The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 27, 5 July 1906, Page 23

The Storyteller

THE HABIT OF JERRY

' I'm going to save his soul !' . announced Hannah Smith with decision: _ „ 1 I should just like to know how you're gjoing to do- ' it J? \ observed her. neighbor, Mrs. Hallet, stopping her rocking, to emphasise her sense of the unlikelihood -of Hannah's success. ' First of ail you've got to find tha soul to save it. Theologically we all know he's-got one, but outside revealed teaching. you'd .never, know it ■^you've got to- make an act of faith to. be sure of it.' • He's sort of numb,' admitted Hannah. , ' Sort of numb ! He's clear numb ; whatever has happened to the .man it's frozen up all his life, soul and all ! He putsf me in mind of the big cakes of ice I saw once in a window advertising artificial ice— they had slices of oranges and bananas, all sorts of fruit frozen in them. Your boarder may have sweet hits like that in him, but they're all caKed over !' Mrs. Hallet resumed her rocking as if it would carry her past a subject of which she had finally disposed. All the more reason for thawing him,' said Hannah, suggestively shading her face from the heat of the stove as she lifted off her bag preserving kettle. ' You're not in earn2st, Hannah ? ' protested Mrs. Hallet. 4 That's precisely what I am ; I should think it was about the best thing a person could be if she was going to turn apostle.' Hannah laughed as she spoke, but the light of a propagandist was in her eye. 'That man isn't bad,' she added, turning on Mrs. Hallet as if she had been his accuser. ' He's just numb, as you say. He doesn't go to church, and he won't go to church, and he's despairing, in his quiet way. Of course despair is a sin, but it isn't a vice— l'm sure there isn't anything wrong in the poor fellow in that way. Something has taken the mainspring out of him; he has lost faith and hope — ' ' And so you want to practise charity,' Mrs. Hallet interrupted her. * Well, if anyone was ever designed, and, made, and sent into the world especially to that end it's Hannah Smith. But how do you mean to save his soul ? ' ' I mean toi cook for him,' announced Hannah, so solemnly that round-faced, merry Mrs. Hallet shouted. 1 Well, considering that he's hoarding with you, I should imagine that's what you'd ha\e been doing all Along,' she gurgled. Long, lean Hannah, the very antipodes of her thickset neighbor, who had been her seat>-niate at school forty years before, turned to look at her reproachfully. ' I'm going to cook to save him,' she said firmly. 1 I've been thinking a great deal at odd times about the way we neglect coo';ing as an influence. I've been convinced more than once that we ought to realise how the flavor of something a poor outcast from home and loved when lie was a child would affect him, how the smell, say of frying; doughnuts, might move a lonely person's conscience by recalling his grandmother's kitchen, and 1 with the kitchen of course the teachings of that dead grandmother, and how some one in the grip ef a temptation might be torn from it, by— well, I don't know — by a pumpkin pie, or warm gingerbread, or something homely if he could smell and taste it at the critical moment. I'm certain there could be a lot done by establishing—' 1 Mission kitchens ! ' Mrs. IJallet could barely articulate the words, she was so convulsed wi^h laughter, over her friend's theory of influences. • Oh, Hannah Smith, you certainly are queer.' ' I'm goina; to cook for him on* a different basis,' seneated Hannah Smith firmly. .I've been trying to make him comfortalbfle, and now I'm gjoing; to do more.' Hannah .Smith was accounted the best cook in the community at the same time that t she .was'onc of its best women. - Mrs. : IJal!et ..l^egan to- wonder," as she heard- the ring. in her. friend's. ;voice and, remembered her skill and goodness, whether, after* all, .Hannah' might not start, her boarder, heavenward by this strange footpath. Hannah interrupted, her thbiijrhts to say,:."' And. after -I'^-gob ■ him- rthawed . and receptive, by means of, pldfashioned home cooking, I'm going to borrow your - Jerry.' i Mrs. Hallet's. eyes softened; this iime Hannah had suggested an influence that hex neighbor understood and felt was irresistible. She arose to go.

'-You shall have Jerry, and welgome, anytime -you want her,' she. said. ' I guess you're going jto succeed.' .. ' Jerry ' was .little Gerafdine, Mrs. Hallet 's young daughter's .legacy to her , mother when sfie ;left the world untimely, left.it the richer /by -Kef ' bafciy; of ' t-wo weeks old. - ' - ' : /. : ~ ■: \ . .'%-.!. - /The baby had proved to be hopelessly crippled "frdra birth. At first Mrs.,, Hallet had .found it Tiard jb> reconciled to accepting -the maimed/little life v as;, tlie price of the blooming girl who tiad" given it to hersVAs time went on and 1 Jerry, unfolded tlie wonderful' sweetness of her heart, .the -loveliness of her vran face;-, vfthe fragrant spirituality, ,of her . childish, character, her grandmother had <begun to see that drily in strength she was lacking, cnAy in her feeble limits was halting, and sine loved the child with' a love that held in it something of awe as well as gratitude to- her.: for having come to bless her lonely- home. If Hannah' saw that Jerry was the one who could best arouse .her boarder, then Jerry's grandmother was. -able tojeel such respect for her friend's discernment that tb!e funny notion'of conversion through, home cooking lost its ridiculousness. • ■• " Hannah set about this propaganda at dhce. . She'had discovered that the stranger whom "she had 'taken within her gates had spent his boyhood on a farm', and, being country-fored herself, and from the same section of country, she knew what dishes had saluted him doubly, through his two senses, when he came in hungry from school, and she set about preparing them. The boarder was. a silent, listless man, with nervous hands and a stoop in his high shoulders. Hannah had spo'.ven truly when she had said that he was despairing; how truly she could only guess. Defrauded of all but a pittance by the man who bad been his best friend and confidential partner, betrayed and deserted by the wo- 1 man whom he had loved when misfortune overtook him, Charles Hermann had al'oweJ himself to drift into apathetic scepticism toward everything in which he had once believed. He lived a harmless life, as far as a negatively unproductive life can ever be harmless, and the future held 1 no hope for him, as the past held no pleasant memories. No pleasant memories subsequent to tho day when he had left his father's f a rm. But around that early life clustered the remembrances of a justfather, ol a sweet and tender mother whose death had been tb/i end of that innocent, happy life ; the first link of the long chain of misfortunes that followed it. He came into Hannah Smith's cheerful dininghroom and stood sti'l a moment, arrested by the odors that struck him with a magic that transported and rejuvenated him. What have you for supper, Miss Smith?' he as':ed. "Is it— it can't be scrapple and apple butter, and— not dou>gjhnots too ? V\hy, it's the very supper mother used to get up for us when father and I came in on an autumn night from hauling mine props to the station'!,' He spolce with such a new ring in his voice that Hannah's other boarders— there were not many looked up to see if it were really Mr. Hermann. Hannah smiled, her kindly smile lighting up her high cheek-bonss into a kind of beauty.' ' It's our old home supper too, Mr. Hermann,' . she said. ' I was raised on a farm like you, and when I feel as if r wanted to find the little Hannah Smith that used to be me I cook up some of the things my mother used to have.' The man looked at her wi h a sympathetic glance, and took his place at the table silently. . Hannah noted with satisfaction that her viands evidently had the oM-time flavor, and she fancied that tears were'notj far off to serve as their sauce. A glamor of, youth rested over her table to the eyes of Charles Hermann, and Hannah - smiled to herself as she jsaw the melancholy stealing over him which was sweeter .than indifference. From this night of the b.-es^nninj; of her apostolate Hannah preached 1 eloquently the. poignancy of association from the pulpit of her shining cook stove. Little Jerry was helping her to' aroiise the object of her compassion, unconscious of Ihe reason for her being, urged to ' make friends -with Mr. Hermann. 1 A reserved . little soul, Jerry was. not disinclined to her fellow-mortals .the lame child -and the emptyhearted man soon evinced a marlped midyment of each other's society. . The man told the l T ttlc" girl stories -of - the .dear old days on that lost hillside farm, remembering details that he would have "said that he haft forgot-ten,-.helped to. memory by her. dilating" eyes, "and ho less by the spurs to memory with which Miss Hannah waa nourishing him. x In her turn Jerry told h'm stories of her dolls, of .the angels, of her three newest kittens, of her flowers, and her suspicions as to fairies that ran along on the

city telephone wires in default of a better playground, admitting him without reserve- into" the wonderiui treasury of the mind of an" imaginative child. She was a devout little soulp dear little crippled Jerry, and she said things to . him of the faith which had slipped! ja way from Charles Hermann with' his other treasures, till be found himself striving to Keep her from seeing how far hie had strayed from her standards, and then reproached himself that he sat a hypocrite in the white light of her innocent eyes. " When Jerry fell sick in the spring three people stood aghast at the difference it made. Her grandmother's life was of course bound up in the child, but Hannah, too, realised! that* if she lost her- little neighbor the sunshine of her life would go out with that' child soul, and Charles Hermann walxed about dazed, praying under his breath for Jerry, Jerry who was so dangerously ill, and who had recalled him to love and hope. He could not account for it to himself, bait he discovered that the lame child had become so indescribably dear to him that he seemed to be breeding inwaidly as death tried to wrest her from him. He found himself on his knees before the tabernacle in the dim church where J erry had taken him to see the crib four months "before. 1 Spare her, Lord, spare us little Jerry, and I will not be unfaithful again,' he whispered. Then he realised with a start of the, soul that even should Jerry die she had fulfilled her mission— he had ,learned to pray again. But Jerry did not die. On Easter Sunday she opened her soft eyes to smile at Hannah's lilies, and at Mr. Hermann's canary, singing to her in the sunshine by her little ."bed with an ecstasy of joy that indicated his knowledge of human beings, dumbness under profound gratitude, as well as a certainty that Jerry't kittens could be trusted to remember the lessons they had been taught, and to spare her bird. ' Where is he ? ' asked Jerry, not yet being strong enough for many words. They knew that she meant her ' Hermie,' as she called him, End told her he had not yet come in from church, and his thanksgiving Communion that his little Jerry was better. The child smiled happily, and fell asleep. Hannah met Charles Hermann in the hall as he was returning, with his hands fmll of daffodils smelling faint and.sweet of spring. 1 Hannah, I want to tell you—' he began, but broke down ' How glad you are,' she finished for him, noting with surprise his use of her name. 'So are we all glad, glad and thankful beyond words. I think-I should have been lame in mind and heart all my days if I had lost Jerry ; I have the habit of Jerry.' "We all have it,' asserted Hermann. ' Blessed little Jerry ! But— l want to marry you, Hannah.' c Me.! No, you don't ', ' cried Hannah, in a panic. 1 Yes, I do,' affirmed Charles Hermann— who certainly ought to have known. ' You have brought me back to life with the flavor of my mother's homely dishes, .and you have taught me to love you.' ' But.. .that wasn't what I meant to do,' cried bewildered Hannah. 1 What did you mean to do ? ' asked her boarder, for the first time learning she had had a definite end in view beyond his comfort. • I meant to arouse you, make you interested— save your soul ! ' said the woman, confused. Charles laughed. ' And so you did, you and Jerry! Was that your object? Isn't it saving 'a s o ul to teach it to love ? And am I not back again, safe and happy, in my mother's Church, fresh 4 , from my Easter duty ? Surely you knew that I was learning to live and to love.' ' To love Jerry, yes, and to lave God, but not", not—' 1 Not you ? ' Charles interrupted her. « How could I help it since you gave me myself, and al,I • else ? Of course I love you, Hannah ! Marry me, and nourish th© new life you have called into being in me with your old-fashioned viands, full of health and sweetest memories.' 1 I always thought that a great deal of good could be done by - what might be called suggestive cooking,' said Hannah, feebly and whimsically. • I should think so ! ' agreed her lover enthusiastically. ' Hasn't it been 'done? We will take, our little Jerry off to the mountains and build her" up to-strewgth, while you. go on making me a saint in your own queer, dear way ! ' And our EastPT ioy and our " habit of Jerry," as you call it,- shall never end. Do you say yes,, doar Hannah ? ' - * Yes,' said his dear Hannah, to her. own surprise. ' Benziger's Magazine.' ' *