The Jamesons | Page 4

relation, to go in and offer to help Caroline set things to rights. She thanked me, and said that she did not want any help; when Jacob and Harry came home they would set the furniture in out of the yard.
"I am sorry for you, Caroline," said I.
"Look at my house, Sophia Lane," said she, and that was all she would say. She shut her mouth tight over that. That house was enough to make a strong-minded woman like Caroline dumb, and send a weak one into hysterics. It was dripping with water, and nearly all the furniture out in the yard piled up pell-mell. I could not see how she was going to get supper for the boarders: the kitchen fire was out and the stove drenched, with a panful of biscuits in the oven.
"What are you going to give them for supper, Caroline?" said I, and she just shook her head. I knew that those boarders would have to take what they could get, or go without.
When Caroline was in any difficulty there never was any help for her, except from the working of circumstances to their own salvation. I thought I might as well go home. I offered to give her some pie or cake if hers were spoiled, but she only shook her head again, and I knew she must have some stored away in the parlor china-closet, where the water had not penetrated.
I went through the house to the front entry, thinking I would go out the front door--the side one was dripping as if it were under a waterfall. Just as I reached it I heard a die-away voice from the front chamber say, "My good woman."
I did not dream that I was addressed, never having been called by that name, though always having hoped that I was a good woman.
So I kept right on. Then I heard a despairing sigh, and the voice said, "You speak to her, Harriet."
Then I heard another voice, very sweet and a little timid, "Will you please step upstairs? Mamma wishes to speak to you."
I began to wonder if they were talking to me. I looked up, and there discovered a pretty, innocent, rosy little face, peering over the balustrade at the head of the stairs. "Will you please step upstairs?" said she again, in the same sweet tones. "Mamma wishes to speak to you."
I have a little weakness of the heart, and do not like to climb stairs more than I am positively obliged to; it always puts me so out of breath. I sleep downstairs on that account. I looked at Caroline's front stairs, which are rather steep, with some hesitation. I felt shaken, too, on account of the alarm of fire. Then I heard the first voice again with a sort of languishing authority: "My good woman, will you be so kind as to step upstairs immediately?"
I went upstairs. The girl who had spoken to me--I found afterward that she was the elder of the daughters--motioned me to go into the north chamber. I found them all there. The mother, Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson, as I afterward knew her name to be, was lying on the bed, her head propped high with pillows; the younger daughter was fanning her, and she was panting softly as if she were almost exhausted. The grandmother sat beside the north window, with a paper-covered book on her knees. She was eating something from a little white box on the window-sill. The boy was at another window, also with a book in which he did not seem to be interested. He looked up at me, as I entered, with a most peculiar expression of mingled innocence and shyness which was almost terror. I could not see why the boy should possibly be afraid of me, but I learned afterward that it was either his natural attitude or natural expression. He was either afraid of every mortal thing or else appeared to be. The singular elevated arch of his eyebrows over his wide-open blue eyes, and his mouth, which was always parted a little, no doubt served to give this impression. He was a pretty boy, with a fair pink-and-white complexion, and long hair curled like a girl's, which looked odd to me, for he was quite large.
Mrs. Jameson beckoned me up to the bed with one languid finger, as if she could not possibly do more. I began to think that perhaps she had some trouble with her heart like myself, and the fire had overcome her, and I felt very sympathetic.
"I am sorry you have had such an unpleasant experience," I began, but she cut me short.
"My good woman," said she in little more than a whisper, "do you know of any house in a sanitary location where we