Little Folks Astray by Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
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Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke) >> Little Folks Astray
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"The poor little thing has got lost, mother. Perhaps _you_ can find out
where she came from. I didn't ask her any questions; it was as much as I
could do to keep up with her."
Maria put her hand on her side. Fast walking always tired her, for she
was afraid every moment of falling.
They had to go down a flight of stairs to get into the house; and after
they got there Fly looked around in dismay.
"I don't want to stay in the stable," she murmured. Indeed it was not
half as nice as the place where her father kept his horse.
"But this is where we have to live," sighed Maria.
"Have things to eat?" asked the little stranger, in a solemn whisper.
There were a few chairs with broken backs, a few shelves with clean
dishes, a few children with hungry faces. In one corner was a clumsy
bedstead, and in a tidy bed lay a pale man.
"Who've you got there, Maria?" said he. "Bring her along, and stick her
up on the bed."
"Don't be afraid," said Mrs. Brooks; "it's only pa; wouldn't the little
girl like to talk to him? He's sick."
Flyaway was not at all afraid, for the man smiled pleasantly, and did
not look as if he would hurt anybody. Mrs. Brooks set her on the bed,
and Maria, afraid of losing her, held her by one foot. The children all
crowded around to see the little lady in a silk bonnet holding a
button-hole bouquet to her bosom.
"Ain't she a ducky dilver!" said the oldest boy. "Pa'll be pleased, for
he don't see things much. Has to keep abed all the time."
Mr. Brooks tried to smile, and Flyaway whispered to Maria, with sudden
pity,--
"Sorry he's sick. Has he got to stay sick? Can't you find the camphor
bottle?"
"O, father, she thinks if ycu had some camphor to smell of, 'twould cure
you."
Then they all laughed, and Fly timidly offered the sick man her flowers.
"What, that pretty posy for me? Bless you, baby, they'll do me a sight
more good than camfire!"
"There," said Maria, joyfully, "now pa is pleased; I know by the sound
of his voice. Poor pa! only think, little girl, a stick of timber fell
on him, and lamed him for life!"
"Yes," said Bennie, "the lower part of him is as limber as a rag."
"She don't sense a word you say," remarked Mrs. Brooks, shaking up a
pillow, "See what we can get out of her. What's your name, dear?"
"Katie Clifford."
"Where do you live?"
"I _have_ been borned in Nindiana."
Fly spoke with some pride. She considered her birth an honor to the
state.
"But where did you come from, Katie? That's what we mean."
"I camed from heaven," said the child, with one of her wise looks.
"Beats all, don't she?" cried Mr. Brooks, admiringly. "Looks like an
angel, I declare for't. Did you just drop down out of the sky?"
"No, sir," answered Flyaway, folding her little hands as if she were
saying her prayers; "I camed down when I was a baby."
[Illustration: "I CAMED DOWN WHEN I WAS A BABY."]
"That's what makes your hair so _goldy_," said Bennie. "Mother, did you
ever see such eyes? Say, did you ever? So soft, and kinder shiny, too."
"Children, don't stare at her; it makes her uneasy."
"_I_ can't stare at her," said Maria, bitterly. "I suppose you don't
mean me, mother."
Mrs. Brooks only answered her poor daughter by a kiss.
"Well, little Katie, after you were born in _Nindiana_, you came to New
York. When did you come?"
"One of these other days I camed here with Hollis."
"Who's Hollis?"
"He's my own brother. Got a new cap. Had his hair cut."
"Who did you come to New York to see?" "My auntie."
"Her auntie! A great deal of satisfaction we are likely to get out of
this child," said Mr. Brooks, laughing. He had not laughed before for a
week.
"What's your auntie's name?"
"Aunt Madge."
"Is she married?"
"O, yes; and so's Uncle 'Gustus. Married together, and live together,
just the same."
"Uncle 'Gustus who? Now we'll come at it!"
"Alling," replied Fly, her quick eyes roving about the room, for she was
tired of these questions.
"Allen, Augustus Allen!" said Mr. Brooks, in surprise; "I wonder if
there can be two of them. Tell me, child, how does he look?"
"Don't look like you," replied Fly, after a keen survey of Mr. Brooks.
"Your face is pulled away down long, like that;" (stretching her hand
out straight) "Uncle 'Gustus's face is squeezed up short" (doubling her
hand into a ball)
"I'll warrant it is the colonel himself," said Mrs. Brooks, smiling at
the description.
"Yes, that's the name of him; the 'kernil's' the name of him."
"Is it possible!" said Mr. Brooks, looking very much pleased.
"Uncle 'Gustus has curly hair on his cheeks, on his mouf, all round.
_Not_ little prickles, sticking out like needles."
"O, you girl!" said Bennie, frowning at Fly. "You mustn't laugh at my
pa's beard. There's a man comes in, sometimes, and shaves him nice; but
now the man's gone to Newark."
"Is it possible," repeated Mrs. Brooks, taking the child's hand, "that
this is Colonel Allen's little niece, and my Maria found her!"
"Your Maria didn't find me," said Fly, decidedly; "I founded Maria."
"So she did, pa. The first thing I knew, I heard somebody calling,
Doggie, doggie,' in such a sweet voice; and then I looked--no, of course
I _couldn't_ look."
Here the discouraged look came over Maria's mouth, and she said no more.
"There, there, cheer up, daughter," said Mr. Brooks, with tears in his
eyes; "I was only going on to say, it is passing strange that any of our
family should run afoul of one of the colonel's folks."
"It's the Lord's doings; I haven't the slightest doubt of it," said Mrs.
Brooks, earnestly. "You know what I've been saying to you, pa."
"There, there, ma'am, _don't_," said Mr. Brooks; "don't go to raising
false hopes. You know I'm too proud to beg of anybody's folks."
"Why, pa, I shouldn't call it begging just to tell Colonel Allen how you
are situated! Do you suppose, if he knew the facts of the case, he'd be
willing to let you suffer? Such a faithful man as you used to be to
work."
"No, I think it's likely he wouldn't. He's got more heart than some rich
folks; but I hain't no sort of claim on the colonel, if I did help build
his house. And then, ma'am, you know I've been kind o' hopin'--"
"Guess I'll go now, and find Hollis," said Fly, slipping down from the
bed, for the talk did not interest her.
"O, but I want to go with you, Katie," said Mrs. Brooks, coaxingly.
"Bennie, you amuse her, while I change my dress."
CHAPTER IX.
MARIA'S MOTHER.
"I know your uncle must feel dreadfully to lose you; but never
mind--he'll see you soon," said Mr. Brooks.
"O, Uncle 'Gustus isn't there."
"Not there?" said Mrs. Brooks, turning round from the cracked
looking-glass. "Where then?"
"O, he's gone off."
"Gone off? Why, pa, ain't that too bad? I'm right up and down
disappointed. But, then, the colonel has a wife; I can go to see her,
you know; and I'll tell her just how you're situ--"
"My Aunt Madge is gone off, too."
"You don't say so!"
"And my brother Hollis is gone."
"This is a funny piece of work if it's true," said Mr. Brooks, with
another genuine laugh; "you'd better ask her a few more questions before
you start out. Who else is gone? Have they shut the house up?"
"Yes, sir; shut it right up tight."
"Nobody in it, at all?"
"No, only the men and women. Prudy's gone, and Dotty Dimple's gone, and
I'm gone."
"Only the men and women, she says. That must be the servants. So the
house must be open, pa. At any rate, I shall take her. Say by-bye, my
pretty, and we'll be starting."
Fly was very glad to go, but Maria clung to her fondly, and Bennie ran
after her almost to Broadway, where Mrs. Brooks took a Fifth Avenue
stage. She knew Colonel Allen's house very well, for she had seen it
more than once, while it was in process of building. That was two or
three years ago, when her husband was well, and the family lived very
comfortably on Thirty-third Street. She sighed as she thought how
different it was now. Mr. Brooks would never be able to work any more;
they hardly had food enough to eat, and poor Maria had lost her
eyesight.
"Here we are, little Katie," said she.
But the child did not wait to be helped out; she danced down the steps,
and would have flown across the street, if Mrs. Brooks had not caught
her.
"I see it--I see it; my auntie's house. But there isn't nobody to it."
The man who met them at the door was so surprised and delighted to see
Fly, that he forgot his manners, and did not ask Mrs. Brooks in.
"Bless us, the baby's found!" cried he, and ran to spread the news.
Aunt Madge was walking the parlor floor, and Horace sitting on the sofa,
as rigid as the marble elf Puck, just over his head. Prudy and Dotty had
joined hands, and were crying softly on the rug. As the police had been
notified of Fly's loss, all the family had to do was to wait. A servant
was at the nearest telegraph office, with a horse and carriage, and at
the first tidings would drive home and report.
The words "The baby's found" rang through the house like a peal of
bells. In an instant Flyaway Runaway was clasped in everybody's arms,
and wet with everybody's tears.
"Thought I'd come back," said the little truant, peeping up at her
agitated friends' with some surprise; "thought I'd come back and get my
skipt!"
Then they exclaimed, in chorus,--
"Topknot _shall_ have her skipt! The blessed baby! The darling old Fly!"
And Dotty wound up by saying,--
"Why, you see, we thought you's dead!"
Flyaway, who had at first been very much astonished at the fuss made
over her, now looked deeply offended.
"Who said I's dead? What--a--drefful--lie!"
"O, nobody said so, Fly; only we thought p'rhaps you was; and _what_
would we do without you, you know?"
"Why, if I's dead," said Fly, untying her bonnet strings, "then the
funy-yal would come round and take me; that's all."
"We are most grateful to you," said Aunt Madge, turning to Mrs. Brooks,
"for bringing home this lost child; but do tell us where you found her."
Then Mrs. Brooks related all she knew of Fly's wanderings, the little
one putting in her own explanations.
"I didn' be lost," said she sharply. "I feel jus' like frettin', when
you say I's lost. 'Tis the truly truth; I's walking on the streets, and
a naughty woman, she's got my hangerfiss--had ashes roses on it."
"Yes, I put some otto of rose on it this morning," said Prudy. "What a
shame!"
"And I gave my flowers to the sick man. He was on the bed, with a blue
bed-kilt. A girl name o' Maria, tookened me home. The seeingness is all
gone out of her eyes, so she can't see."
"How long has your husband been sick?" asked Mrs. Allen of the woman,
while she was taking lunch in the dining-room. "Did you tell me he knew
Colonel Allen?"
Mrs. Brooks dropped her knife and fork; but her lips trembled so she
could not speak. Flyaway, who sat in Horace's lap, eating ginger-snaps,
exclaimed, "She wants some perjerves, auntie. She don't get no
perjerves, nor nuffin nice to her house."
"'Sh!" whispered Horace. The woman looked so respectable and well bred,
that it seemed a great rudeness to allude to her poverty.
But Mrs. Brooks drank some water, and then answered Aunt Madge,
calmly,--
"I'm not ashamed of being poor, Mrs. Allen; it's no disgrace, for there
never was an honester man than my husband, nor none that worked harder,
till a beam fell on him from the roof of a house, two years ago, and he
lost the use of his limbs.--Yes, ma'am; he did use to know your husband.
He was one of the workmen that helped build this house. I came and
looked on when he was setting these very doors."
"What is his name?" asked Aunt Madge, looking very much interested, and
taking out her note-book and pencil. "What street and number?"
"Cyrus Brooks, Number Blank, Blank Street, ma'am. Before the accident,
we lived on Thirty-third Street, in very good shape; but, little by
little, we were obliged to sell off, and finally had to move into pretty
snug quarters. But we've always got enough to eat, such as it was,"
added the good woman, trying not to show much she enjoyed her lunch.
"I am very glad Providence has sent you here, Mrs. Brooks," said Aunt
Madge, warmly. "I know Colonel Allen will seek you out when he comes
home next week; but I shall not wait for that; I shall write him this
very night."
Mrs. Brooks' heart was so full that she had to cry into a coarse purple
handkerchief of Bennie's, which happened to be in her pocket, and felt
very much ashamed because she could not find her voice again, or any
words in which to tell her gratitude. It was just as well, though. Mrs.
Allen knew words were not everything. It gave her pleasure to fill a
huge basket with nice things--wine and jelly for the sick man, plain
food for the family, and a pretty woolen dress for Maria, which had been
intended for Mrs. Fixfax, the housekeeper.
The children looked on delighted, while the basket was filled with
these articles, then passed over to Nathaniel, who was going home with
Mrs. Brooks. It was amusing to watch Nathaniel, with the monstrous
burden in his hands trying to help Mrs. Brooks down the front steps; for
Aunt Madge was not enough of a fine lady to send the pair around by the
servants' door.
It was pleasant, too, to watch Mrs. Brooks's happy face, half hidden in
the hood of her water-proof cloak, which kept puffing out, in the high
wind, like a sail. She was going home to tell her husband the Lord had
heard her prayers, and she had found a friend.
"And you may depend I never talked so easy to anybody in my life, pa;"
this was what she thought she should say. "I didn't _have_ to beg. Mrs.
Allen is one of the Lord's own; I saw it the minute I clapped my eyes
on her face."
"I am going to see that woman to-morrow, and ask some questions about
her blind daughter," said Aunt Madge, turning away from the window.
"Ask 'bout her nose, too."
"Whose nose, Fly?"
"The woman's. It keeps a-moving when she talks."
"There, who else noticed that?" exclaimed Horace, tossing his young
sister aloft. "It takes Fly, with her little eye, to see things."
"But I didn't ask her nuffin 'bout it, though, Horace Clifford. God made
her so, with a wire in."
Everybody smiled at the notion of Mrs. Brooks being a wax doll.
"What a queer day it has been!" said Prudy. "Nothing but hide and seek.
We'll all keep together next time, and lock hands tight."
"Of course," said Dotty, quickly; "but look here; don't you think
'twould be safer not to let Fly go with us? She was the one that made
all the fuss."
"Want to know if she was," said Horace, slyly. "Guess there are two
sides to that story."
"At any rate," struck in Aunt Madge, "Fly was the one that did the most
business. You went round doing good--didn't you, dear?"
"Little city missionary," said Horace.
Whereupon Miss Fly modestly dropped her head on her brother's shoulder.
She concluded she had done something wonderful in running after a dog.
"On the whole," continued auntie, "we've all had a very hard time. It's
only three o'clock; but seems to me the day has been forty hours long.
Let us rest, now, and have a quiet little evening, and go to bed early."
CHAPTER X.
FIVE MAKING A CALL.
The next morning everybody felt fresh, and ready for new adventures.
"All going but the cat," said Fly, never doubting that her own company
was most desirable.
"Look up in my eyes, little Topknot with the blue bonnet on. Will you
run away from brother Hollis again?"
"Not if you don't take my skipt," replied Fly, looking as innocent as a
spring violet.
"And look up in _my_ eyes, Horace Clifford. Will you run away from
Cousin Dotty, again?" said Miss Dimple, in a hurry to speak before Aunt
Madge came up to them, and before Horace had time for a joke.
"I didn't run away from you, young lady, but I ran _after_ you, if I
remember," said Horace, dryly. "I don't mean to pursue you with my
attentions to-day. You seem to be able to take care of yourself."
"Look," cried Aunt Madge, coming up to them with Prudy; "did you ever
before see a span of horses with a dog running between them?"
"Never," said Doty; "what splendid horses! and don't the dog have to
trot, to keep up? How do you suppose he happened to get in there?"
"O, he has been trained to it; dogs often are. Now, my young friends, it
seems we have started for Brooklyn again; but on our way to Fulton
Ferry, I would like to stop and see the Brooks family. We must all go
together, though. 'United we stand, divided we fall.'"
"That's so," said Horace, as they entered the stage. "But, auntie, do
you have perfect faith in the story that woman tells? Perhaps her
hushand is only just lazy, and her daughter shams blindness. You know
what humbugs some of 'em are. I've read there's something they rub over
their eyes, that gives 'em the appearance of being as blind as a bat."
Prudy looked up at Horace with admiration and respect. He spoke like a
person of deep wisdom and wide experience.
"We will see for ourselves what we think of the family," said Aunt
Madge.
"Now," said she, after they had ridden a mile or two, "we must get out
here, and walk a few blocks to the house. Fly, hold your brother's hand
tight."
"There's the chamer where the boy lives that says swear words; and
there's the boy, ahind the window."
"Have a free ride, little girl?" shouted Izzy Paul, laughing; for he
remembered faces as well as Fly did, and saw at once that it was the
same child he had frightened so the day before. But Fly never knew fear
where Horace was; she clung to him, and peeped out boldly between her
fingers.
When they went "down cellow," as she called it, into Mr. Brooks's house,
Aunt Madge was surprised to see how bare it looked. But Dotty Dimple
need not have held her skirts so tightly about her, and brushed her
elbow so carefully when it hit against the wall; for the house was as
clean as hands could make it.
"Mrs. Brooks, I hope you will forgive me for coming down upon you with
this little army," said Mrs. Allen, with such a cheery smile that the
sick man on the bed felt as if a flood of pure sunshine had burst into
the room. He was so tired of lying there, day after day, like a great
rag baby, and so glad to see anybody, especially the good lady who, his
wife said, was "so easy to talk to!"
"Auntie, look! see the freckled doggie; and there's my flowers, true's
you live," cried Flyaway.
"Yes, pa wanted them in a vial, close to his bed; it's the first he's
seen this winter," said Maria, stroking Fly as if she had been a kitten.
"You may be sure, little lady, it will be as I said; they'll cure me
full as quick as camphire. And, thank the Lord, I can see as well as
smell," said Mr. Brooks, with a tender glance at Maria which made
Horace feel ashamed of himself. The idea of that poor child's rubbing
anything into her eyes? Why, she looked like a wounded bird that had
been out in a storm. Her face was really almost beautiful, but so sad
that you could not see it without a feeling of pity.
"She looks as if she was walking in her sleep," thought Prudy, and
turned away to hide a tear; for somehow there was a chord in her heart
that thrilled strangely. That "slow winter" came back to her with a
rush, and she was sure she knew how Maria felt.
"She is blind, and I was lame; but it is the same kind of a feeling. O,
how I wish I could help her!"
Dotty was as sorry for Maria as she knew how to be, but she could not be
as sorry as Prudy was; for she had never had any trouble greater than a
sore throat.
"I don't see why the tears don't come into my eyes as easy as they do
into Prudy's," thought she, trying to squeeze out a salt drop; "Mrs.
Brooks'll think I don't care a speck; but I do care."
As for wee Fly, she took Maria's blindness to heart about as much as she
did the murder of the Hebrew children off in Judea.
"Pitiful 'bout her seeingness; but I wished I had such a beauful dog!"
Aunt Madge was struck with the exalted expression of Maria's face. The
child was only thirteen, but suffering had made her look much older.
"My child," said she, putting her arm around the little girl, and
drawing her towards her, "I know you see a great deal with your mind,
even though your eyes are shut. Now, do tell me all about your
misfortune, and how it happened, for I came on purpose to hear."
"Yes, we camed to purpose to hear," said Fly, from the foot-board of the
bed, where she had perched and prattled every moment since she came in.
"I founded Maria, and then I went up to her, and says I, 'Doggie,
doggie!'"
"That was a pretty way to speak to her, I should think," said Dotty;
"but can't you just please to hush while auntie is talking?"
"As near as I can tell the story," said Mrs. Brooks, rattling the poor
old coal-stove,--for she always had to be moving something else, as well
as her nose, when she talked,--"she lost her sight by studying too
hard, and then getting cold in her eyes."
"She was always a master hand to study," put in Mr. Brooks.
Maria looked as if she wanted to run and hide. She did not like to have
her father praise her before people.
"Yes," said Mrs. Brooks, setting a chair straight; "and by and by the
_leds_ began to draw together, and she couldn't keep 'em open; and there
was such a pain in her eyes, too, that I had to be up nights, bathing
'em in all kinds of messes."
"_Don't_ her nose jiggle?" whispered Fly to Horace.
"Of course you took her to a good physician?"
"Well, yes; we thought he was good. We went to three, off and on, but
she kept growing worse and worse. It was about the time her father was
hurt, and we spent an awful sight on her, till we couldn't spend any
more."
"And it was all a cheat and a swindle," exclaimed Mr. Brooks,
indignantly. "We'd better have spent the money for a horsewhip, and
whipped them doctors with it!"
"Don't, pa, don't! You see, Mrs. Allen, he gets so excited about it he
don't know what he says."
"I wonder you did not take her to the City Hospital, Mrs. Brooks. There
she could be treated free of expense."
"The fact is, we didn't dare to," replied Mrs. Brooks, taking up an old
shoe of Bennie's, and beginning to brush it; "there are folks that have
told us it ain't safe; they try experiments on poor folks."
"O, I don't believe you need fear the City Hospital," said Mrs. Allen;
"the physicians there are honest men, and among the most skillful in
the country."
"But that's our feeling on the subject, ma'am, you see," spoke up Mr.
Brooks, so decidedly, that Aunt Madge saw it was of no use to say any
more about it. "We don't want her eyes put out; there are times when she
can just see a little glimmer, and we want to save all there is left."
"There are times when she can see? Then there must be hope, Mr. Brooks!
Let me take her to Dr. Blank; he can help her if any one can."
"Well, now, I take it you're joking, Mrs. Allen. That is the very doctor
I wanted her to see in the first place; but they do say he'd ask six
hundred dollars for looking into her eyes while you'd wink twice."
"You have been misinformed, Mr. Brooks; he never asks anything of
people who are unable to pay him. But even if he should in Maria's case,
I promise to take the matter into my own hands, and settle the bill
myself."
"Mother, do you hear what she says!" cried Mr. Brooks, forgetting
himself, and trying to sit up in bed.
But his wife had broken down, and was polishing Bennie's shoe with her
tears.
"O, will you take me? Can I go to that doctor?" cried Maria, forgetting
her timidity, and turning her sightless eyes towards Mrs. Allen with a
joyful look, which seemed to glow through the lids.
"Yes, dear child, I will take you with the greatest pleasure in life;
but remember, I don't promise you can be cured. Come with your mother,
to-morrow morning, at ten. Will that do, Mrs. Brooks? And now, good by,
all. Children, we must certainly be going."
"God bless her," murmured the sick man, as the little party passed out.
"Didn't I tell you she was an angel?" said his wife.
"No, mother; it's that little tot that's the 'angel.' The Lord sent her
on ahead to spy out the land; and afterwards there comes a
flesh-and-blood woman to see it laid straight."
"Pa thinks that baby is a spirit made out of air," said Maria, laughing
in high excitement. "And, mother, don't you really believe now the Lord
did send her, just as much as if she dropped down out of the sky?"
"Yes, I hain't a doubt of it, Maria, but what the Lord had us in his
mind when he let the child slip off and get lost.--Pa, I'm going to
give you some of that blackberry cordial now: you look all gone."
CHAPTER XI.
"THE HEN-HOUSES."
While the Brooks family were talking so gratefully, and Maria counting
over the cookies and cups of jelly for the twentieth time, Fly, was
holding on to Horace's thumb, saying, as she skipped along,--"I hope the
doctor'll take a knife, and pick Maria's eyes open, so she can see."
"Precious little _you_ care whether she can see or not," said Dotty. "I
don't think Fly has much feeling,--do you, Prudy?--not like you and I, I
mean!"
"Pshaw! what do you expect of such a baby?" said Horace, indignantly.
"You never saw a child so full of pity as this one is, when she knows
what to be sorry for. But a great deal she understands about blindness!
And why should she?--Look here, Topknot; which would you rather do? Have
your eyes put out, and lots of candy to eat, _or_, your eyes all good,
and not a speck of candy as long as you live?"
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