I KEEP a boarding-house.
If any fair proportion of my readers were likely to be members of my own profession, I should expect the above announcement to call forth more sympathetic handkerchiefs than have waved in unison for many a day. But I don’t expect anything of the sort; I know my business too well to suppose for a moment that any boarding-house proprietor, no matter how full her rooms, or how good pay her boarders are, ever finds time to read a story. Even if they did, they’d be so lost in wonder at one of themselves finding time to write a story, that they’d forget the whole plot and point of the thing.
I can’t help it, though—I must tell about poor dear Mrs. Perry, even if I run the risk of cook’s overdoing the beef, so that Mr. Bluff, who is English, and the best of pay, can’t get the rare cut he loves so well. Mrs. Perry’s story has run in my head so long, that it has made me forget to take change from the grocer at least once to my knowledge, and even made me lose a good boarder, by showing a room before the bed was made up. They say that poets get things out of their heads by writing them down, and I don’t know why boarding-house keepers can’t do the same thing.
It’s about three months since Mrs. Perry came here to board. I’m very sure about the time, and it was the day I was to pay my quarter’s rent, and to-morrow will be quarter-day again; thank the Lord I’ve got the money ready.
I didn’t have the money ready then, though, and the landlord left his temper behind him, instead of a receipt, and I was just having a little cry in my apron, and asking the Lord why it was that a poor lone woman who was working her finger-ends off should have such a hard time, when the door-bell rang.
“That’s the landlord again. I know his ways, the mean wretch!” said I to myself, hastily rubbing my eyes dry, and making up before the mirror in the hat-tree as fierce a face as I could. Then I snatched open the door, and tried to make believe my heart wasn’t in my mouth.
But the landlord wasn’t there, and I’ve always been a little sorry, for I was looking so savage, that a wee little woman, who was at the door, trembled all over, and started to go down the steps.
“Don’t go, ma’am,” I said, very quickly, with the best smile I could put on (and I think I’ve been long enough in the business to give the right kind of a smile to a person that looks like a new boarder). “Don’t go—I thought it was—I thought it was—somebody else that rang. Come in, do.”
She looked as if I was doing her a great honor, and I thought that looked like poor pay, but I was too glad at not seeing the landlord just then to care if I did lose one week’s board; besides, she didn’t look as if she could eat much.
“I see you advertise a small bedroom to let,” said she, looking appealing-like, as if she was going to beat me down on the strength of being poor. “How much is it a week?”
“Eight dollars,” said I, rather shortly. Seven dollars was all I expected to get, but I put on one, so as to be beaten down without losing anything. “I can get eight from a single gentleman, the only objection being that he wants to keep a dog in the back yard.”
“Oh, I’ll pay it,” said she, quickly taking out her pocketbook. “I’ll take it for six weeks, anyhow.”
I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I made up my mind to read a penitential passage of Scripture as soon as I closed the bargain with her, but, remembering the Book says to be reconciled to your brother before laying your gift on the altar, I says, quick as I could, for fear that if I thought over it again I couldn’t be honest:
“You shall have it for seven, my dear madame, if you’re going to stay so long, and I’ll do your washing without extra charge.”
This last I said to punish myself for suspecting an innocent little lady.
“Oh, thank you—thank you very much,” said she, and then she began to cry.
I knew that wasn’t for effect, for we were already agreed on terms, and she had her pocketbook open showing more money that I ever have at a time, unless it’s rent-day.
She tried to stop crying by burying her face in her hands, and it made her look so much smaller and so pitiful that I picked her right up, as if she was a baby, and kissed her. Then she cried harder, and I—a woman over forty, too—couldn’t find anything better to do than to cry with her.
I knew her whole story within five minutes—knew it perfectly well before I’d fairly shown her the room and got it aired.
They were from the West, and had been married about a year. She hadn’t a relative in the world, but his folks had friends in Philadelphia, so he’d got a place as clerk in a big clothing factory, at twelve hundred dollars a year. They’d been keeping house, just as cozy as could be in four rooms, and were as happy as anybody in the world, when one night he didn’t come home.
She was almost frantic about him all night long, and first thing in the morning she was at the factory. She waited until all the clerks got there, but George—his name was George Perry—didn’t come. The proprietor was a good-hearted man, and went with her to the police-office, and they telegraphed all over the city; but there didn’t seem to be any such man found dead or drunk, or arrested for anything.
She hadn’t heard a word from him since. Her husband’s family’s friends were rich—the stuck up brutes!— but they seemed to be annoyed by her coming so often to ask if there wasn’t any other way of looking for him, so she, like the modest, frightened little thing she was, staid away from them. Then somebody told her that New York was the place everybody went to, so she sold all her furniture and pawned almost all her clothes, and came to New York with about fifty dollars in her pocket.
“What I’ll do when that’s gone I don’t know,” said she, commencing to cry again, “unless I find George. I won’t live on you, though, ma’am,” she said, lifting her face up quickly out of her handkerchief; “I won’t, indeed. I’ll go to the poorhouse first. But——”
Then she cried worse than before, and I cried, too, and took her in my arms, and called her a poor little thing, and told her she shouldn’t go to any poorhouse, but should stay with me and be my daughter.
I don’t know how I came to say it, for, goodness knows, I find it hard enough to keep out of the poorhouse myself, but I did say it, and I meant it, too.
Her things were all in a little valise, and she soon had the room to rights, and when I went up again in a few minutes to carry her a cup of tea, she pointed to her husband’s picture which she had hung on the wall, and asked me if I didn’t think he was very handsome.
I said yes, but I’m glad she looked at the tea instead of me, for I believe she’d seen by my face that I didn’t like her George. The fact is, men look very differently to their wives or sweethearts than they do to older people and to boarding-house keepers. There was nothing vicious about George Perry’s face, but if he’d been a boarder of mine, I’d have insisted on my board promptly—not for fear of his trying to cheat me, but because if he saw anything else he wanted, he’d spend his money without thinking of what he owed.
I felt so certain that he’d got into some mischief or trouble, and was afraid or ashamed to come back to his wife, that I risked the price of three ribs of prime roasting beef in the following “Personal” advertisement:
“GEORGE P.—Your wife don’t know anything about it, and is dying to see you. Answer through Personals.”
But no answer came, and his wife grew more and more poorly, and I couldn’t help seeing what was the matter with her. Then her money ran out, and she talked of going away, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I just took her to my own room, which was the back parlor, and told her she wasn’t to think again of going away; that she was to be my daughter, and I would be her mother, until she found George again.
I was afraid, for her sake, that it meant we were to be with each other for ever, for there was no sign of George.
She wrote to his family in the West, but they hadn’t heard anything from him or about him, and they took pains not to invite her there, or even to say anything about giving her a helping hand.
There was only one thing left to do, and that was to pray, and pray I did, more constantly and earnestly than I ever did before, although, the good Lord knows there have been times, about quarter-day, when I haven’t kept much peace before the Throne.
Finally, one day Mrs. Perry was taken unusually bad, and the doctor had to be sent for in a hurry. We were in her room—the doctor and Mrs. Perry and I—I was endeavoring to comfort and strengthen the poor thing, when the servant knocked, and said a lady and gentleman had come to look at rooms.
I didn’t dare to lose boarders, for I’d had three empty rooms for a month, so I hurried into the parlor. I was almost knocked down for a second, for the gentleman was George Perry, and no mistake, if the picture his wife had was to be trusted.
In a second more I was cooler and clearer-headed than I ever was in my life before. I felt more like an angel of the Lord than a boarding-house keeper.
“Kate,” said I, to the servant “show the lady all the rooms.”
Kate stared, for I’d never trusted her, or any other girl, with such important work, and she knew it. She went though, followed by the lady, who, though she seemed a weak, silly sort of thing, I hated with all my might. Then I turned quickly, and said:
“Don’t you want a room for your wife, too, George Perry?”
He stared at me a moment, and then turned pale and looked confused. Then he tried to rally himself, and he said:
“You seem to know me, ma’am.”
“Yes,” said I; “and I know Mrs. Perry, too; and if ever a woman needed her husband she does now, even if her husband is a rascal.”
He tried to be angry, but he couldn’t. He walked up and down the room once or twice, his face twitching all the time, and then he said, a word or two at a time:
“I wish I could—poor girl!—God forgive me!—what can I do?—I wish I was dead!”
“You wouldn’t be any use to anybody then but the Evil One, George Perry, and you’re not ready to see him just yet,” said I.
Just then there came a low, long groan from the backroom, and at the same time some one came into the parlor. I was too excited to notice who it was; and George Perry, when he heard the groan, stopped short and exclaimed:
“Good God! who’s that?”
“Your wife,” said I, almost ready to scream, I was so wrought up.
He hid his face in his hands, and trembled all over.
There was half a minute’s silence—it seemed half an hour—and then we heard a long, thin wail from a voice that hadn’t ever been heard on earth before.
“What’s that?” said Perry, in a hoarse whisper, his eyes almost starting out of his head, and hands thrown up.
“Your baby—just born,” said I. “Will you take rooms for your family now, George Perry?” I asked.
“I sha’n’t stand in the way,” said a voice behind me.
I turned around quickly, just in time to see, with her eyes full of tears, the woman who had come with George go out the door and shut the hall-door behind her.
“Thank God!” said George, dropping on his knees.
“Amen!” said I, hurrying out of the parlor and locking the door behind me.
I thought if he wanted to pray while on his knees he shouldn’t be disturbed, while if he should suddenly be tempted to follow his late companion, I shouldn’t be held at the Judgment day for any share of the guilt.
I found the doctor bustling about, getting ready to go, and Mrs. Perry looking very peaceful and happy, with a little bundle hugged up close to her.
“I guess the Lord will bring him now,” said Mrs. Perry, “if it’s only to see his little boy.”
“Like enough, my dear,” said I, thanking the Lord for opening the question, for my wits were all gone by this time, and I hadn’t any more idea of what to do than the man in the moon; “but,” said I, “He won’t bring him till you’re well, and able to bear the excitement.”
“Oh, I could bear it any time now,” said she, very calmly, “It would seem just as natural as could be to have him come in and kiss me, and see his baby and bless it.”
“Would it?” I asked, with my heart all in a dance. “Well, trust the Lord to do just what’s right.”
I hurried out and opened the parlor-door. There stood George Perry, changed so I hardly knew him. He seemed years older; his thick lips seemed to have suddenly grown thin, and were pressed tightly together, and there was such an appealing look from his eyes.
“Be very careful now,” I whispered, “and you may see them. She expects you, and don’t imagine anything has gone wrong.”
I took him into the room, and she looked up with a face like what I hope the angels have. I didn’t see anything more, for my eyes filled up all of a sudden, so I hurried up-stairs into an empty room, and spent half an hour crying and thanking the Lord.
There was a pretty to-do at the dinner table that day. I’d intended to have souffle for desert, and I always make my own souffles; but I forgot everything but the Perrys, and the boarders grumbled awfully. I didn’t care, though; I was too happy to feel abused.
I don’t know how George Perry explained his absence to his wife; perhaps he hasn’t done it at all. But I know she seems to be the happiest woman alive, and that he don’t seem to care for anything in the world but his wife and baby.
As to the woman who came with him to look at a room, I haven’t seen her since; but if she happens to read this story, she may have the consolation of knowing that there’s an old woman who remembers her one good deed, and prays for her often and earnestly.
