Ishmael; Or, In the Depths Part 40

Here the professor launched into a second oration, longer than the first. In conclusion, he said:

"And so, Miss Hannah, we will give you what work we have to put out. And you must try and knock along and do as well as you can this season. And before the next the poor child will die, and the people will forget all about it, and employ you again."

"But the child is not a-going to die!" burst forth Hannah, in exasperation. "If he was the son of rich parents, whose hearts lay in him, and who piled comforts and luxuries and elegances upon him, and fell down and worshiped him, and had a big fortune and a great name to leave him, and so did everything they possibly could to keep him alive, he'd die! But being what he is, a misery and shame to himself and all connected with him, he'll live! Yes, half-perished as he is with cold and famine, he'll live! Look at him now!"

The professor did turn and look at the little, thin, wizen-faced boy who lay upon the bed, contentedly sucking his skinny thumb, and regarding the speaker with big, bright, knowing eyes, that seemed to say:

"Yes, I mean to suck my thumb and live!"

"To tell you the truth, I think so, too," said the professor, scarcely certain whether he was replying to the words of Hannah or to the looks of the child.

It is certain that the dread of death and the desire of life is the very earliest instinct of every animate creature. Perhaps this child was endowed with excessive vitality. Certainly, the babe's persistence in living on "under difficulties" might have been the germ of that enormous strength and power of will for which the man was afterwards so noted.

The professor kept his word with Hannah, and brought her some work. But the little that he could afford to pay for it was not sufficient to supply one-fourth of Hannah's necessities.

At last came a day when her provisions were all gone. And Hannah locked the child up alone in the hut and set off to walk to Baymouth, to try to get some meal and bacon on credit from the country shop where she had dealt all her life.

Baymouth was a small port, at the mouth of a small bay making up from the Chesapeake. It had one church, in charge of the Episcopal minister who had baptized Nora's child. And it had one large, country store, kept by a general dealer named Nutt, who had for sale everything to eat, drink, wear, or wield, from sugar and tea to meat and fish; from linen cambric to linsey-woolsey; from bonnets and hats to boots and shoes; from new milk to old whisky; from fresh eggs to stale cheese; and from needles and thimbles to plows and harrows.

Hannah, as I said, had been in the habit of dealing at this shop all her life, and paying cash for everything she got. So now, indeed, she might reasonably ask for a little credit, a little indulgence until she could procure work. Yet, for all that, she blushed and hesitated at having to ask the unusual favor. She entered the store and found the dealer alone.

She was glad of that, as she rather shrank from preferring her humble request before witnesses. Mr. Nutt hurried forward to wait on her.

Hannah explained her wants, and then added:

"If you will please credit me for the things, Mr. Nutt, I will be sure to pay you the first of the month."

The dealer looked at the customer and then looked down at the counter, but made no reply.

Hannah, seeing his hesitation, hastened to say that she had been out of work all the winter and spring, but that she hoped soon to get some more, when she would be sure to pay her creditor.

"Yes, I know you have lost your employment, poor girl, and I fear that you will not get it again," said the dealer, with a look of compa.s.sion.

"But why, oh! why should I not be allowed to work, when I do my work so willingly and so well?" exclaimed Hannah, in, despair.

"Well, my dear girl, if you do not know the reason, I cannot be the man to tell you."

"But if I cannot get work, what shall I do? Oh! what shall I do? I cannot starve! And I cannot see the child starve!" exclaimed Hannah, clasping her hands and raising her eyes in earnest appeal to the judgment of the man who had known her from infancy: who was old enough to be her father, and who had a wife and grown daughter of his own:

"What shall I do? Oh! what shall I do?" she repeated.

Mr. Nutt still seemed to hesitate and reflect, stealing furtive glances at the anxious face of the woman. At last he bent across the counter, took her hand, and, bending his head close to her face, whispered:

"I'll tell you what, Hannah. I will let you have the articles you have asked for, and anything else in my store that you want, and I will never charge you anything for them--"

"Oh, sir, I couldn't think of imposing on your goodness so: The Lord reward you, sir! but I only want a little credit for a short time,"

broke out Hannah, in the warmth of her grat.i.tude.

"But stop, hear me out, my dear girl! I was about to say you might come to my store and get whatever you want, at any time, without payment, if you will let me drop in and see you sometimes of evenings," whispered the dealer.

"Sir!" said Hannah, looking up in innocent perplexity.

The man repeated his proposal with a look that taught even Hannah's simplicity that she had received the deepest insult a woman could suffer. Hannah was a rude, honest, high-spirited old maid. And she immediately obeyed her natural impulses, which were to raise her strong hands and soundly box the villain's ears right and left, until he saw more stars in the firmament than had ever been created. And before he could recover from the shock of the a.s.sault she picked up her basket and strode from the shop. Indignation lent her strength and speed, and she walked home in double-quick time. But once in the shelter of her own hut she sat down, threw her ap.r.o.n over her head, and burst into pa.s.sionate tears and sobs, crying:

"It's all along of poor Nora and that child, as I'm thought ill on by the women and insulted by the men! Yes, it is, you miserable little wretch!" she added, speaking to the baby, who had opened his big eyes to see the cause of the uproar. "It's all on her account and yourn, as I'm treated so! Why do you keep on living, you poor little shrimp? Why don't you die? Why can't both of us die? Many people die who want to live! Why should we live who want to die? Tell me that, little miserable!" But the baby defiantly sucked his thumb, as if it held the elixir of life, and looked indestructible vitality from his great, bright eyes.

Hannah never ventured to ask another favor from mortal man, except the very few in whom she could place entire confidence, such as the pastor of the parish, the Professor of Odd Jobs, and old Jovial. Especially she shunned Nutt's shop as she would have shunned a pesthouse; although this course obliged her to go two miles farther to another village to procure necessaries whenever she had money to pay for them.

Nutt, on his part, did not think it prudent to prosecute Hannah for a.s.sault. But he did a base thing more fatal to her reputation. He told his wife how that worthless creature, whose sister turned out so badly, had come running after him, wanting to get goods from his shop, and teasing him to come to see her; but that he had promptly ordered her out of the shop and threatened her with a constable if ever she dared to show her face there again.

False, absurd, and cruel as this story was, Mrs. Nutt believed it, and told all her acquaintances what an abandoned wretch that woman was. And thus poor Hannah Worth lost all that she possessed in the world--her good name. She had been very poor. But it would be too dreadful now to tell in detail of the depths of dest.i.tution and misery into which she and the child fell, and in which they suffered and struggled to keep soul and body together for years and years.

It is wonderful how long life may be sustained under the severest privations. Ishmael suffered the extremes of hunger and cold; yet he did not starve or freeze to death; he lived and grew in that mountain hut as pertinaciously as if he had been the pampered pet of some royal nursery.

At first Hannah did not love him. Ah, you know, such unwelcome children are seldom loved, even by their parents. But this child was so patient and affectionate, that it must have been an unnatural heart that would not have been won by his artless efforts to please. He bore hunger and cold and weariness with baby heroism. And if you doubt whether there is any such a thing in the world as "baby heroism", just visit the nursery hospitals of New York, and look at the cheerfulness of infant sufferers from disease.

Ishmael was content to sit upon the floor all day long, with his big eyes watching Hannah knit, sew, spin, or weave, as the case might be.

And if she happened to drop her thimble, scissors, spool of cotton, or ball of yarn, Ishmael would crawl after it as fast as his feeble little limbs would take him, and bring it back and hold it up to her with a smile of pleasure, or, if the feat had been a fine one, a little laugh of triumph. Thus, even before he could walk, he tried to make himself useful. It was his occupation to love Hannah, and watch her, and crawl after anything she dropped and restore it to her. Was this such a small service? No; for it saved the poor woman the trouble of getting up and deranging her work to chase rolling b.a.l.l.s of yarn around the room. Or was it a small pleasure to the lonely old maid to see the child smile lovingly up in her face as he tendered her these baby services? I think not. Hannah grew to love little Ishmael. Who, indeed, could have received all his innocent overtures of affection and not loved him a little in return? Not honest Hannah Worth. It was thus, you see, by his own artless efforts that he won his grim aunt's heart. This was our boy's first success. And the truth may as well be told of him now, that in the whole course of his eventful life he gained no earthly good which he did not earn by his own merits. But I must hurry over this part of my story.

When Ishmael was about four years old he began to take pleasure in the quaint pictures of the old family Bible, that I have mentioned as the only book and sole literary possession of Hannah Worth. A rare old copy it was, bearing the date of London, 1720, and containing the strangest of all old old-fashioned engravings. But to the keenly appreciating mind of the child these pictures were a gallery of art. And on Sunday afternoons, when Hannah had leisure to exhibit them, Ishmael never wearied of standing by her side, and gazing at the ill.u.s.trations of "Cain and Abel," "Joseph Sold by his Brethren," "Moses in the Bulrushes," "Samuel Called by the Lord," "John the Baptist and the Infant Jesus," "Christ and the Doctors in the Temple," and so forth.

"Read me about it," he would say of each picture.

And Hannah would have to read these beautiful Bible stories. One day, when he was about five years old, he astonished his aunt by saying:

"And now I want to read about them for myself!"

But Hannah found no leisure to teach him. And besides she thought it would be time enough some years to come for Ishmael to learn to read. So thought not our boy, however, as a few days proved.

One night Hannah had taken home a dress to one of the plantation negroes, who were now her only customers, and it was late when she returned to the hut. When she opened the door a strange sight met her eyes. The Professor of Odd Jobs occupied the seat of honor in the arm chair in the chimney corner. On his knees lay the open Bible; while by his side stood little Ishmael, holding an end of candle in his hand, and diligently conning the large letters on the t.i.tle page. The little fellow looked up with his face full of triumph, exclaiming:

"Oh, aunty, I know all the letters on this page now! And the professor is going to teach me to read! And I am going to help him gather his herbs and roots every day to pay him for his trouble!"

The professor looked up and smiled apologetically, saying:

"I just happened in, Miss Hannah, to see if there was anything wanting to be done, and I found this boy lying on the floor with the Bible open before him trying to puzzle out the letters for himself. And as soon as he saw me he up and struck a bargain with me to teach him to read. And I'll tell you what, Miss Hannah, he's going to make a man one of these days! You know I've been a colored schoolmaster, among my other professions, and I tell you I never came across such a quick little fellow as he is, bless his big head! There now, my little man, that's learning enough for one sitting. And besides the candle is going out,"

concluded the professor, as he arose and closed the book and departed.

But again Ishmael held a different opinion from his elders; and lying down before the fire-lit hearth, with the book open before him, he went over and over his lesson, grafting it firmly in his memory lest it should escape him. In this way our boy took his first step in knowledge.

Two or three times in the course of the week the professor would come to give him another lesson. And Ishmael paid for his tuition by doing the least of the little odd jobs for the professor of that useful art.

"You see I can feel for the boy like a father, Miss Hannah," said the professor, after giving his lesson one evening; "because, you know, I am in a manner self-educated myself. I had to pick up reading, writing, and 'rithmetick any way I could from the white children. So I can feel for this boy as I once felt for myself. All my children are girls; but if I had a son I couldn't feel more pride in him than I do in this boy. And I tell you again, he is going to make a man one of these days."

Ishmael thought so too. He had previsions of future success, as every very intelligent lad must have; but at present his ambition took no very lofty flights. The greatest man of his acquaintance was the Professor of Odd Jobs. And to attain the glorious eminence occupied by the learned and eloquent dignitary was the highest aspiration of our boy's early genius.

"Aunty," he said one day, after remaining in deep thought for a long time, "do you think if I was to study very hard indeed, night and day, for years and years, I should ever be able to get as much knowledge and make as fine speeches as the professor?"

"How do I know, Ishmael? You ask such stupid questions. All I can say is, if it aint in you it will never come out of you," answered the unappreciating aunt.

"Oh, if that's all, it is in me; there's a deal more in me than I can talk about; and so I believe I shall be able to make fine speeches like the professor some day."