Edith and John Part 7

"Yes, Star."

"And she said I could get the job if I go at once."

"Yes, Star," responded the mother between the infinitisimal intervals of the noise of the thumping chair and the yelling child.

"And mother, she said they live in a grand house as big as all our forty shanties here put together."

"Yes," said the mother.

"And she said it was lit up by electric lights, and had steam heat, and furniture as grand as any place, mother--as grand as any king's palace, mother. I am going tomorrow, mother."

"Yes," returned the mother, as she turned the yelling child over her knee and gave it two or three smacks, causing it to become so red in the face that its phiz shone more brightly than the lambent rays that filtered through the smoky chimney of the kerosene lamp sitting on the table.

"And she said, mother," still pursued Star, as she went about among the battered pans and rattled the cracked and broken dishes she was displaying on the family board, the while stirring the frying potatoes in the sheet-iron skillet, and watching the coffee pot that it did not boil away all the aroma, "that the young lady who wants a maid is so very handsome and so fine that I cannot sleep till I get there."

"Yes," croaked the mother, a little irritated, it appeared, by all these revelations that Star was unfolding before her; for nothing disturbed her so, it seemed, as the mention of such hifalutin things, although she herself, in all her lowliness, never disparaged, by word, anybody who had more than she, being a woman absolutely contented with her lot.

"May I go?" asked Star, who always felt it a matter of filial respect to defer to her parents' beck and call.

"Yes," dolefully replied the mother, as she rocked the squalling brat on the rockerless chair with greater vigor than had been her practice.

That night Star Barton went to bed with more stirring imaginings in her untrained head than she had ever presumed upon before in all her dreary life. For a long time she lay awake seeing of the new vista that so suddenly opened before her disreputable habitat; dreaming of another place, so widely dissevered from hers, that it was like the enchanted land she once read about in a book that some roving spirit had conveyed to her haunts; dreaming of the wonders she had oftentimes conjured up to placate her plagued thoughts that hung like burning tapers of despair in her abiding place of want; dreaming, yea dreaming, for the first time in her whole unvaried life, of the things that are beautiful, grand and regal. Then she went to sleep to dream some more:--of the fantasies of an idle brain, of the children of her unconscious world, of the evil spirits that had ever been a part of her uneventful being, of the spirits that come to checkmate us in our mad rush, causing us to turn aside to ponder over their real meaning.

But none of the visions of the sleeping hours was as promising as the fancies of her wakeful time. For when she awoke in the morning, the l.u.s.tre that had pervaded her dreaming had waned, and she faltered over making the new and uncertain step. Oh what a bad little imp it is that seems to possess those of us, at times, who, when a new undertaking is to be entered upon, hesitate, procrastinate, pause and deliberate, till the time of opportunity is over!

Star was, on this morning, in such a state of uncertainty, probably very much on account of the continuation of the nasty weather, that it was near the noon hour before she could resolve finally to spend ten cents for the fare to take the journey she had so set her head on the previous day. She donned her best blue gingham dress; coiled her hair up into a knot on top of her head; tied a faded black ribbon in it; adjusted an odd looking round black straw hat, with some faded flowers breaking its sombre monotony, to her head; looked into the crazy little mirror that reflected her not much unlike some distorted beast with a white face; threw a grayish cape over her shoulders, and went out into the rain.

After a period of time that was very slow in pa.s.sing, and after much fluttering of her virtuous heart, and considerable indecision whether to go on or to return to the place she knew so well, she arrived at the Highland avenue address given her the day before by the unknown, but friendly disposed, woman who met her at her last place of bondage. When she reached the great iron gate that opened into the s.p.a.cious yard of the mansion on the hill, she again hesitated, and walked back and forth on the pavement so many times that the keeper of the gate, with suspicion cast upon her, came out to inquire the meaning of her actions.

"I have come--I have come--" faltered Star, feeling like fleeing from him in that moment of her bewilderment over the bigness of the outside world, "--to look for a place. They gave me this number," handing the keeper a card.

The keeper, who was an oldish man, and perhaps had a daughter of his own, took the card, looked it over, looked at her, then looked at it; then looked at her. He saw that she had a beautiful face, was innocent and unbeguiling.

"This is the place, miss," he answered, kindly. "This is the way in,"

and he opened the large gate, and pa.s.sed her in.

Star went up the smooth asphaltum walk with considerable trepidation, heeding nothing about her, and seeing only the big house at the end. The most serious thing that she did was to go directly to the big front door, with its shining knocker that looked to her like the face of a bull in bra.s.s with a pendulous ring in its nose. She was in such a flurry that she could not have believed her own tongue, had she spoken then and there. She had never, in all her dreaming, imagined such things. Her head was in a whirl, and more than once she was on the point of turning back to her forlorn mother, where she felt she would be equal to her surroundings.

However, summoning up all the courage and fort.i.tude that she possessed, she at last tapped timidly at the door. No answer. She touched her red knuckles on one of the polished panels. No answer. Then, merely as a matter of curiosity, caught hold of the ring in the bull's nose, pulled on it, and let it drop back into place, which was immediately followed by a dull bra.s.sy ring. Suddenly the door swung wide open, appearing to her as the door of a factory building, in its immensity.

A tall, pompous gentleman--dressed like the men she had seen in a book on colonial characters, only this one had short hair and scragly sideburns--loomed up before her, like the Giant did to Jack, perhaps.

His sudden appearance caused her to involuntarily start and draw back, with a greater desire than ever to flee; but in a moment he spoke, hoa.r.s.ely:

"Go to the rear door!"

Whereupon, he closed the door. The way into such gilded piles of luxury, for such as Star Barton in her present condition, is not by the front entrance. No graven lintel was ever raised to pa.s.s such as Star thereunder. Away, away, like a rat to its hole, steal into the less prominent openings leading to the apartments of the flunkies!

Star was dazed by this action; but not knowing that it was any more than a big apartment house for the rich, she judged she had gone to the wrong door. So she, with a still fluttering heart, proceeded in the direction indicated. Before she had found the proper place, she had tried a number of the openings in the grim, gray walls, receiving the same reception at all of them as at the first. "Go to the rear," "go to the rear," was repeated so often to her that she began to feel dizzy from its repet.i.tion, and drowsy and faint over the possibility of failure.

Then she came to a door where a cook answered her knock. He wore a white, brimless cap, and a big white ap.r.o.n covered up the rotundity of his front clear up to his chin and almost to his feet. He was large and fat and filled up almost the entire s.p.a.ce of the opened door. He was red-faced and genial, and had a merry twinkle in his blue eyes. He reminded Star of a big German butcher whom she knew in the marts of Birmingham.

"Well!" he exclaimed, seeing the visitor to his quarters was a lady.

"I came to see if you want a cook," said Star, now feeling more composed since some one deigned to talk with her.

"A cook!" he exclaimed, grinning.

"A cook, yes, sir," she answered.

"We employ none but men cooks here, lady," he replied, and was about to close the door.

"Surely, I have made a mistake," thought Star, in this moment of her rebuff, as she took it. Her heart was failing her. She felt disconsolate. She was about to turn and flee--back to her own elements, back to her own humble surroundings; to all the shortcomings of her home, to her stupid mother, to her unfortunate brothers and sisters, to her wretched existence again, and there take up her burdens as she before had borne them.

The fat cook noticed the pallor that had come over Star's face, as the consequence of his remark, and instead of closing the door in her face, as he intended, he opened it wider, and said:

"You must be in the wrong place, Miss."

"No sir; I am not," she answered. "This is the address that was given me, where a cook was wanted--or I might be mistaken--it might be a maid is wanted for a young lady."

"Very doubtful," said the cook, scratching his head.

"None wanted?" she asked.

"To get a place here you must have recommendations," he answered.

"I have never worked away from home," she replied, "except for a few months. I have never been a maid to a lady. But--but--I want to learn."

"Wait," said the cook, quickly, as if he had thought of something that had been commended to his keeping and it had slipped his memory, as he retreated, and closed the door.

In a few minutes the cook returned, with a smile on his round face that made him look like the full moon, and bade Star to walk within. Star walked within, dazed, trembling and mortally afraid of the line of domestics, before whom it appeared she was pa.s.sing in review. She was conducted into the presence of a bouncing little lady, dressed like a princess, with gold on her wrists, in her ears, on her breast, around her neck--a charmingly spry little lady, with a dignified nose, a pretty smile, and an air of geniality about her that might not be expected in the mistress of such a household. The little lady looked Star over, scrutinized her from head to foot. Every inch of the plumpy girl she seemed to weigh in the fine scale of her discrimination. She was neither pleased, nor displeased, so far as Star could see. She took her in as if she read the whole story of her life without the aid of a palmist's text book, or gea.n.a.logical dictionary from which to take her cue.

"So you want to be my daughter's maid?" asked Mrs. Jarney, for that is whom the lady was, the mother of Edith.

"I had thought I would like to learn," replied Star, who was already feeling at home in the presence of this fine lady.

"Have you had experience?"

"None; but I can learn."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen, past."

"You are large for your age."

"But I have worked hard--that has made me strong."