Without a Home Part 22

"Possibly. If so, she was the sooner out of her misery. At any rate we are not to blame, since, as you have said, we didn't know. Now a funeral, such as you suggest, would be very costly, and would do no one any good. It would scarcely be in good taste, for, considering the poor woman's circ.u.mstances, it would be ostentatious."

"Belle, Mr. Schriven is right," said her father, in a tone of quiet authority.

"Let us rather consider the need of the daughter," Mr. Schriven resumed. "You say she is worn and weak from watching and work. A quarter of the money that a funeral would cost would give her two or three weeks in the country. And now," he concluded impressively--his conscience needed a little soothing, and his purse was plethoric with the thousand dollars wrung from those who had the misfortune to be in his power--"I will pay her board at some quiet farmhouse for three weeks, and then she'll come back fresh and strong to her old place."

Belle's eyes filled with tears of gladness. "You are right, sir, and you are very kind and generous. I know just the place for her to go--the people we've been with all summer. They are kind, and will do everything for her, and take away her strange feeling at once. Oh, I'm so glad it's all ending so much better than I feared!

I thought this morning I could never be happy again, but you've made all seem so different and hopeful. I thank you, sir, over and over, and I'll do my best now at the store, and be respectful to every one."

The man was touched. The warm, reflected glow of the girl's heart softened for a moment his own icy organ, and his eyes grew moist momentarily. "You are a good child," he said. "Here are thirty-five dollars for your friend, for you've been a friend to her indeed.

Most girls would have let them starve for all they cared. Now send the girl off to the country, and as soon as I can I'll raise your wages to five dollars. I'd do it now, only the others would talk and say it wasn't customary to pay beginners so highly. Mr. Jocelyn, I congratulate you on the possession of such a daughter, and I sincerely hope you may soon retrieve your fortunes and regain the position to which I see that you both naturally belong," and he bowed them out with a politeness and respect that were not by any means a.s.sumed.

Belle almost danced home by her father's side, so great was the rebound of her depressed feelings. Thirty-five dollars! How much that would do for poor Clara! Millie would help her make up her mourning, and she would have nothing to pay for but the material.

She would write to Mrs. Atwood that very night, and to Roger, telling him he must be kind to Clara, and take her out to drive.

Her heart fairly bubbled over with plans and projects for the girl whose "place she had taken."

The poor child had scarcely begun her letter to Mrs. Atwood before her head drooped, and Mildred said, "Tell me what to say, Belle, and I'll write it all. You've done you part to-day, and done it well."

"That's good of you, Millie. When I get sleepy it's no use to try to do anything. I'd go to sleep if the house was on fire. But you won't write to Roger, I'm afraid."

"No. If he must be written to, you must do that."

"Well, I will to-morrow. He'll do Clara more good than all the rest."

Our story pa.s.ses hastily over the scenes that followed. A brief service was held over Mrs. Bute's remains by a city missionary, known to Mrs. Wheaton, who was present with Mrs. Jocelyn, Belle, and Mildred. Three or four neighbors from the tenement lent chairs and came in also. The girls at the ribbon counter clubbed together and sent an anchor of white flowers, and at the hour of the funeral they looked grave and were quiet in manner, thus taking part in the solemnity in the only way they could. In due time the city department upon which the duty devolved sent the "dead wagon"; the morsel of human clay was returned to its kindred dust in "Potter's Field," a public cemetery on Hart's Island, in which are interred all who die in the city and whose friends are unable to pay for a grave or a burial plot. Clara, however, had not the pain of seeing her mother placed in the repulsive red box furnished by the department, for Mr. Jocelyn sent a plain but tasteful coffin, with the woman's age and name inscribed upon it.

Mrs. Wheaton went with the girl to the grave, and then brought her to her own little nook in the old mansion, for Clara had said she had no relatives she knew anything about except a few on her father's side, and she had rather go to a station-house than to them. "Don't talk habout station 'ouses till yer can see vat I kin do for yer,"

the good woman had said in her hearty way, and she did play the good Samaritan so well, and poured the "oil and wine" of kindness into the poor creature's wounds so effectually, that she began to change for the better daily.

Mildred redeemed Belle's promise, and between them all they soon fitted Clara for her trip to the country. By the time Mrs. Atwood's reply reached Mildred, and Roger's hearty answer came back in response to Belle's characteristic note, she was ready to go. "There's a man's hand for you," cried Belle exultantly as she exhibited Roger's bold chirography. "It's a hand that can be depended upon, strong and ready."

Mildred smiled as she replied, "You're welcome to it, Belle."

"You needn't smile so placidly," she retorted, with an ominous nod.

"We are not through with Roger Atwood yet."

Perhaps quotations from two letters written by Clara to Mildred and Belle, and received a week later, will form a satisfactory ending to this chapter. Clara had been taught to read and write in the public schools of the city, and but little more. In later years she had occasionally found opportunity to attend some of the night schools established for those whose only leisure came after the busy day was over, and so had learned to use her pen with tolerable correctness. In waiting upon the educated people who frequented the shop she had caught, with the aptness of an American girl, a very fair power of expressing herself in speech. Writing a letter, however, was a formidable affair, in which she had scarcely any experience. Her missives, therefore, were very simple, and somewhat defective in outward form, but they suggested some interesting facts.

"DEAR MILLIE (ran the first): I'm very sad and hapy. The Countrys like heven. All are so kind. Even the dog dosen't grole at me, and Mr. Roger says that's queer for he groles at everybody. I feel so much better, I don't know myself. I feel like takin depe breths of air all the time and I never tasted such milk. Every gla.s.s puts life in me. If I can get work up here I'll never go back to town and stand all day again. The girls up here have a chance to live--they haven't any chance at all in a store. The strongest will brake down and then they are good for nothing. I wish Belle could do something else. I wish thousands would go in the country and do work that would make us look like Susan. Mrs. Atwood thinks she can find me a place with kind people, where I'll be treted almost like one of the family. Anyway I've had enough of standing and bad air and starving and I don't see why working in a farmhouse ain't just as ladylike as wating on folks with the floorwalker awatchin you like a slave driver. Standing all day is deth to most girls and about the hardest deth they can die. I feel as if I could live to be a hundred up here.

"Millie, dear, I read the Bible you gave me and I pray for you and Belle every night and morning and He answers. I know it. I love you very much and I've good reason. Good by. CLARA BUTE."

Her letter to Belle was more descriptive of her daily life, of the kindness she received on every hand. One brief extract from it will suffice:

"I've got well acquainted with Roger," she wrote. "He's easy to get acquainted with. Now I think of it though he says little or nothing about himself but he leads me to talk and tell about you all in a way that surprises me. If his interest was prying I'm sure I wouldn't have told him anything. I know well now it isn't. Does Millie know how he feels toward her? I saw it all last night. I was telling him about my past life and how poor and forlorn we had been and how I had told Millie all about it and then how Millie had just treted me as if I were as good as she was. As I talked he became so white I thought he'd faint. Suddenly he burst out despairingly, 'I hoped she was proud but she isn't--I could overcome pride. But what can I do when I'm just detested? There, I've made a fool of myself,' he said savagelike after a moment, and he hurried away. For the last two days he's been so quiet and looked so stern and sad that his family don't know what to make of him, but I know what's the matter, and I feel sorry for him, for he seems to me more like a man than any of the young fellows I've seen in town.

Don't tell Millie for I don't want to even seem to meddle."

But Belle had no gift of reticence, and she not only showed her sister the letter, but overwhelmed her with reproaches for her "heartless treatment of Roger." As a natural result Mildred was only more irritated and prejudiced against the young man than ever.

"You are all absurdly unreasonable," she cried. "What have I ever done to make him turn white or red, or to 'burst out despairingly,'

and all that kind of sentimental nonsense? Because he is lackadaisical and is experiencing strange, vague emotions, must I be afflicted in like manner? Must I break faith with one I do love and do violence to my own feelings, just because this farmer wants me to? You know what's the matter with him--Clara saw at a glance--and the course I'm taking is the only way to cure him. All his talk about friends.h.i.+p is transparent folly. If I took your advice it would make him only more and more infatuated; and now I haven't it on my conscience that I gave him one bit of encouragement. I'm sorry for him, of course. I shall be more sorry for his mother and sister if he is guilty of the folly of leaving home. If, instead of doing his duty by them, he comes mooning after me here, when he knows it is of no use, I shall lose my respect for him utterly." There seemed so much downright common-sense in this view of the affair that even Belle found no words in reply. Her reason took Mildred's part, but her warm little heart led her to shake her head ominously at her sister, and then sleepily she sought the rest her long, tiresome day required.

CHAPTER XX

SEVERAL QUIET FORCES AT WORK.

Precipitous ascents and descents do not const.i.tute the greater part of life's journey. In the experience of very many they occur more or less frequently, but they conduct to long intervals where the way is comparatively level, although it may be flinty, rough, and hedged with thorns. More often the upward trend or the decline of our paths is so slight as not to be noticed as we pa.s.s on, but at the end of years we can know well whether we are gaining or losing.

The Jocelyns, in common with thousands of others, had made a swift descent from a position of comparative affluence to one of real, though not repulsive, poverty. There was nothing, however, in their fall that cast a shadow upon them in the eyes of the world except as the unfortunate are always "under a cloud" to the common herd that moves together in droves only where the sunlight of prosperity fails. If Mr. Jocelyn could regain his former position, or a better one, there had been nothing in his brief obscurity that would prevent his wife and daughters from stepping back into their old social place, with all its privileges and opportunities.

The reader knows, however, that his prospects were becoming more and more dubious--that each day added a rivet to the chain that an evil habit was forging. His family did not even suspect this, although the impression was growing upon them that his health was becoming impaired. They were beginning to accommodate themselves to life at its present level, and the sense of its strangeness was pa.s.sing slowly away. This was especially true of Belle and the children, upon whom the past had but a comparatively slight hold.

Mildred, from her nature and tastes, felt the change more keenly than any of the others, and she could never forget that it raised a most formidable barrier against her dearest hopes. Mrs. Jocelyn also suffered greatly from the privations of her present lot, and her delicate organization was scarcely equal to the tasks and burdens it imposed. As far as possible she sought to perform the domestic duties that were more suited to the stout, red arms of those accustomed to such labors. It seemed essential that Mildred and Belle should give their strength to supplementing their father's small income, for a time at least, though all were living in hope that this necessity would soon pa.s.s away. The family was American, and Southern at that, in the idea that bread-winning was not woman's natural province, but only one of the direful penalties of extreme poverty. The working-woman of the South belonged to a totally different cla.s.s from that in which Mr. and Mrs. Jocelyn had their origin, and prejudices die hard, even among people who are intelligent, and, in most respects, admirable. To Mrs. Jocelyn and her daughters work was infinitely preferable to dependence, but it was nevertheless menial and undignified because of its almost involuntary and hereditary a.s.sociation with a race of bond-servants. He is superficial indeed in his estimate of character who thinks that people can change their views and feelings in response to a brief demonstration of the essential dignity of labor, especially after generations of acc.u.mulating pride of caste have been giving the mind a different bent. Moreover, this family of Southern origin had not seen in the city of New York very much confirmation of the boasted Northern ideas of labor. Social status depended too much on the number of servants that people kept and the style in which they lived. Poverty had brought them a more sudden and complete loss of recognition than would have been possible in the South--a loss which they would not have felt so greatly had they wealthy connections in town through whom they might have retained, in part at least, their old relations with people of their own station.

As it was, they found themselves almost wholly isolated. Mrs.

Jocelyn did not regret this so much for herself, since her family was about all the society she craved; moreover in her girlhood she had been accustomed to rather remote plantation life, with its long intervals of absence of society. Mr. Jocelyn's business took him out among men even more than he relished, for his secret indulgence predisposed to solitude and quiet. He was living most of the time in an unreal world, and inevitable contact with his actual life and surroundings brought him increasing distress.

With Belle and Mildred it was different. At their age society and recreation were as essential as air and light. Many are exceedingly uncharitable toward working-girls because they are often found in places of resort that are, without doubt, objectionable and dangerous. The fact is ignored that these places are sought from a natural and entirely wholesome desire for change and enjoyment, which are as needful to physical and moral health as sunlight to a plant. They forget that these normal cravings of the young in their own families find many and safe means of gratification which are practically denied to the tenement population. If, instead of harsh judgments, they would provide for the poor places of cheap and innocent resort; if, instead of sighing over innate depravity, they would expend thought and effort in bringing suns.h.i.+ne into the experiences of those whose lives are deeply shadowed by the inevitable circ.u.mstances of their lot, they would do far more to exemplify the spirit of Him who has done so much to fill the world with light, flowers, and music.

Mildred began to brood and grow morbid in her monotonous work and seclusion; and irrepressible Belle, to whom shop life was becoming an old, weary story, was looking around for "pastures new." Her nature was much too forceful for anything like stagnation. The world is full of such natures, and we cannot build a dike of "thou shalt nots" around them; for sooner or later they will overleap the barriers, and as likely on the wrong side as on the right. Those who would save and bless the world can accomplish far more by making safe channels than by building embankments, since almost as many are ruined by undue and unwise repression as by equally unwise and idiotic indulgence.

If Mr. Jocelyn had been himself he might have provided much innocent and healthful recreation for his family; but usually he was so dreamy and stupid in the evening that he was left to doze quietly in his chair. His family ascribed his condition to weariness and reaction from his long strain of anxiety; and opium had already so far produced its legitimate results that he connived at their delusion if he did not confirm it by actual a.s.sertion. It is one of the diabolical qualities of this habit that it soon weakens and at last destroys all truth and honor in the soul, eating them out with a corrosive power difficult to explain.

For the first week or two Belle was glad to rest in the evenings from the intolerable weariness caused by standing all day, but the adaptability of the human frame is wonderful, and many at last become accustomed, and, in some sense, inured to that which was torture at first. Belle was naturally strong and vigorous, and her compact, healthful organism endured the cruel demand made upon it far better than the majority of her companions. Nature had endowed her with a very large appet.i.te for fun. For a time her employment, with its novelty, new a.s.sociations, and small excitements, furnished this, but now her duties were fading into prosaic work, and the child was looking around for something enlivening. Where in the great city could she find it? Before their poverty came there were a score of pretty homes like her own in which she could visit schoolmates; her church and Sabbath-school ties brought her into relation with many of her own age; and either in her own home or in those of her friends she took part in breezy little festivities that gave full and healthful scope to her buoyant nature. She was not over-fastidious now, but when occasionally she went home with some of her companions at the shop, she returned dissatisfied. The small quarters in which the girls lived rendered little confidential chats--so dear to girls--impossible, and she was brought at once into close contact with strange and often repulsive people. It seemed that the street furnished the only privacy possible, except as she brought girls to her own abode. Her mother and sister were very considerate in this respect, and welcomed all of her acquaintances who appeared like good, well-meaning girls; and Mildred would either give up her share of their little room for the time, or else take part in their talk in such a genial way as to make the visitors at home as far as they could be with one in whom they recognized their superior. Their light talk and shop gossip were often exceedingly tiresome to Mildred, but she felt that Belle needed every safeguard within their power to furnish. And this privilege of welcoming the best companions her circ.u.mstances permitted was of great help to Belle, and, for a time, prevented her restless spirit from longing for something more decided in the way of amus.e.m.e.nt. Of necessity, however, anything so quiet could not last; but where could the girl find pleasures more highly colored? Occasionally she would coax or scold her father into taking her out somewhere, but this occurred less and less frequently, for she was made to feel that his health required absolute rest when his business permitted it. If she had had kind brothers the case would have been greatly simplified, but thousands of working-girls have no brothers, no male companions save those acquaintances that it is their good or, more often, their evil fortune to make. Without a brother, a relative, or a friend deserving the name, how is a young girl, restricted to a boarding-house or a tenement, to find safe recreation? Where can she go for it on the great majority of the evenings of the year? Books and papers offer a resource to many, and Mildred availed herself of them to her injury. After sitting still much of the day she needed greater activity in the evening. Belle was not fond of reading, as mult.i.tudes on the fas.h.i.+onable avenues are not. The well-to-do have many other resources--what chances had she? To a.s.sert that working-girls ought to crave profitable reading and just the proper amount of hygienic exercise daring their leisure, and nothing more, is to be like the engineer who said that a river ought to have been half as wide as it was, and then he could build a bridge across it. The problem must be solved as it exists.

To a certain extent this need of change and cheerful recreation is supplied in connection with some of the mission chapels, and the effort is good and most commendable as far as it goes; but as yet the family had formed no church relations. Mildred, Belle, and occasionally Mrs. Jocelyn had attended Sabbath service in the neighborhood. They shrank, however, so morbidly from recognition that they had no acquaintances and had formed no ties. They had a prejudice against mission chapels, and were not yet willing to identify themselves openly with their poor neighbors. As yet they had incurred no hostility on this account, for their kindly ways and friendliness to poor Clara had won the goodwill and sympathy of all in the old mansion. But the differences between the Jocelyns and their neighbors were too great for any real a.s.similation, and thus, as we have said, they were thrown mainly on their own resources. Mrs. Wheaton was their nearest approach to a friend, and very helpful she was to them in many ways, especially in relieving Mrs. Jocelyn, for a very small compensation, from her heavier tasks.

The good woman, however, felt even more truly than they that they had too little in common for intimacy.

There is one amus.e.m.e.nt always open to working-girls if they are at all attractive--the street flirtation. To their honor it can be said that comparatively few of the entire number indulge in this dangerous pastime from an improper motive, the majority meaning no more harm or evil than their more fortunate sisters who can enjoy the society of young men in well-appointed parlors. In most instances this street acquaintance, although unhedged by safe restrictions, is by no means indiscriminate. The young men are brothers or friends of companions, or they are employed in the same establishment, or else reside in the neighborhood, so that usually something is known of their characters and antecedents, and the desire to become friendly is similar to that influencing the young people of country neighborhoods. As a rule these young people have few opportunities of meeting save in the streets and places of public resort. The conditions of life in a great city, however, differ too widely from those of a village or country town, where every one is well known and public opinion is quick and powerful in its restraints. Social circles are too loosely organized in a city; their members from necessity are generally to little known to each other; there are too many of both s.e.xes ready to take advantage of the innocent and unwary, and their opportunities of escape from all penalty invite the crimes suggested by their evil natures. Belle had been often warned, and she had so much affection for her mother and so much pride that she did not fall readily into indiscretions; nor would she in the future respond, without considerable self-restraint, to the frequent advances which she never failed to recognize, however distant she might appear, and she would not have possessed a woman's nature had she been indifferent to admiring glances and the overtures of those who would gladly form her acquaintance. Still it must be admitted that her good resolutions were fast weakening in this direction.

Mildred's dangers were quite different from those which a.s.sailed Belle, and yet they were very grave ones. Her mind and heart were preoccupied. She was protected from even the desire of perilous a.s.sociations and pleasures by the delicacy and refinement of her nature and her Christian principle. She shrank from social contact with the ruder world by which she was now surrounded; she felt and lived like one in exile, and her hope was to return to her native land. In the meantime she was growing pale, languid, morbid, and, occasionally, even irritable, from the lack of proper exercise and change. She was not discouraged as yet, but the day of deliverance seemed to grow more distant. Her father apparently was declining in energy and health, and his income was very small. She worked long hours over her fancy work, but the prices paid for it at the shops were so small that she felt with a growing despondency it was but a precarious means of support. Their first month in the old mansion was drawing to a close, and they had been compelled to draw slightly on the small sum of ready money still remaining after paying for their summer's board. They still had a few articles in storage, having retained them in hope of moving, at no distant time, into more commodious quarters.

In their desire for economy they also fell into the very common error of buying salt fish and meat, and other articles of food that were cheap and easily prepared rather than nutritious, and Belle was inclined to make her lunch on pastry and cake instead of food.

In teaching them a better way Mrs. Wheaton proved herself a very useful friend. "Vat yer vant is sumthink that makes blood an'

stands by von," she had said; "an' this 'ere salt, dry stuff an'

light baker's bread and tea and coffee don't do this hat hall.

They's good henough as relishes an' trimmins an' roundins hoff, but they hain't got the nouris.h.i.+n' in 'em that vorking people vants.

Buy hoat meal an' corn meal--make good bread of yer hown. Buy good but cheap chunks of beef an' mutton an' wegetables, an' make stews an' meat pies an' rich soups, an' say yer prayers hagainst hall trashy things as hain't vorth the trouble of heatin'. Heggs, too, ven ther're plenty, hare fust-rate, an' milk is better than so much tea an' coffee, heven if the milkman do spill it in the brook an' pick it hout hagain before we get it. Vorkin' hon tea an' coffee is like keepin' the 'orse hagoin' on a vip hinstead of hoats."

Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred were sensible enough to take her advice, and although Belle complained at first over the more simple and wholesome diet, she soon felt so much the better for it that she made no further trouble.

As had been the case at the farmhouse, Mildred at last awakened to the evils of a depressed and sedentary life, and felt that she must look around for objects of interest. She began to spend more time with Mrs. Wheaton, and found considerable amus.e.m.e.nt in her homely common-sense. The good woman was all the more companionable for the reason that she never presumed on a coa.r.s.e familiarity or indulged in a prying interest. Mildred also aided the Wheaton children in their lessons, and gave more time to her own little brother and sister, taking them out to walk in the cool of the day, and giving much thought, while she plied her needle, to various little expedients that would keep them content to remain away from the street and the rude children that often made the old house resound with boisterous sport. Mrs. Wheaton's children were in the main well behaved, and there was much visiting back and forth among the little people of the two families, but here the line was drawn, and generally with very good reason. After all, perhaps, the chief horror of tenement life to a family like the Jocelyns consisted in the fact that just outside their door were hordes of prowling little savages ignorant in the main of civilization, but prematurely enlightened as to its vices. To prevent the inevitable contamination which would result from indiscriminate a.s.sociation, and to interest Fred and Minnie in their daily lessons, was the constant effort of both Mildred and Mrs. Jocelyn. And yet, as at the farmhouse, Mildred's conscience began to reproach her for keeping too much aloof from the people who dwelt with her in the old mansion. It was not necessary to make companions of them in order to do them some good, and in aiding them to bear their burdens she might in part forget her own. Mrs. Wheaton's hearty kindness permeated the house like an atmosphere, and from her Mildred learned the character and circ.u.mstances of each family quite correctly. "I can get hon with 'em hall hexcept a hold daft German on the top floor, oos a bit crazy hover the 'evens, but don't stand much chance of hever gettin' hup hinto 'em. You've hoften seen 'im a-lookin'

at the stars an' things on the roof. 'E 'alf starves 'is family to buy books an' maps an' a telescope. 'E 'ates me cos I tried to talk religion to 'im vonce ven 'e vas sick, an' cos I told 'im 'e 'ad no bizness to take his death a'cold on the roof o' vinter nights; an 'ven 'e vonce gets a grudge hagainst yer 'e never lets hup."

Mildred had already become more interested in this old man than in any other of her neighbors except Mrs. Wheaton, but had found him utterly unapproachable. Not infrequently she spent part of the hot evenings on the platform built over the old hip-roof, and had invariably seen him there on cloudless nights studying the skies with a telescope that appeared to be by no means a toy instrument; but he always took possession of the far end of the platform, and was so savage when any one approached thyt even Belle was afraid of him. His wife, for a wonder, was a slattern German, and she spoke English very imperfectly. With her several small children she lived in a chaotic way, keeping up a perpetual whining and fault-fnding, half under her breath from fear of her irascible husband, that was like a "continual dropping on a very rainy day." Every now and then, Mrs. Wheaton said, he would suddenly emerge from his abstraction and break out against her in a volley of harsh, guttural German oaths that were "henough to make von's 'air riz." Therefore it very naturally happened that Mildred had become acquainted with all the other families before she had even spoken to Mr. or Mrs. Ulph. On the other inmates of the mansion her influence soon began to be felt; for almost unconsciously she exercised her rare and subtle power of introducing a finer element into the lives of those who were growing sordid and material. She had presented several families with a small house-plant, and suggested that they try to develop slips from others that she sedulously tended in her own window. In two or three instances she aided untidy and discouraged women to make their rooms more attractive. The fact, also, that the Jocelyns had made their two apartments, that were little if any better than the others, so very inviting had much weight, and there sprang up quite an emulation among some of the simple folk in making the most of their limited resources.

"Instead of scolding your husbands for going out and perhaps taking a gla.s.s too much, try and keep them home by making the living-room homelike," she had said on several occasions to complaining wives who had paved the way by their confidential murmurings. "Have some extra dish that they like for supper--they will spend more if they go out--then be a little smiling and chatty, and tell them to light their pipes and stay with you, for you are a bit lonesome. If they will have their mug of beer, coax them to take it here at home. Try to put a few s.h.i.+llings in the savings bank every week, and talk over little plans of saving more. If you can only make your husbands feel that they are getting ahead a little, it will have a great influence in steadying them and keeping them out of bad company."