The Open Question Part 5

Perhaps in the dim recesses of her mind she had some formless idea of learning this lyric.

"It's not a song," said Miss Hannah, hurriedly. "Come, child, it's time you went to bed."

"Nwingy Tat, first," said Ethan, firmly.

"Oh, hum it for the child!" said Mr. Tallmadge, impatiently.

Miss Hannah's face took on a dull-red hue, but obediently she began in a thin, sweet little voice:

"'There was an old New England cat, New England cat, New England cat-- There was an old New England cat went out to seek her prey.

"'She chased a mouse from house to house, From house to house, from house to house-- She chased a mouse from house to house upon the Sabbath day.

"'The parson so astonished was, Astonished was, astonished was-- The parson so astonished was to see--the cat profanes!

"'He took his book and threw it down, And threw it down, and threw it down-- He took his book and threw it down, and bound the cat in chains.'"

Mrs. Gano was as "astonished" at this performance as "the parson." Ethan nodded a grave encore.

"Nwingy Tat!"

Whereat they all laughed with the best humor in the world, and Ethan was carried off to bed.

Mrs. Gano, under plea of weariness from travel, made her "good-nights"

at the same time, arranging to return to Ashburton Place the next day.

She wakened early the following morning. Reviewing the events of the evening before, and having now dispa.s.sionate regard to the object of her visit, she registered a vow that no provocation upon earth should induce her another time to touch upon any vexed question. The opinions of these Tallmadges were not apparently to be altered any more than her own were.

If she were going to wring any concession out of them with reference to Ethan, she must walk warily, she must appeal more to their sense of justice and family feeling. She was in their power. It was theirs to dictate terms. A new situation for Sarah C. Gano, but she would make the best of it.

When she arrived at Ashburton Place before ten o'clock, Miss Hannah was just leaving the house.

"_Oh!_" she said, as nervous people will, as though you had pinched them.

"Good-morning!" Mrs. Gano bowed urbanely.

"Good-morning! We understood you couldn't go out before the afternoon."

"Yes, I can never count on being fit for much in the morning; but to-day I am abroad early. Shall I find the child?"

She made a motion towards the house.

"Ethan has just gone to school. Pa took him to-day."

"Oh! And you are going to walk?"

"No--y-yes--a little way."

Miss Tallmadge's embarra.s.sment seemed to rouse in Mrs. Gano's breast a sentiment to which it was commonly a stranger. She was curious. Ought she not to know something about this woman who stood in the relation of mother to Ethan? What was her life like? What were her interests?

"I have always heard," the visitor said, as they walked along Somerset, and through Beacon to Tremont Street--"always heard what admirable house-keepers the New England women are. Do you do your own marketing?"

"Yes; but always earlier."

"This is a good time for shopping, before the crowded mid-day. I must look for a shawl of some kind."

"I would be glad to show you the best place for such things, but to-day I--I have a most important engagement."

She paused near a stationer's. On the right a staircase led from the street to the floor above. Several ladies bustled past, nodding good-morning to Miss Tallmadge, and disappearing up these stairs. Mrs.

Gano's keen eyes explored the precincts. A small placard in the entry stated in white letters on lacquered tin: "Ladies' Domestic Philanthropic Society (Colored Registry Office)."

"H'm!" she said, not seeming to see the nervous hand seeking farewell.

"Colored! What color?"

"I suppose you would say black."

Miss Tallmadge had drawn herself up.

"I should probably say negro. But I've heard they like to call themselves colored. Seems a curious taste. Always suggests variegated to me."

"That is not how we mean it," said Miss Tallmadge solemnly, making way for more ladies who swarmed up the staircase. "We are a little group of people working on purely humanitarian principles, finding succor and employment for the dest.i.tute, thrown out of work by--"

"Yes; we know by whom." Then, with a misleading geniality: "This idea of rest.i.tution seems to me very right and proper."

Miss Tallmadge's face betrayed perplexity. A shivering little quadroon girl crept up the stairs behind a coal-black old man.

"It is too difficult, perhaps, to make plain our point of view," said Miss Hannah, with quiet dignity, "otherwise I should feel it my duty while you are in Boston to show you--"

"Have you the right," interrupted her visitor, "to bring a stranger to these colored meetings?"

"I have frequently brought a friend. Perhaps--" Miss Hannah's good face brightened. "We don't discuss politics, and perhaps if you could see something of the pains we take to befriend and find homes for these poor creatures--"

"I am ready to attend the meeting," announced Mrs. Gano, tightening her bonnet-strings. "It sounds like a sensible inst.i.tution. We had the best cooks, the only well-trained servants in America. They must be a G.o.dsend here in the North."

She remembered, as she mounted the stairs behind Miss Hannah, that her hostess had not provided 16 Ashburton Place with any of these "colored"

joys, and she reflected that she had not yet seen a darky since her arrival except the old man and little girl on in front of them.

A clock struck ten as Miss Tallmadge hurriedly led the way up the second flight to the registry-office. When she caught up to the old negro, the domestic philanthropist applied her handkerchief to her nose.

The society's room was unexpectedly s.p.a.cious, furnished with a desk fronting a goodly a.s.semblage of ladies seated in rows upon rows of cane chairs. On the right a s.p.a.ce was railed off, and set close with empty wooden benches. Miss Tallmadge explained in a whisper that "the candidates" were kept in an adjoining room till a later stage in the proceedings. As for the domestic philanthropists, there were so many of them that there was some difficulty in finding Mrs. Gano a seat. As the late-comers settled themselves, a thin, hard-featured lady with a dogged manner took her place at the desk. This action moved the D. P.'s to a faint flutter of applause. The President laid down some papers, drew off her gloves, folded her hands, and invoked a blessing.

"And now, ladies, we will proceed to business."

She read a report. At the end she characterized it as highly satisfactory, considering the wellnigh superhuman difficulties in the way of the object of the society. She gave an unflattering account of the extravagance, filth, and idleness cultivated in servants by the Southern regime. She told of thrifty New England housewives' experience with highly recommended Southern cooks--stories that moved the domestic philanthropists to open expressions of horror. No one denied colored women knew how to cook, but they were lazy and dirty beyond measure, and required the markets of the whole world to supply their inordinate wants. As for what they threw away, it would feed a cityful! To Miss Hannah's evident relief, Mrs. Gano nodded and whispered:

"True as Gospel--_that_ much of it."

"Still," the President pointed out, "philanthropy must bear with these evils; philanthropy must find these outcasts homes. What can be expected of poor down-trodden slaves? called on to suffer every ignominy, torn from their children, quivering under the lash, bought and sold like dumb-driven cattle! Out of compa.s.sion for these fellow-creatures who are, like ourselves, children of G.o.d--His latter-day martyrs--we have met here this morning to bring succor and to offer service. Daughter, call in the candidates."