Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1875 — DEB. [ARTICLE]

DEB.

BY ELIZABETH STUART riIELPS. The solemn Androscoggin bell was ringing the mill-girls in by broad sunlight one noon, a little testily, when there came a knock at the door, and behind it the young lady of whom I heard. Deb was startled by the knock, and frightened by the young lady. It was not often that visitors came to Brick alley, and it was still less often that Brick alley had a visitor to knock. This was the young lady for whom Deb’s mother did fine washing. Deb’s mother wiped her hands and placed a chair, and the young lady sat down. She was a straight young lady, with straight feet, and long brown feathers in herjhat, and soft brown glove? upon her hands. She had come, she said, with that Cluny set, which she found she should need for a party this very night; indeed, she was in so much haste for it she had hunted Deb’s mother up—which was a matter of some difficulty—as she had never the least idea whereto she-Jived before, and how crooked the stairs were! but the lace was very yellow, as she saw, and would she have it done by nine o’clock to-night? And—

And -then, turning her head suddenly, the straight young lady saw poor, crooked Deb, in her high chair, with the wonder in her eyes. “1 wonder if I frightened her,” thought Deb. But she only wondered and did not speak. “ Is this your“Yes,” said Deb’s mother, “ the eldest. Fifteen. I’ll try my best, ma’am, but I don’t know as I ought to promise.” She spoke in a business-like tone and turned the Cluny lace —a dainty collar and a pair of soft cuffs—about in her hands in a busi-ness-like wav. A breath of some kind of scented wood struck, in a little gust, against Deb’s face. She wondered how people could weave sweet smells into a piece of lace, and if the young lady knew; or if she knew how much pleasanter it was than the onions that Mrs. McMahoney cooked for dinner every day in the week, except Sunday, upon the first floor. But it gave her quite enough to do to wonder, without speaking. „ “ Fifteen!” repeated the young lady, standing up very straight and looking very sorry. “ How long has she been — like—this ?”

“ Born so,” said Deb’s mother. “ She’s jest set in that chair ever since she’s been big enough to set at all. Would you try gum on these, miss ?” “ But you never told me you had a crippled child.” The young lady said this quickly. “ You have washed for me three years and you never told me you had a crippled child. “ You never asked me, miss,” said Deb’s mother. . The young lady made no reply. She came and sat down on the edge of Deb’s bed, close beside Deb’s chair. She seemed to have forgotten all about her Cluny lace. She took Deb’s hand up between her two soft, brown gloves, and her long, brown feathers drooped and touched Deb’s cheek. Deb hardly breathed, the feathers and the gloves, and the sweet smell ot scented wood, and the young lady’s sorry eyes—such very sorry eyes—were so close to the high chair. i “ Fifteen years!” repeated the young lady, very low. “In that chair—that nobody ever—poor little girl! But you could ride,” she said, suddenly. “ I don’t know, ma’am. I never saw anybody ride but the grocer and baker. I ain’t like the grocer and baker.” “ You could be lifted, I mean,” said the young lady, eagerly. “ There is somebody who lifts you?” “ Mother sets me, gener’ly,” said Deb. “ Once, when she was very bad with alame ankle, Jim McMahoney set me. He’s first floor—Jim McMahoney.” “ I shall be back here,” said the young lady, still speaking very quickly, but speaking to Deb’s mother now, “in just an hour. I shall come in an easy sleigh v with warm robes. If you will have your daughter ready to take a 'ride with me I shall be very much obliged to you.” The young lady finished • her sentence as if she didn’t know what" to say, and so said the truest thing she could think of, which we are all in danger of doing at all times.

“ Well, I’m sure!” said Deb’s mother. “ Dabitra, tell the lady ” But Dabitra could not tell the ladv, for she was already out of doors and downstairs and away into the street. And, indeed, Deh could not have told the lady—has never told the lady—can never tell the lady. If all the blue of summer skies and gold of summer sunlight and the shine of summer stars fell down into your hands at orree for you to paint scrap-books with, -should you know what to say? Into the poor little scrap-book of Deb’s life the colors of heaven dropped and blinded heron that bewildering, beautiful and blessed ride. - In just an hour the sleigh was there, with the easiest cushions and the warmest robes and bells—the merriest bells!—and the straight young lady. And Jim .M% Mabofley *sas there, aid he carried her ■down-stairs to “set” her. And her mother was there and wrapped her all about in an old red shawl, for Deb had uo “things”

like other little girls. The young lady had remembered that and she had brought the prettiest little white hood that Deb had ever seen, and Deb’s face looked like a bruised day lily bud between the shining wool, but Deb could not see that; and Mrs. McMahoney was there, paring onions at the door, to wish her good luck; and all die little McMahoneys were there, and all the children who did not wonder, and the grocer turned in at the alley corner, and the baker stopped as he turned out, and everybody stood and smiled to see her start. The white horse Eawed the snow and held up his head—»eb had never seen such a horse—and the young lady had gathered the reins into her brown gloves, and the sleigh-bells cried for joy—how they cried!—and away they went, and Deb was out of the alley in a moment, and the people in the alley hurrahed and hurrahed to see her go. That bewildering, beautiful, blessed ride! How warm the little white hood was! How the cushions sank beneath her, and the fur robes opened like feathers to the touch of her poor, thin hands! How the bells sang to her, and the snowdrifts blinked at her, and the icicles and slated roofs and sky and the people’s faces smiled at her.

“ What’s the matter!” asked the young lady; for Deb drew the great wolf’s robe over her face and head, and sat so for a minute, still and hidden. The young lady thought she was frightened. “ But I only want to cry a little,” said Deb’s little, smothered voice. “I must cry a little first.” When she had cried a little she held up her head, and the shine of her pretty white hood grew faint beside the shine of her eyes and cheeks. That bewildering, beautiful, blessed ride! Streets, and a crowd, and church spires, were in it —yes, and a wedding and a funeral too; all things that Deb had seen in her high chair in the daytime, with her eyes shut, she saw in the sleigh, on that ride, with her eyes wide open. She sat very still. The young lady did not talk to her, and she did not talk to the young lady. Tlte horse held up his head. It seemed to Deb to be flying. She thought that he must be like the awful, beautiful white horse in Revelations. She felt as if he could take her to heaven just as well as not if the young lady’s brown gloves should only pull the rein that way. They rode and rode. In and out of the merry streets, through and through the singing bells, about arid about the great church spires—all over, and over, and aver the laughing town. They rode to the river, and the young lady stopped the white horse so that Deft could look across, and up and down at the shining stream and the shining bank. “ There’s so much of it,” said Deb, softly, thinking of the crack of it that she had seen between two houses for fifteen years. For the crack seemed to her very much like fifteen years in a high chair and the long, broad-shouldered, silvered river seemed to her very much like this world about which she had wondered. Th#y rode to the mills, and Deb trembled to look up at their frowning walls and to meet their hundred eyes; but some of the girls who wore the little pink bows and who knew her came nodding to look down out of them, and she left off trembling to laugh; then in a minute she trembled again, for all at once, without any warning, great Androscoggin pealed the time just over her head, and swallowed her up in sound. SJie turned pale with delighted terror and then she flushed with terrified delight. Did it pray, or cry, or laugh ? Deb did not know. It seemed to her that if the white horse would carry her into the heart of that bell she need never sit in a high chair at a window again, but ride and ride with the young lady. It seemed to her like forever and ever.

They turned away from the Androscoggin without speaking, and rode and rode. Daylight dimmed, and dusk dropped, and see! all the town blazed with lights. They rode and rode to see the lights. Deb could not speak—there were so many lights. And still she could not speak when they rode into Brick alley and Jim McMahoney and her mother, and the children who did not wonder came out to meet her and take her back to her high chair. She was too happy to speak. She need never wonder any more. She could remember. But the young lady did not want her to speak. She touched her white horse and was gone in a minute. And when Androscoggin rung them both to sleep that night—for the young lady forgot to ask for her Cluny, and was too tired to go to the party —I am sure I cannot tell which was the happier, she or Deb.