A Red Wallflower

'No, 'cause it's been standin' empty for a spell back, doin' nothin'. Ef there had been rent comin' in, I guess you'd have heard of it. But the last folks went out; and I hadn't found no one that suited me to let hev it.'

'Would it do for the colonel and Miss Esther?'

'That's jes' what I don' know, Christopher. It would du as fur's the rent goes; an' it's all right and tight. It won't let the rain in on 'em; I've kep' it in order.'

'I should like to see what you don't keep in order!' said Christopher admiringly.

'Wall, I guess it's my imagination. For, come to think of it, it ain't jes' sich a house as your folks are accustomed to.'

'The thing is,' said Christopher gravely, 'they can't have just what they're accustomed to. Leastways I'm afeard they can't. I'll just speak to Miss Esther about it.'

'Wall, you kin du that. 'Twon't du no harm. I allays think, when anybody's grown poor he'd best take in his belt a little.'

CHAPTER XXXI

MAJOR STREET

According to the conclusion thus arrived at, Christopher took the opportunity of speaking to Esther the very next time he was driving her in from school. Esther immediately pricked up her ears, and demanded to know where the house was situated. Christopher told her. It was a street she was not acquainted with.

'Do you know how to find the place, Christopher?'

'Oh, yes, Miss Esther; I can find the place, to be sure; but I'm afraid my little woman has made a mistake.'

'What is the rent?'

Christopher named the rent. It was less than what they were paying for the house they at present occupied; and Esther at once ordered Christopher to turn about and drive her to the spot.

It was certainly not a fashionable quarter, not even near Broadway or State Street; nevertheless it was respectable, inhabited by decent people. The house itself was a small wooden one. Now it is true that at that day New York was a very different place from what it is at present; and a wooden house, and even a small wooden house, did not mean then what it means now; an abode of Irish washerwomen, or of something still less distinguished. Yet Esther startled a little at the thought of bringing her father and herself to inhabit it. Christopher had the key; and he fastened Buonaparte, and let Esther in, and went all over the house with her. It was in order, truly, as its owner had said; even clean; and nothing was off the hinges or wanting paint or needing plaster. 'Right and tight' it was, and susceptible of being made an abode of comfort; yet it was a very humble dwelling, comparatively, and in an insignificant neighbourhood; and Esther hesitated. Was it pride? she asked herself. Why did she hesitate? Yet she lingered over the place, doubting and questioning and almost deciding it would not do. Then Christopher, I cannot tell whether consciously or otherwise, threw in a makeweight that fell in the scale that was threatening to rise.

'If you please, Miss Esther, would you speak to the master about the blacksmith's bill? I don't hardly never see the colonel, these days.'

Esther faced round upon him. The word 'bill' always came to her now like a sort of stab. She repeated his words. 'The blacksmith's bill?'

'Yes, mum; that is, Creasy, the blacksmith; just on the edge o' the town. It's been runnin' along, 'cause I never could get sight o' the colonel to speak to him about it.'

'Bill for what?'

'Shoes, mum.'

'Shoes?' repeated Esther. 'The blacksmith? What do you mean?'

'Shoes for Buonaparty, mum. He does kick off his shoes as fast as any horse ever I see; and they does wear, mum, on the stones.'

'How much is the bill?'

'Well, mum,' said Christopher uneasily, 'it's been runnin' along – and it's astonishin' how things does mount up. It's quite a good bit, mum; it's nigh on to fifty dollars.'

It took away Esther's breath. She turned away, that Christopher might not see her face, and began to look at the house as if a sudden new light had fallen upon it. Small and mean, and unfit for Colonel Gainsborough and his daughter, – that had been her judgment concerning it five minutes before; but now it suddenly presented itself as a refuge from distress. If they took it, the relief to their finances would be immediate and effectual. There was a little bit of struggle in Esther's mind; to give up their present home for this would involve a loss of all the prettiness in which she had found such refreshment; there would be here no river and no opposite shore, and no pleasant country around with grass and trees and a flower garden. There would be no garden at all, and no view, except of a very humdrum little street, built up and inhabited by mechanics and tradespeople of a humble grade. But then – no debt! And Esther remembered that in her daily prayer for daily bread she had also asked to be enabled to 'owe no man anything.' Was here the answer? And if this were the Lord's way for supplying her necessities, should she refuse to accept it and to be thankful for it?

'It is getting late,' was Esther's conclusion as she turned away. 'We had better get home, Christopher; but I think we will take the house. I must speak to papa; but I think we will take it. You may tell Mrs. Bounder so, with my thanks.'

It cost a little trouble, yet not much, to talk the colonel over. He did not go to see the house, and Esther did not press that he should; he took her report of it, which was an unvarnished one, and submitted himself to what seemed the inevitable. But his daughter knew that her task would have been harder if the colonel's imagination had had the assistance of his eyesight. She was sure that the move must be made, and if it were once effected she was almost sure she could make her father comfortable. To combat his objections beforehand might have been a more difficult matter. Esther found Mrs. Barker's dismay quite enough to deal with. Indeed, the good woman was at first overwhelmed; and sat down, the first time she was taken to the house, in a sort of despair, with a face wan in its anxiety.

'What's the matter, Barker?' Esther said cheerily. 'You and I will soon put this in nice order, with Christopher's help; and then, when we have got it fitted up, we shall be as comfortable as ever; you will see.'

'Oh dear Miss Esther!' the housekeeper ejaculated; 'that ever I should see this day! The like of you and my master!'

'What then?' said Esther, smiling. 'Barker, shall we not take what the

Lord gives us, and be thankful? I am.'

'There ain't no use for Christopher here, as I see,' Mrs. Barker went on.

'No, and he will not be here. Do you see now how happy it is that he has got a home of his own? – which you were disposed to think so unfortunate.'

'I haven't changed my mind, mum,' said the housekeeper. 'How's your horse goin' to be kep', without Christopher?'

'I am not going to keep the horse. Here I shall not need him.'

'The drives you took was very good for you, mum.'

'I will take walks instead. Don't you be troubled. Dear Barker, do you not think our dear Lord knows what is good for us? and do you not think what He chooses is the best? I do.'

Esther's face was very unshadowed, but the housekeeper's, on the contrary, seemed to darken more and more. She stood in the middle of the floor, in one of the small rooms, and surveyed the prospect, alternately within and without the windows.

'Miss Esther, dear,' she began again, as if irrepressibly, 'you're young, and you don't know how queer the world is. There's many folks that won't believe you are what you be, if they see you are livin' in a place like this.'

Did not Esther know that? and was it not one of the whispers in her mind which she found it hardest to combat? She had begun already to touch the world on that side on which Barker declared it was 'queer.' She went, it is true, hardly at all into society; scarce ever left the narrow track of her school routine; yet even there once or twice a chance encounter had obliged her to recognise the fact that in taking the post of a teacher she had stepped off the level of her former associates. It had hurt her a little and disappointed her. Nobody, indeed, had tried to be patronizing; that was nearly impossible towards anybody whose head was set on her shoulders in the manner of Miss Gainsborough's; but she felt the slighting regard in which low-bred people held her on account of her work and position. And so large a portion of the world is deficient in breeding, that to a young person at least the desire of self-assertion comes as a very natural and tolerably strong temptation. Esther had felt it, and trodden it under foot, and yet Mrs. Barker's words made her wince. How could anybody reasonably suppose that a gentleman would choose such a house and such a street to live in?

'Never mind, Barker,' she said cheerfully, after a pause. 'What we have to do is the right thing; and then let all the rest go.'

'Has the colonel seen it, Miss Esther?'

'No, and I do not mean he shall, till we have got it so nice for him that he will feel comfortable.'

The work of moving and getting settled began without delay. Mrs. Barker spent all the afternoons at the new house; and thither came Esther also every day as soon as school was out at three o'clock. The girl worked very hard in these times; for after her long morning in school she gave the rest of the daylight hours to arranging and establishing furniture, hanging draperies, putting up hooks, and the like; and after that she went home to make her father's tea, and give him as much cheery talk as she could command. In the business of moving, however, she found unexpected assistance.

When Christopher told his wife of the decision about the house, the answering remark, made approvingly, was, 'That's a spunky little girl!'

'What do you mean?' said Christopher, not approving such an irreverent expression.

'She's got stuff in her. I like that sort.'

'But that house ain't really a place for her, you know.'

'That's what I'm lookin' at,' returned Mrs. Bounder, with a broad smile at him. 'She ain't scared by no nonsense from duin' what she's got to du. Don't you be scared neither; houses don't make the folks that live in 'em. But what I'm thinkin' of is, they'll want lots o' help to git along with their movin'. Christopher, do you know there's a big box waggin in the barn?'

'I know it.'

'Wall, that'll carry their things fust-rate, ef you kin tackle up your fine-steppin' French emperor there with our Dolly. Will he draw in double harness?'

'Will he! Well, I'll try to persuade him.'

'An' you needn't to let on anything about it. They ain't obleeged to know where the waggin comes from.'

'You're as clever a woman as any I know!' said Mr. Bounder, with a smile of complacency. 'Sally up there can't beat you; and she's a smart woman, too.'

A few minutes were given to the business of the supper table, and then

Mrs. Bounder asked, —

'What are they goin' to du with the French emperor?'

'Buonaparte?' (Christopher called it 'Buonaparty.') 'Well, they'll have to get rid of him somehow. I suppose that job'll come on me.'

'I was thinkin'. Our Dolly's gittin' old' —

'Buonaparty was old some time ago,' returned Christopher, with a sly twinkle of his eyes as he looked at his wife.

'There's work in him yet, ain't there?'

'Lots!'

'Then two old ones would be as good as one young one, and better, for they'd draw the double waggin. What'll they ask for him?'

'It'll be what I can get, I'm thinking.'

'What did you pay for him?'

Christopher named the sum the colonel had given. It was not a high figure; however, he knew, and she knew, that a common draught horse for their garden work could be had for something less. Mrs. Bounder meditated a little, and finally concluded, —

'It won't break us.'

'Save me lots o' trouble,' said Christopher; 'if you don't mind paying so much.'

'If you don't mind, Christopher,' his wife returned, with a grin.

'I've got the money here in the house; you might hand it over to Miss

Esther to-morrow; I'll bet you she'll know what to du with it.'

Christopher nodded. 'She'll be uncommon glad of it, to be sure! There ain't much cash come into her hands for a good bit. And I see sometimes she's been real worrited.'

So Esther's path was smoothed in more ways than one, and even in more ways than I have indicated. For Mrs. Bounder went over and insinuated herself (with some difficulty) so far into Mrs. Barker's good graces that she was allowed to give her help in the multifarious business and cares of the moving. She was capital help. Mrs. Barker soon found that any packing intrusted to her was sure to be safely done; and the little woman's wits were of the first order, always at hand, cool, keen, and comprehensive. She followed, or rather went with the waggon to the house in Major Street; helped unpack, helped put down carpets, helped clear away litter and arrange things in order; and further still, she constantly brought something with her for the bodily refreshment and comfort of Esther and the housekeeper. Her delicious rye bread came, loaf after loaf, sweet butter, eggs, and at last some golden honey. There was no hindering her; and her presence and ministry grew to be a great assistance and pleasure also to Esther. Esther tried to tell her something of this. 'You cannot think how your kindness has helped me,' she said, with a look which told more than her words.

'Don't!' said Mrs. Bounder, when this had happened a second time. 'I was readin' in the Bible the other day – you set me readin' the Bible, Miss Esther – where it says somethin' about a good woman "ministerin' to the saints." I ain't no saint myself, and I guess it'll never be said of me; but I suppose the next thing to bein' a saint is ministerin' to the saints, and I'd like to du that anyhow, ef I only knowed how.'

'You have been kind ever since I knew you,' said Esther. 'I am glad to know our Christopher has got such a good wife.'

Mrs. Bounder laughed a little slyly, as she retorted, 'Ain't there nothin' to be glad of on my side tu?'

'Indeed, yes!' answered Esther. 'Christopher is as true and faithful as it is possible to be; and as to business – But you do not need that I should tell you what Christopher is,' she broke off, laughing.

There was a pleasant look in the little woman's eyes as she stood up for a moment and faced Esther.

'I guess I took him most of all because he be longed to you!' she said.

CHAPTER XXXII

MOVING

Esther made to herself a pleasure of getting the little dwelling in order. With two such helpers as she had, the work went on bravely, and Christopher got in coal and chopped wood enough to last all winter. The ready money from the sale of Buonaparte had given her the means for that and for some other things. She was intent upon making the new home look so homelike that her father should be in some measure consoled for the shock which she knew its exterior would give him. The colonel liked no fire so well as one of his native 'sea-coal.' The house had open fireplaces only. So Esther had some neat grates put in the two lower rooms and in her father's sleeping chamber. They had plenty of carpets, and the two little parlours were soon looking quite habitable.

'We will keep the back one for a dining-room,' she said to Mrs. Barker; 'that will be convenient for you, being nearest the kitchen stairs, and this will be for papa's study. But it has a bare look yet. I must make some curtains and put up, to hide the view of that dreadful street.'

'That'll cost money, mum,' observed the housekeeper. 'Wouldn't some o' them old ones at home be passable, if they was made over a bit?'

'The colour would not fit here. No, that would not do. I'll get some chintz that is dark and bright at once. I have money. Oh, we are going to be rich now, Barker; and you shall not be stinted in your marketing any more. And this is going to be very nice, inside.'

To the outside Esther could not get accustomed. It gave her a kind of prick of dismay every time she saw it anew. What would her father say when he saw it? Yet she had done right and wisely; of that she had no doubt at all; it was very unreasonable that, her judgment being satisfied, her feeling should rebel. Yet it did rebel. When did ever one of her family live in such a place before? They had come down surely very far, to make it possible. Only in the matter of money, to be sure; but then, money has to do largely with the outward appearance one makes, and upon the appearance depends much of the effect upon one's fellow-creatures. The whisper would come back in Esther's mind: Who will believe you are what you are, if they see you coming out of such a house? And what then? she answered the whisper. If the Lord has given us this place to dwell in, that and all other effects and consequences of it are part of His will in the matter. What if we are to be overlooked and looked down upon? what have I to do with it? what matters it? Let pride be quiet, and faith be very thankful. Here are all my difficulties set aside, and no danger of not paying our debts any more.

She reasoned so, and fought against pride, if pride it were, which took the other side. She would be thankful; and she was. Nevertheless, a comparison would arise now and then with the former times, and with their state at Seaforth; and further back still, with the beauties and glories of the old manor house in England. Sometimes Esther felt a strange wave of regret come over her at the thought of the gay circle of relations she did not know, who were warm in the shelter of prosperity and the cheer of numbers. She knew herself in a better shelter, yes, and in a better cheer; and yet sometimes, as I said, an odd feeling of loss and descent would come over her as she entered Major Street Esther was working hard these days, which no doubt had something to do with this. She rushed from her morning duties to the school; then at three o'clock rushed to Major Street; and from there, when it grew too dark to work, drove home to minister to her father. Probably her times of discouragement were times when she was a little tired. The thought was very far from her usually. In her healthy and happy youth, busy life, and mental and spiritual growth and thrift, Esther's wants seemed to be all satisfied; and so long as things ran their ordinary course, she felt no deficiency. But there are conditions in which one is warm so long as one does not move, while the first stir of change brings a chill over one. And so sometimes now, as Esther entered Major Street or set her face towards it, she would think of her far-off circle of Gainsborough cousins, with a half wish that her father could have borne with them a little more patiently; and once or twice the thought came too, that the Dallases never let themselves be heard from any more. Not even Pitt. She would not have thought it of him, but he was away in a foreign country, and it must be that he had forgotten them. His father and mother were near, and could not forget; was not the old house there before them always to remind them? But they were rich and prosperous and abounding in everything; they had no need of the lonely two who had gone out of their sight and who did need them. It was the way of the world; so the world said. Esther wondered if that were really true, and also wondered now and then if Major Street were to be henceforth not only the sphere but the limit of her existence. She never gave such thoughts harbour; they came and they went; and she remained the cheerful, brave, busy girl she had long been.

The small house at last looked homelike. On the front room Esther had put a warm, dark-looking carpet; the chintz curtains were up and in harmony with the carpet; and the colonel's lounge was new covered with the same stuff. The old furniture had been arranged so as to give that pleasant cosy air to the room which is such a welcome to the person entering it, making the impression of comfort and good taste and of the habit of good living; not good living in matters of the table, but in those other matters which concern the mind's nourishment and social well-being. Everything was right and in order, and Esther surveyed her work with much content.

'It looks very nice,' she said to her good friend the housekeeper.

'It do, mum,' Mrs. Barker answered, with a reservation. 'But I'm thinkin', Miss Esther, I can't stop thinkin', whatever'll the colonel say when he sees the outside.'

'He shall see the inside first. I have arranged that. And, Barker, we must have a capital supper ready for him. We can afford it now. Have a pheasant, Barker; there is nothing he likes better; and some of that beautiful honey Mrs. Bounder has brought us; I never saw such rich honey, I think. And I have good hope papa will be pleased, and put up with things, as I do.'

'Your papa remembers Gainsborough Manor, mum, and that's what you don't.'

'What then! Mrs. Barker, do you really think the Lord does not know what is good for us? That is sheer unbelief. Take what He gives, and be thankful. Barker, why do you suppose the angels came to the sepulchre so, as they did the morning of the resurrection?'

'Mum!' said Mrs. Barker, quite taken aback by this sudden change of subject. But Esther went on in a pleasant, pleased tone of interest.

'I was reading the last chapter of Matthew this morning, and it set me to thinking. You know a number of them, the angels, came, and were seen about the sepulchre; and I suppose there was just a crowd of them coming and going that morning. What for, do you suppose?'

'Miss Esther!' said the housekeeper open-mouthed, 'I'm sure I can't say.'

'Why, they came to see the place, Barker; just for that. They knew what had been done, and they just came in crowds, as soon as Jesus had left the sepulchre – perhaps before – to look at the spot where that wonder of all wonders had been. But it never occurred to me before how like it was to the way we human creatures feel and do. That was what they came for; and don't you remember what one of them, with his lightning face and his robes of whiteness, sitting on the stone, said to the women? He told them to do what he had been doing. "Come see the place." It brought the angels nearer to me than ever they had seemed to be before.'

Mrs. Barker stood there spellbound, silenced. To be sure, if Miss Esther's head was so busy with the angels, she was in a sort lifted up above the small matters or accidents of common earthly life. And as much as the words the girl's face awed her too, its expression was so consonant with them.

'Now, Barker, Christopher may bring up some coal and make a fire before he drives back for papa. In both rooms, Barker. And – Hark! what is that?'

A long-drawn, musical cry was sounding a little distance off, slowly coming nearer as it was repeated. A cry that New York never hears now, but that used to come through the streets in the evening with a sonorous, half melancholy intonation, pleasant to hear.

'Oys – ters! – Oys – ters! Here's your fresh oys – ters!'

'That's just what we want, Barker. Get Christopher to stop the man.'

Esther had arranged that her father's room and belongings at home should not be disturbed until the very day when he himself should make the transfer from the one house to the other. So until that morning even the colonel's sofa had not been moved. Now it was brought over and placed in position between the fireplace and the window, where the occupant would have plenty of light and warmth. The new chintz cover had been put on it; the table was placed properly, and the books which the colonel liked to have at hand lay in their usual position. In the back room the table was set for supper. The rooms communicated, though indeed not by folding doors; still the eye could go through and catch the glow of the fire, and see the neat green drugget on the floor and the pleasant array on the supper table.

'It looks very nice, Barker!' Esther could not help saying again.

'It certainly do, mum,' was the answer, in which, nevertheless, Esther heard the aforementioned mental reservation. If her father liked it! Yes, that could not be known till he came; and she drew a breath of patient anxiety. It was too dark for him to take the effect of anything outside; she had arranged that. One thing at a time, she thought. The house to-day; Major Street to-morrow.