University of Virginia Library

30. CHAPTER XXX
EDITH'S AND ARDEN'S FRIENDSHIP.

AS Edith laid aside her work for a frugal dinner
at one o'clock, she heard the sound of a hoe in
her garden. The thought of Arden at once recurred
to her, but looking out she saw old Malcom.
Throwing a handkerchief over her head she ran out
to him exclaiming:

“How good you are, Mr. McTrump, to come
and help me when I know you are so very busy at
home.”

“Weel, nothin to boast on,” replied Malcom, “I
tho't that if ye had na one a lookin after the garden
save Hannibal's `spook,' ye'd have but a ghaistly
crop. But I'm a thinkin there's mair than a ghaist
been here.”

“It was Arden Lacey,” said Edith frankly, but
with deepening color. Malcom, in telling his wife
about it said, “she looked like the rose-bush a' in
bloom, that she was a stonin beside.”

Edith, seeing the mischievous twinkle in her little
friend's eye, added hastily, “Both Mrs. Lacey and
her son have been very kind to us in our sickness
and trouble, as well as yourself. But Mr. McTrump,”
she continued, anxious to change the subject, also

eager to speak on the topic uppermost in her thoughts,
“I think I am beginning to `learn it a” as you said,
about that good Friend who suffered for us that we
might not suffer. What you and your wife said to
me the other day led me to read the `Gude Book'
after I got home. I don't feel as I did then. I
think I can trust Him now.”

Malcom dropped his hoe and came over into the
path beside her.

“God be praised,” he said, “I gie ye the right
hond o' fellowship an welcome ye into the kirk o' the
Lord. Ye noo belong to the household o' faith,
an God's true Israel, an may His gude Spirit guide
ye into all truth.”

The little man spoke very earnestly, and with a
certain dignity and authority that his small stature
and rude working dress could not diminish. A
sudden feeling of solemnity and awe came over
Edith, and she felt as if she were crossing the mystic
threshold and entering the one true church consisting
of all believers in Christ.

For a moment she reverently bowed her head,
and a sweeter sense of security came over her as if
she were no longer an outsider, but had been received
into the household.

Malcom, a “priest unto God” through his faith, officiated
at the simple ceremony. The birds sang the
choral service. The wind-shaken roses, blooming
around her, with their sweet odors, were the censers
and incense, and the sun-lighted garden, the
earliest sacred place of Bible history, where the first

fair woman worshipped, was the hallowed ground of
the initiatory rite.

“Why, Mr. McTrump, I feel almost as if I had
joined the church,” said Edith after a moment.

“An sae ye ha afore God, an I hope ere long
ye'll openly profess ye're faith before men.”

“Do you think I ought?” said Edith thoughtfully.

“Of coorse I do, but the Gude Book 'll teach
a' aboot it. Ye canna gang far astray wi' that to
guide ye.”

“I would like to join the church that you belong
to, Mr. McTrump, as soon as I feel that I am ready,
for it was you and your good wife that turned my
thoughts in the right direction. I was almost desperate
with trouble and shame when I came to you
that afternoon, and it was your speaking of the
Bible and Jesus, and especially your kindness, that
made me feel that there might be some hope and
help in God.”

The old man's eyes became so moist that he
turned away for a moment, but recovering himself
after a moment, he said:

“See noo, our homely deeds and words can be
like the seeds we drop into the mould. Look aroon
once and see how green and grand the garden is,
and a' from the wee brown seeds we planted the
spring. Sae would the garden o' the Lord bloom
and floorish if a' were dropin a `word in season' and
a bit o' kindness here and there. But if I stay here
an preach to ye that need na preachin, these sins

o' the garden, the weeds, will grow apace. Go you
an look in ye're strawberry bed.”

With an exclamation of delight Edith pounced
upon a fair sized red berry, the first she had picked
from her own vines. Then glancing around, one
and another showed its red cheek through the green
leaves, till with a little cry of exultation, she said:

“Oh, Mr. McTrump, I can get enough for mother
and Laura.”

“Aye, and enoof to moisten ye're own red lips
wi too, I'm a-thinkin. There'll be na crop the year
wourth speakin of, but next June 'twill puzzle to
gither them. But ye a' can ha a dainty saucer yoursels
the season, when ye're a mind to stoop for
them.”

Edith soon had the pleasure of seeing her mother
and Laura enjoying some, and as Malcom said, there
were plenty for her, and they tasted like the Ambrosia
of the Gods. Varied experiences had so thoroughly
engrossed her thoughts and time the past few
days, that she had scarcely looked toward her garden.
But with the delicious flavor of the strawberries lingering
in her mouth, and with the consciousness that
she enjoyed picking them much more than sewing,
the thought of winning her bread by the culture of
the ground grew in her favor.

“Oh, how much I would rather be out there with
Malcom,” she sighed.

Glancing up from her work during the afternoon,
she saw Arden Lacey on his way to the village.
There was a strange mingling of hope and fear in

his mind. His mother's manner had been such as
to lead him to say when alone with her after breakfast:

“I think your watching has done you good,
Mother, instead of wearying you too much, as I
feared.”

She had suddenly turned and placed both her
hands on his shoulders, saying:

“Arden, I hardly dare speak of it yet. It seems
too good to be true, but a hope is coming into my
heart like the dawn after night. She's worthy of
your love, however it may result, and if I find true
what she told me last night, I shall have reason to
bless her name forever; but I only see a glimmer of
light yet and I rejoice with fear and trembling.”
And she told him what had occurred.

He was deeply moved, but not for the same cause
as his mother. His desire and devotion went no
farther than Edith. “Can she have read my letter?”
he thought, and he was consumed with anxiety
for some expression of her feeling toward him.
Therefore he was glad that business called him to
the village that afternoon, but his steps were slow
as he approached the little cottage, and his eyes
were upon it as a pilgrim gazes at a shrine he long
has sought. He envied Malcom working in the
garden, and felt that if he could work there every
day, it would be Adam's life before he fell. Then
he caught a glimpse of Edith sewing at the window,
and he dropped his eyes instantly. He would not
be so afraid of a battery of a hundred guns as of

that poor sewing-girl (for such Edith now was),
stitching away on Mrs. Groody's coarse hotel linen.
But Edith had noted his timid, wistful looks, and
calling Hannibal, said;

“Please give that note to Mr. Lacey, he is just
passing toward the village.”

Hannibal, with the impressive dignity he had
learned in olden times, handed the missive to Arden,
saying: “Miss Edie telled me to guve you dis
'scription.”

If Hannibal had been Hebe he could not have
been a more welcome messenger.

Arden could not help his hand trembling as he
took the letter, but he managed to say: “I hope
Miss Allen is well.”

“Her health am berry much disproved,” and
Hannibal retired with a stately bow.

Arden quickened his steps, holding the missive in
his hand. As soon as he was out of sight, he
opened and devoured Edith's words. The light of a
great joy dawned in his face, and made it look noble
and beautiful, as indeed almost every human face
appears, when the light of a pure love falls upon it.
Where most men would have murmured at the
meagre return for their affection, he felt himself
immeasurably rewarded and enriched, and it seemed
as if he were walking on air the rest of the day.
With a face set like a flint, he resolved to be true
to the condition implied in the underscored word
“friendship,” and never to whisper of love to her
again. But a richer experience was still in store for

him. For, on his return, in the cool of the evening,
Edith was in the garden picking currants. She saw
him coming, and thought, “If he is ever to be a
friend worth the name, I must break the ice of his
absurd diffidence and formality. And the sooner
he comes to know me as I am, the sooner he will
find out that I am like other people, and he will
have a new `revelation' that will cure him of his
infatuation. I would like him for a friend very
much, not only because I need his help, but because
one likes a little society now and then, and he seems
so well educated, if he is `quar,' as Hannibal says.”
So she startled poor Arden almost as much as if
one of his Shakspearean heroines had called him in
audible voice, by saying, as he came opposite her,

“Mr. Lacey, won't you come in a moment and
tell me if it is time to pick my currants, and whether
you think I could sell them in the village, or at the
hotel?”

This address, so matter-of-fact in tone and character,
seemed to him like the June twilight, containing,
in some subtle manner, the essence of all that
was beautiful and full of promise in his heart-history.
He bowed and went toward the little gate to
comply with her request, as Adam might if he had
been created outside of Eden and Even inside, and
she had looked over a flowering hedge in the purple
twilight, and told him to come in. He was not
going merely to look at currants and consider their
marketable condition; he was entering openly upon
the knightly service to which he had devoted himself.

He was approaching his idol, which was not a
heathen stock or stone, but a sweet little woman.
In regard to the currants he ventured dubiously:

“They might do for pies.”

In regard to herself, his eyes said, in spite of his
purpose to be merely friendly, that she was too good
for the gods of Mount Olympus. He both amused
and interested Edith, whose long familiarity with society
and lack of any such feeling as swayed him,
made her quite at ease. With a twinkle in her eyes,
she said:

“I have thought that perhaps Mrs. Groody could
help me find sale for them at the hotel.”

“I am going there to-morrow, and I will ask her
for you, if you wish,” said Arden, timidly.

“Thank you,” replied Edith, “I would be very
much obliged to you if you will. You see I wish to
sell everything out of the garden that I can find a
market for.”

She was rather astonished at the effect of this
mercenary speech, for there was a wonderful blending
of sympathy and admiration in his face, as he
said:

“I am frequently going to the hotel and village,
and if you will let me know what you have to dispose
of, I can find out whether it is in demand, and
carry it to market for you.” He could not help
adding, with a voice trembling with feeling, “Oh,
Miss Allen, I am so glad you permit me to be of
some help to you.”

“Oh dear,” thought Edith, “how can I make him

understand what I really am?” She turned to him
with an expression that was both perplexed and
quizzical, and said:

“Mr. Lacey, I very frankly and gratefully accept
your delicately-offered friendship (emphasizing the
last word), not only because of my need, but of yours
also. If any one needs a sensible friend, I think you
do. You truly must have lived a `hermit's life in
the world' to have such strange ideas of people.
Let me tell you as a perfect certainty, that no such
person exists as the Edith Allen that you have
imagined. She is no more a reality than your other
shadows, and the more you know of me, the sooner
you will find it out. I am not in the least like a
heroine in a romance. I live on the most substantial
food rather than moonlight, and usually have an
excellent appetite. I am the most practical, matter-of-fact
creature in existence, and you will find no
one in this place more sharp on the question of dollars
and cents. Indeed, I am continually in a most
mercenary frame of mind, and this very moment
here, in the romantic June twilight, if you ransacked
history, poetry, and all the fine arts, you could
not tell me anything half so beautiful, half so welcome,
as how to make money in a fair, honorable
way.”

“There,” thought she, “that will be another `revelation'
to him. If he don't jump over the garden
fence in his haste to escape such a monster, I shall
be glad.”

But Arden's face only grew more grave and gentle

as he looked down upon her, and he asked, in a
low tone:

“Is it because you love the money itself, Miss
Allen?”

“Well, no,” said Edith, somewhat taken aback,
“I can never earn enough to make it worth while to
do that. Misers love to count their money,” she
added, with a little pathetic accent in her voice,
“and I fear mine will go before I can count it.”

“You wish me to think less of you, then, because
you are bravely, and without thought of sparing
yourself, trying to earn money to provide home
shelter and comfort for your feeble mother and sister.
You wish me to think you common-place
because you have the heroism to do any kind of
work, rather than be helpless and dependent. Pardon
me, but for such a `practical, matter-of-fact'
lady, I do not think your logic is good.”

Edith's vexation and perplexity only increased,
and she said, earnestly, “But I wish you to understand
that I am only Edith Allen, and as poor as
poverty, nothing but a sewing-girl, and only hoping
to arrive at the dignity of a gardener. The majority
of the world thinks I am not even fit to speak to,”
she added, in a low tone.

Arden bowed his head, as if in reverence before
her, and then said, in a low, firm tone,

“And I wish you to understand that I am only
Arden Lacey, with a sot for a father, and the scorn,
contempt, and hatred of all the world as my heritage.
I am a slip-shod farmer. Our place is heavily

mortgaged, and will eventually be sold away from
us; it grows more weeds now than anything else,
and it seems that nettles have been the principal
crop that I have reaped all my life. Thus, you see,
I am poorer than poverty, and am rich only in my
mother, and, eventually, I hope,” he added timidly,
“in the possession of your friendship, Miss Allen;
I shall try so sincerely and hard to deserve it.”

With a frown, a laugh, and a shy look of sympathy
at him, Edith said, “I don't see but you
have got to find out your mistake for yourself.
Time and facts cure many follies.” But she found
little encouragement in his incredulous smile.

The next moment she turned upon him so sharply
that he was startled.

“I am a business woman,” she said, “and conduct
my affairs on business principles. You said, I
think, you would help me find a market for the
produce of my place?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

“As certainly you must take fifteen per cent. commission
on all sales.”

“Oh, Miss Allen,” commenced Arden, “I
couldn't —”

“There,” said she decisively, “you haven't the
first idea of business. Not a thing can you touch
unless you comply with my conditions. There is
no sentiment, I assure you, connected with currants
and cabbages.”

“You may be certain, Miss Allen, that I would
comply with any condition,” said Arden, with the

air of one who is cornered, “but let me suggest that
since we are arranging this matter so strictly on
business grounds, that ten per cent. is all I should
take. That is the regular commission, and is all I
pay in sending produce to New York.”

“Oh, I didn't know that,” said the experienced
and uncompromising woman of business, innocently.
“Do you think that would pay you for your
trouble?”

“I think it would,” he replied, so demurely and
yet with such a twinkle in his blue eyes, that now
looked very different with the light of hope and
happiness in them, that Edith turned away with a
laugh.

But she said, with assumed sharpness, “See that
you keep your accounts straight. I shall be a very
dragon over your account-book.”

Thus the ice was broken, and Edith and Arden
became friends.

The future has now been quite clearly indicated
to the reader, and, lest my story should grow wearisome
as a “twice told tale,” we pass over several
subsequent months with but a few words.

It was not a good fruit year, and Edith's place
had been sadly neglected previous to her possession.
Therefore, though Arden surprised himself in the
sharp business traits he developed as Edith's salesman,
the results were not very large. But still they
greatly assisted her, and amounted to more than
the earnings of her unskilled hands from other
sources. She insisted on doing everything on business

principles, and made Arden take his ten per
cent., which was of real help to him in this way.
He gave all the money to his mother, saying, “I
couldn't spend it to save my life.” Mrs. Lacey had
many uses for every penny she could obtain.

Then Edith paid old Malcom by making up bouquets
for sale at the hotel, and arranging baskets of
flowers for parties there and elsewhere, and other
lighter labors. Mrs. Groody continued to send her
work, and thus during the summer and early fall she
managed to make her garden and her labor provide
for all family expenses, saving what was left of the
four hundred after paying all debts, for winter need.
Moreover, she stored away in cellar and attic enough
of the products of the garden to be of great help
also.

Mrs. Allen did recover her usual health, and also
her usual modes of thought and feeling. The mental
and moral habits of a life-time are not readily
changed. Often and earnestly did Edith talk with
her mother, but with few evidences of the result she
longed to see.

Mrs. Allen's condition, in view of the truth, was
the most hopeless one of all. She saw only her
preconceived ideas, and not the truth itself. One
day she said, with some irritation, to Edith, who
was pleading with her,

“Do you think I am a heathen? Of course, I
believe the Bible. Of course, I believe in Jesus
Christ. I have been a member of the church ever
since I was sixteen.”

Edith sighed, and thought, “Only He who can
satisfy her need, can reveal it to her.”

Poor Mrs. Allen. With the strange infatuation
of a worldly mind, she was turning to it, and it
alone, for hope and solace. Untaught by the
wretched experience of the past, she was led to
enter upon a new and similar scheme for the aggrandizement
of her family, as will be explained in another
chapter.

Laura regained her strength somewhat, and was
able to relieve Edith of the care of her mother, and
the lighter duties of the house. Her faith developed
like that shy, delicate blossom, called the
“wind-flower,” easily shaken, and yet with a certain
hardiness and power to live and thrive in
sterile places.

Edith and Mrs. Lacey were eventually received
into the church that Malcom attended, and, after
the simple service, they took dinner with the old
Scotchman and his wife. Malcom seemed hardly
“in the body” all day.

“My heart's abloom,” he said, “wi' a' the sweet
posies that God ever made blush when he looked at
them the first time, an' ye seem the sweetest o'
them a', Miss Edith. Ah, but the Gude Husbandman
gathered a fair blossom the day.”

“Now, Mr. McTrump,” said Edith, reproachfully,
but with a face like Malcom's posies, “you shouldn't
give compliments on Sunday.” For Arden and
Rose were present also, and Edith thought “such
foolish words will only increase his infatuation.”

“Weel,” said Malcom, scratching his head, in his
perplexed effort at apology, “I wud na mak ye vain,
nor hurt ye're conscience, but it kind o' slipit out
afore I could stop it.”

In the laugh that followed Malcom's explanation
Edith felt that matters had not been helped much,
and she adroitly turned the conversation.

Public opinion, from being at first very bitter and
scornful against the Allens, gradually began to soften.
One after another, as they recognized Edith's
patient, determined effort to do right, began to give
her the credit and the respect to which she was entitled.
Little acts and tokens of kindly feeling became
more frequent, and were like glints of sunlight
on her shadowed path. But the great majority felt
that they could have no associations with such as
the Allens, and completely ignored them.

In her church relations, Edith and Mrs. Lacey
found increasing satisfaction. Many of its humble,
and some of its more influential members, treated
them with much kindness and sympathy, and they
realized more and more that there are good, kind
people in the world, if you look in the right way
and right places for them. The Rev. Mr. Knox
was a faithful preacher and pastor, and if his sermons
were a little dry and doctrinal at times, they
were as sound and sweet as a nut. Moreover, both
Edith and Mrs. Lacey were sadly deficient in the
doctrines, neither having ever had any religious instruction,
and they listened with the grave, earnest
interest of those desiring to be fed.

Mrs. Groody re-connected herself with her old
church. “I want to go where I can shout, `Glory!'”
she said.

Rose but faintly sympathized with her mother's
feelings. Her restless, ambitious spirit turned longingly
toward the world. It's attractions she could
understand, but not those of faith. Through her
father's evil habits, and Arden's poor farming, the
pressure of poverty rested heavier and heavier on
the family, and she had about resolved to go to
New York and find employment in some store.

Arden rarely went to church, but read at home.
He was somewhat skeptical in regard to the Bible;
not that he had ever carefully examined either it or
its evidences, but he had read much of the prevalent
semi-infidelity, and was a little conceited over
his independent thinking. Then, in a harsh, sweeping
cynicism, he utterly detested church people,
calling them the “holy sect of the Pharisees.”

“But they are not all such,” his mother would
say.

“Oh, no,” he would reply; “there are some sincere
ones, of course; but I think they would be
better out than in such a company of hypocrites.”

But as he saw Edith's sincerity, and learned of
her purpose to unite with the church, he kept these
views more and more in the background; but he
had too much respect for her's and his mother's
faith to go with them to what they regarded as a
sacred place, from merely the personal motive of
being near Edith.

One day Mrs. Lacey and Edith walked down to the
evening prayer-meeting. Arden, who had business
in the village, was to call for them at its close; as
they were walking home Edith suddenly asked him,

“Why don't you go to church?”

“I don't like the people I meet there.”

“What have you against them?”

“Well, there is Mr. Hard, he is one of the `lights
and pillars,' and he would have sold the house over
your head, if you had not paid him. He can `devour
a widow's house' as well as they of olden
time.”

“That is not the question,” said the practical
Edith, earnestly. “What have you to do with Mr.
Hard, or he with you? Does he propose—is he
able to save you? The true question is, what have
you got against Jesus Christ?”

“Well, really, Miss Edith, I can have nothing
against Him. Both history and legend unite in
presenting Him as one of the purest and noblest of
men. But pardon me if I say in all honesty that I
cannot quite accept your beliefs in regard to Him
and the Bible in general. A man can hardly be a
man without exercising the right of independent
thought. I cannot take a book called the Bible for
granted.”

“But,” asked Edith keenly, “are you not taking
other books for granted? Answer me truly, Mr.
Lacey, have you carefully and patiently investigated
this subject, not only on the side of your skeptical
writers, but on God's side also. He has plenty of

facts, as well as the infidels, and my rich lasting
rational spiritual experience is as much a fact as that
stone there, and a good deal higher and better one,
I think.”

Arden was silent for some little time, and they
could see in the moonlight that his face was very
grave and thoughtful. At last he said in a low tone,
as if it had been wrung from him,

“Miss Allen, to be honest with you and myself,
I have never given the subject such a fair examination.”
After a moment he continued, “Even if I
became convinced that all were true, I might still
remain at home, for I could find far more advantage
in reading books, or the Bible itself, than from Mr.
Knox's dry sermons.”

“I think you are wrong,” said Edith, gently but
firmly. “Granting the premise, you admitted a
moment ago that Christ was one of the purest and
noblest of men, you surely, with your chivalric
instincts, would say that such a man ought to be
imitated.”

“Yes,” said Arden, “and He denounced the
Pharisees.”

“And He worshipped with them also,” said
Edith quickly. He went to the temple with the
others. What was there to interest him in the dreary
forlorn little synagogue at Nazareth, and yet He
was there with the regularity of the Sabbath. It
was the best form of faith and worship then existing,
and He sustained it by every means in His
power, till He could give the people something better.

Suppose all the churches in this place were
closed, not one in a hundred would or could read
the books you refer to. If your example was followed
they would be closed. As far as your example
goes it tends to close them. I have heard
Mr. Knox say, that wherever Christian worship and
the Christian Sabbath is not observed, society
rapidly deteriorates. Is it not true?”

They had stopped at Edith's gate. Arden
averted his face for a moment, then turning toward
Edith he gave her his hand, saying in a low tone:

“Yes, it is true, and a true, faithful friend you
have been to me to-night. I admit myself vanquished.”

Edith gave his hand a cordial pressure, saying
earnestly, “You are not vanquished by the young
ignorant girl, Edith Allen, but by the truth that
will yet vanquish the world.”

After that Arden went regularly with them to
church, and tried to give sincere attention to the
service, but his uncurbed fancy was wandering to
the ends of the earth most of the time; or his
thoughts were dwelling in rapt attention on Edith.
She, after all, was the only object of his faith and
worship, though he had a growing intellectual conviction
that her faith was true.

And so the months passed into autumn, but with
the nicest sense of honor he refrained from word or
deed that would remind Edith that he was her
lover. She became greatly attached to him, and
he seemed almost like a brother to her. She found

increasing pleasure in his society, for Arden, after
the restraint of his diffidence was banished, could
talk well, and he opened to her the rich treasures
of his reading, and with almost a poet's fancy and
power pictured to her the storied past.

To both herself and Mrs. Lacey life grew sunnier
and sweeter. But they each had a heavy burden
on their hearts, which they daily brought to the feet
of the Compassionate One. They united in praying
for Mrs. Lacey's husband, and for Zell; and their
strong faith and love would take no denial. But, as
Laura had said, the silence of the grave seemed to
have swallowed lost Zell.