The Old Homestead Part 5

"What is this?--what is the matter?--is she sick?" inquired the boy, earnestly.

"She is a poor, homeless child, half frozen and almost famished,"

answered Chester.

"Homeless on a night like this!--hungry and cold!" exclaimed the lad, throwing off his Spanish cloak and tossing his cap to the hall table.

"Come back, till she gets thoroughly warm, and I'll soon ransack the kitchen for eatables; a gla.s.s of Madeira now to begin with. Lady Mother, come and look at this little girl--it's a sin and a shame to see anything with a soul reduced to this."

"What is it, Fred?" cried the lady, sweeping across the drawing-room; "oh, I see, a little beggar girl! Why don't you let the man pa.s.s?

He's taken her up for something, I dare say."

"No," said Chester with a faint hope of getting food; "it is want, nothing worse--she is frozen and starved."

"What a pity, and the authorities make such provision for the poor, too! I declare, Mr. Farnham, you ought to stop this sort of thing--it is scandalous to have one's house haunted with such frightful objects."

Young Farnham drew toward his mother, flushed and eager.

"If the girls are in bed, let me go down and search for something, the poor child looks so forlorn."

As he pleaded with his mother the hall light lay full upon him, and never did benevolence look more beautiful on a young face. It must have been a cold-hearted person, indeed, who could have resisted those fine, earnest eyes, and that manner so full of generous grace.

"Come, mother, music should open one's heart--may I go?"

"Nonsense, Fred, what would you be at? The man is in a hurry to go.

Why can't you be reasonable for once," replied the weak woman, glancing at her husband, who was walking angrily up and down the drawing-room; and sinking her voice she added:

"See, your father is out of sorts; do come in!"

"In a moment--in a moment," answered, the youth, moving up the hall and searching eagerly in his pockets--"stop, my dear fellow, don't be in such a confounded hurry--oh, here it is."

The lad drew forth a portmonnaie, and emptied the only bit of gold it contained into his hand.

"Here, here," he said, blushing to the temples and forcing it upon Chester; "I haven't a doubt that everything is eaten up in the house, but this will go a little way. You are a fine fellow, I can see that; don't let the poor thing suffer--if help is wanted, I'm always on hand for a trifle like that; but good night, good night, the governor is getting fractious, and my lady mother will take cold--good night."

Chester grasped the hand so frankly extended, and moved down the steps, cheered by the n.o.ble sympathy so unexpected in that place.

"You will understand," said the Mayor, turning short upon poor Fred, as he entered the room, "you will please to understand, sir, that to station yourself on my door-steps and call for wine as if you were in a tavern, is an insult to your father's principles. It is not to be supposed that this house contains Madeira or any other alcoholic drink. Remember, sir, that your father is the chief magistrate of New York, and the head of a popular principle."

"But why may I not request wine for a poor child suffering for warmth and food, when we have it every now and then on the dinner table?"

inquired the boy seriously.

"You are mistaken; you are too young for explanations of this kind,"

answered the father sternly; "we never have wine on the table, except when certain men are here. When did you ever see even an empty gla.s.s there, when our temperance friends visit us?"

The boy did not answer, but kept his fine honest eyes fixed on his father, and their half astonished, half grieved expression disturbed the politician, who really loved his son.

"You are not old enough to understand the duties of a public station like mine, Frederick; a politician, to be successful, must be a little of all things to all men."

"Then I, for one, will never be a politician," exclaimed the boy, while childish tears were struggling with manly indignation.

"G.o.d forbid that you ever should," was the thought that rose in the father's heart; for there was yet one green spot in his nature kept fresh by love of his only son.

"And," continued the boy still more impetuously, "I will never drink another gla.s.s of wine in my life. What is wrong for the poor is wrong for the rich. What I may not give to a suffering child, I will not drink myself."

"Now that is going a little too far, I should say, Fred," interposed Mrs. Farnham, softly withdrawing her gloves, and allowing the fire-light to flash over her diamond rings; "my opinion has long been that whisky punches, brandy what-do-you-call-'ems, and things of that sort, are decidedly immoral; but champaigne and Madeira, sherry coblers--a vulgar name that--always puts one in mind of low shoemakers--don't it Mr. Farnham? if it wasn't for the gla.s.s tubes and cut-crystal goblets, that beverage ought to be legislated on.

Well, Fred, as I was saying, refreshments like these are gentlemanly, and I rather approve of them, so don't let me hear more nonsense about your drinking wine in a quiet way, you know, and with the right set.

Isn't this about the medium, Mr. Farnham?"

The Mayor, who usually allowed the wisdom of his lady to flow by him like the wind, did not choose to answer this sapient appeal, but observed curtly, that he had some writing to do, and should like, as soon as convenient, to be left to himself. Upon this the lady folded her white gloves spitefully and left the room, tossing her head till the marabouts on each side of her coiffure trembled like drifting snow-flakes, while she muttered something about husbands and bears, which sounded very much as if she mingled the two unpleasantly together in her ideas of natural history.

Frederick followed his mother with a serious and grieved demeanor, taking leave of his father with a respectful "good night," which the Mayor, dissatisfied with himself, and consequently angry, did not deign to notice.

When left to himself, the Mayor impatiently rang a bell connected with the kitchen. This brought a hard-faced Irish woman to the room, who was ordered to wheel the easy-chair into the hall, and have it thoroughly aired the first thing in the morning. After that he gave her a brief reprimand for exceeding his directions regarding the gas-lights, and dismissed her for the night.

After she disappeared, the Mayor continued to pace up and down the room, meditating over the scene that had just transpired.

"I was right in smoothing the thing over," he muttered; "one never cares for the report of a little beggar like that. Who would believe her? But this Chester might tell the thing in a way that would prove awkward; a man like him has no business in the police. He thinks for himself and acts for himself, I'll be sworn; besides, he is a fine, gentlemanly-looking fellow, and somehow the people get attached to such men, and are influenced by them. It always pleases me to twist the star from a breast like that. It shall be done!" he added, suddenly. "His language to me, a magistrate, is reason enough for breaking him; but then I must not bring the complaint. It can be managed without that."

Thus gently musing over his hopes of vengeance on a man, who, belonging to an adverse party, had dared to speak the truth rather too eloquently in his presence, the Mayor spent perhaps half an hour very much in his usual way; for he had always some small plot to ripen just before retiring for the night, and his plan of vengeance on poor Chester was only a little more piquant than others, because it was more directly personal.

CHAPTER III.

THE POLICEMAN'S GUEST.

"Home, sweet home, Be it ever so humble there is no place like home."

Home is emphatically the poor man's paradise. The rich, with their many resources, too often live away from the hearth-stone, in heart, if not in person; but to the virtuous poor, domestic ties are the only legitimate and positive source of happiness short of that holier Heaven which is the soul's home.

The wife of Chester sat up for him that winter's night. It was so intensely cold that she could not find the heart to seek rest while he was exposed to the weather. The room in which she sat was a small chamber in the second story of a dwelling that contained two other families. Around her were many little articles of comfort tastefully arranged, and bearing a certain degree of elegance that always betrays the residence of a refined woman, however poor she may be. A well worn but neatly darned carpet covered the floor. The chairs, with their white rush bottoms, were without stain or dust. A mahogany breakfast-table, polished like a mirror, stood beneath a pretty looking-gla.s.s, whose guilt frame shone through a net-work of golden tissue-paper. Curtains of snow-white cotton, starched till they looked clear and bright as linen, were looped back from the windows, with knots of green riband. A pot or two of geraniums stood beneath the curtains, and near one of the windows hung a Canary bird sleeping upon its perch, with its feathers ruffled up like a ball of yellow silk.

All these objects, nothing in themselves, but so combined that an air of comfort and even elegance reigned over them, composed a most beautiful domestic picture; especially when Mrs. Chester, obeying the gentle sway of her Boston rocking-chair, pa.s.sed to and fro before the lamp by which she was sewing--cutting off the light from some object, and then allowing it to flow back again--giving a sort of animation to the stillness, peculiarly cheerful.

Now and then Jane Chester would lift her eyes to the clock, which, with a tiny looking-gla.s.s, framed in the mahogany beneath its dial, stood directly before her upon the mantle-piece. As the pointer approached the half hour before midnight, she laid the child's dress which she had been mending upon the little oblong candle-stand that held her lamp, and put a shovelful of coal on the grate of her little cooking-stove. Then she took a tea-kettle bright as silver from the stove, and went into a closet room at hand, where you could hear the clink of thin ice as it flowed from the water-pail into the tea-kettle.

When Mrs. Chester entered the room again with the kettle in her hand, a soft glow was on her cheek, and it would be difficult to imagine a lovelier or more cheerful face than hers. You could see by the rising color and the sweet expression of her mouth, that her heart was beginning to beat in a sort of fond tumult, as the time of her husband's return drew near. The fire was darting in a thousand bright flashes, through the black ma.s.s that had just been cast upon it, shooting out here and there a gleam of gold on the polished blackness of the stove, and curling up in little prismatic eddies around the tea-kettle as she placed it on the grate. The lamp, clean and bright as crystal could be made, was urged to a more brilliant flame by the point of her scissors, and then with another glance at the clock, the pretty housekeeper sat down in her chair again, and with one finely-shaped foot laced in its trim gaiter resting upon the stove hearth, she began to rock to and fro just far enough to try the spring of her ankle, without, however, once removing her boot from its pressure on the hearth.

"In twenty minutes more," she said aloud, lifting her fine eyes to the dial with a smile that told how impatiently she was coquetting with the time. "In twenty minutes. There, one has gone--another--five!--so now I may go to work in earnest."

She started up as if it delighted her to be in a hurry, and rolling up the child's frock removed it with a little work basket to the table. Then she spread a spotless cloth upon the stand, smoothing it lightly about the edges with both hands, and opening a little cupboard where you might have caught glimpses of a tea-set, all of snow-white china, and six bright silver spoons in a tumbler, spread out like a fan, with various other neat and useful things, part of which she busily transferred to the stand.

By the time her little supper table was ready, the kettle began to throw up a cloud of steam from its bright spout. A soft, mellow hum arose with it, rushing out louder and louder, like an imprisoned bird carousing in the vapor. The fire glowed up around it red, and cheerfully throwing its light in a golden circle on the carpet, the stand, and on the placid face of Jane Chester as she knelt before the grate, holding a slice of bread before the coals, now a little nearer, then further off, that every inch of the white surface might be equally browned.

When everything was ready--the plate of toast neatly b.u.t.tered--the tea put to soak in the drollest little china tea-pot you ever set eyes on, old fashioned, but bearing in every painted rose that cl.u.s.tered around it the most convincing evidence that Mrs. Chester must at least have had a grand mother--when all was ready, and while Mrs. Chester stood by the little supper stand pondering in her mind if anything had been omitted, she heard the turn of her husband's latchkey in the door.

"Just in time," she said, with one of those smiles which one never sees in perfect beauty away from home.