University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII
OLD CRAB SMITH.

ON the brow of yonder hill you see that old, red farm-house,
with its slanting back roof relieved against the golden sky
of the autumn afternoon. The house lifts itself up dark and
clear under the shadow of two great elm-trees that droop over it,
and is the first of a straggling, irregular cluster of farm-houses
that form the village of Needmore. A group of travellers, sitting
on a bit of rock in the road below the hill on which the
farm-house stands, are looking up to it, in earnest conversation.

“Mother, if you can only get up there, we 'll ask them to let
you go in and rest,” said a little boy of nine years to a weary,
pale, sick-looking woman who sat as in utter exhaustion and discouragement
on the rock. A little girl two years younger than
the boy sat picking at the moss at her feet, and earnestly listening
to her older brother with the air of one who is attending
to the words of a leader.

“I don't feel as if I could get a step farther,” said the woman;
and the increasing deadly paleness of her face confirmed her
words.

“O mother, don't give up,” said the boy; “just rest here a
little and then lean on me, and we 'll get you up the hill; and
then I 'm sure they 'll take you in. Come, now; I 'll run and
get you some water in our tin cup, and you 'll feel better soon.”
And the boy ran to a neighboring brook and filled a small tin
cup, and brought the cool water to his mother.

She drank it, and then, fixing a pair of dark, pathetic eyes on
the face of her boy, she said: “My dear child, you have always
been such a blessing to me! What should I do without you?”

“Well, mother, now, if you feel able, just rest on my shoulder,
and Tina will take the bundle. You take it, Tina, and we 'll
find a place to rest.”

And so, slowly and with difficulty, the three wound their way
up to the grassy top of the hill where stood the red house. This
house belonged to a man named Caleb Smith, whose character
had caused the name he bore to degenerate into another which
was held to be descriptive of his nature, namely, “Crab”; and the
boys of the vicinity commonly expressed the popular idea of the
man by calling him “Old Crab Smith.” His was one of those
sour, cross, gnarly natures that now and then are to be met with
in New England, which, like knotty cider-apples, present a compound
of hardness, sourness, and bitterness. It was affirmed
that a continual free indulgence in very hard cider as a daily
beverage was one great cause of this churlishness of temper; but
be that as it may, there was not a boy in the village that did not
know and take account of it in all his estimates and calculations,
as much as of northeast storms and rainy weather. No child
ever willingly carried a message to him; no neighbor but
dreaded to ask a favor of him; nobody hoped to borrow or beg
of him; nobody willingly hired themselves out to him, or did
him cheerful service. In short, he was a petrified man, walled
out from all neighborhood sympathies, and standing alone in his
crabbedness. And it was to this man's house that the wandering
orphan boy was leading his poor sick mother.

The three travellers approached a neat back porch on the
shady side of the house, where an old woman sat knitting. This
was Old Crab Smith's wife, or, more properly speaking, his life-long
bond-slave, — the only human being whom he could so secure to
himself that she should be always at hand for him to vent that
residue of ill-humor upon which the rest of the world declined
to receive. Why half the women in the world marry the men
they do, is a problem that might puzzle any philosopher; how
any woman could marry Crab Smith, was the standing wonder
of all the neighborhood. And yet Crab's wife was a modest,
industrious, kindly creature, who uncomplainingly toiled from
morning till night to serve and please him, and received her
daily allowance of grumbling and fault-finding with quiet submission.
She tried all she could to mediate between him and the
many whom his ill-temper was constantly provoking. She did

surreptitious acts of kindness here and there, to do away the
effects of his hardness, and shrunk and quivered for fear of being
detected in goodness, as much as many another might for fear of
being discovered in sin. She had been many times a mother, —
had passed through all the trials and weaknesses of maternity
without one tender act of consideration, one encouraging word.
Her children had grown up and gone from her, always eager to
leave the bleak, ungenial home, and go out to shift for themselves
in the world, and now, in old age, she was still working. Worn
to a shadow, — little, old, wrinkled, bowed, — she was still about
the daily round of toil, and still the patient recipient of the murmurs
and chidings of her tyrant.

“My mother is so sick she can't get any farther,” said a little
voice from under the veranda; “won't you let her come in and
lie down awhile?”

“Massy, child,” said the little old woman, coming forward with
a trembling, uncertain step. “Well, she does look beat eout, to
be sure. Come up and rest ye a bit.”

“If you 'll only let me lie down awhile and rest me,” said a
faint, sweet voice.

“Come up here,” said the old woman, standing quivering like
a gray shadow on the top doorstep; and, shading her wrinkled
forehead with her hand, she looked with a glance of habitual apprehension
along the road where the familiar cart and oxen of her
tyrant might be expected soon to appear on their homeward way,
and rejoiced in her little old heart that he was safe out of sight.
“Yes, come in,” she said, opening the door of a small ground-floor
bedroom that adjoined the apartment known in New England
houses as the sink-room, and showing them a plain bed.

The worn and wasted stranger sunk down on it, and, as she
sunk, her whole remaining strength seemed to collapse, and something
white and deathly fell, as if it had been a shadow, over her
face.

“Massy to us! she 's fainted clean away,” said the poor old
woman, quiveringly. “I must jest run for the camphire.”

The little boy seemed to have that unchildlike judgment and
presence of mind that are the precocious development of want

and sorrow. He ran to a water-pail, and, dipping his small tin
cup, he dashed the water in his mother's face, and fanned her with
his little torn straw hat. When the old woman returned, the
invalid was breathing again, and able to take a few swallows of
camphor and water which had been mixed for her.

“Sonny,” said the old woman, “you are a nice little nurse, —
a good boy. You jest take care now; and here's a turkey-feather
fan to fan her with; and I 'll get on the kettle to make her a cup
of tea. We 'll bring her round with a little nursing. Been
walking a long way, I calculate?”

“Yes,” said the boy, “she was trying to get to Boston.”

“What, going afoot?”

“We did n't mind walking, the weather is so pleasant,” said the
boy; “and Tina and I like walking; but mother got sick a day
or two ago, and ever since she has been so tired!”

“Jes' so,” said the old woman, looking compassionately on the
bed. “Well, I 'll make up the fire and get her some tea.”

The fire was soon smoking in the great, old-fashioned kitchen
chimney, for the neat, labor-saving cook-stove had as yet no being;
and the thin, blue smoke, curling up in the rosy sunset air, received
prismatic coloring which a painter would have seized with
enthusiasm.

Far otherwise, however, was its effect on the eye of Old Crab
Smith, as, coming up the hill, his eye detected the luminous vapor
going up from his own particular chimney.

“So, burning out wood, — always burning out wood. I told
her that I would n't have tea got at night. These old women
are crazy and bewitched after tea, and they don't care if they
burn up your tables and chairs to help their messes. Why a
plague can't she eat cold pork and potatoes as well as I, and
drink her mug of cider? but must go to getting up her fire and
biling her kettle. I 'll see to that. Halloa there,” he said, as
he stamped up on to the porch, “what the devil you up to
now? I s'pose you think I hain't got nothing else to do but split
up wood for you to burn out.”

“Father, it 's nothing but a little brush and a few chips, jest to
bile the kettle.”

“Bile the kettle, bile the kettle! Jest like yer lazy, shif'less
ways. What must you be a bilin' the kettle for?”

“Father, I jest want to make a little tea for a sick woman.”

“A sick woman! What sick woman?”

“There was a poor sick woman came along this afternoon with
two little children.”

“Wal, I s'pose you took 'em in. I s'pose you think we keep
the poor-house, and that all the trampers belong to us. We shall
have to go to the poor-house ourselves before long, I tell ye.
But you never believe anything I say. Why could n't you 'a'
sent her to the selectmen? I don't know why I must keep beggars'
tavern.”

“Father, father, don't speak so loud. The poor critter wa' n't
able to stir another step, and fainted dead away, and we had to
get her on to a bed.”

“And we shall have her and her two brats through a fit of
sickness. That 's just like you. Wal, we shall all go to the
poor-house together before long, and then you 'll believe what I
say, won't ye? But I won't have it so. She may stay to-night,
but to-morrow morning I 'll cart her over to Joe Scran's, bright
and early, brats and all.”

There was within hearing of this conversation a listener whose
heart was dying within her, — sinking deeper and deeper at
every syllable, — a few words will explain why.

A younger son of a family belonging to the English gentry had
come over to America as a commissioned officer near the close
of the Revolutionary war. He had persuaded to a private marriage
the daughter of a poor country curate, a beautiful young
girl, whom he induced to elope with him, and share the fortunes
of an officer's life in America. Her parents died soon
after; her husband proved a worthless, drunken, dissipated fellow;
and this poor woman had been through all the nameless
humiliations and agonies which beset helpless womanhood in the
sole power of such a man. Submissive, gentle, trusting, praying,
entreating, hoping against hope, she had borne with him
many vicissitudes and reverses, — always believing that at last
the love of his children, if not of her, would awaken a better

nature within him. But the man steadily went downward instead
of upward, and the better part of him by slow degrees
died away, till he came to regard his wife and children only as so
many clogs on his life, and to meditate night and day on a scheme
to abandon them, and return, without their encumbrance, to his
own country. It was with a distant outlook to some such result
that he had from the first kept their marriage an entire secret
from his own friends. When the English army, at the close of the
war, re-embarked for England, he carried his cowardly scheme
into execution. He had boarded his wife and children for a season
in a country farm-house in the vicinity of Boston, with the
excuse of cheapness of lodgings. Then one day his wife received
a letter enclosing a sum of money, and saying, in such
terms as bad men can find to veil devilish deeds, that all was
over between them, and that ere she got this he should be on the
ocean. The sorest hurt of all was that the letter denied the
validity of their marriage; and the poor child found, to her consternation,
that the marriage certificate, which she had always
kept among her papers, was gone with her husband.

The first result of this letter had been a fit of sickness, wherein
her little stock of money had melted almost away, and then
she had risen from her bed determined to find her way to Boston,
and learn, if possible, from certain persons with whom he
had lodged before his departure, his address in England, that
she might make one more appeal to him. But before she had
walked far the sickness returned upon her, till, dizzy and faint,
she had lain down, as we have described, on the bed of charity.

She had thought, ever since she received that letter, that she
had reached the bottom of desolation, — that nothing could be
added to her misery; but the withering, harsh sounds which
reached her ear revealed a lower deep in the lowest depths.
Hitherto on her short travels she had met only that kindly country
hospitality which New England, from one end to the other,
always has shown to the stranger. No one had refused a good
meal of brown bread and rich milk to her and her children, and
more often the friendly housewife, moved by her delicate appearance,
had unlocked the sanctum where was deposited her

precious tea-caddy, and brewed an amber cup of tea to sustain
the sickly-looking wanderer. She and her children had been
carried here and there, as occasion offered, a friendly mile or
two, when Noah or Job or Sol “hitched up the critter” to go
to mill or country store. The voice of harsh, pitiless rejection
smote on her ear for the first time, and it seemed to her the
drop too much in her cup. She turned her face to the wall and
said, “O my God, I cannot bear this! I cannot, I cannot!”
She would have said, “Let me die,” but that she was tied to life
by the two helpless, innocent ones who shared her misery. The
poorest and most desolate mother feels that her little children
are poorer and more desolate than she; and, however much her
broken spirit may long for the rest of Paradise, she is held back
by the thought that to abide in the flesh is needful to them. Even
in her uttermost destitution the approaching shadow of the dark
valley was a terror to the poor soul, — not for her own sake, but
for theirs. The idea of a harsh, unpitiful world arose before
her for the first time, and the thought of leaving her little ones
in it unprotected was an anguish which rent her heart.

The little girl, over-weary, had eaten her supper and fallen
asleep beside her, with the trusting, ignorant rest of early childhood;
but her boy sat by her bedside with that look of precocious
responsibility, that air of anxious thought, which seems
unnatural in early childhood, and contrasted painfully with the
slight childish figure, the little hands, and little voice. He was,
as we have said, but nine years of age, well grown for his years,
but with that style of growth which indicates delicacy of fibre
rather than strength of organization. His finely formed head,
with its clustering curls of yellow hair, his large, clear blue eyes,
his exquisitely delicate skin, and the sensitiveness betrayed by
his quivering lips, spoke of a lineage of gentle blood, and an
organization fitted rather to æsthetic and intellectual development
than to sturdy material toil. The little girl, as she lay
sleeping, was a beautiful picture. Her head was a wilderness of
curls of a golden auburn, and the defined pencilling of the eyebrows,
and the long silken veil of the lashes that fell over the
sleeping eyes, the delicate polished skin, and the finely moulded

limbs, all indicated that she was one who ought to have been
among the jewels, rather than among the potsherds of this mortal
life. And these were the children that she was going to leave
alone, without a single friend and protector in this world. For
there are intuitions that come to the sick and dying which tell
them when the end is near; and as this wanderer sunk down
upon her bed this night, there had fallen upon her mind a perfect
certainty that she should never be carried thence till carried to
the grave; and it was this which had given her soul so deadly a
wrench, and caused her to cry out in such utter agony.

What happens to desolate souls, who, thus forsaken by all the
world, cry out to God, is a mystery, good brother and sister, which
you can never fathom until you have been exactly where they
are. But certain it is that there is a very near way to God's
heart, and so to the great heart of all comfort, that sometimes
opens like a shaft of light between heaven and the soul, in hours
when everything earthly falls away from us. A quaint old
writer has said, “God keeps his choicest cordials for the time
of our deepest faintings.” And so it came to pass that, as this
poor woman closed her eyes and prayed earnestly, there fell a
strange clearness into her soul, which calmed every fear, and
hushed the voice of every passion, and she lay for a season as
if entranced. Words of holy writ, heard years ago in church-readings,
in the hours of unconscious girlhood, now seemed to
come back, borne in with a living power on her soul. It seemed
almost as if a voice within was saying to her: “The Lord hath
called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a
wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. For a
small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will
I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a
moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on
thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. O thou afflicted, tossed
with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones
with fair colors, and thy foundations with sapphires. And all
thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the
peace of thy children.”

It is fashionable now to speak of words like these as fragments

of ancient Hebrew literature, interesting and curious indeed, but
relating to scenes, events, and states of society long gone by.
But it is a most remarkable property of this old Hebrew literature,
that it seems to be enchanted with a divine and living
power, which strikes the nerve of individual consciousness in
every desolate and suffering soul. It may have been Judah or
Jerusalem ages ago to whom these words first came, but as they
have travelled down for thousands of years, they have seemed
to tens of thousands of sinking and desolate souls as the voice
of God to them individually. They have raised the burden
from thousands of crushed spirits; they have been as the day-spring
to thousands of perplexed wanderers. Ah! let us treasure
these old words, for as of old Jehovah chose to dwell in a
tabernacle in the wilderness, and between the cherubim in the
temple, so now he dwells in them; and to the simple soul that
seeks for him here he will look forth as of old from the pillar of
cloud and of fire.

The poor, ill-used, forsaken, forgotten creature who lay there
trembling on the verge of life felt the presence of that mighty
and generous, that godlike spirit that inspired these words.
And surely if Jehovah ever did speak to man, no words were
ever more worthy of Him. She lay as in a blessed trance, as
passage after passage from the Scriptures rolled over her mind,
like bright waves from the ocean of eternal peace.

“Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am
thy God. When thou passest through the waters I will be with
thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. When
thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither
shall the flame kindle upon thee; for I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.”

The little boy, who had heard his mother's first distressful cry,
sat by her anxiously watching the changes of her face as she
lay there. He saw her brow gradually grow clear and calm, and
every line of trouble fade from her face, as shadows and clouds
roll up from the landscape at day-dawn, till at last there was a
rapt, peaceful expression, an evenness of breathing, as if she
slept, and were dreaming some heavenly dream. It lasted for

more than an hour, and the child sat watching her with the old,
grave, tender look which had come to be the fashion of his little
face when he looked upon his mother.

This boy had come to this mother as a second harvest of heart,
hope, and joy, after the first great love and hope of womanhood
had vanished. She felt herself broken-hearted, lonely, and unloved,
when her first-born son was put into her arms, and she
received him as did the first mother, saying, “I have gotten a
man from the Lord.” To him her desolate heart had unfolded
its burden of confidence from the first dawning hours of intelligence.
His tiny faculties had been widened to make room for
her sorrows, and his childish strength increased by her leaning.
There had been hours when this boy had stood between the
maniac rage of a drunken father and the cowering form of his
mother, with an unchildlike courage and steadiness that seemed
almost like an inspiration. In days of desertion and poverty he
had gone out with their slender stock of money and made bargains
such as it is pitiful to think that a little child should know
how to make; and often, in moments when his mother's heart
was overwhelmed, he would come to her side with the little prayers
and hymns which she had taught him, and revive her faith
and courage when it seemed entirely gone.

Now, as he thought her sleeping, he began with anxious care
to draw the coverlet over her, and to move his little sister back
upon the bed. She opened her eyes, — large, clear blue eyes,
the very mirror of his own, — and, smiling with a strange sweetness,
stretched out her hand and drew him towards her. “Harry,
my dear good boy, my dear, dear child, nobody knows what a
comfort you have been to me.”

Then holding him from her, and looking intently in his eyes,
she seemed to hesitate for words to tell him something that lay
on her mind. At last she said, “Harry, say your prayers and
psalms.”

The child knelt by the bed, with his hands clasped in his
mother's, and said the Lord's Prayer, and then, standing up, repeated
the beautiful psalm beginning, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
Then followed a hymn, which the Methodists had made
familiar in those times: —

“Harry,” said his mother, looking at him with an intense
earnestness, “I want to tell you something. God, our Father, has
called me to come home to him; and I am going. In a little
while — perhaps to-morrow — I shall be gone, and you cannot
find me. My soul will go to God, and they will put my body in
the ground; and then you will have no friend but Jesus, and no
father but the Father in heaven.”

The child looked at her with solemn, dilated gaze, not really
comprehending the full mystery of that which she was trying
to explain; yet the tears starting in his eyes, and the twitching
of the muscles of his mouth, showed that he partly understood.

“Mother,” he said, “will papa never come back?”

“No, Harry, never. He has left us and gone away. He does
not love us, — nobody loves us but our Father in heaven; but
He does. You must always believe this. Now, Harry, I am
going to leave your little sister to your care. You must always
keep with her and take care of her, for she is a very little girl.”

“Yes, mother.”

“This is a great charge for a little boy like you; but you will
live and grow up to be a man, and I want you never, as long as
you live, to forget what I say to you now. Promise me, Harry,
all your life to say these prayers and hymns that you have just

been saying, every morning and every night. They are all I
have to leave you; but if you only believe them, you will never
be without comfort, no matter what happens to you. Promise
me, dear.”

“Yes, mother, I will.”

“And, Harry, no matter what happens, never doubt that God
loves you, — never forget that you have a Friend in heaven.
Whenever you have a trouble, just pray to Him, and He will
help you. Promise this.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Now lie down by me; I am very, very tired.”

The little boy lay down by his mother; she threw her arms
around him, and both sunk to sleep.