NORA'S DREAM.
Mr. Alden found that Dr. Blanchard quite agreed with him as to the importance of getting their patient removed to the hospital. The doctor thought that her case was by no means hopeless, provided she could be supplied with the constant care and nourishment she so urgently needed, and this could scarcely be secured for her except in the hospital. Dr. Blanchard, who had all the ready, practical kindness which usually marks members of the medical profession, added to that of a naturally kind heart, willingly undertook to make the arrangements for the invalid's removal.
Miss Blanchard returned next morning with an encouraging report. The care and nourishing food given frequently during the night had produced a decided improvement; and though the disease was deeply seated, and the patient was reduced to extreme weakness, she had youth and strong vitality on her side, notwithstanding all the privations and misery she had evidently endured. From Lizzie Mason, who had sat with her for an hour or two of her vigil, Nora had heard, while the patient lay unconscious in a heavy slumber, some details about her past life which had gone to her heart, and had made her realize, with a sickening sensation, something of that struggle for life which a poor friendless woman, cast adrift in a busy world, must often endure.
Miss Blanchard felt herself strongly drawn toward the pale, wistful young girl, who had been so ready to sacrifice her own sorely-needed rest in order to care for the invalid, and had drawn from her many particulars of her hard-working life. It was a simple story, told in a very matter-of-fact, uncomplaining way; but involuntary tears of indignant sympathy started to the listener's thoughtful eyes at the unconscious revelation of hard, unremitting, monotonous toil for eleven, twelve, and sometimes thirteen hours a day, as the pressure of work required, and that under conditions unhealthy enough to depress the most vigorous young life.
"But cannot you find something better than that?" Nora asked; "some healthier as well as pleasanter work? Would it not be better to take to domestic service? Every one says it is so difficult to find girls qualified to do it faithfully and well, and I am sure you would do both. You know there is nothing in serving others to lower any right self-respect," she added, quietly; "and who it was who said that He came not to be ministered to but to minister."
"Yes," said Lizzie, "I heard Mr. Alden preach beautifully about that! I often go to his church, Sunday evenings, for it's the nearest, and he speaks so plain-like, I do admire to hear him. But it's not that indeed, miss! I'd love, myself, to be in a good, quiet house, where one could sit down when one was tired, and not have to go out in the dark, all sorts of mornings, and have to be on the go all day! But, you see, if I live at home I can give mother my board, an' that's such a help to her. An' if I was in a place, I'd have to wear good clothes, an' that would eat up all my earnin's, an' mother needs all I can do to help her and the children. An' then my brother Jim's a little wild, and if I'm at home, I can look after him a bit."
Nora, interested in getting for herself a definite idea of this girl's daily life, drew her out a little more about this brother, the eldest of the family. He worked in the mill, too, and would be a great help to the family if it were not for his unsteadiness, which had run away with a good deal of his earnings, and he had once or twice been on the point of being discharged.
"He has never been the same boy," Lizzie said, sadly, "since he has taken up with Nelly Grove."
"That was the girl you were talking to this evening when I passed you, was it not?" asked Miss Blanchard.
"Yes, that was Nelly. She's not a bad-hearted little thing, but she's awful flighty and fond of pleasure. She's an orphan, too, an' her friends live in the country, so she hasn't any one to look after her here. I think she'd be good enough to Jim, if she was let alone, but there's a gentleman"—and Lizzie lowered her voice still further—"as turns her head with compliments an' attentions, an' it makes Jim so jealous that he just goes off on a tear, whenever he finds out about it, unless I can manage to coax him and stop him."
"I see," said Miss Blanchard, thoughtfully; "but what a shame it is!" And so, by force of cruel fate, as it seemed, this girl was as truly chained by invisible fetters to her daily toil among those relentless wheels and pulleys, as if she were a galley-slave. The plantation slaves, on the whole, were not so badly off. They had their regular hours of toil, but their hours of relaxation were free from care, and full of fun and frolic, and—which was another great relief—they had frequent change of labor. Roland Graeme's words occurred to her mind with a new force and significance. But how was it? Did not the Heavenly Father in whom she had been taught to believe, care for the sparrows, and did He not much more care for helpless girls? Was His care not for Lizzie as well as for her, in her pleasant, protected life? It was too deep a problem, and she remembered a saying of Goethe, which she had lately read that "Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do, and then to do that." And if she could hereafter do anything to help her less favored sisters, she then and there registered an unspoken vow that she would do what she could.
The following being as mild a day as was likely to occur that season, Dr. Blanchard recommended that Mrs. Travers should be at once removed to the St. Barnabas Hospital. But it was a task of some difficulty to gain her consent. She seemed to cling tenaciously to the privacy of her wretched little room, and to shrink nervously from the idea of a common hospital ward. She so clearly bore the impress of refinement and culture, that Nora felt as if it were inflicting an indignity on her to ask her to endure the trial; and she offered to bear, herself, the expense of a private room for a month, if the patient would consent to the removal. But what then was to be done with the little girl? She could not go to the hospital, and there seemed to be no room for her in Lizzie's overcrowded home.
"I'll take her in," said Mr. Alden, with his good-humored smile, as they were consulting over the difficulties in the way. But Nora demurred. He had enough of his own, and she did not want to put one more care on Mrs. Alden or Gracie. She took her sister-in-law aside for consultation, and presently returned triumphant. "Sophy says I may have her here," she said to her brother. "She's such a dear little grave creature, I don't think she'll give any trouble, and she will help to amuse Eddie and Daisy. They are almost too much for nurse, now baby's growing so lively."
"Trust Nora for finding the bright side of everything," said Dr. Blanchard, laughing. "She's a born optimist."
"Indeed, I thought I was growing pessimistic last night," said Nora. "It's horrible to find out, really, how so many people have to live!" she added, looking at Mr. Alden, with a perplexed look in her eyes, and a shadow over her usually bright face.
"And you've had no rest yet!" interposed her brother. "You must go and lie down at once. I'll see the poor woman transferred to her new quarters as safely as may be, and bring the child here; and you can go to see the mother another time."
Nora went to her dainty, quiet room—such a contrast to the one in which she had spent the night!—and, lying down on the soft luxurious bed, she tried to close her tired eyes in sleep; but it was rather a failure. A healthy young physique, accustomed to sleep only at regular hours, does not readily adapt itself to irregular rest; and heart and brain were still too much excited to encourage sleep. The aspect of the miserable little room seemed photographed on her inner sight; the oppressed breathing of the invalid, the sad glimpses into other people's lives, haunted her whenever she closed her eyes. As she lay there on her soft couch in the daintily-appointed room, with the pretty things about her with which girls like to surround themselves, and the light softly shaded to make an artificial twilight, visions rose before her of droning wheels and flashing shuttles, of long arrays of frames, such as she had seen in the factory some time before; and the thought of the girls with feelings and nerves like her own, tending, through so many weary hours, these senseless and relentless machines, oppressed her quick sensibilities like a nightmare. Then, when at last she fell into a brief, troubled slumber, she dreamed that she was following some one through mile after mile of endless corridors, all lined with that inexorable, never-ceasing machinery, tended by armies of pale, slender girls, many of them children. And whenever she desired to sit down to rest, her conductor kept beckoning her onward, and she seemed compelled to follow, on—on—would it never end! And as her companion looked round impatiently to urge her advance, she saw for the first time that it was the young man who had been her guide and escort the preceding evening. And, just then, Eddie, stealing on tip-toe into the room to see if "Auntie were awake yet," dispersed the illusion, and she awoke to a glad consciousness of liberty and restfulness, yet with a strange sense of latent pain behind it.
Nora lay still a little longer, thinking with some interest of the curious way in which the sights and sounds of waking hours interweave themselves into new and absurd combinations, when the guiding will is for the time off duty. She was naturally introspective, and had a special turn for psychological studies, in which her brother's line of thought harmonized with her own. But suddenly she was startled by sounds that stole into the quietude—sounds of a child's unrestrained, sobbing grief, intermingled with unsuccessful attempts at consolation.