“It is well!”
God’s ways are always right,
And love is o’er them all,
Tho’ far above our sight.
Five weeks afterward, at the window of the south room in the mansion
of the Sutherland plantation, in a deep easy-chair, propped up with
pillows, sat or rather reclined, Tom Alson. His hands, grown slender
and delicate by long illness, were resting upon an open letter which
lay upon his knee, and his eyes were wandering out over the glorious
country, with a little wistfulness in them that had of late been at
home there.
The landscape upon which the sick eyes rested was truly a beautiful
one. The rich lands of the plantation stretched out and away off to
the banks of the Tennessee, the waters of which were hidden by the
cliff-like shores. Beyond this the mountains rose, and the eye followed
the bends of the river by their ever-changing curves. A few of the
trees on these densely-wooded slopes were changing color, and the
scarlet and yellow among so much green made each color more intense.
The fields which lay nearer home were truly “white unto the harvest.”
The cotton-buds had burst everywhere, and over the Southern hills the
fresh breezes of September were blowing. The hands were busy in the
fields, and Tom counted many dark forms among the white cotton, hard at
work.
Somehow this first sight of the fields led Tom’s mind back to the
letter he had received, telling of other fields, just as “white.” That,
and the letter just received from home, had sent his thoughts out after
his Sunday-school, of which he had not been able to hear for so many
weeks. He hardly dared ask after its welfare even now. But he brought
his eyes in from the window, and they rested upon Lillie, sitting in
a low chair near him, busily employed in some little manufacture with
cotton and needle. He watched the white fingers move to and fro in
silence for a few minutes, and then he said,
“Miss Lillie, I have not been able to think of my Sunday-school in a
very long time.”
“I have been waiting for you to speak of it all the afternoon,” said
Lillie, rousing herself and stopping her work.
“Well?” said Tom, not daring yet to ask the question.
“Well,” echoed Lillie, “we consider ourselves something wonderful,
I can tell you. We have met every Sunday in the cabin, and Jimmy
Harrison--you know him--reads to us from one of the new books and the
Bible. He says he cannot pray, so old Uncle Ben prays, and when it
comes the time you used to speak to us, I tell them how you are, and
what you have been talking about, and then we all try and remember
what you have told us and to repeat verses. I did not know there were
so many of the people learning to love Jesus, Tom. Then, one Sunday,
father came down--it was that Sunday after you and he were talking so
long in the morning--and he talked to the people a long time, and they
were all so pleased.”
There was a great sob which prevented Tom’s reply. He did not know
even then--only God knew--what had been accomplished during the summer
months on the Sutherland Plantation.
“Have the books been distributed, Miss Lillie?” asked Tom when he could
find voice.
“No, only two or three were taken by Jimmy to read. Then our
illuminated text--that one you said was prettier than all the rest, ‘We
would see Jesus’--we had put up first over your chair. We have a little
table that papa sent down, and my velvet chair stays there now, and
last Sunday the back was covered with a beautiful wreath of flowers.”
Tom looked out again through dim eyes over the white fields, and
thought of the promise: “He that goeth forth weeping, bearing precious
seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, bringing his sheaves with
him.” Tom thought he had a harvest.
Just then Mr. Sutherland opened the door and came in, and coming up to
Tom’s chair, asked him “how he was.”
“Very happy indeed, sir,” replied Tom with a quiet smile.
“What would you like most in the world just at this minute?” asked Mr.
Sutherland, whose heart always went out warmly toward the boy who had
saved his child.
Tom’s eyes grew a little wistful. “I should like most of all to see
my sister Martha,” said he; “but next to that,” he added, smiling, “I
would like to have you read to me, Mr. Sutherland.”
So Mr. Sutherland sat down by the sick boy and read to Tom until the
sunlight faded.
“That was the next best thing to seeing Martha, sir,” said Tom
gratefully as he finished. “I am very much obliged to you.”
“Not at all,” replied Mr. Sutherland, heartily. “Now I am going away,
and I shall send Aunt Dinah to see that you have what you want for
supper. Come, pet.”
So he went away, taking Lillie with him, and left happy Tom, sitting
in the twilight, grateful and content, with the words of the Psalmist
making sweet music in his heart:
“Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.”
After this first day of pleasure Tom could not be kept away from the
window, and so, day after day, his chair was moved up to it, and
himself put into it, all wrapped about with shawls and supported by
pillows, and left to spend the day by the window. He had numerous
visitors--not too many--but just enough to make him feel that he was
not alone.
One morning, after he had been up about a week, he was sitting by the
open window as usual, watching the cotton-pickers in the distance, when
he heard steps coming up the stairs. “Somebody is coming to see me,”
he thought, so he listened, still looking out of the window. Something
attracted his attention there, so that when the door opened he did not
immediately turn his head. There were quick steps across the floor and
some one came kneeling by his chair, and then he turned and looked down
into the eager face of his sister Martha.
“Oh, Martha! Martha!” he cried, seizing her hand and bending down to
her face, “has God sent me this joy too? My dear sister, I have wanted
to see you more than anything on earth.”
“And I am here, Tom,” she replied joyfully--“come to take good care of
you. Mr. Sutherland wrote me that you would not send for me for fear
I could not come, but that you wanted me very much. How are you, dear
Tom?”
“I believe, Martha,” he said, still holding her hand and looking down
into her face, “I believe I am perfectly happy.”
“And how is the Sunday-school?” his sister asked. “Oh, you can’t think
how Miss Mason and I have enjoyed that school!”
“It’s perfectly wonderful, Martha,” he replied with glowing eyes. “It
seems to me that for the past few days, when the thought of it came,
those four grand words, ‘What hath God wrought?’ have been the only
ones which could anyway rest me. Listen while I tell.”
Thereupon followed a long conversation in questions and answers about
the summer’s doings, with pleased eagerness on one side and loving
sympathy on the other, until they knew all those little things which
pen and paper never tell, and which therefore the letters which had
passed between them had not contained.
“And now, Tom,” said Martha, when home and plantation news seemed to be
exhausted, “I believe I’ve something to tell you. Mr. Sutherland said
to me, as we rode up this morning, that he would like to keep you all
winter if you were pleased to stay. He said that you understood his
business, and did it well, and that you had wound yourself round the
hearts of the people; although,” she added, “I did not need for him to
tell me that, after Jimmy’s letter.”
“Jimmy?” asked Tom, in amaze.
“Yes,” laughed Martha. “Jimmy wrote Miss Mason and me a joint letter
of confession of his own sins and praise of you. It was funny, but it
was good. I will show it to you some day.”
Tom gave her a bright smile in answer, and asked her if there was
anything more.
“Yes,” returned Martha. “Mr. Sutherland wants me to stay here too, to
be a sort of waiting-maid for Miss Lillie. How do you like that?”
“My dear Martha, that is glorious,” said Tom, bringing his hands
together with sudden joy. “There will be no discouragements if you are
here.”
“But, Tom dear,” said Martha, “I would not stay, and I should not want
to leave you, but in the fall the good people who sent Miss Mason to us
in Huntsville are going to send a teacher to this plantation, and Mr.
Sutherland is perfectly willing. So we may study yet, Tom.”
“There is no truer word in the world than that which God spake,
Martha,” replied Tom, looking into her gentle, earnest face with
glistening eyes: “‘All things work together for good to them that love
God.’
‘Who trusts in God’s unchanging love,
Builds on a rock which naught can move.’”
And now, dear reader, I had meant to leave you here, and let the story
of Tom’s summer work leave its own impress on your minds and hearts,
but when I think of the joy, and love, and reward of working for Jesus,
and the faintness with which I have tried to show them to you, I am
longing for power to carry home the truth to your hearts. But God
who giveth the increase will bring it to pass when human hands fall
powerless.
Do you remember how John finished his gospel? He says: “And there
are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should
be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not
contain the books that should be written.” So I believe, with him, that
if the beauty and joy of the lives spent in work for the Lord were
given to mankind, “even the world itself could not contain the books
that should be written.”
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.