Free Alcott, Louisa May - SSC 11 by Glimpses of Louisa (v2.1) Page A

guess I can weather it a spell longer. But it will be pleasant
to look forrard to a snug harbor bymeby. I feel a sight better just hearin'
tell about it." He certainly looked so, faint as the hope was; for the
melancholy eyes brightened as if they already saw a happier refuge in the
future than almshouse, hospital, or grave, and, when he trudged away upon my
errand, he went as briskly as if every step took him nearer to the promised
home.
                            
After that day it was all up with Bob, for I told my neighbors Joe's story, and we kept him trotting busily, adding little gifts,
and taking the sort of interest in him that comforted the lonely fellow, and made
him feel that he had not outlived his usefulness. I never looked out when he
was at his post that he did not smile back at me; I never passed him in the
street that the red cap was not touched with a military flourish; and, when any
of us beckoned to him, no twinge of rheumatism was too sharp to keep him from
hurrying to do our errands, as if he had Mercury's winged feet.
                            
Now and then he came in for a chat, and always asked how the Soldiers' Home was
prospering; expressing his opinion that " Boston was the charitablest city under the sun, and he was sure he and his mates would
be took care of somehow."
                            
When we parted in the spring, I told him things looked hopeful, bade him be
ready for a good long rest as soon as the hospitable doors were open, and left
him nodding cheerfully.
   IV
 
 
   
 
 
                            
But in the autumn I looked in vain for Joe. The slate was in its old place, and
a messenger came and went on his beat; but a strange face was under the red
cap, and this man had two arms and one eye. I asked for Collins, but the
new-comer had only a vague idea that he was dead; and the same answer was given
me at headquarters, though none of the busy people seemed to know when or where
he died. So I mourned for Joe, and felt that it was very hard he could not have
lived to enjoy the promised refuge; for, relying upon the charity that never
fails, the Home was an actual fact now, just beginning its beneficent career.
People were waking up to this duty, money was coming in, meetings were being
held, and already a few poor fellows were in the refuge, feeling themselves no
longer paupers, but invalid soldiers honorably supported by the State they had
served. Talking it over one day with a friend, who spent her life working for
the Associated Charities, she said,—
                            
"By the way, there is a man boarding with one of my poor women, who ought
to be got into the Home, if he will go. I don't know much about him, except
that he was in the army, has been very ill with rheumatic fever, and is
friendless. I asked Mrs. Flanagin how she managed to keep him, and she said she
had help while he was sick, and now he is able to hobble about, he takes care
of the children, so she is able to go out to work. He won't go to his own town,
because there is nothing for him there but the almshouse, and he dreads a
hospital; so struggles along, trying to earn his bread tending babies with his
one arm. A sad case, and in your line; I wish you'd look into it."
                            
"That sounds like my Joe, one arm and all. I'll go and see him; I've a
weakness for soldiers, sick or well."
                            
I went, and never shall forget the pathetic little tableau I saw as I opened
Mrs. Flanagin's dingy door; for she was out, and no one heard my tap. The room
was redolent of suds, and in a grove of damp clothes hung on lines sat a man
with a crying baby laid across his lap, while he fed three small children
standing at his knee with bread and molasses. How he managed with one arm to
keep the baby from squirming on to the floor,