"Dearest father, dearest mother," she said, "how I love you! Those strange warm drops that filled my eyes seem to have brought new life to me," and as the Queen passed her arm round the maiden she felt no chill of cold such as used to thrill her with misery every time she embraced her child.
"Sweet-Heart! my own Sweet-Heart!" she whispered.
And the Princess whispered back, "Yes, call me by that name always."
All was rejoicing when the wonderful news of the miraculous cure spread through the palace and the city. But still the parents' hearts were sore, for was not the King's word pledged that his daughter should marry him who had effected this happy change? And this was no other than Jocko, the monkey!
The Prince had disappeared at the moment that Ice-Heart fainted, and now with his retinue he was encamped outside the walls. All sorts of ideas occurred to the King.
"I cannot break my word," he said, "but we might try to persuade the little monster to release me from it."
But the Princess would not hear of this.
"No," she said. "I owe him too deep a debt of gratitude to think of such a thing. And in his eyes I read more than I can put in words. No,dear father! you must summon him at once to be presented to our people as my affianced husband."
So again the cortége of Prince Jocko made its way to the palace, and again the litter, with its closely drawn curtains, drew up at the marble steps. And Sweet-Heart stood, pale, but calm and smiling, to welcome her ridiculous betrothed.
But who is this that quickly mounts the stairs with firm and manly tread? Sweet-Heart nearly swooned again.
"Jocko?" she murmured. "Where is Jocko? Why, this is Prince Francolin!"
"Yes, dear child," said a bright voice beside her; and, turning round, Sweet-Heart beheld the Western fairy, who, with her sisters, had suddenly arrived. "Yes, indeed! Francolin, and no other!"
The universal joy may be imagined. Even the grave fairy of the North smiled with pleasure and delight, and, as she kissed her pretty god-daughter, she took the girl's hand and pressed it against her own heart.
"Never misjudge me, Sweet-Heart," she whispered. "Cold as I seem to those who have not courage to approach me closely, my heart, under my icy mantle, is as warm as is now your own."
And so it was.
Where can we get a better ending than the time-honored one? Francolin and Sweet-Heart were married, and lived happy ever after, and who knows but what, in the Kingdom of the Four Orts, they are living happily still?
If only we knew the way thither, we might see for ourselves if it is so.
The fire crackled cheerfully on the broad hearth of an old-fashioned fireplace in an old-fashioned public house in an old fashioned village, down in that part of the Old Dominion called the "Eastern Shore." A cat and three kittens basked in the warmth, and a decrepit yellow dog, lying full in the reflection of the blaze, wrinkled his black nose approvingly, as he turned his hind feet where his fore feet had been. Over the chimney hung several fine hams and pieces of dried beef. Apples were festooned along the ceiling, and other signs of plenty and good cheer were scattered profusely about. There were plants, too, on the window ledges, horse-shoe geraniums, and dew-plants, and a monthly rose, just budding, to say nothing of pots of violets that perfumed the whole place whenever they took it into their purple heads to bloom. The floor was carefully swept, the chairs had not a speck of dust upon leg or round, the long settle near the fireplace shone as if it had been just varnished, and the eight-day clock in the corner had had its white face newly washed, and seemed determined to tick the louder for it.
Two arm-chairs were drawn up at cozy distance from the hearth and each other; a candle, a newspaper, a pair of spectacles, a dish of red cheeked apples, and a pitcher of cider, filled a little table between them. In one of these chairs sat a comfortable-looking woman about forty-five, with cheeks as red as the apples, and eyes as dark and bright as they had ever been, resting her elbow on the table and her head upon her hand, and looking thoughtfully into the fire.
This was Widow Townsend, "relict" of Mr. Levi Townsend, who had been mouldering into dust in the neighboring churchyard for seven years and more. She was thinking of her dead husband, possibly because all her work being done, and the servant gone to bed, the sight of his empty chair at the other side of the table, and the silence of the room, made her a little lonely.
"Seven years," so the widow's reverie ran; "it seems as if it were more than fifty, and Christmas nigh here again, and yet I don't look so very old neither. Perhaps it's not having any children to bother my life out, as other people have. They may say what they like—children are more plague than profit, that's my opinion. Look at my sister Jerusha, with her six boys. She's worn to a shadow, and I am sure they have done it, though she never will own it."
The widow took an apple from the dish and began to peel it.
"How fond Mr. Townsend used to be of these apples! He'll never eat any more of them, poor fellow, for I don't suppose they have apples where he has gone to. Heigho! I remember very well how I used to throw apple-peel over my head when I was a girl to see who I was going to marry."
Mrs. Townsend stopped short and blushed, for in those days she did not know Mr. T., and was always looking eagerly to see if the peel had formed a capital S. Her meditations took a new turn.
"How handsome Sam Payson was, and how much I use to care about him! I wonder what has become of him! Jerusha says he went away from our village just after I did, and no one has ever heard of him since. What a silly thing that quarrel was! If it had not been for that—"
Here came a long pause, during which the widow looked very steadfastly at the emptyarm-chair of Levi Townsend, deceased. Her fingers played carelessly with the apple-peel: she drew it safely towards her, and looked around the room.
"Upon my word, it is very ridiculous, and I don't know what the neighbors would say if they saw me."
Still the plump fingers drew the red peel nearer.
"But then they can't see me, that's a comfort; and the cat and old Bose never will know what it means. Of course I don'tbelieveanything about it."
The peel hung gracefully from her hand.
"But still, I should like to try; it would seem like old times, and—"
Over her head it went, and curled up quietly on the floor at a little distance. Old Bose, who always slept with one eye open, saw it fall, and marched deliberately up to smell it.
"Bose—Bose—don't touch!" cried his mistress, and bending over it with beating heart, she turned as red as fire. There was as handsome a capital S as any one could wish to see.
A great knock came suddenly at the door. Bose growled, and the widow screamed and snatched up the apple-peel.
"It's Mr. T.—it's his spirit come back again, because I tried that silly trick," she thought fearfully to herself.
Another knock—louder than the first, and a man's voice exclaimed:
"Hello—the house!"
"Who is it?" asked the widow, somewhat relieved to find that the departed Levi was still safe in his grave on the hillside.
"A stranger," said the voice.
"What do you want?"
"To get a lodging here for the night."
The widow deliberated.
"Can't you go on? There's a house half a mile farther, if you keep to the right-hand side of the road, and turn to the left after you get by—"
"It's raining cats and dogs, and I'm very delicate," said the stranger, coughing. "I'm wet to the skin: don't you think you can accommodate me?—I don't mind sleeping on the floor."
"Raining, is it? I didn't know that," and the kind-hearted little woman unbarred the door very quickly. "Come in, whoever you may be; I only asked you to go on because I am a lone woman, with only one servant in the house."
The stranger entered, shaking himself like a Newfoundland dog upon the step, and scattering a little shower of drops over his hostess and her nicely swept floor.
"Ah, that looks comfortable after a man has been out for hours in a storm," he said, as he caught sight of the fire; and striding along toward the hearth, followed by Bose, who sniffed suspiciously at his heels, he stationed himself in the arm-chair—Mr. Townsend's arm-chair! which had been kept "sacred to his memory" for seven years. The widow was horrified, but her guest looked so weary and worn-out that she could not ask him to move, but busied herself in stirring up the blaze that he might the sooner dry his dripping clothes.
A new thought struck her: Mr. T. had worn a comfortable dressing-gown during his illness, which still hung in the closet at her right. She could not let this poor man catch his death, by sitting in that wet coat. If he was in Mr. Townsend's chair, why should he not be in Mr. Townsend's wrapper? She went nimbly to the closet, took it down, fished out a pair of slippers from a boot-rack below, and brought them to him.
"I think you had better take off your coat and boots—you will have the rheumatic fever, orsomething like it, if you don't. Here are some things for you to wear while they are drying. And you must be hungry, too; I will go into the pantry and get you something to eat."
She bustled away, "on hospitable thoughts intent," and the stranger made the exchange with a quizzical smile playing around his lips. He was a tall, well-formed man, with a bold but handsome face, sun-burned and heavily bearded, and looking anything but "delicate," though his blue eyes glanced out from under a forehead as white as snow. He looked around the kitchen with a mischievous air, and stretched out his feet decorated with the defunct Boniface's slippers.
"Upon my word, this is stepping into the old man's shoes with a vengeance! And what a hearty, good-humored looking woman she is! Kind as a kitten," and he leaned forward and stroked the cat and her brood, and then patted old Bose upon the head. The widow, bringing in sundry good things, looked pleased at his attention to her dumb friends.
"It's a wonder Bose does not growl; he generally does if strangers touch him. Dear me, how stupid!"
The last remark was neither addressed to the stranger nor to the dog but to herself She had forgotten that the little stand was not empty, and there was no room on it for the things she held.
"Oh, I'll manage it," said her guest, gathering up paper, candle, apples, and spectacles (it was not without a little pang that she saw them in his hand, for they had been her husband's, and were placed each night, like the arm-chair, beside her) and depositing them on the settle.
"Give me the table-cloth, ma'am, I can spread it as well as any woman; I've learned that along with scores of other things, in my wanderings. Now let me relieve you of those dishes; they arefar too heavy for those hands"—the widow blushed; "and now please, sit down with me, or I cannot eat a morsel."
"I had supper long ago, but really I think I can take something more," said Mrs. Townsend, drawing her chair nearer to the table.
"Of course you can, my dear lady; in this cold fall weather people ought to eat twice as much as they do in warm. Let me give you a piece of this ham, your own curing, I dare say."
"Yes: my poor husband was very fond of it. He used to say that no one understood curing ham and drying beef better than I."
"He was a most sensible man, I am sure. I drink your health, ma'am, in this cider."
He took a long draught, and set down his glass.
"It is like nectar."
The widow was feeding Bose and the cat (who thought they were entitled to a share of every meal eaten in the house), and did not quite hear what he said.
"Fine dog, ma'am, and a very pretty cat."
"They were my husband's favorites," and a sigh followed the answer.
"Ah, your husband must have been a very happy man."
The blue eyes looked at her so long, that she grew flurried.
"Is there anything more I can get for you, sir?" she asked, at last.
"Nothing, thank you; I have finished."
She rose to clear the things away. He assisted her, and somehow their hands had a queer knack of touching as they carried the dishes to the pantry shelves. Coming back to the kitchen, she put the apples and cider in their old places, and brought out a clean pipe and a box of tobacco from an arched recess near the chimney.
"My husband always said he could not sleepafter eating supper late unless he smoked," she said. "Perhaps you would like to try it."
"Not if it is to drive you away," he answered, for she had her candle in her hand.
"Oh, no; I do not object to smoke at all." She put the candle down; some faint suggestion about "propriety" troubled her, but she glanced at the old clock, and felt reassured. It was only half-past nine.
The stranger pushed the stand back after the pipe was lit, and drew her easy-chair a little nearer the fire, and his own.
"Come, sit down," he said, pleadingly; "it's not late, and when a man has been knocking about in California and all sorts of places, for a score of years, he is glad enough to get into a berth like this, and to have a pretty woman to speak to once again."
"California! Have you been in California?" she exclaimed, dropping into the chair at once. Unconsciously, she had long cherished the idea that Sam Payson, the lover of her youth, with whom she had so foolishly quarreled, had pitched his tent, after many wanderings, in that far-off land. Her heart warmed to one who, with something of Sam's looks and ways about him, had also been sojourning in that country, and who very possibly had met him—perhaps had known him intimately! At that thought her heart beat quick, and she looked very graciously at the bearded stranger, who, wrapped in Mr. Townsend's dressing-gown, wearing Mr. Townsend's slippers, and sitting in Mr. Townsend's chair, beside Mr. Townsend's wife, smoked Mr. Townsend's pipe with such an air of feeling most thoroughly and comfortably at home!
"Yes, ma'am. I've been in California for the last six years. And before that I went quite round the world in a whaling ship!"
"Good gracious!"
The stranger sent a puff of smoke curling gracefully over his head.
"It's very strange, my dear lady, how often you see one thing as you go wandering about the world after that fashion."
"And what is that?"
"Men, without house or home above their heads, roving here and there, and turning up in all sorts of odd places; caring very little for life as a general thing, and making fortunes just to fling them away again, and all for one reason. You don't ask me whatthatis? No doubt you know already very well."
"I think not, sir."
"Because a woman has jilted them!"
Here was a long pause, and Mr. Townsend's pipe emitted short puffs with surprising rapidity. A guilty conscience needs no accuser, and the widow's cheek was dyed with blushes as she thought of the absent Sam.
"I wonder how women manage whentheyget served in the same way," said the stranger musingly; "you never meetthemroaming up and down in that style."
"No," said Mrs. Townsend, with some spirit, "if a woman is in trouble she must stay at home and bear it, the best way she can. And there's more women bearing such things than we know of, I dare say."
"Like enough. We never know whose hand gets pinched in a trap unless they scream. And women are too shy or too sensible—which you choose—for that."
"Did you ever, in all your wanderings, meet any one by the name of Samuel Payson?" asked the widow, unconcernedly.
The stranger looked toward her; she was rummaging the table-drawer for her knitting work,and did not notice him. When it was found, and the needles in motion, he answered her.
"Payson—Sam Payson? Why, he was my most intimate friend! Do you know him?"
"A little—that is, I used to, when I was a girl. Where did you meet him?"
"He went with me on the whaling voyage I told you of, and afterward to California. We had a tent together, and some other fellows with us, and we worked the same claim for more than six months."
"I suppose he was quite well?"
"Strong as an ox."
"And—and happy?" pursued the widow, bending closer over her knitting.
"Hum—the less said about that the better, perhaps. But he seemed to enjoy life after a fashion of his own. And he got rich out there, or rather, I will say, well off."
Mrs. Townsend did not pay much attention to that part of the story. Evidently she had not finished asking questions, but she was puzzled about her next one. At last she brought it out beautifully:
"Was his wife with him in California?"
The stranger looked at her with twinkling eyes.
"His wife, ma'am! Why, bless you, he has not got any wife."
"Oh, I thought—I mean I heard"—here the little widow remembered the fate of Ananias and Sapphira, and stopped short before she told such a tremendous fib.
"Whatever you heard of his marrying was all nonsense, I can assure you. I knew him well, and he had no thoughts of the kind about him. Some of the boys used to tease him about it, but he soon made them stop."
"How?"
"He just told them frankly that the only woman he ever loved had jilted him years before,and married another man. After that no one ever mentioned the subject to him, except me."
Mrs. Townsend laid her knitting aside, and looked thoughtfully into the fire.
"He was another specimen of the class of men I was speaking of. I have seen him face death a score of times as quietly as I face the fire. 'It matters very little what takes me off,' he used to say; 'I've nothing to live for, and there's no one that will shed a tear for me when I am gone.' It's a sad thought for a man to have, isn't it?"
Mrs. Townsend sighed as she said she thought it was.
"But did he ever tell you the name of the woman who jilted him?"
"I know herfirstname."
"What was it?"
"Maria."
The plump little widow almost started out of her chair, the name was spoken so exactly as Sam would have said it.
"Did you know her, too?" he asked, looking keenly at her.
"Yes."
"Intimately?"
"Yes."
"Where is she now? Still happy with her husband, I suppose, and never giving a thought to the poor fellow she drove out into the world?"
"No," said Mrs. Townsend, shading her face with her hand, and speaking unsteadily; "no, her husband is dead."
"Ah! but still she never thinks of Sam."
There was a dead silence.
"Does she?"
"How can I tell?"
"Are you still friends?"
"Yes."
"Then you ought to know, and you do. Tell me."
"I'm sure I don't know why I should. But if I do, you must promise me, on your honor, never to tell him, if you ever meet him again."
"Madam, what you say to me never shall be repeated to any mortal man, upon my honor."
"Well, then, she does remember him."
"But how?"
"As kindly, I think, as he could wish."
"I am glad to hear it, for his sake. You and I are the friends of both parties: we can rejoice with each other."
He drew his chair much nearer hers, and took her hand. One moment the widow resisted, but it was a magnetic touch, the rosy palm lay quietly in his, and the dark beard bent so low that it nearly touched her shoulder. It did not matter much. Was he not Samuel's dear friend? If he was not the rose, had he not dwelt very near it, for a long, long time?
"It was a foolish quarrel that parted them," said the stranger, softly.
"Did he tell you about it?"
"Yes, on board the whaler."
"Did he blame her much?"
"Not so much as himself. He said that his jealousy and ill-temper drove her to break off the match; but he thought sometimes if he had only gone back and spoken kindly to her, she would have married him after all."
"I am sure she would," said the widow piteously. "She has owned it to me more than a thousand times."
"She was not happy, then, with another."
"Mr.—that is to say, her husband—was very good and kind," said the little woman, thinking of the lonely grave out on the hillside rather penitently, "and they lived very pleasantly together. There never was a harsh word between them."
"Still—might she not have been happier with Sam? Be honest, now, and say just what you think."
"Yes."
"Bravo! that is what I wanted to come at. And now I have a secret to tell you, and you must break it to her."
Mrs. Townsend looked rather scared.
"What is it?"
"I want you to go and see her, wherever she may be, and say to her, 'Maria,'—what makes you start so?"
"Nothing; only you speak so like some one I used to know, once in a while."
"Do I? Well, take the rest of the message. Tell her that Sam loved her through the whole; that, when he heard she was free, he began to work hard at making a fortune. He has got it; and he is coming to share it with her, if she will let him. Will you tell her this?"
The widow did not answer. She had freed her hand from his, and covered her face with it. By and by she looked up again—he was waiting patiently.
"Well?"
"I will tell her."
He rose from his seat, and walked up and down the room. Then he came back, and leaning on the mantel-piece, stroked the yellow hide of Bose with his slipper.
"Make her quite understand that he wants her for his wife. She may live where she likes and how she likes, only it must be with him."
"I will tell her."
"Say he has grown old, but not cold; that he loves her now perhaps better than he did twenty years ago; that he has been faithful to her all through his life, and that he will be faithful till he dies."
The Californian broke off suddenly. The widow answered still, "I will tell her."
"And what do you think she will say?" he asked, in an altered tone.
"Whatcanshe say butCome!"
"Hurrah!"
The stranger caught her out of her chair as if she had been a child, and kissed her.
"Don't—oh, don't!" she cried out. "I am Sam's Maria!"
"Well—I am Maria's Sam!"
Off went the dark wig and the black whiskers—there smiled the dear face she had not forgotten! I leave you to imagine the tableau; even the cat got up to look, and Bose sat on his stump of a tail, and wondered if he was on his heels or his head.
The widow gave one little scream, and then she—
But, stop! Quiet people like you and me, dear reader, who have got over all these follies, and can do nothing but turn up our noses at them, have no business here. I will only add that two hearts were very happy, that Bose concluded after a while that all was right, and so lay down to sleep again, and that one week afterward, on Christmas Eve, there was a wedding at the house that made the neighbors stare. The widow had married her First Love!
Though there was wrong on both sides, they never would have separated had it not been for the old man.
He was Ben's father, and Ben was an only child—a spoiled, selfish, high-tempered lad, who had grown up with the idea that his father, Anson English, or the "old man," as his dutiful son called him, was much richer than he really was, and that he had no need of any personal effort—any object in life, aside from the pursuit of pleasure.
Ben's mother had died when he was fifteen years old and his father had never married again. Yet it was not any allegiance to her memory which had kept Anson English from a second marriage. He remembered her, to be sure, and scarcely a day passed without his mentioning her. But after her death, as during her weary life, he used her name as a synonym for all that was undesirable. He compared everybody to "'Liz'beth," and always to her disadvantage. He had a word of praise and encouragement and approval for every housewife in the neighborhood except—his own. Whatever went wrong, in doors or out, "'Liz'beth" was the direct or indirect cause.
During the first five years of her married life, Elizabeth made strenuous exertions to please her husband. She wept her sweet eyes dim over her repeated failures. Then she found that she had been attempting an impossible labor, and grew passively indifferent—an indifference which lasted until death kindly released her.
Elizabeth had been a tidy housekeeper during these first years.
"You'd scrub and scour a man out 'er house an' home!" was all the praise her husband gave her for her order and cleanliness; and to his neighbors, to whom he was fond of paying informal visits, he would often say—"Liz'beth's at it again—sweepin' and cleanin', so I cleared out. Never seeherwithout out a broom in her hand. I'd a good deal rather have a little more dirt, than so much tearin' 'round. 'Liz'beth tires me, with her ways."
Yet, when in the indifference of despair which seized upon Elizabeth before her death, she allowed her house to look after itself, Anson was no better satisfied.
"I've come over to find a place to set down," he would tell his neighbors. "'Liz'beth's let things 'cumulate, till the house is a sight to see—she's gettin' dreadful slack, somehow. A man likes order when he goes home to rest from all his cares."
Even when she died she displeased him by choosing a busy season for the occasion.
"Just like 'Liz'beth, to die in hayin' time," he said. "Everything got to stop—hay spoilin'—men idle. Women never seem to have no system about work matters—no power of plannin' things, to make it convenient like for men folks."
Yet after she was gone, Anson found how much help she had been to him, how wonderful her economy had been, how light her expenditures. He knew he could never find any one to replace her, in these respects, and as money considerations were the main ones in his mind he believed it would be the better economy to remain a widower, and hire his work done.
So during those most critical years of Ben's life, he had been without a woman's guidance or care.
At eighteen he was all that arrogance, conceit,selfishness, and high temper could render him. Yet he was a favorite with the fair sex for all that, as he had a manly figure, and a warm, caressing way when he chose, that won their admiration and pleased their vanity.
Anson English favored early marriages, and began to think it would be better all around if Ben should bring a wife home.
She could do the work better than hired help, and keep the money all in the family. And Ben would not waste his time and means on half a dozen, as he was now doing, but would stay at home, no doubt, and settle down into a sensible, practical business man. Yes, Ben ought to marry, and his father told him so.
Ben smiled.
"I'm already thinking of it," he said. He had expected opposition from his father, and was surprised at his suggestion.
"Yes," continued the "old man," as Ben already designated him, "I'd like to see you settle down before you're twenty-one. But you want to make a good choice. There's Abby Wilson, now. She's got the muscle of a man, and ain't afraid of anything. And her father has a fine property—a growin' property. Abby'll make a man a good, vigorous helpmate, and she'll bring him money in time. You'd better shine up to Abby, Ben."
Ben gave a contemptuous laugh. "I'd as soon marry a dressed-up boy," he said. "She's more like a boy than a girl in her looks and in her ways. I have other plans in my mind, father, more to my taste. I mean to marry Edith Gilman, if she'll take me, and I think she will."
A dark frown contracted Anson English's brow.
"Edith Gilman?" he repeated; "why, that puny schoolma'm, with her baby face and weak voice, 'll never helpyouto get a livin', Ben. What are you thinkin' of?"
"Of love, father, I guess. I love her, and that's all there is of it. And I shall marry her, if she'll take me, and you can like it or lump it, as you please. She's a good girl, and if she's treated well all round, she'll make a good wife, and she's the only woman that can put the check rein on me, when I get in my tempers. She'll make a man of me yet."
"But she can't work," insisted the father. "She looks as white and puny as 'Liz'beth did the year she died."
"She's overworked in the school-room. I mean to take her home, and give her a rest. I don't ask any woman to marry me and be my drudge. I expect my wife will keep help."
The old man groaned aloud. Ben's ideas were positively ruinous. If he married this girl, it would add to, not decrease, the family expenses. But it was useless to oppose. Ben would do as he pleased, the old man saw that plainly, and he might as well submit.
He did submit, and Ben married Edith on his twenty-first birthday, and brought her home.
Edith was a quiet little creature, with a soft voice, and a pale, sweet face, and frail figure. She came up to Anson English when she entered the house, and put her hands timidly upon his arms.
"I want you to love me," she said; "I have had no father or mother since I can remember. I want to call you father, and I want to make you happy if I can."
"Well, I'll tell you how," the old man retorted. "Discharge the hired girl, and make good bread. That'll make me happy,"—and he laughed harshly.
Edith shrank from his rough words, so void ofthe sympathy and love she longed for. But she discharged the girl within a week, and tried to make good bread. It was not a success, however, and the old man was not slow to express his dissatisfaction. Edith left the table in tears.
"Another dribbler—'Liz'beth was always cryin' just that way over every little thing," sighed the old man.
Edith eventually conquered the difficulties of bread making, and became a famous cook. But she did not please her husband's father any the better by this achievement.
"You're always a-fixin' up some new sort of trash for the table," he said to her one day. "Dessertis it, you call it? 'Nuff to make a man's patiencedeserthim to see sugar and flour wasted so. 'Liz'beth liked your fancy cooking, but I cured her of it."
"Yes, and you killed her too," cried Edith, for the first time since her marriage losing control of her temper and answering back. "Everybody says you worried her into the grave. But you won't succeed so well with me. I will live just to defy you, if no more. And I'll show you that I'll not bear everything, too."
It was all over in a moment, and it was not repeated. Indeed, Edith was kinder and gentler and more submissive in her manner after that for days, as sweet natures always are when they have once broken over the rules which govern their lives.
Yet the old man always spoke of Edith as a virago after that.
"She's worse'n 'Liz'beth," he said, "and she had a temper of her own at times that would justsingethings."
Ben passed most of his evenings and a good part of his days at the village "store." He came home the worse for drink occasionally, and he wasabsolutely indifferent to all the work and care of the farm and family.
"She's just like 'Liz'beth," the old man said to his neighbors; "she don't make home entertainin' for her husband. But Ben isn't balanced like me, and he goes wrong. He's excitable. I never was. The right kind of a woman could keep him at home."
After a child came to them matters seemed to mend for a time. So long as the infant lay pink and helpless in its mother's arms or in its crib, it was a bond to unite them all.
So soon as it began to be an active child, with naughty ways which needed correction, it was another element of discord.
The old man did not think Edith capable of controlling the child, and Ben was hasty and harsh, and he did not like to hear the baby cry. So he stayed more and more at the store, and was an object of fear to the child and of reproach to the mother when he did return.
They drifted farther apart, and the old man constantly widened the breach between them. They had been married six years, and the baby girl was four years old, when Ben struck Edith a blow, one day, and told her to take her child and leave the house.
In less than an hour she had gone, no one knew whither.
"She'll come back, more's the pity," the old man said. "'Liz'beth, she started off to leave me once, but she concluded to come back and try it over again."
But Edith did not come back. Months afterward they heard of her in a distant part of the State teaching school and supporting her child.
Ben applied for a divorce on the plea of desertion. Edith never appeared against him, and he obtained it.
One year from the time Edith left him, he married Abby Wilson. She had grown into a voluptuous though coarse maturity, and was dashing in dress and manner. Her father had recently died, leaving her a fine property. She had always coveted Ben, and did not delay the nuptials from any sense of delicacy, but rather hastened the hour which should make him legally her own.
The old man was highly pleased at the turn affairs had taken. After all these years Ben was united to the woman he had chosen for him so long ago, and now surely Ben would settle down, and take the care off his shoulders—shoulders which were beginning to feel the weight of years of labor. In truth, the old man was breaking down.
He fell ill of a low fever soon after Ben's second marriage, and when he rose from his bed he seemed to have grown ten years older. He was more childish in his fault-finding, and more irritable than ever before, and this new wife of Ben's had little patience with him. She was not at all like Edith. She bullied him, and frightened him into silence when he began to find fault with her extravagances. For she was extravagant—there was no denying that. She cared only for show and outward appearance. She neglected her home duties, and often left the old man to prepare his own food, while she and Ben dashed over the country, or through the neighboring villages, behind the blooded span she had insisted upon his purchasing soon after their marriage.
Poor old Anson English! He was nearing his sixtieth year now, and he looked and seemed much older. Ben was his only earthly tie, and the hope and stay of his old age. And he was but a reed—a reed. His father saw that at last. Ben would never develop into a practical business man. Hewas unstable, lazy, and selfish. And this new wife seemed to encourage him in every extravagant folly, instead of restraining him as the old man had hoped. And someway Ben had never been the same since Edith went away. He had been none too good or kind to his father before that; but since then—well, when she went, it seemed to Anson that she took with her whatever of gentleness or kindness lurked in Ben's nature, and left only its brutality and selfishness.
And strive as he would to banish the feeling, the old man missed the child.
Ah, no! he was not happy in this new state of affairs, which he had so rejoiced over at the first. He grew very old during the next two years. Like all men who worry the lives of women in the domestic circle, he was cowardly at heart. And Ben's new wife frightened him into silent submission by her masculine assumption of authority and her loud voice and well-defined muscle.
He spoke little at home now, but he still paid frequent visits to his neighbors, and he remained firm in the Adam-like idea that Elizabeth had been the root of all evil in his life.
"Yes, Ben's letting the place run down pretty bad," he confessed to a neighbor who had broached the subject. "Ben's early trainin' wasn't right. 'Liz'beth, she let him do 'bout as he pleased. Liz'beth never had no notions of how a boy should be trained. He'd a' come out all right if I'd a' managed him from the start."
Strange to say, he never was known to speak one disparaging word of Abby, Ben's second wife. Her harshness and neglect were matters of common discussion in the neighborhood, but the old man, who had been so bitter and unjust toward his own wife and Edith, seemed to feel a curious respect for this Amazon who had subjugated him. Or, perhaps, he remembered how eager he had been forthe marriage, and his pride kept him silent. Certain it is that he bore her neglect, and later her abuse, with no word of complaint, and even spoke of her sometimes with praise.
"She's a brave one, Abby is," he would say. "She ain't afraid of nothin' or nobody. Ef she'd a' been a man, she'd a' made a noise in the world."
Ben drank more and more, and Abby dressed and drove in like ratio. The farm ran down, and debts accumulated—debts which Abby refused to pay with her money, and the old man saw the savings of a long life of labor squandered in folly and vice.
People said it was turning his brain, for he talked constantly of his poverty, often walking the streets in animated converse with himself. And at length he fell ill again, and was wildly delirious for weeks. It was a high fever; and when it left him, he was totally blind, and quite helpless.
He needed constant care and attention. He could not be left alone even for an hour; Ben was seldom at home, and Abby rebelled at the confinement and restraint it imposed upon her. Hired help refused to take the burden of the care of the troublesome old man without increased wages, and Ben could not and Abby would not incur this added expense. Servants gave warning; Ben drank more deeply and prolonged his absences from home, and Abby finally carried out a resolve which had at first caused even her hard heart some twinges.
She made an application to the keeper of the County Poor to admit her husband's father to the department of the incurably insane, which was adjacent to the Poor House.
"He's crazy," she said, "just as crazy as can be. We can't do anything with him. He needs a strong man to look after him. Ben's never at home, and he has everything to look after any way, and can't be broken of his rest, and the old man talksand cries half the night. I'm not able to take care of him—I seem to be breaking down myself, with all I have to endure, and besides it isn't safe to have him in the house. I think he's getting worse all the time. He'd be better off, and we all would, if he was in the care of the county."
The authorities looked into the matter, and found that at least a portion of the lady's statements were true. It was quite evident that the old man would be better off in the County House than he was in the home of his only son. So he was taken away, and Abby had her freedom at last.
"We are going to take you where you will have medical treatment and care; it is your daughter's request," they told him in answer to his trembling queries.
"Oh! yes, yes—Abby thinks I'll get my sight back, I suppose, if I'm doctored up. Well, maybe so, but I'm pooty old—pooty old for the doctors to patch up. But Abby has a powerful mind to plan things—a powerful mind. 'Liz'beth never would a' thought of sending me away—'Liz'beth was so easy like. Abby ought to a' been a man, she had. She'd a' flung things."
So he babbled on as they carried him to the Poor House.
It was November, and the holidays were close at hand. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year. Abby meant to enjoy them, and invited all her relatives to a time of general feasting and merrymaking.
"I feel as if a great nightmare were lifted off my heart and brain, now the old man has gone," she said. "He will be so much better off, and get so much more skillful treatment, you know, in a place like that. They are very kind in that institution, and so clean and nice, and he will have plenty of company to keep him from being lonesome. Wehave been all through it, during the last year, or else we never should have sent him there. It is really an excellent home for him."
It was just a year later when a delicate, sweet-faced woman was shown through the wards of that "excellent home" for the poor and unfortunate. She walked with nervous haste, and her eyes glanced from room to room, and from face to face, as if seeking, yet dreading, some object.
Presently the attendant pushed open a partly closed door, which led into a small, close room, ventilated only by one high, narrow window.
"This is the room, I believe," he said, and the lady stepped in—and paused. The air was close and impure, and almost stifled her.
On the opposite side of the room she saw a large crib with a cover or lid which could be closed and locked when necessary, but which was raised now. In this crib, upon a hard mattress and soiled pillow, lay the emaciated form of an old man. He turned his sightless eyes toward the door as he heard the sound of footsteps.
"What is wanted?" he asked, feebly; "does anybody want me? Has anybody come for me?"
"O father, father!" cried the woman in a voice choked with sobs. "Don't you know me? It is I—and I have come to take you away—to take you away home with me. Will you go?"
A glow of delight shone over the old man's wasted face, like the last rays of the sunlight over a winter landscape. He half arose upon his elbow, and leaned forward as if trying to see the speaker.
"Why, it's Abby, it's Abby, come at last!" he said. "You called me father, didn't you—and you was crying, and it made your voice sound kindo' strange and broken like. But you must be Abby come to take me home. Oh, I thought you'd come at last, Abby. It seems a long, long time since I came away. And you've never been to see me; no, nor Ben, either. But you've come at last, Abby, you've come at last. Let me take your hand, daughter, for I can't see yet. They don't seem to help me here as you thought they would. And I'mso hungry, Abby!—do you think you could manage to get the old man a little something to eat before we start home?"
The woman had grown paler and paler as she listened to these words which the old man poured out in eager haste, like one whose thoughts and feelings long pent within himself for want of a listener now rushed forth pell-mell into speech.
"He does not know me," she whispered—"he does not know me. Well, I will not undeceive him now. He is happy in this delusion,—let him keep it for the present." Then, aloud, she said:
"You are hungry, father? do you not have food enough here?"
"Oh, I have my share, Abby; I have my share. But my appetite's varying, and sometimes when they bring it I can't eat it, and then when I want it most I can't get it. I'm one of many here, and I've been so lonesome, Abby. But then I knew you'd come for me all in good time. And, Ben—how is Ben, Abby? does he want to see his old father again? Ah, Ben was a nice little boy—a nice little boy. But 'Liz'beth wan't no kind of a mother for such a high-strung lad. And then he hadn't oughter married that sickly sort of girl that ran off an' left him. Sakes alive! what a temper she had! It sort of broke Ben down living with her as long as he did. But he remembers his old father at last, don't he? And he wants to have me home to die. Ah, Ben has a good heart after all!"
"I must not tell him; I must not," whisperedthe woman as she listened. "Bitter to me as his deception is, I must let him remain in it." Then with a sudden bracing of the nerves, and a visible effort, she said:
"Ben is away from home now, father. He will not be there to meet you, but you'll not mind that: I shall make you so comfortable; I want you at home during the holidays."
So he went out from the horror and loneliness and gloom of the Poor House, to the comfortable home which Edith had provided for herself and child in the years since she left Ben. Eva was a precocious little maiden of nine now, wise and womanly beyond her years. So soon as Edith learned of the old man's desolate fate, she resolved to bring him home. Eva could attend to his wants during the day, while she was in the school-room, and the interrupted studies could be pursued in the evening. Or she could hire assistance if he were as troublesome as report had said. He had been a harsh old man, and had helped to widen the breach between her and Ben. But he was the father of the man she had married, and she could not let him die in the Poor House. So she brought him home.
"Don't I hear a child's voice?" he asked, as Eva came dancing out to greet them. "Who is it, Abby?"
"Why, it's your own little granddaughter Eva," cried the child, clasping his withered hand in her two soft palms. "Don't you remember me? Mamma says you used to love me."
Edith's heart stood still. Surely now he would understand. And would he be angry and harsh with her?
The old man's face lighted.
"Ah, I see, I see," he said musingly, "Abby and Ben have taken the little one home. It must be Edith is dead. She was such a puny thing."Then turning his face to the woman who was guiding his faltering footsteps, he asked:
"And is Edith dead?"
"Yes," she answered quietly, "Edith is dead." And added "toyou," in a whisper.
"He must never be undeceived," she thought. "It would be too severe a blow; the truth might kill him." And to Eva she said a little later:
"Dear, your grandfather is very ill, and not quite right in his mind. He thinks my name is Abby, and you must not correct him or dispute any strange thing he may say."
The journey left the old man very weak indeed, but he talked almost constantly.
"It was so good of you, Abby, to take the little girl home," he would say. "But I knowed you had a good heart, and Ben too. He was fond of his old father, spite of his rough ways. It was pooty lonesome—pooty lonesome, off there at that place—that Institute where you sent me. Some folks said it was the Poor House, but I knew better—I knew better. Ben and you would never send me there. I s'pose it was a good place, but they had too many patients. Sometimes I was cold and hungry and all alone for hours and hours. Oh, it's good to be back home with you—you, Abby—but why don't Ben come?"
"Ben is away, father."
"Oh, yes, yes. Business, I suppose. Ben'll turn out all right at last. I always thought so. After he sort o' outgrows 'Liz'beth's trainin'. But I hope he'll get back for Christmas. Somehow I've been thinkin' lately 'bout the Christmas days when Ben was a little boy. We allus put something in his stockin' that night, no matter if twan't no more'n a sweet cake. Sakes alive! how he prized things he found in his stockin' Christmas mornin's! I got to thinkin' 'bout it all last Christmas out at that there Institute, and I justlaid an' bawled like a baby, I was so home-sick like. Seemed to me if I could justseeBen's face again, I'd ask nothin' more of Heaven. And now I think if I can just hear his voice again, it'll be enough. Do you think he'll git home for Christmas, Abby?"
"I hope so, dear father, but I cannot tell." Edith answered softly, her heart seeming to break in her breast as she listened.
She knew very well that Ben would not go across the street to see the father he had deserted, and that she could never send for him to come toherhouse, to pay even a last visit of mercy.
"What will I do—how can I explain to him, when Christmas comes and Ben does not appear?" she thought.
But the way was shown her by that great Peace-Maker who helps us out of all difficulties at last.
Christmas Eve, the old man's constant chatter grew flighty and incoherent. He talked of people and things unknown to Edith, and spoke his mother's name many times. Then he fell asleep. In the morning he seemed very weak, and his voice was fainter.
"Such a strange dream as I have had, 'Lis'beth," he said, as Edith put her hand on his brow, and smoothed back the thin, white hair.
"Such a strange dream, I thought Ben had grown into a man, and had left me alone—all alone to die. I'm so glad to be awake and find it isn't true. How dark it is, and how long the night seems! To-morrow is Christmas. Did you put something in Ben's stockings, 'Lis'beth? I have forgotten."
"Yes," answered Edith, in a choked voice.
"And it's gettin' colder, 'Lis'beth. Hadn't you better look after Ben a little? See if he's covered up well in his crib. You're so careless, 'Lis'beth, the boy'll take his death o' cold yet. And he's allI've got. He'll make a fine man, a fine man if you don't spoil him, 'Lis'beth. But you hain't no real sense for trainin' a boy, somehow. Is he covered up? It's bitter, bitter cold."
"He is well covered," Edith answered. The old man seemed to doze again. Then he roused a little.
"It's dawn," he said. "I see the light breaking. Little Ben'll be crawling out for his stockin' pooty quick: I oughter had the fire made afore this, to warm his little toes. Strange you couldn't a' waked me, 'Liz'beth! You don't never seem to have no foresight."
Then the old man fell back on Edith's arm, dead.
In an old abbey town, a long, long while ago there officiated as sexton and gravedigger in the churchyard one Gabriel Grubb. He was an ill conditioned cross-grained, surly fellow, who consorted with nobody but himself and an old wicker-bottle which fitted into his large, deep waistcoat pocket.
A little before twilight one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself toward the old churchyard, for he had a grave to finish by next morning, and feeling very low, he thought it might raise his spirits, perhaps, if he went on with his work at once.
He strode along until he turned into the dark lane which led to the churchyard—a nice, gloomy, mournful place into which the towns-people did not care to go except in broad daylight, consequently he was not a little indignant to hear a young urchin roaring out some jolly song about a Merry Christmas. Gabriel waited until the boy came up, then rapped him over the head with his lantern five or six times to teach him to modulate his voice. And as the boy hurried away, with his hand to his head, Gabriel Grubb chuckled to himself and entered the churchyard, locking the gate behind him.
He took off his coat, put down his lantern, and getting into an unfinished grave, worked at it for an hour or so with right good will. But the earth was hardened with the frost, and it was no easy matter to break it up and shovel it out. Atany other time this would have made Gabriel very miserable, but he was so pleased at having stopped the small boy's singing that he took little heed of the scanty progress he had made when he had finished work for the night, and looked down into the grave with grim satisfaction, murmuring as he gathered up his things: