CHAPTER X.DAWNING PROSPERITY.
Little James Laurence worked manfully in his new vocation. He carried home packages of tea, pounds of sausages, and paper bags stuffed with crackers, quicker than any boy of his size was ever known to do before. He ran errands up and down stairs for Kate Gorman, and soon learned to toss “Jerusha Maria” in the air with an adroitness that threw her into an ecstasy of crowing, and set her long clothes to fluttering through and through, like the plumage of a bird. He learned to put on her tiny socks when she shook them from her plump, little feet; and never touched the top of her head without trembling for the delicate spot there, which Mrs. Smith had anxiously warned him of. He kept the child’s cradle in a soft, monotonous jog while she slept, without complaint, though the day was ever so bright, and the cheery sound of boys playing marbles, on the side-walk, tempted him sorely at times.
For all this James got his board, and two dollars a week, a sum that brought a marvellous quantity of groceries every Saturday night, as Mrs. Smith reckoned up accounts, and sent the boy home rejoicing to spend the Sabbath with his family.
Eva, too, had received her last instalment of wages, and Mrs. Laurence grew stronger and stronger each day, as that heavy burden of anxiety was lifted from her shoulders. As for Ruth, who lived in the happiness of those around her, this gleam of sunshine revived her strength and beauty as if she had been a flower. With the reaction of infinite relief, she began to wonder if there was anything on earth that she could do for the general happiness.
To say that Mrs. Smith was the good angel of this little household, would be to cast a certain degree of ridicule on this robust, ruddy-faced, and genial-hearted woman: for she had nothing of the angel about her, except that sweet snow-plumed spirit of mercy that brooded in her warm heart, as doves make a nest of soft materials, and glorify them with the cooing music of perfect love.
No, Mrs. Smith was not an angel, by any means. She had some household ways that angels would have considered out of place, not to mention her name, which was the reverse of poetical to say nothing of the seraphic. Sometimes the good woman scolded her husband roundly, and once or twice—I tell this with infinite reluctance—she had been known to snatch Jerusha Maria from the soft depths of her cradle, after that young lady had cried till her face was of a lovely purple, and shake her till the feathers would have flown, had her mother been an angel, and thus endowed her with the plumage of a seraph.
In fact, Mrs. Smith was a kind, wholesome specimen of the middle class American housewife, and a good friend to the Laurence family. That was all. She had, when business grew prosperous, taken a lad from the street, rathermore impulsively than we have seen her adopt our friend James, and believing herself to have met with success on that occasion, was the more willing to try a new experiment of mercy. But, like a good many other kind-hearted people, she forgot to guard herself against the infirmities of human jealousy, and was quite reckless of the fact that Jared Boyce received his fellow clerk with scowls of dissatisfaction, and that sneers of disdain curled his incipient red moustache, whenever the lad came near him.
This youth was left in charge of the store whenever Smith went out to make purchases, and his wife was called up stairs, which happened frequently, as time wore on, for Jerusha Maria was cutting her teeth in a vicious state of mind, and Kate Gorman had more than she could do in the kitchen.
Of course, this threw young James more frequently into the store, where Jared found occasion to impose all sorts of petty indignities upon him. These crafty annoyances the boy, too noble for complaint, bore with a degree of manliness that threatened to baffle the object his enemy had in view. One thing James saw clearly and felt, as only a proud, sensitive child could, Jared Boyce did not want him about. Why?
James asked himself this question again and again, with tears in his eyes, sometimes in the depths of the night, when a vague sense of trouble would keep him awake, sometimes when burdened with a heavy basket in the street; but he took counsel of no one, and bore his own trouble in silence like a little man as he was.
After awhile things changed somewhat with the lad. Jared cast off his morose bearing, and made some cringing advances toward cordiality, from which the boy shrunk with sensitive dread.
One day, when James had gone out with some packages, Smith came into the store in haste, while a countryman whohad brought in a load of produce, waited at the counter with a whip in his hand.
“Thirty-seven dollars,” said Smith, opening the money drawer and counting some bank notes that he found there. “No need of waiting; generally enough on hand for small amounts like this. Ha, Boyce! who has been paying out money. I’m ten dollars short. Run up and ask the old woman if she’s taken any. If she has, tell her to shell out, the man is waiting!”
Boyce turned slowly, and went up stairs. He paused once or twice while ascending, and bit his white lips, as if doubtful what course to pursue. Then he lifted his head with a dash, ran the fingers of one hand through his fire-red hair, and flung open the door where Mrs. Smith was sitting with “Jerusha Maria” on her lap, rubbing her gums with the handle of a dessert-spoon, in the desperate hope that she was aiding a refractory tooth to cut.
“Mrs. Smith, the boss wants to know if you’ve took any money from out of the drawer. He wants to make up a bill.”
“What, me! Goodness gracious! What do I want of money, with Jerusha Maria crying her eyes out, and I trying my best to set her teeth of an edge. Tell Smith not to make a fool of himself, but search his own pockets. Dear me! will that man never have no consideration!”
“Then you haven’t got the money?” said Jared, looking over Mrs. Smith’s head, as if he were questioning the wall.
“Money! Not a cent! Don’t bother me!” cried the dame flinging down the spoon, and searching the child’s mouth with her motherly finger. “What do I know about the store, with this little angel screaming like mad with the ache of her precious gums! There, there! mother knows they buse her darling! Oh, goodness! Kate Gorman, come here. I’m sure there’s one coming through just under my finger; look, now.”
Kate set down a saucer she was wiping, dried her hands hastily on the dish towel, and came forward beaming with expectation.
“Just turn her purty face to the light,” she cried, sinking on her two knees before the child, and peering into the mouth in which sobs and screams were half smothered. By gorry! and so it is, true enough! like the pint of a needle agin yer finger. There, now, the swate crathur will have some peace an’ quietness. “Boyce, go down an’ tell the master that it has come, and not stand gauking there.”
Boyce, who had been in no haste to go down, closed the door softly, and stood ruminating on the outside. Directly his face brightened with some new-born thought, and he entered the store with his usual manner.
“Mrs. Smith says she hasn’t took a cent from the draw, boss.”
“Hasn’t taken a cent from the drawer!” exclaimed Smith, excitedly. “Then where the thunder has that ten-dollar bill gone! I left three in that identical drawer not more en half an hour ago, and now only two is left. Who has been back of the counter since I went out?”
“Not a soul but me and Mrs. Smith’s new boy, Jim.”
Smith’s countenance fell. He went to the drawer again, drew it completely out from under the counter, turned it bottom up, with a bang, and once more searched every fragment of paper with care.
Then he remembered the countryman, who was waiting patiently, and assorting out some small bills, paid him in moody silence.
Boyce was very busy all this time re-arranging boxes, and dusting the counter; but his furtive eyes now and then turned upon Smith with the look of a hound that fears chastisement, and his work was done in a quick, nervous fashion, quite unusual to him.
Meantime, little Jim came in with an empty basket onhis arm, bright and radiant as a June morning. Smith lifted his eyes from the desk where he stood, and when he saw that cheerful, honest face, his own brightened. He had intended to question the boy, but thought of his wife, and had not the heart to do it.
“There is another basket to be taken to Mrs. Lambert’s cook, who comes down all this way because of one of the footmen being the cousin of my poor dead mother; so look sharp and get the things there in time,” said Boyce, swinging a basket up to the counter. “Tell her every article is choice, as choice can be, such as we don’t give to common customers, by no manner of means. There, now, heave away!”