MRS. MASON'S RICH UNCLE IN THE SOUTH.
"Mother!"
"Well, Katharine?"
"Nelson Thrasher came home last night."
"Better have stayed away!" answered the stern old lady, thrusting her
knitting-needle into the goose-quill tube of her sheath, which was
fastened, like the leaf of some great, red flower, on the right side of
her waist. "No good ever followed his coming, that I ever heard of."
The color came into Katharine's face at this, for no woman likes to hear
the man she loves spoken lightly of. Still she was striving to lead her
mother's mind quietly to the bad news which lay heavy at her own heart,
and did not feel the scornful tones in which the words were spoken, as
she would have done.
For a little time there was no sound save the rattle of Mrs. Allen's
needle in its sheath, which grew quicker and sharper each moment--a sure
sign that the old lady was disturbed in her mind. After knitting twice
round the top of a mixed stocking with unceasing vigor, amid a great
click and rattle of the needles, she drew a length of yarn from the ball
in her lap, with a jerk, and commenced again more deliberately.
Katharine sat still, for she knew that this was preliminary to a renewal
of the conversation. The first words, however, came out with a
suddenness that made her start.
"Have you seen that fellow?"
Katharine could keep a secret, to her sorrow, poor thing; but she was
incapable of a direct falsehood, so she answered truly, but with a
quiver of fear in her voice.
"Yes, mother, he overtook me on my way home from Mrs. Mason's, last
night."
"You saw him last night, last night, and got no word of my son. Where is
he--when will he come, Katharine Allen? You could not have forgotten to
ask."
"No, mother; but I--I was afraid to say any thing--indeed, I did not
know until this morning, for I saw him under the great butternut tree by
the road, and went out--I did not know what sad news he brought."
"Sad news of my son!" cried the woman, drawing herself up as if to ward
off a blow; "did you say sad news, Katharine?"
"Yes, mother," answered the beautiful girl, stealing close to the
high-backed chair that her own face might be concealed, but her voice
and limbs shook with the emotion she strove to suppress, and this the
old woman felt to the core of her heart.
"Is my son dead?" she inquired, in a deep, hoarse voice.
"I fear so, mother."
"Fear! if you are not sure, speak out. Can't you see that I must know,
or--or drop dead in my chair!"
"They were wrecked. My brother, my poor, poor brother would not abandon
the vessel. They were compelled to leave him."
"They--who?"
"Every soul on board--no, I remember a negro and a little boy stayed
with him."
"And the man Nelson Thrasher left my son on the stormy seas to die?"
"No, no, he only went with the rest; besides, he did not know, 'till I
told him, that David was my brother, or your son."
"And they left him alone on the high seas to starve or drown," said the
old woman, hoarsely. "Katharine Allen, never mention that man's name to
me while you live. If you see him passing my house, give warning, that I
may turn away and not curse him."
"Oh! mother, mother!"
"Be still, girl!"
The old woman's face was bloodless as parchment. She tried to go on with
her work, but it fell from her hands, while she, unconscious of the
loss, kept on with the motion of knitting, and looked down with her
heavy black eyes as if she were counting the stitches that were only
made in air.
"Mother, dear mother!"
The old lady did not speak, but the two hands dropped heavily in her
lap, and her face fell down upon her bosom. The stillness of her grief
was appalling. Katharine knelt before her, pale as death.
"Ob, mother, speak to me!"
All at once the old woman sat upright.
"Katharine Allen, tell me word for word what that man said to you of my
son David."
"Be composed, don't look so hard, and I will--you shake so, mother."
"No, I do not shake. Pick up that knitting needle. There, do I knit
evenly?" She placed the needle in its sheath, and began taking her
stitches with slow precision.
True enough, her nerves were braced like steel, and like steel were her
features locked. Katharine, poor soul, repeated what Thrasher had told
her of the shipwreck, faithfully; softening it with the sweet tenderness
of her voice, and putting in a word of excuse here and there. Then she
came to the end, and told how that little boy and his noble slave
insisted upon staying with Rice, after they had been saved from the very
jaws of death--a terrible death--like that which threatened him.
Now the old woman's heart began to heave, and her great, heavy eyes
kindled with living fire.
"Katharine," she said, "were these three martyrs alive when the cowards
left them?"
"Yes, mother."
"Brave spirits," cried the old lady, rising suddenly. "They were in the
hands of a merciful God, and he will save them! We will not mourn David
as lost till that wreck is heard from. He is wise, and had courage. Had
there been no hope he would have left with the rest."
Katharine's face brightened.
"Oh, mother, if it should prove so!"
"God did not inspire that brave child and the negro to stand by him for
nothing. I _feel_ that he is alive in the return of my own strength.
When a strong man dies, his mother should feel weak, though he were a
thousand miles off. But I, look, am I feeble and drooping, as if the
staff of my age were torn from under me. If I stand upright, it is
because he was, he is a good man. If I feel a power of vitality here, it
is a proof that kindred life beats somewhere in response to it."
Katharine gazed at her mother in astonishment. There was something
sublime in her great faith, a grandeur in her attitude like that which
we give to a prophetess of the Bible. In her language and voice she
seemed lifted out of herself.
Katharine always held her mother in profound reverence, in which love
and fear were so equally blended, that she was seldom quite at rest in
her presence. Now these feelings arose almost to religious exaltation.
With all the softening influence of love and youth about her, she
possessed many of the vigorous and noble traits which gave the old woman
an acknowledged superiority in the neighborhood. With her mother's
faith her hopes arose, and coming out of their deep grief the two sat
down together, and strove to wrest some assurance of the son and
brother's safety from the news that had reached them.
"He is alive--I feel that he is alive--my noble, strong boy!" said the
old woman, as she laid her head on the pillow, but a heavy fear lay at
her heart all the time.
"He was alive, and while there is life we may hope," whispered
Katharine, sadly, as she sank to an unquiet sleep. A heavier sorrow,
alas, lay upon her; the sorrow of a corroding secret which the last few
hours had rendered almost a guilty burden from the new causes of
detestation that had sprung up between her mother and the man she had so
rashly married.
Thus every thing conspired to keep that young creature
silent--Thrasher's request and the mother's prejudices, made more bitter
by that man's desertion of her son in his hour of need, kept the secret
weighed down in her bosom. True, this prejudice seemed very
unreasonable; no one had compelled Rice to remain on the wreck. The same
means of escape which brought the others home in safety was free to him;
but a feeling stronger than facts possessed the old lady. Dead or alive,
she believed that some treachery had been practiced on her son, and that
the traitor was Nelson Thrasher.
Katharine remembered that the man was her husband--that in a few months
she might be called upon to choose between the mother whom she regarded
with loving reverence and the husband whom she almost adored. No wonder
the poor girl shrunk from the moment which was to force the
heart-rending decision upon her. It was a terrible position for one so
young and so helpless. Between these two strong, positive characters,
there was little hope of tranquillity for her, even though a partial
reconciliation should take place.
One gleam of consolation did break upon her that night, when she
remembered her mother's faith. David Rice was as good, as noble-hearted
a man as ever drew breath. It was the forlorn hope that he yet lived,
and would mediate for her and her husband with the stern mother.
It was impossible for Thrasher to visit Mrs. Allen's house; Katharine
told him so on their next interview. Thus the young wife had no cause to
complain that he spent but little time with her, and seemed both
occupied and anxious when they did meet.
After the news which had disturbed her so, the old lady kept her room,
and all the duties of the house fell upon Katharine, so that she had
little opportunity to go any distance from home, and the gossip of the
neighborhood seldom reached her.
Indeed, there was almost nothing for her to hear. Thrasher held very
slight intercourse with the neighbors; and as his father's farm was,
like Mrs. Allen's house, isolated among the hills, they knew little of
his movements. That he occasionally was seen going down the footpath
that led to Mrs. Mason's cottage in the pine woods, counted for nothing.
Mason had been his captain, and it was but kind and right that he should
offer sympathy to the widow. All the neighborhood was excited to pity in
her behalf. What could she do, so proud and helpless, with that pretty
child to support?
The widow was very desponding at first, and went about the house
mournfully, her beautiful eyes heavy with tears, and her red lips ready
to tremble if any one spoke to her. Compassion for her became general.
The kind farmers stopped on their way from mill, and insisted on leaving
a baking of flour at the gate. Pretty girls came with their aprons full
of newly-laid eggs; and a little fellow, diverging every morning from
his way to school, set a small tin pail, bright as silver, through the
fence, and ran away as if he had been stealing. The pail always
contained milk, with more cream in it than ever came there naturally,
and sometimes, on the grass close by it, Mrs. Mason found a roll of
golden butter folded up in a cool cabbage leaf.
Was it these kindnesses that softened the widow's grief, and brought the
rich bloom back to her cheek so early after her loss? or had she some
hidden source of consolation which kindled her face into more superb
beauty, as the earth looks fresher and more heavenly after a tempest?
Certain it was, her step soon regained its firmness, and her person its
haughty poise. She spoke of Captain Mason less frequently, and there was
in her manner something that surprised the good neighbors and repelled
their sympathies. She seemed ashamed of the meagre attempts at mourning
that she had been enabled to make; and exhausted quantities of vinegar
and cold tea in refreshing bits of French crape and breadths of
bombazine, which would look worn and rusty spite of all she could do,
and this brought tears into her eyes when they had ceased to weep for
deeper cares.
But, as I have said, after awhile all her beauty and animation came
back. She began to talk hopefully of an uncle, who lived away off in the
South, who would, perhaps, send for her and little Rose, when he
received her letter, informing him of the helpless state in which they
had been left. No one of the neighbors had ever heard of this uncle
before, and her constant boasting about his wealth and the style in
which he lived, rather set them aback. It cast their own little kindness
quite into the shade. How could they offer fresh eggs and rolls of
butter to a woman who wore her cheap black dress like a queen, and
talked of pearls and diamonds all the day long, as if she had discovered
a mine, and wanted to find out its exact value.