“O YE ICE AND SNOW, BLESS YE THE LORD!”
Louis was awake bright and early on that Christmas morning, though, as
applied to the atmospheric conditions of that particular day, “bright”
is a singularly inappropriate adjective. The snow fell, not merely in
flakes, but in clouds, and whether “the opposite side of the street” was
“over the way,” or in Farther India, was purely a matter of faith; to
the eye it was perfectly invisible.
“I don’t see how you are to get even as far as next door with those
things,” said Metzerott, half in earnest, looking first at Louis, then
at the blinding storm.
“Oh! but, papa, I must take George and Frau Anna their presents,” cried
Louis in dismay.
“I don’t see why you _must_,” said his father. “Fritz will be in after
his breakfast in a few minutes; he can take them.”
Louis looked very grave; he turned and took up his picture of the
Christ-child. It was prettily framed, and the inscription, with its
letters of red, blue, and gold, encircled it like a glory. Alice had
used German letters and the German version.
=“Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe, und Friede auf Erden, und den Menschen ein
Wohlgefallen.”=
“I could not be a Christ-kind if Fritz took them in,” he said.
Sally Price, who was busy over the frying-pan, while Polly stirred up
the bread-sponge for the daily baking, which, as they had three families
to provide for, might not be omitted, even on Christmas Day,—Sally Price
dropped her iron spoon and held up her hands.
“Well, if I ever did!” she said. “Do you want to be a Christ-child, you
angel?”
“Papa said I might, and Dr. Richards said, last night, the little boy in
the picture looked like me, and I must try to be like him.”
“Law!” interposed Susan, “I thought the doctor was one of these
infidels.”
“Infidel or not,” said Miss Sally, “he acts like a mighty good
Christian.”
“But talkin’ like that, Sister Sally”—
“Talk! anybody can _talk_: and infidels often talk louder than
Christians, about imitatin’ the Saviour, and such like. I s’pose they
think nobody can keep ‘em up to it, if they don’t want to be kep’; while
a member of the Church daren’t say much, for fear of folks sayin’ he has
back-slid if he don’t live up to it.”
“Can’t I go, papa?” asked Louis, to whom the foregoing had been simply
wasted breath.
“Of course, my son. I will carry you myself. We will show the good
church members two more infidels who can keep up to their word without
being kept.”
“It’s just awful to think of that child being brought up to believe like
that,” said Polly as she covered her sponge and set it away to rise.
“Well, ’tis and ’taint, Polly,” answered Sally thoughtfully. “First
place, he’s one of them children which of such is the kingdom of Heaven,
and the good Lord will take care of his own; and, second, how better
could he be raised than to want to be a little Christ-child, and ready
to cry if he’s told he can’t?”
“But he thinks it is all a fairy-tale.”
“As it were,” said Sally. “What’s the difference between fairy-tale and
history, Polly Price, to a baby five years old?”
“But when he gets older, Aunt Sally”—
“You take my advice, Polly, don’t you never cross a bridge till you come
to it. If the good Lord don’t take care of him when he gets older, it’ll
be time for you to interfere. Now, ketch hold and rench out Mrs. Rolf’s
coffee-pot, will you? and I’ll pour the coffee into it. And if them pork
chops ain’t done to a turn, I lose my guess. Cream gravy, too, for a
treat for Christmas!”
“Last Christmas,” said Susan, “we had nothing to eat but the heel of a
loaf, so hard we soaked it in water before we could bite into it.”
Sally stood for a moment with misty eyes; her volubility was gone on
this subject. Then, as a sound of feet stamping off snow was heard at
the door, she said with fervor, “_Good_ Lord!” and fell to work upon the
business in hand.
The next moment Metzerott hurried in with Louis on his shoulder, and
followed by Fritz Rolf, a bright-faced boy of eight, with much of his
mother’s briskness and “faculty.”
“I’ve cleared a path,” said Fritz; “and, if it lasts till I get back,
I’ll get this breakfast in a-hootin’. But I tell _you_ it’s snowing!
Cover everything up warm, Aunt Sally, or Jacky Frost will stick his nose
into it. Coffee, taters, pork, and hot biscuit! Bully! Ta! ta! see you
later.”
“You’re a-goin’ to see me right now,” said Sally dryly. “S’pose you can
open the front door yourself? Not with that tray in your hands, less’n
you want to play the fall of Troy with it.”
As she opened the front door of the shop carefully, to exclude as much,
or rather admit as little, as possible of the snowy air, those in the
kitchen heard her exclaim, “Dr. Richards! if ever I seen a snow image!
Your very eyelashes is white! Jump off and get warm, do!”
“I wasn’t at all sure of my whereabouts, Miss Sally,” answered the
doctor’s voice, “until you spoke. But for my horse’s better judgment, I
should have lost my way a dozen times—a hundred times—between this and
Oak Grove.”
He had sprung from his horse as he spoke, and was shaking the snow from
a blanket strapped military fashion behind his saddle, wherewith to
cover the steaming animal.
“Oak Grove! the land! You ain’t been twelve miles in this storm?”
“Sent for at midnight,” said the doctor, shaking off vigorously the snow
adhering to his person before he entered the shop. “Old patient, and a
matter of life and death; so I had to go.”
“Well, I hope it turned out life, to pay you for your trouble.”
“I think it will be; she is safe for the present, at all events,” he
said, very quietly, but with a smile from under his fur cap, which Sally
never forgot.
Just at this moment a centaur-like figure loomed up through the snow,
and halted at the sound of their voices.
“Is that you, doctor? They told me at your house to ride out along the
road to Oak Grove, and I might meet you. What luck that I took this
street!”
“Mr. Randolph! What has happened?”
“It’s my wife, doctor, my poor wife! I don’t know if she will be alive
when we get there. I would not trust any one but myself to come for you
in this storm.”
“A poor compliment to human nature,” thought Dr. Richards, “and a bitter
commentary on the happiness of the rich. Metzerott, here, could find
twenty to serve him in such a strait; but they are not hirelings.”
Perhaps twenty self-devoted friends was rather a large proportion for
even a poor man; but Dr. Richards had been four hours on the road, and
was nearly frozen, so his exaggeration may be forgiven, especially as he
was on his horse before the reflection had passed through his mind.
At the first sound of Mr. Randolph’s voice, Sally had re-opened the shop
door, which she had closed behind her, and called out, “Cup o’ coffee,
Polly; be spry!” and as the doctor was about to ride away, there it was
at his elbow, black, fragrant, and steaming hot. He swallowed it
hastily, though he said afterwards that he could have dallied over every
spoonful, like an old maid over her afternoon tea, so good it tasted.
Then he disappeared with Henry Randolph into the storm.
The coffee would have been doubly relished had Dr. Richards known it
would be his sole physical support and sustenance until noon of the same
day. He had sent his tired horse home by a man-servant immediately upon
reaching Mr. Randolph’s; but it was late in the afternoon before Alice,
who had been watching anxiously, saw him walk wearily up the street
towards the house. She had the door open before he reached it. The
snow-storm had ceased, in consequence of a sudden fall in the
temperature, and the brilliant sunshine on the white garment of Mother
Earth, which the rude, irreverent wind was tossing in huge folds hither
and thither, seemed to trouble the doctor’s eyes; for Alice noticed that
he shaded them with his hand as he came towards her, and that they had a
strained, dazed expression when he had entered the study, into which,
with many loving words, she tenderly drew him.
“You walked home, dear! How imprudent! I sent John to ask if you wanted
the buggy.”
“I sent him on to Dr. Harrison, who took my rounds for me
to-day—happily, for I am fit for nothing now. One of Harrison’s horses
is laid up, and the other is not able for double work such weather as
this.”
“It is frightfully cold, and—oh, my darling! what a condition you are
in!”
“Well,” said the doctor philosophically, “when a man has had snow
drifting down the back of his neck and his boots, and settling
everywhere about his person that it lawfully could settle, for about
fourteen hours, and then it has melted and dried on him, he has a right
to be in a condition.”
“I am afraid he will have a right to be ill if he keeps up that sort of
thing,” said Alice. “But how is poor Jennie? Henry was in a terrible way
about her this morning, but I have seen her in so many of these
attacks”—
“Just so,” said the doctor; “poor soul, I suppose it was this one coming
on that made her so—ah—captious—last night. I had very little hope of
her from the moment I reached her bedside; but one comfort is that she
had everything done for her that medical science could suggest. Harrison
was with her in less than half an hour after she was taken, and stayed
till I got there.”
“Is she—why, Fred, you talk as if—she can’t be _dead_!”
“She died about an hour ago, Alice. I would not let them send you any
message, for, knowing how it would shock you, I wished to bring the news
myself.”
Alice made no reply, but stood white and still, her hands hanging
clasped before her, gazing into the fire. She could find no tear for the
unloved sister-in-law, there was no grief at her heart for the loss of
one so antagonistic; but the shock of her death was all the more sudden
and terrible. For Alice was quite conscious of the crisis in her
spiritual life that had been revealed to her on the preceding night, to
which, as to all crises, physical and psychological, she had been long
unconsciously drawing near.
In truth, Alice’s religion had never been to her nearly so real as the
love she bore to her husband; there had been nothing between her and the
Invisible, approaching or corresponding to the unfailing sympathy, the
wordless comprehension and support, she found in him. Her love was
real—her religion an unconscious make-believe; and reality had
conquered.
Upon her realization that the creed she had learned had grown all unreal
to her (that it had never been other than unreal she was not yet wise
enough to know), Mrs. Randolph’s sudden passing away into the unknown
came as a lightning stroke to her own house of life. Nothing else could
have shown her so clearly the change in her own creed, as this death, so
near herself, yet with no loving grief to hide the sharp surprise, the
sudden vacancy. She was utterly silent; indeed, what was she to say? the
usual platitudes had become so unutterably meaningless.
“She is better off,”—but Alice knew nothing whatever about it. “I hope
she is happy!” “I trust she died at peace with God.” “May she rest in
peace,”—none of these phrases would come to her lips. Only there rose
before her mind a sudden sense of the dark unknown into which that soul
had gone out; was it indeed to annihilation?
She turned suddenly, and put out both hands to her husband; her eyes had
a frightened, lost look.
“Fred,” she cried, “what is death? is this life _all_? Shall we lose
each other utterly one day, you and I? Is there _nothing_ beyond the
grave?”
He took her in his arms, it was all he could do for her in her sore
need.
“I don’t know, my darling,” he said; “if there be, science has no power
to find it. We must only love each other all the more while we live.”
“But why?” she cried, “what good will that do? it will only add to the
misery of the one who is left behind. What is the use of love? or of
living? unless we could die together.”
“There are others,” he said, “whom we can help. We may live for them.”
“And what claim have they upon us? If there is nothing beyond the grave,
why not make the journey thither as short as possible, at least for the
wretched? There is Freddy, for example, who has to suffer so much; if it
is right to give him a little morphine to ease his pain for a while, why
would it be wrong to give him enough to ease it forever?”
“Fortunately, there is no fear of your carrying that theory into
practice,” he said, trying to smile.
“Because I am selfish,” she replied, “and cannot part with my child
sooner than I must. But, Fred, there must be some truth somewhere; why
should we not look for it together? There are books.”
“That is the hopeless part about it,” he answered; “there are so many
books, and all so positive on their own side of the question. The
theologian will prove to you just as clearly the whole scheme of
salvation, as he calls it, as the scientist that nothing but matter has
any real existence. For my part, there are two arguments which to me are
perfectly conclusive. I ask nothing further. Whether there is or is not
some sort of Blind Power in the universe, such as the great First Cause
that some scientists are willing to acknowledge, does not interest me;
but of the non-existence of an all-knowing, all-loving, personal God I
am perfectly convinced for two reasons. First, the existence of evil in
all its forms: sin, sorrow, suffering, and death. _I_ would not allow
such things in a world under my control, and a God who is less merciful
than I is no God at all—for me.”
“I remember,” she said softly, “I have always known you thought like
that.”
“But my second reason,” he continued, “is, if possible, even stronger.
Here are you and I—yes, Alice, I too—who would give our very lives to
believe in God and immortality. How are we to do it? To examine all the
evidence, for and against, would take a lifetime of incessant study; and
even those who have given this—beginning, too, with far more learning
than we possess—have reached widely different conclusions. Well may the
Book of Job say, ‘Canst thou by searching find out God?’ but the author,
whoever he was, failed to draw the conclusion that, if there were a God
he would not so have hidden himself.”
“I suppose you are right; at least, I don’t see how to answer you. But,
surely, Fred, there is a great deal in the Bible about the truth being
easy to find. All through the Old Testament it is the Jews who are
turning away from God, and he who pleads with them to return; and in the
New it says that God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent,
and revealed them unto babes; and that only those who become as little
children can enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
“That is, only those who crush down the intellect and believe blindly,”
he said bitterly. “I can find no faith on those terms, Alice; let me
meet annihilation, if I must, with my eyes open.”
For another moment she clung to him, with her face hidden; then she
looked up very pale, but calm.
“I can live without faith,” she said quietly; “but I give you warning
now, that without you and my child I could not and would not live. If
death comes to me first,—well! if not”—
“You will live as long as there is any one for whom you can make the
burden of life less heavy,” he said, “and so will I so far as we can
control our own fate. It has been all the creed I could boast of for
many years, Alice, to say, ‘I believe there are those whom I must live
to help.’ I give it to you, now, in return for that of which I have
robbed you; take it for what it is worth.”
“‘I believe there are those whom I must live to help,’” she repeated
slowly. “It is a better creed than poor Jennie’s, Fred. ‘I believe there
are those whom I must live to help!’” A sudden light came to her eyes, a
smile to her lips. “I will begin with you!” she cried. “Why, how
abominably selfish I am, to keep you here talking theology, when you are
tired to death and half starved, I dare say.”
“My comforts are at least all ready for me,” he answered, smiling, with
a glance at the tempting meal upon the table, and the coffee-pot, and
little dish of fried oysters keeping hot before the fire.
“I thought you would rather have your lunch here,” she said. “Will you
change your clothes first?”
“They seem to have pretty well dried on me,” he answered, “but I shall
feel better for a hot bath; I am chilled to the very bone. And,
meanwhile, there is some one else, Alice, love, who will need your care.
Your brother asked to send poor little Pinkie here for a few days, and
of course I had no wish to refuse. You will not mind the trouble, I
know. The carriage will be here in a few moments.”
“Poor little Pinkie!” Alice’s eyes filled with the first tears that she
had shed for Mrs. Randolph. “No, no, she will not be a trouble; but I
must tell Freddy.” She paused, hesitated, and came back. “What shall I
say to him, Fred? I can’t tell him that his aunt has gone to heaven. I
don’t know that there is such a place.”
“She has gone into the unknown,” he replied; “but that would be nonsense
to Freddy. I do not know what better name you can find, my dear, than
just heaven. And if you don’t believe in golden harps and a glassy
sea,—well, neither do you put much faith in the country above the
bean-stalk; yet you tell Freddy about that.”
Alice went away, not quite satisfied, yet seeing no other course
practically open to her than that suggested by her husband. It was a
comfort that Freddy needed not now to be instructed in the nature or
whereabouts of the Celestial Country. His small imagination took fire at
once at the idea that Aunt Jennie had gone there; and he talked so
eloquently to Pinkie of harps and crowns and angels with great white
wings that, what with his conversation, and the pride and honor of
paying a visit all alone, the little thing dried her tears for the
mother whom she had been told she was never to see again, and was
comforted until bedtime. But by bedtime Alice’s hands were so full as to
promise her every opportunity to put her new creed into action.
For Dr. Richards’s hot bath had proved quite ineffectual to take the
chill out of his bones. Alice found him sitting huddled over the fire,
shivering with what he asserted to be only a nervous chill. He could not
eat, but was insatiably thirsty, and said that his eyes bothered him; he
supposed the snow had dazzled them. She tried vainly to persuade him to
go to bed, until her persuasions were re-enforced by the positive orders
of Dr. Harrison, who happened to come in. Before morning he was burning
with fever, and tormented with all the worst agonies of inflammatory
rheumatism.
Truly, it seemed that Mrs. Randolph had been right, and that an avenging
God was punishing the faithless for their disloyalty to him. And yet how
had this illness come? By spending and being spent for others; by
rendering good for the evil rendered unto him. Has not Christ said,
“Inasmuch as ye did it unto these, ye did it unto me”? Can he return
evil for good?
Only a step of the way can our dull eyes see; and oftentimes that step
is rough and hard, and to us looks very evil. But the evil shall pass
away, the good remaineth.
It was strange what comfort and strength Alice found in her new creed,
meagre though it were in comparison with the creeds of Christendom.
“I believe there are those whom I must live to help.”
Simple and practical, at least.
Logical? well, no! The human mind is, fortunately, not supremely
logical; fortunately, I say, considering the readiness wherewith it
adopts premises whose sole logical conclusion would be worse than the
Spanish Inquisition, or the hanging of the Salem witches. Dr. Richards’s
creed had come to his wife backed by the irresistible force of his life
and character.
But neither of them reflected that in the verb, the little verb _must_,
lay all they professed to deny,—an ordered universe and an ordering God.