University of Virginia Library

43. CHAPTER XLIII.

The next morning rose calm and bright with that wonderful
and mystical stillness and serenity which glorify autumn
days. It was impossible that such skies could smile
and such gentle airs blow the sea into one great waving
floor of sparkling sapphires without bringing cheerfulness to
human hearts. You must be very despairing indeed when
Nature is doing her best, to look her in the face sullen and
defiant. So long as there is a drop of good in your cup, a
penny in your exchequer of happiness, a bright day reminds
you to look at it, and feel that all is not gone yet.

So felt Moses when he stood in the door of the brown
house, while Mrs. Pennel was clinking plates and spoons
as she set the breakfast-table, and Zephaniah Pennel in his
shirt-sleeves was washing in the back-room, while Miss Roxy
came down-stairs in a business-like fashion bringing sundry
bowls, plates, dishes, and mysterious pitchers from the sick-room.

“Well, Aunt Roxy, you a'n't one that lets the grass grow
under your feet,” said Mrs. Pennel. “How is the dear child
this morning?”

“Well, she had a better night than one could have expected,”
said Miss Roxy, “and by the time she 's had her
breakfast, she expects to sit up a little and see her friends.”
Miss Roxy said this in a cheerful tone, looking encouragingly
at Moses whom she began to pity and patronize, now
she saw how real was his affliction.

After breakfast Moses went to see her; she was sitting up
in her white dressing-gown looking so thin and poorly, and
everything in the room was fragrant with the spicy smell
of the monthly roses, whose late buds and blossoms Miss
Roxy had gathered for the vases. She seemed so natural, so
calm and cheerful, so interested in all that went on around
her, that one almost forgot that the time of her stay must be
so short. She called Moses to come and look at her drawings,
and paintings of flowers and birds, — full of reminders they
were of old times, — and then she would have her pencils and
colors, and work a little on a bunch of red rock-columbine,
that she had begun to do for him; and she chatted of all the
old familiar places where flowers grew, and of the old talks
they had had there, till Moses quite forgot himself; forgot
that he was in a sick room, till Aunt Roxy, warned by the
deepening color on Mara's cheeks, interposed her “nussing”
authority, that she must do no more that day.

Then Moses laid her down, and arranged her pillows so
that she could look out on the sea, and sat and read to her
till it was time for her afternoon nap; and when the evening
shadows drew on, he marvelled with himself how the day
had gone.

Many such there were all that pleasant month of September,
and he was with her all the time, watching her wants
and doing her bidding, — reading over and over with a softened
modulation her favorite hymns and chapters, arranging
her flowers, and bringing her home wild bouquets from all
her favorite wood-haunts, which made her sick-room seem
like some sylvan bower. Sally Kittridge, was there too, almost
every day, with always some friendly offering or some
helpful deed of kindness, and sometimes they two together
would keep guard over the invalid while Miss Roxy went

home to attend to some of her own more peculiar concerns.
Mara seemed to rule all around her with calm sweetness and
wisdom, speaking unconsciously only the speech of heaven,
talking of spiritual things, not in an excited rapture or wild
ecstasy, but with the sober certainty of waking bliss. She
seemed like one of the sweet friendly angels one reads of in
the Old Testament, so lovingly companionable, walking and
talking, eating and drinking, with mortals, yet ready at any
unknown moment to ascend with the flame of some sacrifice
and be gone. There are those (a few at least), whose blessing
it has been to have kept for many days in bonds of
earthly fellowship, a perfected spirit in whom the work of
purifying love was wholly done, who lived in calm victory
over sin and sorrow and death, ready at any moment to be
called to the final mystery of joy.

Yet it must come at last, the moment when heaven
claims its own, and it came at last in the cottage on Orr's
Island. There came a day when the room so sacredly cheerful
was hushed to a breathless stillness; the bed was then
all snowy white, and that soft still sealed face, the parted
waves of golden hair, the little hands folded over the white
robe, all had a sacred and wonderful calm, a rapture of repose
that seemed to say “it is done.”

They who looked on her wondered; it was a look that
sunk deep into every heart; it hushed down the common
cant of those who, according to country custom, went to
stare blindly at the great mystery of death, — for all that
came out of that chamber smote upon their breasts and
went away in silence, revolving strangely whence might
come that unearthly beauty, that celestial joy.

Once more, in that very room where James and Naomi
Lincoln had lain side by side in their coffins, sleeping restfully,

there was laid another form, shrouded and coffined,
but with such a fairness and tender purity, such a mysterious
fulness of joy in its expression, that it seemed more
natural to speak of that rest as some higher form of life
than of death.

Once more were gathered the neighborhood; all the faces,
known in this history, shone out in one solemn picture, of
which that sweet restful form was the centre. Zephaniah
Pennel and Mary his wife, Moses and Sally, the dry form
of Captain Kittridge and the solemn face of his wife, Aunt
Roxy and Aunt Ruey, Miss Emily and Mr. Sewell; but
their faces all wore a tender brightness, such as we see falling
like a thin celestial veil over all the faces in an old Florentine
painting. The room was full of sweet memories, of
words of cheer, words of assurance, words of triumph, and
the mysterious brightness of that young face forbade them
to weep. Solemnly Mr. Sewell read, —

“He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God
will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of
his people shall he take away from off all the earth; for
the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day,
Lo this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will
save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we
will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Then the prayer trembled up to heaven with thanksgiving,
for the early entrance of that fair young saint into
glory, and then the same old funeral hymn, with its mournful
triumph: —

Then in a few words Mr. Sewell reminded them how
that hymn had been sung in this room so many years ago,
when that frail fluttering orphan soul had been baptized into
the love and care of Jesus, and how her whole life passing
before them in its simplicity and beauty, had come to be so
holy and beautiful a close, and when, pointing to the calm
sleeping face he asked, “Would we call her back?” there
was not a heart at that moment that dared answer, Yes.
Even he that should have been her bridegroom could not
at that moment have unsealed the holy charm, and so they
bore her away, and laid the calm smiling face beneath the
soil, by the side of poor Dolores.

“I had a beautiful dream last night,” said Zephaniah
Pennel, the next morning after the funeral, as he opened his
Bible to conduct family worship.

“What was it?” said Miss Roxy.

“Well ye see, I thought I was out a-walkin' up and down
and lookin' and lookin' for something that I 'd lost. What it
was I could n't quite make out, but my heart felt heavy as
if it would break, and I was lookin' all up and down the
sands by the sea-shore, and somebody said I was like the
merchantman, seeking goodly pearls. I said I had lost my
pearl — my pearl of great price — and then I looked up, and
far off on the beach, shining softly on the wet sands, lay my
pearl. I thought it was Mara, but it seemed a great pearl
with a soft moonlight on it; and I was running for it when
some one said `hush,' and I looked and I saw Him a-coming
— Jesus of Nazareth, jist as he walked by the sea of
Galilee. It was all dark night around Him, but I could
see Him by the light that came from his face, and the long
hair was hanging down on his shoulders. He came and took

up my pearl and put it on his forehead, and it shone out
like a star, and shone into my heart, and I felt happy; —
and he looked at me steadily, and rose and rose in the air,
and, melted in the clouds, and I awoke so happy, and so
calm!”