 | Beauty and the beast |  |
JACOB FLINT'S JOURNEY.
IF there ever was a man crushed out of
all courage, all self-reliance, all comfort
in life, it was Jacob Flint. Why this
should have been, neither he nor any
one else could have explained; but so
it was. On the day that he first went
to school, his shy, frightened face marked him as fair
game for the rougher and stronger boys, and they subjected
him to all those exquisite refinements of torture
which boys seem to get by the direct inspiration of the
Devil. There was no form of their bullying meanness or
the cowardice of their brutal strength which he did not
experience. He was born under a fading or falling star,
—the inheritor of some anxious or unhappy mood of his
parents, which gave its fast color to the threads out of
which his innocent being was woven.
Even the good people of the neighborhood, never accustomed
to look below the externals of appearance and
manner, saw in his shrinking face and awkward motions
only the signs of a cringing, abject soul. “You'll be no
many a farmer addressed to his dilatory boy; and thus
the parents, one and all, came to repeat the sins of the
children.
If, therefore, at school and “before folks,” Jacob's
position was always uncomfortable and depressing, it was
little more cheering at home. His parents, as all the
neighbors believed, had been unhappily married, and,
though the mother died in his early childhood, his father
remained a moody, unsocial man, who rarely left his farm
except on the 1st of April every year, when he went to
the county town for the purpose of paying the interest
upon a mortgage. The farm lay in a hollow between two
hills, separated from the road by a thick wood, and the
chimneys of the lonely old house looked in vain for a
neighbor-smoke when they began to grow warm of a
morning.
Beyond the barn and under the northern hill there
was a log tenant-house, in which dwelt a negro couple,
who, in the course of years had become fixtures on the
place and almost partners in it. Harry, the man, was the
medium by which Samuel Flint kept up his necessary intercourse
with the world beyond the valley; he took the
horses to the blacksmith, the grain to the mill, the turkeys
to market, and through his hands passed all the incomings
and outgoings of the farm, except the annual interest on
the mortgage. Sally, his wife, took care of the household,
which, indeed, was a light and comfortable task, since
the table was well supplied for her own sake, and there was
The place had a forlorn, tumble-down aspect,
quite in keeping with its lonely situation; but perhaps
this very circumstance flattered the mood of its silent,
melancholy owner and his unhappy son.
In all the neighborhood there was but one person
with whom Jacob felt completely at ease—but one who
never joined in the general habit of making his name
the butt of ridicule or contempt. This was Mrs. Ann
Pardon, the hearty, active wife of Farmer Robert Pardon,
who lived nearly a mile farther down the brook. Jacob
had won her good-will by some neighborly services, something
so trifling, indeed, that the thought of a favor conferred
never entered his mind. Ann Pardon saw that it
did not; she detected a streak of most unconscious goodness
under his uncouth, embarrassed ways, and she determined
to cultivate it. No little tact was required, however,
to coax the wild, forlorn creature into so much confidence
as she desired to establish; but tact is a native quality
of the heart no less than a social acquirement, and so she
did the very thing necessary without thinking much about it.
Robert Pardon discovered by and by that Jacob was a
steady, faithful hand in the harvest-field at husking-time,
or whenever any extra labor was required, and Jacob's
father made no objection to his earning a penny in this
way; and so he fell into the habit of spending his Saturday
evenings at the Pardon farm-house, at first to talk over
matters of work, and finally because it had become a welcome
relief from his dreary life at home.
Now it happened that on a Saturday in the beginning
of haying-time, the village tailor sent home by Harry a
new suit of light summer clothes, for which Jacob had
been measured a month before. After supper he tried
them on, the day's work being over, and Sally's admiration
was so loud and emphatic that he felt himself growing
red even to the small of his back.
“Now, don't go for to take 'em off, Mr. Jake,” said
she. “I spec' you're gwine down to Pardon's, and so you
jist keep 'em on to show 'em all how nice you kin look.”
The same thought had already entered Jacob's mind.
Poor fellow! It was the highest form of pleasure of which
he had ever allowed himself to conceive. If he had been
called upon to pass through the village on first assuming
the new clothes, every stitch would have pricked him as
if the needle remained in it; but a quiet walk down the
brookside, by the pleasant path through the thickets and
over the fragrant meadows, with a consciousness of his
own neatness and freshness at every step, and with kind
Ann Pardon's commendation at the close, and the flattering
curiosity of the children,—the only ones who never
made fun of him,—all that was a delightful prospect. He
could never, never forget himself, as he had seen other
young fellows do; but to remember himself agreeably was
certainly the next best thing.
Jacob was already a well-grown man of twenty-three,
and would have made a good enough appearance but for
the stoop in his shoulders, and the drooping, uneasy way
in which he carried his head. Many a time when he was
and looked courageously at the buts of the oak-trees or in
the very eyes of the indifferent oxen; but, when a human
face drew near, some spring in his neck seemed to snap,
some buckle around his shoulders to be drawn three holes
tighter, and he found himself in the old posture. The
ever-present thought of this weakness was the only drop
of bitterness in his cup, as he followed the lonely path
through the thickets.
Some spirit in the sweet, delicious freshness of the
air, some voice in the mellow babble of the stream, leaping
in and out of sight between the alders, some smile of
light, lingering on the rising corn-fields beyond the meadow
and the melting purple of a distant hill, reached to
the seclusion of his heart. He was soothed and cheered;
his head lifted itself in the presentiment of a future less
lonely than the past, and the everlasting trouble vanished
from his eyes.
Suddenly, at a turn of the path, two mowers from the
meadow, with their scythes upon their shoulders, came
upon him. He had not heard their feet on the deep turf.
His chest relaxed, and his head began to sink; then, with
the most desperate effort in his life, he lifted it again, and,
darting a rapid side glance at the men, hastened by.
They could not understand the mixed defiance and supplication
of his face; to them he only looked “queer.”
“Been committin' a murder, have you?” asked one
of them, grinning.
“Startin' off on his journey, I guess,” said the other.
The next instant they were gone, and Jacob, with set
teeth and clinched hands, smothered something that
would have been a howl if he had given it voice. Sharp
lines of pain were marked on his face, and, for the first
time, the idea of resistance took fierce and bitter possession
of his heart. But the mood was too unusual to last;
presently he shook his head, and walked on towards Pardon's
farm-house.
Ann wore a smart gingham dress, and her first exclamation
was: “Why, Jake! how nice you look. And so
you know all about it, too?”
“About what?”
“I see you don't,” said she. “I was too fast; but it
makes no difference. I know you are willing to lend me
a helping hand.”
“Oh, to be sure,” Jacob answered.
“And not mind a little company?”
Jacob's face suddenly clouded; but he said, though
with an effort: “No—not much—if I can be of any
help.”
“It's rather a joke, after all,” Ann Pardon continued,
speaking rapidly; “they meant a surprise, a few of the
young people; but sister Becky found a way to send me
word, or I might have been caught like Meribah Johnson
last week, in the middle of my work; eight or ten, she
said, but more may drop in: and it's moonlight and warm,
so they'll be mostly under the trees; and Robert won't
be home till late, and I do want help in carrying chairs,
and getting up some ice, and handing around; and,
help me out, you see—”
Here she paused. Jacob looked perplexed, but said
nothing.
“Becky will help what she can, and while I'm in the
kitchen she'll have an eye to things outside,” she said.
Jacob's head was down again, and, moreover, turned
on one side, but his ear betrayed the mounting blood.
Finally he answered, in a quick, husky voice: “Well, I'll
do what I can. What's first?”
Thereupon he began to carry some benches from
the veranda to a grassy bank beside the sycamore-tree.
Ann Pardon wisely said no more of the coming surprise-party,
but kept him so employed that, as the visitors arrived
by twos and threes, the merriment was in full play
almost before he was aware of it. Moreover, the night
was a protecting presence: the moonlight poured splendidly
upon the open turf beyond the sycamore, but every
lilac-bush or trellis of woodbine made a nook of shade,
wherein he could pause a moment and take courage for
his duties. Becky Morton, Ann Pardon's youngest sister,
frightened him a little every time she came to consult
about the arrangement of seats or the distribution of
refreshments; but it was a delightful, fascinating fear,
such as he had never felt before in his life. He knew
Becky, but he had never seen her in white and pink, with
floating tresses, until now. In fact, he had hardly looked
at her fairly, but now, as she glided into the moonlight
and he paused in the shadow, his eyes took note of her
knew not what, passed into his blood.
The young men had brought a fiddler from the village,
and it was not long before most of the company were
treading the measures of reels or cotillons on the grass.
How merry and happy they all were! How freely and
unembarrassedly they moved and talked! By and by all
became involved in the dance, and Jacob, left alone and
unnoticed, drew nearer and nearer to the gay and beautiful
life from which he was expelled.
With a long-drawn scream of the fiddle the dance
came to an end, and the dancers, laughing, chattering,
panting, and fanning themselves, broke into groups and
scattered over the enclosure before the house. Jacob was
surrounded before he could escape. Becky, with two
lively girls in her wake, came up to him and said: “Oh
Mr. Flint, why don't you dance?”
If he had stopped to consider, he would no doubt
have replied very differently. But a hundred questions,
stirred by what he had seen, were clamoring for light, and
they threw the desperate impulse to his lips.
“If I could dance, would you dance with me?”
The two lively girls heard the words, and looked at
Becky with roguish faces.
“Oh yes, take him for your next partner!” cried one.
“I will,” said Becky, “after he comes back from his
journey.”
Then all three laughed. Jacob leaned against the
tree, his eyes fixed on the ground.
“Is it a bargain?” asked one of the girls.
“No,” said he, and walked rapidly away.
He went to the house, and, finding that Robert had
arrived, took his hat, and left by the rear door. There
was a grassy alley between the orchard and garden, from
which it was divided by a high hawthorn hedge. He had
scarcely taken three paces on his way to the meadow,
when the sound of the voice he had last heard, on the
other side of the hedge, arrested his feet.
“Becky, I think you rather hurt Jake Flint,” said the
girl.
“Hardly,” answered Becky; “he's used to that.”
“Not if he likes you; and you might go further and
fare worse.”
“Well, I must say!” Becky exclaimed, with a laugh;
“you'd like to see me stuck in that hollow, out of your
way!”
“It's a good farm, I've heard,” said the other.
“Yes, and covered with as much as it'll bear!”
Here the girls were called away to the dance. Jacob
slowly walked up the dewy meadow, the sounds of fiddling,
singing, and laughter growing fainter behind him.
“My journey!” he repeated to himself,—“my journey!
why shouldn't I start on it now? Start off, and
never come back?”
It was a very little thing, after all, which annoyed him,
but the mention of it always touched a sore nerve of his
nature. A dozen years before, when a boy at school, he
had made a temporary friendship with another boy of his
his first generous confidence: “When I am a little older,
I shall make a great journey, and come back rich, and buy
Whitney's place!”
Now, Whitney's place, with its stately old brick mansion,
its avenue of silver firs, and its two hundred acres of
clean, warm-lying land, was the finest, the most aristocratic
property in all the neighborhood, and the boy-friend could
not resist the temptation of repeating Jacob's grand design,
for the endless amusement of the school. The betrayal
hurt Jacob more keenly than the ridicule. It left a wound
that never ceased to rankle; yet, with the inconceivable
perversity of unthinking natures, precisely this joke (as
the people supposed it to be) had been perpetuated, until
“Jake Flint's Journey” was a synonyme for any absurd
or extravagant expectation. Perhaps no one imagined
how much pain he was keeping alive; for almost any other
man than Jacob would have joined in the laugh against
himself and thus good-naturedly buried the joke in time.
“He's used to that,” the people said, like Becky Morton,
and they really supposed there was nothing unkind in the
remark!
After Jacob had passed the thickets and entered the
lonely hollow in which his father's house lay, his pace became
slower and slower. He looked at the shabby old
building, just touched by the moonlight behind the swaying
shadows of the weeping-willow, stopped, looked again,
and finally seated himself on a stump beside the path.
“If I knew what to do!” he said to himself, rocking
knees,—“if I knew what to do!”
The spiritual tension of the evening reached its climax:
he could bear no more. With a strong bodily shudder
his tears burst forth, and the passion of his weeping
filled him from head to foot. How long he wept he knew
not; it seemed as if the hot fountains would never run dry.
Suddenly and startlingly a hand fell upon his shoulder.
“Boy, what does this mean?”
It was his father who stood before him.
Jacob looked up like some shy animal brought to bay,
his eyes full of a feeling mixed of fierceness and terror;
but he said nothing.
His father seated himself on one of the roots of the
old stump, laid one hand upon Jacob's knee, and said
with an unusual gentleness of manner, “I'd like to know
what it is that troubles you so much.”
After a pause, Jacob suddenly burst forth with: “Is
there any reason why I should tell you? Do you care any
more for me than the rest of 'em?”
“I didn't know as you wanted me to care for you particularly,”
said the father, almost deprecatingly. “I always
thought you had friends of your own age.”
“Friends? Devils!” exclaimed Jacob. “Oh, what
have I done—what is there so dreadful about me that I
should always be laughed at, and despised, and trampled
upon? You are a great deal older than I am, father:
what do you see in me? Tell me what it is, and how to
get over it!”
The eyes of the two men met. Jacob saw his father's
face grow pale in the moonlight, while he pressed his hand
involuntarily upon his heart, as if struggling with some
physical pain. At last he spoke, but his words were
strange and incoherent.
“I couldn't sleep,” he said; “I got up again and came
out o' doors. The white ox had broken down the fence
at the corner, and would soon have been in the cornfield.
I thought it was that, maybe, but still your—your mother
would come into my head. I was coming down the edge
of the wood when I saw you, and I don't know why it was
that you seemed so different, all at once—”
Here he paused, and was silent for a minute. Then
he said, in a grave, commanding tone: “Just let me know
the whole story. I have that much right yet.”
Jacob related the history of the evening, somewhat
awkwardly and confusedly, it is true; but his father's brief,
pointed questions kept him to the narrative, and forced
him to explain the full significance of the expressions he
repeated. At the mention of “Whitney's place,” a singular
expression of malice touched the old man's face.
“Do you love Becky Morton?” he asked bluntly, when
all had been told.
“I don't know,” Jacob stammered; “I think not; because
when I seem to like her most, I feel afraid of her.”
“It's lucky that you're not sure of it!” exclaimed the
old man with energy; “because you should never have her.”
“No,” said Jacob, with a mournful acquiescence, “I
can never have her, or any other one.”
“But you shall—and will! when I help you. It's true
I've not seemed to care much about you, and I suppose
you're free to think as you like; but this I say: I'll not
stand by and see you spit upon! `Covered with as much
as it'll bear!' That's a piece o' luck anyhow. If we're
poor, your wife must take your poverty with you, or she
don't come into my doors. But first of all you must make
your journey!”
“My journey!” repeated Jacob.
“Weren't you thinking of it this night, before you took
your seat on that stump? A little more, and you'd have
gone clean off, I reckon.”
Jacob was silent, and hung his head.
“Never mind! I've no right to think hard of it. In
a week we'll have finished our haying, and then it's a fortnight
to wheat; but, for that matter, Harry and I can
manage the wheat by ourselves. You may take a month,
two months, if any thing comes of it. Under a month I
don't mean that you shall come back. I'll give you twenty
dollars for a start; if you want more you must earn it
on the road, any way you please. And, mark you, Jacob!
since you are poor, don't let anybody suppose you are
rich. For my part, I shall not expect you to buy Whitney's
place; all I ask is that you'll tell me, fair and
square, just what things and what people you've got acquainted
with. Get to bed now—the matter's settled; I
will have it so.”
They rose and walked across the meadow to the house.
Jacob had quite forgotten the events of the evening in the
a wonderful confusion of fear and desire. His father said
nothing more. They entered the lonely house together at
midnight, and went to their beds; but Jacob slept very
little.
Six days afterwards he left home, on a sparkling June
morning, with a small bundle tied in a yellow silk handkerchief
under his arm. His father had furnished him
with the promised money, but had positively refused to
tell him what road he should take, or what plan of action
he should adopt. The only stipulation was that his absence
from home should not be less than a month.
After he had passed the wood and reached the highway
which followed the course of the brook, he paused to
consider which course to take. Southward the road led
past Pardon's, and he longed to see his only friends once
more before encountering untried hazards; but the village
was beyond, and he had no courage to walk through
its one long street with a bundle, denoting a journey, under
his arm. Northward he would have to pass the mill
and blacksmith's shop at the cross-roads. Then he remembered
that he might easily wade the stream at a point
where it was shallow, and keep in the shelter of the woods
on the opposite hill until he struck the road farther on,
and in that direction two or three miles would take him
into a neighborhood where he was not known.
Once in the woods, an exquisite sense of freedom
came upon him. There was nothing mocking in the soft,
graceful stir of the expanded foliage, in the twittering of
over the rustling carpet of dead leaves. He lay down
upon the moss under a spreading beech-tree and tried to
think; but the thoughts would not come. He could not
even clearly recall the keen troubles and mortifications
he had endured: all things were so peaceful and beautiful
that a portion of their peace and beauty fell upon men
and invested them with a more kindly character.
Towards noon Jacob found himself beyond the limited
geography of his life. The first man he encountered was
a stranger, who greeted him with a hearty and respectful
“How do you do, sir?”
“Perhaps,” thought Jacob, “I am not so very different
from other people, if I only thought so myself.”
At noon, he stopped at a farm-house by the roadside
to get a drink of water. A pleasant woman, who came
from the door at that moment with a pitcher, allowed him
to lower the bucket and haul it up dripping with precious
coolness. She looked upon him with good-will, for he
had allowed her to see his eyes, and something in their
honest, appealing expression went to her heart.
“We're going to have dinner in five minutes,” said
she; “won't you stay and have something?”
Jacob stayed and brake bread with the plain, hospitable
family. Their kindly attention to him during the
meal gave him the lacking nerve; for a moment he resolved
to offer his services to the farmer, but he presently
saw that they were not really needed, and, besides, the
place was still too near home.
Towards night he reached an old country tavern, lording
it over an incipient village of six houses. The landlord
and hostler were inspecting a drooping-looking horse
in front of the stables. Now, if there was any thing
which Jacob understood, to the extent of his limited experience,
it was horse nature. He drew near, listened to
the views of the two men, examined the animal with his
eyes, and was ready to answer, “Yes, I guess so,” when
the landlord said, “Perhaps, sir, you can tell what is the
matter with him.”
His prompt detection of the ailment, and prescription
of a remedy which in an hour showed its good effects, installed
him in the landlord's best graces. The latter
said, “Well, it shall cost you nothing to-night,” as he led
the way to the supper-room. When Jacob went to bed
he was surprised on reflecting that he had not only been
talking for a full hour in the bar-room, but had been
looking people in the face.
Resisting an offer of good wages if he would stay and
help look after the stables, he set forward the next morning
with a new and most delightful confidence in himself.
The knowledge that now nobody knew him as “Jake Flint”
quite removed his tortured self-consciousness. When he
met a person who was glum and ungracious of speech, he
saw, nevertheless, that he was not its special object. He
was sometimes asked questions, to be sure, which a little
embarrassed him, but he soon hit upon answers which
were sufficiently true without betraying his purpose.
Wandering sometimes to the right and sometimes
the afternoon of the fourth day after leaving home, he
found himself in a rougher region—a rocky, hilly tract,
with small and not very flourishing farms in the valleys.
Here the season appeared to be more backward than in
the open country; the hay harvest was not yet over.
Jacob's taste for scenery was not particularly cultivated,
but something in the loneliness and quiet of the
farms reminded him of his own home; and he looked at
one house after another, deliberating with himself whether
it would not be a good place to spend the remainder of
his month of probation. He seemed to be very far from
home—about forty miles, in fact,—and was beginning to
feel a little tired of wandering.
Finally the road climbed a low pass of the hills, and
dropped into a valley on the opposite side. There was
but one house in view—a two-story building of logs and
plaster, with a garden and orchard on the hillside in the
rear. A large meadow stretched in front, and when the
whole of it lay clear before him, as the road issued from
a wood, his eye was caught by an unusual harvest picture.
Directly before him, a woman, whose face was concealed
by a huge, flapping sun-bonnet, was seated upon a
mowing machine, guiding a span of horses around the
great tract of thick grass which was still uncut. A little
distance off, a boy and girl were raking the drier swaths
together, and a hay-cart, drawn by oxen and driven by a
man, was just entering the meadow from the side next the
barn.
Jacob hung his bundle upon a stake, threw his coat
and waistcoat over the rail, and, resting his chin on his
shirted arms, leaned on the fence, and watched the haymakers.
As the woman came down the nearer side she
appeared to notice him, for her head was turned from time
to time in his direction. When she had made the round,
she stopped the horses at the corner, sprang lightly from
her seat and called to the man, who, leaving his team,
met her half-way. They were nearly a furlong distant,
but Jacob was quite sure that she pointed to him, and
that the man looked in the same direction. Presently
she set off across the meadow, directly towards him.
When within a few paces of the fence, she stopped,
threw back the flaps of her sun-bonnet, and said, “Good
day to you!”
Jacob was so amazed to see a bright, fresh, girlish
face, that he stared at her with all his eyes, forgetting to
drop his head. Indeed, he could not have done so, for
his chin was propped upon the top rail of the fence.
“You are a stranger, I see,” she added.
“Yes, in these parts,” he replied.
“Looking for work?”
He hardly knew what answer to make, so he said, at a
venture, “That's as it happens.” Then he colored a
little, for the words seemed foolish to his ears.
“Time's precious,” said the girl, “so I'll tell you at
once we want help. Our hay must be got in while the
fine weather lasts.”
“I'll help you!” Jacob exclaimed, taking his arms
from the rail, and looking as willing as he felt.
“I'm so glad! But I must tell you, at first, that we're
not rich, and the hands are asking a great deal now.
How much do you expect?”
“Whatever you please?” said he, climbing the fence.
“No, that's not our way of doing business. What do
you say to a dollar a day, and found?”
“All right!” and with the words he was already at
her side, taking long strides over the elastic turf.
“I will go on with my mowing,” said she, when they
reached the horses, “and you can rake and load with my
father. What name shall I call you by?”
“Everybody calls me Jake.”
“`Jake!' Jacob is better. Well, Jacob, I hope you'll
give us all the help you can.”
With a nod and a light laugh she sprang upon the
machine. There was a sweet throb in Jacob's heart,
which, if he could have expressed it, would have been a
triumphant shout of “I'm not afraid of her! I'm not
afraid of her!”
The farmer was a kindly, depressed man, with whose
quiet ways Jacob instantly felt himself at home. They
worked steadily until sunset, when the girl, detaching her
horses from the machine, mounted one of them and led
the other to the barn. At the supper-table, the farmer's
wife said: “Susan, you must be very tired.”
“Not now, mother!” she cheerily answered. “I was,
I think, but after I picked up Jacob I felt sure we should
get our hay in.”
“It was a good thing,” said the farmer; “Jacob don't
need to be told how to work.”
Poor Jacob! He was so happy he could have cried.
He sat and listened, and blushed a little, with a smile on
his face which it was a pleasure to see. The honest people
did not seem to regard him in the least as a stranger;
they discussed their family interests and troubles and
hopes before him, and in a little while it seemed as if he
had known them always.
How faithfully he worked! How glad and tired he
felt when night came, and the hay-mow was filled, and the
great stacks grew beside the barn! But ah! the haying
came to an end, and on the last evening, at supper,
everybody was constrained and silent. Even Susan looked
grave and thoughtful.
“Jacob,” said the farmer, finally, “I wish we could
keep you until wheat harvest; but you know we are poor,
and can't afford it. Perhaps you could—”
He hesitated; but Jacob, catching at the chance and
obeying his own unselfish impulse, cried: “Oh, yes, I
can; I'll be satisfied with my board, till the wheat's
ripe.”
Susan looked at him quickly, with a bright, speaking
face.
“It's hardly fair to you,” said the farmer.
“But I like to be here so much!” Jacob cried. “I
like—all of you!”
“We do seem to suit,” said the farmer, “like as one
family. And that reminds me, we've not heard your family
name yet.”
“Flint.”
“Jacob Flint!” exclaimed the farmer's wife, with sudden
agitation.
Jacob was scared and troubled. They had heard of
him, he thought, and who knew what ridiculous stories?
Susan noticed an anxiety on his face which she could not
understand, but she unknowingly came to his relief.
“Why, mother,” she asked, “do you know Jacob's
family?”
“No, I think not,” said her mother, “only somebody
of the name, long ago.”
His offer, however, was gratefully accepted. The
bright, hot summer days came and went, but no flower of
July ever opened as rapidly and richly and warmly as his
chilled, retarded nature. New thoughts and instincts
came with every morning's sun, and new conclusions were
reached with every evening's twilight. Yet as the wheat
harvest drew towards the end, he felt that he must leave
the place. The month of absence had gone by, he scarce
knew how. He was free to return home, and, though he
might offer to bridge over the gap between wheat and
oats, as he had already done between hay and wheat, he
imagined the family might hesitate to accept such an offer.
Moreover, this life at Susan's side was fast growing to be
a pain, unless he could assure himself that it would be
so forever.
They were in the wheat-field, busy with the last
sheaves, she raking and he binding. The farmer and
younger children had gone to the barn with a load.
Jacob was working silently and steadily, but when they
brow, and suddenly said, “Susan, I suppose to-day finishes
my work here.”
“Yes,” she answered very slowly.
“And yet I'm very sorry to go.”
“I—we don't want you to go, if we could help it.”
Jacob appeared to struggle with himself. He attempted
to speak. “If I could—” he brought out, and then
paused. “Susan, would you be glad if I came
back?”
His eyes implored her to read his meaning. No doubt
she read it correctly, for her face flushed, her eyelids fell,
and she barely murmured, “Yes, Jacob.”
“Then I'll come!” he cried; “I'll come and help
you with the oats. Don't talk of pay! Only tell me I'll
be welcome! Susan, don't you believe I'll keep my
word?”
“I do indeed,” said she, looking him firmly in the
face.
That was all that was said at the time; but the two
understood each other tolerably well.
On the afternoon of the second day, Jacob saw again
the lonely house of his father. His journey was made,
yet, if any of the neighbors had seen him, they would
never have believed that he had come back rich.
Samuel Flint turned away to hide a peculiar smile
when he saw his son; but little was said until late that
evening, after Harry and Sally had left. Then he required
and received an exact account of Jacob's experience
he said, “And so you love this Susan Meadows?”
“I'd—I'd do any thing to be with her.”
“Are you afraid of her?”
“No!” Jacob uttered the word so emphatically that
it rang through the house.
“Ah, well!” said the old man, lifting his eyes, and speaking
in the air, “all the harm may be mended yet. But there
must be another test.” Then he was silent for some time.
“I have it!” he finally exclaimed. “Jacob, you must
go back for the oats harvest. You must ask Susan to be
your wife, and ask her parents to let you have her. But,
—pay attention to my words!—you must tell her that
you are a poor, hired man on this place, and that she can
be engaged as housekeeper. Don't speak of me as your
father, but as the owner of the farm. Bring her here in
that belief, and let me see how honest and willing she is.
I can easily arrange matters with Harry and Sally while
you are away; and I'll only ask you to keep up the appearance
of the thing for a month or so.”
“But, father,”—Jacob began.
“Not a word! Are you not willing to do that much
for the sake of having her all your life, and this farm after
me? Suppose it is covered with a mortgage, if she is all
you say, you two can work it off. Not a word more! It
is no lie, after all, that you will tell her.”
“I am afraid,” said Jacob, “that she could not leave
her home now. She is too useful there, and the family is
so poor.”
“Tell them that both your wages, for the first year,
shall go to them. It'll be my business to rake and scrape
the money together somehow. Say, too, that the housekeeper's
place can't be kept for her—must be filled at
once. Push matters like a man, if you mean to be a complete
one, and bring her here, if she carries no more with
her than the clothes on her back!”
During the following days Jacob had time to familiarize
his mind with this startling proposal. He knew his
father's stubborn will too well to suppose that it could be
changed; but the inevitable soon converted itself into the
possible and desirable. The sweet face of Susan as she
had stood before him in the wheat-field was continually
present to his eyes, and ere long, he began to place her,
in his thoughts, in the old rooms at home, in the garden,
among the thickets by the brook, and in Ann Pardon's
pleasant parlor. Enough; his father's plan became his
own long before the time was out.
On his second journey everybody seemed to be an
old acquaintance and an intimate friend. It was evening
as he approached the Meadows farm, but the younger
children recognized him in the dusk, and their cry of,
“Oh, here's Jacob!” brought out the farmer and his
wife and Susan, with the heartiest of welcomes. They
had all missed him, they said—even the horses and oxen
had looked for him, and they were wondering how they
should get the oats harvested without him.
Jacob looked at Susan as the farmer said this, and
her eyes seemed to answer, “I said nothing, but I knew
for the task before him.
He rose the next morning, before any one was stirring,
and waited until she should come down stairs. The sun
had not risen when she appeared, with a milk-pail in each
hand, walking unsuspectingly to the cow-yard. He waylaid
her, took the pails in his hand and said in nervous
haste, “Susan, will you be my wife?”
She stopped as if she had received a sudden blow;
then a shy, sweet consent seemed to run through her heart.
“O Jacob!” was all she could say.
“But you will, Susan?” he urged; and then (neither
of them exactly knew how it happened) all at once his
arms were around her, and they had kissed each other.
“Susan,” he said, presently, “I am a poor man—only
a farm hand, and must work for my living. You could
look for a better husband.”
“I could never find a better than you, Jacob.”
“Would you work with me, too, at the same place?”
“You know I am not afraid of work,” she answered,
“and I could never want any other lot than yours.”
Then he told her the story which his father had prompted.
Her face grew bright and happy as she listened, and
he saw how from her very heart she accepted the humble
fortune. Only the thought of her parents threw a cloud
over the new and astonishing vision. Jacob, however,
grew bolder as he saw fulfilment of his hope so near.
They took the pails and seated themselves beside neighbor
cows, one raising objections or misgivings which the
ran into his hands, as he discovered when the impatient
cow began to snort and kick.
The harvesting of the oats was not commenced that
morning. The children were sent away, and there was a
council of four persons held in the parlor. The result of
mutual protestations and much weeping was, that the farmer
and his wife agreed to receive Jacob as a son-in-law;
the offer of the wages was four times refused by them, and
then accepted; and the chance of their being able to live
and labor together was finally decided to be too fortunate
to let slip. When the shock and surprise was over all
gradually became cheerful, and, as the matter was more
calmly discussed, the first conjectured difficulties somehow
resolved themselves into trifles.
It was the simplest and quietest wedding,—at home,
on an August morning. Farmer Meadows then drove the
bridal pair half-way on their journey, to the old country
tavern, where a fresh conveyance had been engaged for
them. The same evening they reached the farm-house in
the valley, and Jacob's happy mood gave place to an anxious
uncertainty as he remembered the period of deception
upon which Susan was entering. He keenly watched his
father's face when they arrived, and was a little relieved
when he saw that his wife had made a good first impression.
“So, this is my new housekeeper,” said the old man.
“I hope you will suit me as well as your husband does.”
“I'll do my best, sir,” said she; “but you must have
and wishes.”
“Mr. Flint,” said Sally, “shall I get supper ready?”
Susan looked up in astonishment at hearing the name.
“Yes,” the old man remarked, “we both have the
same name. The fact is, Jacob and I are a sort of relations.”
Jacob, in spite of his new happiness, continued ill at
ease, although he could not help seeing how his father
brightened under Susan's genial influence, how satisfied
he was with her quick, neat, exact ways and the cheerfulness
with which she fulfilled her duties. At the end of a
week, the old man counted out the wages agreed upon for
both, and his delight culminated at the frank simplicity
with which Susan took what she supposed she had fairly
earned.
“Jacob,” he whispered when she had left the room,
“keep quiet one more week, and then I'll let her know.”
He had scarcely spoken, when Susan burst into the
room again, crying, “Jacob, they are coming, they have
come!”
“Who?”
“Father and mother; and we didn't expect them, you
know, for a week yet.”
All three went to the door as the visitors made their
appearance on the veranda. Two of the party stood as
if thunderstruck, and two exclamations came together:
“Samuel Flint!”
“Lucy Wheeler!”
There was a moment's silence; then the farmer's wife,
with a visible effort to compose herself, said, “Lucy Meadows,
now.”
The tears came into Samuel Flint's eyes. “Let us
shake hands, Lucy,” he said: “my son has married your
daughter.”
All but Jacob were freshly startled at these words.
The two shook hands, and then Samuel, turning to Susan's
father, said: “And this is your husband, Lucy. I
am glad to make his acquaintance.”
“Your father, Jacob!” Susan cried; “what does it all
mean?”
Jacob's face grew red, and the old habit of hanging his
head nearly came back upon him. He knew not what to
say, and looked wistfully at his father.
“Come into the house and sit down,” said the latter.
“I think we shall all feel better when we have quietly and
comfortably talked the matter over.”
They went into the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, which
had already been transformed by Susan's care, so that
much of its shabbiness was hidden. When all were seated,
and Samuel Flint perceived that none of the others knew
what to say, he took a resolution which, for a man of his
mood and habit of life, required some courage.
“Three of us here are old people,” he began, “and
the two young ones love each other. It was so long ago,
Lucy, that it cannot be laid to my blame if I speak of it
now. Your husband, I see, has an honest heart, and will
not misunderstand either of us. The same thing often
knows, and that everybody talks about except the persons
concerned. When I was a young man, Lucy, I loved you
truly, and I faithfully meant to make you my wife.”
“I thought so too, for a while,” said she, very calmly.
Farmer Meadows looked at his wife, and no face was
ever more beautiful than his, with that expression of generous
pity shining through it.
“You know how I acted,” Samuel Flint continued,
“but our children must also know that I broke off from
you without giving any reason. A woman came between
us and made all the mischief. I was considered rich then,
and she wanted to secure my money for her daughter. I
was an innocent and unsuspecting young man, who believed
that everybody else was as good as myself; and
the woman never rested until she had turned me from my
first love, and fastened me for life to another. Little by
little I discovered the truth; I kept the knowledge of the
injury to myself; I quickly got rid of the money which
had so cursed me, and brought my wife to this, the loneliest
and dreariest place in the neighborhood, where I
forced upon her a life of poverty. I thought it was a just
revenge, but I was unjust. She really loved me: she was,
if not quite without blame in the matter, ignorant of the
worst that had been done (I learned all that too late), and
she never complained, though the change in me slowly
wore out her life. I know now that I was cruel; but at
the same time I punished myself, and was innocently punishing
my son. But to him there was one way to make
gladly take poverty with him and for his sake.' I forced
him, against his will, to say that he was a hired hand on
this place, and that Susan must be content to be a hired
housekeeper. Now that I know Susan, I see that this
proof might have been left out; but I guess it has done
no harm. The place is not so heavily mortgaged as people
think, and it will be Jacob's after I am gone. And
now forgive me, all of you,—Lucy first, for she has most
cause; Jacob next; and Susan,—that will be easier; and
you, Friend Meadows, if what I have said has been hard
for you to hear.”
The farmer stood up like a man, took Samuel's hand
and his wife's, and said, in a broken voice: “Lucy, I ask
you, too, to forgive him, and I ask you both to be good
friends to each other.”
Susan, dissolved in tears, kissed all of them in turn;
but the happiest heart there was Jacob's.
It was now easy for him to confide to his wife the
complete story of his troubles, and to find his growing
self-reliance strengthened by her quick, intelligent sympathy.
The Pardons were better friends than ever, and the
fact, which at first created great astonishment in the
neighborhood, that Jacob Flint had really gone upon a
journey and brought home a handsome wife, began to
change the attitude of the people towards him. The old
place was no longer so lonely; the nearest neighbors began
to drop in and insist on return visits. Now that Jacob
kept his head up, and they got a fair view of his face,
or social qualities.
In October, the Whitney place, which had been leased
for several years, was advertised to be sold at public sale.
The owner had gone to the city and become a successful
merchant, had outlived his local attachments, and now
took advantage of a rise in real estate to disburden himself
of a property which he could not profitably control.
Everybody from far and wide attended the sale, and,
when Jacob Flint and his father arrived, everybody said
to the former: “Of course you've come to buy, Jacob.”
But each man laughed at his own smartness, and considered
the remark original with himself.
Jacob was no longer annoyed. He laughed, too, and
answered: “I'm afraid I can't do that; but I've kept half
my word, which is more than most men do.”
“Jake's no fool, after all,” was whispered behind him.
The bidding commenced, at first very spirited, and
then gradually slacking off, as the price mounted above
the means of the neighboring farmers. The chief aspirant
was a stranger, a well-dressed man with a lawyer's
air, whom nobody knew. After the usual long pauses
and passionate exhortations, the hammer fell, and the auctioneer,
turning to the stranger, asked, “What name?”
“Jacob Flint!”
There was a general cry of surprise. All looked at
Jacob, whose eyes and mouth showed that he was as
dumbfoundered as the rest.
The stranger walked coolly through the midst of the
papers drawn up?”
“As soon as you can,” the old man replied; then seizing
Jacob by the arm, with the words, “Let's go home
now!” he hurried him on.
The explanation soon leaked out. Samuel Flint had
not thrown away his wealth, but had put it out of his own
hands. It was given privately to trustees, to be held for
his son, and returned when the latter should have married
with his father's consent. There was more than enough
to buy the Whitney place.
Jacob and Susan are happy in their stately home, and
good as they are happy. If any person in the neighborhood
ever makes use of the phrase “Jacob Flint's Journey,”
he intends thereby to symbolize the good fortune
which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and shrewdness.
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