PREPARATIONS FOR THE FESTIVAL.
Later in the evening, Mr. Wenck came to the house, not to talk about the
event, but the funeral. In spite of the hint Loretz had dropped when
talking with Leonhard, he seemed somewhat surprised when the minister
proposed that the funeral should take place on the following evening.
The good man made this proposal in the fewest words possible: it had
evidently cost him a good deal to make it. He perhaps felt himself under
constraint in the midst of this very select audience.
Loretz said, "I don't know that we can decide till Mr. Spener gets back.
He went to town this afternoon."
"When will he come?" asked the minister.
"Some time to-morrow--toward night: he usually comes up at six or seven,
unless he is detained."
"We might fix the funeral at six: the concert was to begin at seven. I
think we may take it for granted that the hours would meet his approval.
He would say, if he were here, that we had better decide on the hour
ourselves."
"Yes, yes, he would say so, of course," said Loretz quickly, "and he
would mean what he said, sir," he added, argumentatively. "Of course:
let us then say at six o'clock the procession will move from--from the
corpse-house to the church. She has been taken away just as she was in
the midst of preparation for the festival; let us therefore observe it
even as it would have been observed."
The voice which spoke these words was altogether under the speaker's
control, but the pathos in it so moved the heart of dear little Dame
Loretz that she exclaimed, "Let it be so, father: certainly, it must be.
It would please Sister Benigna beyond anything to have all the little
children there just as she had arranged. And who has done for the church
more than she has? I am sure it is what--what _everybody_ must see is
the right thing. Mr. Wenck, I am very glad you came to talk about it: we
were all beside ourselves--we didn't know what to think or what to do."
"Shall it be so, Elise?" asked Loretz, turning to his daughter quietly
after his wife had concluded her animated speech.
"I know it would be what she would wish," said Elise.
"Then it shall be. I have a mind to go to town for Mr. Spener. But he
will come: he is always on time. He knows when he means to be here, if
we don't, and we can't change that."
So it was decided, and Mr. Wenck went away, having declined the entreaty
of Mrs. Loretz to fill a seat at their supper-table.
Slowly walking back to his lonely house, which had never seemed so
lonely, so desolate to him, Mr. Wenck saw little Charles Hummel, who was
going in the same direction and homeward. He had been looking for
Charley, for he had heard one of the children say that he was in the
school-room with the teacher last, and so he took the boy's hand, and
they walked along together.
"Are you all prepared with your pieces, Charley?" the minister asked.
"Oh yes, sir, but now we shall not sing them."
"And why will you not sing them, my boy?"
"Because there will not be any celebration--will there, sir?"
"Certainly: why should there not?"
"What, sir! to-morrow night, just the same?"
"Do you think that Sister Benigna would approve of our having no
congregation festival?"
"Why, sir, you know--don't you know? I saw them carrying her from the
school-room. She--she--"
"Yes, I know all," said the minister: "she is gone home. But then she
will know about our celebration: oh yes, just the same: it must be that
she will hear all the sweet voices. It seems far away to us where she
is: perhaps it has seemed so, but she brings heaven nearer: it is surely
but a step to the Better Land."
It had appeared almost impossible for Mr. Wenck to speak in Loretz's
house, but now words came so freely to his lips that he seemed even to
find comfort in speech.
The boy had now reached his father's house, and would have gone in, but
the minister with gentle force retained the small hand he held, and
said, "Let us walk on a little farther, Charley. How beautiful the moon
is to-night! Were you in the school-room to-day, my boy?"
"I was there this afternoon, sir," said the little lad, awed by the
sound of his own voice's gentleness--so gently the minister spoke he
could himself speak in no other way. But he would not have liked the
boys to hear him, and he looked around as if to see if any one followed,
and was a little startled when he saw his shadow and the shadow of Mr.
Wenck following so close.
"When I come to speak to the congregation about her I shall want to tell
them all about to-day," said Mr. Wenck, "if there is anything it would
be pleasant for them to know. Do you remember anything she--she said or
did, Charley?"
The boy thought a moment. "It was just the same as always," said he.
"Did you practice your songs this afternoon?"
"Yes, sir, we practiced them."
"For the last time, and you did not know it!" Would that little lad
remember, when he came to manhood, this hour and these words? Would he
from that noonday sun receive a light that could enlighten the mystery
of this pallid, shadowy hour which filled his little being with such
awe?
"But she said we sang beautifully," he said, moved by the spirit of
obedience to stay and answer, and not shake off the hand that held him
and run home affrighted, and dream of spirits and Mr. Wenck's pale face
and his strange voice.
"Oh, then you pleased her?"
"She said it was the best singing, sir, she had ever heard, and that she
was glad we had worked so hard and had been so attentive and patient.
That was what she said, I remember now," said the little lad with
spirit: "I thought there was something I forgot. She said when we sang
our part in the festival all the people would know how hard we had tried
to learn."
"And when she dismissed you, was there anything more?"
"She--she kissed us: she always did," said the little fellow, bursting
into sudden crying.
"Oh, Charley," said the minister--and he bent down and kissed the little
boy, whose face was wet with tears--"we must not cry for her--not any of
us. And God himself has wiped away _her_ tears."
"And then when I was going out," said Charley, rallying again, "she
asked me to bring her a pitcher of water from the spring before I went
home. When I took it in she was reading her music, and she had some
flowers in a glass. And I filled it with fresh water for her," he said
proudly. And that was all he had to tell.
"You are a good boy to remember so much," said Mr. Wenck; and now he
walked back with Charley to the doctor's gate, and kissing him again
bade him "Good-night."
Long after every light was extinguished in Spenersberg homes, Mr. Wenck
was walking up and down in front of his own house beneath the trees,
pacing the grass, a noiseless sentinel. He had no duties now to perform:
undisturbed his thoughts might wander whither they would. They could not
wander far--too near was the magnet. The day had begun in a manner which
he could not but think remarkable: the shadow of approaching calamity
had disturbed him until the horror appeared. For, accustomed as he had
been to teach and preach and to think of death as a friend, the
conductor to a happier world, the enlightener and the life-giver, he
could not regard the departure of Sister Benigna in such light. The loss
to the community was almost irreparable, he began by saying to himself,
but he ended by saying, "Hypocrite! do you mourn the community's loss,
or your own?"
The tower-clock struck twelve as in his walk he approached the gate to
his little garden: he hesitated, and then noiselessly opened it. Here
were various fragrant flowers in blossom, and roses innumerable on the
well-cared-for bushes, but he passed these, and gathered from the house
wall a few ivy leaves, and climbing the fence in the rear of his house
began to ascend the slope that led to the cemetery, that place of the
people's constant resort. He did not enter it, but stood a long while on
the peaceful plain, which was filled with moonlight. At last he slowly
turned away and walked across the wooded knolls and fields until he came
to the corpse-house, which only yesterday he had garnished with fresh
boughs. He knew whither he went, and yet when he had come to the door of
that resting-place the external calm disappeared--the props of
consolation, the support of faith, gave way. He opened the door,
entered, closed it behind him, and by the light of the lamp suspended
from the whitewashed rafters saw Sister Benigna lying on the bier,
dressed in white garments, with a rose in one white hand.
When he came forth again a cold fog was filling the valley, and morning
approached. Who will wish to dwell even in imagination on the hours he
had passed in that silent house, or care to guess the battle which
perchance had been fought there, or the wild flow of tears which had for
years been pent, or the groans which could not be uttered, which at last
had utterance; or how at last the man died there, and the victor, as one
who had been slain, came forth?