NORA’S GOOD LUCK

It does not seem very good in the beginning but you shall see. One cold winter night a man in the city came home crazy with drink. I will not tell you what he did to his trembling daughter who was all the family left, except one thing: he put her out of the house and told her never to come back. It was a very poor house, hardly any comforts in it, but it was the only home the child knew and she was twelve years old. When she was turned out of it, her only thought was to hide herself away where no one could find her.

This was in the edge of the city, and she wandered about a little till she came to a new barn where there was an opening in the foundations big enough for her to crawl in. When she saw this, by the light of the street lamp, she crept into the hole and far back in one corner where she thought no one would ever find her and there she lay.

The house to which that barn belonged held two boys and a dog, and the next day, when the three were playing together, as they generally were, the dog began to act strangely. He smelled around that hole, then ran in, and barked and growled and seemed much excited.

“I guess there’s a cat in there,” said one of the boys, calling the dog out. He came, but in a minute rushed back, and barked more and seemed to be pulling at something.

This aroused the curiosity of the boys, who got down by the opening and peered in. It was so dark that they could see nothing, but the dog refusing to come out, they went into the house and brought out a candle, and by the light of that, saw what looked like a bundle of rags, which, however, stirred a little as the dog tugged at it.

Then the boys called to her to come out; they threw sticks to see if she were alive; they tried all ways they could think of, and at last they went away. But soon they came back and men with them. Nora, through half-shut eyes, could see them. She knew their blue coats and bright stars they were policemen.

They called, they coaxed, they commanded, but she did not move. They found a boy small enough to crawl under the barn, and he went in. He found that she was alive, but she would not speak. Never a wish or a hope crossed the child’s mind, except a wish to be let alone.

At last the boy, by the directions of the policemen, pulled her towards the opening. She did not resist she did not know how to resist; her whole life had been a crushing submission to everything.

Finally the men could reach her, and the poor, little, half-dead figure was brought to the light.

“Poor soul!” said one of the men, almost tenderly. “She’s near dead with cold and hunger.”

She could not walk. Kind though rough hands carried her to the station house, where a warm fire and a few spoonfuls of broth hastily procured from a restaurant brought her wholly back to life, and she sat up in her chair and faced a row of pitying faces with all her young misery.

Little by little her story was drawn from her.

But what to do with her that was the question. She was not an offender against the law, and this institution was not for the protection of misfortune, but for the punishment of crime. They did the best they could. They fed her, made her a comfortable bed on a bench in the station house, and the next morning the whole story went into the papers.

This story was read by a lady of wealth over her morning coffee. She had lately been reading an account of the poor in our large cities, and had begun to think it was her duty to do something to help. With more money than she could use, and not a relative in the world, there was no reason why she should not make at least one child happy, and educate it for a useful life.

On reading the story of Nora, with the added statement that her father had been arrested and placed in a retreat where he would not soon get out, the thought struck her that here was her chance to make the experiment.

After her breakfast, Miss Barnes ordered her carriage and went out. After driving about a little, she ordered her coachman to drive to the B Street police station. He looked astonished, but of course obeyed, and in a short time, the dingy station house received an unusual visitor.

The moment Miss Barnes entered the room, she saw the child, and knew she was the one she had come to see. As for Nora, she had never seen a beautiful, happy-looking woman, and she could not take her eyes off her face.

Miss Barnes asked a few questions. Who was going to take her? Who were her friends? She learned that she had none, that her father had been arrested for vagrancy, and would be sent to the bridewell.

“Where is the child to go?” at last she asked.

“Indeed, ma’am, I don’t know, unless she goes into the streets,” said the policeman.

“I’ll take her,” said Miss Barnes.

“It’ll be a heavenly charity if you do, ma’am,” replied the man.

Miss Barnes turned to the girl.

“Nora, will you go with me?”

“Yes ’m,” gasped Nora, with hungry soul looking out of her eyes.

“Come, then,” said the lady shortly, leading the way out.

Thomas, holding the door of the carriage, was struck dumb with horror to see the apparition, but the timid little figure kept close to his mistress, and she wore such a look that the old servant dared not speak.

“To a respectable bath house,” was Miss Barnes’s order.

Thomas bowed, reached his seat somehow, and drove off.

“Not pretty, decidedly,” thought Miss Barnes, looking steadily at the wondering face opposite hers, “but at least not coarse. Dress will improve her.”

At the door of the bathing rooms, Thomas again threw open the carriage door. Miss Barnes went in with Nora, gave her into the hands of the young woman in charge, with directions to have her thoroughly bathed and combed, and otherwise made ready for new clothes that she would bring.

The amazed young woman marched off with the unresisting Nora, and Miss Barnes went shopping. She bought a complete outfit, from hat to shoes, and in an hour returned to the bath rooms, to find Nora waiting. She was soon dressed, much to her own surprise, for she hardly knew the names of half the articles she had on, and they were once more in the carriage. As for Thomas, he thought wonders would never cease that morning.

As they rolled home, Miss Barnes said:

“Now, Nora, you’re to live with me and be my girl. You’re not Nora Dennis; you’re Nora Barnes. You’re to forget your old life at least as much as you can,” she added, seeing a shade come over Nora’s face. “And on no account are you to speak of it to the servants in my house. Do you understand?”

“Yes ’m,” said Nora.

“I shall try to make your life happy,” Miss Barnes went on a little more tenderly. “I shall educate you”

“Please, ma’am, what’s that?” asked Nora timidly.

“Teach you to read and write,” said Miss Barnes, wincing as she reflected how much there was to do in this neglected field.

“And, Nora,” she went on, “I shall expect you to do as I tell you, and always to tell me the truth.”

“Shall I stay at your house and be warm?” asked Nora.

“Always, poor child, if you try to do right,” said Miss Barnes.

“Are these things mine?” was the next question, looking lovingly at her pretty blue dress and cloak.

“Yes, and you shall have plenty of clothes, and always enough to eat, Nora. I hope you will never again be so miserable as I found you.”

Nora could not comprehend what had come to her. She sat there as though stupefied, only now and then whispering to herself, “Always enough to eat, always warm.”

“Thomas,” said Miss Barnes, in her most peremptory manner, as he held the carriage-door for her to alight, “I especially desire that you should not mention to any one where I got this child. I want to make a new life for her, and I trust to your honor to keep her secret.”

Thomas touched his hat.

“Indeed, you may be sure of me, Miss Barnes.”

And faithfully he kept his word, although all the household was in consternation when Miss Barnes installed the child as her adopted daughter, procured a governess for her, had a complete outfit of suitable clothes prepared, and, above all, took unwearied pains to teach her all the little things necessary to place her on a level with the girls she would meet when she went to school.

Nora soon learned the ways and manners of a lady. She seemed to be instinctively delicate and lady-like. She was pretty, too, when her face grew plump and the hungry look went out of her eyes.

Miss Barnes, though on the sharp lookout, never discovered a vice in her. Whatever may have been her original faults, she seemed to have shed them with her rags, and the great gratitude she felt for her benefactor overwhelmed everything. She seemed to live but to do something for Miss Barnes.

To Nora, life was like a dream a dream of heaven, at that. Always warm, always fed, always safe from roughness, surrounded by things so beautiful she scarcely dared to touch them; every want attended to before it was felt. It was too wonderful to seem true. In dreams she would often return to the desolate shanty, where the winds blew through the cracks, and the rickety old stove was no better fed than her mother and herself.

Five years rolled away. Miss Barnes grew to love this child of poverty very much, and to be grieved that she showed none of the joy of youth. For Nora walked around as though in a dream. She was always anxious to please, always cheerful, but never gay. She was too subdued. She never spoke loud. She never slammed a door, she never laughed.

“Nora,” said she one day, after studying her face some time in silence, “why are you not like other young girls?”

“Why am I unlike them?” asked Nora, looking up from the book she was reading.

“You’re not a bit like any young girl I ever saw,” said Miss Barnes; “you’re too sober, you never laugh and play.”

“I don’t know how to play,” said Nora, in a low tone; “I never did.”

“Poor child,” said Miss Barnes, “you never had any childhood. I wanted to give you one, but you were too old when I took you. Why, you’re a regular old woman.”

“Am I?” said Nora, with a smile.

“I don’t know what I’ll do to you,” Miss Barnes went on. “I’d like to make you over.”

“I wish you could,” said Nora earnestly. “I try to be like other girls, but somehow I can’t. I seem always to have a sort of weight on my heart.”

“Nora, isn’t there something you would like that I haven’t done for you? Haven’t you a wish?”

“Oh!” cried Nora, “I can’t wish for anything, you make me too happy, but” she hesitated, and tears began to fall fast “I can’t forget my old life, it comes back in my dreams, it is always before me. I don’t want to tell you, but I must. I can’t help thinking about the many miserable girls, such as I was, living in horrid shanties, starved, frozen, beaten, wretched.”

“Then you have a wish?” said Miss Barnes softly.

“Oh, it seems so ungrateful!” Nora sobbed. “Such a poor return for the life you have given me! I have tried to forget. I can’t tell what is right for me to do. I’m sorry I said anything.”

“No, Nora,” said Miss Barnes promptly. “You should tell me all your wishes and feelings. If they are wrong, I can help you outgrow them; if right” she hesitated “why, I must help you.”

Nora fell on her knees with the most impulsive movement Miss Barnes, had ever seen.

“Oh, I do believe you are an angel!”

“Far from it, Nora,” said Miss Barnes smiling, “but I’ve set out to make you happy, and if I find whims and notions in your head, I suppose I’ll have to follow them out. But seriously, dear child, I must say I have had a little uneasy feeling of responsibility in my heart ever since I’ve had you. And there’s nothing to hinder my being as odd as I please, and now let me hear your plans.”

“I have no plans. I have only longings to do something for them.”

Well; plans grew fast as they always do when planners are anxious to do something. Long into the night they talked, and the very next day the work began. Nora captured a poor little girl who came to beg, and took her in to Miss Barnes, in spite of the horror of the servants. They found she had no parents, and decided to take her, and Nora went on to make her decent, with more pleasure than she had ever known.

So it went on; before the end of a month, Miss Barnes found herself more interested than she had been in anything. And Nora grew bright and happy as the months rolled by, and one after another wretched girl was gathered out of the streets and brought to a home.

As soon as one girl was trained and fitted to take a place in some one’s kitchen, or sewing-room, or nursery, a dozen places opened to her. By telling a little of her story, Miss Barnes interested her new mistress in the girl, who was thus started out in a useful, independent life.

This institution, though it never had a name, grew and flourished, and Nora still lives in the Barnes Home, manages the Barnes income, and “lends a hand” wherever needed.

“And that’s the story of how the Barnes Home came to be,” said Mrs. Wilson, in ending.

“And was that nice lady that you went to see about a maid,” cried Kristy eagerly, turning to her mother, “was she Nora?”

“Yes,” said her mother, “she was Nora.”

“That was fine!” said Kristy. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Wilson.”

“That story of a great charity, started through one poor girl,” said Mrs. Wilson, “reminds me of another that I heard lately; shall I tell it, Kristy?”

“Oh, do!” said Kristy.