_A HEAD OF LETTUCE_.
One afternoon in the end of October, Esther, who had just come home
from school was laid hold of by Mrs. Barker with a face of grave
calculation.
'Miss Esther, will ye approve that I send Christopher over to that
market woman's to get a head o' lettuce for the colonel's supper?
There's nought in the house but a bit o' cold green tongue, savin', of
course, the morrow's dinner. I thought he might fancy a salad.'
'Tongue?' said Esther. 'Haven't you a quail, or a sweetbread, or
something of that sort?'
'I haven't it, Miss Esther; and that's the truth.'
'Forgotten?' said Esther, smiling.
'Mum, I couldn't forget the likes o' that,' Barker said solemnly.
'Which I mean, as I haven't that to own up to. No, mum, I didn't
forget.'
'What's the matter, then? some carelessness of Christopher's. Yes, have
a salad; that will do very well.'
'Then, mum,' said Barker still more constrainedly, 'could you perhaps
let me have a sixpence? I don't like to send and ask a stranger like
that to wait for what's no more'n twopence at home.'
'Wait?' repeated Esther. 'Didn't papa give you money for the
housekeeping this week?'
'Miss Esther, he did; but--I haven't a cent.'
'Why? He did not give you as much as usual?'
The housekeeper hesitated, with a troubled face.
'Miss Esther, he did give me as much as usual,--I would say, as much as
he uses to give me nowadays; but that ain't the old sum, and it ain't
possible to do the same things wi' it.' And Mrs. Barker looked
anxiously and doubtfully at her young mistress. 'I wouldn't like to
tell ye, mum; but in course ye must know, or ye'd maybe be doubtful o'
_me_.'
'Of course I should know!' repeated Esther. 'Papa must have forgotten.
I will see about it. Give me a basket, Barker, and I will go over to
the garden myself and get a head of lettuce,--now, before I take my
things off. I would like to go.'
Seeing that she spoke truth, Mrs. Barker's scruples gave way. She
furnished the basket, and Esther set forth. There was but a field or
two to cross, intervening between her own ground and the slopes where
the beds of the market garden lay trim and neat in the sun. Or, rather,
to-day, in the warm, hazy, soft October light; the sun's rays could not
rightly get through the haze. It was one of the delicious times of
October weather, which the unlearned are wont to call Indian summer,
but which is not that, and differs from it essentially. The glory of
the Indian summer is wholly ethereal; it belongs to the light and the
air; and is a striking image and eloquent testimony of how far spirit
can overmaster matter. The earth is brown, the trees are bare; the
drapery and the colours of summer are all gone; and then comes the
Indian summer, and makes one forget that the foregoing summer had its
glories at all, so much greater is the glory now. There is no sense of
bareness any longer, and no missing of gay tints, nor of the song of
birds, nor of anything else in which June revelled and August showed
its rich maturity; only the light and the air, filling the world with
such unearthly loveliness that the looker-on holds his breath, and the
splendour of June is forgotten. This October day was not after such a
fashion; it was steeped in colour. Trees near at hand showed yellow and
purple and red; the distant Jersey shore was a strip of warm, sunburnt
tints, merged into one; over the river lay a sunny haze that was, as it
were, threaded with gold; as if the sun had gone to sleep there and was
in a dream; and mosses, and bushes, and lingering asters and
golden-rod, on rocks or at the edges of the fields near at hand, gave
the eye a welcome wherever it turned. Not a breath of air was stirring;
the landscape rested under a spell of peace.
Esther walked slowly, every step was so full of pleasure. The steps
were few, however, and her pleasure was mingled with an odd questioning
in her mind, what all this about money could mean? A little footpath
worn in the grass led her over the intervening fields to Mrs.
Blumenfeld's garden. Christopher must have worn that path, going and
coming; for the family had been supplied through the summer with milk
from the dairy of the gardener's wife. Mrs. Blumenfeld was out among
her beds of vegetables, Esther saw as she drew near; she climbed over
the fence, and in a few minutes was beside her.
'Wall, ef you ain't what I call a stranger!' said the woman
good-humouredly. 'I don't see you no more'n the angels, for all you're
so near!'
'I am going to school, Mrs. Blumenfeld; and that keeps me away from
home almost all the week. How do you do?'
'Dear me, I dursn't be anything but well,' said the gardener's widow.
'Ef I ain't at both ends o' everything, there ain't no middle to 'em.
There ain't a soul to be trusted, 'thout it's yourself. It's kind o'
tedious. I get to the wrong end o' my patience once in a while. Jest
look at them rospberry canes! and I set a man only yesterday to tie 'em
up. They ain't done nohow!'
'But your garden always looks beautiful.'
'Kin you see it from your windows? I want to know!'
'Not very much of it; but it always looks so bright and trim. It does
now.'
'Wall, you see,' said Mrs. Blumenfeld, 'a garden ain't nothin' ef it
ain't in order. I do despise shiftless ways! Now jes' see them
rospberry canes!'
'What's the matter with them?'
'I don't suppose you'd know ef I showed you,' said the good woman,
checking herself with a half laugh; 'and there ain't no need, as I
know, why I should bother you with my bothers. But it's human natur',
ain't it?'
'Is _what_ human nature?'
'Jes' that same. Or don't you never want to tell no one your troubles?
Maybe ye don't hev none?' she added, with an inquiring look into
Esther's face. 'Young folks!--the time for trouble hain't come yet.'
'Oh yes,' said Esther. 'I have known what trouble is.'
'Hev ye?' said the woman with another inquisitive look into the fair
face. 'Mebbe. There is folks that don't show what they goes through. I
guess I'm one o' that sort myself.'
'Are you?' said Esther, smiling. 'Certainly, to look at you, I never
should think your life had been very crooked or very rough. You always
seem bright and peaceful.'
It was true. Mrs. Blumenfeld had a quiet steady way with her, and both
face and voice partook of the same calm; though energy and activity
were at the same time as plainly manifested in every word and movement.
Esther looked at her now, as she went among her beds, stooping here and
there to remove a weed or pull off a decayed leaf, talking and using
her eyes at the same time. Her yellow hair was combed smooth and flat
at both sides of her head and knotted up firmly in a tight little
business knot behind. She wore a faded print dress and a shawl, also
faded, wrapped round her, and tied by the ends at the back; but both
shawl and gown were clean and whole, and gave her a thoroughly
respectable appearance. At Esther's last remark she raised herself up
and stood a moment silent.
'Wall,' she said, 'that's as fur as you kin see. It's ben both crooked
_and_ rough. I mayn't look it,--where's the use? And I don't talk of
it, for I've nobody to talk to; but, as I said, human natur' 'd like
to, ef it had a chance. I hain't a soul in the world to speak to; and
sometimes I feel as ef I'd give all I've got in the world to talk.
Then, mostly, I go into the garden and rout out the weeds. I tell you
they has to fly, those times!--But I believe folks was made to hev
company.'
'Have you no children?'
'Five of 'em, over there,' the woman said, pointing away, Esther could
only guess where, as it was not to the house. She was sorry she had
asked, and stood silent.
'Five of 'em,' Mrs. Blumenfeld repeated slowly. 'I had 'em,--and I
haven't 'em. And now, there is times when the world seems to me that
solitary that I'm a'most scared at myself.'
Esther stood still, with mute sympathy, afraid to speak.
'I s'pose, to you now, the world is all full o' friends?' the other
went on more lightly, turning from her own troubles, as it were.
'No,' said Esther gently; 'not at all. I am very much alone, and always
have been.'
'Mebbe you like it?'
'No, I do not like it. I sometimes wish very much for one or two
friends who are not here.'
There came a sigh from the bosom of the other woman, unwonted, and
tale-telling, and heavy.
'My marriage warn't happy,' she said, lower than her usual tone. 'I kin
manage the garden alone; and I'd jes' as lieve. Two minds about a thing
makes unpeace; and I set a great deal by peace. But it's awful lonely,
life is, now and then!'
'It is not that to me,' said Esther sympathizingly; she was eager to
speak, and yet doubtful just what to say. She fell back upon what
perhaps is the safest of all, her own experience. 'Life _used_ to be
like that to me--at one time,' she went on after a little pause. 'I was
very lonely and sad, and didn't know how I could live without comfort.
And then I got it; and as I got it, I think so may you.'
The woman looked at her, not in the least understanding what she would
be at, yet fascinated by the sympathy--which she read plainly
enough--and held by the beauty. By something besides beauty, too, which
she saw without being able to fathom it. For in Esther's eyes there was
the intense look of love and the fire of joy, and on her lips the
loveliest lines of tenderness were trembling. Mrs. Blumenfeld gazed at
her, but would almost as soon have addressed an angel, if one had stood
beside her with wings that proclaimed his heavenly descent.
'I'll tell you how I got comfort,' Esther went on, keeping carefully
away from anything that might seem like preaching. 'I was, as I tell
you, dark and miserable and hopeless. Then I came to know the Lord
Jesus; and it was just as if the sun had risen and filled all my life
with sunlight.'
The woman did not remove her eyes from Esther's face. 'I want to know!'
she said at last. 'I've heerd tell o' sich things;--but I never see no
one afore that hed the knowledge of 'em, like you seem to hev. I've
heerd parson talk.'
'This is not parson talk.'
'I see 'tain't. But what is it then? You see, I'm as stupid as a bumble
bee; I don't understand nothin' without it's druv into me--unless it's
my garden. Ef you ask me about cabbages, or early corn, I kin tell you.
But I don't know no more'n the dead what you are talkin' of.'
Esther's eyes filled with tender tears. 'I want you to know,' she said.
'I wish you could know!'
'How am I goin' to?'
'Do what I did. I prayed the Lord Jesus to let me know Him; I prayed
and prayed; and at last He came, and gave me what I asked for. And now,
I tell you, my life is all sunlight, because He is in it. Don't you
know, the Bible calls Him the Sun of righteousness! You only want to
see Him.'
'See Him!' echoed the woman. 'There's only one sun I kin see; and
that's the one that rises over in the east there and sets where he is
goin' to set now,--over the Jersey shore, across the river.'
'But when this other Sun rises in the heart, He never sets any more;
and we have nothing to do with darkness any more, when once we know
Him.'
'Know Him?' Mrs. Blumenfeld again repeated Esther's words. 'Why, you're
speaking of God, ain't you? You kin know a human critter like yourself;
but how kin you know Him?'
'I cannot tell,' said Esther; 'but He will come into your heart and
make you know Him. And when once you know Him, then, Mrs. Blumenfeld,
you'll not be alone any more, and life will not be dark any more; and
you will just grow happier and happier from day to day. And then comes
heaven.'
Mrs. Blumenfeld still gazed at her.
'I never heerd no sich talk in all my life!' she said. 'An' that's the
way you live now?'
Esther nodded.
'An' all you did was to ask for it?'
'Yes. But of course I studied the Bible, to find out what the Lord says
of Himself, and to find out what He tells me to do and to be. For of
course I must do His will, if I want Him to hear my prayers. You see
that.'
'I expect that means a good deal, don't it?'
'Yes.'
'Mebbe somethin' I wouldn't like to do.'
'You will like to do it, when once you know Him,' Esther said eagerly.
'That makes all the difference. You know, we always love to please
anybody that we love.'
The gardener's wife had become very thoughtful. She went along her
garden bed, stooping here to strip a decayed leaf from a cabbage, and
there to pick up a dry bean that had fallen out of its pod, or to pull
out a little weed from among her lettuces.
'I'm much obliged to you,' she said suddenly.
'You see,' said Esther, 'it is as free to you as to me. And why
shouldn't we be happy if we can?'
'But there's those commandments! that's what skeers me. You see, I'm a
kind o' self-willed woman.'
'It is nothing but joy, when once you know Him.'
'But you say I must _begin_ with doin' what's set down?'
'Certainly; as far as you know; or the Lord will not hear our prayers.'
'Wouldn't it do _after?_' said Mrs. Blumenfeld, raising herself up, and
again looking Esther in the face. There was an odd mixture in the
expression of her own, half serious, half keenly comic.
'It is not the Lord's way,' said Esther gravely. 'Seek Him and obey
Him, and you shall know. But if you cannot trust the Lord's word for so
much, there is no doing anything. Without faith it is impossible to
please Him.'
'I don't suppose you come here jes' fur to tell me all this,' said Mrs.
Blumenfeld, after again a pause, 'but I'm real obleeged to ye. What's
to go in that basket?'
'I brought it to see if you could let us have a head of lettuce. I see
you have some.'
'Yes; and crisp, and cool, and nice they be--just right. Wall, I guess
we kin. See here, that basket won't hold no more'n a bite for a bird;
mayn't I get you a bigger one?'
As Esther refused this, Mrs. Blumenfeld looked out her prettiest head
of lettuce, skillfully detached it from the soil, and insinuated it
into the little basket. But to the enquiry, how much was to pay, Mrs.
Blumenfeld returned a slight shake of the head.
'I should like to see myself takin' a cent from you! Jes' you send
over--or come! that's better--whenever you'd like a leaf o' salad, or
anythin' else; and if it's here, you shall hev it, and glad.'
'You are very kind!'
'Wall, no; I don't think that's my character. They'll all tell you I'm
honest. Wall, good-bye. An' come agin!' she cried after Esther. 'It's
more 'n likely I'll want some more talkin' to.'
Esther went home slowly and musing. The beauty around her, which she
had but half noticed at first coming out, now filled her with a great
delight. Or, rather, her heart was so full of gladness that it flowed
over upon all surrounding things. Sunny haze, and sweet smells of dry
leaves and moss, and a mass of all rich neutral tints in browns and
purples, just touched here and there for a painter's eye with a spot of
clear colour, a bit of gold, or a flare of flame--it all seemed to work
its way into Esther's heart and make it swell with pleasure. She stood
still to look across the river, which lay smooth like a misty mirror,
and gave only a rich, soft, indeterminate reflection of the other
shore. But the thoughts in Esther's mind were clear and distinct.
Lonely? Had she ever been lonely? What folly! How could any one be
lonely who had the knowledge of Christ and His presence? What
sufficient delight it was to know Him, and to love Him, and to be
always with Him, and always doing His will! If poor Mrs. Blumenfeld
only knew!