still upon them. Even the very reckless and world-hardened will offer a certain degree of respect to death. On ordinary occasions, the boys might have been merry at Dirk's expense, for they saw changes in him; but the memory of his mother's coffin kept them silent, and let his changed manner have its effect.
That Sunday was full of small events to Dirk; at least they are small enough when one puts them on paper, though I admit that they looked large to him. Several people interested themselves in his welfare.
“Poor fellow!” said Mrs. Saunders, “I suppose his mother tried to do for him. Just as likely as not she had a clean shirt for him of a Sunday morning.”'
You will perceive that Mrs. Saunders, though all her life a resident of a large city, was not very well-acquainted with the abject poor. In point of fact, Dirk Colson had had no extra clothing for his mother to make clean. But Mrs. Saunders, full of the motherly thought, yet finding no trace of a shirt in the bundle of rags that Dirk had brought with him, went down one day into the depths of an old trunk, and brought to light and mended and washed and ironed a shirt that had long been laid aside.
It lay in its purity on a chair at the foot of Dirk's bed on Sabbath morning. He lay still and looked at it for a while, then arose and gave such careful attention to the soap and water as was new to him, and arrayed himself in the clean linen.
His clothes were whole and clean. Mr. Roberts had seen to it that he went respectably dressed to his mother's funeral.
A tap at his door a little later, and young Ried appeared, shoe-brush and blacking-box in hand.
“Want to borrow?” he said, in the careless tone of one who might have supposed that the blacking of his boots was an every-day matter to this boy. “I always keep my own; it is cheaper than to depend on the street boys.”
Dirk said nothing at all, but reached forth his hand, and took the offered tools, and the hint which came with them. When he went down to breakfast his boots shone, and his fresh paper collar was neatly arranged; altogether he was not the boy to whom I first introduced you. I am not sure that Policeman Duffer would have recognized him. A collar and a necktie make a great difference in some people's personal appearance. Dirk wondered a little as to where the box of paper collars came from. The necktie he had just found lying in the bottom of the box. It was the mate of the one young Ried wore, but that told nothing, for both were simple and plain, and could be bought by the dozens in any furnishing store.
It is small wonder that the boys in the class looked at him. Nimble Dick wore at first a roguish air, but a sudden memory of Dirk's face when he turned away from his mother's grave came in time. Open graves are not easy things to forget.
Dirk went to the church that day; went with young Ried by invitation, and sat in the pew behind Mr. Roberts.
By the way, the seat which he occupied was another of Mr. Roberts' peculiarities. Three seats were rented by him in a central part of the large church. One of these seats he and his wife regularly occupied. The others were almost as regularly occupied by the clerks from the store who chose to make that their church home. Six sittings to a pew. When a young man chose, Mr. Roberts was ready to enter into a business engagement with him, whereby the sitting should be considered his own; Mr. Roberts considering it to be no part of any one's concern that the sum for which he thus sub-let the sittings was not a tenth of what the first rental cost. It was in this way that Mr. Ried owned sittings in the pew just back of that occupied by Mr. Roberts; and brought with him constantly one and another young man. Today the young man was Dirk Colson.
It was all a strange world to him. He had wandered into the gallery of the Mission Chapel, and looked down from his perch on the crowd of worshippers; but this morning he was in the very centre of things, as if he were one of them. Perhaps it is not strange that the startled inquiry came to his heart: What if I belonged? Where did he belong now? He had lost his place; he must make another. What if it should be in this neighborhood, among these surroundings? Such thoughts did not take actual shape to him, so that he could have put them into words; they merely hovered in his atmosphere. Mrs. Roberts sat so that he could look at her, which thing he liked to do. It had long since been settled in his mind that he had one friend, and that one was Mrs. Roberts. He admired Gracie Dennis, too, with a different sort of admiration from that which he gave to the matron. She might be all very well; and she was a splendid reader; and he knew that he could imitate her on certain sentences, at least. And she had taught him to use the type-writer—an accomplishment which he meant to perfect himself in as soon as he had a chance. In fact, his ambition reached higher than that: one of these days he meant to make one of his own with certain improvements! Who shall say that Dirk was not growing?
On this particular day there sat beside Mrs. Roberts a lady,—a stranger. He could not see her face, but for some reason, which he did not understand, Dirk liked to look at her. She suggested something to him that seemed like a familiar dream. He thought much about her, and resolved to see if in her face she looked like any one he ever saw. As she turned at the close of the service he was looking at her steadily. Lo! it was Mart.
Now the possibility had not once suggested itself to his mind. If you think this doubtful, you merely show that you know nothing about the transforming effect of a becoming dress, no matter how simple it may be. Remember, Dirk had never but twice seen his sister in a bonnet. The first time it was Sallie's, and though the effect was sufficiently startling, yet Sallie's bonnet did not fit her face, as this creation of Gracie Dennis' fingers did. The second time the bonnet had been a hideous black one, proffered by an old woman who lived in the story above them, and whose thoughtfulness Mrs. Roberts would not mar by making any mention of the neat one which she had brought in a box that day. The black bonnet had been like a mask, hiding Mart's beauty.
The bonnet that she wore now was not of that character. It told a wonderful story to Dirk's astonished gaze. Now, indeed, the likeness was plain; without doubt, the girl whose face lighted with a curious smile at sight of him, bore a striking likeness to the woman who had smiled at him whenever she met him!
A curious effect this had on Dirk. There was that in his sister which made it possible for her to be something like the woman who had won his heart; and that sister was in his care: she had said so; he must work for her, and watch over her!
I suppose that Sabbath was really the beginning of the surface changes in Mrs. Roberts' class. Not the beginning to the teacher, but to those people who only have eyes for strongly marked things.
I know that it was but a few weeks afterward that Mrs. Roberts came home with such an unusual light in her eyes, and with her face so full of brightness, that her husband said, inquiringly:—
“What is it, Flossy?”
She turned to him, eagerly, ready to laugh.
“It is what you will understand, but a great many people wouldn't. It is so nice that you understand things! I feel just like saying, 'Thank the Lord.'”
“Do you mean to convey the idea that only a very few favored people feel like that? I don't know of a person who has not great occasion. What is your special one?”
“Evan, the last boy had his boots blacked, and a fresh paper collar on!”
Mr. Roberts threw back his head and laughed,—a genial, hearty laugh. His wife looked on, smiling. There is a great deal of character in a laugh, remember; you would have known that this was a sympathetic one.
Mr. Roberts was entirely capable of realizing what this said to his wife about the future of her boys. It was becoming certain that their self-respect was awakened.
A few days thereafter occurred another of those little things which mark some characters.
Dirk, at Mrs. Saunders' breakfast-table on Sabbath morning, heard talk that on Monday he recalled. By the way, I should have told you of one other way in which the Sabbath became a marked day to him. He slept in the little room which opened from Ried's, but his meals were picked up at a restaurant, as occasion offered,—a much nicer and surer method of living than he had ever known before. Even the commonest restaurant had great respectability to him. Yet you will remember that he had by this time taken several suppers in Mrs. Roberts' dining-room. He knew that there was a difference in things; in fact, his experience now stretched over infinite differences; but the first time he sat down to Mrs. Saunders' breakfast-table, on a Sabbath morning, he discovered another grade: this by no means belonged to the restaurant class? The Sunday breakfasts and dinners were some of Mrs. Saunders' quiet ways of helping along the work of the Christian world. Many a young man appeared at her table as the guest of Ried or of Dr. Everett, or of some other of the boarders, who was unaware that he owed the pleasant experience to the landlady.
Well, Dirk at the Sabbath-table heard talk of one General Burton, famous as a soldier, a scholar, and an orator. General Burton was in the city, the guest of a prominent man; he was to speak on the following evening in one of the great halls, and much eager talk was had concerning him; great desire was expressed to hear him, to get a glimpse of him. Dirk listened in silence, but had his own thoughts about what it must be to have people talking about one, wanting to get a glimpse of one, and next, what it must be to be intimate with such people. Did Mrs. Roberts know the great man? he wondered. And then Dirk smiled as he thought how queer it was that he should know Mrs. Roberts; that he might, in fact, be called intimately acquainted with her!
Remembering this reverie of his, you will better understand how he felt on Monday morning, as he made his way in haste down a quiet part of one of the up-town streets, intent on an errand that required promptness, to hear his name called by Mrs. Roberts.
“Good morning!” she said. “Are you in too great haste to recognize your friends? I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. General Burton, Mr. Colson. General, this is one of my young men, of whom I told you.”
Whereupon the famous general, hero of many battles, held out his honored hand, and took Dirk's in a cordial grasp. I don't suppose I could explain to you what an effect this action had on a boy like Dirk.
There is this comfort: you may be a student of human nature, and therefore may understand it all without explanation.
This is only one of many so-called trifles which occurred during the weeks, to make their indelible impress on the characters of the boys.
Of course, the Monday Evenings prospered. Reading-lessons and writing-lessons, and, as time passed, lessons of all sorts made good progress.
Neatly-blackened boots, carefully-arranged hair, and fresh collars became the rule instead of the exception.
Other avenues for improvement opened. It became noised abroad in Christian circles that great transformations were being worked among a certain set of hard young fellows who had hitherto been best known to the police. Mr. Roberts was interviewed by one and another, and one outgrowth of the talks was that tickets for a course of expensive and valuable and attractive lectures on popular subjects were placed in large numbers in Mr. Roberts' hands for him to use at discretion. Moreover, seats were rented in the church towards which most of the boys gravitated—the one connected with their Mission; seats re-rented after Mr. Roberts' plan, so that as often as there appeared a young man who cared to have a spot in the church which belonged to him, it could be had for a very small sum; in fact, as pews rented in that church, a ridiculously small sum.
These are only hints of the channels which time and patience and thought opened for these young men, on whom, but a short time before, Satan believed himself to have so firm a grip.
One feature of the “Monday Evenings” had, in the course of time, to be changed. The young teacher of elocution went home.
“I want to go,” she said at last, in answer to her hostess' pleading. “I think it quite likely that papa would let me stay and attend school here; but I am in haste to get home. You need not look sober, Flossy. I have had a happier time than I have ever had in my life before; and I have found here a sort of happiness that will last. It almost breaks my heart to think of leaving those boys,—especially my dear Dick Bolton; but really, I need to go home and undo certain things that I left badly done. You don't half know me, Flossy Shipley. When I came here I was a regular goose. If you had known what a simpleton I was, and how hateful I had been about some things at home, you would never have invited me.
“Among other things that were hateful about me, I was a real horror to my mother. I thought I had reason to distrust and dislike her; when the truth is that I have cause to go down on my knees and thank her for keeping me from some things. I'm in a real hurry to get home, and show that young mother of mine what a perfectly angelic daughter I can be.”
And Mrs. Roberts smiled and kept her own counsel; and this was all that she was supposed to know about her young guest. She never knew the whole story about Professor Ellis; though there was a girl, Hester Mason by name, in Dr. Everett's Sabbath-school, who could have told her a good deal about him, and about Gracie Dennis' helping to break the net that Satan had woven for her unwary feet. The fact is, there is a great deal concerning all these people—Hester Mason and Dr. Everett and Joy Saunders and Joy Saunders' mother—which I should have liked to tell you if I could have found room. You may read of them any time, however, if you choose, in a book called “An Endless Chain.” Of course, the story of their lives does not end even there, because the chain is, as I said, endless; but there are many of the links presented to view.
So Grace Dennis went home. And neither then, nor afterward, did Mrs. Roberts hear in detail the story of Professor Ellis. What matter? She had, however, a short added chapter. It came in a letter from Mrs. Marion Dennis not long after Gracie's return. It read thus.—
Oh, Flossy Shipley Roberts! blessed little scheming saint that you are! What did you do? How did you do it! Ah! I know more about it than those sentences would indicate. The dear Lord did it, working through you, His servant. He has called our Gracie to higher ground, filled her heart with that which has made insignificant things take their true place, and wrong things show for what they are.
You know, of course, that it is all right about Professor Ellis;—or no! I fear it is all wrong about him, but right with our Gracie. I hear that he has permanently located in your city. Perhaps your Christian charity can reach him. He sent Gracie a letter, trying to explain certain affairs about that Mason girl, with which I presume you are familiar. She showed me the letter and her answer. He will not write her another!
“I don't know any Mason girl,” said Mrs. Roberts to her husband, “but it doesn't matter. I don't want to know the story if there is nothing to be done through it. There are stories enough that one must know.”