 CHAPTER 30 It was Monday evening and there was company at Mr. Robert's home, not the usual Monday evening gathering, but quite a large party of well-dressed men and women, many of them young, yet some were middle-aged. The pretty room opposite the conservatory was thrown open and aglow with lights and flowers, and groups were continually passing in and out, admiring the paintings and the flowers and the typewriters of different patterns and the books and magazines, of which there were many. But interest was not confined to this room. The parlors were thrown open and the music room beyond. Even the cozy little library was public property for this one evening. The company was large and their tastes were varied, so no pains had been spared to give them variety. You are acquainted with quite a number of the guests, yet I am by no means sure that you would recognize them all. Even in so short a period of time as three years, great changes may be elicited. For instance, do you know the young man in unnoticeable and therefore appropriate evening dress, who is doing duty at the piano, watching with practiced eye the course of the player, and turning the leaf with skillful hand at just the right moment? It is a somewhat embarrassing position, but his manner leads you to suppose that he has been accustomed to it all his life and that he reads music well. In the latter belief you are correct, but as to being accustomed to it, three years ago Nimble Dick could have told you a different story. You can't believe that it is he? I do not wonder. The change is certainly a great one, but he does not feel it. To tell you the truth he almost forgets, when he becomes absorbed in his work, that this sort of society was not always open to him. Three years means a long time to the young, and Richard Bolton has so long been accustomed to the freedom of Mrs. Robert's parlors and to the sort of people whom one finds there that none of the refinements of polite life are strange to him. And as to turning music, has he not done it for his hostess numberless times? If your eyes are now opened, it is possible that you may be trying to spy out other young men. The rooms are full of them, elegantly dressed, fashionable young men. But a few are noticeable by the air which they have of being in a sense responsible for the comfort of the others. They are on the alert. They are taking care that no young guest shall appear for a moment to be forgotten or neglected. They appear to be entirely familiar with the house and all its appointments. They can be appealed to for a glass of water or an ice, or to know what special scene this landscape hanging over the mantle represents, or whose bust this is in the niche at the left, or in what portion of the library a certain book will be found, or from what part of the foreign world that strangely shaped shell came, and they are all equally at home. In short, it is like having a dozen or twenty young hosts to look after your comfort and pleasure. In point of fact, there are seventeen of them. The original seven has thus increased. Two months ago there were twenty, but one has secured an appointment as telegraph operator in a distant city, and as Stephen Crowley occupies a similar position in one of the offices in this city, some very interesting conversations are held, and many important items connected with the Monday evenings and the South End School and the Library Association, etc., are transmitted when the lines are not otherwise employed. Young Haskell, too, has gone with one of the partners from the store where he was first employed to set up a branch store in a not distant town, and his old Sabbath school teacher has already received letters from him, saying that they have started a branch Sunday school in the south part of the town, and that he has picked seven little wretches out of the streets from eight to twelve years of age and gone to work. And, dear Mrs. Roberts, I wish you would pray for me that I may be able to bring every one of them to Christ. So the letter ran, and that tells volumes to the initiated about Young Haskell. But although the changes among these young men have been great almost to bewilderment, only one of the number has been promoted to a dazzling height. The others are, without exception, earning good, honest livings for themselves, securing good, substantial educations through the evening classes which have grown out of that first effort, fitting fair to become leading and honored citizens when they actually take their places as men. But Mark Culkin's faithful, plotting, good-hearted, patient Mark has surpassed them all. The truth is that I have not seen nor ear heard nor hath entered into the heart what sort of magnificence surrounds him now. He has gone to court. The chief ruler of the realm has sent for Mark to be always in his immediate presence in the palace. And with what joy he went I cannot tell you. Nor how often they speak of him and try to let their hearts conceive of the glory which surrounds him, and dwell on the day when they will be called, one after another, to share the same glory. For this is the ambition of more than half of them. Now in that sentence is unveiled the most curious part of my curious story, and that it is curious I frankly admit. It is no made up affair. I am not responsible for the strangeness of it. You are to remember that truth is stranger than fiction, and then to understand that I am telling you the truth. It is, then, a fact that these young men have each received conditional appointments to serve in the palace, high in power and splendor and dignity. The conditions are that they are to be willing to be guided in all things by the will of their king, whom they each admit to be wise above all wisdom, and to be kind above all their conceptions of kindness. It is true that nine of the number have accepted their appointments, donned their uniform, assumed their positions as he has directed, and are waiting for the summons to appear in person at court. It is also true that the others are still in a state of indecision. They do not know whether to accept the appointment or not. It is true that they feel themselves honored, that they believe this to be the only path of honorable and safe promotion. It is true that they have full faith in those who tell with joy, that, having enlisted, they find the service even in this anti-room suite, and the rewards great. It is true that they severally visited Mark just as the door was opening to admit him to the palace, and heard him speak of the glimpses of its glory, and heard that his last words before he went away were, Oh, mine eyes see the king in his beauty, and that his voice was jubilant as that of a conqueror, and his face radiant as with a reflection of unseen glory, and yet they hesitate and dally with the call and mean some time to have such an inheritance deeded to them, but not now. Remember, I am not responsible for this. Where I write in fiction, I should hesitate to set down such idiotic folly, expecting you to call it unnatural or absurdly overdrawn. But I do solemnly declare to you that this is fact. Account for the folly of their behavior as best you can. Well, Sally and her father are left behind. But, mind you, they are not among the doubtful ones. They both as much expect to serve at court as they expect to live through all eternity. But while they wait, they are busy. They have moved from the alley, the surroundings were not such as they liked. Did you notice that bit of a house landing modestly back from the road at the further corner of those ample grounds that surround the south end church? It's the sexton's house, and that church and those Sunday school rooms and those grounds and everything pertaining to them are under his care. The father is the sexton, it is true, and attends the furnace and rings the bell. But it is Sally's care that keeps seat and desk and window so beautifully free from dust or stain. Oh, they live busy lives and happy ones. Sally trusted not in vain in her father's promise that night when he put his weak will into the pledge. But you are to understand that it was but a few days thereafter when he planted his weak and wavering feet on the Rock of Ages. Then did Satan angle for him in vain? So on this Monday evening there were but seventeen of the gathering. I hesitate over what to name the gathering. I would call it a party, but that in many respects it was so totally different from anything with which you are probably acquainted by that name. The young man who stands by the door of the conservatory eagerly describing to Ms. Henderson a rare and curious flower which has been sent to Mrs. Roberts from California is Black Dirk. Really, I hope you are sufficiently astonished, for he looks so utterly unlike the scamp who used to be the special torment of the south end mission that I should be disappointed if you were not impressed by it. Mr. Coulson almost everybody calls him now. The name has long since lost its strangeness. He is in the employ of the great firm of Boswick, Smythe, Roberts and Company, and although Mr. Roberts has never found it convenient to do so before, there are reasons why he thought it would be well to have a clerk within call. So Mr. Coulson boards with what was the junior partner of the firm. He is so no more, by the way, for Mr. Reed has been received as a member and is decidedly a junior partner. Probably Mr. Roberts could tell you if he chose why one so young and without capital had been elected to partnership. But as a rule, he keeps his own counsel, only remarking that the young man developed remarkable business faculties which were patent to the whole firm. To his wife, he said, I tell you, Flossie, I believe a consecrated life will be honored by the Lord in whatever channel he gives it talents to develop. Whatsoever he doth shall prosper. That young man is going to have a career in business. I shouldn't be surprised if the master meant him to show the world how a Christian can use money to earn his glory. It is early yet to prophesy what Mr. Coulson will do. Doubtless he will be a merchant, certainly he will be a Christian. Possibly he will be an orator of whom the world will yet hear. A temperance orator, for instance. I know you would like to hear him read a poem. He is not confined to Will Carleton's style now, though he still reads with power some of those inimitable delineations of life. But Gracie Dennis offers no more criticisms when he reads. In fact, I have heard her defer to him when a question arose as one who had probably studied the passage and caught its best. I am willing to confess that my poor black dirk was a bit of a genius. The thought I desire you to catch is that so many of these poor fellows who of necessity live by their wits in the city slums are diamonds which could be fitted to shine. You take a diamond and throw it down in the dirt and filth and put your foot on it and grind it in and leave it there, sinking and soiling day after day, year after year, and when somebody comes along and picks it out, how much will it gleam for him at first? Yet the diamond is there. Thou shalt be a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Mrs. Roberts had been at work hunting diamonds for his diadem. As Mr. Coulson stood there chatting freely with Miss Henderson, there was nothing about the association that looked incongruous, neither did it occur to any. There was not a trace of embarrassment about this boy from the slums. He had forgotten the slums and stood talking with one of the aristocrats of the city. How came she to talk with him to allow herself to be entertained by him? Let me tell you, thereby hangs a tail. Sometime before this evening, in fact, nearly two years before, Mrs. Roberts had come to a puzzle and stood and looked at it doubtfully. Then she presented it to the others. They are growing easy in their manners with me, learning to be gentlemanly without embarrassment, and thoughtful over little things without being ashamed of it. But I am afraid that with other ladies they would be sadly frightened and awkward. When Mrs. Delaney came in this evening, I could but notice how utterly silent Mr. Coulton became. He had been talking well before. It seems as though there was a great gulf between them and social advancement. How can we bridge it? Then young Reed ventured his thought. My sister Esther had a class in the Centre Street Sabbath School, nice little girls who wore pretty dresses and had their hair curled and came from the best families. After she was taken sick, she told me one of her regrets was that she had not stayed well long enough to try a plan which she had. She meant to take a class of rough little boys in the mission school, and she meant to ask the mothers of the little girls to let them come once a month and play with the little boys from the streets, she to play with them and watch over them every moment, but to try to interest the girls in teaching the boys gentleness and good manners. I don't know how it would have worked. Esther was never well enough to undertake it, nor could she seem to enlist anyone else in such service. It has grave objections, I suppose, but I have always thought that I should like to see something of the kind carefully tried. Mrs. Roberts, before this little story was half concluded, had turned those eager eyes of hers on the speaker, eyes that always had a peculiar light in them whenever her soul took in a new suggestion. Thank you, she said. I see, oh, a great many things. I ought to have called in that dear sister Esther to help on this phase of the question before. It has always seemed to me as though we were doing her work. End of Chapter 30, Recording by Tricia G. Chapter 31 of Esther Read Yet Speaking. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Esther Read Yet Speaking by Pansy. Chapter 31. Their works do follow them. That was the beginning of a new effort. There were certain young ladies becoming well known to Mrs. Roberts by reason of a similarity of tastes which drew them to her. She sat down one day and wrote out their names with great care on her tablets. Ms. Henderson's name headed the list. She was one of the aristocrats. I used the word in its highest sense. The accidents of wealth and position were hers, at least that is the way we talk, though I suppose we all believe that the Lord is the giver of both and will require an account of the same in our hands. If this be so, Ms. Henderson will be more ready than some with her rendering, for she is of royal blood and guards well the honor of the Christian name she bears. Without hesitation Ms. Henderson headed the list. The others were chosen more slowly. Ten of them picked soldiers to do special duty in his name. It required much explanation, much care to plan wisely. But the girls caught at the idea. In the course of weeks they formed a band with Ms. Henderson for president. Ostensibly they were a literary society, really they were diamond polishers. They met one evening by invitation with Mrs. Roberts and made the acquaintance of the Monday Club. They sang for them, read for them, heard them read, chatted with them on the various topics of the hour, the last lecture of the course which all had attended. A certain book carefully read and criticized by Mr. and Mrs. Roberts and Dr. Everett in the Monday Club, not so carefully read by the young ladies. Therefore it came to pass that they were somewhat worsted in an argument concerning it, which was bad neither for the young ladies nor the Monday Club. Finally they were taken out to supper by these young men who had so far come under Mrs. Roberts influence that they were willing to endure torture for the sake of pleasing her. It is a long story, I could write another book about it just as well as not. The main difficulty would be that the critics would pronounce the story overdrawn. They always do when one revels in facts. It is only when an author keeps within the range of sober fiction that he may feel comparatively safe from this charge. These young ladies represented other parlors and other dining rooms. They arranged for little graceful entertainments to which the Monday Club was invited. Gradually others were invited too, good, solid men and wise-hearted motherly women. The invitations were select, the polishers were chosen with care, but it was surprising to these workers to find how large the Christian world is and how many stood ready to help if they were shown love. It is one of the best suggestions that Dear Esther has given us. This Mrs. Roberts said one evening when the young ladies band and the Monday Club combined their forces and gave an entertainment to some of the best people on the avenue. I have given you hints of how they did it. They were every one Christians, these young ladies. None others were chosen. They worked with a single aim in view, his glory. They took no step that was not paved with prayer. Do you need to be told that they succeeded? This was one of the reasons why Mr. Coulson chatted with Miss Henderson with perfect freedom and why his bow was graceful and easy when she introduced him to her friend, Miss Van Shah, of Philadelphia. He was accustomed to being introduced to her friends. I'm sure I hope you wish I would tell you somewhat of Mark Coulson. If you are not deeply interested in her, I am disappointed in you. She has been such an object of interest to me since that time when I caught a glimpse of her once through the cellar window with a gleam of sunset making her hair into gold. It is a summer evening of which I tell you, and she is all in white, except her eyes. Nothing can be bluer than they are tonight, and except the flowers about her. She is always among the flowers. I hesitate after all to tell you about Mark. Hers is one of those stories hard to tell. Besides, her friend and patron has suffered much criticism because of her. And though Mrs. Roberts does not care in the least, I find that I am sensitive. Has she really kept that Coulson girl with her all these years? Yes, she has. I speak at Meekly, but she has. And never had her learn a trade or work in a factory or learn to support herself in any way? She has never sent her anywhere to learn a trade or to work in a factory or to stand behind a counter. It is too true. No, I was almost sure you would not approve of it. But for all that, I don't mean to argue Mrs. Roberts' cause. To her own master she standeth or falleth. Not but what Mrs. Roberts has argued on occasion, with Gracie Dennis, for instance, who paid her a few weeks visit less than three months after she first went home. Flossie, she would say, what are you going to do with the girl? Do you really mean to keep her here? She has no mother, my child, nor father, and her brother is not able to care for her yet. Where would you have me send her? Why, Flossie, there are places. Yes, my dear, I know it, and this is one of them. Well, but she ought to be learning things. How is she going to support herself? She is studying arithmetic with me, you know, and writing and reading with the dining room girls. And I am teaching her music, and Mr. Roberts proposes to have her join the history class as soon as she is sufficiently advanced in the more common studies. But Flossie, shipply, that is great nonsense. You know what I mean. You cannot turn the world upside down in that fashion or make an orphan asylum of your house or a charity school. My dear, do you really think the house is in danger? Does it look like an orphan asylum or feel like a charity school? Then would Gracie Dennis laugh but look a trifle vexed nevertheless and mutter that people couldn't do things that way in this world. Then would Flossie be ready with her gentle drops of oil to soothe the ruffles. Gracie, dear, I am not trying to reform the world. There are a great many girls left destitute, I know, and I will do it wholesale all I can for them. But this one is peculiar. You have admitted that it was unusual to see such dangerous beauty, and she is unusual in her mental development. She could be fierce and wicked. She is ignorant and bitter about many things. I am afraid for her. I have not been able to think of a place where the Lord Jesus would have me take her. I must see to it that he is pleased you know at all hazards. If he does not mean us to keep her in the shelter of our home for the present, we do not know what he means. We cannot mother the whole race. He has not even suggested it to our hearts. He has simply said, Here take this one. There is room for her. Keep her until I plainly tell you that her place is elsewhere. Gracie, would you have me tell him we cannot? By this time Gracie would be humble and sweet. It is very good of you, she would say meekly, and I was not thinking of such a thing as finding fault. I was only wondering whether, whether, well you know, whether such a life as she is leading in your house would not unfit her for her proper sphere. But a sentence like that was always liable to put little Mrs. Roberts on all the dignity she possessed. Her husband had ideas on that subject, and had imbued her with them. Her voice could even sound almost haughty as she said. As to that Gracie, we must remember that the sphere of an American woman is the one that she can fill acceptably in God's sight. He may call her to the highest, I don't know. Since she is the daughter of a king, there may be no spot on his footstool too high for his intentions concerning her. There was outside criticism, of course. Indeed, Mrs. Roberts was sufficiently peculiar in many respects to call for such criticism from the world. They talked much about that girl she had picked up. Gradually they said that Coulson girl, then one day some daughter asked, is she really a sister of that handsome Mr. Coulson in the store? And by and by there were some who spoke of her as Maddie Coulson. That was the name which Mrs. Roberts always called her. It began gradually to be known also that Maddie Coulson knew a great deal which was worth knowing. Three years of companionship with a lady like Mrs. Roberts, and such as she gathers about her, can do much for a girl who wishes much done for her. As to earning her living, I am not sure but she was learning to do it in several ways. Mrs. Roberts struggled against all false ideas of life, therefore taught her none. She was not the cook, but she could and had on occasion served up a most enjoyable breakfast. She was not the second girl, yet her fingers were undeniably skillful in the arrangement of rooms and tables. She was not the sewing girl, yet constant were the calls on fingers that had become wise in these directions. She was by no means the nurse, yet there was a little golden-haired flossy in the sunny room upstairs whose devoted slave she was, and whose mother felt that Maddie's loving watchful care over her darling was only second to her own, and was so to be relied upon by day and night as to repay tenfold whatever she might have done for the girl. In fact, it would perhaps be difficult to define Mark Coulson's position in the house. Yet she was, as I said, becoming known among the young ladies outside as Maddie Coulson, that handsome young Coulson's sister, as pretty as a doll and a protege of that lovely Mrs. Roberts, you know. As for the young ladies' band, I do not include them when I talk of the girls outside. What they had done for Maddie Coulson, she could not have told you, though she tried, her eyes shining with tears. The days had come wherein the very matrons who had said that it was a strange thing for Mrs. Roberts to take a girl from the slums into her family, that it was tempting Providence to attempt such violent wrenches now said to one another, that it must be a great relief to Mrs. Roberts to have that Maddie Coulson always at her elbow to see that everything about the home was just as it should be, and they added with a sigh that some people were very fortunate. Now, dear critic, you stand already to say that this is a very nice paper story, but that in actual life attempts at doing good do not result so smoothly, that to be natural, Mrs. Roberts ought at least to have tried in vain to reclaim half of her boys. It is true, I have said nothing to you about two or three whom she has not as yet reached, though she is still trying. My story was not of them, but of the twenty whom she did reach. Concerning your verdict, there are two things that I want to say. First, go into the work and give the time and patience and faith and prayer that Mrs. Roberts and her fellow workers gave before you decide that it is vain. And secondly, will you kindly remember that, whether this be natural or not, it is true? I do not think I have told you the immediate occasion of this particular gathering. It was, in fact, a reception given to Mrs. Reed. It is not likely that I need tell you at this late day that her name was Gracie Dennis Reed. I could have told you much about it had I been writing a story of that sort. In fact, there is a chance for considerable romancing. There are matters of interest that I might tell you about Mr. Coulson himself, young as he is, and about Maddie, who wears to-night a rose that she did not pick from the conservatory, but I don't mean to tell it. I have just one other bit of history to give you. They stood together for a moment, the young bridegroom and the lady with whom he had faithfully worked ever since that rainy afternoon in which he had confided his gloom to her. Both were looking at the two young men who stood near the piano waiting to join in the chorus. Both had known these young men as nimble dick and black dirt. Still another of the original seven stood in the immediate vicinity. The glances of the two workers took them all in. Then they looked at each other and smiled meaningly. I have been thinking of that first Sunday afternoon, said Mrs. Roberts. I asked them to pick up my handkerchief, which had dropped, and nimble dick said. Pick it up yourself, mom, you're as able to as we be. I wonder if they would remember it. What if I should tell them? As she spoke the bit of cambrick in her hand designedly dropped almost at the feet of Dirk Holson. He stooped for it instantly, but nimble dick was too quick for him and presented it to the owner with a graceful bow and a slightly triumphant smile. But the chorus was commencing and the bass and tenor were at once absorbed in their work. So Mr. Reed and Mrs. Roberts had the memorial laugh all to themselves. None but they understood what the white handkerchief said. Despite the laughter there was a suspicious mist in Mr. Reed's eyes. How far is Murth removed from tears? he asked his hostess. And then, do you know when I look at these young men moving about your rooms at their ease, really ornaments to society, and think of the places in the world that they will be likely to fill, and think of what they were when you first saw them, the overwhelming contrast brings the tears. Said Mrs. Roberts, I will tell you something that will do your heart good. Did you know that our young lady helpers had reorganized in larger forests and with certain fixed lines of work which they feel certain they can do? The effort has passed out of the realm of mere experiment. They have chosen a name. They are henceforth to be known as the Esther Reed Band. They came to me for a motto to hang in their rooms below the name, and I gave them this. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Right, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, say at the spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.