Chapter LXXVII

And now our heroine had become a regular business woman. She did not even hear the whir—whir of the odd lodger in the attic. The little room was littered with newspapers, envelopes, letters opened and unopened, answered and waiting to be answered. One minute she might be seen sitting, pen in hand, trying, with knit brows, to decipher some horrible cabalistic printer’s mark on the margin of her proof; then writing an article for Mr. Walter, then scribbling a business letter to her publishers, stopping occasionally to administer a sedative to Nettie, in the shape of a timely quotation from Mother Goose, or to heal a fracture in a doll’s leg or arm. Now she was washing a little soiled face, or smoothing little rumpled ringlets, replacing a missing shoe-string or pinafore button, then wading through the streets while Boreas contested stoutly for her umbrella, with parcels and letters to the post-office, (for Ruth must be her own servant,) regardless of gutters or thermometers, regardless of jostling or crowding. What cared she for all these, when Katy would soon be back—poor little patient, suffering Katy? Ruth felt as if wings were growing from her shoulders. She never was weary, or sleepy, or hungry. She had not the slightest idea, till long after, what an incredible amount of labor she accomplished, or how her mother’s heart was goading her on.

“Pressing business that Mis. Hall must have,” said her landlady, with a sneer, as Ruth stood her dripping umbrella in the kitchen sink. “Pressing business, running round to offices and the like of that, in such a storm as this. You wouldn’t catch me doing it if I was a widder. I hope I’d have more regard for appearances. I don’t understand all this flying in and out, one minute up in her room, the next in the street, forty times a day, and letters by the wholesale. It will take me to inquire into it. It may be all right, hope it is; but of course I like to know what is going on in my house. This Mis. Hall is so terrible close-mouthed, I don’t like it. I’ve thought a dozen times I’d like to ask her right straight out who and what she is, and done with it; but I have not forgotten that little matter about the pills, and when I see her, there’s something about her, she’s civil enough too, that seems to say, ‘don’t you cross that chalk-mark, Sally Waters.’ I never had lodgers afore like her and that old Bond, up in the garret. They are as much alike as two peas. She goes scratch—scratch—scratch; he goes whir—whir—whir. They haint spoke a word to one another since that child was sick. It’s enough to drive anybody mad, to have such a mystery in the house. I can’t make head nor tail on’t. John, now, he don’t care a rush-light about it; no more he wouldn’t, if the top of the house was to blow off; but there’s nothing plagues me like it, and yet I aint a bit curous nuther. Well, neither she nor Bond make me any trouble, there’s that in it; if they did I wouldn’t stand it. And as long as they both pay their bills so reg’lar, I shan’t make a fuss; I should like to know though what Mis. Hall is about all the time.”

Publication day came at last. There was the book. Ruth’s book! Oh, how few of its readers, if it were fortunate enough to find readers, would know how much of her own heart’s history was there laid bare. Yes, there was the book. She could recall the circumstances under which each separate article was written. Little shoeless feet were covered with the proceeds of this; a little medicine, or a warmer shawl was bought with that. This was written, faint and fasting, late into the long night; that composed while walking wearily to or from the offices where she was employed. One was written with little Nettie sleeping in her lap; another still, a mirthful, merry piece, as an escape-valve for a wretched heartache. Each had its own little history. Each would serve, in after-days, for a land-mark to some thorny path of by-gone trouble. Oh, if the sun of prosperity, after all, should gild these rugged paths! Some virtues—many faults—the book had—but God speed it, for little Katy’s sake!

“Let me see, please,” said little Nettie, attracted by the gilt covers, as she reached out her hand for the book.

“Did you make those pretty pictures, mamma?”

“No, my dear—a gentleman, an artist, made those for me—I, make pictures with a-b-c’s.”

“Show me one of your pictures, mamma,” said Nettie.

Ruth took the child upon her lap, and read her the story of Gertrude. Nettie listened with her clear eyes fixed upon her mother’s face.

“Don’t make her die—oh, please don’t make her die, mamma,” exclaimed the sensitive child, laying her little hand over her mother’s mouth.

Ruth smiled, and improvised a favorable termination to her story, more suitable to her tender-hearted audience.

“That is nice,” said Nettie, kissing her mother; “when I get to be a woman shall I write books, mamma?”

“God forbid,” murmured Ruth, kissing the child’s changeful cheek; “God forbid,” murmured she, musingly, as she turned over the leaves of her book; “no happy woman ever writes. From Harry’s grave sprang ‘Floy.’”