By the Light of the Soul Part 37

"What is the matter?" her aunt Maria asked. "It's so cold you can't have been bothered with the smells to-day."

"It's worse than smells," replied Maria. Then she told her story.

Her aunt stared at her. "Good gracious! You didn't go to that awful house, a young girl like you?" she said, and her prim cheeks burned.

"Why, that man's livin' right there with Mrs. Ramsey, and her husband winking at it! They are awful people!"

"I would have gone anywhere to get that poor child clothed decently,"

said Maria.

"But you wouldn't take his money!"

"I rather guess I wouldn't!"

"Well, I don't blame you, but I don't see what is going to be done."

"I don't," said Maria, helplessly. She reflected how she had disposed already of her small stipend, and would not have any more for some time, and how her own clothing no more than sufficed for her.

"I can't give her a thing," said Aunt Maria. "I'm wearin' flannels myself that are so patched there isn't much left of the first of 'em, and it's just so with the rest of my clothes. I'm wearin' a petticoat made out of a comfortable my mother made before Henry was married. It was quilted fine, and had a small pattern, if it is copperplate, but I don't da.r.s.e hold my dress up only just so. I wouldn't have anybody know it for the world. And I know Eunice ain't much better off. They had that big doctor's bill, and I know she's patched and darned so she'd be ashamed of her life if she fell down on the ice and broke a bone. I tell you what it is, those other Ramseys ought to do something. I don't care if they are such distant relations, they ought to do something."

After supper Maria and her aunt went into the other side of the house, and Aunt Maria, who had been waxing fairly explosive, told the tale of poor little Jessy Ramsey going to school with no undergarments.

"It's a shame!" said Eunice, who was herself nervous and easily aroused to indignation. She sat up straight and the hollows on her thin cheeks blazed, and her thin New England mouth tightened.

"George Ramsey ought to do something if he is earning as much as they say he is," said Aunt Maria.

"That is so," said Eunice. "It doesn't make any difference if they are so distantly related. It is the same name and the same blood."

Henry Stillman laughed his sardonic laugh. "You can't expect the flowers to look out for the weeds," he said. "George Ramsey and his mother are in full blossom; they have fixed up their house and are holding up their heads. You can't expect them to look out for poor relations who have gone to the bad, and done worse--got too poor to buy clothes enough to keep warm."

Maria suddenly sprang to her feet. "I know what I am going to do,"

she announced, with decision, and made for the door.

"What on earth are you going to do?" asked her aunt Maria.

"I am going straight in there, and I am going to tell them how that poor little thing came to school to-day, and tell them they ought to be ashamed of themselves."

Before the others fairly realized what she was doing, Maria was out of the house, running across the little stretch which intervened. Her aunt Maria called after her, but she paid no attention. She was at that moment ringing the Ramsey bell, with her pretty, uncovered hair tossing in the December wind.

"She will catch her own death of cold," said Aunt Maria, "running out without anything on her head."

"She will just get patronized for her pains," said Eunice, who had a secret grudge against the Ramseys for their prosperity and their renovated house, a grudge which she had not ever owned to her inmost self, but which nevertheless existed.

"She doesn't stop to think one minute; she's just like her father about that," said Aunt Maria.

Henry Stillman said nothing. He took up his paper, which he had been reading when Maria and his sister entered.

Meantime, Maria was being ushered into the Ramsey house by a maid who wore a white cap. The first thing which she noticed as she entered the house was a strong fragrance of flowers. That redoubled her indignation.

"These Ramseys can buy flowers in midwinter," she thought, "while their own flesh and blood go almost naked."

She entered the room in which the flowers were, a great bunch of pink carnations in a tall, green vase. The room was charming. It was not only luxurious, but gave evidences of superior qualities in its owners. It was empty when Maria entered, but soon Mrs. Ramsey and her son came in. Maria recognized with a start her old acquaintance, or rather she did not recognize him. She would not have known him at all had she not seen him in his home. She had not seen him before, for he had been away ever since she had come to Amity. He had been West on business for his bank. Now he at once stepped forward and spoke to her.

"You are my old friend, Miss Edgham, I think," he said. "Allow me to present my mother."

Maria bowed perforce before the very gentle little lady in a soft lavender cashmere, with her neck swathed in laces, but she did not accept the offered seat, and she utterly disregarded the glance of astonishment which both mother and son gave at her uncovered shoulders and head. Maria's impetuosity had come to her from two sides. When it was in flood, so to speak, nothing could stop it.

"No, thank you, I can't sit down," she said. "I came on an errand.

You are related, I believe, to the other Ramseys. The children go to my school. There are Mamie and Franky and Jessy."

"We are very distantly related, and, on the whole, proud of the distance rather than the relations.h.i.+p," said George Ramsey, with a laugh.

Then Maria turned fiercely upon him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said she.

The young man stared at her.

Maria persisted. "Yes, you ought," she said. "I don't care how distant the relations.h.i.+p is, the same blood is in your veins, and you bear the same name."

"Why, what is the matter?" asked George Ramsey, still in a puzzled, amused voice.

Maria spoke out. "That poor little Jessy Ramsey," said she, "and she is the prettiest and brightest scholar I have, too, came to school to-day without a single st.i.tch of clothing under her dress. It is a wonder she didn't die. I don't know but she will die, and if she does it will be your fault."

George Ramsey's face suddenly sobered; his mother's flushed. She looked at him, then at Maria, almost with fright. She felt really afraid of this forcible girl, who was so very angry and so very pretty in her anger. Maria had never looked prettier than she did then, with her cheeks burning and her blue eyes flas.h.i.+ng with indignation and defiance.

"That is terrible, such a day as this," said George Ramsey.

"Yes; I had no idea they were quite so badly off," murmured his mother.

"You ought to have had some idea," flashed out Maria.

"We had not, Miss Edgham," said George, gently. "You must remember how very distant the relations.h.i.+p is. I believe it begins with the fourth generation from myself. And there are other reasons--"

"There ought not to be other reasons," Maria said.

Mrs. Ramsey looked with wonder and something like terror and aversion at this pretty, violent girl, who was espousing so vehemently, not to say rudely, the cause of the distant relatives of her husband's family. The son, however, continued to smile amusedly at Maria.

"Won't you sit down, Miss Edgham?" he said.

"Yes, won't you sit down?" his mother repeated, feebly.

"No, thank you," said Maria. "I only came about this. I--I would do something for the poor little thing myself, but I haven't any money now, and Aunt Maria would, and Uncle Henry, and Aunt Eunice, but they--"

All at once Maria, who was hardly more than a child herself, and who had been in reality frightfully wrought up over the piteous plight of the other child, lost control of herself. She began to cry. She put her handkerchief to her face and sobbed helplessly.

"The poor little thing! oh, the poor little thing!" she panted, "with n.o.body in the world to do anything for her, and her own people so terribly wicked. I--can't bear it!"

The first thing she knew, Maria was having a large, soft cloak folded around her, and somebody was leading her gently to the door. She heard a murmured good-night, to which she did not respond except by a sob, and was led, with her arm rather closely held, along the sidewalk to her own door. At the door George Ramsey took her hand, and she felt something pressed softly into it.

"If you will please buy what the poor little thing needs to make her comfortable," he whispered.