University of Virginia Library

7. VII.

We will now return to Helphenstein, and give some particulars
of the night as it passed with him. It was near noon when
he drew the reins before the house of his father, with a heart
full of happy anticipations for the afternoon and evening; but
his bright dream was destined quickly to darken away to the
soberest reality of his life. His father met him in the hall
with a flushed face, and taking his hand with some pretence of
cordiality, said in an irritable tone, as though he had not the
slightest idea of the nature of his errand, “Why, my son, what
in the devil's name has brought you home?”

He then gave a doleful narrative of the discomforts and privations
he had endured in the few days of the absence of Mrs.
Randall, for whom he either felt, or affected to feel, the greatest
love and admiration, whenever she was separated from him;
though his manner towards her, except during these spasmodic
affections, was extremely neglectful and harsh.

“What is a man to do, my son Helph?” he said; “your
poor father has n't had a meal of victuals fit for a dog to eat,
since your mother went into the country: how is she, poor
woman? I think I'll just get into your buggy, and run out and
bring your mother home; things will all go to ruin in two days
more—old black Kitty aint worth a cuss, and Jenny aint worth
another.”

And this last hit he seemed to regard as most especially
happy, in its bearing upon Helph, whose opinions of Jenny by
no means coincided with his own; but his coarse allusion to
her, so far from warping his judgment against the poor girl,
made him for the time oblivious of every thing else, and he
hastened in search of her.

“Lord, honey, I is glad to see you!” exclaimed Aunt Kitty,
looking up from her work in the kitchen: for she was kneading
bread, with the tray in her lap, in consequence of rheumatic
pains which prevented her from standing much on her feet.

“What in the world is the matter?” asked Helph, anxiously,
as he saw her disability.

“Noffin much,” she said, smiling; “my feet are like to bust
wid the inflammatious rheumatis—dat's all. But I 's a poor
sinful critter,” she continued, “and de flesh pulls mighty hard
on de sperrit, sometimes, when I ought to be thinkin' ob de
mornin' ober Jordan.”

And having assured him that she would move her old bones
as fast as she could, and prepare the dinner, she directed him
where to find Jenny, saying, “Go 'long wid you, and you 'll
find her a seamsterin' up stairs, and never mind de 'stress of
an old darkie like me.”

As he obeyed, he heard her calling on the Lord to bless him,
for that he was the best young master of them all. Poor
kind-hearted creature! she did not then or ever, as others heard,
ask any blessing for herself.

In one end of the long low garret, unplastered, and comfortless,
from the heat in summer and the cold in winter, there was
a cot bed, a dilapidated old trunk, a broken work-stand, a small
cracked looking-glass, and a strip of faded carpet. By courtesy,
this was called Jenny's room; and here, seated on a chair without

any back, sat the maiden, stitching shirts for her adopted
brothers, when the one who, from some cause or other, never
called her sister, appeared suddenly before her. Smiling, she
ran forward to meet him, but suddenly checking herself, she
blushed deeply, and the exclamation, “Dear Helph!” that rose
to her lips, was subdued and formalized to simple “Helphenstein.”
The cheek that was smooth when she saw him last,
was darkened into manhood now, and her arm remained passive,
that had always been thrown lovingly about his neck; but
in this new timidity she appeared only the more beautiful, in
the eyes of her admirer, and if she declined the old expressions
of fondness, he did not.

The first feeling of pleasure and surprise quickly subsided, on
her part, into one of pain and embarrassment, when she remembered
her torn and faded dress, and the disappointment that
awaited him.

“Well, Jenny,” he said, when the first greeting was over,
“I have come for you—and you must get ready as soon as
possible.”

Poor child! she turned away her face to hide the tears that
would not be kept down, as she answered, “I cannot go—I have
nothing to get ready.”

And then inquiries were made about the new dress of which
he had been informed, and though for a time Jenny hesitated,
he drew from her at last the confession that it had been appropriated
by his mother, under a promise of procuring for her
another when she should have made a dozen shirts to pay for
it. An exclamation that evinced little filial reverence fell from
his lips, and then as he soothed her grief, and sympathized with
her, his boyish affection was deepened more and more by pity.

“Never mind, Jenny,” he said, in tones of simple and truthful
earnestness, “wear any thing to-day, but go—for my sake
go; I like you just as well in an old dress as in a new one.”

Jenny had been little used to kindness, and from her lonely
and sad heart, gratitude found expression in hot and thick-coming
tears.

Certainly, she would like of all things to go to the quilting,
and the more, perhaps, that Helph was come for her; but in no

time of her life had poverty seemed so painful a thing. During
the past week she had examined her scanty wardrobe repeatedly;
her shoes, too, were down at the heels, and out at
the toes; to go decently was quite impossible, and yet, she
could not suppress the desire, nor refrain from thinking, over
and over, if this dress were not quite so much faded, or if that
were not so short and outgrown—and then, if she had money
to buy a pair of shoes, and could borrow a neck-ribbon and
collar!—in short, if things were a little better than they were
she might go, and perhaps, in the night her deficiencies would
be less noticeable.

But in the way of all her thinking and planning lay the forbidding
if; and in answer to the young man's entreaties, she
could only cry and shake her head.

She half wished he would go away, and at the same time
feared he would go; she avoided looking at the old run-down
slippers she was wearing, as well as at her patched gown, in the
vain hope that thus he would be prevented from seeing them;
and so, half sorry and half glad, half ashamed and half honestly
indignant, she sat—the work fallen into her lap, and the
tears now and then dropping, despite her frequent winking,
and vain efforts to smile.

At length Helph remembered that his horse had not been
cared for; and looking down from the little window, he found,
to his further annoyance, that both horse and buggy were gone,
and so his return home indefinitely delayed.

“I wish to Heaven,” he angrily said, turning towards Jenny,
“you and I had a home somewhere beyond the reach of the
impositions practised on us by Mr. and Mrs. Randall!”

The last words were in a bitter but subdued tone; and it was
thus, in resentment and sorrow, that the love-making of Helph
and Jenny began.