If there ever was a man crushed out of all courage, all self-reliance,
all comfort in life, it was Jacob Flint. Why this should have been,
neither he nor any one else could have explained; but so it was. On the
day that he first went to school, his shy, frightened face marked him as
fair game for the rougher and stronger boys, and they subjected him to
all those exquisite refinements of torture which boys seem to get by
the direct inspiration of the Devil. There was no form of their bullying
meanness or the cowardice of their brutal strength which he did not
experience. He was born under a fading or falling star,--the inheritor
of some anxious or unhappy mood of his parents, which gave its fast
color to the threads out of which his innocent being was woven.
Even the good people of the neighborhood, never accustomed to look below
the externals of appearance and manner, saw in his shrinking face and
awkward motions only the signs of a cringing, abject soul.
“You'll be no more of a man than Jake Flint!” was the reproach which
many a farmer addressed to his dilatory boy; and thus the parents, one
and all, came to repeat the sins of the children.
If, therefore, at school and “before folks,” Jacob's position was always
uncomfortable and depressing, it was little more cheering at home. His
parents, as all the neighbors believed, had been unhappily married, and,
though the mother died in his early childhood, his father remained a
moody, unsocial man, who rarely left his farm except on the 1st of April
every year, when he went to the county town for the purpose of paying
the interest upon a mortgage. The farm lay in a hollow between two
hills, separated from the road by a thick wood, and the chimneys of the
lonely old house looked in vain for a neighbor-smoke when they began to
grow warm of a morning.
Beyond the barn and under the northern hill there was a log
tenant-house, in which dwelt a negro couple, who, in the course of years
had become fixtures on the place and almost partners in it. Harry,
the man, was the medium by which Samuel Flint kept up his necessary
intercourse with the world beyond the valley; he took the horses to the
blacksmith, the grain to the mill, the turkeys to market, and through
his hands passed all the incomings and outgoings of the farm, except
the annual interest on the mortgage. Sally, his wife, took care of the
household, which, indeed, was a light and comfortable task, since the
table was well supplied for her own sake, and there was no sharp eye
to criticise her sweeping, dusting, and bed-making. The place had a
forlorn, tumble-down aspect, quite in keeping with its lonely situation;
but perhaps this very circumstance flattered the mood of its silent,
melancholy owner and his unhappy son.
In all the neighborhood there was but one person with whom Jacob felt
completely at ease--but one who never joined in the general habit of
making his name the butt of ridicule or contempt. This was Mrs. Ann
Pardon, the hearty, active wife of Farmer Robert Pardon, who lived
nearly a mile farther down the brook. Jacob had won her good-will
by some neighborly services, something so trifling, indeed, that the
thought of a favor conferred never entered his mind. Ann Pardon saw that
it did not; she detected a streak of most unconscious goodness under his
uncouth, embarrassed ways, and she determined to cultivate it. No little
tact was required, however, to coax the wild, forlorn creature into
so much confidence as she desired to establish; but tact is a native
quality of the heart no less than a social acquirement, and so she did
the very thing necessary without thinking much about it.
Robert Pardon discovered by and by that Jacob was a steady, faithful
hand in the harvest-field at husking-time, or whenever any extra labor
was required, and Jacob's father made no objection to his earning
a penny in this way; and so he fell into the habit of spending his
Saturday evenings at the Pardon farm-house, at first to talk over
matters of work, and finally because it had become a welcome relief from
his dreary life at home.
Now it happened that on a Saturday in the beginning of haying-time, the
village tailor sent home by Harry a new suit of light summer clothes,
for which Jacob had been measured a month before. After supper he tried
them on, the day's work being over, and Sally's admiration was so loud
and emphatic that he felt himself growing red even to the small of his
back.
“Now, don't go for to take 'em off, Mr. Jake,” said she. “I spec' you're
gwine down to Pardon's, and so you jist keep 'em on to show 'em all how
nice you KIN look.”
The same thought had already entered Jacob's mind. Poor fellow! It was
the highest form of pleasure of which he had ever allowed himself to
conceive. If he had been called upon to pass through the village on
first assuming the new clothes, every stitch would have pricked him as
if the needle remained in it; but a quiet walk down the brookside, by
the pleasant path through the thickets and over the fragrant meadows,
with a consciousness of his own neatness and freshness at every step,
and with kind Ann Pardon's commendation at the close, and the flattering
curiosity of the children,--the only ones who never made fun of
him,--all that was a delightful prospect. He could never, NEVER forget
himself, as he had seen other young fellows do; but to remember himself
agreeably was certainly the next best thing.
Jacob was already a well-grown man of twenty-three, and would have made
a good enough appearance but for the stoop in his shoulders, and the
drooping, uneasy way in which he carried his head. Many a time when he
was alone in the fields or woods he had straightened himself, and looked
courageously at the buts of the oak-trees or in the very eyes of the
indifferent oxen; but, when a human face drew near, some spring in his
neck seemed to snap, some buckle around his shoulders to be drawn three
holes tighter, and he found himself in the old posture. The ever-present
thought of this weakness was the only drop of bitterness in his cup, as
he followed the lonely path through the thickets.
Some spirit in the sweet, delicious freshness of the air, some voice in
the mellow babble of the stream, leaping in and out of sight between the
alders, some smile of light, lingering on the rising corn-fields beyond
the meadow and the melting purple of a distant hill, reached to the
seclusion of his heart. He was soothed and cheered; his head lifted
itself in the presentiment of a future less lonely than the past, and
the everlasting trouble vanished from his eyes.
Suddenly, at a turn of the path, two mowers from the meadow, with their
scythes upon their shoulders, came upon him. He had not heard their feet
on the deep turf. His chest relaxed, and his head began to sink; then,
with the most desperate effort in his life, he lifted it again, and,
darting a rapid side glance at the men, hastened by. They could not
understand the mixed defiance and supplication of his face; to them he
only looked “queer.”
“Been committin' a murder, have you?” asked one of them, grinning.
“Startin' off on his journey, I guess,” said the other.
The next instant they were gone, and Jacob, with set teeth and clinched
hands, smothered something that would have been a howl if he had given
it voice. Sharp lines of pain were marked on his face, and, for the
first time, the idea of resistance took fierce and bitter possession of
his heart. But the mood was too unusual to last; presently he shook his
head, and walked on towards Pardon's farm-house.
Ann wore a smart gingham dress, and her first exclamation was: “Why,
Jake! how nice you look. And so you know all about it, too?”
“About what?”
“I see you don't,” said she. “I was too fast; but it makes no
difference. I know you are willing to lend me a helping hand.”
“Oh, to be sure,” Jacob answered.
“And not mind a little company?”
Jacob's face suddenly clouded; but he said, though with an effort:
“No--not much--if I can be of any help.”
“It's rather a joke, after all,” Ann Pardon continued, speaking rapidly;
“they meant a surprise, a few of the young people; but sister Becky
found a way to send me word, or I might have been caught like Meribah
Johnson last week, in the middle of my work; eight or ten, she said,
but more may drop in: and it's moonlight and warm, so they'll be mostly
under the trees; and Robert won't be home till late, and I DO want help
in carrying chairs, and getting up some ice, and handing around; and,
though I know you don't care for merry makings, you CAN help me out, you
see--”
Here she paused. Jacob looked perplexed, but said nothing.
“Becky will help what she can, and while I'm in the kitchen she'll have
an eye to things outside,” she said.
Jacob's head was down again, and, moreover, turned on one side, but his
ear betrayed the mounting blood. Finally he answered, in a quick, husky
voice: “Well, I'll do what I can. What's first?”
Thereupon he began to carry some benches from the veranda to a grassy
bank beside the sycamore-tree. Ann Pardon wisely said no more of the
coming surprise-party, but kept him so employed that, as the visitors
arrived by twos and threes, the merriment was in full play almost before
he was aware of it. Moreover, the night was a protecting presence: the
moonlight poured splendidly upon the open turf beyond the sycamore, but
every lilac-bush or trellis of woodbine made a nook of shade, wherein he
could pause a moment and take courage for his duties. Becky Morton, Ann
Pardon's youngest sister, frightened him a little every time she came
to consult about the arrangement of seats or the distribution of
refreshments; but it was a delightful, fascinating fear, such as he had
never felt before in his life. He knew Becky, but he had never seen her
in white and pink, with floating tresses, until now. In fact, he had
hardly looked at her fairly, but now, as she glided into the moonlight
and he paused in the shadow, his eyes took note of her exceeding beauty.
Some sweet, confusing influence, he knew not what, passed into his
blood.
The young men had brought a fiddler from the village, and it was not
long before most of the company were treading the measures of reels or
cotillons on the grass. How merry and happy they all were! How freely
and unembarrassedly they moved and talked! By and by all became involved
in the dance, and Jacob, left alone and unnoticed, drew nearer and
nearer to the gay and beautiful life from which he was expelled.
With a long-drawn scream of the fiddle the dance came to an end, and the
dancers, laughing, chattering, panting, and fanning themselves, broke
into groups and scattered over the enclosure before the house. Jacob was
surrounded before he could escape. Becky, with two lively girls in her
wake, came up to him and said: “Oh Mr. Flint, why don't you dance?”
If he had stopped to consider, he would no doubt have replied very
differently. But a hundred questions, stirred by what he had seen, were
clamoring for light, and they threw the desperate impulse to his lips.
“If I COULD dance, would you dance with me?”
The two lively girls heard the words, and looked at Becky with roguish
faces.
“Oh yes, take him for your next partner!” cried one.
“I will,” said Becky, “after he comes back from his journey.”
Then all three laughed. Jacob leaned against the tree, his eyes fixed on
the ground.
“Is it a bargain?” asked one of the girls.
“No,” said he, and walked rapidly away.
He went to the house, and, finding that Robert had arrived, took his
hat, and left by the rear door. There was a grassy alley between the
orchard and garden, from which it was divided by a high hawthorn hedge.
He had scarcely taken three paces on his way to the meadow, when the
sound of the voice he had last heard, on the other side of the hedge,
arrested his feet.
“Becky, I think you rather hurt Jake Flint,” said the girl.
“Hardly,” answered Becky; “he's used to that.”
“Not if he likes you; and you might go further and fare worse.”
“Well, I MUST say!” Becky exclaimed, with a laugh; “you'd like to see me
stuck in that hollow, out of your way!”
“It's a good farm, I've heard,” said the other.
“Yes, and covered with as much as it'll bear!”
Here the girls were called away to the dance. Jacob slowly walked up
the dewy meadow, the sounds of fiddling, singing, and laughter growing
fainter behind him.
“My journey!” he repeated to himself,--“my journey! why shouldn't I
start on it now? Start off, and never come back?”
It was a very little thing, after all, which annoyed him, but the
mention of it always touched a sore nerve of his nature. A dozen years
before, when a boy at school, he had made a temporary friendship with
another boy of his age, and had one day said to the latter, in the
warmth of his first generous confidence: “When I am a little older,
I shall make a great journey, and come back rich, and buy Whitney's
place!”
Now, Whitney's place, with its stately old brick mansion, its avenue of
silver firs, and its two hundred acres of clean, warm-lying land, was
the finest, the most aristocratic property in all the neighborhood,
and the boy-friend could not resist the temptation of repeating Jacob's
grand design, for the endless amusement of the school. The betrayal hurt
Jacob more keenly than the ridicule. It left a wound that never ceased
to rankle; yet, with the inconceivable perversity of unthinking
natures, precisely this joke (as the people supposed it to be) had been
perpetuated, until “Jake Flint's Journey” was a synonyme for any absurd
or extravagant expectation. Perhaps no one imagined how much pain he was
keeping alive; for almost any other man than Jacob would have joined
in the laugh against himself and thus good-naturedly buried the joke in
time. “He's used to that,” the people said, like Becky Morton, and they
really supposed there was nothing unkind in the remark!
After Jacob had passed the thickets and entered the lonely hollow in
which his father's house lay, his pace became slower and slower.
He looked at the shabby old building, just touched by the moonlight
behind the swaying shadows of the weeping-willow, stopped, looked again,
and finally seated himself on a stump beside the path.
“If I knew what to do!” he said to himself, rocking backwards and
forwards, with his hands clasped over his knees,--“if I knew what to
do!”
The spiritual tension of the evening reached its climax: he could bear
no more. With a strong bodily shudder his tears burst forth, and the
passion of his weeping filled him from head to foot. How long he wept
he knew not; it seemed as if the hot fountains would never run dry.
Suddenly and startlingly a hand fell upon his shoulder.
“Boy, what does this mean?”
It was his father who stood before him.
Jacob looked up like some shy animal brought to bay, his eyes full of a
feeling mixed of fierceness and terror; but he said nothing.
His father seated himself on one of the roots of the old stump, laid one
hand upon Jacob's knee, and said with an unusual gentleness of manner,
“I'd like to know what it is that troubles you so much.”
After a pause, Jacob suddenly burst forth with: “Is there any reason why
I should tell you? Do you care any more for me than the rest of 'em?”
“I didn't know as you wanted me to care for you particularly,” said the
father, almost deprecatingly. “I always thought you had friends of your
own age.”
“Friends? Devils!” exclaimed Jacob. “Oh, what have I done--what is there
so dreadful about me that I should always be laughed at, and despised,
and trampled upon? You are a great deal older than I am, father: what do
you see in me? Tell me what it is, and how to get over it!”
The eyes of the two men met. Jacob saw his father's face grow pale in
the moonlight, while he pressed his hand involuntarily upon his heart,
as if struggling with some physical pain. At last he spoke, but his
words were strange and incoherent.
“I couldn't sleep,” he said; “I got up again and came out o' doors.
The white ox had broken down the fence at the corner, and would soon
have been in the cornfield. I thought it was that, maybe, but still
your--your mother would come into my head. I was coming down the edge of
the wood when I saw you, and I don't know why it was that you seemed so
different, all at once--”
Here he paused, and was silent for a minute. Then he said, in a grave,
commanding tone: “Just let me know the whole story. I have that much
right yet.”
Jacob related the history of the evening, somewhat awkwardly and
confusedly, it is true; but his father's brief, pointed questions kept
him to the narrative, and forced him to explain the full significance
of the expressions he repeated. At the mention of “Whitney's place,” a
singular expression of malice touched the old man's face.
“Do you love Becky Morton?” he asked bluntly, when all had been told.
“I don't know,” Jacob stammered; “I think not; because when I seem to
like her most, I feel afraid of her.”
“It's lucky that you're not sure of it!” exclaimed the old man with
energy; “because you should never have her.”
“No,” said Jacob, with a mournful acquiescence, “I can never have her,
or any other one.”
“But you shall--and will I when I help you. It's true I've not seemed to
care much about you, and I suppose you're free to think as you like; but
this I say: I'll not stand by and see you spit upon! 'Covered with as
much as it'll bear!' THAT'S a piece o' luck anyhow. If we're poor, your
wife must take your poverty with you, or she don't come into MY doors.
But first of all you must make your journey!”
“My journey!” repeated Jacob.
“Weren't you thinking of it this night, before you took your seat on
that stump? A little more, and you'd have gone clean off, I reckon.”
Jacob was silent, and hung his head.
“Never mind! I've no right to think hard of it. In a week we'll have
finished our haying, and then it's a fortnight to wheat; but, for that
matter, Harry and I can manage the wheat by ourselves. You may take a
month, two months, if any thing comes of it. Under a month I don't mean
that you shall come back. I'll give you twenty dollars for a start; if
you want more you must earn it on the road, any way you please. And,
mark you, Jacob! since you ARE poor, don't let anybody suppose you are
rich. For my part, I shall not expect you to buy Whitney's place; all I
ask is that you'll tell me, fair and square, just what things and what
people you've got acquainted with. Get to bed now--the matter's settled;
I will have it so.”
They rose and walked across the meadow to the house. Jacob had quite
forgotten the events of the evening in the new prospect suddenly opened
to him, which filled him with a wonderful confusion of fear and desire.
His father said nothing more. They entered the lonely house together at
midnight, and went to their beds; but Jacob slept very little.
Six days afterwards he left home, on a sparkling June morning, with
a small bundle tied in a yellow silk handkerchief under his arm. His
father had furnished him with the promised money, but had positively
refused to tell him what road he should take, or what plan of action he
should adopt. The only stipulation was that his absence from home should
not be less than a month.
After he had passed the wood and reached the highway which followed
the course of the brook, he paused to consider which course to take.
Southward the road led past Pardon's, and he longed to see his only
friends once more before encountering untried hazards; but the village
was beyond, and he had no courage to walk through its one long street
with a bundle, denoting a journey, under his arm. Northward he would
have to pass the mill and blacksmith's shop at the cross-roads. Then he
remembered that he might easily wade the stream at a point where it was
shallow, and keep in the shelter of the woods on the opposite hill until
he struck the road farther on, and in that direction two or three miles
would take him into a neighborhood where he was not known.
Once in the woods, an exquisite sense of freedom came upon him. There
was nothing mocking in the soft, graceful stir of the expanded foliage,
in the twittering of the unfrightened birds, or the scampering of the
squirrels, over the rustling carpet of dead leaves. He lay down upon the
moss under a spreading beech-tree and tried to think; but the thoughts
would not come. He could not even clearly recall the keen troubles and
mortifications he had endured: all things were so peaceful and beautiful
that a portion of their peace and beauty fell upon men and invested them
with a more kindly character.
Towards noon Jacob found himself beyond the limited geography of his
life. The first man he encountered was a stranger, who greeted him with
a hearty and respectful “How do you do, sir?”
“Perhaps,” thought Jacob, “I am not so very different from other people,
if I only thought so myself.”
At noon, he stopped at a farm-house by the roadside to get a drink of
water. A pleasant woman, who came from the door at that moment with a
pitcher, allowed him to lower the bucket and haul it up dripping with
precious coolness. She looked upon him with good-will, for he had
allowed her to see his eyes, and something in their honest, appealing
expression went to her heart.
“We're going to have dinner in five minutes,” said she; “won't you stay
and have something?”
Jacob stayed and brake bread with the plain, hospitable family. Their
kindly attention to him during the meal gave him the lacking nerve;
for a moment he resolved to offer his services to the farmer, but he
presently saw that they were not really needed, and, besides, the place
was still too near home.
Towards night he reached an old country tavern, lording it over
an incipient village of six houses. The landlord and hostler were
inspecting a drooping-looking horse in front of the stables. Now, if
there was any thing which Jacob understood, to the extent of his limited
experience, it was horse nature. He drew near, listened to the views of
the two men, examined the animal with his eyes, and was ready to answer,
“Yes, I guess so,” when the landlord said, “Perhaps, sir, you can tell
what is the matter with him.”
His prompt detection of the ailment, and prescription of a remedy which
in an hour showed its good effects, installed him in the landlord's best
graces. The latter said, “Well, it shall cost you nothing to-night,”
as he led the way to the supper-room. When Jacob went to bed he was
surprised on reflecting that he had not only been talking for a full
hour in the bar-room, but had been looking people in the face.
Resisting an offer of good wages if he would stay and help look after
the stables, he set forward the next morning with a new and most
delightful confidence in himself. The knowledge that now nobody knew him
as “Jake Flint” quite removed his tortured self-consciousness. When
he met a person who was glum and ungracious of speech, he saw,
nevertheless, that he was not its special object. He was sometimes asked
questions, to be sure, which a little embarrassed him, but he soon hit
upon answers which were sufficiently true without betraying his purpose.
Wandering sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, he slowly
made his way into the land, until, on the afternoon of the fourth day
after leaving home, he found himself in a rougher region--a rocky, hilly
tract, with small and not very flourishing farms in the valleys. Here
the season appeared to be more backward than in the open country; the
hay harvest was not yet over.
Jacob's taste for scenery was not particularly cultivated, but something
in the loneliness and quiet of the farms reminded him of his own home;
and he looked at one house after another, deliberating with himself
whether it would not be a good place to spend the remainder of his month
of probation. He seemed to be very far from home--about forty miles, in
fact,--and was beginning to feel a little tired of wandering.
Finally the road climbed a low pass of the hills, and dropped into
a valley on the opposite side. There was but one house in view--a
two-story building of logs and plaster, with a garden and orchard on the
hillside in the rear. A large meadow stretched in front, and when the
whole of it lay clear before him, as the road issued from a wood, his
eye was caught by an unusual harvest picture.
Directly before him, a woman, whose face was concealed by a huge,
flapping sun-bonnet, was seated upon a mowing machine, guiding a span
of horses around the great tract of thick grass which was still uncut.
A little distance off, a boy and girl were raking the drier swaths
together, and a hay-cart, drawn by oxen and driven by a man, was just
entering the meadow from the side next the barn.
Jacob hung his bundle upon a stake, threw his coat and waistcoat over
the rail, and, resting his chin on his shirted arms, leaned on the
fence, and watched the hay-makers. As the woman came down the nearer
side she appeared to notice him, for her head was turned from time to
time in his direction. When she had made the round, she stopped the
horses at the corner, sprang lightly from her seat and called to the
man, who, leaving his team, met her half-way. They were nearly a furlong
distant, but Jacob was quite sure that she pointed to him, and that
the man looked in the same direction. Presently she set off across the
meadow, directly towards him.
When within a few paces of the fence, she stopped, threw back the flaps
of her sun-bonnet, and said, “Good day to you!” Jacob was so amazed to
see a bright, fresh, girlish face, that he stared at her with all his
eyes, forgetting to drop his head. Indeed, he could not have done so,
for his chin was propped upon the top rail of the fence.
“You are a stranger, I see,” she added.
“Yes, in these parts,” he replied.
“Looking for work?”
He hardly knew what answer to make, so he said, at a venture, “That's as
it happens.” Then he colored a little, for the words seemed foolish to
his ears.
“Time's precious,” said the girl, “so I'll tell you at once we want
help. Our hay MUST be got in while the fine weather lasts.”
“I'll help you!” Jacob exclaimed, taking his arms from the rail, and
looking as willing as he felt.
“I'm so glad! But I must tell you, at first, that we're not rich, and
the hands are asking a great deal now. How much do you expect?”
“Whatever you please?” said he, climbing the fence.
“No, that's not our way of doing business. What do you say to a dollar a
day, and found?”
“All right!” and with the words he was already at her side, taking long
strides over the elastic turf.
“I will go on with my mowing,” said she, when they reached the horses,
“and you can rake and load with my father. What name shall I call you
by?”
“Everybody calls me Jake.”
“'Jake!' Jacob is better. Well, Jacob, I hope you'll give us all the
help you can.”
With a nod and a light laugh she sprang upon the machine. There was
a sweet throb in Jacob's heart, which, if he could have expressed it,
would have been a triumphant shout of “I'm not afraid of her! I'm not
afraid of her!”
The farmer was a kindly, depressed man, with whose quiet ways Jacob
instantly felt himself at home. They worked steadily until sunset, when
the girl, detaching her horses from the machine, mounted one of them and
led the other to the barn. At the supper-table, the farmer's wife said:
“Susan, you must be very tired.”
“Not now, mother!” she cheerily answered. “I was, I think, but after I
picked up Jacob I felt sure we should get our hay in.”
“It was a good thing,” said the farmer; “Jacob don't need to be told how
to work.”
Poor Jacob! He was so happy he could have cried. He sat and listened,
and blushed a little, with a smile on his face which it was a pleasure
to see. The honest people did not seem to regard him in the least as a
stranger; they discussed their family interests and troubles and hopes
before him, and in a little while it seemed as if he had known them
always.
How faithfully he worked! How glad and tired he felt when night came,
and the hay-mow was filled, and the great stacks grew beside the barn!
But ah! the haying came to an end, and on the last evening, at supper,
everybody was constrained and silent. Even Susan looked grave and
thoughtful.
“Jacob,” said the farmer, finally, “I wish we could keep you until wheat
harvest; but you know we are poor, and can't afford it. Perhaps you
could--”
He hesitated; but Jacob, catching at the chance and obeying his own
unselfish impulse, cried: “Oh, yes, I can; I'll be satisfied with my
board, till the wheat's ripe.”
Susan looked at him quickly, with a bright, speaking face. “It's hardly
fair to you,” said the farmer.
“But I like to be here so much!” Jacob cried. “I like--all of you!”
“We DO seem to suit,” said the farmer, “like as one family. And that
reminds me, we've not heard your family name yet.”
“Flint.”
“Jacob FLINT!” exclaimed the farmer's wife, with sudden agitation.
Jacob was scared and troubled. They had heard of him, he thought, and
who knew what ridiculous stories? Susan noticed an anxiety on his face
which she could not understand, but she unknowingly came to his relief.
“Why, mother,” she asked, “do you know Jacob's family?”
“No, I think not,” said her mother, “only somebody of the name, long
ago.”
His offer, however, was gratefully accepted. The bright, hot summer days
came and went, but no flower of July ever opened as rapidly and richly
and warmly as his chilled, retarded nature. New thoughts and instincts
came with every morning's sun, and new conclusions were reached with
every evening's twilight. Yet as the wheat harvest drew towards the end,
he felt that he must leave the place. The month of absence had gone by,
he scarce knew how. He was free to return home, and, though he might
offer to bridge over the gap between wheat and oats, as he had already
done between hay and wheat, he imagined the family might hesitate to
accept such an offer. Moreover, this life at Susan's side was fast
growing to be a pain, unless he could assure himself that it would be so
forever.
They were in the wheat-field, busy with the last sheaves; she raking and
he binding. The farmer and younger children had gone to the barn with a
load. Jacob was working silently and steadily, but when they had reached
the end of a row, he stopped, wiped his wet brow, and suddenly said,
“Susan, I suppose to-day finishes my work here.”
“Yes,” she answered very slowly.
“And yet I'm very sorry to go.”
“I--WE don't want you to go, if we could help it.”
Jacob appeared to struggle with himself. He attempted to speak. “If I
could--” he brought out, and then paused. “Susan, would you be glad if I
came back?”
His eyes implored her to read his meaning. No doubt she read it
correctly, for her face flushed, her eyelids fell, and she barely
murmured, “Yes, Jacob.”
“Then I'll come!” he cried; “I'll come and help you with the oats. Don't
talk of pay! Only tell me I'll be welcome! Susan, don't you believe I'll
keep my word?”
“I do indeed,” said she, looking him firmly in the face.
That was all that was said at the time; but the two understood each
other tolerably well.
On the afternoon of the second day, Jacob saw again the lonely house of
his father. His journey was made, yet, if any of the neighbors had seen
him, they would never have believed that he had come back rich.
Samuel Flint turned away to hide a peculiar smile when he saw his son;
but little was said until late that evening, after Harry and Sally
had left. Then he required and received an exact account of Jacob's
experience during his absence. After hearing the story to the end, he
said, “And so you love this Susan Meadows?”
“I'd--I'd do any thing to be with her.”
“Are you afraid of her?”
“No!” Jacob uttered the word so emphatically that it rang through the
house.
“Ah, well!” said the old man, lifting his eyes, and speaking in the air,
“all the harm may be mended yet. But there must be another test.” Then
he was silent for some time.
“I have it!” he finally exclaimed. “Jacob, you must go back for the oats
harvest. You must ask Susan to be your wife, and ask her parents to let
you have her. But,--pay attention to my words!--you must tell her that
you are a poor, hired man on this place, and that she can be engaged as
housekeeper. Don't speak of me as your father, but as the owner of
the farm. Bring her here in that belief, and let me see how honest and
willing she is. I can easily arrange matters with Harry and Sally while
you are away; and I'll only ask you to keep up the appearance of the
thing for a month or so.”
“But, father,”--Jacob began.
“Not a word! Are you not willing to do that much for the sake of having
her all your life, and this farm after me? Suppose it is covered with
a mortgage, if she is all you say, you two can work it off. Not a word
more! It is no lie, after all, that you will tell her.”
“I am afraid,” said Jacob, “that she could not leave her home now. She
is too useful there, and the family is so poor.”
“Tell them that both your wages, for the first year, shall go to them.
It'll be my business to rake and scrape the money together somehow. Say,
too, that the housekeeper's place can't be kept for her--must be filled
at once. Push matters like a man, if you mean to be a complete one, and
bring her here, if she carries no more with her than the clothes on her
back!”
During the following days Jacob had time to familiarize his mind with
this startling proposal. He knew his father's stubborn will too well
to suppose that it could be changed; but the inevitable soon converted
itself into the possible and desirable. The sweet face of Susan as she
had stood before him in the wheat-field was continually present to his
eyes, and ere long, he began to place her, in his thoughts, in the old
rooms at home, in the garden, among the thickets by the brook, and in
Ann Pardon's pleasant parlor. Enough; his father's plan became his own
long before the time was out.
On his second journey everybody seemed to be an old acquaintance and an
intimate friend. It was evening as he approached the Meadows farm, but
the younger children recognized him in the dusk, and their cry of, “Oh,
here's Jacob!” brought out the farmer and his wife and Susan, with the
heartiest of welcomes. They had all missed him, they said--even the
horses and oxen had looked for him, and they were wondering how they
should get the oats harvested without him.
Jacob looked at Susan as the farmer said this, and her eyes seemed to
answer, “I said nothing, but I knew you would come.” Then, first, he
felt sufficient courage for the task before him.
He rose the next morning, before any one was stirring, and waited until
she should come down stairs. The sun had not risen when she appeared,
with a milk-pail in each hand, walking unsuspectingly to the cow-yard.
He waylaid her, took the pails in his hand and said in nervous haste,
“Susan, will you be my wife?”
She stopped as if she had received a sudden blow; then a shy, sweet
consent seemed to run through her heart. “O Jacob!” was all she could
say.
“But you will, Susan?” he urged; and then (neither of them exactly knew
how it happened) all at once his arms were around her, and they had
kissed each other.
“Susan,” he said, presently, “I am a poor man--only a farm hand, and
must work for my living. You could look for a better husband.”
“I could never find a better than you, Jacob.”
“Would you work with me, too, at the same place?”
“You know I am not afraid of work,” she answered, “and I could never
want any other lot than yours.”
Then he told her the story which his father had prompted. Her face grew
bright and happy as she listened, and he saw how from her very heart
she accepted the humble fortune. Only the thought of her parents threw
a cloud over the new and astonishing vision. Jacob, however, grew bolder
as he saw fulfilment of his hope so near. They took the pails and seated
themselves beside neighbor cows, one raising objections or misgivings
which the other manfully combated. Jacob's earnestness unconsciously ran
into his hands, as he discovered when the impatient cow began to snort
and kick.
The harvesting of the oats was not commenced that morning. The children
were sent away, and there was a council of four persons held in the
parlor. The result of mutual protestations and much weeping was, that
the farmer and his wife agreed to receive Jacob as a son-in-law; the
offer of the wages was four times refused by them, and then accepted;
and the chance of their being able to live and labor together was
finally decided to be too fortunate to let slip. When the shock and
surprise was over all gradually became cheerful, and, as the matter
was more calmly discussed, the first conjectured difficulties somehow
resolved themselves into trifles.
It was the simplest and quietest wedding,--at home, on an August
morning. Farmer Meadows then drove the bridal pair half-way on their
journey, to the old country tavern, where a fresh conveyance had been
engaged for them. The same evening they reached the farm-house in the
valley, and Jacob's happy mood gave place to an anxious uncertainty as
he remembered the period of deception upon which Susan was entering.
He keenly watched his father's face when they arrived, and was a little
relieved when he saw that his wife had made a good first impression.
“So, this is my new housekeeper,” said the old man. “I hope you will
suit me as well as your husband does.”
“I'll do my best, sir,” said she; “but you must have patience with me
for a few days, until I know your ways and wishes.”
“Mr. Flint,” said Sally, “shall I get supper ready?” Susan looked up in
astonishment at hearing the name.
“Yes,” the old man remarked, “we both have the same name. The fact is,
Jacob and I are a sort of relations.”
Jacob, in spite of his new happiness, continued ill at ease, although
he could not help seeing how his father brightened under Susan's genial
influence, how satisfied he was with her quick, neat, exact ways and the
cheerfulness with which she fulfilled her duties. At the end of a week,
the old man counted out the wages agreed upon for both, and his delight
culminated at the frank simplicity with which Susan took what she
supposed she had fairly earned.
“Jacob,” he whispered when she had left the room, “keep quiet one more
week, and then I'll let her know.”
He had scarcely spoken, when Susan burst into the room again, crying,
“Jacob, they are coming, they have come!”
“Who?”
“Father and mother; and we didn't expect them, you know, for a week
yet.”
All three went to the door as the visitors made their appearance on
the veranda. Two of the party stood as if thunderstruck, and two
exclamations came together:
“Samuel Flint!”
“Lucy Wheeler!”
There was a moment's silence; then the farmer's wife, with a visible
effort to compose herself, said, “Lucy Meadows, now.”
The tears came into Samuel Flint's eyes. “Let us shake hands, Lucy,” he
said: “my son has married your daughter.”
All but Jacob were freshly startled at these words. The two shook hands,
and then Samuel, turning to Susan's father, said: “And this is your
husband, Lucy. I am glad to make his acquaintance.”
“Your father, Jacob!” Susan cried; “what does it all mean?”
Jacob's face grew red, and the old habit of hanging his head nearly
came back upon him. He knew not what to say, and looked wistfully at his
father.
“Come into the house and sit down,” said the latter. “I think we shall
all feel better when we have quietly and comfortably talked the matter
over.”
They went into the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, which had already been
transformed by Susan's care, so that much of its shabbiness was hidden.
When all were seated, and Samuel Flint perceived that none of the others
knew what to say, he took a resolution which, for a man of his mood and
habit of life, required some courage.
“Three of us here are old people,” he began, “and the two young ones
love each other. It was so long ago, Lucy, that it cannot be laid to my
blame if I speak of it now. Your husband, I see, has an honest heart,
and will not misunderstand either of us. The same thing often turns
up in life; it is one of those secrets that everybody knows, and that
everybody talks about except the persons concerned. When I was a young
man, Lucy, I loved you truly, and I faithfully meant to make you my
wife.”
“I thought so too, for a while,” said she, very calmly.
Farmer Meadows looked at his wife, and no face was ever more beautiful
than his, with that expression of generous pity shining through it.
“You know how I acted,” Samuel Flint continued, “but our children must
also know that I broke off from you without giving any reason.
A woman came between us and made all the mischief. I was considered
rich then, and she wanted to secure my money for her daughter. I was an
innocent and unsuspecting young man, who believed that everybody else
was as good as myself; and the woman never rested until she had turned
me from my first love, and fastened me for life to another. Little by
little I discovered the truth; I kept the knowledge of the injury to
myself; I quickly got rid of the money which had so cursed me, and
brought my wife to this, the loneliest and dreariest place in the
neighborhood, where I forced upon her a life of poverty. I thought it
was a just revenge, but I was unjust. She really loved me: she was, if
not quite without blame in the matter, ignorant of the worst that had
been done (I learned all that too late), and she never complained,
though the change in me slowly wore out her life. I know now that I
was cruel; but at the same time I punished myself, and was innocently
punishing my son. But to HIM there was one way to make amends. 'I will
help him to a wife,' I said, 'who will gladly take poverty with him
and for his sake.' I forced him, against his will, to say that he was a
hired hand on this place, and that Susan must be content to be a hired
housekeeper. Now that I know Susan, I see that this proof might have
been left out; but I guess it has done no harm. The place is not so
heavily mortgaged as people think, and it will be Jacob's after I am
gone. And now forgive me, all of you,--Lucy first, for she has most
cause; Jacob next; and Susan,--that will be easier; and you, Friend
Meadows, if what I have said has been hard for you to hear.”
The farmer stood up like a man, took Samuel's hand and his wife's, and
said, in a broken voice: “Lucy, I ask you, too, to forgive him, and I
ask you both to be good friends to each other.”
Susan, dissolved in tears, kissed all of them in turn; but the happiest
heart there was Jacob's.
It was now easy for him to confide to his wife the complete story of
his troubles, and to find his growing self-reliance strengthened by her
quick, intelligent sympathy. The Pardons were better friends than
ever, and the fact, which at first created great astonishment in the
neighborhood, that Jacob Flint had really gone upon a journey and
brought home a handsome wife, began to change the attitude of the
people towards him. The old place was no longer so lonely; the nearest
neighbors began to drop in and insist on return visits. Now that Jacob
kept his head up, and they got a fair view of his face, they discovered
that he was not lacking, after all, in sense or social qualities.
In October, the Whitney place, which had been leased for several years,
was advertised to be sold at public sale. The owner had gone to the city
and become a successful merchant, had outlived his local attachments,
and now took advantage of a rise in real estate to disburden himself of
a property which he could not profitably control.
Everybody from far and wide attended the sale, and, when Jacob Flint and
his father arrived, everybody said to the former: “Of course you've
come to buy, Jacob.” But each man laughed at his own smartness, and
considered the remark original with himself.
Jacob was no longer annoyed. He laughed, too, and answered: “I'm afraid
I can't do that; but I've kept half my word, which is more than most men
do.”
“Jake's no fool, after all,” was whispered behind him.
The bidding commenced, at first very spirited, and then gradually
slacking off, as the price mounted above the means of the neighboring
farmers. The chief aspirant was a stranger, a well-dressed man with
a lawyer's air, whom nobody knew. After the usual long pauses and
passionate exhortations, the hammer fell, and the auctioneer, turning to
the stranger, asked, “What name?”
“Jacob Flint!”
There was a general cry of surprise. All looked at Jacob, whose eyes and
mouth showed that he was as dumbfoundered as the rest.
The stranger walked coolly through the midst of the crowd to Samuel
Flint, and said, “When shall I have the papers drawn up?”
“As soon as you can,” the old man replied; then seizing Jacob by the
arm, with the words, “Let's go home now!” he hurried him on.
The explanation soon leaked out. Samuel Flint had not thrown away his
wealth, but had put it out of his own hands. It was given privately to
trustees, to be held for his son, and returned when the latter should
have married with his father's consent. There was more than enough to
buy the Whitney place.
Jacob and Susan are happy in their stately home, and good as they are
happy. If any person in the neighborhood ever makes use of the phrase
“Jacob Flint's Journey,” he intends thereby to symbolize the good
fortune which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and shrewdness.