The eager smile, that seemed to warm the wan features of the widow, as she glanced over the advertis.e.m.e.nt, was dimmed and darkened, as the shining river of summer is shadowed by the heavy pa.s.sing cloud, when she came to the chilling words--_the applicant to have no inc.u.mbrances_.
"No inc.u.mbrances," moaned the widow, "shall none but G.o.d deign to smile or have mercy on the helpless orphans; are they to be feared, shunned, hated, because helpless? Must they perish--die with me alone--struggling against our woes, poverty, wretchedness? No! I know there is a G.o.d, he is good, powerful, merciful; he will turn the hearts of some towards the widow and the orphan; and though basilisk-like words warn me to hope not, I will apply--I will attempt to win attention, work, slave, toil, toil, toil, until my poor hands shall wear to the bone, and my eyes no longer do their office--if he will only have mercy, pity for my poor, poor orphans--G.o.d bless them!" and in melting tenderness and emotion, the poor woman dropped her face upon her lap and wept--her tears were the showers of hope, to the almost parched soil of her heart, and as the gentle dews of heaven fall to the earth, so fell the widow"s tears in balmy freshness upon her visions of a brighter something--in the future.
It was yet early in the evening; her children slept; the poor woman put on her bonnet and shawl, and started at once for the office of the _news_paper. The publisher was just closing his sanctum, but he gave the information the widow required, and favorably impressed with Mrs.
Glenn"s appearance and manner, the publisher, a quaker, interrogated her on various points of her present condition, prospects, &c.; and observed, that but for her children, he had no doubt of the widow"s suiting the old man exactly.
"But thee must not be neglected, or discarded from honest industry, because of thy responsibilities, which G.o.d hath given thee," said the quaker. "If thy lad is stout of his age, and a good boy, I will provide for him; he may learn our business, and be off thy charge, and thee may be enabled to keep thy two female children about thee."
On the following Monday, the widow signified her intention of writing a few lines as an applicant for the situation of housekeeper, and afterwards to consult with the publisher in regard to her boy, Martin, and then bidding the courteous quaker farewell, she sought her humble domicil, with a much lighter heart than she had lately carried from her distressed and lonely home.
In an ancient part of the Quaker city, facing the broad and beautiful Delaware river, stood a venerable mansion; but few of this cla.s.s now remain in Philadelphia, and the one of which we now speak, but recently pa.s.sed away, in the great conflagration that visited the city in 1850.
In this substantial and stately brick edifice, lived one of the wealthy and retired ship brokers of Quakerdom. He was very wealthy, very eccentric, very good-hearted, but pa.s.sionate, plethoric, gouty, and seventy years of age. Mr. Job Carson had lived long and seen much; he had been so engrossed in clearing his fortune, that from twenty-five to forty, he had not bethought him of that almost indispensable appendage to a man"s comfort in this world--a wife. He was the next ten years considering the matter over, and then, having built and furnished himself a costly mansion, which he peopled with servants, headed by a maiden sister as housekeeper, Job thought, upon the whole--to which his sister added her strong consent--that matrimony would greatly increase his cares, and perhaps add more _noise_ and confusion to his household, than it might counterbalance or offset by probable comfort in "wedded happiness," so temptingly set forth to old bachelors.
"No," said Job, at fifty, "I"ll not marry, not trade off my single blessedness yet; at least, there"s time enough, there"s women enough; I"m young, hale, hearty, in the prime of life; no, I"ll not give up the ship to woman yet."
Another ten years rolled along, and the thing turned up in the retired merchant"s mind again--he was now sixty, and one, at least, of the objections to his entering the wedded state, removed--for a man at sixty is scarcely too young to marry, surely.
"Ah, it"s all up," quoth Job Carson. "I"m spoiled now. I"ve had my own way so long, I could not think of surrendering to petticoats, turning my house into a nursery, and turning my back on the joys, quiet and comforts of bachelorhood. No, no, Job Carson--matrimony be hanged.
You"ll none of it." And so ten years more pa.s.sed--now age and luxury do their work.
"O, that infernal twinge in my toe. _O_, there it is again--hang the goat, it can"t be gout. Dr. Bleedem swears I"m getting the gout.
Blockhead--none of my kith or kin ever had such an infernal complaint.
O, ah-h-h, that infernal window must be sand-bagged, given me this pain in the back, and--Banquo! Where the deuce is that n.i.g.g.e.r--Banquo-o-o!"
"Yis, ma.s.sa, here I is," said a good-natured, fat, black and sleek-looking old darkey, poking his shining, grinning face into the old gentleman"s study, sitting, playing or smoking room.
"Here you are? Where? You black sarpint, come here; go to Jackplane, the carpenter, and tell him to come here and make my sashes tight, d"ye hear?"
"Yis, ma.s.sa, dem"s "em; I"se off."
"No, you ain"t--come here, Banquo, you woolly son of Congo, you; go open my liquor case, bring the brandy and some cool water. There, now clear yourself."
"Yis, ma.s.sa, I"se gone, dis time--"
"No, you ain"t, come back; go to old Joe Winepipes, and tell him I send my compliments to him, and if he wants to continue that game of chess, let him come over this afternoon, d"ye hear?"
"Yis, ma.s.sa, dem"s "em, I"se gone dis time--_shuah!_"
"Well, away with you."
Old Job Carson was yet a rugged looking old gentleman. He had survived nearly all his "blood, kith and kin;" his sister had paid the last debt of nature some months before, and in hopes of finding some one to fill her station, in his domestic concerns, his advertis.e.m.e.nt had appeared in the _Weekly Bulletin_.
"Ah, me, it"s no use crying about spilt milk," sighed the old gent over his gla.s.s. "I suppose I"ve been a fool; out-lived everybody, everything useful to me. Made a fortune _first_, n.o.body to spend it _last_. Yes, yes," continued the old man, in a thoughtful strain, "old Job Carson will soon slip off the handle; "poor old devil," some bloodsucker may say, as he grabs Job"s worldly effects, "he"s gone, had a hard scrabble to get together these things, and now, we"ll pick his bones." Well, let "em, let "em; serves me right; ought to have known it before, but blast and rot "em, if they only enjoy the pillage as much as I did the struggles to keep it together, why, a--it will be about an even thing with us, after all."
"Yis, ma.s.sa, here I is," chuckled Banquo, again putting his black bullet pate in at the door.
"You are, eh? Well, clear yourself--no, come back; go down to Oatmeal"s store, and tell him to let old Mrs. Dougherty, and the old blind man, and the sailor"s wife, and--and--the rest of them, have their groceries, again, this week--only another week, mind, for I"m not going to support the whole neighborhood any longer--tell him so."
"Yis, ma.s.sa, I"se gone."
"Wait, come here, Banquo; well, never mind--clear out."
But Banquo returned in a moment, saying:
"Dar"s a lady at the doo-ah, sah; says she wants to see you, sah, "bout "ticlar business, sah."
"Is, eh? Well, call her into the parlor, I"ll be down--ah-h, that infernal _twinge_ again, ah-h-h-h, ah-h! What a stupid a.s.s a man is to hang around in this world until he"s a nuisance to himself and every body else!" grunted old Job, as he groped his way down stairs, and into the parlor.
"Good morning, ma"am," said he, as he confronted the widow, who, in the utmost taste of simple neatness, had arranged her spare dress, to meet the umpire of her future fate.
Mrs. Glenn respectfully acknowledged the salutation, and at once opened her business to the bluff old man.
"Yes, yes; I"m a poor, unfortunate creature, ma"am; I"m nothing, n.o.body, any more. I want somebody to see that I"m not robbed, or poisoned, and that I may have a bed to lie upon, and a clean piece of linen to my back occasionally, and a--that"s all I want, ma"am."
The widow feigned to hope she knew the duties of a housekeeper, and situated as she was, it was a labor of love to work--toil, for those misfortune had placed in her charge.
"Eh? what"s that--haven"t got _inc.u.mbrances_, have you, ma"am?"
"I have three children, sir," meekly said the widow.
"Three children?" gruffly responded the old gentleman; "ah, umph, what business have you, ma"am, with three children?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Three children?" gruffly responded the old gentleman.
"Ah, umph, what business have you, ma"am, with three children?"--_Page_ 393.]
The widow, not apparently able to answer such a poser, the old gentleman continued:
"Poor widows, poor people of any kind, have no business with _inc.u.mbrances_, ma"am; no excuse at all, ma"am, for "em."
"So, alas!" said Mrs. Glenn, "I find the world too--too much inclined to reason; but I shall trust to the mercy and providence of the Lord, if denied the kind feelings of mortals."
"Ah, yes, yes, that"s it, ma"am; it"s all very fine, ma"am; but too many poor, foolish creatures get themselves in a sc.r.a.pe, then depend upon the Lord to help "em out. This shifting the responsibility to the shoulders of the Lord isn"t right. I don"t wonder the Lord shuts his ears to half he"s asked to do, ma"am."
"Well, sir, I thought I would _call_, though I feared my children would be an objection to--"
"Yes, yes,--I don"t want inc.u.mbrances, ma"am."
"But I--I a--"--the widow"s heart was too full for utterance; she moved towards the door. "Good morning, sir."
"Stop, come back, ma"am, sit down; it"s a pity--you"ve no business, ma"am, as I said before, to have inc.u.mbrances, when you haven"t got any visible means of support. Now, if you only had one, one inc.u.mbrance--and that you"d no business to have"--said the old gent, doggedly, tapping an antique tortoise-sh.e.l.l snuff box, and applying "the pungent grains of t.i.tillating dust," as Pope observes, to his proboscis, "if you had only _one_ inc.u.mbrance--but you"ve got a house full, ma"am."
"No, sir, only three!" answered widow Glenn.
"Three, only three? G.o.d bless me, ma"am, I wouldn"t be a poor woman with two--no, with one inc.u.mbrance at my petticoat tails--for the biggest ship and cargo old Steve Girard ever owned, ma"am."
"I might," meekly said the widow, "put my son with the printer, sir; he has offered to take my poor boy."
"Two girls and a boy?" inquiringly asked the old gent, applying the dust, and manipulating his box. "How old? Eldest thirteen, eh?--boy eleven, and the youngest seven, eh?" and working a traverse, or solving some problematic point, Job Carson stuck his hands under his morning gown, and strode over the floor; after a few evolutions of the kind, he stopped--fumbled in a drawer of a secretary, and placing a ten dollar note in the widow"s hand, he said: