After a Shadow and Other Stories Part 13

"Thank you, ma'am," replied Mrs. Brady, her countenance hardly falling to a serious tone in its expression. "He's quite comfortable to-day; and it's such a relief to see him out of pain. He suffered considerably through the night, but fell asleep just at day dawn, and slept for several hours. He awoke almost entirely free from pain."

"There are no internal injuries, I believe," said Mrs. Bland.

"None, the doctor says. And I'm so thankful. Broken bones are bad enough, and it is hard to see as kind and good a husband as I have suffer,"--Mary's eyes grew wet, "but they will knit and become strong again. When I think how much worse it might have been, I am condemned for the slightest murmur that escapes my lips."

"What are you going to do, Mary?" asked Mrs. Caldwell. "Your husband won't be fit for work in a month, and you have a good many mouths to fill."

"A woman's wit and a woman's will can do a great deal," answered Mrs. Brady, cheerfully. "You see"--pointing to a table, on which lay a bundle--"that I have already been to the tailor's for work. I'm a quick sewer, and not afraid but what I can earn sufficient to keep the pot boiling until John is strong enough to go to work again.

'Where there's a will, there's a way,' Mrs. Caldwell. I've found that true so far, and I reckon it will be true to the end. John will have a good resting spell, poor man! And, dear knows, he's a right to have it, for he's worked hard, and with scarcely a holiday, since we were married."

"Well, well, Mary," said Mrs. Caldwell, in manifest surprise, "you beat me out! I can't understand it. Here you are, under circ.u.mstances that I should call of a most distressing and disheartening nature, almost as cheerful as if nothing had happened.

I expected to find you overwhelmed with trouble, but, instead, you are almost as tranquil as a June day."

"The truth is," replied Mrs. Brady, drawing, almost for shame, a veil of sobriety over her face, "I've had no time to be troubled. If I'd given up, and set myself down with folded hands, no doubt I should have been miserable enough. But that isn't my way, you see.

Thinking about what I shall do, and their doing it, keep me so well employed, that I don't get opportunity to look on the dark side of things. And what would be the use? There's always a bright side as well as a dark side, and I'm sure it's pleasant to be on the bright side, if we can get there; and always try to manage it, somehow."

"Your secret is worth knowing, Mary," said Mrs. Bland.

"There's no secret about it," answered the poor woman, "unless it be in always keeping busy. As I said just now, I've no time to be troubled, and so trouble, after knocking a few times at my door, and not gaining admittance, pa.s.ses on to some other that stands ajar--and there are a great many such. The fact is, trouble don't like to crowd in among busy people, for they jostle her about, and never give her a quiet resting place, and so she soon departs, and creeps in among the idle ones. I can't give any better explanation, Mrs.

Bland."

"Nor, may be, could the wisest philosopher that lives," returned that lady.

The two friends, after promising to furnish Mrs. Brady with an abundance of lighter and more profitable sewing than she had obtained at a clothier's, and saying and doing whatever else they felt to be best under the circ.u.mstances, departed. For the distance of a block they walked in silence. Mrs. Caldwell spoke first.

"I am rebuked," she said; "rebuked, as well as instructed. Above all places in the world, I least expected to receive a lesson there."

"Is it not worth remembering?" asked the friend.

"I wish it were engraved in ineffaceable characters on my heart. Ah, what a miserable self-tormentor I have been! The door of my heart stand always ajar, as Mary said, and trouble comes gliding in that all times, without so much as a knock to herald his coming. I must shut and bar the door!"

"Shut it, and bar it, my friend!" answered Mrs. Bland. "And when trouble knocks, say to her, that you are too busy with orderly and useful things--too earnestly at work in discharging dutiful obligations, in the larger sphere, which, by virtue of larger means, is yours to work in--to have any leisure for her poor companionship, and she will not tarry on your threshold. Throw to the winds such light causes of unhappiness as were suffered to depress you this morning, and they will be swept away like thistle down."

"Don't speak of them. My cheek burns at the remembrance," said Mrs.

Caldwell.

They now stood at Mrs. Caldwell's door.

"You will come in?"

"No. The morning has pa.s.sed, and I must return home."

"When shall I see you?" Mrs. Caldwell grasped tightly her friends'

hand.

"In a day or two."

"Come to-morrow, and help me to learn in this new book that has been opened. I shall need a wise and a patient teacher. Come, good, true, kind friend!"

"Give yourself no time for trouble," said Mrs. Bland, with a tender, encouraging smile. "Let true thoughts and useful deeds fill all your hours. This is the first lesson. Well in the heart, and all the rest is easy."

And so, Mrs. Caldwell found it. The new life she strove to lead, was easy just in the degree she lived in the spirit of this lesson, and hard just in the degree of her departure.

IX.

A GOOD NAME.

TWO boys, named Jacob Peters and Ralph Gilpin were pa.s.sing along Chestnut Street one evening about ten years ago, when one of them, stopped, and said,--

"Come, Ralph, let us have some oysters. I've got a quarter." They were in front of an oyster-cellar.

"No," replied Ralph, firmly. "I'm not going down there."

"I didn't mean that we should get anything to drink," replied the other.

"No matter: they sell liquor, and I don't wish to be seen in such a place."

"That's silly," said Jacob Peters, speaking with some warmth. "It can't hurt you to be seen there. They sell oysters, and all we should go there for would be to buy oysters. Come along. Don't be foolish!" And Jacob grasped the arm of Ralph, and tried to draw him towards the refectory. But Ralph stood immovable.

"What harm can it do?" asked Jacob.

"It might do at great deal of harm."

"In what way?"

"By hurting my good name."

"I don't understand you."

"I might be seen going in or coming out by some one who know me, and who might take it for granted that my visit, was for liquor."

"Well, suppose he did? He would be wrong in his inference; and what need you care? A clear conscience, I have heard my uncle say, is better than any man's opinion, good or bad."

"I prefer the clear conscience and the good opinion together, if I can secure both at the same time," said Ralph.

"O, you're too afraid of other people's opinions," replied Jacob, in a sneering manner. "As for me, I'll try to do right and be right, and not bother myself about what people may think. Come, are you going to join me in a plate of oysters?"

"No."

"Very well. Good by. I'm sorry you're afraid to do right for fear somebody may think you're going to do wrong," and Jacob Peters descended to the oyster-cellar, while Ralph Gilpin pa.s.sed on his way homeward. As Jacob entered the saloon he met a man who looked at him narrowly, and as Jacob thought, with surprise. He had seen this man before, but did not know his name.

A few weeks afterwards, the two boys, who were neighbor, sat together planning a row-boat excursion on the Schuylkill.

"We'll have Harry Elder, and d.i.c.k Jones, and Tom Forsyth," said Jacob.