by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER IX.
HOPE AND HAVE.
Fanny got out of the horse car at the Park. She was in the midst of thegreat city, but she felt no interest in the moving, driving scenearound her, for the thought of poor Jenny still engrossed her. She hadeven forgotten Mr. Long, and the dreaded policemen who might be on thewatch for her. This was the good time for which she had stolen themoney and run away from her happy home at Woodville. It was a mockery,and she even wished she had been caught before she left Pennville.
It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, though hours enough seemed tohave elapsed since she left Woodville to make a week. She had eatennothing but an ice-cream since breakfast, and she was faint from theexcitement and the exertion of the day. She found a saloon for ladies,and entered; but the nice things of which she had dreamed in themorning no longer existed for her. She ate a simple dinner, and walkeddown Broadway till she came to the Museum, which she had regarded as animportant element in the enjoyment of her week in the city.
She paid the admission fee, and went in. She wandered from room to roomamong the curiosities, hardly caring for anything she saw, till shecame to the exhibition-room, where plays were acted. She had never seena play performed, and she had looked forward with brilliantanticipations to the pleasure of seeing one. She was disappointed, forit had not entered into her calculation that a clean conscience isnecessary for the full enjoyment of anything. The actors and theactresses strutted their brief hour before her; but to her the play wasincomprehensible and silly. It had no meaning, and even the funnythings which the low comedian said and did could not make her laugh.Before the performance was half finished, she had enough of it, andleft the place in disgust.
Jenny Kent was rapturously happy, dying in a hovel, in the midst ofpoverty and want, while she was miserable with health and strength,with plenty to eat, drink, and wear. Fanny tried to shake off thestrange depression which had so suddenly come over her. She had neverbeen troubled with any such thoughts and feelings before. If she hadoccasionally been sorry for her wrong acts, it was only a momentarytwinge, which hardly damped her spirits. She was weighed down to theearth, and she could not rid herself of the burden that oppressed her.She wanted to go into some dark corner and cry. She felt that it woulddo her good to weep, and to suffer even more than she had yet beencalled upon to endure.
"I'll bear your name to heaven with me," had been the words of thedying girl to Fanny; but what a reproach her name would be to the pureand good of the happy land! In some manner, not evident to our humansight, or understood by our human minds, the words of Jenny had giventhe wayward girl a full view of herself--had turned her thoughts inupon the barrenness of her own heart. Her wrong acts, so trivial to herbefore, were now magnified into mountains, and the crime she hadcommitted that morning was so monstrous and abominable that sheabhorred herself for it.
In spite of the reproaches which every loving word of the dying girlhurled into the conscience of Fanny, there was a strange andunaccountable fascination in the languid look of the sweet sufferer.Wherever she turned, Jenny seemed to be looking at her with a glancefull of heaven, while the black waters of her own soul rose up to chokeher.
Fanny struggled to get rid of these strange thoughts, but she couldnot; and she was compelled to give herself wholly up to them.Something, she knew not what, drew her irresistibly towards the dyinggirl, and she started up Broadway to find the flowers she had promisedto carry to her. In a shop window she saw what she wanted. The flowerswere of the rarest and most costly kinds; but nothing was too good forJenny, and she paid four dollars for a bouquet. In another store shepurchased some jelly and other delicacies such as she had seen theladies at Woodville send to sick people. Thus prepared to meet thedying girl, she took a horse car, and by six o'clock reached the humbleabode of Mrs. Kent.
"How is Jenny?" asked she, as she entered the house, without theceremony of knocking.
"She don't seem so well this afternoon," replied Mrs. Kent.
"Does she have a doctor?"
"Not now; we had one a while ago, but he said he could do nothing forher."
"Don't you think we had better have one?"
"He might do something to make her easy, but Jenny don't complain. Shenever speaks of her pains."
"I have come to stay all night with Jenny, if you are willing Ishould," continued Fanny, doubtfully.
"You are very kind."
"I will only sit by her; I won't talk to her."
"I should be very glad to have you stay; and Jenny thinks ever so muchof you."
"If you please, I will go after a doctor."
Mrs. Kent consented, and Fanny, after sending in her bouquet, went fora physician whose name she had seen on a fine house near Central Park,judging from the style in which he lived that he must be a great man.She found him at home, and he consented to return with her to Mrs.Kent's house. He examined Jenny very carefully, and prescribed somemedicine which might make her more comfortable. He did not pretend thathe could do anything more for her, and he told Fanny that the sufferercould not live many days, and might pass away in a few hours. Fannyoffered him his fee; he blushed, and peremptorily refused it.Physicians who live in fine houses are often kinder to the poor thanthe charlatans who prey upon the lowest strata of society.
Fanny procured the medicine which the kind-hearted doctor hadprescribed, and administered it with her own hands. Jenny gave her sucha sweet smile of grateful encouragement, that she was sorry there wasnothing else to be done for her.
"Now sit down, Fanny, and let me take your hand. I feel better to-nightthan I have felt for a long time."
"I am glad you do," replied Fanny.
"You have made me so happy!"
"I wish I was as good as you are, Jenny," said Fanny, struggling withthe emotions which surged through her soul.
"You are better than I am."
"O, no!"
"You are an angel! You have been as good as you could be. Fanny, weshall meet in heaven, for I feel just as though I could not live manydays. We shall be friends there, if we cannot long be here."
"I hope you will get better," added Fanny, because she could think ofnothing else to say.
"No, I may die before morning, Fanny; but I am ready. You are sogood----"
"O, Jenny! I am not good! I cannot deceive you any longer!" exclaimedFanny, bursting into tears.
"Now I know that you are good. The blessed Bible says, 'He thathumbleth himself shall be exalted.' I'm glad you don't think you aregood."
"But I am not good, indeed I am not," sobbed Fanny.
"Don't weep, dear Fanny. I know how you feel; I have felt just somyself, when it seemed to me I was so wicked I couldn't live."
"You don't know how wicked I have been; what monstrous things I havedone," added Fanny, covering her face with her hands. "If you knew, youwould despise me."
"You wrong yourself, Fanny. Such a good, kind heart as you have wouldnot let you do anything very bad."
"I have done what was very bad, Jenny; I have been the worst girl inthe whole world; but I am so sorry!"
"I know you are. If you have done anything wrong,--we all do wrongsometimes,--you could not help being sorry. Your heart is good."
"Shall I tell you what I did?" asked Fanny, in a low and doubtful tone.
"O, no! Don't tell me; tell it to God. He will pity and forgive youbecause you are really sorry."
"You would despise me if you knew how wicked I have been. It was seeingyou, and thinking how good you are, which made me feel that I had donewrong."
"I'm sure, after all you have done for mother and for me, I can't helpbelieving that you are an angel. I love you, and I know that you aregood."
"I mean to be good, Jenny. From this time I shall try to do better thanI ever did before."
"Then you will be, Fanny."
"I don't think I ever tried to be good, but I shall now," replied thepenitent girl, as she wiped away her tears.
Jenny seemed to be weary, and Fanny sat by the bedside
gazing insilence at her beautiful and tranquil expression. The sufferer waslooking at the rich flowers of the bouquet, which had been placed on astand at the side of the bed. They were a joy to her, a connecting linkbetween the beautiful of heaven and the beautiful of earth.
"Will you sing me a hymn, Fanny?" asked the sick girl, without removingher gaze from the flowers.
Without any other reply to the question, Fanny immediately sang thisverse:--
"If God hath made this world so fair, Where sin and death abound, How beautiful, beyond compare, Will Paradise be found!"
"How beautiful!" murmured Jenny, her eyes still fixed upon the flowers."Will you take out that moss-rose, Fanny, and let me hold it in myhand?"
Fanny gave her the flower, and then sang another hymn. For an hour shecontinued to sing, and Jenny listened to the sweet melodies, entrancedand enraptured by the visions of heaven which filled her soul. Then sheasked Fanny to read to her from the Bible, indicating the book andchapter, which was the eighth chapter of Romans.
"'For we are saved by hope,'" Fanny read.
"Now, stop a moment: 'For we are saved by hope,'" said the sufferer."Do you know what the emblem of Hope is, Fanny?"
"An anchor."
"Will you hand me that little box on the table?"
Fanny passed the box to her, and she took from it a little goldbreastpin, in the form of an anchor.
"This was given to me by my father when I was a little girl. MySunday-school teacher told me years ago what an anchor was the emblemof, and told me at the same time to remember the verse you have justread--'For we are saved by hope.' That anchor has often reminded mewhat was to save me from sin. Fanny, I will give you this breastpin toremember me by."
"I shall never forget you, Jenny, as long as I live!" said Fanny,earnestly.
"But when you remember me, I want you to think what the anchor means.You say you are not good, but I know you are. You mean to be good, youhope to be good; and that will make you good. Do you know we can alwayshave what we hope for, if it is right that we should have it? What wedesire most we labor the hardest for. If you really and truly wish tobe good, you will be good."
Fanny took the breastpin. If it had been worth thousands of dollars, itwould not have been more precious to her. It was the gift of the lovingand gentle being who was soon to be transplanted from earth to heaven;of the beautiful girl who had influenced her as she had never beeninfluenced before; who had lifted her soul into a new atmosphere. Sheplaced it upon her bosom, and resolved never to part with it as long asshe lived.
"Hope and have, Fanny," said Jenny, when she had rested for a time."Hope for what is good and true, and you shall have it; for if youreally desire it, you will be sure to labor and to struggle for it."
"Hope and have," repeated Fanny. "Your anchor shall mean this to me.Jenny, I feel happier already, for I really and truly mean to be good.But I think I ought to tell you how wicked I am."
"No, don't tell me; tell your mother."
"I have no mother."
"Then you are poorer than I am."
"And no father."
"Poor Fanny! Then you have had no one to tell you how to be good."
"Yes, I have the kindest and best of friends; but I have been veryungrateful."
"They will forgive you, for you are truly sorry."
"Perhaps they will."
"I know they will."
Jenny was weary again, and Fanny sang in her softest and sweetest tonesonce more. It was now the twilight of a long summer day, and Mrs. Kent,having finished her household duties, came into the room. Soon after,the sufferer was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which seemed toweaken and reduce her beyond the possibility of recovery. When it lefther, she could not speak aloud.
"I am going, mother," said she, a little later. "Fanny!"
"I am here," replied Fanny, almost choked with emotion.
"We shall meet in heaven," said the dying one. "Have you been verynaughty?"
"I have," sobbed Fanny.
Jenny asked for paper and pencil, and when her mother had raised her onthe bed, she wrote, with trembling hand, these words:--
"_Please to forgive Fanny, for the sake of her dying friend, Jenny Kent._"
"Take this, Fanny: God will forgive you."
It was evident to the experienced eye of Mrs. Kent that Jenny was goingfrom earth. The sufferer lay with her gaze fixed upon the ceiling, andher hands clasped, as in silent prayer. She seemed to be communing withthe angels. She struggled for breath, and her mother watched her in themost painful anxiety.
"Good by, mother," said she, at last. "Good by, Eddy: I'm going home."
Mrs. Kent took her offered hand, and kissed her, struggling all thetime to be calm. Little Eddy was raised up to the bed, and kissed hisdeparting sister.
"Fanny," gasped she, extending her trembling hand.
Fanny took the hand.
"Good by."
"Good by, Jenny," she answered, awed and trembling with agitation atthe impressive scene.
The dying girl closed her eyes. But a moment after she pressed the handof Fanny, and murmured,--
"HOPE AND HAVE."
She was silent then; her bosom soon ceased to heave; the ransomedspirit rose from the pain-encumbered body, and soared away to itsangel-home!
