friend, blow the winds, run the tides as they may. The sorrows of life
may be many, and its griefs may be keen, and we who are frosted with
years and you who are blooming have felt and will feel the sting of
false friends and the burden of losses; but, lose what we may, or be
pained as we have been and shall be, we are happy in this,--we who know
how to laugh,--that we find wings for each burden, solace for pains, and
return for all losses, in our sweet sense of humor, thank Heaven! So,
whether rich men or poor, healthy or sick, brown-headed or gray, we will
go on like children, with eyes for all beauty and hearts for all fun.
Let lilies teach us, and of the birds of the air let us learn. The day
that is not shall not make us anxious, for of each day is the evil
enough, and the morrow shall take care of itself.
[Illustration: THE WICKEDEST COW.]*
HOW DEACON TUBMAN
and PARSON WHITNEY
CELEBRATED NEW YEARS.
HOW DEACON TUBMAN AND PARSON WHITNEY CELEBRATED NEW YEAR'S.
"Mirandy, I'm going up to see the parson," exclaimed the deacon, when
the morning devotions were over, "and see if I can thaw him out a
little. I've heard that there used to be a lot in him in his younger
days, but he's sort of frozen all up latterly, and I can see that the
young folks are afraid of him and the church too, but that won't do--no,
it won't do," repeated the good man emphatically, "for the minister
ought to be loved by young and old, rich and poor, and everybody; and a
church without young folks in it is, why, it is like a family with no
children in it. Yes, I'll go up and wish him a Happy New Year anyway.
Perhaps I can get him out for a ride to make some calls on the people,
and see the young folks at their fun. It'll do him good, and them good,
and me good, and everybody good." Saying which, the deacon got inside
his warm fur coat, and started toward the barn to harness Jack into the
worn, old-fashioned sleigh, which sleigh was built high in the back, and
had a curved dasher of monstrous proportions, ornamented with a prancing
horse in an impossible attitude, done in bright vermilion on a blue
background!
"Happy New Year to you, Parson Whitney! Happy New Year to you," cried
the deacon, as he stood in the doorway of the parsonage and shook the
parson by the hand enthusiastically, "and may you live to enjoy a
hundred."
"Come in, come in," cried Parson Whitney, in response. "I'm glad you've
come; I'm glad you've come. I've been wanting to see you all the
morning," and in the cordiality of his greeting he literally pulled the
little man through the doorway into the hall, and hurried him up the
stairway to his study in the chamber overhead.
"Thinking of me! Well, now, I never!" exclaimed the deacon, as, assisted
by the parson, he twisted and wriggled himself out of his coat, that he
filled, a little too snugly for an easy exit. "Thinking of me, and among
all these books too--Bibles, catechisms, tracts, theologies, sermons.
Well, well, that is funny. What made you think of me?"
"Deacon Tubman," responded the parson, as he seated himself in his
armchair, "I want to talk with you about the church."
"The church!" ejaculated the deacon in response. "Nothing going wrong, I
hope?"
"Yes, things are going wrong, deacon," responded the parson. "The
congregation is growing smaller and smaller, and yet I preach good,
strong, biblical, soul-satisfying sermons, I trust."
"Good ones! good ones!" answered the deacon promptly, "never
better--never better in the world."
"And yet the people are deserting the sanctuary," rejoined the parson
solemnly, "and the young people won't come to the sociables, and the
little children seem actually afraid of me. What shall I do, deacon?"
and the good man put the question with pathetic emphasis.
"You've hit the nail on the head, square as a hatchet, parson,"
responded the deacon. "The congregation is thinning. The young people
don't come to the meetings, and the little children are afraid of you."
"What's the matter, deacon?" cried the parson in return. "What is it?"
he repeated earnestly. "Speak it right out; don't try to spare my
feelings. I will listen to--I will do anything to win back my people's
love," and the strong, old-fashioned Calvinistic preacher said it in a
voice that actually trembled.
"You can do it--you can do it in a week!" exclaimed the deacon
encouragingly. "Don't worry about it, parson; it'll be all right, it'll
be all right. Your books are the trouble."
"Books?" ejaculated the parson. "What have they to do with it?"
"Everything," replied the deacon stoutly. "You pore over them day in and
day out; they keep you in this room here when you should be out among
the people,--not making pastoral visits,--I don't mean that,--but going
around among them, chatting and joking and having a good time. They
would like it, and you would like it, and as for the young folks--how
old are you, parson?"
"Sixty next month," answered the parson; "sixty next month," he repeated
solemnly.
"Thirty! thirty! that's all you are, parson, or all you ought to be,"
cried the deacon. "Thirty, twenty, sixteen!--let the figures slide down
and up, according to circumstances, but never let them go higher than
thirty when you are dealing with young folks. I'm sixty myself, counting
years; but I'm only sixteen, sixteen this morning, that's all, parson,"
and he rubbed his little round plump hands together, looked at the
parson, and winked.
"Bless my soul, Deacon Tubman, I don't know but that you are right!"
answered the parson. "Sixty? I don't know as I am sixty," and he began
to rub his own hands, and came within an ace of executing a wink at the
deacon, himself.
"Not a day over twenty, if I am any judge of age," responded the deacon
deliberately, as he looked the white-headed old minister over with a
most comic imitation of seriousness. "Not a day over twenty, on my
honor," and the deacon leaned forward toward the parson, and gave him a
punch with his thumb, as one boy might deliver a punch at another, and
then he lay back in his chair and laughed so heartily that the parson
caught the infectious mirth and roared away as heartily as himself.
Yes, it was impossible to sit hobnobbing with the little, jolly deacon
on that bright New Year's morning and not be affected by the happiness
of his mood, for he was actually bubbling over with fun, and as full of
frolic as if the finger on the dial had, in truth, gone back forty-odd
years, and he was "only sixteen. Only sixteen, parson, on my honor."
"But what can I do?" queried the good man, sobering down. "I make my
pastoral visits."
"Pastoral visits!" responded Deacon Tubman. "Oh, yes, and they are all
well enough for the old folks, but they ar'n't the kind of biscuit the
young folks like--too heavy in the centre, and over-hard in the crust
for young teeth, eh, parson?"
"But what shall I do? what shall I do?" reiterated the parson, somewhat
despondently.
"Oh! put on your hat, and gloves, and warmest coat, and come along with
me. We will see what the young folks are doing, and will make a day of
it. Come! come! let the old books, and catechisms, and sermons, and
tracts have a respite for once, and we'll spend the day out-of-doors,
with the boys and girls and the people."
"I'll do it!" exclaimed the parson. "Deacon Tubman, you are right. I do
keep to my study too closely. I don't see enough of the world and what's
going on in it. I was reading the Testament this morning, and I was
impressed with the Master's manner of living and teaching. It is not
certain that he ever preached more than twice in a church during all his
ministry on the earth. And the children! how much he loved the children,
and how the little ones loved him! And why shouldn't they love me, too?
Why shouldn't they? I'll make them do it! yes, I'll make them do it! The
lambs of my flock shall love me." And with these brave words Parson
Whitney bundled himself up in his warmest garments, and followed the
deacon downstairs.
"Tell the folks that you won't be back till night," called the deacon
from the sleigh; "for this is New Year, and we're going to make a day of
it," and he laughed away as heartily as might be--so heartily that the
parson joined in the laughter himself as he came shuffling down the icy
path toward him. "Bless me! how much younger I feel already!" said the
good man as he stood up in the sleigh, and with a long, strong breath
breathed the cool, pure air into his lungs. "Bless me! how much younger
I feel already!" he repeated, as he settled down into the roomy seat of
the old sleigh. "Only sixteen to-day,--eh, deacon?" and he nudged him
with his elbow.
"That's all, that's all, parson," answered the deacon gayly, as he
nudged him vigorously back; "that's all we are, either of us," and,
laughing as merrily as two boys, the two glided away in the sleigh.
Well, perhaps they didn't have fun that day, these two old boys that had
started out with the feeling that they were "only sixteen," and bound to
make "a day of it!" And they did make a day of it, in fact, and such a
day as neither had had for forty years; for, first, they went to
Bartlett's Hill, where the boys and girls were coasting, and coasted
with them for a full hour,--and then it was discovered by the younger
portion of his flock that the parson was not an old, stiff, solemn,
surly poke, as they had thought, but a pleasant, good-natured, kindly
soul, who could take and give a joke, and steer a sled as well as the
smartest boy in the crowd; and when it came to snow-balling, he could
send a ball further than Bill Sykes himself, who could out-throw any boy
in town, and roll up a bigger block to the new snow fort they were
building than any three boys among them. And how the parson enjoyed
being a boy again! How exhilarating the slide down the steep hill; how
invigorating the pure, cool air; how pleasant the noise of the chatting
and joking going on around him; how bright and sweet the boys and girls
looked, with their rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes; and how the old
parson's heart thrilled as they crowded around him when he would go, and
urged him to stay,--and little Alice Dorchester begged him, with her
little arms around his neck, to "jes' stay and gib me one more slide,
please!"
"You never made such a pastoral call as that, parson," said the deacon,
as they drove away amid the cheers of the boys and the "good-bys" of the
girls, while the former fired off a volley of snow-balls in his honor,
and the latter waved their muffs and handkerchiefs after them.
"God bless them! God bless them!" said the parson. "They have lifted a
load from my heart, and taught me the sweetness of life, of youth, and
the wisdom of Him who took the little ones in His arms, and blessed
them. Ah, deacon," he added, "I've been a great fool, but I'll be so,
thank God! no more."
Now, old Jack was a horse of a great deal of character, and had a great
history; but of this none in that section, save the little deacon, knew
a word. Dick Tubman, the deacon's youngest, wildest, and, we might add,
favorite son, had purchased him of an impecunious jockey, at the close
of a disastrous campaign, that cleaned him completely out, and left him
in a strange city a thousand miles from home, with nothing but the
horse, harness, and sulky, and a list of unpaid bills that must be met
before he could leave the scene of his disastrous fortunes. Under such
circumstances it was that Dick Tubman ran across the horse, and partly
out of pity for its owner, and partly out of admiration of the horse,
whose failure to win at the races was due more to his lack of condition
and the bad management of his jockey than lack of speed, bought him
off-hand, and, having no use for him himself, shipped him as a present
to the deacon, with whom he had now been four years, with no harder work
than ploughing out the good old man's corn in the summer, and jogging
along the country roads on the deacon's errands. Having said thus much
of the horse, perhaps we should more particularly describe him.
He was, in sooth, an animal of most unique and extraordinary appearance;
for, in the first place, he was quite seventeen hands in height, and
long in proportion. He was also the reverse of shapely in the fashion of
his build: for his head was long and bony, and his hip bones sharp and
protuberant; his tail was what is known among horsemen as a rat-tail,
being but scantily covered with hair, and his neck was even more
scantily supplied with a mane, while in color he could easily have taken
any premium put up for homeliness, being an ashen roan, mottled with
flecks and patches of divers hues; but his legs were flat and corded
like a racer's, his neck long and thin as a thoroughbred's, his nostrils
large, his ears sharply pointed and lively, while the white rings around
his eyes hinted at a cross, somewhere in his pedigree, with Arabian
blood. A huge, bony, homely-looking horse he was, who drew the deacon
and Miranda into the village on market days and Sundays, with a loose,
shambling gait, making altogether an appearance so homely and peculiar
that the smart village chaps riding along in their jaunty turn-outs used
to chaff the good deacon on the character of his steed, and satirically
challenge him to a brush. The deacon always took their badinage in good
part, although he inwardly said more than once, "If I ever get a good
chance, when there ar'n't too many around, I'll go up to the turn of the
road beyond the church, and let Jack out on them;" for Dick had given
him a hint of the horse's history, and told him "he could knock the
spots out of thirty," and wickedly urged the deacon to take the starch
out of them airy chaps some of these days. Such was the horse, then,
that the deacon had ahead of him, and the old-fashioned sleigh, when,
with the parson alongside, he struck into the principal street of the
village.
Now, New Year's Day is a lively day in many country villages, and on
this bright one especially, as the sleighing was perfect, everybody was
out. Indeed, it had got noised abroad that certain trotters of local
fame were to be on the street that afternoon, and, as the boys worded
it, "there would be heaps of fun going on." And so it happened that
everybody in town, and many who lived out of it, were on this particular
street, and just at the hour, too, when the deacon came to the foot of
it, so that the walk on either side was lined darkly with lookers-on,
and the smooth snow-path between the two lines looked like a veritable
homestretch on a race-day.
Now, when the deacon had reached the corner of the main street and
turned into it, it was at that point where the course terminated and the
"brushes" were ended, and at the precise moment when the dozen or twenty
horses that had just come flying down were being pulled up preparatory
to returning at a slow gait to the customary starting-point at the head
of the street, a half-mile away, so that the old-fashioned sleigh was
surrounded by the light, fancy cutters of the rival racers, and old
Jack was shambling awkwardly along in the midst of the high-spirited and
smoking nags that had just come flying down the stretch.
"Hellow, deacon," shouted one of the boys, who was driving a
trim-looking bay, and who had crossed the line at the ending of the
course second only to a pacer that could "speed like a streak of
lightning," as the boys said,--"Hellow, deacon; ain't you going to shake
out old shamble-heels, and show us fellows what speed is to-day?" And
the merry-hearted chap, son of the principal lawyer of the place,
laughed heartily at his challenge, while the other drivers looked at the
great angular horse that, without any check, was walking carelessly
along, with his head held down, ahead of the old sleigh and its churchly
occupants.
"I don't know but what I will," answered the deacon, good-naturedly;
"don't know but what I will, if the parson don't object, and you won't
start off too quick to begin with; for this is New Year's, and a
little extra fun won't hurt any of us, I reckon."
[Illustration: THE DEACON AND PARSON.]
"Do it, do it; we'll hold up for you," answered a dozen merry voices.
"Do it, deacon: it'll do old shamble-heels good to go a ten-mile-an-hour
gait for once in his life, and the parson needn't fear of being
scandalized by any speed you'll get out of him, either;" and the merry
chaps haw-hawed as men and boys will, when every one is jolly and fun
flows fast.
And so, with any amount of good-natured chaffing from the drivers of the
"fast 'uns," and from many that lined the road too,--for the day gave
greater liberty than usual to bantering speech,--the speedy ones paced
slowly up to the head of the street, with old Jack shambling demurely in
the midst of them.
But the horse was a knowing old fellow, and had "scored" at too many
races not to know that the "return" was to be leisurely taken, and,
indeed, he was a horse of independence, and of too even, perhaps of too
sluggish, a temperament, to waste himself in needless action; but he
had the right stuff in him, and hadn't forgotten his early training
either, for when he came to the "turn," his head and tail came up, his
eye brightened, and, with a playful movement of his huge body, and
without the least hint from the deacon, he swung himself and the
cumbrous old sleigh into line, and began to straighten himself for the
coming brush.
Now, Jack was, as we have said, a horse of huge proportions, and needed
"steadying" at the start, but the good deacon had no experience with the
"ribbons," and was therefore utterly unskilled in the matter of driving;
and so it came about that old Jack was so confused at the start that he
made a most awkward and wretched appearance in his effort to get off,
being all "mixed up," as the saying is,--so much so that the crowd
roared at his ungainly efforts, and his flying rivals were twenty rods
away before he even got started. But at last he got his huge body in a
straight line, and, leaving his miserable shuffle, squared away to his
work, and, with head and tail up, went off at so slashing a gait that it
fairly took the deacon's breath away, and caused the crowd that had been
hooting him to roar their applause, while the parson grabbed the edge of
the old sleigh with one hand and the rim of his tall black hat with the
other.
What a pity, Mr. Longface, that God made horses as they are, and gave
them such grandeur of appearance when in action, and put such an
eagle-like spirit between their ribs, so that, quitting the plodding
motions of the ox, they can fly like that noble bird, and come sweeping
down the course as on wings of the wind!
It was not my fault, nor the deacon's, nor the parson's either, please
remember, then, that awkward, shuffling, homely-looking old Jack was
thus suddenly transformed, by the royalty of blood, of pride, and of
speed given him by his Creator, from what he ordinarily was, into a
magnificent spectacle of energetic velocity.
With muzzle lifted well up, tail erect, the few hairs in it streaming
straight behind, one ear pricked forward and the other turned sharply
back, the great horse swept grandly along at a pace that was rapidly
bringing him even with the rear line of the flying group. And yet so
little was the pace to him that he fairly gambolled in playfulness as he
went slashing along, until the deacon verily began to fear that the
honest old chap would break through all the bounds of propriety and send
his heels antically through his treasured dashboard. Indeed, the
spectacle that the huge horse presented was so magnificent, his action
so free, spirited, and playful, as he came sweeping onward, that cheers
and exclamations, such as, "Good heavens! see the deacon's old horse!"
"Look at him! look at him!" "What a stride!" etc., ran ahead of him, and
old Bill Sykes, a trainer in his day, but now a hanger-on at the
village tavern, or that section of it known as the bar, wiped his
watery eyes with his tremulous fist, as he saw Jack come swinging down,
and, as he swept past with his open gait, powerful stroke, and stiffles
playing well out, brought his hand with a mighty slap against his thigh,
and said, "I'll be blowed if he isn't a regular old timer!"
It was fortunate for the deacon and the parson that the noise and
cheering of the crowd drew the attention of the drivers ahead, or there
would surely have been more than one collision, for the old sleigh was
of such size and strength, the good deacon so unskilled at the reins,
and Jack, who was adding to his momentum with every stride, was going at
so determined a pace, that, had he struck the rear line, with no gap for
him to go through, something serious would surely have happened. But, as
it was, the drivers saw the huge horse, with the cumbrous old sleigh
behind him, bearing down on them at such a gait as made their own speed,
sharp as it was, seem slow, and "pulled out" in time to save
themselves; and so without any mishap the big horse and heavy sleigh
swept through the rear row of racers like an autumn gust through a
cluster of leaves.
By this time the deacon had become somewhat alarmed, for Jack was going
nigh to a thirty clip,--a frightful pace for an inexperienced man to
ride,--and began to put a good strong pressure upon the bit, not
doubting that old Jack--ordinarily the easiest horse in the world to
manage--would take the hint and immediately slow up. But though the huge
horse took the hint, it was exactly in the opposite manner that the
deacon intended he should, for he interpreted the little man's steady
pull as an intimation that his inexperienced driver was getting over his
flurry and beginning to treat him as a big horse ought to be treated in
a race, and that he could now, having got settled to his work, go ahead.
And go ahead he did. The more the deacon pulled, the more the great
horse felt himself steadied and assisted. And so, the harder the good
man tugged at the reins, the more powerfully the machinery of the big
animal ahead of him worked, until the deacon got alarmed, and began to
call upon the horse to stop, crying, "Whoa, Jack! whoa, old boy, I say!
Whoa, will you now, that's a good fellow!" and many other coaxing calls,
while he pulled away steadily at the reins.
But the horse misunderstood the deacon's calls, as he had his pressure
on the reins, for the crowd on either side were now yelling, and
hooting, and swinging their caps, so that the deacon's voice came
indistinctly to his ears at the best, and he interpreted his calls for
him to stop as only so many encouragements and signals for him to go
ahead; and so, with the memory of a hundred races stirring his blood,
the crowd cheering him to the echo, the steadying pull and encouraging
cries of his driver in his ears, and his only rival, the pacer, whirling
along only a few rods ahead of him, the monstrous animal, with a
desperate plunge that half lifted the old sleigh from the snow, let out
another link, and, with such a burst of speed as was never seen in the
village before, tore along after the pacer at such a terrific pace that,
within the distance of a dozen lengths, he lay lapped upon him, and the
two were going it nose and nose.
What is that feeling in human hearts which makes us sympathetic with man
or animal who has unexpectedly developed courage and capacity when
engaged in a struggle in which the odds are against him? And why do we
enter so spiritedly into the contest, and lose ourselves in the
excitement of the moment? Is it pride? Is it the comradeship of courage?
Or is it the rising of the indomitable in us, that loves nothing so much
as victory, and hates nothing so much as defeat? Be that as it may, no
sooner was old Jack fairly lapped on the pacer, whose driver was urging
him along with reins and voice alike, and the contest seemed
doubtful, than the spirit of old Adam himself entered into the deacon
and the parson both, so that, carried away by the excitement of the
race, they fairly forgot themselves, and entered as wildly into the
contest as two ungodly jockeys.
[Illustration: THE RACE.]
"Deacon Tubman!" said the parson, as he clutched the rim of his tall
hat, against which, as the horse tore along, the snow chips were pelting
in showers, more stoutly, "Deacon Tubman! do you think the pacer will
beat us?"
"Not if I can help it! not if I can help it!" yelled the deacon in
reply, as, with something like a reinsman's skill, he instinctively
lifted Jack to another spurt. "Go it, old boy!" he shouted
encouragingly. "Go along with you, I say!" and the parson, also carried
away by the whirl of the moment, cried, "Go along, old boy! Go along
with you, I say!"