The House of the Misty Star, Frances Little [great reads .TXT] 📗

to see that the boy was buoyant by nature, but the moods that sometimes overtook him were strange. Often at a moment when the merriment was at its height, the hand of some invisible enemy seemed to reach out and clutch him in a dumb horror, confused the frankness of his eyes, left him with bloodless lips. From light-hearted happiness he plunged to silent gloom.

  Twice it had occurred when the day was heavy with moisture, thick and superheated by the summer's sun. The last time it happened, to the heat was added the excitement of a police launch stopping our little pleasure craft and demanding our names and business. When it left Page grew silent and, until we landed, lay in the prow his face hidden by his hat. Mental or physical I could not say. I wished I knew for it subtracted the joy from the day as surely as dampness takes the kink out of unnatural curls.

  When I mentioned the incident to Jane, she only looked wise and smiled. I could almost believe she was glad, for it gave her unlimited opportunity for coddling. Zura made no comment. So great was the rebound partial freedom induced, her spirits refused to descend from the exhilarating heights of "having a good time and doing things." She blandly ignored any suggestion of hidden trouble, or the possibility of it daring to come in the future. Untiring in her preparations for our festivities, the hour of their happening found her so gracious a hostess, naturally she was the pivot around which the other three of us swung.

  I wondered if, in our many festivities we were not forming habits of useless dissipation. Jane said our parties were much livelier than church socials at home. Our experienced leader assured me, however, these picnics were as slow as a gathering of turtles in a coral cave, but they continued, ceasing only when the nights grew too chill for comfort. Our pleasures were then transferred to the homeyness of the little living-room in "The House of the Misty Star."

  In my adoption of Zura the humor was incidental; in Zura's adoption of Jane it was uppermost. From the first the girl assumed proprietorship and authority that kept the little gray missionary see-sawing between pleasure and trouble. By Zura's merry teasing Jane's naturally stammering tongue was fatally twisted. She joked till tears were near; then with swift compunction Jane was caught in arms tender and strong and loved back to happiness.

  Like a mother guarding a busy careless child, Zura watched Miss Gray's comings and goings. Overshoes and wraps became a special subject of argument. There was no denying that in the arrangement of Jane's clothes there was a startling transformation.

  My attention was called to this one morning when I heard a merry, audacious voice cry out, "See here, Lady Jinny, do you think it a hallmark of piety to have that hefty safety-pin showing in your waistband? Walk right back and get your belt."

  "Oh, Zury," pleaded the harassed woman, "what's the use of putting it on? I'll just have to take it off to-night and, my dear, people are waiting for me."

  "Let 'em whistle, Sweetheart," was the unmoved response. "Even though the heathen roar, I cannot turn aside from my purpose of making you a Parisian fashion-plate."

  "Yes, child! It is good of you to want to dress me up. But," with a half-laugh, "don't try to make me resemble one of those foreign fashion ladies. I saw one picture in a style paper that looked almost immoral. The placket of the dress was at the foot and showed two inches of the ankle."

  "Trust your mother, innocent child," Zura advised, "those picture ladies don't wear dresses, just symptoms and I'd slap anybody that would ask you to wear a symptom. Now, tell me where to search for your belt."

  Jane, ever weak in certain resistances, yielded and adored the more while submitting.

  Under Zura's care Jane's person grew neater and trimmer. In her face, now filled out with proper food and rest, there was a look of happiness as if some great hope foreshadowed fulfilment.

  The self-appointed missionary in her talks with me seldom referred to her work in detail. I respected her reserve and asked no questions, for I gravely doubted any good results from her labor. But to Zura she confided her plans and her dreams, and Zura having many dreams of her own, listened and sympathized. In all the Empire there was no collection of humanity that could surpass in degradation and sordid evil the inhabitants of the quarter that Jane Gray had chosen to uplift. Time and again the best-trained workers had experimented in this place. Men and women with splendid theories, and the courage to try them had given it up as hopeless, for fear of their lives.

  Once only I remonstrated with Miss Gray and that when there had been in that section an unprovoked murder of particular horror. The answer of the frail woman was:

  "I don't want to make you anxious, Miss Jenkins, but I must go back. The people are my friends. I've been charged with a message for them and I must deliver it. My poor life would be small forfeit, could I but make them fully understand."

  I said no more for I thought if Jane was set on dying that way she'd just as well get all the pleasure out of it possible. To my surprise, unmolested and unafraid, she made her way through streets where no one officer went alone. Haunts of criminals and gamblers, murderers in hiding followed by their unspeakable womenkind.

  This dream of Miss Gray's scorned to limit itself to a hospital for diseased bodies of the wretched inhabitants, but included a chapel for sick souls. These days it was difficult enough to get money for real things, the unreal stood no chance. Without resources of her own, backed by no organization, it seemed to me, like a child planning a palace. To the little missionary the dawn of each glorious day brought new enthusiasm, fresh confidence and the vision was an ever beckoning fire, which might consume her body if it would accomplish her desire.

  At present she rented a tiny house in the Quarters and called it her preaching place. I was told that to it flocked the outcasts of life who listened in silent curiosity to the strange foreign woman delivering a message from a stranger foreign God.

  As the days went by the members of my household were deeply absorbed in dreams of a hospital, pursuit of passage money to America, and wisdom in guiding girls.

  In all the years in my adopted country I'd never seen so lovely an autumn. Colors were brighter, the haze bluer, and far more tender the smile of the heavens on the face of the waters.

  The song of the North wind through the top of the ancient pines was no melancholy dirge of the dying summer, but a hymn of peace and restful joy to the coming winter.

  One lovely day melted into another. The year was sinking softly to its close when one evening found Zura, Jane and me quietly at work in the living-room of the House of the Misty Star. Jane was knitting on the eternal bibs, Zura adding figures in a little book.

  Our quiet was broken by a knock at the door. Maple Leaf appeared bearing on a tray a pink folded paper.

  "It's a cable; I know its color," exclaimed Zura, "and it's for Miss Jane Gray."

  With shaking fingers Jane tore open the message. She read, then dropped her face in her hands.

  "What is it?" I asked anxiously.

  "It's the hospital."

  "In a cable?" cried Zura. "Think of that and break into tears."

  "No, the money for it."

  "Money! Where did you get it?" I demanded, thinking that Jane had suddenly gone crazy.

  "I prayed and wrote letters," she answered. "Read."

  Still doubting I took the paper and read aloud: