"Will you do as I wish you to in this matter?"
"Well, really, my dear madam, I don"t quite get at your meaning."
"Will you let this store remain as it is, and rent those other saloons to honest business men for some other purpose than drinking-saloons?"
"O my dear, dear madam! What can you be thinking of? The rent that I get from those four buildings is equal in amount to any eight of the other buildings of the same size. I cannot, I cannot, consent to make any changes whatever."
"You will not, then, do as I wish?"
"I cannot, my dear madam: I prefer to put it in that way,-I cannot. I do not see as you do in the matter. And as the law empowers me to use my own discretion in renting the buildings, investing money, etc., I shall be obliged to do so."
Cicely got up: she was white as snow now, but as quiet as snow ever wus.
Mr. Post got up, too, about the politest actin" man I ever see, a movin" chairs out of the way, and a smilin", and a waitin" on us out. He was ready to give plenty of politeness to Cicely, but no justice.
And I guess he was kinder sorry to see how white and sad she looked, for he spoke out in a sort of a comfortin" voice,-
"You have had great sorrows, Mrs. Slide, but you have also a great deal to comfort you. Just think of how many other widows have been left in poverty, or, as you may say, penury, and you are rich."
Cicely turned then, and made the longest speech I ever heard her make.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LICENSED WRETCHEDNESS.]
"Yes, many a drunkard"s wife is clothed in rags, and goes hungry to bed at night, with her hungry children crying for bread about her. She can lie on her cold pile of rags, with the snow sifting down on her, and think that her husband, a sober, honest man once, was made a low, brutal wretch by intemperance; that he drank up all his property, killed himself by strong drink, was buried in a pauper"s grave, and left a starving wife and children, to live if they could. The cold of winter freezes her, the want of food makes her faint, and to see her little ones starving about her makes her heart ache, no doubt. I have plenty of money, fine clothes, dainty food, diamonds on my fingers."
Says she, stretching out her little white hands, and smilin" the bitterest smile I ever see on Cicely"s face,-
"But do you not think, that, as I lie on my warm, soft couch at night, my heart is wrung by a keener pang than that drunkard"s wife can ever know? I can lie and think that by my means, my wealth, I am making just such homes as that, making just such broken hearts, just such starving children, filling just such paupers" graves,-laying up a long store of curses and judgments, for my boy"s inheritance. And I am powerless to do any thing but suffer."
And she opened the door, and walked right out. And Mr. Post stood and smiled till we got to the bottom of the stairs.
"Good-afternoon, good-afternoon, my clear madam, call again; happy to see you-Good-afternoon."
Wall, Cicely went right to bed the minute we got home; and she never eat a mite of supper, only drinked a cup of tea, and thanked me so pretty for bringin" it to her.
And there was such a sad and helpless, and sort of a outraged, look in her pretty brown eyes, some as a n.o.ble animal might have, who wus at bay with the cruel hunters all round it. And so I told Josiah after I went down- stairs.
And the boy overheard me, and asked me 87 questions about "a animal at bay," and what kind of a bay it was-was it the bay to a barn? or on the water? or-
Oh my land! my land! How I did suffer!
But Cicely grew worse fast, from that very day. She seemed to run right down.
CHAPTER XII.
One day Cicely had been worryin" dretfully all the forenoon about the boy. And I declare, it seemed so pitiful to hear her talk and forebode about him, with her face lookin" so wan and white, and her big eyes so sorrowful lookin", as if they was lookin" onto all the sadness and trouble of the world, and couldn"t help herself-such a sort of a hopeless look, and lovin" and broken-hearted, that it was all I could do to stand it without breakin" right down, and cry in" with her.
But I knew her state, and held firm. And she went over all the old grounds agin to me, that she had foreboded on; and I went over all the old grounds of soothing agin and agin.
Why, good land! I had had practice enough. For every day, and every night, would she forebode and forebode, and I would soothe and soothe, till I declare for"t, I should have felt (to myself) a good deal like a bread- and-milk poultice, or even lobelia or catnip, if my feelin"s on the subject hadn"t been so dretful deep and solemn, deeper than any poultice that was ever made-and solemner.
Why, Tirzah Ann says to me one day,-she had been settin" with Cicely for a hour or two; and she come out a cryin", and says she,-
"Mother, I don"t see how you can stand it. It would break my heart to see Cicely"s broken-hearted look, and hear her talk for half a day; and you have to hear her all the time." And she wiped her eyes.
And I says, "Tongue can"t tell, Tirzah Ann, how your ma"s heart does ache for her. And," says I, "if I knew myself, I had got to die and leave a boy in the world with such temptations round him, and such a chin on him, why, I don"t know what I should do, and what I shouldn"t do."
And says Tirzah Ann, "That is jest the way I feel, mother;" and we both of us wiped our eyes.
But I held firm before her, and reminded her every time, of what she knew already,-"that there was One who was strong, who comforted her in her hour of need, and He would watch over the boy."
And sometimes she would be soothed for a little while, and sometimes she wouldn"t.
Wall, this day, as I said, she had worried and worried and worried. And at last I had soothed her down, real soothed. And she asked me before I went down-stairs, for a poem, a favorite one of hers,-"The Celestial Country." And I gin it to her. And she said I might shet the door, and she would read a spell, and she guessed she should drop to sleep.
And as I was goin" out of the room, she called me back to hear a verse or two she particularly liked, about the "endless, ageless peace of Syon:"-
"True vision of true beauty, Sweet cure of all distrest."
And I stood calm, and heard her with a smooth, placid face, though I knew my pies was a scorchin" in the oven, for I smelt "em. I did well by Cicely.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SAMANTHA LISTENING TO CICELY.]
After she finished it, I told her it was perfectly beautiful, and I left her feelin" quite bright; and there wuzn"t but one of my pies spilte, and I didn"t care if it wuz. I wuzn"t goin" to have her feelin"s hurt, pies or no pies.
After I got my pies out, I went into my nearest neighbor"s on a errent, tellin" Josiah to stay in Thomas Jefferson"s room, just acrost from Cicely"s, so"s if she wanted any thing, he could get it for her. I wuzn"t gone over a hour, and, when I went back, I went up-stairs the first thing; and I found Cicely a cryin," though there was a softer, more contented look in her eyes than I had seen there for a long time.
And I says, "What is the matter, Cicely?"
And she says,-
"Oh! if I had been a better woman, I could have seen my mother! she has been here!"
"Why, Cicely!" says I. "Here, take some of this jell."
But she put it away, and says in a sort of a solemn, happy tone,-
"She has been here!"
She said it jest as earnest and serene as I ever heard any thing said; and there was a look in her eyes some as there wuz when she come home from her aunt Mary"s, and told me "she almost wished her aunt had died while she was there, because she felt that her mother would be the angel sent from heaven to convey her aunt"s soul home-and she could have seen her."
There was that same sort of deep, soulful, sad, and yet happy look to her eyes, as she repeated,-
"She has been here! I was lying here, aunt Samantha, reading "The Celestial Country," not thinking of any thing but my book, when suddenly I felt something fanning my forehead, like a wing pa.s.sing gently over my face. And then something said to me just as plain as I am speaking to you, only, instead of being spoken aloud, it was said to my soul,-
""You have wanted to see your mother: she is here with you."