p. 700 | A Golden Rose by Marie B. Williams

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 19, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 44.

A Golden Rose.

By Marie B. Williams

“HERE, Kate!” said Capt. Will Adair to his niece, Kate Vaughn, a pretty girl about seventeen years old. “Here is a growing cutting of the very handsomest rose I ever saw in my life. We had left the vessel, and taken a trip to Damascus. I was strolling through the city, when I came across this rose. It was growing against a wall, and I snipped off a piece without saying, By your leave.”

“What color is it, Uncle Will?”

“A bright yellow. Looks like a golden rose in the sunlight. I had trouble enough with it on board ship; but my sailors nursed it as if it were a delicate infant, and you see how green and flourishing it is. Take good care of it, give it plenty of sunshine, and you’ll have the finest rose to show at your grand exposition that the folks around here have ever seen. I do believe it’s as large as this breakfast plate, and such a perfume!”

Kate was delighted. She had always been fond of cultivating plants for the mere love of flowers; but of late ambitious dreams had made her more attentive to her floral pets than ever before. She wanted her flowers to take the first prize at a grand exposition to be given at L— that summer. There was a great deal of competition in the floral department, and some of Kate’s most intimate friends had entered the lists also.

Kate’s carnations and roses were very fine; but she had heard that Sophia Wilson had a Baroness Rothschild rose, before whose glory all others must pale. So this acquisition of a new and magnificent species filled her soul with joy, and never was rose watched and tended as this Damascus treasure.

“I wish, Kate, the exposition was over and done with, and then maybe you’d be yourself again,” her friend Louise Grant had said to her. “You don’t seem to have a single thought beyond that rose; and it may turn out to be nothing remarkable, after all. Do you know, old Mary Elwood heard this morning that her son had died somewhere in Florida. Poor old soul! he was the only support she had. How is she going to get along without him? Such a person as she is too! Mamma is sick, and she has sent me to see her; but I’m afraid to go alone. Do, Kate, come with me, won’t you?”

“Of course I will,” Kate said, promptly. “What a pity that Mrs. Elwood is such a cross, perverse old woman. She never has accepted help or sympathy from any one since she first came here, and she’s so hard and harsh in her manner that I don’t suppose she gets much sympathy now in her trouble.”

Mary Elwood met the girls with a deeper frown on her forehead than usual. She was a sharp-eyed, erect, little old woman, who seldom opened her lips without cross words. She seemed always bristling with defiance from head to foot against some invisible foe, and to the poor, unhappy old woman every human being she met seemed an enemy. No one knew where she came from, or what misfortunes had befallen her before she took up her abode in L—, ten years before. Her son Lemuel came with her, a young man about twenty; but he went to Florida, and people knew that from time to time he forwarded her money. But now he was dead.

“I suppose you have come round to see how I stand Lemuel’s death,” she said, harshly. “I’ve had other visitors on the same errand, but they didn’t get much satisfaction out of me. They keep on a-tellin’ me I’m bound to be resigned. As for being resigned, a woman that’s lost four sons, one after the other, don’t well know what they mean by ‘resigned.’ If it means shakin’ hands with sorrow, and knucklin’ down to it, I ain’t that sort. I ain’t got nothing more to lose, and that’s all the comfort I’ve got.”

The woman spoke fiercely; but Kate, looking closely at her, saw the tight lips quiver and the hard gray eyes dim with a mist of tears. She laid her hand gently on the wretched woman’s shoulder.

“O Mrs. Elwood, if you would only understand how sorry I am for you!” she said, with a sob.

“Keep your sorrow for them that need it,” was the sharp reply; but Kate noticed that the voice had softened a little. “I s’pose you think now Lemuel’s gone, I’m likely to starve. I don’t say I won’t; but I’m not goin’ to be beholden’ to anybody for charity. The world’s gone hard with me from first to last, and I ain’t got no use for it.”

“Mamma told me to ask you if there was anything you needed, anything she could do for you,” Louise Grant said, timidly.

“Yes, there’s one thing she can do for me—let me alone;” and, walking into her house, Mrs. Elwood shut the door behind her, a forcible hint to the intruders, who hurried off.

“What an awful old woman!” said Louise. “How she treated us! And I don’t think she’s got a bit of feeling. She isn’t grieving for her son, is she, Kate?”

But Kate did not answer. Her observant eyes had seen the repressed anguish, the tears which were kept down by affected anger.

“Poor creature!” she thought. “Her heart is breaking, and she will never accept help from any one. If I only could do something for her!”

Had Kate been like many girls of her age, her kind wishes would have evaporated in useless pity. But she was tenacious of impressions, and followed up her ideas with perseverance. She did not see how she could help an obstinate old woman who refused to be helped; but she watched and waited, and never forgot her. Every day she stopped a minute or two at Mary Elwood’s cottage, or rather at the door, for she never entered it. She would ask how she was, say a pleasant word or two, and pass on. After a while the woman seemed to watch for her coming, and her harsh voice softened a little when she answered her. Kate sometimes brought her work, a comfort to be quilted, or some plain sewing; but there were few things the poor creature could do, though she was eager for work.

“She will never get through the winter,” Kate thought, when one day, having at last been invited into the room, the cupboard door swung open, and she saw the shelves were empty. “I don’t really believe she’s got a mouthful of food in the house. I see a few potatoes in the corner, and that’s all.”

“That’s a beautiful rose,” the woman said, suddenly, as she noticed a rose that Kate was wearing.

“Isn’t it?” and Kate handed her a fine Marechal Neil. “Are you fond of flowers?”

“Well, I used to be,” in a strangely gentle voice. “My girl Susy died when she was ‘bout your age; she loved ‘em so much. Her pa used to say she liked her posies better than her dinner. I mind me of the very day she died, makin’ me bring her a white rose that grew up her window; and she says,—

“Ma, I wonder if the roses up there’ll be sweeter than this one. Anyway they won’t fade.”

“Ah me! I planted that rose on her grave, and I reckon it’s a growin’ and a bloomin’ in that Mississippi graveyard.”

“She loves flowers,” thought Kate, triumphantly, as she looked at the tears in the woman’s eyes. “Well, I’ve something to work on now in the effort to help her.”

“I wish we knowed for certain about another world,” Mrs. Elwood went on dreamily. “Susy seemed to be sure ‘bout it.”

“Susy was right,” said Kate, gently.

“Perhaps. Ah, I’ve not had much comfort in my troubles! They came upon me so thick and fast, I got just numb like. First Susy died; then my husband was killed in a quarrel ‘bout some land. Then James, my eldest son, took up his pa’s cause, and shot at the man that killed him, and hurt him bad. They put James in jail, and he died there in a month. Alf and Bob, went off next summer with congestive fever, and now Lem’s gone.”

Kate’s tears were falling fast at the despair in Mary Elwood’s face. “I don’t know what made me tell you this,” the woman said. “Seein’ that rose, I s’pose, made me think of Susy. I can’t cry like some, because my heart aches so I think it dries up the tears. You’ve been good to me though, and I don’t mind talkin’ to you.”

“I’m going to bring you a rose-bush next time I come, Mrs. Elwood,” Kate said as she left. “I’ll tell you all about it when I come again.”

Yes; Kate had made up her mind that morning that her treasured Damascus rose should pass into Mary Elwood’s keeping. She had thought out a plan to assist her in spite of her stubborn independence. The prize offered for the handsomest rose was a gold bracelet or twenty-five dollars. Mrs. Elwood could not object to money made in that way. But she would be cautious, and say nothing about the exposition until the rose bloomed. The following morning she carried the pot containing her treasure to the woman’s cottage.

“My uncle says it’s a splendid rose,” she said, trying to speak indifferently. “I’m sure you will take better care of it than I do. It’s full of buds, you see, and we’ll soon see what it’s like.”

“Thanky,” said Mrs. Elwood, more warmly than any one had recently heard her speak. “I don’t take favors; but a rose-bush ain’t much for you, I reckon, with a yard full of them.”

“If she only knew! If she only knew,” thought Kate, keeping down a pang which would rise whenever she thought of her rose. “But then, it’s the first time in my life I ever had a chance of doing anything for any one! May be the rose may not turn out very fine after all; but I’ve given my best, and in a good cause.”

For a week before the exposition opened, Kate was detained in the country, where she had gone on a visit.

On her way to the exposition she stopped at Mrs. Elwood’s, who came to the gate to meet her as she descended from the carriage.

“I heard you were sick, Miss Kate,” she said, with real solicitude. “I was very uneasy, and you do look white. O Miss Kate, the rose is out! I don’t think anybody ever saw such a splendid rose before! Come and look at it!”

The rich perfume reached Kate before her eager eyes fell on the flower. She held her breath in an ecstasy before the beautiful rose. It was of immense size, double, and the intense yellow of the petals darkened toward the center.

And such a perfume! Kate closed her eyes, and the fragrance of Eastern gardens seemed wafted to her in every breath she drew. “It’s too beautiful,” she exclaimed. “And now, Mrs. Elwood, I’m going to ask a great favor of you. Let me take this rose to the exposition? I think it will win a prize. It shall be returned safely to you.”

“But I didn’t raise it,” and she shrunk back. “It was a big bush when you gave it to me.”

“That’s nothing! You own it, and you’ve cultivated it for some time. My roses are injured this summer by rust, and if I had kept that one at home, I might have lost it. You can’t hide such a flower as that, Mrs. Elwood. You’ll let me take it, won’t you?”

“Of course you’ll do as you please ‘bout it,” she said.

The Damascus rose was the great feature of the floral department of the exposition.

“O Kate!” cried Louise Grant, “isn’t that your rose you made such a fuss about? Did you really give it to that cross old thing?”

“Hush,” whispered Kate. “The rose has conquered her crossness, I think. Please don’t say a word against her here. I have good reasons for it. Don’t the people seem charmed over the rose! I think that it will take the prize.”

It did. More than that, the story of the poor old owner was told by Kate, and whispered about, and the roses on the bush, eight in all, sold for two dollars and fifty cents apiece. The spirit of charity seemed abroad, and had there been twenty blooms, they would have found a ready sale.

There could not have been a happier girl than Kate when she entered Mary Elwood’s cottage that evening.

“Your rose has taken the prize,” she cried, as she put the money into the astonished woman’s hands. “And I really think we could have sold all the roses at five dollars apiece. Mrs. Green says she’ll give you five dollars if you’ll root a cutting for her, and other people say the same thing. But you must give me the first, remember. I tell you what we’ll do. You’ve got plenty of room for a flower-garden. I’ll bring you some of my finest roses this fall, and you’ll cultivate them, and root cuttings, and sell them to the people round here. The rich ones won’t mind giving fancy prices for a rare rose. O Mrs. Elwood, I’m so glad for you!”

Mary Elwood could not answer, but she looked at the bright face of the girl before her, and suddenly burst into tears. When she recovered herself, she took Kate’s hand and kissed it.

“If the world was as hard and as bad as I thought it was,” she said, in a choked voice, “you’d make it good to me.”

That was all. No thanks, no profuse gratitude, but Kate felt in her inmost soul that recompense had come to her.

“It was really a golden rose,” Kate said to her uncle. “It has made a despairing life better and kinder, and it has given bread to starving lips. And, uncle, it’s taught me so many things.”

“What are they, my dear?”

“Well, you see when I first began to take an interest in Mary Elwood, I had grand ideas about what I’d do for her. I thought I’d talk to her, and reason with her, and make her better. And then when she had got mild and penitent, and willing to be helped, I was going to get papa to fix up her house, and give her money, and help her in every way. But if it hadn’t been for that rose, I think she would have starved to death, and not changed a bit. The rose was the way to her heart. It’s a very little thing to do such a great work, isn’t it?” —Marie B. Williams, in Youth’s Companion.