 | Pictures of country life |  |
AN OLD MAID'S STORY.
I was sitting one summer afternoon in the shadow of a grape-vine
and cherry tree—for the one running through the top of
the other cast a shadow on the short, thick grass beneath,
through which scarcely a sunbeam found way. I was sitting
there with an open book on my knee, but I was not reading;
on the contrary, two or three thicknesses of the cloth which I
had been sewing at intervals lay on the open page, and on
this rested my idle hands. I was not working, nor thinking
of work. On the side of the hill, behind me, the mowers were
wading through billows of red clover—they were not whistling
nor singing that I remember of—they had no grape-vines nor
cherry-tree limbs between their bent backs and the sun beams
that fell straight and hot upon them—and yet, perhaps, they
were happier than I with all my cool shadows, for we have to
pay to the uttermost farthing for the enjoyments of this life.
The water was nearly dried up in the run that went crookedly
across the hollow, and the sober noise it made I could not hear.
The grey, dry dust was an inch deep along the road, which
was consequently almost as still as the meadows. Now and
then a team went by, taking a little cloud with it; and now
at home did nothing but switch flies, and was evidently averse
to any other employment. Two or three young women I remember
to have seen go along with bundles on their saddle-horns,
and a little cloud of dust, similar to that in which they
moved, half a mile, perhaps, behind them, in which trotted the
colt, after its mother. I had seen, without especially noticing
them, and yet it was an unusual thing that two or three young
women should ride along on the same afternoon.
Immediately above my head, and fronting me, there was a
porch, level with the second floor of the house, and on this
porch a young, rosy-cheeked girl was spinning wool. She was
running up and down as gaily as if it were gold and not common
wool she held in her hand, and her face was beaming as
though the rumble of her wheel were pleasantest music.
Her thoughts run little further than the thread she spun, good
simple girl, and, therefore never became so tangled as to vex
and puzzle her; and so it was easy to spin and smile, and
smile and spin, all day. Once in a while the high well-sweep
came down and down, and then went up and up—the iron
hoops of the bucket rattled against the curb—some mower
drank his fill, and with a deep breath of satisfaction went
away, never wondering how or why half the clover along his
path drew so bright a red from the black ground, and the
other so sweet a white; and it was well he did not wonder,
for had he done so ever so much all would have ended in the
fact that there was red and white clover, and that the same
ground produced both.
A little shower of dust blew over me and settled in the
green grass and the white dying roses about me, and Surly,
to the visitor then about unlatching the gate. I hastened
to conceal my book under the rosebush at hand, and to
shake the dust from my work preparatory to using my needle,
for to be found reading or idle would have been considered
alike disgraceful in the estimation of our neighbors. When
the visitor appeared, I recognized Miss Emeline Barker, and at
the same time became aware that she was bent on holiday
pleasure. She had been riding on horseback, but her white
dress showed scarcely a wrinkle, so well had she managed it—
a sash of pink ribbon depended from the waist, and the short
sleeves were looped up with roses—her straw hat was trimmed
with flowers and ribbon, and her boots were smoothly laced
with tape instead of leather strings. But more than her
dress, her face betrayed the joyous nature of the errand she
was bent on. “Somebody is going to be married,” was my
first thought, “and Emeline has come to invite me to the wedding,”
and I was confirmed in this when she declined the seat
I offered, with the assurance that she had not tine to stay a
moment. Expectation was on tiptoe, and when I said “how
do they all at home?” I had no doubt she would tell me
that Mary Ann, who was her elder sister, was to be married;
but she answered simply that all were very well, and went on to
tell about the harvest, the heat of the day, and other commonplaces,
just as if she wore her every-day calico dress and not a
white muslin one, looped up at the sleeves with roses.
Directly she bid me good bye without having said anything
extraordinary at all, and then, as if suddenly recollecting it, she
exclaimed, “Oh! I want to see Jane a moment.” I pointed to
the porch where Jane Whitehead was spinning, and with my
from its place of concealment, quite careless of what Emeline
Barker might think of me.
I felt dissatisfied and unhappy. I knew not why; the
shadow of an unseen sorrow had fallen over me, and I could
not escape it—in truth, I did not try. If I had taken a few
steps I should have found the sunshine, but I did not, and the
vague discomfort took a more definite shape.
I lifted the book to conceal my face, which it seemed to me
must reflect my unhappy mind, but I did not read any more
than before. Another book was opened which seemed to me
the Book of Fate, and to be illustrated with one picture—
that of an unloved old maid. We might be made wiser sometimes,
perhaps, if it were permitted us to see ourselves
as others see us, but we should rarely be made more comfortable.
There were whispers and laughter, and laughter and whispers,
on the porch, but the rumble of the wheel so drowned
the voices that for some time I heard not one word; but the
first that reached me confirmed my feeling—myself was the
subject of conversation.
“I should have thought they would have asked her,” said
Jane, half piteously, and turning her wheel slowly as she
spoke, but not spinning any more. After a moment she continued,
“suppose, Em, you take it upon yourself to invite her.”
“Fie!” exclaimed Emeline, “if I were an old maid, I
should not expect to be invited to young parties. Let old
folks go with old folks, I say; and I am sure we would not be
mad if all the old maids in the county should make a frolic
and leave us out, would we, Jenny?”
“Why no,” replied Jane; “but then this seems like another
case, and I can't help liking Miss”—
“So do I like her well enough in her way,” said Emeline,
“but I would not like her at a party of young folks. She must
be as old as the hills, and the dear knows she has no beauty to
recommend her.”
“Oh, she is not so very old—past getting married to be sure,
or being cared for in that way, but she could help sew, you
know, and be amused by our fun in the evening. Suppose we
ask her to go with us?”
“I tell you she would be in the way,” persisted Emeline,
“and I suppose if Mrs. Nichols had cared to have her she
would have invited her.”
“Perhaps she forgot it,” insisted Jenny.
“No, she didn't,” replied Emeline. “Didn't I hear her talking
all about who she wanted and who she did not, and who
she felt obliged to ask; and she said if she asked Miss—
there were two or three others a good deal older and less desirable
that would think themselves entitled to invitations, and
she must stop somewhere, and on the whole might better not
begin.”
“Well, then, you tell her,” pleaded Jane, evidently receiving,
and sorry to receive, the stubborn facts.
When I became aware that I was the “old maid,” so compassionated
and dreaded, I was as one stunned by some dreadful
blow. I felt it due to myself to remove from where I sat, but I
had no strength to go; I seemed not to be myself. I saw myself
by the new light whereby other people saw me. I began to
count up my years. I was twenty-five the May past, but my
life had been entirely confined to the old homestead, and no
had broken its monotony, so that I found it hard to realize the
truth. I was young in knowledge—young in experience, and
one year had been drawn into another without the visible separation
of even a New Year's dinner. I had never thought of
dividing myself from the younger people of the neighborhood,
and till now I had never suspected that they desired to divide
themselves from me. Directly Jenny sliped the bands, set by
her wheel, and whispering and laughing the two girls came
down and essayed to make some explanation which should not
be wholly false, and yet soften the truth. Emeline was to remain
a little while and assist Jenny, after which the two were
to go together to Mrs. Nichols' to help with some sewing she
was busy about.
So the old mare was led into the door-yard, Emeline hung
her gay hat on a low limb of the cherry-tree, and tying on one
of Jenny's aprons the happy pair set busily to work.
My task was much harder than theirs, for I must keep close
the misery that was in my heart, and not suffer one single pang
to break the expression of quietude in my face. The hat
swinging gaily in the wind—the laughter of the girls, smothered
away from my participation, seemed like injuries to my
insulted sorrow. I could have lifted myself above hatred.
Against a false accusation I could have proudly defended myself,
but my crime was simply that of being an old maid, whom
nobody cared to see, and against that there was nothing I
could interpose. For the first time in my life I felt a sort of
solemn satisfaction in the white and dying roses, and in the
yellow leaves that fell from the cherry-tree over my head and
into my lap.
Sometimes, when the girls came near me, they would lift up
their voices as if in continuance of a conversation previously
going forward, but I understood very well that these clear-toned
episodes were put in for the occasion.
When the heart is light the hands are nimble, and the work
was soon done, and Jenny ready to make her toilet—a task for
which a country girl, at the time and place I write of, would
have been ashamed to require more than ten minutes. The
shadow of the cherry-tree was stretching far to the east when
the old mare, quite used to “carry double,” was led to the fence-side,
and Emeline and Jane mounted and rode away.
I put my hands before my face when they were gone, but I
did not cry. It was a hard, withered feeling in my heart,
that tears could not wash away. In all the world I could see
no green and dewy ground. There was nothing I could do—
nothing I could undo. There was no one I blamed, no special
act for whch I blamed myself, unless it were for having been
born. The sun went down under a black bank of clouds, and
the winds came up and began to tell the leaves about a coming
storm.
Pattering fast through the dust a little boy passed the gate,
climbed into the meadow, and was soon across the hollow, and
over the hill. The men were very active now, pitching the
mown hay into heaps, turning their heads now and then towards
the blackening west, and talking earnestly and loud.
The boy drew close to them and seemed to speak, for all the
workmen stood silent, and the rake dropped from the hand of
the foremost and his head sunk down almost to his bosom.
Presently one of the men took up the rake, another brought
the coat and hat of the foremost laborer, who had been working
as one half dead, and quite unable to help himself—then the
little boy took his hand and led him away, and I noticed that
he walked with staggering steps, and often passed his hand
across his eyes as he went. The men left in the field resumed
work directly, but though a deep silence fell with the first
shadows I could not hear a word, so lowly they spoke to one
another. Till long after dark they kept rolling and tumbling
the hay into heaps, but at last I heard them gathering water
pails and pitchers together, and soon after they crossed the
meadow towards the house—not noiselessly, as they came generally,
but speaking few words and the few in low and kindly
tones. The black bank of clouds had widened up nearly half
the sky, and a blinding flash of lightning showed me their
faces as they drew near the well and paused—not so much because
they wished to drink, as because they felt reluctant to
separate and go their different ways. While one of the men
lowered the bucket, another approached me, and wiping his
sunburnt face with his red silk handkerchief, said—“One
of our hands has had bad news this evening.”
I felt what it was before he went on to say, “his youngest
child died about five o'clock, and will be buried to-morrow
morning, I suppose.”
Poor, poor father—no wonder the rake had fallen from his
hands, and that he had suffered himself to be led away like a little
child. What anguish must be the mother's, thought I, when
the sterner and stouter-hearted father so bows himself down,
and forgets that there is anything in the world but the cold
white clay that is to be buried to-morrow.
I forgot Mrs. Nichols and the gay people she had about
our common humanity and our common need.
The sky was black overhead and the lightning every few
minutes illuminated the grey dust before me, that was beginning
to be dotted with drops of rain, falling at intervals, as I
hurried through the darkness to the humble home where last
year a babe had been born, and where the last day it had
died. Two or three living children were left, and yet it
seemed as if all were gone, the room was so still and
gloomy. The little mouth had never spoken, and the little
hands had never worked for food or for clothing, yet how
poor the parents felt, having the precious burden laid from off
their bosoms.
Close by the window, where the morning-glories grew thick,
dressed in white and as if quietly asleep, lay the little one,
waking not when the flowers dropped on its face, nor when the
mother called it by all the sweetest names that a mother's
fondness can shape.
“You must not grieve—the baby is better off than we,”
said a tall woman, dressed in black, and she led the poor
mother from the white bed where it lay. After some further
words of admonition and reproof, she proceeded to light the
candles and to arrange the table preparatory, as I supposed,
for morning service.
The rain came plashing on the vines at the window, and the
mother's grief burst out afresh as she thought of the grave it
would fall upon in the morning. A step came softly along the
rainy grass, and a face whose calm benignity seemed to dispel
the darkness, drew my eyes from the sleeping baby to itself.
But the voice—there was in it such sweetness and refinement—
never been blessed, in being permitted to listen to it.
I recognized the visitor for the village clergyman who had
lately come among us, and whom I had only seen once, when
he gave baptism to the little one that was now returned to
dust.
I recognized not only the form and features, but I also recognized,
or thought I did, a spiritual kindred—the desolation
that had divided me from the world an hour past was gone—
heaven came down near to me, so near that earth was filled
with the reflection of its glory and happiness.
All the night we were together. There were few words
spoken. There was nothing to do but to listen to the rain
and the beating of my heart. There was nothing to see but
the baby on its white bed, the dimly-burning candle and the
calm soul-full eyes of the clergyman—now bent on the sacred
page before him, now on the leaves that trembled in the rain,
and now, as something told me, for I scarcely dared look up,
upon myself.
I wished there were something I might do for him, but I
could think of nothing except to offer the rocking-chair which
had been given me on my coming, and which was all the luxury
the poor man's house afforded. In my over-anxiety to
serve, I forgot this most obvious service I could render, and
when it occurred to me at last my unfortunate forgetfulness so
much embarrassed me that I knew not how to speak or stir.
If there had been any noise—if any one had been present but
our two selves—if he would speak to me—but as it was, I
could not for a long while find courage for that proffer of my
simple courtesy. There he sat silent, as far from me as he
and more earnestly, I thought. At last the steadfast gaze became
so painful that I felt that any change would be relief,
and mastering my embarrassment as I best could, I offered the
rocking-chair to the clergyman, whose name was Wardwell,
with the energetic haste with which one touches the lion he
would tame.
“No, my child,” he said, very calmly, “you have most need
of it.”
I know not what I said, but in some vehement way, which I
afterwards feared expressed all I was most anxious to conceal,
made my refusal.
He smiled and accepted the chair, I thought in pity of my
confusion, and rather to place me at ease, than for the sake of
his own comfort.
He asked me directly whether I had ever been far from the
village—a natural question enough, and asked doubtless for
the sake of relieving the tedium of silence—but I saw in it only
the inference of my rusticity and want of knowledge, and
replied with a proud humility that I was native to the village
—had scarcely been out of sight of it, and had no knowledge
beyond the common knowledge of its common people.
With a changed expression—I could not tell whether of
pain or annoyance—Mr. Wardwell moved his position slightly
nearer me, but the habitual smile returned presently, and he
rocked quietly to and fro, saying only, “well, well.”
There was nothing in the tone or the manner to give force
to the words. They might indicate that it was as well to live
in the village as any other place. They might indicate that he
had no interest in the inquiry—and none in the answer—or it
I chose to receive the last interpretation, and leaned
my head on the hard sill of the open window to conceal the
tears with which, in spite of myself, my eyes were slowly
filling.
All the time the clergyman had remained silent I had
longed with a sincere and childish simplicity to be noticed or
spoken to, and now if I could have unsaid the few words he
had directly addressed to me a tormenting weight would have
been lifted from my bosom.
The wet leaves shook almost in my face, and now and then
some cold drops plashed on my head; but I would not manifest
any inconvenience. I felt as if Mr. Wardwell were responsible
for my discomfort, and I would be a patient martyr
to whatever he might inflict.
“My child, you are courting danger,” he said, at last; “the
chill air of these rainy midnights is not to be tampered with
by one of your susceptible organization.”
Ah, thought I to myself, he is trying to pour oil on the
wound he has made, but doubtless he thinks no amount of
chill rain could injure me, for all of his soft speaking. So I
affected to sleep, for I was ashamed to manifest the rudeness I
felt, though my position was becoming seriously uncomfortable,
to say nothing of its imprudence. My heart trembled,
audibly, I feared, when Mr. Wardwell approached, and stooping
over me, longer I thought than need were, softly let down
the window. I would have thanked him, but to do so would
have been to betray my ill-nature, which I was now repentant,
and ashamed of. He passed his hand over my wet hair, and
afterwards brought the cushion of the rocking-chair and placed
unused to watching, I was presently fast asleep. I dreamed I
was at home, and that some one was walking across and
across my chamber, and so close to my bedside that I felt a
distinct fear. So strong was the impression I could not rid
myself of it, even when, fully conscious, I unclosed my eyes
and saw the still baby before me, and the clergyman apparently
dozing in his chair. Was it he who had been walking
so near me, in forgetfulness of me and simply to relieve the
monotony of the time? Yes, said probability, even before my
eyes fell upon a handkerchief of white cambric, lying almost
at my feet, and which I was quite sure was not there when I
took my seat at the window.
I took it up, partly from curiosity, partly for the want of
other occupation, examined the flowers in the border, and
read and re-read the initial letters, worked in black in one
corner—C. D. W. I fancied the letters had been wrought by
a female hand, and with a feeling strangely akin to jealousy,
and which I should have blushed to own, tossed the handkerchief
on the table and took my own from my pocket, more
aware of its coarseness and plainness than I had ever been
till then. It was as white as snow, neatly folded, and smelling
of rose-leaves; but for all that I felt keenly how badly it
contrasted with that of the clergyman.
I wished he would wake, if he were indeed asleep—move
ever so slightly, look up, or speak one word, no matter what;
but for all my wishing he sat there just the same—his eyes
closed, and his placid face turned more to the wall than to me.
From the roost near by, and from across the neighboring
hills, sonnded the lusty crowing—it might be midnight or day-break;
unlike any other night. I arose softly, and taking the candle
which burned dimly now, held it before the white face of the
skeleton of a clock, to tell the hour, but the clock had been
forgotten and was “run down.”
I crossed the room on tiptoe and reseated myself without
noise, but had scarcely done so when Mr. Wardwell, evidently
aware of my movements and wishes, took from his vest an elegant
watch and named the time, which was but half an hour
after midnight. I sighed, for I felt as if the morning would
never come.
“The time is heavy to you, my dear child,” he replied, as
if in answer to my sigh, and replacing the cushion, he offered
me the easy-chair, blaming himself for having deprived me of
it so selfishly and so long—and professing to be quite refreshed
by the sleep which I suspected he had not taken.
I tried to decline, for in my heart I wished him to have the
best chair, but when he took my hand with what I felt to be
rather gallantry than paternal solicitude, I could no longer refuse,
and in affectation of a quletude I did not feel, took up
the hymn-book which lay at hand, and bent my eyes on the
words I did not read.
“Will you read the poem that interests you?” asked Mr.
Wardwell, coming near, and turning his bright, blessed face
full upon me.
I trembled, for it seemed to me that my heart was open before
my companion, and even if it were not I knew my cheek
was playing the tell-tale, but in some way I stammered an answer
to the most obvious sense of the words, and replied that
it was the hymn-book I held.
“I know it,” replied my pleasing tormentor; “but it is a
poem you are reading for all that.”
I said there were some hymns which were also most ennobling
and beautiful poetry, and I went on to instance a few
which I regarded as such. He seemed not to hear my
words, but said, rather as if musing aloud than speaking
to me,—
“Yes, yes, my dear child,”—(he said dear child now, and
not child as at first)—“at your time of life there are many
sweet poems for the heart to read, which it does read without
the aid of books.”
He looked on me as he spoke with a sort of sorrowful compassion,
I thought, and yet there was something tenderer and
deeper than compassion, which I could not define.
He was greatly my senior, but it was not a filial feeling that
caused me to say, I was past the time when frivolous fancy
most readily turns evanescent things to poetry, and I mentioned
myself as twenty-six the May coming, and not twenty-five
the May past, as most women would have done.
“To me that seems very young!” replied my companion,
solemnly, “I am”— he hesitated, and went on hurriedly and
confusedly I thought, “I am much older than you are.”
He went away from me as he spoke, and passed his hand
along his deeply-lined forehead and whitening hair, as if in contemplation
of them.
I could not bear the solemn gladness that came like a soft
shadow over the dewier glow that had lighted his face awhile
past, and hastened to say, though I had never thought of it
before, that the best experience and the truest poetry of life
should come to us in the full ripeness of years. He shook his
“It is quite natural, my dear child, that you should think so.”
I had no courage to say more, especially as his thoughts
seemed to return to their more habitual channels; but oh, how
much I wished he could feel this life as richly worth living as
I did.
He raised the sash, and leaned his head close to the wet
vines, though he had reproved me for doing the same thing,
and before I could find courage to remind him of it, or to say
anything, he was fast asleep.
I recalled every word I had spoken, and conscious of an
awakening interest that I had never before experienced for
man or woman, I thought I had betrayed it, and the betrayal
had produced the sleepy indifference, which, in spite of myself,
mortified me to the quick. I read the hymn-book till I was
weary of hymns; and afterwards thought till I was weary of
thinking, then read again, and at last, to keep the place which
I had no interest in keeping, I placed my handkerchief between
the leaves of the book, and so turning my face as to see just
that part of the wall which Mr. Wardwell had looked at an
hour previously, I forgot him and myself and all things.
It was not the noise of the rain that woke me—nor the
crowing of the morning cocks, nor the sun's yellow light that
struggled through the room, nor yet the mother calling in her
renewed anguish to the baby that smiled not for all her calling,
nor lifted its little hands to the bosom that bent above it
in such loving and terrible despair—it seemed to me it was
none of these, but a torturous premonition of solitude and
desolation.
Mr. Wardwell was gone, and the night was gone—but there
was a pleasant voice in my ear, and a serene smile, kindling
now and then in transient enthusiasm, whichever way I turned.
O night of solemn joy, O humble room, made sacred by the
presence of death—O dream, whose sweet beginning promised
so beautiful a close, how often have I gone back to you, and
hewed out cisterns that I knew must break!
Surely in the mysterious providences that wrap themselves
around us and which to our weak apprehensions seem so dark
and so hard, there are true and good meanings, if we could
but find them out.
Help us to be patient, oh, our Father, and give us the trusting
hearts of little children, and the faith that mounts higher
and brighter than the fire.
In the southern suburb of the village, and in sight of my
own chamber window, is a low, gloomy stone church, which
stood there before I was born, and which had scarcely
changed any within my remembrance. All the long summer
afternoons I used to sit at this window, looking up often from
my sewing or my book, and always in one direction—that of
the dark little church. I could see the oak trees that grew in
different parts of the churchyard, and made deep shadows
over the green mounds below, and it pleased me not a little to
think Mr. Wardwell might be looking on them at the same
moment with myself, for the parsonage, or “preacher's house,”
as it was called, stood in the same inclosure with the church
building.
I could not see the parsonage itself, but I could see the
smoke drifting from its chimneys, and know when a fire was
being made, and could guess at the probable work that was
the day for scrubbing or for baking, for I took the liveliest interest
in such faint and far-away observations of Mr. Wardwell's
household affairs, as I was able to make. Sometimes I
would see a white fluttering among the trees, and know it had
been washing day at the preacher's house, and then I would
imagine the discomfort that had reigned in the kitchen all day,
and the scouring of the ash floor, and the brightening of the
hearth, that came afterward. I never made my seat under the
grape-covered cherry tree, after the day that solemnized my
destiny with the appellation of “old maid,” and the evening
that saw our first hand led away.
The night that followed had opened a new page in my life—
a page where I saw my future reflected in colors brighter
than my spring flowers, that were all dead now. I did not
regret them. Often came Emeline and talked and laughed
with Jenny as she spun on the porch, and I praised the pink
and blue dresses she wore, and the roses that trimmed her hat,
and said I was too old for pink dresses and roses, without a
sigh on my lips, or a pang in my heart. I lived in a world of
my own now; on Sunday eve we went to church together,
and yet not to the same church—we sat in the same pew, but
the face of the preacher turned not to the faces of my companions
as it sometimes turned to mine, and for me there were
meanings in his words which they could not see nor feel.
When he spoke of the great hereafter, when our souls that
had crossed their mates, perhaps, and perhaps left them behind
or gone unconsciously before them—dissatisfied and
longing and faltering all the time, and of the deep of joy
they would enter into, on recognizing fully and freely the
comprehended, if at all—what delicious tremor, half fear
and half fervor, thrilled all my being, and made me feel that
the dust of time and the barriers of circumstance—the dreary
pain of a life separated from all others—death itself—all were
nothing but shadows passing between me and the eternal sunshine
of love. I could afford to wait—I could afford to be
patient under my burdens and to go straight forward through
all hard fates and fortunes, assured that I should know and be
known at last, love and be loved in the fullness of a blessedness,
which, even here, mixed with bitterness as it is, is the
sweetest of all. What was it to me that my hair was black,
and my step firm, while his hair to whom I listened so reverentially
was white, and his step slow, if not feeble. What was
it that he had more wisdom, and more experience than I, and
what was it that he never said, “you are faintly recognized,
and I see a germ close-folded, which in the mysterious processes
of God's providence may unfold a great white flower.” We
had but crossed each other in the long journey, and I was
satisfied, for I felt that in our traversing up the ages, we
should meet again.
How sweet the singing of the evening and the morning service
used to be. Our voices met and mingled then, and in the
same breath and to the same tune we praised the Lord, for
his mercy, which endureth forever.
One afternoon Emeline and Jenny teased me to join them
on the porch—they pitied me, perhaps, shut up in the dim old
chamber, as we often pity those who are most to be envied,
and finding they would not leave me to my own thoughts, I
allowed myself to be drawn from my favorite position.
Emeline was cutting some handkerchiefs from a piece of
linen, and she asked me for one of mine as a measure. I
opened a drawer where my nicest things were, sprinkled over
with dried rose-leaves, and took up a white apron with a ruffled
border, which I had worn the most memorable night of my life,
and folded away just as I wore it—I took it up, thinking of
the night, drew a handkerchief from the pocket and laid it
across the lap of Emeline.
What laughter and clapping of hands and accusations of
blushes followed, and true enough, the blushes made red confusion
in my face when Emeline held up, not my own coarse,
plain handkerchief, but a fine one with a deep purple border,
and marked with the initial letters of Mr. Wardwell's name.
In vain I denied all knowledge of how I came by it; they
were merrily incredulous, and asserted that if I knew nothing
of the handkerchief I of course cared nothing for it—they
would keep it and return it to the owner, who had no doubt
dropped it by accident—just as I had taken it up.
I said it must be so, and spoke of the watch we had kept together,
which gave the utmost probability to their suggestion,
and which involved me in a serious dilemma. In the early
twilight, they said we would walk together to the preacher's
house—return him the lost handkerchief, and in return for our
good office receive some of the red pears that grew at his
door.
I could not bear that Mr. Wardwell should be mentioned in
the same sentence with red pears—just as I would have mentioned
any other person, and yet for the world I would not
have had them see him as I saw him. I could not bear the
thought of parting with my treasure which I had unconsciously
found it and as he had folded it, and replacing it in the pocket
of my apron, have kept it forever shut in the drawer among
the rose-leaves.
But how to evade the plan of my young friends without betraying
my own secret I could not discover. Having forced
myself to comply, for they insisted that they would go without
me if not with me, I tried to reconcite myself by the light
of judgment and the cold probabilities of the case. Between
dreaming and waking I must have taken up the handkerchief
instead of my own. But convinced against my will, I was
of the same opinion still. I remembered very distinctly placing
the handkerchief on the table before me, and of seeing it
there when I placed my own between the leaves of my hymn-book—and
I remembered too, right well, that Mr. Wardwell
was gone when I awoke—how then could the accident have
occurred? And yet, if not by accident, how came I by the
handkerchief? I could not tell, but one thing I was forced to
do, to give it back. If it must be done, it should not be the
hand of Emeline or of Jenny that did it, but my own. When
it was time to go I folded my treasure neatly, and hid it under
my shawl and next my heart. It was autumn now and there
were no flowers but the few deep red ones that were left on
the rose of Sharon that grew by my window. I gathered a
green spray that held two bright ones, and hiding my heart as
carefully as I did my treasure, I seemed to listen to what my
young friends said as we went along.
A little way from the door, in a rustic seat, beneath the
boughs of an apple-tree Mr. Wardwell sat reading—as he
looked up, the expression of a young and happy heart passed
one. He laid the book he had been reading in the rustic chair
and came forward to meet and welcome us. He called me
dear child again and laid his hand upon my head with a
solemn and tender pressure, that seemed to me at once a
promise and a benediction.
I said why we were come, and in my confusion offered the
handkerchief with the hand that held the flowers. He smiled
sadly as we sometimes do when we are misunderstood, and
pointing my friends to the pears that were lying red on the
ground, he took the handkerchief, the flowers and the hand
that held them in both his own, and for a moment pressed
them close to his bosom. When my hand was restored to me
the handkerchief was in it, but not the flowers.
“I want the roses,” he said, “and will buy them with the
handkerchief, for we must pay for our pleasures whether we
will or no.”
I knew not how to understand him, and was yet holding my
treasure timidly forth, when, seeing my friends approach, he
put my hand softly back, and I hastened to conceal it as before—next
my heart. The youthful expression, that dewy-rose-look
of summer and sunshine, came out in his face again
—my heart had spoken to his heart, and we felt that we were
assuredly bound to the same haven.
The aprons of my young friends were full of red pears, and
their faces beaming with pleasure, and I, whom they compassionated
as an old maid, hid my sacred joy deep in my bosom,
and turned aside that their frivolous and frolicsome mirth
might not mar it. Involuntarily I turned towards the rustic
chair, and with an interest which I felt in everything belonging
was the well-remembered hymn-book, and my handkerchief
was keeping the place of the hymn I had read so often on the
most memorable of the nights of my life. How happy I was,
and what dreams I dreamed after that. The blessed handkerchief
is shut up with rose-leaves in my drawer, but the giver
I never spoke with but once again.
It was years after I had learned that my treasure was not
an accident, and when Jenny and Emeline were each the happy
mother of more than one pretty baby—still liking me a
little, and pitying me a great deal because I was an old maid,
when one snowy night, the old woman, who kept house at the
parsonage, came for me. I must make haste, she said, for
good Mr. Wardwell had been that day seized with a fit, and
seemed to be slowly dying. It was true, as she said, he seemed
but to wait for me. The Bible and hymn-book were by his
bedside; the plain linen handkerchief was between the leaves
of the latter, and placing his hand on it, he whispered—
“Put this over my face when I am dead and the flowers”—
He could not say more, but I understood him and softly
placing my hand on the heart where the life-tide was ebbing,
I bent my face down close and kissed the cheek that was already
moistening with death-dew. All the face brightened
with that sweet, sweet expression that was manhood and
angelhood at once—then came the terrible shadow, and the
eyes that had known me, knew me no more—the lips gave up
their color, but the habitual smile fixed itself in more than
mortal beauty. As I unfolded the handkerchief two roses fell
from it, which we buried with him.
His grave is at the south of the old church, and a rose-tree,
head. Nothing now would tempt me away from the hills I
was born among—from the old grey church, and the grave
near which I hope to be buried.
“Come see my treasure;” and Abbie Morrison (for that
was the story-teller's name) unlocked the drawer, where, folded
among rose leaves, almost scentless now, was the handkerchief
with dark border, and marked with the initials, C. D. W.
To her neighbors Abbie Morrison is only an old maid in
whose praise there is not much to be said. If any one is sick
she is sent for, but in seasons of joy nobody has a thought of
her. What does she know of pleasure? they say, or what
does she care for anything but singing in the church and cutting
the weeds from the graveyard?
The children love her sweet voice, and stop on the way to
school if she chances to sing in the garden, and, as she gives
them flowers, wonder why their sisters call her old and ugly.
It may be that angels wonder too.
| Pictures of country life | |