"And so you ought to be!" returned the doctor. "That's a heathenish idea, and unworthy of a woman of your good sense. Why do you think the Lord sent you such a son, except that you might be fond and proud of him?"
"I think there is something in that," said Mrs. Fairchild; "but my aunt that partly brought me up used to be always talking about judgments, and about the Lord taking away our idols. I'm sure I never meant to make an idol of Eben; but you see, being all the boy we had, and such a comfort as he always was—But Mr. Fairchild, he thought just as you do. How well I remember," continued Mrs. Fairchild, accepting a pinch from the doctor's snuff-box, "how often I've thought of what Mr. Wilbur said to us when we adopted Eben. 'You'll never have no comfort with him,' says he. 'Adopted children are always a curse. It's flying in the face of Providence,' says he. And Mr. Fairchild, says he, 'Seems to me, neighbour, if Providence puts a destitute orphan child into my hands, and gives me the means to take care of him, it shows pretty plainly that Providence means I should do it,' says he."
"Poor man! He won't have much comfort out of his own son," said Dr. Porter.
"I know it. Ain't it dreadful? And to think, after all Mr. Antis tried to do for him, that he should have acted such a treacherous part! Mr. Antis says Tom came into the bank while he was there and saw him draw the money, so it must have been he that gave information to the robbers. When do you think we can move Eben down home, Dr. Porter?"
"Not for some time yet: it would be a very unsafe operation. I should not allow it even if he were in a good deal less comfortable quarters than he is at present."
"Oh, he's comfortable enough," said Mrs. Fairchild. "The only thing is, it would be so much easier to take care of him. However, everybody is very kind, and Jeduthun would do anything for Eben, so I guess we shall make out pretty well, after all."
Mr. Antis had rather dreaded the meeting with Mr. Francis. His own conscience reproached him sorely about neglecting, or rather putting off, the alteration in the bell-rope, which would have saved all the trouble, and he had not the least idea what Mr. Francis might say or do about the matter. However, as Jeduthun said, there never was any knowing where to have the old gentleman, and if he was just as likely to be in a bad humour as a good one, why the chances were even the other way.
"We won't say any more about the matter, Mr. Antis," said he as Mr. Antis expressed his regret. "You have been invariably faithful to my interests hitherto, and I can overlook such a matter as this, I hope, especially as I have lost nothing, thanks to young Fairchild's bravery."
"That is the worst of it," said Mr. Antis. "I could have made up the loss of the money, but to think that the poor boy must suffer from my neglect."
"It is sad indeed," said Mr. Francis gravely, as Mr. Antis stopped and turned away. "No occasion to hide your feelings, Mr. Antis. They do you credit, sir."
"I am sure it will be a lesson to me all my life," said Mr. Antis, striving to regain his composure.
"We will let it be a lesson to all of us. How is the poor boy?"
"Dr. Green thought the leg would have to be taken off, but Dr. Porter and Dr. Bose say that will not be necessary. He cannot be moved, however, and they say he may have a stiff knee."
"Poor little fellow! It is a wonder he escaped with his life. Let him have every possible comfort, Mr. Antis, and spare no expense. Perhaps, as you say he cannot be moved, you had better fit up another room for his mother. I must see the good woman before I go."
"Perhaps you will look in on Eben, sir?" said Mr. Antis. "He is a little disturbed in mind, and fears you will think he neglected his duty."
"Certainly, certainly. Poor child! It is hard to see how he could do more."
"There! Don't say any more about it, Fairchild," said Mr. Francis, as Eben strove to explain to him why he had not given the alarm sooner. "You did the very best you could—the best anybody could have done. Don't excite yourself about it any more. I am perfectly satisfied with you, Fairchild—more than satisfied: I am very much pleased. You justify all the confidence I have placed in you, and I had a good opinion of you, from the first time I saw you."
"I told you so," whispered Jeduthun to Mr. Antis in the shadow of the door. "I knew the old gentleman would think he had made the boy."
"Never mind, let him think so," whispered Mr. Antis in return.
"They tell me you will have to stay here," continued Mr. Francis. "You must let them make you comfortable, and you also, madam," bowing as he spoke to Mrs. Fairchild. "Call for everything you want. But I see the doctor is longing to throw me out of the window, so I will go. I repeat I am pleased with you, Fairchild. If you were my own son, I could not have wished you to do better than you have done."
"Eben always was a comfort," said Mrs. Fairchild through the tears which had come in response to Mr. Francis's praises of Eben. "Mr. Fairchild said he would be, the very first week we had him, and he always has been."
"I just want to say one word to Mr. Francis, ma, if you will please to go away a minute," said Eben. "Mr. Francis," he continued when they were alone together, "if I should die, will you see to mother and Flora and take care of them?"
"You must not talk of dying, my boy," said Mr. Francis, kindly. "I trust you will be spared many years yet."
"I hope so too," returned Eben, "but yet people do die of gunshot wounds, you know, and it will not happen any more for talking about it. I am not at all afraid to die, but I should feel easier in my mind if I knew that they would be cared for."
"I understand," said Mr. Francis. "Make yourself easy, my son. Your mother shall be my care as much as if she were my own, and your sister also; and I am glad to see that your mind is so collected and settled. God bless you!"
Mr. Francis actually stooped and kissed Eben's forehead, and then hastily retired. He was met outside by Jeduthun.
"I think, sir, we had better raise the gate and let off the water," said he.
"Why so?" asked Mr. Francis.
"Why, you see—step this way, if you please, sir—that man I shot last night jumped right into the pond. I've been round the other side, and there's no sign of his having got out anywhere. He wasn't in a very good state to swim, neither, especially in ice water."
Mr. Francis recoiled in horror. "You don't think you killed him, do you?"
"Looks a good deal like it. If I didn't, the water finished him, I do expect, but I meant to hit him, and I guess I did."
"But a fellow-creature!"
"Well, Mr. Antis is a fellow-creature too, ain't he?" asked Jeduthun.
"To be sure!" replied Mr. Francis, recovering himself a little. "I don't mean to blame you, Jeduthun. You did right, of course, but, then, human life is so sacred."
"Some human lives is sacreder than others, seems to me," argued Jeduthun, "and the boss's is a heap more sacred to ma than a fellow's like that. I suppose I feel different from you, Mr. Francis. That's only natural. I've been in battle, you see. Of course I wouldn't take no man's life without reason, but I can't think so much of what I did last night as you would. But how about the water? It won't be much to let it off, you know."
"Let it off, of course."
"And what's to be done with that other fellow, Tom Wilbur? I feel kind of sorry for him. He's only a boy, and a most uncommon foolish boy at that."
Mr. Francis hesitated and wiped his glasses.
"I feel sorry for him, and that's the truth!" continued Jeduthun. "Here's been his poor old father and mother crying over him like everything. He never had no sense, nor no bringing up, and you know if he goes to state's prison, as he'll have to, that will be the end of him."
"True!" said Mr. Francis. "I am sorry for him as well as you. I suppose these fellows got him into their power, and he thought he could not help himself. However, I don't see but he must stand his trial—unless, indeed, he should escape," added the old gentleman, looking calmly at Jeduthun, "and of course you will take care of that."
"Yes, sir, I'll take care," said Jeduthun, with equal gravity. "I suppose they'll be after him before long."
"Not before the five-thirty train, I should think. You might drive him over to Shortsville, Jeduthun, and I could telegraph the officers to meet you there. It would save a scene here."
The water was let off the pond in the course of the morning, and to everybody's horror, the bodies of both the robbers were found. It seemed as though the unwounded man had tried to help the other, and being caught in the death grasp of the drowning man, had sunk to rise no more. One of them was recognized as the keeper of a low saloon and gambling hole in Hobartown. The other was unknown, and had probably come from a distance.
Somehow or other, during the ride to Shortsville, Tom Wilbur managed to make his escape, and was never caught again. Mr. Francis, on being apprised of the circumstance on Jeduthun's return, remarked that there must have been gross carelessness on his part, and gave him five dollars.
"After all, I am not so very sorry," added Mr. Francis, in a musing tone. "He was but young, and this may be a lesson to him."
"It may be a lesson to him, but he won't learn it," said Jeduthun, accepting the reproof and its accompaniment with due humility. "When a fellow makes 'it isn't pleasant' a reason for not doing anything that ought to be done, he won't never come to much."
EBEN GETS A NEW PLACE.
EBEN'S wound proved a very serious matter. The joint inflamed, fever set in, and for a time it really seemed as if Dr. Green's prediction would be realized and Eben would lose his leg, after all. But, as Dr. Henry said, faith, care, and water-dressings brought him round at last, and by Christmas, Eben was able to be removed from the mill and carried home. That was a joyful going home for all parties.
"Why, what does this mean?" asked Eben as Jeduthun helped him into the little parlour. "Where did you get so much baseburner?"
"Oh, Mr. Francis sent that, and a great load of coal, besides—enough to keep it going all winter," said Flora. "Just wait! You haven't seen it all yet."
A very small bed-room opened from the parlour. It was too small, Mrs. Fairchild declared, for any one to sleep in, and had therefore been used for a kind of store-room. Flora opened the door and displayed to Eben's astonished eyes the little room stretched out to three times its former size by an addition, and neatly furnished with new furniture.
"There! That is your room," said she. "Mr. Francis had a man come over from the Springs to do it, because he said you would need a bed-room down stairs till your knee got well. He sent over the furniture himself from Hobartown, and yesterday he came down to see the room."
"I kind of hated to have him do it at first," said Mrs. Fairchild. "It seemed too much of an obligation, but he said you had saved him from a great loss, and sacrificed your knee to him, and he didn't feel as though he could do too much for you. It is a great convenience, you see, and when you don't want it any more, it will do for a spare room."
"I am sure he is very good," said Eben, rather overwhelmed. "I didn't do any more than my duty."
"Well, no, perhaps not," replied Jeduthun. "Few of us do, for that matter. Fact is, Eben, you never knew quite how much you did do that night, because it wasn't thought best to tell you while you was so weak, but them fellows had laid all their plans to fire the mill. The next day, when I was hunting round, I found a great bunch of paper and shavings and kindlings soaked with kerosene stuffed in behind Mr. Antis's desk. They meant to get all they could, and then set the mill on fire. If that had gone, the sawmill must have gone too, and nobody knows how much more!"
"Just to think what wickedness folks will do for money!" said Mrs. Fairchild.
"It wasn't altogether for money, either," replied Jeduthun. "One of the men had a spite at the old gentleman for trying to break up the drinking and gambling hole he kept over in Hobartown. He chose his time well, if he had but known it, for the insurance had been run out for two or three days, so if the mills had burned, they would have been a dead loss."
"I shouldn't suppose that Mr. Antis would have let the insurance run out," remarked Flora.
"Well, he oughtn't to, that's so, Miss Flora, but that's about the only fault I ever see in Mr. Antis. He's a little too apt to put things off—to think they can just as well be done another time, when it comes a little more convenient. That was the way about the bell-rope. But he's got a lesson now, the boss has, and I don't think he'll ever forget it. I never saw a man feel so bad as he did that time Eben was crazy, and used to talk so much about the bell."
"Did I?" asked Eben. "I don't remember anything about it."
"Folks don't often remember what they say when they are out of their heads," replied Jeduthun. "But for two or three days you were always talking about that bell-rope, and saying if you could only get at it; it was as much as I could do to keep you in bed sometimes. Well, once I just stepped out of the door to get some ice, and there was Mr. Antis leaning up against the wall listening and as white as a sheet. I made as if I didn't notice him, for folks don't always like to be looked at when they feel bad, but he caught hold of my hands and cried just like a girl. 'Jeduthun,' said he, 'if that boy dies, I shall be his murderer!'"
"I think that was going too far," said Flora. "I suppose it takes intentions to make a murderer?"
"Well, I don't know about that," said Mrs. Fairchild. "Not that I think Mr. Antis a murderer—far from it. But just look at Lucinda Bell's children," alluding to a terrible kerosene tragedy which had taken place in the neighbourhood not very long before. "Lucinda knew how dangerous it was to fill a lighted kerosene lamp. I have told her of it myself many a time, and so had Mr. Fairchild."
"'Lucinda,' says he, you will blow yourself up some day.'"
"'Oh no, I sha'n't!' says she. Well, finally she did blow herself up, sure enough, only it fell mostly on the innocent little children. Now, wasn't she responsible for the death of those little girls?"
"'Course she was!" said Jeduthun.
"Old Mrs. Bell, her mother-in-law, was talking about mysterious dispensations of Providence," continued Mrs. Fairchild, "and she went on till I couldn't stand it, and says I:"
"'Now, Mrs. Bell, don't put it on Providence. If a man was to put a match into a barrel of gunpowder, you wouldn't call that a very mysterious dispensation of Providence if he was blown up,' says I. 'Lucinda had been warned times enough, and she knew her danger,' says I, 'and Providence don't work miracles to keep folks from the consequences of their own carelessness,' says I."
"And when I told the old lady how it happened, she hadn't another word to say. Now, I do think that was something like a murder."
"I think so too," said Eben. "But I hope Mr. Antis will not distress himself any more about me. I shall do very well, I dare say. Never shall I forget how I felt when I got my hand fairly on the rope. I should have been still more glad if I had known all about it. Did Mr. Francis know that the insurance had run out?"
"Oh yes. Mr. Antis told him all about it."
"Did he scold?"
"Not a bit. All he said was, 'Mr. Antis, let this be a warning to you, never to put off what needs to be done to a more convenient season. That is what has wrecked thousands of men for time and for eternity,' says he. I could see that touched Mr. Antis, because, you see, he's been kind of on the fence this good while about religion—off and on, as you might say. But he's made up his mind at last, and he's going to join the church next Sunday. He told me so himself. However, Eben, you have talked enough, and done enough, for one day. You'd better lie down and rest, or you'll be getting feverish again. I'll bring over your books and the rest of your things to-morrow."
Christmas brought a shower of presents to the Fairchild household. Mrs. Fairchild said they should live on turkey till they should all begin to gobble. Mr. Francis sent fruit and oysters, and all kind of good things—presents for the children—and a beautiful muff and tippet for Mrs. Fairchild. Miss Barnard sent Flora a package of valuable books, and she had other presents from ladies for whom she had worked at the Springs. There was no end to the nice and pretty and useful things which came to the little white house that day. Mrs. Fairchild said she never could have believed, when Mr. Fairchild died, that she could be so happy again.
"To be sure, your dear father isn't here," said she, wiping her eyes, "and it never can be the same without him, but I don't feel to murmur. We have been so marvellously helped through this year, that seemed at first as if it would be so dismal and so hard. Flora has more work than she can do, and Eben, he makes friends on every side, and I could have all the work I wanted going out nursing. I do think we have a great deal to be thankful for. If Eben's knee was only well, I should feel quite content."
Eben's knee was indeed his only serious trouble. He was gaining health and strength day by day, but his knee was still stiff, and likely to remain so. Dr. Porter, being one day at the Springs, rode over to see him, and after examining the joint told him kindly but decidedly that he would never have any use of it again. This was a terrible blow to Eben. He had got used to his business in the mill, and liked it; he was trusted, and had every prospect of rising, and now to be laid aside was very hard. He had hoped that, by being careful and saving, he could eventually lay aside money enough to gain the medical education on which his heart was still set, but now that chance seemed to vanish into air. He did not see how he was to earn his living, much less lay by anything. He might, to be sure, learn bookkeeping, and in time get a place as clerk or accountant, but he disliked figures, and never could work at then long at a time without making his head ache. It was a dreary lookout. Eben needed all his philosophy and all his religion to meet it.
Two or three days after Dr. Porter's decision, Eben was agreeably surprised by a visit from Dr. Henry. Eben happened to be alone in the house when he came, for his mother had been sent for in desperate haste to meet a sudden emergency, and Flora had seized the chance of a ride to carry some work over to the Cure. The doctor, however, made his way in without ceremony—with which, indeed, he was seldom troubled—and sat down by Eben's sofa.
"All alone?" said he.
"Mother was called to go to Mrs. Bennett's in a desperate hurry just now, and Flora had to go out," said Eben. "I suppose she will be back presently."
"Your mother seems to make herself generally useful. So she ought, for she is one of the best nurses I ever saw, and people who have that talent ought not to hide it in the earth. Well, how are you getting on?"
"Pretty well," said Eben, but he sighed as he spoke.
"That didn't sound much like it. What's the matter? Does your knee pain you still?"
"Not much, except at changes in the weather, but Dr. Porter was here a few days ago, and he says I shall never have any use of the joint again."
"That is as I supposed," said Dr. Henry. "It is a wonder you got off as well as you did. Can't you bend it at all?"
"Only a very little," replied Eben, showing how much.
"I see. And how is your general health? Are you growing pretty strong again?"
"Yes, sir; as far as that goes, I am picking up every day. I managed to get to church yesterday, though it tired me a good deal, and to-day I went over to the mill."
"Don't over-exert yourself at first. That is always bad economy. Well, and what are you going to do when you get well? Go back to the mill again?"
"No, sir, I am afraid not," replied Eben, sadly. "You see a person needs the use of all his limbs to be a miller. I am very sorry, for I was growing to like the business and had great hopes of getting on, but I must bear it as well as I can," he added, sighing.
"Why do you do that?" asked Dr. Henry, bluntly, but kindly. "Why don't you cast your burden on the Lord, and let him bear it for you?"
"I do try to," said Eben. "I have no doubt I shall be reconciled to everything in time, doctor, but it does come hard at first."
"No doubt it does, and he means it should. When he chastises us, he means to hurt us, I suppose. But now, Eben, I want to talk to you about a plan of my own. Mr. Antis told me that day I met you on the train that you had a great desire to study medicine. Is that still so?"
"Yes, indeed, sir!" replied Eben. "It was for that reason, more than any other, that I wanted so much to keep on in the mill. I was earning good wages, and I thought I might manage to lay by something, so that in time I could afford to study."
"Well, well! There is more than one way to the woods," said Dr. Henry. "How would you like to come to the Cure and study with me?"
"Like it?" said Eben. The words spoke a great deal.
"Then you think it would do, eh?"
"It would be the next thing to perfect happiness," said Eben, "but, you see, doctor, there is a lion in the way."
"How so?"
"I must help my mother and Flora," said Eben. "I must at least try to earn my own living, if I can do no more. I should never feel it right to be living on them, as I must do while I was studying."
"I think that lion can be got out of the way, or at least tamed," said Dr. Henry, smiling. "My plan for taming him is this: I want a young man in the office, not as bookkeeper—Mr. Liston attends to all that—but some one to take care of the mails, and attend to the library, and ring the bells, and help the people out of the stage, and carry their things to their rooms, and, in short, do a hundred and one odd jobs which I can't think of now. I want a trusty, well-mannered person—trusty, because he must occasionally take a good deal of responsibility, and well-mannered, because he must meet with ladies and gentlemen. They say I am sometimes a bit of a bear myself," added the doctor, smiling. "I don't know how that is, but, at any rate, I mean to be the only bear in the house. I think you could do all these things, and do them well, and yet have plenty of time to study. We have an excellent medical library, and Dr. Rose will always be at hand to help you. So you will be earning your living and something besides, and your health will gain by the change. Well, what do you say? Have I tamed your lion for you?"
"It seems too good to be true," said Eben "Do you really mean it?"
"I am not apt to say more than I mean," returned the doctor. "Oh, it is no such great favour. I mean to have you earn your living, I assure you, and besides, I shall expect you to take hold and help me when you got your education."
"As if I could ask anything better than that!" said Eben. "Oh, Dr. Henry, you don't know how I have dreamed of such a chance as this, and never dared to hope for it, and now, in the very darkest time, when I couldn't see anything before me but—"
"Tut, tut! Don't be hysterical!" said the doctor as Eben choked and turned away his face. "Is this fresh water? There! Take that every fifteen minutes, and get yourself quieted down. I am going over to see Mr. Antis, and will look in again before I go home. You can talk to your mother and see what she says."
When the doctor looked in again, Mrs. Fairchild had come home; and was waiting to see him.
"Well, madam, and how is your patient?" asked the doctor.
"Oh, nicely. There wasn't anything to be scared at, but Mrs. Bennett's nervous, and that Dr. Green is no more good than a tow string. If Eben couldn't make a better doctor than he is, I should think he had better do 'most anything else."
"Then you like my plan for him?"
"Indeed I do, and thank you with all my heart, and so would Mr. Fairchild if he were here," replied Mrs. Fairchild. "I never did see how things come round! I don't think I'll ever borrow trouble again. Eben, he was saying something about leaving us alone, but, says I, 'Now, Eben, don't you say one word. You are not going to throw away any such chance as this. It would be flying in the face of Providence,' says I. Of course we shall be lonely without him, but then that's to be looked for. Boys have to go away from home some time, and parents shouldn't be selfish. I should like it if he could come home to spend Sundays now and then."
"There will be no trouble about that," said Dr. Henry. "I think, from what I have seen, that Eben will suit me exactly."
"Eben isn't as smart as some," said his mother. "No, Flora, he isn't!" as Flora made a gesture of dissent. "Flora never likes to have me say that, but it's true. Eben isn't naturally as quick as some, but he makes it up in another way. He's such a faithful boy. You always know just where to find him. If he promises to do a thing, he does it, and if he undertakes any work, he never disappoints you."
"That is better than being smart," said the doctor.
"Oh, he isn't any way deficient," replied Mrs. Fairchild; "all I mean is that Eben isn't as quick to learn as some. Now, there was that poor Tom Wilbur. He could always learn anything in half the time it took Eben, but he never would stick to anything longer than it went easy and he liked it, and see what he has come to. I've been very much blessed in my children, and every other way," said Mrs. Fairchild as Flora left the room for a minute. "Flossy has her little ways, to be sure, but a more industrious, generous girl don't live, and now that she has got a real sense of religion through Eben's sickness, I don't seem to have anything left to wish for her. Then, Mary Clarke is such a good girl, and the same as a daughter to me, and as for Eben, he always was a comfort from the very first day he came into the house. I did feel to murmur last spring when he went into the mill, because, you see, Mr. Fairchild had set his heart on Eben's getting an education and being a doctor, and I am afraid I was very rebellious. But it's all come round right now, and I don't seem to want for any good thing. I feel as if the Lord had been better to me than I deserve."
"So he is to all of us," said the doctor.
The next week saw Eben established in the Cure, liking his place and doing well in it, the happiest boy in all Lake county. He had the pleasure of seeing Flora and his mother very often, for as the Cure and the hotels filled up for summer, Flora's work became more and more celebrated, till she had more than she could do. Mrs. Fairchild, too, was not unfrequently sent for to supply some one who needed the exclusive attention of a nurse, and at last, by the advice of all her friends, Mrs. Fairchild rented her house at Boonville and established herself permanently at the Springs, where her nursing and Flora's machine afforded a handsome maintenance without any help from Eben's earnings. Eben is now attending lectures at Hobartown, and has every prospect of making a good physician.
In the course of one of his yearly wanderings into all sorts of wild places in search of the rest from professional labours he so much needed, Dr. Henry stumbled over poor Tom Wilbur, sick, alone, and dying, in a forlorn little settlement at the West. He had been in several good situations, but never stayed in any of them, because there was always something he did not like—"something that wasn't very pleasant," as he said—but he had come to the end of all his wanderings at last. The poor fellow was very penitent, and sent a great many messages to Mr. Antis and his father, as well as to Eben.
"Eben was always in luck," said he. "He wasn't a bit smart in school; the boys always used to call him the slow coach. But somehow, he has always got on. I'm glad of it, too, for it isn't very pleasant to be lying here as I am."
"How did you get into such a scrape as that about robbing the mill?" asked the doctor.
"Well, you see Smith lent me money and gave me credit. I began by taking things out of the store for him—sugar, and so on—and so he got me in his power, so I couldn't help myself, or thought I couldn't. I happened to let out one day that I had seen Mr. Antis draw some money from the bank, and said, joking, that I could get it if I was a mind to, because I had the key of the mill. You see, I'd carried it off with me without meaning to. So, then, Smith and the other man got up this scheme, and they made me go along. But I never knew they meant to burn the mill."
"How did they make you?"
"Well, they told me that they would certainly kill me if I didn't, and they would make me," continued Tom, feebly. "But, doctor, you tell them I never meant to hurt Eben nor to burn the mill."
These were the poor fellow's last words.
Dr. Henry saw him decently buried, and carried home his messages to his friends. Such was the end of Tom Wilbur, a boy endowed with abundant talents and favoured with every chance for making a man of himself, but throwing them all away because he could never make up his mind to do anything which he did not like to do.
I shall have failed in my design if the moral of this story does not tell itself. But if any one is troubled to discover the same, he may find it in two very short texts of Holy Scripture:
"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.""Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."
In these two Bible proverbs may be found the secret both of Eben's success and of Tom's failure.
THE END.