she's mother," said the boy, simply, lifting his dark, earnest eyes again to that set, rigid face; "she is in that old house over there, and she – is going to die."
His lip quivered, his eyes filled and saddened, and he drew a long, shivering breath, and swallowed very fast to keep back his tears. Brave little heart! hiding his own grief lest it might offend that sour-looking gorgon and keep her from visiting "mother."
Miss Jerusha's face did not relax a muscle as she kept her steely eyes fixed unwinkingly on that sad, downcast young face. It was a handsome face, too, in spite of its pinched, famished look; and Miss Jerusha, to use her own expression, "couldn't abide" handsome people.
"And what brings your mother to that old house that ain't fit for a well-brought-up dog to die in, let alone, a 'sponsible member o' society?" asked Miss Jerusha, sharply.
"Please, ma'am, we hadn't any place else to go."
"Oh, you hadn't! I thought all along that was the sort of folks you was!" sneered the old lady; "there allers is tramps about, dropping down and dying in the most unheard-of places. There, be off with you now! I make a pint o' never encouraging beggars or shif'less char-ak-ters. I hain't got nothin' for your mother, and I ain't a public nuss, though people seems for to think I'm paid by the corporation for seein' sick folks out of the world. There! go!"
"Oh! please come and see mother! indeed, indeed we ain't beggars, but mother was so tired and sick she could not go any farther, and now she is dying there all alone with only sis. Oh, please do come," and the childish voice grew sharp and wild in its pleading agony.
The heart beating within Miss Jerusha's vestal corset was touched for a moment, and then arose thoughts of vagrants, impostors, and "shif'less" characters generally, and the heart was stilled again; the voice that answered his pleading cry was high and angry.
"I won't, you little limb! Be off! It's my opinion your mother ain't no better than she ought to be, or she wouldn't come a dying round promiscuously in such a way. There! March!"
With an angry jerk, the door was pulled open, and the long, lean finger of the spinster pointed out.
Without a word he turned to go, but as he passed from the inhospitable threshold the large dark, solemn eyes were lifted to hers with a long look of unutterable reproach; then the door was closed after him with a sharp bang, and securely bolted.
"Shif'less vagabones," muttered Miss Jerusha; "ought to be whipped as long as they can stand! Well, he's gone, and he didn't get much out of me anyway."
Yes, Miss Jerusha, he has gone, but when will the haunting memory of that last look of unspeakable reproach go too? It rose like a remorseful ghost before her as she stood moodily gazing on the red spot that glowed like an eye of flame on the top of the hot little kitchen stove – that furnished sorrowful childish face – those dark, sad, pitiful eyes – that silent reproach, far keener than any words.
Miss Jerusha strove to still the rebellious voice of conscience and persuade herself she had done exactly right, but never in all her life had she felt so dissatisfied with her own conduct before. As usual, when people are irritated with themselves, she felt doubly irritated with everybody else; so, by way of relieving her mind, she boxed Fly's ears, and kicked Betsey Periwinkle, who came purring affectionately around her, to the other end of the room. And then, with her temper no way sweetened by those little marks of endearment, she tramped back to the best room, and dropped sullenly into a comfortable seat by the fire.
But owing to some cause or another, the seat was comfortable no longer. Miss Jerusha turned and twisted, and jerked herself round into every possible position, and "pooh'd" and "pshaw'd," and listened to Fly, who, out in the kitchen, had lifted up her voice and wept, and ordered her fiercely to bring in tea and hold her tongue. And poor little ill-used Fly brought it in, dropping tears into the sugar-bowl, and cream-jug, and "apple sass," and snuffling in great mental and bodily distress. And then Miss Jerusha sat down to supper, and great and mighty was the eating thereof; but still the canker within grew sorer and sorer, and would not be forgotten. Do what she would, turn which way she might, that sorrowful, childish face would rise before her like a waking nightmare. Conscience, that "still, small voice," would persist in making itself heard, until at last Miss Jerusha turned ferociously round and told conscience to mind his own business, that "she wasn't going to be fooled by no baby-faced little vagabones." And then, resuming her work, she sat down with grim determination, and knit and knit, and still the steam within got up to a high pressure, until Miss Jerusha got into a state of mind, between remorse and conscience and the heat of the fire, threatening spontaneous combustion.
Woe to the man, woman, or child who would have presumed to cross Miss Jerusha in her present mood! Safer would it have been to
"Beard the lion in his den,
The Douglas in his hall,"
than the young tornado pent up within the hermetically sealed lips of Miss Jerusha Glory Ann Skamp at that moment.
But all would not do. Louder and louder that clamorous voice arose, until the aged spinster bounded up in a rage, flung her knitting across the room, and, striding across to the hall, returned with an immense gray woolen mantle, a thick black silk quilted hood, a red woolen comforter, and a pair of men's strong calf-skin boots. Flinging herself into a seat, Miss Jerusha, with two or three savage pulls, jerked these on, and having by this means got rid of some of the superfluous steam, burst out into the following complimentary strain to herself:
"Jerusha Glory Ann Skamp, it's my opinion you're a nat'ral born fool, and nothin' shorter! Ain't you ashamed of yourself in your 'spectable old age o' life to go trampin' and vanderblowsin' through the streets at sich onchristian hours of the night to look arter wagrets as ought for to look arter theirselves? I'm 'shamed of you, Jerusha Skamp, and you ought to be 'shamed o' yourself, going on with sich reg'lar downright, ondecent conduct. Don't tell me bout that there little fellar's looks! He's an impostor like the rest, and has done you brown beautifully, Miss Jerusha, as you'll soon find out. 'A fool o' forty 'll never be wise!' To think that Jerusha Skamp should be took in by a boy's looks at your age o' life! His looks! fudge! stuff! nonsense! You're nothing but a old simpleton – that there's what you are, Miss Jerusha! Here you, Fly! you derned little black monkey you!"
Thus pathetically adjured, Fly, in a very limp state of mind and body, caused probably by the showers of tears so lately shed, appeared in the door-way, her eyes full of tears and her mouth full of corn-cake.
"Here, you Fly, I'm going out, and you and Betsey Periwinkle has got for to sit up for me. Give Betsey her supper, and see that you don't fall asleep and set the house afire."
"Yes'm," said Fly, in a nearly inaudible voice, as she returned to her supper.
Then Miss Jerusha, putting a small flask of currant wine in her pocket, wrapped her thick, warm mantle around her, and her hood closely over her face, and resolutely stepped out into the wild, angry storm.
CHAPTER II
THE ACTRESS – LITTLE GEORGIA
"Death is the crown of life."
"She was a strange and willful sprite
As ever startled human sight."
The road to the old house was as familiar to Miss Jerusha as a road could well be to any one, yet she found it extremely difficult to make her way to it to-night. The piercing sleet dashed into her very eyes, blinding her, as she floundered on, and the raw, cutting wind penetrated even the warm folds of her thick woolen mantle. Now and then she would have to stop and catch hold of a tree, to brace her body against the fierce, cutting blasts, and then, with bent head and closed eyes, plunge on through the huge snow-heaps and thick drifts.
She had not fully realized the violence of the storm until now, and she thought, with a sharp pang of remorse, of the slight, delicate child she had turned from her door to brave its pitiless fury.
"Poor little feller! poor little feller!" thought Miss Jerusha, piteously. "Lor', what a nasty old dragon I am, to be sure! Should admire to know where I'll go to, if I keep on like this. Yar-r! you thought you did it, didn't you? Just see