Part 6

“Yes, dear, they both look very nicely. You deserve the ticket papa promised when the weeds were all gone, as well as the one you was to have when Luella’s dress was finished. But, Maybee, think a moment. Did you do it really to please _me_ or to please _yourself_? Have you been mamma’s good, obedient little Maybee to-day?”

“It’s nicer _doing things_ than ’tis minding,” said Maybee, hanging her head.

Sue looked up from the parcel she was untying: “There, mother, that’s just it. I’ve tried, you know, ever since that night we were so frightened, to do things to please God; but it’s—it’s the _minding_ I don’t like.”

“The natural heart loves to do great things,” said Mrs. Sherman, drawing her eldest daughter closer to her; “it is only the ‘new heart’ that _loves_ to _mind_ God.”

VIII.

AND THE LAST, FIRST.

“The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold a greater than Jonas is here.”

Miss Cox was out of town, and Miss Marvin had the Sabbath School class. The children liked Miss Cox, but thought nobody could equal Miss Marvin. “Miss Cox gave them good dinners enough,” Dick said, “but somehow, Miss Marvin made them taste better.” Dick was trying hard to make up for lost time, and to get the mastery over his mischievous propensities. He wasn’t trying in his own strength, either. That first time he asked for and found a Helping Hand wasn’t the last; and since Aunty McFane told Miss Marvin about Dick, that lady had taken especial pains to cultivate his acquaintance, chatting with him on all occasions, and sympathizing in his little trials and failures, till the two had become firm friends. That may have been one reason why Will Carter was a bit jealous of Dick; that, and the way he was rising in favor with Mr. Blackman.

The greatest change, however, was in Tryphosa Harte. You would scarcely have believed the quiet, happy face at the end of the seat was the same, Say had seen peering so disagreeably over the roof of the old house. The sour, ugly mouth was almost always smiling now; the fierce, scowling eyes were full of eager desire; the loud, coarse voice low and gentle, and her whole bearing so subdued and yet so thoroughly in earnest it was a comfort to look at her.

“Why, I really like Tryphosa,” said Jenny King, walking home one day beside Miss Marvin; “she is as different as can be. Don’t it seem queer, rather, she should become a Christian right away, and Sue Sherman and Nettie Rand and me, who’ve been talked to all our lives and know exactly what we ought to do, never get a bit nearer, as I see?”

“It’s the old story over and over, away back to the Jews and Ninevites,” said Miss Marvin, smiling rather sadly.

“The Jews and Ninevites?” repeated Jenny inquiringly.

“Yes; you remember, don’t you, that when God sent his servant Jonah to reprove the people of Nineveh they repented at once, and prayed to God for help; but when God sent his own Son to the Jews, his chosen people, who had been ‘talked to’ all their lives by his prophets and his providences, and who ‘knew exactly what they ought to do’ when the promised Messiah came, they refused to listen, they didn’t want to believe; and ‘publicans and harlots went into the kingdom’ before them.”

“But, Miss Marvin,” began Jenny hesitatingly, “don’t you think such folks—like Tryphosa, she was so dreadfully wicked—ought—I mean, need it more than—than—”

“Good people, like you and me, who never do anything selfish or unkind or hateful,” said Miss Marvin, smiling. “Perhaps; only the apostle Paul, one of the best men I ever heard of,—a brave, upright, moral man, before he became a Christian,—called himself the “chief of sinners”; and if—”

Turning a corner they came suddenly upon a group of boys,—Tom Lawrence, who had just been taunting Dick with some of his old scrapes, and Dick, who, in a blaze of passion, had been uttering oath after oath.

“There’s your model Sabbath-School scholar!” Will Carter had sneeringly said.

Miss Marvin appeared to have heard nothing of all this; she spoke to them all pleasantly. Dick slunk hurriedly away; Tom disappeared no less rapidly, followed by the others boys of his set; Say Ellis called to Jenny from across the street, and Will Carter was left to walk along with Miss Marvin.

Almost before he knew it, he was talking over all his many plans and hopes for the future. To fit thoroughly for college, to graduate “A No. 1,” work himself into an “up-stairs lawyer,” to make rousing speeches that would carry everything before them, possibly to step from the Legislature into Congress: that was Will’s ambition.

“And a worthy one,” said Miss Marvin encouragingly. “It will fill this life full of work and happiness. Now, what are you doing for the next, the life that is to last always?”

The boy drew himself up stiffly. “I do the best I know how, and that’s all anybody can,” he answered proudly. “_I_ don’t pretend to great things and make a fizzle of it, as _some_ boys do.”

“The best you know how,” repeated Miss Marvin. “Well, do you know as much as you ought?”

Will reddened. “I—I don’t quite understand.”

“I mean this, Will. Suppose God were to ask you to-day that same question—Do you know as much as you ought?—Couldn’t Dick Vance rise up in judgment against you,—you, a deacon’s son, whose father has prayed for you every night and morning since you saw the light, has shown you by example what a Christian’s joy and hope is, and urged you every day to make it your own? Dick, as you know, has never been in Sabbath School until very recently; had, before that, scarcely heard a word at home about another life; and yet, unless I am very much mistaken, Dick will go home to-night and repent bitterly of the sin into which he fell just now, while Will Carter, who flung his failure in his face, will rest satisfied he is doing the best he knows how.”

There was no reply, and Miss Marvin, stopping at Mrs. Forbush’s gate, said simply, “Please think it over, Will. I believe Dick is trying every day to learn of Him ‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ Be sure, Will, it is not true of you, as God said of the Laodiceans, ‘Thou knowest not thou art miserable and poor and blind,’ for not until you see your _need_ of the wisdom from above will you seek help of One ‘mighty to save,’ and who will let no one who trusts him ‘make a fizzle of it.’”

IX.

PHOSY’S WORK.

“——and by it he being dead yet speaketh.”

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

One voice, then a dozen, the cry taken up and swelled into a deafening clamor by half a hundred boys just let loose from school; then the clang of bells, quick, imperative, not startling people from their midnight dreams, but checking them mid-way in the daily rush of toil and pleasure.

Uncle Thed, taking an early dinner to catch the train, left his fork sticking straight up in a mouthful of meat, and dashed away to his shop. Farmer Vance clapped his hat on his head, and then flew round and round the house to find it. Old Mrs. Pratt threw her silver spoons into the sink, and locked up her dish-pan in the china-closet.

Ding! ding! ding!

“It’s the factory,” cried somebody.

“The factory where Phosy Harte works,” echoed a group of girls huddled, with white faces, into Say Ellis’s yard.

“Lucky it’s just noon; all the hands will be out. The old thing will go like tinder,” said the crowd surging past.

But they were not all out. In the upper story Phosy was busily at work, making up the odd minutes taken for her walk. Half a dozen of the other girls had gathered round her, hats in hand, laughing, talking, not catching the faintest sound from below, not even noticing the smell of smoke which had emptied the other rooms in half the usual time. Nobody thought to warn them in the selfish scramble for safety. When at last they opened the door to go down, a dense, black column of smoke met them, and through it, enticed by the little draught from the door, came a sharp, pointed tongue of fire, up, up, wrapping the old stairway in a sheet of flame, and cutting off all chance of escape in that direction. They ran to the windows.

“Ladders!” shouted the crowd. But alas! not one was long enough to reach them.

“Splice it!” “Bring ropes!” “No, mattresses!” “Carpets!” “They must jump!”

Men jostled each other in mad haste for they knew not what.

“Jump! It’s your only chance!”

One after another the frightened girls flung themselves down, one to be caught safely in the strong arms of a stalwart fireman, another reaching the ground with simply a sprained ankle, still another with a broken arm; while a fourth, falling beyond the mattress, was taken up bruised and bleeding, but alive, and life is dear at any cost.

Only Phosy Harte and Judy Ryan were left,—Judy a poor, deformed girl, half crippled, who would not, dared not jump, and Phosy, waiting, coaxing, beseeching.

“It will be too late.”

There are soft mattresses and strong carpets below. Phosy begs, almost pushes the poor girl out, and she reaches the ground safely; but flame and smoke have driven Phosy back.

“The other window!” shouts the crowd, and half-blinded she springs over the low sill just as a fireman, who has succeeded in finding a long ladder, is raising it in place; she strikes it heavily, and drops limp and lifeless.

They lift her tenderly. One faint moan, a gasp,—that is all.

Back to the old house they carry her, past the little garden she had risen so early that very morning to weed, into the low room, with its close, sudsy, smoky atmosphere, which she will never brighten more.

“And nobody’ll never know the comfort an’ help she’s ben to me these last few months,” said the poor, over-worked mother, wringing her hands helplessly. “I ain’t been to none of yer meetin’s for years, but if it’s them what made her so handy an’ happy-like I’d be glad to try it meself. She’s asked me enough, the Lord knows, an’ I allers meant to go sometime, jest to please her. Oh! I’ll never forgit how she’s prayed nights with them childern—”

There four little voices took up the wail of grief, and more than one rough fireman drew his sleeve hurriedly across his eyes.

“She is through with all suffering,” said good old Dr. Helps, who had been working busily over the poor, crushed body.

“It’s a blessed thing for the child,” said Deacon Carter, as they walked away, “but it’s a strange Providence that took the one bit of leaven out of that miserable batch of humanity.”

Upon the pine coffin, the girls in Miss Cox’s class laid a wreath of beautiful hot-house flowers; but all over the lid, and inside, around the pale face and over the white robe, were fresh, fragrant pond-lilies, their subtile perfume filling the room. No one knew who scattered them there, only as Miss Marvin laid one tenderly between the waxen fingers, Bill Finnegan said huskily, “Thank’ee, ma’am; she liked ’em best of anything.”

The next Sabbath and the next, in the empty seat where Phosy had always sat, lay a bunch of the same pure, lovely lilies. Nobody knew how they came there, but their sweet breath seemed like pleasant memories of her who had gone. The fourth Sabbath an awkward, ungainly figure, in coarse homespun, shuffled down the aisle and stopped beside the row of neatly-dressed boys. Dick moved a little nearer to Varley, and motioned the new-comer to sit down.

“I—it’s Bill Finnegan, ma’am, an’ he’ll not be gettin’ in the way,” he stammered, as Miss Marvin left her seat to speak with him. “You see, _she_ was allus askin’ me to come, but I didn’t think so much about it, then. I’d like, bein’ as this was her class, if you don’t mind. I’ll do the best I can; she was forever talkin’ about the things she heard tell of here, an’ ef I could learn, I’m thinkin’ it won’t harm a feller.”

Up-stairs, in the pew nearest the door, sat Mrs. Harte in the faded black bonnet which had done her service when her husband’s mother died years before, when “Daniel” was sober and industrious,—sat, with the tears running down her cheeks, getting, as she phrased it, “a fill of the good things Phosy talked so much about, to stand her through the long, lonesome week.”

And not many days afterwards there came to Dr. Helps’ door—for the doctor’s genial, sympathizing heart was known far and wide—a great, rough man, with blood-shotten eyes and haggard face.

“I want to sign the pledge, if so be you think it’s any use,” he said. “I’m only old Dan Harte, that ev’rybody gin up long ago, except _her_,—Tryphosy. _She_ kep’ talkin’ an’ talkin’ in sech a lovin’ way, an’ only the Sunday afore, when she went away to meetin’ she kissed me. I was sober for a wonder, an’ sez she, ‘Father, if the Bible is true, what will you do when you come to die?’ I can’t git them words out of my ears, an’ you see I know there must be a something, to so kind of change Tryphosy from the fiery, hifalutin thing she was, to the purty-spoken, quiet, happy little cretur she got to be. And I thought mabbee, seein’ I’d quit drinkin’ ag’in an’ ag’in, an’ couldn’t never hold out, if there was anything in this ere religion Phosy got hold of, to help a feller, it’s Dan Harte what wants it.”

Good old Dr. Helps! not content to send away this weak fellow-mortal with a chapter of good advice, and some harmless tonic from his medicine-case, but who could and did kneel down beside him then and there, with a faith strong enough to hold up even this wreck of humanity for the Divine healing. Surely of him shall it be true, “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.”

And down in a dirty alley-way, between two tenement houses, Judy Ryan was teaching half a dozen ragged urchins a hymn Phosy used always to be singing about the mill. She had caught it at the prayer-meeting; and somehow plain, homely Boylston had suited her even better than the livelier Sabbath-School melodies. In her quaint fashion she had explained the words to Judy, and now, through her, was she not yet speaking to the poor, neglected souls in Pinch Alley? Wasn’t the “little leaven” working still?

X.

PHOSY’S HYMN.

“If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off forever.”

“My son, know thou the Lord, Thy father’s God obey; Seek his protecting care by night, His guardian hand by day.

Call while he may be found, Seek him while he is near; Serve him with all thy heart and mind, And worship him with fear.

If thou wilt seek his face, His ear will hear thy cry; Then shalt thou find his mercy sure, His grace forever nigh.

But if thou leave thy God, Nor choose the path to heaven, Then shalt thou perish in thy sins, And never be forgiven.”

XI.

MAYBEE’S REBELLION.

“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.”

Maybee waked up out of sorts. Nothing went right. Her berries were sour, her fritters “wrinkly,” her egg-toast “smushy.”

After breakfast she went out to play, and in half an hour had contrived to break one of Sue’s croquet-mallets, lose Tod’s ball, left by mistake in her pocket, and upset the board on which Bridget was drying sweet corn. She came in, hot and tired, and crosser than ever.

“Untie my bonnet, quick!” was the first thing mamma heard.

“How do little girls ask?” she inquired.

“I don’t care! I want it off, quick; it’s hot, and Bridget tied it so hard I’m most choked.”

“Well, say ‘Please,’ and mamma will try to make her little girl more comfortable.”

“Oh dear! I always have to do something horrid. I’ll untie it my own self,” whined Maybee, tugging at the strings of her big shaker till she had drawn them into the tightest of hard knots; then she picked and twisted and pulled, but the depraved sun-bonnet only screwed around against her nose, or tilted up till it really threatened to strangle her. So at last she sat still on the hassock, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, tears and perspiration making grimy furrows over her cheeks, the poor shaker bent into a triangle, from the apex of which looked out two defiant black eyes.

“When Maybee says ‘Please,’ mamma will help her.”

But Maybee wouldn’t say Please, and the little bent shaker wandered off to the play-room. She was never tired of “keeping house”; but—in a sun-bonnet! Oh dear! She tried to “make believe” it was a cap like old Mrs. Pratt’s, but all the same, it would be dreadfully in the way. When she wanted to look for anything, she must turn way around; she couldn’t “cuddle up” Loretta Luella the least bit; she couldn’t play go to parties, and as for going to bed, there would be nothing to do but lie flat on her back and stare at the ceiling.

She ran hopefully down stairs when the dinner-bell rang, sure that mamma would relent; for how could she ever manage to find her wee mouth inside that big bonnet?

“Say ‘Please,’” said mamma.

Maybee shook her head and clambered sulkily into her high chair.

“What’s this,—a small butcher wagon? Bless me! if there isn’t somebody inside!” said papa taking the shaker between his two hands and tipping it back till he could see the grimy little face. “Isn’t it time the colt had its blinders off, mamma?”

“When she will say ‘Please,’” said mamma pleasantly.

“Oh! _that’s_ the way the wind blows,” and papa, after asking a blessing, began carving the nice roast.

Jenny King had come home with Sue, and try as hard as they could, the triangular sun-bonnet, bobbing this way and that, was too much for their gravity. They all laughed at last, which sent Maybee off in high dudgeon, although she had scarcely eaten a mouthful. There was to be chocolate blanc-mange for dessert: she really must have some of that, and slipping into the kitchen she began coaxing Bridget to untie the knot.

“Shure, an’ it’s beyant me,” said Bridget, after two or three ineffectual efforts. “It’s too big an’ clumsy me fingers are intirely.”

So Maybee stole back into the parlor, curled up on the sofa, and listened to the cheerful rattle of dishes and hum of voices, growing, oh! so dreadfully hungry.

By and by she saw Jenny and Sue go off with their baskets. After berries, to be sure, and she might have gone with them.

A little later mamma came in with her sewing.

“Won’t Maybee say ‘Please’ now, and have on a clean dress?”

But Maybee only sat still, and looked straight out of the window.

It _was_ trying when callers were announced that the poor little shaker must trudge disconsolately up-stairs again. But it would be tea-time pretty soon. Wouldn’t mamma let her dear little girl have any supper? Why, she would certainly starve to death before morning. Didn’t it make folks sick to starve to death? and wouldn’t they have to have the doctor? Then how would mamma feel? If she should die—but no; Maybee would rather not think about that, herself. None but good people went to heaven, and good people said “Please,” she supposed. _She_ didn’t want to. She hated “Please.” And—why hadn’t she thought before? she could just go and get the scissors, and cut that knot right straight off. Mamma’s work-basket was in the sewing-room. Armed with the big shears, one little fat hand grasping each handle, she climbed up to the bureau-glass, carefully put them astride the troublesome knot, and gave a quick snip.

Something sharp went into her chin, something warm trickled down her neck. Had she cut her throat? That always “bleeded folks to death.” She gasped a little, sat down on the floor, and began mopping up the stream of warm blood with a pillow-sham. She felt weak and tired, but she couldn’t lie down, for there was the knot tight as ever.

“Sue! Sue!” she called faintly, as somebody ran past the door.

“I can’t stop; Jennie and I are going home with Bell,” answered Sue, half way down the stairs.

But somebody must help her.

“Bridget, O Bridget! do come up here a minute,” she called softly down the back stairs.

“An’ shure, it’s not I that’ll be laving me work to look after the likes of ye,” muttered Bridget, heated and tired with her ironing.

What should she do? She crept slowly down the stairs and through the back entry, the big pillow-sham stuffed into the front of the shaker, and quite concealing the tall clothes-bars of freshly-ironed linen Bridget had just set out to air. Over they came, completely covering her.

“Mamma! mamma! O my mamma!” she screamed. “Oh-h! please, my dear mamma! _please!_ PLEASE! ’fore I’m deaded over an’ over.”

That call wasn’t in vain. Strong arms picked her tenderly up; soft, skilful fingers untied the hateful knot, and bathed the poor, aching face; loving lips kissed away the tears.

“Oh, but it’s been such a horrid day!” whispered Maybee to papa, when supper had been eaten and it was time to say good-night.

“Dear me! How did it happen?” said papa.

“I happened it myself,” returned Maybee soberly. “Folks most always do, don’t they?”

“Exactly,” said papa. “The trouble that comes of sin we mostly put ourselves into.”

“An’ what does peoples do who haven’t any mammas to pull ’em out?” inquired Maybee anxiously.

“Whom did Maybee grieve besides mother, to-day?”

“God,” she answered solemnly.

“And only God can help us out of sin. Even mamma cannot keep Maybee from being just so naughty again, but God can. Remember that, little one, and ask him to-night to make you always his own good little girl.”

XII.

“BECAUSE.”

“Because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded.”

“What _is_ the matter?” inquired Maybee, coming suddenly upon Tod, sitting on the door-step, with one fist screwed into either eye, and big, round tears dropping off the end of his nose.

“My new knife, it’s all losed!” and Tod buried half his face in a small square of Centennial cotton.

“Oh me suz! an’ I’ve lost your ball,” returned Maybee consolingly. “There’s never a shower ’thout it rains, my papa says,” which misquoted proverb Tod proceeded to illustrate with a fresh burst of grief.

“You see,” continued Maybee, “Sue said I mustn’t fire it that way, because it would go in the tall grass. I shouldn’t never thought of it if she hadn’t, and now papa won’t let me go and get it.”

“My hasn’t got anyfing,” wailed Tod, behind his handkerchief.

“It’ll be in the hay if the cows don’t eat it,” said Maybee cheerily. “Where’d you lose your knife?”

“Over in the marsh; it sinked, you know.”

“How came you playing down there?”

“Wented myself.”

“Who said you might?”

“Nobody,” very faintly.

“Oh!” said Maybee significantly, “naughty boys always lose their knives or something; but never mind, let’s go an’ see Aunty McFane and little Peter.”

“Can’t,” said Tod dejectedly.

“Why not?”

“Can’t go frough the gate for one, two, three days; mamma said so.”

“What for?”

“’Cause—’cause—my runned away.”

“Well,” with a long-drawn breath, “let’s go on the front pizarro and play steam-boat; only—you’d better have a clean apron on. Such awful patched pants, an’ that jacket! Why, you’re ever so much the biggest!”

“Can’t help it,” said Tod sulkily. “Can’t have no other clothes on for the greatest long while.”

“Well, if I sha’n’t give it up! What for?”

“’Cause—’cause I played with the grindstone in my best jacket.”

“The-od-o-re Smith! Aunty’s told you over and over again she’d punish you if you did.”

“My knows it,” said Tod meekly: “an’ my mamma’s so pur-sistent; might have finked she would.”

“Of course. What a goose! Well, then, let’s go in the shed and play store.”

“Isn’t any fings there. Mamma’s locked ’em all up, ’cause my kep’ forgetting—no, cause my didn’t want to put ’em away when she said it was time”; and Tod stared straight up at the blue sky overhead.

“I hate ‘becauses,’” said Maybee emphatically,—“_that_ kind, anyhow. I just had miserable times, my own self, all yesterday.”

“’Cause why?” asked Tod, with alacrity.