University of Virginia Library

36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
GETTING THE ANSWER.

WHEN Patty went down to strain the milk on the
morning after her return, the hope of some
deliverance through Lewis Goodwin had well-nigh died
out. If he had had anything to communicate, Morton
would not have delayed so long to come to see her.
But, standing there as of old, in the moss-covered
spring-house, she was, in spite of herself, dreaming
dreams of Morton, and wondering whether she could
have misunderstood the hint that Lewis Goodwin,
while he was yet Pinkey, had dropped. By the time
the first crock was filled with milk and adjusted to its
place in the cold current, she had recalled that
morning of nearly three years before, when she had
resolved to forsake father and mother and cleave to
Morton; by the time the second crock had been neatly
covered with its clean block she thought she could
almost hear him, as she had heard him singing on
that morning:

Both she and Morton had long since, in accordance

[ILLUSTRATION]

AT THE SPRING-HOUSE AGAIN.

[Description: 554EAF. Page 330. In-line engraving of a standing man and a standing woman in front of a small wooden shack.] with the Book of Discipline, given up “singing those
songs that do not tend to the glory of God,” but she
felt a longing to hear Morton's voice again, assuring
her of his strong protection,
as it had on
that morning three
years ago. Meanwhile,
she had filled all the
crocks, and now turned to pass out of the low door
when she saw, standing there as he had stood on that
other morning, Morton Goodwin. He was more manly,
more self-contained, than then. Years of discipline
had ripened them both. He stepped back and let her
emerge into the light; he handed her that note which
Pinkey had dictated to Ann Eliza, and which Patty
read:

“It must have cost her a great deal,” said Patty,
in pity. Morton loved her better for her first unselfish
thought.

He told her frankly the history of the engagement;
and then he and Patty sat and talked in a happiness
so great that it made them quiet, until some one
came to call her, when Morton walked up to the
house to renew his acquaintance with the invalid and
mollified Captain Lumsden.

“Faix, Moirton,” said Brady, afterward, when he
came to understand how matters stood, “you 've got
the answer in the book. It 's quare enough. Now,
`one and one is two' is aisy enough, but `one and
one is one' makes the hardest sum iver given to anybody.
You 've got it, and I 'm glad of it. May ye
niver conjugate the varb `to love' anyways excipt
prisent tinse, indicative mood, first parson, plural number,
`we love.' I don't keer ef ye add the futur'
tinse, and say, `we will love,' nor ef ye put in the
parfect and say, `we have loved,' but may ye always
stick fast to first parson, plural number, prisint tinse,
indicative mood, active v'ice!”

Morton returned to Jenkinsville circuit in some

trepidation. He feared that the old brethren would
blame him more than ever. But this time he found
himself the object of much sympathy. Ann Eliza had
forestalled all gossip by renewing her engagement
with the very willing Bob Holston, who chuckled a
great deal to think how he had “cut out” the
preacher, after all. And when Brother Magruder came
to understand that he had not understood Morton's
case at all, and to understand that he never should be
able to understand it, he thought to atone for any
mistake he might have made by advising the bishop
to send Brother Goodwin to the circuit that included
Hissawachee. And Morton liked the appointment
better than Magruder had expected. Instead of living
with his mother, as became a dutiful son, he soon
installed himself for the year at the house of Captain
Lumsden, in the double capacity of general supervisor
of the moribund man's affairs and son-in-law.

There rise before me, as I write these last lines,
visions of circuits and stations of which Morton was
afterward the preacher-in-charge, and of districts of
which he came to be presiding elder. Are not all of
these written in the book of the Minutes of the Conferences?
But the silent and unobtrusive heroism of
Patty and her brave and life-long sacrifices are recorded
nowhere but in the Book of God's Remembrance.