wished to give him a trial. Therefore, I looked steadily at my lord
and master, and, using that great, unwritten language understood and
used by every husband and wife on the top of the earth, I signified
my desire for him to engage John Hickey, and he, being a man of
intelligence and a husband in good standing, replied by the same means:
“All right! but I’m afraid he is a bit elderly. Still, if you wish it!”
And he told John to come with him and he would show him his quarters
and settle about wages, etc. The words were scarcely out of his lips
before the dogs were up and leading the way, with waving tails and many
backward turnings of their heads. I think I have said the day was very
hot, and as the two men stepped from the lawn to the carriage-drive,
my husband, finding his hat oppressive, removed it and held it in his
hand. Thus it happened that he walked with bared head at John Hickey’s
side, while he escorted him to his new home. It was a trivial thing to
notice, yet there came a time when it was sharply recalled to me.
The new man had not to take the horses out that first day at all, and
in about an hour after his installment he sent a messenger to me,
asking if I had a large flag, and if I had one would I not send it down
to him, the coachman, who promised to take good care of it?
We had a large flag--yes. But what on earth did the man want with it
then? There were four good, solid weeks between us and the glorious
Fourth of July. What could he mean? Ah, well! let him have it. So the
flag, a really fine one, as it happened, to his great joy was sent down
to him.
Shortly after that I saw him with a lot of rope and some tools,
tinkering, under the active supervision of both dogs, at the old
flagstaff standing on the hill which rises sharply at the back of the
stable. Later in the afternoon, chancing to glance from the window,
there, sure enough, was the brave, old flag, floating free from the
top of the staff. And very pretty it looked, too, against the blue sky
and above the fresh, green foliage of the young summer-time. Ah, I
thought, that’s it, is it? But I had not got it all, even yet, for just
before dinner I heard an explosion of some sort of firearm! My heart
gave a jump, and I exclaimed: “Good mercy! Has the poor man met with an
accident?”
I ran to the window. Out on the hill, by the flagstaff, stood John,
while through a cloud of smoke the flag came fluttering down just as
the red sun sank from view. I understood at last! My soldier-coachman
was saluting the flag, and firing for a sunset gun a rusty old
blunderbuss that was likely to kick him through the greenhouse every
time he touched it.
I confess I sat down and laughed hysterically. He had intended to
greet the rising sun in the same manner, but as sickness in the family
required quiet at that hour, he contented himself with simply running
up his flag at exactly the proper moment. And when my husband, either
from secret sympathy with “Old John’s” feelings, or from a fear for the
safety of the greenhouse, gave him a good musket and enough ammunition
for a modest sort of battle, John Hickey, coachman, was proud and
happy.
And so he entered upon his life with us. We spoke of hiring? In our
dull way we for some time believed that we had engaged or accepted him,
not at all understanding, till much later, that he had accepted us, and
that the house was his, the place was his, the fruits thereof, and that
the family were his--his household gods--whom he loved devotedly, and
served faithfully all the rest of his life.
We were quick to discover that in “Old John” we had an excellent
servant and an eccentric man, while the slow years piled up proof upon
proof of his loyalty. He won my heart at once by quickly learning the
individual characters of our horses. One in particular, my favorite
saddle-horse, I was a bit anxious about, since he was getting the
reputation of being ugly. He (Creole by name) was a big, spirited
Kentucky horse, with an exquisitely tender mouth, requiring a very
light as well as steady hand. Two or three great fellows, with
sledge-hammer fists, had tried to ride him on his bridle, instead of on
his back, and he had, as the result, lifted them not too gently over
the top of his handsome head, and they raised the cry of ugliness,
when he had simply acted in self-defense, as would any other Kentucky
gentleman.
But when “Old John” returned from exercising Creole for the first time,
he remarked: “Ah, he’s a fine fellow; he’s got a mouth as tender as a
baby’s, and a heart as bold as a lion’s. I will be glad to see you on
him, ma’am.”
John loved the horses as much as people love their children. When he
came to us the horses were most all in their prime, but as the years
crept by they aged and weakened together, and I was always amused,
albeit touched as well, to see “Old John’s” fervent efforts to prove to
the world that they still preserved all the nerve, vitality and fire
of youth. And when the time came when the carriage-horses ought really
to have been replaced, “Old John” was a sorrowful man and an anxious
one; and at our faintest suggestion of a change, with frowning brow
and trembling lips, the old man would march stiffly off to the stable,
where he would assure its occupants that “they were mighty fine horses,
and people ought to know it by this time.”
Like most people of affectionate disposition, he was very fond of
keeping anniversaries. All high-days, holidays, and birthdays were
precious boons to him, but they came to be occasions of more or less
anxiety to the family, owing to his utter inability to express his joy
without the help of an explosion. It would seem that the comparatively
harmless running up of flags, backed by explosions of varying degrees
of heaviness, would be a sufficient outlet for any man’s joy. But John
Hickey had still a “card up his sleeve,” so to speak, for the climax of
his love and enthusiasm, the actual perfect flowering of his joy could
only be attained by the aid of blazing tar. A great bonfire of wood was
not to be despised, but tar was the material worthy of his attention,
and when he had diligently sought for and found the most dangerous
possible places, and had put in each a kettle of flaming tar, and could
gallop wildly back and forth from one kettle to another, trying to
prevent a general conflagration, he was the most perfectly happy man I
ever saw.
Not more than ten minutes after his discovery that my birthday fell
on Saint Patrick’s Day he was at the house, asking if the ladies
wouldn’t let him have some “grane material.” That seemed a very vague
order--“grane material”--leaving such a wide margin for speculation as
to what kind of “grane material” he meant. But the only information he
would give was that he just wanted “grane material, dress goods or the
like.”
Thereupon my mother gave him a deep flounce of all green silk, taken
from a retired stage-dress of mine. This he ripped, and pressed, and
sewed at, till, lo! on Saint Patrick’s morning there fluttered from the
flagstaff a brilliant, green silk flag, and I was informed it was there
in my honor, not Saint Patrick’s. In the years that followed I was very
rarely at home on my birthday, but no matter how far away I might be,
early on Saint Patrick’s morning the green silk flag ran swiftly up
the staff. “But mark this now,” as he himself would say, never even
in my honor, never once did that green flag fly above the “Stars and
Stripes.” Honest, old Irish-American that he was, the flag he had
served with arms in his hands was the first flag in the world for him,
and had to take the place of honor every time.
So thoroughly did he identify himself with the family that when
anything particular was going on, he, without invitation, yet equally
without the faintest idea of presuming, always took his share. On
one occasion “Old John” learned that I was expecting a visit from my
husband’s mother, and hearing me speak of the freshness of her looks,
the brightness of her mind, and her extreme activity as something
remarkable in one of her advanced years, his interest was at once
aroused. Knowing his ways as well as I did know them at that time,
I suppose I should have bridled his fine, Irish enthusiasm; but,
truth to tell, I was so busy with my own joyous preparations for her
welcome coming that I gave no thought to the possible doings of my
eccentric coachman. Mamma H---- had heard much of him, and was amused
by his stately salute to her from the box. As we entered the gate we
met welcome No. 1, in the form of a great flag flying from a staff
in front of the house, a thing which had never happened before, and
never happened after that visit. Then “Old John” drove down to the
stable, while we ascended the stairs, to be met at the top, where we
had the least breath to bear it, with welcome No. 2, in the shape
of an explosion so heavy that it shook the color out of the cheeks
and the breath out of the body of the welcomed lady. Seeing her,
after two or three desperate gasps, recover the breath which had
been literally shaken out of her, we looked at one another, and all
exclaimed together: “John Hickey!” Then she understood, and falling
into a chair, she spread out her hands on its arms, laid her head back,
and laughed--laughed till the tears came. When she could speak again,
she remarked: “What a nice, kind old man, to take so much trouble on my
account--but he is a bit noisy, isn’t he, dear?”
In his preparations for this visit “Old John” not only shaved himself
so closely that he must have removed several layers of cuticle
along with his beard, but I had a suspicion that he had shaved the
cobblestones about the stables as well, so shining clean they were,
and so hopeless was it to search for a blade of grass between them.
Everything was in precise order down there, and I guessed at once that
he wished, himself, to show our guest about his domain. At that time he
had received an injury--was very lame, and secretly suffered greatly.
I say secretly, yet we knew all about it, but it was such a shame and
mortification to him to have his condition noticed or spoken of that
we all mercifully pretended ignorance at that period of his troubles.
When, therefore, we went forth for a morning stroll, and were showing
Mamma H---- about the place, I was not surprised to see him hovering
about, watching for a chance to capture the guest, and the way he did
it was very neat. There was a tiny gutter down there; it must have
been fully six inches broad, and as we approached, “Old John,” tall
and straight (what suffering that forced straightness cost him Heaven
only knows), stepped quickly forward, and with impressive politeness
helped the lady across--the gutter being perfectly dry at the time. But
observe, this action placed him instantly in the position of escort
and guide. We all recognized the fact, and took up second fiddles and
played to “Old John’s” first.
Perhaps I am sentimental, but to me it was rather touching to see how
quickly these two old people recognized each other--one a lady born,
the other brought up to servitude, but each touched with the fine
mystery of old age. With all her gentle dignity, he knew she took a
real interest in him, and he gave her a passionate gratitude for her
evident comprehension of the pains and penalties time exacted of him.
On her part, she saw at a glance the honesty, the courage of the man,
and his great, kind heart, and knew him to be as innocent as a little
child of intentional presumption--knew that his forwardness was the
result of his loving desire to do something to give pleasure to the
family. And so it came to pass that they paced about here, there, and
yonder--he showing her the horses, the framed pedigrees of my little
dogs, two or three wonderful lithographs of myself (all framed at his
own expense), and finally presented her with a receipt for a certain
liniment for a shoulder-strain in horses, and, having completed the
round, he brought her back to us with great pride and dignity.
I never knew a man who loved flowers with such tenderness as did this
queer, old coachman. His garden, principally laid out in lard-pails,
tomato-cans, and an occasional soap-box, filled my heart with envy by
its astounding mass of beautiful bloom. Even the gardeners used to
grunt unwilling admission of his wonderful luck. ’Twas all fish that
came to John’s net. Sunflowers or daisies, lilies or morning-glories,
pinks or japonicas--everything he could beg, buy or pick up--he so
craved, so longed for flowers. As a chicken will rush for a crust of
bread, so would “Old John” rush when sick or dying plants were cast
from the greenhouse. He always gathered them up and carried them out
of sight, to make his examinations in private and decide upon the
course of treatment necessary. A bit later he could be seen, happy and
perspiring, filling yet another lard-pail with leaf-mould, etc., a big
dog on each side watching with restless, inquiring eyes each movement,
and sniffing with infinite curiosity at every article used, while John
worked on and conversed affably with them all the time about the nature
of the plant and his hopes for its future. One of his great successes
was the wonderful restoration to life and opulent beauty of a pair of
castaway begonias, almost leafless, entirely yellow, and sick unto
death. They were thrown out bodily, and when “Old John” picked them
up he was greeted with a roar of laughter from the gardener. The old
man was nettled, but he only remarked: “Suppose ye wait a bit now, and
by-and-by I’ll be laughin’ with ye--perhaps.”
A long time after, as he helped me dismount one day, he asked me
“wouldn’t I go down to his room a minute, he wanted to show me
something.”
And there, in riotous health and beauty, stood two rarely fine
begonias, presenting a mass of foliage and a prodigality of bloom only
to be found in “Old John’s” garden. I was frankly envious, to his great
pride. One plant was loaded with great, coral-like clusters. The other
dripped clear, white, waxen blossoms from trembling pink stems, and
wore such an air of united purity and abundance, that, almost without
thought, I exclaimed: “That flower should be dedicated to the Virgin
Mary!” John gave me a startled glance, and said, “Why-y-y, why, madam!
you’re a Protestant!”
“Well?” I asked, “and because I am a Protestant am I to be denied the
privilege of loving and honoring the immaculate mother of our Lord?”
Now, I had long known that there was something wrong between my
poor, old chap and his Church--the servants declaring that he was no
Catholic, or even that he was an unbeliever. “Old John Hickey?” Why,
Catholicism was born in him! It was in the blood of his veins, in
the marrow of his bones. No matter how harshly he might speak of his
Church, nor how long he might neglect his duties, almost unknown to
himself, down in the bottom of his heart the old faith lived, warm and
strong, and it only needed an emergency to make him turn to the Mother
Church as trustingly as a babe would turn to its mother.
I found that “Old John,” in his fancied quarrel with the Church, had
suffered cruelly. He had neglected his duties, and had then been
unhappy because of that neglect. He was very bitter and deeply wounded,
and that day he exclaimed sadly: “It’s hard, madam--it’s hard that a
man should be made to lose his soul!”
“Never say that again, John!” I cried. “There is just one man created
who can lose your soul for you, and that man is John Hickey.”
He looked at me a moment, then putting one forefinger on my arm he
asked, solemnly: “Madam Clara, are you talking as a Catholic or as a
Protestant, now?”
Laugh I had to, though I saw it hurt the poor, bewildered one before
me and belied the tears in my own eyes. But I made answer quickly:
“I’m speaking neither as Catholic nor Protestant, but simply as a
woman, who, like yourself, has a soul, and does not want to lose it!
Don’t look so unhappy! Your Church is beautiful, great and powerful,
but there is One who is greater, more beautiful and more powerful. In
all the ages there has been but One who left the unspeakable joy of
Heaven to come to earth to suffer and toil, to love and lose, to hope
and despair, and finally to give up His perfect life to an ignominious
death, because His boundless love saw no other way to save us from
the horror of eternal death! He paid too great a price for souls to
cast them easily away. There is but one Saviour for us all, be we what
we may! There is but one God whose smile makes Heaven. We travel by
different paths--oh, yes! We wear different liveries, some showing the
gorgeous vestments of the stately Catholic, some the solemn drab of the
Quaker, others black robes. But the paths all lead to the one place,
and the great questions are, do we love the One we seek, and have we
loved and helped those we traveled with? John, make Christ your Church,
and the mightiest cannot harm you!” and, catching up the scant fold of
my riding-habit, I turned and fled from the only sermon I ever preached
in my life, while from behind me came certain familiar sentences, such
as, “Yis, yis! Ye’re fine horses, that ye are, but it’s too soon for
water yit, y’r know, because,” etc., etc., but all spoken in so husky a
voice it might have been a stranger’s.
Anxious, economical old body, from the early fall he began to watch
over the welfare of our house. We, sleeping in it, knew no sooner
of a loosened shutter than did “Old John,” who immediately began a
still-hunt for the offender. But his drollest habit, I think, was the
making of a slow, close search over all the grounds, and even out into
the road, after every storm, seeking for possible slates torn from
the roof. On one of my homecomings from a long season he met me with
a small bill for mending the roof, and he anxiously explained that he
did it, he knew, without orders, but if he hadn’t, it would have got
worse and made a leak and would have ruined thousands of dollars’ worth
of beautiful frocks up there! Please bear in mind that the figures
mentioned are “Old John’s,” not mine.
I assured him it was all right. I thought his face would clear, but no,
not yet. He carefully produced a large, flat package from under his
table, and when the package was gravely opened, there lay a collection
of broken slates. John had saved them all as his witnesses, and he
would take up the best of them and explain: “If it had broken this way,
instead of that way, it might have been replaced, but as it was, do you
think now, ma’am, that I could have done any different?” The second
assurance satisfied him, and his face resumed its usual contented look.
So we all moved our wonted ways until that lovely spring day, when a
pale-faced messenger ran up to the house to say, “Oh, madam! Old John
has had a fall, and he’s hurt bad!”
I thrust my feet into a pair of bed-room slippers, being myself ill at
the time, flung a loose gown about me, and, with my mother, hurried
with all possible speed down to the stable. He was stretched out--not
sitting--in a horribly unnatural position on a chair. His face was
ghastly, his eyes dim, his pulse almost unfindable. I gave him a
stimulant, praying inwardly that I might not be doing wrong. I learned
from the others that he had washed the pony phaeton, and was pushing
it backward to its place when he had slipped and fallen heavily, face
forward, on those cruel cobblestones.
I was convinced he was seriously injured, and leaving my mother
attending to his wants and directing the men how to get him to his
room, I hurried back to the house, wishing at every step that my
husband would come, and hastily telephoned for the doctor. When the
doctor and Mr. H---- were both on the spot and I could retire to the
background, I was surprised at my feeling of profound depression. “Old
John” had had two falls far and away worse than this one, but that look
on his face, it was neither age nor pain--though both were there--that
so impressed me. It was a look of hopeless finality, and accepting it
as a warning, I hastened to inquire if John would see a priest, and lo!
as I had thought, the old faith was warm within him, since he answered
readily that he’d see the priest, if we would be so kind.
But here the doctor interfered, saying he should prefer the patient to
be kept quiet, and to my eager protest made answer: “He is really safe
for the night; the morning will tell whether he is fatally injured or
not, and I promise I will give you ample notice.”
And so I opened my ears to reason, and shut them hard and close against
that still, small voice that cried, “Send! send!” and kept repeating
the two words I had seen written upon that stricken, old face: “The
end! the end!” In a conflict between reason and instinct I have always
found instinct to be right, but, alas! I yielded to reason that time.
Down in “Old John’s” room all had been arranged for the night. The
gardener was to sit up for the next three hours, then my husband would
come down and watch the rest of the night. To the patient this was an
arrangement of such outrageous impropriety and so exciting that it had
seemingly to be abandoned. The lamp was shaded carefully, an open watch
lay on the table by the medicine-bottle, glass and spoon, and all were
neighbored by a pitcher of lemonade.
Lying on the floor at the foot of the bed was the great dog John had
reared from puppyhood, and in the corner, in the seat of the old
rocking-chair, three calmly-confident cats lay sleeping. It was all so
quiet that when the sick man spoke even his weak tones could be heard
plainly.
“Mr. H----, will you be thanking the ladies for their goodness to me,
and if you please, sir, could me room be made proper-like before either
of them might be looking in to-morrow?”
The promise was given. Then, after a moment, he said: “If you please,
sir, would yer be asking the man to keep the door ajar a bit through
the night, that the dog might have his freedom? Yer see he’s used to
it, sir.”
This promise also was given, and John lay quiet for some minutes.
Suddenly his face became troubled, and once more he opened his weary
eyes, and looking up at his long-time employer, he anxiously asked:
“Sir, has anyone had the sense to bring down the flag?”
And said employer, knowing nothing whatever about it, but anxious only
to quiet the patient’s mind, answered, “Yes, the flag is down,” though
at that moment it was hanging limp at the staff.
“John, would you like a drink of water?” asked my husband, finally.
“Yes, if you’ll be so kind, sir.” (Pause.)
“Do you wish for anything else, John?”
“For nothing in the world, sir.” (Another pause.)
Then after a faint movement or two: “Sir, perhaps you’ll be kind enough
to help me raise my right hand?”
The heavy, nearly helpless hand was raised and laid gently across his
breast. He gave a sigh of seeming contentment and closed his eyes.
“Is that all, John?”
“That’s all, sir.”
“Good-night, then, John!”
“Good-night, sir!” he tenderly replied.
And my husband turned and walked quietly out of the room, to make his
report to me, who, anxious and foreboding, was awaiting him. At the
lifting of “Old John’s” hand I burst into tears. Ah! I thought, he
needed no man’s help to lift that brawny right hand of his when he
swore allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, or later
when he took the solemn oath that made him a soldier under that beloved
flag, beneath whose folds he now lay, old and broken! And even as the
thought passed through my mind, a handful of pebbles came dashing
against the window. We both sprang forward, and looking down we saw the
terrified face of the gardener, gleaming white in the moonlight!
In his fright he babbled Scandinavian to us, but finally dragged from
his unwilling throat one English word, “Come! come!”
My husband rushed with him down to the sick-room, and at the moment of
their entrance found everything so precisely as he had left it that he
felt angry at the man’s stupid fright. But before he could speak, three
shadowy, gray forms slipped from the room, and the dog rose slowly,
giving him a sullen, threatening look, then turned, and resting his
heavy jaws on the foot of the bed, he lifted his great voice in one
long, dismal howl, and dropped to his place again upon the floor, where
he lay half growling, half groaning. Fearing that such a noise would
disturb the sick man, my husband hurried to the bedside, and, laying
his hand upon “Old John’s” head, he stood dumfounded, for from the body
he touched life had flown!