May Iverson's Career

by Elizabeth Garver Jordan

"I hear that you are homesick. Take this money and return to your native land. It will pay your passage and secure your admission to a home for aged gentlewomen. Do not try to discover the source of the gift.

"From One Who Loved Your Daughter.

"A little blossom of comfort bloomed in the old woman's heart, like an edelweiss on a glacier. She packed her few possessions and sailed for America. There was no one to meet her, but she had kept the name and address of the woman editor; she was sure the editor would advise her about getting into the right home. In the mean time she went from the steamer to a cheap New York lodging-house, of which some fellow passenger had told her, and from there she sent a hurried summons to the editor. She was already panic-stricken in this big country, which held the graves of all she loved but one. It suddenly seemed to her as strange, as terrible as Italy. She was afraid of everything—afraid of the people she met, of the sounds she heard, of the prying lodging-house keeper and her red-eyed husband. Most of all, she was afraid of these two, and she had reason to be.

"The editor had not even known the old lady was coming to this country, but she responded to the call the night she received it, for she could tell that the writer was frantic with fear. She climbed three flights of rickety stairs and found the old woman in a state of unreasoning terror, like a lost child in the dark. Already the keepers of the lodging-house had tried to get her money from her; she was hungry, for they did not furnish meals, and she had been afraid to go out for food. The editor took her away from the place that night and home to her own apartment. There she had a long talk with her.

"'Now, Mrs. Driscoll,' she said, 'I want you to forget your troubles if you can and settle down here and be at peace. Leave the matter of the home to me. I will find the right place, and when I have found it I will tell you about it and take you to see it. Then, if you approve, in you go. We will put your money in the bank to-morrow and leave it there until the matter of the home is settled. In the mean time don't think or talk about the future. It may take some time to find the right home. I'm not going to run to you with every hope or disappointment that my investigation brings. Forget about it yourself, but don't think I have forgotten because I am not keeping you stirred up with daily or weekly reports.'

"The old lady settled down like a contented child in its mother's lap. As the weeks passed her eyes lost their look of panic and took on the serenity of age. Her thin figure filled out. She transferred to her only friend something of the devotion she had given her daughter. She was almost happy.

"In the mean time the editor began her investigations, and she at once discovered that it is not easy to find a home for an aged and indigent gentlewoman. All the institutions to which she applied were filled, and each had waiting-lists that looked, she said, 'yards long.' The secretaries were courteous. They almost invariably sent her lists of other institutions, and she wrote to these, or visited them if they were within reach; and the weeks and months crawled by, and the city grew hot and stifling. She was worn out by the quest to which she was giving every hour of her spare time, but she was no nearer success than she had been the first day. She had arranged to go to Europe for a rest which she sadly needed, and the date of her sailing was very near. But she could not go and leave her protégée unprovided for, nor could she leave her alone with a servant. Her search became a very serious thing; it kept her awake nights; it got on her nerves; it became an obsession which, waking or sleeping, she could not forget. She began to go down under it, but no one knew that, for she kept it to herself; and the least suspicious person of all her friends was the old lady, who each evening listened for her footstep as one listens for that of the best beloved, coming home."

The Author stopped.

"By Jove!" said the Best Seller, "it is a depressing yarn. Let me see if I can't brighten it up a bit."