Pansy

“ I wonder if He would not be pleased with one who could throw herself at His feet with a childlike abandon of faith, and expect wonders, yes, and impossibilities, just as a child feels that anything can be done by father? God has shamed my faith to-night. It is as though I had asked for a crumb of bread, and he gave me the entire loaf. That girl up-stairs has not heard of Him before as a Saviour for her; has never thought of such a thing, or, at least, dreamed of its possibility, and yet she has given herself to Him. And Evan, what do you think were the first words she said? ”

“ By degrees the strains grew fainter and fainter, and at last ceased altogether, as the professor, still on the music-stool, bent over Gracie, seated in a low chair, and apparently found fluent speech at last.
Mrs. Roberts, meantime, was ill at ease. What would Dr. Dennis and Marion say, could they have a peep at this moment into her back parlor? Was she being faithful to her trust? Yet what was there she could do? She tried to sustain her part in the conversation, but her troubled gaze, constantly wandering elsewhere, betrayed her. Dr. Everett's keen eyes were upon her. ”

“ Don't you open your parlors when you receive your friends?”
“I don't think we have such peculiar friends on our list,” Gracie said, with a little laugh; and then, “Flossy, they will spoil your furniture.”
“If one evening in the Master's service will spoil anything it surely ought to be spoiled,” Mrs. Roberts answered, serenely.
“But, Flossy,”—with a touch of impatience in her voice,—“what is the use? Wouldn't the dining-room answer every purpose; be to them the most elegant room they ever beheld, and be less likely to suffer from their contact?” ”

“ Mrs. Roberts, meantime, broke off blossoms with lavish hand, and made bouquets for Nimble Dick and for Dirk. He took the bright-hued ones with a smile, but the lily he held by itself, and still looked at it.
They went away at last noisily; growing almost, if not quite, rough towards one another, at least, and directly they were out of the door, Nimble Dick gave a whoop that would have chilled the blood of nervous women. But matron and maiden looked at each other and laughed.
“We have kept them pent up all the evening, and that is the escape-valve being raised to avoid a general explosion.” ”

“ Roberts asked.
The doctor shook his head, but answered:—
“There is the most pitiful apology for a father that I ever saw,—a mere wreck of a man! Spends his time in a sort of weak drinking, if I may coin a phrase to describe him; he actually uses no energy even in that business. Just staggers around and bemoans his lot; a most unfortunate man, in his own estimation, with whom the world, through no fault of his, has gone wrong. He is never downright intoxicated, and never free from the effects of liquor. He is much like a wilted leaf in the hands of this boy and girl. ”

“ Yet the fair lily did its work well during that long walk from East Fifty-fifth Street to the shadow of the alley. It made Dirk Colson tell it fiercely that he hated himself; that he was a brute and a loafer,—a blot on the earth, and ought not to live. Why didn't he go to work? Why didn't he have things to bring home to Mart every little while, as Mark Calkins did to Sallie? Hadn't he seen Mark, only a few evenings before he was hurt, with a pair of girl's shoes strung over his shoulder, and heard him whistle as he ran, two steps at a time, up the rickety stairs? ”

“ And then Mart took the broken-nosed pitcher away into the furthermost corner, although she was alone in the room, and laid her face against the cool, pure lily, and wept into it great burning tears. Poor, ignorant soul! She wanted, oh, how she wanted Dirk to be brave and good like Mark Calkins—her one type of manhood. Yet she did not know that she was crushing out the germ which might have grown in his heart. True, she knew herself to be very different from Sallie, but the thought, poor soul, that that was because Mark was so different from Dirk. ”

“ Gracie had allowed herself to be looked upon as one who was held by others from being more to Professor Ellis than she was; who might always, perhaps, be held back,—for she had resolved in her own sad heart that she would never marry against her father's consent, no, not if she were twice of age.
Of late, strange reflections had come to her. She had measured Professor Ellis with other men, Christian men, and he had appeared at a disadvantage. Also she had measured herself by the side of other Christian workers, and herself had appeared at a disadvantage. ”

“ Yet now he seemed to feel again the thrill in his veins, and he felt almost under the power of his sister's eye while those words were in his ears: “They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” Might it possibly be that this was one of the “helpers” of whom Ester used to talk, sent by God himself to take up her planned work and follow it out? Yet she was so utterly unlike his memory of Ester! She had seemed to him a self-reliant, strong-toned woman; Mrs. Roberts was so small and frail-looking, and so fashionably dressed, and how those boys had acted with her only yesterday! ”

“ They appear to be entirely familiar with the house and all its appointments. They can be appealed to for a glass of water or an ice, or to know what special scene this landscape hanging over the mantel represents, or whose bust this is in the niche at the left, or in what portion of the library a certain book will be found, or from what part of the foreign world that strangely-shaped shell came, and they are all equally at home. In short, it is like having a dozen or twenty young hosts to look after your comfort and pleasure. ”

“ For almost the first time in her life the fact struck terror to Mart Colson's soul! Ordinarily no duck could have been more indifferent to a rain storm than herself. On this evening she gave vent to her dismay in short, expressive words:
“Sallie's bonnet!” “And cape!” This last, after a moment's thought. “And shoes!” she added, as the magnitude of her troubles grew upon her.
Drawn up close to the sidewalk stood a carriage and a pair of horses that Dirk could not help giving admiring attention to, despite the rain. A fine horse always held his attention. ”

“ Gracie knows, but does not enlighten me. Flossy, dear, could you give me a little wholesome advice, do you think? I wonder, sometimes, whether I was not too complacent over my proposed duties. Such schemed as I had! I was going to be the blessedest step-mother that girl ever had. That would not be saying much, possibly. Don't we all incline to think that the second mothers must be wrong, and the sons and daughters poor abused darlings? But I loved Gracie, you know, and she seemed to love me, and to be so happy over the thought of our near relationship. ”

“ Roberts, I believe?” the young man said, struggling with his astonishment and embarrassment.
“Yes, and you are Mr. Alfred Ried. Well, now we know each other without any further ceremony. Will you tell me a little about your sister, Mr. Ried? You were thinking of her just now.”
“I was missing her just now,” said he, trying to smile, “as I very often am. I was a little fellow when she died; but the older I grow the more difficult I find it to see how the world can spare her. She was so full of plans for work, and there are so few like her.” ”

“ Roberts said, delight in her voice, after the first glance at the familiar writing. She was presently lost in its many pages, and the business of letter-writing went on uninterruptedly for some time.
Mrs. Marion Dennis had not forgotten her fondness for her pretty little Flossy: nor forgotten that,—softly-innocent little creature though she was, she possessed a wisdom far above those who are credited with having keen insight; even a wisdom so subtle, and withal so tender, that its source could only be Infinite Wisdom. ”

“ The girl has no friends, no father or mother to advise with or help her. She is bright and pretty, and is being shown glimpses of a world that seems to her like fairyland. She is dazzled, and one cannot blame her, for she has neither carefully-formed judgment nor trustworthy friends to lean upon. Miss Dennis, you can judge from her manner this afternoon what is her knowledge of the customs of polite society. ”

“ She went and looked out of the window, and saw Gracie Dennis holding the horses, saw her red, red cheeks, and flashing eyes, and the peculiar, haughty poise of her head, with which the stepmother at home was well acquainted.
She did not know this Gracie Dennis save by reputation. Once Dr. Everett had asked her to call at Mrs. Roberts', and had made her feel as though she were foolishly conventional in declining to do so. “How is she ever to know you, according to the rules which trammel society? There ought to be some way arranged for Christians to be free from trammels.” ”

“ Young men out of business needing help, needing an encouraging word, an out-stretched hand! Professor Ellis had words, and hands, but he might have been without either for all the help they gave him in responding to efforts like these. Books to help uplift the young, to give them high ideas of life, to enthuse them with desires to live for a purpose! Truly he could only stare blankly at the suggestion. What did he know of books written for such purposes? Yet Gracie had supposed him to be literary in his tastes and pursuits. ”

“ Mrs. Roberts said, smiling up at him; and he understood her,—here was his opportunity to live out that text for his sister. Wouldn't he try!
“Well,” said Gracie, drawing a long breath, “as a study it is certainly a success. One can easily see, Flossy, why you were born with the ability to tell at a glance what colors harmonized, and just where things fitted in. I can't imagine anything prettier than this, and I cannot imagine what you are going to do with it.”
Whereupon they sat down to talk that important question over: what they were going to try to do. ”

“ Dirk's voice was growing sullen; a consciousness that he would appear at a disadvantage in admitting himself an idler in a busy world was dawning upon him as an entirely new idea. At his question, Gracie turned on her music-stool and regarded him with surprise.
“Why, of course you work,” she said; “people all do.”
She was not acting a part. Her experience among poor people was limited to that outwardly respectable class who, however disreputable their conduct might be on Sabbath, had, nevertheless a Monday occupation with which they pretended to earn a living. ”

“ Imagine me holding forth on the importance of ventilation, for instance, to a poor follow who comes from a region where father and mother, and a horde of children of both sexes and all ages, crowd together in one room, and that a cellar, where the sun never penetrates and the air that crawls in through the one small window is reeking with even more impurities than can be found inside. ”

“ Roberts mistaken ideas as to the manner in which poor people lived. A bare enough room, certainly, not even a bit of carpet laid before the bed, but it was a clean room. Floor and window and cupboard-door were as clean as water could make them; and the bed, while it looked hopelessly hard and dreadful to Mrs. Roberts, was really a pattern of neatness and purity to every dweller in that attic. There was a straw tick, covered with a dark calico spread, which did duty as a sheet, and the boy who lay on it was covered by a patched quilt that had been mended, and was clean. ”

“ Roberts, as she made her way out from the fast-filling store, felt that she had not made great progress toward getting acquainted with her class.
Still it must be admitted that if young Ried had gotten some new ideas, so also had she. “A Christian home!” She found herself repeating the phrase, lingering over it, wondering if her new home, in every sense of the word, merited that title. “It cannot simply mean a home where Christ is honored,” she said to herself. “I surely have that. It rather means a home where everything pertaining to it serves His cause. ”

“ Everett, walking up and down the floor in puzzled thought, “we need something that shall be a genuine common interest, of which we are all, or all but one, equally ignorant—something that we can take hold of with zest, on as low a platform as the most ignorant of those seen. I was convinced of that when I saw the abandon with which we all went into the type-writer business, with a naturalness and equality that, in the matter of reading and writing, it is impossible for us to feel. ”

“ Roberts adroitly gave herself to the second.
“Why don't you find your pleasure in tumbling around on the floor, playing with a bright-colored marble or two as you did when a child? The world was in its childhood when God taught the people in this way. He has given them just as wonderful lessons since, but lessons more suited to men and women who have learned to think and reason. We don't like to be always treated as children.” ”

“ I wonder what spring I can touch to give me even this meagre bit of information?”
As if in answer to her mental query, she came just then full upon Policeman Duffer. She recognized him instantly: a man who, though by no means small, was so far from having the majestic presence of most policemen that, in the estimation of the boys, he merited the name “Little Duffer.” Mrs. Roberts carried to her new work one talent not always to be found among even efficient workers,—the ability to remember both names and faces. ”

“ Mr. Ried, I have such a nice idea. I heard you and Dr. Everett speaking of the Literary Club the other night. Why cannot we have a literary club of our own? A reading circle, or something of that sort? Suppose we should meet once a week and read aloud something interesting, and have talks about it afterwards. Do you ever read aloud?”
If Mrs. Roberts in all sincerity had not been one of the most simple-hearted, and in some respects ignorant little creatures on the face of the globe, she could never, with serious face, have addressed such a question to Nimble Dick. ”

“ Evolution staring her in the face in a corner class in a mission school;—a class that had been gathered from the slums! Mrs. Roberts did not know that these are the very places in which to find it in all its coarseness. Yet she made haste to meet the boy on his own ground.
“Very well, if you choose to take that view of it. Was not the tadpole alive? Where did the life come from? You insist that the story I have been telling you is untrue because you know that none of these sleight-of-hand performers have ever, or can ever make actual life! ”