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

Jane Gray's tongue might lead to laughter, but her heart never missed the road to thoughtful kindness.

  Very soon Page said he felt much better and would get home and to bed. When he took his coat and hat from the hall he looked so weak, so near to illness, I begged him to stay and let us care for him. He gently refused, saying he would be all right in the morning. I followed him to the gate. He turned to say good-night.

  I put my hands on his shoulders and with all the affection at my command I invited his confidence. "What is it, son? I'm an old woman, but maybe I can help you. Let me try."

  He lifted his hands to mine and his grasp was painful. The dim light from the old bronze lantern reflected the tears in his eyes as he answered: "Help me? You have in a thousand ways. I'll soon be all right. I'm just a little over-worked. Haven't slept much lately. Need rest."

  Then leaning near with sudden tenderness: "Heaven bless you, dear woman. You have been as good to me as my own mother. Some day—perhaps. Good-night. Don't worry, Miss Jenkins."

  Why didn't he throw me over into a bramble patch and tell me not to get scratched? I just leaned my old head up against the gate and cried.

  I returned to the house by a rear door, for Jane was in the living-room.

XVI ENTER KOBU, THE DETECTIVE

  The compensation of the morning's belated brightness came in the golden glory with which it flooded the world, so warm it melted the hoar frost jewels on tree and shrub, so tender the drooping roses lifted their pink heads and blushed anew. It was the kind of a morning one knew that something was waiting just ahead. It required no feat of intellect for me to know that a great many somethings awaited my little household. Whenever I arose in the morning feeling sentimental, something was sure to happen. The afternoon of this day was the appointed time for the "roof-raising festival" of Jane's hospital. Three o'clock was the hour set to begin the ceremonies, but early morning found Jane and Zura as busy collecting books, bundles and a folding baby-organ, as if moving day had fallen upon the household. Neither one of my companions seemed depressed by the happenings of the night before, or else they were determined that every other thought should be put aside till the roof was safely over the dream of Jane's life. Jinrickishas piled high with baskets of refreshments and decorations moved gaily down the street. Jane and Zura, laughing like two schoolgirls and as irrepressible, headed the little procession.

  I waved them good luck and went back to my work and my thoughts. I was interrupted by a note that came from Page in answer to one of mine, saying a slight fever would prevent his accepting the invitation to go with me to the exercises in the afternoon, but he hoped to see us at the house later in the evening. Of course he meant us in general, Zura particularly, and it might be fever or it might be other things that kept him away from Jane's tea party. I was going to know in either case as soon as I could get Page Hanaford by himself. Right or wrong I would help him all I could, but know I must and would. I simply could not live through another day of anxiety.

  If Page told me his trouble, there was no reason why it would fade away, and my anxiety cease to be, but having made up my mind to act definitely, my spirits rose like a clay pigeon released by a spring.

  That afternoon, at the time appointed for the ceremony, when I turned from Flying Sparrow Street into Tube Rose Lane a strange sight met my eyes. It was clean. For once in the history of the Quarter poverty and crime had taken a bath and were indulging in an open holiday. It had gone still farther. From the lowliest hut of straw and plaster to the little better house of the chief criminal, cheap, but very gay decorations fluttered in honor of the coming hospital. The people stood about in small groups. The many kimonos, well patched in varied colors, lent a touch of brilliancy to the sordid alleyway, haunted with ghosts of men and women, dead to all things spiritual.

  Here and there policemen strolled, always in pairs. Whenever they drew near, and until they were past, the talking groups fell silent, and before an open door, or window a blank white screen was softly shifted. This coming from cover by the inhabitants and premeditatedly giving a visible sign of their existence was a supreme tribute to the woman who had lived among them successfully, because hers was the courage of the sanctified, her bravery that of love.

  The day sparkled with winter's bright beauty. The sun had wooed an ancient plum tree into blossoming long before its time. It spread its dainty flowers on the soft straw bed of an old gray roof. A playful wind caught up the petals, sending the white blossoms flying across the heads of the unjust into the unclean ditches where they covered stagnation with a frail loveliness.

  For the time at least degradation hid its face. Though poverty and sin were abroad, peace and good will might have been their next-door neighbors had it not been for a certain quality in the atmosphere, invisible but powerful, which caused a feeling that behind it all, there was an evil something that sneered alike at life and beauty; that had for its motto lust and greed, and mercilessly demanded as tribute the soul of every inhabitant.

  Collected crime at bay was an unyielding force not easily reckoned with. The fact that one small woman, with only faith to back her, was battling against it single-handed, sent Jane Gray so high up in my estimation that I could barely see her as she floated in the clouds.

  I saw my companion in an entirely new light as I joined the throngs gathered about the space where the raising of the roof was taking place. The ceremony here was brief. With countless ropes tied to the joined roof as it lay on the ground, the eager coolies stood ready for the signal to pull aloft the structure and guide it to the posts placed ready to receive it.

  Jane walked to the cleared center and stood waiting to speak. There was instant silence when the crowd saw her. With simple words she thanked the workmen for their interest and the many half-days' labor they had contributed, then she raised her hand, and with great shouting and cheering the roof of Jane's long-dreamed-of refuge for sinners, sick and hopeless, was safely hoisted to its place.

  After this everybody was entitled to a holiday and went quickly to the tea and cake which Zura and her helpers had prepared and served from small booths. The rest of the exercises were to take place in the near-by house that Miss Gray had been using temporarily. By removing all the paper partitions the lower part of the house had been thrown into one large room. Circling the crowd of waiting people seated on the floor a row of cots held the sick and afflicted, worsted by sin and disease.

  Before them stood Jane, who, in the custom of the country, bade them welcome. A small sea of faces was lifted to her. Such faces!—none beautiful; all stamped with crime; some scarcely human, only physical apparitions of debased Nature.

  With shifting glances they listened to an official who made Jane an offer from the city to contribute to the support of the hospital, the pledge of two doctors to give their services so many hours a week, a contribution of milk from a rich merchant, and an offer from a friendly barber to give so many free shaves. Their eyes widened with wonder and suspicion. What could people mean by giving things and taking away the excitement of stealing them?

  But when the man spoke of how the officials had watched Jane and her work, at first with skeptical unbelief because they thought she would not endure a month, now with warmest sympathy because she had succeeded in keeping the Quarters freer of crime and disease than ever before, they forgot their fear and voiced their approval in much hand-clapping, and wise shaking of heads. They called for Miss Gray.

  Jane arose and very shyly thanked the city's representative. Then as gently and as simply as if talking to wayward children, she spoke to the men and women before her, who bent forward with respectful attention while the sick ones fastened their weary eyes upon her.

  "My people, the building of this little hospital means not only the healing of your bodies, but also the way to cleansing your souls. Dear friends, let me say in this world there is nothing worth while but your souls. Make them clean and white. Sell them for the highest price. What do I mean by that? I mean that if it is for the sake of your souls, it is nothing to go hungry, cold and in rags. What matters the outside so long as you make your hearts sweet and shiny and true? All of you before me have gone astray. So many of you have wandered like lost children from the homeward path, and darkness came and you could not find the way back. Each of you was once a happy little child, with some place to call home and some one there to care when you were lost. I do not know why the darkness overtook you, but I know it did, and to-day, as before, I am a messenger to show you the way back. I have come to tell you that there is still Somebody who cares whether you are lost or not. There is still Some One who waits to guide you home. He asks you as a little child to take hold of His hand and He will lead you out of the fearful darkness. I do not ask what nameless deeds have made you fear the light of day and the eyes of men. I only know you are my friends, to whom I so gladly bring this message, and to whom I so willingly give my strength and my life to help you find the way back to the greatest Friend, who, understanding all, forgives."

  A look resembling a shadow of hope came into their faces as she finished, and when, at a sign, Zura haltingly played, "I Need Thee Every Hour," and the people stumbled along with the music in an attempt to sing, the burden of the sound as well as the song was a cry for help.

  The song finished, one part of the crowd seemed to fade away, the others stayed and gathered about Jane as if only to touch her meant something better than their own sin-stained lives. She moved among them speaking gently to this one, earnestly to that one. Tenderly she smoothed the covers over the sick bodies, leaving a smile and word of cheer wherever she stopped.

  Sentimentalism dropped from her like a garment worn for play. It was the spiritual woman only I was seeing, one who faced these real and awful facts of life with the calm, blissful assurance of knowing the truth, of giving her life for humanity because of love.

  Jane Gray was indeed a "Daughter of Hope."

  A little later, Zura—here, there, everywhere, like a bright autumn leaf dancing among dead twigs—found me conversing with a man who all the afternoon had kept very