“Routine of duties,
Commonplace cares.”
—F. L. Hosmer.
The years went on in quiet Bensalem and brought Judith to her
eighteenth birthday; the summers and winters came and went, and the
girl grew. The parsonage was “home,” and the farmhouse was “Aunt
Affy’s,” as it had been ever since she could remember. One July
morning, in this nineteenth year of Judith’s story, something besides
the new morning was given to Marion. The parsonage under the
housekeeping of the two, the woman and the girl, was a dainty,
restful, and inspiring home to its three home-keepers, the minister,
his sister, and Judith Mackenzie.
The relationship among the three was as simple and natural as though
Judith had been born one of the sisters in that old house, with the
three windows in the roof that she had made a picture of for her
mother.
This July morning, an hour before dinner-time, Marion sat near the
kitchen table shelling peas; she had sent Judith back to the story
she was writing, and refused Roger’s help when he put his head in at
the window to say that shelling peas always meant two people and a
bit of confidence.
“Miss Marion,” called a voice from the kitchen-porch; “I am not fit
to come in, I’m just out of the hay field. I’ve got a letter for you
that’s been laid over, and a burning shame it is; and it is the
second time it has happened. To excuse himself he said your box was
full and this slipped out or was set aside. I gave the Bensalem
postmaster a round scolding, and told him the parsonage mail was
always important, and if it happened again I’d go straight to
Washington and report him to Uncle Sam,” chuckled the old man to whom
a letter was about the smallest thing in life.
“Uncle Cephas,” welcomed Marion, cordially, “thank you for the
scolding and the letter.”
“I mustn’t come in; I brought the minister a load of hay. Don’t call
him, I’ll find him. Your letter looks rather foreign.”
“Yes,” she said, trembling almost visibly after a glance at the post
mark.
“Double postage too,” he said curiously.
“Yes,” she said again.
“Judith had a foreign letter last night, too.”
“Oh, yes, I see all her foreign letters,” she replied with an effort.
“I must go; don’t work too hard. So you like to be your own mistress
and your own maid; no help at all this summer?”
“No; and once Judith and I did the washing; it was the best fun we
ever had.”
“Our folks say you think you own Judith; but I guess you have as good
a right to her as anybody. You and her Cousin Don; you do the most
for her.”
He nodded, wiped his forehead with his soiled handkerchief, pushed
down his tattered straw hat and went down the steps with a careful
tread. Uncle Cephas was an old man—his age had come upon him
suddenly. Marion watched him as he walked away; it was easier to look
at the load of hay, the hayfield beyond the parsonage garden, easier
to look at anything, and think of anything excepting that foreign
letter. Why should Don write to her? He had not written for five long
years, not once since that letter about Judith from Genoa. Was it
because she had—refused him?
During all these years it never once entered her thoughts that she
had refused him.
He did ask her to become his wife—if _that_ were asking. And she had
refused, if that were refusing.
“Can you have dinner in half an hour?” Roger asked, coming to the
open window near the sink. “I only this minute remembered that I
promised King to drive over this afternoon to talk his parish
difficulties over with him. His housekeeper has gone, did I tell you?
He’s keeping house by himself—has been trying it a month, or I’d take
you and Judith for the drive; he would not relish your seeing his
house-keeping. Don’t hurry too much; give me a cold dinner with a cup
of coffee.”
“I’ll ring the bell in half an hour; Judith will help me,” she
replied, hearing the sound of her own voice with every word she spoke.
The words she was speaking did not touch her own life—nothing was in
her life but that letter in her hand; she had as much of it as she
could bear just now, she thought she would hide it away and never
open it. It was another thing to die and be buried.
Judith came and began to set the dinner table and to tell her the
last pretty thing Nettie Evans said—Marion moved absently about the
kitchen; the letter was pushed down in her dress pocket.
When at last she could bear the suspense no longer, she asked Judith
to boil the eggs, and to bring the rice pudding from the cellar, and
went up stairs to her own chamber and shut the door. If she did not
have to bear this—if only it had not come to disturb her peace—she
was satisfied without it. It was a long letter; it was full of
something, her heart was beating so fast and choking her that she
read sentence after sentence without gathering any thought or
incident; it was words, words, words.
“I expect to sail for home next month; I am tired of being a stranger
and a foreigner. You have never written to me beyond those two words;
but I know what you have been to my Cousin Judith. I think I have
grown old since you saw me; life has grown old if I have not. I know
from the letters of Roger and Judith that you are just the same.
Unless you are just the same I would not care to see you again. Your
old friend, Don.”
She opened a drawer and laid the letter away; she would understand
the rest of it when she was not in such a tumult. Did Roger know he
was coming home? Judith had not told her. Had he told no one but
herself? Did he expect her to tell the others? She had to take her
eyes and burning cheeks down stairs, but she did not have to speak of
her letter yet. And, after all, there was nothing in it to speak of.
It was a letter not worth the writing.
The girl in the blue gingham, with the yellow waves of hair dropping
to her waist in one long braid, was giving the last touches to the
dinner table set for three; the roses in the centre of the table were
from Aunt Affy’s garden.
“They are talking still—Uncle Cephas and Roger. They will never get
through; they begin in the middle every time. I have been so
interested that I forgot to boil the eggs. There are chops down
cellar; shall I broil them? I always think of Don when I broil chops.
I broiled chops for him that last time I saw him. Do you know I
believe he is coming home soon? He thinks he will surprise me; but I
have guessed it all summer.”
“Yes; get the chops,” replied Marion.
“And you listen there at the window,” laughed Judith; “Uncle Cephas
is touching on marriage now. He told Roger he did a wrong thing when
he married Jean Draper to a man who is not a Christian; she is only
nineteen and does not know better, he said. Roger has been trying to
argue himself right; but I don’t know how Roger could help that, do
you?”
“No; Roger couldn’t help it; David Prince comes to church regularly
and Roger admires him; Jean’s father and mother were willing; I think
Uncle Cephas takes too much upon himself. Roger believes David Prince
is a Christian and doesn’t know it. Roger knows it; and Jean does.
But Roger never minds Uncle Cephas.”
Uncle Cephas was speaking with low intensity; standing at the window
Marion listened: at first indignant, then she became interested.
Roger would miss his appointment; perhaps he was so amused with the
old man that he had forgotten his drive to Meadow Centre.
“You see, dominie, in marriage there’s a heap to look at besides
young folks choosing each other, even more than parents being
willing; parents may be mistaken—there’s the command that comes
straight and strong. I am as interested in the marriage question as I
am in all the other things that concerns the life of the church and
the community; I’ve had years enough to study it theoretically,” he
went on, with his deep laugh.
“Which command are you bringing down upon my head now?” inquired the
minister, in a tone of good fellowship.
“Is it the dominie that asks which? You who should have all the
commands, and promises, and threatenings at your tongue’s end—”
“My tongue would have no end then,” replied Roger.
“And the geography and history of the scriptures, too. I didn’t use
to believe in studying the geography of the Bible until that man came
from Antioch, and now I know Damascus and the land of the Chaldees,
and Tyre and Sidon all by heart. Of course you know better than I do
that command Joshua gave the people, and I verily believe it was more
for the women than the men, as I told Affy in talking over Jean
Draper’s case; women are naturally religious creatures, bless ’em.”
Judith and the chops were over the fire; Marion stood at the open
window; Judith listened, and burnt her chops.
“Why, you remember,” Uncle Cephas ran on in the familiar voice with
which he talked about his cattle and his crops, “that he told the
people the nations should be snares and traps, and scourges in your
sides and thorns in your eyes until they perished from off the good
land, and the reason was, or would be, that they made marriages with
them.”
“Yes, certainly,” interjected Roger impatiently.
“But that isn’t all; don’t say ‘certainly’ in such a matter of fact
way; it was something else; it was making marriages ‘with the
remnant,’ those that _remain among you_, not the round-about nations,
but the among-you nations, and there’s where the danger is, I tell
the young folks; young folks never know their dangers; it is the
believers that don’t believe the folks that come to church and don’t
confess Christ, that is the hindrance, and the ones that bring
punishment of scourges and snares and traps and thorns; it is like
the half of a truth that is the worst of a lie. David Prince comes
regularly and listens to the truth, and if I do say it to your face,
you put it powerful; and he goes away and by his actions confesses
that he doesn’t believe a word you say. I labored with Jean Draper,
but she only cried, like the dear girl she is, and said she couldn’t
give him up; not if the whole session said so.”
“She came to me,” answered Roger, in his quietest tones, “and I told
her to hold on to him and I would marry them if the session tore me
to pieces.”
“I believe you would,” laughed Uncle Cephas. “Well, I’ve washed my
hands. I didn’t expect to hinder anything. I suppose I can trust my
minister if he hasn’t come to his gray hairs. I thought that hay was
the first fruits and I’d bring it. You see Bensalem is as dear to me
as the land of Israel to old Joshua and Samuel. The Lord’s eyes are
always upon it, and it flows with milk and other good things. No
offence, I hope,” he added in his sweet, old, slow voice.
Roger hurried into the house, and hustled Judith and her chops to the
dinner table.
“I believe I’ll take you this afternoon, Judith; it’s time you began
your vacation; all the other boarding-schools closed long ago. You
will see the desolation of the Meadow Centre parsonage and offer your
services on the spot. King can’t get a housekeeper to suit him since
Mrs. Foster left. You will suit him exactly; perhaps he likes burnt
chops.”
After the little bustle subsided, Marion asked: “Roger, why didn’t
you tell him about Ruth of Moab—Judith and I are just reading _Ruth_,
who married one of the chosen people, and, if Samuel wrote the story,
he made the sweetest love-story that ever was written—and she was one
in the direct line of the ancestry of Christ.”
“Because that would have been in confirmation of his point,” said
Roger, breaking an egg carefully.
“I don’t see how,” replied Marion.
Judith listened; Roger never talked for the sake of argument; he
pondered before he spoke again.
“She deliberately chose the God of Israel to be her God, giving
herself to His worship and His people; Naomi had taught her; Naomi
was a missionary—love of her mother-in-law was not all that decided
her to leave her gods and her native land.”
“I thought it was because she loved Naomi,” said Judith, “and that
was so lovely.”
“But Naomi’s son married her first,” argued Marion; “he had no right
to do that.”
“Perhaps he was punished for it; perhaps both sons were punished for
it; who knows?”
“But you do not think Jean has done wrong,” said Judith,
sympathetically; “it will break her heart if she ever reasons herself
into believing she has disobeyed.”
“Well, no,” replied Roger, dryly; “especially as David expects to
confess his faith at the next communion. He would not do it before
for fear that he would do it to please Jean. He did not dare tell
her. He has told no one but myself.”
“Then, Roger, why didn’t you tell Uncle Cephas?” asked Judith, in
astonishment.
“I thought he might as well learn that, even in Bensalem, there are
some people he may misjudge. He knows Bensalem by head, once in a
while, better than he knows it by heart.”
“Did you say you would take Judith to Meadow Centre,” Marion asked,
bringing herself back from over the sea.
“Did I, Judith?”
“No, you said you believed you would take me,” said Judith,
mischievously.
“I believe it still.”
“Would you like to go?” inquired Marion.
“I would not like to interfere with any of Roger’s beliefs.”
“Then be ready in ten minutes, or you will. I fed Daisy and she has
had to eat in a hurry like her master.”
“But, Marion, I shall leave you with the dishes, and supper—”
“She couldn’t be left in better company,” Roger insisted; “don’t stop
to change your dress; put on your big hat and we’ll be off.”
“Marion, do you want to be left alone?”
“More than anything else in the world,” said Marion, sincerely.