JOHN JONES.
How the days of this year flew past us, we were borne along swiftly on
their wings, and every week was filled to overflowing with pleasant care
and work. John was called in the South after his master's name, but now
he said, inasmuch as he had left him and the old home in Newbern, it
would seem better to him to be called by his father's name, and so he
took his place among us as John Jones. He went to work with a will,
became a great friend to Ben and helped him wonderfully, for between the
saw-mill, the farm with its stock-raising and broom trade, which really
was getting to be a good business, Ben was more than busy.
John was a mechanic naturally; he was clever at most anything he put his
mind on, "and never tried to get shet of work;" and his daily work
proved his worth among us. Matthias worked and sang the long days
through, and all was bright and beautiful before him. He tried to think
John's angel mother could look down from "hevin" on him, and it gave him
pleasure to feel so.
When the fall came John said to Louis:
"I want to know something. I promised the boys and gals that when I got
free I'd speak a few words for them, and I must learn something."
So he came regularly to Louis through the winter evenings, and in a
little time he could send a readable letter to the friends down South.
Newbern was a nice place, had nice people, he told us, and he had been
well treated and permitted to learn to read, but the writing he could
not find time to master; he was skilful in figures, and Louis was very
proud of his rapid improvement.
In our meetings he gradually came to feel at home, and at last surprised
us one evening by a recital of his life, and an earnest appeal to
Christians to forget not those who looked to the star in the North as to
a light that promised them freedom and the comforts of a home. His
large, expressive eyes grew luminous with feeling, and as he stood, rapt
in his own thought, which carried him back to the old home, he seemed
like a tower of strength in our midst, and when at the close of the
meeting, as we walked behind them, he took his father's arm, I heard
Matthias say:
"John, you's done made me proud as Loosfer."
And his handsome son bowed his head as he answered:
"Thank the God who made us all to be brothers that I have the power to
tell these thoughts that rise within me. You feel just as I do, father,
only you can't express it, because they did not let you grow. The heavy
weight of slavery has held you close to the ground, and this is the
foundation of the system. The ignorance of the chattel is the life that
feeds the master's power. Like horses, if slaves knew this power, they
could break their bondage, and no hand on earth could stop them."
Among the pleasant occurrences of this summer were the picnics of the
mill children, who enjoyed two days in July and two days in August
rambling in the woods and taking dinner in the old hemlock grove, where
the trees had been so lavish of their gifts that a soft carpet of their
fallen leaves covered the ground the long year through. The coolness of
this beautiful shelter was most refreshing, and it seemed as if nature
knew just how much room was needed to spread our lunch-cloth, for there
was the nicest spot in the world right in the heart of the grove, and as
we sat around our lowly table every third or fourth person had a
splendid hemlock tree to lean against. This was a rare treat to the mill
children, and oh, the faces of the pictures we painted in these days.
Willie and Burton both had their own friends with them, and when in
conversation Louis spoke of the work of repairing the church and putting
in new pews, Burton Brown said:
"My father can do such work."
"Can you, Mr. Brown?" said Louis.
"Yes, sir," he replied; "working in lumber is my trade; change and hard
luck forced me into the mill."
I cannot tell you of all the events that occurred among us, but when the
smoke from a new chimney rose in the very spot almost where Aunt Hildy's
cottage stood, it was due to the fact that a new double house had been
erected on a splendid lot, and Willie and Burton were living there with
their parents.
Mrs. Moore had grown young looking, though the grey hairs that mingled
with the brown still held their places. Mr. Brown did not meet
temptations here, and as Aunt Hildy said:
"Headin' him off in a Christian way was the thing that saved him; poor
critter, his stomach gnawed, and he needed just them bitters I made for
him, and Louis' kind treatment and planning to help him be born agin,
and its done good and strong, jest as I knew it would be."
Two more little mill boys were brought to Jane to take the places of
Willie and Burton, and Louis kept walking forward, turning neither to
the right nor left, bringing the comforts of living to the hearts that
had known only the gathering of crumbs from the tables of the rich, and
the few scattering pennies that chanced occasionally to fall from their
selfish palms.
Clara's glad smile and happy words made a line of sunshine in our lives,
and the three years following this one, which had brought so many
pleasant changes, were as jewels in the coronet of active thought and
work, which we were day by day weaving for ourselves and each other.
When Southern Mary left us, she gave to Aunt Hildy something to help
make out Jane North's pension papers, and the first step Aunt Hildy took
toward doing this was in the fall of 1853, when she painted Jane's house
inside and out. Then in the next year she built a new fence for her, and
insisted on helping Louis make some improvements needed to give more
room, and from this time the old homestead where Jane's father and
mother had lived and died, became the children's home, with Jane as its
presiding genius, having help to do the work. From six to eight children
were with her; three darling little girls whom Louis found in the
streets of a city in the winter of 1855, were brought to the Home by
him, and he considered them prizes.
To be independent in thought and action was Louis' wisdom. He had regard
for the needs of children as well as of adults, for he remembered that
the girls and boys are to be the men and women of the years to come, and
to help them help themselves was his great endeavor.
"For this," he would say, "is just what our God does for us, Emily. He
teaches the man who constantly observes all things around him, that the
proper use of his bounty is what he most needs to know, and to live by
the side of natural laws, moving parallel with them, is the only way to
truthfully solve life's master problem. Yea, Emily, painting pictures is
grand work; to see the ideal growing as a reality about us, to know we
are the instruments in God's hands for doing great good; and are not the
years verifying the truth of what I said to you, when a boy I told you I
needed your help, and also that you did not know yourself? I knew the
depth of your wondrous nature. My own Emily, you are a glorious woman,"
and as tenderly as in the olden days, with the great strength of his
undying love, he gathered me in silence to his heart. How many nights I
passed to the land of dreams thinking, "Oh, if my Louis should die!"
Father and mother were enjoying life, and when Aunt Phebe came to see
us, bringing a wee bit of a blue-eyed daughter, she said, "If I should
have to leave her, I should die with the knowledge that she would find a
home among you here."
"I don't see why we haint thought out sooner," said Aunt Hildy; "you see
folks are ready, waitin', only they don't know whar to begin such work,
and now there's Jane North, I'll be bound she'd a gone deeper and deeper
into tattlin', ef the right one hadn't teched her in a tender spot, and
now she's jest sot her heart into the work, and as true as you live,
she's growin' handsome in doin' it. I'm ashamed of myself to think I
have wasted so much time. Oh, ef I'd got my eyes open thirty years ago."
"Better late than never," said Aunt Phebe; "live and learn; it takes one
life to teach us how to prize it, but the days to come will be full of
fruit to our children, I hope."
"Wall ef we sow the wind we reap the whirlwind sure, Miss Dayton."
Aunt Phebe was very desirous that John should see Mr. Dayton, which he
did, and an offer to study with him the higher mathematics was gladly
accepted, and between these two men sprang a friendship which was
enduring.
Uncle Dayton had helped many a one through the tangled maze of Euclid
problems and their like, and when John walked along by his side in ease
and pleasure, Mr. Dayton was delighted; and when he came to see us, he
said:
"The fellow is a man, he's a man clear through.
"Why," said he, "I was just the one to carry him along all right. I was
the first man to take a colored boy into a private school, and I did it
under protest, losing some of the white boys, whose parents would not
let them stay; not much of a loss either," he added, "though they
behaved nearly as well as the colored boys I took. I belonged at the
time to the Baptist Church; the colored woman, whose two sons I received
into my school, was a member of the same church; three boys, whose
parents were my brothers and sisters in the faith, were withdrawn, and
the minister who had baptized us all, and declared us to be one in the
name of the humble Nazarene, also withdrew his son from my school, being
unwilling to have him recite in the class with these two boys, whose
skin was almost as white as his own. The natural inference was, that he
considered himself of more consequence than the Almighty, for he
certainly had given us all to him, and I had verily thought the man
meant to help God do part of his work, but this proved conclusively that
the Lord had it all to do--at any rate that which was not nice enough
for the parson--and it took a large piece of comfort out of my heart. I
was honest in trying to do my duty, and it grieved me to think he was
not. Another young colored boy whom I took, is a physician in our city
to-day, and another who came to my house to be instructed has been
graduated at the Normal School of our State with high honors, being
chosen as the valedictorian of the class, and he is to-day principal of
a Philadelphia school.
"I tell you this truth has always been before me, and I have run the
risk of my life almost daily in practising upon it. My school was really
injured for a time, and dwindled down to a few scholars, but I kept
right along, and the seed which was self-sowing, sprang up around me,
and to-day I have more than I can do, and the people know I am right."
The blue eyes of Mr. Dayton sparkled as he paused in his recital,
running his fingers through his hair, and for a time evidently wandering
in the labyrinthine walks of the soul's mathematics, whose beautifully
defined laws might make all things straight, and it was only the sight
of John's towering form in the doorway that roused him, and he said:
"I have brought to you Davies' Legendre. I thought he would receive more
thanks in the years to come than now, for is it not always so? Are not
those who move beyond the prescribed limits of the circle of to-day,
unappreciated, and must we not often wait for the grave to cover their
bodies, and their lives to be written, ere we realize what their hearts
tried to do for us? It is a sad fact, and one which shapes itself in the
mould of a selfish ignorance, which covers as a crust the tender growing
beauty of our inner natures.
It was a cold day in December, 1856, when we were startled to see Jane
coming over the hill in such a hurried way that we feared something was
the matter with the children. These children were dear to me. Hal and
Mary had a beautiful boy two and a half years old, but no bud had as yet
nestled against my heart.
I met her at the gate and asked, "What's the matter with the children?"
"Go into the house, Emily _De_-mond, 'taint the children, it's me." She
wanted us all to sit down together.
"Oh! dear, dear me, what can I do? I'm out of my head almost."
We gathered together in the middle room, and waited for her to tell us,
but she sat rocking, as if her life depended on it, full five minutes
before she could speak--it seemed an hour to me--finally she screamed
out:
"He's come back!"
"Whom do you mean?" I cried, while mother and Aunt Hildy exchanged
glances.
"He came last night; he's over to the Home, Miss Patten, d'ye hear?"
"Jane," said Aunt Hildy in a voice that sounded so far away it
frightened me, "do you mean Daniel?"
"Yes, yes; he's come back, and he wants me to forgive him, and I must
tell it, he wants me to marry him. I sat up all night talkin' and
thinkin' what I can do."
"Jane," said Aunt Hildy, in that same strange voice, "has he got any
news?"
"Both of 'em dead. Oh, Miss Patten, you'll die, I know you'll die!"
"No, I shan't. I died when they went away."
"What can I do, Miss Patten? Oh, some of you _do_ speak! Mis' _De_-mond,
you tell; you are allus right."
Clara crossed the room, and kneeling on the carpet before her, said:
"My dear soul, is it the one you told me of?"
"Yes, yes," said Jane, "the very one; gall and worm-wood I drank, and
all for him; he ran away and--"
"Yes," added Aunt Hildy, "tell it all. Silas and our boy went with him,
father and son, and Satan led 'em all."
"Has he suffered much?" said Clara.
"Oh, yes, marm, but he says he can't live without me! He hain't never
been married; I'm fifty-four, and he's the same age."
"Jane," said Clara, "I guess it will be all right; let him stay with
you."
"How it looks," interrupted Jane; "they'll all know him."
"Never mind. The Home is a sort of public institution now; let him stay,
and in three weeks I'll tell you all about it."
"Get right up off this floor, you angel woman, and lemme set on the sofy
with you," said Jane.
Louis and I left the room, and after an hour or so Jane went over the
hill, and Aunt Hildy stepped as firmly as before she came. Poor Aunt
Hildy, this was the sorrow she had borne. I was glad she knew they were
dead, for uncertainty is harder to bear than certainty. I wondered how
it came that I should never have known and dimly remembered something
about some one's going away strangely, when I was a little girl. My
mother had, like all Aunt Hildy's friends, kept her sorrow secret, and
she told me it was a rare occurrence for Aunt Hildy to mention it even
to her, whom she had always considered her best friend.
If Jane had not herself been interested, it would have leaked out
probably, but these two women, differing so strangely from each other,
had held their secrets close to their hearts, and for twenty-five long
years had nightly prayed for the wanderers.
Aunt Hildy's husband was a strange man; their boy inherited his father's
peculiarities, and when he went away with him was only sixteen years of
age.
Daniel Turner was twenty-nine, and the opinion prevailed that he left
home because he was unwilling to marry Jane, although they had been for
several years engaged, and she had worked hard to get all things ready
for housekeeping. He was not a bad-looking man, and evidently possessed
considerable strength.
Clara managed it all nicely, and when the three weeks' probation ended,
they were quietly married at Mr. Davis', and Mr. Turner went to work on
the farm which Jane had for many years let out on shares. He worked well
through the rest of the winter, and the early spring found him busy
doing all that needed to be done.
He was interested in our scheme, and felt just pride in the belongings
of the Home, which was really settling into a permanency. We sometimes
had letters of interrogation and of encouragement as well, from those
who, hearing of us, were interested.
Louis often said the day would come when many institutions of this kind
would be established, for the object was a worthy one, and no great need
can cry out and not finally be heard, even though the years may multiply
ere the answer comes.
"Changes on every hand," said Mr. Davis, "and now that the pulpit has
come down nearer to the people, and I can send my thoughts directly into
their hearts, instead of over their heads, as I have been so often
forced to do, we may hope that the chain of our love will weld us
together as a unit in strength and feeling. I almost wish our town could
be called New Light, for it seems to me the world looks new as it lies
about us. The lantern of love, we know, is newly and well trimmed, and I
feel its light can never die; it may give place to one which is larger,
and whose rays can be felt further, but it can never die. I really
begin to believe there is no such thing as death. I dislike the word,
for it only signifies decay. I call it change, and that seems nearer
right."
"So it is, Mr. Davis," said Clara, as he talked earnestly with us of his
interest in the children and the people about us, "for, even as children
are gradually changing into men and women, so shall our expanding lives
forever climb to reach the stature of our angelhood, which must come to
us when we let the perishable garments fall, and the mortal puts on its
immortality. If we all could only see that our Father will help us to
shape these garments even here; could we know that stitches daily taken
in the garment that our soul desires are necessary that it may be ready
for us when we enter there,--how great would be the blessing! This would
relieve death of its clinging fears, and our exit from earth and
entrance to the waiting city would be made as a pleasant journey.
"Louis, dear boy, feels all this, and if the cold hearts of speculative
men could be warmed and softened into an unfolding life, he would not
constantly do battle with the wrong; but truth is mightier than error.
God's love must at last be felt, and when the delay is over, how many
hearts, now deaf to his entreaties, will say with one accord, 'we are
sorry, if we could live our days over, we would help you!'"
Louis did do battle, that is true; he paid due respect to people of all
classes, but fearlessly and trustfully he dealt, both by word and
practice, vigorous blows against all enslaving systems. He said to us
sometimes, that when he went to the mill--as he constantly did, working
until every one of the twenty boys to whom he promised liberty, found
it--he came in contact with three different conditions; he classified
them as mind, heart and soul. "When I talk to them," he said, "or if I
go there on my mission and speak no words, I hear their souls say 'he is
right and we are wrong;' I hear the earthly hearts whisper hoarsely,
'curse the plans of that fellow, he is in our way;' and the worldly
policy of the mind steps forth upon the balcony of the brain and says,
'treat him well, it is the best policy to pursue, for he has money.'
Yes, my Emily, I thank God for the fortune my father left me, hidden in
the silver service. It shall all be used. You and I will use it all. And
was the bequest not typical, its very language being 'a fortune in thy
service, oh, my father!'"
"I never thought of this; how wonderful you are, Louis," I said.
"And you, my Emily, my companion, may our work be the nucleus around
which shall gather the work of ages yet to be, for it takes an age, you
know, to do the work of a year--almost of a day."
Our lives ran on like a strong full tide, and all our ships were borne
smoothly along for four full years. An addition had been made to Jane's
house, and her husband proved loyal and true, so good and kind and
earnest in his work that Aunt Hildy said:
"I have forgotten to remember his dark days, and I really don't believe
he'd ever have cut up so ef Silas had let him alone."
Good Mrs. Davis had sought rest and found it, and a widowed niece came
as house-keeper. John Jones was growing able to do the work he promised
the girls and boys down South, and lectured in the towns around us,
telling his own story with remarkable eloquence for one who had no early
advantages. He was naturally an orator, and only needed a habit of
speaking to make apparent his exceptional mental capacity. Aunt Hildy
was not as strong when 1860 dawned upon us, and she said on New Year's
evening, which with us was always devoted to a sort of recalling of the
past:
"Don't believe I'll be here when sixty-one comes marchin' in."
Clara looked at her with a strange light in her eyes, and said:
"Dear Aunt Hildy, wait for me, please; I'd like to go just when you do."
It was the nineteenth day of April this year, when an answer to a prayer
was heard, and a little wailing sound caused my heart to leap in
gratitude and love. A little dark-eyed daughter came to us, and Louis
and I were father and mother. She had full dark eyes like his, Clara's
mouth, and a little round head that I knew would be covered with sunny
curls, because this would make her the picture I had so longed to see.
"Darling baby-girl, why did you linger so long? We have waited till our
hope had well-nigh vanished," and the dark eyes turned on me for an
answer, which my heart read, "It is well."
Louis named her "Emily Minot Desmonde." It was his wish, and while, as I
thought, it ill suited the little fairy, I only said:
"May she never be called 'Emily did it.'"
"May that be ever her name," said Louis, "for have you not yourself done
that of which she will be always proud, and when we are gone will they
who are left not say of you, 'Emily did it'?
"Ah! my darling, you have lost and won your title, and it comes back
shaped and gilded anew, for scores of childish lips have echoed it, and
'Emily did it' is written in the indelible ink of the great charity
which has given them shelter."
"Louis, too," I said, and he answered:
"Had I not found my Emily, I could never have undertaken it. You cannot
know how I gathered lessons from your happy home. In my earliest years I
was dissatisfied with the life which money could buy. I did not know the
comforts of work and pleasure mingled, and it was here, under these
grand old hills, while communing with nature, I sought and found the
presence of its Infinite Creator; and your smile, your presence, was a
promise to me which has been verified to the letter."
When Clara held our wondrous blessing in the early days of its sweet
life, she looked sometimes so pensively absent that I one day asked her
if she did not wish Emily had come sooner.
"Ah! my Emily, mother; 'tis a wrong, wrong thought, still I cannot deny
it;" and a mist covered her tender eyes. My heart stood still, for I
knew she felt that her hand would not lead our little one in the first
steps she should take, and the thought embittered my joy. I suppose
everybody's baby is the sweetest, and I must forbear and let every
mother think how we cared for and tended the little one, and how our
heartstrings all vibrated at the touch of her little hand, and if she
was ill or worrisome, which she was earthly enough to be, we were all
robbed of our comfort till her smiles came back.
Aunt Hildy was an especial favorite, and she would sit with her so
contentedly, while that dear old face, illumined by the sun of love,
told our hearts it was good for baby's breath to moisten the cheek of
age.
Little Halbert, as we called Hal's boy, was as proud of his cousin as
could be, and my old apple tree, which was still dear, dropped leaves
and blossoms on the heads of the children, who loved to sit beneath its
branches.