The Old Homestead Part 30

The little girl looked imploringly upon her--she shed no tear--uttered no word; but fell, like a wounded bird, p.r.o.ne to the floor, and there stood poor Mary in the midst of death, utterly alone.

When the nurses came reeling up from their carouse, three lay dead upon those narrow cots besides Mrs. Chester, and two were dying.

"Go and call Crofts!" cried Mrs. Fuller, staggering from bed to bed, reckless and fierce. "Let us have the cots cleared--bring in the shrouds, I say. Tell Crofts we have plenty of use for his pine boxes to-night."

The other nurse obeyed her, muttering fiercely against the unevenness of the floor.

The coffins were brought in, and these two wretched women arranged the poor creatures they had murdered, for their pauper graves. They came to Mrs. Chester last, but Mary Fuller, who knelt by the bed-side with poor Isabel senseless at her feet, arose and stood firmly before her mother.

"You shall not touch her! You shall not even look at her!" cried the n.o.ble child--and with her trembling hand she drew the sheet over the features she had so dearly loved.

The woman glared fiercely upon the child. Drink had rendered her ferocious--she lifted her clenched hand, shaking it savagely, and an oath broke from her hot lips--an oath over the beautiful dead.

"I--I will put that on," said the child, pointing to the shroud which the nurse held crushed under her arm.

"Out of my way!" cried the furious woman--"out of the way, or I will strike you!"

"Mother, leave this poor lady to me, or I will go myself and call up the doctor," answered the child firmly.

"Out of my way!" repeated the wretched woman.

The child grew pale as death, but in her eyes rose the steady firmness of a meek but strong spirit, fully aroused.

"Mother, though you strike me to your feet, though you kill me, I will not let you come near this poor lady--not now--not as you are!"

"As I am!--how is that?" cried the vile mother, lifting her soiled ap.r.o.n to her eyes and heaving a sob. "Here I am, a poor, forlorn prisoner, and you, my own child, must come to taunt me in this way--I wish I were dead--oh, I do--I do!"

And in a fit of maudlin self-condolence, the base woman betook herself to a corner of the ward where, with her arms flung across the cot of a delirious patient, she muttered herself into a heavy slumber.

Mary Fuller turned to her mournful task. First she sprinkled water in poor Isabel's face, and strove with all her feeble skill to bring the child from the death-like swoon in which she had fallen; but the beautiful child lay upon the floor, pale as her mother, and looking nearly as much like death. When all her own simple efforts at restoration proved fruitless, Mary went out in search of help; she met Crofts in the pa.s.sage, who took the child in his arms and bore her to the matron's room.

When Crofts returned with the pine coffin he found the remains of poor Jane Chester reposing beneath the scant folds of an Alms House shroud.

The pale hands were laid meekly on her bosom, and her hair--that long, beautiful hair, which Chester had been so proud of, lay in all its bright beauty over her brow. Disease had not yet reached the purple bloom that lay upon those tresses, and Mary, following her own gentle memory of the past, had disposed them in rich waves back from the forehead, which gave a singular but beautiful look to that calm, dead face. They lifted the pale form of Jane Chester, and laid it reverently in the pauper coffin. There was neither pillow nor lining there, nothing but the bare boards to receive those delicate limbs, and this bleak poverty made even the heart of Crofts sink within him.

"It is a pity--she does not seem like the rest--I wish we had asked the matron for a strip of cloth or something to put under her head,"

he whispered, addressing the stolid man who stood by.

"Wait, only wait a few minutes," answered Mary, laying her hand eagerly on Crofts' arm. "How kind it is of you to think of this. You will wait, I am sure. I--I will get something!"

"Very well, we will take out the others first," said Crofts, who was very kindly disposed toward the little girl; "be quick, though."

Mary went out in breathless haste. She was very pale, and her eyes were full of sorrowful eagerness as she went forth into the dim, grey morning, just breaking through the fog that lay on the Long Island sh.o.r.e, and revealing the waters that rolled darkly between that and Bellevue. She threaded her way through the enclosures which we have mentioned. The light was just sufficient to reveal a few spring flowers, starting up from the soil, and the soft foliage of an old vine or two that covered the nakedness of some outbuilding.

Ignorant of those rules that made her act a trespa.s.s, Mary wandered on, gathering up the hyacinths, violets and golden crocuses to which the night had given birth. Down to the water's edge she rambled, carefully gathering up each bud in her pa.s.sage. In a corner of the superintendent's garden she found an old pear tree, dead, except the trunk and a single limb nearest to the ground, that was studded with snow-white blossoms.

Mary clambered up by the wall, and breaking off handful after handful of these fragrant buds, carried them, all wet with dew, back to the hospital. As she bore her treasure along the fever ward, scenting the pestilential atmosphere with their pure breath, the sick turned their languid faces toward her, greedily inhaling the transient sweetness.

Two or three of the convalescent women followed her with longing eyes.

She felt these glances and turned back, leaving a spray of the dewy buds upon the pillow of each. The grateful look with which her kindness was greeted softened somewhat the sorrow that oppressed her.

With the most touching reverence she knelt by Mrs. Chester's coffin, lifted that cold head softly from the boards, and placed the flowers she had brought beneath it. Softly she laid her benefactress down upon the blossom pillow. The delicate blending of rosy purple with the rich gold of the crocuses and the golden green willow leaves, relieved by the pure white of the blossoms underneath, cast around the dead a halo of spiritual beauty. The soft and blended brightness of the flowers seemed to illuminate those beautiful and tranquil features. Around the form of Jane Chester there seemed nothing of death but its solemn repose.

"Not yet--a little, only a little longer!" pleaded the child, as Crofts came to close the coffin, "I hope, I am almost sure, Isabel can bear to look at her now!"

Crofts smiled grimly, and sat down on the empty cot. In a few moments Mary came into the ward, supporting Isabel with her frail strength.

The child wept no longer, but the trembling of her little form was painfully visible as she tottered forward. Not a word pa.s.sed between the children--not a look was exchanged, but when Isabel bent over her mother, and saw the blossom shadows trembling around her head, her lips began to quiver, and the tears gushed from her heart.

Crofts, the common upholsterer of the Poor House, turned away his face, and wiped his eyes with the skirt of his coat. Close by him stood the man who shared his horrid duties, gazing with a look of stolid indifference on the scene. Crofts arose, and taking this man by the arm, led him out from the ward.

The two little girls went away after the coffin was removed; directly Mary came back with her shawl and hood on. She was ready to leave Bellevue, and returned to say a last, kind word to her mother. The promise she had made her father on his death-bed rose to her mind, and took the form of a prayer.

"Mother, look up, mother, I am going." The woman turned heavily and lifted her head. "I am going, mother."

"Very well, I can't help it," muttered the mother, heavily.

"I don't know where they will take us, or if we shall ever see one another again," persisted the child; "but, oh, mother before we part, tell me how I can make you love me?"

"If there is a drop of brandy anywhere about, bring it and I'll love you dearly, indeed I will, little Mary; I ain't at all well, Mary, and a drop of brandy is good for sickness; get some, that's a dear; I'm very fond of you, Mary!"

"Mother, I cannot; but, if you will never ask for it again, I will.

Oh, I will die for you; I hav'n't anything but my life to give--nor that," she added, with a sudden thought, "for it belongs to G.o.d; I have nothing."

Mrs. Fuller had fallen asleep, and heard nothing of this. So Mary turned away sorrowful, but not altogether hopeless. Those who trust in G.o.d never are.

CHAPTER XIX.

A SPRING MORNING--AND A PAUPER BURIAL.

Not here--not here with our lovely dead-- Oh, give one spot of sacred earth!

Where the gra.s.s may wave, above her head, And the sweet, wild flowers have holy birth.

Oh, grant our prayer--our solemn prayer-- A lonely grave--and fresh, green sod-- There is earth around us everywhere; And the mother earth belongs to G.o.d.

A long heavy boat lay at the Bellevue wharf. In the bow sat half a dozen paupers, who started up now and then to range the coffins that came in wheelbarrow loads from a little brick building near the wharf.

A name was marked rudely in chalk upon the lid of each coffin, and this was all that those who brought them knew or cared about the senseless forms they carried. Out from that brick house, and along the wharf, they were trundled amid a swarm of loungers, who helped eagerly to lower them into the boat.

It was the harvest time of death at Bellevue, and those pine coffins were garnered by tens and twenties each day. That morning the weight of twenty-four human forms, all breathing souls fifteen hours before, sunk that stout boat to the water's edge.

When the last coffin came alone upon the handbarrow, Crofts accompanied it, followed by two little girls. With his own hands he helped to lower that coffin into the boat, and those paupers who could read saw Jane Chester's name chalked upon the lid. As Crofts settled his burden gently down across an empty seat, a faint odor of flowers stole through the crevices, and when the rude sail cloth was flung carelessly over the rest, he laid a strip of clean, coa.r.s.e linen over this coffin, then clambering across to the man who sat with the helm in his hand, he imparted some directions to him in a low voice.

"What, up to Randall's Island! Take those two children in the boat there and back to the nurseries! It can't be done, I tell you," said the man, sulkily. "I won't do it without the Superintendent's order, nor then either, if I can help myself."

"Oh, let us go with her--pray take us!" cried Mary Fuller, who was anxiously watching the man, while Isabel bent over the wharf, her hands hanging down, and her eyes full of helpless woe.