Chapter VI: Part 6

Semantha's father was dead; her mother was living--worse luck. For had she been but a memory, Semantha would have been free to love and reverence that memory, and it might have been as a very strong staff to support her timid steps in rough and dangerous places. But alas! she lived and was no staff to lean upon; but was, instead, an ever present rod of punishment. She was a harmful woman, a destroyer of young tempers, a hardener of young hearts. Many a woman of quick, short temper has a kind heart; while even the sullenly sulky woman generally has a few rich, sweet drops of the milk of human kindness, which she is willing to bestow upon her own immediate belongings. But Semantha's mother was not of these. How, one might ask, had this wretch obtained two good husbands? Yes, Semantha had a stepfather, and the only excuse for the suicidal marriage act as performed by these two victims was that the woman was well enough to look upon--a trim, bright-eyed, brown creature with the mark of the beast well hidden from view.

When Semantha, who was her first born, too, came home with gifts and money in her hands, her mother received her with frowning brows and sullen, silent lips. When the child came home with empty hands, and gave only cheerfully performed hard manual labour, she was received with fierce eyes, cruel rankling words, and many a cut and heavy blow, and was often thrust from the house itself, because 'twas known the girl was afraid of darkness.

Her stepfather then would secretly let her in, though sometimes she dared go no farther than the shed, and there she would sit the whole night through, in all the helpless agony of fright. But all this was as nothing compared to the cruelty she had yet to meet out to poor Semantha, whose greatest fault seemed to be her intense longing for some one to love. Her mother _would not_ be loved, her own father had wisely given the whole thing up, her step-father _dared_ not be loved. So, when the second family began to materialize, Semantha's joy knew no bounds. What a welcome she gave each newcomer! How she worked and walked and cooed and sang and made herself an humble bond-maiden before them. And they loved her and cried to her, and bit hard upon her needle stabbed forefinger with their first wee, white, triumphant teeth, and for just a little, little time poor Semantha was not poor, but very rich indeed. And that strange creature, who had brought them all into the world, looked on and saw the love and smiled a nasty smile; and Semantha saw the smile, and her heart quaked, as well it might. For so soon as these little men could stand firmly on their sturdy German legs, their gentle mother taught them, deliberately taught them, to call their sister names, the meaning being as naught to them, but enough to break a sister's heart. To jeer at and disobey her, so that they became a pair of burly little monsters, who laughed loud, affected laughter at the word "love," and swore with many long-syllabled German oaths that they would kick with their copper-toes any one who tried to kiss them. Ah! when you find a fiercely violent temper allied to a stone-cold heart, offer you up an earnest prayer to Him for the safety of the souls coming under the dominion and the power of that woman.

I recall one action of Semantha's that goes far, I think, to prove what a brave and loyal heart the untaught German girl possessed. She was very sensitive to ridicule, and when people made fun of her, though she would laugh good-humouredly, many times she had to keep her eyes down to hide the brimming tears. Now her stepfathers name was a funny one to American ears, and always provoked a laugh, while her own family name was not funny. Yet because the man had shown her a little timid kindness, she faithfully bore his name, and through storms of jeering laughter, clear to the dismal end, she called herself Semantha Waacker.

Once we spoke of it, and she exclaimed in her excited way: "Yes, I am alvays Waacker. Why not, ven he is so goot? Why, why, dat man, dat vater Waacker, he have kissed me two time already. Vunce here" (placing her finger on a vicious scar upon her check), "von de mutter cut me bad, und vun odder time, ven I come very sick. Und de mutter seen him in de glass, und first she break dat glass, und den she stand and smile a little, und for days und days, when somebody be about, my mutter put out de lips und make sounds like kisses, so as to shame de vater before everybody. Oh, yes, let 'em laugh; he kiss me, und I stay Semantha Waacker."

The unfortunate man's occupation was also something that provoked laughter, when one first heard of it; but as Semantha herself was my informant, and I had grown to care for her, I managed by a great effort to keep my face serious. How deeply this fact impressed her, I was to learn later on.

Christmas had come, and I was in high glee. I had many gifts, simple and inexpensive most of them, but they were perfectly satisfactory to me. My dressing-room mates had remembered me, too, in the most characteristic fashion. The pretty, woolly-brained girl had with smiling satisfaction presented me with a curious structure of perforated cardboard and gilt paper, intended to catch flies. Its fragility may be imagined from the fact that it broke twice before I got it back into its box; still there was, I am sure, not another girl in Cleveland who could have found for sale a fly-trap at Christmas time.

The straightforward one had presented me with an expensively repellent gift in the form of a brown earthenware jug, a cross between a Mexican idol and a pitcher. A hideous thing, calculated to frighten children or sober drunken men. I know I should have nearly died of thirst before I could have forced myself to swallow a drop of liquid coming from that horrible interior.

Semantha was nervous and silent, and the performance was well on before she caught me alone, out in a dark passageway. Then she began as she always did when excited, with: "Clara, now Clara, you know I told my vater of you, for dat you were goot to me, und he say, vat he alvays say--not'ing. Dat day I come tell you vat his work vas, I vent home und I say, 'Vater Waacker, I told my fräulein you made your livin' in de tombstone yard,' und he say, quvick like, 'Vell,'--you know my vater no speak ver goot English" (Semantha's own English was weakening fast),--"'vell, I s'pose she make some big fool laugh, den, like everybodies, eh?' Und I say, 'No, she don't laugh! de lips curdle a little'" (curdle was Semantha's own word for tremble or quiver. If she shivered even with cold, she curdled with cold), "'but she don't laugh, und she say, "It vas the best trade in de vorldt for you, 'cause it must be satisfactions to you to work all day long on somebody's tombstone."'"

"Oh, Semantha!" I cried, "why did you tell him that?"

"But vy not?" asked the girl, innocently. "Und he look at me hard, und his mouth curdle, und den he trow back his head und he laugh, pig laughs, und stamp de feet und say over und over, 'Mein Gott! mein Gott! satisfackshuns ter vurk on somebody's tombstones--_some_body's. Und she don't laugh at my vurk, nieder, eh? Vell, vell! dat fräulein she tinks sometings! Say, Semantha, don't it dat you like a Kriss-Krihgle present to make to her, eh?' Und I say, dat very week, dere have to be new shoes for all de kinder, und not vun penny vill be left. Und he shlap me my back, une! say, 'Never mindt, I'll make him,' und so he did, und here it is," thrusting some small object into my hand. "Und if you laugh, fräulein, I tink I die, 'cause it is so mean und little."

Then stooping her head, she pressed a kiss on my bare shoulder and rushed headlong down the stairs, leaving me standing there in the dark with "it" in my hand. Poor Semantha! "it" lies here now, after all these years; but where are you, Semantha? Are you still dragging heavily through life, or have you reached that happy shore, where hearts are hungry never more, but filled with love divine?

"It" is a little bit of white marble, highly polished and perfectly carved to imitate a tiny Bible. A pretty toy it is to other eyes; but to mine it is infinitely pathetic, and goes well with another toy in my possession, a far older one, which cost a human life.

Well, from that Christmas-tide Semantha was never quite herself again. For a time she was extravagantly gay, laughing at everything or nothing. Then she became curiously absent-minded. She would stop sometimes in the midst of what she might be doing, and stand stock-still, with fixed eyes, and thoughts evidently far enough away from her immediate surroundings. Sometimes she left unfinished the remark she might be making. Once I saw a big, hulking-looking fellow walking away from the theatre door with her. The night was bad, too, but I noticed that she carried her own bundle, while he slouched along with his hands in his pocket, and I felt hurt and offended for her.

And then one night Semantha was late, and we wondered greatly, since she usually came very early, the theatre being the one bright spot in life to her. We were quite dressed, and were saying how lucky it was there was no dance to-night, or it would be spoiled, when she came in. Her face was dreadful; even the straightforward one exclaimed in a shocked tone, "You must be awful sick!"

But Semantha turned her hot, dry-looking eyes upon her and answered slowly and dully, "I'm not sick."

"Not sick, with that white face and those poor curdling hands?"

"I'm not sick, I'm going avay."

Just then the act was called, and down the stairs we had to dash to take our places. We wore pages' dresses, and as we went Semantha stood in the doorway in her shabby street gown and followed us with wistful eyes--she did so love a page's costume.

When we were "off" we hastened back to our dressing room. Semantha was still there. She moved stiffly about, packing together her few belongings; but her manner silenced us. She had taken everything else, when her eyes fell upon a remnant of that evil-smelling soap. She paused a bit, then in that same slow way she said, "You never, never used that soap after all, Clara?" and when I answered: "Oh, yes, I have. I've used it several times," she put her hand out quickly, and took the thing, and slipped it into her pocket, and then she stood a moment and looked about; and if ever anguish grew in human eyes, it slowly grew in hers. Her face was pale before; it was white now.

At last her eyes met mine, then a sudden tremor crossed her face from brow to chin, a piteous slow smile crept around her lips, and in that dull and hopeless tone she said, "You see, my fräulein, I'll never be a big actor after all," and turned her back upon me, and slowly left the room and the theatre, without one kiss or handshake, even from me. And I, who knew her, did not guess why. She went out of my life forever, stepping down to that lower world of which I had only heard, but by God's mercy did not know.

That same sad night a group of men, close-guarded, travelled to Columbus, that city of great prisons and asylums, and one of those guarded men was poor Semantha's lover, alas! her convicted lover now; and she, having cast from her her proudest hope, her high ambition, trusting a little in his innocence, trusting entirely in his love, now followed him steadily to the prison's very gate.

After this came a long silence. One girl had fallen from our ranks, but what of that? Another girl had taken her place. We were still four, marching on,--eyes front, step firm and regular,--ready when the quick order came quickly to obey. There could be no halt, no turning back to the help of the figure already growing dim, of one who had fallen by the wayside.

After a time rumours came to us, at first faint and vague--uncertain, then more distinct--more dreadful! And the stronger the rumours grew, the lower were the voices with which we discussed them; since we were young, and vice was strange to us, and we were being forced to believe that she who had so recently been our companion was now--was--well, to be brief, she wore her rouge in daylight now upon the public street.

Poor, poor Semantha! They were playing "Hamlet," the night of the worst and strongest rumour, and as I heard Ophelia assuring one of her noble friends or relatives:--

"You may wear your rue with a difference,"

I could not help saying to myself that "rue" was not the only thing that could be so treated, since we all had rouge upon our cheeks; yet Semantha--ah, God forgive her--wore her rouge with a difference.

A little longer and we were all in Columbus, where a portion of each season was passed, our manager keeping his company there during the sitting of the legislature. We had secured boarding-houses,--the memory of mine will never die,--and in fact our round bodies were beginning to fit themselves to the square holes they were expected to fill for the next few weeks, when we found ourselves sneezing and coughing our way through that spirit-crushing thing they call a "February thaw." Rehearsal had been long, and I was tired. I had quite a distance to walk, and my mind was full of professional woe. Here was I, a ballet girl who had taken a cold whose proportions simply towered over that nursed by the leading lady's self; and as I slipped and slid slushily homeward, I asked myself angrily what a fairy was to do with a handkerchief,--and in heaven's name, what was that fairy to do without one. The dresses worn by fairies--theatrical, of course--in those days would seem something like a fairy mother-hubbard now, at all events a home toilet of some sort, so very proper were they; but even so there was no provision made for handkerchiefs, no thought apparently that stage fairies might have colds in their star-crowned heads.

So as my wet skirt viciously slapped my icy ankles, I almost tearfully declared to myself I would have to have a handkerchief, even though it wore pinned to my wings, only who on earth could get it off in time for me to use? Now if poor Semantha were only--and there I stopped, my eyes, my mind, fixed upon a woman a little way ahead of me, who stood staring in a window. Her figure drooped as though she were weary or very, very sad, and I said to myself, "I don't know what you are looking at, but I _do_ know it's something you want awfully," and just then she turned and faced me. My heart gave a plunge against my side. I knew her. One woman's glance, lightning-quick, mathematically true, and I had her photograph--the last, the very last I ever took of poor Semantha.

As her eyes met mine, they opened wide and bright. The rosy colour flushed into her face, her lips smiled. She gave a little forward movement, then before I had completed calling out her name, like a flash she changed, her brows were knit, her lips close-pressed, and all her face, save for the shameful red sign on her cheeks, was very white. I stood quite still--not so, she. She walked stiffly by, till on the very line with me she shot out one swift, sidelong glance and slightly shook her head; yet as she passed I clearly heard that grievous sound that coming from a woman's throat tells of a swallowed sob.

Still I stood watching her as she moved away, regardless quite of watery pool or deepest mud; she marched straight on and at the first corner disappeared, but never turned her head. As she had left me first without good-by, so she met me now without a greeting, and passed me by without farewell. And I, who knew her, understood at last the reason why. Poor wounded, loyal heart, who would deny herself a longed-for pleasure rather than put the tiniest touch of shame upon so small a person as a ballet girl whom one year ago she had so lovingly called friend.

At last I turned to go. As I came to the window into which Semantha had so lovingly been gazing, I looked in too, and saw a window full of fine, thick underwear for men.

Two crowded, busy years swept swiftly by before I heard once more, and for the last time, of poor Semantha. I was again in Columbus for a short time, and was boarding at the home of one of the prison wardens. Whenever I could catch this man at home, I took pains to make him talk, and he told me many interesting tales. They were scarcely of a nature to be repeated to young children after they had gone to bed, that is, if you wanted the children to stay in bed; but they were interesting, and one day the talk was of odd names,--his own was funny,--and at last he mentioned Semantha's. Of course I was alert, of course I questioned him--how often I have wished I had not. For the tale he told was sad. Nothing new, nay, it was common even; but so is "battle, murder, and sudden death," from which, nevertheless, we pray each day to be delivered. Ah! his tale was sad if common.

It seemed that when Semantha followed that treacherous young brute, her convicted lover, she had at first obtained a situation as a servant, so she could not come to the prison every visiting day, and what was worse in his eyes, she was most poorly paid, and had but very small sums to spend upon extras for him. He grumbled loudly, and she was torn with loving pity. Then quite suddenly she was stricken down with sickness, and her precious brute had to do without her visits for a time and the small comforts she provided for him, until one visiting day he fairly broke down and roared with rage and grief over the absence of his tobacco.

The hospital sheltered Semantha as long as the rules permitted, but when she left it she was weak and worn and homeless, and as she crept slowly from place to place, a woman old and well-dressed spoke to her, calling her Mamie Someone, and then apologized for her mistake. Next she asked a question or two, and ended by telling Semantha she was the very girl she wanted--to come with her. She could rest for a few days at her home, and after that she should have steady employment and better pay, and--oh! did I not tell you it was a common tale?

But when on visiting day the child with frightened eyes told what she had discovered about her new home, the soulless monster bade her stay there, and every dollar made in her new accursed trade was lavished upon him.

By a little sickness and a great deal of fraud the wretch got himself into the prison hospital for a time, and there my informant learned to know the pair quite well. She not only loved him passionately, but she had for all his faults of selfishness and general ugliness the tender patience of a mother. And he traded upon her loving pity by pretending he could obtain the privilege of this or immunity from that if he had only so many dollars to give to the guard or keeper. And she, poor loving fool, hastened a few steps farther down the road of shame to obtain for him the money, receiving in return perhaps a rough caress or two that brought the sunshine to her heart and joy into her eyes.

His term of imprisonment was nearly over, and Semantha was preparing for his coming freedom. His demands seemed unending. His hat would be old-fashioned, and his boots and his undergarments were old, etc. Then he wanted her to have two tickets for Bellefontaine ready, that they might leave Columbus at once, and Semantha was excited and worried. "One day," said the warden, "she asked to see me for a moment, and I exclaimed at sight of her, 'What is it that's happened?'

"Her face was fairly radiant with joy, and she shook all over. It seemed as though she could not speak at first, and then she burst forth, 'Mr. S----, now Mr. S----, you don't much like my poor boy, but joust tink now how goot he is! Ach, Gott, he tells me ven all der tings are got, und de tickets too, have I some money left I shall buy a ring, und then,'--she clutched my arm with both her hands, and dropped her head forward on them, as she continued in a stifled voice,--und then we go to a minister and straight we get married.'

"And," continued Mr. S----, "as I looked at her I caught myself wishing she were dead, that she might escape the misery awaiting her.

"At last the day came. Her lover and a pal of his went out together. Faithful Semantha was awaiting him, and was not pleased at the pal's presence, and was more distressed still when her lover refused to go to the shelter she had prepared for him, in which he was to don his new finery, but insisted upon going with his friend. Semantha yielded, of course, and on the way her lover laughed and jested--asked for the tickets, then the ring, and putting on the latter declared that he was married to _her_ now, and would wear the ring until they saw the 'Bible-sharp,' and then she should be married to _him_; and Semantha brightened up again and was happy.

"They came at last to the house they sought. It was a low kind of neighbourhood, had a deserted look, and was next door to a saloon. The pal said there were no women in the house, and Semantha had better not come in. The lover bade her wait, and they went in and closed the door, and left the girl outside. There she waited such a weary time, then at last she rang--quite timidly at first, then louder, faster, too, and a scowling fellow from the saloon told her that the house was empty. She rang wildly then, until he threatened a policeman. Then she ceased, but walked round to the back and found its rear connected with a stable yard. She came back again, dazed and white, her hand pressed to her heart, and as she stood there a lad who hung about the prison grounds a good deal, did odd jobs or held a horse now and then, and who knew Semantha well, came along and cried out, 'I say, why didn't you go with yer feller and his pal?'

"'She didn't say nary a word,' said the boy, 'she didn't say nary a word, but pushed her head out and looked at me till her eyes glared same as a cat's, and I says: "Why, I seed 'em ketch the 4.30 train to Bellefontaine! They had to run and jump to do it, but they didn't scare a darn, they just laughed and laughed." And, Boss, something like a tremble, but most like my dog when I beats him, and I have the stick up to hit him again, and not a word did she say, but just stood as still as still after that doglike tremble went away. I got muddled, and at last I says, "Semantha, hav' yer got no sponds?" She didn't seem to see me no more, nor hear me, and I goes on louder like, "Say, Semantha! where yer goin' to? what yer goin' ter do now?" and, Boss, she done the toughest thing I ever seen. She jes' slowly lifted up her hands and looked at 'em, looked good and long, like they were strange to her, and then jes' as slow she turns 'em over, they were bare and empty, and the palms was up, and she spreads the fingers wide apart and moves 'em a bit, and then without raisin' up her eyes, she jes' smiles a little slow, slow smile.

"'And then she turned 'round and walked away without nary a word at all; but, Boss, her shoulders sagged down, and her head kind of trembled, and she dragged her feet along jes' like an old, old woman, what was too tired to live. I was skeered like, and thought I'd come here and tell you, but I looked back to watch her. 'Twas almost dark then, and when she came to the crossin', the wind was blowin' so she could hardly stand, but she stopped awhile and looked down one street, then she looked down the other street, and then she lifts up her face right to the sky the longest time of all, and so I looks up ter see was ther' anything there; but ther' wasn't nothin' but them dirty, low-hangin' clouds as looks so rainy and so lonesome. And then right of a suddent she gives a scream; but no, not a scream, a groan and a scream together. It made my blood turn cold, I tell yer; and she trows both her empty hands out from her, and says as plain as I do now, Boss, "My God, it is too much! I cannot, cannot bear it!" Then she draw'd herself up quite tall, shut her hands tight before her, and walked as fast as feet could carry her straight toward the river.'"

And that was the last that he, my friend, had ever heard of poor Semantha. I tried to dry my falling tears, but he dried them more effectually by remarking:--

"Yes, she was a bright, promising, true-hearted girl; but you see she went wrong, and the sinner has to pay both here and hereafter."

"Don't," I hotly cried. "Don't go on! don't! Sin? sin? Don't hurl that word at her, the embodiment of self-sacrifice! Sin? where there is no law, there can be no sin. And who had taught her anything? She was a heathen. So far as one person can be the cause of another person's wrong-doing, so far was Semantha's mother the guilty cause of Semantha's loving fall. She was a heathen. She had been taught just one law--that she was always to serve other people. That law she truly kept unto the end. Of that great book, the Bible, closely packed with all sustaining promises, she knew naught. I tell you the only Bible she ever held within her hand was that mimic one of marble her father carved for me. She was a heathen. Of that all-enduring One--'chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely,' for whom there was no thing too small to love, no sin too great to pardon--she knew nothing. Even that woman who with wide-open, lustrous eyes had boldly broken every law human and divine, yet was forgiven her uncounted sins, because of her loving faith and true repentance, Semantha knew not of, nor of repentance nor its necessity, nor its power.

"Let her alone! I say, she was a heathen. But even so, God made her. God placed her; and if she fell by the wayside in ignorance, she _did not_ fall from the knowledge of her Maker."