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Page 25
"You make it so hard! You've no right to make it so hard! It ain't as if
you loved me, Dick! I know I'm not like other girls! Go home and let me
be!"
But Dick drew her arm through his, and led her gravely away. "I like you
well enough, Asenath," he said, with that motherly pity in his eyes;
"I've always liked you. So don't let us have any more of this."
So Asenath said nothing more.
The sleek black river beckoned to her across the snow as they went home.
A thought came to her as she passed the bridge,--it is a curious study
what wicked thoughts will come to good people!--she found herself
considering the advisability of leaping the low brown parapet; and if it
would not be like Dick to go over after her; if there would be a chance
for them, even should he swim from the banks; how soon the icy current
would paralyze him; how sweet it would be to chill to death there in his
arms; how all this wavering and pain would be over; how Del would look
when they dragged them out down below the machine-shop!
"Sene, are you cold?" asked puzzled Dick. She was warmly wrapped in her
little squirrel furs; but he felt her quivering upon his arm, like one
in an ague, all the way home.
About eleven o'clock that night her father waked from an exciting dream
concerning the best method of blacking patent-leather; Sene stood beside
his bed with her gray shawl thrown over her night-dress.
"Father, suppose some time there should be only you and me--"
"Well, well, Sene," said the old man sleepily,--"very well."
"I'd try to be a good girl! Could you love me enough to make up?"
He told her indistinctly that she always was a good girl; she never had
a whipping from the day her mother died. She turned away impatiently;
then cried out and fell upon her knees.
"Father, father! I'm in a great trouble. I haven't got any mother, any
friend, anybody. Nobody helps me! Nobody knows. I've been thinking such
things--O, such wicked things--up in my room! Then I got afraid of
myself. You're good. You love me. I want you to put your hand on my head
and say, 'God bless you, child, and show you how.'"
Bewildered, he put his hand upon her unbound hair, and said: "God bless
you, child, and show you how!"
Asenath looked at the old withered hand a moment, as it lay beside her
on the bed, kissed it, and went away.
There was a scarlet sunrise the next morning. A pale pink flush stole
through a hole in the curtain, and fell across Asenath's sleeping face,
and lay there like a crown. It woke her, and she threw on her dress, and
sat down for a while on the window-sill, to watch the coming-on of the
day.
The silent city steeped and bathed itself in rose-tints; the river ran
red, and the snow crimsoned on the distant New Hampshire hills;
Pemberton, mute and cold, frowned across the disk of the climbing sun,
and dripped, as she had seen it drip before, with blood.
The day broke softly, the snow melted, the wind blew warm from the
river. The factory-bell chimed cheerily, and a few sleepers, in safe,
luxurious beds, were wakened by hearing the girls sing on their way to
work.
Asenath came down with a quiet face. In her communing with the sunrise
helpful things had been spoken to her. Somehow, she knew not how, the
peace of the day was creeping into her heart. For some reason, she knew
not why, the torment and unrest of the night were gone. There was a
future to be settled, but she would not trouble herself about that just
now. There was breakfast to get; and the sun shone, and a snow-bird was
chirping outside of the door. She noticed how the tea-kettle hummed, and
how well the new curtain, with the castle and waterfall on it, fitted
the window. She thought that she would scour the closet at night, and
surprise her father by finishing those list slippers; She kissed him
when she had tied on the red hood, and said good-by to Dick, and told
them just where to find the squash-pie for dinner.
When she had closed the twisted gate, and taken a step or two upon the
snow, she came thoughtfully back. Her father was on his bench, mending
one of Meg Match's shoes. She pushed it gently out of his hands, sat
down upon his lap, and stroked the shaggy hair away from his forehead.
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