Mr. Johns, meantime, when he had left the Handby parlor, where we saw
him last, and was fairly upon the stair, had replied to the suggestion
of his little wife about the sermon on Revelations with a fugitive kiss,
and said, "I will think of it, Rachel."
And he did think of it,--thought of it so well, that he left the
beautiful sermon in his drawer, and took with him a couple of strong
doctrinal discourses, upon the private hearing of which his charming
wife had commented by dropping asleep (poor thing!) in her chair.
But the strong men and women of Ashfield relished them better. There was
a sermon for the morning on "Regeneration the work only of grace"; and
another for the afternoon, on the outer leaf of which was written, in
the parson's bold hand, "The doctrine of Election compatible with the
infinite goodness of God." It is hard to say which of the two was the
better, or which commended itself most to the church full of people who
listened. Deacon Tourtelot,--a short, wiry man, with reddish whiskers
brushed primly forward,--sitting under the very droppings of the pulpit,
with painful erectness, and listening grimly throughout, was inclined to
the sermon of the morning. Dame Tourtelot, who overtopped her husband by
half a head, and from her great scoop hat, trimmed with green, kept her
keen eyes fastened intently upon the minister on trial, was enlisted in
the same belief, until she heard the Deacon's timid expression of
preference, when she pounced upon him, and declared for the Election
discourse. It was not her way to allow him to enjoy an opinion of his
own getting. Miss Almira, their only child, and now grown into a spare
womanhood, that was decorated with another scoop hat akin to the
mother's,--from under which hung two yellow festoons of ringlets tied
with lively blue ribbons,--was steadfastly observant; though wearing a
fagged air before the day was over, and consulting on one or two
occasions a little vial of "salts," with a side movement of the head,
and an inquiring nostril.
Squire Elderkin, having thrown himself into a comfortable position in
the corner of his square pew, is cheerfully attentive; and at one or two
of the more marked passages of the sermon bestows a nod of approval, and
a glance at Miss Meacham and Mrs. Elderkin, to receive their
acknowledgment of the same. The young Elderkins (of whom three are of
meeting-house size) are variously affected: Miss Dora, being turned of
six, wears an air of some weariness, and having despatched all the
edible matter upon a stalk of caraway, she uses the despoiled brush in
keeping the youngest boy, Ned, in a state of uneasy wakefulness. Bob,
ranking between the two in point of years, and being mechanically
inclined, devotes himself to turning in their sockets the little bobbins
which form a balustrade around the top of the pew; but being diverted
from this very suddenly by a sharp squeak that calls the attention of
his Aunt Joanna, he assumes the penitential air of listener for full
five minutes; afterward he relieves himself by constructing a small
meeting-house out of the psalm-books and Bible, his Aunt Joanna's
spectacle-case serving for a steeple.
There was an air of subdued reverence in the new clergyman, which was
not only agreeable to the people in itself, but seemed to very many
thoughtful ones to imply a certain respect for them and for the parish.
The men of that day in Ashfield were intolerant of mere elegances, or of
any jauntiness of manner. But Mr. Johns was so calm and serious, and yet
gave so earnest expression to the old beliefs they had so long
cherished,--he was so clearly wedded to all those rigidities by which
the good people thought it a merit to cramp their religious
thinking,--that there was but one opinion of his fitness.
Deacon Tourtelot, sidling down the aisle after service, out of hearing
of his consort, says to Elderkin, "Smart man, Squire."
And the Squire nods acquiescence. "Sound sermonizer,--sound sermonizer,
Deacon."
These two opinions were as good as a majority-vote in the town of
Ashfield,--all the more since the Squire was a thorough-going
Jeffersonian Democrat, and the Deacon a warm Federalist, so far as the
poor man could be warm at anything, who was on the alert every hour of
his life to escape the hammer of his wife's reproaches.
So it happened that the parish was called together, and an invitation
extended to Brother Johns to continue his ministrations for a month
further. Of course the novitiate understood this to be the crucial test;
and he accepted it with a composure, and a lack of impertinent effort to
please them overmuch, which altogether charmed them. On four successive
Saturdays he drove over to Ashfield,--sometimes stopping with one or the
other of the two deacons, and at other times with Squire Elderkin,--and
on one or two occasions taking his wife by special invitation. Of her,
too, the people of Ashfield had but one opinion: that she was of a
ductile temper was most easy to be seen; and there was not a
strong-minded woman of the parish but anticipated with delight the power
and pleasure of moulding her to her wishes. The husband continued to
preach agreeably to their notions of orthodoxy, and at the end of the
month they gave him a "call," with the promise of four hundred dollars a
year, besides sundry odds and ends made up by donation visits and
otherwise.
This sum, which was not an inconsiderable one for those days, enabled
the clergyman to rent as a parsonage the old house we have seen, with
the big brazen knocker, and diamond lights in either half of its green
door. It stood under the shade of two huge ashes, at a little remove
back from the street, and within easy walk from the central common. A
heavy dentilated cornice, from which the paint was peeling away in flaky
patches, hung over the windows of the second floor. Within the door was
a little entry--(for years and years the pastor's hat and cane used to
lie upon a table that stood just within the door); from the entry a
cramped stairway, by three sharp angles, led to the floor above. To the
right and left were two low parlors. The sun was shining broadly in the
south one when the couple first entered the house.
"Good!" said Rachel, with her pleasant, brisk tone,--"this shall be your
study, Benjamin; the bookcase here, the table there, a nice warm carpet,
we'll paper it with blue, the Major's sword shall be hung over the
mantel."
"Tut! tut!" says the clergyman, "a sword, Rachel,--in my study?"
"To be sure! why not?" says Rachel. "And if you like, I will hang my
picture, with the doves and the olive-branch, above it; and there shall
be a shelf for hyacinths in the window."
Thus she ran on in her pretty house-wifely manner, cooing like the doves
she talked of, plotting the arrangement of the parlor opposite, of the
long dining-room stretching athwart the house in the rear, and of the
kitchen under a roof of its own, still farther back,--he all the while
giving grave assent, as if he listened to her contrivance: he was only
listening to the music of a sweet voice that somehow charmed his ear,
and thanking God in his heart that such music was bestowed upon a sinful
world, and praying that he might never listen too fondly.
Behind the house were yard, garden, orchard, and this last drooping away
to a meadow. Over all these the pair of light feet pattered beside the
master. "Here shall be lilies," she said; "there, a great bunch of
mother's peonies; and by the gate, hollyhocks";--he, by this time,
plotting a sermon upon the vanities of the world.
Yet in due time it came to pass that the parsonage was all arranged
according to the fancies of its mistress,--even to the Major's sword and
the twin doves. Esther, a stout middle-aged dame, and stanch
Congregationalist, recommended by the good women of the parish, is
installed in the kitchen as maid-of-all-work. As gardener, groom, (a
sedate pony and square-topped chaise forming part of the establishment,)
factotum, in short,--there is the frowzy-headed man Larkin, who has his
quarters in an airy loft above the kitchen.
The brass knocker is scoured to its brightest. The parish is neighborly.
Dame Tourtelot is impressive in her proffers of advice. The Tew
partners, Elderkin, Meacham, and all the rest, meet the new housekeepers
open-handed. Before mid-winter, the smoke of this new home was piling
lazily into the sky above the tree-tops of Ashfield,--a home, as we
shall find by and by, of much trial and much cheer. Twenty years after,
and the master of it was master of it still,--strong, seemingly, as
ever; the brass knocker shining on the door; the sword and the doves in
place. But the pattering feet,--the voice that made music,--the tender,
wifely plotting,--the cheery sunshine that smote upon her as she
talked,--alas for us!--"All is Vanity!"