The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 8 July 1909, Page 1

The Storyteller

THE STORY OF JULIE BENOIT Julie leaned against the' door of the room from which she had just been summoned. Her black eyes flashed defiance into the eyes of the woman watching her in sorrowful silence. ' Why you come here ?' she cried. ' Why you not leave me alone? I not want to see you nor anyone. You no right to come here; you not my forewoman now. You dismiss me in disgrace a week ago, you and that superintendent in your factory over there. What you come for, to punish me some more?' 'My poor child,' returned the other gently, 'you must not hate me so. Believe me, I love you, Julie, and I've come here as your friend.' ' You a friend to me ; me, Julie Benoit, who. was sent away from the factory because I steal all that money? No, no! I know better than that; you no friend to me. All the girls point their finger at me, for I steal that money. But I give it back, do I not? And the superintendent he say it is my . first offence and he will not send me to prison. Still, I must leave the factory at once and without a reference. Oh, yes! he is very kind. Julie have give back the money, Julie is forgiven, but she is a thief and cannot work with honest people. She must go, and without a reference. No one could recommend a thief. Well, Julie does go, so why you not let her alone?' ' Julie, Julie, listen to me,' cried the forewoman, almost in despair. ' Believe it or not, as you please, I have come here to-day to help you if I can. I have come because there was a look in your eyes that day you left us that has haunted me ever since. I have come because I feared you were in trouble and were too proud to tell us so.' The flashing eyes and angry face of the girl softened a little as the woman continued : ' I know you are not a bad girl, Julie. I know that you never before "stole anything. I have been thinking of you all this week and worrying about you, for it must have been some great' trouble which induced you to take that money. Why did you take it, child?' 'You ask me why I take it? Well, I will tell you. Do you know what is in that room just behind this very door I lean against? Do you know what is in there, lying so still, so pale, so cold? It is my mother. She will never move again ; she is dead. Yes, 'she die last night, but I not tell no one. If I tell they take her away and bury her I not know where. I have no money to bury her myself. ' You want to know why I steal that money ? Well; a week ago poor mother she is so very sick. They tell me she cannot live many days; but I think if only I have money I can save her yet. I can have doctors to see her, big doctors who will go to sick people only for very much money. I can buy her food and medicine and perhaps send her away to some place where the sun will shine for her, where she can breathe God's pure air. Why, even strong people can scarce live in a place like this, where tho sunshine never come. Then the chance come, the money is there before me. I look at it; I take it. That is all. ' You ask me why I steal that money. I steal it for her, my mother; to save her life. Yes, and for her, too, the blind grandmother, and for them,' and she pointed to a very old woman sitting close to the stove and holding in her arms a whimpering child of four. At her side, crouched two \more children, somewhat older, huddled together in a ragged shawl. They wore neither shoes nor stockings, and the small feet were blue with cold. 'Oh, you poor child!' exclaimed the forewoman, her eyes filling with tears. 'Why did you not tell me a week ago instead of taking that money; for one wrong can never right another; why did you not tell me? We might not have been able to save your mother, but we could have helped you.' The shocked grief of the woman's face and voice had their effect upon the girl, and it was in a much more gentle tone that she continued: ' You can see for yourself how it is with us now, but we are not always like this. If you care to listen and will sit down I will tell you all about it. ' Well, we are all so happy until one day father is brought home to us. He is dead, killed ■at his work by a falling derrick. That same day poor little Baptiste, him there in grandmother's lap, he come into this cruel world. Mother is very sick for a long time after. It is weeks before she can walk around again. By the time she does the little money she had saved is all gone; there is not a cent in the house, and the landlord puts us into the street.

' I am only twelve at the time, but I go to work in a factory — not your factory but one away off the other side of the river. I have to walk long, long distance in the cold, dark morning, and walk back again at night, but I am happy for I earn money to help at home. 'We get along pretty well for almost three years. Then, just a year ago, the factory I work for shut down. Times are hard, there is no more work for us; we must go. We do so. We try at first one place, then another, to find work. It is the same story everywhere. ' Then" mother gets that dreadful cold. The laundry where she work is always so very hot. She .come out at night into the cold air; her coat is thin, for she cannot buy a warm one, and she get a dreadful chill one night as she come home. She cough all the time after that. It shake her nearly all to pieces ; but she 'kept on going to the laundry till one day she fall beside the mangle. They bring her home and we put her to bed, and she never leave it again. ' What to do then we know not. One, two, three days pass ; at last there is a day when grandmother and I eat nothing. We give the last scraps of bread to the children and spend the last two pennies on milk for mother. There is nothing left for us. We not sleep that night; we sit by the empty stove and we think all night. Grandmother is praying all the time; she is, ah, so good, that grandmother ! ' Next morning is cold, very cold ; we have no fire and no food. I have been everywhere to look for work and find nothing, but I put on my,, hat to go out and. try once more. Grandmother ask me what I do. I tell her Igo to look for work. She say, " No, child, you stay here with your mother to-day; it is my turn now." ' She is old ; she is blind, and I fear, to have her go out alone, but she is firm and will go. She take her stick and she go out. She come back with bread for the children and a little money to buy coal. I not ask her where she get it; I know; she beg it on the street. Every day she go out like that, and when she bring back food and money she not say one word and I not ask her where she get it; I know. ' She keep us from starving for a few weeks, and then, at last, I find work in your factory. For a time lam almost happy again, for now grandmother need beg no more; my pay will keep us in food and fire. Even mother is better for a little while, and I think .perhaps she ;will get well and we all be happy once again. But mother is soon very, veiy sick, and I see her dying day by day, and can do nothing to help her. ' Then, that day last week, a party of ladies come to visit the factory. Then wife of the superintendent is with them. She very handsome, very rich; she beautifully dressed. She stop r.ear my table to take off her coat, the room is warm and the fur coat heavy. She lay her purse down on my table while she remove the garment : one of the ladies call to her and she go away, leaving the purse behind her on my table. ' Mother is very sick that morning ; she not sleep all night, but cough, cough, cough. There is the purso before me. No one is looking; I pick it up and open it. It is filled with money, the money that may save my mother's life. That lady will never miss it. T I slip the purse inside my dress and go on .with my work. I can hardly keep from screaming with joy, I am so happy to think I have the money which is going to save my mother's life. The ladies go away and I feel lam safe; she has forget about her purse. I want to rush away home at once, but I must stay at work so no one will suspect. ' Presently the superintendent he come in and he talk to you, and you look very grave. Then he .say one of the ladies have left her purse on a table in this room. Will the girls be kind enough to stop work and search for > it? He will give five dollars reward to the one who finds it. We all search, but no purse is found, and he go away again. Pretty soon he come back and the lady with him. She look around for a few moments, then she walk straight over to my table. ' The superintendent ask me if I have seen the purse, and I say no. I suppose he know by my face that I am lying, for he tell you to take me to the dressing-room and search. Then I know there is no hope for me; if you search you find the purse, so I take it out and hand it to him. He talk to me about my wickedness, but 1 not answer him. He discharge me', but I not say one word. My mother she will die now, she will surely die; and grandmother she will have to go out begging once again. • «• ' ' I come home and I tell them I am discharged-. • 1 not tell 'them why, for they very good and stealing is a sin. They be so shocked and sorry. I sit beside my* mother, despair in my heart, and I watch her dying, dying, dying.

' Her pain is all over now ; she leave- me 'last night and she never come back again. I watch with her in -there when you come. I watch with her when you go; then I must tell that she is gone, that she is dead, and they come and take her away/ and she threw herself on the floor by the door of her mother's room in a perfect agony of grief. In a moment the kind-hearted woman was on her knees beside the heart-broken girl, whom she gathered into her motherly arms, murmuring words of comfort all the while. Gradually the dreadful sobbing subsided, and after a time the girl was once more standing before that door she so jealously guarded. Seeing that she w,as her own calm self again, the forewoman said gently: ' My poor child, again I say that I wish you had told me a week ago. So much suffering would have been saved. However, this is no time for vain regrets; it is the time for action. I must leave you at once, Julie, but I will be back, and will, I hope, bring you good news. In the meantime do you say nothing to anyone about your mother. You will believe that I will help you? You will do as I say?' ' You very good,' replied Julie simply, laying her hand in that of the forewoman ; '.when you want me you find me there,' and she pointed to the door behind which her mother's silent form was resting. Two days later the forewoman, seated at her desk, was covertly watching an excited group of girls on the other side of the room who were discussing some matter of evident importance. "Without doubt, something was wron»r. The forewoman rather surmised what the trouble was, and smiled behind the shelter of a newspaper. She knew these girls, and was quite sure that the difficulty, whatever it was, would be brought to her for settlement. As she had said to Julie, she loved her girls, and they in turn loved and trusted her. In this instance she had not long to wait. Presently the girls cast aside napkins and lunch boxes and moved toward the corner of the room where their forewoman was waiting. She watched their approach in smiling silence. Slightly in advance of the others came a small, impetuous figure, a painfully thin, cross-eyed girl of fifteen, whose abundant crop of freckles had earned for her the sobriquet of ' Speckles.' She had answered to that name for so long now that she had almost forgotten she ever owned any other. She was a general favorite in spite of her rather sharp little tongue. Rushing up to the forewoman s desk, she said excitedly : ' Miss Merton, it can't be true that you are going to let that horrid Julie Benoit come back again. You surely wouldn't take, her back, would you, Miss Merton ?' ' Yes, it is perfectly true,' replied the forewoman calmly. Julie will return to us next Monday, and I hope all my girls will do everything they can to make her feel that we are glad to have her back.' ' But we're not glad,' cried one girl. ' Why, it's impossible after what she did/ added another. During the outburst the forewoman sat watching the indignant faces before her. Then she said very gravely: ' Girls, I think we all misjudged Julie, and really almost owe her an apology. I have asked her pardon, and though I do not expect you to receive her back with kindness ' ' Misjudged her! Apology!' gasped 'Speckles.' • She took that money, didn't she?' ' 'Yes.' ' , ' And a. person who takes money that belongs to someone else is a thief, isn't she?' , ' Yes, certainly.' ' Well, then, I say a thief is a thief, and I don't see where any misjudging comes in,' and ' Speckles ' looked defiantly from one to another. A tall blonde, whose thoughtful grey eyes had been ' studying the forewoman's face, laid her hand on the excited girl's arm,* remarking gently : 'Let's not judge too hastily, "Speckles," dear.- I think Miss Merton has something to tell us. For my part I used to pity Julie, she seemed so sickly and so terribly alone. She was with us, but she was not one of us.' ' You are right, Louise, I have a little story to tell you — the story of Julie Benoit,' and she told them Julie's story as she had heard it from Julie herself. In conclusion, she added: 'When I left that poor child beside her dead mother, I went at once to the superintendent and told him the whole story. You girls know how kind he is; more than one of yo\i have had personal experience of his charity. He called in his wife, and together they planned to bury Julie's mother as a Catholic should ba buried, they to stand all the expense. • ' I wish you could have seen her face when I went back to those two dreadful rooms in thp alley where she livep and told her what the superintendent and his wife had said. 'It was a very different Julie that I left that night; oh! very different from the girl who met me with such

earlier in the evening. Just as I was leaving she said to me very humbly: "The girls at the factory, you think they will forgive me also ? I very rude to them ; I say I hate them all. You think they will forgive me?" ' So now, my girls, your welcome to -Julie on Monday morning will be the best answer to that question.' ' Will we forgive her, the poor girl 1' cried ' Speckles ' impulsively. 'If there's anyone here who won't be kind to that poor little Julie she'll just have to reckon, with me. I think it is we who should ask her to forgive us. Oh, I say, girls! I've just , got an idea,' she continued; ' suppose each one of us chip in a few pennies, we can all spare a little, and have Miss Merton give it to her to buy -shoes or something for herself. I'll start with 50 cents.' The box was passed from one to another, each contributing what she could, and each contribution meaning more or less of a sacrifice to the donor. In this way a goodly sum was collected and laid on Miss Merton's table. As the girls scattered, laughing and chattering, each to her own machine or work-table, Miss Merton looked after them, a tear in her eye and a smile upon her lips. ' God bless my girls,' she said to herself. ' Their hearts are in the right place, every one of them. I need have no fear of the welcome they will give to my poor little Julie Benoit.' — Messenger of the Sacred Heart.