Three People
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"Don't doubt it in the least, Tommy, but who the mischief were they?"
"Why, Mr. Mallery and Miss Hastings, and Mr. Hastings and Miss Winny
McPherson, and they're both of our firm, you know; at least Mr. Hastings
he's our confidential clerk now, and we all say that he'll be partner
one of these days, as sure as guns. We all went to the wedding, every
one of us, cash boys and all; then we all went to Mr. Stephens', and had
just the grandest kind of a dinner with the brides and grooms. And Dr.
Birge and Mr. Ryan they toasted them."
"Wine or brandy?" interposed the gentleman, slily.
"Neither!" answered indignant Tommy, with flashing eyes and glowing
cheeks. "They had pure water, ice water. They don't have any wine or
brandy in that house nor in our firm, I can tell you, sir."
"Good for you, Tommy--stand up for your principles. Well, what came next
after you were all toasted and ice-watered? Is Mrs. Hastings, senior, in
town? Dear me, how long is it since she went away?"
"It's pretty near three years. No, she isn't in town. She's in feeble
health, and they're going out there to Chicago to see her, the whole
tribe of them. They take the four o'clock Express, and we're all going
to the cars with them, about a dozen carriages. It's time they were on
hand, too. I had to come down to the store after a package that was left
here, and there they are this minute; and so you see, sir, you can't see
either Mr. Stephens or Mr. Mallery in a twinkling. I ride in the eighth
carriage." And at this point Tommy's shining boots bounded away.
* * * * *
After the visit to Chicago was concluded, interspersed by several
pleasant side trips, the bridal party separated one bright June morning
at the Cleveland depot, Pliny and his wife preparing to settle down in
their new home, while Mr. and Mrs. Mallery went on to New York. Theodore
had been there perhaps a dozen times since he took that first
surreptitious trip with Mr. Hastings, but in these visits he had always
been a hurried business man, with little leisure or taste for
retrospect. Now, however, it was different, and traversing the streets
with his wife leaning on his arm, he had a fancy for going backward, and
painting pictures from the past for her amusement. The hotel to which he
had escorted Mr. Hastings on that day had advanced with the advancing
tide, and was just now in the very zenith of its prosperity. Thither he
found his way, and led Dora up the broad steps and down the splendid
halls, and finally booked his name, "Theodore S. Mallery and wife," and
tried in vain, while he issued his orders with the air of one long
accustomed to the giving of orders, to conceive of himself and that
ridiculous little wretch who squeezed in among the gentlemen on that
long ago morning to discover, if perchance he could, what his traveling
companion's name might be, as one and the same.
"Now, I am going to show you some of the wretchedness that abounds in
this elegant city," he said to his wife one morning as he dismissed the
carriage after an hour's exciting drive, and proposed a walk. "It is a
remarkable city in that respect. I am never struck with the two extremes
of humanity as I am when in New York."
"I was thinking only this morning," Dora answered, "how very few
wretched people I had met in the streets."
"Wait a bit; see if in ten minutes from this time you are not almost led
to conclude that there is nothing left in this world but wretchedness
and filth and abomination."
They turned suddenly around the corner of a pleasant street, and as if
they were among the shifting scenes of a panorama, the entire foreground
had changed. Wretchedness! that word no more described the horrors of
their surroundings than could any other that came to Dora's mind. The
scene beggared description. "Swarms of horrors!" she called them in
speaking of the people afterward. Just now she clung silent and half
frightened to her husband's arm. He, too, became silent, and appeared
occupied solely in guarding his wife and shielding her from disagreeable
collisions. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation of delight:
"Look, Dora! this is the building of which I have read but have never
seen. I have not had time to come so far down before this. Can you
imagine a more delightful oasis in this desert of filth and pollution?"
There it stood, the great, _clean_, splendid building! towering above
its vile and rickety neighbors. And in bright, clear letters, that
seemed to Theodore to be written in diamonds, gleamed the name; far down
the street it caught the eye, "Home for Little Wanderers."
Dora looked and smiled and caught her breath, and then the tears dropped
one by one on her husband's sleeve. It almost seemed like the voice of
an angel speaking to the world from out of that moral darkness.
"Oh, if I had known that day when I was in New York of such a spot as
this in all the world, what a different world it would have looked to
me. The idea that there could be a home _anywhere_ in all the universe,
or beyond it, for such as I had never occurred to me." Theodore spoke in
low, earnest tones, full of deep and solemn feeling.
"But, Theodore," said Dora, gently, "if you _had_ known of this home, or
any like it, and gone thither instead of to Cleveland on that day, where
would you have been now, and what would have become of me?"
Theodore smiled down on his fair young bride, and drew the hand that
rested on his arm a little closer as he answered:
"I am quite content, my darling. I am not complaining of the guiding
Hand that led me home. I have surely reason to be utterly and entirely
satisfied with my lot in life; but there are not many boys such as I was
who find little blue-eyed maidens to bring precious little Bible cards
to them, and so write lessons on their hearts that will tell for all
time--yes, and for all eternity."
"There are not many Dr. Birges and Mr. Stephenses," said Dora,
emphatically. And Theodore's response was quite as emphatic:
"Very few indeed! If there were only _more_. But, Dora, isn't it a grand
enterprise? Let us go in. I have always intended to go through the
mission; but, you see, I waited for _you_."
They went up the broad, pleasant flight of steps. The children, hundreds
of them, were at dinner. Such an array of clean, and, for the most part,
pleasant faces! Such a wonderful dinner as it must have been to them!
Dora's face glowed and her eyes sparkled as she watched them. Then they
all went together to the great, light, pleasant chapel, with its hanging
baskets, and its white flower urns, and its creeping vines, and fragrant
blossoms; its grand piano on the platform as perfect in finish and as
sweet of tone as if it were designed to chime with the voices of more
favored childhood. Dora's bright eye took in the scene in all its
details with great delight and satisfaction, but she did not feel the
solemn undertone of thanksgiving that rang in Theodore's heart. How
could she? What did she know in detail of the contrast between the
present and the past lives of these children? And who knew better than
he the awful scenes from which they had been rescued! How they marched
to the sound of the quickstepping music! How their voices rang out in
songs such as the angels might have loved to join! It was a sort of
jubilee day with them, and there were many visitors and many speeches,
and much entertainment. As he looked and listened, Theodore had
constantly to brush away the starting tears. Presently Mr. Foote came
with brisk step and smiling face toward the spot where Theodore and his
wife were sitting.
"You are interested in the children, I know, sir," he said, confidently.
"Come forward please, and give us a brief speech. The children will like
to hear one who shows his love for them beaming in his face."
Theodore answered promptly:
"No, sir, I will not detain them; they have had speeches enough.
Besides, my heart is quite too full for talking." At the same time he
arose. "I would like to write my speech, though, if you please, sir.
Have you pen and ink convenient?" And he went forward with the leader to
the desk. A few quick dashes of the pen over a blank from his
check-book, and he stood pledged for five hundred dollars for "Howard
Mission."
"How much I have to thank Dr. Birge for preaching that glorious sermon
on the 'tenths,' and dear grandma for teaching me with her white buttons
the meaning of the same," he said to Dora as they made their way out
from that beautiful haven into the reeking street. "How every single
impulse for good counts back to some influence touched long ago by an
unconscious hand! I wonder if the Christian world has an idea of what it
is doing?"
* * * * *
They tarried but a few hours in Albany, long enough to visit that quiet
grave with its simple tribute, "Dear Mother." And there again came to
Theodore's heart sad memories of his father. Oh, if his body _only_ lay
there in quiet rest underneath those grasses; if he could have the
privilege of setting up _his_ headstone, and marking it with a word of
respectful memory; if he could have but the _faint hope_ of a meeting
place for them all in that city beyond, what more could he ask in life?
And yet who could tell? Perhaps it was even so; perhaps there had come
even to his father an eleventh hour? The "arm of the Lord was not
shortened" that it could not save where and when and how he would. And
there had been prayers, constant and fervent, sent up for him; and
perhaps the eleventh hour was yet to come; he might be still in this
world of hope. Theodore's heart swelled at the thought.
"My darling," he said, turning toward the young face looking up to his,
and full of tender sympathy, "he may be living yet--my poor father, you
know. We will never cease to pray that if he is still on earth God will
have mercy. We will pray together, will we not?"
And then both remembered that other father, about whose grave June roses
were blossoming to-day, for whom they could pray nevermore; and so
though she laid her hand in his in token of sympathy, she made no answer
on account of fast falling tears.
* * * * *
"For our _own_ room, Dora, in lieu of many pictures let us have some of
these exquisite illuminated texts. I like them _so_ much; and we can
never tell how much good they may do a servant or a chance passer
through. There are some in particular that I want to select." This
Theodore said to his wife as they stood together in a picture store.
"There! I want that one above all others," and he held it up for her
admiration. It _was_ a beauty; the letters were exquisitely formed, and
the words were: "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the
evil and the good." Then they chose, "Peace be to this house"--this for
the hall. And another favorite, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."
"This is yours, Dora," Theodore said, presently, laying before her a
delicately shaded sentence on tinted board, "The Lord bless thee and
keep thee." And she smilingly answered: "Then this for you," "He shall
keep thee in all thy ways."
And so their homes were filled with lessons from the great guide-book,
speaking silently on every hand.
* * * * *
It might have been something like three years after this date that the
Buffalo Express was behind time one day. Pliny Hastings was at the depot
in a state of impatient waiting. I do not know that it occurred to him
that he had been in precisely that spot and condition one evening years
ago. The whistle of the train rang out at last, and Pliny stepped back
near the restive horses, ready for emergencies. He swung open the
carriage door as Theodore Mallery advanced from the train.
"You're a pretty man to be late _to-day_ of all days in the world," was
Pliny's greeting, in a sort of good-humoredly impatient tone.
"Scold the engineer, not me," responded Theodore, in the same manner. "I
fretted inwardly all the way from C----. All well at home?"
And then the two gentlemen entered the carriage, Theodore waiting to
give the order, "Home, Jacob." And he had not a thought of the
ill-favored urchin who had once tumbled up on the driver's seat of a
carriage similar to this one, and peered down curiously at the boy Pliny
inside. He even did not remember that he made a resolution to become the
driver some day of a pair of horses like those behind which he was
luxuriously riding, so utterly do we grow away from our intentions and
ambitions.
The carriage swept around the fine old curve and stopped at the side
door of Hastings' Hall that was. The place had a familiar look, but the
present inmates disliked the old aristocratic sounding name, and in view
of the wide green lawn and the noble shade trees had named it simply
"Elm Lawn." Dinner was waiting for the master of the house, and it was a
birthday dinner, too, in honor of the first anniversary of that great
day to another heir of the grand old house. He was sleeping now, tucked
into a great easy chair, while his lace-curtained crib was given up to
a younger, tinier baby, who sucked his thumb and did _not_ sleep. Both
babies frowned and choked and sneezed over their respective father's
kisses or whiskers, or both. Both appeared in all their glory at the
dinner table; and all the bright happy company were in blissful
ignorance of a scene so nearly similar that had occurred when the
supposed young heir of Hastings' Hall reached the close of his first
year. Yet this _was_ different, for Mr. Stephens asked a blessing on
this bright glad scene, and Dr. Birge returned thanks for the joy and
beauty of the day, and the health and hopes of these two babies were
remembered in glasses of sparkling water.
And the supposed heir of other days was the fond proud father of the
precious crowing bundle now pulling at his beard. What cared he for
Hastings' Hall? It was a fine old place enough, and he had enjoyed
coming there every day of his life; but his own bright home was just
around the corner, and contained more life and joy and beauty than did
all Cleveland. So he thought.
"What have you named your babies?" questioned a chance caller.
"This is Master Pliny Hastings Mallery at your service," responded
Theodore, tossing his boy aloft until he tried to reach the ceiling and
yelled with glee. While Winny, after glancing at her husband's face and
noting his moved look, answered simply: "We call ours Baby Ben."
After Dr. and Mrs. Birge, and he who called himself Grandfather
Stephens, had departed, they went, these two fathers, to the room above,
where the babies cuddled and slept, and the loving mothers watched and
talked. They all went over and stood by the crib and the easy chair.
"Let us have a special celebration of this day," said Theodore. "Let us
consecrate these two boys anew to the beloved Giver of all our
blessedness."
Then they all knelt down, each husband encircling with one arm the form
of his honored wife, and resting the other hand on the forehead of his
darling, and Theodore first, then Pliny, laid their hearts' dearest
treasures at the feet of their common Lord.
"We are very happy," Dora said, when they had risen, still clinging to
her husband's hand.
"Very happy," answered Theodore, clasping tenderly the dear true hand.
"And it is a happiness that will continue whatever comes, so we remain
always at the feet of the Master and keep our treasures there."
Pliny was looking at the babies, with a face full of humble tenderness.
"We have quite given them up to _Him_," he said, in an earnest, solemn
tone. "Now let us pray that he will consecrate them _peculiarly_ to the
sacred cause of temperance."
And Theodore and the two mothers said: "Amen."
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Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
This text uses the archaic spelling of "height" as "hight." This was
retained.
Page 29, "would'nt" changed to "wouldn't" (me I wouldn't)
Page 61, "agoing" changed to "a going" to conform to rest of text.
(ain't a going to)
Page 94, "seeemed" changed to "seemed". (evil that seemed)
Page 135, "wan't" changed to "want" (want to get it)
Page 142, "sraight" changed to "straight" (straight down to)
Page 146, "tha" changed to "that" (did that little)
Page 188, "refreshement" changed to "refreshment" (get any refreshment)
Page 205, "Wan't" changed to "Want" (Want you to say)
Page 215, "millioniare" changed to "millionaire" (the millionaire moved)
Page 224, "posibly" changed to "possibly" (Could he possibly)
Page 228, "unceremoneously" changed to "unceremoniously" (He
unceremoniously appropriated)
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