business or other, and I went with him. I ricollect the drouth had
broke, and the grass and flowers and trees buddin' out made it look
jest like spring. Well, we went joggin' along the pike, laughin' and
talkin', and as we passed Miles Crawford's place we saw Miles come out
on the front porch and look up and down the road. When he saw us, he
come runnin' down the path and motioned to us to stop, and when he got
within speakin' distance he called out, 'If you're goin' to town, stop
by Dr. Pendleton's and tell him to come out here as quick as he can,
for Hannah's lost her senses.' Says he, 'She's been at the bottom of
all the devilment that's been done on the farm for the last month, and
this mornin',' says he, 'I set a watch and caught her at it, and she's
crazy as a loon.' With that I jumped out o' the buggy, and says I,
'Drive on, Abram, I'm goin' to stay with Hannah till the doctor
comes.' So Abram drove off, and I went on to the house with Miles. He
was mighty excited and put out, and kept talkin' about the trouble
he'd had and blamin' Hannah for it. And Hannah was rockin' herself
back and forth, laughin' and cryin' and sayin', 'An eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth.' I saw in a minute she was in a mighty bad fix,
and I was jest wonderin' what on earth I would do till the doctor got
there, and I put up a prayer that Abram wouldn't be long findin' him;
but that very minute I heard the sound of two buggies on the pike.
Abram had met the doctor comin' out to Goshen, and turned around and
come back with him, and the minute I saw the doctor's old
broad-brimmed hat, I says to myself, 'It's all right now.' I don't
reckon there ever was a man that understood women like the old doctor
did, and him an old bachelor at that. I used to think it was a pity he
hadn't married; he'd 'a' made such a good, kind husband. But then,
bein' the man he was, he couldn't marry."
There was both paradox and enigma in this statement, and I asked for
an explanation.
"Now, child," said Aunt Jane, "you're throwin' me clear off the track.
For pity's sake let me get through with one story before you start me
on another. As I was sayin', the old doctor come; but with Miles
ragin' around and threatenin' to send Hannah to the Asylum, and Hannah
cryin' and laughin' and sayin', 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth,' and me tryin' to pacify Hannah and Abram tryin' to pacify
Miles, it was some time before he could come to an understandin' of
the case; and when he begun to see daylight he turned around to Miles
as stern as if he was reprovin' a child, and says he, 'Not another
word, Miles! If you can't hold your tongue go out of the room, for
every time you speak you're makin' Hannah that much worse.' And he
turns around to me and says he, 'Have you any idea what Hannah means
by saying "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?"' And I says,
'Doctor, do you ricollect the sermon that strange minister preached
about a month ago?' Says I, 'I may be wrong, but it's my belief that
that sermon helped to put Hannah in the fix she's in now.' And the
doctor, he thought a minute, and then he nodded his head right slow,
and says he, 'I remember that sermon. It was not a wholesome sort of a
discourse for any one to listen to.' Says he, 'It might not hurt a
healthy person, but if there was anyone in the congregation with a
sick mind, such a person couldn't be benefited by it.' And then he
says to Hannah, 'Was it that sermon that put it into your head to tear
down Miles's corn shocks?' And Hannah laughed and wrung her hands
together and rocked herself backward and forward, and says she, 'Yes,
that was it. Miles has been undoin' my work and givin' me trouble for
thirty-five years, and I've wished many a time I could pay him back
and make him see how hard it was, but I couldn't bring myself to do
what I wanted to do till I heard that sermon. I found out then that
God wanted me to pay Miles back, and I'm glad I pulled his corn shocks
to pieces, and tore down the straw stacks and scattered the bran all
over the stable floor. May be he knows now how hard I have to work to
keep house for him, and may be he'll be more keerful about litterin'
the house up and pullin' things to pieces.' Says she, 'I work from
mornin' till night, but there's always somethin' left undone. Before I
get through with the breakfast dishes and cleanin' the house and
churnin', it's time to cook dinner, and by the time I've cooked dinner
and cleaned up the dishes and sewed and mended a little, it's time to
cook supper and attend to the milkin', and I try to see after the
children, but there's always somethin' undone.' Says she, 'I believe I
could ketch up with my work, if Miles would only stop undoin' what I
do. But it looks like I can't keep up any longer,' says she, 'with him
workin' against me all the time.' And Miles says, 'You hear that? You
hear that? Talkin' about lookin' after the children, and every child
grown and married and gone long ago! She's crazy, crazy as a loon!'
The doctor turned around and give Miles a look that hushed him up. And
then he took hold of Hannah's hand and smoothed it right gentle and
easy, and says he, 'That's right, tell me all your troubles; a trouble
is easier to bear after you've told it to somebody.'
"It looked like Hannah's tongue was loosed, and she went on talkin'
harder and faster than I ever had known her to talk before. Says she,
'I never was a lazy woman, and I always kept up with my work, I always
loved to work, and Miles never could say I slighted anything about the
house, but now it's different. It looks like there's a change come
over me. I can't do what I used to do, and there's times when I don't
seem to keer how things go. I reckon it's my fault, and I'm always
blamin' myself for not gittin' more done, but I can't help it. There's
a change come over me, and I ain't the woman I was a year ago.'
"The doctor, he was listenin' to it all jest as kind and earnest as
you please, and he nodded his head and says, 'Yes, I understand it
all, and I know exactly how you feel.' And he put his fingers on
Hannah's wrist and thought a minute, and says he, 'Hannah, my
child,'--No matter how old a woman was, honey," said Aunt Jane,
interrupting herself, "Dr. Pendleton would always say 'my child' or
'my daughter,' or 'my sister' when he was talkin' to her. Maria Petty
used to say that jest the sound of his voice was as good as medicine
to a sick person. And says he, 'There's one more question I want to
ask you: Is there anything you can think of that you'd like to have or
like to do?'
"And Hannah put her hand up to her face and burst out cryin' like a
little child, and the old doctor patted her on the shoulder and says
he, 'That's right; cry as much as you please,' and when Hannah had
kind o' quieted down, he says again, 'Now tell me what it is you want;
I know there's somethin' you want, and if you can get it, it'll make
you well.' And Hannah begun cryin' again, and says she, 'If I told you
what it is I want, you'd think I'm crazy sure enough, and may be I am.
My head feels heavy and dizzy,' says she, 'and sometimes I feel like I
was goin' to fall backward, and I can't remember things like I used to
do; I don't take any interest in my work, and I can't git to sleep at
night for a long time, and I wake up at two o'clock and stay awake
till daylight, and jest as I'm droppin' off, it's time to git up and
cook breakfast, and I'm so tired that sometimes I wish the end of the
world would come and put a stop to everything. But I don't want to go
to the Asylum. Don't let Miles send me there.' And the doctor says,
'Don't you be afraid of that. Miles will never send you to an asylum
while I'm alive to protect you. But you must tell me what it is you
want. There's some little thing,' says he, 'that'll make you well, and
you know what it is better than I do.' Well, Hannah held back like a
child that's afraid of a whippin', but finally she says, 'You know
that pasture at the back o' the house. I can see it from the kitchen
window. Miles sowed it in clover last year, and the clover's come up
since the rain and it's bloomin' now, and there's two or three big oak
trees in the middle o' the field and the cows come up and lie down in
the shade o' the trees; and every time I look out o' the window while
I'm washin' dishes and makin' up bread, I think if I could jest lie
down in the shade of the trees and look up at the sky all day and know
there was somebody up here in the kitchen doin' my work, I'd get well
and strong again.' And the doctor's eyes filled up with tears, and he
patted Hannah on the back and says he, 'Poor child! Poor child!' And
then he turned around to Miles, and says he, 'Miles, do you hear that?
There's nothing in the world the matter with Hannah, except that
she's worked to death.' Says he, 'Go down to that pasture at once and
turn the cows into some other field. Hannah shall have her wish before
I leave this house.' Miles was an older man than the doctor, honey,
but he minded the same as if he'd been his son; and while he was
turnin' the cows out, we got some old comforts and a piller, and all
of us went down to the pasture and spread the quilt under the tree.
The doctor made Hannah lay down, and says he, 'Now, shut your eyes and
let the sun and the wind take care of you. They're the best nurses in
the world;' and says he, 'I'll drop by again in an hour or so to see
how you're getting on, and Miles will come down every little while to
bring you a glass of water and something to eat. You must stay here
until the sun goes down, and then come up to the house and go right to
bed.'
"So we all walked back to the house, and the doctor went to the front
room where he'd left his medicine case, and he picked it up and turned
around and faced Miles, and says he, 'Miles, lose no time about
getting some one to do your work, for Hannah's going to rest under
that tree for many a day.' Says he, 'There's a time in a woman's life
when every burden ought to be lifted from her shoulders, and Hannah's
reached that time. She's like a worn out field that's borne its
harvests year after year and needs to lie fallow for awhile.' Says he,
'Look at your seven children, your six-foot sons and your handsome
daughters, and think of the little baby lying out in the burying
ground. How can you talk about sending the mother of your children to
the lunatic asylum, and all because she's undone a little of your work
in the last few weeks, when you've been undoing hers all your married
life?' Says he, 'You're a hard man, Miles; your nature's like one of
the barren, rocky spots you'll come across in one of your
pastures--spots where not even a blade of grass can grow.' Says he,
'You can't change your nature any more than the Ethiopian can change
his color or the leopard his spots, but from this time on you've got
to try to treat Hannah with a little consideration.' And I believe
Miles did try. I ricollect seein' him help Hannah put on her shawl one
Sunday after church, and pull it around her shoulders mighty awkward,
jest as a person would, when he's doin' a thing he never did before. I
don't reckon Hannah keered much about it. A man oughtn't to have to
try to be kind to his wife, and when a woman comes to the end of a
hard life like Hannah's, a little kindness don't amount to much. It's
mighty hard to make a thing end right, honey, unless it begins right.
"Hannah got well, though, and the first time she come to church she
looked ten years younger; but she never was as strong as she was
before she broke down, and I always thought she died before her time.
It looked like a curious way to treat a sick person, to put her out in
a field and not give her a drop o' medicine, but that was what Hannah
wanted, and it made her well. You know the Bible says, 'Hope deferred
maketh the heart sick.' And I reckon the cure for that kind o'
sickness is havin' the thing you've been hopin' for.
"Hannah said at first she jest laid still with her eyes shut, and felt
the wind blowin' over her face, and then she got to droppin' off to
sleep every little while, and after she'd begun to feel rested, she'd
lay there and look up at the sky and watch the clouds floatin' past,
and she said she never knew before how pretty the sky was. She'd been
livin' under it all her life and never had time to look up at it.
"Did you ever think, child," said Aunt Jane, breaking off in her
story, "that nearly all the work we've got to do keeps us lookin'
down? And once in awhile it's a good thing to stop work and look up at
the sky. Parson Page used to say that every sunrise and moonrise and
sunset was a message from heaven sayin' 'Look up! Look up! for earth
is not your home.' Hannah said lookin' up at the sky was like lookin'
into deep water, and sometimes she'd feel as if her soul had left her
body and she didn't know whether she was still on this earth or
whether she'd died and gone to heaven; and she believed if folks would
lay off from work once a year and rest under the trees the way she
did, they'd live to be as old as Methuselah."
Had I not heard it once before, this homely tale of woman's work and
woman's weariness, that life repeats with endless variations? Told in
simple rhyme it lay between the yellowed pages of an old scrap-book
and hovered half-forgotten in a dusty corner of my brain.
"Aunt Jane," I said, "there was once a woman who felt just as Hannah
Crawford did, and she put her feelings into words and called them 'A
Woman's Longing:'
"'All hopes, all wishes, all desires have left me,
My heart is empty as a last year's nest,
O, great Earth--Mother! take me to thy bosom
And give a tired child rest.
"'Nay, not a grave! Leave thy green turf unbroken!
Not death I ask,--but strength to bear my life,
This endless round of strange, conflicting duties,
These stale conventions and this aimless strife.
"'I have no part nor lot in such existence,
And I am like a stream cut from its source;
Let me go hence and quench the spirit's thirsting
At those deep springs of force
"'That well unseen neath all life's myriad phases,
Rousing to action, lulling to repose--
A child's first cry, a warrior's call to battle,
A planet's march, the fading of a rose.
"'Give me a bed among earth's flowers and grasses,
Some shadowy place from men and things apart,
Where I can hear and feel the steady beating
Of Nature's tireless heart,
"'Stilling the tumult of my brain, o'er-crowded
With fears and fancies that have banished sleep,
And losing pain and weariness forever
In heaven's unfathomed deep,
"'Till I lay hold upon my dear lost birth-right,
My oneness with all things that were and are,
Can feel the sea's pulse mine, my breath the wind's breath,
And trace my kinship to the evening star.
"'Then send me back to life's imperious calling,
The love that crushes and the cares that irk,
To strive, to fail, to strive again and conquer,
Till the night cometh when no man can work.'"
Aunt Jane had dropped her knitting; her eyes glowed, and she leaned
forward entranced, for the simple verses held the unfailing spells
that rhythm and rhyme have cast over the soul ever since the Muses
touched their golden harps on Parnassus, pouring "the dew of soft
persuasion on the lips of man" and "dispelling sorrow and grief from
the breast of every mortal."
"Why, child," she exclaimed, drawing a breath of deep delight, "that's
as pretty as any hymn. But it looks like anybody that can say things
that pretty oughtn't to have the troubles that common folks has."
Ah, if the power to put a sorrowful thought into beautiful words
brought with it exemption from sorrow, who would not covet the gift?
"But," continued Aunt Jane, "everybody has to have some trials. I
ricollect Parson Page preachin' a sermon about that very thing. He
said folks in trouble always thought their troubles was more than
anybody's; and they'd look around and see somebody that appeared to be
happy and they'd envy that person, when maybe that person was envyin'
them, for it's jest as the Bible says, 'There hath no trouble taken
you but is common to all men.'"
And while Aunt Jane spoke I saw this life of ours as a sacramental
feast. The table is long, and here sits a king and there a beggar. The
cups are many, and mine may be of clay and yours of gold, but the
wine, the bitter-sweet wine, is the same for all. One rapture throbs
in the heart of the Romany youth who plights his troth under the
forest tree, and the heart of the prince royal who kneels at the
cathedral altar. The tramp-wife burying her baby by the roadside might
clasp hands with the queen-mother who weeps at the door of the royal
mausoleum, for on the heights of joy or in the depths of pain all men
are brothers, all women sisters.
"And now, honey," said Aunt Jane, "I've wasted enough o' this pretty
mornin' talkin' about old times. Spring time's workin' time and I must
be up and doin'."
But I caught her hand and held her fast.
"Just one thing more, Aunt Jane," I pleaded. "Tell me what you meant
by saying that being the man he was Dr. Pendleton couldn't marry?"
Aunt Jane hesitated a moment looking towards a certain flower-bed
where tulips and hyacinths stood half-smothered in a drift of dead
leaves. The morning hours were passing and the garden needed the work
of her hands, but my clasp was firm and the call of the past was still
sounding in her heart.
"I meant jest what I said, honey," she answered, settling herself
again on the old garden seat. "There's such a thing as a man lovin' a
woman too well to marry her, and that's the way it was with the
doctor. You might think, maybe, Dr. Pendleton come of plain folks,
bein' jest a country doctor. But, no; his people was among the best
and the richest in the county, and he'd had all the chances that rich
people can give their children. He'd been to college and he'd
travelled around and seen the world, and no young man could 'a' had a
prettier prospect before him than Arthur Pendleton,--that was the
doctor's name,--when he come home from his studyin' and his travellin'
and started out to practisin' medicine with his father. Young and
handsome and rich, and then there was Miss Dorothy Schuyler, and he
was in love with her and she was in love with him. Father used to say
when a man had all that, there wasn't standin' room for a wish.
"Miss Dorothy was one o' the Virginia Schuylers, and the first time
she come to visit her Kentucky cousins, she met the young doctor, and
they fell in love with each other jest like Hamilton Schuyler and Miss
Amaryllis, and before she went back to her home it was all settled
that they'd be married the next spring. The young doctor, he made a
journey to Virginia to git her father's and mother's consent; for in
that day and time, child, a young man couldn't jest pick up a gyirl
and walk off with her. He had to say 'By your leave' and do a little
courtin' with the old folks before he could claim the gyirl.
"Well, it all looked like plain sailin' for the young doctor. His
father begun givin' up his practice--took off his own shoes, you might
say, and let his son step into 'em--and the weddin' day was comin',
when all at once the banks got to failin' all over the country, and
the Pendletons lost pretty near everything they had except their land.
Then, to make a bad matter worse, the old doctor's name was on a
note, and that fell due about the time the banks failed, and he had to
sell the family place and a good deal o' the land.
"They said when he got through settlin' up his affairs he says, 'Well,
I've lost my money and my lands and my home, but I've saved my good
name.'
"I reckon it must 'a' taken the young doctor a good while to come to
an understandin' of what he'd lost. By the time you're old, losin'
comes natural to you, but it's hard for young folks to take in a big
loss. But as soon as Arthur Pendleton understood that all his father
had was a good name, and all he had was his father's practice, he
wrote to Miss Dorothy and set her free from her promise to marry him.
"The old doctor begged him not to do it. Says he, 'Son, you've lost
pretty near everything, and now you're throwing away the best of
what's left.' Says he, 'Don't strip your life bare of every chance for
happiness. Hold on to love, even if you have lost your money.'
"But the young doctor says, says he, 'When a man's money's gone it's
no time for him to be thinkin' about love.' Says he, 'Unless a man
loves a woman well enough to give her up when he's too poor to take
care of her, his love's not worth much. In her father's house,' says
he, 'she's lived like the lilies of the field, and the man that loves
her mustn't be the one to bring her down to poverty and hard work.' So
he wrote to her and told her to forget him as soon as she could, and
love some other man who could give her what a woman ought to have, and
she told him that if she ever loved anybody else, she'd send back the
ring he'd given her. But, honey, that ring stayed on Miss Dorothy's
finger till her dyin' day, and I reckon it was buried with her. Folks
said they never wrote to each other any more, but every year or so
Miss Dorothy'd come back to visit the Schuylers and the doctor he'd go
to see her, and they used to say that he'd look at her finger before
he'd look at her face, and when he'd see his ring there he'd be too
happy to say a word. He'd take both her hands in his, and his eyes'd
fill up with tears and he'd look down at her face, and she'd look up
at him and laugh and ask him if he didn't want his ring back to give
to some other gyirl.
"Well, things went on this way one year after another, the doctor
workin' and Miss Dorothy comin' and goin' and both of 'em hopin', I
reckon, and lookin' forward to marryin' some day; for she was young
and so was he, and when folks are young they always feel certain of
havin' their own way with life, and it's easy for 'em to wait and hope
for the things that's out o' reach. But nothin' seemed to go right
with the doctor. If he saved up a little money and put it in the bank,
or bought a piece o' property, bad luck was sure to come along and
pull down everything he'd built up. His father's health broke down,
and of course he had to ease the old man's way to the grave; his
youngest brother had to be educated, and first one thing and then
another kept comin' up and puttin' Miss Dorothy further off.
"But the older they got, the more they loved each other; and Miss
Dorothy, she'd come and go every summer, till finally one summer she
didn't come; and the next summer the doctor went to Virginia to see
her, and come back lookin' like an old, old man; and not long
afterwards he come into church one Sunday with a band o' black crape
around his hat, and then we knew Miss Dorothy was dead."
"But wasn't Miss Dorothy willing to marry the doctor in spite of his
poverty?" I asked.
"I reckon she must 'a' been," responded Aunt Jane. "When a woman waits
all her life for a man, like Miss Dorothy did for the doctor, it
stands to reason she's willin' to marry him any time."
"Oh! Then why in the world didn't she tell him so?" I exclaimed.
The bodies of my lovers were dust and their souls with the saints
these many years, but Aunt Jane had called from the dead "each
frustrate ghost"; the pathos of her tale thrilled me sharply and I
could not stay my cry of regret over "The counter these lovers
staked"--and lost.
Aunt Jane turned toward me and looked over her glasses with frank
astonishment in her clear old eyes. More than once had I shocked her
with sentiments discordant with her own ideals of life and conduct,
but never so severely as now. She delayed her reply as if to give me a
gracious opportunity to recall my unseemly words. Then--
"Child," she said, in a low voice, "you know such a thing wouldn't be
fittin' for a young gyirl to do. Why that'd be pretty near as bad as
Miss Dorothy askin' the doctor to marry her. No matter how much a
woman loves a man, she's got to sit still and wait till he asks her to
marry him, and if he never asks her, why, all she can do is to marry
somebody else or stay an old maid. With the raisin' you've had, I
oughtn't to have to tell you that."
"Oh! Of course!" I hastily assented. "A woman can't ask a man to marry
her. But isn't it sad to see people losing their happiness in this
way?"
"Now, that's the curious part of it, child," said Aunt Jane. "It's
mighty mournful while I'm tellin' it, but if you'd known the doctor
and Miss Dorothy, you never would 'a' thought they were losin'
anything. At first, you must ricollect, they had hopes to keep their
spirits up, and as long as you've got hope, child, you've got
everything. Of course there must 'a' come a time when they stopped
hopin', and I reckon that was when their hair begun to turn gray and
their eyesight failed. It's a time that comes to all of us, honey, and
when it does come, we generally find that we've got grace to give up
the things we've been wantin' so long; and that's the way it was with
Miss Dorothy and the doctor. To see them two, after they'd passed
their youth, walkin' together and ridin' together and comin' into
church and settin' side by side in the same pew, singin' out o' the
same hymn book,--why it was the prettiest sight in the world. Mighty
few old married couples ever looked as happy as Miss Dorothy and the
doctor, old maid and old bachelor as they were.