Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1882 — SAVED BY MATCHES. [ARTICLE]

SAVED BY MATCHES.

A small room, poorly furnished; a pot of mignonette in the window; a girl at work at the table, sewing steadily. She would have been pretty if she had not been so poor. If she had been better fed, she would have had a rosy cheek; if she had had freedom and less labor, she would have had dimples; if she had worn a dress of violet silk, instead of the faded calico, if would have brought out the fairness of her skin and the golden hue of her hair. As it was, Alice Mome was pale, and pinched, and sad, with the sewing-girl’s stoop of shoulders, aud the sewing-girl’s heavy heart. She rose suddenly and folded up her work—a child’s garment, of fine cambric, trimmed with dainty lace. She made a package of it, donned her bonnet and shawl, and went out of her lodging-house. Slie threaded the commercial streets rapidly, and soon emerged on the avenues of wealthy private residences. Here it was quieter. The dusk was gathering. Nowand then a carriage rolled by. Ono or two stately houses were lighted for receptions. Many more were somberly closed. Alice went on, with her quiet, rapid step. She stopped at last before a house all in a blaze of light. Costly lace curtains concealed the luxurious rooms within ; tho soft notes of a piano came softly upon the girl’s car. “The Tracys give another party tonight,” said Alice. She went into the area and rang the boll. A servant admitted her. She went in with her bundle. She came out with a light step. The work had been approved, and she had been paid. A little dazzled with the scene she had just emerged from, she Eauscd upon tho pavement to count er money. i “Give me a cent,” said a little beg-gnr-boy starting somewhere out of the silent shadows. “What do you want it for?” asked Alice. “I’m hungry,” answered the child. He was pale and pinched. “Mere’s a dime; I would give you more if I could,” she said. The child took it eagerly. She passed on, with less than $2 to buy supper and pay for a week’s rent. She had more work. When it was Hulfthedjho came the same way in the

dusk. As slid passed over the side, walkafaiirt line of white attracted her attention. There was a knob of glass, generally called a “bull’s-eye,” in the pavement. It is usually inserted over a coal vault, aud is removed to admit the coals. This one had not been adjusted with exactitude, and at the crevice appeared a line of white. Alice stooped down and examined it. It was the edge of a folded paper. bhe drew it out with a wild thought that it might be some valuable cheek or draft. But it contained only a few words, written in pencil. “I have watched for you constantly for a week. If you would save my life come back here, and all night idhg place uiatcne* where you found this paper. You shall be rewarded with all you can ask. A I’kibun kb." Alice closed the paper in her hand and looked around bewildered. No one was to be seen. She looked down at the lump of dull glass, but it was entirely opaque. The bull’s eye was not set quite evenly in its place. She touched it with her foot, but could not move it. After waiting a moment, confused and in doubt, she passed on, recollecting her errand. The area door admitted her. The servant had a child on her arm, the dainty little thing for whom Alice made garments. “Mrs. Tracy said you was to come up to her chamber,” said she. “You know the way.” The lady whom she met was not lovely; ehc was sallow and dark; very disagreeable-looking clutching her caslunere gown at the breast, and turning impatiently toward her little sew-ing-girl. "Why did you not come before?” she asked in a hoarse voice, with a slight French accent. “The child should have had that dress to drive in to-day.” • “1 was sick yesterday; I could not finish it,” answered Alice, tremulously* \ Madame snatched the package, tearing it open,* and letting the little embroidered robe fall upon the bed. “Well, hero is your money,”g said she, opening a velvet purse. “Next time 1 will employ some one who will do as they promise.” Alice turned away with a bursting heart —for the woman’s words meant starvation for her. She dared not raise her voice in reply; she divined truly that the heart under that rich robe was one of tone. As she passed down stairs, sire heard a low voice. It proceeded from one of the rooms about her. “And he is 21 to-day?” it Baid. “Yes; it is three years since his mysterious disappearance,” with a sneering laugh. The voices were stealthy. A door closed and shut them in.

Alice passed down into the street. She walked fast, treading, unthinkingly, upon the bull’s-eye, and went home. When she flung herself down to weep, she suddenly felt the crumpled paper in her hand. What should she do? She lay thinking a long time. She considered the strangeness of the request, the possibility that it was not meant for her, the idea that it was a hoax, or written by some madman—for it was a man’s hand writing. But the girl’s heart was warm and true. The possibility that some one was in trouble, and she might help them, was the thought that had the most weight. With no one to counsel or object, she obeyed it. She went to a store and spent $1 of her precious money for matches. She received a-large package, containing thousands of the little lucifers. The city clocks were striking 9 as she reached the bull’s-eye. The street was silent, the pavement deserted. As she bent down, some •one tapped upon the bull’s-eye. She slipped a sheet of matches into the crevice. It disappeared. She waired a few moments; the hand tapped for more; she supplied them. As she waited again a pedestrian approached. She rose, and stepped back into the shadows until he had passed; otherwise, she did not fear. Tho street was quiet, and she could' see the stars twinkling in the clear sky. Hour after hour she supplied matches, at intervals of quarter hours. Occasionally the rap came for an earlier demand. But she could not see the hand. She only imagined it to be a man’s. It was long past midnight. The city clocks were near striking 2 when her matches became exhausted. She had not beeu sufficiently supplied, she thought; Quite at a loss what she ought to do she rose from lier cramped position, standing in doubt, when a voice said : “Como with me!” She started in terror, for a man stood beside her; but the next words reassured her; “It is 1 whom you gave tho matches to; do not be afraid, but take my arm, and walk fast, I am not safe here.” Alice could see only a tall form, and a pale face, the features of which she could not distinguish ; but the voice, though hurried, was gently modulated, aud the stranger took her hand with a grasp that was not unpleasant. “You must be tired; but this has been a good night’s work for you, little girl,” he said. “ vVhat did you want the matches for?” asked Alice, trembling. Ho bad drawn her hand within his own, and she walking rapidly beside him. r “It was the only way in which I could got fire,” ho answered. “Tho heat melted the cement which inclosed a bull’s-eye in the wall of my prisqd. and I escaped through the cavity.

It was larger Than the one in the pavement- I have been a prisoner in my own house for three years.” As they left the vicinity of the Tracy dwelling, he walked slower. “I was quite helpless,” he added. “I knew of no one to appeal to whom I could trust But listening and waiting, as a man only listens and waits for freedom, I grew familiar with your step as it passed so often over the bull’s-eye and up the steps, and a week ago, when 1 heard your voice to beggar-boy, I resolved to trust you. I knew your tread the instant that it touched the curbstone, and 1 slipped the paper up the crevice. i You saw it immediately. The hours till you came passed heavily; you were my only hope. You are a brave, good child. Now, w'.rerc is your home? Can I go there for a little rest before daylight?” “It is a poor place,” said Alice, “but you are welcome.” Daylight was dawning when she revealed her poverty-stricken little room to him. lie flung himself into a chairand dropped his face on his folded arms upon the table. Alice fancied that he was praying, and moved about noiselessly, preparing a little breakfast. She did not realize that this man was yon ng and handsome, and it was not, perhaps, propriety to have him there. She was only zealous, in her pity, to serve him, seeing, by daylight, how ill he looked. But by noon there were strange doings in the little sewing-girl’s room. She had been sent for a lawyer, the most renowned and popular one in the city, and he came with two other gentlemen, so grand that little Alice was quite awe-stricken. Finally, Mr. Lionel Tracy—that was the namcaof her hero—went away with them, and she was left alone with her poverty and her wonder. Only she was not quite so helpless and distressed as she had been, for one of the strange gentlemen had smiled upon her, and left a few pieces of gold on her table. But the marvel was all over with her, and the gold was spent, and poverty and labor and care had come back, when, one day, there was a knock at the door, and the landlady’s little girl said thalt a carriage was standing for her, and a man in waiting said that she had been sent for. What could she do but obey the summons? wondering what fairy work it was—that luxurious ride—until she began to see through it, for the carriage stopped at the Tracy mansion. * 1 There had been great public excitement —the papers had been charged with the development of the infamous plot in high life, whereby the true heir of a great fortune had been drugged, while ill, and concealed, and a story trumped up about his mysteri--ous disappearance; but Alice, in her solitude, had known nothing about it. Iler pennies went for bread instead of news. But wjien she stepped upon ♦he threshold, Lionel Tracy, the restored master, met her with a tender courtesy that took away all her fear, and made her feel like a little queen ,in the midst of the splendor. “Haye the rest all gone away?” she asked, seeing no one but new servants, and a pleasant woman, who was the housekeeper. “Yes; lam quite alone, and shall be, unless you will come and live with me,” said Mr. Lionel Tracy. “Do you want a sewing-girl?” asked Alice, innocently. “No; I want a wife,” he answered; “one whom lean love with all my heart, as Ido you, Alice. Will you come?” Did she? Well, yes. And the public had another episode to excite them —the famous Lionel Tracy’s marriage. Alice grew charming with happiness, and she was chronicled as a beauty when she became his bride.