Stories of Childhood Part 8

"Waves!" said the Lady of Shalott, suddenly, as if she had been asked the question. Sary Jane jumped. She said, "Nonsense!" For the Lady of Shalott had only seen the little wash-tub full of dingy water on Sunday nights, and the dirty little hydrant (in the gla.s.s) spouting dingy jets.

She would not have known a wave if she had seen it.

"But I see waves," said the Lady of Shalott. She felt sure of it. They ran up and down across the gla.s.s. They had green faces and gray hair.

They threw back their hands, like cool people resting, and it seemed unaccountable, at the east end of South Street last summer, that anything, anywhere, if only a wave in a looking-gla.s.s, could be cool or at rest. Besides this, they kept their faces clean. Therefore the Lady of Shalott took pleasure in watching them run up and down across the gla.s.s. That a thing could be clean, and green, and white, was only less a wonder than cool and rest last summer in South Street.

"Sary Jane, dear," said the Lady of Shalott, one day, "how hot _is_ it up here?"

"Hot as h.e.l.l!" said Sary Jane.

"I thought it was a little warm," said the Lady of Shalott. "Sary Jane, dear, isn't the yard down there a little--dirty?"

Sary Jane put down her needle, and looked out of the blazing, blindless window. It had always been a subject of satisfaction to Sary Jane, somewhere down below her lean shoulders and in the very teeth of the rat-trap, that the Lady of Shalott could not see out of that window. So she winked at the window, as if she would caution it to hold its burning tongue, and said never a word.

"Sary Jane, dear," said the Lady of Shalott, once more, "had you ever thought that perhaps I was a little--weaker--than I was--once?"

"I guess you can stand it if I can!" said the rat-trap.

"O, yes, dear," said the Lady of Shalott. "I can stand it if you can."

"Well, then!" said Sary Jane. But she sat and winked at the bald window, and the window held its burning tongue.

It grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in South Street. The lean children in the attic opposite fell sick, and sat no longer in the window making faces, in the Lady of Shalott's gla.s.s.

Two more monkeys from the spring-box were carried away one ugly twilight in a cart. The purple wing that hung over the spring-box lifted to let them pa.s.s; and then fell, as if it had brushed them away.

"It has such a soft color!" said the Lady of Shalott, smiling.

"So has nightshade!" said Sary Jane.

One day a beautiful thing happened. One can scarcely understand how a beautiful thing _could_ happen at the east end of South Street. The Lady of Shalott herself did not entirely understand.

"It is all the gla.s.s," she said.

She was lying very still when she said it. She had folded her hands, which were hot, to keep them quiet too. She had closed her eyes, which ached, to close away the glare of the noon. At once she opened them, and said:--

"It is the gla.s.s."

Sary Jane stood in the gla.s.s. Now Sary Jane, she well knew, was not in the room that noon. She had gone out to see what she could find for dinner. She had five cents to spend on dinner. Yet Sary Jane stood in the gla.s.s. And in the gla.s.s, ah! what a beautiful thing!

"Flowers!" cried the Lady of Shalott aloud. But she had never seen flowers. But neither had she seen waves. So she said, "They come as the waves come." And knew them, and lay smiling. Ah! what a beautiful, beautiful thing!

Sary Jane's hair was fiery and tumbled (in the gla.s.s), as if she had walked fast and far. Sary Jane (in the gla.s.s) was winking, as she had winked at the blazing window; as if she said to what she held in her arms, Don't tell! And in her arms (in the gla.s.s), where the waves were--oh! beautiful, beautiful! The Lady of Shalott lay whispering: "Beautiful, beautiful!" She did not know what else to do. She dared not stir. Sary Jane's lean arms (in the gla.s.s) were full of silver bells; they hung out of a soft green shadow, like a church tower; they nodded to and fro; when they shook, they shook out sweetness.

"Will they ring?" asked the Lady of Shalott of the little gla.s.s.

I doubt, in my own mind, if you or I, being in South Street, and seeing a lily of the valley (in a 10 X 6 inch looking-gla.s.s) for the very first time, would have asked so sensible a question.

"Try 'em and see," said the looking-gla.s.s. Was it the looking-gla.s.s? Or the rat-trap? Or was it--

O, the beautiful thing! That the gla.s.s should have nothing to do with it, after all! That Sary Jane, in flesh and blood, and tumbled hair, and trembling, lean arms, should stand and shake an armful of church towers and silver bells down into the Lady of Shalott's little puzzled face and burning hands!

And that the Lady of Shalott should think that she must have got into the gla.s.s herself, by a blunder,--as the only explanation possible of such a beautiful thing!

"No, it isn't gla.s.s-dreams," said Sary Jane, winking at the church towers, where they made a solemn, green shadow against the Lady of Shalott's bent cheek. "Smell 'em and see. You can 'most stand the yard with them round. Smell 'em and see! It ain't the gla.s.s; it's the Flower Charity."

"The what?" asked the Lady of Shalott slowly.

"The Flower Charity."

"Heaven bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott. But she said nothing more.

She laid her cheek over into the shadow of the green church towers. "And there'll be more," said Sary Jane, hunting for her wax. "There'll be more, whenever I can call for 'em,--bless it!"

"Heaven bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott again.

"But I only got a lemon for dinner," said Sary Jane.

"Heaven bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott, with her face hidden under the church towers. But I don't think that she meant the lemon, though Sary Jane did.

"They _do_ ring," said the Lady of Shalott by and by. She drew the tip of her thin fingers across the tip of the tiny bells. "I thought they would."

"Humph!" said Sary Jane, squeezing her lemon under her work-box. "I never see your beat for gla.s.s-dreams. What do they say? Come, now!"

Now the Lady of Shalott knew very well what they said. Very well! But she only drew the tips of her poor fingers over the tips of the silver bells. Clever mind! It was not necessary to tell Sary Jane.

But it grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in South Street. Even the Flower Charity (bless it!) could not sweeten the dreadfulness of that yard. Even the purple wing above the spring-box fell heavily upon the Lady of Shalott's strained eyes, across the gla.s.s. Even the gray-haired waves ceased running up and down and throwing back their hands before her; they sat still, in heaps upon a blistering beach, and gasped for breath. The Lady of Shalott herself gasped sometimes, in watching them.

One day she said: "There's a man in them."

"A _what_ in _which_?" buzzed Sary Jane. "Oh! There's a man across the yard, I suppose you mean. Among them young ones, yonder. I wish he'd stop 'em throwing stones, plague on 'em! See him, don't you?"

"I don't see the children," said the Lady of Shalott, a little troubled.

Her gla.s.s had shown her so many things strangely since the days grew hot.

"But I see a man, and he walks upon the waves. See, see!"

The Lady of Shalott tried to pull herself up upon the elbow of her calico night-dress, to see.

"That's one of them Hospital doctors," said Sary Jane, looking out of the blazing window. "I've seen him round before. Don't know what business he's got down here; but I've seen him. He's talkin' to them boys now, about the stones. There! He'd better! If they don't look out, they'll hit--"

"_O, the gla.s.s! the gla.s.s!_"

The Hospital doctor stood still; so did Sary Jane, half risen from her chair; so did the very South Street boys, gaping in the gutter, with their hands full of stones, such a cry rang out from the palace window.

"_O, the gla.s.s! the gla.s.s! the gla.s.s!_"

In a twinkling the South Street boys were at the mercy of the South Street police; and the Hospital doctor, bounding over a beachful of shattered, scattered waves, stood, out of breath, beside the Lady of Shalott's bed.

"O the little less, and what worlds away!"