that very question because she heard I said the Lord was pitiful? Her
baby was born out in the medder, an' died the next day; an' she got up
out of her sickbed at the Poorhouse, an' come totterin' up here, to ask
if there was any use in her sayin', 'Lord, be merciful to me, a
sinner!' An' your mother took her in, an' laid her down on this very
bed, an' she died here. An' your mother hil' her in her arms when she
died. You ask her if she didn't!" The effort of continuous talking
wearied him, and presently he dozed off. Once he woke, and Dorcas was
still on her knees, her head abased. "Dorcas!" he said, and she
answered, "Yes, father!" without raising it; and he slept again. The
bell struck, for the end of service. The parson was awake. He stretched
out his hand, and it trembled a moment and then fell on his daughter's
lowly head.
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ--" the parson said, and went
clearly on to the solemn close.
"Father," said Dorcas. "Father!" She seemed to be crying to One afar.
"Say the other verse, too. What He told the woman."
His hand still on her head, the parson repeated, with a wistful
tenderness stretching back over the past,--
"'Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.'"
NANCY BOYD'S LAST SERMON
It was the lonesome time of the year: not November, that accomplishment
of a gracious death, but the moment before the conscious spring, when
watercourses have not yet stirred in awakening, and buds are only
dreamed of by trees still asleep but for the sweet trouble within their
wood; when the air finds as yet no response to the thrill beginning to
creep where roots lie blind in the dark; when life is at the one dull,
flat instant before culmination and movement. I had gone down
post-haste to my well-beloved Tiverton, in response to the news sent me
by a dear countrywoman, that Nancy Boyd, whom I had not seen since my
long absence in Europe, was dying of "galloping consumption." Nancy
wanted to bid me good-by. Hiram Cole met me, lean-jawed, dust-colored,
wrinkled as of old, with the overalls necessitated by his "sleddin'" at
least four inches too short. Not the Pyramids themselves were such
potent evidence that time may stand still, withal, as this lank,
stooping figure, line for line exactly what it had been five years
before. Hiram helped me into the pung, took his place beside me, and
threw a conversational "huddup" to the rakish-looking sorrel colt. We
dashed sluing away down the country road, and then I turned to look at
my old friend. He was steadfastly gazing at the landscape ahead, the
while he passed one wiry hand over his face, to smooth out its
broadening smile. He was glad to see me, but his private code of
decorum forbade the betrayal of any such "shaller" emotion.
"Well, Hiram," I began, "Tiverton looks exactly the same, doesn't it?
And poor Nancy, how is she?"
"Nancy's pretty low," said Hiram, drawing his mitten over the hand that
had been used to iron out his smile, and giving critical attention to
the colt's off hind-leg. "She hil' her own all winter, but now, come
spring, she's breakin' up mighty fast. They don't cal'late she'll live
more'n a day or two."
"Her poor husband! How will he get along without her!"
Hiram turned upon me with vehemence.
"Why, don't you know?" said he. "'Ain't nobody told ye? She 'ain't got
no husband."
"What? Is the Cap'n dead?"
"Dead? Bless ye, he's divorced from Nancy, an' married another woman,
two year ago come this May!"
I was amazed, and Hiram looked at me with the undisguised triumph of
one who has news to sell, be it good or bad.
"But Nancy has written me!" I said. "She told me the neighborhood
gossip; why didn't she tell me that?"
"Pride, I s'pose, pride," said Hiram. "You can't be sure how misery'll
strike folks. It's like a September gale; the best o' barns'll blow
down, an' some rickety shanty'll stan' the strain. But there! Nancy's
had more to bear from the way she took her troubles than from the
troubles themselves. Ye see, 'twas this way. Cap'n Jim had his own
reasons for wantin' to git rid of her, an' I guess there was a time
when he treated her pretty bad. I guess he as good's turned her out o'
house an' home, an' when he sued for divorce for desertion, she never
said a word; an' he got it, an' up an' married, as soon as the law'd
allow, Nancy never opened her head, all through it. She jest settled
down, with a bed an' a chair or two, in that little house she owned
down by Wilier Brook, an' took in tailorin' an' mendin'. One spell, she
bound shoes. The whole town was with her till she begun carryin' on
like a crazed creatur', as she did arterwards."
My heart sank. Poor Nancy! if she had really incurred the public scorn,
it must have been through dire extremity.
"Ye see," Hiram continued, "folks were sort o' tried with her from the
beginnin'. You know what a good outfit she had from her mother's
side,--bureaus, an' beddin', an' everything complete? Well, she left it
all right there in the house, for Jim to use, an' when he brought his
new woman home, there the things set jest the same, an' he never said a
word. I don't deny he ought to done different, but then, if Nancy
wouldn't look out for her own interests, you can't blame him so much,
now can ye? But the capsheaf come about a year ago, when Nancy had a
smart little sum o' money left her,--nigh onto a hunderd dollars. Jim
he'd got into debt, an' his oxen died, an' one thing an' another, he
was all wore out, an' had rheumatic fever; an' if you'll b'lieve it,
Nancy she went over an' done the work, an' let his wife nuss him. She
wouldn't step foot into the bedroom, they said; she never see Jim once,
but there she was, slavin' over the wash-tub and ironin'-board,--an' as
for that money, I guess it went for doctor's stuff an' what all, for
Jim bought a new yoke of oxen in the spring."
"But the man! the other wife! how could they?"
"Oh, Jim's wife's a pretty tough-hided creatur', an' as for him, I
al'ays thought the way Nancy behaved took him kind o' by surprise, an'
he had to give her her head, an' let her act her pleasure. But it made
a sight o' town talk. Some say Nancy ain't quite bright to carry on so,
an' the women-folks seem to think she's a good deal to blame, one way
or another. Anyhow, she's had a hard row to hoe. Here we be, an'
there's Hannah at the foreroom winder. You won't think o' goin' over to
Nancy's till arter supper, will ye?"
When I sat alone beside Nancy's bed, that night, I had several sides of
her sad story in mind, but none of them lessened the dreariness of the
tragedy. Before my brief acquaintance with her, Nancy was widely known
as a travelling-preacher, one who had "the power." She must have been a
strangely attractive creature, in those early days, alert, intense,
gifted with such a magnetic reaching into another life that it might
well set her aside from the commoner phases of a common day, and
crowned, as with flame, by an unceasing aspiration for the highest. At
thirty, she married a dashing sailor, marked by the sea, even to the
rings in his ears; and when I knew them, they were solidly comfortable
and happy, in a way very reassuring to one who could understand Nancy's
temperament; for she was one of those who, at every step, are flung
aside from the world's sharp corners, bruised and bleeding.
As to the storm and shipwreck of her life, I learned no particulars
essentially new. Evidently her husband had suddenly run amuck, either
from the monotony of his inland days, or from the strange passion he
had conceived for a woman who was Nancy's opposite.
That night, I sat in the poor, bare little room, beside the billowing
feather-bed where Nancy lay propped upon pillows, and gazing with
bright, glad eyes into my face, one thin little hand clutching mine
with the grasp of a soul who holds desperately to life. And yet Nancy
was not clinging to life itself; she only seemed to be, because she
clung to love.
"I'm proper glad to see ye," she kept saying, "proper glad."
We were quite alone. The fire burned cheerily in the kitchen stove, and
a cheap little clock over the mantel ticked unmercifully fast; it
seemed in haste for Nancy to be gone. The curtains were drawn, lest the
thrifty window-plants should be frostbitten, and several tumblers of
jelly on the oilcloth-covered table bore witness that the neighbors had
put aside their moral scruples and their social delicacy, and were
giving of their best, albeit to one whose ways were not their ways. But
Nancy herself was the centre and light of the room,--so frail, so
clean, with her plain nightcap and coarse white nightgown, and the
small checked shawl folded primly over her shoulders. Thin as she was,
she looked scarcely older than when I had seen her, five years ago; yet
since then she had walked through a blacker valley than the one before
her.
"Now don't you git all nerved up when I cough," she said, lying back
exhausted after a paroxysm. "I've got used to it; it don't trouble me
no more'n a mosquiter. I want to have a real good night now, talkin'
over old times."
"You must try to sleep," I said. "The doctor will blame me, if I let
you talk."
"No, he won't," said Nancy, shrewdly. "He knows I 'ain't got much time
afore me, an' I guess he wouldn't deny me the good on't. That's why I
sent for ye, dear; I 'ain't had anybody I could speak out to in five
year, an' I wanted to speak out, afore I died. Do you remember how you
used to come over an' eat cold b'iled dish for supper, that last summer
you was down here?"
"Oh, don't I, Nancy! there never was anything like it. Such cold
potatoes--"
"B'iled in the pot-liquor!" she whispered, a knowing gleam in her blue
eyes. "That's the way; on'y everybody don't know. An' do you remember
the year we had greens way into the fall, an' I wouldn't tell you what
they was? Well, I will, now; there was chickweed, an' pusley, an'
mustard, an' Aaron's-rod, an' I dunno what all."
"Not Aaron's-rod, Nancy! it never would have been so good!"
"It's truth an' fact! I b'iled Aaron's-rod, an' you eat it. That was
the year Mis' Blaisdell was mad because you had so many meals over to
my house, an' said it was the last time she'd take summer boarders an'
have the neighbors feed 'em."
"They were good old days, Nancy!"
"I guess they were! yes, indeed, I guess so! Now, dear, I s'pose you've
heard what I've been through, sence you went away?"
I put the thin hand to my cheek.
"Yes," I said, "I have heard."
"Well, now, I want to tell you the way it 'pears to me. You'll hear the
neighbors' side, an' arter I'm gone, they'll tell you I was
under-witted or bold. They've been proper good to me sence I've been
sick, but law! what do they know about it, goin' to bed at nine
o'clock, an' gittin' up to feed the chickens an' ride to meetin' with
their husbands? No more'n the dead! An' so I want to tell ye my story,
myself. Now, don't you mind my coughing dear! It don't hurt, to speak
of, an' I feel better arter it.
"Well, I dunno where to begin. The long an' short of it was, dear,
James he got kind o' uneasy on land, an' then he was tried with me, an'
then he told me, one night, when he spoke out, that he didn't care
about me as he used to, an' he never should, an' we couldn't live no
longer under the same roof. He was goin' off the next day to sea, or to
the devil, he said, so he needn't go crazy seein' Mary Ann Worthen's
face lookin' at him all the time. It ain't any use tryin' to tell how I
felt. Some troubles ain't no more 'n a dull pain, an' some are like
cuts an' gashes. You can feel your heart drop, drop, like water off the
eaves. Mine dropped for a good while arter that. Well, you see I'd been
through the fust stages of it. I'd been eat up by jealousy, an' I'd
slaved like a dog to git him back; but now it had got beyond such
folderol. He was in terrible trouble, an' I'd got to git him out. An' I
guess 'twas then that I begun to feel as if I was his mother, instid of
his wife. 'Jim,' says I, (somehow I have to Say 'James,' now we're
separated!) 'don't you fret. I'll go off an' leave ye, an' you can get
clear o' me accordin' to law, if you want to. I'm sure you can. I
sha'n't care.' He turned an' looked at me, as if I was crazed or he was
himself, 'You won't care?' he says. 'No,' says I, 'I sha'n't care.' I
said it real easy, for 'twas true. Somehow, I'd got beyond carin'. My
heart dropped blood, but I couldn't bear to have him in trouble. 'They
al'ays told me I was cut out for an old maid,' I says, 'an' I guess I
be. Housekeepin' 's a chore, anyway. You let all the stuff set right
here jest as we've had it, an' ask Cap'n Fuller to come an' bring his
chist; an' I'll settle down in the Willer Brook house an' make
button-holes. It's real pretty work.' You see, the reason I was so high
for it was 't I knew if he went to sea, he'd git in with a swearin',
drinkin' set, as he did afore, an' in them days such carryin's-on were
dretful to me. If I'd known he'd marry, I dunno what course I should
ha' took; for nothin' could ha' made that seem right to me, arter all
had come and gone. But I jest thought how James was a dretful handy man
about the house, an' I knew he set by Cap'n Fuller. The Cap'n 'ain't no
real home, you know, an' I thought they'd admire to bach it together."
"Did you ever wonder whether you had done right? Did you ever think it
would have been better for him to keep his promises to you? For him to
be unhappy?"
A shade of trouble crossed her face.
"I guess I did!" she owned. "At fust, I was so anxious to git out o'
his way, I never thought of anything else; but when I got settled down
here, an' had all my time for spec'latin' on things, I was a good deal
put to 't whether I'd done the best anybody could. But I didn't reason
much, in them days; I jest felt. All was, I couldn't bear to have James
tied to me when he'd got so's to hate me. Well, then he married--"
"Was she a good woman?"
"Good enough, yes; a leetle mite coarse-grained, but well-meanin' all
through. Well, now, you know the neighbors blamed me for lettin' her
have my things. Why, bless you, I didn't need 'em! An' Jim had used 'em
so many years, he'd ha' missed 'em if they'd been took away. Then he
never was forehanded, an' how could he ha' furnished a house all over
ag'in, I'd like to know? The neighbors never understood. The amount of
it was, they never was put in jest such a place, any of 'em."
"O Nancy, Nancy!" I said, "you cared for just one thing, and it was
gone. You didn't care for the tables and chairs that were left behind!"
Two tears came, and dimmed her bright blue eyes. Her firm, delicate
mouth quivered.
"Yes," she said, "you see how 'twas. I knew you would. Well, arter he
was married, there was a spell when 'twas pretty tough. Sometimes I
couldn't hardly help goin' over there by night an' peekin' into the
winder, an' seein' how they got along. I went jest twice. The fust time
was late in the fall, an' she was preservin' pears by lamplight. I
looked into the kitchin winder jest as she was bendin' over the stove,
tryin' the syrup, an' he was holdin' the light for her to see. I dunno
what she said, but 'twas suthin' that made 'em both laugh out, an' then
they turned an' looked at one another, proper pleased. I dunno why, but
it took right hold o' me, an' I started runnin' an' I never stopped
till I got in, here an' onto my own bed. I thought 'twould ha' been
massiful if death had took me that night, but I'm glad it didn't, dear,
I'm glad it didn't! I shouldn't ha' seen ye, if it had, an' there's a
good many things I shouldn't ha' had time to study out. You jest put a
mite o' cayenne pepper in that cup, an' turn some hot water on it. It
kind o' warms me up."
After a moment's rest, she began again.
"The next time I peeked was the last, for that night they'd had some
words, an' they both set up straight as a mack'rel, an' wouldn't speak
to one another. That hurt me most of anything. I never've got over the
feelin' that I was James's mother, an' that night I felt sort o'
bruised all through, as if some stranger'd been hurtin' him. So I never
went spyin' on 'em no more. I felt as if I couldn't stan' it. But when
I went to help her with the work, that time he was sick, I guess the
neighbors thought I hadn't any sense of how a right-feelin' woman ought
to act. I guess they thought I was sort o' coarse an' low, an' didn't
realize what I'd, been through. Dear, don't you never believe it. The
feelin' that's between husband an' wife's like a live creatur', an'
when he told me that night that he didn't prize me no more, he wounded
it; an' when he married the other woman, he killed it dead. If he'd ha'
come back to me then, an' swore he was the same man I married, I could
ha' died for him, jest as I would this minute, but he never should ha'
touched me. But suthin' had riz up in the place o' the feelin' I had
fust, so't I never could ha' helped doin' for him, any more'n if he'd
been my own child."
"'In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage!'"
"I guess that's it," said Nancy. "On'y you have to live through a good
deal afore you understand it. Well, now, dear, I'm nearin' the end.
There's one thing that's come to me while I've been livin' through
this, that I 'ain't never heard anybody mention; an' I want you to
remember it, so's you can tell folks that are in great trouble, the way
I've been. I've been thinkin' on't out that there's jest so much of
everything in the world,--so much gold, so much silver, so many
di'monds. You can't make no more nor no less. All you can do is to pass
'em about from hand to hand, so't sometimes here'll be somebody that's
rich, an' then it'll slip away from him, an' he'll be poor. Now,
accordin' to my lights, it's jes' so with love. There's jest so much,
an' when it's took away from you, an' passed over to somebody else,
it's alive, it's there, same as ever it was. So 't you ain't goin' to
say it's all holler an' empty, this world. You're goin' to say, 'Well,
it's som'er's, if 'tain't with me!'"
Nancy had straightened herself, without the support of her pillows. Her
eyes were bright. A faint flush had come upon her cheeks. A doctor
would have told me that my devoted friendship had not saved me from
being a wretched nurse.
"My home was broke up," she went on, "but there's a nice, pretty house
there jest the same. There's a contented couple livin' in it, an' what
if the wife ain't me? It ain't no matter. P'r'aps it's a lot better
that somebody else should have it, somebody that couldn't git along
alone; an' not me, that can see the rights o' things. Jest so much
love, dear--don't you forgit that--no matter where 'tis! An' James
could take his love away from me, but the Lord A'mighty himself can't
take mine from him. An' so 'tis, the world over. You can al'ays love
folks, an' do for 'em, even if your doin' 's only breakin' your heart
an' givin' 'em up. An' do you s'pose there's any sp'ere o' life where
I sha'n't be allowed to do somethin' for James? I guess not, dear, I
guess not, even if it's only keepin' away from him."
Nancy lived three days, in a state of delighted content with us and our
poor ministrations; and only once did we approach the subject of that
solemn night. As the end drew near, I became more and more anxious to
know if she had a wish unfulfilled, and at length I ventured to ask her
softly, when we were alone,--
"Would you like to see him?"
Her bright eyes looked at me, in a startled way.
"No, dear, no," she said, evidently surprised that I could ask it.
"Bless you, no!"
STROLLERS IN TIVERTON
In Tiverton, when reminiscences are in order, we go back to one very
rich year; then the circus and strolling players came to town, and the
usual camp-meeting was followed by an epidemic of scarlet fever, which
might have stood forth as the judgment of heaven, save that the newly
converted were stricken first and undoubtedly fared hardest. Hiram Cole
said it was because they'd "got all their nerve-juice used up,
hollerin' hallelujah." But that I know not. This theory of nerve-juice,
was a favorite one with Hiram: he contended that it had a powerful hand
in determining the results of presidential elections; and, indeed, in
swaying the balance of power among the nations of the earth.
Even in the early spring, there had been several cases of fever at
Sudleigh; and so, when the circus made application for a license to
take possession of the town, according to olden custom, the public
authorities very wisely refused. Tiverton, however, was wroth at this
arbitrary restriction. For more years than I can say, she had driven
over to Sudleigh "to see the caravan;" and now, through some
crack-brained theory of contagion, the caravan was to be barred out. We
never really believed that the town-fathers had taken their highhanded
measure on account of scarlet fever. We saw in it some occult political
significance, and referred ominously to the butter we carried there on
Saturdays, and to the possibility that, if they cast us off, a
separation might affect them far more seriously than it would us. But
to our loud-voiced delight, the caravan, finding that it was to be
within hailing distance, and unwilling to pass on without further
tribute, extended the sceptre to Tiverton herself; and Brad Freeman
joyfully discussed the project of making a circus ground of his old
race-course, which, he declared, he had purposed planting with tobacco.
We never knew whether to believe this or not, though we had many times
previously gone over Brad's calculation, by which he figured that he
could sell at least three tons of fine-cut from one summer's produce.
To that specious logic, we always listened with unwilling admiration;
but when we could shake off the glamour inseparable from a problem made
to come out right, we were accustomed to turn to one another, demanding
with cold scepticism, "Where'd he git his seed?"
In spite of the loss of this potential crop, however, Brad was
magnanimously willing to let his field; and Tiverton held her head
high, in the prospect of having a circus of her own. We intimated that
it would undoubtedly be fair weather, owing to our superior moral
desert as compared with that of Sudleigh, which was annually afflicted
with what had long been known as "circus-weather." For Sudleigh had
sinned, and Nature was thenceforth deputed to pay her back, in good old
Hebrew style. One circus-day--before the war, as I believe--Sudleigh
fenced up the spring in a corner of her grounds, and with a foolish
thrift sold ice-water to the crowd, at a penny a glass. Tiverton was
furious, and so, apparently, were the just heavens; for every
circus-day thereafter it rained, in a fashion calculated to urge any
forehanded Noah into immediate action. We of Tiverton never allowed our
neighbor to forget her criminal lapse. When, on circus-afternoon, we
met one of the rival township, dripping as ourselves, we said, with all
the cheerfulness of conscious innocence,--
"Water enough for everybody, to-day! Guess ye won't have to peddle none
out!"
"Seems to be comin' down pretty fast! You better build a platfoam over
that spring! Go hard with ye if't overflowed!"
Strange to say, Sudleigh seemed to regard these time-licensed remarks
with little favor; she even intimated that they smacked of the past,
and were wearisome in her nostrils. But not for that did we halt in
their distribution. Moreover, we flaunted our domestic loyalty by
partaking of no Sudleigh fluid within the grounds. We carried tea,
coffee, lemonade, milk, an ambitious variety of drinks, in order that
even our children might be spared the public disgrace of tasting
Sudleigh water; and it was a part of our excellent fooling to invite
every Sudleighian to drink with us. Even the virtues, however, spare
their votaries no pang; and in every family, this unbending fealty
resulted in the individual members' betaking themselves to the pump or
well, immediately on getting home, even before attempting to unharness.
About five o'clock, on circus-afternoon, there would be a general
rumbling of buckets and creaking of sweeps, while a chorus rose to
heaven, "My! I was 'most choked!"