JUST AROUND THE CORNER by Blanche Bailey King

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 6, 1898

“JUST AROUND THE CORNER.”

By Blanche Bailey King

“Was you goin’ to throw them flowers away, ma’am?” Jane was standing in the middle of the room, duster in hand, watching me attentively, as I listlessly refilled a bowl with fresh roses, tossing the others on the table, though they were scarcely withered at all. What did it matter? The conservatory was full of flowers.

“Yes, you may gather them in a paper and take them, Jane,” I replied, wondering a little at the girl’s sudden interest.

“Would it be all the same to you, ma’am, if I kept ’em?” she asked, as she carefully placed them in the paper.

“Do what you like with them,” I answered, turning away. Dropping wearily into my chair, I took up my book again, when something—O, these mysterious “somethings”—made me look up! She was standing at the table carefully holding the paper of flowers and gazing intently at me with her honest blue eyes.

Jane was a typical Irish girl, and her blue eyes with their dark lashes, and her black hair, together with her Irish brogue, had always attracted me—that is, until lately; nothing interested me now.

“What are you going to do with the flowers?” I asked, struck, in spite of myself, by her expression. Her face lighted up instantly; she was evidently waiting for just that question.

“They’re for the Donnelly baby, ma’am. It died yesterday, and the mother, poor soul, she do hate to bury it without a sign of a flower at all.”

“Donnelly,” I said, wonderingly; “who are they, and where do they live, Jane?”

“Why, ma’am, she’s your own wash-woman, and she lives just around the corner, like. Her man is a poor stick of a lad. [Jane called all her men acquaintances “lads,” regardless of their ages.] She’s five children left. She’s a good, dacint woman, and it’s a hard time she’s havin’.”

“Tell James to cut you a box of fresh flowers,” I said, “and tell Mrs. Donnelly I am very sorry for her.”

Thinking this settled the matter I resumed my reading. Still Jane lingered; I felt her eyes upon me, and impatiently laid down my book and looked up at her. There were actually tears in the girl’s eyes as they looked appealingly into mine.

“O Mrs. Grant,” she said, and her voice trembled, “will ye excuse me if I make bold to ax a favor of ye?” In her excitement she had unconsciously dropped into the Irish brogue she was gradually losing. “Wouldn’t ye be willin’, just this once, to take in the flowers your own self? She’d be that plazed, and she’s little enough to plaze her, God knows. I wouldn’t ask ye, but she’s a nate, cleanly woman, and”—here Jane hesitated, watching me closely—“she was so sorry for you, ma’am.”

And with this last remark she left the room softly, and, decidedly surprised and rather annoyed at her unusual behavior, I again opened my book. But it was no use; I could not read. The pathetic little story of the dead child “just around the corner” brought back so vividly my own grief, for only a few weeks ago my darling baby was buried! I could see her now, lying in a bed of flowers, her little hands clasping a tiny rosebud, and the grave in which it was so terrible to leave her, a bank of the choicest flowers.

Now “just around the corner, like,” as Jane expressed it, was this other baby with no flowers—no daintiness. But such people are so different, I argued with myself. She can’t miss her baby as I do mine. She has five children left, and I have—nothing. Then I thought of my husband, who was such a tower of strength to me, and of the loving sympathy of so many friends, and, selfish as I was, I had the grace to feel ashamed. This woman’s husband was evidently worthless, from what Jane said. Well, the girl would take her the flowers, and I had done my part. So I opened my book again, and read the same page over and over.

Why did the words of a simple Irish maid ring so persistently in my unwilling ears: “She’s little enough to plaze her, God knows?” I closed the book with a bang and flung it on the table, and rang hastily for Jane. She came instantly with an eager, expectant look on her face.

“Put on your hat, Jane, and come with me quickly before I change my mind. We’ll take the flowers to Mrs. Donnelly.”

“The Lord be praised, ma’am!” she ejaculated with Irish fervor. “She’ll be proud indade to think a lady like yourself has thought of her.”

With the memory of my baby as I saw her last so plainly before my eyes, the pathos of that little figure in its cheap pine coffin was beyond description. It would have been a pretty child had its face not been so thin, or so prematurely old. The dress it wore was white as snow, tho very coarse, but what made the tears roll down my cheek, was the poor, faded little bunch of artificial flowers clasped in its hands. O, the pity of it! And only “just around the corner” I had more flowers than I knew what to do with, flowers to throw away. I sent Jane home for all she could carry, and for the first time for weeks I felt thankful for one of my blessings.

Very sweet the little “Donnelly baby” looked when we had heaped flowers around it, till the hard pine wood was covered, and the thin hands clasped a lovely white rosebud. Then the poor, tired, hard-working mother (who could not take time for the luxury of grief) and I stood and wept together, as we looked at the little one so peacefully resting there.

“You did all you could for her,” I said gently, remembering the comfort which that thought had given me,—the remembrance that nothing had been left undone to save my child.

“I did the best I could,” said this poor mother, sobbing piteously. “But the doctor ordered good food that I couldn’t give her. See how thin she is. She might have been saved. That makes it so much harder.” And I, a neighbor, had plenty!

I learned a lesson that day too bitter to be easily forgotten. The “Donnelly baby” had not died in vain. Mine was rapidly growing into a case of chronic selfishness and morbid grief, and needed just the heroic treatment it received. “Through the mouth of babes” we are often taught, and my little Irish maid had taught me as no one else had done. I hope never again to forget that “just around the corner” there is some one who needs just what I can give.—Blanche Bailey King, in the New York Observer.