Aunt Jane of Kentucky Part 12

"You've heard tell of that bird, child, that gathers up all sorts o'

rubbish and carries it off to its nest and hides it? Well, I thought about that bird; and the heap of old iron reminded me of a little boy's pocket when you turn it wrong side out at night, and the china and gla.s.s and doll-rags made me think of the playhouses I used to make under the trees when I was a little girl. I've seen many curious places, honey, but nothin' like that old cabin. The moldy smell reminded me of the grave; and when I looked at all the dusty, old plunder, the ragged clothes hangin' against the wall like so many ghosts, and then thought of the dead man that had put 'em there, I tell you it made my flesh creep.

"Well, we stood there, me and Mary, strainin' our eyes tryin' to see into the dark corners, and all at once the meanin' of it come over me like a flash: _Harvey was a miser!_"

Aunt Jane stopped, took off her gla.s.ses and polished them on the hem of her gingham ap.r.o.n. I sat holding my breath; but, all regardless of my suspense, she dropped the thread of the story and followed memory in one of her capricious backward flights.

"I ricollect a sermon I heard when I was a gyirl," she said. "It ain't often, I reckon, that a sermon makes much impression on a gyirl's mind. But this wasn't any ordinary sermon or any ordinary preacher.

Presbytery met in town that year, and all the big preachers in the state was there. Some of 'em come out and preached to the country churches, and old Dr. Samuel Chalmers Morse preached at Goshen. He was one o' the biggest men in the Presbytery, and I ricollect his looks as plain as I ricollect his sermon. Some preachers look jest like other men, and you can tell the minute you set eyes on 'em that they ain't any wiser or any better than common folks. But Dr. Morse wasn't that kind.

"You know the Bible tells about people walkin' with G.o.d and talkin'

with G.o.d. It says Enoch walked with G.o.d, and Adam talked with Him.

Some folks might find that hard to believe, but it seems jest as natural to me. Why many a time I've been in my gyarden when the sun's gone down, and it ain't quite time for the moon to come up, and the dew's fallin' and the flowers smellin' sweet, and I've set down in the summer-house and looked up at the stars; and if I'd heard a voice from heaven it wouldn't 'a' been a bit stranger to me than the blowin' of the wind.

"The minute I saw Dr. Morse I thought about Adam and Enoch, and I said to myself, 'He looks like a man that's walked with G.o.d and talked with G.o.d.'

"I didn't look at the people's hats and bonnets that day half as much as I usually did, and part of that sermon stayed by me all my life. He preached about Nebuchadnezzar and the image he saw in his dream with the head of gold and the feet of clay. And he said that every human being was like that image; there was gold and there was clay in every one of us. Part of us was human and part was divine. Part of us was earthly like the clay, and part heavenly like the gold. And he said that in some folks you couldn't see anything but the clay, but that the gold was there, and if you looked long enough you'd find it. And some folks, he said, looked like they was all gold, but somewhere or other there was the clay, too, and n.o.body was so good but what he had his secret sins and open faults. And he said sin was jest another name for ignorance, and that Christ knew this when he prayed on the cross, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' He said everybody would do right, if they knew what was right to do, and that the thing for us to do was to look for the gold and not the clay in other folks. For the gold was the part that would never die, and the clay was jest the mortal part that we dropped when this mortal shall have put on immortality.

"Child, that sermon's come home to me many a time when I've caught myself weighin' people in the balance and findin' 'em wantin'. That's what I'd been doin' all them years with pore Harvey. I'd seen things every once in a while that let in a little light on his life and Mary's, but the old cabin made it all plain as day, and it seemed like every piece o' rubbish in it rose up in judgment against me. I never felt like cryin' at Harvey's funeral, but when I stood there peerin'

around, the tears burnt my eyes, and I says to myself, 'Clay and gold!

Clay and gold!'

"The same thought must 'a' struck Mary at the same minute it did me, for she fell on her knees moanin' and wringin' her hands and cryin':

"'G.o.d forgive me! G.o.d forgive me! I see it all now. He couldn't help it, and I've been a hard woman, and G.o.d'll judge me as I judged Harvey.'

"The look in her eyes and the sound of her voice skeered me, and I saw that the quicker I got her out o' the old cabin the better. I put my hand on her shoulder, and says I, 'Hush, Mary. Get up and come back to the house; but don't let the children hear you takin' on so. You might skeer little Harvey.'

"She stopped a minute and stared at me, and then she caught hold o' my hand, and says she: 'No! no! the children mustn't ever know anything about it, and n.o.body must ever see the inside o' that awful place.

Come, quick!' says she; and she got up from her knees and pulled me outside of the door and locked it and dropped the key in her ap.r.o.n pocket.

"Little Harvey come runnin' up to her, and I was in hopes the sight of the child would bring her to herself, but she walked on as if she hadn't seen him; and as soon as she got up-stairs she fell down in a heap on the floor and went to wringin' her hands and beatin' her breast and cryin' without tears.

"Honey, if you're done a wrong to a livin' person, you needn't set down and grieve over it. You can go right to the person and make it right or try to make it right. But when the one you've wronged is dead, and the grave lies between you, that's the sort o' grief that breaks hearts and makes people lose their minds. And that was what Mary Andrews had to bear when she opened the door o' that old cabin and saw into Harvey's nature, and felt that she had misjudged and condemned him.

"I couldn't do anything for a long time, but jest sit by her and listen while she called Harvey back from the dead, and called on G.o.d to forgive her, and blamed herself for all that had ever gone wrong between 'em. But at last she wore herself out and had to stop, and says I, 'Mary, I don't know what's pa.s.sed between you and Harvey--'

And she broke in, and says she:

"'No! no! you don't know, and n.o.body on this earth knows what I've been through. I used to feel like I was in an iron cage that got smaller and smaller every day, and I knew the day was comin' when it would shut in on me and crush me. But I wouldn't give in to Harvey, I wouldn't let him have his own way, and I fought him and hated him and despised him; and now I see he couldn't help it, and I feel like I'd been strikin' a crippled child.'

"A crippled child! That was jest what pore Harvey was; but I knew it wasn't right for Mary to take all the blame on herself, and says I:

"'Mary, if Harvey could keep other people from knowin' what he was, couldn't he have kept you from knowin' it, too? If he was free-handed to other people, what was to hinder him from bein' the same way to you?' Says I, 'If there's any blame in this matter it belongs as much to Harvey as it does to you. When you look at that old cabin,' says I, 'you can't have any hard feelin's toward pore Harvey. You've forgiven him, and now,' says I, 'there's jest one more person you've got to forgive, and that's yourself,' says I. 'It's jest as wrong to be too hard on yourself as it is to be too hard on other folks.'

"I never had thought o' that before, child, but I've thought of it many a time since and I know it's true. It ain't often you find a human bein' that's too hard on himself. Most of us is jest the other way. But Mary was one of that kind. I could see a change come over her face while I was talkin', and I've always believed them words was put in my mouth to give Mary the comfort and help she needed.

"She grabbed hold o' my hand, and says she:

"'Do you reckon I've got a right to forgive myself?' Says she, 'I know I'm not a mean woman by nature, but Harvey's ways wasn't my ways. He made me do things I didn't want to do and say things I didn't want to say, and I never was myself as long as I lived with him. But G.o.d knows I wouldn't 'a' been so hard on him if I'd only known,' says she. 'G.o.d may forgive me, but even if He does, it don't seem to me that I've got a right to forgive myself.'

"And says I, 'Mary, if you don't forgive yourself you won't be able to keer for the children, and you haven't got any right to wrong the livin' by worryin' over the dead. And now,' says I, 'you lie down on this bed and shut your eyes and say to yourself, "Harvey's forgiven me, and G.o.d's forgiven me, and I forgive myself." Don't let another thought come into your head. Jest say it over and over till you go to sleep, and while you're sleepin', I'll look after the children.'

"I didn't have much faith in my own remedy, but she minded me like a child mindin' its mother; and, sure enough, when I tiptoed up-stairs an hour or so after that, I found her fast asleep. Her mother and her sister Sally come while she was still sleepin', and I left for home, feelin' that she was in good hands.

"That night about half-past nine o'clock I went outdoors and set down on the porch steps in the dark, as I always do jest before bedtime.

That's been one o' my ways ever since I was a child. Abram used to say he had known me to forgit my prayers many a night, but he never knew me to forgit to go outdoors and look up at the sky. If there was a moon, or if the stars was shinin', I'd stay out and wander around in the gyarden till he'd come out after me; and if it was cloudy, I'd set there and feel safe in the darkness as in the light. I always have thought, honey, that we lose a heap by sleepin' all night. Well, I was sittin' there lookin' up at the stars, and all at once I saw a bright light over in the direction of Harvey Andrews' place. Our house was built on risin' ground, and we could see for a good ways around the country. I called Abram and asked him if he hadn't better saddle old Moll and ride over and see if he couldn't help whoever was in trouble.

But he said it was most likely some o' the neighbors burnin' brush, and whatever it was it would be out before he could git to it. So we set there watchin' it and speculatin' about it till it died down, and then we went to bed.

"The next mornin' I was out in the yard weedin' out a bed o' clove pinks, and Sam Amos come ridin' by on his big bay mare. I hollered to him and asked him if he knew where the fire was the night before. And says he, 'Yes, Aunt Jane; it was that old cabin on Harvey Andrews'

place.' He said that Amos Matthews happened to be goin' by at the time and took down the fence-rails to keep it from spreadin', but that was all he could do. Sam said Amos told him there was somethin' mysterious about that fire. He said it must 'a' been started from the inside, for the flames didn't burst through the windows and roof till after he got there, and the whole inside was ablaze. But, when he tried to open the door, it was locked fast and tight. He said Mary and her mother and sister was all out in the yard, and Mary was standin' with her hands folded in front of her, lookin' at the burnin' house jest as calm as if it was her own fireplace. Amos asked her for the key to the cabin door, and she went to the back porch and took one off a nail, but it wouldn't fit the lock, and before she could get another to try, the roof was on fire and cavin' in. Amos told Sam the cabin appeared to be full of old plunder of all sorts, and you could smell burnt rags for a mile around.

"Of course there was a good deal o' talk about the fire, and everybody said how curious it was that it could catch on the inside when the door was locked. I never said a word, not even to Abram, but I knew well enough who set the old cabin afire, and why the key Mary gave Amos wouldn't fit the lock. Harvey's clothes was packed away under the old garret; the old cabin was burned, and the ashes and rubbish hauled away, and there wasn't anything much left to remind Mary of the things she was tryin' to forget. That's the best way to do. When a thing's done and you can't undo it, there's no use in frettin' and worryin'

yourself. Jest put it out o' your mind, and go on your way and git ready for the next trial that's comin' to you.

"But Mary never seemed like herself after Harvey died, until little Harvey was taken with fever. That seemed to rouse her and bring her senses back, and she nursed him night and day. The little thing went down to the very gates of death, and everybody give up hope except the old doctor. He'd fight death off as long as there was breath in the body. The night the turnin' point was to come I set up with Mary.

The child'd been moanin' and tossin', and his muscles was twitchin', and the fever jest as high as it could be. But about three o'clock he got quiet and about half-past three I leaned over and counted his breaths. He was breathin' slow and regular, and I touched his forehead and found it was wet, and the fever was goin' away. I went over to Mary, and says I, 'You go in the other room and lie down, Mary, the fever's broke, and Harvey's goin' to git well.' She stared at me like she couldn't take in what I was sayin'. Then her face begun to work like a person's in a convulsion, and she jumped up and rushed out o'

the room, and the next minute she give a cry that I can hear yet. Then she begun to sob, and I knew she was cryin' tears at last, and I set by the child and cried with her.

"She wasn't able to be up for two or three days, and every little while she'd burst out cryin'. Some folks said she was cryin' for joy about the child gittin' well; and some said she was cryin' the tears she ought to 'a' cried when Harvey was buried; but I knew she was cryin' over all the sorrows of her married life. She told me afterwards that she hadn't shed a tear for six or seven years. Says she, 'I used to cry my eyes out nearly over the way things went, and one day somethin' happened and I come near cryin'; but the children was around and I didn't want them to see me; so I says to myself, "I won't cry. What's the use wastin' tears over such things?" And from that day,' says she, 'I got as hard as a stone, and it looks like I was jest turnin' back to flesh and blood again.'

"There's only two ways o' takin' trouble, child; you can laugh over it or you can cry over it. But you've got to do one or the other. The Lord made some folks that can laugh away their troubles, and he made tears for them that can't laugh, and human bein's can't harden themselves into stone.

"I reckon, as Mary said, n.o.body on earth knew what she'd been through, livin' with a man like Harvey. If he'd been an out-and-out miser, it would 'a' been better for everybody concerned. But it looked like Nature started out to make him a miser and then sp'iled the job, so's he was neither one thing nor the other. The gold was there, and he showed that to outsiders; and the clay was there, and he showed that to Mary. And that's the strangest part of all to me. If he had enough sense not to want his neighbors to know his meanness, it looks like he ought to have had sense enough to hide it from his wife. A man ought to want his wife to think well of him whether anybody else does or not. You see, a woman can make out to live with a man and not love him, but she can't live with him and despise him. She's jest got to respect him. But there's some men that never have found that out. They think that because a woman stands up before a preacher and promises to love and honor him, that she's bound to do it, no matter what he does.

And some women do. They're like dogs; they'll stick to a man no matter what he does. Some women never can see any faults in their husbands, and some sees the faults and covers 'em up and hides 'em from outsiders. But Mary wasn't that sort. She couldn't deceive herself, and n.o.body could deceive her; and when she found out Harvey's meanness she couldn't help despisin' him in her heart, jest like Michal despised David when she saw him playin' and dancin' before the Lord.

"There's something I never have understood, and one of 'em is why such a woman as Mary should 'a' been permitted to marry a man like Harvey Andrews. It kind o' shakes my faith in Providence every time I think of it. But I reckon there was a reason for it, whether I can see it or not."

Aunt Jane's voice ceased. She dropped her knitting in her lap and leaned back in the old easy-chair. Apparently she was looking at the dripping syringa bush near the window, but the look in her eyes told me that she had reached a page in the story that was not for my eyes or my ears, and I held inviolate the silence that had fallen between us.

A low, far-off roll of thunder, the last note of the storm-music, roused her from her reverie.

"Sakes alive, child!" she exclaimed, starting bolt upright. "Have I been sleepin' and dreamin' and you settin' here? Well, I got through with my story, anyhow, before I dropped off."

"Surely that isn't all," I said, discontentedly. "What became of Mary Andrews after Harvey died?"

Aunt Jane laughed blithely.

"No, it ain't all. What's gittin' into me to leave off the endin' of a story? Mary was married young; and when Harvey died she had the best part of her life before her, and it was the best part, sure enough.

About a year after she was left a widow she went up to Christian County to visit some of her cousins, and there she met the man she ought to 'a' married in the first place. I ain't any hand for second marriages. 'One man for one woman,' says I; but I've seen so many second marriages that was happier than any first ones that I never say anything against marryin' twice. Some folks are made for each other, but they make mistakes in the road and git lost, and don't git found till they've been through a heap o' tribulation, and, maybe, the biggest half o' their life's gone. But then, they've got all eternity before 'em, and there's time enough there to find all they've lost and more besides. But Mary found her portion o' happiness before it was too late. Elbert Madison was the man she married. He was an old bachelor, and a mighty well-to-do man, and they said every old maid and widow in Christian County had set her cap for him one time or another. But whenever folks said anything to him about marryin', he'd say, 'I'm waitin' for the Right Woman. She's somewhere in the world, and as soon as I find her I'm goin' to marry.'

"It got to be a standin' joke with the neighbors and the family, and his brother used to say that Elbert believed in that 'Right Woman' the same as he believed in G.o.d.

"They used to tell how one Christmas, Elbert's nieces had a lot o'

young company from Louisville, and they had a big dance Christmas Eve.

Elbert was there, and the minute he come into the room the oldest niece, she whispered, 'Here's Uncle Elbert; he's come to see if the Right Woman's at the ball.' And with that all them gyirls rushed up to Elbert and shook hands with him and pulled him into the middle o' the room under a big bunch o' mistletoe, and the prettiest and sa.s.siest one of 'em, she took her dress between the tips of her fingers and spread it out and made a low bow, and says she, lookin' up into Elbert's face, says she:

"'Mr. Madison, don't I look like the Right Woman?'

"Everybody laughed and expected to see Elbert blush and act like he wanted to go through the floor. But instead o' that he looked at her serious and earnest, and at last he says: 'You do look a little like her, but you ain't her. You've got the color of her eyes,' says he, 'but not the look of 'em. Her hair's dark like yours, but it don't curl quite as much, and she's taller than you are, but not quite so slim.'