 | CHAPTER II.
ROGER'S STORY. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
ROGER'S STORY.
HESTER'S advent into the kitchen was followed by a
great commotion, and Ruey forgot to pour any water
upon the tea designed for Roger, but set the pot upon
the hot stove, where it soon began to melt with the heat. But
neither Hester nor Ruey heeded it, so absorbed were they in
the little bundle which the former had laid upon the table, and
which showed unmistakable signs of life and vigorous babyhood
by kicking at the shawl which enveloped it, and thrusting out
two little fat, dimpled fists, which beat the air as the child began
to scream lustily and try to free itself from its wrappings.
“The Lord have mercy on us! what have you got?” Ruey
exclaimed, while Hester, with a pale face and compressed lip,
replied:
“A brat that some vile woman in the cars asked Roger to
back, and so, fool-like, he brought it home, because it was
pretty, he said, and he felt so sorry for it. I always knew he
had a soft spot, but I didn't think it would show itself this
way.”
It was the first time Hester had ever breathed a word of
complaint against the boy Roger, whose kindness of heart and
great fondness for children were proverbial; and now, sorry that
she had done so, she tried to make amends by taking the struggling
child from the table and freeing it from the shawl which
she had carried with her to the depot, never guessing the purpose
to which it would be applied. It was a very pretty, fat-faced
baby, apparently nine or ten months old, and the hazel
eyes were bright as buttons, Ruey said, her heart warming at
once toward the little stranger, at whom Hester looked askance.
There was a heavy growth of dark brown hair upon the head,
with just enough curl in it to make it lie in rings about the forehead
and neck. The clothes, though soiled by travelling, were
neatly made, and showed marks of pains and care; while about
the neck was a fine gold chain, to which was attached a tiny
locket, with the initials “L. G.” engraved upon it. These
things came out one by one as Hester and Ruey together examined
the child, which did not evince the least fear of them,
but which, when Ruey stroked its cheek caressingly, looked up
in her face with a coaxing, cooing noise, and stretched its arms
toward her.
“Little darling,” the motherly girl exclaimed, taking it at once
from Hester's lap and hugging it to her bosom. “I'm so glad
it is here, — the house will be as merry again with a baby in it.”
“Do you think Roger will keep it? You must be crazy,”
Hester said sharply, when Frank, who had divided his time between
the parlor and kitchen, and who had just come from the
former, chimed in:
“Yes, he will, — he told mother so. He said he always
wanted a sister, and he should keep her, and mother's rowin'
him for it.”
By this it will be seen that the child was the topic of conversation
in the parlor as well as kitchen, Mrs. Walter Scott asking
numberless questions, and Roger explaining as far as was possible
what was to himself a mystery. A young woman, carrying
a baby in her arms, and looking very tired and frightened,
had come into the car at Cincinnati, he said, and asked to sit
with him. She was a pretty, dark-faced woman, with bright
black eyes, which seemed to look right through one, and which
examined him very sharply. She did not talk much to him,
but appeared to be wrapped in thoughts which must have been
very amusing, as she would occasionally laugh quietly to herself,
and then relapse into an abstracted mood. Roger thought
now that she seemed a little strange, though at the time he had
no suspicions of her, and was very kind to the baby, whom
she asked him to hold. He was exceedingly fond of children,
especially little girls, and he took this one readily, and fed it
with candy, with which his pockets were always filled. In this
way they travelled until it began to grow dark and they stopped
at —, a town fifty miles or more from Cincinnati. Here the
woman asked him to look after her baby a few moments
while she went into the next car, to see a friend.
“If she gets hungry, give her some milk,” she added, taking
a bottle from the little basket which she had with her under the
seat.
Without the slightest hesitation Roger consented to play the
part of nurse to the little girl, who was sleeping at the time, and
whom the mother, if mother she were, had lain upon the unoccupied
seat in front. Bending close to the round, flushed face,
the woman whispered something; then, with a kiss upon the
lips, as if in benediction, she went out, and Roger saw her no
more. He did not notice whether she went into another car
or left the train entirely. He only knew that a half hour
passed and she did not return; then another half hour went
by; and some passengers claimed one of the seats occupied by
him and his charge. In lifting the child he woke her, but instead
of crying, she rubbed her pretty eyes with her little fists,
bosom and was soon sleeping again. So long as she remained
quiet, Roger felt no special uneasiness about the mother's protracted
absence, which had now lengthened into nearly two
hours; but when at last the child began to cry, and neither
candy, nor milk, nor pounding on the car window, nor his lead
pencil, nor his jack-knife, nor watch had any effect upon her,
he began to grow very anxious, and to the woman in front who
asked rather sharply, “what was the matter, and what he was
doing with that child alone,” he said, —
“I am taking care of her while her mother sees a friend in
the next car. I wish she would come back. She's been gone
ever so long.”
The cries were screams by this time, — loud, passionate
screams, which indicated great strength of lungs, and roused up
the drowsy passengers, who began, some of them, to grumble,
while one suggested “pitching the brat out of the window.”
With his face very red, and the perspiration starting out about
his mouth, Roger arose, and tried, by walking up and down the
aisle, to hush the little one into quiet. Once he thought of
going into the next car in quest of the missing mother, — then,
thinking to himself that she surely would return ere long, he
abandoned the idea, and resumed his seat with the now quiet
child. And so another hour went by, and they were nearly a
hundred miles from the place where the woman had left him.
Had Roger been older, a suspicion of foul play would have
come to him long before this; but, the soul of honor himself,
he believed in everybody else, and not a doubt crossed his
mind that anything was wrong until the woman who had first
spoken to him began to question him again, and ask if it was
his sister he was caring for so kindly. Then the story came
out, and Roger felt as if smothering, when the woman exclaimed,
“Why, boy, the child has been deserted. It is left on your
hands. The mother will never come to claim it.”
For an instant the car and everything in it turned dark to
the next car, sure. Hold the baby, and I'll find her.”
There was a moment's hesitancy on the part of the woman,
— a fear lest she, too, might be duped; but another look at the
boy's frank, ingenuous face, reassured her. There was no evil
in those clear, blue eyes which met hers so imploringly, and she
took the child in her arms, while he went for the missing mother,
— went through the adjoining car and the next, — peering anxiously
into every face, but not finding the one he sought. Then
he came back, and went through the rear car, but all in vain.
The dark-faced woman with the glittering eyes and strange
smile, was gone! The baby was deserted and left on Roger's
hands. He understood it perfectly, and the understanding
seemed suddenly to add years of discretion and experience to
him. Slowly he went back to the waiting woman, and without
a word took the child from her, and letting his boyish face drop
over it, he whispered, “Your mother has abandoned you, little
one, but I will care for you.”
He was adopting the poor forsaken child, — was accepting
his awkward situation, and when that was done he reported his
success. There was an ejaculation of horror and surprise on
the woman's part; a quick rising up from her seat to “do
something,” or “tell somebody” of the terrible thing which had
transpired before their very eyes. There was a great excitement
now in the car, and the passengers crowded around the
boy, who told them all he knew, and then to their suggestions
as to ways and means of finding the unnatural parent, quietly
replied, “I shan't try to find her. She could not be what she
ought, and the baby is better without her.”
“But what can you do with a baby,” a chorus of voices
asked; and Roger replied with the air of twenty-five rather
than fourteen, “I have money. I can see that she is taken
care of.”
“The beginning of a very pretty little romance,” one of the
younger ladies said, and then, as the conductor appeared, he
was pounced upon and the story told to him, and suggestions
something.
“What shall I stop the train for, and whom shall I telegraph
to?” he asked. “It is a plain case of desertion, and the
mother is miles and miles away from — by this time. There
would be no such thing as tracing her. Such things are of frequent
occurrence; but I will make all necessary inquiries when
I go back to-morrow, and will see that the child is given to the
proper authorities, who will either get it a place, or put it in the
poor-house.”
At the mention of the poor-house, Roger's eyes, usually so
mild in their expression, flashed defiantly upon the conductor.
While the crowd around him had been talking, a faint doubt as
to the practicability of his taking the child had crossed his
mind. His father was dead, he had his education to get, and
Millbank might perhaps be shut up, or let to strangers for several
years to come. And what then could be done with Baby.
These were his sober-second thoughts after his first indignant
burst at finding the child deserted, and had some respectable,
kind-looking woman then offered to take his charge from his
hands, he might have given it up. But from the poor-house
arrangement he recoiled in horror, remembering a sweet-faced,
blue-eyed little girl, with tangled hair and milk-white feet, whom
he had seen sitting on the door of the poor-house in Belvidere.
She had been found in a stable, and sent to the almshouse.
Nobody cared for her, — nobody but Roger, who often
fed her with apples and candy, and wished there was something
better for her than life in that dark dreary house among the
hills. And it was to just such a life, if not a worse one, that the
cruel conductor would doom the Baby left in his care.
“If I can help it, Baby shall never go to the poor-house,”
Roger said; and when a lady, who admired the spirit of the boy,
asked him, “Have you a mother?” he answered, “No, nor
father either, but I have Hester;” and as if that settled it, he put
the child on the end of the seat farthest away from the crowd,
which gradually dispersed, while the conductor, after inquiring
tickets, and left him to himself.
That he ever got comfortably from Cleveland to Belvidere
with his rather troublesome charge, was almost a miracle, and
he would not have done so but for the many friendly hands
stretched out to help him. As far as Buffalo, there were those
in the car who knew of the strange incident, and who watched,
and encouraged, and helped him, but after Buffalo was left behind
he was wholly among strangers. Still, a boy travelling
with a baby could not fail to attract attention, and many
inquiries were made of him as to the whys and wherefores of
his singular position. He did not think it necessary to make
very lucid explanations. He said, “She is my sister; not my
own, but my adopted sister, whom I am taking home;” and he
blessed his good angel, which caused the child to sleep so much
of the time, as he thus avoided notice and remarks which were
distasteful to him. Occasionally, athought of what Hester might
say would make him a little uncomfortable. She was the only
one who could possibly object, — the only one in fact who had
a right to object, — for with the great shock of his father's death
Roger had been made to feel that he was now the rightful master
at Millbank. His prospective inheritance had been talked of
at once in the family of the clergyman, who had moved from
Belvidere to St. Louis, and with whom Roger was preparing for
college when the news of his loss came to him.
Mr. Morrison had said to him, “You are rich, my boy. You
are owner of Millbank, but do not let your wealth become a
snare. Do good with your money, and remember that a tenth,
at least, belongs by right to the Lord.”
And amidst the keen pain which he felt at his father's death,
Roger had thought how much good he would do, and how he
would imitate his noble friend and teacher, Mr. Morrison, who,
from his scanty income, cheerfully gave more than a tenth, and
still never lacked for food or raiment. That Baby was sent direct
from Heaven to test his principles, he made himself believe;
and by the time the mountains of Massachusetts were reached
She did trouble him a little, and he wished the first meeting
with her was over. With careful forethought he telegraphed
for her to meet him, and then when he saw her he held the child
to her at once, and hastily told her a part of his story, and felt
his heart grow heavy as lead, when he saw how she shrank from
the little one as if there had been pollution in its touch.
“I reckon Mrs. Walter Scott will ride a high hoss when she
knows what you done,” Hester said, when at last they were in
the carriage and driving toward home.
At the mention of Mrs. Walter Scott, Roger grew uneasy.
He had a dread of his stylish sister-in-law, with her lofty manner
and air of superiority, and he shrank nervously from what
she might say.
“O Hester!” he exclaimed. “Is Helen at Millbank; and
will she put on her biggest ways?”
“You needn't be afraid of Helen Brown. 'Tain't none of
her business if you bring a hundred young ones to Millbank,”
Hester said, and as she said it she came very near going over
to the enemy, and espousing the cause of the poor little waif in
her arms, out of sheer defiance to Mrs. Walter Scott, who was
sure to snub the stranger, as she had snubbed Roger before her.
Matters were in this state when the carriage finally stopped
at Millbank, and Hester insisted upon taking the child through
the kitchen door, as the way most befitting for it. But Roger
said no; and so it was up the broad stone steps, and across the
wide piazza, and into the handsome hall, that Baby was carried
upon her first entrance to Millbank.
| CHAPTER II.
ROGER'S STORY. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward | |