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CHAPTER VII.
JUDGE HALLAM'S DAUGHTER, STENOGRAPHER
THERE was so much to be done next morning, setting the rooms all in order for the critical inspection of Miss Caroline and Miss Harriet, that Bethany had little time to think of the dreaded interview with Porter & Edmunds.
She wheeled Jack out into the shady, vine-covered piazza, and brought him a pile of things for him to amuse himself with in her absence.
"Ring your bell for Mena if you need anything else," she said. "I will be back before the sun gets around to this side of the house, maybe in less than an hour."
He caught at her dress with a detaining grasp, and a troubled look came over his face.
"O sister! I just thought of it. If you do get that place, will I have to stay here all day by myself?"
"O no," she answered. "Mena can wheel you around the garden, and wait on you; and I will think of all sorts of things to keep you busy. Then the old ladies will be here, and I am sure they will be kind to you. I'll be home at noon, and we'll have lovely long evenings together."
"But if those people come, Mena will have so much more to do, she'll never have any time to wheel me. Couldn't you take me with you?" he asked, wistfully. "I wouldn't be a bit of bother. I'd take my books and study, or look out of the window all the time, and keep just as quiet! Please ask 'em if I can't come too, sister!"
It was hard to resist the pleading tone.
"Maybe they'll not want me," answered Bethany. "I'll have to settle that matter before making any promises. But never mind, dear, we'll arrange it in some way."
It was a warm July morning. As Bethany walked slowly toward the business portion of the town, several groups of girls passed her, evidently on their way to work, from the few words she overheard in passing. Most of them looked tired and languid, as if the daily routine of such a treadmill existence was slowly draining their vitality. Two or three had a pert, bold air, that their contact with business life had given them. One was chewing gum and repeating in a loud voice some conversation she had had with her "boss."
Bethany's heart sank as she suddenly realized that she was about to join the great working-class of which this ill-bred girl was a member. Not that she had any of the false pride that pushes a woman who is an independent wage-winner to a lower social scale than one whom circumstances have happily hedged about with home walls; but she had recalled at that moment some of her acquaintances who would do just such a thing. In their short-sighted, self-assumed superiority, they could make no discrimination between the girl at the cigar-stand, who flirted with her customer, and the girl in the school-room, who taught her pupils more from her inherent refinement and gentleness than from their text-books.
She had remembered that Belle Romney had said to her one day, as they drove past a great factory where the girls were swarming out at noon: "Do you know, Bethany dear, I would rather lie down and die than have to work in such a place. You can't imagine what a horror I have of being obliged to work for a living, no matter in what way. I would feel utterly disgraced to come down to such a thing; but I suppose these poor creatures are so accustomed to it they never mind it."
Bethany's eyes blazed. She knew Belle Romney's position was due entirely to the tolerance of a distant relative. She longed to answer vehemently: "Well, I would starve before I would deliberately sit down to be a willing dependent on the charity of my friends. It's only a species of genteel pauperism, and none the less despicable because of the purple and fine linen it flaunts in."
She had not made the speech, however. Belle leaned back in the carriage, and folded her daintily-gloved hands, as they passed the factory-girls, with an air of complacency that amused Bethany then. It nettled her now to remember it.
She turned into the street where the Clifton Block stood, an imposing building, whose first two floors were occupied by lawyers' offices. Porter & Edmunds were on the second floor. The elevator-boy showed her the room. The door stood open, exposing an inviting interior, for the walls were lined with books, and the rugs and massive furniture bespoke taste as well as wealth.
An elderly gentleman, with his heels on the window-sill and his back to the door, was vigorously smoking. He was waiting for a backwoods client, who had an early engagement. His feet came to the floor with sudden force, and his cigar was tossed hastily out of the window when he heard Bethany's voice saying, timidly,
"May I come in, Mr. Edmunds?"
He came forward with old-school gallantry. It was not often his office was brightened by such a visitor.
"Why, it is Miss Hallam!" he exclaimed, in surprise, secretly wondering what had brought her to his office.
He had met her often in her father's house, and had seen her the center of many an admiring group at parties and receptions. She had always impressed him as having the air of one who had been surrounded by only the most refined influences of life. He thought her unusually charming this morning, all in black, with such a timid, almost childish expression in her big, gray eyes.
"Take this seat by the window, Miss Hallam," he said, cordially. "I hope this cigar smoke does not annoy you. I had no idea I should have the honor of entertaining a lady, or I should not have indulged."
"Didn't Mr. Marion tell you I was coming this morning?" asked Bethany, in some embarrassment.
"No, not a word. I believe he said something to Mr. Porter about a typewriter-girl that wants a place, but I am sure he never mentioned that you intended doing us the honor of calling."
Bethany smiled faintly.
"I am the typewriter-girl that wants the place," she answered.
"You!" ejaculated Mr. Edmunds, standing up in his surprise, and beginning to stutter as he always did when much excited. "You! w'y-w'y-w'y, you don't say so!" he finally managed to blurt out.
"What is it that is so astonishing?" asked Bethany, beginning to be amused. "Do you think it is presumptuous in me to aspire to such a position? I assure you I have a very fair speed."
"No," answered Mr. Edmunds, "it's not that; but I never any more thought of your going out in the world to make a living than a-a-a pet canary," he added, in confusion.
He seated himself again, and began tapping on the table with a paper-knife.
"Can't you paint, or give music lessons, or teach French?" he asked, half impatiently. "A girl brought up as you have been has no business jostling up against the world, especially the part of a world one sees in the court-room."
Bethany looked at him gravely.
"Yes," she answered, "I can do all those things after a fashion, but none of them well enough to measure up to my standard of proficiency, which is a high one. I do understand stenography, and I am confident I can do thorough, first-class work. I think, too, Mr. Edmunds, that it is a mistaken idea that the girl who has had the most sheltered home-life is the one least fitted to go into such places. Papa used to say we are like the planets; we carry our own atmosphere with us. I am sure one may carry the same personality into a reporter's stand that she would into a drawing-room. We need not necessarily change with our surroundings."
As she spoke, a slight tinge of pink flushed her cheeks, and she unconsciously raised her chin a trifle haughtily. Mr. Edmunds looked at her admiringly, and then made a gallant bow.
"I am sure, Miss Hallam would grace any position she might choose to fill," he said courteously.
"Then you will let me try," she asked, eagerly. She slipped off her glove, and took pencil and paper from the table. "If you will only test my speed, maybe you can make a decision sooner."
He dictated several pages, which she wrote to his entire satisfaction.
"You are not half as rapid as Jack," she said, laughingly; and then she told him of the practice she had had writing nursery rhymes.
He seemed so interested that she went on to tell him more about the child, and his great desire to be in the office with her.
"I told him I would ask you," she said, finally; "but that it was a very unusual thing to do, and that I doubted very much if any business firm would allow it."
He saw how hard it had been for her to prefer such a request, and smiled reassuringly.
"It would be a very small thing for me to do for Richard Hallam's boy," he said. "Tell the little fellow to come, and welcome. He need not be in any one's way. We have three rooms in this suite, and you will occupy the one at the far end."
It was hard for Bethany to keep back the tears.
"I can never thank you enough, Mr. Edmunds," she said. "The legacy papa thought he had secured to us was swept away, but he has left us one thing that more than compensates – the heritage of his friendships. I have been finding out lately what a great thing it is to be rich in friends."
Bethany went home jubilant. "Now if my twin tenants turn out to be half as nice," she thought, "this will be a very satisfactory day."
She tried to picture them, as she walked rapidly on, wondering whether they would be prim and dignified, or nervous and fussy. Mrs. Marion had said they were fine housekeepers. That might mean they were exacting and hard to please.
"What's the use of borrowing trouble?" she concluded, finally. "I'll take Uncle Doctor's advice, and not try to count to-morrow's milestones."
She found them sitting on the side piazza, being abundantly entertained by Jack.
"Sister!" he called, excitedly, as she came up the steps to meet them; "this one is Aunt Harry – that's what she told me to call her – and the other one is Aunt Carrie; and they've both been around the world together, and both ridden on elephants."
There was a general laugh at the unceremonious introduction.
Miss Caroline took Bethany's hands in her own little plump ones, and stood on tiptoe to give her a hearty kiss. Miss Harriet did the same, holding her a moment longer to look at her with fond scrutiny.
"Such a striking resemblance to your dear mother," she said. "Sister and I hoped you would look like her."
"They are homely little bodies, and dreadfully old-fashioned," was Bethany's first impression, as she looked at them in their plain dresses of Quaker gray. "But their voices are so musical, and they have such good, motherly faces, I believe they will prove to be real restful kind of people."
"Sister and I have been such birds of passage, that it will seem good to settle down in a real home-nest for a while," said Miss Harriet, as they were going over the house together.
"When one has lived in a trunk for a decade, one appreciates big, roomy closets and wardrobes like these."
They went all over the place, from garret to cellar, and sat down to rest beside an open window, where a climbing rose shook its fragrance in with every passing breeze.
"Mrs. Marion thought you might not be ready for us before next week," sighed Miss Caroline; "but these cool, airy rooms do tempt me so. I wish we could come this very afternoon." She smiled insinuatingly at Bethany. "We have nothing to move but our trunks."
"Well, why not?" answered Bethany. "I shall be glad to surrender the reins any time you want to assume the responsibility."
"Then it's settled!" cried Miss Caroline, exultingly. "O, I'm so glad!" and, catching Miss Harriet around her capacious waist, she whirled her around the room, regardless of her protestations, until their spectacles slid down their noses, and they were out of breath.
Bethany watched them in speechless amazement. Miss Caroline turned in time to catch her expression of alarm.
"Did you think we had lost our senses, dear?" she asked. "We do not often forget our dignity so; but we have been so long like Noah's dove, with no rest for the sole of our foot, that the thought of having at last found an abiding-place is really overwhelming."
"I wish you wouldn't always say 'we,'" remarked Miss Harriet, with dignity. "I am very sure I have outgrown such ridiculous exhibitions of enthusiasm, and it is fully time that you had too."
"O, come now, Harry," responded Miss Caroline, soothingly. "You're just as glad as I am, and there's no use in trying to hide our real selves from people we are going to live with."
Then she turned to Bethany with an apologetic air.
"Sister thinks because we have arrived at a certain date on our calendar, we must conform to that date. But, try as hard as I can, I fail to feel any older sometimes than I used to at Forest Seminary, when we made midnight raids on the pantry, and had all sorts of larks. I suppose it does look ridiculous, and I'm sorry; but I can't grow old gracefully, so long as I am just as ready to effervesce as I ever was."
Bethany was amused at the half-reproachful, half-indulgent look that Miss Harriet bestowed on her sister.
"They'll be a constant source of entertainment," she thought. "I wonder how we ever happened to drift together."
Something of the last thought she expressed in a remark to the sisters as they went down stairs together.
"Indeed, we did not drift!" exclaimed Miss Caroline, decidedly. "You needed us, and we needed you, and the great Weaver crossed our life-threads for some purpose of his own."
By nightfall the sisters had taken their places in the old house, as quietly and naturally as twin turtle-doves tuck their heads under their wings in the shelter of a nest. Their presence in the house gave Bethany such a care-free, restful feeling, and a sense of security that she had not had since she had been left at the head of affairs.
After Jack had gone to bed, she drew a rocking-chair out into the wide hall, and sat down to enjoy the cool breeze that swept through it.
Miss Caroline was down in the kitchen, interviewing Mena about breakfast. How delightful it was to be freed from all responsibility of the meals and the marketing! After the next week she would not have even the rooms to attend to, for Miss Caroline had engaged a stout maid to do the housework, that Bethany's inexperienced hands had found so irksome.
Up-stairs, Miss Harriet was stepping briskly around, unpacking one of the trunks. Bethany could hear her singing to herself in a thin, sweet voice, full of old-fashioned quavers and turns. Some of the notes were muffled as she disappeared from time to time in the big closet, and some came with jerky force as she tugged at a refractory bureau drawer.
"Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head."
CHAPTER VIII.
A KINDLING INTEREST
FRANK Marion, on his way to the store one morning, stopped at the office where Bethany had been installed just a week.
"You will find me dropping in here quite often," he said to Mr. Edmunds, whom he met coming out of the door. "Since that little cousin of mine is never to be found at home in the day-time any more, I shall have to call on him here. He is my right-hand man in Junior League work."
"Who? Jack?" inquired Mr. Edmunds. "He's the most original little piece I ever saw. Sorry I'm called out just now, Frank. You're always welcome, you know."
Bethany was seated at her typewriter, so intent on her manuscript that she did not notice Mr. Marion's entrance. Jack, in his chair by the window, was working vigorously with slate and pencil at an arithmetic lesson. As Bethany paused to take the finished page from the machine, Jack looked up and saw Mr. Marion's tall form in the doorway.
"O, come in!" he cried, joyfully. "I want you to see how nice everything is here. We have the best times."
Mr. Marion looked across at Bethany, and smiled at the child's delight.
"Tell me about it," he said, drawing a chair up to the window, and entering into the boy's pleasure with that ready sympathy that was the secret of his success with all children.
"Well, you see, Bethany wheels me onto the elevator, and up we come. And it's so nice and cool up here. She hasn't been very busy yet. While she writes I get my lessons, or draw, or work puzzles. Then, when Mr. Edmunds and Mr. Porter go off, and she hasn't anything to do, I recite to her. But the best fun is grocery tales."
"What's 'grocery tales?'" asked Mr. Marion, with flattering interest.
"Do you see that wholesale grocery-store across the street?" asked Jack, "and all the things sitting around in front? There's almost everything you can think of, from a broom to a banana. I choose the first thing I happen to look at, and she tells me a story about it. If it's a tea-chest, that makes her think of a Chinese story; or if it's a bottle of olives, something about the knights and ladies of Spain. Yesterday it was a chicken-coop, and she told me about a lovely visit she had once on a farm. She says when we come to that coil of rope, it will remind her of a storm she was in on the Mediterranean; and the coffee means a South American story; and the watermelons a darkey story; and the brooms something she read once about an old, blind broom-maker. Then I have lots of fun watching people pass. So many teams stop at the watering-trough over there. I like to wonder where everybody comes from, and imagine what their homes are like. It is almost as good as reading about them in a book."
"You are a very happy little fellow," said Mr. Marion, patting his cheek, approvingly. "I am glad you are getting strong so fast, so that you can go out into this big, discontented world of ours, and teach other people how to be happy. I've brought you some more work to do. I want you to look up all these references, and copy them on separate slips of paper for our next meeting. By the way, Bethany," he said, as he rose to go, "I had a letter from our Chattanooga Jew this morning. He is as much in earnest as ever. I wish we could get our League interested in him and his mission."
"It is a very unpopular movement, Cousin Frank," she answered. "Think of the prejudices to overcome. How little the general membership of the Church know or care about the Jews! It seems almost impossible to combat such indifference. Carlyle says, 'Every noble work is at first impossible.'"
"Ah, Bethany," he answered, "and Paul says: 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthened me.' I can't get away from the feeling that God wants me to take some forward step in the matter. Every paper I pick up seems to call my attention to it in some way. All the time in my business I am brought in contact with Jews who want to talk to me about my religion. They introduce the subject themselves. Ray and I have been reading Graetz's history lately. I declare it's a puzzle to me how any one can read an account of all the race endured at the hands of the Christianity of the Middle Ages, and not be more lenient toward them. Pharaoh's cruelties were not a tithe of what was dealt out to them in the name of the gentle Nazarene. No wonder their children were taught to spit at the mention of such a name."
"O, is that history as bad as 'Fox's Book of Martyrs?'" asked Jack, eagerly. "We've got that at home, with the awfullest black and yellow pictures in it of people being burned to death and tortured. I hope, if it is as interesting, sister will read it out loud."
Bethany made such a grimace of remonstrance that Mr. Marion laughed.
"I'll send the books over to-morrow. You'll not care to read all five volumes, Jack; but Bethany can select the parts that will interest you most."
Jack's tenacious memory brought the subject up again that evening at the table.
"Aunt Harry," he asked, abruptly, pausing in the act of helping himself to sugar, "do you like the Jews?"
"Why, no, child," she said, hesitatingly. "I can't say that I take any special interest in them, one way or another. To tell the truth, I've never known any personally."
"Would you like to know more about them?" he asked, with childish persistence. "'Cause Bethany's going to read to me about them when Cousin Frank sends the books over, and you can listen if you like."
"Anything that Bethany reads we shall be glad to hear," answered Miss Harriet. "At first sister and I thought we would not intrude on you in the evenings; but the library does look so inviting, and it is so dull for us to sit with just our knitting-work, since we have stopped reading by lamp-light, that we can not resist the temptation to go in whenever she begins to read aloud."
"O, you're home-folks," said Jack.
Bethany had excused herself before this conversation commenced, and was in the library, opening the mail Miss Caroline had forgotten to give her at noon. When the others joined her, she held up a little pamphlet she had just opened.
"Look, Jack! It is from Mr. Lessing, from Chattanooga. It is an article on 'What shall become of the Jew?' I suppose it is written by one of them, at least his name would indicate it – Leo N. Levi. It will be interesting to look at that question from their standpoint."
"Will I like it?" asked Jack.
"No, I think not," she answered, after a rapid glance through its pages. "We'll have some more of the 'Bonnie Brier-Bush' to-night, and save this until you are asleep."
Bethany read well, and excelled in Scotch dialect. When she laid down the book after the story of "A Doctor of the Old School," she saw a big tear splash down on Miss Harriet's knitting-work, and Miss Caroline was furtively wiping her spectacles.
"Leave the door open," called Jack, when he had been tucked away for the night. "Then I can listen if it's nice, or go to sleep if it's dull."
"Do you really care to hear this?" asked Bethany, picking up the pamphlet.
"Yes," said Miss Caroline, with several emphatic nods. "I'll own I am very ignorant on the subject; and after something so highly entertaining as these sweet Scotch tales, it's no more than right that we should take something improving."
"O sister," called Jack's voice from the next room, "you never told them about Mr. Lessing, did you?"
"No," answered Bethany. "I never told them any of my Chattanooga experiences. Maybe it would be better to begin with them, and then you can understand how I happened to become so interested in the Hebrew people. The pamphlet can wait until another time."
She tossed it back on the table, and settled herself comfortably in a big chair.
"I'll begin at the beginning," she said, "and tell you how I was persuaded into going, and how strangely events linked into each other."
"Can't you just see it all?" murmured Miss Caroline, as Bethany drew a graphic picture of the mountain outlook, the sunrise, and the crowded tent. When she came to Lessing's story, Miss Harriet dropped her work in her lap, and Miss Caroline leaned forward in her chair.
"Dear! dear! It sounds like a chapter out of a romance!" exclaimed Miss Caroline, when Bethany had finished. "That part about the mother's curse and being buried in effigy makes me think of the novels that we used to smuggle into our rooms at school. I wish you could go on and give us the next chapter. It is intensely interesting."
"Ah, the next chapter," replied Bethany, sadly. "I thought of that at the time. What can it be but the daily repetition of commonplace events? He will simply go on to the end in a routine of study and work. He will preach to whatever audiences he can gather around him. That is all the world will see. The other part of it, the burden of loneliness laid upon him because of Jewish scorn and Christian distrust, the soul-struggles, the spiritual victories, the silent heroism, will be unwritten and unapplauded, because unseen."
"I don't wonder you are interested," said Miss Harriet. "Would you believe it, I don't know the difference between an orthodox and a reform Jew? I think I shall look it up to-morrow in the encyclopedia."
She picked up the little pamphlet, and opened at random.
"Here is a marked paragraph," she said. "'The Jew is everywhere in evidence. He sells vodki in Russia; he matches his cunning against Moslem and Greek in Turkey; he fights for existence and endures martyrdom in the Balkan provinces; he crowds the professions, the arts, the market-place, the bourse, and the army, in France, England, Austria, and Germany. He has invaded every calling in America, and everywhere he is seen; and, what is more to the point, he is felt. He runs through the entire length of history, as a thin but well-defined line, touched by the high lights of great events at almost every point.'"
"Where did we leave off with him, sister?" she asked, turning to Miss Caroline. "Wasn't it at the destruction of the temple, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 A. D.? We shall have to trace that line back a considerable distance, I am thinking, if we would know anything on the subject."
"Let's trace it then," said Miss Caroline, with her usual alacrity.
Several evenings after, when Bethany came home from the office, she found a new book on the table, with Miss Caroline's name on the fly-leaf. It was "The Children of the Ghetto."
"I bought it this afternoon," she explained, a little nervously. "It is one of Zangwill's. The clerk at the bookstore told me he is called the Jewish Dickens, and that it is very interesting. Of course, I am no critic, but it looked interesting, and I thought you might not mind reading it aloud. Several sentences caught my eye that made me think it might be as entertaining as 'Old Curiosity Shop,' or 'Oliver Twist.'"
Bethany rapidly scanned several pages. "I believe it is the very thing to give us an insight into the later day customs and beliefs of the masses."
She read the headings of several of the chapters aloud, and a sentence here and there.
"Listen to this!" she exclaimed. "'We are proud and happy in that the dread unknown God of the infinite universe has chosen our race as the medium by which to reveal his will to the world. History testifies that this has verily been our mission, that we have taught the world religion as truly as Greece has taught beauty and science. Our miraculous survival through the cataclysms of ancient and modern dynasties is a proof that our mission is not yet over.'"
"O, I thought it was going to be a story!" exclaimed Jack, in a disappointed tone.
"It is, dear," answered Bethany. "You can understand part, and I will explain the rest."
So it came about that, after the Scotch tales were laid aside, the little group in the library nightly turned their sympathies toward the children of the London Ghetto, as it existed in the early days of the century.
"I can never feel the same towards them again," said Miss Caroline, the night they finished the book. "I understand them so much better. It is just as the proem says: 'People who have been living in a ghetto for a couple of centuries are not able to step outside merely because the gates are thrown down, nor to efface the brands on their souls by putting off the yellow badges. Their faults are bred of its hovering miasma of persecution.'"
"Yes," answered Bethany, "I am glad he has given us such a diversity of types. You know that article that Mr. Lessing sent me says: 'No people can be fairly judged by its superlatives. It would be silly to judge all the Chinese by Confucius, or all the Americans by Benedict Arnold. If the Jews squirm and indignantly protest against Shylock and Fagin and Svengali, they must be consistent, and not claim as types Scott's Rebecca and Lessing's Nathan the Wise.' Now, Zangwill has given us a glimpse of all sorts of people – the 'pots and pans' of material Judaism, as well as the altar-fires of its most spiritual idealists. I hope you'll go on another investigating tour, Miss Caroline, and bring home something else as instructive."
But before Miss Caroline found time to go on another voyage of discovery among the book-stores, something happened at the office that gave a deeper interest to their future investigations.
Mr. Edmunds sat at the table a few minutes longer than usual, one morning after he had finished dictating his letters, to say: "We are about to make some changes in the office, Miss Hallam. Mr. Porter has decided to go abroad for a while. Family matters may keep him there possibly a year. During his absence it is necessary to have some one in his place; and, after mature deliberation, we have decided to take in a young lawyer who has two points decidedly in his favor. He has marked ability, and he will attract a wealthy class of clients. He is a young Jew, a protege of Rabbi Barthold's. Personally, I have the highest respect for him, although Mr. Porter is a little prejudiced against him on account of his nationality. I wondered if you shared that feeling."
"No, indeed!" answered Bethany, quickly. "I have been greatly interested in studying their history this summer."
"Well, I have never given their past much thought," responded Mr. Edmunds; "but their relation to the business world has recently attracted my attention. It is wonderful to me the way they are filling up the positions of honor and trust all over the world. Statistics show such a large proportion of them have acquired wealth and prominence. Still, it is only what we ought to expect, when we remember their characteristics. They have such 'mental agility,' such power of adapting themselves to circumstances, and such a resistless energy. Maybe I should put their temperate habits first, for I can not remember ever seeing a Jew intoxicated; and as to industry, the records of our county poor-house show that in all the seventy years of its existence, it has never had a Jewish inmate. People with such qualities are like cream, bound to rise to the top, no matter what kind of a vessel they are poured into."
"Who is this young man?" asked Bethany, coming back to the first subject.
"David Herschel," responded Mr. Edmunds. "You may have met him."
"David Herschel!" repeated Bethany, incredulously. She caught her breath in surprise. Was there to be a deliberate crossing of life-threads here, or had she been caught in some tangle of chance? Maybe this was the opportunity she had prayed for that morning when she had listened to Lessing's story, and caught the inspiration of his consecrated life.
