Chapter IX: Part II (4)

"Early in the spring after I was thirteen--my birthday was in December--we went to live in a little place called Maynard's Mills. It was a suburban village near the largest manufacturing town in the State. The other two homes which I could remember had been very small country villages, where none of the people were rich, and only a few attended the Episcopal church. In Maynard's Mills there were many rich people, and almost everybody went to our church. The whole place was owned by Mr. Maynard, Robert's father. He had gone out there to live near his mills, and the place was so beautiful that family after family of the rich mill-owners had moved out there. At first they used to go into town to church; but it was a long drive, cold in winter and hot in summer, and so Mr. Maynard built a beautiful chapel near his house and sent for papa to come and preach in it. Mr. Maynard had been his classmate in college and loved him very much, just because they were 'so different,' papa said, and I think it must have been so, for Mr. Maynard is the merriest man I ever saw. He laughs as soon as he sees you, whether there is anything to laugh at or not, and he makes you feel just like laughing yourself, simply by asking you how you do. I never saw papa so happy as he was the day Mr. Maynard's letter came asking him to go there.

"It was a very kind letter, and the salary, of which Mr. Maynard spoke almost apologetically, saying that it would be increased in a few years as the village grew, was more than twice as large as papa had ever received, and there was a nice parsonage besides.

"We moved in April. I always associate our moving with blue hepaticas, for I carried a great basketful of them, which I had taken up roots and all, in the woods, the morning we set out; and what should I find under papa's study window but a great thicket of wild ferns and cornel bushes growing--just the place for my hepaticas, and I set them out before I went into the house. The house was very small, but it was so pretty that papa and I were perfectly happy in it. Poor mamma did not like the closets and the kitchen. The house we had left was a huge, old-fashioned house, with four square rooms on a floor; one of these was the kitchen, and mamma missed it very much. But she lived only a few days after we moved in. I never knew of what disease she died. She was ill but a few hours and suffered great pain. They said she had injured herself in some way in lifting the furniture. It was all so sudden and so terrible, and we were surrounded by such confusion and so many strange faces, that I do not remember anything about it distinctly. I remember the funeral, and the great masses of white and purple flowers all over the table on which the coffin stood, and I remember how strangely papa's face looked.

"And then Aunt Abby came to live with us, and we settled down into such a new, different life, that it seemed to me as if it had been in some other world that I had known mamma. My sister Abby was two years old, and my darling brother Nat was ten, when mamma died. It is very hard to talk about dear Nat, I love him so. He is so precious, and his sorrow is so sacred, that I am hardly willing to let strangers pity him, ever so tenderly. When he was a baby he sprang out of mamma's lap, one day, as she was reaching up to take something from the mantel piece. He fell on the andiron-head and injured his spine so that he could never walk. He is twenty years old now; his head and chest and arms are about as large as those of a boy of sixteen, but all the rest of his poor body is shrunken and withered; he has never stood upright, and he cannot turn himself in his chair or bed. But his head and face are beautiful. It is not only I who think so. Artists have seen him sitting at the window, or being drawn about in his little wagon, and have begged permission to paint his face, for the face of a saint or of a hero, in their pictures. It is the face of both saint and hero; and after all that must be always so, I think; for how could a man be one without being the other? I know some very brave men have been very bad men, but I do not call them heroes. Nat is the only hero I ever knew; if I were a poet I would write a poem about him. It should be called 'THE CROWNLESS KING.' Oh, how he _does_ reign over suffering, and loss, and humiliation, and what a sweet kingdom spreads out around him wherever he is! He does everybody good, and everybody loves him. Poor papa used to say sometimes, 'My son is a far better preacher than I; see, I sit at his feet to learn;' and it was true. Even when he was a little fellow Nat used to keep up papa's courage. Many a time, when papa looked dark and sad, Nat would call to him, 'Dear papa, will you carry me up and down a little while by the window? I want the sky.' Then, while they were walking, Nat would say such sweet things about the beauty of the sky, and the delight it gave him to see it, that the tears would come into papa's eyes, and he would say, 'Who would think that we could ever forget for a moment this sky which is above us?' and he would go away to his study comforted.

"As I said, when mamma died, Nat was ten and I was thirteen. From that time I took all the care of him. Aunt Abby, was not strong, and she did not love children. She was just, and she meant to be always kind to us; but that sort of kindness is quite different from loving-kindness. Poor Nat never could bear to have her do anything for him, and so it very soon came about that I took all the care of him. It was not hard, for he was never ill; he suffered constant pain but in spite of it he was always cheerful, always said he felt well, and never had any of the small ailments and diseases which healthy children are apt to have. 'I shouldn't know what to do without the ache, Dot,' he said to me one day when he was only twelve years old. 'I've got so used to it, I should miss it as much as I should miss you said it helps me to be good. I don't think I should dare have it go away.' A few years later he wrote some lovely little verses called 'The Angel of Pain,' which I will show you. Our life after mamma died was very happy and peaceful. It makes me grieve for her, even now, to think how little she was missed. We had all loved her. She was always pleasant and good, and took the best possible care of us and of everything; but she was not one of those persons whose presence makes itself necessary to people. It seems hardly right to say such a thing, but I really think papa seemed more cheerful without her, after the first. I think that while she lived he was always groping and reaching after something in her which did not exist. The hourly sight of her reminded him hourly of his ideal of what a wife might be, and he was forever hoping that she might come a little nearer to it--enter a little more into his world of thought and feeling. This is how it has looked to me since I have been married, and can understand just how terrible it must be to have the person whom you love best, disappoint you in any way.

"Nat was in all my classes in school. Although he was three years younger he was much cleverer than I, and had had nothing to do, poor dear, all his life, but lie in his chair and read. I used to draw him to and from school in a little wagon; the boys lifted it up and down the steps so carefully it did not jar him; and papa had a special desk built for him, so high that part of the wagon could roll under it, and the lid could rest just wherever Nat needed it for writing or studying. When we went home, there was always a sort of procession with us; a good many of the children had to go in the same direction, but many went simply to walk by Nat's wagon and talk with him. Whenever there was a picnic or a nutting frolic, we always took him; the boys took turns in drawing him; nobody would hear a word of his staying at home; he used to sit in his wagon and look on while the rest played, and sometimes he would be left all alone for a while, but his face was always the happiest one there. At school the boys used to tell him everything, and leave things to his decision. Almost every day, somebody would call out, at recess or intermission, 'Well, I'll leave it to Nat'--or 'I'll tell Nat.' One day somebody shouted, 'Take it before the king--let's call him King Nat.' But it almost made Nat cry. He exclaimed, 'Oh, boys, please don't ever say that again;' and they never did. He had a great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear to refuse any request which a poor cripple made.

"When I think how happy those days were and how fast the darkest days of our lives were drawing near, it makes me shrink from happiness almost as much as from grief. It seems only grief's forerunner. On the evening of my sixteenth birthday, we were all having a very merry time in papa's study, popping corn over the open fire. We had wheeled Nat near the fire, and tied the corn-popper on a broom-handle, so that he could shake the popper himself; and I never saw him laugh so heartily at anything. Papa laughed too, quite loud, which was a thing that did not happen many times a year. It was the last time we heard the full sound of dear papa's voice. Late that night he was called out to see a poor man, one of the factory operatives, who was dying. It was a terrible snow-storm, and papa had been so heated over the fire and in playing with us that he took a severe cold. The next morning he could not speak aloud. The doctor said it was an acute bronchitis and would pass off; but it did not, and in a very few weeks it was clear that he was dying of consumption. Probably the cold only developed a disease which had been long there.

"I can't tell you about the last months of papa's life. I think I shall never be able to speak of them. We saw much worse days afterward, but none that seemed to me so hard to bear; even when I thought Nat and I would have to go to the almshouse it was not so hard. The love which most children divide between father and mother I concentrated on my father. I loved him with an adoration akin to that which a woman feels for her husband, and with the utmost of filial love added. Nat loved him almost as much. The most touching thing I ever saw was to see Nat from his wagon, or wheeled chair, reaching out to take care of papa in the bed. Nobody else could give him his medicine so well; nobody could prepare his meals for him, after he was too weak to use a knife and fork, so well as Nat. How he could do all this with only one hand--for he could not bend himself in his chair enough to use the hand farthest from the bed--nobody could understand; but he did, and the very last mouthful of wine papa swallowed he took, the morning he died, from poor Nat's brave little hand, which did not shake nor falter, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks.

"Papa lived nearly a year; but the last nine months he was in bed, and he never spoke a loud word after that birthday night when we had been so happy in the study. He died in November, on a dreary stormy day. I never shall forget it. He had seemed easier that morning, and insisted on our all going out to breakfast together and leaving him alone, the doors being open between the study and the dining-room. We had hardly seated ourselves at the table when his bell rang. Aunt Abby reached him first. It could not have been a minute, but he did not know her. For the first and only time in my life I forgot Nat, and was out of the room when I heard him sob. Dear Nat! not even then would he think of himself. I turned back. 'Oh, don't stop to take me, Dot,' he said. 'Run!' But I could not; and when I reached the door, pushing his chair before me, all was over. However, the doctor said that, even if we had been there at the first, papa could not have bid us good-by; that the death was from instantaneous suffocation, and that he probably had no consciousness of it himself. Papa's life had been insured for five thousand dollars and he had saved, during the three years we had lived at Maynard's Mills, about one thousand more. This was all the money we had in the world.

"Mr. Maynard had been very kind throughout papa's illness. He had persuaded the church to continue the salary; every day he had sent flowers, and grapes, and wine, and game, and everything he could think of that papa could eat; and, what was kindest of all, he had come almost every day to talk with him and cheer him up. But he did not mean to let his kindness stop here. The day after the funeral he came to see us, to propose to adopt me. I forgot to say that Aunt Abby was to be married soon and would take little Abby with her; so they were provided for, and the only question was about Nat and me.

"Fortunately, dear Nat was in the dining-room and did not see Mr. Maynard when he came. I have told you what a merry man Mr. Maynard is, and how kind he is, but he is also a very obstinate and high-tempered man. He had never loved Nat; I do not know why; I think he was the only human being who ever failed to love him. He pitied him, of course; but he was so repelled by his deformity that he could not love him. As soon as Mr. Maynard said, 'Now, my dear child, you must come to my house and make it your home always,' I saw that he intended to separate me from Nat.

"I replied, 'I cannot leave Nat, Mr. Maynard. I thank you very much; you are very good; but it would break my heart to leave him, and I am sure papa would never forgive me if I should do it.'

"He made a gesture of impatience. He had foreseen this, and come prepared for it; but he saw that I promised to prove even more impracticable than he had feared.

"'You have sacrificed your whole life already to that miserable unfortunate boy,' he said, 'and I always told your father he ought not to permit it.'

"At this I grew angry, and I replied:--

"'Mr. Maynard, Nat does more for us all, every hour of his life, than we ever could do for him: dear papa used to say so too.'

"No doubt papa had said this very thing to Mr. Maynard often, for tears came into his eyes and he went on:--

"'I know, I know--he is a wonderful boy, and we might all learn a lesson of patience from him; but I can't have the whole of your life sacrificed to him. I will provide for him amply; he shall have every comfort which money can command.'

"'But where?' said I.

"'In an institution I know of, under the charge of a friend of mine.'

"'A hospital!' exclaimed I; and the very thought of my poor Nat, who had been the centre of a loving home-circle, of a merry school playground, ever since he could remember--the very thought of his finding himself alone among diseased people, and tended by hired attendants, so overcame me that I burst into floods of tears.

"Mr. Maynard, who hated the presence of tears and suffering, as mirthful people always do, rose at once and said kindly, 'Poor child, you are not strong enough to talk it over yet; but as your aunt must go away so soon, I thought it better to have it all settled at once.'

"'It is settled, Mr. Maynard,' said I, in a voice that half frightened me. 'I shall never leave Nat--never, so long as I live.'

"'Then you'll do him the greatest unkindness you can--that's all,' replied Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room. I locked myself up in my own room and thought the whole matter over. How I could earn my own living and Nat's, I did not know. We should have about four hundred dollars a year. I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off from really living; and I felt convinced that it would be impossible for me to keep up courage or hope unless I could contrive, in some way, to earn money enough to surround our home with at least a semblance of the old atmosphere. We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we must have sun and air.

"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. Maynard's mill. I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these thoughts passed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and exclaimed, 'That is it--that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study. Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work out of her hands.

"'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?'

"She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling over a scanty pattern.

"'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any friends of yours you're thinking of?'

"'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from her fingers, and she uttered an ejaculation I never heard from her lips on any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!'

"'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal. While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr. Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he would have done in health.

"'But I always told him,' said Aunt Abby, 'that Mr. Maynard wasn't going to do anything for Nat beyond what money'd do. He'd give him a thousand a year, or two, if need be, but he'd never set eyes on him if he could help it.'

"'Aunt Abby,' exclaimed I, 'please don't say another word about Mr. Maynard's helping Nat. I'd die before Nat should touch a cent of his money.'

"'There is no use talking that way,' said Aunt Abby, whose tenderest mercies were often cruelly worded. 'Mr. Maynard's a good, generous man, and I'm sure he's been the saving of us all. But that's no reason he should set up to take you away from Nat now; and I know well enough Nat can't live without you; but I don't see how it's to be managed. And Aunt Abby sighed. Then I told her my plans; they grew clearer and clearer to me as I unfolded them; the two gentle-faced spinster women looked at me with surprise. Miss Penstock wiped her eyes over and over.

"'If I could only be sure I wasn't going against your best interests to let you come,' said she.

"'Oh, Miss Penstock,' exclaimed I, 'don't think so--don't dare to say no for that reason; for I tell you, I shall go away to some other town with Nat if you don't take us; there is no other house here that would do; think how much better it would be for Nat to stay among friends.'

"'It's lucky I am their guardian,' said Aunt Abby, with an unconscious defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too; but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.'

"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as her gratitude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.'

"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that. His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever, combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew, too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me.

"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five hundred dollars and these words:--

"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her father.'

"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:--

"'DEAR MR. MAYNARD:--I shall never forget that you were willing to be my father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money from one who is displeased with me for doing what I think right. I promise you, however, for papa's sake and for Nat's, that if I ever need help I will ask it of you, and not of any one else.'

* * * * *

"The next time I saw Mr. Maynard he put both his hands on my shoulders and said: 'You are a brave girl; I wish I could forgive you; but remember your promise.' And that was the last word Mr. Maynard spoke to me for three years.

"Our new home was so much pleasanter than we supposed it could be, that at first, in spite of our grief, both Nat and I were almost gay. It was like a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor people's little rooms can be, if the sun shines in and there are a few pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and these, made our little sitting-room look like home. We had only two rooms on the first floor; one of these was a tiny one, but it held our little cooking-stove and a cupboard, with our few dishes; the other we called 'sitting-room;' it had to be dear Nat's bedroom also, because he could not be carried up and down stairs. But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed owl sat. My room was over Nat's, and a cord went up from his bed to a bell over mine, so that he could call me at any moment if he wanted anything in the night. Then we had one more little chamber, in which we kept the boxes of papa's sermons, and some trunks of old clothes, and things which nobody wanted to buy at the auction, and papa's big chair and writing-table. We would not sell those. I thought perhaps some day we should have a house of our own--I could not imagine how; but if we did we should be glad of that chair and table, and so Aunt Abby let us keep them, though they were of handsome wood, beautifully carved, and would have brought a good deal of money. For these four rooms we paid Miss Penstock three dollars a month; the rent would have been a dollar a week, but she said it was really worth a dollar a month to her to have people who would not trouble her nor hurt the house; and as Aunt Abby thought so too, I believed her.

"My plan was to have Nat keep on at school, and to take in sewing myself, or to work for Miss Penstock. For the first year all went so smoothly that I was content. I used to draw Nat to and from school twice a day, and that gave me air and exercise. Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming. Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill--the first illness of his life. It was a slow fever. He was ill for three months. I often wonder how I lived through those months. When he recovered he seemed better than ever. The doctor said he had passed a sort of crisis and would always be stronger for it. The doctor was very kind. Several nights he sat up with Nat and made me go to bed, and he would not let me pay him a cent, though he came every day for weeks. When I urged him to let us pay the bill he grew half angry, and said, 'Do you think I am going to take money from your father's daughter?' and then I felt more willing to take it for papa's sake. But the medicines had cost a great deal, and I had not earned anything; and so, at the end of the second year, we had been obliged to take quite a sum out of our little capital. I did not tell Nat, and I did not go to Mr. Maynard. I went on from day to day, in a sort of stupor, wondering what would happen next. I was seventeen years old, but I knew of nothing I could do except to sew; I did not know enough to teach. All this time I never once thought of the mills. I used to watch the men and women going in and out, and envy them, thinking how sure they were of their wages; and yet it never crossed my mind that I could do the same thing. I am afraid it was unconscious pride which prevented my thinking of it.

"But the day came. It was in the early spring. I had been to the grave-yard to set out some fresh hepaticas on papa's grave. His grave and mamma's were in an inclosure surrounded by a high, thick hedge of pines and cedars close to the public street As I knelt down, hidden behind the trees, I heard steps and voices. They paused opposite me. The persons were evidently looking over the fence. Then I distinguished the voice of our kind doctor.

"'Poor Kent!' he said, 'how it would distress him to see his children now! That Nat barely pulled through his fever; but he seems to have taken a new turn since then and is stronger than ever. But I am afraid they are very poor.'

"To my astonishment, the voice that replied was Mr. Maynard's.

"'Of course they are,' said he impatiently; 'but nobody will ever have a chance to help them till the last cent's gone. That Dora would work her fingers off in the mills rather than ask or receive help.'

"'But good heavens! Maynard, you'd never stand by and see Tom Kent's daughter in the mills?' exclaimed the doctor.

"I could not hear the reply, for they were walking away. But the words 'in the mills' rang in my ears. A new world seemed opening before me. I had no particle of false pride; all I wanted was to earn money honestly. I could not understand why I had never thought of this way. I knew that many of the factory operatives, who were industrious and economical, supported large families of children on their wages. 'It would be strange enough if I could not support Nat and myself,' thought I, and I almost ran home, I was so glad. I said nothing to Nat; I knew instinctively that it would grieve him.

"The next day after I left him at school I went to the largest mill and saw the overseer. He was a coarse, disagreeable man; but he had known my father and he treated me respectfully. He said they could not give me very good wages at first; but if I learned readily, and was skillful in tending the looms, I might in time make a very good living. The sums that he named seemed large, tried by my humble standard. Even at the beginning I should earn more than I had been able to for many months at my needle. After tea I told Nat. He lay very still for some moments; the tears rolled down his cheeks; then he reached up both hands and drew my face down to his, and said, 'Dear sister, it would be selfish to make it any harder for you than it must be at best. But oh, Dot, Dot! do you think you can dream what it is for me to have to lie here and be such a burden on you?'

"'Oh, Nat!' I said, 'if you don't want to break my heart, don't speak so. I don't have to earn any more for two than I should have to alone; it does not cost anything for you; and if it did, you darling, don't you know that I could not live without you? you are all I have got in the world.' Nat did not reply; but all that evening his face looked as I never saw it before. Nat was fifteen; instinct was beginning to torture him with a man's sense of his helplessness, and it was almost more than even his childlike faith and trust could bear.

"The next day I told Miss Penstock. She had been as kind to us as a mother through this whole year and a half, and I really think we had taken the place of children in her lonely old heart. But she never could forget that we were her minister's children; she always called me Miss Dora, and does to this day. She did not interrupt me while I told her my plan, but the color mounted higher and higher in her face. As soon as I stopped speaking, she exclaimed:--

"'Dora Kent, are you mad--a girl with a face like yours to go into the mills? you don't know what you're about.'

"'Yes I do, dear Pennie,' I said (Nat had called her Pennie ever since his sickness, when she had taken tender care of him night and day). 'I know there are many rude, bad men there, but I do not believe they will trouble me. At any rate I can but try. I must earn more money, Pennie; you know that as well as I do.'

"She did indeed know it; but it was very hard for her to give approbation to this scheme. It was not until after a long argument that I induced her to promise not to write to Aunt Abby till I had tried the experiment for one month.

"The next day I went to the mill. Everything proved much better than I had feared. Some of the women in the room in which I was placed had belonged to papa's Sunday-school, and they were all very kind to me, and told the others who I was; so from the outset I felt myself among friends. In two weeks I had grown used to the work; the noise of the looms did not frighten or confuse me, and it did not tire me to stand so many hours. I found that I should soon be able to do most of my work mechanically, and think about what I pleased in the mean time. So I hoped to be able to study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing that troubled me was that I could not take Nat to and from school, and he had to be left alone sometimes. But I found a very pleasant and faithful Irish boy, who was glad to earn a little money by drawing him back and forth, often staying with him after school till I came home at six o'clock. This boy was the son of the Irish gardener on the overseer's place. The overseer was an Englishman; his name was Wilkins. He is the only human being I ever disliked so that it was hard to speak to him. His brother, too, the agent who had charge of all Mr. Maynard's business, was almost as disagreeable as he. They both looked like bloated frogs; their wide, shapeless mouths, flat noses, and prominent eyes, made me shudder when I looked at them.

"Little Patrick soon grew fond of Nat, as everybody did who came into close contact with him; and he used often to stay at our house till late at night, hearing Nat's stories, and watching him draw pictures on the blackboard. One of the things I had kept was a great blackboard which papa had made for him. It was mounted on a stout standard, so that it could be swung close in front of his chair or wagon, and he would lie there and draw for hours together. Some of the pictures he drew were so beautiful I could not bear to have them rubbed out. It seemed almost like killing things that were alive. Whenever I dared to spend a penny for anything not absolutely needful, I always bought a sheet of drawing-paper or a crayon; for Nat would rather have them than anything else in the world--even than a book--unless the book had pictures.

"One night, when I went home, I found him sitting up very straight in his wagon, with his cheeks crimson with excitement. Patrick was with him, and the table and the whole floor were covered with queer, long, jointed paste-board sheets, with pieces of gay-colored calicoes, pasted on them. Patrick looked as excited as Nat, and as soon as I opened the door he exclaimed, 'Och, Miss Dora, see how he's plazed with um.' I was almost frightened at Nat's face. 'Why Nat, dear,' said I, 'what are they? I don't think they are very pretty;' and I picked up one of the queer things and looked at it. 'The colors are bright and pretty, but I am sure almost all the patterns are hideous.'

"'Of course they are,' shouted Nat hysterically. 'That's just it. That's what pleases me so,' and he burst out crying. I was more frightened still. Trampling the calicoes under my feet, I ran and knelt by his chair, and put my arms around him. 'Oh, Nat, Nat, what is the matter?' cried I. 'Patrick, what have you done to him?' Poor Patrick could not speak; he was utterly bewildered; he began hastily picking up the prints and shuffling them out of sight.

"'Don't you touch one!' screamed Nat, lifting up his head again, with tears rolling down his cheeks. 'Dot, Dot,' he went on, speaking louder and louder, 'don't you see? those are patterns; Patrick says Mr. Wilkins buys them. I can earn money too; I can draw a million times prettier ones than those.'

"Like lightning the thing flashed through my brain. Of course he could. He drew better ones every day of his life, by dozens, on the old blackboard, with crumbling bits of chalk. Again and again I had racked my brains to devise some method by which he might be taught, as artists are taught, and learn to put his beautiful conceptions into true shapes for the world to see. But I knew that materials and instruction were both alike out of our reach, and I had hoped earnestly that such longing had never entered his heart. I sat down and covered my face with my hands.

"'You see, sister,' said Nat in a calmer tone, sobered himself by my excitement--'you see, don't you?'

"'Yes, dear, I do see,' said I; 'you will earn much more money than I ever can, and take care of me, after all.'

"To our inexperience, it seemed as if a mine had opened at our feet. Poor Patrick stood still, unhappy and bewildered, twisting one of the pattern-books in his hand.

"'An' is it these same that Misther Nat'll be afther tryin' to make?' said he.

"'Oh no, Patrick,' said Nat, laughing, 'only the pictures from which these are to be made.'

"Then we questioned Patrick more closely. All he knew was that Mr. Wilkins' sister made many of the drawings; Patrick had seen them lying in piles on Mr. Wilkins' desk; some of them colored, some of them merely in ink. The pieces of paper were about the size of these patterns, some six or eight inches square.

"'Will I ask Miss Wilkins to come and show yees?' said Patrick.

"'No, no,' said we both, hastily; 'you must not tell anybody. Of course she would not want other people to be drawing them too.'

"'Especially if she can't make anything better than these,' said Nat, pityingly. Already his tone had so changed that I hardly recognized it. In that moment the artist-soul of my darling brother had felt its first breath of the sweetness of creative power.

"Patrick promised not to speak of it to a human being; as he was going out of the door he turned back, with a radiant face, and said: 'An 'twas meself that only thought maybe the calikers'd amuse him for a minnit with their quare colors,' and he almost somerseted off the door-steps, uttering an Irish howl of delight.

"'You've made our fortunes! there'll always be calicoes wanted, and I can draw fifty patterns a day, and I'll give you half of the first pay I get for them,' called the excited Nat; but Patrick was off.

"We sat up till midnight. I was scarcely less overwrought than Nat. He drew design after design and rejected them as not quite perfect.

"'You know,' he said, 'I must send something so very good to begin with, that they can't help seeing at first sight how good it is.'

"'But not so good that you can't ever make another equal to it,' suggested I out of my practical but inartistic brain.

"'No danger of that, Dot,' said Nat, confidently. 'Dot, there isn't anything in this world I can't make a picture of, if I can have paper enough, and pencils and paint.'

"At last he finished three designs which he was willing to send. They were all for spring or summer dresses. One was a curious block pattern, the blocks of irregular shapes, but all fitting into each other, and all to be of the gayest colors. Here and there came a white block with one tiny scarlet dot upon it; 'That's for a black-haired girl, Dot,' said Nat; 'you couldn't wear it.'

"The second was a group of ferns tied by a little wreath of pansies; nothing could be more beautiful. The third was a fantastic mixture of pine-tassels and acorns. I thought it quite ugly, but Nat insisted on it that it would be pretty for a summer muslin; and so it was the next year, when it was worn by everybody, the little plumy pine-tassels of a bright green (which didn't wash at all), and the acorns all tumbling about on your lap, all sides up at once.

"It was one o'clock before we went to bed, and we might as well have sat up all night, for we did not sleep. The next morning I got up before light and walked into town, to a shop where they sold paints. I had just time to buy a box of water-colors and get back to the mill before the bell stopped ringing. All the forenoon the little white parcel lay on the floor at my feet. As often as I looked at it, I seemed to see Nat's pictures dancing on the surface. I had given five dollars for the box; I trembled to think what a sum that was for us to spend on an uncertainty; but I had small doubt. At noon I ran home; I ate little dinner--Nat would not touch a mouthful. 'You must see the pansies and ferns done before you go,' he said.

"And before my hour was up they were so nearly done that I danced around Nat's chair with delight.

"'I know Mr. Wilkins never saw anything so pretty in his life,' said Nat, calmly.

"The thought of Mr. Wilkins was a terrible damper to me. Nat had not seen him: I had.

"'Nat,' said I, slowly, 'Mr. Wilkins won't know that it is pretty. He is not a man; he is a frog, and he looks as if he lied. I believe he will cheat us.'

"Nat looked shocked. 'Why Dora, I never in my life heard you speak so. You shall not take them to him. I will have Patrick take me there.'

"'No, no, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I would not have you see Mr. Wilkins for the world. He is horrible. But I am not afraid of him.'

"I meant that I would not for the world have him see Nat. He was coarse and brutal enough to be insulting to a helpless cripple, and I knew it. But Nat did not dream of my reason for insisting so strongly on going myself, and he finally yielded.

"I took the pictures to the overseer's office at noon. I knew that 'Agent Wilkins,' as he was called to distinguish him from his brother, was always there at that time. He looked up at me, as I drew near the desk, with an expression which almost paralyzed me with disgust. But for Nat's sake I kept on. I watched him closely as he looked at the pictures. I thought I detected a start of surprise, but I could not be sure. Then he laid them down, saying carelessly, 'I am no judge of these things; I will consult some one who is, and let you know to-morrow noon if we can pay your brother anything for the designs.'

"'Of course you know that the market is flooded with this sort of thing, Miss Kent,' he added, as I was walking away. I made no reply; I was already revolving in my mind a plan for taking them to another mill in town, whose overseer was a brother of one of papa's wardens. The next day at noon I went to the office; my heart beat fast, but I tried to believe that I did not hope. Both the brothers were there. The overseer spoke first, but I felt that the agent watched me sharply.

"'So your lame brother drew these designs, did he, Miss Dora?'

"'My brother Nat drew them, sir; I have but one brother, said I, trying hard to speak civilly.

"'Well' said he, 'they are really very well done--quite remarkable, considering that they are the work of a child who has had no instruction; they would have to be rearranged and altered before we could use them, but we would like to encourage him and to help you too,' he continued, patronizingly, 'and so we shall buy them just as they are.'

"'My brother Nat is not a child,' replied I, 'and we do not wished to be helped. If the designs are not worth money, will you be so good as to give them back to me?' and I stepped nearer the desk and stretched out my hand toward the pictures which were lying there. But Agent Wilkins snatched them up quickly, and casting an angry glance at his brother, exclaimed:--

"'Oh, you quite mistake my brother, Miss Kent; the designs are worth money and we are glad to buy them; but they are not worth so much as they would be if done by an experienced hand. We will give you ten dollars for the three,' and he held out the money to me. Involuntarily I exclaimed, 'I had not dreamed that they would be worth so much.' Nat could earn then in four hours' work as much as I could in a week; in that one moment the whole of life seemed thrown open for us. All my distrust vanished. And when the agent added, kindly, 'Be sure and bring us all the designs which your brother makes. I think we shall want to buy as many as he will draw; he certainly has rare talent,'--I could have fallen on the floor at his feet to thank him, so grateful did I feel for this new source of income for us, and still more for the inexpressible pleasure for my poor Nat.

"From that day Nat was a changed boy. He would not go to school in the afternoons, but spent the hours from two till five in drawing. I had a cord arranged from our room to Miss Penstock's, so that he could call her if at any moment he needed help, and she was only too glad to have him in the house. When I reached home at six, I always found him lying back in his chair with his work spread out before him, and such a look of content and joy on his face, that more than once it made me cry instead of speaking when I bent over to kiss him. 'Oh, Dot--oh, Dot!' he used to say sometimes, 'it isn't all for the sake of the money, splendid as that is; but I do feel as if I should yet do something much better than making designs for calicoes. I feel it growing in me. Oh, if I could only be taught; if there were only some one here who could tell me about the things I don't understand!'

"'But you shall be taught, dear,' I replied; 'we will lay up all the money you earn. I can earn enough for us to live on, and then, with your money, in a few years we can certainly contrive some way for you to study.'

"It seemed not too visionary a hope, for Nat's designs grew prettier and prettier, and the agent bought all I carried him. One week I remember he paid me thirty dollars; and as he handed it to me, seeing how pleased I looked, he said,--

"'Your brother is getting quite rich, is he not, Miss Kent?' Something sinister in his smile struck me at that moment as it had not done for a long time, and I resolved to go more seldom to the office.