GRETCHEN.

German Gretchen was absent from the mill one morning. No one noticed it except Miss Peters, who marked her down for one less day’s wages. The young girl, who had drifted into the manufacturing town, as so many do, in search of work, had never been a favorite or attracted particular attention. She was a fair work-woman, obeyed rules, and went her way to the boarding-house when night came; but she made no friends either there or at the mill, and it would scarcely have been noticed had she disappeared altogether. Somehow she had floated into Sunday-school, and been placed in the class which afterward became Etta Mountjoy’s, but here her apparent stolidity made her perhaps the least interesting of all the girls. Perhaps this was in part owing to the fact that one is not likely to be very talkative in a strange language.

But Gretchen had a heart, although no one in Squantown had yet found, or cared to find, it. It was safe at home in the fatherland, where the house-mother and father had as much as they could do to put enough black bread to support life into the mouths of the five little children, too young to do as she had done, when she accompanied a neighbor’s family, who were emigrating to seek their fortune in the New World. These neighbors had gone to the far West, and not caring to be burdened with a possibly unproductive member of their party, had left the little girl in the hands of a German employment agency, through which she had found her way to Squantown Mills.

Gretchen had many homesick hours when she would have given a great deal more than she possessed to be at home again sharing the poverty and hardships of the Old World, but she expressed her feelings to no one. Indeed, she knew no one to whom she could have expressed them. She did her day’s work faithfully, receiving her regular payment of fifty cents, and occasionally a little more, which little she resolutely put away at the bottom of her box, to be sent home to her mother and the little ones when there should be a good opportunity.

But now Gretchen was absent from her work one, two, three, four days. It was Miss Peters’s duty to report all absentees on Saturday night, and she did so after the hands had been paid off and gone home. The book-keeper noted the absence in his pages, asked if work was so pressing as to make the appointment of a substitute necessary or advisable, and being answered in the negative quite forgot to inform his employer of the girl’s absence.

But when Sunday came, and Gretchen was absent from the place in the class which she had so regularly occupied, it was a different thing. Etta, among her other activities, had from the first been a good visitor of absentees. Indeed, when her scholars lived with their families, as in the case of Katie and one or two of the other girls, she had made more visits and laid down the law more than was quite agreeable in all cases. Now, with her newly awakened sense of responsibility toward the immortal souls placed under her charge, she had begun to watch over them as one who must give account of their souls. She had several times thought of looking up Gretchen, in order to become acquainted with her surroundings, etc., but had not yet put her design into execution, and now the girl’s absence from the class gave her teacher the very opportunity she desired.

As soon as tea was over, in the long June twilight, Etta put on her hat, and walked down the hill upon which the grand house stood to the valley, in which was the long row of boarding-houses occupied by such of the mill-hands as had no homes in the place. It was stiflingly hot down here, though it had been cool and fresh on the high ground above, and the young lady, who had not often visited the purlieus of the mill, felt as though she could scarcely breathe, and did not wonder that men sat at the open windows in their shirtsleeves, and that tired-looking women seemed gasping for air. The bare wooden buildings, with their long rows of windows and doors all of the same pattern; the smooth, beaten yards, all just alike; the swarms of children making it seem anything but Sunday-like with their noise; the teeming population, which made the tenements resemble ant-hills, and seemed to forbid any idea of privacy, looked very dreadful to her.

On the other side of the street was a long row of brick cottages, each inhabited by two or more families, the distinctive sign of each being the family pig, kept, for greater convenience, in the front yard, from which odors, not the most choice in their nature, were constantly wafted across the way. In the doorways of most of these lounged Irishmen smoking and swearing, in some cases in a state of intoxication; for, although the rules of the mill concerning drinking were very strict, and no habitual drinker was ever knowingly engaged in it, it was impossible to prevent the men from depositing a part of the earnings received every Saturday night in the hands of one or two liquor-dealers whom the law licensed to sell death and ruin to their fellow-men.

How dreadful, thought the young lady, to be compelled to spend one’s life in such wretched surroundings. Is it any wonder that the women become hopeless slatterns, and that the children grow up in vice and sin? How thankful I ought to be to the heavenly Father who has surrounded me with such different influences! how I wish I might do something to raise and elevate these, and give them a few of the blessings of which I have so many!

Etta Mountjoy had grown since that early June Sunday when she had visited her pastor in such sorrow and perplexity. She had read and seen and thought more and more of the wonderful love of our heavenly Father in surrounding her with so many blessings and in sending his only Son to be her Saviour and friend. She looked back upon the life of self-pleasing she had so long led with sorrow amounting to disgust. How could she have been so ungrateful? How could she have failed to love One so altogether lovely? She was learning now to find pleasure in prayer, and the Bible, which had been to her such a dull book, began to be more interesting than any story which she had formerly devoured. And she was trying, faintly and with many relapses, it is true, to take up her neglected duties, especially those which had been most distasteful to her, and perform them steadily “as unto the Lord.” Out of all this was springing up in her a desire to do something for Christ something which would be, if not a return for his favors, at least a token of her gratitude to him. To-night just such an opportunity as she had desired came to her hand.

If Etta had only known it, the dwellings of the operatives at Squantown were palatial compared to those into which the working-classes are huddled in cities; for here the many windows opened upon pure fresh air and green fields, the little yards were scrupulously clean, and vines clambered up the sides of the doors and windows, even to the roofs. The fare, plain as it was, was not tainted by exposure in a city market, or by being hawked about the city streets, and the price of living was no higher than the wages received in the mill enabled the people to pay.

The young teacher had the number of the house at which her scholar boarded written down in her class-book, and at that number she at once knocked. No one came for some time, but at last repeated raps brought the woman who kept the house, and who might perhaps be excused for her want of greater promptitude on the ground of having so many dishes to wash after the boarders’ tea.

In answer to Miss Etta’s inquiries the woman answered civilly enough, for it would not do to offend one of “the family,” that Gretchen’s room was the back garret; that she believed the girl had been sick for a day or two, but she had not had time to look after her, though she had sent her little boy up with her meals. The child couldn’t have eaten much, for the tray came down almost as it went up. She had been trying to find time to go upstairs all day, and was just meaning to do so now that her dishes were done. She would go up now, and let the young lady know how her scholar was.

“Let me go with you,” said Etta; but the request was only a form, as the girl usually did just as she pleased without waiting for anybody’s permission, and, indeed, the woman of the house knew no reason why, on this occasion, she should not follow her own inclination.

Three flights of stairs were climbed, a long narrow hall, studded with doors on each side, traversed, and Mrs. Doyle opened one in the southwest corner of the house, where, the sun having beaten on the sloping roof all the afternoon, the temperature was something fearful. The room was small, for Mr. Mountjoy had built the boarding-houses, and desired to try the experiment of each inmate having a separate room instead of a great many men or women being herded together in open dormitories. It contained simply a cot, a wooden chair, and a table upon which stood conveniences for washing and the untasted supper. On the cot lay the German girl, blazing with fever and tossing about in the greatest discomfort. At first she did not know her visitors, and seemed a little frightened at seeing the room so full. But presently, recognizing her Sunday-school teacher, she grasped her hand and drew her down to the side of the bed, pointing to her German Bible, in which she had been trying to study her Sunday-school lesson.

Etta was touched, and began to think there might be some interest in even the plain, undemonstrative Gretchen. She bent down to ask her some questions about her sickness, during which Mrs. Doyle hurried to throw the one window wide open, and to make the disordered room fit to be seen.

“The child is very ill, I am afraid,” said Etta, coming across to the window and speaking to the woman in very low tones; “don’t you think so?”

“Yes, I am afraid she is,” said the person addressed, uneasily, for severe illness in a large, crowded boarding-house is no light matter. She and her children were dependent upon their boarders, and a sudden panic might empty the house.

“Can’t you send for a doctor, Mrs. Doyle? Papa will gladly pay him, I know.”

“Yes; Johnny could run, I suppose, but he’d be sure to tell somebody, and I wouldn’t like it to get about till we know what it is, any way.”

“Please go yourself, then. It’s after tea, and there isn’t much to do.”

“But suppose the girl gets worse, and begins to scream and frightens the boarders.”

“Oh, I ’11 stay with her till you come back. I’d rather; I shall be so anxious to hear what the doctor says. Please go, Mrs. Doyle, and hurry.”

Etta Mountjoy had a way with her that could not be resisted by most people, and even Mrs. Doyle, not overgifted with the milk of human kindness, could not refuse her. So she went downstairs, and only stopping to put on her bonnet and tell her eldest daughter to go on with the preparations for breakfast, which always had to be made over night, as she was going out for a little while, walked swiftly down the street.

Etta sat on the hard chair by the patient’s bed, and for some time watched the tossing limbs, heavy breathing, and flushed, excited face. She was not used to sickness. Indeed, she had never seen it since her mother died, so long ago that she could not remember the pain and the suffering, but only the terrible results, which were pale, cold death, the coffin, the funeral, and the grave.

Did all severe sickness end in death, she wondered? Was this strong, healthy girl about to die? And if so, was she ready? She had never thought of the possibility of death in connection with any of her scholars. Had she taught them the things which alone could be of value to them when they came to stand face to face with a holy God? What advantage then would be familiarity with dates, with geography, and with catechisms? How would they then blame her for not having pointed them to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world? The responsibility of undertaking to deal with human souls, upon which she had so thoughtlessly rushed, now seemed to her something terrible. True, she had not then known or understood anything about it; but, nevertheless, it now seemed to her a great sin, and an earnest prayer for forgiveness rose up from her heart, accompanied by another for the salvation of the sick girl before her.

Meanwhile the moments rolled slowly by: the sick girl tossed and moaned; the church-bells rang for evening service, first merrily, as glad to call the people to the house of God; then slowly, as loth to stop while any more stragglers might be induced to come; then with one or two long sobs for those who, in spite of all persuasion and all “long-suffering patience,” wilfully stay outside, stopped, and the silence was only broken by the shouts of the noisy children below. Even these ceased at last, and as the sunset glow faded flame red changing to pale yellow, and that again to cool, sombre gray the time of waiting seemed to the unskilled watcher well-nigh interminable.