_A Village Sabbath._
"NOW THE END OF THE COMMANDMENT IS CHARITY, OUT OF A PURE HEART."
It was Sunday morning, and the very peace of God was brooding over
Pleasant River. Timothy, Rags, and Gay were playing decorously in the
orchard. Maria was hitched to an apple-tree in the side yard, and stood
there serenely with her eyes half closed, dreaming of oats past and oats
to come. Miss Vilda and Samantha issued from the mosquito-netting door,
clad in Sunday best; and the children approached nearer, that they might
share in the excitement of the departure for "meeting." Gay clamored to
go, but was pacified by the gift of a rag-doll that Samantha had made
for her the evening before. It was a monstrosity, but Gay dipped it
instantly in the alembic of her imagination, and it became a beautiful,
responsive little daughter, which she clasped close in her arms, and on
which she showered the tenderest tokens of maternal affection.
Miss Vilda handed Timothy a little green-paper-covered book, before she
climbed into the buggy. "That's a catechism," she said; "and if you'll
be a good boy and learn the first six pages, and say 'em to me this
afternoon, Samantha 'll give you a top that you can spin on week days."
"What is a catechism?" asked Timothy, as he took the book.
"It's a Sunday-school lesson."
"Oh, then I can learn it," said Timothy, brightening; "I learned three
for Miss Dora, in the city."
"Well, I'm thankful to hear that you've had some spiritual advantages;
now, stay right here in the orchard till Jabe comes; and don't set the
house afire," she added, as Samantha took the reins and raised them for
the mighty slap on Maria's back which was necessary to wake her from her
Sunday slumber.
"Why would I want to set the house afire?" Timothy asked wonderingly.
"Well, I don't know 's you would want to, but I thought you might get
to playin' with matches, though I've hid 'em all."
"Play with matches!" exclaimed Timothy, in wide-eyed astonishment that a
match could appeal to anybody as a desirable plaything. "Oh, no, thank
you; I shouldn't have thought of it."
"I don't know as we ought to have left 'em alone," said Vilda, looking
back, as Samantha urged the moderate Maria over the road; "though I
don't know exactly what they could do."
"Except run away," said Samantha reflectively.
"I wish to the land they would! It would be the easiest way out of a
troublesome matter. Every day that goes by will make it harder for us to
decide what to do with 'em; for you can't do by those you know the same
as if they were strangers."
There was a long main street running through the village north and
south. Toward the north it led through a sweet-scented wood, where the
grass tufts grew in verdant strips along the little-traveled road. It
had been a damp morning, and, though now the sun was shining
brilliantly, the spiders' webs still covered the fields; gossamer laces
of moist, spun silver, through which shone the pink and lilac of the
meadow grasses. The wood was a quiet place, and more than once Miss
Vilda and Samantha had discussed matters there which they would never
have mentioned at the White Farm.
Maria went ambling along serenely through the arcade of trees, where the
sun went wandering softly, "as with his hands before his eyes;"
overhead, the vast blue canopy of heaven, and under the trees the soft
brown leaf carpet, "woven by a thousand autumns."
"I don't know but I could grow to like the baby in time," said Vilda,
"though it's my opinion she's goin' to be dreadful troublesome; but I'm
more 'n half afraid of the boy. Every time he looks at me with those
searchin' eyes of his, I mistrust he's goin' to say something about
Marthy,--all on account of his giving me such a turn when he came to the
door."
"He'd be awful handy round the house, though, Vildy; that is, if he _is_
handy,--pickin' up chips, 'n' layin' fires, 'n' what not; but, 's you
say, he ain't so takin' as the baby at first sight. She's got the same
winnin' way with her that Marthy hed!"
"Yes," said Miss Vilda grimly; "and I guess it's the devil's own way."
"Well, yes, mebbe; 'n' then again mebbe 't ain't. There ain't no reason
why the devil should own all the han'some faces 'n' tunesome laughs, 't
I know of. It doos seem 's if beauty was turrible misleading', 'n' I've
ben glad sometimes the Lord didn't resk none of it on me; for I was
behind the door when good looks was give out, 'n' I'm willin' t' own up
to it; but, all the same, I like to see putty faces roun' me, 'n' I
guess when the Lord sets his mind on it He can make goodness 'n' beauty
git along comf'tably in the same body. When yer come to that, hombly
folks ain't allers as good 's they might be, 'n' no comfort to anybody's
eyes, nuther."
"You think the boy's all right in the upper story, do you? He's a
strange kind of a child, to my thinkin'."
"I ain't so sure but he's smarter 'n we be, but he talks queer, 'n' no
mistake. This mornin' he was pullin' the husks off a baby ear o' corn
that Jabe brought in, 'n' s' 'e, 'S'manthy, I think the corn must be the
happiest of all the veg'tables.' 'How you talk!' s' I; 'what makes you
think that way?'"
"Why, because,' s' 'e, 'God has hidden it away so safe, with all that
shinin' silk round it first, 'n' then the soft leaves wrapped outside o'
the silk. I guess it's God's fav'rite veg'table; don't you, S'manthy?'
s' 'e. And when I was showin' him pictures last night, 'n' he see the
crosses on top some o' the city meetin'-houses, s' 'e, 'They have two
sticks on 'most all the churches, don't they, S'manthy? I s'pose that's
one stick for God, and the other for the peoples.' Well, now, don't you
remember Seth Pennell, o' Buttertown, how queer he was when he was a
boy? We thought he'd never be wuth his salt. He used to stan' in the
front winder 'n' twirl the curtin tossel for hours to a time. And don't
you know it come out last year that he'd wrote a reg'lar book, with
covers on it 'n' all, 'n' that he got five dollars a colume for writin'
poetry verses for the papers?"
"Oh, well, if you mean that," said Vilda argumentatively, "I don't call
writin' poetry any great test of smartness. There ain't been a big fool
in this village for years but could do somethin' in the writin' line. I
guess it ain't any great trick, if you have a mind to put yourself down
to it. For my part, I've always despised to see a great, hulkin' man,
that could handle a hoe or a pitchfork, sit down and twirl a pen-stalk."
"Well, I ain't so sure. I guess the Lord hes his own way o' managin'
things. We ain't all cal'lated to hoe pertaters nor yet to write poetry
verses. There's as much dif'rence in folks 's there is in anybody. Now,
I can take care of a dairy as well as the next one, 'n' nobody was ever
hearn to complain o' my butter; but there was that lady in New York
State that used to make flowers 'n' fruit 'n' graven images out o' her
churnin's. You've hearn tell o' that piece she carried to the
Centennial? Now, no sech doin's 's that ever come into my head. I've
went on makin' round balls for twenty years: 'n', massy on us, don't I
remember when my old butter stamp cracked, 'n' I couldn't get another
with an ear o' corn on it, 'n' hed to take one with a beehive, why, I
was that homesick I couldn't bear to look my butter 'n the eye! But that
woman would have had a new picter on her balls every day, I shouldn't
wonder! (For massy's sake, Maria, don't stan' stock still 'n' let the
flies eat yer right up!) No, I tell yer, it takes all kinds o' folks to
make a world. Now, I couldn't never read poetry. It's so dull, it makes
me feel 's if I'd been trottin' all day in the sun! But there's folks
that can stan' it, or they wouldn't keep on turnin' of it out. The
children are nice children enough, but have they got any folks anywhere,
'n' what kind of folks, 'n' where'd they come from, anyhow: that's what
we've got to find out, 'n' I guess it'll be consid'able of a chore!"
"I don't know but you're right. I thought some of sendin' Jabe to the
city to-morrow."
"Jabe? Well, I s'pose he'd be back by 'nother spring; but who'd we get
ter shovel us out this winter, seein' as there ain't more 'n three men
in the whole village? Aunt Hitty says twenty-year engagements 's goin'
out o' fashion in the big cities, 'n' I'm glad if they be. They'd 'a'
never come _in_, I told her, if there'd ever been an extry man in these
parts, but there never was. If you got holt o' one by good luck, you had
ter _keep_ holt, if 't was two years or twenty-two, or go without. I
used ter be too proud ter go without; now I've got more sense, thanks
be! Why don't you go to the city yourself, Vildy? Jabe Slocum ain't got
sprawl enough to find out anythin' wuth knowin'."
"I suppose I could go, though I don't like the prospect of it very
much. I haven't been there for years, but I'd ought to look after my
property there once in a while. Deary me! it seems as if we weren't ever
going to have any more peace."
"Mebbe we ain't," said Samantha, as they wound up the meeting-house
hill; "but ain't we hed 'bout enough peace for one spell? If peace was
the best thing we could get in this world, we might as well be them old
cows by the side o' the road there. There ain't nothin' so peaceful as a
cow, when you come to that!"
The two women went into the church more perplexed in mind than they
would have cared to confess. During the long prayer (the minister could
talk to God at much greater length than he could talk about Him), Miss
Vilda prayed that the Lord would provide the two little wanderers with
some more suitable abiding-place than the White Farm; and that, failing
this, He would inform his servant whether there was anything unchristian
in sending them to a comfortable public asylum. She then reminded Heaven
that she had made the Foreign Missionary Society her residuary legatee
(a deed that established her claim to being a zealous member of the
fold), so that she could scarcely be blamed for not wishing to take two
orphan children into her peaceful home.
Well, it is no great wonder that so faulty a prayer did not bring the
wished-for light at once; but the ministering angels, who had the
fatherless little ones in their care, did not allow Miss Vilda's mind to
rest quietly. Just as the congregation settled itself after the hymn,
and the palm-leaf fans began to sway in the air, a swallow flew in
through the open window; and, after fluttering to and fro over the
pulpit, hid itself in a dark corner, unnoticed by all save the small
boys of the congregation, to whom it was, of course, a priceless boon.
But Miss Vilda could not keep her wandering thoughts on the sermon any
more than if she had been a small boy. She was anything but
superstitious; but she had seen that swallow, or some of its ancestors,
before.... It had flown into the church on the very Sunday of her
mother's death.... They had left her sitting in the high-backed rocker
by the window, the great family Bible and her spectacles on the little
light-stand beside her.... When they returned from church, they had
found their mother sitting as they left her, with a smile on her face,
but silent and lifeless.... And through the glass of the spectacles, as
they lay on the printed page, Vilda had read the words, "For a bird of
the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the
matter;" had read them wonderingly, and marked the place with reverent
fingers.... The swallow flew in again, years afterward.... She could not
remember the day or the month, but she could never forget the summer,
for it was the last bright one of her life, the last that pretty Martha
ever spent at the White Farm.... And now here was the swallow again....
"For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings
shall tell the matter." Miss Vilda looked on the book and tried to
follow the hymn; but passages of Scripture flocked into her head in
place of good Dr. Watts's verses, and when the little melodeon played
the interludes she could only hear:--
"Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house and the swallow a nest where
she may lay her young, even Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my
God."
"As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from
his place."
"The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son
of man hath not where to lay his head."
And then the text fell on her bewildered ears, and roused her from one
reverie to plunge her in another. It was chosen, as it chanced, from the
First Epistle of Timothy, chapter first, verse fifth: "Now the end of
the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart."
"That means the Missionary Society," said Miss Vilda to her conscience,
doggedly; but she knew better. The parson, the text,--or was it the
bird?--had brought the message; but for the moment she did not lend the
hearing ear or the understanding heart.