19. CHAPTER XIX.
THE MOTHER.
OUT of the door he went, happy in spite of all
the mistakes he had made and of all the contretemps
of his provoking misadventure; happy in
spite of the threat of arrest for burglary. For
nearly a minute August Wehle was happy in that
perfect way in which people of quiet tempers are happy—happy
without fluster. But before he had passed the gate, he heard
a scream and a wild hysterical laugh; he heard a hurrying of
feet and saw a moving of lights. He would fain have turned
back to find out what the matter was, he had so much of interest
in that house, but he remembered that he had been turned
out and that he could not go back. The feeling of outlawry
mingled its bitterness with the feeling of anxiety. He feared
that something had happened to Julia; he lingered and listened.
Humphreys came out upon the upper porch and looked sharply
up and down the road. August felt instinctively that he was the
object of search and slunk into a fence-corner, remembering
that he was now a burglar and at the mercy of the man whose
face was enough to show him unrelenting.
Presently Humphreys turned and went in, and then August
came out of the shadow and hurried away. When he had gone a
mile, he heard the hoofs of horses, and again he concealed himself
with a cowardly feeling he had never known before. But when
he found that it was Jonas, riding one horse and leading another,
on his way to bring Dr. Ketchup, the steam-doctor, he ran out.
“Jonas! Jonas! what's the matter? Who's sick? Is it
Julia?”
“I'll be bound you ax fer Jule first, my much-respected
comrade. But it's only one of the ole woman's conniption fits,
and you know she's got nineteen lives. People of the catamount
sort always has. You'd better gin a thought to yourself now.
I got you into this scrape, and I mean to see you out, as the dog
said to the 'possum in its hole. Git up onto this four-legged
quadruped and go as fur as I go on the road to peace and safety.
Now, I tell you what, the hawk's got a mighty good purchase
onto you, my chicken, and he's jest about to light, and when he
lights, look out fer feathers! Don't sleep under the paternal
shingles, as they say. Go to Andrew's castle, and he'll help you
git acrost the river into the glorious State of ole Kaintuck afore
any warrant can be got out fer takin' you up. Never once thought
of your bein' took up. But don't delay, as the preachers say.
The time is short, and the human heart is desperately wicked and
mighty deceitful and onsartain.”
As far as Jonas traveled his way, he carried August upon the
gray horse. Then the latter hurried across the fields to his
father's cabin. Little Wilhelmina sat with face against the
window waiting his return.
“Where did you go, August? Did you see the pretty girl
at Anderson's?”
[ILLUSTRATION]
THE MOTHER'S BLESSING.
[Description: 555EAF. Page 131. Engraving of a seated woman in a cap with a boy at her knee
with his head in her lap and a girl in braids kneeling alongside. ]
He stooped and kissed her, but, without speaking a word to
her, he went over to where his mother sat darning the last of
her basket of stockings. All the rest were asleep, and having
assured himself of this, he drew up a low chair and leaned his
clbow on his knee and his head on his hand, and told the whole
adventure of the evening to his mother, and then dropped his
head on her lap and wept in a still way. And the sweet-eyed,
weary Moravian mother laid her two hands upon his head
and prayed. And Wilhelmina knelt instinctively by the side
of her brother.
Perhaps there is no God. Or perhaps He is so great that
our praying has no effect. Perhaps this strong crying of our
hearts to Him in our extremity is no witness of his readiness
to hear. Let him live in doubt who can. Let me believe that
the tender mother-heart and the loving sister-heart in that little
cabin did reach up to the great Heart that is over us all in
Fatherly love, did find a real comfort for themselves, and did
bring a strength-giving and sanctifying something upon the head
of the young man, who straightway rose up refreshed, and
departed out into the night, leaving behind him mother and
sister straining their eyes after him in the blackness, and carrying
with him thoughts and memories, and—who shall doubt?
—a genuine heavenly inspiration that saved him in the trials in
which we shall next meet him.
At two o'clock that night August Wehle stood upon the shore
of the Ohio in company with Andrew Anderson, the Backwoods
Philosopher. Andrew waved a fire-brand at the steamboat
“Isaac Shelby,” which was coming round the bend. And the
captain tapped his bell three times and stopped his engines.
Then the yawl took the two men aboard, and two days afterward
Andrew came back alone.
