University of Virginia Library

16. XVI.

October 17.

“The Lord God a'mighty help us! but His
ways are past finding out. What with one
thing and another thing, that child without a
mother, and you with the crape not yet rusty
for Mr. Roy'l, it doos seem to me as if His
manner of treating folks beats all! But I tell
you this, Miss Mary, my dear; you jest say
your prayers reg'lar and stick to Him, and
He 'll pull you through, sure!”

This was what Phœbe said when I told her.

November 8.

To-night, for the first time, Auntie fairly
gave up trying to put Faith to bed. She had
insisted on it until now, crawling up by the
banisters like a wounded thing. This time
she tottered and sank upon the second step.
She cried out, feebly: “I am afraid I must
give it up to Cousin Mary. Faith!” — the
child clung with both hands to her, — “Faith,
Faith! Mother's little girl!”

It was the last dear care of motherhood
yielded; the last link snapped. It seemed to
be the very bitterness of parting.

I turned away, that they might bear it together,
they two alone.

19th.

Yet I think that took away the sting.

The days are slipping away now very
quietly, and — to her I am sure, and to me for
her sake — very happily.

She suffers less than I had feared, and she
lies upon the bed and smiles, and Faith comes
in and plays about, and the cheery morning
sunshine falls on everything, and when her
strong hours come, we have long talks together,
hand clasped in hand.

Such pleasant talks! We are quite brave
to speak of anything, since we know that what
is to be is best just so, and since we fear no
parting. I tell her that Faith and I will soon
learn to shut our eyes and think we see her,
and try to make it almost the same, for she
will never be very far away, will she? And
then she shakes her head smiling, for it pleases
her, and she kisses me softly. Then we dream
of how it will all be, and how we shall love and
try to please each other quite as much as now.

“It will be like going around a corner, don't
you see?” she says. “You will know that I
am there all the while, though hidden, and
that if you call me I shall hear.” Then we
talk of Faith, and of how I shall comfort her;
that I shall teach her this, and guard her from
that, and how I shall talk with her about
heaven and her mother. Sometimes Faith
comes up and wants to know what we are saying,
and lays poor Mary Ann, sawdust and all,
upon the pillow, and wants “her toof-ache
kissed away.” So Auntie kisses away the
dolly's “toof-ache”; and kisses the dolly's little
mother, sometimes with a quiver on her lips,
but more often with a smile in her eyes, and
Faith runs back to play, and her laugh ripples
out, and her mother listens — listens.

Sometimes, too, we talk of some of the
people for whom she cares; of her husband's
friends; of her scholars, or Dr. Bland, or Clo,
or poor 'Bin Quirk, or of somebody down town
whom she was planning to help this winter.
Little Clo comes in as often as she is strong
enough to see her, and sends over untold jellies
and blanc-manges, which Faith and I have to
eat. “But don't let the child know that,”
Auntie says.

But more often we talk of the life which she
is so soon to begin; of her husband and Roy;
of what she will try to say to Christ; how
much dearer He has grown to her since she
has lain here in pain at His bidding, and how
He helps her, at morning and at eventide and
in the night-watches.

We talk of the trees and the mountains and
the lilies in the garden, on which the glory of
the light that is not the light of the sun may
shine; of the “little brooks” by which she
longs to sit and sing to Faith; of the treasures
of art which she may fancy to have about her;
of the home in which her husband may be
making ready for her coming, and wonder
what he has there, and if he knows how near
the time is now.

But I notice lately that she more often and
more quickly wearies of these things; that she
comes back, and comes back again to some
loving thought — as loving as a child's — of
Jesus Christ. He seems to be — as she once
said she tried that He should be to Faith —
her “best friend.”

Sometimes, too, we wonder what it means
to pass out of the body, and what one will be
first conscious of.

“I used to have a very human, and by no
means slight, dread of the physical pain of
death,” she said to-day; “but, for some reason
or other, that is slowly leaving me. I imagine
that the suffering of any fatal sickness is worse
than the immediate process of dissolution.
Then there is so much beyond it to occupy
one's thoughts. One thing I have thought
much about; it is that, whatever may be our
first experience after leaving the body, it is not
likely to be a revolutionary one. It is more
in analogy with God's dealings that a quiet
process, a gentle accustoming, should open
our eyes on the light that would blind if it
came in a flash. Perhaps we shall not see
Him, — perhaps we could not bear it to see
Him at once. It may be that the faces of
familiar human friends will be the first to
greet us; it may be that the touch of the human
hand dearer than any but His own shall
lead us, as we are able, behind the veil, till we
are a little used to the glory and the wonder,
and lead us so to Him.

“Be that as it may, and be heaven where
it may, I am not afraid. With all my guessing
and my studying and my dreaming over
these things, I am only a child in the dark.

`Nevertheless, I am not afraid of the dark.'
God bless Mr. Robertson for saying that! I 'm
going to bless him when I see him. How
pleasant it will be to see him, and some other
friends whose faces I never saw in this world.
David, for instance, or Paul, or Cowper, or
President Lincoln, or Mrs. Browning. The
only trouble is that I am nobody to them!
However, I fancy that they will let me shake
hands with them.

“No, I am quite willing to trust all these
things to God.

I may find them very different from what I
have supposed. I know that I shall find them
infinitely more satisfying than I have supposed.
As Schiller said of his philosophy, `Perhaps I
may be ashamed of my raw design, at sight of
the true original. This may happen; I expect
it; but then, if reality bears no resemblance to
my dreams, it will be a more majestic, a more
delightful surprise.'

“I believe nothing that God denies. I cannot
overrate the beauty of his promise. So

it surely can have done no harm for me to
take the comfort of my fancying till I am
there; and what a comfort it has been to me,
God only knows. I could scarcely have borne
some things without it.”

“You are never afraid that anything proving
a little different from what you expect
might —”

“Might disappoint me? No; I have settled
that in my heart with God. I do not
think I shall be disappointed. The truth is,
he has obviously not opened the gates which
bar heaven from our sight, but he has as obviously
not shut them; they stand ajar, with the
Bible and reason in the way, to keep them
from closing; surely we should look in as far
as we can, and surely, if we look with reverence,
our eyes will be holden, that we may
not cheat ourselves with mirages. And, as
the little Swedish girl said, the first time she
saw the stars: `O father, if the wrong side
of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right
side be?'”

January.

I write little now, for I am living too much.
The days are stealing away and lessening one
by one, and still Faith plays about the room,

though very softly now, and still the cheery
sunshine shimmers in, and still we talk with
clasping hands, less often and more pleasantly.
Morning and noon and evening come and go;
the snow drifts down and the rain falls softly;
clouds form and break and hurry past the windows;
shadows melt and lights are shattered,
and little rainbows are prisoned by the icicles
that hang from the eaves.

I sit and watch them, and watch the sick-lamp
flicker in the night, and watch the blue
morning crawl over the hills; and the old words
are stealing down my thought: That is the
substance, this the shadow; that the reality, this
the dream.

I watch her face upon the pillow; the happy
secret on its lips; the smile within its eyes. It
is nearly a year now since God sent the face
to me. What it has done for me He knows;
what the next year and all the years are to be
without it, He knows, too.

It is slipping away, — slipping. And I —
must — lose it.

Perhaps I should not have said what I said
to-night; but being weak from watching, and
seeing how glad she was to go, seeing how all
the peace was for her, all the pain for us, I

cried, “O Auntie, Auntie, why can't we go
too? Why can't Faith and I go with you?”

But she answered me only, “Mary, He
knows.”

We will be brave again to-morrow. A little
more sunshine in the room! A little more of
Faith and the dolly!

The Sabbath.

She asked for the child at bedtime to-night,
and I laid her down in her night-dress on her
mother's arm. She kissed her, and said her
prayers, and talked a bit about Mary Ann,
and to-morrow, and her snow man. I sat over
by the window in the dusk, and watched a
little creamy cloud that was folding in the
moon. Presently their voices grew low, and
at last Faith's stopped altogether. Then I
heard in fragments this: —

“Sleepy, dear? But you won't have many
more talks with mamma. Keep awake just a
minute, Faith, and hear — can you hear?
Mamma will never, never forget her little girl;
she won't go away very far; she will always
love you. Will you remember as long as you
live? She will always see you, though you
can't see her, perhaps. Hush, my darling,
don't cry! Is n't God naughty? No, God is

good; God is always good. He won't take
mamma a great way off. One more kiss?
There! now you may go to sleep. One more!
Come, Cousin Mary.”

June 6.

It is a long time since I have written here.
I did not want to open the book till I was sure
that I could open it quietly, and could speak
as she would like to have me speak, of what
remains to be written.

But a very few words will tell it all.

It happened so naturally and so happily,
she was so glad when the time came, and she
made me so glad for her sake, that I cannot
grieve. I say it from my honest heart, I cannot
grieve. In the place out of which she has
gone, she has left me peace. I think of something
that Miss Procter said about the opening
of that golden gate,

I think more often of some things that she
herself said in the very last of those pleasant
talks, when, turning a leaf in her little Bible,
she pointed out to me the words: —

“It is expedient for you that I go away;
for, if I go not away, the Comforter will not
come.”

It was one spring-like night, — the twenty-ninth
of March.

She had been in less pain, and had chatted
and laughed more with us than for many a
day. She begged that Faith might stay till
dark, and might bring her Noah's ark and
play down upon the foot of the bed where she
could see her. I sat in the rocking-chair with
my face to the window. We did not light the
lamps.

The night came on slowly. Showery clouds
flitted by, but there was a blaze of golden
color behind them. It broke through and
scattered them; it burned them and melted
them; it shot great pink and purple jets up to
the zenith; it fell and lay in amber mist upon
the hills. A soft wind swept by, and darted
now and then into the glow, and shifted it
about, color away from color, and back again.

“See, Faith!” she said softly; “put down
the little camel a minute, and look!” and
added after, but neither to the child nor to me,

it seemed: “At eventide there shall be light.”
Phœbe knocked presently, and I went out to
see what was wanted, and planned a little for
Auntie's breakfast, and came back.

Faith, with her little ark, was still playing
quietly upon the bed. I sat down again in
my rocking-chair with my face to the window.
Now and then the child's voice broke the
silence, asking Where should she put the elephant,
and was there room there for the yellow
bird? and now and then her mother answered
her, and so presently the skies had
faded, and so the night came on.

I was thinking that it was Faith's bedtime,
and that I had better light the lamp, when
a few distinct, hurried words from the bed attracted
my attention.

“Faith, I think you had better kiss mamma
now, and get down.”

There was a change in the voice. I was
there in a moment, and lifted the child from
the pillow, where she had crept. But she said,
“Wait a minute, Mary; wait a minute,” —
for Faith clung to her, with one hand upon
her cheek, softly patting it.

I went over and stood by the window.

It was her mother herself who gently put
the little fingers away at last.

“Mother's own little girl! Good night, my
darling, my darling.”

So I took the child away to Phœbe, and
came back, and shut the door.

“I thought you might have some message
for Roy,” she said.

“Now?”

“Now, I think.”

We had often talked of this, and she had
promised to remember it, whatever it might
be. So I told her — But I will not write
what I told her.

I saw that she was playing weakly with her
wedding-ring, which hung very loosely below
its little worn guard.

“Take the little guard,” she said, “and keep
it for Faith; but bury the other with me: he
put it on; nobody else must take it —”

The sentence dropped, unfinished.

I crept up on the bed beside her, for she
seemed to wish it. I asked if I should light the
lamp, but she shook her head. The room
seemed light, she said, quite light. She
wondered then if Faith were asleep, and if
she would waken early in the morning.

After that I kissed her, and then we said
nothing more, only presently she asked me to
hold her hand.

It was quite dark when she turned her face
at last towards the window.

“John!” she said, — “why, John!”

They came in, with heads uncovered and
voices hushed, to see her, in the days while she
was lying down stairs among the flowers.

Once when I thought that she was alone, I
went in, — it was at twilight, — and turned,
startled by a figure that was crouched sobbing
on the floor.

“O, I want to go too, I want to go too!” it
cried.

“She 's ben there all day long,” said Phœbe,
wiping her eyes, “and she won't go home for
a mouthful of victuals, poor creetur! but she
jest sets there and cries and cries, an' there 's
no stoppin' of her!”

It was little Clo.

At another time, I was there with fresh
flowers, when the door opened, creaking a
little, and 'Bin Quirk came in on tiptoe, trying
in vain to still the noise of his new boots.
His eyes were red and wet, and he held out to
me timidly a single white carnation.

“Could you put it somewhere, where it
would n't do any harm? I walked way over

to Worcester and back to get it. If you could
jest hide it under the others out of sight, seems
to me it would do me a sight of good to feel it
was there, you know.”

I motioned to him to lay it himself between
her fingers.

“O, I dars n't. I 'm not fit, I'm not. She 'd
rether have you.”

But I told him that I knew she would be as
pleased that he should give it to her himself
as she was when he gave her the China pinks
on that distant summer day. So the great
awkward fellow bent down, as simply as a child,
as tenderly as a woman, and left the flower in
its place.

“She liked 'em,” he faltered; “maybe, if what
she used to say is all so, she 'll like 'em now.
She liked 'em better than she did machines.
I 've just got my carpet-sweeper through; I
was thinking how pleased she 'd be; I wanted
to tell her. If I should go to the good place,
— if ever I do go, it will be just her doin's, —
I 'll tell her then, maybe, I —”

He forgot that anybody was there, and, sobbing,
hid his face in his great hands.

So we are waiting for the morning when

the gates shall open, — Faith and I. I, from
my stiller watches, am not saddened by the
music of her life. I feel sure that her mother
wishes it to be a cheery life. I feel sure that
she is showing me, who will have no motherhood
by which to show myself, how to help
her little girl.

And Roy, — ah, well, and Roy, — he knows.
Our hour is not yet come. If the Master will
that we should be about His Father's business,
what is that to us?