The Secrets of Lizzie Borden Read Online Free PDF Page B

finger, and saying Shame! to everyone who went in or out. Wednesdays I acted as treasurer for the Christian Endeavor Society and doled out the dollars and cents to finance our good deeds and sold cookies Abby had baked to raise funds for the Fall River Philanthropic Burial Society, to provide decent burials for the deserving poor. Tuesdays and Saturdays were devoted to my favorite charity, the Fruit and Flower Mission. First we met to discuss our mission; then, every Saturday, without fail, we brought baskets of fruit to those we knew who were convalescing at home or in the hospital and, like angels of mercy bearing bright, happy bouquets, bravely ventured into the part of town known as The Flats that was nearest to the mills, where the workers lived in the most deplorable and squalid conditions, in tumbledown tenements and hovels. It was a horrible fetid and filthy place, made muddy from the mill waste, with stagnant puddles standing deep enough to drown a small child.
    Emma always said we had it backward, our charity should have been the other way around; we should have given the flowers to our friends, and taken the fruit to nourish the needy poor instead, citing something she had read about citrus fruits and scurvy sailors. But such “radical thinking” was not in keeping with our mission and she was politely asked to reconsider her membership, though the dues were nonrefundable of course.
    I just couldn’t understand Emma taking a position like that! More than once I had been moved to tears when I beheld the awed expressions upon the faces of a poor family of mill workers when I bestowed upon them the regal red beauty of roses, and when, instead of a new baby, I laid a bouquet of festive autumn-hued chrysanthemums in the arms of a poor worn-out Irish woman who was already the mother of nine children, all bawling and tugging at her tattered skirt while her husband was passed out from the drink.... The look on her face was indescribable! It was truly a moment to treasure, and I knew that I had made a difference. The recipients of our floral gifts were always so stunned that they were rendered speechless; some of their dear faces actually turned red and quivered and looked ready to burst from the overpowering feelings they didn’t know how to express. But I understood; I knew exactly how they felt. Their eyes were so starved for beauty in the decrepit leaky-roofed hovels where they lived it made me happy beyond words to give them something to feast on. That was what the Fruit and Flower Mission was all about.
    And then there was my Sunday school class where I stood before the chalkboard like a brave captain at the helm of his storm-tossed ship determined to imbue the Oriental heathens who worked in the town’s mills and laundries with goodly Christian virtues. I taught them to sing hymns, read Bible stories, and write their names, and every Christmas we staged a pageant in which my pupils sang Christmas carols and hymns and enacted the Nativity story. Everyone looked forward to it all year . . . except our organist, Mrs. Stowe, but that was only because she tripped over a sheep and broke her collarbone during a rehearsal of the manger scene one year, but that was not my fault, so she really had no cause to turn against me and the dear Celestials. My pupils loved me, and not just because I gave them each candies and a new pencil and a pretty card with a Bible verse printed on it every Sunday, and both the Reverends Buck and Jubb said I was a wonderful teacher who was personally responsible for saving countless heathen souls, and that the Sunday school Christmas pageant always sent the congregation home with much to ponder.
    The events that would lead to my “sweet taste of freedom” began with just an ordinary meeting of the Fruit and Flower Mission. We were taking a civilized pause to cool our tempers after a rather heated discussion about which blossoms the poor Irish Catholic denizens of our