The Project Gutenberg eBook of Monteagle
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Title: Monteagle
Author: Pansy
Release date: April 3, 2025 [eBook #75784]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: D. Lothrop Company, 1888
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTEAGLE ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
[Illustration: MRS. HAMMOND LOOKED PRETTIER THAN EVER, DILLY THOUGHT.]
MONTEAGLE
BY
PANSY
[Isabella Alden]
AUTHOR OF
Man of the House
Christie's Christmas
Little Fishers: and their nets
Ester Ried
Eighty-seven
Chautauqua Girls
Ruth Erskine's Crosses
An Endless Chain
Interrupted
and others
BOSTON
D LOTHROP COMPANY
FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS
COPYRIGHT, 1888
BY
D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
————————
CHAPTER I.
A MORNING DRIVE
CHAPTER II.
A FORTUNATE THING
CHAPTER III.
THE START
CHAPTER IV.
A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT
CHAPTER V.
A MORNING MEETING
CHAPTER VI.
A LECTURE AND A SERMON
CHAPTER VII.
A LITTLE LOGICIAN
CHAPTER VIII.
TRUE TO HER PLEDGE
CHAPTER IX.
SETTLING THE PUZZLE
CHAPTER X.
SILENT FORCES
CHAPTER XI.
A SURPRISE
CHAPTER XII.
A HAPPY TRANSFER
MONTEAGLE.
————————
CHAPTER I.
A MORNING DRIVE.
"YES," said Mrs. Hammond, a little sigh in her voice as she spoke, "Mr.
Hart is going with us; I don't know how long he will stay. I'm afraid
there is very little on Monteagle to hold him."
Two children sat on the extreme end of the broken steps; one was pale,
thin, hollow-eyed and sorrowful. The other was rosy-cheeked, chubby,
and dirty. The pale one was perhaps twelve years old; the other,
somewhat younger.
"Only hear that name!" said the hollow-eyed girl. "Monteagle! Doesn't
it make you feel cool just to think it over?"
"I didn't think it over," said Rosy Cheek. "What is it, and where is
it?"
"I don't know where it is," spoken very wearily, as though it was an
effort to speak at all. "In Heaven, maybe; the word sounds like it.
Monteagle! It must be high, and cool, and still. I wonder what it feels
like to be cool and still? Oh! How 'hot' it is! O dear me!"
There was such a world of longing and weariness in the sentence, that
Mrs. Hammond turned and looked curiously at the girl; then uttered a
little exclamation of surprise, and perhaps dismay.
"Who is that girl, and what is the matter with her?"
The man who was busy with a troublesome strap which had to do with Mrs.
Hammond's phaeton, glanced up for a moment, then said:
"That is my girl, ma'am, if you mean the pale one. There ain't anything
the matter with her now, only weakness, the doctor says. She's had the
fever—been dreadful sick. There was a spell when I thought she wouldn't
pull through, nohow, but she did, up to a certain p'int, there she
stopped, and there she hangs—jest crawls about all day; doesn't eat
nothing, and doesn't sleep nights, only off and on, you know. I dunno
what to do with her."
Mrs. Hammond looked again at the girl who had dropped into a listless
attitude, a very photograph of discouraged weakness. The rosy-cheeked
younger one in a much soiled dress had slipped away. Mrs. Hammond
looked from the girl to the low, small, tumble-down building on the
steps of which she sat, imagined the room in which she must spend
her nights, imagined the table at which she must sit down to eat her
"nothing," and murmured, "Poor thing!" with another long-drawn sigh.
How could one be expected to gain strength in such a home as that must
be!
"Who takes care of you and your daughter?"
She had turned again to the man at the carriage.
He gave a short half-laugh as he answered slowly: "Well, as to that,
what care we get we have to give to ourselves. Her and me live alone;
since the boy went to work for his board, at the meat market, I've took
care of her the best I could, since she got on her feet again; and when
she was sick, the neighbors was kind. The doctor was, too—uncommon
kind; stayed the most of two nights himself, and brought his woman once
or twice to see her; but she's gone now; up to Monteagle, along with
the rest of the world. I suppose it is cool up there ma'am?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Hammond, with another sigh. "It is cool there; poor
thing! I don't see how she is ever to get well in such a place."
This last, in undertone; then louder: "She is Northern born, too, I
think you said?"
"Who, ma'am, the girl? O yes; we're from the North."
It was the man's turn to sigh now. "We come down here to try the
climate for her mother—but it didn't do; we came too late, or
something. The mother died the very next summer, and we've had to pull
along alone. There, ma'am, I think that buckle is all right now; it
won't come out again of itself in a hurry. It's lucky I happened to be
around; it might have made you trouble. Why, no, ma'am, I don't want no
pay for a job like that; it didn't take ten minutes, and it ain't in my
line anyhow."
"What can she do when she is well?" asked Mrs. Hammond, holding out the
shining silver.
"What, my girl? Why, as to that, I dunno as she can be said to know how
to do anything. She works along as well as she can; and we make out to
live, but you see it is pretty nigh four years since her mother died;
and she was a young thing then. She ain't had no chance. I ain't got no
change, Mis' Hammond, and I don't want no pay, neither."
"I don't want change, Mr. West; it is worth a dollar to me to know that
all the buckles and straps are in order. I shall leave that matter
of hauling the dirt in your hands, then. It can be done just as well
while I am away; Mr. Hart will be back and forth, I presume, and he can
direct you if you need any directions; good-morning!" And the little
pony phaeton drove away.
As the fat little white pony carefully drew the carriage around the
curve, his mistress heard a weak, petulant voice say: "O father, it is
'so' hot; I don't know what to do."
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Hammond for the third time. "I don't know what
she will do. It is very warm indeed. She thinks Monteagle sounds like
Heaven. I presume it would seem almost like Heaven to her. If there was
anything she could do—" And then Mrs. Hammond looked at her watch, and
spoke sharply to the fat pony, and they went home at a brisk trot.
It was a lovely home. Before even the pony turned in at the tree-lined
carriage drive which wound quite around the house, you would have known
by the air of quiet elegance which hung gracefully over everything in
sight, that you were coming to a home that commanded money and culture.
In the wide handsome hall everything was in order, and the rooms
opening from them were cool, and dark, and elegant. Yet Mrs. Hammond as
she dropped sun hat and umbrella on a white sofa, and trailed her white
morning shawl over the soft carpet toward an easy chair, said:
"O dear! It is warm everywhere. I wish we were on the mountain this
minute." Even as she spoke, she thought of that hollow-eyed West girl
again. When, after a few minutes of rest, she mounted the long winding
flight of stairs to the nursery, the sight which met her eyes was not
calculated to cool her.
Miss Ethel Hammond was on an investigating tour. At this particular
minute she belonged in a wide white crib rolled into the coolest,
shadiest corner of the northwestern veranda, eyes closed, lovely face
shaded from intruding bugs and flies by a network of delicate creamy
lace, and Jeannette, the nurse, within easy range of the treasure.
Where Jeannette was just now, was not apparent, but Miss Ethel was
certainly not in her crib. Her eyes were very wide open, and she had
the room to herself.
[Illustration: BABY ETHEL.]
By dint of much energy, she had succeeded in pulling one of the heavy
chairs before the object of her most intense desire, and, climbing in,
was in the act of leaning forward to grasp it, when Mrs. Hammond opened
the door. "It" was a rare and wonderfully mounted clock, heavy enough
to put Ethel's busy inquiring brain at rest forever, should the strong
little hands succeed in pulling it over on her; or, failing in that,
should she lose her balance and pitch head-first against the corner of
the cruel marble.
No time for exclamations; rather, enough presence of mind to avoid
them. With swift, silent steps she moved across the room; a long room,
and seeming to the startled mother miles long, just then. A moment more
and she had the wide-awake, energetic, struggling, disappointed baby in
her arms. So near to its life-purpose only to be thwarted!
The first thing the mother did, was to kiss Ethel; though her mouth was
wide open, and from it were issuing loud, disappointed yells.
The next thing was to think aloud: "That is as much confidence as I
was afraid I could place in Jeannette. She is good for ruffling, and
tucking, and ironing the baby's dresses, but not for watching her."
The next was to say within her heart, "I should think 'she' might be
able to help keep a baby out of mischief."
But this last thought was not about Jeannette.
CHAPTER II.
A FORTUNATE THING.
MR. WEST and his daughter were at breakfast. At least they were sitting
before a small square table that held part of a loaf of baker's bread,
and a saucer in which floated a sickly yellowish mass named butter, for
which only the flies seemed to have a relish; and they, poor creatures,
paid for their appetites by their lives. Dilly was constantly engaged
in fishing out victim after victim who seemed determined to sacrifice
himself in the oily flood.
The little room in which the table was set, had but one window, and
that an eastern, and the morning sun had a fierce spite against it,
apparently, for he flashed in, even at this comparatively early hour,
red and angry, revealing dust and cobwebs, and the bodies of dead
moths, and bugs, of every shape and size. The floor was bare and
soiled; the three chairs were sadly worn; the low mantel was decorated
as the mantels of such rooms are wont to be, with scraps of paper,
little bundles of left-over things for which there was no place, a
bunch of dried wild flowers, which Dilly had saved because they were
once so pretty, and because she hardly ever had any flowers, and could
not bear to throw them away; besides which, there were a fork, a spoon,
and a soiled cup, left over from yesterday's effort at cooking; and
around this spoon, and fork, and cup, the flies had gathered in such
masses that they were simply black humps rising out of the surrounding
dust.
Yet this was not the home of a drunkard; Mr. West wail a sober,
hard-working man, who wasted no money on himself, save that which went
for his daily smoke; and he labored under the usual wild delusions,
first, that tobacco was necessary to sustain his failing strength,
secondly, that it cost a very trifle, not worthy to be counted among
the family economies. It was simply a home where hard grinding poverty,
occasioned by fire, and flood, and other misfortunes, had brought in
its train sickness and death, and left these two to struggle on as
best they could. Their "best" was very feeble this morning. Mr. West
sturdily ate at his stale and indeed almost moldy bit of bread, grimly
dipping it in the oil occasionally, to make it slip down more easily,
and stealthily watched Dilly as she turned her piece over on her plate
with a knife, looked doubtfully at the under side, turned it back
again, and finally took a very little nibble from its outer edge, and
sat back discouraged.
"You can't eat a mite this morning, can you, my girl? And it's another
scorching day—worse than yesterday, I'm afraid; I don't know what we
are going to do." And he heaved such a weary sigh that Dilly, who was
almost too sorry for herself to endure it, became so sorry for him that
despite her efforts at self-control, the tears seemed rushing into her
throat to choke her.
"Don't bother about me, father," she said at last, when she could get
her voice. "I ain't a mite hungry, so of course I don't need to eat;
and it'll be cooler sometime; then I'll feel better."
"I don't know when," said the father gloomily, referring to the
weather. "It ain't August yet, and everybody says that will be a
scorcher, this year; and folks who go on day after day without being
a mite hungry, don't get strength any too fast. You ought to have
something nourishing, but where you are going to get it beats me."
"Of course it does, father. Never mind, I don't want anything; it seems
to me I couldn't eat, this morning, not if there was toast, and egg,
and milk, and everything."
But this made the father sigh again, and made Dilly so sorry she had
spoken that the tears rushed back, and this time a few of them had
their way, and rolled down her cheek. Toast and egg were dainties that
her mother used to make for her when she was sick; no longer ago than
last spring when eggs were scarcest, and had not been seen in the West
family for weeks and weeks, she remembered. And the father remembered
it too, how Dilly was sick for several days, not dangerously, but a
little "down," the mother said, and needed petting; and how one morning
there was a covered dish at her place, which, being uncovered with
care, disclosed a lovely fresh egg lying on a slice of the daintiest
bit of toast, of just such a delicate brown as only a mother could
make. How was it possible to keep back tears as she thought of these
things?
The father did not wonder at the tears, but drooped his head lower, and
at last, when he thought Dilly too much occupied to notice, put up the
back of his hard hand and brushed away one or two of his own.
It was well for them both that something happened, just then, to change
the current of their thoughts. Dilly saw it first, and exclaimed:
"Father, there is Mrs. Hammond's phaeton at the door again. I do hope
she has not changed her mind about the work; because I thought—" And
there Dilly stopped.
"What did you think, my girl?" the father said, rising hastily, and
looking about for his old straw hat.
"It's no matter, father," and a faint flush stole into the sallow face.
"I thought maybe she would let you pick a flower or two, when you were
there at work; I would so like a sweet-smelling flower. She had one in
the carriage yesterday, but I don't suppose she gives away her flowers."
Mr. West went out without saying a word.
Dilly, when she was five or six years old, frolicked about, all the
summer day, in a great garden full of old-fashioned flowers, and picked
as many as she would. I don't suppose she had an idea how it made her
father's heart ache to think that now she longed in vain for one little
sweet-smelling blossom. Children know very little about father's hearts.
But what Mrs. Hammond wanted nearly took the breath away from the
astonished father. Dilly watched them curiously while they talked,
rather while Mrs. Hammond talked, and her father, after a first
startled exclamation, listened, whether in pleasure, as well as in
intense surprise, Dilly could not be certain.
"She's coming in!" Dilly exclaimed at last, leaving the window
suddenly, and giving the little table an excited push to get it further
into the background, dusting a chair with her apron, hanging a towel,
which was thrown across the back of another chair, in a corner, as much
out of sight as possible, and by these preparations so exhausting her
strength, or rather her weakness, that she sat flushed and panting when
at last Mrs. Hammond finally appeared at the door.
"Good-morning," she said pleasantly. "She looks a little better this
morning, I think, or, is it the heat which has flushed her face?"
The room was insufferably warm. Though there was no fire in the shabby
little cook stove, and had not been that day, it was warmer than any
room in Mrs. Hammond's house ever became.
Mr. West brought forward the dusted chair for the lady, and she
dropped gracefully into it, trailing her delicate white robes and rich
embroidery on the bare, and not clean, floor, in a way which made Dilly
shiver. Then he said with a troubled look at the girl, "I don't see no
great change for the better, ma'am; she ain't eat a mite this morning,
and folks can't get strong without eating, I s'pose. Though how folks
are going to eat, when—" And there the poor father stopped.
Mrs. Hammond finished the sentence: "When the weather is so oppressive.
That is true; this heat takes away the appetites of even well persons."
Mrs. Hammond had no experience with poverty, save that which was given
by an occasional glance of her eyes around the homes of the poor; and
though she thought she understood all about it, I cannot describe to
you how shocked she would have been, had she known that a dry and
nearly moldy piece of bread was the only temptation to eat which had
been before Dilly that morning.
However, she did appreciate the heat, and made haste to get herself out
of it. "You live in such a very close part of the town, Mr. West, I do
not see how she is ever to gain strength here; there is no chance for a
circulation of air."
Which is a fortunate thing for you, dear Mrs. Hammond, if you did but
know it; for the air which would circulate through here if it had a
chance, would come direct from the stables and out-houses clustered
thick on the East side, or from the over-crowded tenement houses on the
North. But the lady knew nothing of all this.
She turned to the girl and spoke rapidly: "I have been talking with
your father about you. What is your name?"
"Fidelia, ma'am, but they all call me Dilly."
"Well, Fidelia, I have been asking your father to let you go with me to
the mountains; I am going to-morrow. I fancy that after a few days of
mountain air you would grow strong enough to look after my little Ethel
while she is out of doors, and keep her out of harm's way. What do you
say, would you like to try it? It is not far from home, you know; only
on Monteagle—a few hours' ride."
But father and visitor had both over-estimated poor Dilly's strength,
or else did not understand the strength of her longing for a breath of
cool air. The very word "mountains," coupled with the bare possibility
of her seeing them, made her feel sick and faint. The room began to
whirl about in the most unaccountable manner; Mrs. Hammond faded into
the merest gray speck, but rose up without sound and floated to her
side, and reached out a white hand which sparkled with rings, and
then—Dilly knew no more.
Where she went to, or how long she stayed, she did not know, but when
she opened her eyes again, she was spread out on all three of the
chairs, and her father was putting little dabbles of warm water over
her face with what poor Dilly knew was the cup-cloth! And Mrs. Hammond
with an air of the greatest concern stood helplessly looking on, and
shuddering a little as the muddy-looking drops from the cloth gathered
in a dark puddle on the dark floor.
"Are you better, my girl?" Mr. West asked, his voice as gentle and as
full of anxiety as it could have been if the cloth with which he mopped
her face had been of the softest linen.
Dilly gasped, and struggled, and pushed away the cloth with her hand,
making a great effort to sit up.
"What's the matter?" she asked, "I ain't sick."
"Lie still, my girl, don't try to sit up yet; you fainted dead away
while the lady was talking to you. It's the heat, I s'pose. You see,
ma'am," turning to Mrs. Hammond, and shaking his head with a troubled
air, "she hasn't got any strength to build on; I'm afraid she wouldn't
be able to do a thing—she's all tuckered out."
There was the deepest anxiety in his voice. It was clear that the
thought of the mountain air had touched the only ray of hope for his
girl which this father's heart had left, yet he must be honest, and own
that he did not believe she could be of use.
"She would try her level best, ma'am; and before she was sick she was
as handy a little woman as could be found; and she is fond of little
folks, and as good as gold to them; but the fever has burnt all the
life out of her—you see how it is."
"Yes," said Mrs. Hammond, with sudden energy, "I see how it is; and I
see she will get no strength so long as she stays here. I think you
would do well, Mr. West, to get her ready to go with me to-morrow
morning; I am going to take the early train, to avoid as much of the
heat as possible. I think the mountain air will help her—in fact, I am
almost sure of it. Wouldn't you like to try it, my poor girl?"
"Oh!" said Dilly, drawing a long tremulous sigh, and turning a pair of
great earnest eyes which were now dim with a film of tears, full on the
lady's face. "I can't think it is possible that I could go; it would be
almost like going to heaven."
"You 'shall' go, poor child," Mrs. Hammond said, and she felt the tears
starting in her own eyes. "Mr. West, I feel sure it is the thing to do;
your daughter will die, I am afraid, if she has not a change."
She was moving toward the door as she spoke, for Dilly had now quite
recovered, and had struggled to a seat on one chair.
Mr. West followed the lady, with a strange light in his eyes, and yet
with a look of intense perplexity on his face. "I'm sure," he said,
"that it would be a wonderful chance for her; but I don't know, ma'am,
after all, as I can do it—her clothes, you see—I don't know much about
such things; only I know she has got along with almost nothing ever
since the sickness and the hard times; and she has been sick now for
six weeks or more, and I couldn't get no washing done hardly, and, you
see how it is—the poor child's mother is gone." For this last sentence,
he sunk his voice almost to a whisper.
Mrs. Hammond who was by this time on the steps, turned and looked
thoughtfully again at Dilly.
"How old is she?"
"Going on thirteen; she was twelve early in the spring."
"About the age of Mrs. Chestney's Claire," Mrs. Hammond said, not to
the father, but as if speaking aloud to herself. Then she stood lost in
thought while Mr. West continued:
"And another thing, ma'am, I understand your kind meaning, but I'm
afraid it will be good while before she could do a thing to pay you for
it all. She is weaker this morning than ever, and it wouldn't be right,
maybe, for you to go to the expense—"
Mrs. Hammond interrupted him. She had not heard a word he said:
"I think I can manage it, Mr. West. I will send a woman to wash and
iron Dilly's things to-day, and get them ready. If she has nothing
suitable for travelling, I think my friend Mrs. Chestney who has a
daughter a little older than she, can help us out. I will manage it in
some way. The train leaves the station at six-fifteen; I will send the
carriage around for Dilly at a quarter of six. It will be easier for
her to get ready before this excessive heat comes on. It will be all
right, Mr. West; I will bring her back to you with some color in her
cheeks, I believe. Dear! Dear! How intensely hot the sun is! I wish we
were at Monteagle this minute. Good-morning."
She was in her carriage already, and the sleek little pony was obeying
her word of command.
The father looked after her in a half-dazed way, shading his eyes with
his hand, until the fat pony turned the corner.
"Well, I never!" he said at last, and went back to Dilly.
CHAPTER III.
THE START.
HALF-PAST five of a breathless summer morning. "Warmer even than
yesterday," Mr. West said, as he mopped his heated face with the skirt
of his coat, then rushed away as some new thought for Dilly's comfort
came to him.
A bustling home it had been since the first streak of daylight; and
now Dilly sat in state on a carefully dusted chair, dressed from head
to foot, in neatness, with a broad-brimmed sunhat, already carefully
adjusted, and a brown paper bundle containing her wardrobe, occupying
another chair at her side. Wonderful times were these for Dilly West.
All yesterday had been a wonderful day. It began with Mrs. Hammond; and
she had not been long gone, not long enough for father and daughter to
calm into an every-day state, before a trim colored woman presented
herself, with a curtsey, and the statement that if this was Mr. West's,
if he pleased, she was to wash, iron, and mend Miss Dilly's things.
Which astonishing business she had immediately undertaken with such
swift skill that Dilly, despite all she had to think of, could but stop
and give admiring heed. Poor little duds of "things" they were.
The trim, colored maiden from her more luxurious standpoint, believed
in her heart that the thing to do with every one of them was to
bundle them up for the ragman; nevertheless she washed, and starched,
and sprinkled, and ironed, and mended; going through all the forms
as carefully as though they were Mrs. Hammond's tucked and ruffled
beauties. And in an incredibly short, time, as it seemed to Dilly, her
entire wardrobe had been arranged in a neat little mended pile on one
of the chairs.
So proud was Dilly of them! Yet they brought the swift tears to her
great sorrowful eyes; for mamma used to mend just as neatly and iron
just as carefully.
There had been little time for tears, however; the excitement kept up
all day. In the next place there was dinner. Now dinner at the Wests'
had long been a burden; something to be endured because the hour for
such a performance came around just as regularly when there was nothing
with which to perform, as when there was abundance; but on this day,
her father came in with an important air, and a bundle under his arm,
and motioned her to the little corner cupboard.
"I struck a streak of luck, this forenoon," he said, "and I thought
we'd have a celebration in honor of your going off to get well." Then
he undid the bundle.
"Eggs!" said Dilly. "Six of them! Why, father, aren't they very dear?"
"Not so dreadful," said Mr. West evasively; "and they are
strengthening; I heard the doctor say so. And here's a big loaf of
bread baked this morning; it's a present to you, Dilly, from the fat
baker at the corner, with his compliments; and he hopes you will tell
Mrs. Hammond that he sends up fresh rolls by the train every evening.
And here is a pat of very good batter, because toast and eggs need
good butter, you know, and this I got cheap, because it had just come,
and the tub was very heavy, and the right fellow wasn't around to lift
it, so I lifted it myself; he sold me a half pound at half-price. And
here," diving into both pockets of the shabby coat, and bringing out
two potatoes in each hand, "are some Irish beauties; two of 'em to eat
for dinner, and two of them to warm up for breakfast to-morrow. Oh!
We'll live high this time."
The anxious father was rewarded by seeing Dilly eat a piece of the
baked potato, and a bit of bread, and a whole egg for her dinner; doing
better than she had for days before. The truth was, Mr. West had had
no "streak of luck" for several days; and though Dilly had faithfully
tried, the dry bread, and strong "oil" which she called butter, had
been very hard to swallow.
The excitement of dinner was barely over, when a messenger came from
Mrs. Hammond, bearing on his head a good-sized basket. "With some
things for Miss Dilly," he explained.
What a time they had over that basket! Mr. West cleared the table,
wiped it off carefully, and set the basket thereon, so that Dilly need
not weary herself by stooping, then stood watching the color deepen on
her face, while she drew out, at first with exclamations, and then in
excited tremulous silence, the treasures it contained. A dress of some
soft material in delicate plaids, threaded with blue—Dilly's own color,
as her mother had called it. Then a sack of the same pretty material,
with a row of tucks up and down the front, and a ruffle around the
edge. Then a pair of button-boots, partly worn, but fitting Dilly's
slight foot as though they had been made for her. Then brown stockings,
and brown gloves, and a hat trimmed in brown; everything complete—a
complete travelling outfit! Dilly was so astonished, and so eager, that
she trembled as though she had a chill; yet the perspiration stood in
drops on her forehead, and the little room was breathless.
"Father," she said, controlling her chattering teeth as best she could,
"what makes her do it? Why does she give me all these things, and take
me with her? Why did it all come to me? Do you understand it?"
"I guess, my girl," said the father, stroking her brown hair back from
her wet forehead,—"I think maybe the Lord saw that something had got to
come now, or you would be slipping away and leaving father all alone.
I bless the Lord with all my soul that He has come to our help. It has
cut me to the heart, Dilly, to see you failing and failing, and me not
being able to do for you; and yet things are queer. The first lift I've
had toward giving you a decent meal has been this morning—things all
come in a heap, somehow; our 'troubles' did, you know."
Well, they lived through the day and all its excitements; and had
had the toast and eggs and warmed-up potatoes for breakfast, and,
despite the heated air and the excitement, Dilly had forced herself to
eat, because it would disappoint her father if she did not, and now
everything was ready, and the carriage was being waited for.
"A carriage to come for me!" said Dilly. "Father, only think how queer!"
And then it came, whirling around the corner, drawing up, in a
gleam of silver-mounted harness, and sunshine, the horses tossing
their beautiful necks as though hot weather was of no consequence
to them. The children from all the little tumble-down houses in the
thickly-settled neighborhood, swarmed to doors and windows to view the
sight. Mothers with babies in their arms came to the door-steps to see
her off; the driver got down and opened the door—carriage door—while he
explained to the father that Mrs. Hammond had already been set down at
the depot.
"My!" said Mrs. Jenkins, the nearest neighbor, getting a glimpse of
Dilly's fluttering ribbons and buttoned boots. "How fine we do look! I
declare, if the little piece hasn't got gloves on!" Then she went in
and slammed the door.
It was not that she bore poor Dilly any ill-will, but Mrs. Jenkins had
five children, and found it hard work to get them enough to eat; still,
they were all well and hearty; up to yesterday she had been superior in
station to the Wests, and had pitied them, and done them a kind turn
when she could, but this rise in their fortunes was too much for her
nerves.
At last the carriage door was shut, and Dilly, having hung about her
father's neck and kissed him, and cried, and said she was sorry she was
going away to leave him alone, and having been assured for the tenth
time that he was glad she was going, she rolled away in state.
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Potter, the neighbor across the street. "I
declare, I'm glad for her; I did think the first time she went away
from that door it would be in her coffin."
"There comes the Hammond carriage again," said a depot-lounger as the
carriage drew up. "I wonder who's come now? I thought all the people,
and band-boxes, and bundles, and style, had got here."
What more he might have said, was stopped by the sudden rush past him
of Mr. Hart Hammond, who threw open the carriage door, and held out his
hand to help Dilly.
"Here we are!" he said briskly. "Not much time to spare. Go in that
way; you will find my mother; I'll attend to the luggage."
"Ain't that Jim West's girl?" asked the lounger of one of his mates.
"My eyes! Ain't she rigged up! I hardly knew her. What streak of luck
has struck her, I wonder? She looks as pale as a sheet; most as though
she ought to be carried around in a coffin."
But Dilly did not hear this complimentary bit of talk; she had already
passed inside the door where Mrs. Hammond and her maid, and busy little
Miss Effie, waited. There was but a moment for greeting. Almost on her
entrance sounded the whistle of the train.
"Not a minute to spare," said Mrs. Hammond. "Hart said we were late,
but I did not think it. Well, we are all ready; Hart has your ticket,
with the rest. How do you feel this morning? It is breathless already,
isn't it?"
There was no time in which to answer her. Hart came, and hurried them
to the train; other people hurried, also, and pushed and jammed against
one another, in the wild fashion which uncultured and selfish people
have, and, almost before she knew it, Dilly was seated just back of
Mrs. Hammond and Hart, with the nurse and baby Effie in front, and they
were off. The train was noisy, and I suppose Hart counted on its hiding
the words he spoke, but Dilly could hear them distinctly:
"Mother, what in the world do you want of a sick girl up on the
mountain? I thought you were going up there to get rid of care?"
"I hardly know why I took her," said Mrs. Hammond reflectively. "She
looked so miserable, it seemed as though I must; it is her one chance,
I think. Hart, she would have died if we hadn't taken her with us; and
if she should rally, she will do to look after Effie, a little, when
nurse is busy."
"She won't rally," said Hart, with a wise toss of his head; "she is too
far gone, 'I' believe. She will just be a nuisance to you; she'll get
worse, and you won't know what to do with her; and she may get too low
to bring home. Besides, how do you know you can trust Effie with her?
You don't know anything about her, do you?"
"No," said Mrs. Hammond, in a disturbed tone, "nothing at all; save
that she was sick and needed a change. Never mind, Hart, it is done,
and cannot be undone, just now. I don't often follow out my impulses in
this blind way."
Now all this was not pleasant for Dilly to hear. She disliked the idea
of being in the way; she felt it hard to have been gathered up in this
sudden manner, and carried away from her father and made a burden of.
One thing was certain, she was never a burden to her father, except as
he mourned over the impossibility of getting her what she needed. Dilly
swallowed hard, and had much difficulty in keeping back some tears that
wanted to fall. Much of the intense gratitude with which she had begun
the morning seemed to ooze away from her. She was angry with Hart for
his disagreeable words, and told herself that she should never like him
the least bit in the world, and that she did not love Mrs. Hammond,
even, nearly so much as she had thought she would.
"I 'shall' get well," she said to herself in a little burst of
indignation over Hart's prophecy. "You don't know everything, Mr. Hart,
and you need not think it; I'm not going to die, and leave father.
I know why your mother brought me with her, if she doesn't; it was
father's prayers that did it; and father wants me to get well, and I'll
try as hard as ever I can; and I'll show her I can be useful, too; but
I won't do a thing for you, Mr. Hart, if I can help it."
Isn't it a fortunate thing, sometimes, that our thoughts cannot be
seen? Some of hers Dilly would have been ashamed to show to Mrs.
Hammond.
Just how far hurt feelings, and weakness of body, and homesickness for
father, would have carried this little traveller into gloomland, I do
not know, for just at that moment came a ray of sunshine for which she
had not planned. It suited that busy little woman, Effie, to smile on
her, and reach after her, and finally demand that she be set beside her.
"I'm afraid she will tire you," Mrs. Hammond said, but Dilly made a
faint protest, her voice being muffled just at that moment with tears,
and Effie made a determined spring from the nurse's arms and landed on
her feet beside Dilly, and put a pair of witching baby arms about her
neck, and the softest little velvet tongue on her cheek—which was Baby
Effie's way of offering a kiss.
"Effie takes a fancy to her if you do not," Mrs. Hammond said to Hart,
as Dilly smiled, and returned the kiss with great tenderness, and even
roused herself to play peek-a-boo behind her glove, at Effie. "I hardly
ever knew her to spring to a stranger in that way before."
"Oh! I fancy her enough; at least, I don't care, if it pleases you to
take a dozen sick children to the mountain; I should think you would
need something to occupy your time, buried up there. It only struck me
that she was a particularly doleful specimen, who would give you no end
of trouble, probably. I say, mother," he continued, "how long do you
want me to vegetate up there?"
This question brought over Mrs. Hammond's face the troubled look which
it so often wore, and she sighed heavily as she said,—
"I was hoping, Hart, you would find it so pleasant that you would want
to spend the summer with me there."
"Not I. If you choose to bury yourself for the summer, I don't see why
I should; after get you comfortably settled, I want to come back to the
city. I mean to be there for the twenty-third, if possible."
"What is on the twenty-third?"
The quick, anxious tone in which Mrs. Hammond spoke would have told a
careful observer that she was used to being on the watch for all sorts
of annoyances with which in one way and another this handsome young son
of hers was connected.
"Why, the bicycle race comes off then, and no end of fun connected with
it. I'm interested, of course, in having our side beat."
Mrs. Hammond sighed again. Of all the many things which were just now
giving her anxiety this Bicycle Club, for certain reasons, troubled her
the most. She looked at Dilly's pale face, flushed a little now with
pleasure over baby Effie's sweet words, and ways, and said to herself
that to have a child fade away before one's eyes, as that girl was
doing, was no doubt hard—very hard; but there were other troubles which
came in the train of perfect health and high spirits.
And then she looked again at her handsome boy.
Isn't it hard for a mother of an only son whom she has watched over and
cared for, more than sixteen years, that she must nearly always look
at, and think of him, with a sigh?
CHAPTER IV.
A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.
ONLY a few hours and our young traveller found herself in another
world. They were climbing the mountain; that is, the engine was
climbing, but he was such a powerful creature, with so strong a pair
of lungs, that he made no trouble whatever about it, and Dilly would
not have known it was other than level ground but for the display which
suddenly caught her eye from the car window. A deep, deep gorge, so
deep that there seemed to her to be no bottom; and apparently it grew
deeper every moment, as indeed it did, for she ascended higher; as for
the picture spread around her, the lovely greens of the distant trees,
the play of sunlight and shadow near at hand, the trickling of water
down the mountain side, it would have been of no use for Dilly to try
to describe it; it is almost as little use for me to try to tell how it
made her feel; she drew deep breaths occasionally, and a lovely pink
color spread over her face; but for the rest, she was still.
Ethel invited her to a frolic in vain; the solemn mountains had gotten
possession of her.
"She is an appreciative little thing," said Mrs. Hammond to her son;
"look at her face."
There was an amused smile on Hart's face; he thought it absurdly
impossible that a child, like Dilly, could appreciate mountain scenery,
nevertheless he turned at his mother's word and looked at her face.
Presently he arose and took the vacant seat beside her, Ethel having
been carried away by the nurse.
"What do you think of it?"
Dilly started, and trembled with surprise and excitement, as she turned
toward him. Her cheeks were glowing, her eyes were bright, but there
were tears in them.
"I never saw a mountain before," she said. "I didn't think they looked
like this."
"What did you think they looked like?"
"Oh! I don't know; I can't tell at all, but I didn't suppose they quite
touched the sky; and I didn't think the shadows were all colors, nor
that they made you feel so."
"How do they make you feel?"
There was a faint smile on Dilly's face. "I can't tell that, either; I
don't know how to tell things."
"Try," persisted Hart. "I have seen mountains all my life, and I have
forgotten how they made me feel when I first saw them; I want to know
what the feeling is."
"They make me," said Dilly, in a slow, awe-stricken tone, "they make me
think—of God."
It was Hart's turn to start, now, and to give her a very surprised
look. It was not at all the answer he had expected. He was silent
because he really could not think of a proper reply; but to himself he
said—"She is a queer little specimen, I guess; not one of the usual
sort. It may be worth while to have a little fun with her." Then,
aloud, after a moment, "This view is nothing, compared with what you
will see when we reach the top. They can get up some wonderful sights
up here. I wonder what you would think of sunset on Table Rock, since
your taste runs in that direction?"
"What is it like?" asked Dilly after a moment of timid waiting. She was
a good deal surprised to find herself talking with this young man with
whom she had resolved so recently to have nothing to do.
He laughed, not unpleasantly. "Oh! Don't ask me; sunsets are not in my
line; I haven't been to see one of them in three years. Worn out, you
know. But I remember having a queer sort of feeling the first time I
saw the exhibition. It wasn't hard to fancy that up there behind the
crimson and gold was a door, partly open, which might, if you could
only contrive to get up there, let a fellow slip into Heaven, before
the angels knew what they were about."
Dilly looked a trifle shocked, a good deal excited, and wholly
interested. She had never heard any one talk so about Heaven, before;
she had never seen a sunset which gave her any such feeling.
"I would like to see it," she said, clasping her hands, and speaking in
a sort of fever of suppressed excitement.
"Oh! You'll see it, without any doubt. It is quite the thing to go to
Table Rock; my mother goes a dozen times a week—no, not so bad as that;
there aren't a dozen sunsets in a week, are there? But she goes a great
deal, and of course she will give you a chance; then you shall tell me
how it makes you feel. Halloo! Here we are."
He arose suddenly, and the bustle of gathering straps and boxes and
shawls, commenced.
A beautiful summer morning, and Dilly came to the door of the tent
to look about her. Such a pretty view as one had behind those tent
curtains! A large room neatly covered with white matting; curtains of
delicate blue and white cretonne dividing it into departments, or,
looping back, allowing it to be one large room, as the fancy of the
occupant decided. Curtains of creamy lace, drawn at will in front of
the opening, shut out the too-curious gaze of passersby, when one chose
not to let them gaze. Just now they were pushed away, making a lovely
mass of cream color against the tent side. There were easy chairs of
bamboo pattern, wide, hospitable-looking arm-chairs, and pretty little
rockers; a wide lounge of willow pattern, a table of the same, in the
centre of the room, while the toilet articles which retired behind the
blue and white curtain, on occasion, were draped in pure white.
To Dilly's mind there was never a prettier room; she had never seen
anything like it. So simple, and yet so pure and beautiful. There was
one special corner of it closed in with the lovely blue curtains which
filled her with delight whenever she looked that way. A cot bed made
up in white, occupied one end; a toilet stand draped in white was at
its foot; a small rocker occupied the space between the side and the
curtains, a corner was curtained off for a clothes press, and this spot
in all its richness was Dilly's own. It was impossible not to lie in
the small white bed at night and contrast it with the little room over
the kitchen at home, where she had passed her weary nights for so long.
There were many contrasts, but the most delightful one to Dilly, was
the rush of pure, sweet-scented air which came constantly in at the
small round window away above her head, and went over to meet the
current flowing in from the opposite round window. When had a breath of
air stirred the curtain which hung limp and lifeless over the little
window at home? It was the first bit of news Dilly wrote to her father
from this new world.
"Father, don't you think the wind comes in all night! Great whiffs, and
sometimes I have to partly close the queer little round window at the
top, it opens and closes with a blue cord. It is a tent, you know. O
father! It is so nice and beautiful to live in a tent."
Almost anything was "nice and beautiful" nowadays to Dilly.
"I never saw so marked a contrast in so short a time in my life!" said
Mrs. Hammond to the nurse, one evening, speaking of Dilly. "Just think,
Nurse, it is only ten days since we came, and look at her cheeks; they
actually begin to puff out; and she has quite a little color."
"There do be quite a great change, that is a fact," said nurse
Jeannette, who had not at first approved of Dilly, but was beginning to
like her very well. "I thought when we came up here, ma'am, you would
just have a sick girl on your hands to pay you for your trouble; but
she is getting well, I'm thinking; and she's a comfortable little thing
to have around."
"She certainly is," said Mrs. Hammond, speaking in a satisfied tone
as she watched Dilly with careful fingers brush the dust from Effie's
white dress, straighten her little sun hat, and lovingly pat her baby
cheek. "Effie is very fond of her, Nurse."
"She is that, ma'am; and more good-tempered with her than she is with
anybody else."
Mrs. Hammond smiled, and did not say what she thought: that Effie was
good-tempered with Dilly, because Dilly was good-tempered with her.
Nurse Jeannette was an excellent washer and ironer, and was always to
be trusted to do her work carefully; it was not worth while to offend
her by reminding her that she had not as much patience with the baby as
Dilly had.
So, on this lovely morning when Dilly paused at the tent door a moment,
she had been on the mountain for two delicious weeks, and was beginning
to feel the blood bound through her veins, and to be glad to spring
up in the morning, and to think that her breakfast of milk and eggs,
and good bread and butter, was more delicious than anything she had
ever before tasted. A very happy girl was Dilly. Her small outburst of
indignation and self-pity in which she had indulged on the cars, was
quite gone.
Nothing but gratitude remained for Mrs. Hammond; she had brought her to
Paradise and was keeping her there. And when she went home, she could
be well enough to keep house for her father as it ought to be kept;
this was enough for Dilly.
On the whole, Mrs. Hammond's experiment was working very well.
Certainly Effie thought so; the nurse was right, there was no one with
whom she was happier than Dilly.
At first, Effie's mother had watched with anxiety; but peep when she
would, even during the first days of Dilly's coming, when she was too
weak to do much beside sit out of doors and watch Effie's slumbers, no
stray fly was ever caught perching on that dear little nose, no sudden
breeze was allowed to carry away the lace shield from the sleeping
carriage. The lovely embroidered blanket was always carefully spread
in just the right place, and the sun-shade tipped to exactly the right
angle.
A few days later, when Dilly was able to have the wide-awake Effie
entrusted to her, the mother kept them within seeing distance from her
tent door, and wondered as the hours passed, that no fretful cry came
from Effie, and arose often and looked, and found her always happy;
digging in the dirt, or fluttering from grass plot to gay flower bed,
always attended by Dilly, always happy and busy.
"She is a treasure," Mrs. Hammond said, going back to her book with a
long-drawn sigh of relief; "she is just a treasure. I am very glad I
brought her, and she is getting well, too; what a comfort she will be
to her father," and then Mrs. Hammond sighed again.
It was of her Dilly was thinking while she stood at the door this
morning, she had learned, she could hardly have told how, that Mrs.
Hammond was often sorrowful over her son. Just what her fear or anxiety
was, Dilly did not understand; but it was only too apparent that he was
not in all respects what his mother wished; and Dilly had even seen her
wipe away tears after one of their long talks together.
To this matter the little girl gave a great deal of thought. Mrs.
Hammond had been so very kind to her, if she could in some way repay
her; if there was only something she could do for Mr. Hart which would
make her happier!
She was so beautiful, and so rich, and Effie was so sweet, and there
was so very much for her to be happy about, yet she was not happy.
Dilly could not fail to see that her face, when quiet, was nearly
always sad.
What led her to think of it even more than usual this morning, was the
fact that when she went into Mrs. Hammond's room at the hotel to get
something for Effie, it was plain that that lady had been crying; and
Mr. Hart had come out just before her, and had banged the door. What
could he be doing to worry his mother? While she stood and thought, he
came in sight, and stopped before her.
CHAPTER V.
A MORNING MEETING.
"WELL, little mountain worshipper, at it as hard as ever, I see; you
show it in your eyes. What is being worshipped now?"
"Sir," said Dilly, flushing, but smiling a little; she had found it
hard work to be angry with Hart Hammond, he was always so good-natured
to her.
"Do you like the mountain as well as ever?"
"O, yes better than ever; I think it is just too lovely for anything,
all about here."
"Just so. I never heard of a girl who didn't express herself in just
exactly that way,—about a mountain or a piece of sponge cake; it
doesn't make any difference which. But what you find to like so much,
passes my comprehension; I think it is the slowest place I was ever in,
in my life. What is it that you fancy?"
"Why, I fancy everything; the trees, and the flowers, and the birds,
and the lovely breeze; there wasn't ever any breeze you know, Mr. Hart,
in the city; at least there never came any down where we lived. It was
just like an oven all the time; it makes me feel faint to think how hot
it must be there this morning; and only see how the curtains blow here!"
"It is pretty warm in town, I presume; but then, I don't mind the heat
so much, when there is anything going on; it is so dreadfully 'slow' up
here; that is what I complain of. How is a fellow to occupy his time?"
"Isn't there a meeting most all the time down there where the big open
building is?" Dilly asked the question somewhat timidly; she was now on
ground of which she knew very little. She had been to no meeting since
she came; she had very little idea of what sort they were; sometimes
distant strains of music floated to her when she was out with Effie,
and she often saw crowds of prettily dressed people hurrying by, and
caught bits of talk about this speaker, and that song; but Mrs. Hammond
went out only occasionally, during the day, and had never mentioned
before her, the fact that there was anything of the kind going on. So,
though Dilly's curiosity had been roused to the utmost, she had not
felt at liberty to inquire.
"Most all the time!" Hart burst forth with a sarcastic laugh. "That is
putting it mildly; there is a meeting all the time, from morning till
night; or till noon, anyway; and again in the evening; I should think
these people would be 'meetinged' to death. Haven't you been down to
the 'big open building?'"
"O, yes! I've walked past it two or three times, when it was all empty:
I saw ever and ever so many seats; I wonder if they are ever all filled
up. Don't they have nice things there?"
"More than I know. Who wants to go to meetings such weather as this? On
week days, too! Do you say you have never been to one of them?"
Dilly made haste to shut away a little sigh into her heart. What right
had she to sigh, when so many wonderful blessings had come to her lot?
Fresh mountain air, a cool room to sleep in every night, and constantly
nice cool things to eat? "O, no! I have never been," she said quickly,
and she thought the sigh was quite hidden; but Hart had been right
about her eyes, everything showed there.
"And you want to go! Extraordinary taste; but I believe in letting
folks do what they want to. There's a meeting down there this very
minute; come on and we'll see what it is like."
"Oh!" said Dilly, and she clasped her two hands together, and they and
the "oh" said a great deal. "You are very, very good, Mr. Hart, but I
can't; Miss Effie is ready for her walk, and is waiting for me now, I
am afraid."
"Stuff and nonsense! Let Miss Effie wait, then. Tell my mother
that—here, I'll tell her myself. Mother," raising his voice as he
caught a glimpse of her white morning robes passing from the hotel
piazza to the tent, "I'm going to run away with Dilly."
"Run away with Dilly!" repeated Mrs. Hammond in a tone of wonder, as
she came around the side of the tent. "Where is Dilly? Effie is ready
for you, child."
"But I tell you Effie can't have her; I want her myself; I'm going to
show her the tabernacle; she wants to know how the seats look with
people in them. Get your hat, Dilly, I see the people trooping that way
as though there was a sensation of some sort."
If Mr. West could have seen his daughter's cheeks just then, he would
have been amazed; they were fairly blazing. She opened her lips to
speak, then not knowing what to say turned and went into the tent to
confront Mrs. Hammond. What would that lady say to her? Would she be
angry with her, Dilly wondered.
She met Mrs. Hammond almost at the door of the tent; she looked very
much amazed, and there was also another look in her eyes which Dilly
did not understand.
"Did you ask him?" she began eagerly. "Did you ask Mr. Hart to take you
to the tabernacle?"
"O, no indeed, ma'am," said Dilly in intense earnestness, "I would not
have done such a thing for the world; I did not think of going anywhere
at all; he was just saying he liked to be where things were going on,
and I asked him if there wasn't a meeting of some kind at the big
building where all the seats are. Then he asked if I had never been
there; and he said he saw in my eyes that I wanted to go; but I did not
mean to put it into my eyes, ma'am, indeed I didn't."
"Never mind," said Mrs. Hammond, and she was smiling now, "just get
ready as quickly as you can; never mind Miss Effie, I will attend to
her; and don't keep saying to Mr. Hart that you must hurry back; stay
as long as he wants you to."
And while the much bewildered Dilly ran for hat and gloves, Mrs.
Hammond looking fondly out at Hart as he sauntered about, making little
hollows in the soil with the toe of his polished boot, said, "If this
new fancy would only hold him until the eleven o'clock train goes out,
I should have one day more of peace; but it is too much to hope for."
Out came Dilly, looking very neat and very happy, despite the
bewilderment and embarrassment of the occasion.
"Give her a chance to look at everything, Hart; it is very kind in you
to take the trouble."
Hart laughed good-naturedly; he thought himself, that the situation
was queer. What would the "fellows" think to see him tramping off to a
morning camp meeting with his baby sister's maid. He hardly understood
his own motive; only she was such a queer little thing, this Dilly,
with her flashing eyes and her eager ways, and her intense love for the
mountains, and the clouds, and all the new sights and sounds.
There were plenty of new sights to hold her eyes this morning. Men and
women and children, large and small, were gathering from all parts of
the grounds, making speed toward the building; diving down the steps
with apparent eagerness, and being lost to sight in the distance.
"They are all in haste to get the best seat; there is only one best
seat, by their actions, and each one is determined to have it; that
isn't the way they act in a religious meeting, is it, Dilly? There, the
people all want to get as far from the front as possible."
"Do they?" asked Dilly, laughing. "I never saw people try to do that in
church on Sundays."
"Oh! On Sundays they generally own their pews and go to them; but
when I was a little fellow I had a Scotch nurse who took me to prayer
meeting on Thursday evening as often as she got a chance; I used to
rather like to go for the sake of being with Nurse Campbell, but the
people acted the queerest, I thought! Slipping in as though they were
half-ashamed of themselves for being there at all; taking the farthest
possible seat from the minister; and no amount of coaxing on his part
could induce them to come to the front."
"What made them act that way?"
"Couldn't say; it was a problem over which I studied in my young and
innocent days, but I have never solved it. I haven't been to prayer
meetings much lately; got caught once or twice by accident—and they
always seemed to me the most doleful places in the world; people who
frequent them seem to do it as a sort of penance. They are sorry when
the bell rings, and look glad when the last 'amen' is said; that is my
experience of prayer meetings. What is yours?"
"I haven't any," said Dilly. "Mother wasn't ever well enough to go,
since I can remember; and I always stayed with her; then, after she
went away, father would not leave me alone; but I have a feeling that
my father went to prayer meeting because he liked to go."
"Did, eh? Well he was peculiar, I guess; I never saw any people who
acted as though they liked to go. Nurse Campbell liked the fun of
getting out, and having a pleasant walk, and shaking hands with a few
of her mates, but she always looked pleased when the meeting was over.
Here we are at the tabernacle."
And then they plunged down that flight of steps, and Dilly saw why
the people in the distance had been so suddenly lost to sight. They
had gone, as many as could, beyond the rows of seats which stretched
tier on tier to the very top, and seated themselves in the long wide
level space, also filled with pews; even the broad aisles were, on
this morning, crowded with chairs which late comers took eagerly. Very
little space left below; those who came after this must be content with
seats in the circle.
"They could see just as well there, if they only thought so," said
Hart; "but every one feels greedy to get the best place. There's a spot
just the other side of that post; an excellent place for a view, but
the people do not know it; let us make for those two seats."
"Then we will be greedy, too," answered Dilly in a soft and gleeful
voice; she was having great fun.
"What is it they want to see?" she whispered as soon as they were
settled in the two excellent seats which had somehow been overlooked.
"Pictures," whispered Hart. "A man makes pictures of birds, and bugs,
and boys, and any and everything, right before your eyes, and talks
about them."
"Finishes them now while we are looking at him! How can he? I thought
it took a long time to make a picture."
"Depends upon the amount of skill a man has, I suppose; this one they
say is a genius. I heard about him when I was North, last summer; I
thought then, if ever I had a chance, I would go and hear him, or see
him; and I haven't thought of it since, until this morning. I forgot
what was going on until I saw the blackboard—that is what he works
on—and that one with the tourist's cap on must be he."
Dilly had not the least idea what a tourist's cap might be, but she
resolved to look hard at whoever should come to the platform, and learn
for herself that, and many other things. It was all new ground to her.
The level seats which stretched away in front and on either side of
her, and back almost as far as her eye could reach, were largely filled
with children. Very little bits of people occupied the extreme front,
and those a little older were seated just behind them; after that,
children of all ages had crowded in. Some of them had gray hairs.
"We are all children this morning," said a smiling gentleman with cane,
and spectacles, and a white beard; he was seated just behind Dilly, and
gave her an encouraging smile when she glanced around.
"Is it a children's meeting?" she whispered.
"I think it must be," Hart said, gazing about curiously, "a children's
meeting all the grown people are determined to attend. Look at that old
lady in the arm-chair; she must be nearly eighty! Now, Dilly, watch,
and you will see what common chalk can do in some people's hands."
CHAPTER VI.
A LECTURE AND A SERMON.
WHAT Dilly saw growing before her astonished eyes was the picture of a
little boy. Just a few dashes of the crayon, made quite at random it
seemed to her, and there he was; as sweet and pure a boyish face as
could have been imagined. Dilly, looking earnestly, suddenly turned and
gave such a bewildered, yet delighted, gaze into the face of the young
gentleman beside her, that he was seized with a desire to know her
thought.
"What now? What does that handsome little chap say to you?"
"Why, it is your picture," whispered Dilly, "the one your mother has in
the velvet case on her dressing-table. Don't you see how exactly it is
like that? The pretty curls, and all; oh! I wish your mother could see
this."
"Not lasting enough," said Hart, composedly. "It will fade away with
one brush of the hand; see if it doesn't."
He would not have let the little girl know that he was strangely
touched by her words, nor would he have admitted to her for anything,
that he recognized the likeness, but the truth was, that there was
something in the sweet mouth, and curly hair, and laughing eyes of
the picture, which took him back to his early childhood, and made him
almost ready to sigh over his own apparently thoughtless words, "Not
lasting enough."
They were truer of the picture before him than he had supposed; even
while he watched, the face began to change: the artist was talking and
working. He printed on the board the word, "discontent." He told, in a
most vivid way, of how this boy, surrounded as he was by all comforts
and delights of life, yet let the wicked spirit of discontent come into
his life. How he thought it was hidden in his heart, where no one could
see, but how mistaken he was; for what grows in the heart paints its
picture on the face. "I'll show you how," said the artist.
A quick dash of his skilled crayon, and, sure enough, the sweet mouth
had lost its sweetness, was a trifle drawn at the corners, and a scowl
had gathered on the forehead. Then the word "Envy," was printed; a
large heart was made with a single sweep of the artist hand, an ugly
serpent grinned within it, and from its mouth appeared to be hissing
out those two words, "Discontent," "Envy." The brief story of the boy's
desire for what was not his own, was told, and the marks which the
thought made on his face all unconsciously to him, were plainly shown.
Then, the serpent Vanity began to get possession of him; his dress was
finer than others, his house was grander, his watch was more elegant;
sure enough, with a touch, such as Dilly tried in vain to watch, to see
in just what it consisted, and the face before her grew more and more
unlovely; she would have been sure he was a vain and hateful boy.
As vanity and discontent grew on him, he became insolent; and the lines
which this brought out about the once lovely lips, completely spoiled
their beauty; Dilly remembered a boy who spoke great swelling words
of pride and insolence, even to his mother, and the face on the board
began to grow like his!
Vain and impudent and discontented boys were nearly always lazy, the
speaker said; and while he told of one who was caught by this evil
spirit, he disarranged the curly head on the board, hung the hair in
sulky masses over the eyes, drooped the shoulders, and with several
quick touches brought before them the picture of a lazy, repulsive boy.
Then, "Did they need to be told," he asked, "that such a boy was always
selfish? The evil spirit of selfishness was sure to get hold of him,
and when it did, it made such lines as these."
It was the last demoralizing touch on the once sweet face, and poor
Dilly almost held her breath in astonished sorrow as she gazed on the
wreck which the artist's hand had wrought.
"You see how it is," he said, "I did not spoil the face; bless you, I
wouldn't spoil a sweet child face for all the money there is in the
world! But when all these evil spirits get hold of him they are as sure
to make his face like that as he is to live. You can see their names if
you spell the word which is formed by the first letter of these words.
I know of no truer name for habits which will work such ruin as this on
a face that God meant to be beautiful."
The children sat very still; they were solemnized by this wreck of a
beautiful life, so plainly pictured before them. Some of the older
children shaded their faces with their hands, and went back over their
lives, and remembered, if one may judge by their faces, certain times
when some of these evil spirits were allowed to come in and make havoc.
As for poor Dilly, she stole a half-frightened glance at Hart, and
wondered if she did really see the drawn look about his mouth which
marked lines of discontent; certainly his face had changed since the
picture was taken which the mother kept in the velvet case, and Dilly
had herself seen him do things which she instinctively felt he would
not have done if the spirit of selfishness had not been admitted.
Were there lines of that in his face? She could not be sure, but she
was afraid there were. He looked steadily at the picture, and tried
to smile, and appear perfectly indifferent; but there was a little
drooping of the eyes which would have told one who understood human
nature, that he was by no means so indifferent to the changes on that
young face as he professed to be.
Meantime, the artist was again at work. He was making the picture of
another boy; life-size, erect, handsome, well-dressed, bright-eyed; a
very king among boys. Briefly, while he worked, the artist told his
story; high-spirited, kind-hearted, winning, lovable, his mother's joy,
the pride of his teachers. The artist had known him well; loved him, as
every one loved the beautiful boy. Ten, twenty, thirty years passed.
"And now," said the artist, "I will make him again as I saw him one day
in my office in New York."
Oh! Poor, wretched wreck. Ragged, bloated, shaggy-haired, staggering,
utterly repulsive! Could it possibly be that the two whose pictures
appeared on the board side by side, were one and the same?
"It is true," said the artist, deep feeling in his voice; he saw the
question on the faces of his startled audience; "it is too bitterly
true. I wish it were not; I wish I had not known him; I wish I could
blot his image from my memory; but he was the friend of my boyhood, and
I loved him, and he came to me years afterwards, the wreck that you see
him here. I tried hard to help him, even then, and failed. You know the
name of the demon who had gotten hold of him, and changed his face, and
his form, and wrought his ruin, body and soul.
"You need not think I have given you the whole story; I have shown you
only two pictures; I could make dozens of the same face. Those changes
did not come in the course of a few months; he did not spring from
the handsome boy of whom all his friends were proud, into the bloated
wreck I have shown you; it was the work of years. A glass of wine now
and then, on special occasions; a little egg-nog with a friend; a few
spoonfuls of brandy when he was not well; a hot sling after exposure
to intense cold. Little by little the work was done; I could show you,
if I had time, the slight changes which these little indulgences began
to make in the handsome face; changes which he did not guess, and few
people looked closely enough to see, and only his mother was sure of.
Boys, I loved him; and I tried to save him and failed."
There was no mistaking the depth of feeling in the speaker's voice; it
was a true story he had been telling. Those were photographs on which
the people had been gazing.
Dilly drew a long, quivering sigh as the artist left the platform and
the audience was dismissed and filed quietly out. She could not get
away from the feeling that she had been present at the wrecking of a
human life.
"There's a temperance lecture for you," said a gentleman passing out
just in front of them. "Lecture and sermon all in one; I never heard
a stronger appeal in my life. Talk about getting that man to 'amuse
the young!' I would rather have had my boy hear him and see him this
morning than to attend the best temperance lecture that ever was given."
"I think that is true," said Dilly, gravely, as soon as they were
outside where she dared to talk; "I think what that man said about
temperance lectures was true. I don't know how any boy could ever begin
to drink anything which had alcohol in it, or to keep on drinking it,
if he had begun, after hearing that, do you?"
Said Hart: "Whew! It is pretty warm here, I should say; it must be
boiling in town. I wonder what time it is. Too late for the train, as
sure as preaching! Well, I don't care; I heard her screeching when that
fellow was making his picture, but I felt too lazy to start. You see
the spirit of laziness got hold of me then; that was one of his little
imps, wasn't it? He's sharp, that fellow is, as sharp as steel, and
original too."
"And should you think," said Dilly earnestly, still pursuing the train
of reasoning which the last picture had awakened, "that anybody who had
brains would begin using stuff which might make such dreadful changes
in them in just a little while? I know it does; there is an old man,
old Jock, they call him—why, you know old Jock, don't you? He isn't so
'very old,' only he looks so; father used to know him in the North, and
he says there wasn't a finer-looking boy in all the town than he; and
now, who would imagine such a thing! I think it is the strangest thing
anybody begins to use liquor!"
Hart gave her a sharp, searching look, but nothing more innocent and
earnest than her quiet face could be imagined. "I wonder if his mother
lived until he looked like that?" she said, her tone very mournful.
"Poor mother! I hope she didn't."
"Perhaps she was a mother who did not care." Hart made an effort to
speak in a gay and indifferent tone.
Dilly shook her head decidedly. "Oh! I don't think that can be; such a
handsome boy as he was! He must have had a mother who cared, and who
cried. It is dreadful to make mothers cry. Once," and now her voice
was trembling,—"once I wanted to go to the woods with some girls, and
my mother needed me at home, and I grumbled, and said I didn't see why
I could never have any good times like other girls; that none of them
had to help their mothers iron; and my mother looked so sad and tired;
and when she went into her bedroom I saw the tears coming down her
cheeks. I hated myself then, and I ironed all the afternoon as well as
I could, and I told mother that night how sorry I was for being cross;
but I never had a chance to iron for her again; it was only a few weeks
before she died."
And now poor Dilly was crying. Quietly, attracting no attention, but
shedding unmistakable tears.
Hart felt very sorry for her, and there was also a remorseful feeling
knocking at his heart. He had, more than once, seen the tears in "his"
mother's eyes, and knew that anxiety for him had brought them there.
CHAPTER VII.
A LITTLE LOGICIAN.
IT was Sunday afternoon—an August Sunday, bright and beautiful. "Very
warm," the city papers said, in the next day's report, but on Monteagle
a steady wind fluttered the branches of the many trees all day, and
the birds were singing merrily. Under the shadow of one of the great
old trees, Effie Hammond played about according to her own sweet will;
Dilly, on the grass near at hand, an open book in her lap, keeping
careful guard over the small feet of her charge, all unknown to them;
they thought they were free to go where they pleased, therefore their
owner was happy. Hart Hammond strolling about, uncertain what to do
with himself, presently came that way, stopped for a minute to tease
little Effie by tickling her nose with one of the long grasses, then
came and threw himself on the grass, not far from Dilly.
"What a tiresomely slow day this is! Seems to me there have been
twenty-seven hours since breakfast, each of them a hundred and eighty
minutes long."
Dilly smiled faintly. There was a thoughtful look on her face; in fact,
a slightly troubled look which gathered again, almost before the smile
had faded. "It has not seemed so very long to me," she answered gravely.
"Hasn't? What have you been about?" And he gave her face a searching
glance, and saw the shadow on it.
"I went to Sunday-school this morning, and since then I have taken
care of Effie, and helped Jeannette with the rooms, and done a great
many little things; none of them took much time, and yet all of them
together took all the time there was."
"Just so; and didn't give you a chance to see how slow it was going;
nor how stupid everything was; I'd give a dollar an hour if I had
something regular and sensible to do."
"Then I should think you would find it right away; there are ever so
many things that seem to want doing."
Hart laughed a little; a sort of superior air, as though he realized
that he was talking with a person who knew very little about the things
which belonged to his world.
"What are some of them?"
"Oh! I don't know; hundreds of things which would help other people,
and make the world a great deal nicer place than it is. Seems to me if
I were a man, I would do a great many nice things; but I don't know, I
might not. I don't do all I could now, being a little girl, and that is
a sign, I suppose, that I would not be any better if I were a man. Mr.
Hart, why do you suppose it is that people don't go right straight to
Jesus when they feel him drawing them, and begin work for him?"
Hart Hammond rolled over a little on the grass, changing his position
so that he could look full into Dilly's face, then said, with
astonished emphasis,—"What!"
"Why, you know the promise He made, that if He was lifted up, He would
'draw' everybody to Him, and of course He has kept His promise; and I
say, why doesn't everybody go to Him?"
She was in very intense earnest. There was no mistaking the gravity,
which was almost solemnity, on her face; she went after Effie, just
then, brought her from a particularly dusty spot, and established her
on the grass with a new flower, then came back to her seat, and her
open book. Hart, glancing at it, saw it was the Bible.
"What put that into your head?" he asked carelessly, meaning the Bible
verse.
"It has been in my head all day; it was the Sunday-school lesson, you
know, for to-day."
"I'm sure I did not know it. What could they make out of such a lesson
as that for little chicks?"
"They made wonderful things out of it, Mr. Hart; I went to the
children's building where all the very wee-est ones were; I wanted to
see what would be done with them all, they were so little and cunning.
I didn't know people taught such very little dots from the Bible, but
they did; a real lesson. First there was an arch for the promise;
then there was a picture of the world, with the cross on it up in one
corner, and rays of light reaching from it all over the world; then
the teacher marked off one tiny spot for Monteagle, and made dots for
the little folks in her class, and told them the light from the cross
was shining right on them to-day; that Jesus was drawing them to come
to him; and then she said how very, very sad it was that some of them
would not come."
"And they understood what she was talking about as well, I suppose,
as though she had addressed them in Greek," replied skeptical Hart,
smiling.
"Oh! They understood. I don't make it plain to you, I suppose, because
I don't know how; but that teacher knew. She made it just as plain to
those little bits of children what it was to go to Jesus, as I should
make plain to Effie what I wanted if I should ask her to run to mamma
in her room at the hotel. That was what astonished me so much. I always
thought," said Dilly, looking down at her Bible, her cheeks growing
a rosy pink, "that being a Christian was something which belonged to
older people—to men and women; and that girls so young as I needn't
think about such things; but that teacher talked to those little bits
of children as though they were hurting the Lord Jesus every day, when
they refused to think about him or try to please him; and, after all,
it seems sensible, for Effie, baby as she is, makes your mother look
very much troubled when she puts on that determined little look and
stands perfectly still, after she has called her to come. Why shouldn't
Jesus care?"
"You are getting into very deep theological waters, my small woman,
I am afraid," said Hart, trying to look wise and, at the same time,
unconcerned. "What is 'going to Jesus?' That is a kind of 'cant'
expression which one hears a good deal of in Sunday-school; but how
many of those children, do you suppose, know what it means? Effie,
there, understands perfectly well when mamma calls her, that she ought
to go, but this is a very different matter."
"They understood," said Dilly, confidently. "She asked all who knew
what it was to go to Jesus, to raise their hands, and ever so many
little bits of children raised theirs; then she questioned some of the
youngest; one boy said it was to 'want to please him.' Another said it
was to 'do just as you thought he would do if he were here.' Another
said it was to 'turn right square around and leave all your bads behind
you,' and a little bit of a girl said 'it was to love him so much that
you wouldn't do anything to make him feel bad, for the world.' Oh!
'They' knew.
"Then she got them to tell of ways in which they had been called,
or 'drawn,' to Jesus, and it was just wonderful to hear the little
things. Some told what their fathers had said, and some spoke of their
teachers, and mothers, and two boys said their little sister had asked
them to 'turn over a new leaf,' and one little girl said her mamma had
asked her to meet her in Heaven. My mother asked me to be sure to do
that." Dilly's voice had dropped lower and lower, and with this last
sentence it trembled and her eyes filled with tears.
"Well," said Hart, kindly, wanting to comfort her, "you mean to, I
suppose."
"I don't know; I haven't thought much about it, only when I was sick,
and then I was too miserable to think of anything, much, but myself.
Oh! I meant to, some day, but that teacher told those 'little' boys
and girls that they were not one of them too young to begin, and that
to-day was the only time they were sure of."
"I think it is very unwise to try to scare little folks in that way,"
said Hart, looking wise and reproving.
"Oh! They were not scared. She did not say it in that way, only she
made it plain to them that it was true; and of course it is; because,
when you stop to think about it, how can anybody be sure of being here
to-morrow; and even if one were sure, what is the use in waiting?"
There really seemed to be but one sensible answer to make to this; Hart
thought it over for some seconds, and at last said, with a good-natured
laugh, "All right; what do you wait for, then?"
"That is just it!" Dilly did not laugh, but kept her troubled look.
"Why don't I say right away that I am going, from this minute, to
belong to Jesus, and serve him the best I know how? Why doesn't
everybody say it, Mr. Hart?"
"Well," said Hart, rolling himself over again, and settling it in his
own mind that he would leave this part of the ground in a very few
minutes, "the theory is, you know, that old Satan himself is at the
bottom of all our wickednesses, this among the number."
"Do you suppose he is trying to manage me?" Dilly's tone was
awe-stricken. "Do you really think it is Satan telling me that I don't
understand enough about things to settle them; that, at least, I would
better wait till I get home and see what father says?"
"Haven't a doubt but that the old fellow is interested in you, if all
that is said of him is true."
"I hate to be managed by him!" said Dilly, intense scorn in her voice,
and much emphasis laid on the pronoun him.
Hart was exceedingly amused. Dilly seemed to him to be the very oddest
little girl in the world.
"On the whole, then," he said, rising, "perhaps, you would do well to
give him the slip."
"Why, of course; everybody would, but it is so queer that we don't! Did
you see the picture this morning, Mr. Hart?"
"Picture?" said Hart, sitting down again. "I saw nothing this morning,
but the bed. What picture was there?"
"Why, that same man made a picture on the blackboard in the tabernacle;
in the big Sunday-school, you know, after the other was over. He made
the lesson all out in a picture, and a story. The story was about a
desert where nothing grew, and it was very warm and very dreary; and
one day an angel planted a seed, and a tree grew up, a lovely tree—the
only beautiful thing in that desert world. And pilgrims came that way
and rested under its shade; and it grew and grew; and these pilgrims
told others about it, and more came, and at last great crowds of
people were helped by that tree; and it grew on and on, and spread its
branches everywhere, and its leaves cured sick people. And while he
talked he made the tree larger and larger, and its branches reached
out, and then suddenly, he made a cross out of it; reaching its arms
out to save everybody! It was a beautiful story, Mr. Hart. I can't tell
it as he did, but it just put the whole lesson into a picture; and it
made me think again how strange it was that some people would not be
cured. When I was sick, I 'wanted' to be cured so much; and when your
mother came to say she would take me with her up here, and that it
would cure me, I just cried for joy; and father cried, he was so glad.
Suppose I had said I wasn't old enough to come?"
"You are quite a little logician," said Hart. And then he took himself
up from the grass again, pinched Effie's cheek, pulled one of her curls
and sauntered off, leaving Dilly to wonder what that last sentence
meant.
CHAPTER VIII.
TRUE TO HER PLEDGE.
DILLY sat still with her book, a little sorrowful; it seemed to her
that she needed some help, though she hardly knew what, and Mr. Hart
did not seem to be the person to help her. Effie was very busy just
then, gathering all the bright flowers within her reach and carefully
pulling them to bits, so she gave no trouble beyond an occasional
glance, and left Dilly to her own thoughts. What should she decide? It
seemed to her that somebody stood near at hand, waiting for what she
was going to say. For some reason which she did not understand, Mr.
Hart had discouraged her; made her feel that the whole question was
beyond her; that she was too young to busy her mind with it; he had not
said so in words, but he had contrived to make her feel that he thought
so. Dilly was sure this was very different from what the morning
teacher of the children had tried to do.
"And if they are old enough," said Dilly, "then I was, years and years
ago; and I've been 'called' a great many times; yet I can't seem to
decide that I shall do any differently from what I have always been
doing."
A step sounded near her, and glancing up, Dilly saw the artist almost
at her side, looking down on her with a good-natured smile. "What kind
of a growth is this, which I have found," he said, whimsically. "Is it
a flower, or a weed?" and he dropped himself beside her.
Dilly looked around for the growth which he meant. There was no flower
near her.
"Oh! I meant this one," he said, touching lightly the hand which lay on
her open Bible.
"Oh!" said Dilly, flushing up to her temples. "I'm afraid it is a weed."
"You don't say! Not poisonous, I hope!" and he drew away his hand in
pretended alarm.
Dilly laughed a little; she had never heard such queer talk.
She stole a shy glance at her visitor, but he seemed to have already
forgotten her, and lay looking up at the pure blue sky. Something in
his face made her think he could help her if he chose; but she felt
afraid to speak. At last, her voice very soft and low, broke the quiet:
"I saw your picture this morning."
"My picture? Did I make a picture this morning? When was it? In my
dreams? I'm always making them, asleep or awake; so of course I can't
remember them all."
"But I mean the one you made at the tabernacle for the Sunday-school."
"The Sunday-school lesson! Did I go to Sunday-school? Let me see. O
yes! I remember; you saw my desert, and my tree that grew and grew, and
blossomed at last into a cross which stretched out its arms to reach
all the world. Yes; that is a wonderful Sunday-school lesson. You saw
the picture; but the question is, did you stand close to it, right
under the spreading branches of the tree, where those stand who have
gone close enough to use its leaves for themselves?"
"I'm only a little girl," said Dilly, very softly. "I think maybe I'm
too young to really 'belong,' yet awhile."
"Well, now, let us see about that. If you were a rosebud, and I was a
wonderful fairy who could change you so that your leaves would never
fade, and fit you to blossom in the palace of my king, and I wanted to
do it, do you think I would like to have you wait until a little worm
which had made its nest in your heart, had eaten a great many of your
leaves, and curled some of them up, and torn one off here and there,
and made you look yellow and ugly, before you came to me for help?"
"No, sir," said Dilly, promptly enough, but smiling again; "who ever
heard so strange a story as this?"
"Very well; you are just a bud now, but there is a little worm named
'sin,' crawling about, longing to get a good hold on you. I don't see
the use of waiting till he has spoiled your beauty. Do you?"
But now Dilly had no answer ready; something in the voice, or in the
words, had sent a sudden rush of tears to her eyes, and a great longing
into her heart to be shielded now and forever from the power of that
destroying worm.
The artist said no more to her, but gave undivided attention to Effie
for the next five minutes, then went away with a kind good-by.
Effie was tired of her flowers now, and missed her new friend whose
attentions had been delightful; so she travelled over to Dilly and
insisted on being noticed.
Dilly hurriedly dried her eyes, kissed Effie, picked up her Bible,
and taking the child by the hand, started for the hotel; the supper
bell was ringing. As she went, she said firmly to herself: "Now I have
decided; I'm going to Him this very day. I shall not wait until I am an
old spoiled flower, with the leaves dropping off!"
True to her pledge, the first moment she had to herself, she knelt down
in the little curtained room by her cot bed, and said,—
"Jesus Christ, I gave myself to thee, to do just what thou dost tell
me."
She had not time for a word more, for Mrs. Hammond called her just
then, and she hopped up quickly and ran away, feeling that she ought
to go when called, but feeling sorry, nevertheless, that she could not
say those other words which were in her heart. For the next hour or two
she was kept quite busy, and it was not until Effie was asleep in her
crib, with Mrs. Hammond sitting beside her, and the bells ringing for
evening service, that Dilly's work for the day was done. Even then she
lingered, looping the curtain a little differently and picking a bit of
paper from the matting on the floor; Mrs. Hammond looked so very sad
and desolate that Dilly could not feel willing to leave her alone, much
as she wanted to be by herself for a little while.
She ventured a suggestion: "Mrs. Hammond, wouldn't you like to have me
stay with Miss Effie and you go out to the meeting? It is such pretty
moonlight, and the bell sounds so sweet."
"No," said Mrs. Hammond, with a long-drawn sigh; "I could not go alone,
and besides, I have not the energy to go anywhere. I just want to stay
by my baby; I want to enjoy her, Dilly, while she is a baby. Sometimes,
when babies grow up, they give their mothers very sorrowful hearts,
though I think you were always good to your mother, Dilly."
This last was added in a kind voice, because of a sudden remembrance
the lady had, that Dilly's mother was gone.
"No, ma'am," said Dilly, her voice quivering a little; "sometimes I
wasn't."
But Mrs. Hammond had already forgotten her. She sighed again, and
looked out of the window, down the long moonlighted path.
"I suppose you haven't seen anything of Mr. Hart this afternoon?" she
asked; not as though she expected any information, but as if she was
thinking aloud.
"Yes, ma'am, I have; he was with Miss Effie and me out on the grass
back of the tent for quite a long while."
Mrs. Hammond turned quickly toward her. "At what time, Dilly?"
"Why, it was after dinner, a good while after; Miss Effie slept late,
you remember, and I had her dressed and out there, for a little while
before he came along; I don't know just what time it was."
"Do you know whether it was after the three o'clock train had gone
down?"
"Oh! Yes'm, it was; or it was just about that time when he came
along. I remember just as he spoke to me I was thinking it was Sunday
everywhere but down at the depot, and it was the whistle of the train
which made me think of it; and the bell was ringing for the four
o'clock meeting when you called me, Mrs. Hammond, and Mr. Hart had been
gone only a little while; I remember all about it now."
"What took Mr. Hart in that direction, Dilly?" There was a wonderful
softening of Mrs. Hammond's voice, and the lines on her forehead seemed
to have smoothed a little.
"I don't know, ma'am; he played with Miss Effie a few minutes, then,
when he asked me if the day wasn't long, I said it didn't seem so, and
I began to tell him about the Sunday-school lesson, and he seemed to
like to hear about it, and asked me questions, and I asked him some."
Dilly stopped; she did not know how to give the conversation more
plainly; she hoped Mrs. Hammond would not ask her.
"Do you know whether the evening train has gone up yet?"
"O no, ma'am! It doesn't go until after nine o'clock."
Mrs. Hammond sighed again; many of her troubles seemed to have to do
with the trains.
"Well," she said gently, after a few moments of silence, "you can go
now; I shall not want you any more to-night. And, Dilly?"
"Yes'm."
Silence again; Mrs. Hammond did not seem to know quite how to word her
next remarks: "Dilly, whenever Mr. Hart wants you to go anywhere for
him, or wants to take you with him to see or hear anything, I want you
to be always ready at a moment's notice; never mind baby; bring her to
me, or leave her with Jeannette; but do not at any time keep Mr. Hart
waiting, or think that you cannot be spared to go with him. That is
all."
The shrewd little girl as she went away, remembered that her chief duty
in life had been supposed to be to keep Miss Effie out of mischief, and
wondered if she were now to try to do something of that kind for Mr.
Hart. How troubled his mother was about him! She felt very sorry. What
could he be doing which worried her so? He was so kind and pleasant to
her, she should think he would be just lovely to his mother.
Very thoughtfully she went to her curtained-in room, her mind full of
Mr. Hart and his possible dangers. She was quite alone now, and had
leisure; there was nothing to hinder her kneeling down and finishing
that pledge which she had been so resolved to make, but, much to her
surprise, and not a little to her dismay, she could not be interested
in the words she had planned to say.
"I have said it," she told herself; "I put it into that little short
prayer; why should I put these other words with it?"
She got down on her knees, however, but her thoughts were so full of
Mr. Hart that the first words she said were:
"Dear Jesus Christ, he worries his mother, and maybe he is in danger;
if thou wouldst only draw him, so that he would decide not to let Satan
manage him any more; he said it was Satan who managed. Oh! Dear Lord
Jesus, please manage him thyself."
It was of no use to try to pray about herself, or to think of other
words to say than those about Hart; her desires went instantly back to
him whenever she tried to add to her pledge, made a few hours before.
It was as though she had quite forgotten herself, and had wishes only
for Hart Hammond.
The light burned late in Mrs. Hammond's room; Dilly could see it
glimmer from her tent window. She herself went to bed, and to sleep,
and wakened, and the light was still there. She heard the train
whistle, and wondered if Mr. Hart was on it, and if it was the fear of
his going, which troubled his mother. She reached up and peeped at the
tent next to theirs, where Mr. Hart slept, so that she and Jeannette
need not be afraid; but it was quite dark, and the door securely tied.
Then Dilly sighed, and murmured the same little prayer,—
"Oh! Dear Lord Jesus, please manage him—"
and fell asleep again.
And Hart Hammond's tent door remained tied all night.
CHAPTER IX.
SETTLING THE PUZZLE.
MRS. HAMMOND herself boarded at the hotel, but it suited her best to
have little Ethel sit in her high chair at the table in the tent, and
take her oatmeal and milk and other wholesome dainties, in company
with Jeannette and Dilly. It also suited her to come often, before the
meal was concluded, and sit beside Ethel and watch her pretty attempts
to feed herself. It was when Ethel was eating one by one, great ripe
blackberries, that her mother came, and drawing a chair to her side,
watched the plump cheeks and pretty little mouth with a sigh of relief.
Whatever might be said of her son, certainly her baby was thriving on
Monteagle.
The mother had dark rings under her eyes, and traces of sleeplessness
on her face. Dilly, looking at her compassionately, wanted to ask
if she had seen Mr. Hart that morning, but, did not dare. While she
studied over the trouble which she felt sure was making wrinkles in
this beautiful mother's face, and wondered if there wasn't something
she could do to help her, the tent curtains parted slightly and a
familiar face looked in.
"Any room in here for me?" questioned Hart's pleasant voice, and his
mother answered eagerly:
"O, Hart! Come in; I thought you were away down the mountain before
this time. Weren't you very late last night?"
"On the contrary, I was early." He came in, and stopping beside his
mother, bent and kissed her on each cheek. "That is to say I was
'inside the tent,' early; I stayed with a young man who runs a tent
down near the tabernacle. I happened to call on him, and we became so
engaged in a talk we were having, that it grew late before I knew it,
and as I received a cordial invitation to spend the night with him,
I decided to do so, rather than go prowling about the grounds after
regulation hours. I hope I did not worry you, mother; I supposed you
would think me safe in my tent."
"It is all right," the mother said, cheerily; "I noticed that your tent
door was tied, early in the evening, and did not see you untie it; and
I was a little afraid you had deserted us and run home."
"I would not do that without telling you, and saying good-by," he
answered gently, and some way his voice seemed more tender than Dilly
had ever noticed before. He lifted Effie, whose blackberries were gone,
from her chair, and gave her such a frolic that she shouted for joy,
then putting her on Dilly's shoulder, walked away with his mother's
hand drawn through his arm, and a happy look on her face; a look which,
while it lasted, nearly always hid the wrinkles which were gathering
there.
"I wonder that boy can't see that he's killing his mother; he 'pears to
think enough of her, when he thinks about her at all." It was Jeannette
who said this. It was the first time she had made a remark to Dilly
about any of the family.
Dilly was silent for a minute, struggling with a sense of honor which
she had, about talking people over, when they were not present, but at
last she ventured to ask one question she knew the object she had in
view was good:
"Does she—I mean, does Mr. Hart do things which trouble her?"
"Oh! He doesn't do anything so very dreadful; not more than they all
do; he's a little wild, most boys without fathers have their wild
times; his father died when this baby wasn't but four days old; and
he's got in with a set down in the city that don't do him much good.
The fact is, he takes a drink of their wine, now and then, and that
scares his mother. But then, she isn't half so scared as a body would
think she would be; if she was, do you suppose she would go to hotels
and stop for weeks at a time, where they had the stuff on the table at
every meal? I've seen her do it; last summer she went to the Mountain
House, and when they sat down to their stylish dinners, if I'd go past
the room on my way to the piazza, the smell of all kinds of fancy
liquors would almost take my breath away; I've got a kind of a natural
liking for the stuff, and I could be a drunkard as well as not, if I
had time and money; and Hart, he used to sit there and see gentlemen
whom his mother rode and walked and talked with, and thought was fine,
drinking their champagne and their claret and I dunno what other fancy
names they've got for it, and why in the world shouldn't he think
it was nice and manly, and that he was getting old enough to do so
himself? I'm free to confess I ain't got much patience with mothers;
s'posin' she took him every day where there was a mad dog or two,
within easy reach of him, and s'posin' the bite of a mad dog felt kind
of pleasant, at first; and then she whined around him and begged him
not to get bitten; what kind of a way to manage would you think that
was?"
"But they don't have such things at this hotel, do they?" Dilly's voice
was shocked; if there was a thing in this world she had been brought up
to fear and hate, it was alcohol; no matter by what name it was called.
"Here, inside the grounds? O, no! They don't allow nothing of the kind;
but then he is as uneasy as a fish out of water up here; you can't take
a boy where the air is poisoned, till he gets the poison into him,
and then make things all straight by carrying him off to a mountain."
Jeannette banged the breakfast dishes a little as she talked; she felt
very much wrought up on this subject. The fact is, her home had been
ruined by this same poison; and she knew what she was talking about.
Dilly sat still, and let Effie's busy fingers pull her neat ruffle all
awry; she felt very much dismayed. If Hart really had some of this
dreadful poison in his veins, how could she hope to help him in the
least?
All day her mind was busy with these thoughts. I am afraid Effie found
her a very grave companion. That young lady was not by any means
neglected; her milk and her oatmeal and her fruit were ready at the
moment as usual; and no insolent fly was allowed to walk over her
pretty face while she slept out of doors in her borrowed cradle, with
the birds and the flowers to keep her company. But for the rest, she
was obliged to plan her own entertainments to a great extent, while
Dilly hemmed a ruffle for her dress and thought and "thought." Was
there any possible way in which she could help Mr. Hart, and so help
Mr. Hart's mother?
Effie's early supper was nearly all disposed of before Dilly saw the
young man again. Then he called to her pleasantly as he was passing the
tent:
"Halloo, little woman, have you been to Table Rock yet, to see the
sunset?"
"No, sir," said Dilly, smiling, and appearing in the tent door in her
pretty white dress, a gift from Mrs. Hammond, and looking as fresh and
bright as a little girl need. "I don't know where Table Rock is; and
besides, I don't think Mrs. Hammond would like to have me take Miss
Effie there, if there are very high places."
"I imagine not. 'Miss Effie' will do well to wait a few years before
she climbs those rocks; but you ought to go. I'm just starting on a
trip, and I'll show you the way."
Dilly hesitated; Jeannette was busy with some fine ironing, and it was
nearly Mrs. Hammond's tea hour; she had an idea that it would be a very
inconvenient time to leave her little charge; she opened her mouth to
speak this thought, then closed it again, mindful of Mrs. Hammond's
directions.
"Thank you," she said at last; "I'll take Effie to her mamma and ask if
she can spare me." And she sped away before Hart could reply.
"I can take care of her as well as not," said Mrs. Hammond with her
pleasantest smile. "I don't feel tired at all; and you have been busy
with the little girlie all day; I'm glad to have you go and get rested."
What a pretty walk it was! Dozens of others were moving in the same
direction; ladies in beautiful summer toilets, and fine-looking
gentlemen who nodded pleasantly to Hart; and presently a party of
merry girls and boys all older than herself, joined them, and chatted
pleasantly with her, making Dilly feel as though she "belonged." It was
all very delightful. When they reached the rocks, Hart gave his hand to
Dilly and guided her carefully over the rough places, out to the very
centre of the wonderful rocky table itself, and said:
"Now, turn to the right, and 'look.'"
Dilly up to this moment had been busy only with the thought of where
she should step next, and whether she could take that leap across that
yawning chasm to the next rock, and what would happen if Mr. Hart's
foot should slip; but now, feeling more secure, she turned at his
bidding and looked toward the glowing west. One little exclamation
escaped her, then she was entirely still. That wonderful ball of fire
surrounded by its train of red and gold and purple clouds! Who would
try to describe it? Who that has not seen it on Table Rock itself can
imagine it? Certainly Dilly had no words; there was a sudden rush of
tears to her eyes; she could not have told why; and she put up her hand
quickly and wiped them away; it would not do to have the view obscured
by tears. Something in the scene had hushed other voices as well as
hers; the group stood for the most part silent and watchful, with eager
faces turned toward the vision of glory in the west, watchful until the
glowing world dropped out of sight.
"The door is shut!" said Hart, breaking the hush and drawing a long
breath.
One of the girls turned and looked at him curiously. "The door?" she
said in an inquiring tone.
Hart laughed, and pointed toward the purple bank of clouds.
"Yes; didn't you see the angels troop out and throw open the castle
door for the king of day, and then swing it slowly to again? I saw it."
Dilly flashed an appreciative glance at him. "I thought I saw it,"
she said in a low tone, while the others laughed and told him he was
growing poetical.
On the way home, as they neared the grounds of the Association, the
others dropped off into their own paths, and left the young man and the
little girl alone.
"Have you settled that puzzle which you were having with yourself last
night?" he asked her with a very bright look.
"Puzzle?" repeated Dilly.
"Yes; wasn't it a sort of puzzle as to who was keeping you from trying
to settle something of importance?"
"Oh!" said Dilly. "Yes, I was puzzled a little; at least I wanted to
make myself think I was; I guess I knew all the time it was Satan
trying to manage me."
"And you don't like to be managed?"
"Not by Satan."
"O, well! Didn't I advise you to give him the slip?"
"Yes, sir," said Dilly, speaking very gravely. She did not know but
Mr. Hart was making light of all her talk, nevertheless she resolved
to stand up bravely for her colors. "Yes, sir, you did; and I mean to.
I don't belong to him any more, Mr. Hart; I've gone over to the Other;
and promised to belong to Him forever."
"That is good." There was no laughter in the young man's tones now;
they were hearty and pleasant.
Dilly stole a glance at his eyes, which helped her; they were kind
eyes; not full of sparkles of mischief, as she had feared.
"You have quite settled the question as to being old enough?"
"O, yes, indeed! I believe I knew all the time that I was; but
something seemed trying to make me give that excuse to myself. I don't
want any excuses now, Mr. Hart; I 'like' to belong to the Lord Jesus."
"Yes," he said heartily; "I can well understand that. And what next,
Dilly?"
CHAPTER X.
SILENT FORCES.
"WHAT next?" she repeated, a little smile on her face. Dilly had a
curious way of repeating Mr. Hart's words, and thereby expressing that
she did not quite understand what he meant.
"Yes; I mean, having settled this question, how is it going to
influence your life in any way? What is there about you that will be
changed in any sense because of this decision?"
Dilly looked puzzled. "I don't know how to 'tell' the difference," she
said, speaking slowly, as though she was carefully choosing each word,
"but I can feel that there will be a difference."
"I hardly understand how, in you," Hart said, smiling on her very
gently. "It would make a tremendous change in some people I know, but
you have always done about right, haven't you?"
"O, Mr. Hart!" Dilly was genuinely shocked. "That isn't true at all;
there are chances enough for change, only I don't know how to tell
them."
"What chances?" he said, amused. "Haven't you always been a pretty good
little girl?"
"I've fretted inside," said Dilly, gravely; "I've fretted a great
deal, and thought it was mean for father to be so poor, and for me to
be sick and make him more trouble; and even for mother to die." Her
voice, which had been growing more and more tremulous, broke with that
sentence, and she could not have said another word just then.
"Well," said Hart, not amused now, but speaking very gently indeed,
"those do not seem to me to be very immense sins, in a little girl. Do
you mean that you now understand why such things were allowed?"
Dilly shook her head: "No, sir; I don't understand them, only now I
know that they must be right, and best, because I know that the Lord
Jesus truly loves me, and loves father, and everybody, and of course he
will do the best for us all. I needn't 'have' to understand it."
"And you mean to stop fretting inside, now?" The amused look had
already returned to Hart's face. "So that's one difference; and what
else?"
"First, I'll write to father; that will be one thing." Dilly's face was
bright over this thought.
"Not a 'different' thing, surely; haven't I mailed two nice little
letters to father, for you, since we have been up here?"
"O yes, sir! But this will be a different letter, very different from
any I ever wrote; I have such news to tell him, about how I have
decided and about what a difference it makes in everything."
"Are you going to write to him about it?"
"O yes, sir! I wouldn't keep father waiting until I got home."
"Do you write about it because you want to do so, or because you think
you ought?"
"Why, I like to write it; father will be so glad! And then, I think I
ought, besides."
"But suppose he wouldn't be glad; I mean, suppose he did not understand
about such things and would hardly know what you meant? Would you tell
him then?"
"O yes," said Dilly with quiet assurance, "because you know I should
want him to understand, and have it for himself just as quick as he
could; and besides, fathers and mothers ought to know all about us,
of course; and anyhow, there's a bigger reason, I suppose, than that.
Jesus said we were to shine. I read that verse this morning, Mr. Hart.
I wanted a verse to help me begin to live right, and the Bible is such
a big book I wondered how I should find it, and I opened straight to
that verse. Wasn't it strange?"
"Very. And then and there you made up your mind to 'shine,' did you? I
suppose that is the way to do. But won't you have a busy life if you
adopt all the Bible verses and measure your doings by them? I heard
a young man last night quote a verse which seems to me reaches so
far that it wouldn't give one much time for anything else. 'Whether
therefore ye eat or drink or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of
God.' Do you think you can manage that?"
"'Whatever' you do;" Dilly repeated the words in a startled tone, as
though she had never heard them before. "Why, that means everything!"
"It appears to."
"But how 'could' people?"
"That is the question I asked."
"But it is in the Bible?"
"Aye, it is there, in exactly those words; I took the trouble to look
it up and see if he said it right."
"Then there is some way to do it, of course; but I don't understand
how."
Just at that moment they were joined by a young man, evidently a friend
of Hart's, and the two talked together, leaving Dilly to her perplexed
thoughts. At a corner where two streets crossed, Hart turned to her:
"Now, little woman, I will take the left-hand road, and you may take
the right one; it will bring you home by a pleasanter route; you are
almost there now; I want to do some errands down town."
So Dilly was left to herself. She was not sorry; she had a great deal
to think about; this new idea Mr. Hart had given her was very large.
How was it possible that her quiet, every-day life should be to God's
glory?
From out a vine-wreathed cottage door came a pretty little girl,
watering pot hung on her fingers, a small garden hoe tucked under her
arm, the handle grasped by both chubby hands.
Dilly smiled on her; she recognized in her one of the little girls who
had listened to that Sunday-school lesson about Jesus "drawing" people
to himself, and who had watched afterward, the making of that wonderful
picture of the tree that filled the whole earth, and reached out its
arms to save. She wondered if the little girl had understood, and had
been drawn to Jesus? Also, she wondered how it was possible that such
a little bit of a girl who probably had no work except to hoe a little
among the flowers, could do things for God's glory? How could hoeing,
for instance, have anything whatever to do with God? And yet flowers
ought to be hoed.
[Illustration: DILLY'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL ACQUAINTANCE.]
"Are you going to make a garden?" she asked pleasantly, seeing that the
little girl sweetly returned her smile.
"I'm going to water mamma's flowers, and hoe out some of the weeds;
they grow very fast up here, worse than they do at home."
"Do you like to water flowers, and hoe weeds?"
"Some I do: I like it here better than at home, it is so hot at home;
and the flowers get so dusty; but we have lots and lots of flowers in
our garden at home; ever so many more than we have room for here. And
we have lovely fall flowers too, that we don't stay up here long enough
to have. Mamma has millions of kinds, I guess."
There came the new question crowding into Dilly's heart and shutting
out her enjoyment of this flower story. Why was it right to have so
many flowers, and to spend so much time as she knew it must take, to
care for them?
"Why, what do you do with so many flowers?"
Dilly asked the question somewhat absently, more because she saw the
child waiting for her to speak, than because she cared for the answer;
of course they put them in vases, and enjoyed them.
"Oh! Lots of things," the little flower girl said, triumphantly. "We
always take them to church, and Sunday-school, great loads of them; Dr.
Halbert says they help him preach; he's our minister, you know. Once he
preached about 'Consider the lilies'; Jesus said that, you know, and
mamma had every kind of lily you can think of, in church that day; and
a man most eighty years old told mamma he had never understood before,
how wonderful God was to make so many flowers, or something like that;
I can't remember just how it was. Then mamma sends flowers to the
hospital for the sick people to look at, and rest themselves; and she
always sends them to houses where poor people live, when any one dies;
once I went with her and we put lovely rosebuds all around a little bit
of a coffin where a baby was; it looked just as sweet! Her mamma came
in to see her, and when she saw the flowers she cried; I thought they
made her feel bad, but mamma said no, they helped her; and she told
mamma afterwards they made her think of her baby in Heaven. I don't see
how, do you?" asked the little girl simply.
"Yes, a little," said Dilly, smiling.
Then she stooped and kissed the flower girl and said "Thank you,"
though I don't think the child knew for what she was being thanked.
Dilly knew; she had learned a great deal in those few minutes. Here
were flowers speaking just as loud as they could for God's glory, and
if the child pulled out the weeds which hindered them, because she
wanted their sweet voices to speak for him, Dilly could see how the
work fitted the new verse.
It was very wonderful. Did everything fit?
As for Hart Hammond, he also had something to think about; something
which Dilly had furnished, though she did not know it.
CHAPTER XI.
A SURPRISE.
WHEN Dilly reached home, she found her little charge safely tucked away
for the night and sleeping sweetly, while her mother in pretty white
wrapper, with black velvet trimming which made her look prettier, Dilly
thought, than any of her elegant dresses, sat writing by the gleam of
three wax candles, which she liked much better than kerosene lamplight.
"They make much prettier shadows on the wall," said Dilly to herself,
as she watched them dance in the evening wind, "but I should think a
light that would keep still would be better to write by."
Mrs. Hammond looked up as her little maid softly entered, and smiled
pleasantly.
"So you are safely back," she said; "I am always glad when people get
home from Table Rock. One could plunge so easily from one of those
rocks, down, down!" She shivered a little, and asked quickly: "Where is
Mr. Hart? He came home with you, did he not?"
"Yes'm, as far as the corner of Glen Avenue; then he went away with a
friend. He said he had an errand down town."
A shadow fell over the mother's face. "Did he say when he would be at
home?" she asked. And then, before Dilly could reply: "Of course he
didn't. What a foolish question to ask you!" and the sentence finished
with a sigh. "Well," she said, after a moment's pause, during which the
pleasant look did not return to her face, "I shall not need anything
to-night; Effie is resting quietly, and everything is done. You may go
to bed if you wish."
"I should like to write a letter to father, if you please."
"Oh! Very well; Jeannette has a shaded lamp at the tent, and here are
paper and envelopes if you wish. That is right, child, don't neglect
your father; and don't give him any anxious thoughts about you if you
can help it."
"I'll try not to," said Dilly earnestly, and she went away with a smile
on her face, thinking what very good news she had for father, this time.
It took quite a while for Dilly to write the letter, though it was not
very long. This was what she said:
"MY DEAR, DEAR FATHER:
"It isn't time to write to you yet, but I am going to write, because I
have something so nice to tell you that I don't want it to wait. I am
very much better; I grow strong every day, and I eat a great deal of
baked potato, and oatmeal and milk, and fruit, and lots of nice things.
Effie is just as sweet as she can be. She loves me better than anybody,
except her mother, and sometimes she is even willing to come away from
her mother to be with me. I have learned how to make a lovely pudding;
when I come home I can make it for you; it doesn't cost very much, only
a little bit of milk, and one egg, and Jeannette is showing me how to
make other nice things; she is very good to me. She said at first she
did not think she would like me, but now she does. Everybody is good
to me. Mr. Hart is 'so nice;' he took me up on Table Rock to-night to
see the sun set. Father, I do just wish I could tell you about it! All
gold, and crimson, and purple mountains all around, and red streaks
away up into the sky, and castles in the sky made of glory color, and
angels hurrying around to get ready for the sun to come home; that is
the way it seemed, you know. I can't tell about it; if you could only
see it! Don't you think Mr. Hart was nice to take me up there? And he
talked, and was pleasant all the while. I like him very much, for all
I wrote to you that I never should. He is just us kind to me as he can
be. But it isn't any of these things that I am writing this letter to
tell you: I wanted to tell them first, and get them out of the way,
because I have something so very much better; and I don't quite know
how to tell that, either.
"Dear father, something very wonderful has come to me; I decided
yesterday that I would belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. In
Sunday-school the teacher talked about how he promised to draw all
people unto him, and explained how he did it, and I knew he had been
drawing me ever since before mother died; and I found out that it was
Satan who kept me from making up my mind; and I did not like to obey
Satan, nor have him keep me from doing things that I ought; so I just
knelt down and began a prayer about giving myself to him, and then
Mrs. Hammond called me, and I had to go, and for awhile I was worried
because I hadn't finished; but when I got a chance to finish, I found
it was all done! Such a little bit of word he had heard, and answered
me! Isn't it wonderful, father?
"To-day I have found out new things; one is a verse:
"'Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the
glory of God.'
"I knew the verse long ago; but it didn't mean me, then; but now it
does, and the thing which troubles me, is, how I can do the work I
have, so it will glorify him. But it doesn't trouble me as much as
it did even a little while ago, because I met a very little girl who
showed me how some work could be done to glorify him, that I never
thought of, before; and I guess thinking will make me understand about
other things. The little girl did not know she showed me about it,
but she did. It is too long a story to tell you, and I must stop now,
anyway, and go to bed; but I wanted you to know this, right away,
because I was sure you would be glad.
"O father! When I get home, I will be a better girl than I ever was
before. It is so nice to be well, and to feel cool and pleasant, and to
want to eat things. Father, you and I will have a nice time together
when I come; I am learning how to make other things besides puddings.
Dear father, I shall be very glad to get home. Good-by!
"Your loving little
"DILLY."
Wasn't it a nice letter? Dilly read it over carefully, and did not like
it. She had not expressed herself as she wished; it seemed to her she
had told the wonderful news altogether too simply; she thought common
words ought not to belong to such great changes as had come to her.
If she had only known some great words to put the story into, I think
she would have written it all over again, that night, tired though
she was; but fortunately she knew no long words, so her letter was
not spoiled. If Dilly ever grows to womanhood, and has an education,
she will probably adopt a very good rule which will apply equally to
letter-writing, and to conversation. This is the rule: Never use a long
word, when you can find a short one which will express your meaning.
Meantime, Hart Hammond, having done his errands and said good-by to
his friend, walked slowly homeward, thinking of his lesson which Dilly
had given him that evening. If it was Dilly's duty to tell this new
experience to her father, why had he not something which he ought to
tell his mother? Yet he had a shrewd suspicion that while Dilly's
father would understand in a moment what it all meant, his mother would
be bewildered, and perhaps troubled. Perhaps she would not attach any
importance to it; perhaps it would even trouble her; he had heard of
people being troubled about such news as he had to tell. There was that
fellow, Harrison, in school, whose change of views about this one thing
made an utter change in his life; made him worth something to himself
and to others, instead of being an idler, and a spender of pocket
money; yet when he told his mother all about it, she cried, and said he
had disappointed her ambitions for him! What if his mother should do
the same?
"But the thing is settled," said Hart to himself, speaking very
gravely, "and perhaps I ought to tell her, just because as Dilly says,
'Mothers ought to know all about us.'"
He walked past his tent door three times before he seemed to come to
the decision which turned his steps in the direction of the hotel. But
at last, his mother, her letter long ago deserted, because she felt too
restless to write, saw in the moonlight his quick, springing step, and
turning from the window dropped into her easy chair with a glad smile.
For one night more he was safe.
He chatted with her pleasantly for ten minutes before he came to the
subject of which he had been all the time thinking. Then he dashed into
it without introduction.
"Mother, I've something to tell you; I don't know what you think of
such things, but ever since I was in school last winter, I have known
something which I ought to do, and not being able to make up my mind
to do it, and, indeed, trying to get rid of the belief that I ought to
do it, has made an unusually miserable fellow of me all the spring and
summer, thus far. When I came up here I thought I had fully settled
'not' to do it; but within a few days that little nursemaid of Effie's
has overturned all my reasoning, without knowing it, and at last—well,
to make a long story short, mother, the thing is fixed; I've enlisted
in the regular army, and there is no backing out."
And his mother, who had been growing paler every moment, gave at this
last sentence a low frightened cry, and said, "Hart Hammond, what do
you mean!" It was evident that she did not in the least understand him.
He arose from his easy chair, came over to her side, and dropping on
one knee, put an arm caressingly over her shoulder and spoke very
gently. "Dear mother, did I frighten you? I assure you there is nothing
which need trouble you, only I don't know how to tell such things. I
mean—mother, do you know Jesus Christ? I'm pledged to serve him with
all my powers all the days of my life; that is all."
Then he had a surprise. Such a look as came over that mother's face he
will never forget, even if he lives to be an old, old man.
"My boy," she said, her lips trembling, her voice so low he could
hardly hear it, yet the strangest brightness in her eyes, "my dear boy,
I do not know Him as I ought, as people do who are called Christians,
but I know enough about Him to feel like shouting for joy all night
long! I never even dreamed of such blessed news as this. Hart, I know
that people who truly belong to Him are safe, safe, safe! And yet it
never entered my mind that you were one who would ever be one of that
sort. O Hart, my precious son! You do not know how happy you have made
your mother to-night. And my little Dilly helped you on! Bless the
child! Will I ever forget it?"
Of course I am not going to tell you all they said to each other,
nor how late it was when Hart Hammond at last untied the strings of
his tent; but I know that Jeannette, looking out from her upraised
curtains, saw him, and knew the hour, and murmured as she laid her head
back—
"If she saw him steal in at this time of night—and I dare say she is
watching, there will be some more heavy eyes, and another headache
to-morrow."
But Jeannette was mistaken.
CHAPTER XII.
A HAPPY TRANSFER.
[This chapter should really be in three parts, as you will see after
you have read it. On the whole, I believe we will put it that way,
though each part will have to be very short, because I have not room to
tell you all I would like.]
PART I.
DILLY was taking a last walk with Hart Hammond; they went to Table Rock
again, because it was so lovely there they couldn't help it.
"Does it seem as though we had been hiding up on this old mountain for
nine weeks?" asked Hart, as they turned away from the pink and purple
and golden sky, and moved homeward.
"Oh!" said Dilly, "I was just thinking of that, and it truly doesn't
seem possible. And yet when I think of all the lovely things that have
happened, it seems as though we had been here most a year."
Hart laughed and gave her an admiring smile; certainly there had been
a great change in her. The pale-faced, languid little girl who used to
move about with a slow, quiet step was gone; and in her place was a
red-checked, bright-eyed maiden with springing step, and cheery voice,
and energy in every movement. Hart Hammond knew there had also been a
great change in himself; but of this, he said nothing.
"You have evidently got well," he said, watching the sparkle in her
eyes.
"O yes! I have; I'm just as well as I can be; won't father be surprised
and glad?"
"What are you going to do when you get home? Do you expect to go to
school?" He was watching her closely, and could not fail to see a
little of the brightness die out of her face; her voice, too, was lower
than it had been.
"I don't think I can," she said, speaking slowly. "I have thought about
it a good deal; and I don't see how I can. You know father has only me;
and there is no school within a mile of where we live; and if there
were, I could not afford to go to it; father could not pay the bills
this winter, I am sure; and then there's the dressing; and besides, I
have to keep house for him. O no! Of course I cannot go to school. I do
not mean to think any more about it."
"But you would like very much to go?"
Then a pair of wondering eyes were raised for a minute to his face, and
Dilly answered gravely,—
"Why, of course every girl wants to go to school; mother wanted me to
get ready to be a teacher; maybe I can, some day, but of course I could
not expect to go this winter, and I am not going to let father know I
want to do it."
PART II.
In the little kitchen the table was set for two: baked potatoes, and
broiled steak, and homemade bread, and pudding of Dilly's own baking;
in fact it was all Dilly's work; and her cheeks were red with stove
heat and exertion and excitement this October noon, as she set the
chair for her father, and waited while he washed his hands and turned
down his shirt sleeves and made himself nice. Dilly had been at home
but forty-eight hours and had accomplished wonders; even to the baking
of three loaves of perfect bread.
"Well, well, well!" said Mr. West, as he took his seat. "What a dinner
this is, to be sure; fit for a king! And you made the bread, and
broiled the steak, and everything. Well, well! Who would have thought
you could ever do it, when you went away last summer. This is living!
And you've cleaned the room, too! You're just a genius, Dilly; father
hasn't had anything like this since you've been gone. But I tell you
what it is, my girl, I like the red cheeks best of all. I didn't ever
expect you would look like this again. Why, your cheeks are puffed out
as they used to be in the old home." This is only a hint of what he
said. Never was father happier to get his girl again.
All the busy afternoon Dilly lived in a kind of happy dream. It was
so nice to feel strong and well; to be able to sweep, and mop the
floor, and clean the little cupboard, and wash all the dishes, and do
a hundred other things, and, feel tired, it is true, but not at all
as though she was going to fall to pieces, as she used to do in those
breathless days before she went to the mountain. Then she had learned
so many new things this summer; Jeannette had known a great deal
besides fine ironing, and had taught her all she could. Dilly felt sure
she could keep a comfortable home for her father, and was happy. When
she had her pretty tea-table arranged, with a white cloth and shining
dishes, and a dear little one egg cake of her own baking, and, to crown
all, a lovely cut-glass dish of late peaches which Mrs. Hammond had
sent over with her love, Dilly felt that she was certainly the happiest
girl in the city.
It was while they lingered at the tea-table that her father spoke the
thought which was troubling him.
"There's one thing, my girl, that worries me; I can't see my way clear
to have you in school, this winter; I meant to, and I tried for it with
all my might; but in spite of all my planning, I'm afraid I can't bring
it to pass."
"No," said Dilly bravely, "of course you can't, father; I don't think
of such a thing; I'm going to keep house for you this winter; and I can
study a good deal at home; Mr. Hart will lend me books, and he will
help me with my lessons sometimes; he said he would. Father, you can't
think what a nice, splendid young man he is! He is going to take a
class in our Sunday-school; he says he wants little bits of girls, and
I must help him teach them. Won't that be nice?"
In the privacy of her own little cupboard of a room, Dilly did shed two
tears that night; but she dashed them bravely away, and said aloud: "To
think of my crying about school, when I have so much to be glad over!
I am not so 'very' old that I can't afford to wait a year; and I can
learn a good deal at home; and I'll keep a beautiful house for father."
PART III.
It was about that time that Hart Hammond leaned back in the easy chair
in his mother's luxurious sitting-room and asked,—"Mother, what are we
going to do with Dilly this winter?"
"Do with her?" repeated Mrs. Hammond, smiling on him. "She is doing for
herself by this time; as nice a little housekeeper as her father ever
imagined."
"I know, but—we don't intend to drop her in this way, do we?"
"I don't want to drop her," said Mrs. Hammond earnestly; "she is a dear
little girl, whom I shall always love; but I don't see my way clear to
doing what I would like for her. It would be pleasant to keep her with
Effie all winter; I feel safe when the child is in her care; but she
ought to be in school."
"That's just it," said Hart decidedly; "she must be in school, of
course; she is a smart girl and ought to have an education. But she
tells me she must keep house for her father."
"So she must, I suppose, unless some other way can be contrived."
"Some other way 'must' be contrived; she is too young to have the care
of a family on her shoulders. Why couldn't her father take his meals
here, and have the room over the carriage-house for himself? If we give
the gardens into his charge, we ought to have him at hand; it would be
much more convenient for you."
"In that case what would become of Dilly?"
Now aunt Helen, sitting in her easy chair in her lovely white wrapper,
leaned forward resting her head on her hand and listened to this and
much other talk which followed; and thought, while she listened.
Aunt Helen, who had been all her life an invalid; having teachers come
to her in her intervals of rest from pain, but never going to school
a day in her life; never running and frolicking through the world
like other girls, always belonging to easy chairs, and couches, and
wrappers, and slippers; aunt Helen, all alone in the world, with much
money, much leisure, and much pain. She had been on Monteagle with
her sister-in-law during the last three weeks of their stay, and had
admired the deft-handed little maiden who took such thoughtful care
of Effie, and was always ready with a helpful hand for her. Now she
listened and thought, and at last she spoke: "Give her to me!"
"Who?"
"This little girl, this Dilly. I like her very much; and it has
occurred to me that I might have her do for me the thing which I have
never been able to do for myself. I wanted to go to school, and to
study music, and to do a dozen other things which I could not; why not
have her do them for me? It is an excellent idea; I wonder I have never
thought of it before. That is just it; Dilly shall live my life for me;
the part of it I planned to live, and never could carry out."
That was the way the conversation began; I have no space in which to
tell you the rest of it; the long, long talk which followed; the plan
to have Dilly come next door to aunt Helen's own beautiful home which
it pleased her to keep up in the style it had worn when father and
mother were living. Dilly should be her little friend and companion
nights and mornings, and a busy schoolgirl during the day; and aunt
Helen would live through her the life which had been planned for her
own girlhood and never carried out.
Hart was exceedingly pleased. "I like it for her sake," he said, "she
deserves such advantages, and will make more of them than most girls
would; she is going to make a grand woman some day; and then I like
it for you, aunt Helen; I know she will be a comfort to you. Oh! Her
father will consent. I have been talking with him this afternoon about
her going to school; he wants it very much, but cannot see his way
clear to sending her; she is the very apple of his eye."
Well, it was all arranged, so far as those three people could arrange
it, that night. What Dilly said when she heard the story, and what her
father said and thought and did, I cannot tell; you must imagine it.
Nothing so unutterably wonderful had ever happened to a girl before; so
both Dilly and her father think.
This one sentence I must give you; it tells a great deal.
"Father," said Dilly, having been silent and thoughtful for some time,
"I thought when I came down from Monteagle, that it was not likely I
would ever see another mountain; but it seems to me now as though you
and I were going to live on mountains all the time."
So you will see that all of our little party were pleased and glad.
No, not all; I forget poor little Effie Hammond, who in her fall
coat, buttoned from head to foot, her new fall hat pushed back on her
yellow head, and her worst-looking doll grasped by the neck, wandered
disconsolately, all the long, cool days in search of Dilly, and missed
her every minute.
"How glad Effie will be to have Dilly for a next door neighbor," said
aunt Helen, as the days went by, and the plans for the winter began to
take shape. "Many a happy hour she will give the child."
"Yes, indeed!" said mamma. "She loves Effie almost as much as Effie
does her; and it is really pitiful to see how disconsolate the baby is
without her. I have tried to make her understand; but I don't think she
fully realizes anything but that Dilly is away and she wants her."
"When is Dilly to come to aunt Helen?" asked Hart, that evening, as he
lifted Effie on his knee for a frolic.
"On Monday, I believe; the school opens on Wednesday, you know; and
her father thinks they can close up their dreary little home Monday
morning."
"Then we know two people who will be glad, don't we Effie?" Hart said,
tossing her toward the ceiling.
"You are almost as fond of her as Effie is, I believe," said the
smiling mother.
"I am 'very fond' of her," said Hart, "I have reason to be."
Then the mother bestowed on him a most loving look, out of which all
the wistful unrest was gone, and said with emphasis, "So have I."
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