Chapter V: Daisy

Swiftly the years came and went till Rena had been for more than four years in Oakland, and was a fair, sweet-faced girl of thirteen, when one day, toward the last of August there came to the farm-house from the hotel on the hill across the river, a young man whom Rena had seen in church and who she had heard was stopping in town with his wife. Occasionally he had driven by the farm-house, and Rena had caught sight of a pale, beautiful face which had made her heart throb quickly with a feeling she could not define. It was a young girlish face, and Rena was surprised when she heard that the lady was the young man’s wife, and very sorry and grieved when she further heard that she was crazy.

“Not quite right in her mind,” George Rivers said, when he came to the farm-house to ask if they would take his poor “Daisy” for a few weeks “She lost her baby six months ago,” he said, “and she’s been strange ever since. I brought her to the country hoping a change from the city would do her good, and I think she is improving. We have driven by here several times, and for some reason she has taken a great fancy to this place, and says she could sleep and should get well if she were here, so I called to ask if you will take her.”

The price offered was remunerative, and as dollars were not so very plenty with the old couple they consented at last to take the young lady, whom her husband called Daisy, and whom Rena felt that she should love so much. She was a wonderfully beautiful little creature, not much taller than Rena herself, and her soft, brown eyes had in them an expression so sad and pitiful, that Rena could scarcely keep back the tears when she saw her coming in leaning upon her husband’s arm. There had been talk of a nurse to look after her when George returned to the city, but Rena had begged so hard for that office that Mr. Rivers had consented and Rena was to attend her, and she came at once to the invalid and showed her to the large, pleasant chamber which adjoined her own, and which overlooked the town and the hill country beyond.

“This is so nice—so like a dream I’ve had of something. I shall be better here,” Daisy said, as she leaned from the window and looked out upon the yard and garden below.

“Can I do anything for you? I am to be your little maid. I am Rena Harris.”

This was what Rena said as the lady turned from the window, and Daisy’s brown eyes looked wonderingly at her, while a deep flush suffused the white face for an instant and then left it paler than before.

“Rena, Rena,” she repeated; “I never knew but one, and she is with the angels. I called baby _Irene_, and she died too. Rena; it’s very strange that you should have that name.”

Daisy was talking to herself now, for at the first mention of _Irene_, Rena had darted down stairs to Aunt Hannah, exclaiming:

“I’ve got it now—my real name. You know I never could think for sure, but the moment she said her baby was Irene, it came back to me. That was the name in the Bible—_Irene Cutler_, and Ruth read it to me once and she called me Rena. Oh, grandma, you don’t know how sad the lady looked when she said, ‘Rena, Rena!’ I shall love her so dearly, and I mean to take such good care of her, too.”

Rena was as good as her word, and soon loved the beautiful Daisy with a devotion both rare and curious, while Daisy never seemed happier than when her little maid was with her. She was very pretty with a fair creamy complexion, soft brown eyes and abundant hair of the same shade, which she wore in braids coiled about her head, while, added to her beauty was an air of grace and gentle dignity which alone would have made her very attractive. She did not seem to be really crazy; her mind was only weak, and sometimes when talking of her baby she said queer things, which showed that her reason was not quite clear. But the quiet, happy life she led at the farm-house began to have its influence, and when in September her husband, who had returned to Boston after seeing her comfortably settled, came again to Oakfield, he found her greatly improved. She was very happy there, and begged so hard to be allowed to stay until after Christmas that both Mr. and Mrs. Harris and her husband consented, while Rena was wild with delight when she heard of the arrangement.

When Mr. Rivers first came she had feared that she might lose the sweet lady whom she loved so much, but now she was to stay a long time, it seemed to her, and her joy knew no bounds, while she redoubled her efforts to please and amuse her patient who owed much of her improvement to Rena’s care. Together in the bright autumn days they roamed over the fields and thro’ the woods of Oakfield, and the villagers sometimes saw them sitting on the banks of the river, Rena at Daisy’s feet, looking up into the lovely face above her, while Daisy’s fingers caressed her golden hair, or wove for it a crown of the rich-hued autumn leaves.

Once Daisy said to her:

“You make me think so much of the sister I lost; her name was Rena, too.”

“Tell me about her, please,” Rena said, and Daisy replied:

“Sometime when I am stronger I will, but now it makes my brain thump so to think of her. Oh, Rena, Rena, my darling, my darling.”

She covered her face with her hands, and Rena could see the tears trickle through her fingers as she rocked to and fro, whispering of things which perplexed and puzzled the little girl to whom they did not seem strange or new.

After a little Daisy became quiet, but for many days she was not quite herself, and Rena never spoke again of the dead sister, and the autumn went by and the winter came with its dull gray clouds and wailing winds, and still Daisy tarried at the farm-house where she was to remain until after the holidays. These her husband was to spend with her, and he came the day before Christmas with gifts, some for his wife, some for Mr. and Mrs. Harris, and some for Rena. Among these last was a book—too young it might seem for a girl of thirteen, but it had been gotten up with beautiful binding and colored prints expressly for the holidays, and its title was:

“THAT SWEET STORY OF OLD;

OR

THE LIFE OF JESUS.”

Very carefully, nay, almost reverently, Daisy took the book in her hand and her eyes were full of tears as she said:

“It is beautiful, but not much like the one I bought that day for my darling. Oh, George, how the Christmas holidays bring her back to me, and I see her just as she looked that last night kneeling by the fire and talking of ‘Jesus’ birthday party,’ and what she wanted from the tree if she ever went to one—shoes, and stockings and a doll that would squeak, and some mince pie and the story of Jesus and she would give them all to _me_ but the book, she said, because I went in the cold, and, George, her shoes were so ragged then and her little toes so blue.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Don’t talk of it any more; it excites you too much,” George said, as he drew his young wife fondly to him, but Daisy answered:

“I must talk. I feel just like it, and the words will choke me if I do not let them out. I have thought of Rena all day just as I always do at Christmas time. It’s eight years to-night since the fire, and I loved her so much; she was so sweet and pretty, with a look in her eyes like Rena Harris, whom I love for her sake. Darling sister, I see her now as she prayed for a big fire to warm her and Ruthy, as warm as toast, and God sent the fire and burned my precious sister up. Oh, George, does he always answer prayer that way?”

Ere George could reply there was the sound of a choking sob by the open door, a rush across the floor, a folding of arms tightly around the astonished Daisy’s neck, while Rena’s voice said:

“Oh, Ruthy, Ruthy,—you _are_ Ruthy and I am Rena. I was not burned that awful night, but thought you were, and have cried so often for you. God did answer my prayer and I never was cold any more. I am Rena Cutler and you are sister Ruth.”

Rena had been passing the open door when her attention was attracted by hearing Daisy repeat the title of the book she had once coveted so much. Involuntarily and without any intention of listening, she paused a moment and heard that which kept her riveted to the spot, while the hot blood surged wildly through her veins at Daisy’s story. She did not stop to reason or ask herself how that beautiful young lady, with all the signs of wealth and culture around her, could be the Ruth who once sold matches in New York, and lived with her in that cheerless upper room. She knew it was she—the Ruth she had mourned as dead,—and with a glad cry she went to her, and falling upon her neck, claimed her as her own.

And Daisy neither shrieked, nor fainted, nor cried out, but sat like one dead, while George unclasped Rena’s arms from her neck and questioned her of the past. Very rapidly Rena told her story, and Daisy listened till the color came back to her face, and the tears flowed in torrents, while sob after sob shook her frame, and her lips kept whispering gladly: “Thank God; thank God, it’s Rena, it is.”

Mr. and Mrs. Harris were now summoned, and to them George appealed for confirmation of Rena’s story. As concisely as he could Grandpa Harris told what he had heard of Rena from the man who brought her to Oakfield, and when he had finished even Mr. Rivers himself could no longer doubt that Daisy had found her sister, and drawing Rena to him he kissed her fondly in token of his recognition as a near and dear relation.

Daisy’s story was soon told. After her frantic call for Rena to waken she had fallen senseless upon the floor, where she would have died but for the women who occupied the adjoining room, and who suddenly remembered the little girls and called to a fireman to save them. The flames by this time were rolling up the stairway, and Ruth’s hair was scorched when the brave man reached her and bore her safely into the street. To venture again into the roaring mass of fire was impossible, and as none of Rena’s acquaintances chanced to see her in the crowd, it was supposed that she perished in the flames, and not all the good fortune which came to Ruth could ever obliterate the memory of that dreadful night, or her sister’s terrible fate. A kind woman belonging to the better class of poor had taken Ruth into her house, where within a few days came Mrs. Rivers, from far uptown, to get plain sewing done. Six months before she had lost her only daughter, who was just Ruth’s age and size, and something in the face of the desolate young girl attracted the lady’s notice, and when she heard her story it seemed as if her own dead child from the grave in Greenwood, was pleading for the orphan. And so it came about that Ruth found herself in a beautiful home, where, as Mrs. Rivers’ adopted daughter, every want was supplied, and she went no more into the street to sell her humble wares. So certain did Rena’s death seem, that no effort was ever made to find her, and for more than two years the sisters lived in the same city, and possibly met sometimes in the street, as Ruth rode with Mrs. Rivers in her luxurious carriage, and Rena took a walk with a teacher or older girl. Then Mrs. Rivers moved to Boston, and three years after Rena was sent to Oakfield, so that their lives were as far apart from each other as they were different in incident.—Loved, and petted and caressed, Ruth, to whom Mrs. Rivers gave the name of Daisy, had no wish ungratified which money could procure, and she grew up a beautiful and accomplished woman, retaining still the same sweet unselfishness of disposition and gentleness of manner which had marked her childhood, when she went hungry that little Rena might be fed. At eighteen she was married to the nephew of her so-called father, and after the birth of a little girl, whom she named Irene, she seemed perfectly happy until her infant died, when she sank into a weak, peculiar state of mind from which nothing had power to rouse her until Providence directed her to Oakfield. There she felt at home from the first, she said; the place reminded her so much of the house she had heard her mother describe so often.

“And,” she continued, taking up her story where George had left it, “I never thought of it when I first came here. I guess I did not think of anything, but mother’s name was Harris—Agatha Harris—and she——”

Daisy never finished the sentence, for ere another word could be uttered Grandpa Harris fell heavily against his wife, with the look of death on his face. The shock was too great for him to bear, and they laid him fainting upon the couch, while Aunt Hannah, Daisy and Rena bent over him, trying to restore him to consciousness. When he was himself again and able to listen, it needed but few words more to convince him that the Rena whom he loved already as his own, and the beautiful Daisy, whom he looked up to as a superior being, were both the children of his daughter, whose marriage with Homer Hastings twenty-one years ago that very night had so offended him.

Daisy could remember very little of her own father. He had been kind, she knew, and they had been comfortable while he lived, but after his death they were very poor till her mother married a Mr. Cutler, who though a worthy and respectable man, was always sickly, and died soon after Rena’s birth.

“So long as mother lived, we did pretty well,” Daisy said. “She took in sewing and I went for and carried home the work; but when she died and we sold the things to pay the doctor’s bill, and keep us from starving, it was so hard; then I peddled in the street and tried to earn a living, and tried to be good and remember all mother had taught me, but sometimes, when I was so cold, and nobody bought, and the ladies held their purses tight if I came near them, and the newsboys halloed after me, and Rena was home so hungry waiting for me, I thought God had forgotten us; but Rena never did. Her faith was always strong, and her sweet, baby words of comfort kept my heart from breaking.”

They were all sobbing but Daisy, who alone was calm, as she went over the dreadful past which was now done with forever. Cold, nor hunger, nor insult, would ever touch Daisy again, and, as some great shock frequently unsettles the mind, so, contrarywise, it sometimes restores it, and the excitement and surprise of finding her sister and friends seemed to restore Daisy’s reason wholly, and after a moment she said, as she put her hand to her head and turned to her husband with one of her brightest smiles, “It is all gone,—the confusion and uncertainty. Every thing is clear as it was before baby died. I am myself once more. Thank God for giving me back my mind with all the other blessings.”

She did seem perfectly sane, and never was there a happier family group than that at the farm-house on that Christmas eve. They did not go to the church, for they felt that their joy was something with which strangers had nothing to do, and they kept the festival at home and talked together of all the wonderful ways through which God had led them, until the bell of the church across the common rang for twelve and another Christmas morn was ushered in.

Rena had her book at last,—the story of Bethlehem,—and though many costlier presents have been given her since, she prizes none of them so much as that “sweet story of old” which came to her with the sister she had believed to be dead. Her home proper is in the city now, with Daisy, where her winters are spent, and where Grandpa and Grandma Harris often come; but, all through the summer months, she stays at the old farm-house with Daisy and the sturdy boy who has taken the place of the little Irene. Uncle Obed always goes to the Christmas festival in the old church, and though his voice trills and shakes a little, he does not stop for that, but with a silent thanksgiving in his heart for the children restored to him, joins heartily in the “Peace on earth, and good will toward men,” which goes up to Heaven from so many tongues on that, night of nights—that “wonderful night” when—

“Down o’er the stars to restore us,
Leading His flame-winged chorus.
Comes the Eternal to sight:—
Wonderful, wonderful night!”

THE END
OF
RUTH AND RENA.

BENNIE’S CHRISTMAS.