The Old Homestead Part 35

"Father, forgive me, I had no right to make myself your judge."

"G.o.d bless you, my boy, and remember this night you have made your father very happy."

After Frederick left him, Mr. Farnham began to write. His strength had returned, and his whole energies of soul and body were concentrated in the work he was doing. After he had written an hour, pausing now and then in deep thought, there lay before him a legal doc.u.ment, carefully drawn up, which he read twice. Then he arose and rang the bell; a servant came, and he directed her to go to the drawing-room and tell two gentlemen who were his guests at the time, that he wished to see them. The gentlemen came up flushed and laughing. Champagne had freely circulated below, and they were in splendid spirits.

"I will only detain you a moment," said the Mayor, "but here is a doc.u.ment which requires witnesses. Will you sign it?"

The gentlemen laughed gaily.

The Mayor laid his finger on the signature. Again the gentlemen laughed.

"What is it, a marriage contract, or your last will and testament?"

said one, delighted with his own wit.

"It is my last will and testament," answered the Mayor, quietly.

Again the men laughed; they did not believe him.

"Well, well, give us hold here, at any rate, we know it's all right, so here goes!"

They signed their names and went out laughing. The next morning they started South without seeing their host, and with a confused sense of what they had signed over night.

But with all these sources of agitation the Mayor was breaking down.

He went up to his bed-room after signing the will, greatly exhausted.

His wife pa.s.sed through the room an hour after, and saw the doc.u.ment on the table. It was late, and she resolved to read it over at leisure in the morning before her husband was up; so dropping it quietly into her pocket she went up stairs.

Three days after the city was in mourning. The public building and military banners were all draped with black. It was the first time in years that a Mayor of New York had died in office, and the people were lavish of funereal honors to Farnham's memory.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE FESTIVAL OF ROSES.

A ring--a ring of roses, Laps full of posies; Awake--awake!

Now come and make A ring--a ring of roses.

The month of June had littered its path with roses, and now came July, with its crimson berries, its ruddier blossoms, and its profuse foliage. On the Fourth of this luxurious month some gleams and glimpses of the great National Jubilee are sure to reach even the prisoners and the poor on Blackwell's Island. The sick children at the Hospital had a share of enjoyment; presents of toys, cake and fruit were liberally distributed. The grounds produced an abundance of flowers, and it was marvellous how these little creatures managed to amuse themselves. The matron, the nurses, and many of the little patients, were busy as so many bees that morning, before the sun had changed his first rose-tints to the shower of vivid gold with which he soon boldly deluged the water. Among the first and the busiest were Mary Fuller and Isabel. They sat beneath a great elm tree back of the Hospital, with a heap of flowers between them, out of which they twined a world of bouquets, fairy garlands, and pretty crowns.

Half-a-dozen little girls, lame, or among the convalescent sick, volunteered to gather the flowers, and some of the larger boys were up among the branches of the elm tree, garlanding them with ropes of the coa.r.s.er blossoms. The birds were in full force that morning, as became the little republican rovers, absolutely rioting among the leaves, and pouring forth their music with a wild _abandon_ that made the foliage thrill again.

"Now, now the sun will be up in no time. Run, Isabel, with the flowers--here they are, a whole ap.r.o.n full--I will be tying up more while you leave these!" said Mary Fuller, heaping Isabel's ap.r.o.n with the pretty bouquets she had been preparing; "don't leave a pillow without them!"

Isabel gathered up her ap.r.o.n and ran into the house. Up the stairs she went with a fairy footstep, and glided into the wards. Stealing softly from one little cot to another, she left upon each pillow her pretty tribute, where the sick child was sure to see it the moment its languid eyes were unclosed. When her store was exhausted she ran down for more.

"Did any of them wake up? Did they see the flowers?" inquired Mary, eagerly.

"Some were awake--they hadn't slept all night, poor things--but the flowers made them smile," was the cheerful reply. "Come, fill my ap.r.o.n again, and give me those large ones, with the white lilies, for the mantel-pieces. Won't the doctor be astonished when he goes up? They're better than medicine, I can tell him."

Again Isabel's ap.r.o.n was heaped full, and again she glided, in all her bright, young beauty, through the sick wards. When she came down, an earthern pitcher, crowded with great white lilies, honeysuckles and sweetbriar, stood on the windows or mantel-pieces of every room. There was not a pillow without its pretty garland, or bouquet of buds, tied with the spray of some fragrant shrub. She had made the atmosphere of those sick wards redolent with fragrance.

"Now for the boys' hats!" said Mary, "here are plenty of soldier's feathers."

The boys cast down their straw-hats from the tree, shouting for her to make soldiers of them, each one clamoring for a red plume.

But the red hollyhocks did not quite hold out, so, perforce some of the slender plumes were of yellow, some of snow-white--for you never saw such hollyhocks as grew in the Hospital-gardens--and Mary had all variety of tints around her, even to some of a deep maroon.

When each straw hat had its plume, the little girls fell to ornamenting three or four large paper kites, and then they began forming garlands for their own heads. Mary twined a beautiful wreath of white clematis around the dark tresses of Isabel's hair.

"Nothing but white," she said with a gentle sigh, "for that is almost mourning."

The others arrayed themselves according to their own fancy, and when the sun rose high it kindled up a happy and picturesque group beneath that old elm tree.

A company of boys, with a red silk handkerchief streaming over them for a banner, their hollyhock plumes rising jauntily in the sunshine, the tallest mounting an epaulette of red, yellow, and purple flowers, marched out with gallant parade from the shelter of the old tree. Tin trumpets, an old milk pail, and various similar instruments, made the air ring again as this warlike band sallied forth.

A score of little pale creatures watched them from the Hospital stoop and the upper windows. Some of the boys were lame; some were blind; while others bore evidence of recent disease; but if they looked in these things like a company of volunteers returning from Mexico, it only gave them a more warlike appearance, and of this they were very ambitious.

Then the little girls began to seek their own amus.e.m.e.nts. They played "hide and seek," "ring, ring a rosy," and a thousand wild and pretty games; for the place was so beautiful, and the day so bright, the little rogues quite forgot that they were in the Poor House, or had ever been sick in the whole course of their lives.

Mary and Isabel were a little pensive at times, but when all the rest seemed so happy, they could not choose but smile with them--and so the Fourth of July wore over.

There was a great tumult and glorious time on Long Island sh.o.r.e that day. The children had a festival of flowers over there also; crowds of people were walking along the banks of the river; and you could see hundreds of gaily-dressed visitors landing every minute from the water, while the children huzzaed, and flung up their hats till you could hear them across the broad river. Still it is to be doubted if there was more real enjoyment among them than our little band of convalescents experienced among the flowery nooks of the old Hospital.

The hour for cakes and fruit to be served under the elm surprised our little warriors down by the river. When the signal was given, they marched along the broad walk, lined on each side with box-myrtle of twenty years' growth. They paraded superbly up the terrace steps--down again--through the grape arbors, and around the end of the Hospital, in gallant array, with colors flying, sixpenny trumpets blowing, and the tin pails doing their best to glorify the occasion.

Our little troop bivouacked under the old elm, amid a storm of fire-crackers, and a shout from the little girls. Here gingerbread and fruit were served, and the girls began their games again. Little Mary Fuller sat upon the gra.s.s, singing, while the rest formed a ring, darting, with their garlands and bouquets, like a chain of flowers, through an arch made by the uplifted hands of Isabel Chester and a little lame girl who could not run. Nothing on earth could be more beautiful than Isabel was just then, with the white spray dancing in her hair, a pleasant smile in her dark eyes, and the faintest rose-tint breaking over her cheek.

"She is delicate as a flower, beautiful as a star!"

The speaker was a lady dressed in the deepest possible mourning. The long widow's veil reached to her knees, and was double two-thirds of the way up. Her bombazine dress was so heavily trimmed with broad folds of c.r.a.pe, that you could not judge of the original material; from head to foot she was shrouded in black, till you felt quite gloomy to look on her. She seemed to have measured off her grief in so many yards of c.r.a.pe. Still, as if to show that there was a gleam of hope about her, she wore an immense diamond on the black ribbon at her throat. A large cl.u.s.ter ring that gleamed through the net glove, covering a small and withered hand, with the gem sparkling at her throat, bespoke uncommon wealth; and there was a tone of almost pampered sentimentality in her voice and manner.

"It is indeed a very lovely child," answered the gentleman whom she addressed, gazing with a smile upon Isabel.

"Was ever anything so perfect found in a poorhouse! Oh, if the policeman's daughter proves only half as pretty as she is," the lady exclaimed again.

"Let us inquire something about her," answered the gentleman, gravely, "with all her beauty she may be a common-place child!"

"No--no, I am quite certain she is everything that is charming. If your protege is only half as lovely, I shall be reconciled to the duty Mr. Farnham has so unreasonably--I must say, imposed upon me,"

persisted the lady.

The gentleman observed gravely that the idea of adopting a child was no trifling matter, and walked on till they surprised the little girls at their play. The chain broke, the girls scattered through the thickets like a flock of frightened birds. The lame girl dropped Isabel's hand and limped away, leaving the beautiful child all alone save Mary Fuller, who had stopped singing and sat quietly on the gra.s.s.

"I am afraid we have frightened your little friends away," said the gentleman, addressing the child, with a bland and gentle manner; "we did not intend to do that!"

His voice seemed to startle the children.

Isabel turned to her friend, with a glad smile.