Miss Whittaker’s Blankets. ——
Miss Rachel Whittaker, as the years went by, found herself sole occupant of the old family homestead. Father and mother had lived their long honored lives, finished their work, and entered into rest. Brothers and sisters had one after another made for themselves new homes and gone their different ways. Miss Rachel had passed safely through the romances of youth and settled down to sober middle-aged life. She had also resisted all persuasions of friends to sell the old place and make her home with some one of the various families. “Because there is no man in the case,” said Miss Whittaker, with a slightly contemptuous emphasis on the “man,” “is no reason why I should not have a home of my own.”
So life went on in the old Whittaker mansion with the same zest and order as if the household numbered a half-dozen, instead of a single lone female and her servant. There was the same punctilious regard to times and seasons. The house-cleaning paroxysm invariably came on a certain day of the month, the Monday’s wash flapped in the wind, and the Saturday’s baking sent forth spicy odors as regularly as they had done for the last forty years. The cellar continued to be stocked each autumn with “Mercers” and “Pink-eyes,” with “Greenings” and “Spitzenbergs,” with “Golden Pippins” and “Pound Sweets.” The closet shelves contained their due amount of riches: rows of jars and glasses, filled with peaches, pears, quinces and jellies. In short, everything pertaining to good cheer was literally brimming over.
And Miss Rachel fed her chickens, counted her eggs, watered her plants and pattered upstairs and down, or sat in her large, sunny room and read her books and magazines, or clicked her knitting needles to the ticking of the tall old clock. Or she gathered a few friends about her for a social tea drinking, or, flung wide the doors of the old house to a troop of nieces and nephews. It was not alone that Miss Whittaker was fond of company, but it was pleasant to keep up the old customs. It was a pitiful attempt to bring back, as far as possible, the old times. It was easier when gay chatter and merry prattle filled the rooms, to see the white-haired father and mother as of old in their arm-chairs by the fireside. The most prosaic have a vein of sentiment somewhere. Rachel Whittaker’s took this form; she guarded with a reverence that amounted to idolatry every object and principle belonging to those two. Her father’s old hat occupied the identical peg on which he himself hung it the last time he went out; and mother’s darning basket stood on the little stand, with balls and thimble and glasses; the needle stuck in the ball of blue yarn just where her own fingers placed it so long ago. And so, housekeeping was something more than ministering to her own wants or entertaining friends; it was having things go on as “they” would like to see them go on.
This devoted daughter was careful, as well, to direct the family benevolences into the well-worn channels in which they were accustomed to run. The church subscription and the contributions to home and foreign missions, and the various “Boards,” were as faithfully attended to as if good Squire Whittaker still sat at the head of his pew.
She even loved and perpetuated her father’s prejudices, and was too apt, like him, to have more sympathy for the unfortunate in Booroboolagha, than for those at her own door. She was prone to set all these down as “drunken” or “shiftless.” However, she had not much opportunity to cultivate the grace of charity in home work, as nearly all the little community were well-to-do.
One of Miss Rachel’s duties as a good housekeeper was to see that the large stock of bedding, packed away in trunks and closets, was aired at frequent intervals. It was more than abundant for the needs of a large family—and the Whittaker family was a large one when gathered in the old home at Thanksgiving and the holidays. One day in early winter—“just the right sort of a day for airing bedclothes, so warm and bright,” Miss Rachel declared—the lines in the yard were filled with blankets, quilts, comfortables, etc., and the piazza roofs were adorned with feather beds and pillows.
Among the passers-by was Mrs. Barnes. She lived in the little gray, weather-beaten house just under the hill. She was neither shiftless nor drunken, yet she was pitifully poor, and was a widow as well, with three little children. She could “dig,” though to “beg” she was ashamed, and managed by hard work and much pinching and stinting to piece out a living. What a tempting sight was this goodly array to the half-frozen woman!
Nobody knew but herself how hard she had tried to get enough bedding together for the winter; how she had saved every old scrap and pieced it up and eked out the cotton with newspapers that she had secured from Miss Rachel; and yet, with all that, the old house was so open it was going to be hard work to keep warm in the long, cold nights.
She stood and looked at those soft double blankets and thick comfortables, and said to herself, “What a thing it must be, eh, to have such lots of bedclothes; to pile on as many as you please and be warm as toast all night! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—I don’t know how many blankets, double at that, and ever and ever so many comfortables, besides quilts and spreads. And there she is with all them warm things and nobody to keep warm but herself, and here I be, with three little children and no warm things. Oh dear! Why couldn’t the two ‘a’ gone together, I should like to know.” Then she brushed away a tear with the corner of her shawl and went on her way.
Miss Whittaker sat near the side window and noticed that the Widow Barnes stopped and looked over the fence. Somehow she didn’t like to see her standing there, her thin dress blowing in the wind, her faded old shawl drawn close about her, and with such anxious-looking eyes fixed on those blankets. But now the obnoxious figure in the old shawl moved on, and Miss Rachel could once more give her undivided attention to a very difficult piece of embroidery she was engaged in making for a fair.
That very night winter began in earnest. The north wind and the frost went out hand in hand. They built bridges over streams, made rocky roads, and crept in here and there, unbidden and unwelcome. They found their way to Miss Rachel’s chamber, but she got a victory over them by simply reaching out her hand and drawing over her self a soft comfortable.
The same unmerciful couple visited the poor as well as the rich; they crept into the cracks and crannies of the Widow Barnes’ little house. She awoke with chills creeping over her, and got up and hunted about in the dark for something more to put over the two little girls in the trundle-bed, who had once or twice sleepily called out “cold!” She tucked her shawl and their old sacks about them, then snuggled little Bessie close in her arms and “wished for the day.”
The frost and the wind had their own way all through the following day. It was a gloomy prospect for the night to Mrs. Barnes. She had hoped before cold weather set in to manage in some way to get more bedclothes. A fire all night was out of the question. As a forlorn hope, she put on her hood and shawl and went towards night, up the hill to Miss Whittaker’s. Why, she scarcely knew. There was the least glimmer of a prospect that she might get some plain sewing to do, or, “Who knows,” she told herself, “but that Miss Whittaker will say, ‘Mis’ Barnes, here is an old comfortable; if you can make it useful, you are welcome to it.’ Oh! if she only would.” And while the poor woman struggled up the hill against the wind she was unconsciously concocting a suitable reply to such a gracious proposition.
Miss Rachel had an excellent habit of employing her odds and ends of time in reading. By means of it she kept up familiar acquaintance with old authors.
To-night, after the lamps were lighted—and there were yet a few minutes before tea—she took a dip into “Thomson’s Seasons.” She was just reading:
“See, winter comes to rule the invested year,
Sullen and sad with all his rising train,
Vapors and clouds and storms.”
* * * * * * *
“’Tis done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o’er the conquered year,—”
when the kitchen door opened and Mary admitted Mrs. Barnes. What a heavenly place that room, with its warmth and brightness, seemed to this other woman. Miss Rachel laid aside her book and gave kindly attention to her poorer neighbor. They talked about the weather, how very early the cold had come on, how sharp the wind had been all day, and what an exceedingly cold night last night was.
“I put everything I could lay my hands on over us, and yet we shivered in our beds,” Mrs. Barnes said.
Then Miss Rachel suggested that the house was probably open, and gave some valuable advice as to the best method of making doom and windows weather-proof. “Stop up all the chinks, and I think you will be more comfortable,” she said; and then added that she was sorry she knew of no work for her. It was very difficult to get anything to do in the winter time. Had she not better try to put out her children and go into some nice family herself? It would be a great deal better all round.
Mrs. Barnes got up hastily, then, and said she must go. She wanted to say that if she could get work to do she could take care of her children without help from anybody, but something choked her, so that she could not speak. This was the horrible thing that was always staring her in the face—to part with the children. Must she come to it, just for want of a little help over this hard spot?
She pushed out into the cold and darkness, and went on her way, slowly and heavily. “I most hope she’ll be cold herself some time, just to see how it feels,” she murmured, half aloud, as she caught the last glimpse of Miss Rachael’s light, in the bend of the road. “Why couldn’t she let me have a couple of old comfortables and pay for it in work? I don’t want to beg, goodness knows, but I’ll have to come to it, for all I see.”
Miss Whittaker was not so hard-hearted as she might seem. All the time Mrs. Barnes was talking, she was engaged in consultation with herself as to whether there was anything in the way of bedclothes that she could possibly spare. She did not wish to commit herself, so she made no promises, but she inwardly resolved that on the morrow she would take a look to that end.
Accordingly, the next morning found her with her head in chests and closets amid piles of blankets and the like. It was astonishing how many beds one woman, who lived all alone, had to provide for.
That pile was for Sister Martha’s bed, that for Elvira’s, that for Brother Ephraim’s. Then, suppose they should all come at once and bring a couple of children apiece; they never had yet, but then they might, and if they did, at least six beds would need to be made ready; and if the weather should prove to be very cold at the time, why, it would take an enormous amount of covering, and it was always best to be ready for emergencies. Then there were certain quilts that she would not part with under any consideration, even though they were somewhat faded. The “album” quilt contained precious association of all the Whittaker family. The “wheel within a wheel” mother pieced and quilted; “the birds in the air” she pieced herself, beginning at the early age of four. As for common comfortables, it was needful to have a good many to spread over feather beds and mattresses.
There! It was done. Miss Rachel had gone laboriously through them all, and yet nothing had been found that was in any way suitable to bestow upon the Widow Barnes.
Dinner time came now, and she put them all away with—“I will see about it some other time.” Ah, how many good things Satan hinders with that salve to the conscience—“some other time”!
After the cold came the snow, pouring out from the sky one ceaseless, silent stream for three days and nights. It piled itself in huge drifts in roadways, hid the fences, and—most buried the little house in the hollow. The widow occupied her time in shovelling snow before her doors and windows, lest they should be buried entirely. Her thoughts, meantime, were gloomy and sad. She knew about the God who hears the young ravens when they cry, but she did not believe He would hear her, and—like many more of his children—when trouble came, stopped her ears to gracious promises and fell into sullen gloom.
Miss Whittaker was a prisoner, too, in her cheery rooms. She was pleasantly employed, though; she knit bright socks for Martha’s baby boy, made up a store of mince pies and fruit cake, and read a new book called “Snow Bound.” In short, she was altogether comfortable and happy, or would have been but for one thing. And that thing was not snow; she liked that. What disturbed Miss Rachel’s serenity during those few days, was, that she could not shake off a feeling of uneasiness with regard to the Widow Barnes. Her face, pale and worn, kept coming up before her, and the words, “We shivered in our beds,” sounded in her ears. Then all the texts in the Bible she had ever read about the poor kept coming and going through her brain. She was a diligent reader, and her memory was good. When she would fain have entertained herself recalling the musical flow of—
“Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing,”
she could think of nothing but—
“Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.”
Or,—
“If any of you see a brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
She was not unmindful of the poor; she had helped Mrs. Barnes in various little ways. Why must she feel so condemned? she asked herself again and again.
With fair weather came the cold again; came stealing down upon the sleeping world like a thief in the night. Miss Rachel was unusually tired and slept very soundly, so that she did not waken even when the fire on her hearth had died out, and the cold become so intense in her room that the windows were frost covered, and the breath of the sleeper went up in little clouds of smoke. She stirred uneasily several times, and was just awake enough to know that she was cold, and not awake enough to bestir herself and get more covering. For a few minutes she lay in that half-waking state, thinking she ought, and would, and must rouse up and get more blankets. Finally, she thought she had done so and slept on.
Very soon after that she found herself far away from her own home, trying to walk over a floor of solid ice. She gazed about her in horror! The place was a large, deep pit, lighted by a lurid glare. Whichever way she turned her eyes, she saw nothing but ice, icy floor and icy walls, smooth and shining like glass. She clutched at them to save her sliding steps, but there was nothing to hold to; her hands slipped and she fell in a heap on the floor. She looked wildly above her for a way of escape. At the top of the pit she saw pretty rooms, with bright fires and happy-looking people sitting about sewing, reading and chatting. She shrieked for help, but they only shook their heads and went smilingly on with their occupations.
On one side she saw the Widow Barnes and her children. They sat amidst piles of blankets, heaped all about them, and they were soft and fleecy as her own had been. Oh! If she had but one to keep out this deathly chill. She screamed out again in an agony of torture, begging that just one blanket might be thrown down to her. But a mocking voice only came back to her, and it said, “Stop up the chinks, and I think you’ll be comfortable.”
In shivering terror she awoke, relieved beyond measure to find herself at home in her own bed, and then there flashed over her mind the story of Goody Blake and Harry Gill.
Had the Widow Barnes been praying that she might never be warm again? And must she go through life with her teeth chattering as they were now? Mingling confusedly with the words of the old ballad, “Chatter, chatter, chatter still,” came a rush of Scripture texts, vivid and startling as if a voice spoke them in her ears, and they were all about the poor.
She was so thoroughly stiffened by cold and fear that she could scarcely rise and go to the closet for the needed covering which on this night she had forgotten to place by her bedside.
Miss Rachel had been accustomed to draw up and write out, at the commencement of each year, a series of severe resolutions; the fact that she never kept one half of them not abating their rigor in the least. But never in calmest moments, with pen in hand and diary before her, had any such earnest, self-denying resolves been made as were now made by the woman who stood in night array in her closet, holding a flickering lamp in one hand, and with the other taking down blankets and comfortables and piling them on chairs.
That done, she took a bountiful supply for herself and went back to bed. Her shivering soon ceased, and for the remainder of the night she slept the sleep of the just.
As a matter of course, when the daylight streamed into her room, and the red sun sent a slanting bar across her bed, Satan told Miss Rachel that it was perfect foolishness to pay any attention to a dream, and that it was simply improvident to go and give away that great pile of bedding she had laid out; that a couple of old ragged quilts would answer every purpose. He was obliged, however, to leave her in peace, for when Miss Rachel shut her lips tight, and said, “I shall do it,” in that decisive way of hers, there was no need of further parley.
No sooner were the roads broken than she went in search of a man with a sleigh. When all was ready, it was a sight to behold—at least to the eyes of cold and hungry people. In the very bottom was a quantity of dry wood, then came a layer of meat, potatoes, apples, flour. And this was crowned by blankets and comfortables, more than enough for two beds in the very coldest weather. “I’ll see if I don’t get the upper hand of this mean, selfish spirit,” Miss Rachel had ejaculated, as she stowed an extra blanket on the load at the last minute.
The Widow Barnes was bending over her smoky old stove, trying to coax some green knots to ignite, when the sleigh stopped in front of her house. She had a dream, too, last night. It was about Heaven. That happy place seemed to be filled with blankets and warm fires. But here, behold, was Heaven come down to her door! She assured the man he had come to the wrong place, but the note he handed her, with money to buy a whole load of wood, settled the matter.
From that time forth Miss Rachel took it upon her, as a sacred trust, to see to it that the Widow Barnes lacked for nothing. And, strange to relate, her subscriptions to foreign missions, home missions, freedmen, education, etc., have not been cut down a particle in consequence.