Fashion and Famine Part 3

The old man pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes, and then flung a handful of chips and shavings on the fire from a scant pile that lay in a corner.

The blaze flamed up, revealing the desolate room for a moment, and then died away, flashing over the pale and haggard faces that bent over it, with a wan brilliancy that made them look absolutely corpse-like.

Those two wrinkled faces were meagre and wrinkled from lack of sustenance; still, in the faded lineaments there was nothing to revolt the heart. Patience, sweet and troubled affection, were blended with every grief-written line. But the wants of the body had stamped themselves sharply there. The thin lips were pale and fixed in an expression of habitual endurance. Their eyes were sharp and eager, dark arches lay around them, and these were broken by wrinkles that were not all of age.

As the flame blazed up, the old man turned and looked earnestly on his wife, a look of keen want, of newly whetted hunger broke from her eyes, naturally so meek and tranquil, and the poor old man turned his glance another way with a faint groan. It was a picture of terrible famine. Yet patience and affection flung a thrilling beauty over it.

One more furtive glance that old man cast on his wife, as the flame went down, and then he clasped his withered fingers, wringing them together.

"You are starving--you are more hungry than ever," he said, "and I have nothing to give you."

The poor woman lifted up her head and tried to smile, but the effort was heart-rending.

"It is strange," she said, "but the food we had this morning only seems to make me more hungry. Is it so with you, Benjamin? I keep thinking of it all the time. The rain as it plashes on the pavement seems like that warm coffee boiling over on the hearth; those shavings as they lie in the corner are constantly shifting before my eyes, and seem like rolls and twists of bread, which I have only to stoop forward and take."

The old man smiled wanly, and a tear started to his eyes, gliding down his cheek in the dim light.

"Let us try the bone once more," he said, after a brief silence, "there may be a morsel left yet."

"Yes, the bone! there may be something on the bone yet! In our good fortune this morning we must have forgotten to sc.r.a.pe it quite clean!"

cried the old woman, starting up with eager haste, and bringing the platter from the table.

The husband took it from her hands, and setting it down before the fire, knelt on one knee, and began to sc.r.a.pe the bone eagerly with a knife. "See, see!" he said, with a painful effort at cheerfulness, as some strips and fragments fell on the platter, leaving the bone white and glistening like ivory. "This is better than I expected! With a crust and a cup of clear cold water, it will go a good way."

"No, no," said the woman, turning her eyes resolutely away, "we had forgotten Julia. She scarcely ate a mouthful this morning!"

"I know," said the old man, dropping his knife with a sigh.

"Put it aside, and let us try and look as if we had been eating all day.

She would not touch it if--if----" Here the good old woman's eyes fell upon the little heap of food--those precious fragments which her husband had sc.r.a.ped together with his knife. The animal grew strong within her at the sight; she drew a long breath, and reaching forth her bony hand, clutched them like a bird of prey; her thin lips quivered and worked with a sort of ferocious joy, as she devoured the little morsel, then, as if ashamed of her voracity, she lifted her glowing eyes to her husband, and cast the fragment of food still between her fingers back upon the platter.

"I could not help it! Oh, Benjamin, I could _not_ help it!" Big tears started in her eyes, and rolled penitently down her cheek. "Take it away! take it away!" she said, covering her face with both hands. "You see how ravenous the taste of food makes me!"

"Take it!" said the old man, thrusting the platter into her lap.

"No! no! You haven't had a taste; you--you--I am better now, much better!"

For one instant the old man's fingers quivered over the morsel still left upon the platter, for he was famished and craving more food, even as his wife had been; but his better nature prevailed, and dashing his hand away, he thrust the plate more decidedly into her lap.

"Eat!" he said. "Eat! I can wait, and G.o.d will take care of the child!"

But the poor woman waved the food away, still keeping one hand resolutely over her eyes. "No--no!" she said faintly, "no--no!"

Her husband lifted the plate softly from her lap: she started, looked eagerly around, and sunk back in her chair with a hysterical laugh.

"The strawberries! the strawberries, Benjamin! Only think, if Julia could not sell the strawberries she will eat them, you know, all--all.

Only think what a feast the child will have when she has all those strawberries! Bring back the meat; what will she care for that?"

The old man brought back the plate, but with a sorrowful look. He remembered that the strawberries entrusted to his grandchild were the property of another; but he could not find the heart to suggest this to the poor famished creature before him, and he rejoiced at the brief delusion that would induce her to eat the little that was left. With martyr-like stoicism he stifled his own craving hunger, and sat by while his wife devoured the remainder of the precious store.

"And you have had none," she said, with a piteous look of self-reproach, when her own sharp want was somewhat appeased.

"Oh, I can wait for Julia and the strawberries."

"And if that should fail," answered the poor wife, filled with remorse at her selfishness, or what she began to condemn as such, "if anything should have happened, you may p.a.w.n or sell the quilt to-morrow--I will say nothing against it--not a word. It was used for the first time when--when _she_ was a baby, and--"

"And we have starved and suffered rather than part with it!" cried the old man, moving gloomily up and down the room, "while she--"

"Is dead and buried, I am afraid," said the woman, interrupting him.

"No," answered the old man, solemnly, "or we should not have been left behind. It is not for nothing, wife, that you and I, and her child too, have starved and pined, and prayed in this cellar. G.o.d has an end to accomplish, and we are His instruments; how, I cannot tell. It is dark, as yet; but all in His good time, His work will be done. Let us be patient."

"Patient!" said the old woman, dolefully; "I haven't strength to be anything but patient."

"She will yet return to us--our beautiful prodigal--our lost child,"

continued the old man, lifting his meek eyes heavenward. "We have waited long; but the time will come."

"If I could only think so," said the woman, shaking her head drearily--"If I could but think so!"

"I know it," said the old man, lifting his clasped hands upward, while his face glowed with the holy faith that was in him; "G.o.d has filled my soul with this belief. It has given me life when food was wanting. It grows stronger with each breath that I draw. The time will come when I shall be called to redeem our child, even to the laying down of life, it may be. I sometimes had a thought, wife, that her regeneration will be thus accomplished."

"How? What do you mean to say, husband?"

"How, I cannot tell that; but the G.o.d of heaven will, in His own good time. Let us wait and watch."

"Oh! if she comes at last, I could be so patient! But think of the years that are gone, and no news, not a word. While we have suffered so much, every month, more and more--ah, husband, how can I be patient?"

"Wait," said the old man, solemnly; "keep still while G.o.d does his work.

We know that our child has committed a great sin; but she was good once, and--"

"Oh, how kind, how good she was! I think she was more like an angel than any thing on earth, till _he_ came."

"Hush! When he is mentioned, bitter wrath rises in my bosom; I cannot crush it out--I cannot pray it out. G.o.d help me! Oh, my G.o.d, help me to hear this one name with charity."

"Benjamin--my husband!" cried the old woman, regarding the strong anguish in his face with affright, as his uplifted hands shook in their tight grip on each other, and his whole frame began to tremble.

He did not heed her pathetic cry, but sat down again by the hearth, and with a thin hand pressed hard upon each knee, bent forward, gazing into the smouldering fire, gloomy and silent. The old woman stole one hand over his and pressed it gently. It returned no answering token of her sympathy, but still rigidly held its grasp on his knee.

Again she touched his hand, and the loved name, that had been so sweet to her in youth, filled his ear with pathetic tenderness.

"Benjamin!"

He lifted his head, looked earnestly in her face, and then sunk slowly to his knees. With his locked hands pressed down upon the hearth, and his head bent low like one preparing to cast off a heavy weight, he broke forth in a prayer of such stern, pa.s.sionate entreaty, that the very storm seemed to pause and listen to the outbreak of a soul more impetuous than itself. Never in G.o.d's holiest temple has the altar been sanctified by a prayer, more full of majestic eloquence, than that which rose from the hearth of the miserable cellar that night. The old man truly wrestled with the angels, and called for help against his own rebellious nature, till his forehead was beaded with drops of anguish, and every word seemed to burn and quiver like fire upon his meagre lips.

She, in her weaker and more timid nature, fell down by his side, pouring faint e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns and low moans into the current of his eloquence. But while he prayed for strength to endure, for divine light by which he could tread on beneath the burden of life, she now and then broke forth into a moaning cry, which was,

"Bread! bread! oh G.o.d, give us this day our daily bread!"

All at once, in the midst of his pleading, the old man's voice broke; a glorious smile spread over his features, and dropping his forehead between both hands, he murmured in the fulness of a heart suddenly deluged with love,