CHAPTER VIII.

ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL.

"How full of briars is this working day world."

"With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread."

Athalia wore not unwomanly rags at the period when I shall commence her history. She was clad in the garb of a country girl, just arrived in the city, in the full expectation that fortune awaited her, just as soon as she could learn the trade of a dress-maker. Oh, how she worked, and laughed, and sung! She was the life of the shop. Sometimes she thought of home--home where mother was--and then she wept. But the sunshine of youth soon sends the clouds and dew drops that dim the eye away to forgetfulness.

Athalia was sixteen--sweet sixteen in face and mind. What a bright blue eye, what soft brown hair, what wit, and oh, what a voice in song! and such a heart, 'twas tuned for others' woes, and not her own.

Why comes this mountain flower from her country home?

Her father was a farmer--ah! _was_--would be still, only that he had swallowed his farm. The mortgage to the store at the cross roads, the damage paid in a law suit for a fight, and the cost of throwing his neighbor's horse down his well, had left him without a home for himself, and so his children went forth into the world to seek bread; the daughter, of course, by the needle, the sons at sea.

Athalia chose the city. How little she knew the danger. She would have shuddered to see a man sit carelessly down upon a powder keg with a pipe in his mouth. Not half so dangerous is that, as for a young country girl, with a beautiful face, to come here.

Oh, how she worked one whole year to learn her dress-maker's trade, without one cent of compensation. Such is the law. The law of custom with milliners' apprentices.

Then she went home. How joyfully her mother opened her arms; how sweet was that kiss--a loved mother's kiss. Did she love her father? How could she love a man who often cursed, and sometimes beat that mother? She went home to stay, to ply her new trade among her old neighbors. How could she love her father when he would not let her stay, and, like a drunken brute as he was, drove her back again to the city?

"You have learnt a city trade, and you have got city airs; nobody wants you here."

It was not so. Everybody wanted her there but her miserable father. Everybody else loved Athalia. They saw no city airs; all they saw was that a rough diamond had been polished. What is it worth without?

So she came back to the city with a heavy heart. What was she to do? She could go back to her old shop and work eighteen hours a day, for twenty-five cents, and scanty food; lodging, as she had done during her long year of apprenticeship, three in a narrow bed, in a room with just air and space enough for the decent accommodation of a cat, nothing more. What hope in such a life? What would she have at the end of the year? Just what she had at the beginning? No; for one year of youth would be gone.

She could not go back; there was no hope there. So, with another girl just as poor, but just as willing to work, she took a room, and took in work, or went out to do it. Then how she was exposed, how in danger. Libertines live in genteel families. Ah, and are pet sons of mothers who would give dollars to dissipated rakes, and grudge shillings to poor dress-makers. And if the poor girl should be caught in the snare of such a son, how the mother would rave and drive her away unpaid, because she had disgraced her "respectable boy."

Mrs. Morgan was one of Athalia's lady "patrons." Haughtily proud, yet not, like some of her class, positively dishonest, cruelly dishonest. She wanted the labor of the poor sewing girl, because she possessed great taste, and could dress her daughters better, and what was still more, though so little practised by the rich, cheaper, than she could get their dresses at a "regular establishment." That was just what the daughters most disliked. They knew that none of their acquaintances wore such neat-fitting dresses, but when the question was put, "Where did you get them made?" they could not answer, "Oh, we always get everything at Madame Chalambeau's fashionable establishment in Broadway."

They could not change their mother's policy, and so they determined to drive poor Athalia out of the house.

They had another object. Athalia was beautiful. Her face was such as we are apt to conceive that an angel must have. And everybody who came in the house while she was there, and saw her, said, "Oh, what a sweet face!"

This was gall and wormwood to the "young ladies," for their faces were just such as you would suppose were made out of those two ingredients, and they were true indications of their minds. So they hated the poor seamstress for double cause.

At first she came to the table with the family. But the girls could not help observing that she was the diamond, they the setting, to all eyes. She was better bred than they, with all their boarding-school education. Where had she got it? In a country school house, and her mother's kitchen.

Once, once only, after tea she was invited to sing. Who supposed that she could touch a piano note. She accepted the invitation, as all well-bred girls do, who know that they can sing, and Walter offered his arm to lead her to the piano.

Walter was the brother, the only "son and heir of our family." He had just returned from a lady-killing Niagara tour, and met Athalia for the first time at the tea table. It was the last time, the sisters said, that he should meet her there. She went home that evening; she had finished her job and received her poor pay. That was one of Mrs. Morgan's virtues; she paid the stipulated price to those who worked for her.

What daggers, scorpions' stings, and poisoned darts, poor Athalia and Walter would have felt, while he stood over her at the piano, if they could have felt the glances of scornful, angry eyes. How he was taken to task afterwards for paying attention to "a sewing girl," particularly for waiting upon her home.

How he justified himself. Just as though there was need of it. But aristocracy had stept down to the level of one who

"Plied her needle and thread, In poverty, hunger, and toil;" Who sang with a voice of saddening song, Of the home on her own native soil.

Of the spring and the brook where it flow'd, Of the plums and the pears where they grew, Of the meadows and hay lately mow'd. And the roses all dripping with dew.

And her heart it went journeying back, While her fingers plied needle and thread, Till the morning came in at a crack, Where it found her still out of her bed.

Shall I ever work thus like a slave, With the scorn of the rich and the proud? For they think that a seamstress must crave For the work that is making her shroud.

Walter justified, apologised, for he was bound in the iron fetters, "polite custom."

"I found," says he, "when I came home, a beautiful, well-dressed, well-behaved girl, to all appearance a young lady, at your tea table."

"Well, she shall never come there again. I always told mother that she might know better than to bring her to the table; and the pert minx, if she knew her place, would never try to stick herself into genteel company. So much for having a dress-maker in the house."

"Elsie, Elsie, I am ashamed of you."

"I think you had better be ashamed of yourself, mother."

"I found her," resumed Walter, "at your table, and I took the only vacant seat, by her side. I did not find her pert, but on the contrary, I must say it, better behaved, better spoken, than my sister Elsie, when speaking of or to her mother."

"You had better insult me, by your comparison, Sir Walter."

"No; I do not intend that. But I was only explaining why I paid attention to the lady."

"The lady--lady! That to a sewing girl who goes out to work by day's work. Did you learn that at college or at Saratoga?"

"I have learned to call every female lady, who looks, acts, and talks like one. I hope my sister Elsie will not unlearn me. I found the lady at your table. I found her polite and diffident. She is not a forward minx. I walked with her to the parlor."

"Yes, and she should have known better than to go there. Why did she not go back to her work?"

"Elsie, she had done her work, and was waiting for your father to come home, so I could get some money to pay her; for I should be ashamed to keep her out of her money, or oblige her to call again. You had spent all the change I had in the house in your afternoon shopping. It was me that asked her to stay. It was me that asked her into the parlor. It was me, your mother, that asked her to sing one of those plaintive, sweet songs, I had heard her sing to the children while at work. It was you that urged her. What for? That she might fail. Elsie, Elsie, there is envy in your heart."

"And she did sing. Was ever anything sweeter? I can repeat every word, for every note went down into my soul, and printed itself like the magnetic telegraph. Listen:

"Oh, I was born where waters leaping, Cascade down the green, green hill; Oh, I was born where lambkins bleating, Leap along the clear, clear rill. Oh, I was born where lightning flashes, 'Luminate the green, green trees; Oh, I was born where the wild wind dashes, Raging o'er the deep, deep seas.

"Oh, now I live amid confusion, Commerce wears an ugly frown; Oh, who would give that sweet seclusion, For all the pleasures of the town? Oh, how I love my native mountain, Hills and glens and all their flocks, Oh, how I love that sweet sweet fountain, Every tree, and all the rocks."

"Smitten--smitten--my brother Walter smitten with my dress-maker! Faugh! I wonder if he went home with her, for he went out at the same time?"

Yes, he did go home with her. It was her first false step. But ye that stand fast, do not censure this first step of her fall. She was young and handsome; so was he. Theirs were such hearts as nature sports with. Both were touched. He went home with her. They got into a stage at Seventeenth street to ride to Broome, for there was the home of the sewing girl. At Broome street he forgot to pull the check string. She did not notice it till the crowd of cars, carriages, and swarms of human beings, which fill up that great wide thoroughfare, Canal street, awakened her, from her reverie of wild thoughts, to the fact that they were already too far down. Before he could stop her she had pulled the string, and the driver held up and looked down through his little peep hole at his passengers, ready for his sixpenny fare, which he will contrive to make seven cents, if he makes change for you.

Walter acknowledged that he did not mean to stop the stage; he wanted Athalia to go to Taylor's, and take an ice cream with him. But she was inexorable. He plead, she said, no; she said it sweetly, and, finally, they compromised by her agreeing to go to-morrow evening.

The second false step!

Then he walked home with her. She said, good night, at the door, he said, "Oh, let me see you up these dim stairs."

"Oh, no, I am used to them, I can find my room in the dark. If Jeannette is at home, she will hear a little signal upon the wall, and open the door, then it will be light."

"Give it then."

She did; Jeannette was not at home.

"Oh, let me go up, and just look in, and see where angels live."

Oh, flattery! thy power is great. Why should she refuse, since he was to come again, she had promised that? So she said, "come up, then," and away she tripped into the darkness, her step so light that he could not tell where it fell. Directly there was a little scratch, a flash, a blue flame, very small, and then a full white light, and a match, and then a lamp was burning.

"Come up. Take care of the narrow, crooked steps, they are not like your broad easy stair-case."

She had made another false step. Did far off visions of fancy revel in her brain, that she might some day go up that broad stair-case, arm in arm with that handsome young man? What if they did? you too have dreamed more unlikely day dreams.

"Come up, can you see?"

Yes, he could see,

"By the lamp dimly burning,"

just up there above him, one of the houris he had often read of, often dreamed of, never before seen. He went up, to her little heaven of a room. How could she sing that,

"Commerce wears an ugly frown,"

while everything looked so smiling in her mart? How could she long for the sweet seclusion of her country home, with such a bijou of a hermit's cell here? He stood amazed. He spoke not, but he thought. Did she divine his thoughts?--she answered them--how did she know them? The magnetic telegraph of the soul was at work.

"Yes, sir, we are obliged to keep our room neat, because ladies come here to get work done, and they would not give us their custom if we lived in a plain room."

Plain room! What would his sisters say to a plainly furnished room, if that was not one?

"True, it is plainer than theirs--I mean--but you did not speak--I thought you spoke--yes it is plain compared with rooms that ladies occupy. We pay enough though for the furniture to have good."

"Do you hire it then?"

"Yes, we neither of us had money enough to furnish a room, only a few things, and pay the rent in advance. So we hired a furniture man to put in the things, and we pay him for the use of them."

"How much?"

"Five dollars a month."

"Five dollars! Why there is not over a hundred dollars worth."

"No, sir; that is just what it was counted at. They are all second-hand articles. There is the bedstead; we furnished the bed and bedding; my mother gave me that; Jeannette has no mother; and the table, and the other little pine table, the bureau, the wash-stand, the six chairs, the rocker, and the sofa; we made those ottomans, and the curtains; and in that pantry----. Oh, I declare how I am running on."

"Pray, tell me, Miss----, I really have not learned your name yet."

"Athalia. I am sure you heard your mother call me that."

"Yes, but I was going to call you by your sirname."

"Lovetree, sir. Athalia Lovetree."

"Oh, that is a very sweet, pretty name."

"Yes, sir, so much so that I think I shall always keep it."

"So all the young ladies say. But it hardly ever proves true with one who owns so pretty a name, and a face prettier still."

More flattery. She did not hear it. No. She felt it though.

"Well, I am very sure I never shall change my first name. I never shall be called by any other than Athalia."

She thought so then; I wonder if she ever thought of it in after years?

"But you have not told me what is in that pantry."

"Oh, no matter; that is where we keep all our dishes and cooking utensils. We have a stove in winter; in summer, a little charcoal furnace behind the fire-board."

"And is your room warm in winter?"

"Why yes, sir, if we have plenty of work."

"Does work keep you warm?"

"Oh, no; but work gives us money to buy coal. There was a time last winter, when we were out of work, that----"

"You had no fire?"

"Yes, sir, but only a few days, we had to make up the month's rent, eight dollars for the room, and five for the furniture."

Walter put his hand in his pocket. What for? He felt how easy it would be to take out a hundred dollars, and tell her, to go and pay for that furniture, and not pay rent for it any longer. Then he thought how ridiculous, to be so affected by the woes and wants of a sewing girl. How his proud sisters would laugh at him. Pride conquered a heart prone to a good action.

"And so you went without fire, to pay that usurious old miser who owns this furniture, sixty per cent per annum, for the use of it. Sixty, yes, more than a hundred upon what it would sell for at auction. And what did you do for food in the meantime?"

"Well, we did not need much, and should not have suffered any, if Mrs. Jenkins had paid me for my work. Oh, if she only knew how much we did need it. Jeannette was sick, and what little money I had, I spent for her; I had almost ten dollars due me for work, and could not get one. It is wicked to keep poor girls out of their money; indeed it is, when they are sick and suffering for it."

"And you suffered, while Mrs. Jenkins, with her thirteen servants, and coach and horses owed you for work?"

"Well, we did not suffer much, except I had to pawn my black silk dress, the very one too that I needed most when it was cold, and had to do without fire when Jeannette was sick, and should, by all means, have had one. She is a sweet, good girl; I wish she was at home."

"Wish again, and you will see her."

Both started as though caught in something they were ashamed of. Why should they be? True he had approached very close to Athalia, as she stood watering her flowers and feeding her bird--both windows were full of flowers, and over each a canary bird; and he was watching all her operations with as much interest as though they were all his own.

"Poor things," she said, "they look neglected."

She loved flowers. So did he. He loved their owner, but he had not said so yet. He hardly knew it; he would not let any one know it; hence he started when Jeannette spoke, for he thought she must have seen it. He blushed and turned round, and then she blushed; there was a trio of blushes. What for? Jeannette did not think it was a stranger. She thought it was Charley Vail. Charley was a sort of beau, yet not a beau. He was Jeannette's cousin; and though he did not love her exactly, he liked her, and I guess that she liked him; Athalia thought more than liked him. Charley would have loved Athalia if she had given him the least encouragement, but she would not, for she hoped he would love his cousin and marry her. He was a good fellow, always ready to do anything on earth for "the girls"--in short he was Charley.

Jeannette blushed. She had reason to, for, thinking it was cousin Charley--who else could it be, there in their room alone with Athalia, in the evening--she tripped up behind him and gave him a good hearty slap on the back. He turned around, she almost felt him hugging and kissing her, but he did not. She looked again, the light now shone in his face, and there she stood before a stranger. Is it any wonder she blushed? is it any wonder he blushed? is it any wonder they all blushed? She played with her bonnet strings; he twirled his hat; Athalia could not play with any thing. She had the lamp in one hand, and the bird cage in the other. But she could laugh, and she burst out in such clear, musical tones, as she said, "Why, Jeannette, did you think it was Charley?"

That explained the whole. He understood the blow now. Did he also understand what Charley would have done, if it had been him that got the blow. Perhaps he thought, for he said, "You have struck me, miss. I never take a blow without giving one back. There."

Did he strike her? What! strike a woman! Shame! Oh, no; but he caught her in his arms, before she could be aware of the movement, and such a kiss! such, a good, hearty kiss as he gave her. Ah, well! who would not? She was a nice, sweet girl, not quite so pretty as Athalia, but one that a colder heart than his might relish in just such a case. She pouted a little, and talked about great liberty in a stranger; but who took the first liberty? True; but "that was a mistake."

"Then count the other a mistake too."

"No, that was done on purpose."

"So it was, and I should like to do it again, but I will not, so rudely. Pray forgive me."

What had she to forgive? what to be angry about. How could she hold out against that, "I should like to do it again?"

After all she was not half so angry as Athalia. And what was she angry about? That he had kissed Jeannette instead of her? Take care, little heart, jealousy is creeping in among thy pulsations. Take care, big heart, for just now Charley enters the scene, and before he has observed that a stranger is in the room, he has kissed Athalia.

Mischief has broke loose to-night. What is in the men? What is in Walter Morgan, that a kiss given to that girl, for the first time seen that night, should send a pang to his heart? How it goes throbbing through every nerve, and pricks into the very core of sensation. Take care, big heart and little heart, nature is at her sports and she always makes pleasures sweet by contrast with pain.

Finally, all are reconciled. How they do laugh over the queer mistakes. Jeannette would have sooner struck a bear than him, yet he did not bite her. Charley would have sooner kissed that same bear, and risked the hug, than have kissed Athalia before a stranger, for he is a good boy, a little mischievous, but would never do a thing to hurt the feelings of another, particularly a woman.

How they did sit, and talk, and laugh, and enjoy happiness, such as Walter had never found in rose-wood furnished parlors. What would his proud sisters say, if they knew how "low he had sunk himself, to keep company with sewing girls?" But he would not tell them. Take care, young man, you are breaking in upon the conventionalities of life. You must stick to your _caste_, in America as well as India. You may lay your heart at the feet of anything that is old and ugly, even as your sisters, so that she is _ton_ and of the _ton_--the upper _ton_. But offer to love one who lives, barely lives, by her needle, and see how your own flesh and blood will hate you.

So passed the evening away. Then Walter would go. But he wanted to hear Athalia sing once more. No. She had no piano. His hand was in his pocket again. How he would like to send her one to-morrow, but he dared not say so. He did look around the room, to see where he could set it. There was no room. She could not sing any more to-night. Ask Jeannette. She sings a beautiful little song while we are at work. No, she could not. She was afraid to sing before strangers. But Charley asked her, in his blandest manner, and then she would sing one verse if he would go right home. How anxious she was to get rid of him. So she sung:

"Why bitter life with useless tears, With mourning unavailing? Why bitter hope with ceaseless fears, Of shoals where we are sailing? With lively song and music peals, Make life just like the ocean, When flapping sails a zephyr steals, To toss us with its motion, Motion, motion, motion. To toss us with its motion."

"There now, I hope you are satisfied. If not you may go, for I shall not sing another word to-night. I don't know how I came to do that."

No, they were not satisfied. Who ever knew a man that was? Who ever got one favor of a woman, that did not ask for two more? So they both asked both the girls to go to the theatre to-morrow night, and both promised.

More false steps. How many will it take to reach the end?

Walter went home, never more happy. You have seen how he was taken to task. He had defied the laws of caste.

It did not require stronger Argus eyes than his two sisters possessed to see how deeply he was enamored with Athalia. How they did wish they knew whether she had dared to look up to him, as he had down to her. How should they find out. It does not take mischief-makers long to contrive their plot. If one woman wants to ruin another one, there is one always ready to assist her in her wicked design. No doubt he was the father of millinery, for he caused the first apron to be made, and he has assisted largely in all the designs of female apparel from that day to this. Sometimes his fashion is very fig-leafish, barely hiding a portion of the body, while the limbs, head, neck, shoulders, and other "excitements," are left exposed to Adam's rude gaze. Then he contrives his fashion of so much cloth, that those who follow it may lose their souls in its attainment, and those who make them may feel, as they

"Work, work, work, Till the stars shine through the roof," That they are weaving a web with sin for the woof, "Till the brain begins to swim, Till the eyes grow heavy and dim, Sewing at once, with a double thread, A dress for the living and dead."

Mischief is always busy. It must be so with an envious wicked woman.

The Morgans changed their tactics, and adopted those more wicked than I could invent.

They soon found that they wanted more dresses, and what was very remarkable, they did not want to go to the French dress-maker. What could be the reason? They had watched their brother; they had seen him go to Athalia's; they had seen him in the theatre with her; they had met them walking, arm in arm, in Broadway, "the shameless hussey;" and once they had entered Thompson's, and walked upstairs to take ice cream, "actually over our heads." Walter Morgan, the richest merchant's son, in New York, gallanting a seamstress--their own dress-maker. And every day some of their acquaintance were asking them, "Who is that beautiful girl I saw with Walter?" Of course they did not know; how could they tell that he had taken up with "such a thing?" In vain they talk to him, he was mum, or if he spoke of her, it was with the highest respect. Would he marry her? Ah, there was the rub.

"It is a pity," said Elsie, "that he would not ruin her, and that would be the end of it."

Did a spirit furnish that cue, or was it a wicked woman's own conceit? At any rate, it was a cue upon which they acted. Athalia was sent for, and the young ladies never were so affable before. Every opportunity was contrived for Walter to accomplish the purpose of a villain. Their schemes had the exact contrary effect desired. He had made such advances at first as "men about town" do make, and had met with such a decided repulse, not an angry one, but a virtuous one, that he never would try again.

"I expected it," said she to his proposals, "I am used to it--I am almost every day exposed to such tempting offers, to escape a life of poverty--I have ceased to look upon them as insulting--nature, and fashion, and the state of society, are such in this city, that a girl with an unfortunate face like mine, must fall, unless she is possessed of such fortitude as but few young girls are naturally gifted with. You may ask me that question every day; every day you may, if you feel like wounding the feelings of a poor girl, repeat your question, and every day you will get the same answer."

"Athalia, forgive me. Oh, forgive me; I never will repeat the question again; whether you forgive me or not, you need have no fear of that."

What a failure then had his sisters made. They did just what they did not intend to do; they led Walter to think, that his family would approve a match with one so virtuous, so beautiful, so lovely, even if she was a sewing girl, and he began to build castles in the air upon this foundation. They were very sandy, and a storm was approaching that would soon beat upon the frail walls, and like all such fabrics, down they will tumble.