Trading Part 11

"How about the money?" David asked.

"It don't take a fortune to stock a little greenhouse."

"You haven't got a fortune."

"I have got enough."

"Have anything left for other objects?"

"What objects?" said Norton. "I haven't but one object at present.

One's enough."

"But Matilda has an object too," David said smiling enough to show his white teeth; "and her object will want some help, I'm thinking."

"What object?" said Norton.

"Don't you remember? I told you, Norton, about Sarah"--

"O _that!_" said Norton with a perceptible fall of his mental thermometer. "That's all your visions, Pink; impracticable; fancy. The idea of you, with your little purse, going into the mud of New York, and thinking to dean the streets."

"Certainly," said David, "and so she wauls a little help from our purses, don't you see?"

"David Bartholomew!" Norton burst out, "you know as well as I do, that it is no sort of use to try that game. Just go look at the mud; it will take all we could throw into it, and never shew."

"No," said David; "we could clear up a little corner, I think, if we tried."

"_You!_" cried Norton. "Are _you_ at that game? _You_ turned soft suddenly?"

"Do no harm, that I see," replied David composedly.

"These people aren't your people," said Norton.

"They are your people," said David.

"They are not! I have nothing to do with them, and it is no use--Davie Bartholomew, you _know_ it's no use--to try to help them. Pink is so tender-hearted, she wants to help the whole world; and it's all very well for her to want it; but she can't; and I can't; and you can't."

"But we can help Sarah Staples," Matilda ventured.

"And then you may go on to help somebody else, and then somebody else; and there's no end to it; only there's this end, that you'll always be poor yourself and never be able to do anything you want to do."

Norton was unusually heated, and both his hearers were for a moment silenced.

"You know that's the truth of it, Davie," he went on; "and it's no use to encourage Pink to fancy she can comfort everybody that's in trouble, and warm everybody that is cold, and feed everybody that is hungry, because she just can't do it. You can tell her there is _no end_ to that sort of thing if she once tries it on. Suppose we all went to work at it. Just see where we would be. Where would be Pink's gold watch, and her picture? and where would be her gold bracelet? and where would my greenhouse be? And where would this house be, for that matter? and the furniture in it? and how should we all dress? Your mother wouldn't wear velvet dresses, that you like so much; and mine wouldn't wear that flimsy muslin stuff that she likes so much; and grandmamma's lace shawl would never have been mended, for it never would have been here to get burnt. It's all a lot of nonsense, that's what it is."

"There is law about it, though," David began again gravely.

"Law?" Norton echoed.

"The law of my people."

"O what is it, David?" cried Matilda; while Norton was grumly silent.

He did not want to debate David's Jewish law with him. David gave the words very readily.

"'When there is with thee any needy one of one of thy brethren, in one of thy cities, in thy land which Jehovah thy G.o.d is giving to thee, thou dost not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy needy brother; for thou dost certainly open thy hand to him, and dost certainly lend him sufficient for his lack which he lacketh.'"

"That says what the people would do--not what they _ought_ to do," said Norton.

"I beg your pardon; it is a strong way of saying, in the Hebrew, what they _must_ do. Listen. 'Thou dost certainly give to him, and thy heart is not sad in thy giving to him, for because of this thing doth Jehovah thy G.o.d bless thee in all thy works, and in every putting forth of thine hand; because the needy one doth not cease out of the land, therefore I am commanding thee, saying, Thou dost certainly open thy hand to thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy one, in thy land.'"

Matilda was thinking of other words, which she dared not bring forward; being in a part of her Bible which David did not like. Neither was it necessary. Norton had got quite enough, she could see. He was in a state of fume, privately.

"I am going to give one side of the green house to you," he said, turning to Matilda. "Now you have got to think and find out what you will put in it. I shall have the shelves and all ready by the end of the week; and next week, Pink,--next week!--we must put the plants in; because the winter is going on, you know."

The conclave broke up, to go upstairs and look at the new greenhouse.

Norton explained his arrangements; the oil-cloth he was going to put on the floor, the rising banks of green shelves, the watering and syringing and warming of the little place; till Matilda almost smelt the geranium leaves before they were there.

"Now, Pink, what will you have on your side?"

"I can't give more than a dollar to it, Norton," said Matilda very regretfully.

"A dollar! A _dollar_, Pink? A dollar will get you two or three little geraniums. What's to become of the rest of your shelves?"

"I shall have to give them back to you, I'm afraid."

"You've got money, plenty."

"But I can't spend it for plants."

"Because you are going to throw it into the mud, Pink? O no, you'll not do that. I'll give you a catalogue of plants, and you shall look it over; and you will find a dollar won't do much, I can tell you. And then you will see what you want."

He was as good as his word; and Matilda sipped her gla.s.s of water and eat her sponge cake at tea time between the pages of a fascinating pamphlet, which with the delights it offered almost took away her breath, and quite took away the taste of the sponge cake. Norton looked over her shoulder now and then, well pleased to see his charm working.

"_Yellow_ carnations?" cried Matilda.

"I don't like them best, though," said Norton. "There, _that_--La purite--that's fine; and the striped ones, Pink; those double heads, just as full as they can be, and just as sweet as they can be, and brilliant carmine and white--those are what I like."

Matilda drew a long breath and turned a leaf.

"Violets!" she exclaimed.

"Do you like them?"

"Violets? Why, Norton, I don't like any thing better! I don't think I do. Dear little sweet things! _they_ do not cost much?"

"No," said Norton, "they do not cost much; and they don't make much show, neither."

"But they don't take much room."

"No; and you want things that _do_ take room, to fill your shelves. The greenhouse ought to be all one ma.s.s of green and bloom all round."