Chapter XII

Out in the street, not far from that boarding-house, two young men met. “How are you, Horace? Glad to see you, old fellow! You look as thin as a rail. What do they feed you on down in that miserable hole where you hide yourself? I say, Horace, you ought to have either a new boarding-place or a wife.”

The other man laughed. “I’m hunting one,” he said, “that is, a new boarding-house, not a wife.”

“Well, you may find the one while in search of the other, you know. They always used to say, when we were children, that if you lost a thing you never could find it till you lost something else and went to hunting that. Now you haven’t exactly lost a wife, you know, because you never had one. So that’s just as bad, but maybe you’ll find her. However, I fear that any one you’d find in hunting a boarding-house wouldn’t be worth her salt. That’s my experience. Say, old fellow, why don’t you come up our way and live? It isn’t much further, and you are a good walker. You could walk to that blessed church of yours, if you still hold to your puritanical ideas about not riding on the trolley on Sunday. Now there’s the place Royce boards; that would be first-rate, and I happen to know there’s a vacant room there now, second story front, fine sunny room, all conveniences and splendid board.”

“But I can’t afford second story fronts, Roger; my salary has mostly to be paid by myself yet. You know we are building and the church is just struggling to live. It is all made up of poor people.”

“Well, what in the world did you go down there for? You might have had a church in Germantown if you would have taken it, and you also had a chance out in West Philadelphia I heard. Why, you’ve friends enough to have got you hearings in several big churches down in the heart of the city where they pay big salaries. I’m sure I don’t see any virtue in your hiding your light under a bushel. For my part, I think you are as good, if not better, than any preacher I’ve heard in the city, if you only would consent to let go of a few high and impossible views you have about social equality. However, I suppose that’s neither here nor there. You’re here and the churches are there, and so it will continue to be, I presume, in spite of all I can say, and there’ll be nothing for me but to tend you in your last sickness and pay the funeral expenses, if you go on at this rate. I must see what I can do about getting our church to help that mission of yours, if you persist in your folly.”

“I wish you would, Roger, for they need help, and a church in this neighborhood is much more needed than in the quarters you have mentioned, where there is a church of some sort every two blocks almost. But I must go on, for I have a meeting this evening, and I want to go to one more place before I go to church.”

They parted, the young man Roger wishing the other would reconsider, and come higher up in town to board, and thus be near his friends. Then Horace Stafford went on his way, and having consulted a list of addresses in his notebook, in a moment more paused at a door and rang a bell and the door was opened by Celia.

Now Celia was very happy over the successful dinner. She had lingered about the halls catching words that the boarders had dropped, and she knew that they were intensely pleased and surprised. When she was happy or excited a clear red color came into her cheeks and a brightness into her deep, grey-blue eyes which made her very beautiful. She was not always beautiful, although she was always pleasant to look at: certain conditions, however, had the power of making this charm bloom into beauty. To-night the color and the shine were there, and she seemed a charming picture to the young man who had spent the afternoon in calling at boarding-houses, and had begun to know just what to expect to see when the door opened. He was agreeably surprised, therefore, as he stepped into the hall and waited while Celia called aunt Hannah, for he had said he wanted to see Mrs. Morris, having been directed there for board. He glanced into the parlor and sighed. It was the same grade of parlor he had grown to expect, a dreary enough place, but he did not know what was the matter with it, and as he should have to spend very little time in it, it did not make great difference. He heard a low cultured voice upstairs saying: “Tell Molly I will send her some in a moment,” and then Miss Grant appeared before him.

It is true she did not know much about taking new boarders, but she did the best she could. She told him there was one room left vacant that day, that it was not in order yet, but if he cared to see it, he might come upstairs and do so. He followed her to the room. It happened to be the second story front. It was not large, for economy of space had been exercised to a great degree in the building of that house, but it had a sunny exposure, and the young man knew by an uncomfortable experience in a dark room that that was a great advantage in a room. The bed did not look very soft nor inviting, and the two chairs in the room were rather dilapidated. The bureau was a cheap one with a rheumatic castor, which gave it a reeling appearance. The bed clothing was tumbled in a heap on the bed, as the German had left it. Altogether it was not just what one would call luxury. But it was so much better than some the weary man had seen that he ventured to ask timidly, “Could I have some sort of a table to write on?”

Miss Hannah thought a moment and told him that she thought he could. He asked the price and it proved to be not much more than he was now paying. After a little reflection he said he would take it. Afterward, when he had gone downstairs to the parlor to wait for the supper which she had said he might have, in response to his question if it was too late for the evening meal, he wondered why he had done so. What power had been upon him upstairs to make him determine to cast his lot in here? It was not that room, even though it was a second story front, for that was very forlorn in the dim flickering gaslight, with the disorder of the German upon it. It was not the general look of the house, for that certainly was not attractive. And now as he sat in the dimness of the shadow of the front window, and watched some of the boarders at the further end of the room, he felt that same sense of desolation steal over him which he had felt in so many boarding-houses that afternoon. He could not hope to find many congenial spirits here. He sighed. It was hard not to have some pleasant friends about one who could talk of the things one knew and loved, when one came in at night after a hard day’s work. But as Miss Hannah came back through the hall and in that quiet sweet voice of hers that made one feel as if a benediction had been pronounced upon one, told him that he could come to the dining-room now, he followed her and knew that it was his landlady who had drawn him to select this as his temporary home. She seated him and poured his coffee, and then excused herself and left him. He looked about him after he was left alone, and had bowed his head a moment, more in supplication that the Lord would give him rest and strength for his work, than in thankfulness for his food, for he had learned that there were kinds of food which were as hard to eat as they were to digest. With pleased surprise he saw the tablecloth was clean and free from crumbs. The plate before him held food as appetizing as any he could remember in pleasanter homes than those he had occupied lately. Of course the potatoes had been heated over and were not so nice as when first served, but the meat was tender and juicy, and he ate it with a relish, for he was weary and had not had anything to really tempt his appetite for six weeks, that being the length of time since he had gone to his friend Roger’s, to dinner. Those delicious rolls and that coffee were enough in themselves to satisfy a hungry man, and he began to feel that he had not chosen his home amiss. Then the kitchen door opened, and Celia entered bringing a bounteous plate of apple dumpling covered with plenty of sauce. She put it down beside his place and began to remove the empty dishes, asking him if he would have anything more.

“Thank you,” he said, looking up and smiling, “I have had plenty and it has been so good. I have been boarding where they had miserable fare, and I did not know how hungry I was. This meal has tasted like my mother’s cooking.”

Celia’s eyes danced as she said demurely she was very glad. As she went back to the kitchen with the dishes, she could not help thinking what handsome eyes that man had, and how they were lit up by his smile. He was tall and thin with an intellectual face which many persons would have called homely, but of the style which Celia always designated to herself and aunt Hannah as “homely handsome.”

The new boarder went out after his meal was finished. He had told his landlady that he would bring his belongings when he returned later in the evening, and she had promised to have his room ready for him.

Celia went upstairs to see if she could do anything. She was bubbling over with delight over the house and its inmates and all she wished to do. No child in a fairy tale ever had such delightful possibilities put into her hands, she thought, as had been given to her.

“Now,” said aunt Hannah, “that room must be fixed for that man, for he will come back by and by, and what shall we do with it to make it more habitable? Poor fellow! He must have been hard put to it indeed for shelter to have taken it looking like that, or perhaps he doesn’t know any better. But it did look so desolate I couldn’t bear to take him to it.”

“Yes, he does know better, aunt Hannah,” said Celia, laughing. “I know he does. He has a mother—and,” she added half ashamed, “he has a smile.”

“Well, I’m glad he has that,” said Miss Hannah, pulling the bedclothes off in a gingerly way and extracting the German’s sheets and pillow-cases from the mass. “He’ll need it to keep cheerful in this room to-night, I think. Celia, I do wish I could get into my grandmother’s linen and blanket closet for a little while to-night. I should like to burn this quilt.” She held it out by her finger and thumb and examined it carefully.

“Burn it, then,” said Celia solemnly. “Haven’t we got an allowance? We’ll buy another.” Then she went to work to try and make that room less dreary.

When the bed was made up with the cleanest things aunt Hannah could find, the wash bowl and pitcher and soap dish immaculate, and two copies of those flaring chromos called “Wide Awake” and “Fast Asleep” framed in varnished coffee berries had been removed from the walls, there was not much more to do. It was too late to do more at the paint than to wipe it off with a damp cloth, and the floor needed only brushing up. Aunt Hannah found a kitchen table in Mrs. Morris’ room which had done duty for a dressing-table. She had Molly carry this upstairs for a writing-table, and sighed that there was no cover for it. Celia meditated a moment, and then went up to her own back-room and took the embroidered denim cover from her trunk which she had made for a Christmas present for aunt Hannah and brought it. It was a little sacrifice but the table needed it. It wasn’t too fine for use, and it would cause the bare room to look more habitable.

“There, aunt Hannah,” she said, “I made it for you, but you may do what you like with it.”

Then aunt Hannah took Celia’s face between her hands and kissed her and said, “My dear girl!” and put the pretty cover on the table.

“I don’t know as I should have done that,” meditated Celia later, “if it hadn’t been for that smile and his speaking about his mother.”

She looked around the room once more as she was about to leave it. Aunt Hannah had gone down to the kitchen to help Molly prepare for breakfast. Her eyes fell upon the two rickety chairs. She thought of Harry Knowles. A moment’s reflection, and she ran down to the parlor and beckoned him to come into the hall.

“Harry,” said she, (they had already gotten well enough acquainted so that she could call him by his first name; she exercised that prerogative which a girl a little older than a young man likes to use and which the young man seems to be proud to have exercised sometimes. It was a pleasant brotherly and sisterly way to treat one another), “did you know there was a new boarder? I was passing the room just now. It looked awfully dreary before it was fixed up. The worst thing is the chairs. I wonder if you couldn’t bring up your hammer and fix them a little. It seems too bad for a new boarder to find things all run down on the first night he comes.”

“All right, I’m with you, Miss Murray,” said Harry, interested at once. “I know how it feels myself. Besides that good dinner has given me a longing to do something for somebody else.”

They went upstairs to the chairs, and as they went Harry said in a confiding tone, “Say, Miss Murray, I believe that Miss Grant is going to be great, don’t you? She seems kind of like a woman who knew how, don’t you know? Sometimes she makes me think of my mother just a little.”

Celia smiled and said she thought so, and they went to work.

It was after the room was all in order, and some delicious cakes set rising in the yellow bowl downstairs for the morning breakfast, set with buckwheat that smelled of the waving fields it came from. The lights were out and everything quiet and Celia, lying awake to think over all that had happened, suddenly became aware that her aunt Hannah was awake also. Upon questioning her she at last ferreted out the reason for her wakefulness.

“Well, you see, Celia, I suppose I’m rather tired to-night, though I don’t feel it one bit, I’ve been so interested in it all. But somehow I’ve just begun to think that maybe I ought not to have let you undertake this scheme. It is all very nice and benevolent, but what if it shouldn’t succeed? If it should run behind and take a good deal of your money and you have to work hard for your living again, I should never get over blaming myself. Then too, I’m a little worried about that new man. I don’t know as I ought to have taken him into the house without knowing the first thing about him, and I’ve always heard a city was an awful place to get taken in. He may be a robber, or some dreadful kind of a man, though to be sure he didn’t look it. I must confess that I liked his looks very much, but you know, Celia dear, Satan sometimes appears as an angel of light. I have heard that gamblers are often mistaken for ministers. I know perfectly well that I am ‘green,’ as the boys used to say, and perhaps I have been deceived. He was very late getting in and he looked pale. It may be he is dissipated, though I cannot really think that.”

“Now, auntie dear,” laughed Celia, putting her arms about her, “that isn’t a bit like you. You must be over-tired or you never would talk like that. Just remember your own words to me ‘Charge not thyself with the weight of a year’ and ‘Bend not thine arm for to-morrow’s load. Thou mayst leave that to thy gracious Lord.’ Don’t you fret one bit. What if he is a gambler or a robber? He can’t do us any harm. We’ve nothing to gamble and nothing to rob. Perhaps we’ll do him some good, and anyway I don’t believe he’s anything but good—he talked to me—that is he said he had a mother and she cooked like that, and then he smiled.”

Then they both laughed and Miss Hannah kissed her niece and thanked her for the reminder that she need not bear burdens. After that they fell asleep.