The Lights and Shadows of Real Life. Arthur Timothy Shay
looking up, she said—
"I will go to Lowell."
"To Lowell?"
"Yes, sir."
"And work in a factory?"
"Yes, sir."
Mr. Green moved on again, but in silence, and Mary walked with an anxious heart by his side. For the distance of several hundred yards they passed along and not a word was spoken.
"To Lowell?" at length dropped from the lips of Mr. Green, in a tone half interrogative, half in surprise. Mary did not respond, and the silence continued until they came to a point in the road where their two ways diverged.
"Have you thought well of this, Mary?" said Mr. Green, as he paused here, and laid his hand upon a gate that opened into a part of his farm.
"Why should I think about it, Mr. Green?" replied Mary. "It is no time to think, but to act. Hundreds of girls go into factories, and it will be to me no hardship, but a pleasure, if thereby I can help my father in this great extremity."
"Is he aware of your purpose?"
"Oh, no sir! no!"
"He would never listen to such a thing."
"Not for a moment."
"Then will you be right in doing what he must disapprove?"
"It is done for his sake. Love for him is my prompter, and that will bear me up even against his displeasure."
"But he may prevent your going, Mary."
"Not if you will do as I wish."
"Speak on."
"Lend me three hundred dollars on my promise to you that I will immediately go to Lowell, enter a factory, and remain at work until the whole sum is paid back again from my earnings."
"Well!"
"I will then take the money and pay off the mortgage. This will release father from his debt to Mr. Dyer, and bring me in debt to you."
"I see."
"Father is an honest and an honourable man."
"He is, Mary," said Mr. Green. His voice slightly trembled, for he was touched by the words of the gentle girl.
"He will not be able to pay you the debt in my stead."
"No."
"And, therefore, deeply reluctant as he may be to let me go, he cannot say nay."
"Walk along with me to my house," said Mr. Green, as he pushed open the gate at which he stood, "I must think about this a little more."
The result was according to Mary's wishes. Mr. Green was a true friend of Mr. Bacon's, and he saw, or believed that he saw, in his daughter's proposition, the means of his reformation. He, therefore, returned into the village, and going to the office of Grant, satisfied the mortgage on Mr. Bacon's property, and brought all the papers relating thereto away and placed them in Mary's hands.
"Now," said he, on doing this, "I want your written promise to pay me the three hundred dollars in the way proposed. I will draw up the paper, and you must sign it."
The paper was accordingly drawn up and signed. It stipulated that Mary was to start for Lowell within three weeks, and that she was to have two years for the full payment of the debt.
"My brave girl!" said Mr. Green, as he parted with Mary. "No one will be prouder of you than I, if you accomplish the work to which you are about devoting yourself. Happy would I be, had I a daughter with your true heart and noble courage."
Mary's heart was too full to thank him. But her sweet young face was beaming with gratitude, as she turned away and hurried homeward.
Mr. Bacon was walking uneasily, backwards and forwards in the old porch, when Mary entered the little garden gate. She advanced towards him with a bright face, holding out as she did so, a small package of papers.
"Good news, father!" she exclaimed. "Good news!
"How? What, child?" eagerly asked the old man, his mind becoming suddenly bewildered.
"The mortgage is paid, and here is the release!" said Mary, still holding out the package of papers.
"Paid! Paid, Mary! Who paid it?" returned Mr. Bacon, with the air of a man awaking from a dream.
"I have paid it, father dear!" answered Mary, in a trembling voice; and she kissed the old man's cheek, and then laid her face down upon his breast.
"You, Mary?" Where did you get money?"
"I borrowed it," murmured the happy girl.
"Mary! Mary! what does this mean?" said the old man, pushing back her face and gazing into it earnestly. "Borrowed the money! Why, who would lend you three hundred dollars? Say, child!"
"I borrowed it of Mr. Green," replied Mary, and as she said this, she glided past her father and entering into the house, hurried away to her mother. But ere she had time to inform her of what she had done, the father joined them, eager for some further explanations. When, at last, he comprehended the whole matter, he was, for a time like a man stricken down by a heavy blow.
"Never," said he, in the most solemn manner, "will I consent to this. Mr. Green must take back his money. Let the farm go! It shall not be saved at this price."
But he soon comprehended that it was too late to recall the act of his daughter. The money had already passed into the hands of Dyer, and the mortgage been cancelled. Still, he was fixed in his purpose that Mary should not leave home to spend two long years of incessant toil in a factory, and immediately called on Mr. Green in order to make with him some different arrangement for the payment of the loan. But, to his surprise and grief, he found that Mr. Green was unyielding in his determination to keep Mary to her contract.
"Surely! surely! Mr. Green, "urged the distressed father," you will not hold my dear child to this pledge, made under circumstances of so trying a nature? You will not punish—I say punish—a gentle girl like her for loving her father too well."
"If there is any hardship in the case," replied Mr. Green, calmly, "you are at fault, and not me, Mr. Bacon."
"Why do you say that?" inquired the old man.
"For the necessity which drove your child to this act of self-sacrifice, you are responsible."
"Oh sir! is this a time to wound me with words like these? Why do you turn a seeming act of kindness into the sharpest cruelty?"
"I speak to you but the words of truth and soberness, Mr. Bacon. These, no man should shrink from hearing. Seven years ago, your farm was the most productive in the neighborhood, and you in easy circumstances. What has produced the sad change now visible to all eyes? What has taken from you the ability to manage your affairs as prosperously as before? What has made it necessary for your child to leave her father's sheltering roof and bury herself for two long years in a factory, in order to save you from total ruin? Go home, Mr. Bacon, and answer these questions to your own heart, and may the pain you now suffer lead you to act more wisely in the future."
"My daughter shall not go!" exclaimed the old man, passionately.
"I hold her written pledge to repair to Lowell at the expiration of three weeks, and to repay the loan I made her in two years. Will you compel her to violate her contract?"
"I will execute another mortgage on my farm and pay you back the loan."
"Act like a wise man," said Mr. Green. "Let your daughter carry out her noble purpose, and thus relieve you from embarrassment."
"No, no, Mr. Green! I cannot think of this. Oh, sir! pity me! Do not force my child away! Do not lay so heavy a burden on one so young. Think of her as your own daughter, and do to me as you would yourself wish to be done by."
But Mr. Green was deaf to all these appeals. He was a man of great firmness of purpose, and not easily turned to the right nor to the left.
During the next three weeks, Mr. Bacon tried every expedient in his power, short of a total sacrifice of his little property, to raise the money, but in vain. Except for a circumstance new in his life, he would,