Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1875 — “WHAT THOU DOEST DO QUICKLY.” [ARTICLE]

“WHAT THOU DOEST DO QUICKLY.”

BY M. STRATTON BEERS.

. “ Minnie, dear, put Some wood in, will you? I think the fire is low.” “In a minute, auntie, just one.-’- “ Auntie” turned over toward the wall with a sigh. Minnie heard the sigh and thought it because her auntie had such a headache that she sighed. “ Does your head ache so hard, auntie?” she softly inquired. “ It aches badly, dearie!” “ Can I do anything for you, auntie?” “ Nothing, only the favor I asked of you a bit ago.” “ Oh, yes! the fire. I had almost forgotten it, I declare! I was so entertained' by this book —it is just splendid!" She carefully placed a mark in the book and quietly replenished the fire, being particular not to make any noise that should disturb her auntie, for she knew how dreadfully she suffered when her headaches came on, and how much noise aggravated the pain; then she took the napkin from her auntie’s head and dipped it in the cold ice-water that stood in the bowl by the side of the sofa, and, laying it on the aching head again, bent over and kissed the lips that were so pale and compressed from the suffering her auntie was so patiently enduring. “My poor auntie! I wish your head was well.” A faint smile on the pale lips rewarded her for this expression of sympathy, and she impulsively kissed them -again, -then sat down to her reading. Now Minnie was really a good girl, rather an unusually good girl; but she had one or two exceedingly bad habits that annoyed every one about the house very much, and especially troubled the loving auntie, who tried so hard to cultivate in her little niece habits of promptness and order. Her greatest fault was inattention, and the forgetfulness sure to grow out of this —no matter what it was she had to do, she always wanted to put it off “ just one minute." Her auntie had talked to her kindly many times; she prayed with her and for her; she had several times inflicted upon her some slight punishment or other, hoping by some of these means to cure her, but up to the morning of which I write there had been no apparent change for the better, and Mrs. Wheldon, lying there suffering with the pain in her head, suffered no less from the pain at her heart, for she loved the little orphan niece quite as well as she had loved her own sweet daughters while they remained to gladden the home with their presence; but that had only been a few years, and then they sickened and died, and Minnie, coming just then to claim her auntie’s love, had received that which could, be second only to the dead mother’s, if even that. There came a low tap at the door. Minnie opened it, and Hilda, the house servant, whispered in a voice intended to have been low, but which reached Mrs. Wheldon’s ears quite as distinctly as if it had been intended for her special benefit: “ Minnie, that Rop boy has come for that basket he says your aunt promised to send last night.” “Oh, my goodness! what will I do?” Minnie was too much astonished and alarmed to think to speak low. Mrs. Wheldon turned over and looked up inquiringly. “ What is it, dearie?” “Oh, auntie! I don’t see really how you ever will forgive me, but I —l did really forget to take that basket, and T never thought of it until this minute.” “ Minnie Rice! is it possible?” “Yes, auntie!” and Minnie stood expecting she knew not what, but feeling as if nothing was too dreadful for her to bear now.

Mrs. Wheldon sat up. “ Send the boy up here, Rilda!” Rilda went out and down muttering to herself: “I do hope she will thrash her good this time; she’s the forgetfullest thing I ever seen, and never starts to do nothing until she’s told twenty times, if she can put it off; but la! I forgit mySelf to do things, and she’s a poor, motherless thing. I reckon she will outgrow it in time.” Minnie did not dare to look at her auntie, she was so filled with shame and remorse. The day before her aunt had told her to carry the basket in question to Mrs. Rop, a woman who washed for them sometimes, and who, Minnie knew', had been rather miserable for some weeks. Minnie had immediately begged permission to spend the remainder of the afternoon and night with a little friend who lived about two-thirds of the way to Mrs. Rop’s, promising to come home eariy in the morning. Her favor being granted she had nearly flown to her room to get her cloak and hat, and her aunt being engaged with a caller when she was ready to go she had gone without the usual good-by, and, as it now proved, without the basket also, Which her aunt had placed on the dining room table, telling Minnie to be careful and not forget it. Rilda had known nothing of the intended destination of the basket, and wishing to set the table for tea had transferred the basket to the closet, and thus it had escaped observation by Mrs. Wheldon. Minnie, with her characteristic thought lessness, had gone to her friend’s and made her visit, even remembering to come home early in the morning (which she would not likely have done only from a slight misunderstanding that had some way sprung up between herself and friend as to the relative beauties of their respective Sunday hats, each thinking her own the handsomer), but never once remembering the basket which she was to hare (parried. Now this contained

medicine and some tea and some matches and a couple of candles, beside bread, and meat intended for the tWo childflfcn’S suppers, all of which Mrs. Wheldon had discovered they stood very much in need of and which she had promised to send over before dark. % The little “ Rop boy” came up. lookisg very much ashapied of his ragfpd pants, and still “ raggeder” shoes. , “Good morning, Willie!” Mrs. Wheldon said. “ I am sorry you did not get those things last night; it was a sad mistake upon the part of Minnie. How is your mother?” “She said would you be so kind as to come over a bit. She feels queer like, more than yesterday.” Mrs. Wheldon promised to go and set about getting ready, notwithstanding her aching head. “ Please, auntie, don’t go! your head aches, you know ” Her aunt looked at her with such a sad look she could not say any more. “ Had you any supper, Willie?” she asked. “No, ma’am! nor We haven’t had any breakfast yet, either.” Minnie was resolved “ never, never to forget anything again,” but said simply: “ Oh, auntie!” “ Put on your cloak and hat, Minnie, I want you to carry the basket.” Once at Mrs. Rop’s and Minnie opened her eyes wide with astonishment. The baby of two years was crying loudly and tugging at his mother, whom they found too sick to pay any attention to him. She had grown much worse since Mrs. Wheldon saw her the day before, and Minnie heard her tell her auntie how thankful she would have felt for a candle to have given a little light during the long night, or for the bread and meat for the children, who cried so long before they could forget their hunger sufficiently to go to sleep. “ Minnie, do you know the way to Dr. Metford’s?”

“Yes, ma’am. Shall Igo for him?” “Yes, and ask him to come here as soon as he can.” Minnie went swiftly over the half-doz-en squares to the doctor’s office, found him in and told him her errand, and her face grew very red as she heard him say, half to himself and half to her: “ I guess the medicine I gave your auntie for her couldn’t have had the effect I thought it would.” Minnie tried so hard to tell him that she forgot to take the basket with the medicine, but she could not gather the courage to do so, so she walked along by the side of the doctor, who wondered what made her so unusually quiet. Arrived at Mrs. Hop’s he found her very ill indeed, and Minnie heard him say: “ Soiry, sorry she did not have the medicine last night; think it might have saved a run of fever. V Mrs. Wheldon stayed nearly all day, keeping Minnie with her and doing all she could to make the poor woman comfortable. Toward night a woman came, saying Dr. Metford Had sent her to nurse Mrs. Rop, and then Mrs. Wheldon went home, taking with her the oldest boy, Willie, who could do but little, if anything, to help in the care of either his mother or his brother. All this time she had said nothing to Minnie about her last great failure in doing what she had been told to do. She trusted more in letting her know just all the evil that had resulted from her carelessness. Every day, for a week, she took Minnie to see the sick woman, and then one bright morning they went to find the house all darkened, and the nurse woman told them she had been dead “ since four o’clock.” Minnie was shocked enough. Do what she could, she could not shut away from the ears of her memory the words of Dr. Metford:

“Sorry! sorry! think if she had had the medicine last night she might have been saved a run of fever.” And something kept telling her that but for her own negligence Mrs. Rop might still have been living. She kept hearing the words of her auntie calling outTto her that afternoon, as she started off for her cloak and hat: J “ Put the basket in the hall, dear, and then you’ll not forget to take it;”and she remembered how she had hated just to go across into the dining-room for the basket, feeling so sure she would not forget it, and it would do just as well where it was. “But, oh! I did forget,it! and she died because I did not do as auntie told me!” She cried herself to sleep that night and dreamed that she was a murderess, that all the people in Maysville followed her about, pointing at her, and saying, “ You killed your auntie’s washwoman.” Then she dreamed that the dead woman way lying in bed with her, and that she put both her arms around her, and they were so cold! and then she put her cold lips close to one of her ears and whispered : “ You wouldn’t bring me my medicine and so I had to die, and now I am going to sleep with you always.” When Minnie wakened with a scream, which her auntie heard away down in her room, and which caused her to go quickly up to Minnie’s room, where she found her sitting on the floor close to the door, Minnie told her dreams and sobbed so piteously that Mrs. Wheldon felt sorry for her and sure that this must certainly cure her of this bad habit of hers.

And Minnie was better for a long, long time, but as the time grew long and the remembrance of Mrs. Rop’s death grew fainter she agrin relaxed into the old way, which did almost seem to have been a part of her naturk She was now almost fifteen, a good student, though very often she was obliged to remain and learn her lessons when other of her mates were at play because in this too she was prone to put off getting her lessons until absolutely obliged to do so. The day of which 1 am writing now she had been kept in through everv recess, and besides this had been publicly reproved by her teacher, and as usual under such extreme cases she was much mortified and had resolved all in herr own strength that ,it should never be so again. Again her auntie had a severe headache and had retired early, leaving her niece and William Rop (whom they had kept with them during the five years that bad intervened since his mother’s death) to study their lessons for the next day before they too should go to bed. Hardly had her auntie gone up to her room when Rilda opened the door and said: “ Miss Minnie, I have to go up-street awhile with Mrs. Dean’s girl; the work is all done up, but! 1 put some kindlings for the morning fires into the stove oven to dry; will you look in at them once in a while until the fire gets down and see that they don’t catch fire and burn the house down?” • , “Yes, Rilda, all right! I will watch them.”

Rilda went out, put on her thing*, looked into the oven, tnrned over the kindlings, and then opened the sittingroom door again. “ Miss Minnie, yon are sure you’ll not forget the kindlings?” “ Of course, Rilda! do go ’long and not bother so much!” Minnie was busy trying to learn her algebra lesson for the next day, and in a minute had forgotten the kindlings. Presently Willid finished his lessons, and, yawning in a manner that was more enjoyable than graceful, said he “ guessed he’d go to bed if Minnie wasn’t ’fraid.” “’Fraid, Willie! Of course I’m not afraid. Uncle Rob will be home in twenty minutes, anyway.” So Willie went to bed, and Minnie went on with her lessons. She had finished her algebra, but was getting a lesson in her geometry now, and was studying aloud after the fashion of schoolgirls when committing their lessons at home. “ To find the solidity of a cone or pyramid, whether round, square or triangular. “ First find the area of the base, whether round, eq ” She stopped and listened! “ Had Rilda come back?” For the first time since she had gone Minnie now thought of the kindling-wood. “Mercy to me! what if they’ve all burnt up! Won’t Rilda be mad?” She still listened, there was some noise in the kitchen! “ It must be Rilda!" She would peep in and see. She stopped first to glance at the rule, and went to the door repeating, “ Square, round, oblong or triangular, by some Pa-a-ugh!” It was smoke, heavy, dense, blaek smoke that met her full in the face as she opened the door into the kitchen. “This is dreadful! What shall ldo? I forgot those kindlings and they have set the house on fire."

True enough! the kindlings*had ignited, and some of them falling out of the oven had burned into the pine floor, the fire catching at the braided rug to increase its strength until it had reached a splint-bottom chair that stood on the rug and against a cupboard. Over the door of this hung a tablecloth, upon which had been spilled some tea at supper, and Rilda had rinsed it out and hung it on the cupboard to dry. This caught the flames readily, and altogether, when Minnie remembered to look after the kindlings, she found to her great consternation that there was a great fire already doing its best in the rather close kitchen toward consuming the whole house. Now Maysville did not boast of any fire-engines, and when once a fire got under way it was but little that could be done to stay it in its course. Besides, our Minnie was almost petrified with fright at the sight of the fire. She did close the door, but just because she happened to, not from any “ malice aforethought,” then she ran screaming upstairs. > t “Auntie, auntie, the house is all on fire!” As good fortune would have it, Mrs. Wheldon had not undressed, as had first been her intention, but had lain down with her clothes still on. Now she sprang up, telling Minnie to waken Willie. Just as she reached the landing below her husband came in. He had seen the unusual light in the kitchen and exclaimed : “ I believe the house is oh fire! where is Rilda?” “ Gone out! What can we do?" It took Mr. Wheldon but a minute to decide. He rushed to the door crying “ Fire! fire!” The whole village was alarmed in a moment more, for the smoke and flames now burst through the roof at the corner where the cupboard had been; and the light shot up into the night telling every one where was the fire. Nearly everything was saved by the ready and helpful hands es the accumulated crowd, but the house and the kitchen furniture were soon among the things that toere, and are no more. When Mr. Wheldon heard from Rilda all the circumstances, he said to Minnie: “ Well! I should think one or two more lessons would teach you to attend to things when they ought to be done. I guess, though, you can't learn!" This was all anyone ever said to her; “but we are glad to say she was cured of her worst faults frOm that day forward. If anyone asked a favor of her she granted it immediately, if in her power to grant it at all; her lessons were learned before time to recite them, and if she was told by her uncle or aunt to do anything she charged her mind with it until it was time to do it, and then attended to doing it; and she says that she is never tempted to put off doing anything when it should be done without she sees a mental vision of the poor ing with fever for lack of the medicine she should have carried and the burning house set on fire by the kindling which would never have ignited but for her carelessness. —Chicago Standard.