Lizzy Glenn; Or, The Trials of a Seamstress Part 5

"Thirty cents for all that!" she sighed to herself, as she laid the finished garment upon the bed. "Too bad! Too bad! How can a widow and three children subsist on twenty cents a day?"

A deep moan from Ella caused her to look at her child more intently than she had done for half an hour. She was alarmed to find that her face had become like scarlet, and was considerably swollen. On speaking to her, she seemed quite stupid, and answered incoherently, frequently putting her hand to her throat, as if in pain there. This confirmed the mother's worst fears for her child, especially as she was in a raging fever. Soon after, Henry came in from school, and she dispatched him for Doctor R--, who returned with the boy. He seemed uneasy at the manner in which the symptoms were developing themselves. A long and silent examination ended in his asking for a basin. He bled her freely, as there appeared to be much visceral congestion, and an active inflammation of the tonsils, larynx, and air pa.s.sages, with a most violent fever. After this she lay very still, and seemed much relieved. But, half an hour after the doctor had left, the fever rallied again, with burning intensity. Her face swelled rapidly, and the soreness of her throat increased. About nine o'clock the doctor came in again, and upon examining the child's throat, found it black and deeply ulcerated.

"What do you think of her, doctor?" asked the poor mother, eagerly.

"I think her very ill, madam--and, I regret to say, dangerously so."

"Is it scarlet fever, doctor?"

"It is, madam. A very bad case of it. But do not give way to feelings of despondency. I have seen worse cases recover."

More active medicines than any that had yet been administered were given by the doctor, who again retired, with but little hope of seeing his patient alive in the morning.

From the time Mrs. Gaston finished the garment upon which she had been working, she had not even unrolled the other roundabout, and it was now nine o'clock at night. A sense of her dest.i.tute condition, and of the pressing necessity there was for her to let every minute leave behind some visible impression, made her, after Henry and Emma were in bed, leave the side of her sick child, though with painful reluctance, and resume her toil. But, ever and anon, as Ella moaned, or tossed restlessly upon her pillow, would the mother lay by her work, and go and stand beside her in silent anguish of spirit, or inquire where she suffered pain, or what she could do to relieve her.

Thus pa.s.sed the hours until twelve, one, and two o'clock, the mother feeling that her child was too sick for her to seek repose, and yet, as she could do nothing to relieve her sufferings, she could not sit idly by and look upon her. For fifteen or twenty minutes at a time she would ply her needle, and then get up and bend over the bed for a minute or two. A thought of duty would again call her back to her position by the work-table, where she would again devote herself to her task, in spite of an aching head, and a reluctant, over-wearied body. Thus she continued until near daylight, when there was an apparent subsidence of Ella's most painful symptoms. The child ceased to moan and throw herself about, and finally sunk into slumber. In some relief of mind, Mrs. Gaston laid down beside her upon the bed, and, in a little while was fast asleep. When she awoke, the sun had been up some time, and was shining brightly into the room. Quickly rising, her first glance was toward her sick child. She could scarcely suppress a cry of agony, as she perceived that her face and neck had swollen so as to appear puffed up, while her skin was covered with livid spots. An examination of the chest and stomach showed that these spots were extending themselves over her whole body. Besides these signs of danger, the breathing of the child was more like gasping, as she lay with her mouth half opened.

The mother laid her hand upon her arm, and spoke to her. But she did not seem to hear the voice.

"Ella, dear! how do you feel this morning?" repeated Mrs. Gaston in louder and more earnest tones.

But the child heeded her not. She was already past consciousness! At an early hour Doctor R--came in. The moment he looked at his patient his countenance fell. Still, he proceeded to examine her carefully.

But every symptom was alarming, and indicated a speedy fatal termination, this was especially the case with the upper part of the throat, which was black. Nothing deeper could be seen, as the tonsils were so swollen as to threaten suffocation.

"Is there any hope, doctor?" asked Mrs. Gaston, eagerly, laying her hand upon his arm as he turned from the bed.

"There is always hope where there is life, madam," he replied, abstractedly; and then in a thoughtful mood took two or three turns across the narrow apartment.

"I will come again in an hour," he at length said, "and see if there is any change. I would rather not give her any more medicine for the present. Let her remain perfectly quiet."

True to his promise, Doctor R--entered the room just an hour from the time he left it. The scene that met his eye moved his heart deeply, all used as he was to the daily exhibition of misery in its many distressing forms. The child was dead! He was prepared for that--but not for the abandoned grief to which the mother gave way.

The chords of feeling had been drawn in her heart too tightly. Mind and body were both out of tune, and discordant. In suffering, in abject want and dest.i.tution, her heart still clung to her children, and threw around them a sphere of intenser affection, as all that was external grew darker, colder, and more dreary. They were her jewels, and she could not part with them. They were hidden away in her heart of hearts so deeply, that not a single one of them could be taken without leaving it lacerated and bleeding.

When the doctor entered, he found her lying upon the bed, with the body of her child hugged tightly to her bosom. Little Emma had crept away into a corner of the room, and looked frightened. Henry was crouching in a chair, with the tears running down his cheeks in streams.

"You are too late, doctor," said the mother, in a tone so calm, so clear, and yet to his ear so thrilling, that he started, and felt a chill pa.s.s through his frame. There was something in the sound of that voice in ill accordance with the scene.

As she spoke, she glanced at the physician with bright, tearless eyes for a moment; and then, turning away her head, she laid her cheek against that of the corpse, and drew the lifeless body with trembling eagerness to her heart.

"This is all vain, my dear madam!" urged Dr. R--, approaching the bedside, and laying his hand upon her. "Come! Be a woman. To bear is to conquer our fate. No sorrow of yours can call back the happy spirit of your child. And, surely, you would not call her back, if you could, to live over the days of anguish and pain that were meted out to her?"

"I cannot give up my child, doctor. Oh, I cannot give up my child!

It will break my heart!" she replied, her voice rising and trembling more and more at each sentence, until it gave way, and the hot tears came raining over her face, and falling upon the insensible cheek of her child.

"'The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,' Mrs. Gaston. Can you not look up, even in this sore affliction, and say, 'Blessed be the name of the Lord?' It is your only hope. An arm of flesh cannot support you now. You must look to the Strong for strength."

As Doctor R--thus urged her to reason and duty, the tears of the bereaved mother gradually ceased to flow. She grew calmer, and regained, in some degree, her self-possession. As she did so, she slowly disengaged her arm from the body of her child, placed its head, as carefully as if it had been asleep, upon the pillow, and then arose, and stood with her hands tightly clasped across her forehead.

"I am but a weak woman, doctor, and you must bear with me," said she, in a changed voice. "I used to have fort.i.tude; but I feel that I am breaking fast. I am not what I was."

The last two sentences were spoken in a tone so sad and mournful, that the doctor could scarcely keep back the tears.

"You have friends here, I suppose," he remarked, "who will be with you on this afflicting occasion?"

"I have no friends," she replied, in the same sad voice. "I and my children are alone in this hard world. Would to heaven we were all with Ella!" Her tears again gushed forth and flowed freely.

"Then I must send some one who will a.s.sist you in your present need," said Dr. R--; and turning away he left the room, and, getting into his chaise, rode off at a brisk pace. In about a quarter of an hour, he returned with a woman who took charge of the body of the child, and performed for it the last sad offices that the dead require.

Upon close inquiry, he ascertained from Mrs. Gaston that she was in a state of extreme dest.i.tution; that so far from having the means to bury her dead child, she was nearly without food to give to her living ones. To meet this pressing need, he went to a few benevolent friends, and procured money sufficient to inter the corpse, and about ten dollars over. This he gave to her after the funeral, at which there were only three mourners, the mother and her two children.

CHAPTER IV.

LIZZY GLENN AROUSES THE INTEREST OF A STRANGER.

BERLAPS was leaning over his counter late in the afternoon of the second day from that on which the person calling herself Lizzy Glenn had applied for and obtained work, when a young man entered and asked for some article of dress. While the tailor was still engaged in waiting upon him, the young woman came in, carrying a small bundle in her hand. Her vail was drawn over her face as she entered; but was thrown partly aside as she retired to the back part of the store, where she stood awaiting the leisure of the man from whom she had obtained work. As she pa.s.sed him, the customer turned and looked at her earnestly for a moment or two, and then asked in a whisper--

"Who is that?"

"Only one of our sewing-girls," replied Berlaps, indifferently.

"What is her name?"

"I forget. She's a girl to whom we gave out work day before yesterday."

This paused the man to look at her more attentively. The young woman, becoming conscious that she was an object of close scrutiny by a stranger, turned partly away, so that her face could not be seen.

"There is something singularly familiar about her," mused the young man as he left the store. "Who can she be? I have certainly seen her before."

"Ah, good-afternoon, Perkins!" said a familiar voice, while a friendly hand was laid upon his arm. "You seem to be in a browner mood than usual!"

"I am a little thoughtful, or abstracted, just as you please,"

replied the individual addressed.

"Are you, indeed? May I ask the reason?"

"The reason hardly seems to be a sufficient one--and, therefore, I will not jeopardize your good opinion of me by mentioning it."

"O, very well! I am content to have my friends conceal from me their weaknesses."

The two young men then walked on arm and arm for some distance. They seemed to be walking more for the sake of a little conversation than for any thing else, for they went slowly, and after winding about among the labyrinthine streets for ten or twenty minutes, took their way back again.

"There she is again, as I live!" Perkins exclaimed, half pausing, as the young woman he had seen at the tailor's pa.s.sed quickly by them on their turning a corner.

"You've noticed her before, then?" remarked the friend, whose name was Milford.