Miss Berry's New Year's Calls.
It was New Year's morning, and Miss Berry hung up the shears, put away her lap-board, and folded up an unfinished dress, preparatory to taking a holiday. For Miss Berry was a dressmaker, and though her eyes had grown too faded to master all the intricate details of fashion, and her fingers too tremulous for the multitudinous complications, there was a circle of ladies whose gowns she had fashioned for years, who had grown gray and wrinkled with her, and, like their dressmaker, clung lovingly to old-time ways and modes. But this being New Year's, little Miss Berry, as I have said, laid aside her needle and well-worn thimble for the day, and proceeded to "redd up" her room. A cramped little place, but Miss Berry went bustling about, sweeping and cleaning, redropping the white muslin curtains, and turning the few plants in the windows, singing to herself as cheerily as though it had been one of the most extensive of mansions, for Miss Berry was always looking on the bright side of life, and though poor and old, and alone in the world, was given to regarding herself as one of the most favored of mortals. She was "so fortunate" in finding a room just the right size for her, with an east window for summer, and a south one for winter, and a glimpse of the old cemetery, whose waving trees brought visions of the old country home and her long-vanished girlhood. "So fortunate" that Mrs. Murray and Smythe, and the others of her little coterie of patrons, should prefer her work to that of her more fashionable competitors, and "so fortunate" that she was always well, and her eyes held out so wonderfully. Miss Berry's views of life were mainly drawn from her library, and her library consisted of two books, on a little stand by the south window. One the "Pilgrim's Progress," that wonderful book, delight of the old and the young, the simple and the sage. And the other book was a volume still more worn, that opened almost of itself to such words as, "Let not your hearts be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me;" and, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father; fear not, therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows;" and that grandly tender promise—rest to the weary, hope to the desolate, joy to the comfortless, in every age and clime—"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." These words she read till from them a tender light shone in her faded face, and a restful quiet threaded her thin and sometimes cracked voice. Out on the broad avenues this New Year's morning stately homes were thrown wide, elegant ladies were fluttering, and tables of choicest refreshments spread in expectations of the New Year's callers, the music of whose swift, sweet bells was already sounding through the clear, crisp air. Miss Berry's name had not appeared in the list of those who would be "at home." She had neither silks for herself nor silver for her table. Still, she had laid in a store of nut-cakes, and red cheeked apples for the day, and when the stove had been polished, the oil-cloth washed, and the last speck of dust rubbed from the furniture, she brushed her thin gray hair, and exchanging her every-day black alpaca for her cashmere, sat down in readiness to "receive." She had not long to wait for the first one. To be sure, it was only the milk-boy, but she wished him a "Happy New Year" so cheerily, and pressed upon him a cake and apple so cordially, that the stolid face brightened, and he went on his round with a light-heartedness he hardly himself understood. Then, as by favor to her rheumatism, Miss Berry roomed on the second floor, she set her door ajar, as a gentle hint of invitation to any who might pass from the floor above, and by and by lounging footsteps sounded on the stairs. They were those of a young man, hardly more than a boy, lately come from the simple, innocent atmosphere of a loving country home, as clerk in the city of hurrying strangers. In all that throng, no friendly face smiled, no friendly face greeted, no door among those miles of homes opened to him. But the saloons stood wide with welcome, and the fellowship of vice was warm and ready, and in the ignorance of thoughtless self-confidence, it was little wonder that the home-sick, friendless boy listened and entered in. His employer was a Christian man, who, while he held his employes responsible to him during working hours, never thought that he had any responsibility for them during their leisure hours. One, however, had a thought of the boy, the lonely little dressmaker, who had so few interests of her own, that her heart was constantly overflowing on all around her. She knew when he began to be late in, and the night when his footsteps on the stairs had been unsteady. And now, as he strolled idly down, only thinking to escape from his dull attic, though it be to seek companions from which a few months before he would have shrunk, a "Good-morning" sounded from the open door, and Miss Berry's cheery voice invited him, "as a neighbor," to come in and make her a "New Year's call." The tone was so cordial, the sunny room, of which he caught a glimpse, so pleasant, that he could not refuse, and before he knew it he found himself seated in the wide-armed rocker, with Dusky, the black cat, purring on his knee, telling Miss Berry of the old home out in the country, of the widowed mother and younger brother who were "running the farm," and the little blue-eyed sister, who had clung to him with tearful entreaties to "not stay long," and of the pang it had cost to leave them all, and drift into this great unknown current of humanity. And Miss Berry gave him that sympathy that only they who have known the heart of a stranger can, and pressed him with nut-cakes, made after the receipt her mother had used in the old brown farm-house among the Vermont hills, from which she had so widely strayed; and the red apples, that her guest told her were Baldwins, exactly like a tree in his home orchard. And when he went out from the sunny room, the boon companions hanging in waiting wondered what had made him so "spoony" as to refuse their offered "fun." It was not that Miss Berry had preached. She was little given to exhort and rebuke. She had not told him that he was standing on slippery places, or besought him not to look on the wine when it is red. But she had been so full of suggestions of pleasant and profitable ways for his leisure, had talked of home and home love, till it seemed close and warm round him; had led him to talk of the hopes and purposes that were to crown his life, and made him feel that his young manhood was something infinitely grand and full of glorious possibilities; and, more than all, perhaps, she had cheered him with the assurance that one home (tiny though it be) was open to him in welcome, and one friend was watching him with tender interest. Soon steps were again heard in the hall. Miss Berry knew the half-listless drag to be those of a widow who, with her little boy, occupied the room directly above, and who went out doing fine ironing. A young woman still, but all trace of freshness and grace had vanished from the sharp face, the tumbled hair, and the untidy dress, that answered her chirping call. "Yes, I will come in, though you always look so nice and pleasant, it makes me home-sick, too." And she dropped into the big rocker and looked half-wistfully around. "Why, I guess your room is as pleasant as mine," said Miss Berry; "it's just like it." "Yes, I s'pose it is; but then it ain't fixed up so. You don't have anybody but yourself to do for, or to put things out of place. I tell you, it's pretty hard to be left as I am, an', to tell the truth, I don't have much head for anything." "I know it's hard," chirped little Miss Berry, "but then, you know, there's the promise to the widow and fatherless. I've rested on the promises a good many years, and they haven't failed me yet. Besides, I should feel rich with such a boy as your Freddy. Why, in a few years he will be a grown man, caring for you." "O, yes,"—and the worn face brightened—"I shouldn't know how to get along without Freddy, though he's getting so he isn't contented at home, and it worries me 'most to death. He'll stay with you longer than he will with me, and the other day he asked, 'Ma, is Miss Berry rich? She has things so nice and dresses so pretty.'" Miss Berry could not wonder that the child found his bare, untidy home anything but attractive, but she only laughed, and said, "Freddy is very fond of pretty things. He will amuse himself with the flowers and pictures an hour. Those and a few yards of muslin for curtains, and a bit of second hand carpet, is about all I have more than you, and I'm sure your stove is prettier than mine." "Well, perhaps it is, if 'twas blacked. I used to be a nice housekeeper when my husband was alive an' we had a little house to ourselves, but somehow I've got out of the way of it now. I will get some polish, though, for that stove." "Why, now," said Miss Berry, "that is so fortunate. I mixed more than I wanted this morning, and here is a rose I have rooted for Freddy, that is budded to blossom." "Now," said Mrs. Baker, as she took the plant, "I shall have to wash my windows, too, and perhaps, while I am about it, I might as well clean up generally. By night, come and see how tidy I will be." But Miss Berry's callers were not confined to the house. A couple of sooty faces peeped in at the door, and two boys, whose blacking-boxes strapped over their shoulders told their handicraft, came in—veritable street Arabs, especially the leader, Teddy McSwin, who, with his mother dead, and his drunken father in the workhouse most of the time, turned out into the streets to shift for himself as best he might, knocked and bullied by the larger boys of his own class, hustled out of the way by respectable people, and regarded with suspicion by the police, was rapidly developing into one of that great class whose hand is against every man and every man's hand against them. When one evening, as he sat on a curbstone, sobbing and bleeding from an encounter in which he had come off with signal defeat, his Good Samaritan, in the person of tender-hearted Miss Berry, chanced that way. She comforted, took him home with her, and bound up his wounds, if not with oil and wine, with arnica, which answered equally as well, and made him up a bed on her own lounge, that she might nurse him. Not that Miss Berry regarded herself as a Good Samaritan. She was one of those humble souls who in that great day when the "Son of man shall come in his glory," hearing amid the gathered nations the commendation, "Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you," shall answer in surprise, "Lord, when saw we thee a stranger, or sick, or in prison? When did we ever do any such wonderful work? How can we have merited such a recompense?" To Teddy, however, this was an era in his life: the touch of a pure woman's hand, her tender sympathy, and gentle counsel, woke all the affection of his warm Irish nature. Looking in that sweet and quiet face, a desire that had hitherto lain dormant woke within him—the desire to be something better than the wild and ignorant vagrant, the purpose to be a man. It was a tender germ, but Miss Berry carefully nourished it. She put a little box on her clock shelf, and there Teddy daily brought his earnings, and gloated over the store that was, he felt, his first step toward respectability. Urged by her into a night school, to her he came with slate and book for aid to surmount the difficulties that seemed to his ignorance so stupendous. And the little dressmaker laid down her sewing to help him through the mysteries of multiplication and long division, telling him meanwhile, of the old red school-house, of her school days, and the boys who had gone out from it, and how some were farmers with broad acres, and one a minister, and another a merchant, and still another one of the rich men of the great West, and of the one brightest, noblest of all, whose bright promise knew no earthly fulfilment, with a sigh for the love and hopes that had been buried so long the bitter sorrow had become but a tender memory. And Teddy, listening unconscious of the heart page open before him, resolved that he would be a farmer, and roll in wealth, and have Miss Berry live with him. This was the greatest felicity he could conceive, as his greatest honor now was to walk beside her and carry her hymn-book to the mission church. And so to-day, in the spirit of generosity, he had brought his "pard" to share his good things11and Miss Berry's heart, which was boundless, received him at once, and said that another box for Jimmie should be added to the clock shelf, and told the old stories that Teddy never tired of hearing or she of repeating, of her child life in the old homestead, of berrying, and haying, and nutting, in the Summer, and coasting, and skating, and merry-making, in the Winter days and evenings. Then, as there were no evening papers to sell, the boys must stay to supper; and she turned back her sleeves and put on a wide apron, to protect the cashmere dress, and proceeded to bake apples and potatoes, and fry steak, on the little stove, and Jimmie looked on with wonder as, when gathered around the tiny round table, Miss Berry bent her head and softly repeated the grace she had learned of the long-dead father: "For these, the fruit of thy bounty, Lord, may we be truly thankful." And both the boys agreed that it was the "best supper that ever was." And after the boys had gone, there were a few calls she must make herself. A cup of tea, with an accompaniment of toast and steak, to be carried to bed-ridden old Mrs. King, across the hall; and she must take the biggest red apple to Johnny, the shoemaker's little lame boy, and look in at Mrs. Baker's room with a word of praise for its improvement, and the "nice clean smell." And later, when the shadows gathered, and the New Year's day, so freighted with joyful gayety, went softly down into the night, and the darkness gathered over the hearts that were glad and the hearts that were sorrowful, Miss Berry sat down before the open stove, whose warm glow filled the room with yellow light, and stroking the black cat as he purred sleepily on her knee, said to her mute companion: "Well, Dusky, after all, I don't believe that many people have had a happier New Year's than you and I."