When Zeph left Miss Sophy’s door he had in his mind no specific plan of
action, although from his brisk gait one would have supposed him to have
in view a definite goal which he wished to reach in the shortest possible
time. He walked on, looking neither to the right nor the left, till he
reached the outskirts of the town, at the farthest possible remove from
his own house. Here the land fell away abruptly into bottoms through
which ran a stream, low and shrunken now from the long drought. The
sight of the water was the first thing which roused him from the vague
yet painful reverie in which he had been walking. As he looked into the
water, he thought to himself, “If it was ’s high ’s I’ve seen it in the
spring freshets, I believe I’d jump in and make an end o’ this misery.
Perhaps ’twould be better for her if I was out o’ the world altogether.
But a fellow ’d have to hold himself down, to drown in that depth o’
water.” And with a dreary smile at the thought he turned back towards the
town. Suddenly a new idea struck him.
“Mebbe she’s gone home now, an’ she’ll be worse ’n ever, not findin’ any
fire nor nothin’ to cook. I’ll go home an’ clear up, and get some steak!”
He put his hand in his pocket and drew out the few bits of money he had
there,—less than two dollars in all. He sighed bitterly as he looked at
it. “Come to that, has it, an’ I hain’t bought a mouthful to eat to-day!
Don’t take long to play a man out, lying by this way. But there’s enough
for a good supper to-night!” And he quickened his pace.
How many times had he made just such bootless returns as this, each time
lured on by a stronger and stronger hope that surely now she would
have come back; he would see a light at the window telling him she was
there; she must have come by this time! And each time it had been only
a delusion; each time the empty, silent house and the cold, blackened
hearth had mocked his misery anew, and he had turned away sicker at
heart, more despairing than ever, to resume his hopeless quest.
“She likes beefsteak better ’n anythin’ else,” he said to himself as he
entered the streets once more and looked on the brightly lighted shops
on either hand. “I’ll get a first-rate good one; and there’s a bit o’
horse-radish left in the tumbler; she likes that.” And as he went on with
his foolish, affectionate plannings, the hope in his bosom grew stronger,
till he half persuaded himself that he knew she was at home waiting for
him to bring the supper, or that his thus making ready for her would
bring her before long. And yet he had done this very thing, hoped this
unreasoning hope, scores of times before, all in vain. Why did he still
continue to hope? He could not have told.
As he paid for the meat the butcher, eying him closely, said, “All well
at home, Riker?”
Zeph gave a slight start, but recovering himself instantly, replied,
“Thank you; I hope so. Hain’t been home since mornin’.”
“Don’t that beat all?” said the butcher, after he had gone, turning
to his assistant. “Nobody’s never heard Zeph Riker admit it yet when
his wife’s run off from him an’ he’s a huntin’ her; an’ he don’t never
exactly lie about it neither. He’s always got his answer ready.”
“He’s a blamed fool he don’t bill her,” said the assistant.
“That’s so,” replied the other. “A little teched in the upper story, I
reckon. But he’s a good fellow ’s ever lived; an’ she’s a handsome huzzy.
I expect he can’t let go on her.”
“Well, I’d let go on her mighty quick if she b’longed to me. I know that!
I say he’s a blamed fool!” replied the assistant, waxing wrathy. “Why,
she’s been took up, ’n’ in jail. She was down to the beer-garden with
that Nat ’n’ a lot o’ others, ’n’ they all got tight, ’n’ kicked up such
a row the night watchman clapped the hull batch of ’em into the lock-up;
’n’ Riker he went right into court ’n’ paid everything, ’n’ got her out
’n’ took her home. She might ha’ rotted there for all me, if I’d been her
husband.”
“When ye’ve got a wife o’ your own, mebbe ye’ll know more ’n you do now,”
said the butcher, going to the door and looking after Zeph’s figure, now
nearly lost in the darkness. “He’s a streakin’ it like lightnin’. I do
believe the fellow thinks she’s to home waitin’ for him.”
“Where is she?” asked the assistant.
“Out on the mesa, in them freighters’ camp,” replied the butcher. “She’s
been there three days, cookin’ for ’em, ’n’ trainin’ like Sam Hill. I
tell you she’s a flyer! But she can cook, you bet. Tim was in to-day
buyin’ veal ’n’ a turkey. He said they was goin’ to keep Sunday in that
camp, and no mistake! they’d got Rusha Riker for cook and Sal Leeson for
preacher! If Riker’d ever ask anybody where she’s gone to, he’d find out
a heap quicker ’n he does. But he’s too proud. He never opens his head
to nobody, an’ there ain’t nobody goin’ to volunteer to tell him; ’n’ so
he goes sozzlin’ round, ’n’ wastin’ his time, ’n’ gettin’ out o’ pocket.
I hain’t much patience with him myself, I own; but I don’t know how we’d
any of us act if we was placed just ’s he is. It’s pretty hard tellin’.”
As Zeph drew near his home he walked faster. The more he thought,
the surer he felt she would be there; the more he blamed himself for
not having had everything ready for her at early dusk. “I might ha’
remembered,” he said to himself remorsefully, “that its bein’ Saturday
night ’d be likely to bring her home, for she hain’t took none o’ her
best things nor the youngsters’, an’ of course she’ll come back to get
’em even if she don’t stay.” And he broke into a run at the top of
the hill above the Flat walling it to the west. Twinkling lights like
fireflies shone all over the place; the humble homes there were thick
set; a rush of emotion came over Zeph as he saw the glimmering lights.
“All them homes,” he thought, “an’ not one of ’em ’s got such trouble ’s
I have! God! but it’s hard!” And he pressed on, newly disheartened, as so
many lonely souls have been, by the simple sight of home-lights gleaming.
As he turned the corner, where, if a light were burning in his own window
it would greet his eye, his heart beat loud. “If she ain’t there this
time I think it’ll kill me!” he muttered.
All was dark. She was not there. He stopped, gazed, threw down his
parcels on the ground, and folded his arms on his breast. The moon was
just coming up in the east, beyond the wide plains which stretched away,
it seemed endlessly. Zeph looked at it with dogged dislike. “I don’t need
no moonlight to-night,” he thought. “I forgot ’twas full moon. I might
ha’ known she wouldn’t come home early if ’twas full moon. She’s foolin’
somewhere.”
The moon came up fast; its white light fell on the beams of the
unfinished frame, which stood mute record of the terrible ruin of all
Zeph’s plans and hopes of a home. The outlines of the building loomed out
against the sky like a black skeleton, and smote Zeph’s very heart. “Just
about ’s much home ’s I’ve got,” he said to himself. “A kind of a ghost
it looks like, in this light, ’n’ that’s about what it is! I believe
I’ll take the thing down. The lumber ’d bring considerable. But she’ll
throw it up at me if I do; she’s always blamin’ me for not finishin’ it.
I guess most folks ’d say the house she’s got’s good enough to run away
from!” And Zeph strode on gloomily, with reluctant steps.
Entering the house, he looked around the room with a bitter expression on
his face. “I’ve a mind to clear out too,” he thought. “What’s the use o’
goin’ on this way? But, no, I can’t. I can’t leave her so long ’s there’s
a chance o’ gettin’ her right. She did care for me once, I know she did;
an’ she is real fond o’ the children; there can’t nobody say she doesn’t
love them even if she has got so set against me; an’ if she hadn’t got
some good heart somewhere she’d hate them too just because I’m their
father. I’ve heard o’ women’s turnin’ thet way till they couldn’t bide
the sight o’ husband nor children, either one o’ them. It’s a kind o’
craziness comes over ’em. Poor Rushy! Seems’s if she must be crazy.”
While thinking these thoughts he was mechanically moving about the
rooms, setting things into place, putting back the tumbled clothes into
the drawers, making the beds; then he lighted a fire in the stove, and
opening the drawer in the table took out a fresh candle and set it in the
candlestick. “That’s the last but one,” he said, “but I’ll light it, an’
then if she does come in, she’ll know I’ll be back before long.”
He put the beefsteak on a platter by the candlestick. “So she’ll see it
first thing,” he thought, “an’ know I got something good for supper.”
Then he went out, locking the door and putting the key in their usual
hiding-place for it,—a hollow under the tying-post.
The thought of the freighters’ camp had at last occurred to him, and he
could not rest now till he had found out if his wife were there. He
groaned aloud as he turned his steps toward the mesa.
“I’d ’most as soon find her dead,” he thought, “as find her there! Don’t
know but I’d sooner! If she’s been there all this time, ’tain’t for no
good. But then she’s got the children along. She wouldn’t—” And Zeph
clenched his hands and groaned again.
The “mesa” was a high table-land stretching away to the north of the
town, not over a quarter of a mile wide on the top. Its sides were
broken up into alternating shallow cañons and soft rounding ridges,
grass-grown,—good places for grazing and shelter; at the base of the
western side ran a little brook. It was a favorite spot for camping, and
at times in the summer looked like an army encampment, so thickly dotted
was it with white tents and wagons and picketed horses.
“It’s the strangest thing I never thought o’ that before!” mused Zeph as
he struck out into the plain. “They’ll pay good wages to a cook, the boys
will, when they’re in town; and Rushy can’t be beat at cookin’, that’s
one thing.” And he tried manfully to keep out all other interpretations
of her presence there. “If so be’s she’s here,” he reiterated to himself,
“I’m a dumb fool to cry out ’fore I know I’m hurt worse ’n I am by just
not knowin’ what’s got her.”
The moon was riding high in the heavens and flooding plain, mesa,
mountains, all, with a light hardly less clear than sun, as Zeph finally
climbed up through one of the shorter cañons and came out on the top of
the mesa. The freighters’ camp was close before him,—so close that he
started, and involuntarily retreated a step or two into cover of the
ridge, lest he should be too suddenly seen. There was but one tent. From
that came sounds of fiddling and riotous laughter.
“She’s there, for sure!” sighed Zeph. “Lord have mercy on me! Has she
got them children in there this time o’ night?” and he glanced up at the
moon. “Ten o’clock if it’s a minute! The poor young uns!”
There were ten of the freight-wagons arranged in a circle around the
tent, some of them with rounded white tops. Cautiously Zeph stole up to
one of these, parted the flaps at the back, and looked in. Surely his
fatherly instinct had guided him to the spot. There lay his two children
sound asleep on a straw bed in the bottom of the wagon. Surprise, joy,
anguish, all held Zeph dumb. As he stood looking at them the boy raised
his head and opened his eyes.
“Pappy, pappy!” he cried, and scrambled towards him, rousing the baby,
who began to whimper.
“Hush, sis, hush!” he exclaimed. “Mammy said she’d whip ye if ye cried!
It’s pappy! Don’t ye know pappy?” In a second more the little creature
was in her father’s arms, and for a brief moment Zeph felt himself glad.
Only for a moment, however.
“Zephie,” he said, “where’s your mammy?”
“In there,” replied the child, pointing towards the tent. “There’s a lot
o’ men in there; they’re dancin’; the men’s beds is all took out.”
“Who’s there besides mammy? any other women besides mammy?” asked Zeph,
his words stifling him as he spoke them.
“Nobody but Sal,” replied Zephie. “She’s here all the time to help mam
cook. Mam says she never cooked so much vittles before. Mam reckons they
must ben starved where they come from. Splendid vittles, pap, they has!
It’s bully! Why didn’t you come too, pap? Mam was tellin’ some o’ the men
she was a lookin’ for ye to come ’fore now.”
Bitter gall and wormwood to the father’s ears were these innocent
prattlings of his boy. Too well he knew the gibe and jest with which his
wife had told “some of the men” she was looking for him to appear on the
scene. Too well he knew the “Sal” who was her assistant,—one of the most
notorious women in the town, and sister of the man to whom Zeph still
persuaded himself he owed all the misery which had come into his married
life. He was mistaken. Nat Leeson was merely one man among many who
had had right to mock at his dishonor; but it was Nat Leeson with whom
his wife’s relations were now openly and flauntingly intimate. It was
Nat Leeson for whom she really cared, so far as it was in her shallow,
unprincipled nature to care for any man.
“We’re comin’ home to-morrow, pap,” continued Zephie; “mam says she’s
tired out; ’n’ the teams is all goin’ to start up the mountains early
Monday mornin’; so mam ’n’ Sally’s goin’ to cook up lots o’ vittles
to-morrow for ’em to take, ’n’ then we’re comin’ home.”
“Be ye? That’s good!” said Zeph. “You tell mammy pap’s real glad ye’re
comin’ home, will ye?”
“Stay, pap,” replied the boy. “You stay, too; there’s lots room in here.
Sal and mam and us all sleeps in here. You stay; we’re goin’ to have
turkey to-morrow,—an awful big one.”
“No, I can’t stay, my boy,” replied Zeph. “Mammy’s too busy. She don’t
want me. You help her all you can, Zephie, an’ you be sure ’n’ tell her
pap was here, ’n’ he was dreadful glad you was all comin’ home to-morrow,
will ye? Tell her pap’s ben dreadful lonesome. Don’t ye forget now to
tell her ’s soon ’s she comes to bed.”
“I’ll tell her ’n the mornin’,” said Zephie. “I’ll be asleep when she
comes to bed.”
“No, you tell her to-night, Zephie,” said his father. “You stay awake
till she comes. She’ll be here pretty soon, I guess. It’s late now.”
“Well, I’ll try,” said the child; “but, pap, I’ll be awful sleepy ’s soon
’s you’re gone. Why don’t you go up ’n’ speak to her in the tent?”
“Oh, I don’t want to interrupt the dancing!” said poor Zeph. “I don’t
know any o’ the men.”
“Yes, Nat’s there! you know him,” said the child. “All the rest is
freighters.”
This was the last drop in unhappy Zeph’s cup. It overflowed.
“I’ll—” he began in a loud tone. “No, I won’t either,” he continued;
and kissing the baby, who had nestled herself to sleep in his arms,
he laid her gently down on the straw, and then kissing the boy, said,
“Good-night, Zephie; be a good boy, and take care of your little sister.
Good-night; I must go now.” And as cautiously as he had come, he stole
down the cañon and was gone.
Skirting along the base of the mesa for some rods, he climbed up again
at a point some distance the other side of the tent, where stood a clump
of huge pine-trees. Seating himself on the ground, partially hid by the
trunk of the largest of these trees, he fixed his eyes on the tent. Now
that he knew his wife was there, he would watch the place all night. It
appeared to him that the moon stood still in the sky, so long did the
moments seem before the freighters’ revelry broke up. At last, with loud
laughing and talking, the party came out from the tent and separated for
the night: the men going to their respective wagons, and his wife and
Sal—with what breathless anguish he watched their every step!—to the
wagon in which the children lay. Soon the lights were all out, and the
stillness, the unutterable wilderness stillness, rested on the place.
Zeph drew a long breath of relief. “That’s over!” he said aloud, and
leaned his head back against the tree.
He had eaten nothing since morning, but he was not conscious of hunger
or faintness. He had been under such a mental strain that all physical
sensations were dulled. He could not have told, had he been asked, when
he last ate food. Matters seemed to him to be fast approaching a crisis
in his life; he felt a vague terror of he knew not what,—some terrible
catastrophe approaching. He had felt this fear-stricken presentiment
growing within him rapidly during the last three days. None of his
previous experiences of suffering in consequence of his wife’s conduct
had so told upon him. No one of her unexplained or only too well
explained absences from home had crushed him like this last one. As
he sat hour after hour in this strange solitude, alone, as it almost
seemed, in the universe, with the vast star-set dome of the sky above him
and the vast rayless plains stretching around him, the near mountains
looming up colossal and black like an eternal barrier in the west, he
lived these absences all over again in full and harrowing detail.
The first one,—that was three years ago. How well he recollected his
fright when he found her gone; the angry incredulity with which he heard
Gammer Stein’s half-implied reflection on her character that night;
the joy with which he welcomed her back the next morning, and the full
acceptance he had given to her story of having been watching with the
sick child of a neighbor, the child too sick to be left, and no one in
the house who could be sent with a message to him. It was not many weeks
before he knew that this was a shameful, shameless lie. And after that
miseries had thickened in his life,—his own house a gathering-place of
the disgraceful and the disgraced; his wife oftener and oftener absent,
sometimes with excuse, sometimes without; her intimate associates men
and women with whom no self-respecting person would consort; his earnings
wasted on fineries or worse.
“It’s been just a hell on earth, that’s what it’s been,” he thought, as
he buried his face in his hands at some of the reminiscences. That brief
interval of quiet of a few months during which the last child had been
born,—the little girl from whose unconscious influence over the mother’s
heart he had hoped much,—recurred to him now, in this bitter retrospect,
merely as an intensification of his woe. “And me hopin’ its bein’ a
girl might maybe save her! I don’t see why I thought that’d make any
difference if the boy didn’t!”
How vividly he recalled the day when they were discussing the baby’s
name; and his wife having expressed the desire to give it her own name,
he had taken heart from that, and said to her meaningly, “Would ye really
like to have her called by your name, Rushy?” and she, in her usual
flippant tone, and yet he fancied with a shade of feeling in her face,
had answered, “You’ve got the boy named for you, an’ I should think the
girl ought to be named for me; that’s no more ’n fair;” and he had made
haste to reply, “Of course ’tain’t, an’ I’d rather call her Rushy than
any other name ’n all the world, ’n’ you know that, wife, without my
tellin’ ye; ’n’ she’s goin’ to favor you in looks, too; anybody with half
an eye can see that a’ready; so there’ll be two Rushy Rikers the first
thing ye know.” And when he said this his wife colored, and said, “I
hope to goodness she’ll turn out better ’n the first Rushy Riker!” And
he, poor fool, had gone about for many a week hugging that exclamation
to his soul as an omen and token of good coming to their lives. But it
was short-lived. Before her baby was three months old the old demons of
love of admiration, excitement, finery, folly, and sin had got full hold
again of her weak and unstable nature, and all was as bad as before, or
worse.
Then came the most flagrant of all her misdemeanors,—the drunken frolic
at the beer-garden and the disgrace of the lock-up; and after that all
sense of shame or of restraint seemed to leave her; and finally, only a
few weeks ago, the most daring of all her escapades, when, taking the
baby, she had gone to Denver openly in the company of Nat Leeson and his
sister; then it was that Zeph, at his wits’ end, had sold some of their
furniture and his kit of carpenter’s tools to get money for the journey,
put the boy into Gammer Stein’s motherly keeping, followed and tracked
her; and for the first and only time exercising his husbandly authority
over her, had brought her home. But it was only an enforced return. She
was sullen, reluctant, full of hatred and reproaches. “A pretty home
it was,” she said, “to bring a woman back to, stripped of half the
furniture, and not a dollar to buy anything with!” If he’d let her alone,
she’d make her own living an’ not be beholden to anybody.
“Hold your tongue, Rushy!” cried Zeph, the only time in his life he had
thus spoken to her. “Don’t you dare to talk to me about makin’ your own
livin’! If you’ll stay at home an’ keep decent, I’ll keep ye in as good a
livin’ as folks o’ our station needs! I’d ha’ had a good house done for
ye now, if ye’d done’s ye’d oughter.”
“It’s easy makin’ excuses,” she retorted; “ye never did have no spunk,
an’ it’s a mighty poor livin’ ye’ll ever get in this world. I donno
what’s hendered your buildin’ the house ’fore now, ’cept your own
laziness!”
“I’ll tell ye what’s hendered me, Rushy,” replied Zeph, thoroughly
angered,—“runnin’ round all creation huntin’ you, ’n’ sellin’ my tools
to get money to follow ye an’ keep ye from comin’ on the town! That’s
what’s hendered me; an’ ’twill hender me, too, s’ long’s ye go on as
ye’re doin’!”
As Zeph lived over this bitterest of all their quarrels his heart smote
him remorsefully.
“I expect I was too fierce with her,” he thought. “Perhaps if I’d been
real lovin’ then she’d ha’ come round. She’s been lots worse ever since
then, ’n’ I expect I didn’t manage right. I’ll try ’n’ see if I can’t be
different to her to-morrow when she comes home. She’s had the children
along with her this time, ’n’ that’s some comfort.”
It was near morning when Zeph finally fell into an uneasy sleep. His
sorrows pursued him even there, and he dreamed a nightmare dream of
seeing his wife at the window of a burning house and being unable to
move hand or foot to her rescue. He opened his eyes with the horror of
this dream full upon him, and for the first second thought the dream was
no dream, but actual truth; for the sky over his head and the whole
front of the mountain range on his right were red as from the light of
a conflagration. Bewildered, he sprang to his feet with a cry, but in
the same second sank down again, saying, “It’s only the sun a comin’ up!
Lord! How it scared me!”
It was the marvellous rosy dawn peculiar to high altitudes. So vivid, so
fiery a glow does it spread over both sky and earth for a few seconds
before sunrise, that when the sun is above the horizon, and the day
fairly breaks, the light seems less, and not more, and the earth and sky
darkened instead of illumined.
All was still in the freighters’ camp. A few faint upward curls of
smoke in the distant town were the only signs of life in the beautiful
landscape. As Zeph gazed on the picture he felt insensibly strengthened.
“’T don’t seem ’s if folks need to suffer so ’n such a world ’s this,”
he thought; “things must come out right, sooner or later, somehow, if
there’s any kind o’ reason ’n anything. It don’t look no ways likely
that God set it all a goin’ jest to make folks miserable! I expect it’s
all our own fault, somewheres, if things goes wrong! I believe Rushy ’n’
I’ll get on yet. If I could once rake ’n’ scrape money enough to take her
clean out o’ this place ’n’ begin over again, that would be best; but how
to fetch that about I don’t see!”
Time slipped by imperceptibly to Zeph absorbed in his reverie, and an
hour or more had gone, when he was roused by the sounds of stirring in
the camp. Hastily concealing himself in a ravine, he lay stretched along
the ground, only his eyes above the edge of the mesa, and watched every
movement. He saw his wife and Sal come out, the children following, the
fires lighted in the camp stoves, the preparations for cooking begun.
Presently he saw Nat Leeson stroll up towards the stoves and stop to
talk with his sister.
“If I see him go nigh Rushy I’ll do some harm, I know I shall,” said
Zeph. “I’ll not risk it. I’ll leave here.” And darting down the ravine
he set off by a circuitous route, on which he could not be seen, towards
home.
When he reached the outskirts of the town the church-bells were ringing.
The sound seemed full of unwonted invitation to Zeph. It was long since
he had been inside the walls of a church. In the first years of their
married life Rushy had been fond of going to meeting of a Sunday, and he
had been only too proud to go with her and see the admiration with which
people looked at her handsome face and pretty clothes. Even then were to
be seen, if Zeph had only had the wisdom to recognize them, the germs of
all the misery and shame which time had since brought. But he looked on
with the blinded eyes of a man’s first unreasoning passion, saw nothing
wrong, thought no harm, feared no evil. He even shared the pride, which
seemed innocent, in the undeniable fact that Rushy was the handsomest
woman in the congregation. And now, alas, it was for Rushy’s sake, and
because of her beauty, that he was ashamed to look any man in the eye!
A strange desire seized him to go this morning and hear what the preacher
had to say. He looked down at his clothes. They were shabby enough,
certainly; not at all what he would once have thought it necessary to
wear to be decent at church. But Zeph had been down into depths from
which all thoughts of trivial considerations had long ago vanished.
He smiled half sadly as he turned towards the church door, saying to
himself, “I wouldn’t have been caught goin’ to meetin’ in such cloes ’s
these once; but I guess it don’t make any difference to nobody but me,
’n’ I feel a real call to hear some hymn-singin’ to-day. It’ll get rid
o’ the mornin’, too, quicker ’n any other way. I hain’t got anythin’ to
do but wait the day out till she comes home to-night. She won’t be down,
I don’t suppose, before dark.” And Zeph slipped in and sat down humbly in
one of the side pews nearest the door, which he knew were free to all. It
was early. The bells he had heard were the first bells. No one was in the
building except the sexton, who was bustling about, giving last touches
of dusting to the pulpit Bible. Presently two women entered, bringing,
one a large sheaf of white clematis blooms, the other a high vase filled
with the feathery tassels of Indian corn and a few of the graceful, tall,
sword-like leaves. It was the custom for the women of this congregation
to take turns in decorating the church for the Sunday services; and there
was much vying among them, and continual exercise of ingenuity, each to
outdo the others in effective arrangement of flowers. As they walked up
the aisle Zeph’s eyes followed them with astonishment.
“If that ain’t just common field corn, ’s sure’s I’m alive,” he said;
“’n’ it’s prettier ’n the flowers be, heaps! Well, I never!” And for the
moment he forgot his misery in watching the women dispose their bouquets
on the reading-desk and table.
Presently one of them turned briskly and stepped down the aisle to look
up at the desk to see if the arrangement could be improved.
“Oh, Lord!” said Zeph. And in the same instant he buried his face in his
hands on the back of the seat in front of him. “That’s that Miss Burr I
was askin’ after Rushy last night. I don’t want her to see me. She’ll be
sure to spry round here askin’ if I’ve found her. She’s dreadful active.”
And Zeph remained bowed over, his face hid from view, till he heard their
steps leaving the church.
It was indeed Miss Sophy; and as she came down the aisle, her quick eyes
catching sight of Zeph’s bowed figure, she said to her companion: “Just
look at that man all doubled up there in the poor-pews. I do declare, I
think it’s a shame to have any such thing’s poor-pews: it’s a kind o’
badge o’ disgrace to sit there; I’ve known lots ’n’ lots o’ poor folks
that wouldn’t set foot ’n ’em, not if they never heard a sermon t’
their dyin’ day, they said. I always feel ashamed when I go by ’em ’n’
shut the door t’ my pew. It’s borne in on me ’tain’t Christian. I think
the Catholics are lots better ’n we are about that,—lots. There ain’t
anything but poor-pews ’n their churches, ’n’ that’s the way it ought to
be,—free to all.”
“How you do talk, Sophy!” replied her companion, good Mrs. Jones. “Why
don’t you be a Catholic ’n’ done with it, if you think their way’s so
much better ’n ours?”
“I don’t!” retorted Miss Sophy,—“nothin’ o’ the kind. But I say they’ve
got the right idea about seatin’ people. No wonder they get all the poor
people;—I should think they would. I wouldn’t stir into our church if I
couldn’t hire my pew, the way ’tis now; but ’tain’t right, ’n’ ’twon’t
last, neither. You’ll see it don’t last. ’Twon’t be a great many years
before there’ll be free sittin’s, ’s they call it, in every church ’n
America.”
“Well, then there’ll be lots o’ rich people ’ll stay away ’stead o’ the
poor people!” retorted Mrs. Jones. “Who wants to sit alongside o’ such a
common-looking day-laborer ’s that?” pointing to Zeph.
“He’s clean enough,” replied Miss Sophy, eying Zeph closely as they
passed out. “I wouldn’t mind sitting alongside of him. He must be awfully
broken down, somehow, to be in here this time o’ day, sittin’ all
scrouched into a heap like that. I’ve a good mind to go speak to him.”
And she halted.
“Sophy Burr, you come right straight along out this minute!” exclaimed
Mrs. Jones, raising her voice indignantly above the decorous whisper in
which they had been conversing. “I do believe you’d take all the dead
beats ’n this town on your shoulders if you could. You sha’n’t go near
the man!” And as Miss Sophy, laughing, allowed herself to be dragged out
of the doorway, Zeph lifted his head with a sense of relief and escape.
Just as the congregation stood up for the first singing, the door of
the pew where he sat was timidly opened, and a lame old woman, dressed
in rusty black, leading a little boy, edged shamefacedly in, glancing
with a mute apology in her eyes at Zeph. Sitting down slowly and with
difficulty, she motioned to the child to stand; whispering to Zeph,
“I’ve got the rheumatiz so’t I can’t keep on my feet.” The child, shy,
and unwonted to the place, refused to stand up, and clinging to her
skirts began to whimper. Zeph reached out his hand to him, with a smile,
and whispered, “You stand up here by me.” The little fellow yielded at
once, the old woman looking on wonderingly at his sudden obedience to a
stranger. When the singing was over, the child, instead of drawing close
to her, nestled up to Zeph, and laid one hand confidingly on his knee.
It was a small thing, a very small thing, but it comforted Zeph. Putting
his arm round the little chap, he drew him closer, and resting his head
comfortably against his shoulder, whispered, “Go to sleep, sonny, if you
want to.” The boy looked up with a vague smile, nestled again, and shut
his eyes. Zeph hugged him tighter still, stroking his hair, and thinking,
“Poor little fellow! He’s got to be a man some day!”
The minister had risen in the pulpit, opened the Bible, and was reading
his text.
What words were these, falling on Zeph’s ear? No wonder he
started,—started so violently that the child opened his dozing eyes and
looked up in alarm at his new friend. An audible exclamation had nearly
burst from Zeph’s lips. He gazed at the minister with an emotion very
like terror. Was this stranger, this man of whom he had never heard,
speaking directly to him, him alone, of all that congregation? Had a
message come straight from Heaven to his soul at this crisis in his life?
Was it God, and no mere earthly voice, saying these words: “I say not
unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven”?
“‘Seventy times seven!’” repeated the preacher. “We have heard it so
often that we do not realize what it means; we set it down as a figure
of speech and let it go out of our thoughts. And so it was a figure of
speech whereby the Master intended to convey to us the great truth that
forgiveness is to last as long as offences last,—unto the very end, no
matter how long the life, how bitter the offence. Is not that the way
God deals with us? Day after day, year after year, have we not been
offending Him, breaking His law, slighting His love? We are old, many
of us; have we yet ceased to offend? Yet here comes this beautiful sun
shining on us, forgiving us anew, this very morning.”
“Just what I was thinkin’ up on the mesa there,” said Zeph to himself,
“only I didn’t put it that way.”
“And even if we took the numbers literally,” the preacher went on, “even
then, do we live up to it? ‘Seventy times seven:’ four hundred and
ninety. Can we look into our hearts, dealing honestly with ourselves,
and say we have forgiven, any one of us,—forgiven so many offences as
that? Friend, neighbor, husband, wife, how is it? Hast thou been hurt by
any one four hundred and ninety times, and four hundred and ninety times
forgiven the hurt,—forgiven it, wiped it out?”
It was a homely and realistic putting of the phrase, but it struck home
better than a loftier one would have done. Not a pew in which some
suddenly remorseful heart, thinking of some one especial offender, did
not own, shame-smitten, “No, not so many as that;” and no one more
swiftly, remorsefully, than the always gentle Zeph.
“That’s a fact!” he was saying in his thoughts. “’Tain’t been near so
many times’s that; an’ I don’t know either ’s I’ve ever once really
forgiven her, out ’n’ out, without layin’ it up to make next time harder;
’n’ that ain’t the way the Lord figures it. ’Twould go hard with us ef He
did! When Rushy comes home to-night I don’t mean to say ’s much ’s one
word t’ her about anythin’, only how glad I am to get her to home again.”
At the end of the sermon the preacher, his whole soul deeply stirred
within him by the attempt to hold up in its true light, shape, color, to
bring within his people’s real grasp the one eternal talisman,—talisman
alike for life and death, for time and eternity, Forgiveness,—paused,
and with bent head and trembling voice said, “Shall we dare now to utter
the prayer—” He paused again. “Yes. Since the Master gave us the words,
we must dare to use them; let us dare now to utter this prayer, ‘Forgive
us our trespasses _as_ we forgive those who trespass against us.’”
Sobs were heard throughout the church, and after the benediction
the congregation dispersed silently, as from a funeral service.
There had indeed been many a grave closed forever in those last few
moments,—closed, and a white stone set in token; it had been a moment of
inspiration for the preacher, of salvation to the people.
Zeph passed out of the door, the little boy still clinging to his hand
and the old woman hobbling by his side. The poor do not stand on ceremony
with each other.
“That was drefful good doctrine he preached,” she said tremulously, “but
’t’s pretty hard to live up to. Guess he hain’t had no great crosses
hisself.”
“I don’t know about that,” replied Zeph, slowly. “I was a thinkin’ mebbe
he had had more ’n common, ’r else he wouldn’t ha’ thought it all out so
clear. ’T seemed to me he felt all he was sayin’.”
“There’s things can’t be forgiven!” she said sullenly.
Zeph made no reply. Her words grated on him. The child looked up
apprehensively as she pulled him away into another road. “I never see him
take so to a stranger,” she said. “Guess ye’ve got children o’ your own.”
“Yes, two,” replied Zeph.
“He’s my grandson,” she said. “All I’ve got left out o’ three boys ’n’
two girls: all dead. But there’s lots o’ things worse ’n death,” she
added gloomily. “I’ve lived long enough to know that. Good day t’ ye.”
And she turned away.
“‘Lots o’ things worse ’n death,’” repeated Zeph, as he took his lonely
road home. “That’s true; ’n’ then again ’tain’t true. While there’s
life, there’s hope.” He felt himself strangely cheered and lifted. If
forgiveness were so mighty a thing as the preacher had said,—and it must
be, since it was all that God had or needed to save the world by,—what
more could be needed to straighten out all the tangles of any one little
life? He felt his heart full of a larger, better forgiveness towards his
wife than he had ever before known; a warmer love than he had felt for
many a month.
“There is nothing love cannot do,” the preacher had said. “The thing is,
to be sure that the love is truly love, and not selfishness.”
“I know I love Rushy,” thought Zeph, “an’ ’tain’t selfish love, I know
’tain’t! I’d give her up to-day, if I could see any way she’d be better
off without me.”
And with his heart full of such thoughts as these he sat down to wait
patiently till night for her return.