Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1881 — A TRUE HEROINE. [ARTICLE]

A TRUE HEROINE.

“This would be jolly, Tom, if it wasn’t for that miserable shanty just under our window, and those infemallynoisy urchins across the street, and—” “ Don’t expect, my dear boy, to secure all the beatitudes at a rental of S2O per month.” “And if you wasn’t so everlastingly bearish, and—” “ What more, my dear fellow ? Out with it.” “ And if that shy daughter of the landlady wasn’t so frightfully ugly.” “Well postscripted. Jack! I knew all along where the chief objection lay.” “ Upon my soul. Tom, I believe you rented the rooms just because you thought her looks would annoy me,” “ You compliment me undeservedly, my dear boy. I had not that much forecast. But, now that you have suggested it, I think I will adopt a new method of torturing you. The great Aristotle imbued his followers with philosophy while strolling about the groves and thoroughfares of Athens. Why should I not imitate the master of the peripatetic school, and make San Francisco lodgings a means of inculcating moral precepts upon your mind ? ” “ Good enough, Tom. But not such confoundedly-disagreeable lessons, if you please.” “ All wholesome instruction, my dear Jack, is distasteful to the beginner. You will relish it more as you advance. ” “ Never, Tom, never, if Miss Corbin is an average specimen of the studies proposed in your new system of objectteaching.” “ Don’t speak so confidently, my dear boy. The future is a great gainsayer of thoughtless utterances. But, to inaugurate the course, the school will please come to order. First class in moral philosophy, attention ! ” “ Ready, sir.” “Why have you seen fit to speak of the landlady’s daughter as a drawback to the jollity of our present location ?” “ Because she is so terrifically hideous, and because—” “No generalities, sir. Answer me categorically. Exactness of definition was the great point for which Socrates contended. She has lovely hair—brown, sleek and tastefully arranged ?” “Yes.” “ Blue eyes of singular brilliancy and gentleness ? ” “Yes.” , “ Fine eyebrows and lashes, and beautiful mouth and teeth? ” “Yes.” “Anelegant figure—girlish, but symmetrical and well developed—and admirable hands and feet ? ” “ Yes.” “ Taste in dress, grace in bearing, and a prepossessing voice and manner ? ” “Yes.” “Then go to! If the total of these be not loveliness, the world is a deception. ” “But, Tom, did you ever see any one so fearfully pockmarked ? ” “ If put to my mettle, Jack, you know I never yielded the superlative to living man. Miss Corbin’s features have a seashell smoothness—a very gloss of finish —compared with faces I have seen. I have beheld countenances that resembled a colander—yea, that were engrailed and corrugated like a mass of conglomerate. But, after all, it is only skindeep. If the nature within be loveliness, these surface blemishes may become as attractive to the eye as a piece of ornamental fret-work. ” “ I grant you, Tom, that Miss Corbin is homely enough to afford to be good.” “Perhaps she is good enough to afford to be homely. At any rate, you were not born the censor of her or any body else’s appearance. The face you dislike may be comely to others and to the Creator. And, if not, remember, my dear boy, that ugliness has a license to exist in this world as well as beauty. ” "And 1 nave a right to express my opinion of it. ” “And may have a reason to regret ever doing so. Thus endeth the first lesson. The class is dismissed.” Tom was awfully cynical sometimes, but we were the best of friends, and I liked him just as well as though he had not been twice as old as I was, and crotchety and bald-headed beside. We had chummed together for years,, and took adjoining rooms in a private residence on Russian Hill. It was during the first week’s occupancy of our new quarters, while smoking on the veranda and looking out upon the moonlit bay, that the foregoing conversation occurred. * * * * * * * I had never seen Tom so moved by a book as he appeared to be by a volume he brought from the library one evening. He fidgeted, and wiped his bald head so much, and uttered so many exclamations, that I finally asked him what he had come across to agitate him so. “A most affecting story, my dear Jack,” he replied, “most affecting.” “It must be, judging by your manner.” “ If it would not disturb you, I should like to read it aloud.” “I shall be very glad to listen to it, Tom. My book is rather dry.” “Excuse me if I read it badly. It was always difficult for me to get through well with anything that affected me. I shan’t even attempt the dialect with which it abounds.” He cleared his throat, turned himself in his chair so as to face me, and read slowly, in a nervous voice : In one of the outskirts of Edinburgh, where the homes of the middle classes mingled with the hovels of the poor that had formerly occupied the site, lived a family by the name of Compton. The husband was a builder. Though his trade was fairly lucrative, the thrifty wife let her spare rooms to lodgers, in order to eke out his income. They had an only child, a daughter named Annie, 16 years old. Her unusual beauty rendered her exceedingly attractive, but she was everywhere more beloved for the sweetness of her dispo-

sition than for her comelifieas. Her modesty and kindness perpetuated, the admiration inspired by her personal charms. Among those who became strongly attached to her was an old woman known as Mother McNavit, who lived in a hovel adjoining. She was past 70, childless, friendless and destitute. She earned a meager livelihood by the labor of her aged hands. per sharp tongue and uncannny behavior had alienated general sympathy and attention, and she dwelt alone, hating the world which had at last withdrawn what little kindness it had ever shown to her. But the poor old heart was not so unfeeling as the world thought it. or .as she herself wished it was. It had simply been bruised and neglected till ite soreness made it angry and defiant toward all that approached. t AU but one. The beauty and gentleness of Annie had come upon it so tenderly that its sensitiveness and hostility were disarmed, and it clung to the child with an unnatural strength as the only object it loved in all the desolate world. The forlorn creature had once had children of her own, but she had buried them all. Bhe fancied that Annie looked like her daughter Hetty. If she had lived, she said, her poor old mother might not be so forsaken now; but the sweet bairn could not have been kinder or dearer to her than was her HettyAnnie, God bless her!—for so she mingled their two names together. The devoted love of the helpless old woman was returned by as warm an affection on Annie’s part. Hes-pity-was touched by the forsakenness and destitution she saw ; the fondness with which she was caressed and idolized awoke the deepest sympathies in her nature, while the constant association of her name with that of the dead daughter finally impressed her with the feeling that she stood in the same relation to the bereaved mother. With a nature as sincere as Annie’s, to feel thus was to manifest her sense of filial love in every possible way. So marked and unremitting were her attentions to the object of this strange affection that her parents and more intimate acquaintances were wont to address her sportively as Mother McNavit’s child. The epithet did not onend her. Her love was too earnest and respectful for her to be ashamed or annoyed by any allusion to it whatever. If the nickname produced any effect at all upon her, it only strengthened the tie that existed between her and the desolate old woman. At the date of this story the small-pox was ravaging Edinburgh. The disease was of an unusually violent type, and the greatest consternation prevailed throughout the city. One day Mother McNavit was ailing. The frightened neighbors summoned a physician, who told them she was stricken with the contagion. They informed her that she must be removed to the hospital. The intelligence appeared to inspire her with a mortal terror. She begged and prayed them to leave her where she was, but they paid no heed to her supplications. As a last favor she asked that before she was taken away they would let her see her Hetty-Annie. When Annie was told of this desire, in spite of her natural timidity and the remonstrances of her friends, she went to the friendless bedside. The poor terrified old creature, upon beholding her, exclaimed wildly: “ Oh, Hetty-Annie, daughter, if you ever loved or pitied me, show it now ! They’re going to take me to the ’spital. Don’t let them ! Don’t let them ! For mercy’s sake, don’t let them ! ” “ Wouldn’t it be better for you, mother ? “ My God ! do you say that, too, Het-ty-Annie? And all this while I have thought of you as my child. They’ve all forsaken me, and you are going with them. God will desert me next; then there can be no more disappointment.” “There, there, mother dear, don’t cry,” said Annie, fearlessly and tenderly pressing her lips to the burning cheek in her eagerness to console the poor old woman ; ‘ ‘ I’m not going to forsake you. I merely asked if ths hospital was not a better place for you because they all said so.” “Yes, they all say it; and they all think the grave would be a still better place for me. I’m willing to go to my grave, but not from the ’spital ! not from the ’spital! I can die here alone just as well, and it won’t break my heart as it would to be sent to the ’spital. Ob, Hetty-Annie !” she cried, wildly clasping her withered arms about the girl’s neck, “ there is no one but you to take my part; for sweet Jesus’ sake, don’t let them take me to the ’spital!” Annie quieted her with endearing names and caresses, and laid her gently back upon her pillow. “You shall not go to the hospital, mother; you shall not die here alone ; you shall not die here at all if I can save you.” “ Her manner was very calm, but her features were deadly pale. She commenced quietly arranging the things in the little room, as if she had taken charge of it. Turning to a neighbor, she said : “I’m not going home again until Mother McNavit is well. Please ask mother to send me the things I shall need.” When expostulated with by her parents and friends, she only replied : “ Here is a poor, terrified, friendless human being, who clings to me frantically as her only hope and comfort on earth. I could never be happy if I forsook her in her agony. ” When the influence of her pastor was enlisted to point out to her the uselessness ©f her sacrifice, she simply said: “I do it for Christ Himself; for He teaches me in His word that inasmuch as I do it unto the least of these I do it unto Him.” And so, immovable in her calm purpose, she watched by the wretched bedside ; watched through the fever and delirium, and all the horrors of the loathsome disease; watched till the danger passed from the sufferer’s pillow, and settled upon her own devoted head. She lived through the terrible ordeal. Health came slowly back to her; but her beauty had gone, never to return. A scarred and repulsive face was all that was left her. The polish of her brow and the velvet of her cheek, that was once so lovely to look upon, had been laid as a sacrifice at the feet of the lonely old woman. “ No, Tom; they had been laid up as treasures in heaven,” I said, as Tom put the volume aside. “ Dispose of them anyhow you please, ”he replied. ‘ ‘ Further the book saith not.” “By Jove ! she was a noble girl! ” ‘ ‘ Could you forgive her ugliness if you saw her ? ” “Forgive it, Tom? Yes, and forget it, and love her to boot! ” “You are quite sure, my dear Jack, that this enthusiasm is unalterable ? ” “ As a Persian law 1 ” “ Then you shall see her.” “ Where ? You don’t mean, Tom, we’re to take a trip to Edinburgh ? ” “Jack, my boy, that story was not in the book. I read it out of this venerable head. The place was not Edinburgh, but San Francisco. The young lady was not Annie Compton, but Marian Corbin. ” “ The deuce it was ! ” ****** “ You’re an old stager, Tom, and know everything. I wish you would post me a little.” ..c, “ If you’ll discard expressions suggestive of my age, I’ll do anything for you, my boy. ” “Well, then, I’ll say a young stager, or a middle stager, so you’ll tell me what to do.” ‘ ‘ Willingly. About what ? ” “Lots of things. First, about thia

ring. Do i give ft to the minister,or do I pdt it on her finger myself? ” * f “ You give iite the minister, my boy.” “ What do I have to say ? ” “ You put y a general affirmative answeF'fo Everything is asked you, and you repeat the words of the minister as audibly as your embarrassment will allow. Thus: ‘I, John, do take thie; Mariptt to jje-Miy apd wedded wife, and so forth.” f : ffLord, owMy Hie. Wg fenced, or hanged, or something of the sort, isn’t? it? And. what do you* do all the time ? ” - “I look imposing through out the ceremony, and hand the minister is gratuity afterward.” “ Is that all a groomsman does ? ” “ That is the whole duty so far as I have ever been able to discover.” “ I wish it was over, Tom 1” . “ Don’t benervousumy boy. . It. Wk# “Do you know, Tom, that sounds wofully solemn. I fancy when a fellow is about this sort of thing he oughtn’t to stop to think.” We lighted our -cigars, and, seating MM “Do you reinember, Jack, a conversation we had here a little over a year ago?” r» “ We’ve had so many-! Toip, I don’t know which yoti mean.*’ “I allude to some instruction I gave you in moral philosophy. The lesson was incomplete.. I mustfinish ik now. You were speaking or Miss Corbin’s ugliness—” “I was a fool, Tom.” , “ That is not so relevant to the matter as whether you are not as great a fool yet. ” “ What in the world dp you mean?” “ You thought then that;.no amount of goodness could hide he? ugliness to your sight. You think now that no amount of ugliness can hide hfer goodnesl to you. You may be as mistaken in this instance as in the other. ” “ Never, Tom, never!” “ Your very answer a year ago, Jack. And I say, as I said then, the future is a great gainsayer of thoughtless utterances. A little story I told, you at that time brought you right. If hereafter you should ever feel yourself going wrong, Jack, that same story may bring you right again. Here it is, old boy—my crowning achievement —the great Edinburgh romance of ‘ Mother McNavit’s Child,’ a tale of real life, in a single chapter, with all the original music and effects, written out and bound, and presented by the author as a wedding gift to the happy husband, of its heroine. ” He handed me a little manuscript volume, elegantly bound in flexible morocco. “ Tom, old fellow, how can I ever—” “ Cut it short, Jack. Drop in sometimes and take a smoke with your crabbed old room-mate. It will be enough.”