Ruth Hall Part 15

Remember now, you and your mother must earn some, _somehow_, d'ye hear?"

"Yes, Sir," said Katy meekly, as she closed the door.

There was a great noise and bustle in the street, and Katy was jostled hither and thither by the hurrying foot pa.s.sengers; but she did not heed it, she was so busy thinking of what her grandfather had said, and wondering if she could not sell matches, or shavings, or sweep the crossings, or earn some pennies somehow, that she need never go to her grandfather again. Just then a little girl her own age, came skipping and smiling along, holding her father's hand. Katy looked at her and thought of _her_ father, and then she began to cry.

"What is the matter, my dear?" said a gentleman, lifting a handful of Katy's shining curls from her face; "why do you cry, my dear?"

"I want _my_ papa," sobbed Katy.

"Where is he, dear? tell me, and I will take you to him, shall I?"

"If you please, Sir," said Katy, innocently, "he has gone to heaven."

"G.o.d help you," said the gentleman, with moistened eyes, "where had you been when I met you?"

"Please, Sir--I--I--I had rather not tell," replied Katy, with a crimson blush.

"Very odd, this," muttered the gentleman; "what is your name, dear?"

"Katy, Sir."

"Katy what?" asked the gentleman. "Katy-did, I think! for your voice is as sweet as a bird's."

"Katy Hall, Sir."

"Hall? Hall?" repeated the gentleman, thoughtfully; "was your father's name Harry?"

"Yes," said Katy.

"Was he tall and handsome, with black hair and whiskers?"

"Oh, _so_ handsome," replied Katy, with sparkling eyes.

"Did he live at a place called 'The Glen,' just out of the city?"

"Yes," said Katy.

"My child, my poor child," said the gentleman, taking her up in his arms and pushing back her hair from her face; "yes, here is papa's brow, and his clear, blue eyes, Katy. I used to know your dear papa."

"Yes?" said Katy, with a bright, glad smile.

"I used to go to his counting-house to talk to him on business, and I learned to love him very much, too. I never saw your mamma, though I often heard him speak of her. In a few hours, dear, I am going to sail off on the great ocean, else I would go home with you and see your mamma. Where do you live, Katy?"

"In ---- court," said the child. The gentleman colored and started, then putting his hand in his pocket and drawing out something that looked like paper, slipped it into little Katy's bag, saying, with delicate tact, "Tell your mamma, my dear, that is something I owed your dear papa; mind you carry it home safely; now give me a good-bye kiss, and may G.o.d forever bless you, my darling."

Little Katy stood shading her eyes with her hand till the gentleman was out of sight; it was so nice to see somebody who "loved papa;" and then she wondered why her grandfather never spoke so to her about him; and then she wished the kind gentleman were her grandpapa; and then she wondered what it was he had put in the bag for mamma; and then she recollected that her mamma told her "not to loiter;" and then she quickened her tardy little feet.

CHAPTER XLVI.

Katy had been gone now a long while. Ruth began to grow anxious. She lifted her head from the pillow, took off the wet bandage from her aching forehead, and taking little Nettie upon her lap, sat down at the small window to watch for Katy. The prospect was not one to call up cheerful fancies. Opposite was one of those large brick tenements, let out by rapacious landlords, a room at a time at griping rents, to poor emigrants, and others, who were barely able to prolong their lease of life from day to day. At one window sat a tailor, with his legs crossed, and a torn straw hat perched awry upon his head, cutting and making coa.r.s.e garments for the small clothing-store in the vicinity, whose Jewish owner reaped all the profits. At another, a pale-faced woman, with a handkerchief bound round her aching face, bent over a steaming wash-tub, while a little girl of ten, staggering under the weight of a basket of damp clothes, was stringing them on lines across the room to dry. At the next window sat a decrepit old woman, feebly trying to soothe in her palsied arms the wailings of a poor sick child. And there, too, sat a young girl, from dawn till dark, scarcely lifting that pallid face and weary eyes--st.i.tching and thinking, thinking and st.i.tching. G.o.d help her!

Still, tier above tier the windows rose, full of pale, anxious, care-worn faces--never a laugh, never a song--but instead, ribald curses, and the cries of neglected, half-fed children. From window to window, outside, were strung on lines articles of clothing, pails, baskets, pillows, feather-beds, and torn coverlets; while up and down the door-steps, in and out, pa.s.sed ever a ragged procession of bare-footed women and children, to the small grocery opposite, for "a pint of milk," a "loaf of bread," a few onions, or potatoes, a cabbage, some herrings, a sixpence worth of poor tea, a pound of musty flour, a few candles, or a peck of coal--for all of which, the poor creatures paid twice as much as if they had the means to buy by the quant.i.ty.

The only window which Ruth did not shudder to look at, was the upper one of all, inhabited by a large but thrifty German family, whose love of flowers had taken root even in that sterile soil, and whose little pot of thriving foreign shrubs, outside the window sill, showed with what tenacity the heart will cling to early a.s.sociations.

Further on, at one block's remove, was a more pretentious-looking house, the blinds of which were almost always closed, save when the colored servants threw them open once a day, to give the rooms an airing. Then Ruth saw damask chairs, satin curtains, pictures, vases, books, and pianos; it was odd that people who could afford such things should live in such a neighborhood. Ruth looked and wondered. Throngs of visitors went there--carriages rolled up to the door, and rolled away; gray-haired men, business men, substantial-looking family men, and foppish-looking young men; while half-grown boys loitered about the premises, looking mysteriously into the door when it opened, or into the window when a curtain was raised, or a blind flew apart.

Now and then a woman appeared at the windows. Sometimes the face was young and fair, sometimes it was wan and haggard; but, oh G.o.d! never without the stain that the bitterest tear may fail to wash away, save in the eyes of Him whose voice of mercy whispered, "Go, and sin no more."

Ruth's tears fell fast. She knew now how it could be, when every door of hope seemed shut, by those who make long prayers and wrap themselves in morality as with a garment, and cry with closed purses and averted faces, "Be ye warmed, and filled." She knew now how, when the heart, craving sympathy, craving companionship, doubting both earth and heaven, may wreck its all in one despairing moment on that dark sea, if it lose sight of Bethlehem's guiding-star. And then, she thought, "if he who saveth a soul from death shall hide a mult.i.tude of sins," oh! where, in the great reckoning-day, shall _he_ be found who, 'mid the gloom of so dark a night, pilots such struggling bark on wrecking rocks?

"Dear child, I am so glad you are home," said Ruth, as Katy opened the door; "I began to fear something had happened to you. Did you see your grandfather?"

"Oh, mother!" exclaimed Katy, "please never send me to my grandpa again; he said we 'should get away all the money he had,' and he looked so dreadful when he said it, that it made my knees tremble. Is it stealing, mamma, for us to take grandpa's money away?"

"No," replied Ruth, looking a hue more pallid, if possible, than before, "No, no, Katy, don't cry; you shall never go there again for money. But, where is your bag? Why! what's this, Katy. Grandpa has made a mistake.

You must run right back as quick as ever you can with this money, or I'm afraid he will be angry."

"Oh, grandpa didn't give me that," said Katy; "a gentleman gave me that."

"A gentleman?" said Ruth. "Why it is _money_, Katy. How came you to take money from a gentleman? Who was he?"

"Money!" exclaimed Katy. "Money!" clapping her hands. "Oh! I'm so glad.

He didn't say it was money; he said it was something he owed papa;" and little Katy picked up a card from the floor, on which was pencilled, "For the children of Harry Hall, from their father's friend."

"Hush," whispered Katy to Nettie, "mamma is praying."

CHAPTER XLVII.

"Well, I never!" said Biddy, bursting into Ruth's room in her usual thunder-clap way, and seating herself on the edge of a chair, as she polished her face with the skirt of her dress. "As sure as my name is Biddy, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Well, I've been expecting it. Folks that have ears can't help hearing when folks quarrel."

"What are you talking about?" said Ruth. "Who has quarreled? It is nothing that concerns me."

"Don't it though?" replied Biddy. "I'm thinking it _will_ concern ye to pack up bag and baggage, and be off out of the house; for that's what we are all coming to, and all for Mrs. Skiddy. You see it's just here, ma'am. Masther has been threatnin' for a long time to go to Californy, where the gould is as plenty as blackberries. Well, misthress tould him, if ever he said the like o' that again, he'd rue it; and you know, ma'am, it's she that has a temper. Well, yesterday I heard high words again; and, sure enough, after dinner to-day, she went off, taking Sammy and Johnny, and laving the bit nursing baby on his hands, and the boarders and all. And it's Biddy McFlanigan who'll be off, ma'am, and not be made a pack-horse of, to tend that teething child, and be here, and there, and everywhere in a minute. And so I come to bid you good-bye."

"But, Biddy--"

"Don't be afther keeping me, ma'am; Pat has shouldhered me trunk, and ye see I can't be staying when things is as they is."