A Little Girl in Old New York Part 16

"Shed not a tear o'er your friend's early bier, When I am gone, I am gone."

Aunt Frasie heard her through the first verse, and then said impatiently:

"You've sung that at so many funerals, Maria Jane, that it makes me feel creepy. You used to sing 'Banks and Braes.' Do try that."

It had been said of Maria Jane in her earlier years that she had sung "Bonnie Doon" so pathetically she had moved the roomful to tears. Her voice was rather thin now, with a touch of shrillness on the high notes, but the little girl listened entranced. Then she sang "Scots wha' hae"

and "Roy's wife of Aldivaloch." Margaret had come home, the supper-table was spread, the men came in, and they sat down to the feast. They teased Steve a little, and bade John beware, and were so merry all the evening that when it came her bedtime the little girl had forgotten all about the world coming to an end.

The girls discussed it the next day. Most of their mothers and fathers had scouted the idea. Josie Dean was very positive it couldn't be--her father had been going over the Bible and the Millerites had made a big mistake.

"And girls," said Josie earnestly, "St. John, one of the disciples of our Saviour, lived to be a hundred years old. Some people taught that the world would come to an end before he died. And now it's 1843, and it's stood all this while, though every now and then there's been an excitement about it. And I ain't going to be afraid at all, there now!"

The little girl wondered whether she would be afraid. But Friday evening the boys were full of it, and Steve said it was nonsense. She crept up into her father's lap and asked him in a tremulous whisper if he was afraid.

"No, dear," he answered, pressing her to his heart.

"But if it _should_ come."

"Well--I'd take my little girl and mother and Margaret----"

"And what would you do?" as he made a long pause.

"I'd beg to be taken into heaven. And we would all be together. I think G.o.d would be good to us."

"And the boys."

"Yes, the boys." He wondered within himself if they were all fit for heaven. But he was quite sure the little girl was.

There was a very great excitement. For months there had been meetings of exhortation and prophesying, and appeals to conscience, to terror, to the desire of being saved from impending destruction. Last winter there had been revivals everywhere, yet during the summer thoughtful people had questioned whether the moral tone of the community had been any higher. There were heroic souls, that always rise to the surface in times of spiritual agitation. There were others moved by any excitement, who seized on this with a kind of ungovernable rapture.

No one spoke of it in Sunday-school. Hanny brought home "Little Blind Lucy," and was so lost in its perusal that she hardly wanted to leave off for half an hour with Joe. But her mother let her look over to see whether Lucy really did have her eyesight restored. She was so sleepy that when she had said her little prayer she felt quite sure that G.o.d would take care of her and the beautiful world He had made. It would be cruel to burn it all up.

But the children went to school on Monday. Martha washed as usual. She did think it would be a waste of labor and strength if the world came to an end, though she was sure clean clothes would burn up quicker, and if it had to be, one might as well have it over as soon as possible.

All things went on, the buying and selling, the business of the day, and in some houses there were weary pain-racked bodies that slipped out of life gently without waiting for the general conflagration.

Still a strange awe did pervade the city. Some of the churches were open, and people were on their knees weeping and sobbing to be made ready; others were full of faith and expectations, singing hymns, and impatiently waiting the moment when the trump would sound and they be caught up to glory. Down on Grand Street Hester Brown's uncle was giving away shoes, and wondering at the fatal unbelief of those who were so ready to accept. Here and there another of abounding faith was doing the same thing, or perhaps giving away things they did not need, hoping it would be accounted to them for good works.

Hester was not in school. Neither did she come on Tuesday, and that night was to be the fatal end of all things. A great many people went to church that day. The children did suffer from dread, though Lottie Brower kept up a sort of cheery bravado, as one whistles or sings in the dark.

"And I don't think Hester's been such an awful sight better than the rest of us. She answered correct one day when she had talked, and pretended she had forgotten all about it. And she was just mean enough about that clover-leaf pattern and wouldn't show a single girl. And she gets mad just as easy as the rest of us."

"I think we oughtn't get mad any more. And, girls, I'll lend you my knife to sharpen your pencils. We ought to _try_ to be just as good as we could, for my Sunday-school teacher said if we died the world came to an end for us."

They made many resolves. Mrs. Craven thought they had never been so angelic in their lives.

But the little girl was very much "stirred up."

People didn't say nervous so much in those days. In fact nervousness was rather a.s.sociated with whims and tempers. Joe came over to supper--he could get off from the hospital now and then. They were all talking about going to Delancey Street Church, where it was said people would be dressed in their ascension robes, and remain to the final change.

Margaret begged to go, and said she knew all her lessons. The boys had theirs to study. Jim scouted the idea of the world's coming to an end.

Benny adduced several remarkable reasons why it couldn't come just yet.

The Millerites had made a mistake in the true meaning of the "days" in Daniel.

"Are you quite sure?" asked the little girl timidly.

"Well--you'll see the same old world next week this time. Don't you get frightened, Hanny dear," and Ben kissed her rea.s.suringly.

She sat by the boys and knit on her lace a while. Then her mother looked up from the stockings she was darning. She said "she always took Time by the forelock," and the little girl had a fancy some time she would drag him out. She wondered if she would really like to see Time with his hour-gla.s.s and scythe, and all his bones showing.

Mrs. Underhill looked up at the clock.

"My goodness, Hanny!" she exclaimed, "it's time you were in bed half an hour ago. Put up your lace. You'll be sleepy enough in the morning."

The little girl wound it round her needles and then stuck the ends in the stem of the spool and put it away in her basket. She kissed Ben and Jim good-night, and followed her mother. Her eyes had a half-frightened look and the pupils were very large. Mrs. Underhill felt out of patience that there should be so much talk about the world coming to an end before children. She knew Hanny was "just alive with terror." She couldn't pretend to explain anything to her; she was of the opinion that as you grew older "you found out things for yourself." And I am really afraid she didn't believe in total depravity for sweet little girls like Hanny. It was well enough for boys. So much of her life had been spent in doing, that she might have neglected some of the "mint, anise, and c.u.mmin." She undressed the little girl. Oh, how fair and pretty her shoulders were, and her round white arms that had a dimple at the top of the elbow. She was small for her age, but nice and plump, and her mother felt just this minute as if she would like to cuddle her up in her arms and kiss her as she had in babyhood. If she had, all the fear would have gone out of the little girl's heart.

Hanny said her prayer, and added to it, "Oh, Lord Jesus, please don't let the world come to an end to-night." Then her mother patted down the bed, took off one pillow and the pretty top quilt, and put her in, kissing her tenderly, the little trembling thing.

Then she stood still awhile.

"I do wonder what I did with your red coat," she began. "Cousin Cynthia said it might be let down and do for this winter. There's no little girl to grow into your clothes. Let me see--I put a lot of things in this closet. I remember pinning them up in linen pillow-cases, but I meant to store them in the cedar chest. I wonder if I have been that careless."

She stood up on a chair and threw down some bundles with unnecessary force. Then she stepped down and began to look them over, keeping up a running comment. She would not have admitted that she was talking against time, secretly hoping the little girl would drop off to sleep.

But the coat was not in any of the bundles.

"I think it must be in the chest. While I'm about it I may as well go and see. If you have outgrown it, it could be made over into a dress; it's nice, fine merino, a little thicker than I'd buy for a dress, but your father would have just that piece. I'll get a candle and go up-stairs--I wouldn't trust a gla.s.s lamp with this horrid burning-fluid in _my_ storeroom. Hanny, be sure you don't get up and touch it," as if there was the slightest possibility. "I'll be down again in five minutes."

That was a shrewd motherly excuse not to leave the little girl alone in the dark, though she was never afraid.

She lay there very still, with a feeling of safety since her mother was up-stairs. Of course she was old enough to know a great many things and to have ideas on religious subjects. But I think the Underhills were more intelligent than intellectual, and people were still living rather simple lives, not yet impregnated with ideas. They had not had the old Puritan training, and the ferment of science and philosophy and transcendentalism had not invaded the country places. To-night in the city there were wise heads proving and disproving the times and half times, and days and signs, but they really had no interest for Mrs.

Underhill, who was training her family the best she knew how, making good men and women.

And the little girl's ideas were extremely vague. She thought her soul was that part of her heart that beat. When it ceased beating you died and the body was left behind; so of course that was what went to heaven.

And when she had been naughty or when she had left something undone and was hurrying with all her might to do it, this thing beat and throbbed.

If she wanted something very much and was almost tempted to take it, the feeling came up in her throat, and she knew that was conscience. She was trying now to recall and repent of her sins, and oh, she did so wish her father was here. Would he be back before the end came, and take them all in his strong arms? and they would run--Oh, no! they were to be caught up in the clouds. But she would be safe where he was.

Years afterward, she was to understand how human and finite love foreshadowed the eternal. But then she could only believe, and her faith in her human father was the rock of her salvation.

And when her mother came down she _had_ fallen asleep, but she thought it would be just as well to leave the lamp burning until Margaret's return. She would look in now and then to see that it didn't explode.

Burning-fluid was considered rather dangerous stuff.

Hanny was so tired that she slept soundly. It was almost midnight when the folks came home, and Mrs. Underhill begged Margaret to go to bed quietly and not disturb her. And it was all light with the sun rising in the eastern sky and s.h.i.+ning in one window when she opened her eyes.

Margaret stood before the gla.s.s plaiting her pretty, long hair.

The little girl sat up. Something had happened. There was a great weight--a great fear. What was it? Oh, yes, this was their room; they were all alive, for she heard Jim's breezy voice, and Joe, who had stayed all night, said impatiently:

"Peggy, are you never coming down?"

Hanny sprang out of bed and clasped her little arms about her sister.