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Red Wallflower

<h2 id="id02625" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXX.</h2> <h5 id="id02626"> A HOUSE.</h5> Yet the colonel did not go. Days passed, and he did not go. Esther ventured some gentle reminders, which had no effect. And the winter was gone and the spring was come, before he made the first expedition to the city in search of a house. Once started on his quest, it is true the colonel carried it on vigorously, and made many journeys for it; but they were all in vain. Rents in the city were found to be so much higher than rents in the country as fully to neutralize the advantage hoped for in a smaller household and the dismissal of the horse. Not a dwelling could be found where this would not be true. The search was finally given up; and things in the little family went on as they had been going for some time past. Esther at last, under stress of necessity, made fresh representations to her father, and besought leave to give lessons. They were running into debt, with no means of paying. It went sorely against the grain with the colonel to give his consent; pride and tenderness both rebelled; he hesitated long, but circumstances were too much for him. He yielded at last, not with a groan, but with many groans. 'I came here to take care of you,' he said; 'and this is the end of it!' 'Don't take it so, papa,' cried Esther. 'I like to do it. It is not a hardship.' 'It is a hardship,' he retorted; 'and you will find it so. I find it so now.' 'Even so, papa,' said the girl, with infinite sweetness; 'suppose it be a hardship, the Lord has given it to me; and so long as I am sure it is something He has given, I want no better. Indeed, papa, you know I could have no better.' 'I know nothing of the kind. You are talking folly.' 'No, papa, if you please. Just remember,—look here, papa,—here are the words. Listen: "The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly."' 'Do you mean to tell me,' said the colonel angrily, 'that—well, that all the things that you have not just now, and ought to have, are not good things?' 'Not good for me, or at least not the best, or I should have them.' This answer was with a smile so absolutely shadowless, that the colonel found nothing to answer but a groan, which was made up of pain and pride and pleasure in inscrutable proportions. The next step was to speak to Miss Fairbairn. That wise woman showed no surprise, and did not distress Esther with any sympathy; she took it as the most natural thing in the world that her favourite pupil should wish to become a teacher; and promised her utmost help. In her own school there was now no longer any opening; that chance was gone; but she gave Esther a recommendation in person to the principal of another establishment, where in consequence Miss Gainsborough found ready acceptance. And now indeed she felt herself a stranger, and found herself alone. This was a different thing from her first entering school as a pupil. And Esther began also presently to perceive that her father had not been entirely wrong in his estimate of a teacher's position and experiences. It is not a path of roses that such a one has to tread; and even the love she may bear to those she teaches, and even the genuine love of teaching them, do not avail to make it so. Woe to the teacher who has not those two alleviations and helps to fall back upon! Esther soon found both; and yet she gave her father credit for having known more about the matter than she did. She was truly alone now; the children loved her, but scattered away from her as soon as their tasks were done; her fellow-teachers she scarcely saw—they were busy and jaded; and with the world outside of school she had nothing to do. She had never had much to do with it; yet at Miss Fairbairn's she had sometimes a little taste of society that was of high order, and all in the house had been at least well known to her and she to them, even if no particular congeniality had drawn them together. She had lost all that now. And it sometimes came over Esther in those days the thought of her English aunts and cousins, as a vision of strange pleasantness. To have plenty of friends and relations, of one's own blood, and therefore inalienable; well-bred and refined and cultivated (whereby I am afraid Esther's fancy made them a multiplication of Pitt Dallas),—it looked very alluring! She went bravely about her work, and did it beautifully, and was very contented in it, and relieved to be earning money; yet these visions now and again would come over her mind, bringing a kind of distant sunshiny glow with them, different from the light that fell on that particular bit of life's pathway she was treading just then. They came and went; what came and did not go was Esther's consciousness that she was earning only a little money, and that with that little she could not clear off all the debts that had accrued and were constantly accruing. When she had paid the butcher, the grocer's bill presented itself, and when she had after some delay got rid of that, then came the need for a fresh supply of coal. Esther spent nothing on her own dress that she could help, but her father's was another matter, and tailors' charges she found were heavy. She went bravely on; she was young and full of spirit, and she was a Christian and full of confidence; nevertheless she did begin to feel the worry of these petty, gnawing, money cares, which have broken the heart of so many a woman before her. Moreover, another thing demanded consideration. It was necessary, now that she had no longer a home with Miss Fairbairn, that she should go into town and come back every day, and, furthermore, as she was giving lessons in a school, no circumstance of weather or anything else must hinder her being absolutely punctual. Yet Esther foresaw that as the winter came on again it would be very difficult sometimes to maintain this punctuality; and it became clear to her that it would be almost indispensable for them to move into town. If only a house could be found! Meantime Christopher went and came about the house, cultivated the garden and took care of the horse and drove Esther to school, all just as usual; his whilome master never having as yet said one word to him on the subject of his marriage and consequent departure. Whether his wages were paid him, Esther was anxiously doubtful; but she dared not ask. I say 'whilome' master, for there is no doubt that Mr. Bounder in these days felt that nobody was his master but himself. He did all his duties faithfully, but then he took leave to cross the little field which lay between his old home and his new, and to disappear for whole spaces of time from the view of the colonel's family. It was one evening in November. Mrs. Barker was just sitting down to her tea, and Christopher was preparing himself to leave her. I should remark that Mrs. Barker had called on the former Mrs. Blumenfeld, and established civil relations between the houses. 'Won't you stay, Christopher?' asked his sister. 'No, thank ye. I've got a little woman over there, who's expecting me.' 'Does she set as good a table for you as I used to do? in those days when I could?' the housekeeper added, with a sigh. 'Well, she ain't just up to some o' your arts,' said Christopher, with a contented face, in which his blue eye twinkled with a little slyness; 'but I'll tell you what, she can cook a dish o' pot-pie that you can't beat, nor nobody else; and her rye bread is just uncommon!' 'Rye bread!' said the housekeeper, with an utterance of disdain. 'I'll bring a loaf over,' said Christopher, nodding his head; 'and you can give some to Miss Esther if you like. Good-night!' He made few steps of it through the dark cold evening to the house that had become his home. The room that received him might have pleased a more difficult man. It was as clean as hands could make it; bright with cleanliness, lighted and warmed with a glowing fire, and hopeful with a most savoury scent of supper. The mistress of the house was busy about her hearth, looking neat and comfortable enough to match her room. As Christopher came in she lit a candle that stood on the supper-table. Christopher hugged himself at this instance of his wife's thrift, and sat down. 'You've got something that smells uncommon good there!' said he approvingly. 'I allays du think a hot supper's comfortable at the end o' a cold day,' returned the new Mrs. Bounder. 'I don't care what I du as long's I'm busy with all the world all the day long; I kin take a piece and a bite and go on, but when it comes night, and I hev time to think I'm tired, then I like a good hot something or other.' 'What have you got there?' said Christopher, peering over at the dish on the hearth which Mrs. Bounder was filling from a pot before the fire. She laughed. 'You wouldn't be any wiser ef I told you. It's a little o' everything. Give me a good garden, and I kin live as well as I want to, and cost no one more'n a few shillin's, neither. 'Tain't difficult, ef you know how. Now see what you say to that.' She dished up her supper, put a plate of green pickles on the table, filled up her tea-pot, and cut some slices from a beautiful brown loaf, which must have rivalled the rye, though it was not that colour. Christopher sat down, said grace reverently, and attacked the viands, while the mistress poured him out a cup of tea. 'Christopher,' she said, as she handed it to him, 'I'd jes' like to ask you something.' 'What is it?' 'I'd like to know jes' why you go through that performance?' 'Performance?' echoed Christopher. 'What are you talkin' about?' 'I mean, that bit of a prayer you think it is right to make whenever you're goin' to put your fork to your mouth.' 'Oh! I couldn't imagine what you were driving at. Why do I do it?' 'I'd like to know, ef you think you kin tell.' 'Respectable folk always does it.' 'Hm! I don' know about that. So it's for respectability you keep it up?' 'No,' said Christopher, a little embarrassed how to answer. 'It's proper. Don't you know the Bible bids us give thanks?' 'Wall, hev you set out to du all the rest o' the things the Bible bids you du?—that's jes' what I'm comin' to.' A surly man would not perhaps have answered at all, resenting this catechizing; but Christopher was not surly, and not at all offended. He was perplexed a little; looked at his wife in some sly wonder at her, but answered not. 'Ef I began, I'd go through. I wouldn't make no half way with it; that's all I was goin' to say,' his wife went on, with a grave face that showed she was not jesting. 'It's saying a good deal!' remarked Christopher, still looking at her. 'It's sayin' a good deal, to make the first prayer; but ef I made the first one, I'd make all the rest. I don't abide no half work in my garden, Christopher; that's what I was thinkin'; and I don't believe Him you pray to likes it no better.' Christopher was utterly unprepared to go on with this subject; and finally gave up trying, and attended to his supper. After a little while his wife struck a new theme. She was not a trained rhetorician; but when she had said what she had to say she was always contented to stop. 'How are things going up your way to-day?' she asked. 'My way is down here, I'm happy to say.' 'Wall, up to the colonel's, then. What's the news?' 'Ain't no sort o' news. Never is. They're always at the old things. The colonel he lies on his sofy, and Miss Esther she goes and comes. They want to get a house in town, now she's goin' so regular, only they can't find one to fit.' 'Kin't find a house? I thought there was houses enough in all New York.' 'Houses enough, but they all is set up so high in their rents, you see.' 'Is that the trouble?' 'That is exactly the trouble; and Miss Esther, I can see, she doesn't know just what to do.' 'They ain't gittin' along well, Christopher?' 'Well, there is no doubt they ain't! I should say they was gettin' on uncommon bad. Don't seem as if they could any way pay up all their bills at once. They pay this man, and then run up a new score with some other man. Miss Esther, she tries all she knows; but there ain't no one to help her.' 'They git this house cheaper than they'd git any one in town, I guess. They'd best stay where they be.' 'Yes, but you see, Miss Esther has to go and come every day now; she's teachin' in a school, that's what she is,' said Christopher, letting his voice drop as if he were speaking of some desecration. 'That's what she is; and so she has to be there regular, rain or shine makes no difference. An' if they was in town, you see, they wouldn't want the horse, nor me.' 'You don't cost 'em nothin'!' returned Mrs. Bounder. 'No; but they don't know that; and if they knowed it, you see, there'd be the devil to pay.' 'I wouldn't give myself bad names, ef I was you,' remarked Mrs. Bounder quietly. 'Christopher'— 'What then?' 'I'm jes' thinkin''— 'What are you thinkin' about?' 'Jes' you wait till I know myself, and I'll tell ye.' Christopher was silent, watching from time to time his spouse, who seemed to be going on with her supper in orderly fashion. Mr. Bounder was not misled by this, and watched curiously. He had acquired in a few months a large respect for his wife. Her very unadorned attire, and her peculiar way of knotting up her hair, did not hinder that he had a great and growing value for her. Christopher would have liked her certainly to dress better and to put on a cap; nevertheless, and odd as it may seem, he was learning to be proud of his very independent wife, and even boasted to his sister that she was a 'character.' Now he waited for what was to come next. 'I guess I was a fool,' began Mrs. Bounder at last. 'But it came into my head, ef they're in such a fix as you say, whether maybe they wouldn't take up with my house. I guess, hardly likely.' 'Your house?' inquired Christopher, in astonishment. But his wife calmly nodded. 'Your house!' repeated Christopher. 'Which one?' 'Wall, not this one, I guess,' said his wife quietly. 'But I've got one in town.' 'A house in town! Why, I never heard of it before.' 'No, 'cause it's been standin' empty for a spell back, doin' nothin'. Ef there had been rent comin' in, I guess you'd have heard of it. But the last folks went out; and I hadn't found no one that suited me to let hev it.' 'Would it do for the colonel and Miss Esther?' 'That's jes' what I don' know, Christopher. It would du as fur's the rent goes; an' it's all right and tight. It won't let the rain in on 'em; I've kep' it in order.' 'I should like to see what you don't keep in order!' said Christopher admiringly. 'Wall, I guess it's my imagination. For, come to think of it, it ain't jes' sich a house as your folks are accustomed to.' 'The thing is,' said Christopher gravely, 'they can't have just what they're accustomed to. Leastways I'm afeard they can't. I'll just speak to Miss Esther about it.' 'Wall, you kin du that. 'Twon't du no harm. I allays think, when anybody's grown poor he'd best take in his belt a little.' <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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