PAGE 11
The Fiery Trial
by
Frequently, in consequence of pressing calls at home, he had been almost forced to remain longer away from his place of business at dinner-time, than was customary for the clerks. On this day, two hours had glided by when his hasty foot entered the store, on his return from dinner. His fears of a distraint for rent were greatly heightened in consequence of the increased illness of his family, and as the only way to prevent it that had occurred to his mind, was to obtain from his employers a loan of fifty dollars as just mentioned, he had fully made up his mind to waive all feeling and at once name his request. Two hours we have said had expired since he went home to dine. On his entering the counting-room, the senior partner of the house drew out his watch, and remarked, rather angrily, that he could not permit such neglect of duty in a clerk, and that unless he kept better hours, he must look for another place.
It was some time before the confusion of his mind, consequent upon this censure and threat, subsided sufficiently to allow him to feel keenly the utter prostration of the last expectation for help, that had arisen like an angel of hope, in what seemed the darkest hour of his fate. And bitter indeed, were then his thoughts. Those who have never felt it, cannot imagine the awful distress which the mind feels, while contemplating the wants of those who are dearer than all the world, without possessing the means of relieving them. At times, there is a wild excitement, an imaginary consciousness of power to do all things; too quickly, alas! succeeded by the chilling certainty that honestly and honourably it can do nothing.
Slowly and painfully passed the hours until nightfall, and then Wilmer again sought with hasty steps the nest that sheltered his beloved ones. Alas! the spoiler had been there. True to his threat, the agent of Mr. Moneylove had taken quick means to get his own. All of his furniture had been seized, and not only seized, but nearly everything, except a bed and a few chairs, removed in his absence.
“O, Constance, what is the meaning of this?” was his agonized question, to his weeping wife, who met him ill as she was at the door, and hid her face in his bosom, like a dove seeking protection.
“I cannot tell, Theodore. Everything has been carried off under distraint for rent, so they said, who came here. But you do not owe any rent, do you? I am sure you never mentioned it.”
“It is too true–too true,” was his only answer. Carefully had Wilmer concealed from his wife all his troubles. He could not think of adding one pang more to the heart that had already suffered so much on his account. Wisely he did not act in this, but few can blame the weakness that shrunk from giving pain to a beloved object. There are few who have not, sometime in life, found themselves in situations of trial and distress, in which nothing was left them but submission. In that very condition did this lonely family, strangers in a strange place, find themselves on this night of strong trial. They experienced a ray of comfort, and that was the apparent health re-action in the system of their sick child. With this to cheer them, they gathered their two little ones with them in their only bed, and slept soundly through the night.
Their servant had left them the day before, and they were spared the mortification of having such a witness of their humiliation. Mrs. Wilmer found it somewhat difficult to prepare their food on the next morning, as even her kitchen furniture had nearly all shared the fate of the rest, and she found herself very feeble. Something like three hundred dollars worth had been taken for a debt of forty or fifty. The slender breakfast over, with the reprimand of the day before painfully fresh in his mind, Wilmer hastened away to the counting-room. He had only been a few moments at the desk, when the partner who had spoken to him the day before, came up with the morning’s paper in his hand, and pointing to an advertisement of a sale of furniture seized for rent due by Theodore Wilmer, asked him if he was the person named. Wilmer looked at him for some moments, vainly attempting to reply, his face exhibiting the most painful emotions–finally, he laid his head upon the desk without a word, and gave way to tears. It was a weakness, but he was not then superior to it.