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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1902-h.zip b/1902-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6291fc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/1902-h.zip diff --git a/1902-h/1902-h.htm b/1902-h/1902-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbeade5 --- /dev/null +++ b/1902-h/1902-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1692 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Old Peabody Pew</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Old Peabody Pew, by Kate Douglas Wiggin</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Old Peabody Pew, by Kate Douglas Wiggin + + +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: The Old Peabody Pew + A Christmas Romance of a Country Church + + +Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Release Date: March 22, 2005 [eBook #1902] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD PEABODY PEW*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1907 Archibald Constable & Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church</h1> +<h2>Dedication</h2> +<p>To a certain handful of dear New England women of names unknown to +the world, dwelling in a certain quiet village, alike unknown:—</p> +<p>We have worked together to make our little corner of the great universe +a pleasanter place in which to live, and so we know, not only one another’s +names, but something of one another’s joys and sorrows, cares +and burdens, economies, hopes, and anxieties.</p> +<p>We all remember the dusty uphill road that leads to the green church +common. We remember the white spire pointing upward against a +background of blue sky and feathery elms. We remember the sound +of the bell that falls on the Sabbath morning stillness, calling us +across the daisy-sprinkled meadows of June, the golden hayfields of +July, or the dazzling whiteness and deep snowdrifts of December days. +The little cabinet-organ that plays the doxology, the hymn-books from +which we sing “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” +the sweet freshness of the old meeting-house, within and without—how +we have toiled to secure and preserve these humble mercies for ourselves +and our children!</p> +<p>There really <i>is</i> a Dorcas Society, as you and I well know, +and one not unlike that in these pages; and you and I have lived through +many discouraging, laughable, and beautiful experiences while we emulated +the Bible Dorcas, that woman “full of good works and alms deeds.”</p> +<p>There never was a Peabody Pew in the Tory Hill Meeting-House, and +Nancy’s love story and Justin’s never happened within its +century-old walls; but I have imagined only one of the many romances +that have had their birth under the shadow of that steeple, did we but +realize it.</p> +<p>As you have sat there on open-windowed Sundays, looking across purple +clover-fields to blue distant mountains, watching the palm-leaf fans +swaying to and fro in the warm stillness before sermon time, did not +the place seem full of memories, for has not the life of two villages +ebbed and flowed beneath that ancient roof? You heard the hum +of droning bees and followed the airy wings of butterflies fluttering +over the gravestones in the old churchyard, and underneath almost every +moss-grown tablet some humble romance lies buried and all but forgotten.</p> +<p>If it had not been for you, I should never have written this story, +so I give it back to you tied with a sprig from Ophelia’s nosegay; +a spring of “rosemary, that’s for remembrance.”</p> +<p>K. D. W.</p> +<p>August, 1907</p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p>Edgewood, like all the other villages along the banks of the Saco, +is full of sunny slopes and leafy hollows. There are little, rounded, +green-clad hillocks that might, like their scriptural sisters, “skip +with joy,” and there are grand, rocky hills tufted with gaunt +pine trees—these leading the eye to the splendid heights of a +neighbour State, where snow-crowned peaks tower in the blue distance, +sweeping the horizon in a long line of majesty.</p> +<p>Tory Hill holds its own among the others for peaceful beauty and +fair prospect, and on its broad, level summit sits the white-painted +Orthodox Meeting-House. This faces a grassy common where six roads +meet, as if the early settlers had determined that no one should lack +salvation because of a difficulty in reaching its visible source.</p> +<p>The old church has had a dignified and fruitful past, dating from +that day in 1761 when young Paul Coffin received his call to preach +at a stipend of fifty pounds sterling a year; answering “that +never having heard of any Uneasiness among the people about his Doctrine +or manner of life, he declared himself pleased to Settle as Soon as +might be Judged Convenient.”</p> +<p>But that was a hundred and fifty years ago, and much has happened +since those simple, strenuous old days. The chastening hand of +time has been laid somewhat heavily on the town as well as on the church. +Some of her sons have marched to the wars and died on the field of honour; +some, seeking better fortunes, have gone westward; others, wearying +of village life, the rocky soil, and rigours of farm-work, have become +entangled in the noise and competition, the rush and strife, of cities. +When the sexton rings the bell nowadays, on a Sunday morning, it seems +to have lost some of its old-time militant strength, something of its +hope and courage; but it still rings, and although the Davids and Solomons, +the Matthews, Marks, and Pauls of former congregations have left few +descendants to perpetuate their labours, it will go on ringing as long +as there is a Tabitha, a Dorcas, a Lois, or a Eunice left in the community.</p> +<p>This sentiment had been maintained for a quarter of a century, but +it was now especially strong, as the old Tory Hill Meeting-House had +been undergoing for several years more or less extensive repairs. +In point of fact, the still stronger word, “improvements,” +might be used with impunity; though whenever the Dorcas Society, being +female, and therefore possessed of notions regarding comfort and beauty, +suggested any serious changes, the finance committees, which were inevitably +male in their composition, generally disapproved of making any impious +alterations in a tabernacle, chapel, temple, or any other building used +for purposes of worship. The majority in these august bodies asserted +that their ancestors had prayed and sung there for a century and a quarter, +and what was good enough for their ancestors was entirely suitable for +them. Besides, the community was becoming less and less prosperous, +and church-going was growing more and more lamentably uncommon, so that +even from a business standpoint, any sums expended upon decoration by +a poor and struggling parish would be worse than wasted.</p> +<p>In the particular year under discussion in this story, the valiant +and progressive Mrs. Jeremiah Burbank was the president of the Dorcas +Society, and she remarked privately and publicly that if her ancestors +liked a smoky church, they had a perfect right to the enjoyment of it, +but that she didn’t intend to sit through meeting on winter Sundays, +with her white ostrich feather turning grey and her eyes smarting and +watering, for the rest of her natural life.</p> +<p>Whereupon, this being in a business session, she then and there proposed +to her already hypnotized constituents ways of earning enough money +to build a new chimney on the other side of the church.</p> +<p>An awe-stricken community witnessed this beneficent act of vandalism, +and, finding that no thunderbolts of retribution descended from the +skies, greatly relished the change. If one or two aged persons +complained that they could not sleep as sweetly during sermon-time in +the now clear atmosphere of the church, and that the parson’s +eye was keener than before, why, that was a mere detail, and could not +be avoided; what was the loss of a little sleep compared with the discoloration +of Mrs. Jere Burbank’s white ostrich feather and the smarting +of Mrs. Jere Burbank’s eyes?</p> +<p>A new furnace followed the new chimney, in due course, and as a sense +of comfort grew, there was opportunity to notice the lack of beauty. +Twice in sixty years had some well-to-do summer parishioner painted +the interior of the church at his own expense; but although the roof +had been many times reshingled, it had always persisted in leaking, +so that the ceiling and walls were disfigured by unsightly spots and +stains and streaks. The question of shingling was tacitly felt +to be outside the feminine domain, but as there were five women to one +man in the church membership, the feminine domain was frequently obliged +to extend its limits into the hitherto unknown. Matters of tarring +and water-proofing were discussed in and out of season, and the very +school-children imbibed knowledge concerning lapping, overlapping, and +cross-lapping, and first and second quality of cedar shingles. +Miss Lobelia Brewster, who had a rooted distrust of anything done by +mere man, created strife by remarking that she could have stopped the +leak in the belfry tower with her red flannel petticoat better than +the Milltown man with his new-fangled rubber sheeting, and that the +last shingling could have been more thoroughly done by a “female +infant babe”; whereupon the person criticized retorted that he +wished Miss Lobelia Brewster had a few infant babes to “put on +the job—he’d like to see ’em try.” Meantime +several male members of the congregation, who at one time or another +had sat on the roof during the hottest of the dog days to see that shingling +operations we’re conscientiously and skilfully performed, were +very pessimistic as to any satisfactory result ever being achieved.</p> +<p>“The angle of the roof—what they call the ‘pitch’—they +say that that’s always been wrong,” announced the secretary +of the Dorcas in a business session.</p> +<p>“Is it that kind of pitch that the Bible says you can’t +touch without being defiled? If not, I vote that we unshingle +the roof and alter the pitch!” This proposal came from a +sister named Maria Sharp, who had valiantly offered the year before +to move the smoky chimney with her own hands, if the “men-folks” +wouldn’t.</p> +<p>But though the incendiary suggestion of altering the pitch was received +with applause at the moment, subsequent study of the situation proved +that such a proceeding was entirely beyond the modest means of the society. +Then there arose an ingenious and militant carpenter in a neighbouring +village, who asserted that he would shingle the meeting-house roof for +such and such a sum, and agree to drink every drop of water that would +leak in afterward. This was felt by all parties to be a promise +attended by extraordinary risks, but it was accepted nevertheless, Miss +Lobelia Brewster remarking that the rash carpenter, being already married, +could not marry a Dorcas anyway, and even if he died, he was not a resident +of Edgewood, and therefore could be more easily spared, and that it +would be rather exciting, just for a change, to see a man drink himself +to death with rain-water. The expected tragedy never occurred, +however, and the inspired shingler fulfilled his promise to the letter, +so that before many months the Dorcas Society proceeded, with incredible +exertion, to earn more money, and the interior of the church was neatly +painted and made as fresh as a rose. With no smoke, no rain, no +snow nor melting ice to defile it, the good old landmark that had been +pointing its finger Heavenward for over a century would now be clean +and fragrant for years to come, and the weary sisters leaned back in +their respective rocking-chairs and drew deep breaths of satisfaction.</p> +<p>These breaths continued to be drawn throughout an unusually arduous +haying season; until, in fact, a visitor from a neighbouring city was +heard to remark that the Tory Hill Meeting-House would be one of the +best preserved and pleasantest churches in the whole State of Maine, +if only it were suitably carpeted.</p> +<p>This thought had secretly occurred to many a Dorcas in her hours +of pie-making, preserving, or cradle-rocking, but had been promptly +extinguished as flagrantly extravagant and altogether impossible. +Now that it had been openly mentioned, the contagion of the idea spread, +and in a month every sort of honest machinery for the increase of funds +had been set in motion: harvest suppers, pie sociables, old folk’s +concerts, apron sales, and, as a last resort, a subscription paper, +for the church floor measured hundreds of square yards, and the carpet +committee announce that a good ingrain could not be purchased, even +with the church discount, for less than ninety-seven cents a yard.</p> +<p>The Dorcases took out their pencils, and when they multiplied the +surface of the floor by the price of the carpet per yard, each Dorcas +attaining a result entirely different from all the others, there was +a shriek of dismay, especially from the secretary, who had included +in her mathematical operation certain figures in her possession representing +the cubical contents of the church and the offending pitch of the roof, +thereby obtaining a product that would have dismayed a Croesus. +Time sped and efforts increased, but the Dorcases were at length obliged +to clip the wings of their desire and content themselves with carpeting +the pulpit and pulpit steps, the choir, and the two aisles, leaving +the floor in the pews until some future year.</p> +<p>How the women cut and contrived and matched that hardly-bought red +ingrain carpet, in the short December afternoons that ensued after its +purchase; so that, having failed to be ready for Thanksgiving, it could +be finished for the Christmas festivities!</p> +<p>They were sewing in the church, and as the last stitches were being +taken, Maria Sharp suddenly ejaculated in her impulsive fashion:—</p> +<p>“Wouldn’t it have been just perfect if we could have +had the pews repainted before we laid the new carpet!”</p> +<p>“It would, indeed,” the president answered; “but +it will take us all winter to pay for the present improvements, without +any thought of fresh paint. If only we had a few more men-folks +to help along!”</p> +<p>“Or else none at all!” was Lobelia Brewster’s suggestion. +“It’s havin’ so few that keeps us all stirred up. +If there wa’n’t any anywheres, we’d have women deacons +and carpenters and painters, and get along first rate; for somehow the +supply o’ women always holds out, same as it does with caterpillars +an’ flies an’ grasshoppers!”</p> +<p>Everybody laughed, although Maria Sharp asserted that she for one +was not willing to be called a caterpillar simply because there were +too many women in the universe.</p> +<p>“I never noticed before how shabby and scarred and dirty the +pews are,” said the minister’s wife as she looked at them +reflectively.</p> +<p>“I’ve been thinking all the afternoon of the story about +the poor old woman and the lily,” and Nancy Wentworth’s +clear voice broke into the discussion. “Do you remember +some one gave her a stalk of Easter lilies and she set them in a glass +pitcher on the kitchen table? After looking at them for a few +minutes, she got up from her chair and washed the pitcher until the +glass shone. Sitting down again, she glanced at the little window. +It would never do; she had forgotten how dusty and blurred it was, and +she took her cloth and burnished the panes. Then she scoured the +table, then the floor, then blackened the stove before she sat down +to her knitting. And of course the lily had done it all, just +by showing, in its whiteness, how grimy everything else was.”</p> +<p>The minister’s wife who had been in Edgewood only a few months, +looked admiringly at Nancy’s bright face, wondering that five-and-thirty +years of life, including ten of school-teaching, had done so little +to mar its serenity. “The lily story is as true as the gospel!” +she exclaimed, “and I can see how one thing has led you to another +in making the church comfortable. But my husband says that two +coats of paint on the pews would cost a considerable sum.”</p> +<p>“How about cleaning them? I don’t believe they’ve +had a good hard washing since the flood.” The suggestion +came from Deacon Miller’s wife to the president.</p> +<p>“They can’t even be scrubbed for less than fifteen or +twenty dollars, for I thought of that and asked Mrs. Simpson yesterday, +and she said twenty cents a pew was the cheapest she could do it for.”</p> +<p>“We’ve done everything else,” said Nancy Wentworth, +with a twitch of her thread; “why don’t we scrub the pews? +There’s nothing in the orthodox creed to forbid, is there?”</p> +<p>“Speakin’ o’ creeds,” and here old Mrs. Sargent +paused in her work, “Elder Ransom from Acreville stopped with +us last night, an’ he tells me they recite the Euthanasian Creed +every few Sundays in the Episcopal Church. I didn’t want +him to know how ignorant I was, but I looked up the word in the dictionary. +It means easy death, and I can’t see any sense in that, though +it’s a terrible long creed, the Elder says, an’ if it’s +any longer ’n ourn, I should think anybody <i>might</i> easy die +learnin’ it!”</p> +<p>“I think the word is Athanasian,” ventured the minister’s +wife.</p> +<p>“Elder Ransom’s always plumb full o’ doctrine,” +asserted Miss Brewster, pursuing the subject. “For my part, +I’m glad he preferred Acreville to our place. He was so +busy bein’ a minister, he never got round to bein’ a human +creeter. When he used to come to sociables and picnics, always +lookin’ kind o’ like the potato blight, I used to think +how complete he’d be if he had a foldin’ pulpit under his +coat tails; they make foldin’ beds nowadays, an’ I s’pose +they could make foldin’ pulpits, if there was a call.”</p> +<p>“Land sakes, I hope there won’t be!” exclaimed +Mrs. Sargent. “An’ the Elder never said much of anything +either, though he was always preachin’! Now your husband, +Mis’ Baxter, always has plenty to say after you think he’s +all through. There’s water in his well when the others is +all dry!”</p> +<p>“But how about the pews?” interrupted Mrs. Burbank. +“I think Nancy’s idea is splendid, and I want to see it +carried out. We might make it a picnic, bring our luncheons, and +work all together; let every woman in the congregation come and scrub +her own pew.”</p> +<p>“Some are too old, others live at too great a distance,” +and the minister’s wife sighed a little; “indeed, most of +those who once owned the pews or sat in them seemed to be dead, or gone +away to live in busier places.”</p> +<p>“I’ve no patience with ’em, gallivantin’ +over the earth,” and here Lobelia rose and shook the carpet threads +from her lap. “I shouldn’t want to live in a livelier +place than Edgewood, seem’s though! We wash and hang out +Mondays, iron Tuesdays, cook Wednesdays, clean house and mend Thursdays +and Fridays, bake Saturdays, and go to meetin’ Sundays. +I don’t hardly see how they can do any more ’n that in Chicago!”</p> +<p>“Never mind if we have lost members!” said the indomitable +Mrs. Burbank. “The members we still have left must work +all the harder. We’ll each clean our own pew, then take +a few of our neighbours’, and then hire Mrs. Simpson to do the +wainscoting and floor. Can we scrub Friday and lay the carpet +Saturday? My husband and Deacon Miller can help us at the end +of the week. All in favour manifest it by the usual sign. +Contrary minded? It is a vote.”</p> +<p>There never were any contrary minded when Mrs. Jere Burbank was in +the chair. Public sentiment in Edgewood was swayed by the Dorcas +Society, but Mrs. Burbank swayed the Dorcases themselves as the wind +sways the wheat.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p>The old Meeting House wore an animated aspect when the eventful Friday +came, a cold, brilliant, sparkling December day, with good sleighing, +and with energy in every breath that swept over the dazzling snowfields. +The sexton had built a fire in the furnace on the way to his morning +work—a fire so economically contrived that it would last exactly +the four or five necessary hours, and not a second more. At eleven +o’clock all the pillars of the society had assembled, having finished +their own household work and laid out on their respective kitchen tables +comfortable luncheons for the men of the family, if they were fortunate +enough to number any among their luxuries. Water was heated upon +oil-stoves set about here and there, and there was a brave array of +scrubbing-brushes, cloths, soap, and even sand and soda, for it had +been decided and manifested-by-the-usual-sign-and-no-contrary-minded-and-it-was-a-vote +that the dirt was to come off, whether the paint came with it or not. +Each of the fifteen women present selected a block of seats, preferably +one in which her own was situated, and all fell busily to work.</p> +<p>“There is nobody here to clean the right-wing pews,” +said Nancy Wentworth, “so I will take those for my share.”</p> +<p>“You’re not making a very wise choice, Nancy,” +and the minister’s wife smiled as she spoke. “The +infant class of the Sunday-school sits there, you know, and I expect +the paint has had extra wear and tear. Families don’t seem +to occupy those pews regularly nowadays.”</p> +<p>“I can remember when every seat in the whole church was filled, +wings an’ all,” mused Mrs. Sargent, wringing out her wascloth +in a reminiscent mood. “The one in front o’ you, Nancy, +was always called the ‘deef pew’ in the old times, and all +the folks that was hard o’ hearin’ used to congregate there.”</p> +<p>“The next pew hasn’t been occupied since I came here,” +said the minister’s wife.</p> +<p>“No,” answered Mrs. Sargent, glad of any opportunity +to retail neighbourhood news. “’Squire Bean’s +folks have moved to Portland to be with the married daughter. +Somebody has to stay with her, and her husband won’t. The +’Squire ain’t a strong man, and he’s most too old +to go to meetin’ now. The youngest son has just died in +New York, so I hear.”</p> +<p>“What ailed him?” inquired Maria Sharp.</p> +<p>“I guess he was completely wore out takin’ care of his +health,” returned Mrs. Sargent. “He had a splendid +constitution from a boy, but he was always afraid it wouldn’t +last him.—The seat back o’ ’Squire Bean’s is +the old Peabody pew—ain’t that the Peabody pew you’re +scrubbin’, Nancy?”</p> +<p>“I believe so,” Nancy answered, never pausing in her +labours. “It’s so long since anybody sat there, it’s +hard to remember.”</p> +<p>“It is the Peabodys’, I know it, because the aisle runs +right up facin’ it. I can see old Deacon Peabody settin’ +in this end same as if ’twas yesterday.”</p> +<p>“He had died before Jere and I came back here to live,” +said Mrs. Burbank. “The first I remember, Justin Peabody +sat in the end seat; the sister that died, next, and in the corner, +against the wall, Mrs. Peabody, with a crêpe shawl and a palm-leaf +fan. They were a handsome family. You used to sit with them +sometimes, Nancy; Esther was great friends with you.”</p> +<p>“Yes, she was,” Nancy replied, lifting the tattered cushion +from its place and brushing it; “and I with her.—What is +the use of scrubbing and carpeting, when there are only twenty pew-cushions +and six hassocks in the whole church, and most of them ragged? +How can I ever mend this?”</p> +<p>“I shouldn’t trouble myself to darn other people’s +cushions!”</p> +<p>This unchristian sentiment came in Mrs. Miller’s ringing tones +from the rear of the church.</p> +<p>“I don’t know why,” argued Maria Sharp. “I’m +going to mend my Aunt Achsa’s cushion, and we haven’t spoken +for years; but hers is the next pew to mine, and I’m going to +have my part of the church look decent, even if she is too stingy to +do her share. Besides, there aren’t any Peabodys left to +do their own darning, and Nancy was friends with Esther.”</p> +<p>“Yes, it’s nothing more than right,” Nancy replied, +with a note of relief in her voice, “considering Esther.”</p> +<p>“Though he don’t belong to the scrubbin’ sex, there +is one Peabody alive, as you know, if you stop to think, Maria; for +Justin’s alive, and livin’ out West somewheres. At +least, he’s as much alive as ever he was; he was as good as dead +when he was twenty-one, but his mother was always too soft-hearted to +bury him.”</p> +<p>There was considerable laughter over this sally of the outspoken +Mrs. Sargent, whose keen wit was the delight of the neighbourhood.</p> +<p>“I know he’s alive and doing business in Detroit, for +I got his address a week or ten days ago, and wrote, asking him if he’d +like to give a couple of dollars toward repairing the old church.”</p> +<p>Everybody looked at Mrs. Burbank with interest.</p> +<p>“Hasn’t he answered?” asked Maria Sharp.</p> +<p>Nancy Wentworth held her breath, turned her face to the wall, and +silently wiped the paint of the wainscoting. The blood that had +rushed into her cheeks at Mrs. Sargent’s jeering reference to +Justin Peabody still lingered there for any one who ran to read, but +fortunately nobody ran; they were too busy scrubbing.</p> +<p>“Not yet. Folks don’t hurry about answering when +you ask them for a contribution,” replied the president, with +a cynicism common to persons who collect funds for charitable purposes. +“George Wickham sent me twenty-five cents from Denver. When +I wrote him a receipt, I said thank you same as Aunt Polly did when +the neighbours brought her a piece of beef: ‘Ever so much obleeged, +but don’t forget me when you come to kill a pig.’—Now, +Mrs. Baxter, you shan’t clean James Bruce’s pew, or what +was his before he turned Second Advent. I’ll do that myself, +for he used to be in my Sunday-school class.”</p> +<p>“He’s the backbone o’ that congregation now,” +asserted Mrs. Sargent, “and they say he’s goin’ to +marry Mrs. Sam Peters, who sings in their choir as soon as his year +is up. They make a perfect fool of him in that church.”</p> +<p>“You can’t make a fool of a man that nature ain’t +begun with,” argued Miss Brewster. “Jim Bruce never +was very strong-minded, but I declare it seems to me that when men lose +their wives, they lose their wits! I was sure Jim would marry +Hannah Thompson that keeps house for him. I suspected she was +lookin’ out for a life job when she hired out with him.”</p> +<p>“Hannah Thompson may keep Jim’s house, but she’ll +never keep Jim, that’s certain!” affirmed the president; +“and I can’t see that Mrs. Peters will better herself much.”</p> +<p>“I don’t blame her, for one!” came in no uncertain +tones from the left-wing pews, and the Widow Buzzell rose from her knees +and approached the group by the pulpit. “If there’s +anything duller than cookin’ three meals a day <i>for</i> yourself, +and settin’ down and eatin’ ’em <i>by</i> yourself, +and then gettin’ up and clearin’ ’em away <i>after</i> +yourself, I’d like to know it! I shouldn’t want any +good-lookin’, pleasant-spoken man to offer himself to me without +he expected to be snapped up, that’s all! But if you’ve +made out to get one husband in York County, you can thank the Lord and +not expect any more favours. I used to think Tom was poor comp’ny +and complain I couldn’t have any conversation with him, but land, +I could talk at him, and there’s considerable comfort in that. +And I could pick up after him! Now every room in my house is clean, +and every closet and bureau drawer, too; I can’t start drawin’ +in another rug, for I’ve got all the rugs I can step foot on. +I dried so many apples last year I shan’t need to cut up any this +season. My jelly and preserves ain’t out, and there I am; +and there most of us are, in this village, without a man to take steps +for and trot ’round after! There’s just three husbands +among the fifteen women scrubbin’ here now, and the rest of us +is all old maids and widders. No wonder the men-folks die, or +move away like Justin Peabody; a place with such a mess o’ women-folks +ain’t healthy to live in, whatever Lobelia Brewster may say.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p>Justin Peabody had once faithfully struggled with the practical difficulties +of life in Edgewood, or so he had thought, in those old days of which +Nancy Wentworth was thinking as she wiped the paint of the Peabody pew. +Work in the mills did not attract him; he had no capital to invest in +a stock of goods for store-keeping; school-teaching offered him only +a pittance; there remained then only the farm, if he were to stay at +home and keep his mother company.</p> +<p>“Justin don’t seem to take no holt of things,” +said the neighbours.</p> +<p>“Good Heavens!” It seemed to him that there were +no things to take hold of! That was his first thought; later he +grew to think that the trouble all lay in himself, and both thoughts +bred weakness.</p> +<p>The farm had somehow supported the family in the old Deacon’s +time, but Justin seemed unable to coax a competence from the soil. +He could, and did, rise early and work late; till the earth, sow crops; +but he could not make the rain fall nor the sun shine at the times he +needed them, and the elements, however much they might seem to favour +his neighbours, seldom smiled on his enterprises. The crows liked +Justin’s corn better than any other in Edgewood. It had +a richness peculiar to itself, a quality that appealed to the most jaded +palate, so that it was really worth while to fly over a mile of intervening +fields and pay it the delicate compliment of preference.</p> +<p>Justin could explain the attitude of caterpillars, worms, grasshoppers, +and potato-bugs toward him only by assuming that he attracted them as +the magnet in the toy boxes attracts the miniature fishes.</p> +<p>“Land of liberty! look at ’em congregate!” ejaculated +Jabe Slocum, when he was called in for consultation. “Now +if you’d gone in for breedin’ insecks, you could be as proud +as Cuffy an’ exhibit ’em at the County Fair! They’d +give yer prizes for size an’ numbers an’ speed, I guess! +Why, say, they’re real crowded for room—the plants ain’t +give ’em enough leaves to roost on! Have you tried ‘Bug +Death’?”</p> +<p>“It acts like a tonic on them,” said Justin gloomily.</p> +<p>“Sho! you don’t say so! Now mine can’t abide +the sight nor smell of it. What ’bout Paris green?”</p> +<p>“They thrive on it; it’s as good as an appetizer.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Jabe Slocum, revolving the quid of tobacco +in his mouth reflectively, “the bug that ain’t got no objection +to p’ison is a bug that’s got ways o’ thinkin’ +an’ feelin’ an’ reasonin’ that I ain’t +able to cope with! P’r’aps it’s all a leadin’ +o’ Providence. Mebbe it shows you’d ought to quit +farmin’ crops an’ take to raisin’ live stock!”</p> +<p>Justin did just that, as a matter of fact, a year or two later; but +stock that has within itself the power of being “live” has +also rare qualifications for being dead when occasion suits, and it +generally did suit Justin’s stock. It proved prone not only +to all the general diseases that cattle-flesh is heir to, but was capable +even of suicide. At least, it is true that two valuable Jersey +calves, tied to stakes on the hillside, had flung themselves violently +down the bank and strangled themselves with their own ropes in a manner +which seemed to show that they found no pleasure in existence, at all +events on the Peabody farm.</p> +<p>These were some of the little tragedies that had sickened young Justin +Peabody with life in Edgewood, and Nancy Wentworth, even then, realized +some of them and sympathized without speaking, in a girl’s poor, +helpless way.</p> +<p>Mrs. Simpson had washed the floor in the right wing of the church +and Nancy had cleaned all the paint. Now she sat in the old Peabody +pew darning the forlorn, faded cushion with grey carpet-thread: thread +as grey as her own life.</p> +<p>The scrubbing-party had moved to its labours in a far corner of the +church, and two of the women were beginning preparations for the basket +luncheons. Nancy’s needle was no busier than her memory. +Long years ago she had often sat in the Peabody pew, sometimes at first +as a girl of sixteen when asked by Esther, and then, on coming home +from school at eighteen, “finished,” she had been invited +now and again by Mrs. Peabody herself, on those Sundays when her own +invalid mother had not attended service.</p> +<p>Those were wonderful Sundays—Sundays of quiet, trembling peace +and maiden joy.</p> +<p>Justin sat beside her, and she had been sure then, but had long since +grown to doubt the evidence of her senses, that he, too, vibrated with +pleasure at the nearness. Was there not a summer morning when +his hand touched her white lace mitt as they held the hymn-book together, +and the lines of the</p> +<blockquote><p>Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,<br /> +Thy better portion trace,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>became blurred on the page and melted into something indistinguishable +for a full minute or two afterward? Were there not looks, and +looks, and looks? Or had she some misleading trick of vision in +those days? Justin’s dark, handsome profile rose before +her: the level brows and fine lashes; the well-cut nose and lovable +mouth—the Peabody mouth and chin, somewhat too sweet and pliant +for strength, perhaps. Then the eyes turned to hers in the old +way, just for a fleeting glance, as they had so often done at prayer-meeting, +or sociable, or Sunday service. Was it not a man’s heart +she had seen in them? And oh, if she could only be sure that her +own woman’s heart had not looked out from hers, drawn from its +maiden shelter in spite of all her wish to keep it hidden!</p> +<p>Then followed two dreary years of indecision and suspense, when Justin’s +eyes met hers less freely; when his looks were always gloomy and anxious; +when affairs at the Peabody farm grew worse and worse; when his mother +followed her husband, the old Deacon, and her daughter Esther to the +burying-ground in the churchyard. Then the end of all things came, +the end of the world for Nancy: Justin’s departure for the West +in a very frenzy of discouragement over the narrowness and limitation +and injustice of his lot; over the rockiness and barrenness and unkindness +of the New England soil; over the general bitterness of fate and the +“bludgeonings of chance.”</p> +<p>He was a failure, born of a family of failures. If the world +owed him a living, he had yet to find the method by which it could be +earned. All this he thought and uttered, and much more of the +same sort. In these days of humbled pride self was paramount, +though it was a self he despised. There was no time for love. +Who was he for a girl to lean upon?—he who could not stand erect +himself!</p> +<p>He bade a stiff good-bye to his neighbours, and to Nancy he vouchsafed +little more. A handshake, with no thrill of love in it such as +might have furnished her palm, at least, some memories to dwell upon; +a few stilted words of leave-taking; a halting, meaningless sentence +or two about his “botch” of life—then he walked away +from the Wentworth doorstep. But half way down the garden path, +where the shrivelled hollyhocks stood like sentinels, did a wave of +something different sweep over him—a wave of the boyish, irresponsible +past when his heart had wings and could fly without fear to its mate—a +wave of the past that was rushing through Nancy’s mind, well-nigh +burying her in its bitter-sweet waters! For he lifted his head, +and suddenly retracing his steps, he came toward her, and, taking her +hand again, said forlornly: “You’ll see me back when my +luck turns, Nancy.”</p> +<p>Nancy knew that the words might mean little or much, according to +the manner in which they were uttered, but to her hurt pride and sore, +shamed woman-instinct, they were a promise, simply because there was +a choking sound in Justin’s voice and tears in Justin’s +eyes. “You’ll see me back when my luck turns, Nancy;” +this was the phrase upon which she had lived for more than ten years. +Nancy had once heard the old parson say, ages ago, that the whole purpose +of life was the growth of the soul; that we eat, sleep, clothe ourselves, +work, love, all to give the soul another day, month, year, in which +to develop. She used to wonder if her soul could be growing in +the monotonous round of her dull duties and her duller pleasures. +She did not confess it even to herself; nevertheless she knew that she +worked, ate, slept, to live until Justin’s luck turned. +Her love had lain in her heart a bird without a song, year after year. +Her mother had dwelt by her side and never guessed; her father too; +and both were dead. The neighbours also, lynx-eyed and curious, +had never suspected. If she had suffered, no one in Edgewood was +any the wiser, for the maiden heart is not commonly worn on the sleeve +in New England. If she had been openly pledged to Justin Peabody, +she could have waited twice ten years with a decent show of self-respect, +for long engagements were viewed rather as a matter of course in that +neighbourhood. The endless months had gone on since that grey +November day when Justin had said good-bye. It had been just before +Thanksgiving, and she went to church with an aching and ungrateful heart. +The parson read from the eighth chapter of St. Matthew, a most unexpected +selection for that holiday. “If you can’t find anything +else to be thankful for,” he cried, “go home and be thankful +you are not a leper!”</p> +<p>Nancy took the drastic counsel away from the church with her, and +it was many a year before she could manage to add to this slender store +anything to increase her gratitude for mercies given, though all the +time she was outwardly busy, cheerful, and helpful.</p> +<p>Justin had once come back to Edgewood, and it was the bitterest drop +in her cup of bitterness that she was spending that winter in Berwick +(where, so the neighbours told him, she was a great favourite in society, +and was receiving much attention from gentlemen), so that she had never +heard of his visit until the spring had come again. Parted friends +did not keep up with one another’s affairs by means of epistolary +communication, in those days, in Edgewood; it was not the custom. +Spoken words were difficult enough to Justin Peabody, and written words +were quite impossible, especially if they were to be used to define +his half-conscious desires and his fluctuations of will, or to recount +his disappointments and discouragements and mistakes.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p>It was Saturday afternoon, the twenty-fourth of December, and the +weary sisters of the Dorcas band rose from their bruised knees and removed +their little stores of carpet-tacks from their mouths. This was +a feminine custom of long standing, and as no village dressmaker had +ever died of pins in the digestive organs, so were no symptoms of carpet-tacks +ever discovered in any Dorcas, living or dead. Men wondered at +the habit and reviled it, but stood confounded in the presence of its +indubitable harmlessness.</p> +<p>The red ingrain carpet was indeed very warm, beautiful, and comforting +to the eye, and the sisters were suitably grateful to Providence, and +devoutly thankful to themselves, that they had been enabled to buy, +sew, and lay so many yards of it. But as they stood looking at +their completed task, it was cruelly true that there was much left to +do.</p> +<p>The aisles had been painted dark brown on each side of the red strips +leading from the doors to the pulpit, but the rest of the church floor +was “a thing of shreds and patches.” Each member of +the carpet committee had paid (as a matter of pride, however ill she +could afford it) three dollars and sixty-seven cents for sufficient +carpet to lay in her own pew; but these brilliant spots of conscientious +effort only made the stretches of bare, unpainted floor more evident. +And that was not all. Traces of former spasmodic and individual +efforts desecrated the present ideals. The doctor’s pew +had a pink and blue Brussels on it; the lawyer’s, striped stair-carpeting; +the Browns from Deerwander sported straw matting and were not abashed; +while the Greens, the Whites, the Blacks and the Greys displayed floor +coverings as dissimilar as their names.</p> +<p>“I never noticed it before!” exclaimed Maria Sharp, “but +it ain’t Christian, that floor! it’s heathenish and ungodly!”</p> +<p>“For mercy’s sake, don’t swear, Maria,” said +Mrs. Miller nervously. “We’ve done our best, and let’s +hope that folks will look up and not down. It isn’t as if +they were going to set in the chandelier; they’ll have something +else to think about when Nancy gets her hemlock branches and white carnations +in the pulpit vases. This morning my Abner picked off two pinks +from the plant I’ve been nursing in my dining-room for weeks, +trying to make it bloom for Christmas. I slapped his hands good, +and it’s been haunting me ever since to think I had to correct +him the day before Christmas—Come, Lobelia, we must be hurrying!”</p> +<p>“One thing comforts me,” exclaimed the Widow Buzzell, +as she took her hammer and tacks preparatory to leaving; “and +that is that the Methodist meetin’-house ain’t got any carpet +at all.”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Buzzell, Mrs. Buzzell!” interrupted the minister’s +wife, with a smile that took the sting from her speech. “It +will be like punishing little Abner Miller; if we think those thoughts +on Christmas Eve, we shall surely be haunted afterward.”</p> +<p>“And anyway,” interjected Maria Sharp, who always saved +the situation, “you just wait and see if the Methodists don’t +say they’d rather have no carpet at all than have one that don’t +go all over the floor. I know ’em!” and she put on +her hood and blanket-shawl as she gave one last fond look at the improvements.</p> +<p>“I’m going home to get my supper, and come back afterward +to lay the carpet in my pew; my beans and brown bread will be just right +by now, and perhaps it will rest me a little; besides, I must feed ’Zekiel.”</p> +<p>As Nancy Wentworth spoke, she sat in a corner of her own modest rear +seat, looking a little pale and tired. Her waving dark hair had +loosened and fallen over her cheeks, and her eyes gleamed from under +it wistfully. Nowadays Nancy’s eyes never had the sparkle +of gazing into the future, but always the liquid softness that comes +from looking backward.</p> +<p>“The church will be real cold by then, Nancy,” objected +Mrs. Burbank.—“Good-night, Mrs. Baxter.”</p> +<p>“Oh, no! I shall be back by half-past six, and I shall +not work long. Do you know what I believe I’ll do, Mrs. +Burbank, just through the holidays? Christmas and New Year’s +both coming on Sunday this year, there’ll be a great many out +to church, not counting the strangers that’ll come to the special +service to-morrow. Instead of putting down my own pew carpet that’ll +never be noticed here in the back, I’ll lay it in the old Peabody +pew, for the red aisle-strip leads straight up to it; the ministers +always go up that side, and it does look forlorn.”</p> +<p>“That’s so! And all the more because my pew, that’s +exactly opposite in the left wing, is new carpeted and cushioned,” +replied the president. “I think it’s real generous +of you, Nancy, because the Riverboro folks, knowing that you’re +a member of the carpet committee, will be sure to notice, and think +it’s queer you haven’t made an effort to carpet your own +pew.”</p> +<p>“Never mind!” smiled Nancy wearily. “Riverboro +folks never go to bed on Saturday nights without wondering what Edgewood +is thinking about them!”</p> +<p>The minister’s wife stood at her window watching Nancy as she +passed the parsonage.</p> +<p>“How wasted! How wasted!” she sighed. “Going +home to eat her lonely supper and feed ’Zekiel . . . I can bear +it for the others, but not for Nancy . . . Now she has lighted her lamp, +now she has put fresh pine on the fire, for new smoke comes from the +chimney. Why should I sit down and serve my dear husband, and +Nancy feed ’Zekiel?”</p> +<p>There was some truth in Mrs. Baxter’s feeling. Mrs. Buzzell, +for instance, had three sons; Maria Sharp was absorbed in her lame father +and her Sunday-school work; and Lobelia Brewster would not have considered +matrimony a blessing, even under the most favourable conditions. +But Nancy was framed and planned for other things, and ’Zekiel +was an insufficient channel for her soft, womanly sympathy and her bright +activity of mind and body.</p> +<p>’Zekiel had lost his tail in a mowing-machine; ’Zekiel +had the asthma, and the immersion of his nose in milk made him sneeze, +so he was wont to slip his paw in and out of the dish and lick it patiently +for five minutes together. Nancy often watched him pityingly, +giving him kind and gentle words to sustain his fainting spirit, but +to-night she paid no heed to him, although he sneezed violently to attract +her attention.</p> +<p>She had put her supper on the lighted table by the kitchen window +and was pouring out her cup of tea, when a boy rapped at the door. +“Here’s a paper and a letter, Miss Wentworth,” he +said. “It’s the second this week, and they think over +to the store that that Berwick widower must be settin’ up and +takin’ notice!”</p> +<p>She had indeed received a letter the day before, an unsigned communication, +consisting only of the words, “Second Epistle of John. Verse +12.”</p> +<p>She had taken her Bible to look out the reference and found it to +be:—</p> +<p>“Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with +paper and ink; but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, +that our joy may be full.”</p> +<p>The envelope was postmarked New York, and she smiled, thinking that +Mrs. Emerson, a charming lady who had spent the summer in Edgewood, +and had sung with her in the village choir, was coming back, as she +had promised, to have a sleigh ride and see Edgewood in its winter dress. +Nancy had almost forgotten the first letter in the excitements of her +busy day, and now here was another, from Boston this time. She +opened the envelope and found again only a single sentence, printed, +not written. (Lest she should guess the hand, she wondered?)</p> +<p>“Second Epistle of John. Verse 5.”</p> +<p>“And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new +commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that +we love one another.”</p> +<p>Was it Mrs. Emerson? Could it be—any one else? +Was it—? No, it might have been, years ago; but not now; +not now!—And yet; he was always so different from other people; +and once, in church, he had handed her the hymn-book with his finger +pointing to a certain verse.</p> +<p>She always fancied that her secret fidelity of heart rose from the +fact that Justin Peabody was “different.” From the +hour of their first acquaintance, she was ever comparing him with his +companions, and always to his advantage. So long as a woman finds +all men very much alike (as Lobelia Brewster did, save that she allowed +some to be worse!), she is in no danger. But the moment in which +she perceives and discriminates subtle differences, marvelling that +there can be two opinions about a man’s superiority, that moment +the miracle has happened.</p> +<p>“And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new +commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that +we love one another.”</p> +<p>No, it could not be from Justin. She drank her tea, played +with her beans abstractedly, and nibbled her slice of steaming brown +bread.</p> +<p>“Not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee.”</p> +<p>No, not a new one; twelve, fifteen years old, that commandment!</p> +<p>“That we love one another.”</p> +<p>Who was speaking? Who had written these words? The first +letter sounded just like Mrs. Emerson, who had said she was a very poor +correspondent, but that she should just “drop down” on Nancy +one of these days; but this second letter never came from Mrs. Emerson.—Well, +there would be an explanation some time; a pleasant one; one to smile +over, and tell ’Zekiel and repeat to the neighbours; but not an +unexpected, sacred, beautiful explanation, such a one as the heart of +a woman could imagine, if she were young enough and happy enough to +hope.</p> +<p>She washed her cup and plate; replaced the uneaten beans in the brown +pot, and put them away with the round loaf, folded the cloth (Lobelia +Brewster said Nancy always “set out her meals as if she was entertainin’ +company from Portland”), closed the stove dampers, carried the +lighted lamp to a safe corner shelf, and lifted ’Zekiel to his +cushion on the high-backed rocker, doing all with the nice precision +of long habit. Then she wrapped herself warmly, and locking the +lonely little house behind her, set out to finish her work in the church.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p>At this precise moment Justin Peabody was eating his own beans and +brown bread (articles of diet of which his Detroit landlady was lamentably +ignorant) at the new tavern, not far from the meeting-house.</p> +<p>It would not be fair to him to say that Mrs. Burbank’s letter +had brought him back to Edgewood, but it had certainly accelerated his +steps.</p> +<p>For the first six years after Justin Peabody left home, he had drifted +about from place to place, saving every possible dollar of his uncertain +earnings in the conscious hope that he could go back to New England +and ask Nancy Wentworth to marry him. The West was prosperous +and progressive, but how he yearned, in idle moments, for the grimmer +and more sterile soil that had given him birth!</p> +<p>Then came what seemed to him a brilliant chance for a lucky turn +of his savings, and he invested them in an enterprise which, wonderfully +as it promised, failed within six months and left him penniless. +At that moment he definitely gave up all hope, and for the next few +years he put Nancy as far as possible out of his mind, in the full belief +that he was acting an honourable part in refusing to drag her into his +tangled and fruitless way of life. If she ever did care for him,—and +he could not be sure, she was always so shy,—she must have outgrown +the feeling long since, and be living happily, or at least contentedly, +in her own way. He was glad in spite of himself when he heard +that she had never married; but at least he hadn’t it on his conscience +that <i>he</i> had kept her single!</p> +<p>On the seventeenth of December, Justin, his business day over, was +walking toward the dreary house in which he ate and slept. As +he turned the corner, he heard one woman say to another, as they watched +a man stumbling sorrowfully down the street: “Going home will +be the worst of all for him—to find nobody there!” +That was what going home had meant for him these ten years, but he afterward +felt it strange that this thought should have struck him so forcibly +on that particular day. Entering the boarding-house, he found +Mrs. Burbank’s letter with its Edgewood postmark on the hall table, +and took it up to his room. He kindled a little fire in the air-tight +stove, watching the flame creep from shavings to kindlings, from kindlings +to small pine, and from small pine to the round, hardwood sticks; then +when the result seemed certain, he closed the stove door and sat down +to read the letter. Whereupon all manner of strange things happened +in his head and heart and flesh and spirit as he sat there alone, his +hands in his pockets, his feet braced against the legs of the stove.</p> +<p>It was a cold winter night, and the snow and sleet beat against the +windows. He looked about the ugly room: at the washstand with +its square of oilcloth in front and its detestable bowl and pitcher; +at the rigours of his white iron bedstead, with the valley in the middle +of the lumpy mattress and the darns in the rumpled pillowcases; at the +dull photographs of the landlady’s hideous husband and children +enshrined on the mantelshelf; looked at the abomination of desolation +surrounding him until his soul sickened and cried out like a child’s +for something more like home. It was as if a spring thaw had melted +his ice-bound heart, and on the crest of a wave it was drifting out +into the milder waters of some unknown sea. He could have laid +his head in the kind lap of a woman and cried: “Comfort me! +Give me companionship or I die!”</p> +<p>The wind howled in the chimney and rattled the loose window-sashes; +the snow, freezing as it fell, dashed against the glass with hard, cutting +little blows; at least, that is the way in which the wind and snow flattered +themselves they were making existence disagreeable to Justin Peabody +when he read the letter; but never were elements more mistaken.</p> +<p>It was a June Sunday in the boarding-house bedroom; and for that +matter it was not the boarding-house bedroom at all: it was the old +Orthodox church on Tory Hill in Edgewood.</p> +<p>The windows were wide open, and the smell of the purple clover and +the humming of the bees were drifting into the sweet, wide spaces within. +Justin was sitting in the end of the Peabody pew, and Nancy Wentworth +was beside him; Nancy, cool and restful in her white dress; dark-haired +Nancy under the shadow of her shirred muslin hat.</p> +<blockquote><p>Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,<br /> +Thy better portion trace.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The melodeon gave the tune, and Nancy and he stood to sing, taking +the book between them. His hand touched hers, and as the music +of the hymn rose and fell, the future unrolled itself before his eyes; +a future in which Nancy was his wedded wife; and the happy years stretched +on and on in front of them until there was a row of little heads in +the old Peabody pew, and mother and father could look proudly along +the line at the young things they were bringing into the house of the +Lord.</p> +<p>The recalling of that vision worked like magic in Justin’s +blood. His soul rose and stretched its wings and “traced +its better portion” vividly, as he sprang to his feet and walked +up and down the bedroom floor. He would get a few days’ +leave and go back to Edgewood for Christmas, to join, with all the old +neighbours, in the service at the meeting-house; and in pursuance of +this resolve, he shook his fist in the face of the landlady’s +husband on the mantelpiece and dared him to prevent.</p> +<p>He had a salary of fifty dollars a month, with some very slight prospect +of an increase after January. He did not see how two persons could +eat, and drink, and lodge, and dress on it in Detroit, but he proposed +to give Nancy Wentworth the refusal of that magnificent future, that +brilliant and tempting offer. He had exactly one hundred dollars +in the bank, and sixty or seventy of them would be spent in the journeys, +counting two happy, blessed fares back from Edgewood to Detroit; and +if he paid only his own fare back, he would throw the price of the other +into the pond behind the Wentworth house. He would drop another +ten dollars into the plate on Christmas Day toward the repairs on the +church; if he starved, he would do that. He was a failure. +Everything his hand touched turned to naught. He looked himself +full in the face, recognizing his weakness, and in this supremest moment +of recognition he was a stronger man than he had been an hour before. +His drooping shoulders had straightened; the restless look had gone +from his eyes; his sombre face had something of repose in it, the repose +of a settled purpose. He was a failure, but perhaps if he took +the risks (and if Nancy would take them—but that was the trouble, +women were so unselfish, they were always willing to take risks, and +one ought not to let them!), perhaps he might do better in trying to +make a living for two than he had in working for himself alone. +He would go home, tell Nancy that he was an unlucky good-for-naught, +and ask her if she would try her hand at making him over.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p>These were the reasons that had brought Justin Peabody to Edgewood +on the Saturday afternoon before Christmas, and had taken him to the +new tavern on Tory Hill, near the Meeting-House.</p> +<p>Nobody recognized him at the station or noticed him at the tavern, +and after his supper he put on his overcoat and started out for a walk, +aimlessly hoping that he might meet a friend, or failing that, intending +to call on some of his old neighbours, with the view of hearing the +village news and securing some information which might help him to decide +when he had better lay himself and his misfortunes at Nancy Wentworth’s +feet. They were pretty feet! He remembered that fact well +enough under the magical influence of familiar sights and sounds and +odours. He was restless, miserable, anxious, homesick—not +for Detroit, but for some heretofore unimagined good; yet, like Bunyan’s +shepherd boy in the Valley of Humiliation, he carried “the herb +called Hearts-ease in his bosom,” for he was at last loving consciously.</p> +<p>How white the old church looked, and how green the blinds! +It must have been painted very lately: that meant that the parish was +fairly prosperous. There were new shutters in the belfry tower, +too; he remembered the former open space and the rusty bell, and he +liked the change. Did the chimney use to be in that corner? +No; but his father had always said it would have drawn better if it +had been put there in the beginning. New shingles within a year: +that was evident to a practised eye. He wondered if anything had +been done to the inside of the building, but he must wait until the +morrow to see, for, of course, the doors would be locked. No; +the one at the right side was ajar. He opened it softly and stepped +into the tiny square entry that he recalled so well—the one through +which the Sunday-school children ran out to the steps from their catechism, +apparently enjoying the sunshine after a spell of orthodoxy; the little +entry where the village girls congregated while waiting for the last +bell to ring—they made a soft blur of pink and blue and buff, +a little flutter of curls and braids and fans and sunshades, in his +mind’s eye, as he closed the outer door behind him and gently +opened the inner one. The church was flooded with moonlight and +snowlight, and there was one lamp burning at the back of the pulpit; +a candle, too, on the pulpit steps. There was the tip-tap-tip +of a tack-hammer going on in a distant corner. Was somebody hanging +Christmas garlands? The new red carpet attracted his notice, and +as he grew accustomed to the dim light, it carried his eye along the +aisle he had trod so many years of Sundays, to the old familiar pew. +The sound of the hammer ceased and a woman rose from her knees. +A stranger was doing for the family honour what he ought himself to +have done. The woman turned to shake her skirt, and it was Nancy +Wentworth. He might have known it. Women were always faithful; +they always remembered old landmarks, old days, old friends, old duties. +His father and mother and Esther were all gone; who but dear Nancy would +have made the old Peabody pew right and tidy for the Christmas festival? +Bless her kind womanly heart!</p> +<p>She looked just the same to him as when he last saw her. Mercifully +he seemed to have held in remembrance all these years not so much her +youthful bloom as her general qualities of mind and heart: her cheeriness, +her spirit, her unflagging zeal, her bright womanliness. Her grey +dress was turned up in front over a crimson moreen petticoat. +She had on a cosy jacket, a fur turban of some sort with a redbreast +in it, and her cheeks were flushed from exertion. “Sweet +records, and promises as sweet,” had always met in Nancy’s +face, and either he had forgotten how pretty she was, or else she had +absolutely grown prettier during his absence.</p> +<p>Nancy would have chosen the supreme moment of meeting very differently, +but she might well have chosen worse. She unpinned her skirt and +brushed the threads off, smoothed the pew cushions carefully, and took +a last stitch in the ragged hassock. She then lifted the Bible +and the hymn-book from the rack, and putting down a bit of flannel on +the pulpit steps, took a flatiron from an oil-stove, and opening the +ancient books, pressed out the well-thumbed leaves one by one with infinite +care. After replacing the volumes in their accustomed place, she +first extinguished the flame of her stove, which she tucked out of sight, +and then blew out the lamp and the candle. The church was still +light enough for objects to be seen in a shadowy way, like the objects +in a dream, and Justin did not realize that he was a man in the flesh, +looking at a woman; spying, it might be, upon her privacy. He +was one part of a dream and she another, and he stood as if waiting, +and fearing, to be awakened.</p> +<p>Nancy, having done all, came out of the pew, and standing in the +aisle, looked back at the scene of her labours with pride and content. +And as she looked, some desire to stay a little longer in the dear old +place must have come over her, or some dread of going back to her lonely +cottage, for she sat down in Justin’s corner of the pew with folded +hands, her eyes fixed dreamily on the pulpit and her ears hearing: “Not +as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had +from the beginning.”</p> +<p>Justin’s grasp on the latch tightened as he prepared to close +the door and leave the place, but his instinct did not warn him quickly +enough, after all, for, obeying some uncontrollable impulse, Nancy suddenly +fell on her knees in the pew and buried her face in the cushions.</p> +<p>The dream broke, and in an instant Justin was a man—worse than +that, he was an eavesdropper, ashamed of his unsuspected presence. +He felt himself standing, with covered head and feet shod, in the holy +temple of a woman’s heart.</p> +<p>But his involuntary irreverence brought abundant grace with it. +The glimpse and the revelation wrought their miracles silently and irresistibly, +not by the slow processes of growth which Nature demands for her enterprises, +but with the sudden swiftness of the spirit. In an instant changes +had taken place in Justin’s soul which his so-called “experiencing +religion” twenty-five years back had been powerless to effect. +He had indeed been baptized then, but the recording angel could have +borne witness that this second baptism fructified the first, and became +the real herald of the new birth and the new creature.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p>Justin Peabody silently closed the inner door, and stood in the entry +with his head bent and his heart in a whirl until he should hear Nancy +rise to her feet. He must take this Heaven-sent chance of telling +her all, but how do it without alarming her?</p> +<p>A moment, and her step sounded in the stillness of the empty church.</p> +<p>Obeying the first impulse, he passed through the outer door, and +standing on the step, knocked once, twice, three times; then, opening +it a little and speaking through the chink, he called, “Is Miss +Nancy Wentworth here?”</p> +<p>“I’m here!” in a moment came Nancy’s answer, +and then, with a little wondering tremor in her voice, as if a hint +of the truth had already dawned: “What’s wanted?”</p> +<p>“You’re wanted, Nancy, wanted badly, by Justin Peabody, +come back from the West.”</p> +<p>The door opened wide, and Justin faced Nancy standing half-way down +the aisle, her eyes brilliant, her lips parted. A week ago Justin’s +apparition confronting her in the empty Meeting-House after nightfall, +even had she been prepared for it as now, by his voice, would have terrified +her beyond measure. Now it seemed almost natural and inevitable. +She had spent these last days in the church where both of them had been +young and happy together; the two letters had brought him vividly to +mind, and her labour in the old Peabody pew had been one long excursion +into the past in which he was the most prominent and the best-loved +figure.</p> +<p>“I said I’d come back to you when my luck turned, Nancy.”</p> +<p>These were so precisely the words she expected him to say, should +she ever see him again face to face, that for an additional moment they +but heightened her sense of unreality.</p> +<p>“Well, the luck hasn’t turned, after all, but I couldn’t +wait any longer. Have you given a thought to me all these years, +Nancy?”</p> +<p>“More than one, Justin”; for the very look upon his face, +the tenderness of his voice, the attitude of his body, outran his words +and told her what he had come home to say, told her that her years of +waiting were over at last.</p> +<p>“You ought to despise me for coming back again with only myself +and my empty hands to offer you.”</p> +<p>How easy it was to speak his heart out in this dim and quiet place! +How tongue-tied he would have been, sitting on the black haircloth sofa +in the Wentworth parlour and gazing at the open soapstone stove!</p> +<p>“Oh, men are such fools!” cried Nancy, smiles and tears +struggling together in her speech, as she sat down suddenly in her own +pew and put her hands over her face.</p> +<p>“They are,” agreed Justin humbly, “but I’ve +never stopped loving you, whenever I’ve had time for thinking +or loving. And I wasn’t sure that you really cared anything +about me; and how could I have asked you when I hadn’t a dollar +in the world?”</p> +<p>“There are other things to give a woman besides dollars, Justin.”</p> +<p>“Are there? Well, you shall have them all, every one +of them, Nancy, if you can make up your mind to do without the dollars; +for dollars seem to be just what I can’t manage.”</p> +<p>Her hand was in his by this time, and they were sitting side by side +in the cushionless, carpetless Wentworth pew. The door stood open; +the winter moon shone in upon them. That it was beginning to grow +cold in the church passed unnoticed. The grasp of the woman’s +hand seemed to give the man new hope and courage, and Justin’s +warm, confiding, pleading pressure brought balm to Nancy, balm and healing +for the wounds her pride had suffered; joy, too, half-conscious still, +that her life need not be lived to the end in unfruitful solitude. +She had waited, “as some grey lake lies, full and smooth, awaiting +the star below the twilight.” Justin Peabody might have +been no other woman’s star, but he was Nancy’s!</p> +<p>“Just you sitting beside me here makes me feel as if I’d +been asleep or dead all these years, and just born over again,” +said Justin. “I’ve led a respectable, hard-working, +honest life, Nancy,” he continued, “and I don’t owe +any man a cent; the trouble is that no man owes me one. I’ve +got enough money to pay two fares back to Detroit on Monday, although +I was terribly afraid you wouldn’t let me do it. It’ll +need a good deal of thinking and planning, Nancy, for we shall be very +poor.”</p> +<p>Nancy had been storing up fidelity and affection deep, deep in the +hive of her heart all these years, and now the honey of her helpfulness +stood ready to be gathered.</p> +<p>“Could I keep hens in Detroit?” she asked. “I +can always make them pay.”</p> +<p>“Hens—in three rooms, Nancy?”</p> +<p>Her face fell. “And no yard?”</p> +<p>“No yard.”</p> +<p>A moment’s pause, and then the smile came. “Oh, +well, I’ve had yards and hens for thirty-five years. Doing +without them will be a change. I can take in sewing.”</p> +<p>“No, you can’t, Nancy. I need your backbone and +wits and pluck and ingenuity, but if I can’t ask you to sit with +your hands folded for the rest of your life, as I’d like to, you +shan’t use them for other people. You’re marrying +me to make a man of me, but I’m not marrying you to make you a +drudge.”</p> +<p>His voice rang clear and true in the silence, and Nancy’s heart +vibrated at the sound.</p> +<p>“Oh, Justin, Justin!” she whispered. “There’s +something wrong somewhere, but we’ll find it out together, you +and I, and make it right. You’re not like a failure. +You don’t even <i>look</i> poor, Justin; there isn’t a man +in Edgewood to compare with you, or I should be washing his dishes and +darning his stockings this minute. And I am not a pauper! +There’ll be the rent of my little house and a carload of my furniture, +so you can put the three-room idea out of your mind, and your firm will +offer you a larger salary when you tell them you have a wife to take +care of. Oh, I see it all, and it is as easy and bright and happy +as can be!”</p> +<p>Justin put his arm around her and drew her close, with such a throb +of gratitude for her belief and trust that it moved him almost to tears.</p> +<p>There was a long pause: then he said:—</p> +<p>“Now I shall call for you to-morrow morning after the last +bell has stopped ringing, and we will walk up the aisle together and +sit in the old Peabody pew. We shall be a nine-days’ wonder +anyway, but this will be equal to an announcement, especially if you +take my arm. We don’t either of us like to be stared at, +but this will show without a word what we think of each other and what +we’ve promised to be to each other, and it’s the only thing +that will make me feel sure of you and settled in my mind after all +these mistaken years. Have you got the courage, Nancy?”</p> +<p>“I shouldn’t wonder! I guess if I’ve had +courage enough to wait for you, I’ve got courage enough to walk +up the aisle with you and marry you besides!” said Nancy.—“Now +it is too late for us to stay here any longer, and you must see me only +as far as my gate, for perhaps you haven’t forgotten yet how interested +the Brewsters are in their neighbours.”</p> +<p>They stood at the little Wentworth gate for a moment, hand close +clasped in hand. The night was clear, the air was cold and sparkling, +but with nothing of bitterness in it; the sky was steely blue and the +evening star glowed and burned like a tiny sun. Nancy remembered +the shepherd’s song she had taught the Sunday-school children, +and repeated softly:—</p> +<blockquote><p>For I my sheep was watching<br /> +Beneath the silent skies,<br /> +When sudden, far to eastward,<br /> +I saw a star arise;<br /> +Then all the peaceful heavens<br /> +With sweetest music rang,<br /> +And glory, glory, glory!<br /> +The happy angels sang.</p> +<p>So I this night am joyful,<br /> +Though I can scarce tell why,<br /> +It seemeth me that glory<br /> +Hath met us very nigh;<br /> +And we, though poor and humble,<br /> +Have part in heavenly plan,<br /> +For, born to-night, the Prince of Peace<br /> +Shall rule the heart of man.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Justin’s heart melted within him like wax to the woman’s +vision and the woman’s touch.</p> +<p>“Oh, Nancy, Nancy!” he whispered. “If I had +brought my bad luck to you long, long ago, would you have taken me then, +and have I lost years of such happiness as this?”</p> +<p>“There are some things it is not best for a man to be certain +about,” said Nancy, with a wise smile and a last good-night.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<blockquote><p>“Ring out, sweet bells,<br /> +O’er woods and dells<br /> +Your lovely strains repeat,<br /> +While happy throngs<br /> +With joyous songs<br /> +Each accent gladly greet.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Christmas morning in the old Tory Hill Meeting-House was felt by +all of the persons who were present in that particular year to be a +most exciting and memorable occasion.</p> +<p>The old sexton quite outdid himself, for although he had rung the +bell for more than thirty years, he had never felt greater pride or +joy in his task. Was not his son John home for Christmas, and +John’s wife, and a grandchild newly named Nathaniel for himself? +Were there not spareribs and turkeys and cranberries and mince pies +on the pantry shelves, and barrels of rosy Baldwins in the cellar and +bottles of mother’s root beer just waiting to give a holiday pop? +The bell itself forgot its age and the suspicion of a crack that dulled +its voice on a damp day, and, inspired by the bright, frosty air, the +sexton’s inspiring pull, and the Christmas spirit, gave out nothing +but joyous tones.</p> +<p>Ding-dong! Ding-dong! It fired the ambitions of star +scholars about to recite hymns and sing solos. It thrilled little +girls expecting dolls before night. It excited beyond bearing +dozens of little boys being buttoned into refractory overcoats. +Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Mothers’ fingers trembled when +they heard it, and mothers’ voices cried: “If that is the +second bell, the children will never be ready in time! Where are +the overshoes? Where are the mittens? Hurry, Jack! +Hurry, Jennie!” Ding-dong! Ding-dong! “Where’s +Sally’s muff? Where’s father’s fur cap? +Is the sleigh at the door? Are the hot soapstones in? Have +all of you your money for the contribution box?”</p> +<p>Ding-dong! Ding-dong! It was a blithe bell, a sweet, +true bell, a holy bell, and to Justin, pacing his tavern room, as to +Nancy, trembling in her maiden chamber, it rang a Christmas message:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Awake, glad heart! Arise and sing;<br /> +It is the birthday of thy King!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The congregation filled every seat in the old Meeting-House.</p> +<p>As Maria Sharp had prophesied, there was one ill-natured spinster +from a rival village who declared that the church floor looked like +Joseph’s coat laid out smooth; but in the general chorus of admiration, +approval, and good will, this envious speech, though repeated from mouth +to mouth, left no sting.</p> +<p>Another item of interest long recalled was the fact that on that +august and unapproachable day the pulpit vases stood erect and empty, +though Nancy Wentworth had filled them every Sunday since any one could +remember. This instance, though felt at the time to be of mysterious +significance if the cause were ever revealed, paled into nothingness +when, after the ringing of the last bell, Nancy Wentworth walked up +the aisle on Justin Peabody’s arm, and they took their seats side +by side in the old family pew.</p> +<p>(“And consid’able close, too, though there was plenty +o’ room!”)</p> +<p>(“And no one that I ever heard of so much as suspicioned that +they had ever kept company!”)</p> +<p>(“And do you s’pose she knew Justin was expected back +when she scrubbed his pew a-Friday?”)</p> +<p>(“And this explains the empty pulpit vases!”)</p> +<p>(“And I always said that Nancy would make a real handsome couple +if she ever got anybody to couple with!”)</p> +<p>During the unexpected and solemn procession of the two up the aisle +the soprano of the village choir stopped short in the middle of the +Doxology, and the three other voices carried it to the end without any +treble. Also, among those present there were some who could not +remember afterward the precise petitions wafted upward in the opening +prayer.</p> +<p>And could it be explained otherwise than by cheerfully acknowledging +the bounty of an overruling Providence that Nancy Wentworth should have +had a new winter dress for the first time in five years—a winter +dress of dark brown cloth to match her beaver muff and victorine? +The existence of this toilette had been known and discussed in Edgewood +for a month past, and it was thought to be nothing more than a proper +token of respect from a member of the carpet committee to the general +magnificence of the church on the occasion of its reopening after repairs. +Indeed, you could have identified every member of the Dorcas Society +that Sunday morning by the freshness of her apparel. The brown +dress, then, was generally expected; but why the white cashmere waist +with collar and cuffs of point lace, devised only and suitable only +for the minister’s wedding, where it first saw the light?</p> +<p>“The white waist can only be explained as showing distinct +hope!” whispered the minister’s wife during the reading +of the church notices.</p> +<p>“To me it shows more than hope; I am very sure that Nancy would +never take any wear out of that lace for hope; it means certainty!” +answered Maria, who was always strong in the prophetic line.</p> +<p>By sermon time Justin’s identity had dawned upon most of the +congregation. A stranger to all but one or two at first, his presence +in the Peabody pew brought his face and figure back, little by little, +to the minds of the old parishioners.</p> +<p>When the contribution plate was passed, the sexton always began at +the right-wing pews, as all the sextons before him had done for a hundred +years. Every eye in the church was already turned upon Justin +and Nancy, and it was with almost a gasp that those in the vicinity +saw a ten dollar bill fall in the plate. The sexton reeled, or, +if that is too intemperate a word for a pillar of the church, the good +man tottered, but caught hold of the pew rail with one hand, and, putting +the thumb of his other over the bill, proceeded quickly to the next +pew, lest the stranger should think better of his gift, or demand change, +as had occasionally been done in the olden time.</p> +<p>Nancy never fluttered an eyelash, but sat quietly by Justin’s +side with her bosom rising and falling under the beaver fur and her +cold hands clasped tight in the little brown muff. Far from grudging +this appreciable part of their slender resources, she thrilled with +pride to see Justin’s offering fall in the plate.</p> +<p>Justin was too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice anything, but +his munificent contribution had a most unexpected effect upon his reputation, +after all; for on that day, and on many another later one, when his +sudden marriage and departure with Nancy Wentworth were under discussion, +the neighbours said to one another:—</p> +<p>“Justin must be making money fast out West! He put ten +dollars in the contribution plate a-Sunday, and paid the minister ten +more next day for marryin’ him to Nancy; so the Peabody luck has +turned at last!” which, as a matter of fact, it had.</p> +<p>“And all the time,” said the chairman of the carpet committee +to the treasurer of the Dorcas Society—“all the time, little +as she realized it, Nancy was laying the carpet in her own pew. +Now she’s married to Justin she’ll be the makin’ of +him, or I miss my guess. You can’t do a thing with men folks +without they’re right alongside where you can keep your eye and +hand on ’em. Justin’s handsome and good and stiddy; +all he need is some nice woman to put starch into him. The Edgewood +Peabodys never had a mite o’ stiffenin’ in ’em,—limp +as dishrags, every blessed one! Nancy Wentworth fairly rustles +with starch. Justin hadn’t been engaged to her but a few +hours when they walked up the aisle together, but did you notice the +way he carried his head? I declare I thought ’t would fall +off behind! I shouldn’t wonder a mite but they prospered +and come back every summer to set in the old Peabody Pew.”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD PEABODY PEW***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1902-h.htm or 1902-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/1902 + + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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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: The Old Peabody Pew + A Christmas Romance of a Country Church + + +Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Release Date: March 22, 2005 [eBook #1902] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD PEABODY PEW*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1907 Archibald Constable & Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church + + +Dedication + + +To a certain handful of dear New England women of names unknown to the +world, dwelling in a certain quiet village, alike unknown:-- + +We have worked together to make our little corner of the great universe a +pleasanter place in which to live, and so we know, not only one another's +names, but something of one another's joys and sorrows, cares and +burdens, economies, hopes, and anxieties. + +We all remember the dusty uphill road that leads to the green church +common. We remember the white spire pointing upward against a background +of blue sky and feathery elms. We remember the sound of the bell that +falls on the Sabbath morning stillness, calling us across the +daisy-sprinkled meadows of June, the golden hayfields of July, or the +dazzling whiteness and deep snowdrifts of December days. The little +cabinet-organ that plays the doxology, the hymn-books from which we sing +"Praise God from whom all blessings flow," the sweet freshness of the old +meeting-house, within and without--how we have toiled to secure and +preserve these humble mercies for ourselves and our children! + +There really _is_ a Dorcas Society, as you and I well know, and one not +unlike that in these pages; and you and I have lived through many +discouraging, laughable, and beautiful experiences while we emulated the +Bible Dorcas, that woman "full of good works and alms deeds." + +There never was a Peabody Pew in the Tory Hill Meeting-House, and Nancy's +love story and Justin's never happened within its century-old walls; but +I have imagined only one of the many romances that have had their birth +under the shadow of that steeple, did we but realize it. + +As you have sat there on open-windowed Sundays, looking across purple +clover-fields to blue distant mountains, watching the palm-leaf fans +swaying to and fro in the warm stillness before sermon time, did not the +place seem full of memories, for has not the life of two villages ebbed +and flowed beneath that ancient roof? You heard the hum of droning bees +and followed the airy wings of butterflies fluttering over the +gravestones in the old churchyard, and underneath almost every moss-grown +tablet some humble romance lies buried and all but forgotten. + +If it had not been for you, I should never have written this story, so I +give it back to you tied with a sprig from Ophelia's nosegay; a spring of +"rosemary, that's for remembrance." + +K. D. W. + +August, 1907 + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Edgewood, like all the other villages along the banks of the Saco, is +full of sunny slopes and leafy hollows. There are little, rounded, green- +clad hillocks that might, like their scriptural sisters, "skip with joy," +and there are grand, rocky hills tufted with gaunt pine trees--these +leading the eye to the splendid heights of a neighbour State, where snow- +crowned peaks tower in the blue distance, sweeping the horizon in a long +line of majesty. + +Tory Hill holds its own among the others for peaceful beauty and fair +prospect, and on its broad, level summit sits the white-painted Orthodox +Meeting-House. This faces a grassy common where six roads meet, as if +the early settlers had determined that no one should lack salvation +because of a difficulty in reaching its visible source. + +The old church has had a dignified and fruitful past, dating from that +day in 1761 when young Paul Coffin received his call to preach at a +stipend of fifty pounds sterling a year; answering "that never having +heard of any Uneasiness among the people about his Doctrine or manner of +life, he declared himself pleased to Settle as Soon as might be Judged +Convenient." + +But that was a hundred and fifty years ago, and much has happened since +those simple, strenuous old days. The chastening hand of time has been +laid somewhat heavily on the town as well as on the church. Some of her +sons have marched to the wars and died on the field of honour; some, +seeking better fortunes, have gone westward; others, wearying of village +life, the rocky soil, and rigours of farm-work, have become entangled in +the noise and competition, the rush and strife, of cities. When the +sexton rings the bell nowadays, on a Sunday morning, it seems to have +lost some of its old-time militant strength, something of its hope and +courage; but it still rings, and although the Davids and Solomons, the +Matthews, Marks, and Pauls of former congregations have left few +descendants to perpetuate their labours, it will go on ringing as long as +there is a Tabitha, a Dorcas, a Lois, or a Eunice left in the community. + +This sentiment had been maintained for a quarter of a century, but it was +now especially strong, as the old Tory Hill Meeting-House had been +undergoing for several years more or less extensive repairs. In point of +fact, the still stronger word, "improvements," might be used with +impunity; though whenever the Dorcas Society, being female, and therefore +possessed of notions regarding comfort and beauty, suggested any serious +changes, the finance committees, which were inevitably male in their +composition, generally disapproved of making any impious alterations in a +tabernacle, chapel, temple, or any other building used for purposes of +worship. The majority in these august bodies asserted that their +ancestors had prayed and sung there for a century and a quarter, and what +was good enough for their ancestors was entirely suitable for them. +Besides, the community was becoming less and less prosperous, and church- +going was growing more and more lamentably uncommon, so that even from a +business standpoint, any sums expended upon decoration by a poor and +struggling parish would be worse than wasted. + +In the particular year under discussion in this story, the valiant and +progressive Mrs. Jeremiah Burbank was the president of the Dorcas +Society, and she remarked privately and publicly that if her ancestors +liked a smoky church, they had a perfect right to the enjoyment of it, +but that she didn't intend to sit through meeting on winter Sundays, with +her white ostrich feather turning grey and her eyes smarting and +watering, for the rest of her natural life. + +Whereupon, this being in a business session, she then and there proposed +to her already hypnotized constituents ways of earning enough money to +build a new chimney on the other side of the church. + +An awe-stricken community witnessed this beneficent act of vandalism, +and, finding that no thunderbolts of retribution descended from the +skies, greatly relished the change. If one or two aged persons +complained that they could not sleep as sweetly during sermon-time in the +now clear atmosphere of the church, and that the parson's eye was keener +than before, why, that was a mere detail, and could not be avoided; what +was the loss of a little sleep compared with the discoloration of Mrs. +Jere Burbank's white ostrich feather and the smarting of Mrs. Jere +Burbank's eyes? + +A new furnace followed the new chimney, in due course, and as a sense of +comfort grew, there was opportunity to notice the lack of beauty. Twice +in sixty years had some well-to-do summer parishioner painted the +interior of the church at his own expense; but although the roof had been +many times reshingled, it had always persisted in leaking, so that the +ceiling and walls were disfigured by unsightly spots and stains and +streaks. The question of shingling was tacitly felt to be outside the +feminine domain, but as there were five women to one man in the church +membership, the feminine domain was frequently obliged to extend its +limits into the hitherto unknown. Matters of tarring and water-proofing +were discussed in and out of season, and the very school-children imbibed +knowledge concerning lapping, overlapping, and cross-lapping, and first +and second quality of cedar shingles. Miss Lobelia Brewster, who had a +rooted distrust of anything done by mere man, created strife by remarking +that she could have stopped the leak in the belfry tower with her red +flannel petticoat better than the Milltown man with his new-fangled +rubber sheeting, and that the last shingling could have been more +thoroughly done by a "female infant babe"; whereupon the person +criticized retorted that he wished Miss Lobelia Brewster had a few infant +babes to "put on the job--he'd like to see 'em try." Meantime several +male members of the congregation, who at one time or another had sat on +the roof during the hottest of the dog days to see that shingling +operations we're conscientiously and skilfully performed, were very +pessimistic as to any satisfactory result ever being achieved. + +"The angle of the roof--what they call the 'pitch'--they say that that's +always been wrong," announced the secretary of the Dorcas in a business +session. + +"Is it that kind of pitch that the Bible says you can't touch without +being defiled? If not, I vote that we unshingle the roof and alter the +pitch!" This proposal came from a sister named Maria Sharp, who had +valiantly offered the year before to move the smoky chimney with her own +hands, if the "men-folks" wouldn't. + +But though the incendiary suggestion of altering the pitch was received +with applause at the moment, subsequent study of the situation proved +that such a proceeding was entirely beyond the modest means of the +society. Then there arose an ingenious and militant carpenter in a +neighbouring village, who asserted that he would shingle the +meeting-house roof for such and such a sum, and agree to drink every drop +of water that would leak in afterward. This was felt by all parties to +be a promise attended by extraordinary risks, but it was accepted +nevertheless, Miss Lobelia Brewster remarking that the rash carpenter, +being already married, could not marry a Dorcas anyway, and even if he +died, he was not a resident of Edgewood, and therefore could be more +easily spared, and that it would be rather exciting, just for a change, +to see a man drink himself to death with rain-water. The expected +tragedy never occurred, however, and the inspired shingler fulfilled his +promise to the letter, so that before many months the Dorcas Society +proceeded, with incredible exertion, to earn more money, and the interior +of the church was neatly painted and made as fresh as a rose. With no +smoke, no rain, no snow nor melting ice to defile it, the good old +landmark that had been pointing its finger Heavenward for over a century +would now be clean and fragrant for years to come, and the weary sisters +leaned back in their respective rocking-chairs and drew deep breaths of +satisfaction. + +These breaths continued to be drawn throughout an unusually arduous +haying season; until, in fact, a visitor from a neighbouring city was +heard to remark that the Tory Hill Meeting-House would be one of the best +preserved and pleasantest churches in the whole State of Maine, if only +it were suitably carpeted. + +This thought had secretly occurred to many a Dorcas in her hours of pie- +making, preserving, or cradle-rocking, but had been promptly extinguished +as flagrantly extravagant and altogether impossible. Now that it had +been openly mentioned, the contagion of the idea spread, and in a month +every sort of honest machinery for the increase of funds had been set in +motion: harvest suppers, pie sociables, old folk's concerts, apron sales, +and, as a last resort, a subscription paper, for the church floor +measured hundreds of square yards, and the carpet committee announce that +a good ingrain could not be purchased, even with the church discount, for +less than ninety-seven cents a yard. + +The Dorcases took out their pencils, and when they multiplied the surface +of the floor by the price of the carpet per yard, each Dorcas attaining a +result entirely different from all the others, there was a shriek of +dismay, especially from the secretary, who had included in her +mathematical operation certain figures in her possession representing the +cubical contents of the church and the offending pitch of the roof, +thereby obtaining a product that would have dismayed a Croesus. Time +sped and efforts increased, but the Dorcases were at length obliged to +clip the wings of their desire and content themselves with carpeting the +pulpit and pulpit steps, the choir, and the two aisles, leaving the floor +in the pews until some future year. + +How the women cut and contrived and matched that hardly-bought red +ingrain carpet, in the short December afternoons that ensued after its +purchase; so that, having failed to be ready for Thanksgiving, it could +be finished for the Christmas festivities! + +They were sewing in the church, and as the last stitches were being +taken, Maria Sharp suddenly ejaculated in her impulsive fashion:-- + +"Wouldn't it have been just perfect if we could have had the pews +repainted before we laid the new carpet!" + +"It would, indeed," the president answered; "but it will take us all +winter to pay for the present improvements, without any thought of fresh +paint. If only we had a few more men-folks to help along!" + +"Or else none at all!" was Lobelia Brewster's suggestion. "It's havin' +so few that keeps us all stirred up. If there wa'n't any anywheres, we'd +have women deacons and carpenters and painters, and get along first rate; +for somehow the supply o' women always holds out, same as it does with +caterpillars an' flies an' grasshoppers!" + +Everybody laughed, although Maria Sharp asserted that she for one was not +willing to be called a caterpillar simply because there were too many +women in the universe. + +"I never noticed before how shabby and scarred and dirty the pews are," +said the minister's wife as she looked at them reflectively. + +"I've been thinking all the afternoon of the story about the poor old +woman and the lily," and Nancy Wentworth's clear voice broke into the +discussion. "Do you remember some one gave her a stalk of Easter lilies +and she set them in a glass pitcher on the kitchen table? After looking +at them for a few minutes, she got up from her chair and washed the +pitcher until the glass shone. Sitting down again, she glanced at the +little window. It would never do; she had forgotten how dusty and +blurred it was, and she took her cloth and burnished the panes. Then she +scoured the table, then the floor, then blackened the stove before she +sat down to her knitting. And of course the lily had done it all, just +by showing, in its whiteness, how grimy everything else was." + +The minister's wife who had been in Edgewood only a few months, looked +admiringly at Nancy's bright face, wondering that five-and-thirty years +of life, including ten of school-teaching, had done so little to mar its +serenity. "The lily story is as true as the gospel!" she exclaimed, "and +I can see how one thing has led you to another in making the church +comfortable. But my husband says that two coats of paint on the pews +would cost a considerable sum." + +"How about cleaning them? I don't believe they've had a good hard +washing since the flood." The suggestion came from Deacon Miller's wife +to the president. + +"They can't even be scrubbed for less than fifteen or twenty dollars, for +I thought of that and asked Mrs. Simpson yesterday, and she said twenty +cents a pew was the cheapest she could do it for." + +"We've done everything else," said Nancy Wentworth, with a twitch of her +thread; "why don't we scrub the pews? There's nothing in the orthodox +creed to forbid, is there?" + +"Speakin' o' creeds," and here old Mrs. Sargent paused in her work, +"Elder Ransom from Acreville stopped with us last night, an' he tells me +they recite the Euthanasian Creed every few Sundays in the Episcopal +Church. I didn't want him to know how ignorant I was, but I looked up +the word in the dictionary. It means easy death, and I can't see any +sense in that, though it's a terrible long creed, the Elder says, an' if +it's any longer 'n ourn, I should think anybody _might_ easy die learnin' +it!" + +"I think the word is Athanasian," ventured the minister's wife. + +"Elder Ransom's always plumb full o' doctrine," asserted Miss Brewster, +pursuing the subject. "For my part, I'm glad he preferred Acreville to +our place. He was so busy bein' a minister, he never got round to bein' +a human creeter. When he used to come to sociables and picnics, always +lookin' kind o' like the potato blight, I used to think how complete he'd +be if he had a foldin' pulpit under his coat tails; they make foldin' +beds nowadays, an' I s'pose they could make foldin' pulpits, if there was +a call." + +"Land sakes, I hope there won't be!" exclaimed Mrs. Sargent. "An' the +Elder never said much of anything either, though he was always preachin'! +Now your husband, Mis' Baxter, always has plenty to say after you think +he's all through. There's water in his well when the others is all dry!" + +"But how about the pews?" interrupted Mrs. Burbank. "I think Nancy's +idea is splendid, and I want to see it carried out. We might make it a +picnic, bring our luncheons, and work all together; let every woman in +the congregation come and scrub her own pew." + +"Some are too old, others live at too great a distance," and the +minister's wife sighed a little; "indeed, most of those who once owned +the pews or sat in them seemed to be dead, or gone away to live in busier +places." + +"I've no patience with 'em, gallivantin' over the earth," and here +Lobelia rose and shook the carpet threads from her lap. "I shouldn't +want to live in a livelier place than Edgewood, seem's though! We wash +and hang out Mondays, iron Tuesdays, cook Wednesdays, clean house and +mend Thursdays and Fridays, bake Saturdays, and go to meetin' Sundays. I +don't hardly see how they can do any more 'n that in Chicago!" + +"Never mind if we have lost members!" said the indomitable Mrs. Burbank. +"The members we still have left must work all the harder. We'll each +clean our own pew, then take a few of our neighbours', and then hire Mrs. +Simpson to do the wainscoting and floor. Can we scrub Friday and lay the +carpet Saturday? My husband and Deacon Miller can help us at the end of +the week. All in favour manifest it by the usual sign. Contrary minded? +It is a vote." + +There never were any contrary minded when Mrs. Jere Burbank was in the +chair. Public sentiment in Edgewood was swayed by the Dorcas Society, +but Mrs. Burbank swayed the Dorcases themselves as the wind sways the +wheat. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The old Meeting House wore an animated aspect when the eventful Friday +came, a cold, brilliant, sparkling December day, with good sleighing, and +with energy in every breath that swept over the dazzling snowfields. The +sexton had built a fire in the furnace on the way to his morning work--a +fire so economically contrived that it would last exactly the four or +five necessary hours, and not a second more. At eleven o'clock all the +pillars of the society had assembled, having finished their own household +work and laid out on their respective kitchen tables comfortable +luncheons for the men of the family, if they were fortunate enough to +number any among their luxuries. Water was heated upon oil-stoves set +about here and there, and there was a brave array of scrubbing-brushes, +cloths, soap, and even sand and soda, for it had been decided and +manifested-by-the-usual-sign-and-no-contrary-minded-and-it-was-a-vote +that the dirt was to come off, whether the paint came with it or not. +Each of the fifteen women present selected a block of seats, preferably +one in which her own was situated, and all fell busily to work. + +"There is nobody here to clean the right-wing pews," said Nancy +Wentworth, "so I will take those for my share." + +"You're not making a very wise choice, Nancy," and the minister's wife +smiled as she spoke. "The infant class of the Sunday-school sits there, +you know, and I expect the paint has had extra wear and tear. Families +don't seem to occupy those pews regularly nowadays." + +"I can remember when every seat in the whole church was filled, wings an' +all," mused Mrs. Sargent, wringing out her wascloth in a reminiscent +mood. "The one in front o' you, Nancy, was always called the 'deef pew' +in the old times, and all the folks that was hard o' hearin' used to +congregate there." + +"The next pew hasn't been occupied since I came here," said the +minister's wife. + +"No," answered Mrs. Sargent, glad of any opportunity to retail +neighbourhood news. "'Squire Bean's folks have moved to Portland to be +with the married daughter. Somebody has to stay with her, and her +husband won't. The 'Squire ain't a strong man, and he's most too old to +go to meetin' now. The youngest son has just died in New York, so I +hear." + +"What ailed him?" inquired Maria Sharp. + +"I guess he was completely wore out takin' care of his health," returned +Mrs. Sargent. "He had a splendid constitution from a boy, but he was +always afraid it wouldn't last him.--The seat back o' 'Squire Bean's is +the old Peabody pew--ain't that the Peabody pew you're scrubbin', Nancy?" + +"I believe so," Nancy answered, never pausing in her labours. "It's so +long since anybody sat there, it's hard to remember." + +"It is the Peabodys', I know it, because the aisle runs right up facin' +it. I can see old Deacon Peabody settin' in this end same as if 'twas +yesterday." + +"He had died before Jere and I came back here to live," said Mrs. +Burbank. "The first I remember, Justin Peabody sat in the end seat; the +sister that died, next, and in the corner, against the wall, Mrs. +Peabody, with a crepe shawl and a palm-leaf fan. They were a handsome +family. You used to sit with them sometimes, Nancy; Esther was great +friends with you." + +"Yes, she was," Nancy replied, lifting the tattered cushion from its +place and brushing it; "and I with her.--What is the use of scrubbing and +carpeting, when there are only twenty pew-cushions and six hassocks in +the whole church, and most of them ragged? How can I ever mend this?" + +"I shouldn't trouble myself to darn other people's cushions!" + +This unchristian sentiment came in Mrs. Miller's ringing tones from the +rear of the church. + +"I don't know why," argued Maria Sharp. "I'm going to mend my Aunt +Achsa's cushion, and we haven't spoken for years; but hers is the next +pew to mine, and I'm going to have my part of the church look decent, +even if she is too stingy to do her share. Besides, there aren't any +Peabodys left to do their own darning, and Nancy was friends with +Esther." + +"Yes, it's nothing more than right," Nancy replied, with a note of relief +in her voice, "considering Esther." + +"Though he don't belong to the scrubbin' sex, there is one Peabody alive, +as you know, if you stop to think, Maria; for Justin's alive, and livin' +out West somewheres. At least, he's as much alive as ever he was; he was +as good as dead when he was twenty-one, but his mother was always too +soft-hearted to bury him." + +There was considerable laughter over this sally of the outspoken Mrs. +Sargent, whose keen wit was the delight of the neighbourhood. + +"I know he's alive and doing business in Detroit, for I got his address a +week or ten days ago, and wrote, asking him if he'd like to give a couple +of dollars toward repairing the old church." + +Everybody looked at Mrs. Burbank with interest. + +"Hasn't he answered?" asked Maria Sharp. + +Nancy Wentworth held her breath, turned her face to the wall, and +silently wiped the paint of the wainscoting. The blood that had rushed +into her cheeks at Mrs. Sargent's jeering reference to Justin Peabody +still lingered there for any one who ran to read, but fortunately nobody +ran; they were too busy scrubbing. + +"Not yet. Folks don't hurry about answering when you ask them for a +contribution," replied the president, with a cynicism common to persons +who collect funds for charitable purposes. "George Wickham sent me +twenty-five cents from Denver. When I wrote him a receipt, I said thank +you same as Aunt Polly did when the neighbours brought her a piece of +beef: 'Ever so much obleeged, but don't forget me when you come to kill a +pig.'--Now, Mrs. Baxter, you shan't clean James Bruce's pew, or what was +his before he turned Second Advent. I'll do that myself, for he used to +be in my Sunday-school class." + +"He's the backbone o' that congregation now," asserted Mrs. Sargent, "and +they say he's goin' to marry Mrs. Sam Peters, who sings in their choir as +soon as his year is up. They make a perfect fool of him in that church." + +"You can't make a fool of a man that nature ain't begun with," argued +Miss Brewster. "Jim Bruce never was very strong-minded, but I declare it +seems to me that when men lose their wives, they lose their wits! I was +sure Jim would marry Hannah Thompson that keeps house for him. I +suspected she was lookin' out for a life job when she hired out with +him." + +"Hannah Thompson may keep Jim's house, but she'll never keep Jim, that's +certain!" affirmed the president; "and I can't see that Mrs. Peters will +better herself much." + +"I don't blame her, for one!" came in no uncertain tones from the left- +wing pews, and the Widow Buzzell rose from her knees and approached the +group by the pulpit. "If there's anything duller than cookin' three +meals a day _for_ yourself, and settin' down and eatin' 'em _by_ +yourself, and then gettin' up and clearin' 'em away _after_ yourself, I'd +like to know it! I shouldn't want any good-lookin', pleasant-spoken man +to offer himself to me without he expected to be snapped up, that's all! +But if you've made out to get one husband in York County, you can thank +the Lord and not expect any more favours. I used to think Tom was poor +comp'ny and complain I couldn't have any conversation with him, but land, +I could talk at him, and there's considerable comfort in that. And I +could pick up after him! Now every room in my house is clean, and every +closet and bureau drawer, too; I can't start drawin' in another rug, for +I've got all the rugs I can step foot on. I dried so many apples last +year I shan't need to cut up any this season. My jelly and preserves +ain't out, and there I am; and there most of us are, in this village, +without a man to take steps for and trot 'round after! There's just +three husbands among the fifteen women scrubbin' here now, and the rest +of us is all old maids and widders. No wonder the men-folks die, or move +away like Justin Peabody; a place with such a mess o' women-folks ain't +healthy to live in, whatever Lobelia Brewster may say." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Justin Peabody had once faithfully struggled with the practical +difficulties of life in Edgewood, or so he had thought, in those old days +of which Nancy Wentworth was thinking as she wiped the paint of the +Peabody pew. Work in the mills did not attract him; he had no capital to +invest in a stock of goods for store-keeping; school-teaching offered him +only a pittance; there remained then only the farm, if he were to stay at +home and keep his mother company. + +"Justin don't seem to take no holt of things," said the neighbours. + +"Good Heavens!" It seemed to him that there were no things to take hold +of! That was his first thought; later he grew to think that the trouble +all lay in himself, and both thoughts bred weakness. + +The farm had somehow supported the family in the old Deacon's time, but +Justin seemed unable to coax a competence from the soil. He could, and +did, rise early and work late; till the earth, sow crops; but he could +not make the rain fall nor the sun shine at the times he needed them, and +the elements, however much they might seem to favour his neighbours, +seldom smiled on his enterprises. The crows liked Justin's corn better +than any other in Edgewood. It had a richness peculiar to itself, a +quality that appealed to the most jaded palate, so that it was really +worth while to fly over a mile of intervening fields and pay it the +delicate compliment of preference. + +Justin could explain the attitude of caterpillars, worms, grasshoppers, +and potato-bugs toward him only by assuming that he attracted them as the +magnet in the toy boxes attracts the miniature fishes. + +"Land of liberty! look at 'em congregate!" ejaculated Jabe Slocum, when +he was called in for consultation. "Now if you'd gone in for breedin' +insecks, you could be as proud as Cuffy an' exhibit 'em at the County +Fair! They'd give yer prizes for size an' numbers an' speed, I guess! +Why, say, they're real crowded for room--the plants ain't give 'em enough +leaves to roost on! Have you tried 'Bug Death'?" + +"It acts like a tonic on them," said Justin gloomily. + +"Sho! you don't say so! Now mine can't abide the sight nor smell of it. +What 'bout Paris green?" + +"They thrive on it; it's as good as an appetizer." + +"Well," said Jabe Slocum, revolving the quid of tobacco in his mouth +reflectively, "the bug that ain't got no objection to p'ison is a bug +that's got ways o' thinkin' an' feelin' an' reasonin' that I ain't able +to cope with! P'r'aps it's all a leadin' o' Providence. Mebbe it shows +you'd ought to quit farmin' crops an' take to raisin' live stock!" + +Justin did just that, as a matter of fact, a year or two later; but stock +that has within itself the power of being "live" has also rare +qualifications for being dead when occasion suits, and it generally did +suit Justin's stock. It proved prone not only to all the general +diseases that cattle-flesh is heir to, but was capable even of suicide. +At least, it is true that two valuable Jersey calves, tied to stakes on +the hillside, had flung themselves violently down the bank and strangled +themselves with their own ropes in a manner which seemed to show that +they found no pleasure in existence, at all events on the Peabody farm. + +These were some of the little tragedies that had sickened young Justin +Peabody with life in Edgewood, and Nancy Wentworth, even then, realized +some of them and sympathized without speaking, in a girl's poor, helpless +way. + +Mrs. Simpson had washed the floor in the right wing of the church and +Nancy had cleaned all the paint. Now she sat in the old Peabody pew +darning the forlorn, faded cushion with grey carpet-thread: thread as +grey as her own life. + +The scrubbing-party had moved to its labours in a far corner of the +church, and two of the women were beginning preparations for the basket +luncheons. Nancy's needle was no busier than her memory. Long years ago +she had often sat in the Peabody pew, sometimes at first as a girl of +sixteen when asked by Esther, and then, on coming home from school at +eighteen, "finished," she had been invited now and again by Mrs. Peabody +herself, on those Sundays when her own invalid mother had not attended +service. + +Those were wonderful Sundays--Sundays of quiet, trembling peace and +maiden joy. + +Justin sat beside her, and she had been sure then, but had long since +grown to doubt the evidence of her senses, that he, too, vibrated with +pleasure at the nearness. Was there not a summer morning when his hand +touched her white lace mitt as they held the hymn-book together, and the +lines of the + + Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, + Thy better portion trace, + +became blurred on the page and melted into something indistinguishable +for a full minute or two afterward? Were there not looks, and looks, and +looks? Or had she some misleading trick of vision in those days? +Justin's dark, handsome profile rose before her: the level brows and fine +lashes; the well-cut nose and lovable mouth--the Peabody mouth and chin, +somewhat too sweet and pliant for strength, perhaps. Then the eyes +turned to hers in the old way, just for a fleeting glance, as they had so +often done at prayer-meeting, or sociable, or Sunday service. Was it not +a man's heart she had seen in them? And oh, if she could only be sure +that her own woman's heart had not looked out from hers, drawn from its +maiden shelter in spite of all her wish to keep it hidden! + +Then followed two dreary years of indecision and suspense, when Justin's +eyes met hers less freely; when his looks were always gloomy and anxious; +when affairs at the Peabody farm grew worse and worse; when his mother +followed her husband, the old Deacon, and her daughter Esther to the +burying-ground in the churchyard. Then the end of all things came, the +end of the world for Nancy: Justin's departure for the West in a very +frenzy of discouragement over the narrowness and limitation and injustice +of his lot; over the rockiness and barrenness and unkindness of the New +England soil; over the general bitterness of fate and the "bludgeonings +of chance." + +He was a failure, born of a family of failures. If the world owed him a +living, he had yet to find the method by which it could be earned. All +this he thought and uttered, and much more of the same sort. In these +days of humbled pride self was paramount, though it was a self he +despised. There was no time for love. Who was he for a girl to lean +upon?--he who could not stand erect himself! + +He bade a stiff good-bye to his neighbours, and to Nancy he vouchsafed +little more. A handshake, with no thrill of love in it such as might +have furnished her palm, at least, some memories to dwell upon; a few +stilted words of leave-taking; a halting, meaningless sentence or two +about his "botch" of life--then he walked away from the Wentworth +doorstep. But half way down the garden path, where the shrivelled +hollyhocks stood like sentinels, did a wave of something different sweep +over him--a wave of the boyish, irresponsible past when his heart had +wings and could fly without fear to its mate--a wave of the past that was +rushing through Nancy's mind, well-nigh burying her in its bitter-sweet +waters! For he lifted his head, and suddenly retracing his steps, he +came toward her, and, taking her hand again, said forlornly: "You'll see +me back when my luck turns, Nancy." + +Nancy knew that the words might mean little or much, according to the +manner in which they were uttered, but to her hurt pride and sore, shamed +woman-instinct, they were a promise, simply because there was a choking +sound in Justin's voice and tears in Justin's eyes. "You'll see me back +when my luck turns, Nancy;" this was the phrase upon which she had lived +for more than ten years. Nancy had once heard the old parson say, ages +ago, that the whole purpose of life was the growth of the soul; that we +eat, sleep, clothe ourselves, work, love, all to give the soul another +day, month, year, in which to develop. She used to wonder if her soul +could be growing in the monotonous round of her dull duties and her +duller pleasures. She did not confess it even to herself; nevertheless +she knew that she worked, ate, slept, to live until Justin's luck turned. +Her love had lain in her heart a bird without a song, year after year. +Her mother had dwelt by her side and never guessed; her father too; and +both were dead. The neighbours also, lynx-eyed and curious, had never +suspected. If she had suffered, no one in Edgewood was any the wiser, +for the maiden heart is not commonly worn on the sleeve in New England. +If she had been openly pledged to Justin Peabody, she could have waited +twice ten years with a decent show of self-respect, for long engagements +were viewed rather as a matter of course in that neighbourhood. The +endless months had gone on since that grey November day when Justin had +said good-bye. It had been just before Thanksgiving, and she went to +church with an aching and ungrateful heart. The parson read from the +eighth chapter of St. Matthew, a most unexpected selection for that +holiday. "If you can't find anything else to be thankful for," he cried, +"go home and be thankful you are not a leper!" + +Nancy took the drastic counsel away from the church with her, and it was +many a year before she could manage to add to this slender store anything +to increase her gratitude for mercies given, though all the time she was +outwardly busy, cheerful, and helpful. + +Justin had once come back to Edgewood, and it was the bitterest drop in +her cup of bitterness that she was spending that winter in Berwick +(where, so the neighbours told him, she was a great favourite in society, +and was receiving much attention from gentlemen), so that she had never +heard of his visit until the spring had come again. Parted friends did +not keep up with one another's affairs by means of epistolary +communication, in those days, in Edgewood; it was not the custom. Spoken +words were difficult enough to Justin Peabody, and written words were +quite impossible, especially if they were to be used to define his half- +conscious desires and his fluctuations of will, or to recount his +disappointments and discouragements and mistakes. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +It was Saturday afternoon, the twenty-fourth of December, and the weary +sisters of the Dorcas band rose from their bruised knees and removed +their little stores of carpet-tacks from their mouths. This was a +feminine custom of long standing, and as no village dressmaker had ever +died of pins in the digestive organs, so were no symptoms of carpet-tacks +ever discovered in any Dorcas, living or dead. Men wondered at the habit +and reviled it, but stood confounded in the presence of its indubitable +harmlessness. + +The red ingrain carpet was indeed very warm, beautiful, and comforting to +the eye, and the sisters were suitably grateful to Providence, and +devoutly thankful to themselves, that they had been enabled to buy, sew, +and lay so many yards of it. But as they stood looking at their +completed task, it was cruelly true that there was much left to do. + +The aisles had been painted dark brown on each side of the red strips +leading from the doors to the pulpit, but the rest of the church floor +was "a thing of shreds and patches." Each member of the carpet committee +had paid (as a matter of pride, however ill she could afford it) three +dollars and sixty-seven cents for sufficient carpet to lay in her own +pew; but these brilliant spots of conscientious effort only made the +stretches of bare, unpainted floor more evident. And that was not all. +Traces of former spasmodic and individual efforts desecrated the present +ideals. The doctor's pew had a pink and blue Brussels on it; the +lawyer's, striped stair-carpeting; the Browns from Deerwander sported +straw matting and were not abashed; while the Greens, the Whites, the +Blacks and the Greys displayed floor coverings as dissimilar as their +names. + +"I never noticed it before!" exclaimed Maria Sharp, "but it ain't +Christian, that floor! it's heathenish and ungodly!" + +"For mercy's sake, don't swear, Maria," said Mrs. Miller nervously. +"We've done our best, and let's hope that folks will look up and not +down. It isn't as if they were going to set in the chandelier; they'll +have something else to think about when Nancy gets her hemlock branches +and white carnations in the pulpit vases. This morning my Abner picked +off two pinks from the plant I've been nursing in my dining-room for +weeks, trying to make it bloom for Christmas. I slapped his hands good, +and it's been haunting me ever since to think I had to correct him the +day before Christmas--Come, Lobelia, we must be hurrying!" + +"One thing comforts me," exclaimed the Widow Buzzell, as she took her +hammer and tacks preparatory to leaving; "and that is that the Methodist +meetin'-house ain't got any carpet at all." + +"Mrs. Buzzell, Mrs. Buzzell!" interrupted the minister's wife, with a +smile that took the sting from her speech. "It will be like punishing +little Abner Miller; if we think those thoughts on Christmas Eve, we +shall surely be haunted afterward." + +"And anyway," interjected Maria Sharp, who always saved the situation, +"you just wait and see if the Methodists don't say they'd rather have no +carpet at all than have one that don't go all over the floor. I know +'em!" and she put on her hood and blanket-shawl as she gave one last fond +look at the improvements. + +"I'm going home to get my supper, and come back afterward to lay the +carpet in my pew; my beans and brown bread will be just right by now, and +perhaps it will rest me a little; besides, I must feed 'Zekiel." + +As Nancy Wentworth spoke, she sat in a corner of her own modest rear +seat, looking a little pale and tired. Her waving dark hair had loosened +and fallen over her cheeks, and her eyes gleamed from under it wistfully. +Nowadays Nancy's eyes never had the sparkle of gazing into the future, +but always the liquid softness that comes from looking backward. + +"The church will be real cold by then, Nancy," objected Mrs. +Burbank.--"Good-night, Mrs. Baxter." + +"Oh, no! I shall be back by half-past six, and I shall not work long. Do +you know what I believe I'll do, Mrs. Burbank, just through the holidays? +Christmas and New Year's both coming on Sunday this year, there'll be a +great many out to church, not counting the strangers that'll come to the +special service to-morrow. Instead of putting down my own pew carpet +that'll never be noticed here in the back, I'll lay it in the old Peabody +pew, for the red aisle-strip leads straight up to it; the ministers +always go up that side, and it does look forlorn." + +"That's so! And all the more because my pew, that's exactly opposite in +the left wing, is new carpeted and cushioned," replied the president. "I +think it's real generous of you, Nancy, because the Riverboro folks, +knowing that you're a member of the carpet committee, will be sure to +notice, and think it's queer you haven't made an effort to carpet your +own pew." + +"Never mind!" smiled Nancy wearily. "Riverboro folks never go to bed on +Saturday nights without wondering what Edgewood is thinking about them!" + +The minister's wife stood at her window watching Nancy as she passed the +parsonage. + +"How wasted! How wasted!" she sighed. "Going home to eat her lonely +supper and feed 'Zekiel . . . I can bear it for the others, but not for +Nancy . . . Now she has lighted her lamp, now she has put fresh pine on +the fire, for new smoke comes from the chimney. Why should I sit down +and serve my dear husband, and Nancy feed 'Zekiel?" + +There was some truth in Mrs. Baxter's feeling. Mrs. Buzzell, for +instance, had three sons; Maria Sharp was absorbed in her lame father and +her Sunday-school work; and Lobelia Brewster would not have considered +matrimony a blessing, even under the most favourable conditions. But +Nancy was framed and planned for other things, and 'Zekiel was an +insufficient channel for her soft, womanly sympathy and her bright +activity of mind and body. + +'Zekiel had lost his tail in a mowing-machine; 'Zekiel had the asthma, +and the immersion of his nose in milk made him sneeze, so he was wont to +slip his paw in and out of the dish and lick it patiently for five +minutes together. Nancy often watched him pityingly, giving him kind and +gentle words to sustain his fainting spirit, but to-night she paid no +heed to him, although he sneezed violently to attract her attention. + +She had put her supper on the lighted table by the kitchen window and was +pouring out her cup of tea, when a boy rapped at the door. "Here's a +paper and a letter, Miss Wentworth," he said. "It's the second this +week, and they think over to the store that that Berwick widower must be +settin' up and takin' notice!" + +She had indeed received a letter the day before, an unsigned +communication, consisting only of the words, "Second Epistle of John. +Verse 12." + +She had taken her Bible to look out the reference and found it to be:-- + +"Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and +ink; but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy +may be full." + +The envelope was postmarked New York, and she smiled, thinking that Mrs. +Emerson, a charming lady who had spent the summer in Edgewood, and had +sung with her in the village choir, was coming back, as she had promised, +to have a sleigh ride and see Edgewood in its winter dress. Nancy had +almost forgotten the first letter in the excitements of her busy day, and +now here was another, from Boston this time. She opened the envelope and +found again only a single sentence, printed, not written. (Lest she +should guess the hand, she wondered?) + +"Second Epistle of John. Verse 5." + +"And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment +unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one +another." + +Was it Mrs. Emerson? Could it be--any one else? Was it--? No, it might +have been, years ago; but not now; not now!--And yet; he was always so +different from other people; and once, in church, he had handed her the +hymn-book with his finger pointing to a certain verse. + +She always fancied that her secret fidelity of heart rose from the fact +that Justin Peabody was "different." From the hour of their first +acquaintance, she was ever comparing him with his companions, and always +to his advantage. So long as a woman finds all men very much alike (as +Lobelia Brewster did, save that she allowed some to be worse!), she is in +no danger. But the moment in which she perceives and discriminates +subtle differences, marvelling that there can be two opinions about a +man's superiority, that moment the miracle has happened. + +"And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment +unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one +another." + +No, it could not be from Justin. She drank her tea, played with her +beans abstractedly, and nibbled her slice of steaming brown bread. + +"Not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee." + +No, not a new one; twelve, fifteen years old, that commandment! + +"That we love one another." + +Who was speaking? Who had written these words? The first letter sounded +just like Mrs. Emerson, who had said she was a very poor correspondent, +but that she should just "drop down" on Nancy one of these days; but this +second letter never came from Mrs. Emerson.--Well, there would be an +explanation some time; a pleasant one; one to smile over, and tell +'Zekiel and repeat to the neighbours; but not an unexpected, sacred, +beautiful explanation, such a one as the heart of a woman could imagine, +if she were young enough and happy enough to hope. + +She washed her cup and plate; replaced the uneaten beans in the brown +pot, and put them away with the round loaf, folded the cloth (Lobelia +Brewster said Nancy always "set out her meals as if she was entertainin' +company from Portland"), closed the stove dampers, carried the lighted +lamp to a safe corner shelf, and lifted 'Zekiel to his cushion on the +high-backed rocker, doing all with the nice precision of long habit. Then +she wrapped herself warmly, and locking the lonely little house behind +her, set out to finish her work in the church. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +At this precise moment Justin Peabody was eating his own beans and brown +bread (articles of diet of which his Detroit landlady was lamentably +ignorant) at the new tavern, not far from the meeting-house. + +It would not be fair to him to say that Mrs. Burbank's letter had brought +him back to Edgewood, but it had certainly accelerated his steps. + +For the first six years after Justin Peabody left home, he had drifted +about from place to place, saving every possible dollar of his uncertain +earnings in the conscious hope that he could go back to New England and +ask Nancy Wentworth to marry him. The West was prosperous and +progressive, but how he yearned, in idle moments, for the grimmer and +more sterile soil that had given him birth! + +Then came what seemed to him a brilliant chance for a lucky turn of his +savings, and he invested them in an enterprise which, wonderfully as it +promised, failed within six months and left him penniless. At that +moment he definitely gave up all hope, and for the next few years he put +Nancy as far as possible out of his mind, in the full belief that he was +acting an honourable part in refusing to drag her into his tangled and +fruitless way of life. If she ever did care for him,--and he could not +be sure, she was always so shy,--she must have outgrown the feeling long +since, and be living happily, or at least contentedly, in her own way. He +was glad in spite of himself when he heard that she had never married; +but at least he hadn't it on his conscience that _he_ had kept her +single! + +On the seventeenth of December, Justin, his business day over, was +walking toward the dreary house in which he ate and slept. As he turned +the corner, he heard one woman say to another, as they watched a man +stumbling sorrowfully down the street: "Going home will be the worst of +all for him--to find nobody there!" That was what going home had meant +for him these ten years, but he afterward felt it strange that this +thought should have struck him so forcibly on that particular day. +Entering the boarding-house, he found Mrs. Burbank's letter with its +Edgewood postmark on the hall table, and took it up to his room. He +kindled a little fire in the air-tight stove, watching the flame creep +from shavings to kindlings, from kindlings to small pine, and from small +pine to the round, hardwood sticks; then when the result seemed certain, +he closed the stove door and sat down to read the letter. Whereupon all +manner of strange things happened in his head and heart and flesh and +spirit as he sat there alone, his hands in his pockets, his feet braced +against the legs of the stove. + +It was a cold winter night, and the snow and sleet beat against the +windows. He looked about the ugly room: at the washstand with its square +of oilcloth in front and its detestable bowl and pitcher; at the rigours +of his white iron bedstead, with the valley in the middle of the lumpy +mattress and the darns in the rumpled pillowcases; at the dull +photographs of the landlady's hideous husband and children enshrined on +the mantelshelf; looked at the abomination of desolation surrounding him +until his soul sickened and cried out like a child's for something more +like home. It was as if a spring thaw had melted his ice-bound heart, +and on the crest of a wave it was drifting out into the milder waters of +some unknown sea. He could have laid his head in the kind lap of a woman +and cried: "Comfort me! Give me companionship or I die!" + +The wind howled in the chimney and rattled the loose window-sashes; the +snow, freezing as it fell, dashed against the glass with hard, cutting +little blows; at least, that is the way in which the wind and snow +flattered themselves they were making existence disagreeable to Justin +Peabody when he read the letter; but never were elements more mistaken. + +It was a June Sunday in the boarding-house bedroom; and for that matter +it was not the boarding-house bedroom at all: it was the old Orthodox +church on Tory Hill in Edgewood. + +The windows were wide open, and the smell of the purple clover and the +humming of the bees were drifting into the sweet, wide spaces within. +Justin was sitting in the end of the Peabody pew, and Nancy Wentworth was +beside him; Nancy, cool and restful in her white dress; dark-haired Nancy +under the shadow of her shirred muslin hat. + + Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, + Thy better portion trace. + +The melodeon gave the tune, and Nancy and he stood to sing, taking the +book between them. His hand touched hers, and as the music of the hymn +rose and fell, the future unrolled itself before his eyes; a future in +which Nancy was his wedded wife; and the happy years stretched on and on +in front of them until there was a row of little heads in the old Peabody +pew, and mother and father could look proudly along the line at the young +things they were bringing into the house of the Lord. + +The recalling of that vision worked like magic in Justin's blood. His +soul rose and stretched its wings and "traced its better portion" +vividly, as he sprang to his feet and walked up and down the bedroom +floor. He would get a few days' leave and go back to Edgewood for +Christmas, to join, with all the old neighbours, in the service at the +meeting-house; and in pursuance of this resolve, he shook his fist in the +face of the landlady's husband on the mantelpiece and dared him to +prevent. + +He had a salary of fifty dollars a month, with some very slight prospect +of an increase after January. He did not see how two persons could eat, +and drink, and lodge, and dress on it in Detroit, but he proposed to give +Nancy Wentworth the refusal of that magnificent future, that brilliant +and tempting offer. He had exactly one hundred dollars in the bank, and +sixty or seventy of them would be spent in the journeys, counting two +happy, blessed fares back from Edgewood to Detroit; and if he paid only +his own fare back, he would throw the price of the other into the pond +behind the Wentworth house. He would drop another ten dollars into the +plate on Christmas Day toward the repairs on the church; if he starved, +he would do that. He was a failure. Everything his hand touched turned +to naught. He looked himself full in the face, recognizing his weakness, +and in this supremest moment of recognition he was a stronger man than he +had been an hour before. His drooping shoulders had straightened; the +restless look had gone from his eyes; his sombre face had something of +repose in it, the repose of a settled purpose. He was a failure, but +perhaps if he took the risks (and if Nancy would take them--but that was +the trouble, women were so unselfish, they were always willing to take +risks, and one ought not to let them!), perhaps he might do better in +trying to make a living for two than he had in working for himself alone. +He would go home, tell Nancy that he was an unlucky good-for-naught, and +ask her if she would try her hand at making him over. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +These were the reasons that had brought Justin Peabody to Edgewood on the +Saturday afternoon before Christmas, and had taken him to the new tavern +on Tory Hill, near the Meeting-House. + +Nobody recognized him at the station or noticed him at the tavern, and +after his supper he put on his overcoat and started out for a walk, +aimlessly hoping that he might meet a friend, or failing that, intending +to call on some of his old neighbours, with the view of hearing the +village news and securing some information which might help him to decide +when he had better lay himself and his misfortunes at Nancy Wentworth's +feet. They were pretty feet! He remembered that fact well enough under +the magical influence of familiar sights and sounds and odours. He was +restless, miserable, anxious, homesick--not for Detroit, but for some +heretofore unimagined good; yet, like Bunyan's shepherd boy in the Valley +of Humiliation, he carried "the herb called Hearts-ease in his bosom," +for he was at last loving consciously. + +How white the old church looked, and how green the blinds! It must have +been painted very lately: that meant that the parish was fairly +prosperous. There were new shutters in the belfry tower, too; he +remembered the former open space and the rusty bell, and he liked the +change. Did the chimney use to be in that corner? No; but his father +had always said it would have drawn better if it had been put there in +the beginning. New shingles within a year: that was evident to a +practised eye. He wondered if anything had been done to the inside of +the building, but he must wait until the morrow to see, for, of course, +the doors would be locked. No; the one at the right side was ajar. He +opened it softly and stepped into the tiny square entry that he recalled +so well--the one through which the Sunday-school children ran out to the +steps from their catechism, apparently enjoying the sunshine after a +spell of orthodoxy; the little entry where the village girls congregated +while waiting for the last bell to ring--they made a soft blur of pink +and blue and buff, a little flutter of curls and braids and fans and +sunshades, in his mind's eye, as he closed the outer door behind him and +gently opened the inner one. The church was flooded with moonlight and +snowlight, and there was one lamp burning at the back of the pulpit; a +candle, too, on the pulpit steps. There was the tip-tap-tip of a tack- +hammer going on in a distant corner. Was somebody hanging Christmas +garlands? The new red carpet attracted his notice, and as he grew +accustomed to the dim light, it carried his eye along the aisle he had +trod so many years of Sundays, to the old familiar pew. The sound of the +hammer ceased and a woman rose from her knees. A stranger was doing for +the family honour what he ought himself to have done. The woman turned +to shake her skirt, and it was Nancy Wentworth. He might have known it. +Women were always faithful; they always remembered old landmarks, old +days, old friends, old duties. His father and mother and Esther were all +gone; who but dear Nancy would have made the old Peabody pew right and +tidy for the Christmas festival? Bless her kind womanly heart! + +She looked just the same to him as when he last saw her. Mercifully he +seemed to have held in remembrance all these years not so much her +youthful bloom as her general qualities of mind and heart: her +cheeriness, her spirit, her unflagging zeal, her bright womanliness. Her +grey dress was turned up in front over a crimson moreen petticoat. She +had on a cosy jacket, a fur turban of some sort with a redbreast in it, +and her cheeks were flushed from exertion. "Sweet records, and promises +as sweet," had always met in Nancy's face, and either he had forgotten +how pretty she was, or else she had absolutely grown prettier during his +absence. + +Nancy would have chosen the supreme moment of meeting very differently, +but she might well have chosen worse. She unpinned her skirt and brushed +the threads off, smoothed the pew cushions carefully, and took a last +stitch in the ragged hassock. She then lifted the Bible and the hymn- +book from the rack, and putting down a bit of flannel on the pulpit +steps, took a flatiron from an oil-stove, and opening the ancient books, +pressed out the well-thumbed leaves one by one with infinite care. After +replacing the volumes in their accustomed place, she first extinguished +the flame of her stove, which she tucked out of sight, and then blew out +the lamp and the candle. The church was still light enough for objects +to be seen in a shadowy way, like the objects in a dream, and Justin did +not realize that he was a man in the flesh, looking at a woman; spying, +it might be, upon her privacy. He was one part of a dream and she +another, and he stood as if waiting, and fearing, to be awakened. + +Nancy, having done all, came out of the pew, and standing in the aisle, +looked back at the scene of her labours with pride and content. And as +she looked, some desire to stay a little longer in the dear old place +must have come over her, or some dread of going back to her lonely +cottage, for she sat down in Justin's corner of the pew with folded +hands, her eyes fixed dreamily on the pulpit and her ears hearing: "Not +as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from +the beginning." + +Justin's grasp on the latch tightened as he prepared to close the door +and leave the place, but his instinct did not warn him quickly enough, +after all, for, obeying some uncontrollable impulse, Nancy suddenly fell +on her knees in the pew and buried her face in the cushions. + +The dream broke, and in an instant Justin was a man--worse than that, he +was an eavesdropper, ashamed of his unsuspected presence. He felt +himself standing, with covered head and feet shod, in the holy temple of +a woman's heart. + +But his involuntary irreverence brought abundant grace with it. The +glimpse and the revelation wrought their miracles silently and +irresistibly, not by the slow processes of growth which Nature demands +for her enterprises, but with the sudden swiftness of the spirit. In an +instant changes had taken place in Justin's soul which his so-called +"experiencing religion" twenty-five years back had been powerless to +effect. He had indeed been baptized then, but the recording angel could +have borne witness that this second baptism fructified the first, and +became the real herald of the new birth and the new creature. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Justin Peabody silently closed the inner door, and stood in the entry +with his head bent and his heart in a whirl until he should hear Nancy +rise to her feet. He must take this Heaven-sent chance of telling her +all, but how do it without alarming her? + +A moment, and her step sounded in the stillness of the empty church. + +Obeying the first impulse, he passed through the outer door, and standing +on the step, knocked once, twice, three times; then, opening it a little +and speaking through the chink, he called, "Is Miss Nancy Wentworth +here?" + +"I'm here!" in a moment came Nancy's answer, and then, with a little +wondering tremor in her voice, as if a hint of the truth had already +dawned: "What's wanted?" + +"You're wanted, Nancy, wanted badly, by Justin Peabody, come back from +the West." + +The door opened wide, and Justin faced Nancy standing half-way down the +aisle, her eyes brilliant, her lips parted. A week ago Justin's +apparition confronting her in the empty Meeting-House after nightfall, +even had she been prepared for it as now, by his voice, would have +terrified her beyond measure. Now it seemed almost natural and +inevitable. She had spent these last days in the church where both of +them had been young and happy together; the two letters had brought him +vividly to mind, and her labour in the old Peabody pew had been one long +excursion into the past in which he was the most prominent and the best- +loved figure. + +"I said I'd come back to you when my luck turned, Nancy." + +These were so precisely the words she expected him to say, should she +ever see him again face to face, that for an additional moment they but +heightened her sense of unreality. + +"Well, the luck hasn't turned, after all, but I couldn't wait any longer. +Have you given a thought to me all these years, Nancy?" + +"More than one, Justin"; for the very look upon his face, the tenderness +of his voice, the attitude of his body, outran his words and told her +what he had come home to say, told her that her years of waiting were +over at last. + +"You ought to despise me for coming back again with only myself and my +empty hands to offer you." + +How easy it was to speak his heart out in this dim and quiet place! How +tongue-tied he would have been, sitting on the black haircloth sofa in +the Wentworth parlour and gazing at the open soapstone stove! + +"Oh, men are such fools!" cried Nancy, smiles and tears struggling +together in her speech, as she sat down suddenly in her own pew and put +her hands over her face. + +"They are," agreed Justin humbly, "but I've never stopped loving you, +whenever I've had time for thinking or loving. And I wasn't sure that +you really cared anything about me; and how could I have asked you when I +hadn't a dollar in the world?" + +"There are other things to give a woman besides dollars, Justin." + +"Are there? Well, you shall have them all, every one of them, Nancy, if +you can make up your mind to do without the dollars; for dollars seem to +be just what I can't manage." + +Her hand was in his by this time, and they were sitting side by side in +the cushionless, carpetless Wentworth pew. The door stood open; the +winter moon shone in upon them. That it was beginning to grow cold in +the church passed unnoticed. The grasp of the woman's hand seemed to +give the man new hope and courage, and Justin's warm, confiding, pleading +pressure brought balm to Nancy, balm and healing for the wounds her pride +had suffered; joy, too, half-conscious still, that her life need not be +lived to the end in unfruitful solitude. She had waited, "as some grey +lake lies, full and smooth, awaiting the star below the twilight." Justin +Peabody might have been no other woman's star, but he was Nancy's! + +"Just you sitting beside me here makes me feel as if I'd been asleep or +dead all these years, and just born over again," said Justin. "I've led +a respectable, hard-working, honest life, Nancy," he continued, "and I +don't owe any man a cent; the trouble is that no man owes me one. I've +got enough money to pay two fares back to Detroit on Monday, although I +was terribly afraid you wouldn't let me do it. It'll need a good deal of +thinking and planning, Nancy, for we shall be very poor." + +Nancy had been storing up fidelity and affection deep, deep in the hive +of her heart all these years, and now the honey of her helpfulness stood +ready to be gathered. + +"Could I keep hens in Detroit?" she asked. "I can always make them pay." + +"Hens--in three rooms, Nancy?" + +Her face fell. "And no yard?" + +"No yard." + +A moment's pause, and then the smile came. "Oh, well, I've had yards and +hens for thirty-five years. Doing without them will be a change. I can +take in sewing." + +"No, you can't, Nancy. I need your backbone and wits and pluck and +ingenuity, but if I can't ask you to sit with your hands folded for the +rest of your life, as I'd like to, you shan't use them for other people. +You're marrying me to make a man of me, but I'm not marrying you to make +you a drudge." + +His voice rang clear and true in the silence, and Nancy's heart vibrated +at the sound. + +"Oh, Justin, Justin!" she whispered. "There's something wrong somewhere, +but we'll find it out together, you and I, and make it right. You're not +like a failure. You don't even _look_ poor, Justin; there isn't a man in +Edgewood to compare with you, or I should be washing his dishes and +darning his stockings this minute. And I am not a pauper! There'll be +the rent of my little house and a carload of my furniture, so you can put +the three-room idea out of your mind, and your firm will offer you a +larger salary when you tell them you have a wife to take care of. Oh, I +see it all, and it is as easy and bright and happy as can be!" + +Justin put his arm around her and drew her close, with such a throb of +gratitude for her belief and trust that it moved him almost to tears. + +There was a long pause: then he said:-- + +"Now I shall call for you to-morrow morning after the last bell has +stopped ringing, and we will walk up the aisle together and sit in the +old Peabody pew. We shall be a nine-days' wonder anyway, but this will +be equal to an announcement, especially if you take my arm. We don't +either of us like to be stared at, but this will show without a word what +we think of each other and what we've promised to be to each other, and +it's the only thing that will make me feel sure of you and settled in my +mind after all these mistaken years. Have you got the courage, Nancy?" + +"I shouldn't wonder! I guess if I've had courage enough to wait for you, +I've got courage enough to walk up the aisle with you and marry you +besides!" said Nancy.--"Now it is too late for us to stay here any +longer, and you must see me only as far as my gate, for perhaps you +haven't forgotten yet how interested the Brewsters are in their +neighbours." + +They stood at the little Wentworth gate for a moment, hand close clasped +in hand. The night was clear, the air was cold and sparkling, but with +nothing of bitterness in it; the sky was steely blue and the evening star +glowed and burned like a tiny sun. Nancy remembered the shepherd's song +she had taught the Sunday-school children, and repeated softly:-- + + For I my sheep was watching + Beneath the silent skies, + When sudden, far to eastward, + I saw a star arise; + Then all the peaceful heavens + With sweetest music rang, + And glory, glory, glory! + The happy angels sang. + + So I this night am joyful, + Though I can scarce tell why, + It seemeth me that glory + Hath met us very nigh; + And we, though poor and humble, + Have part in heavenly plan, + For, born to-night, the Prince of Peace + Shall rule the heart of man. + +Justin's heart melted within him like wax to the woman's vision and the +woman's touch. + +"Oh, Nancy, Nancy!" he whispered. "If I had brought my bad luck to you +long, long ago, would you have taken me then, and have I lost years of +such happiness as this?" + +"There are some things it is not best for a man to be certain about," +said Nancy, with a wise smile and a last good-night. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + "Ring out, sweet bells, + O'er woods and dells + Your lovely strains repeat, + While happy throngs + With joyous songs + Each accent gladly greet." + +Christmas morning in the old Tory Hill Meeting-House was felt by all of +the persons who were present in that particular year to be a most +exciting and memorable occasion. + +The old sexton quite outdid himself, for although he had rung the bell +for more than thirty years, he had never felt greater pride or joy in his +task. Was not his son John home for Christmas, and John's wife, and a +grandchild newly named Nathaniel for himself? Were there not spareribs +and turkeys and cranberries and mince pies on the pantry shelves, and +barrels of rosy Baldwins in the cellar and bottles of mother's root beer +just waiting to give a holiday pop? The bell itself forgot its age and +the suspicion of a crack that dulled its voice on a damp day, and, +inspired by the bright, frosty air, the sexton's inspiring pull, and the +Christmas spirit, gave out nothing but joyous tones. + +Ding-dong! Ding-dong! It fired the ambitions of star scholars about to +recite hymns and sing solos. It thrilled little girls expecting dolls +before night. It excited beyond bearing dozens of little boys being +buttoned into refractory overcoats. Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Mothers' +fingers trembled when they heard it, and mothers' voices cried: "If that +is the second bell, the children will never be ready in time! Where are +the overshoes? Where are the mittens? Hurry, Jack! Hurry, Jennie!" +Ding-dong! Ding-dong! "Where's Sally's muff? Where's father's fur cap? +Is the sleigh at the door? Are the hot soapstones in? Have all of you +your money for the contribution box?" + +Ding-dong! Ding-dong! It was a blithe bell, a sweet, true bell, a holy +bell, and to Justin, pacing his tavern room, as to Nancy, trembling in +her maiden chamber, it rang a Christmas message:-- + + Awake, glad heart! Arise and sing; + It is the birthday of thy King! + +The congregation filled every seat in the old Meeting-House. + +As Maria Sharp had prophesied, there was one ill-natured spinster from a +rival village who declared that the church floor looked like Joseph's +coat laid out smooth; but in the general chorus of admiration, approval, +and good will, this envious speech, though repeated from mouth to mouth, +left no sting. + +Another item of interest long recalled was the fact that on that august +and unapproachable day the pulpit vases stood erect and empty, though +Nancy Wentworth had filled them every Sunday since any one could +remember. This instance, though felt at the time to be of mysterious +significance if the cause were ever revealed, paled into nothingness +when, after the ringing of the last bell, Nancy Wentworth walked up the +aisle on Justin Peabody's arm, and they took their seats side by side in +the old family pew. + +("And consid'able close, too, though there was plenty o' room!") + +("And no one that I ever heard of so much as suspicioned that they had +ever kept company!") + +("And do you s'pose she knew Justin was expected back when she scrubbed +his pew a-Friday?") + +("And this explains the empty pulpit vases!") + +("And I always said that Nancy would make a real handsome couple if she +ever got anybody to couple with!") + +During the unexpected and solemn procession of the two up the aisle the +soprano of the village choir stopped short in the middle of the Doxology, +and the three other voices carried it to the end without any treble. +Also, among those present there were some who could not remember +afterward the precise petitions wafted upward in the opening prayer. + +And could it be explained otherwise than by cheerfully acknowledging the +bounty of an overruling Providence that Nancy Wentworth should have had a +new winter dress for the first time in five years--a winter dress of dark +brown cloth to match her beaver muff and victorine? The existence of +this toilette had been known and discussed in Edgewood for a month past, +and it was thought to be nothing more than a proper token of respect from +a member of the carpet committee to the general magnificence of the +church on the occasion of its reopening after repairs. Indeed, you could +have identified every member of the Dorcas Society that Sunday morning by +the freshness of her apparel. The brown dress, then, was generally +expected; but why the white cashmere waist with collar and cuffs of point +lace, devised only and suitable only for the minister's wedding, where it +first saw the light? + +"The white waist can only be explained as showing distinct hope!" +whispered the minister's wife during the reading of the church notices. + +"To me it shows more than hope; I am very sure that Nancy would never +take any wear out of that lace for hope; it means certainty!" answered +Maria, who was always strong in the prophetic line. + +By sermon time Justin's identity had dawned upon most of the +congregation. A stranger to all but one or two at first, his presence in +the Peabody pew brought his face and figure back, little by little, to +the minds of the old parishioners. + +When the contribution plate was passed, the sexton always began at the +right-wing pews, as all the sextons before him had done for a hundred +years. Every eye in the church was already turned upon Justin and Nancy, +and it was with almost a gasp that those in the vicinity saw a ten dollar +bill fall in the plate. The sexton reeled, or, if that is too +intemperate a word for a pillar of the church, the good man tottered, but +caught hold of the pew rail with one hand, and, putting the thumb of his +other over the bill, proceeded quickly to the next pew, lest the stranger +should think better of his gift, or demand change, as had occasionally +been done in the olden time. + +Nancy never fluttered an eyelash, but sat quietly by Justin's side with +her bosom rising and falling under the beaver fur and her cold hands +clasped tight in the little brown muff. Far from grudging this +appreciable part of their slender resources, she thrilled with pride to +see Justin's offering fall in the plate. + +Justin was too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice anything, but his +munificent contribution had a most unexpected effect upon his reputation, +after all; for on that day, and on many another later one, when his +sudden marriage and departure with Nancy Wentworth were under discussion, +the neighbours said to one another:-- + +"Justin must be making money fast out West! He put ten dollars in the +contribution plate a-Sunday, and paid the minister ten more next day for +marryin' him to Nancy; so the Peabody luck has turned at last!" which, as +a matter of fact, it had. + +"And all the time," said the chairman of the carpet committee to the +treasurer of the Dorcas Society--"all the time, little as she realized +it, Nancy was laying the carpet in her own pew. Now she's married to +Justin she'll be the makin' of him, or I miss my guess. You can't do a +thing with men folks without they're right alongside where you can keep +your eye and hand on 'em. Justin's handsome and good and stiddy; all he +need is some nice woman to put starch into him. The Edgewood Peabodys +never had a mite o' stiffenin' in 'em,--limp as dishrags, every blessed +one! Nancy Wentworth fairly rustles with starch. Justin hadn't been +engaged to her but a few hours when they walked up the aisle together, +but did you notice the way he carried his head? I declare I thought 't +would fall off behind! I shouldn't wonder a mite but they prospered and +come back every summer to set in the old Peabody Pew." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD PEABODY PEW*** + + +******* This file should be named 1902.txt or 1902.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/1902 + + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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