construction he put upon the usual that made it seem unusual, and brief
and simple as his story was, it was intensely characteristic. He had
started earlier than usual to his night’s work, and was swinging his
coffee-pail to the measure of the old hymn, “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I
Stand,” when, turning into a cross-street, he found himself in a crowd
of running men and women, and in a few moments was in the midst of all
the turmoil and commotion attending a fire, and he soon saw there was
cause for the cries of the women and the curses of the men. There had
been a nasty accident, and it had come to the first engine approaching
the fire. It had been a case of strange driver and a too-short turn,
and there, in a terrible heap, lay one horse flat, the other on its
knees, and behind them a partly overturned engine. Worst of all, not
only were its own services lost, but it was keeping other engines
from entering the street, save by a long detour. Now, if ever there
was a demand for lifting-power that demand was made right there, and
old Brockwell sat down his coffee-pail and began to remove his heavy
coat (it was early November then), when he learned quite suddenly that
the burning house was a haunt of evil doers, was in fact a place that
honest folk turned their faces from as they passed, and for the moment
he hesitated, then flinging his coat fiercely off, he shouted: “Help!
men, help! That fire _must_ be quenched, to give those people one
last chance to save themselves from eternal fire,” and the “old Bull”
was with the firemen, working with a will and showing such splendid
lifting-power that the crowd cheered the “gray old Hercules” lustily,
and among other happenings some “company’s hose” had burst, and many
were wetted thoroughly, among them old Brockwell. A church clock had
boomed out the hour, and it was time for him to go on to his work,
and then he felt how wet he was. He might have gone home and changed
his clothing and only have been a little late in getting to the store.
There was no one to make comment or to report his action, but he would
be late, and he was proud, (the old man’s lips had twisted painfully in
uttering that word), proud of his punctuality, and--well--he had gone
on to the store, wet as he was, and the night had been long, and now
and then, strange, deep, burning pains, that seemed a mile long, had
run from hip to heel, but he had watched the night out--and--and he
would never watch again--that was all. He had, in fact, “scuttled his
own ship,” but in ignorance, lass! In ignorance, not in villainy. Yes,
it was rheumatism first. He hadn’t minded that so very much, because
he had the awful pain to fight, but _this_ (again that piteous twist
of the lips), _this_ partial paralysis--well there was nothing even to
fight now.
Had I not seen hope dead in his eye? His head sank low on his breast.
I touched my lips to his hand, and whispered, “How you have suffered!”
His eyes closed wearily, and he answered lowly: “I have eaten ashes
like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,” then, almost with a
sob, he said: “Aye, aye--in very truth my sin hath found me out!”
I started almost angrily, exclaiming: “Your sin? What sin? You have
loved--at least you have feared God all your life long! His word has
ever been upon your lips. You have striven to obey His laws--what sin
has found you out?” He raised his head, crying: “And to think I was so
blind--so self-satisfied! To think how I tried to keep the boys from
going to perdition by way of Sunday ball, and the girls by way of their
vanity in their bits of ribbons! The blind ‘leading the blind,’ in good
truth! Even when I was stricken I did not understand, until a neighbor
made my sin plain to me.”
“Ah,” I said, “and had that neighbor removed the beam from his own eye,
that he could see so very plainly the mote in yours?”
“I do not know,” he answered, “but he said that pride went before a
fall. And when I looked a bit surprised he added, ‘you have been eaten
up with vanity and puffed up with pride all your life, because of your
great strength,’ and oh, lass! lass! I was sore ashamed! Ah, well, I
have no strength to sin with now--I am just naught but a useless, old
hulk, or what is worse, ‘a derelict!’”
“No,” I said, “a ‘derelict’ is a menace and a floating danger to many
men--you are no derelict!”
But he, shaking his clenched hand above his head in impotent sorrow,
went on: “Worse! I’m worse than a danger to men! Men are strong and can
save themselves, but here I hang like a mill-stone about the neck of
that poor woman there--my wife, and she’ll have to bear the dragging
and the weight for years and years. For, mind you, I’m not like to die.
The doctors say these things inside of me that they call ‘organs’ are
all sound and strong, and that a man lives _by them_, not his legs,
and so I’m to sit here rusting away, and watching her grow sick at the
sight of me!”
Two slow, difficult tears stood chill and unshed in his eyes, and I
felt, with a pang, how great must be the storm of sorrow that could
cast its spray into those stern, old eyes.
“I don’t suppose,” he went on, “that she realizes it yet; she’s good as
gold. She takes care of me, helpless as I am, always just as smiling
and pleasant, and sets right by me, and don’t even go to church--just
talks a little over the fence with the neighbors, so she can come and
tell me what’s going on. Why, she even offered to give up gum, and she
a needing it for her digestion so, ’cause she thought it might make
me restless-like (and there is a kind of gum, you know, that squeaks
a good deal when it’s new); but I ain’t so selfish as all that. But,
oh, if I could just die decently, as a man should when he’s no more
use, and not be a burden and a drag! For, you see, Emily’s a mighty
fine figure of a woman, and she might easily find a new home, with some
good, sound man for a husband--who would protect her, and not sit, as
I do, waiting for the day to come when his wife will look at him with
loathing.”
“Mr. Brockwell,” I cried, “do you know that you are cruel to yourself
and unjust to your wife?” He looked hard at me, but made no answer.
“Your wife was always proud of you!” His face quivered--I had struck a
wrong note--I hurried on: “proud of your character and standing, and of
the pretty, little home you had so hardly earned, and now, oh, believe
me, dear old friend, I know her heart better than you do yet--now she
is proud to be the world for you, to be your feet, your nurse, your
companion, your friend as well as wife.”
He sadly shook his head: “She is a slave,” he said. “Yes, if you will,
she is a slave to her love for you, therefore she is a happy slave.
You have said, yourself, that she smiles on you constantly. She never
looked better in her life, and why does she call you ‘father’ now?”
His face brightened a little. “Yes,” he answered, “she has called me
‘father’ ever since the--the--(how he shrank from the word) since the
paralysis came upon me--yes, ever since.”
“And,” I went on, “can’t you see what that means? She used to call you
Mr. Brockwell--but when your cruel affliction came upon you she felt
the absolute need of some term of endearment, because she loved you.”
Still, with the perversity of unhappiness, he exclaimed: “But Emily
didn’t say that. She never told me that she--she--”
“Oh, indeed,” I broke in, “and have you given her a chance to tell you?
Have you ever asked her if she loved you still?” And the old man, with
a mind full of clean and wholesome memories, blushed at the question
with a swift swirl of color in his cheeks that a girl of eighteen
might have envied. “Have you?” I persisted. “Come, now, let us have a
little fair play. You know she can’t speak first. You know that, like
every other modest, self-respecting woman, she must be dumb about her
feelings--her emotions, until the man breaks the silence. You know she
has been trained to silence from her earliest girlhood. Yet, knowing
all that, you gnaw your heart in bitterness, because she does not dare
lay her arms about your neck and assure you of her faithful love.”
His eyes glowed, his great hands opened and shut nervously. He
stammered and stumbled over his few words: “You think I haven’t steered
a straight course with Emily, eh? You actually believe, if I take a
new tack, eh?--if I tell her how I--how,--well, how things are with
me--that she’ll come around to the helm--I mean--” and then suddenly
his face fell and, shaking his fist in impotent rage at his helpless
limbs, he cried: “Oh, she can’t, she can’t! Look at the miserable ‘old
hulk,’ just rottin’ slowly away between the tides of Time and Eternity,
and talk of a woman lovin’ it--a-a-h!”
I saw Emily’s troubled face at the door and swiftly waved her away.
Then I said, as brightly as I could: “Well, all ‘hulks’ are not
despised! I saw a real one a few weeks ago!” He looked up quickly.
“Where?” he asked.
“By the sea,” I answered. “What kind of a hulk was it--some unfinished
failure of a ‘tub,’ I suppose?”
“No, a wreck! A great, gaunt-ribbed thing; stately even in its ruin.
The waves--” He caught my dress as I rose to my feet. “Tell me about
the ‘hulk,’ lass, tell me!” He pleaded just as a child pleads for a
story.
“Very well,” I said, “I’ll tell you, but you must let me go to the
spare room to lay off my hat. I’m going to stay all night, if your wife
will let me!” I laughed at his request “for me to hurry,” and said:
“Mr. Brockwell, before I go, I want to say just one more word about
your wife. _You_ may doubt, but I am certain, _certain_, that should
you have your cruel wish and die to-morrow, and should Emily be spared
for many, many years to come, at the very end she will lie at your
side, and will carry your name to her grave”; and as I passed Emily I
whispered eagerly: “Don’t be angry with me; I’ll explain later, but,
for God’s sake, go straight to your husband and kiss him!” The tears
rushed into her eyes--she nodded her head and passed into the room
where he sat.
I loitered long over the removal of my hat and wrap; I even waited
to bathe my reddened eyes, and then, as I slowly descended the tiny
staircase, Emily’s voice, mildly indignant, came up to me, crying, “Oh,
father, how could you, how could you?” and from the deep, bass rumble
that followed there escaped these words: “A mighty fine figure of a
woman, Emily!”
Then I sneezed loudly and entered the room to find them discussing the
rival merits of “beaten” and “raised” biscuit, one of which we were to
have for “tea.” Mrs. Brockwell, being of a slow and peaceful nature,
naturally preferred “raised” biscuit, but Mr. Brockwell, being more
aggressive, took a great interest in the “beating” process. Once he
asked, indeed, if _he_ might not beat the dough, and Emily delightedly
assented, putting a big, white apron about him and bringing everything
close to his chair. But the poor, old giant’s second blow had split
the bread-board, and that had been the end of biscuit-beating for him.
While Emily was pounding vigorously, if somewhat slowly, at her dough,
I told my old friend of that other hulk, bleached white as chalk by the
blazing sun, lying high upon the beach, listing over so that it made
a sort of shelter for people to sit under, with the fine, pale sand
slowly filling it--slowly piling up about it; how, when I saw it, the
ocean which had cast it there was stretched out waveless beneath the
sun, with only a slow, deep, regular heave, that was like the breathing
of some mighty monster at rest. I told him of that awful night when the
signals of distress were sent up into the pitiless sky, and were seen
and heard by helpless, distracted men and women on shore; and how, in
the gray morning, they were astounded to see the big ship high upon
the beach, and dumbfounded when they saw she was a coffin, for there
was the body of a woman there. Slight and young and small of foot
and hand, and a Catholic, since a “scapula” was about her neck--and
that was all. How the young stranger had been buried on the high land
overlooking the sea and the wreck, and how, down below and up above,
both were waiting, one for utter destruction, the other, for a glorious
resurrection; and meantime the old hulk had become not only a landmark,
but a thing beloved. Oh, yes; he need not shake his head, for that old
hulk was the loyal friend of all true lovers. The great, gray, maimed
thing sheltered many a shrinking pair from prying eyes. Brown, young
rustics, who were fairly stricken dumb in the “sittin’-rooms” of their
sweethearts, here, in the velvety, black shadow of the friendly, old
hulk, found their tongues, and told swiftly and well the one old story
that is ever new; while, as to summer nights--why, the old hulk was the
trysting-place of lovers from half the countryside. It was so public,
and yet so sheltered--so protecting. And it was so wise, the gray, old,
sand-filled thing--it knew so much of Love, and Love’s dear brother,
Death!--so much--good God, so much! and yet was silent--ever silent!
Half the young married women of the little town had received their
engagement rings within the sheltering arms of the old hulk, and some
of them had carried their little children there, later on, that they
might take their first, uncertain steps upon the soft, pale sands that
were drifting ever higher about the bleaching wreck, just as one might
take the first spring blossoms to some spot that was sacred to us.
That noble ship that on even keel, with mighty spread of snowy canvas,
had sat the water a living thing of strength and beauty, had had a
commercial value only, but wrecked, it had become a precious thing
to them all, garlanded with the tenderest sentiments of both men and
women, draped with the radiant hopes of youth, and each day gilded anew
with ever-living love. As it sank deeper in the sand, so it sank deeper
in their memories--their beloved “old hulk”!
The old man had listened so closely to my story that I was somewhat
puzzled when he remarked on my last word: “If I was sure and certain
that Emily was telling the truth about that patch-work, I don’t know
but what I might get to be more that sort of hulk myself, lass! If
I could just be of a little use--ever so little, but real!--I could
get along, but I don’t want to be fooled, like a child, into doing
_useless_ things. The Lord says: ‘A man should rejoice in his work!’
but a man can’t rejoice if it’s only make-believe work!”
I began dimly to comprehend, and, proceeding cautiously, I remarked
“that it would not be easy to deceive him, and I did not believe anyone
would try!” He looked doubtful and, lowering his voice so that his wife
might not hear him, asked: “You know what a master hand Emily is at
piecing patch-work, don’t you?”
I did know! I recalled the really handsome quilts she had shown me.
It was the only way she had to gratify her natural love of color, and
the workmanship was exquisite. The quilting in “fan” and “shell” and
“diamond” forms equalling the piecing. Indeed, patch-work was a fine
art in Mrs. Brockwell’s hands. “Yes, I knew!”
Then his keen, old, blue eyes took fast hold upon mine and, in an
aggressive tone, he made this astonishing statement: “Well, Emily can’t
cut out any of her patch-work herself. She can’t cut any two pieces
exactly alike, to save her life!” Oh, Emily, Emily! poor, bungling,
loving Sapphira! I understood and thought fast while those piercing,
old eyes held me! I tried to laugh naturally, as I exclaimed: “Well,
there’s a pair of us, then! I have lovely pieces--enough for two
quilts, but I can’t cut pieces alike, and am ashamed to ask anyone to
do it for me; so there they lie!”
“Oh, you!” he impatiently answered, “but Emily, now!” I thought of
those quilts upstairs, while he went on: “See this thing, now!” He
pointed to the small quilt over his knees. I required no invitation,
goodness knows! for the ugly, ill-made thing had forced my attention
long ago. No two pieces matched in length; they were puckered and
stretched (the old man called them “we-wahed”).
“That’s _her_ cutting,” he announced! I was about to explain, when I
saw Emily behind him in the kitchen-door frantically signing me to
keep quiet. “Oh, dear!” I moaned to myself, “what about those quilts
upstairs?”
“Yes;” he went on, “that’s a woman’s cuttin’ out! Yes (argumentatively),
I saw her do it! And think of those quilts upstairs! (Ah, I thought!)
Why, Emily says she would have had enough for herself and for her
daughters’ marrying, if she could have got her first husband to cut her
pieces for her! (O, Emily!) but she had to beg and beg, and he wouldn’t
cut a single piece for a whole year sometimes. She says he was ashamed
to do it, she reckons! Well!” he hotly ejaculated, “I’m not ashamed to
do _anything_ for _my_ wife, unless”--he cooled suddenly again--“unless
she’s only making believe so as to give me employment!”
“Well,” I said, “if you choose to doubt your wife, after looking at
that awful quilt, you may. But you can’t well suspect _me_, and if you
will cut pieces for one quilt for me I’ll give you silk enough for a
quilt for yourself. Will you do it?”
The last suspicion faded! He threw back his head and laughed: “Will
I? You’ll see! Say, lass, just step over to the sta’board side of
that sewing machine and hand me up that cuttin’ board, and I’ll show
you what’s the matter with the ‘cuttin’ out’ of all you women. You
see,”--he spoke with an air of growing authority as he unrolled some
bits of calico--“you will just have your pattern cut out of a bit of
cotton or delaine, and then you smack that down onto, perhaps, _several
pieces_ of goods together, never mind whether bias or straight, just to
save time. Great guns! save time! Look at _that_ thing over my knees!
Well, _I_ take the ‘sun observation,’ and I get my pattern all right,
and _then_ I cuts her out in good, stiff pasteboard, ma’am, and if it’s
a hard pattern, like ‘bride in the mist’ or ‘the risin’ sun,’ I have
the thing cut out of a thin sheet of tin. A--a--ho! I don’t make no
mistakes, even with ‘brides in the mist,’ when I’ve a good, tin pattern
to work by!”
As so often happens, enthusiasm was too much for his grammar. He
talked and planned all through tea and right along to bed time, and I
carried the big Bible to him and placed it open upon his lap. His hand
instinctively began to turn the leaves in the front of the volume, but
I rested my hand on the place I had selected, and, laughing, I said:
“You have chosen for three whole years, _I’m company_ to-night, and you
must let me choose!”
He laughed a little and yielded, but when he saw my choice was from
the New Testament, he frowned heavily, then cleared his brow as with
an effort and read. He was not so familiar with the script as usual,
and he read slowly and carefully, and when he came to that gentle,
generous invitation and that all-comprehending promise, “Come to me
_all ye_--_all ye_--who are weary and heavy laden--and I will give you
rest!” he stopped! To this day I believe I felt the old man’s thought,
which was of the astounding comprehension by Jesus of his one craving
wish--not for great joy--not for the inheritance of the earth--no, not
for anything but that which was promised: “_Rest_.”
“Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give
you rest!” Slowly, with trembling lips, he repeated the words a second
time. Then he leant forward, tore a bit from the evening paper, and
placing it as a marker, he closed the book. Emily and I knelt, and
for once I felt no sense of the ridiculous in hearing a poor, finite
creature explaining matters to the Infinite Being who knows all things.
Very humbly the old believer explained to the God he had made so
fearsome to himself why he lifted his voice in prayer in this unseemly
attitude, instead of on his knees in humble, _loving_ humility!
I gasped--I felt Emily’s hand slip over and grasp mine--which proved
lucky later on. Never before had that word been heard in that way, in
this house of faith. But, oh, when the old man asked forgiveness for
having wickedly doubted for a time the perfect truthfulness of one very
near to him--his truest friend--Emily gave a plunge and tried to pull
away from me. “I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t bear it! I must confess
my lie!”
“Oh!” I moaned under cover of his bass rumble, “keep still! He’s so
happy now! Confess to heaven!” She tried again to pull her hand away.
I clung tight, and putting my lips close to her ear, whispered: “_He_
will forgive you because of your love! You know,” I muttered wildly,
“much shall be forgiven because she loved much! That’s not it, but you
know what I mean!”
The bass rumble stopped suddenly--so did I--but thank heaven,
Emily’s spurt of remorseful courage was over--her loving falsehood
unconfessed! The rumble was resumed, and all was well!
Next day, as I came in hatted and cloaked to say “good-bye,” old
Brockwell--bright and ruddy--had his cutting board on his knees,
bits of calico all over him. A foot-rule, a blue pencil, and several
envelopes before him, and the air of “this is my busy day” of a
railroad magnate at least. His “log-cabin” pattern had been found
in a “rocky-mountain” envelope, and in fact things were all at
loggerheads--but by-and-by they would be ship-shape. I was just to wait
till I saw some of his _own_ designs! Emily was going to go right _at_
one--of “anchors”--blue anchors on a white ground, and did I suppose
any of my pieces would be long enough--he couldn’t well have those
anchors less than six or seven inches long, and then a bit of the old
Adam came out in him, when he lowered his voice to tell me: “_He_ was
not ashamed to cut patch-work, and he was not afraid--that in a year
from now there would be quilts _downstairs_ that could outsail anything
upstairs that had been cut out only after beggin’ and coaxin’!”
I looked at the mighty wreck before me! I thought of the three men he
had put out in that early morning fight! Of how, strained and patched
and stitched, he had picked up that barrel of flour and carried it in
from very pride in his strength! How he had won cheers for his splendid
lifting-power at that fire, and now he had come to _this_! He sat there
helpless as a child, his only work cutting up scraps of calico for
quilts. He was, as he himself said, “an old hulk!” and yet he looked
brightly up to me and said: “You remember old lady Brighton, don’t you,
lass? Unbeliever, poor old thing! Emily and I are going to make a real
pretty ‘star quilt’ and give to her. Star-pattern works up such small
pieces, you know! Nothing, most, too small for that, and so bright too!”
It was no use denying it--this wreck _was_ dearer--was more valuable to
others, _as_ a wreck, than it had been in full panoply and strength. He
was accepting things--he was conquering himself, and he was “greater
than he who taketh a city!”
So there I left him. For background, he had his honest, toilsome,
clean-thinking past! His old wife’s faithful love was as the blue sky,
bowing gently over him. The slow, still sands of Time piling steadily
about him, and before him that great, illimitable ocean of Eternity,
which will at last receive into its bosom this fine, old hulk!
The Gentleman Who Was Going to Die
The Gentleman Who Was Going to Die
Of course he had a name, and we both knew it, yet we invariably spoke
of him not as Clarks nor as Mr. Clarks, but as “the gentleman who
was going to die.” We must have been a troublesome pair of “little
pitchers” to have about, with our widely open ears, in such a place and
at such a time; and I remember quite well that our elders were much
annoyed when they found that we knew that “the gentleman was going to
die.”
I was three years older than my companion, and very, very serious;
indeed, he was the only child who ever made me enjoy a game of romps.
Pretty, golden-haired, laughing little fellow, no one ever resisted
him. He passed through his short life a baby Prince Charming, a little,
conquering hero.
His father was the Sheriff of the city, and, for the time being, the
Sheriff’s family lived in that portion of the jail reserved for home
life; and my mother was paying a long visit to the Sheriff’s wife.
That’s how it happened that two young children were living within those
sullen walls, taking their exercise in its grim corridors and playing
their games within the very shadow of the scaffold.
In pleasant weather we used to play out in the jail-yard; it was small,
but not so closed in as it now is by the Court-house. At that time
the court stood over in the Park, or Public Square, as it was called.
Out there we played “escaping prisoner.” I, as the Sheriff, had to
run down and bring back little Goldy-locks (Charley was his real name)
as prisoner. He was very realistic in his struggles for freedom, as
certain, big, blue marks on my arms used to testify; but whenever
he saw them he would put penitent little lips to them and tell me
reassuringly not to mind, “cause he would play Sheriff to-morrow and I
cud ’scape,” in which case I knew he would have nearly pounded the life
out of me, so I very much preferred to keep my part of Sheriff.