housed the sick right in Rose’s Wayside?”
“And it wasn’t even my Wayside anymore.” Rose laughed. “Imagine how my dear Harriet felt about it.” The Wayside was the only home Nathaniel Hawthorne had ever owned. In 1879, many years after his death, Rose and George bought the beloved house to keep it in the family. Financial hardship forced them to sell it just four years later to George’s publisher and his wife, Harriet Stone, also known as Margaret Sidney, the writer of children’s books.
“We bathed them and changed their dressings right in the parlor room.”
Rose nodded. “In the summers we used the front porch for their beds. My father used to sit and have his morning tea on that porch.”
“And in New York we collected the sick into three cold-water flats on the Lower East Side,” said Alice. “We managed. They managed.”
“Well, yes,” Rose said. “Because our goal wasn’t convenience. It was to do something to comfort other hearts than ours. To take the lowest rank of human beings—both in poverty and in suffering—and put them in such a condition that if our Lord knocked on our door, we would not be ashamed to let Him in.”
“Let’s go then and comfort other hearts than ours,” said Gina, rolling up her sleeves. “Perhaps we can make our Lord proud.”
Eighteen months went by.
Four
IN OCTOBER 1914, GINA was in the kitchen at the Wayside making chicken soup for the annex patients and mopping the floor when there was a knock on the glass pane of the back door. She had been thinking about the lateness of the hour and her long trip home to Lawrence when the soft knock startled her out of her musings. She opened the door and in front of her stood Ben Shaw. He took off his hat, bowed to her slightly, and smiled.
“Ben?” She almost didn’t recognize him, having not seen him in nearly fifteen years. They hugged like the old friends they were, kissed each other on both cheeks like Europeans. Instinctively Gina’s hands lifted to adjust and pin up her always falling-down hair. She smiled with joy at seeing his kind, familiar face, fleetingly wishing she looked less grubby.
“Benjamin, I am stunned to see you!”
“Why?” he asked cheerfully. “Did you think I’d be dead by now?”
Ben had been in Panama, engineering and building the Panama Canal. His modulated tenor hadn’t changed, his amiable face was as handsome as ever. His dark eyes sparkled, the expression in them when he looked at her familiar and welcome and true, but in all else he was hardly the same person. He was a grown man now, not an eager, smitten boy. His dark hair was clipped short and graying above his ears. He had an impeccably groomed salt-and-pepper goatee, was thin like a steel pole, and extremely tanned. So tanned that if Gina hadn’t known better, she would’ve guessed he was of Mediterranean or South American stock. Lines had gathered under his friendly eyes and around his burned-by-the-sun mouth. He wore thin-wire glasses that made him look like a solemn scientist. Yet he was still inimitably Ben when he smiled.
He walked in, placed his sharply structured hat on the entry table, hung up his wool coat. He wore a smart gray serge suit, a white shirt, a silk tie. He looked modern. He looked successful. His black shoes had been recently shined. He looked as if he had been recently shined. A seamstress, a textile expert, a dreamer of high fashion, Gina knew about such things. He was put together well. Like Harry had been once, before he married her.
She was disappointed in herself, at how happy she was to see him again, to see a familiar face that belonged to a man who had once gazed upon her with unreturned affection. She put on a kettle to make him some tea, and then puttered around feeling flustered, not knowing what to ask him first or what to get hold of next. She was all too aware of her drab brown dress, the stains of her difficult work on it, the labor-scratched hands, the short unpolished
“And it wasn’t even my Wayside anymore.” Rose laughed. “Imagine how my dear Harriet felt about it.” The Wayside was the only home Nathaniel Hawthorne had ever owned. In 1879, many years after his death, Rose and George bought the beloved house to keep it in the family. Financial hardship forced them to sell it just four years later to George’s publisher and his wife, Harriet Stone, also known as Margaret Sidney, the writer of children’s books.
“We bathed them and changed their dressings right in the parlor room.”
Rose nodded. “In the summers we used the front porch for their beds. My father used to sit and have his morning tea on that porch.”
“And in New York we collected the sick into three cold-water flats on the Lower East Side,” said Alice. “We managed. They managed.”
“Well, yes,” Rose said. “Because our goal wasn’t convenience. It was to do something to comfort other hearts than ours. To take the lowest rank of human beings—both in poverty and in suffering—and put them in such a condition that if our Lord knocked on our door, we would not be ashamed to let Him in.”
“Let’s go then and comfort other hearts than ours,” said Gina, rolling up her sleeves. “Perhaps we can make our Lord proud.”
Eighteen months went by.
Four
IN OCTOBER 1914, GINA was in the kitchen at the Wayside making chicken soup for the annex patients and mopping the floor when there was a knock on the glass pane of the back door. She had been thinking about the lateness of the hour and her long trip home to Lawrence when the soft knock startled her out of her musings. She opened the door and in front of her stood Ben Shaw. He took off his hat, bowed to her slightly, and smiled.
“Ben?” She almost didn’t recognize him, having not seen him in nearly fifteen years. They hugged like the old friends they were, kissed each other on both cheeks like Europeans. Instinctively Gina’s hands lifted to adjust and pin up her always falling-down hair. She smiled with joy at seeing his kind, familiar face, fleetingly wishing she looked less grubby.
“Benjamin, I am stunned to see you!”
“Why?” he asked cheerfully. “Did you think I’d be dead by now?”
Ben had been in Panama, engineering and building the Panama Canal. His modulated tenor hadn’t changed, his amiable face was as handsome as ever. His dark eyes sparkled, the expression in them when he looked at her familiar and welcome and true, but in all else he was hardly the same person. He was a grown man now, not an eager, smitten boy. His dark hair was clipped short and graying above his ears. He had an impeccably groomed salt-and-pepper goatee, was thin like a steel pole, and extremely tanned. So tanned that if Gina hadn’t known better, she would’ve guessed he was of Mediterranean or South American stock. Lines had gathered under his friendly eyes and around his burned-by-the-sun mouth. He wore thin-wire glasses that made him look like a solemn scientist. Yet he was still inimitably Ben when he smiled.
He walked in, placed his sharply structured hat on the entry table, hung up his wool coat. He wore a smart gray serge suit, a white shirt, a silk tie. He looked modern. He looked successful. His black shoes had been recently shined. He looked as if he had been recently shined. A seamstress, a textile expert, a dreamer of high fashion, Gina knew about such things. He was put together well. Like Harry had been once, before he married her.
She was disappointed in herself, at how happy she was to see him again, to see a familiar face that belonged to a man who had once gazed upon her with unreturned affection. She put on a kettle to make him some tea, and then puttered around feeling flustered, not knowing what to ask him first or what to get hold of next. She was all too aware of her drab brown dress, the stains of her difficult work on it, the labor-scratched hands, the short unpolished
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