Lucy Raymond; Or, The Children's Watchword

by Agnes Maule Machar

It was with increased zest, and a fuller appreciation of the interest and value of her studies, that Lucy entered upon them once more. The happy weeks at Oakvale had been of permanent benefit to her, in opening new channels of thought and enlarging her sphere of mental vision, both through the books she had been reading, and the comments of Dr. and Mrs. Eastwood, both of whom had thoughtful, cultivated minds. She now studied with very little reference to prizes, or even the approbation of masters, but from a deep interest in the studies themselves, and a feeling of their beneficial effect in leading her to higher ranges of thought. Every new attainment was but a step to a fresh starting-point in the never-ending pursuit of knowledge; and Longfellow's beautiful lines often recurred to her mind,—

"The lofty pyramids of stone,
That, wedge-like, cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs."

Then the feeling grew to be more and more strong with her, that every new acquisition—every step in mental discipline which God had given her the opportunity of making—was a talent to be held in trust and used in His service. Mrs. Eastwood had explained that, though we may often have to study during the years of school life without seeing what special use we may be called to make of our acquisitions, still God will undoubtedly find some use for whatever power we have gained while following the leading of His providence. "Therefore," she would say, "the doubt whether such and such a thing will ever be of any use to us is no excuse for sloth in acquiring it, when it is clearly our duty to do so."

Her studies were rendered doubly interesting by the companionship of Mary Eastwood, who was animated by the same spirit, and in whose friendship she found her greatest pleasure during the winter. Stella was rather surprised at the affectionate greeting between her cousin and Miss Eastwood the first day they met at school, for she had scarcely given Lucy an opportunity of telling her more than that they had met often at Oakvale.

"Well, to think of your having all at once struck up such a violent friendship with that stiff, quiet Miss Eastwood!" exclaimed Stella, who thought her cousin's choice of a friend rather unaccountable. Lucy's efforts to draw together her cousin and her friend were unsuccessful, and perhaps this was quite as much Mary's fault as Stella's, arising from her strong feeling against cultivating intimacy with any one who was "of the world." It was almost the only practical point on which she and Lucy disagreed, for Lucy tried to persuade her that she might do real good if she would come more in contact with her irreligious schoolmates. But Mary replied that this might do for some, but she did not feel strong enough,—she might herself be led away. She was not yet fully persuaded in her own mind.

So Lucy gave up the point, and had a somewhat difficult position to maintain between her cousin and her friend,—not that Mary was ever jealous, but Stella did not at all like the affection her friends to be diverted towards any one else; indeed, it was the only thing that ever seemed really to a "put her out." She was conscious to some extent that a much deeper sympathy existed between Lucy and Miss Eastwood than between Lucy and her, and she feared that if it increased, her cousin's regard for her must necessarily diminish.

One bright, sunny October day, when the air was clear and bracing, and the wind was tossing the red leaves that fell from the trees in the squares, Lucy and Stella were on their way home from school, when they heard at a slight distance the plaintive strains of a hand-organ, carried by a meagre, careworn Italian, who seemed to be working his instrument mechanically, while his eye had a fixed, sad, stedfast gaze, unconscious, seemingly, of anything around him. Lucy was looking compassionately at the dark, sorrowful face, and wondering what his previous history might have been, when her eye was suddenly caught by the familiar form and face of the girl who stood by with her tambourine, singing a simple ditty, which somehow brought old days at Ashleigh back to her mind. The figure she saw, though arrayed in tattered garments, and the face, though sunburnt to a deep brown, were not so much altered as to prevent almost instant recognition. Lucy grasped Stella's arm, and exclaimed, "Why, it's Nelly!" and before the astonished Stella comprehended her meaning, she hastily stepped forward towards the tambourine-girl, who almost at the same moment stopped singing and sprang forward, exclaiming, "Oh, it's Miss Lucy, her own self!"

Both were quite unconscious, in their surprise, of the bystanders around them; but Stella was by no means so insensible to the situation, and was somewhat scandalized at being connected with such a scene "in the street." She begged Lucy to ask Nelly to follow them home, which was not far off, and then they could have any number of explanations at leisure. Lucy at once assented, and asked Nelly if she could be spared for a little while. With a happy face, flushed with her surprise and delight, Nelly went up to the organ-grinder and said a few words, at which he smiled and nodded. She then followed her friends home at a respectful distance, while the man went on his way from house to house.

Nelly's explanation of her present odd circumstances was very simple, and, on the whole, satisfactory. In the hot July weather, when she felt her overtasked strength failing, and could scarcely manage to drag herself about to perform her daily round of duty, often scolded for doing it inefficiently, the poor organ-grinder came one day with a face more sorrowful than ever, and told Nelly, weeping, that his daughter—his povera picciola—had been carried off by one of those sudden attacks that so soon run their course and snap the thread of weakly lives. He was so lonely now, he said, he could not bear it! Would Nelly come and be his daughter, and take poor Teresa's forsaken tambourine? She had a voice sweet as Teresa's own, and he would teach her to sing when he played. She should have no hard work, and no scolding, and they would take care of each other.

It was a tempting offer to poor Nelly, pining under continual chilling indifference and fault-finding. While she was hesitating, her mistress, hearing a strange voice in the kitchen, came down in wrath to dismiss the intruder, who rose instantly at the sound of her harsh voice. "I go, signora," he said in his foreign English, "and this girl goes with me. You give her too hard work and hard words. I will take care for her, and she shall be to me as the povera who is dead! Come, picciola!"