"Quite right, quite right, and very sensible on your part, my dear
young lady. Yes, I will take care of the things, and have them put into
the vault. I knew your father and grandfather well. Pray, call upon me
without hesitation if I can be of any service to you."
As Calista was waiting a moment for Mr. Fabian to write a receipt and a
note for Miss Druett, she heard an old gentleman, who had been sitting
in the back office, say to him—
"Is not that old Richard Stanfield's granddaughter?"
"Granddaughter and heir, if every one had their rights," answered Mr.
Fabian in the same tone. "But the second will, if indeed he ever made
one, will never be found."
"It may turn up yet."
"Possibly; and then the girl would be a great heir, for the property
has increased tenfold in value. I fear the will will never be found. I
suspect some one took care of that."
At another time this conversation would have set Calista off into one
of the day dreams in which she had so much delighted; but now her head
and heart were full of something else.
She asked at the school for Miss McPherson, and heard that she was
better, and had gone out driving with Miss Meeks and Tessy; for Miss
McPherson kept a handsome, roomy carriage, and drove out with some of
her young ladies almost every day. It was not till she was on her way
home, and had turned into the river road, that Calista remembered Mary
Burns and the missing working-case.
In fact, Calista's mind and head were full of a new and strange
trouble. A fierce contention was going on for that small empire—so
small, so great—a human soul.
The night before she had fully determined to follow her mother's
counsel—to give herself heart and soul to him who had given himself
for her. But since then, she had read Miss Priscilla's letter, and her
mother's remarks upon it, and hence arose her trouble. This it was
which had waked up the lions which disputed her passage, and if the
lions were chained, she saw not the chains. She knew that to follow
the footsteps of her Lord she must forgive not only her own enemy—she
thought that would be almost easy—but her mother's.
"Forgive if ye would be forgiven," rung in her ears, and she felt the
words were true.
"If it had been only myself,—" she said over and over again—"but my
mother, my dear precious mother, who never did harm to any one in all
her days—no, no! I never can! Oh, why did she keep that letter! She
might have known! Oh, what shall I do!—What shall I do!"
In her trouble of mind, she had nearly passed Cassius's modest little
house, but was recalled by a cheerful greeting from the old man, who
was cutting some wood outside the gate.
"Morning, Missy! Don't you mean to stop and give us a call?"
"Yes, of course," answered Calista, recalled from her abstraction, and
pulling up Jeff, nothing loth, at the gate. "I will come in if you will
fasten the pony."
Cassius tied the pony, and brought him an armful of fragrant new hay
from the next field, with which the attention of that ancient sage was
soon wholly engrossed.
Meantime, Calista had alighted, and was receiving a hearty welcome from
Aunt Sally, who conducted her to the house and seated her in the best
chintz-covered rocking-chair, bringing her a fan, and sending a little
girl to the well for cool water.
"Who is that little thing?" asked Calista, as the child disappeared.
"Your grandchild?"
"Lord bless you, honey, no. My grandchillen's no such peaked, puny
little things as that, thanks to Massy. No, that's poor Maria Jackson's
child, that works to Mrs. Dare's, the dressmaker. You see, Mrs. Dare
she can't very well have the child round—she can't, really—and Maria
boarded the little thing out, down to Gouldtown. But the woman that had
her didn't do her justice—made her work far too hard, though Maria paid
her regular. Besides, she didn't give her half enough to eat. One day I
met Maria in the street, and says she,—
"'Just look at this child, will you!'
"And says I, 'For Massy, Maria, what ails her?'
"So she up and told me, and Sister Wilson, that was with her, said it
was all so.
"And says I, 'Maria, you just let me have her a few weeks, and you
won't know her. Don't you never send her back to that woman,' says I.
"'But I don't know as I can afford to pay what it is worth,' says she.
"'Never mind,' says I; 'you pay what you can, or don't pay anything.
Just let me have her a few weeks, and see what I can do with her. And
Cassius says the same.'
"So we brought her home, and she's picked up wonderful in a week."
"But I thought the Gouldtowners were pretty nice people," said Calista,
as she fanned herself and admired the cool, cheerful aspect of the room.
"So they are—so they are; but Missy knows there's a black sheep in
every flock!"
"They's all middling black sheep up to Gouldtown!" said old Cassius,
who had entered in time to hear the last remark.
Calista smiled, and the old woman laughed they heartily.
"So they are, old man—so they are; but that's only the outside. Bless
the Master's name, he don't look at their skins. And old Sister
Williams, she told me herself that the folks was up in arms about the
way this child was treated. But I'm most sorry we took her, for she's
such a smart, clever, lively little piece, I sha'n't never want to part
with her."
All this time Sally had been, on hospitable thoughts intent, covering
a little table with a white cloth, and setting thereon white bread,
golden butter, a great pitcher of milk and cream, and various other
good things. Having finished her preparations, she invited Calista to
draw her chair to the table, excusing herself for having no meat cooked.
"This hot weather we don't do much cooking. We generally eats bread and
milk, or some such thing, at noon, and I cooks something for supper.
But I can make a fire and boil Missy some eggs in a minute."
"No, thank you," said Calista. "I like this beautiful, cool milk better
than anything."
"That's just what Drusella Pine says," replied old Sally, much
delighted. "She says, 'Aunt, we can get meat in the city, but we can't
get such milk as you have here—not for no price,' says she."
"Philadelphy's pretty well off for milk, too, for a city," remarked
Cassius. "Not like New York."
Cassius always spoke of New York with a kind of pitying contempt, as a
place which might come to something some time, but could never hope to
vie, either in beauty or importance, with "Philadelphy."
"I wanted to ask about Drusella," said Calista. "When is she coming?"
"We expect her to-night," answered Cassius. "I'm going to meet her at
the Cohansey stage and bring her out here. She'll stay with us a few
weeks, and then, I expect, she'll have to rent a room in Cohansey. It
is too far out here for her business."
"I asked because I thought she would, perhaps, do some work for me,"
said Calista. "Miss Druett wants me to have a couple of dresses made,
and she told me to call and see if Drusella could take them home and
cut and fit them."
"I'll speak to her about it the first thing Monday morning," said
Cassius. "I don't doubt she'll be glad to do the work. I hope Missy
means to go to the preaching to-morrow night?"
"Oh, yes, I shall go," said Calista. "Thank you very much, Aunt Sally,
for your nice lunch. I only wish I could make you any return for all
your kindness to me."
"Law, Missy, don't you think of such a thing!" said Sally. "Your family
has done more for us than we can ever pay."
"Well, I'm glad the poor child is going to have some new frocks, for
once in her life," she added as Cassius came back to the house. "I only
wonder how she came by them. Have a drink, old man?"
"Maybe Miss Priscilla's turning liberal," observed Cassius, accepting
the offer.
"Maybe the sky's turning pea-green!" returned Sally, scornfully. "Maybe
that milk you're a-drinking is made of melted pearls!"
"Don't taste like it," said Cassius. "Tastes like first-rate cow's
milk."
"Much you know how melted pearls taste! There, now, don't go to work in
the sun right off. Sit down in the big chair and have a nap. Naps in
the middle of the day is good for old folks."
Calista arrived at home just as Friend Anderson and Miss Priscilla
had finished their business, which had not been done without some
wrangling; Miss Priscilla maintaining that the money was twenty-five
cents short.
"Thee is in the wrong," said Jacob Anderson, "but I will pay the money
rather than dispute longer. I will thank thee for a receipt."
"What is the use of a receipt when it is endorsed on the bond?" snapped
Miss Priscilla.
"I'll trouble thee for the receipt all the same," said the old Friend.
"Accidents sometimes happen, and there is so harm in a double security."
"Won't you have a cup of tea, Friend Anderson?" said Miss Druett,
struck with the old man's weary expression. "You look very tired."
"No, thank thee, Friend Druett. I am a poor man, but I don't think I
could swallow grudged victuals. They would stick in my throat. Thank
thee for the offer all the same. Farewell, Priscilla; I hope thee may
some day come to a better mind. Remember, if riches don't leave thee,
thee will have to leave them. When thee comes to lie on a death-bed,
like my poor sister, twenty-five cents won't look quite so big to thee
as it does now."
And Jacob Anderson took his departure, having certainly taken the worth
of his twenty-five cents out of Miss Priscilla.
"So you had your ride for nothing," remarked Miss Druett.
"Not altogether. I did your errand at the bank, and stopped to see
about Drusella Pine. She is coming to-night, and Cassius says he will
send her over Monday morning."
"What on earth do you want with Drusella Pine?" asked Miss Priscilla.
"I want her to cut and fit the child's new frocks, and perhaps make one
of them. She has not a decent thing to wear."
"She is not coming here to make it, I can tell you that," said Miss
Priscilla, in alarm. "I won't have a dressmaker eating more than her
day's wages, and telling and tattling about family matters all over."
"Don't alarm yourself, I have no intention of having her here,"
replied Miss Druett; "she need not come into the house, if you prefer
she should not. Calista and I can go over there. Don't you want some
dinner, child?"
"No, thank you, Miss Druett. I had a good lunch of bread and milk and
gingerbread at Aunt Sally's?"
"Sally makes a great deal of you, it seems to me," said Miss Priscilla.
"I dare say she would not offer me so much as a crust."
"Oh, yes, she would, aunt; try her and see."
"Did you hear any news?" asked Miss Druett.
"Only about Mrs. Rolfe; they say she cannot live but a few days, at the
outside."
"That will be a great relief to her family," said Miss Priscilla; "it
must cost a great deal to have her ill so long."
"I don't believe they feel in that way," observed Calista; "they are
all very fond of 'Aunty Rolfe,' as they call her. Can I do anything for
you, Miss Druett?"
"No, child, unless you can find a brick to heat for my face. I am going
to try to get a little sleep, for I had none last night."
Calista found the brick and heated it, and having done all in her power
to make Miss Druett comfortable, she betook herself to her own room.
How she would have liked to set her mother's work-box and writing-desk
on the table; but she knew it would never do, though she did venture
to arrange her small store of books on two shelves which had long
ago been put up in a corner. These books were, as I have said,
chiefly religious; but there was a thick, fine-printed but handsome
Shakespeare, with her father's name in it, and some volumes of English
poetry—Cowper, Goldsmith, Young's "Night Thoughts," and others of that
stamp. There was a "Saint's Rest," much used and blotted here and there
with tears; a "Pilgrim's Progress," apparently quite new, and the "Life
of Mrs. Fletcher," by H. More.
The next morning, Miss Druett was really ill with a severe cold, and
Calista, was kept busy all day running and waiting on her. As it came
towards night, however, Miss Druett felt better, and insisted on
Calista going to the meeting. Calista had felt a dull, miserable pain
at her heart all day; she could see no way of deliverance, and she did
not hope for much help at the meeting; but she had promised to go, and
she went.
She was surprised to see what a large congregation had been collected
by the exertions of Cassius and the others who had interested
themselves in the matter. Sally and her husband had washed the windows
and floor, dusted the benches and pulpit, and really made the poor
deserted old sanctuary look bright and cheerful. Cassius, who was
acting as sexton, assigned Calista a seat near the desk, where the
minister was already seated.
He was an elderly, somewhat hard-featured man, who looked as some one
said of another minister, as if he had been through the fire and come
out brightened and also a little hardened by the process. He glanced
at Calista with peculiar interest, and Calista wondered whether he was
thinking that she looked like her father. That, however, was not the
case. He was thinking, "That child looks as if she were in some great
trouble. I wonder what it is. God help her."
The service began with a hymn, then a chapter in the Bible—the first of
St. John's gospel—then a prayer, and then came the announcement of the
text, taken from the same chapter:
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
The style was so plain that a child could have understood it; plain
with the simplicity of high cultivation and much reading, and also that
of deep feeling. It was evident that the preacher meant every word he
said. Calista drank it in as a man dying in the alkaline desert would
take in a draught of cool, fair water brought from a mountain spring.
Here was the Saviour she needed—he who was called Jesus, because he
came to save his people from their sins; because his blood cleansed
away sin; because he suffered in their stead; because he blotted out
transgression in the past and promised help for the future.
As the preacher went on in his even, mellow voice, so clear, so calm
and tender, setting forth Jesus Christ crucified in the place of
sinners, Calista's head sank down on the bench before her, and her full
heart overflowed at her. The question was no longer with her, "Can I
forgive Aunt Priscilla?" but "What, oh, what can I do for him who has
done so much for me; who has paid the debt I owed; who has so loved me
all these years that I have never thought of him at all?"
Calista's was not the only bowed head in the assembly. There was a
universal silence and hush, and even the careless and wild young men
whose presence in the back part of the room had caused Cassius and
others some anxiety sat hushed and silent.
The sermon was short—too short for Calista, who would have liked
to sit an hour longer. The speaker announced that a prayer meeting
would be held in the same place on Wednesday evening, and that after
the service, he should be glad to converse with any one who wished
for further religious instruction. Then a hymn was sung and the
congregation dismissed.
Two or three of the better class of neighbors came up to speak to the
minister.
And one grave, formal old man, after saying good-evening, turned to
Cassius and reproved him, with some asperity, for letting in Tom Edgar
and his companions.
"Why, Mr. Heminway, I thought they were just the people who needed the
gospel," answered Cassius, no ways abashed. "I suppose Tom Edgar has a
soul to be saved, and that the Lord died to save it, and he ain't any
worse than the publicans and sinners that same Lord preached to and sat
down to table with."
"That was very different," said the old man. "Tom Edgar is a swearing,
fighting, drunken sot,—the pest of the whole neighborhood."
"So much the more need of his having the gospel preached to him,"
returned Cassius. "Ain't that so, Mr. Alger?"
"Certainly," answered the minister, promptly. "Was that tall, dark
young man by the door Tom Edgar? I looked at him several times, and
thought him quiet and attentive enough. He sings very finely."
"Well, Mr. Alger, all I have to say is, that if you encourage such
sort of people, you will have enough of it. That is the worst of these
outside and out of the way meetings. They draw in all the riffraff of
the community. * If only the respectable people will come, it would be
very well."
* This is no exaggeration.
"Inasmuch as there is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner
that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons who need
no repentance, perhaps that may be an effect of outside meetings not
altogether displeasing to him who has promised to be in the midst of
us," said Mr. Alger, mildly.
Mr. Heminway deigned no answer, but walked away.
"Well, for my part, I was downright glad to see the poor young fellow
come in," said Mr. Davis, a small, plain man, who rented one of Miss
Priscilla's farms. "Tom Edgar was just one of the nicest little boys
that ever lived to begin with, but he hadn't much chance. His father
never spoke a kind word to him, and whipped him half to death for every
little fault, and his stepmother, who was young and a kind-hearted
little thing, thought to make it up by indulging him in everything, and
covering up his faults just as far as she could. Tom ain't altogether
bad. Don't you remember how he risked his life nursing that poor
creature that had the fever up in the woods here?"
"I must try to have a talk with him," said the minister. "Who was that
very pretty girl who sat near the desk and seemed so much affected?"
"Oh, that was old Miss Stanfield's niece," said Mr. Heminway, who had
rejoined the group.
"That was Miss Calista Stanfield, daughter of Mr. Richard, and
granddaughter of old General Stanfield of the mansion house," said
Cassius, with a glance of severe rebuke at the first speaker. "She is
as fine a young lady as any in the country."
"That she is," rejoined Mr. Davis. "I wish her aunt was only half as
much of a lady. I wonder why Miss Druett wasn't down. I kind of thought
she would be."
"Oh, she's sick abed with a cold. As to Miss Priscilla, I should
think the millennium was coming sure enough if I should see her in a
religious meeting. Well, Mr. Alger, I'm sure we have had a profitable
time to-night, and I hope it may be the beginning of better things."
Calista went home as it were on wings. She hardly felt the ground on
which she trod. The whole world seemed changed to her. Here was the
Friend, the Protector, the Helper, the Physician, she needed, all in
one. She had been walking in darkness, and here was light; hungry and
thirsty, and here was the bread and the water of life; shut in with
bolts and bars, and here was the deliverer who had broken the gates
of brass and burst the bars of iron asunder, and the guide who would
lead and teach her in the way she should go. She had been fighting with
what she knew to be sin, and here was one who came before her saying,
gently,—
"'Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.'
"'I, even I, am he that comforteth you.'"
Calista had, of course, much to learn of the force of temptation, of
inbred sin, and of the corruption of her own heart, but of these things
she did not think, nor would there have been any wisdom, but quite the
contrary, in telling her of them. The traveller who sets out on a long
journey knows very well that he will meet many discomforts, trials, and
dangers; but he would be a foolish man who should lose the freshness of
the morning, and the singing of the birds, and the beauty of flowers
and scenery, in pondering over these coming dangers and trials.
Calista went up to Miss Druett's room, and softly opened the door.
"Come in, child, I am not asleep," said Miss Druett. "Come and tell me
how you liked the meeting."
"Oh, so much, Miss Druett. How I wish you had been there."
"Then you had a fine sermon?"
"I don't know whether it was fine or not," answered Calista. "I never
thought. I knew it was just what I wanted."
Miss Druett drew Calista nearer to her, and fixed her piercing eyes on
her face. Then she sighed deeply.
"I see," said she. "You have found him of whom Moses and the Prophets
did write."
"You are not sorry, are you, Miss Druett?"
"No, child! Heaven forbid! I found him once, or so I thought; but I
lost him again."
"Oh, Miss Druett! Surely he did not forsake you!"
"No: I forsook him. I quarrelled with him because he would not give me
the sweets I cried for, and I have never seen him since. I shall never
find him again, I fear."
"Perhaps he will find you," said Calista softly. "You know that was
what he came for—to seek and to save that which was lost."
Miss Druett had always rather suffered than returned Calista's
caresses, but now she drew the girl down to her, and held her in a
long, close embrace.
"Get your Bible and read the same chapter the minister read."
Calista obeyed, and Miss Druett listened with evident pleasure and
interest.
"To think that any man with a heart could turn that into ridicule,
whether he believed it or not!" said she when the chapter was finished.
"Now tell me what hymns they sang. Do you know any of them?"
"Yes, ma'am. I know the whole of—"
"'Alas! and did my Saviour bleed,—'
"because we sing it sometimes in church."
"Sing it."
Calista sang the tender, simple old hymn, worth more than whole piles
of sentimental stuff which go under the name of hymns in some quarters
in these days. Miss Druett listened, and more than one tear stole out
from under her closed eyelids.
Miss Priscilla listened as she nodded over her volume of Rousseau, in
the parlors below, and made up her mind that she was not going to have
that sort of thing going on in the house to please Druey nor any one
else.
"Thank you, child. Your voice is like your father's and your
grandmother's. There, get me some fresh water, and leave me alone. I
dare say I shall have a good night."
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
OLD JAEL.
CALISTA rose early as usual, with the feeling that she was entering on
a new life. She had lived heretofore for herself—now she must begin to
live for him who had live and died, and lived again, for her. She read
over again her mother's letter, and saw hosts of new meanings in it.
Especially was she struck with these words:
"You must expect to meet with many trials within and without. It may be
that you will no sooner resolve to be wholly a Christian than you will
find yourself assaulted with more ad sorer temptations than you have
ever experienced. This will be partly because you will see things to be
wrong which you never thought to be so before—partly, but not wholly.
Satan makes his fiercest assaults upon those who are just escaping from
his grasp. Be instant in prayer, study your Bible daily, and I would
advise you also to study the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' You will find it a
treasury of help and instruction."
Some persons might have been discouraged by such a warning—Calista was
not so.
"Sure I must fight if I would win," she said to herself. "I always did
like that hymn."
And she began to sing it, and then instantly checked herself as she
considered that might wake her neighbors.
"I believe I will go out and get the flowers I promised Tessy," said
she. "When I am out in the woods, I can sing as much as I please."
She put on her oldest frock and shoes—not that there was so very much
to choose between oldest and newest—and, crossing the burying-place,
was soon in the shady place where she knew the laurel lingered longest.
It was a little hollow on the edge of the woods, and was kept green
and damp by three or four springs which united their waters to form
a rill—a somewhat uncommon sight in those parts. The place was no
favorite with the country people. On one side of the dell was a curious
grave-shaped mound, from beneath which rose one of the little springs
I have mentioned, which was reddened by oxide of iron. It was believed
that a murdered man and his murderer had there been buried in one
grave, and that the water, in its color, still bore witness to the
deed—and that a kind of venomous snake was found there which lived
nowhere else.