The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1883-04-19
THE LIFE SHE SAVED.

on the faded ingram carpet of the dreary
fireless hall bedroom, in which she sat
upon her own shabby little trunk, tho
red shawl drawn tightly around her for
warmth's sake, the roar and rattle of
the avenue below rising up to her ear
like the howl OF Il distant demon.
For Bessie was q country girl, and
better acquainted with the gurgle of
alder-shaded brooks and the hum of
bees than the rush Of omnibus wheels
and the whizz of trains over the elevated
roads.
Bessie's visit to New York was prov
ing rather a disappointment.
She had committed the not unnatural
error of taking her city cousins entirely
at their word when, after month at
Bluebell Farm, they had invited her to
come and see them in the city.
So she had indulged in new violet
cashmere, made by the village dress
maker, little straw hat with a wreath
of daisies and new boots and gloves and
taken the eight o'clock train to the city
one fine morning.
But Mrs Milton Munger's house, in
stead of the elegant mansion on Fifth
Avenue, which she had limited at, was a
big domicile over a shoe store, where
she kept boarders, and expended most
of the profits in snowy dresses for her.
self and her two daughters. Medora and
Adeliza.
And she stared blankly enough at Bes-
sic Barton when that dimpled young
damsel presented herself smilingly at
the door.
At first she could scarcely recall her
face, but presently she remembered who
it was.
s'Ah," said she, ''its Cousin Barton's S
girl from Bluebell Farm, isn't it? Dear
me, what on earth has brought you
herc?"
.'Medora and Adeliza asked me to re-
turn their VISIT" said Bessie, feeling as
if her heart was plunged into cold
bath. And-and didn't know that you
kept boarding-housen'
at isn't boarding-house," sharply
retorted Mrs. Munger. ''If I choose to
share my expenses with a few refined
friends, | don't know that my establish
ment need to be called a boarding-house.
But I'll call the girls. Medoral Adeliza!
where are you?"
Medora Munger emerged from the
parlor where she had been hammcrirg
away on a wretched old skeleton of a
piano.
Adeliza cameup from the uncongcnial
occupation Of polishing red apples for
dessert in mouldv smelling dining
room where TIE boardcrs ate their din
ner by gas.i~:2t, and ere issged forth
q Whit o. flack2Cetles every time the
cupboard doors we're opened,
Anl together they esco 4 their cous-
in Bessie ~ to the chill, hall bedroom,
whose atmosphere seemed to strike Ike
a frozen k lie to her heart.
:'Oh. OF course we re glad to see you, y"
said Medora, adjusting the frizzes be-
fore the misty little looking-glass framed
in cherry wood. ''But it unlucky that
you should have come just now, when
the house is so full, and the waitress
has gone, and there's such deal to
do. But you can sleep with me and
Liza, in the dark room off the linen
closet, and l dare say We'll get along
very comfortably
But this style of speech was so differ
ent from the gushing cordiality display
ed some three months before at the
Bluebell Farm by these ladies, that Bes-
sic Barton could scarcely believe her
ears.
And she was just making up her mind
to propose return to the country after
three days of chrysalis existence in the
dark dining-room and gloomy back
from her pictured anticipations of city
yIo,, I,~o.o,. /,
a totally unexpected proposition.
"Tll tell you what, Bessie" said she,
''I'm troubled for help just now, and if
you'll stay and lend hand with the
glass and china, and dessert-I know
you've got good taste about such things.
for your table out at the farm was al
ways as pretty as a picture-In give
you dollar week.
And to the little country damsel who
had never earned a penny of her own, q
dollar a week appeared like wealth, al
though this realisation of the New York
dream seemed so unlike her fancies of
Fifth Avenue, the Central Park, the
glitter of Broadway, and the kaleido-
scope splendors of the Academy of De-
sign.
Moreover, after all that had been said
throughout the simple country neigh
borhood about her visit to the city, she
was little ashamed to come back at a
week end with the confession that her
aunt hadn't been especially glad to see
her.
So she acquiesced in Aunt Munger's
project and remained. although she was
a little afraid of the boarders.
There was the fat man with the flow
ing coral-colored beard, who was a
editor-and the pdsSee wild
ow who had the best front room, and
was always sending messages to the
people overhead not to tread heavily, as
she had the nervous headache-and the
two moustached young men who had
to do with the brokering bus
mess in Wall street-and the stout
couple who went daily to q gymnasium,
and walked for exercise so many hours
per diem. And there was the young
lady with the curls who taught school,
and the genteel dressmaker who had
the use of the parlors to see her COM
pany in, and the saucy pretty ''sales
lady" who always dressed so elegantly,
and the shy youth who was book
keeper somewhere on starvation sal
ary, and whom nobody noticed. They
were all studies of character to little
Bessie Barton. She looked at them as
she might have looked at SO many stat
ues or pictures-they amused her.
Until finally the Shy lad-Laurence
Wyatt was his name-fell sick of ma
larial fever in the very chill hall bed
reom where Bessie Barton had shed
those first and bitterest tears of her So
iourn in the great city-and Bessie her
self, shocked at the total Indifference of
Aunt Munger and the girls, made him
a bowl of cruel and took it upstairs.
you are. very kind, said the pale
lad, looking at her with eyes which
were like sunken caverns of fire. don't
know what right have to your minis
trations -
just this" said Bessie cheerily: 81
heard you say once that all your friends
were up in Maine-and, of course,
some one must take care of you
every one doesn't argue after the
same fashion," said Wyatt bitterly.
"And BESIDES pursued Bessie, eat
home, at Bluebell Farm, we girls have
a-little society which we call Sisters Of
the Suffering And we go around to
all who are ill-all, mean," she added
with.a blush "who- cannot afford who