Vashti Part 4

"How came you here? When did you leave the Asylum?"

"I ran away, three days ago."

"Why?"

"Because I was tired of living there, and I wanted to come back home."

"Home, indeed! You miserable begger, don't you know you have no home but the Orphan Asylum?"

"Yes, I have. I want to come back yonder. Don't you see home yonder, among the trees, with the pretty white and speckled pigeons flying over it?"

He pointed across the pond to the old house beyond the mill, whose outlines were visible through the openings in the elms; and, as he gazed upon it with that intense longing so touching in a child's face, his sobs increased.

"Stanley, that is not your home now. Other people live there, and you have no right to come back. Why did you run away from the Asylum? Did they treat you unkindly?"

"No,--yes. They whipped me because I cried and said I hated to stay there, and wanted to come home."

Salome looked at the soiled, torn clothes, and sorrowful face; and, bursting into tears, she bent forward and drew her brother to her bosom. He put his arms around her neck, and kissed her cheek several times, saying, softly and coaxingly,--

"Sister Salome, you won't send me back, will you? Please let me stay with you, and I will be a good boy."

For some minutes she was unable to reply, and wept silently as she smoothed the tangled hair back from the child's white forehead and pressed her lips to it.

"Stanley, how is Jessie? Where did you leave her?"

"She is well, and I left her at the Asylum. She had a long cry the night I ran away, and said she wanted to see you, and she thought you had forgotten us both. You know, Salome, it is over a year since you came to see us, and Jessie and I are so lonesome there, we hate the place."

"What were you crying so bitterly about when I found you, just now?"

"I am so hungry, and the man who lives yonder at home drove me away.

He said I was prowling around to steal something, and if he saw me there any more he would shoot me. I ate my last piece of biscuit yesterday."

"Why did you not come to me instead of the miller?"

"I was afraid you would send me back to the Asylum; but you won't,--I know you won't, Salome."

"Suppose I had not happened to hear you crying,--what would have become of you? Did you intend to starve here in the swamp?"

"I thought I would wait till the miller left home, and then beg his wife to give me some bread, and, if I could get nothing, I was going to pull up some carrots that I saw growing in a field back of the house. Oh, Salome, I am so hungry and so tired!"

She sat down on a heap of last year's leaves, which autumn winds and winter rains had driven against the trunk of a decayed and fallen sweet-gum, and, drawing the weary head with its shock of matted yellow curls to her lap, she covered her own face with her hands to hide the hot tears that streamed over her cheeks.

"Salome, are you very mad with me?"

"Yes, Stanley; you have behaved very badly, and I don't know what I ought to do with you."

He tried to put aside one of her s.h.i.+elding hands, and failing, wound his arms around her waist, and nestled as close as possible.

"Sister, please let me stay and live with you, and I promise--I declare--I will be a good boy."

"Poor little fellow! You don't in the least know what you are talking about. How can you live with me when I have no home, and not a dollar?"

"I thought you stayed with a rich lady, and had everything nice that you wanted."

"I do not expect to have even a shelter much longer. The lady who takes care of me is sick, and cannot live very long; and, when she dies, I don't know where I shall go or what I may be obliged to do."

"If you will only keep me I will help you work. At the Asylum I saw wood, and pick peas, and pull out gra.s.s and weeds from the strawberry vines, and sometimes I sweep the yards. Just try me a little while, Salome, and see how smart I can be."

"Would you be willing to leave poor little Jessie at the Asylum? If she felt so lonesome when you were there, how will she get along without you?"

"Oh, we could steal her out some night, and keep her with us. Salome, I tell you I don't mean to go back there. I will die first. I will drown myself, or run away to sea. I would rather starve to death here in the swamp. Everybody else can get a home, and why can't we?"

"Because your father was a drunkard, and left his children to the charity of the poor-house; and, G.o.d knows, I heartily wish we were all screwed down in the same coffin with him. You and I, Jessie, and Mark, and Joel are all beggars--miserable beggars! Hush, Stanley, you will sob yourself into a fever! Stop crying, I say, if you do not want to drive me crazy! I thought I had trouble enough, without being tormented by the sight of your poor, wretched face; and now, what to do with you I am sure I don't know. There--do be quiet. Take your arms away; I don't want you to kiss me any more."

In the long silence that succeeded, the child, spent with grief and fatigue, fell into a sound sleep, and Salome sat with his head in her lap and her clasped hands resting on her knee.

The afternoon slowly wore away, and the dimpled pond caught lengthening shadows on its surface as the sun dipped into the forest.

The measured tinkle of a distant bell told that the cows were wending quietly homeward; and, while the miller's wife drove her geese into the yard, the pigeons nestled in their leafy coverts high among the elm arches, and the solemn serenity of coming summer night stole with velvet tread over the scene, silencing all things save the silvery barcarolle of the falling water, and the sweet, lonely vesper hymn of a whippoorwill, half hidden in the solitary cypress.

Although tears came very rarely to her eyes, the orphan had wept bitterly, and, surprised at finding herself so completely unnerved on this occasion, she made a powerful effort to regain her composure and usual stolidity of expression. Shaking the little sleeper, she said,--

"Wake up, Stanley. Get your hat and come with me, at least for to-night."

The child was too weary to renew the conversation, and, hand in hand, the two walked silently on until they approached the confines of the farm, when Salome suddenly paused at sight of Dr. Grey, who was crossing the pine forest just in front of them. Pressing his sister's hand, Stanley looked up and asked, timidly,--

"What are you going to do with me?"

"Hus.h.!.+ I have not fully decided."

She endeavored to elude observation by standing close to the body of a large pine, but Dr. Grey caught a glimpse of her fluttering dress, and came forward rapidly, carrying in his arms one young lamb and driving another before him.

"Salome, will you be so good as to a.s.sist me in shepherding this obstinate little waif? It has been running hither and thither for nearly half an hour, taking every direction but the right one. If you will either walk on and lower the bars for me or drive this lamb while I go forward, you will greatly oblige me. Pardon me,--you look distressed. Something painful has occurred, I fear."

The girl's usually firm mouth trembled as she laid her hand on the torn straw hat that shaded Stanley's features, and answered, hurriedly,--

"Yes. We have both stumbled upon stray lambs; but mine, unfortunately, happens to prove my youngest brother, and, since I am neither Reuben nor Judah, I could not leave him in the woods to perish. Stanley, run on and pull down the bars yonder, where you see the sheep looking through the fence."

"How old is he?"

"About eight years, I believe, but he is small for his age."

"He does not in the least resemble you."

"No; pitiable little wretch, he looks like nothing but dest.i.tution!

When a poor man dies, leaving a houseful of beggarly orphans, the State ought to require the undertaker who buries him to shoot or hang the whole brood, and lay them all in the Potter's Field out of the world's way."

"Such words and sentiments are strangely at variance with the affectionate gentleness and resignation which best become womanly lips, and I pity the keen suffering that wrings them from yours. He who 'setteth the solitary in families' never yet failed in loving guardians.h.i.+p of trusting orphanage, and certainly you have no cause to upbraid fate, or impiously murmur against the decrees of your G.o.d."