"Just see that Aaron gets a white handkerchief: he's fond of gay colors,
you know. Two Sundays ago, when I wasn't looking, he carried off to
church one of Chloe's turbans, and deliberately shook out the
three-cornered article, and never knew the difference till his face told
him it was cotton instead of silk."
I promised extra caution on the second point, and had just closed the
lower door--Aaron was already holding the gate open for me--when the
softly purplish bands of hair came again into the wind.
"One thing more, Anna: _do_ see what he takes for a sermon. The text is
in the fifth chapter of First Thessalonians. He will certainly pick up a
Fast-day or a Thanksgiving sermon, if you don't put the right one into
his hands."
"Hasn't he two sermons on the same chapter?" I asked.
"Yes, half a dozen. You'll know the one for to-day; I wrote it for him
the day he had the headache; the text is"--and there was a little moment
of thought; then she said--"'Who died for us, that, whether we wake or
sleep, we should live together with him.' Aaron's waiting; don't keep
him; good bye!" and she was closed in.
I felt faint and weary, now that there was no more to be done. The
village-people were awake. Village-sounds were abroad in the Sunday
atmosphere, vibrant with holiness. The farmers stopped in their care for
their animals, and spent a moment in innocent wonder of the reason why
their pastor should be abroad thus early.
Chloe's turban welcomed us first, then Chloe's self. Breakfast, that
morning, had a rare charm about it for me. I felt that I had a right to
it; in some wise it was a breakfast earned. Aaron looked melancholy; his
coffee was not charmful, I knew; the chemical changes that sugar and
milk wrought were not the same as when Sophie presided over the
laboratory of the breakfast-tray. I am not an absorbent, and so I
reflected Aaron's discomfort. He was disposed to question me for a
reason for Miss Axtell's aberration. I was not empowered to give one,
and was fully determined to impart no information until such time as I
could with honor tell all. Aaron desisted after a while, and changed
interrogation for information.
"We're to have a new sexton," he said.
"Why, Aaron?" I asked,--and, in my surprise, put sugar, destined for my
coffee, into a glass of water.
"Because Abraham Axtell has resigned."
"When?"
"This very morning."
"He will be sexton until you find another, will he not?"
"For one week only," he said.
I remembered that my pocket held the church-key. I could not send it to
him without exciting question. Aaron would surely ask how I came by it,
if I trusted him to restore it. So, sleepy, weary, I sat down at the
window from which Sophie and her sister Anna had watched the strange man
digging in the frosty earth,--sat down to my last watching, waiting to
see Mr. Axtell come up to ring the first bell.
I found I was an hour too early; so I went and talked to Chloe a little,
scattered crumbs for the first-come birds and corn for the chickens, and
looked down the deep, deep well, with its curb lichened over, into the
dark pupil of water, whose iris is never disturbed, unless by the bucket
that hung in such gibbety repose on the lofty extreme of the great
sweep, that creaked dismally, uttering a pitiful cry of complaint. If it
hadn't been Sunday, I would have coaxed Aaron to pour some oil on its
turbulence; but since Sunday it was, I was to be content to let it
screech on. It was not a "sheep fallen into a pit," only a disturbed
well-sweep. Do well-sweeps feel, I wonder? Why not? Mr. Axtell asked how
I knew that the dead cannot hear.
Aaron came out in search of me. He had been assiduously trying to make a
ministerial disposition of his cravat, until it was creased and wrinkled
beyond repair.
"I did not know that you put on the paraphernalia of pastorhood so
early," I said, "or I would have come in."
"I shall be very thankful, if you'll give me a respectable appearance,"
he said, which I faithfully tried to do.
I gave him the sermon and the proper handkerchief, then left him to his
hour of seclusion before service, when even Sophie never went nigh.
Half-past nine of the clock came. It was the time for the ringing of the
first bell. No sexton appeared. I looked far down the street, having
walked to the corner of the church for the purpose. Perhaps Mr. Axtell
was searching for the key. What if I should ring the bell? I had wished
to, still earlier in the morning. No one would see me go in.
The third time I entered within the church. The bell-rope swayed to and
fro with a mimic oscillation; a sort of admonitory premonition of what
it must shortly do ran up its fibres. I had left the entrance into the
place devoted to worship open. I closed it now. There was nothing very
alarming in standing there. The floor was oaken and old; the walls were
gray, and seamed with crevices; there were steps, at either extreme,
leading into galleries,--one for the choir, two for happy children
excluded by numbers from the straight family-pews, right under Aaron's
gray eyes, that saw everything, except the few items that Sophie must
watch for him, such as neckties, handkerchiefs, and sermons.
There was a smooth place on the rope. The roughness had been worn away
by contact of human hands. Abraham Axtell's hands--the same that covered
his face before the young girl's picture, that digged the grave, and so
gently soothed his sister that very morning--had worn it smooth. It was
out of my reach, too high up for me to attain unto; and so I held it
tightly lower down. The ungrateful rope was very prickly; it hurt me,
but I held fast, and slowly, surely drew it down. Too slowly; there was
not sound enough to frighten a bird out of the belfry, had one been
there to listen; but Aaron, on his knees within his study, praying for
the gift of healing, that he might restore sick souls, would hear. Once
more I drew the rope, with a tiny persistence that was childish,
amusing. A baby-tone came to me from the bell, accustomed to other
things. I had gained courage from the two attempts; it grew rapidly; and
soon, out into the people's homes, the sounding strokes were ringing,
clear, sonorous, and true. I had never noticed how long a time the
"first bell" rang. It was the last Sunday morning's service of the
sexton. He might be expected to linger a little in the net-work of
memory; and thus, anxious to do my duty well, I rang on.
The neighbor's boy opened the door and put his head inside; and then he
opened his eyes wondrously wide at me, and, frightened, ran away. I left
my bell to tone itself to silence, with little sighing notes, like a
child sobbing itself into sleep, and called after him. The rough boy
came to me. I asked "if he would do me a favor." He said, "of course he
would."
"I wish you to build the church-fires; and don't tell any one that you
saw me ringing the bell."
"If you tell me not to, I sha'n't," was his laconic reply.
I went home, my latest duty done. I saw, far down the willow-arched
street, Mr. Axtell coming.
With closed blinds, and room of silence, I ought to have found rest; but
I did not. I heard Aaron go out. I trusted that he had got the proper
sermon. I heard the second bell ring. It was so near, how could I help
it? I heard the congregation singing. Triumphant joy was the impression
that the song brought to my darkened room. I thought of the letter that
was in my pocket. It did not please me to feel that it was out of my
keeping. I took it thence, and held it in my hands. It had no envelope.
It was written upon soft, white paper, and was addressed to some one: to
whom I would not see. Not if my happiness depended upon it, would I
sacrifice the trust reposed in me. Holding the letter thus, a face came
to memory. It was the third face of the three that had been painted in
anthracite. I could not tell where I had known it in life. It did not
seem as if it belonged to mortal time. I got up, opened the blinds for a
moment, and looked in the glass. I saw myself,--and yet,--yes, there was
a similitude to that I saw in memory; and then that strange, sad seeming
of soul-sense, that says, "Such as you are, you have been _somewhere_
for ages," overwhelmed and sent shakings of solemn ague to me.
"I'm getting ill," I thought; "I'll have no more of this."
I looked at a bottle of chloroform standing conveniently near, took it
up, and drew out the stopper. Lifting it to the light, I looked at it.
Quiet and calm and peaceful it reposed, unconscious of ill done or to be
done by itself. It was so innocent that I could not let it sin by
hurting me. I gazed again at my reflection in the glass, and a sudden
intuition taught me a startling truth.
It may have been, nay, must have been, the innocence born of the lucent
chloroform, reflected in my own face; but I was certain that the mirror
and the Axtell house contained two pictures that were the one like the
other. I smiled at the fancy. The illusion, if illusion it was, fled.
The picture on the wall never smiled from out the canvas. I took dark
winding-cloths and bound them about my head, covering the hair and
forehead, all the while watching the effect produced in the mirror. The
result was somewhat striking, it is true, but not of the agreeable
style. I unbound my frontlet, taking off the black phylactery, whose
memorable sentence, written in white letters, had been visible to myself
alone. A contrast suggested itself to me. I would try white; and so I
materialized the suggestion, and stood looking the least bit in the
world like a nun, bound about with my white vestments, and had obtained
only one very unsatisfactory glimpse of the effect produced upon the
sensitive heart of quicksilver, when I found that that subtile heart
responded to influences other than mine. What I discovered was another
face, not in the most remote degree like mine,--as different as it could
possibly be,--a face belonging to the carboniferous strata of the human
ages. Had it been imitating me? Its race are eminent for imitative
genius. A queer sort of a nun it was, wearing neither black nor white,
but high tropical hues. Repose of being did not belong to this face. It
darted around, and looked into my eyes.
"Goodness o' mercy Miss Anna, what ails thee's little head? is it quite
turned with being up o' nights? Lie down, little honey! let old Chloe
bathe it for thee." And Chloe hummed around the room like a bee; she
folded up the petals of light that I had unbudded when I wanted to see
what manner of face I had. Strange fancy it is that the extra fairy
gives to mortals, this breaking up of roses and dolls and joys, to find
what is in them!
I was pleased to have Chloe come in, to take charge of me. I had gone a
little way beyond my own proper realm, and it was grateful to feel my
centrifugal tendencies overcome by this sable centripetency of force,
that took off my strange habitings,--only the paraphernalia of headache
to her. Pillowing the head supposed to be tormented with pain, Chloe
went about to remedy the evil by drowning it in lavender-water. I let
her think what she pleased, and bravely lifted up the mount of my head,
like Ararat of old unto the great deluge; but she would not let me talk
as I pleased. Chloe was half a century old, with a warm, affectionate,
red heart under her black seeming; and it pulsated around me now, as I
lay there, under her care, in absolute quiet, hushed to content by her
humming ways and words.
The second hymn of the church-service was sending its voice of worship
up unto the Lord of all the earth, and Chloe and I, two of the children
of that Lord, upon His earth, were awed by it. "The neighbor's boy must
have left a window open," I thought. The fruitage of song blossomed on,
the petalled notes withered and fell, and Chloe garnered in her harvest
from the field, with a quaintly expressed regret that she "wasn't in the
meadows of the land of Canaan, where taller songs were growing."
"Never mind, Chloe," I said; "the hymns of earth are very sweet; you can
wait a little longer, can't you?"
"Don't you talk, child; you'll make your head ache again. Yes, old Chloe
is willing to wait; there's honey and sugar left on the ground for her
to find, only she's old now, she can't _stoop to pick it up_ as well as
she could once."
"What do you mean, Chloe?"
"Didn't I tell ye you mustn't talk, Miss Anna? Don't be trying to
trouble yourself with old Chloe's meanings: they haven't any
understanding in them for other people to find out."
"Why not, Chloe?"
"Thee's talking again, Miss Anna. It's the Lord's thoughts that are
given to black Chloe, and she hasn't anything to dress them up in but
her own, poor, old, ragged words, that a'n't fit to use any way; so
Chloe'll wait until she gets something better to make 'em 'pear to
belong to the Lord that owns 'em"; and Chloe still soothingly bathed my
head, which I think was aching all the while, only I should not have
found it out, if she had not told me it.
"I want to ask you a question, Chloe."
"Well, just one, honey!"
"Am I much like--do I look as my mother used to?"
"Blessed child! no, no more 'n I do; only ye've both got white faces
from the good Lord, and He didn't please to give Chloe anything better
than a black one."
"What did she look like?"
"Thee's not to talk one word more. Chloe must go and look after Master
Aaron's dinner; he doesn't like husks to feed on. Mistress Percival was
like an angel, when the Lord took her from the earth. I'm afraid old
Chloe wouldn't know her now, she's been so long with Seraphim and
Cherubim in the Great City with the light of the Celestial Sun shining
in her face. I'm afraid Chloe wouldn't dare to speak to her, if she was
to meet her in the shining street of the New Jerusalem."
"She would know you, though, Chloe."
"There isn't any night there, Miss Anna; she couldn't see me; I'm black
and wicked"; and Chloe dropped something upon my hand. It was a tear
from her great eyes.
"Your soul will be white, Chloe. Christ will make it so."
"Well, well, honey, don't you trouble yourself 'bout my soul. The Lord
made it, and I guess He'll take care of it, when it gets free from the
earth"; and Chloe went down to look after a fragment of the very earth
she was anxious to escape from.
I heard this child of "Afric's golden sands" singing a song to soothe
her soul among the dinner-deeds that she was enacting. Then I thought me
of the earth lying in the hollow of God's hand, and in some way I wished
that I might get in-between the earth and the Holding Hand, and a wisp
of the sweet hymn, "Nearer to Thee, my God," floated out from my heart's
voice, almost with music in it. And the wishing words melted into an air
of prayer. I felt the mighty Hand around me. I put myself fearlessly
into the loving depths thereof, engraved with lines of life, and slept
securely there. Did the divine fingers draw me a little more closely,
and press the lines engraven on the Hand into my soul, and leave an
impression of dreams there? I felt myself going swiftly on and up
through a skyey gradient, and the soft, balmy air, displaced by my
passing through, fell back into its own place with pearly music. I
wanted to open my eyes and see where I was going; but I could not. I was
passive in action, active in thought only. Then, the music growing
fainter and fainter as the atmosphere became more celestially rarefied,
I felt the supporting Hand going away from me. One after another the
fingers loosened their hold, and yet I did not feel that I was falling.
It was gone, and I floated on. With its absence came the wish for
action. My eyes were unloosed, and I looked up. Far above me I saw the
Hand that had brought me up hither. It had gone on before, and was
waiting my coming. I made an effort to reach it.
A voice came; and clouds, rosy, ambient, such as angels hang around the
pavilion of the sun, were unfolding their glory-woven webs and weaving
me in. "It is good to be here," I whispered to my spirit's inmost sense
of hearing; and the voice that I heard spake these words unto me:--
"You have been brought up hither to learn your mission upon the earth to
which you go."
Old, prophetic, syllabic sounds, lisped in the place whence I had come,
were given unto me, and I answered,--
"Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth!"
Then a rushing wind of sound filled my ears, and I saw the flashing of a
wing of angel in among the cumulosity of clouds, and it made an opening
into an ethereous region beyond. An oval, azurous picture was before me,
set in this rolling, surging frame of ambient gold and silver glory.
"It is not for me to see in there," I thought; and I shut my eyes.