One afternoon in June Mary went into her husband's office.
"Has _The Record_ come?" she asked.
"Yes, it's on the table in the next room."
She went into the adjoining room and seated herself by the table. Taking
up _The Record_, she turned to the editorial page, but before she could
begin reading she heard a voice in the office say, "How do you do,
Doctor?"
"How do you do, Mr. Jenkins. Take a seat."
"No, I guess I'll not sit down. I just wanted to get--a prescription."
"The baby's better, isn't it?"
"Oh, the baby's all right, but I want a prescription for myself."
"What sort of prescription?"
"I have to take a long ride in the morning, driving cattle, and I want a
prescription for a pint of whiskey."
Mary listened for her husband's reply. It came.
"Jenkins, I have taken many a long ride through dust and heat, through
rain and snow and storm, and I never yet have had to take any whiskey
along."
"Well, I have a little trouble with my heart and--"
"The trouble's in your head. If you'd throw away that infernal pipe--"
"Oh, it's no use to lecture me on that any more."
"Very well, your tobacco may be worth more to you than your heart."
"Well, will you give me that prescription?"
"Certainly I won't. You don't need whiskey and you'll not get it from
me."
"Go to h-ll!"
"All right, I'll meet _you_ there." At which warm farewell between these
two good friends, Mary leaned back in her chair and laughed silently.
Then she mused: "People will not be saved from themselves. If only they
would be, how much less of sin and sickness and sorrow there would be in
the world."
Presently the doctor came in.
"I have a trip to make tonight, Mary. How would you like a star-light
drive?" Mary said she would like it very much indeed.
Accordingly, at sunset the doctor drove up and soon they were out in the
open country. Chatting of many things they drove along and by and by
Mary's eyes were attracted to a beautiful castle up in the clouds in the
west, on a great golden rock jutting out into the blue. Far below was a
grand woman's form in yellow floating robes. She stood with face
upturned and arms extended in an attitude of sorrow as if she had been
banished from her father's house.
There comes the father now. Slowly, majestically, an old man with
flowing beard of gold moves toward the edge of the great rock. Now he
has reached it. He bends his head and looks below. The attitude of the
majestic woman has changed to that of supplication. And now the father
stretches down forgiving arms and the queenly daughter bows her head
against the mighty wall and weeps in gladness. Now castle and rock,
father and daughter slowly interchange places and vanish from her sight.
The gold turns to crimson, then fades to gray. Just before her up there
in the clouds is a huge lion, couchant. See! he is going to spring
across the pale blue chasm to the opposite bank. If he fails he will
come right down into the road--"Oh!"
"What is it?" asked the doctor, looking around, and Mary told him with a
rather foolish smile.
The twilight deepened into dusk and the notes of a whippoorwill came to
them from a distance. "You and I must have nothing but sweet thoughts
right now, John, because then we'll get to keep them for a year." She
quoted:
"'Tis said that whatever sweet feeling
May be throbbing within the fond heart,
When listening to a whippoorwill s-pieling,
For a twelvemonth will never depart."
"Spieling doesn't seem specially in the whippoorwill's line."
"It's _exactly_ in his line. Years ago when I was a little girl he
proved it. One evening at dusk I was sitting in an arbor when he, not
suspecting my presence, alighted within a few feet of me and began his
song. It was wonderfully interesting to watch his little throat puff and
puff with the notes as they poured forth, but the thing that astounded
me was the length of time he sang without ever pausing for breath. And
so he is a genuine spieler. I will add, however, that the line is 'When
listening to a whippoorwill _singing_.' But my literary conscience will
never let me rhyme _singing_ with _feeling_, hence the sudden change."
"Now I'll speak _my_ piece," announced the doctor:
"De frogs in de pon' am a singin' all de night;
Wid de hallelujah campmeetin' tune;
An' dey all seem to try wid deir heart, soul and might
To tell us ob de comin' of de June."
"_Aren't_ they having a hallelujah chorus over in that meadow, though!"
Darkness settled over the earth. The willow trees, skirting the road for
a little distance, lifted themselves in ghostly tracery against the
starlit sky. A soft breeze stirred their branches like the breath of a
gentle spirit abiding there. They passed a cozy farmhouse nestled down
among tall trees. Through the open door they could see a little
white-robed figure being carried to bed in its father's arms, while the
mother crooned a lullaby over the cradle near.
For a long time they drove in silence. Mary knew that her husband was in
deep thought. Of what was he thinking? The pretty home scene in the farm
house had sent him into a reverie. He went back five or six years to a
bright spring day. He was sitting alone in his office when an old man, a
much respected farmer, came in slowly, closed the door behind him and
sat down. The doctor who knew him quite well saw that he was troubled
and asked if there was anything he could do for him. The old man leaned
his head on his hand but did not reply. It seemed that no words would
come in which to tell his errand.
Puzzled and sympathetic the doctor sat silent and waited. In a little
while the farmer drew his chair very near to that of the doctor's and
said in a low voice, "Doctor, I'm in deep trouble. I come to you because
you are one of my best friends. You have a chance to prove it now such
as you never had before in all the years you've been our doctor."
"Tell me your trouble and if I can help you, I will certainly do so."
"It's Mary. She's gone wrong, and the disgrace will kill her mother if
she finds it out."
For an instant the doctor did not speak; then he asked, "Are you sure
that this is true?"
"Yes. She came to me last night and nestled down in my arms, just as
she's done every night since she was a baby. She cried like her heart
would break and then she said, 'Father, I _must_ tell you, but don't
tell mother'; and then she told me."
The old man, white and trembling, looked beseechingly at the doctor.
"Doctor, this must not be. You must stop it before there is any breath
of scandal. Oh, for a minute last night I wanted to kill her."
The doctor's face was stern. "If you had killed her your crime would
have been far less hellish than the one you ask me to commit."
The old man bowed his head upon his hands. "You will not help me," he
groaned.
The doctor rose and walked the floor. "No, sir," he said, "I will not
stain my soul with murder for you or any other man." He went to the
window and stood looking out upon the street below. Presently he said,
"Mr. Stirling, will you come here a minute?" The old man rose and went.
"Do you see that little boy skipping along down there?"
"Yes, I see him."
"If I should go down these stairs, seize him and dash his brains out
against that building, what would you think of me?"
"I'd think you were a devil."
"Yet he would have a chance for his life. He could cry out, or the
passersby might see me and interpose, while that you ask me to destroy
is--"
"There's one thing I'll do," said the old man fiercely. "I'll kill Ben
Morely before this day is over!" He seized his hat and started toward
the door.
"Wait a minute!" said the doctor quickly. "It's Ben Morely is it? I know
him. I would not have thought him capable of this."
"He's been coming to see Mary steady for more than a year and they were
to have been married three months ago but they quarreled and Mary told
me last night that he was going away the last of this week. She is as
good and sweet a girl as ever lived. She never kept company with anybody
else and she thought the world of him. The damned villain has got around
her with his honey words and now he proposes to leave her to face it
alone. But I'll kill him as sure as the sun shines."
"Sit down," said the doctor, laying a hand on the excited man's arm and
forcing him into a chair.
"Let me tell you what to do. Young Morely's father is a good and
sensible man and will take the right view of it. Go straight to him and
tell him all about it and my word for it, he will see that they are
married right away. He is able to help them along and will make it to
his son's advantage to stay here rather than go away. He will advise him
right. Have no fear." The old man wrung the doctor's hand in silence and
went out.
Several days later the doctor was looking over the papers published in
the town and read in the list of marriage licenses the names, "Benjamin
Morely, aged twenty-four, Mary Stirling, aged eighteen."
And that is why the scene in the farmhouse this summer night had sent
him back into the past, for it was the home of Benjamin and Mary Morely,
and it was a happy home. These two lives had come together and flowed on
in such harmony and helpfulness and rectitude before the world that the
stain had been wiped out. For a merciless world can be merciful
sometimes if it will only stop to remember that long ago a compassionate
Voice said, Go and sin no more.
The doctor's reverie came to an end for he had reached his
destination--a large white house standing very close to the road.
"Don't talk to me while you are hitching the horse," Mary whispered,
"then they won't know there is anyone with you. I don't want to go in--I
want to see the moon come up."
The doctor took his case and went inside. Mary sat in the buggy and
listened. The neighing of a horse far down the road and the barking of a
dog in the distance were the only sounds she heard. How still and cool
it was after the heat of the day. A wandering breeze brought the sweet
perfume of dewy clover fields. She looked across the intervening knoll
to the east. The tree that crowned its summit stood outlined against the
brightening sky. She was sitting very near the open kitchen window and
now saw the family taking their places around the supper table. She felt
a little uncomfortable and as if she were trespassing on their privacy.
But they did not know of her proximity and she could only sit still in
the friendly cover of the darkness. How good the ham smelled and the
potatoes and the coffee.
A pretty home-scene!
The father at the head of the table, the mother opposite with four
sturdy boys between them, two on each side. The father looked around the
board. Stillness settled down upon them, and then he bowed his head. The
mother, too, bowed her head. The boys looked down.
"Our heavenly Father, we thank Thee for these evening blessings--" the
boys looked up and four forks started simultaneously for the meat
platter. Every fork impaled its slice. Mary gasped. She crammed her
handkerchief into her mouth to shut off the laughter that almost shouted
itself before she could stop it.
The oldest boy, a burly fellow of fifteen, looked astonished and then
sheepish. The other three looked defiance at him. Each sat erect in
perfect silence and held his slice to the platter with a firm hand.
Mary, almost suffocating with laughter which _must_ be suppressed,
watched anxiously for the denouement. The blessing went on. The boys
evidently knew all its stages. As it advanced there was a tightening of
the tension and at the welcome "amen" there was a grand rake-off.
At the commotion of the sudden swipe the father and mother looked up in
amazement.
"Boys, boys! what do you mean!" exclaimed the mother.
"We got even with Mr. Jake that time." It was the second boy who spoke.
"We got _ahead_ of him," said the third. "He didn't get the biggest
piece this time."
"No, _I_ got it myself," said the fourth.
"Well, I'm scandalized," said the mother, looking across the table at
her husband.
"Well, Mother, I'll tell you how it was," said the second boy. "Last
night I looked up before Father was through with the blessing and I saw
Jake with his fork in the biggest piece of ham. You and Father didn't
notice and so he was _it_. I'll bet he's been at it a good while, too."
"I've not, either," said the accused.
"I told Bob and Jim about it and we concluded _we'd_ take a hand in it
tonight."
"Well, let this be the last of it," said the father with mild sternness.
"We'll try to have ham enough for all of you without sneaking it. If
not, Jacob can have his mother's share and mine."
The trio of boys grinned triumphantly at the discomfited Jake, then, the
little flurry over, all fell to eating with a will.
The doctor's voice came to Mary from the room of the patient.
"You're worth a dozen dead women yet," it said. Then a high pitched
woman's voice, "I'll tell you what Mary Ann says she thinks about it."
"Has she been here today?" If Mary Ann had been there the unfavorable
condition of the patient was explained.
"Yes, she just went away. She says she believes you're just keepin'
Ellen down so you can get a big bill out of her."
The doctor was fixing up powders and went placidly on till he got
through, then he said "Mary Ann has a better opinion of me than I
thought she had. It takes a mighty good doctor to do that. That's a very
old song but there are a few people in the world that like to sing it
yet. They don't know that there isn't a doctor in the world that knows
enough to do a thing like that even if he wanted to. Nature would beat
him every time if they gave her a chance."
Mary heard the doctor give his instructions and then he came out. As
they drove off she asked, "You came pretty near catching a tartar,
didn't you?"
"Oh, that one is all right. It's her sister that's always raising the
devil."
"Look! isn't she lovely, John?"
"Isn't who lovely?" asked the doctor, looking back at the house in some
surprise.
"The gentle Shepherdess of Night," Mary answered, her eyes on the moon
just rising over the distant treetops.
"She's getting ready to 'lead her flocks through the fields of blue.'"
"How very poetical we are."
"Only an echo from a little song I used to sing when I was a little
girl."
"Get up, my steeds," urged the doctor, "we must be getting back"; and
they sped swiftly homeward through the soft summer night.