Papa's own girl: A novel

Events which could not be foreseen, were destined to work great changes in the circumstances of several of our characters. One of these—the death of good Mrs. Buzzell—we will pass over quickly, for it is not specially profitable to linger over such scenes of bereavement as the loss of a dear and true friend.

The rich Buzzells in Oakdale had never recognized her existence except in a purely conventional way, and as they were only relatives of her husband, she felt perfectly justified in disposing of her property as she saw fit. She gave all her real estate in trust with “the firm of Dykes, Delano & Company, florists, for Minnie, daughter of Dan Forest and Susie Dykes.” “It is the best thing I can do for her,” she said, a day or two before she died, while caressing the child, who stood by the arm of “auntie’s” big chair. “It will make her independent, in a modest way; so if she chooses to enjoy the luxury of living an old maid, she can do so.”

“I sha’n’t be a ole maid,” said the young lady, replying to the first intelligible words of Mrs. Buzzell.

“I suppose not, dear. You’ll give some man the chance to break your heart. I only say you can if you wish,” said Mrs. Buzzell. Her furniture and personal property she gave to Susie, and to the firm, a present of one thousand dollars; and so, having set her “house in order,” as she said, leaving a kind message for Mrs. Forest, who had so long neglected her, and holding the hand of her well-beloved Dr. Forest, she dropped into her rest, apparently without a shadow of pain.

Some two months after this event, Dr. Forest was roused from his warm bed by a policeman, requesting him to go quickly to the station-house to see if he could revive an unfortunate, who had just been dragged from the icy river.

“Don’t wait for me,” said the doctor, coming to the head of the stairs in his night-gown. “Go back, and have her stripped and put into warm blankets. Lay her on her stomach and rub her till I come.”

The doctor found the rough functionaries at the police-station working over the patient as he had directed, their sympathies being more active from the fact that she was young, and evidently pretty; though not much beauty could be recognized in the deathly pallor, the half-closed eyelids, and the drenched and matted hair that clung to her face and neck. The men pronounced her dead. “I hope not,” said the doctor, hastily relieving himself of his overcoat and coming forward. “I think we may revive her,” he said, after pinching her flesh and watching intently for signs of circulation. He gave his orders quickly, and then commenced the slow and difficult process of discharging the water from the lungs and inflating them. To the squeamish, and to the unscientific, the operations of the doctor with this ghastly, limp subject, would have seemed unsightly; but no careful observer could have failed to admire Dr. Forest, seeing him thus professionally absorbed. He was excited, as you could see by the intense expression of his whole face, but commanding every muscle perfectly, never hesitating, never making a false or awkward motion, he continued his work for about forty minutes, though it would have seemed much longer to a mere spectator. One of these, the officer in charge, seeing no sign of life and becoming impatient with so much apparently useless effort, said in a low tone, “Oh, what is the use, doctor? Anybody can see she is dead.”

“My dear sir,” said the doctor, without looking up, “your opinion don’t amount to much in this instance. See! the color is coming; we have saved her!” None but the quick, well-trained eye of the doctor could see any change yet, however; but in a few minutes it was apparent to all. One of the men recognized the young girl as one he had seen at “old mother Torbit’s,” who was well known as the keeper of a disreputable house. “Poor little woman!” said the officer. “It’s questionable whether we’ve done her a favor. I think any very unhappy wretch has a right to seek a short cut out of his misery.”

“Suppose the short cut don’t get you out of the misery,” said another policeman, who was placing fresh bottles of hot water at the patient’s feet.

“The world has a right to our lives,” said the doctor. “We have scarcely a moral right to destroy ourselves, and certainly not while we are free from hideous and certainly mortal diseases.”

There was little to be done after respiration had been restored to the patient. In a few minutes she opened her eyes and drew the blankets higher over her breast. One of the officers was struck by this movement, and called the doctor’s attention to it, saying, “She has some modesty left. She can’t be wholly lost.”

“Of course not, or she would not have attempted suicide,” said the doctor; “but shame at exposing the person is no evidence of purity in itself. It is a higher sense of purity that keeps men and women from courses that degrade the moral nature.” After a while the doctor asked if there were no better beds in the station than the one on which the girl lay—a miserable old mattress, stretched on a rickety iron bedstead. Being informed that there were not, except in the rooms of the officers, the doctor made up his mind suddenly, and sent one of the men for a hack. As he was wrapping another blanket around the girl, preparatory to her removal, she looked around wildly, and exclaimed, “Oh, why did you take me from the river?”

“My dear,” said the doctor, kindly, “I’m going to take you where you will find sympathy and love, if you are only a sensible girl.”

“Oh, I was dead. I know I was dead, and it was all over;” and she sobbed and moaned in a low tone that touched the tender heart of the doctor. He said: “Well, my dear child, just consider yourself resurrected into a new life. Shut the past all out. You have a good face, and a nice round head. I shall expect great things of you;” and he smoothed back her wet hair, in a gentle, fatherly fashion, that made her sobs break out anew.

Of course the doctor drove to the home of Clara and Susie. Where else could he take a poor, abandoned woman for womanly sympathy and help? Hearing the carriage drive up to the gate, and then the loud ring at the door, Clara was alarmed. Throwing on her dressing-gown and putting her bare feet in slippers, she ran down before the servant was out of bed. Her first thought was that something had happened to her father. She was quickly reassured when she opened the door. He had already dismissed the hackman, and stood on the porch with his burden in his arms.

“Papa, dear! What is it? But come in quickly, out of the cold. I was afraid something had happened to you.” The doctor laid the partially unconscious girl down, as he said, “It is a poor girl, dragged from the river to-night. The police-station is such a beastly place I couldn’t leave her there.”

“We must get her into bed at once,” said Clara, opening the blankets timidly to see the face. What bed? she was thinking. The one guest-room was too immaculate for such uses—“too cold, too,” she said aloud. “I think we must carry her to my bed. Is she—nice, papa?”

“She must, at least, be well washed outside,” said the doctor, with grim humor, amused at the feminine scruple of his daughter.

“Well, papa, we’ll put her right into my warm bed. Won’t that be best?”

“Yes, dear. The warmth is what she needs, and your bed must be warmed by a magnetism that should be good for a Magdalen.” Here the new servant, Ellen, came in. Mary, Mrs. Buzzell’s old servant, had taken a vacation, and was visiting her friends in a distant State. Ellen stared at the muffled figure, but her amazement was intense when, in Clara’s room, the partial removal of the blankets revealed a perfectly limp, nude form.

“Mother of God, doctor! Where are the craythur’s clothes?” Clara soon produced a bed-gown, and wrapping her in this, placed her in bed and revived her with stimulants. At this juncture Susie entered, and dismissed Ellen. Then followed an amiable dispute between Susie and Clara, as to which should watch with the patient.

“Well, my girls,” the doctor said, holding an arm about each and kissing their foreheads alternately, “I will go home and get some sleep. You will take good care of this poor child, and make her forgive us for bringing her back to life. She came to, once, at the station, and reproached us for taking her from the river. Keep giving her this wine, a teaspoonful at a time, and by-and-by something more nourishing. I’ll come over after breakfast. I’m afraid she may have a fever, and give you a great deal of trouble; but I couldn’t—well, I couldn’t do anything but bring her here.”

“You did perfectly right, papa, as you always do. Of course, this will prove another blessing in disguise. Do you think she is conscious now?”

“Yes; she hears all we say, in a dreamy kind of way, I think.”

The two women sat by the patient until daylight. She had opened her eyes many times, looking around as if wondering whether she was awake or dreaming. At last, she looked at Susie earnestly for a long time, and then began to cry. Susie comforted her in the kindest way, telling her she was among friends, where she would find plenty to do, and need never go back to her old life. Later in the morning she woke much refreshed, after a long sleep. At first she thought she was alone; but hearing a soft, low singing, she rose up in bed and saw a golden-haired angel, as she almost believed, sitting on the carpet, turning over the leaves of a picture-book. Seeing the stranger awake, the child climbed upon the foot of the bed, folded her hands demurely, and looked into the new face.

“What is your name, little girl?”

“My name is Minnie, and I am my doctor’s pet.”

“Who is your doctor?”

“My doctor! Don’t you know? Why, he brought you here in his arms last night. Mamma said so. Don’t you want to go down and see our conservatory?” Min asked, after a pause, anxious to be quite hospitable.

“I fear I am too weak, you sweet little pet, but I should like some water very much.”

“Well, my dear, I will bring you some,” said the little lady, patronizingly, sliding down from the bed. Susie came back with Minnie, bringing some wine gruel; and as she gave it, she asked the girl’s name. “My name is Annie Gilder. I will tell you all about myself. I am not so bad as you think I am. I will tell you all. Shall I?”

“Yes, if you like,” answered Susie; “as much as you like, or nothing. I do not think you are bad. I am sure you love truth and honesty better than falsehood and dishonor. Your face shows me that. This evening, if you like, we will come and sit by you.” Annie expressed her gratitude in a simple, touching way, said she was much better, and would soon be able to work and be of some use in return for all the kindness she had received. She expressed the greatest admiration for Minnie. She had never in her life, she said, seen so lovely a child. “She will not tell me her name,” continued Annie, “but she says she is her doctor’s pet.”

“She will be called Minnie Forest,” said Susie. “You may as well know now as at any time, that her father is the doctor’s only son, and that I was never married to him. You see I also have had my troubles, but I have lived through them.”

“Oh, how you must have suffered!” exclaimed Annie. “I was not so brave as you, was I? But oh! I felt that I must die, and be where I could forget my awful suffering.”

“Don’t think of them any more,” said Susie, with feeling. “You can live with us, and work with us in our flower business. Who knows what happiness may be in store for you?”

In the evening the doctor called, having been unable in the morning to do more than call at the door, when Clara told him that the patient was doing well. At the sight of him, Annie seized his hand and kissed it with tears. “I am glad already that you saved me,” she said; “and oh! I feel that I am among blessed angels. I never met such dear, noble women before. I wonder if there are any others in the whole world like them. To-night I am going to tell them my history. Will you stay and hear it? I should like to have you.” The doctor stayed, and that evening the three friends heard a most pitiful story, which was very nearly as follows:

“I was born in ——, about twenty miles from here. My father is a farmer, and a deacon in the church. I am the oldest of six children. All my early years were very sad. I had to work hard all the time, and went to school only in winter, for I had to take care of the younger children. I loved to go to school, but it was hard to keep up with my class, because I had to stay home Mondays and Tuesdays to help about the washing and ironing, and often other days also. I don’t know how I ever learned anything, for my father would never let me have a lamp in my room when I wished to study my lessons. It was very cruel in him, for I loved to read and study, and during the day I never had a moment. He used to whip me when I disobeyed him about borrowing books and papers to read. A girl who lived near, used to lend me her Waverly Magazines. That was six years ago, when I was ten years old. One day my mother told him; and he came to my room in an awful rage, and burned them all, though I cried and begged him on my knees to spare them, because they were not mine. It was no use, and my friend was much distressed, for she used to keep them all. I cried over it for days, and my mother was very angry with what she called my silliness. She thought I ought to be a very happy girl, but I was not. I could not be happy. Everything I wished to do was discouraged in every way. They thought me wicked because I was dissatisfied with the poor, cheap clothes my father allowed me; and I was dissatisfied, for my father was not poor. He always had money in the bank. I was never allowed a single pretty dress, like other girls, nor to go to any of their parties. My father called them all kissing parties, and both he and mother said they were ashamed of me because I wished to go. Mother cared for nothing but work, and I could not take the same pleasure in scrubbing and cooking that she did, though I did it all the time, and would have willingly, if I could have been allowed to read or to have any pleasures.

“In our school there was one scholar named George Storrs—the brightest and handsomest of all. I think I always loved him since I was a very little girl; but he never noticed me much until one year ago last August, when one day, on my way to the village, he joined me, and we walked together. The road lay through a beautiful wood, where there was a pond close by the road, full of water-lilies. We stopped, and George took off his shoes and waded in to get me some. Just as he came out with them, I saw my father coming from the village, and only a little distance from us. I screamed with fright, and flew into the bushes. George followed me, and I told him my fears. He told me my father should not hurt me, and I clung to him in an agony of dread. My father passed as though he had not seen me; but oh, how I dreaded to go home that day. I feared he would actually kill me in his anger. The state I was in, and George’s kindness, made me tell him of my life at home. He pitied me, and spoke tender words to me—the first I had ever heard. You cannot wonder that I clung to his words, and loved him with all my heart. I told him so. I could not help it. He said I was a good girl, and he had always loved me, and some time he would help me to get away from home. In a month he was to come to this place and work in the Oakdale Republican office as compositor. Three times after that I met him in the same place, for my fears had been groundless—my father had not seen me. George promised to write me, and he kept his word, and during a whole year I was happy, in spite of everything. Of course, I had to have him write me under a false name, and I had much trouble to get my letters. There was no one I could trust, and a hundred questions were asked whenever I wished to go to the village. I knew that my love for George was the highest and noblest thing in my soul, and yet I had to conceal it like a crime. Oh, it was so hard! My mother loves her children, I know. She works hard for them; but when she gives them food enough, keeps their clothes decent, and prays for them every day, she feels that she has done all. I do not blame her in the least; but oh! I should have worshipped her, if she had made me trust her like a friend. She never told me of myself—of the changes that happen to girls at a certain age; and when I passed that period I was horrified. I wondered if it were not some dreadful divine punishment sent to me because I did my hair prettily, and tried to manage, with my scanty materials, to make my dress more becoming. For this I was considered bad and perverse by my father. You may wonder at what I am telling you, but it is the solemn truth. In my distress I went to Laura Eliot, a girl much older than myself, who had for three years loaned me books whenever I went to the village. I had never been intimate with her, for she had considered me a mere child, I suppose, and loaned me the books because she was interested in my passion for them. She told me very kindly many things I ought to have learned from my mother, and after that, treated me more like a friend. She lived alone with her father, who was a drunkard, but a man of education, and she had been talked about. I think it was all false. My father never found out about the books she loaned me, but when he learned that I had called on Laura he was angry, and threatened to cowhide me if I ever set foot in her house again; but I did not obey him. I had made a large pocket that I used to tie on under my dress so I could secrete the books. I read in this way a great many works of Scott, Goldsmith, the poems of Shelley, Burns and Tennyson, and ever so many novels. Laura gave me a little tin oil lamp, which I kept supplied with oil out of money that I kept back cent by cent when I sold butter or eggs for my mother. It was wrong, I know, but mother used to cheat father in the same way. He never allowed her to sell butter or cheese for herself, but it was the only way she could get any money. I kept her secret, of course, for there was no sympathy between me and my father.

“One day, only two weeks ago, I went to the village against my mother’s wish. I had urged her to let me go for a month in vain, and I could not resist, for I knew there must be a letter from George. To my great disappointment, there was only one, and it had been lying there over three weeks. That night, after I went to bed, while I was reading George’s old letters to make up my loss—they were all the joy I had—” Here poor Annie broke down and cried bitterly. “Poor girl!” said Clara, soothing her. “I am ashamed, papa, that I have ever been unhappy myself, when there is so much misery in the world. Did you ever hear such inhumanity, papa?”

“Yes,” he said, “I have heard many similar confessions in my life. For cruelty, bigotry, tyranny to wives and children, commend me to your ignorant, skinflint New England farmer.” Clara told Annie she was exhausted, and had better rest. Susie had been crying half the time.

“Oh, let me finish, I beg you. There is little more to tell.”

“While I was reading my letters, my father, armed with his cowhide, came in. I suppose he had seen my light shining through my window, though I always curtained it carefully; and no doubt mother had told him of my going to the village. He seized my letters, and read enough to know they were from a lover. He commanded me to tell him who wrote them, but I was angry at the idea of his coming to whip me like a child, when I was almost sixteen years old. At my refusal, he dragged me from my bed in my chemise and whipped me cruelly. It is two weeks ago, and you can see the marks on me yet. My little sister, who slept with me, woke and screamed, ‘Don’t kill Annie! Father, father, don’t kill Annie!’ At which he laid the whip over her and forced her into silence. I was so outraged that I boldly told him I wished he were burning in the hell he always told me I should go to. I told him to kill me—that it was all I asked of such an inhuman father. This only made him more angry and his blows the harder. Finding I would not tell him who wrote my letters, he left me, commending me to the mercy of God. I told him I despised the God that could be pleased with such as he. He said it was his duty to punish me until he ‘broke my will,’ and that the next morning he should come again.

“When the house was silent—I suppose two hours or so after he left—I rose, and taking some matches, for he had carried my lamp away, I groped my way down into the parlor, where my mother kept her purse hidden in a chest of drawers. I stole two dollars, half of all poor mother had secreted from my father.”

For some time Annie could not go on. The doctor felt her pulse, and giving her some wine, allowed her to finish.

“I then went back, packed up some things in a paper bundle, and waited until I thought it must be near dawn; and then I kissed my little sister and stole out of the house. I walked five miles to the next town, where the stage to this place passes through. The stage fare was just two dollars, and that was all I had. At noon the stage stopped at a hotel, and all the passengers, except a woman and her child, got out. She asked me some questions, and gave me some bread and meat from her basket. When I got here, and found the printing-office, George was gone, and there was no one but a boy, who was washing the ink from his hands at a sink. He could not tell me where George lived, and I was ashamed to go anywhere to inquire for him. I was ashamed of my bundle, of my clothes, of everything, and I was ready to sink with my misery. I knew not what to do; but I could not stand in the street; so I walked away from the village, crying bitterly under my old green vail all the time. I went into a grove, which I have found since was Mr. Kendrick’s, and sat down in a little summer-house and cried. I stayed there all night, and slept a good deal, for it was not a very cold night; but in the morning I felt cold and faint. Then I reflected that I could not tell George I had stayed all night in the woods, like a vagabond, and the stage, by which only I could have come, did not arrive except at night; so I wandered to and from this grove all day. Oh, the long, wretched hours! You can imagine them, but I cannot describe them by words.

“I found George. He was greatly surprised to see me, but not glad, I knew. He walked across the Common with me, and I told him my story, or some of it; told him I would find work. He took me to a hotel, the cheapest, as I wished him to, and there left me to another night of misery. The next evening he called, and there was something of his old manner, in his words to me. He thought I could not get work, and that I had better go home. That was dreadful—from him too. The next day, and for over a week, I tried to get work. I asked the landlord to take me as a chamber-maid—everything failed, and as I could not pay my board, one evening, on going to my room, I found my few things at the door, and the door locked. I knew not what to do, and not caring if I died or lived, I walked out to the Common and sat down in the cold. While I was there, a well-dressed girl spoke to me kindly, and asked me why I cried. I told her in a few words, and she took me home with her, and was very kind to me. I did not know what kind of a house it was. Old Mrs. Torbit was a horrid woman, and laughed at me when I wished to work for her. I will not say what she told me, but I did not listen to her. I was there only one night and the next day. The second evening, as I was walking down the stairs, George Storrs came out of the parlor. He looked at me with horror, and then rushed out of the house. I flew to my room, and throwing on my shawl and hat, rushed out and followed him, and overtook him as he was crossing the bridge. I seized his arm in despair, but he flung me off with reproaches, because I had not gone home as he advised me. He would not believe I was innocent of bad acts in that house, and while I was talking to him even, he left me without one word. Then I knew beyond a doubt that he did not love me. He could be cold and cruel too. My suffering, my tears, could not affect him, and then I determined to go out of this terrible world. I stood there on the bridge, saying I know not what, but loud enough I thought for the whole village to hear me. O God! how I pitied myself. ‘Poor Annie! Poor Annie!’ I cried many times, and then I threw myself into the cold river. I remember the icy chill, the awful strangling, which seemed to last so long, and then a terrible ringing in my ears, and I thought I was dying without pain. * * That is all, dear good friends. The rest you know.”

The “dear good friends” then comforted her in every way they knew. Susie and Clara, with tears, kissed her tenderly, and assured her they would not fail her.

“Oh! if some good angel had sent me here to you!” said Annie. “If I had only known anybody could help poor Annie, and feel for her as you do, I should have been spared so much! See, I am worn to a skeleton, almost, and when I left home I was not thin at all. Thank God! for the friends he has sent me.”

“Dear girl,” said the doctor, with emotion, “I trust all your sorrows are over. To-morrow I shall have something to tell you.” And with this the doctor left her.