"To show you the pettiness of Stahle's revenge, I will mention one or two incidents:
"One evening, while walking my room, a needle penetrated the thin sole of my slipper, and was at once half buried in my foot. Three times, with all my strength, I tried to extricate it; the fourth, and I was still unsuccessful; both strength and courage now failed me. Stahle, from the other side of the room, looked coolly on, and, with a Satanic smile, said, 'Why don't you pull again?' With the courage inspired by this brutal question, I seized the protruding point of the needle with my trembling fingers, and finally succeeded in withdrawing it.
"That evening sharp pains commenced shooting through my foot, extending quite to my side. I began to grow uneasy as they increased, and requested Stahle to send for the doctor. This he peremptorily refused to do. I waited a while longer, my limb in the mean time growing more and more painful. Again I requested Stahle to go for the doctor, or I should be obliged to send some one. At this he put on his hat and coat, and went out. After a prolonged absence he returned, not with a doctor, but a bottle of leeches, which he said 'had been ordered,' and set down the bottle containing them on a table at the further end of the room.
"It had become by that time quite difficult for me to step, as the needle had penetrated the sole of my foot; but, by the help of chairs, I pushed myself along until I reached the bottle.
"I am not given to faintings or womanish fears, but from my childhood I have had a shuddering horror of any thing like a snake; so unconquerable was this aversion, that I was forced to date it back prior to my birth.
"Stahle was aware of this weakness, and as, with a strong effort at self-command, I took up the bottle and then set it down again in a paroxysm of terror at the squirming inmates, he laughed derisively. That laugh nerved me with new strength. I uncorked the bottle, holding its mouth close to my foot, that the leeches might fasten on it, without my touching them with my fingers.
"As the first one greedily struck at my foot, I fainted. The effort at self-control in my nervous, excited state, was too much for me.
"When I recovered, the broken bottle lay upon the floor, the leeches had disappeared, save the one which had fastened upon my foot, and Stahle had gone to bed.
"Not long after this, unable to go out myself, I sent my little Arthur of a necessary errand. He had attended to it successfully, and was returning, when a gig, furiously driven by two young men, turned rapidly a street-corner, ran against and prostrated him. Arthur was a very spirited little fellow, and, beside, had much of the Spartan in his temperament. A policeman who saw the transaction, stepped up and raised him upon his feet, the brave child stoutly maintaining that he was 'not much hurt.' With all this bravery, Arthur was also shy and sensitive, and the gathering crowd and the immediate proximity of the policeman annoyed and mortified him. The policeman, however, true to his duty, would not leave him, and Arthur, whose love to me no thought of self could ever obliterate, gave him the number of Stahle's place of business instead of our residence, lest I should be distressed or frightened in my invalid state by their sudden appearance.
"The policeman accordingly left him there, satisfied that he would be kindly cared for by a father. After he had gone, Stahle put his pen behind his ear, his hands in his pockets, and, surveying my boy a moment, said, 'Well, sir, go home to your mother.'
"Child as he was, he would have died rather than ask for the conveyance which he so much needed, or even for Stahle's helping hand on the way – for it was a long distance to our lodgings – and Stahle saw him limp out without offering either.
"The door opened, and with white lips my brave boy staggered into the room, and briefly narrated his misfortune, still persisting, though the pain was even then forcing tears from his eyes, that he was 'not hurt.' I took off his clothes, and found his side already quite black with the bruise he had received, and so sore that, though he still refrained from complaining, he winced at the lightest touch of my finger.
"I had not a cent in my possession. I had not had for a long time, for I never had asked Stahle for money. This Stahle knew, and that day and night, and half of the following day he purposely absented himself, leaving me to get along in these circumstances as best I could with the child. On his return he asked no questions and took no notice of the occurrence, although Arthur was still a prisoner to the sofa. Not a word passed my lips either on the subject, though this, to my maternal heart, had been the heaviest trial it had yet been called to bear.
"Time passed on, and Arthur had become convalescent. I was now so extremely nervous from mental suffering, that I found it impossible to sleep unless I first wearied myself with out-door exercise.
"Tying on my bonnet, I went out one afternoon for the purpose. The noise and whirl of the street was an untold relief to me.
"Motion – motion – when the brain reels, and despair tugs at the heart-strings!
"On my return I was not obliged to ring at the front door, as some persons were standing upon the steps talking; I passed them and my light footfall on the carpet, being noiseless, I entered the door of my room unheralded.
"Judge of my astonishment when I saw Stahle standing with his back to me, quite unaware of my presence, inspecting (by means of false keys) the contents of my private writing-desk! opening my husband's letters, sacred to me as the memory of his love; reading others from valued friends, received before my marriage with Stahle – not one of which, for any stain they cast on me, might not have been bared to the world's censorious eye.
"He then took up my husband's miniature – O, how unlike the craven face which bent over it! At last, I was choking with passion; this was the brimming drop in my cup; you might have known it by the low, calm tone with which I almost whispered as I laid my trembling hand on my treasures – 'these are mine not yours – "
"They were the only words which escaped my lips, but there must have been something in the tone and in my face, before which his spirit cowered. He made no attempt to resist me as I took possession of them, but turning doggedly on his heel, muttered: 'the law says you can have nothing that is not mine.' O, how many crushed and bleeding hearts all over our land can endorse the truth of this brutal answer.
"Stahle began now to spend his nights away from home; I had never yet made a complaint or remonstrance except in the case just stated. I did not now. If it was his purpose with his usual want of insight into my character, to give me a long cord with which to hang myself, it failed, for my boy and I slumbered innocently and peacefully.
"You may ask why, with these feelings toward me, he did not desert me; for two reasons. 1st. He had a religious character to sustain; during all this time he was more constant than ever, if that were possible, at every church and vestry-meeting, often taking part in the exercises, and always out-singing and out-praying every other church-member. 2d. It was his expectation by these continuous private indignities, which many a wife suffers in silence, to force me to leave him, and thus preserve his pietistic reputation untarnished. All these plans, which I perfectly understood, failed. He could find nothing upon which to sustain a charge against me, either in my daily conduct, or in my private correspondence, dated, long years before he knew me, but which the law allowed him to inspect.
"I contracted no debts because he would not supply my necessary wants. I took no advantage of his absence from home to forfeit my own self-respect. What was to be done? He must move cautiously, for the maintenance of a religious character was his stock in trade.
"Returning from a walk one day with my little Arthur, I found a note on my table from Stahle, saying 'that he had suddenly been called South on business, and should remain a few days.' I have never seen him since. Not that I did not hear from him, for the plan was legally concocted. Letters were written to me by him, saying 'that he was searching for a good business-situation, and would send for me when he found it.' Sending for me to join him, but making no mention of my boy. Sending for me to come hundreds of miles away under the escort of his brother, whom I had ascertained to have uttered the foulest slanders about me (and who was to be my protector and purser on the occasion). Every letter was legally worded; 'my dear Gertrude' was at the top of the letter, and 'your affectionate husband' at the bottom. They were always delivered to me by two witnesses, that I might not dodge having received them. And yet each one, though without a flaw in the eye of the law, was so managed as to render compliance with it impossible, had I desired to rejoin a man who had done, and was still covertly doing, all in his power to injure my good name. In the meanwhile, what he dared not do openly, he did by the underground railroad of slander; insinuations were made by those in his employ; eyebrows were raised, shoulders were shrugged, hints thrown out that my extravagance had rendered it necessary for him to leave me. (I, who had never asked for a cent since our marriage, whose nimble needle had replenished his own and his children's dilapidated wardrobes.)
"Men stared insolently at me in the street; women cast self-righteous scornful glances; 'friends' worse than foes, were emboldened by his villainy to subject themselves to a withering repulse from her who sought to earn her honest bread.
"Did I go out in search of employment – I was 'parading to show myself.' Did I stay within doors – 'there was no doubt a good reason why I dared not go out.' Did I keep my own and my boy's small stock of clothing whole, tidy, and neat – 'they would like to know who kept me in clothes now.'"
"Surely," said Rose, interrupting her, "surely, dear Gertrude, there must have been those who knew, and could bear witness, that you were good and innocent."
"True," answered Gertrude, "there were those who could do so, but admitting this fact, what plausible excuse could they make for not being my helpers and defenders on all needful occasions? No, dear Rose, the world is a selfish one, and degrading as it is to human nature to assert it, it is nevertheless true, that there are many, like those summer friends of mine, who would stand by with dumb lips and see the slanderer distill, drop by drop, his poison into the life-blood of his victim, rather than bring forward, at some probable cost to themselves, the antidote of truth in their possession. Even blood relations have been known to circulate what they knew to be a slander to cover their parsimony. And those people, who are the most greedy listeners to the slanderer's racy tale, are the people who "never meddle in such things," when called upon to refute it.
"Did these bitter taunts crush me? Was I to become, through despair, the vile thing Stahle and his agents wished?"
"No! The nights I walked my chamber-floor, with my finger-nails piercing my clinched palms till the blood came, were not without their use. I weighed every faculty God had given me, measured every power, with a view to its marketable use. I found one yet untried. I seized my pencil, and I triumphed even with the blood-hounds on my track, for God helped the innocent."
"Oh, teach me that, strong-hearted, noble Gertrude, teach me that! for I have no stay this side Heaven!" and, with sobbing utterance, Rose poured into Gertrude's sympathizing heart the checkered story of her life.
Did she whose courage had parted the stormy waters of trouble, and who had come out triumphant, turn a deaf ear to that wail of despair?
Is woman always the bitterest foe of her crushed sister? always the first to throw a stone at her?
No – God be thanked! For the first time Rose was folded to a loving sister's heart, and in the sweet words of Ruth to Naomi, Gertrude said, as she bade Rose good-night,
"Whither thou goest I will go; whither thou lodgest I will lodge; naught but death shall part thee and me."
Was the watchman's midnight cry, "All's well," beneath the window, a prophecy?
CHAPTER XL
"Seems to me that you are nudging a fellow for his ticket every five minutes," said a lantern-jawed looking individual to the railroad conductor, as he roused himself from his nap, and pulled a bit of red pasteboard from his hat-band. "I feel as if my gastronomic region had been scooped out, and rubbed dry with a crash-towel; how long before we stop, hey?"
"Buy some books, sir?" said a young itinerant bookseller to our hungry traveler.
"Have you the 'True guide for travelers to preserve their temper?'" said our friend to the urchin.
The boy looked anxiously over the titles of his little library, and replied, with a shake of the head, "No, sir, I never heard of it."
"Nor I either," responded the hungry growler; "so get about your business; the best book that was ever written can neither be ate nor drank; I'd give a whole library for a glass of brandy and water this minute," and the unhappy man folded his arms over his waistband, and doubled himself up like a hedgehog in the corner.
"I am always sure to get a seat on the sunny side of the cars, and next to an Irish woman," muttered a young lady. "I wonder do the Irish never feed on any thing but rum and onions?"
"Very uncomfortable, these seats," muttered a gentleman who had tried all sorts of positions to accommodate his vertebræ; "the corporation really should attend to it. I will write an article about it in my paper, as soon as I reach home. I will annihilate the whole concern; they ought to remember that editors occasionally travel, and remember which side their bread is buttered. Shade of Franklin! how my bones ache; they shall hear of this in 'The Weekly Scimeter.' It is a downright imposition."
In fact, every body was cross; every body was hungry and begrimed with dust; every body was ready to explode at the next feather's weight of annoyance.
Not every body; there was one dear little girl who found sunshine even there, and ran about extracting honey from what to others were only bitter herbs. Holding on by the seats, she passed up and down the narrow avenue between the benches, peeping with the brightest smile in the world into the faces of the cross passengers, drinking from the little tin-cup at the water-tank, clapping her hands at the sound of the whistle, and touching the sleeve even of the hedgehog gentleman rolled up in the corner. The child's mother sat on the back seat, looking after her as kindly as she was able; but, poor thing, traveling made her sick, and she held her camphor-bottle to her nostrils, and leaned gasping against the window-sill to catch every stray breath of air.
What's that?
Crash goes the window-glass; clouds of scalding steam pour into the cars, which seem to be vibrating in mid-air; benches, baskets, bags, and passengers are all jumbled pell-mell together; every face is blanched with terror.
"Oh, it's nothing, only the cars run off the track – only the engine smashed, and baggage-car a wreck – only the passengers' trunks disemboweled in a muddy brook – only the engineer scalded, and the passengers turned out into a wet meadow in a pelting shower of rain; that's all. Not a son of Adam was to blame for it – of course not," growls the exasperated editor. "Thank Heaven the Superintendent of the road and the Directors were in the forward car and got the first baptism in that muddy brook."
"Zounds!" he exclaimed, pinning up his torn coat-flap, and punching out the crown of his hat; "they shall hear of this in 'The Weekly Scimeter.' Railroad companies should remember that editors sometimes travel."
"May! my little May!" gasped the poor sick woman, recovering herself, and looking about for her child; "where's May?"
Ah, where's May? Folded in His arms who carries the little lambs so safely in his bosom – gone with the smile yet bright on her lip.
Blithe little May!
They take the little lifeless form and bear it across the fields to the nearest farm-house, and the mother falls senseless, with her face to the damp grass – the last tie of her widowed heart broken.
"Sad accident, ma'am – hope you are not hurt," said the bustling village doctor to a lady who held her handkerchief over her mouth. "Deplorable!" exclaimed the delighted doctor. "My engagements are very pressing in the village – five cases of typhoid fever, two of chicken-pox – hurried up here in the face of promise to a lady, wife of one of our richest men, not to be gone over half an hour, in case she should want me. Ladies can't always tell exactly, you know, ma'am.
"Jaw-bone fractured? I'm somewhat in a hurry. Senator Scott's wife, too, was very unwilling I should leave my office – ;" and the doctor drew out a Lepine watch, as if his moments were so much gold-dust – as if he had not sat in his leathern chair, week in and week out, watching the spiders catch flies, and wishing he were a spider, and the flies were his patients.
"Jaw-bone broke, ma'am?" he asked, again.
"She is not hurt at all, I tell you," growled Mr. Howe, shaking the rain from his hat, as he stood knee-deep in the tall meadow-grass. "She lost her set of false teeth in the collision, and if you jabber at her till the last day you won't catch her to open her mouth till she gets another set."
"Mr. Howe," said that gentleman's wife, in a muffled voice from behind the handkerchief, "how can you?"
"How can I? I can do any thing, Mrs. Howe. Are not our trunks all emptied into that cursed brook? All that French trumpery spoiled for which you have been draining my pocket all the spring to go to Saratoga. Did I want to come on this journey? Don't I hate journeying? Haven't I been obliged to go a whole day at a time with next to nothing on my stomach? Haven't I been poked in the ribs every fifteen minutes for the conductor to amuse himself by snipping off the ends of my railroad tickets? Don't my head feel as if Dodworth's brass band were playing Yankee Doodle inside of it? Refreshments! Yes – what are the refreshments? A rush round a semicircular counter by all sorts of barbarians – bowls of oysters, scalding hot, and ten minutes to swallow them – tea without milk – coffee without sugar – bread without butter, and unmitigated egg – no pepper – no salt – no nothing, and, seventy-five cents to pay; the whole thing is an outrageous humbug; and now here's this collision, and your false teeth gone, not to mention other things."
Another muffled groan from behind the handkerchief.
"I'll have damages, heavy damages – let me see, there is the teeth, $200."
"Good heaven's, Mr. Howe," shrieked his wife – "you don't mean to mention them to the corporation?"
"But I do, though," said John, "you never will be easy till you get another set, and I mean they shall find 'em."
Another groan from behind the handkerchief.
"Passengers, please go through the meadow, and the cow-yard, yonder, and cross the stile to get into the cars beyond," shouted the brakeman.
Down jumped the ladies from their perches on the fences where they had been roosting, like draggled hens in the rain, for the last half hour, and all made a rush for the cow-yard.
"There now, Mrs. Howe – do you hear that? A pretty tramp through that high grass for your skirts and thin gaiter-boots. This is what tourists call the delights of traveling, I suppose – humph."
"We shan't get to – till the middle of the night, I suppose —i. e., provided the conductor concludes not to have another smash-up. There will be no refreshments, of course, to be had, that are good for any thing, at that time o' night; waiters sleepy and surly, and I as hungry as a bear who has had nothing but his claws to eat all winter. Pleasant prospect that. You needn't hold up your skirts Mrs. Howe; there's no dodging that tall grass. Trip to Saratoga! Mr. John Howe and lady – ha – ha! Catch me in such a trap again, Mrs. Howe."
Precisely at two o'clock in the morning, our hungry and jaded travelers arrived at – . A warm cup of tea and some cold chicken, somewhat mollified our hero, and he was just subsiding into that Christian frame of mind common to his sex when their hunger is appeased, when happening to remark to the waiter who stood beside him, that he was glad to find so good a supper so late at night – that worthy unfortunately replied:
"Oh – yes! massa! de cars keep running off de track so often dat we have to keep de food ready all de time, 'cause dere's no knowing, you see, when de travelers will come; and dey is always powerful hungry."
"Do you hear that?" said Mr. Howe to his wife, who was munching, as well as she was able, behind her handkerchief; "and we have got to go back the same road. You may not want that other set of teeth, after all, my dear."
"Sh – sh – sh – " said that lady, treading not very gently on his corns under the table – "are you mad, Mr. Howe?"
"Yes," muttered her husband – "stark, staring mad, I have been mad all day – mad ever since I started on this journey; and I shall continue mad till I get back to St. John's Square and my old arm-chair and slippers;" and long after the light was extinguished, Mr. Howe was muttering in his sleep, "I'll have damages – let me see, there's $200 for the teeth."
From that journey Mr. Howe dated his final and triumphant Declaration of Domestic Independence. The spell of Mrs. Howe's cabalistic whisper was broken. Mr. Howe had a counter-spell. Mrs. Howe's day was over. Mr. Howe could smoke up stairs and down stairs, and in my lady's chamber; he could brush his coat in the best parlor; put his booted feet on the sofa, and read his political newspaper as long as he pleased. The word "damages," arrested Mrs. Howe in her wildest flights, and brought her to his feet, like a shot pigeon.
CHAPTER XLI
A knock at the door – it was Chloe, with her gay bandanna, and shining teeth, and eyeballs. She had come to take Charley out, ostensibly "for an airing," but in fact to make a public exhibition of him, for, in her eyes, he was the very perfection of childish beauty.
"He's tired, missis, stayin' in de house," said Chloe, as Charley crept toward the door, "let me take him out a bit;" and Chloe raised him from the floor, and tied his cap down over his bright curls, stoutly resisting all Rose's attempts to cover his massive white shoulders, promising to protect them from the sun's rays, with her old-fashioned parasol.
Rose smiled, as Chloe sauntered off down the street with her pretty charge; Charley's dimpled hand making ineffectual attempts to gain possession of the floating ends of her gay-colored head-dress.
And well might Chloe be proud of him; she had been nurse to many a fair southern child in her day, but never a cherub like Charley. One and another stopped to look at him. Mothers who had lost their little ones, fathers in whose far-absent homes crowed some cherished baby-pet, and blessed little children, with more love than their little hearts could carry, stopped, and asked "to kiss the baby."
Chloe was in a halo of glory. It was such a pity that missis was not rich, that she might be Charley's nurse. She was sure she was not, because her clothes and Charley's, though nice, had been so carefully repaired, and then Chloe fell to romancing about it.
"Chloe?"
"Oh, missis, is that you? Berry glad to see you," said the negress, with a not ungraceful courtesy, as she tried to keep out of the way of the lady's prancing horses.
"Whose lovely baby is that?" asked the old lady, putting on her glasses, "hand him to me, Chloe."
The old lady seemed to be strangely moved as Chloe sat him on her knee, and tears chased each other down her face.
"He is so like, Chloe, so like my poor dear boy at his age; just such eyes, just such a forehead, just such beautiful shoulders – poor Vincent! Whose child is it, Chloe?" asked the old lady, as she untied the baby's cap, and pushed back the curls from his forehead.
"He belongs to a northern lady I have been nursing, missis. She is berry handsome, too."
"I can't spare him, yet," said the old lady, as Chloe held out her arms for him. "I can not let him go; see, he likes me," said she, delightedly, as Charley, with one of his caressing little ways, laid his head down on her shoulder. "He is my dear Vincent back again. Get in, Chloe, I'll drive you where you want to go. I can not give up the child yet."
