Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering

by Mary Jane Holmes

"Young man, you are a soldier, I take it, from your havin' been to school at West Point. Maybe you'll never have to use your learning, but if you do, stick to the old flag. Don't you go against that, and if an old woman's prayers for your safety can do any good, be sure you'll have mine."

She raised her hand reverently, and Lieutenant Bob felt a kind of awe steal over him as if he might one day need that benediction, the first perhaps given in the cause now so terribly agitating all hearts both North and South.

"I'll remember what you say," he answered, and then as a new idea was presented he took out a card, and writing a few lines upon it, bade her hand it to the conductor just as she was getting into the city.

Without her glasses Aunt Betsy could not read, and thinking it did not matter now, she thrust the card into her pocket, and bidding her companion good-by, took her seat in the other train. Lonely and a very little homesick she began to feel; for her new neighbors were not one-half as willing to talk as Bob had been, and she finally relapsed into silence, which resulted in a quiet sleep, from which she awoke just as they were entering the long, dark tunnel, which she would have likened to Purgatory had she believed in such a place.

"I didn't know we ran into cellars," she said, faintly; but nobody heeded her, or cared for the anxious and now timid-looking woman, who grew more and more anxious, until suddenly remembering the card, she drew it from her pocket, and the next time the conductor appeared handed it to him, watching him while he read that "Lieutenant Robert Reynolds would consider it as a personal favor if he would see the bearer into the Fourth Avenue cars."

Surely there is a Providence which watches over all; and Lieutenant Reynolds' thoughtfulness was not a mere chance, but the answer to the simple trust Aunt Betsy had that God would take her safely to New York, never doubting until she reached it that she had been heard. And even then she did not doubt it long, for the conductor knew Lieutenant Bob, and attended as faithfully to his wishes as if it had been a born princess instead of Aunt Betsy Barlow whom he led to a street car, ascertaining the number on the Bowery where she wished to stop, and reporting to that conductor, who bowed in acquiescence, after glancing at the woman, and knowing intuitively that she was from the country. Could she have divested herself wholly of the fear that the conductor would forget to put her off at the right place, Aunt Betsy would have enjoyed that ride very much; and as it was, she looked around with interest, thinking New York a mightily cluttered-up place, and wondering if all the folks were in the streets. "They must be a gadding set," she thought; and then, as a lady in flaunting robes took a seat beside her, crowding her into a narrow space, the good old dame thought to show that she did not resent it, by an attempt at sociability, asking if she knew "Mrs. Peter Tubbs, whose husband kept a store on the Bowery?"

"I have not that honor," was the haughty reply, the lady drawing up her costly shawl and moving a little away from her interlocutor, who continued: "I thought like enough you might have seen 'Tilda, or Mattie she calls herself now. She is a right nice girl, and Tom is a very forrard boy."

To this there was no reply; and as the lady soon left the car, Aunt Betsy did not make another attempt at conversation, except to ask once how far they were from the Bowery, adding, as she received a civil answer, "You don't know Mr. Peter Tubbs?"

The worthy man was evidently a stranger to the occupants of that car, and so Aunt Betsy employed her time in wondering if they kept up a sight of style. She presumed they did from what 'Tilda had written to one of Captain Perry's girls about their front parlor, and back parlor, and library; but she did so hope their boarders were not the stuck up kind. In Mrs. Peter Tubbs herself she had the utmost confidence, knowing her to be a kind, friendly woman; and so her heart did not beat quite as fast as it would otherwise have done when the car stopped at last upon a crossing, and the conductor pointed back a few doors to the right, telling her that was her number.

"I should s'pose he might have driv right up, instead of leaving me here," she said, looking wistfully at the retreating car, which now seemed almost like home. "Coats, and trousers, and jackets! I wonder if there is nothing else to be seen here," she continued, as her eye caught the long line of clothing so conspicuously displayed in that part of the Bowery. "'Tain't no great shakes," was the feeling struggling into Aunt Betsy's mind, as with Tom's outline map in hand she peered at the numbers of the doors, finding the right one at last, and ringing the bell with a force which brought Mattie at once to the rescue.