Ester Ried Yet Speaking.

by Isabella Alden.

CHAPTER I.

"IT MAY BE THAT SHE IS WORKING STILL."

It was raining drearily, and but few people were abroad--that is, few, comparatively speaking, though the streets seemed full of hurrying, dripping mortals. In the large dry-goods store business was by no means so brisk as on sunny days, and one of the younger clerks, whose station was near a window looking out upon the thoroughfare, had time to stand gazing at the pa.s.sers-by. They did not seem to interest him particularly, or else they puzzled him. His young, handsome face wore a thoughtful look, almost a troubled expression about the eyes, which seemed to be gazing beyond the pa.s.sers-by. Just across the aisle from him, a lady, seated in one of the easy chairs set for the accommodation of shoppers, waited and watched him,--a young and pretty woman, tastefully, even elegantly dressed, yet her costume was quite in keeping with the stormy day. The young man's face seemed to have special interest for her, though he apparently was unaware of her existence.

A close observer would have discovered that she was watching him with deeply interested eyes. Whatever served to hold the thoughts of the young man apparently grew in perplexity, for the troubled look continually deepened. At last, forgetting the possible listener, he addressed the dripping clouds, perhaps,--at least, he was looking at them:--

"I don't know how to do it; but something ought to be done. It is worse than folly to expect good from the way that things are now managed.

Ester would have known just what, and how; and how interested she would have been! I try to do her work, and to 'redeem the time;' but the simple truth is, I don't know how, and n.o.body else seems to."

These sentences were not given all at once, but murmured from time to time at his unsympathetic audience outside.

Patter, patter, patter, drip, drip, drip! steady, uncompromising business. It was all the answer the clouds vouchsafed him.

With the listener inside it was different. The interested look changed to an eager one. She left her seat and moved toward the absorbed young man, breaking in on his reverie with the clearest of voices:--

"I beg your pardon,--but are you thinking of your sister? You are Mr. Ried, I believe? I have heard of your sister's life, and of her beautiful death, through a dear friend of my husband, who loved Ester.

I have always wanted to know more about her. I wanted to get acquainted with you, so I might ask you things about her. I am waiting now for my husband to come and introduce us. But perhaps it isn't necessary. Do you know who I am?"

"It is Mrs. Roberts, I believe?" the young man said, struggling with his astonishment and embarra.s.sment.

"Yes, and you are Mr. Alfred Ried. Well, now we know each other without any further ceremony. Will you tell me a little about your sister, Mr.

Ried? You were thinking of her just now."

"I was missing her just now," said he, trying to smile, "as I very often am. I was a little fellow when she died; but the older I grow the more difficult I find it to see how the world can spare her. She was so full of plans for work, and there are so few like her."

"It may be that she is working still, in the person of her brother."

He shook his head energetically, though his face flushed.

"No, I can only blunder vaguely over work that I know she, with her energetic ways and quick wits, could have done, and done well. It happens that she was especially interested in a cla.s.s of people of whom I know something. They need help, and I don't know how to help them. It seems to me that she could have done it."

"Will you tell me who the people are?"

"It is a set of boys for whom n.o.body cares," he said, speaking sadly; "it hardly seems possible that there could ever have been a time when anybody cared for them, though I suppose their mothers did when they were little fellows."

Thus spoke the ignorant young man,--ignorant of the depths to which sin will sink human nature, but rich in the memory of mother-love.

"I think of my sister Ester in connection with them," he said, speaking apologetically, "because she was peculiarly interested in wild young fellows like them; she thought they might be reached,--that there might be ways invented for reaching them, such as had not been yet. She had plans, and they were good ones. I thought so then, little fellow that I was, and I think so now, only n.o.body is at work carrying them out; and I wonder sometimes if Ester could have been needed in heaven half as much as she is needed on earth. She used to talk to me a great deal about what might be done. I think now that she wanted to put me in the way of taking up some of the work that she would have done; but she mistook her material. I can't do it."

"Are you sure? You are young yet, and besides, you may be doing more than you think. Couldn't I help? What is there that needs doing for these particular young men?"

"Everything!" he said, excitedly. "If you should see them you would get a faint idea of it. They come occasionally down to the Sabbath-school at the South End; in fact, they come quite frequently, though I'm sure I can't see why. It certainly isn't for any good that they get. Their actions, Mrs. Roberts, surpa.s.s anything that I ever imagined."

"Who is their teacher?"

"That would be a difficult question to answer. They have a different teacher every Sabbath. No one is willing to undertake the cla.s.s twice.

They have tried all the teachers who attend regularly, and several who have volunteered for once, and never would attempt it a second time.

Just now, there is no one who will make a venture."

"Have you tried?"

He shook his head emphatically.

"I know at least so much. Why, Mrs. Roberts, some of them are as old as I, and, indeed, I think one or two are older. No; we have secured the best teachers that we could for them, but each one has been a failure. I suppose they must go."

"Go where?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"What an awful question! Where _will_ they go, Mrs. Roberts, if we let them slip now?"

He was tremendously in earnest. One could not help feeling that he had studied the possibilities, and felt the danger.

"Suppose I try to help! Shall I come and take that cla.s.s next Sabbath?"

This simple, directly-put question brought the young man suddenly from the heights of his excitement into visible embarra.s.sment. He looked down on the small, fair lady, reaching hardly to his shoulder, attired in that unmistakable way which bespeaks the lady of wealth and culture, and could imagine nothing more incongruous than to have her seated before that cla.s.s of swearing, spitting, fighting boys. Not that her wealth or her culture was an objection, but she looked so utterly unlike what he had imagined their teacher must be,--she was so small, so frail, so fair and sweet, and ignorant of the ways of the great wicked world, and especially of those great wicked boys! What could he say to her?

He was so manifestly embarra.s.sed that the small lady laughed.

"You think I cannot do it," she said, almost gayly.

He hastened to answer her.

"Indeed, you have no idea of the sort of cla.s.s it is. I have given you no conception of it; I cannot. You would think yourself before a set of uncaged animals."

"Yes, and in case of failure I should only be where the others are, who have tried and failed. If you will introduce me, and your superintendent will let me, I mean to try; and that will relieve you of the dilemma of being entirely without a teacher for them."

Young Ried had nothing to say. He thought the attempt a piece of folly,--a worse than useless experiment; but how was he to say so to the wife of his employer?

That gentleman appeared just then, making haste.

"I was unavoidably detained," he explained; "I feared you would grow weary of waiting. Ah, Ried, my wife has introduced herself, I see. Is he the young man you were speaking of, Mrs. Roberts?"

"The very young man,--Ester Ried's brother. He doesn't know how glad I am to have met him. Some day when we are better acquainted, and you trust me more fully, I am going to tell you how I became so deeply interested in your dear sister. Meantime this little matter should be definitely settled. Mr. Roberts, I have invited myself to take a cla.s.s to-morrow down at the South End Mission."

"Have you, indeed?"

Mr. Roberts spoke heartily, and seemed by no means dismayed,--only a trifle perplexed as to details.

"How can we manage it, Flossy? My prison cla.s.s takes me in an opposite direction at the same hour, you know."

"Yes, I thought of that; I propose to ask Mr. Ried to call for me, and show me the way, and vouch for my good intentions after I reach there.

Do you suppose he will do it?" She looked smilingly from her husband to young Ried, and both waited for his answer.