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diff --git a/old/10744-8.txt b/old/10744-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e782de0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10744-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9495 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Men, Women, and Ghosts, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Men, Women, and Ghosts + +Author: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + +Release Date: January 18, 2004 [EBook #10744] +[Date last updated: April 24, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN, WOMEN, AND GHOSTS *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +Men, Women, and Ghosts + +by + +Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + +1869. + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by FIELDS, +OSGOOD, & CO., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the +District of Massachusetts. + + + +University Press: Welch, Bigelow, &., Cambridge. + + + + +Note. + + + +Of this collection of stories, "Calico," "The Day of my Death," and +"Night-Watches" (the last under the title of "Voices of the Night") have +appeared in _Harper's Monthly_; "One of the Elect," (under the title of +"Magdalene,") in _Hours at Home_; and "Little Tommy Tucker," in the +_Watchman and Reflector_. + +E. S. P. + +Andover, April, 1869. + + + + +Contents. + + + +No News +The Tenth of January +Night-Watches +The Day of My Death +"Little Tommy Tucker" +One of the Elect +What Was the Matter? +In the Gray Goth +Calico +Kentucky's Ghost + + + + +No News. + + + +None at all. Understand that, please, to begin with. That you will at +once, and distinctly, recall Dr. Sharpe--and his wife, I make no doubt. +Indeed, it is because the history is a familiar one, some of the +unfamiliar incidents of which have come into my possession, that I +undertake to tell it. + +My relation to the Doctor, his wife, and their friend, has been in many +respects peculiar. Without entering into explanations which I am not at +liberty to make, let me say, that those portions of their story which +concern our present purpose, whether or not they fell under my personal +observation, are accurately, and to the best of my judgment impartially, +related. + +Nobody, I think, who was at the wedding, dreamed that there would ever +be such a story to tell. It was such a pretty, peaceful wedding! If you +were there, you remember it as you remember a rare sunrise, or a +peculiarly delicate May-flower, or that strain in a simple old song +which is like orioles and butterflies and dew-drops. + +There were not many of us; we were all acquainted with one another; the +day was bright, and Harrie did not faint nor cry. There were a couple +of bridesmaids,--Pauline Dallas, and a Miss--Jones, I think,--besides +Harrie's little sisters; and the people were well dressed and well +looking, but everybody was thoroughly at home, comfortable, and on a +level. There was no annihilating of little country friends in gray +alpacas by city cousins in point and pearls, no crowding and no crush, +and, I believe, not a single "front breadth" spoiled by the ices. + +Harrie is not called exactly pretty, but she must be a very plain woman +who is not pleasant to see upon her wedding day. Harrie's eyes shone,--I +never saw such eyes! and she threw her head back like a queen whom they +were crowning. + +Her father married them. Old Mr. Bird was an odd man, with odd notions +of many things, of which marriage was one. The service was his own. I +afterwards asked him for a copy of it, which I have preserved. The +Covenant ran thus:-- + +"Appealing to your Father who is in heaven to witness your sincerity, +you .... do now take this woman whose hand you hold--choosing her alone +from all the world--to be your lawfully wedded wife. You trust her as +your best earthly friend. You promise to love, to cherish, and to +protect her; to be considerate of her happiness in your plans of life; +to cultivate for her sake all manly virtues; and in all things to seek +her welfare as you seek your own. You pledge yourself thus honorably to +her, to be her husband in good faith, so long as the providence of God +shall spare you to each other. + +"In like manner, looking to your Heavenly Father for his blessing, you +... do now receive this man, whose hand you hold, to be your lawfully +wedded husband. You choose him from all the world as he has chosen you. +You pledge your trust to him as your best earthly friend. You promise to +love, to comfort, and to honor him; to cultivate for his sake all +womanly graces; to guard his reputation, and assist him in his life's +work; and in all things to esteem his happiness as your own. You give +yourself thus trustfully to him, to be his wife in good faith, so long +as the providence of God shall spare you to each other." + +When Harrie lifted her shining eyes to say, "I _do_!" the two little +happy words ran through the silent room like a silver bell; they would +have tinkled in your ears for weeks to come if you had heard them. + +I have been thus particular in noting the words of the service, partly +because they pleased me, partly because I have since had some occasion +to recall them, and partly because I remember having wondered, at the +time, how many married men and women of your and my acquaintance, if +honestly subjecting their union to the test and full interpretation and +remotest bearing of such vows as these, could live in the sight of God +and man as "lawfully wedded" husband and wife. + +Weddings are always very sad things to me; as much sadder than burials +as the beginning of life should be sadder than the end of it. The +readiness with which young girls will flit out of a tried, proved, happy +home into the sole care and keeping of a man whom they have known three +months, six, twelve, I do not profess to understand. Such knowledge is +too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. But that may +be because I am fifty-five, an old maid, and have spent twenty years in +boarding-houses. + +A woman reads the graces of a man at sight. His faults she cannot +thoroughly detect till she has been for years his wife. And his faults +are so much more serious a matter to her than hers to him! + +I was thinking of this the day before the wedding. I had stepped in from +the kitchen to ask Mrs. Bird about the salad, when I came abruptly, at +the door of the sitting-room, upon as choice a picture as one is likely +to see. + +The doors were open through the house, and the wind swept in and out. A +scarlet woodbine swung lazily back and forth beyond the window. Dimples +of light burned through it, dotting the carpet and the black-and-white +marbled oilcloth of the hall. Beyond, in the little front parlor, framed +in by the series of doorways, was Harrie, all in a cloud of white. It +floated about her with an idle, wavelike motion. She had a veil like +fretted pearls through which her tinted arm shone faintly, and the +shadow of a single scarlet leaf trembled through a curtain upon her +forehead. + +Her mother, crying a little, as mothers will cry the day before the +wedding, was smoothing with tender touch a tiny crease upon the cloud; a +bridesmaid or two sat chattering on the floor; gloves, and favors, and +flowers, and bits of lace like hoar frost, lay scattered about; and the +whole was repictured and reflected and reshaded in the great +old-fashioned mirrors before which Harrie turned herself about. + +It seemed a pity that Myron Sharpe should miss that, so I called him in +from the porch where he sat reading Stuart Mill on Liberty. + +If you form your own opinion of a man who might spend a livelong +morning,--an October morning, quivering with color, alive with light, +sweet with the breath of dropping pines, soft with the caress of a wind +that had filtered through miles of sunshine,--and that the morning of +the day before his wedding,--reading Stuart Mill on Liberty,--I cannot +help it. + +Harrie, turning suddenly, saw us,--met her lover's eyes, stood a moment +with lifted lashes and bright cheeks,--crept with a quick, impulsive +movement into her mother's arms, kissed her, and floated away up the +stairs. + +"It's a perfect fit," said Mrs. Bird; coming out with one corner of a +very dingy handkerchief--somebody had just used it to dust the Parian +vases--at her eyes. + +And though, to be sure, it was none of my business, I caught myself +saying, under my breath,-- + +"It's a fit for life; for a _life_, Dr. Sharpe." + +Dr. Sharpe smiled serenely. He was very much in love with the little +pink-and-white cloud that had just fluttered up the stairs. If it had +been drifting to him for the venture of twenty lifetimes, he would have +felt no doubt of the "fit." + +Nor, I am sure, would Harrie. She stole out to him that evening after +the bridal finery was put away, and knelt at his feet in her plain +little muslin dress, her hair all out of crimp, slipping from her net +behind her ears,--Harrie's ears were very small, and shaded off in the +colors of a pale apple-blossom,--up-turning her flushed and weary face. + +"Put away the book, please, Myron." + +Myron put away the book (somebody on Bilious Affections), and looked for +a moment without speaking at the up-turned face. + +Dr. Sharpe had spasms of distrusting himself amazingly; perhaps most men +have,--and ought to. His face grew grave just then. That little girl's +clear eyes shone upon him like the lights upon an altar. In very +unworthiness of soul he would have put the shoes from off his feet. The +ground on which he trod was holy. + +When he spoke to the child, it was in a whisper:-- + +"Harrie, are you afraid of me? I know I am not very good." + +And Harrie, kneeling with the shadows of the scarlet leaves upon her +hair, said softly, "How could I be afraid of you? It is _I_ who am not +good." + +Dr. Sharpe could not have made much progress in Bilious Affections that +evening. All the time that the skies were fading, we saw them wandering +in and out among the apple-trees,--she with those shining eyes, and her +hand in his. And when to-morrow had come and gone, and in the dying +light they drove away, and Miss Dallas threw old Grandmother Bird's +little satin boot after the carriage, the last we saw of her was that +her hand was clasped in his, and that her eyes were shining. + +Well, I believe that they got along very well till the first baby came. +As far as my observation goes, young people usually get along very well +till the first baby comes. These particular young people had a clear +conscience,--as young people's consciences go,--fair health, a +comfortable income for two, and a very pleasant home. + +This home was on the coast. The townspeople made shoes, and minded their +own business. Dr. Sharpe bought the dying practice of an antediluvian +who believed in camomile and castor-oil. Harrie mended a few stockings, +made a few pies, and watched the sea. + +It was almost enough of itself to make one happy--the sea--as it +tumbled about the shores of Lime. Harrie had a little seat hollowed out +in the cliffs, and a little scarlet bathing-dress, which was +surprisingly becoming, and a little boat of her own, moored in a little +bay,--a pretty shell which her husband had had made to order, that she +might be able to row herself on a calm water. He was very thoughtful for +her in those days. + +She used to take her sewing out upon the cliff; she would be demure and +busy; she would finish the selvage seam; but the sun blazed, the sea +shone, the birds sang, all the world was at play,--what could it matter +about selvage seams? So the little gold thimble would drop off, the +spool trundle down the cliff, and Harrie, sinking back into a cushion of +green and crimson sea-weed, would open her wide eyes and dream. The +waves purpled and silvered, and broke into a mist like powdered amber, +the blue distances melted softly, the white sand glittered, the gulls +were chattering shrilly. What a world it was! + +"And he is in it!" thought Harrie. Then she would smile and shut her +eyes. "And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that Moses' +face shone, and they were afraid to come nigh him." Harrie wondered if +everybody's joy were too great to look upon, and wondered, in a +childish, frightened way, how it might be with sorrow; if people stood +with veiled faces before it, dumb with pain as she with peace,--and then +it was dinner-time, and Myron came down to walk up the beach with her, +and she forgot all about it. + +She forgot all about everything but the bare joy of life and the sea, +when she had donned the pretty scarlet suit, and crept out into the +surf,--at the proper medicinal hour, for the Doctor was very particular +with her,--when the warm brown waves broke over her face, the long +sea-weeds slipped through her fingers, the foam sprinkled her hair with +crystals, and the strong wind was up. + +She was a swift swimmer, and as one watched from the shore, her lithe +scarlet shoulders seemed to glide like a trail of fire through the +lighted water; and when she sat in shallow foam with sunshine on her, or +flashed through the dark green pools among the rocks, or floated with +the incoming tide, her great bathing-hat dropping shadows on her wet +little happy face, and her laugh ringing out, it was a pretty sight. + +But a prettier one than that, her husband thought, was to see her in her +boat at sunset; when sea and sky were aflame, when every flake of foam +was a rainbow, and the great chalk-cliffs were blood-red; when the wind +blew her net off, and in pretty petulance she pulled her hair down, and +it rippled all about her as she dipped into the blazing West. + +Dr. Sharpe used to drive home by the beach, on a fair night, always, +that he might see it. Then Harrie would row swiftly in, and spring into +the low, broad buggy beside him, and they rode home together in the +fragrant dusk. Sometimes she used to chatter on these twilight drives; +but more often she crept up to him and shut her eyes, and was as still +as a sleepy bird. It was so pleasant to do nothing but be happy! + +I believe that at this time Dr. Sharpe loved his wife as unselfishly as +he knew how. Harrie often wrote me that he was "very good." She was +sometimes a little troubled that he should "know so much more" than she, +and had fits of reading the newspapers and reviewing her French, and +studying cases of hydrophobia, or some other pleasant subject which had +a professional air. Her husband laughed at her for her pains, but +nevertheless he found her so much the more entertaining. Sometimes she +drove about with him on his calls, or amused herself by making jellies +in fancy moulds for his poor, or sat in his lap and discoursed like a +bobolink of croup and measles, pulling his whiskers the while with her +pink fingers. + +All this, as I have said, was before the first baby came. + +It is surprising what vague ideas young people in general, and young men +in particular, have of the rubs and jars of domestic life; especially +domestic life on an income of eighteen hundred, American constitutions +and country servants thrown in. + +Dr. Sharpe knew something of illness and babies and worry and watching; +but that his own individual baby should deliberately lie and scream till +two o'clock in the morning, was a source of perpetual astonishment to +him; and that it,--he and Mrs. Sharpe had their first quarrel over his +persistence in calling the child an "it,"--that it should _invariably_ +feel called upon to have the colic just as he had fallen into a nap, +after a night spent with a dying patient, was a phenomenon of the infant +mind for which he was, to say the least, unprepared. + +It was for a long time a mystery to his masculine understanding, that +Biddy could not be nursery-maid as well as cook. "Why, what has she to +do now? Nothing but to broil steaks and make tea for two people!" That +whenever he had Harrie quietly to himself for a peculiarly pleasant +tea-table, the house should resound with sudden shrieks from the +nursery, and there was _always_ a pin in that baby, was forever a fresh +surprise; and why, when they had a house full of company, no "girl," and +Harrie down with a sick-headache, his son and heir should of _necessity_ +be threatened with scarlatina, was a philosophical problem over which he +speculated long and profoundly. + +So, gradually, in the old way, the old sweet habits of the long +honeymoon were broken. Harrie dreamed no more on the cliffs by the +bright noon sea; had no time to spend making scarlet pictures in the +little bathing-suit; had seldom strength to row into the sunset, her +hair loose, the bay on fire, and one to watch her from the shore. There +were no more walks up the beach to dinner; there came an end to the +drives in the happy twilight; she could not climb now upon her husband's +knee, because of the heavy baby on her own. + +The spasms of newspaper reading subsided rapidly; Corinne and Racine +gathered the dust in peace upon their shelves; Mrs. Sharpe made no more +fancy jellies, and found no time to inquire after other people's babies. + +One becomes used to anything after a while, especially if one happens to +be a man. It would have surprised Dr. Sharpe, if he had taken the pains +to notice,--which I believe he never did,--how easily he became used to +his solitary drives and disturbed teas; to missing Harrie's watching +face at door or window; to sitting whole evenings by himself while she +sang to the fretful baby overhead with her sweet little tired voice; to +slipping off into the "spare room" to sleep when the child cried at +night, and Harrie, up and down with him by the hour, flitted from cradle +to bed, or paced the room, or sat and sang, or lay and cried herself, in +sheer despair of rest; to wandering away on lonely walks; to stepping +often into a neighbor's to discuss the election or the typhoid in the +village; to forgetting that his wife's conversational capacities could +extend beyond Biddy and teething; to forgetting that she might ever +hunger for a twilight drive, a sunny sail, for the sparkle and +freshness, the dreaming, the petting, the caresses, all the silly little +lovers' habits of their early married days; to going his own ways, and +letting her go hers. + +Yet he loved her, and loved her only, and loved her well. That he never +doubted, nor, to my surprise, did she. I remember once, when on a visit +there, being fairly frightened out of the proprieties by hearing her +call him "Dr. Sharpe." I called her away from the children soon after, +on pretence of helping me unpack. I locked the door, pulled her down +upon a trunk tray beside me, folded both her hands in mine, and studied +her face; it had grown to be a very thin little face, less pretty than +it was in the shadow of the woodbine, with absent eyes and a sad mouth. +She knew that I loved her, and my heart was full for the child; and so, +for I could not help it, I said,--"Harrie, is all well between you? Is +he quite the same?" + +She looked at me with a perplexed and musing air. + +"The same? O yes, he is quite the same to me. He would always be the +same to me. Only there are the children, and we are so busy. He--why, he +loves me, you know,--" she turned her head from side to side wearily, +with the puzzled expression growing on her forehead,--"he loves me just +the same,--just the same. I am _his wife_; don't you see?" + +She drew herself up a little haughtily, said that she heard the baby +crying, and slipped away. + +But the perplexed knot upon her forehead did not slip away. I was rather +glad that it did not. I liked it better than the absent eyes. That +afternoon she left her baby with Biddy for a couple of hours, went away +by herself into the garden, sat down upon a stone and thought. + +Harrie took a great deal of comfort in her babies, quite as much as I +wished to have her. Women whose dream of marriage has faded a little +have a way of transferring their passionate devotion and content from +husband to child. It is like anchoring in a harbor,--a pleasant harbor, +and one in which it is good to be,--but never on shore and never at +home. Whatever a woman's children may be to her, her husband should be +always something beyond and more; forever crowned for her as first, +dearest, best, on a throne that neither son nor daughter can usurp. +Through mistake and misery the throne may be left vacant or voiceless: +but what man cometh after the King? + +So, when Harrie forgot the baby for a whole afternoon, and sat out on +her stone there in the garden thinking, I felt rather glad than sorry. + +It was when little Harrie was a baby, I believe, that Mrs. Sharpe took +that notion about having company. She was growing out of the world, she +said; turning into a fungus; petrifying; had forgotten whether you +called your seats at the Music Hall pews or settees, and was as afraid +of a well-dressed woman as she was of the croup. + +So the Doctor's house at Lime was for two or three months overrun with +visitors and vivacity. Fathers and mothers made fatherly and motherly +stays, with the hottest of air-tights put up for their benefit in the +front room; sisters and sisters-in-law brought the fashions and got up +tableaux; cousins came on the jump; Miss Jones, Pauline Dallas, and I +were invited in turn, and the children had the mumps at cheerful +intervals between. + +The Doctor was not much in the mood for entertaining Miss Dallas; he was +a little tired of company, and had had a hard week's work with an +epidemic down town. Harrie had not seen her since her wedding day, and +was pleased and excited at the prospect of the visit. Pauline had been +one of her eternal friendships at school. + +Miss Dallas came a day earlier than she was expected, and, as chance +would have it, Harrie was devoting the afternoon to cutting out shirts. +Any one who has sat from two till six at that engaging occupation, will +understand precisely how her back ached and her temples throbbed, and +her fingers stung, and her neck stiffened; why her eyes swam, her cheeks +burned, her brain was deadened, the children's voices were insufferable, +the slamming of a door an agony, the past a blot, the future +unendurable, life a burden, friendship a myth, her hair down, and her +collar unpinned. + +Miss Dallas had never cut a shirt, nor, I believe, had Dr. Sharpe. + +Harrie was groaning over the last wristband but one, when she heard her +husband's voice in the hall. + +"Harrie, Harrie, your friend is here. I found her, by a charming +accident, at the station, and drove her home." And Miss Dallas, gloved, +perfumed, rustling, in a very becoming veil and travelling-suit of the +latest mode, swept in upon her. + +Harrie was too much of a lady to waste any words on apology, so she ran +just as she was, in her calico dress, with the collar hanging, into +Pauline's stately arms, and held up her little burning cheeks to be +kissed. + +But her husband looked annoyed. + +He came down before tea in his best coat to entertain their guest. Biddy +was "taking an afternoon" that day, and Harrie bustled about with her +aching back to make tea and wash the children. She had no time to spend +upon herself, and, rather than keep a hungry traveller waiting, smoothed +her hair, knotted a ribbon at the collar, and came down in her calico +dress. + +Dr. Sharpe glanced at it in some surprise. He repeated the glances +several times in the course of the evening, as he sat chatting with his +wife's friend. Miss Dallas was very sprightly in conversation; had read +some, had thought some; and had the appearance of having read and +thought about twice as much as she had. + +Myron Sharpe had always considered his wife a handsome woman. That +nobody else thought her so had made no difference to him. He had often +looked into the saucy eyes of little Harrie Bird, and told her that she +was very pretty. As a matter of theory, he supposed her to be very +pretty, now that she was the mother of his three children, and breaking +her back to cut out his shirts. + +Miss Dallas was a generously framed, well-proportioned woman, who +carried long trains, and tied her hair with crimson velvet. She had +large, serene eyes, white hands, and a very pleasant smile. A delicate +perfume stirred as she stirred, and she wore a creamy lace about her +throat and wrists. + +Calicoes were never becoming to Harrie, and that one with the palm-leaf +did not fit her well,--she cut it herself, to save expense. As the +evening passed, in reaction from the weariness of shirt-cutting she grew +pale, and the sallow tints upon her face came out; her features +sharpened, as they had a way of doing when she was tired; and she had +little else to do that evening than think how tired she was, for her +husband observing, as he remarked afterwards, that she did not feel like +talking, kindly entertained her friend himself. + +As they went up stairs for the night, it struck him, for the first time +in his life, that Harrie had a snubbed nose. It annoyed him, because she +was his wife, and he loved her, and liked to feel that she was as well +looking as other women. + +"Your friend is a bright girl," he said, encouragingly, when Harrie had +hushed a couple of children, and sat wearily down to unbutton her boots. + +"I think you will find her more easy to entertain than Cousin +Mehitabel." + +Then, seeing that Harrie answered absently, and how exhausted she +looked, he expressed his sorrow that she should have worked so long over +the shirts, and kissed her as he spoke; while Harrie cried a little, and +felt as if she would cut them all over again for that. + +The next day Miss Dallas and Mrs. Sharpe sat sewing together; Harrie +cramping her shoulders and blackening her hands over a patch on Rocko's +rough little trousers; Pauline playing idly with purple and orange +wools,--her fingers were white, and she sank with grace into the warm +colors of the arm-chair; the door was opened into the hall, and Dr. +Sharpe passed by, glancing in as he passed. + +"Your husband is a very intelligent man, Harrie," observed Miss Dallas, +studying her lavenders and lemons thoughtfully. "I was much interested +in what he said about pre-Adamic man, last evening." + +"Yes," said Harrie, "he knows a great deal. I always thought so." The +little trousers slipped from her black fingers by and by, and her eyes +wandered out of the window absently. + +_She_ did not know anything about pre-Adamic man. + +In the afternoon they walked down the beach together,--the Doctor, his +wife, and their guest,--accompanied by as few children as circumstances +would admit of. Pauline was stately in a beach-dress of bright browns, +which shaded softly into one another; it was one of Miss Dallas's +peculiarities, that she never wore more than one color, or two, at the +same time. Harrie, as it chanced, wore over her purple dress (Rocko had +tipped over two ink-bottles and a vinegar-cruet on the sack which should +have matched it) a dull gray shawl; her bonnet was blue,--it had been a +present from Myron's sister, and she had no other way than to wear it. +Miss Dallas bounded with pretty feet from rock to rock. Rocko hung +heavily to his mother's fingers; she had no gloves, the child would have +spoiled them; her dress dragged in the sand,--she could not afford two +skirts, and one must be long,--and between Rocko and the wind she held +it up awkwardly. + +Dr. Sharpe seldom noticed a woman's dress; he could not have told now +whether his wife's shawl was sky-blue or pea-green; he knew nothing +about the ink-spots; he had never heard of the unfortunate blue bonnet, +or the mysteries of short and long skirts. He might have gone to walk +with her a dozen times and thought her very pretty and "proper" in her +appearance. Now, without the vaguest idea what was the trouble, he +understood that something was wrong. A woman would have said, Mrs. +Sharpe looks dowdy and old-fashioned; he only considered that Miss +Dallas had a pleasant air, like a soft brown picture with crimson lights +let in, and that it was an air which his wife lacked. So, when Rocko +dragged heavily and more heavily at his mother's skirts, and the Doctor +and Pauline wandered off to climb the cliffs, Harrie did not seek to +follow or to call them back. She sat down with Rocko on the beach, +wrapped herself with a savage hug in the ugly shawl, and wondered with a +bitterness with which only women can wonder over such trifles, why God +should send Pauline all the pretty beach-dresses and deny them to +her,--for Harrie, like many another "dowdy" woman whom you see upon the +street, my dear madam, was a woman of fine, keen tastes, and would have +appreciated the soft browns no less than yourself. It seemed to her the +very sting of poverty, just then, that one must wear purple dresses and +blue bonnets. + +At the tea-table the Doctor fell to reconstructing the country, and Miss +Dallas, who was quite a politician in Miss Dallas's way, observed that +the horizon looked brighter since Tennessee's admittance, and that she +hoped that the clouds, &c.,--and what _did_ he think of Brownlow? &c., +&c. + +"Tennessee!" exclaimed Harrie; "why, how long has Tennessee been in? I +didn't know anything about it." + +Miss Dallas smiled kindly. Dr. Sharpe bit his lip, and his face flushed. + +"Harrie, you really _ought_ to read the papers," he said, with some +impatience; "it's no wonder you don't know anything." + +"How should I know anything, tied to the children all day?" Harrie spoke +quickly, for the hot tears sprang. "Why didn't you tell me something +about Tennessee? You never talk politics with _me_." + +This began to be awkward; Miss Dallas, who never interfered--on +principle--between husband and wife, gracefully took up the baby, and +gracefully swung her dainty Geneva watch for the child's amusement, +smiling brilliantly. She could not endure babies, but you would never +have suspected it. + +In fact, when Pauline had been in the house four or five days, Harrie, +who never thought very much of herself, became so painfully alive to her +own deficiencies, that she fell into a permanent fit of low spirits, +which did not add either to her appearance or her vivacity. + +"Pauline is so pretty and bright!" she wrote to me. "I always knew I was +a little fool. You can be a fool before you're married, just as well as +not. Then, when you have three babies to look after, it is too late to +make yourself over. I try very hard now to read the newspapers, only +Myron does not know it." + +One morning something occurred to Mrs. Sharpe. It was simply that her +husband had spent every evening at home for a week. She was in the +nursery when the thought struck her, rocking slowly in her low +sewing-chair, holding the baby on one arm and trying to darn stockings +with the other. + +Pauline was--she did not really know where. Was not that her voice upon +the porch? The rocking-chair stopped sharply, and Harrie looked down +through the blinds. The Doctor's horse was tied at the gate. The Doctor +sat fanning himself with his hat in one of the garden chairs; Miss +Dallas occupied the other; she was chatting, and twisting her golden +wools about her fingers,--it was noticeable that she used only golden +wools that morning; her dress was pale blue, and the effect of the +purples would not have been good. + +"I thought your calls were going to take till dinner, Myron," called +Harrie, through the blinds. + +"I thought so too," said Myron, placidly, "but they do not seem to. +Won't you come down?" + +Harrie thanked him, saying, in a pleasant _nonchalant_ way, that she +could not leave the baby. It was almost the first bit of acting that the +child had ever been guilty of,--for the baby was just going to sleep, +and she knew it. + +She turned away from the window quietly. She could not have been angry, +and scolded; or noisy, and cried. She put little Harrie into her cradle, +crept upon the bed, and lay perfectly still for a long time. + +When the dinner-bell rang, and she got up to brush her hair, that +absent, apathetic look of which I have spoken had left her eyes. A +stealthy brightness came and went in them, which her husband might have +observed if he and Miss Dallas had not been deep in the Woman question. +Pauline saw it; Pauline saw everything. + +"Why did you not come down and sit with us this morning?" she asked, +reproachfully, when she and Harrie were alone after dinner. "I don't +want your husband to feel that he must run away from you to entertain +me." + +"My husband's ideas of hospitality are generous," said Mrs. Sharpe. "I +have always found him as ready to make it pleasant here for my company +as for his own." + +She made this little speech with dignity. Did both women know it for the +farce it was? To do Miss Dallas justice,--I am not sure. She was not a +bad-hearted woman. She was a handsome woman. She had come to Lime to +enjoy herself. Those September days and nights were fair there by the +dreamy sea. On the whole I am inclined to think that she did not know +exactly what she was about. + +"_My_ perfumery never lasts," said Harrie, once, stooping to pick up +Pauline's fine handkerchief, to which a faint scent like unseen +heliotrope clung; it clung to everything of Pauline's; you would never +see a heliotrope without thinking of her, as Dr. Sharpe had often said. +"Myron used to like good cologne, but I can't afford to buy it, so I +make it myself, and use it Sundays, and it's all blown away by the time +I get to church. Myron says he is glad of it, for it is more like Mrs. +Allen's Hair Restorer than anything else. What do you use, Pauline?" + +"Sachet powder of course," said Miss Dallas, smiling. + +That evening Harrie stole away by herself to the village apothecary's. +Myron should not know for what she went. If it were the breath of a +heliotrope, thought foolish Harrie, which made it so pleasant for people +to be near Pauline, that was a matter easily remedied. But sachet +powder, you should know, is a dollar an ounce, and Harrie must needs +content herself with "the American," which could be had for fifty cents; +and so, of course, after she had spent her money, and made her little +silk bags, and put them away into her bureau drawers, Myron never told +_her,_ for all her pains, that she reminded him of a heliotrope with the +dew on it. One day a pink silk bag fell out from under her dress, where +she had tucked it. + +"What's all this nonsense, Harrie?" said her husband, in a sharp tone. + +At another time, the Doctor and Pauline were driving upon the beach at +sunset, when, turning a sudden corner, Miss Dallas cried out, in real +delight,-- + +"See! That beautiful creature! Who can it be?" + +And there was Harrie, out on a rock in the opal surf,--a little scarlet +mermaid, combing her hair with her thin fingers, from which the water +almost washed the wedding ring. It was--who knew how long, since the +pretty bathing-suit had been taken down from the garret nails? What +sudden yearning for the wash of waves, and the spring of girlhood, and +the consciousness that one is fair to see, had overtaken her? She +watched through her hair and her fingers for the love in her husband's +eyes. + +But he waded out to her, ill-pleased. + +"Harrie, this is very imprudent,--very! I don't see what could have +possessed you!" + +Myron Sharpe loved his wife. Of course he did. He began, about this +time, to state the fact to himself several times a day. Had she not been +all the world to him when he wooed and won her in her rosy, ripening +days? Was she not all the world to him now that a bit of searness had +crept upon her, in a married life of eight hard-working years? + +That she _had_ grown a little sear, he felt somewhat keenly of late. She +had a dreary, draggled look at breakfast, after the children had cried +at night,--and the nights when Mrs. Sharpe's children did not cry were +like angels' visits. It was perhaps the more noticeable, because Miss +Dallas had a peculiar color and coolness and sparkle in the morning, +like that of opening flowers. _She_ had not been up till midnight with a +sick baby. + +Harrie was apt to be too busy in the kitchen to run and meet him when he +came home at dusk. Or, if she came, it was with her sleeves rolled up +and an apron on. Miss Dallas sat at the window; the lace curtain waved +about her; she nodded and smiled as he walked up the path. In the +evening Harrie talked of Rocko, or the price of butter; she did not +venture beyond, poor thing! since her experience with Tennessee. + +Miss Dallas quoted Browning, and discussed Goethe, and talked Parepa; +and they had no lights, and the September moon shone in. Sometimes Mrs. +Sharpe had mending to do, and, as she could not sew on her husband's +buttons satisfactorily by moonlight, would slip into the dining-room +with kerosene and mosquitoes for company. The Doctor may have noticed, +or he may not, how comfortably he could, if he made the proper effort, +pass the evening without her. + +But Myron Sharpe loved his wife. To be sure he did. If his wife doubted +it,--but why should she doubt it? Who thought she doubted it? If she +did, she gave no sign. Her eyes, he observed, had brightened, of late; +and when they went to her from the moonlit parlor, there was such a +pretty color upon her cheeks, that he used to stoop and kiss them, while +Miss Dallas discreetly occupied herself in killing mosquitoes. Of course +he loved his wife! + +It was observable that, in proportion to the frequency with which he +found it natural to remark his fondness for Harrie, his attentions to +her increased. He inquired tenderly after her headaches; he brought her +flowers, when he and Miss Dallas walked in the autumn woods; he was +particular about her shawls and wraps; he begged her to sail and drive +with them; he took pains to draw his chair beside hers on the porch; he +patted her hands, and played with her soft hair. + +Harrie's clear eyes puzzled over this for a day or two; but by and by +it might have been noticed that she refused his rides, shawled herself, +was apt to be with the children when he called her, and shrank, in a +quiet way, from his touch. + +She went into her room one afternoon, and locked the children out. An +east wind blew, and the rain fell drearily. The Doctor and Pauline were +playing chess down stairs; she should not be missed. She took out her +wedding-dress from the drawer where she had laid it tenderly away; the +hoar-frost and fretted pearl fell down upon her faded morning-dress; the +little creamy gloves hung loosely upon her worn fingers. Poor little +gloves! Poor little pearly dress! She felt a kind of pity for their +innocence and ignorance and trustfulness. Her hot tears fell and spotted +them. What if there were any way of creeping back through them to be +little Harrie Bird again? Would she take it? + +Her children's voices sounded crying for her in the hall. Three innocent +babies--and how many more?--to grow into life under the shadow of a +wrecked and loveless home! What had she done? What had they done? + +Harrie's was a strong, healthy little soul, with a strong, healthy love +of life; but she fell down there that dreary afternoon, prone upon the +nursery floor, among the yellow wedding lace, and prayed God to let her +die. + +Yet Myron Sharpe loved his wife, you understand. Discussing elective +affinities down there over the chessboard with Miss Dallas,--he loved +his wife, most certainly; and, pray, why was she not content? + +It was quite late when they came up for Harrie. She had fallen into a +sleep or faint, and the window had been open all the time. Her eyes +burned sharply, and she complained of a chill, which did not leave her +the next day nor the next. + +One morning, at the breakfast-table, Miss Dallas calmly observed that +she should go home on Friday. + +Dr. Sharpe dropped his cup; Harrie wiped up the tea. + +"My dear Miss Dallas--surely--we cannot let you go yet! Harrie! Can't +you keep your friend?" + +Harrie said the proper thing in a low tone. Pauline repeated her +determination with much decision, and was afraid that her visit had been +more of a burden than Harrie, with all her care, was able to bear. Dr. +Sharpe pushed back his chair noisily, and left the room. + +He went and stood by the parlor window. The man's face was white. What +business had the days to close down before him like a granite wall, +because a woman with long trains and white hands was going out of them? +Harrie's patient voice came in through the open door:-- + +"Yes, yes, yes, Rocko; mother is tired to-day; wait a minute." + +Pauline, sweeping by the piano, brushed the keys a little, and sang:-- + + "Drifting, drifting on and on, + Mast and oar and rudder gone, + Fatal danger for each one, + We helpless as in dreams." + +What had he been about? + +The air grew sweet with the sudden scent of heliotrope, and Miss Dallas +pushed aside the curtain gently. + +"I may have that sail across the bay before I go? It promises to be fair +to-morrow." + +He hesitated. + +"I suppose it will be our last," said the lady, softly. + +She was rather sorry when she had spoken, for she really did not mean +anything, and was surprised at the sound of her own voice. + +But they took the sail. + +Harrie watched them off--her husband did not invite her to go on that +occasion--with that stealthy sharpness in her eyes. Her lips and hands +and forehead were burning. She had been cold all day. A sound like the +tolling of a bell beat in her ears. The children's voices were choked +and distant. She wondered if Biddy were drunk, she seemed to dance about +so at her ironing-table, and wondered if she must dismiss her, and who +could supply her place. She tried to put my room in order, for she was +expecting me that night by the last train, but gave up the undertaking +in weariness and confusion. + +In fact, if Harrie had been one of the Doctor's patients, he would have +sent her to bed and prescribed for brain-fever. As she was not a +patient, but only his wife, he had not found out that anything ailed +her. + +Nothing happened while he was gone, except that a friend of Biddy's +"dropped in," and Mrs. Sharpe, burning and shivering in her +sewing-chair, dreamily caught through the open door, and dreamily +repeated to herself, a dozen words of compassionate Irish brogue:-- + +"Folks as laves folks cryin' to home and goes sailin' round with other +women--" + +Then the wind latched the door. + +The Doctor and Miss Dallas drew in their oars, and floated softly. + +There were gray and silver clouds overhead, and all the light upon the +sea slanted from low in the west: it was a red light, in which the bay +grew warm; it struck across Pauline's hands, which she dipped, as the +mood took her, into the waves, leaning upon the side of the boat, +looking down into the water. One other sail only was to be seen upon the +bay. They watched it for a while. It dropped into the west, and sunk +from sight. + +They were silent for a time, and then they talked of friendship, and +nature, and eternity, and then were silent for a time again, and then +spoke--in a very general and proper way--of separation and communion in +spirit, and broke off softly, and the boat rose and fell upon the strong +outgoing tide. + +"Drifting, drifting on and on," hummed Pauline. + +The west, paling a little, left a haggard look upon the Doctor's face. + +"An honest man," the Doctor was saying, "an honest man, who loves his +wife devotedly, but who cannot find in her that sympathy which his +higher nature requires, that comprehension of his intellectual needs, +that--" + +"I always feel a deep compassion for such a man," interrupted Miss +Dallas, gently. + +"Such a man," questioned the Doctor in a pensive tone, "need not be +debarred, by the shallow conventionalities of an unappreciative world, +from a friendship which will rest, strengthen, and ennoble his weary +soul?" + +"Certainly not," said Pauline, with her eyes upon the water; dull +yellow, green, and indigo shades were creeping now upon its ruddiness. + +"Pauline,"--Dr. Sharpe's voice was low,--"Pauline!" + +Pauline turned her beautiful head. "There are marriages for this world; +true and honorable marriages, but for this world. But there is a +marriage for eternity,--a marriage of souls." + +Now Myron Sharpe is not a fool, but that is precisely what he said to +Miss Pauline Dallas, out in the boat on that September night. If wiser +men than Myron Sharpe never uttered more unpardonable nonsense under +similar circumstances, cast your stones at him. + +"Perhaps so," said Miss Dallas, with a sigh; "but see! How dark it has +grown while we have been talking. We shall be caught in a squall; but I +shall not be at all afraid--with you." + +They were caught indeed, not only in a squall, but in the steady force +of a driving northeasterly storm setting in doggedly with a very ugly +fog. If Miss Dallas was not at all afraid--with him, she was +nevertheless not sorry when they grated safely on the dull white beach. + +They had had a hard pull in against the tide. Sky and sea were black. +The fog crawled like a ghost over flat and cliff and field. The rain +beat upon them as they turned to walk up the beach. + +Pauline stopped once suddenly. + +"What was that?" + +"I heard nothing." + +"A cry,--I fancied a cry down there in the fog." + +They went back, and walked down the slippery shore for a space. Miss +Dallas took off her hat to listen. + +"You will take cold," said Dr. Sharpe, anxiously. She put it on; she +heard nothing,--she was tired and excited, he said. + +They walked home together. Miss Dallas had sprained her white wrist, +trying to help at the oars; he drew it gently through his arm. + +It was quite dark when they reached the house. No lamps were lighted. +The parlor window had been left open, and the rain was beating in. "How +careless in Harrie!" said her husband, impatiently. + +He remembered those words, and the sound of his own voice in saying +them, for a long time to come; he remembers them now, indeed, I fancy, +on rainy nights when the house is dark. + +The hall was cold and dreary. No table was set for supper. The children +were all crying. Dr. Sharpe pushed open the kitchen door with a stern +face. + +"Biddy! Biddy! what does all this mean? Where is Mrs. Sharpe?" + +"The Lord only knows what it manes, or where is Mrs. Sharpe," said +Biddy, sullenly. "It's high time, in me own belafe, for her husband to +come ashkin' and inquirin' her close all in a hape on the floor +upstairs, with her bath-dress gone from the nails, and the front door +swingin',--me never findin' of it out till it cooms tay-time, with all +the children cryin' on me, and me head shplit with the noise, and--" + +Dr. Sharpe strode in a bewildered way to the front door. Oddly enough, +the first thing he did was to take down the thermometer and look at it. +Gone out to bathe in a temperature like that! His mind ran like +lightning, while he hung the thing back upon its nail, over Harrie's +ancestry. Was there not a traditionary great-uncle who died in an +asylum? The whole future of three children with an insane mother spread +itself out before him while he was buttoning his overcoat. + +"Shall I go and help you find her?" asked Miss Dallas, tremulously; "or +shall I stay and look after hot flannels and--things? What shall I do?" + +"_I_ don't care what you do!" said the Doctor, savagely. To his justice +be it recorded that he did not. He would not have exchanged one glimpse +of Harrie's little homely face just then for an eternity of +sunset-sailing with the "friend of his soul." A sudden cold loathing of +her possessed him; he hated the sound of her soft voice; he hated the +rustle of her garments, as she leaned against the door with her +handkerchief at her eyes. Did he remember at that moment an old vow, +spoken on an old October day, to that little missing face? Did he +comfort himself thus, as he stepped out into the storm, "You have +'trusted her,' Myron Sharpe, as 'your best earthly friend'"? + +As luck, or providence or God--whichever word you prefer--decreed it, +the Doctor had but just shut the door when he saw me driving from the +station through the rain. I heard enough of the story while he was +helping me down the carriage steps. I left my bonnet and bag with Miss +Dallas, pulled my water-proof over my head, and we turned our faces to +the sea without a word. + +The Doctor is a man who thinks and acts rapidly in emergencies, and +little time was lost about help and lights. Yet when all was done which +could be done, we stood there upon the slippery weed-strewn sand, and +looked in one another's faces helplessly. Harrie's little boat was gone. +The sea thundered out beyond the bar. The fog hung, a dead weight, upon +a buried world. Our lanterns cut it for a foot or two in a ghostly way, +throwing a pale white light back upon our faces and the weeds and bits +of wreck under our feet. + +The tide had turned. We put out into the surf not knowing what else to +do, and called for Harrie; we leaned on our oars to listen, and heard +the water drip into the boat, and the dull thunder beyond the bar; we +called again, and heard a frightened sea-gull scream. + +"_This_ yere's wastin' valooable time," said Hansom, decidedly. I +forgot to say that it was George Hansom whom Myron had picked up to help +us. Anybody in Lime will tell you who George Hansom is,--a clear-eyed, +open-hearted sailor; a man to whom you would turn in trouble as +instinctively as a rheumatic man turns to the sun. + +I cannot accurately tell you what he did with us that night. I have +confused memories of searching shore and cliffs and caves; of touching +at little islands and inlets that Harrie fancied; of the peculiar echo +which answered our shouting; of the look that settled little by little +about Dr. Sharpe's mouth; of the sobbing of the low wind; of the flare +of lanterns on gaping, green waves; of spots of foam that writhed like +nests of white snakes; of noticing the puddles in the bottom of the +boat, and of wondering confusedly what they would do with my +travelling-dress, at the very moment when I saw--I was the first to see +it--little empty boat; of our hauling alongside of the tossing, silent +thing; of a bit of a red scarf that lay coiled in its stern; of our +drifting by, and speaking never a word; of our coasting along after that +for a mile down the bay, because there was nothing in the world to take +us there but the dread of seeing the Doctor's eyes when we should turn. + +It was there that we heard the first cry. + +"It's shoreward!" said Hansom. + +"It is seaward!" cried the Doctor. + +"It is behind us!" said I. + +Where was it? A sharp, sobbing cry, striking the mist three or four +times in rapid succession,--hushing suddenly,--breaking into shrieks +like a frightened child's,--dying plaintively down. + +We struggled desperately after it, through the fog. Wind and water took +the sound up and tossed it about. Confused and bewildered, we beat about +it and about it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our +left,--crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us no replies,--beckoning +us, slipping from us, mocking us utterly. + +The Doctor stretched his hands out upon the solid wall of mist; he +groped with them like a man struck blind. + +"To die there,--in my very hearing,--without a chance--" + +And while the words were upon his lips the cries ceased. + +He turned a gray face slowly around, shivered a little, then smiled a +little, then began to argue with ghastly cheerfulness:-- + +"It must be only for a moment, you know. We shall hear it again,--I am +quite sure we shall it again, Hansom!" + +Hansom, making a false stroke, I believe for the first time in his life, +snapped an oar and overturned a lantern. Some drift-wood, covered with +slimy weeds, washed heavily up at our feet. I remember that a little +disabled ground-sparrow, chased by the tide, was fluttering and drowning +just in sight, and that Myron drew it out of the water, and held it up +for a moment to his cheek. + +Bending over the ropes, George spoke between his teeth to me:-- + +"It may be a night's job on 't, findin' of the body." + +"The WHAT?" + +The poor little sparrow dropped from Dr. Sharpe's hand. He took a step +backward, scanned our faces, sat down dizzily, and fell over upon the +sand. + +He is a man of good nerves and great self-possession, but he fell like +a woman, and lay like the dead. + +"It's no place for him," Hansom said, softly. "Get him home. Me and the +neighbors can do the rest. Get him home, and put his baby into his arms, +and shet the door, and go about your business." + +I had left him in the dark on the office floor at last. Miss Dallas and +I sat in the cold parlor and looked at each other. + +The fire was low and the lamp dull. The rain beat in an uncanny way upon +the windows. I never like to hear the rain upon the windows. I liked it +less than usual that night, and was just trying to brighten the fire a +little, when the front door blew open. + +"Shut it, please," said I, between the jerks of my poker. + +But Miss Dallas looked over her shoulder and shivered. + +"Just look at that latch!" I looked at that latch. + +It rose and fell in a feeble fluttering way,--was still for a +minute,--rose and fell again. + +When the door swung in and Harrie--or the ghost of her--staggered into +the chilly room and fell down in a scarlet heap at my feet, Pauline +bounded against the wall with a scream which pierced into the dark +office where the Doctor lay with his face upon the floor. + +It was long before we knew how it happened. Indeed, I suppose we have +never known it all. How she glided down, a little red wraith, through +the dusk and damp to her boat; how she tossed about, with some dim, +delirious idea of finding Myron on the ebbing waves; that she found +herself stranded and tangled at last in the long, matted grass of that +muddy cove, started to wade home, and sunk in the ugly ooze, held, +chilled, and scratched by the sharp grass, blinded and frightened by the +fog, and calling, as she thought of it, for help; that in the first +shallow wash of the flowing tide she must have struggled free, and found +her way home across the fields,--she can tell us, but she can tell no +more. + +This very morning on which I write, an unknown man, imprisoned in the +same spot in the same way overnight, was found by George Hansom dead +there from exposure in the salt grass. + +It was the walk home, and only that, which could have saved her. + +Yet for many weeks we fought, her husband and I, hand to hand with +death, seeming to _see_ the life slip out of her, and watching for +wandering minutes when she might look upon us with sane eyes. + +We kept her--just. A mere little wreck, with drawn lips, and great eyes, +and shattered nerves,--but we kept her. + +I remember one night, when she had fallen into her first healthful nap, +that the Doctor came down to rest a few minutes in the parlor where I +sat alone. Pauline was washing the tea-things. + +He began to pace the room with a weary abstracted look,--he was much +worn by watching,--and, seeing that he was in no mood for words, I took +up a book which lay upon the table. It chanced to be one of Alger's, +which somebody had lent to the Doctor before Harrie's illness; it was a +marked book, and I ran my eye over the pencilled passages. I recollect +having been struck with this one: "A man's best friend is a wife of good +sense and good heart, whom he loves and who loves him." + +"You believe that?" said Myron, suddenly, behind my shoulder. + +"I believe that a man's wife ought to be his best friend,--in every +sense of the word, his _best friend,_--or she ought never to be his +wife." + +"And if--there will be differences of temperament, and--other things. If +you were a man now, for instance, Miss Hannah--" + +I interrupted him with hot cheeks and sudden courage. + +"If I were a man, and my wife were _not_ the best friend I had or could +have in the world, _nobody should ever know it,--she, least of +all,--Myron Sharpe!_" + +Young people will bear a great deal of impertinence from an old lady, +but we had both gone further than we meant to. I closed Mr. Alger with a +snap, and went up to Harrie. + +The day that Mrs. Sharpe sat up in the easy-chair for two hours, Miss +Dallas, who had felt called upon to stay and nurse her dear Harrie to +recovery, and had really been of service, detailed on duty among the +babies, went home. + +Dr. Sharpe drove her to the station. I accompanied them at his request. +Miss Dallas intended, I think, to look a little pensive, but had her +lunch to cram into a very full travelling-bag, and forgot it. The +Doctor, with clear, courteous eyes, shook hands, and wished her a +pleasant journey. + +He drove home in silence, and went directly to his wife's room. A bright +blaze flickered on the old-fashioned fireplace, and the walls bowed with +pretty dancing shadows. Harrie, all alone, turned her face weakly and +smiled. + +Well, they made no fuss about it, after all. Her husband came and stood +beside her; a cricket on which one of the baby's dresses had been +thrown, lay between them; it seemed, for the moment, as if he dared not +cross the tiny barrier. Something of that old fancy about the lights +upon the altar may have crossed his thought. + +"So Miss Dallas has fairly gone, Harrie," said he, pleasantly, after a +pause. + +"Yes. She has been very kind to the children while I have been sick." + +"Very." + +"You must miss her," said poor Harrie, trembling; she was very weak yet. + +The Doctor knocked away the cricket, folded his wife's two shadowy +hands into his own, and said:-- + +"Harrie we have no strength to waste, either of us, upon a scene; but I +am sorry, and I love you." + +She broke all down at that, and, dear me! they almost had a scene in +spite of themselves. For O, she had always known what a little goose she +was; and Pauline never meant any harm, and how handsome she was, you +know! only _she_ didn't have three babies to look after, nor a snubbed +nose either, and the sachet powder was only American, and the very +servants knew, and, O Myron! she _had_ wanted to be dead so long, and +then-- + +"Harrie!" said the Doctor, at his wit's end, "this will never do in the +world. I believe--I declare!--Miss Hannah!--I believe I must send you to +bed." + +"And then I'm SUCH a little skeleton!" finished Harrie, royally, with a +great gulp. + +Dr. Sharpe gathered the little skeleton all into a heap in his arms,--it +was a very funny heap, by the way, but that doesn't matter,--and to the +best of my knowledge and belief he cried just about as hard as she did. + + + + +The Tenth of January. + + + +The city of Lawrence is unique in its way. + +For simooms that scorch you and tempests that freeze; for sand-heaps +and sand-hillocks and sand-roads; for men digging sand, for women +shaking off sand, for minute boys crawling in sand; for sand in the +church-slips and the gingerbread-windows, for sand in your eyes, your +nose, your mouth, down your neck? up your sleeves, under your _chignon_, +down your throat; for unexpected corners where tornadoes lie in wait; +for "bleak, uncomforted" sidewalks, where they chase you, dog you, +confront you, strangle you, twist you, blind you, turn your umbrella +wrong side out; for "dimmykhrats" and bad ice-cream; for unutterable +circus-bills and religious tea-parties; for uncleared ruins, and mills +that spring up in a night; for jaded faces and busy feet; for an air of +youth and incompleteness at which you laugh, and a consciousness of +growth and greatness which you respect,--it-- + +I believe, when I commenced that sentence, I intended to say that it +would be difficult to find Lawrence's equal. + +Of the twenty-five thousand souls who inhabit that city, ten thousand +are operatives in the factories. Of these ten thousand two thirds are +girls. + +These pages are written as one sets a bit of marble to mark a mound. I +linger over them as we linger beside the grave of one who sleeps well; +half sadly, half gladly,--more gladly than sadly,--but hushed. + +The time to see Lawrence is when the mills open or close. So languidly +the dull-colored, inexpectant crowd wind in! So briskly they come +bounding out! Factory faces have a look of their own,--not only their +common dinginess, and a general air of being in a hurry to find the +wash-bowl, but an appearance of restlessness,--often of envious +restlessness, not habitual in most departments of "healthy labor." Watch +them closely: you can read their histories at a venture. A widow this, +in the dusty black, with she can scarcely remember how many mouths to +feed at home. Worse than widowed that one: she has put her baby out to +board,--and humane people know what that means,--to keep the little +thing beyond its besotted father's reach. There is a group who have +"just come over." A child's face here, old before its time. That +girl--she climbs five flights of stairs twice a day--will climb no more +stairs for herself or another by the time the clover-leaves are green. +"The best thing about one's grave is that it will be level," she was +heard once to say. Somebody muses a little here,--she is to be married +this winter. There is a face just behind her whose fixed eyes repel and +attract you; there may be more love than guilt in them, more despair +than either. + +Had you stood in some unobserved corner of Essex Street, at four o'clock +one Saturday afternoon towards the last of November, 1859, watching the +impatient stream pour out of the Pemberton Mill, eager with a saddening +eagerness for its few holiday hours, you would have observed one girl +who did not bound. + +She was slightly built, and undersized; her neck and shoulders were +closely muffled, though the day was mild; she wore a faded scarlet hood +which heightened the pallor of what must at best have been a pallid +face. It was a sickly face, shaded off with purple shadows, but with a +certain wiry nervous strength about the muscles of the mouth and chin: +it would have been a womanly, pleasant mouth, had it not been crossed by +a white scar, which attracted more of one's attention than either the +womanliness or pleasantness. Her eyes had light long lashes, and shone +through them steadily. + +You would have noticed as well, had you been used to analyzing crowds, +another face,--the two were side by side,--dimpled with pink and white +flushes, and framed with bright black hair. One would laugh at this girl +and love her, scold her and pity her, caress her and pray for her,--then +forget her perhaps. + +The girls from behind called after her: "Del! Del Ivory! look over +there!" + +Pretty Del turned her head. She had just flung a smile at a young clerk +who was petting his mustache in a shop-window, and the smile lingered. + +One of the factory boys was walking alone across the Common in his +factory clothes. + +"Why, there's Dick! Sene, do you see?" + +Sene's scarred mouth moved slightly, but she made no reply. She had seen +him five minutes ago. + +One never knows exactly whether to laugh or cry over them, catching +their chatter as they file past the show-windows of the long, showy +street. + +"Look a' that pink silk with the figures on it!" + +"I've seen them as is betther nor that in the ould counthree.--Patsy +Malorrn, let alon' hangin' onto the shawl of me!" + +"That's Mary Foster getting out of that carriage with the two white +horses,--she that lives in the brown house with the cupilo." + +"Look at her dress trailin' after her. I'd like my dresses trailin' +after me." + +"Well, may they be good,--these rich folks!" + +"That's so. I'd be good if I was rich; wouldn't you, Moll?" + +"You'd keep growing wilder than ever, if you went to hell, Meg Match: +yes you would, because my teacher said so." + +"So, then, he wouldn't marry her, after all; and she--" + +"Going to the circus to-night, Bess?" + +"I can't help crying, Jenny. You don't _know_ how my head aches! It +aches, and it aches, and it seems as if it would never stop aching. I +wish--I wish I was dead, Jenny!" + +They separated at last, going each her own way,--pretty Del Ivory to +her boarding-place by the canal, her companion walking home alone. + +This girl, Asenath Martyn, when left to herself, fell into a contented +dream not common to girls who have reached her age,--especially girls +who have seen the phases of life which she had seen. Yet few of the +faces in the streets that led her home were more gravely lined. She +puzzled one at the first glance, and at the second. An artist, meeting +her musing on a canal-bridge one day, went home and painted a May-flower +budding in February. + +It was a damp, unwholesome place, the street in which she lived, cut +short by a broken fence, a sudden steep, and the water; filled with +children,--they ran from the gutters after her, as she passed,--and +filled to the brim; it tipped now and then, like an over-full +soup-plate, and spilled out two or three through the break in the fence. + +Down in the corner, sharp upon the water, the east-winds broke about a +little yellow house, where no children played; an old man's face watched +at a window, and a nasturtium-vine crawled in the garden. The broken +panes of glass about the place were well mended, and a clever little +gate, extemporized from a wild grape-vine, swung at the entrance. It +was not an old man's work. + +Asenath went in with expectant eyes; they took in the room at a glance, +and fell. + +"Dick hasn't come, father?" + +"Come and gone child; didn't want any supper, he said. Your 're an hour +before time, Senath." + +"Yes. Didn't want any supper, you say? I don't see why not." + +"No more do I, but it's none of our concern as I knows on; very like the +pickles hurt him for dinner; Dick never had an o'er-strong stomach, as +you might say. But you don't tell me how it m' happen you're let out at +four o'clock, Senath," half complaining. + +"O, something broke in the machinery, father; you know you wouldn't +understand if I told you what." + +He looked up from his bench,--he cobbled shoes there in the corner on +his strongest days,--and after her as she turned quickly away and up +stairs to change her dress. She was never exactly cross with her father; +but her words rang impatiently sometimes. + +She came down presently, transformed, as only factory-girls are +transformed, by the simple little toilet she had been making; her thin, +soft hair knotted smoothly, the tips of her fingers rosy from the water, +her pale neck well toned by her gray stuff dress and cape;--Asenath +always wore a cape: there was one of crimson flannel, with a hood, that +she had meant to wear to-night; she had thought about it coming home +from the mill; she was apt to wear it on Saturdays and Sundays; Dick had +more time at home. Going up stairs to-night, she had thrown it away into +a drawer, and shut the drawer with a snap; then opened it softly, and +cried a little; but she had not taken it out. + +As she moved silently about the room, setting the supper-table for two, +crossing and recrossing the broad belt of sunlight that fell upon the +floor, it was easy to read the sad story of the little hooded capes. + +They might have been graceful shoulders. The hand which had scarred her +face had rounded and bent them,--her own mother's hand. + +Of a bottle always on the shelf; of brutal scowls where smiles should +be; of days when she wandered dinnerless and supperless in the streets +through loathing of her home; of nights when she sat out in the +snow-drifts through terror of her home; of a broken jug one day, a blow, +a fall, then numbness, and the silence of the grave,--she had her +distant memories; of waking on a sunny afternoon, in bed, with a little +cracked glass upon the opposite wall; of creeping out and up to it in +her night-dress; of the ghastly twisted thing that looked back at her. +Through the open window she heard the children laughing and leaping in +the sweet summer air. She crawled into bed and shut her eyes. She +remembered stealing out at last, after many days, to the grocery round +the corner for a pound of coffee. "Humpback! humpback!" cried the +children,--the very children who could leap and laugh. + +One day she and little Del Ivory made mud-houses after school. + +"I'm going to have a house of my own, when I'm grown up," said pretty +Del; "I shall have a red carpet and some curtains; my husband will buy +me a piano." + +"So will mine, I guess," said Sene, simply. + +"_Yours!"_ Del shook back her curls; "who do you suppose would ever +marry _you_?" + +One night there was a knocking at the door, and a hideous, sodden thing +borne in upon a plank. The crowded street, tired of tipping out little +children, had tipped her mother staggering through the broken fence. At +the funeral she heard some one say, "How glad Sene must be!" + +Since that, life had meant three things,--her father, the mills, and +Richard Cross. + +"You're a bit put out that the young fellow didn't stay to supper,--eh, +Senath?" the old man said, laying down his boot. + +"Put out! Why should I be? His time is his own. It's likely to be the +Union that took him out,--such a fine day for the Union! I'm sure I +never expected him to go to walk with me _every_ Saturday afternoon. I'm +not a fool to tie him up to the notions of a crippled girl. Supper is +ready, father." + +But her voice rasped bitterly. Life's pleasures were so new and late +and important to her, poor thing! It went hard to miss the least of +them. Very happy people will not understand exactly how hard. + +Old Martyn took off his leather apron with a troubled face, and, as he +passed his daughter, gently laid his tremulous, stained hand upon her +head. He felt her least uneasiness, it would seem, as a chameleon feels +a cloud upon the sun. + +She turned her face softly and kissed him. But she did not smile. + +She had planned a little for this holiday supper; saving three +mellow-cheeked Louise Bonnes--expensive pears just then--to add to their +bread and molasses. She brought them out from the closet, and watched +her father eat them. + +"Going out again Senath?" he asked, seeing that she went for her hat and +shawl, u and not a mouthful have you eaten! Find your old father dull +company hey? Well, well!" + +She said something about needing the air; the mill was hot; she should +soon be back; she spoke tenderly and she spoke truly, but she went out +into the windy sunset with her little trouble, and forgot him. The old +man, left alone, sat for a while with his head sunk upon his breast. She +was all he had in the world,--this one little crippled girl that the +world had dealt hardly with. She loved him; but he was not, probably +would never be, to her exactly what she was to him. Usually he forgot +this. Sometimes he quite understood it, as to-night. + +Asenath, with the purpose only of avoiding Dick, and of finding a still +spot where she might think her thoughts undisturbed, wandered away over +the eastern bridge, and down to the river's brink. It was a moody place; +such a one as only apathetic or healthy natures (I wonder if that is +tautology!) can healthfully yield to. The bank sloped steeply; a fringe +of stunted aspens and willows sprang from the frozen sand: it was a +sickening, airless place in summer,--it was damp and desolate now. There +was a sluggish wash of water under foot, and a stretch of dreary flats +behind. Belated locomotives shrieked to each other across the river, and +the wind bore down the current the roar and rage of the dam. Shadows +were beginning to skulk under the huge brown bridge. The silent mills +stared up and down and over the streams with a blank, unvarying stare. +An oriflamme of scarlet burned in the west, flickered dully in the +dirty, curdling water, flared against the windows of the Pemberton, +which quivered and dripped, Asenath thought, as if with blood. + +She sat down on a gray stone, wrapped in her gray shawl, curtained about +by the aspens from the eye of passers on the bridge. She had a fancy for +this place when things went ill with her. She had always borne her +troubles alone, but she must be alone to bear them. + +She knew very well that she was tired and nervous that afternoon, and +that, if she could reason quietly about this little neglect of Dick's, +it would cease to annoy her. Indeed, why should she be annoyed? Had he +not done everything for her, been everything to her, for two long, sweet +years? She dropped her head with a shy smile. She was never tired of +living over these two years. She took positive pleasure in recalling the +wretchedness in which they found her, for the sake of their dear relief. +Many a time, sitting with her happy face hidden in his arms, she had +laughed softly, to remember the day on which he came to her. It was at +twilight, and she was tired. Her reels had troubled her all the +afternoon; the overseer was cross; the day was hot and long. Somebody on +the way home had said in passing her: "Look at that girl! I'd kill +myself if I looked like that": it was in a whisper, but she heard it. +All life looked hot and long; the reels would always be out of order; +the overseer would never be kind. Her temples would always throb, and +her back would ache. People would always say, "Look at that girl!" + +"Can you direct me to--". She looked up; she had been sitting on the +doorstep with her face in her hands. Dick stood there with his cap off. +He forgot that he was to inquire the way to Newbury Street, when he saw +the tears on her shrunken cheeks. Dick could never bear to see a woman +suffer. + +"I wouldn't cry," he said simply, sitting down beside her. Telling a +girl not to cry is an infallible recipe for keeping her at it. What +could the child do, but sob as if her heart would break? Of course he +had the whole story in ten minutes, she his in another ten. It was +common and short enough:--a "Down-East" boy, fresh from his father's +farm, hunting for work and board,--a bit homesick here in the strange, +unhomelike city, it might be, and glad of some one to say so to. + +What more natural than that, when her father came out and was pleased +with the lad, there should be no more talk of Newbury Street; that the +little yellow house should become his home; that he should swing the +fantastic gate, and plant the nasturtiums; that his life should grow to +be one with hers and the old man's, his future and theirs unite +unconsciously? + +She remembered--it was not exactly pleasant, somehow, to remember it +to-night--just the look of his face when they came into the house that +summer evening, and he for the first time saw what she was, her cape +having fallen off, in the full lamplight. His kindly blue eyes widened +with shocked surprise, and fell; when he raised them, a pity like a +mother's had crept into them; it broadened and brightened as time slid +by, but it never left them. + +So you see, after that, life unfolded in a burst of little surprises for +Asenath. If she came home very tired, some one said, "I am sorry." If +she wore a pink ribbon, she heard a whisper, "It suits you." If she +sang a little song, she knew that somebody listened. + +"I did not know the world was like this!" cried the girl. + +After a time there came a night that he chanced to be out late,--they +had planned an arithmetic lesson together, which he had forgotten,--and +she sat grieving by the kitchen fire. + +"You missed me so much then?" he said regretfully, standing with his +hand upon her chair. She was trying to shell some corn; she dropped the +pan, and the yellow kernels rolled away on the floor. + +"What should I have if I didn't have you?" she said, and caught her +breath. + +The young man paced to the window and back again. The firelight touched +her shoulders, and the sad, white scar. + +"You shall have me always, Asenath," he made answer. He took her face +within his hands and kissed it; and so they shelled the corn together, +and nothing more was said about it. + +He had spoken this last spring of their marriage; but the girl, like all +girls, was shyly silent, and he had not urged it. + +Asenath started from her pleasant dreaming just as the oriflamme was +furling into gray, suddenly conscious that she was not alone. Below her, +quite on the brink of the water, a girl was sitting,--a girl with a +bright plaid shawl, and a nodding red feather in her hat. Her head was +bent, and her hair fell against a profile cut in pink-and-white. + +"Del is too pretty to be here alone so late," thought Asenath, smiling +tenderly. Good-natured Del was kind to her in a certain way, and she +rather loved the girl. She rose to speak to her, but concluded, on a +second glance through the aspens, that Miss Ivory was quite able to take +care of herself. + +Del was sitting on an old log that jutted into the stream, dabbling in +the water with the tips of her feet. (Had she lived on The Avenue she +could not have been more particular about her shoemaker.) Some one--it +was too dark to see distinctly--stood beside her, his eyes upon her +face. Asenath could hear nothing, but she needed to hear nothing to know +how the young fellow's eyes drank in the coquettish picture. Besides, it +was an old story. Del counted her rejected lovers by the score. + +"It's no wonder," she thought in her honest way, standing still to watch +them with a sense of puzzled pleasure much like that with which she +watched the print-windows,--"it's no wonder they love her. I'd love her +if I was a man: so pretty! so pretty! She's just good for nothing, Del +is;--would let the kitchen fire go out, and wouldn't mend the baby's +aprons; but I'd love her all the same; marry her, probably, and be sorry +all my life." + +Pretty Del! Poor Del! Asenath wondered whether she wished that she were +like her; she could not quite make out; it would be pleasant to sit on +a log and look like that; it would be more pleasant to be watched as Del +was watched just now; it struck her suddenly that Dick had never looked +like this at her. + +The hum of their voices ceased while she stood there with her eyes upon +them; Del turned her head away with a sudden movement, and the young man +left her, apparently without bow or farewell, sprang up the bank at a +bound, and crushed the undergrowth with quick, uneasy strides. + +Asenath, with some vague idea that it would not be honorable to see his +face,--poor fellow!--shrank back into the aspens and the shadow. + +He towered tall in the twilight as he passed her, and a dull, umber +gleam, the last of the sunset, struck him from the west. + +Struck it out into her sight,--the haggard struggling face,--Richard +Cross's face. + +Of course you knew it from the beginning, but remember that the girl did +not. She might have known it, perhaps, but she had not. + +Asenath stood up, sat down again. + +She had a distinct consciousness, for the moment, of seeing herself +crouched down there under the aspens and the shadow, a humpbacked white +creature, with distorted face and wide eyes. She remembered a picture +she had somewhere seen of a little chattering goblin in a graveyard, and +was struck with the resemblance. Distinctly, too, she heard herself +saying, with a laugh, she thought, "I might have known it; I might have +known." + +Then the blood came through her heart with a hot rush, and she saw Del +on the log, smoothing the red feather of her hat. She heard a man's +step, too, that rang over the bridge, passed the toll-house, grew faint, +grew fainter, died in the sand by the Everett Mill. + +Richard's face! Richard's face, looking--God help her!--as it had never +looked at her; struggling--God pity him!--as it had never struggled for +her. + +She shut her hands, into each other, and sat still a little while. A +faint hope came to her then perhaps, after all; her face lightened +grayly, and she crept down the bank to Del. + +"I won't be a fool," she said, "I'll make sure,--I'll make as sure as +death." + +"Well, where did _you_ drop down from, Sene?" said Del, with a guilty +start. + +"From over the bridge, to be sure. Did you think I swam, or flew, or +blew?" + +"You came on me so sudden!" said Del, petulantly; "you nearly frightened +the wits out of me. You didn't meet anybody on the bridge?" with a quick +look. + +"Let me see." Asenath considered gravely. "There was one small boy +making faces, and two--no, three--dogs, I believe; that was all." + +"Oh!" + +Del looked relieved, but fell silent. + +"You're sober, Del. Been sending off a lover, as usual?" + +"I don't know anything about its being usual," answered Del, in an +aggrieved, coquettish way, "but there's been somebody here that liked me +well enough." + +"You like him, maybe? It's time you liked somebody, Del." + +Del curled the red feather about her fingers, and put her hat on over +her eyes, then a little cry broke from her, half sob, half anger. + +"I might, perhaps,--I don't know. He's good. I think he'd let me have a +parlor and a door-bell. But he's going to marry somebody else, you see. +I sha'n't tell you his name, so you needn't ask." + +Asenath looked out straight upon the water. A dead leaf that had been +caught in an eddy attracted her attention; it tossed about for a minute, +then a tiny whirlpool sucked it down. + +"I wasn't going to ask; it's nothing to me, of course. He doesn't care +for her then,--this other girl?" + +"Not so much as he does for me. He didn't mean to tell me, but he said +that I--that I looked so--pretty, it came right out. But there! I +mustn't tell you any more." + +Del began to be frightened; she looked up sideways at Asenath's quiet +face. "I won't say another word," and so chattered on, growing a little +cross; Asenath need not look so still, and sure of herself,--a mere +humpbacked fright! + +"He'll never break his engagement, not even for me; he's sorry for her, +and all that. I think it's too bad. He's handsome. He makes me feel like +saying my prayers, too, he's so good! Besides, I want to be married. I +hate the mill. I hate to work. I'd rather be taken care of,--a sight +rather. I feel bad enough about it to cry." + +Two tears rolled over her cheeks, and fell on the soft plaid shawl. Del +wiped them away carefully with her rounded fingers. + +Asenath turned and looked at this Del Ivory long and steadily through +the dusk. The pretty, shallow thing! The worthless, bewildering thing! + +A fierce contempt for her pink-and-white, and tears and eyelashes and +attitudes, came upon her; then a sudden sickening jealousy that turned +her faint where she sat. + +What did God mean,--Asenath believed in God, having so little else to +believe in,--what did he mean, when he had blessed the girl all her +happy life with such wealth of beauty, by filling her careless hands +with this one best, last gift? Why, the child could not hold such golden +love! She would throw it away by and by. What a waste it was! + +Not that she had these words for her thought, but she had the thought +distinctly through her dizzy pain. + +"So there's nothing to do about it," said Del, pinning her shawl. "We +can't have anything to say to each other,--unless anybody should die, or +anything; and of course I'm not wicked enough to think of _that._--Sene! +Sene! what are you doing?" + +Sene had risen slowly, stood upon the log, caught at an aspen-top, and +swung out with it its whole length above the water. The slight tree +writhed and quivered about the roots. Sene looked down and moved her +marred lips without sound. + +Del screamed and wrung her hands. It was an ugly sight! + +"O don't, Sene, _don't!_ You'll drown yourself! you will be drowned! you +will be--O, what a start you gave me! What _were_ you doing, Senath +Martyn?" + +Sene swung slowly back, and sat down. + +"Amusing myself a little;--well, unless somebody died, you said? But I +believe I won't talk any more to-night. My head aches. Go home, Del." + +Del muttered a weak protest at leaving her there alone; but, with her +bright face clouded and uncomfortable, went. + +Asenath turned her head to listen for the last rustle of her dress, then +folded her arms, and, with her eyes upon the sluggish current, sat +still. + +An hour and a half later, an Andover farmer, driving home across the +bridge, observed on the river's edge--a shadow cut within a shadow--the +outline of a woman's figure, sitting perfectly still with folded arms. +He reined up and looked down; but it sat quite still. + +"Hallo there!" he called; "you'll fall in if you don't look out!" for +the wind was strong, and it blew against the figure; but it did not move +nor make reply. The Andover farmer looked over his shoulder with the +sudden recollection of a ghost-story which he had charged his +grandchildren not to believe last week, cracked his whip, and rumbled +on. + +Asenath began to understand by and by that she was cold, so climbed the +bank, made her way over the windy flats, the railroad, and the western +bridge confusedly with an idea of going home. She turned aside by the +toll-gate. The keeper came out to see what she was doing, but she kept +out of his sight behind the great willow and his little blue house,--the +blue house with the green blinds and red moulding. The dam thundered +that night, the wind and the water being high. She made her way up above +it, and looked in. She had never seen it so black and smooth there. As +she listened to the roar, she remembered something that she had +read--was it in the Bible or the Ledger?--about seven thunders uttering +their voices. + +"He's sorry for her, and all that," they said. + +A dead bough shot down the current while she stood there, went over and +down, and out of sight, throwing up its little branches like helpless +hands. + +It fell in with a thought of Asenath's, perhaps; at any rate she did +not like the looks of it, and went home. + +Over the bridge, and the canal, and the lighted streets, the falls +called after her: "He's sorry for her, and all that." The curtain was +drawn aside when she came home, and she saw her father through the +window, sitting alone, with his gray head bent. + +It occurred to her that she had often left him alone,--poor old father! +It occurred to her, also, that she understood now what it was to be +alone. Had she forgotten him in these two comforted, companioned years? + +She came in weakly, and looked about. + +"Dick's in, and gone to bed," said the old man, answering her look. +"You're tired, Senath." + +"I am tired, father." + +She sunk upon the floor,--the heat of the room made her a little +faint,--and laid her head upon his knee; oddly enough, she noticed that +the patch on it had given way,--wondered how many days it had been +so,--whether he had felt ragged and neglected while she was busy about +that blue neck-tie for Dick. She put her hand up and smoothed the +corners of the rent. + +"You shall be mended up to-morrow, poor father!" + +He smiled, pleased like a child to be remembered. She looked up at +him,--at his gray hair and shrivelled face, at his blackened hands and +bent shoulders, and dusty, ill-kept coat. What would it be like, if the +days brought her nothing but him? + +"Something's the matter with my little gal? Tell father, can't ye?" + +Her face flushed hot, as if she had done him wrong. She crept up into +his arms, and put her hands behind his rough old neck. + +"Would you kiss me, father? You don't think I'm too ugly to kiss, +maybe,--you?" + +She felt better after that. She had not gone to sleep now for many a +night unkissed; it had seemed hard at first. + +When she had gone half-way up stairs, Dick came to the door of his room +on the first floor, and called her. He held the little kerosene lamp +over his head; his face was grave and pale. + +"I haven't said good night, Sene." + +She made no reply. + +"Asenath, good night." + +She stayed her steps upon the stairs without turning her head. Her +father had kissed her to-night. Was not that enough? + +"Why, Sene, what's the matter with you?" + +Dick mounted the stairs, and touched his lips to her forehead with a +gently compassionate smile. + +She fled from him with a cry like the cry of a suffocated creature, shut +her door, and locked it with a ringing clang. + +"She's walked too far, and got a little nervous," said Dick, screwing up +his lamp; "poor thing!" + +Then he went into his room to look at Del's photograph awhile before he +burned it up; for he meant to burn it up. + +Asenath, when she had locked her door, put her lamp before the +looking-glass and tore off her gray cape; tore it off so savagely that +the button snapped and rolled away,--two little crystal semicircles like +tears upon the floor. + +There was no collar about the neck of her dress, and this heightened the +plainness and the pallor of her face. She shrank instinctively at the +first sight of herself, and opened the drawer where the crimson cape was +folded, but shut it resolutely. + +"I'll see the worst of it," she said with pinched lips. She turned +herself about and about before the glass, letting the cruel light gloat, +over her shoulders, letting the sickly shadows grow purple on her face. +Then she put her elbows on the table and her chin into her hands, and +so, for a motionless half-hour, studied the unrounded, uncolored, +unlightened face that stared back at her; her eyes darkening at its +eyes, her hair touching its hair, her breath dimming the outline of its +repulsive mouth. + +By and by she dropped her head into her hands. The poor, mistaken face! +She felt as if she would like to blot it out of the world, as her tears +used to blot out the wrong sums upon her slate. It had been so happy! +But he was sorry for it, and all that. Why did a good God make such +faces? + +She slipped upon her knees, bewildered. + +"He _can't_ mean any harm nohow," she said, speaking fast, and knelt +there and said it over till she felt sure of it. + +Then she thought of Del once more,--of her colors and sinuous springs, +and little cries and chatter. + +After a time she found that she was growing faint, and so stole down +into the kitchen for some food. She stayed a minute to warm her feet. +The fire was red and the clock was ticking. It seemed to her home-like +and comfortable, and she seemed to herself very homeless and lonely; so +she sat down on the floor, with her head in a chair, and cried as hard +as she ought to have done four hours ago. + +She climbed into bed about one o'clock, having decided, in a dull way, +to give Dick up to-morrow. + +But when to-morrow came he was up with a bright face, and built the +kitchen fire for her, and brought in all the water, and helped her fry +the potatoes, and whistled a little about the house, and worried at her +paleness, and so she said nothing about it. + +"I'll wait till night," she planned, making ready for the mill. + +"O, I can't!" she cried at night. So other mornings came, and other +nights. + +I am quite aware that, according to all romantic precedents, this +conduct was preposterous in Asenath, Floracita, in the novel, never so +far forgets the whole duty of a heroine as to struggle, waver, doubt, +delay. It is proud and proper to free the young fellow; proudly and +properly she frees him; "suffers in silence"--till she marries another +man; and (having had a convenient opportunity to refuse the original +lover) overwhelms the reflective reader with a sense of poetic justice +and the eternal fitness of things. + +But I am not writing a novel, and, as the biographer of this simple +factory girl, am offered few advantages. + +Asenath was no heroine, you see. Such heroic elements as were in +her--none could tell exactly what they were, or whether there were any: +she was one of those people in whom it is easy to be quite +mistaken;--her life had not been one to develop. She might have a +certain pride of her own, under given circumstances; but plants grown in +a cellar will turn to the sun at any cost; how could she go back into +her dark? + +As for the other man to marry, he was out of the question. Then, none +love with the tenacity of the unhappy; no life is so lavish of itself as +the denied life: to him that hath not shall be given,--and Asenath loved +this Richard Cross. + +It might be altogether the grand and suitable thing to say to him, "I +will not be your wife." It might be that she would thus regain a strong +shade of lost self-respect. It might be that she would make him happy, +and give pleasure to Del. It might be that the two young people would be +her "friends," and love her in a way. + +But all this meant that Dick must go out of her life. Practically, she +must make up her mind to build the fires, and pump the water, and mend +the windows alone. In dreary fact, he would not listen when she sung; +would not say, "You are tired, Sene"; would never kiss away an undried +tear. There would be nobody to notice the crimson cape, nobody to make +blue neck-ties for; none for whom to save the Bonnes de Jersey, or to +take sweet, tired steps, or make dear, dreamy plans. To be sure, there +was her father; but fathers do not count for much in a time like this on +which Sene had fallen. + +That Del Ivy was--Del Ivory, added intricacies to the question. It was a +very unpoetic but undoubted fact that Asenath could in no way so insure +Dick's unhappiness as to pave the way to his marriage with the woman +whom he loved. There would be a few merry months, then slow worry and +disappointment; pretty Del accepted at last, not as the crown of his +young life, but as its silent burden and misery. Poor Dick! good Dick! +Who deserved more wealth of wifely sacrifice? Asenath, thinking this, +crimsoned with pain and shame. A streak of good common sense in the girl +told her--though she half scorned herself for the conviction--that even +a crippled woman who should bear all things and hope all things for his +sake might blot out the memory of this rounded Del; that, no matter what +the motive with which he married her, he would end by loving his wife +like other people. + +She watched him sometimes in the evenings, as he turned his kind eyes +after her over the library book which he was reading. + +"I know I could make him happy! I _know_ I could!" she muttered fiercely +to herself. + +November blew into December, December congealed into January, while she +kept her silence. Dick, in his honorable heart, seeing that she +suffered, wearied himself with plans to make her eyes shine; brought her +two pails of water instead of one, never forgot the fire, helped her +home from the mill. She saw him meet Del Ivory once upon Essex Street +with a grave and silent bow; he never spoke with her now. He meant to +pay the debt he owed her down to the uttermost farthing; that grew +plain. Did she try to speak her wretched secret, he suffocated her with +kindness, struck her dumb with tender words. + +She used to analyze her life in those days, considering what it would be +without him. To be up by half past five o'clock in the chill of all the +winter mornings, to build the fire and cook the breakfast and sweep the +floor, to hurry away, faint and weak, over the raw, slippery streets, to +climb at half past six the endless stairs and stand at the endless loom, +and hear the endless wheels go buzzing round, to sicken in the oily +smells, and deafen at the remorseless noise, and weary of the rough girl +swearing at the other end of the pass; to eat her cold dinner from a +little cold tin pail out on the stairs in the three-quarters-of-an-hour +recess; to come exhausted home at half past six at night, and get the +supper, and brush up about the shoemaker's bench, and be too weak to +eat; to sit with aching shoulders and make the button-holes of her best +dress, or darn her father's stockings, till nine o'clock; to hear no +bounding step or cheery whistle about the house; to creep into bed and +lie there trying not to think, and wishing that so she might creep into +her grave,--this not for one winter, but for all the winters,--how +should _you_ like it, you young girls, with whom time runs like a story? + +The very fact that her employers dealt honorably by her; that she was +fairly paid, and promptly, for her wearing toil; that the limit of +endurance was consulted in the temperature of the room, and her need of +rest in an occasional holiday,--perhaps, after all, in the mood she was +in, did not make this factory life more easy. She would have found it +rather a relief to have somebody to complain of,--wherein she was like +the rest of us, I fancy. + +But at last there came a day--it chanced to be the ninth of +January--when Asenath went away alone at noon, and sat where Merrimack +sung his songs to her. She hid her face upon her knees, and listened and +thought her own thoughts, till they and the slow torment of the winter +seemed greater than she could bear. So, passing her hands confusedly +over her forehead, she said at last aloud, "That's what God means, +Asenath Martyn!" and went back to work with a purpose in her eyes. + +She "asked out" a little earlier than usual, and went slowly home. Dick +was there before her; he had been taking a half-holiday. He had made the +tea and toasted the bread for a little surprise. He came up and said, +"Why, Sene, your hands are cold!" and warmed them for her in his own. + +After tea she asked him, would he walk out with her for a little while? +and he in wonder went. + +The streets were brightly lighted, and the moon was up. The ice cracked +crisp under their feet. Sleighs, with two riders in each, shot merrily +by. People were laughing in groups before the shop-windows. In the glare +of a jeweller's counter somebody was buying a wedding-ring, and a girl +with red cheeks was looking hard the other way. + +"Let's get away," said Asenath,--"get away from here!" + +They chose by tacit consent that favorite road of hers over the eastern +bridge. Their steps had a hollow, lonely ring on the frosted wood; she +was glad when the softness of the snow in the road received them. She +looked back once at the water, wrinkled into thin ice on the edge for a +foot or two, then open and black and still. + +"What are you doing?" asked Dick. She said that she was wondering how +cold it was, and Dick laughed at her. + +They strolled on in silence for perhaps a mile of the desolate road. + +"Well, this is social!" said Dick at length; "how much farther do you +want to go? I believe you'd walk to Reading if nobody stopped you!" + +She was taking slow, regular steps like an automaton, and looking +straight before her. + +"How much farther? Oh!" She stopped and looked about her. + +A wide young forest spread away at their feet, to the right and to the +left. There was ice on the tiny oaks and miniature pines; it glittered +sharply under the moon; the light upon the snow was blue; cold roads +wound away through it, deserted; little piles of dead leaves shivered; a +fine keen spray ran along the tops of the drifts; inky shadows lurked +and dodged about the undergrowth; in the broad spaces the snow glared; +the lighted mills, a zone of fire, blazed from east to west; the skies +were bare, and the wind was up, and Merrimack in the distance chanted +solemnly. + +"Dick," said Asenath, "this is a dreadful place! Take me home." + +But when he would have turned, she held him back with a sudden cry, and +stood still. + +"I meant to tell you--I meant to say--Dick! I was going to say--" + +But she did not say it. She opened her lips to speak once and again, but +no sound came from them. + +"Sene! why, Sene, what ails you?" + +He turned, and took her in his arms. + +"Poor Sene!" + +He kissed her, feeling sorry for her unknown trouble. He wondered why +she sobbed. He kissed her again. She broke from him, and away with a +great bound upon the snow. + +"You make it so hard! You've no right to make it so hard! It ain't as if +you loved me, Dick! I know I'm not like other girls! Go home and let me +be!" + +But Dick drew her arm through his, and led her gravely away. "I like you +well enough, Asenath," he said, with that motherly pity in his eyes; +"I've always liked you. So don't let us have any more of this." + +So Asenath said nothing more. + +The sleek black river beckoned to her across the snow as they went home. +A thought came to her as she passed the bridge,--it is a curious study +what wicked thoughts will come to good people!--she found herself +considering the advisability of leaping the low brown parapet; and if it +would not be like Dick to go over after her; if there would be a chance +for them, even should he swim from the banks; how soon the icy current +would paralyze him; how sweet it would be to chill to death there in his +arms; how all this wavering and pain would be over; how Del would look +when they dragged them out down below the machine-shop! + +"Sene, are you cold?" asked puzzled Dick. She was warmly wrapped in her +little squirrel furs; but he felt her quivering upon his arm, like one +in an ague, all the way home. + +About eleven o'clock that night her father waked from an exciting dream +concerning the best method of blacking patent-leather; Sene stood beside +his bed with her gray shawl thrown over her night-dress. + +"Father, suppose some time there should be only you and me--" + +"Well, well, Sene," said the old man sleepily,--"very well." + +"I'd try to be a good girl! Could you love me enough to make up?" + +He told her indistinctly that she always was a good girl; she never had +a whipping from the day her mother died. She turned away impatiently; +then cried out and fell upon her knees. + +"Father, father! I'm in a great trouble. I haven't got any mother, any +friend, anybody. Nobody helps me! Nobody knows. I've been thinking such +things--O, such wicked things--up in my room! Then I got afraid of +myself. You're good. You love me. I want you to put your hand on my head +and say, 'God bless you, child, and show you how.'" + +Bewildered, he put his hand upon her unbound hair, and said: "God bless +you, child, and show you how!" + +Asenath looked at the old withered hand a moment, as it lay beside her +on the bed, kissed it, and went away. + +There was a scarlet sunrise the next morning. A pale pink flush stole +through a hole in the curtain, and fell across Asenath's sleeping face, +and lay there like a crown. It woke her, and she threw on her dress, and +sat down for a while on the window-sill, to watch the coming-on of the +day. + +The silent city steeped and bathed itself in rose-tints; the river ran +red, and the snow crimsoned on the distant New Hampshire hills; +Pemberton, mute and cold, frowned across the disk of the climbing sun, +and dripped, as she had seen it drip before, with blood. + +The day broke softly, the snow melted, the wind blew warm from the +river. The factory-bell chimed cheerily, and a few sleepers, in safe, +luxurious beds, were wakened by hearing the girls sing on their way to +work. + +Asenath came down with a quiet face. In her communing with the sunrise +helpful things had been spoken to her. Somehow, she knew not how, the +peace of the day was creeping into her heart. For some reason, she knew +not why, the torment and unrest of the night were gone. There was a +future to be settled, but she would not trouble herself about that just +now. There was breakfast to get; and the sun shone, and a snow-bird was +chirping outside of the door. She noticed how the tea-kettle hummed, and +how well the new curtain, with the castle and waterfall on it, fitted +the window. She thought that she would scour the closet at night, and +surprise her father by finishing those list slippers; She kissed him +when she had tied on the red hood, and said good-by to Dick, and told +them just where to find the squash-pie for dinner. + +When she had closed the twisted gate, and taken a step or two upon the +snow, she came thoughtfully back. Her father was on his bench, mending +one of Meg Match's shoes. She pushed it gently out of his hands, sat +down upon his lap, and stroked the shaggy hair away from his forehead. + +"Father!" + +"Well, what now, Sene?--what now?" + +"Sometimes I believe I've forgotten you a bit, you know. I think we're +going to be happier after this. That's all." + +She went out singing, and he heard the gate shut again with a click. + +Sene was a little dizzy that morning,--the constant palpitation of the +floors always made her dizzy after a wakeful night,--and so her colored +cotton threads danced out of place, and troubled her. + +Del Ivory, working beside her, said, "How the mill shakes! What's going +on?" + +"It's the new machinery they're h'isting in," observed the overseer, +carelessly. "Great improvement, but heavy, very heavy; they calc'late on +getting it all into place to-day; you'd better be tending to your frame, +Miss Ivory." + +As the day wore on, the quiet of Asenath's morning deepened. Round and +round with the pulleys over her head she wound her thoughts of Dick. In +and out with her black and dun-colored threads she spun her future. +Pretty Del, just behind her, was twisting a pattern like a rainbow. She +noticed this, and smiled. + +"Never mind!" she thought, "I guess God knows." + +Was He ready "to bless her, and show her how"? She wondered. If, indeed, +it were best that she should never be Dick's wife, it seemed to her that +He would help her about it. She had been a coward last night; her blood +leaped in her veins with shame at the memory of it. Did He understand? +Did He not know how she loved Dick, and how hard it was to lose him? + +However that might be, she began to feel at rest about herself. A +curious apathy about means and ways and decisions took possession of +her. A bounding sense that a way of escape was provided from all her +troubles, such as she had when her mother died, came upon her. + +Years before, an unknown workman in South Boston, casting an iron pillar +upon its core, had suffered it to "float" a little, a very little more, +till the thin, unequal side cooled to the measure of an eighth of an +inch. That man had provided Asenath's way of escape. + +She went out at noon with her luncheon, and found a place upon the +stairs, away from the rest, and sat there awhile, with her eyes upon the +river, thinking. She could not help wondering a little, after all, why +God need to have made her so unlike the rest of his fair handiwork. Del +came bounding by, and nodded at her carelessly. Two young Irish girls, +sisters,--the beauties of the mill,--magnificently colored +creatures,--were singing a little love-song together, while they tied on +their hats to go home. + +"There _are_ such pretty things in the world!" thought poor Sene. + +Did anybody speak to her after the girls were gone? Into her heart these +words fell suddenly, "_He_ hath no form nor comeliness. _His_ visage was +so marred more than any man." + +They clung to her fancy all the afternoon. She liked the sound of them. +She wove them in with her black and dun colored threads. + +The wind began at last to blow chilly up the stair-cases, and in at the +cracks; the melted drifts out under the walls to harden; the sun dipped +above the dam; the mill dimmed slowly; shadows crept down between the +frames. + +"It's time for lights," said Meg Match, and swore a little at her +spools. + +Sene, in the pauses of her thinking, heard snatches of the girls' talk. + +"Going to ask out to-morrow, Meg?" + +"Guess so, yes; me and Bob Smith we thought we'd go to Boston, and come +up in the theatre train." + +"Del Ivory, I want the pattern of your zouave." + +"Did I go to church? No, you don't catch me! If I slave all the week, +I'll do what I please on Sunday." + +"Hush-sh! There's the boss looking over here!" + +"Kathleen Donnavon, be still with your ghost-stories. There's one thing +in the world I never will hear about, and that's dead people." + +"Del," said Sene, "I think to-morrow--" + +She stopped. Something strange had happened to her frame; it jarred, +buzzed, snapped; the threads untwisted and flew out of place. + +"Curious!" she said, and looked up. + +Looked up to see her overseer turn wildly, clap his hands to his head, +and fall; to hear a shriek from Del that froze her blood; to see the +solid ceiling gape above her; to see the walls and windows stagger; to +see iron pillars reel, and vast machinery throw up its helpless, giant +arms, and a tangle of human faces blanch and writhe! + +She sprang as the floor sunk. As pillar after pillar gave way, she +bounded up an inclined plane, with the gulf yawning after her. It gained +upon her, leaped at her, caught her; beyond were the stairs and an open +door; she threw out her arms, and struggled on with hands and knees, +tripped in the gearing, and saw, as she fell, a square, oaken beam above +her yield and crash; it was of a fresh red color; she dimly wondered +why,--as she felt her hands-slip, her knees slide, support, time, +place, and reason, go utterly out. + +"_At ten minutes before five, on Tuesday, the tenth of January, the +Pemberton Mill, all hands being at the time on duty, fell to the +ground_." + +So the record flashed over the telegraph wires, sprang into large type +in the newspapers, passed from lip to lip, a nine days' wonder, gave +place to the successful candidate, and the muttering South, and was +forgotten. + +Who shall say what it was to the seven hundred and fifty souls who were +buried in the ruins? What to the eighty-eight who died that death of +exquisite agony? What to the wrecks of men and women who endure unto +this day a life that is worse than death? What to that architect and +engineer who, when the fatal pillars were first delivered to them for +inspection, had found one broken under their eyes, yet accepted the +contract, and built with them a mill whose thin walls and wide, +unsupported stretches might have tottered over massive columns and on +flawless ore? + +One that we love may go upon battle-ground, and we are ready for the +worst: we have said our good-bys; our hearts wait and pray: it is his +life, not his death, which is the surprise. But that he should go out to +his safe, daily, commonplace occupations, unnoticed and +uncaressed,--scolded a little, perhaps, because he leaves the door open, +and tells us how cross we are this morning; and they bring him up the +steps by and by, a mangled mass of death and horror,--that is hard. + +Old Martyn, working at Meg Match's shoes,--she was never to wear those +shoes, poor Meg!--heard, at ten minutes before five, what he thought to +be the rumble of an earthquake under his very feet, and stood with bated +breath, waiting for the crash. As nothing further appeared to happen, he +took his stick and limped out into the street. + +A vast crowd surged through it from end to end. Women with white lips +were counting the mills,--Pacific, Atlantic, Washington,--Pemberton? +Where was Pemberton? + +Where Pemberton had winked its many eyes last night, and hummed with its +iron lips this noon, a cloud of dust, black, silent, horrible, puffed a +hundred feet into the air. + +Asenath opened her eyes after a time. Beautiful green and purple lights +had been dancing about her, but she had had no thoughts. It occurred to +her now that she must have been struck upon the head. The church-clocks +were striking eight. A bonfire which had been built at, a distance, to +light the citizens in the work of rescue, cast a little gleam in through +the _débris_ across her two hands, which lay clasped together at her +side. One of her fingers, she saw, was gone; it was the finger which +held Dick's little engagement ring. The red beam lay across her +forehead, and drops dripped from it upon her eyes. Her feet, still +tangled in the gearing which had tripped her, were buried beneath a pile +of bricks. + +A broad piece of flooring, that had fallen slantwise, roofed her in, and +saved her from the mass of iron-work overhead, which would have crushed +the breath out of Titans. Fragments of looms, shafts, and pillars were +in heaps about. Some one whom she could not see was dying just behind +her. A little girl who worked in her room--a mere child--was crying, +between her groans, for her mother. Del Ivory sat in a little open +space, cushioned about with reels of cotton; she had a shallow gash upon +her cheek; she was wringing her hands. They were at work from the +outside, sawing entrances through the labyrinth of planks. A dead woman +lay close by, and Sene saw them draw her out. It was Meg Match. One of +the pretty Irish girls was crushed quite out of sight; only one hand was +free; she moved it feebly. They could hear her calling for Jimmy +Mahoney, Jimmy Mahoney! and would they be sure and give him back the +handkerchief? Poor Jimmy Mahoney! By and by she called no more; and in a +little while the hand was still. On the other side of the slanted +flooring some one prayed aloud. She had a little baby at home. She was +asking God to take care of it for her. "For Christ's sake," she said. +Sene listened long for the Amen, but it was never spoken. Beyond, they +dug a man out from under a dead body, unhurt. He crawled to his feet, +and broke into furious blasphemies. + +As consciousness came fully, agony grew. Sene shut her lips and folded +her bleeding hands together, and uttered no cry. Del did screaming +enough for two, she thought. She pondered things, calmly as the night +deepened, and the words that the workers outside were saying came +brokenly to her. Her hurt, she knew, was not unto death; but it must be +cared for before very long; how far could she support this slow bleeding +away? And what were the chances that they could hew their way to her +without crushing her? + +She thought of her father, of Dick; of the bright little kitchen and +supper-table set for three; of the song that she had sung in the flush +of the morning. Life--even her life--grew sweet, now that it was +slipping from her. + +Del cried presently, that they were cutting them out. The glare of the +bonfires struck through an opening; saws and axes flashed; voices grew +distinct. + +"They never can get at me," said Sene. "I must be able to crawl. If you +could get some of those bricks off of my feet, Del!" + +Del took off two or three in a frightened way; then, seeing the blood on +them, sat down and cried. + +A Scotch girl, with one arm shattered, crept up and removed the pile, +then fainted. + +The opening broadened, brightened; the sweet night-wind blew in; the +safe night-sky shone through. Sene's heart leaped within her. Out in the +wind and under the sky she should stand again, after all! Back in the +little kitchen, where the sun shone, and she could sing a song, there +would yet be a place for her. She worked her head from under the beam, +and raised herself upon her elbow. + +At that moment she heard a cry: + +"Fire! _fire!_ GOD ALMIGHTY HELP THEM,--THE RUINS ARE ON FIRE!" + +A man working over the _débris_ from the outside had taken the +notion--it being rather dark just there--to carry a lantern with him. + +"For God's sake," a voice cried from the crowd, "don't stay there with +that light!" + +But before the words had died upon the air, it was the dreadful fate of +the man with the lantern to let it fall,--and it broke upon the ruined +mass. + +That was at nine o'clock. What there was to see from then till morning +could never be told or forgotten. + +A network twenty feet high, of rods and girders, of beams, pillars, +stairways, gearing, roofing, ceiling, walling; wrecks of looms, shafts, +twisters, pulleys, bobbins, mules, locked and interwoven; wrecks of +human creatures wedged in; a face that you know turned up at you from +some pit which twenty-four hours' hewing could not open; a voice that +you know crying after you from God knows where; a mass of long, fair +hair visible here, a foot there, three fingers of a hand over there; the +snow bright-red under foot; charred limbs and headless trunks tossed +about; strong men carrying covered things by you, at sight of which +other strong men have fainted; the little yellow jet that flared up, and +died in smoke, and flared again, leaped out, licked the cotton-bales, +tasted the oiled machinery, crunched the netted wood, danced on the +heaped-up stone, threw its cruel arms high into the night, roared for +joy at helpless firemen, and swallowed wreck, death, and life together +out of your sight,--the lurid thing stands alone in the gallery of +tragedy. + +"Del," said Sene, presently, "I smell the smoke." And in a little while, +"How red it is growing away over there at the left!" + +To lie here and watch the hideous redness crawling after her, springing +at her!--it had seemed greater than reason could bear, at first. + +Now it did not trouble her. She grew a little faint, and her thoughts +wandered. She put her head down upon her arm, and shut her eyes. +Dreamily she heard them saying a dreadful thing outside, about one of +the overseers; at the alarm of fire he had cut his throat, and before +the flames touched him he was taken out. Dreamily she heard Del cry that +the shaft behind the heap of reels was growing hot. Dreamily she saw a +tiny puff of smoke struggle through the cracks of a broken fly-frame. + +They were working to save her, with rigid, stern faces. A plank +snapped, a rod yielded; they drew out the Scotch girl; her hair was +singed; then a man with blood upon his face and wrists held down his +arms. + +"There's time for one more! God save the rest of ye,--I can't!" + +Del sprang; then stopped,--even Del,--stopped ashamed, and looked back +at the cripple. + +Asenath at this sat up erect. The latent heroism in her awoke. All her +thoughts grew clear and bright. The tangled skein of her perplexed and +troubled winter unwound suddenly. This, then, was the way. It was better +so. God had provided himself a lamb for the burnt-offering. + +So she said, "Go, Del, and tell him I sent you with my dear love, and +that it's all right." + +And Del at the first word went. + +Sene sat and watched them draw her out; it was a slow process; the loose +sleeve of her factory sack was scorched. + +Somebody at work outside turned suddenly and caught her. It was Dick. +The love which he had fought so long broke free of barrier in that hour. +He kissed her pink arm where the burnt sleeve fell off. He uttered a cry +at the blood upon her face. She turned faint with the sense of safety; +and, with a face as white as her own, he bore her away in his arms to +the hospital, over the crimson snow. + +Asenath looked out through the glare and smoke with parched lips. For a +scratch upon the girl's smooth cheek, he had quite forgotten her. They +had left her, tombed alive here in this furnace, and gone their happy +way. Yet it gave her a curious sense of relief and triumph. If this were +all that she could be to him, the thing which she had done was right, +quite right. God must have known. She turned away, and shut her eyes +again. + +When she opened them, neither Dick, nor Del, nor crimsoned snow, nor +sky, were there; only the smoke writhing up a pillar of blood-red flame. + +The child who had called for her mother began to sob out that she was +afraid to die alone. + +"Come here, Molly," said Sene. "Can you crawl around?" + +Molly crawled around. + +"Put your head in my lap, and your arms about my waist, and I will put +my hands in yours,--so. There! I guess that's better." + +But they had not given them up yet. In the still unburnt rubbish at the +right, some one had wrenched an opening within a foot of Sene's face. +They clawed at the solid iron pintless like savage things. A fireman +fainted in the glow. + +"Give it up!" cried the crowd from behind. "It can't be done! Fall +back!"--then hushed, awestruck. + +An old man was crawling along upon his hands and knees over the heated +bricks. He was a very old man. His gray hair blew about in the wind. + +"I want my little gal!" he said. "Can't anybody tell me where to find my +little gal?" + +A rough-looking young fellow pointed in perfect silence through the +smoke. + +"I'll have her out yet. I'm an old man, but I can help. She's my little +gal, ye see. Hand me that there dipper of water; it'll keep her from +choking, may be. Now! Keep cheery, Sene! Your old father'll get ye out. +Keep up good heart, child! That's it!" + +"It's no use, father. Don't feel bad, father. I don't mind it very +much." + +He hacked at the timber; he tried to laugh; he bewildered himself with +cheerful words. + +"No more ye needn't, Senath, for it'll be over in a minute. Don't be +downcast yet! We'll have ye safe at home before ye know it. Drink a +little more water,--do now! They'll get at ye now, sure!" + +But above the crackle and the roar a woman's voice rang out like a +bell:-- + +"We're going home, to die no more." + +A child's notes quavered in the chorus. From sealed and unseen graves, +white young lips swelled the glad refrain,-- + +"We're going, going home." + +The crawling smoke turned yellow, turned red. Voice after voice broke +and hushed utterly. One only sang on like silver. It flung defiance down +at death. It chimed into the lurid sky without a tremor. For one stood +beside her in the furnace, and his form was like unto the form of the +Son of God. Their eyes met. Why should not Asenath sing? + +"Senath!" cried the old man out upon the burning bricks; he was scorched +now, from his gray hair to his patched boots. + +The answer came triumphantly,-- + + "To die no more, no more, no more!" + +"Sene! little Sene!" + +But some one pulled him back. + + + + +Night-Watches. + + + +Keturah wishes to state primarily that she is good-natured. She thinks +it necessary to make this statement, lest, after having heard her story, +you should, however polite you might be about it, in your heart of +hearts suspect her capable not only of allowing her angry passions to +rise, but of permitting them to boil over "in tempestuous fury wild and +unrestrained." If it were an orthodox remark, she would also add, from +like motives of self-defence, that she is not in the habit of swearing. + +Are you accustomed, O tender-hearted reader, to spend your nights, as a +habit, with your eyes open or shut? On the answer to this question +depends her sole hope of appreciation and sympathy. + +She begs you will understand that she does not mean you, the be-ribboned +and be-spangled and be-rouged frequenter of ball and _soirée_, with your +well-taught, drooping lashes, or wide girl's eyes untamed and wondering, +your flushing color, and your pulse up to a hundred. You are very pretty +for your pains,--O, to be sure you are very pretty! She has not the +heart to scold you, though you are dancing and singing and flirting +away your golden nights, your restful, young nights, that never come but +once,--though you are dancing and singing and flirting yourselves +merrily into your grave. She would like to put in a plea before the +eloquence of which Cicero and Demosthenes, Beecher and Sumner, should +pale like wax-lights before the sun, for the new fashion said to be +obtaining in New York, that the _soirée_ shall give place to the +_matinée_, at which the guests shall assemble at four o'clock in the +afternoon, and are expected to go home at seven or eight. That would be +not only civilized, it would be millennial. + +But Keturah is perfectly aware that you will do as you will. If the +excitement of the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal" prove preferable to a +quiet evening at home, and a good, Christian, healthy sleep after it, +why the "sma' hours" it will be. If you will do it, it is "none of her +funerals," as the small boy remarked. Only she particularly requests you +not to insult her by offering her your sympathy. Wait till you know what +forty-eight mortal, wide-awake, staring, whirring, unutterable hours +mean. + +Listen to her mournful tale; and, while you listen, let your head become +fountains of water, and your eyes rivers of tears for her, and for all +who are doomed to reside in her immediate vicinity. + +"Tired nature's sweet restorer," as the newspapers, in a sudden and +severe poetical attack, remarked of Jeff Davis, "refuses to bless" +Keturah, except as her own sweet will inclines her. They have a +continuous lover's quarrel, exceedingly bitter while it rages, +exceedingly sweet when it is made up. Keturah attends a perfectly grave +and unimpeachable lecture,--the Restorer pouts and goes off in a huff +for twenty-four hours. Keturah undertakes at seven o'clock a concert,-- +announced as Mendelssohn Quintette, proving to be Gilmore's +Brassiest,--and nothing hears she of My Lady till two o'clock, A. M. +Keturah spends an hour at a prayer-meeting, on a pine bench that may +have heard of cushions, but certainly has never seen one face to face; +and comes home at eight o'clock to the pleasing discovery that the fair +enslaver has taken some doctrinal offence, and vanished utterly. + +Though lost to sight she's still to memory dear, and Keturah penitently +betakes herself to the seeking of her in those ingenious ways which she +has learned at the school of a melancholy experience. A table and a +kerosene lamp are brought into requisition; also a book. If it isn't the +Dictionary, it is Cruden's Concordance. If these prove too exciting, it +is Edwards on the Will. Light reading is strictly forbidden. +Congressional Reports are sometimes efficacious, as well as Martin F. +Tupper, and somebody's "Sphere of Woman." + +There is one single possibility out of ten that this treatment will +produce drowsiness. There are nine probabilities to the contrary. The +possibility is worth trying for, and trying hard for; but if it results +in the sudden flight of President Edwards across the room, a severe +banging of the "Sphere of Woman" against the wall, and the total +disappearance of Cruden's Concordance beneath the bed, Keturah is not in +the least surprised. It is altogether too familiar a result to elicit +remark. It simply occasions a fresh growth to a horrible resolution that +she has been slowly forming for years. + +Some day _she_ will write a book. The publishers shall nap over it, and +accept it with pleasure. The drowsy printers shall set up its type with +their usual unerring exactness. The proof-readers shall correct it in +their dreams. Customers in the bookstores shall nod at the sight of its +binding. Its readers shall dose at its Preface. Sleepless old age, sharp +and unrelieved pain, youth sorrowful before the time, shall seek it out, +shall flock unto the counters of its fortunate publishers (she has three +firms in her mind's eye; one in Boston, one in New York, and one in +Philadelphia; but who the happy men are to be is not yet definitely +decided), who shall waste their inheritance in distributing it +throughout the length and breadth of a grateful continent. Physicians +from everywhere under the sun, who have proved the fickleness of +hyoscyamus, of hops, of Dover's powders, of opium, of morphine, of +laudanum, of hidden virtues of herbs of the field, and minerals from the +rock, and gases from the air; who know the secrets of all the pitying +earth, and, behold, it is vanity of vanities, shall line their +hospitals, cram their offices, stuff their bottles, with the new +universal panacea and blessing to suffering humanity. + +And Keturah _can_ keep a resolution. + +Her literary occupation disposed of, in the summary manner referred to, +she runs through the roll of her reserve force, and their name is +Legion. She composes herself, in an attitude of rest, with a +handkerchief tied over her eyes to keep them shut, blows her lamp out +instead of screwing it out, strangles awhile in the gas, and begins to +repeat her alphabet, which, owing to like stern necessity, she has +fortunately never forgotten. She says it forward; she says it backward; +she begins at the middle and goes up; she begins at the middle and goes +down; she rattles it through in French, she groans it through in German, +she falters it through in Greek. She attempts the numeration-table, +flounders somewhere in the quadrillions, and forgets where she left off. +She watches an interminable flock of sheep jump over a wall till her +head spins. There always seem to be so many more where the last one came +from. She listens to oar-beats, and drum-beats, and heart-beats. She +improvises sonatas and gallopades, oratorios and mazourkas. She +perpetrates the title and first line of an epic poem, goes through the +alphabet for a rhyme, and none appearing, she repeats the first line by +way of encouragement. But all in vain. + +With a silence that speaks unspeakable things, she rises solemnly, and +seeks the pantry in darkness that may be felt. At the bottom of the +stairs she steps with her whole weight flat upon something that squirms, +and is warm, and turns over, and utters a cry that makes night hideous. +O, nothing but the cat, that is all! The pantry proves to be well +stocked with bread, but not another mortal thing. Now, if there is +anything Keturah _particularly_ dislikes, it is dry bread. Accordingly, +with a remark which is intended for Love's ear alone, she gropes her way +to the cellar door, which is unexpectedly open, pitches head-first into +the cavity, and makes the descent of half the stairs in an easy and +graceful manner, chiefly with her elbows. She reaches the ground after +an interval, steps splash into a pool of water, knocks over a mop, and +embraces a tall cider barrel with her groping arms. After a little +wandering about among ash-bins and apple-bins, reservoirs and coal-heaps +and cobwebs, she discovers the hanging-shelf which has been the _ignis +fatuus_ of her search. Something extremely cold crossing her shoeless +feet at this crisis suggests pleasant fancies of a rat. Keturah is +ashamed to confess that she has never in all the days of the years of +her pilgrimage set eyes upon a rat. Depending solely upon her +imagination, her conception of that animal is a cross between an +alligator and a jaguar. She stands her ground manfully, however, and is +happy to state that she did _not_ faint. + +In the agitation consequent upon this incident she butters her bread +with the lard, and takes an enormous bite on the way up stairs. She +seeks no more refreshment that night. + +One resort alone is left. With a despairing sigh she turns the great +faucet of the bath-tub and holds her head under it till she is upon the +verge of a watery grave. This experiment is her forlorn hope. Perhaps +about three or four o'clock she falls into a series of jerky naps, and +dreams that she is editor of a popular Hebrew magazine, wandering +frantically through a warehouse full of aspirant MSS. (chiefly from the +junior classes of theological seminaries) of which she cannot translate +a letter. + +Of the tenth of Keturah's unearthly experiences,--of the number of times +she has been taken for a robber, and chased by the entire roused and +bewildered family, with loaded guns; of the pans of milk she has upset, +the crockery whose hopes she has untimely shattered, the skulls she has +cracked against open doors, the rocking-chairs she has stumbled over and +apostrophized in her own meek way; of the neighbors she has frightened +out of town by her perambulations; of the alarms of fire she has raised, +pacing the wood-shed with a lantern for exercise stormy nights; of all +the possible and impossible corners and crevices in which she has sought +repose, (she has slept on every sofa in every room in the house, and +once she spent a whole night on a closet shelf); of the amiable +condition of her mornings, and the terror she is fast becoming to +family. Church, and State, the time would fail her to tell. Were she to +"let slip the dogs of war," and relate a modicum of the agonies she +undergoes,--how the stamping of a neighbor's horse on a barn floor will +drive every solitary wink of sleep from her eyes and slumber from her +eyelids; the nibbling of a mouse in some un-get-at-able place in the +wall prove torture; the rattling of a pane of glass, ticking of a clock, +or pattering of rain-drops, as effective as a cannon; a guest in the +"spare room" with a musical "love of a baby," something far different +from a blessing, and a tolerably windy night, one lengthened vigil long +drawn out,--the liberal public would cry, "Forbear!" It becomes really +an interesting science to learn how slight a thing will utterly deprive +an unfortunate creature of the great necessity of life; but this article +not being a scientific treatise, that must be left to the sympathizing +imagination. + +Keturah feels compelled, however, to relate the story of two memorable +nights, of which the only wonder is that she has lived to tell the tale. + +Every incident is stamped indelibly upon her brain. It is wrought in +letters of fire. "While memory holds a seat in this distracted globe," +it shall not, cannot be forgotten. + +It was a night in June,--sultry, gasping, fearful. Keturah went to her +own room, as is her custom, at the Puritanic hour of nine. Sleep, for a +couple of hours, being out of the question, she threw wide her doors +and windows, and betook herself to her writing-desk. A story for a +magazine, which it was imperative should be finished to-morrow, appealed +to her already partially stupefied brain. She forced her unwilling pen +into the service, whisked the table round into the draught, and began. +In about five minutes the sibyl caught the inspiration of her god, and +heat and sleeplessness were alike forgotten. This sounds very poetic, +but it wasn't at all. Keturah regrets to say that she had on a very +unbecoming green wrapper, and several ink-spots on her fingers. + +It was a very thrilling and original story, and it came, as all +thrilling and original stories must come, to a crisis. Seraphina found +Theodore kissing the hand of Celeste in the woods. Keturah became +excited. + +"'O Theodore!' whispered the unhappy maiden to the moaning trees. 'O +Theodore, my--'" + +Whir! buzz! swosh! came something through the window into the lamp, and +down squirming into the ink-bottle. Keturah jumped. If you have half the +horror of those great June beetles that she has, you will know how she +jumped. She emptied the entire contents of the ink-bottle out of the +window, closed her blinds, and began again. + +"'Theodore,' said Seraphina. + +"'Seraphina,' said Theodore." Jump the second! There he was,--not +Theodore, but the beetle,--whirring round the lamp, and buzzing down +into her lap. Hadn't he been burned in the light, drowned in the ink, +speared with the pen, and crushed by falling from the window? Yet there +he was, or the ghost of him, fluttering his inky wings into her very +eyes, and walking leisurely across the smooth, fair page that waited to +be inscribed with Seraphina's woe. Nerved by despair, Keturah did a +horrible thing. Never before or since has she been known to accomplish +it. She put him down on the floor and stepped on him. She repented of +the act in dust and ashes. Before she could get across the room to close +the window ten more had come to his funeral. To describe the horrors of +the ensuing hour she has no words. She put them out of the window,--they +came directly back. She drowned them in the wash-bowl,--they fluttered, +and sputtered, and buzzed up into the air. She killed them in +corners,--they came to life under her very eyes. She caught them in her +handkerchief and tied them up tight,--they crawled out before she could +get them in. She shut the cover of the wash-stand down on them,--she +looked in awhile after and there was not one to be seen. All ten of the +great blundering creatures were knocking their brains out against the +ceiling. After the endurance of terrors that came very near turning her +hair gray, she had pushed the last one out on the balcony, shut the +window, and was gasping away in the airless room, her first momentary +sense of security, when there struck upon her agonized ear a fiendish +buzzing, and three of them came whirling back through a crack about as +large as a knitting-needle. No _mortal_ beetle could have come through +it. Keturah turned pale and let them alone. + +The clock was striking eleven when quiet was at last restored, and the +exhausted sufferer began to think of sleep. At this moment she heard a +sound before which her heart sank like lead. You must know that Keturah +has a very near neighbor, Miss Humdrum by name. Miss Humdrum is a--well, +a very excellent and pious old lady, who keeps a one-eyed servant and +three cats; and the sound which Keturah heard was Miss Humdrum's cats. + +Keturah descended to the wood-shed, armed herself with a huge oaken log, +and sallied out into the garden, with a horrible _sang-froid_ that only +long familiarity with her errand could have engendered. It was Egyptian +darkness; but her practised eye discerned, or thought it discerned, a +white cat upon the top of the high wooden fence. Keturah smiled a +ghastly smile, and fired. Now she never yet in her life threw anything +anywhere, under any circumstances, that did not go exactly in the +opposite direction from what she wanted to have it. This occasion proved +no exception. The cat jumped, and sprang over, and disappeared. The +stick went exactly into the middle of the fence. Keturah cannot suppose +that the last trump will be capable of making a louder noise. She stood +transfixed. One cry alone broke the hideous silence. + +"_O_ Lord!" in an unmistakably Irish, half-wakened howl, from the open +window of the one-eyed servant's room. "Only that, and nothing more." + +Keturah returned to her apartment, a sadder if not a wiser woman. Marius +among the ruins of Carthage, Napoleon at St. Helena, M'Clellan in +Europe, have henceforth and forever her sympathy. + +She thinks it was _precisely_ five minutes after her return, during +which the happy stillness that seemed to rest upon nature without and +nature within had whispered faint promises of coming rest, that there +suddenly broke upon it a hoarse, deep, unearthly breathing. So hoarse, +so deep, so unearthly, and so directly underneath her window, that for +about ten seconds Keturah sat paralyzed. There was but one thing it +could be. A travelling menagerie in town had lost its Polish wolf that +very day. This was the Polish wolf. + +The horrible panting, like the panting of a famished creature, came +nearer, grew louder, grew hoarser. The animal had found a bone in the +grass, and was crunching it in his ghastly way. Then she could hear him +sniffing at the door. + +And Amram's room was on the lower story! Perhaps wolves climbed in at +windows! + +The awful thought roused Keturah from the stupor of her terror. She was +no coward. She would face the fearful sight. She would call and warn him +at any risk. She faltered out upon the balcony. She leaned over the +railing. She gazed breathlessly down into the darkness. + +A cow. + +Another cow. + +Three cows. + +Keturah sat down on the window-sill in the calm of despair. + +It was succeeded by a storm. She concludes that she was about five +seconds on the passage from her room to the garden. With "hair flotant, +and arms disclosed," like the harpies of heraldic device, she rushed up +to the invaders--and stopped. Exactly what was to be done? Three great +stupid, browsing, contented cows _versus_ one lone, lorn woman. For +about one minute Keturah would not have wagered her fortune on the +woman. But it is not her custom to "say die," and after some reflection +she ventured on a manful command. + +"Go away! Go! go!" The stentorian remark caused a result for which she +was, to say the least, unprepared. The creatures coolly turned about and +walked directly up to her. To be sure. Why not? Is it not a part of our +outrageous Yankee nomenclature to teach cows to come to you when you +tell them to go away? How Keturah, country born and bred, could have +even momentarily forgotten so clear and simple a principle of philology, +remains a mystery to this day. A little reflection convinced her of the +only logical way of ridding herself of her guests. Accordingly, she +walked a little way behind them and tried again. + +"Come here, sir! Come, good fellow! Wh-e-e! come here!" + +Three great wooden heads lifted themselves slowly, and three pairs of +soft, sleepy eyes looked at her, and the beasts returned to their clover +and stood stock-still. + +What was to be done? You could go behind and push them. Or you could go +in front and pull them by the horns. + +Neither of these methods exactly striking Keturah's fancy, she took up a +little chip and threw at them; also a piece of coal and a handful of +pebbles. These gigantic efforts proving to be fruitless, she sat down on +the grass and looked at them. The heartless creatures resisted even that +appeal. + +At this crisis of her woes one of Keturah's many brilliant thoughts came +to her relief. She hastened upon the wings of the wind to her infallible +resort, the wood-shed, and filled her arms up to the chin with pine +knots. Thus equipped, she started afresh to the conflict. It is recorded +that out of twenty of those sticks, thrown with savage and direful +intent, only one hit. It is, however, recorded that the enemy dispersed, +after being valiantly pursued around the house, out of the front gate +(where one stuck, and got through with the greatest difficulty), and for +a quarter of a mile down the street. In the course of the rout Keturah +tripped on her dress only six times, and fell flat but four. One +pleasing little incident gave delightful variety to the scene. A +particularly frisky and clover-loving white cow, whose heart yearned +after the apples of Sodom, turned about in the road without any warning +whatever and showed fight. Keturah adopted a sudden resolution to return +home "across lots," and climbed the nearest stone-wall with considerable +_empressement_. Exactly half-way over she was surprised to find herself +gasping among the low-hanging boughs of a butternut-tree, where she hung +like Absalom of old, between heaven and earth. She would like to state, +in this connection, that she always had too much vanity to wear a +waterfall; so she still retains a portion of her original hair. + +However, she returned victorious over the silent dew-laden fields and +down into the garden paths, where she paced for two hours back and forth +among the aromatic perfumes of the great yellow June lilies. There might +have been a bit of poetry in it under other circumstances, but Keturah +was not poetically inclined on that occasion. The events of the night +had so roused her soul within her, that exercise unto exhaustion was her +sole remaining hope of sleep. + +At about two o'clock she crawled faintly upstairs again, and had just +fallen asleep with her head on the window-sill, when a wandering dog had +to come directly under the window, and sit there and bark for half an +hour at a rake-handle. + +Keturah made no other effort to fight her destiny. Determined to meet +it heroically, she put a chair precisely into the middle of the room, +and sat up straight in it, till she heard the birds sing. Somewhere +about that epoch she fell into a doze with one eye open, when a terrific +peal of thunder started her to her feet. It was Patsy knocking at the +door to announce that her breakfast was cold. + +In the ghastly condition of the following day the story was finished and +sent off. It was on this occasion that the patient and long-enduring +editor ventured mildly to suggest, that when, by a thrilling and +horrible mischance, Seraphina's lovely hand came between a log of wood +and the full force of Theodore's hatchet, the result _might_ have been +more disastrous than the loss of a finger-nail. Alas! even his editorial +omniscience did not know--how could it?--the story of that night. +Keturah forgave him. + +It is perhaps worthy of mention that Miss Humdrum appeared promptly at +eight o'clock the next morning, with her handkerchief at her eyes. + +"My Star-spangled Banner has met with her decease, Ketury." + +"Indeed! How very sad!" + +"Yes. She has met with her decease. Under _very_ peculiar circumstances, +Ketury." + +"Oh!" said Ketury, hunting for her own handkerchief; finding three in +her pocket, she brought them all into requisition. + +"And I feel it my duty to inquire," said Miss Humdrum, "whether it may +happen that _you_ know anything about the event, Ketury." + +"I?" said Keturah, weeping, "I didn't know she was dead even! Dear Miss +Humdrum, you are indeed afflicted." + +"But I feel compelled to say," pursued Miss Humdrum, eying this wretched +hypocrite severely, "that my girl Jemimy _did_ hear somebody fire a gun +or a cannon or something out in your garden last night, and she scar't +out of her wits, and my poor cat found cold under the hogshead this +morning, Ketury." + +"Miss Humdrum," said Keturah, "I cannot, in justice to myself, answer +such insinuations, further than to say that Amram _never_ allows the gun +to go out of his own room. The cannon we keep in the cellar." + +"Oh!" said Miss Humdrum, with horrible suspicion in her eyes. "Well, I +hope you haven't it on your conscience, I'm sure. _Good_ morning." + +It had been the ambition of Keturah's life to see a burglar. The second +of the memorable nights referred to crowned this ambition by not only +one burglar, but two. She it was who discovered them, she who frightened +them away, and nobody but she ever saw them. She confesses to a natural +and unconquerable pride in them. It came about on this wise:-- + +It was one of Keturah's wide-awake nights, and she had been wandering +off into the fields at the foot of the garden, where it was safe and +still. There is, by the way, a peculiar awe in the utter hush of the +earliest morning hours, of which no one can know who has not +familiarized himself with it in all its moods. A solitary walk in a +solitary place, with the great world sleeping about you, and the great +skies throbbing above you, and the long unrest of the panting summer +night, fading into the cool of dews, and pure gray dawns, has in it +something of what Mr. Robertson calls "God's silence." + +Once, on one of these lonely rambles, Keturah found away in the fields, +under the shadow of an old stone-wall, a baby's grave. It had no +headstone to tell its story, and the weeds and brambles of many years +had overgrown it. Keturah is not of a romantic disposition, especially +on her midnight tramps, but she sat down by the little nameless thing, +and looked from it to the arch of eternal stars that, summer and winter, +seed-time and harvest, kept steadfast watch over it, and was very still. + +It is one of the standing grievances of her life that Amram, while never +taking the trouble to go and look, insists upon it that was nothing but +somebody's pet dog. She knows better. + +On this particular night, Keturah, in coming up from the garden to +return to the house, had a dim impression that something crossed the +walk in front of her and disappeared among the rustling trees. The +impression was sufficiently strong to keep her sitting up for half an +hour at her window, under the feeling that an ounce of prevention was +worth a pound of cure. She has indeed been asked why she did not +reconnoitre the rustling trees upon the spot. She considers that would +have been an exceedingly poor stroke of policy, and of an impolitic +thing Keturah is not capable. She sees far and plans deep. Supposing she +had gone and been shot through the head, where would have been the fun +of her burglars? To yield a life-long aspiration at the very moment that +it is within grasp, was too much to ask even of Keturah. + +Words cannot describe the sensations of the moment, when that half-hour +was rewarded by the sight of two stealthy, cat-like figures, creeping +out from among the trees. A tall man and a little man, and both with +very unbanditti-like straw-hats on. + +Now, if Keturah has a horror in this world, it is that delicate play of +the emotions commonly known as "woman's nonsense." And therefore did she +sit still for three mortal minutes, with her burglars making tracks for +the kitchen window under her very eyes, in order to prove to herself and +an incredulous public, beyond all shadow of doubt or suspicion, that +they were robbers and not dreams; actual flesh and blood, not +nightmares; unmistakable hats and coats in a place where hats and coats +ought not to be, not clothes-lines and pumps. She tried hard to make +Amram and the Paterfamilias out of them. Who knew but they also, by some +unheard-of revolution in all the laws of nature, were on an exploring +expedition after truant sleep? She struggled manfully after the +conviction that they were innocent and unimpeachable neighbors, cutting +the short way home across the fields from some remarkably late +prayer-meeting. She agonized after the belief that they were two of +Patsy's sweethearts, come for the commendable purpose of serenading her. + +In fact they were almost in the house before this remarkable female was +prepared to trust the evidence of her own senses. + +But when suspense gloomed into certainty, Keturah is happy to say that +she was grandly equal to the occasion. She slammed open her blinds with +an emphasis, and lighted her lamp with a burnt match. + +The men jumped, and dodged, and ran, and hid behind the trees, in the +most approved manner of burglars, who flee when no woman pursueth; and +Keturah, being of far too generous a disposition to enjoy the pleasure +of their capture unshared, lost no time in hammering at Amram's door. + +"Amram!" + +No answer. + +"_Am_ram!" + +Silence. + +"Am-_ram!_" + +"Oh! Ugh! Who--" + +Silence again. + +"Amram, wake up! Come out here--quick!" + +"O-o-oh, yes. Who's there?" + +"I." + +"I?" + +"Keturah." + +"Kefurah?" + +"Amram, be quick, or we shall all have our throats cut! There are some +men in the garden." + +"Hey?" + +"_Men_ in the garden!" + +"Men?" + +"In the _garden!_" + +"Garden?" + +Keturah can bear a great deal, but there comes a limit even to her +proverbial patience. She burst open the door without ceremony, and is +under the impression that Amram received a shaking such as even his +tender youth was a stranger to. It effectually woke him to +consciousness, as well as to the gasping and particularly senseless +remark, "What on earth was she wringing his neck for?" As if he mightn't +have known! She has the satisfaction of remembering that he was asked in +return, "Did he expect a solitary unprotected female to keep all his +murderers away from him, as well as those wolves she drove off the other +night?" + +However, there was no time to be wasted in tender words, and before a +woman could have winked, Amram made his appearance dressed and armed and +sarcastically incredulous. Keturah grasped the pistol, and followed him +at a respectful distance. Stay in the house and hold the light? Catch +her! She would take the light with her, and the house too, if necessary, +but she would be in at the death. + +She wishes Mr. Darley were on hand, to immortalize the picture they +made, scouring the premises after those disobliging burglars,--especially +Keturah, in the green wrapper, with her hair rolled all up in a huge knob +on top of her head, to keep it out of the way, and her pistol held out at +arm's-length, pointed falteringly, directly at the stars. She will inform +the reader confidentially--tell it not in Gath--of a humiliating discovery +she made exactly four weeks afterward, and which she has never before +imparted to a human creature,--it wasn't loaded. + +Well, they peered behind every door, they glared into every shadow, they +squeezed into every crack, they dashed into every corner, they listened +at every cranny and crevice, step and turn. But not a burglar! Of course +not. A regiment might have run away while Amram was waking up. + +Keturah thinks it will hardly be credited that this hopeful person dared +to suggest and dares to maintain that it was _Cats_! + +But she must draw the story of her afflictions to a close. And lest her +"solid" reader's eyes reject the rambling recital as utterly unworthy +the honor of their notice, she is tempted to whittle it down to a moral +before saying farewell. For you must know that Keturah has learned +several things from her mournful experience. + +1. That every individual of her acquaintance, male and female, aged and +youthful, orthodox and heretical, who sleeps regularly nine hours out of +the twenty-four, has his or her own especial specimen recipe of a +"perfectly harmless anodyne" to offer, with advice thrown in. + +2. That nothing ever yet put her to sleep but a merciful Providence. + +3. A great respect for Job. + +4. That the notion commonly and conscientiously received by very +excellent people, that wakeful nights can and should be spent in prayer, +religious meditation, and general spiritual growth, is all they know +about it. Hours of the extremest bodily and mental exhaustion, when +every nerve is quivering as if laid bare, and the surface of the brain +burning and whirling to agony, with the reins of control let loose on +every rebellious and every senseless thought, are not the times most +likely to be chosen for the purest communion with God. To be sure. King +David "remembered Him upon his bed, and meditated upon Him in the +night-watches." Keturah does not undertake to contradict Scripture, but +she has come to the conclusion that David was either a _very_ good man, +or he didn't lie awake very often. + +But, over and above all, _haec fabula docet_: + +5. That people who can sleep when they want to should keep Thanksgiving +every day in the year. + + + + +The Day of My Death[1] + +[Footnote 1: The characters in this narrative are fictitious. The +incidents the author does not profess to have witnessed. But they are +given as related by eye-witnesses whose testimony would command a +verdict from any honest jury. The author, however, draws no conclusions +and suggests none.] + + + +Alison was sitting on a bandbox. She had generally been sitting on a +bandbox for three weeks,--or on a bushel-basket, or a cupboard shelf, or +a pile of old newspapers, or the baby's bath-tub. On one occasion it was +the baby himself. She mistook him for the rag-bag. + +If ever we had to move again,--which all the beneficence of the Penates +forbid!--my wife should be locked into the parlor, and a cargo of +Irishwomen turned loose about the premises to "attend to things." What +it is that women find to do with themselves in this world I have never +yet discovered. They are always "attending to things." Whatever that +may mean, I have long ago received it as the only solution at my command +of their superfluous wear and tear, and worry and flurry, and tears and +nerves and headaches. A fellow may suggest Jane, and obtrude Bridget, +and hire Peggy, and run in debt for Mehetable, and offer to take the +baby on 'Change with him, but has he by a feather's weight lightened +Madam's mysterious burden? My dear sir, don't presume to expect it. She +has just as much to do as she ever had. In fact, she has a little more. +"Strange, you don't appreciate it! Follow her about one day, and see for +yourself!" + +What I started to say, however, was that I thought it over often,--I +mean about that invoice of Irishwomen,--coming home from the office at +night, while we were moving out of Artichoke Street into Nemo's Avenue. +It is not pleasant to find one's wife always sitting on a bandbox. I +have seen her crawl to her feet when she heard me coming, and hold on by +a chair, and try her poor little best to look as if she could stand +twenty-four hours longer; she so disliked that I should find a "used-up +looking house" under any circumstances. But I believe that was worse +than the bandbox. + +On this particular night she was too tired even to crawl. I found her +all in a heap in the corner, two dusters and a wash-cloth in one +blue-veined hand, and a broom in the other; an old corn-colored silk +handkerchief knotted over her hair,--her hair is black, and the effect +was good,--and her little brown calico apron-string literally tied to +the baby, who was shrieking at the end of his tether because he could +just not reach the kitten and throw her into the fire. On Alison's lap, +between a pile of shirts and two piles of magazines, lay a freshly +opened letter. I noticed that she put it into her pocket before she +dropped her dusters and stood up to lift her face for my kiss. She +forgot about the apron-strings, and the baby tipped up the wrong way, +and hung dangling in mid-air. + +After we had taken tea,--that is to say, after we had drawn around the +ironing-board put on two chairs in the front entry, made the cocoa in a +tin dipper, stirred it with a fork, and cut the bread with a +jack-knife,--after the baby was fairly off to bed in a champagne-basket, +and Tip disposed of, his mother only knew where, we coaxed a consumptive +fire into the parlor grate, and sat down before it in the carpetless, +pictureless, curtainless, blank, bare, soapy room. + +"Thank fortune, this is the last night of it!" I growled, putting my +booted feet against the wall, (my slippers had gone over to the avenue +in a water-pail that morning,) and tipping my chair back drearily,--my +wife "_so_ objects" to the habit! + +Allis made no reply, but sat looking thoughtfully, and with a slightly +perplexed and displeased air, into the sizzling wet wood that snapped +and flared and smoked and hissed and blackened, and did everything but +burn. + +"I really don't know what to do about it," she broke silence at last. + +"I'm inclined to think there's nothing better to do than to look at it." + +"No; not the fire. O, I forgot--I haven't shown it to you." + +She drew from her pocket the letter which I had noticed in the +afternoon, and laid it upon my knee. With my hands in my pockets--the +room was too cold to take them out--I read:-- + + Dear Cousin Alison:-- + + "I have been so lonely since mother died, that my health, never of + the strongest, as you know, has suffered seriously. My physician + tells me that something is wrong with the periphrastic action, if + you know what that is," [I suppose Miss Fellows meant the + peristaltic action,] "and prophesies something dreadful, (I've + forgotten whether it was to be in the head, or the heart, or the + stomach,) if I cannot have change of air and scene this winter. I + should dearly love to spend some time with you in your new home, (I + fancy it will be drier than the old one,) if convenient to you. If + inconvenient, don't hesitate to say so, of course. I hope to hear + from you soon. + + "In haste, your aff. cousin, + + "Gertrude Fellows. + + "P.S.--I shall of course insist upon being a boarder if I come. + + "G.F." + +"Hum-m. Insipid sort of letter." + +"Exactly. That's Gertrude. No more flavor than a frozen pear. If she had +one distinguishing peculiarity, good or bad, I believe I should like +her better. But I'm sorry for the woman." + +"Sorry enough to stand a winter of her?" + +"If we hadn't just been through this moving! A new house and +all,--nobody knows how the flues are yet, or whether we can heat a spare +room. She hasn't had a home, though, since Cousin Dorothy died. But I +was thinking about you, you see." + +"O, she can't hurt me. She won't want the library, I suppose; nor my +slippers, and the small bootjack. Let her come." + +My wife sighed a small sigh of relief out from the depths of her +hospitable heart, and the little matter was settled and dismissed as +lightly as are most little matters out of which grow the great ones. + +I had just begun to dream that night that Gertrude Fellows, in the shape +of a large wilted pear, had walked in and sat down on a dessert plate, +when Allis gave me a little pinch and woke me. + +"My dear, Gertrude has _one_ peculiarity. I never thought of it till +this minute." + +"Confound Gertrude's peculiarities! I want to go to sleep. Well, let's +have it." + +"Why, you see, she took up with some Spiritualistic notions after her +mother's death; thought she held communications with her, and all that, +Aunt Solomon says." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" + +"Of course. But, Fred, dear, I'm inclined to think she _must_ have made +her sewing-table walk into the front entry; and Aunt Solomon says the +spirits rapped out the whole of Cousin Dorothy's history on the +mantel-piece, behind those blue china vases,--you must have noticed them +at the funeral,--and not a human hand within six feet." + +"Alison Hotchkiss!" I said, waking thoroughly, and sitting up in bed to +emphasize the opinion, "when I hear a spirit rap on _my_ mantel-piece, +and see _my_ tables walk about the front entry, I'll believe that,--not +before!" + +"O, I know it! I'm not a Spiritualist, I'm sure, and nothing would tempt +me to be. But still that sort of reasoning has a flaw in it, hasn't it, +dear? The King of Siam, you know--" + +I had heard of the King of Siam before, and I politely informed my wife +that I did not care to hear of him again. Spiritualism was a system of +refined jugglery. Just another phase of the same thing which brings the +doves out of Mr. Hermann's empty hat. It might be entertaining if it had +not become such an abominable imposition. There would always be nervous +women and hypochondriac men enough for its dupes. I thanked Heaven that +I was neither, and went to sleep. + +Our new house was light and dry; the flues worked well, and the spare +chamber heated admirably. The baby exchanged the champagne-basket for +his dainty pink-curtained crib; Tip began to recover from the perpetual +cold with which three weeks' sitting in draughts, and tumbling into +water-pails, and playing in the sink, had sweetened his temper; Allis +forsook her bandboxes for the crimson easy-chair (very becoming, that +chair), or tripped about on her own rested feet; we returned to +table-cloths, civilized life, and a fork apiece. + +In short, nothing at all worth mentioning happened, till that one +night,--I think it was our first Sunday,--when Allis waked me at twelve +o'clock with the announcement that some one was knocking at the door. +Supposing it to be Bridget with the baby,--croup, probably, or a fit,--I +unlocked and unlatched it promptly. No one was there, however; and +telling my wife, in no very gentle tone, if I remember correctly, that +it would be a convenience, on such cold nights, if she could keep her +dreams to herself, I shut the door distinctly and returned to my own. + +In the morning I observed a little white circle about each of Allis's +blue eyes, and after some urging she confessed to me that her sleep had +been much broken by a singular disturbance in the room. I might laugh at +her if I chose, and she had not meant to tell me, but somebody had +rapped in that room all night long. + +"On the door?" + +"On the door, on the mantel, on the foot of the bed, on the +head-board,--Fred, right on the head-board! I listened till I grew cold +listening, but it rapped and it rapped, and by and by it was morning, +and it stopped." + +"Rats!" said I. + +"Then rats have knuckles," said she. + +"Mice!" said I, "wind! broken plaster! crickets! imagination! dreams! +fancies! blind headache! nonsense! Next time wake me up, and fire +pillows at me till I'm pleasant to you. Now I'll have a kiss and a cup +of coffee. Any sugar in it?" + +Tip fell down the cellar stairs that day, and the baby swallowed a +needle and two gutta-percha buttons, which I had been waiting a week to +have sewed on my vest, so that Alison had enough else to think about, +and the little incident of the raps was forgotten. I believe it was not +recalled by either of us till after Gertrude Fellows came. + +It was on a Monday and in a drizzly storm that I brought her from the +station. She was a thin, cold, phantom-like woman, shrouded in +water-proofs and green _barège_ veils. Why is it that homely women +always wear green _barège_ veils? She did not improve in appearance when +her wraps were off, and she was seated by my parlor grate. Her large +green eyes had no speculation in them. Her mouth--an honest mouth, that +was one mercy--quivered and shrank when she was addressed suddenly, as +if she felt herself to be a sort of foot-ball that the world was kicking +about at pleasure,--your gentlest smile might prove a blow. She seldom +spoke unless she were spoken to, and fell into long reveries, with her +eyes on the window or the coals. She wore a horrible sort of +ruff,--"illusion," I think Allis called it,--which, of all contrivances +that she could have chosen to encircle her sallow neck, was exactly the +most unbecoming. She was always knitting blue stockings,--I never +discovered for what or whom; and she wore her lifeless hair in the shape +of a small toy cartwheel, on the back of her head. + +However, she brightened a little in the course of the first week, helped +Alison about the baby, kept herself out of my way, read her Bible and +the "Banner of Light" in about equal proportion, and became a mild, +inoffensive, and, on the whole, not unpleasant addition to the family. + +She had been in the house about ten days, I think, when Alison, with a +disturbed face, confided to me that she had spent another wakeful night +with those "rats" behind the head-board; I had been down with a +sick-headache the day before, and she had not wakened me. I promised to +set a trap and buy a cat before evening, and was closing the door upon +the subject, being already rather late at the office, when the +expression of Gertrude Fellows's face detained me. + +"If I were you, I--wouldn't--really buy a very expensive trap, Mr. +Hotchkiss. It will be a waste of money, I am afraid. I heard the noise +that disturbed Cousin Alison"; and she sighed. + +I shut the door with a snap, and begged her to be so good as to explain +herself. + +"It's of no use," she said, doggedly. "You know you won't believe me. +But that makes no difference. They come all the same." + +"_They_?" asked Allis, smiling. "Do you mean some of your spirits?" + +The cold little woman flushed. "These are not _my_ spirits. I know +nothing about them. I did not mean to obtrude a subject so disagreeable +to you while I was in your family; but I have seldom been in a house in +which the Influences were so strong. I don't know what they mean, nor +anything about them, but just that they're here. They wake me up, +twitching my elbows, nearly every night." + +"Wake you up _how_?" + +"Twitching my elbows," she repeated, gravely. + +I broke into a laugh, from which neither my politeness nor the woman's +heightened color could save me, bought the cat and ordered the rat-trap +without delay. + +That night, when Miss Fellows had "retired,"--she never "went to bed" in +simple English like other people,--I stole softly out in my stockings +and screwed a little brass button outside of her door. I had made a +gimlet-hole for it in the morning when our guest was out shopping; it +fitted into place without noise. Without noise I turned it, and went +back to my own room. + +"You suspect her, then?" said Alison. + +"One is always justified in suspecting a Spiritualistic medium." + +"I don't know about that," Allis said, decidedly. "It may have been +mice that I heard last night, or the wind in a bottle, or any of the +other proper and natural causes that explain away the ghost stories in +the children's papers; but it was not Gertrude. Women know something +about one another, my dear; and I tell you it was not Gertrude." + +"I don't assert that it was; but with the bolt on Gertrude's door, the +cat in the kitchen, and the rat-trap on the garret stairs, I am strongly +inclined to anticipate a peaceful night. I will watch for a while, +however, and you can go to sleep." + +She went to sleep, and I watched. I lay till half past eleven with my +eyes staring at the dark, wide awake and undisturbed and triumphant. + +At half past eleven I must confess that I heard a singular sound. + +Something whistled at the keyhole. It could not have been the wind, by +the way, for there was no wind that night. Something else than the wind +whistled in at the keyhole, sighed through into the room as much like a +long-drawn breath as anything, and fell with a slight clink upon the +floor. + +I lighted my candle and got up. I searched the floor of the room, and +opened the door and searched the entry. Nothing was visible or audible, +and I went back to bed. For about ten minutes I heard no further +disturbance, and was concluding myself to be in some undefined manner +the victim of my own imagination, when there suddenly fell upon the +headboard of my bed a blow so distinct and loud that I involuntarily +sprang at the sound of it. It wakened Alison, and I had the satisfaction +of hearing her sleepily inquire if I had caught that rat yet? By way of +reply I relighted the candle, and gave the bed a shove which sent it +rolling half across the room. I examined the wall; I examined the floor; +I examined the headboard; I made Alison get up, so that I could shake +the mattresses. Meantime the pounding had recommenced, in rapid, +irregular, blows, like the blows of a man's fist. The room adjoining +ours was the nursery. I went in with my light. It was empty and silent. +Bridget, with Tip and the baby, slept soundly in the large chamber +across the hall. While I was searching the room my wife called loudly to +me, and I ran back. + +"It is on the mantel now," she said. "It struck the mantel just after +you left; then the ceiling, three times, very loud; then the mantel +again,--don't you hear?" + +I heard distinctly; moreover, the mantel shook a little with the +concussion. I took out the fire-board and looked up the chimney; I took +out the register and looked down the furnace-pipe; I ransacked the +garret and the halls; finally, I examined Miss Fellows's door,--it was +locked as I had left it, upon the outside; and that locked door was the +only means of egress from the room, unless the occupant fancied that of +jumping from a two-story window upon a broad flight of stone steps. + +I came thoughtfully back across the hall; an invisible trip-hammer +appeared to hit the floor beside me at every step; I attempted to step +aside from it, over it, away from it; but it followed me, pounding into +my room. + +"Wind?" suggested Allis. "Plaster cracking? Fancies? Dreams? Blind +headaches?--I should like to know which you have decided upon?" + +Quiet fell upon the house after that for an hour, and I was dropping +into my first nap, when there came a light tap upon the door. Before I +could reach it, it had grown into a thundering blow. + +"Whatever it is I'll have it now!" I whispered, turned the latch without +noise, and flung the door wide into the hall. It was silent, dark, and +cold. A little glimmer of moonlight fell in and showed me the figures +upon the carpet, outlined in a frosty bar. No hand or hammer, human or +superhuman, was there. + +Determined to investigate matters a little more thoroughly, I asked my +wife to stand upon the inside of the doorway while I kept watch upon the +outside. We took our position, and I closed the door between us. +Instantly a series of furious blows struck the door; the sound was such +as would be made by a stick of oaken wood. The solid door quivered under +it. + +"It's on your side!" said I. + +"No, it's on yours!" said she. + +"You're pounding yourself to fool me," cried I. + +"You're pounding yourself to frighten me," sobbed she. + +And we nearly had a quarrel. The sound continued with more or less +intermission till daybreak. Allis fell asleep, but I spent the time in +appropriate reflections. + +Early in the morning I removed the button from Miss Fellows's door. She +never knew anything about it. + +I believe, however, that I had the fairness to exculpate her in my +secret heart from any trickish connection with the disturbances of that +night. + +"Just keep quiet about this little affair," I said to my wife; "we shall +come across an explanation in time, and may never have any more of it." + +We kept quiet, and for five days so did "the spirits," as Miss Fellows +was pleased to pronounce the trip-hammers. + +The fifth day I came home early, as it chanced, from the office. Miss +Fellows was writing letters in the parlor. Allis, upstairs, was sorting +and putting away the weekly wash. I came into the room and sat down by +the register to watch her. I always liked to watch her sitting there on +the floor with the little heaps of linen and cotton stuff piled like +blocks of snow about her, and her pink hands darting in and out of the +uncertain sleeves that were just ready to give way in the gathers, +trying the stockings' heels briskly, and testing the buttons with a +little jerk. + +She laid aside some under-clothing presently from the rest. "It will +not be needed again this winter," she observed, "and had better go into +the cedar closet." The garments, by the way, were marked and numbered in +indelible ink. I heard her run over the figures in a busy, housekeeper's +undertone, before carrying them into the closet. She locked the closet +door, I think, for I remember the click of the key. If I remember +accurately, I stepped into the hall after that to light a cigar, and +Alison flitted to and fro with her clothes, dropping the baby's little +white stockings every step or two, and anathematizing them +daintily--within orthodox bounds, of course. In about five minutes she +called me; her voice was sharp and alarmed. + +"Come quick! O Fred, look here! All those clothes that I locked into the +cedar closet are out here on the bed!" + +"My dear wife," I blandly observed, as I sauntered into the room, "too +much of Gertrude Fellows hath made thee mad. Let _me_ see the clothes!" + +She pointed to the bed. Some white clothing lay upon it, folded in an +ugly way, to represent a corpse, with crossed hands. + +"Is it meant for a joke, Alison? You did it yourself, I suppose!" + +"Fred! I have not touched it with the tip of my little finger!" + +"Gertrude, then?" + +"Gertrude is in the parlor writing." + +So she was. I called her up. She looked surprised and troubled. + +"It must have been Bridget," I proceeded, authoritatively, "or Tip." + +"Bridget is out walking with Tip and the baby. Jane is in the kitchen +making pies." + +"At any rate these are not the clothes which you locked into the closet, +however they came here." + +"The very same, Fred. See, I noticed the numbers 6 upon the stockings, 2 +on the night-caps, and--" + +"Give me the key," I interrupted. + +She gave me the key. I went to the cedar closet and tried the door. It +was locked. I unlocked it, and opened the drawer in which my wife +assured me that the clothes had lain. Nothing was to be seen in it but +the linen towel which neatly covered the bottom. I lifted it and shook +it. The drawer was empty. + +"Give me those clothes, if you please." + +She brought them to me. I made in my diary a careful memorandum of their +naming and numbering; placed the articles myself in the drawer,--an +upper drawer, so that there could be no mistake in identifying it; +locked the drawer, put the key in my pocket; locked the door of the +closet, put the key in my pocket; locked the door of the room in which +the closet was, and put that key in my pocket. + +We sat down then in the hall, all of us; Allis and Gertrude to fill the +mending-basket, I to smoke and consider. I saw Tip coming home with his +nurse presently, and started to go down and let him in, when a faint +scream from my wife arrested me. I ran past Miss Fellows, who was +sitting on the stairs, and into my room. Allis, going in to put away +Tip's little plaid aprons, had stopped, rather pale, upon the threshold. +Upon the bed lay some clothing, folded, as before, in rude, hideous +imitation of the dead. + +I took each article in turn, and compared the name and number with the +names and numbers in my diary. They were identical throughout. I took +the clothes, took the three keys from my pocket, unlocked the +"cedar-room" door, unlocked the closet door, unlocked the upper drawer, +and looked in. The drawer was empty. + +To say that from this time I failed to own--to myself, if not to other +people--that some mysterious influence, inexplicable by common or +scientific causes, was at work in my house, would be to accuse myself of +more obstinacy than even I am capable of. I propounded theory after +theory, and gave it up. I arrived at conclusion upon conclusion, and +threw them aside. Finally, I held my peace, ceased to talk of "rats," +kept my mind in a state of passive vacancy, and narrowly and quietly +watched the progress of affairs. + +From the date of that escapade with the underclothes confusion reigned +in our corner of Nemo's Avenue. That night neither my wife nor myself +closed an eye, the house so resounded and re-echoed with the blows of +unseen hammers, fists, logs, and knuckles. + +Miss Fellows, too, was pale with her vigils, looked troubled, and +proposed going home. This I peremptorily vetoed, determined if the woman +had any connection, honest or otherwise, with the mystery, to ferret it +out. + +The following day, just after dinner, I was writing in the library, when +a child's cry of fright and pain startled me. It seemed to come from the +little yard behind the house, and I hurried thither to behold a singular +sight. There was one apple-tree in the yard,--an old, stunted, crooked +thing; and in that tree I found my son and heir, Tip, tied fast with a +small stout rope. "Tied" does not express it; he was gagged, manacled, +twisted, contorted, wound about, crossed and recrossed, held without a +chance of motion, scarcely of breath. + +"You never tied yourself up here, child?" I asked, as I cut the knots. + +The question certainly was unnecessary. No juggler could have bound +himself in such a fashion; scarcely, then, a four-years' child. To my +continued, clear, and gentle inquiries, the boy replied, persistently +and consistently, that nobody tied him there,--"not Cousin Gertrude, nor +Bridget, nor the baby, nor mamma, nor Jane, nor papa, nor the black +kitty"; he was "just tooken up all at once into the tree, and that was +all there was about it." He "s'posed it must have been God, or something +like that, did it." + +Poor Tip had a hard time of it. Two days after that, while his mother +and I sat discussing the incident, and the child was at play upon the +floor, he suddenly threw himself at full length, writhing with pain, and +begging to "have them pulled out quick!" + +"Have _what_ pulled out?" exclaimed his terrified mother. She took the +child into her lap, and found that he was stuck over from head to foot +with large white pins. + +"We haven't so many large pins in all the house," she said as soon as he +was relieved. + +As she spoke the words thirty or forty _small_ pins pierced the boy. +Where they came from no one could see. How they came there no one knew. +We looked, and there they were, and Tip was crying and writhing as +before. + +For the remainder of that winter we had scarcely a day of quiet. The +rumor that "the Hotchkisses had rented a haunted house" leaked out and +spread abroad. The frightened servants gave warning, and other +frightened servants took their place, to leave in turn. My wife was her +own cook and nursery-maid a quarter of the time. The disturbances varied +in character with every week, assuming, as time went on, an importunity +which, had we not quietly settled it in our own minds "not to be beaten +by a noise," would have driven us from the house. + +Night after night the mysterious fingers rapped at the windows, the +doors, the floors, the walls. Day after day uncomfortable tricks were +sprung upon us by invisible agencies. We became used to the noises, so +that we slept through them easily; but many of the phenomena were so +strikingly unpleasant, and so singularly unsuited to the ordinary +conditions of human happiness and housekeeping, that we scarcely +became--as one of our excellent deacons had a cheerful habit of +exhorting us to become--"resigned." + +Upon one occasion we had invited a small and select number of friends to +dine. It was to be rather a _recherché_ affair for Nemo's Avenue, and my +wife had spared no painstaking to suit herself with her table. We had +had a comparatively quiet house the night before, so that our cook, who +had been with us three days, consented to remain till our guests had +been provided for. The soup was good, the pigeons better, the bread was +_not_ sour, and Allis looked hopeful, and inclined to trust Providence +for the gravies and dessert. + +It was just as I had begun to carve the beef that I observed my wife +suddenly pale, and a telegram from her eyes turned mine in the direction +of General Popgun, who sat at her right hand. My sensations "can better +be imagined than described" when I saw General Popgun's fork, untouched +by any human hand, dancing a jig on his plate. He grasped it and laid it +firmly down. As soon as he released his hold it leaped from the table. + +"Really--aw--very singular phenomena," began the General; "very +singular! I was not prepared to credit the extraordinary accounts of +spiritual manifestations in this house, but--aw--Well, I must say--" + +Instantly it was Pandemonium at that dinner-table. Dr. Jump's knife, +Mrs. M'Ready's plate, and Colonel Hope's tumbler sprang from their +places. The pigeons flew from the platter, the caster rattled and +rolled, the salt-cellars bounded to and fro, and the gravies, moved by +some invisible disturber, spattered all over Mrs. Elias P. Critique's +_moire antique_. + +Mortified and angered beyond endurance, I for the first time addressed +the spirits,--wrenched for the moment into a profound belief that they +must be spirits indeed. + +"Whatever you are, and wherever you are," I shouted, bringing my hand +down hard upon the table, "go out of this room and let us alone!" + +The only reply was a furious mazourka of all the dishes on the table. A +gentleman present, who had, as he afterward told us, studied the subject +of spiritualism somewhat, very sceptically and with unsatisfactory +results, observed the performance keenly, and suggested that I should +try a gentler method of appeal. Whatever the agent was,--and what it was +he had not yet discovered,--he had noticed repeatedly that the quiet +modes of meeting it were most effective. + +Rather amused, I spoke more softly, addressing the caster, and +intimating in my blandest manner that I and my guests would feel under +obligations if we could have the room to ourselves till after we had +dined. The disturbance gradually ceased, and we had no more of it that +day. + +A morning or two after Alison chanced to leave half a dozen teaspoons +upon the sideboard in the breakfast-room; they were of solid silver, and +quite thick. She was going to rub them herself, I believe, and went into +the china-closet, which opens from the room, for the silver-soap. The +breakfast-room was left vacant, and it was vacant when she returned to +it, and she insists, with a quiet conviction which it is hardly +reasonable to doubt, that no human being did or could have entered the +room without her knowledge. When she came back to the sideboard every +one of those spoons lay there _bent double_. She showed them to me when +I came home at noon. Had they been pewter toys they could not have been +more completely twisted out of shape than they were. I took them without +any remarks (I began to feel as if this mystery were assuming +uncomfortable proportions), put them away, just as I found them, into a +small cupboard in the wall of the breakfast-room, locked the cupboard +door with the only key in the house which fitted it, put the key in my +inner vest pocket, and meditatively ate my dinner. + +About half an hour afterward a neighbor dropped in to groan over the +weather and see the baby, and Allis chanced to mention the incident of +the spoons. + +"Really, Mrs. Hotchkiss!" said the lady, with a slight smile, and that +indefinite, quickly smothered change of eye which signifies, "I don't +believe a word of it!" "Are you sure that there is not a mistake +somewhere, or a little mental hallucination? The story is very +entertaining, but--I beg your pardon--I should be interested to see +those spoons." + +"Your curiosity shall be gratified, madam," I said, a little testily; +and taking the key from my pocket, I led her to the cupboard and +unlocked the door. I found those spoons as straight, smooth, and fair as +ever spoons had been;--not a dent, not a wrinkle, not a bend nor untrue +line could we discover anywhere upon them. + +"_Oh!_" said our visitor, significantly. + +That lady, be it recorded, then and thenceforward spared no pains to +found and strengthen throughout Nemo's Avenue the theory that "the +Hotchkisses were getting up all that spiritual nonsense to force their +landlord into lower rents. And such respectable people too! It did seem +a pity, didn't it?" + +One night I was alone in the library. It was late; about half-past +eleven, I think. The brightest gas jet was lighted, so that I could see +to every portion of the small room. The door was shut. There was no +furniture but the book-cases, my table, and chair; no sliding: doors or +concealed corners; no nook or cranny in which any human creature could +lurk unseen by me; and I say that I was alone. + +I had been writing to a confidential friend a somewhat minute account +of the disturbances in my house, which were now of about six weeks' +duration. I had begged him to come and observe them for himself, and help +me out with a solution,--I myself was at a loss for a reasonable one. +There certainly seemed to be evidence of superhuman agency; but I was +hardly ready yet to commit myself thoroughly to that view of the matter, +and-- + +In the middle of that sentence I laid down my pen. A consciousness, +sudden and distinct, came to me that I was not alone in that bright +little silent room. Yet to mortal eyes alone I was. I pushed away my +writing and looked about. The warm air was empty of outline; the +curtains were undisturbed; the little recess under the library table +held nothing but my own feet; there was no sound but the ordinary +rap-rapping on the floor, to which I had by this time become so +accustomed that often it passed unnoticed. I rose and examined the room +thoroughly, until quite satisfied that I was its only visible occupant; +then sat down again. The rappings had meantime become loud and +impatient. + +I had learned that very week from Miss Fellows the spiritual alphabet +with which she was in the habit of "communicating with her dead mother." +I had never asked her, nor had she proposed, to use it herself for my +benefit. I had meant to try all other means of investigation before +resorting to it. Now, however being alone, and being perplexed and +annoyed by my sense of having invisible company, I turned and spelled +out upon the table, so many raps to a letter till the question was +complete:-- + +"_What do you want of me?_" + +Instantly the answer came rapping back:-- + +"_Stretch down your hand._" + +I put my fingers under the table, and I felt, as indubitably as I ever +felt a touch in my life, the grasp of a _warm, human hand_. + +I added to the broken paragraph in the letter to my friend a brief +account of the occurrence, and reiterated my entreaties that he would +come at his earliest convenience to my house. He was an Episcopal +clergyman, by the way, and I considered that his testimony would uphold +my fast-sinking character for veracity among my townspeople. I began to +have an impression that this dilemma in which I found myself was a +pretty serious one for a man of peaceable disposition and honest +intentions to be in. + +About this time I undertook to come to a little better understanding +with Miss Fellows. I took her away alone, and having tried my best not +to frighten the life out of her by my grave face, asked her seriously +and kindly to tell me whether she supposed herself to have any +connection with the phenomena in my house. To my surprise she answered +promptly that she thought she had. I repressed a whistle, and "asked for +information." + +"The presence of a medium renders easy what would otherwise be +impossible," she replied. "I offered to go away, Mr. Hotchkiss, in the +beginning." + +I assured her that I had no desire to have her go away at present, and +begged her to proceed. + +"The Influences in the house are strong, as I have said before," she +continued, looking through me and beyond me with her vacant eyes. +"Something is wrong. They are never at rest. I hear them. I feel them. I +see them. They go up and down the stairs with me. I find them in my +room. I see them gliding about. I see them standing now, with their +hands almost upon your shoulders." + +I confess to a kind of chill that crept down my backbone at these words, +and to having turned my head and stared hard at the book-cases behind +me. + +"But they--I mean something--rapped one night before you came," I +suggested. + +"Yes, and they might rap after I was gone. The simple noises are not +uncommon in places where there are no better means of communication. The +extreme methods of expression, such as you have witnessed this winter, +are, I doubt not, practicable only when the system of a medium is +accessible. They write all sorts of messages for you. You would ridicule +them. I do not repeat them. You and Cousin Alison do not see, hear, feel +as I do. We are differently made. There are lying spirits and true, good +spirits and bad. Sometimes the bad deceive and distress me, but +sometimes--sometimes my mother comes." + +She lowered her voice reverently, and I was fain to hush the laugh upon +my lips. Whatever the thing might prove to be to me, it was daily +comfort to the nervous, unstrung, lonely woman, whom to suspect of +trickery I began to think was worse than stupidity. + +From the time of my midnight experience in the library I allowed myself +to look a little further into the subject of "communications." Miss +Fellows wrote them out at my request whenever they "came" to her. +Writers on Spiritualism have described the process so frequently, that +it is unnecessary for me to dwell upon it at length. The influences took +her unawares in the usual manner. In the usual manner her arm--to all +appearance the passive instrument of some unseen, powerful +agency--jerked and glided over the paper, writing in curious, scrawly +characters, never in her own neat little old-fashioned hand, messages of +which, on coming out from the "trance" state, she would have-no memory; +of many of which at any time she could have had no comprehension. These +messages assumed every variety of character from the tragic to the +ridiculous, and a large portion of them had no point whatever. + +One day Benjamin West desired to give me lessons in oil-painting. The +next, my brother Joseph, dead now for ten years, asked forgiveness for +his share in a little quarrel of ours which had embittered a portion of +his last days,--of which, by the way, I am confident that Miss Fellows +knew nothing. At one time I received a long discourse enlightening me on +the arrangement of the "spheres" in the disembodied state of existence. +At another, Alison's dead grandfather pathetically reminded her of a +certain Sunday afternoon at "meetin'" long ago, when the child Allis +hooked his wig off in the long prayer with a bent pin and a piece of +fish-line. + +One day we were saddened by the confused wail of a lost spirit, who +represented his agonies as greater than soul could bear, and clamored +for relief. Moved to pity, I inquired:-- + +"What can we do for you?" + +Unseen knuckles rapped back the touching answer:-- + +"Give me a piece of squash pie!" + +I remarked to Miss Fellows that I supposed this to be a modern and +improved version of the ancient drop of water which was to cool the +tongue of Dives. She replied that it was the work of a mischievous +spirit who had nothing better to do; they would not infrequently take in +that way the reply from the lips of another. I am not sure whether we +are to have lips in the spiritual world, but I think that was her +expression. + +Through all the nonsense and confusion of these daily messages, however, +one restless, indefinite purpose ran; a struggle for expression that we +could not grasp; a sense of something unperformed which was tormenting +somebody. + +One week we had been so much more than usually annoyed by the dancing of +tables, shaking of doors, and breaking of crockery, that I lost all +patience, and at length vehemently dared our unseen tormentors to show +themselves. + +"Who and what are you?" I cried, "destroying the peace of my family in +this unendurable fashion. If you are mortal man, I will meet you as +mortal man. Whatever you are, in the name of all fairness, let me see +you!" + +"If you see me it will be death to you," tapped the Invisible. + +"Then let it be death to me! Come on! When shall I have the pleasure of +an interview?" + +"To-morrow night at six o'clock." + +"To-morrow at six, then, be it." + +And to-morrow at six it was. Allis had a headache, and was lying down +upstairs. Miss Fellows and I were with her, busy with cologne and tea, +and one thing and another. I had, in fact, forgotten all about my +superhuman appointment, when, just as the clock struck six, a low cry +from Miss Fellows arrested my attention. + +"I see it!" she said. + +"See what?" + +"A tall man wrapped in a sheet." + +"Your eyes are the only ones so favored, it happens," I said, with a +superior smile. But while I spoke Allis started from the pillows with a +look of fear. + +"_I_ see it, Fred!" she exclaimed, under her breath. + +"Women's imagination!" for I saw nothing. + +I saw nothing for a moment; then I must depose and say that I _did_ see +a tall figure, covered from head to foot with a sheet, standing still in +the middle of the room. I sprang upon it with raised arm; my wife states +that I was within a foot of it when the sheet dropped. It dropped at my +feet,--nothing but a sheet. I picked it up and shook it; only a sheet. + +"It is one of those old linen ones of grandmother's," said Allis, +examining it; "there are only six, marked in pink with the boar's-head in +the corner. It came from the blue chest up garret. They have not been +taken out for years." + +I took the sheet back to the blue chest myself,--having first observed +the number, as I had done before with the underclothes; and locked it +in. I came back to my room and sat down by Allis. In about three minutes +we saw the figure standing still as before, in the middle of the room. +As before, I sprang at it, and as before the drapery dropped, and there +was nothing there. I picked up the sheet and turned to the numbered +corner. It was the same that I had locked into the blue chest. + +Miss Fellows was inclined to fear that I had really endangered my life +by this ghostly rendezvous. I can testify, however, that it was by no +means "death to me," nor did I experience any ill effects from the +event. + +My friend, the clergyman, made me the desired visit in January. For a +week after his arrival, as if my tormentors were bent on convincing my +almost only friend that I was a fool or a juggler, we had no disturbance +at all beyond the ordinary rappings. These, the reverend gentleman +confessed were of a singular nature, but expressed a polite desire to +see some of the extraordinary manifestations of which I had written him. + +But one day he had risen with some formality to usher a formal caller to +the-door, when, to his slight amazement and my secret delight, his +chair--an easy-chair of good proportions--deliberately jumped up and +hopped after him across the room. From this period the mystery +"manifested" itself to his heart's content. Not only did the +rocking-chairs, and the cane-seat chairs, and the round-backed chairs, +and Tip's little chairs, and the affghans chase him about, and the heavy +_tête-à-tête_ in the corner evince symptoms of agitation at his +approach, but the piano trundled a solemn minuet at him; the heavy +walnut centre-table rose half-way to the ceiling under his eyes; the +marble-topped stand, on which he sat to keep it still, lifted itself and +him a foot from the ground; his coffee-cup spilled over when he tried to +drink, shaken by an unseen elbow; his dressing-cases disappeared from +his bureau and hid themselves, none knew how or when, in his closets and +under his bed; mysterious uncanny figures, dressed in his best clothes +and stuffed with straw, stood in his room when he came to it at night; +his candlesticks walked, untouched by hands, from the mantel into space; +keys and chains fell from the air at his feet; and raw turnips dropped +from the solid ceiling into his soup-plate. + +"Well, Garth," said I one day, confidentially, "how are things? Begin to +have a 'realizing sense' of it, eh?" + +"Let me think awhile," he answered. + +I left him to his reflections, and devoted my attention for a day or two +to Gertrude Fellows. She seemed to have been of late receiving less +ridiculous, less indefinite, and more important messages from her +spiritual acquaintances. The burden of them was directed at me. They +were sometimes confused, but never contradictory, and the sum of them, +as I cast it up, was this:-- + +A former occupant of the house, one Mr. Timothy Jabbers, had been in +early life connected in the dry-goods business with my wife's father, +and had, unknown to any but himself, defrauded his partner of a +considerable sum for a young swindler,--some five hundred dollars, I +think. This fact, kept in the knowledge only of God and the guilty man, +had been his agony since his death. In the parlance of Spiritualism, he +could never "purify" his soul and rise to a higher "sphere" till he had +made restitution,--though to that part of the communications I paid +little attention. This money my wife, as her father's sole living heir, +was entitled to, and this money I was desired to claim for her from Mr. +Jabbers's estate, then in the hands of some wealthy nephews. + +I made some inquiries which led to the discovery that there had been a +Mr. Timothy Jabbers once the occupant of our house, that he had at one +period been in business with my wife's father, that he was now many +years dead, and that his nephews in New York were his heirs. We never +attempted to bring any claim upon them, for three reasons: in the first +place, because we knew we shouldn't get the money; in the second, +because such a procedure would give so palpable an "object" in people's +eyes for the disturbances at the house that we should, in all +probability, lose the entire confidence of the entire non-spiritualistic +community; thirdly, because I thought it problematical whether any +constable of ordinary size and courage could be found who would +undertake to summon the witness to testify in the county court at +Atkinsville. + +I mention the matter only because, on the theories of Spiritualism, it +appeared to give some point and occasion to the phenomena, and their +infesting that particular house. + +Whether poor Mr. Timothy Jabbers felt relieved by having unburdened +himself of his confession, I cannot state; but after he found that I +paid some attention to his messages, he gradually ceased to express +himself through turnips and cold keys; the rappings grew less violent +and frequent, and finally ceased altogether. Shortly after that Miss +Fellows went home. + +Garth and I talked matters over the day after she left. He had brought +his "thinking" to a close, whittled his opinions to a point, and was +quite ready to stick them into their places for my benefit, and leave +them there, as George Garth left all his opinions, immovable as the +everlasting hills. + +"How much had she to do with it now,--the Fellows?" + +"Precisely what she said she had, no more. She was a medium, but not a +juggler." + +"No trickery about the affair, then?" + +"No trickery could have sent that turnip into my soup-plate, or that +candlestick walking into the air. There _is_ a great deal of trickery +mixed with such phenomena. The next case you come across may be a +regular cheat; but you will find it out,--you'll find it out. You've had +three months to find this out, and you couldn't. Whatever may be the +explanation of the mystery, the man who can witness what you and I have +witnessed, and pronounce it the trick of that incapable, washed-out +woman, is either a liar or a fool. + +"You understand yourself and your wife, and you've tested your servants +faithfully; so we're somewhat narrowed in our conclusions." + +"Well, then, what's the matter?" + +I was, I confess, a little startled by the vehemence with which my +friend brought his clerical fist down upon the table, and exclaimed:-- + +"The Devil?" + +"Dear me, Garth, don't swear; you in search of a pulpit just at this +time, too!" + +"I tell you I never spoke more solemnly. I cannot, in the face of facts, +ascribe all these phenomena to human agency. Something that comes we +know not whence, and goes we know not whither, is at work there in the +dark. I am driven to grant to it an extra-human power. Yet when that +flabby Miss Fellows, in the trance state, undertakes to bring me +messages from my dead wife, and when she attempts to recall the most +tender memories of our life together, I cannot,"--he paused and turned +his face a little away,--"it would be pleasant to think I had a word +from Mary, but I cannot think she is there. I don't believe good spirits +concern themselves with this thing. It has in its fair developments too +much nonsense and too much positive sin; read a few numbers of the +'Banner,' or attend a convention or two, if you want to be convinced of +that. If they 're not good spirits they're bad ones, that's all. I've +dipped into the subject in various ways since I have been here; +consulted the mediums, talked with the prophets; I'm convinced that +there is no dependence to be placed on the thing. You never learn +anything from it that it is worth while to learn; above all, you never +can trust its _prophecies_. It is evil,--_evil_ at the root; and except +by physicians and scientific men it had better be let alone. They may +yet throw light on it; you and I cannot. I propose for myself to drop it +henceforth. In fact, it looks too much toward putting one's self on +terms of intimacy with the Prince of the Powers of the Air to please +me." + +"You're rather positive, considering the difficulty of the subject," I +said. + +The truth is, and it may be about time to own to it, that the three +months' siege against the mystery, which I had held so pertinaciously +that winter, had driven me to broad terms of capitulation. I assented to +most of my friend's conclusions, but where he stopped I began a race for +further light. I understood then, for the first time, the peculiar charm +which I had often seen work so fatally with dabblers in Spiritualism. +The fascination of the thing was upon me. I ransacked the papers for +advertisements of mediums. I went from city to city at their mysterious +calls. I held _séances_ in my parlor, and frightened my wife with +messages--some of them ghastly enough--from her dead relatives, I ran +the usual gauntlet of strange seers in strange places, who told me my +name, the names of all my friends, dead or alive, my secret aspirations +and peculiar characteristics, my past history and future prospects. + +For a long time they never made a failure. Absolute strangers told me +facts about myself which not even my own wife knew: whether they spoke +with the tongues of devils, or whether, by some unknown laws of +magnetism, they simply _read my thoughts_, I am not even now prepared to +say. I think if they had made a miss I should have been spared some +suffering. Their communications had sometimes a ridiculous aimlessness, +and occasionally a subtle deviltry coated about with religion, like a +pill with sugar, but often a significant and fearful accuracy. + +Once, I remember, they foretold an indefinite calamity to be brought +upon me before sunset on the following Saturday. Before sunset on that +Saturday I lost a thousand dollars in mining stock which had stood in +all Eastern eyes as solid as its own gold. At another time I was warned +by a medium in Philadelphia that my wife, then visiting in Boston, was +taken suddenly ill. I had left her in perfect health; but feeling +nevertheless uneasy, I took the night train and went directly to her. I +found her in the agonies of a severe attack of pleurisy, just preparing +to send a telegram to me. + +"Their prophecies are unreliable, notwithstanding coincidences," wrote +George Garth. "Let them alone, Fred, I beg of you. You will regret it if +you don't." + +"Once let me be fairly taken in and cheated to my face," I made reply, +"and I may compress my views to your platform. Until then I must gang my +own gait." + +I now come to the remarkable portion of my story,--at least it seems +to me the remarkable portion under my present conditions of vision. + +In August of the summer following Miss Fellows's visit, and the +manifestations in my house at Atkinsville, I was startled one pleasant +morning, while sitting in the office of a medium in Washington Street in +Boston, by a singularly unpleasant communication. + +"The second day of next May," wrote the medium,--she wrote with the +forefinger of one hand upon the palm of the other,--"the second of May, +at one o'clock in the afternoon, you will be summoned into a spiritual +state of existence." + +"I suppose, in good English, that means I'm going to die," I replied, +carelessly. "Would you be so good as to write it with a pen and ink, +that there may be no mistake?" + +She wrote it distinctly: "The second of May, at one o'clock in the +afternoon." + +I pocketed the slip of paper for further use, and sat reflecting. + +"How do you know it?" + +"_I_ don't know it. I am told." + +"Who tells you?" + +"Jerusha Babcock and George Washington." + +Jerusha Babcock was the name of my maternal grandmother. What could the +woman know of my maternal grandmother? It did not occur to me, I +believe, to wonder what occasion George Washington could find to concern +himself about my dying or my living. There stood the uncanny Jerusha as +pledge that my informant knew what she was talking about. I left the +office with an uneasy sinking at the heart. There was a coffin-store +near by, and I remember the peculiar interest with which I studied the +quilting of the satin lining, and the peculiar crawling sensation which +crept to my fingers' ends. + +Determined not to be unnecessarily alarmed, I spent the next three weeks +in testing the communication. I visited one more medium in Boston, two +in New York, one in New Haven, one in Philadelphia, and one in a little +out-of-the-way Connecticut village, where I spent a night, and did not +know a soul. None of these people, I am confident, had ever seen my face +or heard, my name before. + +It was a circumstance calculated at least to arrest attention, that +these seven people, each unknown to the others, and without concert with +the others, repeated the ugly message which had sought me out through +the happy summer morning in Washington Street. There was no hesitation, +no doubt, no contradiction. I could not trip them or cross-question them +out of it. Unerring, assured, and consistent, the fiat went forth:-- + +"On the second of May, at one o'clock in the afternoon, you will pass +out of the body." + +I would not have believed them if I could have helped myself, I sighed +for the calm days when I had laughed at medium and prophet, and sneered +at ghost and rapping. I took lodgings in Philadelphia, locked my doors, +and paced my rooms all day and half the night, tortured by my thoughts, +and consulting books of medicine to discover what evidence I could by +any possibility give of unsuspected disease. I was at that time +absolutely well and strong; absolutely well and strong I was forced to +confess myself, after having waded through Latin adjectives and +anatomical illustrations enough to make a ghost of Hercules. I devoted +two days to researches in genealogical pathology, and was rewarded for +my pains by discovering myself to be the possessor of one great-aunt who +had died of heart disease at the advanced age of two months. + +Heart disease, then, I settled upon. The alternative was accident. +"Which will it be?" I asked in vain. Upon this point my friends the +mediums held a delicate reserve. "The Influences were confusing, and +they were not prepared to state with exactness." + +"Why _don't_ you come home?" my wife wrote in distress and perplexity. +"You promised to come ten days ago, and they need you at the office, and +I need you more than anybody." + +"I need you more than anybody!" When the little clinging needs of three +weeks grew into the great want of a lifetime,--O, how could I tell _her_ +what was coming? + +I did not tell her. When I had hurried home, when she came bounding +through the hall to meet me, when she held up her face, half laughing, +half crying, and flushing and paling, to mine,--the poor little face +that by and by would never watch and glow at my coming,--I could not +tell her. + +When the children were in bed and we were alone after tea, she climbed +gravely up into my lap from the little cricket on which she had been +sitting, and put her hands upon my shoulders. + +"You're sober, Fred, and pale. Something ails you, you know, and you are +going to tell me all about it." + +Her pretty, mischievous face swam suddenly before my eyes. I kissed it, +put her gently down as I would a child, and went away alone till I felt +more like myself. + +The winter set in gloomily enough. It may have been the snow-storms, of +which we had an average of one every other day, or it may have been the +storm in my own heart which I was weathering alone. + +Whether to believe those people, or whether to laugh at their +predictions; whether to tell my wife, or whether to continue +silent,--these questions tormented me through many wakeful nights and +dreary days. My fears were in nowise allayed by a letter which' I +received one day in January from Gertrude Fellows. + +"Why don't you read it aloud? What's the news?" asked Alison. But at one +glance over the opening page I folded the sheet, and did not read it +till I could lock myself into the library alone. The letter ran:-- + +"I have been much disturbed lately on your behalf. My mother and your +brother Joseph appear to me nearly every day, and charge me with some +message to you which I cannot distinctly grasp. It seems to be clear, +however, as far as this: that some calamity is to befall you in the +spring,--in May, I should say. It seems to me to be of the nature of +death. I do not learn that you can avoid it, but that they desire you to +be prepared for it." + +After receiving this last warning, certain uncomfortable words filed +through my brain for days together:-- + +"Set thine house in order, for thou shalt surely die." + +"Never knew you read your Bible so much in all your life," said Alison, +with a pretty pout. "You'll grow so good that I can't begin to keep up +with you. When I try to read my polyglot, the baby comes and bites the +corners, and squeals till I put it away and take him up." + +As the winter wore away I arrived at this conclusion: If I were in fact +destined to death in the spring, my wife could not help herself or me by +the knowledge of it. If events proved that I was deluded in the dread, +and I had shared it with her, she would have had all her pain and +anxiety to no purpose. In either case I would insure her happiness for +these few months; they might be her last happy months. At any rate +happiness was a good thing, and she could not have too much of it. To +say that I myself felt no uneasiness as to the event would be +affectation. The old sword of Damocles hung over me. The hair might +hold, but it was a hair. + +As the winter passed,--it seemed to me as if winter had never passed so +rapidly before,--I found it natural to watch my health with the most +careful scrutiny; to avoid improper food and undue excitement; to +refrain from long and perilous journeys; to consider whether each new +cook who entered the family might have occasion to poison me. It was an +anomaly which I did not observe at the time, that while in my heart of +hearts I expected to breathe my last upon the second of May, I yet +cherished a distinct plan of fighting, cheating, persuading, or +overmatching death. + +I closed a large speculation on which I had been inclined, in the +summer, to "fly"; Alison could never manage petroleum ventures. I wound +up my business in a safe and systematic manner. "Hotchkiss must mean to +retire," people said. I revised my will, and held one long and necessary +conversation with my wife about her future, should "anything happen" to +me. She listened and planned without tears or exclamations; but after we +had finished the talk, she crept up to me with a quiet, puzzled sadness +that I could not bear. + +"You are growing so blue lately, Fred! Why, what can 'happen' to you? I +don't believe God can mean to leave me here after you are gone; I don't +believe he _can_ mean to!" + +All through the sweet spring days we were much together. I went late to +the office. I came home early. I spent the beautiful twilights at home. +I followed her about the house. I made her read to me, sing to me, sit +by me, touch me with her little, soft hand. I watched her face till the +sight choked me. How soon before she would know? How soon? + +"I feel as if we'd just been married over again," she said one day, +pinching my cheek with a low laugh. "You are so good! I'd no idea you +cared so much about me. By and by, when you get over this lazy fit and +go about as you used to, I shall feel so deserted,--you've no idea! I +believe I will order a little widow's cap, and put it on, and wear it +about,--now, what do you mean by getting up and stalking off to look out +of the window? Fine prospect you must have, with the curtain down!" + +It is, to say the least, an uncomfortable state of affairs when you find +yourself drawing within a fortnight of the day on which seven people +have assured you that, you are going to shuffle off this mortal coil. It +is not agreeable to have no more idea than the dead (probably not as +much) of the manner in which your demise is to be effected. It is not in +all respects a cheerful mode of existence to dress yourself in the +morning with the reflection that you are never to half wear out your +new mottled coat, and that this striped neck-tie will be laid away by +and by in a little box, and cried over by your wife; to hear your +immediate acquaintances all wondering why you _don't_ get yourself some +new boots; to know that your partner has been heard to say that you are +growing dull at trade; to find the children complaining that you have +engaged no rooms yet at the beach; to look into their upturned eyes and +wonder how long it is going to take for them to forget you; to go out +after breakfast and wonder how many more times you will shut that front +door; to come home in the perfumed dusk and see the faces pressed +against the window to watch for you, and feel warm arms about your neck, +and wonder how soon they will shrink from the chill of you; to feel the +glow of the budding world, and think how blossom and fruit will crimson +and drop without you, and wonder how the blossom and fruit of life can +slip from you in the time of violet smells and orioles. + +April, spattered with showers and dripped upon a little with ineffectual +suns, slid restlessly away from me, and I locked my office door one +night, reflecting that it was the night of the first of May, and that +to-morrow was the second. + +I spent the evening alone with my wife. I have spent more agreeable +evenings. She came and nestled at my feet, and the firelight painted her +cheeks and hair, and her eyes followed me, and her hand was in mine; but +I have spent more agreeable evenings. + +The morning of the second broke without a cloud. Blue jays flashed past +my window; a bed of royal pansies opened to the sun, and the smell of +the fresh, moist earth came up where Tip was digging in his little +garden. + +"Not feeling exactly like work to-day," as I told my wife, I did not go +to the office. I asked her to come into the library and sit with me. I +remember that she had a pudding to bake, and refused at first; then +yielded, laughing, and said that I must go without my dessert. I thought +it highly probable that I _should_ go without my dessert. + +I remember precisely how pretty she was that morning. She wore a bright +dress,--blue, I think,--and a white crocus in her hair; she had a dainty +white apron tied on, "to cook in," she said, and her pink nails were +powdered with flour. Her eyes laughed and twinkled at me. I remember +thinking how young she looked, and how unready for suffering. I remember +that she brought the baby in after a while, and that Tip came all muddy +from the garden, dragging his tiny hoe over the carpet; that the window +was open, and that, while we all sat there together, a little brown bird +brought some twine and built a nest on an apple-bough just in sight. + +I find it difficult to explain the anxiety which I felt, as the, morning +wore on, that dinner should be punctually upon the table at half past +twelve. But I now understand perfectly, as I did not once, the old +philosophy: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." + +It was ironing-day, and our dinners were apt to be late upon +ironing-days. I concluded that, if the soup were punctual, and not too +hot, I could leave myself ten or perhaps fifteen unoccupied minutes +before one o'clock. It strikes me as curious now, the gravity with which +this thought underran the fever and pain and dread of the morning. + +I fell to reading my hymn-book about twelve o'clock, and when Alison +called me to dinner I did not remember to consult my watch. + +The soup was good, though hot. A grim Epicurean stolidity crept over me +as I sat down before it. A man had better make the most of his last +chance at mock-turtle. Fifteen minutes were enough to die in. + +I am confident that I ate more rapidly than is consistent with +consummate elegance. I remember that Tip imitated me, and that Allis +opened her eyes at me. I recall distinctly the fact that I had passed my +plate a second time. + +I had passed my plate a second time, I say, and had just raised the +spoon to my lips, when it fell from my palsied hand; for the little +bronze clock upon the mantel struck one. + +I sat with drawn breath and glared at it; at the relentless silver +hands; at the fierce, and, as it seemed to me, _living_ face of the Time +on its top, who stooped and swung his scythe at me. + +"I would like a very _big_ white potato," said Tip, breaking the solemn +silence. + +You may or may not believe me, but it is a fact that that is all which +happened. + + * * * * * + +I slowly turned my head. I resumed my spoon. + +"The kitchen clock is nearly half an hour too slow," observed Alison. "I +told Jane that you would have it fixed this week." + +I finished my soup in silence. + +It may interest the reader to learn that up to the date of this article +"I still live." + + + + +"Little Tommy Tucker." + + + +There were but three persons in the car; a merchant, deep in the income +list of the "Traveller," an old lady with two bandboxes, a man in the +corner with his hat pulled over his eyes. + +Tommy opened the door, peeped in, hesitated, looked into another car, +came back, gave his little fiddle a shove on his shoulder, and walked +in. + + "Hi! Little Tommy Tucker + Plays for his supper," + +shouted the young exquisite lounging on the platform in tan-colored coat +and lavender kid gloves. + +"O Kids, you're there, are you? Well, I'd rather play for it than loaf +for it, _I_ had," said Tommy, stoutly. + +The merchant shot a careless glance over the top of his paper, at the +sound of this _petit dialogue_, and the old lady smiled benignly; the +man in the corner neither looked nor smiled. + +Nobody would have thought, to look at that man in the corner, that he +was at that very moment deserting a wife and five children. Yet that is +precisely what he was doing. + +A villain? O no, that is not the word. A brute? Not by any means. A +man, weak, unfortunate, discouraged, and selfish, as weak, unfortunate, +and discouraged people are apt to be; that was the amount of it. His +panoramas never paid him for the use of his halls. His travelling +tin-type saloon had trundled him into a sheriff's hands. His petroleum +speculations had crashed like a bubble. His black and gold sign, _J. +Harmon, Photographer_, had swung now for nearly a year over the +dentist's rooms, and he had had the patronage of precisely six old women +and three babies. He had drifted to the theatre in the evenings, he did +not care now to remember how many times,--the fellows asked him, and it +made him forget his troubles; the next morning his empty purse would +gape at him, and Annie's mouth would quiver. A man must have his glass +too, on Sundays, and--well, perhaps a little oftener. He had not always +been fit to go to work after it; and Annie's mouth would quiver. It will +be seen at once that it was exceedingly hard on a man that his wife's +mouth should quiver. "Confound it! Why couldn't she scold or cry? These +still women aggravated a fellow beyond reason." + +Well, then the children had been sick; measles, whooping-cough, +scarlatina, mumps, he was sure he did not know what not; every one of +them from the baby up. There was medicine, and there were doctor's +bills, and there was sitting up with them at night,--their mother +usually did that. Then she must needs pale down herself, like a poorly +finished photograph; all her color and roundness and sparkle gone; and +if ever a man liked to have a pretty wife about, it was he. Moreover she +had a cough, and her shoulders had grown round, stooping so much over +the heavy baby, and her breath came short, and she had a way of being +tired. Then she never stirred out of the house,--he found out about that +one day; she had no bonnet, and her shawl had been cut up into blankets +for the crib. The children had stopped going to school. "They could not +buy the new arithmetic," their mother said, half under her breath. +Yesterday there was nothing for dinner but Johnny-cake, nor a large one +at that. To-morrow the saloon rents were due. Annie talked about pawning +one of the bureaus. Annie had had great purple rings under her eyes for +six weeks. + +He would not bear the purple rings and quivering mouth any longer. He +hated the sight of her, for the sight stung him. He hated the corn-cake +and the untaught children. He hated the whole dreary, dragging, needy +home. The ruin of it dogged him like a ghost, and he should be the ruin +of it as long as he stayed in it. Once fairly rid of him, his scolding +and drinking, his wasting and failing, Annie would send the children to +work, and find ways to live. She had energy and invention, a plenty of +it in her young, fresh days, before he came across her life to drag her +down. Perhaps he should make a golden fortune and come back to her some +summer day with a silk dress and servants, and make it all up; in theory +this was about what he expected to do. But if his ill luck went westward +with him, and the silk dress never turned up, why, she would forget him, +and be better off, and that would be the end of it. + +So here he was, ticketed and started, fairly bound for Colorado, sitting +with his hat over his eyes, and thinking about it. + +"Hm-m. Asleep," pronounced Tommy, with his keen glance into the corner. +"Guess I'll wake him up." + +He laid his cheek down on his little fiddle,--you don't know how Tommy +loved that little fiddle,--and struck up a gay, rollicking tune,-- + +"I care for nobody and nobody cares for me." + +The man in the corner sat quite still. When it was over he shrugged his +shoulders. + +"When folks are asleep they don't hist their shoulders, not as a general +thing," observed Tommy. "We'll try another." + +Tommy tried another. Nobody knows what possessed the little fellow, the +little fellow himself least of all; but he tried this:-- + + "We've lived and loved together, + Through many changing years." + +It was a new tune, and he wanted practice, perhaps. + +The train jarred and started slowly; the gloved exquisite, waiting +hackmen, baggage-masters, coffee-counter, and station-walls slid back; +engine-house and prison towers, and labyrinths of tracks slipped by; +lumber and shipping took their place, with clear spaces between, where +sea and sky shone through. The speed of the train increased with a +sickening sway; old wharves shot past, with the green water sucking at +their piers; the city shifted by and out of sight. + + "We've lived and loved together," + +played Tommy in a little plaintive wail, + + "We've lived and loved--" + +"Confound the boy!" Harmon pushed up his hat with a jerk, and looked out +of the window. The night was coming on. A dull sunset lay low on the +water, burning like a bale-fire through the snaky trail of smoke that +went writhing past the car windows. Against lonely signal-houses and +little deserted beaches the water was plashing drearily, and playing +monotonous bases to Tommy's wail:-- + + "Through many changing years, + Many changing years." + +It was a nuisance, this music in the cars. Why didn't somebody stop it? +What did the child mean by playing that? They had left the city far +behind now. He wondered how far. He pushed up the window fiercely, +venting the passion of the music on the first thing that came in his +way, and thrust his head out to look back. Through the undulating smoke, +out in the pale glimmer from the sky, he could see a low, red tongue of +land, covered with the twinkle of lighted homes. Somewhere there, in +among the quivering warmth, was one-- + +What was that boy about now? Not "Home, sweet Home?" But that was what +Tommy was about. + +They were lighting the lamps now in the car. Harmon looked at the +conductor's face, as the sickly yellow flare struck on it, with a +curious sensation. He wondered if he had a wife and five children; if he +ever thought of running away from them; what he would think of a man who +did; what most people would think; what she would think. She!--ah, she +had it all to find out yet. + + "There's no place like home," + +said Tommy's little fiddle, + + "O, no place like home." + +Now this fiddle of Tommy's may have had a crack or so in it, and I +cannot assert that Tommy never struck a false note; but the man in the +corner was not fastidious as a musical critic; the sickly light was +flickering through the car, the quiver on the red flats was quite out of +sight, the train was shrieking away into the west,--the baleful, lonely +west,--which was dying fast now out there upon the sea, and it is a fact +that his hat went slowly down over his face again, and that his face +went slowly down upon his arm. + +There, in the lighted home out upon the flats, that had drifted by +forever, she sat waiting now. It was about time for him to be in to +supper; she was beginning to wonder a little where he was; she was +keeping the coffee hot, and telling the children not to touch their +father's pickles; she had set the table and drawn the chairs; his pipe +lay filled for him upon the shelf over the stove. Her face in the light +was worn and white,--the dark rings very dark; she was trying to hush +the boys, teasing for their supper; begging them to wait a few minutes, +only a few minutes, he would surely be here then. She would put the baby +down presently, and stand at the window with her hands--Annie's hands +once were not so thin--raised to shut out the light,--watching, +watching. + +The children would eat their supper; the table would stand untouched, +with his chair in its place; still she would go to the window, and stand +watching, watching. O, the long night that she must stand watching, and +the days, and the years! + +"Sweet, sweet home," + +played Tommy. + +By and by there was no more of "Sweet Home." + +"How about that cove with his head lopped down on his arms?" speculated +Tommy, with a businesslike air. + +He had only stirred once, then put his face down again. But he was +awake, awake in every nerve; and listening, to the very curve of his +fingers. Tommy knew that; it being part of his trade to learn how to use +his eyes. + +The sweet, loyal passion of the music--it would take worse playing than +Tommy's to drive the sweet, loyal passion out of Annie Laurie--grew +above the din of the train:-- + + "'T was there that Annie Laurie + Gave me her promise true." + +She used to sing that, the man was thinking,--this other Annie of his +own. Why, she had been his own, and he had loved her once. How he had +loved her! Yes, she used to sing that when he went to see her on Sunday +nights, before they were married,--in her pink, plump, pretty days. +Annie used to be very pretty. + + "Gave me her promise true," + +hummed the little fiddle. + +"That's a fact," said poor Annie's husband, jerking the words out under +his hat, "and kept it too, she did." + +Ah, how Annie had kept it! The whole dark picture of her married +years,--the days of work and pain, the nights of watching, the patient +voice, the quivering mouth, the tact and the planning and the trust for +to-morrow, the love that had borne all things, believed all things, +hoped all things, uncomplaining,--rose into outline to tell him how she +had kept it. + + "Her face is as the fairest + That e'er the sun shone on," + +suggested the little fiddle. + +That it should be darkened forever, the sweet face! and that he should +do it,--he, sitting here, with his ticket bought, bound for Colorado. + + "And ne'er forget will I," + +murmured the little fiddle. + +He would have knocked the man down who had told him twenty years ago +that he ever should forget; that he should be here to-night, with his +ticket bought, bound for Colorado. + +But it was better for her to be free from him. He and his cursed +ill-luck were a drag on her and the children, and would always be. What +was that she had said once? + +"Never mind, Jack, I can bear anything as long as I have you." + +And here he was, with his ticket bought, bound for Colorado. + +He wondered if it were ever too late in the day for a fellow to make a +man of himself. He wondered-- + + "And she's a' the world to me, + And for bonnie Annie Laurie + I'd lay me down and dee," + +sang the little fiddle, triumphantly. + +Harmon shook himself, and stood up. The train was slackening; the +lights of a way-station bright ahead. It was about time for supper and +his mother, so Tommy put down his fiddle and handed around his faded +cap. + +The merchant threw him a penny, and returned to his tax list. The old +lady was fast asleep with her mouth open. + +"Come here," growled Harmon, with his eyes very bright. Tommy shrank +back, almost afraid of him. + +"Come here," softening, "I won't hurt you. I tell you, boy, you don't +know what you've done to-night." + +"Done, sir?" Tommy couldn't help laughing, though there was a twinge of +pain at his stout little heart, as he fingered the solitary penny in the +faded cap. "Done? Well, I guess I've waked you up, sir, which was about +what I meant to do." + +"Yes, that is it," said Harmon, very distinctly, pushing up his hat, +"you've waked me up. Here, hold your cap." + +They had puffed into the station now, and stopped. He emptied his purse +into the little cap, shook it clean of paper and copper alike, was out +of the car and off the train before Tommy could have said Jack Robinson. + +"My eyes!" gasped Tommy, "that chap had a ticket for New York, sure! +Methuselah! Look a here! One, two, three,--must have been crazy; that's +it, crazy." + +"He'll never find out," muttered Harmon, turning away from the station +lights, and striking back through the night for the red flats and home. +"He'll never find out what he has done, nor, please God, shall she." + +It was late when he came in sight of the house; it had been a long tramp +across the tracks, and hard; he being stung by a bitter wind from the +east all the way, tired with the monotonous treading of the sleepers, +and with crouching in perilous niches to let the trains go by. + +She stood watching at the window, as he had known that she would stand, +her hands raised to her face, her figure cut out against the warm light +of the room. + +He stood still a moment and looked at her, hidden in the shadow of the +street, thinking his own thoughts. The publican, in the old story, +hardly entered the beautiful temple with more humble step than he his +home that night. + +She sprang to meet him, pale with her watching and fear. + +"Worried, Annie, were you? I haven't been drinking; don't be +frightened,--no, not the theatre, either, this time. Some business, +dear; business that delayed me. I'm sorry you were worried, I am, Annie. +I've had a long walk. It is pleasant here. I believe I'm tired, Annie." + +He faltered, and turned away his face. + +"Dear me," said Annie, "why, you poor fellow, you are all tired out. +Sit right up here by the fire, and I will bring the coffee. I've tried +so hard not to let it boil away, you don't know, Jack, and I was so +afraid something had happened to you." + +Her face, her voice, her touch, seemed more than he could bear for a +minute, perhaps. He gulped down his coffee, choking. + +"Annie, look here." He put down his cup, trying to smile and make a jest +of the words. "Suppose a fellow had it in him to be a rascal, and nobody +ever knew it, eh?" + +"I should rather not know it, if I were his wife," said Annie, simply. + +"But you couldn't care anything more for him, you know, Annie?" + +"I don't know," said Annie, shaking her head with a little perplexed +smile, "you would be just Jack, _any how_." + +Jack coughed, took up his coffee-cup, set it down hard, strode once or +twice across the room, kissed the baby in the crib, kissed his wife, and +sat down again, winking at the fire. + +"I wonder if He had anything to do with sending him," he said, +presently, under his breath. + +"Sending whom?" asked puzzled Annie. + +"Business, dear, just business. I was thinking of a boy who did a little +job for me to-night, that's all." + +And that is all that she knows to this day about the man sitting in the +corner, with his hat over his eyes, bound for Colorado. + + + + +One of the Elect. + + + +"Down, Muff! down!" + +Muff obeyed; he took his paws off from his master's shoulders with an +injured look in his great mute eyes, and consoled himself by growling at +the cow. Mr. Ryck put a sudden stop to a series of gymnastic exercises +commenced between them, by throwing the creature's hay down upon her +horns; then he watered his horse, fed the sheep, took a look at the +hens, and closed all the doors tightly; for the night was cold, so cold +that he shivered, even under that great bottle-green coat of his: he was +not a young man. + +"Pretty cold night, Muff!" Muff was not blest with a forgiving +disposition; he maintained a dignified silence. But his master did not +feel the slight. Something, perhaps the cold, made him careless of the +dog to-night. + +The house was warm, at least; the light streamed far out of the kitchen +window, down almost to the orchard. He passed across it, showing his +figure a little stooping, and the flutter of gray hair from under his +hat; then into the house. His wife was busied about the room, a pleasant +room for a kitchen, with the cleanest of polished floors and whitened +tables; the cheeriest of fires, the home-like faces of blue and white +china peeping through the closet door; a few books upon a little shelf, +with an old Bible among them; the cosey rocking-chair that always stood +by the fire, and a plant or two in the south window. He came in, +stamping off the snow; Muff crawled behind the stove, and gave himself +up to a fit of metaphysics. + +"Cold, Amos?" + +"Of course. What else should I be, woman?" + +His wife made no reply. His unusual impatience only saddened her eyes a +little. She was one of those women who would have borne a life-long +oppression with dumb lips. Amos Ryck was not an unkind husband, but it +was not his way to be tender; the years which had whitened his hair had +brought him stern experiences: life was to him a battle, his horizon +always that about a combatant. But he loved her. + +"Most ready to sit down, Martha?" he said at last, more gently. + +"In a minute, Amos." + +She finished some bit of evening work, her step soft about the room. +Then she drew up the low rocking-chair with its covering of faded +crimson chintz, and sat down by her husband. + +She did this without noise; she did not sit too near to him; she took +pains not to annoy him by any feminine bustle over her work; she chose +her knitting, as being always most to his fancy; then she looked up +timidly into his face. But there was a frown, slight to be sure, but +still a frown, upon it, neither did he speak. Some gloomy, perhaps some +bitter thought held the man. A reflection of it might have struck across +her, as she turned her head, fixing her eyes upon the coals. + +The light on her face showed it pale; the lines on her mouth were deeper +than any time had worn for her husband; her hair as gray as his, though +he was already a man of grave, middle age, when the little wife--hardly +past her sixteenth birthday--came to the farm with him. + +Perhaps it is these silent women--spiritless, timid souls, like this +one,--who have, after all, the greatest capacity for suffering. You +might have thought so, if you had watched her. Some infinite mourning +looked out of her mute brown eyes. In the very folding of her hands +there was a sort of stifled cry, as one whose abiding place is in the +Valley of the Shadow. + +A monotonous sob of the wind broke at the corners of the house; in the +silence between the two, it was distinctly heard. Martha Ryck's face +paled a little. + +"I wish--" She tried to laugh. "Amos, it cries just like a baby." + +"Nonsense!" + +Her husband rose impatiently, and walked to the window. He was not given +to fancies; all his life was ruled and squared up to a creed. Yet I +doubt if he liked the sound of that wind much better than the woman. He +thrummed upon the window-sill, then turned sharply away. + +"There's a storm up, a cold one too." + +"It stormed when--" + +But Mrs. Ryck did not finish her sentence. Her husband, coming back to +his seat, tripped over a stool,--a little thing it was, fit only for a +child; a bit of dingy carpet covered it: once it had been bright. + +"Martha, what _do_ you keep this about for? It's always in the way!" +setting it up angrily against the wall. + +"I won't, if you'd rather not, Amos." + +The farmer took up an almanac, and counted out the time when the +minister's salary and the butcher's bill were due; it gave occasion for +making no reply. + +"Amos!" she said at last. He put down his book. + +"Amos, do you remember what day it is?" + +"I'm not likely to forget." His face darkened. + +"Amos," again, more timidly, "do you suppose we shall ever find out?" + +"How can I tell?" + +"Ever know anything,--just a little?" + +"We know enough, Martha." + +"Amos! Amos!" her voice rising to a bitter cry, "we don't know enough! +God's the only one that knows enough. He knows whether she's alive, and +if she's dead he knows, and where she is; if there was ever any hope, +and if her mother--" + +"Hope, Martha, for _her_!" + +She had been looking into the fire, her attitude unchanged, her hands +wrung one into the other. She roused at that, something in her face as +if one flared a sudden light upon the dead. + +"What ails you, Amos? You're her father; you loved her when she was a +little, innocent child." + +When she was a child, and innocent,--yes. _That_ was long ago. He +stopped his walk across the room, and sat down, his face twitching +nervously. But he had nothing to say,--not one word to the patient woman +watching him there in the firelight, not one for love of the child who +had climbed upon his knee and kissed him in that very room, who had +played upon that little faded cricket, and wound her arms about the +mother's neck, sitting just so, as she sat now. Yet he _had_ loved her, +the pure baby. That stung him. He could not forget it, though he might +own no fathership to the wanderer. + +Amos Ryck was a respectable man; he had the reputation of an honest, +pious farmer to maintain. Moreover, he was a deacon in the church. His +own life, stern in its purity, could brook no tenderness toward +offenders. His own child was as shut out from his forgiveness as he +deemed her to be from the forgiveness of his God. Yet you would have +seen, in one look at the man, that this blow with which he was smitten +had cleft his heart to its core. + +This was her birthday,--hers whose name had not passed his lips for +years. Do you think he had once forgotten it since its morning? Did not +the memories it brought crowd into every moment? Did they not fill the +very prayers in which he besought a sin-hating God to avenge him of all +his enemies? + +So many times the child had sat there at his feet on this day, playing +with some birthday toy,--he always managed to find her something, a doll +or a picture-book; she used to come up to thank him, pushing back her +curls, her little red lips put up for a kiss. He was very proud of +her,--he and the mother. She was all they had,--the only one. He used to +call her "God's dear blessing," softly, while his eyes grew dim; she +hardly heard him for his breaking voice. + +She might have stood there and brought back all those dead birthday +nights, so did he live them over. But none could know it; for he did not +speak, and the frown knotted darkly on his forehead. Martha Ryck looked +up at last into her husband's face. + +"Amos, if she _should_ ever come back!" He started, his eyes freezing. + +"She won't! She--" + +Would he have said "she _shall_ not?" God only knew. + +"Martha, you talk nonsense! It's just like a woman. We've said enough +about this. I suppose He who's cursed us has got his own reasons for it. +We must bear it, and so must she." + +He stood up, stroking his beard nervously, his eyes wandering about the +room; he did not, or he could not, look at his wife. Muff, rousing from +his slumbers, came up sleepily to be taken some notice of. She used to +love the dog,--the child; she gave him his name in a frolic one day; he +was always her playfellow; many a time they had come in and found her +asleep with Muff's black, shaggy sides for a pillow, and her little pink +arms around his neck, her face warm and bright with some happy dream. + +Mr. Ryck had often thought he would sell the creature; but he never had. +If he had been a woman, he would have said he could not. Being a man, he +argued that Muff was a good watch-dog, and worth keeping. + +"Always in the way, Muff!" he muttered, looking at the patient black +head rubbed against his knee. He was angry with the dog at that moment; +the next he had repented; the brute had done no wrong. He stooped and +patted him. Muff returned to his dreams content. + +"Well, Martha," he said, coming up to her uneasily, "you look tired." + +"Tired? No, I was only thinking, Amos." + +The pallor of her face, its timid eyes and patient mouth, the whole +crushed look of the woman, struck him freshly. He stooped and kissed her +forehead, the sharp lines of his face relaxing a little. + +"I didn't mean to be hard on you, Martha; we both have enough to bear +without that, but it's best not to talk of what can't be helped,--you +see." + +"Yes." + +"Don't think anything more about the day; it's not--it's not really good +for you; you must cheer up, little woman." + +"Yes, Amos." + +Perhaps his unusual tenderness gave her courage; she stood up, putting +both arms around his neck. + +"If you'd only try to love her a little, after all, my husband! He would +know it; He might save her for it." + +Amos Ryck choked, coughed, and said it was time for prayers. He took +down the old Bible in which his child's baby-fingers used to trace their +first lessons after his own, and read, not of her who loved much and was +forgiven, but one of the imprecatory Psalms. + +When Mrs. Ryck was sure that her husband was asleep that night, she rose +softly from her bed, unlocked, with noiseless key, one of her bureau +drawers, took something from it, and then felt her way down the dark +stairs into the kitchen. + +She drew a chair up to the fire, wrapped her shawl closely about her, +and untied, with trembling fingers, the knots of a soft silken +handkerchief in which her treasures were folded. + +Some baby dresses of purest white; a child's little pink apron; a pair +of tiny shoes, worn through by pattering feet; and a toy or two all +broken, as some impatient little fingers had left them; she was such a +careless baby! Yet they never could scold her, she always affected such +pretty surprises, and wide blue-eyed penitence: a bit of a queen she was +at the farm. + +Was it not most kindly ordered by the Infinite Tenderness which pitieth +its sorrowing ones, that into her still hours her child should come so +often only as a child, speaking pure things only, touching her mother so +like a restful hand, and stealing into a prayer? + +For where was ever grief like this one? Beside this sorrow, death was +but a joy. If she might have closed her child's baby-eyes, and seen the +lips which had not uttered their first "Mother!" stilled, and laid her +away under the daisies, she would have sat there alone that night, and +thanked Him who had given and taken away. + +But _this_,--a wanderer upon the face of the earth,--a mark, deeper +seared than the mark of Cain, upon the face which she had fondled and +kissed within her arms; the soul to which she had given life, accursed +of God and man,--to measure this, there is no speech nor language. + +Martha Ryck rose at last, took off the covers of the stove, and made a +fresh blaze which brightened all the room, and shot its glow far into +the street. She went to the window to push the curtain carefully aside, +stood a moment looking out into the night, stole softly to the door, +unlocked it, then went upstairs to bed. + +The wind, rising suddenly that night, struck sharply through the city. +It had been cold enough before, but the threatened storm foreboded that +it would be worse yet before morning. The people crowded in a warm and +brilliant church cast wandering glances from the preacher to the painted +windows, beyond which the night lay darkly, thought of the ride home in +close, cushioned carriages, and shivered. + +So did a woman outside, stopping just by the door, and looking in at the +hushed and sacred shelter. Such a temperature was not the best medicine +for that cough of hers. She had just crawled out of the garret, where +she had lain sick, very sick, for weeks. + +Passing the door of the Temple which reared its massive front and +glittering windows out of the darkness of the street, her ear was caught +by the faint, muffled sound of some anthem the choir were singing. She +drew the hood of her cloak over her face, turned into the shadow of the +steps, and, standing so, listened. Why, she hardly knew. Perhaps it was +the mere entreaty of the music, for her dulled ear had never grown deaf +to it; or perhaps a memory, flitting as a shadow, of other places and +other times, in which the hymns of God's church had not been strange to +her. She caught the words at last, brokenly. They were of some one who +was wounded. Wounded! she held her breath, listening curiously. The wind +shrieking past drowned the rest; only the swelling of the organ murmured +above it. She stole up the granite steps just within the entrance. No +one was there to see her, and she went on tiptoe to the muffled door, +putting her ear to it, her hair falling over her face. It was some +plaintive minor air they were hymning, as sad as a dying wail, and as +sweet as a mother's lullaby. + +"But He was wounded; He was wounded for our transgression; He was +bruised for our iniquities." + +Then, growing slower and more faint, a single voice took up the strain, +mournfully but clearly, with a hush in it as if one sang on Calvary. + +"Yet we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and we +esteemed him not." + +Well; He only knows what it spoke to the woman, who listened with her +guilty face hidden in her hair; how it drew her like a call to join the +throng that worshipped him. + +"I'd like to hear the rest," she muttered to herself. "I wonder what it +is about." + +A child came down from the gallery just then, a ragged boy, who, like +herself, had wandered in from the street. + +"Hilloa, Meg!" he said, laughing, "_you_ going to meeting? That's a good +joke!" If she had heard him, she would have turned away. But her hand +was on the latch; the door had swung upon its noiseless hinges; the +pealing organ drowned his voice. She went in and sat down in an empty +slip close by the door, looking about her for the moment in a sort of +childish wonder. The church was a blaze of light and color. One +perceived a mist of gayly dressed people, a soft flutter of fans, and +faint, sweet perfumes below; the velvet-cushioned pulpit, and pale, +scholarly outlines of the preacher's face above; the warmth of +rainbow-tinted glass; the wreathed and massive carving of oaken cornice; +the glitter of gas-light from a thousand prisms, and the silence of the +dome beyond. + +The brightness struck sharply against the woman sitting there alone. Her +face seemed to grow grayer and harder in it. The very hush of that +princely sanctuary seemed broken by her polluted presence. True, she +kept afar off; she did not so much as lift up her eyes to heaven; she +had but stolen in to hear the chanted words that were meant for the +acceptance and the comfort of the pure, bright worshippers,--sinners, to +be sure, in their way; but then, Christ died for _them_. This +tabernacle, to which they had brought their purple and gold and scarlet, +for his praise, was not meant for such as Meg, you know. + +But she had come into it, nevertheless. If He had called her there, she +did not know it. She only sat and listened to the chanting, forgetting +what she was; forgetting to wonder if there were one of all that +reverent throng who would be willing to sit and worship beside her. + +The singing ended at last, and the pale preacher began his sermon. But +Meg did not care for that; she could not understand it. She crouched +down in the corner of the pew, her hood drawn far over her face, +repeating to herself now and then, mechanically as it seemed, the words +of the chant. + +"Wounded--for our transgressions; and bruised,"--muttering, after a +while,--"Yet we hid our faces." Bruised and wounded! The sound of the +words attracted her; she said them over and over. She knew who He was. +Many years ago she had heard of him; it was a great while since then; +she had almost forgotten it. Was it true? And was he perhaps,--was there +a little chance it meant, he was bruised for her,--for _her_? She began +to wonder dimly, still muttering the sorrowful words down in her corner, +where no one could hear her. + +I wonder if He heard them. Do you think he did? For when the sermon was +ended, and the choir sang again,--still of him, and how he called the +heavy-laden, and how he kept his own rest for them, she said,--for was +she not very weary and heavy-laden with her sins?--still crouching down +in her corner, "That's me. I guess it is. I'll find out." + +She fixed her eyes upon the preacher, thinking, in her stunted, childish +way, that he knew so much, so many things she did not understand, that +surely he could tell her,--she should like to have it to think about; +she would ask him. She rose instinctively with the audience to receive +his blessing, then waited in her hooded cloak, like some dark and evil +thing, among the brilliant crowd. The door opening, as they began to +pass out by her, swept in such a chill of air as brought back a spasm of +coughing. She stood quivering under it, her face livid with the pain. +The crowd began to look at her curiously, to nod and whisper among +themselves. + +The sexton stepped up nervously; he knew who she was. "Meg, you'd better +go. What are you standing here for?" + +She flung him a look out of her hard, defiant eyes; she made no answer. +A child, clinging to her mother's hand, looked up as she went by, pity +and fear in her great wondering eyes. "Mother, see that poor woman; +she's hungry or cold!" + +The little one put her hand over the slip, pulling at Meg's cloak, +"What's the matter with you? Why don't you go home?" + +"Bertha, child, are you crazy?" Her mother caught her quickly away. +"Don't touch that woman!" + +Meg heard it. + +Standing, a moment after, just at the edge of the aisle, a lady, clad in +velvet, brushed against her, then gathered her costly garments with a +hand ringed and dazzling with diamonds, shrinking as if she had touched +some accursed thing, and sweeping by. + +Meg's eyes froze at that. This was the sanctuary, these the worshippers +of Him who was bruised. His message could not be for her. It would be of +no use to find out about him; of no use to tell him how she loathed +herself and her life; that she wanted to know about that Rest, and about +that heavy-laden one. His followers would not brook the very flutter of +her dress against their pure garments. They were like him; he could have +nothing to say to such as she. + +She turned to go out. Through the open door she saw the night and the +storm. Within was the silent dome, and the organ-hymn still swelling up +to it. + +It was still of the wounded that they sang. Meg listened, lingered, +touched the preacher on the arm as he came by. + +"I want to ask you a question." + +He started at the sight of her, or more perhaps at the sharpness in her +voice. + +"Why, why, who are you?" + +"I'm Meg. You don't know me. I ain't fit for your fine Christian people +to touch; they won't let their little children speak to me." + +"Well?" he said, nervously, for she paused. + +"Well? You're a preacher. I want to know about Him they've been singing +of, I came in to hear the singing. I like it." + +"I--I don't quite understand you," began the minister. "You surely have +heard of Jesus Christ." + +"Yes," her eyes softened, "somebody used to tell me; it was mother; we +lived in the country. I wasn't what I am now. I want to know if he can +put me back again. What if I should tell him I was going to be +different? Would he hear me, do you suppose?" + +Somehow the preacher's scholarly self-possession failed him. He felt ill +at ease, standing there with the woman's fixed black eyes upon him. + +"Why, yes; he always forgives a repentant sinner." + +"Repentant sinner." She repeated the words musingly. "I don't understand +all these things. I've forgotten most all about it. I want to know. +Couldn't I come in some way with the children and be learnt 'em? I +wouldn't make any trouble." + +There was something almost like a child in her voice just then, almost +as earnest and as pure. The preacher took out his handkerchief and wiped +his face; then he changed his hat awkwardly from hand to hand. + +"Why, why, really, we have no provision in our Sabbath school for cases +like this: we have been meaning to establish an institution of a +missionary character, but the funds cannot be raised just yet. I am +sorry; I don't know but--" + +"It's no matter!" + +Meg turned sharply away, her hands dropping lifelessly; she moved toward +the door. They were alone now in the church, they two. + +The minister's pale cheek flushed; he stepped after her. + +"Young woman!" + +She stopped, her face turned from him. + +"I will send you to some of the city missionaries, or I will go with you +to the Penitents' Retreat. I should like to help you. I--" + +He would have exhorted her to reform as kindly as he knew how; he felt +uncomfortable at letting her go so; he remembered just then who washed +the feet of his Master with her tears. But she would not listen. She +turned from him, and out into the storm, some cry on her lips,--it might +have been:-- + +"There ain't nobody to help me. I _was_ going to be better!" + +She sank down on the snow outside, exhausted by the racking cough which +the air had again brought on. + +The sexton found her there in the shadow, when he locked the church +doors. + +"Meg! you here? What ails you?" + +"_Dying_, I suppose!" + +The sight of her touched the man, she lying there alone in the snow; he +lingered, hesitated, thought of his own warm home, looked at her again. +If a friendly hand should save the creature,--he had heard of such +things. Well? But how could he take her into his respectable home? What +would people say?--the sexton of the Temple! He had a little wife there +too, pure as the snow upon the ground to-night. Could he bring them +under the same roof? + +"Meg!" he said, speaking in his nervous way, though kindly, "you _will_ +die here. I'll call the police and let them take you where it's warmer." + +But she crawled to her feet again. + +"No you won't!" + +She walked away as fast as she was able, till she found a still place +down by the water, where no one could see her. There she stood a moment +irresolute, looked up through the storm as if searching for the sky, +then sank upon her knees down in the silent shade of some timber. + +Perhaps she was half-frightened at the act, for she knelt so a moment +without speaking. There she began to mutter: "Maybe He won't drive me +off; if they did, maybe he won't. I should just like to tell him, +anyway!" + +So she folded her hands, as she had folded them once at her mother's +knee. + +"O Lord! I'm tired of being _Meg_. I should like to be something else!" + +Then she rose, crossed the bridge, and on past the thinning houses, +walking feebly through the snow that drifted against her feet. + +She did not know why she was there, or where she was going. She repeated +softly to herself now and then the words uttered down in the shade of +the timber, her brain dulled by the cold, faint, floating dreams +stealing into them. + +Meg! tired of being Meg! She wasn't always that. It was another name, a +pretty name she thought, with a childish smile,--Maggie. They always +call her that. She used to play about among the clover-blossoms and +buttercups then; the pure little children used to kiss her; nobody +hooted after her in the street, or drove her out of church, or left her +all alone out in the snow,--_Maggie_! + +Perhaps, too, some vague thought came to her of the mournful, +unconscious prophecy of the name, as the touch of the sacred water upon +her baby-brow had sealed it,--Magdalene. + +She stopped a moment, weakened by her toiling against the wind, threw +off her hood, the better to catch her laboring breath, and standing so, +looked back at the city, its lights glimmering white and pale, through +the falling snow. + +Her face was a piteous sight just then. Do you think the haughtiest of +the pure, fair women in yonder treasured homes could have loathed her as +she loathed herself at that moment? + +Yet it might have been a face as fair and pure as theirs; kisses of +mother and husband might have warmed those drawn and hueless lips; they +might have prayed their happy prayers, every night and morning, to God. +It _might have been_. You would almost have thought he had meant it +should be so, if you had looked into her eyes sometimes,--perhaps when +she was on her knees by the timber; or when she listened to the chant, +crouching out of sight in the church. + +Well, it was only that it might have been. Life could hold no possible +blessed change for her, you know. Society had no place for it, though +she sought it carefully with tears. Who of all God's happy children that +he had kept from sin would have gone to her and said, "My sister, his +love holds room for you and me"; have touched her with her woman's hand, +held out to her her woman's help, and blessed her with her woman's +prayers and tears? + +Do you not think Meg knew the answer? Had she not learned it well, in +seven wandering years? Had she not read it in every blast of this bitter +night, out into which she had come to find a helper, when all the happy +world passed by her, on the other side? + +She stood there, looking at the glittering of the city, then off into +the gloom where the path lay through the snow. Some struggle was in her +face. + +"Home! home and mother! She don't want me,--nobody wants me. I'd better +go back." + +The storm was beating upon her. But, looking from the city to the +drifted path, and back from the lonely path to the lighted city, she did +not stir. + +"I should like to see it, just to look in the window, a little,--it +wouldn't hurt 'em any. Nobody'd know." + +She turned, walking slowly where the snow lay pure and untrodden. On, +out of sight of the town, where the fields were still; thinking only as +she went, that nobody would know,--nobody would know. + +She would see the old home out in the dark; she could even say good-by +to it quite aloud, and they wouldn't hear her, or come and drive her +away. And then-- + +She looked around where the great shadows lay upon the fields, felt the +weakening of her limbs, her failing breath, and smiled. Not Meg's smile; +a very quiet smile, with a little quiver in it. She would find a still +place under the trees somewhere; the snow would cover her quite out of +sight before morning,--the pure, white snow. She would be only Maggie +then. + +The road, like some familiar dream, wound at last into the village. Down +the street where her childish feet had pattered in their playing, by the +old town pump, where, coming home from school, she used to drink the +cool, clear water on summer noons, she passed,--a silent shadow. She +might have been the ghost of some dead life, so moveless was her face. +She stopped at last, looking about her. + +"Where? I most forget." + +Turning out from the road, she found a brook half hidden under the +branches of a dripping tree,--frozen now; only a black glare of ice, +where she pushed away the snow with her foot. It might have been a +still, green place in summer, with banks of moss, and birds singing +overhead. Some faint color flushed all her face; she did not hear the +icicles dropping from the lonely tree. + +"Yes,"--she began to talk softly to herself,--"this is it. The first +time I ever saw him, he stood over there under the tree. Let me see; +wasn't I crossing the brook? Yes, I was crossing the brook; on the +stones. I had a pink dress. I looked in the glass when I went home," +brushing her soft hair out of her eyes. "Did I look pretty? I can't +remember. It's a great while ago." + +She came back into the street after that, languidly, for the snow lay +deeper. The wind, too, had chilled her more than she knew. The sleet was +frozen upon her mute, white face. She tried to draw her cloak more +closely about her, but her hands refused to hold it. She looked at them +curiously. + +"Numb? How much farther, I wonder?" + +It was not long before she came to it. The house stood up silently in +the night. A single light glimmered far out upon the garden. Her eye +caught it eagerly. She followed it down, across the orchard, and the +little plats where the flowers used to be so bright all summer long. She +had not forgotten them. She used to go out in the morning and pick them +for her mother,--a whole apronful, purple, and pink, and white, with +dewdrops on them. She was fit to touch them then. Her mother used to +smile when she brought them in. Her mother! Nobody ever smiled so since. +Did she know it? Did she ever wonder what had become of her,--the little +girl who used to kiss her? Did she ever want to see her? Sometimes, +when she prayed up in the old bedroom, did she remember her daughter +who had sinned, or guess that she was tired of it all, and how no one in +all the wide world would help her? + +She was sleeping there now. And the father. She was afraid to see him; +he would send her away, if he knew she had come out in the snow to look +at the old home. She wondered if her mother would. + +She opened the gate, and went in. The house was very still. So was the +yard, and the gleam of light that lay golden on the snow. The numbness +of her body began to steal over her brain. She thought at moments, as +she crawled up the path upon her hands and knees,--for she could no +longer walk,--that she was dreaming some pleasant dream; that the door +would open, and her mother come out to meet her. Attracted like a child +by the broad belt of light, she followed it over and through a piling +drift. It led her to the window where the curtain was pushed aside. She +managed to reach the blind, and so stand up a moment, clinging to it, +looking in, the glow from the fire sharp on her face. Then she sank down +upon the snow by the door. + +Lying so, her face turned up against it, her stiffened lips kissing the +very dumb, unanswering wood, a thought came to her. She remembered the +day. For seven long years she had not thought of it. + +A spasm crossed her face, her hands falling clinched. Who was it of whom +it was written, that better were it for that man if he had never been +born? Of Magdalene, more vile than Judas, what should be said? + +Yet it was hard, I think, to fall so upon the very threshold,--so near +the quiet, peaceful room, with the warmth, and light, and rest; to stay +all night in the storm, with eyes turned to that dead, pitiless sky, +without one look into her mother's face, without one kiss, or gentle +touch, or blessing, and die so, looking up! No one to hold her hand and +look into her eyes, and hear her say she was sorry,--sorry for it all! +That they should find her there in the morning, when her poor, dead face +could not see if she were forgiven! + +"I should like to go in," sobbing, with the first tears of many years +upon her cheek,--weak, pitiful tears, like a child's,--"just in out of +the cold!" + +Some sudden strength fell on her after that. She reached up, fumbling +for the latch. It opened at her first touch; the door swung wide into +the silent house. + +She crawled in then, into the kitchen where the fire was, and the +rocking-chair; the plants in the window, and the faded cricket upon the +hearth; the dog, too, roused from his nap behind the stove. He began to +growl at her, his eyes on fire. + +"Muff!" she smiled weakly, stretching out her hand. He did not know +her,--he was fierce with strangers. "Muff! don't you know me? I'm +Maggie; there, there, Muff, good fellow!" + +She crept up to him fearlessly, putting both her arms about his neck, +in a way she had of soothing him when she was his playfellow. The +creature's low growl died away. He submitted to her touch, doubtfully at +first, then he crouched on the floor beside her, wagging his tail, +wetting her face with his huge tongue. + +"Muff, _you_ know me, you old fellow! I'm sorry, Muff, I am,--I wish we +could go out and play together again. I'm very tired, Muff." + +She laid her head upon the dog, just as she used to long ago, creeping +up near the fire. A smile broke all over her face, at Muff's short, +happy bark. + +"_He_ don't turn me off; he don't know; he thinks I'm nobody but +Maggie." + +How long she lay so, she did not know. It might have been minutes, it +might have been hours; her eyes wandering all about the room, growing +brighter too, and clearer. They would know now that she had come back; +that she wanted to see them; that she had crawled into the old room to +die; that Muff had not forgotten her. Perhaps, _perhaps_ they would look +at her not unkindly, and cry over her just a little, for the sake of the +child they used to love. + +Martha Ryck, coming in at last, found her with her long hair falling +over her face, her arms still about the dog, lying there in the +firelight. + +The woman's eyelids fluttered for an instant, her lips moving dryly; but +she made no sound. She came up, knelt upon the floor, pushed Muff +gently away, and took her child's head upon her lap. + +"Maggie!" + +She opened her eyes and looked up. + +"Mother's glad to see you, Maggie." + +The girl tried to smile, her face all quivering. + +"Mother, I--I wanted you. I thought I wasn't fit." + +Her mother stooped and kissed her lips,--the polluted, purple lips, that +trembled so. + +"I thought you would come back to me, my daughter. I've watched for you +a great while." + +She smiled at that, pushing away her falling hair. + +"Mother, I'm so sorry." + +"Yes, Maggie." + +"And oh!" she threw out her arms; "O, I'm so tired, I'm so tired!" + +Her mother raised her, laying her head upon her shoulder. + +"Mother'll rest you, Maggie," soothing her, as if she sang again her +first lullaby, when she came to her, the little pure baby,--her only +one. + +"Mother," once more, "the door was unlocked." + +"It has been unlocked every night for seven years, my child." + +She closed her eyes after that, some stupor creeping over her, her +features in the firelight softening and melting, with the old child-look +coming into them. Looking up at last, she saw another face bending over +her, a face in which grief had worn stern lines; there were tears in +the eyes, and some recent struggle quivering out of it. + +"Father, I didn't mean to come in,--I didn't really; but I was so cold. +Don't send me off, father! I couldn't walk so far,--I shall be out of +your way in a little while,--the cough--" + +"_I_ send you away, Maggie? I--I might have done it once; God forgive +me! He sent you back, my daughter,--I thank him." + +A darkness swept over both faces then; she did not even hear Muff's +whining cry at her ear. + +"Mother," at last, the light of the room coming back, "there's Somebody +who was wounded. I guess I'm going to find him. Will he forget it all?" + +"All, Maggie." + +For what did He tell the sin-laden woman who came to him once, and dared +not look into his face? Was ever soul so foul and crimson-stained that +he could not make it pure and white? Does he not linger till his locks +are wet with the dews of night, to listen for the first, faint call of +any wanderer crying to him in the dark? + +So He came to Maggie. So he called her by her name,--Magdalene, most +precious to him; whom he had bought with a great price; for whom, with +groanings that cannot be uttered, he had pleaded with his Father: +Magdalene, chosen from all eternity, to be graven in the hollow of his +hand, to stand near to him before the throne, to look with fearless +eyes into his face, to touch him with her happy tears among his sinless +ones forever. + +And think you that _then_, any should scorn the woman whom the high and +lofty One, beholding, did thus love? Who could lay anything to the +charge of his elect? + +Perhaps he told her all this, in the pauses of the storm, for something +in her face transfigured it. + +"Mother, it's all over now. I think I shall be your little girl again." + +And so, with a smile, she went to Him. The light flashed broader and +brighter about the room, and on the dead face there,--never Meg's again. +A strong man, bowed over it, was weeping. Muff moaned out his brute +sorrow where the still hand touched him. + +But Martha Ryck, kneeling down beside her only child, gave thanks to +God. + + + + +What Was the Matter? + + + +I could not have been more than seven or eight years old, when it +happened; but it might have been yesterday. Among all other childish +memories, it stands alone. To this very day it brings with it the old, +utter sinking of the heart, and the old, dull sense of mystery. + +To read what I have to say, you should have known my mother. To +understand it, you should understand her. But that is quite impossible +now, for there is a quiet spot over the hill, and past the church, and +beside the little brook where the crimsoned mosses grow thick and wet +and cool, from which I cannot call her. It is all I have left of her +now. But after all, it is not of her that you will chiefly care to hear. +My object is simply to acquaint you with a few facts, which, though +interwoven with the events of her life, are quite independent of it as +objects of interest. It is, I know, only my own heart that makes these +pages a memorial,--but, you see, I cannot help it. + +Yet, I confess, no glamour of any earthly love has ever entirely dazzled +me,--not even hers. Of imperfections, of mistakes, of sins, I knew she +was guilty. I know it now; even with the sanctity of those crimsoned +mosses, and the hush of the rest beneath, so close to my heart, I cannot +forget them. Yet somehow--I do not know how--the imperfections, the +mistakes, the very sins, bring her nearer to me as the years slip by, +and make her dearer. + +My mother was what we call an aristocrat. I do not like the term, as the +term is used. I am sure she does not now; but I have no other word. She +was a royal-looking woman, and she had the blood of princes in her +veins. Generations back,--how we children used to reckon the thing +over!--she was cradled in a throne. A miserable race, to be sure, they +were,--the Stuarts; and the most devout genealogist might deem it +dubious honor to own them for great-grand-fathers by innumerable degrees +removed. So she used to tell us, over and over, as a damper on our +childish vanity, looking such a very queen as she spoke, in every play +of feature, and every motion of her hand, that it was the old story of +preachers who did not practise. The very baby was proud of her. The +beauty of a face, and the elegant repose of a manner, are influences by +no means more unfelt at three years than at thirty. + +As insanity will hide itself away, and lie sleeping, and die out,--while +old men are gathered to their fathers scathless, and young men follow in +their footsteps safe and free,--and start into life, and claim its own +when children's children have forgotten it; as a single trait of a +single scholar in a race of clods will bury itself in day-laborers and +criminals, unto the third and fourth generation, and spring then, like a +creation from a chaos, into statesmen and poets and sculptors;--so, I +have sometimes fancied, the better and truer nature of voluptuaries and +tyrants was sifted down through the years, and purified in our little +New England home, and the essential autocracy of monarchical blood +refined and ennobled, in my mother, into royalty. + +A broad and liberal culture had moulded her; she knew its worth, in +every fibre of her heart; scholarly parents had blessed her with their +legacies of scholarly mind and name. With the soul of an artist, she +quivered under every grace and every defect; and the blessing of a +beauty as rare as rich had been given to her. With every instinct of her +nature recoiling from the very shadow of crimes the world winks at, the +family record had been stainless for a generation. God had indeed +blessed her; but the very blessing was a temptation. + +I knew, before she left me, what she might have been, but for the +merciful and tender watch of Him who was despised and rejected of men. I +know, for she told me, one still night when we were alone together, how +she sometimes shuddered at herself, and what those daily and hourly +struggles between her nature and her Christianity _meant_. + +I think we were as near to one another as mother and daughter can be, +but yet as different. Since I have been talking in such lordly style of +those miserable Jameses and Charleses, I will take the opportunity to +confess that I have inherited my father's thorough-going +democracy,--double measure, pressed down and running over. She not only +pardoned it, but I think she loved it in me, for his sake. + +It was about a year and a half, I think, after he died, that she sent +for Aunt Alice to come to Creston. "Your aunt loves me," she said, when +she told us in her quiet way, "and I am so lonely now." + +They had been the only children, and they loved each other,--how much, I +afterwards knew. And how much they love each other _now_, I like to +think,--quite freely and fully, and without shadow or doubt between +them, I dare to hope. + +A picture of Aunt Alice always hung in mother's room. It was taken down +years ago. I never asked her where she put it. I remember it, though, +quite well; for mother's sake I am glad I do. For it was a pleasant face +to look upon, and a young, pure, happy face,--beautiful too, though with +none of the regal beauty crowned by my mother's massive hair, and +pencilled brows. It was a timid, girlish face, with reverent eyes, and +ripe, tremulous lips,--weak lips, as I remember them. From babyhood, I +felt a want in the face. I had, of course, no capacity to define it; it +was represented to me only by the fact that it differed from my +mother's. + +She was teaching school out West when mother sent for her. I saw the +letter. It was just like my mother: "Alice, I need you. You and I ought +to have but one home now. Will you come?" + +I saw, too, a bit of postscript to the answer: "I'm not fit that you +should love me so, Marie." + +And how mother laughed at it! + +When it was all settled, and the waiting weeks became at last a single +day, I hardly knew my mother. She was so full of fitful moods, and +little fantastic jokes! such a flush on her cheeks too, as she ran to +the window every five minutes, like a child! I remember how we went all +over the house together, she and I, to see that everything looked neat, +and bright, and welcome. And how we lingered in the guest-room, to put +the little finishing touches to its stillness, and coolness, and +coseyness. The best spread was on the bed, and the white folds smoothed +as only mother's fingers could smooth them; the curtain freshly washed, +and looped with its crimson cord; the blinds drawn, cool and green; the +late afternoon sunlight slanting through, in flecks upon the floor. +There were flowers, too, upon the table. I remember they were all +white,--lilies of the valley, I think; and the vase of Parian marble, +itself a solitary lily, unfolding stainless leaves. Over the mantle she +had hung the finest picture in the house,--an "Ecce Homo," and an +exquisite engraving. It used to hang in grandmother's room in the old +house. We children wondered a little that she took it upstairs. + +"I want your aunt to feel at home, and see some things," she said. "I +wish I could think of something more to make it pleasant in here." + +Just as we left the room she turned and looked into it. "Pleasant, isn't +it? I am so glad, Sarah," her eyes dimming a little. "She's a very dear +sister to me." + +She stepped in again to raise a stem of the lilies that had fallen from +the vase and lay like wax upon the table, then she shut the door and +came away. + +That door was shut just so for years; the lonely bars of sunlight +flecked the solitude of the room, and the lilies faded on the table. We +children passed it with hushed footfall, and shrank from it at twilight, +as from a room that held the dead. But into it we never went. + +Mother was tired out that afternoon; for she had been on her feet all +day, busied in her loving cares to make our simple home as pleasant and +as welcome as home could be. But yet she stopped to dress us in our +Sunday clothes,--and it was no sinecure to dress three persistently +undressable children; Winthrop was a host in himself. "Auntie must see +us look our prettiest," she said. + +She was a sight for an artist when she came down. She had taken off her +widow's cap and coiled her heavy hair low in her neck, and she always +looked like a queen in that lustreless black silk. I do not know why +these little things should have made such an impression on me then. +They are priceless to me now. I remember how she looked, framed there in +the doorway, while we were watching for the coach,--the late light +ebbing in golden tides over the grass at her feet, and touching her face +now and then through the branches of trees, her head bent a little, with +eager, parted lips, and the girlish color on her cheeks, her hand +shading her eyes as they strained for a sight of the lumbering coach. +She must have been a magnificent woman when she was young,--not unlike, +I have heard it said, to that far-off ancestress whose name she bore, +and whose sorrowful story has made her sorrowful beauty immortal. +Somewhere abroad there is a reclining statue of Queen Mary, to which, +when my mother stood beside it, her resemblance was so strong that the +by-standers clustered about her, whispering curiously. "Ah, mon Dieu!" +said a little Frenchman aloud, "c'est une résurrection." + +We must have tried her that afternoon, Clara and Winthrop and I; for the +spirit of her own excitement had made us completely wild. Winthrop's +scream of delight, when, stationed on the gate-post, he caught the first +sight of the old yellow coach, might have been heard a quarter of a +mile. + +"Coming?" said mother, nervously, and stepped out to the gate, full in +the sunlight that crowned her like royal gold. + +The coach lumbered on, and rattled up, and passed. + +"Why, she hasn't come!" All the eager color died out of her face. "I am +so disappointed!"--speaking like a troubled child, and turning slowly +into the house. + +Then, after a while, she drew me aside from the others,--I was the +oldest, and she was used to make a sort of confidence between us, +instinctively, as it seemed, and often quite forgetting how very few my +years were. "Sarah, I don't understand. You think she might have lost +the train? But Alice is so punctual. Alice never lost a train. And she +said she would come." And then, a while after, "I _don't_ understand." + +It was not like my mother to worry. The next day the coach lumbered up +and rattled past, and did not stop,--and the next, and the next. + +"We shall have a letter," mother said, her eyes saddening every +afternoon. But we had no letter. And another day went by, and another. + +"She is sick," we said; and mother wrote to her, and watched for the +lumbering coach, and grew silent day by day. But to the letter there was +no answer. + +Ten days passed. Mother came to me one afternoon to ask for her pen, +which I had borrowed. Something in her face troubled me vaguely. + +"What are you going to do, mother?" + +"Write to your aunt's boarding-place. I can't bear this any longer." She +spoke sharply. She had already grown unlike herself. + +She wrote, and asked for an answer by return of mail. + +It was on a Wednesday, I remember, that we looked for it. I came home +early from school. Mother was sewing at the parlor window, her eyes +wandering from her work, up the road. It was an ugly day. It had rained +drearily from eight o'clock till two, and closed in suffocating mist, +creeping and dense and chill. It gave me a childish fancy of long-closed +tombs and low-land graveyards, as I walked home in it. + +I tried to keep the younger children quiet when we went in, mother was +so nervous. As the early, uncanny twilight fell, we grouped around her +timidly. A dull sense of awe and mystery clung to the night, and clung +to her watching face, and clung even then to that closed room upstairs +where the lilies were fading. + +Mother sat leaning her head upon her hand, the outline of her face dim +in the dusk against the falling curtain. She was sitting so when we +heard the first rumble of the distant coach-wheels. At the sound, she +folded her hands in her lap and stirred a little, rose slowly from her +chair, and sat down again. + +"Sarah." + +I crept up to her. At the near sight of her face, I was so frightened I +could have cried. + +"Sarah, you may go out and get the letter. I--I can't." + +I went slowly out at the door and down the walk. At the gate I looked +back. The outline of her face was there against the window-pane, white +in the gathering gloom. + +It seems to me that my older and less sensitive years have never known +such a night. The world was stifling in a deluge of gray, cold mists, +unstirred by a breath of air. A robin with feathers all ruffled, and +head hidden, sat on the gate-post, and chirped a little mournful chirp, +like a creature dying in a vacuum. The very daisy that nodded and +drooped in the grass at my feet seemed to be gasping for breath. The +neighbor's house, not forty paces across the street, was invisible. I +remember the sensation it gave me, as I struggled to find its outlines, +of a world washed out, like the figures I washed out on my slate. As I +trudged, half frightened, into the road, and the fog closed about me, it +seemed to my childish superstition like a horde of long-imprisoned +ghosts let loose, and angry. The distant sound of the coach, which I +could not see, added to the fancy. + +The coach turned the corner presently. On a clear day I could see the +brass buttons on the driver's coat at that distance. There was nothing +visible now of the whole dark structure but the two lamps in front, like +the eyes of some evil thing, glaring and defiant, borne with swift +motion down upon me by a power utterly unseen,--it had a curious effect. +Even at this time, I confess I do not like to see a lighted carriage +driven through a fog. + +I summoned all my little courage, and piped out the driver's name, +standing there in the road. + +He reined up his horses with a shout,--he had nearly driven over me. +After some searching, he discovered the small object cowering down in +the mist, handed me a letter, with a muttered oath at being intercepted +on such a night, and lumbered on and out of sight in three rods. + +I went slowly into the house. Mother had lighted a lamp, and stood at +the parlor door. She did not come into the hall to meet me. + +She took the letter and went to the light, holding it with the seal +unbroken. She might have stood so two minutes. + +"Why don't you read, mamma?" spoke up Winthrop. I hushed him. + +She opened it then, read it, laid it down upon the table, and went out +of the room without a word. I had not seen her face. We heard her go +upstairs and shut the door. + +She had left the letter open there before us. After a little awed +silence, Clara broke out into sobs. I went up and read the few and +simple lines. + +_Aunt Alice had left for Creston on the appointed day_. + +Mother spent that night in the closed room where the lilies had drooped +and died. Clara and I heard her pacing the floor till we cried ourselves +to sleep. When we woke in the morning, she was pacing it still. + +Weeks wore into months, and the months became many years. More than +that we never knew. Some inquiry revealed the fact, after a while, that +a slight accident had occurred, upon the Erie Railroad, to the train +which she should have taken. There was some disabling, but no deaths, +the conductor had supposed. The car had fallen into the water. She might +not have been missed when the half-drowned passengers were all drawn +out. + +So mother added a little crape to her widow's weeds, the key of the +closed room lay henceforth in her drawer, and all things went on as +before. To her children my mother was never gloomy,--it was not her way. +No shadow of household affliction was placed like a skeleton confronting +our uncomprehending joy. Of what those weeks and months and years were +to her--a widow, and quite uncomforted in their dark places by any human +love--she gave no sign. We thought her a shade paler, perhaps. We found +her often alone with her little Bible. Sometimes, on the Sabbath, we +missed her, and knew that she had gone into that closed room. But she +was just as tender with us in our little faults and sorrows, as merry +with us in our plays, as eager in our gayest plans, as she had always +been. As she had always been,--our mother. + +And so the years slipped from her and from us. Winthrop went into +business in Boston; he never took to his books, and mother was too wise +to _push_ him through college; but I think she was disappointed. He was +her only boy, and she would have chosen for him the profession of his +father and grandfather. Clara and I graduated in our white dresses and +blue ribbons, like other girls, and came home to mother, crochet-work, +and Tennyson. Just about here is the proper place to begin my story. + +I mean that about here our old and long-tried cook, Bathsheba, who had +been an heirloom in the family, suddenly fell in love with the older +sexton, who had rung the passing-bell for every soul who died in the +village for forty years, and took it into her head to marry him, and +desert our kitchen for his little brown house under the hill. + +So it came about that we hunted the township for a handmaiden; and it +also came about that our inquiring steps led us to the poor-house. A +stout, not over-brilliant-looking girl, about twelve years of age, was +to be had for her board and clothes, and such schooling as we could give +her,--in country fashion to be "bound out" till she should be eighteen. +The economy of the arrangement decided in her favor; for, in spite of +our grand descent and grander notions, we were poor enough, after father +died, and the education of three children had made no small gap in our +little principal, and she came. + +Her name was a singular one,--Selphar. It always savored too nearly of +brimstone to please me. I used to call her Sel, "for short." She was a +good, sensible, uninteresting-looking girl, with broad face, large +features, and limp, tow-colored curls. They used to hang straight down +about her eyes, and were never otherwise than perfectly smooth. She +proved to be of good temper, which is worth quite as much as brains in a +servant, as honest as the daylight, dull enough at her books, but a +good, plodding worker, if you marked out every step of the way for her +beforehand. I do not think she would ever have discovered the laws of +gravitation; but she might have jumped off a precipice to prove them, if +she had been bidden. + +Until she was seventeen, she was precisely like any other rather stupid +girl; never given to novel-reading or fancies; never, frightened by the +dark or ghost-stories; proving herself warmly attached to us, after a +while, and rousing in us, in return, the kindly interest naturally felt +for a faithful servant; but she was not in any respect _un_common, +--quite far from it,--except in the circumstance that she never told a +false-hood. + +At seventeen she had a violent attack of diphtheria, and her life hung +by a thread. Mother was as tender and unwearying in her care of her as +the girl's own mother might have been. + +From that time, I believe, Sel was immovable in her faith in her +mistress's divinity. Under such nursing as she had, she slowly +recovered, but her old, stolid strength never came back to her. Severe +headaches became of frequent occurrence. Her stout, muscular arms grew +weak. As weeks went on, it became evident in many ways that, though the +diphtheria itself was quite out of her system, it had left her +thoroughly diseased. Strange fits of silence came over her; her +volubility had been the greatest objection we had to her hitherto. Her +face began to wear a troubled look. She was often found in places where +she had stolen away to be alone. + +One morning she slept late in her little garret-chamber, and we did not +call her. The girl had gone upstairs the night before crying with the +pain in her temples, and mother, who was always thoughtful of her +servants, said it was a pity to wake her, and, as there were only three +of us, we might get our own breakfast for once. While we were at work +together in the kitchen, Clara heard her kitten mewing out in the snow, +and went to the door to let her in. The creature, possessed by some +sudden frolic, darted away behind the well-curb. Clara was always a bit +of a romp, and, with never a thought of her daintily slippered feet, she +flung her trailing dress over one arm and was off over the three-inch +snow. The cat led her a brisk chase, and she came in flushed and +panting, and pretty, her little feet drenched, and the tip of a Maltese +tail just visible above a great bundle she had made of her apron. + +"Why!" said mother, "you have lost your ear-ring." + +Clara dropped the kitten with unceremonious haste on the floor, felt of +her little pink ear, shook her apron, and the corners of her mouth went +down into her dimpled chin. + +"They're the ones Winthrop sent, of all things in the world!" + +"You'd better put on your rubbers, and have a hunt out-doors," said +mother. + +We hunted out-doors,--on the steps, on the well-boards, in the +wood-shed, in the snow; Clara looked down the well till her nose and +fingers were blue, but the ear-ring was not to be found. We hunted +in-doors, under the stove and the chairs and the table, in every +possible and impossible nook, cranny, and crevice, but gave up the +search in despair. It was a pretty trinket,--a leaf of delicately +wrought gold, with a pearl dew-drop on it,--very becoming to Clara, and +the first present Winthrop had sent her from his earnings. If she had +been a little younger she would have cried. She came very near it as it +was, I suspect, for when she went after the plates she stayed in the +cupboard long enough to set two tables. + +When we were half through breakfast, Selphar came down, blushing, and +frightened half out of her wits, her apologies tumbling over each other +with such skill as to render each one unintelligible, and evidently +undecided in her own mind whether she was to be hung or burnt at the +stake. + +"It's no matter at all," said mother, kindly; "I knew you felt sick last +night. I should have called you if I had needed you." + +Having set the girl at her ease, as only she could do, she went on with +her breakfast, and we forgot all about her. She stayed, however, in the +room to wait on the table. It was afterwards remembered that she had not +been out of our sight since she came down the garret-stairs. Also, that +her room looked out upon the opposite side of the house from that on +which the well-curb stood. + +"Why, look at Sel!" said Clara, suddenly, "she has her eyes shut." + +The girl was just passing the toast. Mother spoke to her. "Selphar, what +is the matter?" + +"I don't know." + +"Why don't you open your eyes?" + +"I can't." + +"Hand the salt to Miss Sarah." + +She took it up and brought it round the table to me, with perfect +precision. + +"Sel, how you act!" said Clara, petulantly. "Of course you saw." + +"Yes'm, I saw," said the girl in a puzzled way, "but my eyes are shut, +Miss Clara." + +"Tight?" + +"Tight." + +Whatever this freak meant, we thought best to take no notice of it. My +mother told her, somewhat gravely, that she might sit down until she was +wanted, and we returned to our conversation about the ear-ring. + +"Why!" said Sel, with a little jump, "I see your ear-ring. Miss +Clara,--the one with a white drop on the leaf. It's out by the well." + +The girl was sitting with her back to the window, her eyes, to all +appearance, tightly closed. + +"It's on the right-hand side, under the snow, between the well and the +wood-pile. Why, don't you see?" + +Clara began to look frightened, mother displeased. + +"Selphar," she said, "this is nonsense. It is impossible for you to see +through the walls of two rooms and a wood-shed." + +"May I go and get it?" said the girl, quietly. + +"Sel," said Clara, "on your word and honor, are your eyes shut +_perfectly_ tight?" + +"If they ain't, Miss Clara, then they never was." + +Sel never told a lie. We looked at each other, and let her go. I +followed her out and kept my eyes on her closed lids. She did not once +raise them; nor did they tremble, as lids will tremble, if only +partially closed. + +She walked without the slightest hesitation directly to the well-curb, +to the spot which she had mentioned, stooped down, and brushed away the +three-inch fall of snow. The ear-ring lay there, where it had sunk in +falling. She picked it up, carried it in, and gave it to Clara. + +That Clara had the thing on when she started after her kitten, there +could be no doubt. She and I both remembered it. That Sel, asleep on +the opposite side of the house, could not have seen it drop, was also +settled. That she, with her eyes closed and her back to the window, had +seen through three walls and through three inches of snow, at a distance +of fifty feet, was an inference. + +"I don't believe it!" said my mother, "it's some nonsensical mistake." +Clara looked a little pale, and I laughed. + +We watched her carefully through the day. Her eyes remained tightly +closed. She understood all that was said to her, answered correctly, but +did, not seem inclined to talk. She went about her work as usual, and +performed it without a mistake. It could not be seen that she groped at +all with her hands to feel her way, as is the case with the blind. On +the contrary, she touched everything with her usual decision. It was +impossible to believe, without seeing them, that her eyes were closed. + +We tied a handkerchief tightly over them; see through it or below it she +could not, if she had tried. We then sent her into the parlor, with +orders to bring from the book-case two Bibles which had been given as +prizes to Clara and me at school, when we were children. The books were +of precisely the same size, color, and texture. Our names in gilt +letters were printed upon the binding. We followed her in, and watched +her narrowly. She went directly to the book-case, laid her hands upon +the books at once, and brought them to my mother. Mother changed them +from hand to hand several times, and turned them with the gilt lettering +downwards upon her lap. + +"Now, Selphar, which is Miss Sarah's?" + +The girl quietly took mine up. The experiment was repeated and varied +again and again. In every case the result was the same. She made no +mistake. It was no guess-work. All this was done with the bandage +tightly drawn about her eyes. _She did not see those letters with them_. + +That evening we were sitting quietly in the dining-room. Selphar sat a +little apart with her sewing, her eyes still closed. We kept her with +us, and kept her in sight. The parlor, which was a long room, was +between us and the front of the house. The distance was so great that we +had often thought, if prowlers were to come around at night, how +impossible it would be to hear them. The curtains and shutters were +closely drawn. Sel was sitting by the fire. Suddenly she turned pale, +dropped her sewing, and sprang from her chair. + +"Robbers, robbers!" she cried. "Don't you see? they're getting in the +east parlor window! There's three of 'em, and a lantern. They've just +opened the window,--hurry, hurry!" + +"I believe the girl is insane," said mother, decidedly. Nevertheless, +she put out the light, opened the parlor door noiselessly, and went in. + +The east window was open. There was a quick vision of three men and a +dark lantern. Then Clara screamed, and it disappeared. We went to the +window, and saw the men running down the street. The snow the next +morning was found trodden down under the window, and their footprints +were traced out to the road. + +When we went back to the other room, Selphar was standing in the middle +of it, a puzzled, frightened look on her face, her eyes wide open. + +"Selphar," said my mother, a little suspiciously, "how did you know the +robbers were there?" + +"Robbers!" said the girl, aghast. + +She knew nothing of the robbers. She knew nothing of the ear-ring. She +remembered nothing that had happened since she went up the garret-stairs +to bed, the night before. And, as I said, the girl was as honest as the +sunlight. When we told her what had happened, she burst into terrified +tears. + +For some time after this there was no return of the "tantrums," as +Selphar had called the condition, whatever it was. I began to get up +vague theories of a trance state. But mother said, "Nonsense!" and Clara +was too much frightened to reason at all about the matter. + +One Sunday morning Sel complained of a headache. There was service that +evening, and we all went to church. Mother let Sel take the empty seat +in the carryall beside her. + +It was very dark when we started to come home. But Creston was a safe +old Orthodox town, the roads were filled with returning church-goers +like ourselves, and mother drove like a man. A darker night I think I +have never seen. Literally, we could not see a hand before our eyes. We +met a carriage on a narrow road and the horses' heads touched, before +either driver had seen the other. + +Selphar had been quite silent during the drive. I leaned forward, looked +closely into her face, and could dimly see through the darkness that her +eyes were closed. + +"Why!" she said at last, "see those gloves!" + +"Where?" + +"Down in the ditch; we passed them before I spoke. I see them on a +blackberry-bush; they've got little brass buttons on the wrist." + +Three rods past now, and we could not see our horse's head. + +"Selphar," said my mother, quickly, "what _is_ the matter with you?" + +"If you please, ma'am, I don't know," replied the girl, hanging her +head. "May I get out and bring 'em to you?" + +Prince was reined up, and Sel got out. She went so far back, that, +though we strained our eyes to do it, we could not see her. In about two +minutes she came up, a pair of gentleman's gloves in her hand. They were +rolled together, were of cloth so black that on a bright night it would +never have been seen, and had small brass buttons at the wrist. + +Mother took them without a word. + +The story leaked out somehow, and spread all over town. It raised a +great hue and cry. Four or five antediluvian ladies declared at once +that we were nothing more nor less than a family of "them spirituous +mediums," and seriously proposed to expel mother from the +prayer-meeting. Masculine Creston did worse. It smiled a pitying smile, +and pronounced the whole thing the fancy of "scared women-folks." I +could endure with calmness any slander upon earth but that. I bore it a +number of weeks, till at last, driven by despair, I sent for Winthrop, +and stated the case to him in a condition of suppressed fury. He very +politely bit back an incredulous smile, and said he should be _very_ +happy to see her perform. The answer was somewhat dubious. I accepted it +in silent suspicion. + +He came on a Saturday noon. That afternoon we attended _en masse_ one of +those refined inquisitions commonly known as picnics, and Winthrop lost +his pocket-knife. Selphar, of course, kept house at home. + +When we returned, Winthrop made some careless reference to his loss in +her presence, and thought no more of it. About half an hour after, we +observed that she was washing the dishes with her eyes shut. The +condition had not been upon her five minutes before she dropped the +spoon suddenly into the water, and asked permission to go out to walk. +She "saw Mr. Winthrop's knife somewhere under a stone, and wanted to get +it." It was fully two miles to the picnic grounds, and nearly dark. +Winthrop followed the girl, unknown to her, and kept her in sight. She +went rapidly, and without the slightest hesitation or search, to an +out-of-the-way gully down by the pond, where Winthrop afterwards +remembered having gone to cut some willow-twigs for the girls, parted a +thick cluster of bushes, lifted a large, loose stone under which the +knife had rolled, and picked it up. She returned it to Winthrop, +quietly, and hurried away about her work to avoid being thanked. + +I observed that, after this incident, masculine Creston became more +respectful. + +Of several peculiarities in this development of the girl I made at the +time careful memoranda, and the exactness of these can be relied upon. + +1. She herself, so far from attempting to bring on these trance states, +or taking any pride therein, was intensely troubled and mortified by +them,--would run out of the room, if she felt them coming on in the +presence of visitors. + +2. They were apt to be preceded by severe headaches, but came often +without any warning. + +3. She never, in any instance, recalled anything that happened during +the trance, after it was passed. + +4. She was powerfully and unpleasantly affected by electricity from a +battery, or acting in milder forms. She was also unable at any time to +put her hands and arms into hot water; the effect was to paralyze them +at once. + +5. Space proved to be no impediment to her vision. She has been known to +follow the acts, words, and expressions of countenance of members of the +family hundreds of miles away, with accuracy as was afterwards proved by +comparing notes as to time. + +6. The girl's eyes, after her trances became habitual, assumed, and +always retained, the most singular expression I ever saw on any face. +They were oblong and narrow, and set back in her head like the eyes of a +snake. They were not--smile if you will, O practical and incredulous +reader! but they were not--eyes. The eyes of Elsie Venner are the only +eyes I can think of as at all like them. The most horrible circumstance +about them--a circumstance that always made me shudder, familiar as I +was with it--was, that, though turned fully on you, _they never looked +at you_. Something behind them or out of them did the seeing, not they. + +7. She not only saw substance, but soul. She has repeatedly told me my +thoughts when they were upon subjects to which she could not by any +possibility have had the slightest clew. + +8. We were never able to detect a shadow of deceit about her. + +9. The clairvoyance never failed in any instance to be correct, so far +as we were able to trace it. + +As will be readily imagined, the girl became a useful member of the +family. The lost valuables restored and the warnings against mischances +given by her quite balanced her incapacity for peculiar kinds of work. +This incapacity, however, rather increased than diminished; and, +together with her fickle health, which also grew more unsettled, caused +us a great deal of care. The Creston physician--who was a keen man in +his way, for a country doctor--pronounced the case altogether undreamt +of before in Horatio's philosophy, and kept constant notes of it. Some +of these have, I believe, found their way into the medical journals. + +After a while there came, like a thief in the night, that which I +suppose was poor Selphar's one unconscious, golden mission in this +world. It came on a quiet summer night, that ended a long trance of a +week's continuance. Mother had gone out into the kitchen to give an +order for breakfast. I heard a few eager words in Selphar's voice, and +then the door shut quickly, and it was an hour before it was opened. + +Then my mother came to me without a particle of color in lips or cheek, +and drew me away alone, and told the secret to me. + +Selphar had seen Aunt Alice. + +We sat down and looked at one another. There was a singular, pinched +look about my mother's mouth. + +"Sarah." + +"Yes." + +"She says"--and then she told me what she said. She had seen Alice +Stuart in a Western town, seven hundred miles away. Among the living, +she desired to be counted of the dead. And that was all. + +My mother paced the room three times back and forth, her hands locked. + +"Sarah." There was a chill in her voice--it had been such a gentle +voice!--that froze me. "Sarah, the girl is an impostor." + +"Mother!" + +She paced the room once more, three times, back and forth. "At any rate, +she is a poor, self-deluded creature. How _can_ she see, seven hundred +miles away, a dead woman who has been an angel all these years? Think! +an _angel_, Sarah! So much better than I, and I--I loved--" + +Before or since, I never heard my mother speak like that. She broke off +sharply, and froze back into her chilling voice. + +"We will say nothing about this, if you please. I do not believe a word +of it." + +We said nothing about it but Selphar did. The delusion, if delusion it +were, clung to her, haunted her, pursued her, week after week. To rid +her of it, or to silence her, was impossible. She added no new facts to +her first statement, but insisted that the long-lost dead was yet alive, +with a quiet pertinacity that it was simply impossible to ridicule, +frighten, threaten, or cross-question out of her. Clara was so +thoroughly alarmed that she would not have slept alone for any +mortal--perhaps not for any immortal--considerations. Winthrop and I +talked the matter over often and gravely when we were alone and in quiet +places. Mother's lips were sealed. From the day when Sel made the first +disclosure, she was never heard once to refer to the matter. A +perceptible haughtiness crept into her manner towards the girl. She even +talked of dismissing her, but repented it, and melted into momentary +gentleness. I could have cried over her that night. I was beginning to +understand what a pitiful struggle her life had become, and how alone +she must be in it. She _would_ not believe--she knew not what. She could +not doubt the girl. And with the conflict even her children could not +intermeddle. + +To understand the crisis into which she was brought, the reader must +bear in mind our long habit of belief, not only in Selphar's personal +honesty, but in the infallibility of her mysterious power. Indeed, it +had almost ceased to be mysterious to us, from daily familiarity. We had +come to regard it as the curious working of physical disease, had taken +its results as a matter of course, and had ceased, in common with +converted Creston, to doubt the girl's capacity for seeing anything that +she chose to, at any place. + +Thus a year worried on. My mother grew sleepless and pallid. She laughed +often, in a nervous, shallow way, as unlike her as a butterfly is unlike +a sunset; and her face settled into an habitual sharpness and hardness +unutterably painful to me. + +Once only I ventured to break into the silence of the haunting thought +that, she knew and we knew, was never escaped by either. "Mother, it +would do no harm for Winthrop to go out West, and--" + +She interrupted me sternly: "Sarah, I had not thought you capable of +such childish superstition, I wish that girl and her nonsense had never +come into this house!"--turning sharply away, and out of the room. + +But year and struggle ended. They ended at last, as I had prayed every +night and morning of it that they should end. Mother came into my room +one night, locked the door behind her, and walking over to the window, +stood with her face turned from me, and softly spoke my name. + +But that was all, for a little while. Then,--"Sick and in suffering, +Sarah! The girl,--she may be right; God Almighty knows! _Sick and in +suffering_, you see! I am going--I think." Then her voice broke. + +Creston put on its spectacles and looked wise on learning, the next day, +that Mrs. Dugald had taken the earliest morning train for the West, on +sudden and important business. It was precisely what Creston expected, +and just like the Dugalds for all the world--gone to hunt up material +for that genealogical book, or map, or tree, or something, that they +thought nobody knew they were going to publish. O yes, Creston +understood it perfectly. + +Space forbids me to relate in detail the clews which Selphar had given +as to the whereabouts of the wanderer. Her trances, just at this time, +were somewhat scarce and fragmentary, and the information she had +professed to give had come in snatches and very imperfectly,--the trance +being apt to end suddenly at the moment when some important question was +pending, and then, of course, all memory of what she had said, or was +about to say, was gone. The names and appearance of persons and places +necessary to the search had, however, been given with sufficient +distinctness to serve as a guide in my mother's rather chimerical +undertaking. I suppose ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would have +thought her a candidate for the State Lunatic Asylum. Exactly what she +herself expected, hoped, or feared, I think it doubtful if she knew. I +confess to a condition of simple bewilderment, when she was fairly gone, +and Clara and I were left alone with Selphar's ghostly eyes forever on +us. One night I had to lock the poor thing into her garret-room before I +could sleep. + +Just three weeks from the day on which mother started for the West, the +coach rattled up to the door, and two women, arm in arm, came slowly up +the walk. The one, erect, royal, with her great steadfast eyes alight; +the other, bent and worn, gray-haired and shallow and dumb, crawling +feebly through the golden afternoon sunshine, as the ghost of a glorious +life might crawl back to its grave. + +Mother threw open the door, and stood there like a queen. "Children, +your aunt has come home. She is too tired to talk just now. By and by +she will be glad to see you." + +We took her gently upstairs, into the room where the lilies were +mouldering to dust, and laid her down upon the bed. She closed her eyes +wearily, turned her face over to the wall, and said no word. + +What was the story of those tired eyes I never asked and I never knew. +Once, as I passed the room, I saw,--and have always been glad that I +saw,--through the open door, the two women lying with their arms about +each other's neck, as they used to do when they were children together, +and above them, still and watchful, the wounded Face that had waited +there so many years for this. + +She lingered weakly there, within the restful room, for seven days, and +then one morning we found her with her eyes upon the thorn-crowned Face, +her own quite still and smiling. + +A little funeral train wound away one night behind the church, and left +her down among those red-cup mosses that opened in so few months again +to cradle the sister who had loved her. Her name only, by mother's +orders, marked the headstone. + + * * * * * + +I have given you facts. Explain them as you will. I do not attempt it, +for the simple reason that I cannot. + +A word must be said as to the fate of poor Sel, which was mournful +enough. Her trances grew gradually more frequent and erratic, till she +became so thoroughly diseased in mind and body as to be entirely +unfitted for household work, and, in short, nothing but an encumbrance. +We kept her, however, for the sake of charity, and should have done so +till her poor, tormented life wore itself out; but after the advent of a +new servant, and my mother's death, she conceived the idea that she was +a burden, cried over it a few weeks, and at last, one bitter winter's +night, she disappeared. We did not give up all search for her for years, +but nothing was ever heard from her. He, I hope, who permitted life to +be such a terrible mystery to her, has cared for her somehow, and kindly +and well. + + + + +In the Gray Goth. + + + +If the wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight I don't believe it +would ever have happened. + +Where is the poker, Johnny? Can't you push back that for'ard log a +little? Dear, dear! Well, it doesn't make much difference, does it? +Something always seems to all your Massachusetts fires; your hickory is +green, and your maple is gnarly, and the worms eat out your oak like a +sponge. I haven't seen anything like what I call a fire,--not since Mary +Ann was married, and I came here to stay. "As long as you live, father," +she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an +open fire, and how she wouldn't let Jacob put in the air-tight in the +sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose. Mary Ann was a good +girl always, if I remember straight, and I'm sure I don't complain. +Isn't that a pine-knot at the bottom of the basket? There! that's +better. + +Let me see; I began to tell you something, didn't I? O yes; about that +winter of '41. I remember now. I declare, I can't get over it, to think +you never heard about it, and you twenty-four year old come Christmas. +You don't know much more, either, about Maine folks and Maine fashions +than you do about China,--though it's small wonder, for the matter of +that, you were such a little shaver when Uncle Jed took you. There were +a great many of us, it seems to me, that year, I 'most forget how +many;--we buried the twins next summer, didn't we?--then there was Mary +Ann, and little Nancy, and--well, coffee was dearer than ever I'd seen +it, I know, about that time, and butter selling for nothing; we just +threw our milk away, and there wasn't any market for eggs; besides +doctor's bills and Isaac to be sent to school; so it seemed to be the +best thing, though your mother took on pretty badly about it at first. +Jedediah has been good to you, I'm sure, and brought you up +religious,--though you've cost him a sight, spending three hundred and +fifty dollars a year at Amherst College. + +But, as I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,--to tell +the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm +getting to be an old man,--a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes, +when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the +toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I +do believe it wouldn't have happened,--though it isn't that I mean to +lay the blame on her _now_. + +I'd been out at work all day about the place, slicking things up for +to-morrow; there was a gap in the barn-yard fence to mend,--I left that +till the last thing, I remember,--I remember everything, some way or +other, that happened that day,--and there was a new roof to put on the +pig-pen, and the grape-vine needed an extra layer of straw, and the +latch was loose on the south barn-door; then I had to go round and take +a last look at the sheep, and toss down an extra forkful for the cows, +and go into the stall to have a talk with Ben, and unbutton the +coop-door to see if the hens looked warm,--just to tuck 'em up, as you +might say. I always felt sort of homesick--though I wouldn't have owned +up to it, not even to Nancy--saying good-by to the creeturs the night +before I went in. There, now! it beats all, to think, you don't know +what I'm talking about, and you a lumberman's son. "Going in" is going +up into the woods, you know, to cut and haul for the winter,--up, +sometimes, a hundred miles deep,--in in the fall and out in the spring; +whole gangs of us shut up there sometimes for six months, then down with +the freshets on the logs, and all summer to work the farm,--a merry sort +of life when you get used to it, Johnny; but it was a great while ago, +and it seems to me as if it must have been very cold.--Isn't there a +little draft coming in at the pantry door? + +So when I'd said good-by to the creeturs,--I remember just as plain how +Ben put his great neck on my shoulder and whinnied like a baby,--that +horse know when the season came round and I was going in, just as well +as I did,--I tinkered up the barn-yard fence, and locked the doors, +and went in to supper. + +I gave my finger a knock with the hammer, which may have had something +to do with it, for a man doesn't feel very good-natured when he's been +green enough to do a thing like that, and he doesn't like to say it +aches either. But if there is anything I can't bear it is lamp-smoke; it +always did put me out, and I expect it always will. Nancy knew what a +fuss I made about it, and she was always very careful not to hector me +with it. I ought to have remembered that, but I didn't. She had lighted +the company lamp on purpose, too, because it was my last night. I liked +it better than the tallow candle. + +So I came in, stamping off the snow, and they were all in there about +the fire,--the twins, and Mary Ann, and the rest; baby was sick, and +Nancy was walking back and forth with him, with little Nancy pulling at +her gown. You were the baby then, I believe, Johnny; but there always +was a baby, and I don't rightly remember. The room was so black with +smoke, that they all looked as if they were swimming round and round in +it. I guess coming in from the cold, and the pain in my finger and all, +it made me a bit sick. At any rate, I threw open the window and blew out +the light, as mad as a hornet. + +"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have +known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There, now! +I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the +oil." + +"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft, too. +"Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking, +but I never knew a thing about it; he's been fretting and taking on so +the last hour, I didn't notice anyway." + +"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever. +"You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about +me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in." + +Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good +deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more +than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking +like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals. + +That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as +saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the +baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't +ending; and folks can look things that they don't say. + +We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles, there were some +fritters--I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters--smoking hot +off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny +tea-cups; I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night, +but I never had a word to say, and Nancy crumbed up the children's +bread with a jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter; it seemed as if +they would blaze right up,--I couldn't help looking at them, for all I +pretended not to, for she looked just like a picture. Some women always +are pretty when they are put out,--and then again, some ain't; it +appears to me there's a great difference in women, very much as there is +in hens; now, there was your aunt Deborah,--but there, I won't get on +that track now, only so far as to say that when she was flustered up she +used to go red all over, something like a piny, which didn't seem to +have just the same effect. + +That supper was a very dreary sort of supper, with the baby crying, and +Nancy getting up between the mouthfuls to walk up and down the room with +him; he was a heavy little chap for a ten-month-old, and I think she +must have been tuckered out with him all day. I didn't think about it +then; a man doesn't notice such things when he's angry,--it isn't in +him. I can't say but _she_ would if I'd been in her place. I just eat up +the fritters and the maple molasses,--seems to me I told her she ought +not to use the best chiny cup, but I'm not just sure,--and then I took +my pipe, and sat down in the corner. + +I watched her putting the children to bed; they made her a great deal of +bother, squirming off of her lap and running round barefoot. Sometimes I +used to hold them and talk to them and help her a bit, when I felt +good-natured, but I just sat and smoked, and let them alone. I was all +worked up about that lamp-wick, and I thought, you see, if she hadn't +had any feelings for me there was no need of my having any for her--if +she had cut the wick, I'd have taken the babies; she hadn't cut the +wick, and I wouldn't take the babies; she might see it if she wanted to, +and think what she pleased. I had been badly treated, and I meant to +show it. + +It is strange, Johnny, it really does seem to me very strange, how easy +it is in this world to be always taking care of our _rights._ I've +thought a great deal about it since I've been growing old, and there +seems to me a good many things we'd better look after fust. + +But you see I hadn't found that out in '41, and so I sat in the corner, +and felt very much abused. I can't say but what Nancy had pretty much +the same idea; for when the young ones were all in bed at last, she took +her knitting and sat down the other side of the fire, sort of turning +her head round and looking up at the ceiling, as if she were trying her +best to forget I was there. That was a way she had when I was courting, +and we went along to huskings together, with the moon shining round. + +Well, I kept on smoking, and she kept on looking at the ceiling, and +nobody said a word for a while, till by and by the fire burnt down, and +she got up and put on a fresh log. + +"You're dreadful wasteful with the wood, Nancy," says I, bound to say +something cross? and that was all I could think of. + +"Take care of your own fire, then," says she, throwing the log down and +standing up as straight as she could stand. "I think it's a pity if you +haven't anything better to do, the last night before going in, than to +pick everything I do to pieces this way, and I tired enough to drop, +carrying that great crying child in my arms all day. You ought to be +ashamed of yourself, Aaron Hollis!" + +Now if she had cried a little, very like I should have given up, and +that would have been the end of it, for I never could bear to see a +woman cry; it goes against the grain. But your mother wasn't one of the +crying sort, and she didn't feel like it that night. + +She just stood up there by the fireplace, as proud as Queen Victory,--I +don't blame her, Johnny,--O no, I don't blame her; she had the right of +it there, I _ought_ to have been ashamed of myself; but a man never +likes to hear that from other folks, and I put my pipe down on the +chimney-shelf so hard I heard it snap like ice, and I stood up too, and +said--but no matter what I said, I guess. A man's quarrels with his wife +always make me think of what the Scripture says about other folks not +intermeddling. They're things, in my opinion, that don't concern anybody +else as a general thing, and I couldn't tell what I said without telling +what she said, and I'd rather not do that. Your mother was as good and +patient-tempered a woman as ever lived, Johnny, and she didn't mean it, +and it was I that set her on. Besides, my words were worst of the two. + +Well, well, I'll hurry along just here, for it's not a time I like to +think about; but we had it back and forth there for half an hour, till +we had angered each other up so I couldn't stand it, and I lifted up my +hand,--I would have struck her if she hadn't been a woman. + +"Well," says I, "Nancy Hollis, I'm sorry for the day I married you, and +that's the truth, if ever I spoke a true word in my life!" + +I wouldn't have told you that now if you could understand the rest +without. I'd give the world, Johnny,--I'd give the world and all those +coupon bonds Jedediah invested for me if I could anyway forget it; but I +said it, and I can't. + +Well, I've seen your mother look 'most all sorts of ways in the course +of her life, but I never saw her before, and I never saw her since, look +as she looked that minute. All the blaze went out in her cheeks, as if +somebody had thrown cold water on it, and she stood there stock still, +so white I thought she would drop. + +"Aaron--" she began, and stopped to catch her breath,--"Aaron--" but she +couldn't get any further; she just caught hold of a little shawl she had +on with both her hands, as if she thought she could hold herself up by +it, and walked right out of the room. I knew she had gone to bed, for I +heard her go up and shut the door. I stood there a few minutes with my +hands in my pockets, whistling Yankee Doodle. Your mother used to say +men were queer folks, Johnny; they always whistled up the gayest when +they felt the wust. Then I went to the closet and got another pipe, and +I didn't go upstairs till it was smoked out. + +When I was a young man, Johnny, I used to be that sort of fellow that +couldn't bear to give up beat. I'd acted like a brute, and I knew it, +but I was too spunky to say so. So I says to myself, "If she won't make +up first, I won't, and that's the end on't." Very likely she said the +same thing, for your mother was a spirited sort of woman when her temper +_was_ up; so there we were, more like enemies sworn against each other +than man and wife who had loved each other true for fifteen years,--a +whole winter, and danger, and death perhaps, coming between us, too. + +It may seem very queer to you, Johnny,--it did to me when I was your +age, and didn't know any more than you do,--how folks can work +themselves up into great quarrels out of such little things; but they +do, and into worse, if it's a man who likes his own way, and a woman +that knows how to talk. It's my opinion, two thirds of all the divorce +cases in the law-books just grow up out of things no bigger than that +lamp-wick. + +But how people that ever loved each other could come to hard words like +that, you don't see? Well, ha, ha! Johnny, that amuses me, that really +does amuse me, for I never saw a young man nor a young woman +either,--and young men and young women in general are very much like +fresh-hatched chickens, to my mind, and know just about as much of the +world, Johnny,--well, I never saw one yet who didn't say that very +thing. And what's more, I never saw one who could get it into his head +that old folks knew better. + +But I say I had loved your mother true, Johnny, and she had loved me +true, for more than fifteen years; and I loved her more the fifteenth +year than I did the first, and we couldn't have got along without each +other, any more than you could get along if somebody cut your heart +right out. We had laughed together and cried together; we had been sick, +and we'd been well together; we'd had our hard times and our pleasant +times right along, side by side; we'd baptized the babies, and we'd +buried 'm, holding on to each other's hand; we had grown along year +after year, through ups and downs and downs and ups, just like one +person, and there wasn't any more dividing of us. But for all that we'd +been put out, and we'd had our two ways, and we had spoken our sharp +words like any other two folks, and this wasn't our first quarrel by any +means. + +I tell you, Johnny, young folks they start in life with very pretty +ideas,--very pretty. But take it as a general thing, they don't know any +more what they're talking about than they do about each other, and they +don't know any more about each other than they do about the man in the +moon. They begin very nice, with their new carpets and teaspoons, and a +little mending to do, and coming home early evenings to talk; but by and +by the shine wears off. Then come the babies, and worry and wear and +temper. About that time they begin to be a little acquainted, and to +find out that there are two wills and two sets of habits to be fitted +somehow. It takes them anywhere along from one year to three to get +jostled down together. As for smoothing off, there's more or less of +that to be done always. + +Well, I didn't sleep very well that night, dropping into naps and waking +up. The baby was worrying over his teeth every half-hour, and Nancy +getting up to walk him off to sleep in her arms,--it was the only way +you _would_ be hushed up, and you'd lie and yell till somebody did it. + +Now, it wasn't many times since we'd been married that I had let her do +that thing all night long. I used to have a way of getting up to take my +turn, and sending her off to sleep. It isn't a man's business, some +folks say. I don't know anything about that; maybe, if I'd been broiling +my brain in book learning all day till come night, and I was hard put to +it to get my sleep anyhow, like the parson there, it wouldn't; but all +I know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since +morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need +nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just +as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great +stout fellow,--there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my +muscle,--and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that +may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so I lay with +my eyes shut, and pretended that I was asleep; for I didn't feel like +giving in, and speaking up gentle, not about that nor anything else. + +I could see her though, between my eyelashes, and I lay there, every +time I woke up, and watched her walking back and forth, back and forth, +up and down, with the heavy little fellow in her arms, all night long. + +Sometimes, Johnny, when I'm gone to bed now of a winter night, I think I +see her in her white nightgown with her red-plaid shawl pinned over her +shoulders and over the baby, walking up and down, and up and down. I +shut my eyes, but there she is, and I open them again, but I see her all +the same. + +I was off very early in the morning; I don't think it could have been +much after three o'clock when I woke up. Nancy had my breakfast all laid +out overnight, except the coffee, and we had fixed it that I was to make +up the fire, and get off without waking her, if the baby was very bad. +At least, that was the way I wanted it; but she stuck to it she should +be up,--that was before there'd been any words between us. + +The room was very gray and still,--I remember just how it looked, with +Nancy's clothes on a chair, and the baby's shoes lying round. She had +got him off to sleep in his cradle, and had dropped into a nap, poor +thing! with her face as white as the sheet, from watching. + +I stopped when I was dressed, half-way out of the room, and looked round +at it,--it was so white, Johnny! It would be a long time before I should +see it again,--five months were a long time; then there was the risk, +coming down in the freshets, and the words I'd said last night. I +thought, you see, if I should kiss it once,--I needn't wake her +up,--maybe I should go off feeling better. So I stood there looking: she +was lying so still, I couldn't see any more stir to her than if she had +her breath held in. I wish I had done it, Johnny,--I can't get over +wishing I'd done it, yet. But I was just too proud, and I turned round +and went out, and shut the door. + +We were going to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and +I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I +remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up +at the stars,--the sun was putting them out pretty fast,--and trying not +to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of anything else. + +It was so early, that there wasn't many folks about to see us off; but +Bob Stokes's wife,--she lived nigh the office, just across the +road,--she was there to say good-by, kissing of him, and crying on his +shoulder. I don't know what difference that should make with Bob Stokes, +but I snapped him up well, when he came along, and said good morning. + +There were twenty-one of us just, on that gang, in on contract for Dove +and Beadle. Dove and Beadle did about the heaviest thing on woodland of +anybody, about that time. Good, steady men we were, most of us,--none of +your blundering Irish, that wouldn't know a maple from a hickory, with +their gin-bottles in their pockets,--but our solid, Down-East Yankee +heads, owning their farms all along the river, with schooling enough to +know what they were about 'lection day. You didn't catch any of _us_ +voting your new-fangled tickets when he had meant to go up on Whig, for +want of knowing the difference, nor visa vussy. To say nothing of Bob +Stokes, and Holt, and me, and another fellow,--I forget his name,--being +members in good and reg'lar standing, and paying in our five dollars to +the parson every quarter, charitable. + +Yes, though I say it that shouldn't say it, we were as fine a looking +gang as any in the county, starting off that morning in our red +uniform,--Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout, +for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a stitch +for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing till they +were out of sight of town, and waving their caps at their wives and +babies standing in the window along on the way. I didn't sing. I thought +the wind blew too hard,--seems to me that was the reason,--I'm sure +there must have been a reason, for I had a voice of my own in those +days, and had led the choir perpetual for five years. + +We weren't going in very deep; Dove and Beadle's lots lay about thirty +miles from the nearest house; and a straggling, lonely sort of place +that was too, five miles out of the village, with nobody but a dog and a +deaf old woman in it. Sometimes, as I was telling you, we had been in a +hundred miles from any human creature but ourselves. + +It took us two days to get there though, with the oxen; and the teams +were loaded down well, with so many axes and the pork-barrels;--I don't +know anything like pork for hefting down more than you expect it to, +reasonable. It was one of your ugly gray days, growing dark at four +o'clock, with snow in the air, when we hauled up in the lonely place. +The trees were blazed pretty thick, I remember, especially the pines; +Dove and Beadle always had that done up prompt in October. It's pretty +work going in blazing while the sun is warm, and the woods like a great +bonfire with the maples. I used to like it, but your mother wouldn't +hear of it when she could help herself, it kept me away so long. + +It's queer, Johnny, how we do remember things that ain't of no account; +but I remember, as plainly as if it were yesterday morning, just how +everything looked that night, when the teams came up, one by one, and we +went to work spry to get to rights before the sun went down. + +There were three shanties,--they don't often have more than two or three +in one place,--they were empty, and the snow had drifted in; Bob +Stokes's oxen were fagged out with their heads hanging down, and the +horses were whinnying for their supper. Holt had one of his great +brush-fires going,--there was nobody like Holt for making fires,--and +the boys were hurrying round in their red shirts, shouting at the oxen, +and singing a little, some of them low, under their breath, to keep +their spirits up. There was snow as far as you could see,--down the +cart-path, and all around, and away into the woods; and there was snow +in the sky now, setting in for a regular nor'easter. The trees stood up +straight all around without any leaves, and under the bushes it was as +black as pitch. + +"Five months," said I to myself,--"five months!" + +"What in time's the matter with you, Hollis?" says Bob Stokes, with a +great slap on my arm; "you're giving that 'ere ox molasses on his hay!" + +Sure enough I was, and he said I acted like a dazed creatur, and very +likely I did. But I couldn't have told Bob the reason. You see, I knew +Nancy was just drawing up her little rocking-chair--the one with the red +cushion--close by the fire, sitting there with the children to wait for +the tea to boil. And I knew--I couldn't help knowing, if I'd tried hard +for it--how she was crying away softly in the dark, so that none of +them could see her, to think of the words we'd said, and I gone in +without ever making of them up. I was sorry for them then. O Johnny, I +was sorry, and she was thirty miles away. I'd got to be sorry five +months, thirty miles away, and couldn't let her know. + +The boys said I was poor company that first week, and I shouldn't wonder +if I was. I couldn't seem to get over it any way, to think I couldn't +let her know. + +If I could have sent her a scrap of a letter, or a message, or +something, I should have felt better. But there wasn't any chance of +that this long time, unless we got out of pork or fodder, and had to +send down,--which we didn't expect to, for we'd laid in more than usual. + +We had two pretty rough weeks' work to begin with, for the worst storms +of the season set in, and kept in, and I never saw their like, before or +since. It seemed as if there'd never be an end to them. Storm after +storm, blow after blow, freeze after freeze; half a day's sunshine, and +then at it again! We were well tired of it before they stopped; it made +the boys homesick. + +However, we kept at work pretty brisk,--lumber-men aren't the fellows to +be put out for a snow-storm,--cutting and hauling and sawing, out in +the sleet and wind. Bob Stokes froze his left foot that second week, and +I was frost-bitten pretty badly myself. Cullen--he was the boss--he was +well out of sorts, I tell you, before the sun came out, and cross enough +to bite a tenpenny nail in two. + +But when the sun _is_ out, it isn't so bad a kind of life, after all. At +work all day, with a good hot dinner in the middle; then back to the +shanties at dark, to as rousing a fire and tiptop swagan as anybody +could ask for. Holt was cook that season, and Holt couldn't be beaten on +his swagan. + +Now you don't mean to say you don't know what swagan is? Well, well! To +think of it! All I have to say is, you don't know what's good then. +Beans and pork and bread and molasses,--that's swagan,--all stirred up +in a great kettle, and boiled together; and I don't know anything--not +even your mother's fritters--I'd give more for a taste of now. We just +about lived on that; there's nothing you can cut and haul all day on +like swagan. Besides that, we used to have doughnuts,--you don't know +what doughnuts are here in Massachusetts; as big as a dinner-plate those +doughnuts were, and--well, a little hard, perhaps. They used to have it +about in Bangor that we used them for clock pendulums, but I don't know +about that. + +I used to think a great deal about Nancy nights, when we were sitting up +by the fire,--we had our fire right in the middle of the hut, you know, +with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. When supper was eaten, the +boys all sat up around it, and told stories, and sang, and cracked their +jokes; then they had their backgammon and cards; we got sleepy early, +along about nine or ten o'clock, and turned in under the roof with our +blankets. The roof sloped down, you know, to the ground; so we lay with +our heads in under the little eaves, and our feet to the fire,--ten or +twelve of us to a shanty, all round in a row. They built the huts up +like a baby's cob-house, with the logs fitted in together. I used to +think a great deal about your mother, as I was saying; sometimes I would +lie awake when the rest were off as sound as a top, and think about her. +Maybe it was foolish, and I'm sure I wouldn't have told anybody of it; +but I couldn't get rid of the notion that something might happen to her +or to me before five months were out, and I with those words unforgiven. + +Then, perhaps, when I went to sleep, I would dream about her, walking +back and forth, up and down, in her nightgown and little red shawl, with +the great heavy baby in her arms. + +So it went along till come the last of January, when one day I saw the +boys all standing round in a heap, and talking. + +"What's the matter?" says I. + +"Pork's given out," says Bob, with a whistle. "Beadle got that last lot +from Jenkins there, his son-in-law, and it's sp'ilt. I could have told +him that beforehand. Never knew Jenkins to do the fair thing by anybody +yet." + +"Who's going down?" said I, stopping short. I felt the blood run all +over my face, like a woman's. + +"Cullen hasn't made up his mind yet," says Bob, walking off. + +Now you see there wasn't a man on the ground who wouldn't jump at the +chance to go; it broke up the winter for them, and sometimes they could +run in home for half an hour, driving by; so there wasn't much of a hope +for me. But I went straight to Mr. Cullen. + +"Too late! Just promised Jim Jacobs," said he, speaking up quick; it was +just business to him, you know. + +I turned off, and I didn't say a word. I wouldn't have believed it, I +never would have believed it, that I could have felt so cut up about +such a little thing. Cullen looked round at me sharp. + +"Hilloa, Hollis!" said he. "What's to pay?" + +"Nothing, thank you, sir," says I, and walked off, whistling. + +I had a little talk with Jim alone. He said he would take good care of +anything I'd give him, and carry it straight. So when night came I went +and borrowed Mr. Cullen's pencil, and Holt tore me off a bit of clean +brown paper he found in the flour-barrel, and I went off among the trees +with it alone. I built a little fire for myself out of a +huckleberry-bush, and sat down there on the snow to write. I couldn't do +it in the shanty, with the noise and singing. The little brown paper +wouldn't hold much; but these were the words I wrote,--I remember every +one of them,--it is curious now I should, and that more than twenty +years ago:-- + +"Dear Nancy,"--that was it,--"Dear Nancy, I can't get over it, and I +take them all back. And if anything happens coming down on the logs--" + +I couldn't finish that anyhow, so I just wrote "Aaron" down in the +corner, and folded the brown paper up. It didn't look any more like +"Aaron" than it did like "Abimelech," though; for I didn't see a single +letter I wrote,--not one. + +After that I went to bed, and wished I was Jim Jacobs. + +Next morning somebody woke me up with a push, and there was the boss. + +"Why, Mr. Cullen!" says I, with a jump. + +"Hurry up, man, and eat your breakfast," said he; "Jacobs is down sick +with his cold." + +"_Oh!_" said I. + +"You and the pork must be back here day after to-morrow,--so be spry," +said he. + +I rather think I was, Johnny. + +It was just eight o'clock when I started; it took some time to get +breakfast, and feed the nags, and get orders. I stood there, slapping +the snow with my whip, crazy to be off, hearing the last of what Mr. +Cullen had to say. + +They gave me the two horses,--we hadn't but two,--oxen are tougher for +going in, as a general thing,--and the lightest team on the ground; it +was considerably lighter than Bob Stokes's. If it hadn't been for the +snow, I might have put the thing through in two days, but the snow was +up to the creatures' knees in the shady places all along; off from the +road, in among the gullies, you could stick a four-foot measure down +anywhere. So they didn't look for me back before Wednesday night. + +"I must have that pork Wednesday night sure," says Cullen. + +"Well, sir," says I, "you shall have it Wednesday noon, Providence +permitting; and you shall have it Wednesday night anyway." + +"You will have a storm to do it in, I'm afraid," said he, looking at the +clouds, just as I was whipping up. "You're all right on the road, I +suppose?" + +"All right," said I; and I'm sure I ought to have been, for the times +I'd been over it. + +Bess and Beauty--they were the horses, and of all the ugly nags that +ever I saw Beauty was the ugliest--started off on a round trot, slewing +along down the hill; they knew they were going home just as well as I +did. I looked back, as we turned the corner, to see the boys standing +round in their red shirts, with the snow behind them, and the fire and +the shanties. I felt a mite lonely when I couldn't see them any more; +the snow was so dead still, and there were thirty miles of it to cross +before I could see human face again. + +The clouds had an ugly look,--a few flakes had fallen already,--and the +snow was purple, deep in as far as you could see under the trees. +Something made me think of Ben Gurnell, as I drove on, looking along +down the road to keep it straight. You never heard about it? Poor Ben! +Poor Ben! It was in '37, that was; he had been out hunting up blazed +trees, they said, and wandered away somehow into the Gray Goth, and went +over,--it was two hundred feet; they didn't find him, not till +spring,--just a little heap of bones; his wife had them taken home and +buried, and by and by they had to take her away to a hospital in +Portland,--she talked so horribly, and thought she saw bones round +everywhere. + +There is no place like the woods for bringing a storm down on you quick; +the trees are so thick you don't mind the first few flakes, till, first +you know, there's a whirl of 'em, and the wind is up. + +I was minding less about it than usual, for I was thinking of +Nannie,--that's what I used to call her, Johnny, when she was a girl, +but it seems a long time ago, that does. I was thinking how surprised +she'd be, and pleased. I knew she would be pleased. I didn't think so +poorly of her as to suppose she wasn't just as sorry now as I was for +what had happened. I knew well enough how she would jump and throw down +her sewing with a little scream, and run and put her arms about my neck +and cry, and couldn't help herself. + +So I didn't mind about the snow, for planning it all out, till all at +once I looked up, and something slashed into my eyes and stung me,--it +was sleet. + +"Oho!" said I to myself, with a whistle,--it was a very long whistle, +Johnny; I knew well enough then it was no play-work I had before me till +the sun went down, nor till morning either. + +That was about noon,--it couldn't have been half an hour since I'd eaten +my dinner; I eat it driving, for I couldn't bear to waste time. + +The road wasn't broken there an inch, and the trees were thin; there'd +been a clearing there years ago, and wide, white, level places wound off +among the trees; one looked as much like a road as another, for the +matter of that. I pulled my visor down over my eyes to keep the sleet +out,--after they're stung too much they're good for nothing to see with, +and I _must_ see, if I meant to keep that road. + +It began to be cold. You don't know what it is to be cold, you don't, +Johnny, in the warm gentleman's life you've lived. I was used to Maine +forests, and I was used to January, but that was what I call cold. + +The wind blew from the ocean, straight as an arrow. The sleet blew every +way,--into your eyes, down your neck, in like a knife into your cheeks. +I could feel the snow crunching in under the runners, crisp, turned to +ice in a minute. I reached out to give Bess a cut on the neck, and the +sleeve of my coat was stiff as pasteboard before I bent my elbow up +again. + +If you looked up at the sky, your eyes were shut with a snap as if +somebody'd shot them. If you looked in under the trees, you could see +the icicles a minute, and the purple shadows. If you looked straight +ahead, you couldn't see a thing. + +By and by I thought I had dropped the reins, I looked at my hands, and +there I was holding them tight. I knew then that it was time to get out +and walk. + +I didn't try much after that to look ahead; it was of no use, for the +sleet was fine, like needles, twenty of 'em in your eye at a wink; then +it was growing dark. Bess and Beauty knew the road as well as I did, so +I had to trust to them. I thought I must be coming near the clearing +where I'd counted on putting up overnight, in case I couldn't reach the +deaf old woman's. + +There was a man just out of Bangor the winter before, walking just so +beside his team, and he kept on walking, some folks said, after the +breath was gone, and they found him frozen up against the sleigh-poles. +I would have given a good deal if I needn't have thought of that just +then. But I did, and I kept walking on. + +Pretty soon Bess stopped short. Beauty was pulling on,--Beauty always +did pull on,--but she stopped too. I couldn't stop so easily, so I +walked along like a machine, up on a line with the creaturs' ears. I +_did_ stop then, or you never would have heard this story, Johnny. + +Two paces,--and those two hundred feet shot down like a plummet. A great +cloud of snow-flakes puffed up over the edge. There were rocks at my +right hand, and rocks at my left. There was the sky overhead. I was in +the Gray Goth! + +I sat down as weak as a baby. If I didn't think of Ben Gurnell then, I +never thought of him. It roused me up a bit, perhaps, for I had the +sense left to know that I couldn't afford to sit down just yet, and I +remembered a shanty that I must have passed without seeing; it was just +at the opening of the place where the rocks narrowed, built, as they +build their light-houses, to warn folks to one side. There was a log or +something put up after Gurnell went over, but it was of no account, +coming on it suddenly. There was no going any farther that night, that +was clear; so I put about into the hut, and got my fire going, and Bess +and Beauty and I, we slept together. + +It was an outlandish name to give it, seems to me, anyway. I don't know +what a Goth is, Johnny; maybe you do. There was a great figger up on the +rock, about eight feet high; some folks thought it looked like a man. I +never thought so before, but that night it did kind of stare in through +the door as natural as life. + +When I woke up in the morning I thought I was on fire. I stirred and +turned over, and I was ice. My tongue was swollen up so I couldn't +swallow without strangling. I crawled up to my feet, and every bone in +me was stiff as a shingle. + +Bess was looking hard at me, whinnying for her breakfast. "Bess," says +I, very slow, "we must get home--to-night--_any_--how." + +I pushed open the door. It creaked out into a great drift, and slammed +back. I squeezed through and limped out. The shanty stood up a little, +in the highest part of the Goth. I went down a little,--I went as far as +I could go. There was a pole lying there, blown down in the night; it +came about up to my head. I sunk it into the snow, and drew it up. + +Just six feet. + +I went back to Bess and Beauty, and I shut the door. I told them I +couldn't help it,--something ailed my arms,--I couldn't shovel them out +to-day. I must lie down and wait till to-morrow. + +I waited till to-morrow. It snowed all day, and it snowed all night. It +was snowing when I pushed the door out again into the drift. I went back +and lay down. I didn't seem to care. + +The third day the sun came out, and I thought about Nannie. I was going +to surprise her. She would jump up and run and put her arms about my +neck. I took the shovel, and crawled out on my hands and knees. I dug +it down, and fell over on it like a baby. + +After that, I understood. I'd never had a fever in my life, and it's not +strange that I shouldn't have known before. + +It came all over me in a minute, I think. I couldn't shovel through. +Nobody could hear. I might call, and I might shout. By and by the fire +would go out. Nancy would not come. Nancy did not know. Nancy and I +should never kiss and make up now. + +I struck my arm out into the air, and shouted out her name, and yelled +it out. Then I crawled out once more into the drift. + +I tell you, Johnny, I was a stout-hearted man, who'd never known a fear. +I could freeze. I could burn up there alone in the horrid place with +fever. I could starve. It wasn't death nor awfulness I couldn't +face,--not that, not _that_; but I loved her true, I say,--I loved her +true, and I'd spoken my last words to her, my very last; I had left her +_those_ to remember, day in and day out, and year upon year, as long as +she remembered her husband, as long as she remembered anything. + +I think I must have gone pretty nearly mad with the fever and the +thinking. I fell down there like a log, and lay groaning. "God Almighty! +God Almighty!" over and over, not knowing what it was that I was saying, +till the words strangled in my throat. + +Next day, I was too weak so much as to push open the door. I crawled +around the hut on my knees with my hands up over my head, shouting out +as I did before, and fell, a helpless heap, into the corner; after that +I never stirred. + +How many days had gone, or how many nights, I had no more notion than +the dead. I knew afterwards; when I knew how they waited and expected +and talked and grew anxious, and sent down home to see if I was there, +and how she--But no matter, no matter about that. + +I used to scoop up a little snow when I woke up from the stupors. The +bread was the other side of the fire; I couldn't reach round. Beauty eat +it up one day; I saw her. Then the wood was used up. I clawed out chips +with my nails from the old rotten logs the shanty was made of, and kept +up a little blaze. By and by I couldn't pull any more. Then there were +only some coals,--then a little spark. I blew at that spark a long +while,--I hadn't much breath. One night it went out, and the wind blew +in. One day I opened my eyes, and Bess had fallen down in the corner, +dead and stiff. Beauty had pushed out of the door somehow and gone. I +shut up my eyes. I don't think I cared about seeing Bess,--I can't +remember very well. + +Sometimes I thought Nancy was there in the plaid shawl, walking round +the ashes where the spark went out. Then again I thought Mary Ann was +there, and Isaac, and the baby. But they never were. I used to wonder +if I wasn't dead, and hadn't made a mistake about the place that I was +going to. + +One day there was a noise. I had heard a great many noises, so I didn't +take much notice. It came up crunching on the snow, and I didn't know +but it was Gabriel or somebody with his chariot. Then I thought more +likely it was a wolf. + +Pretty soon I looked up, and the door was open; some men were coming in, +and a woman. She was ahead of them all, she was; she came in with a +great spring, and had my head against her neck, and her arm holding me +up, and her cheek down to mine, with her dear, sweet, warm breath all +over me; and that was all I knew. + +Well, there was brandy, and there was a fire, and there were blankets, +and there was hot water, and I don't know what; but warmer than all the +rest I felt her breath against my cheek, and her arms about my neck, and +her long hair, which she had wrapped all in, about my hands. + +So by and by my voice came. "Nannie!" said I. + +"O don't!" said she, and first I knew she was crying. + +"But I will," says I, "for I'm sorry." + +"Well, so am I," says she. + +Said I, "I thought I was dead, and hadn't made up, Nannie." + +"O _dear_!" said she; and down fell a great hot splash right on my face. + +Says I, "It was all me, for I ought to have gone back and kissed you." + +"No, it was _me_" said she, "for I wasn't asleep, not any such thing. I +peeked out, this way, through my lashes, to see if you wouldn't come +back. I meant to wake up then. Dear me!" says she, "to think what a +couple of fools we were, now!" + +"Nannie," says I, "you can let the lamp smoke all you want to!" + +"Aaron--" she began, just as she had begun that other night,--"Aaron--" +but she didn't finish, and--Well, well, no matter; I guess you don't +want to hear any more, do you? + +But sometimes I think, Johnny, when it comes my time to go,--if ever it +does,--I've waited a good while for it,--the first thing I shall see +will be her face, looking as it looked at me just then. + + + + +Calico. + + + +It was about time for the four-o'clock train. + +After all, I wonder if it is worth telling,--such a simple, plotless +record of a young girl's life, made up of Mondays and Tuesdays and +Wednesdays, like yours or mine. Sharley was so exactly like other +people! How can it be helped that nothing remarkable happened to her? +But you would like the story? + +It was about time for the four-o'clock train, then. + +Sharley, at the cost of half a sugar-bowl (never mind syntax; you know I +mean the sugar, not the glass), had enticed Moppet to betake himself out +of sight and out of mind till somebody should signify a desire for his +engaging presence; had steered clear of Nate and Methuselah, and was +standing now alone on the back doorsteps opposite the chaise-house. One +could see a variety of things from those doorsteps,--the chaise-house, +for instance, with the old, solid, square-built wagon rolled into it +(Sharley passed many a long "mending morning" stowed in among the +cushions of that old wagon); the great sweet-kept barn, where the sun +stole in warm at the chinks and filtered through the hay; the well-curb +folded in by a shadow; the wood-pile, and the chickens, and the +kitchen-garden; a little slope, too, with a maple on it and shades of +brown and gold upon the grass; brown and golden tints across the hills, +and a sky of blue and gold to dazzle one. Then there was a flock of +robins dipping southward. There was also the railroad. + +Sharley may have had her dim consciousness of the cosey barn and +chicken's chirp, of brown and gold and blue and dazzle and glory; but +you don't suppose _that_ was what she had outgeneralled Moppet and +stolen the march upon Nate and Methuselah for. The truth is, that the +child had need of none of these things--neither skies nor dazzle nor +glory--that golden autumn afternoon. Had the railroad bounded the +universe just then, she would have been content. For Sharley was only a +girl,--a very young, not very happy, little girl,--and Halcombe Dike was +coming home to spend the Sunday. + +Halcombe Dike,--her old friend Halcombe Dike. She said the words over, +apologizing a bit to herself for being there to watch that railroad. Hal +used to be good to her when she was bothered with the children and more +than half tired of life. "Keep up good courage, Sharley," he would say. +For the long summer he had not been here to say it. And to-night he +would be here. To-night--to-night! Why should not one be glad when one's +old friends come back? + +Mrs. Guest, peering through the pantry window, observed--and observed +with some motherly displeasure, which she would have expressed had it +not been too much trouble to open the window--that Sharley had put on +her barbe,--that black barbe with the pink watered ribbons run through +it. So extravagant in Sharley! Sharley would fain have been so +extravagant as to put on her pink muslin too this afternoon; she had +been more than half inclined to cry because she could not; but as it was +not orthodox in Green Valley to wear one's "best clothes" on week-days, +except at picnics or prayer-meetings, she had submitted, sighing, to her +sprigged calico. It would have been worth while, though, to have seen +her half an hour ago up in her room under the eaves, considering the +question; she standing there with the sleeves of her dressing-sack +fallen away from her pink, bare arms, and the hair clinging loose and +moist to her bare white neck; to see her smooth the shimmering +folds,--there were rose-buds on that muslin,--and look and long, hang it +up, and turn away. Why could there not be a little more rose-bud and +shimmer in people's lives! "Seems to me it's all calico!" cried Sharley. + +Then to see her overturning her ribbon-box! Nobody but a girl knows how +girls dream over their ribbons. + +"He is coming!" whispered Sharley to the little bright barbe, and to the +little bright face that flushed and fluttered at her in the glass,--"He +is coming!" + +Sharley looked well, waiting there in the calico and lace upon the +doorstep. It is not everybody who would look well in calico and lace; +yet if you were to ask me, I could not tell you how pretty Sharley is, +or if she is pretty at all. I have a memory of soft hair--brown, I +think--and wistful eyes; and that I never saw her without a desire to +stroke her, and make her pur as I would a kitten. + +How stiff and stark and black the railroad lay on its yellow ridge! +Sharley drew her breath when the sudden four-o'clock whistle smote the +air, and a faint, far trail of smoke puffed through the woods, and wound +over the barren outline. + +Her mother, seeing her steal away through the kitchen-garden, and down +the slope, called after her:-- + +"Charlotte! going to walk? I wish you'd let the baby go too. Well, she +doesn't hear!" + +I will not assert that Sharley did not hear. To be frank, she was rather +tired of that baby. + +There was a foot-path through the brown and golden grass, and Sharley +ran over it, under the maple, which was dropping yellow leaves, and down +to the knot of trees which lined the farther walls. There was a nook +here--she knew just where--into which one might creep, tangled in with +the low-hanging green of apple and spruce, and wound about with +grape-vines. Stooping down, careful not to catch that barbe upon the +brambles, and careful not to soil so much as a sprig of the clean light +calico, Sharley hid herself in the shadow. She could see unseen now the +great puffs of purple smoke, the burning line of sandy bank, the +station, and the uphill road to the village. Oddly enough, some old +Scripture words--Sharley was not much in the habit of quoting +Scripture--came into her thoughts just as she had curled herself +comfortably up beside the wall, her watching face against the +grape-leaves: "But what went ye out for to see?" "What went ye out for +to see?" She went on, dreamily finishing, "A prophet? Yea, I say unto +you, and more than a prophet," and stopped, scarlet. What had prophets +to do with her old friend Halcombe Dike? + +Ah, but he was coming! he was coming! To Sharley's eyes the laboring, +crazy locomotive which puffed him asthmatically up to the little depot +was a benevolent dragon,--if there were such things as benevolent +dragons,--very horrible, and she was very much afraid of it; but very +gracious, and she should like to go out and pat it on the shoulder. + +The train slackened, jarred, and stopped. An old woman with thirteen +bundles climbed out laboriously. Two small boys turned somersaults from +the platform. Sharley strained her wistful eyes till they ached. There +was nobody else. Sharley was very young, and very much disappointed, and +she cried. The glory had died from the skies. The world had gone out. + +She was sitting there all in a heap, her face in her hands, and her +heart in her foolish eyes, when a step sounded near, and a voice humming +an old army song. She knew it; he had taught it to her himself. She knew +the step; for she had long ago trained her slippered feet to keep pace +with it. He had stepped from the wrong side of the car, perhaps, or her +eager eyes had missed him; at any rate here he was,--a young man, with +honest eyes, and mouth a little grave; a very plainly dressed young +man,--his coat was not as new as Sharley's calico,--but a young man with +a good step of his own,--strong, elastic,--and a nervous hand. + +He passed, humming his army song, and never knew how the world lighted +up again within a foot of him. He passed so near that Sharley by +stretching out her hand could have touched him,--so near that she could +hear the breath he drew. He was thinking to himself, perhaps, that no +one had come from home to meet him, and he had been long away; but then, +it was not his mother's fashion of welcome, and quickening his pace at +the thought of her, he left the tangle of green behind, and the little +wet face crushed breathless up against the grape-leaves, and was out of +sight and knew nothing. + +Sharley sprang up and bounded home. Her mother opened her languid eyes +wide when the child came in. + +"Dear me, Charlotte, how you do go chirping and hopping round, and me +with this great baby and my sick-headache! _I_ can't chirp and hop. You +look as if somebody'd set you on fire! What's the matter with you, +child?" + +What was the matter, indeed! Sharley, in a little spasm of +penitence,--one can afford to be penitent when one is happy,--took the +baby and went away to think about it. Surely he would come to see her +to-night; he did not often come home without seeing Sharley; and he had +been long away. At any rate he was here; in this very Green Valley where +the days had dragged so drearily without him; his eyes saw the same sky +that hers saw; his breath drank the same sweet evening wind; his feet +trod the roads that she had trodden yesterday, and would tread again +to-morrow. But I will not tell them any more of this,--shall I, Sharley? + +She threw her head back and looked up, as she walked to and fro through +the yard with the heavy baby fretting on her shoulder. The skies were +aflame now, for the sun was dropping slowly. "He is here!" they said. A +belated robin took up the word: "He is here!" The yellow maple glittered +all over with it: "Sharley, he is here!" + +"The butter is here," called her mother relevantly from the house. "The +butter is here now, and it's time to see about supper, Charlotte." + +"More calico!" said impatient Sharley, and she gave the baby a jerk. + +Whether he came or whether he did not come, there was no more time for +Sharley to dream that night. In fact, there seldom was any time to dream +in Mrs. Guest's household. Mrs. Guest believed in keeping people busy. +She was busy enough herself when her head did not ache. When it did, it +was the least she could do to see that other people were busy. + +So Sharley had the table to set, and the biscuit to bake, and the tea to +make, and the pears to pick over; she must run upstairs to bring her +mother a handkerchief; she must hurry for her father's clothes-brush +when he came in tired, and not so good-humored as he might be, from his +store; she must stop to rebuild the baby's block-house, that Moppet had +kicked over, and snap Moppet's dirty, dimpled fingers for kicking it +over, and endure the shriek that Moppet set up therefor. She must +suggest to Methuselah that he could find, perhaps, a more suitable +book-mark for Robinson Crusoe than his piece of bread and molasses, and +intimate doubts as to the propriety of Nate's standing on the +table-cloth and sitting on the toast-rack. And then Moppet was at that +baby again, dropping very cold pennies down his neck. They must be made +presentable for supper, too, Moppet and Nate and Methuselah,--Methuselah, +Nate, and Moppet; brushed and washed and dusted and coaxed and scolded +and borne with. There was no end to it. Would there ever be any end to +it? Sharley sometimes asked of her weary thoughts. Sharley's life, like +the lives of most girls at her age, was one great unanswered question. +It grew tiresome occasionally, as monologues are apt to do. + +"I'm going to holler to-night," announced Moppet at supper, pausing in +the midst of his berry-cake, by way of diversion, to lift the cat up by +her tail. "I'm going to holler awful, and make you sit up and tell me +about that little boy that ate the giant, and Cinderella,--how she lived +in the stove-pipe,--and that man that builded his house out of a bungle +of straws: and--well, there's some more, but I don't remember 'em just +now, you know." + +"O Moppet!" + +"I am," glared Moppet over his mug. "You made me put on a clean collar. +You see if I don't holler an' holler an' holler an' keep-a-hollerin'!" + +Sharley's heart sank; but she patiently cleared away her dishes, mixed +her mother's ipecac, read her father his paper, went upstairs with the +children, treated Moppet with respect as to his buttons and boot-lacing, +and tremblingly bided her time. + +"Well," condescended that young gentleman, before his prayers were over, +"I b'lieve--give us our debts--I'll keep that hollerin'--forever 'n +ever--Namen--till to-morrow night. I ain't a--bit--sleepy, but--" And +nobody heard anything more from Moppet. + +The coast was clear now, and happy Sharley, with bright cheeks, took her +little fall hat that she was trimming, and sat down on the front +doorsteps; sat there to wait and watch, and hope and dream and flutter, +and sat in vain. Twilight crept up the path, up to her feet, folded her +in; the warm color of her plaided ribbons faded away under her eyes, and +dropped from her listless fingers; with them had faded her bit of a hope +for that night; Hal always came before dark. + +"Who cares?" said Sharley, with a toss of her soft, brown head. Somebody +did care nevertheless. Somebody winked hard as she went upstairs. + +However, she could light a lamp and finish her hat. That was one +comfort. It always _is_ a comfort to finish one's hat. Girls have +forgotten graver troubles than Sharley's in the excitement of hurried +Saturday-night millinery. + +A bonnet is a picture in its way, and grows up under one's fingers with +a pretty sense of artistic triumph. Besides, there is always the +question: Will it be becoming? So Sharley put her lamp on a cricket, and +herself on the floor, and began to sing over her work. A pretty sight it +was,--the low, dark room with the heavy shadows in its corners; all the +light and color drawn to a focus in the middle of it; Sharley, with her +head bent--bits of silk like broken rainbows tossed about her--and that +little musing smile, considering gravely, Should the white squares of +the plaid turn outward? and where should she put the coral? and would it +be becoming after all? A pretty, girlish sight, and you may laugh at it +if you choose; but there was a prettier woman's tenderness underlying +it, just as a strain of fine, coy sadness will wind through a mazourka +or a waltz. For who would see the poor little hat to-morrow at church? +and would he like it? and when he came to-morrow night,--for of course +he would come to-morrow night,--would he tell her so? + +When everybody else was in bed and the house still, Sharley locked her +door, furtively stole to the bureau-glass, shyly tied on that hat, and +more shyly peeped in. A flutter of October colors and two great brown +eyes looked back at her encouragingly. + +"I should like to be pretty," said Sharley, and asked the next minute to +be forgiven for the vanity. "At any rate," by way of modification, "I +should like to be pretty to-morrow." + +She prayed for Halcombe Dike when she kneeled, with her face hidden in +her white bed, to say "Our Father." I believe she had prayed for him now +every night for a year. Not that there was any need of it, she reasoned, +for was he not a great deal better than she could ever be? Far above +her; oh, as far above her as the shining of the stars was above the +shining of the maple-tree; but perhaps if she prayed very hard they +would give one extra, beautiful angel charge over him. Then, was it not +quite right to pray for one's old friends? Besides--besides, they had a +pleasant sound, those two words: "_Our_ Father." + +"I will be good to-morrow," said Sharley, dropping into sleep. +"Mother's head will ache, and I can go to church. I will listen to the +minister, and I won't plan out my winter dresses in prayer-time. I won't +be cross to Moppet, nor shake Methuselah. I will be good. Hal will help +me to be good. I shall see him in the morning,--in the morning." + +Sharley's self-knowledge, like the rest of her, was in the bud yet. + +Her Sun-day, her one warm, shining day, opened all in a glow. She danced +down stairs at ten o'clock in the new hat, in a haze of merry colors. +She had got breakfast and milked one cow and dressed four boys that +morning, and she felt as if she had earned the right to dance in a haze +of anything. The sunlight quivered in through the blinds. The leaves of +the yellow maple drifted by on the fresh, strong wind. The church-bells +rang out like gold. All the world was happy. + +"Charlotte!" Her mother bustled out of the "keeping-room" with her hat +on. "I've changed my mind, Sharley, and feel so much better I believe I +will go to church. I'll take Methuselah, but Nate and Moppet had better +stay at home with the baby. The last time I took Moppet he fired three +hymn-books at old Mrs. Perkins,--right into the crown of her bonnet, and +in the long prayer, too. That child will be the death of me some day. I +guess you'll get along with him, and the baby isn't quite as cross as he +was yesterday. You'd just as lief go in the afternoon, I suppose? Pin +my shawl on the shoulder, please." + +But Sharley, half-way down the stairs, stood still. She was no saint, +this disappointed little girl. Her face, in the new fall hat, flushed +angrily and her hands dropped. + +"O mother! I did want to go! You're always keeping me at home for +something. I did _want_ to go!"--and rushed up stairs noisily, like a +child, and slammed her door. + +"Dear me!" said her mother, putting on her spectacles to look after +her,--"dear me! what a temper! I'm sure I don't see what difference it +makes to her which half of the day she goes. Last Sunday she must go in +the afternoon, and wouldn't hear of anything else. Well, there's no +accounting for girls! Come, Methuselah." + +_Is_ there not any "accounting for girls," my dear madam? What is the +matter with those mothers, that they cannot see? Just as if it never +made any difference to them which half of the day they went to church! +Well, well! we are doing it, all of us, as fast as we can,--going the +way of all the earth, digging little graves for our young sympathies, +one by one, covering them up close. It grows so long since golden +mornings and pretty new bonnets and the sweet consciousness of watching +eyes bounded life for us! We have dreamed our dreams; we have learned +the long lesson of our days; we are stepping on into the shadows. Our +eyes see that ye see not; our ears hear that which ye have not +considered. We read your melodious story through, but we have read other +stories since, and only its _haec fabula docet_ remains very fresh. You +will be as obtuse as we are some day, young things! It is not neglect; +it is not disapproval,--we simply forget. But from such forgetfulness +may the good Lord graciously deliver us, one and all! + +There! I fancy that I have made for Mrs. Guest--sitting meantime in her +cushioned pew (directly behind Halcombe Dike), and comfortably looking +over the "Watts and Select" with Methuselah--a better defence than ever +she could have made for herself. Between you and me, girls,--though you +need not tell your mother,--I think it is better than she deserves. + +Sharley, upstairs, had slammed her door and locked it, and was pacing +hotly back and forth across her room. Poor Sharley! Sun and moon and +stars were darkened; the clouds had returned after the rain. She tore +off the new hat and Sunday things savagely; put on her old +chocolate-colored morning-dress, with a grim satisfaction in making +herself as ugly as possible; pulled down the ribboned chignon which she +had braided, singing, half an hour ago (her own, that chignon); screwed +her hair under a net into the most unbecoming little pug of which it was +capable, and went drearily down stairs. Nate, enacting the cheerful +drama of "Jeff Davis on a sour apple-tree," hung from the balusters, +purple, gasping, tied to the verge of strangulation by the energetic +Moppet. The baby was calmly sitting in the squash-pies. + +Halcombe Dike, coming home from church that morning a little in advance +of the crowd, saw a "Pre-raphaelite" in the doorway of Mr. Guest's barn, +and quietly unlatching the gate came nearer to examine it. It was worth +examining. There was a ground of great shadows and billowy hay; a pile +of crimson apples struck out by the light through a crack; two children +and a kitten asleep together in a sunbeam; a girl on the floor with a +baby crawling over her; a girl in a chocolate-colored dress with yellow +leaves in her hair,--her hair upon her shoulders, and her eyelashes wet. + +"Well, Sharley!" + +She looked up to see him standing there with his grave, amused smile. +Her first thought was to jump and run; her second, to stand fire. + +"Well, Mr. Halcombe! Moppet's stuck yellow leaves all over me; my hair's +down; I've got on a horrid old morning-dress; look pretty to see +company, don't I?" + +"Very, Sharley." + +"Besides," said Sharley, "I've been crying, and my eyes are red." + +"So I see." + +"No, you don't, for I'm not looking at you." + +"But I am looking at you." + +"Oh!" + +"What were you crying about, Sharley!" + +"Because my grandmother's dead," said Sharley, after some reflection. + +"Ah, yes, I remember! about '36, I think, her tombstone gives as the +date of that sad event?" + +"I think it's wicked in people to laugh at people's dead grandmothers," +said Sharley, severely. "You ought to be at church." + +"So I was." + +"I wasn't; mother wouldn't--" But her lip quivered, and she stopped. The +memory of the new hat and Sunday dress, of the golden church-bells, and +hush of happy Sabbath-morning thoughts came up. That he should see her +now, in this plight, with her swollen eyes and pouting lips, and her +heart full of wicked discontent! + +"Wouldn't what, Sharley?" + +"_Don't!_" she pleaded, with a sob; "I'm cross; I can't talk. Besides, I +shall cry again, and I _won't_ cry again. You may let me alone, or you +may go away. If you don't go away you may just tell me what you have +been doing with yourself this whole long summer. Working hard, of +course. I don't see but that everybody has to work hard in this world! I +hate this world! I suppose you're a rich man by this time?" + +The young man looked at the chocolate dress, the yellow leaves, the +falling hair, and answered gravely,--a little coldly, Sharley +thought,--that his prospects were not encouraging just now. Perhaps they +never had been encouraging; only that he in his young ardor had thought +so. He was older now, and wiser. He understood what a hard pull was +before young architects in America,--any young architect, the best of +young architects,--and whether there was a place for him remained to be +proved. He was willing to work hard, and to hope long; but he grew a +little tired of it sometimes, and so--He checked himself suddenly. "As +if," thought Sharley, "he were tired of talking so long to me! He +thought my question impertinent." She hid her face in her drooping hair, +and wished herself a mile away. + +"There was something you once told me about some sort of buildings?" she +ventured, timidly, in a pause. + +"The Crumpet Buildings. Yes, I sent my proposals, but have not heard +from them yet; I don't know that I ever shall. That is a large affair, +rather. The name of the thing would be worth a good deal to me if I +succeeded. It would give me a start, and--" + +"Ough!" exclaimed Sharley. She had been sitting at his feet, with her +face raised, and red eyes forgotten, when, splash! an icy stream of +water came into her eyes, into her mouth, down her neck, up her sleeves. +She gasped, and stood drenched. + +"O, it's only a rain-storm," said Moppet, appearing on the scene with +his empty dipper. "I got tired of sleeping. I dreamed about three +giants. I didn't like it. I wanted something to do. It's only _my_ +rain-storm, and you needn't mind it, you know." + +Dripping Sharley's poor little temper, never of the strongest, quivered +to its foundations. She took hold of Moppet without any observation, and +shook him just about as hard as she could shake. When she came to her +senses her mother was coming in at the gate, and Halcombe Dike was gone. + + * * * * * + +"I s'pose I've got to 'tend to that hollering to-night," said Moppet, +with a gentle sigh. + +This was at a quarter past seven. Nate and Methuselah were in bed. The +baby was asleep. Moppet had thrown his shoes into the water-pitcher but +twice, and run down stairs in his nightgown only four times that +evening; and Sharley felt encouraged. Perhaps, after all, he would be +still by half past seven; and by half past seven--If Halcombe Dike did +not come to-night, something was the matter. Sharley decided this with a +sharp little nod. + +She had devoted herself to Moppet with politic punctiliousness. Would he +lie at his lazy length, with his feet on her clean petticoat, while she +bent and puzzled over his knotted shoestrings? Very well. Did he signify +a desire to pull her hair down and tickle her till she gasped? She was +at his service. Should he insist upon being lulled to slumber by the +recounted adventures of Old Mother Hubbard, Red Riding-Hood, and Tommy +Tucker? Not those exactly, it being thought proper to keep him in a +theologic mood of mind till after sundown, but he should have David and +Goliath and Moses in the bulrushes with pleasure; then Moses and Goliath +and David again; after that, David and Goliath and Moses, by way of +variety. She conducted every Scriptural dog and horse of her +acquaintance entirely round the globe in a series of somewhat apocryphal +adventures. She ransacked her memory for biblical boys, but these met +with small favor. "Pooh! _they_ weren't any good! They couldn't play +stick-knife and pitch-in. Besides, they all died. Besides, they weren't +any great shakes. Jack the Giant-Killer was worth a dozen of 'em, sir! +Now tell it all over again, or else I won't say my prayers till next +winter!" + +After some delicate plotting, Sharley manoeuvred him through "Now I lay +me," and tucked him up, and undertook a little Sunday-night catechizing, +conscientiously enough. + +"Has Moppet been a good boy to-day?" + +"Well, that's a pretty question! Course I have!" + +"But have you had any good thoughts, dear, you know?" + +"O yes, lots of 'em! been thinking about Blessingham." + +"Who? O, Absalom!" + +"O yes, I've been thinking about Blessingham, you know; how he must have +looked dreadful funny hanging up there onto his hair, with all the darts +'n things stickin' into him! _Would_n't you like to seen him! No, you +needn't go off, 'cause I ain't begun to be asleep yet." + +Time and twilight were creeping on together. Sharley was sure that she +had heard the gate shut, and that some one sat talking with her mother +upon the front doorsteps. + +"O Moppet! _Could_n't you go to sleep without me this one night,--not +this one night?" and the hot, impatient tears came in the dark. + +"O no," said immovable Moppet, "of course I can't; and I 'spect I'm +going to lie awake all night too. You'd ought to be glad to stay with +your little brothers. The girl in my library-book, she was glad, +anyhow." + +Sharley threw herself back in the rocking-chair and let her eyes brim +over. She could hear the voices on the doorsteps plainly; her mother's +wiry tones and the visitor's; it was a man's voice, low and less +frequent. Why did not her mother call her? Had not he asked to see her? +Had he not? Would nobody ever come up to take her place? Would Moppet +never go to sleep? There he was peering at her over the top of the +sheet, with two great, mischievous, wide-awake eyes. And time and +twilight were wearing on. + +Let us talk about "affliction" with our superior, reproving smile! +Graves may close and hearts may break, fortunes, hopes, and souls be +ruined, but Moppet wouldn't go to sleep; and Sharley in her +rocking-chair doubted her mother's love, the use of life, and the +benevolence of God. + +"I'm lying awake to think about Buriah," observed Moppet, pleasantly. +"David wanted to marry Buriah's wife. She was a very nice woman." + +Silence followed this announcement. + +"Sharley? you needn't think I'm asleep,--any such thing. Besides, if you +go down you'd better believe I'll holler! See here: s'pose I'd slung my +dipper at Hal Dike, jest as David slung the stone at Go-li--" + +Another silence. Encouraged, Sharley dried her tears and crept half-way +across the floor. Then a board creaked. + +"O Sharley! Why don't people shut their eyes when they die? Why, Jim +Snow's dorg, he didn't. I punched a frog yesterday. I want a drink of +water." + +Sharley resigned herself in despair to her fate. Moppet lay broad and +bright awake till half past eight. The voices by the door grew silent. +Steps sounded on the walk. The gate shut. + +"That child has kept me up with him the whole evening long," said +Sharley, coming sullenly down. "You didn't even come and speak to him, +mother. I suppose Halcombe Dike never asked for me?" + +"Halcombe Dike! Law! that wasn't Halcombe Dike. It was Deacon Snow,--the +old Deacon,--come in to talk over the revival. Halcombe Dike was at +meeting, your father says, with his cousin Sue. Great interest up his +way, the Deacon says. There's ten had convictions since Conference +night. I wish you were one of the interested, Sharley." + +But Sharley had fled. Fled away into the windy, moonless night, down +through the garden, out into the sloping field. She ran back and forth +through the grass with great leaps, like a wounded thing. All her worry +and waiting and disappointment, and he had not come! All the thrill and +hope of her happy Sunday over and gone, and he had not come! All the +winter to live without one look at him,--and he knew it, and he would +not come! + +"I don't care!" sobbed Sharley, like a defiant child, but threw up her +hands with the worlds and wailed. It frightened her to hear the sound of +her own voice--such a pitiful, shrill voice--in the lonely place. She +broke into her great leaps again, and so ran up and down the slope, and +felt the wind in her face. It drank her breath away from her after a +while; it was a keen, chilly wind. She sat down on a stone in the middle +of the field, and it came over her that it was a cold, dark place to be +in alone; and just then she heard her father calling her from the yard. +So she stood up very slowly and walked back. + +"You'll catch your death!" fretted her mother, "running round bareheaded +in all this damp. You know how much trouble you are when you are sick, +too, and I think you ought to have more consideration for me, with all +my care. Going to bed? Be sure and not forget to put the baby's gingham +apron in the wash." + +Sharley lighted her kerosene lamp without reply. It was the little +kerosene with the crack in the handle. Some vague notion that everything +in the world had cracked came to her as she crept upstairs. She put her +lamp out as soon as she was in her room, and locked her door hard. She +sat down on the side of the bed and crossed her hands, and waited for +her father and mother to come upstairs. They came up by and by and went +to bed. The light that shone in through the chink under the door went +out. The house was still. + +She went over to the window then, threw it wide open, and sat down +crouched upon the broad sill. She did not sob now nor wail out. She did +not feel like sobbing or wailing. She only wanted to think; she must +think, she had need to think. That this neglect of Halcombe Dike's meant +something she did not try to conceal from her bitter thoughts. He had +not neglected her in all his life before. It was not the habit, either, +of this grave young man with the earnest eyes to do or not to do without +a meaning. He would put silence and the winter between them. That was +what he meant. Sharley, looking out upon the windy dark with +straight-lidded eyes, knew that beneath and beyond the silence of the +winter lay the silence of a life. + +The silence of a life! The wind hushed into a moment's calm while the +words turned over in her heart. The branches of a cherry-tree, close +under her sight, dropped lifelessly; a homesick bird gave a little, +still, mournful chirp in the dark. Sharley gasped. + +"It's all because I shook Moppet! That's it. Because I shook Moppet this +morning. He used to like me,--yes, he did. He didn't know how cross and +ugly I am. No wonder he thought such a cross and ugly thing could never +be--could never be--" + +She broke off, crimson. "His wife?" She would have said the words +without blush or hesitation a week ago. Halcombe Dike had spoken no word +of love to her. But she had believed, purely and gravely, in the deeps +of her maiden thought, that she was dear to him. Gravely and purely too +she had dreamed that this October Sunday would bring some sign to her of +their future. + +He had been toiling at that business in the city now a long while. +Sharley knew nothing about business, but she had fancied that, even +though his "prospects" were not good, he must be ready now to think of a +home of his own,--at least that he would give her some hope of it to +keep through the dreary, white winter. But he had given her nothing to +keep through the winter, or through any winter of a wintry life; +nothing. The beautiful Sunday was over. He had come, and he had gone. +She must brush away the pretty fancy. She must break the timid dream. +So that grave, sweet word had died in shame upon her lips. She should +not be his wife. She should never be anybody's wife. + +The Sunday Night Express shrieked up the valley, and thundered by and +away in the dark. Sharley leaned far out into the wind to listen to the +dying sound, and wondered what it would seem like to-morrow morning when +it carried him away. With its pause one of those sudden hushes fell +again upon the wind. The homesick bird fluttered about a little, hunting +for its nest. + +"Never to be his wife!" moaned Sharley. What did it mean? "Never to be +his wife?" She pressed her hands up hard against her two temples, and +considered:-- + +Moppet and the baby, and her mother's headaches; milking the cow, and +kneading the bread, and darning the stockings; going to church in old +hats,--for what difference was it going to make to anybody now, whether +she trimmed them with Scotch plaid or sarcenet cambric?--coming home to +talk over revivals with Deacon Snow, or sit down in a proper way, like +other old people, in the house with a lamp, and read Somebody's Life and +Letters. Never any more moonlight, and watching, and strolling! Never +any more hoping, or wishing, or expecting, for Sharley. + +She jumped a little off her window-sill; then sat down again. That was +it. Moppet, and the baby, and her mother, and kneading, and milking, +and darning, for thirty, for forty, for--the dear Lord, who pitied her, +only knew how many years. + +But Sharley did not incline to think much about the Lord just then. She +was very miserable, and very much alone and unhelped. So miserable, so +alone and unhelped, that it never occurred to her to drop down right +there with her despairing little face on the window-sill and tell Him +all about it. O Sharley! did you not think He would understand? + +She had made up her mind--decidedly made up her mind--not to go to sleep +that night. The unhappy girls in the novels always sit up, you know. +Besides, she was too wretched to sleep. Then the morning train went +early, at half past five, and she should stay here till it came. + +This was very good reasoning, and Sharley certainly was very unhappy,--as +unhappy as a little girl of eighteen can well be; and I suppose it +would sound a great deal better to say that the cold morning looked in +upon her sleepless pain, or that Aurora smiled upon her unrested eyes, +or that she kept her bitter watch until the stars grew pale (and a fine +chance that would be to describe a sunrise too); but truth compels me to +state that she did what some very unhappy people have done before +her,--found the window-sill uncomfortable, cramped, neuralgic, and +cold,--so undressed and went to bed and to sleep, very much as she would +have done if there had been no Halcombe Dike in the world. Sharley was +not used to lying awake, and Nature would not be cheated out of her +rights in such a round, young, healthful little body. + +But that did not make her much the happier when she woke in the cold +gray of the dawn to listen for the early train. It was very cold and +very gray, not time for the train yet, but she could not bear to lie +still and hear the shrill, gay concert of the birds, to watch the day +begin, and think how many days must have beginning,--so she crept +faintly up and out into the chill. She wandered about for a time in the +raw, brightening air. The frost lay crisp upon the short grass; the +elder-bushes were festooned with tiny white tassels; the maple-leaves +hung fretted with silver; the tangle of apple-trees and spruces was +powdered and pearled. She stole into it, as she had stolen into it in +the happy sunset-time so long ago--why! was it only day before +yesterday?--stole in and laid her cheek up against the shining, wet +vines, which melted warm beneath her touch, and shut her eyes. She +thought how she would like to shut and hide herself away in a place +where she could never see the frescoed frost or brightening day, nor +hear the sound of chirping birds, nor any happy thing. + +By and by she heard the train coming, and footsteps. He came springing +by in his strong, man's way as he had come before. As before, he passed +near--how very near!--to the quivering white face crushed up against the +vine-leaves, and went his way and knew nothing. + +The train panted and raced away, shrieked a little in a doleful, +breathless fashion, grew small, grew less, grew dim, died from sight in +pallid smoke. The track stood up on its mound of frozen bank, blank and +mute, like a corpse from which the soul had fled. + +Sharley came into the kitchen at six o'clock. The fire was burning hotly +under the boiler. The soiled clothes lay scattered about. Her mother +stood over the tubs, red-faced and worried, complaining that Sharley had +not come to help her. She turned, when the girl opened the door, to +scold her a little. The best of mothers are apt to scold on Monday +morning. + +Sharley stood still a moment and looked around. She must begin it with a +washing-day then, this other life that had come to her. Her heart might +break; but the baby's aprons must be boiled--to-day, next week, another +week; the years stretched out into one wearisome, endless washing-day. +O, the dreadful years! She grew a little blind and dizzy, sat down on a +heap of table-cloths, and held up her arms. + +"Mother, don't be cross to me this morning,--_don't_ O mother, mother, +mother! I wish there were anybody to help me!" + + * * * * * + +The battle-fields of life lie in ambush. We trip along on our smiling +way and they give no sign. We turn sharp corners where they hide in +shadow. No drum-beat sounds alarum. It is the music and the dress-parade +to-night, the groaning and the blood to-morrow. + +Sharley had been little more than a child, in her unreasoning young +joy, when she knotted the barbe at her throat on Saturday night. "I am +an old woman now," she said to herself on Monday morning. Not that her +saying so proved anything,--except, indeed, that it was her first +trouble, and that she was very young to have a trouble. Yet, since she +had the notion, she might as well, to all intents and purposes, have +shrivelled into the caps and spectacles of a centenarian. "Imaginary +griefs _are_ real." She took, indeed, a grim sort of pleasure in +thinking that her youth had fled away, and forever, in thirty-six hours. + +However that might be, that October morning ushered Sharley upon +battle-ground; nor was the struggle the less severe that, she was so +young and so unused to struggling. + +I have to tell of nothing new or tragic in the child's days; only of the +old, slow, foolish pain that gnaws at the roots of things. Something was +the matter with the sunsets and the dawns. Moonrise was an agony. The +brown and golden grass had turned dull and dead. She would go away up +garret and sit with her fingers in her ears, that she might not hear the +frogs chanting in the swamp at twilight. + +One night she ran away from her father and mother. It chanced to be an +anniversary of their wedding-day; they had kissed each other after tea +and talked of old times and blushed a little, their married eyes +occupied and content with one another; she felt with a sudden, dreary +bitterness that she should not be missed, and so ran out into the field +and sat down there on her stone in the dark. She rather hoped that they +would wonder where she was before bedtime. It would be a bit of comfort. +She was so cold and comfortless. But nobody thought of her; and when she +came weakly up the yard at ten o'clock, the door was locked. + +For a week she went about her work like a sleepwalker. Her future was +settled. Life was over. Why make ado? The suns would set and the moons +would rise: let them; there would always be suns to set and moons to +rise. There were dinners to get and stockings to mend; there would +always be dinners to get and stockings to mend. She was put into the +world for the sake of dinners and stockings, apparently. Very well; she +was growing used to it; one could grow used to it. She put away the +barbe and the pink muslin, locked her ribbon-box into the lower drawer, +gave up crimping her hair, and wore the chocolate calico all day. She +went to the Thursday-evening conference, discussed the revival with +Deacon Snow, and locked herself into her room one night to put the lamp +on the bureau before the glass and shake her soft hair down about her +colorless, inexpectant face, to see if it were not turning gray. She was +disappointed to find it as brown and bright as ever. + +But Sharley was very young, and the sweet, persistent hopes of youth +were strong in her. They woke up presently with a sting like the sting +of a frost-bite. + +"O, to think of being an old maid, in a little black silk apron, and +having Halcombe Dike's wedding-cards laid upon a shelf!" + +She was holding the baby when this "came all over her," and she let him +drop into the coal-hod, and sat down to cry. + +What had she done that life should shut down before her in such cruel +bareness? Was she not young, very young to be unhappy? She began to +fight a little with herself and Providence in savage mood; favored the +crimped hair and Scotch plaids again, tried a nutting-party and a +sewing-circle, as well as a little flirtation with Jim Snow. This lasted +for another week. At the end of that time she went and sat down alone +one noon on a pile of kindlings in the wood-house, and thought it over. + +"Why, I can't!" her eyes widening with slow terror. "Happiness _won't_ +come. I _can't_ make it. I can't ever make it. And O, I'm just at the +beginning of everything!" + +Somebody called her just then to peel the potatoes for dinner. She +thought--she thought often in those days--of that fancy of hers about +calico-living. Was not that all that was left for her? Little dreary, +figures, all just alike, like the chocolate morning-dress? O, the +rose-bud and shimmer that might have been waiting somewhere! And O, the +rose-bud and shimmer that were forever gone! + +The frosted golds of autumn melted into a clear, sharp, silvered +winter, carrying Sharley with them, round on her old routine. It never +grew any the easier or softer. The girl's little rebellious feet trod it +bitterly. She hated the darning and the sweeping and the baking and the +dusting. She hated the sound of the baby's worried cry. She was tired of +her mother's illnesses, tired of Moppet's mischief, tired of +Methuselah's solemnity. She used to come in sometimes from her walk to +the office, on a cold, moonlight evening, and stand looking in at them +all through the "keeping-room" window,--her father prosing over the +state of the flour-market, her mother on the lounge, the children +waiting for her to put them to bed; Methuselah poring over his +arithmetic in his little-old-mannish way; Moppet tying the baby and the +kitten together,--stand looking till the hot, shamed blood shot to her +forehead, for thought of how she was wearied of the sight. + +"I can't think what's got into Sharley," complained her mother; "she has +been as cross as a bear this good while. If she were eight years old, +instead of eighteen, I should give her a good whipping and send her to +bed!" + +Poor Sharley nursed her trouble and her crossness together, in her +aggrieved, girlish way, till the light went out of her wistful eyes, and +little sharp bones began to show at her wrists. She used to turn them +about and pity them. They were once so round and winsome! + +Now it was probably a fact that, as for the matter of hard work, +Sharley's life was a sinecure compared to what it would be as the wife +of Halcombe Dike. Double your toil into itself, and triple it by the +measure of responsibility, and there you have your married life, young +girls,--beautiful, dim Eden that you have made of it! But there was +never an Eden without its serpent, I fancy. Besides, Sharley, like the +rest of them, had not thought as far as that. + +Then--ah then, what toil would not be play-day for the sake of Halcombe +Dike? what weariness and wear could be too great, what pain too keen, if +they could bear it together? + +O, you mothers! do you not see that this makes "a' the difference"? You +have strength that your daughter knows not of. There are hands to help +you over the thorns (if not, there ought to be). She gropes and cuts her +way alone. Be very patient with her in her little moods and +selfishnesses. No matter if she might help you more about the baby: be +patient. Her position in your home is at best an anomalous one,--a grown +woman, with much of the dependence of a child. She must have all the +jars and tasks and frets of family life, without the relief of +housewifely invention and authority. God and her own heart will teach +her in time what she owes to you. Never fear for that. But bear long +with her. Do not exact too much. The life you give her did not come at +her asking. Consider this well; and do not press the debt beyond its +due. + +"I don't see that there is ever going to be any end to anything!" +gasped Sharley at night between Moppet's buttons. + +This set her to thinking. What if one made an end? + +She went out one cold, gray afternoon in the thick of a snow-storm and +wandered up and down the railroad. It was easy walking upon the +sleepers, the place was lonely, and she had come out to be alone. She +liked the beat of the storm in her face for a while, the sharp turns of +the wind, and the soft touch of the snow that was drifting in little +heaps about her feet. Then she remembered of how small use it was to +like anything in the world now, and her face grew as wild as the storm. + +Fancy yourself hemmed in with your direst grief by a drifting sleet in +such a voiceless, viewless place as that corpse-like track,--the +endless, painless track, stretching away in the white mystery, at peace, +like all dead things. + +What Sharley should have done was to go home as straight as she could +go, put on dry stockings, and get her supper. What she did was to +linger, as all people linger, in the luxury of their first +wretchedness,--till the uncanny twilight fell and shrouded her in. Then +a thought struck her. + +A freight-train was just coming in, slowly but heavily. Sharley, as she +stepped aside to let it pass, fixed her eyes upon it for a moment, then, +with a little hesitation, stopped to pick up a bit of iron that lay at +her feet,--a round, firm rod-end,--and placed it diagonally upon the +rail. The cars rumbled by and over it. Sharley bent to see. It was +crushed to a shapeless twist. Her face whitened. She sat down and +shivered a little. But she did not go home. The Evening Accommodation +was due now in about ten minutes. + +Girls, if you think I am telling a bit of sensational fiction, I wish +you would let me know. + +"It would be quick and easy," thought Sharley. The man of whom she had +read in the Journal last night,--they said he must have found it all +over in an instant. An instant was a very short time! And forty +years,--and the little black silk apron,--and the cards laid up on a +shelf! O, to go out of life,--anywhere, anyhow, out of life! No, the +Sixth Commandment had nothing to do with ending one's self! + +An unearthly, echoing shriek broke through the noise of the +storm,--nothing is more unearthly than a locomotive in a storm. Sharley +stood up,--sat down again. A red glare struck the white mist, broadened, +brightened, grew. + +Sharley laid her head down with her small neck upon the rail, and--I am +compelled to say that she took it up again faster than she laid it down. +Took it up, writhed off the track, tumbled down the banking, hid her +face in a drift, and crouched there with the cold drops on her face till +the hideous, tempting thing shot by. + +"I guess con-sumption would be--a--little better!" she decided, +crawling to her feet. + +But the poor little feet could scarcely carry her. She struggled to the +street, caught at the fences for a while, then dropped. + +Somebody stumbled over her. It was Cousin Sue--Halcombe Dike's Cousin +Sue. + +"Deary me!" she said; and being five feet seven, with strong Yankee arms +of her own, she took Sharley up in them, and carried her to the house as +if she had been a baby. + +Sharley did not commit the atrocity of fainting, but found herself +thoroughly chilled and weak. Cousin Sue bustled about with brandy and +blankets, and Sharley, watching her through her half-closed eyes, +speculated a little. Had _she_ anybody's wedding-cards laid up on a +shelf? She had the little black apron at any rate. Poor Cousin Sue! +Should she be like that? "Poor Cousin Charlotte!" people would say. + +Cousin Sue had gone to see about supper when Sharley opened her eyes and +sat strongly up. A gentle-faced woman sat between her and the light, in +a chair cushioned upon one side for a useless arm. Halcombe had made +that chair. Mrs. Dike had been a busy, cheery woman, and Sharley had +always felt sorry for her since the sudden day when paralysis crippled +her good right hand; three years ago that was now; but she was not one +of those people to whom it comes natural to say that one is sorry for +them, and she was Halcombe's mother, and so Sharley had never said it. +It struck her freshly now that this woman had seen much ill-fortune in +her widowed years, and that she had kept a certain brave, contented look +in her eyes through it all. + +It struck her only as a passing thought, which might never have come +back had not Mrs. Dike pushed her chair up beside her, and given her a +long, quiet look straight in the eyes. + +"It was late for you to be out in the storm, my dear, and alone." + +"I'd been out a good while. I had been on--the track," said Sharley, +with a slight shiver. "I think I could not have been exactly well. I +would not go again. I must go home now. But oh"--her voice sinking--"I +wish nobody had found me, I wish nobody had found me! The snow would +have covered me up, you see." + +She started up flushing hot and frightened. What had she been saying to +Halcombe's mother? + +But Halcombe's mother put her healthy soft hand down on the girl's shut +fingers. Women understand each other in flashes. + +"My dear," she said, without prelude or apology, "I have a thing to say +to you. God does not give us our troubles to think about; that's all. I +have lived more years than you. I know that He never gives us our +troubles to think about." + +"I don't know who's going to think about them if we don't!" said +Sharley, half aggrieved. + +"Supposing nobody thinks of them, where's the harm done? Mark my words, +child: He sends them to drive us out of ourselves,--to _drive_ us out. +He had much rather we would go of our own accord, but if we won't go we +must be sent, for go we must. That's just about what we're put into this +world for, and we're not fit to go out of it till we have found this +out." + +Now the moralities of conversation were apt to glide off from Sharley +like rain-drops from gutta-percha, and I cannot assert that these words +would have made profound impression upon her had not Halcombe Dike's +mother happened to say them. + +Be that as it may, she certainly took them home with her, and pondered +them in her heart; pondered till late in her feverish, sleepless night, +till her pillow grew wet, and her heart grew still. About midnight she +jumped out into the cold, and kneeled, with her face hidden in the bed. + +"O, I've been a naughty girl!" she said, just as she might have said it +ten years ago. She felt so small, and ignorant, and weak that night. + +Out of such smallness, and ignorance, and weakness great knowledge and +strength may have beautiful growth. They came in time to Sharley, but it +was a long, slow time. Moppet was just as unendurable, the baby just as +fretful, life just as joyless, as if she had taken no new outlook upon +it, made no new, tearful plans about it. + +"Calico! calico!" she cried out a dozen times a day; "nothing _but_ +calico!" + +But by and by it dawned in her thoughts that this was a very little +matter to cry out about. What if God meant that some lives should be +"all just alike," and like nothing fresh or bonnie, and that hers should +be one? That was his affair. Hers was to use the dull gray gift he +gave--_whatever_ gift he gave--as loyally and as cheerily as she would +use treasures of gold and rose-tint. He knew what he was doing. What he +did was never forgetful or unkind. She felt--after a long time, and in a +quiet way--that she could be sure of that. + +No matter about Halcombe Dike, and what was gone. No matter about the +little black aprons, and what was coming. He understood all about that. +He would take care of it. + +Meantime, why could she not as well wash Moppet's face with a pleasant +word as with a cross one? darn the stockings with a smile as well as a +frown? stay and hear her mother discuss her headaches as well as run +away and think of herself? Why not give happiness since she could not +have it? be of use since nobody was of much use to her? Easier saying +than doing, to be sure, Sharley found; but she kept the idea in mind as +the winter wore away. + +She was thinking about it one April afternoon, when she had stolen out +of the house for a walk in the budding woods. She had need enough of a +walk. It was four weeks now since she had felt the wide wind upon her +face; four weeks pleasantly occupied in engineering four boys through +the measles; and if ever a sick child had the capacity for making of +himself a seraph upon earth it was Moppet. It was a thin little face +which stood out against the "green mist" of the unfurling leaves as +Sharley wandered in and out with sweet aimlessness among the elms and +hickories; very thin, with its wistful eyes grown hollow; a shadow of +the old Sharley who fluttered among the plaid ribbons one October +morning. It was a saddened face--it might always be a saddened face--but +a certain pleasant, rested look had worked its way about her mouth, not +unlike the rich mellowness of a rainy sunset. Not that Sharley knew much +about sunsets yet; but she thought she did, which, as I said before, +amounts to about the same thing. + +She was thinking with a wee glow of pleasure how the baby's arms clung +around her neck that morning, and how surprised her mother looked when +Methuselah cried at her taking this walk. As you were warned in the +beginning, nothing remarkable ever happened to Sharley. Since she had +begun in practice to approve Mrs. Dike's theory, that no harm is done if +we never think of our troubles, she had neither become the village idol, +nor in any remarkable degree her mother's pride. But she had +nevertheless cut for herself a small niche in the heart of her home,--a +much larger niche, perhaps, than the excellent Mrs. Guest was well aware +of. + +"I don't care how small it is," cried Sharley, "as long as I have room +to put my two feet on and look up." + +And for that old pain? Ah, well, God knew about that, and +Sharley,--nobody else. Whatever the winter had taught her she had bound +and labelled in her precise little way for future use. At least she had +learned--and it is not everybody who learns it at eighteen,--to wear her +life bravely--"a rose with a golden thorn." + +I really think that this is the place to end my story, so properly +polished off with a moral. So many Sharleys, too, will never read +beyond. But being bound in honor to tell the whole moral or no moral, I +must add, that while Sharley walked and thought among her hickories +there came up a thunder-storm. It fell upon her without any warning. The +sky had been clear when she looked at it last. It gaped at her now out +of the throats of purple-black clouds. Thunders crashed over and about +her. All the forest darkened and reeled. Sharley was enough like other +girls to be afraid of a thunder-storm. She started with a cry to break +her way through the matted undergrowth; saw, or felt that she saw, the +glare of a golden arrow overhead; threw out her hands, and fell crushed, +face downward, at the foot of a scorched tree. + +When she opened her eyes she was sitting under a wood-pile. Or, to +speak more accurately, she was sitting in Mr. Halcombe Dike's lap, and +Mr. Halcombe Dike was under the wood-pile. + +It was a low, triangular wood-pile, roofed with pine boards, through +which the water was dripping. It stood in the centre of a large +clearing, exposed to the rain, but safe. + +"Oh!" said Sharley. + +"That's right," said he, "I knew you were only stunned. I've been +rubbing your hands and feet. It was better to come here than to run the +blockade of that patch of woods to a house. Don't try to talk." + +"I'm not," said Sharley, with a faint little laugh, "it's you that are +talking"; and ended with a weak pause, her head falling back where she +had found it, upon his arm. + +"I _wouldn't_ talk," repeated the young man, relevantly, after a +profound silence of five minutes. "I was coming 'across lots' from the +station. You fell--Sharley, you fell right at my feet!" + +He spoke carelessly, but Sharley, looking up, saw that his face was +white. + +"I believe I will get down," she observed, after some consideration, +lifting her head. + +"I don't see how you can, you know," he suggested, helplessly; "it pours +as straight as a deluge out there. There isn't room in this place for +two people to sit." + +So they "accepted the situation." + +The clouds broke presently, and rifts of yellow light darted in through +the fragrant, wet pine boards. Sharley's hair had fallen from her net +and covered her face. She felt too weak to push it away. After some +thought Halcombe Dike pushed it away for her, reverently, with his +strong, warm hand. The little white, trembling face shone out. He turned +and looked at it--the poor little face!--looked at it gravely and long. + +But Sharley, at the look, sat up straight. Her heart leaped out into the +yellow light. All her dreary winter danced and dwindled away. Through +the cracks in the pine boards a long procession of May-days came filing +in. The scattering rain-drops flamed before her. "All the world and all +the waters blushed and bloomed." She was so very young! + +"I could not speak," he told her quietly, "when I was at home before. I +could never speak till now. Last October I thought"--his voice sinking +hoarsely--"I thought, Sharley, it could never be. I could barely eke out +my daily bread; I had no right to ask you--to bind you. You were very +young; I thought, perhaps, Sharley, you might forget. Somebody else +might make you happier. I would not stand in the way of your happiness. +I asked God to bless you that morning when I went away in the cars, +Sharley. Sharley!" + +Something in her face he could not understand. All that was meant by +the upturned face perhaps he will never understand. She hid it in her +bright, brown hair; put her hand up softly upon his cheek and cried. + +"If you would like to hear anything about the business part of it--" +suggested the young man, clearing his throat. But Sharley "hated +business." She would not hear. + +"Not about the Crumpet Buildings? Well, I carried that affair +through,--that's all." + +They came out under the wide sky, and walked home hand in hand. All the +world was hung with crystals. The faint shadow of a rainbow quivered +across a silver cloud. + +The first thing that Sharley did when she came home was to find Moppet +and squeeze him. + +"O Moppet, we can be good girls all the same if we are happy, can't we?" + +"No, sir!" said injured Moppet. "You don't catch me!" + +"But O Moppet, see the round drops hanging and burning on the blinds! +And how the little mud-puddles shine, Moppet!" + +Out of her pain and her patience God had brought her beautiful answer. +It was well for Sharley. But if such answer had not come? That also +would have been well. + + + + +Kentucky's Ghost. + + + +True? Every syllable. + +That was a very fair yarn of yours, Tom Brown, very fair for a landsman, +but I'll bet you a doughnut I can beat it; and all on the square, too, +as I say,--which is more, if I don't mistake, than you could take oath +to. Not to say that I never stretched my yarn a little on the fo'castle +in my younger days, like the rest of 'em; but what with living under +roofs so long past, and a call from the parson regular in strawberry +time, and having to do the flogging consequent on the inakkeracies of +statement follering on the growing up of six boys, a man learns to trim +his words a little, Tom, and no mistake. It's very much as it is with +the talk of the sea growing strange to you from hearing nothing but +lubbers who don't know a mizzen-mast from a church-steeple. + +It was somewhere about twenty years ago last October, if I recollect +fair, that we were laying in for that particular trip to Madagascar. +I've done that little voyage to Madagascar when the sea was like so much +burning oil, and the sky like so much burning brass, and the fo'castle +as nigh a hell as ever fo'castle was in a calm; I've done it when we +came sneaking into port with nigh about every spar gone and pumps going +night and day; and I've done it with a drunken captain on starvation +rations,--duff that a dog on land wouldn't have touched and two +teaspoonfuls of water to the day,--but someways or other, of all the +times we headed for the East Shore I don't seem to remember any quite as +distinct as this. + +We cleared from Long Wharf in the ship Madonna,--which they tell me +means, My Lady, and a pretty name it was; it was apt to give me that +gentle kind of feeling when I spoke it, which is surprising when you +consider what a dull old hull she was, never logging over ten knots, and +uncertain at that. It may have been because of Moll's coming down once +in a while in the days that we lay at dock, bringing the boy with her, +and sitting up on deck in a little white apron, knitting. She was a very +good-looking woman, was my wife, in those days, and I felt proud of +her,--natural, with the lads looking on. + +"Molly," I used to say, sometimes,--"Molly Madonna!" + +"Nonsense!" says she, giving a clack to her needles,--pleased enough +though, I warrant you, and turning a very pretty pink about the cheeks +for a four-years' wife. Seeing as how she was always a lady to me, and a +true one, and a gentle, though she wasn't much at manners or +book-learning, and though I never gave her a silk gown in her life, she +was quite content, you see, and so was I. + +I used to speak my thought about the name sometimes, when the lads +weren't particularly noisy, but they laughed at me mostly. I was rough +enough and bad enough in those days; as rough as the rest, and as bad as +the rest, I suppose, but yet I seemed to have my notions a little +different from the others. "Jake's poetry," they called 'em. + +We were loading for the East Shore trade, as I said, didn't I? There +isn't much of the genuine, old-fashioned trade left in these days, +except the whiskey branch, which will be brisk, I take it, till the +Malagasy carry the prohibitory law by a large majority in both houses. +We had a little whiskey in the hold, I remember, that trip, with a good +stock of knives, red flannel, handsaws, nails, and cotton. We were +hoping to be at home again within the year. We were well provisioned, +and Dodd,--he was the cook,--Dodd made about as fair coffee as you're +likely to find in the galley of a trader. As for our officers, when I +say the less said of them the better, it ain't so much that I mean to be +disrespectful as that I mean to put it tenderly. Officers in the +merchant service, especially if it happens to be the African service, +are brutal men quite as often as they ain't (at least, that's my +experience; and when some of your great ship-owners argue the case with +me,--as I'm free to say they have done before now,--I say, "That's +_my_ experience, sir," which is all I've got to say);--brutal men, and +about as fit for their positions as if they'd been imported for the +purpose a little indirect from Davy Jones's Locker. Though they do say +that the flogging is pretty much done away with in these days, which +makes a difference. + +Sometimes on a sunshiny afternoon, when the muddy water showed a little +muddier than usual, on account of the clouds being the color of silver, +and all the air the color of gold, when the oily barrels were knocking +about on the wharves, and the smells were strong from the fish-houses, +and the men shouted and the mates swore, and our baby ran about deck +a-play with everybody (he was a cunning little chap with red stockings +and bare knees, and the lads took quite a shine to him), "Jake," his +mother would say, with a little sigh,--low, so that the captain never +heard,--"think if it was _him_ gone away for a year in company the like +of that!" + +Then she would drop her shining needles, and call the little fellow back +sharp, and catch him up into her arms. + +Go into the keeping-room there, Tom, and ask her all about it. Bless +you! she remembers those days at dock better than I do. She could tell +you to this hour the color of my shirt, and how long my hair was, and +what I ate, and how I looked, and what I said. I didn't generally swear +so thick when she was about. + +Well; we weighed, along the last of the month, in pretty good spirits. +The Madonna was as stanch and seaworthy as any eight-hundred-tonner in +the harbor, if she was clumsy; we turned in, some sixteen of us or +thereabouts, into the fo'castle,--a jolly set, mostly old messmates, and +well content with one another; and the breeze was stiff from the west, +with a fair sky. + +The night before we were off, Molly and I took a walk upon the wharves +after supper. I carried the baby. A boy, sitting on some boxes, pulled +my sleeve as we went by, and asked me, pointing to the Madonna, if I +would tell him the name of the ship. + +"Find out for yourself," said I, not over-pleased to be interrupted. + +"Don't be cross to him," says Molly. The baby threw a kiss at the boy, +and Molly smiled at him through the dark. I don't suppose I should ever +have remembered the lubber from that day to this, except that I liked +the looks of Molly smiling at him through the dark. + +My wife and I said good-by the next morning in a little sheltered place +among the lumber on the wharf; she was one of your women who never like +to do their crying before folks. + +She climbed on the pile of lumber and sat down, a little flushed and +quivery, to watch us off. I remember seeing her there with the baby till +we were well down the channel. I remember noticing the bay as it grew +cleaner, and thinking that I would break off swearing; and I remember +cursing Bob Smart like a pirate within an hour. + +The breeze held steadier than we'd looked for, and we'd made a good +offing and discharged the pilot by nightfall. Mr. Whitmarsh--he was the +mate--was aft with the captain. The boys were singing a little; the +smell of the coffee was coming up, hot and home-like, from the galley. I +was up in the maintop, I forget what for, when all at once there came a +cry and a shout; and, when I touched deck, I saw a crowd around the +fore-hatch. + +"What's all this noise for?" says Mr. Whitmarsh, coming up and scowling. + +"A stow-away, sir! A boy stowed away!" said Bob, catching the officer's +tone quick enough. Bob always tested the wind well, when a storm was +brewing. He jerked the poor fellow out of the hold, and pushed him along +to the mate's feet. + +I say "poor fellow," and you'd never wonder why if you'd seen as much of +stowing away as I have. + +I'd as lief see a son of mine in a Carolina slave-gang as to see him +lead the life of a stow-away. What with the officers from feeling that +they've been taken in, and the men, who catch their cue from their +superiors, and the spite of the lawful boy who hired in the proper way, +he don't have what you may call a tender time. + +This chap was a little fellow, slight for his years, which might have +been fifteen, I take it. He was palish, with a jerk of thin hair on his +forehead. He was hungry, and homesick, and frightened. He looked about +on all our faces, and then he cowered a little, and lay still just as +Bob had thrown him. + +"We--ell," says Whitmarsh, very slow, "if you don't repent your bargain +before you go ashore, my fine fellow,--me, if I'm mate of the +Madonna! and take that for your pains!" + +Upon that he kicks the poor little lubber from quarter-deck to bowsprit, +or nearly, and goes down to his supper. The men laugh a little, then +they whistle a little, then they finish their song quite gay and well +acquainted, with the coffee steaming away in the galley. Nobody has a +word for the boy,--bless you, no! + +I'll venture he wouldn't have had a mouthful that night if it had not +been for me; and I can't say as I should have bothered myself about him, +if it had not come across me sudden, while he sat there rubbing his eyes +quite violent, with his face to the west'ard (the sun was setting +reddish), that I had seen the lad before; then I remembered walking on +the wharves, and him on the box, and Molly saying softly that I was +cross to him. + +Seeing that my wife had smiled at him, and my baby thrown a kiss at him, +it went against me, you see, not to look after the little rascal a bit +that night. + +"But you've got no business here, you know," said I; "nobody wants you." + +"I wish I was ashore!" said he,--"I wish I was ashore!" + +With that he begins to rub his eyes so very violent that I stopped. +There was good stuff in him too; for he choked and winked at me, and +did it all up, about the sun on the water and a cold in the head, as +well as I could myself just about. + +I don't know whether it was on account of being taken a little notice of +that night, but the lad always kind of hung about me afterwards; chased +me round with his eyes in a way he had, and did odd jobs for me without +the asking. + +One night before the first week was out, he hauled alongside of me on +the windlass. I was trying a new pipe (and a very good one, too), so I +didn't give him much notice for a while. + +"You did this job up shrewd, Kent," said I, by and by; "how did you +steer in?"--for it did not often happen that the Madonna got fairly out +of port with a boy unbeknown in her hold. + +"Watch was drunk; I crawled down ahind the whiskey. It was hot, you bet, +and dark. I lay and thought how hungry I was," says he. + +"Friends at home?" says I. + +Upon that he gives me a nod, very short, and gets up and walks off +whistling. + +The first Sunday out that chap didn't know any more what to do with +himself than a lobster just put on to boil. Sunday's cleaning day at +sea, you know. The lads washed up, and sat round, little knots of them, +mending their trousers. Bob got out his cards. Me and a few mates took +it comfortable under the to'gallant fo'castle (I being on watch below), +reeling off the stiffest yarns we had in tow. Kent looked on at euchre +awhile, then listened to us awhile, then walked about uneasy. + +By and by says Bob, "Look over there,--spry!" and there was Kent, +sitting curled away in a heap under the stern of the long-boat. He had a +book. Bob crawls behind and snatches it up, unbeknown, out of his hands; +then he falls to laughing as if he would strangle, and gives the book a +toss to me. It was a bit of Testament, black and old. There was writing +on the yellow leaf, this way:-- + + "Kentucky Hodge, + from his Affecshunate mother + who prays, For you evry day, Amen," + +The boy turned first red, then white, and straightened up quite sudden, +but he never said a word, only sat down again and let us laugh it out. +I've lost my reckoning if he ever heard the last of it. He told me one +day how he came by the name, but I forget exactly. Something about an +old fellow--uncle, I believe--as died in Kentucky, and the name was +moniment-like, you see. He used to seem cut up a bit about it at first, +for the lads took to it famously; but he got used to it in a week or +two, and, seeing as they meant him no unkindness, took it quite cheery. + +One other thing I noticed was that he never had the book about after +that. He fell into our ways next Sunday more easy. + +They don't take the Bible just the way you would, Tom,--as a general +thing, sailors don't; though I will say that I never saw the man at sea +who didn't give it the credit of being an uncommon good yarn. + +But I tell you, Tom Brown, I felt sorry for that boy. It's punishment +bad enough for a little scamp like him leaving the honest shore, and +folks to home that were a bit tender of him maybe, to rough it on a +trader, learning how to slush down a back-stay, or tie reef-points with +frozen fingers in a snow-squall. + +But that's not the worst of it, by no means. If ever there was a +cold-blooded, cruel man, with a wicked eye and a fist like a mallet, it +was Job Whitmarsh, taken at his best. And I believe, of all the trips +I've taken, him being mate of the Madonna, Kentucky found him at his +worst. Bradley--that's the second mate--was none too gentle in his ways, +you may be sure; but he never held a candle to Mr. Whitmarsh. He took a +spite to the boy from the first, and he kept it on a steady strain to +the last, right along, just about so. + +I've seen him beat that boy till the blood ran down in little pools on +deck; then send him up, all wet and red, to clear the to'sail halliards; +and when, what with the pain and faintness, he dizzied a little, and +clung to the ratlines, half blind, he would have him down and flog him +till the cap'n interfered,--which would happen occasionally on a fair +day when he had taken just enough to be good-natured. He used to rack +his brains for the words he slung at the boy working quiet enough +beside him. It was odd, now, the talk he would get off. Bob Smart +couldn't any more come up to it than I could: we used to try sometimes, +but we had to give in always. If curses had been a marketable article, +Whitmarsh would have taken out his patent and made his fortune by +inventing of them, new and ingenious. Then he used to kick the lad down +the fo'castle ladder; he used to work him, sick or well, as he wouldn't +have worked a dray-horse; he used to chase him all about deck at the +rope's end; he used to mast-head him for hours on the stretch; he used +to starve him out in the hold. It didn't come in my line to be +over-tender, but I turned sick at heart, Tom, more times than one, +looking on helpless, and me a great stout fellow. + +I remember now--don't know as I've thought of it for twenty years--a +thing McCallum said one night; McCallum was Scotch,--an old fellow with +gray hair; told the best yarns on the fo'castle always. + +"Mark my words, shipmates," says he, "when Job Whitmarsh's time comes to +go as straight to hell as Judas, that boy will bring his summons. Dead +or alive, that boy will bring his summons." + +One day I recollect especial that the lad was sick with fever on him, +and took to his hammock. Whitmarsh drove him on deck, and ordered him +aloft. I was standing near by, trimming the spanker. Kentucky staggered +for'ard a little and sat down. There was a rope's-end there, knotted +three times. The mate struck him. + +"I'm very weak, sir," says he. + +He struck him again. He struck him twice more. The boy fell over a +little, and lay where he fell. + +I don't know what ailed me, but all of a sudden I seemed to be lying off +Long Wharf, with the clouds the color of silver, and the air the color +of gold, and Molly in a white apron with her shining needles, and the +baby a-play in his red stockings about the deck. + +"Think if it was him!" says she, or she seems to say,--"think if it was +_him_!" + +And the next I knew I'd let slip my tongue in a jiffy, and given it to +the mate that furious and onrespectful as I'll wager Whitmarsh never got +before. And the next I knew after that they had the irons on me. + +"Sorry about that, eh?" said he, the day before they took 'em off. + +"_No,_ sir," says I. And I never was. Kentucky never forgot that. I had +helped him occasional in the beginning,--learned him how to veer and +haul a brace, let go or belay a sheet,--but let him alone generally +speaking, and went about my own business. That week in irons I really +believe the lad never forgot. + +One time--it was on a Saturday night, and the mate had been oncommon +furious that week--Kentucky turned on him, very pale and slow (I was up +in the mizzen-top, and heard him quite distinct). + +"Mr. Whitmarsh," says he,--"Mr. Whitmarsh,"--he draws his breath +in,--"Mr. Whitmarsh,"--three times,--"you've got the power and you know +it, and so do the gentlemen who put you here; and I'm only a stow-away +boy, and things are all in a tangle, but _you'll be sorry yet for every +time you've laid your hands on me_!" + +He hadn't a pleasant look about the eyes either, when he said it. + +Fact was, that first month on the Madonna had done the lad no good. He +had a surly, sullen way with him, some'at like what I've seen about a +chained dog. At the first, his talk had been clean as my baby's, and he +would blush like any girl at Bob Smart's stories; but he got used to +Bob, and pretty good, in time, at small swearing. + +I don't think I should have noticed it so much if it had not been for +seeming to see Molly, and the sun, and the knitting-needles, and the +child upon the deck, and hearing of it over, "Think if it was _him_!" +Sometimes on a Sunday night I used to think it was a pity. Not that I +was any better than the rest, except so far as the married men are +always steadier. Go through any crew the sea over, and it is the lads +who have homes of their own and little children in 'em as keep the +straightest. + +Sometimes, too, I used to take a fancy that I could have listened to a +word from a parson, or a good brisk psalm-tune, and taken it in very +good part. A year is a long pull for twenty-five men to be becalmed with +each other and the devil. I don't set up to be pious myself, but I'm +not a fool, and I know that if we'd had so much as one officer aboard +who feared God and kept his commandments, we should have been the better +men for it. It's very much with religion as it is with cayenne +pepper,--if it's there, you know it. + +If you had your ships on the sea by the dozen, you'd bethink you of +that? Bless you, Tom! if you were in Rome you'd do as the Romans do. +You'd have your ledgers, and your children, and your churches and Sunday +schools, and freed niggers, and 'lections, and what not, and never stop +to think whether the lads that sailed your ships across the world had +souls, or not,--and be a good sort of man too. That's the way of the +world. Take it easy, Tom,--take it easy. + +Well, things went along just about so with us till we neared the Cape. +It's not a pretty place, the Cape, on a winter's voyage. I can't say as +I ever was what you may call scar't after the first time rounding it, +but it's not a pretty place. + +I don't seem to remember much about Kent along there till there come a +Friday at the first of December. It was a still day, with a little haze, +like white sand sifted across a sunbeam on a kitchen table. The lad was +quiet-like all day, chasing me about with his eyes. + +"Sick?" says I. + +"No," says he. + +"Whitmarsh drunk?" says I. + +"No," says he. + +A little after dark I was lying on a coil of ropes, napping it. The boys +were having the Bay of Biscay quite lively, and I waked up on the jump +in the choruses. Kent came up while they were telling + + "How she lay + On that day + In the _Bay_ of BISCAY O!" + +He was not singing. He sat down beside me, and first I thought I +wouldn't trouble myself about him, and then I thought I would. + +So I opens one eye at him encouraging. He crawls up a little closer to +me. It was rather dark where we sat, with a great greenish shadow +dropping from the mainsail. The wind was up a little, and the light at +helm looked flickery and red. + +"Jake," says he all at once, "where's your mother?" + +"In--heaven!" says I, all taken aback; and if ever I came nigh what you +might call a little disrespect to your mother, it was on that occasion, +from being taken so aback. + +"Oh!" said he. "Got any women-folks to home that miss you?" asks he, by +and by. + +Said I, "Shouldn't wonder." + +After that he sits still a little with his elbows on his knees; then he +speers at me sidewise awhile; then said he, "I s'pose _I_'ve got a +mother to home. I ran away from her." + +This, mind you, is the first time he has ever spoke about his folks +since he came aboard. + +"She was asleep down in the south chamber," says he. "I got out the +window. There was one white shirt she'd made for meetin' and such. I've +never worn it out here. I hadn't the heart. It has a collar and some +cuffs, you know. She had a headache making of it. She's been follering +me round all day, a sewing on that shirt. When I come in she would look +up bright-like and smiling. Father's dead. There ain't anybody but me. +All day long she's been follering of me round." + +So then he gets up, and joins the lads, and tries to sing a little; but +he comes back very still and sits down. We could see the flickery light +upon the boys' faces, and on the rigging, and on the cap'n, who was +damning the bo'sen a little aft. + +"Jake," says he, quite low, "look here. I've been thinking. Do you +reckon there's a chap here--just one, perhaps--who's said his prayers +since he came aboard?" + +"_No!_" said I, quite short: for I'd have bet my head on it. + +I can remember, as if it was this morning, just how the question +sounded, and the answer. I can't seem to put it into words how it came +all over me. The wind was turning brisk, and we'd just eased her with a +few reefs; Bob Smart, out furling the flying jib, got soaked; me and the +boy sitting silent, were spattered. I remember watching the curve of +the great swells, mahogany color, with the tip of white, and thinking +how like it was to a big creature hissing and foaming at the mouth, and +thinking all at once something about Him holding of the sea in a +balance, and not a word bespoke to beg his favor respectful since we +weighed our anchor, and the cap'n yonder calling on Him just that minute +to send the Madonna to the bottom, if the bo'sen hadn't disobeyed his +orders about the squaring of the after-yards. + +"From his Affecshunate mother who prays, For you evry day, Amen," +whispers Kentucky, presently, very soft. "The book's tore up. Mr. +Whitmarsh wadded his old gun with it. But I remember." + +Then said he: "It's 'most bedtime to home. She's setting in a little +rocking-chair,--a green one. There's a fire, and the dog. She sets all +by herself." + +Then he begins again: "She has to bring in her own wood now. There's a +gray ribbon on her cap. When she goes to meetin' she wears a gray +bunnet. She's drawed the curtains and the door is locked. But she thinks +I'll be coming home sorry some day,--I'm sure she thinks I'll be coming +home sorry." + +Just then there comes the order, "Port watch ahoy! Tumble up there +lively!" so I turns out, and the lad turns in, and the night settles +down a little black, and my hands and head are full. Next day it blows a +clean, all but a bank of gray, very thin and still,--about the size of +that cloud you see through the side window, Tom,--which lay just abeam +of us. + +The sea, I thought, looked like a great purple pincushion, with a mast +or two stuck in on the horizon for the pins. "Jake's poetry," the boys +said that was. + +By noon that little gray bank had grown up thick, like a wall. By +sundown the cap'n let his liquor alone, and kept the deck. By night we +were in chop-seas, with a very ugly wind. + +"Steer small, there!" cries Whitmarsh, growing hot about the face,--for +we made a terribly crooked wake, with a broad sheer, and the old hull +strained heavily,--"steer small there, I tell you! Mind your eye now, +McCallum, with your foresail! Furl the royals! Send down the royals! +Cheerily, men! Where's that lubber Kent? Up with you, lively now!" + +Kentucky sprang for'ard at the order, then stopped short. Anybody as +knows a royal from an anchor wouldn't have blamed the lad. I'll take +oath to't it's no play for an old tar, stout and full in size, sending +down the royals in a gale like that; let alone a boy of fifteen year on +his first voyage. + +But the mate takes to swearing (it would have turned a parson faint to +hear him), and Kent shoots away up,--the great mast swinging like a +pendulum to and fro, and the reef-points snapping, and the blocks +creaking, and the sails flapping to that extent as you wouldn't +consider possible unless you'd been before the mast yourself. It +reminded me of evil birds I've read of, that stun a man with their +wings; strike _you_ to the bottom, Tom, before you could say Jack +Robinson. + +Kent stuck bravely as far as the cross-trees. There he slipped and +struggled and clung in the dark and noise awhile, then comes sliding +down the back-stay. + +"I'm not afraid, sir," says he; "but I cannot do it." + +For answer Whitmarsh takes to the rope's-end. So Kentucky is up again, +and slips and struggles and clings again, and then lays down again. + +At this the men begin to grumble a little low. + +"Will you kill the lad?" said I. I get a blow for my pains, that sends +me off my feet none too easy; and when I rub the stars out of my eyes +the boy is up again, and the mate behind him with the rope. Whitmarsh +stopped when he'd gone far enough. The lad climbed on. Once he looked +back. He never opened his lips; he just looked back. If I've seen him +once since, in my thinking, I've seen him twenty times,--up in the +shadow of the great gray wings, a looking back. + +After that there was only a cry, and a splash, and the Madonna racing +along with the gale twelve knots. If it had been the whole crew +overboard, she could never have stopped for them that night. + +"Well," said the cap'n, "you've done it now." + +Whitmarsh turns his back. + +By and by, when the wind fell, and the hurry was over, and I had the +time to think a steady thought, being in the morning watch, I seemed to +see the old lady in the gray bunnet setting by the fire. And the dog. +And the green rocking-chair. And the front door, with the boy walking in +on a sunny afternoon to take her by surprise. + +Then I remember leaning over to look down, and wondering if the lad were +thinking of it too, and what had happened to him now, these two hours +back, and just about where he was, and how he liked his new quarters, +and many other strange and curious things. + +And while I sat there thinking, the Sunday-morning stars cut through the +clouds, and the solemn Sunday-morning light began to break upon the sea. + +We had a quiet run of it, after that, into port, where we lay about a +couple of months or so, trading off for a fair stock of palm-oil, ivory, +and hides. The days were hot and purple and still. We hadn't what you +might call a blow, if I recollect accurate, till we rounded the Cape +again, heading for home. + +We were rounding that Cape again, heading for home, when that happened +which you may believe me or not, as you take the notion, Tom; though why +a man who can swallow Daniel and the lion's den, or take down t'other +chap who lived three days comfortable into the inside of a whale, should +make faces at what I've got to tell I can't see. + +It was just about the spot that we lost the boy that we fell upon the +worst gale of the trip. It struck us quite sudden. Whitmarsh was a +little high. He wasn't apt to be drunk in a gale, if it gave him warning +sufficient. + +Well, you see, there must be somebody to furl the main-royal again, and +he pitched onto McCallum. McCallum hadn't his beat for fighting out the +royal in a blow. + +So he piled away lively, up to the to'-sail yard. There, all of a +sudden, he stopped. Next we knew he was down like heat-lightning. + +His face had gone very white. + +"What's to pay with _you_?" roared Whitmarsh. + +Said McCallum, "_There's somebody up there, sir_." + +Screamed Whitmarsh, "You're gone an idiot!" + +Said McCallum, very quiet and distinct: "There's somebody up there, sir. +I saw him quite plain. He saw me. I called up. He called down. Says he, +_'Don't you come up_!' and hang me if I'll stir a step for you or any +other man to-night!" + +I never saw the face of any man alive go the turn that mate's face went. +If he wouldn't have relished knocking the Scotchman dead before his +eyes, I've lost my guess. Can't say what he would have done to the old +fellow, if there'd been any time to lose. + +He'd the sense left to see there wasn't overmuch, so he orders out Bob +Smart direct. + +Bob goes up steady, with a quid in his cheek and a cool eye. Half-way +amid to'-sail and to'-gallant he stops, and down he comes, spinning. + +"Be drowned if there ain't!" said he. "He's sitting square upon the +yard. I never see the boy Kentucky, if he isn't sitting on that yard. +'_Don't you come up!_' he cries out,--'_don't you come up!_'" + +"Bob's drunk, and McCallum's a fool!" said Jim Welch, standing by. So +Welch wolunteers up, and takes Jaloffe with him. They were a couple of +the coolest hands aboard,--Welch and Jaloffe. So up they goes, and down +they comes like the rest, by the back-stays, by the run. + +"He beckoned of me back!" says Welch. "He hollered not to come up! not +to come up!" + +After that there wasn't a man of us would stir aloft, not for love nor +money. + +Well, Whitmarsh he stamped, and he swore, and he knocked us about +furious; but we sat and looked at one another's eyes, and never stirred. +Something cold, like a frost-bite, seemed to crawl along from man to +man, looking into one another's eyes. + +"I'll shame ye all, then, for a set of cowardly lubbers!" cries the +mate; and what with the anger and the drink he was as good as his word, +and up the ratlines in a twinkle. + +In a flash we were after him,--he was our officer, you see, and we felt +ashamed,--me at the head, and the lads following after. + +I got to the futtock shrouds, and there I stopped, for I saw him +myself,--a palish boy, with a jerk of thin hair on his forehead; I'd +have known him anywhere in this world or t'other. I saw him just as +distinct as I see you, Tom Brown, sitting on that yard quite steady with +the royal flapping like to flap him off. + +I reckon I've had as much experience fore and aft, in the course of +fifteen years aboard, as any man that ever tied a reef-point in a +nor'easter; but I never saw a sight like that, not before nor since. + +I won't say that I didn't wish myself well on deck; but I will say that +I stuck to the shrouds, and looked on steady. + +Whitmarsh, swearing that that royal should be furled, went on and went +up. + +It was after that I heard the voice. It came straight from the figure of +the boy upon the upper yard. + +But this time it says, "_Come up! Come up!_" And then, a little louder, +"_Come up! Come up! Come up!_" So he goes up, and next I knew there was +a cry,--and next a splash,--and then I saw the royal flapping from the +empty yard, and the mate was gone, and the boy. + +Job Whitmarsh was never seen again, alow or aloft, that night or ever +after. + +I was telling the tale to our parson this summer,--he's a fair-minded +chap, the parson, in spite of a little natural leaning to strawberries, +which I always take in very good part,--and he turned it about in his +mind some time. + +"If it was the boy," says he,--"and I can't say as I see any reason +especial why it shouldn't have been,--I've been wondering what his +spiritooal condition was. A soul in hell,"--the parson believes in hell, +I take it, because he can't help himself; but he has that solemn, tender +way of preaching it as makes you feel he wouldn't have so much as a +chicken get there if he could help it,--"a lost soul," says the parson +(I don't know as I get the words exact),--"a soul that has gone and been +and got there of its own free will and choosing would be as like as not +to haul another soul alongside if he could. Then again, if the mate's +time had come, you see, and his chances were over, why, that's the will +of the Lord, and it's hell for him whichever side of death he is, and +nobody's fault but hisn; and the boy might be in the good place, and do +the errand all the same. That's just about it, Brown," says he. "A man +goes his own gait, and, if he won't go to heaven, he _won't_, and the +good God himself can't help it. He throws the shining gates all open +wide, and he never shut them on any poor fellow as would have entered +in, and he never, never will." + +Which I thought was sensible of the parson, and very prettily put. + +There's Molly frying flapjacks now, and flapjacks won't wait for no man, +you know, no more than time and tide, else I should have talked till +midnight, very like, to tell the time we made on that trip home, and +how green the harbor looked a sailing up, and of Molly and the baby +coming down to meet me in a little boat that danced about (for we cast a +little down the channel), and how she climbed up a laughing and a crying +all to once, about my neck, and how the boy had grown, and how when he +ran about the deck (the little shaver had his first pair of boots on +that very afternoon) I bethought me of the other time, and of Molly's +words, and of the lad we'd left behind us in the purple days. + +Just as we were hauling up, I says to my wife: "Who's that old lady +setting there upon the lumber, with a gray bunnet, and a gray ribbon on +her cap?" + +For there was an old lady there, and I saw the sun all about her, and +all on the blazing yellow boards, and I grew a little dazed and dazzled. + +"I don't know," said Molly, catching onto me a little close. "She comes +there every day. They say she sits and watches for her lad as ran away." + +So then I seemed to know, as well as ever I knew afterwards, who it was. +And I thought of the dog. And the green rocking-chair. And the book that +Whitmarsh wadded his old gun with. And the front-door, with the boy a +walking in. + +So we three went up the wharf,--Molly and the baby and me,--and sat down +beside her on the yellow boards. I can't remember rightly what I said, +but I remember her sitting silent in the sunshine till I had told her +all there was to tell. + +"_Don't_ cry!" says Molly, when I got through,--which it was the more +surprising of Molly, considering as she was doing the crying all to +herself. The old lady never cried, you see. She sat with her eyes wide +open under her gray bunnet, and her lips a moving. After a while I made +it out what it was she said: "The only son--of his mother--and she--" + +By and by she gets up, and goes her ways, and Molly and I walk home +together, with our little boy between us. + + + +The End. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Men, Women, and Ghosts, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN, WOMEN, AND GHOSTS *** + +***** This file should be named 10744-8.txt or 10744-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/4/10744/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10744-8.zip b/old/10744-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a3eaba8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10744-8.zip diff --git a/old/10744.txt b/old/10744.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9275d11 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10744.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9495 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Men, Women, and Ghosts, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Men, Women, and Ghosts + +Author: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + +Release Date: January 18, 2004 [EBook #10744] +[Date last updated: April 24, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN, WOMEN, AND GHOSTS *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +Men, Women, and Ghosts + +by + +Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + +1869. + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by FIELDS, +OSGOOD, & CO., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the +District of Massachusetts. + + + +University Press: Welch, Bigelow, &., Cambridge. + + + + +Note. + + + +Of this collection of stories, "Calico," "The Day of my Death," and +"Night-Watches" (the last under the title of "Voices of the Night") have +appeared in _Harper's Monthly_; "One of the Elect," (under the title of +"Magdalene,") in _Hours at Home_; and "Little Tommy Tucker," in the +_Watchman and Reflector_. + +E. S. P. + +Andover, April, 1869. + + + + +Contents. + + + +No News +The Tenth of January +Night-Watches +The Day of My Death +"Little Tommy Tucker" +One of the Elect +What Was the Matter? +In the Gray Goth +Calico +Kentucky's Ghost + + + + +No News. + + + +None at all. Understand that, please, to begin with. That you will at +once, and distinctly, recall Dr. Sharpe--and his wife, I make no doubt. +Indeed, it is because the history is a familiar one, some of the +unfamiliar incidents of which have come into my possession, that I +undertake to tell it. + +My relation to the Doctor, his wife, and their friend, has been in many +respects peculiar. Without entering into explanations which I am not at +liberty to make, let me say, that those portions of their story which +concern our present purpose, whether or not they fell under my personal +observation, are accurately, and to the best of my judgment impartially, +related. + +Nobody, I think, who was at the wedding, dreamed that there would ever +be such a story to tell. It was such a pretty, peaceful wedding! If you +were there, you remember it as you remember a rare sunrise, or a +peculiarly delicate May-flower, or that strain in a simple old song +which is like orioles and butterflies and dew-drops. + +There were not many of us; we were all acquainted with one another; the +day was bright, and Harrie did not faint nor cry. There were a couple +of bridesmaids,--Pauline Dallas, and a Miss--Jones, I think,--besides +Harrie's little sisters; and the people were well dressed and well +looking, but everybody was thoroughly at home, comfortable, and on a +level. There was no annihilating of little country friends in gray +alpacas by city cousins in point and pearls, no crowding and no crush, +and, I believe, not a single "front breadth" spoiled by the ices. + +Harrie is not called exactly pretty, but she must be a very plain woman +who is not pleasant to see upon her wedding day. Harrie's eyes shone,--I +never saw such eyes! and she threw her head back like a queen whom they +were crowning. + +Her father married them. Old Mr. Bird was an odd man, with odd notions +of many things, of which marriage was one. The service was his own. I +afterwards asked him for a copy of it, which I have preserved. The +Covenant ran thus:-- + +"Appealing to your Father who is in heaven to witness your sincerity, +you .... do now take this woman whose hand you hold--choosing her alone +from all the world--to be your lawfully wedded wife. You trust her as +your best earthly friend. You promise to love, to cherish, and to +protect her; to be considerate of her happiness in your plans of life; +to cultivate for her sake all manly virtues; and in all things to seek +her welfare as you seek your own. You pledge yourself thus honorably to +her, to be her husband in good faith, so long as the providence of God +shall spare you to each other. + +"In like manner, looking to your Heavenly Father for his blessing, you +... do now receive this man, whose hand you hold, to be your lawfully +wedded husband. You choose him from all the world as he has chosen you. +You pledge your trust to him as your best earthly friend. You promise to +love, to comfort, and to honor him; to cultivate for his sake all +womanly graces; to guard his reputation, and assist him in his life's +work; and in all things to esteem his happiness as your own. You give +yourself thus trustfully to him, to be his wife in good faith, so long +as the providence of God shall spare you to each other." + +When Harrie lifted her shining eyes to say, "I _do_!" the two little +happy words ran through the silent room like a silver bell; they would +have tinkled in your ears for weeks to come if you had heard them. + +I have been thus particular in noting the words of the service, partly +because they pleased me, partly because I have since had some occasion +to recall them, and partly because I remember having wondered, at the +time, how many married men and women of your and my acquaintance, if +honestly subjecting their union to the test and full interpretation and +remotest bearing of such vows as these, could live in the sight of God +and man as "lawfully wedded" husband and wife. + +Weddings are always very sad things to me; as much sadder than burials +as the beginning of life should be sadder than the end of it. The +readiness with which young girls will flit out of a tried, proved, happy +home into the sole care and keeping of a man whom they have known three +months, six, twelve, I do not profess to understand. Such knowledge is +too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. But that may +be because I am fifty-five, an old maid, and have spent twenty years in +boarding-houses. + +A woman reads the graces of a man at sight. His faults she cannot +thoroughly detect till she has been for years his wife. And his faults +are so much more serious a matter to her than hers to him! + +I was thinking of this the day before the wedding. I had stepped in from +the kitchen to ask Mrs. Bird about the salad, when I came abruptly, at +the door of the sitting-room, upon as choice a picture as one is likely +to see. + +The doors were open through the house, and the wind swept in and out. A +scarlet woodbine swung lazily back and forth beyond the window. Dimples +of light burned through it, dotting the carpet and the black-and-white +marbled oilcloth of the hall. Beyond, in the little front parlor, framed +in by the series of doorways, was Harrie, all in a cloud of white. It +floated about her with an idle, wavelike motion. She had a veil like +fretted pearls through which her tinted arm shone faintly, and the +shadow of a single scarlet leaf trembled through a curtain upon her +forehead. + +Her mother, crying a little, as mothers will cry the day before the +wedding, was smoothing with tender touch a tiny crease upon the cloud; a +bridesmaid or two sat chattering on the floor; gloves, and favors, and +flowers, and bits of lace like hoar frost, lay scattered about; and the +whole was repictured and reflected and reshaded in the great +old-fashioned mirrors before which Harrie turned herself about. + +It seemed a pity that Myron Sharpe should miss that, so I called him in +from the porch where he sat reading Stuart Mill on Liberty. + +If you form your own opinion of a man who might spend a livelong +morning,--an October morning, quivering with color, alive with light, +sweet with the breath of dropping pines, soft with the caress of a wind +that had filtered through miles of sunshine,--and that the morning of +the day before his wedding,--reading Stuart Mill on Liberty,--I cannot +help it. + +Harrie, turning suddenly, saw us,--met her lover's eyes, stood a moment +with lifted lashes and bright cheeks,--crept with a quick, impulsive +movement into her mother's arms, kissed her, and floated away up the +stairs. + +"It's a perfect fit," said Mrs. Bird; coming out with one corner of a +very dingy handkerchief--somebody had just used it to dust the Parian +vases--at her eyes. + +And though, to be sure, it was none of my business, I caught myself +saying, under my breath,-- + +"It's a fit for life; for a _life_, Dr. Sharpe." + +Dr. Sharpe smiled serenely. He was very much in love with the little +pink-and-white cloud that had just fluttered up the stairs. If it had +been drifting to him for the venture of twenty lifetimes, he would have +felt no doubt of the "fit." + +Nor, I am sure, would Harrie. She stole out to him that evening after +the bridal finery was put away, and knelt at his feet in her plain +little muslin dress, her hair all out of crimp, slipping from her net +behind her ears,--Harrie's ears were very small, and shaded off in the +colors of a pale apple-blossom,--up-turning her flushed and weary face. + +"Put away the book, please, Myron." + +Myron put away the book (somebody on Bilious Affections), and looked for +a moment without speaking at the up-turned face. + +Dr. Sharpe had spasms of distrusting himself amazingly; perhaps most men +have,--and ought to. His face grew grave just then. That little girl's +clear eyes shone upon him like the lights upon an altar. In very +unworthiness of soul he would have put the shoes from off his feet. The +ground on which he trod was holy. + +When he spoke to the child, it was in a whisper:-- + +"Harrie, are you afraid of me? I know I am not very good." + +And Harrie, kneeling with the shadows of the scarlet leaves upon her +hair, said softly, "How could I be afraid of you? It is _I_ who am not +good." + +Dr. Sharpe could not have made much progress in Bilious Affections that +evening. All the time that the skies were fading, we saw them wandering +in and out among the apple-trees,--she with those shining eyes, and her +hand in his. And when to-morrow had come and gone, and in the dying +light they drove away, and Miss Dallas threw old Grandmother Bird's +little satin boot after the carriage, the last we saw of her was that +her hand was clasped in his, and that her eyes were shining. + +Well, I believe that they got along very well till the first baby came. +As far as my observation goes, young people usually get along very well +till the first baby comes. These particular young people had a clear +conscience,--as young people's consciences go,--fair health, a +comfortable income for two, and a very pleasant home. + +This home was on the coast. The townspeople made shoes, and minded their +own business. Dr. Sharpe bought the dying practice of an antediluvian +who believed in camomile and castor-oil. Harrie mended a few stockings, +made a few pies, and watched the sea. + +It was almost enough of itself to make one happy--the sea--as it +tumbled about the shores of Lime. Harrie had a little seat hollowed out +in the cliffs, and a little scarlet bathing-dress, which was +surprisingly becoming, and a little boat of her own, moored in a little +bay,--a pretty shell which her husband had had made to order, that she +might be able to row herself on a calm water. He was very thoughtful for +her in those days. + +She used to take her sewing out upon the cliff; she would be demure and +busy; she would finish the selvage seam; but the sun blazed, the sea +shone, the birds sang, all the world was at play,--what could it matter +about selvage seams? So the little gold thimble would drop off, the +spool trundle down the cliff, and Harrie, sinking back into a cushion of +green and crimson sea-weed, would open her wide eyes and dream. The +waves purpled and silvered, and broke into a mist like powdered amber, +the blue distances melted softly, the white sand glittered, the gulls +were chattering shrilly. What a world it was! + +"And he is in it!" thought Harrie. Then she would smile and shut her +eyes. "And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that Moses' +face shone, and they were afraid to come nigh him." Harrie wondered if +everybody's joy were too great to look upon, and wondered, in a +childish, frightened way, how it might be with sorrow; if people stood +with veiled faces before it, dumb with pain as she with peace,--and then +it was dinner-time, and Myron came down to walk up the beach with her, +and she forgot all about it. + +She forgot all about everything but the bare joy of life and the sea, +when she had donned the pretty scarlet suit, and crept out into the +surf,--at the proper medicinal hour, for the Doctor was very particular +with her,--when the warm brown waves broke over her face, the long +sea-weeds slipped through her fingers, the foam sprinkled her hair with +crystals, and the strong wind was up. + +She was a swift swimmer, and as one watched from the shore, her lithe +scarlet shoulders seemed to glide like a trail of fire through the +lighted water; and when she sat in shallow foam with sunshine on her, or +flashed through the dark green pools among the rocks, or floated with +the incoming tide, her great bathing-hat dropping shadows on her wet +little happy face, and her laugh ringing out, it was a pretty sight. + +But a prettier one than that, her husband thought, was to see her in her +boat at sunset; when sea and sky were aflame, when every flake of foam +was a rainbow, and the great chalk-cliffs were blood-red; when the wind +blew her net off, and in pretty petulance she pulled her hair down, and +it rippled all about her as she dipped into the blazing West. + +Dr. Sharpe used to drive home by the beach, on a fair night, always, +that he might see it. Then Harrie would row swiftly in, and spring into +the low, broad buggy beside him, and they rode home together in the +fragrant dusk. Sometimes she used to chatter on these twilight drives; +but more often she crept up to him and shut her eyes, and was as still +as a sleepy bird. It was so pleasant to do nothing but be happy! + +I believe that at this time Dr. Sharpe loved his wife as unselfishly as +he knew how. Harrie often wrote me that he was "very good." She was +sometimes a little troubled that he should "know so much more" than she, +and had fits of reading the newspapers and reviewing her French, and +studying cases of hydrophobia, or some other pleasant subject which had +a professional air. Her husband laughed at her for her pains, but +nevertheless he found her so much the more entertaining. Sometimes she +drove about with him on his calls, or amused herself by making jellies +in fancy moulds for his poor, or sat in his lap and discoursed like a +bobolink of croup and measles, pulling his whiskers the while with her +pink fingers. + +All this, as I have said, was before the first baby came. + +It is surprising what vague ideas young people in general, and young men +in particular, have of the rubs and jars of domestic life; especially +domestic life on an income of eighteen hundred, American constitutions +and country servants thrown in. + +Dr. Sharpe knew something of illness and babies and worry and watching; +but that his own individual baby should deliberately lie and scream till +two o'clock in the morning, was a source of perpetual astonishment to +him; and that it,--he and Mrs. Sharpe had their first quarrel over his +persistence in calling the child an "it,"--that it should _invariably_ +feel called upon to have the colic just as he had fallen into a nap, +after a night spent with a dying patient, was a phenomenon of the infant +mind for which he was, to say the least, unprepared. + +It was for a long time a mystery to his masculine understanding, that +Biddy could not be nursery-maid as well as cook. "Why, what has she to +do now? Nothing but to broil steaks and make tea for two people!" That +whenever he had Harrie quietly to himself for a peculiarly pleasant +tea-table, the house should resound with sudden shrieks from the +nursery, and there was _always_ a pin in that baby, was forever a fresh +surprise; and why, when they had a house full of company, no "girl," and +Harrie down with a sick-headache, his son and heir should of _necessity_ +be threatened with scarlatina, was a philosophical problem over which he +speculated long and profoundly. + +So, gradually, in the old way, the old sweet habits of the long +honeymoon were broken. Harrie dreamed no more on the cliffs by the +bright noon sea; had no time to spend making scarlet pictures in the +little bathing-suit; had seldom strength to row into the sunset, her +hair loose, the bay on fire, and one to watch her from the shore. There +were no more walks up the beach to dinner; there came an end to the +drives in the happy twilight; she could not climb now upon her husband's +knee, because of the heavy baby on her own. + +The spasms of newspaper reading subsided rapidly; Corinne and Racine +gathered the dust in peace upon their shelves; Mrs. Sharpe made no more +fancy jellies, and found no time to inquire after other people's babies. + +One becomes used to anything after a while, especially if one happens to +be a man. It would have surprised Dr. Sharpe, if he had taken the pains +to notice,--which I believe he never did,--how easily he became used to +his solitary drives and disturbed teas; to missing Harrie's watching +face at door or window; to sitting whole evenings by himself while she +sang to the fretful baby overhead with her sweet little tired voice; to +slipping off into the "spare room" to sleep when the child cried at +night, and Harrie, up and down with him by the hour, flitted from cradle +to bed, or paced the room, or sat and sang, or lay and cried herself, in +sheer despair of rest; to wandering away on lonely walks; to stepping +often into a neighbor's to discuss the election or the typhoid in the +village; to forgetting that his wife's conversational capacities could +extend beyond Biddy and teething; to forgetting that she might ever +hunger for a twilight drive, a sunny sail, for the sparkle and +freshness, the dreaming, the petting, the caresses, all the silly little +lovers' habits of their early married days; to going his own ways, and +letting her go hers. + +Yet he loved her, and loved her only, and loved her well. That he never +doubted, nor, to my surprise, did she. I remember once, when on a visit +there, being fairly frightened out of the proprieties by hearing her +call him "Dr. Sharpe." I called her away from the children soon after, +on pretence of helping me unpack. I locked the door, pulled her down +upon a trunk tray beside me, folded both her hands in mine, and studied +her face; it had grown to be a very thin little face, less pretty than +it was in the shadow of the woodbine, with absent eyes and a sad mouth. +She knew that I loved her, and my heart was full for the child; and so, +for I could not help it, I said,--"Harrie, is all well between you? Is +he quite the same?" + +She looked at me with a perplexed and musing air. + +"The same? O yes, he is quite the same to me. He would always be the +same to me. Only there are the children, and we are so busy. He--why, he +loves me, you know,--" she turned her head from side to side wearily, +with the puzzled expression growing on her forehead,--"he loves me just +the same,--just the same. I am _his wife_; don't you see?" + +She drew herself up a little haughtily, said that she heard the baby +crying, and slipped away. + +But the perplexed knot upon her forehead did not slip away. I was rather +glad that it did not. I liked it better than the absent eyes. That +afternoon she left her baby with Biddy for a couple of hours, went away +by herself into the garden, sat down upon a stone and thought. + +Harrie took a great deal of comfort in her babies, quite as much as I +wished to have her. Women whose dream of marriage has faded a little +have a way of transferring their passionate devotion and content from +husband to child. It is like anchoring in a harbor,--a pleasant harbor, +and one in which it is good to be,--but never on shore and never at +home. Whatever a woman's children may be to her, her husband should be +always something beyond and more; forever crowned for her as first, +dearest, best, on a throne that neither son nor daughter can usurp. +Through mistake and misery the throne may be left vacant or voiceless: +but what man cometh after the King? + +So, when Harrie forgot the baby for a whole afternoon, and sat out on +her stone there in the garden thinking, I felt rather glad than sorry. + +It was when little Harrie was a baby, I believe, that Mrs. Sharpe took +that notion about having company. She was growing out of the world, she +said; turning into a fungus; petrifying; had forgotten whether you +called your seats at the Music Hall pews or settees, and was as afraid +of a well-dressed woman as she was of the croup. + +So the Doctor's house at Lime was for two or three months overrun with +visitors and vivacity. Fathers and mothers made fatherly and motherly +stays, with the hottest of air-tights put up for their benefit in the +front room; sisters and sisters-in-law brought the fashions and got up +tableaux; cousins came on the jump; Miss Jones, Pauline Dallas, and I +were invited in turn, and the children had the mumps at cheerful +intervals between. + +The Doctor was not much in the mood for entertaining Miss Dallas; he was +a little tired of company, and had had a hard week's work with an +epidemic down town. Harrie had not seen her since her wedding day, and +was pleased and excited at the prospect of the visit. Pauline had been +one of her eternal friendships at school. + +Miss Dallas came a day earlier than she was expected, and, as chance +would have it, Harrie was devoting the afternoon to cutting out shirts. +Any one who has sat from two till six at that engaging occupation, will +understand precisely how her back ached and her temples throbbed, and +her fingers stung, and her neck stiffened; why her eyes swam, her cheeks +burned, her brain was deadened, the children's voices were insufferable, +the slamming of a door an agony, the past a blot, the future +unendurable, life a burden, friendship a myth, her hair down, and her +collar unpinned. + +Miss Dallas had never cut a shirt, nor, I believe, had Dr. Sharpe. + +Harrie was groaning over the last wristband but one, when she heard her +husband's voice in the hall. + +"Harrie, Harrie, your friend is here. I found her, by a charming +accident, at the station, and drove her home." And Miss Dallas, gloved, +perfumed, rustling, in a very becoming veil and travelling-suit of the +latest mode, swept in upon her. + +Harrie was too much of a lady to waste any words on apology, so she ran +just as she was, in her calico dress, with the collar hanging, into +Pauline's stately arms, and held up her little burning cheeks to be +kissed. + +But her husband looked annoyed. + +He came down before tea in his best coat to entertain their guest. Biddy +was "taking an afternoon" that day, and Harrie bustled about with her +aching back to make tea and wash the children. She had no time to spend +upon herself, and, rather than keep a hungry traveller waiting, smoothed +her hair, knotted a ribbon at the collar, and came down in her calico +dress. + +Dr. Sharpe glanced at it in some surprise. He repeated the glances +several times in the course of the evening, as he sat chatting with his +wife's friend. Miss Dallas was very sprightly in conversation; had read +some, had thought some; and had the appearance of having read and +thought about twice as much as she had. + +Myron Sharpe had always considered his wife a handsome woman. That +nobody else thought her so had made no difference to him. He had often +looked into the saucy eyes of little Harrie Bird, and told her that she +was very pretty. As a matter of theory, he supposed her to be very +pretty, now that she was the mother of his three children, and breaking +her back to cut out his shirts. + +Miss Dallas was a generously framed, well-proportioned woman, who +carried long trains, and tied her hair with crimson velvet. She had +large, serene eyes, white hands, and a very pleasant smile. A delicate +perfume stirred as she stirred, and she wore a creamy lace about her +throat and wrists. + +Calicoes were never becoming to Harrie, and that one with the palm-leaf +did not fit her well,--she cut it herself, to save expense. As the +evening passed, in reaction from the weariness of shirt-cutting she grew +pale, and the sallow tints upon her face came out; her features +sharpened, as they had a way of doing when she was tired; and she had +little else to do that evening than think how tired she was, for her +husband observing, as he remarked afterwards, that she did not feel like +talking, kindly entertained her friend himself. + +As they went up stairs for the night, it struck him, for the first time +in his life, that Harrie had a snubbed nose. It annoyed him, because she +was his wife, and he loved her, and liked to feel that she was as well +looking as other women. + +"Your friend is a bright girl," he said, encouragingly, when Harrie had +hushed a couple of children, and sat wearily down to unbutton her boots. + +"I think you will find her more easy to entertain than Cousin +Mehitabel." + +Then, seeing that Harrie answered absently, and how exhausted she +looked, he expressed his sorrow that she should have worked so long over +the shirts, and kissed her as he spoke; while Harrie cried a little, and +felt as if she would cut them all over again for that. + +The next day Miss Dallas and Mrs. Sharpe sat sewing together; Harrie +cramping her shoulders and blackening her hands over a patch on Rocko's +rough little trousers; Pauline playing idly with purple and orange +wools,--her fingers were white, and she sank with grace into the warm +colors of the arm-chair; the door was opened into the hall, and Dr. +Sharpe passed by, glancing in as he passed. + +"Your husband is a very intelligent man, Harrie," observed Miss Dallas, +studying her lavenders and lemons thoughtfully. "I was much interested +in what he said about pre-Adamic man, last evening." + +"Yes," said Harrie, "he knows a great deal. I always thought so." The +little trousers slipped from her black fingers by and by, and her eyes +wandered out of the window absently. + +_She_ did not know anything about pre-Adamic man. + +In the afternoon they walked down the beach together,--the Doctor, his +wife, and their guest,--accompanied by as few children as circumstances +would admit of. Pauline was stately in a beach-dress of bright browns, +which shaded softly into one another; it was one of Miss Dallas's +peculiarities, that she never wore more than one color, or two, at the +same time. Harrie, as it chanced, wore over her purple dress (Rocko had +tipped over two ink-bottles and a vinegar-cruet on the sack which should +have matched it) a dull gray shawl; her bonnet was blue,--it had been a +present from Myron's sister, and she had no other way than to wear it. +Miss Dallas bounded with pretty feet from rock to rock. Rocko hung +heavily to his mother's fingers; she had no gloves, the child would have +spoiled them; her dress dragged in the sand,--she could not afford two +skirts, and one must be long,--and between Rocko and the wind she held +it up awkwardly. + +Dr. Sharpe seldom noticed a woman's dress; he could not have told now +whether his wife's shawl was sky-blue or pea-green; he knew nothing +about the ink-spots; he had never heard of the unfortunate blue bonnet, +or the mysteries of short and long skirts. He might have gone to walk +with her a dozen times and thought her very pretty and "proper" in her +appearance. Now, without the vaguest idea what was the trouble, he +understood that something was wrong. A woman would have said, Mrs. +Sharpe looks dowdy and old-fashioned; he only considered that Miss +Dallas had a pleasant air, like a soft brown picture with crimson lights +let in, and that it was an air which his wife lacked. So, when Rocko +dragged heavily and more heavily at his mother's skirts, and the Doctor +and Pauline wandered off to climb the cliffs, Harrie did not seek to +follow or to call them back. She sat down with Rocko on the beach, +wrapped herself with a savage hug in the ugly shawl, and wondered with a +bitterness with which only women can wonder over such trifles, why God +should send Pauline all the pretty beach-dresses and deny them to +her,--for Harrie, like many another "dowdy" woman whom you see upon the +street, my dear madam, was a woman of fine, keen tastes, and would have +appreciated the soft browns no less than yourself. It seemed to her the +very sting of poverty, just then, that one must wear purple dresses and +blue bonnets. + +At the tea-table the Doctor fell to reconstructing the country, and Miss +Dallas, who was quite a politician in Miss Dallas's way, observed that +the horizon looked brighter since Tennessee's admittance, and that she +hoped that the clouds, &c.,--and what _did_ he think of Brownlow? &c., +&c. + +"Tennessee!" exclaimed Harrie; "why, how long has Tennessee been in? I +didn't know anything about it." + +Miss Dallas smiled kindly. Dr. Sharpe bit his lip, and his face flushed. + +"Harrie, you really _ought_ to read the papers," he said, with some +impatience; "it's no wonder you don't know anything." + +"How should I know anything, tied to the children all day?" Harrie spoke +quickly, for the hot tears sprang. "Why didn't you tell me something +about Tennessee? You never talk politics with _me_." + +This began to be awkward; Miss Dallas, who never interfered--on +principle--between husband and wife, gracefully took up the baby, and +gracefully swung her dainty Geneva watch for the child's amusement, +smiling brilliantly. She could not endure babies, but you would never +have suspected it. + +In fact, when Pauline had been in the house four or five days, Harrie, +who never thought very much of herself, became so painfully alive to her +own deficiencies, that she fell into a permanent fit of low spirits, +which did not add either to her appearance or her vivacity. + +"Pauline is so pretty and bright!" she wrote to me. "I always knew I was +a little fool. You can be a fool before you're married, just as well as +not. Then, when you have three babies to look after, it is too late to +make yourself over. I try very hard now to read the newspapers, only +Myron does not know it." + +One morning something occurred to Mrs. Sharpe. It was simply that her +husband had spent every evening at home for a week. She was in the +nursery when the thought struck her, rocking slowly in her low +sewing-chair, holding the baby on one arm and trying to darn stockings +with the other. + +Pauline was--she did not really know where. Was not that her voice upon +the porch? The rocking-chair stopped sharply, and Harrie looked down +through the blinds. The Doctor's horse was tied at the gate. The Doctor +sat fanning himself with his hat in one of the garden chairs; Miss +Dallas occupied the other; she was chatting, and twisting her golden +wools about her fingers,--it was noticeable that she used only golden +wools that morning; her dress was pale blue, and the effect of the +purples would not have been good. + +"I thought your calls were going to take till dinner, Myron," called +Harrie, through the blinds. + +"I thought so too," said Myron, placidly, "but they do not seem to. +Won't you come down?" + +Harrie thanked him, saying, in a pleasant _nonchalant_ way, that she +could not leave the baby. It was almost the first bit of acting that the +child had ever been guilty of,--for the baby was just going to sleep, +and she knew it. + +She turned away from the window quietly. She could not have been angry, +and scolded; or noisy, and cried. She put little Harrie into her cradle, +crept upon the bed, and lay perfectly still for a long time. + +When the dinner-bell rang, and she got up to brush her hair, that +absent, apathetic look of which I have spoken had left her eyes. A +stealthy brightness came and went in them, which her husband might have +observed if he and Miss Dallas had not been deep in the Woman question. +Pauline saw it; Pauline saw everything. + +"Why did you not come down and sit with us this morning?" she asked, +reproachfully, when she and Harrie were alone after dinner. "I don't +want your husband to feel that he must run away from you to entertain +me." + +"My husband's ideas of hospitality are generous," said Mrs. Sharpe. "I +have always found him as ready to make it pleasant here for my company +as for his own." + +She made this little speech with dignity. Did both women know it for the +farce it was? To do Miss Dallas justice,--I am not sure. She was not a +bad-hearted woman. She was a handsome woman. She had come to Lime to +enjoy herself. Those September days and nights were fair there by the +dreamy sea. On the whole I am inclined to think that she did not know +exactly what she was about. + +"_My_ perfumery never lasts," said Harrie, once, stooping to pick up +Pauline's fine handkerchief, to which a faint scent like unseen +heliotrope clung; it clung to everything of Pauline's; you would never +see a heliotrope without thinking of her, as Dr. Sharpe had often said. +"Myron used to like good cologne, but I can't afford to buy it, so I +make it myself, and use it Sundays, and it's all blown away by the time +I get to church. Myron says he is glad of it, for it is more like Mrs. +Allen's Hair Restorer than anything else. What do you use, Pauline?" + +"Sachet powder of course," said Miss Dallas, smiling. + +That evening Harrie stole away by herself to the village apothecary's. +Myron should not know for what she went. If it were the breath of a +heliotrope, thought foolish Harrie, which made it so pleasant for people +to be near Pauline, that was a matter easily remedied. But sachet +powder, you should know, is a dollar an ounce, and Harrie must needs +content herself with "the American," which could be had for fifty cents; +and so, of course, after she had spent her money, and made her little +silk bags, and put them away into her bureau drawers, Myron never told +_her,_ for all her pains, that she reminded him of a heliotrope with the +dew on it. One day a pink silk bag fell out from under her dress, where +she had tucked it. + +"What's all this nonsense, Harrie?" said her husband, in a sharp tone. + +At another time, the Doctor and Pauline were driving upon the beach at +sunset, when, turning a sudden corner, Miss Dallas cried out, in real +delight,-- + +"See! That beautiful creature! Who can it be?" + +And there was Harrie, out on a rock in the opal surf,--a little scarlet +mermaid, combing her hair with her thin fingers, from which the water +almost washed the wedding ring. It was--who knew how long, since the +pretty bathing-suit had been taken down from the garret nails? What +sudden yearning for the wash of waves, and the spring of girlhood, and +the consciousness that one is fair to see, had overtaken her? She +watched through her hair and her fingers for the love in her husband's +eyes. + +But he waded out to her, ill-pleased. + +"Harrie, this is very imprudent,--very! I don't see what could have +possessed you!" + +Myron Sharpe loved his wife. Of course he did. He began, about this +time, to state the fact to himself several times a day. Had she not been +all the world to him when he wooed and won her in her rosy, ripening +days? Was she not all the world to him now that a bit of searness had +crept upon her, in a married life of eight hard-working years? + +That she _had_ grown a little sear, he felt somewhat keenly of late. She +had a dreary, draggled look at breakfast, after the children had cried +at night,--and the nights when Mrs. Sharpe's children did not cry were +like angels' visits. It was perhaps the more noticeable, because Miss +Dallas had a peculiar color and coolness and sparkle in the morning, +like that of opening flowers. _She_ had not been up till midnight with a +sick baby. + +Harrie was apt to be too busy in the kitchen to run and meet him when he +came home at dusk. Or, if she came, it was with her sleeves rolled up +and an apron on. Miss Dallas sat at the window; the lace curtain waved +about her; she nodded and smiled as he walked up the path. In the +evening Harrie talked of Rocko, or the price of butter; she did not +venture beyond, poor thing! since her experience with Tennessee. + +Miss Dallas quoted Browning, and discussed Goethe, and talked Parepa; +and they had no lights, and the September moon shone in. Sometimes Mrs. +Sharpe had mending to do, and, as she could not sew on her husband's +buttons satisfactorily by moonlight, would slip into the dining-room +with kerosene and mosquitoes for company. The Doctor may have noticed, +or he may not, how comfortably he could, if he made the proper effort, +pass the evening without her. + +But Myron Sharpe loved his wife. To be sure he did. If his wife doubted +it,--but why should she doubt it? Who thought she doubted it? If she +did, she gave no sign. Her eyes, he observed, had brightened, of late; +and when they went to her from the moonlit parlor, there was such a +pretty color upon her cheeks, that he used to stoop and kiss them, while +Miss Dallas discreetly occupied herself in killing mosquitoes. Of course +he loved his wife! + +It was observable that, in proportion to the frequency with which he +found it natural to remark his fondness for Harrie, his attentions to +her increased. He inquired tenderly after her headaches; he brought her +flowers, when he and Miss Dallas walked in the autumn woods; he was +particular about her shawls and wraps; he begged her to sail and drive +with them; he took pains to draw his chair beside hers on the porch; he +patted her hands, and played with her soft hair. + +Harrie's clear eyes puzzled over this for a day or two; but by and by +it might have been noticed that she refused his rides, shawled herself, +was apt to be with the children when he called her, and shrank, in a +quiet way, from his touch. + +She went into her room one afternoon, and locked the children out. An +east wind blew, and the rain fell drearily. The Doctor and Pauline were +playing chess down stairs; she should not be missed. She took out her +wedding-dress from the drawer where she had laid it tenderly away; the +hoar-frost and fretted pearl fell down upon her faded morning-dress; the +little creamy gloves hung loosely upon her worn fingers. Poor little +gloves! Poor little pearly dress! She felt a kind of pity for their +innocence and ignorance and trustfulness. Her hot tears fell and spotted +them. What if there were any way of creeping back through them to be +little Harrie Bird again? Would she take it? + +Her children's voices sounded crying for her in the hall. Three innocent +babies--and how many more?--to grow into life under the shadow of a +wrecked and loveless home! What had she done? What had they done? + +Harrie's was a strong, healthy little soul, with a strong, healthy love +of life; but she fell down there that dreary afternoon, prone upon the +nursery floor, among the yellow wedding lace, and prayed God to let her +die. + +Yet Myron Sharpe loved his wife, you understand. Discussing elective +affinities down there over the chessboard with Miss Dallas,--he loved +his wife, most certainly; and, pray, why was she not content? + +It was quite late when they came up for Harrie. She had fallen into a +sleep or faint, and the window had been open all the time. Her eyes +burned sharply, and she complained of a chill, which did not leave her +the next day nor the next. + +One morning, at the breakfast-table, Miss Dallas calmly observed that +she should go home on Friday. + +Dr. Sharpe dropped his cup; Harrie wiped up the tea. + +"My dear Miss Dallas--surely--we cannot let you go yet! Harrie! Can't +you keep your friend?" + +Harrie said the proper thing in a low tone. Pauline repeated her +determination with much decision, and was afraid that her visit had been +more of a burden than Harrie, with all her care, was able to bear. Dr. +Sharpe pushed back his chair noisily, and left the room. + +He went and stood by the parlor window. The man's face was white. What +business had the days to close down before him like a granite wall, +because a woman with long trains and white hands was going out of them? +Harrie's patient voice came in through the open door:-- + +"Yes, yes, yes, Rocko; mother is tired to-day; wait a minute." + +Pauline, sweeping by the piano, brushed the keys a little, and sang:-- + + "Drifting, drifting on and on, + Mast and oar and rudder gone, + Fatal danger for each one, + We helpless as in dreams." + +What had he been about? + +The air grew sweet with the sudden scent of heliotrope, and Miss Dallas +pushed aside the curtain gently. + +"I may have that sail across the bay before I go? It promises to be fair +to-morrow." + +He hesitated. + +"I suppose it will be our last," said the lady, softly. + +She was rather sorry when she had spoken, for she really did not mean +anything, and was surprised at the sound of her own voice. + +But they took the sail. + +Harrie watched them off--her husband did not invite her to go on that +occasion--with that stealthy sharpness in her eyes. Her lips and hands +and forehead were burning. She had been cold all day. A sound like the +tolling of a bell beat in her ears. The children's voices were choked +and distant. She wondered if Biddy were drunk, she seemed to dance about +so at her ironing-table, and wondered if she must dismiss her, and who +could supply her place. She tried to put my room in order, for she was +expecting me that night by the last train, but gave up the undertaking +in weariness and confusion. + +In fact, if Harrie had been one of the Doctor's patients, he would have +sent her to bed and prescribed for brain-fever. As she was not a +patient, but only his wife, he had not found out that anything ailed +her. + +Nothing happened while he was gone, except that a friend of Biddy's +"dropped in," and Mrs. Sharpe, burning and shivering in her +sewing-chair, dreamily caught through the open door, and dreamily +repeated to herself, a dozen words of compassionate Irish brogue:-- + +"Folks as laves folks cryin' to home and goes sailin' round with other +women--" + +Then the wind latched the door. + +The Doctor and Miss Dallas drew in their oars, and floated softly. + +There were gray and silver clouds overhead, and all the light upon the +sea slanted from low in the west: it was a red light, in which the bay +grew warm; it struck across Pauline's hands, which she dipped, as the +mood took her, into the waves, leaning upon the side of the boat, +looking down into the water. One other sail only was to be seen upon the +bay. They watched it for a while. It dropped into the west, and sunk +from sight. + +They were silent for a time, and then they talked of friendship, and +nature, and eternity, and then were silent for a time again, and then +spoke--in a very general and proper way--of separation and communion in +spirit, and broke off softly, and the boat rose and fell upon the strong +outgoing tide. + +"Drifting, drifting on and on," hummed Pauline. + +The west, paling a little, left a haggard look upon the Doctor's face. + +"An honest man," the Doctor was saying, "an honest man, who loves his +wife devotedly, but who cannot find in her that sympathy which his +higher nature requires, that comprehension of his intellectual needs, +that--" + +"I always feel a deep compassion for such a man," interrupted Miss +Dallas, gently. + +"Such a man," questioned the Doctor in a pensive tone, "need not be +debarred, by the shallow conventionalities of an unappreciative world, +from a friendship which will rest, strengthen, and ennoble his weary +soul?" + +"Certainly not," said Pauline, with her eyes upon the water; dull +yellow, green, and indigo shades were creeping now upon its ruddiness. + +"Pauline,"--Dr. Sharpe's voice was low,--"Pauline!" + +Pauline turned her beautiful head. "There are marriages for this world; +true and honorable marriages, but for this world. But there is a +marriage for eternity,--a marriage of souls." + +Now Myron Sharpe is not a fool, but that is precisely what he said to +Miss Pauline Dallas, out in the boat on that September night. If wiser +men than Myron Sharpe never uttered more unpardonable nonsense under +similar circumstances, cast your stones at him. + +"Perhaps so," said Miss Dallas, with a sigh; "but see! How dark it has +grown while we have been talking. We shall be caught in a squall; but I +shall not be at all afraid--with you." + +They were caught indeed, not only in a squall, but in the steady force +of a driving northeasterly storm setting in doggedly with a very ugly +fog. If Miss Dallas was not at all afraid--with him, she was +nevertheless not sorry when they grated safely on the dull white beach. + +They had had a hard pull in against the tide. Sky and sea were black. +The fog crawled like a ghost over flat and cliff and field. The rain +beat upon them as they turned to walk up the beach. + +Pauline stopped once suddenly. + +"What was that?" + +"I heard nothing." + +"A cry,--I fancied a cry down there in the fog." + +They went back, and walked down the slippery shore for a space. Miss +Dallas took off her hat to listen. + +"You will take cold," said Dr. Sharpe, anxiously. She put it on; she +heard nothing,--she was tired and excited, he said. + +They walked home together. Miss Dallas had sprained her white wrist, +trying to help at the oars; he drew it gently through his arm. + +It was quite dark when they reached the house. No lamps were lighted. +The parlor window had been left open, and the rain was beating in. "How +careless in Harrie!" said her husband, impatiently. + +He remembered those words, and the sound of his own voice in saying +them, for a long time to come; he remembers them now, indeed, I fancy, +on rainy nights when the house is dark. + +The hall was cold and dreary. No table was set for supper. The children +were all crying. Dr. Sharpe pushed open the kitchen door with a stern +face. + +"Biddy! Biddy! what does all this mean? Where is Mrs. Sharpe?" + +"The Lord only knows what it manes, or where is Mrs. Sharpe," said +Biddy, sullenly. "It's high time, in me own belafe, for her husband to +come ashkin' and inquirin' her close all in a hape on the floor +upstairs, with her bath-dress gone from the nails, and the front door +swingin',--me never findin' of it out till it cooms tay-time, with all +the children cryin' on me, and me head shplit with the noise, and--" + +Dr. Sharpe strode in a bewildered way to the front door. Oddly enough, +the first thing he did was to take down the thermometer and look at it. +Gone out to bathe in a temperature like that! His mind ran like +lightning, while he hung the thing back upon its nail, over Harrie's +ancestry. Was there not a traditionary great-uncle who died in an +asylum? The whole future of three children with an insane mother spread +itself out before him while he was buttoning his overcoat. + +"Shall I go and help you find her?" asked Miss Dallas, tremulously; "or +shall I stay and look after hot flannels and--things? What shall I do?" + +"_I_ don't care what you do!" said the Doctor, savagely. To his justice +be it recorded that he did not. He would not have exchanged one glimpse +of Harrie's little homely face just then for an eternity of +sunset-sailing with the "friend of his soul." A sudden cold loathing of +her possessed him; he hated the sound of her soft voice; he hated the +rustle of her garments, as she leaned against the door with her +handkerchief at her eyes. Did he remember at that moment an old vow, +spoken on an old October day, to that little missing face? Did he +comfort himself thus, as he stepped out into the storm, "You have +'trusted her,' Myron Sharpe, as 'your best earthly friend'"? + +As luck, or providence or God--whichever word you prefer--decreed it, +the Doctor had but just shut the door when he saw me driving from the +station through the rain. I heard enough of the story while he was +helping me down the carriage steps. I left my bonnet and bag with Miss +Dallas, pulled my water-proof over my head, and we turned our faces to +the sea without a word. + +The Doctor is a man who thinks and acts rapidly in emergencies, and +little time was lost about help and lights. Yet when all was done which +could be done, we stood there upon the slippery weed-strewn sand, and +looked in one another's faces helplessly. Harrie's little boat was gone. +The sea thundered out beyond the bar. The fog hung, a dead weight, upon +a buried world. Our lanterns cut it for a foot or two in a ghostly way, +throwing a pale white light back upon our faces and the weeds and bits +of wreck under our feet. + +The tide had turned. We put out into the surf not knowing what else to +do, and called for Harrie; we leaned on our oars to listen, and heard +the water drip into the boat, and the dull thunder beyond the bar; we +called again, and heard a frightened sea-gull scream. + +"_This_ yere's wastin' valooable time," said Hansom, decidedly. I +forgot to say that it was George Hansom whom Myron had picked up to help +us. Anybody in Lime will tell you who George Hansom is,--a clear-eyed, +open-hearted sailor; a man to whom you would turn in trouble as +instinctively as a rheumatic man turns to the sun. + +I cannot accurately tell you what he did with us that night. I have +confused memories of searching shore and cliffs and caves; of touching +at little islands and inlets that Harrie fancied; of the peculiar echo +which answered our shouting; of the look that settled little by little +about Dr. Sharpe's mouth; of the sobbing of the low wind; of the flare +of lanterns on gaping, green waves; of spots of foam that writhed like +nests of white snakes; of noticing the puddles in the bottom of the +boat, and of wondering confusedly what they would do with my +travelling-dress, at the very moment when I saw--I was the first to see +it--little empty boat; of our hauling alongside of the tossing, silent +thing; of a bit of a red scarf that lay coiled in its stern; of our +drifting by, and speaking never a word; of our coasting along after that +for a mile down the bay, because there was nothing in the world to take +us there but the dread of seeing the Doctor's eyes when we should turn. + +It was there that we heard the first cry. + +"It's shoreward!" said Hansom. + +"It is seaward!" cried the Doctor. + +"It is behind us!" said I. + +Where was it? A sharp, sobbing cry, striking the mist three or four +times in rapid succession,--hushing suddenly,--breaking into shrieks +like a frightened child's,--dying plaintively down. + +We struggled desperately after it, through the fog. Wind and water took +the sound up and tossed it about. Confused and bewildered, we beat about +it and about it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our +left,--crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us no replies,--beckoning +us, slipping from us, mocking us utterly. + +The Doctor stretched his hands out upon the solid wall of mist; he +groped with them like a man struck blind. + +"To die there,--in my very hearing,--without a chance--" + +And while the words were upon his lips the cries ceased. + +He turned a gray face slowly around, shivered a little, then smiled a +little, then began to argue with ghastly cheerfulness:-- + +"It must be only for a moment, you know. We shall hear it again,--I am +quite sure we shall it again, Hansom!" + +Hansom, making a false stroke, I believe for the first time in his life, +snapped an oar and overturned a lantern. Some drift-wood, covered with +slimy weeds, washed heavily up at our feet. I remember that a little +disabled ground-sparrow, chased by the tide, was fluttering and drowning +just in sight, and that Myron drew it out of the water, and held it up +for a moment to his cheek. + +Bending over the ropes, George spoke between his teeth to me:-- + +"It may be a night's job on 't, findin' of the body." + +"The WHAT?" + +The poor little sparrow dropped from Dr. Sharpe's hand. He took a step +backward, scanned our faces, sat down dizzily, and fell over upon the +sand. + +He is a man of good nerves and great self-possession, but he fell like +a woman, and lay like the dead. + +"It's no place for him," Hansom said, softly. "Get him home. Me and the +neighbors can do the rest. Get him home, and put his baby into his arms, +and shet the door, and go about your business." + +I had left him in the dark on the office floor at last. Miss Dallas and +I sat in the cold parlor and looked at each other. + +The fire was low and the lamp dull. The rain beat in an uncanny way upon +the windows. I never like to hear the rain upon the windows. I liked it +less than usual that night, and was just trying to brighten the fire a +little, when the front door blew open. + +"Shut it, please," said I, between the jerks of my poker. + +But Miss Dallas looked over her shoulder and shivered. + +"Just look at that latch!" I looked at that latch. + +It rose and fell in a feeble fluttering way,--was still for a +minute,--rose and fell again. + +When the door swung in and Harrie--or the ghost of her--staggered into +the chilly room and fell down in a scarlet heap at my feet, Pauline +bounded against the wall with a scream which pierced into the dark +office where the Doctor lay with his face upon the floor. + +It was long before we knew how it happened. Indeed, I suppose we have +never known it all. How she glided down, a little red wraith, through +the dusk and damp to her boat; how she tossed about, with some dim, +delirious idea of finding Myron on the ebbing waves; that she found +herself stranded and tangled at last in the long, matted grass of that +muddy cove, started to wade home, and sunk in the ugly ooze, held, +chilled, and scratched by the sharp grass, blinded and frightened by the +fog, and calling, as she thought of it, for help; that in the first +shallow wash of the flowing tide she must have struggled free, and found +her way home across the fields,--she can tell us, but she can tell no +more. + +This very morning on which I write, an unknown man, imprisoned in the +same spot in the same way overnight, was found by George Hansom dead +there from exposure in the salt grass. + +It was the walk home, and only that, which could have saved her. + +Yet for many weeks we fought, her husband and I, hand to hand with +death, seeming to _see_ the life slip out of her, and watching for +wandering minutes when she might look upon us with sane eyes. + +We kept her--just. A mere little wreck, with drawn lips, and great eyes, +and shattered nerves,--but we kept her. + +I remember one night, when she had fallen into her first healthful nap, +that the Doctor came down to rest a few minutes in the parlor where I +sat alone. Pauline was washing the tea-things. + +He began to pace the room with a weary abstracted look,--he was much +worn by watching,--and, seeing that he was in no mood for words, I took +up a book which lay upon the table. It chanced to be one of Alger's, +which somebody had lent to the Doctor before Harrie's illness; it was a +marked book, and I ran my eye over the pencilled passages. I recollect +having been struck with this one: "A man's best friend is a wife of good +sense and good heart, whom he loves and who loves him." + +"You believe that?" said Myron, suddenly, behind my shoulder. + +"I believe that a man's wife ought to be his best friend,--in every +sense of the word, his _best friend,_--or she ought never to be his +wife." + +"And if--there will be differences of temperament, and--other things. If +you were a man now, for instance, Miss Hannah--" + +I interrupted him with hot cheeks and sudden courage. + +"If I were a man, and my wife were _not_ the best friend I had or could +have in the world, _nobody should ever know it,--she, least of +all,--Myron Sharpe!_" + +Young people will bear a great deal of impertinence from an old lady, +but we had both gone further than we meant to. I closed Mr. Alger with a +snap, and went up to Harrie. + +The day that Mrs. Sharpe sat up in the easy-chair for two hours, Miss +Dallas, who had felt called upon to stay and nurse her dear Harrie to +recovery, and had really been of service, detailed on duty among the +babies, went home. + +Dr. Sharpe drove her to the station. I accompanied them at his request. +Miss Dallas intended, I think, to look a little pensive, but had her +lunch to cram into a very full travelling-bag, and forgot it. The +Doctor, with clear, courteous eyes, shook hands, and wished her a +pleasant journey. + +He drove home in silence, and went directly to his wife's room. A bright +blaze flickered on the old-fashioned fireplace, and the walls bowed with +pretty dancing shadows. Harrie, all alone, turned her face weakly and +smiled. + +Well, they made no fuss about it, after all. Her husband came and stood +beside her; a cricket on which one of the baby's dresses had been +thrown, lay between them; it seemed, for the moment, as if he dared not +cross the tiny barrier. Something of that old fancy about the lights +upon the altar may have crossed his thought. + +"So Miss Dallas has fairly gone, Harrie," said he, pleasantly, after a +pause. + +"Yes. She has been very kind to the children while I have been sick." + +"Very." + +"You must miss her," said poor Harrie, trembling; she was very weak yet. + +The Doctor knocked away the cricket, folded his wife's two shadowy +hands into his own, and said:-- + +"Harrie we have no strength to waste, either of us, upon a scene; but I +am sorry, and I love you." + +She broke all down at that, and, dear me! they almost had a scene in +spite of themselves. For O, she had always known what a little goose she +was; and Pauline never meant any harm, and how handsome she was, you +know! only _she_ didn't have three babies to look after, nor a snubbed +nose either, and the sachet powder was only American, and the very +servants knew, and, O Myron! she _had_ wanted to be dead so long, and +then-- + +"Harrie!" said the Doctor, at his wit's end, "this will never do in the +world. I believe--I declare!--Miss Hannah!--I believe I must send you to +bed." + +"And then I'm SUCH a little skeleton!" finished Harrie, royally, with a +great gulp. + +Dr. Sharpe gathered the little skeleton all into a heap in his arms,--it +was a very funny heap, by the way, but that doesn't matter,--and to the +best of my knowledge and belief he cried just about as hard as she did. + + + + +The Tenth of January. + + + +The city of Lawrence is unique in its way. + +For simooms that scorch you and tempests that freeze; for sand-heaps +and sand-hillocks and sand-roads; for men digging sand, for women +shaking off sand, for minute boys crawling in sand; for sand in the +church-slips and the gingerbread-windows, for sand in your eyes, your +nose, your mouth, down your neck? up your sleeves, under your _chignon_, +down your throat; for unexpected corners where tornadoes lie in wait; +for "bleak, uncomforted" sidewalks, where they chase you, dog you, +confront you, strangle you, twist you, blind you, turn your umbrella +wrong side out; for "dimmykhrats" and bad ice-cream; for unutterable +circus-bills and religious tea-parties; for uncleared ruins, and mills +that spring up in a night; for jaded faces and busy feet; for an air of +youth and incompleteness at which you laugh, and a consciousness of +growth and greatness which you respect,--it-- + +I believe, when I commenced that sentence, I intended to say that it +would be difficult to find Lawrence's equal. + +Of the twenty-five thousand souls who inhabit that city, ten thousand +are operatives in the factories. Of these ten thousand two thirds are +girls. + +These pages are written as one sets a bit of marble to mark a mound. I +linger over them as we linger beside the grave of one who sleeps well; +half sadly, half gladly,--more gladly than sadly,--but hushed. + +The time to see Lawrence is when the mills open or close. So languidly +the dull-colored, inexpectant crowd wind in! So briskly they come +bounding out! Factory faces have a look of their own,--not only their +common dinginess, and a general air of being in a hurry to find the +wash-bowl, but an appearance of restlessness,--often of envious +restlessness, not habitual in most departments of "healthy labor." Watch +them closely: you can read their histories at a venture. A widow this, +in the dusty black, with she can scarcely remember how many mouths to +feed at home. Worse than widowed that one: she has put her baby out to +board,--and humane people know what that means,--to keep the little +thing beyond its besotted father's reach. There is a group who have +"just come over." A child's face here, old before its time. That +girl--she climbs five flights of stairs twice a day--will climb no more +stairs for herself or another by the time the clover-leaves are green. +"The best thing about one's grave is that it will be level," she was +heard once to say. Somebody muses a little here,--she is to be married +this winter. There is a face just behind her whose fixed eyes repel and +attract you; there may be more love than guilt in them, more despair +than either. + +Had you stood in some unobserved corner of Essex Street, at four o'clock +one Saturday afternoon towards the last of November, 1859, watching the +impatient stream pour out of the Pemberton Mill, eager with a saddening +eagerness for its few holiday hours, you would have observed one girl +who did not bound. + +She was slightly built, and undersized; her neck and shoulders were +closely muffled, though the day was mild; she wore a faded scarlet hood +which heightened the pallor of what must at best have been a pallid +face. It was a sickly face, shaded off with purple shadows, but with a +certain wiry nervous strength about the muscles of the mouth and chin: +it would have been a womanly, pleasant mouth, had it not been crossed by +a white scar, which attracted more of one's attention than either the +womanliness or pleasantness. Her eyes had light long lashes, and shone +through them steadily. + +You would have noticed as well, had you been used to analyzing crowds, +another face,--the two were side by side,--dimpled with pink and white +flushes, and framed with bright black hair. One would laugh at this girl +and love her, scold her and pity her, caress her and pray for her,--then +forget her perhaps. + +The girls from behind called after her: "Del! Del Ivory! look over +there!" + +Pretty Del turned her head. She had just flung a smile at a young clerk +who was petting his mustache in a shop-window, and the smile lingered. + +One of the factory boys was walking alone across the Common in his +factory clothes. + +"Why, there's Dick! Sene, do you see?" + +Sene's scarred mouth moved slightly, but she made no reply. She had seen +him five minutes ago. + +One never knows exactly whether to laugh or cry over them, catching +their chatter as they file past the show-windows of the long, showy +street. + +"Look a' that pink silk with the figures on it!" + +"I've seen them as is betther nor that in the ould counthree.--Patsy +Malorrn, let alon' hangin' onto the shawl of me!" + +"That's Mary Foster getting out of that carriage with the two white +horses,--she that lives in the brown house with the cupilo." + +"Look at her dress trailin' after her. I'd like my dresses trailin' +after me." + +"Well, may they be good,--these rich folks!" + +"That's so. I'd be good if I was rich; wouldn't you, Moll?" + +"You'd keep growing wilder than ever, if you went to hell, Meg Match: +yes you would, because my teacher said so." + +"So, then, he wouldn't marry her, after all; and she--" + +"Going to the circus to-night, Bess?" + +"I can't help crying, Jenny. You don't _know_ how my head aches! It +aches, and it aches, and it seems as if it would never stop aching. I +wish--I wish I was dead, Jenny!" + +They separated at last, going each her own way,--pretty Del Ivory to +her boarding-place by the canal, her companion walking home alone. + +This girl, Asenath Martyn, when left to herself, fell into a contented +dream not common to girls who have reached her age,--especially girls +who have seen the phases of life which she had seen. Yet few of the +faces in the streets that led her home were more gravely lined. She +puzzled one at the first glance, and at the second. An artist, meeting +her musing on a canal-bridge one day, went home and painted a May-flower +budding in February. + +It was a damp, unwholesome place, the street in which she lived, cut +short by a broken fence, a sudden steep, and the water; filled with +children,--they ran from the gutters after her, as she passed,--and +filled to the brim; it tipped now and then, like an over-full +soup-plate, and spilled out two or three through the break in the fence. + +Down in the corner, sharp upon the water, the east-winds broke about a +little yellow house, where no children played; an old man's face watched +at a window, and a nasturtium-vine crawled in the garden. The broken +panes of glass about the place were well mended, and a clever little +gate, extemporized from a wild grape-vine, swung at the entrance. It +was not an old man's work. + +Asenath went in with expectant eyes; they took in the room at a glance, +and fell. + +"Dick hasn't come, father?" + +"Come and gone child; didn't want any supper, he said. Your 're an hour +before time, Senath." + +"Yes. Didn't want any supper, you say? I don't see why not." + +"No more do I, but it's none of our concern as I knows on; very like the +pickles hurt him for dinner; Dick never had an o'er-strong stomach, as +you might say. But you don't tell me how it m' happen you're let out at +four o'clock, Senath," half complaining. + +"O, something broke in the machinery, father; you know you wouldn't +understand if I told you what." + +He looked up from his bench,--he cobbled shoes there in the corner on +his strongest days,--and after her as she turned quickly away and up +stairs to change her dress. She was never exactly cross with her father; +but her words rang impatiently sometimes. + +She came down presently, transformed, as only factory-girls are +transformed, by the simple little toilet she had been making; her thin, +soft hair knotted smoothly, the tips of her fingers rosy from the water, +her pale neck well toned by her gray stuff dress and cape;--Asenath +always wore a cape: there was one of crimson flannel, with a hood, that +she had meant to wear to-night; she had thought about it coming home +from the mill; she was apt to wear it on Saturdays and Sundays; Dick had +more time at home. Going up stairs to-night, she had thrown it away into +a drawer, and shut the drawer with a snap; then opened it softly, and +cried a little; but she had not taken it out. + +As she moved silently about the room, setting the supper-table for two, +crossing and recrossing the broad belt of sunlight that fell upon the +floor, it was easy to read the sad story of the little hooded capes. + +They might have been graceful shoulders. The hand which had scarred her +face had rounded and bent them,--her own mother's hand. + +Of a bottle always on the shelf; of brutal scowls where smiles should +be; of days when she wandered dinnerless and supperless in the streets +through loathing of her home; of nights when she sat out in the +snow-drifts through terror of her home; of a broken jug one day, a blow, +a fall, then numbness, and the silence of the grave,--she had her +distant memories; of waking on a sunny afternoon, in bed, with a little +cracked glass upon the opposite wall; of creeping out and up to it in +her night-dress; of the ghastly twisted thing that looked back at her. +Through the open window she heard the children laughing and leaping in +the sweet summer air. She crawled into bed and shut her eyes. She +remembered stealing out at last, after many days, to the grocery round +the corner for a pound of coffee. "Humpback! humpback!" cried the +children,--the very children who could leap and laugh. + +One day she and little Del Ivory made mud-houses after school. + +"I'm going to have a house of my own, when I'm grown up," said pretty +Del; "I shall have a red carpet and some curtains; my husband will buy +me a piano." + +"So will mine, I guess," said Sene, simply. + +"_Yours!"_ Del shook back her curls; "who do you suppose would ever +marry _you_?" + +One night there was a knocking at the door, and a hideous, sodden thing +borne in upon a plank. The crowded street, tired of tipping out little +children, had tipped her mother staggering through the broken fence. At +the funeral she heard some one say, "How glad Sene must be!" + +Since that, life had meant three things,--her father, the mills, and +Richard Cross. + +"You're a bit put out that the young fellow didn't stay to supper,--eh, +Senath?" the old man said, laying down his boot. + +"Put out! Why should I be? His time is his own. It's likely to be the +Union that took him out,--such a fine day for the Union! I'm sure I +never expected him to go to walk with me _every_ Saturday afternoon. I'm +not a fool to tie him up to the notions of a crippled girl. Supper is +ready, father." + +But her voice rasped bitterly. Life's pleasures were so new and late +and important to her, poor thing! It went hard to miss the least of +them. Very happy people will not understand exactly how hard. + +Old Martyn took off his leather apron with a troubled face, and, as he +passed his daughter, gently laid his tremulous, stained hand upon her +head. He felt her least uneasiness, it would seem, as a chameleon feels +a cloud upon the sun. + +She turned her face softly and kissed him. But she did not smile. + +She had planned a little for this holiday supper; saving three +mellow-cheeked Louise Bonnes--expensive pears just then--to add to their +bread and molasses. She brought them out from the closet, and watched +her father eat them. + +"Going out again Senath?" he asked, seeing that she went for her hat and +shawl, u and not a mouthful have you eaten! Find your old father dull +company hey? Well, well!" + +She said something about needing the air; the mill was hot; she should +soon be back; she spoke tenderly and she spoke truly, but she went out +into the windy sunset with her little trouble, and forgot him. The old +man, left alone, sat for a while with his head sunk upon his breast. She +was all he had in the world,--this one little crippled girl that the +world had dealt hardly with. She loved him; but he was not, probably +would never be, to her exactly what she was to him. Usually he forgot +this. Sometimes he quite understood it, as to-night. + +Asenath, with the purpose only of avoiding Dick, and of finding a still +spot where she might think her thoughts undisturbed, wandered away over +the eastern bridge, and down to the river's brink. It was a moody place; +such a one as only apathetic or healthy natures (I wonder if that is +tautology!) can healthfully yield to. The bank sloped steeply; a fringe +of stunted aspens and willows sprang from the frozen sand: it was a +sickening, airless place in summer,--it was damp and desolate now. There +was a sluggish wash of water under foot, and a stretch of dreary flats +behind. Belated locomotives shrieked to each other across the river, and +the wind bore down the current the roar and rage of the dam. Shadows +were beginning to skulk under the huge brown bridge. The silent mills +stared up and down and over the streams with a blank, unvarying stare. +An oriflamme of scarlet burned in the west, flickered dully in the +dirty, curdling water, flared against the windows of the Pemberton, +which quivered and dripped, Asenath thought, as if with blood. + +She sat down on a gray stone, wrapped in her gray shawl, curtained about +by the aspens from the eye of passers on the bridge. She had a fancy for +this place when things went ill with her. She had always borne her +troubles alone, but she must be alone to bear them. + +She knew very well that she was tired and nervous that afternoon, and +that, if she could reason quietly about this little neglect of Dick's, +it would cease to annoy her. Indeed, why should she be annoyed? Had he +not done everything for her, been everything to her, for two long, sweet +years? She dropped her head with a shy smile. She was never tired of +living over these two years. She took positive pleasure in recalling the +wretchedness in which they found her, for the sake of their dear relief. +Many a time, sitting with her happy face hidden in his arms, she had +laughed softly, to remember the day on which he came to her. It was at +twilight, and she was tired. Her reels had troubled her all the +afternoon; the overseer was cross; the day was hot and long. Somebody on +the way home had said in passing her: "Look at that girl! I'd kill +myself if I looked like that": it was in a whisper, but she heard it. +All life looked hot and long; the reels would always be out of order; +the overseer would never be kind. Her temples would always throb, and +her back would ache. People would always say, "Look at that girl!" + +"Can you direct me to--". She looked up; she had been sitting on the +doorstep with her face in her hands. Dick stood there with his cap off. +He forgot that he was to inquire the way to Newbury Street, when he saw +the tears on her shrunken cheeks. Dick could never bear to see a woman +suffer. + +"I wouldn't cry," he said simply, sitting down beside her. Telling a +girl not to cry is an infallible recipe for keeping her at it. What +could the child do, but sob as if her heart would break? Of course he +had the whole story in ten minutes, she his in another ten. It was +common and short enough:--a "Down-East" boy, fresh from his father's +farm, hunting for work and board,--a bit homesick here in the strange, +unhomelike city, it might be, and glad of some one to say so to. + +What more natural than that, when her father came out and was pleased +with the lad, there should be no more talk of Newbury Street; that the +little yellow house should become his home; that he should swing the +fantastic gate, and plant the nasturtiums; that his life should grow to +be one with hers and the old man's, his future and theirs unite +unconsciously? + +She remembered--it was not exactly pleasant, somehow, to remember it +to-night--just the look of his face when they came into the house that +summer evening, and he for the first time saw what she was, her cape +having fallen off, in the full lamplight. His kindly blue eyes widened +with shocked surprise, and fell; when he raised them, a pity like a +mother's had crept into them; it broadened and brightened as time slid +by, but it never left them. + +So you see, after that, life unfolded in a burst of little surprises for +Asenath. If she came home very tired, some one said, "I am sorry." If +she wore a pink ribbon, she heard a whisper, "It suits you." If she +sang a little song, she knew that somebody listened. + +"I did not know the world was like this!" cried the girl. + +After a time there came a night that he chanced to be out late,--they +had planned an arithmetic lesson together, which he had forgotten,--and +she sat grieving by the kitchen fire. + +"You missed me so much then?" he said regretfully, standing with his +hand upon her chair. She was trying to shell some corn; she dropped the +pan, and the yellow kernels rolled away on the floor. + +"What should I have if I didn't have you?" she said, and caught her +breath. + +The young man paced to the window and back again. The firelight touched +her shoulders, and the sad, white scar. + +"You shall have me always, Asenath," he made answer. He took her face +within his hands and kissed it; and so they shelled the corn together, +and nothing more was said about it. + +He had spoken this last spring of their marriage; but the girl, like all +girls, was shyly silent, and he had not urged it. + +Asenath started from her pleasant dreaming just as the oriflamme was +furling into gray, suddenly conscious that she was not alone. Below her, +quite on the brink of the water, a girl was sitting,--a girl with a +bright plaid shawl, and a nodding red feather in her hat. Her head was +bent, and her hair fell against a profile cut in pink-and-white. + +"Del is too pretty to be here alone so late," thought Asenath, smiling +tenderly. Good-natured Del was kind to her in a certain way, and she +rather loved the girl. She rose to speak to her, but concluded, on a +second glance through the aspens, that Miss Ivory was quite able to take +care of herself. + +Del was sitting on an old log that jutted into the stream, dabbling in +the water with the tips of her feet. (Had she lived on The Avenue she +could not have been more particular about her shoemaker.) Some one--it +was too dark to see distinctly--stood beside her, his eyes upon her +face. Asenath could hear nothing, but she needed to hear nothing to know +how the young fellow's eyes drank in the coquettish picture. Besides, it +was an old story. Del counted her rejected lovers by the score. + +"It's no wonder," she thought in her honest way, standing still to watch +them with a sense of puzzled pleasure much like that with which she +watched the print-windows,--"it's no wonder they love her. I'd love her +if I was a man: so pretty! so pretty! She's just good for nothing, Del +is;--would let the kitchen fire go out, and wouldn't mend the baby's +aprons; but I'd love her all the same; marry her, probably, and be sorry +all my life." + +Pretty Del! Poor Del! Asenath wondered whether she wished that she were +like her; she could not quite make out; it would be pleasant to sit on +a log and look like that; it would be more pleasant to be watched as Del +was watched just now; it struck her suddenly that Dick had never looked +like this at her. + +The hum of their voices ceased while she stood there with her eyes upon +them; Del turned her head away with a sudden movement, and the young man +left her, apparently without bow or farewell, sprang up the bank at a +bound, and crushed the undergrowth with quick, uneasy strides. + +Asenath, with some vague idea that it would not be honorable to see his +face,--poor fellow!--shrank back into the aspens and the shadow. + +He towered tall in the twilight as he passed her, and a dull, umber +gleam, the last of the sunset, struck him from the west. + +Struck it out into her sight,--the haggard struggling face,--Richard +Cross's face. + +Of course you knew it from the beginning, but remember that the girl did +not. She might have known it, perhaps, but she had not. + +Asenath stood up, sat down again. + +She had a distinct consciousness, for the moment, of seeing herself +crouched down there under the aspens and the shadow, a humpbacked white +creature, with distorted face and wide eyes. She remembered a picture +she had somewhere seen of a little chattering goblin in a graveyard, and +was struck with the resemblance. Distinctly, too, she heard herself +saying, with a laugh, she thought, "I might have known it; I might have +known." + +Then the blood came through her heart with a hot rush, and she saw Del +on the log, smoothing the red feather of her hat. She heard a man's +step, too, that rang over the bridge, passed the toll-house, grew faint, +grew fainter, died in the sand by the Everett Mill. + +Richard's face! Richard's face, looking--God help her!--as it had never +looked at her; struggling--God pity him!--as it had never struggled for +her. + +She shut her hands, into each other, and sat still a little while. A +faint hope came to her then perhaps, after all; her face lightened +grayly, and she crept down the bank to Del. + +"I won't be a fool," she said, "I'll make sure,--I'll make as sure as +death." + +"Well, where did _you_ drop down from, Sene?" said Del, with a guilty +start. + +"From over the bridge, to be sure. Did you think I swam, or flew, or +blew?" + +"You came on me so sudden!" said Del, petulantly; "you nearly frightened +the wits out of me. You didn't meet anybody on the bridge?" with a quick +look. + +"Let me see." Asenath considered gravely. "There was one small boy +making faces, and two--no, three--dogs, I believe; that was all." + +"Oh!" + +Del looked relieved, but fell silent. + +"You're sober, Del. Been sending off a lover, as usual?" + +"I don't know anything about its being usual," answered Del, in an +aggrieved, coquettish way, "but there's been somebody here that liked me +well enough." + +"You like him, maybe? It's time you liked somebody, Del." + +Del curled the red feather about her fingers, and put her hat on over +her eyes, then a little cry broke from her, half sob, half anger. + +"I might, perhaps,--I don't know. He's good. I think he'd let me have a +parlor and a door-bell. But he's going to marry somebody else, you see. +I sha'n't tell you his name, so you needn't ask." + +Asenath looked out straight upon the water. A dead leaf that had been +caught in an eddy attracted her attention; it tossed about for a minute, +then a tiny whirlpool sucked it down. + +"I wasn't going to ask; it's nothing to me, of course. He doesn't care +for her then,--this other girl?" + +"Not so much as he does for me. He didn't mean to tell me, but he said +that I--that I looked so--pretty, it came right out. But there! I +mustn't tell you any more." + +Del began to be frightened; she looked up sideways at Asenath's quiet +face. "I won't say another word," and so chattered on, growing a little +cross; Asenath need not look so still, and sure of herself,--a mere +humpbacked fright! + +"He'll never break his engagement, not even for me; he's sorry for her, +and all that. I think it's too bad. He's handsome. He makes me feel like +saying my prayers, too, he's so good! Besides, I want to be married. I +hate the mill. I hate to work. I'd rather be taken care of,--a sight +rather. I feel bad enough about it to cry." + +Two tears rolled over her cheeks, and fell on the soft plaid shawl. Del +wiped them away carefully with her rounded fingers. + +Asenath turned and looked at this Del Ivory long and steadily through +the dusk. The pretty, shallow thing! The worthless, bewildering thing! + +A fierce contempt for her pink-and-white, and tears and eyelashes and +attitudes, came upon her; then a sudden sickening jealousy that turned +her faint where she sat. + +What did God mean,--Asenath believed in God, having so little else to +believe in,--what did he mean, when he had blessed the girl all her +happy life with such wealth of beauty, by filling her careless hands +with this one best, last gift? Why, the child could not hold such golden +love! She would throw it away by and by. What a waste it was! + +Not that she had these words for her thought, but she had the thought +distinctly through her dizzy pain. + +"So there's nothing to do about it," said Del, pinning her shawl. "We +can't have anything to say to each other,--unless anybody should die, or +anything; and of course I'm not wicked enough to think of _that._--Sene! +Sene! what are you doing?" + +Sene had risen slowly, stood upon the log, caught at an aspen-top, and +swung out with it its whole length above the water. The slight tree +writhed and quivered about the roots. Sene looked down and moved her +marred lips without sound. + +Del screamed and wrung her hands. It was an ugly sight! + +"O don't, Sene, _don't!_ You'll drown yourself! you will be drowned! you +will be--O, what a start you gave me! What _were_ you doing, Senath +Martyn?" + +Sene swung slowly back, and sat down. + +"Amusing myself a little;--well, unless somebody died, you said? But I +believe I won't talk any more to-night. My head aches. Go home, Del." + +Del muttered a weak protest at leaving her there alone; but, with her +bright face clouded and uncomfortable, went. + +Asenath turned her head to listen for the last rustle of her dress, then +folded her arms, and, with her eyes upon the sluggish current, sat +still. + +An hour and a half later, an Andover farmer, driving home across the +bridge, observed on the river's edge--a shadow cut within a shadow--the +outline of a woman's figure, sitting perfectly still with folded arms. +He reined up and looked down; but it sat quite still. + +"Hallo there!" he called; "you'll fall in if you don't look out!" for +the wind was strong, and it blew against the figure; but it did not move +nor make reply. The Andover farmer looked over his shoulder with the +sudden recollection of a ghost-story which he had charged his +grandchildren not to believe last week, cracked his whip, and rumbled +on. + +Asenath began to understand by and by that she was cold, so climbed the +bank, made her way over the windy flats, the railroad, and the western +bridge confusedly with an idea of going home. She turned aside by the +toll-gate. The keeper came out to see what she was doing, but she kept +out of his sight behind the great willow and his little blue house,--the +blue house with the green blinds and red moulding. The dam thundered +that night, the wind and the water being high. She made her way up above +it, and looked in. She had never seen it so black and smooth there. As +she listened to the roar, she remembered something that she had +read--was it in the Bible or the Ledger?--about seven thunders uttering +their voices. + +"He's sorry for her, and all that," they said. + +A dead bough shot down the current while she stood there, went over and +down, and out of sight, throwing up its little branches like helpless +hands. + +It fell in with a thought of Asenath's, perhaps; at any rate she did +not like the looks of it, and went home. + +Over the bridge, and the canal, and the lighted streets, the falls +called after her: "He's sorry for her, and all that." The curtain was +drawn aside when she came home, and she saw her father through the +window, sitting alone, with his gray head bent. + +It occurred to her that she had often left him alone,--poor old father! +It occurred to her, also, that she understood now what it was to be +alone. Had she forgotten him in these two comforted, companioned years? + +She came in weakly, and looked about. + +"Dick's in, and gone to bed," said the old man, answering her look. +"You're tired, Senath." + +"I am tired, father." + +She sunk upon the floor,--the heat of the room made her a little +faint,--and laid her head upon his knee; oddly enough, she noticed that +the patch on it had given way,--wondered how many days it had been +so,--whether he had felt ragged and neglected while she was busy about +that blue neck-tie for Dick. She put her hand up and smoothed the +corners of the rent. + +"You shall be mended up to-morrow, poor father!" + +He smiled, pleased like a child to be remembered. She looked up at +him,--at his gray hair and shrivelled face, at his blackened hands and +bent shoulders, and dusty, ill-kept coat. What would it be like, if the +days brought her nothing but him? + +"Something's the matter with my little gal? Tell father, can't ye?" + +Her face flushed hot, as if she had done him wrong. She crept up into +his arms, and put her hands behind his rough old neck. + +"Would you kiss me, father? You don't think I'm too ugly to kiss, +maybe,--you?" + +She felt better after that. She had not gone to sleep now for many a +night unkissed; it had seemed hard at first. + +When she had gone half-way up stairs, Dick came to the door of his room +on the first floor, and called her. He held the little kerosene lamp +over his head; his face was grave and pale. + +"I haven't said good night, Sene." + +She made no reply. + +"Asenath, good night." + +She stayed her steps upon the stairs without turning her head. Her +father had kissed her to-night. Was not that enough? + +"Why, Sene, what's the matter with you?" + +Dick mounted the stairs, and touched his lips to her forehead with a +gently compassionate smile. + +She fled from him with a cry like the cry of a suffocated creature, shut +her door, and locked it with a ringing clang. + +"She's walked too far, and got a little nervous," said Dick, screwing up +his lamp; "poor thing!" + +Then he went into his room to look at Del's photograph awhile before he +burned it up; for he meant to burn it up. + +Asenath, when she had locked her door, put her lamp before the +looking-glass and tore off her gray cape; tore it off so savagely that +the button snapped and rolled away,--two little crystal semicircles like +tears upon the floor. + +There was no collar about the neck of her dress, and this heightened the +plainness and the pallor of her face. She shrank instinctively at the +first sight of herself, and opened the drawer where the crimson cape was +folded, but shut it resolutely. + +"I'll see the worst of it," she said with pinched lips. She turned +herself about and about before the glass, letting the cruel light gloat, +over her shoulders, letting the sickly shadows grow purple on her face. +Then she put her elbows on the table and her chin into her hands, and +so, for a motionless half-hour, studied the unrounded, uncolored, +unlightened face that stared back at her; her eyes darkening at its +eyes, her hair touching its hair, her breath dimming the outline of its +repulsive mouth. + +By and by she dropped her head into her hands. The poor, mistaken face! +She felt as if she would like to blot it out of the world, as her tears +used to blot out the wrong sums upon her slate. It had been so happy! +But he was sorry for it, and all that. Why did a good God make such +faces? + +She slipped upon her knees, bewildered. + +"He _can't_ mean any harm nohow," she said, speaking fast, and knelt +there and said it over till she felt sure of it. + +Then she thought of Del once more,--of her colors and sinuous springs, +and little cries and chatter. + +After a time she found that she was growing faint, and so stole down +into the kitchen for some food. She stayed a minute to warm her feet. +The fire was red and the clock was ticking. It seemed to her home-like +and comfortable, and she seemed to herself very homeless and lonely; so +she sat down on the floor, with her head in a chair, and cried as hard +as she ought to have done four hours ago. + +She climbed into bed about one o'clock, having decided, in a dull way, +to give Dick up to-morrow. + +But when to-morrow came he was up with a bright face, and built the +kitchen fire for her, and brought in all the water, and helped her fry +the potatoes, and whistled a little about the house, and worried at her +paleness, and so she said nothing about it. + +"I'll wait till night," she planned, making ready for the mill. + +"O, I can't!" she cried at night. So other mornings came, and other +nights. + +I am quite aware that, according to all romantic precedents, this +conduct was preposterous in Asenath, Floracita, in the novel, never so +far forgets the whole duty of a heroine as to struggle, waver, doubt, +delay. It is proud and proper to free the young fellow; proudly and +properly she frees him; "suffers in silence"--till she marries another +man; and (having had a convenient opportunity to refuse the original +lover) overwhelms the reflective reader with a sense of poetic justice +and the eternal fitness of things. + +But I am not writing a novel, and, as the biographer of this simple +factory girl, am offered few advantages. + +Asenath was no heroine, you see. Such heroic elements as were in +her--none could tell exactly what they were, or whether there were any: +she was one of those people in whom it is easy to be quite +mistaken;--her life had not been one to develop. She might have a +certain pride of her own, under given circumstances; but plants grown in +a cellar will turn to the sun at any cost; how could she go back into +her dark? + +As for the other man to marry, he was out of the question. Then, none +love with the tenacity of the unhappy; no life is so lavish of itself as +the denied life: to him that hath not shall be given,--and Asenath loved +this Richard Cross. + +It might be altogether the grand and suitable thing to say to him, "I +will not be your wife." It might be that she would thus regain a strong +shade of lost self-respect. It might be that she would make him happy, +and give pleasure to Del. It might be that the two young people would be +her "friends," and love her in a way. + +But all this meant that Dick must go out of her life. Practically, she +must make up her mind to build the fires, and pump the water, and mend +the windows alone. In dreary fact, he would not listen when she sung; +would not say, "You are tired, Sene"; would never kiss away an undried +tear. There would be nobody to notice the crimson cape, nobody to make +blue neck-ties for; none for whom to save the Bonnes de Jersey, or to +take sweet, tired steps, or make dear, dreamy plans. To be sure, there +was her father; but fathers do not count for much in a time like this on +which Sene had fallen. + +That Del Ivy was--Del Ivory, added intricacies to the question. It was a +very unpoetic but undoubted fact that Asenath could in no way so insure +Dick's unhappiness as to pave the way to his marriage with the woman +whom he loved. There would be a few merry months, then slow worry and +disappointment; pretty Del accepted at last, not as the crown of his +young life, but as its silent burden and misery. Poor Dick! good Dick! +Who deserved more wealth of wifely sacrifice? Asenath, thinking this, +crimsoned with pain and shame. A streak of good common sense in the girl +told her--though she half scorned herself for the conviction--that even +a crippled woman who should bear all things and hope all things for his +sake might blot out the memory of this rounded Del; that, no matter what +the motive with which he married her, he would end by loving his wife +like other people. + +She watched him sometimes in the evenings, as he turned his kind eyes +after her over the library book which he was reading. + +"I know I could make him happy! I _know_ I could!" she muttered fiercely +to herself. + +November blew into December, December congealed into January, while she +kept her silence. Dick, in his honorable heart, seeing that she +suffered, wearied himself with plans to make her eyes shine; brought her +two pails of water instead of one, never forgot the fire, helped her +home from the mill. She saw him meet Del Ivory once upon Essex Street +with a grave and silent bow; he never spoke with her now. He meant to +pay the debt he owed her down to the uttermost farthing; that grew +plain. Did she try to speak her wretched secret, he suffocated her with +kindness, struck her dumb with tender words. + +She used to analyze her life in those days, considering what it would be +without him. To be up by half past five o'clock in the chill of all the +winter mornings, to build the fire and cook the breakfast and sweep the +floor, to hurry away, faint and weak, over the raw, slippery streets, to +climb at half past six the endless stairs and stand at the endless loom, +and hear the endless wheels go buzzing round, to sicken in the oily +smells, and deafen at the remorseless noise, and weary of the rough girl +swearing at the other end of the pass; to eat her cold dinner from a +little cold tin pail out on the stairs in the three-quarters-of-an-hour +recess; to come exhausted home at half past six at night, and get the +supper, and brush up about the shoemaker's bench, and be too weak to +eat; to sit with aching shoulders and make the button-holes of her best +dress, or darn her father's stockings, till nine o'clock; to hear no +bounding step or cheery whistle about the house; to creep into bed and +lie there trying not to think, and wishing that so she might creep into +her grave,--this not for one winter, but for all the winters,--how +should _you_ like it, you young girls, with whom time runs like a story? + +The very fact that her employers dealt honorably by her; that she was +fairly paid, and promptly, for her wearing toil; that the limit of +endurance was consulted in the temperature of the room, and her need of +rest in an occasional holiday,--perhaps, after all, in the mood she was +in, did not make this factory life more easy. She would have found it +rather a relief to have somebody to complain of,--wherein she was like +the rest of us, I fancy. + +But at last there came a day--it chanced to be the ninth of +January--when Asenath went away alone at noon, and sat where Merrimack +sung his songs to her. She hid her face upon her knees, and listened and +thought her own thoughts, till they and the slow torment of the winter +seemed greater than she could bear. So, passing her hands confusedly +over her forehead, she said at last aloud, "That's what God means, +Asenath Martyn!" and went back to work with a purpose in her eyes. + +She "asked out" a little earlier than usual, and went slowly home. Dick +was there before her; he had been taking a half-holiday. He had made the +tea and toasted the bread for a little surprise. He came up and said, +"Why, Sene, your hands are cold!" and warmed them for her in his own. + +After tea she asked him, would he walk out with her for a little while? +and he in wonder went. + +The streets were brightly lighted, and the moon was up. The ice cracked +crisp under their feet. Sleighs, with two riders in each, shot merrily +by. People were laughing in groups before the shop-windows. In the glare +of a jeweller's counter somebody was buying a wedding-ring, and a girl +with red cheeks was looking hard the other way. + +"Let's get away," said Asenath,--"get away from here!" + +They chose by tacit consent that favorite road of hers over the eastern +bridge. Their steps had a hollow, lonely ring on the frosted wood; she +was glad when the softness of the snow in the road received them. She +looked back once at the water, wrinkled into thin ice on the edge for a +foot or two, then open and black and still. + +"What are you doing?" asked Dick. She said that she was wondering how +cold it was, and Dick laughed at her. + +They strolled on in silence for perhaps a mile of the desolate road. + +"Well, this is social!" said Dick at length; "how much farther do you +want to go? I believe you'd walk to Reading if nobody stopped you!" + +She was taking slow, regular steps like an automaton, and looking +straight before her. + +"How much farther? Oh!" She stopped and looked about her. + +A wide young forest spread away at their feet, to the right and to the +left. There was ice on the tiny oaks and miniature pines; it glittered +sharply under the moon; the light upon the snow was blue; cold roads +wound away through it, deserted; little piles of dead leaves shivered; a +fine keen spray ran along the tops of the drifts; inky shadows lurked +and dodged about the undergrowth; in the broad spaces the snow glared; +the lighted mills, a zone of fire, blazed from east to west; the skies +were bare, and the wind was up, and Merrimack in the distance chanted +solemnly. + +"Dick," said Asenath, "this is a dreadful place! Take me home." + +But when he would have turned, she held him back with a sudden cry, and +stood still. + +"I meant to tell you--I meant to say--Dick! I was going to say--" + +But she did not say it. She opened her lips to speak once and again, but +no sound came from them. + +"Sene! why, Sene, what ails you?" + +He turned, and took her in his arms. + +"Poor Sene!" + +He kissed her, feeling sorry for her unknown trouble. He wondered why +she sobbed. He kissed her again. She broke from him, and away with a +great bound upon the snow. + +"You make it so hard! You've no right to make it so hard! It ain't as if +you loved me, Dick! I know I'm not like other girls! Go home and let me +be!" + +But Dick drew her arm through his, and led her gravely away. "I like you +well enough, Asenath," he said, with that motherly pity in his eyes; +"I've always liked you. So don't let us have any more of this." + +So Asenath said nothing more. + +The sleek black river beckoned to her across the snow as they went home. +A thought came to her as she passed the bridge,--it is a curious study +what wicked thoughts will come to good people!--she found herself +considering the advisability of leaping the low brown parapet; and if it +would not be like Dick to go over after her; if there would be a chance +for them, even should he swim from the banks; how soon the icy current +would paralyze him; how sweet it would be to chill to death there in his +arms; how all this wavering and pain would be over; how Del would look +when they dragged them out down below the machine-shop! + +"Sene, are you cold?" asked puzzled Dick. She was warmly wrapped in her +little squirrel furs; but he felt her quivering upon his arm, like one +in an ague, all the way home. + +About eleven o'clock that night her father waked from an exciting dream +concerning the best method of blacking patent-leather; Sene stood beside +his bed with her gray shawl thrown over her night-dress. + +"Father, suppose some time there should be only you and me--" + +"Well, well, Sene," said the old man sleepily,--"very well." + +"I'd try to be a good girl! Could you love me enough to make up?" + +He told her indistinctly that she always was a good girl; she never had +a whipping from the day her mother died. She turned away impatiently; +then cried out and fell upon her knees. + +"Father, father! I'm in a great trouble. I haven't got any mother, any +friend, anybody. Nobody helps me! Nobody knows. I've been thinking such +things--O, such wicked things--up in my room! Then I got afraid of +myself. You're good. You love me. I want you to put your hand on my head +and say, 'God bless you, child, and show you how.'" + +Bewildered, he put his hand upon her unbound hair, and said: "God bless +you, child, and show you how!" + +Asenath looked at the old withered hand a moment, as it lay beside her +on the bed, kissed it, and went away. + +There was a scarlet sunrise the next morning. A pale pink flush stole +through a hole in the curtain, and fell across Asenath's sleeping face, +and lay there like a crown. It woke her, and she threw on her dress, and +sat down for a while on the window-sill, to watch the coming-on of the +day. + +The silent city steeped and bathed itself in rose-tints; the river ran +red, and the snow crimsoned on the distant New Hampshire hills; +Pemberton, mute and cold, frowned across the disk of the climbing sun, +and dripped, as she had seen it drip before, with blood. + +The day broke softly, the snow melted, the wind blew warm from the +river. The factory-bell chimed cheerily, and a few sleepers, in safe, +luxurious beds, were wakened by hearing the girls sing on their way to +work. + +Asenath came down with a quiet face. In her communing with the sunrise +helpful things had been spoken to her. Somehow, she knew not how, the +peace of the day was creeping into her heart. For some reason, she knew +not why, the torment and unrest of the night were gone. There was a +future to be settled, but she would not trouble herself about that just +now. There was breakfast to get; and the sun shone, and a snow-bird was +chirping outside of the door. She noticed how the tea-kettle hummed, and +how well the new curtain, with the castle and waterfall on it, fitted +the window. She thought that she would scour the closet at night, and +surprise her father by finishing those list slippers; She kissed him +when she had tied on the red hood, and said good-by to Dick, and told +them just where to find the squash-pie for dinner. + +When she had closed the twisted gate, and taken a step or two upon the +snow, she came thoughtfully back. Her father was on his bench, mending +one of Meg Match's shoes. She pushed it gently out of his hands, sat +down upon his lap, and stroked the shaggy hair away from his forehead. + +"Father!" + +"Well, what now, Sene?--what now?" + +"Sometimes I believe I've forgotten you a bit, you know. I think we're +going to be happier after this. That's all." + +She went out singing, and he heard the gate shut again with a click. + +Sene was a little dizzy that morning,--the constant palpitation of the +floors always made her dizzy after a wakeful night,--and so her colored +cotton threads danced out of place, and troubled her. + +Del Ivory, working beside her, said, "How the mill shakes! What's going +on?" + +"It's the new machinery they're h'isting in," observed the overseer, +carelessly. "Great improvement, but heavy, very heavy; they calc'late on +getting it all into place to-day; you'd better be tending to your frame, +Miss Ivory." + +As the day wore on, the quiet of Asenath's morning deepened. Round and +round with the pulleys over her head she wound her thoughts of Dick. In +and out with her black and dun-colored threads she spun her future. +Pretty Del, just behind her, was twisting a pattern like a rainbow. She +noticed this, and smiled. + +"Never mind!" she thought, "I guess God knows." + +Was He ready "to bless her, and show her how"? She wondered. If, indeed, +it were best that she should never be Dick's wife, it seemed to her that +He would help her about it. She had been a coward last night; her blood +leaped in her veins with shame at the memory of it. Did He understand? +Did He not know how she loved Dick, and how hard it was to lose him? + +However that might be, she began to feel at rest about herself. A +curious apathy about means and ways and decisions took possession of +her. A bounding sense that a way of escape was provided from all her +troubles, such as she had when her mother died, came upon her. + +Years before, an unknown workman in South Boston, casting an iron pillar +upon its core, had suffered it to "float" a little, a very little more, +till the thin, unequal side cooled to the measure of an eighth of an +inch. That man had provided Asenath's way of escape. + +She went out at noon with her luncheon, and found a place upon the +stairs, away from the rest, and sat there awhile, with her eyes upon the +river, thinking. She could not help wondering a little, after all, why +God need to have made her so unlike the rest of his fair handiwork. Del +came bounding by, and nodded at her carelessly. Two young Irish girls, +sisters,--the beauties of the mill,--magnificently colored +creatures,--were singing a little love-song together, while they tied on +their hats to go home. + +"There _are_ such pretty things in the world!" thought poor Sene. + +Did anybody speak to her after the girls were gone? Into her heart these +words fell suddenly, "_He_ hath no form nor comeliness. _His_ visage was +so marred more than any man." + +They clung to her fancy all the afternoon. She liked the sound of them. +She wove them in with her black and dun colored threads. + +The wind began at last to blow chilly up the stair-cases, and in at the +cracks; the melted drifts out under the walls to harden; the sun dipped +above the dam; the mill dimmed slowly; shadows crept down between the +frames. + +"It's time for lights," said Meg Match, and swore a little at her +spools. + +Sene, in the pauses of her thinking, heard snatches of the girls' talk. + +"Going to ask out to-morrow, Meg?" + +"Guess so, yes; me and Bob Smith we thought we'd go to Boston, and come +up in the theatre train." + +"Del Ivory, I want the pattern of your zouave." + +"Did I go to church? No, you don't catch me! If I slave all the week, +I'll do what I please on Sunday." + +"Hush-sh! There's the boss looking over here!" + +"Kathleen Donnavon, be still with your ghost-stories. There's one thing +in the world I never will hear about, and that's dead people." + +"Del," said Sene, "I think to-morrow--" + +She stopped. Something strange had happened to her frame; it jarred, +buzzed, snapped; the threads untwisted and flew out of place. + +"Curious!" she said, and looked up. + +Looked up to see her overseer turn wildly, clap his hands to his head, +and fall; to hear a shriek from Del that froze her blood; to see the +solid ceiling gape above her; to see the walls and windows stagger; to +see iron pillars reel, and vast machinery throw up its helpless, giant +arms, and a tangle of human faces blanch and writhe! + +She sprang as the floor sunk. As pillar after pillar gave way, she +bounded up an inclined plane, with the gulf yawning after her. It gained +upon her, leaped at her, caught her; beyond were the stairs and an open +door; she threw out her arms, and struggled on with hands and knees, +tripped in the gearing, and saw, as she fell, a square, oaken beam above +her yield and crash; it was of a fresh red color; she dimly wondered +why,--as she felt her hands-slip, her knees slide, support, time, +place, and reason, go utterly out. + +"_At ten minutes before five, on Tuesday, the tenth of January, the +Pemberton Mill, all hands being at the time on duty, fell to the +ground_." + +So the record flashed over the telegraph wires, sprang into large type +in the newspapers, passed from lip to lip, a nine days' wonder, gave +place to the successful candidate, and the muttering South, and was +forgotten. + +Who shall say what it was to the seven hundred and fifty souls who were +buried in the ruins? What to the eighty-eight who died that death of +exquisite agony? What to the wrecks of men and women who endure unto +this day a life that is worse than death? What to that architect and +engineer who, when the fatal pillars were first delivered to them for +inspection, had found one broken under their eyes, yet accepted the +contract, and built with them a mill whose thin walls and wide, +unsupported stretches might have tottered over massive columns and on +flawless ore? + +One that we love may go upon battle-ground, and we are ready for the +worst: we have said our good-bys; our hearts wait and pray: it is his +life, not his death, which is the surprise. But that he should go out to +his safe, daily, commonplace occupations, unnoticed and +uncaressed,--scolded a little, perhaps, because he leaves the door open, +and tells us how cross we are this morning; and they bring him up the +steps by and by, a mangled mass of death and horror,--that is hard. + +Old Martyn, working at Meg Match's shoes,--she was never to wear those +shoes, poor Meg!--heard, at ten minutes before five, what he thought to +be the rumble of an earthquake under his very feet, and stood with bated +breath, waiting for the crash. As nothing further appeared to happen, he +took his stick and limped out into the street. + +A vast crowd surged through it from end to end. Women with white lips +were counting the mills,--Pacific, Atlantic, Washington,--Pemberton? +Where was Pemberton? + +Where Pemberton had winked its many eyes last night, and hummed with its +iron lips this noon, a cloud of dust, black, silent, horrible, puffed a +hundred feet into the air. + +Asenath opened her eyes after a time. Beautiful green and purple lights +had been dancing about her, but she had had no thoughts. It occurred to +her now that she must have been struck upon the head. The church-clocks +were striking eight. A bonfire which had been built at, a distance, to +light the citizens in the work of rescue, cast a little gleam in through +the _debris_ across her two hands, which lay clasped together at her +side. One of her fingers, she saw, was gone; it was the finger which +held Dick's little engagement ring. The red beam lay across her +forehead, and drops dripped from it upon her eyes. Her feet, still +tangled in the gearing which had tripped her, were buried beneath a pile +of bricks. + +A broad piece of flooring, that had fallen slantwise, roofed her in, and +saved her from the mass of iron-work overhead, which would have crushed +the breath out of Titans. Fragments of looms, shafts, and pillars were +in heaps about. Some one whom she could not see was dying just behind +her. A little girl who worked in her room--a mere child--was crying, +between her groans, for her mother. Del Ivory sat in a little open +space, cushioned about with reels of cotton; she had a shallow gash upon +her cheek; she was wringing her hands. They were at work from the +outside, sawing entrances through the labyrinth of planks. A dead woman +lay close by, and Sene saw them draw her out. It was Meg Match. One of +the pretty Irish girls was crushed quite out of sight; only one hand was +free; she moved it feebly. They could hear her calling for Jimmy +Mahoney, Jimmy Mahoney! and would they be sure and give him back the +handkerchief? Poor Jimmy Mahoney! By and by she called no more; and in a +little while the hand was still. On the other side of the slanted +flooring some one prayed aloud. She had a little baby at home. She was +asking God to take care of it for her. "For Christ's sake," she said. +Sene listened long for the Amen, but it was never spoken. Beyond, they +dug a man out from under a dead body, unhurt. He crawled to his feet, +and broke into furious blasphemies. + +As consciousness came fully, agony grew. Sene shut her lips and folded +her bleeding hands together, and uttered no cry. Del did screaming +enough for two, she thought. She pondered things, calmly as the night +deepened, and the words that the workers outside were saying came +brokenly to her. Her hurt, she knew, was not unto death; but it must be +cared for before very long; how far could she support this slow bleeding +away? And what were the chances that they could hew their way to her +without crushing her? + +She thought of her father, of Dick; of the bright little kitchen and +supper-table set for three; of the song that she had sung in the flush +of the morning. Life--even her life--grew sweet, now that it was +slipping from her. + +Del cried presently, that they were cutting them out. The glare of the +bonfires struck through an opening; saws and axes flashed; voices grew +distinct. + +"They never can get at me," said Sene. "I must be able to crawl. If you +could get some of those bricks off of my feet, Del!" + +Del took off two or three in a frightened way; then, seeing the blood on +them, sat down and cried. + +A Scotch girl, with one arm shattered, crept up and removed the pile, +then fainted. + +The opening broadened, brightened; the sweet night-wind blew in; the +safe night-sky shone through. Sene's heart leaped within her. Out in the +wind and under the sky she should stand again, after all! Back in the +little kitchen, where the sun shone, and she could sing a song, there +would yet be a place for her. She worked her head from under the beam, +and raised herself upon her elbow. + +At that moment she heard a cry: + +"Fire! _fire!_ GOD ALMIGHTY HELP THEM,--THE RUINS ARE ON FIRE!" + +A man working over the _debris_ from the outside had taken the +notion--it being rather dark just there--to carry a lantern with him. + +"For God's sake," a voice cried from the crowd, "don't stay there with +that light!" + +But before the words had died upon the air, it was the dreadful fate of +the man with the lantern to let it fall,--and it broke upon the ruined +mass. + +That was at nine o'clock. What there was to see from then till morning +could never be told or forgotten. + +A network twenty feet high, of rods and girders, of beams, pillars, +stairways, gearing, roofing, ceiling, walling; wrecks of looms, shafts, +twisters, pulleys, bobbins, mules, locked and interwoven; wrecks of +human creatures wedged in; a face that you know turned up at you from +some pit which twenty-four hours' hewing could not open; a voice that +you know crying after you from God knows where; a mass of long, fair +hair visible here, a foot there, three fingers of a hand over there; the +snow bright-red under foot; charred limbs and headless trunks tossed +about; strong men carrying covered things by you, at sight of which +other strong men have fainted; the little yellow jet that flared up, and +died in smoke, and flared again, leaped out, licked the cotton-bales, +tasted the oiled machinery, crunched the netted wood, danced on the +heaped-up stone, threw its cruel arms high into the night, roared for +joy at helpless firemen, and swallowed wreck, death, and life together +out of your sight,--the lurid thing stands alone in the gallery of +tragedy. + +"Del," said Sene, presently, "I smell the smoke." And in a little while, +"How red it is growing away over there at the left!" + +To lie here and watch the hideous redness crawling after her, springing +at her!--it had seemed greater than reason could bear, at first. + +Now it did not trouble her. She grew a little faint, and her thoughts +wandered. She put her head down upon her arm, and shut her eyes. +Dreamily she heard them saying a dreadful thing outside, about one of +the overseers; at the alarm of fire he had cut his throat, and before +the flames touched him he was taken out. Dreamily she heard Del cry that +the shaft behind the heap of reels was growing hot. Dreamily she saw a +tiny puff of smoke struggle through the cracks of a broken fly-frame. + +They were working to save her, with rigid, stern faces. A plank +snapped, a rod yielded; they drew out the Scotch girl; her hair was +singed; then a man with blood upon his face and wrists held down his +arms. + +"There's time for one more! God save the rest of ye,--I can't!" + +Del sprang; then stopped,--even Del,--stopped ashamed, and looked back +at the cripple. + +Asenath at this sat up erect. The latent heroism in her awoke. All her +thoughts grew clear and bright. The tangled skein of her perplexed and +troubled winter unwound suddenly. This, then, was the way. It was better +so. God had provided himself a lamb for the burnt-offering. + +So she said, "Go, Del, and tell him I sent you with my dear love, and +that it's all right." + +And Del at the first word went. + +Sene sat and watched them draw her out; it was a slow process; the loose +sleeve of her factory sack was scorched. + +Somebody at work outside turned suddenly and caught her. It was Dick. +The love which he had fought so long broke free of barrier in that hour. +He kissed her pink arm where the burnt sleeve fell off. He uttered a cry +at the blood upon her face. She turned faint with the sense of safety; +and, with a face as white as her own, he bore her away in his arms to +the hospital, over the crimson snow. + +Asenath looked out through the glare and smoke with parched lips. For a +scratch upon the girl's smooth cheek, he had quite forgotten her. They +had left her, tombed alive here in this furnace, and gone their happy +way. Yet it gave her a curious sense of relief and triumph. If this were +all that she could be to him, the thing which she had done was right, +quite right. God must have known. She turned away, and shut her eyes +again. + +When she opened them, neither Dick, nor Del, nor crimsoned snow, nor +sky, were there; only the smoke writhing up a pillar of blood-red flame. + +The child who had called for her mother began to sob out that she was +afraid to die alone. + +"Come here, Molly," said Sene. "Can you crawl around?" + +Molly crawled around. + +"Put your head in my lap, and your arms about my waist, and I will put +my hands in yours,--so. There! I guess that's better." + +But they had not given them up yet. In the still unburnt rubbish at the +right, some one had wrenched an opening within a foot of Sene's face. +They clawed at the solid iron pintless like savage things. A fireman +fainted in the glow. + +"Give it up!" cried the crowd from behind. "It can't be done! Fall +back!"--then hushed, awestruck. + +An old man was crawling along upon his hands and knees over the heated +bricks. He was a very old man. His gray hair blew about in the wind. + +"I want my little gal!" he said. "Can't anybody tell me where to find my +little gal?" + +A rough-looking young fellow pointed in perfect silence through the +smoke. + +"I'll have her out yet. I'm an old man, but I can help. She's my little +gal, ye see. Hand me that there dipper of water; it'll keep her from +choking, may be. Now! Keep cheery, Sene! Your old father'll get ye out. +Keep up good heart, child! That's it!" + +"It's no use, father. Don't feel bad, father. I don't mind it very +much." + +He hacked at the timber; he tried to laugh; he bewildered himself with +cheerful words. + +"No more ye needn't, Senath, for it'll be over in a minute. Don't be +downcast yet! We'll have ye safe at home before ye know it. Drink a +little more water,--do now! They'll get at ye now, sure!" + +But above the crackle and the roar a woman's voice rang out like a +bell:-- + +"We're going home, to die no more." + +A child's notes quavered in the chorus. From sealed and unseen graves, +white young lips swelled the glad refrain,-- + +"We're going, going home." + +The crawling smoke turned yellow, turned red. Voice after voice broke +and hushed utterly. One only sang on like silver. It flung defiance down +at death. It chimed into the lurid sky without a tremor. For one stood +beside her in the furnace, and his form was like unto the form of the +Son of God. Their eyes met. Why should not Asenath sing? + +"Senath!" cried the old man out upon the burning bricks; he was scorched +now, from his gray hair to his patched boots. + +The answer came triumphantly,-- + + "To die no more, no more, no more!" + +"Sene! little Sene!" + +But some one pulled him back. + + + + +Night-Watches. + + + +Keturah wishes to state primarily that she is good-natured. She thinks +it necessary to make this statement, lest, after having heard her story, +you should, however polite you might be about it, in your heart of +hearts suspect her capable not only of allowing her angry passions to +rise, but of permitting them to boil over "in tempestuous fury wild and +unrestrained." If it were an orthodox remark, she would also add, from +like motives of self-defence, that she is not in the habit of swearing. + +Are you accustomed, O tender-hearted reader, to spend your nights, as a +habit, with your eyes open or shut? On the answer to this question +depends her sole hope of appreciation and sympathy. + +She begs you will understand that she does not mean you, the be-ribboned +and be-spangled and be-rouged frequenter of ball and _soiree_, with your +well-taught, drooping lashes, or wide girl's eyes untamed and wondering, +your flushing color, and your pulse up to a hundred. You are very pretty +for your pains,--O, to be sure you are very pretty! She has not the +heart to scold you, though you are dancing and singing and flirting +away your golden nights, your restful, young nights, that never come but +once,--though you are dancing and singing and flirting yourselves +merrily into your grave. She would like to put in a plea before the +eloquence of which Cicero and Demosthenes, Beecher and Sumner, should +pale like wax-lights before the sun, for the new fashion said to be +obtaining in New York, that the _soiree_ shall give place to the +_matinee_, at which the guests shall assemble at four o'clock in the +afternoon, and are expected to go home at seven or eight. That would be +not only civilized, it would be millennial. + +But Keturah is perfectly aware that you will do as you will. If the +excitement of the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal" prove preferable to a +quiet evening at home, and a good, Christian, healthy sleep after it, +why the "sma' hours" it will be. If you will do it, it is "none of her +funerals," as the small boy remarked. Only she particularly requests you +not to insult her by offering her your sympathy. Wait till you know what +forty-eight mortal, wide-awake, staring, whirring, unutterable hours +mean. + +Listen to her mournful tale; and, while you listen, let your head become +fountains of water, and your eyes rivers of tears for her, and for all +who are doomed to reside in her immediate vicinity. + +"Tired nature's sweet restorer," as the newspapers, in a sudden and +severe poetical attack, remarked of Jeff Davis, "refuses to bless" +Keturah, except as her own sweet will inclines her. They have a +continuous lover's quarrel, exceedingly bitter while it rages, +exceedingly sweet when it is made up. Keturah attends a perfectly grave +and unimpeachable lecture,--the Restorer pouts and goes off in a huff +for twenty-four hours. Keturah undertakes at seven o'clock a concert,-- +announced as Mendelssohn Quintette, proving to be Gilmore's +Brassiest,--and nothing hears she of My Lady till two o'clock, A. M. +Keturah spends an hour at a prayer-meeting, on a pine bench that may +have heard of cushions, but certainly has never seen one face to face; +and comes home at eight o'clock to the pleasing discovery that the fair +enslaver has taken some doctrinal offence, and vanished utterly. + +Though lost to sight she's still to memory dear, and Keturah penitently +betakes herself to the seeking of her in those ingenious ways which she +has learned at the school of a melancholy experience. A table and a +kerosene lamp are brought into requisition; also a book. If it isn't the +Dictionary, it is Cruden's Concordance. If these prove too exciting, it +is Edwards on the Will. Light reading is strictly forbidden. +Congressional Reports are sometimes efficacious, as well as Martin F. +Tupper, and somebody's "Sphere of Woman." + +There is one single possibility out of ten that this treatment will +produce drowsiness. There are nine probabilities to the contrary. The +possibility is worth trying for, and trying hard for; but if it results +in the sudden flight of President Edwards across the room, a severe +banging of the "Sphere of Woman" against the wall, and the total +disappearance of Cruden's Concordance beneath the bed, Keturah is not in +the least surprised. It is altogether too familiar a result to elicit +remark. It simply occasions a fresh growth to a horrible resolution that +she has been slowly forming for years. + +Some day _she_ will write a book. The publishers shall nap over it, and +accept it with pleasure. The drowsy printers shall set up its type with +their usual unerring exactness. The proof-readers shall correct it in +their dreams. Customers in the bookstores shall nod at the sight of its +binding. Its readers shall dose at its Preface. Sleepless old age, sharp +and unrelieved pain, youth sorrowful before the time, shall seek it out, +shall flock unto the counters of its fortunate publishers (she has three +firms in her mind's eye; one in Boston, one in New York, and one in +Philadelphia; but who the happy men are to be is not yet definitely +decided), who shall waste their inheritance in distributing it +throughout the length and breadth of a grateful continent. Physicians +from everywhere under the sun, who have proved the fickleness of +hyoscyamus, of hops, of Dover's powders, of opium, of morphine, of +laudanum, of hidden virtues of herbs of the field, and minerals from the +rock, and gases from the air; who know the secrets of all the pitying +earth, and, behold, it is vanity of vanities, shall line their +hospitals, cram their offices, stuff their bottles, with the new +universal panacea and blessing to suffering humanity. + +And Keturah _can_ keep a resolution. + +Her literary occupation disposed of, in the summary manner referred to, +she runs through the roll of her reserve force, and their name is +Legion. She composes herself, in an attitude of rest, with a +handkerchief tied over her eyes to keep them shut, blows her lamp out +instead of screwing it out, strangles awhile in the gas, and begins to +repeat her alphabet, which, owing to like stern necessity, she has +fortunately never forgotten. She says it forward; she says it backward; +she begins at the middle and goes up; she begins at the middle and goes +down; she rattles it through in French, she groans it through in German, +she falters it through in Greek. She attempts the numeration-table, +flounders somewhere in the quadrillions, and forgets where she left off. +She watches an interminable flock of sheep jump over a wall till her +head spins. There always seem to be so many more where the last one came +from. She listens to oar-beats, and drum-beats, and heart-beats. She +improvises sonatas and gallopades, oratorios and mazourkas. She +perpetrates the title and first line of an epic poem, goes through the +alphabet for a rhyme, and none appearing, she repeats the first line by +way of encouragement. But all in vain. + +With a silence that speaks unspeakable things, she rises solemnly, and +seeks the pantry in darkness that may be felt. At the bottom of the +stairs she steps with her whole weight flat upon something that squirms, +and is warm, and turns over, and utters a cry that makes night hideous. +O, nothing but the cat, that is all! The pantry proves to be well +stocked with bread, but not another mortal thing. Now, if there is +anything Keturah _particularly_ dislikes, it is dry bread. Accordingly, +with a remark which is intended for Love's ear alone, she gropes her way +to the cellar door, which is unexpectedly open, pitches head-first into +the cavity, and makes the descent of half the stairs in an easy and +graceful manner, chiefly with her elbows. She reaches the ground after +an interval, steps splash into a pool of water, knocks over a mop, and +embraces a tall cider barrel with her groping arms. After a little +wandering about among ash-bins and apple-bins, reservoirs and coal-heaps +and cobwebs, she discovers the hanging-shelf which has been the _ignis +fatuus_ of her search. Something extremely cold crossing her shoeless +feet at this crisis suggests pleasant fancies of a rat. Keturah is +ashamed to confess that she has never in all the days of the years of +her pilgrimage set eyes upon a rat. Depending solely upon her +imagination, her conception of that animal is a cross between an +alligator and a jaguar. She stands her ground manfully, however, and is +happy to state that she did _not_ faint. + +In the agitation consequent upon this incident she butters her bread +with the lard, and takes an enormous bite on the way up stairs. She +seeks no more refreshment that night. + +One resort alone is left. With a despairing sigh she turns the great +faucet of the bath-tub and holds her head under it till she is upon the +verge of a watery grave. This experiment is her forlorn hope. Perhaps +about three or four o'clock she falls into a series of jerky naps, and +dreams that she is editor of a popular Hebrew magazine, wandering +frantically through a warehouse full of aspirant MSS. (chiefly from the +junior classes of theological seminaries) of which she cannot translate +a letter. + +Of the tenth of Keturah's unearthly experiences,--of the number of times +she has been taken for a robber, and chased by the entire roused and +bewildered family, with loaded guns; of the pans of milk she has upset, +the crockery whose hopes she has untimely shattered, the skulls she has +cracked against open doors, the rocking-chairs she has stumbled over and +apostrophized in her own meek way; of the neighbors she has frightened +out of town by her perambulations; of the alarms of fire she has raised, +pacing the wood-shed with a lantern for exercise stormy nights; of all +the possible and impossible corners and crevices in which she has sought +repose, (she has slept on every sofa in every room in the house, and +once she spent a whole night on a closet shelf); of the amiable +condition of her mornings, and the terror she is fast becoming to +family. Church, and State, the time would fail her to tell. Were she to +"let slip the dogs of war," and relate a modicum of the agonies she +undergoes,--how the stamping of a neighbor's horse on a barn floor will +drive every solitary wink of sleep from her eyes and slumber from her +eyelids; the nibbling of a mouse in some un-get-at-able place in the +wall prove torture; the rattling of a pane of glass, ticking of a clock, +or pattering of rain-drops, as effective as a cannon; a guest in the +"spare room" with a musical "love of a baby," something far different +from a blessing, and a tolerably windy night, one lengthened vigil long +drawn out,--the liberal public would cry, "Forbear!" It becomes really +an interesting science to learn how slight a thing will utterly deprive +an unfortunate creature of the great necessity of life; but this article +not being a scientific treatise, that must be left to the sympathizing +imagination. + +Keturah feels compelled, however, to relate the story of two memorable +nights, of which the only wonder is that she has lived to tell the tale. + +Every incident is stamped indelibly upon her brain. It is wrought in +letters of fire. "While memory holds a seat in this distracted globe," +it shall not, cannot be forgotten. + +It was a night in June,--sultry, gasping, fearful. Keturah went to her +own room, as is her custom, at the Puritanic hour of nine. Sleep, for a +couple of hours, being out of the question, she threw wide her doors +and windows, and betook herself to her writing-desk. A story for a +magazine, which it was imperative should be finished to-morrow, appealed +to her already partially stupefied brain. She forced her unwilling pen +into the service, whisked the table round into the draught, and began. +In about five minutes the sibyl caught the inspiration of her god, and +heat and sleeplessness were alike forgotten. This sounds very poetic, +but it wasn't at all. Keturah regrets to say that she had on a very +unbecoming green wrapper, and several ink-spots on her fingers. + +It was a very thrilling and original story, and it came, as all +thrilling and original stories must come, to a crisis. Seraphina found +Theodore kissing the hand of Celeste in the woods. Keturah became +excited. + +"'O Theodore!' whispered the unhappy maiden to the moaning trees. 'O +Theodore, my--'" + +Whir! buzz! swosh! came something through the window into the lamp, and +down squirming into the ink-bottle. Keturah jumped. If you have half the +horror of those great June beetles that she has, you will know how she +jumped. She emptied the entire contents of the ink-bottle out of the +window, closed her blinds, and began again. + +"'Theodore,' said Seraphina. + +"'Seraphina,' said Theodore." Jump the second! There he was,--not +Theodore, but the beetle,--whirring round the lamp, and buzzing down +into her lap. Hadn't he been burned in the light, drowned in the ink, +speared with the pen, and crushed by falling from the window? Yet there +he was, or the ghost of him, fluttering his inky wings into her very +eyes, and walking leisurely across the smooth, fair page that waited to +be inscribed with Seraphina's woe. Nerved by despair, Keturah did a +horrible thing. Never before or since has she been known to accomplish +it. She put him down on the floor and stepped on him. She repented of +the act in dust and ashes. Before she could get across the room to close +the window ten more had come to his funeral. To describe the horrors of +the ensuing hour she has no words. She put them out of the window,--they +came directly back. She drowned them in the wash-bowl,--they fluttered, +and sputtered, and buzzed up into the air. She killed them in +corners,--they came to life under her very eyes. She caught them in her +handkerchief and tied them up tight,--they crawled out before she could +get them in. She shut the cover of the wash-stand down on them,--she +looked in awhile after and there was not one to be seen. All ten of the +great blundering creatures were knocking their brains out against the +ceiling. After the endurance of terrors that came very near turning her +hair gray, she had pushed the last one out on the balcony, shut the +window, and was gasping away in the airless room, her first momentary +sense of security, when there struck upon her agonized ear a fiendish +buzzing, and three of them came whirling back through a crack about as +large as a knitting-needle. No _mortal_ beetle could have come through +it. Keturah turned pale and let them alone. + +The clock was striking eleven when quiet was at last restored, and the +exhausted sufferer began to think of sleep. At this moment she heard a +sound before which her heart sank like lead. You must know that Keturah +has a very near neighbor, Miss Humdrum by name. Miss Humdrum is a--well, +a very excellent and pious old lady, who keeps a one-eyed servant and +three cats; and the sound which Keturah heard was Miss Humdrum's cats. + +Keturah descended to the wood-shed, armed herself with a huge oaken log, +and sallied out into the garden, with a horrible _sang-froid_ that only +long familiarity with her errand could have engendered. It was Egyptian +darkness; but her practised eye discerned, or thought it discerned, a +white cat upon the top of the high wooden fence. Keturah smiled a +ghastly smile, and fired. Now she never yet in her life threw anything +anywhere, under any circumstances, that did not go exactly in the +opposite direction from what she wanted to have it. This occasion proved +no exception. The cat jumped, and sprang over, and disappeared. The +stick went exactly into the middle of the fence. Keturah cannot suppose +that the last trump will be capable of making a louder noise. She stood +transfixed. One cry alone broke the hideous silence. + +"_O_ Lord!" in an unmistakably Irish, half-wakened howl, from the open +window of the one-eyed servant's room. "Only that, and nothing more." + +Keturah returned to her apartment, a sadder if not a wiser woman. Marius +among the ruins of Carthage, Napoleon at St. Helena, M'Clellan in +Europe, have henceforth and forever her sympathy. + +She thinks it was _precisely_ five minutes after her return, during +which the happy stillness that seemed to rest upon nature without and +nature within had whispered faint promises of coming rest, that there +suddenly broke upon it a hoarse, deep, unearthly breathing. So hoarse, +so deep, so unearthly, and so directly underneath her window, that for +about ten seconds Keturah sat paralyzed. There was but one thing it +could be. A travelling menagerie in town had lost its Polish wolf that +very day. This was the Polish wolf. + +The horrible panting, like the panting of a famished creature, came +nearer, grew louder, grew hoarser. The animal had found a bone in the +grass, and was crunching it in his ghastly way. Then she could hear him +sniffing at the door. + +And Amram's room was on the lower story! Perhaps wolves climbed in at +windows! + +The awful thought roused Keturah from the stupor of her terror. She was +no coward. She would face the fearful sight. She would call and warn him +at any risk. She faltered out upon the balcony. She leaned over the +railing. She gazed breathlessly down into the darkness. + +A cow. + +Another cow. + +Three cows. + +Keturah sat down on the window-sill in the calm of despair. + +It was succeeded by a storm. She concludes that she was about five +seconds on the passage from her room to the garden. With "hair flotant, +and arms disclosed," like the harpies of heraldic device, she rushed up +to the invaders--and stopped. Exactly what was to be done? Three great +stupid, browsing, contented cows _versus_ one lone, lorn woman. For +about one minute Keturah would not have wagered her fortune on the +woman. But it is not her custom to "say die," and after some reflection +she ventured on a manful command. + +"Go away! Go! go!" The stentorian remark caused a result for which she +was, to say the least, unprepared. The creatures coolly turned about and +walked directly up to her. To be sure. Why not? Is it not a part of our +outrageous Yankee nomenclature to teach cows to come to you when you +tell them to go away? How Keturah, country born and bred, could have +even momentarily forgotten so clear and simple a principle of philology, +remains a mystery to this day. A little reflection convinced her of the +only logical way of ridding herself of her guests. Accordingly, she +walked a little way behind them and tried again. + +"Come here, sir! Come, good fellow! Wh-e-e! come here!" + +Three great wooden heads lifted themselves slowly, and three pairs of +soft, sleepy eyes looked at her, and the beasts returned to their clover +and stood stock-still. + +What was to be done? You could go behind and push them. Or you could go +in front and pull them by the horns. + +Neither of these methods exactly striking Keturah's fancy, she took up a +little chip and threw at them; also a piece of coal and a handful of +pebbles. These gigantic efforts proving to be fruitless, she sat down on +the grass and looked at them. The heartless creatures resisted even that +appeal. + +At this crisis of her woes one of Keturah's many brilliant thoughts came +to her relief. She hastened upon the wings of the wind to her infallible +resort, the wood-shed, and filled her arms up to the chin with pine +knots. Thus equipped, she started afresh to the conflict. It is recorded +that out of twenty of those sticks, thrown with savage and direful +intent, only one hit. It is, however, recorded that the enemy dispersed, +after being valiantly pursued around the house, out of the front gate +(where one stuck, and got through with the greatest difficulty), and for +a quarter of a mile down the street. In the course of the rout Keturah +tripped on her dress only six times, and fell flat but four. One +pleasing little incident gave delightful variety to the scene. A +particularly frisky and clover-loving white cow, whose heart yearned +after the apples of Sodom, turned about in the road without any warning +whatever and showed fight. Keturah adopted a sudden resolution to return +home "across lots," and climbed the nearest stone-wall with considerable +_empressement_. Exactly half-way over she was surprised to find herself +gasping among the low-hanging boughs of a butternut-tree, where she hung +like Absalom of old, between heaven and earth. She would like to state, +in this connection, that she always had too much vanity to wear a +waterfall; so she still retains a portion of her original hair. + +However, she returned victorious over the silent dew-laden fields and +down into the garden paths, where she paced for two hours back and forth +among the aromatic perfumes of the great yellow June lilies. There might +have been a bit of poetry in it under other circumstances, but Keturah +was not poetically inclined on that occasion. The events of the night +had so roused her soul within her, that exercise unto exhaustion was her +sole remaining hope of sleep. + +At about two o'clock she crawled faintly upstairs again, and had just +fallen asleep with her head on the window-sill, when a wandering dog had +to come directly under the window, and sit there and bark for half an +hour at a rake-handle. + +Keturah made no other effort to fight her destiny. Determined to meet +it heroically, she put a chair precisely into the middle of the room, +and sat up straight in it, till she heard the birds sing. Somewhere +about that epoch she fell into a doze with one eye open, when a terrific +peal of thunder started her to her feet. It was Patsy knocking at the +door to announce that her breakfast was cold. + +In the ghastly condition of the following day the story was finished and +sent off. It was on this occasion that the patient and long-enduring +editor ventured mildly to suggest, that when, by a thrilling and +horrible mischance, Seraphina's lovely hand came between a log of wood +and the full force of Theodore's hatchet, the result _might_ have been +more disastrous than the loss of a finger-nail. Alas! even his editorial +omniscience did not know--how could it?--the story of that night. +Keturah forgave him. + +It is perhaps worthy of mention that Miss Humdrum appeared promptly at +eight o'clock the next morning, with her handkerchief at her eyes. + +"My Star-spangled Banner has met with her decease, Ketury." + +"Indeed! How very sad!" + +"Yes. She has met with her decease. Under _very_ peculiar circumstances, +Ketury." + +"Oh!" said Ketury, hunting for her own handkerchief; finding three in +her pocket, she brought them all into requisition. + +"And I feel it my duty to inquire," said Miss Humdrum, "whether it may +happen that _you_ know anything about the event, Ketury." + +"I?" said Keturah, weeping, "I didn't know she was dead even! Dear Miss +Humdrum, you are indeed afflicted." + +"But I feel compelled to say," pursued Miss Humdrum, eying this wretched +hypocrite severely, "that my girl Jemimy _did_ hear somebody fire a gun +or a cannon or something out in your garden last night, and she scar't +out of her wits, and my poor cat found cold under the hogshead this +morning, Ketury." + +"Miss Humdrum," said Keturah, "I cannot, in justice to myself, answer +such insinuations, further than to say that Amram _never_ allows the gun +to go out of his own room. The cannon we keep in the cellar." + +"Oh!" said Miss Humdrum, with horrible suspicion in her eyes. "Well, I +hope you haven't it on your conscience, I'm sure. _Good_ morning." + +It had been the ambition of Keturah's life to see a burglar. The second +of the memorable nights referred to crowned this ambition by not only +one burglar, but two. She it was who discovered them, she who frightened +them away, and nobody but she ever saw them. She confesses to a natural +and unconquerable pride in them. It came about on this wise:-- + +It was one of Keturah's wide-awake nights, and she had been wandering +off into the fields at the foot of the garden, where it was safe and +still. There is, by the way, a peculiar awe in the utter hush of the +earliest morning hours, of which no one can know who has not +familiarized himself with it in all its moods. A solitary walk in a +solitary place, with the great world sleeping about you, and the great +skies throbbing above you, and the long unrest of the panting summer +night, fading into the cool of dews, and pure gray dawns, has in it +something of what Mr. Robertson calls "God's silence." + +Once, on one of these lonely rambles, Keturah found away in the fields, +under the shadow of an old stone-wall, a baby's grave. It had no +headstone to tell its story, and the weeds and brambles of many years +had overgrown it. Keturah is not of a romantic disposition, especially +on her midnight tramps, but she sat down by the little nameless thing, +and looked from it to the arch of eternal stars that, summer and winter, +seed-time and harvest, kept steadfast watch over it, and was very still. + +It is one of the standing grievances of her life that Amram, while never +taking the trouble to go and look, insists upon it that was nothing but +somebody's pet dog. She knows better. + +On this particular night, Keturah, in coming up from the garden to +return to the house, had a dim impression that something crossed the +walk in front of her and disappeared among the rustling trees. The +impression was sufficiently strong to keep her sitting up for half an +hour at her window, under the feeling that an ounce of prevention was +worth a pound of cure. She has indeed been asked why she did not +reconnoitre the rustling trees upon the spot. She considers that would +have been an exceedingly poor stroke of policy, and of an impolitic +thing Keturah is not capable. She sees far and plans deep. Supposing she +had gone and been shot through the head, where would have been the fun +of her burglars? To yield a life-long aspiration at the very moment that +it is within grasp, was too much to ask even of Keturah. + +Words cannot describe the sensations of the moment, when that half-hour +was rewarded by the sight of two stealthy, cat-like figures, creeping +out from among the trees. A tall man and a little man, and both with +very unbanditti-like straw-hats on. + +Now, if Keturah has a horror in this world, it is that delicate play of +the emotions commonly known as "woman's nonsense." And therefore did she +sit still for three mortal minutes, with her burglars making tracks for +the kitchen window under her very eyes, in order to prove to herself and +an incredulous public, beyond all shadow of doubt or suspicion, that +they were robbers and not dreams; actual flesh and blood, not +nightmares; unmistakable hats and coats in a place where hats and coats +ought not to be, not clothes-lines and pumps. She tried hard to make +Amram and the Paterfamilias out of them. Who knew but they also, by some +unheard-of revolution in all the laws of nature, were on an exploring +expedition after truant sleep? She struggled manfully after the +conviction that they were innocent and unimpeachable neighbors, cutting +the short way home across the fields from some remarkably late +prayer-meeting. She agonized after the belief that they were two of +Patsy's sweethearts, come for the commendable purpose of serenading her. + +In fact they were almost in the house before this remarkable female was +prepared to trust the evidence of her own senses. + +But when suspense gloomed into certainty, Keturah is happy to say that +she was grandly equal to the occasion. She slammed open her blinds with +an emphasis, and lighted her lamp with a burnt match. + +The men jumped, and dodged, and ran, and hid behind the trees, in the +most approved manner of burglars, who flee when no woman pursueth; and +Keturah, being of far too generous a disposition to enjoy the pleasure +of their capture unshared, lost no time in hammering at Amram's door. + +"Amram!" + +No answer. + +"_Am_ram!" + +Silence. + +"Am-_ram!_" + +"Oh! Ugh! Who--" + +Silence again. + +"Amram, wake up! Come out here--quick!" + +"O-o-oh, yes. Who's there?" + +"I." + +"I?" + +"Keturah." + +"Kefurah?" + +"Amram, be quick, or we shall all have our throats cut! There are some +men in the garden." + +"Hey?" + +"_Men_ in the garden!" + +"Men?" + +"In the _garden!_" + +"Garden?" + +Keturah can bear a great deal, but there comes a limit even to her +proverbial patience. She burst open the door without ceremony, and is +under the impression that Amram received a shaking such as even his +tender youth was a stranger to. It effectually woke him to +consciousness, as well as to the gasping and particularly senseless +remark, "What on earth was she wringing his neck for?" As if he mightn't +have known! She has the satisfaction of remembering that he was asked in +return, "Did he expect a solitary unprotected female to keep all his +murderers away from him, as well as those wolves she drove off the other +night?" + +However, there was no time to be wasted in tender words, and before a +woman could have winked, Amram made his appearance dressed and armed and +sarcastically incredulous. Keturah grasped the pistol, and followed him +at a respectful distance. Stay in the house and hold the light? Catch +her! She would take the light with her, and the house too, if necessary, +but she would be in at the death. + +She wishes Mr. Darley were on hand, to immortalize the picture they +made, scouring the premises after those disobliging burglars,--especially +Keturah, in the green wrapper, with her hair rolled all up in a huge knob +on top of her head, to keep it out of the way, and her pistol held out at +arm's-length, pointed falteringly, directly at the stars. She will inform +the reader confidentially--tell it not in Gath--of a humiliating discovery +she made exactly four weeks afterward, and which she has never before +imparted to a human creature,--it wasn't loaded. + +Well, they peered behind every door, they glared into every shadow, they +squeezed into every crack, they dashed into every corner, they listened +at every cranny and crevice, step and turn. But not a burglar! Of course +not. A regiment might have run away while Amram was waking up. + +Keturah thinks it will hardly be credited that this hopeful person dared +to suggest and dares to maintain that it was _Cats_! + +But she must draw the story of her afflictions to a close. And lest her +"solid" reader's eyes reject the rambling recital as utterly unworthy +the honor of their notice, she is tempted to whittle it down to a moral +before saying farewell. For you must know that Keturah has learned +several things from her mournful experience. + +1. That every individual of her acquaintance, male and female, aged and +youthful, orthodox and heretical, who sleeps regularly nine hours out of +the twenty-four, has his or her own especial specimen recipe of a +"perfectly harmless anodyne" to offer, with advice thrown in. + +2. That nothing ever yet put her to sleep but a merciful Providence. + +3. A great respect for Job. + +4. That the notion commonly and conscientiously received by very +excellent people, that wakeful nights can and should be spent in prayer, +religious meditation, and general spiritual growth, is all they know +about it. Hours of the extremest bodily and mental exhaustion, when +every nerve is quivering as if laid bare, and the surface of the brain +burning and whirling to agony, with the reins of control let loose on +every rebellious and every senseless thought, are not the times most +likely to be chosen for the purest communion with God. To be sure. King +David "remembered Him upon his bed, and meditated upon Him in the +night-watches." Keturah does not undertake to contradict Scripture, but +she has come to the conclusion that David was either a _very_ good man, +or he didn't lie awake very often. + +But, over and above all, _haec fabula docet_: + +5. That people who can sleep when they want to should keep Thanksgiving +every day in the year. + + + + +The Day of My Death[1] + +[Footnote 1: The characters in this narrative are fictitious. The +incidents the author does not profess to have witnessed. But they are +given as related by eye-witnesses whose testimony would command a +verdict from any honest jury. The author, however, draws no conclusions +and suggests none.] + + + +Alison was sitting on a bandbox. She had generally been sitting on a +bandbox for three weeks,--or on a bushel-basket, or a cupboard shelf, or +a pile of old newspapers, or the baby's bath-tub. On one occasion it was +the baby himself. She mistook him for the rag-bag. + +If ever we had to move again,--which all the beneficence of the Penates +forbid!--my wife should be locked into the parlor, and a cargo of +Irishwomen turned loose about the premises to "attend to things." What +it is that women find to do with themselves in this world I have never +yet discovered. They are always "attending to things." Whatever that +may mean, I have long ago received it as the only solution at my command +of their superfluous wear and tear, and worry and flurry, and tears and +nerves and headaches. A fellow may suggest Jane, and obtrude Bridget, +and hire Peggy, and run in debt for Mehetable, and offer to take the +baby on 'Change with him, but has he by a feather's weight lightened +Madam's mysterious burden? My dear sir, don't presume to expect it. She +has just as much to do as she ever had. In fact, she has a little more. +"Strange, you don't appreciate it! Follow her about one day, and see for +yourself!" + +What I started to say, however, was that I thought it over often,--I +mean about that invoice of Irishwomen,--coming home from the office at +night, while we were moving out of Artichoke Street into Nemo's Avenue. +It is not pleasant to find one's wife always sitting on a bandbox. I +have seen her crawl to her feet when she heard me coming, and hold on by +a chair, and try her poor little best to look as if she could stand +twenty-four hours longer; she so disliked that I should find a "used-up +looking house" under any circumstances. But I believe that was worse +than the bandbox. + +On this particular night she was too tired even to crawl. I found her +all in a heap in the corner, two dusters and a wash-cloth in one +blue-veined hand, and a broom in the other; an old corn-colored silk +handkerchief knotted over her hair,--her hair is black, and the effect +was good,--and her little brown calico apron-string literally tied to +the baby, who was shrieking at the end of his tether because he could +just not reach the kitten and throw her into the fire. On Alison's lap, +between a pile of shirts and two piles of magazines, lay a freshly +opened letter. I noticed that she put it into her pocket before she +dropped her dusters and stood up to lift her face for my kiss. She +forgot about the apron-strings, and the baby tipped up the wrong way, +and hung dangling in mid-air. + +After we had taken tea,--that is to say, after we had drawn around the +ironing-board put on two chairs in the front entry, made the cocoa in a +tin dipper, stirred it with a fork, and cut the bread with a +jack-knife,--after the baby was fairly off to bed in a champagne-basket, +and Tip disposed of, his mother only knew where, we coaxed a consumptive +fire into the parlor grate, and sat down before it in the carpetless, +pictureless, curtainless, blank, bare, soapy room. + +"Thank fortune, this is the last night of it!" I growled, putting my +booted feet against the wall, (my slippers had gone over to the avenue +in a water-pail that morning,) and tipping my chair back drearily,--my +wife "_so_ objects" to the habit! + +Allis made no reply, but sat looking thoughtfully, and with a slightly +perplexed and displeased air, into the sizzling wet wood that snapped +and flared and smoked and hissed and blackened, and did everything but +burn. + +"I really don't know what to do about it," she broke silence at last. + +"I'm inclined to think there's nothing better to do than to look at it." + +"No; not the fire. O, I forgot--I haven't shown it to you." + +She drew from her pocket the letter which I had noticed in the +afternoon, and laid it upon my knee. With my hands in my pockets--the +room was too cold to take them out--I read:-- + + Dear Cousin Alison:-- + + "I have been so lonely since mother died, that my health, never of + the strongest, as you know, has suffered seriously. My physician + tells me that something is wrong with the periphrastic action, if + you know what that is," [I suppose Miss Fellows meant the + peristaltic action,] "and prophesies something dreadful, (I've + forgotten whether it was to be in the head, or the heart, or the + stomach,) if I cannot have change of air and scene this winter. I + should dearly love to spend some time with you in your new home, (I + fancy it will be drier than the old one,) if convenient to you. If + inconvenient, don't hesitate to say so, of course. I hope to hear + from you soon. + + "In haste, your aff. cousin, + + "Gertrude Fellows. + + "P.S.--I shall of course insist upon being a boarder if I come. + + "G.F." + +"Hum-m. Insipid sort of letter." + +"Exactly. That's Gertrude. No more flavor than a frozen pear. If she had +one distinguishing peculiarity, good or bad, I believe I should like +her better. But I'm sorry for the woman." + +"Sorry enough to stand a winter of her?" + +"If we hadn't just been through this moving! A new house and +all,--nobody knows how the flues are yet, or whether we can heat a spare +room. She hasn't had a home, though, since Cousin Dorothy died. But I +was thinking about you, you see." + +"O, she can't hurt me. She won't want the library, I suppose; nor my +slippers, and the small bootjack. Let her come." + +My wife sighed a small sigh of relief out from the depths of her +hospitable heart, and the little matter was settled and dismissed as +lightly as are most little matters out of which grow the great ones. + +I had just begun to dream that night that Gertrude Fellows, in the shape +of a large wilted pear, had walked in and sat down on a dessert plate, +when Allis gave me a little pinch and woke me. + +"My dear, Gertrude has _one_ peculiarity. I never thought of it till +this minute." + +"Confound Gertrude's peculiarities! I want to go to sleep. Well, let's +have it." + +"Why, you see, she took up with some Spiritualistic notions after her +mother's death; thought she held communications with her, and all that, +Aunt Solomon says." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" + +"Of course. But, Fred, dear, I'm inclined to think she _must_ have made +her sewing-table walk into the front entry; and Aunt Solomon says the +spirits rapped out the whole of Cousin Dorothy's history on the +mantel-piece, behind those blue china vases,--you must have noticed them +at the funeral,--and not a human hand within six feet." + +"Alison Hotchkiss!" I said, waking thoroughly, and sitting up in bed to +emphasize the opinion, "when I hear a spirit rap on _my_ mantel-piece, +and see _my_ tables walk about the front entry, I'll believe that,--not +before!" + +"O, I know it! I'm not a Spiritualist, I'm sure, and nothing would tempt +me to be. But still that sort of reasoning has a flaw in it, hasn't it, +dear? The King of Siam, you know--" + +I had heard of the King of Siam before, and I politely informed my wife +that I did not care to hear of him again. Spiritualism was a system of +refined jugglery. Just another phase of the same thing which brings the +doves out of Mr. Hermann's empty hat. It might be entertaining if it had +not become such an abominable imposition. There would always be nervous +women and hypochondriac men enough for its dupes. I thanked Heaven that +I was neither, and went to sleep. + +Our new house was light and dry; the flues worked well, and the spare +chamber heated admirably. The baby exchanged the champagne-basket for +his dainty pink-curtained crib; Tip began to recover from the perpetual +cold with which three weeks' sitting in draughts, and tumbling into +water-pails, and playing in the sink, had sweetened his temper; Allis +forsook her bandboxes for the crimson easy-chair (very becoming, that +chair), or tripped about on her own rested feet; we returned to +table-cloths, civilized life, and a fork apiece. + +In short, nothing at all worth mentioning happened, till that one +night,--I think it was our first Sunday,--when Allis waked me at twelve +o'clock with the announcement that some one was knocking at the door. +Supposing it to be Bridget with the baby,--croup, probably, or a fit,--I +unlocked and unlatched it promptly. No one was there, however; and +telling my wife, in no very gentle tone, if I remember correctly, that +it would be a convenience, on such cold nights, if she could keep her +dreams to herself, I shut the door distinctly and returned to my own. + +In the morning I observed a little white circle about each of Allis's +blue eyes, and after some urging she confessed to me that her sleep had +been much broken by a singular disturbance in the room. I might laugh at +her if I chose, and she had not meant to tell me, but somebody had +rapped in that room all night long. + +"On the door?" + +"On the door, on the mantel, on the foot of the bed, on the +head-board,--Fred, right on the head-board! I listened till I grew cold +listening, but it rapped and it rapped, and by and by it was morning, +and it stopped." + +"Rats!" said I. + +"Then rats have knuckles," said she. + +"Mice!" said I, "wind! broken plaster! crickets! imagination! dreams! +fancies! blind headache! nonsense! Next time wake me up, and fire +pillows at me till I'm pleasant to you. Now I'll have a kiss and a cup +of coffee. Any sugar in it?" + +Tip fell down the cellar stairs that day, and the baby swallowed a +needle and two gutta-percha buttons, which I had been waiting a week to +have sewed on my vest, so that Alison had enough else to think about, +and the little incident of the raps was forgotten. I believe it was not +recalled by either of us till after Gertrude Fellows came. + +It was on a Monday and in a drizzly storm that I brought her from the +station. She was a thin, cold, phantom-like woman, shrouded in +water-proofs and green _barege_ veils. Why is it that homely women +always wear green _barege_ veils? She did not improve in appearance when +her wraps were off, and she was seated by my parlor grate. Her large +green eyes had no speculation in them. Her mouth--an honest mouth, that +was one mercy--quivered and shrank when she was addressed suddenly, as +if she felt herself to be a sort of foot-ball that the world was kicking +about at pleasure,--your gentlest smile might prove a blow. She seldom +spoke unless she were spoken to, and fell into long reveries, with her +eyes on the window or the coals. She wore a horrible sort of +ruff,--"illusion," I think Allis called it,--which, of all contrivances +that she could have chosen to encircle her sallow neck, was exactly the +most unbecoming. She was always knitting blue stockings,--I never +discovered for what or whom; and she wore her lifeless hair in the shape +of a small toy cartwheel, on the back of her head. + +However, she brightened a little in the course of the first week, helped +Alison about the baby, kept herself out of my way, read her Bible and +the "Banner of Light" in about equal proportion, and became a mild, +inoffensive, and, on the whole, not unpleasant addition to the family. + +She had been in the house about ten days, I think, when Alison, with a +disturbed face, confided to me that she had spent another wakeful night +with those "rats" behind the head-board; I had been down with a +sick-headache the day before, and she had not wakened me. I promised to +set a trap and buy a cat before evening, and was closing the door upon +the subject, being already rather late at the office, when the +expression of Gertrude Fellows's face detained me. + +"If I were you, I--wouldn't--really buy a very expensive trap, Mr. +Hotchkiss. It will be a waste of money, I am afraid. I heard the noise +that disturbed Cousin Alison"; and she sighed. + +I shut the door with a snap, and begged her to be so good as to explain +herself. + +"It's of no use," she said, doggedly. "You know you won't believe me. +But that makes no difference. They come all the same." + +"_They_?" asked Allis, smiling. "Do you mean some of your spirits?" + +The cold little woman flushed. "These are not _my_ spirits. I know +nothing about them. I did not mean to obtrude a subject so disagreeable +to you while I was in your family; but I have seldom been in a house in +which the Influences were so strong. I don't know what they mean, nor +anything about them, but just that they're here. They wake me up, +twitching my elbows, nearly every night." + +"Wake you up _how_?" + +"Twitching my elbows," she repeated, gravely. + +I broke into a laugh, from which neither my politeness nor the woman's +heightened color could save me, bought the cat and ordered the rat-trap +without delay. + +That night, when Miss Fellows had "retired,"--she never "went to bed" in +simple English like other people,--I stole softly out in my stockings +and screwed a little brass button outside of her door. I had made a +gimlet-hole for it in the morning when our guest was out shopping; it +fitted into place without noise. Without noise I turned it, and went +back to my own room. + +"You suspect her, then?" said Alison. + +"One is always justified in suspecting a Spiritualistic medium." + +"I don't know about that," Allis said, decidedly. "It may have been +mice that I heard last night, or the wind in a bottle, or any of the +other proper and natural causes that explain away the ghost stories in +the children's papers; but it was not Gertrude. Women know something +about one another, my dear; and I tell you it was not Gertrude." + +"I don't assert that it was; but with the bolt on Gertrude's door, the +cat in the kitchen, and the rat-trap on the garret stairs, I am strongly +inclined to anticipate a peaceful night. I will watch for a while, +however, and you can go to sleep." + +She went to sleep, and I watched. I lay till half past eleven with my +eyes staring at the dark, wide awake and undisturbed and triumphant. + +At half past eleven I must confess that I heard a singular sound. + +Something whistled at the keyhole. It could not have been the wind, by +the way, for there was no wind that night. Something else than the wind +whistled in at the keyhole, sighed through into the room as much like a +long-drawn breath as anything, and fell with a slight clink upon the +floor. + +I lighted my candle and got up. I searched the floor of the room, and +opened the door and searched the entry. Nothing was visible or audible, +and I went back to bed. For about ten minutes I heard no further +disturbance, and was concluding myself to be in some undefined manner +the victim of my own imagination, when there suddenly fell upon the +headboard of my bed a blow so distinct and loud that I involuntarily +sprang at the sound of it. It wakened Alison, and I had the satisfaction +of hearing her sleepily inquire if I had caught that rat yet? By way of +reply I relighted the candle, and gave the bed a shove which sent it +rolling half across the room. I examined the wall; I examined the floor; +I examined the headboard; I made Alison get up, so that I could shake +the mattresses. Meantime the pounding had recommenced, in rapid, +irregular, blows, like the blows of a man's fist. The room adjoining +ours was the nursery. I went in with my light. It was empty and silent. +Bridget, with Tip and the baby, slept soundly in the large chamber +across the hall. While I was searching the room my wife called loudly to +me, and I ran back. + +"It is on the mantel now," she said. "It struck the mantel just after +you left; then the ceiling, three times, very loud; then the mantel +again,--don't you hear?" + +I heard distinctly; moreover, the mantel shook a little with the +concussion. I took out the fire-board and looked up the chimney; I took +out the register and looked down the furnace-pipe; I ransacked the +garret and the halls; finally, I examined Miss Fellows's door,--it was +locked as I had left it, upon the outside; and that locked door was the +only means of egress from the room, unless the occupant fancied that of +jumping from a two-story window upon a broad flight of stone steps. + +I came thoughtfully back across the hall; an invisible trip-hammer +appeared to hit the floor beside me at every step; I attempted to step +aside from it, over it, away from it; but it followed me, pounding into +my room. + +"Wind?" suggested Allis. "Plaster cracking? Fancies? Dreams? Blind +headaches?--I should like to know which you have decided upon?" + +Quiet fell upon the house after that for an hour, and I was dropping +into my first nap, when there came a light tap upon the door. Before I +could reach it, it had grown into a thundering blow. + +"Whatever it is I'll have it now!" I whispered, turned the latch without +noise, and flung the door wide into the hall. It was silent, dark, and +cold. A little glimmer of moonlight fell in and showed me the figures +upon the carpet, outlined in a frosty bar. No hand or hammer, human or +superhuman, was there. + +Determined to investigate matters a little more thoroughly, I asked my +wife to stand upon the inside of the doorway while I kept watch upon the +outside. We took our position, and I closed the door between us. +Instantly a series of furious blows struck the door; the sound was such +as would be made by a stick of oaken wood. The solid door quivered under +it. + +"It's on your side!" said I. + +"No, it's on yours!" said she. + +"You're pounding yourself to fool me," cried I. + +"You're pounding yourself to frighten me," sobbed she. + +And we nearly had a quarrel. The sound continued with more or less +intermission till daybreak. Allis fell asleep, but I spent the time in +appropriate reflections. + +Early in the morning I removed the button from Miss Fellows's door. She +never knew anything about it. + +I believe, however, that I had the fairness to exculpate her in my +secret heart from any trickish connection with the disturbances of that +night. + +"Just keep quiet about this little affair," I said to my wife; "we shall +come across an explanation in time, and may never have any more of it." + +We kept quiet, and for five days so did "the spirits," as Miss Fellows +was pleased to pronounce the trip-hammers. + +The fifth day I came home early, as it chanced, from the office. Miss +Fellows was writing letters in the parlor. Allis, upstairs, was sorting +and putting away the weekly wash. I came into the room and sat down by +the register to watch her. I always liked to watch her sitting there on +the floor with the little heaps of linen and cotton stuff piled like +blocks of snow about her, and her pink hands darting in and out of the +uncertain sleeves that were just ready to give way in the gathers, +trying the stockings' heels briskly, and testing the buttons with a +little jerk. + +She laid aside some under-clothing presently from the rest. "It will +not be needed again this winter," she observed, "and had better go into +the cedar closet." The garments, by the way, were marked and numbered in +indelible ink. I heard her run over the figures in a busy, housekeeper's +undertone, before carrying them into the closet. She locked the closet +door, I think, for I remember the click of the key. If I remember +accurately, I stepped into the hall after that to light a cigar, and +Alison flitted to and fro with her clothes, dropping the baby's little +white stockings every step or two, and anathematizing them +daintily--within orthodox bounds, of course. In about five minutes she +called me; her voice was sharp and alarmed. + +"Come quick! O Fred, look here! All those clothes that I locked into the +cedar closet are out here on the bed!" + +"My dear wife," I blandly observed, as I sauntered into the room, "too +much of Gertrude Fellows hath made thee mad. Let _me_ see the clothes!" + +She pointed to the bed. Some white clothing lay upon it, folded in an +ugly way, to represent a corpse, with crossed hands. + +"Is it meant for a joke, Alison? You did it yourself, I suppose!" + +"Fred! I have not touched it with the tip of my little finger!" + +"Gertrude, then?" + +"Gertrude is in the parlor writing." + +So she was. I called her up. She looked surprised and troubled. + +"It must have been Bridget," I proceeded, authoritatively, "or Tip." + +"Bridget is out walking with Tip and the baby. Jane is in the kitchen +making pies." + +"At any rate these are not the clothes which you locked into the closet, +however they came here." + +"The very same, Fred. See, I noticed the numbers 6 upon the stockings, 2 +on the night-caps, and--" + +"Give me the key," I interrupted. + +She gave me the key. I went to the cedar closet and tried the door. It +was locked. I unlocked it, and opened the drawer in which my wife +assured me that the clothes had lain. Nothing was to be seen in it but +the linen towel which neatly covered the bottom. I lifted it and shook +it. The drawer was empty. + +"Give me those clothes, if you please." + +She brought them to me. I made in my diary a careful memorandum of their +naming and numbering; placed the articles myself in the drawer,--an +upper drawer, so that there could be no mistake in identifying it; +locked the drawer, put the key in my pocket; locked the door of the +closet, put the key in my pocket; locked the door of the room in which +the closet was, and put that key in my pocket. + +We sat down then in the hall, all of us; Allis and Gertrude to fill the +mending-basket, I to smoke and consider. I saw Tip coming home with his +nurse presently, and started to go down and let him in, when a faint +scream from my wife arrested me. I ran past Miss Fellows, who was +sitting on the stairs, and into my room. Allis, going in to put away +Tip's little plaid aprons, had stopped, rather pale, upon the threshold. +Upon the bed lay some clothing, folded, as before, in rude, hideous +imitation of the dead. + +I took each article in turn, and compared the name and number with the +names and numbers in my diary. They were identical throughout. I took +the clothes, took the three keys from my pocket, unlocked the +"cedar-room" door, unlocked the closet door, unlocked the upper drawer, +and looked in. The drawer was empty. + +To say that from this time I failed to own--to myself, if not to other +people--that some mysterious influence, inexplicable by common or +scientific causes, was at work in my house, would be to accuse myself of +more obstinacy than even I am capable of. I propounded theory after +theory, and gave it up. I arrived at conclusion upon conclusion, and +threw them aside. Finally, I held my peace, ceased to talk of "rats," +kept my mind in a state of passive vacancy, and narrowly and quietly +watched the progress of affairs. + +From the date of that escapade with the underclothes confusion reigned +in our corner of Nemo's Avenue. That night neither my wife nor myself +closed an eye, the house so resounded and re-echoed with the blows of +unseen hammers, fists, logs, and knuckles. + +Miss Fellows, too, was pale with her vigils, looked troubled, and +proposed going home. This I peremptorily vetoed, determined if the woman +had any connection, honest or otherwise, with the mystery, to ferret it +out. + +The following day, just after dinner, I was writing in the library, when +a child's cry of fright and pain startled me. It seemed to come from the +little yard behind the house, and I hurried thither to behold a singular +sight. There was one apple-tree in the yard,--an old, stunted, crooked +thing; and in that tree I found my son and heir, Tip, tied fast with a +small stout rope. "Tied" does not express it; he was gagged, manacled, +twisted, contorted, wound about, crossed and recrossed, held without a +chance of motion, scarcely of breath. + +"You never tied yourself up here, child?" I asked, as I cut the knots. + +The question certainly was unnecessary. No juggler could have bound +himself in such a fashion; scarcely, then, a four-years' child. To my +continued, clear, and gentle inquiries, the boy replied, persistently +and consistently, that nobody tied him there,--"not Cousin Gertrude, nor +Bridget, nor the baby, nor mamma, nor Jane, nor papa, nor the black +kitty"; he was "just tooken up all at once into the tree, and that was +all there was about it." He "s'posed it must have been God, or something +like that, did it." + +Poor Tip had a hard time of it. Two days after that, while his mother +and I sat discussing the incident, and the child was at play upon the +floor, he suddenly threw himself at full length, writhing with pain, and +begging to "have them pulled out quick!" + +"Have _what_ pulled out?" exclaimed his terrified mother. She took the +child into her lap, and found that he was stuck over from head to foot +with large white pins. + +"We haven't so many large pins in all the house," she said as soon as he +was relieved. + +As she spoke the words thirty or forty _small_ pins pierced the boy. +Where they came from no one could see. How they came there no one knew. +We looked, and there they were, and Tip was crying and writhing as +before. + +For the remainder of that winter we had scarcely a day of quiet. The +rumor that "the Hotchkisses had rented a haunted house" leaked out and +spread abroad. The frightened servants gave warning, and other +frightened servants took their place, to leave in turn. My wife was her +own cook and nursery-maid a quarter of the time. The disturbances varied +in character with every week, assuming, as time went on, an importunity +which, had we not quietly settled it in our own minds "not to be beaten +by a noise," would have driven us from the house. + +Night after night the mysterious fingers rapped at the windows, the +doors, the floors, the walls. Day after day uncomfortable tricks were +sprung upon us by invisible agencies. We became used to the noises, so +that we slept through them easily; but many of the phenomena were so +strikingly unpleasant, and so singularly unsuited to the ordinary +conditions of human happiness and housekeeping, that we scarcely +became--as one of our excellent deacons had a cheerful habit of +exhorting us to become--"resigned." + +Upon one occasion we had invited a small and select number of friends to +dine. It was to be rather a _recherche_ affair for Nemo's Avenue, and my +wife had spared no painstaking to suit herself with her table. We had +had a comparatively quiet house the night before, so that our cook, who +had been with us three days, consented to remain till our guests had +been provided for. The soup was good, the pigeons better, the bread was +_not_ sour, and Allis looked hopeful, and inclined to trust Providence +for the gravies and dessert. + +It was just as I had begun to carve the beef that I observed my wife +suddenly pale, and a telegram from her eyes turned mine in the direction +of General Popgun, who sat at her right hand. My sensations "can better +be imagined than described" when I saw General Popgun's fork, untouched +by any human hand, dancing a jig on his plate. He grasped it and laid it +firmly down. As soon as he released his hold it leaped from the table. + +"Really--aw--very singular phenomena," began the General; "very +singular! I was not prepared to credit the extraordinary accounts of +spiritual manifestations in this house, but--aw--Well, I must say--" + +Instantly it was Pandemonium at that dinner-table. Dr. Jump's knife, +Mrs. M'Ready's plate, and Colonel Hope's tumbler sprang from their +places. The pigeons flew from the platter, the caster rattled and +rolled, the salt-cellars bounded to and fro, and the gravies, moved by +some invisible disturber, spattered all over Mrs. Elias P. Critique's +_moire antique_. + +Mortified and angered beyond endurance, I for the first time addressed +the spirits,--wrenched for the moment into a profound belief that they +must be spirits indeed. + +"Whatever you are, and wherever you are," I shouted, bringing my hand +down hard upon the table, "go out of this room and let us alone!" + +The only reply was a furious mazourka of all the dishes on the table. A +gentleman present, who had, as he afterward told us, studied the subject +of spiritualism somewhat, very sceptically and with unsatisfactory +results, observed the performance keenly, and suggested that I should +try a gentler method of appeal. Whatever the agent was,--and what it was +he had not yet discovered,--he had noticed repeatedly that the quiet +modes of meeting it were most effective. + +Rather amused, I spoke more softly, addressing the caster, and +intimating in my blandest manner that I and my guests would feel under +obligations if we could have the room to ourselves till after we had +dined. The disturbance gradually ceased, and we had no more of it that +day. + +A morning or two after Alison chanced to leave half a dozen teaspoons +upon the sideboard in the breakfast-room; they were of solid silver, and +quite thick. She was going to rub them herself, I believe, and went into +the china-closet, which opens from the room, for the silver-soap. The +breakfast-room was left vacant, and it was vacant when she returned to +it, and she insists, with a quiet conviction which it is hardly +reasonable to doubt, that no human being did or could have entered the +room without her knowledge. When she came back to the sideboard every +one of those spoons lay there _bent double_. She showed them to me when +I came home at noon. Had they been pewter toys they could not have been +more completely twisted out of shape than they were. I took them without +any remarks (I began to feel as if this mystery were assuming +uncomfortable proportions), put them away, just as I found them, into a +small cupboard in the wall of the breakfast-room, locked the cupboard +door with the only key in the house which fitted it, put the key in my +inner vest pocket, and meditatively ate my dinner. + +About half an hour afterward a neighbor dropped in to groan over the +weather and see the baby, and Allis chanced to mention the incident of +the spoons. + +"Really, Mrs. Hotchkiss!" said the lady, with a slight smile, and that +indefinite, quickly smothered change of eye which signifies, "I don't +believe a word of it!" "Are you sure that there is not a mistake +somewhere, or a little mental hallucination? The story is very +entertaining, but--I beg your pardon--I should be interested to see +those spoons." + +"Your curiosity shall be gratified, madam," I said, a little testily; +and taking the key from my pocket, I led her to the cupboard and +unlocked the door. I found those spoons as straight, smooth, and fair as +ever spoons had been;--not a dent, not a wrinkle, not a bend nor untrue +line could we discover anywhere upon them. + +"_Oh!_" said our visitor, significantly. + +That lady, be it recorded, then and thenceforward spared no pains to +found and strengthen throughout Nemo's Avenue the theory that "the +Hotchkisses were getting up all that spiritual nonsense to force their +landlord into lower rents. And such respectable people too! It did seem +a pity, didn't it?" + +One night I was alone in the library. It was late; about half-past +eleven, I think. The brightest gas jet was lighted, so that I could see +to every portion of the small room. The door was shut. There was no +furniture but the book-cases, my table, and chair; no sliding: doors or +concealed corners; no nook or cranny in which any human creature could +lurk unseen by me; and I say that I was alone. + +I had been writing to a confidential friend a somewhat minute account +of the disturbances in my house, which were now of about six weeks' +duration. I had begged him to come and observe them for himself, and help +me out with a solution,--I myself was at a loss for a reasonable one. +There certainly seemed to be evidence of superhuman agency; but I was +hardly ready yet to commit myself thoroughly to that view of the matter, +and-- + +In the middle of that sentence I laid down my pen. A consciousness, +sudden and distinct, came to me that I was not alone in that bright +little silent room. Yet to mortal eyes alone I was. I pushed away my +writing and looked about. The warm air was empty of outline; the +curtains were undisturbed; the little recess under the library table +held nothing but my own feet; there was no sound but the ordinary +rap-rapping on the floor, to which I had by this time become so +accustomed that often it passed unnoticed. I rose and examined the room +thoroughly, until quite satisfied that I was its only visible occupant; +then sat down again. The rappings had meantime become loud and +impatient. + +I had learned that very week from Miss Fellows the spiritual alphabet +with which she was in the habit of "communicating with her dead mother." +I had never asked her, nor had she proposed, to use it herself for my +benefit. I had meant to try all other means of investigation before +resorting to it. Now, however being alone, and being perplexed and +annoyed by my sense of having invisible company, I turned and spelled +out upon the table, so many raps to a letter till the question was +complete:-- + +"_What do you want of me?_" + +Instantly the answer came rapping back:-- + +"_Stretch down your hand._" + +I put my fingers under the table, and I felt, as indubitably as I ever +felt a touch in my life, the grasp of a _warm, human hand_. + +I added to the broken paragraph in the letter to my friend a brief +account of the occurrence, and reiterated my entreaties that he would +come at his earliest convenience to my house. He was an Episcopal +clergyman, by the way, and I considered that his testimony would uphold +my fast-sinking character for veracity among my townspeople. I began to +have an impression that this dilemma in which I found myself was a +pretty serious one for a man of peaceable disposition and honest +intentions to be in. + +About this time I undertook to come to a little better understanding +with Miss Fellows. I took her away alone, and having tried my best not +to frighten the life out of her by my grave face, asked her seriously +and kindly to tell me whether she supposed herself to have any +connection with the phenomena in my house. To my surprise she answered +promptly that she thought she had. I repressed a whistle, and "asked for +information." + +"The presence of a medium renders easy what would otherwise be +impossible," she replied. "I offered to go away, Mr. Hotchkiss, in the +beginning." + +I assured her that I had no desire to have her go away at present, and +begged her to proceed. + +"The Influences in the house are strong, as I have said before," she +continued, looking through me and beyond me with her vacant eyes. +"Something is wrong. They are never at rest. I hear them. I feel them. I +see them. They go up and down the stairs with me. I find them in my +room. I see them gliding about. I see them standing now, with their +hands almost upon your shoulders." + +I confess to a kind of chill that crept down my backbone at these words, +and to having turned my head and stared hard at the book-cases behind +me. + +"But they--I mean something--rapped one night before you came," I +suggested. + +"Yes, and they might rap after I was gone. The simple noises are not +uncommon in places where there are no better means of communication. The +extreme methods of expression, such as you have witnessed this winter, +are, I doubt not, practicable only when the system of a medium is +accessible. They write all sorts of messages for you. You would ridicule +them. I do not repeat them. You and Cousin Alison do not see, hear, feel +as I do. We are differently made. There are lying spirits and true, good +spirits and bad. Sometimes the bad deceive and distress me, but +sometimes--sometimes my mother comes." + +She lowered her voice reverently, and I was fain to hush the laugh upon +my lips. Whatever the thing might prove to be to me, it was daily +comfort to the nervous, unstrung, lonely woman, whom to suspect of +trickery I began to think was worse than stupidity. + +From the time of my midnight experience in the library I allowed myself +to look a little further into the subject of "communications." Miss +Fellows wrote them out at my request whenever they "came" to her. +Writers on Spiritualism have described the process so frequently, that +it is unnecessary for me to dwell upon it at length. The influences took +her unawares in the usual manner. In the usual manner her arm--to all +appearance the passive instrument of some unseen, powerful +agency--jerked and glided over the paper, writing in curious, scrawly +characters, never in her own neat little old-fashioned hand, messages of +which, on coming out from the "trance" state, she would have-no memory; +of many of which at any time she could have had no comprehension. These +messages assumed every variety of character from the tragic to the +ridiculous, and a large portion of them had no point whatever. + +One day Benjamin West desired to give me lessons in oil-painting. The +next, my brother Joseph, dead now for ten years, asked forgiveness for +his share in a little quarrel of ours which had embittered a portion of +his last days,--of which, by the way, I am confident that Miss Fellows +knew nothing. At one time I received a long discourse enlightening me on +the arrangement of the "spheres" in the disembodied state of existence. +At another, Alison's dead grandfather pathetically reminded her of a +certain Sunday afternoon at "meetin'" long ago, when the child Allis +hooked his wig off in the long prayer with a bent pin and a piece of +fish-line. + +One day we were saddened by the confused wail of a lost spirit, who +represented his agonies as greater than soul could bear, and clamored +for relief. Moved to pity, I inquired:-- + +"What can we do for you?" + +Unseen knuckles rapped back the touching answer:-- + +"Give me a piece of squash pie!" + +I remarked to Miss Fellows that I supposed this to be a modern and +improved version of the ancient drop of water which was to cool the +tongue of Dives. She replied that it was the work of a mischievous +spirit who had nothing better to do; they would not infrequently take in +that way the reply from the lips of another. I am not sure whether we +are to have lips in the spiritual world, but I think that was her +expression. + +Through all the nonsense and confusion of these daily messages, however, +one restless, indefinite purpose ran; a struggle for expression that we +could not grasp; a sense of something unperformed which was tormenting +somebody. + +One week we had been so much more than usually annoyed by the dancing of +tables, shaking of doors, and breaking of crockery, that I lost all +patience, and at length vehemently dared our unseen tormentors to show +themselves. + +"Who and what are you?" I cried, "destroying the peace of my family in +this unendurable fashion. If you are mortal man, I will meet you as +mortal man. Whatever you are, in the name of all fairness, let me see +you!" + +"If you see me it will be death to you," tapped the Invisible. + +"Then let it be death to me! Come on! When shall I have the pleasure of +an interview?" + +"To-morrow night at six o'clock." + +"To-morrow at six, then, be it." + +And to-morrow at six it was. Allis had a headache, and was lying down +upstairs. Miss Fellows and I were with her, busy with cologne and tea, +and one thing and another. I had, in fact, forgotten all about my +superhuman appointment, when, just as the clock struck six, a low cry +from Miss Fellows arrested my attention. + +"I see it!" she said. + +"See what?" + +"A tall man wrapped in a sheet." + +"Your eyes are the only ones so favored, it happens," I said, with a +superior smile. But while I spoke Allis started from the pillows with a +look of fear. + +"_I_ see it, Fred!" she exclaimed, under her breath. + +"Women's imagination!" for I saw nothing. + +I saw nothing for a moment; then I must depose and say that I _did_ see +a tall figure, covered from head to foot with a sheet, standing still in +the middle of the room. I sprang upon it with raised arm; my wife states +that I was within a foot of it when the sheet dropped. It dropped at my +feet,--nothing but a sheet. I picked it up and shook it; only a sheet. + +"It is one of those old linen ones of grandmother's," said Allis, +examining it; "there are only six, marked in pink with the boar's-head in +the corner. It came from the blue chest up garret. They have not been +taken out for years." + +I took the sheet back to the blue chest myself,--having first observed +the number, as I had done before with the underclothes; and locked it +in. I came back to my room and sat down by Allis. In about three minutes +we saw the figure standing still as before, in the middle of the room. +As before, I sprang at it, and as before the drapery dropped, and there +was nothing there. I picked up the sheet and turned to the numbered +corner. It was the same that I had locked into the blue chest. + +Miss Fellows was inclined to fear that I had really endangered my life +by this ghostly rendezvous. I can testify, however, that it was by no +means "death to me," nor did I experience any ill effects from the +event. + +My friend, the clergyman, made me the desired visit in January. For a +week after his arrival, as if my tormentors were bent on convincing my +almost only friend that I was a fool or a juggler, we had no disturbance +at all beyond the ordinary rappings. These, the reverend gentleman +confessed were of a singular nature, but expressed a polite desire to +see some of the extraordinary manifestations of which I had written him. + +But one day he had risen with some formality to usher a formal caller to +the-door, when, to his slight amazement and my secret delight, his +chair--an easy-chair of good proportions--deliberately jumped up and +hopped after him across the room. From this period the mystery +"manifested" itself to his heart's content. Not only did the +rocking-chairs, and the cane-seat chairs, and the round-backed chairs, +and Tip's little chairs, and the affghans chase him about, and the heavy +_tete-a-tete_ in the corner evince symptoms of agitation at his +approach, but the piano trundled a solemn minuet at him; the heavy +walnut centre-table rose half-way to the ceiling under his eyes; the +marble-topped stand, on which he sat to keep it still, lifted itself and +him a foot from the ground; his coffee-cup spilled over when he tried to +drink, shaken by an unseen elbow; his dressing-cases disappeared from +his bureau and hid themselves, none knew how or when, in his closets and +under his bed; mysterious uncanny figures, dressed in his best clothes +and stuffed with straw, stood in his room when he came to it at night; +his candlesticks walked, untouched by hands, from the mantel into space; +keys and chains fell from the air at his feet; and raw turnips dropped +from the solid ceiling into his soup-plate. + +"Well, Garth," said I one day, confidentially, "how are things? Begin to +have a 'realizing sense' of it, eh?" + +"Let me think awhile," he answered. + +I left him to his reflections, and devoted my attention for a day or two +to Gertrude Fellows. She seemed to have been of late receiving less +ridiculous, less indefinite, and more important messages from her +spiritual acquaintances. The burden of them was directed at me. They +were sometimes confused, but never contradictory, and the sum of them, +as I cast it up, was this:-- + +A former occupant of the house, one Mr. Timothy Jabbers, had been in +early life connected in the dry-goods business with my wife's father, +and had, unknown to any but himself, defrauded his partner of a +considerable sum for a young swindler,--some five hundred dollars, I +think. This fact, kept in the knowledge only of God and the guilty man, +had been his agony since his death. In the parlance of Spiritualism, he +could never "purify" his soul and rise to a higher "sphere" till he had +made restitution,--though to that part of the communications I paid +little attention. This money my wife, as her father's sole living heir, +was entitled to, and this money I was desired to claim for her from Mr. +Jabbers's estate, then in the hands of some wealthy nephews. + +I made some inquiries which led to the discovery that there had been a +Mr. Timothy Jabbers once the occupant of our house, that he had at one +period been in business with my wife's father, that he was now many +years dead, and that his nephews in New York were his heirs. We never +attempted to bring any claim upon them, for three reasons: in the first +place, because we knew we shouldn't get the money; in the second, +because such a procedure would give so palpable an "object" in people's +eyes for the disturbances at the house that we should, in all +probability, lose the entire confidence of the entire non-spiritualistic +community; thirdly, because I thought it problematical whether any +constable of ordinary size and courage could be found who would +undertake to summon the witness to testify in the county court at +Atkinsville. + +I mention the matter only because, on the theories of Spiritualism, it +appeared to give some point and occasion to the phenomena, and their +infesting that particular house. + +Whether poor Mr. Timothy Jabbers felt relieved by having unburdened +himself of his confession, I cannot state; but after he found that I +paid some attention to his messages, he gradually ceased to express +himself through turnips and cold keys; the rappings grew less violent +and frequent, and finally ceased altogether. Shortly after that Miss +Fellows went home. + +Garth and I talked matters over the day after she left. He had brought +his "thinking" to a close, whittled his opinions to a point, and was +quite ready to stick them into their places for my benefit, and leave +them there, as George Garth left all his opinions, immovable as the +everlasting hills. + +"How much had she to do with it now,--the Fellows?" + +"Precisely what she said she had, no more. She was a medium, but not a +juggler." + +"No trickery about the affair, then?" + +"No trickery could have sent that turnip into my soup-plate, or that +candlestick walking into the air. There _is_ a great deal of trickery +mixed with such phenomena. The next case you come across may be a +regular cheat; but you will find it out,--you'll find it out. You've had +three months to find this out, and you couldn't. Whatever may be the +explanation of the mystery, the man who can witness what you and I have +witnessed, and pronounce it the trick of that incapable, washed-out +woman, is either a liar or a fool. + +"You understand yourself and your wife, and you've tested your servants +faithfully; so we're somewhat narrowed in our conclusions." + +"Well, then, what's the matter?" + +I was, I confess, a little startled by the vehemence with which my +friend brought his clerical fist down upon the table, and exclaimed:-- + +"The Devil?" + +"Dear me, Garth, don't swear; you in search of a pulpit just at this +time, too!" + +"I tell you I never spoke more solemnly. I cannot, in the face of facts, +ascribe all these phenomena to human agency. Something that comes we +know not whence, and goes we know not whither, is at work there in the +dark. I am driven to grant to it an extra-human power. Yet when that +flabby Miss Fellows, in the trance state, undertakes to bring me +messages from my dead wife, and when she attempts to recall the most +tender memories of our life together, I cannot,"--he paused and turned +his face a little away,--"it would be pleasant to think I had a word +from Mary, but I cannot think she is there. I don't believe good spirits +concern themselves with this thing. It has in its fair developments too +much nonsense and too much positive sin; read a few numbers of the +'Banner,' or attend a convention or two, if you want to be convinced of +that. If they 're not good spirits they're bad ones, that's all. I've +dipped into the subject in various ways since I have been here; +consulted the mediums, talked with the prophets; I'm convinced that +there is no dependence to be placed on the thing. You never learn +anything from it that it is worth while to learn; above all, you never +can trust its _prophecies_. It is evil,--_evil_ at the root; and except +by physicians and scientific men it had better be let alone. They may +yet throw light on it; you and I cannot. I propose for myself to drop it +henceforth. In fact, it looks too much toward putting one's self on +terms of intimacy with the Prince of the Powers of the Air to please +me." + +"You're rather positive, considering the difficulty of the subject," I +said. + +The truth is, and it may be about time to own to it, that the three +months' siege against the mystery, which I had held so pertinaciously +that winter, had driven me to broad terms of capitulation. I assented to +most of my friend's conclusions, but where he stopped I began a race for +further light. I understood then, for the first time, the peculiar charm +which I had often seen work so fatally with dabblers in Spiritualism. +The fascination of the thing was upon me. I ransacked the papers for +advertisements of mediums. I went from city to city at their mysterious +calls. I held _seances_ in my parlor, and frightened my wife with +messages--some of them ghastly enough--from her dead relatives, I ran +the usual gauntlet of strange seers in strange places, who told me my +name, the names of all my friends, dead or alive, my secret aspirations +and peculiar characteristics, my past history and future prospects. + +For a long time they never made a failure. Absolute strangers told me +facts about myself which not even my own wife knew: whether they spoke +with the tongues of devils, or whether, by some unknown laws of +magnetism, they simply _read my thoughts_, I am not even now prepared to +say. I think if they had made a miss I should have been spared some +suffering. Their communications had sometimes a ridiculous aimlessness, +and occasionally a subtle deviltry coated about with religion, like a +pill with sugar, but often a significant and fearful accuracy. + +Once, I remember, they foretold an indefinite calamity to be brought +upon me before sunset on the following Saturday. Before sunset on that +Saturday I lost a thousand dollars in mining stock which had stood in +all Eastern eyes as solid as its own gold. At another time I was warned +by a medium in Philadelphia that my wife, then visiting in Boston, was +taken suddenly ill. I had left her in perfect health; but feeling +nevertheless uneasy, I took the night train and went directly to her. I +found her in the agonies of a severe attack of pleurisy, just preparing +to send a telegram to me. + +"Their prophecies are unreliable, notwithstanding coincidences," wrote +George Garth. "Let them alone, Fred, I beg of you. You will regret it if +you don't." + +"Once let me be fairly taken in and cheated to my face," I made reply, +"and I may compress my views to your platform. Until then I must gang my +own gait." + +I now come to the remarkable portion of my story,--at least it seems +to me the remarkable portion under my present conditions of vision. + +In August of the summer following Miss Fellows's visit, and the +manifestations in my house at Atkinsville, I was startled one pleasant +morning, while sitting in the office of a medium in Washington Street in +Boston, by a singularly unpleasant communication. + +"The second day of next May," wrote the medium,--she wrote with the +forefinger of one hand upon the palm of the other,--"the second of May, +at one o'clock in the afternoon, you will be summoned into a spiritual +state of existence." + +"I suppose, in good English, that means I'm going to die," I replied, +carelessly. "Would you be so good as to write it with a pen and ink, +that there may be no mistake?" + +She wrote it distinctly: "The second of May, at one o'clock in the +afternoon." + +I pocketed the slip of paper for further use, and sat reflecting. + +"How do you know it?" + +"_I_ don't know it. I am told." + +"Who tells you?" + +"Jerusha Babcock and George Washington." + +Jerusha Babcock was the name of my maternal grandmother. What could the +woman know of my maternal grandmother? It did not occur to me, I +believe, to wonder what occasion George Washington could find to concern +himself about my dying or my living. There stood the uncanny Jerusha as +pledge that my informant knew what she was talking about. I left the +office with an uneasy sinking at the heart. There was a coffin-store +near by, and I remember the peculiar interest with which I studied the +quilting of the satin lining, and the peculiar crawling sensation which +crept to my fingers' ends. + +Determined not to be unnecessarily alarmed, I spent the next three weeks +in testing the communication. I visited one more medium in Boston, two +in New York, one in New Haven, one in Philadelphia, and one in a little +out-of-the-way Connecticut village, where I spent a night, and did not +know a soul. None of these people, I am confident, had ever seen my face +or heard, my name before. + +It was a circumstance calculated at least to arrest attention, that +these seven people, each unknown to the others, and without concert with +the others, repeated the ugly message which had sought me out through +the happy summer morning in Washington Street. There was no hesitation, +no doubt, no contradiction. I could not trip them or cross-question them +out of it. Unerring, assured, and consistent, the fiat went forth:-- + +"On the second of May, at one o'clock in the afternoon, you will pass +out of the body." + +I would not have believed them if I could have helped myself, I sighed +for the calm days when I had laughed at medium and prophet, and sneered +at ghost and rapping. I took lodgings in Philadelphia, locked my doors, +and paced my rooms all day and half the night, tortured by my thoughts, +and consulting books of medicine to discover what evidence I could by +any possibility give of unsuspected disease. I was at that time +absolutely well and strong; absolutely well and strong I was forced to +confess myself, after having waded through Latin adjectives and +anatomical illustrations enough to make a ghost of Hercules. I devoted +two days to researches in genealogical pathology, and was rewarded for +my pains by discovering myself to be the possessor of one great-aunt who +had died of heart disease at the advanced age of two months. + +Heart disease, then, I settled upon. The alternative was accident. +"Which will it be?" I asked in vain. Upon this point my friends the +mediums held a delicate reserve. "The Influences were confusing, and +they were not prepared to state with exactness." + +"Why _don't_ you come home?" my wife wrote in distress and perplexity. +"You promised to come ten days ago, and they need you at the office, and +I need you more than anybody." + +"I need you more than anybody!" When the little clinging needs of three +weeks grew into the great want of a lifetime,--O, how could I tell _her_ +what was coming? + +I did not tell her. When I had hurried home, when she came bounding +through the hall to meet me, when she held up her face, half laughing, +half crying, and flushing and paling, to mine,--the poor little face +that by and by would never watch and glow at my coming,--I could not +tell her. + +When the children were in bed and we were alone after tea, she climbed +gravely up into my lap from the little cricket on which she had been +sitting, and put her hands upon my shoulders. + +"You're sober, Fred, and pale. Something ails you, you know, and you are +going to tell me all about it." + +Her pretty, mischievous face swam suddenly before my eyes. I kissed it, +put her gently down as I would a child, and went away alone till I felt +more like myself. + +The winter set in gloomily enough. It may have been the snow-storms, of +which we had an average of one every other day, or it may have been the +storm in my own heart which I was weathering alone. + +Whether to believe those people, or whether to laugh at their +predictions; whether to tell my wife, or whether to continue +silent,--these questions tormented me through many wakeful nights and +dreary days. My fears were in nowise allayed by a letter which' I +received one day in January from Gertrude Fellows. + +"Why don't you read it aloud? What's the news?" asked Alison. But at one +glance over the opening page I folded the sheet, and did not read it +till I could lock myself into the library alone. The letter ran:-- + +"I have been much disturbed lately on your behalf. My mother and your +brother Joseph appear to me nearly every day, and charge me with some +message to you which I cannot distinctly grasp. It seems to be clear, +however, as far as this: that some calamity is to befall you in the +spring,--in May, I should say. It seems to me to be of the nature of +death. I do not learn that you can avoid it, but that they desire you to +be prepared for it." + +After receiving this last warning, certain uncomfortable words filed +through my brain for days together:-- + +"Set thine house in order, for thou shalt surely die." + +"Never knew you read your Bible so much in all your life," said Alison, +with a pretty pout. "You'll grow so good that I can't begin to keep up +with you. When I try to read my polyglot, the baby comes and bites the +corners, and squeals till I put it away and take him up." + +As the winter wore away I arrived at this conclusion: If I were in fact +destined to death in the spring, my wife could not help herself or me by +the knowledge of it. If events proved that I was deluded in the dread, +and I had shared it with her, she would have had all her pain and +anxiety to no purpose. In either case I would insure her happiness for +these few months; they might be her last happy months. At any rate +happiness was a good thing, and she could not have too much of it. To +say that I myself felt no uneasiness as to the event would be +affectation. The old sword of Damocles hung over me. The hair might +hold, but it was a hair. + +As the winter passed,--it seemed to me as if winter had never passed so +rapidly before,--I found it natural to watch my health with the most +careful scrutiny; to avoid improper food and undue excitement; to +refrain from long and perilous journeys; to consider whether each new +cook who entered the family might have occasion to poison me. It was an +anomaly which I did not observe at the time, that while in my heart of +hearts I expected to breathe my last upon the second of May, I yet +cherished a distinct plan of fighting, cheating, persuading, or +overmatching death. + +I closed a large speculation on which I had been inclined, in the +summer, to "fly"; Alison could never manage petroleum ventures. I wound +up my business in a safe and systematic manner. "Hotchkiss must mean to +retire," people said. I revised my will, and held one long and necessary +conversation with my wife about her future, should "anything happen" to +me. She listened and planned without tears or exclamations; but after we +had finished the talk, she crept up to me with a quiet, puzzled sadness +that I could not bear. + +"You are growing so blue lately, Fred! Why, what can 'happen' to you? I +don't believe God can mean to leave me here after you are gone; I don't +believe he _can_ mean to!" + +All through the sweet spring days we were much together. I went late to +the office. I came home early. I spent the beautiful twilights at home. +I followed her about the house. I made her read to me, sing to me, sit +by me, touch me with her little, soft hand. I watched her face till the +sight choked me. How soon before she would know? How soon? + +"I feel as if we'd just been married over again," she said one day, +pinching my cheek with a low laugh. "You are so good! I'd no idea you +cared so much about me. By and by, when you get over this lazy fit and +go about as you used to, I shall feel so deserted,--you've no idea! I +believe I will order a little widow's cap, and put it on, and wear it +about,--now, what do you mean by getting up and stalking off to look out +of the window? Fine prospect you must have, with the curtain down!" + +It is, to say the least, an uncomfortable state of affairs when you find +yourself drawing within a fortnight of the day on which seven people +have assured you that, you are going to shuffle off this mortal coil. It +is not agreeable to have no more idea than the dead (probably not as +much) of the manner in which your demise is to be effected. It is not in +all respects a cheerful mode of existence to dress yourself in the +morning with the reflection that you are never to half wear out your +new mottled coat, and that this striped neck-tie will be laid away by +and by in a little box, and cried over by your wife; to hear your +immediate acquaintances all wondering why you _don't_ get yourself some +new boots; to know that your partner has been heard to say that you are +growing dull at trade; to find the children complaining that you have +engaged no rooms yet at the beach; to look into their upturned eyes and +wonder how long it is going to take for them to forget you; to go out +after breakfast and wonder how many more times you will shut that front +door; to come home in the perfumed dusk and see the faces pressed +against the window to watch for you, and feel warm arms about your neck, +and wonder how soon they will shrink from the chill of you; to feel the +glow of the budding world, and think how blossom and fruit will crimson +and drop without you, and wonder how the blossom and fruit of life can +slip from you in the time of violet smells and orioles. + +April, spattered with showers and dripped upon a little with ineffectual +suns, slid restlessly away from me, and I locked my office door one +night, reflecting that it was the night of the first of May, and that +to-morrow was the second. + +I spent the evening alone with my wife. I have spent more agreeable +evenings. She came and nestled at my feet, and the firelight painted her +cheeks and hair, and her eyes followed me, and her hand was in mine; but +I have spent more agreeable evenings. + +The morning of the second broke without a cloud. Blue jays flashed past +my window; a bed of royal pansies opened to the sun, and the smell of +the fresh, moist earth came up where Tip was digging in his little +garden. + +"Not feeling exactly like work to-day," as I told my wife, I did not go +to the office. I asked her to come into the library and sit with me. I +remember that she had a pudding to bake, and refused at first; then +yielded, laughing, and said that I must go without my dessert. I thought +it highly probable that I _should_ go without my dessert. + +I remember precisely how pretty she was that morning. She wore a bright +dress,--blue, I think,--and a white crocus in her hair; she had a dainty +white apron tied on, "to cook in," she said, and her pink nails were +powdered with flour. Her eyes laughed and twinkled at me. I remember +thinking how young she looked, and how unready for suffering. I remember +that she brought the baby in after a while, and that Tip came all muddy +from the garden, dragging his tiny hoe over the carpet; that the window +was open, and that, while we all sat there together, a little brown bird +brought some twine and built a nest on an apple-bough just in sight. + +I find it difficult to explain the anxiety which I felt, as the, morning +wore on, that dinner should be punctually upon the table at half past +twelve. But I now understand perfectly, as I did not once, the old +philosophy: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." + +It was ironing-day, and our dinners were apt to be late upon +ironing-days. I concluded that, if the soup were punctual, and not too +hot, I could leave myself ten or perhaps fifteen unoccupied minutes +before one o'clock. It strikes me as curious now, the gravity with which +this thought underran the fever and pain and dread of the morning. + +I fell to reading my hymn-book about twelve o'clock, and when Alison +called me to dinner I did not remember to consult my watch. + +The soup was good, though hot. A grim Epicurean stolidity crept over me +as I sat down before it. A man had better make the most of his last +chance at mock-turtle. Fifteen minutes were enough to die in. + +I am confident that I ate more rapidly than is consistent with +consummate elegance. I remember that Tip imitated me, and that Allis +opened her eyes at me. I recall distinctly the fact that I had passed my +plate a second time. + +I had passed my plate a second time, I say, and had just raised the +spoon to my lips, when it fell from my palsied hand; for the little +bronze clock upon the mantel struck one. + +I sat with drawn breath and glared at it; at the relentless silver +hands; at the fierce, and, as it seemed to me, _living_ face of the Time +on its top, who stooped and swung his scythe at me. + +"I would like a very _big_ white potato," said Tip, breaking the solemn +silence. + +You may or may not believe me, but it is a fact that that is all which +happened. + + * * * * * + +I slowly turned my head. I resumed my spoon. + +"The kitchen clock is nearly half an hour too slow," observed Alison. "I +told Jane that you would have it fixed this week." + +I finished my soup in silence. + +It may interest the reader to learn that up to the date of this article +"I still live." + + + + +"Little Tommy Tucker." + + + +There were but three persons in the car; a merchant, deep in the income +list of the "Traveller," an old lady with two bandboxes, a man in the +corner with his hat pulled over his eyes. + +Tommy opened the door, peeped in, hesitated, looked into another car, +came back, gave his little fiddle a shove on his shoulder, and walked +in. + + "Hi! Little Tommy Tucker + Plays for his supper," + +shouted the young exquisite lounging on the platform in tan-colored coat +and lavender kid gloves. + +"O Kids, you're there, are you? Well, I'd rather play for it than loaf +for it, _I_ had," said Tommy, stoutly. + +The merchant shot a careless glance over the top of his paper, at the +sound of this _petit dialogue_, and the old lady smiled benignly; the +man in the corner neither looked nor smiled. + +Nobody would have thought, to look at that man in the corner, that he +was at that very moment deserting a wife and five children. Yet that is +precisely what he was doing. + +A villain? O no, that is not the word. A brute? Not by any means. A +man, weak, unfortunate, discouraged, and selfish, as weak, unfortunate, +and discouraged people are apt to be; that was the amount of it. His +panoramas never paid him for the use of his halls. His travelling +tin-type saloon had trundled him into a sheriff's hands. His petroleum +speculations had crashed like a bubble. His black and gold sign, _J. +Harmon, Photographer_, had swung now for nearly a year over the +dentist's rooms, and he had had the patronage of precisely six old women +and three babies. He had drifted to the theatre in the evenings, he did +not care now to remember how many times,--the fellows asked him, and it +made him forget his troubles; the next morning his empty purse would +gape at him, and Annie's mouth would quiver. A man must have his glass +too, on Sundays, and--well, perhaps a little oftener. He had not always +been fit to go to work after it; and Annie's mouth would quiver. It will +be seen at once that it was exceedingly hard on a man that his wife's +mouth should quiver. "Confound it! Why couldn't she scold or cry? These +still women aggravated a fellow beyond reason." + +Well, then the children had been sick; measles, whooping-cough, +scarlatina, mumps, he was sure he did not know what not; every one of +them from the baby up. There was medicine, and there were doctor's +bills, and there was sitting up with them at night,--their mother +usually did that. Then she must needs pale down herself, like a poorly +finished photograph; all her color and roundness and sparkle gone; and +if ever a man liked to have a pretty wife about, it was he. Moreover she +had a cough, and her shoulders had grown round, stooping so much over +the heavy baby, and her breath came short, and she had a way of being +tired. Then she never stirred out of the house,--he found out about that +one day; she had no bonnet, and her shawl had been cut up into blankets +for the crib. The children had stopped going to school. "They could not +buy the new arithmetic," their mother said, half under her breath. +Yesterday there was nothing for dinner but Johnny-cake, nor a large one +at that. To-morrow the saloon rents were due. Annie talked about pawning +one of the bureaus. Annie had had great purple rings under her eyes for +six weeks. + +He would not bear the purple rings and quivering mouth any longer. He +hated the sight of her, for the sight stung him. He hated the corn-cake +and the untaught children. He hated the whole dreary, dragging, needy +home. The ruin of it dogged him like a ghost, and he should be the ruin +of it as long as he stayed in it. Once fairly rid of him, his scolding +and drinking, his wasting and failing, Annie would send the children to +work, and find ways to live. She had energy and invention, a plenty of +it in her young, fresh days, before he came across her life to drag her +down. Perhaps he should make a golden fortune and come back to her some +summer day with a silk dress and servants, and make it all up; in theory +this was about what he expected to do. But if his ill luck went westward +with him, and the silk dress never turned up, why, she would forget him, +and be better off, and that would be the end of it. + +So here he was, ticketed and started, fairly bound for Colorado, sitting +with his hat over his eyes, and thinking about it. + +"Hm-m. Asleep," pronounced Tommy, with his keen glance into the corner. +"Guess I'll wake him up." + +He laid his cheek down on his little fiddle,--you don't know how Tommy +loved that little fiddle,--and struck up a gay, rollicking tune,-- + +"I care for nobody and nobody cares for me." + +The man in the corner sat quite still. When it was over he shrugged his +shoulders. + +"When folks are asleep they don't hist their shoulders, not as a general +thing," observed Tommy. "We'll try another." + +Tommy tried another. Nobody knows what possessed the little fellow, the +little fellow himself least of all; but he tried this:-- + + "We've lived and loved together, + Through many changing years." + +It was a new tune, and he wanted practice, perhaps. + +The train jarred and started slowly; the gloved exquisite, waiting +hackmen, baggage-masters, coffee-counter, and station-walls slid back; +engine-house and prison towers, and labyrinths of tracks slipped by; +lumber and shipping took their place, with clear spaces between, where +sea and sky shone through. The speed of the train increased with a +sickening sway; old wharves shot past, with the green water sucking at +their piers; the city shifted by and out of sight. + + "We've lived and loved together," + +played Tommy in a little plaintive wail, + + "We've lived and loved--" + +"Confound the boy!" Harmon pushed up his hat with a jerk, and looked out +of the window. The night was coming on. A dull sunset lay low on the +water, burning like a bale-fire through the snaky trail of smoke that +went writhing past the car windows. Against lonely signal-houses and +little deserted beaches the water was plashing drearily, and playing +monotonous bases to Tommy's wail:-- + + "Through many changing years, + Many changing years." + +It was a nuisance, this music in the cars. Why didn't somebody stop it? +What did the child mean by playing that? They had left the city far +behind now. He wondered how far. He pushed up the window fiercely, +venting the passion of the music on the first thing that came in his +way, and thrust his head out to look back. Through the undulating smoke, +out in the pale glimmer from the sky, he could see a low, red tongue of +land, covered with the twinkle of lighted homes. Somewhere there, in +among the quivering warmth, was one-- + +What was that boy about now? Not "Home, sweet Home?" But that was what +Tommy was about. + +They were lighting the lamps now in the car. Harmon looked at the +conductor's face, as the sickly yellow flare struck on it, with a +curious sensation. He wondered if he had a wife and five children; if he +ever thought of running away from them; what he would think of a man who +did; what most people would think; what she would think. She!--ah, she +had it all to find out yet. + + "There's no place like home," + +said Tommy's little fiddle, + + "O, no place like home." + +Now this fiddle of Tommy's may have had a crack or so in it, and I +cannot assert that Tommy never struck a false note; but the man in the +corner was not fastidious as a musical critic; the sickly light was +flickering through the car, the quiver on the red flats was quite out of +sight, the train was shrieking away into the west,--the baleful, lonely +west,--which was dying fast now out there upon the sea, and it is a fact +that his hat went slowly down over his face again, and that his face +went slowly down upon his arm. + +There, in the lighted home out upon the flats, that had drifted by +forever, she sat waiting now. It was about time for him to be in to +supper; she was beginning to wonder a little where he was; she was +keeping the coffee hot, and telling the children not to touch their +father's pickles; she had set the table and drawn the chairs; his pipe +lay filled for him upon the shelf over the stove. Her face in the light +was worn and white,--the dark rings very dark; she was trying to hush +the boys, teasing for their supper; begging them to wait a few minutes, +only a few minutes, he would surely be here then. She would put the baby +down presently, and stand at the window with her hands--Annie's hands +once were not so thin--raised to shut out the light,--watching, +watching. + +The children would eat their supper; the table would stand untouched, +with his chair in its place; still she would go to the window, and stand +watching, watching. O, the long night that she must stand watching, and +the days, and the years! + +"Sweet, sweet home," + +played Tommy. + +By and by there was no more of "Sweet Home." + +"How about that cove with his head lopped down on his arms?" speculated +Tommy, with a businesslike air. + +He had only stirred once, then put his face down again. But he was +awake, awake in every nerve; and listening, to the very curve of his +fingers. Tommy knew that; it being part of his trade to learn how to use +his eyes. + +The sweet, loyal passion of the music--it would take worse playing than +Tommy's to drive the sweet, loyal passion out of Annie Laurie--grew +above the din of the train:-- + + "'T was there that Annie Laurie + Gave me her promise true." + +She used to sing that, the man was thinking,--this other Annie of his +own. Why, she had been his own, and he had loved her once. How he had +loved her! Yes, she used to sing that when he went to see her on Sunday +nights, before they were married,--in her pink, plump, pretty days. +Annie used to be very pretty. + + "Gave me her promise true," + +hummed the little fiddle. + +"That's a fact," said poor Annie's husband, jerking the words out under +his hat, "and kept it too, she did." + +Ah, how Annie had kept it! The whole dark picture of her married +years,--the days of work and pain, the nights of watching, the patient +voice, the quivering mouth, the tact and the planning and the trust for +to-morrow, the love that had borne all things, believed all things, +hoped all things, uncomplaining,--rose into outline to tell him how she +had kept it. + + "Her face is as the fairest + That e'er the sun shone on," + +suggested the little fiddle. + +That it should be darkened forever, the sweet face! and that he should +do it,--he, sitting here, with his ticket bought, bound for Colorado. + + "And ne'er forget will I," + +murmured the little fiddle. + +He would have knocked the man down who had told him twenty years ago +that he ever should forget; that he should be here to-night, with his +ticket bought, bound for Colorado. + +But it was better for her to be free from him. He and his cursed +ill-luck were a drag on her and the children, and would always be. What +was that she had said once? + +"Never mind, Jack, I can bear anything as long as I have you." + +And here he was, with his ticket bought, bound for Colorado. + +He wondered if it were ever too late in the day for a fellow to make a +man of himself. He wondered-- + + "And she's a' the world to me, + And for bonnie Annie Laurie + I'd lay me down and dee," + +sang the little fiddle, triumphantly. + +Harmon shook himself, and stood up. The train was slackening; the +lights of a way-station bright ahead. It was about time for supper and +his mother, so Tommy put down his fiddle and handed around his faded +cap. + +The merchant threw him a penny, and returned to his tax list. The old +lady was fast asleep with her mouth open. + +"Come here," growled Harmon, with his eyes very bright. Tommy shrank +back, almost afraid of him. + +"Come here," softening, "I won't hurt you. I tell you, boy, you don't +know what you've done to-night." + +"Done, sir?" Tommy couldn't help laughing, though there was a twinge of +pain at his stout little heart, as he fingered the solitary penny in the +faded cap. "Done? Well, I guess I've waked you up, sir, which was about +what I meant to do." + +"Yes, that is it," said Harmon, very distinctly, pushing up his hat, +"you've waked me up. Here, hold your cap." + +They had puffed into the station now, and stopped. He emptied his purse +into the little cap, shook it clean of paper and copper alike, was out +of the car and off the train before Tommy could have said Jack Robinson. + +"My eyes!" gasped Tommy, "that chap had a ticket for New York, sure! +Methuselah! Look a here! One, two, three,--must have been crazy; that's +it, crazy." + +"He'll never find out," muttered Harmon, turning away from the station +lights, and striking back through the night for the red flats and home. +"He'll never find out what he has done, nor, please God, shall she." + +It was late when he came in sight of the house; it had been a long tramp +across the tracks, and hard; he being stung by a bitter wind from the +east all the way, tired with the monotonous treading of the sleepers, +and with crouching in perilous niches to let the trains go by. + +She stood watching at the window, as he had known that she would stand, +her hands raised to her face, her figure cut out against the warm light +of the room. + +He stood still a moment and looked at her, hidden in the shadow of the +street, thinking his own thoughts. The publican, in the old story, +hardly entered the beautiful temple with more humble step than he his +home that night. + +She sprang to meet him, pale with her watching and fear. + +"Worried, Annie, were you? I haven't been drinking; don't be +frightened,--no, not the theatre, either, this time. Some business, +dear; business that delayed me. I'm sorry you were worried, I am, Annie. +I've had a long walk. It is pleasant here. I believe I'm tired, Annie." + +He faltered, and turned away his face. + +"Dear me," said Annie, "why, you poor fellow, you are all tired out. +Sit right up here by the fire, and I will bring the coffee. I've tried +so hard not to let it boil away, you don't know, Jack, and I was so +afraid something had happened to you." + +Her face, her voice, her touch, seemed more than he could bear for a +minute, perhaps. He gulped down his coffee, choking. + +"Annie, look here." He put down his cup, trying to smile and make a jest +of the words. "Suppose a fellow had it in him to be a rascal, and nobody +ever knew it, eh?" + +"I should rather not know it, if I were his wife," said Annie, simply. + +"But you couldn't care anything more for him, you know, Annie?" + +"I don't know," said Annie, shaking her head with a little perplexed +smile, "you would be just Jack, _any how_." + +Jack coughed, took up his coffee-cup, set it down hard, strode once or +twice across the room, kissed the baby in the crib, kissed his wife, and +sat down again, winking at the fire. + +"I wonder if He had anything to do with sending him," he said, +presently, under his breath. + +"Sending whom?" asked puzzled Annie. + +"Business, dear, just business. I was thinking of a boy who did a little +job for me to-night, that's all." + +And that is all that she knows to this day about the man sitting in the +corner, with his hat over his eyes, bound for Colorado. + + + + +One of the Elect. + + + +"Down, Muff! down!" + +Muff obeyed; he took his paws off from his master's shoulders with an +injured look in his great mute eyes, and consoled himself by growling at +the cow. Mr. Ryck put a sudden stop to a series of gymnastic exercises +commenced between them, by throwing the creature's hay down upon her +horns; then he watered his horse, fed the sheep, took a look at the +hens, and closed all the doors tightly; for the night was cold, so cold +that he shivered, even under that great bottle-green coat of his: he was +not a young man. + +"Pretty cold night, Muff!" Muff was not blest with a forgiving +disposition; he maintained a dignified silence. But his master did not +feel the slight. Something, perhaps the cold, made him careless of the +dog to-night. + +The house was warm, at least; the light streamed far out of the kitchen +window, down almost to the orchard. He passed across it, showing his +figure a little stooping, and the flutter of gray hair from under his +hat; then into the house. His wife was busied about the room, a pleasant +room for a kitchen, with the cleanest of polished floors and whitened +tables; the cheeriest of fires, the home-like faces of blue and white +china peeping through the closet door; a few books upon a little shelf, +with an old Bible among them; the cosey rocking-chair that always stood +by the fire, and a plant or two in the south window. He came in, +stamping off the snow; Muff crawled behind the stove, and gave himself +up to a fit of metaphysics. + +"Cold, Amos?" + +"Of course. What else should I be, woman?" + +His wife made no reply. His unusual impatience only saddened her eyes a +little. She was one of those women who would have borne a life-long +oppression with dumb lips. Amos Ryck was not an unkind husband, but it +was not his way to be tender; the years which had whitened his hair had +brought him stern experiences: life was to him a battle, his horizon +always that about a combatant. But he loved her. + +"Most ready to sit down, Martha?" he said at last, more gently. + +"In a minute, Amos." + +She finished some bit of evening work, her step soft about the room. +Then she drew up the low rocking-chair with its covering of faded +crimson chintz, and sat down by her husband. + +She did this without noise; she did not sit too near to him; she took +pains not to annoy him by any feminine bustle over her work; she chose +her knitting, as being always most to his fancy; then she looked up +timidly into his face. But there was a frown, slight to be sure, but +still a frown, upon it, neither did he speak. Some gloomy, perhaps some +bitter thought held the man. A reflection of it might have struck across +her, as she turned her head, fixing her eyes upon the coals. + +The light on her face showed it pale; the lines on her mouth were deeper +than any time had worn for her husband; her hair as gray as his, though +he was already a man of grave, middle age, when the little wife--hardly +past her sixteenth birthday--came to the farm with him. + +Perhaps it is these silent women--spiritless, timid souls, like this +one,--who have, after all, the greatest capacity for suffering. You +might have thought so, if you had watched her. Some infinite mourning +looked out of her mute brown eyes. In the very folding of her hands +there was a sort of stifled cry, as one whose abiding place is in the +Valley of the Shadow. + +A monotonous sob of the wind broke at the corners of the house; in the +silence between the two, it was distinctly heard. Martha Ryck's face +paled a little. + +"I wish--" She tried to laugh. "Amos, it cries just like a baby." + +"Nonsense!" + +Her husband rose impatiently, and walked to the window. He was not given +to fancies; all his life was ruled and squared up to a creed. Yet I +doubt if he liked the sound of that wind much better than the woman. He +thrummed upon the window-sill, then turned sharply away. + +"There's a storm up, a cold one too." + +"It stormed when--" + +But Mrs. Ryck did not finish her sentence. Her husband, coming back to +his seat, tripped over a stool,--a little thing it was, fit only for a +child; a bit of dingy carpet covered it: once it had been bright. + +"Martha, what _do_ you keep this about for? It's always in the way!" +setting it up angrily against the wall. + +"I won't, if you'd rather not, Amos." + +The farmer took up an almanac, and counted out the time when the +minister's salary and the butcher's bill were due; it gave occasion for +making no reply. + +"Amos!" she said at last. He put down his book. + +"Amos, do you remember what day it is?" + +"I'm not likely to forget." His face darkened. + +"Amos," again, more timidly, "do you suppose we shall ever find out?" + +"How can I tell?" + +"Ever know anything,--just a little?" + +"We know enough, Martha." + +"Amos! Amos!" her voice rising to a bitter cry, "we don't know enough! +God's the only one that knows enough. He knows whether she's alive, and +if she's dead he knows, and where she is; if there was ever any hope, +and if her mother--" + +"Hope, Martha, for _her_!" + +She had been looking into the fire, her attitude unchanged, her hands +wrung one into the other. She roused at that, something in her face as +if one flared a sudden light upon the dead. + +"What ails you, Amos? You're her father; you loved her when she was a +little, innocent child." + +When she was a child, and innocent,--yes. _That_ was long ago. He +stopped his walk across the room, and sat down, his face twitching +nervously. But he had nothing to say,--not one word to the patient woman +watching him there in the firelight, not one for love of the child who +had climbed upon his knee and kissed him in that very room, who had +played upon that little faded cricket, and wound her arms about the +mother's neck, sitting just so, as she sat now. Yet he _had_ loved her, +the pure baby. That stung him. He could not forget it, though he might +own no fathership to the wanderer. + +Amos Ryck was a respectable man; he had the reputation of an honest, +pious farmer to maintain. Moreover, he was a deacon in the church. His +own life, stern in its purity, could brook no tenderness toward +offenders. His own child was as shut out from his forgiveness as he +deemed her to be from the forgiveness of his God. Yet you would have +seen, in one look at the man, that this blow with which he was smitten +had cleft his heart to its core. + +This was her birthday,--hers whose name had not passed his lips for +years. Do you think he had once forgotten it since its morning? Did not +the memories it brought crowd into every moment? Did they not fill the +very prayers in which he besought a sin-hating God to avenge him of all +his enemies? + +So many times the child had sat there at his feet on this day, playing +with some birthday toy,--he always managed to find her something, a doll +or a picture-book; she used to come up to thank him, pushing back her +curls, her little red lips put up for a kiss. He was very proud of +her,--he and the mother. She was all they had,--the only one. He used to +call her "God's dear blessing," softly, while his eyes grew dim; she +hardly heard him for his breaking voice. + +She might have stood there and brought back all those dead birthday +nights, so did he live them over. But none could know it; for he did not +speak, and the frown knotted darkly on his forehead. Martha Ryck looked +up at last into her husband's face. + +"Amos, if she _should_ ever come back!" He started, his eyes freezing. + +"She won't! She--" + +Would he have said "she _shall_ not?" God only knew. + +"Martha, you talk nonsense! It's just like a woman. We've said enough +about this. I suppose He who's cursed us has got his own reasons for it. +We must bear it, and so must she." + +He stood up, stroking his beard nervously, his eyes wandering about the +room; he did not, or he could not, look at his wife. Muff, rousing from +his slumbers, came up sleepily to be taken some notice of. She used to +love the dog,--the child; she gave him his name in a frolic one day; he +was always her playfellow; many a time they had come in and found her +asleep with Muff's black, shaggy sides for a pillow, and her little pink +arms around his neck, her face warm and bright with some happy dream. + +Mr. Ryck had often thought he would sell the creature; but he never had. +If he had been a woman, he would have said he could not. Being a man, he +argued that Muff was a good watch-dog, and worth keeping. + +"Always in the way, Muff!" he muttered, looking at the patient black +head rubbed against his knee. He was angry with the dog at that moment; +the next he had repented; the brute had done no wrong. He stooped and +patted him. Muff returned to his dreams content. + +"Well, Martha," he said, coming up to her uneasily, "you look tired." + +"Tired? No, I was only thinking, Amos." + +The pallor of her face, its timid eyes and patient mouth, the whole +crushed look of the woman, struck him freshly. He stooped and kissed her +forehead, the sharp lines of his face relaxing a little. + +"I didn't mean to be hard on you, Martha; we both have enough to bear +without that, but it's best not to talk of what can't be helped,--you +see." + +"Yes." + +"Don't think anything more about the day; it's not--it's not really good +for you; you must cheer up, little woman." + +"Yes, Amos." + +Perhaps his unusual tenderness gave her courage; she stood up, putting +both arms around his neck. + +"If you'd only try to love her a little, after all, my husband! He would +know it; He might save her for it." + +Amos Ryck choked, coughed, and said it was time for prayers. He took +down the old Bible in which his child's baby-fingers used to trace their +first lessons after his own, and read, not of her who loved much and was +forgiven, but one of the imprecatory Psalms. + +When Mrs. Ryck was sure that her husband was asleep that night, she rose +softly from her bed, unlocked, with noiseless key, one of her bureau +drawers, took something from it, and then felt her way down the dark +stairs into the kitchen. + +She drew a chair up to the fire, wrapped her shawl closely about her, +and untied, with trembling fingers, the knots of a soft silken +handkerchief in which her treasures were folded. + +Some baby dresses of purest white; a child's little pink apron; a pair +of tiny shoes, worn through by pattering feet; and a toy or two all +broken, as some impatient little fingers had left them; she was such a +careless baby! Yet they never could scold her, she always affected such +pretty surprises, and wide blue-eyed penitence: a bit of a queen she was +at the farm. + +Was it not most kindly ordered by the Infinite Tenderness which pitieth +its sorrowing ones, that into her still hours her child should come so +often only as a child, speaking pure things only, touching her mother so +like a restful hand, and stealing into a prayer? + +For where was ever grief like this one? Beside this sorrow, death was +but a joy. If she might have closed her child's baby-eyes, and seen the +lips which had not uttered their first "Mother!" stilled, and laid her +away under the daisies, she would have sat there alone that night, and +thanked Him who had given and taken away. + +But _this_,--a wanderer upon the face of the earth,--a mark, deeper +seared than the mark of Cain, upon the face which she had fondled and +kissed within her arms; the soul to which she had given life, accursed +of God and man,--to measure this, there is no speech nor language. + +Martha Ryck rose at last, took off the covers of the stove, and made a +fresh blaze which brightened all the room, and shot its glow far into +the street. She went to the window to push the curtain carefully aside, +stood a moment looking out into the night, stole softly to the door, +unlocked it, then went upstairs to bed. + +The wind, rising suddenly that night, struck sharply through the city. +It had been cold enough before, but the threatened storm foreboded that +it would be worse yet before morning. The people crowded in a warm and +brilliant church cast wandering glances from the preacher to the painted +windows, beyond which the night lay darkly, thought of the ride home in +close, cushioned carriages, and shivered. + +So did a woman outside, stopping just by the door, and looking in at the +hushed and sacred shelter. Such a temperature was not the best medicine +for that cough of hers. She had just crawled out of the garret, where +she had lain sick, very sick, for weeks. + +Passing the door of the Temple which reared its massive front and +glittering windows out of the darkness of the street, her ear was caught +by the faint, muffled sound of some anthem the choir were singing. She +drew the hood of her cloak over her face, turned into the shadow of the +steps, and, standing so, listened. Why, she hardly knew. Perhaps it was +the mere entreaty of the music, for her dulled ear had never grown deaf +to it; or perhaps a memory, flitting as a shadow, of other places and +other times, in which the hymns of God's church had not been strange to +her. She caught the words at last, brokenly. They were of some one who +was wounded. Wounded! she held her breath, listening curiously. The wind +shrieking past drowned the rest; only the swelling of the organ murmured +above it. She stole up the granite steps just within the entrance. No +one was there to see her, and she went on tiptoe to the muffled door, +putting her ear to it, her hair falling over her face. It was some +plaintive minor air they were hymning, as sad as a dying wail, and as +sweet as a mother's lullaby. + +"But He was wounded; He was wounded for our transgression; He was +bruised for our iniquities." + +Then, growing slower and more faint, a single voice took up the strain, +mournfully but clearly, with a hush in it as if one sang on Calvary. + +"Yet we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and we +esteemed him not." + +Well; He only knows what it spoke to the woman, who listened with her +guilty face hidden in her hair; how it drew her like a call to join the +throng that worshipped him. + +"I'd like to hear the rest," she muttered to herself. "I wonder what it +is about." + +A child came down from the gallery just then, a ragged boy, who, like +herself, had wandered in from the street. + +"Hilloa, Meg!" he said, laughing, "_you_ going to meeting? That's a good +joke!" If she had heard him, she would have turned away. But her hand +was on the latch; the door had swung upon its noiseless hinges; the +pealing organ drowned his voice. She went in and sat down in an empty +slip close by the door, looking about her for the moment in a sort of +childish wonder. The church was a blaze of light and color. One +perceived a mist of gayly dressed people, a soft flutter of fans, and +faint, sweet perfumes below; the velvet-cushioned pulpit, and pale, +scholarly outlines of the preacher's face above; the warmth of +rainbow-tinted glass; the wreathed and massive carving of oaken cornice; +the glitter of gas-light from a thousand prisms, and the silence of the +dome beyond. + +The brightness struck sharply against the woman sitting there alone. Her +face seemed to grow grayer and harder in it. The very hush of that +princely sanctuary seemed broken by her polluted presence. True, she +kept afar off; she did not so much as lift up her eyes to heaven; she +had but stolen in to hear the chanted words that were meant for the +acceptance and the comfort of the pure, bright worshippers,--sinners, to +be sure, in their way; but then, Christ died for _them_. This +tabernacle, to which they had brought their purple and gold and scarlet, +for his praise, was not meant for such as Meg, you know. + +But she had come into it, nevertheless. If He had called her there, she +did not know it. She only sat and listened to the chanting, forgetting +what she was; forgetting to wonder if there were one of all that +reverent throng who would be willing to sit and worship beside her. + +The singing ended at last, and the pale preacher began his sermon. But +Meg did not care for that; she could not understand it. She crouched +down in the corner of the pew, her hood drawn far over her face, +repeating to herself now and then, mechanically as it seemed, the words +of the chant. + +"Wounded--for our transgressions; and bruised,"--muttering, after a +while,--"Yet we hid our faces." Bruised and wounded! The sound of the +words attracted her; she said them over and over. She knew who He was. +Many years ago she had heard of him; it was a great while since then; +she had almost forgotten it. Was it true? And was he perhaps,--was there +a little chance it meant, he was bruised for her,--for _her_? She began +to wonder dimly, still muttering the sorrowful words down in her corner, +where no one could hear her. + +I wonder if He heard them. Do you think he did? For when the sermon was +ended, and the choir sang again,--still of him, and how he called the +heavy-laden, and how he kept his own rest for them, she said,--for was +she not very weary and heavy-laden with her sins?--still crouching down +in her corner, "That's me. I guess it is. I'll find out." + +She fixed her eyes upon the preacher, thinking, in her stunted, childish +way, that he knew so much, so many things she did not understand, that +surely he could tell her,--she should like to have it to think about; +she would ask him. She rose instinctively with the audience to receive +his blessing, then waited in her hooded cloak, like some dark and evil +thing, among the brilliant crowd. The door opening, as they began to +pass out by her, swept in such a chill of air as brought back a spasm of +coughing. She stood quivering under it, her face livid with the pain. +The crowd began to look at her curiously, to nod and whisper among +themselves. + +The sexton stepped up nervously; he knew who she was. "Meg, you'd better +go. What are you standing here for?" + +She flung him a look out of her hard, defiant eyes; she made no answer. +A child, clinging to her mother's hand, looked up as she went by, pity +and fear in her great wondering eyes. "Mother, see that poor woman; +she's hungry or cold!" + +The little one put her hand over the slip, pulling at Meg's cloak, +"What's the matter with you? Why don't you go home?" + +"Bertha, child, are you crazy?" Her mother caught her quickly away. +"Don't touch that woman!" + +Meg heard it. + +Standing, a moment after, just at the edge of the aisle, a lady, clad in +velvet, brushed against her, then gathered her costly garments with a +hand ringed and dazzling with diamonds, shrinking as if she had touched +some accursed thing, and sweeping by. + +Meg's eyes froze at that. This was the sanctuary, these the worshippers +of Him who was bruised. His message could not be for her. It would be of +no use to find out about him; of no use to tell him how she loathed +herself and her life; that she wanted to know about that Rest, and about +that heavy-laden one. His followers would not brook the very flutter of +her dress against their pure garments. They were like him; he could have +nothing to say to such as she. + +She turned to go out. Through the open door she saw the night and the +storm. Within was the silent dome, and the organ-hymn still swelling up +to it. + +It was still of the wounded that they sang. Meg listened, lingered, +touched the preacher on the arm as he came by. + +"I want to ask you a question." + +He started at the sight of her, or more perhaps at the sharpness in her +voice. + +"Why, why, who are you?" + +"I'm Meg. You don't know me. I ain't fit for your fine Christian people +to touch; they won't let their little children speak to me." + +"Well?" he said, nervously, for she paused. + +"Well? You're a preacher. I want to know about Him they've been singing +of, I came in to hear the singing. I like it." + +"I--I don't quite understand you," began the minister. "You surely have +heard of Jesus Christ." + +"Yes," her eyes softened, "somebody used to tell me; it was mother; we +lived in the country. I wasn't what I am now. I want to know if he can +put me back again. What if I should tell him I was going to be +different? Would he hear me, do you suppose?" + +Somehow the preacher's scholarly self-possession failed him. He felt ill +at ease, standing there with the woman's fixed black eyes upon him. + +"Why, yes; he always forgives a repentant sinner." + +"Repentant sinner." She repeated the words musingly. "I don't understand +all these things. I've forgotten most all about it. I want to know. +Couldn't I come in some way with the children and be learnt 'em? I +wouldn't make any trouble." + +There was something almost like a child in her voice just then, almost +as earnest and as pure. The preacher took out his handkerchief and wiped +his face; then he changed his hat awkwardly from hand to hand. + +"Why, why, really, we have no provision in our Sabbath school for cases +like this: we have been meaning to establish an institution of a +missionary character, but the funds cannot be raised just yet. I am +sorry; I don't know but--" + +"It's no matter!" + +Meg turned sharply away, her hands dropping lifelessly; she moved toward +the door. They were alone now in the church, they two. + +The minister's pale cheek flushed; he stepped after her. + +"Young woman!" + +She stopped, her face turned from him. + +"I will send you to some of the city missionaries, or I will go with you +to the Penitents' Retreat. I should like to help you. I--" + +He would have exhorted her to reform as kindly as he knew how; he felt +uncomfortable at letting her go so; he remembered just then who washed +the feet of his Master with her tears. But she would not listen. She +turned from him, and out into the storm, some cry on her lips,--it might +have been:-- + +"There ain't nobody to help me. I _was_ going to be better!" + +She sank down on the snow outside, exhausted by the racking cough which +the air had again brought on. + +The sexton found her there in the shadow, when he locked the church +doors. + +"Meg! you here? What ails you?" + +"_Dying_, I suppose!" + +The sight of her touched the man, she lying there alone in the snow; he +lingered, hesitated, thought of his own warm home, looked at her again. +If a friendly hand should save the creature,--he had heard of such +things. Well? But how could he take her into his respectable home? What +would people say?--the sexton of the Temple! He had a little wife there +too, pure as the snow upon the ground to-night. Could he bring them +under the same roof? + +"Meg!" he said, speaking in his nervous way, though kindly, "you _will_ +die here. I'll call the police and let them take you where it's warmer." + +But she crawled to her feet again. + +"No you won't!" + +She walked away as fast as she was able, till she found a still place +down by the water, where no one could see her. There she stood a moment +irresolute, looked up through the storm as if searching for the sky, +then sank upon her knees down in the silent shade of some timber. + +Perhaps she was half-frightened at the act, for she knelt so a moment +without speaking. There she began to mutter: "Maybe He won't drive me +off; if they did, maybe he won't. I should just like to tell him, +anyway!" + +So she folded her hands, as she had folded them once at her mother's +knee. + +"O Lord! I'm tired of being _Meg_. I should like to be something else!" + +Then she rose, crossed the bridge, and on past the thinning houses, +walking feebly through the snow that drifted against her feet. + +She did not know why she was there, or where she was going. She repeated +softly to herself now and then the words uttered down in the shade of +the timber, her brain dulled by the cold, faint, floating dreams +stealing into them. + +Meg! tired of being Meg! She wasn't always that. It was another name, a +pretty name she thought, with a childish smile,--Maggie. They always +call her that. She used to play about among the clover-blossoms and +buttercups then; the pure little children used to kiss her; nobody +hooted after her in the street, or drove her out of church, or left her +all alone out in the snow,--_Maggie_! + +Perhaps, too, some vague thought came to her of the mournful, +unconscious prophecy of the name, as the touch of the sacred water upon +her baby-brow had sealed it,--Magdalene. + +She stopped a moment, weakened by her toiling against the wind, threw +off her hood, the better to catch her laboring breath, and standing so, +looked back at the city, its lights glimmering white and pale, through +the falling snow. + +Her face was a piteous sight just then. Do you think the haughtiest of +the pure, fair women in yonder treasured homes could have loathed her as +she loathed herself at that moment? + +Yet it might have been a face as fair and pure as theirs; kisses of +mother and husband might have warmed those drawn and hueless lips; they +might have prayed their happy prayers, every night and morning, to God. +It _might have been_. You would almost have thought he had meant it +should be so, if you had looked into her eyes sometimes,--perhaps when +she was on her knees by the timber; or when she listened to the chant, +crouching out of sight in the church. + +Well, it was only that it might have been. Life could hold no possible +blessed change for her, you know. Society had no place for it, though +she sought it carefully with tears. Who of all God's happy children that +he had kept from sin would have gone to her and said, "My sister, his +love holds room for you and me"; have touched her with her woman's hand, +held out to her her woman's help, and blessed her with her woman's +prayers and tears? + +Do you not think Meg knew the answer? Had she not learned it well, in +seven wandering years? Had she not read it in every blast of this bitter +night, out into which she had come to find a helper, when all the happy +world passed by her, on the other side? + +She stood there, looking at the glittering of the city, then off into +the gloom where the path lay through the snow. Some struggle was in her +face. + +"Home! home and mother! She don't want me,--nobody wants me. I'd better +go back." + +The storm was beating upon her. But, looking from the city to the +drifted path, and back from the lonely path to the lighted city, she did +not stir. + +"I should like to see it, just to look in the window, a little,--it +wouldn't hurt 'em any. Nobody'd know." + +She turned, walking slowly where the snow lay pure and untrodden. On, +out of sight of the town, where the fields were still; thinking only as +she went, that nobody would know,--nobody would know. + +She would see the old home out in the dark; she could even say good-by +to it quite aloud, and they wouldn't hear her, or come and drive her +away. And then-- + +She looked around where the great shadows lay upon the fields, felt the +weakening of her limbs, her failing breath, and smiled. Not Meg's smile; +a very quiet smile, with a little quiver in it. She would find a still +place under the trees somewhere; the snow would cover her quite out of +sight before morning,--the pure, white snow. She would be only Maggie +then. + +The road, like some familiar dream, wound at last into the village. Down +the street where her childish feet had pattered in their playing, by the +old town pump, where, coming home from school, she used to drink the +cool, clear water on summer noons, she passed,--a silent shadow. She +might have been the ghost of some dead life, so moveless was her face. +She stopped at last, looking about her. + +"Where? I most forget." + +Turning out from the road, she found a brook half hidden under the +branches of a dripping tree,--frozen now; only a black glare of ice, +where she pushed away the snow with her foot. It might have been a +still, green place in summer, with banks of moss, and birds singing +overhead. Some faint color flushed all her face; she did not hear the +icicles dropping from the lonely tree. + +"Yes,"--she began to talk softly to herself,--"this is it. The first +time I ever saw him, he stood over there under the tree. Let me see; +wasn't I crossing the brook? Yes, I was crossing the brook; on the +stones. I had a pink dress. I looked in the glass when I went home," +brushing her soft hair out of her eyes. "Did I look pretty? I can't +remember. It's a great while ago." + +She came back into the street after that, languidly, for the snow lay +deeper. The wind, too, had chilled her more than she knew. The sleet was +frozen upon her mute, white face. She tried to draw her cloak more +closely about her, but her hands refused to hold it. She looked at them +curiously. + +"Numb? How much farther, I wonder?" + +It was not long before she came to it. The house stood up silently in +the night. A single light glimmered far out upon the garden. Her eye +caught it eagerly. She followed it down, across the orchard, and the +little plats where the flowers used to be so bright all summer long. She +had not forgotten them. She used to go out in the morning and pick them +for her mother,--a whole apronful, purple, and pink, and white, with +dewdrops on them. She was fit to touch them then. Her mother used to +smile when she brought them in. Her mother! Nobody ever smiled so since. +Did she know it? Did she ever wonder what had become of her,--the little +girl who used to kiss her? Did she ever want to see her? Sometimes, +when she prayed up in the old bedroom, did she remember her daughter +who had sinned, or guess that she was tired of it all, and how no one in +all the wide world would help her? + +She was sleeping there now. And the father. She was afraid to see him; +he would send her away, if he knew she had come out in the snow to look +at the old home. She wondered if her mother would. + +She opened the gate, and went in. The house was very still. So was the +yard, and the gleam of light that lay golden on the snow. The numbness +of her body began to steal over her brain. She thought at moments, as +she crawled up the path upon her hands and knees,--for she could no +longer walk,--that she was dreaming some pleasant dream; that the door +would open, and her mother come out to meet her. Attracted like a child +by the broad belt of light, she followed it over and through a piling +drift. It led her to the window where the curtain was pushed aside. She +managed to reach the blind, and so stand up a moment, clinging to it, +looking in, the glow from the fire sharp on her face. Then she sank down +upon the snow by the door. + +Lying so, her face turned up against it, her stiffened lips kissing the +very dumb, unanswering wood, a thought came to her. She remembered the +day. For seven long years she had not thought of it. + +A spasm crossed her face, her hands falling clinched. Who was it of whom +it was written, that better were it for that man if he had never been +born? Of Magdalene, more vile than Judas, what should be said? + +Yet it was hard, I think, to fall so upon the very threshold,--so near +the quiet, peaceful room, with the warmth, and light, and rest; to stay +all night in the storm, with eyes turned to that dead, pitiless sky, +without one look into her mother's face, without one kiss, or gentle +touch, or blessing, and die so, looking up! No one to hold her hand and +look into her eyes, and hear her say she was sorry,--sorry for it all! +That they should find her there in the morning, when her poor, dead face +could not see if she were forgiven! + +"I should like to go in," sobbing, with the first tears of many years +upon her cheek,--weak, pitiful tears, like a child's,--"just in out of +the cold!" + +Some sudden strength fell on her after that. She reached up, fumbling +for the latch. It opened at her first touch; the door swung wide into +the silent house. + +She crawled in then, into the kitchen where the fire was, and the +rocking-chair; the plants in the window, and the faded cricket upon the +hearth; the dog, too, roused from his nap behind the stove. He began to +growl at her, his eyes on fire. + +"Muff!" she smiled weakly, stretching out her hand. He did not know +her,--he was fierce with strangers. "Muff! don't you know me? I'm +Maggie; there, there, Muff, good fellow!" + +She crept up to him fearlessly, putting both her arms about his neck, +in a way she had of soothing him when she was his playfellow. The +creature's low growl died away. He submitted to her touch, doubtfully at +first, then he crouched on the floor beside her, wagging his tail, +wetting her face with his huge tongue. + +"Muff, _you_ know me, you old fellow! I'm sorry, Muff, I am,--I wish we +could go out and play together again. I'm very tired, Muff." + +She laid her head upon the dog, just as she used to long ago, creeping +up near the fire. A smile broke all over her face, at Muff's short, +happy bark. + +"_He_ don't turn me off; he don't know; he thinks I'm nobody but +Maggie." + +How long she lay so, she did not know. It might have been minutes, it +might have been hours; her eyes wandering all about the room, growing +brighter too, and clearer. They would know now that she had come back; +that she wanted to see them; that she had crawled into the old room to +die; that Muff had not forgotten her. Perhaps, _perhaps_ they would look +at her not unkindly, and cry over her just a little, for the sake of the +child they used to love. + +Martha Ryck, coming in at last, found her with her long hair falling +over her face, her arms still about the dog, lying there in the +firelight. + +The woman's eyelids fluttered for an instant, her lips moving dryly; but +she made no sound. She came up, knelt upon the floor, pushed Muff +gently away, and took her child's head upon her lap. + +"Maggie!" + +She opened her eyes and looked up. + +"Mother's glad to see you, Maggie." + +The girl tried to smile, her face all quivering. + +"Mother, I--I wanted you. I thought I wasn't fit." + +Her mother stooped and kissed her lips,--the polluted, purple lips, that +trembled so. + +"I thought you would come back to me, my daughter. I've watched for you +a great while." + +She smiled at that, pushing away her falling hair. + +"Mother, I'm so sorry." + +"Yes, Maggie." + +"And oh!" she threw out her arms; "O, I'm so tired, I'm so tired!" + +Her mother raised her, laying her head upon her shoulder. + +"Mother'll rest you, Maggie," soothing her, as if she sang again her +first lullaby, when she came to her, the little pure baby,--her only +one. + +"Mother," once more, "the door was unlocked." + +"It has been unlocked every night for seven years, my child." + +She closed her eyes after that, some stupor creeping over her, her +features in the firelight softening and melting, with the old child-look +coming into them. Looking up at last, she saw another face bending over +her, a face in which grief had worn stern lines; there were tears in +the eyes, and some recent struggle quivering out of it. + +"Father, I didn't mean to come in,--I didn't really; but I was so cold. +Don't send me off, father! I couldn't walk so far,--I shall be out of +your way in a little while,--the cough--" + +"_I_ send you away, Maggie? I--I might have done it once; God forgive +me! He sent you back, my daughter,--I thank him." + +A darkness swept over both faces then; she did not even hear Muff's +whining cry at her ear. + +"Mother," at last, the light of the room coming back, "there's Somebody +who was wounded. I guess I'm going to find him. Will he forget it all?" + +"All, Maggie." + +For what did He tell the sin-laden woman who came to him once, and dared +not look into his face? Was ever soul so foul and crimson-stained that +he could not make it pure and white? Does he not linger till his locks +are wet with the dews of night, to listen for the first, faint call of +any wanderer crying to him in the dark? + +So He came to Maggie. So he called her by her name,--Magdalene, most +precious to him; whom he had bought with a great price; for whom, with +groanings that cannot be uttered, he had pleaded with his Father: +Magdalene, chosen from all eternity, to be graven in the hollow of his +hand, to stand near to him before the throne, to look with fearless +eyes into his face, to touch him with her happy tears among his sinless +ones forever. + +And think you that _then_, any should scorn the woman whom the high and +lofty One, beholding, did thus love? Who could lay anything to the +charge of his elect? + +Perhaps he told her all this, in the pauses of the storm, for something +in her face transfigured it. + +"Mother, it's all over now. I think I shall be your little girl again." + +And so, with a smile, she went to Him. The light flashed broader and +brighter about the room, and on the dead face there,--never Meg's again. +A strong man, bowed over it, was weeping. Muff moaned out his brute +sorrow where the still hand touched him. + +But Martha Ryck, kneeling down beside her only child, gave thanks to +God. + + + + +What Was the Matter? + + + +I could not have been more than seven or eight years old, when it +happened; but it might have been yesterday. Among all other childish +memories, it stands alone. To this very day it brings with it the old, +utter sinking of the heart, and the old, dull sense of mystery. + +To read what I have to say, you should have known my mother. To +understand it, you should understand her. But that is quite impossible +now, for there is a quiet spot over the hill, and past the church, and +beside the little brook where the crimsoned mosses grow thick and wet +and cool, from which I cannot call her. It is all I have left of her +now. But after all, it is not of her that you will chiefly care to hear. +My object is simply to acquaint you with a few facts, which, though +interwoven with the events of her life, are quite independent of it as +objects of interest. It is, I know, only my own heart that makes these +pages a memorial,--but, you see, I cannot help it. + +Yet, I confess, no glamour of any earthly love has ever entirely dazzled +me,--not even hers. Of imperfections, of mistakes, of sins, I knew she +was guilty. I know it now; even with the sanctity of those crimsoned +mosses, and the hush of the rest beneath, so close to my heart, I cannot +forget them. Yet somehow--I do not know how--the imperfections, the +mistakes, the very sins, bring her nearer to me as the years slip by, +and make her dearer. + +My mother was what we call an aristocrat. I do not like the term, as the +term is used. I am sure she does not now; but I have no other word. She +was a royal-looking woman, and she had the blood of princes in her +veins. Generations back,--how we children used to reckon the thing +over!--she was cradled in a throne. A miserable race, to be sure, they +were,--the Stuarts; and the most devout genealogist might deem it +dubious honor to own them for great-grand-fathers by innumerable degrees +removed. So she used to tell us, over and over, as a damper on our +childish vanity, looking such a very queen as she spoke, in every play +of feature, and every motion of her hand, that it was the old story of +preachers who did not practise. The very baby was proud of her. The +beauty of a face, and the elegant repose of a manner, are influences by +no means more unfelt at three years than at thirty. + +As insanity will hide itself away, and lie sleeping, and die out,--while +old men are gathered to their fathers scathless, and young men follow in +their footsteps safe and free,--and start into life, and claim its own +when children's children have forgotten it; as a single trait of a +single scholar in a race of clods will bury itself in day-laborers and +criminals, unto the third and fourth generation, and spring then, like a +creation from a chaos, into statesmen and poets and sculptors;--so, I +have sometimes fancied, the better and truer nature of voluptuaries and +tyrants was sifted down through the years, and purified in our little +New England home, and the essential autocracy of monarchical blood +refined and ennobled, in my mother, into royalty. + +A broad and liberal culture had moulded her; she knew its worth, in +every fibre of her heart; scholarly parents had blessed her with their +legacies of scholarly mind and name. With the soul of an artist, she +quivered under every grace and every defect; and the blessing of a +beauty as rare as rich had been given to her. With every instinct of her +nature recoiling from the very shadow of crimes the world winks at, the +family record had been stainless for a generation. God had indeed +blessed her; but the very blessing was a temptation. + +I knew, before she left me, what she might have been, but for the +merciful and tender watch of Him who was despised and rejected of men. I +know, for she told me, one still night when we were alone together, how +she sometimes shuddered at herself, and what those daily and hourly +struggles between her nature and her Christianity _meant_. + +I think we were as near to one another as mother and daughter can be, +but yet as different. Since I have been talking in such lordly style of +those miserable Jameses and Charleses, I will take the opportunity to +confess that I have inherited my father's thorough-going +democracy,--double measure, pressed down and running over. She not only +pardoned it, but I think she loved it in me, for his sake. + +It was about a year and a half, I think, after he died, that she sent +for Aunt Alice to come to Creston. "Your aunt loves me," she said, when +she told us in her quiet way, "and I am so lonely now." + +They had been the only children, and they loved each other,--how much, I +afterwards knew. And how much they love each other _now_, I like to +think,--quite freely and fully, and without shadow or doubt between +them, I dare to hope. + +A picture of Aunt Alice always hung in mother's room. It was taken down +years ago. I never asked her where she put it. I remember it, though, +quite well; for mother's sake I am glad I do. For it was a pleasant face +to look upon, and a young, pure, happy face,--beautiful too, though with +none of the regal beauty crowned by my mother's massive hair, and +pencilled brows. It was a timid, girlish face, with reverent eyes, and +ripe, tremulous lips,--weak lips, as I remember them. From babyhood, I +felt a want in the face. I had, of course, no capacity to define it; it +was represented to me only by the fact that it differed from my +mother's. + +She was teaching school out West when mother sent for her. I saw the +letter. It was just like my mother: "Alice, I need you. You and I ought +to have but one home now. Will you come?" + +I saw, too, a bit of postscript to the answer: "I'm not fit that you +should love me so, Marie." + +And how mother laughed at it! + +When it was all settled, and the waiting weeks became at last a single +day, I hardly knew my mother. She was so full of fitful moods, and +little fantastic jokes! such a flush on her cheeks too, as she ran to +the window every five minutes, like a child! I remember how we went all +over the house together, she and I, to see that everything looked neat, +and bright, and welcome. And how we lingered in the guest-room, to put +the little finishing touches to its stillness, and coolness, and +coseyness. The best spread was on the bed, and the white folds smoothed +as only mother's fingers could smooth them; the curtain freshly washed, +and looped with its crimson cord; the blinds drawn, cool and green; the +late afternoon sunlight slanting through, in flecks upon the floor. +There were flowers, too, upon the table. I remember they were all +white,--lilies of the valley, I think; and the vase of Parian marble, +itself a solitary lily, unfolding stainless leaves. Over the mantle she +had hung the finest picture in the house,--an "Ecce Homo," and an +exquisite engraving. It used to hang in grandmother's room in the old +house. We children wondered a little that she took it upstairs. + +"I want your aunt to feel at home, and see some things," she said. "I +wish I could think of something more to make it pleasant in here." + +Just as we left the room she turned and looked into it. "Pleasant, isn't +it? I am so glad, Sarah," her eyes dimming a little. "She's a very dear +sister to me." + +She stepped in again to raise a stem of the lilies that had fallen from +the vase and lay like wax upon the table, then she shut the door and +came away. + +That door was shut just so for years; the lonely bars of sunlight +flecked the solitude of the room, and the lilies faded on the table. We +children passed it with hushed footfall, and shrank from it at twilight, +as from a room that held the dead. But into it we never went. + +Mother was tired out that afternoon; for she had been on her feet all +day, busied in her loving cares to make our simple home as pleasant and +as welcome as home could be. But yet she stopped to dress us in our +Sunday clothes,--and it was no sinecure to dress three persistently +undressable children; Winthrop was a host in himself. "Auntie must see +us look our prettiest," she said. + +She was a sight for an artist when she came down. She had taken off her +widow's cap and coiled her heavy hair low in her neck, and she always +looked like a queen in that lustreless black silk. I do not know why +these little things should have made such an impression on me then. +They are priceless to me now. I remember how she looked, framed there in +the doorway, while we were watching for the coach,--the late light +ebbing in golden tides over the grass at her feet, and touching her face +now and then through the branches of trees, her head bent a little, with +eager, parted lips, and the girlish color on her cheeks, her hand +shading her eyes as they strained for a sight of the lumbering coach. +She must have been a magnificent woman when she was young,--not unlike, +I have heard it said, to that far-off ancestress whose name she bore, +and whose sorrowful story has made her sorrowful beauty immortal. +Somewhere abroad there is a reclining statue of Queen Mary, to which, +when my mother stood beside it, her resemblance was so strong that the +by-standers clustered about her, whispering curiously. "Ah, mon Dieu!" +said a little Frenchman aloud, "c'est une resurrection." + +We must have tried her that afternoon, Clara and Winthrop and I; for the +spirit of her own excitement had made us completely wild. Winthrop's +scream of delight, when, stationed on the gate-post, he caught the first +sight of the old yellow coach, might have been heard a quarter of a +mile. + +"Coming?" said mother, nervously, and stepped out to the gate, full in +the sunlight that crowned her like royal gold. + +The coach lumbered on, and rattled up, and passed. + +"Why, she hasn't come!" All the eager color died out of her face. "I am +so disappointed!"--speaking like a troubled child, and turning slowly +into the house. + +Then, after a while, she drew me aside from the others,--I was the +oldest, and she was used to make a sort of confidence between us, +instinctively, as it seemed, and often quite forgetting how very few my +years were. "Sarah, I don't understand. You think she might have lost +the train? But Alice is so punctual. Alice never lost a train. And she +said she would come." And then, a while after, "I _don't_ understand." + +It was not like my mother to worry. The next day the coach lumbered up +and rattled past, and did not stop,--and the next, and the next. + +"We shall have a letter," mother said, her eyes saddening every +afternoon. But we had no letter. And another day went by, and another. + +"She is sick," we said; and mother wrote to her, and watched for the +lumbering coach, and grew silent day by day. But to the letter there was +no answer. + +Ten days passed. Mother came to me one afternoon to ask for her pen, +which I had borrowed. Something in her face troubled me vaguely. + +"What are you going to do, mother?" + +"Write to your aunt's boarding-place. I can't bear this any longer." She +spoke sharply. She had already grown unlike herself. + +She wrote, and asked for an answer by return of mail. + +It was on a Wednesday, I remember, that we looked for it. I came home +early from school. Mother was sewing at the parlor window, her eyes +wandering from her work, up the road. It was an ugly day. It had rained +drearily from eight o'clock till two, and closed in suffocating mist, +creeping and dense and chill. It gave me a childish fancy of long-closed +tombs and low-land graveyards, as I walked home in it. + +I tried to keep the younger children quiet when we went in, mother was +so nervous. As the early, uncanny twilight fell, we grouped around her +timidly. A dull sense of awe and mystery clung to the night, and clung +to her watching face, and clung even then to that closed room upstairs +where the lilies were fading. + +Mother sat leaning her head upon her hand, the outline of her face dim +in the dusk against the falling curtain. She was sitting so when we +heard the first rumble of the distant coach-wheels. At the sound, she +folded her hands in her lap and stirred a little, rose slowly from her +chair, and sat down again. + +"Sarah." + +I crept up to her. At the near sight of her face, I was so frightened I +could have cried. + +"Sarah, you may go out and get the letter. I--I can't." + +I went slowly out at the door and down the walk. At the gate I looked +back. The outline of her face was there against the window-pane, white +in the gathering gloom. + +It seems to me that my older and less sensitive years have never known +such a night. The world was stifling in a deluge of gray, cold mists, +unstirred by a breath of air. A robin with feathers all ruffled, and +head hidden, sat on the gate-post, and chirped a little mournful chirp, +like a creature dying in a vacuum. The very daisy that nodded and +drooped in the grass at my feet seemed to be gasping for breath. The +neighbor's house, not forty paces across the street, was invisible. I +remember the sensation it gave me, as I struggled to find its outlines, +of a world washed out, like the figures I washed out on my slate. As I +trudged, half frightened, into the road, and the fog closed about me, it +seemed to my childish superstition like a horde of long-imprisoned +ghosts let loose, and angry. The distant sound of the coach, which I +could not see, added to the fancy. + +The coach turned the corner presently. On a clear day I could see the +brass buttons on the driver's coat at that distance. There was nothing +visible now of the whole dark structure but the two lamps in front, like +the eyes of some evil thing, glaring and defiant, borne with swift +motion down upon me by a power utterly unseen,--it had a curious effect. +Even at this time, I confess I do not like to see a lighted carriage +driven through a fog. + +I summoned all my little courage, and piped out the driver's name, +standing there in the road. + +He reined up his horses with a shout,--he had nearly driven over me. +After some searching, he discovered the small object cowering down in +the mist, handed me a letter, with a muttered oath at being intercepted +on such a night, and lumbered on and out of sight in three rods. + +I went slowly into the house. Mother had lighted a lamp, and stood at +the parlor door. She did not come into the hall to meet me. + +She took the letter and went to the light, holding it with the seal +unbroken. She might have stood so two minutes. + +"Why don't you read, mamma?" spoke up Winthrop. I hushed him. + +She opened it then, read it, laid it down upon the table, and went out +of the room without a word. I had not seen her face. We heard her go +upstairs and shut the door. + +She had left the letter open there before us. After a little awed +silence, Clara broke out into sobs. I went up and read the few and +simple lines. + +_Aunt Alice had left for Creston on the appointed day_. + +Mother spent that night in the closed room where the lilies had drooped +and died. Clara and I heard her pacing the floor till we cried ourselves +to sleep. When we woke in the morning, she was pacing it still. + +Weeks wore into months, and the months became many years. More than +that we never knew. Some inquiry revealed the fact, after a while, that +a slight accident had occurred, upon the Erie Railroad, to the train +which she should have taken. There was some disabling, but no deaths, +the conductor had supposed. The car had fallen into the water. She might +not have been missed when the half-drowned passengers were all drawn +out. + +So mother added a little crape to her widow's weeds, the key of the +closed room lay henceforth in her drawer, and all things went on as +before. To her children my mother was never gloomy,--it was not her way. +No shadow of household affliction was placed like a skeleton confronting +our uncomprehending joy. Of what those weeks and months and years were +to her--a widow, and quite uncomforted in their dark places by any human +love--she gave no sign. We thought her a shade paler, perhaps. We found +her often alone with her little Bible. Sometimes, on the Sabbath, we +missed her, and knew that she had gone into that closed room. But she +was just as tender with us in our little faults and sorrows, as merry +with us in our plays, as eager in our gayest plans, as she had always +been. As she had always been,--our mother. + +And so the years slipped from her and from us. Winthrop went into +business in Boston; he never took to his books, and mother was too wise +to _push_ him through college; but I think she was disappointed. He was +her only boy, and she would have chosen for him the profession of his +father and grandfather. Clara and I graduated in our white dresses and +blue ribbons, like other girls, and came home to mother, crochet-work, +and Tennyson. Just about here is the proper place to begin my story. + +I mean that about here our old and long-tried cook, Bathsheba, who had +been an heirloom in the family, suddenly fell in love with the older +sexton, who had rung the passing-bell for every soul who died in the +village for forty years, and took it into her head to marry him, and +desert our kitchen for his little brown house under the hill. + +So it came about that we hunted the township for a handmaiden; and it +also came about that our inquiring steps led us to the poor-house. A +stout, not over-brilliant-looking girl, about twelve years of age, was +to be had for her board and clothes, and such schooling as we could give +her,--in country fashion to be "bound out" till she should be eighteen. +The economy of the arrangement decided in her favor; for, in spite of +our grand descent and grander notions, we were poor enough, after father +died, and the education of three children had made no small gap in our +little principal, and she came. + +Her name was a singular one,--Selphar. It always savored too nearly of +brimstone to please me. I used to call her Sel, "for short." She was a +good, sensible, uninteresting-looking girl, with broad face, large +features, and limp, tow-colored curls. They used to hang straight down +about her eyes, and were never otherwise than perfectly smooth. She +proved to be of good temper, which is worth quite as much as brains in a +servant, as honest as the daylight, dull enough at her books, but a +good, plodding worker, if you marked out every step of the way for her +beforehand. I do not think she would ever have discovered the laws of +gravitation; but she might have jumped off a precipice to prove them, if +she had been bidden. + +Until she was seventeen, she was precisely like any other rather stupid +girl; never given to novel-reading or fancies; never, frightened by the +dark or ghost-stories; proving herself warmly attached to us, after a +while, and rousing in us, in return, the kindly interest naturally felt +for a faithful servant; but she was not in any respect _un_common, +--quite far from it,--except in the circumstance that she never told a +false-hood. + +At seventeen she had a violent attack of diphtheria, and her life hung +by a thread. Mother was as tender and unwearying in her care of her as +the girl's own mother might have been. + +From that time, I believe, Sel was immovable in her faith in her +mistress's divinity. Under such nursing as she had, she slowly +recovered, but her old, stolid strength never came back to her. Severe +headaches became of frequent occurrence. Her stout, muscular arms grew +weak. As weeks went on, it became evident in many ways that, though the +diphtheria itself was quite out of her system, it had left her +thoroughly diseased. Strange fits of silence came over her; her +volubility had been the greatest objection we had to her hitherto. Her +face began to wear a troubled look. She was often found in places where +she had stolen away to be alone. + +One morning she slept late in her little garret-chamber, and we did not +call her. The girl had gone upstairs the night before crying with the +pain in her temples, and mother, who was always thoughtful of her +servants, said it was a pity to wake her, and, as there were only three +of us, we might get our own breakfast for once. While we were at work +together in the kitchen, Clara heard her kitten mewing out in the snow, +and went to the door to let her in. The creature, possessed by some +sudden frolic, darted away behind the well-curb. Clara was always a bit +of a romp, and, with never a thought of her daintily slippered feet, she +flung her trailing dress over one arm and was off over the three-inch +snow. The cat led her a brisk chase, and she came in flushed and +panting, and pretty, her little feet drenched, and the tip of a Maltese +tail just visible above a great bundle she had made of her apron. + +"Why!" said mother, "you have lost your ear-ring." + +Clara dropped the kitten with unceremonious haste on the floor, felt of +her little pink ear, shook her apron, and the corners of her mouth went +down into her dimpled chin. + +"They're the ones Winthrop sent, of all things in the world!" + +"You'd better put on your rubbers, and have a hunt out-doors," said +mother. + +We hunted out-doors,--on the steps, on the well-boards, in the +wood-shed, in the snow; Clara looked down the well till her nose and +fingers were blue, but the ear-ring was not to be found. We hunted +in-doors, under the stove and the chairs and the table, in every +possible and impossible nook, cranny, and crevice, but gave up the +search in despair. It was a pretty trinket,--a leaf of delicately +wrought gold, with a pearl dew-drop on it,--very becoming to Clara, and +the first present Winthrop had sent her from his earnings. If she had +been a little younger she would have cried. She came very near it as it +was, I suspect, for when she went after the plates she stayed in the +cupboard long enough to set two tables. + +When we were half through breakfast, Selphar came down, blushing, and +frightened half out of her wits, her apologies tumbling over each other +with such skill as to render each one unintelligible, and evidently +undecided in her own mind whether she was to be hung or burnt at the +stake. + +"It's no matter at all," said mother, kindly; "I knew you felt sick last +night. I should have called you if I had needed you." + +Having set the girl at her ease, as only she could do, she went on with +her breakfast, and we forgot all about her. She stayed, however, in the +room to wait on the table. It was afterwards remembered that she had not +been out of our sight since she came down the garret-stairs. Also, that +her room looked out upon the opposite side of the house from that on +which the well-curb stood. + +"Why, look at Sel!" said Clara, suddenly, "she has her eyes shut." + +The girl was just passing the toast. Mother spoke to her. "Selphar, what +is the matter?" + +"I don't know." + +"Why don't you open your eyes?" + +"I can't." + +"Hand the salt to Miss Sarah." + +She took it up and brought it round the table to me, with perfect +precision. + +"Sel, how you act!" said Clara, petulantly. "Of course you saw." + +"Yes'm, I saw," said the girl in a puzzled way, "but my eyes are shut, +Miss Clara." + +"Tight?" + +"Tight." + +Whatever this freak meant, we thought best to take no notice of it. My +mother told her, somewhat gravely, that she might sit down until she was +wanted, and we returned to our conversation about the ear-ring. + +"Why!" said Sel, with a little jump, "I see your ear-ring. Miss +Clara,--the one with a white drop on the leaf. It's out by the well." + +The girl was sitting with her back to the window, her eyes, to all +appearance, tightly closed. + +"It's on the right-hand side, under the snow, between the well and the +wood-pile. Why, don't you see?" + +Clara began to look frightened, mother displeased. + +"Selphar," she said, "this is nonsense. It is impossible for you to see +through the walls of two rooms and a wood-shed." + +"May I go and get it?" said the girl, quietly. + +"Sel," said Clara, "on your word and honor, are your eyes shut +_perfectly_ tight?" + +"If they ain't, Miss Clara, then they never was." + +Sel never told a lie. We looked at each other, and let her go. I +followed her out and kept my eyes on her closed lids. She did not once +raise them; nor did they tremble, as lids will tremble, if only +partially closed. + +She walked without the slightest hesitation directly to the well-curb, +to the spot which she had mentioned, stooped down, and brushed away the +three-inch fall of snow. The ear-ring lay there, where it had sunk in +falling. She picked it up, carried it in, and gave it to Clara. + +That Clara had the thing on when she started after her kitten, there +could be no doubt. She and I both remembered it. That Sel, asleep on +the opposite side of the house, could not have seen it drop, was also +settled. That she, with her eyes closed and her back to the window, had +seen through three walls and through three inches of snow, at a distance +of fifty feet, was an inference. + +"I don't believe it!" said my mother, "it's some nonsensical mistake." +Clara looked a little pale, and I laughed. + +We watched her carefully through the day. Her eyes remained tightly +closed. She understood all that was said to her, answered correctly, but +did, not seem inclined to talk. She went about her work as usual, and +performed it without a mistake. It could not be seen that she groped at +all with her hands to feel her way, as is the case with the blind. On +the contrary, she touched everything with her usual decision. It was +impossible to believe, without seeing them, that her eyes were closed. + +We tied a handkerchief tightly over them; see through it or below it she +could not, if she had tried. We then sent her into the parlor, with +orders to bring from the book-case two Bibles which had been given as +prizes to Clara and me at school, when we were children. The books were +of precisely the same size, color, and texture. Our names in gilt +letters were printed upon the binding. We followed her in, and watched +her narrowly. She went directly to the book-case, laid her hands upon +the books at once, and brought them to my mother. Mother changed them +from hand to hand several times, and turned them with the gilt lettering +downwards upon her lap. + +"Now, Selphar, which is Miss Sarah's?" + +The girl quietly took mine up. The experiment was repeated and varied +again and again. In every case the result was the same. She made no +mistake. It was no guess-work. All this was done with the bandage +tightly drawn about her eyes. _She did not see those letters with them_. + +That evening we were sitting quietly in the dining-room. Selphar sat a +little apart with her sewing, her eyes still closed. We kept her with +us, and kept her in sight. The parlor, which was a long room, was +between us and the front of the house. The distance was so great that we +had often thought, if prowlers were to come around at night, how +impossible it would be to hear them. The curtains and shutters were +closely drawn. Sel was sitting by the fire. Suddenly she turned pale, +dropped her sewing, and sprang from her chair. + +"Robbers, robbers!" she cried. "Don't you see? they're getting in the +east parlor window! There's three of 'em, and a lantern. They've just +opened the window,--hurry, hurry!" + +"I believe the girl is insane," said mother, decidedly. Nevertheless, +she put out the light, opened the parlor door noiselessly, and went in. + +The east window was open. There was a quick vision of three men and a +dark lantern. Then Clara screamed, and it disappeared. We went to the +window, and saw the men running down the street. The snow the next +morning was found trodden down under the window, and their footprints +were traced out to the road. + +When we went back to the other room, Selphar was standing in the middle +of it, a puzzled, frightened look on her face, her eyes wide open. + +"Selphar," said my mother, a little suspiciously, "how did you know the +robbers were there?" + +"Robbers!" said the girl, aghast. + +She knew nothing of the robbers. She knew nothing of the ear-ring. She +remembered nothing that had happened since she went up the garret-stairs +to bed, the night before. And, as I said, the girl was as honest as the +sunlight. When we told her what had happened, she burst into terrified +tears. + +For some time after this there was no return of the "tantrums," as +Selphar had called the condition, whatever it was. I began to get up +vague theories of a trance state. But mother said, "Nonsense!" and Clara +was too much frightened to reason at all about the matter. + +One Sunday morning Sel complained of a headache. There was service that +evening, and we all went to church. Mother let Sel take the empty seat +in the carryall beside her. + +It was very dark when we started to come home. But Creston was a safe +old Orthodox town, the roads were filled with returning church-goers +like ourselves, and mother drove like a man. A darker night I think I +have never seen. Literally, we could not see a hand before our eyes. We +met a carriage on a narrow road and the horses' heads touched, before +either driver had seen the other. + +Selphar had been quite silent during the drive. I leaned forward, looked +closely into her face, and could dimly see through the darkness that her +eyes were closed. + +"Why!" she said at last, "see those gloves!" + +"Where?" + +"Down in the ditch; we passed them before I spoke. I see them on a +blackberry-bush; they've got little brass buttons on the wrist." + +Three rods past now, and we could not see our horse's head. + +"Selphar," said my mother, quickly, "what _is_ the matter with you?" + +"If you please, ma'am, I don't know," replied the girl, hanging her +head. "May I get out and bring 'em to you?" + +Prince was reined up, and Sel got out. She went so far back, that, +though we strained our eyes to do it, we could not see her. In about two +minutes she came up, a pair of gentleman's gloves in her hand. They were +rolled together, were of cloth so black that on a bright night it would +never have been seen, and had small brass buttons at the wrist. + +Mother took them without a word. + +The story leaked out somehow, and spread all over town. It raised a +great hue and cry. Four or five antediluvian ladies declared at once +that we were nothing more nor less than a family of "them spirituous +mediums," and seriously proposed to expel mother from the +prayer-meeting. Masculine Creston did worse. It smiled a pitying smile, +and pronounced the whole thing the fancy of "scared women-folks." I +could endure with calmness any slander upon earth but that. I bore it a +number of weeks, till at last, driven by despair, I sent for Winthrop, +and stated the case to him in a condition of suppressed fury. He very +politely bit back an incredulous smile, and said he should be _very_ +happy to see her perform. The answer was somewhat dubious. I accepted it +in silent suspicion. + +He came on a Saturday noon. That afternoon we attended _en masse_ one of +those refined inquisitions commonly known as picnics, and Winthrop lost +his pocket-knife. Selphar, of course, kept house at home. + +When we returned, Winthrop made some careless reference to his loss in +her presence, and thought no more of it. About half an hour after, we +observed that she was washing the dishes with her eyes shut. The +condition had not been upon her five minutes before she dropped the +spoon suddenly into the water, and asked permission to go out to walk. +She "saw Mr. Winthrop's knife somewhere under a stone, and wanted to get +it." It was fully two miles to the picnic grounds, and nearly dark. +Winthrop followed the girl, unknown to her, and kept her in sight. She +went rapidly, and without the slightest hesitation or search, to an +out-of-the-way gully down by the pond, where Winthrop afterwards +remembered having gone to cut some willow-twigs for the girls, parted a +thick cluster of bushes, lifted a large, loose stone under which the +knife had rolled, and picked it up. She returned it to Winthrop, +quietly, and hurried away about her work to avoid being thanked. + +I observed that, after this incident, masculine Creston became more +respectful. + +Of several peculiarities in this development of the girl I made at the +time careful memoranda, and the exactness of these can be relied upon. + +1. She herself, so far from attempting to bring on these trance states, +or taking any pride therein, was intensely troubled and mortified by +them,--would run out of the room, if she felt them coming on in the +presence of visitors. + +2. They were apt to be preceded by severe headaches, but came often +without any warning. + +3. She never, in any instance, recalled anything that happened during +the trance, after it was passed. + +4. She was powerfully and unpleasantly affected by electricity from a +battery, or acting in milder forms. She was also unable at any time to +put her hands and arms into hot water; the effect was to paralyze them +at once. + +5. Space proved to be no impediment to her vision. She has been known to +follow the acts, words, and expressions of countenance of members of the +family hundreds of miles away, with accuracy as was afterwards proved by +comparing notes as to time. + +6. The girl's eyes, after her trances became habitual, assumed, and +always retained, the most singular expression I ever saw on any face. +They were oblong and narrow, and set back in her head like the eyes of a +snake. They were not--smile if you will, O practical and incredulous +reader! but they were not--eyes. The eyes of Elsie Venner are the only +eyes I can think of as at all like them. The most horrible circumstance +about them--a circumstance that always made me shudder, familiar as I +was with it--was, that, though turned fully on you, _they never looked +at you_. Something behind them or out of them did the seeing, not they. + +7. She not only saw substance, but soul. She has repeatedly told me my +thoughts when they were upon subjects to which she could not by any +possibility have had the slightest clew. + +8. We were never able to detect a shadow of deceit about her. + +9. The clairvoyance never failed in any instance to be correct, so far +as we were able to trace it. + +As will be readily imagined, the girl became a useful member of the +family. The lost valuables restored and the warnings against mischances +given by her quite balanced her incapacity for peculiar kinds of work. +This incapacity, however, rather increased than diminished; and, +together with her fickle health, which also grew more unsettled, caused +us a great deal of care. The Creston physician--who was a keen man in +his way, for a country doctor--pronounced the case altogether undreamt +of before in Horatio's philosophy, and kept constant notes of it. Some +of these have, I believe, found their way into the medical journals. + +After a while there came, like a thief in the night, that which I +suppose was poor Selphar's one unconscious, golden mission in this +world. It came on a quiet summer night, that ended a long trance of a +week's continuance. Mother had gone out into the kitchen to give an +order for breakfast. I heard a few eager words in Selphar's voice, and +then the door shut quickly, and it was an hour before it was opened. + +Then my mother came to me without a particle of color in lips or cheek, +and drew me away alone, and told the secret to me. + +Selphar had seen Aunt Alice. + +We sat down and looked at one another. There was a singular, pinched +look about my mother's mouth. + +"Sarah." + +"Yes." + +"She says"--and then she told me what she said. She had seen Alice +Stuart in a Western town, seven hundred miles away. Among the living, +she desired to be counted of the dead. And that was all. + +My mother paced the room three times back and forth, her hands locked. + +"Sarah." There was a chill in her voice--it had been such a gentle +voice!--that froze me. "Sarah, the girl is an impostor." + +"Mother!" + +She paced the room once more, three times, back and forth. "At any rate, +she is a poor, self-deluded creature. How _can_ she see, seven hundred +miles away, a dead woman who has been an angel all these years? Think! +an _angel_, Sarah! So much better than I, and I--I loved--" + +Before or since, I never heard my mother speak like that. She broke off +sharply, and froze back into her chilling voice. + +"We will say nothing about this, if you please. I do not believe a word +of it." + +We said nothing about it but Selphar did. The delusion, if delusion it +were, clung to her, haunted her, pursued her, week after week. To rid +her of it, or to silence her, was impossible. She added no new facts to +her first statement, but insisted that the long-lost dead was yet alive, +with a quiet pertinacity that it was simply impossible to ridicule, +frighten, threaten, or cross-question out of her. Clara was so +thoroughly alarmed that she would not have slept alone for any +mortal--perhaps not for any immortal--considerations. Winthrop and I +talked the matter over often and gravely when we were alone and in quiet +places. Mother's lips were sealed. From the day when Sel made the first +disclosure, she was never heard once to refer to the matter. A +perceptible haughtiness crept into her manner towards the girl. She even +talked of dismissing her, but repented it, and melted into momentary +gentleness. I could have cried over her that night. I was beginning to +understand what a pitiful struggle her life had become, and how alone +she must be in it. She _would_ not believe--she knew not what. She could +not doubt the girl. And with the conflict even her children could not +intermeddle. + +To understand the crisis into which she was brought, the reader must +bear in mind our long habit of belief, not only in Selphar's personal +honesty, but in the infallibility of her mysterious power. Indeed, it +had almost ceased to be mysterious to us, from daily familiarity. We had +come to regard it as the curious working of physical disease, had taken +its results as a matter of course, and had ceased, in common with +converted Creston, to doubt the girl's capacity for seeing anything that +she chose to, at any place. + +Thus a year worried on. My mother grew sleepless and pallid. She laughed +often, in a nervous, shallow way, as unlike her as a butterfly is unlike +a sunset; and her face settled into an habitual sharpness and hardness +unutterably painful to me. + +Once only I ventured to break into the silence of the haunting thought +that, she knew and we knew, was never escaped by either. "Mother, it +would do no harm for Winthrop to go out West, and--" + +She interrupted me sternly: "Sarah, I had not thought you capable of +such childish superstition, I wish that girl and her nonsense had never +come into this house!"--turning sharply away, and out of the room. + +But year and struggle ended. They ended at last, as I had prayed every +night and morning of it that they should end. Mother came into my room +one night, locked the door behind her, and walking over to the window, +stood with her face turned from me, and softly spoke my name. + +But that was all, for a little while. Then,--"Sick and in suffering, +Sarah! The girl,--she may be right; God Almighty knows! _Sick and in +suffering_, you see! I am going--I think." Then her voice broke. + +Creston put on its spectacles and looked wise on learning, the next day, +that Mrs. Dugald had taken the earliest morning train for the West, on +sudden and important business. It was precisely what Creston expected, +and just like the Dugalds for all the world--gone to hunt up material +for that genealogical book, or map, or tree, or something, that they +thought nobody knew they were going to publish. O yes, Creston +understood it perfectly. + +Space forbids me to relate in detail the clews which Selphar had given +as to the whereabouts of the wanderer. Her trances, just at this time, +were somewhat scarce and fragmentary, and the information she had +professed to give had come in snatches and very imperfectly,--the trance +being apt to end suddenly at the moment when some important question was +pending, and then, of course, all memory of what she had said, or was +about to say, was gone. The names and appearance of persons and places +necessary to the search had, however, been given with sufficient +distinctness to serve as a guide in my mother's rather chimerical +undertaking. I suppose ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would have +thought her a candidate for the State Lunatic Asylum. Exactly what she +herself expected, hoped, or feared, I think it doubtful if she knew. I +confess to a condition of simple bewilderment, when she was fairly gone, +and Clara and I were left alone with Selphar's ghostly eyes forever on +us. One night I had to lock the poor thing into her garret-room before I +could sleep. + +Just three weeks from the day on which mother started for the West, the +coach rattled up to the door, and two women, arm in arm, came slowly up +the walk. The one, erect, royal, with her great steadfast eyes alight; +the other, bent and worn, gray-haired and shallow and dumb, crawling +feebly through the golden afternoon sunshine, as the ghost of a glorious +life might crawl back to its grave. + +Mother threw open the door, and stood there like a queen. "Children, +your aunt has come home. She is too tired to talk just now. By and by +she will be glad to see you." + +We took her gently upstairs, into the room where the lilies were +mouldering to dust, and laid her down upon the bed. She closed her eyes +wearily, turned her face over to the wall, and said no word. + +What was the story of those tired eyes I never asked and I never knew. +Once, as I passed the room, I saw,--and have always been glad that I +saw,--through the open door, the two women lying with their arms about +each other's neck, as they used to do when they were children together, +and above them, still and watchful, the wounded Face that had waited +there so many years for this. + +She lingered weakly there, within the restful room, for seven days, and +then one morning we found her with her eyes upon the thorn-crowned Face, +her own quite still and smiling. + +A little funeral train wound away one night behind the church, and left +her down among those red-cup mosses that opened in so few months again +to cradle the sister who had loved her. Her name only, by mother's +orders, marked the headstone. + + * * * * * + +I have given you facts. Explain them as you will. I do not attempt it, +for the simple reason that I cannot. + +A word must be said as to the fate of poor Sel, which was mournful +enough. Her trances grew gradually more frequent and erratic, till she +became so thoroughly diseased in mind and body as to be entirely +unfitted for household work, and, in short, nothing but an encumbrance. +We kept her, however, for the sake of charity, and should have done so +till her poor, tormented life wore itself out; but after the advent of a +new servant, and my mother's death, she conceived the idea that she was +a burden, cried over it a few weeks, and at last, one bitter winter's +night, she disappeared. We did not give up all search for her for years, +but nothing was ever heard from her. He, I hope, who permitted life to +be such a terrible mystery to her, has cared for her somehow, and kindly +and well. + + + + +In the Gray Goth. + + + +If the wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight I don't believe it +would ever have happened. + +Where is the poker, Johnny? Can't you push back that for'ard log a +little? Dear, dear! Well, it doesn't make much difference, does it? +Something always seems to all your Massachusetts fires; your hickory is +green, and your maple is gnarly, and the worms eat out your oak like a +sponge. I haven't seen anything like what I call a fire,--not since Mary +Ann was married, and I came here to stay. "As long as you live, father," +she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an +open fire, and how she wouldn't let Jacob put in the air-tight in the +sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose. Mary Ann was a good +girl always, if I remember straight, and I'm sure I don't complain. +Isn't that a pine-knot at the bottom of the basket? There! that's +better. + +Let me see; I began to tell you something, didn't I? O yes; about that +winter of '41. I remember now. I declare, I can't get over it, to think +you never heard about it, and you twenty-four year old come Christmas. +You don't know much more, either, about Maine folks and Maine fashions +than you do about China,--though it's small wonder, for the matter of +that, you were such a little shaver when Uncle Jed took you. There were +a great many of us, it seems to me, that year, I 'most forget how +many;--we buried the twins next summer, didn't we?--then there was Mary +Ann, and little Nancy, and--well, coffee was dearer than ever I'd seen +it, I know, about that time, and butter selling for nothing; we just +threw our milk away, and there wasn't any market for eggs; besides +doctor's bills and Isaac to be sent to school; so it seemed to be the +best thing, though your mother took on pretty badly about it at first. +Jedediah has been good to you, I'm sure, and brought you up +religious,--though you've cost him a sight, spending three hundred and +fifty dollars a year at Amherst College. + +But, as I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,--to tell +the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm +getting to be an old man,--a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes, +when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the +toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I +do believe it wouldn't have happened,--though it isn't that I mean to +lay the blame on her _now_. + +I'd been out at work all day about the place, slicking things up for +to-morrow; there was a gap in the barn-yard fence to mend,--I left that +till the last thing, I remember,--I remember everything, some way or +other, that happened that day,--and there was a new roof to put on the +pig-pen, and the grape-vine needed an extra layer of straw, and the +latch was loose on the south barn-door; then I had to go round and take +a last look at the sheep, and toss down an extra forkful for the cows, +and go into the stall to have a talk with Ben, and unbutton the +coop-door to see if the hens looked warm,--just to tuck 'em up, as you +might say. I always felt sort of homesick--though I wouldn't have owned +up to it, not even to Nancy--saying good-by to the creeturs the night +before I went in. There, now! it beats all, to think, you don't know +what I'm talking about, and you a lumberman's son. "Going in" is going +up into the woods, you know, to cut and haul for the winter,--up, +sometimes, a hundred miles deep,--in in the fall and out in the spring; +whole gangs of us shut up there sometimes for six months, then down with +the freshets on the logs, and all summer to work the farm,--a merry sort +of life when you get used to it, Johnny; but it was a great while ago, +and it seems to me as if it must have been very cold.--Isn't there a +little draft coming in at the pantry door? + +So when I'd said good-by to the creeturs,--I remember just as plain how +Ben put his great neck on my shoulder and whinnied like a baby,--that +horse know when the season came round and I was going in, just as well +as I did,--I tinkered up the barn-yard fence, and locked the doors, +and went in to supper. + +I gave my finger a knock with the hammer, which may have had something +to do with it, for a man doesn't feel very good-natured when he's been +green enough to do a thing like that, and he doesn't like to say it +aches either. But if there is anything I can't bear it is lamp-smoke; it +always did put me out, and I expect it always will. Nancy knew what a +fuss I made about it, and she was always very careful not to hector me +with it. I ought to have remembered that, but I didn't. She had lighted +the company lamp on purpose, too, because it was my last night. I liked +it better than the tallow candle. + +So I came in, stamping off the snow, and they were all in there about +the fire,--the twins, and Mary Ann, and the rest; baby was sick, and +Nancy was walking back and forth with him, with little Nancy pulling at +her gown. You were the baby then, I believe, Johnny; but there always +was a baby, and I don't rightly remember. The room was so black with +smoke, that they all looked as if they were swimming round and round in +it. I guess coming in from the cold, and the pain in my finger and all, +it made me a bit sick. At any rate, I threw open the window and blew out +the light, as mad as a hornet. + +"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have +known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There, now! +I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the +oil." + +"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft, too. +"Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking, +but I never knew a thing about it; he's been fretting and taking on so +the last hour, I didn't notice anyway." + +"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever. +"You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about +me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in." + +Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good +deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more +than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking +like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals. + +That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as +saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the +baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't +ending; and folks can look things that they don't say. + +We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles, there were some +fritters--I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters--smoking hot +off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny +tea-cups; I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night, +but I never had a word to say, and Nancy crumbed up the children's +bread with a jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter; it seemed as if +they would blaze right up,--I couldn't help looking at them, for all I +pretended not to, for she looked just like a picture. Some women always +are pretty when they are put out,--and then again, some ain't; it +appears to me there's a great difference in women, very much as there is +in hens; now, there was your aunt Deborah,--but there, I won't get on +that track now, only so far as to say that when she was flustered up she +used to go red all over, something like a piny, which didn't seem to +have just the same effect. + +That supper was a very dreary sort of supper, with the baby crying, and +Nancy getting up between the mouthfuls to walk up and down the room with +him; he was a heavy little chap for a ten-month-old, and I think she +must have been tuckered out with him all day. I didn't think about it +then; a man doesn't notice such things when he's angry,--it isn't in +him. I can't say but _she_ would if I'd been in her place. I just eat up +the fritters and the maple molasses,--seems to me I told her she ought +not to use the best chiny cup, but I'm not just sure,--and then I took +my pipe, and sat down in the corner. + +I watched her putting the children to bed; they made her a great deal of +bother, squirming off of her lap and running round barefoot. Sometimes I +used to hold them and talk to them and help her a bit, when I felt +good-natured, but I just sat and smoked, and let them alone. I was all +worked up about that lamp-wick, and I thought, you see, if she hadn't +had any feelings for me there was no need of my having any for her--if +she had cut the wick, I'd have taken the babies; she hadn't cut the +wick, and I wouldn't take the babies; she might see it if she wanted to, +and think what she pleased. I had been badly treated, and I meant to +show it. + +It is strange, Johnny, it really does seem to me very strange, how easy +it is in this world to be always taking care of our _rights._ I've +thought a great deal about it since I've been growing old, and there +seems to me a good many things we'd better look after fust. + +But you see I hadn't found that out in '41, and so I sat in the corner, +and felt very much abused. I can't say but what Nancy had pretty much +the same idea; for when the young ones were all in bed at last, she took +her knitting and sat down the other side of the fire, sort of turning +her head round and looking up at the ceiling, as if she were trying her +best to forget I was there. That was a way she had when I was courting, +and we went along to huskings together, with the moon shining round. + +Well, I kept on smoking, and she kept on looking at the ceiling, and +nobody said a word for a while, till by and by the fire burnt down, and +she got up and put on a fresh log. + +"You're dreadful wasteful with the wood, Nancy," says I, bound to say +something cross? and that was all I could think of. + +"Take care of your own fire, then," says she, throwing the log down and +standing up as straight as she could stand. "I think it's a pity if you +haven't anything better to do, the last night before going in, than to +pick everything I do to pieces this way, and I tired enough to drop, +carrying that great crying child in my arms all day. You ought to be +ashamed of yourself, Aaron Hollis!" + +Now if she had cried a little, very like I should have given up, and +that would have been the end of it, for I never could bear to see a +woman cry; it goes against the grain. But your mother wasn't one of the +crying sort, and she didn't feel like it that night. + +She just stood up there by the fireplace, as proud as Queen Victory,--I +don't blame her, Johnny,--O no, I don't blame her; she had the right of +it there, I _ought_ to have been ashamed of myself; but a man never +likes to hear that from other folks, and I put my pipe down on the +chimney-shelf so hard I heard it snap like ice, and I stood up too, and +said--but no matter what I said, I guess. A man's quarrels with his wife +always make me think of what the Scripture says about other folks not +intermeddling. They're things, in my opinion, that don't concern anybody +else as a general thing, and I couldn't tell what I said without telling +what she said, and I'd rather not do that. Your mother was as good and +patient-tempered a woman as ever lived, Johnny, and she didn't mean it, +and it was I that set her on. Besides, my words were worst of the two. + +Well, well, I'll hurry along just here, for it's not a time I like to +think about; but we had it back and forth there for half an hour, till +we had angered each other up so I couldn't stand it, and I lifted up my +hand,--I would have struck her if she hadn't been a woman. + +"Well," says I, "Nancy Hollis, I'm sorry for the day I married you, and +that's the truth, if ever I spoke a true word in my life!" + +I wouldn't have told you that now if you could understand the rest +without. I'd give the world, Johnny,--I'd give the world and all those +coupon bonds Jedediah invested for me if I could anyway forget it; but I +said it, and I can't. + +Well, I've seen your mother look 'most all sorts of ways in the course +of her life, but I never saw her before, and I never saw her since, look +as she looked that minute. All the blaze went out in her cheeks, as if +somebody had thrown cold water on it, and she stood there stock still, +so white I thought she would drop. + +"Aaron--" she began, and stopped to catch her breath,--"Aaron--" but she +couldn't get any further; she just caught hold of a little shawl she had +on with both her hands, as if she thought she could hold herself up by +it, and walked right out of the room. I knew she had gone to bed, for I +heard her go up and shut the door. I stood there a few minutes with my +hands in my pockets, whistling Yankee Doodle. Your mother used to say +men were queer folks, Johnny; they always whistled up the gayest when +they felt the wust. Then I went to the closet and got another pipe, and +I didn't go upstairs till it was smoked out. + +When I was a young man, Johnny, I used to be that sort of fellow that +couldn't bear to give up beat. I'd acted like a brute, and I knew it, +but I was too spunky to say so. So I says to myself, "If she won't make +up first, I won't, and that's the end on't." Very likely she said the +same thing, for your mother was a spirited sort of woman when her temper +_was_ up; so there we were, more like enemies sworn against each other +than man and wife who had loved each other true for fifteen years,--a +whole winter, and danger, and death perhaps, coming between us, too. + +It may seem very queer to you, Johnny,--it did to me when I was your +age, and didn't know any more than you do,--how folks can work +themselves up into great quarrels out of such little things; but they +do, and into worse, if it's a man who likes his own way, and a woman +that knows how to talk. It's my opinion, two thirds of all the divorce +cases in the law-books just grow up out of things no bigger than that +lamp-wick. + +But how people that ever loved each other could come to hard words like +that, you don't see? Well, ha, ha! Johnny, that amuses me, that really +does amuse me, for I never saw a young man nor a young woman +either,--and young men and young women in general are very much like +fresh-hatched chickens, to my mind, and know just about as much of the +world, Johnny,--well, I never saw one yet who didn't say that very +thing. And what's more, I never saw one who could get it into his head +that old folks knew better. + +But I say I had loved your mother true, Johnny, and she had loved me +true, for more than fifteen years; and I loved her more the fifteenth +year than I did the first, and we couldn't have got along without each +other, any more than you could get along if somebody cut your heart +right out. We had laughed together and cried together; we had been sick, +and we'd been well together; we'd had our hard times and our pleasant +times right along, side by side; we'd baptized the babies, and we'd +buried 'm, holding on to each other's hand; we had grown along year +after year, through ups and downs and downs and ups, just like one +person, and there wasn't any more dividing of us. But for all that we'd +been put out, and we'd had our two ways, and we had spoken our sharp +words like any other two folks, and this wasn't our first quarrel by any +means. + +I tell you, Johnny, young folks they start in life with very pretty +ideas,--very pretty. But take it as a general thing, they don't know any +more what they're talking about than they do about each other, and they +don't know any more about each other than they do about the man in the +moon. They begin very nice, with their new carpets and teaspoons, and a +little mending to do, and coming home early evenings to talk; but by and +by the shine wears off. Then come the babies, and worry and wear and +temper. About that time they begin to be a little acquainted, and to +find out that there are two wills and two sets of habits to be fitted +somehow. It takes them anywhere along from one year to three to get +jostled down together. As for smoothing off, there's more or less of +that to be done always. + +Well, I didn't sleep very well that night, dropping into naps and waking +up. The baby was worrying over his teeth every half-hour, and Nancy +getting up to walk him off to sleep in her arms,--it was the only way +you _would_ be hushed up, and you'd lie and yell till somebody did it. + +Now, it wasn't many times since we'd been married that I had let her do +that thing all night long. I used to have a way of getting up to take my +turn, and sending her off to sleep. It isn't a man's business, some +folks say. I don't know anything about that; maybe, if I'd been broiling +my brain in book learning all day till come night, and I was hard put to +it to get my sleep anyhow, like the parson there, it wouldn't; but all +I know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since +morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need +nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just +as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great +stout fellow,--there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my +muscle,--and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that +may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so I lay with +my eyes shut, and pretended that I was asleep; for I didn't feel like +giving in, and speaking up gentle, not about that nor anything else. + +I could see her though, between my eyelashes, and I lay there, every +time I woke up, and watched her walking back and forth, back and forth, +up and down, with the heavy little fellow in her arms, all night long. + +Sometimes, Johnny, when I'm gone to bed now of a winter night, I think I +see her in her white nightgown with her red-plaid shawl pinned over her +shoulders and over the baby, walking up and down, and up and down. I +shut my eyes, but there she is, and I open them again, but I see her all +the same. + +I was off very early in the morning; I don't think it could have been +much after three o'clock when I woke up. Nancy had my breakfast all laid +out overnight, except the coffee, and we had fixed it that I was to make +up the fire, and get off without waking her, if the baby was very bad. +At least, that was the way I wanted it; but she stuck to it she should +be up,--that was before there'd been any words between us. + +The room was very gray and still,--I remember just how it looked, with +Nancy's clothes on a chair, and the baby's shoes lying round. She had +got him off to sleep in his cradle, and had dropped into a nap, poor +thing! with her face as white as the sheet, from watching. + +I stopped when I was dressed, half-way out of the room, and looked round +at it,--it was so white, Johnny! It would be a long time before I should +see it again,--five months were a long time; then there was the risk, +coming down in the freshets, and the words I'd said last night. I +thought, you see, if I should kiss it once,--I needn't wake her +up,--maybe I should go off feeling better. So I stood there looking: she +was lying so still, I couldn't see any more stir to her than if she had +her breath held in. I wish I had done it, Johnny,--I can't get over +wishing I'd done it, yet. But I was just too proud, and I turned round +and went out, and shut the door. + +We were going to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and +I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I +remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up +at the stars,--the sun was putting them out pretty fast,--and trying not +to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of anything else. + +It was so early, that there wasn't many folks about to see us off; but +Bob Stokes's wife,--she lived nigh the office, just across the +road,--she was there to say good-by, kissing of him, and crying on his +shoulder. I don't know what difference that should make with Bob Stokes, +but I snapped him up well, when he came along, and said good morning. + +There were twenty-one of us just, on that gang, in on contract for Dove +and Beadle. Dove and Beadle did about the heaviest thing on woodland of +anybody, about that time. Good, steady men we were, most of us,--none of +your blundering Irish, that wouldn't know a maple from a hickory, with +their gin-bottles in their pockets,--but our solid, Down-East Yankee +heads, owning their farms all along the river, with schooling enough to +know what they were about 'lection day. You didn't catch any of _us_ +voting your new-fangled tickets when he had meant to go up on Whig, for +want of knowing the difference, nor visa vussy. To say nothing of Bob +Stokes, and Holt, and me, and another fellow,--I forget his name,--being +members in good and reg'lar standing, and paying in our five dollars to +the parson every quarter, charitable. + +Yes, though I say it that shouldn't say it, we were as fine a looking +gang as any in the county, starting off that morning in our red +uniform,--Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout, +for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a stitch +for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing till they +were out of sight of town, and waving their caps at their wives and +babies standing in the window along on the way. I didn't sing. I thought +the wind blew too hard,--seems to me that was the reason,--I'm sure +there must have been a reason, for I had a voice of my own in those +days, and had led the choir perpetual for five years. + +We weren't going in very deep; Dove and Beadle's lots lay about thirty +miles from the nearest house; and a straggling, lonely sort of place +that was too, five miles out of the village, with nobody but a dog and a +deaf old woman in it. Sometimes, as I was telling you, we had been in a +hundred miles from any human creature but ourselves. + +It took us two days to get there though, with the oxen; and the teams +were loaded down well, with so many axes and the pork-barrels;--I don't +know anything like pork for hefting down more than you expect it to, +reasonable. It was one of your ugly gray days, growing dark at four +o'clock, with snow in the air, when we hauled up in the lonely place. +The trees were blazed pretty thick, I remember, especially the pines; +Dove and Beadle always had that done up prompt in October. It's pretty +work going in blazing while the sun is warm, and the woods like a great +bonfire with the maples. I used to like it, but your mother wouldn't +hear of it when she could help herself, it kept me away so long. + +It's queer, Johnny, how we do remember things that ain't of no account; +but I remember, as plainly as if it were yesterday morning, just how +everything looked that night, when the teams came up, one by one, and we +went to work spry to get to rights before the sun went down. + +There were three shanties,--they don't often have more than two or three +in one place,--they were empty, and the snow had drifted in; Bob +Stokes's oxen were fagged out with their heads hanging down, and the +horses were whinnying for their supper. Holt had one of his great +brush-fires going,--there was nobody like Holt for making fires,--and +the boys were hurrying round in their red shirts, shouting at the oxen, +and singing a little, some of them low, under their breath, to keep +their spirits up. There was snow as far as you could see,--down the +cart-path, and all around, and away into the woods; and there was snow +in the sky now, setting in for a regular nor'easter. The trees stood up +straight all around without any leaves, and under the bushes it was as +black as pitch. + +"Five months," said I to myself,--"five months!" + +"What in time's the matter with you, Hollis?" says Bob Stokes, with a +great slap on my arm; "you're giving that 'ere ox molasses on his hay!" + +Sure enough I was, and he said I acted like a dazed creatur, and very +likely I did. But I couldn't have told Bob the reason. You see, I knew +Nancy was just drawing up her little rocking-chair--the one with the red +cushion--close by the fire, sitting there with the children to wait for +the tea to boil. And I knew--I couldn't help knowing, if I'd tried hard +for it--how she was crying away softly in the dark, so that none of +them could see her, to think of the words we'd said, and I gone in +without ever making of them up. I was sorry for them then. O Johnny, I +was sorry, and she was thirty miles away. I'd got to be sorry five +months, thirty miles away, and couldn't let her know. + +The boys said I was poor company that first week, and I shouldn't wonder +if I was. I couldn't seem to get over it any way, to think I couldn't +let her know. + +If I could have sent her a scrap of a letter, or a message, or +something, I should have felt better. But there wasn't any chance of +that this long time, unless we got out of pork or fodder, and had to +send down,--which we didn't expect to, for we'd laid in more than usual. + +We had two pretty rough weeks' work to begin with, for the worst storms +of the season set in, and kept in, and I never saw their like, before or +since. It seemed as if there'd never be an end to them. Storm after +storm, blow after blow, freeze after freeze; half a day's sunshine, and +then at it again! We were well tired of it before they stopped; it made +the boys homesick. + +However, we kept at work pretty brisk,--lumber-men aren't the fellows to +be put out for a snow-storm,--cutting and hauling and sawing, out in +the sleet and wind. Bob Stokes froze his left foot that second week, and +I was frost-bitten pretty badly myself. Cullen--he was the boss--he was +well out of sorts, I tell you, before the sun came out, and cross enough +to bite a tenpenny nail in two. + +But when the sun _is_ out, it isn't so bad a kind of life, after all. At +work all day, with a good hot dinner in the middle; then back to the +shanties at dark, to as rousing a fire and tiptop swagan as anybody +could ask for. Holt was cook that season, and Holt couldn't be beaten on +his swagan. + +Now you don't mean to say you don't know what swagan is? Well, well! To +think of it! All I have to say is, you don't know what's good then. +Beans and pork and bread and molasses,--that's swagan,--all stirred up +in a great kettle, and boiled together; and I don't know anything--not +even your mother's fritters--I'd give more for a taste of now. We just +about lived on that; there's nothing you can cut and haul all day on +like swagan. Besides that, we used to have doughnuts,--you don't know +what doughnuts are here in Massachusetts; as big as a dinner-plate those +doughnuts were, and--well, a little hard, perhaps. They used to have it +about in Bangor that we used them for clock pendulums, but I don't know +about that. + +I used to think a great deal about Nancy nights, when we were sitting up +by the fire,--we had our fire right in the middle of the hut, you know, +with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. When supper was eaten, the +boys all sat up around it, and told stories, and sang, and cracked their +jokes; then they had their backgammon and cards; we got sleepy early, +along about nine or ten o'clock, and turned in under the roof with our +blankets. The roof sloped down, you know, to the ground; so we lay with +our heads in under the little eaves, and our feet to the fire,--ten or +twelve of us to a shanty, all round in a row. They built the huts up +like a baby's cob-house, with the logs fitted in together. I used to +think a great deal about your mother, as I was saying; sometimes I would +lie awake when the rest were off as sound as a top, and think about her. +Maybe it was foolish, and I'm sure I wouldn't have told anybody of it; +but I couldn't get rid of the notion that something might happen to her +or to me before five months were out, and I with those words unforgiven. + +Then, perhaps, when I went to sleep, I would dream about her, walking +back and forth, up and down, in her nightgown and little red shawl, with +the great heavy baby in her arms. + +So it went along till come the last of January, when one day I saw the +boys all standing round in a heap, and talking. + +"What's the matter?" says I. + +"Pork's given out," says Bob, with a whistle. "Beadle got that last lot +from Jenkins there, his son-in-law, and it's sp'ilt. I could have told +him that beforehand. Never knew Jenkins to do the fair thing by anybody +yet." + +"Who's going down?" said I, stopping short. I felt the blood run all +over my face, like a woman's. + +"Cullen hasn't made up his mind yet," says Bob, walking off. + +Now you see there wasn't a man on the ground who wouldn't jump at the +chance to go; it broke up the winter for them, and sometimes they could +run in home for half an hour, driving by; so there wasn't much of a hope +for me. But I went straight to Mr. Cullen. + +"Too late! Just promised Jim Jacobs," said he, speaking up quick; it was +just business to him, you know. + +I turned off, and I didn't say a word. I wouldn't have believed it, I +never would have believed it, that I could have felt so cut up about +such a little thing. Cullen looked round at me sharp. + +"Hilloa, Hollis!" said he. "What's to pay?" + +"Nothing, thank you, sir," says I, and walked off, whistling. + +I had a little talk with Jim alone. He said he would take good care of +anything I'd give him, and carry it straight. So when night came I went +and borrowed Mr. Cullen's pencil, and Holt tore me off a bit of clean +brown paper he found in the flour-barrel, and I went off among the trees +with it alone. I built a little fire for myself out of a +huckleberry-bush, and sat down there on the snow to write. I couldn't do +it in the shanty, with the noise and singing. The little brown paper +wouldn't hold much; but these were the words I wrote,--I remember every +one of them,--it is curious now I should, and that more than twenty +years ago:-- + +"Dear Nancy,"--that was it,--"Dear Nancy, I can't get over it, and I +take them all back. And if anything happens coming down on the logs--" + +I couldn't finish that anyhow, so I just wrote "Aaron" down in the +corner, and folded the brown paper up. It didn't look any more like +"Aaron" than it did like "Abimelech," though; for I didn't see a single +letter I wrote,--not one. + +After that I went to bed, and wished I was Jim Jacobs. + +Next morning somebody woke me up with a push, and there was the boss. + +"Why, Mr. Cullen!" says I, with a jump. + +"Hurry up, man, and eat your breakfast," said he; "Jacobs is down sick +with his cold." + +"_Oh!_" said I. + +"You and the pork must be back here day after to-morrow,--so be spry," +said he. + +I rather think I was, Johnny. + +It was just eight o'clock when I started; it took some time to get +breakfast, and feed the nags, and get orders. I stood there, slapping +the snow with my whip, crazy to be off, hearing the last of what Mr. +Cullen had to say. + +They gave me the two horses,--we hadn't but two,--oxen are tougher for +going in, as a general thing,--and the lightest team on the ground; it +was considerably lighter than Bob Stokes's. If it hadn't been for the +snow, I might have put the thing through in two days, but the snow was +up to the creatures' knees in the shady places all along; off from the +road, in among the gullies, you could stick a four-foot measure down +anywhere. So they didn't look for me back before Wednesday night. + +"I must have that pork Wednesday night sure," says Cullen. + +"Well, sir," says I, "you shall have it Wednesday noon, Providence +permitting; and you shall have it Wednesday night anyway." + +"You will have a storm to do it in, I'm afraid," said he, looking at the +clouds, just as I was whipping up. "You're all right on the road, I +suppose?" + +"All right," said I; and I'm sure I ought to have been, for the times +I'd been over it. + +Bess and Beauty--they were the horses, and of all the ugly nags that +ever I saw Beauty was the ugliest--started off on a round trot, slewing +along down the hill; they knew they were going home just as well as I +did. I looked back, as we turned the corner, to see the boys standing +round in their red shirts, with the snow behind them, and the fire and +the shanties. I felt a mite lonely when I couldn't see them any more; +the snow was so dead still, and there were thirty miles of it to cross +before I could see human face again. + +The clouds had an ugly look,--a few flakes had fallen already,--and the +snow was purple, deep in as far as you could see under the trees. +Something made me think of Ben Gurnell, as I drove on, looking along +down the road to keep it straight. You never heard about it? Poor Ben! +Poor Ben! It was in '37, that was; he had been out hunting up blazed +trees, they said, and wandered away somehow into the Gray Goth, and went +over,--it was two hundred feet; they didn't find him, not till +spring,--just a little heap of bones; his wife had them taken home and +buried, and by and by they had to take her away to a hospital in +Portland,--she talked so horribly, and thought she saw bones round +everywhere. + +There is no place like the woods for bringing a storm down on you quick; +the trees are so thick you don't mind the first few flakes, till, first +you know, there's a whirl of 'em, and the wind is up. + +I was minding less about it than usual, for I was thinking of +Nannie,--that's what I used to call her, Johnny, when she was a girl, +but it seems a long time ago, that does. I was thinking how surprised +she'd be, and pleased. I knew she would be pleased. I didn't think so +poorly of her as to suppose she wasn't just as sorry now as I was for +what had happened. I knew well enough how she would jump and throw down +her sewing with a little scream, and run and put her arms about my neck +and cry, and couldn't help herself. + +So I didn't mind about the snow, for planning it all out, till all at +once I looked up, and something slashed into my eyes and stung me,--it +was sleet. + +"Oho!" said I to myself, with a whistle,--it was a very long whistle, +Johnny; I knew well enough then it was no play-work I had before me till +the sun went down, nor till morning either. + +That was about noon,--it couldn't have been half an hour since I'd eaten +my dinner; I eat it driving, for I couldn't bear to waste time. + +The road wasn't broken there an inch, and the trees were thin; there'd +been a clearing there years ago, and wide, white, level places wound off +among the trees; one looked as much like a road as another, for the +matter of that. I pulled my visor down over my eyes to keep the sleet +out,--after they're stung too much they're good for nothing to see with, +and I _must_ see, if I meant to keep that road. + +It began to be cold. You don't know what it is to be cold, you don't, +Johnny, in the warm gentleman's life you've lived. I was used to Maine +forests, and I was used to January, but that was what I call cold. + +The wind blew from the ocean, straight as an arrow. The sleet blew every +way,--into your eyes, down your neck, in like a knife into your cheeks. +I could feel the snow crunching in under the runners, crisp, turned to +ice in a minute. I reached out to give Bess a cut on the neck, and the +sleeve of my coat was stiff as pasteboard before I bent my elbow up +again. + +If you looked up at the sky, your eyes were shut with a snap as if +somebody'd shot them. If you looked in under the trees, you could see +the icicles a minute, and the purple shadows. If you looked straight +ahead, you couldn't see a thing. + +By and by I thought I had dropped the reins, I looked at my hands, and +there I was holding them tight. I knew then that it was time to get out +and walk. + +I didn't try much after that to look ahead; it was of no use, for the +sleet was fine, like needles, twenty of 'em in your eye at a wink; then +it was growing dark. Bess and Beauty knew the road as well as I did, so +I had to trust to them. I thought I must be coming near the clearing +where I'd counted on putting up overnight, in case I couldn't reach the +deaf old woman's. + +There was a man just out of Bangor the winter before, walking just so +beside his team, and he kept on walking, some folks said, after the +breath was gone, and they found him frozen up against the sleigh-poles. +I would have given a good deal if I needn't have thought of that just +then. But I did, and I kept walking on. + +Pretty soon Bess stopped short. Beauty was pulling on,--Beauty always +did pull on,--but she stopped too. I couldn't stop so easily, so I +walked along like a machine, up on a line with the creaturs' ears. I +_did_ stop then, or you never would have heard this story, Johnny. + +Two paces,--and those two hundred feet shot down like a plummet. A great +cloud of snow-flakes puffed up over the edge. There were rocks at my +right hand, and rocks at my left. There was the sky overhead. I was in +the Gray Goth! + +I sat down as weak as a baby. If I didn't think of Ben Gurnell then, I +never thought of him. It roused me up a bit, perhaps, for I had the +sense left to know that I couldn't afford to sit down just yet, and I +remembered a shanty that I must have passed without seeing; it was just +at the opening of the place where the rocks narrowed, built, as they +build their light-houses, to warn folks to one side. There was a log or +something put up after Gurnell went over, but it was of no account, +coming on it suddenly. There was no going any farther that night, that +was clear; so I put about into the hut, and got my fire going, and Bess +and Beauty and I, we slept together. + +It was an outlandish name to give it, seems to me, anyway. I don't know +what a Goth is, Johnny; maybe you do. There was a great figger up on the +rock, about eight feet high; some folks thought it looked like a man. I +never thought so before, but that night it did kind of stare in through +the door as natural as life. + +When I woke up in the morning I thought I was on fire. I stirred and +turned over, and I was ice. My tongue was swollen up so I couldn't +swallow without strangling. I crawled up to my feet, and every bone in +me was stiff as a shingle. + +Bess was looking hard at me, whinnying for her breakfast. "Bess," says +I, very slow, "we must get home--to-night--_any_--how." + +I pushed open the door. It creaked out into a great drift, and slammed +back. I squeezed through and limped out. The shanty stood up a little, +in the highest part of the Goth. I went down a little,--I went as far as +I could go. There was a pole lying there, blown down in the night; it +came about up to my head. I sunk it into the snow, and drew it up. + +Just six feet. + +I went back to Bess and Beauty, and I shut the door. I told them I +couldn't help it,--something ailed my arms,--I couldn't shovel them out +to-day. I must lie down and wait till to-morrow. + +I waited till to-morrow. It snowed all day, and it snowed all night. It +was snowing when I pushed the door out again into the drift. I went back +and lay down. I didn't seem to care. + +The third day the sun came out, and I thought about Nannie. I was going +to surprise her. She would jump up and run and put her arms about my +neck. I took the shovel, and crawled out on my hands and knees. I dug +it down, and fell over on it like a baby. + +After that, I understood. I'd never had a fever in my life, and it's not +strange that I shouldn't have known before. + +It came all over me in a minute, I think. I couldn't shovel through. +Nobody could hear. I might call, and I might shout. By and by the fire +would go out. Nancy would not come. Nancy did not know. Nancy and I +should never kiss and make up now. + +I struck my arm out into the air, and shouted out her name, and yelled +it out. Then I crawled out once more into the drift. + +I tell you, Johnny, I was a stout-hearted man, who'd never known a fear. +I could freeze. I could burn up there alone in the horrid place with +fever. I could starve. It wasn't death nor awfulness I couldn't +face,--not that, not _that_; but I loved her true, I say,--I loved her +true, and I'd spoken my last words to her, my very last; I had left her +_those_ to remember, day in and day out, and year upon year, as long as +she remembered her husband, as long as she remembered anything. + +I think I must have gone pretty nearly mad with the fever and the +thinking. I fell down there like a log, and lay groaning. "God Almighty! +God Almighty!" over and over, not knowing what it was that I was saying, +till the words strangled in my throat. + +Next day, I was too weak so much as to push open the door. I crawled +around the hut on my knees with my hands up over my head, shouting out +as I did before, and fell, a helpless heap, into the corner; after that +I never stirred. + +How many days had gone, or how many nights, I had no more notion than +the dead. I knew afterwards; when I knew how they waited and expected +and talked and grew anxious, and sent down home to see if I was there, +and how she--But no matter, no matter about that. + +I used to scoop up a little snow when I woke up from the stupors. The +bread was the other side of the fire; I couldn't reach round. Beauty eat +it up one day; I saw her. Then the wood was used up. I clawed out chips +with my nails from the old rotten logs the shanty was made of, and kept +up a little blaze. By and by I couldn't pull any more. Then there were +only some coals,--then a little spark. I blew at that spark a long +while,--I hadn't much breath. One night it went out, and the wind blew +in. One day I opened my eyes, and Bess had fallen down in the corner, +dead and stiff. Beauty had pushed out of the door somehow and gone. I +shut up my eyes. I don't think I cared about seeing Bess,--I can't +remember very well. + +Sometimes I thought Nancy was there in the plaid shawl, walking round +the ashes where the spark went out. Then again I thought Mary Ann was +there, and Isaac, and the baby. But they never were. I used to wonder +if I wasn't dead, and hadn't made a mistake about the place that I was +going to. + +One day there was a noise. I had heard a great many noises, so I didn't +take much notice. It came up crunching on the snow, and I didn't know +but it was Gabriel or somebody with his chariot. Then I thought more +likely it was a wolf. + +Pretty soon I looked up, and the door was open; some men were coming in, +and a woman. She was ahead of them all, she was; she came in with a +great spring, and had my head against her neck, and her arm holding me +up, and her cheek down to mine, with her dear, sweet, warm breath all +over me; and that was all I knew. + +Well, there was brandy, and there was a fire, and there were blankets, +and there was hot water, and I don't know what; but warmer than all the +rest I felt her breath against my cheek, and her arms about my neck, and +her long hair, which she had wrapped all in, about my hands. + +So by and by my voice came. "Nannie!" said I. + +"O don't!" said she, and first I knew she was crying. + +"But I will," says I, "for I'm sorry." + +"Well, so am I," says she. + +Said I, "I thought I was dead, and hadn't made up, Nannie." + +"O _dear_!" said she; and down fell a great hot splash right on my face. + +Says I, "It was all me, for I ought to have gone back and kissed you." + +"No, it was _me_" said she, "for I wasn't asleep, not any such thing. I +peeked out, this way, through my lashes, to see if you wouldn't come +back. I meant to wake up then. Dear me!" says she, "to think what a +couple of fools we were, now!" + +"Nannie," says I, "you can let the lamp smoke all you want to!" + +"Aaron--" she began, just as she had begun that other night,--"Aaron--" +but she didn't finish, and--Well, well, no matter; I guess you don't +want to hear any more, do you? + +But sometimes I think, Johnny, when it comes my time to go,--if ever it +does,--I've waited a good while for it,--the first thing I shall see +will be her face, looking as it looked at me just then. + + + + +Calico. + + + +It was about time for the four-o'clock train. + +After all, I wonder if it is worth telling,--such a simple, plotless +record of a young girl's life, made up of Mondays and Tuesdays and +Wednesdays, like yours or mine. Sharley was so exactly like other +people! How can it be helped that nothing remarkable happened to her? +But you would like the story? + +It was about time for the four-o'clock train, then. + +Sharley, at the cost of half a sugar-bowl (never mind syntax; you know I +mean the sugar, not the glass), had enticed Moppet to betake himself out +of sight and out of mind till somebody should signify a desire for his +engaging presence; had steered clear of Nate and Methuselah, and was +standing now alone on the back doorsteps opposite the chaise-house. One +could see a variety of things from those doorsteps,--the chaise-house, +for instance, with the old, solid, square-built wagon rolled into it +(Sharley passed many a long "mending morning" stowed in among the +cushions of that old wagon); the great sweet-kept barn, where the sun +stole in warm at the chinks and filtered through the hay; the well-curb +folded in by a shadow; the wood-pile, and the chickens, and the +kitchen-garden; a little slope, too, with a maple on it and shades of +brown and gold upon the grass; brown and golden tints across the hills, +and a sky of blue and gold to dazzle one. Then there was a flock of +robins dipping southward. There was also the railroad. + +Sharley may have had her dim consciousness of the cosey barn and +chicken's chirp, of brown and gold and blue and dazzle and glory; but +you don't suppose _that_ was what she had outgeneralled Moppet and +stolen the march upon Nate and Methuselah for. The truth is, that the +child had need of none of these things--neither skies nor dazzle nor +glory--that golden autumn afternoon. Had the railroad bounded the +universe just then, she would have been content. For Sharley was only a +girl,--a very young, not very happy, little girl,--and Halcombe Dike was +coming home to spend the Sunday. + +Halcombe Dike,--her old friend Halcombe Dike. She said the words over, +apologizing a bit to herself for being there to watch that railroad. Hal +used to be good to her when she was bothered with the children and more +than half tired of life. "Keep up good courage, Sharley," he would say. +For the long summer he had not been here to say it. And to-night he +would be here. To-night--to-night! Why should not one be glad when one's +old friends come back? + +Mrs. Guest, peering through the pantry window, observed--and observed +with some motherly displeasure, which she would have expressed had it +not been too much trouble to open the window--that Sharley had put on +her barbe,--that black barbe with the pink watered ribbons run through +it. So extravagant in Sharley! Sharley would fain have been so +extravagant as to put on her pink muslin too this afternoon; she had +been more than half inclined to cry because she could not; but as it was +not orthodox in Green Valley to wear one's "best clothes" on week-days, +except at picnics or prayer-meetings, she had submitted, sighing, to her +sprigged calico. It would have been worth while, though, to have seen +her half an hour ago up in her room under the eaves, considering the +question; she standing there with the sleeves of her dressing-sack +fallen away from her pink, bare arms, and the hair clinging loose and +moist to her bare white neck; to see her smooth the shimmering +folds,--there were rose-buds on that muslin,--and look and long, hang it +up, and turn away. Why could there not be a little more rose-bud and +shimmer in people's lives! "Seems to me it's all calico!" cried Sharley. + +Then to see her overturning her ribbon-box! Nobody but a girl knows how +girls dream over their ribbons. + +"He is coming!" whispered Sharley to the little bright barbe, and to the +little bright face that flushed and fluttered at her in the glass,--"He +is coming!" + +Sharley looked well, waiting there in the calico and lace upon the +doorstep. It is not everybody who would look well in calico and lace; +yet if you were to ask me, I could not tell you how pretty Sharley is, +or if she is pretty at all. I have a memory of soft hair--brown, I +think--and wistful eyes; and that I never saw her without a desire to +stroke her, and make her pur as I would a kitten. + +How stiff and stark and black the railroad lay on its yellow ridge! +Sharley drew her breath when the sudden four-o'clock whistle smote the +air, and a faint, far trail of smoke puffed through the woods, and wound +over the barren outline. + +Her mother, seeing her steal away through the kitchen-garden, and down +the slope, called after her:-- + +"Charlotte! going to walk? I wish you'd let the baby go too. Well, she +doesn't hear!" + +I will not assert that Sharley did not hear. To be frank, she was rather +tired of that baby. + +There was a foot-path through the brown and golden grass, and Sharley +ran over it, under the maple, which was dropping yellow leaves, and down +to the knot of trees which lined the farther walls. There was a nook +here--she knew just where--into which one might creep, tangled in with +the low-hanging green of apple and spruce, and wound about with +grape-vines. Stooping down, careful not to catch that barbe upon the +brambles, and careful not to soil so much as a sprig of the clean light +calico, Sharley hid herself in the shadow. She could see unseen now the +great puffs of purple smoke, the burning line of sandy bank, the +station, and the uphill road to the village. Oddly enough, some old +Scripture words--Sharley was not much in the habit of quoting +Scripture--came into her thoughts just as she had curled herself +comfortably up beside the wall, her watching face against the +grape-leaves: "But what went ye out for to see?" "What went ye out for +to see?" She went on, dreamily finishing, "A prophet? Yea, I say unto +you, and more than a prophet," and stopped, scarlet. What had prophets +to do with her old friend Halcombe Dike? + +Ah, but he was coming! he was coming! To Sharley's eyes the laboring, +crazy locomotive which puffed him asthmatically up to the little depot +was a benevolent dragon,--if there were such things as benevolent +dragons,--very horrible, and she was very much afraid of it; but very +gracious, and she should like to go out and pat it on the shoulder. + +The train slackened, jarred, and stopped. An old woman with thirteen +bundles climbed out laboriously. Two small boys turned somersaults from +the platform. Sharley strained her wistful eyes till they ached. There +was nobody else. Sharley was very young, and very much disappointed, and +she cried. The glory had died from the skies. The world had gone out. + +She was sitting there all in a heap, her face in her hands, and her +heart in her foolish eyes, when a step sounded near, and a voice humming +an old army song. She knew it; he had taught it to her himself. She knew +the step; for she had long ago trained her slippered feet to keep pace +with it. He had stepped from the wrong side of the car, perhaps, or her +eager eyes had missed him; at any rate here he was,--a young man, with +honest eyes, and mouth a little grave; a very plainly dressed young +man,--his coat was not as new as Sharley's calico,--but a young man with +a good step of his own,--strong, elastic,--and a nervous hand. + +He passed, humming his army song, and never knew how the world lighted +up again within a foot of him. He passed so near that Sharley by +stretching out her hand could have touched him,--so near that she could +hear the breath he drew. He was thinking to himself, perhaps, that no +one had come from home to meet him, and he had been long away; but then, +it was not his mother's fashion of welcome, and quickening his pace at +the thought of her, he left the tangle of green behind, and the little +wet face crushed breathless up against the grape-leaves, and was out of +sight and knew nothing. + +Sharley sprang up and bounded home. Her mother opened her languid eyes +wide when the child came in. + +"Dear me, Charlotte, how you do go chirping and hopping round, and me +with this great baby and my sick-headache! _I_ can't chirp and hop. You +look as if somebody'd set you on fire! What's the matter with you, +child?" + +What was the matter, indeed! Sharley, in a little spasm of +penitence,--one can afford to be penitent when one is happy,--took the +baby and went away to think about it. Surely he would come to see her +to-night; he did not often come home without seeing Sharley; and he had +been long away. At any rate he was here; in this very Green Valley where +the days had dragged so drearily without him; his eyes saw the same sky +that hers saw; his breath drank the same sweet evening wind; his feet +trod the roads that she had trodden yesterday, and would tread again +to-morrow. But I will not tell them any more of this,--shall I, Sharley? + +She threw her head back and looked up, as she walked to and fro through +the yard with the heavy baby fretting on her shoulder. The skies were +aflame now, for the sun was dropping slowly. "He is here!" they said. A +belated robin took up the word: "He is here!" The yellow maple glittered +all over with it: "Sharley, he is here!" + +"The butter is here," called her mother relevantly from the house. "The +butter is here now, and it's time to see about supper, Charlotte." + +"More calico!" said impatient Sharley, and she gave the baby a jerk. + +Whether he came or whether he did not come, there was no more time for +Sharley to dream that night. In fact, there seldom was any time to dream +in Mrs. Guest's household. Mrs. Guest believed in keeping people busy. +She was busy enough herself when her head did not ache. When it did, it +was the least she could do to see that other people were busy. + +So Sharley had the table to set, and the biscuit to bake, and the tea to +make, and the pears to pick over; she must run upstairs to bring her +mother a handkerchief; she must hurry for her father's clothes-brush +when he came in tired, and not so good-humored as he might be, from his +store; she must stop to rebuild the baby's block-house, that Moppet had +kicked over, and snap Moppet's dirty, dimpled fingers for kicking it +over, and endure the shriek that Moppet set up therefor. She must +suggest to Methuselah that he could find, perhaps, a more suitable +book-mark for Robinson Crusoe than his piece of bread and molasses, and +intimate doubts as to the propriety of Nate's standing on the +table-cloth and sitting on the toast-rack. And then Moppet was at that +baby again, dropping very cold pennies down his neck. They must be made +presentable for supper, too, Moppet and Nate and Methuselah,--Methuselah, +Nate, and Moppet; brushed and washed and dusted and coaxed and scolded +and borne with. There was no end to it. Would there ever be any end to +it? Sharley sometimes asked of her weary thoughts. Sharley's life, like +the lives of most girls at her age, was one great unanswered question. +It grew tiresome occasionally, as monologues are apt to do. + +"I'm going to holler to-night," announced Moppet at supper, pausing in +the midst of his berry-cake, by way of diversion, to lift the cat up by +her tail. "I'm going to holler awful, and make you sit up and tell me +about that little boy that ate the giant, and Cinderella,--how she lived +in the stove-pipe,--and that man that builded his house out of a bungle +of straws: and--well, there's some more, but I don't remember 'em just +now, you know." + +"O Moppet!" + +"I am," glared Moppet over his mug. "You made me put on a clean collar. +You see if I don't holler an' holler an' holler an' keep-a-hollerin'!" + +Sharley's heart sank; but she patiently cleared away her dishes, mixed +her mother's ipecac, read her father his paper, went upstairs with the +children, treated Moppet with respect as to his buttons and boot-lacing, +and tremblingly bided her time. + +"Well," condescended that young gentleman, before his prayers were over, +"I b'lieve--give us our debts--I'll keep that hollerin'--forever 'n +ever--Namen--till to-morrow night. I ain't a--bit--sleepy, but--" And +nobody heard anything more from Moppet. + +The coast was clear now, and happy Sharley, with bright cheeks, took her +little fall hat that she was trimming, and sat down on the front +doorsteps; sat there to wait and watch, and hope and dream and flutter, +and sat in vain. Twilight crept up the path, up to her feet, folded her +in; the warm color of her plaided ribbons faded away under her eyes, and +dropped from her listless fingers; with them had faded her bit of a hope +for that night; Hal always came before dark. + +"Who cares?" said Sharley, with a toss of her soft, brown head. Somebody +did care nevertheless. Somebody winked hard as she went upstairs. + +However, she could light a lamp and finish her hat. That was one +comfort. It always _is_ a comfort to finish one's hat. Girls have +forgotten graver troubles than Sharley's in the excitement of hurried +Saturday-night millinery. + +A bonnet is a picture in its way, and grows up under one's fingers with +a pretty sense of artistic triumph. Besides, there is always the +question: Will it be becoming? So Sharley put her lamp on a cricket, and +herself on the floor, and began to sing over her work. A pretty sight it +was,--the low, dark room with the heavy shadows in its corners; all the +light and color drawn to a focus in the middle of it; Sharley, with her +head bent--bits of silk like broken rainbows tossed about her--and that +little musing smile, considering gravely, Should the white squares of +the plaid turn outward? and where should she put the coral? and would it +be becoming after all? A pretty, girlish sight, and you may laugh at it +if you choose; but there was a prettier woman's tenderness underlying +it, just as a strain of fine, coy sadness will wind through a mazourka +or a waltz. For who would see the poor little hat to-morrow at church? +and would he like it? and when he came to-morrow night,--for of course +he would come to-morrow night,--would he tell her so? + +When everybody else was in bed and the house still, Sharley locked her +door, furtively stole to the bureau-glass, shyly tied on that hat, and +more shyly peeped in. A flutter of October colors and two great brown +eyes looked back at her encouragingly. + +"I should like to be pretty," said Sharley, and asked the next minute to +be forgiven for the vanity. "At any rate," by way of modification, "I +should like to be pretty to-morrow." + +She prayed for Halcombe Dike when she kneeled, with her face hidden in +her white bed, to say "Our Father." I believe she had prayed for him now +every night for a year. Not that there was any need of it, she reasoned, +for was he not a great deal better than she could ever be? Far above +her; oh, as far above her as the shining of the stars was above the +shining of the maple-tree; but perhaps if she prayed very hard they +would give one extra, beautiful angel charge over him. Then, was it not +quite right to pray for one's old friends? Besides--besides, they had a +pleasant sound, those two words: "_Our_ Father." + +"I will be good to-morrow," said Sharley, dropping into sleep. +"Mother's head will ache, and I can go to church. I will listen to the +minister, and I won't plan out my winter dresses in prayer-time. I won't +be cross to Moppet, nor shake Methuselah. I will be good. Hal will help +me to be good. I shall see him in the morning,--in the morning." + +Sharley's self-knowledge, like the rest of her, was in the bud yet. + +Her Sun-day, her one warm, shining day, opened all in a glow. She danced +down stairs at ten o'clock in the new hat, in a haze of merry colors. +She had got breakfast and milked one cow and dressed four boys that +morning, and she felt as if she had earned the right to dance in a haze +of anything. The sunlight quivered in through the blinds. The leaves of +the yellow maple drifted by on the fresh, strong wind. The church-bells +rang out like gold. All the world was happy. + +"Charlotte!" Her mother bustled out of the "keeping-room" with her hat +on. "I've changed my mind, Sharley, and feel so much better I believe I +will go to church. I'll take Methuselah, but Nate and Moppet had better +stay at home with the baby. The last time I took Moppet he fired three +hymn-books at old Mrs. Perkins,--right into the crown of her bonnet, and +in the long prayer, too. That child will be the death of me some day. I +guess you'll get along with him, and the baby isn't quite as cross as he +was yesterday. You'd just as lief go in the afternoon, I suppose? Pin +my shawl on the shoulder, please." + +But Sharley, half-way down the stairs, stood still. She was no saint, +this disappointed little girl. Her face, in the new fall hat, flushed +angrily and her hands dropped. + +"O mother! I did want to go! You're always keeping me at home for +something. I did _want_ to go!"--and rushed up stairs noisily, like a +child, and slammed her door. + +"Dear me!" said her mother, putting on her spectacles to look after +her,--"dear me! what a temper! I'm sure I don't see what difference it +makes to her which half of the day she goes. Last Sunday she must go in +the afternoon, and wouldn't hear of anything else. Well, there's no +accounting for girls! Come, Methuselah." + +_Is_ there not any "accounting for girls," my dear madam? What is the +matter with those mothers, that they cannot see? Just as if it never +made any difference to them which half of the day they went to church! +Well, well! we are doing it, all of us, as fast as we can,--going the +way of all the earth, digging little graves for our young sympathies, +one by one, covering them up close. It grows so long since golden +mornings and pretty new bonnets and the sweet consciousness of watching +eyes bounded life for us! We have dreamed our dreams; we have learned +the long lesson of our days; we are stepping on into the shadows. Our +eyes see that ye see not; our ears hear that which ye have not +considered. We read your melodious story through, but we have read other +stories since, and only its _haec fabula docet_ remains very fresh. You +will be as obtuse as we are some day, young things! It is not neglect; +it is not disapproval,--we simply forget. But from such forgetfulness +may the good Lord graciously deliver us, one and all! + +There! I fancy that I have made for Mrs. Guest--sitting meantime in her +cushioned pew (directly behind Halcombe Dike), and comfortably looking +over the "Watts and Select" with Methuselah--a better defence than ever +she could have made for herself. Between you and me, girls,--though you +need not tell your mother,--I think it is better than she deserves. + +Sharley, upstairs, had slammed her door and locked it, and was pacing +hotly back and forth across her room. Poor Sharley! Sun and moon and +stars were darkened; the clouds had returned after the rain. She tore +off the new hat and Sunday things savagely; put on her old +chocolate-colored morning-dress, with a grim satisfaction in making +herself as ugly as possible; pulled down the ribboned chignon which she +had braided, singing, half an hour ago (her own, that chignon); screwed +her hair under a net into the most unbecoming little pug of which it was +capable, and went drearily down stairs. Nate, enacting the cheerful +drama of "Jeff Davis on a sour apple-tree," hung from the balusters, +purple, gasping, tied to the verge of strangulation by the energetic +Moppet. The baby was calmly sitting in the squash-pies. + +Halcombe Dike, coming home from church that morning a little in advance +of the crowd, saw a "Pre-raphaelite" in the doorway of Mr. Guest's barn, +and quietly unlatching the gate came nearer to examine it. It was worth +examining. There was a ground of great shadows and billowy hay; a pile +of crimson apples struck out by the light through a crack; two children +and a kitten asleep together in a sunbeam; a girl on the floor with a +baby crawling over her; a girl in a chocolate-colored dress with yellow +leaves in her hair,--her hair upon her shoulders, and her eyelashes wet. + +"Well, Sharley!" + +She looked up to see him standing there with his grave, amused smile. +Her first thought was to jump and run; her second, to stand fire. + +"Well, Mr. Halcombe! Moppet's stuck yellow leaves all over me; my hair's +down; I've got on a horrid old morning-dress; look pretty to see +company, don't I?" + +"Very, Sharley." + +"Besides," said Sharley, "I've been crying, and my eyes are red." + +"So I see." + +"No, you don't, for I'm not looking at you." + +"But I am looking at you." + +"Oh!" + +"What were you crying about, Sharley!" + +"Because my grandmother's dead," said Sharley, after some reflection. + +"Ah, yes, I remember! about '36, I think, her tombstone gives as the +date of that sad event?" + +"I think it's wicked in people to laugh at people's dead grandmothers," +said Sharley, severely. "You ought to be at church." + +"So I was." + +"I wasn't; mother wouldn't--" But her lip quivered, and she stopped. The +memory of the new hat and Sunday dress, of the golden church-bells, and +hush of happy Sabbath-morning thoughts came up. That he should see her +now, in this plight, with her swollen eyes and pouting lips, and her +heart full of wicked discontent! + +"Wouldn't what, Sharley?" + +"_Don't!_" she pleaded, with a sob; "I'm cross; I can't talk. Besides, I +shall cry again, and I _won't_ cry again. You may let me alone, or you +may go away. If you don't go away you may just tell me what you have +been doing with yourself this whole long summer. Working hard, of +course. I don't see but that everybody has to work hard in this world! I +hate this world! I suppose you're a rich man by this time?" + +The young man looked at the chocolate dress, the yellow leaves, the +falling hair, and answered gravely,--a little coldly, Sharley +thought,--that his prospects were not encouraging just now. Perhaps they +never had been encouraging; only that he in his young ardor had thought +so. He was older now, and wiser. He understood what a hard pull was +before young architects in America,--any young architect, the best of +young architects,--and whether there was a place for him remained to be +proved. He was willing to work hard, and to hope long; but he grew a +little tired of it sometimes, and so--He checked himself suddenly. "As +if," thought Sharley, "he were tired of talking so long to me! He +thought my question impertinent." She hid her face in her drooping hair, +and wished herself a mile away. + +"There was something you once told me about some sort of buildings?" she +ventured, timidly, in a pause. + +"The Crumpet Buildings. Yes, I sent my proposals, but have not heard +from them yet; I don't know that I ever shall. That is a large affair, +rather. The name of the thing would be worth a good deal to me if I +succeeded. It would give me a start, and--" + +"Ough!" exclaimed Sharley. She had been sitting at his feet, with her +face raised, and red eyes forgotten, when, splash! an icy stream of +water came into her eyes, into her mouth, down her neck, up her sleeves. +She gasped, and stood drenched. + +"O, it's only a rain-storm," said Moppet, appearing on the scene with +his empty dipper. "I got tired of sleeping. I dreamed about three +giants. I didn't like it. I wanted something to do. It's only _my_ +rain-storm, and you needn't mind it, you know." + +Dripping Sharley's poor little temper, never of the strongest, quivered +to its foundations. She took hold of Moppet without any observation, and +shook him just about as hard as she could shake. When she came to her +senses her mother was coming in at the gate, and Halcombe Dike was gone. + + * * * * * + +"I s'pose I've got to 'tend to that hollering to-night," said Moppet, +with a gentle sigh. + +This was at a quarter past seven. Nate and Methuselah were in bed. The +baby was asleep. Moppet had thrown his shoes into the water-pitcher but +twice, and run down stairs in his nightgown only four times that +evening; and Sharley felt encouraged. Perhaps, after all, he would be +still by half past seven; and by half past seven--If Halcombe Dike did +not come to-night, something was the matter. Sharley decided this with a +sharp little nod. + +She had devoted herself to Moppet with politic punctiliousness. Would he +lie at his lazy length, with his feet on her clean petticoat, while she +bent and puzzled over his knotted shoestrings? Very well. Did he signify +a desire to pull her hair down and tickle her till she gasped? She was +at his service. Should he insist upon being lulled to slumber by the +recounted adventures of Old Mother Hubbard, Red Riding-Hood, and Tommy +Tucker? Not those exactly, it being thought proper to keep him in a +theologic mood of mind till after sundown, but he should have David and +Goliath and Moses in the bulrushes with pleasure; then Moses and Goliath +and David again; after that, David and Goliath and Moses, by way of +variety. She conducted every Scriptural dog and horse of her +acquaintance entirely round the globe in a series of somewhat apocryphal +adventures. She ransacked her memory for biblical boys, but these met +with small favor. "Pooh! _they_ weren't any good! They couldn't play +stick-knife and pitch-in. Besides, they all died. Besides, they weren't +any great shakes. Jack the Giant-Killer was worth a dozen of 'em, sir! +Now tell it all over again, or else I won't say my prayers till next +winter!" + +After some delicate plotting, Sharley manoeuvred him through "Now I lay +me," and tucked him up, and undertook a little Sunday-night catechizing, +conscientiously enough. + +"Has Moppet been a good boy to-day?" + +"Well, that's a pretty question! Course I have!" + +"But have you had any good thoughts, dear, you know?" + +"O yes, lots of 'em! been thinking about Blessingham." + +"Who? O, Absalom!" + +"O yes, I've been thinking about Blessingham, you know; how he must have +looked dreadful funny hanging up there onto his hair, with all the darts +'n things stickin' into him! _Would_n't you like to seen him! No, you +needn't go off, 'cause I ain't begun to be asleep yet." + +Time and twilight were creeping on together. Sharley was sure that she +had heard the gate shut, and that some one sat talking with her mother +upon the front doorsteps. + +"O Moppet! _Could_n't you go to sleep without me this one night,--not +this one night?" and the hot, impatient tears came in the dark. + +"O no," said immovable Moppet, "of course I can't; and I 'spect I'm +going to lie awake all night too. You'd ought to be glad to stay with +your little brothers. The girl in my library-book, she was glad, +anyhow." + +Sharley threw herself back in the rocking-chair and let her eyes brim +over. She could hear the voices on the doorsteps plainly; her mother's +wiry tones and the visitor's; it was a man's voice, low and less +frequent. Why did not her mother call her? Had not he asked to see her? +Had he not? Would nobody ever come up to take her place? Would Moppet +never go to sleep? There he was peering at her over the top of the +sheet, with two great, mischievous, wide-awake eyes. And time and +twilight were wearing on. + +Let us talk about "affliction" with our superior, reproving smile! +Graves may close and hearts may break, fortunes, hopes, and souls be +ruined, but Moppet wouldn't go to sleep; and Sharley in her +rocking-chair doubted her mother's love, the use of life, and the +benevolence of God. + +"I'm lying awake to think about Buriah," observed Moppet, pleasantly. +"David wanted to marry Buriah's wife. She was a very nice woman." + +Silence followed this announcement. + +"Sharley? you needn't think I'm asleep,--any such thing. Besides, if you +go down you'd better believe I'll holler! See here: s'pose I'd slung my +dipper at Hal Dike, jest as David slung the stone at Go-li--" + +Another silence. Encouraged, Sharley dried her tears and crept half-way +across the floor. Then a board creaked. + +"O Sharley! Why don't people shut their eyes when they die? Why, Jim +Snow's dorg, he didn't. I punched a frog yesterday. I want a drink of +water." + +Sharley resigned herself in despair to her fate. Moppet lay broad and +bright awake till half past eight. The voices by the door grew silent. +Steps sounded on the walk. The gate shut. + +"That child has kept me up with him the whole evening long," said +Sharley, coming sullenly down. "You didn't even come and speak to him, +mother. I suppose Halcombe Dike never asked for me?" + +"Halcombe Dike! Law! that wasn't Halcombe Dike. It was Deacon Snow,--the +old Deacon,--come in to talk over the revival. Halcombe Dike was at +meeting, your father says, with his cousin Sue. Great interest up his +way, the Deacon says. There's ten had convictions since Conference +night. I wish you were one of the interested, Sharley." + +But Sharley had fled. Fled away into the windy, moonless night, down +through the garden, out into the sloping field. She ran back and forth +through the grass with great leaps, like a wounded thing. All her worry +and waiting and disappointment, and he had not come! All the thrill and +hope of her happy Sunday over and gone, and he had not come! All the +winter to live without one look at him,--and he knew it, and he would +not come! + +"I don't care!" sobbed Sharley, like a defiant child, but threw up her +hands with the worlds and wailed. It frightened her to hear the sound of +her own voice--such a pitiful, shrill voice--in the lonely place. She +broke into her great leaps again, and so ran up and down the slope, and +felt the wind in her face. It drank her breath away from her after a +while; it was a keen, chilly wind. She sat down on a stone in the middle +of the field, and it came over her that it was a cold, dark place to be +in alone; and just then she heard her father calling her from the yard. +So she stood up very slowly and walked back. + +"You'll catch your death!" fretted her mother, "running round bareheaded +in all this damp. You know how much trouble you are when you are sick, +too, and I think you ought to have more consideration for me, with all +my care. Going to bed? Be sure and not forget to put the baby's gingham +apron in the wash." + +Sharley lighted her kerosene lamp without reply. It was the little +kerosene with the crack in the handle. Some vague notion that everything +in the world had cracked came to her as she crept upstairs. She put her +lamp out as soon as she was in her room, and locked her door hard. She +sat down on the side of the bed and crossed her hands, and waited for +her father and mother to come upstairs. They came up by and by and went +to bed. The light that shone in through the chink under the door went +out. The house was still. + +She went over to the window then, threw it wide open, and sat down +crouched upon the broad sill. She did not sob now nor wail out. She did +not feel like sobbing or wailing. She only wanted to think; she must +think, she had need to think. That this neglect of Halcombe Dike's meant +something she did not try to conceal from her bitter thoughts. He had +not neglected her in all his life before. It was not the habit, either, +of this grave young man with the earnest eyes to do or not to do without +a meaning. He would put silence and the winter between them. That was +what he meant. Sharley, looking out upon the windy dark with +straight-lidded eyes, knew that beneath and beyond the silence of the +winter lay the silence of a life. + +The silence of a life! The wind hushed into a moment's calm while the +words turned over in her heart. The branches of a cherry-tree, close +under her sight, dropped lifelessly; a homesick bird gave a little, +still, mournful chirp in the dark. Sharley gasped. + +"It's all because I shook Moppet! That's it. Because I shook Moppet this +morning. He used to like me,--yes, he did. He didn't know how cross and +ugly I am. No wonder he thought such a cross and ugly thing could never +be--could never be--" + +She broke off, crimson. "His wife?" She would have said the words +without blush or hesitation a week ago. Halcombe Dike had spoken no word +of love to her. But she had believed, purely and gravely, in the deeps +of her maiden thought, that she was dear to him. Gravely and purely too +she had dreamed that this October Sunday would bring some sign to her of +their future. + +He had been toiling at that business in the city now a long while. +Sharley knew nothing about business, but she had fancied that, even +though his "prospects" were not good, he must be ready now to think of a +home of his own,--at least that he would give her some hope of it to +keep through the dreary, white winter. But he had given her nothing to +keep through the winter, or through any winter of a wintry life; +nothing. The beautiful Sunday was over. He had come, and he had gone. +She must brush away the pretty fancy. She must break the timid dream. +So that grave, sweet word had died in shame upon her lips. She should +not be his wife. She should never be anybody's wife. + +The Sunday Night Express shrieked up the valley, and thundered by and +away in the dark. Sharley leaned far out into the wind to listen to the +dying sound, and wondered what it would seem like to-morrow morning when +it carried him away. With its pause one of those sudden hushes fell +again upon the wind. The homesick bird fluttered about a little, hunting +for its nest. + +"Never to be his wife!" moaned Sharley. What did it mean? "Never to be +his wife?" She pressed her hands up hard against her two temples, and +considered:-- + +Moppet and the baby, and her mother's headaches; milking the cow, and +kneading the bread, and darning the stockings; going to church in old +hats,--for what difference was it going to make to anybody now, whether +she trimmed them with Scotch plaid or sarcenet cambric?--coming home to +talk over revivals with Deacon Snow, or sit down in a proper way, like +other old people, in the house with a lamp, and read Somebody's Life and +Letters. Never any more moonlight, and watching, and strolling! Never +any more hoping, or wishing, or expecting, for Sharley. + +She jumped a little off her window-sill; then sat down again. That was +it. Moppet, and the baby, and her mother, and kneading, and milking, +and darning, for thirty, for forty, for--the dear Lord, who pitied her, +only knew how many years. + +But Sharley did not incline to think much about the Lord just then. She +was very miserable, and very much alone and unhelped. So miserable, so +alone and unhelped, that it never occurred to her to drop down right +there with her despairing little face on the window-sill and tell Him +all about it. O Sharley! did you not think He would understand? + +She had made up her mind--decidedly made up her mind--not to go to sleep +that night. The unhappy girls in the novels always sit up, you know. +Besides, she was too wretched to sleep. Then the morning train went +early, at half past five, and she should stay here till it came. + +This was very good reasoning, and Sharley certainly was very unhappy,--as +unhappy as a little girl of eighteen can well be; and I suppose it +would sound a great deal better to say that the cold morning looked in +upon her sleepless pain, or that Aurora smiled upon her unrested eyes, +or that she kept her bitter watch until the stars grew pale (and a fine +chance that would be to describe a sunrise too); but truth compels me to +state that she did what some very unhappy people have done before +her,--found the window-sill uncomfortable, cramped, neuralgic, and +cold,--so undressed and went to bed and to sleep, very much as she would +have done if there had been no Halcombe Dike in the world. Sharley was +not used to lying awake, and Nature would not be cheated out of her +rights in such a round, young, healthful little body. + +But that did not make her much the happier when she woke in the cold +gray of the dawn to listen for the early train. It was very cold and +very gray, not time for the train yet, but she could not bear to lie +still and hear the shrill, gay concert of the birds, to watch the day +begin, and think how many days must have beginning,--so she crept +faintly up and out into the chill. She wandered about for a time in the +raw, brightening air. The frost lay crisp upon the short grass; the +elder-bushes were festooned with tiny white tassels; the maple-leaves +hung fretted with silver; the tangle of apple-trees and spruces was +powdered and pearled. She stole into it, as she had stolen into it in +the happy sunset-time so long ago--why! was it only day before +yesterday?--stole in and laid her cheek up against the shining, wet +vines, which melted warm beneath her touch, and shut her eyes. She +thought how she would like to shut and hide herself away in a place +where she could never see the frescoed frost or brightening day, nor +hear the sound of chirping birds, nor any happy thing. + +By and by she heard the train coming, and footsteps. He came springing +by in his strong, man's way as he had come before. As before, he passed +near--how very near!--to the quivering white face crushed up against the +vine-leaves, and went his way and knew nothing. + +The train panted and raced away, shrieked a little in a doleful, +breathless fashion, grew small, grew less, grew dim, died from sight in +pallid smoke. The track stood up on its mound of frozen bank, blank and +mute, like a corpse from which the soul had fled. + +Sharley came into the kitchen at six o'clock. The fire was burning hotly +under the boiler. The soiled clothes lay scattered about. Her mother +stood over the tubs, red-faced and worried, complaining that Sharley had +not come to help her. She turned, when the girl opened the door, to +scold her a little. The best of mothers are apt to scold on Monday +morning. + +Sharley stood still a moment and looked around. She must begin it with a +washing-day then, this other life that had come to her. Her heart might +break; but the baby's aprons must be boiled--to-day, next week, another +week; the years stretched out into one wearisome, endless washing-day. +O, the dreadful years! She grew a little blind and dizzy, sat down on a +heap of table-cloths, and held up her arms. + +"Mother, don't be cross to me this morning,--_don't_ O mother, mother, +mother! I wish there were anybody to help me!" + + * * * * * + +The battle-fields of life lie in ambush. We trip along on our smiling +way and they give no sign. We turn sharp corners where they hide in +shadow. No drum-beat sounds alarum. It is the music and the dress-parade +to-night, the groaning and the blood to-morrow. + +Sharley had been little more than a child, in her unreasoning young +joy, when she knotted the barbe at her throat on Saturday night. "I am +an old woman now," she said to herself on Monday morning. Not that her +saying so proved anything,--except, indeed, that it was her first +trouble, and that she was very young to have a trouble. Yet, since she +had the notion, she might as well, to all intents and purposes, have +shrivelled into the caps and spectacles of a centenarian. "Imaginary +griefs _are_ real." She took, indeed, a grim sort of pleasure in +thinking that her youth had fled away, and forever, in thirty-six hours. + +However that might be, that October morning ushered Sharley upon +battle-ground; nor was the struggle the less severe that, she was so +young and so unused to struggling. + +I have to tell of nothing new or tragic in the child's days; only of the +old, slow, foolish pain that gnaws at the roots of things. Something was +the matter with the sunsets and the dawns. Moonrise was an agony. The +brown and golden grass had turned dull and dead. She would go away up +garret and sit with her fingers in her ears, that she might not hear the +frogs chanting in the swamp at twilight. + +One night she ran away from her father and mother. It chanced to be an +anniversary of their wedding-day; they had kissed each other after tea +and talked of old times and blushed a little, their married eyes +occupied and content with one another; she felt with a sudden, dreary +bitterness that she should not be missed, and so ran out into the field +and sat down there on her stone in the dark. She rather hoped that they +would wonder where she was before bedtime. It would be a bit of comfort. +She was so cold and comfortless. But nobody thought of her; and when she +came weakly up the yard at ten o'clock, the door was locked. + +For a week she went about her work like a sleepwalker. Her future was +settled. Life was over. Why make ado? The suns would set and the moons +would rise: let them; there would always be suns to set and moons to +rise. There were dinners to get and stockings to mend; there would +always be dinners to get and stockings to mend. She was put into the +world for the sake of dinners and stockings, apparently. Very well; she +was growing used to it; one could grow used to it. She put away the +barbe and the pink muslin, locked her ribbon-box into the lower drawer, +gave up crimping her hair, and wore the chocolate calico all day. She +went to the Thursday-evening conference, discussed the revival with +Deacon Snow, and locked herself into her room one night to put the lamp +on the bureau before the glass and shake her soft hair down about her +colorless, inexpectant face, to see if it were not turning gray. She was +disappointed to find it as brown and bright as ever. + +But Sharley was very young, and the sweet, persistent hopes of youth +were strong in her. They woke up presently with a sting like the sting +of a frost-bite. + +"O, to think of being an old maid, in a little black silk apron, and +having Halcombe Dike's wedding-cards laid upon a shelf!" + +She was holding the baby when this "came all over her," and she let him +drop into the coal-hod, and sat down to cry. + +What had she done that life should shut down before her in such cruel +bareness? Was she not young, very young to be unhappy? She began to +fight a little with herself and Providence in savage mood; favored the +crimped hair and Scotch plaids again, tried a nutting-party and a +sewing-circle, as well as a little flirtation with Jim Snow. This lasted +for another week. At the end of that time she went and sat down alone +one noon on a pile of kindlings in the wood-house, and thought it over. + +"Why, I can't!" her eyes widening with slow terror. "Happiness _won't_ +come. I _can't_ make it. I can't ever make it. And O, I'm just at the +beginning of everything!" + +Somebody called her just then to peel the potatoes for dinner. She +thought--she thought often in those days--of that fancy of hers about +calico-living. Was not that all that was left for her? Little dreary, +figures, all just alike, like the chocolate morning-dress? O, the +rose-bud and shimmer that might have been waiting somewhere! And O, the +rose-bud and shimmer that were forever gone! + +The frosted golds of autumn melted into a clear, sharp, silvered +winter, carrying Sharley with them, round on her old routine. It never +grew any the easier or softer. The girl's little rebellious feet trod it +bitterly. She hated the darning and the sweeping and the baking and the +dusting. She hated the sound of the baby's worried cry. She was tired of +her mother's illnesses, tired of Moppet's mischief, tired of +Methuselah's solemnity. She used to come in sometimes from her walk to +the office, on a cold, moonlight evening, and stand looking in at them +all through the "keeping-room" window,--her father prosing over the +state of the flour-market, her mother on the lounge, the children +waiting for her to put them to bed; Methuselah poring over his +arithmetic in his little-old-mannish way; Moppet tying the baby and the +kitten together,--stand looking till the hot, shamed blood shot to her +forehead, for thought of how she was wearied of the sight. + +"I can't think what's got into Sharley," complained her mother; "she has +been as cross as a bear this good while. If she were eight years old, +instead of eighteen, I should give her a good whipping and send her to +bed!" + +Poor Sharley nursed her trouble and her crossness together, in her +aggrieved, girlish way, till the light went out of her wistful eyes, and +little sharp bones began to show at her wrists. She used to turn them +about and pity them. They were once so round and winsome! + +Now it was probably a fact that, as for the matter of hard work, +Sharley's life was a sinecure compared to what it would be as the wife +of Halcombe Dike. Double your toil into itself, and triple it by the +measure of responsibility, and there you have your married life, young +girls,--beautiful, dim Eden that you have made of it! But there was +never an Eden without its serpent, I fancy. Besides, Sharley, like the +rest of them, had not thought as far as that. + +Then--ah then, what toil would not be play-day for the sake of Halcombe +Dike? what weariness and wear could be too great, what pain too keen, if +they could bear it together? + +O, you mothers! do you not see that this makes "a' the difference"? You +have strength that your daughter knows not of. There are hands to help +you over the thorns (if not, there ought to be). She gropes and cuts her +way alone. Be very patient with her in her little moods and +selfishnesses. No matter if she might help you more about the baby: be +patient. Her position in your home is at best an anomalous one,--a grown +woman, with much of the dependence of a child. She must have all the +jars and tasks and frets of family life, without the relief of +housewifely invention and authority. God and her own heart will teach +her in time what she owes to you. Never fear for that. But bear long +with her. Do not exact too much. The life you give her did not come at +her asking. Consider this well; and do not press the debt beyond its +due. + +"I don't see that there is ever going to be any end to anything!" +gasped Sharley at night between Moppet's buttons. + +This set her to thinking. What if one made an end? + +She went out one cold, gray afternoon in the thick of a snow-storm and +wandered up and down the railroad. It was easy walking upon the +sleepers, the place was lonely, and she had come out to be alone. She +liked the beat of the storm in her face for a while, the sharp turns of +the wind, and the soft touch of the snow that was drifting in little +heaps about her feet. Then she remembered of how small use it was to +like anything in the world now, and her face grew as wild as the storm. + +Fancy yourself hemmed in with your direst grief by a drifting sleet in +such a voiceless, viewless place as that corpse-like track,--the +endless, painless track, stretching away in the white mystery, at peace, +like all dead things. + +What Sharley should have done was to go home as straight as she could +go, put on dry stockings, and get her supper. What she did was to +linger, as all people linger, in the luxury of their first +wretchedness,--till the uncanny twilight fell and shrouded her in. Then +a thought struck her. + +A freight-train was just coming in, slowly but heavily. Sharley, as she +stepped aside to let it pass, fixed her eyes upon it for a moment, then, +with a little hesitation, stopped to pick up a bit of iron that lay at +her feet,--a round, firm rod-end,--and placed it diagonally upon the +rail. The cars rumbled by and over it. Sharley bent to see. It was +crushed to a shapeless twist. Her face whitened. She sat down and +shivered a little. But she did not go home. The Evening Accommodation +was due now in about ten minutes. + +Girls, if you think I am telling a bit of sensational fiction, I wish +you would let me know. + +"It would be quick and easy," thought Sharley. The man of whom she had +read in the Journal last night,--they said he must have found it all +over in an instant. An instant was a very short time! And forty +years,--and the little black silk apron,--and the cards laid up on a +shelf! O, to go out of life,--anywhere, anyhow, out of life! No, the +Sixth Commandment had nothing to do with ending one's self! + +An unearthly, echoing shriek broke through the noise of the +storm,--nothing is more unearthly than a locomotive in a storm. Sharley +stood up,--sat down again. A red glare struck the white mist, broadened, +brightened, grew. + +Sharley laid her head down with her small neck upon the rail, and--I am +compelled to say that she took it up again faster than she laid it down. +Took it up, writhed off the track, tumbled down the banking, hid her +face in a drift, and crouched there with the cold drops on her face till +the hideous, tempting thing shot by. + +"I guess con-sumption would be--a--little better!" she decided, +crawling to her feet. + +But the poor little feet could scarcely carry her. She struggled to the +street, caught at the fences for a while, then dropped. + +Somebody stumbled over her. It was Cousin Sue--Halcombe Dike's Cousin +Sue. + +"Deary me!" she said; and being five feet seven, with strong Yankee arms +of her own, she took Sharley up in them, and carried her to the house as +if she had been a baby. + +Sharley did not commit the atrocity of fainting, but found herself +thoroughly chilled and weak. Cousin Sue bustled about with brandy and +blankets, and Sharley, watching her through her half-closed eyes, +speculated a little. Had _she_ anybody's wedding-cards laid up on a +shelf? She had the little black apron at any rate. Poor Cousin Sue! +Should she be like that? "Poor Cousin Charlotte!" people would say. + +Cousin Sue had gone to see about supper when Sharley opened her eyes and +sat strongly up. A gentle-faced woman sat between her and the light, in +a chair cushioned upon one side for a useless arm. Halcombe had made +that chair. Mrs. Dike had been a busy, cheery woman, and Sharley had +always felt sorry for her since the sudden day when paralysis crippled +her good right hand; three years ago that was now; but she was not one +of those people to whom it comes natural to say that one is sorry for +them, and she was Halcombe's mother, and so Sharley had never said it. +It struck her freshly now that this woman had seen much ill-fortune in +her widowed years, and that she had kept a certain brave, contented look +in her eyes through it all. + +It struck her only as a passing thought, which might never have come +back had not Mrs. Dike pushed her chair up beside her, and given her a +long, quiet look straight in the eyes. + +"It was late for you to be out in the storm, my dear, and alone." + +"I'd been out a good while. I had been on--the track," said Sharley, +with a slight shiver. "I think I could not have been exactly well. I +would not go again. I must go home now. But oh"--her voice sinking--"I +wish nobody had found me, I wish nobody had found me! The snow would +have covered me up, you see." + +She started up flushing hot and frightened. What had she been saying to +Halcombe's mother? + +But Halcombe's mother put her healthy soft hand down on the girl's shut +fingers. Women understand each other in flashes. + +"My dear," she said, without prelude or apology, "I have a thing to say +to you. God does not give us our troubles to think about; that's all. I +have lived more years than you. I know that He never gives us our +troubles to think about." + +"I don't know who's going to think about them if we don't!" said +Sharley, half aggrieved. + +"Supposing nobody thinks of them, where's the harm done? Mark my words, +child: He sends them to drive us out of ourselves,--to _drive_ us out. +He had much rather we would go of our own accord, but if we won't go we +must be sent, for go we must. That's just about what we're put into this +world for, and we're not fit to go out of it till we have found this +out." + +Now the moralities of conversation were apt to glide off from Sharley +like rain-drops from gutta-percha, and I cannot assert that these words +would have made profound impression upon her had not Halcombe Dike's +mother happened to say them. + +Be that as it may, she certainly took them home with her, and pondered +them in her heart; pondered till late in her feverish, sleepless night, +till her pillow grew wet, and her heart grew still. About midnight she +jumped out into the cold, and kneeled, with her face hidden in the bed. + +"O, I've been a naughty girl!" she said, just as she might have said it +ten years ago. She felt so small, and ignorant, and weak that night. + +Out of such smallness, and ignorance, and weakness great knowledge and +strength may have beautiful growth. They came in time to Sharley, but it +was a long, slow time. Moppet was just as unendurable, the baby just as +fretful, life just as joyless, as if she had taken no new outlook upon +it, made no new, tearful plans about it. + +"Calico! calico!" she cried out a dozen times a day; "nothing _but_ +calico!" + +But by and by it dawned in her thoughts that this was a very little +matter to cry out about. What if God meant that some lives should be +"all just alike," and like nothing fresh or bonnie, and that hers should +be one? That was his affair. Hers was to use the dull gray gift he +gave--_whatever_ gift he gave--as loyally and as cheerily as she would +use treasures of gold and rose-tint. He knew what he was doing. What he +did was never forgetful or unkind. She felt--after a long time, and in a +quiet way--that she could be sure of that. + +No matter about Halcombe Dike, and what was gone. No matter about the +little black aprons, and what was coming. He understood all about that. +He would take care of it. + +Meantime, why could she not as well wash Moppet's face with a pleasant +word as with a cross one? darn the stockings with a smile as well as a +frown? stay and hear her mother discuss her headaches as well as run +away and think of herself? Why not give happiness since she could not +have it? be of use since nobody was of much use to her? Easier saying +than doing, to be sure, Sharley found; but she kept the idea in mind as +the winter wore away. + +She was thinking about it one April afternoon, when she had stolen out +of the house for a walk in the budding woods. She had need enough of a +walk. It was four weeks now since she had felt the wide wind upon her +face; four weeks pleasantly occupied in engineering four boys through +the measles; and if ever a sick child had the capacity for making of +himself a seraph upon earth it was Moppet. It was a thin little face +which stood out against the "green mist" of the unfurling leaves as +Sharley wandered in and out with sweet aimlessness among the elms and +hickories; very thin, with its wistful eyes grown hollow; a shadow of +the old Sharley who fluttered among the plaid ribbons one October +morning. It was a saddened face--it might always be a saddened face--but +a certain pleasant, rested look had worked its way about her mouth, not +unlike the rich mellowness of a rainy sunset. Not that Sharley knew much +about sunsets yet; but she thought she did, which, as I said before, +amounts to about the same thing. + +She was thinking with a wee glow of pleasure how the baby's arms clung +around her neck that morning, and how surprised her mother looked when +Methuselah cried at her taking this walk. As you were warned in the +beginning, nothing remarkable ever happened to Sharley. Since she had +begun in practice to approve Mrs. Dike's theory, that no harm is done if +we never think of our troubles, she had neither become the village idol, +nor in any remarkable degree her mother's pride. But she had +nevertheless cut for herself a small niche in the heart of her home,--a +much larger niche, perhaps, than the excellent Mrs. Guest was well aware +of. + +"I don't care how small it is," cried Sharley, "as long as I have room +to put my two feet on and look up." + +And for that old pain? Ah, well, God knew about that, and +Sharley,--nobody else. Whatever the winter had taught her she had bound +and labelled in her precise little way for future use. At least she had +learned--and it is not everybody who learns it at eighteen,--to wear her +life bravely--"a rose with a golden thorn." + +I really think that this is the place to end my story, so properly +polished off with a moral. So many Sharleys, too, will never read +beyond. But being bound in honor to tell the whole moral or no moral, I +must add, that while Sharley walked and thought among her hickories +there came up a thunder-storm. It fell upon her without any warning. The +sky had been clear when she looked at it last. It gaped at her now out +of the throats of purple-black clouds. Thunders crashed over and about +her. All the forest darkened and reeled. Sharley was enough like other +girls to be afraid of a thunder-storm. She started with a cry to break +her way through the matted undergrowth; saw, or felt that she saw, the +glare of a golden arrow overhead; threw out her hands, and fell crushed, +face downward, at the foot of a scorched tree. + +When she opened her eyes she was sitting under a wood-pile. Or, to +speak more accurately, she was sitting in Mr. Halcombe Dike's lap, and +Mr. Halcombe Dike was under the wood-pile. + +It was a low, triangular wood-pile, roofed with pine boards, through +which the water was dripping. It stood in the centre of a large +clearing, exposed to the rain, but safe. + +"Oh!" said Sharley. + +"That's right," said he, "I knew you were only stunned. I've been +rubbing your hands and feet. It was better to come here than to run the +blockade of that patch of woods to a house. Don't try to talk." + +"I'm not," said Sharley, with a faint little laugh, "it's you that are +talking"; and ended with a weak pause, her head falling back where she +had found it, upon his arm. + +"I _wouldn't_ talk," repeated the young man, relevantly, after a +profound silence of five minutes. "I was coming 'across lots' from the +station. You fell--Sharley, you fell right at my feet!" + +He spoke carelessly, but Sharley, looking up, saw that his face was +white. + +"I believe I will get down," she observed, after some consideration, +lifting her head. + +"I don't see how you can, you know," he suggested, helplessly; "it pours +as straight as a deluge out there. There isn't room in this place for +two people to sit." + +So they "accepted the situation." + +The clouds broke presently, and rifts of yellow light darted in through +the fragrant, wet pine boards. Sharley's hair had fallen from her net +and covered her face. She felt too weak to push it away. After some +thought Halcombe Dike pushed it away for her, reverently, with his +strong, warm hand. The little white, trembling face shone out. He turned +and looked at it--the poor little face!--looked at it gravely and long. + +But Sharley, at the look, sat up straight. Her heart leaped out into the +yellow light. All her dreary winter danced and dwindled away. Through +the cracks in the pine boards a long procession of May-days came filing +in. The scattering rain-drops flamed before her. "All the world and all +the waters blushed and bloomed." She was so very young! + +"I could not speak," he told her quietly, "when I was at home before. I +could never speak till now. Last October I thought"--his voice sinking +hoarsely--"I thought, Sharley, it could never be. I could barely eke out +my daily bread; I had no right to ask you--to bind you. You were very +young; I thought, perhaps, Sharley, you might forget. Somebody else +might make you happier. I would not stand in the way of your happiness. +I asked God to bless you that morning when I went away in the cars, +Sharley. Sharley!" + +Something in her face he could not understand. All that was meant by +the upturned face perhaps he will never understand. She hid it in her +bright, brown hair; put her hand up softly upon his cheek and cried. + +"If you would like to hear anything about the business part of it--" +suggested the young man, clearing his throat. But Sharley "hated +business." She would not hear. + +"Not about the Crumpet Buildings? Well, I carried that affair +through,--that's all." + +They came out under the wide sky, and walked home hand in hand. All the +world was hung with crystals. The faint shadow of a rainbow quivered +across a silver cloud. + +The first thing that Sharley did when she came home was to find Moppet +and squeeze him. + +"O Moppet, we can be good girls all the same if we are happy, can't we?" + +"No, sir!" said injured Moppet. "You don't catch me!" + +"But O Moppet, see the round drops hanging and burning on the blinds! +And how the little mud-puddles shine, Moppet!" + +Out of her pain and her patience God had brought her beautiful answer. +It was well for Sharley. But if such answer had not come? That also +would have been well. + + + + +Kentucky's Ghost. + + + +True? Every syllable. + +That was a very fair yarn of yours, Tom Brown, very fair for a landsman, +but I'll bet you a doughnut I can beat it; and all on the square, too, +as I say,--which is more, if I don't mistake, than you could take oath +to. Not to say that I never stretched my yarn a little on the fo'castle +in my younger days, like the rest of 'em; but what with living under +roofs so long past, and a call from the parson regular in strawberry +time, and having to do the flogging consequent on the inakkeracies of +statement follering on the growing up of six boys, a man learns to trim +his words a little, Tom, and no mistake. It's very much as it is with +the talk of the sea growing strange to you from hearing nothing but +lubbers who don't know a mizzen-mast from a church-steeple. + +It was somewhere about twenty years ago last October, if I recollect +fair, that we were laying in for that particular trip to Madagascar. +I've done that little voyage to Madagascar when the sea was like so much +burning oil, and the sky like so much burning brass, and the fo'castle +as nigh a hell as ever fo'castle was in a calm; I've done it when we +came sneaking into port with nigh about every spar gone and pumps going +night and day; and I've done it with a drunken captain on starvation +rations,--duff that a dog on land wouldn't have touched and two +teaspoonfuls of water to the day,--but someways or other, of all the +times we headed for the East Shore I don't seem to remember any quite as +distinct as this. + +We cleared from Long Wharf in the ship Madonna,--which they tell me +means, My Lady, and a pretty name it was; it was apt to give me that +gentle kind of feeling when I spoke it, which is surprising when you +consider what a dull old hull she was, never logging over ten knots, and +uncertain at that. It may have been because of Moll's coming down once +in a while in the days that we lay at dock, bringing the boy with her, +and sitting up on deck in a little white apron, knitting. She was a very +good-looking woman, was my wife, in those days, and I felt proud of +her,--natural, with the lads looking on. + +"Molly," I used to say, sometimes,--"Molly Madonna!" + +"Nonsense!" says she, giving a clack to her needles,--pleased enough +though, I warrant you, and turning a very pretty pink about the cheeks +for a four-years' wife. Seeing as how she was always a lady to me, and a +true one, and a gentle, though she wasn't much at manners or +book-learning, and though I never gave her a silk gown in her life, she +was quite content, you see, and so was I. + +I used to speak my thought about the name sometimes, when the lads +weren't particularly noisy, but they laughed at me mostly. I was rough +enough and bad enough in those days; as rough as the rest, and as bad as +the rest, I suppose, but yet I seemed to have my notions a little +different from the others. "Jake's poetry," they called 'em. + +We were loading for the East Shore trade, as I said, didn't I? There +isn't much of the genuine, old-fashioned trade left in these days, +except the whiskey branch, which will be brisk, I take it, till the +Malagasy carry the prohibitory law by a large majority in both houses. +We had a little whiskey in the hold, I remember, that trip, with a good +stock of knives, red flannel, handsaws, nails, and cotton. We were +hoping to be at home again within the year. We were well provisioned, +and Dodd,--he was the cook,--Dodd made about as fair coffee as you're +likely to find in the galley of a trader. As for our officers, when I +say the less said of them the better, it ain't so much that I mean to be +disrespectful as that I mean to put it tenderly. Officers in the +merchant service, especially if it happens to be the African service, +are brutal men quite as often as they ain't (at least, that's my +experience; and when some of your great ship-owners argue the case with +me,--as I'm free to say they have done before now,--I say, "That's +_my_ experience, sir," which is all I've got to say);--brutal men, and +about as fit for their positions as if they'd been imported for the +purpose a little indirect from Davy Jones's Locker. Though they do say +that the flogging is pretty much done away with in these days, which +makes a difference. + +Sometimes on a sunshiny afternoon, when the muddy water showed a little +muddier than usual, on account of the clouds being the color of silver, +and all the air the color of gold, when the oily barrels were knocking +about on the wharves, and the smells were strong from the fish-houses, +and the men shouted and the mates swore, and our baby ran about deck +a-play with everybody (he was a cunning little chap with red stockings +and bare knees, and the lads took quite a shine to him), "Jake," his +mother would say, with a little sigh,--low, so that the captain never +heard,--"think if it was _him_ gone away for a year in company the like +of that!" + +Then she would drop her shining needles, and call the little fellow back +sharp, and catch him up into her arms. + +Go into the keeping-room there, Tom, and ask her all about it. Bless +you! she remembers those days at dock better than I do. She could tell +you to this hour the color of my shirt, and how long my hair was, and +what I ate, and how I looked, and what I said. I didn't generally swear +so thick when she was about. + +Well; we weighed, along the last of the month, in pretty good spirits. +The Madonna was as stanch and seaworthy as any eight-hundred-tonner in +the harbor, if she was clumsy; we turned in, some sixteen of us or +thereabouts, into the fo'castle,--a jolly set, mostly old messmates, and +well content with one another; and the breeze was stiff from the west, +with a fair sky. + +The night before we were off, Molly and I took a walk upon the wharves +after supper. I carried the baby. A boy, sitting on some boxes, pulled +my sleeve as we went by, and asked me, pointing to the Madonna, if I +would tell him the name of the ship. + +"Find out for yourself," said I, not over-pleased to be interrupted. + +"Don't be cross to him," says Molly. The baby threw a kiss at the boy, +and Molly smiled at him through the dark. I don't suppose I should ever +have remembered the lubber from that day to this, except that I liked +the looks of Molly smiling at him through the dark. + +My wife and I said good-by the next morning in a little sheltered place +among the lumber on the wharf; she was one of your women who never like +to do their crying before folks. + +She climbed on the pile of lumber and sat down, a little flushed and +quivery, to watch us off. I remember seeing her there with the baby till +we were well down the channel. I remember noticing the bay as it grew +cleaner, and thinking that I would break off swearing; and I remember +cursing Bob Smart like a pirate within an hour. + +The breeze held steadier than we'd looked for, and we'd made a good +offing and discharged the pilot by nightfall. Mr. Whitmarsh--he was the +mate--was aft with the captain. The boys were singing a little; the +smell of the coffee was coming up, hot and home-like, from the galley. I +was up in the maintop, I forget what for, when all at once there came a +cry and a shout; and, when I touched deck, I saw a crowd around the +fore-hatch. + +"What's all this noise for?" says Mr. Whitmarsh, coming up and scowling. + +"A stow-away, sir! A boy stowed away!" said Bob, catching the officer's +tone quick enough. Bob always tested the wind well, when a storm was +brewing. He jerked the poor fellow out of the hold, and pushed him along +to the mate's feet. + +I say "poor fellow," and you'd never wonder why if you'd seen as much of +stowing away as I have. + +I'd as lief see a son of mine in a Carolina slave-gang as to see him +lead the life of a stow-away. What with the officers from feeling that +they've been taken in, and the men, who catch their cue from their +superiors, and the spite of the lawful boy who hired in the proper way, +he don't have what you may call a tender time. + +This chap was a little fellow, slight for his years, which might have +been fifteen, I take it. He was palish, with a jerk of thin hair on his +forehead. He was hungry, and homesick, and frightened. He looked about +on all our faces, and then he cowered a little, and lay still just as +Bob had thrown him. + +"We--ell," says Whitmarsh, very slow, "if you don't repent your bargain +before you go ashore, my fine fellow,--me, if I'm mate of the +Madonna! and take that for your pains!" + +Upon that he kicks the poor little lubber from quarter-deck to bowsprit, +or nearly, and goes down to his supper. The men laugh a little, then +they whistle a little, then they finish their song quite gay and well +acquainted, with the coffee steaming away in the galley. Nobody has a +word for the boy,--bless you, no! + +I'll venture he wouldn't have had a mouthful that night if it had not +been for me; and I can't say as I should have bothered myself about him, +if it had not come across me sudden, while he sat there rubbing his eyes +quite violent, with his face to the west'ard (the sun was setting +reddish), that I had seen the lad before; then I remembered walking on +the wharves, and him on the box, and Molly saying softly that I was +cross to him. + +Seeing that my wife had smiled at him, and my baby thrown a kiss at him, +it went against me, you see, not to look after the little rascal a bit +that night. + +"But you've got no business here, you know," said I; "nobody wants you." + +"I wish I was ashore!" said he,--"I wish I was ashore!" + +With that he begins to rub his eyes so very violent that I stopped. +There was good stuff in him too; for he choked and winked at me, and +did it all up, about the sun on the water and a cold in the head, as +well as I could myself just about. + +I don't know whether it was on account of being taken a little notice of +that night, but the lad always kind of hung about me afterwards; chased +me round with his eyes in a way he had, and did odd jobs for me without +the asking. + +One night before the first week was out, he hauled alongside of me on +the windlass. I was trying a new pipe (and a very good one, too), so I +didn't give him much notice for a while. + +"You did this job up shrewd, Kent," said I, by and by; "how did you +steer in?"--for it did not often happen that the Madonna got fairly out +of port with a boy unbeknown in her hold. + +"Watch was drunk; I crawled down ahind the whiskey. It was hot, you bet, +and dark. I lay and thought how hungry I was," says he. + +"Friends at home?" says I. + +Upon that he gives me a nod, very short, and gets up and walks off +whistling. + +The first Sunday out that chap didn't know any more what to do with +himself than a lobster just put on to boil. Sunday's cleaning day at +sea, you know. The lads washed up, and sat round, little knots of them, +mending their trousers. Bob got out his cards. Me and a few mates took +it comfortable under the to'gallant fo'castle (I being on watch below), +reeling off the stiffest yarns we had in tow. Kent looked on at euchre +awhile, then listened to us awhile, then walked about uneasy. + +By and by says Bob, "Look over there,--spry!" and there was Kent, +sitting curled away in a heap under the stern of the long-boat. He had a +book. Bob crawls behind and snatches it up, unbeknown, out of his hands; +then he falls to laughing as if he would strangle, and gives the book a +toss to me. It was a bit of Testament, black and old. There was writing +on the yellow leaf, this way:-- + + "Kentucky Hodge, + from his Affecshunate mother + who prays, For you evry day, Amen," + +The boy turned first red, then white, and straightened up quite sudden, +but he never said a word, only sat down again and let us laugh it out. +I've lost my reckoning if he ever heard the last of it. He told me one +day how he came by the name, but I forget exactly. Something about an +old fellow--uncle, I believe--as died in Kentucky, and the name was +moniment-like, you see. He used to seem cut up a bit about it at first, +for the lads took to it famously; but he got used to it in a week or +two, and, seeing as they meant him no unkindness, took it quite cheery. + +One other thing I noticed was that he never had the book about after +that. He fell into our ways next Sunday more easy. + +They don't take the Bible just the way you would, Tom,--as a general +thing, sailors don't; though I will say that I never saw the man at sea +who didn't give it the credit of being an uncommon good yarn. + +But I tell you, Tom Brown, I felt sorry for that boy. It's punishment +bad enough for a little scamp like him leaving the honest shore, and +folks to home that were a bit tender of him maybe, to rough it on a +trader, learning how to slush down a back-stay, or tie reef-points with +frozen fingers in a snow-squall. + +But that's not the worst of it, by no means. If ever there was a +cold-blooded, cruel man, with a wicked eye and a fist like a mallet, it +was Job Whitmarsh, taken at his best. And I believe, of all the trips +I've taken, him being mate of the Madonna, Kentucky found him at his +worst. Bradley--that's the second mate--was none too gentle in his ways, +you may be sure; but he never held a candle to Mr. Whitmarsh. He took a +spite to the boy from the first, and he kept it on a steady strain to +the last, right along, just about so. + +I've seen him beat that boy till the blood ran down in little pools on +deck; then send him up, all wet and red, to clear the to'sail halliards; +and when, what with the pain and faintness, he dizzied a little, and +clung to the ratlines, half blind, he would have him down and flog him +till the cap'n interfered,--which would happen occasionally on a fair +day when he had taken just enough to be good-natured. He used to rack +his brains for the words he slung at the boy working quiet enough +beside him. It was odd, now, the talk he would get off. Bob Smart +couldn't any more come up to it than I could: we used to try sometimes, +but we had to give in always. If curses had been a marketable article, +Whitmarsh would have taken out his patent and made his fortune by +inventing of them, new and ingenious. Then he used to kick the lad down +the fo'castle ladder; he used to work him, sick or well, as he wouldn't +have worked a dray-horse; he used to chase him all about deck at the +rope's end; he used to mast-head him for hours on the stretch; he used +to starve him out in the hold. It didn't come in my line to be +over-tender, but I turned sick at heart, Tom, more times than one, +looking on helpless, and me a great stout fellow. + +I remember now--don't know as I've thought of it for twenty years--a +thing McCallum said one night; McCallum was Scotch,--an old fellow with +gray hair; told the best yarns on the fo'castle always. + +"Mark my words, shipmates," says he, "when Job Whitmarsh's time comes to +go as straight to hell as Judas, that boy will bring his summons. Dead +or alive, that boy will bring his summons." + +One day I recollect especial that the lad was sick with fever on him, +and took to his hammock. Whitmarsh drove him on deck, and ordered him +aloft. I was standing near by, trimming the spanker. Kentucky staggered +for'ard a little and sat down. There was a rope's-end there, knotted +three times. The mate struck him. + +"I'm very weak, sir," says he. + +He struck him again. He struck him twice more. The boy fell over a +little, and lay where he fell. + +I don't know what ailed me, but all of a sudden I seemed to be lying off +Long Wharf, with the clouds the color of silver, and the air the color +of gold, and Molly in a white apron with her shining needles, and the +baby a-play in his red stockings about the deck. + +"Think if it was him!" says she, or she seems to say,--"think if it was +_him_!" + +And the next I knew I'd let slip my tongue in a jiffy, and given it to +the mate that furious and onrespectful as I'll wager Whitmarsh never got +before. And the next I knew after that they had the irons on me. + +"Sorry about that, eh?" said he, the day before they took 'em off. + +"_No,_ sir," says I. And I never was. Kentucky never forgot that. I had +helped him occasional in the beginning,--learned him how to veer and +haul a brace, let go or belay a sheet,--but let him alone generally +speaking, and went about my own business. That week in irons I really +believe the lad never forgot. + +One time--it was on a Saturday night, and the mate had been oncommon +furious that week--Kentucky turned on him, very pale and slow (I was up +in the mizzen-top, and heard him quite distinct). + +"Mr. Whitmarsh," says he,--"Mr. Whitmarsh,"--he draws his breath +in,--"Mr. Whitmarsh,"--three times,--"you've got the power and you know +it, and so do the gentlemen who put you here; and I'm only a stow-away +boy, and things are all in a tangle, but _you'll be sorry yet for every +time you've laid your hands on me_!" + +He hadn't a pleasant look about the eyes either, when he said it. + +Fact was, that first month on the Madonna had done the lad no good. He +had a surly, sullen way with him, some'at like what I've seen about a +chained dog. At the first, his talk had been clean as my baby's, and he +would blush like any girl at Bob Smart's stories; but he got used to +Bob, and pretty good, in time, at small swearing. + +I don't think I should have noticed it so much if it had not been for +seeming to see Molly, and the sun, and the knitting-needles, and the +child upon the deck, and hearing of it over, "Think if it was _him_!" +Sometimes on a Sunday night I used to think it was a pity. Not that I +was any better than the rest, except so far as the married men are +always steadier. Go through any crew the sea over, and it is the lads +who have homes of their own and little children in 'em as keep the +straightest. + +Sometimes, too, I used to take a fancy that I could have listened to a +word from a parson, or a good brisk psalm-tune, and taken it in very +good part. A year is a long pull for twenty-five men to be becalmed with +each other and the devil. I don't set up to be pious myself, but I'm +not a fool, and I know that if we'd had so much as one officer aboard +who feared God and kept his commandments, we should have been the better +men for it. It's very much with religion as it is with cayenne +pepper,--if it's there, you know it. + +If you had your ships on the sea by the dozen, you'd bethink you of +that? Bless you, Tom! if you were in Rome you'd do as the Romans do. +You'd have your ledgers, and your children, and your churches and Sunday +schools, and freed niggers, and 'lections, and what not, and never stop +to think whether the lads that sailed your ships across the world had +souls, or not,--and be a good sort of man too. That's the way of the +world. Take it easy, Tom,--take it easy. + +Well, things went along just about so with us till we neared the Cape. +It's not a pretty place, the Cape, on a winter's voyage. I can't say as +I ever was what you may call scar't after the first time rounding it, +but it's not a pretty place. + +I don't seem to remember much about Kent along there till there come a +Friday at the first of December. It was a still day, with a little haze, +like white sand sifted across a sunbeam on a kitchen table. The lad was +quiet-like all day, chasing me about with his eyes. + +"Sick?" says I. + +"No," says he. + +"Whitmarsh drunk?" says I. + +"No," says he. + +A little after dark I was lying on a coil of ropes, napping it. The boys +were having the Bay of Biscay quite lively, and I waked up on the jump +in the choruses. Kent came up while they were telling + + "How she lay + On that day + In the _Bay_ of BISCAY O!" + +He was not singing. He sat down beside me, and first I thought I +wouldn't trouble myself about him, and then I thought I would. + +So I opens one eye at him encouraging. He crawls up a little closer to +me. It was rather dark where we sat, with a great greenish shadow +dropping from the mainsail. The wind was up a little, and the light at +helm looked flickery and red. + +"Jake," says he all at once, "where's your mother?" + +"In--heaven!" says I, all taken aback; and if ever I came nigh what you +might call a little disrespect to your mother, it was on that occasion, +from being taken so aback. + +"Oh!" said he. "Got any women-folks to home that miss you?" asks he, by +and by. + +Said I, "Shouldn't wonder." + +After that he sits still a little with his elbows on his knees; then he +speers at me sidewise awhile; then said he, "I s'pose _I_'ve got a +mother to home. I ran away from her." + +This, mind you, is the first time he has ever spoke about his folks +since he came aboard. + +"She was asleep down in the south chamber," says he. "I got out the +window. There was one white shirt she'd made for meetin' and such. I've +never worn it out here. I hadn't the heart. It has a collar and some +cuffs, you know. She had a headache making of it. She's been follering +me round all day, a sewing on that shirt. When I come in she would look +up bright-like and smiling. Father's dead. There ain't anybody but me. +All day long she's been follering of me round." + +So then he gets up, and joins the lads, and tries to sing a little; but +he comes back very still and sits down. We could see the flickery light +upon the boys' faces, and on the rigging, and on the cap'n, who was +damning the bo'sen a little aft. + +"Jake," says he, quite low, "look here. I've been thinking. Do you +reckon there's a chap here--just one, perhaps--who's said his prayers +since he came aboard?" + +"_No!_" said I, quite short: for I'd have bet my head on it. + +I can remember, as if it was this morning, just how the question +sounded, and the answer. I can't seem to put it into words how it came +all over me. The wind was turning brisk, and we'd just eased her with a +few reefs; Bob Smart, out furling the flying jib, got soaked; me and the +boy sitting silent, were spattered. I remember watching the curve of +the great swells, mahogany color, with the tip of white, and thinking +how like it was to a big creature hissing and foaming at the mouth, and +thinking all at once something about Him holding of the sea in a +balance, and not a word bespoke to beg his favor respectful since we +weighed our anchor, and the cap'n yonder calling on Him just that minute +to send the Madonna to the bottom, if the bo'sen hadn't disobeyed his +orders about the squaring of the after-yards. + +"From his Affecshunate mother who prays, For you evry day, Amen," +whispers Kentucky, presently, very soft. "The book's tore up. Mr. +Whitmarsh wadded his old gun with it. But I remember." + +Then said he: "It's 'most bedtime to home. She's setting in a little +rocking-chair,--a green one. There's a fire, and the dog. She sets all +by herself." + +Then he begins again: "She has to bring in her own wood now. There's a +gray ribbon on her cap. When she goes to meetin' she wears a gray +bunnet. She's drawed the curtains and the door is locked. But she thinks +I'll be coming home sorry some day,--I'm sure she thinks I'll be coming +home sorry." + +Just then there comes the order, "Port watch ahoy! Tumble up there +lively!" so I turns out, and the lad turns in, and the night settles +down a little black, and my hands and head are full. Next day it blows a +clean, all but a bank of gray, very thin and still,--about the size of +that cloud you see through the side window, Tom,--which lay just abeam +of us. + +The sea, I thought, looked like a great purple pincushion, with a mast +or two stuck in on the horizon for the pins. "Jake's poetry," the boys +said that was. + +By noon that little gray bank had grown up thick, like a wall. By +sundown the cap'n let his liquor alone, and kept the deck. By night we +were in chop-seas, with a very ugly wind. + +"Steer small, there!" cries Whitmarsh, growing hot about the face,--for +we made a terribly crooked wake, with a broad sheer, and the old hull +strained heavily,--"steer small there, I tell you! Mind your eye now, +McCallum, with your foresail! Furl the royals! Send down the royals! +Cheerily, men! Where's that lubber Kent? Up with you, lively now!" + +Kentucky sprang for'ard at the order, then stopped short. Anybody as +knows a royal from an anchor wouldn't have blamed the lad. I'll take +oath to't it's no play for an old tar, stout and full in size, sending +down the royals in a gale like that; let alone a boy of fifteen year on +his first voyage. + +But the mate takes to swearing (it would have turned a parson faint to +hear him), and Kent shoots away up,--the great mast swinging like a +pendulum to and fro, and the reef-points snapping, and the blocks +creaking, and the sails flapping to that extent as you wouldn't +consider possible unless you'd been before the mast yourself. It +reminded me of evil birds I've read of, that stun a man with their +wings; strike _you_ to the bottom, Tom, before you could say Jack +Robinson. + +Kent stuck bravely as far as the cross-trees. There he slipped and +struggled and clung in the dark and noise awhile, then comes sliding +down the back-stay. + +"I'm not afraid, sir," says he; "but I cannot do it." + +For answer Whitmarsh takes to the rope's-end. So Kentucky is up again, +and slips and struggles and clings again, and then lays down again. + +At this the men begin to grumble a little low. + +"Will you kill the lad?" said I. I get a blow for my pains, that sends +me off my feet none too easy; and when I rub the stars out of my eyes +the boy is up again, and the mate behind him with the rope. Whitmarsh +stopped when he'd gone far enough. The lad climbed on. Once he looked +back. He never opened his lips; he just looked back. If I've seen him +once since, in my thinking, I've seen him twenty times,--up in the +shadow of the great gray wings, a looking back. + +After that there was only a cry, and a splash, and the Madonna racing +along with the gale twelve knots. If it had been the whole crew +overboard, she could never have stopped for them that night. + +"Well," said the cap'n, "you've done it now." + +Whitmarsh turns his back. + +By and by, when the wind fell, and the hurry was over, and I had the +time to think a steady thought, being in the morning watch, I seemed to +see the old lady in the gray bunnet setting by the fire. And the dog. +And the green rocking-chair. And the front door, with the boy walking in +on a sunny afternoon to take her by surprise. + +Then I remember leaning over to look down, and wondering if the lad were +thinking of it too, and what had happened to him now, these two hours +back, and just about where he was, and how he liked his new quarters, +and many other strange and curious things. + +And while I sat there thinking, the Sunday-morning stars cut through the +clouds, and the solemn Sunday-morning light began to break upon the sea. + +We had a quiet run of it, after that, into port, where we lay about a +couple of months or so, trading off for a fair stock of palm-oil, ivory, +and hides. The days were hot and purple and still. We hadn't what you +might call a blow, if I recollect accurate, till we rounded the Cape +again, heading for home. + +We were rounding that Cape again, heading for home, when that happened +which you may believe me or not, as you take the notion, Tom; though why +a man who can swallow Daniel and the lion's den, or take down t'other +chap who lived three days comfortable into the inside of a whale, should +make faces at what I've got to tell I can't see. + +It was just about the spot that we lost the boy that we fell upon the +worst gale of the trip. It struck us quite sudden. Whitmarsh was a +little high. He wasn't apt to be drunk in a gale, if it gave him warning +sufficient. + +Well, you see, there must be somebody to furl the main-royal again, and +he pitched onto McCallum. McCallum hadn't his beat for fighting out the +royal in a blow. + +So he piled away lively, up to the to'-sail yard. There, all of a +sudden, he stopped. Next we knew he was down like heat-lightning. + +His face had gone very white. + +"What's to pay with _you_?" roared Whitmarsh. + +Said McCallum, "_There's somebody up there, sir_." + +Screamed Whitmarsh, "You're gone an idiot!" + +Said McCallum, very quiet and distinct: "There's somebody up there, sir. +I saw him quite plain. He saw me. I called up. He called down. Says he, +_'Don't you come up_!' and hang me if I'll stir a step for you or any +other man to-night!" + +I never saw the face of any man alive go the turn that mate's face went. +If he wouldn't have relished knocking the Scotchman dead before his +eyes, I've lost my guess. Can't say what he would have done to the old +fellow, if there'd been any time to lose. + +He'd the sense left to see there wasn't overmuch, so he orders out Bob +Smart direct. + +Bob goes up steady, with a quid in his cheek and a cool eye. Half-way +amid to'-sail and to'-gallant he stops, and down he comes, spinning. + +"Be drowned if there ain't!" said he. "He's sitting square upon the +yard. I never see the boy Kentucky, if he isn't sitting on that yard. +'_Don't you come up!_' he cries out,--'_don't you come up!_'" + +"Bob's drunk, and McCallum's a fool!" said Jim Welch, standing by. So +Welch wolunteers up, and takes Jaloffe with him. They were a couple of +the coolest hands aboard,--Welch and Jaloffe. So up they goes, and down +they comes like the rest, by the back-stays, by the run. + +"He beckoned of me back!" says Welch. "He hollered not to come up! not +to come up!" + +After that there wasn't a man of us would stir aloft, not for love nor +money. + +Well, Whitmarsh he stamped, and he swore, and he knocked us about +furious; but we sat and looked at one another's eyes, and never stirred. +Something cold, like a frost-bite, seemed to crawl along from man to +man, looking into one another's eyes. + +"I'll shame ye all, then, for a set of cowardly lubbers!" cries the +mate; and what with the anger and the drink he was as good as his word, +and up the ratlines in a twinkle. + +In a flash we were after him,--he was our officer, you see, and we felt +ashamed,--me at the head, and the lads following after. + +I got to the futtock shrouds, and there I stopped, for I saw him +myself,--a palish boy, with a jerk of thin hair on his forehead; I'd +have known him anywhere in this world or t'other. I saw him just as +distinct as I see you, Tom Brown, sitting on that yard quite steady with +the royal flapping like to flap him off. + +I reckon I've had as much experience fore and aft, in the course of +fifteen years aboard, as any man that ever tied a reef-point in a +nor'easter; but I never saw a sight like that, not before nor since. + +I won't say that I didn't wish myself well on deck; but I will say that +I stuck to the shrouds, and looked on steady. + +Whitmarsh, swearing that that royal should be furled, went on and went +up. + +It was after that I heard the voice. It came straight from the figure of +the boy upon the upper yard. + +But this time it says, "_Come up! Come up!_" And then, a little louder, +"_Come up! Come up! Come up!_" So he goes up, and next I knew there was +a cry,--and next a splash,--and then I saw the royal flapping from the +empty yard, and the mate was gone, and the boy. + +Job Whitmarsh was never seen again, alow or aloft, that night or ever +after. + +I was telling the tale to our parson this summer,--he's a fair-minded +chap, the parson, in spite of a little natural leaning to strawberries, +which I always take in very good part,--and he turned it about in his +mind some time. + +"If it was the boy," says he,--"and I can't say as I see any reason +especial why it shouldn't have been,--I've been wondering what his +spiritooal condition was. A soul in hell,"--the parson believes in hell, +I take it, because he can't help himself; but he has that solemn, tender +way of preaching it as makes you feel he wouldn't have so much as a +chicken get there if he could help it,--"a lost soul," says the parson +(I don't know as I get the words exact),--"a soul that has gone and been +and got there of its own free will and choosing would be as like as not +to haul another soul alongside if he could. Then again, if the mate's +time had come, you see, and his chances were over, why, that's the will +of the Lord, and it's hell for him whichever side of death he is, and +nobody's fault but hisn; and the boy might be in the good place, and do +the errand all the same. That's just about it, Brown," says he. "A man +goes his own gait, and, if he won't go to heaven, he _won't_, and the +good God himself can't help it. He throws the shining gates all open +wide, and he never shut them on any poor fellow as would have entered +in, and he never, never will." + +Which I thought was sensible of the parson, and very prettily put. + +There's Molly frying flapjacks now, and flapjacks won't wait for no man, +you know, no more than time and tide, else I should have talked till +midnight, very like, to tell the time we made on that trip home, and +how green the harbor looked a sailing up, and of Molly and the baby +coming down to meet me in a little boat that danced about (for we cast a +little down the channel), and how she climbed up a laughing and a crying +all to once, about my neck, and how the boy had grown, and how when he +ran about the deck (the little shaver had his first pair of boots on +that very afternoon) I bethought me of the other time, and of Molly's +words, and of the lad we'd left behind us in the purple days. + +Just as we were hauling up, I says to my wife: "Who's that old lady +setting there upon the lumber, with a gray bunnet, and a gray ribbon on +her cap?" + +For there was an old lady there, and I saw the sun all about her, and +all on the blazing yellow boards, and I grew a little dazed and dazzled. + +"I don't know," said Molly, catching onto me a little close. "She comes +there every day. They say she sits and watches for her lad as ran away." + +So then I seemed to know, as well as ever I knew afterwards, who it was. +And I thought of the dog. And the green rocking-chair. And the book that +Whitmarsh wadded his old gun with. And the front-door, with the boy a +walking in. + +So we three went up the wharf,--Molly and the baby and me,--and sat down +beside her on the yellow boards. I can't remember rightly what I said, +but I remember her sitting silent in the sunshine till I had told her +all there was to tell. + +"_Don't_ cry!" says Molly, when I got through,--which it was the more +surprising of Molly, considering as she was doing the crying all to +herself. The old lady never cried, you see. She sat with her eyes wide +open under her gray bunnet, and her lips a moving. After a while I made +it out what it was she said: "The only son--of his mother--and she--" + +By and by she gets up, and goes her ways, and Molly and I walk home +together, with our little boy between us. + + + +The End. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Men, Women, and Ghosts, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN, WOMEN, AND GHOSTS *** + +***** This file should be named 10744.txt or 10744.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/4/10744/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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