University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
ELLIE AND HER NEEDLE.

So the day passed,—the “long, long weary day,” as
says the song,—and Ellie saw night draw on, cold and
stormy, and threatening snow.

The child had been reflecting all the afternoon upon her
situation, and long before dark had betaken herself to her
needle. This was to save candle light, and besides she
could think very well while she was working, and had the
further satisfaction of knowing that she was getting on
with her work. When night came she assisted Charley
to undress, and saw that he was comfortably wrapped from
the cold in the poor, tattered covering; after which she
returned to work again.

The sick man was still slumbering heavily, and whenever
he moved, the child cast anxious glances towards the
bed. She sewed on until her eyes ached in the twilight,
and then carefully adjusting it so that the light would not
fall in the sleeper's eyes, she lit a piece of candle in an old
battered candlestick, and recommenced her work, replenishing
the fire from time to time carefully, with an eye to
the small remaining stock of wood and coal.

Ellie was working at a lace collar of the richest description.
She had taken it from the lower drawer of an old
pine affair in her closet, the key of which she took with
others from her pocket, and it was evident that it had
already cost much labor. A word in explanation here as
to the child's possession of this costly fabric; perhaps this
slight digression may explain other things.

Joe Lacklitter, whose chief business was the distribution
of newspapers to subscribers, had received into his
poor rooms, or rather room, the two children of his
brother, who had died some two years before. Their
mother had been a woman much above her sphere when
she died, and possessed more than one accomplishment
unusual in the occupants of hovels. She had taught Ellie,
at the age of six or seven, to read fluently, and before she
was nine had made of the child quite an accomplished
needle-woman. Mrs. Lacklitter had entirely supported
herself, her children, and an idle and drunken husband, by
means of her needle: and the elegance with which she
executed the delicate work so much prized by ladies for
collars, had supplied her with constant occupation.

Ellie had often taken these articles to good Mrs. Brown,

at the “Seamstress' Union,” where work was given to
poor needle-women, and brought back to her mother the
money for them. Then one day she timidly asked Mrs.
Brown if she had no work for her,—and Mrs. Brown
smiling and asking if she meant in the meal-bag line,
Ellie had replied, “no, such as mother did, but not so
fine.” Mrs. Brown was very merry at this, but her merriment
gave way to surprise when Ellie sat down and worked
some before her eyes: and the end of all this was that at
nine years old the child was trusted with this delicate
work, and thus assisted her mother.

Her father died, in a drunken debauch it was said; but
this was spared the child. She was not long afterwards
called to the bedside of her dying mother. Her mother
had gazed at her wistfully, said she had something private
to tell her, sent every one out of the room, but had apparently
no courage to speak. She had only blessed her
children and committed them into the hands of God.
Ellie, with little Charley on her lap, was sobbing as if her
heart would break, when Joe Lacklitter came and took
her up and kissed her, and said he “had his part to do
and he was going to do it—he was;” the result of which
declaration was, that the orphan children were taken to
his poor dwelling; and he had never repented it. There
was a soft and tender gentleness about Ellie which often
caused him to look at her with astonishment; but this was
quite swallowed up in his affection for her. Charley, too,
was a good little child, and, though somewhat fretful, had
never caused him any trouble.

They had thus lived for two years—Joe Lacklitter

attending to his business, and Ellie regularly working for
good Mrs. Brown, who often told her that her work was
much admired, and trusted her without hesitation with the
costliest fabrics. There is a magnetism in honesty, and
Mrs. Brown knew that her things were sacred in the eyes
of the poor child. Thus they had gone on up to the
present, and it was no common contingency which Ellie
was called to meet. Her needle must support the household,
child as she was—God help her!—and she must not
despair.

So she sat working at the rich collar for hours while
still the slumberer breathed heavily and turned on his
couch.

Whenever he turned, as we have said, Ellie would lay
down her work, rise quickly, and, poised upon one foot,
listen if the sleeper had awaked and wanted anything.
As she stood thus, with her soft brown hair falling
around her fair pure face, she might have realized one of
the dreams of Raphael, though canvass never could
have held the mingled tenderness and purity of the child.

She would then sit down, and bending over the small
fire, ply her needle—shrinking a little it may be when the
blast rushed in, and shivering in her thin poor dress;
but still she worked on, and did not stop, but true to her
high heart, heeded not all the passing hours clashed from
the sombre bells on the wild wandering night. Surely
the poor dim candle did not prevent one eye from seeing,
or the wild wind drown the low soft voice which rose
from the child's lips as she knelt and prayed.

Before midnight she had finished the collar, and

exhausted all her fuel. She half-undressed herself only,
and lay down on her poor pallet, watchful for the waking
of the sick man. But he slumbered heavily, and yielding
gradually to sleep, the child slumbered too—her cheek
upon her arm—worn out with toil and grief.