“Being fruitful in every good work, and increasing
in the knowledge of God.”
This same March night in the snow-storm the Bensalem preacher sat
alone in his study among his books, with his thoughts among his
people whom he loved.
Marion brought her work-basket and took her seat on the other side of
the lamp. The evening’s mail was upon the table.
“What do the letters bring to-night, Roger?” she inquired in the tone
of one hungry for news.
“Enough to stir us up for one while.”
“Good. I am always ready to be stirred up. I have been stagnant all
day.”
“What a girl you are for wanting new sensations.”
“Aren’t you always after them?”
“No, they are always after me.”
“Which one is after you now?”
“Four.”
“Four letters,” she said, eagerly.
“There are more than four letters. But four have sensations.”
“Do give me half a sensation.”
“What do you think of John writing me that he is tired of medicine,
it is too big a pull; he wants me to break it to father, and ask him
to take him into the business.”
“Father will be glad enough; but he will not like John to give up for
such a reason.”
“I imagine that girl is at the bottom of it. Girls are usually at the
bottom of things. Her father will be willing for the marriage if John
goes into business; he did not relish the idea of a struggling
professional man.”
“Lottie Kindare is not the girl to relish a long engagement, either.
I am not surprised at _that_ sensation.”
“You will not be surprised that Richard King has resigned and
accepted a call to the Summer Avenue church.”
“Oh, no; father said they were determined to have him.”
“And he’s to be married, too.”
“I cannot be surprised at that. That is not a sensation. I knew he
was taken with Agnes Trembly that first time he met her here. She did
look as sweet as a violet. She has grown like a flower this last
year.”
“Thanks to you. You have been a wonderful help to her. You took her
into a new world.”
“That is what I tried to do. She was ready for it. And to think our
little country dressmaker will be the wife of the Summer Avenue
minister.”
“Oh, she’ll take to it. It is in her.”
“Yes; she has tact.”
“And natural ability.”
“That is only—how many sensations?”
“You saw that one letter was from Don. He is coming home next month.
Really, this time.”
“His wife has been dead—”
“A year. Their married life was very short. All the happier because
it was short. She has become a blessed memory to him. She was very
sweet in the last month of her life. He loved her then as he had
never loved her before. She told him that she did not love him when
she married him; that she married him to get away from her uncle’s
home. That last month was the one sweet drop in his bitter cup.”
“Roger, you knew his story all the time.”
“From the very first. He was not proud with me. He is so much like a
woman that he had to tell somebody.”
“That proves how little you know of women,” was the woman’s unspoken
comment.
“Now, for my last sensation. The First Church in Dunellen asks if I
will accept a call.”
“O, Roger,” with a mingling of sensations.
“It is ‘O, Roger,’ I am torn in two.”
“One Roger for Bensalem and one for Dunellen.”
“I have known for some time that I might have the call. Dear old Dr.
Kent has resigned. He told me he wanted to throw his mantle over me.”
“The salary is twenty-five hundred and parsonage,” remarked Marion.
“I suppose I am not above the consideration of salary. I cannot work
at tent making.”
“Bensalem has had the best of you.”
“Well, I hope not—at my age.”
“Bensalem has been preparation for Dunellen, then,” she amended.
“What do you advise?”
“I do not advise a man when his mind is made up.”
“Bensalem has been good for us.”
“And we have not been so bad for Bensalem. Seven is the perfect
number. We have been here seven years. What _will_ Judith say?”
“I think I will go and see,” he said, rising.
“To-night? In the storm?”
“It will be the first storm I ever was afraid of.”
Left alone, Marion forgot her work. It was not only Dunellen. He
would forget to ask Judith about Dunellen.
Judith was sitting before the fire on the hearth with a book when
Roger stamped up on the piazza. Aunt Affy, mixing bread at the
kitchen table, heard the gate swing to, and called to Uncle Cephas
that somebody must want shelter for the night to come out in such a
storm. Uncle Cephas dropped his newspaper and opened the sitting-room
door that led to the piazza.
“Well, the minister, of all things!”
“Sakes alive!” exclaimed Aunt Affy, rubbing the flour off her hands.
Judith sat still by the fire.
“I had to come to see my elder,” explained Roger.
“Oh, church business,” said Aunt Affy enlightened.
“Young folks never mind a storm,” remarked the elder. “Shake off your
snow, and come to the fire.”
As Judith arose with her book Roger detained her; “This isn’t a
secret session, Judith. You and Aunt Affy must help me decide about
Dunellen.”
“Dunellen! Has it come to that?” inquired the elder.
“Dunellen has come to me. The First Church has come to me.”
“I might have known what would come of your exchanging so often,”
remarked Uncle Cephas, discontentedly.
“I thought you did it to rest Dr. Kent,” reproached Aunt Affy.
“I did. It did rest him.”
“And you got ensnared yourself. Roger Kenney, are you going there for
the money?” asked Uncle Cephas, with solemnity.
“You know better than that,” replied Roger, angrily.
“The heart of man is deceitful. There’s a great difference in the
salary. But there’s a difference in the man. You’ve grown some since
you came here seven years ago.”
“Uncle Cephas, I think you are _wicked_,” protested Judith, with
tearful vehemence. “If you don’t know Roger better than that you do
not know him at all.”
“You don’t know men,” insisted the elder of the Bensalem church. “The
heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.”
“Judith knows mine is not,” laughed Roger.
“Judith, don’t fly at me and eat me up,” said Uncle Cephas; “I know
this young man as well as most folks. He doesn’t love money _enough_.
He may be going for something, but it isn’t for money.”
“He is going for more young folks,” said Aunt Affy, “and men about
his own age. I’m willing, but it’s terrible hard.”
Judith turned to the fire again.
“Come, sit down and let’s talk it over,” said Uncle Cephas, in a
pacified tone; “I won’t pull the wrong way if it’s best.”
An hour afterward Aunt Affy called her husband out into the kitchen.
“Cephas,” she whispered, “don’t you _know_ he wants to ask Judith
what she thinks?”
“She isn’t a member of the session,” replied Uncle Cephas, with
dignity.
“She is a member of _his_ session,” said wise Aunt Affy.
After this, what more would you know of Judith’s growing up?
She was married on her twentieth birthday, and her Cousin Don was at
the wedding. She was married in the Bensalem church; Richard King
performed the ceremony. Roger asked if she would have dear old Dr.
Kent, but in memory of that afternoon at Meadow Centre, she chose
Richard King.
“Don, it wouldn’t have been perfect without you,” she whispered when
her Cousin Don kissed her. The next year Judith finished her book of
children’s stories which she wished to take to Heaven to show her
mother.
Marion was the maiden aunt at the Dunellen parsonage. Don Mackenzie
was everybody’s good friend.
A. L. Burt’s Catalogue of Books
for Young People by Popular Writers,
52-58 Duane Street, New York