University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
MISS LUDOLPH MAKES A DISCOVERY.

Several hours were measured off from a neighboring
steeple before Dennis's excited mind was sufficiently calm
to permit sleep, and even then he often started up from
some fantastic dream, in which the Bruders and Mr. and
Miss Ludolph acted many strange parts. At last he
seemed to hear exquisite music. As the song rose and
fell, it thrilled him with delight. Suddenly it appeared to
break into a thousand pieces, and fall scattering on the
ground like a broken string of pearls, and this musical
crash, as it were, awoke him. The sun was shining brightly
into the room, and all the air still seemed vibrating with
music. He started up and realized that he had greatly
over-slept. Much vexed he commenced dressing in haste,
when he was startled by a brilliant prelude on the piano,
and a voice of wonderful power and sweetness struck into
an air that he had never heard before. Soon the whole
building was resonant with music, and Dennis stood spell-bound
till the strange, rich sounds died away, as before,
in a few notes from the instrument that had seemed in his
dream, like the song breaking into glittering fragments.

“It must be Miss Ludolph,” thought Dennis. “And
can she sing like that? What an angel true faith would
make of her! O how could I over-sleep so!” And he
dressed in breathless haste. In going down to the second
floor, he found a piano open and new music upon it,
which Miss Ludolph had evidently been trying,—but she
was not there. Yet a delicate peculiar perfume which the
young lady always used, pervaded the place, even as her
song had seemed to pulsate through the air after it had
ceased. She could not be far off. Stepping to a picture
show-room over the front door, Dennis found her sitting
quietly before a large painting, sketching one of the figures
in it.

“I learned from Papa that you were a very early riser,”
said she looking up for a moment, and then resuming her
work. “I fear there is some mistake about it. If we are
ever to get through rearranging the store, you will have to
curtail your morning naps.”

“I most sincerely beg your pardon. I never over-slept
so before. But I was out late last night, and passed
through a most painful scene, that so disturbed me that I
could not sleep till nearly morning, and I find to my great
vexation that I have over-slept. I promise you it shall
not happen again.”

“I am not sure of that, if you are out late in Chicago,
and passing through painful scenes. I should say that
this city was a peculiarly bad place for a young man to be
out late in.”

“It was an experience wholly unexpected to me, and
I hope it may never occur again. It was a scene of trouble
that I had no hand in making, but which even humanity
would not permit me to leave at once.”

“Not a scene of measles or small-pox, I hope. I am
told that your mission people are indulging in these things
most of the time. You have not been exposed to any
contagious disease?”

“I assure you I have not.”

“Very well; be ready to assist me to-morrow morning,
for we have no slight task before us, and I wish to complete
it as soon as possible. I shall be here at half-past
six, and do not promise to sing you awake every morning.
Were you not a little startled to hear such unwonted
sounds echoing through the prosaic old store?”

“I was indeed. At first I could not believe that it
was a human voice.”

“That is rather an equivocal compliment.”

“I did not mean to speak in compliment at all, but to
say in all sincerity that I have seldom heard such heavenly
music.”

“Perhaps you have never heard very much of any
kind, or else your imagination overshadows your other
faculties. In fact I think it does, for did you not at first
regard me as a painted lady who had stepped from the
canvas to the floor?”

“I confess that I was greatly confused and startled.”

“In what respect did you see such a close resemblance?”

Dennis hesitated.

“Are you not able to tell?” asked she.

“Yes,” said Dennis with heightened color, “but I do
not like to say.”

“But I wish you to say,” said she with a slightly imperious
tone.

“Well then, since you wish me to speak frankly, it was
your expression. As you stood by the picture you unconsciously
assumed the look and manner of the painted
girl. And all the evening and morning I had been
troubling over the picture and wondering how an artist
could paint so lovely a face, and make it express only
scorn and pride. It seemed to me that such a face ought
to have been put to nobler uses.”

Miss Ludolph bit her lip and looked a little annoyed,
but turning to Dennis she said with some curiosity,

“You are not a bit like Pat Murphy. How did you
come to take his place?”

“I am poor, and will gratefully do any honest work
rather than beg or starve.”

“I wish all the poor were of the same mind, but from
the way they drag on us who have something to give, I
think the rule works usually the other way. Very well, that
will answer; since you have asked Papa to let you continue
to do Pat's duties, you had better be about them,
though it is not so late as you think,” and she turned to
her sketching in such a way as to quietly dismiss him.

She evidently regarded him with some interest and curiosity
as an unique specimen of the genus homo, and
looking upon him as a humble dependent, was inclined to
speak to him quite freely and draw him out for her amusement.

On going down stairs he saw that Mr. Ludolph was
writing in his office. He was an early riser, and sometimes
entering the side door by a pass key before the
store was opened, would secure an extra hour for business.
He shook his head at Dennis, but said nothing.

By movements wonderfully quick and dextrous Dennis
went through his wonted tasks, and at eight o'clock, the
usual hour, the store was ready for opening.

Mr. Ludolph often caught glimpses of him as he darted
to and fro, his cheeks glowing, and every act suggesting
superabundant life.

He sighed, and said—

“After all that young fellow is to be envied. He is
getting more out of existence than most of us. He enjoys
everything, and does even hard work with a zest that
makes it play. There will be no keeping him down, for
he seems possessed by the concentrated vim of this driving

Yankee nation. Then he has a world of delusions beside
that seem grand realities. Well, it is a sad thing to
grow old and wise.”

Indeed it is, in Mr. Ludolph's style.

When Dennis opened the front door, there was Ernst
cowering in the March winds, and fairly trembling in the
flutter of his hopes and fears. Dennis gave him a hearty
grasp of the hand and drew him in, saying—

“Don't be afraid, I'll take care of you.”

The boy's heart clung to him as the vine tendril clasps
the oak, and upheld by Dennis' strength, he entered what
was to him wonder-land indeed.

Mr. Ludolph looked him over as he and his daughter
passed out on their return to breakfast, and said—

“He will answer if he is strong enough.”

He saw nothing in that child's face to fear.

Dennis assured him with a significant glance, which
Mr. Ludolph understood as referring to better fare, that
“he would grow strong fast now.”

Miss Ludolph was at once interested in the boy's pale
face and large, spiritual eyes; and she resolved to sketch
them before the good living had destroyed the artistic effect.

Under kindly instruction, the boy took readily to his
duties, and promised soon to become very helpful. At
noon Dennis took him out to lunch, and the poor, half-starved
lad feasted as he had not for many a long day.

The afternoon mail brought Dennis his mother's letter,
and he wondered that her prediction should be fulfilled
even before it reached him, and thus again his faith was
braced, and his confidence in God increased. He smiled
and said to himself,

“Mother lives so near the heavenly land that she
seems to get the news thence before any one else.”

During the day a lady who was talking to Mr. Ludolph
turned and said to Dennis—

“How prettily you have arranged this table. Let me
see; I think I will take that little group of bronzes. They
make a very nice effect together.”

Dennis with his heart swelling that he had arrived at
the dignity of salesman, did them up quickly and deftly,
and handed them to her with much politeness, which evidently
pleased the lady.

Mr. Ludolph looked on as if all was a matter of course
while she was present, but afterwards said,

“You are on the right track, Fleet. You now see the
practical result of a little thought and grace in arrangement.
In matters of art, people will pay almost as much
for these as for the things themselves. The lady would not
have bought those bronzes under Berder's system. When
things are grouped rightly, people see just what they want,
and buy the effect as well as the articles.”

And with this judicious praise, Mr. Ludolph passed
on, better pleased with himself even than Dennis.

But as old Bill Cronk had intimated, such a peck of
oats was almost too much for Dennis, and he felt that he
was in danger of becoming too highly elated.

After closing the store, he wrote a brief but graphic
letter to his mother, describing his promotion, and expressing
much sympathy for poor Berder. Regarding himself on
the crest-wave of prosperity, he felt a strong commiseration
for every degree and condition of troubled humanity,
and even could sigh over unlucky Berder's deserved tribulations.

About eight o'clock he started to see his new friends
in De Kovan street, and take his lesson in painting. They
welcomed him warmly, for they evidently looked upon him
as the rope that was drawing them out of the engulfing
waves to land.

The children were very different from the clamorous
little wolves of the night before. No longer hungry, they

were happy in the corner, with some rude playthings, talking
and cooing together like a flock of young birds. Ernst
was washing up the tea-things, while his mother tended
the baby, recalling to Dennis, with a rush of tender memories,
his own mother and his boyhood tasks. Mr. Bruder
still sat in the dusky corner. The day had been a
bitter, hard one for him. Having nothing to do in the
present, he had lived the miserable past over and over
again. At times his strength almost gave way, but his
wife would say,

“Be patient! your friend Mr. Fleet will be in soon.”

From a few hints of what had passed, Dennis saw the
trouble at once. Mr. Bruder must have occupation. After
a few kindly generalities, they two got together, as congenial
spirits, before the rescued picture; and soon both
were absorbed in the mysteries of the divine art.

As the wife looked at the kindling, interested face of
her husband, she murmured to herself over and over
again like the sweet refrain of a song—

“His artist-soul haf come back; it truly haf.”

The lesson that night could be no more than a talk on
general principles and rules. But Mr. Bruder soon found
that he had an apt scholar, and Dennis' enthusiasm kindled
his own flagging zeal, and the artist-soul awakening within
him as his wife believed, longed to express itself as of old
in glowing colors.

Moreover his ambition was renewed in this promising
pupil. Naturally generous, and understanding his noble
profession, he felt his poor benumbed heart stir and glow
at the thought of aiding this eager aspirant to become what
he had hoped to be. He might live again in the richer
and better guided genius of his scholar.

“I will send you by Ernst in the morning some sketching
paper, materials, and canvas, and you can prepare
some studies for me. I will let him bring some drawings

and colorings that I have made of late in odd moments,
and you can see about how advanced I am, and what
faults I have fallen into while groping my own way. And
I am going to send you some canvas, too, and I am pretty
sure that if you paint a picture, Mr. Ludolph will buy it.”

The man's face brightened visibly at this.

“Will you let your friend make a suggestion?” continued
Dennis.

“You can command me,” said Mr. Bruder with emphasis.

“No; friends never do that; but I would like to suggest
that at first you take some little simple subject, that
you can soon finish up, and leave efforts that require more
time for the future. That picture there shows what you
can do, and you need to work now more from the commercial
standpoint than the artist's.”

After a moment's thought, the man said,

“You are right. As I look around dis room, and see
our needs, I see dat you are right. Do' I meant to attempt
something difficult to show Mr. Ludolph vat I could do.”

“That will all come in good time; and now, my friend,
good-night.”

The next day was far more tolerable for poor Bruder,
because occupied, and he found it much easier to resist
the clamors of appetite.

Dennis's sketches interested him greatly, for though
they showed the natural defects of one who had received
little instruction, there was both power and originality in
their execution.

“He, too, can be an artist, if he vill,” was his emphatic
comment after looking them over.

He prepared one study, to be continued under his own
eye, and another for Dennis to work at alone.

Afterwards he sat down to something for himself. He
thought a few moments, and then outlined rapidly as his

subject, the figure of a man dashing a wine glass to the
ground.

As he worked, his wife smiled encouragement to him
as of old, and often looked upward in thankfulness to
heaven.