Ester Ried Yet Speaking Part 31

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 embarra.s.sment 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 hea.r.s.e, 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 Cla.s.s 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 n.o.body 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 h.o.a.rded 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.