The House in Town

"Why so do I remember you!" cried Matilda. "You are Sarah?"

The conversation was interrupted again, for the little street-sweeper was neglecting her duties, and she ran to attend to them. Out and in among the carriages and horses' feet. Matilda wondered why she did not get thrown down and trampled upon; but she was skilful and seemed to have eyes in the back of her head, for she constantly kept just out of danger. Matilda waited to say a little more to her, for the talk had become interesting; in vain, the little street-sweeper was too busy, and the morning was going; Matilda had to attend to her own business and be home by one o'clock. She had found, she thought, the place where her silver dime belonged; so she dropped it into Sarah's hand as she passed, with a smile, and went on her way. This time she got an unmistakable smile in return, and it made her glad.

So she was in a class with a street-sweeper! Matilda reflected as she went on down Broadway. Well, what of it? They would think it very odd at home! And somehow it seemed odd to Matilda herself. Had she got a little out of her place in going to Mr. Rush's Sunday school? Could it be best that such elegant robes, made by Mme. Fournissons, should sit in the same seat with a little street girl's brown rags? "She was not ragged on Sunday, though," thought Matilda; "poor enough; and some of those boys were street boys, I dare say. However, Mr. Wharncliffe is a gentleman; there is no doubt of that; and he likes his class; some of them are good, I think. And if they are, Jesus loves them. He loves them whether or no. How odd it is that we don't!" —

Matilda went on trying to remember all that Sarah had said in the school; but the different speakers and words were all jumbled up in her mind, and she could not quite separate them. She forgot Sarah then in the delightful business of choosing a dress for Letitia; a business so difficult withal that it was like to last a long time, if Matilda had not remembered one o'clock. She feared she would be late; yet a single minute more of talk with the street girl she must have; she walked up to Fourteenth street. Sarah was there yet, busy at her post. She had a smile again for Matilda.

"Are you not tired?" the rich child asked of the poor one.

"I don't think of being tired," was the answer.

"What time do you go home to dinner?"

"Dinner?" said Sarah; and she shook her head. "I don't go home till night. I can't."

"But how do you take your dinner?" Matilda asked.

The girl flushed a little, and hesitated. "I can take it here," she said.

"Standing? and in this crowd?"

"No. – I go and sit down somewheres. 'Tain't such a dinner as you have. It's easy took."

"Sarah," said Matilda suddenly, "you love Jesus, don't you?"

"Who?" she said, for the noise and rush of horses and carriages in the streets was tremendous, and the children both sprang back to the sidewalk just then out of the way of something. "Jesus? Was it that you asked?"

She stood leaning on her broom and looking at her questioner. Matilda could see better now how thin the face was, how marked with care; but at the same time a light came into it like a sunbeam on a winter landscape; the grey changed to golden somehow; and the set of the girl's lips, gentle and glad, was very sweet.

"Do I love him?" she repeated. "He is with me here all the day when I am sweeping the snow. Yes, I love him! and he loves me. That is how I live."

"That's how I want to live too," said Matilda; "but sometimes I forget."

"I shouldn't think you'd forget," said Sarah. "It must be easy for you."

"What must be easy?"

"I should think it would be easy to be good," said the poor girl, her eye going unconsciously up and down over the tokens of Matilda's comfortable condition.

"I don't think having things helps one to be good," said Matilda. "It makes it hard, sometimes."

"I sometimes think not having things makes it hard," said the other, a little wistfully. "But Jesus is good, anyhow!" she added with a content of face which was unshadowed.

"Good bye," said Matilda. "I shall see you again." And she ran off to get into a horse car. The little street-sweeper stood and looked after her. There was not a thing that the one had but the other had it not. She looked, and turned to her sweeping again.

Matilda on her part hurried along, with a heart quite full, but remembering at the same time that she would be late at lunch. At the corner where she stopped to wait for a car there was a fruit stall, stocked with oranges, apples, candies and gingerbread. It brought back a thought which had filled her head a few minutes ago; but she was afraid she would be late. She glanced down the line of rails to the car seen coming in the distance, balanced probabilities a moment, then turned to the fruit woman. She bought a cake of gingerbread and an orange and an apple; had to wait what seemed a long time to receive her change; then rushed across the block to where she had left Sarah, stopped only to put the things in her hands, and rushed back again; not in time to catch her car, which was going on merrily out of her hail. But the next one was not far behind; and Matilda enjoyed Sarah's lunch all the way to her own.

"But this is only for one day. And there are so many days, and so many people that want things. I must save every bit of money I can."

She was late; but she was so happy and hungry, that her elders looked on her very indulgently, it being, as in truth she was, a pleasant sight.

That evening Judith proposed another practising of the proverb she and Matilda were to act together; and this time she dressed up for it. A robe of her mother's, which trailed ridiculously over the floor; jewels of value in her ears and on her hands and neck; and finally a lace scarf of Mrs. Lloyd's, which was very rich and extremely costly. Norton was absent on some business of his own; David was the only critic on hand. He objected.

"You can act just as well without all that trumpery, Judith."

"Trumpery! That's what it is to you. My shawl is worth five hundred dollars if it is worth a dollar. It is worth a great deal more than that, I believe; but I declare I get confused among the prices of things. That is one of the cares of riches, that try me most."

"You can act just as well without all that, Judy."

"I can't!"

"You can just as well, if you would only think so."

"Very likely; but I don't think so; that just makes it, you see. I want to feel that I am rich; how am I going to get the idea in my head, boy? – I declare, Satinalia, I think this satin dress is getting frayed already."

"How ought I to be dressed?" inquired Matilda.

"O just as you are. You haven't to make believe, you know; you have got only to act yourself. Come, begin. – I declare, Satinalia, I think this satin dress is getting frayed already."

Matilda hesitated, then put by the displeasure which rose at Judy's rudeness, and entered into the play.

"And how shouldn't it, ma'am, when it's dragging and streaming all over the floor for yards behind you. Satin won't bear every thing."

"No, the satin one gets now-a-days won't. I could buy satin once, that would wear out two of this; and this cost five dollars a yard. Dear me! I shall be a poor woman yet."

"If you were to cut off the train, ma'am, the dress wouldn't drag so."

"Wouldn't it! you Irish stupid. O I hear something breaking downstairs! Robert has smashed a tray-ful, I'll be bound. I heard the breaking of glass. Run, Satinalia, run down as hard as you can and find out what it is. Run before he gets the pieces picked up; for then I shall never know what has happened."

"You'd miss the broken things," said Matilda; not exactly as Satinalia.

"You're an impudent hussy, to answer me so. Run and see what it is, I tell you, or I shall never know."

"What must I say it is?" said Matilda, out of character.

"Haven't you wit enough for that?" said Judith, also speaking in her own proper. "Say any thing you have a mind; but don't stand poking there. La! you haven't seen any thing in all your life, except a liqueur stand. Say any thing! and be quick."

Matilda ran down a few stairs, and paused, not quite certain whether she would go back. She was angry. But she wanted to be friends with Judy and her brother; and the thought of her motto came to her help. "Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus;" – then certainly with courtesy and patience and kindness, as his servant should. She prayed for a kind spirit, and went back again.

"You've been five ages," cried the rich woman. "Well, what's broke?"

"Ma'am, Robert has let fall a tray full of claret glasses, and the salad dish with a pointed edge."

"That salad dish!" exclaimed Judy. "It was the richest in New York. The Queen of England had one like it; and nobody else but me in this country. I told Robert to keep it carefully done up in cotton; and never to wash it. That is what it is to have things."

"Don't it have to be washed?" inquired Matilda.

"I wish I could get into your head," said Judy impatiently and speaking quite as Judy, "that you are a maid servant and have no business to ask questions. I suppose you never knew anything about maid-servants till you came here; but you have been here long enough to learn that, if you were not perfectly bourgeoise!"