ONE OF THE FEW.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11491, 26 January 1903, Page 3

ONE OF THE FEW.

' ♦ Br Minnib S. Baker. She represented that product of the South which, God help us, eeeme on the increase instead of otherwise. A tall, angular, low-browed mulatto woman of middle age, with great mournful eyes, out of whose gloomy depths a phantom seemed to be for ever asking: "Who am I? What am I?" and to which, the stern chin, hollow jaws and defiant lips seemed ever answering: "An alien, a creature without a people, a, human without a race." It was a raw, drizzly day in November when she came to me for work. Cook had been discharged the day previous, and that very (morning nurse .had had to be sent home with a well-developed case of measles—and not a child in the house had had it! I was telling myself that whea the poet •wrote about melancholy days he knew what he was about after all, for just the week before, I had voiced a long-simmering diegust that the very worst part of November was this inevitable harvest of parodies and quotations about "the 6addest days" of all the year. And then' Clarissa came ; my washerwoman had told her that I needed a"cook. I had never kept any servants but fullblooded negroes, and even in my dilemma I looked at her somewhat askancel While the half-breeds are snore intelligent and quicker to learn, yet they are not to be depended upon like tie thoroughbred negro, whose honesty and faithfulness are far superior and more than counteract tbd tricky shrewdness of the other. Unlike most of her class, she was poorly, even insufficiently clad, and I, noting the circumstance, wondered if here indeed was one without guile. '"My nurse is ill witJi measles, which in all probability the children will have, too. I really need her place filled more than 1 need a cook," I aaiswered, doubtfully. '•I like children and I am used to general housework, W was the response delivered without either servility or officiouenese. "And I woa't mind the meaeles; niv children have had them." "'Oh, you have a family, then?" •Two girls, one fourteen, the other five. I have separated from my husband four bitterness added a touch of pathoe to the aimpl* words. I Mked her wv«na oth« flurtuiM «*

then, partly from necessity and partly be- I cause of the woe in her eombre eyes, I engaged her. As Vβ came to know her better she proved herself more and more of an oddity as compared with the pert, wanton generality of her class. Slue was the first servant wo had ever had whose English was anything like tolerable, and also the first one without the inherited hatred of slavery days, for "po' buckra." Her words were rare, but when uttered were never idle ones. "Most coloured people despiee poor white folks; I'm one of the few who don't, though I don't like to work for them; but after all it'e mostly the blue bloods that are responsible for sucii as me," she said one day, in the intenfce tone we were beginning to know. My Irufeband laughingly said I wae investing Clarisea with too much romance, but I told him it was more like tragedy. She had been with us nearly a year when I was called to the telephone by my husband's sister, with whom our little daughter had been spending a. day and night. "You mustn't get alarmed, Sarah," she said, "but Edith doesn't eeem well, and I think, perhaps, you or John ought to see her. No, no," as my excited voice began to interrupt her; ' 'honestly, it does not seem to be anything serious yet, but in case it should be, suppose you let me 'phon« for John to bring Dr. Brooks, while you get the boys off to your father"s oa the first train V t Then Tknew that she feared scarlet fever, for there was more than one yellow flag floating in our little village, but* I said nothing either to Clariesa or the boye, as sbe helped me get them ready for what, apparently, was only one of their frequent visits to their grandfathers.

Tben telling her that I wa« going after Edith and cautioning her to roll the baby out in the shady backward, I hurrkd away. This being Clarissa's etory instead o£ mine, I need not dwell upon my own feelings, or the crave feans of all of us when the doctor ord&ed us to take Edith home in a closed carriage eaying it might be ecariet fever aoditmigfltnotjfle could not tell tiH the fallowing day. He added that it would be just ac well to keep the baby away from hxe aieter till it should be settled. Wβ got Use little one upstairs into the nursery and leaving h*r with her father, I -went to tell Clarissa. "If it should be ecariet fever I *haH Trtat you to take entire charge of Maeur BertJ*

lin the daytime, while I stay with Miss Edith," I "added. -•iie Holby, 'm, I'm one of the few that believes in being square and honest, and 1 must tell you right now. if Miss Kdith his got scarlet fever, I'll have to quit," she replied, scarcely waiting until 1 had finished. "Leave me! Right now, in my trouble, too. Why* Clarissa, you cannot mean it?" I cried, in genuine alarm. "Indeed, ma'am, I must. I've got children of my own to think of." "But you will not see Miss Edith at all. You shall not even. t;o upstairs. Don't you ucdcT.*tand that we will not let yon ue exposed to it, on account, of the battyV "1 can't take any chances, though I d do it quicker for you'than anybody, ma'am," '.v<i.s the <,bstinau- reply. "And Master Bertie loves you .so, Clarissa. What will become of Mm m the hands of a stranger when I cannot be with him?" At that her face softened, but she still shook he;- heaJ. Then I hmted at double wa-es and vtms met by such a l<n>k of indignant pride that, it almost made me thick I tD bet; her par-k-n "1 know it looks low-down to leave you like this. Mrs Hi>:by, 'm, and it nearly kills me to do it, but I must." Then the gave mo a piercing glance, which seemed to convey th« deepest workings ot htr brain to mine, and continued: "I have always wished that my children had ntvtr been born, and I've always wished that- they would die before 1 did. And just for tliit reason I have to take better tare of them! Oh, do try to understand it-, ma'am. They'd better be dead a thousand lnr.es than to fall into their father's bands, for he would sell them, siiui and body, for one drink of liquor." I said no more after that, and so, though .John Mvutv .-.ml liertie wailed, Clarissa left, us, "•shuulnig not upon the order of her going," for she vanished almost as suddenly as she had tiist appeared. IJi'it even after left, and we were quarantined and a nurse was not to be had for love or money, and our neighbours were afraid to unclose their shutters opening in our diiei-tiun, and the passers-by, like the LeviU', drew their garments about them \nit cross*- J to the opposite side of the street, .-till the. houvens did not fall, and ue all managed to wine through as sound us- ever, and Kdith more so. Time passed, and we only heard of Clarissa occasionally after that. The burden of her apparent ingratitude seemed to weigh upon her, (or she never came to the houiv, though I knew she asked after us whenever there was tin opportunity. Ib had been three years since she left and once more our household was under a cloud, darker .even than the first one, for this was diphtheria, and Bertie, still the baby, was nearer death's door than Edith had been even at her worst. And once more Clarissa appeared at the back door asking to see me. "Go and tell her that I cannot possibly see her now." I fc-aid to the messenger "Tell her, too, fliat tlierc is diphtheria in the Ijopse." I Presently the door opened and Clarissa , herself stood before me—far more gaunt ! and sombre than of old. "Mrs Holby, 'm, I've come to help nurse Master Bertie, if you will let me," she said -simply; then went on, "I'm one of the few that ,p"d-ys other debts bf«ides the money kind. I've always expected to do it some time—for leaving, you know." •