OLD ZACHARIAH.
Did you ever see Zachariah Tubbs? No, of course you haven’t; he was not a man you’d be likely to notice; you, who take off your hat so killingly to a dainty French bonnet; you who make way for old Lorenzo Dives, the fat, wealthy old whited sepulchre of a banker; of course you never saw Tubbs. Tubbs didn’t belong to “your set.” Tubbs was a hale old man who believed carriages were for sick folks, and legs were to walk with. Tubbs never ran away with another man’s wife, nor got drunk, nor cheated his neighbor. How shouldyouknow Tubbs?
Sunday after Sunday his shiny bald head came into church, with its fringe of snow-white hair; the ruddy hue of his cheek deepening and deepening as he grew older. There he was in his place, forenoon and afternoon, singing as only those sing,who have learned to say lovingly and filially “Our Father;” he, and the children God had given him,—a good round dozen—girls and boys,—half and half—“not one too many,” as the old man said every time a new name was registered in the Family Bible; Sally’s and Mary’s and Jenny’s and Helen’s; Tommy’s, Charley’s, Billy’s, and Sammy’s; all of them free to chop up the piano for kindling wood if they chose, and that perhaps was the reason theydidn’tchoose. I don’t think the old man ever thought of the phrase “family government;” but for all that he had a way of laying his hand on little heads, that was as soothing as the “hop” pillows, which country ladies use to hurry up their naps with. One after another the girls grew up to maidenhood and womanhood, and one after another married, and left the old homestead for houses of their own; throwing their arms round the neck of the good old man as they went, but still, with a world of love and pride in the tearful glance which rested the next minute on the husband they had chosen. Ah me—! one after another they all came back, doubled and trebled, to lay their heads again under the old roof-tree, where theycould never know again the lightsome, care-free dreams of girlhood.
Not a complaint, not a reproach for their misfortunes (for such thingshavebeen) from the silver-haired old patriarch. He, smiling, blessed them all the same, rising up and sitting down, going out and coming in—they and theirs; that they were poor and desolate built up no separating wall between him and them. A few more chairs at the hearth—a few more loaves on the table—that was all. There was enough and to spare in that father’s house, for their tastes were simple, and the morning and evening prayer went up on as strong wings of faith as if no cloud had settled on the fair, matronly faces about him.
The boys? oh, yes, the boys; well, they outgrew jackets, and went into longtailed coats and “stores.” Business fought shy of them. I suppose, because they were too honest to cheat; but the old man said, “Never mind; try again, boys; there’s always a place for you here, when things go awry.” And things did go awry; and one after another the boys came home too, till they could “turn round again.” Never a wrinkle more on the smooth white forehead of Zachariah—nevera smile less on his placid face; no frownings and fidgetings and pshawings when little feet pattered loudly in parlor and hall; some on his shoulders, some on his knees, some at his feet;still, “not one too many,” and each, as he said, worth a thousand dollars apiece; and Heaven knows they cost him that, first and last; but he was not a man to remember it, as he sat in their midst, with his spectacles on his nose and his Bible on his knee, reading all the precious promises garnered there, for just such as he. “It is all right,” he said at the altar; “It is all right,” he said over the coffin; “It is all right,” he said, when he folded his worse than widowed daughters to his warm, fatherly heart.
Ah! laugh at this good old man’s Bible if you like; I know it is the fashion; it is considered smart and knowing, and all that, to put out the sun, and try to grope through the world by one’s own little glimmering taper. Wait a bit—till your feet stumble on the dark mountains; till the great cry of your agony goes up to that God, whom, loading you with blessings, you yet reject and disown; like the willful son, who, in the lordlypride of new-fledged manhood, turns contemptuously from the mother who will never cease to love him; and yet—and yet—his first great sorrow finds him with his head on her breast.