But now, all poor Miss Bree"s "best places" had slipped away from her, and her life had changed. People go to great outfitting stores, buy their goods, have themselves measured, and leave the whole thing to result a week afterward in a big box sent home with everything fitted and machined and finished, with the last inventions and acc.u.mulations of frills, tucks, and reduplications; and at the bottom of the box a bill tucked and reduplicated in the same modern proportions.
Miss Bree had now to go out, like any other machine girl, to the warerooms; except when she took home particular hand-work of b.u.t.ton holes and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, or occasionally engaged herself for two or three days to some family mother who could not pay the big bills, and who ran her own machine, cut her own basques and gores, and hired help for basting and finishing. She had almost done with even this; most people liked young help; brisker with their needles, sewing without gla.s.ses, nicer and fresher looking to have about.
Poor "Aunt Blin" overheard one man ask his wife in her dressing-room before dinner, "Why, if she must have a st.i.tching-woman in the house, she couldn"t find a more comfortable one to look at; somebody a little bright and cheerful to bring to the table, instead of that old callariper?"
Miss Bree behaved like a saint; it was not the lady"s fault; she resisted the temptation to a sudden headache and declining her dinner, for fear of hurting the feelings of her employer, who had always been kind to her; she would not let her suspect or be afraid that the speech had come to her ears; she smoothed her thin old hair, took off her gla.s.ses, wiped her eyes a little, washed her hands, and went down when she was called; but after that day she "left off going out to work for families."
The warehouses did not pay her very well; neither there was she able to compete with the smart young seamstresses; she only got a dollar and a quarter a day, and had to lodge and feed herself; yet she kept on; it was her lot and living; she looked out at her third-story window upon the roofs and spires, listened to the fire alarms, heard the chimes of a Sunday, saw carriages roll by and well-dressed people moving to and fro, felt the thrill of the daily bustle, and was, after all, a part of this great, beautiful Boston! Strange though it seem, Miss Belinda Bree was content.
Content enough to tell charming stories of it, up in the country, to her niece Bel, when she was questioned by her.
Of her room all to herself, so warm in winter, with a red carpet (given her by the very Mrs. "Callariper" who could not help a misgiving, after all, that Miss Bree"s vocation had been ended with that wretched word), and a coal stove, and a big, splendid brindled gray cat--Bartholomew--lying before it; of her snug little housekeeping, with kindlings in the closet drawer, and milk-jug out on the stone window-sill; of the music-mistress who had the room below, and who came up sometimes and sat an hour with her, and took her cat when she came away, leaving in return, in her own absences, her great English ivy with Miss Bree. Of the landlady who lived in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and asked them all down, now and then, to play a game of ca.s.sino or double cribbage, and eat a Welsh rabbit: of things outside that younger people did,--the girls at the warerooms and their friends. Of Peck"s cheap concerts, and the Public Library books to read on holidays and Sundays; of ten-cent trips down the harbor, to see the surf on Nantasket Beach; of the brilliant streets and shops; of the Public Garden, the flowers and the pond, the boats and the bridge; of the great bronze Washington reared up on his horse against the evening sky; of the deep, quiet old avenues of the Common; of the balloons and the fireworks on the "Fourth of Julies."
I do not think she did it to entice her; I do not think it occurred to her that she was putting anything into Bel"s head; but when Bel all at once declared that she meant to go to Boston herself and seek her fortune,--do machine-work or something,--Aunt Blin felt a sudden thankful delight, and got a glimpse of a possible cheerfulness coming to herself that she had never dreamed of. If it was pleasant to tell over these sc.r.a.ps of her small, husbanded enjoyments to Bel, what would it be to have her there, to share and make and enlarge them? To bring young girls home sometimes for a chat, or even a cup of tea; to fetch books from the library, and read them aloud of a winter evening, while she st.i.tched on by the gas-light with her gla.s.ses on her little homely old nose? The little old nose radiated the concentrated delight of the whole diminutive, withered face; the intense gleam of the small, pale blue eyes that bent themselves together to a short focus above it, and the eagerness of the thin, shrunken lips that pursed themselves upward with an expression that was keener than a smile. Bel laughed, and said she was "all puckered up into one little admiration point!"
After that, it was of no use to be wise and to make objections.
"I"ll take you right in with me, and look after you, if you do!"
said Miss Bree. "And two together, we can housekeep real comfortable!"
It was as if a new wave of youth, from the far-retreated tide, had swept back upon the beach sands of her life, to spend its sparkle and its music upon the sad, dry level. Every little pebble of circ.u.mstance took new color under its touch. Something belonging to her was still young, strong, hopeful. Bel would be a brightness in the whole old place. The middle-aged music-mistress would like her,--perhaps even give her some fragmentary instruction in the clippings of her time. Mrs. Pimminy, the landlady,--old Mr. Sparrow, the watch-maker, who went up and down stairs to and from his nest under the eaves,--the milliner in the second-floor-back,--why, she would make friends with them all, like the sunshine! There would be singing in the house! The middle-aged music-mistress did not sing,--only played. And this would be her doing,--her bringing; it would be the third-floor-front"s glory! The pert girls at the wareroom would not snub the old maid any more, and shove her into the meanest corner. She had got a piece of girlhood of her own again. Let them just see Bel Bree--that was all!
Yet she did set before Bel, conscientiously, the difference between the free country home and the close, bricked up city.
"There isn"t any out-doors there, you know--round the houses; _home_ out-doors; you have to be dressed up and go somewhere, when you go out. The streets are splendid, and there"s lots to look at; but they"re only made to _get through_, you know, after all."
They were sitting, while she spoke, on a flat stone out under the old elm-trees between the "fore-yard" and the barn. Up above was great blue depth into which you could look through the delicate stems and flickering leaves of young far tips of branches. One little white cloud was shining down upon them as it floated in the sun. Away off swelled billowy tops of hills, one behind another, making you feel how big the world was. That was what Bel had been saying.
"You feel so as long as you stay here," replied Miss Blin, "as if there was room and chance for everything "over the hills and far away." But in the city it all crowds up together; it gets just as close as it can, and everybody is after the same chances. "Tain"t _all_ Fourth-of-July; you mustn"t think it. Milk"s ten cents a quart, and _jest_ as blue! Don"t you "spose you"re better off up here, after all? Do you think Mrs. Bree could get along without you, now?"
Bel replied most irrelevantly. She sat watching the fowls scratching around the barn-door.
"How different a rooster scratches from a hen!" said she. "He just gives one kick,--out smart,--and picks up what he"s after; _she_ makes ever so many little scrabbles, and half the time concludes it ain"t there!--What was it you were saying? About mother? O, _she_ don"t want me! The trouble is, Aunt Blin, we two _don"t_ want each other, and never did." She picked up a straw and bent it back and forth, absently, into little bits, until it broke. Her lips curled tremulously, and her bright eyes were sad.
Miss Blin knew it perfectly well without being told; but she wouldn"t have pretended that she did, for all the world.
"O, tut!" said she. "You get along well enough. You like one another full as well as could be expected, only you ain"t const.i.tuted similar, that"s all. She"s great for turning off, and going ahead, and she ain"t got much patience. Such folks never has. You can"t be smart and easy going too. "Tain"t possible. She"s right-up-an"-a-comin", and she expects everybody else to be. But you _like_ her, Bel; you know you do. You ain"t goin" away for that. I won"t have it that you are."
"I like her--yes;" said Bel, slowly. "I know she"s smart. I _mean_ to like her. I do it on purpose. But I don"t _love_ her, with a _can"t help it_, you see. I feel as if I ought to; I want to have my heart go out to her; but it keeps coming back again. I could be happy with you, Aunt Blin, in your up-stairs room, with the blue milk out in the window-sill. There"d be room, enough for _us_, but this whole farm isn"t comfortable for Ma and me!"
After that, Miss Blin only said that she would speak to Kellup; meaning her brother, Caleb Bree.
Caleb Bree was just the sort of man that by divine compensation generally marries, or gets married by a woman that is "right-up-and-a-comin"." He "had no objections," to this plan of Bel"s, I mean; perhaps his favorite phrase would have expressed his strongest feeling in the crisis just referred to, also; it was a normal state of mind with him; he had gone through the world, thus far, on the principle of _not_ "having objections." He had none now, "if Ma"am hadn"t, and Blin saw best." He let his child go out from his house down into the great, unknown, struggling, hustling, devouring city, without much thought or inquiry. It settled _that_ point in his family. "Bel had gone down to Boston to be a dress-maker, "long of her Aunt Blindy," was what he had to say to his neighbors. It sounded natural and satisfactory. House-holds break up after the children are grown, of course; they all settle to something; that is all it comes to--the child-life out of which if they had died and gone away, there would have been wailing and heart-breaking; the loving and tending and watching through cunning ways and helpless prettiness and small knowledge-getting: they turn into men and women, and they go out into the towns, or they get married, even--and n.o.body thinks, then, that the little children are dead! But they are: they are dead, out of the household, and they never come back to it any more.
Caleb Bree let Bel go, never once thinking that after this she never _could_ come back the same.
Mrs. Bree had her own two children,--and there might be more--that would claim all that could be done for them. She would miss Bel"s telling them stories, and washing their faces, and carrying them off into the barn or the orchard, and leaving the house quiet of a Sunday or a busy baking-day. It had been "all Bel was good for;"
and it had been more than Mrs. Bree had appreciated at the time. Bel cried when she kissed them and bade them good-by; but she was gone; she and her round leather trunk and her little bird in its cage that she could not leave behind, though Aunt Blin did say that "she wouldn"t altogether answer for it with Bartholomew."
Bel herself,--the other little bird,--who had never tried her wings, or been shut up in strange places with fierce, prowling creatures,--she could answer for her, she thought!
It is worth telling,--the advent of Bel and her bird in the up-stairs room in Leicester Place, and what came of it with Bartholomew. Miss Blin believed very much in her cat with the apostolic name, though she had never tried his principles with a caged bird. She had tutored him to refrain from meat and milk unless they were set down for him in his especial corner upon the hearth.
He took his airings on the window-ledge where the sun slanted in of a morning, beside the very brown paper parcel in which was wrapped the mutton chop for dinner; he never touched the cheese upon the table, though he knew the word "cheese" as well as if he could spell it, and would stand up tall on his hind paws to receive his morsel when he was told, even in a whisper, and without a movement, that he might come and have some. He preferred his milk condensed in this way; he got very little of it in the fluid form, and did not think very highly of it when he did. He knew what was good, Aunt Blin said.
He understood conversation; especially moral lectures and admonitions; Miss Bree had talked to him precisely as if he had a soul, for five years. He knew when she was coming back at one o"clock to dinner, or at nine in the evening, by the ringing of the bells. After she had told him so, he would be sitting at the door, watching for its opening, from the instant of their first sound until she came up-stairs.
When Aunt Blin thought over all this and told it to Bel, on their way down in the cars, she almost persuaded her niece and quite convinced herself, that Bartholomew could be dealt with on principles of honor and confidence. They would not attempt to keep the cage out of his reach; that would be almost to keep it out of their own. She would talk to Bartholomew. She would show him the bird, and make him understand that they set great store by it, that it must not be meddled with on any account. "Why, he never _offers_ to touch my tame pigeon that hops in on the table to eat the crumbs!"
"But a pigeon is pretty big, Aunt Blin," Bel answered, "and may be Bartholomew suspects that it is old and tough. I _am_ afraid about my tiny, tender little bird."
Bel was charmed with Aunt Blin"s room, when she opened the blinds and drew up the colored shades, and let the street-light in until she could find her matches and light the gas. It was just after dark when they reached Leicester Place. The little lamp-lighter ran down out of the court with his ladder as they turned in. There were two bright lanterns whose flames flared in the wind; one just opposite their windows, and one below at the livery stable. There was a big livery stable at the bottom of the court, built right across the end; and there was litter about the doors, and horse odor in the air. But that is not the very worst kind of city smell that might be, and putting up with that, the people who lived in Leicester Court had great counterbalancing advantages. There was only one side to the place; and though the street way was very narrow, the opposite walls shut in the grounds of a public building, where there were trees and gra.s.s, and above which there was really a chance at the sky. Further along, at the corner, loomed the eight stories of an apartment hotel. All up and down this great structure, and up and down the little three-storied fronts of the Court as well, the whole place was gay with illumination, for these last were nearly all lodging houses, and at night at least, looked brilliant and grand; certainly to Bel Bree"s eyes, seeing three-storied houses and gas-lights for the first time. Inside, at number eight, the one little gas jet revealed presently just what Aunt Blin had told about: the scarlet and black three-ply carpet in a really handsome pattern of raised leaves; the round table in the middle with a red cloth, and the square one in the corner with a brown linen one; the little Parlor Beauty stove, with a boiler atop and an oven in the side,--an oval braided mat before it, and a mantel shelf above with some vases and books upon it,--all the books, some dozen in number, that Aunt Blin had ever owned in the whole course of her life. One of the blue vases had a piece broken out of its edge, but that was turned round behind. The closets, one on each side of the fire-place, answered for pantry, china closet, store-room, wardrobe, and all. The _refrigerator_ was out on the stone window-sill on the east side. The room had corner windows, the house standing at the head of a little paved alley that ran down to Hero Street.
"There!" says Aunt Blin turning up the gas cheerily, and dropping her shawl upon a chair. "Now I"ll go and get Bartholomew, and then I"ll run for some m.u.f.fins, and you can make a fire. You know where all the things are, you know!"
That was the way she made Bel welcome; treating her at once as part and parcel of everything.
Down stairs ran Aunt Blin; she came up more slowly, bringing the great Bartholomew in her arms, and treading on her petticoats all the way.
Straight up to the square table she walked, where Bel had set down her bird-cage, with the newspaper pinned over it. Aunt Blin pulled the paper off with one hand, holding Bartholomew fast under the other arm. His big head stuck out before, and his big tail behind; both eager, restless, wondering, in port and aspect.
"Now, Bartholomew," said Aunt Blin, in her calmest, most confident, most deliberate tones, "see here! We"ve brought--home--a little _bird_, Bartholomew!"
Bartholomew"s big head was electric with feline expression; his ears stood up, his eyes sent out green sparks; hair and whiskers were on end; he devoured poor little Cheeps already with his gaze; his tail grew huger, and vibrated in great sweeps.
"O see, Aunt Blin!" cried Bel. "He"s just ready to spring. He don"t care a bit for what you say!"
Aunt Blin gave a fresh grip with her elbow against Bartholomew"s sides, and went on with unabated faith,--unhurried calmness.
"We set _everything_ by that little bird, Bartholomew! We wouldn"t have it touched for all the world! Don"t--you--never--go--_near_ it!
Do you hear?"
Bartholomew heard. Miss Bree could not see his tail, fairly lashing now, behind her back, nor the fierce eyes, glowing like green fire.
She stroked his head, and went on preaching.
"The little bird _sings_, Bartholomew! You can hear it, mornings, while you eat your breakfast. And you shall have CHEESE for breakfast as long as you"re good, and _don"t_--_touch_--the _bird_!"
"O, Aunt Blin! He will! He means to! Don"t show it to him any more!
Let me hang it way up high, where he _can"t_!"
"Don"t you be afraid. He understands now, that we"re precious of it.
Don"t you, Bartholomew? I want him to get used to it."
And Aunt Blin actually set the cat down, and turned round to take up her shawl again.
Bartholomew was quiet enough for a minute; he must have his cat-pleasure of crouching and creeping; he must wait till n.o.body looked. He knew very well what he was about. But the tail trembled still; the green eyes were still wild and eager.
"The kindlings are in the left-hand closet, you know," said Aunt Blin, with a big pin in her mouth, and settling her shoulders into her shawl. "You"ll want to get the fire going as quick as you can."
Poor Bel turned away with a fearful misgiving; not for that very minute, exactly; she hardly supposed Bartholomew would go straight from the sermon to sin; but for the resistance of evil enticements hereafter, under Miss Bree"s trustful system,--though he walked off now like a deacon after a benediction,--she trembled in her poor little heart, and was sorely afraid she could not ever come to love Aunt Blin"s great gray pet as she supposed she ought.