with God. It says Enoch walked with God, and Adam talked with Him.
Some folks might find that hard to believe, but it seems jest as
natural to me. Why many a time I've been in my gyarden when the sun's
gone down, and it ain't quite time for the moon to come up, and the
dew's fallin' and the flowers smellin' sweet, and I've set down in the
summer-house and looked up at the stars; and if I'd heard a voice from
heaven it wouldn't 'a' been a bit stranger to me than the blowin' of
the wind.
"The minute I saw Dr. Morse I thought about Adam and Enoch, and I said
to myself, 'He looks like a man that's walked with God and talked with
God.'
"I didn't look at the people's hats and bonnets that day half as much
as I usually did, and part of that sermon stayed by me all my life. He
preached about Nebuchadnezzar and the image he saw in his dream with
the head of gold and the feet of clay. And he said that every human
being was like that image; there was gold and there was clay in every
one of us. Part of us was human and part was divine. Part of us was
earthly like the clay, and part heavenly like the gold. And he said
that in some folks you couldn't see anything but the clay, but that
the gold was there, and if you looked long enough you'd find it. And
some folks, he said, looked like they was all gold, but somewhere or
other there was the clay, too, and nobody was so good but what he had
his secret sins and open faults. And he said sin was jest another name
for ignorance, and that Christ knew this when he prayed on the cross,
'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' He said
everybody would do right, if they knew what was right to do, and that
the thing for us to do was to look for the gold and not the clay in
other folks. For the gold was the part that would never die, and the
clay was jest the mortal part that we dropped when this mortal shall
have put on immortality.
"Child, that sermon's come home to me many a time when I've caught
myself weighin' people in the balance and findin' 'em wantin'. That's
what I'd been doin' all them years with pore Harvey. I'd seen things
every once in a while that let in a little light on his life and
Mary's, but the old cabin made it all plain as day, and it seemed like
every piece o' rubbish in it rose up in judgment against me. I never
felt like cryin' at Harvey's funeral, but when I stood there peerin'
around, the tears burnt my eyes, and I says to myself, 'Clay and gold!
Clay and gold!'
"The same thought must 'a' struck Mary at the same minute it did me,
for she fell on her knees moanin' and wringin' her hands and cryin':
"'God forgive me! God forgive me! I see it all now. He couldn't help
it, and I've been a hard woman, and God'll judge me as I judged
Harvey.'
"The look in her eyes and the sound of her voice skeered me, and I saw
that the quicker I got her out o' the old cabin the better. I put my
hand on her shoulder, and says I, 'Hush, Mary. Get up and come back to
the house; but don't let the children hear you takin' on so. You might
skeer little Harvey.'
"She stopped a minute and stared at me, and then she caught hold o' my
hand, and says she: 'No! no! the children mustn't ever know anything
about it, and nobody must ever see the inside o' that awful place.
Come, quick!' says she; and she got up from her knees and pulled me
outside of the door and locked it and dropped the key in her apron
pocket.
"Little Harvey come runnin' up to her, and I was in hopes the sight of
the child would bring her to herself, but she walked on as if she
hadn't seen him; and as soon as she got up-stairs she fell down in a
heap on the floor and went to wringin' her hands and beatin' her
breast and cryin' without tears.
"Honey, if you're done a wrong to a livin' person, you needn't set
down and grieve over it. You can go right to the person and make it
right or try to make it right. But when the one you've wronged is
dead, and the grave lies between you, that's the sort o' grief that
breaks hearts and makes people lose their minds. And that was what
Mary Andrews had to bear when she opened the door o' that old cabin
and saw into Harvey's nature, and felt that she had misjudged and
condemned him.
"I couldn't do anything for a long time, but jest sit by her and
listen while she called Harvey back from the dead, and called on God
to forgive her, and blamed herself for all that had ever gone wrong
between 'em. But at last she wore herself out and had to stop, and
says I, 'Mary, I don't know what's passed between you and Harvey--'
And she broke in, and says she:
"'No! no! you don't know, and nobody on this earth knows what I've
been through. I used to feel like I was in an iron cage that got
smaller and smaller every day, and I knew the day was comin' when it
would shut in on me and crush me. But I wouldn't give in to Harvey, I
wouldn't let him have his own way, and I fought him and hated him and
despised him; and now I see he couldn't help it, and I feel like I'd
been strikin' a crippled child.'
"A crippled child! That was jest what pore Harvey was; but I knew it
wasn't right for Mary to take all the blame on herself, and says I:
"'Mary, if Harvey could keep other people from knowin' what he was,
couldn't he have kept you from knowin' it, too? If he was free-handed
to other people, what was to hinder him from bein' the same way to
you?' Says I, 'If there's any blame in this matter it belongs as much
to Harvey as it does to you. When you look at that old cabin,' says I,
'you can't have any hard feelin's toward pore Harvey. You've forgiven
him, and now,' says I, 'there's jest one more person you've got to
forgive, and that's yourself,' says I. 'It's jest as wrong to be too
hard on yourself as it is to be too hard on other folks.'
"I never had thought o' that before, child, but I've thought of it
many a time since and I know it's true. It ain't often you find a
human bein' that's too hard on himself. Most of us is jest the other
way. But Mary was one of that kind. I could see a change come over
her face while I was talkin', and I've always believed them words was
put in my mouth to give Mary the comfort and help she needed.
"She grabbed hold o' my hand, and says she:
"'Do you reckon I've got a right to forgive myself?' Says she, 'I know
I'm not a mean woman by nature, but Harvey's ways wasn't my ways. He
made me do things I didn't want to do and say things I didn't want to
say, and I never was myself as long as I lived with him. But God knows
I wouldn't 'a' been so hard on him if I'd only known,' says she. 'God
may forgive me, but even if He does, it don't seem to me that I've got
a right to forgive myself.'
"And says I, 'Mary, if you don't forgive yourself you won't be able to
keer for the children, and you haven't got any right to wrong the
livin' by worryin' over the dead. And now,' says I, 'you lie down on
this bed and shut your eyes and say to yourself, "Harvey's forgiven
me, and God's forgiven me, and I forgive myself." Don't let another
thought come into your head. Jest say it over and over till you go to
sleep, and while you're sleepin', I'll look after the children.'
"I didn't have much faith in my own remedy, but she minded me like a
child mindin' its mother; and, sure enough, when I tiptoed up-stairs
an hour or so after that, I found her fast asleep. Her mother and her
sister Sally come while she was still sleepin', and I left for home,
feelin' that she was in good hands.
"That night about half-past nine o'clock I went outdoors and set down
on the porch steps in the dark, as I always do jest before bedtime.
That's been one o' my ways ever since I was a child. Abram used to say
he had known me to forgit my prayers many a night, but he never knew
me to forgit to go outdoors and look up at the sky. If there was a
moon, or if the stars was shinin', I'd stay out and wander around in
the gyarden till he'd come out after me; and if it was cloudy, I'd set
there and feel safe in the darkness as in the light. I always have
thought, honey, that we lose a heap by sleepin' all night. Well, I was
sittin' there lookin' up at the stars, and all at once I saw a bright
light over in the direction of Harvey Andrews' place. Our house was
built on risin' ground, and we could see for a good ways around the
country. I called Abram and asked him if he hadn't better saddle old
Moll and ride over and see if he couldn't help whoever was in trouble.
But he said it was most likely some o' the neighbors burnin' brush,
and whatever it was it would be out before he could git to it. So we
set there watchin' it and speculatin' about it till it died down, and
then we went to bed.
"The next mornin' I was out in the yard weedin' out a bed o' clove
pinks, and Sam Amos come ridin' by on his big bay mare. I hollered to
him and asked him if he knew where the fire was the night before. And
says he, 'Yes, Aunt Jane; it was that old cabin on Harvey Andrews'
place.' He said that Amos Matthews happened to be goin' by at the time
and took down the fence-rails to keep it from spreadin', but that was
all he could do. Sam said Amos told him there was somethin' mysterious
about that fire. He said it must 'a' been started from the inside, for
the flames didn't burst through the windows and roof till after he got
there, and the whole inside was ablaze. But, when he tried to open the
door, it was locked fast and tight. He said Mary and her mother and
sister was all out in the yard, and Mary was standin' with her hands
folded in front of her, lookin' at the burnin' house jest as calm as
if it was her own fireplace. Amos asked her for the key to the cabin
door, and she went to the back porch and took one off a nail, but it
wouldn't fit the lock, and before she could get another to try, the
roof was on fire and cavin' in. Amos told Sam the cabin appeared to be
full of old plunder of all sorts, and you could smell burnt rags for a
mile around.
"Of course there was a good deal o' talk about the fire, and everybody
said how curious it was that it could catch on the inside when the
door was locked. I never said a word, not even to Abram, but I knew
well enough who set the old cabin afire, and why the key Mary gave
Amos wouldn't fit the lock. Harvey's clothes was packed away under the
old garret; the old cabin was burned, and the ashes and rubbish hauled
away, and there wasn't anything much left to remind Mary of the things
she was tryin' to forget. That's the best way to do. When a thing's
done and you can't undo it, there's no use in frettin' and worryin'
yourself. Jest put it out o' your mind, and go on your way and git
ready for the next trial that's comin' to you.
"But Mary never seemed like herself after Harvey died, until little
Harvey was taken with fever. That seemed to rouse her and bring her
senses back, and she nursed him night and day. The little thing went
down to the very gates of death, and everybody give up hope except
the old doctor. He'd fight death off as long as there was breath in
the body. The night the turnin' point was to come I set up with Mary.
The child'd been moanin' and tossin', and his muscles was twitchin',
and the fever jest as high as it could be. But about three o'clock he
got quiet and about half-past three I leaned over and counted his
breaths. He was breathin' slow and regular, and I touched his forehead
and found it was wet, and the fever was goin' away. I went over to
Mary, and says I, 'You go in the other room and lie down, Mary, the
fever's broke, and Harvey's goin' to git well.' She stared at me like
she couldn't take in what I was sayin'. Then her face begun to work
like a person's in a convulsion, and she jumped up and rushed out o'
the room, and the next minute she give a cry that I can hear yet. Then
she begun to sob, and I knew she was cryin' tears at last, and I set
by the child and cried with her.
"She wasn't able to be up for two or three days, and every little
while she'd burst out cryin'. Some folks said she was cryin' for joy
about the child gittin' well; and some said she was cryin' the tears
she ought to 'a' cried when Harvey was buried; but I knew she was
cryin' over all the sorrows of her married life. She told me
afterwards that she hadn't shed a tear for six or seven years. Says
she, 'I used to cry my eyes out nearly over the way things went, and
one day somethin' happened and I come near cryin'; but the children
was around and I didn't want them to see me; so I says to myself, "I
won't cry. What's the use wastin' tears over such things?" And from
that day,' says she, 'I got as hard as a stone, and it looks like I
was jest turnin' back to flesh and blood again.'
"There's only two ways o' takin' trouble, child; you can laugh over it
or you can cry over it. But you've got to do one or the other. The
Lord made some folks that can laugh away their troubles, and he made
tears for them that can't laugh, and human bein's can't harden
themselves into stone.
"I reckon, as Mary said, nobody on earth knew what she'd been through,
livin' with a man like Harvey. If he'd been an out-and-out miser, it
would 'a' been better for everybody concerned. But it looked like
Nature started out to make him a miser and then sp'iled the job, so's
he was neither one thing nor the other. The gold was there, and he
showed that to outsiders; and the clay was there, and he showed that
to Mary. And that's the strangest part of all to me. If he had enough
sense not to want his neighbors to know his meanness, it looks like he
ought to have had sense enough to hide it from his wife. A man ought
to want his wife to think well of him whether anybody else does or
not. You see, a woman can make out to live with a man and not love
him, but she can't live with him and despise him. She's jest got to
respect him. But there's some men that never have found that out. They
think that because a woman stands up before a preacher and promises to
love and honor him, that she's bound to do it, no matter what he does.
And some women do. They're like dogs; they'll stick to a man no matter
what he does. Some women never can see any faults in their husbands,
and some sees the faults and covers 'em up and hides 'em from
outsiders. But Mary wasn't that sort. She couldn't deceive herself,
and nobody could deceive her; and when she found out Harvey's meanness
she couldn't help despisin' him in her heart, jest like Michal
despised David when she saw him playin' and dancin' before the Lord.
"There's something I never have understood, and one of 'em is why such
a woman as Mary should 'a' been permitted to marry a man like Harvey
Andrews. It kind o' shakes my faith in Providence every time I think
of it. But I reckon there was a reason for it, whether I can see it or
not."
Aunt Jane's voice ceased. She dropped her knitting in her lap and
leaned back in the old easy-chair. Apparently she was looking at the
dripping syringa bush near the window, but the look in her eyes told
me that she had reached a page in the story that was not for my eyes
or my ears, and I held inviolate the silence that had fallen between
us.
A low, far-off roll of thunder, the last note of the storm-music,
roused her from her reverie.
"Sakes alive, child!" she exclaimed, starting bolt upright. "Have I
been sleepin' and dreamin' and you settin' here? Well, I got through
with my story, anyhow, before I dropped off."
"Surely that isn't all," I said, discontentedly. "What became of Mary
Andrews after Harvey died?"
Aunt Jane laughed blithely.
"No, it ain't all. What's gittin' into me to leave off the endin' of a
story? Mary was married young; and when Harvey died she had the best
part of her life before her, and it was the best part, sure enough.
About a year after she was left a widow she went up to Christian
County to visit some of her cousins, and there she met the man she
ought to 'a' married in the first place. I ain't any hand for second
marriages. 'One man for one woman,' says I; but I've seen so many
second marriages that was happier than any first ones that I never say
anything against marryin' twice. Some folks are made for each other,
but they make mistakes in the road and git lost, and don't git found
till they've been through a heap o' tribulation, and, maybe, the
biggest half o' their life's gone. But then, they've got all eternity
before 'em, and there's time enough there to find all they've lost and
more besides. But Mary found her portion o' happiness before it was
too late. Elbert Madison was the man she married. He was an old
bachelor, and a mighty well-to-do man, and they said every old maid
and widow in Christian County had set her cap for him one time or
another. But whenever folks said anything to him about marryin', he'd
say, 'I'm waitin' for the Right Woman. She's somewhere in the world,
and as soon as I find her I'm goin' to marry.'
"It got to be a standin' joke with the neighbors and the family, and
his brother used to say that Elbert believed in that 'Right Woman' the
same as he believed in God.
"They used to tell how one Christmas, Elbert's nieces had a lot o'
young company from Louisville, and they had a big dance Christmas Eve.
Elbert was there, and the minute he come into the room the oldest
niece, she whispered, 'Here's Uncle Elbert; he's come to see if the
Right Woman's at the ball.' And with that all them gyirls rushed up to
Elbert and shook hands with him and pulled him into the middle o' the
room under a big bunch o' mistletoe, and the prettiest and sassiest
one of 'em, she took her dress between the tips of her fingers and
spread it out and made a low bow, and says she, lookin' up into
Elbert's face, says she:
"'Mr. Madison, don't I look like the Right Woman?'
"Everybody laughed and expected to see Elbert blush and act like he
wanted to go through the floor. But instead o' that he looked at her
serious and earnest, and at last he says: 'You do look a little like
her, but you ain't her. You've got the color of her eyes,' says he,
'but not the look of 'em. Her hair's dark like yours, but it don't
curl quite as much, and she's taller than you are, but not quite so
slim.'
"They said the gyirls stopped laughin' and jest looked at each other,
and one of 'em said:
"'Well, did you ever?' And that was the last time they tried to tease
Elbert. But Elbert's brother he turns to somebody standin' near him,
and says he, 'Unless Elbert gets that "right-woman" foolishness out of
his head and marries and settles down like other men, I believe he'll
end his days in a lunatic asylum.'
"But it all turned out the way Elbert said it would. The minute he saw
Mary Andrews, he whispered to his sister-in-law, and says he, 'Sister
Mary, do you see that dark-eyed woman over there by the door? Well,
that's the woman I've been lookin' for all my life.'
"He walked across the room and got introduced to her, and they said
when him and Mary shook hands they looked each other in the eyes and
laughed like two old friends that hadn't met for years.
"Harvey hadn't been dead much over a year and Mary wanted to put off
the weddin'. But Elbert said, 'No; I've waited for you a lifetime and
I'm not goin' to wait any longer.' So they got married as soon as Mary
could have her weddin' clothes made, and a happier couple you never
saw. Elbert used to look at her and say:
"'God made Eve for Adam, and he made you for me.'
"And he didn't only love Mary, but he loved her children the same as
if they'd been his own. A woman that's been another man's wife can
easy enough find a man to love her, but to find one that'll love the
other man's children, that's a different matter."
One! two! three! four! chimed the old clock; and at the same moment
out came the sun, sending long rays across the room. The rain had
subsided to a gentle mist, and the clouds were rolling away before a
south-west wind that carried with it fragrance from wet flowers and
leaves and a world cleansed and renewed by a summer storm. We moved
our chairs out on the porch to enjoy the clearing-off. There were
health and strength in every breath of the cool, moist air, and for
every sense but one a pleasure--odor, light, coolness, and the faint
music of falling water from the roof and from the trees that sent down
miniature showers whenever the wind stirred their branches.
Aunt Jane drew a deep breath of satisfaction, and looked upward at the
blue sky.
"I don't mind how much it rains durin' the day," she said, "if it'll
jest stop off before night and let the sun set clear. And that's the
way with life, child. If everything ends right, we can forget all
about the troubles we've had before. I reckon if Mary Andrews could
'a' seen a few years ahead while she was havin' her trials with pore
Harvey, she would 'a' borne 'em all with a better grace. But lookin'
ahead is somethin' we ain't permitted to do. We've jest got to stand
up under the present and trust for the time we can't see. And whether
we trust or not, child, no matter how dark it is nor how long it stays
dark, the sun's goin' to come out some time, and it's all goin' to be
right at the last. You know what the Scripture says, 'At evening time
it shall be light!'"
Her faded eyes were turned reverently toward the glory of the western
sky, but the light on her face was not all of the setting sun.
"At evening time it shall be light!"
Not of the day but of human life were these words spoken, and with
Aunt Jane the prophecy had been fulfilled.
IX
THE GARDENS OF MEMORY
[Illustration]
Each of us has his own way of classifying humanity. To me, as a child,
men and women fell naturally into two great divisions: those who had
gardens and those who had only houses.
Brick walls and pavements hemmed me in and robbed me of one of my
birthrights; and to the fancy of childhood a garden was a paradise,
and the people who had gardens were happy Adams and Eves walking in a
golden mist of sunshine and showers, with green leaves and blue sky
overhead, and blossoms springing at their feet; while those others,
dispossessed of life's springs, summers, and autumns, appeared darkly
entombed in shops and parlors where the year might as well have been a
perpetual winter.
As I grew older I learned that there was a small subclass composed of
people who not only possessed gardens, but whose gardens possessed
them, and it is the spots sown and tended by these that blossom
eternally in one's remembrance as veritable vailimas--"gardens of
dreams."
In every one's mind there is a lonely space, almost abandoned of
consciousness, the time between infancy and childhood. It is like that
period when the earth was "without form, and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep." Here, like lost stars floating in the
firmament of mind, will be found two or three faint memories, remote
and disconnected. With me one of these memories is of a garden. I was
riding with my father along a pleasant country road. There were
sunshine and a gentle wind, and white clouds in a blue sky. We stopped
at a gate. My father opened it, and I walked up a grassy path to the
ruins of a house. The chimney was still standing, but all the rest was
a heap of blackened, half-burned rubbish which spring and summer were
covering with wild vines and weeds, and around the ruins of the house
lay the ruins of the garden. The honeysuckle, bereft of its trellis,
wandered helplessly over the ground, and amid a rank growth of weeds
sprang a host of yellow snapdragons. I remember the feeling of rapture
that was mine at the thought that I had found a garden where flowers
could be gathered without asking permission of any one. And as long as
I live, the sight of a yellow snapdragon on a sunny day will bring
back my father from his grave and make me a little child again
gathering flowers in that deserted garden, which is seemingly in
another world than this.
A later memory than this is of a place that was scarcely more than a
paved court lying between high brick walls. But because we children
wanted a garden so much, we called it by that name; and here and there
a little of Mother Earth's bosom, left uncovered, gave us some warrant
for the misnomer. Yet the spot was not without its beauties, and a
less exacting child might have found content within its boundaries.