All this used to happen, as I said, when I was a little girl; but I, too,
grew up, as grandfather grew bent and feeble. When he was an old, old man
of eighty-five, and when I had been away from Hillsboro several years
teaching school, the last of my grandmother's relatives in Newtonville
died. I was sent for to decide what should be done with the few family
relics, and one Saturday and Sunday I went all through the little old
house, looking over the things.
In the garret I came across the moose-skull with one horn. It made me feel
queer to think what a part it had played in the development of my
grandfather's honorable and tender old soul. There were a few sticks of
furniture, some daguerrotypes and silhouettes, and a drawerful of yellow
papers. The first I sent home to Hillsboro to grandmother. I took the
papers back to the town where I was teaching, to look over them.
Among other things was a quaint old diary of my grandmother's great-aunt,
she that was the buxom widow of Jed's story. It was full of homely items
of her rustic occupations; what day she had "sett the broune hen," and how
much butter was made the first month she had the "party-colored cowe from
over the mount'n." I glanced idly at these faded bits of insignificant
news, when I was electrified by seeing the following entry:
#This day came to my Bro. Amos and Me, a sea-man, bringeing news of my
Bro. Elijah's the capt'n's dethe, and allso mutch monie in gold, sent to
us by our Bro. The sea-man is the greatest in size aver I saw. No man in
towne his bed can reach so mutch as to his sholder. And comely withal#.
The words fairly whirled on the page before my astonished eyes. Where was
the image of the ill-favored little old Jed, so present to my imagination?
I read on breathlessly, skipping news of the hen-house and barnyard, until
I came upon this, the only other reference, but quite sufficient:
This day the sea-man, Samuel Harden, left us.
The self-restrained woman had said nothing of any disappointment she might
have felt. The item stood quite alone, however, in a significant
isolation. At least on that day she had not noticed the number of eggs.
I doubt if grandfather himself had been more excited when he saw the
birch-wood club than I was to read those few words. I could hardly wait
till the next Saturday to rush back to Hillsboro, and relieve the poor old
man of the burden of remorse he had carried so faithfully and so
mistakenly all these years, and to snatch the specious crown of martyrdom
from that shameless thief of another man's exploits.
And yet, when I finally arrived at Hillsboro, I found it not so easy to
begin. Some strange spell, exhaled from the unchanging aspect of the old
house and the old people, fell on me, and, though I tried several times, I
could not find a suitable opening. On Sunday morning grandfather asked me
if I would help him to get out to Jed's grave. The peonies and syringas
were in bloom, and grandmother had the bouquet made up ready. Drawing me
aside, she to me that grandfather was really too infirm to try to make the
expedition at all, and certainly could not go alone. Even then I could
find no words to tell her. I thought it might be easier to do so out of
doors.
It was the middle of a bright spring morning, when we started off,
grandfather leaning on his cane and holding to my arm, while I carried the
great clump of red peonies and white syringas. The sun was warm, but a
cool breeze blew down from the mountains, and grandfather hobbled along
bravely.
It made me feel like a little girl again to have him begin the story of
the moose, and tell it word for word as he always had. He was forced to
stop often now, and wait for breath to come back to him. At each of these
halts beside the road, which was white in the clear spring sunshine, it
was harder and harder to think of breaking in on him with my discovery.
As he finally told about Jedediah's wounded virtue on his deathbed--that
outcry which seemed to me the most brazen part of the whole
imposture--suddenly my heart softened, and I, too, believed that by that
time of his life old Jed was--I really don't know just what it was that I
believed, but it was something as comforting as the quiet warmth of the
sunshine.
We were standing by the sunken old grave when grandfather finished. I
looked at him, the sun shining down on his bent figure and bared white
head, the flowers reflecting their brightness up into his withered old
face, and a lump came into my throat. I could not have told him if I had
wished to.
"We were ashamed to look the dead man in the face," he said humbly, and
laid the flowers down on the young grass.
Then I went around and held his dear old hand tightly in mine; and we
stood very still for a long, long time.