The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1895-05-24
miscellaneous.
A BIT OF MAY-DAY BRAVERY.
BY MARTHA YOUNG.

was only one sign of May-day, a basket
of hawthorn blossoms hung out of a
window high up in a tenement house
A fortnight ago Kate had come to
the city. When she found herself
wrapped in the ceaseless noise of the
great town she had felt just as she had
on that afternoon of red sunset when
she had plunged into the hustling
waves of Black Falls creek, just above
the rapids, to save her little brother
from drowning. The whir and dash of
waters had deafened and bewildered
her then, but she had kept her wits
enough about her to hold her head
above water, and to repeat again
and again to her own heart: II must
save him l must save my brother ~
And she had saved him. Just so on
the night that she had reached the
city had the waves of human life
seemed to buffet and almost to Devil
der her.
Mehitable Barrow, her school-mate
at the little mountain school, had per-
suaded her to come to the city.
Kate" Mehitable had cried, as
soon as she had her off the car, you
don't know what piece of luck for
you Forty dollars a month, for it is
expected to be new feature. Just
mixing drinks and juleps and that
sort of thing, for IA brand new hotel.
| You are so steady, Il place like that
| wouldn't hurt you. | said you could
| fix juleps all day and never touch a
drop; couldn't you? And you look
| that fresh and rosy like a mountain
camelia. that you'll make all the men
| think of real oldtime moonshiners'
stills up ON the mountain
| AS they walked rapidly along the
streets Kate was dazed with the sights
and lights and the hustle and noise all
about her, but she kept her wits
enough to keep repeating to her heart:
Il can't do it. | can't do it. | can't
go help folks to drown 'emselves in
ruin. I've seen enough of that with
| the moonshine whisky on the noun
| tain"
"Hetty," she said at last aloud, in
| terrupting Hetty's story of what forty
dollars month would buy, ''Hetty, l
can't do that can't ~
You are throwing u good chance
away. It's just good money gone.
Somebody IL take the place. and do
the work. It's just loss to you.
That's ALL"
And this was what Kate had had to
hear day after day of all the time she
had been in town. She had been try
| ter how hard or how humble, only not
the one place that was offered.
You can't expect to pick and choose,
| specially in these hard times that
have come. | got you place like
promised | would and you won't take
it," Hetty reiterated daily. You are
| Just afraid to do what's new, what
hasn't been done before"
| With high courage Kate had turned
her back to the weather beaten cabin
home on the spur of Lookout. Hetty
Barron had talked at the Jones' quilt
| ing bee last harvest of factory work
of living out, of clerking; she had
said then: Come, Kate, I'll board
you cheap till you get work"
Kate had come, brought hither by
the boarded coins of many hard
days work at the sewing machine, or
labor in the fields among the harvest
ers. The little hoard was almost gone.
Hetty had shown plainly enough this
morning that her welcome also was
well-nigh exhausted. Kate felt, too,
that the little sums she had given Het-
ty from her small store had been in
sufficient for her keep. Independence
on her own kin had been hard to
bear. how much bitter to her was this
She had been courageous enough as
| she had started city-ward. She had
| told Aunt Mercy and Uncle 81 that
she would run up to the farm before
long to get her little brother; she had
said, too, that she hoped to be able
soon to repay to them something of
their kindness and care for her. Her
courage was all gone now.
Hetty had put ON her bonnet and
shawl with jerk and had started out
for day of hard jobs. Anyhow,
Kate she had said, sharply, you
can mind the child"
Kate longed for the old home today,
for the wide views, hazy and blue in
the distances, with nearer slopes, gray
family Swallowed with coming green
ness in the early spring. Looking out
of the window at the stretch of tall
tenment houses she longed for the
rare blue hills" for sight of the warm
hooks where flowers for many May
day garlands grew.
She longed for the homely warm in
terror of the old log cabin. So deep
was her dream of home that the red
glow of that stormy afternoon when
she had rescued her little brother
seemed to be all about her.
Little Joe Barrow trotted hither and
thither in their poor room, solemnly
engaged in some games whose purport
and enjoyment only he could fathom
and find
1t had been chilly enough in that
bare room five stories up, but now, to
Kate, so wrapped in musings of her
old home, all GOODNESS seemed sudden
" thawed out of the morning. She
felt delicious warmth rushing all over
her as she had on that afternoon so
long ago, when the home-folks had
crowded her and her little brother
close to the ruddy logs in the old stone
chimney her heart warmed up at re-
membrance of Uncle Sis hearty voice
praising her for the rescue and calling
her: Brave Kate Brave Kate y
Was it possible she was grown such a
coward now that she feared to face
another days search for work ?
No, she would make one more effort,
if only Hetty would be a little more
kind, would bear with her a little
longer, would not talk any more OF
the place she could not take.
She was sharply awakened from heI
reverie by little Joe's crying out,
"Ook, Kate, 'ook, Kate -
Starting from her crouching position
on the floor, Kate looked this way and
! IL.