THE MOTHER.
Out of the door he went, happy in spite of all the mistakes he had made
and of all the _contretemps_ of his provoking misadventure; happy in
spite of the threat of arrest for burglary. For nearly a minute August
Wehle was happy in that perfect way in which people of quiet tempers are
happy--happy without fluster. But before he had passed the gate, he
heard a scream and a wild hysterical laugh; he heard a hurrying of feet
and saw a moving of lights. He would fain have turned back to find out
what the matter was, he had so much of interest in that house, but he
remembered that he had been turned out and that he could not go back.
The feeling of outlawry mingled its bitterness with the feeling of
anxiety. He feared that something had happened to Julia; he lingered and
listened. Humphreys came out upon the upper porch and looked sharply up
and down the road. August felt instinctively that he was the object of
search and slunk into a fence-corner, remembering that he was now a
burglar and at the mercy of the man whose face was enough to show him
unrelenting.
Presently Humphreys turned and went in, and then August came out of the
shadow and hurried away. When he had gone a mile, he heard the hoofs of
horses, and again he concealed himself with a cowardly feeling he had
never known before. But when he found that it was Jonas, riding one
horse and leading another, on his way to bring Dr. Ketchup, the
steam-doctor, he ran out.
"Jonas! Jonas! what's the matter? Who's sick? Is it Julia?"
"I'll be bound you ax fer Jule first, my much-respected comrade. But
it's only one of the ole woman's conniption fits, and you know she's got
nineteen lives. People of the catamount sort always has. You'd better
gin a thought to yourself now. I got you into this scrape, and I mean to
see you out, as the dog said to the 'possum in its hole. Git up onto
this four-legged quadruped and go as fur as I go on the road to peace
and safety. Now, I tell you what, the hawk's got a mighty good purchase
onto you, my chicken, and he's jest about to light, and when he lights,
look out fer feathers! Don't sleep under the paternal shingles, as they
say. Go to Andrew's castle, and he'll help you git acrost the river into
the glorious State of ole Kaintuck afore any warrant can be got out fer
takin' you up. Never once thought of your bein' took up. But don't
delay, as the preachers say. The time is short, and the human heart is
desperately wicked and mighty deceitful and onsartain."
As far as Jonas traveled his way, he carried August upon the gray horse.
Then the latter hurried across the fields to his father's cabin. Little
Wilhelmina sat with face against the window waiting his return.
"Where did you go, August? Did you see the pretty girl at Anderson's?"
He stooped and kissed her, but, without speaking a word to her, he went
over to where his mother sat darning the last of her basket of
stockings. All the rest were asleep, and having assured himself of this,
he drew up a low chair and leaned his elbow on his knee and hi head on
his hand, and told the whole adventure of the evening to his mother, and
then dropped his head on her lap and wept in a still way. And the
sweet-eyed, weary Moravian mother laid her two hands upon his head and
prayed. And Wilhelmina knelt instinctively by the side of her brother.
[Illustration: THE MOTHER'S BLESSING.]
Perhaps there is no God. Or perhaps He is so great that our praying has
no effect. Perhaps this strong crying of our hearts to Him in our
extremity is no witness of his readiness to hear. Let him live in doubt
who can. Let me believe that the tender mother-heart and the loving
sister-heart in that little cabin _did_ reach up to the great Heart that
is over us all in Fatherly love, did find a real comfort for themselves,
and did bring a strength-giving and sanctifying something upon the head
of the young man, who straightway rose up refreshed, and departed out
into the night, leaving behind him mother and sister straining their
eyes after him in the blackness, and carrying with him thoughts and
memories, and--who shall doubt?--a genuine heavenly inspiration that
saved him in the trials in which we shall next meet him.
At two o'clock that night August Wehle stood upon the shore of the Ohio
in company with Andrew Anderson, the Backwoods Philosopher. Andrew waved
a fire-brand at the steamboat "Isaac Shelby," which was coming round the
bend. And the captain tapped his bell three times and stopped his
engines. Then the yawl took the two men aboard, and two days afterward
Andrew came back alone.