THE WILLIAN GIRLS
Some persons have a natural enjoyment of tribulation. They take a real pleasure in raising their eyebrows lugubriously, holding their heads a little on one side with a sorrowful and resigned expression, and looking at the world through blue spectacles. They "always sigh in thanking God," and can find a cloud in the sunniest sky. You can never conquer such people on their own ground. If you have a slight pain in your little finger, they have an excruciating pain in their thumb; if you have caught your robe on a nail, theirs has been rent on a spike; if you have been wet in a shower, they have been soaked in a torrent. These persons have minor voices, make great use of chromatics in speaking, and their affections seem to be situated in the liver.
Mr. Christopher Willian had a taint of this "green and yellow melancholy" in his disposition, and his rapidly increasing family gave full scope for its development.
"If Eva were a boy, now," he sighed, "I could soon have some one to help me in the shop. But—nothing but girls!"
"Eva is a treasure!" Mrs. Willian answered stoutly. "I wouldn't exchange her for the best boy in the world."
"But girls are so expensive," the father objected, "and they can't earn any thing; that is, mine can't. I don't want a daughter of mine to leave my house till she marries."
"And there is no need of their doing any thing, my dear," the mother replied cheerfully. "We own our house, and your business is very good. Then, when the mortgages are paid off on your building, the rent of the upper flats will make us quite independent. In three or four years we shall be out of the wood, all our pinching and toiling over."
Mrs. Willian was a thrifty, clear-headed, energetic woman; but, though she would not have owned it, she herself found the prospect appalling. As she sat there after her husband left her, she glanced out the chamber window and saw Dinah, the one servant of the house, putting out the washing, her accusing face looming darkly over the interminable lines of wet dry-goods. Oh! the strings to tie, the buttons to button, the hooks to hook! And here on her knees lay another candidate for such services, an unconscious little affliction of two weeks old! Oh! the rents and rips to mend, the darnings and makings over, the little faces to wash and locks to comb, the faults to chide, the teasings to bear, the questions to answer! She had just got a glimpse through the door of Eva with her hair in a snarl, and of Helen with soiled stockings on; she knew that Frances had tumbled downstairs and set her nose bleeding; she could hear Anne crying pathetically for mother to come and rock her to sleep, and she was almost sure that every thing was at sixes and sevens in the kitchen.
"But I will not lose my courage!" she exclaimed vehemently, and, in proof that she would not, burst into hysterical weeping.
The fifth girl grew apace, and after her came Josephine, and after Josephine came Jane.
"Mr. Willian is among the blessed," said the priest when this seventh daughter was carried to him for baptism. "Verily, he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate."
Others besides the priest had their jest concerning this regiment of girls. Tradesmen smiled when purchases were made for them, people laughed and counted when invitations were to be sent to them, neighbors went to their windows to see the Willian procession start for church. They became proverbial, especially with their father.
But as years passed, words of praise began to drop in among the jests. Mothers marvelled to see how early the Willian girls learned to sew and mend, how deftly they could use the broom and duster, what womanly ways the elder had toward the younger. These mothers reproachfully told their shiftless daughters what a dignified and careful maiden Miss Eva was, and how even Anne could put a room to rights after the smaller fry, and sing Jenny to sleep with a voice like a bobolink's. For all these children took to singing as naturally as birds do, and warbled before they could speak.
Nor were their happy hearts less valuable in the house than their helpful hands. Half the mother's load of care melted from her in the brightness of their faces, and the anxious cloud on Mr. Christopher Willian's brow lightened in spite of him whenever some gushing sprite, all laughter and kisses, ran to welcome him home. He was sometimes vexed on recollecting how he had been lured from a good grumble by their baby wiles. Indeed, he was not nearly so dissatisfied as he pretended to be. Such sweet and healthy affections as theirs were, which, never having been checked, flowed out in joyous innocence; such pure, unerring instincts, that needed no knowledge of baseness in order to shrink from its contact; such open hands for the poor, such tender hands for the afflicted; and, crowning all, such steadfast, unassuming piety. Among the young ladies who, dressed to attract attention, promenaded the public streets, the Willian girls were never found; their father's house was the place where they made new acquaintances and entertained old ones. And what did they conceal from their parents? Nothing. Their hopes and plans and fears, their mistakes, their faults, all were freely told. And how pretty they were! Their father secretly made the most flowery comparisons when looking at them. He mentally challenged the dew-washed morning roses and violets to vie with their fresh faces around the breakfast table. When at evening they formed a ring of bloom around the piano, and sang for their parents, or for visitors, his private opinion was, that a choir of angels could not far excel them; and when the circle broke, like a wreath falling into flowers, and each went about some pretty employment, then Mr. Willian had not eyes enough with which to watch his seven girls. But once own to any such feeling, and there would be an end to his privilege of grumbling. He well knew what a chorus would assail his first grievance: "Why, papa, you said that we were—" etc.; or, "Now, Mr. Willian, do be consistent! With my own ears I have heard you say—" etc. So he wrapped the silver lining of his cloud inward, and showed them only the gray.
But one evening, for a wonder, he came home with a joyful face and no word of fault-finding. When Jenny, the youngest, ran to meet him, he gave her a toss nearly to the ceiling; he gave one of Fanny's curls a pull in passing her; he presented his wife with a bunch of late flowers, he praised every thing on the supper-table. Finally, when they were gathered in the evening, he told them the cause of this unusual hilarity. He had that day made the last payment on the building in which he had his shop, and now their weary economies were at an end.
"But don't imagine, you young witches, that all this is to go in finery," he said, giving the nearest one a pinch on the cheek. "The house here needs a little fitting up, and perhaps we will have a new piano. But I must begin now to lay by something. A man with such a load of girls on his shoulders has to think of the future."
They were too much accustomed to remarks like the last to be greatly disturbed by them, but this threw a momentary dampening. Then the silence was broken by Miss Eva's calm and musical voice: "The house needs to be painted and papered and furnished from basement to attic. It is very shabby."
Mr. Willian forgot to exclaim at the dimensions of this proposition when he looked in the fair face of his eldest daughter, and saw the serene grace with which she seated herself beside her mother, and smoothed down the folds of her dress. Eva was now twenty, calm, blonde, and stately.
"O papa!" cried Florence across the fireplace; "do buy a lovely landscape of Weber's we saw to-day. It is just what we want to put over the mantel-piece in the front parlor." Again the father looked, but said nothing.
Florence was a girl of artistic tastes, was frail and excitable, and had brilliant violet eyes and an unsteady scarlet in her cheeks.
"Now at last I can have a watch!" cried Frances in a ringing voice. "I've nearly got a curvature of the spine from looking round at the clock to see if I have practised long enough."
"My dear Fanny," interposed her mother, "we need a new set of china much more than you need a watch."
Frances was the romp of the family, a large girl of sixteen, with heaps of brown curls around a piquante face.
"I wish I had a little rosewood writing-desk and a pearl pen-handle," came in a clear, insinuating voice very high up the scale. Anne sat in a low chair, with her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee, and her gaze fixed intently on the cornice of the room. But perceiving no notice taken of her remark, she lowered her glance, and gave her father a look out of the corners of her eyes, which thereby got the appearance of being nearly all whites.
Anne was fourteen years of age, and had a quiet way of doing as she pleased and getting all she wanted without seeming to try. Frances called her pussy-cat.
"O papa!" broke in Georgiana, "can't I have a pair of skates and learn to skate?"
"I want a silver mug!" cried Jane, the youngest, striking in before Josephine.
Josephine sat in the shadow of her father's chair, and had two small wrinkles between her brows.
"Is there any thing else any one will have?" asked Mr. Willian with excessive politeness, after having caught breath. "Don't be bashful, I beg! It is a pity there are only seven of you, with your mother making eight. Possibly by putting a mortgage on the house, I may be able to gratify your wishes. Speak up—do!"
Ever so slight a cloud settled upon the gentleman's audience as he glanced over them, bowing suavely, and rubbing his hands with an appearance of great cordiality.
"Papa!" came in a little voice out of the shadow. Every one had forgotten Josephine.
A real smile melted the waxen mask of a smile on Mr. Willian's face.
"Poor Josie!" he said.
She came out of her corner and stood by his side. "Papa, have you got the block insured?" she asked.
Her father colored suddenly as he put his arm about the child and drew her closer to him. "Here girls," he said, "is one who thinks of the means as well as the end. She never will ruin any one by her extravagance."
"But have you, papa?" she persisted.
"This house is all right, dear; and I'm going to insure the store to-morrow."
He spoke carelessly, but there was a slight stir of uneasiness perceptible beneath.
His wife looked at him with surprise. "Why, father, how happened you to let it run out?"
"I was so busy to-day I forgot all about it," he said almost pettishly. "The policy expired only yesterday. I'll see to it the first thing in the morning. Go and sing something, girls."
All but Josie gathered about the piano, and sang one of William Blake's songs:
"Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
"Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
"Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be;
Never, never can it be!
"And can He, who smiles on all,
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear,
"And not sit beside the nest
Pouring pity in their breast?
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?
"And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh! no; never can it be;
Never, never can it be!
"He doth give his joy to all;
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too."
In the midst of the last soft strain Eva's hands paused on the keys, her sisters ceased singing, and her father and mother lifted their faces to listen; for a loud gamut of bells outside had run up the first stroke of the fire-alarm. At the last stroke, Mr. Willian started up and went into the entry for his hat. Not a word was said as he went out; but the girls gathered about their mother, and stood with the breath just hovering on their lips, counting the alarm over and over, hoping against hope. But, no; they had counted rightly at first. The loud clear strokes through that silence left no room for doubt.
The girls drew nearer their mother, their faces losing color.
"I can't bear the suspense, Eva," she said. "Get our bonnets, and we will go down-town. Don't cry, Josie! You children all stay here and say the rosary while we are gone. We will soon be back, and perhaps we shall bring good news."
Florence took her beads from her pocket, put her arm around the weeping Josie, and drew her down to her knees before their mother's chair. Mrs. Willian glanced back as the others knelt too, then shut the door, breathing a blessing on them. "If it should be God's will to spare us now," she said, "I shall be the happiest mother in the world."
It was not God's will to spare them, she soon found. As they turned the last corner and came in sight of Mr. Willian's building, they saw it the centre of a vast crowd, firemen, volunteer workers, and lookers-on. There was no appearance of fire in the lower stories, but smoke was gushing through all the interstices of the upper windows.
Mrs. Willian wrung her hands and turned away. "There go the savings and toil of a lifetime!" she said.
It was impossible for the firemen to work well at that height, and the flames were creeping to the air. In a few minutes the smoke reddened, a little tongue of flame crept through a crevice, broadened, and the fire burst forth. No effort could stay it. Leisurely descending from floor to floor, it carried all before it. A thread of smoke in a corner of the ceiling, a tiny flame, and soon the whole room would be an intolerable brightness with masses of falling flaming timbers.
At midnight the family were all at home again; Mr. Willian lying half-senseless upon a sofa, his wife and children ministering to him. In his frantic efforts to save something from the burning building, one of his arms had been broken by the falling bricks.
Those were sorrowful days that followed, verifying the proverb that it never rains but it pours. Josephine was taken ill the week after the fire; but she was sure to be well soon, they said. She was not very ill. There was a little cough, a little fever, and a great weakness. The girls thought not much of it. They were too much engaged, indeed, attending to their father, and doing an immense deal of mysterious outside business.
"If Eva were only a boy!" sighed the father weakly. "A boy of twenty could earn a good salary."
"Father," Eva began very decidedly, "a girl of twenty can earn a good salary. Let me tell you what your good-for-nothing daughters are going to do. We haven't been idle the fortnight past. I am to take immediate charge of a class in the N—— school, with a salary of five hundred dollars to begin with, and a yearly advance. I shall stay at home, by your leave, and nearly all my money will go toward the housekeeping expenses. Besides that, I have a music class of four. So much for me. I doubt if that wonderful son would spare you more out of his earnings. Florence is to take a few more lessons in Indian-ink from Mr. Rudolf, and he says that in four or five weeks she will be able to earn ten dollars a week, painting photographs. Frances has got tatten and crochet-work to do for Blake Brothers, and they promise to pay her well. She does such work beautifully. Anne is to cut out paper bordering for Mr. Sales, who is building blocks upon blocks of houses. He says that he will keep her busy three months. Georgiana is to help mother about the house, and Dinah is going away. So now, father, you can lie on your sofa and rest, and your troublesome daughters will not let you starve."
Miss Eva ended with her cheeks very red, and her head very high in the air. But her pride softened immediately when she saw her father's quivering lips, that vainly attempted to speak.
"It is our turn now, dear papa," she said, kissing him; "and we are quite proud and eager to begin. You have cast your bread upon the waters in former times; now you must lie still and see it float back to you."
"What can I do?" asked a weak little voice from the arm-chair where Josie reclined.
"You can see which will get well the most quickly, you or papa," Mrs. Willian said, bending with tearful eyes to caress the child. In this careful little one she saw embodied all the unconfessed sadness and anxiety of the one despondent period of her life. Poor Josie was the scape-goat on whose frail shoulders had been laid her mother's doubts and fears, and her father's selfish complaining.
Success almost always attends brave and cheerful effort, and the Willian girls succeeded. Besides, they were heroines in their way, and every one was sympathizing and helpful to them. But for their father's depression, they would have been happier than ever before. At last they were of use, and not only of use, but necessary. They were no longer a burden tenderly but complainingly borne, but they bore the family cares and labors on their own young shoulders. What wonderful consultations they held, what plans they laid, what economies they practised! What latent administrative powers were developed at the hour of need, and what superlative managers they proved themselves to be! How elastic a little money could be made when smoothed out by such coaxing taper fingers, and shone upon by such bright and careful eyes! Besides, they could not see but that they lived as well as ever. Their breakfasts and dinners and suppers were as good, and their home was the same.
"Half the pleasure of wealth is in the consciousness of possessing it," said Florence philosophically. "Was it John Jacob Astor who said that all he had from his riches was food and lodging? Well, we have that. Of course it is a pity that papa's arm is still bad, though it gives him time to develop his capacity for novels. What! ascetical works are they? Yes; but I have seen novels too, papa. And here's a new one for you. Take it easy. Just lie there and make believe that you have become so rich that you have retired from business. Oh! what blocks of houses you have. What ships, what lands, what bank-stock! Isn't it weary to think what heaps of money you have to spend and give away. Don't let's think about it!"
"I came past the ruins of the fire to-day, papa," Eva said, seating herself by his sofa, and looking at him with her calm, sweet eyes. "At first I was so foolish as to shrink and turn my head away, but the next moment I looked. And I thought, papa, that may be what has seemed to us a calamity may turn out a great blessing. We had built a good many hopes into that brick and mortar, and instead of the fire destroying, perhaps it has only purified them." Seeing that tears came into his eyes, she added hastily, "Fanny was with me, and, of course, took a grotesque view of the affair. She said that row of tall buildings, with ours gone, looked like somebody who had lost a front tooth."
Mr. Willian smiled faintly, but could answer nothing to their cheerful talk. Even while it comforted him, it made him feel bitterly ashamed of himself. Besides, he was very anxious about Josie.
It came upon them like a thunderbolt: Josie was dying! They could scarcely believe the doctor, or the evidence of their own senses. They hoped against hope. There was no definable disease; but the child was dying merely because, instead of having had a healthy, careless childhood, and time to learn gradually that life is not all joy and sunshine, her infant eyes had looked too early upon the cross of pain, and she had seen the shadow and felt the weight of it before she could understand its consolation.
"That'll make one less, papa," she said faintly, looking up with faded eyes as he bent over her.
"One less what, my dear?"
"One less girl to support," says Josie.
The father's face sank to the pillow. Oh! what a bitter punishment for his selfish complainings, when his own child, in dying out of his arms, thought only that she was ridding him of a burden! He could scarcely find words in which to sob out his love, his regrets, his entreaties that her tender spirit might be spared at least long enough to witness his expiation. But even while he prayed it escaped him. He clasped only a frail waxen form that answered no kiss, uttered no more any childish, plaintive word.
"God forgive me!" he said. "Now I know what real loss is; and I deserve it."
How they missed the careful, pathetic little face! How often they became suddenly speechless when, in laying their plans—they found that they had unconsciously included Josie! But they worked on bravely in spite of pain—worked the better for it, indeed. And when in after-years, all happy and prosperous and with homes of their own, they talked over the past, and Mr. Willian told of the wonderful time when his daughters had made caryatides of themselves to support the edifice of his fallen fortunes, Josie was gratefully mentioned as the noblest helper there. "For it was by her means that the cornerstone of our new home was laid in heaven," he said.