CHAPTER XVII
EDITHA BESTOWS CHARITY
The time, for the first week or two after Earle’s departure, dragged heavily to Editha, and then, with her usual good sense, she resolved to fill up the months of his absence with work—the very best antidote in the world for all life’s weariness and ills. Consequently, she set herself a daily task in music and in perfecting herself in the languages of German and French, and after that time flew as if on magic wings.
Twice every week she wrote to Earle, and twice every week she heard from him. And such letters as they were, too! Full of such deep, strong, abiding devotion as only such men as he are capable of feeling and expressing.
Whether Mr. Dalton suspected the flight and reception of these little white-winged messengers of love was a matter of doubt to Editha. At all events, they were none of them intercepted or tampered with, since she alone held the key to lockbox 1,004, and trusted no one else with it.
She wondered often what the nature of Earle’s business abroad could be, and what great good he expected it to bring him if he was successful.
She wondered if it was some case connected with the lords and nobles of that country, and by which some American descendant expected to be elevated to the nobility of the land.
She built many a romance and castle in the air, but whether they would stand or fall she could not tell until her lover’s return. He did not mention business matters to her in his letters, and therefore she had no means of knowing whether he was meeting with success or not.
“Please, miss, give me a dime, my father is dying and we’ve neither fire nor bread.”
These were the plaintive words that greeted Editha’s ears one cold, threatening evening, as she was hurrying to reach the shelter of her home before the storm should overtake her.
She had been out, as usual, to recite her German and French, and on returning had stopped to do a little shopping, and it had begun to grow dark before she was through.
In passing through a narrow alley to shorten the distance and catch a car, the above words had fallen upon her ears.
No bread, no fire this cold, dismal night, she thought, with a shudder, as a blue, emaciated hand was extended to receive the pittance craved.
Editha involuntarily stopped and turned toward the voice, and found herself face to face with a young girl of about fourteen years of age.
She was tall for her age, and painfully thin, and very scantily clad. A thin and tattered shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, and one end also served as a covering for her head.
Her stockings were nothing but a covering to hide the nakedness of her limbs, while through the gaping shoes, which had never been mates, Editha could plainly see her cold and purple toes.
The sad face was blue and pinched, with such a hungry, appealing look in the large, dark eyes that it went straight to Miss Dalton’s heart.
For an instant, as she stood there beside the forlorn little waif, her own rich furs and elegant velvet cloak, with its costly trimmings, brushing that scantily-clad figure, a feeling of shame and self-condemnation rushed over her that so much should be lavished upon herself while one of Christ’s poor was in want and suffering so near.
“How cold you look, my poor child! Why don’t you go home, instead of staying here in the dismal street?” she asked, pityingly. The girl shivered.
“We haven’t got any fire at home. If someone would only give me a dime!” she pleaded.
“No fire on this wretched day?” Editha repeated, sorrowfully.
“No, miss; and Father’s dying, and Mother nearly stupid with the cold, and we haven’t had anything to eat today.”
“Oh!” gasped Editha, horrified.
“I thought, miss if I could only beg a dime of someone,” the girl went on, encouraged by her sympathy, “I could buy a few coals and make Father a little gruel—there is a handful of meal left.”
Her pitying heart prompted her to go at once to ascertain and relieve the necessities of these wretched people, but she knew it was not always safe for a lady to enter those poverty-stricken abodes alone, and particularly so late in the day.
She was not sure either that the girl was telling her the truth, though she undoubtedly was an object of charity, and should not be left to suffer in her thin clothing—and there was no mistaking the look of hunger in her wan face.
Looking up, she espied a policeman not far distant. She beckoned him, and he immediately responded to her summons.
“Do you know much about the people in this street?” she asked.
“Yes, miss; I know that they’re a miserable set, mostly,” he returned, politely touching his hat.
“Miserable?—how?”
“Why, so poor they can hardly keep soul and body together, while some of them are desperate and vicious.”
“This girl tells me that her father is dying, and they have no fire, nor anything to eat. Do you know her?” Editha asked, calling his attention to her companion.
“Oh, this is Milly Loker,” he said, recognizing her at once. “Yes, I know her well, and I reckon she’s told you the truth, for they’ve had a hard time of it along back.”
“If this is the case I will go home with her and see what I can do to relieve their suffering. I am alone, and it is growing dark, so if you will please have an eye upon this vicinity for the next half-hour or so, I shall be obliged to you,” Editha said, as she turned to go with Milly.
“Yes, miss; I’ll see that no harm comes to you, and the house is only a few steps from here,” he answered respectfully.
“Thank you. And now, my poor child, I will see what I can do for your comfort,” Editha said, turning to the girl.
She found her wiping away the great tears with a corner of her shawl, and her heart was deeply touched at the sight.
Without saying anything in reply, she turned and walked toward a miserable-looking tenement house only a few steps away. The door hung swinging upon one hinge, making a dismal, creaking noise that sent the chills anew over Editha.
Passing up a flight of dirty, broken stairs, Milly opened another door, which led into a bare and wretched-looking apartment, having only one window, and that broken in several places, the holes being stuffed with rags. Upon a rude bed in one corner lay the wasted form of a man; his hollow and unshaven face making an unsightly spectacle against the not-too-clean pillow on which it lay.
He was sleeping, and a woman, scarcely less wretched in appearance, sat in a broken chair by his side, her elbows resting upon her knees, and her head bowed upon her hands. A small, cracked stove, upon which there was a broken-nosed tea kettle, was the only other piece of furniture in the room.
“Mother,” whispered Milly, as soon as Editha had entered and she had closed the door, “here is a lady who says she will help us.”
The girl passed lightly over the floor and stood by the woman’s side, placing one hand on her shoulder to attract her attention.
She lifted her haggard face in a bewildered way and gazed with a vacant stare first upon her child, then upon Editha.
“Help!” she muttered, her hands working nervously. “We’ll need help soon, or—”
A shudder finished the sentence more impressively than words could have done, and then, without taking any further notice of her strange visitor, she relapsed into her former indifference and position.
Editha was appalled at what she saw. She had not dreamed of such misery as this, and her face grew white and grave with sorrow and pity. Drawing her purse from her pocket, she took a bill from it with eager, trembling fingers.
“Milly,” she said, in a low tone, pressing it into her hand, “go quickly and get something with which to make a fire and something to eat; you know what you need better than I can tell you.”
The words were scarcely uttered when the child’s thin fingers clutched the money, and with a smothered cry of thankfulness, she was gone like a flash of light.
Editha then turned her attention to the mother. Going to her side, she touched her gently on the shoulder.
“My poor woman,” she said, kindly, “how long have you been like this?”
She looked up again, with the same vacant stare as before.
“What?” she said, in hollow tones.
Editha repeated her question.
“We’ve had no fire for a week, miss,” she said, with an effort to arouse herself; “but it hasn’t been quite so bad until today, for the sun comes in at the window when it’s pleasant, and we could sit in that and keep comfortable.”
Comfortable!
Editha thought of the cheerful fire in her grate at home, while the house was also heated from attic to cellar with steam, and her heart smote her painfully.
“And have you absolutely nothing to eat?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears.
“We have not been entirely without food until today; we ate our last penny’s worth of bread yesterday,” the woman answered, with a deep-drawn sigh, and, from her manner of speaking, Editha instinctively knew that at some previous time in her life she had known “better days.”
“Has your husband been ill long?” she asked, with a glance toward the ghastly sleeper.
“Two or three months; he had a bad fall awhile ago and lay out in the rain and cold for several hours. The fall strained him, and that, with the cold he took, threw him into a quick consumption. He will live only a few days longer,” she concluded, with a sigh. “But how do you happen to be here?” she asked a moment after, with a stare of surprise at Editha’s rich garments. It had but just come to her that she was entertaining a very unusual guest.
“I met your daughter in the street, and she told me of your suffering; so I came to see what I could do for you,” was the gentle answer.
“Poor Milly!” the woman sighed, and then, seeming to be overcome by stupor, fell back into her former position.
She was so weakened by hunger, cold, and the fatigue of watching, that she was scarcely conscious of Editha’s presence, and had answered her questions in a mechanical sort of way.
Ere long a quick, light step sounded on the stairs, and the next moment Milly entered, bearing a basket of coal in one hand, a pail, and two or three packages in the other.
“Here, Mother, come quick,” she said, in an eager whisper; “help me make a fire and warm broth for Father. I got it ’round the corner at the oyster house.”
She had deposited her burdens in the middle of the floor and was down upon her knees before the warped and cracked stove before she had ceased speaking, nimbly yet quietly laying the kindlings, which in another instant she kindled, and a cheerful roar and crackling sounded through the room, giving promise of warmth and comfort ere long.
“That’s the sweetest music we’ve heard for a month, isn’t it Mother?” Milly said, in a cheery whisper; and Mrs. Loker, as if aroused by the unaccustomed sound, arose and dragged her weary steps across the floor toward where she sat.
But her strength was exhausted before she reached her, and she sank down beside the stove, helpless and nearly fainting.
Milly, meanwhile, had produced a candle from somewhere, which she lighted and set upon the mantel over the stove.
“Drink a little of this, Mother,” the child said, springing to her and putting the pail to her blue lips.
The woman eagerly grasped it and swallowed a few mouthfuls of the oyster broth which it contained.
“Poor mother!” Milly said, pityingly. “I know you feel as if the bottom had dropped out of your stomach. I did, and I couldn’t help nibbling just a little on the way home. Now eat this;” and she broke off a mouthful of soft roll and gently forced it into Mrs. Loker’s mouth.
It was the saddest sight that the delicate and daintily-bred Editha Dalton had ever seen in her life; and she could only stand there and weep silently, while she watched that hungry child feeding her starving mother with tender, loving hands.
Do pearls and diamonds never grow heavy with the weight of poverty’s tears? Does the rustle of satins and silks never whisper of hunger moans? Do those rare and ghost-like laces, wrought with the cunning device, and worth their weight in gold, never oppress the hearts of the fair women who wear them?—are they never burdened with the sighs of those whose scant covering scarcely conceals their nakedness, and much less serves as a protection against the chilling blasts of winter, and whom it would take the price of but one single yard of that delicate lace to feed, and warm, and clothe?
Will the gratification of pride, and the wilful extravagance of which these things are the result, afford any satisfaction when, at the last call, the rich and the poor must meet on equal ground, and one shall say: “I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat, I was athirst and ye gave me no drink, naked and ye clothed me not, sick and in prison and ye visited me not?”
Something of all this flitted through Editha Dalton’s mind as, standing in that wretched room, she witnessed the heart-rending scene already described, and, with a silent prayer that God would strengthen her purpose, she resolved that henceforth her charities should be increased fourfold.
A genial warmth began to pervade the room, a gentle simmering sound came from the pail upon the stove, and an appetizing smell as well.
The woman, gaining strength from the nourishment she had taken, and also feeling cheered and refreshed, arose and assisted her child to prepare something for the husband and father.
The sick man now stirred and coughed feebly, then, becoming aware that something unusual was transpiring, he opened his sunken eyes and looked around.
The first object they rested upon was Editha, who had turned toward him when he moved, and who looked like some fair, beautiful creature from another sphere, as she was standing there with the flickering light falling full upon her face, her golden hair, and rich robes.
The man no sooner saw her than an expression of recognition and fear stole over his features.
“She has come! She has hunted me down at last!” he cried, in hollow tones, and shrinking further down in the bed, but with his eyes still fastened as if by magnetism upon Editha.
“Father,” cried Milly, cheerfully, “I’ll have something nice for you in a moment.”
“No, no; don’t let them take me away to jail; I ain’t able to go to prison,” he moaned, feebly, and trembling as if with fear.
His wife hastened to his side.
“No, John; no one shall disturb you or harm you,” she said, soothingly. “His mind is weak, ma’am when he first wakes,” she continued, turning to Editha.
“No, my mind isn’t weak,” the man replied, impatiently. “I know her, and she’s found me out at last;” and, raising his emaciated hand, he pointed with one long, bony finger at their visitor.
“John, be quiet. You do not know the lady; she is a stranger, who came with Milly to help us,” returned his wife, trying to quiet him.
“She’s found me out at last,” he repeated, his eyes still fixed upon Editha. “She’s the rich chap’s girl, whose house we—Tom Drake and I—cracked three or four years ago. She was asleep when we went into her room and stole her trinkets, but she looked so beautiful that I’ve never forgotten her face. I tried to make Tom leave her bracelets and rings, but he wouldn’t. It’s Miss Dalton, Maria, and I tell you she’s come to send me to prison.”
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