Little Fishers: and Their Nets by Pansy

  CHAPTER IV.

  NEW FRIENDS.

  AND then the poor woman who thought she had no more tears to shed,buried her face in her hands and shed some of the bitterest ones sheever did in her life.

  Poor Nettie! she tried to turn comforter; tried to think of onecheering word to say; but what was there to cheer the wife of adrunkard? Or the daughter of a drunkard? Could it be possible that she,Nettie Decker, was that! Oh, dear! how often she had stood in the door,and with a kind of terrified fascination watched Jane Daker stealinghome in the darkness, afraid to go in at the front door, lest herdrunken father should see her and vent his wrath on her. Could she evercreep around in the dark and hide away from her own _father_? Wouldn'tit be possible for her to go back home? She had not money enough toget there, but couldn't she work somehow, and earn money? She couldwrite a letter to the folks at home and tell them the dreadful story,and they would surely find a way of sending for her. But then, moneywas not plenty in that home, and she began to understand that they haddone a great deal for her, and that it had cost a good deal to pay herfare to this place. She had wondered, at the time, that her father didnot send the money for her to come home, but she said to herself: "Isuppose he did not know how much it would cost, and he will give it tome to send in my first letter. Perhaps he will give me a little bitmore than it costs, too, for a little present for Jamie."

  Oh, poor little girl! building hopes on a father like hers. She had notbeen at home half a day, but she knew now that no money would ever goback to the Marshalls in return for all they had done for her. Worsethan that, she might not be able to get back to them herself. Would herfather be likely to let her go? He had sent for her, and had told herduring this first hour of their meeting, that she had worked for otherpeople long enough. This made her heart swell with indignation.

  Done enough for others, indeed! What had they not done for her? Shenever realized it half so plainly as she did to-night. "I will goback!" she muttered, setting the little bowl she was drying on thetable with a determined thump. "I can't stay in such a place as this.I will write to Auntie Marshall this very night if I can get a chance,and she will contrive some way."

  Certainly, Nettie in that mood could have no comfort for a weepingmother, and attempted none, after the first murmured word of pity. Butmeantime she knew very well that she could not go back home that night,and the present terror was, where was she to sleep?

  Her mother went back into the bedroom after a few minutes of bitterweeping, and Nettie finished the work, then stood drearily in thedoorway, wondering what she could do next, when a good, homely,motherly face looked out of the side window of the small house nexttheir own, and a cheery voice spoke:

  "Are you Joe Decker's little Nannie?"

  "Yes'm," said Nettie, sadly, wondering drearily, even then, if it couldbe possible that this was so.

  "Well," said the voice, "I calculated that you must be; though I nevershould have known you in the world, if I hadn't heard you was coming,you was such a mite of a thing when you went away. What a tall nicegirl you've got to be. Your ma is sick, the children said. I've beenaway ironing all day, or I would have been in to see if I could helpthe poor thing any. I don't know her very much, but she is sickly, andhas hard times now and then, and I'm sorry for her. Now what I waswondering is, where are they going to put you to sleep? The upper partof that house ain't finished off, is it? It is one big attic, ain't it,where Norm sleeps? I thought so. I suppose there could be quite a niceroom made up there with a little work and a few dollars laid out, butyour pa ain't done it, I'll be bound. And I knew there wasn't but onebedroom down-stairs, and I couldn't think how they would manage it."

  "It isn't managed at all, ma'am," said Nettie, seeing that she seemedto wait for an answer, and there was nothing to say but the simpletruth. "There is no place for me to sleep."

  "You don't say! Now that's a shame. Well, now, what I was thinking was,that maybe you would like to sleep in the woodhouse chamber; it is anice little room as ever was, and it opens right out of my Sarah Ann'sroom; so you wouldn't be lonesome. I haven't any manner of use for it,now my boy's gone away, and I just as soon you would sleep there asnot until your folks get things fixed. You're a dreadful clean-lookinglittle girl, and I like that. I'm a master hand to have clean thingsaround me; Job says he believes I catch the flies and dust their wingsbefore I let them go into my front room. Job is my husband, and that ishis little joke at me, you know." And she laughed such a jolly littleroly-poly sort of laugh that poor Nettie could not keep a smile fromher troubled face. A refuge in the woodhouse chamber of this neat,good-natured-looking woman seemed like a bit of heaven to the homesickchild.

  "I am very much obliged to you, ma'am," she said respectfully; "I willtell my mother how kind you are, and I think she will be glad to acceptthe kindness for a few days. I--" and then Nettie suddenly stopped. Itmight not be well to say to this new friend that she would not need totrouble the woodhouse chamber long, for she meant to start for homeas soon as a letter could travel there, and another travel back.Something might come in the way of this resolve, though it made herfeel hot all over to think of such a possibility.

  "Bless my heart!" said Mrs. Job Smith as Nettie vanished to consult hermother. "If that ain't as polite and pretty-spoken a child as ever Isee in my life. She makes me think of our Jerry. To think of that childbeing Joe Decker's girl and coming back to such a home as he keeps! Itis too bad! I am sure I hope they will let her sleep in the woodhousechamber. It is the only spot where she will get any peace."

  Mrs. Decker was only too glad to avail herself of her neighbor's kindoffer. "It is good of her," she said gratefully to Nettie. "I wish tothe land you could have such a comfortable room all the time; they arereal clean-looking folks. You wouldn't suppose from the looks of thishouse that I cared for clean things, but I do, and I used to have themabout me, too. I was as neat once as the best of them; but it takesclothes and soap and strength to be clean, and I have had none of 'emin so long that I have most forgot how to do anything decent."

  "Soap?" said Nettie, wonderingly. She was beating up the poor ragswhich composed the bed in her mother's room, trying to get a littlefreshness into them.

  "Yes, soap; I don't suppose you can imagine how it would seem not tohave all the soap you wanted; I couldn't, either, once, but I tellyou I save the pennies nowadays for bread, so that I need not see mychildren starve before my eyes. I would rather do without soap thanbread; especially when our clothes are so worn out that there isnothing much to change with. Oh, I tell you when you get into a housewhere the men folks spend all they can get on beer or whiskey, thereare not many pennies left. Mrs. Smith has been real kind; she sent thechildren in a bowl of soup one day when their father had gone off andnot left a thing in the house, nor a cent to get anything with.

  "And she has done two or three things like that lately; I'm grateful toher, but I'm ashamed to say so. I never expected to sink so low that Ishould be glad of the scraps which a poor neighbor like her could sendin. Oh, no; they are not very poor. Why, they are rich as kings, cometo compare them with us; but they are not grand folks at all; he is ateamster, and works hard every day; so does she; but he doesn't drinka drop, and they have a good many comfortable things. Their boy is awayat school, and their girl, Sarah Ann, is learning a dressmaker's trade.You will have a comfortable bed in there, and I'm glad of it."

  And now it was eight o'clock. Susie and Sate were asleep in theirtrundle bed, the tired Nettie having coaxed them to let her give thema splendid bath first, making the idea pleasant to them by producingfrom her trunk a cunning little cake of perfumed soap. They looked "aspretty as pictures," the sad-eyed mother said, as she bent over themwhen they were asleep, with their moist hair in loose waves, and theirclean faces flushed with health. "They are real pretty little girls,"she added earnestly, as she turned away. "He might be proud of them.And he used to be, too. When Sate was a baby, he said she had eyes likeyou, and he used to kiss her and tell her she was pretty, until I wasaf
raid he would spoil her; but there isn't the least danger of thatnow. He never notices either of them except to slap them or growl atthem."

  "How came father to begin to drink?" Nettie asked the questiontimidly, hesitating over the last word; it seemed such a dreadful wordto add to a father's name.

  "Don't ask me, child; I don't know. They say he always drank a little;a glass of beer now and then. I knew he did when I married him, but Ithought it was no more than all hard-working men did. I never thoughtmuch about it. I know it never entered my head that he could be adrunkard. I'd have been too afraid for Norm if I had dreamed of such athing as that.

  "He kept increasing the drinks, little by little--it grows on them, itseems, the habit does; they say that is the way with all the drinks; Ididn't know it. I never was taught about these things. If I had been,I think sometimes my life would have been very different. I know Iwouldn't have walked right into the fire with my one boy, anyhow. I'mtalking to you, child, as though you were a woman grown, and you seemmost like a woman to me, you are so handy, and quiet, and nice-looking.I was sorry you were coming, because I thought you would just be anadded plague; and now I am sorry for your own sake."

  Nettie hesitated greatly over the next question. It was a very hard oneto ask this sick and discouraged mother, but she must know the whole ofthe misery by which she was surrounded. "Does Norman drink too?"

  "Norm," said Mrs. Decker, dropping into the one chair, and puttingher hand to her heart as though there was something stabbing herthere, "Norm has been led away by your father. He was a bright littlefellow, and your father took to him amazingly. I used to tell him hisown little girls would have reason to be jealous of his step-son. Hetook Norm with him everywhere, from the first. And taught him to doodd things, for a little fellow, and was proud of his singing, andhis speaking, and all that. And when Susie there, was a baby, and Iwas kept close at home with her, and Norm would tear around in theevening and wake her up, I slipped into the way of letting him go outwith your father to spend the evenings; I didn't know they spent themin bar-rooms, or groceries where they sold beer. I never _dreamed_ ofsuch a thing. Your father talked about meeting the men, and I thoughtthey met at some of the houses where there wasn't a baby to cry, andtalked their work over, or the news, you know. And there he wasteaching Norm to drink. He was a pretty little fellow, and he wouldsing comic songs, and then they would treat him to the sugar in theirglasses! When I found it out, he had got to liking the stuff, and Idon't suppose a day goes by without his taking more or less of it now.He never gets as bad as your father; but he will. He is never crossand ugly to me, nor to the children, but he will be. It grows on him.It grows on them all. And to think that I led him into the trap! If Ihad stayed in the country where I was brought up, or if I had left himwith his grandfather, as he wanted me to, he might have been saved. Thegrandfather is gone now, and so is the farm. Your father got hold of myshare of that, and lost it somehow. He didn't mean to, and that souredhim, and he drank the harder and we are going down to the very bottomof everything as fast as we can."

  It seemed to poor Nettie that they must have reached the bottom now.She could not imagine any lower depths than these.

  She made up the poor bed as well as she could, and then went back tothe kitchen to see what could be done about breakfast. Her new motherwas evidently too weak and sick to be troubled with the thought ofit, and while she stayed, Nettie resolved that she would help thepoor woman all she could. She went out into the yard to examine, anddiscovered to her satisfaction that there must be a cooper's shop justaround the corner, for the chips lay thick. She gathered some for themorning fire, determined in her mind that she would buy a few potatoesat the grocery in the morning! In the cupboard she had found a cup ofsour milk; this she had carefully treasured with an eye to breakfast,and she now looked into her purse to see if she could spare pennies fora quart of flour. If she could, then some excellent cakes would be theresult. And now everything that she knew how to do towards the nextday's needs was attended to, and she went out in the moonlight, and satdown on the lowest step of the back stoop, and did what she had beenlonging to do all the afternoon--cried as though her poor young heartwas breaking.

  Astride a saw-horse in the yard which belonged to Job Smith, and whichwas separated from the stoop where she sat only by a low fence, was acurly-headed boy, who had come there apparently to whittle and whistleand watch her. He was not there when she sat down and buried her headin her apron. She did not notice his whistling, though he made it loudand shrill on purpose to attract her attention, He knew quite a littleabout her by this time. He had come upon the boys of the Grammar Schoolin the midst of their afternoon recess and heard Harry Stuart interruptlittle Ted Barrows who was the youngest one in the class and wrotethe best compositions. They were gathered under a tree listening toTed, while he read them "The Story of An Hour," which was especiallyinteresting because it had some of their own experiences skilfullywoven in.

  "Hold on," Harry was saying, just as the whistling boy appeared withinhearing. "You didn't make that thing up; you got it from the Deckers;that is what is just going to happen there. Old Joe's Nan is cominghome this very day, and she is about as old as the girl you've got inyour story, and is freckled, I dare say; most girls are."

  "I didn't even know old Joe Decker had a girl to come home!" saidlittle Ted, looking injured. "I made every word of it out of my ownmind."

  But the boys did not hear him; their interest had been called inanother direction. "Is that so? Is Nan Decker coming home? My! What ahouse to come to. Mother said only yesterday that she hoped the folkswho had her would keep her forever. What is she coming for? Who toldyou?"

  "Why, she is coming because Joe thinks that will be another way toplague the old lady. At least that is what my mother thinks. Mrs.Decker told her once that when Joe had been drinking more than usualhe always threatened to send for Nan; but she didn't think he would.And now it seems he has. I heard it from the old fellow himself. Hewas telling Norm about it, while I stood waiting for father's saw. Hesaid she was coming in the stage this afternoon; that she had workedfor other folks long enough and it was time he had some good of herhimself. I pity her, I tell you."

  Then the whistler had come out from behind the trees, and saidgood-afternoon, and asked a few questions. The boys had answered himcivilly enough, but in a way which showed that they did not counthim as one of them. The fact was, he was a good deal of a stranger.He had been in town only a few weeks, and he did not go to school,and he boarded with or lived with, the Smiths, who lived next door tothe Deckers, and were nice enough people, but did not have much to dowith the fathers and mothers of these boys, and--well, the fact was,the boys did not know whether to take this new comer in, and make himwelcome, or not. They sort of liked him; he was good-natured, andaccommodating so far as they knew, but they knew very little about him.He asked a good many questions about the expected Nan Decker. He hadnever heard of her before. Since he was to live next door to her, itmight be pleasant to know what sort of a person she was. But the boyscould tell him very little. Seven years, at their time of life, blotsout a good many memories. They only knew that she was Nan Decker whowent away when her mother died, and who had lived with the Marshallsever since; and all agreed in being sorry for her that she was obligedat last to come home.

  The whistling boy walked away, after having cross-questioned first one,and then another, and learned that they knew nothing. He was on hisway to the woods for one of his long summer rambles. He felt a triflelonely, and wished that the boys had asked him to sit down under thetrees and have a good time with them.

  JERRY ON ONE OF HIS SUMMER RAMBLES.]

  He would have liked to hear Ted's composition, he said to himself; theboy had a sweet face, and a head that looked as though he might begoing to make a smart man, one of these days. What was the matter withthose fellows, he wondered, that they were not more cordial?

  He thought about it quite awhile, then plunged into the mosses andferns and gathered some
lovely specimens, which he arranged in the boxhe carried slung over his shoulder, and forgot all about the boys, andpoor little Nan Decker. On the way home, in the glow of the settingsun, he thought of her again, and wondered if she had come, and ifshe would be a sorrowful and homesick little girl. It seemed queer tothink of being homesick when one came home! But then, it was only ahome in name; he had not lived next door to it for five weeks withoutdiscovering that, and the little girl's mother was dead! Poor NanDecker! A shadow came over his bright face for a moment as he thoughtof this. His mother was dead. He resolved to speak a kind word tothe little girl the very first time that he had a chance. And here inthe moonlight was his chance.

  He stopped whistling at last and spoke: "If it is anything about whichI can help, I shall be very glad to do it." A kind, cheerful voice.Nettie looked up quickly and choked back her tears. She was not one tocry, if there were to be any lookers-on.

  "I guess you are homesick," said the boy from, his horse's back;"and that isn't any wonder. I'm homesick myself, nearly every night,especially if it is moonlight. I don't know what there is about themoon that chokes a fellow up so, but I've noticed it often; but then Ifeel all right in the morning."

  "Are you away from your home?"

  "I should say I was! Or rather home has gone away from me. I haven'tany home in particular, only my father, and he is away out inCalifornia. I couldn't go there with him, and since my school closed Iam waiting here for him to come back. It is home, you know, whereverhe is. He doesn't expect to be back yet for months. So you and I oughtto be pretty good friends, we are such near neighbors. I live rightnext door to you. We ought to be introduced. You are Nannie Decker, Isuppose, and I am Jerry Mack at your service. I don't wonder you arehomesick; folks always are, the first night."

  "My name is Nanette," said Nettie, gently, "but people who like me mostalways say Nettie: and it isn't being homesick that makes me feel sobadly--though I am homesick; but it is being scared, and astonished,and, oh! everything. Nothing is as I thought it would be; and there arethings about it that I did not understand at all, or maybe I wouldn'thave come; and now I am here, I don't know what to do." She was verynear crying again, in spite of a watcher.

  "I know," he said, nodding his head, and speaking in a grave,sympathetic voice. "Job Smith--that is the man I am staying with--hastold me how it used to be with your father. He says he was a very nicefather indeed. I am as sorry for you as I can be. But after all, Iwouldn't give up if I were you; and I should be real glad that I hadcome home to help him. He needs a great deal of help. Folks reform, youknow. Why, people who are a great deal worse than your father has everbeen yet, have turned right around and become splendid men. If I wereyou I would go right to work to have him reform. Then there's Norm--heneeds help, too; and he ought to have it before he gets any older,because it would be so much easier for him to get started right now."

  "I don't know the least thing to do," said Nettie; but she dried hereyes on her neat little handkerchief as she spoke, and sat up straight,and looked with earnest eyes at the boy on the other side the fence.This sort of talk interested and helped her.

  "No; of course you don't. You haven't studied these things up, Isuppose. But there is a great deal to do. My father is a temperanceman, and I have heard him talk. I know a hundred things I would like todo, and a few that I can do. I'll tell you what it is, Nettie, say westart a society, you and I, and fight this whole thing?

  "We can begin with little bits of plans which we can carry out now, andlet them grow as fast as we can follow them and see what we can do. Isit a bargain?"

  "There is nothing I would like so well, if you will only show me how,"said Nettie, and her eyes were shining.

  It was wonderful what a weight these few words seemed to lift from hertroubled heart. The boy's face had grown more thoughtful. He seemed indoubt just how to express what he wanted to say next.

  "I don't know how you feel about it," he said as last, "but I knowsomebody who would be sure to help in anything of this kind that wetried to do--show us how, you know, and make ways for us to get money,and all that."

  "Who is it?"

  Nettie spoke quickly now, for her heart was beating loud and fast. Wasthere somebody in this town who could be asked to come to the rescue,and who was willing to give such hearty help as that? If such were thecase, she could see that a great deal might be accomplished. She waitedfor her new friend's answer, but he looked down on the stick he waswhittling and gravely sharpened the end to a very fine point, before hespoke again.

  "I don't know what you think about such things, but I mean--God. I_know_ he is on our side in this business, don't you?"

  "Yes," said Nettie, thoughtfully, and her manner changed.

  Her voice which had been only eager before, became soft and gentle, andshe looked over at the boy in the moonlight and smiled. "I know Him,"she said, "and I am His servant. It is strange I forgot for a littlewhile that He knew all about this home, and father, and everything!Maybe He wants me to help father. I mean to begin right away. I willdo every single thing I can think of, to keep father, and Norm, andeverybody else from drinking liquor any more forever."

  There was a sudden spring from the saw-horse, a long step taken overthe low fence, and the boy stood beside her.

  "There are two of us," he said gravely. "There is my hand on it. I am aChristian, too. And father gave me a verse once, which always helps mewhen I think of the rumsellers: 'If God be for us, who _can_ be againstus!' I know he is for us, and so, though the rumsellers are against us,and think they are going to beat, one of these days he will show them!What you and I want to do is to keep working at it all we can, so as toshow that we believe in him."

  "Now we are partners--Nettie Decker and Jerry Mack, who knows what wecan do? Anyhow, we are friends, and will stand by each other throughthick and thin, won't we?"

  "Yes," said Nettie, "we will." And she rose up from the doorstep, andthey shook hands.