THE OLD HOME AND THE OLD PEOPLE.
A little way over the hill from Mrs. Allen's dwelling, stood a low, red
farm house which covered a good deal of ground, and possessed many
pleasant surroundings, such as marked the more thrifty class of farmers
in those days. Rows of stiff, Lombardy poplars stood in lines before the
house, looking more like mammoth umbrellas, verdant in color, and shut
up for the season, than any thing else. Tall, cinnamon roses clambered
up the front, while a whole forest of lilac and snowball bushes cast
their shadows on the rich sward of the door yard. At the back was a fine
apple orchard which filled the air all around with the delicate perfume
of its blossoms in the spring-time, and gave out a rich, fruity odor in
the autumn. A well sweep pencilled its slender shadow along the plantain
leaves that grew rank at the back door, and beyond that, the distant
outlines of a cider-mill could be imperfectly seen through the orchard
boughs.
Every thing seemed natural to the stern man, as he drew near the
homestead. He could not remember a time when the old place did not look
thrifty and comfortable, as it appeared then. A few dry branches
bristled here and there among the poplars, speaking of progressive age,
like gray hairs in the head of a strong man, but they were scarcely
perceptible in the moonlight, and Thrasher could see no change since the
years of his boyhood.
The family sitting room was back of the house, and through the windows a
gleam of light shot along the grass. Thrasher passed through the yard,
and, pausing beneath the window, looked in. The paper blind was partly
rolled up, and he thus commanded a view of the entire room.
Two old people sat together on the hearth, where a few embers lay
smouldering. A round, cherry wood stand stood between them, from which
towered a massive brass candlestick, supporting the only light that
burned in the room.
The old lady was knitting. What a sweet, benign expression slept on her
face! How softly the white hair was folded under her cap! The pure,
healthy bloom on her cheek was something wonderful. It made you in love
with the beauty of old age.
The old man was reading aloud; the great family bible lay open before
him, and his deep, reverential voice could be distinctly heard through
the imperfectly closed window. As Thrasher looked, the old man removed
the spectacles from his eyes, and laid them on the page he had been
reading, while he listened smilingly to some observation that his wife
had made, but which, with her lower and softer tones, Thrasher had lost.
"How many times have we read this chapter together, Eunice--so many that
neither you nor I can remember them; but every reading brings out
something new--something more holy than we ever found before. Isn't
that your experience?"
"Yes," answered the old lady, taking a seamstitch with serene precision
as she spoke. "It seems to me, husband, that one never learns really
what is in the Bible till old age comes on. When we were young, I can
remember being so tired when the morning chapter was read, and full of
other thoughts, that I am sorry to remember now. That is the reason I
always had so much charity for our Nelson. Poor child, he never could
sit still through a whole chapter--boy or man!"
"I'm afraid," answered the old man, with a heavy sigh. "I'm a'most
afraid, Eunice, that we neglected to perform our whole duty to the boy
at the start. He was such a bright child, that we wandered off into
ambition and worldly pride where he was concerned. Now, that we are
getting old, and a'most as good as childless, this idea troubles me more
than a little. Maybe, if you and I had been a little more strict with
the boy, he'd have got over them roving notions, and stayed at home."
"I don't know," said the old lady, putting on her glasses to loop up a
stitch, while a shade of trouble came to her face. "It seems to me as if
nothing would ever have kept Nelson on the farm. He was too high strung
for that. But what then? Every body isn't of the same idea, you know;
and if the education we gave our son helped to unsettle him for our way
of life, it fitted him for another. Remember, he went out first mate
this time."
"He's a brave boy, any way," said the old man, kindling with the
subject; "and if the season of grace has not reached his soul yet, we
must only pray the more earnestly."
"Yes," whispered the mother. "Pray without ceasing, and in every thing
give thanks!"
"If we did not kneel to the throne of grace in his behalf so often as we
might have done in our younger days, we must make up for it now, for our
son will some day make a shining light in the house of the righteous,"
continued the father. "I feel it. I know it, Eunice."
The old lady sighed.
"I'm afraid that even now I pray that he may come back to his home,
before I think of his eternal salvation, for that wish is always
uppermost with me."
The old man smiled reprovingly, and shook his head.
"Ah, Eunice!"
"I can't help it," sighed the mother, confessing her weakness, with a
deprecating smile. "He is my only child--all the precious, earthly
blessing we have. I can't help being proud and fond of him."
"How could you, when I, a strong man--one that the brethren sometimes
look up to, as all the church members will admit--can't keep back the
pride of having a son like that. There's no denying it. Nelson is a
young man that must put a temptation of pride into his parents' path. It
seems to me as if I were a stronger man and you a handsomer woman for
having a son like him."
"So honorable, so handsome," murmured the old lady.
"So strong and energetic," responded the father.
"Ah, if he would but come once more to see his old father and mother."
The old lady bent over her knitting, and pretended to search for a false
stitch, but it was only to conceal the tears that swelled tenderly into
her eyes.
Thrasher could bear no more. The man loved his parents, and those soft
tears in his mother's eyes brought moisture to his own. How innocent
and childlike the old people were, in comparison with him. Satan, when
looking over the flow'ry walls of Paradise, must have felt as he did,
listening to that household conversation.
The old man took up his glasses again, and began to read. The mother
kept on with her work, listening, with meek faith, to the holy words
that fell from her husband's lips. All at once she started, dropped the
knitting in her lap, and listened.
"It is his step!"
The old man raised his face from the Bible, and listened, also.
"Yes, Eunice, it is!"
The door opened, and their son stood on the threshold--a strong,
handsome fellow, such as the father had described him. There was no
outcry of joy, no wordy demonstrations; but a tender gladness possessed
the old people. The mother kissed him, almost timidly. There was
something that awed her tenderness in this powerful young man, though he
did tremble in her gentle embrace.
"My son, you are welcome home--oh, my son!"
There was something hearty and patriarchal in this welcome of the
father. The noble old Christian that forgave his prodigal son must have
spoken much after the same fashion.
They shook hands--the father and son--with a firm, lingering clasp,
while the mother looked on, smiling through her tears. With your genuine
New England housemother, hospitality is always the servitor of
affection. The night dew lay heavily on her son's garments. He looked
pale and tired. The mother's heart rose pitifully in her bosom; she
insisted upon raking open the fire, and getting a warm cup of tea; even
went so far as to offer a cider-brandy sling, with toasted crackers
floating on the top.
Thrasher yielded himself to her tender care. It was wonderful how
submissive and grateful that strong-willed man had become under womanly
influences. He declined tea, but accepted the glass of smoking drink
which the mother prepared. Soon the old man took a tumbler, also, and
praised it greatly; for religious men and elders of the church, in those
times, thought it no sin to make themselves comfortable with a glass of
hot drink before bedtime, never dreaming that their limited indulgence
might lead to excess in the coming generation--excess which even legal
enactments have failed to remedy. Having no fear and no conscientious
scruples on the subject, the old man enjoyed his glass, and filled that
of his son more than once; for, somehow, the color would not come
genially to the young man's face, and after the first glow of his
reception had passed off, he seemed depressed, almost gloomy.
The old lady took her seat again on the patchwork cushion of blue and
red cloth which Thrasher could remember from his childhood, and
attempted to resume her knitting; but the plump little hands trembled so
much that she gave it up, and drawing back into the shadow, had a sweet,
motherly cry all to herself. It was pleasant to hear those two voices
blending together in their talk. It was heaven to know that the whole
family sat on one hearth again. She could not be thankful enough. What
had she done to merit so much happiness at the hands of the Lord.
This pious under-current of feelings mingled with the conversation as it
went on between the two men, leaping rapidly from subject to subject,
as always happens when members of one family have been long separated.
While the mother was wrapped in dreamy thanksgivings, the old man, not
less grateful or affectionate, fell to questioning his son about his
voyage, the fate of the ship, and the terrible scenes which had been
enacted at St. Domingo, while she lay in the harbor of Port au Prince.
Thrasher went into the thrilling details. He was naturally eloquent, and
the intense interest manifested by his parents, made his pictures as
graphic as the reality; but another person might have remarked, though
his parents did not, that he avoided mentioning either his own share or
that of Captain Mason in these exciting events.
"But how long did this last, Nelson? Was the brig kept in harbor all the
time? Some of the neighbors began to fear that she was lost; but your
mother and I hoped and prayed, didn't we, mother?"
The mother smiled on her son, answering:
"Nelson always knows that we hope and pray when he is upon the great
deep."
"But where is the brig now; at her port?" questioned the father, after a
brief pause.
"No, we were compelled to abandon her; one of the most terrible storms I
ever faced on sea or land, took us unprepared. It swept us clean from
stem to stern. Another hour and we should have gone down like a handful
of drift wood--for days and days we floated on the ocean, no sails, our
masts gone, nothing to rig new ones with. The men were discouraged, some
of them threatening mutiny; for a negro and a little boy that came on
board at Port au Prince, the only creatures that I know of who escaped
the massacre, were missing just after the storm, and the fellows would
believe that I had something to do with it, so they sulked and
threatened until I began to fear for my life. Nothing but our own great
peril prevented them rising.
"At last, the brig sprang a leak, and what with working at the pumps
night and day, hard commons and no drink--for I staved the casks
in--they had plenty to do without turning on me. It was enough to put
down any rebellion to hear the water rushing and gurgling into the hold,
faster, a great deal, than all hands could pump it out. So while working
for their own lives, they forgot to take mine."
"Thank God for this great deliverance," said the old man, solemnly.
The son paused an instant, and then went on.
"The water gained on us; we worked desperately, but the brig sunk lower,
and lower, till we had scarcely a hope left."
"Then," whispered the mother "you thought of us, my son."
"Of his God," said the old man, devoutly; "he prayed to God and so found
safety."
Thrasher was no hypocrite; he remembered how different the scene had
proved to any thing his parents imagined, and felt rebuked by their
simplicity.
"Yes, mother, I did think of you both with an aching heart. As for
prayers, we sailors have little time for them. But I was telling you of
our condition; it was forlorn enough. The men gave out and refused to
work. Persuasions went for nothing--threats were of no use. They were
tired out and wanted to die. You have no idea, father, how reckless such
men are."
"No, son; I couldn't imagine it."
"At last, when all was given up, and we had nothing to do but die, a
sail hove in sight."
"Thanks be to God!" ejaculated the old man, lifting his clasped hands,
while tears stole softly down the mother's cheek.
"'Sail O!' That was a shout which filled us with new life. We tore off
our jackets, we searched for fragments of the old sails, our voices rose
in wild, hoarse shouts, that sounded awfully along the waters. At first,
she did not see us, but seemed steering another way. Our despair broke
forth in one mighty shriek! It reached them--we could see a commotion on
the deck. Breathless with expectation, grouped together like so many
ghosts, we watched her slacken sail, and bear down upon us. Then the
strongest man among us burst into tears! That moment I shall never,
never forget!"
"Not while there is a merciful God to thank!" said the father, shaking
the tears from his cheek as a lion flings dew-drops from his mane. Low
sobs broke from the darkened portion of the room. During her son's
narration the good mother had sunk unconsciously to her knees, and lay
prostrate before her God, trembling with thankfulness.
Thrasher went on:
"We took to the friendly vessel, all but three persons. They would not
leave the wreck. No persuasion could move them. It was a terrible thing,
but the ship sailed away, leaving them to their fate!"
"And who were these men, my boy?"
"Rice, old Mr. Allen's son."
"God help the poor woman."
"With the negro and boy I told you of. They had taken the boat and put
out to sea alone--after drifting five or six days hither and yon, they
were taken up by the vessel that afterward saved us. They saw the wreck
and came to her in the first boat. When Rice refused to abandon the brig
they sat down by his side, and so we were compelled to leave them."
"And is this all?--did you never hear of them again?" inquired the
mother, rising to her feet.
"No; we never heard of them after that. They drifted off with the wreck,
and what became of them no one can tell."
"This will be sorrowful news for our neighbor. Husband, I wish some
other person than our son had brought it."
Thrasher arose hastily.
"Good night, mother. Shall I sleep in the old room?"
His voice shook, and he seemed greatly disturbed.
"Yes, yes, my son. You are tired out. Go up to your old room."