Mrs Stone did not tell her story straight on as she sat waiting there
on the mountain side, but with many a break and pause, and with now and
then an exclamation of wonder or indignation at her own foolishness, or
the foolishness of some one else. But she told it quietly--making no
moan for herself, though the troubles of her life had been neither light
nor few.
"Yes, I have had a share of trouble, but no more than my share; and,
take it altogether, I have had considerable enjoyment, too. There was
Eunice--I could never tell the comfort I took with her when she was a
little child. I was only a child myself--little more than twelve or
thirteen years old--when my sister Myra let me go to take care of Eunice
for a spell, when she came home, a motherless baby, to live with her
grandmother Peabody on the hill. Her grandmother was a busy woman in
those days, with many duties at home and elsewhere; and Eunice was a
healthy, happy little creature; and after awhile she was mostly left to
me night and day for years; and I did my very best for her, and we were
very happy together till your father married again and took her home.
"I ought by rights to have gone with her, as they all wanted to have me;
but sister Myra was married by this time, and lived on father's old
place, and she wanted me to come and make my home with her, as I had a
good right to do, seeing the farm was as much mine as hers, by our
father's will. So I tried it a spell. She had two babies by this time,
and I was good with babies, and could have helped her, and been
contented after awhile.
"But Ezra Stone, Myra's husband, wasn't--well, he was peculiar. He was
close--he came from a stingy family, and I don't suppose he was more to
blame for his stinginess than other folks are for being extravagant--he
inherited it. Well, he thought I wasn't needed there: he thought his
wife hadn't any too much to do with her babies, and her cows, and her
housework--no more than other folks had, he said; and he said I might do
better for myself some where else. And he kept at it in his worrying
way, till he rather wore us out at last. And so, when Squire Peabody
came over one day to say that his wife was sick and much in need of
help, Myra said I had better go. I'd have a better time than I'd ever
be likely to have in her house; and maybe after awhile I might be able
to help her and the children more than I could now. So I went, and I
stayed there till--well, till I was married."
There was a long pause here, and Mrs Stone spoke very softly when she
went on again.
"I didn't see so much of Myra after that, as I ought to have done. I
used to see her Sundays at meetings, and we met at some of the
neighbours' houses sometimes; but I did not go often to her house. I
knew she wasn't very happy. She was different from her husband. She
had a big heart and a free hand, and hated his small ways. She was
nervous too, and high strung; and when she had anything on her mind, it
had to come out when occasion called for it. Yes, she could say hard
things!
"But what she said touched her husband just as the water in the brook
touches the stones in its bed. It never moved him; and she wore herself
out at last. She had held out through a good deal for the sake of her
boys; and when she gave up at last, the end was pretty near. I was with
her the last few weeks. She hadn't strength to say much, but it
was--`My boys, Ruby! Keep them in mind and help them all you can,'
whenever we were alone together.
"I think if she had asked me to come and take care of them, and make my
home with them, I must have done it. But she didn't. Ezra's mother was
living there then, and his sister Susan, and I wasn't needed. But I did
pity those pretty slender boys, and the baby between them all. But I
couldn't do anything about it, and I didn't see much of them for a good
while.
"Well, next June I got a letter, which I knew was from Ezra before I
opened it; and I said to myself, `He wants me to sell out my share of
the farm, or maybe sign off altogether for the benefit of Myra's boys.
I have been expecting it all along, and I shan't do it.'
"But I was mistaken. That hadn't come yet. It was a queer composition,
that letter. It was to tell me that there was going to be a picnic at
the Peak for two or three of the Sunday schools in the neighbourhood;
and two of his boys were to be there, and wouldn't I go and see them?
There might be a good many easier ways to see them, I thought, than to
go up the mountain to do it. However, some of the neighbours were
going, so I said I would go."
There was another pause here.
"I was in some trouble about that time myself. I never said anything to
anybody, and I don't suppose anybody suspected it. I had lost my sister
lately, and that might well account for having less to say than usual.
But I had lost another friend--one that would have been more than a
friend if he had lived. We were not to say engaged. We hadn't even
kept company much; but when Jim Sedley died down there at Lowell it went
hard with me, and for awhile the world seemed to have come to an end for
me.
"But I went to the picnic with the rest, and I saw the boys and had a
little talk with them, just long enough to find out that they missed
their mother dreadfully, and that they were much in need of a mother's
care; and my heart ached for the little fellows; and, when they were
called away to join in some play with the rest, I slipped off into the
woods, so as to get away from the talk, and to think it all over by
myself. But thinking didn't help me much. There was one thing I could
do. I could marry Ezra Stone, and so try to be a mother to them; and as
the thought was in my mind I heard Ezra's voice close to me. I would
have hid myself or run away if I could have done it, for I was afraid
that I would do or say something that I would be sorry for all my life.
But I couldn't get away; and there was Ezra saying how glad he was to
see me, and that he had come to the Peak on purpose, and a lot more of
the same kind.
"I was thinking about it all as I sat down there this morning," said
Mrs Stone after a little pause. "A hundred times in the days that
followed I asked myself whether I could believe that the Lord was taking
care of me that day, according to His promise. It was a great while
before I could see it so. But I expect He was, though I never should
have married Ezra Stone if I hadn't gone up the Peak that day. At least
I don't believe I should.
"He didn't begin about that, but about business. His sister Susan was
going to be married to Nathan Pease, whose farm joined father's old
place; and he wanted to buy it, and would I be willing to sell my half
of it? I never had calculated much on anything which was likely to come
to me from the place; but Myra had always advised me to hold on to my
share, and so I said I should have to think about it before I could say
whether I would sell or not.
"There is no call to tell you all his talk. He didn't seem to care
about the place since Myra had gone, he said; and there did not seem to
be much chance for him and his boys at the East. What he wanted to do
was to take what he had and go West with them. There was the best of
land to be had there cheap, and no such hard work needed, and a better
climate. He knew just the place he could have out there in Wisconsin,
and with a little money he could do well for his boys and himself; and
he ended by asking if I would go West with him and help him do for
Myra's boys?
"He knew pretty well what my opinion of him was. I didn't need to say
anything about that. My sister hadn't been much more than six months in
her grave, and I didn't waste words upon him. But all the time it was
borne in upon me that it had got to be, and that it would come to that
at last.
"`It isn't so much a wife that I want as a mother for Myra's children,'
he said; `and I hope, when you come to think of it, you'll see it your
duty to come West with them. If you change your mind, you can let me
know.'
"`It isn't very likely,' said I; but all the time I felt that I would be
as likely to go as not. I told him I would talk over business matters
with Squire Peabody, and that I would sign any papers the squire told me
to sign, when the right time came; but I let him understand that I meant
to have the full value of my share. It would, I thought, be as safe for
Myra's boys in my hands as in his, though I didn't just say that to him.
"Well, he went away, and I sat there thinking it all over, just on the
spot where I sat to-day when you and the other girls were looking
through Dr Justin's spy-glass; and I told myself that I hadn't much of
anything to look forward to, and that, after all, I might as well do one
thing as another. Life didn't seem worth much to me, but I might make
my life worth something to Myra's boys. There is always duty left when
hope is gone, and if I owed duty to any one, surely it was to my
sister's children--so I reasoned. I would wait and see.
"Well, the children came back, and had something more to eat, and sang
some hymns, and then it was time to go. The boys kept close to me as we
all went down to the place where the trains were waiting; and the poor
little fellows cried, and did seem so forlorn when they went away, that
I just couldn't get them out of my thoughts for a long time.
"I didn't think the sale of the farm would come off for awhile, but I
was mistaken. Ezra came over to see the squire one day in October, and
they talked it over, and matters were settled, and papers signed, and my
share of the price of the land made over to me; and Ezra was to go away
at the end of the month. The boys were to be left till spring, till he
could make some kind of a home for them, and he said he depended more on
me than on any one else to see that they were well done by till then:
`For they are more and nearer to you than to any one else except
myself,' he said.
"`It is not likely that I can do much for them while they are in your
mother's keeping,' I said.
"`Oh, mother thinks everything of you!' he said, with a foolish laugh;
`and you've got your share all right. Squire Peabody has seen to that.'
"That was the first winter that Mrs Peabody's health began to fail. It
wasn't long before your father died, and the squire took her South for
the winter, and the house was left to my care; and they said, if I
liked, I might have one or two of Myra's children to keep me company.
So I went over and got Jim, the eldest, so as to give him a chance at
our winter school, and the baby, as everybody called him, though he was
nearly four years old.
"You've heard me tell about my Davie before. I needn't say much about
him. The very first feeling of rest and comfort that had come to me,
after months of lonesome pain, came the first time he fell asleep in my
arms, with his little chapped hand upon my cheek: it was like the coming
back of the time when I had baby Eunice to care for; but it was
different; too, in some ways. Jim was as good and as bright a boy as
need be, and we had a happy winter together.
"Well, in the spring the squire and his wife came home, and she seemed
better. They hadn't been home long when a letter came from Ezra, saying
he wanted the boys to be sent out to him. He couldn't, without
considerable loss of time, go for them, but there were chances every day
of people coming West, who would look after them all they needed. A
chance of any one willing to trouble himself with the care of four boys,
one of them little more than a baby, wasn't likely to come very soon,
and the summer was over before we heard again; and all that time Jim and
Davie had stayed on with me. Then there came another letter, saying
that the boys were to be sent on alone. Nothing would be likely to
happen to them, as they needn't change cars more than once before they
reached Chicago, and he would meet them there.
"Then I wrote, saying the rest of them might go so, and I would keep
Davie for some better chance; or, if his father said so, I would keep
him altogether, and do for him till he was old enough to do for himself.
Well, quicker than ever an answer came before, a letter came, saying
`No!'--Davie must come with the rest. He saw his way clear to do well
by all his boys. Farming was a better thing out West than in New
England. He wanted all his boys.
"Afterwards I thought of two or three ways I might have taken to keep
the child with me, but nobody encouraged me much to undertake it; and I
saw no better way at the time than just to go with them myself a part of
the way, especially as a gentleman, who had to do with western
railroads, offered me a free ticket to Chicago and back. The squire and
Mrs Peabody said all they could to put me off the notion.
"`Ruby,' said she, `if you go, you'll marry Ezra Stone.'
"`That's his idea, anyway,' said the squire; `and Ruby, don't you do
it.'
"`I know Ezra Stone,' said I, thinking all the time that what they said
might be true. And so it was.
"Ezra met us at Chicago; and as soon as I saw his face I felt sick at
the thought of letting Myra's children go off with him alone. `What
kind of a woman will he put over them?' said I to myself.
"Well, you know all about it. I did marry him, right there in Chicago.
He didn't say much. Nothing he could have said would have had much
influence with me one way or another. But I saw Myra's eyes looking at
me every time that Jim or the baby smiled at me, and I couldn't let them
all go away alone to I didn't know who or what. No, he didn't say much;
and afterwards he rather twitted me with being ready the minute I was
asked. I don't suppose I should have done any different if I had known
just all that was before me. I wasn't a free agent in the matter.
"Yes--oh, yes!--I laid the matter before the Lord, or I thought I did.
I knew that I wasn't going to have any easy time, and that it wasn't my
own pleasure I was seeking; and that made me feel as though I was just
trying to do my duty, and that the Lord would see me through. Yes, I
was self-willed about it. I was faithless, I suppose, and afraid just
to leave the boys in God's hands. Oh, yes, He did see me through; and
more than made up for the trouble I had to endure, and I wouldn't have
anything different from all that He sent me! But I am making a long
story, and there isn't really much to tell.
"The next three years was just a dead level. Nothing happened but just
summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest. But such harvests! Full
and rich beyond any experience we had ever had of harvests. High prices
were given too, and much money must have come in. But with that part of
it the boys and I had nothing to do. There was nothing but hard work,
early and late, to show as far as we were concerned.
"I did my best for them. I kept them at their books, Sundays and rainy
days, and winter evenings; and they were smart boys and learnt well.
They were good boys and pleasant-natured, taking after their mother, and
I took comfort with them in many ways. They were good boys to work too.
There wasn't a lazy bone in one of them; and, while they did the work
that was expected of them, everything went well between them and their
father. He let them pretty much alone at other times. His heart was
set on just one thing, and that was making money, and the more he got
the more he wanted. He didn't spare himself, and he didn't spare any
one else, if the chance to make a dollar came along.
"Jim was doing the work of a man before he was fifteen; and every year
brought more to be done, for more land was taken up as fast as it could
be paid for. Ezra did have wonderful success. After the narrow stony
fields of the old place, it was a sight to see the scores of acres of
wheat growing so full and strong. It was threshed right there on the
ground, and sometimes it was sold there; and if he had only been content
with moderate success, he might have been living now, and well-to-do.
"I blame myself when I think of those times--the times that came after
the first three years. I think maybe, if I had done differently, things
might have turned out differently for us all. In this third spring my
Eunice was born--my only baby, and while she stayed with us she made the
world a better place for us all. The boys did think everything of her,
and her father too. But she died of croup. If we had had a doctor near
us, or if I had known better how to deal with it, she might have lived,
I thought, and that made it very hard to bear. Ezra felt so about it
too, and we had a dark winter.
"But spring came, and the work had to be done. We couldn't get all the
help we wanted; and from daylight till dark Jim and his brothers had to
be in the fields. Even little Davie had his share to do; and, though
they were not inclined to shirk their work, it was hard for them, and
they did sometimes complain. I complained for them, but I might just as
well have held my tongue, and I did after awhile. They grew fast. Jim
was as tall as his father when he was sixteen, and if he had had any
chance he would have been a strong man in a few years. But he was slim
and stooping, and had little flesh on his bones, and I worried about him
a good deal; and one day I asked his father how many acres of wheat he
supposed it would take to pay for the life and health of a boy like Jim.
"`He's _my_ boy,' said he, `and not yours, and it ain't worth while for
you to make the calculation. I know all about it.'
"`He is my boy more than yours,' said I, `if love means anything. I
can't make you answer me, but some time pretty soon you'll have to
answer his Maker and yours, and you'd best reckon up in time, for as
sure as you go on as you are going now, you'll have to bury him; and
that's my last word.'
"He gave an angry laugh at that, and said my last words came pretty
often; but I saw him looking curiously at Jim that night, and I guess
he'd have let him take it easier for a spell if Jim had known how to
take it easy. But there was just so much to do, and he kept on along
with the rest. It was Asher, the second one, who gave out first.
"Once or twice he had complained to me that he had dizzy turns, when he
kind of lost himself, and I had doctored him a little, not thinking him
very sick, till one day they brought him home from the field insensible;
and, if he ever knew any of us again, he could never tell us so, and he
died in just a week after he was brought home. Yes, we had a doctor.
Jim went twenty miles for one without asking any one's leave. He came
twice, but he couldn't help him. All the time he was sick I never spoke
a word to his father about him unless he first spoke to me, till one
day, when he came in from his work, he found his boy lying still and
white, with his hands clasped on his breast, dressed ready for the
grave.
"`He'll never be tired any more,' I said.
"He turned and went out without a word; and Asher's name was never
spoken between us for years after that.
"It was different with Jim. He kept on till the winter he was eighteen;
and I shall always be glad to remember how easy and pleasant his last
days were made to him. It was a mild winter, and he kept about doing
something or other most of the time. His father, let him do pretty much
as he liked, and went on hoping that the spring would make him all right
again. He even talked of sending him back to the old place for a change
when the summer came; and Jim used to listen, and sometimes said what he
would do when he got there. But he knew better. He knew he was dying,
and he was not afraid. But he had something he wanted to do before he
could be quite willing to go.
"One day, after he had been sitting beside me quietly thinking for
awhile, he said--`It's hard on father.'
"`Has anything happened to the fall wheat, or to any of the horses?
What is it that is hard on him?' said I.
"He shook his head, turning to me with a strange grieved look in his
eyes.
"`It is hard that he should have to lose another of his boys,' said he.
"`He should have taken better care of them, and he might have kept
them,' said I.
"`Mother,' said Jim, `I think _you_ are hard on father sometimes.'
"`Am I? Oh, well, I guess nothing that I'm likely to say or do will
ever hurt him much!' But I knew he was right in a way.
"`Mother, come in here. I want you to lie down on the bed, and I will
sit beside you. You are all tired out. And I have got something that I
want to tell you.'
"What came into my mind when I turned and looked at him was a kind of
wonder what the world would be like to me when he had gone out of it;
but what I said was--`I don't feel more tired than common. You lie down
on the bed, and I'll get Davie's jacket and mend it while we have a
little talk.' So I got the jacket and held it, though I couldn't put a
stitch in. My hands shook so that I couldn't thread my needle. Jim
took and threaded it for me. And then he lay still, with a look of
trouble on his face that made me say at last,--
"`I think I know what you are going to say, Jim. It will be a dreadful
trouble to me and your father; but you oughtn't to be troubled about it,
Jim. You are going to a better place: you are not afraid, Jim?'
"`No, dear mother, not for myself--nor for you. You'll get over it
after awhile, and you'll come too--you and the boys. But, mother, I
want father to come too.'
"I hadn't a word to say. I must have been a wicked woman. For half a
minute it seemed to me that heaven itself would be spoiled if Ezra Stone
were there.
"`And you must help him, mother,' said Jim.
"`I haven't helped him much lately about anything,' I said.
"`No; I think you're a little hard on father, mother;' and then he
turned on his pillow and put his two arms round my neck, and drew my
face down to his. His words hurt me dreadfully.
"`The Lord Himself will have to take hold to change him,' I said.
"`Yes, of course, mother; and you'll help him.'
"He didn't say any more; and in awhile he fell asleep, and neither of us
stirred till I heard his father's step on the floor. I did not stir
then, though it had been our way all those years to keep out of his
sight any special sign of affection between us.
"He came in and stood a spell looking at us, I suppose; and then he went
out, knowing for certain the thing which in his heart he had been
dreading all along, for he must have seen the signs of death on his
boy's face that day.
"Jim lived full three weeks after that, and he was a very happy boy.
His fear of his father had all gone. Jim showed how glad he was every
time he came into the room; and he would smile, and hold his hand, and
speak softly to him, words which the rest of us could not hear, till he
could stand it no longer. Then Ezra would rise and go out alone. He
never came to me for comfort, and, if he had, I had none to give.
"Just once I heard Jim say, `You will, won't you, father? God will help
you, and--mother.'
"His father groaned, and with good reason, for God seemed far away from
him, and he could not count much on help from me.
"Well, Jim died in his sleep, and we buried him near the other two; and
it was very quiet in the house for a spell, and then everything fell
into place again, and all went on as before, as far as those looking on
could see."