But last night was another year, and the new begins in a better mood. I
have shaken off the idiotic mawkishness of last night, and am more like
what Father used to tell me to be when I was a mite of a girl: "A
cheerful Ruth Privet, as right as a trivet." Though to be sure I do not
know what being as right as a trivet is, any more than I did then. Last
night, it is true, there were alleviating circumstances that might have
been urged. For a week it had been drizzly, unseasonable weather that
took all the snap out of a body's mental fibre; Mother had had one of
her bad days, when the pain seemed too dreadful to bear, patient angel
that she is; Kathie Thurston had been in one of her most despairing
fits; and the Old Year looked so dreary behind, the New Year loomed so
hopeless before, that there was some excuse for a girl who was tired to
the bone with watching and worry if she did not feel exactly cheerful. I
cannot allow, though, that it justified her in crying like a
watering-pot, and smudging the pages of her diary until the whole thing
was blurred like a composition written with tears in a primary school. I
certainly cannot let this sort of thing happen again, and I am
thoroughly ashamed that it happened once. I will remember that the last
day Father lived he said he could trust me to be brave both for Mother
and myself; and that I promised,--I promised.
So last night may go, and be forgotten as soon as I can manage to forget
it. To-night things are different. There has been a beautiful snow-fall,
and the air is so crisp that when I went for a walk at sunset it seemed
impossible ever to be sentimentally weak-kneed again; Mother is
wonderfully comfortable; and the New Year began with a letter to say
that George will be at home to-morrow. Mother is asleep like a child,
the fire is in the best of spirits, and does the purring for itself and
for Peter, who is napping with content expressed by every hair to the
tip of his fluffy white tail. Even Hannah is singing in the kitchen a
hymn that she thinks is cheerful, about
"Sa-a-a-acred, high, e-ter-er-er-nal noon."
It is evident that there is every opportunity to take a fresh start,
and to conduct myself in the coming year with more self-respect.
So much for New Year resolutions. I do not remember that I ever made one
before; and very likely I shall never make one again. Now I must decide
something about Kathie. I tried to talk with Mother about her, but
Mother got so excited that I saw it would not do, and felt I must work
the problem out with pen and paper as if it were a sum in arithmetic. It
is not my business to attend to the theological education of the
minister's daughter, especially as it is the Methodist minister's
daughter, and he, with his whole congregation, thinks it rather doubtful
whether it is not sinful for Kathie even to know so dangerous an
unbeliever. I sometimes doubt whether my good neighbors in Tuskamuck
would regard Tom Paine himself, who, Father used to say, lingers as the
arch-heretic for all rural New England, with greater theological horror
than they do me. It is fortunate that they do not dislike me personally,
and they all loved Father in spite of his heresies. In this case I am
not clear, on the other hand, that it is my duty to stand passive and
see, without at least protesting, a sensitive, imaginative, delicate
child driven to despair by the misery and terror of a creed. If Kathie
had not come to me it would be different; but she has come. Time after
time this poor little, precocious, morbid creature has run to me in such
terror of hell-fire that I verily feared she would end by going frantic.
Ten years old, and desperate with conviction of original sin; and this
so near the end of the nineteenth century, so-called of grace! Thus far
I have contented myself with taking her into my arms, and just loving
her into calmness; but she is getting beyond that. She is finding being
petted so delightful that she is sure it must be a sin. She is like what
I can fancy the most imaginative of the Puritan grandmothers to have
been in their passionate childhood, in the days when the only recognized
office of the imagination was to picture the terrors of hell. I so long
for Father. If he were alive to talk to her, he could say the right
word, and settle things. The Bible is very touching in its phrase, "as
one whom his mother comforteth," but to me "whom his father comforteth"
would have seemed to go even deeper; but then, there is Kathie's father,
whose tenderness is killing her. I don't in the least doubt that he
suffers as much as she does; but he loves her too much to risk damage to
what he calls "her immortal soul." There is always a ring of triumph in
his voice when he pronounces the phrase, as if he already were a
disembodied spirit dilating in eternal and infinite glory. There is
something finely noble in such a superstition.
All this, however, does not bring me nearer to the end of my sum, for
the answer of that ought to be what I shall do with Kathie. It would
never do to push her into a struggle with the creeds, or to set her to
arguing out the impossibility of her theology. She is too young and too
morbid, and would end by supposing that in reasoning at all on the
matter she had committed the unpardonable sin. Her father would not let
her read stories unless they were Sunday-school books. Perhaps she might
be allowed some of the more entertaining volumes of history; but she is
too young for most of them. She should be reading about Red Riding-hood,
and the White Cat, and the whole company of dear creatures immortal in
fairy stories. I will look in the library, and see what there may be
that would pass the conscientiously searching ordeal of her father's
eye. If she can be given anything which will take her mind off of her
spiritual condition for a while, that is all that may be done at
present. I'll hunt up my old skates for her, too. A little more exercise
in the open air will do a good deal for her humanly, and perhaps blow
away some of the theology.
* * * * *
Later. Hannah has been in to make her annual attack on my soul. I had
almost forgotten her yearly missionary effort, so that when she appeared
I said with the utmost cheerfulness and unconcern, "What is it, Hannah?"
supposing that she wanted to know something about breakfast. I could see
by the instant change in her expression that she regarded this as
deliberate levity. She was so full of what she had come to say that it
could not occur to her that I did not perceive it too.
Dear old Hannah! her face has always so droll an expression of mingled
shyness and determination when, as she once said, she clears her skirts
of blood-guiltiness concerning me. She stands in the doorway twisting
her apron, and her formula is always the same:--
"Miss Ruth, I thought I'd take the liberty to say a word to you on this
New Year's day."
"Yes, Hannah," I always respond, as if we had rehearsed the dialogue.
"What is it?"
"It's another year, Miss Ruth, and your peace not made with God."
To me there is something touching in the fidelity with which she clings
to the self-imposed performance of this evidently painful duty. She is
distressfully shy about it,--she who is never shy about anything else
in the world, so far as I can see. She feels that it is a "cross for her
to bear," as she told me once, and I honor her for not shirking it. She
thinks I regard it far more than I do. She judges my discomfort by her
own, whereas in truth I am only uncomfortable for her. I never could
understand why people are generally so afraid to speak of religious
things, or why they dislike so to be spoken to about them. I mind
Hannah's talking about my soul no more than I should mind her talking
about my nose or my fingers; indeed, the little flavor of personality
which would make that unpleasant is lacking when it comes to discussion
about intangible things like the spirit, and so on the whole I mind the
soul-talk less. I suppose really the shyness is part of the general
reticence all we New Englanders have that makes it so hard to speak of
anything which is deeply felt. Father used to say, I remember, that it
was because folk usually have a great deal of sentiment about religion
and very few ideas, and thus the difficulty of bringing their expression
up to their feelings necessarily embarrasses them.
I assured Hannah I appreciated all her interest in my welfare, and that
I would try to live as good a life during the coming year as I could;
and then she withdrew with the audible sigh of relief that the heavy
duty was done with for another twelvemonth. She assured me she should
still pray for me, and if I do not suppose that there is any great
efficacy in her petition, I am at least glad that she should feel like
doing her best in my behalf. Mother declares that she is always offended
when a person offers to pray for her. She looks at it as dreadfully
condescending and patronizing, as if the petitioner had an intimate
personal hold upon the Almighty, and was willing to exert his influence
in your behalf. But I hardly think she means it. She never fails to see
when a thing is kindly meant, even if she has a keen sense of the
ludicrous. At any rate, it does us no harm that kindly petitions are
offered for us, even if they may go out into an unregarding void; and I
am not sure that they do.
January 2. Kathie is delighted with the skates, and she does not think
that her father will object to her having them; so there is at least one
point gained.
We have had such a lovely sunset! I do not see how there can be a
doubter in a world where there are so many beautiful things. The whole
west, through the leafless branches of the elms on the south lawn, was
one gorgeous mass of splendid color. I hope George saw it. It is almost
time for him to be here, and I have caught myself humming over and over
his favorite tunes as I waited. Mother has had a day of uneasiness, so
that I could not leave her much, but rubbing her side for an hour or two
relieved her. It has cramped my fingers a little, so that I write a
funny, stiff hand. Poor Mother! It made me ashamed to be so glad in my
heart as I saw how brave and quiet she was, with the lines of pain round
her dear mouth.
* * * * *