Chapter IX

THE next week the repairs upon the house were all finished, and Mr. Grayson came down to inspect them. It was with no small pride that Nelly showed him all that had been done. She was beginning to consider Mr. Grayson as a friend. The old gentleman looked about into all the holes and corners, inspected the cow-house, and shook his head over some litter by the back door.

"All very nice, Nelly, and a great improvement; and now the main thing is to keep it nice. Unless you do that, you might live in the finest house in town, and never have it either neat or comfortable. Do you know what dirt means, Nelly?"

Nelly thought she did; but when pressed to define the word she found it not so easy.

"Well, now, I will tell you how a learned gentleman defined dirt. He called it 'something in the wrong place.'"

"I should think dirt was always in the wrong place," said Nelly. "I don't see how there can be any right place for dirt."

"Well, but let us see," said the old gentleman. "Now, here is the litter and stuff in the cow-house. Where it is, it is dirt,—ill-smelling, disagreeable, and bad both for Crummie's health and your own; but put on your garden and well dug in, it will become manure,—enriching the ground and helping to produce all sorts of pleasant and useful things. Look at those ends of rag and snaps of paper blowing about. Lying round as they do now, they are dirt; but put them in your rag-bag and they will help to make nice white paper. Grease makes very ugly spots on the floor or your dress; but we could have neither soap nor candles without it. Now do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, if I were you, I would clear out the cow-house thoroughly and spread the stuff on the land. You can either dig it in this fall or let it lie till spring; but as the ground has never been cultivated, it might be better to dig it at once, so that the frost and snow may help to mellow the soil and make it fine and fit for planting. It will be rather hard work for you, so I will let my man dig it for you the first time; after that, you must keep it in order yourself."

"I will," said Nelly. "Mrs. Caswell says she will give me some raspberry and currant bushes, and some flowers, next spring, and a vine to plant at the end of the house and run all over it, like that one on the church, which turns so red in the fall."

"My gardener shall give you a grape-vine, and that will bear fruit as well as look pretty," said Mr. Grayson. "Now, Nelly, remember what I say about keeping things neat. I shall take a look at you now and then, to see how you get along."

Nelly seemed likely to get on nicely, except that her different employments rather interfered with each other.

The next time she went down to the shop, she found no one but Mrs. Kirkland and Miss Powell, trying to wait on a whole shopful of people.

"Oh, Nelly, you are just the person I was wanting to see! Alice has taken this time, of all others, to sprain her ankle; and Miss Cameron must needs go and be married!" said Mrs. Kirkland, as if marriage were an unheard-of transgression, invented for her express annoyance. "Miss Powell and myself are all alone; and you must take hold and help us. Just get out the buttons for that lady. You know where they are."

Nelly complied, and plunged at once into the button business, and the braid business, and the pin business, and endless other businesses, surprising herself by the ease with which she remembered the places and prices of things. She now and then found herself at a loss in calculating and making change; but Miss Powell was at hand to help her, and on the whole she made out very well, and gave satisfaction to her customers.

Mrs. Kirkland found Nelly so useful that she could not spare her to go home to dinner; so she stayed, and had her luncheon with Miss Powell, on bread-and-butter and cold ham and chocolate, which Alice Kirkland sent down to her mother. She could not get away till dark, and then went home with a strict injunction from Mrs. Kirkland to come back in the morning as soon as she had carried round her milk.

"What a useful, handy little creature she is!" said Mrs. Kirkland. "She is worth more than any young girl I ever had. Who would have believed, when she came in to return that pattern, early last spring, that we should be so glad of her help in the store?"

"Nelly had one grand advantage to begin with," said Miss Powell. "She was brought up to be strictly honest,—never to meddle with the least thing which does not belong to her. She owes her grandmother an immense debt of gratitude for that part of her education, at least."

"Yes, indeed. It is wonderful how few girls are to be trusted. They may not take large sums or things of much consequence, but they are always meddling. The servant I have now is good for a great many things; but she constantly helps herself to tea and sugar, and to my thread, needles and pins. Yet, if I should send her away, it is ten to one the next comer would be worse,—would have all her faults, without her good qualities. People often talk of common honesty; but I sometimes think strict honesty the most uncommon thing in the world."

"I have watched Nelly closely, and I have never seen her take the smallest trifle. She sometimes asks if she may have empty boxes or bits of tinsel and ornamental paper; but I have never seen her appropriate any such thing without leave."

Granny Ryan grumbled not a little at Nelly's long absence, and still more at her going away again the next day. She complained of the loneliness of being by herself from morning till night. But the truth was, she began to grow somewhat jealous of Nelly, and to feel as though the child was getting above her. Almost every one who has tried to benefit children of Nelly's class has met with this feeling, and found it a great hindrance. People do not like to have their children better off than themselves.

Mrs. Ryan was not so bad in this respect as many others that I have met; but she could not help a spasm of jealousy now and then. She raised numberless objections to Nelly's going to the shop,—her own loneliness, Crummie's needs, and the necessity of Nelly's going after the slops for her.

But Nelly disposed of all in one way or another. She knew that Mrs. Kirkland needed her services; and she felt, rather than thought, that this was a turning-point in her life,—that on her action now it depended whether she were to grow up intelligent, respectable and comfortable, or whether she should live, like her mother and grandmother, just contriving to keep soul and body together, and tolerated by neighbours and acquaintances because no one knew what to do with them. She felt that a permanent place in Mrs. Kirkland's store was the summit of all her wishes; and she began to see that such a place would presently be incompatible with the care of Crummie. But leaving this matter to settle itself, or be settled by time and circumstances, Nelly contented herself with meeting granny's objections partly by reasoning, partly by jokes and coaxing, ending with—

"And you just dress yourself up by-and-by and come down to the store, to see your own Nelly up behind the counter, waiting on the ladies, as grand as Mrs. Kirkland or Miss Alice herself."

"And a fine place, to be sure, for the grand-daughter of an Irish earl, to be selling such things!" grumbled the old woman. "But I'll not deny that they have been kind to you; and your purty little fingers do look more fit for silks and laces than to be handling slop-pails."

"You'll see," said Nelly, exulting in her success. "May-be, some day, we'll have a nice little shop of our own. Who knows? Then you shall sit in a nice white cap and a fine shawl, like Mrs. Grayson's own, and take care of the money; and all the ladies will say, 'What a handsome woman Mrs. Ryan is!' It's easy to see where Nelly gets her good looks," added Nelly, archly.

"Get along with your blarney. You'd coax the very birds off the trees!" said Granny Ryan. "Sure I hope to see you in your own drawing-room before I die."

"And, then, think what a fine thing to know all sorts of nice work!" said Nelly. "Well, granny, I'm off. Take good care of yourself and Crummie, and I'll buy something good for supper when I come home. They are selling the spare-ribs very cheap."

Nelly succeeded even better to-day than yesterday, and very proud she felt to be left in the entire charge of the lower shop while Mrs. Kirkland went out to the bank and Miss Powell was busy up-stairs.

"It is not every little girl I would leave in this way," said Mrs. Kirkland; "but I know I can trust you, Nelly."

Nelly blushed high, and inwardly determined that she would never do any thing to forfeit this trust. She made herself as useful as possible that day and the next, and at the end of the week Mrs. Kirkland proposed to engage her at least till after the holidays, at a regular salary of three dollars a week.

"I should like it better than any thing else in the world," said Nelly; "but I don't exactly see what I am to do. I must carry around the milk in the morning and at night, and feed the cow. I don't see how I can come before nine o'clock, now the mornings are so short."

"Could not granny carry round the milk herself in the morning?" asked Mrs. Kirkland.

"I don't know: she used to, sometimes," said Nelly.

"I think I must go and see granny myself," said Mrs. Kirkland, who was really anxious to secure Nelly's services, not merely for the child's sake, but for her own. "I feel as if I must have you, Nelly."

"It is a great chance for me," said Nelly, "a better chance than I could ever have expected,—and no one knows how I hate to lose it; but granny is old, and she has her little ways; and you know she brought me up the best she could, and never let me want for any thing she could do for me; and I shouldn't feel it was right to go straight against her, even if I was to gain by it."

"Very true, Nelly; and, as I was saying the other day, you owe granny a great deal for bringing you up in such strict habits of honesty. Only for that, I never would have taken you into the store as I have done."

"Granny was very particular about that," said Nelly. "Almost the only time she ever whipped me, was for taking some fruit from a lady's garden. She made me go and carry it back and ask pardon. But that was when I was a little girl," added Nelly, with dignity.

Mrs. Kirkland smiled. "Well, I will call and see granny, in a day or two. Meantime, you may carry her this red shawl, if you like, and tell her I sent it to her. There are a few imperfections in it; but it is warm and soft."

"I think it is lovely," said Nelly. "Granny likes red, and she is always complaining of cold in her shoulders. If you do come and see her, I wouldn't contradict her," she added, shrewdly. "I have always noticed that after she has talked all she likes, and said all she has to say, she will do almost any thing I want her to; but if I begin to argue, there is no end to it."

"That is the way with more people than granny," said Mrs. Kirkland, much amused. "Well, Nelly, I will attend to your hint, and see what I can do; for I must have you, and that is all about it."

In going home that night, Nelly met with a grand surprise. She was going to the past-office with some letters for Mrs. Kirkland, when, on passing her favourite book-store, where the pictures were exhibited, she saw Mr. Lambert's tall figure and silver beard towering above a number of people who were looking at a large painting. Nelly had not seen him for some months, and hardly expected him to recognize her; but he pounced upon her at once.

"Why, Nelly, is this you? I have been meaning to hunt you up, ever since I came home. How nicely you look! What are you doing now-a-days? Making tatting?"

"Making a great many things," said Nelly. "I am in Mrs. Kirkland's store," she added, feeling two inches taller. "I stay there all the time now."

"I am glad to find you doing so well. But come, look at my picture and see how you like it."

Mr. Lambert made way for Nelly, with very little ceremony, among the crowd of gazers, and placed her in front of the picture. Nelly uttered a cry of delight. There was Crummie, "as natural as life," cropping the grass; and surely that was no other than Nelly,—that little girl with the short black curls and the ragged red petticoat, working at her tatting, under the chestnut-tree.

"Well, what do you say?" asked Mr. Lambert. "Does it look like you?"

"It looks like Crummie," said Nelly; "but I did not think I was as pretty as that," she added, ingenuously.

"Then you never looked in the glass," said a gentleman standing by. "Who is she, Lambert, and where does she live?"

"She is my little friend, Mr. Rowe, and she lives under very sufficient protection," said Mr. Lambert, gravely, and with a look and tone that Nelly did not understand. The gentleman laughed and turned away.

"So you like the picture, Nelly?" said Mr. Lambert, after she had looked a while longer and was proceeding on her errand.

"Yes, very much," answered Nelly; "but I don't like that gentleman speaking to me so," she added, with an angry flash of her eye. "I think he was real impudent."

"And so he was. Don't have any thing to say to him, Nelly, in case he ever speaks to you."

"I never do talk to strangers," said Nelly: "granny told me not to."

"Granny is a wise old woman, and, if you are a wise little girl, you will be guided by her. But Nelly, I have something to tell you. Do you know I have sold my picture for two hundred and fifty dollars?"

"Two hundred and fifty dollars!" repeated Nelly, in a tone of awe. "What a heap of money! I am real glad you have got it, though; and won't Miss Nelly be pleased?"

"Miss Nelly thinks more of spending the money than of the way it comes," said Mr. Lambert. "But Nelly, some of this money belongs to you."

"I don't see how," said Nelly; "I didn't do any thing to earn it, did I?"

"Well, perhaps not, strictly speaking; but I should never have painted the picture if you had not given me the idea and served as my model. So I think some of the price is justly your due." He put his hand into his pocket and took out his purse. "I should like to give you more, if I could afford it; but you must accept this; and I hope it may do you a great deal of good." He put a ten-dollar bill into Nelly's hand as he spoke.

"I am sure I am much obliged," stammered Nelly, bewildered by this sudden stroke of good fortune; "but somehow, I don't feel as if I ought to take it."

"Nonsense!" said Mr. Lambert, lightly. "Don't say any more about that; but tell me what you mean to do with the money."

"I believe I will buy a load of hay, if granny will let me," said Nelly.

"A load of hay!" exclaimed Mr. Lambert, in surprise. "What could put that in your head?"

"Granny said if we could afford to buy hay for Crummie, I should not have to gather swill," said Nelly; "and I should be glad to get rid of that. And then it would take one thing out of the way of my staying in the shop."

Mr. Lambert laughed. "You are the most practical child I ever saw, Nelly. I wish my girl had half your sense. But what about going into the shop?"

Nelly told him the story.

"Oh, you must go into the shop," said Mr. Lambert. "Tell your grandmother I shall not paint her portrait if she does not let you go."

Nelly promised. "I do hope she will. It seems such a chance for me, and I may never have another."

Whether it was Mrs. Kirkland's argument or Mr. Lambert's threat that prevailed, I cannot say; but certain it is, granny consented that the ten dollars should be laid out in hay, and that Nelly should accept Mrs. Kirkland's offer. It was also found possible to make an arrangement by which little Harry Brown carried round the milk to most of the customers, receiving his pay in the same commodity.

Granny's remaining objections were quite overcome by her first visit to the store, where she heard Nelly called "Miss Ryan," and saw her engaged in work which the old woman acknowledged was "far more fit for the likes of her than going round to people's back-doors with a slop-pail."