Elsie's children

Mrs. Gibson's health was improving so that she was in a fair way to recover and as she was well taken care of and did not need her daughter, Sally felt at liberty to stay with these kind friends and enjoy herself.

She resolved to put away care and anxiety for the future, and take the full benefit of her present advantages. Yet there was one trouble that would intrude itself and rob her of half her enjoyment. Tom, her only and dearly loved brother, was fast traveling the downward road, seeming wholly given up to the dominion of the love of strong drink and kindred vices.

It was long since she had seen or heard from him and she knew not where he was. He had been in the habit of leaving their poor home on the Hudson without deigning to give her or his mother any information as to whither he was bound or when he would return; sometimes coming back in a few hours, and again staying away for days, weeks or months.

One day Elsie saw Sally turn suddenly pale while glancing over the morning paper and there was keen distress in the eyes she lifted to hers as the paper fell from her nerveless hand.

"Poor child; what is it?" Elsie asked compassionately, going to her and taking the cold hand in hers, "anything that I can relieve or help you to bear?"

"Tom!" and Sally burst into almost hysterical weeping.

He had been arrested in Philadelphia for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, fined and sent to prison till the amount should be paid.

Elsie did her best to comfort the poor sister, who was in an agony of shame and grief. "Oh," she sobbed, "he is such a dear fellow if only he could let drink alone! but it's been his ruin, his ruin! He must feel so disgraced that all his self-respect is gone and he'll never hold up his head again or have the heart to try to do better."

"Don't despair, poor child!" said Elsie, "he has not fallen too far for the grace of God to reclaim him; 'Behold the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.'"

"And oh, I cry day and night to him for my poor Tom, so weak, so beset with temptations!" exclaimed the girl, "and will he not hear me at last?"

"He will if you ask in faith pleading the merits of his Son," returned her friend in moved tones.

"He must be saved!" Mr. Travilla said with energy, when Elsie repeated to him this conversation with Sally. "I shall take the next train for Philadelphia and try to find him."

Tom was found, his fine paid, his release procured, his rags exchanged for neat gentlemanly attire, hope of better things for this world and the next set before him, and with self-respect and manhood partially restored by all this and the kindly considerate, brotherly manner of his benefactor, he was persuaded to go with the latter to share with Sally for a few weeks, the hospitality of that pleasant seaside home.

He seemed scarcely able to lift his eyes from the ground as Mr. Travilla led him into the veranda where the whole family were gathered eagerly awaiting their coming; but in a moment Sally's arms were round his neck, her kisses and tears warm on his cheek, as she sobbed out in excess of joy, "O Tom, dear Tom, I'm so glad to see you!"

Then Mrs. Travilla's soft white hand grasped his in cordial greeting, and her low sweet voice bade him welcome; and the children echoed her words, apparently with no other thought of him than that he was Sally's brother and it was perfectly natural he should be there with her.

So he was soon at ease among them; but felt very humble, kept close by Sally and used his eyes and ears far more than his tongue.

His kind entertainers exerted themselves to keep him out of the way of temptation and help him to conquer the thirst for intoxicating drink, Mrs. Travilla giving Sally carte blanche to go into the kitchen and prepare him a cup of strong coffee whenever she would.

"Sally," he said to his sister, one evening when they sat alone together on the veranda, "what a place this is to be in! It's like a little heaven below; there is so much of peace and love; the moral atmosphere is so sweet and pure: I feel as though I had no business here, such a fallen wretch as I am!" he concluded with a groan, hiding his face in his hands.

"Don't, Tom, dear Tom!" she whispered, putting her arms about his neck and laying her head on his shoulder. "You've given up that dreadful habit? you're never going back to it?"

"I don't want to! God knows I don't!" he cried as in an agony of fear, "but that awful thirst – you don't know what it is! and I – I'm weak as water. Oh if there was none of the accursed thing on the face of the earth, I might hope for salvation! Sally, I'm afraid of myself, of the demon that is in me!"

"O, Tom, fly to Jesus!" she said, clinging to him. "He says, 'In me is thine help.' 'Fear not; I will help thee,' and he never yet turned a deaf ear to any poor sinner that cried to him for help. Cast yourself wholly on him and he will give you strength; for 'every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.'"

There was a moment of silence, in which Sally's heart was going up in earnest prayer for him; then Mr. Travilla joined them and addressing Tom said, "My wife and I have been talking about your future; indeed Sally's also; for we suppose you would like to keep together."

"That we should," they said.

"Well, how would you like to emigrate to Kansas and begin life anew; away from all old associates? I need not add that if you decide to go the means shall not be wanting."

"Thank you, sir; you have been the best of friends to us both, and to our mother, you and Mrs. Travilla," said Tom, with emotion: "and this is just what Sally and I have been wishing we could do. I understand something of farming and should like to take up a claim out there in some good location where land is given to those who will settle on it. And if you, sir, can conveniently advance the few hundred dollars we shall need to carry us there and give us a fair start, I shall gladly and thankfully accept it as a loan; hoping to be able to return it in a year or two."

This was the arrangement made and preparations to carry it out were immediately set on foot. In a few days the brother and sister bade good-bye to their kind entertainers, their mother, now nearly recovered, joined them in Philadelphia, and the three together turned their faces westward.

In bidding adieu to Elsie, Sally whispered with tears of joy the good news that Tom was trusting in a strength mightier than his own, and so, as years rolled on, these friends were not surprised to hear of his steadfast adherence to the practice of total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks, and his growing prosperity.

CHAPTER TWELFTH

"You may as well
Forbid the seas to obey the moon,
As, or by oath, remove, or counsel, shake
The fabric of her folly."

    – SHAKESPEARE.
Scarcely had the Gibsons departed when their places were more than filled by the unexpected arrival of a large party from Roselands, comprising old Mr. Dinsmore, with his daughter Mrs. Conly and her entire family, with the exception of Calhoun, who would follow shortly.

They were welcomed by their relatives with true southern hospitality and assured that the two cottages could readily be made to accommodate them all comfortably.

"What news of Molly?" was the first question after the greetings had been exchanged.

Mrs. Conly shook her head and sighed, "Hasn't been able to set her foot on the floor for weeks, and I don't believe she ever will. That's Dr. Pancoast's opinion, and he's good authority. 'Twas her condition that brought us North. We've left her and her mother at the Continental in Philadelphia.

"There's to be a consultation to-morrow of all the best surgeons in the city. Enna wanted me to stay with her till that was over, but I couldn't think of it with all these children fretting and worrying to get down here out of the heat. So I told her I'd leave Cal to take care of her and Molly.

"Dick's with them too. He's old enough to be useful now, and Molly clings to him far more than to her mother."

"Isn't it dreadful," said Virginia, "to think that that fall down-stairs has made her a cripple for life? though nobody thought she was much hurt at first."

"Poor child! how does she bear it?" asked her uncle.

"She doesn't know how to bear it at all," said Mrs. Conly; "she nearly cries her eyes out."

"No wonder," remarked the grandfather; "it's a terrible prospect she has before her, to say nothing of the present suffering. And her mother has no patience with her; pities herself instead of the child."

"No," said Mrs. Conly, "Enna was never known to have much patience with anybody or anything."

"But Dick's good to her," remarked Isadore.

"Yes," said Arthur, "it's really beautiful to see his devotion to her and how she clings to him. And it's doing the lad good; – making a man of him."

"Surely Enna must feel for her child!" Elsie said, thinking of her own darlings and how her very heart would be torn with anguish at the sight of one of them in so distressing a condition.

"Yes, of course, she cried bitterly over her when first the truth dawned upon her that Molly was really so dreadfully injured; but of course that couldn't last and she soon took to bewailing her own hard fate in having such a burden on her hands, a daughter who must always live single and could never be anything but a helpless invalid."

Elsie understood how it was; for had she not known Enna from a child? Her heart ached for Molly, and as she told her own little ones of their poor cousin's hopeless, helpless state, she mingled her tears with theirs.

"Mamma, won't you 'vite her to come here?" pleaded Harold.

"Yes, dear mamma, do," urged the others, "and let us all try to amuse and comfort her."

"If I do, my dears, you may be called upon at times to give up your pleasures for her. Do you think you will be willing to do so?"