CHAPTER I.
"To-morrow is pay-day; are you not glad, Rosina, and Lucy? Dorcas is, I know; for she always loves to see the money. Don't I speak truth now, Miss Dorcas Tilton?"
"I wish you would stop your clack, Miss Noisy Impudence; for I never heard you speak anything that was worth an answer. Let me alone, for I have not yet been able to obtain a moment's time to read my tract."
"'My tract'—how came it 'my tract,' Miss Stingy Oldmaid?—for I can call names as fast as you," was the reply of Elizabeth Walters. "Not because you bought it, or paid for it, or gave a thank'ee to those who did; but because you lay your clutches upon every thing you can get without downright stealing."
"Well," replied Dorcas, "I do not think I have clutched any thing now which was much coveted by anyone else."
"You are right, Dorcas," said Rosina Alden, lifting her mild blue eye for the first time towards the speakers; "the tracts left here by the monthly distributors are thrown about, and trampled under foot, even by those who most approve the sentiments which they contain. I have not seen anyone take them up to read but yourself."
"She likes them," interrupted the vivacious Elizabeth, "because she gets them for nothing. They come to her as cheap as the light of the sun, or the dews of heaven; and thus they are rendered quite as valuable in her eyes."
"And that very cheapness, that freedom from exertion and expense by which they are obtained, is, I believe, the reason why they are generally so little valued," added Rosina. "People are apt to think things worthless which come to them so easily. They believe them cheap, if they are offered cheap. Now I think, without saying one word against those tracts, that they would be more valued, more perused, and exert far more influence, if they were only to be obtained by payment for them. If they do good now, it is to the publishers only; for I do not think the community in general is influenced by them in the slightest degree. If Dorcas feels more interested in them because she procures them gratuitously, it is because she is an exception to the general rule."
"I like sometimes," said Dorcas, "to see the voice of instruction, of warning, of encouragement, and reproof, coming to the thoughtless, ignorant, poor and sinful, as it did from him who said to those whom he sent to inculcate its truths, Freely ye have received, freely give. The gospel is an expensive luxury now, and those only who can afford to pay their four, or six, or more, dollars a year, can hear its truths from the successors of him who lifted his voice upon the lonely mountain, and opened his lips for council at the table of the despised publican, or under the humble roof of the Magdalen."
"Do not speak harshly, Dorcas," was Rosina's reply; "times have indeed changed since the Savior went about with not a shelter for his head, dispensing the bread of life to all who would but reach forth their hands and take it; but circumstances have also changed since then. It is true, we must lay down our money for almost everything we have; but money is much more easily obtained than it was then. It is true, we cannot procure a year's seat in one of our most expensive churches for less than your present week's wages; and if you really wish for the benefits of regular gospel instruction, you must make for it as much of an exertion as was made by the woman who went on her toilsome errand to the deep well of Samaria, little aware that she was there to receive the waters of eternal life. Do not say that it was by no effort, no self-denial, that the gospel was received by those who followed the great Teacher to the lonely sea-side, or even to the desert, where, weary and famished, they remained day after day, beneath the heat of a burning sun, and were relieved from hunger but by a miracle. And who so poor now, or so utterly helpless, that they cannot easily obtain the record of those words which fell so freely upon the ears of the listening multitudes of Judea? If there are such, there are societies which will cheerfully relieve their wants, if application be made. And these tracts, which come to us with scarcely the trouble of stretching forth our hands for their reception, are doubtless meant for good."
"Well, Rosina," exclaimed Elizabeth, "if you hold out a little longer, I think Dorcas will have no reason to complain but that she gets her preaching cheap enough; but as I, for one, am entirely willing to pay for mine, you may be excused for the present; and those who wish to hear a theological discussion, can go and listen to the very able expounders of the Baptist and Universalist faiths, who are just now holding forth in the other chamber. As Dorcas hears no preaching but that which comes as cheap as the light of the sun, she will probably like to go; and do not be offended with me, Rosina, if I tell you plainly, that you are not the one to rebuke her. What sacrifice have you made? How much have you spent? When have you ever given anything for the support of the gospel?"
A tear started to Rosina's eye, and the color deepened upon her cheek. Her lip quivered, but she remained silent.
"Well," said Lucy to Elizabeth, "all this difficulty is the effect of the very simple question you asked; and I will answer for one, that I am glad to-morrow is pay-day. Pray what shall you get that is new, Elizabeth?"
"Oh, I shall get one of those damask silk shawls which are now so fashionable. How splendid it will look! Let me see; this is a five weeks' payment, and I have earned about two dollars per week; and so have you, and Rosina; and Dorcas has earned a great deal more, for she has extra work. Pray what new thing shall you get, Dorcas?" added she, laughing.
"She will get a new bank book, I suppose," replied Lucy. "She has already deposited in her own name five hundred dollars, and now she has got a book in the name of her little niece, and I do not know but she will soon procure another. She almost worships them, and Sundays she stays here reckoning up her interest while we are at meeting."
"I think it is far better," retorted Dorcas, "to stay at home, than to go to meeting, as Elizabeth does, to show her fine clothes. I do not make a mockery of public worship to God."
"There, Lizzy, you must take that, for you deserved it," said Lucy to her friend. "You know you do spend almost all your money in dress."
"Well," said Elizabeth, "I shall sow all my wild oats now, and when I am an old maid I will be as steady, but not quite so stingy as Dorcas. I will get a bank book, and trot down Merrimack street as often as she does, and everybody will say, 'what a remarkable change in Elizabeth Walters! She used to spend all her wages as fast as they were paid her, but now she puts them in the bank. She will be quite a fortune for some one, and I have no doubt she will get married for what she has, if not for what she is.' But I cannot begin now, and I don't see how you can, Rosina."
"I have not begun," replied Rosina, in a low sorrowful tone.
"Why yes, you have; you are as miserly now as Dorcas herself; and I cannot bear to think of what you may become. Now tell me if you will not get a new gown and bonnet, and go to meeting?"
"I cannot," replied Rosina, decidedly.
"Well, do, if you have any mercy on us, buy a new gown to wear in the Mill, for your old one is so shabby. When calico is nine-pence a yard, I do think it is mean to wear such an old thing as that; besides, I should not wonder if it should soon drop off your back."
"Will it not last me one month more?" and Rosina began to mend the tattered dress with a very wistful countenance.
"Why, I somewhat doubt it; but at all events, you must have another pair of shoes."
"These are but just beginning to let in the water," said Rosina; "I think they must last me till another pay-day."
"Well, if you have a fever or consumption, Dorcas may take care of you, for I will not; but what," continued the chattering Elizabeth, "shall you buy that is new, Lucy?"
"Oh, a pretty new, though cheap, bonnet; and I shall also pay my quarter's pew-rent, and a year's subscription to the 'Lowell Offering;' and that is all that I shall spend. You have laughed much about old maids; but it was an old maid who took care of me when I first came to Lowell, and she taught me to lay aside half of every month's wages. It is a rule from which I have never deviated, and thus I have quite a pretty sum at interest, and have never been in want of anything."
"Well," said Elizabeth, "will you go out to-night with me, and we will look at the bonnets, and also the damask silk shawls? I wish to know the prices. How I wish to-day had been pay-day, and then I need not have gone out with an empty purse."
"Well, Lizzy, you know that 'to-morrow is pay-day,' do you not?"
"Oh yes, and the beautiful pay-master will come in, rattling his coppers so nicely."
"Beautiful!" exclaimed Lucy; "do you call our pay-master beautiful?"
"Why, I do not know that he would look beautiful, if he was coming to cut my head off; but really, that money-box makes him look delightfully."
"Well, Lizzy, it does make a great difference in his appearance, I know; but if we are going out to-night, we must be in a hurry."
"If you go by the post-office, do ask if there is a letter for me," said Rosina.
"Oh, I hate to go near the post-office in the evening; the girls act as wild as so many Caribbee Indians. Sometimes I have to stand there an hour on the ends of my toes, stretching my neck, and sticking out my eyes; and when I think I have been pommeled and jostled long enough, I begin to 'set up on my own hook,' and I push away the heads that have been at the list as if they were committing it all to memory, and I send my elbows right and left in the most approved style, till I find myself 'master of the field.'"
"Oh, Lizzy! you know better; how can you do so?"
"Why, Lucy, pray tell me what you do?"
"I go away, if there is a crowd; or if I feel very anxious to know whether there is a letter for me, the worst that I do is to try 'sliding and gliding.' I dodge between folks, or slip through them, till I get waited upon. But I know that we all act worse there than anywhere else; and if the post-master speaks a good word for the factory girls, I think it must come against his conscience, unless he has seen them somewhere else than in the office."
"Well, well, we must hasten along," said Elizabeth; "and stingy as Rosina is, I suppose she will be willing to pay for a letter; so I will buy her one, if I can get it. Good evening, ladies," continued she, tying her bonnet; and she hurried after Lucy, who was already down the stairs, leaving Dorcas to read her tract at leisure, and Rosina to patch her old calico gown, with none to torment her.