A Girl of the People | Page 9

by drink, and he did the work
allotted to him in a superior manner to most of his class.
When first they were married, he and his wife had two bright, cheery
rooms. They were well furnished, and things promised brightly for the
couple. Granger, however, was the son of a drunkard, and the sins of
the father were soon to be abundantly visited on him. Mrs. Granger
meant well, but her religion was not of an inspiriting kind. Whenever
she saw her husband the worse for drink she reproached him, and spoke
to him about hell-fire. He soon ceased to care for her; and even when
Bet was a tiny child she scarcely ever remembered an evening which
did not find her mother in tears, and her father returning home, having
taken a great deal more than was good for him.
Years went by; children were born, only to live for a day or two and to
pass away. Mrs. Granger became more broken-down and
unhappy-looking every year, and Bet grew into a tall, comely girl. She
was not particularly gentle, nor particularly amiable, and she had the
worst possible training for such a nature as hers; but nevertheless she
had a certain nobility about her. For instance, no one had ever heard
Elizabeth Granger tell a lie. She was proud of her truthfulness, which
was simply the result of courage. She was afraid of no one, and no
circumstance had ever caused her cheek to blanch with fear. She
quickly acquired a name for truth and honesty of purpose, and then
pride helped her to live up to her character. She was not very quick to
give promises, but she often boasted that, once she gave one, nothing
would ever induce her to break it. She was very fiery and hot-tempered,
but as a rule she did not fly out about trifles, and there was a certain
grandeur about her nature which accorded well with her fine physique
and upright bearing.
Bet was an only child for several years. It is true that many little
brothers and sisters had been carried away to the cemetery, but none

lived until two puny boys put in so feeble an appearance that the
neighbors thought the miserable thing called life could not exist in their
tiny persons more than a day or two. They were twins, and Mrs.
Granger nearly died when she gave them birth. The neighbors said that
it would be a good thing if the broken-down mother and the babes that
nobody wanted all went away together.
"There's a deal too many children in the world," they said; "it would be
good if they was took, poor lambs."
But here Bet, who overheard the words, gave way to one of her bursts
of fury. She turned the offending but well-disposed neighbors out of the
room; she locked the door, and kneeling down by the babies, gave them
a perfect baptism of tears and kisses.
"Who says as they're not wanted?" she sobbed. "I want 'em--I'm allays
a-wanting something, and maybe they'll fill my heart."
From this moment she constituted herself the babies' devoted nurse;
and so, after a fashion, they throve, and did not die.
The darker the times grew for Mrs. Granger the more she clung to her
religion. She had a real belief, a real although dim faith. The belief
supported her tottering steps, and the faith kept her worn spirit from
utterly fainting; but they did nothing to illumine or render happy the
lives of those about her. She believed intensely in a God who punished.
He saved--she knew He saved--but only through fire. In the dark winter
evenings she poured out her stern thoughts, her unlovely ideas, into the
ears of her young daughter. As a child Bet listened in terror; as a
woman she simply ceased to believe.
"Ef God were like that, she'd have nought to do with Him,"--this was
her thought of thoughts. She refused to accompany her mother to
chapel on Sundays; she left the room when the Bible was read aloud;
she made one or two friends for herself, and these friends were
certainly not of her mother's choosing. She could read, and she loved
novels--indeed, she would devour books of any kind, but she had to
hide them from her mother, who thought it her duty, as she valued her

daughter's immortal soul, to commit them to the flames.
The mother loved the girl, and never ceased to wrestle in prayer for her,
and to believe she would shine as a jewel in her crown some day; and
the girl also cared for the mother, respecting her stern sense of duty,
admiring the length of her prayers, wondering at her ceaseless devotion;
but both were outwardly hard to the other,