Читать книгу Rose Clark - Fern Fanny - Страница 16

Mrs. Clifton was going down street, as Miss Tufts had said; going to "the baby's" grave, for she could bear the deserted nursery and empty cradle no longer. It was something to be near the little form, though the spirit which shone through the sweet eyes had winged its way to Him who gave it; and so she passes the little wicket-gate, and winds her way among other graves, over which other mothers, like her, have wept. Some of them, carefully kept, others overrun with briars and nettles; seas perhaps, rolling between some babe and her under whose heart it once stirred with embryo life; or, far away, perhaps, the mother too, may be sleeping, waiting, as does her solitary babe, for that day when the dead who are in their graves, shall hear His voice, and come forth!

Mrs. Clifton nears her baby's grave. A little form is bending over it, a slender, delicate child, whose clustering curls, as she stoops, quite hide her sweet face. Somebody else loves "the baby," for the little grave is dotted over with flowers, simple enough, indeed, but love's own offering. The mother draws nearer, smiling through her tears the while – the child looks up; it is Rose.

"Bless you! bless you, my darling," Mrs. Clifton murmurs, and draws her to her bosom.

"Why did you strew flowers on my baby, dear?" asked Mrs. Clifton, wiping her eyes.

"Because I was so sorry for you," said Rose, timidly, "I thought perhaps it would make you happy, when you came here, to see them."

"Did any one ever die whom you loved?" asked Mary.

Rose's lip quivered, the tears gathered slowly in her eyes, and hung trembling on her lashes, as she nodded her little head.

"Who, my darling?" asked Mary, drawing the child nearer to her.

"My mother, my own dear mother!" said the weeping child, drawn to her kind questioner by the mutual sympathy of sorrow.

"Rose – Rose – Rose!" screamed the shrill voice of Dolly from over the wall.

"Oh, I must go! indeed I must; please don't tell, please don't say any thing," and Rose, hastily wiping away her tears, ran breathlessly toward the little wicket-gate.

"Now I'd just like to know, miss, where you have been without leave?" asked Dolly.

"Daffy told me you wanted me to go out of sight till after the company was gone," said Rose, "and I thought I would just step over into the church-yard, and put some daisies on the baby's grave."

"Ridikilis!" exclaimed Dolly; "just as if that baby knew what was top of it; it is perfectly disgusting – you are just like your mother exactly. Now go along into the house."

Rose entered the back parlor and sat down at the little window to her work.

"Rose," said Dolly, about half an hour after, "don't your hair trouble you when you are sewing?"

Rose looked up in astonishment at this demonstration of interest on the part of her tormentor.

"I don't know," she answered; "I never thought any thing about it."

("Now don't go to cutting it," whispered Daffy; "it looks so pretty.")

"I think it is spoiling her eyes," said Dolly; "bring me the scissors, Rose," and Dolly notched her locks in and out, in as jagged a manner as she knew how. As for the offending eyes which Miss Tufts had complimented, they were too useful to be extinguished, and as there was no helping the "bird in her mouth," or the "pretty way she had with her," Dolly resolved to keep Rose out of sight as much as possible, with her sewing in the attic, which she designated as Rose's bed-room; and, in pursuance of this determination, she was ordered up there.

Every body knows what a country attic is, with its hot, sloping, pitch-oozing roof, with its indescribable paraphernalia of dried mullen, elder-blow, thorough-wort, and tansy; with its refuse garden-tools, boxes, baskets, and chests of odds and ends; its spider-webs and its rat-holes.

A salamander could scarcely have endured Dolly's attic that hot August noon. Rose sat down on the rickety old bed, under the heated eaves, to ply her needle. There was an opening in the roof, but the breeze seemed to blow over it, not into it. Rose made little progress with her sewing, for her temples began to throb painfully, and her fingers almost refused their office. Now she rubs her forehead and eyes, for a mist seems to be gathering over them; now she pulls her needle slowly out again, and now dizziness overpowers her, and she falls forward upon the floor.

"Now just hear that noise," exclaimed Dolly; "hear that young one capering round that attic instead of doing her work. I'll soon settle that: " and taking her little riding-whip from behind the old-fashioned claw-footed clock in the corner, she mounted up stairs into the attic.

Phew! how hot it was – the perspiration started at every step, and this fact did not tend to the diminution of Dolly's rage.

"You needn't play asleep now, because it won't do," said she, laying the whip vigorously round the prostrate child. "I shall whip you till you get up and ask my pardon, d'ye hear?"

There is not much satisfaction in whipping a person who does not appear to feel it, and Dolly turned Rose over to see what was the cause of her obtuseness; the face was so ghastly white that even she was for a moment daunted.

But it is only for a moment. Going to the head of the stairs, she calls, "Daffy?"

"Look here, now," said Dolly, "see what comes of that young one's going into grave-yards, where all those horrid dead people lie moldering; take her up, Daffy, and carry her down into your bed-room; there's a whole day's work lost now for that nonsense; she won't be able to do another stitch to-day."

Days, weeks, and months passed on, no lightening of the heavy load; but now the active spirit which seemed always devising fresh means of torture for the child, was itself prostrated by sickness. A fever had settled upon Dolly's strong frame and iron nerves, and reduced her to almost childish helplessness. Ah – who glides so gently, so tirelessly up stairs and down, bearing burdens under which her feeble frame totters? Who runs to the doctor's, and the apothecary's, who spreads the napkin over the little light-stand, that no rattle of spoons, glasses, and phials, may disturb the chance naps or jar the nerves of the invalid? And who, when she has done her best to please, bears the querulous fretfulness of disease and ill temper, with lamb-like patience?

Who but Rose?

"Why are you crying?" asked Daffy, as Rose stood by the kitchen table upon which she had just set down some glasses. "What is the matter with you?"

"I am so sorry that I can not please Aunt Dolly; she says I have not done a single thing right for her since she was sick; and indeed, Daffy, I have tried very hard," and Rose sobbed again: "I thought perhaps – that – Aunt – Dolly – might love me a little when she got well."

"Never you mind, Rose," said the distressed Daffy, twitching at her thread, "never you mind, she's a – a – there's a six-pence for you Rose."

"No, I thank you," said Rose, returning it, "I don't want money – I want – I want – somebody to love me," said the poor tired child, hiding her face in her apron.

"Never you mind," said Daffy, again, rubbing her sleeve into her own eyes, "you shall – you shall —

"Lor', I don't know what to say to you – Dolly's a – a – well she's sick and childish," said Daffy, ending her sentence in a very different manner from what she had intended.

"Perhaps it is that," said the good little creature, brightening up, "I did not think of that. How cruel it was for me to think her unkind, when she was only sick; I am glad you said that, Daffy," and Rose wiped her eyes and went back into the sick chamber.

"It's awful to hold in when a body's so rampageous mad," said Daffy, jumping up and oversetting her basket of spools, cotton, needles, pins, etc. "I shouldn't wonder if I burst right out some day, to think of that poor, patient little creature being snubbed so, after being on her tired little legs these six weeks, traveling up and down, here and there, and lying on the floor side of Dolly's bed, night after night, and all after the way she has been treated too (for I have eyes if I don't say nothing), and as long as nobody hears me, I'll just out with it; Dolly has no more heart than that pine table," and Daffy gave it a vindictive thump.

"There – now I feel better – I wish I dared tell her so to her face – but it isn't in me; she makes me shrivel all up, when she puts on one of her horrid looks, and I can't be looking out for a new place with this rheumatism fastening on me every time the wind blows; I don't know what is to become of the poor child, bless her sweet face."