LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM
"Like ships that sailed for sunny isles,
But never came to shore."--_Hervey._
All through the early spring Abner toiled with the might of a hopeful
heart--love lightening every task and enduing him with the strength of
two. His farm was soon enclosed, and divided into fields and woodland
stretches by neat rail fences. Planting-time was over. The young corn
was rank and tall, and its luxuriant green foliage almost hid the brown
ridges and furrows.
One day in May Abner stood at the threshold of his unfinished cabin,
and gazed with unseeing eyes over fields and woods and growing corn.
Alas for visions of domestic joy! The day before, he had asked Abby to
be his wife. So gentle, so sad, and withal so tender, had been her
manner, that at first he had refused to accept her decision. "Believe
me, dear friend," she then said, "there is no answer possible save the
one I have given. Though I honor you above any one else I have known
during my life in Kentucky, I have no love to give you. Besides, I am
too old, too grave, too disposed to melancholy, to make you happy. You
need a younger, stronger, more joyous nature than mine. At present you
can not understand this; some day you will, and then you will see that
a far more suitable mate--a girl self-reliant, buoyant, and with a
wealth of love in her pure, warm heart--is waiting for you. Ah! you are
blind, blind, that you do not see how Happiness is holding out her hand
to you."
A dim, shadowy wonder as to whom she could mean flitted an instant
across the young man's mind; but he was too eager, too absorbed, to
entertain the thought, and renewed his pleading. Then Abby, after
looking at him a moment in wistful silence, rose from her chair, and,
standing before him, laid her hands upon his shoulders, and, looking
earnestly into his face, said: "Abner, I have no love to give you; for
long ago all the love of which my heart is capable was given to
another. He is dead now; but I am as much his as though he stood here
before me to-night. As I loved him at the first, I love him now, and
must love him to the end. For some, and I hope it will be so for you,
love reblossoms into new beauty and vigor; but not for me. My heart can
have no second springtime."
Abner Dudley was of too manly a nature to grow morbid--no
healthy-minded, strong-bodied man does that--but for a long, dark
season he went about his work with a cherished sadness in his soul. The
spring was gone from his step, the light from his eyes, and he was so
quiet, so little like his former cheery self, that Mason Rogers,
noticing his depression and attributing it to overwork, urged him to
take a "rest spaill."
"Tain't wuck whut's ailin' you, Abner," said Mrs. Rogers. "Thet nevah.
hurt nobody yit. It's stayin' so much in them damp woods. You're
gittin' peaky ez a sick kitten, an' saller ez a punkin; you'll be down
with fevers an' agers nex'. You need dosin' on boneset an'
life-evehlastin', an' I'll brew you a cupful this very night. Drink it
bilin' hot, then soak yer feet in hot watah with a lot o' mustard
pounded up in it; then go to bed an' sweat it out, an' you'll be all
right by mawnin'. Thar's nothin' lak a good sweat to drive fevers an'
agers outen the systum."
Abner thanked his kindly hostess, but could not help laughing secretly
at her diagnosis and prescription. "Truly," thought he, "it's but a
step from sentiment to bathos. 'Fevers an' agers' instead of
disappointed love! Boneset tea and a mustard foot-bath for a broken
heart! I really must pull myself together."
This perfect unconsciousness of the simple household was helpful to the
young man. Furthermore, his work necessitated his living much out of
doors, and this helped him still more; for none but those who have the
unseeing eye and the unappreciative heart for the beauty of woods and
fields, summer sunshine, glinting stream, and joyous bird notes, can
long be wholly without benefit from nature's ministry. Thus Abner had
within reach two mighty remedies for sadness--the balm of nature's
beauty, and the bracing tonic of hard work.
For some time he kept aloof from Oaklands; not only because of Abby,
but because, when in Betsy's presence, certain tones of her voice when
speaking to him, and a wistful look in her eyes, troubled him with a
vague, half-conscious sense that she, young though she was,
comprehended his trouble.
In July, Abby, taking advantage of the proffered companionship of a
family who were returning to Virginia, went for a protracted visit.
After arriving in Norfolk, she decided to make her home with a cousin
there. It was many a day before Abner Dudley saw her again.