The Green Satin Gown
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Laura E. Richards >> The Green Satin Gown
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"In just a minute! I want to show you something, Mr. Gregory, and to
ask your advice, please."
The old finisher turned completely round this time, and looked his
interest. Mary opened her hand, and displayed the brooch she had
found.
James Gregory drew his lips into the form of a whistle, but made no
sound. He looked from the brooch to Mary, and back again.
"Well?" he said.
"I found it in the rags; blue Egyptians, you know, Mr. Gregory. It
was inside the lining of a jacket. Do you think--what do you think
about it? is it glass, or--something else?"
Gregory took the ornament from her, and held it up to the light,
screwing his eyes to little points of light; then he polished it on
his sleeve, and held it up again.
[Illustration: "GREGORY POLISHED IT ON HIS SLEEVE, AND HELD IT UP
AGAIN."]
"Something else!" he said, briefly.
"Is it--do you think it might be worth something, Mr. Gregory?"
asked Mary, rather timidly.
"Yes!" roared Gregory, with a sudden explosion. "I do! I b'lieve
them's di'monds, sure as here I sit. Mary Denison, you've struck it
this time, or I'm a Dutchman."
He got off his stool in great excitement, and walked up and down the
room, still holding the brooch in his hand. Mary looked after him,
and her face was very pale. She said one word softly, "Mother!" that
was all.
Mary Denison and her mother were poor. Mrs. Denison was far from
strong, and they had no easy time of it, for there was little save
Mary's wages to feed and clothe the two women and pay their rent.
James Gregory knew all this; his pale old face was lighted with
emotion, and he stumped up and down the room at a rapid pace.
Suddenly he stopped, and faced the anxious girl, who was following
him with bewildered eyes.
"Findin's havin'!" he said, abruptly. "That's paper-mill law. Some
folks would tell ye to keep this to yourself, and sell it for what
you could get."
Mary's face flushed.
"But you do not tell me that!" she said, quietly.
"No!" roared the old man, with another explosion, stamping violently
on the floor. "No, I don't. You're poor as spring snakes, and your
mother's sickly, and you've hard work to get enough to keep the
flesh on your bones; but I don't tell ye to do that. I tell ye to
take it straight to the Old Man, and tell him where ye found it, and
all about it. I've knowed him ever since his mustash growed, and
before. You go straight to him! He's in the office now."
"I was going!" said Mary, simply. "I thought I'd come and see you
first, Mr. Gregory, you've always been so good to mother and me.
You--you couldn't manage to come with me, could you? I am afraid of
Mr. Gordon; I can't help it, though he is always pleasant to me."
"I'll go!" said old James, with alacrity. "You come right along with
me!"
In his eagerness he seized Mary by the arm, and kept his hold on her
as they passed out through the mill. The few "hands" who were at
work here and there gazed after them in amazement; for the old man
was dragging the girl along as if he had caught her in some offence,
and was going to deliver her up to justice.
The same impression was made in the office, when the pair appeared
there. The two clerks stared open-mouthed, and judged after their
nature; for one of them said, instantly, to himself, "It's a mistake!"
while the other said, "I always knew that Denison girl was too pious
to last!"
A tall man who sat at a desk in the corner looked up quietly.
"Ah, Gregory!" he said. "What is it? Mary Denison? Good morning, Mary!
Anything wrong in the rag-room?"
Gregory waved his hat excitedly.
"If you'd look here, sir!" he said. "If you would just cast your eye
over that article, and tell this gal what you think of it! Blue
Egyptians, sir! luckiest rags that ever come into this mill, I've
always said. Well, sir?"
Mr. Gordon was not easily stirred to excitement. It seemed an age to
the anxious girl and the impetuous old man, as he turned the brooch
over and over, holding it up in every light, polishing it, breathing
on it, then polishing it again. Gregory's hands twitched with
eagerness, and Mary felt almost faint with suspense.
"You found this in the rags?" he asked at length, turning to Mary.
He spoke in his ordinary even tone, and Mary's heart sank, she could
not have told why.
"Yes, sir!" she faltered. "I found it in a blue jacket. It was in
between the stuff and the lining. There were glass buttons on the
jacket."
She drew them from her pocket and held them out; but Mr. Gordon,
after a glance, waved them back.
"Those are of no value!" he said. "About this brooch, I am not so
sure. The stones may be real stones--I incline to think they are;
but it is possible that they may be paste. The imitations are
sometimes very perfect; no one but a jeweller can tell positively. I
will take it to Boston with me to-morrow, and have it examined."
He dropped the brooch into a drawer at his side, turned the key and
put it in his pocket, all in his quiet, methodical way, as if he
were in the habit of examining diamond brooches every day; then he
nodded kindly to the pair, and bent over his papers again.
Mary went out silently, and Gregory followed her with a dazed look
on his strong features. He looked back at the door two or three times,
but said nothing till they were back in the finishing-room.
Then--"It's one of his days!" he said. "I've knowed him ever since
his mustash growed, and there's days when he's struck with a dumb
sperit, just like Scriptur'. Don't you fret, Mary! He'll see you
righted, or I'll give you my head."
Mary might have thought that Mr. Gregory's head would be of little
use to her without the rest of him. She felt sadly dashed and
disappointed. She hardly knew what she had expected, but it was
something very different from this calm, every-day reception, this
total disregard of her own and her companion's excitement.
"I guess he thinks they're nothing great!" she said, wearily.
"What was that he said about paste, Mr. Gregory? You never saw any
paste like that, did you?
"No!" said Gregory, "I've heered of Di'mond Glue, but 'twan't
nothin' like stones--nor glass neither. You may run me through the
calenders if I know what he's drivin' at. But I'll trust him!" he
added, vehemently. "I done right to tell you to go to him. He's in
one of his moods to-day, but you'll hear from him, if there's
anything to hear, now mark my words! And now I'd go home, if I was
you, and see your ma'am, and get your dinner. And--Mary--I dono as
I'd say anything about this, if I was you. Things get round so in a
mill, ye know."
Mary nodded assurance, and went home, trying to feel that nothing of
importance had happened. Do what she would, however, the golden
visions would come dancing before her eyes. Suppose--suppose the
stones should be real, after all! and suppose Mr. Gordon should give
her a part, at least, of the money they might bring in Boston. It
might--she knew diamonds were valuable--it might be thirty or forty
dollars. Oh! how rich she would be! The rent could be paid some time
in advance, and her mother could have the new shawl she needed so
badly: or would a cloak be better? cloaks were more in fashion, but
Mother said a good shawl was always good style.
Turning the corner by her mother's house, she met one of the clerks
who had been in the office when she went in there. He looked at her
with the smile she always disliked, she hardly knew why.
"You did the wrong thing that time, Miss Denison!" he said.
"What do you mean, Mr. Hitchcock?" asked Mary.
"You'll never see your diamonds again, nor the money for them!"
replied the man. "That's easy guessing. He'll come back and tell you
they're glass or paste, and that's the last you'll hear of them. And
the diamonds--for they are diamonds, right enough--will go into his
pocket, or on to his wife's neck. I know what's what! I wasn't born
down in these parts."
"You don't know Mr. Gordon!" said Mary, warmly. "That isn't the way
he is thought of by those who do know him."
The clerk was a newcomer from another State, and was not liked by
the mill-workers.
"I know his kind!" he said, with a sneer; "and they're no good to
your kind, Mary Denison, nor to mine. Mark my words, you'll hear no
more of that breastpin."
Mary turned away so decidedly that he said no more, but his eyes
followed her with a sinister look.
Next moment he was greeting Lena Laxen cordially, and she was
dimpling and smiling all over at his compliments. Lena thought
Mr. Hitchcock "just elegant!" and believed that Mary was jealous when
she said she did not like him. Something now prompted her to tell
him about the silk waist in the forbidden sack; he took her view at
once and zealously. The boss (for he did not use the kindly title of
"Old Man," by which the other mill-hands designated Mr. Gordon,
though he was barely forty) had his eye on the things, most likely,
as he had on the pin Mary Denison found. Hadn't Lena heard about that?
Well, it was a burning shame, he could tell her; he would see that
she, Lena, wasn't fooled that way. And Lena, listening eagerly,
heard a story very different from that which had been told to
Mr. Gordon.
In an hour the whole mill knew that Mary Denison had found a diamond
pin in the rags, and that Mr. Gordon had told her it was nothing but
hard glue, and had sold it himself in Boston for a thousand dollars,
and spent the money on a new horse.
Nor was this all! Late that evening Lena Laxen stole from her home
with a shawl over her head, and met the clerk by the corner of the
outer shed. A few minutes of whispering and giggling, and she stole
back, with a bundle under her shawl; while Hitchcock tied a bright
silk handkerchief round his neck, and strutted off with the air of a
conqueror.
Next morning, as Mary Denison was going to her work, Lena rapped on
the window, and called her attention by signs to the bodice she had
on. It was a gay striped silk, little worn, but still showing, in
spite of pressing, the marks of crumpling and tossing. The bright
colors suited Lena's dark skin well, and as she stood there with
flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, Mary thought she had never seen
her look prettier. At first she nodded and smiled in approval; but
the next moment a thought darted into her mind that made her clasp
her hands, and cry anxiously:
"Oh! Lena, you didn't do it! you never did it! it's not _that_ waist
you have on?"
Lena affected not to hear. She only nodded and laughed triumphantly,
and turned away, leaving Mary standing pale and distressed outside
the window.
Mary hesitated. Should she go in and reason further with the wilful
girl, and try to persuade her to restore the stolen garment?
Something told her it would be useless; but still she was on the
point of going in, when old James Gregory came by, and asked her to
walk on with him.
She complied, but not without an anxious look back at the window,
where no one was now to be seen.
"Well, May," said Gregory, "how're ye feelin' to-day? hearty? that's
clever! I hope you wasn't frettin' about that pin any. Most girls
would, but you ain't the fool kind."
"I don't know, Mr. Gregory!" said Mary, laughing. "I'm afraid I have
thought about it more or less, but I haven't been fretting. Where's
the use?"
"Jes' so! jes' so!" assented the old man, with alacrity.
"And I didn't say anything to Mother," Mary went on. "I didn't want
her to know about it unless something was really coming of it. Poor
Mother! she has enough to think about."
"She has so!" said Gregory. "A sight o' thinkin' your mother doos,
Mary, and good thoughts, every one of 'em, I'll bet my next pay.
She's a good woman, your mother; I guess likely you know it without
me sayin' so. I call Susan Denison the best woman I know, and I've
told my wife so, more times than she says she has any occasion for.
I don't say she's an angel, but she's a good woman, and that's as fur
as we're likely to get in this world.
"But that ain't what I wanted to say to you, May! Somehow or 'nother,
the story's got round about your findin' that pin yesterday. You
didn't say nothin'?"
"Not a word!" said Mary. "How could it--"
"'Twas that pison Hitchcock, I expect!" said Gregory. "I see him
lookin' up with his little eyes, as red as a ferret, and as ugly. I
bet he started the hull thing; and he's tacked on a passel of lies,
and the endurin' place is hummin' with it. Thought I'd tell ye
before ye went in, so's ye could fix up a little what to say."
Mary thanked him cordially, and passed on into the mill: the old man
looked after her with a very friendly glance in his keen blue eyes.
"She's good stuff, May is!" he murmured. "Good stuff, like her mother.
"Folks is like rags, however you look at 'em. Take a good linen rag,
no matter how black it is, and put it through the washers, and the
bleachers, and the cutters, and all the time it's gettin' whiter and
whiter, and sweeter and sweeter, the more you bang it round; till at
last you have bank-note paper, and write to the Queen of England on
it, if you're a mind to, and she won't have none better. And take
jute or shoddy, and the minute you touch to wash it, it cockles up,
or drops to pieces, and it ain't no good to mortal man. Jest like
folks, I tell ye! and May and her mother's pure linen clippin's, if
ever I see 'em."
Forewarned is forearmed, and Mary met quietly the buzz of inquiry
that greeted her when she entered the rag-room. The girls crowded
round her, the men were not far behind. To each and all Mary told the
simple truth, trying not to say a word too much. "The tongue is a
fire!" her mother's favorite text, was constantly in her mind, and
she was determined that no ill word should be spoken of Mr. Gordon,
if she could help it. Almost every one in the mill liked and
respected the "Old Man;" but the human mind loves a sensation, and
Lena and Hitchcock had told their story so vividly the day before
that Mary's account seemed tame and dull beside it; and some of the
hands preferred to think that "Mame Denison was a sly one, and
warn't goin' to let on, fear some one'd git ahead of her."
Lena, who came shortly, in her usual dress, fostered this feeling,
not from malice, but from sheer love of excitement and gossip. In
spite of Mary's efforts, the excitement increased, and when, late in
the afternoon, word came that Mary Denison was wanted in the office,
the rag-room was left fairly bubbling with wild surmise.
Mr. Gordon did not see Mary when she came in. He was standing at his
desk, with an open letter in his hand, and his face was disturbed as
he spoke to the senior clerk.
"Myers, it is as I feared about that bag of rags from Blankton. You
have kept it carefully tied up, and close by the chlorides, as I
told you?"
Myers, a clear-eyed, honest-browed man, looked troubled.
"I did, sir!" he said. "I have looked at the bag every time I passed
that way, and have cautioned every one in the mill not to go near it,
besides keeping the shed-gate locked; but this morning I found that
it had been tampered with, and evidently something taken out. I hope
there is nothing wrong, sir!"
George Gordon struck his hand heavily on the desk. "Wrong!" he
repeated. "There have been two fatal cases of smallpox in Blankton,
and that bag has been traced to the house where they were."
There was a moment of deathly silence. He went on:
"I suspected something wrong, the moment you told me of things that
looked new and good; but I did not want to raise a panic in the mill,
when there might be some other explanation. I thought I had taken
every precaution--what is that?"
He turned quickly, hearing a low cry behind him. Mary Denison was
standing with clasped hands, her face white with terror.
"Mary!" said Mr. Gordon, in amazement. "You--surely you have had
nothing to do with this?"
"No, sir!" cried Mary. "Oh, no, Mr. Gordon, indeed I have not. But I
fear--I fear I know who has. Oh, poor thing! poor Lena!"
Then, with an impulse she could not explain, she turned suddenly
upon Hitchcock.
"Who let Lena Laxen into the yard last night?" she cried. "She could
not have got in without help. You had a key--you were talking to her
after I left her yesterday. Oh! look at him, Mr. Gordon! Mr. Myers,
look at that man!"
But Hitchcock did not seem to hear or heed her. He sat crouched over
his desk, his face a greenish-gray color, his eyes staring, his
hands clutching the woodwork convulsively; an awful figure of terror,
that gasped and cowered before them. Then suddenly, with a cry that
rattled in his throat, he dashed from his seat and ran bareheaded
out of the door.
Myers started up to pursue him, but Mr. Gordon held up his hand.
"Let him go!" he said, sternly. "It may be that he carries his
punishment with him. In any case we shall see him no more."
Quickly and quietly he gave Myers his orders; to take Lena Laxen to
her home, notify the physician, and proclaim a strict quarantine; to
burn the infected rags without loss of time; to have every part of
the shed where the fatal bag had stood thoroughly disinfected. When
the man had hastened away, Mr. Gordon turned to Mary, and his stern
face lightened.
"Do not distress yourself, Mary," he said, kindly. "It may be that
Lena will escape the infection; it seems that she only had the
garment on a few minutes; and you did all you could, I am sure, to
dissuade her from this piece of fatal and dishonest folly."
"Oh! I might have said more!" cried Mary, in an agony of
self-reproach. "I meant to go into her house this morning, and try
to make her hear reason; it might not have been too late then."
"Thank Heaven you did not!" said Mr. Gordon, gravely. "The air of
the house was probably already infected. No one save the doctor must
go near that house till all danger of the disease developing is over."
He then told Mary briefly why he had sent for her. Finding that he
could not go to Boston himself at present, as he had planned, he had
sent the brooch by express to a jeweller whom he knew, and would be
able to tell her in a few days whether it was of real value or not.
Mary thanked him, but his words fell almost unheeded on her ears.
What were jewels or money, in the face of a danger so awful as that
which now threatened her friend, and, through her, the whole village?
Days of suspense followed. From the moment when the weeping,
agonized Lena was taken home and put, tenderly, pityingly, in her
mother's hands (it was Mr. Gordon himself who had done this, refusing
to let any other perform the duty), an invisible line was drawn
about the Laxen cottage, which few dared pass. The doctor came and
went, reporting all well to the eager questioners. Mr. Gordon called
daily to inquire, and every evening Mary Denison stole to the door
with a paper or magazine for Lena and her mother, or some home-made
delicacy that might please the imprisoned girl. Lena was usually at
the window, sometimes defiant and blustering, sometimes wild with
fright, sometimes again crying for sheer loneliness and vexation;
but always behind her was her mother's pale face of dread, and her
thin voice saying that Lena was "as well as common, thank ye," and
she and Mary would exchange glances, and Mary would go away drawing
breath, and thanking the Lord that another day was gone.
So on, for nine anxious days; but on the tenth, when Mary looked up
at the window, the mother stood there alone, crying; and the doctor,
coming out of the house at the moment, told Mary harshly to keep away
from him, and not to come so near the house.
In the dreadful days that followed, his people learned to know
George Gordon as they had never known him before. The grave, silent
man, who never spoke save when speech was necessary, was now among
them every day, going from room to room with cheerful greetings,
encouraging, heartening, raising the drooping spirits, and rebuking
sharply the croakers, who foretold with dismal unction a general
epidemic. While taking every possible precaution, he made light of
the actual danger, and by his presence and influence warded off the
panic which might have brought about the dreaded result.
As a matter of fact, there were no more cases in the mill; and Lena
herself had the terrible disease more lightly than any one had dared
to hope. The doctor, hurrying through back ways and alleys to change
his clothes and take his bath of disinfectants, was hailed from back
gates and windows at every step; and he never failed to return a
cheery "Doing well! out of it soon now! No, not much marked, only a
few spots here and there."
This was when he left the quarantined house; but when he sought it,
he might be seen to stop at one gate and another, picking up here a
jar, there a bowl, here again a paper bag; till by the time he
reached the Laxen gate he stood out all over with packages like a
summer Santa Claus.
"There ain't anybody goin' to starve round here, if they _have_ got
the smallpox!" was the general verdict, voiced by James Gregory, and
when he added, for the benefit of the mill-yard, that he had heard
Mr. Gordon order ice-cream, oranges, and oysters, all at once, for
Lena, a growl of pleasure went round, which deepened into a hearty
"What's the matter with the Old Man? _he's_ all right!"
At length, one happy day, Mary Denison met Mr. Gordon at the Laxens'
gate, and heard the good news that Lena was sitting up; that in a
day or two now the quarantine would be taken off, the house
disinfected, and Lena back in her place at the mill. The manager
looked with satisfaction at Mary's beaming face of happiness; then,
as she was turning away to spread the good tidings, he said:
"Wait a moment, Mary! I have some other news for you. Have you
forgotten the brooch that you found in the Blue Egyptians?"
The color rushed to Mary's face, and Mr. Gordon had his answer.
"Because," he added, "I have not forgotten, though you might well
think I had done so. All this sad business has delayed matters, but
now I have it all arranged. I am ready to-day, Mary, to give you
either the brooch itself, or--what I think will be better--five
hundred dollars, the sum I find it to be worth. Yes, my child, I am
speaking the truth! The stones are fine ones, and the Boston
jeweller offers you that sum for them. Well, Mary, have you nothing
to say? What, crying? this will never do!"
But Mary had nothing to say, and she was crying, because she could
not help it. Presently she managed to murmur something about
"Too much! too great kindness--not fair for her to have it all!" but
Mr. Gordon cut her short.
"Certainly you are to have it all, every penny of it! Finding's
having! that is paper-mill law; ask James Gregory if it is not!
There comes James this moment; go and tell him of your good fortune,
and let him bring you up to my house this evening to get the money.
"But, Mary,"--he glanced at a letter in his hand, and his face,
which had been bright with kindness and pleasure, grew very grave,--
"there is something else for you to tell James, and all the hands.
James Hitchcock died yesterday, of malignant smallpox!"
[Footnote 1: The main incidents in this story are founded on fact.]
LITTLE BENJAMIN
"Then is little Benjamin their ruler."
"I THINK the kitty wants to come in," said Mother Golden. "I hear
him crying somewhere. Won't you go and let him in, Adam?"
Adam laid down his book and went out; the whole family looked up
cheerfully, expecting to see Aladdin, the great Maltese cat, enter
with his stately port. There was a pause; then Adam came back with a
white, scared face, and looked at his father without speaking.
"What is the matter, my son?" asked Father Golden.
"Is Kitty hurt?" asked Mother Golden, anxiously.
"Was it that dog of Jackson's?" cried Lemuel, Mary, Ruth, and Joseph.
"The cat isn't there!" said Adam. "It's--it's a basket, father."
"A basket? What does the boy mean?"
"A long basket, with something white inside; and--it's crying!"
The boy had left the door open, and at this moment a sound came
through it, a long, low, plaintive cry.
"My heart!" said Mother Golden; and she was out of the door in a
flash.
"See there now!" said Father Golden, reprovingly. "Your mother's
smarter than any of you to-day. Go and help her, some of you!"
The children tumbled headlong toward the door, but were met by
Mother Golden returning, bearing in her strong arms a long basket,
in which was indeed something white and fluffy that cried.
[Illustration: "'A LONG BASKET WITH SOMETHING WHITE INSIDE;
AND--IT'S CRYING!'"]
"A baby!" exclaimed Father Golden.
"A baby!" echoed Mary, Lemuel, Ruth, and Joseph.
"Well, I knew it was a baby," protested Adam; "but I didn't like to
say so."
Mother Golden lifted the child out and held it in a certain way; the
cries ceased, and the little creature nestled close against her and
looked up in her face.
"My heart!" said Mother Golden again. "Come here, girls!"
The girls pressed forward eagerly; the boys hung back, and glanced
at their father; these were women's matters.
"It's got hair!" cried Ruth, in rapture. "Mother! real hair, and it
curls; see it curl!"
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