University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
JENKS GOES FAR, FAR AWAY UPON THE BILLOW AND NEVER
COMES BACK.

On returning to the house I found myself delayed in the
execution of my determination by the increasing and alarming
sickness of the old servant Jenks, and by his desire that I
should be near him. The physician, who was called at once,
gave us no hope of his recovery. He was breaking down
rapidly, and seemed to be conscious of the fact.

On the following morning, after I had spent the most of the
night in his room, he requested the nurse to retire, and calling
me to his bedside said he wished to say a few words to me. I
administered a cordial, which he swallowed with pain, and after
a fit of difficult breathing caused by the effort, he said feebly:
“It's no use, Mr. Arthur; I can't hold on, and I don't think I
want to. It's a mere matter of staying. I should never work
any more, even if I should weather this.”

I tried to say some comforting words, but he shook his head
feebly, and simply repeated: “It's no use.”

“What can I do for you, Jenks?” I said.

“Do you know Jim Taylor's wife?” he inquired.

“I've seen her,” I replied.

“She's a hard working woman.”

“Yes, with a great many children.”

“And Jim don't treat her very well,” he muttered.

“So I've heard.”

He shook his head slowly, and whispered: “It's too bad;
it's too bad.”

“Don't worry yourself about Jim Taylor's wife; she's nothing
to you,” I said.

“Do you think so?—nothing to me? Don't say that; I
can't bear it.”

“You don't mean to tell me that Jim Taylor's wife is—”

He nodded his head; and I saw that he had not yet finished
what he had to say about her.

“Have you any message for her?” I inquired.

“Well, you know, Mr. Arthur, that she's been everything to
me, and I'd like to do a little something for her. You don't
think she'd take it amiss if I should leave her some money, do
you?”

“Oh, no, she's very poor,” I said. “I think she would be
very grateful for anything you can do to help her along.”

His eye lighted, and a feeble smile spread over his wizen
features.

“Pull out that little box under the bed,” he said. “The
key is under my pillow.”

I placed the box on the bed, and, after fumbling under his
pillow, found the key and opened the humble coffer.

“There's a hundred clean silver dollars in that bag, that I've
been saving up for her for thirty years. I hope they'll do her
good. Give them to her, and don't tell Jim. Tell her Jenks
never forgot her, and that she's been everything to him. Tell
her I was sorry she had trouble, and don't forget to say that I
never blamed her.”

I assured him that I would give her the money and the
message faithfully, and he sank back into his pillow with a satisfied
look upon his face that I had not seen there since his sickness.
The long contemplated act was finished, and the work
of his life was done.

After lying awhile with his eyes closed, he opened them and
said: “Do you s'pose we shall know one another over
yonder?”

“I hope so; I think so,” I responded.

“If she comes before Jim, I shall look after her. Do you
dare to tell her that?” and he fixed his glazing eyes upon me
with a wild, strained look that thrilled me.

“I think it would scare her,” I answered. “Perhaps you had
better not send her such a message.”

“Well, I shall look after her, any way, if I get a chance, and
perhaps both of 'em won't go to one place—and—”

What further possibilities ran through the old man's imagination
I do not know, for he seemed exhausted, and ceased to
speak. I sat for an hour beside his bed, while he sank into a
lethargic slumber. At last he woke and stared wildly about
him. Then, fixing his eyes on me, he said: “Now's my time!
If I'm ever going to get away from this place I must go to-night!”

There was a pathetic and poetic appositeness in these words
to the facts of his expiring life that touched me to tears, and I
wiped my eyes. Then listening to some strange singing in his
ears, he said: “Doesn't it rain? Doesn't it pour? You'll
take cold, my boy, and so shall I.”

The thought carried him back over the years to the scene in
the stable where in agony I knelt, with the elements in tumult
above me and his arm around my neck, and prayed.

“Pray again, Arthur. I want to hear you pray.”

I could not refuse him, but knelt at once by his bed, and
buried my face in the clothes by his side. He tried to lift his
hand, but the power to do so was gone. I recognized his wish,
and lifted his arm and placed it round my neck. It was several
minutes before I could command my voice, and then, choking
as on the evening which he had recalled, I tried to commend
his departing spirit to the mercy and fatherly care of Him who
was so soon to receive it. Having prayed for him it was easier
to pray for myself; and I did pray, fervently and long. As I
closed, a whispered “Amen” came from his dying lips.
“There,” he said; “let's go into the house; it's warm there.”
There was something in these words that started my tears
again.

After this his mind wandered, and in his delirium the old
passion of his life took full possession of him.

“To-morrow I shall be far, far away on the billow......

The old woman will call Jenks, but Jenks won't be here.
Jenks will be gone!.... This is the craft: up with her sails:
down with the compasses: My! how she slides! Run her
straight for the moon!.... Doesn't she cut the water beautiful!....
The sea rolls and swings, and rolls and swings,
and there are the islands! I see 'em! I see 'em!.... It's
just like a cradle, and I can't keep awake..... Oh, I'm
going to sleep! I'm—going—to—sleep..... Tell the old
woman I bore her no ill will, but I had to go..... I was
obliged to go..... Straight along in the track of the moon.”

He said all this brokenly, with his eyes closed; and then he
opened them wide, and looked around as if suddenly startled
out of sleep. Then life went out of them, and there came on
that quick, short breathing, unmistakable in its character, even
to a novice, and I rose and called the nurse and Mrs. Belden
to witness the closing scene.

So, sailing out upon that unknown sea made bright by a
hovering glory, with green islands in view and the soft waves
lapping his little vessel, escaping from all his labors and pains,
and realizing all his dreams and aspirations, the old man passed
away. There was a smile upon his face, left by some sweet
emotion. If he was hailed by other barks sailing upon the
same sea, if he touched at the islands and plucked their golden
fruit, if there opened to his expanding vision broader waters
beyond the light of the moon, and bathing the feet of the
Eternal City, we could not know. We only knew that his closing
thought was a blessed thought, and that it glorified the
features which, in a few short days, would turn to dust. It was
delightful to think that the harmless, simple, ignorant, dear old
boy had passed into the hands of his Father. There I left him
without a care—in the hands of One whose justice only is tenderer
than His mercy, and whose love only is stronger than His
justice.

The superintendence of all the affairs connected with his
funeral was devolved upon me; and his burial was like the
burial of an old playfellow. I could not have believed that

his death would grieve me so. It was the destruction of a part
of my home. Now nothing was left but a single frail woman,
whose years were almost told; and when her time should be
spent, the house would be empty of all but myself, and those
whom I might choose to retain or procure.

His remains were followed to the grave by Mrs. Sanderson
and myself in the family carriage, and by the Bradfords, with
some humble acquaintances. His relatives were all at a distance,
if he had any living, or they had left the world before
him. The house seemed more lonely after his death than I
had ever felt it to be before, and poor Mrs. Sanderson was
quite broken down by the event. The presence of death in
the house was so sad a remembrancer of previous occurrences
of which I had had no knowledge, and was such a suggestion
to herself of the brevity of her remaining years, that she was
wonderfully softened.

She had, ever since her return, lived apparently in a kind of
dream. There was something in Henry's presence and voice
that had the power to produce this tender, silent mood, and
Jenks's death only deepened and intensified it.

When all was over, and the house had resumed its every-day
aspects and employments, I took the little sum that Jenks had
saved with such tender care, and bore it to the woman who had
so inspired his affection and sweetened his life. I found her a
hard-faced, weary old woman, whose life of toil and trouble had
wiped out every grace and charm of womanhood that she had
ever possessed. She regarded my call with evident curiosity;
and when I asked her if she had ever known Jenks, and
whether anything had occurred between them in their early
life that would make him remember her with particular regard,
she smiled a grim, hard smile and said: “Not much.”

“What was it? I have good reasons for inquiring.”

“Well,” said she, “he wanted me to marry him, and I
wouldn't. That's about all. You see he was a kind of an innocent,
and I s'pose I made fun of him. Perhaps I've had my
pay for't.”

“Do you know that he has loved you dearly all his life;
that he has pricked your name into his arm, and that it was
the tenderest and sweetest word that ever passed his lips; that
the thought of you comforted him at his work and mingled
with all his dreams; that he would have gone through fire and
water to serve you; that he saved up money all his life to give
you, and that he hopes you will die before your husband, so
that he may have the chance to care for you in the other country
to which he has gone?”

As I uttered these words slowly, and with much emotion,
her dull eyes opened wider and wider, and filled with tears
which dropped unregarded from her cheeks. I suppose these
were the first words of affection that had been spoken to her
for twenty years. Her heart had been utterly starved, and my
words were like manna to her taste. She could not speak at
first, and then with much difficulty she said: “Are you telling
me the truth?”

“I am not telling you half of the truth. He loved you a
thousand times more devotedly than I can tell you. He would
have worshiped a ribbon that you had worn. He would have
kissed the ground on which you stepped. He would have
been your slave. He would have done anything, or been anything,
that would have given you pleasure, even though he had
never won a smile in return.”

Then I untied the handkerchief in which I had brought the
old man's savings, and poured the heavy silver into her lap.
She did not look at it. She only looked into my face with a
sad gaze, while the tears filled her eyes anew.

“I don't deserve it: I don't deserve it,” she repeated in a
hopeless way, “but I thank you. I've got something to think
of besides kicks and cuffs and curses. No—they won't hurt
me any more.”

Her eyes brightened then so that she looked almost beautiful
to me. The assurance that one man, even though she had
regarded him as a simpleton, had persistently loved her, had
passed into her soul, so that she was strengthened for a life-time.

The little hoard and the love that came with it were a
mighty re-enforcement against all the trials which a brutal husband
and forgetful children had brought upon her.

I left her sitting with her treasure still in her lap, dreaming
over the old days, looking forward to those that remained, and
thinking of the man who would have asked for no sweeter
heaven than to look in and see her thus employed. Afterwards
I saw her often. She attended the church which she had long
forsaken, with clothes so neat and comfortable that her neighbors
wondered where and how she had managed to procure
them, and took up the burden of her life again with courage and
patience.

She went before Jim.

Whom she found waiting on the other side of that moonlit
sea over which my old friend had sailed homeward, I shall
know some time; but I cannot turn my eyes from a
picture which my fancy sketches, of a sweet old man, grown
wise and strong, standing upon a sunny beach, with arms outstretched,
to greet an in-going shallop that bears still the name
of all the vessels he had ever owned—“the Jane Whittlesey!”