Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  We all know that we can walk with a cool head across a narrow plank only one foot from the ground. But put the plank across a chasm a thousand feet in depth, and the head swims. We have the same capacity in both cases; but, in the latter, the awfulness of the risk induces a nervous anxiety that amounts to a paralysis of the will.

  Don’t, therefore, let this dread grow on you by the horror of lonely brooding. Treat it as you would the liability to any other disease, openly, rationally, and hopefully; and keep yourself in the daily light and warmth of sympathetic intercourse with friends who understand you and can help you. There are Eva and Harry — noble, true friends, indebted to you for many favors, and devoted to you with a loyal faithfulness. Let their faith and mine in you strengthen your belief in yourself. And don’t, above all things, take any load of responsibility about my happiness, and talk about being the blight and shadow on my life. I trust I am learning that we were sent into this world, not to clamor for happiness, but to do our part in a life-work. What matter is it whether I am happy or not, if I do my part? I know all the risks and all the dangers that come from being identified, heart and soul, with the life of another as I am with yours. I know the risks, and am ready to face them. I am ready to live for you and die for you, and count it all joy to the last.

  I was much touched by what you said of those who have died defeated yet fighting. Yes, it is my belief that many a poor soul who has again and again failed in the conflict has yet put forth more effort, practiced more self-denial, than hundreds of average Christians; and He who knows what the trial is will judge each one tenderly — that is to say, justly.

  But for you there must be a future, even in this life. I am assured of it, and you must believe it; you must believe with my faith, and hope in my hope. Come what will, I am, heart and soul and forever,

  Yours,

  CAROLINE.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  THE SISTERS OF ST. BARNABAS

  WHO was St. Barnabas? We are told in the book of the Acts of the Apostles that he was a man whose name signified a “son of consolation.” It must at once occur that such a saint is very much needed in this weary world of ours, and most worthy to be the patron of an “order.”

  To comfort human sorrow, to heal and help the desolate and afflicted, irrespective either of their moral worth or of any personal reward, is certainly a noble and praiseworthy object. Nor can any reasonable objection be made to the custom of good women combining for this purpose into a class or order, to be known by the name of such a primitive saint, and wearing a peculiar livery to mark their service, and having rites and ceremonials such as to them seem helpful for this end. Surely the work is hard enough, and weary enough, to entitle the doers thereof to do it in their own way, as they feel they best can, and to have any sort of innocent helps in the way of signs and symbols that may seem to them desirable.

  Yet the Sisters of St. Barnabas had been exposed to a sort of modern form of persecution from certain vigorous-minded Protestants, as tending to Romanism. A clamor had been raised about them for wearing large crosses, for bowing before altars, and, in short, for a hundred little points of ritualism; and it was held that a proper zeal for Protestantism required their ejection from a children’s refuge, where, with much patience and Christian mildness, they were taking care of sick babies and teaching neglected street children. Mrs. Maria Wouvermans, with a committee of ladies equally zealous for the order of the Church and excited about the dangers of Popery, had visited the refuge and pursued the inquisition even to the private sleeping apartments of the Sisters, unearthing every symptom of principle or practice that savored of approach to the customs of the Scarlet Woman; and, as the result of relentless inquisition and much vigorous catechising, she and her associates made such reports as induced the Committee of Supervision to withdraw the charity from the Sisters of St. Barnabas, and place it in other hands. The Sisters, thus ejected, had sought work in other quarters of the great field of human suffering and sorrow. A portion of them had been enabled by the charity of friends to rent a house to be devoted to the purposes of nursing destitute sick children, with dormitories also where homeless women could find temporary shelter.

  The house was not a bit more conventual or mediæval than the most commonplace of New York houses. It is true, one of the parlors had been converted into a chapel, dressed out and arranged according to the preferences of these good women. It had an altar, with a gilded cross flanked by candles, which there is no denying were sometimes lighted in the daytime. The altar was duly dressed with white, red, green, violet, or black, according as the traditional fasts or feasts of the Church came round. There is no doubt that this simple chapel, with its flowers, and candles, and cross, and its little ceremonial, was an immense comfort and help to these good women in the work that they were doing. But the most rigid Protestant, who might be stumbled by this little attempt at a chapel, would have been melted into accord when he went into the long bright room full of little cribs and cradles, where child invalids of different ages and in different stages of convalescence were made happy amid flowers, and toys and playthings, by the ministration of the good women who wore the white caps and the large crosses. It might occur to a thoughtful mind, that devotion to a work so sweetly unselfish might well entitle them to wear any kind of dress and pursue any kind of method, unchallenged by criticism.

  In a neat white bed of one of the small dormitories in the upper part of this house was lying in a delirious fever the young woman whom Bolton had carried there on the night of our story. The long black hair had become loosened by the restless tossing of her head from side to side; her brow was bent in a heavy frown, made more intense by the blackness of her eyebrows; her large dark eyes were wandering wildly to and fro over every object in the room, and occasionally fixing themselves with a strange look of inquiry on the Sister who, in white cap and black robe, sat by her bedside, changing the wet cloths on her burning head, and moistening her parched lips from time to time with a spoonful of water.

  “I can’t think who you are,” she muttered, as the Sister with a gentle movement put a fresh, cool cloth on her forehead.

  “Never mind, poor child,” said the sweet voice in reply; “try to be quiet.”

  “Quiet! me be quiet! — that’s pretty well! Me!” and she burst into weak, hysteric laughter.

  “Hush, hush!” said the Sister, making soothing motions with her hands.

  The wandering eyes closed a few moments in a feverish drowse. In a moment more she started with a wild look.

  “Mother! mother! where are you? I can’t find you. I’ve looked and looked till I’m so tired, and I can’t find you. Mother, come to me, — I’m sick!” — and the girl rose and threw out her arms wildly.

  The Sister passed her arm round her tenderly and spoke with a gentle authority, making her lie down again.

  Then, in a sweet low voice, she began singing a hymn: —

  “Jesus, lover of my soul,

  Let me to thy bosom fly,

  While the billows near me roll,

  While the tempest still is high.”

  As she sung, the dark sad eyes fixed themselves upon her with a vague, troubled questioning. The Sister went on: —

  “Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,

  Till the storm of life is past;

  Safe into the haven guide;

  Oh, receive my soul at last.”

  It was just day-dawn, and the patient had waked from a temporary stupor produced by a narcotic which had been given a few hours before to compose her.

  The purple-and-rose color of dawn was just touching faintly everything in the room. Another Sister entered softly, to take the place of the one who had watched for the last four hours.

  “How is she?” she said.

  “Quite out of her head, poor thing. Her fever is very high.”

  “We must have the doctor,” said the other. “She looks like a very sick girl.”

  “That she certainly is. She slept, under the opiate, but
kept starting, and frowning, and muttering in her sleep; and this morning she waked quite wild.”

  “She must have got dreadfully chilled, walking so late in the street — so poorly clad, too!”

  With this brief conversation, the second Sister assumed her place by the bedside, and the first went to get some rest in her own room.

  As day grew brighter, the singing of the matins in the chapel came floating up in snatches; and the sick girl listened to it with the same dazed and confused air of inquiry with which she looked on all around. “Who is singing?” she said to herself. “It’s pretty, and good. But how came I here? I was so cold, so cold — out there! — and now it’s so hot. Oh, my head! my head!”

  A few hours later, Mr. St. John called at the Refuge to inquire after the new inmate. He was one of the patrons of the Sisters. He had contributed liberally to the expenses of the present establishment, and stood at all times ready to assist with influence and advice.

  The Refuge was, in fact, by the use of its dormitories, a sort of receiving station for homeless and desolate people, where they might find temporary shelter, where their wants might be inquired into, and help found for them according to their need.

  After the interview with Bolton had made him acquainted with the state of the case, Mr. St. John went immediately to the Refuge. He was received in the parlor by a sweetfaced, motherly woman, with her white cap and black robe, and with a large black cross depending from her girdle. There was about her an air of innocent sanctity and seclusion from the outdoor bustle of modern life that was refreshing.

  She readily gave him an account of the new inmate, whose sad condition had excited the sympathy of all the Sisters. She had come to them, she said, in a state of most woeful agitation and distress, having walked the streets on a freezing night till a late hour, in very insufficient clothing. Immediately on being received, she began to have violent chills, followed by burning fever, and had been all night tossing restlessly and talking wildly.

  This morning, they had sent for the doctor, who pronounced her in a brain fever, and in a condition of great danger. She was still out of her mind, and could give no rational account of herself. “It is piteous to hear her call upon her mother,” said the Sister. “Poor child! perhaps her mother is distressing herself about her.”

  Mr. St. John promised to secure the assistance and sympathy of some benevolent women to aid the Sisters in their charge, and took his leave, promising to call daily.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  EVA TO HARRY’S MOTHER

  My DEAR MOTHER, — When I wrote you last we were quite prosperous, having just come through with our first evening as a great success; and everybody since has been saying most agreeable things to us about it. Last Thursday, we had our second, and it was even pleasanter than the last, because people had got acquainted, so that they really wanted to see each other again. There was a most charming atmosphere of ease and sociability. Bolton and Mr. St. John are getting quite intimate. Mr., St. John, too, develops quite a fine social talent, and has come out wonderfully. The side of a man that one sees in the church and the pulpit is after all only one side, as we have discovered. I find that he has quite a gift in conversation, when you fairly get him at it. Then, his voice for singing comes into play, and he and Angie and Dr. Campbell and Alice make up a quartette quite magnificent for non-professionals. Angie has a fine soprano, and Alice takes the contralto, and the doctor, with his great broad shoulders and deep chest, makes a splendid bass. Mr. St. John’s tenor is really very beautiful. It is one of those penetrating, sympathetic voices that indicate both feeling and refinement, and they are all of them surprised and delighted to find how well they go together. Thursday evening they went on from thing to thing, and found that they could sing this and that and the other, till the evening took a good deal the form of a musical. But never mind, it brought them acquainted with each other and made them look forward to the next reunion as something agreeable. Ever since, the doctor goes round humming tunes, and says he wants St. John to try the tenor of this and that, and really has quite lost sight of his being anything else but a musical brother. So here is the common ground I wanted to find between them.

  The doctor has told Mr. St. John to call on him whenever he can make him useful in his visits among the poor. Our doctor loves to talk as if he were a hard-hearted, unbelieving pirate, who didn’t care a straw for his fellow-creatures, while he loses no opportunity to do anybody or anything a kindness.

  You know I told you in my last letter about a girl that Harry and Bolton found in the street, the night of our first reception, and that they took her to the St. Barnabas Refuge. The poor creature has been lying there ever since, sick of a brain fever, caught by cold and exposure, and Dr. Campbell has given his services daily. If she had been the richest lady in the land he could not have shown more anxiety and devotion to her than he has, calling twice and sometimes three times a day, and one night watching nearly all night. She is still too low and weak to give any account of herself; all we know of her is that she is one of those lost sheep, to seek whom the Good Shepherd would leave the ninety-nine who went not astray. I have been once or twice to sit by her, and relieve the good Sisters who have so much else to do; and Angelique and Alice have also taken their turns. It seems very little for us to do, when these good women spend all their time and all their strength for those who have no more claim on them than they have on us.

  It is a week since I began this letter, and something quite surprising to me has just developed. I told you we had been to help nurse the poor girl at the Sisters’, and the last week she has been rapidly mending. Well, yesterday, as I didn’t feel very well, and my Mary is an excellent nurse, I took her there to sit with the patient in my place, when a most strange scene ensued. The moment Mary looked on her she recognized her own daughter, who had left her some years ago with a bad man. Mary had never spoken to me of this daughter, and I only knew, in a sort of general way, that she had left her mother under some painful circumstances. The recognition was dreadfully agitating to Mary and to the poor girl; indeed, for some time it was feared that the shock would produce a relapse. The Sisters say that the poor thing has been constantly calling for her mother in her distress.

  It really seemed, for the time, as if Mary were going to be wholly unnerved. She has a great deal of that respectable pride of family character which belongs to the better class of the Irish, and it has been a bitter humiliation to her to have to acknowledge her daughter’s shame to me; but I felt that it would relieve her to tell the whole story to some one, and I drew it all out of her. This poor Maggie had the misfortune to be very handsome. She was so pretty as a little girl, her mother tells me, as to attract constant attention; and I rather infer that the father and mother both made a pet and plaything of her, and were unboundedly indulgent. The girl grew up handsome, and thoughtless, and self-confident, and so fell an easy prey to a villain who got her to leave her home on a promise of marriage which he never kept. She lived with him a while in one place and another, and he became tired of her and contrived to place her in a house of evil, where she was entrapped and enslaved for a long time. Having by some means found out where her mother was living, she escaped from her employers, and hung round the house irresolutely for some time, wishing but fearing to present herself, and when she spoke to Harry in the street, the night after our party, she was going in a wild, desperate way to ask something about her mother — knowing that he was the man with whom she was living.

  Such seems to be her story; but I suppose, what with misery and cold, and the coming on of the fever, the poor thing hardly had her senses, or knew what she was about —— the fever must have been then upon her.

  So you see, dear mother, I was wishing in my last that I could go off with Sibyl Selwyn on her mission to the lost sheep, and now here is one brought to my very door. Is not this sent to me as my work? as if the good Lord had said, “No, child, your feet are not strong enough to go over the stones and briers, looking for
the lost sheep; you are not able to take them out of the jaws of the wolf; but here is a poor wounded lamb that I leave at your door — that is your part of the great work.” So I understand it, and I have already told Mary that as soon as Maggie is able to sit up, we will take her home with us, and let her stay with us till she is strong and well, and then we will try and put her back into good respectable ways, and keep her from falling again.

  I think persons in our class of life cannot be too considerate of the disadvantages of poor working women in the matter of bringing up children. A very beautiful girl in that walk of life is exposed to solicitation and temptation that never come near to people in our stations. We are guarded on all hands by our very position. I can see in this poor child the wreck of what must have been very striking beauty. Her hair is lovely, her eyes are wonderfully fine, and her hands, emaciated as she is, are finely formed and delicate. Well, being beautiful, she was just like any other young girl — her head was turned by flattery. She was silly and foolish, and had not the protections and barriers that are around us, and she fell. Well, then, we that have been more fortunate must help her up. Is it not so?

  So, dear mother, my mission work is coming to me. I need not go out for it. I shall write more of this in a day or two. —

  Ever yours, — EVA.

  CHAPTER XXV

  AUNT MARIA ENDEAVORS TO SET MATTERS RIGHT

  MRS. MARIA WOUVERMANS was one of those forces in creation to whom quiet is impossible. Watchfulness, enterprise, and motion were the laws of her existence, as incessantly operating as any other laws of nature.