Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

As soon as her father was able, she took him to them one by one. Hand in hand, for he seemed weak as a little child, they went to the bench under the trees where he had first seen Gretchen knitting in the sunshine, with the halo on her hair, and here Arthur took off his hat as if on consecrated ground, and whispered, 'May God forgive me!' then to the little shop once kept by Frau Heinrich, where Arthur astonished the woman by buying out half her stock, which he ordered sent to his hotel, and afterward gave away; then to the English church, where he knelt before the altar and seemed to be praying, though the words he said were spoken more to Gretchen than to God; then to the house where he had lived with his bride, when heaven came down so close that she could touch it, or rather, to the site of the house, for fire had done its work there and they could only stand before the ruins, while Arthur said again and again, 'May God forgive me!' then to the house where Jerrie had lived and Gretchen had died, and where the picture still hung upon the wall, a wonder and delight to all who had rented the place since Marian's parents parents lived there. Jerrie recognized it in a moment, and so did Arthur, but he could only wring his hands before it and sob, 'Oh, Gretchen, my darling, my darling!' Changed as the house was, Jerrie found the room she remembered so well, where she had played and her mother had died.

'The big stove stood here,' she said, indicating the spot, 'and mother sat there writing to you, when Nannine opened the door and let the firelight shine upon the paper. I can see it all so distinctly, and over there in the corner was the bed where she died.'

Then Arthur knelt down upon the spot, and as if the oft-repeated ejaculation, 'May God forgive me!' were wholly inadequate now, he said the Lord's Prayer, with folded hands and streaming eyes, while Jerrie stood over him, with her arm around his neck.

'Oh, Gretchen,' he cried; 'do you know I am here after so many years?—Arthur, your husband, who loved you through all? Come back to me, Gretchen, and I'll be so tender and true—tender and true! My heart is breaking, Gretchen, and only for Cherry, our dear little girl baby, I should wish I were dead, like you. Oh, Gretchen! Gretchen! sweetest wife a man ever called his! and yet I forgot you, darling—forgot that you had ever lived! May heaven forgive me for I could not help it; I forgot everything. Where are you, Cherry? It's getting so dark and cold, and Gretchen is not here—I think you must take me home.

Jerrie took him back to the hotel, where he kept his room for three days, and then they went to Gretchen's grave beside her mother, which Jerrie had found after some little search and enquiry. Here Arthur stood like a statue, holding fast to Jerrie, and gazing down upon the neglected grave, on which clumps of withered grass were growing and blowing in the November wind.

'Gretchen is not here in this place,' he said mournfully, with a shake of his head. 'She couldn't rest there a moment, for she liked everything beautiful and bright, and this is like the Potter's field. But we'll put up a monument for her, and make the place attractive; and by and by, when she is tired of wandering about, she may come back and rest when she sees what we have done, and knows that we have been here. We will buy that house too, he said, as he walked away from the lonely grave; and the next day Harold found the owner of the place and commenced negotiations for the house, which soon changed hands and became the property of Arthur.

Just what he meant to do with it he did not know, until Jerrie suggested that he should make it an asylum for homeless children, who should receive the kindest and tenderest care from competent and trustworthy nurses, hired for the purpose.

'Yes, I'll do it,' Arthur said, 'and will call it "The Gretchen Home." Maybe she will come there some time, and know what I have done.'

This idea once in his mind, Arthur never let go of it until the house was fitted up with school-rooms and dormitories, with the little white beds and chairs suggestive of the little ones rescued from want and misery and placed in the Gretchen home until it would hold no more. The general supervision of this home was placed in the hands of the English rector, the Rev. James Dennis, whose many acts of kindness and humanity among the poor had won for him the sobriquet of St. James, and with whom the interests of the children were safe as with a loving father.

'There is money enough—money enough,' said Arthur, when giving his instructions to the matron, a good-natured woman, who, he knew, would never abuse a child. 'Money enough; to give them something besides bread and water for breakfast, and mush and molasses for supper. Children like cookies and custard pie, and if there comes a circus to town let them go once in a while; it won't hurt them to see a little of the world.'