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48 THE STORY OF MAGGIE.

more, and make him say new things to her; and what she wanted, she told them, was not to hear one more unpleasant word spoken in her home; she did not want to have one more to think about now, or after she was gone.

It caused them many misgivings. The mother’s heart ached with pity for her child. So did Anna’s; and Charley was so brotherly in his attentions, so helpful, as to seal her gratitude forever. She could praise him now in a way to satisfy even Anna, and so to cement the sisterly bond as to make it hard for Anna to give her up.

“It is hard to have you go, sister Maggie,” she would say; “but I think myself it is the best thing you can do. I think it is more likely to stop father where he is than anything else; and so does Charley. After you have been gone a day or two, we are going to take the time when we used to be singing our Sunday-hymns, (he has always seemed to like those, you know,) and tell him that you went because you suffered so. If that don’t stop him, I don’t know of anything that will. But I think it will; and Charley does, too, because he sees what we all know, that you are, after all, the one he always has loved most, and always will. But do you think you are able to go?”

“Yes,” with sobbing voice, Maggie answered.

Seeing how she felt, Anna refrained from saying anything more about her going; but busied herself helping her, packed the trunk herself, because when one was going away, and was sad, that was the hardest thing to do.

She wrote to great-aunt Hester, telling her that her sister was coming; and that, of all the sisters anybody had, she was the dearest, best! always doing something for others, or wanting to; the best dispositioned girl in the world.

“I’m happy!” Maggie kept saying, as the train bore her on, past the brown meadows, past the leafless elms, past the last fields she knew; and she said so, thinking of her father; of the resolute hand put out to keep Charley back, (when the latter would strap her trunk and see it off to the near station,) and afterward working with its mate, to strap it himself and see it off; thinking of the stumbling steps, made to stumble this time by the tears in his eyes blinding him; of the dear chin quivering; as he looked into her face at parting, and many times before that day. ‘I’m happy!” she said; but, for all that, she had, nearly the whole journey, to keep wiping the tears behind her veil.

CHAPTER XII.

Great-aunt Hester told Maggie she believed; the Lord sent her, because he knew how lonesome she and puss were; fixing her in her best arm-chair at her pleasantest window, the one that looked upon the handsomely-curtained, plate-glass window, the balconies and evergreen trees of the Browns—and leaving her there while she went out to make her tea.

Maggie herself sitting in quiet, with her eyes on the white hands using the needle within the window of the house opposite, and on the beau- tiful children running with kitten and dog out- side, felt as if the Lord had sent her. She wept, but without distraction; und her mind was busy with the problem of her future. She got her writing materials out, and wrote a letter; and after tea, while aunt Hester was engaged with her dishes, went out to post it. Lying beside aunt Hester, sitting the next morning where she could see and hear her about her work, and talk with her, she rested as never before in her life she had rested; for never before had she felt so worn, in such need of rest.

When it was time for the northern mail to be in, she went out to call at the post-office, saying to herself that she did not suppose she would find anything for her, although she might, perhaps; because, before she came away from home, Anna said, “We will send you all the letters
 * Charley gets from Mr. Butler. You must see

them, they are so well worth reading. And if any more of his nice things, if they are books, or pictures, or Art Journals, come, we will send them for you to see; but if they are fruit—pears that melt in your mouth, like those he sent yesterday, I am afraid they will melt before we can get them to you. Too bad you are going!”

She found a package with Charley’s elegant, bold superscription. Catching it eagerly, she hastened home; hardly heard one word aunt Hester said, when she replied, speaking a great way from the mark; and so the kind old body, after looking at her wonderingly a few times, and as often transferring her glance to puss sleeping beside her, settled down to her thoughtful hemming.

Late in the afternoon of that day, Maggie dressed and went out to walk, having asked aunt Hester the nearest way to the Amoskeag Falls bridge; and at four o'clock, five, she might have been seen, she and a gentleman, who had left the upward train at the Amoskeag station, walking with slow steps, back and forth, among the pines on the island. Occasionally they leaned against the dark stems as if to rest; but soon moved, again walking back and forth. If one had been near enough, one would have seen that their faces looked shocked, sad beyond

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THE STORY OF MAGGIE. 49 description; that she, if used to weeping when so sad, did not weep then; and if one could have seen her heart, one would have learned that it was because she would not let him see one sign of suffering it was possible for her to suppress; his anguish was so great, it so far transcended hers.

Reclining again awhile as if to rest, gather strength, they left the island, recrossed the bridge, both bridges, and from there it was not a very long way to aunt Hester's; for her house was in that beautiful portion of the city called up-town. At a street-corner near, after a long hand-clasp, a long look in each other’s face, they parted.

Maggie was glad, when she entered, to find aunt Hester sitting in the dim light of her coal- fire only. She told her so. ‘Good aunt Hester!” she said, “I’m glad you enjoy sitting in the fire-light. I like it dearly.”

They sat and talked of different members of the family—especially of John and Herbert in  their far-distant homes; and aunt Hester, who was famous for ‘looking on the sunny side,” said many of her jovial things, hearing in return no sound of laughter, hearing only the gentle, pensive answers, inquiries, which seemed to her strange in one so young.

CHAPTER XIII.

Maggie, in the succeeding days, tried to brighten; walked in the clear air, and even in; the storms, the cold wind and the snow felt so good on her forehead, to get a little of the color ef health into her cheeks; tried not to open her eyes to such width; standing before aunt Hes- ter’s great old-fashioned mirror, wished she eould for a little while look and appear as she used to, for his sake, he felt so bad. She would; die for him, if that would make him forget her, (after he had been up once more), and be as happy as if he had never see: her. To die would be a little thing to do for him, if it would; make him happy.

We know, nearly the whole adult world, both sexes, knows what kind of desecration goes on in married homes all over our land, under cer- tain circumstances of pride, ambition, love of pleasure, so-called, under pleas of poverty, and little mouths enough already to feed; and what, outside this abused relation, goes on under the dread of shame, disgrace. They know, we all do, that the mighty wrong is becoming every year more and more common; that even among Christian men and women, health and virtue are, in its consummation, thrown to the winds,

with tears, perhaps; perhaps the woman weeps, but she does her deed, nevertheless.

“It is over, and she is safe!” so the woman said, going outside to speak to one, a gentle- man, who for hours had been slowly pacing the side-walk in the dark. ‘Over, and she’s safe!” When he bowed his head low, and was gone.

She sat next day in aunt Hester’s arm-chair, too weak to hear many words from aunt Hester; although, whenever the excellent woman came to bring her tea-and-toast, to see to the fire, or to her shawl, she gave her a few smiles, worth a million of words, aunt Hester thought; they were such happy smiles! such happy, happy smiles! So, out in the dining-room, she talked to her cat, half-attentive, half-asleep in a cushioned-chair near her—a habit she had acquired out of her social nature and half-solitary life.

“The sickest-looking child you ever saw, Miss Puss, she was when Mrs. Holt came in. Well she came just when she did. She’s a woman all Manchester knows for her goodness to the sick; could do everything; get the doctor—your and my doctor, puss, and he’s the best man and the best doctor in Manchester—and all I could do was to keep the teeth from chattering out of my head, and pile in coal and wood, and rub my hands, so that I might get warm, and, perhaps, know something, do something. Ah! your mistress is getting older and older. She used to be the warmest, spryest, when there was the most to do; now she isn’t ahy better than a frozen log. Mrs. Holt had to do all for the poor girl. She shan’t go out any more in the evening and in the storm; going out, if it snows ever so hard, blows ever so hard, facing it—she shan’t do it any more. When she gets well, if she tries it, you must hold her tight with both your claws, and with your great white teeth. You know how, puss. We, between us, must hold her, keep her in, or her father and mother will be requiring her life at our hands; at my hands, pussy, at your paws and your white teeth.”

She was talking low. She did not expect anybody to hear her but puss; and puss was such a sleepy-head. She had a good mind to box her ears to wake her fairly, and make her understand that it was a thing of some importance she was saying to her. But Maggie heard her, and laughed.

“Laughing? You laughing?” said aunt Hester, coming in; “it’s worth more than all the money John and Herbert both will get while they are gone, to hear you laugh like that—

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text:
Page:Experimentsnotes00boyl.pdf/558

4 body whence they allied out, and carry with them thoe light bodies, that their further ends happen to adhere to, at the time of their Retraction: As when a drop of Oyl or Syrup hangs from the end of a mall tick, if that be dextrouly and cautiouly truck, the vicous ubftance will, by that impule, be tretch'd out, and preently retreating, will bring along with it the dut or other light bodies that chanced to tick to the remoter parts of it.

And this way of explaining Electrical Attractions is employ'd alo by the Learned Gaendus, who addes to it, that thee Electrical Rays (if they may be o call'd) being emitted everal ways, and conequently croing one another, get into the pores of the Straw, or other light body to be attracted, and by means of their Decuation take the fater hold of it, and have the greater force to carry it along with them, when they hrink back to the Am- ber

title: Page:Experimentsnotes00boyl.pdf/558


text: Public Law 106-176

title: Public Law 106-176