The wife meantime was recalling an opinion long ago expressed by a friend, who said that Philip Lyman possessed a domineering spirit and was bound to rule all connected with him. She, herself, had never believed it, but this looked like it—wishing her to give up whatever he did not fancy, and hinting that she would be obliged to. Indeed! He would find that she did not drive well; no, indeed. If her husband had observed the glowing cheeks and flashing eyes just then he would have been justified in concluding that she was "high-tempered."
And now came a break in this uncomfortable state of things in the shape of Mr. John Lyman, on a business trip; "could only spend the night with his brother. He was sorry to spoil their evening together." He would have been sorrier had he known they had not spoken for just two hours.
Annette soon retired, leaving the brothers to talk over home affairs while she went to her room to indulge in the luxury of grief. How dark it all looked. Philip was changing. Perhaps he was sorry they were married. He had the same as said she was vulgar and coarse. He was fastidious; she could never please him; they would have dreadful quarrels, for she could not submit to be ordered. And now the tears that had been stored up all these bright years fell in most surprising showers, until sleep had got the better of them.
The morning was a hurrying time; the brother must get down town for the early train. A hasty good-by with averted eyes, and Philip was gone. As he lunched near his office, two miles away, he would not be at home again until night.
A long, unhappy day before Annette! She felt ten years older than yesterday morning, when Philip had come all the way back from the gate to put a rose in her hair. She wished she could see her mother; she wished she could go off where Philip wouldn't find her in years; that is, she thought she did. Oh! What a wretched world it was. Poor foolish child! But she had only lived twenty little years.
Mr. Philip Lyman alone in his office, tried to settle himself to his usual duties, but he felt ill at ease and uninterested. Finally he threw down his pen, tipped back in his chair, and locked his fingers together at the back of his head, a favorite thinking attitude. His eyes wandered out the window, resting on white clouds sailing through the sky. Perhaps the deep blue reminded him of Nettie's eyes, or the wrapper she had worn that morning. However it was, he soon fell to confessing to those soft clouds.
"What a consummate idiot! She thinks me a tyrant, and rude and selfish. She ought to be vexed at me. As if I should make over her tastes, and try to control her. I was rude and hateful and unkind. Contemptible!"
And with that he seized his hat and dashed down-stairs into the street. He went straight to a market, bought a peck of onions and ordered them sent home. An unpoetical peace offering, he reflected, but the most appropriate for him under the circumstances. But stop, those were red onions. This fact was brought to his consciousness by observing on the sidewalk a basket of unusually fine white ones; and she had especially wished white onions. Immediately he stepped in and bought a peck of those.
As he walked along, filled with the peaceful consciousness of having made some atonement, he spied a wagon filled to the top with clean shiny-skinned, white onions. "They really look attractive," he said to himself. Then there darted into his mind a new idea. What if he should prove to Annette what a magnanimous, self-denying being he really was, and take to eating the obnoxious things himself just to please her; be a philosopher, a stoic, and will to like what he detested?
There must be no half-way work about this act of self-abnegation; he would provide a generous supply. Now that he thought of it, autumn was just the time to lay in a supply of vegetables. What had he been thinking of, buying only a peck? Nov, how many was a good quantity—enough to last all winter? That was a conundrum. He had dim memories of ten bushels of this and that stored in his father's cellar. True his father had a large family. But then, they should have a great many visitors. The proprietor of the wagon stared when he heard the order, but his business was to sell onions. If Philip Lyman was complacent before, he was jubilant now in contemplation of his virtues. He bounded up the stairs, resolving to go home at noon, surprise Nettie, and "make up." He was a monster to have left her in such a cold way. He was obliged to abandon that plan, though, having already lost so much time.
Annette meantime had been aroused from her despondent mood by the first installment of onions. Onions have healing properties, everybody knows. They began to prove efficacious in this case. Philip wanted to show her that he was sorry, she reasoned, and had taken this way to do it. It was just as delicate and kind as if the onions had been flowers,—she ignored the fact that they were red. While her spirits were being thus soothed and comforted, the second peck of onions arrived. This was perplexing. Why had he done that? Ah! These were white, and he had recollected that she liked white ones. How thoughtful and good! How unselfish and candid and noble to own himself wrong, and she—had been foolish and wicked to get angry at nothing.
She was just beginning to feel that life was worth living, when another man presented himself announcing that he had brought some onions. Annette assured him there was some mistake, as they had sufficient for a long time. But he affirmed most strenuously this was the spot, producing the directions in her husband's handwriting. Then Annette told him that she must countermand the order; that she positively wished for no more onions.
"But ye see I got my pay for 'em," he answered, with a horrible grin, whereupon the discomfited young woman retired into the house and the triumphant onions went into the cellar.
Tramp, tramp, and roll, roll. Would he never have done? He seemed like an arch fiend, sent to torment her. If she could but have known the soliloquy he of the onions carried on as he went back and forth, and that he took a malicious delight in getting the better of her, it might have turned the tide of her rising wrath into a laugh. When a laugh comes in, wrath goes out.
"That's jest the way with wimmin folks—headstrong! They think they know a leetle the most about everything. The young feller likes onions, I s'pose, and she don't, and she's 'tarmined he sha'n't have 'em. I'm glad she's got a boss. She needs it."
By the time the tenth bushel was deposited all Annette's late estimates and decisions had been reversed. Of all despicable acts this was the climax—to send a whole load of those horrible things, as if to say, "Grovelling creature, can't live without onions! Take them!" It was just a simple exhibition of spite and sarcasm. She would never have believed he could do so cruel a thing. Since she was a child she had not been so angry. It was a lofty, scornful anger that did not vent itself in tears. Besides, the tears were all used up.
Snatching her hat and mantle, she went out into the air to try to calm herself. On and on she went out into the country, dreading to return. Finding herself within half a mile of her cousin's house, she decided to call in order to get away from her thoughts. It proved the right place for that purpose. Little Harry had become suddenly ill, and the distracted mother welcomed her gladly. The two worked over him all the afternoon. As night came on Annette felt that it would be cruel to leave until there was some ray of hope. So she wrote a note to her husband, briefly and coldly explaining her absence. A passing boy agreed to deliver it, but it never got beyond his own pocket.
Toward evening Barbara began to wonder what kept her mistress, and decided to take matters into her own hands and get up a dinner. Seeing the large bin of onions in the cellar, she said within herself, "This is what she all time want; I will cook some!" During the process of cooking she made many trips to the front door to watch for her lost mistress. Each time she left all the doors open behind her, and so thoroughly perfumed the whole house with the odor of the dinner.
In the city Paul had picked up an old college friend and persuaded him to stay over a train and dine with him. As he ushered his friend into the pretty house, with a pardonable pride, it was somewhat taken down by the unmistakable odor that greeted him.
"Onions! As I live," he said to himself, "and Merwin is such a fastidious fellow! However, wait till he sees Annette." So he went in haste to bring her.
Upstairs and down and in the garden he searched. She was not to be found. This was a new departure—to be away on his return. He told his friend she had probably been detained—would be in presently.
Chagrined and mortified almost beyond his power to conceal, after waiting an hour, he was obliged to invite his friend to a table without a hostess. The first cover he removed disclosed a dozen huge specimens of that obnoxious, ill-odored vegetable that had caused their unhappiness. He forgot his heroic resolve and shut it with emphasis—not to-night would he eat onions. It was unlike the delicate tact of his wife to have ordered them cooked that night, while she was still ignorant of what had passed in his mind.
Barbara was not yet perfect. The dinner both in cooking and serving missed the supervision of the mistress. The host was ill at ease and absent, and was not sorry that his guest soon bade him good-by.
And now Philip grew positively uneasy, and proved himself not a whit behind a woman in the power to conjure up dire probabilities. Perhaps she had slipped from that high bank where they sometimes walked along the river! And he rushed out through the garden and over the fields till he stood on the bank amidst the gathering shadows and peered remorsefully into the dark waters. What if somebody had abducted her; had brought word that he was ill and had carried her off! That thought was maddening. Then he remembered her one relative in that vicinity—her cousin.
No public conveyance went that way, and in hot haste, he started on foot. His speed astonished himself. Breathless and panting, he arrived and was about to ring, when, obeying an impulse, he stepped to the side porch and looked through the vine-covered window. Yes; surely, there was Annette! A little group near the open fire; she kneeling by a low chair, her bright head bending over little Harry, who lay in his mother's lap.
The first feeling was of relief and gratitude. She was safe. And then, it was his turn. There came surging over him, like a hot breath from a furnace, a wave of anger, and he strode away. His hasty glance had not shown him the death-like pallor on the baby face, nor the anxious expressions of the others. His conclusion was that the baby was being made ready for bed, and the two were admiring his pretty pink toes.
On he went in the darkness, his resentment gathering force at every step. Here she had deliberately planned to put him to torture. How little she must care for him when she would allow him to spend a whole night in anxiety. He had supposed her nature to be gentle and forgiving, and here she had treasured up a few hasty words and was intent on revenge. He had made concessions, and she had scorned them. Alas! He had not the dimmest suspicion that those ten bushels of concessions were just what widened the breach. He walked the floor for hours, then flinging himself on a lounge, toward morning chopped into a heavy sleep.
The result of the night's meditation was a decision that the next advance toward reconciliation must come from Annette herself. Just as he was about starting for the office in the morning, Annette was driven up to the door. They looked at each other in silence. He lingered a moment to see if she had any explanations to offer, and she waited in the hall hoping that possibly he had repented of the odious conduct of yesterday and was willing to confess it. Silence is not always "golden;" the proverb is misleading. If he had but asked, "Why did you go away?" Or she had said some pleasant word! But, no; they passed each other in grim silence.
Another day of gloom and despair for both. This unwonted strain, added to the night's watching, brought upon Annette a nervous headache, so that by the time of Philip's return she could not raise her head. It was fortunate. But for this they might have gone on till happiness was wrecked. Annette, with spirited little head erect, sailing through the house, was to be considered somewhat differently from this one, her head on a pillow, racked with pain. No mother could have cared for her more tenderly and skillfully than Philip. Throwing his resentment to the winds, he administered to her for hours until she fell into a quiet sleep.
In the morning, with the pain all gone, explanations were in order. It was hard to tell which was the more astonished as the misunderstandings of each began to come out.
"And you did not go away to have revenge on me?" "And you did not send home all those onions just to tease me?" were some of the questions asked. Then the ludicrous side began to appear, and they laughed long and merrily.
"Whatever shall we do with all those onions?" queried Annette when she found her breath.
"We will make sweet fragrance to our names by means of them," said Philip. "We will send gifts to the poor—always of onions. We will become famous as philanthropists, and our eccentric charities will be the theme of succeeding generations. But, Nettie, I wish you would make a picture of some of those silvery-skinned onions. We will hang it up in the dining room, and it shall teach us wholesome lessons that nobody else can read but just us two. Shall teach me not to forget the 'small sweet courtesies of life.'"
"And shall teach me," said Annette humbly, "'that anger dwells in the bosom of fools.'"
"And that 'greater is he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city,'" added Philip.
"My darling," he said, as their lips met in the kiss of reconciliation, "let us never again misinterpret, misjudge, or lose faith in each other, whatever comes."
MISS WHITTAKER'S BLANKETS.———
MISS RACHEL WHITTAKER, as the years went by, found herself sole occupant of the old family homestead. Father and mother had lived their long honored lives, finished their work, and entered into rest. Brothers and sisters had one after another made for themselves new homes and gone their different ways. Miss Rachel had passed safely through the romances of youth and settled down to sober middle-aged life. She had also resisted all persuasions of friends to sell the old place and make her home with some one of the various families. "Because there is no man in the case," said Miss Whittaker, with a slightly contemptuous emphasis on the "man," "is no reason why I should not have a home of my own."
So life went on in the old Whittaker mansion with the same zest and order as if the household numbered a half-dozen, instead of a single lone female and her servant. There was the same punctilious regard to times and seasons. The house-cleaning paroxysm invariably came on a certain day of the month, the Monday's wash flapped in the wind, and the Saturday's baking sent forth spicy odors as regularly as they had done for the last forty years. The cellar continued to be stocked each autumn with "Mercers" and "Pink-eyes," with "Greenings" and "Spitzenbergs," with "Golden Pippins" and "Pound Sweets." The closet shelves contained their due amount of riches: rows of jars and glasses, filled with peaches, pears, quinces and jellies. In short, everything pertaining to good cheer was literally brimming over.
And Miss Rachel fed her chickens, counted her eggs, watered her plants and pattered upstairs and down, or sat in her large, sunny room and read her books and magazines, or clicked her knitting needles to the ticking of the tall old clock. Or she gathered a few friends about her for a social tea drinking, or, flung wide the doors of the old house to a troop of nieces and nephews. It was not alone that Miss Whittaker was fond of company, but it was pleasant to keep up the old customs. It was a pitiful attempt to bring back, as far as possible, the old times. It was easier when gay chatter and merry prattle filled the rooms, to see the white-haired father and mother as of old in their arm-chairs by the fireside. The most prosaic have a vein of sentiment somewhere. Rachel Whittaker's took this form; she guarded with a reverence that amounted to idolatry every object and principle belonging to those two. Her father's old hat occupied the identical peg on which he himself hung it the last time he went out; and mother's darning basket stood on the little stand, with balls and thimble and glasses; the needle stuck in the ball of blue yarn just where her own fingers placed it so long ago. And so, housekeeping was something more than ministering to her own wants or entertaining friends; it was having things go on as "they" would like to see them go on.
This devoted daughter was careful, as well, to direct the family benevolences into the well-worn channels in which they were accustomed to run. The church subscription and the contributions to home and foreign missions, and the various "Boards," were as faithfully attended to as if good Squire Whittaker still sat at the head of his pew.
She even loved and perpetuated her father's prejudices, and was too apt, like him, to have more sympathy for the unfortunate in Booroboolagha, than for those at her own door. She was prone to set all these down as "drunken" or "shiftless." However, she had not much opportunity to cultivate the grace of charity in home work, as nearly all the little community were well-to-do.
One of Miss Rachel's duties as a good housekeeper was to see that the large stock of bedding, packed away in trunks and closets, was aired at frequent intervals. It was more than abundant for the needs of a large family—and the Whittaker family was a large one when gathered in the old home at Thanksgiving and the holidays. One day in early winter—"just the right sort of a day for airing bedclothes, so warm and bright," Miss Rachel declared—the lines in the yard were filled with blankets, quilts, comfortables, etc., and the piazza roofs were adorned with feather beds and pillows.
Among the passers-by was Mrs. Barnes. She lived in the little gray, weather-beaten house just under the hill. She was neither shiftless nor drunken, yet she was pitifully poor, and was a widow as well, with three little children. She could "dig," though to "beg" she was ashamed, and managed by hard work and much pinching and stinting to piece out a living. What a tempting sight was this goodly array to the half-frozen woman!
Nobody knew but herself how hard she had tried to get enough bedding together for the winter; how she had saved every old scrap and pieced it up and eked out the cotton with newspapers that she had secured from Miss Rachel; and yet, with all that, the old house was so open it was going to be hard work to keep warm in the long, cold nights.
She stood and looked at those soft double blankets and thick comfortables, and said to herself, "What a thing it must be, eh, to have such lots of bedclothes; to pile on as many as you please and be warm as toast all night! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—I don't know how many blankets, double at that, and ever and ever so many comfortables, besides quilts and spreads. And there she is with all them warm things and nobody to keep warm but herself, and here I be, with three little children and no warm things. Oh dear! Why couldn't the two 'a' gone together, I should like to know." Then she brushed away a tear with the corner of her shawl and went on her way.
Miss Whittaker sat near the side window and noticed that the Widow Barnes stopped and looked over the fence. Somehow she didn't like to see her standing there, her thin dress blowing in the wind, her faded old shawl drawn close about her, and with such anxious-looking eyes fixed on those blankets. But now the obnoxious figure in the old shawl moved on, and Miss Rachel could once more give her undivided attention to a very difficult piece of embroidery she was engaged in making for a fair.
That very night winter began in earnest. The north wind and the frost went out hand in hand. They built bridges over streams, made rocky roads, and crept in here and there, unbidden and unwelcome. They found their way to Miss Rachel's chamber, but she got a victory over them by simply reaching out her hand and drawing over her self a soft comfortable.
The same unmerciful couple visited the poor as well as the rich; they crept into the cracks and crannies of the Widow Barnes' little house. She awoke with chills creeping over her, and got up and hunted about in the dark for something more to put over the two little girls in the trundle-bed, who had once or twice sleepily called out "cold!" She tucked her shawl and their old sacks about them, then snuggled little Bessie close in her arms and "wished for the day."
The frost and the wind had their own way all through the following day. It was a gloomy prospect for the night to Mrs. Barnes. She had hoped before cold weather set in to manage in some way to get more bedclothes. A fire all night was out of the question. As a forlorn hope, she put on her hood and shawl and went towards night, up the hill to Miss Whittaker's. Why, she scarcely knew. There was the least glimmer of a prospect that she might get some plain sewing to do, or, "Who knows," she told herself, "but that Miss Whittaker will say, 'Mis' Barnes, here is an old comfortable; if you can make it useful, you are welcome to it.' Oh! if she only would." And while the poor woman struggled up the hill against the wind she was unconsciously concocting a suitable reply to such a gracious proposition.
Miss Rachel had an excellent habit of employing her odds and ends of time in reading. By means of it she kept up familiar acquaintance with old authors.
To-night, after the lamps were lighted—and there were yet a few minutes before tea—she took a dip into "Thomson's Seasons." She was just reading:
"See, winter comes to rule the invested year,Sullen and sad with all his rising train,Vapors and clouds and storms."* * * * * * *"'Tis done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms,And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year,—"
when the kitchen door opened and Mary admitted Mrs. Barnes. What a heavenly place that room, with its warmth and brightness, seemed to this other woman. Miss Rachel laid aside her book and gave kindly attention to her poorer neighbor. They talked about the weather, how very early the cold had come on, how sharp the wind had been all day, and what an exceedingly cold night last night was.
"I put everything I could lay my hands on over us, and yet we shivered in our beds," Mrs. Barnes said.
Then Miss Rachel suggested that the house was probably open, and gave some valuable advice as to the best method of making doom and windows weather-proof. "Stop up all the chinks, and I think you will be more comfortable," she said; and then added that she was sorry she knew of no work for her. It was very difficult to get anything to do in the winter time. Had she not better try to put out her children and go into some nice family herself? It would be a great deal better all round.
Mrs. Barnes got up hastily, then, and said she must go. She wanted to say that if she could get work to do she could take care of her children without help from anybody, but something choked her, so that she could not speak. This was the horrible thing that was always staring her in the face—to part with the children. Must she come to it, just for want of a little help over this hard spot?
She pushed out into the cold and darkness, and went on her way, slowly and heavily. "I most hope she'll be cold herself some time, just to see how it feels," she murmured, half aloud, as she caught the last glimpse of Miss Rachael's light, in the bend of the road. "Why couldn't she let me have a couple of old comfortables and pay for it in work? I don't want to beg, goodness knows, but I'll have to come to it, for all I see."
Miss Whittaker was not so hard-hearted as she might seem. All the time Mrs. Barnes was talking, she was engaged in consultation with herself as to whether there was anything in the way of bedclothes that she could possibly spare. She did not wish to commit herself, so she made no promises, but she inwardly resolved that on the morrow she would take a look to that end.
Accordingly, the next morning found her with her head in chests and closets amid piles of blankets and the like. It was astonishing how many beds one woman, who lived all alone, had to provide for.
That pile was for Sister Martha's bed, that for Elvira's, that for Brother Ephraim's. Then, suppose they should all come at once and bring a couple of children apiece; they never had yet, but then they might, and if they did, at least six beds would need to be made ready; and if the weather should prove to be very cold at the time, why, it would take an enormous amount of covering, and it was always best to be ready for emergencies. Then there were certain quilts that she would not part with under any consideration, even though they were somewhat faded. The "album" quilt contained precious association of all the Whittaker family. The "wheel within a wheel" mother pieced and quilted; "the birds in the air" she pieced herself, beginning at the early age of four. As for common comfortables, it was needful to have a good many to spread over feather beds and mattresses.
There! It was done. Miss Rachel had gone laboriously through them all, and yet nothing had been found that was in any way suitable to bestow upon the Widow Barnes.
Dinner time came now, and she put them all away with—"I will see about it some other time." Ah, how many good things Satan hinders with that salve to the conscience—"some other time"!
After the cold came the snow, pouring out from the sky one ceaseless, silent stream for three days and nights. It piled itself in huge drifts in roadways, hid the fences, and—most buried the little house in the hollow. The widow occupied her time in shovelling snow before her doors and windows, lest they should be buried entirely. Her thoughts, meantime, were gloomy and sad. She knew about the God who hears the young ravens when they cry, but she did not believe He would hear her, and—like many more of his children—when trouble came, stopped her ears to gracious promises and fell into sullen gloom.
Miss Whittaker was a prisoner, too, in her cheery rooms. She was pleasantly employed, though; she knit bright socks for Martha's baby boy, made up a store of mince pies and fruit cake, and read a new book called "Snow Bound." In short, she was altogether comfortable and happy, or would have been but for one thing. And that thing was not snow; she liked that. What disturbed Miss Rachel's serenity during those few days, was, that she could not shake off a feeling of uneasiness with regard to the Widow Barnes. Her face, pale and worn, kept coming up before her, and the words, "We shivered in our beds," sounded in her ears. Then all the texts in the Bible she had ever read about the poor kept coming and going through her brain. She was a diligent reader, and her memory was good. When she would fain have entertained herself recalling the musical flow of—
"Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,And the winter winds are wearily sighing,"
she could think of nothing but—
"Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble."
Or,—
"If any of you see a brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"
She was not unmindful of the poor; she had helped Mrs. Barnes in various little ways. Why must she feel so condemned? she asked herself again and again.
With fair weather came the cold again; came stealing down upon the sleeping world like a thief in the night. Miss Rachel was unusually tired and slept very soundly, so that she did not waken even when the fire on her hearth had died out, and the cold become so intense in her room that the windows were frost covered, and the breath of the sleeper went up in little clouds of smoke. She stirred uneasily several times, and was just awake enough to know that she was cold, and not awake enough to bestir herself and get more covering. For a few minutes she lay in that half-waking state, thinking she ought, and would, and must rouse up and get more blankets. Finally, she thought she had done so and slept on.
Very soon after that she found herself far away from her own home, trying to walk over a floor of solid ice. She gazed about her in horror! The place was a large, deep pit, lighted by a lurid glare. Whichever way she turned her eyes, she saw nothing but ice, icy floor and icy walls, smooth and shining like glass. She clutched at them to save her sliding steps, but there was nothing to hold to; her hands slipped and she fell in a heap on the floor. She looked wildly above her for a way of escape. At the top of the pit she saw pretty rooms, with bright fires and happy-looking people sitting about sewing, reading and chatting. She shrieked for help, but they only shook their heads and went smilingly on with their occupations.
On one side she saw the Widow Barnes and her children. They sat amidst piles of blankets, heaped all about them, and they were soft and fleecy as her own had been. Oh! If she had but one to keep out this deathly chill. She screamed out again in an agony of torture, begging that just one blanket might be thrown down to her. But a mocking voice only came back to her, and it said, "Stop up the chinks, and I think you'll be comfortable."
In shivering terror she awoke, relieved beyond measure to find herself at home in her own bed, and then there flashed over her mind the story of Goody Blake and Harry Gill.
Had the Widow Barnes been praying that she might never be warm again? And must she go through life with her teeth chattering as they were now? Mingling confusedly with the words of the old ballad, "Chatter, chatter, chatter still," came a rush of Scripture texts, vivid and startling as if a voice spoke them in her ears, and they were all about the poor.
She was so thoroughly stiffened by cold and fear that she could scarcely rise and go to the closet for the needed covering which on this night she had forgotten to place by her bedside.
Miss Rachel had been accustomed to draw up and write out, at the commencement of each year, a series of severe resolutions; the fact that she never kept one half of them not abating their rigor in the least. But never in calmest moments, with pen in hand and diary before her, had any such earnest, self-denying resolves been made as were now made by the woman who stood in night array in her closet, holding a flickering lamp in one hand, and with the other taking down blankets and comfortables and piling them on chairs.
That done, she took a bountiful supply for herself and went back to bed. Her shivering soon ceased, and for the remainder of the night she slept the sleep of the just.
As a matter of course, when the daylight streamed into her room, and the red sun sent a slanting bar across her bed, Satan told Miss Rachel that it was perfect foolishness to pay any attention to a dream, and that it was simply improvident to go and give away that great pile of bedding she had laid out; that a couple of old ragged quilts would answer every purpose. He was obliged, however, to leave her in peace, for when Miss Rachel shut her lips tight, and said, "I shall do it," in that decisive way of hers, there was no need of further parley.
No sooner were the roads broken than she went in search of a man with a sleigh. When all was ready, it was a sight to behold—at least to the eyes of cold and hungry people. In the very bottom was a quantity of dry wood, then came a layer of meat, potatoes, apples, flour. And this was crowned by blankets and comfortables, more than enough for two beds in the very coldest weather. "I'll see if I don't get the upper hand of this mean, selfish spirit," Miss Rachel had ejaculated, as she stowed an extra blanket on the load at the last minute.
The Widow Barnes was bending over her smoky old stove, trying to coax some green knots to ignite, when the sleigh stopped in front of her house. She had a dream, too, last night. It was about Heaven. That happy place seemed to be filled with blankets and warm fires. But here, behold, was Heaven come down to her door! She assured the man he had come to the wrong place, but the note he handed her, with money to buy a whole load of wood, settled the matter.
From that time forth Miss Rachel took it upon her, as a sacred trust, to see to it that the Widow Barnes lacked for nothing. And, strange to relate, her subscriptions to foreign missions, home missions, freedmen, education, etc., have not been cut down a particle in consequence.
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THE DOCTOR'S STORY.
THE DOCTOR'S STORY.———
"I WANT to tell you a story, young man."
The speaker was the Rev. Joseph Mentor, D. D., a gray-haired, keen-eyed, large-brained, sweet-faced, grand old Christian. He sat in his own parlor, which was not a parlor, after all, but a sort of study; lined with books on every hand, almost crowded with easy chairs; convenient little writing-tables occupying cosy corners, with all the appurtenances thereto lavishly furnished, coaxing the privileged guest to write his letters, or arrange his neglected accounts, or read items from the various journals of the day, at his elbow, as his taste might dictate.
The present occupants of the room were three; the aforesaid Doctor, leaning back at rest in his favorite study chair—his life had been a long, grand one, and if ever disciple of the Master could afford to rest on earth, the Rev. Joseph Mentor might have claimed the privilege; yet his very rest was active; the Doctor's son, a young man of twenty-five or so, now co-pastor, who had excused himself to their guest, in the manner that one may treat guests who are almost as much at home as they are themselves—on the plea that there were two important letters to answer for the evening mail—and then had turned to one of the writing-tables, leaving his father to entertain the young man with a pale face and scholarly air, who sat in a half-dejected attitude in the straight-backed, old-fashioned chair near the Doctor. It was to him that the old gentleman had turned with the apparently abrupt statement,—
"I want to tell you a story, young man?"
That the young man would be glad to hear any story that Doctor Mentor might choose to honor him with, was evident from the flash of his eyes and the instant look of interest that overspread his face.
Then the Doctor began: "About a month ago I attended the funeral of a man in whom I have taken a deep interest all my life. He was an old man, and a plain man all his long life; yet, though I have attended a great many funerals in the last half-century, I don't think I ever saw a greater uprising of the people to offer the last tribute of respect and affection to a plain man in their midst. I want to tell you a little about that man. Miller, his name was, Daniel Miller; he was older than I, and in my young days I used to watch him from his pew in the church. I liked his face, even then, before I knew him; a grave, half-sad face, yet never gloomy—only a look of patient resignation to the inevitable. A Christian man he was, one of the sterling sort. Talk with anybody in that town about him, and they would pay almost instant tribute to his sterling worth, and almost always close with, 'What a pity that such a good man as he is should be so hard of hearing.'
"That was his trouble, and a great trouble it was. I suppose it was the means of breaking in pieces a number of plans of his youth. Well, the thought was written all over his patient, sad face: 'I am hard of hearing and growing worse. It destroys my usefulness, it hinders my work in every direction, it makes me appear unsocial and unsympathetic, in short, it is a burden hard to be borne.' As I watched him, I could see that this feeling grew upon him; grew with his infirmity, and that progressed quite rapidly.
"You have no idea, I suppose, what a drawback it was to him on all occasions. It got so that he didn't dare to open his lips in the prayer meeting. He would look all around him, to see whether anybody was speaking, but some of the members had a way of keeping their seats when they talked, so he found that he couldn't tell by their position, and once or twice he arose and began to pray when some one was talking; he was a diffident man, and it embarrassed him dreadfully. Then he used to say that he never knew whether what he had to offer was in a line with what had been said, or was very wide of the mark; and if the minister asked him to pray, he had to shout out the request, and sometimes poor Mr. Miller couldn't hear it, and his wife would have to give his elbow a nudge, and lean over and whisper to him loud enough for all the house to hear, 'He wants you to lead in prayer.'
"It was a real embarrassment all around. People didn't wonder that he gradually grew into the feeling that he couldn't take part very often in religious meetings; though I never thought that was right; I always believed that his prayers would be in a line with what the Lord wanted to have said, and that he would be safe enough, whether he followed the line of the others or not.
"So it went on, Daniel Miller growing deafer and deafer, and the patient, sad look on his face deepening, and the feeling growing in his heart that he wasn't of any use to the Church of Christ that he loved with all his soul.
"One day somebody in that church had an inspiration. 'I tell you what it is,' one of the members said, bringing down his doubled-up fist on the seat before him for emphasis, 'I believe we ought to make Daniel Miller our treasurer. That thing would suit him, and he is just the man to do the work.'
"'But Daniel Miller is so deaf,' objected one. 'He grows worse and worse; I notice that his wife always has to find the hymns for him, and the place in the Bible, and point to the text.'
"'What if he is deaf?' said his champion; 'a man doesn't have to hear in order to add money and keep accounts, and make out bills and send them out, and keep everything straight. I believe it is work that he could do, and I believe it would do him good; make him feel that he can do something for the church, and that we have confidence in him. I tell you what it is, brethren, I'm going to propose his name at our next election.'
"Well, he was as good as his word, and sure enough, all the people said 'Amen.' They did it with so much enthusiasm, and with such a look on their faces that said, 'What a splendid idea! I wonder we never thought of it before,' that there was quite an excitement, and Mrs. Miller looked about her, and the tears began to gather in her eyes, and she put her head down suddenly on the seat in front of her. She was a grand, good woman—a helpmeet to her good husband in every sense of the word.
"Well, Daniel Miller looked around with that meek, inquiring look on his face, a little troubled, as much as to say, 'Are you having a good time, brethren, or is there something going on in the Lord's house that oughtn't to be; I'm jealous for his honor; I hope all is well.'
"The chairman got out of his chair of office and went down the aisle, and bent over Mr. Miller, and said in a good, loud voice, 'You have been elected our Church Treasurer by a unanimous vote.'
"You ought to have seen his face then; it was a picture. It flushed and glowed, and his eyes grew dim, and his lips quivered, and it seemed for a minute that he couldn't speak at all. Then he stammered out something about not being fitted for the work—his infirmity being so great; he wished he could do something, he would be glad to, if he could, but maybe it was a risk to try it.
"Then the chairman put down his mouth to his ear again, and called out, 'We all stand ready to go your security, every one of us.'
"And then, sir, if you will believe it, that decorous assembly, made up of a class of people who believed every one of them in doing things decently and in order, just clapped their hands, and he understood it, and he got out his handkerchief very suddenly. You never saw anything work more like a charm than that arrangement did all around.
"Daniel Miller took hold of the work with a will, I tell you, and the work was never better done. His 'infirmity,' as he always meekly called it, was a positive advantage to him. There wasn't any use in trying to tell him how the accounts stood, or explain away this or that; he couldn't hear; it all had to be reduced to writing. And when a man sits down in quiet to make a written account of anything that another man is expected to fully understand, why he uses language carefully, don't you see? You don't suppose they were foolish enough, when his year was out to go and put in another treasurer, do you? Not a bit of it; the machine was running too smoothly. They elected him again by as large a vote as before.
"'It does my heart good,' one old lady said, 'to see Daniel Miller go up for the collections on Sundays. He does it with such a glad look on his face, as if he had found out something he could do for the church, and do well.'
"He did it well, too; no mistakes. By and by he began to send out little notes with his bills: 'We owe it to our pastor to pay his quarter's salary on the day promised.' Well, sir, when the next quarter's salary was paid the morning of the day: on which it was due, without having been asked for or run after, that minister thought the millennium was about to dawn! He hadn't been used to that sort of thing. You never saw anything like the promptness with which pew rents were paid in the church. If a man was twenty-four hours behind time, he was almost sure to receive a call from Mr. Miller; no writing notes this time. That man understood human nature well. Just imagine a gentleman standing in his store or office, and trying to carry on a conversation with Daniel Miller about not having paid his pew rent. 'Money has been a little short with me lately,' he begins, 'and I thought a few days' delay—'
"'What is it?' interrupts Daniel, with his hand to his ear. 'I'm hard of hearing, you know; speak a little louder, please.'
"Do you suppose that man is going to yell out for the benefit of the passers-by that he is a little short of money, and had deliberately planned a few days' delay for his minister? The way it worked was for him to scream out, 'You shall have the money at noon to-day, Mr. Miller.' Very likely, he grumbled that he wouldn't get caught in that trap again, and he didn't. People didn't enjoy calls from Daniel Miller when they owed the church any money. I watched that thing with the greatest interest. It grew all the time. It made a wonderful difference in Daniel's life; he kept his head straighter, and walked faster on the street. The church was large, and there was a good deal of business to be transacted, and Daniel had no temptation to brood over his infirmity. Then he knew just what was going on; just what the church gave to Foreign Missions and Home Missions, and all benevolences. He had no need any more to wonder painfully what was being done, and after hesitating over it a good while make up his mind to ask somebody, and feel sorry for them all the time to think they had got to answer him. Instead, people had to come to him for information. Nothing could be paid for, not a cent of money could be sent anywhere or done anything with unless the thing passed through Daniel Miller's hands. And I tell you the treasurer's reports of that church were curiosities; they were managed with such exactness and clearness. He had a little witch of a daughter, Nettie her name was, as pretty as a picture.
"Do you remember her, my son?"
"Yes, sir, distinctly," came promptly from the table where the son was writing letters.
And the Doctor continued: "Her father made her his clerk almost as soon as she could talk plainly, and began to train her up to business habits and business terms; he took her with him a good deal. 'Daniel Miller's ears' we used to call the bright little thing; and she was as bright as a diamond. We used to notice that Daniel could hear her to the last better than anybody else, even his wife. 'She's got a voice like an angel,' he said to me once; 'I know by her that I shall be able to hear the angels.' His hearing grew steadily worse. For a good many years he was able to hear some of the sermon, the loud parts as he used to call them, but by degrees, he lost the power of doing that. 'Did you hear?' the minister would shout at him, after service, as he came up for the collection. He would shake his head, but his eyes would look bright as he answered, 'No, sir, not with my ears; but I've got it here.' And he would lay his hand on his great, noble heart. It was true, too, and he went out and lived it a great deal better than many who heard everything. You must understand, young man, that I am covering a good deal of ground with this long story. The years went by, and at each election Daniel Miller was re-instated, until at last that congregation would have laughed in the face of any man who had suggested a change. 'What should we do without Daniel Miller?' That is as near as they ever came to mentioning the time when they might have to do without him; and the time came when they said that in lowered tones and with a hint of tears, for he was growing an old man and the church couldn't afford to lose him.
"Bless you! I hope you don't think that keeping the finances of the church straight was all the man did? It would take all night to tell you half the things that grew out of it; and then it wouldn't be told; it can't be. The Lord of the vineyard is the only one who has the whole story. I told you, he took to writing little marginal readings on the church bills and receipts. Well, is there any reason why marginal readings on church bills can't be about other matters than money? The 'words in season' that this deaf man spoke in this way, in quiet hours, to one and another of the flock, and the fruit they bore, I know something of, a good deal of, in fact; but, as I tell you, the Master is the only one who has the entire record.
"One night he had a new idea, or rather, he worked out what was to him an old idea. He went on Saturday evening to the parsonage with the quarter's salary; he apologized for intruding on Saturday, but said he, 'According to date this money should be paid to-morrow morning, and of course I couldn't do that, so I made bold to come to-night.'
"Well, he happened to be one of those men who never intrude on a pastor, no matter what time they come; so his pastor told him he was glad to see him, and would talk with him while he finished and put up his sermon; but Daniel didn't seem to want to talk; he watched that sermon with a curious, wistful air. At last he spoke, 'I've been turning a ridiculous idea over in my mind for a long time; I don't suppose it could be done, but I've thought sometimes that I would just like to try an experiment, and read over one of your sermons before you preached it, and see if I couldn't follow you from the pulpit better after that.' It was a queer notion, but it took the pastor's fancy. The fact was, he loved Daniel Miller so much that almost anything he said took his fancy, and he handed over the sermon and told the old gentleman to try it, by all means, he could have it as well as not. It would have done your heart good to see Daniel Miller's radiant face the next day. 'It worked, sir, it worked!' he said to the pastor, and he rubbed his hands together like a gleeful boy; 'I could follow you right along a good piece at a time.' If you'll believe it, that thing grew into a regular custom; the pastor had a boy, a bright enough fellow, who was always ready to scamper over to Daniel Miller's with the sermon on Saturday nights as soon as the minister could spare it, and wait while Daniel Miller went over it. Fact is, as the years went by, he was more willing to do that than any other errand the father could get up, and he and Nettie went over church accounts, and some other accounts together, many a Saturday night. But I happen to know that that pastor came to have a queer feeling that he couldn't preach a sermon until Daniel Miller went over it! That might be in part because he discovered that the old man had a way of going over it on his knees, and every sentence he came to that seemed to him ought to do a certain person any good, he would pray, 'Lord, bless that to John Watkins,' and so on, you know. Little Nettie, she let that secret out to the boy one night; and the minister came to feel that Daniel Miller was the associate pastor, and was praying the sermon into the hearts of the people all the time it was being preached. When a minister really feels that, he preaches carefully, I believe.
"Well, sir, it was a wonderful life; and when it ended, as I tell you it did a little more than a month ago, I never saw anything like the demonstration; and I didn't wonder at it. Twenty-nine years they had elected that man to office, and the Lord had elected him to a much higher office here on earth; his little notes bore a big harvest; and when the Lord called him to his seat in the Church triumphant, the Church on earth looked around for some one on whom his mantle could fall, and I tell you it seemed for a time impossible to do without him. Why, I moderated the meeting for them when they met to try to fill his place, and they just spent the first half-hour in tears and praying! Such lives tell. 'Infirmity,' indeed! God grant us more men like Daniel Miller."
"What became of Nettie and the boy? Did they get their accounts all settled?" It was the first time the intent listener had interrupted the old Doctor's vivid story. Indeed, it could not be called an interruption, now, for the Doctor had paused, and let his thoughts run back into the tender past. He roused himself with the question and laughed a little:—
"How is it, my son?" he asked, looking over toward the writing-table. "Have you and Nettie finished the accounts, or are they open yet?"
"We mean to keep them open, sir, until we join the 'Church triumphant.'" The young man answered quickly, albeit his voice was husky, and he brushed his hand hastily over dim eyes. Then he turned to the guest.
"My father has given you a true picture of my father-in-law's fruitful life; as good a picture as can be drawn on the moment; but it is as he says: no one can tell the story in its fullness. I think we shall have a wonderful account of it some day."
There was silence in the pleasant room for a few moments. Then the guest turned to Dr. Mentor. "Thank you," he said brightly, "thank you very much; they say that 'a word to the wise is sufficient,'" and he stammered as he tried to speak; then he arose to go.
"Father," said the son, returning from seeing the guest to the door, and stopping for a moment before his father, "do you think Frank Horton in danger of becoming deaf? Or is it because he stammers, or just what is the hidden purpose of the story?"
"Well," said the Doctor, "I told him that story because he is like Moses, 'slow of speech and slow of tongue.' I think he caught the lesson and will put it in practice. I am told that he is a very bright, earnest Christian, but that he broods over his infirmity and is very sad; you can see it in his countenance. There is a niche for him, just where, perhaps, the infirmity will tell for God's glory. Look at your father-in-law. I tell you there is a defect in most lives, an 'infirmity' of some sort, that grace must supplement. It is not for us to fold our hands and say, 'What a pity!' but to help find the niche where the marble fits. Mr. Horton is like Daniel Miller. He could not be a good Sunday-school teacher, or elder, or minister, but he can do something."