We and Our Neighbors: or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street
Does it not mean that man's most generous Friend, the highest, the purest, the sweetest nature that ever visited this earth, was agonized, tortured, forsaken, and left to bleed life away, unpitied and unrelieved, for love of us and of all sinning, suffering humanity? Suddenly the words came with overpowering force to her mind: "He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves."
Immediately she resolved that she would give this cross to the sacred work of saving the lost. She resolved to give it secretly – without the knowledge even of her husband. The bauble was something personal to herself that never would be missed or inquired for, and she felt about such an offering that reserve and sacredness which is proper to natures of great moral delicacy. With the feeling she had at this moment, it was as much an expression of personal loyalty and devotion to Jesus Christ as was the precious alabaster vase of Mary. It satisfied, moreover, a kind of tender, vague remorse that she had often felt; as if, in her wedded happiness and her quiet home, she were too blessed, and had more than her share of happiness in a world where there were such sufferings and sorrows.
She had always had a longing to do something towards the world's work, and, if nothing more, to be a humble helper of the brave and heroic spirits who press on in the front ranks of this fight for the good.
She did not wish to be thanked or praised, as if the giving up of such a toy for such a cause were a sacrifice worth naming; for, in the mood that she was in, it was no sacrifice – it was a relief to an over-charged feeling, an act of sacramental union between her soul and the Saviour who gave himself wholly for the lost. So she put the velvet case in its box, and left it at Mr. James's door, with the following little note:
"My Dear Sir: Ever since that most sad evening when I went with you in your work of mercy to those unhappy people, I have been thinking of what I saw, and wishing I could do something to help you. You say that you do not solicit aid except from the dear Father who is ever near to those that are trying to do such work as this; yet, as long as he is ever near to Christian hearts, he will inspire them with desires to help in a cause so wholly Christ-like. I send you this ornament, which was bought in days when I thought little of its sacred meaning. Sell it, and let the avails go towards enlarging your Home for those poor people who find no place for repentance in the world. I would rather you would tell nobody from whom it comes. It is something wholly my own; it is a relief to offer it, to help a little in so good a work, and I certainly shall not forget to pray for your success.
"Yours, very truly,E. H."P.S. – I am very happy to be able to say that poor M. seems indeed a changed creature. She is gentle, quiet, and humble; and is making, in our family, many friends.
"I feel hopeful that there is a future for her, and that the dear Saviour has done for her what no human being could do."
We have seen the question raised lately in a religious paper, whether the sacrifice of personal ornaments for benevolent objects was not obligatory; and we have seen the right to retain these small personal luxuries defended with earnestness.
To us, it seems an unfortunate mode of putting a very sacred subject.
The Infinite Saviour, in whose hands all the good works of the world are moving, is rich. The treasures of the world are his. He is as able now as he was when on earth to bid us cast in our line and find a piece of silver in the mouth of the first fish. Our gifts are only valuable to him for what they express in us.
Had Mary not shed the precious balm upon his head, she would not have been reproved for the omission; yet the exaltation of love which so expressed itself was appreciated and honored by him.
It is written, too, that he looked upon and loved the young man who had not yet attained to the generous enthusiasm that is willing to sacrifice all for suffering humanity.
Religious offerings, to have value in his sight, must be like the gifts of lovers, not extorted by conscience, but by the divine necessity which finds relief in giving.
He can wait, as mothers do, till we outgrow our love of toys and come to feel the real sacredness and significance of life. The toy which is dear to childhood will be easily surrendered in the nobler years of maturity.
But Eva's was a nature so desirous of sympathy that whatever dwelt on her mind overflowed first or last into the minds of her friends; and, an evening or two after her visit to the mission home, she told the whole story at her fireside to Dr. Campbell, St. John, and Angie, Bolton, Jim, and Alice, who were all dining with her. Eva had two or three objects in this. In the first place, she wanted to touch the nerve of real Christian unity which she felt existed between the heart of St. John and that of every true Christian worker – that same Christian unity that associated the Puritan apostle Eliot with the Roman Catholic missionaries of Canada. She wished him to see in a Methodist minister the same faith, the same moral heroism which he had so warmly responded to in the ritualistic mission of St. George, and which was his moral ideal in his own work.
She wished to show Dr. Campbell the pure and simple faith in God and prayer by which so effective a work of humanity had already been done for a class so hopeless.
"It's all very well," he said, "and I'm glad, if anybody can do it; but I don't believe prayer has anything to do with it."
"Well, I do," said Bolton, energetically. "I wouldn't think life worth having another minute, if I didn't think there was a God who would stand by a man whose whole life was devoted to work like this."
"Well," said Campbell, "it isn't, after all, an appeal to God; it's an appeal to human nature. Nobody that has a heart in him can see such a work doing and not want to help it. Your minister takes one and another to see his Home, and says nothing, and, by-and-by, the money comes in."
"But in the beginning," said Eva, "he had no money, and nothing to show to anybody. He was going to do a work that nobody believed in, among people that everybody thought so hopeless that it was money thrown away to help him. To whom could he go but God? He went and asked Him to help him, and began, and has been helped day by day ever since; and I believe God did help him. What is the use of believing in God at all, if we don't believe that?"
"Well," said Jim, "I'm not much on theology, but we newspaper fellows get a considerable stock of facts, first and last; and I've looked through this sort of thing, and I believe in it. A man don't go on doing a business of six or seven or eight thousand a year on prayer, unless prayer amounts to something; and I know, first and last, the expenses of that concern can't be less than that."
"Well," said Harry, "we have a lasting monument in the great orphan house of Halle – a whole city square of solid stone buildings. I have stood in the midst of them, and they were all built by one man, without fortune of his own, who has left us his written record how, day by day, as expenses thickened, he went to God and asked for his supplies, and found them."
"But I maintain," said Dr. Campbell, "that his appeal was to human nature. People found out what he was doing, their sympathies were moved, and they sent him help. The very sight of such a work is an application."
"I don't think that theory accounts for the facts," said Bolton. "Admitting that there is a God who is near every human heart in its most secret retirement, who knows the most hidden moods, the most obscure springs of action, how can you prove that this God did not inspire the thoughts of sympathy and purposes of help there recorded? For we have in this Franke's journal, year after year, records of help coming in when it was wanted, having been asked for of God, and obtained with as much regularity and certainty as if checks had been drawn on a banker."
"Well," said Dr. Campbell, "do you suppose that, if I should now start to build a hospital without money, and pray every week for funds to settle with my workmen, it would come?"
"No, Doctor, you're not the kind of fellow that such things happen to," said Jim, "nor am I."
"It supposes an exceptional nature," said Bolton, "an utter renunciation of self, an entire devotion to an unselfish work, and an unshaken faith in God. It is a moral genius, as peculiar and as much a gift as the genius of painting, poetry, or music."
"It is an inspiration to do the work of humanity, and it presupposes faith," said Eva. "You know the Bible says, 'He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him.'"
The result of that fireside talk was not unfruitful. The next week was a harvest for the Home.
In blank envelopes, giving no names, came various sums. Fifty dollars, with the added note:
"From a believer in human nature."This was from Dr. Campbell.
A hundred dollars was found in another envelope, with the note:
"To help up the fallen,From one who has been down."This was from Bolton.
Mr. St. John sent fifty dollars, with the words:
"From a fellow-worker."And, finally, Jim Fellows sent fifty, with the words:
"From one of the boys."None of these consulted with the other; each contribution was a silent and secret offering. Who can prove that the "Father that seeth in secret" did not inspire them?
CHAPTER XLIX
THE UNPROTECTED FEMALE
"The Squantum and Patuxet Manufacturing Company have concluded not to make any dividends for the current year."
Such was the sum and substance that Miss Dorcas gathered from a very curt letter which she had just received from the Secretary of that concern, at the time of the semi-annual dividend.
The causes of this arrangement were said to be that the entire income of the concern (which it was cheerfully stated had never been so prosperous) was to be devoted to the erection of a new mill and the purchase of new machinery, which would in the future double the avails of the stock.
Now, as society is, and, for aught we see, as it must be, the masculine half of mankind have it all their own way; and the cleverest and shrewdest woman, in making investments, has simply the choice between what this or that man tells her. If she falls by chance into the hands of an honest man, with good sense, she may make an investment that will be secure to pay all the expenses of her mortal pilgrimage, down to the banks of Jordan; but if, as quite often happens, she falls into the hands of careless or visionary advisers, she may suddenly find herself in the character of "the unprotected female" at some half-way station of life, with her ticket lost and not a cent to purchase her further passage.
Now, this was precisely the predicament that this letter announced to Miss Dorcas. For the fact was that, although she and her sister owned the house they lived in, yet every available cent of income that supplied their establishment came from the dividends of these same Squantum and Patuxet mills.
It is a fact, too, that women, however strong may be their own sense and ability, do, as a general fact, rely on the judgment of the men of the family, and consider their rulings in business matters final.
Miss Dorcas had all this propensity intensified by the old-world family feeling. Her elder brother, Dick Vanderheyden, was one of those handsome, plausible, visionary fellows who seem born to rule over womankind, and was fully disposed to magnify his office. Miss Dorcas worshiped him with a faith which none of his numerous failures abated. The cupboards and closets of the house were full of the remains of inventions which, he had demonstrated by figures in the face of facts, ought to have produced millions, and never did produce anything but waste of money. She was sure that he was the original inventor of the principle of the sewing-machine; and how it happened that he never perfected the thing, and that somebody else stole in before him and got it all, Miss Dorcas regarded as one of the inscrutable mysteries of Providence.
Poor Dick Vanderheyden was one of those permanent waiters at the world's pool, like the impotent man in the gospel. When the angel of success came down and troubled the waters, there was always another who stepped in before him and got the benefit.
Yet there was one thing that never left him to the last, and that was a sweet-tempered, sunny hopefulness, in which, through years when the family fortune had been growing beautifully less in his hands, Dick was still making arrangements which were to bring in wonderful results, till one night a sudden hemorrhage from the lungs settled all his earthly accounts in an hour, and left Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey without a male relative in the world.
One of the last moves of brother Dick had been to take all the sisters' United States stock and invest it for them in the Squantum and Patuxet Manufacturing Company, where, he confidently assured them, it would in time bring them an income of fifty per cent.
For four years after his death, however, only a moderate dividend was declared by the company, but always with brilliant promises for the future; the fifty per cent., like the "good time coming" in the song, was a thing to look forward to, as the end of many little retrenchments and economies; and now suddenly comes this letter, announcing to them an indefinite suspension of their income.
Mrs. Betsey could scarcely be made to believe it.
"Why, they've got all our money; are they going to keep it, and not pay us anything?"
"That seems to be their intention," said Miss Dorcas grimly.
"But, Dorcas, I wouldn't have it so. I'd rather have our money back again in United States stock."
"So had I."
"Well, if you write and ask them for it, and tell them that you must have it, and can't get along without, won't they send it back to you?"
"No, they won't think of such a thing. They never do business that way."
"Won't? Why, I never heard of such folks. Why, there's no justice in it."
"You don't understand these things, Betsey; nor I, very well. All I know is, that Dick took our money and bought stock with it, and we are stockholders of this company."
"And what is being a stockholder?"
"As far as I can perceive, it is this: when old women like you and me are stockholders, it means that a company of men take our money and use it for their own purposes, and pay us what they like, when it comes convenient; and when it's not convenient, they don't pay us at all. It is borrowing people's money, without paying interest."
"Why, that is horrid. Why, it's the most unjust thing I ever heard of," said Mrs. Betsey. "Don't you think so, Dorcas?"
"Well, it seems so to me; but women never understand business. Dick used to say so. The fact is, old women have no business anywhere," said Miss Dorcas bitterly. "It's time we were out of the world."
"I'm sure I haven't wanted to live so very much," said Mrs. Betsey, tremulously. "I don't want to die, but I had quite as lieve be dead."
"Come, Betsey, don't let us talk that way," said Miss Dorcas. "We sha'n't gain anything by flying in the face of Providence."
"But, Dorcas, I don't think it can be quite as bad as you think. People couldn't be so bad, if they knew just how much we wanted our money. Why, we haven't anything to go on – only think! The company has been making money, you say?"
"Oh, yes, never so large profits as this year; but, instead of paying the stockholders, they have voted to put up a new mill and enlarge the business."
"Who voted so?"
"The stockholders themselves. As far as I can learn, that means one or two men who have bought all the stock, and now can do what they like."
"But couldn't you go to the stockholders' meeting and vote?"
"What good would it do, if I have but ten votes, where each of these men has five hundred? They have money enough. They don't need this income to live on, and so they use it, as they say, to make the property more valuable; and perhaps, Betsey, when we are both dead, it will pay fifty per cent. to somebody, just as Dick always said it would."
"But," said Mrs. Betsey, "of what use will that be to us, when what we want is something to live on now? Why, we can't get along without income, Dorcas, don't you see?"
"I think I do," said Miss Dorcas, grimly.
"Why, why, what shall we do?"
"Well, we can sell the house, I suppose."
"Sell the house!" said poor little Mrs. Betsey, aghast at the thought; "and where could we go? and what should we do with all our things? I'd rather die, and done with it; and if we got any money and put it into anything, people would just take it and use it, and not pay us income; or else it would all go just as my money did that Dick put into that Aurora bank. That was going to make our everlasting fortune. There was no end to the talk about what it would do – and all of a sudden the bank burst up, and my money was all gone – never gave me back a cent! and I should like to know where it went to. Somebody had that ten thousand dollars of mine, but it wasn't me. No, we won't sell the house; it's all we've got left, and as long as it's here we've got a right to be somewhere. We can stay here and starve, I suppose! – you and I and Jack."
Jack, perceiving by his mistress's tones that something was the matter, here jumped into her lap and kissed her.
"Yes, you poor doggie," said Mrs. Betsey, crying; "we'll all starve together. How much money have you got left, Dorcas?"
Miss Dorcas drew out an old porte-monnaie and opened it.
"Twenty dollars."
"Oh, go 'way, Miss Dorcas; ye don't know what a lot I's got stowed away in my old tea-pot!" chuckled a voice from behind the scenes, and Dinah's woolly head and brilliant ivories appeared at the slide of the china-closet, where she had been an unabashed and interested listener to the conversation.
"Dinah, I'm surprised," said Miss Dorcas, with dignity.
"Well, y' can be surprised and git over it," said Dinah, rolling her portly figure into the conversation. "All I's got to say is, dere ain't no use for Mis' Betsey here to be worritin' and gettin' into a bad spell 'bout money, so long as I's got three hundred dollars laid up in my tea-pot. 'Tain't none o' your rags neither," said Dinah, who was strong on the specie question – "good bright silver dollars, and gold guineas, and eagles, I tucked away years ago, when your Pa was alive, and money was plenty. Look a-heah now!" – and Dinah emphasized her statement by rolling a handful of old gold guineas upon the table – "Dare now; see dar! Don't catch me foolin' away no money wid no banks and no stockholders. I keeps pretty tight grip o'mine. Tell you, 'fore I'd let dem gemmen hab my money I'd braid it up in my har – and den I'd know where 'twas when I wanted it."
"Dinah, you dear old soul," said Miss Dorcas, with tears in her eyes, "you don't think we'd live on your money?"
"Dun no why you shouldn't, as well as me live on yourn," said Dinah. "It's all in de family, and turn about's fair play. Why, good land! Miss Dorcas, I jest lotted on savin't up for de family. You can use mine and give it back agin when dat ar good time comes Massa Dick was allers a-tellin' about."
Mrs. Betsey fell into Dinah's arms, and cried on her shoulder, declaring that she couldn't take a cent of her money, and that they were all ruined, and fell into what Dinah used to call one of her "bad spells." So she swept her up in her arms forthwith and carried her upstairs and put her to bed, amid furious dissentient barkings from Jack, who seemed to consider it his duty to express an opinion in the matter.
"Dar now, ye aggrevatin' critter, lie down and shet up," she said to Jack, as she lifted him on to the bed and saw him cuddle down in Mrs. Betsey's arms and lay his rough cheek against hers.
Dinah remembered, years before, her young mistress lying weak and faint on that same spot, and how there had been the soft head of a baby lying where Jack's rough head was now nestling, and her heart swelled within her.
"Now, then," she said, pouring out some drops and giving them to her, "you jest hush up and go to sleep, honey. Miss Dorcas and I, we'll fix up this 'ere. It'll all come straight – now you'll see it will. Why, de Lord ain't gwine to let you starve. Never see de righteous forsaken. Jest go to sleep, honey, and it'll be all right when you wake up."
Meanwhile, Miss Dorcas had gone across the way to consult with Eva. The opening of the friendship on the opposite side of the way had been a relief to her from the desolateness and loneliness of her life circle, and she had come to that degree of friendly reliance that she felt she could state her dilemma and ask advice.
"I don't see any way but I must come to selling the house at last," said Miss Dorcas; "but I don't know how to set about it; and if we have to leave, at our age, life won't seem worth having. I'm afraid it would kill Betsey."
"Dear Miss Dorcas, we can't afford to lose you," said Eva. "You don't know what a comfort it is to have you over there, so nice and handy – why, it would be forlorn to have you go; it would break us all up!"
"You are kind to say so," said Miss Dorcas; "but I can't help feeling that the gain of our being there is all on one side."
"But, dear Miss Dorcas, why need you move? See here. A bright thought strikes me. Your house is so large! Why couldn't you rent half of it? You really don't need it all; and I'm sure it could easily be arranged for two families. Do think of that, please."
"If it could be done – if anybody would want it!" said Miss Dorcas.
"Oh, just let us go over this minute and see," said Eva, as she threw a light cloud of worsted over her head, and seizing Miss Dorcas by the arm, crossed back with her, talking cheerfully.
"Here you have it, nice as possible. Your front parlor – you never sit there; and it's only a care to have a room you don't use. And then this great empty office back here – a dining-room all ready! and there is a back shed that could have a cooking-stove, and be fitted into a kitchen. Why, the thing is perfect; and there's your income, without moving a peg! See what it is to have real estate!"
"You are very sanguine," said Miss Dorcas, looking a little brightened herself. "I have often thought myself that the house is a great deal larger than we need; but I am quite helpless about such matters. We are so out of the world. I know nothing of business; real estate agents are my horror; and I have no man to advise me."
"Oh, Miss Dorcas, wait now till I consult Harry. I'm sure something nice could be arranged."
"I dare say," said Miss Dorcas, "if these rooms were in a fashionable quarter we might let them; but the world has long since left our house in the rear."
"Never mind that," said Eva. "You see we don't mind fashion, and there may be neighbors as good as we, of the same mind."
Eva already had one of her visions in her head; but of this she did not speak to Miss Dorcas till she had matured it.
She knew Jim Fellows had been for weeks on the keen chase after apartments, and that none yet had presented themselves as altogether eligible. Alice had insisted on an economical beginning, and the utmost prudence as to price; and the result had been, what is usual in such cases, that all the rooms that would do at all were too dear.
Eva saw at once in this suite of rooms, right across the way from them, the very thing they were in search of. The rooms were large and sunny, with a quaint, old-fashioned air of by-gone gentility that made them attractive; and her artist imagination at once went into the work of brightening up their tarnished and dusky respectability with a nice little modern addition of pictures and flowers, and new bits of furniture here and there.
Just as she returned from her survey, she found Jim in her own parlor, with a thriving pot of ivy.
"Well, here's one for our parlor window, when we find one," said he. "I'm a boy that gets things when I see them. Now you don't often see an ivy so thrifty as this, and I've brought it to you to take care of till I find the room!"
"Jim," said Eva, "I believe just what you want is to be found right across the way from us, so that we can talk across from your windows to ours."
