A SEALSKIN JACKET

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 15, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 48.

A SEALSKIN JACKET.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

"O MOTHER!" said Nelly Ray, tossing back her rich brown curls, as she took off her hat and flung it on the chair, dropped her school satchel at her feet, and spilled its contents on the floor, "I do just wish you'd buy me a sealskin jacket."

"I wish I could, dear," sighed Mrs. Ray, who thought her Nelly ought to have all that any other girl had, yet had not the means to indulge her girlish whims.

"Father is very much pressed for money this year. He really don't know how to keep you at Miss Packard's."

"Seems to me father never does have money," Nelly said pettishly. "All the other girls have got new seal jackets, or else they're going to have them. Ella Brown has got a brown plush coat trimmed with real sable. It is perfectly lovely; but I'd be content with sealskin."

"Well, we'll see," said her mother, glad to pacify the girl for the moment.

"Would you be quite content with that, Nelly? for, if father feels as if he could buy you such an expensive thing, he won't be able to get you anything else new this winter."

"Dear me! I shouldn't want another thing, of course. A good long seal jacket is what I'm crying for."

And Nelly laughed, flushed up to her bright eyes with lovely girlish color, picked up her scattered things, and went up to her room, singing.

That night, when Nelly had gone out to see a neighbor's daughter, with much doubt and some fear, Mrs. Ray laid the girl's wish before her father.

Mr. Ray's kindly, sensible face clouded.

"Amanda," he said decidedly, "it can't be done. I have not got the money to spare, and if I had, I think it would be all nonsense. We are not rich people, everybody knows, and Nelly is not a delicate child, who needs to be coddled with furs. Her cloak is good enough and pretty enough to match the rest of her dress. A sealskin coat would cost her double its price."

"What?" said Mrs. Ray; but before her husband could answer her, the door-bell rang sharply, and a telegram was brought in. It was from Mrs. Williams, Mr. Ray's only sister, who was the wife of a wealthy man in Boston. Her husband had been very ill lately, and a sudden hemorrhage of the lungs coming on, his physician had ordered him South for the winter. This message was to ask Mr. and Mrs. Ray to come on and say good-by to them immediately.

"We must go by the early train to-morrow morning," said Mr. Ray. So when Nelly came in, she found her mother packing and her father gone back to his office, to put his business in condition to leave it with his clerks. Nothing more was said or thought about the seal jacket, till one day soon after Mr. and Mrs. Ray reached Boston. Mrs. Williams, who was watching her maid pack away the clothing she meant to leave behind, said:—

"Belle, bring me that large white box," and opening it, she showed a very long and elegant sealskin sack to her sister-in-law.

"Isn't it pretty, Amanda?" she asked.

"I had just bought it. It seems a pity I can't use it on the voyage; but it would only be a day or two, and then I should have to give it trunk-room all the rest of the way."

"It is very pretty, Anne."

"Don't you want to wear it for me this winter, 'Manda?"

"No, dear; thank you. Nelly is crazy for one, and I should take it for her, only that John would not like it. He decidedly refused to buy her one, and said, too, that it would cost to her twice its price. I'm sure I don't know what he meant."

"I think I do," laughed Mrs. Williams. "I'll speak to John about it myself."

What she said or he said Mrs. Ray did not ask or know; but the result was that the sealskin sack went back to Brompton with Nelly's parents, and the box was given to her with only these words:—

"Here's the sealskin coat, Nelly."

Aunt Anne had made a special request that she should be told nothing more. Mr. Ray added:—

"And, 'Manda, don't ask me to buy her another thing this year," so that Mrs. Ray concluded her husband had bought the coat of his sister at a discount, and that Anne did not want to own she had sold a thing she was perfectly able to give away, if she chose to.

Nelly was delighted. She hugged her father and kissed her mother, and danced about the house in delight.

She did not quite like to be told she must not wear this fine garment to school; but still it was a great thing to have it, and her last year's cloak was really quite good-looking for a cloth cloak, the buttons were so expensive and the plush trimming so heavy.

She was a very well-satisfied young lady when she walked out the next Saturday to make calls. Her dark brown cashmere dress, trimmed with velvet, was not new, to be sure, but it was handsome, and her little velvet turban and long feather looked as well as a hat ever looks in its second season.

Susan Beers, her dearest friend, was first to comment:—

"Why, Nell, what a lovely jacket! but where's your muff? I should think your hands would freeze."

Nelly colored; but she was honest.

"I haven't any muff, Sue, except a plush one."

"Oh! Of course you couldn't carry that. Why don't you get a pair of seal gloves? They are perfectly lovely, and so much handier than a muff."

Nelly went home with a new idea.

"O mamma," she said, coaxingly, as her mother was brushing out her long, tangled curls at night, "can't you get me a pair of seal gloves?"

"No, Nelly. Father has set his foot down, and you know what that means—that you can't have another unnecessary thing this winter."

"Well, I should think it was pretty necessary to keep my hands warm. Don't you think it is?"

"My dear, where is your plush muff?"

"Why, I can't wear that with a seal jacket."

"Oh!" said her mother, and the conversation stopped short. Mrs. Ray began to have an idea of the situation.

The next day was warmer, and Nelly was comfortable in her kid gloves; but alas! she heard two of her acquaintances behind her in the church porch say:—

"Nell Ray's got a sealskin. Hasn't she?"

"Yes; but how it looks with that old turban she had last year—rusty velvet and a limp feather."

Nelly did not profit much by her church-going that day, and on Wednesday afternoon her mother found her ripping her best hat apart.

"What are you about, Nelly?" she asked.

"Oh! I'm going to steam this old velvet. It's so dusty it wants brushing, too; and my feather is all dragged out. I must curl it over the stove. I ought to have a new bonnet; this looks so horrid with my sealskin jacket."

Mrs. Ray turned away to hide a sad little smile.

But the velvet, for all its steaming and brushing, did not look much better when Nelly's deft fingers replaced it on the frame; and she burned off the end of the feather, trying to curl it, so that was spoiled.

Mother, mother-like—for who but a mother ever loves us with such pure unselfishness, such tireless devotion?—took the rich cluster of plumes from her own velvet bonnet, Aunt Anne's present, and fastened them onto the old turban in a graceful fashion, which hid all its deficiencies.

"I don't need them, dear," she answered to Nelly's thanks; yet her bonnet lost its beauty with its feathers, and more than one person said that winter, "What an ugly, bear-looking hat Mrs. Ray wears."

Still, there were the gloves and the muff, neither of them suited to the coat. Nelly could not think of any way either to improve her old dress, and she would not have thought it necessary, but that she saw Belle Bradford and Ella Brown, one Saturday, making calls, each with a velvet skirt and cloth overdress under the sealskin jacket and the sable-trimmed plush coat.

"O girls, what lovely new dresses!" exclaimed Nelly, whose taste for dress was strong. "That is just the loveliest blue, Ella!—like a gentian in the sunshine, and the sable fur is perfect against it. And your garnet is perfectly charming, too, Belle."

Miss Belle Bradford was a supercilious young person, and she answered, in a cool, careless tone:—

"Yes; it contrasts rather well with the sealskin. One really can't wear anything that looks decently with fur but velvet. They seem to suit." And she eyed Nelly's old cashmere with such calm superiority that the girl felt as if she had committed a grave offense.

"Oh, dear!" she said to herself, "why can't I have things like all the other girls?"

Just then Susan Beers came along. She, too, had a new suit of fine wine-red cloth, heavily trimmed with velvet and jet, in very bad taste; and, as she thrust her hand through Nelly's arm, she said:—

"Look there. Ain't those seal gloves sweet?"

"Just as pretty as they can be, Sue. Oh, dear, how I do wish father would give me some!"

"My!" said Sue. "If I waited for pa to give me things, I guess I shouldn't ever have 'em. He don't think nor care, and ma's sick in her room all the time. I just went to Cantrell's and got my gloves and had 'em charged to pa. He'll pay the bill and he'll scold; but then he always scolds about something or another. I don't mind it."

Nelly was disgusted. Her father never scolded; but the rare, stern words of reproof he had to use sometimes were harder to bear than any anger. Yet there was a seed sown in her mind. All our words are seeds and have their own harvest. Is it always of wheat or other good grain?

(Concluded next week.)