Ester Ried

by Pansy

CHAPTER VII.

JOURNEYING.

"Twenty minutes here for refreshments!" "Passengers for New York take south track!" "New York daily papers here!" "Sweet oranges here!" And amid all these yells of discordant tongues, and the screeching of engines, and the ringing of bells, and the intolerable din of a merciless gong, Ester pushed and elbowed her way through the crowd, almost panting with her efforts to keep pace with her traveling companion, a nervous country merchant on his way to New York to buy goods. He hurried her through the crowd and the noise into the dining-saloon; stood by her side while, obedient to his orders, she poured down her throat a cup of almost boiling coffee; then, seating her in the ladies' room charged her on no account to stir from that point while he was gone—he had just time to run around to the post-office, and mail a forgotten letter; then he vanished, and in the confusion and the crowd Ester was alone. She did not feel, in the least, flurried or nervous; on the contrary, she liked it, this first experience of hers in a city depot; she would not have had it made known to one of the groups of fashionably-attired and very-much-at-ease travelers who thronged past her for the world—but the truth was, Ester had been having her very first ride in the cars! Sadie had made various little trips in company with school friends to adjoining towns, after school books, or music, or to attend a concert, or for pure fun; but, though Ester had spent her eighteen years of life in a town which had long been an "Express Station," yet want of time, or of money, or of inclination to take the bits of journeys which alone were within her reach, had kept her at home. Now she glanced at herself, at her faultlessly neat and ladylike traveling suit. She could get a full view of it in an opposite mirror, and it was becoming, from the dainty vail which fluttered over her hat, to the shining tip of her walking boots; and she gave a complacent little sigh, as she said to herself: "I don't see but I look as much like a traveler as any of them. I'm sure I don't feel in the least confused. I'm glad I'm not as ridiculously dressed as that pert-looking girl in brown. I should call it in very bad taste to wear such a rich silk as that for traveling. She doesn't look as though she had a single idea beyond dress; probably that is what is occupying her thoughts at this very moment;" and Ester's speaking face betrayed contempt and conscious superiority, as she watched the fluttering bit of silk and ribbons opposite. Ester had a very mistaken opinion of herself in this respect; probably she would have been startled and indignant had any one told her that her supposed contempt for the rich and elegant attire displayed all around her, was really the outgrowth of envy; that, when she told herself she wouldn't lavish so much time and thought, and, above all, money, on mere outside show, it was mere nonsense—that she already spent all the time at her disposal, and all the money she could possibly spare, on the very things which she was condemning.

The truth was, Ester had a perfectly royal taste in all these matters. Give her but the wherewithal, and she would speedily have glistened in silk, and sparkled with jewels; yet she honestly thought that her bitter denunciation of fashion and folly in this form was outward evidence of a mind elevated far above such trivial subjects, and looked down, accordingly, with cool contempt on those whom she was pleased to denominate "butterflies of fashion."

And, in her flights into a "higher sphere of thought," this absurdly inconsistent Ester never once remembered how, just exactly a week ago that day, she had gone around like a storm king, in her own otherwise peaceful home, almost wearing out the long-suffering patience of her weary mother, rendered the house intolerable to Sadie, and actually boxed Julia's ears; and all because she saw with her own common-sense eyes that she really could not have her blue silk, or rather Sadie's blue silk, trimmed with netted fringe at twelve shillings a yard, but must do with simple folds and a seventy-five-cent heading!

Such a two weeks as the last had been in the Ried family! The entire household had joined in the commotion produced by Ester's projected visit. It was marvelous how much there was to do. Mrs. Ried toiled early and late, and made many quiet little sacrifices, in order that her daughter might not feel too keenly the difference between her own and her cousin's wardrobe. Sadie emptied what she denominated her finery box, and donated every article in it, delivering comic little lectures to each bit of lace and ribbon, as she smoothed them and patted them, and told them they were going to New York. Julia hemmed pocket handkerchiefs, and pricked her poor little fingers unmercifully and uncomplainingly. Alfred ran of errands with remarkable promptness, but confessed to Julia privately that it was because he was in such a hurry to have Ester gone, so he could see how it would seem for everybody to be good natured. Little Minie got in everybody's way as much as such a tiny creature could, and finally brought the tears to Ester's eyes, and set every one else into bursts of laughter, by bringing a very smooth little handkerchief about six inches square, and offering it as her contribution toward the traveler's outfit. As for Ester, she was hurried and nervous, and almost unendurably cross, through the whole of it, wanting a hundred things which it was impossible for her to have, and scorning not a few little trifles that had been prepared for her by patient, toil-worn fingers.

"Ester, I do hope New York, or Cousin Abbie, or somebody, will have a soothing and improving effect upon you," Sadie had said, with a sort of good-humored impatience, only the night before her departure. "Now that you have reached the summit of your hopes, you seem more uncomfortable about it than you were even to stay at home. Do let us see you look pleasant for just five minutes, that we may have something good to remember you by."

"My dear," Mrs. Ried had interposed, rebukingly, "Ester is hurried and tired, remember, and has had a great many things to try her to-day. I don't think it is a good plan, just as a family are about to separate, to say any careless or foolish words that we don't mean. Mother has a great many hard days of toil, which Ester has given, to remember her by." Oh, the patient, tender, forgiving mother! Ester, being asleep to her own faults, never once thought of the sharp, fretful, half disgusted way in which much of her work had been performed, but only remembered, with a little sigh of satisfaction, the many loaves of cake, and the rows of pies, which she had baked that very morning in order to save her mother's steps. This was all she thought of now, but there came days when she was wide-awake.

Meantime the New York train, after panting and snorting several times to give notice that the twenty minutes were about up, suddenly puffed and rumbled its way out from the depot, and left Ester obeying orders, that is, sitting in the corner where she had been placed by Mr. Newton—being still outwardly, but there was in her heart a perfect storm of vexation. "This comes of mother's absurd fussiness in insisting upon putting me in Mr. Newton's care, instead of letting me travel alone, as I wanted to," she fumed to herself. "Now we shall not get into New York until after six o'clock! How provoking!"

"How provoking this is!" Mr. Newton exclaimed, re-echoing her thoughts as he bustled in, red with haste and heat, and stood penitently before her. "I hadn't the least idea it would take so long to go to the post-office. I am very sorry!"

"Well," he continued, recovering his good humor, notwithstanding Ester's provoking silence, "what can't be cured must be endured, Miss Ester; and it isn't as bad as it might be, either. We've only to wait an hour and a quarter. I've some errands to do, and I'll show you the city with pleasure; or would you prefer sitting here and looking around you?"

"I should decidedly prefer not running the chance of missing the next train," Ester answered very shortly. "So I think it will be wiser to stay where I am."

In truth Mr. Newton endured the results of his own carelessness with too much complacency to suit Ester's state of mind; but he took no notice of her broadly-given hint further than to assure her that she need give herself no uneasiness on that score; he should certainly be on time. Then he went off, looking immensely relieved; for Mr. Newton frankly confessed to himself that he did not know how to take care of a lady. "If she were a parcel of goods now that one could get stored or checked, and knew that she would come on all right, why—but a lady. I'm not used to it. How easily I could have caught that train, if I hadn't been obliged to run back after her; but, bless me, I wouldn't have her know that for the world." This he said meditatively as he walked down South Street.

The New York train had carried away the greater portion of the throng at the depot, so that Ester and the dozen or twenty people who occupied the great sitting-room with her, had comparative quiet. The wearer of the condemned brown silk and blue ribbons was still there, and awoke Ester's vexation still further by seeming utterly unable to keep herself quiet; she fluttered from seat to seat, and from window to window, like an uneasy bird in a cage. Presently she addressed Ester in a bright little tone: "Doesn't it bore you dreadfully to wait in a depot?"

"Yes," said Ester, briefly and truthfully, notwithstanding the fact that she was having her first experience in that boredom.

"Are you going to New York?"

"I hope so," she answered, with energy. "I expected to have been almost there by this time; but the gentleman who is supposed to be taking care of me, had to rush off and stay just long enough to miss the train."

"How annoying!" answered the blue ribbons with a soft laugh. "I missed it, too, in such a silly way. I just ran around the corner to get some chocolate drops, and a little matter detained me a few moments; and when I came back, the train had gone. I was so sorry, for I'm in such a hurry to get home. Do you live in New York?"

Ester shook her head, and thought within herself: "That is just as much sense as I should suppose you to have—risk the chance of missing a train for the sake of a paper of candy."

Of course Ester could not be expected to know that the chocolate drops were for the wee sister at home, whose heart would be nearly broken if sister Fanny came home, after an absence of twenty-four hours, without bringing her any thing; and the "little matter" which detained her a few moments, was joining the search after a twenty-five-cent bill which the ruthless wind had snatched from the hand of a barefooted, bareheaded, and almost forlorn little girl, who cried as violently as though her last hope in life had been blown away with it; nor how, failing in finding the treasure, the gold-clasped purse had been opened, and a crisp, new bill had been taken out to fill its place; neither am I at all certain as to whether it would have made any difference at all in Ester's verdict, if she had known all the circumstances.

The side door opened quietly just at this point and a middle-aged man came in, carrying in one hand a tool-box, and in the other a two-story tin pail. Both girls watched him curiously as he set these down on the floor, and, taking tacks from his pocket and a hammer from his box, he proceeded to tack a piece of paper to the wall. Ester, from where she sat, could see that the paper was small, and that something was printed on it in close, fine type. It didn't look in the least like a handbill, or indeed like a notice of any sort. Her desire to know what it could be grew strong; two tiny tacks held it firmly in its place. Then the man turned and eyed the inmates of the room, who were by this time giving undivided attention to him and his bit of paper Presently he spoke, in a quiet, respectful tone:

"I've tacked up a nice little tract. I thought maybe while you was waiting you might like something to read. If one of you would read it aloud, all the rest could hear it." So saying, the man stooped and took up his tool-box and his tin pail, and went away, leaving the influences connected with those two or three strokes of his hammer to work for him through all time, and meet him at the judgment. But if a bomb-shell had suddenly come down and laid itself in ruins it their feet, it could not have made a much more startled company than the tract-tacker left behind him. A tract!—actually tacked up on the wall, and waiting for some human voice to give it utterance! A tract in a railroad depot! How queer! how singular! how almost improper! Why? Oh, Ester didn't know; it was so unusual. Yes; but then that didn't make it improper. No; but—then, she—it—Well, it was fanatical. Oh yes, that was it. She knew it was improper in some way. It was strange that that very convenient word should have escaped her for a little. This talk Ester held hurriedly with her conscience. It was asleep, you know; but just then it nestled as in a dream, and gave her a little prick; but that industrious, important word, "fanatical," lulled it back to its rest. Meantime there hung the tract, and fluttered a little in the summer air, as the door opened and closed. Was no one to give it voice? "I'd like dreadful well to hear it," an old lady said, nodding her gray head toward the little leaf on the wall; "but I've packed up my specs, and might just as well have no eyes at all, as far as readin' goes, when I haven't got my specs on. There's some young eyes round here though, one would think." she added, looking inquiringly around. "You won't need glasses, I should say now, for a spell of years!"

This remark, or hint, or inquiry, was directed squarely at Ester, and received no other answer than a shrug of the shoulder and an impatient tapping of her heels on the bare floor. Under her breath Ester muttered, "Disagreeable old woman!"

The brown silk rustled, and the blue ribbons fluttered restlessly for a minute; then their owner's clear voice suddenly broke the silence: "I'll read it for you, ma'am, if you really would like to hear it."

The wrinkled, homely, happy old face broke into a beaming smile, as she turned toward the pink-cheeked, blue-eyed maiden. "That I would," she answered, heartily, "dreadful well. I ain't heard nothing good, 'pears to me, since I started; and I've come two hundred miles. It seems as if it might kind of lift me up, and rest me like, to hear something real good again."

With the flush on her face a little hightened, the young girl promptly crossed to where the tract hung; and a strange stillness settled over the listeners as her clear voice sounded distinctly down the long room. This was what she read.

SOLEMN QUESTIONS.

"Dear Friend: Are you a Christian? What have you done to-day for Christ? Are the friends with whom you have been talking traveling toward the New Jerusalem? Did you compare notes with them as to how you were all prospering on the way? Is that stranger by your side a fellow-pilgrim? Did you ask him if he would be? Have you been careful to recommend the religion of Jesus Christ by your words, by your acts, by your looks, this day? If danger comes to you, have you this day asked Christ to be your helper? If death comes to you this night, are you prepared to give up your account? What would your record of this last day be? A blank? What! Have you done nothing for the Master? Then what have you done against Him? Nothing? Nay, verily! Is not the Bible doctrine, 'He that is not for me is against me?'

"Remember that every neglected opportunity, every idle word, every wrong thought of yours has been written down this day. You can not take back the thoughts or words; you can not recall the opportunity. This day, with all its mistakes, and blots, and mars, you can never live over again. It must go up to the judgment just as it is. Have you begged the blood of Jesus to be spread over it all? Have you resolved that no other day shall witness a repeatal of the same mistakes? Have you resolved in your own strength or in His?"

During the reading of the tract, a young man had entered, paused a moment in surprise at the unwonted scene, then moved with very quiet tread across the room and took the vacant seat near Ester. As the reader came back to her former seat, with the pink on her cheek deepened into warm crimson, the new comer greeted her with—

"Good-evening, Miss Fannie. Have you been finding work to do for the
Master?"

"Only a very little thing," she answered, with a voice in which there was a slight tremble.

"I don't know about that, my dear." This was the old woman's voice. "I'm sure I thank you a great deal. They're kind of startling questions like; enough to most scare a body, unless you was trying pretty hard, now ain't they?"

"Very solemn questions, indeed," answered the gentleman to whom this question seemed to be addressed. "I wonder, if we were each obliged to write truthful answers to each one of them, how many we should be ashamed to have each other see?"

"How many would be ashamed to have Him see?" The old woman spoke with an emphatic shake of her gray head, and a reverent touch of he pronoun.

"That is the vital point," he said. "Yet how much more ashamed we often seem to be of man's judgment than of God's."

Then he turned suddenly to Ester, and spoke in a quiet, respectful tone:

"Is the stranger by my side a fellow-pilgrim?"

Ester was startled and confused. The whole scene had been a very strange one to her. She tried to think the blue-ribboned girl was dreadfully out of her sphere; but the questions following each other in such quick succession, were so very solemn, and personal, and searching—and now this one. She hesitated, and stammered, and flushed like a school-girl, as at last she faltered: "I—I think—I believe—I am."

"Then I trust you are wide-awake, and a faithful worker in the vineyard," he said, earnestly. "These are times when the Master needs true and faithful workmen."

"He's a minister," said Ester, positively, to herself, when she had recovered from her confusion sufficiently to observe him closely, as he carefully folded the old woman's shawl for her, took her box and basket in his care, and courteously offered his hand to assist her into the cars for the New York train thundered in at last, and Mr. Newton presented himself; and they rushed and jostled each other out of the depot and into the train. And the little tract hung quietly in its corner; and the carpenter who had left it there, hammered, and sawed, and planed—yes, and prayed that God would use it, and knew not then, nor afterward, that it had already awakened thoughts that would tell for eternity.