FATHER and Lulie have been gone an hour; father on his way to Havana,
Lulie returning to Wilmington. Frank and Ned have gone with them over
to town. I am lying on a lounge in the hall, and mother and Carlotta
are sitting near me, arranging flowers for the parlor vases. Lulie
got off without much trouble with the assistance of mother’s tact;
Ned expressing great surprise, while Frank was almost rude in his
solicitations to her to remain. Dear little darling, how tenderly she
bade me farewell, whispering as she pressed my hand, “Don’t be hurt at
my leaving, John, ‘tis for your sake as much as mine!”
My eyes are closed, and mother and Carlotta think I am asleep, but
through a scarcely lifted lid I am watching Carlotta, feasting my eyes
on her beautiful face and form. She is sitting just inside the hall
door, with a lap full of flowers, and though I cannot see her face, I
gaze on an arm and hand that Phidias might dream of, but never carve.
Her muslin sleeve was turned up to her shoulder, to be out of the way,
and the flesh, soft and snowy, swelled out from the richly worked
undersleeve, and almost imperceptibly tapered to the elbow, with here
and there a tiny thread of blue, winding its way under the transparent
skin. At the elbow two dimples showed where the liquid flesh eddied
round the curve, and a slope of perfect grace carried it to the wrist;
here no knots disfigured, no roughness marred it, but, smooth and
delicate, the wrist became a fitting bridge between such a hand and
arm. Her hair, caught back by a crimson velvet band, fell in a dark
shower over her shoulders; not the wiry ringlets, nor the hard straight
locks that all are familiar with, but in soft undulating waves it
fell, as if fairies were trembling the silken strands. Her profile
was exquisite, and the beautiful proportion of each feature, and the
delicate tints that overspread them, formed altogether a picture that
has rarely been surpassed for loveliness. The peculiar witchery of the
face, as I gazed upon it, was enhanced by an occasional frown and arch
of the pencilled brow, as she endeavored to draw a refractory thread
through the stems of the flowers.
Mother, at last speaking, broke the spell that bound me.
“Carlotta, darling, Col. Smith told you of the letter he received from
your father’s agent in Havana, did he not?”
“He told me of it, and also showed me the letter. Papa always thought
his agent very trusty, and I suppose Col. Smith will find everything
arranged properly.”
After another pause, mother asked again:
“Who is this cousin who claims the estate?”
“He is mother’s half nephew. He was always a great favorite with papa,
and staid almost half his time with us, though his home was on the
other side of the island. Papa used to promise him, when I was a very
little girl, that I should be his wife, but he was so much older than
I, I could never love him.”
Though my fealty to Lulie was unchanged, I could not help thinking what
a splendid thing it would be to have the promise of such a love as hers.
“But,” continued mother, shaking the dew from a flower as she placed
it with the others, “would you not marry him when you are grown, to
get back so much wealth and riches. Remember, he has your father’s
will, making him the sole heir in case of your death, and he has also
the affidavit of the captain of the vessel in which you sailed, that
yourself and father were both lost, and could not possibly have been
saved.”
“I would despise him,” she said, scornfully, snapping a stem as she
spoke, “if he tried to get anything wrongfully. But Col. Smith has all
papa’s papers with him, and Cousin Herrara is too noble, I know, to do
anything mean or sordid!”
She brushed the rose leaves from her lap, and placed the bouquet she
had arranged in the basket of a Parian marble porter on the mantel;
then coming back to mother, she kneeled down by her side, and laying
her cheek sideways on mother’s knee, with that peculiar winning way of
her’s, said softly:
“I hope Col. Smith will be able to save me something to repay you
all for your goodness to me, for I cannot stay under your roof as a
charity outcast, and it would kill me to leave you now, I have learned
to love you so.”
“My dear child,” said mother, laying her hand on her soft, dark hair,
“the very idea of compensating us for the greatest pleasure of our
lives! Colonel Smith has gone to Havana solely on your account. Thank
heaven we have as much as we want, and you may feel that you have a
daughter’s place in our household, and will never, never be a burden.
Who knows,” she added, playfully patting her head and glancing toward
my couch, “but what you may be a daughter, indeed, to us one of these
days.”
“Oh, Mrs. Smith,” said Carlotta so earnestly, that I opened my eyes
in time to see the scarlet tinge of her cheeks, “you do not know how
you hurt me when you say that. ‘Twould make me hate the very thought
of your son, whom I now esteem so much, to think that I was taken into
your family to please him; that I was being raised to suit his fancy;
that my character was being moulded after his model of a woman; that
it was being constantly said of me, as I have heard it said: ‘Mrs.
Smith is training her up for her son.’ Will I not shrink from his very
presence when I feel that he looks upon me as his to love or not, just
as he likes?”
“My dear child,” said mother, looking surprised, “my words were almost
without meaning. Forgive me, and I will endeavor to prevent any
allusion, in this house at least, that may wound your feelings.”
I here turned over, and moving my arms about showed signs of waking.
This put an end to the conversation. Mother coming to the couch found
me with considerable fever, and becoming alarmed sent Reuben off after
the doctor. In truth I did feel a little badly, though I had been so
interested in the conversation that I had not thought of my feelings.
My eyeballs were hot and red, and felt as if they were full of sand;
my breath burnt my nostrils as it came out, and my tongue was dry and
coated. An hour of feverish restlessness elapsed before we heard the
doctor’s horse plodding up the avenue in a slow jog-trot, the fastest
speed known to the medical fraternity. The doctor himself was equally
deliberate in tying him to the rack, crossing the stirrups over the
back of the saddle with the utmost care, and finally marching up the
steps as if he was a pall-bearer at a funeral. He laid his hat on the
seat in the porch, put his gloves in the crown, and laid his riding
switch across them, as if it was to guard them. He at length advanced
into the house and met mother.
“How d’ye do, madam; a very warm day, madam,” he said, shaking her hand
with one of his, and rubbing the bald place on his head with the other,
as if all the heat of the day had centred there.
“It is very sultry indeed, sir,” replied mother, as he released her
hand. “Reuben, hand a glass of water, or perhaps, sir, you would prefer
wine?”
“Much obliged, madam, but water will do. Best for this weather, madam.”
While the water was being brought he sat down near the door and waited
patiently, without deigning to notice me, as if anything connected with
his profession was farthest from his thoughts.
“Who is sick, madam?” he inquired, when he had replaced the empty
goblet on Reuben’s waiter.
“My son, sir,” said mother, conducting him to my lounge. “I don’t know
that he is sick much, but he is feverish, and fever always frightens
me.”
“And very properly, madam, for it is a sure sign that something is
wrong in the system. Should always be taken in hand at once.”
He felt my pulse a long time, slipping his fingers up and down my
wrist, as if he were playing the violin; then felt my forehead,
touching it as he would a loaf of bread, to see if it were warm, and
bade me put out my tongue. He put on his specs and bent over it, as
if he were looking for a splinter, requesting mother to stand just a
little out of the light, madam, and rubbing it with the end of his
little finger, took off his spectacles triumphantly, and turning to
mother said:
“There is no danger, madam; very slight fever; only a trifling disorder
of the system. A good sized blue pill is all that I would recommend at
present. If you have any blue mass in the house I will make it for you
before I leave.”
The box of _pil hydrarg_ was accordingly brought, and a cup of flour,
from which he soon produced a pellet the size of a robin’s egg, which
I was to swallow. There might be almost said to be only two medicines
known to the physicians of eastern Carolina, so constantly are they
required in their practice, and they are as certain to administer
mercury or quinine as Dr. Sangrado, of Valladolid, was to let blood
or give warm water. I certainly did not bless their mercurial
predilections that morning, and saw the old doctor ride off with an
earnest wish that he had a pill, as large as the conventional brick, to
roll around his hat on his head.
He had hardly gotten out of sight when mother came to the couch with
the pill in the hollow of one hand and a glass of water in the other.
“Here, son, try to swallow this. The doctor thinks it best that you
should take it.”
I sat upon the side of the bed, asked for a bucket, in case of
accidents, and took the pill in my hand. I found it soft, and sticky
as putty, but with reckless desperation I laid it far back on my
tongue, and took a great gulp of water. With a toss of my head I made a
tremendous swallow, but a wad of air, many times larger than my mouth,
got before the water and barred its progress down. Most of it got into
my windpipe; the pill, with the flour coating washed off, and its
nauseous taste revealed, rolled down against my front teeth and stuck
there. Shades of Epicurus! how I heaved! Tearing it away from my teeth
with my fingers I dashed it down, and vowed that no doctor’s authority
could ever compel me to the attempt again.
Whether the very taste of the pill had a good effect or not, that
evening I was much better, and next morning felt perfectly well.
As it was the Sabbath, I was anxious to go to church with mother, Frank
and Ned, but mother feared for me to take the sultry ride, and so I was
to stay at home. To my surprise Carlotta asked leave to stay at home
also, though she removed the flattering unction I had laid to my heart,
that she staid to be with me, by telling mother she wished to spend
the morning in her room. After breakfast the carriage came round, and
mother, Ned and Frank, left for the church, which was a little country
appointment, about four miles distant.
As soon as they were gone Carlotta went to her room, and, taking a
book, I went out doors and lay down on the grass, beneath a large cedar
at one end of the house.
There are four kinds of days in the year, coming one in each season,
on which I feel an unaccountable, though not unpleasant melancholy.
Days when I want to get far away to myself, and muse in undisturbed
loneliness. Days when Memory, not Fancy, holds her court, and scenes
and faces long forgotten spring up from her dusty sepulchres, and
throng her shrine and ask for tears. Days that make a prison of the
Present, a worthless bauble of the Future, and lift only to our heart’s
embrace the golden Past, gone from life forever! Brighter than it ever
really was, its pains forgotten, only its joys remembered! Like a dead
friend, it is dearer now than ever, and we weep because we cannot turn
life’s current back.
One of these days comes in winter, when, after a cloudy morning and
noon, the sun sets cold and clear; when the wind with a hollow moan
sweeps over the bare fields; when the long lines of wild ducks,
clearly defined against the red sky, wind their way up the bends of
the river, along whose banks the naked trees stretch their arms like
the masts and yards of weird ships; when the blue birds, with their
plaintive notes, huddle in the clumps of withered leaves on the oaks in
the grove, and the very cows, plodding homeward, low mournfully, as if
in response to Nature’s dreariness.
Another day is in Autumn, when Nature, wrapping herself in a hazy robe,
seems to lift her hand and say, “Hush, do not break my slumber,” as she
dozes into dreaminess. The sun himself half closes his glaring eye, and
looks upon the world with a drowsy smile, and the purple sky droops
upon the horizon as if Atlas were weary of his load. When the zephyrs
are asleep, and the leaves on the trees are wan for want of exercise;
when the crowing of the cock sounds like a yawn, and the little
fly-catcher, perched, as is its custom, on a dead and leafless limb,
breathes its one little song as if it was its last sigh. Such a day
as Buchanan Read describes in his “Closing Scene;” the most exquisite
verses ever penned by an American:
“All sights seemed mellowed and all sounds subdued,
The hills seemed farther, and the streams sang low,
As in a dream the distant woodman hewed
His winter log, with many a muffled blow.
* * * * *
“On slumbrous wings the vulture held his flight,
The dove scarce heard its sighing mate’s complaint;
And like a star, slow drowning in the light,
The village church vane seemed to pale and faint.
* * * * *
“Alone from out the stubble piped the quail,
And croaked the crow through all the dreary gloom;
Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale,
Made echo to the distant cottage loom.”
* * * * *
Another day for reverie is such a day as this—a summer Sabbath in
the country. Sabbath is stamped on the entire premises. The negroes,
bedecked in all the finery of ribbons and beads, have just trooped
in long droves through the gate and gone to preaching. Down at the
quarters there is one old negro sitting at the door of her cabin, with
her head bowed down to her knees as she ties around it her broad yellow
kerchief. Her slight motion as she does this, and the faint monotonous
wail of an infant left in her care, are all the evidences of life in
the long row of tenements.
The horses and mules all walk solemnly about in the clover lot, and
the sheep graze under the trees in the orchard, without a bleat to
disturb the serene quiet of the morning. Tiger, the great bull-dog, is
lying stretched out at the door of his kennel, watching with his small
bleared eyes a hen and brood that are scratching fearlessly almost in
his jaws. A mocking bird, down at the old graveyard, is alone forgetful
of the day, and, perched upon the very topmost bough of the willow, is
burdening the air with the joyous trills of his melody.
Overhead the great blue ocean of the sky is dotted here and there with
fantastic white clouds, melting into various shapes as they grandly
sail across its depths.
Propping my head with my hand, I lay and gazed up at the sky and around
at the beauty of the day, and gave myself up to musing. Of course my
mind turned to Lulie, and the terrible blight she had given my hopes,
and, as the romance of my youthful mind intensified a thousand fold the
nature of my disappointment, and my feelings were already made tender
by the influences of the day, my heart could only find relief in tears,
and turning my face over in the long cool grass I wept till I fell
asleep. I had lain thus perhaps an hour, when a little bird, hopping in
the branches overhead, rained down a shower of cedar balls upon me, and
I raised up to find Carlotta standing by me. She started as I looked
up, and said, without any embarrassment:
“I came out to the porch a few moments since, and saw you lying so
still I was afraid you might be sick. Is there anything I can do for
you?”
“No, thanks for your kindness, I do not need anything at all,” I
replied, raising myself from the grass; “but sit down here with me, I
want to talk with you.”
She hesitated a moment, then sat down near me.
“Day before yesterday, when you and mother were talking together in the
hall, you thought me asleep,” I said, after a pause of some seconds—a
pause that is always awkward when you are expected to say something,
and do not know what to say—”but I was not, and am now glad that I
heard every word you both said.”
Her face burned for a second, then became paler than before, as she
exclaimed:
“Oh! why did you not speak, and stop my unkind and hasty words. Glad,
did you say? how could you be glad to know that I had purposely shunned
your presence, and shrunk from your most casual approach?”
“I was glad, because I had found the key to your conduct, and then knew
why you had acted so coldly towards me, and refused so persistently
the friendship I longed to offer. I was glad, because I knew then that
the distance between us was not caused by enmity, but your sensitive
nature.”
Looking at me pleadingly with her eloquent eyes, and with a tremor in
her soft voice, she said:
“Will you not appreciate my feelings, then, and forgive me?”
“I do appreciate your feelings,” I said, with warmth, “and,
appreciating them, have nothing to forgive. I have been pained that you
seemed to mistrust me; that the love and devotion my brother’s heart
would fain have offered, was put aside, and that you wrapped yourself
in such a robe of icy reserve; but I understand it all now, and you
may trust me to use all my efforts to prevent the recurrence of any
occasion that would cause you mortification or regret.”
“Thank you, my kind brother, for your consideration of my feelings,”
she returned, warmly; “but let me add a word before we leave the
subject: My annoyance has not been caused by the fact that your name,
_as yours_, was coupled with mine, but that the very kindness of your
family in taking me under their roof, is made, in the estimation of
others, an obligation that places me at your disposal;” and the pride
of her high-born soul burned in her glorious eyes, as she spoke.
“Well, we understand each other now,” I said, soothingly, “and let
us make this agreement—that whenever we are unobserved we will be
trustful and confiding, as brother and sister should be, but when
occasion demands we will be reserved and distant, without offence.”
“I agree most cordially,” she said, “and will henceforth place an
implicit confidence in you as my truest friend.”
She motioned as if to go, but it was so pleasant—something so new—to
converse with her, to watch the play of her beautiful features, to
catch the light of her great dark eyes, as she looked into my face as
if to see my words, that I strove to detain her.
“Do not leave me yet, Carlotta. My heart is very sad today. Will you
let me unburden it to you? It seems silly, I know, but I do so long to
have some one to confide in; some one I can trust as I can you.”
“You may trust me, John,” she said, hesitating as she called my name
for the first time.
After a pause, I said, biting a blade of grass with my lips—
“I had been weeping, Carlotta, when you came to me—weeping because the
beautiful day made me sad.”
“You sad? you weeping? you, who are so full of life and gaiety!” she
said, looking at me with surprise; then adding, in a tone of deep
sadness, as she thought of herself, “alas! what cause can _you_ have
for tears, in such a happy home, surrounded by those you hold most
dear.”
“What better cause for tears than disappointed love? Carlotta, I have
loved Lulie since I could remember, and if ever one life can be bound
in another mine has been in her’s, and yet she does not love me. From
her own lips I have learned this bitter truth. I could bear up had I
one gleam of hope; but all is dark, and far worse than the extinction
of hope is the knowledge that she loves another. Oh, heaven! how it
grinds me to the earth to feel that he, who is most unworthy, should
receive her smiles; that a love I would give my life for is wasted on
one who regards it as the trifle of a day.”
I paused and looked gloomily up at the bright blue sky, where a fleecy
Delos floated.
“I, too, think her love is wasted on Frank Paning,” said Carlotta, as I
looked again at her face. “He may admire her beauty, and no doubt feels
flattered by her preference, but he does not love her as she thinks he
does. It will be a sad day with her when she learns the truth.”
“Yes,” I replied, savagely; “she will then know what I feel.”
“Do not speak harshly of her, John, for while she loves Frank Paning,
yet I believe she esteems you more.”
“But how can you speak for her feelings?” I asked, with a faint touch
of a sneer in my tone.
“Because she has told me all,” she replied coolly.
“A perjured little——”
“Hush!” she exclaimed, looking at me reprovingly. “Do not judge her too
hastily. She only told me part; I inferred the rest. Her heart seemed
as if it would break the night after you went fishing together, and,
when I sought to know the cause of her grief, she would only say she
had made you unhappy. Hers is a fond, true heart, and I only wish it
were given away more worthily.”
“But what do you know of Paning’s sentiments?” I asked with some
surprise. “Perhaps he may be very devoted to her.”
“I have very good reasons for knowing,” she said, with a peculiar
smile; “but yonder are some of the negroes returning from church. I
must go in and have dinner arranged before the carriage returns.”
She went into the house and left me wondering what she could mean. Can
she love him, too, I thought, and is it because she herself has his
heart that she knows Lulie has it not?
I began to grow desperate with the thought of my rival’s second
conquest, when the sound of the carriage diverted my attention, and
mother, Frank and Ned came into the house.
“Oh, you needn’t have dinner for us,” said Frank to Carlotta, as he
drew a glass of ice-water for himself, and drank it. “We have already
dined sumptuously.”
Mother nodded her head as Carlotta looked at her inquiringly. “Yes,
my dear, we’ve had dinner. Mrs. Bemby invited us to her table, and of
course we could not refuse.”
“How did you like the sermon, Ned, and what kind of people were there?”
I asked. “Tell me all about it.”
“The sermon was very good in its way,” said Ned, “and the people
somewhat amusing; but you must get Frank to give you full details. I
could not do the subject justice.”
I could do nothing else but ask Frank for the narration, though I was
not particularly anxious to hear his voice.
“Well,” replied Frank, nothing loth to do the talking, “long before
we got to the church we began to pass crowds of people who were
walking thither; the men dressed in long sack coats of homespun, with
immensely loose pants and dusty shoes, most of them carrying in their
arms bare-legged, white-headed babies, who were employed in looking
backwards over their fathers’ shoulders, and mostly gnawing very
large fat biscuits; the women were arrayed in bright flowered calico
robes, which they kicked up behind at every step. They all had stick
tooth brushes in their mouths, and long-tailed fly bonnets, which they
carried in their hands. Then we passed others who, a little better off,
were riding in red painted wagons, drawn by rope-harnessed mules, which
trotted along so briskly, under the kindly influences of overgrown boys
and hickory sticks, that the folks in the body were jolted from side
to side of their split bottomed chairs. Then we overtook the cumbrous
carriages of the well-to-do farmers, with heavy-headed, clumsy-footed
horses, the low boots full of fodder, and large trunks full of dinner,
strapped on behind. As many of these and other vehicles as we passed,
yet when we got to the church we found the grove full of horses,
buggies, carriages and wagons, and so many people out doors that I
began to fear the preacher would have no congregation.
“At the foot of every tree in sight was a group of men engaged in the
solemn occupation of whittling twigs and spitting. When we got to the
door of the church, which was a large barn-looking structure, we found
it full, and with difficulty got seats near the door. Such a mixture of
people I never saw before. Here a silk by the side of cotton check, a
broadcloth coat touching a copperas striped one, and a silk hat resting
in the window with one of wheat straw, bound with green ribbon. As I
could see very little but the backs of the people’s heads, I cannot
tell much about the congregation, except that the men for the most
part had very long and very dry hair, which they wore bushy, while the
women had theirs plaited in two strings and crossed like wicker-basket
handles. The girls wore straw hats trimmed with ribbons, whose colors
were of the rainbow that we may imagine would appear on a cloudy day.
The elderly ladies wore bonnets that looked as if Noah’s wife had made
them for pastime while she was in the ark, and had fitted them on the
goat’s head for the want of a better block. The preacher himself was
queer looking, and had a monotonous drawling tone.” (Here Frank got up
in the floor to imitate his style.) “Ah! my brethren and sistern-er,
where are we to-day? ‘Ere we are in the narrer road.”
“Tut, tut, Frank,” said mother, quickly, “that will never do. Jest
about the people if you want to, but remember the sanctity of the
pulpit.”
“But it does not matter, Mrs. Smith, if we have a little fun at their
expense; they don’t belong to our church, and he wasn’t preaching to
us.”
“It makes no difference,” said mother, rising to go down to the dining
room; “he was preaching the Gospel of Christ, and, however defective
his sermon, we should not ridicule it.”
“I’ll show some other time,” said Frank, as mother left the room. “But
where was I? Oh, the preacher. Well, when the sermon was finished we
all went out, and Mrs. Ben or Bem something soon found us, and insisted
that we should eat with her.
“All over the grove the white cloths were being spread like gigantic
snow flakes, and almost as numerous. Scores of negroes and ladies were
unpacking great boxes, containing biscuit, rolls, cakes, ham, fowls,
pickles, apples and peaches, and everybody was asking everybody else to
dine with them. There was a good sized crowd at Mrs. Bemby’s table when
we went up. They were not introduced, but they all made us room, and
bowed confusedly. Mrs. Smith knew and spoke to several of them while we
took our part out in staring.
“Mrs. Bemby begged us to help ourselves, and every one acted on her
kind suggestion with quite a zest. Country belles, pulling off their
cotton gloves, alternated the bites at chicken and bread so rapidly and
successfully that they were soon sucking the bones like candy, while
the beaux cut symmetrical squares out of corn bread sandwiches, and
played the flute on long ears of roasted corn, with unctuous smiles and
impeded attempts at conversation with chewed words. Mr. and Mrs. B——
did not eat anything, but served the table, with cordial entreaties to
all to spare not; Mrs. B—— distributing the bread and sweetmeats with
a lavish hand, and Mr. B—— cutting the meats—his mode of dealing
with a ham being very unique as well as effective. Standing it up on
one end, and holding the hock in one hand, he sawed the knife across
it like an Italian playing the fiddle, producing far more satisfactory
results, however, than all the army of diminutive violinists Italy has
sent forth. That great gawk of a Ben, instead of helping was perched
on a wagon, idly kicking the wheels with his feet as he munched on an
apple, and gravely winking at Ned and myself, in acknowledgment of
acquaintance. Altogether the dinner was excellent, and, after our ride
to the church, and our boredom in it, was particularly relished. There,
I have talked enough; get Ned to tell you the balance.”
“There is no more to tell,” said Ned, as mother called to us from the
basement to come down and eat watermelons. “I can corroborate all that
Frank has told, except his account of the sermon. That was very good,
and much to the point, though it was plain and without ornament.”
I went down with the rest, but was afraid, for my fever’s sake, to
indulge in melons. If you would know whether it was any temptation to
me or not, imagine a sultry afternoon, a cool breezy basement, four or
five large melons, just from the ice house, like a row of victims with
a knife in each pink frozen heart!
I felt tired of hearing them talk and seeing them eat, so I took my hat
and strolled down to Mr. Bemby’s to find Ben, and enjoy a talk with
him. He was nowhere in sight, and I tapped at the door. At Mrs. Bemby’s
“Come in!” I opened the door, and instead of Ben found three strange
ladies, who were discussing with profound interest the events of the
day.
“Come in, honey; you look mighty feeble yet; how do you feel to-day?”
said Mrs. Bemby, kindly, as she met me. “This is Col. Smith’s son, Mrs.
Bailey and Miss Viney Dodge; Col. Smith’s son! Mrs. Dodge,” she shouted
in the ear of the oldest and most withered of the three ladies, who was
armed with an orchestra looking instrument in the shape of an immense
ear trumpet. Mrs. Bemby had to put her mouth right down to the opening,
and shout my name out twice before she and I became acquainted. I
shook hands with the old and bowed to the young lady, who gave me a
curtesy in return that shoved her chair back almost out of range of
her reseating figure. Her figure was very stumpy; her complexion very
sallow; her hair very sandy, and her skin very freckled. Her hands
were covered with half fingered blue gloves, and were employed, one in
lying in her lap, the fingers folded and the thumb stiffly erect, as
a sentinel over their repose; the other in holding, in as compressed
a ball as possible, a dingy cotton handkerchief, which she constantly
used, after a premonitory snuffle, by rubbing her nose very hard
upwards, as if she wished to elevate its depressed point.
Mrs. B—— informed me that Ben would be in shortly, and I took the
chair she offered and looked at the visitors; they looked at each
other, and then there was a silence of some seconds.
“You beedn sorter poorly, haidn’t you?” said Mrs. Dodge, adjusting her
trumpet and leaning towards me.
“Yes, ma’am!” I shouted, making my reply more affirmative by a number
of up and down motions of my head.
“Umphum! Haidn’t had the summer complaint, is you? You look a little
thidn.”
I transversed the motion of my head very rapidly, and signed the
negative many times.
“A leetle lodomy, drapped in ellum bark tea’s mighty good for it;” and
the old lady, satisfied with her catechism, turned her trumpet and her
interrogative features toward the others.
Mrs. Bemby remarked having seen mother and the others at church that
morning. Mrs. Bailey then took up the thread of the discourse where I
had broken it off by entering.
“As I was a saying, sister Bemby,” she resumed, “it does me a sight of
good to listen to Brother Weekly’s preaching. He is so searchin’ to the
sinners and comfortin’ to the saints. His sermins are well pinted, too,
and not writ, neither. I jist know in my soul, d’liver me from a writ
sermin.”
“Umph?” said Mrs. Dodge, in a prolonged note of inquiry, levelling her
dread instrument on the speaker. Mrs. Bailey very kindly screamed the
words into her ear.
“Ah, yes, I knowed ‘twas good this mordn-ing, tho’ I couldn’t hear, for
I sorter felt it. Brother Weekly is always powerful in his lastly, and
whedn I see old Udncle Jacob Sawney slap Sister Brewer in the back, and
old Miss Parkidns twiss her cheer roudn to the wall, and git my Viney
here to untie her specks, so she could rub her eyes, I knowed he was a
having great freedobm; and thedn he got a leetle louder, and I thought
I heerd him say: ‘He’ll meet us at the gate, Hisself;’ and somethidng
told me in my heart he meadnt the Lord, and I wadnted to go just thedn,
for ‘pears to me I’d be more welcome like ef He told me to come in.”
“Yes,” resumed Mrs. Bailey, without noticing her interruption; “and did
you notice, Sister Bemby, how he brought it out about the tares and the
wheat. Seems to me, if I was a sinner I couldn’t bear the thought of
being sifted out and throwed away like a no ‘count cockle grain.”
“That was uncommon clear, Sister Bailey,” returned Mrs. Bemby, “about
putting in the sickle and reaping all together, then sortin’ out the
good and bad.”
“That it was, Sister Bemby,” agreed Mrs. Bailey, making a spade out of
her tooth brush, and spading up half an ounce of snuff into her mouth.
There was another pause, and I looked uneasily out of the window, to
see if I could discover anything of Ben, while Miss Viney rubbed her
nose up again, and shot invisible marbles with the idle thumb in her
lap.
Deaf old Mrs. Dodge again spoke:
“It’s a mighty cobmfort, Sister Bemby, to have odne’s chilldn a growin’
up right. There’s my Viney, she’s been a perfesser nigh upodn five
year, and haidn’t backslid yit. Why dodn’t you talk to Ben, Sister
Bemby? He’s a clever ‘nough boy, but he’s so mischeevous. Sednce I lost
my hearidn I look ’round some in church, and no longer’n this mordning
I see Ben holding up a streaked lizzard by the tail, fixing to put him
on old Miss Judy Yates, who’s the feardest of ’em in the world. Brother
Bemby seed him jist in time to stop him.”
“I know it, Sister Dodge,” shouted Mrs. Bemby in the trumpet’s mouth,
“and I have talked to him a heap of times, but Ben says he ain’t a
going to die soon, and that he’ll be a preacher yet, and he makes me
laugh so I have to let him alone.”
“Is you a lover of the Lord, sir?” Mrs. Dodge inquired, pointedly
addressing me.
“I am afraid not as I ought to be,” I said, confusedly, shaking my head.
“Well, you ought to love Him with all your heart whedn you think what
He’s dodne fur you.”
I bowed an acknowledgment of the truth of her remark, and told Mrs.
Bemby I would go out and look for Ben.
Not finding him anywhere I turned homeward, thinking on the glorious
Gospel of the Son of God—a Gospel that, with the same words, can
comfort sister Bailey’s simple heart, and bind up one bruised beneath
a velvet robe—a Gospel for all the world! deep enough to baffle the
sage—simple enough to save a child. God alone can be its Author!
Go to the rustic church, with its rude unpainted seats, its plain
deal pulpit, with a pitcher of water and a cloth covered Bible on the
unvarnished slab. Sit with the simple, illiterate congregation, and
listen to the unpolished man in the pulpit as, with an effort, he
slowly reads his text: “For God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish
but have eternal life.”
Hear the story of the Cross told without rhetoric, and mark the faces
around you, how they glow with faith and shine with tears.
Then let us stand on the broad stone steps beneath the clanging chimes
and gilded spire. See the white-gloved drivers curb the prancing
steeds—the liveried footmen hold the blazoned door, while silken
trains sweep down the carriage step and rustle up the aisle. Let us
go in and stand in the purpled gloom of the soft stained light. The
golden legend over the chancel is illegible in the darkness, and only
the bright figures on the windows up in the vaulted roof show that the
glorious sunlight is over the earth. The tufted aisles make no echo to
the footsteps, and the only sound is the occasional closing of a pew
door by the silent ushers. The cushioned seats are filled, the gas jets
around the preacher’s stand are lit, and all is so hushed we almost
expect the sermon to be whispered, when, with a trembling sob, as if
its very pipes were sinful, the organ’s wail of penitence is heard.
Moaning and groaning at the very bottom of its voice, it grows louder
and higher, till its weird minor strains peal through the church, as if
its windy heart will burst, and still higher and higher it screams and
shrieks, in its agony of remorse, then, with a galop down the scale, it
breaks out into a lively polka of forgiveness, and is as happy as an
organ can be, till its jig-and-break-down _repertoire_ is exhausted,
when it stands on one leg of a note and waits for the singing. A low,
soft trill, like a mocking bird’s song at night, breaks forth from we
know not where, and its quivering melody fills the vast edifice; but
ere we have discovered its source or meaning it is joined by another
sound—a high zooning tone—like a bee far up in the air. This follows
the first through all its wonderful manœuvres, and a faint conception
begins to dawn on us that perhaps a song is intended. This idea is
entertained for a few seconds, when it is forever put to flight by the
sudden, sonorous bellowing of a bull over its slaughtered kindred, and
while its terrible tones are thundering from the floor to the roof, we
find that it, too, is following the others, and adding its powerful
roar to their melody. But surprises are not over yet, for just as the
three get fairly under way, they are quickly joined by a bronchial cat,
unusually hoarse, that also takes after the others, though on a lower
key and in strange fuzzy tones. This zoological _vocale_ is persevered
in by the four till, at last, they approximate a tune. We have some
light thrown on the subject from the remark of a gentleman with an
eye-glass to a lady with diamonds sitting just in front of us:
“Trilla’s soprano is better to-day in _Te Deum_ than ‘twas last evening
in _Trovatore_, but Catta’s contralto is horrid.” “Taurini’s bass is
magnificent, though, isn’t it?” the young fop adds in a whisper, as,
with a long orchestral flourish, the organ ceases to play and the
services commence. Worshipping God by proxy! Because Taurini has a
richer, better voice, and can say “We praise Thee, oh! God” in a deeper
tone than we, we pay him to say it in our most holy place, careless
whether an oath were last on his lips, or an early bar-room his only
preparation for the Sabbath. But all is so different from the little
wooden church, that we almost feel that they are serving another God
with a different religion. We feel out of place and disappointed, and
are about to leave, when the preacher ascends the pulpit and announces
his text:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
We are at home now; the same verse that has brought tears from the
simple minded, carries conviction to the heart of the rich and the
wise. Though the service in its appointments may be fanciful—though
the sermon be burdened with rhetorical roses, or ridiculous in rustic
exposition, or flagrant misconstruction—Christ’s words stand forth
with the same grandeur of simplicity and force as they did when
the trembling, conscience-convicted Sanhedrimite sought Him in the
darkness, and received the light of God.