The Old Homestead Part 18

CHAPTER XI.

CHESTER'S HOME IN THE MORNING

It is dancing--dancing--dancing, Oh, the little purplish sprite!

Now moving, s.h.i.+ning, glancing Through the mazes of the light.

The grey morning dawned gloomily on Chester's desolated home. Isabel awoke and looked around with dull and heavy eyes. The beauty of her young face was clouded by a night of sharp anxiety and broken rest.

Mary sat opposite, leaning with both elbows on the table, and regarding the poor child with a haggard and sorrowful countenance.

"Has he not come back--oh, Mary, is he not here yet?"

Mary shook her head. "I have been awake all night, every moment. He has not come!"

"And I--how could I sleep with my poor father away, and mamma so ill?

I did not think that anything could make me sleep at such a time, Mary!"

"But, you were so tired; oh, I was glad when your head drooped on the table; it looked so pitiful to see you growing paler and paler, while she kept muttering to herself. I was glad that you could sleep at all, Isabel."

"I feel now as if I should never sleep again," replied the child, looking at the covered plate where her father's supper had been standing all night. "He will never come back, Mary Fuller, I feel sure of it now!"

Mary did not answer--she only covered her eyes with one hand and sat still.

Isabel arose, took the covered plate in both her hands and placed it in the cupboard, weeping bitterly. This act showed even plainer than her words that she really did not expect to see her father again.

She crept back to Mary, and, leaning upon her shoulder, began to cry with low and suppressed pa.s.sion. Poor thing, it is a hard lesson when childhood first learns to curb its natural grief.

"What shall we do, Mary?" whispered the poor child, burying her wet face upon Mary's shoulder that received its burden unshrinkingly; "oh, what can we do?"

"Isabel," said Mary, solemnly, "what should we do if--if your father should be dead?"

"He is dead--or very, very sick--I am sure of that; what else could keep him from home, and mamma calling for him so pitifully? Mary, I am sure that he is dead; we shall never, never see him again!" and, with a burst of terrible grief, the poor child flung her arms around Mary Fuller, and sunk to the floor, almost dragging the little girl with her. "Mary, he is dead--he is dead!"

"Who is dead--who is dead, I say? Why do you crowd the room with those little dancing creatures, all in loose clothes--scarlet, gold, purple, green--why do you not send them away?" cried the voice of Mrs.

Chester, and there was a rustling of the bed-clothes, as if she were trying to cast them from her.

The children held their breath, and cowered close together. Again Mrs. Chester spoke:

"Leave the children, leave them; I did not tell you to drive the children away; Chester, Chester, they are taking our children off; Isabel--Mary Fuller, come back!"

"I am here--no one shall take me away," said Mary Fuller, bending over the bed; "Isabel, too, is close by your pillow--she has been crying to see you so sick; do not mind her eyes, they will grow bright again when you are well!"

Mrs. Chester started up in the bed. A moment of consciousness seemed to come over her. She looked at Mary and at Isabel, and spoke to them in a whisper, leaning half out of bed--

"Girls, where is he? tell me now, Mary, that's a good little girl--what have they done with him?"

The children looked at each other, and Isabel began to sob.

"How long is it since I went to sleep? He was here, you know!" said the invalid.

"Only a little while!" answered Mary, quickly. "You have not slept long."

"Oh! I thought--but then people will dream such things--I say, just tell me--come, will he be back soon--can't you tell me that, little folks?"

"Lie down, there, now take a gla.s.s of ice-water, and I will go after him," said Mary, exerting all her little strength to persuade the invalid back to her pillow.

"Ice, ice! give me a whole handful--no water, but clear cold ice!"

They gave it to her; in her burning hands and her parched mouth they placed the crystal coldness; and it slaked the burning fever. It melted in her hand, dripping in soft rain down her arms and over her bosom, where the hand lay clenched tightly upon its cool treasure.

With her white teeth she crushed the diamond fragments in her mouth, and laughed to feel the drops flowing down her throat.

"Now, Mary, little Mary Fuller, go and tell him that I am wide awake, and waiting for him! Go now, while the ice is plenty, he shall have a share."

"I will go!" said Mary, and drawing Isabel from the room, she told her to stay close by her mother, and let her have anything she wanted.

While giving these directions she put on her hood and shawl.

"I will find him; I will not come back without news; but, oh! Isabel, I have little hope of anything but news that will kill her, and almost kill us; I would not say this, but it has been in my heart since ten o'clock last night. I was all alone, and--don't cry again, Isabel--it seemed to me as if he died then!"

Isabel turned very pale, and gazed upon Mary in terrible silence.

"And I was asleep then?" she said, with a pang of self reproach.

"Hus.h.!.+" said Mary, "in our sleep we must be nearest to Heaven; why should you feel bad because you were closer to him than I was?"

"I dreamed of him!" answered Isabel, as if struck by some sudden remembrance, and her eyes so heavy the moment before, lighted up; "I dreamed of him!"

"And what did you dream, tell me, Isabel--what did you dream?"

"I don't know all--but he was away in such a beautiful, beautiful place; the hills were all purple and gold and crimson with light, or flowers or something that made them more lovely than anything you ever set eyes on. The rivers were so clear that you could see down, down into the water--and the banks, all covered with flowers, seemed to slope down and line the bottom with soft colors that broke up through; it was all s.h.i.+fting and rolling before me like a cloud. But as true as you live, Mary, I saw my father there, and--yes--now I am sure--mamma was with him--she was, Mary Fuller; and so you see they will meet again, if there is anything in dreams. You will find him, I am sure you will find him. Oh, Mary. I am so glad that I fell asleep, while you were watching!"

Mary did not speak, but threw her arms around the beautiful child, kissing her tenderly before she went forth.

"It was a sweet dream!" she murmured, going down the stairs; "I had many such before my father died. I suppose G.o.d sends them to comfort little children when he makes orphans of them--but I never saw my mother and father together; oh, if I had but seen that only once!"

With these thoughts Mary Fuller pa.s.sed into the street, pursuing her mournful errand with a heavy spirit. "I will go," she said, communing with herself; "I will go first to the Chief's office--Mr. Chester took away the star and book in his pocket, and must have gone there.

They will know something of him at the Chief's office;" and she bent her way to the Park.

It was a bright spring morning. The fog which had hung upon the city over night, was swept upward by the sun, and lay upon the horizon in a host of fleecy clouds. The trees around the Park fountain and the City Hall, were in the first tender green of their foliage, and the damp night had left them vivid with moisture, through which the sun was s.h.i.+ning. The fountain was in full force at the time, shooting up its columns of diamond spray to the very tree-tops. Gleams of suns.h.i.+ne laced the myriads and myriads of liquid threads together, with a rainbow that seemed to tremble and break every instant, but always shone out again brighter than before. The rush and hum of the waters, the showers of cool and broken spray, the soft s.h.i.+ver of the leaves and the young gra.s.s just peeping from the earth all around, were enough to make a happy heart beat happier tenfold, under the influence of so much beauty. But poor little Mary looked upon the scene with a heavy eye; all the fresh growth of nature seemed but to mock her as she pa.s.sed through it. She would have given worlds for power to convey the sweet air that swept with such cool prodigality by her face, to the close room of Mrs. Chester. It seemed a sin to breathe that delicious spring breeze, while her benefactress lay panting on her sick-bed.

The chief received the little girl very kindly, and gave her all the information he possessed regarding Chester; but that was very little, only dating half an hour from the time that unhappy man left home.

Mary turned away with an aching heart--where should she go? of whom might she inquire? The broad city was before her, but to what part must her search be directed?

Mary crossed the Park and moved down towards the corner of Ann street.

She paused for a moment, pondering over the heavy doubt in her mind, when a cart, over which an old blanket had been flung, guarded by two policemen, drove by her. Something smote her heart as the rude vehicle pa.s.sed her; it seemed as if she could detect the outline of a human form beneath the blanket. She started, and followed the cart.

It rolled slowly up Broadway and turned into Chambers street--along the whole length of the old Alms House buildings it went, and still the little girl followed, trembling in every limb and scarcely drawing a full breath.

The cart stopped at the point nearest to that building, where the unrecognized dead were carried. The two policemen drew away the blanket, and there, outstretched upon a piece of carpet, Mary saw her benefactor. She moved slowly forward; she clung with her cold hands to the side of the cart, and bent her eyes upon that still, white face. The suns.h.i.+ne lay upon it, and the breeze swept back from that marble forehead the bright hair that she had seen Mrs. Chester arrange so often. It might have been the suns.h.i.+ne--or perhaps that G.o.d, "who careth for the fall of a sparrow," had left a smile upon those white lips to comfort the little girl; for it is in small things often that the goodness of our Heavenly Father is most visible.