News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1881-12-29
A LITTLE FIGURE IN BLACK.
By MRS. II. L. RAYNE.

We were as poor as Jobs turkey, or
that other mythical creature, church
mouse, and to add to our misfortune,
had moved into a strange place, pend
ing the settlement of an estate which, if
we gained it, would give US compe-
tency, and if we lost could not leave us
any poorer. I had made the change in
order to get mother away from the sad
associations of her loss, and thinking to
secure the winter school for myself; it
was one day too late, but it might as
well have been hundred years, only in
that case I should have lost the school
and gained-what? Well, would not
have suffered from either hunger or
cold, that is certain
One day the minister called. He had
seen us at church. where we sat In a
back pew and had "poor" and
"stranger written all over us in I'M
mistakable characters. Our reception
room was parlor, library and kitchen /;
but when introduced him to mother,
sitting there SO digniied and lady-like
in her sorrowful widowhood, I felt
superiority to grand furniture or fine
clothes. What were these paltry things
In such a presence as hers, the grand,
true woman who had put all the world
beneath her feet?
The minister was a simple, child-hke
man, who carried himself with the air of
a whose shoulders were used to
bearing the cross. He did not desc
crate his holy Office by asking 1mperti-
nent questions, nor did he seek to prose-
lyte he was kind without being
condescending, and talked pleasantly of
the advantages of the place from
hygienic point; then he limited, rather
than asked to know, if Mrs. A., B. or @.
had done themselves the pleasure of
calling upon US.
1 presumed that these ladies were
shining lights in the church; no, they
had not so honored us. Did we know
our neighbors / smiled, rather super
ciliously, am afraid, for he was look
ing at house across the way, that was
occupied by at least three familiesl
You ought to know Mrs. Simpson,
he said, indicating a room with white
muslin curtains, between which we had
often seen a child's small sleek head in
serted, "you would like her very much;
she is wash-lady p
Heavensl had we come down to this ?
Nothing but his "cloth, as father used
to express it, saved him from my spoken
indignation. "Wash-ladyr' mo, we
didn't have the honor of her acquaint-
ance," said, "neither had the ash-man
nor the scrub lady called yet"
1t was pert and hateful, but did he
know that we belonged 10 the old
Knickerbockers and Van Re1sselaers of
New York ? was boiling over with in
jured pride, which was not soothed any
by the calm smile with which the good
man elaborated on the merits of the
"wash-lady." .
''She belongs to family" he said, as
reading my very thoughts, (which is
eighteen hundred years old, even the
family of the gentle Nazarene; her life
has been one Of heroic self abnegatioD;
for years she took care of an Infrm and
paralytic father and an invalid husband,
and earned the money that supported
them; every day she thanks God for the
health and strength that have kept her
up; she is now devoting her sole ener-
gies to educating her little girl, that she
may be able to support herself with
ease and responsibility am not ac-
quainted with a lady I respect more
heartily than Mrs. Simpson"
When he had delivered this eulogy he
left, and in few days other members
of the church called, and we were in
vited to a Dorcas society and vestry
sociable, but somehow we did not care
to emerge from obscurity, and lived
quietly for ourselves, happier even in
our loneliness than under the patronage
of these good commonplace people.
So it happened, that much of my time
was spent at the window where, like
Mariana of the Moated Grange, was
a-weary, and By degrees fell to watch
ing a swift little figure in black running
in and out from the house opposite
some seamstress, thought, that has
seen better days, and from Ter I would
glance to the pale, wistful face of little
child pressed against the window-pane,
the child of the wash-lady whom had
never seen. Well, if the mother was
rough and brawny, the child was deli
cate and dainty enough to be lady,
and somehow, from looking at and
watching her, 1 got to making signs and
trying to coax her. oversize was alone
so much I pitied her-but she never
anne. / would hold up a book of
pictures, or place a flower on the
window-sill, and she would smile and
clap her little hands, but never came,
and at last I, one of the old Knicker-
booker line, crept across the street on
Christmas evening in the dusk, and ran
mp to the wash-lady's room to ask
her humbly for the loan of her little
child. raped on the door and it was