Hope and Have Part 14

"I will come and see you again, if I can."

"How happy it would make me!"

"Perhaps I will come again to-day."

"I'm afraid if you don't, I shall never see you in this world again."

"I will come to-day."

"Good by," added Jenny, languidly, as f.a.n.n.y followed Mrs. Kent out of the room.

"Isn't there anything I can bring to her?" asked f.a.n.n.y, when they had pa.s.sed into the other room.

"I don't know. Poor child! she knows how little I can do for her, and she never says she wants anything. She is very fond of flowers, and Eddy used to bring her dandelion blossoms, but these are all gone now."

"I will bring her some flowers," replied f.a.n.n.y, who could not help wis.h.i.+ng for some of the beautiful flowers which grew in such profusion at Woodville.

But to her Woodville now seemed as far off as the heaven of which she had been singing to the dying girl; but she thought she could obtain some flowers in the city; and she felt as though she would give all the rest of her ill-gotten treasure for a single bouquet.

f.a.n.n.y begged Mrs. Kent to tell her if there was anything she could do for the sick daughter, or for the family; and the poor woman confessed that she had nothing in the house to eat except half a loaf of bread, which was to be their dinner. Lest her visitor should think her dest.i.tution was caused by her own fault, she related the story of hards.h.i.+ps she had undergone since her husband departed with his regiment.

Mr. Kent was a mechanic, and having been thrown out of employment by the dull times at the commencement of the war, he had enlisted in one of the regiments that departed earliest for the scene of hostilities.

He had left his family with only a small sum of money, and had promised to send all his pay to his wife, as soon as it was received. Mr. Kent's regiment had been engaged in the disastrous battle of Bull Run, since which he had not been heard from. It was known that he had been taken prisoner, but when exchanges were made he did not appear. His wife was unwilling to believe that he was dead, and still hoped for tidings of him.

Jenny was sick when her father departed, but it was not supposed to be a dangerous illness; perhaps it would not have been if she had been supplied with the comforts of life. The family had been driven from the more comfortable abode, in which Mr. Kent had left them, to Mr.

O'Shane's miserable hovel. The poor woman had gone out to work until Jenny's condition demanded her constant attention. She had then obtained what sewing she could; but with all her exertions she was hardly able to obtain food for her family, to say nothing of procuring clothes, and paying the rent.

Mrs. Kent lived by herself, having little or no communication with the world around her. She had heard of the provision for soldiers'

families, and had made an effort to obtain this aid; but she was unable to prove that she was a soldier's wife, and being delicate and sensitive, she had not the courage to face the rebuffs of the officials a second time.

f.a.n.n.y listened to this story with but little interest. She was thinking of Jenny, whose sweet smile of holy rapture still lingered in her mind.

Promising to do something for the family, she took leave of Mrs. Kent, who had no words to express the grat.i.tude she felt towards her benefactor. f.a.n.n.y went to the nearest store, and purchased a liberal supply of provisions and groceries, which she sent back to the house.

She felt better then, and walked down the street till she came to a horse car, in which she rode down to the Park.

CHAPTER IX.

HOPE AND HAVE.

f.a.n.n.y got out of the horse car at the Park. She was in the midst of the great city, but she felt no interest in the moving, driving scene around her, for the thought of poor Jenny still engrossed her. She had even forgotten Mr. Long, and the dreaded policemen who might be on the watch for her. This was the good time for which she had stolen the money and run away from her happy home at Woodville. It was a mockery, and she even wished she had been caught before she left Pennville.

It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, though hours enough seemed to have elapsed since she left Woodville to make a week. She had eaten nothing but an ice-cream since breakfast, and she was faint from the excitement and the exertion of the day. She found a saloon for ladies, and entered; but the nice things of which she had dreamed in the morning no longer existed for her. She ate a simple dinner, and walked down Broadway till she came to the Museum, which she had regarded as an important element in the enjoyment of her week in the city.

She paid the admission fee, and went in. She wandered from room to room among the curiosities, hardly caring for anything she saw, till she came to the exhibition-room, where plays were acted. She had never seen a play performed, and she had looked forward with brilliant antic.i.p.ations to the pleasure of seeing one. She was disappointed, for it had not entered into her calculation that a clean conscience is necessary for the full enjoyment of anything. The actors and the actresses strutted their brief hour before her; but to her the play was incomprehensible and silly. It had no meaning, and even the funny things which the low comedian said and did could not make her laugh.

Before the performance was half finished, she had enough of it, and left the place in disgust.

Jenny Kent was rapturously happy, dying in a hovel, in the midst of poverty and want, while she was miserable with health and strength, with plenty to eat, drink, and wear. f.a.n.n.y tried to shake off the strange depression which had so suddenly come over her. She had never been troubled with any such thoughts and feelings before. If she had occasionally been sorry for her wrong acts, it was only a momentary twinge, which hardly damped her spirits. She was weighed down to the earth, and she could not rid herself of the burden that oppressed her.

She wanted to go into some dark corner and cry. She felt that it would do her good to weep, and to suffer even more than she had yet been called upon to endure.

"I'll bear your name to heaven with me," had been the words of the dying girl to f.a.n.n.y; but what a reproach her name would be to the pure and good of the happy land! In some manner, not evident to our human sight, or understood by our human minds, the words of Jenny had given the wayward girl a full view of herself--had turned her thoughts in upon the barrenness of her own heart. Her wrong acts, so trivial to her before, were now magnified into mountains, and the crime she had committed that morning was so monstrous and abominable that she abhorred herself for it.

In spite of the reproaches which every loving word of the dying girl hurled into the conscience of f.a.n.n.y, there was a strange and unaccountable fascination in the languid look of the sweet sufferer.

Wherever she turned, Jenny seemed to be looking at her with a glance full of heaven, while the black waters of her own soul rose up to choke her.

f.a.n.n.y struggled to get rid of these strange thoughts, but she could not; and she was compelled to give herself wholly up to them.

Something, she knew not what, drew her irresistibly towards the dying girl, and she started up Broadway to find the flowers she had promised to carry to her. In a shop window she saw what she wanted. The flowers were of the rarest and most costly kinds; but nothing was too good for Jenny, and she paid four dollars for a bouquet. In another store she purchased some jelly and other delicacies such as she had seen the ladies at Woodville send to sick people. Thus prepared to meet the dying girl, she took a horse car, and by six o'clock reached the humble abode of Mrs. Kent.

"How is Jenny?" asked she, as she entered the house, without the ceremony of knocking.

"She don't seem so well this afternoon," replied Mrs. Kent.

"Does she have a doctor?"

"Not now; we had one a while ago, but he said he could do nothing for her."

"Don't you think we had better have one?"

"He might do something to make her easy, but Jenny don't complain. She never speaks of her pains."

"I have come to stay all night with Jenny, if you are willing I should," continued f.a.n.n.y, doubtfully.

"You are very kind."

"I will only sit by her; I won't talk to her."

"I should be very glad to have you stay; and Jenny thinks ever so much of you."

"If you please, I will go after a doctor."

Mrs. Kent consented, and f.a.n.n.y, after sending in her bouquet, went for a physician whose name she had seen on a fine house near Central Park, judging from the style in which he lived that he must be a great man.

She found him at home, and he consented to return with her to Mrs.

Kent's house. He examined Jenny very carefully, and prescribed some medicine which might make her more comfortable. He did not pretend that he could do anything more for her, and he told f.a.n.n.y that the sufferer could not live many days, and might pa.s.s away in a few hours. f.a.n.n.y offered him his fee; he blushed, and peremptorily refused it.

Physicians who live in fine houses are often kinder to the poor than the charlatans who prey upon the lowest strata of society.

f.a.n.n.y procured the medicine which the kind-hearted doctor had prescribed, and administered it with her own hands. Jenny gave her such a sweet smile of grateful encouragement, that she was sorry there was nothing else to be done for her.

"Now sit down, f.a.n.n.y, and let me take your hand. I feel better to-night than I have felt for a long time."

"I am glad you do," replied f.a.n.n.y.

"You have made me so happy!"

"I wish I was as good as you are, Jenny," said f.a.n.n.y, struggling with the emotions which surged through her soul.

"You are better than I am."