THE DECISIVE DAY OF BROTHER JONATHAN’S LIFE
Before we leave this part of our subject we should study the event that
made the great character of the Governor.
All lives have decisive days. Such a day determined the great destiny
of Jonathan Trumbull.
The stamp act had been passed in Parliament, by which a stamp duty
was imposed upon all American paper that should be used to transact
business and upon articles essential to life. Persons were to be
appointed to sell stamps for the purpose. This was taxation without
representation in Parliament, and was regarded as tyranny in America.
All persons holding office under England were required to make oath
that they would support the stamp duty. Among these were the Governor
of Connecticut and his ten councilors, and one of these councilors at
that time was Jonathan Trumbull.
The day arrived on which the Governor, whose name was Fitch, and his
councilors assembled to take the oath or to resign their commissions.
“I am ready to be sworn,” said the then Governor. “The sovereignty of
England demands it. Are you all ready?”
There was a grave silence.
Jonathan Trumbull rose.
“The stamp act,” said he, “is a derogation of the chartered rights of
the colony. It takes away our freedom. The power that can tax us as
it pleases can govern us as it pleases. The stamp act takes away our
liberties and robs us of everything. It makes us slaves and can reduce
us to poverty. I can not take the oath.”
“But,” said the royal Governor, “the officers of his Majesty must obey
his commands or not hold his commissions. For you to refuse to be sworn
is contempt of Parliament. The King’s displeasure is fatal. Gentlemen,
I am ready for the oath, and I ask that it be now administered to me.”
The Governors of all the provinces except Rhode Island had taken the
oath. Even Franklin and Otis and Richard Henry Lee had decided to
submit to the act of unrestrained tyranny. They thought it politic to
do so.
But Trumbull’s conscience rose supreme over every argument and
consideration. In conscience he was strong, as any one may be.
“I _can not_ take the oath,” said Trumbull. “Let Parliament do
its worst, and its armies and navies thunder. I will not violate
my provincial oath, which I deem to be right. I will be true to
Connecticut, and to the liberties of man. You have sworn by the awful
name of Almighty God to be true to the rights of this colony. I have so
sworn, and that oath will I keep.”
It was near the close of the day. The red sun was setting, casting
his glimmering splendors over the pines. The oath was about to be
administered by the royal Governor.
Jonathan Trumbull rose up among the councilors. His soul had arisen to
a sublime height, and despised all human penalties or martyrs’ fires.
His intense eyes bespoke the thoughts that were burning within him.
He did not speak. He was about to make his conduct more eloquent than
words.
He seized his tricornered hat, and gave back a look that said, “I will
not disgrace myself by witnessing such a ceremony of degradation.” He
moved toward the door.
His every motion betokened his self-command, his soul value, his
uncompromising obedience to the law of right. Erect, austere, he
retreated from the shadow of the room, into the burning light of the
sunset.
He closed the door behind him, and breathed his native air.
Six of the councilors followed him――six patriot seceders.
That was a notable day for liberty: it made Trumbull a power, though he
could not see it.
The people upheld Trumbull. At the next election they cast out of
office the Governor and those of his councilors who had received the
oath, and Connecticut was free.
In a short time the people made Jonathan Trumbull, who risked all by
leaving the room at the dusk of that decisive day, their Governor, and
they continued him in office until his hair turned white, and he heard
the town bells all ringing for the independence and peace of America.
Had his act cost him his life he would have done the same. He would
have owned his soul. Honor to him was more than life――
My life and honor both together run;
Take honor from me and my life is done.
When “Brother Jonathan” returned to Lebanon he was greeted by all
hearts. The rugged farmers gathered on the green around him with lifted
hats. The children hailed him, even the Indian children. The dogs
barked, and when the bell rang out, it rang true to his ears; for him
forever the bell of life rang true.
But his life was forfeited to the Crown. What of that? His soul was
safe in the Almighty, and he slept in peace, lulled to rest by the
whispering cedars. So began the great public career of Trumbull. He was
chosen Lieutenant-Governor in 1766, and Governor in 1769.
He was made the chairman of the Connecticut Council of Public Safety,
which met at his war office, which at first was a protected room in his
little store. His biographer, Stuart, thus gives us glimpses of this
busy place:
“Within that ‘war office,’ with its old-fashioned ‘hipped’ roof and
central chimney-stack, he met his Council of Safety during almost
the entire period of the war. Here he received commissaries and
sub-commissaries, many in number, to devise and talk over the means of
supply for our armies. From hence started, from time to time during the
war, besides those teams to which we have just alluded, numerous other
long trains of wagons, loaded with provisions for our forces at the
East, the West, the North, and the South; and around this spot――from
the fields and farmyards of agricultural Lebanon and its vicinity――was
begun the collection of many a herd of fat cattle, that were driven
even to the far North around Lake George and Lake Champlain, and to the
far distant banks of the Delaware and the Schuylkill, as well as to
neighboring Massachusetts and the banks of the Hudson.
“Here was the point of arrival and departure for numberless messengers
and expresses that shot, in every direction, to and from the scenes of
revolutionary strife. Narragansett ponies, of extraordinary fleetness
and astonishing endurance――worthy such governmental post-riders as
the tireless Jesse Brown, the ‘alert Samuel Hunt,’ and the ‘flying
Fessenden,’ as the latter was called――stood hitched, we have heard, at
the posts and palings around, or by the Governor’s house, or at the
dwelling of his son-in-law Williams, ready, on any emergency of danger,
to fly with advices, in any desired direction, on the wings of the
wind. The marks of the spurs of the horsemen thus employed were but a
few years back visible within the building――all along upon the sides
of the counters upon which they sat, waiting to receive the Governor’s
orders.
“So we find him during the period now under consideration (1775),
executing in person the business of furnishing troops, and of procuring
and forwarding supplies――now flour, particularly from Norwich; now,
from various quarters, beef and pork; now blankets; now arms; but
especially, at all times, whenever and wherever he could procure it,
powder, the manufacture of which vital commodity he stimulated through
committees appointed to collect saltpeter in every part of the State.
‘The necessities of the army are so great’ for this article, wrote
Washington to him almost constantly at this time, ‘that all that can
be spared should be forwarded with the utmost expedition.’――‘Soon as
your expected supply of powder arrives,’ wrote his son-in-law, Colonel
Huntington, from Cambridge, August 14th, ‘I imagine General Putnam
will kick up a dust. He has got one floating battery launched, and
another on the stocks.’ The powder was sent――at one time six large
wagon-loads, and at the same time two more for New York, on account of
an expected attack in that direction. ‘Our medicine-chests will soon be
exhausted,’ wrote Huntington at the same time. The medicine-chests were
replenished. And before September Trumbull had so completely drained
his own State of the materials for war that he was obliged to write to
Washington and inform him that he could not then afford any more.”
In these thrilling days the people awaited the news upon the village
green.
The village green of Lebanon! Across it the old war Governor walked a
thousand times to attend meetings at the office in the interests of the
State and the welfare of man. A monument to him should arise there.
The village greens of New England were fields of the highest
patriotism, and their history would be a glorious record. The church
spires rose over them; the schoolhouse bells; and on them or in a
hall near them the folkmotes were held. These town meetings were the
suggestions of republican government and the patterns of the great
republic.
How the words “Brother Jonathan,” that became the characteristic name
of the nation, reached the ears of Washington at Cambridge we do not
know. It became the nickname――the name that bespoke character to the
army through Washington. It will always live.
How did the people of Lebanon among the cedars come to give that
name to the great judge, assistant, and governor that rose among
them? In his official life he was so dignified and used such strong
Latin-derived words to express his thoughts that one could hardly have
suspected a Roger de Coverley behind the courtly dressed man and his
well-weighed speech. He was an American knight.
But in his private life he was as delightful as a veritable Roger
de Coverley, even if he did not fall asleep in church. The true
character of an old New Englander was in him. He loved his neighbors
as his own self with a most generous and sympathetic love. No tale of
knight-errantry could be more charming than that of the life he led
among his own folk in Lebanon.
He probably studied medicine that he might doctor the poor. Were any
poor man sick, he sent another in haste to consult Brother Jonathan;
and Brother Jonathan, in gig, and possibly in wig, with his greatcoat
in winter, and vials, and probably snuff-box, and all, hurried to the
sick-bed.
He carried the medicine of medicine with him in his heart, which was
that of hope and cheer. Whatever other doctors might say, he often
said: “I have seen sicker men than you recover; you may get well if you
only look up; it is the spiritual that heals, and the Lord is good to
all.”
He always asserted that the unspiritual perishes; that that truth was
not only the Bible and the sermon, but that it was law. He had charity
for all men, and he made it the first condition of healing that one
should repent of his sins. So he prayed with the sick, and the sick
people whom he visited often found a new nature rising up within them.
The sick poor always remembered the prescriptions of Brother Jonathan.
He was an astronomer and made his own almanacs. If any one was in doubt
as to what the weather was likely to be, he went to Brother Jonathan.
The cattlemen and sheep-raisers came to him for advice. Did a poor cow
fall sick, she too found a friend in Brother Jonathan.
He would have given away his hat off his head had it not been a cocked
one, had he found a poor man with his head uncovered.
He gave his fire to those who needed it on cold days.
There had been established a school in Lebanon for the education
of Indian children for missionaries. His heart went into it; of
course it did. When he was yet rich――a merchant worth nearly $100,000
(£18,000)――he made a subscription to schools; but when ship after ship
was lost by the stress of war and other causes, and he became poor, he
hardly knew how to pay his school subscriptions, so he mortgaged two of
his farms.
“I will pay my debts,” he said, “if it takes a lifetime.” And none
doubted the word of Brother Jonathan.
The people all pitied him when he lost his property, and came to say
that they were sorry for him when he partly failed, and their hearts
showed him a new world, and made him love every one more than before.
Great thanksgivings they used to have in his perpendicular house among
the green cedars, and the stories that were told by Madam Trumbull and
her friends expressed the very heart of old New England days.
What people may have been there that afterward came to tower aloft, and
some of them to move the world! Samuel Occum may have been there, the
Indian who moved London; Brant may have been there, whose name became
a terror in the Connecticut Colony in the Wyoming Valley, and whom the
poet Campbell falsely associates with the tragedies of Wyoming.
The old church stood by the green; it stands there now. In it Governor
Trumbull’s stately proclamations were read; there probably the
Declaration of Independence was proclaimed.
Thanksgiving――what stories like Christmas tales of to-day used to be
told by long log fires after the church and the dinner, which latter
exhibited all the products of the fields and woods! A favorite story
concerned people who were frightened by ghosts that were not ghosts.
Let us give one of these stories that pictures the heart and
superstition of old New England and also one of Connecticut’s
handicrafts. For the clock-cleaner was a notable story-teller in those
old days. He cleaned family clocks and oiled them, sometimes with
walnut oil. He usually remained overnight at a farmhouse or inn, and
related stories of clocks wherever he found a clock to clean.
These Connecticut clock stories in Brother Jonathan’s day were
peculiar, for clocks were supposed to be family oracles――to stop to
give warning of danger, and to stop, as arrested by an invisible hand,
on the approach of death.
Curious people would gather at the war office when the wandering
clock-cleaner appeared upon the green. The time-regulator was sure to
tell stories at the Alden Tavern or at the war office, and usually at
the latter. Men with spurs would sit along the counter, and dig their
spurs into the wood, under excitement, as the clock tale was unfolded:
how that the family clock stopped and the Nestor of the family died,
and the oldest son went out and told the bees in their straw hives.
Peter the outcast had an ear for these many tales while about his
work, and Dennis O’Hay was often found on the top of a barrel at these
gatherings.
Dennis heard these New England tales with increasing terror. There
were supposed to be fairies in the land from which he came――fairy
shoemakers, who brought good to people and eluded their hand-grasp. He
became so filled with the “signs” and superstitions of the people that
once, when he met a white rabbit, he thought it was a rabbit turned
into a ghost, and he ran back from the woods to the tavern to ask what
the “sign” meant, when one saw the ghost of “bunny.” A nimble little
rabbit once turned its white cotton-like tail to him, and darted into a
burrow. He ran home to ask what meant the sign, and the good taverner
said that was a sign that he had lost the rabbit, which was usually the
case when a white tail so vanished from sight.
There was one story of the clock that was associated with early
revolutionary days that pictures the times as well as superstitions
vividly, and we will tell it and place it in the war office on a long
evening when the Governor was busy with his council in the back room.
The clock-cleaner has come, the farmers sit on boxes and barrels,
some “cavalry” men hang over the “counter,” and swing their feet and
spurs. The candles sputter and the light is dim, and the Connecticut
clock-cleaner, amid increasing stillness and darkness, relates his tale
slowly, which was like this:
THE LIFTED LATCH
An old house on the Connecticut way to Boston stood high on the windy
hill. I have ridden past it at night when the dark savins lifted their
conical forms on the hillside by the decrepit orchards and the clouds
scudded over the moon. It had two chimneys that seemed to stand
against the sky, and I saw it once at night when one of those chimneys
was on fire, which caused my simple heart to beat fast in those
uneventful days. I had heard say that the minutemen stopped there on
their march from Worcester to Bunker Hill and were fed with bread from
out of the great brick oven.
My father told me another thing which greatly awakened my curiosity.
When the minutemen stopped there on their march to meet the “regulars,”
they were in need of lead for bullets. They carried with them molds in
which to make bullets, but they could not obtain the lead.
The good woman of the house was named Overfield, Farmer Overfield’s
wife. She was called Mis’ Overfield. She had one daughter, a lithe,
diminutive, beautiful girl, with large blue eyes and lips winsome and
red, of such singular beauty that one’s eyes could hardly be diverted
from following her. When she had anything to say in company, there was
silence. She was the “prettiest girl in all the country around,” people
used to say. And she was as good in these early days as she was pretty.
Her name was Annie――“sweet Annie Overfield” some people named her.
When she saw that the minutemen were perplexed about lead, she left her
baking, wiped the meal from her nose that had been itching as a sign
“that company was coming,” and, waving her white apron, approached the
captain and said:
“Captain, I could tell you where there is lead if I had a mind to. But
what would father say if I should? And my grandfather and grandmother,
who are in their graves――they might rise up and shake the valances o’
nights, and that would be scary, O Captain!”
Annie’s father came stalking in in a blue blouse, a New England guard,
ready for any duty.
“Father, I know where there is lead. May I tell?”
“Yes, girl, and the men shall have it wherever it be. Where is it,
Annie? I have no lead, else I would have given it up at once.”
“In the clock weights, father.”
“Stop the clock!” cried the father. “Oh, Annie, ’tis a marvel you are!”
The old clock, with an oak frame, stood in the corner of the “living
room,” as the common room was called, whose doors faced the parlor and
the kitchen. It had stood there for a generation. It was some eight
feet high and two broad in its upper part and two in its lower. It had
a brass ornament on the top, and it ticked steadily and solemnly always
and so loud as to be heard in the upper rooms at night. On its face
were figures of the sun and moon. Annie’s hand had for several years
wound the clock.
The great clock was stopped, the heavy weights were removed, and the
minutemen carried them to the forge of Baldwin, the blacksmith, where
they were speedily melted and poured into the molds.
The company went joyfully away, and as they marched down the hill the
captain ordered the men to give three cheers for Annie Overfield. That
that lead did much for the history of our country there can be no
doubt. How much one can not tell.
One day, shortly after these events, a clock-cleaner came to the house
on the hill. The maple leaves were flying and the migrating birds
gathering in the rowen meadows. He said:
“I can not regulate the clock now, but I will be around again another
year.”
When he came back, the sylph-like Annie was gone――where, none knew. She
had been gone a long time.
Why had she gone? It was the old tale. A common English sailor from the
provinces came to work on the farm. He received his pay in the fall
and disappeared, and the day after he went Annie went too. It was very
mysterious. She had been “her mother’s girl.”
She had spent her evenings with the sailor after the mowing days by
the grindstone under the great maple-trees. He had sung to her English
sailor songs and told her stories of the Spanish main and of his
cottage at St. John’s. He was a homely man, but merry-hearted, and
Annie had listened to him as to one enchanted. She carried him cold
drinks “right from the well” in the field. She watched by the bars for
him to come in from the meadows and fields. She grew thin, had “crying
spells,” thought she was going “into a decline.” She was not like
herself. The love stronger than that for a mother had found Annie amid
the clover-fields when the west winds were blowing. The common sailor
had become to her more than life. She felt that she could live better
without others than without him.
She had said to her mother one day:
“Malone”――the sailor’s name――“has a good heart. I find my own in it. I
wish we could give him a better chance in life.”
“He is an adventurer, thrown upon the world like a hulk of driftwood,
hither and thither,” said her mother.
“I pity him. His heart deserves better friends than he has found. I
want to be his friend. Why may I not?”
“If you were ever to marry a common sailor, Annie, I would strew salt
on your grave. I married a common man, but he has been good to me. I
have no respect whatever for those who marry beneath them and shame
their own kin. But, Annie, that rover is worse than a common sailor――he
is a Tory; think of that――a Tory!”
Such was the condition of the family when the old clock-cleaner
returned.
He heard the story and said:
“I can hardly trust my ears. Annie was such a good girl. But the heart
must wed its own. I pity her. She will come back again, for Annie is
Annie.”
Then he turned to the clock and said:
“Now I’m going to examine it again and see what I can do. I will try to
set it going till Annie comes back.”
“I shall never take any interest in such things any more,” said Mis’
Overfield. “It is all the same to me whether the clock goes or stands
still, or whether life goes or stands still, for that matter. I loved
Annie, and that is what makes it so hard. She used to watch over me
when I was sick, oh, so faithfully, but I shall never feel the touch
of her hand again, Annie’s hand. I would weep, but I have no tears to
shed. Life is all a blank since this came upon me. The burying lot, as
it looks to me, is the pleasantest place on earth. I look out of the
pantry window sometimes and say, ‘Annie, come back.’ Then I shut my
heart. Oh, that this should come to me!”
She seemed to be listening.
“How I used to wait for Annie evenings――conference meeting and
candle-light meeting nights and singing-school evenings! How my heart
used to beat hard when she lifted the latch of the porch door in the
night!
“She came home like an angel then. I wonder if Annie’s hand will ever
again lift the latch in the night. Trouble brings the heart home and
sends us back to God. But I wouldn’t speak to her――lud, no, no, no!”
The tenderness went out of her face, and a strange, foreign light came
into her blue-gray eyes.
She sat looking fixedly toward the hill. The old graves were there.
Farmer Overfield came in.
“Thinking?” said he.
“I was thinking of how Annie used to lift the latch evenings. I wish it
could be so again. But it can’t.”
“Why not? There can be no true life in any household where it is
forbidden to any to lift the latch.”
The clock-cleaner could not find the key of the clock. It had
disappeared. He pounded on the case and said:
“It sounds hollow.”
Thanksgiving day came, and that day was supposed to bring all of the
family home.
Mis’ Overfield watched the people coming, and she said to her little
nurse Liddy as she waited:
“Have they all come, Liddy?”
“No, mum; not all.”
“Who is there to come?”
“Annie, mum.”
“She’s dead――dead here. I sometimes wish she would come, Liddy. But
I wouldn’t speak to her if she were to come――that common sailor’s
wife――and he a Tory! I wouldn’t――would you, Liddy?”
“Yes, mum.”
“You would? Tell me why now.”
“Because she is Annie. You would too.”
Mis’ Overfield gave a great sob and threw her apron over her head, and
said in a muffled voice:
“What made you say that, Liddy?”
“There may come a day when Annie can not come back. The earth binds
fast――the grave does. Think what you might have to reflect upon.”
“I, Liddy――I?”
“Yes. And there are more folks in some old houses than one can see
always. They come back. There’s been a dead soldier here already. I saw
him. And last night I heard the latch of the back door lift up three
times.”
“Oh, Liddy! Nothing can ever harm us if we do just right. It was Annie
that went wrong, not I. What do you suppose made the latch lift up?”
She stood silent, then said, with sudden resolution:
“Liddy, you go straight to your duties and never answer your mistress
back again, not on Thanksgiving day nor on any other day.”
The rooms filled. Brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, came, and
some of the guests offered to help the women folks about.
The hand of the new brass clock was moving around toward 12. A savory
odor filled the room. Little Liddy flitted to and fro, handling hot
dishes briskly so as not to get “scalded.”
Those who were voluntarily helping the women folks carried hot dishes
in wrong directions. For twenty minutes or more everything went wrong
in the usual way of the country kitchen at that hour of the day.
There was a jingle in the new brass clock. Then it struck, and the
farmer raised his hand, and everybody stood still.
Twelve!
“Now, if you will all be seated at the tables,” said Farmer Overfield,
“I will supplicate a blessing.”
He did. Prayer has a long journey around the world on Thanksgiving day.
He arrived at last at “all who have gone astray but are still a part of
the visible creation”――his mind wavered here――“grant ’em all repentance
and make us charitable,” he said in a lower voice.
The room was very still. One could almost hear the dishes steam.
There was a sound in the corner of the room. The old clock-case
quivered. Farmer Overfield became nervous in this part of his long
prayer, opened his eyes and said:
“Oh, I thought I heard something somewhere. Where was I? Liddy, she
says that she heard the latch lift in the night. I didn’t know――――”
Just here there was a crash of dishes. Little Liddy had seen the old
clock-case shake, which caused her to lose nerve power just as she was
very carefully moving some dishes when she thought all other eyes were
shut. The guests started.
“Accidents will happen,” said Farmer Overfield. “Now, all fall to and
help yourselves. It seems like old times to find all the family here
again just as it used to be――all except Annie, Annie, Annie. Her name
has not been spoken to-day. I shall keep this plate and seat for her
here close by my side. Annie’s heart is true to me still. I seem to
feel that. I wish she were here to-day. The true note of Thanksgiving
is lacking in a broken family. There can be no true Thanksgiving where
there is an empty chair that might be filled. I shall always take
Annie’s part. A father is always true to his daughter. I will yet die
in her arms. A daughter is the angel for the father’s room when the
great shadow falls.”
He stood, knife and fork in hand, the tears running down his face.
There was a little shriek in the door leading to the pantry.
“What now, Liddy?” asked the farmer.
“I saw something,” said Liddy, with shuttling eyes.
“What did you see, Liddy?”
“The sun and moon moving.”
“Massy! Where, Liddy?”
“On the face of the clock. Something is in there. That clock comes to
life sometimes,” she added, going out.
All eyes were turned toward the clock. Knives, forks, and spoons were
laid down, clicking on the many dishes.
The top of the clock, which was uncovered, seemed animated. Some said
that they could see it move, others that the supposed movement was
merely a matter of the imagination.
Liddy came into the room again with more dishes.
“I think,” said she, “that the clock-case is haunted.”
“Pshaw, Liddy!” said the farmer. “And what makes you say that? Who is
it that would haunt that old eight-day clock?”
“One of the Britishers who was shot by a bullet made from the lead
weights. That’s my way of thinking. I’ve known about it for a long
time.”
“Liddy, you’re a little bit off――touched in mind――that’s what you are,
Liddy. You never was quite all there.”
There arose another nervous shriek. Knives and forks dropped.
“What now, Liddy?” asked the farmer. “You set things all into
agitation.”
The house dog joined Liddy in the new excitement. He ran under the
table and to the clock and began to paw the case and to bark. There was
a very happy, lively tone in his bark. He then sat down and watched the
clock in a human way.
The guests waited for the farmer to speak.
“What did you see, Liddy?” asked Mis’ Overfield.
“The planets turned. Look there, now――now――there――there!”
The sun and moon on the clock face were indeed agitated. The old dog
gave a leap into the air and barked more joyously than before.
“The valley of Ajalon!” said the farmer. “That old timepiece is
bewitched. These things are mightily peculiarsome. I’m not inclined to
be superstitious, but what am I to think, the planets turning around
in that way? They say dogs do see apparitions first and start up. What
would Annie say if she were here now? You don’t believe in signs, any
of you, do you? I’m not superstitious, as I said, and I say it again.
But what can be the matter with that there old clock-case? I hope that
nothing has happened to Annie. She used to wind that clock. What do you
suppose is the matter?”
The farmer’s eyes rolled like the planets on the clock face.
“Let me go and see,” said Mis’ Overfield, rising slowly and going
toward the case, which seemed to quiver as she advanced, supporting
herself by the backs of the chairs.
The nervous fancies of little Liddy could not be repressed. She called
in an atmospheric voice:
“Mis’ Overfield, be careful how you open that clock door.”
Mis’ Overfield stopped.
“Why, Liddy, you distress me. The things that you say go to my nerves.
Why, Liddy, should I be afraid to open the clock door?”
“Suppose, Mis’ Overfield――dare I say it――suppose you should find a dead
body there?”
Mis’ Overfield leaned on the back of a chair, and Liddy added in an
awesome tone:
“A girl’s――your own flesh and blood, Mis’ Overfield.”
Farmer Overfield leaned back in his chair.
The table was as silent as though it had been bare in an empty room.
The dog gave a quick, sharp bark.
Mis’ Overfield stood trembling.
“Heaven forgive me!” she said. “My heart and Annie’s are the same. We
should be good to our own.”
She shook. “If I only knew that Annie was alive, I would forgive her
everything. I would take her home to my bosom, her Tory husband and
all. I never would have one hour of peace if she were to die. I never
knew my heart before. Her cradle was here, and here should be her last
rest. Annie was a good girl, and I am blind and hard. Annie, Annie! Oh,
I would not have anything befall Annie. Albert, where is the key of the
clock?”
The boy gave his mother the key.
“Here, mother, and it is a jolly time we’ll have.”
“Albert, how can you smile at a time like this! Didn’t you hear what
she suggested? Don’t you sense it? You go with me now slowly, for I am
all nerves, and my heart is weak.”
“That I will, mother.”
He gave her his arm and looked back with smiling eyes on the terrified
guests.
“Dast that boy, he knows!” cried Liddy in almost profane excitement.
“Hold up your hands. The house is going to fall.”
“Be quiet, Liddy,” said the farmer. “All be quiet now. We can not tell
what is before us. Be still. It seems as though I can hear the steps of
Providence. Something awaits us. I can feel it in my bones.”
The guests arose, and all stood silent.
Mis’ Overfield stopped before the clock door.
“Annie’s hand used to wind the clock,” she said. “Oh, what would I give
to hear her wind the clock once more! I would be willing to lie down
and give up all to know that she was alive. Liddy’s words do so chill
me.”
She knocked on the clock door.
“Mother!”
The voice was the music-like tone of old. “Mother, you will forgive me
if I did marry a Tory, for Annie is Annie――always Annie!”
The guests stood with intent faces.
The clock shook again. The old woman moved back.
“That was Annie’s voice. Husband, you go and see. If that is not Annie,
then my heart is dead forever, and I hope there may be no hereafter for
me.”
Farmer Overfield took the keys and slowly opened the clock door.
The guests stood with motionless eyes. The opening door revealed at
first a dress, then a hand. The old woman threw up her arms.
“That’s Annie’s hand. There is no ring on it. Annie was too poor to
have a wedding-ring. Open it slowly, husband. If she is not living, I
am dead.”
The door was moved slowly by a trembling hand. A form appeared.
“That’s Annie,” said the old woman.
A face. The lips parted.
“Father, may I come out and sit beside you in the chair at the table?”
The dog whirled around with delight.
“Annie, my own Annie, life of my life, heart of my heart! Annie, how
came you here?” exclaimed the farmer.
“I wished to see you, father, and all of my kin on this day, and
mother――poor mother――――”
“Don’t say that. I’m not worthy that you should say that, but my hard
heart is gone,” faltered Mis’ Overfield.
“I got Albert to prepare the clock-case so I could stand here and move
the planets around so that I could see you through the circles made for
the planets. You can never dream how I felt here. My heart ached to
know if any one to-day would think of me, and when you talked of me my
heart made the old case tremble.”
“Annie, come here,” said Farmer Overfield.
“But I was not invited, father. I did not intend to make myself known
to any one but Albert. I have been here before in the disguise of a
soldier.”
“Annie, you are Annie, if you did marry a Tory sailor!” and the family
heart was one again.
The story illustrates the family feeling of the time both as regards
patriots and Tories.