Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering

by Mary Jane Holmes

If Mattie was not glad to see her guest, she seemed to be, which answered every purpose for the tired woman, who followed her into the dark, narrow hall, filled with the sickly odor of the kitchen, and up the narrow stairs, through a still darker hall, and into the front parlor, which looked out upon the Bowery. This was comparatively comfortable, for there was a fire in the stove, and the carpet the same which Aunt Betsy remembered to have seen in Mrs. Tubbs' best room at Silverton. But the diminutive dimensions of the apartment struck her at once, and she mentally decided that it must be the "libry." But, alas! the so-called "library" was a large-sized closet, or single room, at the other end of the hall, and now used as an _omnium gatherum_ for the various articles Mrs. Tubbs found necessary for her "back parlor," or dining-room, where the table was set cornerwise, its soiled linen and dingy napkins presenting a striking contrast to the snowy cloth which always covered the table at the farmhouse, while the dry, baker's bread, and the frowsy butter were almost more than Aunt Betsy could swallow, hungry as she was.

But all this was half an hour after the time when Mrs. Tubbs came in to meet her, expressing genuine pleasure at seeing her there, and feeling what she said; for Mrs. Tubbs did not take kindly to city life, and the sight of a familiar face, which brought the country with it, was very welcome to her. Mattie, on the contrary, liked New York, and there was scarcely a street where she had not been, with Tom for a protector; while she was perfectly conversant with all the respectable places of amusement—with their different prices and different grades of patrons. She knew where Wilford Cameron's office was, and also his house, for she had walked by the latter many times, admiring the elegant curtains and feasting her eyes upon the glimpses of inside grandeur, which she occasionally obtained as some one came out or went in. Once she had seen Helen and Katy enter their carriage, which the colored coachman drove away, but she had never ventured to accost them. Katy would not have known her if she had, for the family had come to Silverton while she was at Canandaigua, and as, after her return to Silverton, until her marriage, Mattie had been in one of the Lawrence factories, they had never met. With Helen, however, she had a speaking acquaintance; but she had never presumed upon it in New York, though to some of her young friends she had told how she once sat in the same pew with Mrs. Wilford Cameron's sister when she went to the "Episcopal meeting," and the consideration which this fact procured for her from those who had heard of Mrs. Wilford Cameron, of Madison Square, awoke in her the ambition to know more of that lady, and, if possible, gain an entrance to her dwelling. To this end she favored Aunt Betsy's visit, hoping thus to accomplish her object, for, of course, when Miss Barlow went to Mrs. Cameron's, she was the proper person to go with her and point the way. This was the secret of Mattie's letter to Aunt Betsy, and the warmth with which she welcomed her to that tenement on the Bowery, over a clothing store, and so small that it is not strange Aunt Betsy wondered where they all slept, never dreaming of the many devices known to city housekeepers, who can change a handsome parlor into a kitchen or sleeping-room, and _vice versa_, with little or no trouble. But she found it out at last, lifting her hands in speechless amazement, when, as the hour for retiring came, what she imagined the parlor bookcase was converted into a comfortable bed, on which her first night in New York was passed in comfort if not in perfect quiet.

The next day had been set apart by Mattie for showing their guest the city and possibly calling on Mrs. Wilford; but the poor old lady, unused to travel and excitement, was too tired to venture out, seeing from the window more than she had seen in all her life before, and coming to the conclusion that New York must contain "a sight of folks," judging from the crowds who passed that way and the glimpses she caught of other crowds in the streets beyond. Still in some things she was disappointed. New York was not so grand as she had imagined it to be—not as grand as Helen's letters would imply; and she "didn't suppose everybody lived upstairs and kept men's clothes to sell." The boarders, too, troubled her. They were well enough, it is true, but they were neither fine ladies nor gentlemen, such as Wilford and Katy; and Aunt Betsy, while receiving every attention which Mrs. Tubbs could give her, was guilty of wishing herself back in the clean, bright kitchen at home, where the windows looked out upon woods and fields instead of that never-ceasing rush which made her dizzy and faint. On the whole she was as nearly homesick as she well could be, and so when Mattie asked if she would like to go out that evening, she caught eagerly at the idea, as it involved a change, and again the opera came before her mind, in spite of her attempts to thrust it away.

"Did 'Tilda know if Katy went to the opera now? Did she s'pose she would be there to-night? Was it far to the show house? What was the price—and was it a very wicked place?"

To all these queries Mattie answered readily. She presumed Katy would be there, as it was a new opera. It was not so very far. Distance in the city was nothing, and it was not a wicked place, but over the price Mattie faltered. Tickets for Aunt Betsy, herself and Tom, who of course must go with them, would cost more than her father had to give. The theatre was preferable, as that came within their means, and she suggested Laura Keene's; but from that Aunt Betsy recoiled as from Pandemonium itself.

Catch her at a theatre—her, a deacon's sister, looked up to for a sample, and who run once for vice-president of the Sewing Society in Silverton! It was too terrible to think of. But the opera seemed different. Helen went there; it could not be very wrong, particularly as the tickets were so high that bad folks could not go, and taking out her purse Aunt Betsy counted its contents carefully, holding the bills thoughtfully for a moment, while she seemed to be balancing between what she knew was safe and what she feared might be wrong, at least in the eyes of Silverton.

"But Silverton will never know it," the tempter whispered, "and it is worth something to see the girls in full dress."

This decided it, and Aunt Betsy generously offered "to pay the fiddler," as she termed it, "provided 'Tilda would never let it get to Silverton that Betsy Barlow was seen inside a playhouse!" To Mrs. Tubbs it seemed impossible that Aunt Betsy could be in earnest, but when she was, she put no impediments in her way; and so, conspicuous among the crowd of transient visitors who that night entered the Academy of Music was Aunt Betsy Barlow, chaperoned by Miss Mattie Tubbs and protected by Tom, a shrewd, well-grown youth of seventeen, who passed for some years older, and consequently was a sufficient escort for the ladies under his charge. It was not his first visit there and he managed to procure a seat which commanded a good view of several private boxes, and among them that of Wilford Cameron. This Mattie, who remembered where she had seen both Helen and Katy, pointed out to the excited woman gazing about her in a maze of bewilderment, and half doubting her own identity with the Betsy Barlow who, six weeks before, if charged with such a sin as she was now committing, would have exclaimed, "Is thy servant a dog to do this thing?" Yet here she was, a deacon's sister, a candidate for the vice-presidency of the Silverton Sewing Society, a woman who, for sixty-three years and a-half, had led a blameless life, frowning upon all worldly amusements and setting herself for a burning light to others—here she was in her black silk dress, her best shawl pinned across her chest, and her bonnet tied in a square bow which reached nearly to her ears, which Mattie Tubbs, who tied it, had said was all the style. Here she was, in that huge building, where the lights were so blinding and the crowd so great that she shut her eyes involuntarily, while she tried to realize what she could be doing.

"I'm in for it now anyhow, and if it is wrong may the good Father forgive me," she said softly to herself, just as the orchestra struck up, thrilling her with its ravishing strains, and making her forget all else in her rapturous delight.

She was very fond of music and listened eagerly, beating time with both her feet, and making her bonnet go up and down until the play commenced and she saw stage dress and stage effect for the first time in her life. This part she did not like: "they mumbled their words so nobody could understand more than if they spoke a heathenish tongue," she thought, and she was beginning to yawn when a nudge from Mattie and a whisper, "There they come," roused her from her stupor, and looking up she saw both Helen and Katy entering their box, and with them Mark Ray and Wilford Cameron.