Father's house

Chapter I. The Daily Work

It was high noon in the “Valley Falls Cotton Mills.” There were many other factories of the same description up and down the mile of rapid river that had decided the location of the thriving village of Valley Falls, but these of “ Hart & Trask ” were the oldest and largest, and so of course had the choice of names.

Here, some fifteen minutes earlier, the noisy bell had rung out a welcome clangor that announced the three-quarters of an hour of nooning. Girls had snatched off the long aprons that nearly covered them, and tossed them aside, and then boys and girls, men and women, some giving a jerk to their elbows that sent the sleeves a little nearer the wrists, a few throwing a piece of shawl or an apron or torn hat on their heads, but some bare armed and headed, crowded down the long stairs and passed the great doors into

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the glare of the hot September sun. The air of the narrow lanes, that was fragrant with odors of cabbage and onions, and roasting meats, rang with the coarse jest and shrill laugh. Most of these workers were going to hot, stifling kitchens, but they would find tables spread with food ample in quantity, however the quality might speak of the ignorance of cooks ; and they were hungry enough to enjoy even the promise in the air.

Those were the palmy days for operatives soon after the close of the war, and money was flush on these lanes, though the sad fact was, it never remained there. It seemed to be impossible in the nature of things for wages to last from one pay-day to another.

Back in the second story of the mill the great weaving-room was now nearly deserted. The machines that whirled and throbbed as if instinct with life twelve hours out of the twenty-four, stood silent and motionless. There was a smell of oil in the air, but the windows on every side were open, and the slight breeze from the river swayed the loose cotton curtains, and gently moved in the streams of sunlight the tiny fluffs of cotton that were a part of the worker’s atmosphere.

It was a common and not unwelcome scene to the little group of weavers gathered in one corner, eating their lunch from tin pails with a coffee compartment below. There were only four of them, and they lived too far away to go home at noon. That was what Kate Marsh was scolding about.

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“It’s mean as can be. Father might get bigger wages here; but he’s been at Hall’s so long he wont change ; so I have to live on that lane and have my long tramp to suit him. I ’d come away and board at the boardinghouse, but that takes money, and I’m sharp enough to stay where I get good board for nothing,” she said with a coarse laugh. Kate’s face matched the laugh; even the color on her cheek was high.

“ I thought your father was n’t strong enough to do what they want here,” said a pale, sickly-looking girl opposite.

“So he says,” rejoined Kate carelessly; “I don’t believe it would matter much.”

There was another girl leaning out of the window and idly dropping crumbs, and a woman many years older than the others, who had finished her lunch and dropped the paper into the stream and now sat leaning back against a post, with eyes closed and no expression of interest on the large strong features. But the girl roused up, exclaiming,

“ For shame, Kate, your father looks badly enough. But do n’t you pay any board ?”

“No, do you?”

“Yes, two dollars a week.”

“ What ’s the use of having friends if you can’t use ’em?” said Kate with a toss of her head. “ I ’ve uses enough for my money, and you’re a goose, Hilda

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Duncan, if you do n’t know it. ‘ Look out for number one ’ is the best motto I know of. See here, how much wages do you get now ?”

“I’ll get ten dollars to-day, but it’s the first; I never had but seven before, but I have six looms now.”

“And you a’ n’t bad looking either,” remarked Kate; “only you haven’t any style. I tell you, Hilda Duncan, if you ’d ever wear anything, you ’d make quite a figure. You’re a sight better looking than Fan Kellogg now, but somehow she shows off more.”

“ I ’ve just got a new linen dress,” ventured Hilda, hesitatingly.

“ Pshaw, what ’s a linen dress ? Have you seen my new silk ?”

“ No, have you got one?”

“ Yes ; both my others were getting too dowdy and old-fashioned. Ma says I ’m awful on clothes ; but I tell her my money ’s my own, I ’ve been eighteen more than a year. I ’ve got a piece of my dress down in my hat I ’ll show you.”

She came back in a minute with a sample of very heavy, rich-looking brown silk.

“Oh what a beauty!” the girls exclaimed as the brown turned to gold in the bright sunlight.

“ I fancy ’t is,” said Kate. “ Ought to be, at any rate. I paid three dollars a yard for it, and it takes twenty-five yards to make a dress. I tell you, it more

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than emptied my purse; pa had to come down with the last X ; and I ’ve the trimmings and making to pay for yet. Miss Shelby says she must have twelve dollars to make it up in style, and I get lace at two dollars a yard to trim.”

“Where’ll you wear it when you get it?” asked the pale girl, whose name was Anna Morrison.

“Wear it?” exclaimed Kate, firing up as though that were a sore point ; “ why where I ’ve a mind to, of course. I ’m going to have a bonnet like it, and then I fancy Judge Harris’ fine daughter will see that I can look as fine as she any day, if I am a factory-girl.”

“ She ’ll never see you,” replied Anna, who had the mosquito faculty of inflicting small stings. Kate did not condescend to notice this, but drawing a fashion plate from her pocket, descanted to Hilda on the comparative merits of puffs and ruffles and plaitings, and soon the three were harmonious in their enthusiasm over the womanly subject.

The noon hour was wearing away ; already the voices of the small boys were heard outside disputing over marbles, when a well-dressed, indolent-looking young man, removing a cigar from his lips to his fingers, came sauntering down between the looms and joined the little group.

“ Something new on the docket. Did you know ?” he asked lazily, putting out his hand and helping himself to the fashion plate.

Father’s House.

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“ What?” asked Kate, tossing back her curl. Now that curl was quite an' important part of Kate. There were certain ones jealous of the brilliant red and white of her complexion, who said that even if Kate’s head looked as though it had been “ slept in ” a week, that one curl always hung long and smooth down her back, and under the management of its owner became quite expressive of various states of feeling. In one sense, if not naturally, it was really quite a part of her.

“ Lectures,” answered the young man tersely.

“ Where ?” asked Kate again.

“At Town Hall.”

“What kind?” It was Hilda’s question this time, and a close observer might have noticed a slight difference in the manner of the young man’s answer.

“ All kinds, if one may say so. A professor gives them, and there are twelve in the course, one every week; chemical and philosophical mostly, I believe, with experiments; and three dollars for the course; low, you see, for the special benefit of the mill hands.”

“ Well, I ’ve no money for that,” said Kate with a decided toss. “I can use all my small change; and as for school lectures, I got quit of them at twelve, and do n’t think I shall take ’em up again.”

The young man looked at Hilda questioningly.

“ I have n’t thought yet,” she replied to the glance.

“Judge Harris and Uncle Trask are very much interested in the plan,” remarked the young man.

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“They are two of seven to bear all expenses, and I heard Connie Harris say last night she would n’t miss them for anything; and Cousin Madge is wild over the plan.”

Arthur Sibley was Mr. Trask’s nephew, and was supposed to be employed in the office, though there were those ungracious enough to say that his chief business was smoking and reading novels. But he was quite the ideal of the weaving room. His very indolence and careless ease were refreshing to these often tired and over-worked girls; the glimpses that he gave them of a different life were like pictures from fairy land. He was unfailingly good natured too, and really enjoyed giving happiness in his own way, that is when it cost him no effort and ministered to his own self-conceit in the bargain.

But while we have been introducing the young man and his general character, Kate has been settling several points of importance in her own mind. Now she asked, “ Have they got the new lamps in the Hall yet ?”

“ Putting them in now, I believe,” replied Sibley.

“ Kate is wondering if her new dress will show off,” remarked Anna maliciously. “ If it will, she ’ll change her mind about going.”

“ Be quiet, Anna Morrison,” said Kate shortly. “ I don’t account to anybody for where I go or don’t go.”

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“Got a new dress, then, have you, Miss Marsh ?” remarked Sibley pacifically ; “ though of course I know what it means when a lot of girls have their heads together over a fashion-plate — new feathers somewhere. May I be permitted to inquire what particular style you are about to adorn with your wearing ?” turning over the leaves.

“ Perhaps you can assist me,” replied Kate, with the airiest flirt of the curl ; “ your taste is so perfect.”

“ Ask Miss Duncan there ; she can tell you.”

“ Oh, Hilda is as quiet as a mouse. But I expect you ’ll see different things after this. She ’s making her ten dollars now as well as others ; and really, Mr. Sibley, do n’t you think it ’s a person’s business to look just as well as possible?”

“ Of course I do,” was the young man’s answer. “ What a tame world it would be if everybody wore Quaker uniform. Now look here,” pointing to the plate on which were represented some dozen figures, all looking like Paris dolls in a window, “ is n’t that more refreshing ? That ’s the way good society shows itself. A well-dressed woman is a welcome sight anywhere ;” and Mr. Sibley rose, stretched himself, and commenced a lively banter with the group around, for the bell was calling, and the refreshed workers were donning their aprons and arm-protectors for the long afternoon, until half-past six should release them again.

Hilda rose also, with a little sigh. She had been an

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eager listener, and when Arthur Sibley had said “good society,” there had been a little start as though a tender chord were touched.

Hilda Duncan was different from the other millgirls ; that was evident from her appearance, as well as Sibley’s manner to her. Her mother, a well-educated and intelligent woman, had been a teacher before Wesley Duncan won her ; and though, owing to her husband’s ill health and very narrow means, her married life had been a contracted dne, until four years before, when she entered into the fulness of the life beyond, yet this oldest child had shared her spirit, and caught the ideas that made Mrs. Duncan’s plain little home and table so different from those about her.

Hilda was fifteen at her mother’s death, a brown-eyed, brown-haired girl, with broad brow and a thoughtful face, earnestly studying to prepare herself to teach, and looking forward with enthusiasm to an active place in the busy world. That loss changed all her plans. Mr. Duncan, never strong in health and a little prone to look upon his life as peculiarly full of disappointments, missed the stronger heart upon which he had leaned, and the daughter found that her slight hand must learn to bear many burdens. Beside herself there was Robert, two years younger, and Alice, who was eleven, and little Bessie, only two years old. For two years she was the busy housekeeper, and then it seemed necessary that something more should be done, for the

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prudent head of an older person was missed, and there were many doctor’s bills besides. So Alice left school, and Hilda found a place in the mill, beginning on small wages as spooler, and gradually working her way up to the highest place allowed to a woman in that mill — the running of six looms.

All that it had cost Hilda, the giving up of her cherished dreams and plans, none may know. What it made of her, you will see in time.

The bell stopped, the great wheel began to revolve far below, and in the weaving-room the belts commenced their endless rounds, and the looms, few at first and irregularly, and then more in number and louder, were set at work again, until at last the great room seemed one wave of motion and noise. The breeze from the river freshened, and the curtains swayed back and forth, while the beams of sunlight crept into the western window and lay on the oily floor in longer and longer lines.

“Five o’clock,” said one, pointing to the shining bar ; “ I always know the time by that crack, and this week it ’s about five.”

“ It ’s long enough,” grumbled another.

“ Did you see Sibley, a few minutes ago, riding past with Madge Trask ? It ’s well he do n’t have to furnish the butter for his bread.”

“ Or the bread, either, for that matter,” returned another, as the three separated to their work.

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As for Hilda, she also had caught a glimpse of the light buggy whirling up the opposite side of the river ; but her thought had been of Miss Trask, what it must be to be with her, cultured, refined, as she had seen her come in sometimes to show guests the works. On her eastern side of the room the curtains were quite back, and she could look out on the shadows of overhanging trees in the pond, and farther on, past the scattered houses of that end of the village, up to the range of mountains, silver blue in the afternoon glow, until lost in the deeper blue of the sky. And so, working and dreaming, the afternoon wore away until the shadow of the tall factory stretched far up the river towards the mountains, and the day of noisy work was ended.

They went out through the office that night, and Hilda received the crisp new note for ten dollars, that, ever since her talk with Kate that noon, had seemed at times so much and again so little.

“ Keep that for a nest-egg,” whispered Kate, who came next. “ You ’d look lovely in a nice silk, and you ought to have one nice dress to your name. I saw the loveliest blue, almost navy-blue, with white sprigs, in at Meeker’s, and only two dollars a yard. Put your eye on that ; you deserve it.”

“ Come in with me and look at it,” pursued Kate, after some further talk, as they walked up the street together. “ We can slip in at the side-door,” as Hilda hesitated and glanced at their dress, “ and I ’ve my but-

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tons to get ; the silk counter is at this end and they went in.

They found no difficulty in being waited on, though in work-dress, for the merchants well knew there were no freer-handed customers than these same factorygirls ; so the shining fabric was spread out before them and set off to the best possible advantage.

“ It is lovely,” said Hilda.

“ One of the handsomest things we ever had in the store,” said the obsequious clerk.

“ Can we have a sample ?” asked Kate.

“ Of course ; here ’s a place where I cut a sample for Miss Evarts from New York ; I ’ll take it off there,” replied the clerk.

At this moment two elegantly-attired ladies swept down in their direction, and the girls hastened away.

“ Ah, indeed !” the elder lady was saying superciliously. “ So this blue silk, even, is looked after by factory-girls, is it ?”

“The idea!” exclaimed the younger; a remark to the sense of which the clerk’s derisive smile gave full assent. The ladies were Mrs. Hart and her daughter, of the family of Mr. Hart, senior partner in the “ Valley Falls Mills.”

As for Hilda, she went towards home fully determining in her own mind that that beautiful silk, or some similar one, must be her own as soon as she could earn it. Good clothes meant “ good society meant

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“ welcome,” Mr. Sibley had said, and Hilda longed for this, and impatiently stifled a protest of her better sense against making this good-natured but idle and inefficient young man her judge in the matter.

As she passed up her own street after leaving Kate, she heard her name called in a familiar voice, and turned to wait the coming of a large, fresh-looking woman, many years her senior, whose rapid pace soon brought them together.

“ Good-evening, Lissa,” said Hilda.

“ The even is good indeed,” was the reply in an accent that spoke of foreign birth. “ And how went the day with ye ?”

“ About as usual, I suppose,” replied Hilda, with a shrug ; “ they ’re all hard enough.”

“ Never say that, bairn, so long as the bones and marrow do n’t fret within. A house can weather any storm if there ’s no decay in the timber. Be thankful, lass, for the clear eye and the ready foot.”

Just then she caught a glimpse of the shining bit in Hilda’s hand. “ What ’s that ?” she asked.

“ Is n’t it a beauty ?” answered Hilda, spreading it out on her palm.

“ That ’s as it may be,” was the reply. “ It would n’t look well to a sailor, to spread out in a storm.”

“ Of course not,” laughed Hilda, half vexed.

“ Nor it wouldn’t add to its beauty,” continued the woman, with a swift glance at the young face beside 3

Father's House.

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her, “ trailing through one of these narrow factory lanes, bedraggling itself like a swan in a muck-pond.”

“ I do n’t care about the lanes,” spoke up Hilda hotly ; “ but why have n’t I just as good a right to wear such a dress as your Miss Harris, for instance ? What ’s the reason she must have all the good and pretty things any more than I ? I ’ve no doubt I ’d look as well as she, if I could only dress as well for once.”

“You’re a bonny enough lass,” was the woman’s quiet reply.

“ Well, what ’s the reason I can’t, then ?” still questioned the girl.

“ Miss Connie wears nice enough dresses,” answered the woman, “but I don’t think it’s the best part of her that’s outside after all. She’d be herself in a calico and a factory just as much; it’s the inside dress that counts.”

“Well, can’t we have both, inside and outside too?”

“Not if we ’re most anxious about the outside one; the other’s sure to go. Commence putting on the trimmings inside, and they’ll work out and show in time.”

“O dear!” exclaimed the young girl, “I’m all discouraged. There’s no use in anything. I’ll just never, never get what I want.”

“ And what is it, lass, that the good Lord is too poor to give ye?” asked the woman pityingly.

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' “Why, nothing, of course, Lissa; but I wouldn’t think of asking him for such things.”

“ Then they can’t be things worth your having ; mind ye that, lass. He who bade us pray for the ‘ daily bread ’ meant to satisfy all the hungers of the heart and head, as well as the stomach that craves its portion; but he did n’t say anything about sweetmeats or the like, so it strikes me that we ’re not to go behind the spirit of the text,” answered Lissa.

“I can’t help it; I am just hungry for the ‘sweetmeats’ that I see others have, and that I can’t have,” returned the girl quickly, and brushing past her companion Hilda ran swiftly up the stairs to her own second-floor home.

The woman looked after her a moment sadly, and then resumed her walk, saying half aloud, “ Poor bairn, poor bairn ; it ’s a hard lesson, but she ’s got the real inside, and I must pray the good Lord to work in her to his own glory.”

Thirty-five years before, when Lawyer Harris brought his young bride to her new home in Valley Falls, there came also to its kitchen strong, pleasantfaced, Scotch Lissa Malcolm. Through all these years she had been “ at the fore.” She had held the blankets while the scales weighed the new atoms of humanity. To her hand they had come for the tarts shaped like heather leaves, and she had been the one to throw the fateful slipper after the newly-made bride, while in a

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secret corner of her trunk there had been hidden, with a hand no less tender than that of the mother, the tiny slipper of the one whom the angels called so early. No wonder the now portly judge called her “the right hand of his household.”

She had known Mrs. Duncan and taken her into the warm corner of her heart, and many a hard place had her advice helped over, and many a burden her strong hand lifted for the little family.

Now, as she walked on, she was truly committing them, as often before, to the best of Helpers, “who wont forget the mother’s prayers,” she mused, “any the more, because she’s waiting now in his own presence above to see them answered.”

DAIL V TEMPTA TIONS.

Chapter II. Daily Temptations

It was in a very unsatisfied frame of mind that Hilda opened the door of her own home that evening. And yet it was not an unpleasant picture that was revealed to her after her long day of work. Her frequent delays on the way had given the sun a chance to finish up his day’s work in Valley Falls, and the dusk of evening was beginning to creep into the yet unlighted room. The two windows of the kitchen were open to let out the heat from the stove, from which came odors very welcome to one who had taken only a cold lunch since morning. Near the window Rob sat with a yesterday’s paper, and on the lounge Bessie was busy with a rag effigy, as beautiful in her eyes as any of the gay dolls in the shop-windows.

Alice came out of a bedroom as she heard the door open, and there was a very tired look on her young face. “ How late you are, Hilda,” she said ; “ I thought you would never come. Father has been in and gone out again to the grocery ; we ’re all out of tea again. How everything does go.”

Hilda made no reply, but brushed into the room from which her sister had come and which the three

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girls shared in common, and after carefully hiding her cherished sample at the bottom of her fancy box and washing and brushing herself, returned to the kitchen.

“ I ’m almost starved,” whined Bessie, tossing Fannie Furbelow into the corner.

“So are Hilda and father, I suppose,” said Alice reprovingly, but the kind words failed to bring the usual smile to the elder sister’s face. Just then the father came in and they sat down at once to the table, where a dish of smoking stew and a warm corn -cake offered material satisfaction.

“What’s the matter? isn’t it good?” asked Alice anxiously, as she saw Hilda drop her fork with a little start.

“ Too much pepper,” answered her sister sharply.

Alice’s lip trembled, and Rob saw that.

“ It could n’t be beaten,” he said bluntly, “ not by Hilda herself. I ’ll take some more, father, if you please; and this corn-cake is delicious.”

“ Everything is very nice,” said Mr. Duncan. “ How do you like this tea, Hilda?”

“Well enough, for us,” was the short reply. In her present mood the last two words would hang themselves on in spite of her, but as soon as they were spoken she was ashamed of her pet, and laughed out, “ I ’m pretty near cross, I admit ; but I sha’ n’t bite anybody, and I hope your nice supper will drive it out, Alice.”

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So the meal passed off pleasantly after all, though Bessie brought an unfortunate ending. She had quite a story to tell of “such a funny thing” that happened at school, how a little dog went up on the teacher’s desk and barked with all his might while the teacher was doing a sum on the blackboard ; and under cover of the smile that met her story, she ventured to say as they rose from table, that Kit Jones set the same little dog on her at recess and tripped her up, and she tore her dress just a “ mite.”

“ Mite ! I should think it was,” said Hilda shortly, on seeing the three-cornered jagged rent. “ There ’s an evening’s work at least. Go sit down and keep quiet until Alice and I ‘have washed the dishes, and then take your dress off and give it to me, and go straight to bed.”

“ Hilda is most cross,” whispered the child to Alice.

“ Do n’t cry,” replied her sister in the same tone. “ I ’m so tired I ’ll go to bed with you, and I ’ll tell you a story.”

“ About the red shoes, and how they trotted off into the country ?” asked Bessie.

“ Yes,” promised the sister.

So, as soon as the evening’s work was done, Hilda and Alice sat down with the others, and Mr. Duncan drew the old family Bible towards him and read the day’s portion from the loving words of the gospel of

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John, and then as they knelt he commended them all to the same care that had blessed their day, and sought a Father’s forgiveness.

“ You will never give up the family altar, Wesley !” the one he loved so well had said before she went away ; and in fulfilling the promise then given he seemed to feel her presence nearer than at any other time. His children knew these were precious moments to him, though unconscious of the presence that seemed to him so near. To-night he lingered a moment after they rose, with his hand on the Bible. “ I ’m glad,” he said, “ that if I never have a home here to call my own, and it is n’t likely now I ever shall, much as I ’d like it, that there ’s a home promised over there, where I shall be satisfied. I ’m glad for these promises.”

It was a new thing for this silent, reserved man to give so much of his real thought to his children. It awed them as such rare expressions only can, and Hilda sat down to the mending of the forlorn dress very quietly.

“ You do look tired,” she was gracious enough to remark, as Alice said, “ Good-night.”

“ I am,” was the reply ; “ the wash was so large to-day, and I mopped the kitchen up only just in time to get supper. Are you going to those lectures, Hilda, do you think ?” she asked, a little hesitatingly.

“ I do n’t know ; I presume so, if I do n’t want my money more for something else.”

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Alice sighed a little as she closed the door. She loved lectures and books as well as any one.

“ There ’s a free temperance lecture at the Hall,” said Mr. Duncan soon after. “ I think I ’ll go down for a while; I don’t feel quite as tired as usual to-night, and I have n’t heard any thing of the kind in a good while. Do you want to go, Rob ?”

“No, father, I ’d rather read this book ; it must go back to-morrow.”

“ Go, father ; it will do you good,” said Hilda cordially.

Lest you think too badly of our Hilda, you must know that she was not often cross or ungracious, but to-night she had planned to make up a ruffle and tie like one she had seen in at Meeker’s, and Bessie’s mishap had provoked her. Now that she was getting rested, and the good supper was settling the tired nerves, she was returning to her usual mood.