A STARLIGHT WALK WITH ANNIE FELTON.
WITHOUT removing the bar, Aunt Patsy called out, “Who’s there? What do
you want?”
“I want to see you, Aunt Patsy,” answered a sweet feminine voice.
“Is it you, Miss Felton? Bless me!” And the old woman hastily unbarred
the door. “To think of my keepin’ you standin’ outside! Come in, come
in, you darlin’!”
In walked Annie, fresh and smiling, but casting nevertheless an anxious
and wistful glance about the room.
“I have just run over from my aunt’s,” she said; “really, I can’t sit
down. I thought you might have some news of our friend Jack.”
“Jack?” said the old lady, in a voice loud enough to be heard in the
wood-shed. “What about Jack?”
“Has no one told you? I didn’t know but he himself—O Jack!” exclaimed
Annie, joyfully, taking a quick step towards the door through which the
youngster at that moment advanced into the room, “I am so glad to see
you! I heard how you had got away, and I was afraid we might never see
you again!”
“I couldn’t go without seeing you once more!” said Jack, trembling with
emotion at this unexpected meeting. “Though I wasn’t sure you would care
to see me.”
“O Jack! why not? Whatever you may have done, I shall always feel an
interest in you.”
“An interest in me!” said Jack, chokingly. “Bad as I am, that’s kind!”
He spoke bitterly, and drew back from her with a look of disappointment.
“My dear Jack! you are not angry with me?”
“No! you might say what you like, I could never be angry with you. But I
didn’t think you would believe anything so very bad of me, just from
what other people say. I hoped at least you would wait and hear my story
first.” And Jack, still turning from her, wiped his quivering eyes with
his sleeve.
“Have I said I believed anything very bad of you?” asked Annie, softly.
“No, but _whatever I might have done_, you said. That is, you don’t
quite give me up, in spite of my awful conduct!”
“Don’t you see, Miss Felton,” cried Aunt Patsy, “he’s been so put upon
and misused, he can’t be satisfied without his friends take his part in
downright ’arnest? That’s nat’ral. Half-way words won’t suit him.”
“I know!” added Jack, with a passionate outburst; “Phin’s her cousin;
he’s a saint, and I am a liar and a villain, of course, if he says so!”
“You know very well I don’t think Phin a saint,” replied Annie, with
gentle dignity, “any more than I think you a villain. You are both boys,
with the faults of boys. From all I hear, you have not done perfectly
right in every respect; and I don’t think you will claim that you have.
If you expected me just to pat you on the back, and say, ‘Poor Jack!
good Jack! how they have abused you!’ why, then, you haven’t known what
a real friend I am to you. I came here this evening, hoping to find you,
and to do something for you. But if this is the way you meet me, I
suppose I might as well have stayed at home.” And now _she_ turned away.
“Don’t go!” Jack entreated. “O Miss Felton! forgive me if I am
unreasonable! But it seems so hard to know that _you_ think my enemies
are in the right! Do you believe I would break into a house and steal;
that I would make up a lie, to shift the blame to Phin or his father or
any one else? I can bear to have others think so meanly of me, but not
you!” And the boy’s passion broke forth in uncontrollable sobs.
She took his hand with one of hers, and laid the other kindly and
soothingly upon his shoulder.
“There, there, Jack!” she said, her own voice full of emotion; “I don’t
believe you would deliberately steal or make up such a lie. I know you
wouldn’t!”
“And as for the money,” sobbed Jack, “I did just what Peternot’s own
nephew, who is studying law, said he should advise any one to do who
found treasure on another man’s land; he said, ‘Pocket it and say
nothing about it; keep possession, any way; fight for it.’ That’s what I
tried to do. Then after I had been robbed of it, I went to take it
again, and that’s the cause of all my trouble.”
[Illustration: A TRUE FRIEND.]
“I regard Squire Peternot’s course very much as you do,” said Annie,
still soothing the lad, with one hand pressing his own and the other on
his shoulder, “though I’m not so angry at him. He has acted according to
his nature; not according to the Golden Rule, very sure. But how few
people act according to the Golden Rule, Jack! If we were to quarrel
with all who fail in that respect, I am afraid we should find ourselves
in difficulty with nearly the whole world. No, Jack; it’s useless to fly
into a passion with everybody we see acting selfishly and meanly. It is
much better to look carefully after our own conduct, and see what we may
be doing that is wrong. Now I want you to walk home with me, and tell me
your story by the way; then we will see what had better be done. Aunt
Patsy will leave her door unbarred, so that you can come back and see
her again.”
They went out together, and talked long in low tones as they walked
under the starlit sky across the fields.
“Now, Jack,” said Annie, when they had reached Mr. Chatford’s orchard,
and stopped beside the little brook that kept up its low liquid babble
in the dark shadows that half concealed it, “I have heard your own
story, and I can’t say that I blame you very much for anything you have
done. You have acted naturally, but not always wisely. No doubt so much
money appeared a great fortune to you, and of course something very
desirable. But I am by no means sure it would have been a good thing for
you to have. I’m afraid your head would have been turned by it. You were
doing well enough before. You were sure of a good living, a good home,
and a chance for yourself, as I have heard you say with honest pride so
many times.”
“This is what my chance has finally come to!” said Jack,—“no home, no
future, but a constable at my heels!”
“I can think of something that might be worse for you than all
that,—_getting rich too fast_. That’s what ruins many. You were happy in
slowly working your way up the ladder, happier than you could ever be
again if you should suddenly find yourself at the top. The money might
not have harmed you, but I am sure you could have done very well without
it. Don’t regret it if it is lost. And, of all things, don’t associate
yourself with bad companions or adopt unjustifiable means to gain even
justifiable ends. Better submit to a little wrong. If your enemies
succeed in overreaching you, so much the worse for them. Wouldn’t you
rather be robbed than feel that you have robbed another? I know you
would, Jack!”
“You talk just like Percy Lanman!” said the boy, his heart beginning to
feel warmed and comforted.
“The young man who dove for you in the pond? I heard Mr. Chatford tell
about him.”
“I saw him in the fields afterwards, and he lent me some money. He
talked just as you do!” Jack declared.
“Now, Jack,” said Annie, leaning tenderly on his shoulder and looking
into his face by the pale starlight, while her touch and the tones of
her voice set a little stream of joy dancing and singing in his heart,
like the shadowy brook at their feet, “I’m going to be frank with you;
hear what I say. Don’t run away. Don’t hide. Don’t try to shirk the
consequences of what you have done, but go home with me now.”
“To Mr. Chatford’s?” said Jack with a start.
“Yes, just as if nothing had happened. Aunt’s folks will receive you
kindly, I know, from what they have said.”
“Never!” said Jack. “I never can enter that house again as long as
there’s a lie between me and Phin. It may be natural for his father to
believe him instead of me; but it’s something I never can get over. No!”
he added, as she would have urged him; “I can go anywhere else, and
suffer anything, before I can go back there. Besides, how long before
Sellick would be after me again, and carry me off to jail?”
“Worse things than that might happen to you,” Annie replied.
“What?” said Jack.
“To go back to your former life and associates, to fall again under bad
influences, and lose all the good you have gained since you have been
with Uncle Chatford’s folks; that would be worse. I don’t want you to go
to jail, but I’d rather see you go there innocent, than run away as if
you were guilty. How proud I should be of you, if you could stand up and
say, ‘I may have done wrong, but I didn’t mean to; now here I am, put me
in jail if you want to!’ You would be proud of yourself too! Your face
would shine as it never did before.”
“O Miss Felton!” said Jack, “that’s just the way Percy Lanman talked!”
“Get rid of all rash thoughts of revenge and wild living, and put your
trust in Providence, and in your own integrity,” she went on. “Be
yourself, your better self, always, and you’ll come off victorious over
everything. That’s my advice, dear Jack; and if Percy Lanman gave you
the same, I honor him for it. Now will you come in with me?”
“I’ll go as far as the door with you,” said Jack, “but I can’t go in; I
can’t!”
As they emerged from the orchard and approached the house, they could
see through a lighted window the family sitting round the evening lamp;
Mrs. Chatford sewing, the deacon reading, Mr. Pipkin holding a skein of
thread for Mrs. Pipkin to wind, and Phin and Moses playing
“fox-and-geese,” while little Kate stood by looking over the board,—a
picture of quiet domestic enjoyment that reminded poor Jack of what he
had lost, and wrung his heart with grief.
“Everything is just as it was before; nobody thinks of me, nobody cares
for me!” he exclaimed. “Good night!” And, moved by a wild and passionate
sorrow, he broke from her gentle, restraining touch, and disappeared in
the orchard.
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