University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
LITTLE LOUIS.

It is just one year since the summer morning when
Matty Kennedy took upon herself a second time the duties
of a wife, and now she lies in a darkened room, her face
white as the winter snow, and her breath scarcely perceptible
to the touch, as it comes faintly from her parted lips.
In dignified silence the doctor sits by, counting her feeble
pulse, while an expression of pride, and almost perfect
happiness breaks over his face as he glances toward the
cradle, which Hannah has brought from the garret, and
where now slept the child born to him that day. His oft
repeated maxim that if the first were not a boy the second
ought to be, had prevailed at last, and Dombey had a son.
It was a puny thing, but the father said it looked as Nellie
did when she first rested there, and Nellie, holding back
her breath and pushing aside her curls, bent down to see
the red-faced infant.

“I was never as ugly as that, and I don't love him a
bit!” she exclaimed, turning away in disgust; while Maude
approached on tip-toe, and kneeling by the cradle side,
kissed the unconscious sleeper, whispering as she did so,
“I love you, poor little brother.”

Darling Maude—blessed Maude—in all your after life,
you proved the truth of those low spoken words, “I love
you, poor little brother.”

For many days did Mrs. Kennedy hover between life
and death, never asking for her baby, and seldom noticing
her husband, who, while declaring there was no danger,
still deemed it necessary, in case any thing should happen,
to send for his sister, Mrs. Kelsey, who had not visited
him since his last marriage. She was a proud, fashionable
woman, who saw nothing attractive in the desolate old
house, and who had conceived an idea that her brother's
second wife was a sort of nobody, whom he had picked up
among the New England hills. But the news of her illness
softened her feelings in a measure, and she started
for Laurel Hill, thinking that if Mattie died, she hoped
a certain dashing, brilliant woman, called Maude Glendower,
might go there and govern the tyrannical doctor,
even as he had governed others.

It was late in the afternoon when she reached her brother's
house, from which Nellie came running out to meet
her, accompanied by Maude. From the latter the lady
at first turned disdainfully away, but ere long stole another
look at the brown faced girl, about whom there was something
very attractive.

“Curtains, as I live!” she exclaimed, as she entered the
parlor. “A piano, and marble table, too. Where did
these come from?”

“They are ma's, and she's got a baby up-stairs,” answered
Maude, and the lady's hand rested for an instant
on the little curly head, for strange as it may seem, she
esteemed more highly a woman who owned a piano and
handsome table, than she did one whose worldly possessions
were more limited.

After making some changes in her dress, she went up
to the sick-room, and as Mattie was asleep, she had ample

time to examine her face, and also to inspect the room,
which showed in some one a refined and delicate taste.

“She must be more of a lady than I supposed,” she
thought, and when at last, her sister-in-law awoke, she
greeted her kindly, and during her visit, which lasted
nearly two weeks, she exerted herself to be agreeable,
succeeding so far that Mattie parted from her at last with
genuine regret.

“Poor thing—she'll never see another winter,” was
Mrs. Kelsey's mental comment, as she bade the invalid
good-bye, but in this she was mistaken, for with the falling
of the leaf Mattie began to improve, and though she never
fully regained her health, she was able again to be about
the house, doing far more than she ought to have done,
but never uttering a word of complaint, however heavy
was the burden imposed upon her.

With Maude and her baby, who bore the name of
Louis, she found her greatest comfort. He was a sweet,
playful child, and sure never before was father so foolishly
proud of his son, as was Dr. Kennedy of his. For hours
would he sit watching him while he slept, and building
castles of the future, when “Louis Kennedy, only son of
Dr. Kennedy,” should be honored among men. Toward
the mother, too, who had borne him such a prodigy, he
became a little more indulgent, occasionally suffering her
wishes to prevail over his maxims, and on three several
occasions giving her a dollar to spend as she pleased.
Surely such generosity did not deserve so severe a punishment
as was in store for the proud father.

Louis had a most beautiful face, and in his soft, brown
eyes there was a “look like the angels,” as Maude once
said to her mother, who seldom spoke of him without a

sigh, for on her mind a terrible fear was fastening itself.
Although mentally as forward as other children, Louis's
body did not keep pace with the growth of his intellect,
and when he was two years of age, he could not bear his
weight upon his feet, but in creeping dragged his limbs
slowly, as if in them there was no life—no strength.

“Ma, why don't Louis walk?” asked Maude, one evening
when she saw how long it took him to cross the room.

“Loui' tant walk,” answered the child, who talked with
perfect ease.

The tears came instantly to Mrs. Kennedy's eyes, for,
availing herself of her husband's absence, she had that
morning consulted another physician, who, after carefully
examining Louis's body, had whispered in the poor woman's
ear that which made every nerve quiver with pain,
while at the same time it made dearer a thousand-fold her
baby-boy; for a mother's pity increases a mother's love.

“Say, ma, what is it?” persisted Maude. “Will Louis
ever walk?”

“Loui'll never walk,” answered the little fellow, shaking
his brown curls, and tearing in twain a picture-book
which his father had bought him the day before.

“Maude,” said Mrs. Kennedy, drawing her daughter to
her side, “I must tell somebody or my heart will burst,”
and laying her head upon the table, she wept aloud.

“Don't try ma, Loui' good,” lisped the infant on the
floor, while Mrs. Kennedy, drying at last her tears, told
to the wondering Maude that Louis was not like other
children—that he would probably never have the use of
his feet—that a bunch was growing on his back—and he
in time would be”—she could not say deformed, and so
she said at last, “he'll be forever lame.”

Poor little Maude! How all her childish dreams were
blasted! She had anticipated so much pleasure in guiding
her brother's tottering footsteps, in leading him to
school, to church, and every where, and she could not have
him lame.

“Oh, Louis, Louis!” she cried, winding her arms around
his neck, as if she would thus avert the dreaded evil.

Very wonderfully the child looked up into her eyes, and
raising his waxen hand, he wiped her tears away, saying,
as he did so, “Loui' love Maude.”

With a choking sob Maude kissed her baby brother,
then going back to her mother, whose head still lay upon
the table, she whispered, “We will love poor Louis all
the more, you and I.”

Blessed Maude, we say again, for these were no idle
words, and the clinging, tender love with which she cherished
her unfortunate brother, ought to have shamed the
heartless man, who, when he heard of his affliction, refused
to be comforted, and almost cursed the day when his only
son was born. He had been absent for a week or more,
and with the exception of the time when he first knew he
had a son, he did not remember of having experienced a
moment of greater happiness than that in which he reached
his home, where dwelt his boy—his pride—his idol. Louis
was not in the room, and on the mother's face there was
an expression of sadness, which at once awakened the father's
fears lest something had befallen his child.

“Where is Louis?” he asked. “Has any thing happened
to him that you look so pale?”

“Louis is well,” answered Matty, and then unable
longer to control her feelings, she burst into tears, while
the doctor looked on in amazement, wondering if all women

were as nervous and foolish as the two it had been
his fortune to marry.

“Oh, husband,” she cried, feeling sure of his sympathy,
and thinking it better to tell the truth at once; “has
it never occurred to you that Louis was not like other
children?”

“Of course it has,” he answered quickly. “He is a thousand
times brighter than any child I have ever known.”

“'Tisn't that, 'tisn't that, said Matty. “He'll never
walk—he's lame—deformed!”

“What do you mean?” thundered the doctor, reeling
for an instant like a drunken man, then recovering his
composure, he listened while Mattie told him what she
meant.

At that moment, Maude drew Louis into the room and
taking the child in his arms, the doctor examined him for
himself, wondering he had never observed before how
small and seemingly destitute of life were his lower limbs.
The bunch upon the back, though slight as yet, was really
there, and Mattie, when questioned, said it had been there
for weeks, but she did not tell of it, for she hoped it would
go away.

“It will stay until his dying day,” he muttered, as he
ordered Maude to take the child away. “Louis deformed!”
“Louis a cripple! What have I done that I should be
thns sorely punished?” he exclaimed, when he was alone
with his wife, and then, as he dared not blame the Almighty,
he charged it to her until at last his thoughts took
another channel—“Maude had dropped him—he knew she
had, and Mattie was to blame for letting her handle him
so much, when she knew 'twas a maxim of his that children
should not take care of children.”

He had forgotten the time when his worn out wife had
asked him to hire a nurse girl for Louis, and he had answered
that “Maude was large enough for that.” On
some points his memory was treacherous, and for days he
continued to repine at his hard fate, wishing once in Mattie's
presence that Louis had never been born.

“Oh, husband,” she cried, “how can you say that! Do
you hate our poor boy because he is a cripple?”

“A cripple!” roared the doctor. “Never use that
word again in my presence. My son a cripple! I can't
have it so! I wont have it so! for 'tis a max—”

Here he stopped, being for a second time in his life at a
loss what to say.

“Sarve 'em right, sarve 'em right,” muttered John,
whose quick eye saw every thing. “Ole Sam payin' him
off good. He think he'll be in the seventh heaven when
he got a boy, and he mighty nigh torment that little
gal's life out with his mexens and things—but now he got
a boy, he feel a heap like the bad place.”

Still much as John rejoiced that his master was so
punished, his heart went out in pity toward the helpless
child whom he almost worshipped, carrying him often to
the fields, where, seeking out the shadiest spot and the
softest grass for a throne, he would place the child upon
it, and then pay him obeisance by bobbing up and down
his wooly head in a manner quite as satisfactory to Louis
as if he indeed had been a king and John his loyal subject.
Old Hannah, too, was greatly softened, and many
a little cake and pie she baked in secret for the child,
while even Nellie gave up to him her favorite playthings
and her blue eyes wore a pitying look whenever they
rested on the poor unfortunate. All loved him seemingly

the more—all, save the cruel father, who, as the months
and years rolled on, seemed to acquire a positive dislike
to the little boy, seldom noticing him in any way, except
to frown if he were brought into his sight. And Louis,
with the quick instinct of childhood, learned to expect
nothing from his father, whose attention he never tried to
attract.

As if to make amends for his physical deformity, he
possessed an uncommon mind, and when he was nearly
six years of age accident revealed to him the reason of his
father's continued coldness, and wrung from him the first
tears he had ever shed for his misfortune. He heard one
day his mother praying that God would soften her husband's
heart toward his poor hunchback boy, who was
not to blame for his misfortune—and laying his head upon
the broad arm of the chair which had been made for him,
he wept bitterly, for he knew now why he was not loved.
That night, as in his crib he lay, watching the stars which
shone upon him through the window, and wondering if in
heaven there were hunchback boys like him, he overheard
his father talking to his mother, and the words that father
said were never forgetten to his dying day. They were,
“Don't ask me to be reconciled to a cripple! What good
can he do me? He will never earn his own living, lame
as he is, and will only be in the way.”

“Oh, father, father,” the cripple essayed to say, but he
could not speak, so full of pain was his little, bursting
heart, and that night he lay awake, praying that he might
die and so be out of the way.

The next morning he asked Maude to draw him to the
church-yard where “his other mother,” as he called her,
was buried. Maude complied, and when they were there,

placed him at his request upon the ground, where stretching
himself out at his full length, he said: “Look, Maude,
won't mine be a little grave?” then, ere she could answer,
the strange question, he continued, “I want to die so bad;
and if you leave me lying here in the long grass maybe
God's angel will take me up to Heaven. Will I be
lame, there, think?”

“Oh, Louis, Louis, what do you mean?” cried Maude,
and as well as he could, for the tears he shed, Louis told
her what he meant.

“Father don't love me because I'm lame, and he called
me a cripple, too. What is a cripple, Maude? Is it any
thing very bad? and his beautiful brown eyes turned
anxiously toward his sister.

He had never heard that word before, and to him it had
a fearful significance, even worse than lameness. In an
instant Maude knelt by his side—his head was pillowed
on her bosom, and in the silent graveyard, with the quiet
dead around them, she spoke blessed words of comfort to
her brother, telling him what a cripple was, and that because
he bore that name he was dearer far to her.

“Your father will love you, too,” she said, “when he
learns how good you are. He loves Nellie, and—”

Ere she could say more, she was interrupted by Louis,
on whose mind another truth had dawned, and who now
said, “but he don't love you as he does Nellie. Why
not? Are you a cripple, too?”

Folding him still closer in her arms, and kissing his fair,
white brow, Maude answered: “Your father, Louis, is
not mine—for mine is dead, and his grave is far away. I
came here to live when I was a little girl, not quite as old

as you, and Nellie is not my sister, though you are my
darling brother.”

“And do you love father?” asked Louis, his eyes still
fixed upon her face as if he would read the truth.

Every feeling of Maude Remington's heart answered,
“No,” to that question, but she could not say so to the
boy, and she replied, “Not as I could love my own father
—neither does he love me, for I am not his child.”

This explanation was not then wholly clear to Louis,
but he understood that there was a barrier between his
father and Maude, and this of itself was sufficient to draw
him more closely to the latter, who, after that day, cherished
him, if possible, more tenderly than she had done
before, keeping him out of his father's way, and cushioning
his little crutches so they could not be heard, for she
rightly guessed that the sound of them was hateful to the
harsh man's ears.

Maude was far older than her years, and during the
period of time over which we have passed so briefly, she
had matured both in mind and body, until now at the age
of twelve, she was a self-reliant little woman on whom her
mother wholly depended for comfort and counsel. Very
rapidly was Mrs. Kennedy passing from the world, and
as she felt the approach of death, she leaned more and
more upon her daughter, talking to her often of the future
and commending Louis to her care, when with her
he would be motherless. Maude's position was now a
trying one, for, when her mother became too ill to leave
her room, and the doctor refused to hire extra help, saying,
“two great girls were help enough,” it was necessary
for her to go into the kitchen, where she vainly tried to
conciliate old Hannah, who “wouldn't mind a chit of a

girl, and wouldn't fret herself either if things were not
half done.”

From the first Nellie resolutely refused to work—“it
would black her hands,” she said, and as her father never
remonstrated, she spent her time in reading, admiring her
pretty face, and drumming upon the piano, which Maude,
who was fonder even than Nellie of music, seldom found
time to touch. One there was, however, who gave to
Maude every possible assistance, and this was John.
“Having tried his hand,” as he said, “at every thing in
Marster Norton's school,” he proved of invaluable service
—sweeping, dusting, washing dishes, cleaning knives, and
once ironing Dr. Kennedy's shirts, when old Hannah was
in what he called her “tantrums.” But alas for John—
the entire print of the iron upon the bosom of one, to say
nothing of the piles of starch upon another, and more
than all, the tremendous scolding which he received from
the owner of said shirt, warned him never to turn laundress
again, and in disgust he gave up his new vocation,
devoting his leisure moments to the cultivation of flowers,
which he carried to his mistress, who smiled gratefully
upon him, saying they were the sweetest she had ever
smelt. And so each morning a fresh bouquet was laid
upon her pillow, and as she inhaled their perfume, she
thought of her New England home, which she would
never see again—thought, too, of Janet, whose cheering
words and motherly acts would be so grateful to her now
when she so much needed care.

“'Tis a long time since I've heard from her,” she said
one day to Maude. “Suppose you write to-morrow, and
tell her I am sick—tell her, too, that the sight of her
would almost make me well, and maybe she will come,”

and on the sick woman's face there was a joyous expression
as she thought how pleasant it would be to see once
more one who had breathed the air of her native hills—
had looked upon her Harry's grave—nay, had known
her Harry when in life, and wept over him in death.

Poor, lonesome, homesick woman! Janet shall surely
come in answer to your call, and ere you deem it possible
her shadow shall fall across your threshold—her step be
heard upon the stairs—her hand be clasped in yours!