Now came the most lovely moment of the year. All the trees were putting
forth new leaves, leaves so young, so tiny as yet, that one could see
the fowls of the air when they lodged in the branches--no small
privilege, for now the orange oriole, and the bluebird, and the
primrose-coloured finch, were here, there, and everywhere; and more
rarely the scarlet tanager. A few days before and they had not come; a
few days more and larger leaves would hide them perfectly. Just at this
time, too, along the roadsides, big hawthorn shrubs and wild plum were
in blossom, and in the sheltered fields the mossy sod was pied with
white and purple violets, whose flowerets so outstripped their
half-grown leaves that blue and milky ways were seen in woodland glades.
With the sense of freedom that comes with the thus sudden advent of the
young summer, Winifred Rexford strayed out of the house one morning.
She did not mean to go, and when she went through the front gate she
only meant to go as far as the first wild plum-tree, to see if the white
bloom was turning purple yet, as Principal Trenholme had told her it
would. When she got to the first plum-tree she went on to the second.
Winifred wore a grey cotton dress; it was short, not yet to her ankles,
and her broad hat shaded her from the sun. When she reached the second
group of plum-trees she saw a scarlet tanager sitting on a telegraph
pole--for along the margin of the road, standing among uncut grass and
flowers and trees, tall barkless stumps were set, holding the wires on
high. Perhaps they were ugly things, but a tree whose surface is uncut
is turned on Nature's lathe; at any rate, to the child the poles were
merely a part of the Canadian road, and the scarlet tanager showed its
plumage to advantage as it sat on the bare wood. There was no turning
back then; even Sophia would have neglected her morning task to see a
tanager! She crept up under it, and the bird, like a streak of red
flame, shot forth from the pole, to a group of young pine trees further
on.
So Winifred strayed up the road about a quarter of a mile, till she came
to the gate of the Harmon garden. The old house, always half concealed,
was quickly being entirely hidden by the massive Curtains the young
leaves were so busily weaving. The tanager turned in here, as what bird
would not when it spied a tract of ground where Nature was riotously
decking a bower with the products of all the roots and seeds of a
deserted garden! There was many a gap in the weather-beaten fence where
the child might have followed, but she dare not, for she was in great
awe of the place, because the preacher who was said to have died and
come to life again lived there. She only stood and looked through the
fence, and the tanager--having flitted near the house--soared and
settled among the feathery boughs of a proud acacia tree; she had to
look across half an acre of bushes to see him, and then he was so high
and so far that it seemed (as when looking at the stars) she did not
see him, but only the ray of scarlet light that travelled from him
through an atmosphere of leaflets. It was very trying, for any one knows
that it is _something_ to be able to say that you have come to close
quarters with a scarlet tanager.
Winifred, stooping and looking through the fence, soon heard the college
bell jangle; she knew that it was nine o'clock, and boys and masters
were being ingathered for morning work. The college buildings in their
bare enclosure stood on the other side of the road. Winifred would have
been too shy to pass the playground while the boys were out, but now
that every soul connected with the place would be indoors, she thought
she might go round the sides of the Harmon garden and see the red bird
much nearer from a place she thought of.
This place was nothing but a humble, disused, and untidy burying-ground,
that occupied the next lot in the narrow strip of land that here for a
mile divided road and river. Winifred ran over the road between the
Harmon garden and the college fence, and, climbing the log fence, stood
among the quiet gravestones that chronicled the past generations of
Chellaston. Here grass and wild flowers grew apace, and close by ran the
rippling river reflecting the violet sky above. A cemetery, every one
knows, is a place where any one may walk or sit as long as he likes, but
Winifred was surprised to find Principal Trenholme's housekeeper there
before her; and moreover, this staid, sad woman was in the very place
Winifred was going to, for she was looking through the fence that
enclosed the Harmon garden.
"Good morning, Mrs. Martha," said Winifred politely, concealing her
surprise.
"I've been milking," said the sad woman, glancing slightly at a pail of
foaming milk that she had set for greater security between two
grave-heaps.
Winifred came and took her place beside the housekeeper, and they both
looked through the paling of the Harmon property.
The tanager was still on the acacia, from this nearer point looking like
a great scarlet blossom of some cactus, so intense was the colour; but
Winifred was distracted from her interest in the bird by seeing the old
house more plainly than she had ever seen it before. It stood, a large
substantial dwelling, built not without the variety of outline which
custom has given to modern villas, but with all its doors and windows on
this side fastened by wooden shutters, that, with one or two exceptions,
were nailed up with crossbeams and overgrown with cobwebs. Winifred
surveyed it with an interested glance.
"Did you come to see him?" whispered the housekeeper.
Winifred's eye reverted to the tanager of which, on the whole, her mind
was more full. "Yes"--she whispered the word for fear of startling it.
"I should think yer ma would want you in of a morning, or Miss Sophia
would be learning you yer lessons. When I was your age--But"--sadly--"it
stands to reason yer ma, having so many, and the servant gone, and the
cows comin' in so fast these days one after t'other, that they can't
learn you much of anything reg'lar."
Winifred acquiesced politely. She was quite conscious of the
shortcomings in the system of home education as it was being applied to
her in those days; no critic so keen in these matters as the pupil of
fourteen!
"Well now, it's a pity," said the housekeeper, sincerely, "and they do
say yer ma does deplorable bad cooking, and yer sisters that's older
than you aren't great hands at learning." The housekeeper sat down on a
grave near the paling, as if too discouraged at the picture she had
drawn to have energy to stand longer.
Winifred looked at the tanager, at the housekeeper, and round her at the
happy morning. This sad-eyed, angular woman always seemed to her more
like a creature out of a solemn story, or out of a stained-glass window,
than an ordinary person whose comments could be offensive. They had
talked together before, and each in her own way took a serious interest
in the other.
"Sister Sophia has learned to cook very nicely," said the child, but not
cheerfully. It never seemed to her quite polite to be cheerful when she
was talking to Mrs. Martha.
"Yes, child; but she can't do everything"--with a sigh--"she's put upon
dreadful as it is." Then in a minute, "What made you think of coming
here after him?"
"I think it's so wonderful." The child's eyes enlarged as she peered
through the fence again at the scarlet bird.
"Lolly, child! I'm glad to hear you say that," said Mrs. Martha,
strongly. "He's far above and beyond--he's a very holy man."
Winifred perceived now that she was talking of old Cameron, and she
thought it more polite not to explain that she had misunderstood.
Indeed, all other interests in her mind became submerged in wonder
concerning the old man as thus presented.
"He's mad, isn't he?"
"No, he isn't."
"I knew he was very good, but couldn't he be good and mad too?"
"No," said Mrs. Martha; and the serious assertion had all the more
effect because it stood alone, unpropped by a single reason.
"When I've milked the Principal's special cow I often come here of a
morning, and sometimes I see the saint walking under the trees. I don't
mind telling you, child, for you've a head older than yer years, but you
mustn't speak of it again. I'd not like folks to know."
"I won't tell," whispered Winifred, eagerly. She felt inexpressibly
honoured by the confidence. "Do you think he'll come out now?" Awe and
excited interest, not unmingled with fear, were taking possession of
her. She crouched down beside the solemn woman, and looked through at
the house and all its closed windows. The hedge was alive with birds
that hopped and piped unnoticed, even the scarlet bird was forgotten.
"Mrs. Martha," she whispered, "I heard papa say Cameron believed that
our Saviour was soon coming back again, and only those people would go
with Him who were watching and waiting. Mr. Trenholme said every one was
mad who thought that."
"There's a sight of people will tell you you're mad if you're only
fervent."
The child did not know precisely what "fervent" meant, but she began to
doubt Trenholme's positive knowledge on the subject. "Do you believe the
end of the world's coming so soon?"
"Lor, child! what do I know but the world might go on a good bit after
that? I can't tell from my Bible whether the Lord will take us who are
looking for Him up to His glory for a while, or whether He'll appoint us
a time of further trial while He's conquering the earth; but I do know
it wouldn't matter much which, after we'd heard Him speak to each of us
by name and seen His face." The sad woman looked positively happy while
she spoke.
"Oh, Mrs. Martha, are _you_ watching like that? But how can you all the
time--you must sleep and work, you know?"
"Yes, child; but the heart can watch; and He knows we must sleep and
work; and for that reason I'm not so sure but, if we're faithful, He
might in mercy give us a word beforehand to let us know when to be
expecting more particularly. I don't know, you know, child; I'm only
saying what might be."
"But what makes you think so, Mrs. Martha?"
Winifred was quick-witted enough to perceive something withheld.
"There's things that it's not right for any one to know but those as
will reverence them."
"Oh, I will, I will," said Winifred, clasping her hands.
"As I understand it, Mr. Cameron's had no assurance yet."
Winifred did not ask what this meant. She felt that she was listening
to words that, if mysterious, were to be pondered in silence.
"You know the poor thing whose husband is always tipsy--drunken Job they
call him--that you've seen listening to Mr. Cameron?--and that weakly
Mr. McNider, with the little boy?"
"Yes," assented Winifred.
"He told them," whispered the housekeeper, "that when he was agonising
in prayer it came into his mind to _wait until August this year_. He
hasn't any assurance what it may have meant; but that may come later,
and p'r'aps the days may be told him; and he's awaiting, and we're
awaiting too. There, that's all I have to tell, child, and I must be
going."
She gathered her lean figure up from the hillock, and took up her pail.
As for the girl Winifred, a terrible feeling of fear had come over her.
All the bright world of sun and flowers seemed suddenly overshadowed by
the lowering cloud of an awful possibility. She would no more have
allowed herself to be left alone in that sunny corner of the glad spring
morning than she would have remained alone where visible danger beset
her. Her face bathed in the sudden tears that came so easily to her
girlish eyes, she sprang like a fawn after her companion and grasped her
skirt as she followed.
"How you take on!" sighed the woman, turning. "Do you mean to say you
ain't, glad?"
"I'm frightened," gasped the girl.
"And you been confirmed this spring! What did it mean to you if you
ain't glad there's ever such a little chance of perhaps seeing Him
before the year's out."
They both climbed the fence, handing over the milk-pail between them.
When they had got on to the road and must part, the housekeeper spoke.
"I tell you what it is, Winifred Rexford; we've not one of us much to
bring Him in the way of service. If there's one thing more than another
I'm fond of it's to have my kitchen places to myself, but I've often
thought I ought to ask yer ma to send one of you over every day to learn
from me how a house ought to be kept and dinner cooked. Ye'd learn more
watching me in a month, you know, than ye'd learn with yer ma a fussin'
round in six years. Don't tell yer ma it's a trial to me, but just ask
her if she'll send you over for an hour or two every morning."
"Thank you," said Winifred, reluctantly. "Do you think I _ought_ to
come?"
"Well, I'd want to be a bit more use to my ma if I was you."
"It's very kind of you," acknowledged Winifred; "but--but--Mrs. Martha,
if it was true about this--_this August,_ you know--what would be the
use of learning?"
"Child," said the woman, and if her voice was sad it was also vehement,
"them as are mad in religion are them as thinks doing the duty of each
day for _His_ sake ain't enough without seeing where's the _use_ of
doing what He puts to our hand."
"Mrs. Martha," besought Winifred, timidly, "I--don't like cooking; but
do you think if I did this I should perhaps get to be glad to think--be
glad to think our Saviour might be coming again so soon?"
"To love Him is of His grace, and you must get it direct from Him; but
it's wonderful how doing the best we can puts heart into our prayers."
The scarlet tanager rose and flew from tree to tree like a darting
flame, but Winifred had forgotten him.