held Dick's little engagement ring. The red beam lay across her
forehead, and drops dripped from it upon her eyes. Her feet, still
tangled in the gearing which had tripped her, were buried beneath a pile
of bricks.
A broad piece of flooring, that had fallen slantwise, roofed her in, and
saved her from the mass of iron-work overhead, which would have crushed
the breath out of Titans. Fragments of looms, shafts, and pillars were
in heaps about. Some one whom she could not see was dying just behind
her. A little girl who worked in her room--a mere child-
-was crying,
between her groans, for her mother. Del Ivory sat in a little open
space, cushioned about with reels of cotton; she had a shallow gash upon
her cheek; she was wringing her hands. They were at work from the
outside, sawing entrances through the labyrinth of planks. A dead woman
lay close by, and Sene saw them draw her out. It was Meg Match. One of
the pretty Irish girls was crushed quite out of sight; only one hand was
free; she moved it feebly. They could hear her calling for Jimmy
Mahoney, Jimmy Mahoney! and would they be sure and give him back the
handkerchief? Poor Jimmy Mahoney! By and by she called no more; and in a
little while the hand was still. On the other side of the slanted
flooring some one prayed aloud. She had a little baby at home. She was
asking God to take care of it for her. "For Christ's sake," she said.
Sene listened long for the Amen, but it was never spoken. Beyond, they
dug a man out from under a dead body, unhurt. He crawled to his feet,
and broke into furious blasphemies.
As consciousness came fully, agony grew. Sene shut her lips and folded
her bleeding hands together, and uttered no cry. Del did screaming
enough for two, she thought. She pondered things, calmly as the night
deepened, and the words that the workers outside were saying came
brokenly to her. Her hurt, she knew, was not unto death; but it must be
cared for before very long; how far could she support this slow bleeding
away? And what were the chances that they could hew their way to her
without crushing her?
She thought of her father, of Dick; of the bright little kitchen and
supper-table set for three; of the song that she had sung in the flush
of the morning. Life--even her life--grew sweet, now that it was
slipping from her.
Del cried presently, that they were cutting them out.
The glare of the
bonfires struck through an opening; saws and axes flashed; voices grew
distinct.
"They never can get at me," said Sene. "I must be able to crawl. If you
could get some of those bricks off of my feet, Del!"
Del took off two or three in a frightened way; then, seeing the blood on
them, sat down and cried.
A Scotch girl, with one arm shattered, crept up and removed the pile,
then fainted.
The opening broadened, brightened; the sweet night-wind blew in; the
safe night-sky shone through. Sene's heart leaped within her. Out in the
wind and under the sky she should stand again, after all! Back in the
little kitchen, where the sun shone, and she could sing a song, there
would yet be a place for her. She worked her head from under the beam,
and raised herself upon her elbow.
At that moment she heard a cry:
"Fire! _fire!_ GOD ALMIGHTY HELP THEM,--THE RUINS ARE ON
FIRE!"
A man working over the _débris_ from the outside had taken the
notion--it being rather dark just there--to carry a lantern with him.
"For God's sake," a voice cried from the crowd, "don't stay there with
that light!"
But before the words had died upon the air, it was the dreadful fate of
the man with the lantern to let it fall,--and it broke upon the ruined
mass.
That was at nine o'clock. What there was to see from then till morning
could never be told or forgotten.
A network twenty feet high, of rods and girders, of beams, pillars,
stairways, gearing, roofing, ceiling, walling; wrecks of looms, shafts,
twisters, pulleys, bobbins, mules, locked and interwoven; wrecks of
human creatures wedged in; a face that you know turned up at you from
some pit which twenty-four hours' hewing could not open; a voice that
you know crying after you from God knows where; a mass of long, fair
hair visible here, a foot there, three fingers of a hand over there; the
snow bright-red under foot; charred limbs and headless trunks tossed
about; strong men carrying covered things by you, at sight of which
other strong men have fainted; the little yellow jet that flared up, and
died in smoke, and flared again, leaped out, licked the cotton-bales,
tasted the oiled machinery, crunched the netted wood, danced on the
heaped-up stone, threw its cruel arms high into the night, roared for
joy at helpless firemen, and swallowed wreck, death, and life together
out of your sight,--the lurid thing stands alone in the gallery of
tragedy.
"Del," said Sene, presently, "I smell the smoke." And in a little while,
"How red it is growing away over there at the left!"
To lie here and watch the hideous redness crawling after her, springing
at her!--it had seemed greater than reason could bear, at first.
Now it did not trouble her. She grew a little faint, and her thoughts
wandered. She put her head down upon her arm, and shut her eyes.
Dreamily she heard them saying a dreadful thing outside, about one of
the overseers; at the alarm of fire he had cut his throat, and before
the flames touched him he was taken out. Dreamily she heard Del cry that
the shaft behind the heap of reels was growing hot.
Dreamily she saw a
tiny puff of smoke struggle through the cracks of a broken fly-frame.
They were working to save her, with rigid, stern faces.
A plank
snapped, a rod yielded; they drew out the Scotch girl; her hair was
singed; then a man with blood upon his face and wrists held down his
arms.
"There's time for one more! God save the rest of ye,--I can't!"
Del sprang; then stopped,--even Del,--stopped ashamed, and looked back
at the cripple.
Asenath at this sat up erect. The latent heroism in her awoke. All her
thoughts grew clear and bright. The tangled skein of her perplexed and
troubled winter unwound suddenly. This, then, was the way. It was better
so. God had provided himself a lamb for the burnt-offering.
So she said, "Go, Del, and tell him I sent you with my dear love, and
that it's all right."
And Del at the first word went.
Sene sat and watched them draw her out; it was a slow process; the loose
sleeve of her factory sack was scorched.
Somebody at work outside turned suddenly and caught her.
It was Dick.
The love which he had fought so long broke free of barrier in that hour.
He kissed her pink arm where the burnt sleeve fell off.
He uttered a cry
at the blood upon her face. She turned faint with the sense of safety;
and, with a face as white as her own, he bore her away in his arms to
the hospital, over the crimson snow.
Asenath looked out through the glare and smoke with parched lips. For a
scratch upon the girl's smooth cheek, he had quite forgotten her. They
had left her, tombed alive here in this furnace, and gone their happy
way. Yet it gave her a curious sense of relief and triumph. If this were
all that she could be to him, the thing which she had done was right,
quite right. God must have known. She turned away, and shut her eyes
again.
When she opened them, neither Dick, nor Del, nor crimsoned snow, nor
sky, were there; only the smoke writhing up a pillar of blood-red flame.
The child who had called for her mother began to sob out that she was
afraid to die alone.
"Come here, Molly," said Sene. "Can you crawl around?"
Molly crawled around.
"Put your head in my lap, and your arms about my waist, and I will put
my hands in yours,--so. There! I guess that's better."
But they had not given them up yet. In the still unburnt rubbish at the
right, some one had wrenched an opening within a foot of Sene's face.
They clawed at the solid iron pintless like savage things. A fireman
fainted in the glow.
"Give it up!" cried the crowd from behind. "It can't be done! Fall
back!"--then hushed, awestruck.
An old man was crawling along upon his hands and knees over the heated
bricks. He was a very old man. His gray hair blew about in the wind.
"I want my little gal!" he said. "Can't anybody tell me where to find my
little gal?"
A rough-looking young fellow pointed in perfect silence through the
smoke.
"I'll have her out yet. I'm an old man, but I can help.
She's my little
gal, ye see. Hand me that there dipper of water; it'll keep her from
choking, may be. Now! Keep cheery, Sene! Your old father'll get ye out.
Keep up good heart, child! That's it!"
"It's no use, father. Don't feel bad, father. I don't mind it very
much."
He hacked at the timber; he tried to laugh; he bewildered himself with
cheerful words.
"No more ye needn't, Senath, for it'll be over in a minute. Don't be
downcast yet! We'll have ye safe at home before ye know it. Drink a
little more water,--do now! They'll get at ye now, sure!"
But above the crackle and the roar a woman's voice rang out like a
bell:--
"We're going home, to die no more."
A child's notes quavered in the chorus. From sealed and unseen graves,
white young lips swelled the glad refrain,--
"We're going, going home."
The crawling smoke turned yellow, turned red. Voice after voice broke
and hushed utterly. One only sang on like silver. It flung defiance down
at death. It chimed into the lurid sky without a tremor.
For one stood
beside her in the furnace, and his form was like unto the form of the
Son of God. Their eyes met. Why should not Asenath sing?
"Senath!" cried the old man out upon the burning bricks; he was scorched
now, from his gray hair to his patched boots.
The answer came triumphantly,--
"To die no more, no more, no more!"
"Sene! little Sene!"
But some one pulled him back.
Night-Watches.
Keturah wishes to state primarily that she is good-natured. She thinks
it necessary to make this statement, lest, after having heard her story,
you should, however polite you might be about it, in your heart of
hearts suspect her capable not only of allowing her angry passions to
rise, but of permitting them to boil over "in tempestuous fury wild and
unrestrained." If it were an orthodox remark, she would also add, from
like motives of self-defence, that she is not in the habit of swearing.
Are you accustomed, O tender-hearted reader, to spend your nights, as a
habit, with your eyes open or shut? On the answer to this question
depends her sole hope of appreciation and sympathy.
She begs you will understand that she does not mean you, the be-ribboned
and be-spangled and be-rouged frequenter of ball and _soirée_, with your
well-taught, drooping lashes, or wide girl's eyes untamed and wondering,
your flushing color, and your pulse up to a hundred. You are very pretty
for your pains,--O, to be sure you are very pretty! She has not the
heart to scold you, though you are dancing and singing and flirting
away your golden nights, your restful, young nights, that never come but
once,--though you are dancing and singing and flirting yourselves
merrily into your grave. She would like to put in a plea before the
eloquence of which Cicero and Demosthenes, Beecher and Sumner, should
pale like wax-lights before the sun, for the new fashion said to be
obtaining in New York, that the _soirée_ shall give place to the
_matinée_, at which the guests shall assemble at four o'clock in the
afternoon, and are expected to go home at seven or eight. That would be
not only civilized, it would be millennial.
But Keturah is perfectly aware that you will do as you will. If the
excitement of the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal" prove preferable to a
quiet evening at home, and a good, Christian, healthy sleep after it,
why the "sma' hours" it will be. If you will do it, it is "none of her
funerals," as the small boy remarked. Only she particularly requests you
not to insult her by offering her your sympathy. Wait till you know what
forty-eight mortal, wide-awake, staring, whirring, unutterable hours
mean.
Listen to her mournful tale; and, while you listen, let your head become
fountains of water, and your eyes rivers of tears for her, and for all
who are doomed to reside in her immediate vicinity.
"Tired nature's sweet restorer," as the newspapers, in a sudden and
severe poetical attack, remarked of Jeff Davis, "refuses to bless"
Keturah, except as her own sweet will inclines her. They have a
continuous lover's quarrel, exceedingly bitter while it rages,
exceedingly sweet when it is made up. Keturah attends a perfectly grave
and unimpeachable lecture,--the Restorer pouts and goes off in a huff
for twenty-four hours. Keturah undertakes at seven o'clock a concert,--
announced as Mendelssohn Quintette, proving to be Gilmore's
Brassiest,--and nothing hears she of My Lady till two o'clock, A. M.
Keturah spends an hour at a prayer-meeting, on a pine bench that may
have heard of cushions, but certainly has never seen one face to face;
and comes home at eight o'clock to the pleasing discovery that the fair
enslaver has taken some doctrinal offence, and vanished utterly.
Though lost to sight she's still to memory dear, and Keturah penitently
betakes herself to the seeking of her in those ingenious ways which she
has learned at the school of a melancholy experience. A table and a
kerosene lamp are brought into requisition; also a book.
If it isn't the
Dictionary, it is Cruden's Concordance. If these prove too exciting, it
is Edwards on the Will. Light reading is strictly forbidden.
Congressional Reports are sometimes efficacious, as well as Martin F.
Tupper, and somebody's "Sphere of Woman."
There is one single possibility out of ten that this treatment will
produce drowsiness. There are nine probabilities to the contrary. The
possibility is worth trying for, and trying hard for; but if it results
in the sudden flight of President Edwards across the room, a severe
banging of the "Sphere of Woman" against the wall, and the total
disappearance of Cruden's Concordance beneath the bed, Keturah is not in
the least surprised. It is altogether too familiar a result to elicit
remark. It simply occasions a fresh growth to a horrible resolution that
she has been slowly forming for years.
Some day _she_ will write a book. The publishers shall nap over it, and
accept it with pleasure. The drowsy printers shall set up its type with
their usual unerring exactness. The proof-readers shall correct it in
their dreams. Customers in the bookstores shall nod at the sight of its
binding. Its readers shall dose at its Preface.
Sleepless old age, sharp
and unrelieved pain, youth sorrowful before the time, shall seek it out,
shall flock unto the counters of its fortunate publishers (she has three
firms in her mind's eye; one in Boston, one in New York, and one in
Philadelphia; but who the happy men are to be is not yet definitely
decided), who shall waste their inheritance in distributing it
throughout the length and breadth of a grateful continent. Physicians
from everywhere under the sun, who have proved the fickleness of
hyoscyamus, of hops, of Dover's powders, of opium, of morphine, of
laudanum, of hidden virtues of herbs of the field, and minerals from the
rock, and gases from the air; who know the secrets of all the pitying
earth, and, behold, it is vanity of vanities, shall line their
hospitals, cram their offices, stuff their bottles, with the new
universal panacea and blessing to suffering humanity.
And Keturah _can_ keep a resolution.
Her literary occupation disposed of, in the summary manner referred to,
she runs through the roll of her reserve force, and their name is
Legion. She composes herself, in an attitude of rest, with a
handkerchief tied over her eyes to keep them shut, blows her lamp out
instead of screwing it out, strangles awhile in the gas, and begins to
repeat her alphabet, which, owing to like stern necessity, she has
fortunately never forgotten. She says it forward; she says it backward;
she begins at the middle and goes up; she begins at the middle and goes
down; she rattles it through in French, she groans it through in German,
she falters it through in Greek. She attempts the numeration-table,
flounders somewhere in the quadrillions, and forgets where she left off.
She watches an interminable flock of sheep jump over a wall till her
head spins. There always seem to be so many more where the last one came
from. She listens to oar-beats, and drum-beats, and heart-beats. She
improvises sonatas and gallopades, oratorios and mazourkas. She
perpetrates the title and first line of an epic poem, goes through the
alphabet for a rhyme, and none appearing, she repeats the first line by
way of encouragement. But all in vain.
With a silence that speaks unspeakable things, she rises solemnly, and
seeks the pantry in darkness that may be felt. At the bottom of the
stairs she steps with her whole weight flat upon something that squirms,
and is warm, and turns over, and utters a cry that makes night hideous.
O, nothing but the cat, that is all! The pantry proves to be well
stocked with bread, but not another mortal thing. Now, if there is
anything Keturah _particularly_ dislikes, it is dry bread. Accordingly,
with a remark which is intended for Love's ear alone, she gropes her way
to the cellar door, which is unexpectedly open, pitches head-first into
the cavity, and makes the descent of half the stairs in an easy and
graceful manner, chiefly with her elbows. She reaches the ground after
an interval, steps splash into a pool of water, knocks over a mop, and
embraces a tall cider barrel with her groping arms.
After a little
wandering about among ash-bins and apple-bins, reservoirs and coal-heaps
and cobwebs, she discovers the hanging-shelf which has been the _ignis
fatuus_ of her search. Something extremely cold crossing her shoeless
feet at this crisis suggests pleasant fancies of a rat.
Keturah is
ashamed to confess that she has never in all the days of the years of
her pilgrimage set eyes upon a rat. Depending solely upon her
imagination, her conception of that animal is a cross between an
alligator and a jaguar. She stands her ground manfully, however, and is
happy to state that she did _not_ faint.
In the agitation consequent upon this incident she butters her bread
with the lard, and takes an enormous bite on the way up stairs. She
seeks no more refreshment that night.
One resort alone is left. With a despairing sigh she turns the great
faucet of the bath-tub and holds her head under it till she is upon the
verge of a watery grave. This experiment is her forlorn hope. Perhaps
about three or four o'clock she falls into a series of jerky naps, and
dreams that she is editor of a popular Hebrew magazine, wandering
frantically through a warehouse full of aspirant MSS.
(chiefly from the
junior classes of theological seminaries) of which she cannot translate
a letter.
Of the tenth of Keturah's unearthly experiences,--of the number of times
she has been taken for a robber, and chased by the entire roused and
bewildered family, with loaded guns; of the pans of milk she has upset,
the crockery whose hopes she has untimely shattered, the skulls she has
cracked against open doors, the rocking-chairs she has stumbled over and
apostrophized in her own meek way; of the neighbors she has frightened
out of town by her perambulations; of the alarms of fire she has raised,
pacing the wood-shed with a lantern for exercise stormy nights; of all
the possible and impossible corners and crevices in which she has sought
repose, (she has slept on every sofa in every room in the house, and
once she spent a whole night on a closet shelf); of the amiable
condition of her mornings, and the terror she is fast becoming to
family. Church, and State, the time would fail her to tell. Were she to
"let slip the dogs of war," and relate a modicum of the agonies she
undergoes,--how the stamping of a neighbor's horse on a barn floor will
drive every solitary wink of sleep from her eyes and slumber from her
eyelids; the nibbling of a mouse in some un-get-at-able place in the
wall prove torture; the rattling of a pane of glass, ticking of a clock,
or pattering of rain-drops, as effective as a cannon; a guest in the
"spare room" with a musical "love of a baby," something far different
from a blessing, and a tolerably windy night, one lengthened vigil long
drawn out,--the liberal public would cry, "Forbear!" It becomes really
an interesting science to learn how slight a thing will utterly deprive
an unfortunate creature of the great necessity of life; but this article
not being a scientific treatise, that must be left to the sympathizing
imagination.
Keturah feels compelled, however, to relate the story of two memorable
nights, of which the only wonder is that she has lived to tell the tale.
Every incident is stamped indelibly upon her brain. It is wrought in
letters of fire. "While memory holds a seat in this distracted globe,"
it shall not, cannot be forgotten.
It was a night in June,--sultry, gasping, fearful.
Keturah went to her
own room, as is her custom, at the Puritanic hour of nine. Sleep, for a
couple of hours, being out of the question, she threw wide her doors
and windows, and betook herself to her writing-desk. A story for a
magazine, which it was imperative should be finished to-morrow, appealed
to her already partially stupefied brain. She forced her unwilling pen
into the service, whisked the table round into the draught, and began.
In about five minutes the sibyl caught the inspiration of her god, and
heat and sleeplessness were alike forgotten. This sounds very poetic,
but it wasn't at all. Keturah regrets to say that she had on a very
unbecoming green w