Helen Hunt Jackson

“ I will not stay long;" and I followed him through a small dining-room, also gay with flowers and vines, to a little room which had one side almost wholly of glass and opened on a loggia full of orange-trees and oleanders, geraniums and roses. I will not describe Dora Maynard's bed-room. It was the dainty room of a dainty woman, but spiritualized and individualized and made wonderful, just as her sitting-room was, by a creative touch and a magnetic presence such as few women possess. ”

“ She was a gentlewoman; and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. ”

“ Next year we shall go home, and then he will come back to Maynard's Mills and live with us. Robert is having a large studio built for him on the north side of the house, with a bed-room and little sitting-room opening out of it. Miss Penstock, too, will always live with us; we shall call her 'housekeeper,' to keep her contented, and Patrick is to stay as Nat's attendant. Poor fellow, he is not quite full-witted, we think; but he loves Nat so devotedly that he makes a far better servant than a cleverer boy would with a shade less affection. ”

“ But the story I am to tell now is not the story of Dora Maynard's life after I knew her, nor of our friendship and love for each other, rare and beautiful as they were. It is the story of her girlhood, and of the strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple anemones.
One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every day. Anita looked troubled.
"What is the matter, my Anita?" said I; "is the Signora ill?" ”

“ As I saw the rapt and ecstatic expression of her face, I understood why Anita had believed the gold table to be a shrine.
"They do not suit it like the anemones," said she, sadly; "and I can have no more anemones this year."
"So poor Anita told me just now on the stairs," replied I. "She was almost crying, she was so sorry she could not get them for you. But I am sure, dear, the ferns are beautiful on it. I think the pale green looks even better than the purple with the gold and the pale yellow wood."
"I like the purple best," said Dora ”

“ Books were everywhere—in low swinging shelves, suspended by large green cords with heavy tassels; on low bracket shelves, in unexpected places, with deep green fringes or flutings of the chintz; in piles on Moorish stools or old Venice chests. Every corner looked as if somebody made it a special haunt and had just gone out. On a round mosaic table stood an exqusite black-and-gilt Etruscan patera filled with white anemones; on another table near by stood a silver one filled with the same flowers, pink and yellow. ”

“ I rambled on, without thinking at first of coming to the Coliseum: it will do me good to walk back; every moment of the air makes me feel better."
So we went slowly on, up the solemn hill, arm in arm like friends, sitting down now and then on old fallen columns to rest, and looking back at the silent, majestic ruins, which were brightened almost into a look of life under the vivid sun. My companion spoke little; the reaction after her fearful shock had set in; but every few moments her beautiful eyes would fill with tears as she looked in my face and pressed my arm. ”

“ It was like a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor people's little rooms can be, if the sun shines in and there are a few pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and these, made our little sitting-room look like home. ”

“ So I hoped to be able to study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing that troubled me was that I could not take Nat to and from school, and he had to be left alone sometimes. But I found a very pleasant and faithful Irish boy, who was glad to earn a little money by drawing him back and forth, often staying with him after school till I came home at six o'clock. This boy was the son of the Irish gardener on the overseer's place. The overseer was an Englishman; his name was Wilkins. He is the only human being I ever disliked so that it was hard to speak to him. ”

“ He had a great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear to refuse any request which a poor cripple made. ”

“ Maynard,' said I, in a voice that half frightened me. 'I shall never leave Nat—never, so long as I live.'
"'Then you'll do him the greatest unkindness you can—that's all,' replied Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room. I locked myself up in my own room and thought the whole matter over. How I could earn my own living and Nat's, I did not know. We should have about four hundred dollars a year. I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off from really living ”

“ After tea I told Nat. He lay very still for some moments; the tears rolled down his cheeks; then he reached up both hands and drew my face down to his, and said, 'Dear sister, it would be selfish to make it any harder for you than it must be at best. But oh, Dot, Dot! do you think you can dream what it is for me to have to lie here and be such a burden on you?'
"'Oh, Nat!' I said, 'if you don't want to break my heart, don't speak so. I don't have to earn any more for two than I should have to alone; it does not cost anything for you ”

“ But Agent Wilkins snatched them up quickly, and casting an angry glance at his brother, exclaimed:—
"'Oh, you quite mistake my brother, Miss Kent; the designs are worth money and we are glad to buy them; but they are not worth so much as they would be if done by an experienced hand. We will give you ten dollars for the three,' and he held out the money to me. Involuntarily I exclaimed, 'I had not dreamed that they would be worth so much.' Nat could earn then in four hours' work as much as I could in a week; in that one moment the whole of life seemed thrown open for us. ”

“ Nat was fifteen; instinct was beginning to torture him with a man's sense of his helplessness, and it was almost more than even his childlike faith and trust could bear.
"The next day I told Miss Penstock. She had been as kind to us as a mother through this whole year and a half, and I really think we had taken the place of children in her lonely old heart. But she never could forget that we were her minister's children; she always called me Miss Dora, and does to this day. ”

“ As I went toward it, I saw old Anita toiling slowly up the stairs, with a flat basket on her head. Her wrinkled face was all aglow with delight. As soon as she reached the threshold she set the basket down, and exclaiming, "Oh look, look, Signora!" lifted off the cover. It was full of fresh and beautiful anemones of all colors. She moved a few on top and showed me that those beneath were chiefly purple ones.
"Iddio mio! will not the dearest of Signoras be pleased now!" she said. "The saints wish that she shall have all she desires; did not my Biagio's brother come in from Albano this morning? ”

“ Sometimes he used to do nothing but carve for a week, and he would say, 'Dot, I do not believe drawing is the thing I want to do, after all. I want more; I hate to have everything flat.' Then he would get discouraged and think all he had done was good for nothing. 'I never can do anything except to draw till I go somewhere to be taught,' he would say, and turn back to the old calico patterns with fresh zeal.
"One day a customer of Miss Penstock's brought Nat a book about grapes, which had some pictures of the different methods of grape-culture in different countries. ”

“ We did not lay up so much as we hoped to; we neither of us had a trace of the instinct of economy or saving. I could not help buying a geranium or fuchsia to set in the windows; Nat could not help asking me to buy a book or a picture sometimes, and his paints and pencils and brushes and paper cost a good deal in the course of six months. Still we were very happy and very comfortable, and the days flew by. Our little room was so cozy and pretty, that Miss Penstock's customers used often to come in to see it ”

“ No chintzes were made in any of Mr. Maynard's mills, nor, so far as I knew, in any mill in that neighborhood. I was hot with indignation. Plainly Nat's instinct had been a true one. The Wilkinses had stolen the design and had sold it to some other manufacturers, not dreaming that the theft could ever be discovered by two such helpless children as Nat and I.
"I went into the shop and asked the price of the chintz in the window.
"'Oh, the grape-vine pattern? that is a new pattern, just out this spring; it is one of the most popular patterns we ever had. ”

“ Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming. Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill—the first illness of his life. ”

“ We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we must have sun and air.
"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. Maynard's mill. ”

“ Maynard came up to me and put both his hands on my shoulders, just as he had done three years before, and said, 'You were a brave girl, but you had to take me for your father, after all.'
"Nat's wedding-present to me was a wood-carving of the 'One-Legged Dancers'—the one which stands on the little gilt table. I shall never be separated from it.
"When I first found out how very rich Robert was, I was afraid; it seemed to me almost wrong to have so much money. But I hope we shall not grow selfish. ”

“ He does everybody good, and everybody loves him. Poor papa used to say sometimes, 'My son is a far better preacher than I; see, I sit at his feet to learn;' and it was true. Even when he was a little fellow Nat used to keep up papa's courage. Many a time, when papa looked dark and sad, Nat would call to him, 'Dear papa, will you carry me up and down a little while by the window? ”

“ Trampling the calicoes under my feet, I ran and knelt by his chair, and put my arms around him. 'Oh, Nat, Nat, what is the matter?' cried I. 'Patrick, what have you done to him?' Poor Patrick could not speak; he was utterly bewildered; he began hastily picking up the prints and shuffling them out of sight.
"'Don't you touch one!' screamed Nat, lifting up his head again, with tears rolling down his cheeks. 'Dot, Dot,' he went on, speaking louder and louder, 'don't you see? those are patterns; Patrick says Mr. Wilkins buys them. I can earn money too ”

“ He is living now in a beautiful apartment in New York. Patrick is with him, his devoted servant, and Miss Penstock has gone to keep house for them. Nat is studying and working hard; the best artists in the city are his friends, and his pictures are already known and sought. When Robert first proposed this arrangement, Nat said, 'Oh no, no! I cannot accept such a weight of obligation from any man, not even from a brother.'
"Robert rose and knelt down by Nat's chair, and even then he was so far above him he had to bend over. ”

“ I could not help laughing. "Oh no, Anita," I said; "we do not have shrines in our religion."
Anita's face clouded. "Iddio mio!" she said, "but the Virgin will keep the dearest Signora Maynardi. Biagio and I have vowed to keep a candle always burning for her in Ara Cœli! The dearest, most beautiful of Signoras;" and Anita walked disconsolately on, down the stairs.
I found Dora kneeling before the "gold table," arranging great masses of maiden-hair fern around the wood carving and in the shelf below. ”

“ It is very queer.'
"But Mr. Wilkins assured me, with great civility and many expressions of regret, that the design was lost: that they had made careful search for it everywhere.
"The thing would have passed out of my mind in a short time but for Nat's pertinacious reference to it. Every few days he would say, 'It is very queer, Dot, about the One-Legged Dancers. How could such a thing be lost? They never lost a drawing before. I believe Miss Wilkins has got it, and is going to paint a big picture from it herself!'
"'Why, Nat!' I exclaimed, 'aren't you ashamed? ”