Timothy Crump's Ward: A Story of American Life, Jr. Horatio Alger [best free ereader .txt] 📗

“OH, mother,” exclaimed Ida, bounding into the room, fresh from school.

She stopped short, in some confusion, on seeing a stranger.

“Is this my own dear child, over whose infancy I watched so tenderly?” exclaimed the nurse, rising, her harsh features wreathed into a smile.

“It is Ida,” said Mrs. Crump.

Ida looked from one to the other in silent bewilderment.

“Ida,” said Mrs. Crump, in a little embarrassment, “this is Mrs. Hardwick, who took care of you when you were an infant.”

“But I thought you took care of me, mother,” said Ida, in surprise.

“Very true,” said Mrs. Crump, evasively, “but I was not able to have the care of you all the time. Didn't I ever mention Mrs. Hardwick to you?”

“No, mother.”

“Although it is so long since I have seen her, I should have known her anywhere,” said the nurse, applying a handkerchief to her eyes. “So pretty as she's grown up, too!”

Mrs. Crump, who, as has been said, was devotedly attached to Ida, glanced with pride at the beautiful child, who blushed at the compliment.

“Ida,” said Mrs. Hardwick, “won't you come and kiss your old nurse?”

Ida looked at the hard face, which now wore a smile intended to express affection. Without knowing why, she felt an instinctive repugnance to her, notwithstanding her words of endearment.

She advanced timidly, with a reluctance which she was not wholly able to conceal, and passively submitted to a caress from the nurse.

There was a look in the eyes of the nurse, carefully guarded, yet not wholly concealed, which showed that she was quite aware of Ida's feeling towards her, and resented it. But whether or not she was playing a part, she did not betray this feeling openly, but pressed the unwilling child more closely to her bosom.

Ida breathed a sigh of relief when she was released, and walked quietly away, wondering what it was that made her dislike the woman so much.

“Is my nurse a good woman?” she asked, thoughtfully, when alone with Mrs. Crump, who was setting the table for dinner.

“A good woman! What makes you ask that?” queried her adopted mother, in surprise.

“I don't know,” said Ida.

“I don't know anything to indicate that she is otherwise,” said Mrs. Crump. “And, by the way, Ida, she is going to take you on a little excursion, to-morrow.”

“She going to take me?” exclaimed Ida. “Why, where are we going?”

“On a little pleasure trip, and perhaps she may introduce you to a pleasant lady, who has already become interested in you, from what she has told her.”

“What could she say of me?” inquired Ida, “she has not seen me since I was a baby.”

“Why,” said the cooper's wife a little puzzled, “she appears to have thought of you ever since, with a good deal of affection.”

“Is it wicked,” asked Ida, after a pause, “not to like those that like us?”

“What makes you ask?”

“Because, somehow or other, I don't like this Mrs. Hardwick at all, for all she was my old nurse, and I don't believe ever shall.”

“Oh yes, you will,” said Mrs. Crump, “when you find she is exerting herself to give you pleasure.”

“Am I going to-morrow morning with Mrs. Hardwick?”

“Yes. She wanted you to go to-day, but your clothes were not in order.”

“We shall come back at night, sha'n't we?”

“I presume so.”

“I hope we shall,” said Ida, decidedly, “and that she won't want me to go with her again.”

“Perhaps you will think differently when it is over, and you find you have enjoyed yourself better than you anticipated.”

Mrs. Crump exerted herself to fit Ida up as neatly as possible, and when at length she was got ready, she thought to herself, with sudden fear, “Perhaps her mother won't be willing to part with her again.”

When Ida was ready to start, there came over all a little shadow of depression, as if the child were to be separated from them for a year, and not for a day only. Perhaps this was only natural, since even this latter term, however brief, was longer than they had been parted from her since, an infant, she was left at their door.

The nurse expressly desired that none of the family should accompany her, as she declared it highly important that the whereabouts of Ida's mother should not be known at once. “Of course,” she said, “after Ida returns, she can tell you what she pleases. Then it will be of no consequence, for her mother will be gone. She does not live in this neighborhood; she has only come here to have an interview with Ida.”

“Shall you bring her back to-night?” asked Mrs. Crump.

“I may keep her till to-morrow,” said the nurse. “After eight years' absence, that will seem short enough.”

To this, Mrs. Crump agreed, but thought that it would seem long to her, she had been so accustomed to have Ida present at meals.

The nurse walked as far as Broadway, holding Ida by the hand.

“Where are we going?” asked the child, timidly. “Are we going to walk all the way?”

“No,” said the nurse, “we shall ride. There is an omnibus coming now. We will get into it.”

She beckoned to the driver who stopped his horse. Ida and her companion got in.

They got out at the Jersey City ferry.

“Did you ever ride in a steamboat?” asked Mrs. Hardwick, in a tone intended to be gracious.

“Once or twice,” said Ida. “I went with brother Jack once, over to Hoboken. Are we going there, now?”

“No, we are going over to the city, you can see over the water.”

“What is it? Is it Brooklyn?”

“No, it is Jersey City.”

“Oh, that will be pleasant,” said Ida, forgetting, in her childish love of novelty, the repugnance