Katie Robertson Part 7

"It makes me think of G.o.d's way of dealing with human souls. He takes them, polluted and sinful, from the gutters and the slums of life, cuts and fashions them till they are in a condition to be used; then washes out their stains by his precious blood, grinds, moulds, dissolves, and manipulates them, till they come out pure, innocent, white paper, on which he can write just what he pleases."

"Yes," said Mr. James. "I have often thought out that a.n.a.logy, but you have not yet seen the whole process. No saint is completed till he has gone through the polishing and finishing of his life and character. You will see how we polish and finish our paper in the next room."

In the next room were great steel rollers, at each of which two women were employed, as this work was generally considered too hard and steady, as well as too particular, for the girls and boys. One of these women places a sheet of paper between the rollers at the top; the engine turns them, carrying the paper round and round between them, and the other woman takes it out at the bottom, beautifully polished by the pressure.

It is then carried in great piles to the ruling-machines, which stand at the other end of the room, and there other girls and women act as "feeders" and "tenders." The sheets are carried under upright, stationary pens, filled with blue or red ink, and ruled first on one side and then on the other, the machine never letting go of the sheets till the ruling is perfectly dry.

The paper is now finished, but it must be prepared for being taken away and sold; so great piles of it are placed on barrows, and it is carried by the "lift" down to the lowest room of all, called the "folding-room,"

and this is a very gay, busy scene.

Mult.i.tudes of girls are at work here, and everything is so clean that no checked ap.r.o.ns or mob-caps are needed. Some of them count out the paper, first into quires, and then into reams and half-reams. Others fold the sheets with an evenness and rapidity that only long practice can give; others, again, stamp each sheet in the corner with a die; and still others fold the reams--after they have been pressed together--into the pretty, colored wrappers prepared for them, sealing them with wax, and putting the packages, two together, into heavy brown papers, which are closed with the label peculiar to the special brand of paper.

There was plenty of work for everybody, and there was, moreover, a variety, and Katie felt very much elated at her promotion when she first came into the gay, pleasant folding-room.

But the poor girl was destined to meet with a very bitter disappointment. Perhaps the most severe trial of her life awaited her in that pleasant room. She had only been there a few days when she became aware that she was looked upon with suspicion. The superintendent watched her closely, and carefully verified the accounts she gave of her work. The girls with whom she tried to make acquaintance turned away, and either answered her in monosyllables or else declined speaking at all, and often when she came in suddenly before work had commenced two or three who were mysteriously whispering together would suddenly stop and look curiously and strangely at her. Once or twice she overheard some disconnected words, of which the following are specimens: "What was it really?"--"You don't say so!"--"Dishonesty!"--"I never should have thought it!"--"Are you sure?"--"Bertie Sanderson!"--"She saw it herself," etc. etc. Katie, having no key to these disjointed sentences, could make nothing of them, but she felt that she was what school boys call "sent to Coventry," and had not the least idea why.

The fact was that Bertie, whose jealous dislike was greatly increased by Katie's promotion, while she herself remained in the rag-room, had uttered her innuendoes to all who would listen to her, till it was pretty generally understood throughout the mill that Katie Robertson was a thief, who appeared in unbecoming finery bought with ill-gotten gains.

The rumor never took sufficient definiteness of shape to reach the girl so that she could confute it and explain its origin. Of course, she was not likely to tell any one in the mill about the finding of the fifty-dollar bill and what had pa.s.sed between Mr. James Mountjoy and herself, since it was largely to her own credit, nor had he ever thought of mentioning it, for a somewhat similar reason. So the report traveled from one mouth to another, losing nothing in its pa.s.sage, and poor Katie was obliged to endure the general avoidance and reprobation as best she might. It was a hard trial and one in which she had no one to sympathize with her, for Mrs. Robertson's gloomy disposition inclined her children to keep from her anything that might add to her unhappiness, and somehow she did not feel like making confidants of the boys. But hard as the trial seemed in the pa.s.sing, it was, in the end, good for our heroine, for it drove her to the only Friend who knew all about it, who knew that she was innocent of the charge, whatever it might be, and pitied and loved her, whoever else might cast her out. The things which drive us close to Him, no matter how hard they seem, are really blessings in disguise. Katie had now but one friend in the mill, a slight, pale girl, who stood by the folding-table next to herself. She had only just come to the mill, was intimate with no one, and, so far, had not heard the story, whatever it was, about Katie Robertson. Her name was Tessa.

Her father, who had been a traveling organ-grinder, was taken sick and died very suddenly at Squantown. His little dark-eyed girl, who accompanied him, was left perfectly dest.i.tute and in a most desolate condition. She was at first taken care of in the poor-house, but as she grew older, and it was thought best that she should do something for her own support, Mr. Mountjoy had been appealed to, and had given her a place in the mill. Not in the rag-room, however, for she had such a delicate const.i.tution that it was supposed she never could stand the dust. Her work consisted in pasting the fancy paper over the edges of little "pads," intended for doctors' use in writing their prescriptions, and when she was tired she was allowed to have a seat. She could not make much, but what she did receive sufficed to pay for her room in the factory boarding-house, and Tessa was as happy as she could be without her father.

The Italian girl had conceived a strong admiration for our bright little Katie, and by degrees the two girls became great friends. Tessa's love was the silver lining to the cloud under whose shadow her companion lived.

But the heaviest part of the cloud was that the story reached Miss Etta.

She had noticed the general avoidance of Katie by the other girls in her cla.s.s, and was very much at a loss to account for it, for to her this scholar had always seemed the best and brightest of them all, and she could see no change in her reverent, attentive behavior, her carefully prepared lessons, and her evident understanding and enjoyment of the spiritual truths which they contained. This latter point she could appreciate better than before, and she often shrank in humility from attempting to teach Katie anything, feeling herself better fitted to be the pupil. But the girls evidently did not feel so. What could be the matter?

One day, when all had left the Sunday-school, except Bertie, she stopped her and asked her directly why neither she nor the other girls were willing to sit next to Katie Robertson, and why they all looked at her so significantly when she came in or went out.

Bertie flushed, whether with joy or shame it would have been hard to say, and at first would not answer; but on her teacher's insisting, said that she didn't want to tell tales, etc.

The young lady saw that nevertheless her scholar was running over with her secret and longing for an opportunity to divulge it, and, had she been a little older and more experienced, she would not have given her the opportunity. But Etta was very curious, and, moreover, thought she had a right to know all that concerned her Sunday scholars, so she waited until her patience was rewarded by the whole story--that is, the version of it that Bertie's vindictive fancy chose to give.

She learned that Katie had been seen by two of the girls in the mill to _steal_ a large sum of money, which she had appropriated to the use of herself and family; that by degrees one after another had heard of it, and that of course honest girls who had their own way to make did not like to a.s.sociate with a thief.

On being asked who the girls were that had seen the action, and why they had not at once given information concerning it, Bertie declined to give any answer to the first part of her question, and professed entire ignorance concerning the latter; only she said: "All the girls knew, and of course couldn't a.s.sociate with a sly thief, especially when she gave herself the airs of a saint."

Etta was very much troubled. She could not believe such a story of her best pupil, and yet how could she contradict it? Without names and particulars she did not know how to set about investigating the truth; nor did she like to ask any one's advice, and thus cast suspicion upon the child.

CHAPTER X.

NOVEL-READING.

"What makes you so tired to-day, Tessa?" said Katie, one morning when the "rules" allowed the girls to speak.

"I don't know; I always do feel so in the mornings. It's awfully hard to get up. Don't you find it so?"

"I did at first, but I am getting used to it now. By the time I am dressed I am wide-awake and fit for anything. I don't see why you should feel so; I am afraid you're sick."

"Oh, no; only stupid and sleepy; I'll wake up by-and-by," and Tessa drew from her pocket a thin, square volume which was tightly rolled up. The noon-whistles sounded just then, and Katie saw her companion curl herself up on a box in the corner and at once lose herself in her book.

She still sat there when her friend returned, rosy and refreshed after her warm dinner and two brisk walks, and, as there were still a few moments before work must be resumed, the latter walked across the room and playfully took the book from the other's hand.

"Don't! oh, please, don't!" said Tessa. "Time's most up, and I _must_ know what became of Sir Reginald!"

"You _must_ eat your lunch. Look, here it lies untasted beside you.

Tessa, you will certainly be sick if you go on in this way."

But Tessa did not listen; she had again firmly grasped the book, and was greedily devouring its contents quite dead to outside things, till, the bell ringing, Katie jogged her shoulder, and she walked slowly across to the table where both girls worked, her eyes still upon her book. There she set it up, still open, against a pile of packages of paper, and all the afternoon kept casting furtive glances at it, often letting her work drop and her hands hang idle, while she followed the fortunes of the fascinating Sir Reginald.

Katie was in an agony; she loved Tessa, and did not want her to get into trouble, as she would certainly do if her proceedings should be observed by the overseer. Besides, was it honest thus to use time paid for by an employer?

But she had no chance to speak to her companion, for as usual she finished her work and went home, and whether her companion received a reprimand from the overseer for not having completed her daily task she did not know. Probably she did not, for it was an understood thing that Tessa was not so strong as the other girls, and therefore so much must not be expected of her.

The next day it was the same thing. Tessa looked tired out before the day's work began, and well she might, for she had sat up nearly all night to dispose of Sir Reginald, and now "The Fair Barmaid" had taken his place. Again the girl went without the uninviting lunch she had brought from her boarding-house, and again, as before, the fascinating novel divided her attention with her work. This afternoon she was detected by the overseer, who spoke a few words of reprimand and ordered her to put the book away, which she did unwillingly and with heightened color. It came out again, however, the moment the closing-bell rang; and, to make up for lost time, was a.s.siduously read during the homeward walk, and took the place of both supper and sleep till almost daylight the next morning.

Poor Tessa! she had inherited from her ancestry that love of romance and adventure which, in their own sunny land, makes the Italians rival the Orientals in their love of hearing and telling stories. The more thrilling these stories are, the fuller of pa.s.sion and crime, the better they seem to suit the tastes of these fervid and excitable natures. And she was alone; there was no one to counsel her, no one to love her, no one even to talk to in the long evenings she must of necessity spend in her bare room at the factory boarding-house, hot and stifling in summer, cold and bare in winter. She had been taught to read at the poor-house school and a stray dime novel happening to fall in her way, her imagination, waiting for something on which to feed itself, seized upon the unhealthful food, and gratified taste quickly ripened into insatiable appet.i.te. The girl read everything she could lay hold of, and there is always plenty of such literature close at hand and ready to be devoured. Novels at five cents apiece are sold by the million at country stores, railway-depots, and news-stations. Ephemeral in their nature, every one who owns them is ready to lend, give, or throw them away, and when books fail there are always quant.i.ties of "story-papers," full of the wildest, most improbable, and often vicious tales.

Tessa bought when she had any spare pennies, borrowed and begged when she had not; read by daylight, and twilight, and lamplight, sitting up as long as the miserable boarding-house lamps would hold out, and became so immersed in her world of romance as to become almost oblivious to outward things.

To do the little girl justice, she was too innocent to understand half the wickedness which in this way was brought before her notice, but none the less was she being gradually demoralized by this evil habit. Her appet.i.te failed, she scarcely took any exercise, she became nervous and excitable to a degree, her work was neglected, and, worse still, she was becoming familiarized with ideas, suggestions, and thoughts that should never come within the comprehension of pure-minded girls. As to her work, she was fast losing all interest in, indeed all capacity for, that, and it was whispered among her superiors that but for her utterly friendless condition it would be expedient to supply her place in the mill with some more profitable work-woman.

"Miss Eunice," said Katie, at the next Wednesday afternoon meeting, "is it wicked to read novels?"

"What a wholesale question," said Miss Eunice. "It is not _wicked_ exactly to do a great many things which it would be better on the whole to let alone--tipping one's chair up on two legs, for instance."

Katie blushed, righted her chair, and said: "I mean wrong; is it wrong to read novels?"

"Not all novels, certainly; that is, not all _fiction_. The best writers of our day throw their thoughts into that form, and our knowledge of history, philosophy, science, and character comes largely from this source. Our Saviour sanctified fiction by giving his highest and deepest lessons to his disciples in parables. If you mean that kind of novels, read in moderation, I should decidedly say no."

"She means dime novels," said one of the girls.

"Oh, 'Headless Hors.e.m.e.n' and 'Midnight Mysteries,' fascinating maidens carried off by desperate ruffians. I am thankful to say that I have no personal acquaintance with that sort of thing; but, girls, let me ask you a few questions. May I?"

"First, let all who read, or ever have read, what are called 'sensation stories' raise their hands."

A great many hands went up--more than the questioner liked to see.

"How many find such books help them in their work, make the factory seem pleasanter, and themselves more contented?"

Not a hand was raised, and the girl who had spoken before said:--

"I never can work half as well in the morning when I have been reading stories at night. I hate the sight of the factory, and wish I was a princess, or a splendidly dressed young lady with oceans of gold and jewels, like those in the books."

"Another question: Do books of this kind help you to pray, make the Bible more interesting, and incline you to loving service for the Saviour who has died that you might be saved?"