Читать книгу Vashti; Or, Until Death Us Do Part - Augusta J. Evans - Страница 9

Table of Contents

“Don’t strangle me, Jessie! Put down your arms, and listen to me. Sobbing will not mend matters, and you might as well make up your mind to be patient. Of course I should 47 like to take you with me, if I had a home; but, as I told you just now, we are so poor that we must live where we can, not where we prefer. Because I wear nice pretty clothes do you suppose I have a pocketful of money? I have not a cent to buy even a loaf of bread, and I can’t ask Miss Jane to take care of you as well as of Stanley and myself. Poor little thing, don’t cry so! I know you are lonely here without Stanley, but it can’t be helped. Jessie, don’t you see that it can not be helped?”

“I don’t eat so very much, and I could sleep with Buddie and wouldn’t be in the way,—and I can wear my old clothes. Oh, please, Salome! I will die if you leave me here.”

“You will do no such thing; you are getting well as fast as possible. Crying never kills people,—it only makes their heads ache, and their eyes red and ugly. See here, if you don’t stop all this, I shall quit coming to see you! Do you hear what I say?”

The only reply was a fresh sob, which the child strove to smother by hiding her face in Salome’s lap.

The matron, who sat by the open window, looked up from the button-hole she was working, and, clearing her throat, said,—

“Better let her have her cry out,—that is the surest cure for such troubles as hers. She was always manageable and good enough until Stanley ran away, and since then she does nothing but mope and bite her finger-nails. Cry away, Jessie, and have done with it. Ah, miss, the saddest feature about Asylums is the separation of families; and if the matron had a heart of stone it would melt sometimes at sight of these little motherless things clinging to each other. I’m sure I have shed a gallon of tears since I came here. It is a fearful responsibility to take charge of an institution like this, for if I try to make the children respect my authority, and behave themselves properly, outsiders ’specially the neighbors, says I am too severe; and if I let them frolic and romp and make as much din and uproar as they like, why, then the same folks scandalize me and the managers, and say there is no sort of discipline maintained. I verily believe, miss, that if an angel 48 came down from heaven to matronize these children, before six months elapsed all the godliness would be worried out of her soul by the slanders of the public and the squabbles of the children. Now I don’t confess to be an angel, but I do claim a conscience, and God knows I make it a rule to treat these orphans exactly as I treated my own and only child, whom I buried three years ago. Do you suppose that any woman who has laid her first-born in its coffin could be brutal enough to maltreat poor little motherless lambs? I don’t deny that sometimes I am compelled to punish them, for it is as much my duty to whip them for bad conduct as to see that their meals are properly cooked and their clothes kept in order. Am I to let them grow up thieves and liars? Must I stand by and see them pull out each other’s hair and bite off one another’s ears?”

“Of course not, Mrs. Collins. You must preserve some discipline.”

“Must I? Well, miss, I will show you how beautifully that sounds and how poorly it works. There is your brother Stanley (I mean no offence, miss, but special cases explain better than generalities),—there’s your brother Stanley, who ran away—for what?”

“Because he was homesick and wanted to see me.”

“No such thing, begging your pardon. Perhaps he told you that, but remember there are always two sides to every tale. The truth of the matter is just this: Stanley has an ugly habit of cursing, which I will not tolerate; and, twice when I heard him swearing at the other children, I shamed him well and slapped him soundly. Last week I told him and Joe Clark to shell a basket of peas, while the cook was making some ginger-bread for them, and before I was out of the room they commenced quarrelling. They raised such an uproar that I came back and saw the whole fray. Stanley cursed Joe, who expostulated and tried to pacify him, and when he finally threatened to tell me that Stanley was cursing again, your brother snatched a hatchet that was lying on the dresser and swore he would kill him if he did. He aimed a blow at Joe’s head, but slipped on the pea-hulls, and the hatchet 49 struck the boy’s right foot, cutting off one of his toes. Now what would you have done, under the circumstances,—allowed the children to be tomahawked in that style? You say I must have discipline. Well, miss, I tried to ‘discipline’ Stanley’s wickedness out of him by giving him a whipping, and the end of the matter was that he ran away that afternoon. That is not the worst of it,—for the children all know the facts, and since they find that Stanley Owen can run away and be sustained in his disobedience, of course it tends to demoralize them. So I say that if I do my duty I am lashed by the tongues of people who know nothing of the circumstances; and if I fail to perform my duty I am lashed by my own conscience,—and between the two I have a sorrowful time; for I declare to you, miss, that Stephen’s martyrdom was a small affair in comparison with what I pass through every week. I love the children and try to be kind to them, but I can’t have them cursing and swearing like sailors, and scalping each other. I must either raise them like Christians, or resign my situation to some one who is ‘wise as serpents and harmless as doves.’ It is all very fine to talk of ‘proper discipline’ in charitable institutions; but, miss, in the name of common sense, how can I get along unless the friends of the children sustain me? Did you punish Stanley, and send him back? On the contrary, you countenanced his bad conduct and kept him with you, and it is perfectly natural that little Jessie here should be dissatisfied and anxious to join him. I can’t scold her, for I know she misses her brother, who was always very tender and considerate in his treatment of her.”

“I appreciate the difficulties which surround you, and believe that you are conscientiously striving to do your duty towards these children; but I knew that if I compelled Stanley to return it would augment instead of correcting the mischief.”

At this juncture the matron was summoned from the room, and, during the silence that ensued, Jessie climbed into her sister’s lap, wound her thin arms around her neck, and softly rubbed her pale cheek against the polished rosy face, where perplexity and annoyance were legibly written.

50

“Salome, don’t you love me a little?”

“Of course I do; Jessie, don’t be so foolish.”

“Please let me go with you and Stanley.”

“Do you want to starve,—you poor silly thing?”

“Yes; I would rather starve with Buddie than stay here by myself.”

“I want to hear no more of such nonsense. You have not tried starving, and you are too young to know what is really for your good. Now, listen to me. At present I am obliged to leave you here,—come, don’t begin crying again; but, if you will be a good girl and try not to fret over what cannot be helped, I promise you that just as soon as I can possibly support you I will take you to live with me.”

“How long must I wait?”

“Until I make money enough to feed and clothe you.”

“Can’t you guess when you can come for me?”

“No, for as yet I know not how I can earn a dollar; but, if you will be patient, I promise to work hard for you and Stanley.”

“I will be good. Salome, I have saved a quarter of a dollar that the doctor gave me when I was sick,—because I let the blister stay on my side a half hour longer; and I thought I would send it to Buddie, to buy him some marbles or a kite; but I reckon I had better give it to you to help us get a house.”

She drew from her pocket a green calico bag, and, emptying the contents into her hand, picked out from among brass buttons and bits of broken glass a silver coin, which she held up triumphantly.

“No, Jessie,—keep it. Stanley has plenty of playthings, and you may need it. Besides, your quarter would not go far, and I don’t want it. Good-bye, little darling. Try to give Mrs. Collins no trouble, and recollect that when I promise you anything I shall be sure to keep my word.”

Salome drew the child’s head to her shoulder, and, as she bent over and kissed the sweet, pure lips, Jessie whispered, “When we say our prayers to-night, we will ask God to send us some money to buy a home, won’t we? You know he made the birds feed Elijah.”