Saxe Holm's Stories Part 25

"Nat was in all my cla.s.ses in school. Although he was three years younger he was much cleverer than I, and had had nothing to do, poor dear, all his life, but lie in his chair and read. I used to draw him to and from school in a little wagon; the boys lifted it up and down the steps so carefully it did not jar him; and papa had a special desk built for him, so high that part of the wagon could roll under it, and the lid could rest just wherever Nat needed it for writing or studying. When we went home, there was always a sort of procession with us; a good many of the children had to go in the same direction, but many went simply to walk by Nat's wagon and talk with him. Whenever there was a picnic or a nutting frolic, we always took him; the boys took turns in drawing him; n.o.body would hear a word of his staying at home; he used to sit in his wagon and look on while the rest played, and sometimes he would be left all alone for a while, but his face was always the happiest one there. At school the boys used to tell him everything, and leave things to his decision. Almost every day, somebody would call out, at recess or intermission, 'Well, I'll leave it to Nat'--or 'I'll tell Nat.' One day somebody shouted, 'Take it before the king--let's call him King Nat.' But it almost made Nat cry. He exclaimed, 'Oh, boys, please don't ever say that again;' and they never did. He had a great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear to refuse any request which a poor cripple made.

"When I think how happy those days were and how fast the darkest days of our lives were drawing near, it makes me shrink from happiness almost as much as from grief. It seems only grief's forerunner. On the evening of my sixteenth birthday, we were all having a very merry time in papa's study, popping corn over the open fire. We had wheeled Nat near the fire, and tied the corn-popper on a broom-handle, so that he could shake the popper himself; and I never saw him laugh so heartily at anything. Papa laughed too, quite loud, which was a thing that did not happen many times a year.

It was the last time we heard the full sound of dear papa's voice. Late that night he was called out to see a poor man, one of the factory operatives, who was dying. It was a terrible snow-storm, and papa had been so heated over the fire and in playing with us that he took a severe cold.

The next morning he could not speak aloud. The doctor said it was an acute bronchitis and would pa.s.s off; but it did not, and in a very few weeks it was clear that he was dying of consumption. Probably the cold only developed a disease which had been long there.

"I can't tell you about the last months of papa's life. I think I shall never be able to speak of them. We saw much worse days afterward, but none that seemed to me so hard to bear; even when I thought Nat and I would have to go to the almshouse it was not so hard. The love which most children divide between father and mother I concentrated on my father. I loved him with an adoration akin to that which a woman feels for her husband, and with the utmost of filial love added. Nat loved him almost as much. The most touching thing I ever saw was to see Nat from his wagon, or wheeled chair, reaching out to take care of papa in the bed. n.o.body else could give him his medicine so well; n.o.body could prepare his meals for him, after he was too weak to use a knife and fork, so well as Nat.

How he could do all this with only one hand--for he could not bend himself in his chair enough to use the hand farthest from the bed--n.o.body could understand; but he did, and the very last mouthful of wine papa swallowed he took, the morning he died, from poor Nat's brave little hand, which did not shake nor falter, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks.

"Papa lived nearly a year; but the last nine months he was in bed, and he never spoke a loud word after that birthday night when we had been so happy in the study. He died in November, on a dreary stormy day. I never shall forget it. He had seemed easier that morning, and insisted on our all going out to breakfast together and leaving him alone, the doors being open between the study and the dining-room. We had hardly seated ourselves at the table when his bell rang. Aunt Abby reached him first. It could not have been a minute, but he did not know her. For the first and only time in my life I forgot Nat, and was out of the room when I heard him sob.

Dear Nat! not even then would he think of himself. I turned back. 'Oh, don't stop to take me, Dot,' he said. 'Run!' But I could not; and when I reached the door, pus.h.i.+ng his chair before me, all was over. However, the doctor said that, even if we had been there at the first, papa could not have bid us good-by; that the death was from instantaneous suffocation, and that he probably had no consciousness of it himself. Papa's life had been insured for five thousand dollars and he had saved, during the three years we had lived at Maynard's Mills, about one thousand more. This was all the money we had in the world.

"Mr. Maynard had been very kind throughout papa's illness. He had persuaded the church to continue the salary; every day he had sent flowers, and grapes, and wine, and game, and everything he could think of that papa could eat; and, what was kindest of all, he had come almost every day to talk with him and cheer him up. But he did not mean to let his kindness stop here. The day after the funeral he came to see us, to propose to adopt me. I forgot to say that Aunt Abby was to be married soon and would take little Abby with her; so they were provided for, and the only question was about Nat and me.

"Fortunately, dear Nat was in the dining-room and did not see Mr. Maynard when he came. I have told you what a merry man Mr. Maynard is, and how kind he is, but he is also a very obstinate and high-tempered man. He had never loved Nat; I do not know why; I think he was the only human being who ever failed to love him. He pitied him, of course; but he was so repelled by his deformity that he could not love him. As soon as Mr.

Maynard said, 'Now, my dear child, you must come to my house and make it your home always,' I saw that he intended to separate me from Nat.

"I replied, 'I cannot leave Nat, Mr. Maynard. I thank you very much; you are very good; but it would break my heart to leave him, and I am sure papa would never forgive me if I should do it.'

"He made a gesture of impatience. He had foreseen this, and come prepared for it; but he saw that I promised to prove even more impracticable than he had feared.

"'You have sacrificed your whole life already to that miserable unfortunate boy,' he said, 'and I always told your father he ought not to permit it.'

"At this I grew angry, and I replied:--

"'Mr. Maynard, Nat does more for us all, every hour of his life, than we ever could do for him: dear papa used to say so too.'

"No doubt papa had said this very thing to Mr. Maynard often, for tears came into his eyes and he went on:--

"'I know, I know--he is a wonderful boy, and we might all learn a lesson of patience from him; but I can't have the whole of your life sacrificed to him. I will provide for him amply; he shall have every comfort which money can command.'

"'But where?' said I.

"'In an inst.i.tution I know of, under the charge of a friend of mine.'

"'A hospital!' exclaimed I; and the very thought of my poor Nat, who had been the centre of a loving home-circle, of a merry school playground, ever since he could remember--the very thought of his finding himself alone among diseased people, and tended by hired attendants, so overcame me that I burst into floods of tears.

"Mr. Maynard, who hated the presence of tears and suffering, as mirthful people always do, rose at once and said kindly, 'Poor child, you are not strong enough to talk it over yet; but as your aunt must go away so soon, I thought it better to have it all settled at once.'

"'It is settled, Mr. Maynard,' said I, in a voice that half frightened me.

'I shall never leave Nat--never, so long as I live.'

"'Then you'll do him the greatest unkindness you can--that's all,' replied Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room. I locked myself up in my own room and thought the whole matter over. How I could earn my own living and Nat's, I did not know. We should have about four hundred dollars a year. I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off from really living; and I felt convinced that it would be impossible for me to keep up courage or hope unless I could contrive, in some way, to earn money enough to surround our home with at least a semblance of the old atmosphere. We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we must have sun and air.

"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr.

Maynard's mill. I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these thoughts pa.s.sed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and exclaimed, 'That is it--that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study.

Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work out of her hands.

"'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?'

"She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling over a scanty pattern.

"'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any friends of yours you're thinking of?'

"'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from her fingers, and she uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n I never heard from her lips on any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!'

"'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal.

While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr.

Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he would have done in health.

"'But I always told him,' said Aunt Abby, 'that Mr. Maynard wasn't going to do anything for Nat beyond what money'd do. He'd give him a thousand a year, or two, if need be, but he'd never set eyes on him if he could help it.'

"'Aunt Abby,' exclaimed I, 'please don't say another word about Mr.

Maynard's helping Nat. I'd die before Nat should touch a cent of his money.'

"'There is no use talking that way,' said Aunt Abby, whose tenderest mercies were often cruelly worded. 'Mr. Maynard's a good, generous man, and I'm sure he's been the saving of us all. But that's no reason he should set up to take you away from Nat now; and I know well enough Nat can't live without you; but I don't see how it's to be managed. And Aunt Abby sighed. Then I told her my plans; they grew clearer and clearer to me as I unfolded them; the two gentle-faced spinster women looked at me with surprise. Miss Penstock wiped her eyes over and over.

"'If I could only be sure I wasn't going against your best interests to let you come,' said she.

"'Oh, Miss Penstock,' exclaimed I, 'don't think so--don't dare to say no for that reason; for I tell you, I shall go away to some other town with Nat if you don't take us; there is no other house here that would do; think how much better it would be for Nat to stay among friends.'

"'It's lucky I am their guardian,' said Aunt Abby, with an unconscious defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too; but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.'

"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as her grat.i.tude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.'

"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that.

His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever, combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew, too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me.

"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five hundred dollars and these words:--

"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her father.'

"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:--

"'DEAR MR. MAYNARD:--I shall never forget that you were willing to be my father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money from one who is displeased with me for doing what I think right. I promise you, however, for papa's sake and for Nat's, that if I ever need help I will ask it of you, and not of any one else.'

"The next time I saw Mr. Maynard he put both his hands on my shoulders and said: 'You are a brave girl; I wish I could forgive you; but remember your promise.' And that was the last word Mr. Maynard spoke to me for three years.

"Our new home was so much pleasanter than we supposed it could be, that at first, in spite of our grief, both Nat and I were almost gay. It was like a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor people's little rooms can be, if the sun s.h.i.+nes in and there are a few pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and these, made our little sitting-room look like home. We had only two rooms on the first floor; one of these was a tiny one, but it held our little cooking-stove and a cupboard, with our few dishes; the other we called 'sitting-room;' it had to be dear Nat's bedroom also, because he could not be carried up and down stairs. But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed owl sat. My room was over Nat's, and a cord went up from his bed to a bell over mine, so that he could call me at any moment if he wanted anything in the night. Then we had one more little chamber, in which we kept the boxes of papa's sermons, and some trunks of old clothes, and things which n.o.body wanted to buy at the auction, and papa's big chair and writing-table. We would not sell those. I thought perhaps some day we should have a house of our own--I could not imagine how; but if we did we should be glad of that chair and table, and so Aunt Abby let us keep them, though they were of handsome wood, beautifully carved, and would have brought a good deal of money. For these four rooms we paid Miss Penstock three dollars a month; the rent would have been a dollar a week, but she said it was really worth a dollar a month to her to have people who would not trouble her nor hurt the house; and as Aunt Abby thought so too, I believed her.

"My plan was to have Nat keep on at school, and to take in sewing myself, or to work for Miss Penstock. For the first year all went so smoothly that I was content. I used to draw Nat to and from school twice a day, and that gave me air and exercise. Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming.

Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill--the first illness of his life.

It was a slow fever. He was ill for three months. I often wonder how I lived through those months. When he recovered he seemed better than ever.

The doctor said he had pa.s.sed a sort of crisis and would always be stronger for it. The doctor was very kind. Several nights he sat up with Nat and made me go to bed, and he would not let me pay him a cent, though he came every day for weeks. When I urged him to let us pay the bill he grew half angry, and said, 'Do you think I am going to take money from your father's daughter?' and then I felt more willing to take it for papa's sake. But the medicines had cost a great deal, and I had not earned anything; and so, at the end of the second year, we had been obliged to take quite a sum out of our little capital. I did not tell Nat, and I did not go to Mr. Maynard. I went on from day to day, in a sort of stupor, wondering what would happen next. I was seventeen years old, but I knew of nothing I could do except to sew; I did not know enough to teach. All this time I never once thought of the mills. I used to watch the men and women going in and out, and envy them, thinking how sure they were of their wages; and yet it never crossed my mind that I could do the same thing. I am afraid it was unconscious pride which prevented my thinking of it.

"But the day came. It was in the early spring. I had been to the grave-yard to set out some fresh hepaticas on papa's grave. His grave and mamma's were in an inclosure surrounded by a high, thick hedge of pines and cedars close to the public street As I knelt down, hidden behind the trees, I heard steps and voices. They paused opposite me. The persons were evidently looking over the fence. Then I distinguished the voice of our kind doctor.