the summer sun was warm in the five-acre lot, and the east porch was cool and pleasant, so the owner of the lot lingered in the porch and talked awhile with his wife. he had married her only the april before, and to live with her and love her had not yet grown to be an old story. it would be her fault if it ever did grow to be one; for he was a tender, kindly man, this marcus grant, with a gentle and clinging nature, and a womanly need of loving.
his wife, though she was young and pretty, with bright eyes, and bright lips, and soft, waving hair, was harder than he, and colder, and more selfish. but she had given him all the heart she had, and in these early days she cared very much indeed about pleasing him, and keeping him satisfied with her; or, rather, making[pg 160] him continue to admire her, for quiet satisfaction on his part would not have been enough.
he had thrown himself down on the door-stone, and his head was leaning against her lap, as she sat on her low chair in the porch, and ran her fingers in and out of his thick chestnut hair, thinking to herself what a fortunate woman she was to be the wife of this manly, handsome fellow, whom so many girls wanted, and the mistress of his well-filled, comfortable house.
from this east porch where they sat they could see down the long line of dusty road that led to the church and the few houses clustered round it, which passed for a village. the farmhouse stood on the top of a high hill; and up this hill they now saw a woman toiling slowly. the summer sun burned fiercely down on her, the dust rose with every step in a choking cloud about her, but still she struggled on.
little events are full of interest in country solitudes, and both grant and his wife watched the wanderer with curiosity.
"well, i never saw her before, that's certain,"[pg 161] the husband said, after a long look as she drew nearer.
"nor i," returned his wife. "but see, mark, she has a baby in her arms. she's trying to keep the sun off it with that shawl; and, sure as you live, she is turning in here."
"why, so she is;" and grant rose to his feet.
"may i sit down in the shade and rest?" asked the stranger, drawing nigh. she spoke in a clear, silvery voice, which betrayed some of her secrets, since it was the voice of a lady, and also it was the utterance of despair, for its hopeless monotone was unvarying.
"certainly," and mrs. grant rose and offered her own low chair, for clearly this was no common tramp.
"and might i trouble you for a glass of water?"
"i'll go for some fresh," grant said, full of hospitable intent.
but before he got back with the water he heard his wife calling him, and hurrying forward at the sound, he found her holding the stranger's[pg 162] head, on her shoulder, and the baby, who was just opening sleepy eyes, in her arms.
"quick, mark, do something. i think she is dying. she must be sun-struck."
and so it proved. no one ever knew how far she had toiled in that intense heat, with the baby in her arms,—no one ever knew any thing more about her, for when the sun set, which had scorched and withered her life, she, too, was gone to unknown shores. she spoke only once after she asked for the glass of water, and that was just before she died. the baby, in another room, uttered a cry, and she tried to turn her head toward the sound.
"it is your baby," mrs. grant said, kindly, "but she is all right. what do you call her?"
the strangest change came over the dying face: it may have been only a foreshadowing of death, but it seemed more like a mortal agony of renunciation and of despair.
"nothing," she said, as evenly and with as little change of inflection as if she were already a ghost; "nothing: she is nobody's child."
[pg 163]
but in half an hour after that she was dead, and mrs. grant, who was very literal in her ideas, always thought that the stranger had not known what she said; but, she used to add, the child was nobody's child, for all they should ever know about it.
after the mother was buried, she began to think it was time to dispose of this child, which was nobody's. she was not without heart, and she had worked diligently to fashion small garments enough to make the little creature comfortable; but now, she thought, her duty was done, and she wondered mark said nothing about taking the baby to the alms-house.
at last, one evening, she herself proposed it. her husband looked at her in mild surprise. he supposed all women loved babies by instinct, and he took it for granted that of course his wife wanted this one, only she probably thought he wouldn't like it round.
"why, did you think i wouldn't let you keep it?" he asked quietly. "i think god has sent it to us, and we've really no right to turn it over[pg 164] to any one else, to say nothing of the pleasure it is to have the little bundle."
as i said, mrs. grant was still in a state of mind not to be satisfied without her husband's admiration. she would not have fallen short of his ideal of her for any thing; she would, at least, seem all that he desired her to be. she was quick enough to understand that he would think less of her if he saw her unwilling to keep the baby, so she smiled on him with what cheerfulness she could summon, and treated the matter as settled.
thus the child, which was nobody's, grew up in the grant household. she had been six months old, apparently, when she came there, and by midwinter she began to totter round on her little feet, and to say short words.
but no one ever taught her to say papa or mamma, those lovely first words of childhood. what had nobody's child to do with such names?
it might have seemed strange to most people that julia grant did not love this little thing, so thrown upon her mercy in its tender babyhood.[pg 165] but, despite theories, all women are not fond of children. every woman is, perhaps, fond, in a blind, instinctive way, of her own; but the more heavenly love which takes all children in its arms and blesses them is not by any means universal.
the most powerful trait in mrs. grant's character was a silent, unobtrusive selfishness. the whole world revolved, to her thought, about her. rains fell, dews dropped earthward, winds blew and suns shone for julia grant. she had consented with secret reluctance to keep the child, and from that moment a root of bitterness and jealousy had sprung up in her heart. if her husband had thought much of her comfort, she used to say to herself, he would not have wanted to put all this care upon her.
she was quite ready, therefore, to be jealous, and to feel as if something was taken from her every time he tossed the little one in his arms, or called it a pet name; and after a while—not at once, for he was naturally the most unsuspicious of men—some instinct revealed this to[pg 166] him, and made him, lover of peace as he was, very chary of manifesting in his wife's presence any especial tenderness for the little stranger within his gates.
but summer and winter came and went, and with their sun and shade nobody's child grew on toward girlhood. she had a great deal of beauty, of a shadowy, delicate kind. she was seldom ill, but she was a very frail-looking child. the quick, changeful color in her cheeks, the depth of feeling in her dark eyes, the tremulous curves about her mouth, all indicated an organization of extreme sensitiveness; a nature to which love would be as the very breath of life, but which was too shrinking and timid ever to put forth any claims for it, or make any advances.
for ten years she was the only little one in the grant household. their affairs prospered, they grew richer every year, as if nobody's child had brought a blessing with her; but it was a constant source of bitterness to mrs. grant that they were laying up for strangers, or perhaps for this waif, whom no one else claimed, and[pg 167] who seemed likely to remain in their house for ever, like some noiseless, unwelcome shadow.
but at last, when the child had been for ten years her unwelcome housemate, to mrs. grant herself was given a little baby girl, god's messenger of love, as i think every child must be, to every mother. never had baby a warmer welcome. the preparations made for her were worthy of a little queen, and she opened her eyes on a world of love and of summer.
but perhaps no one, not even her mother, lavished upon her such a passion of devotion as the poor little waif, nobody's child, who had never in her life before had any one whom she dared to caress. perhaps her devotion to baby touched mrs. grant's heart; at any rate she saw that she could trust the little one to her without fear, and so nobody's child became a self-constituted but most faithful nurse and body-guard to this other child, whom loving hearts were so proud and glad to own.
and little rose—for so they named the summer baby—clung to her young nurse with a fond[pg 168] tenacity, very exacting and wearing, indeed, but unutterably sweet to the shy girl whom no one else loved. she began to feel that she was of some use,—even she had her own name and place in the world; and this reminds me that i have not yet told you her name. she had been christened annette soon after she came under the grant roof, but little rose called her "nanty," and this odd title was the very first word that small person ever spoke. she was a lovely baby, one of the rosy, fat, dimpled, laughing kind, and so thoroughly healthy that she seldom cried, except when "nanty" disappeared for a moment from her sight. the touch of her baby fingers seemed to make marcus grant and his wife both young again. day by day some line of care faded out of their faces, which time had begun to harden. the mother smiled, as she had never smiled before, on her baby; and here, at last, was an object on which the father's great, loving heart could lavish itself, unblamed, and unquestioned.
rose was a year and a half old, when one cold[pg 169] winter night her father and mother were persuaded to go to a house warming, a mile away. mrs. grant was seldom willing to leave her baby, but this gay company was to assemble at the new house of one of her best friends, and she took a fancy to be present.
"'nanty' will be just as careful of rose, to do her justice, as i should," she said; "and i think it's only neighborly to go."
her husband, always sociable in his nature, assented readily enough; and eight o'clock saw them well tucked in under the buffalo robes of their sleigh, and started for the scene of festivities.
"nanty," for her part, was well content. rose was already asleep, her little cheek, pink as the heart of one of her namesake flowers, resting on one dimpled hand, while the other was tossed above her head, as we have all seen babies sleep. the maid-of-all-work went off early to her bed in the next chamber, and the man, who had a family of his own not far away, took his departure, and then "nanty" raked up the fire, and crept softly into bed beside little rose.
[pg 170]
it was nearly midnight when she woke, roused from her slumber by a light, a vivid, red light, brighter than day. in one moment she realized her position. the house was on fire, and the flames were already far advanced.
she sprang to the door and opened it, but it was only to be met and driven back by a sheet of fire. there was no hope of escape that way. rose was her only thought. if she could save the child, she did not care for herself.
she opened the chamber window. the leap seemed desperate to her timid gaze, but the snow underneath the window might break the fall. then she thought of something better. she caught the blankets from the bed, and rolled rose in them hurriedly, then dragged off the feather-bed, by an effort of uttermost strength, and forced it through the window; and then, reaching out as far as she could, she dropped rose, closely wrapped in the blankets, upon the bed, and sprang herself from another window, lest she might fall upon the child.
for her there was no bed underneath, and no[pg 171] wrapping of soft woollens. heavily she fell to the ground, and a violent shock, followed by deadly pain, told her that she had broken her arm. she thanked god, in that breathless moment, that it was not her leg, for somehow she must move rose to a place of safety, out of reach, at least, of falling timbers. how she did it she never could have told, but in thirty seconds rose and the bed were out of the yard and across the street, and then she sank down beside her charge, utterly unconscious.
mr. and mrs. grant were driving home after the festival when they caught the gleam of a wild, strange light in the direction of their own home.
"the house is on fire!" mrs. grant cried, with white lips.
"rose!" the father answered hoarsely, and whipped his horse into a run. a quarter of a mile away from home they met the maid.
"master, mistress," she screamed after them, "the house is on fire, and i'm going for help."
they did not stop for questions. had "nanty" also forsaken little rose?
[pg 172]
but they found "nanty" at her post, though at first they thought she was dead. the mother pulled away the blankets from the little bundle beside her, and baby rose rubbed her chubby hands into her sleepy eyes.
"where is i?" she said, "and what for you make morning so soon?"
"o mark, mark! she's all right," the mother cried, in a passion of joy. "'nanty' has saved her;" and then she bent over the little girl in her thin night-gown, and took her by the arm.
"nanty, nanty!"
she had seized the broken arm, and the pain roused the fainting girl.
"yes'm," she said, starting up. "i'm so sorry to be good for nothing just now, when you want me so much, but i broke my arm jumping out."
afterwards, when the family had found a new shelter, the whole story came out. the maid, judith, had read herself to sleep, and her candle had tipped over and set the bed on fire. the[pg 173] flames had aroused her to a terror which utterly swept away whatever presence of mind she might have had under other circumstances, and without one thought for rose or "nanty" she had hurried off to call the neighbors to the scene of action.
one might have feared that the fright and exposure would prove fatal to one so frail and delicate as "nanty" had always been; but by the time her arm was well healed she was stronger than ever before, drawing new life, as it seemed, from the love and care lavished on her so freely; for now even mrs. grant's heart had opened and taken her in.
one day marcus grant said to his wife,—
"but for 'nanty' we should have had no child at all. it seems hard that she, who saved our darling, should be nobody's child herself."
"you think we ought to adopt her, and make her ours legally?" his wife answered, smiling cheerfully. "i have been thinking the same thing myself. we will do it when you please,[pg 174] for i believe god sent her to us, to be our own, just as much as ever he sent rose."
so it came about, before another spring, that "nanty" was no longer nobody's child. father, mother, and little sister all belonged to her, and she had name and place in life, and a happy home where love smiled for ever.
