University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.

August 15.

I asked the other day, wondering whether
all ministers were like Dr. Bland, what Uncle
Forceythe used to believe about heaven.

“Very much what I do,” she said. “These
questions were brought home to him, early in
life, by the death of a very dear sister; he had
thought much about them. I think one of the
things that so much attached his people to
him was the way he had of weaving their
future life in with this, till it grew naturally
and pleasantly into their frequent thought.
O yes, your uncle supplied me with half of my
proof-texts.”

Aunt Winifred has not looked quite well of
late, I fancy; though it may be only fancy.
She has not spoken of it, except one day when
I told her that she looked pale. It was the
heat, she said.

20th.

Little Clo came over to-night. I believe
she thinks Aunt Winifred the best friend she

has in the world. Auntie has become much
attached to all her scholars, and has a rare
power of winning her way into their confidence.
They come to her with all their little
interests, — everything, from saving their souls
to trimming a bonnet. Clo, however, is the
favorite, as I predicted.

She looked a bit blue to-night, as girls will
look; in fact, her face always has a tinge of
sadness about it. Aunt Winifred, understanding
at a glance that the child was not in a
mood to talk before a third, led her away into
the garden, and they were gone a long time.
When it grew dark, I saw them coming up the
path, Clo's hand locked in her teacher's, and
her face, which was wet, upturned like a child's.
They strolled to the gate, lingered a little to
talk, and then Clo said good night without
coming in.

Auntie sat for a while after she had gone,
thinking her over, I could see.

“Poor thing!” she said at last, half to herself,
half to me, — “poor little foolish thing!
This is where the dreadful individuality of a
human soul irks me. There comes a point,
beyond which you can't help people.”

“What has happened to Clo?”

“Nothing, lately. It has been happening for
two years. Two miserable years are an eternity,
at Clo's age. It is the old story, — a summer
boarder; a little flirting; a little dreaming;
a little pain; then autumn, and the nuts
dropping on the leaves, and he was gone, —
and knew not what he did, — and the child
waked up. There was the future; to bake and
sweep, to go to sewing-circles, and sing in the
choir, and bear the moonlight nights, — and
she loved him. She has lived through two
years of it, and she loves him now. Reason
will not reach such a passion in a girl like Clo.
I did not tell her that she would put it away
with other girlish things, and laugh at it herself
some happy day, as women have laughed
at their young fancies before her; partly
because that would be a certain way of repelling
her confidence, — she does not believe it,
and my believing could not make her; partly
because I am not quite sure about it myself.
Clo has a good deal of the woman about her;
her introspective life is intense. She may
cherish this sweet misery as she does her
musical tastes, till it has struck deep root.
There is nothing in the excellent Mrs. Bentley's
household, nor in Homer anywhere, to

draw the girl out from herself in time to prevent
the dream from becoming a reality.”

“Poor little thing! What did you say to
her?”

“You ought to have heard what she said to
me! I wish I were at liberty to tell you the
whole story. What troubles her most is that
it is not going to help the matter any to die.
`O Mrs. Forceythe,' she says, in a tone that is
enough to give the heart-ache, even to such an
old woman as Mrs. Forceythe, `O Mrs. Forceythe,
what is going to become of me up
there? He never loved me, you see, and he
never, never will, and he will have some beautiful,
good wife of his own, and I won't have
anybody! For I can't love anybody else, —
I 've tried; I tried just as hard as I could to
love my cousin 'Bin; he 's real good, and —
I 'm — afraid 'Bin likes me, though I guess he
likes his carpet-sweepers better. O, sometimes
I think, and think, till it seems as if I could
not bear it! I don't see how God can make
me happy. I wish I could be buried up and
go to sleep, and never have any heaven!'”

“And you told her —?”

“That she should have him there. That is,
if not himself, something, — somebody who

would so much more than fill his place, that
she would never have a lonely or unloved
minute. Her eyes brightened, and shaded,
and pondered, doubting. She `did n't see how
it could ever be.' I told her not to try and
see how, but to leave it to Christ. He knew
all about this little trouble of hers, and he
would make it right.

“`Will he?' she questioned, sighing; `but
there are so many of us! There 's 'Bin, and a
plenty more, and I don't see how it 's going to
be smoothed out. Everything is in a jumble,
Mrs. Forceythe, don't you see? for some people
can't like and keep liking so many times.'
Something came into my mind about the
rough places that shall be made plain, and the
crooked things straight. I tried to explain to
her, and at last I kissed away her tears, and
sent her home, if not exactly comforted, a little
less miserable, I think, than when she came.
Ah, well, — I wonder myself sometimes about
these `crooked things'; but, though I wonder,
I never doubt.”

She finished her sentence somewhat hurriedly,
and half started from her chair, raising both
hands with a quick, involuntary motion that
attracted my notice. The lights came in just

then, and, unless I am much mistaken, her face
showed paler than usual; but when I asked
her if she felt faint, she said, “O no, I believe
I am a little tired, and will go to
bed.”

September 1.

I am glad that the summer is over. This
heat has certainly worn on Aunt Winifred,
with that kind of wear which slides people into
confirmed invalidism. I suppose she would
bear it in her saintly way, as she bears everything,
but it would be a bitter cup for her. I
know she was always pale, but this is a paleness
which —

Night.

A dreadful thing has happened!

I was in the middle of my sentence, when I
heard a commotion in the street, and a child's
voice shouting incoherently something about
the doctor, and “mother 's killed! O, mother 's
killed! mother 's burnt to death!” I was at
the window in time to see a blond-haired girl
running wildly past the house, and to see that
it was Molly Bland.

At the same moment I saw Aunt Winifred
snatching her hat from its nail in the entry.
She beckoned to me to follow, and we were

half-way over to the parsonage before I had a
distinct thought of what I was about.

We came upon a horrible scene. Dr. Bland
was trying to do everything alone; there was
not a woman in the house to help him, for
they have never been able to keep a servant,
and none of the neighbors had had time to be
there before us. The poor husband was growing
faint, I think. Aunt Winifred saw by a
look that he could not bear much more, sent
him after Molly for the doctor, and took everything
meantime into her own charge.

I shall not write down a word of it. It was
a sight that, once seen, will never leave me as
long as I live. My nerves are thoroughly
shaken by it, and it must be put out of thought
as far as possible.

It seems that the little boy — the baby —
crept into the kitchen by himself, and began
to throw the contents of the match-box on the
stove, “to make a bonfire,” the poor little fellow
said. In five minutes his apron was ablaze.
His mother was on the spot at his first cry, and
smothered the little apron, and saved the child,
but her dress was muslin, and everybody was
too far off to hear her at first, — and by the
time her husband came in from the garden it
was too late.

She is living yet. Her husband, pacing the
room back and forth, and crouching on his
knees by the hour, is praying God to let her
die before the morning.

Morning.

There is no chance of life, the doctor says.
But he has been able to find something that
has lessened her sufferings. She lies partially
unconscious.

Wednesday night.

Aunt Winifred and I were over at the parsonage
to-night, when she roused a little from
her stupor and recognized us. She spoke to
her husband, and kissed me good by, and asked
for the children. They were playing softly in
the next room; we sent for them, and they
came in, — the four unconscious, motherless
little things, — with the sunlight in their hair.

The bitterness of death came into her
marred face at sight of them, and she raised
her hands to Auntie — to the only other
mother there — with a sudden helpless cry:
“I could bear it, I could bear it, if it were n't
for them. Without any mother all their lives,
— such little things, — and to go away where
I can't do a single thing for them!”

Aunt Winifred stooped down and spoke low,
but decidedly.

“You will do for them. God knows all
about it. He will not send you away from
them. You shall be just as much their mother,
every day of their lives, as you have been here.
Perhaps there is something to do for them
which you never could have done here. He
sees. He loves them. He loves you.”

If I could paint, I might paint the look that
struck through and through that woman's
dying face; but words cannot touch it. If I
were Aunt Winifred, I should bless God on my
knees to-night for having shown me how to
give such ease to a soul in death.

Thursday morning.

God is merciful. Mrs. Bland died at five
o'clock.

10th.

How such a voice from the heavens shocks
one out of the repose of calm sorrows and of
calm joys. This has come and gone so suddenly
that I cannot adjust it to any quiet and trustful
thinking yet.

The whole parish mourns excitedly; for,
though they worked their minister's wife hard,

they loved her well. I cannot talk it over with
the rest. It jars. Horror should never be
dissected. Besides, my heart is too full of
those four little children with the sunlight in
their hair and the unconsciousness in their
eyes.

15th.

Mrs. Quirk came over to-day in great perplexity.
She had just come from the minister's.

“I don't know what we 're a goin' to do with
him!” she exclaimed in a gush of impatient,
uncomprehending sympathy; “you can't let a
man take on that way much longer. He 'll
worry himself sick, and then we shall either
lose him or have to pay his bills to Europe!
Why, he jest stops in the house, and walks his
study up and down, day and night; or else he
jest sets and sets and don't notice nobody but
the children. Now I 've jest ben over makin'
him some chicken-pie, — he used to set a sight
by my chicken-pie, — and he made believe to
eat it, 'cause I 'd ben at the trouble, I suppose,
but how much do you suppose he swallowed?
Jest three mouthfuls! Thinks says I, I won't
spend my time over chicken-pie for the afflicted
agin, and on ironing-day, too! When I

knocked at the study door, he said, `Come in,'
and stopped his walkin' and turned as quick.

“`O,' says he, `good morning. I thought it
was Mrs. Forceythe.'

“I told him no, I was n't Mrs. Forceythe, but
I 'd come to comfort him in his sorrer all the
same. But that 's the only thing I have agin
our minister. He won't be comforted. Mary
Ann Jacobs, who 's ben there kind of looking
after the children and things for him, you
know, sence the funeral — she says he 's asked
three or four times for you, Mrs. Forceythe.
There 's ben plenty of his people in to see him,
but you have n't ben nigh him, Mary Ann
says.”

“I stayed away because I thought the presence
of friends at this time would be an intrusion,”
Auntie said; “but if he would like to
see me, that alters the case. I will go, certainly.”

“I don't know,” suggested Mrs. Quirk, looking
over the tops of her spectacles, — “I s'pose
it 's proper enough, but you bein' a widow, you
know, and his wife —”

Aunt Winifred's eyes shot fire. She stood
up and turned upon Mrs. Quirk with a look
the like of which I presume that worthy lady
had never seen before, and is not likely to see

soon again (it gave the beautiful scorn of a
Zenobia to her fair, slight face), moved her lips
slightly, but said nothing, put on her bonnet,
and went straight to Dr. Bland's.

The minister, they told her, was in his study.
She knocked lightly at the door, and was bidden
in a lifeless voice to enter.

Shades and blinds were drawn, and the
glare of the sun quite shut out. Dr. Bland sat
by his study-table, with his face upon his hands.
A Bible lay open before him. It had been
lately used; the leaves were wet.

He raised his head dejectedly, but smiled
when he saw who it was. He had been thinking
about her, he said, and was glad that she
had come.

I do not know all that passed between them,
but I gather, from such hints as Auntie in her
unconsciousness throws out, that she had things
to say which touched some comfortless places
in the man's heart. No Greek and Hebrew
“original,” no polished dogma, no link in his
stereotyped logic, not one of his eloquent sermons
on the future state, came to his relief.

These were meant for happy days. They
rang cold as sleet upon the warm needs of
an afflicted man. Brought face to face, and

sharply, with the blank heaven of his belief,
he stood up from before his dead, and groped
about it, and cried out against it in the bitterness
of his soul.

“I had no chance to prepare myself to bow
to the will of God,” he said, his reserved ministerial
manner in curious contrast with the
caged way in which he was pacing the room,
— “I had no chance. I am taken by surprise,
as by a thief in the night. I had a great deal
to say to her, and there was no time. She
could tell me what to do with my poor little
children. I wanted to tell her other things.
I wanted to tell her — Perhaps we all of us
have our regrets when the Lord removes our
friends; we may have done or left undone
many things; we might have made them happier.
My mind does not rest with assurance
in its conceptions of the heavenly state. If I
never can tell her —”

He stopped abruptly, and paced into the
darkest shadows of the shadowed room, his
face turned away.

“You said once some pleasant things about
heaven?” he said at last, half appealingly,
stopping in front of her, hesitating; like a man
and like a minister, hardly ready to come with

all the learning of his schools and commentators
and sit at the feet of a woman.

She talked with him for a time in her unobtrusive
way, deferring, when she honestly could,
to his clerical judgment, and careful not to
wound him by any word; but frankly and
clearly, as she always talks.

When she rose to go he thanked her quietly.

“This is a somewhat novel train of thought
to me,” he said; “I hope it may not prove an
unscriptural one. I have been reading the
book of Revelation to-day with these questions
especially in mind. We are never too old to
learn. Some passages may be capable of
other interpretations than I have formerly
given them. No matter what I wish, you see,
I must be guided by the Word of my God.”

Auntie says that she never respected the man
so much as she did when, hearing those words,
she looked up into his haggard face, convulsed
with its human pain and longing.

“I hope you do not think that I am not
guided by the Word of God,” she answered.
“I mean to be.”

“I know you mean to be,” he said cordially.
“I do not say that you are not. I may come
to see that you are, and that you are right.

It will be a peaceful day for me if I can ever
quite agree with your methods of reasoning.
But I must think these things over. I thank
you once more for coming. Your sympathy
is grateful to me.”

Just as she closed the door he called her
back.

“See,” he said, with a saddened smile. “At
least I shall never preach this again. It seems
to me that life is always undoing for us something
that we have just laboriously done.”

He held up before her a mass of old blue
manuscript, and threw it, as he spoke, upon
the embers left in his grate. It smoked and
blazed up and burned out.

It was that sermon on heaven of which
there is an abstract in this journal.

20th.

Aunt Winifred hired Mr. Tripp's gray this
afternoon, and drove to East Homer on some
unexplained errand. She did not invite me to
go with her, and Faith, though she teased impressively,
was left at home. Her mother was
gone till late, — so late that I had begun to be
anxious about her, and heard through the
dark the first sound of the buggy wheels, with

great relief. She looked very tired when I
met her at the gate. She had not been able,
she said, to accomplish her errand at East
Homer, and from there had gone to Worcester
by railroad, leaving Old Gray at the East
Homer Eagle till her return. She told me
nothing more, and I asked no questions.