A Daily Rate (5 page)

“FOR the land sake! Yes,” said Mrs. Morris, turning wearily on her pillow, “do what you please with it. I wish it was a good one. I’d like to afford a real good one

with a silk shade with lace on it, but I can’t. There’s lots ought to be done here, but there’s no use talking about it. I’m clean discouraged anyway. I wish I could sell out, bag and baggage, and go to the poorhouse.”

“Oh, Mrs. Morris, don’t talk that way!” said Celia, brightly. “You’ll get well pretty soon. Don’t think about that now. We’ll try to keep things in order till you are

able to see to them yourself. And meantime, I believe I can make that lamp work beautifully. I’ll come back by and by and report progress. Now eat that porridge. I know it can’t hurt you. The doctor told me it would be good for you._ I made it myself, and it’s just such as aunt Hannah used to make for sick people. There’s nothing like twice boiled flour porridge. Is is seasoned right? There’s the salt.”

Then she flitted downstairs to the lamp.

Young Mr. Knowles was already on hand with the new wick he had purchased at the corner grocery, having carefully taken the measure of the burner.

Celia with experienced hand soon had the lamp burning brightly. Frank Hartley, the University student, had been attracted by the unusual light and declared he would bring his books down to the parlor for a while. It was cold as a barn in his room anyway. He and Harry

Knowles stood by watching with admiring eyes, as Celia’s fingers, now washed from the oil of the lamp, manipulated the pretty rose-colored paper into a shade, and when it was done, with a gathering string, a smoothing out on the edges and a pucker and twist here and there, and then a band and bow of the crepe paper, it all had looked so simple that they marveled at the beauty of the graceful fall of ruffles, like the petals of some lovely flower.

She put the promised book in Harry Knowles’ hand, a paper-covered copy of “In His Steps,” and saying she would come down later to see what he thought of the story, she slipped away to Mrs. Morris’ room. She must get time to write to aunt Hannah sometime to-night about her visit to the lawyers, for aunt Hannah might have some evidence which would serve her in good stead, but this duty to the sick woman came first. She turned her head as she left the room and saw the two young men settling themselves in evident comfort around the bright lamp. The school-teacher, George Osborn, came in the front door just then, and catching the rosy light from the room stepped in, looked around surprised, then hung up his hat and went in to stand a minute before the register to warm his hands. It was a touch of cheer he had not expected. Presently he went upstairs and brought down a pile of reports he must make out, and seated himself with the other two around that light.

Celia upstairs was telling Mrs. Morris about the lamp, how well it burned, and giving a glowing account of the three young men seated around it. Mrs. Morris listened astonished.

“Well, I’ve told them boys time an’ again that they ought to stay at home, but they never would before. It must be some sort of a spell you’ve worked on them. Of course, that teacher he stays up in his room a lot. But he’s trying to support his mother and put his brother through college, and you can’t expect much of him. He’ll just give himself up entirely to them and that’ll be the end of his life. There’s always some folks in this world have to be sacrificed to a few others. It’s the way things are. I’m one of those meself, though the land knows who’s the better for me being sacrificed. It does seem as if I had had to give up every blessed thing I ever tried for in my life. Just set down a while. I feel a little easier this evening and I’ve been a-doing a powerful lot of worrying all day. I haven’t a soul to advise me that knows anything. You seem to be made out of good stuff, and you’ve been real good to me, and I just wish you’d tell me what you think I ought to do.”

Celia sat down. She wondered what could be coming next. It was strange to have her advice asked this way. Coming out into the world alone to earn one’s living places a great many responsibilities upon one sometimes. She felt very incapable of advising. She felt she had not wisdom to settle her own life, let alone another’s, and one so much older than herself, that it would seem as if experience ought to have taught her much. But she tried to be sympathetic, and told Mrs. Morris to tell her all about it, and she would do the best she could. In her heart she prayed the Father that she might have the wisdom to answer wisely.

“Well, you see it’s this way. I’m just deep down in debt. I told you that before. It’s been going on worse and worse every year, and every year I’d hope by the next to make the two ends meet somehow. But they never did.

I’ve cut down and cut down. And then I got left two or three times by boarders going off without paying what they owed after I had trusted them a long time. There was that Mr. Perry now, he left that old rickety organ. It was well enough to have an organ for the boarders, but you see I couldn’t afford to have one. 111 could have, I’d have bought a new one, you know. Well, things like that have happened time and again. Once a woman who recited pieces for a living came into the house. She had a lot of dirty satin clothes, and afterward she left quite suddenly and I never knew she was gone till a man came for her trunk. Of course I got the trunk for her board. She had been here two months and only paid one week’s board, kept putting mc off and off. When I had that trunk sold at auction it brought me in just one dollar and sixty-two cents. What do you think of that? And she had the second story front alone too; and airs, why she’d have her breakfast sent up every morning about ten o’clock. She made mc think she was a great woman. Well, I learned better. But it does seem as though I’ve had more trouble with folks. There was the time the woman was here with her little girl, and the child took scarlet fever and the Board of Health came in and sent everybody off, and scared them so ‘twas a long time before I could get them back. Well, there’s been a plenty of other things just like that. You don’t wonder, do you, that I’m in debt? The worst out is it’s been getting worse and worse. That Maggie just wastes everything she lays her hands on, and I don’t know’s I’d better myself any if I tried to get somebody else. There’s always changes and new things to buy. Now what would you do? You see it’s this way. I’ve got a sister out west that lives by herself in a little village. She’s a widow and she’s got enough to live on, and she’s written to me to come out and live with her, and she thinks I could get a little sewing now and then, and I could help her in her house. I can’t ask her for money, for I haven’t got the face to, having asked her once before. Besides, she’s not one to give out and out that way, even if she could afford to, which I guess she can’t, though she’d be willing and glad to give me a home with her. I’m too proud to borrow what I know I never could pay, and I won’t skip out here as some would and leave me debts behind me. I’m honest, whatever else I ain’t. Now what would you do? No, I don’t own this house; if I did I’d been bankrupt long ago with the repairs it needs, that I couldn’t get out of the landlord. But I took it for the rest of the year, and the lease doesn’t run out till April, so you see I’m in for that. It’s just the same old story. ‘A little more money to buy more land, to plant more corn, to feed more hogs, to get more money, to buy more land, to feed more hogs.’ Only, I always had a little less of everything each time. Now Miss Murray, what would you do if it was you?”

“Haven’t you anything at all to pay with? No,”—she hesitated for a word and the one she had heard that day came to her—”Haven’t you any property of any sort? Nothing you could sell?”

Celia was always practical. She wanted to know where she stood before she gave any advice. Mrs. Morris looked at her a moment in a dazed way, trying to think if there was anything at all.

“No, not a thing except my husband’s watch and this old furniture. I suppose I might sell out me business, but nobody would buy it and I’d pity ’em, poor things, if they did.”

She talked a long time with the woman, trying to find out about boarding-houses and how they were run. Before she was through she began to have some inkling of the reason why Mrs. Morris had failed in business and was so deeply in debt. She was only a girl, young and without experience, but she felt sure she could have avoided some of the mistakes which had been the cause of Mrs. Morris’ trouble. Finally, she said in answer to the twentieth “What would you do if you were me?”

“Mrs. Morris, I don’t quite know till I have thought about it. I will think and tell you to-morrow, perhaps, or the next day. It seems to me though, that I would stop right now and not run on and get more deeply in debt. That cannot better matters. I think somebody might buy your things, and—some way might be found for you to pay your debts,—but in the first place, you must get well, and we’ll do the very best we can to get on here till you are well enough to know what you will do. Now may I read to you just a few words? And then you ought to go to sleep. Just you rest your mind about all those things, and I promise you I will try to think of something that will help you.”

She turned to the little Bible she had brought in with her and read a few verses in the fourteenth chapter of John “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me.”

She was very tired when she reached her room that night. The letter she intended to write to aunt Hannah was still unwritten. The book she had taken from the public library to read was lying on her bureau untouched. She had been bearing the burdens of other people, and the day had been full of excitement and hard work. She threw herself on her bed, so nervously tired that she felt convulsive sobs rising in her throat. What had she done? She had promised to think up some way to help Mrs. Morris. Mrs. Morris was nothing to her, why should she take this upon herself? And yet she knew, as she asked herself these questions, that she had felt all along that God had as truly called her to help that poor woman as ever he had called her to sell ribbons for Dobson and Co., or to help aunt Hannah with the mending. She had not wanted to do it, either. It was very unpleasant work, indeed, in many ways, and had required sacrifices of which she had not dreamed when she began. There was the pretty lampshade she was planning to have. She had given that up for the general good of the house. Now, when she got the lamp she intended to buy at a cheap sale somewhere, she would have to wait till she could afford more paper and a frame for her shade. Well, never mind! She surely was repaid for that act, for those young men had enjoyed it. How much pleasure a little thing can give! How many things there were about that house which might be easily done to make things brighter and pleasanter, and how much she would enjoy doing them,—if aunt Hannah were only here! How nice it would be if she had some money and could buy Mrs. Morris out and help the poor thing to get off to her relatives, and then get work and make that house cheerful and beautiful and a true home for its present inmates. How aunt Hannah would enjoy that work too! It was just such work as would fulfill that good woman’s highest dreams of a beautiful vocation in life.

Suddenly Celia sat bolt upright on the hard little bed, and stared at the opposite wall with a thoughtful, and yet energetic expression on her face.

“What if it should!” she said aloud. “What if there should be some money, say as much as a thousand dollars, and maybe a little over, for an allowance lest we might run behind. Wouldn’t that be grand! Oh, you dear old uncle Abner, if it proves true, and if you up in heaven can see, I hope you know how happy you’ll make several people. I’ll do it, I surely will! And aunt Hannah shall come and run the house and be the housekeeper, and maybe we can get old Molly, for I’m certain we never could do a thing with that Maggie, she’s so terribly dirty, and Molly would leave anywhere to be with aunt Hannah! There now, I’m talking just as if I was a ‘millionairess’ and could spend my millions. I ought not to have thought of this, for it will turn my head. I shall be so disappointed when Mr. Rawley tells me, to-morrow or next day, that I’m not myself, or that the property is some old hen house and a family cat, that I’m afraid I shall not be properly thankful for the cat. I wonder if it isn’t just as bad to take up the happy crosses for the coming year as the uncomfortable ones. I wonder how that is. I must think about it. Meanwhile, aunt Hannah must be written to, for Mr. Rawley wanted those marriage certificates she has, and somehow I feel quite happy.” She sprang from the bed and jumped around her room in such a lively fashion that Miss Burns who roomed below wondered what was the matter.

Writing to her aunt sobered her down somewhat. She began to think of herself a little.

“Celia Murray, do you know what you are doing?” This was what she heard whispered to her from behind. “You have come to the city to earn your living, and you have come here to board, not to nurse sick landladies, nor to become a guardian angel for stray young men, nor to exercise the virtue of benevolence. You must think of yourself, somewhat. How in the world will you ever be fit for your work if you spend so much time and energy on working for other people and staying up nights? Had you better seek out another boarding-house? There must be plenty in this city, and probably if you looked about a little you might find one where you would have more conveniences and a better room and board. Leave Mrs. Morris to get along the best way she can. You are not responsible for her. She is a grown woman and ought to know enough to take care of herself. Anyway, she is only suffering the consequences of her foolishness. Better try to-morrow to find another boarding-house.”

Yet, even as Celia heard these words spoken in a tempting voice, she knew she would not go. She was not made of that kind of stuff. Besides she was interested. Whatever her cross for the coming week was to be, it would not be one to her to remain here now and help work out God’s plans, if she might be permitted so to do.

“And if it might only please my King to lift my head up out of prison and set me up where I might help others in this boarding-house, I would try to make as good a use of my liberty and my allowance as Jehoiachin did. I wonder what he did do with his allowance anyway. And it must have been such a pleasant thing to him to know, to fully understand that his allowance would not fail all the days of his life. I wonder if he got downhearted sometimes, and feared lest Evilmerodach might die and leave him in the lurch, or whether he might turn against him some day. Now with me it is so different. My King is all-powerful. What he has promised, I know he will perform. I need never dread his dying, for he is everlasting. I can trust him perfectly to give me an allowance all the days of my life of whatever I need. And yet, daily and hourly I distrust, and fear and tremble, and dread lest I may be left hungry someday. What a strange contradiction, what an ungrateful, untrustful, unworthy child of the King I am.”