In Wild Rose Time

It was semi-twilight. He picked his way up and knocked gently.

So gently, Dil was sure of a customer for her mother. The babies were asleep. Bess was fixed in her wagon. Dil had some patches of bright colors that she was going to sew together, and make a new carriage rug.

She opened the door just a little way. He pushed it wider, and glanced in.

“Oh, have you forgotten me?” he exclaimed. “Did you think I would not come?”

Dil stood in a strange, sweet, guilty abasement. She had disbelieved him. Bess gave a soft, thrilling cry of delight, and stretched out her hands.

“I knew you would come,” and there was a tremulous exaltation in her weak voice.

“I’ve only been in town a few days. I have been staying with a cousin who met with a sad accident and is still ill. But I have run away for an hour or two; and I have brought Bess’s picture.”

He was taking a little survey of the room. The stove shone. The floor was clean. The white curtain made a light spot in the half gloom. The warmth felt grateful, coming out of the chilly air, though it was rather close. Dil did not look as well as on the summer day. Her eyes were heavy, with purple shadows underneath; the “bang” of the morning had left some traces. And Bess was wasted to a still frailer wraith, if such a thing was possible.

They both looked up eagerly, as he untied the package, and slipped out of an envelope a delicately tinted photograph.

“There, blue eyes, will it do for Dil?”

The child gave a rapturous cry. Dil stood helpless from astonishment.

“There ain’t no words good enough,” Dil said brokenly. “Leastways, I don’t know any. O Bess, he’s made you look jes’ ’s if you was well. O mister, will she look that way in heaven?” For Dil had a vague misgiving she could never look that way on earth.

“She will be more beautiful, because she will never be ill again.”

“Dil’s right – there ain’t no words to praise it,” Bess said simply. “If we was rich we’d give you hundreds and hundreds of dollars, wouldn’t we, Dil?”

Dil nodded. Her eyes were full of tears. Something she had never known before struggled within her, and almost rent her soul.

“And here is your book. You can read, of course?”

“I can read some. Oh, how good you are to remember.” She was deeply conscience stricken.

The tone moved him immeasurably. His eyelids quivered. There were thousands of poor children in the world, some much worse off than these. He could not minister to all of them, but he did wish he could put these two in a different home.

“I must go away again with my cousin, and I am sorry. I meant to” – what could he do, he wondered – “to see more of you this winter; but a friend of mine will visit you, and bring you a little gift now and then. You must have spent all your money long ago,” flushing at the thought of the paltry sum.

“We stretched it a good deal,” said Dil quaintly. “You see, I bought Bess some clo’es, there didn’t seem much comin’ in for her. An’ the fruit was so lovely. She’s been so meachin’.”

“Well, I am going to be – did you ever read Cinderella?” he asked eagerly.

“I ain’t had much time for readin’, an’ Bess couldn’t go to school but such a little while.”

“And no one has told you the story?”

There was a curious eagerness in the sort of blank surprise.

“Well, this little Cinderella did kitchen work; and sat in the chimney-corner when her work was done, while her sisters dressed themselves up fine and went to parties. One evening a curious old woman came, a fairy godmother, and touched her with a wand, a queer little stick she always carried, and turned her old rags into silks and satins, and made a chariot for her, and sent her to the ball at the king’s palace.”

“Oh,” interposed Dil breathlessly, “she didn’t have to come back to her rags, an’ chimney, an’ all, did she?”

“She did come back, because her fairy godmother told her to. But the king’s son sent for her and married her.”

“Oh, if she’d only come to us, Dil!” Bess had a quicker and more vivid imagination. She had not been so hard worked, nor had her head banged so many times. “We’d have the char – what did you call it? an’ go to heaven. Then you wouldn’t have to wheel me, Dil, an’ we’d get along so much faster.” She laughed with a glad, happy softness, and her little face was alight with joy. “Say, mister, you must think I’ve got heaven on the brain. But if you’d had hurted legs so long, you’d want to get to the Lord Jesus an’ have ’em made well. I keep thinkin’ over what you told us ’bout your Lord Jesus, an’ I know it’s true because you’ve come back.”

Such a little thing; such great faith! And he had been comparing claims, discrepancies, and wondering, questioning, afraid to believe a delusion. Was he truly his Lord Jesus? The simple belief of the children touched, melted him. It was like finding a rare and exquisite blossom in an arid desert. He wished he were not going away. He would like to care for little Bess until the time of her release came. Ah, would they be disillusioned when they came to know what the real pilgrimage was?

“There ain’t no fairies truly,” said Dil with pathetic gravity. “There ain’t much of anything for poor people.”

“I can’t take you to a palace; but when I come back I mean you shall have a nice, comfortable home in a prettier place – ”

“Mother wouldn’t let Dil go on ’count of the babies. There ain’t but two to-day, ’n’ she was awful mad! ’N’ I wouldn’t go athout Dil. No one else ’d know how to take care of me.”

“We will have that all right. And while I am gone you must have some money to buy medicines and the little luxuries your mother cannot afford.”

“She don’t buy nothin’ ever. I ain’t no good, ’cause I’ll never walk, ’n’ only Dil cares about me,” Bess said, as if she had so long accepted the fact the sting was blunted.

“Yes, I care; and I will send a friend here to see you, a young lady, and you need not be afraid to tell her of whatever you want. And Dil may like to know – that I am going to put her in a picture, and the money will be truly her own.”

He was not sure how much pride or personal delicacy people of this class possessed.

“O Dil!” Bess was electrified with joy. “Oh, I hope you made Dil look – just as she’d look if we lived in one of them beautiful houses, ’n’ had a maid ’n’ pretty clo’es, ’n’ no babies to take care of. We never knowed any one like you afore. Patsey’s awful good to us, but he ain’t fine like an’ soft spoken. Are you very rich, mister?”

He laughed.

“Only middling, but rich enough to make life a little pleasanter for you when I come back.”

She seemed to be studying him.

“You look as if you lived in some of the fine, big houses. I’d like to go in wan. An’ you know so much! You must have been to school a good deal. Oh, how soft your hands are!”

She laughed delightedly as she enclosed one in both of hers, and then pressed it to her cheek.

He stooped and kissed her. No one ever did that but Dil and Patsey.

“You’ll surely come back in time to go to heaven, soon as it’s pleasant weather,” she said suddenly. “An’ Dil couldn’t be leaved behind. Mother threatens to put her in a shop, an’ she does bang her head cruel. But I wouldn’t want to be in a pallis an’ have everything, if I couldn’t have Dil. An’ you’ll get it all fixed so’s we can go?”

Ah, ah! before that time Bess would have been folded in the everlasting arms. There was a lump in his throat, and he began to untie the string of the book to evade a more decisive answer.

It was an illustrated edition, simplified for children’s reading. He turned some of the leaves and found one picture – Christiana ascending the palace steps amid a host of angels.

From this squalid place and poverty, to that – how could he explain the steps between? When he came back Bess would be gone —

“Past night, past day,”

and he would give Dil a new and better chance in spite of her mother.

Dil drew a long, long breath.

“Can we all get to the pallis?” she asked, with a soft awe in her tone.

“Yes, there are many things to do – you will see what Christiana and Mercy did. And if you love the Lord Jesus and pray to him – ”

Poor Dil was again conscience smitten. Only this morning she had said praying wasn’t any good. She glanced up through tears, —

“’Pears as if I couldn’t ever get to understand. I wasn’t smart at school – ”

“But you are smart,” interposed Bess. “An’ now we’ve got the book we’ll find just how Christiana went. There’s only six months left. You’ll surely be back by April?”

“I shall be back.” His heart smote him. He was a coward after all. Ah, could he ever undertake any of the Master’s business?

“Do you remember a hymn an old lady sang for you once?” he said, glad of even this faltering way out. “I have been learning the words.”

“’Bout everlasting spring?” and Bess’s eyes were alight. “Oh, do please sing it! I’m in such an awful hurry for spring to come. Sometimes my breath gets so short, as if I reely couldn’t wait.”

Dil raised her eyes with a slow, beseeching movement. He pushed a chair beside the wagon, and held Bess’s small hands, that were full of leaping pulses.

The sweet old hymn, almost forgotten amid the clash of modern music. Ah, there was some one who would love and care for Dil in her desolation – his grandmother. He would write to her. Then he began, and at the first note the children were enraptured: —

“There is a land of pure delight,Where saints immortal reign;Infinite day excludes the night,And pleasures banish pain.Oh, the transporting, rapturous scene,That dawns upon my sight;Sweet fields arrayed in living green,And rivers of delight.There everlasting spring abides,And never-withering flowers;Death, like a narrow sea, dividesThis heavenly land from ours.No chilling winds nor poisonous breathCan reach that blessed shore;Sickness and sorrow, pain and death,Are felt and feared no more.O’er all those wide extended plains,Shines one eternal day;There Christ the Son forever reigns,And scatters night away.Filled with delight, my raptured soulCan here no longer stay;Though Jordan’s waves around me roll,Fearless I launch away.”

John Travis had a tender, sympathetic voice. Just now he was more moved by emotion than he would have imagined. Dil turned her face away and picked up the tears with her fingers. It was too beautiful to cry about, for crying was associated with sorrow or pain. A great inarticulate desire thrilled through her, a blind, passionate longing for a better, higher life, as if she belonged somewhere else. And, like Bess, an impatience pervaded her to be gone at once.

“Oh, please do sing it again!” besought Bess in a transport, her face spiritualized to a seraphic beauty. “Did they sing like that in the Mission School, Dil?”

Dil shook her head in speechless ecstasy.

There was a knock, and then the door opened softly. It was Mrs. Murphy, with her sick baby in her arms.

“Ah, dear,” she began deprecatingly, with an odd little old country courtesy, “I heard the singing, an’ I said to poor old Mis’ Bolan, ‘That’s never the Salvation Army, for they do make such a hullabaloo; but it must be a Moody an’ Sankey man that I wunst haird, with the v’ice of an angel.’ An’ the pore craythur is a hankerin’ to get nearer. Will ye lit her come down, plaise, or will ye come up?”

John Travis flushed suddenly. Dil glanced at her visitor aghast. Some finer instinct questioned whether he were offended. But he smiled. If it would give a poor old woman a pleasure —

Dil was considering a critical point. She had learned to be wise in evading the fury of a half-drunken woman. There were many things she kept to herself. But Mrs. Murphy would talk him over. A Moody and Sankey man, – she had not a very clear idea; but if Mrs. Murphy knew, it might be wisdom to have some one here who would speak a good word for her if it should be needed.

“Ye can bring her down,” she answered, still looking at John Travis with rising color.

She simply stepped into the hall; but the old woman was half-way down-stairs, and needed no further summons.

“Ah, dear, it’s the v’ice of an angel shure. An’ though I’m not given to them kind of maytins, on account of the praist, they do be beautiful an’ comfortin’ whiles they sing. Come in. It’s Dilly Quinn that’ll bid ye welcome. For it’s the Moody an’ Sankey man.”

“Yer very good, Dilly Quinn, very good, to ask in a poor old woman; though I’m main afeared of yer mother in a tantrum.” Her voice was shrill and shaky, though she was not seventy; but poverty and hardships age people fast. A bowed and shrunken woman, with thin, white, straggling hair, watery, hungry-looking eyes, a wrinkled, ashen skin, her lips a leaden blue and sunken from lack of teeth. She had one of Mrs. Murphy’s rooms since the head of the house was safely bestowed within prison limits. Mrs. Bolan’s only son had been killed in the war, and she had her pension. Now and then some one gave her a little work out of pity.

She dropped down on the lounge. “When I heard that there hymn,” she went on quaveringly, “it took me back forty year an’ more. There was great revival meetin’s. My poor old mother used to sing it. But meetin’s don’t seem the same any more, or else we old folks kinder lost the end er r’ligion.”

She was so pitiful, with her timorous, lonely look, and the hard struggles time had written on her everywhere.

“Will you sing it for her?” Dil asked timidly, glancing up at Travis.

Some one else paused to listen and look in, and stared with strange interest at the fine young fellow, whose rich, deep voice found a way to their hearts. And as he sang, a realization of their pinched, joyless lives filled him with dismay. Mrs. Bolan rocked herself too and fro, her hands clutched tightly over her breast, as if she was hugging some comfort she could not afford to let go. The tears rolled silently down her furrowed cheeks.

The foreign part of the audience was more outspoken.

“Ah, did yez iver listen to the loikes! Shure, it would move the heart of a sthone. It’s enough to take yez right t’ro’ to heaven widout the laste taste o’ purgatory. Shure, Mrs. Kelly, it’s like a pack o’ troubles fallin’ off, an’ ye step out light an’ strong to yer work agen. There’ll be a blissin’ for ye, young man, for the pleasure ye’ve given.”

Mrs. Bolan shuffled forward and caught his hand in hers, which seemed almost to rattle, they were so bony.

“God bless you, sir.” Her voice was so broken it sounded like sobs. “An’ there’s something ’bout makin’ his face shine on you – I disremember, it’s so long since I’ve read my Bible, more shame to me; but my eyes are so old and bad, I hope the Lord won’t lay it up agen me. I’m a poor old body, pushed outen the ranks. And you get kicked aside. Ye see, ’tain’t every voice that takes one to heaven. Lord help us ’bout gettin’ in. But mebbe he’ll be merciful to all who go astray. An’ – if ye wouldn’t mind sayin’ a bit of prayer, ’pears like ’twould comfort me to my dyin’ day.”

Her hungry eyes pleaded through their tears.

A bit of prayer! He had been praying a little for himself of late, but it came awkward after his years of intellectual complacency. A youngish woman was glancing at him in frightened desperation, as if she waited for something to turn her very life. There was but one thing he could think of in this stress – the divine mandate. Could anything be more complete? When ye pray, say, —

“Our Father which art in heaven – ”

VI – A WONDERFUL STORY

John Travis stood with upraised hand. Clearly, slowly, the words fell, and you could hear only the labored respiration of the women. There was a benediction – he could not recall it, but a verse of Scripture came into his mind. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

“The Lord will bless you,” said the trembling old woman.

He squeezed something into her hand as she turned to go. Mrs. Murphy’s sickly baby began to cry, and one of Dil’s woke up. The little crowd dispersed.

It began to grow dusky. Night came on early in Barker’s Court. Days were shorter, and sunless at that.

Travis stepped back to Bess.

“I shall ask my friend to tell me all about you – she will write it. And I shall come back.” He stooped and kissed Bess on the brow, for the last time. Heaven help her on her lonely journey. But the Saviour who blessed little children would be tender of her surely.

“We’ll all go – won’t we – to heaven? The singin’ was so beautiful. An’ the everlastin’ spring.”

“Good-by.” He clasped Dil’s hand. “Remember, wherever you are, I shall find you. Oh, do not be afraid, God will care for you.”

“I don’t seem to understand ’bout God,” and there was a great, strange awe in Dil’s eyes. “But you’ve been lovely. I can understand that.”

One more glance at Bess, whose face was lighted with an exalted glow, as if she were poised, just ready for flight. Oh, what could comfort Dil when she was gone? And he had so much! He was so rich in home and love.

A woman stood in the lower hallway, the half-despairing face he had noted. She clutched his arm.

“See here,” she cried. “You said, ‘deliver us from evil.’ Is anybody – is God strong enough to do it? From horrible evil – when there seems no other way open – when you must see some one you love – die starvin’ – an’ no work to be had – O my God!”

The cry pierced him. Yes, there was a beneficent power in money. He gave thanks for it, as he crushed it in her hand. How did the poor souls live, herded in this narrow court? His father’s stable was a palace to it in cleanliness.

He had reasoned about poverty being one of the judicious forces of the world. He had studied its picturesque aspects, its freedom from care and responsibility, its comfortable disregard of conventionals, its happy indifference to custom and opinion. Did these people look joyous and content? Why, their faces even now haunted him with the weight of hopeless sorrow. Oh, what could he do to ease the burthen of the world?

Dil picked up the baby after she had lighted the lamp. She was still in a maze, as if some vision had come and gone. Was he really here? Or had she been in a blissful dream?

“Come an’ spell out what he’s written – an’ – an’ his name, Dil!”

Bess was studying the fly-leaf. Yes, there it was, “John Travis.”

“I wisht it wasn’t John,” said Bess, a little disappointed. “He ought to have a fine, grand name, he’s so splendid. Rich people have nice ways, that poor people can’t seem to get.”

“No, they can’t get ’em, they can’t,” Dil repeated, with a despairing sense of the gulf between. She had never thought much about rich people before.

“You’d better hide the book, an’ the money, ’fore Owny comes in,” said Bess fearfully. “I don’t even dast to look at the pictures. But we’ll have it a good many days when mammy’s out, an’ I must learn to read the hard words. O Dil! if I had two good legs, I would jump for joy.”

Dil wanted to sit down and cry from some unknown excess of feeling – she never had time to cry from pure joy. But she heeded Bess’s admonition, and hid their precious gifts. Then she stirred the fire and put on the potatoes. It was beginning to rain, and the boys came in noisily. The babies went home, and they had supper.

It was quite late when Mrs. Quinn returned home, and she threw a bundle on the lounge. The boys being in, and Bess out of the way, she had nothing to scold about. She had had her day’s work praised, and a good supper in the bargain. Then cook had given her a “drap of the craythur” to keep out the cold. And she could have two days’ work every week “stiddy,” so she resolved to throw over some poorer customer.

But when Mrs. Murphy came down with a few potatoes in her hand that she had borrowed, and full of her wonderful news, Dil’s heart sank within her like lead.

“An’ what do ye think?” the visitor began incautiously. “Poor old Mrs. Bolan is half wild with all the singin’ an’ the beautiful prisint he gev her.”

“What prisint?” asked Mrs. Quinn peremptorily.

“Why, it was a five-dollar bill. I thought first she’d faint clear away wid joy.”

“What man?” eying them both suspiciously.

Dil’s lips moved, but her throat was so dry she could not utter a sound.

“Wan of them Moody an’ Sankey men that do be singin’ around, an’ prayin’. An’ ye niver heard sich an’ iligant v’ice even at the free and easies! Why, Mrs. Quinn, it’s my belafe, in spite of the praist, he cud draw a soul out o’ purgatory just wid his singin’. Mrs. Bolan’s that ’raptured she does nothin’ but quaver about wid her shaky old v’ice. Ah, dear – ave ye cud hev heard him!”

“To the divil wid him! Comin’ round to git money out’v poor folks. I knows ’em. Dil, did you give him a cint?”

“I didn’t have any; but he didn’t ast for none,” and the poor child had hard work to steady her voice.

“An’ ye’r mistaken, Mrs. Quinn, if ye think the likes of sich a gentleman would be beggin’ of the poor,” returned Mrs. Murphy indignantly. “An’ he a-gevin a poor ould craythur five dollars! An’ they do be goin’ around a-missionin’ with their prayers and hymns.”

“I know ’em. An’ the praists an’ the sisters beggin’ the last cint, an’ promisin’ to pray ye outen purgatory! Mrs. Murphy,” with withering contempt, “them men cuddent pray ye outen a sewer ditch if ye fell in! An’ I won’t have them comin’ here – ye hear that, Dilsey Quinn! If I catch a Moody an’ Sankey man here, I’ll break ivery bone in his body, an’ yours too; ye hear that now!”

Mrs. Quinn was evidently “spilin’ for a fight.” Mrs. Murphy went off in high dudgeon without another word.

But she stopped to pour out her grievance to Mrs. Garrick on her floor.

“Shure, I pity them childers, for their mother do be the worst haythen an’ infidel, not belayvin’ a word about her own sowl, an’ spindin’ her money for gin as she do. She was a foine-lukin’ woman, an’ now her eyes is all swelled up, an’ her nose the color of an ould toper. An’ that poor little Bess dyin’ afore her very eyes widout a bit of a mass, or even christenin’ I belayve. I’m not that bigoted, Mrs. Garrick, though the praists do say there bees but the wan way. I’m willin’ that people shall try their own ways, so long as they save their sowls; but pore, helpless bits of childer that can’t know! An’ what are their mothers put in the wurruld for but to tache them? But when ye don’t belayve ye have a sowl of yer own it’s awful! There’s them b’ys runnin’ wild – an’ a moighty good thing it’ll be whin they’re in the ’form-school, kapin’ out o’ jail, an’ wuss!”

Dil sat in awful fear when the door had closed behind their neighbor. She took up Owen’s trousers – the rent was sufficient to send any boy early to bed.

That recalled her mother. She threw the bundle towards Dil.

“There’s some clo’es ye kin be fixin’ up for Dan, whin ye’ve so much time as to be spindin’ it on Moody and Sankey men, drat ’em! foolin’ ’round an’ wastin’ valyble time. Next I’ll hear that ye’ve ast in the organ man an’ the monkey, and I’ll come home to find ye givin’ a pairty. An’ ye’ll hev yer head broke for it, that ye will!”

So long as it was not broken now, Dil gave secret thanks. Did God help any? Then, why didn’t he help other times when things were very bad? She examined the suit, and found it a nice one, rather large for Dan, who was not growing like a weed, although he ran the streets.

Her mother began to snore. She would be good for some hours’ sound sleep. So Dil stole into the little room, and began to prepare Bess for bed, though she trembled with a half fear.

“O Dil, I didn’t hardly dast to breathe! An’ if she’d known he come in here an’ sung, she’d murdered us! An’ it made me feel glad like that he was goin’ away, for mammy might happen to be home when he come – though don’t you b’lieve he’d take us away right then? An’ – an’ wasn’t it lucky you didn’t have to tell about the – ”

Bess held the bill up in her hand.

“Le’s put it in the book, an’ hide the book in the bottom of the wagon. An’, Dil, I can’t help feeling light like, as if I was goin’ to float. Think of that splendid place, an’ no night, an’ no winter, an’ all beautiful things. Oh, I wisht he’d gev us the words too; I’m most sure I could sing ’em. An’ the best of all is that mammy won’t be there, cause, you see, ’twouldn’t please her any, and I’d be awful feared. She’d ruther stay here an’ drink gin.”