We and Our Neighbors: or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street

Eva had just been talking to this effect to Mary in the kitchen, and she came back into her parlor, to find there poor, fluttering, worried little Mrs. Betsey Benthusen, who had come in to bewail her prodigal son, of whom, for now three days and nights, no tidings had been heard.

"I came in to ask you, dear Mrs. Henderson, if anything has been heard from the advertising of Jack? I declare, I haven't been able to sleep since he went, I am so worried. I dare say you must think it silly of me," she said, wiping her eyes, "but I am just so silly. I really had got so fond of him – I feel so lonesome without him." "Silly, dear friend!" said Eva in her usual warm, impulsive way, "no, indeed; I think it's perfectly natural that you should feel as you do. I think, for my part, these poor dumb pets were given us to love; and if we do love them, we can't help feeling anxious about them when they are gone."

"You see," said Mrs. Betsey, "if I only knew – but I don't – if I knew just where he was, or if he was well treated; but then, Jack is a dog that has been used to kindness, and it would come hard to him to have to suffer hunger and thirst, and be kicked about and abused. I lay and thought about things that might happen to him, last night, till I fairly cried" – and the tears stood in the misty blue eyes of the faded little old gentlewoman, in attestation of the possibility. "I got so wrought up," she continued, "that I actually prayed to my Heavenly Father to take care of my poor Jack. Do you think that was profane, Mrs. Henderson? – I just could not help it."

"No, dear Mrs. Betsey, I don't think it was profane; I think it was just the most sensible thing you could do. You know our Saviour says that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father, and I'm sure Jack is a good deal larger than a sparrow."

"Well, I didn't tell Dorcas," said Mrs. Betsey, "because she thinks I'm foolish, and I suppose I am. I'm a broken-up old woman now, and I never had as much strength of mind as Dorcas, anyway. Dorcas has a very strong mind," said little Mrs. Betsey in a tone of awe; "she has tried all she could to strengthen mine, but she can't do much with me."

Just at this instant, Eva, looking through the window down street, saw Jim Fellows approaching, with Jack's head appearing above his shoulder in that easy, jaunty attitude with which the restored lamb is represented in a modern engraving of the Good Shepherd.

There he sat, to be sure, with a free and easy air of bright, doggish vivacity; perched aloft with his pink tongue hanging gracefully out of his mouth, and his great, bright eyes and little black tip of a nose gleaming out from the silvery thicket of his hair, looking anything but penitent for all the dismays and sorrows of which he had been the cause.

"Oh, Mrs. Betsey, do come here," cried Eva; "here is Jack, to be sure!"

"You don't say so! Why, so he is; that dear, good Mr. Fellows! how can I ever thank him enough!"

And, as Jim mounted the steps, Eva hastened to open the door in anticipation of the door-bell.

"Any dogs to-day, ma'am?" said Jim in the tone of a pedlar.

"Oh, Mrs. Henderson!" said Mrs. Betsey. But what further she said was lost in Jack's vociferous barking. He had recognized Mrs. Betsey and struggled down out of Jim's arms, and was leaping and capering and barking, overwhelming his mistress with obstreperous caresses, in which there was not the slightest recognition of any occasion for humility or penitence. Jack was forgiving Mrs. Betsey with all his might and main for all the trouble he had caused, and expressing his perfect satisfaction and delight at finding himself at home again.

"Well," said Jim, in answer to the numerous questions showered upon him, "the fact is that Dixon and I were looking up something to write about in a not very elegant or reputable quarter of New York, and suddenly, as we were passing one of the dance houses, that girl Maggie darted out with Jack in her arms, and calling after me by name, she said: 'This poor dog belongs to the people opposite Mrs. Henderson's. He has been stolen away, and won't you take him back?' I said I would, and then I said, 'Seems to me, Maggie, you'd better come back, too, to your mother, who is worrying dreadfully about you.' But she turned quickly and said, 'The less said about me the better,' and ran in."

"Oh, how dreadful that anybody should be so depraved at her age," said little Mrs. Betsey, complacently caressing Jack. "Mrs. Henderson, you have had a fortunate escape of her; you must be glad to get her out of your house. Well, I must hurry home with him and get him washed up, for he's in such a state! And do look at this ribbon! Would you know it ever had been a ribbon? it's thick with grease and dirt, and I dare say he's covered with fleas. O Jack, Jack, what trouble you have made me!"

And the little woman complacently took up her criminal, who went off on her shoulder with his usual waggish air of impudent assurance.

"See what luck it is to be a dog," said Jim. "Nobody would have half the patience with a ragamuffin boy, now!"

"But, seriously, Jim, what can be done about poor Maggie? I've promised her mother to get her back, if she could be discovered."

"Well, really she is in one of the worst drinking saloons of that quarter, kept by Mother Mogg, who is, to put the matter explicitly, a sort of she devil. It isn't a place where it would do for me or any of the boys to go. We are not calculated for missionary work in just that kind of field."

"Well, who can go? What can be done? I've promised Mary to save her. I'll go myself, if you'll show me the way."

"You, Mrs. Henderson? You don't know what you are talking about. You never could go there. It isn't to be thought of."

"But somebody must go, Jim; we can't leave her there."

"Well, now I think of it," said Jim, "there is a Methodist minister who has undertaken to set up a mission in just that part of the city. They bought a place that used to be kept for a rat-pit, and had it cleaned up, and they have opened a mission house, and have prayer-meetings and such things there. I'll look that thing up; perhaps he can find Maggie for you. Though I must say you are taking a great deal of trouble about this girl."

"Well, Jim, she has a mother, and her mother loves her as yours does you."

"By George, now, that's enough," said Jim. "You don't need to say another word. I'll go right about it, this very day, and hunt up this Mr. What's-his-name, and find all about this mission. I've been meaning to write that thing up this month or so."

CHAPTER XXXVI
LOVE IN CHRISTMAS GREENS

The little chapel in one of the out-of-the-way streets of New York presented a scene of Christmas activity and cheerfulness approaching to gaiety. The whole place was fragrant with the spicy smell of spruce and hemlock. Baskets of green ruffles of ground-pine were foaming over their sides with abundant contributions from the forest; and bright bunches of vermilion bitter-sweet, and the crimson-studded branches of the black alder, added color to the picture. Of real traditional holly, which in America is a rarity, there was a scant supply, reserved for more honorable decorations.

Mr. St. John had been busy in his vestry with paper, colors, and gilding, illuminating some cards with Scriptural mottoes. He had just brought forth his last effort and placed it in a favorable light for inspection. It is the ill-fortune of every successful young clergyman to stir the sympathies and enkindle the venerative faculties of certain excitable women, old and young, who follow his footsteps and regard his works and ways with a sort of adoring rapture that sometimes exposes him to ridicule if he accepts it, and which yet it seems churlish to decline. It is not generally his fault, nor exactly the fault of the women, often amiably sincere and unconscious; but it is a fact that this kind of besetment is more or less the lot of every clergyman, and he cannot help it. It is to be accepted as we accept any of the shadows which are necessary in the picture of life, and got along with by the kind of common sense with which we dispose of any of its infelicities.

Mr. St. John did little to excite demonstrations of this kind; but the very severity with which he held himself in reserve seemed rather to increase a kind of sacred prestige which hung around him, making of him a sort of churchly Grand Llama. When, therefore, he brought out his illuminated card, on which were inscribed in Anglo Saxon characters, there was a loud acclaim of "How lovely! how sweet!" with groans of intense admiration from Miss Augusta Gusher and Miss Sophronia Vapors, which was echoed in "ohs!" and "ahs!" from an impressible group of girls on the right and left.

 
"The Word was made flesh
And dwelt among us,"
 

Angelique stood quietly gazing on it, with a wreath of ground-pine dangling from her hand, but she said nothing.

Mr. St. John at last said, "And what do you think, Miss Van Arsdel?"

"I think the colors are pretty," Angie said, hesitating, "but" —

"But what?" said Mr. St. John, quickly.

"Well, I don't know what it means – I don't understand it."

Mr. St. John immediately read the inscription in concert with Miss Gusher, who was a very mediæval young lady and quite up to reading Gothic, or Anglo Saxon, or Latin, or any Churchly tongue.

"Oh!" was all the answer Angie made; and then, seeing something more was expected, she added again, "I think the effect of the lettering very pretty," and turned away, and busied herself with a cross of ground-pine that she was making in a retired corner.

The chorus were loud and continuous in their acclaims, and Miss Gusher talked learnedly of lovely inscriptions in Greek and Latin, offering to illuminate some of them for the occasion. Mr. St. John thanked her and withdrew to his sanctum, less satisfied than before.

About half an hour after, Angie, who was still quietly busy upon her cross in her quiet corner, under the shade of a large hemlock tree which had been erected there, was surprised to find Mr. St. John standing, silently observing her work.

"I like your work," he said, "better than you did mine."

"I didn't say that I didn't like yours," said Angie, coloring, and with that sort of bright, quick movement that gave her the air of a bird just going to fly.

"No, you did not say, but you left approbation unsaid, which amounts to the same thing. You have some objection, I see, and I really wish you would tell me frankly what it is."

"O Mr. St. John, don't say that! Of course I never thought of objecting; it would be presumptuous in me. I really don't understand these matters at all, not at all. I just don't know anything about Gothic letters and all that, and so the card doesn't say anything to me. And I must confess, I thought" —

Here Angie, like a properly behaved young daughter of the Church, began to perceive that her very next sentence might lead her into something like a criticism upon her rector; and she paused on the brink of a gulf so horrible, "with pious awe that feared to have offended."

Mr. St. John felt a very novel and singular pleasure in the progress of this interview. It interested him to be differed with, and he said, with a slight intonation of dictation:

"I must insist on your telling me what you thought, Miss Angie."

"Oh, nothing, only this – that if I, who have had more education than our Sunday-school scholars, can't read a card like that, why, they could not. I'm quite sure that an inscription in plain modern letters that I could read would have more effect upon my mind, and I am quite sure it would on them."

"I thank you sincerely for your frankness, Miss Angie; your suggestion is a valuable one."

"I think," said Angie, "that mediæval inscriptions, and Greek and Latin mottoes, are interesting to educated, cultivated people. The very fact of their being in another language gives a sort of piquancy to them. The idea gets a new coloring from a new language; but to people who absolutely don't understand a word, they say nothing, and of course they do no good; so, at least, it seems to me."

"You are quite right, Miss Angie, and I shall immediately put my inscription into the English of to-day. The fact is, Miss Angie," added St. John after a silent pause, "I feel more and more what a misfortune it has been to me that I never had a sister. There are so many things where a woman's mind sees so much more clearly than a man's. I never had any intimate female friend." Here Mr. St. John began assiduously tying up little bunches of the ground-pine in the form which Angie needed for her cross, and laying them for her.

Now, if Angie had been a sophisticated young lady, familiar with the tactics of flirtation, she might have had precisely the proper thing at hand to answer this remark; as it was, she kept on tying her bunches assiduously and feeling a little embarrassed.

It was a pity he should not have a sister, she thought. Poor man, it must be lonesome for him; and Angie's face at this moment must have expressed some commiseration or some emotion that emboldened the young man to say, in a lower tone, as he laid down a bunch of green by her:

"If you, Miss Angie, would look on me as you do on your brothers, and tell me sincerely your opinion of me, it might be a great help to me."

Now Mr. St. John was certainly as innocent and translucently ignorant of life as Adam at the first hour of his creation, not to know that the tone in which he was speaking and the impulse from which he spoke, at that moment, was in fact that of man's deepest, most absorbing feeling towards woman. He had made his scheme of life; and, as a set purpose, had left love out of it, as something too terrestrial and mundane to consist with the sacred vocation of a priest. But, from the time he first came within the sphere of Angelique, a strange, delicious atmosphere, vague and dreamy, yet delightful, had encircled him, and so perplexed and dizzied his brain as to cause all sorts of strange vibrations. At first, there was a sort of repulsion – a vague alarm, a suspicion and repulsion singularly blended with an attraction. He strove to disapprove of her; he resolved not to think of her; he resolutely turned his head away from looking at her in her place in Sunday-school and church, because he felt that his thoughts were alarmingly drawn in that direction.

Then came his invitation into society, of which the hidden charm, unacknowledged to himself, was that he should meet Angelique; and that mingling in society had produced, inevitably, modifying effects, which made him quite a different being from what he was in his recluse life passed between the study and the altar.

It is not in man, certainly not in a man so finely fibered and strung as St. John, to associate intimately with his fellows without feeling their forces upon himself, and finding many things in himself of which he had not dreamed.

But if there be in the circle some one female presence which all the while is sending out an indefinite though powerful enchantment, the developing force is still more marked.

St. John had never suspected himself of the ability to be so agreeable as he found himself in the constant reunions which, for one cause or another, were taking place in the little Henderson house. He developed a talent for conversation, a vein of gentle humor, a turn for versification, with a cast of thought rising into the sphere of poetry, and then, with Dr. Campbell and Alice and Angie, he formed no mean quartette in singing.

In all these ways he had been coming nearer and nearer to Angie, without taking the alarm. He remembered appositely what Montalembert in his history of the monks of the Middle Ages says of the female friendships which always exerted such a modifying power in the lives of celebrated saints; how St. Jerome had his Eudochia, and St. Somebody-else had a sister, and so on. And as he saw more and more of Angelique's character, and felt her practical efficiency in church work, he thought it would be very lovely to have such a friend all to himself. Now, friendship on the part of a young man of twenty-five for a young saint with hazel eyes and golden hair, with white, twinkling hands and a sweet voice, and an assemblage of varying glances, dimples and blushes, is certainly a most interesting and delightful relation; and Mr. St. John built it up and adorned it with all sorts of charming allegories and figures and images, making a sort of semi-celestial affair of it.

It is true, he had given up St. Jerome's love, and concluded that it was not necessary that his "heart's elect" should be worn and weary and wasted, or resemble a dying altar-fire; he had learned to admire Angie's blooming color and elastic step, and even to take an appreciative delight in the prettinesses of her toilette; and, one evening, when she dropped a knot of peach-blow ribbons from her bosom, the young divine had most unscrupulously appropriated the same, and, taking it home, gloated over it as a holy relic, and yet he never suspected that he was in love – oh, no! And, at this moment, when his voice was vibrating with that strange revealing power that voices sometimes have in moments of emotion, when the very tone is more than the words, he, poor fellow, was ignorant that his voice had said to Angie, "I love you with all my heart and soul."

But there is no girl so uninstructed and so inexperienced as not to be able to interpret a tone like this at once, and Angie at this moment felt a sort of bewildering astonishment at the revelation. All seemed to go round and round in dizzy mazes – the greens, the red berries – she seemed to herself to be walking in a dream, and Mr. St. John with her.

She looked up and their eyes met, and at that moment the veil fell from between them. His great, deep, blue eyes had in them an expression that could not be mistaken.

"Oh, Mr. St. John!" she said.

"Call me Arthur," he said, entreatingly.

"Arthur!" she said, still as in a dream.

"And may I call you Angelique, my good angel, my guide? Say so!" he added, in a rapid, earnest whisper, "say so, dear, dearest Angie!"

"Yes, Arthur," she said, still wondering.

"And, oh, love me," he added, in a whisper; "a little, ever so little! You cannot think how precious it will be to me!"

"Mr. St. John!" called the voice of Miss Gusher.

He started in a guilty way, and came out from behind the thick shadows of the evergreen which had concealed this little tête-à-tête. He was all of a sudden transformed to Mr. St. John, the rector – distant, cold, reserved, and the least bit in the world dictatorial. In his secret heart, Mr. St. John did not like Miss Gusher. It was a thing for which he condemned himself, for she was a most zealous and efficient daughter of the Church. She had worked and presented a most elegant set of altar-cloths, and had made known to him her readiness to join a sisterhood whenever he was ready to ordain one. And she always admired him, always agreed with him, and never criticised him, which perverse little Angie sometimes did; and yet ungrateful Mr. St. John was wicked enough at this moment to wish Miss Gusher at the bottom of the Red Sea, or in any other Scriptural situation whence there would be no probability of her getting at him for a season.

"I wanted you to decide on this decoration for the font," she said. "Now, there is this green wreath and this red cross of bitter-sweet. To be sure, there is no tradition about bitter-sweet; but the very name is symbolical, and I thought that I would fill the font with calla lilies. Would lilies at Christmas be strictly Churchly? That is my only doubt. I have always seen them appropriated to Easter. What should you say, Mr. St. John?"

"Oh, have them by all means, if you can," said Mr. St. John. "Christmas is one of the Church's highest festivals, and I admit anything that will make it beautiful."

Mr. St. John said this with a radiancy of delight which Miss Gusher ascribed entirely to his approbation of her zeal; but the heavens and the earth had assumed a new aspect to him since that little talk in the corner. For when Angie lifted her eyes, not only had she read the unutterable in his, but he also had looked far down into the depths of her soul, and seen something he did not quite dare to put into words, but in the light of which his whole life now seemed transfigured.

It was a new and amazing experience to Mr. St. John, and he felt strangely happy, yet particularly anxious that Miss Gusher and Miss Vapors, and all the other tribe of his devoted disciples, should not by any means suspect what had fallen out; and therefore it was that he assumed such a cheerful zeal in the matter of the font and decorations.

Meanwhile, Angie sat in her quiet corner, like a good little church mouse, working steadily and busily on her cross. Just as she had put in the last bunch of bitter-sweet, Mr. St. John was again at her elbow.

"Angie," he said, "you are going to give me that cross. I want it for my study, to remember this morning by."

"But I made it for the front of the organ."

"Never mind. I can put another there; but this is to be mine," he said, with a voice of appropriation. "I want it because you were making it when you promised what you did. You must keep to that promise, Angie."

"Oh, yes, I shall."

"And I want one thing more," he said, lifting Angie's little glove, where it had fallen among the refuse pieces.

"What! – my glove? Is not that silly?"

"No, indeed."

"But my hands will be cold."

"Oh, you have your muff. See here: I want it," he said, "because it seems so much like you, and you don't know how lonesome I feel sometimes."

Poor man! Angie thought, and she let him have the glove. "Oh," she said, apprehensively, "please don't stay here now. I hear Miss Gusher calling for you."

"She is always so busy," said he, in a tone of discontent.

"She is so good," said Angie, "and does so much."

"Oh, yes, good enough," he said, in a discontented tone, retreating backward into the shadow of the hemlock, and so finding his way round into the body of the church.

But there is no darkness or shadow of death where a handsome, engaging young rector can hide himself so that the truth about him will not get into the bill of some bird of the air.

The sparrows of the sanctuary are many, and they are particularly wide awake and watchful.

Miss Gusher had been witness of this last little bit of interview; and, being a woman of mature experience, versed in the ways of the world, had seen, as she said, through the whole matter.

"Mr. St. John is just like all the rest of them, my dear," she said to Miss Vapors, "he will flirt, if a girl will only let him. I saw him just now with that Angie Van Arsdel. Those Van Arsdel girls are famous for drawing in any man they happen to associate with."

"You don't say so," said Miss Vapors; "what did you see?"

"Oh, my dear, I sha'n't tell; of course, I don't approve of such things, and it lowers Mr. St. John in my esteem, – so I'd rather not speak of it. I did hope he was above such things."

"But do tell me, did he say anything?" said Miss Vapors, ready to burst in ignorance.

"Oh, no. I only saw some appearances and expressions – a certain manner between them that told all. Sophronia Vapors, you mark my words: there is something going on between Angie Van Arsdel and Mr. St. John. I don't see, for my part, what it is in those Van Arsdel girls that the men see; but, sure as one of them is around, there is a flirtation got up."

"Why, they're not so very beautiful," said Miss Vapors.

"Oh, dear, no. I never thought them even pretty; but then, you see, there's no accounting for those things."

And so, while Mr. St. John and Angie were each wondering secretly over the amazing world of mutual understanding that had grown up between them, the rumor was spreading and growing in all the band of Christian workers.