CHAPTER XVII.
“Good morning, Zekiel,” said John Pray. “Glad to see you—you must tell the old lady to go ahead and finish this pile of vests in a twinkling; business is brisk now. Why, what’s this?” said he. “These vests unfinished? How’s that? Don’t the pay suit? What’s the trouble now?”
“Don’t,” said Zekiel—“don’t—stop a bit—I’m as tough as any man—but there’s some things I can’t stand;” and he dashed a tear away.
“What’s the matter now?” asked John. “Is the old lady dissatisfied with her pay?”
“Don’t—I say,” said Zekiel;—“hold up—don’t harrow a man that way—she’s dead—I tell you stone dead. She never’ll make no more vests for nobody. I never shall forget what I saw there this morning, never.
“You see she was old and infirm, and wan’t fit to work for any body any how; but she had a little gran’child, fresh as a rose-bud, and she did it for her, you see. Well, this morning I harnessed the old gray horse—the black one is lame since Sunday—and reined up at her door, as usual, to get the bundle. I knocked, and nobody came; then I knocked again, then little rose-bud came tip-toeing to the door, with her finger on her pretty lip, so—and whispered, ‘grandma is asleep; she has not woke up this great while.’ So I said—‘You’d better speak to her and say, here’s Zekiel, come for the bundle, cause you know she is partiklar like about sending it.’ So the little rose-bud went up to the bed-side, and said—‘Grandma, here is Zekiel, come for the vests.’ The old lady didn’t say nothing, and rose-bud asked me to speak to her. I went up, and—John Pray—the old lady was stone dead, and how was I going to tell that to little rose-bud?”
“You don’t mean to tell me that the child was all alone with the corpse—nobody to see to the poor thing?” asked John.
“But I do, though,” said Zekiel; “it was enough to break a body’s heart, and she so innocent like. I never was so put to it in my life, to know what to do. There she had gone and tidied up the kitchen, hung the tea-kettle on the fire as well as she knew how, and sat waiting for her gran’mother to ‘wake up,’ as she called it. How could I tell her she was dead? Blast me if I could, to this minute.”
“But you didn’t come away and leave her so?” asked John.
“No,” replied Zekiel, “for a peddler came in, and little rose-bud ran up, glad-like, to see him; then I beckoned him one side, and told him just how it was, and he turned as white as a turnip, and great big tears rolled down his face, as he took little rose-bud up in his arms and kissed her. Then he told me he was a kind of a relation like, and poor, but that he would take the child and do the best he could by her; and I knew he must be clever, for children are powerful ’cute, and never take to cranky folks, any how—and so I left them, and came blubbering into town. I vow it was enough to make the very stones cry, to see little rose-bud take on so, after the old lady.”
There was no litigious will to be read, no costly effects to quarrel about, in Lucy Ford’s poor cottage, and yet Golconda’s mines were all too poor to buy the priceless treasures to which the peddler fell heir—Mary’s picture and Mary’s child!
With such talismans, what should he fear? what could he not accomplish? He no longer walked with his head bowed upon his breast. The pure love of that sinless little one restored his long-lost self-respect. Life was dear to him. His eye regained its luster; his step its firmness. Even his humble calling, now more than ever necessary, became to him dignified and attractive. Fanny should have an education worthy of Mary’s child. For the present, till he had amassed a little capital, he must find her a home in some quiet farmer’s family, where he could oversee her, in his occasional visits.
Dear little Fanny! with her smiles and tears, she had already twined herself round every fiber of his heart. “Cousin John,” as the peddler taught her to call him, “was to take care of her always, and she was to love him dearly—dearly—better than any body, but mamma and grandma.”