“I ain’t like him; I ain’t like this Miss Banker; I ain’t like anybody,” she whispered. “I’m nothin’ but a homely, old-fashioned woman, without larnin’, without nothin’. I might know I wasn’t wanted,” and a rain of tears fell over the wrinkled face as she uttered this tirade against herself, standing before the long mirror, and inspecting the image it gave back of a plain, unpolished countrywoman, not much resembling Mrs. Banker, it must be confessed, nor much resembling the gay young ladies she had seen at the opera the previous night. “I won’t go near Katy,” she continued; “it would only mortify her, and I don’t want to make her trouble. The poor thing’s face looked as if she had it now, and I won’t add to it. I’ll start for home to-morrow. There’s Miss Smith, in Springfield, will keep me over night, and Katy shan’t be bothered.”
When this decision was reached, Aunt Betsy felt a great deal better, and taking the Bible from the table, she sat down again before the fire, opening, as by a special Providence, to the chapter where the hewers of wood and drawers of water are mentioned as being necessary to mankind, each filling his appointed place.
“That’s me—that’s Betsy Barlow,” she whispered, taking off her glasses to wipe away the moisture gathering so fast upon them. Then resuming them, she continued, “I’m a hewer of wood—a drawer of water. God made me so, and shall the clay find fault with the potter, for making it into a homely jug? No, indeed; and I was a very foolish old jug to think of sticking myself in with the china ware. But I’ve larnt a lesson,” and the philosophic old woman read on, feeling comforted to know that though a vessel of the rudest make, a paltry jug, as she called herself, the promises were still for her as much as for the finer wares—aye, that there was more hope of her entering at last where “the walls are all of precious stones and the streets are paved with gold,” than of those whose good things are given so abundantly during their lifetime.
Assured, comforted, and encouraged, she fell asleep at last, and when Mrs. Banker returned she found her slumbering quietly in her chair, the Bible open on her lap, and her finger upon the passage referring to the hewers of wood and drawers of water, as if that was the last thing read.
Next morning, at a comparatively early hour, Helen stood ringing the bell of Mrs. Banker’s house. She had said to Katy that she was going out, and could not tell just when she might return, and as Katy never questioned her acts, while Wilford was too intent upon his own miserable thoughts as to “where Aunt Betsy could be, or what had befallen her,” to heed any one else, no inquiries were made, and no obstacles put in the way of her going direct to Mrs. Banker’s, where Mark met her himself, holding her cold hand until he led her to the fire and placed her in a chair. He knew she would rather meet her aunt alone, and so when he heard her step in the hall he left the room, holding the door for Aunt Betsy, who wept like a little child at the sight of Helen, accusing herself of being a fool, who ought to be shut up in an insane asylum, but persisting in saying she was going home that very day without seeing Katy at all. “If she was here I’d like it, but I shan’t go there, for I know Wilford don’t want me.” Then she told Helen all she did not already know of her trip to New York, her visit to the opera, her staying with the Tubbses and her meeting with Mark, the best young chap she ever saw, not even excepting Morris. “If he was my own son he couldn’t be kinder,” she added, “and I mistrust he hopes to be my nephew. You can’t do better; and, if he offers, take him.”
Helen’s cheeks were crimson as she waived this part of the conversation, and wished aloud that she had come around in the carriage, as she could thus have taken Aunt Betsy over the city before the train would leave.
“Mark spoke of that when he heard I was going to-day,” Aunt Betsy said; “I’ll warrant you he’ll attend to it.”
Aunt Betsy was right, for when Mark and his mother joined their guests, and learned that Aunt Betsy’s intention was unchanged, he suggested the ride, and offered the use of their carriage. Helen did not decline the offer, and ere a half hour had passed, Aunt Betsy, with her satchel, umbrella, and cap-box, was comfortably adjusted in Mrs. Banker’s carriage with Helen beside her, while Mark bade his coachman drive wherever Miss Lennox wished to go, taking care to reach the train in time.
They were tearful thanks which Aunt Betsy gave to her kind friends as she was driven away to the Bowery to say good-bye, lest the Tubbses should “think her suddenly stuck up.”
“Would you mind taking ’Tilda in? It would please her mightily,” Aunt Betsy whispered, as they were alighting in front of Mr. Peter Tubbs’s; and as the result of this suggestion, the carriage, when again it emerged into Broadway, held Mattie Tubbs, prouder than she had been in all her life before, while the gratified mother at home felt amply repaid for all the trouble her visitor had made her.