A Cry in the Wilderness. Mary Ella Waller
she died when I was born."
"Any father?"
"I—I don't know whether my father is living or not."
I began to wish I had n't come here to be questioned like this; yet I knew the woman was asking only what was necessary in the circumstances. I feared my answers would seal my fate as an applicant.
"What was your father's name?"
"I don't know." Again I caught the sound of that strange flutter in my voice. "I never knew my father."
"Humph! Then your mother wasn't married, I take it."
The statement would have sounded heartless to me except that the woman's voice was wholly businesslike, just as if she had asked that question a hundred times already of other girls.
"Oh, yes—yes, she was."
"Before you was born?"
"Yes."
"What was her husband's name then?"
"Jackson."
"Christian name?"
"George."
"Jackson—Jackson—George Jackson." The woman repeated the name, dwelling upon it as if some memory were stirred in the repetition. "And you say you don't know who your father was?"
"No—". I could n't help it—that word broke in a half hysterical sob. I kept saying to myself: "Oh, why did I come—why did I come?"
"Now, look here, my dear," and it seemed as if a flood of tenderness drowned all those business tones in her voice, "you stop right where you are. There ain't no use my putting you into torment this way, place or no place—Doctor Rugvie wouldn't like it; 't ain't human. If you can tell me all you know, and want to, just you take your own time,"—she laid a hand on my shoulder,—"and if you don't, just set here a while till the tempest that's coming up is over, and I 'll see you safe home afterwards. You ain't fit to be out alone if you are twenty-six. You don't look a day over twenty. There 's nothing to you."
She leaned nearer, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting in her palms. I tried to see her face, but the fog before my eyes was growing thicker, the room closer; her voice sounded far away.
"See here—will it make it any easier if I tell you I 've got a girl consider'ble older than you as has never known her father's name either? And that there ain't no girl in New York as has a lovinger mother, nor a woman as has a lovinger daughter for all that?"
I could not answer.
A flash of red lightning filled the darkening room. It was followed by a crash of thunder, a rush of wind and a downpour as from a cloud-burst. I saw the woman rise and shut both windows; then for me there was a blank for two or three minutes.
She told me afterwards that when she turned from the window, where she stood watching the rain falling in sheets, she saw me lying prone beside her chair. I know that I heard her talking, but I could not speak to tell her I could.
"My gracious!" she ejaculated as she bent over me, "if this don't beat all! Jane," she called, but it sounded far away, "come here quick. Here, help me lift this girl on to the cot. Bring me that camphor bottle from the shelf; I 'll loosen her clothes.—Rub her hands.—She fell without my hearing her, there was such an awful crash.—Light the lamp too…
"There now, she's beginning to come to; guess 't was nothing but the heat after all, or mebbe she 's faint to her stomach; you never can tell when this kind 's had any food. Just run down and make a cup of cocoa, but light the lamp first—I want to see what she 's like."
I heard all this as through a thick blanket wrapped about my head, but I could n't open my eyes or speak. The woman's voice came at first from a great distance; gradually it grew louder, clearer.
"Now we 'll see," she said.
She must have let the lamplight fall full on my face, for through my closed and weighted lids I saw red and yellow. I felt her bend over me; her breath was on my cheek. Still I could not speak.
"She 's the living image," I heard her say quite distinctly; "I guess I 've had one turn I shan't get over in a hurry."
I found myself wondering what she meant and trying to lift my eyelids. She took my hand; I knew she must be looking at the nails.
"She 's coming round all right—the blood 's turning in her nails." She took both my hands to rub them.
I opened my eyes then, and heard her say: "Eyes different."
Then she lifted my head on her arm and fed me the cocoa spoonful by spoonful.
"Thank you, I 'm better now," I said; my voice sounded natural to myself, and I made an effort to sit up. "I 'm so sorry I 've made you all this trouble—"
"Don't talk about trouble, child; you lay back against those pillows and rest you. I 'll be back in a little while." She left the room.
II
When she returned, shortly after, I had regained my strength. She found me with my hat on and sitting in the rocking-chair. The woman drew up her own, and began in a matter-of-fact voice:
"Now we 'll proceed to business. I 've been thinking like chain lightning ever since that clap of thunder, and I can tell you the storm 's cleared up more 'n the air. I ain't the kind to dodge round much when there 's business on hand. Straight to the point is the best every time; so I may as well tell you that this place,"—she held out the advertisement,—"is made for you and you for the place, even if you ain't quite so strong as you might be."
I felt the tension in my face lessen. I was about to speak, but the woman put out her hand, saying:
"Now, don't say a word—not yet; let me do the talking; you can have your say afterwards, and I 'll be only too glad to hear it. But it's laid on me like the Lord's hand itself to tell you what I 'm going to. It 'll take long in the telling, but if you go out to this place, you ought to know something why there is such a place to go to, and to explain that, I 've got to begin to tell you what I 'm going to. You 're different from the others, and it's your due to know. I should judge life had n't been all roses for you so far, and if you should have a few later on, there 'll be plenty of thorns—there always is. So just you stand what I 'm going to tell you. This was n't in the bargain when I told Doctor Rugvie I 'd see all the applicants and try to get the right one,—but I can make it all right with him. It's a longer story than I wish 't was, but I 've got to begin at the beginning.
"And begin with myself, too, for I was country raised. Father and mother both died when I was young, and I brought myself up, you might say. I come down here when I was nineteen years old, and it wasn't more 'n a year 'fore I found myself numbered with the outcasts on this earth—all my own fault too. I 've always shouldered the blame, for a woman as has common sense knows better, say what you 've a mind to; but the knowledge of that only makes green apples sourer, I can tell you.
"I mind the night in December, thirty years ago, when I found myself in the street, too proud to beg, too good to steal. There was n't nothing left—nothing but the river; there 's always enough of that and to spare. So I took a bee line for one of the piers, and crouched down by a mooring-post. I 'd made up my mind to end it all; it did n't cost me much neither. I only remember growing dizzy looking down at the foam whirling and heaving under me, and kinder letting go a rope I 'd somehow got hold of…
"The next thing I knew I was hearing a woman say:
"'You leave her to me; she'll be as quiet as a lamb now.' She put her arms around me. 'You poor child,' she said, 'you come along with me.' And I went.
"Well, that woman mothered me. She took in washing and ironing in two rooms on Tenth Avenue. She never left me night or day for a week running till my baby come. And all she 'd say to me, when I got sort of wild and out of my head, was:
"'You ain't going to be the grave of your child, be you?' And that always brought me to myself. I was so afraid of murdering the child that was coming. That's what she kept saying:
"'You ain't going to be so mean as not to give that innercent baby a chance to live! Just you wait till it comes and you 'll see what life 's for.